#this prompt answer brought to you in part by me only sleeping 4 hours last night

[keldae]

The way you said “I love you”: On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, the late sunlight glowing in your hair

Gale had had his share of lovers over the course of his life, starting with trysts at Blackstaff Academy with his fellow students, eventually leading to his ill-advised relationship with Mystra. After the goddess had cast him out, he had believed himself to be a man doomed to die alone, courtesy of the orb in his chest. As his studies with the Netherese magic had progressed, leading him no closer to a cure for his affliction, he felt his hope for a better life falter, withering to only faint embers and ashes. And it was nothing less than he deserved, he felt – this was the price he had paid for his hubris.

Being abducted by mind flayers and infected with a parasite, well – that was just proof that the gods, Mystra in particular, wanted him to suffer before he died.

And then he’d met Deviali.

The half-Elf wasn’t the type of woman he would have ever expected himself to go for in his previous life – she was uncouth, and uneducated, and fiery. She bragged about being a pickpocket and thief, claiming there hadn’t yet been a lock that she couldn’t pick. She was sarcastic, and jaded against all the gods, and a little too willing to fight dirty. Gale suspected that if he’d ever encountered her in Baldur’s Gate or Waterdeep before their abductions, she would have seen him as no more than a pocket to be picked (and he hated to admit that she probably would have been very successful in that endeavour).

But the more time he spent in her company, the more he saw her true colours come out. She was compassionate, and cared more deeply about other people than she pretended to – Gale didn’t miss the way that she sat with the pretty tiefling bard, helping her write a song, or offered words of encouragement to Wyll’s fencing students, or argued with the druids about granting the tiefling refugees shelter for a little bit longer. She didn’t hesitate when asked to look for the archdruid, Halsin – Gale wasn’t sure if her eagerness to find the druid was due to her hope that he could cure them from the parasites, or simply for the hope that he could make the other druids see sense in dealing with the tieflings (or perhaps it was just the urge to go kill goblins with abandon? It was hard to tell.).

She was persuasive, talking her way into the goblin camp, or soothingly trying to reassure the dog with its deceased owner that she was a friend, or arguing with one goblin until she rescued an owlbear cub from its cruel torment. She was sneaky, and mischievous, in stealing from the goblins – and later, from the githyanki creche. She was… Gale thought he could chalk it up to ‘pragmatism’ when she shrugged off Shadowheart’s confession of being a Shar worshipper, or Wyll’s admittance of being a warlock bound in a pact with a devil. Even when Gale was on his knees before her, holding her hand on his heart and showing her his terrible folly with the Netherese tome, he wondered if her insistence on keeping him around despite the magical bomb in his chest was simply due to the fact that a trained wizard in their party was useful, volatile and damned as he might be.

Yet the look of anguish in her eyes as she had seen his trauma, and the way she checked in on him every few hours to make sure he was managing the orb as well as he could… 

No. He didn’t dare let himself think that it was any more than pragmatism. She just doesn’t want me to erupt and kill us all, he thought. That is self-preservation more than anything else.

But when he took it upon himself to introduce her to the mysteries of the Weave after the tieflings’ celebration at their camp, and saw her desire for him… it was a shock to him. He was a damned man, the rejected Chosen of a goddess, who had to keep an incredibly tight rein on his body and mind, lest the bomb in his chest explode if he got aroused or agitated. He could see the other members of their party seemed to have their eyes on her – Shadowheart and Lae’zel, he knew, were both pretty open about fancying her. And even after his transformation, Wyll was a handsome man, and had a compassionate heart and a sense of justice to compliment Devi’s own morals perfectly.

Yet Gale was the person she imagined herself kissing. Gale, the reject of Mystra, the walking bomb who could detonate at a moment’s notice! Confusion and trepidation warred in his mind before giving way to elation at that realisation – that the woman who could have chosen any partner that she wanted fancied him. 

He couldn’t indulge his desire to bed her, of course, not with how volatile the orb was in his chest. But now… now he had a renewed incentive to find a cure for his condition. And while he sought a cure, he thought, he could make the effort to court Devi properly – or at least as properly as he could while on the road (or in the Underdark) with an illithid tadpole in his head. It was a task made all the more difficult with Mystra’s doom laid over his head, despite Devi’s rage at the perceived injustice of it all.

At the least, one positive of Elminster meeting the party on the road was the orb being stabilised. Now Gale could indulge his fantasies of Devi in the privacy of his tent without worrying about if he was going to kill everyone in a wide radius around him. He could flirt with her without danger, beyond the risk of one of their friends rolling their eyes hard enough to strain a muscle in their skulls – and it still amazed him that she flirted back with him just as much.

And when he finally managed to pull her away from everyone in the shadow-cursed lands and took her to bed in the illusions of the Weave, he felt more complete in her arms than he ever had with any of his previous lovers – even Mystra.

Now, as they walked through the sunlight on the road to Baldur’s Gate with the rest of their party, he took the opportunity to openly admire her. She was more than the petite body, red hair, brilliant green eyes, and the piercings and tattoos that she sported. She was kind, and protective, and loyal to a fault to those she cared about. 

She paused at the crest of a hill, turning back to look for him among the group, the late afternoon sunlight setting her hair aflame like a beacon. Her eyes lit up when they landed on him; she patiently waited until he got to her side and took her hand in his. “Gods, I love you,” she murmured, setting her free hand on his chest over his heart.

“I love you too,” Gale softly answered, leaning in to chastely kiss her lips. “Any particular reason?”

Devi shook her head. “Just… thinking about how close I came to losing you,” she quietly said. “And how I’m never going to forgive Mystra for what she ordered you to do.”

Gale shook his head and smiled. “You give me a reason to continue living, darling,” he said. “You fought for me when I never expected anyone to do so. I love you beyond what mere words can convey.”

Devi smiled, and rested her forehead against Gale’s for a moment. “We’d best catch up to the others,” she finally said, “otherwise we’re going to be left behind.”

“They wouldn’t abandon us,” Gale responded with a soft laugh. “Considering most of them can barely cook anything, they’ll surely miss us by dinnertime.” Still, he didn’t resist when Devi resumed walking down the road with him, his hand in hers, where it belonged.

No, he might not have looked her way if he had ever encountered her before their adventure – more fool him. But he was, in that moment, grateful for every mistake and upset circumstance that led him to this woman who he loved.

[thecandywrites]

Monster March 2024- Day 20- Alien- Part 4

Getting Some Answers

As always, thanks to @borealwrites for their epic Monster March 2024 Prompt List

The Answers 

Only a moment later, Hebi came in when she sensed Hazi was awake. 

“What the fuck was that?! Why did you let Klip in here? Didn’t want to see him kill me himself or what?” Hazi snapped at Hebi. 

“Oh jeez, maybe you need a few more hours of beauty sleep.” Hebi teased with a giggle as Hazi noted that Hebi was actually sporting new hardware and even, brushed and even decorated with beautiful yet individualizing accessories. The most eye catching being- a new and very upgraded interface on her wrist, the same ones that were on the wrists of the Super Consorts. 

“Why was that smug motherfucker in here?!” Hazi demanded angrily. 

“Because he’s been watching over you for the last several days. The guy even fed you his own Royal Jelly so you wouldn’t die of starvation while you recovered.” Hebi answered with mischievous grin of her own.  

“That’s…that’s….and you just let him do that to me?! Did he isth with my unconscious body too?!” Hazi demanded as she covered her mouth with all four of her hands and did a quick body check and scan to make sure she hadn’t been tampered with. 

“No! And he would have killed anyone who would have tried! He didn’t isth with you at all, he even took special care to touch you as little as possible, the only parts of himself that ever touched you was his Royal Jelly duct and his hand guiding your mouth to it, and that was it. He even knelt by the nest and bent over you, without touching you or your nest, to feed it to you so as not to actually get in your own nest with you or have anything or anyone else touch you without your consent, and that was only to save your life so you wouldn’t starve to death while you rested.” Hebi recounted. 

“And we were all grateful he did so and did so with such care. He fed you every qui, on the qui, all that you would eat, like any new pupae out of the cell. And then in between feedings, he had all of his meals brought here so he could eat and sustain himself while he sustained you. Because he didn’t trust the Unmated Normal Royal Consorts’ jelly to be good enough for you. The only time he left your side was when Queen Kat called all of the former Unmated Royal Consorts together once Jaxon was rescued- the day before yesterday. By the way, you got the invite to the Super Royal Consort Private Network right? As well as their invite to the Queen’s Private Sanctum that she’s practically turned into her own Royal Clubhouse right? Like we and the former Royal Consorts are all invited to just come and go as we please and just…chill, and eat and socialize. It’s awesome. She’s even opened up the Royal Coop too to make it more of a petting zoo for us on our off time.” Hebi urged. 

“Is “chilling” just a new way of saying “isth” now?” Hazi chastised as she reluctantly took the offered device and put it to her other wrist to integrate herself with it. 

“Yes and no. The new Super Consorts are not fully mated with her. And because she’s so small and so young, she’s only isthed once so far. And she was not a fan of the experience. So she’s given us free reign to help her own Royal Consorts with getting their isthing frustrating kinks out of their own pipes. And let me just say. It has been a Super Experience.” Hebi cackled gleefully as Hazi looked mortified and also in disbelief. 

“How is that not a trap to kill us all?” Hazi asked. 

“Hey! No she isn’t! She sensed that because we have the same higher consciousness she does, that she put the power of consent to isth, solely with us and why we are second only to her and above the Consorts, all of them, even her Super Ones. Isn’t that better than isthing for punishment for the Consorts?” Hebi challenged. 

“It’s not a trap. She’s still so young, she still thinks of all of her own Super Consorts as her own big brothers still. She is relieved we’re here to willingly and consensually offer our services in that respect.” Hebi answered cheerfully.

“So she’s making whores of all of us.” Hazi grumbled under her breath. 

“I just…I just think we all need to be careful- is all. And think this through and think of how she could still use everything we may say or do against us. Especially when she does get older and get jealous over the isthing to begin with.” Hazi cautioned. 

“And I’m telling you, you don’t need to be that cautious. By the way, can you please answer Jaxon’s messages? He’s been messaging you like crazy ever since he got rescued.” Hebi offered before she left as Hyi came in with special boxes. 

“What are those?” Hazi asked. 

“Moving boxes. Queen Kat wants us to move our residence closer to the Royal Sanctum and have this comb be for the new Royal Nursery Executives once they fully emerge from stasis. But in the meantime we’re getting one hell of an upgrade. She even ordered for all the old royal jelly, to be used as food for both us and the new Royal Nursery Executives and even the New Royal Specialists.” Hyi answered.

That seemed to be the last straw and Hazi felt like her head was about to explode. 

Hazi immediately called an emergency meeting with the other former unmated Consorts through her backdoor to her previous private network as she flew out of the Nursery Complex and straight to Jabari’s room as all the unmated former Royal Consorts began to beam practically into Jabari’s rooms. 

“Ok, I need all of us to get completely off of every single Communications Network. And I need a black out for this conversation.” Hazi insisted before they all readily did as she asked. 

“What the fuck is going on?! I get a message from you, Jaxon- not even a whole five minutes before Super Queen Kat’s arrival that she was on her way to take over the hive. I barely scraped by the skin of my stinger to get those Princesses out of Royal Comb before she came. What was so urgent about your private Isthantari that you felt you needed to contact the homeworld and bring Queen Kat here so incredibly young and small?! And she’s not even fully matured yet! She looks like she was barely a pupae before she got superspeeded through the incubation process. She’s smaller than even the Princesses’ even in their middle pupae stage! She’s not even up to final stage pupae size.” Hazi challenged Jaxon as she flew to increase her own height so that she looked down on him because he had apparently grown in size in the week she was unconscious. 

“Because the drones were swarming my Isthantari, she smelled better than Queen Kai ever did, even under layers of perfume and deodorants and body sprays. Now that more humans, specifically, more earth women come into contact with us, we’re finding their pheromones are actually superior. But only a Super Queen with super strength and super intelligence would be able to perceive that our private Isthantaires are not a threat to her or the Hive. No other normal Queen would ever consider such a notion.” Jaxon justified. 

“But otherwise you are correct. She was barely in pupae stage when the homeworld got Jaxon’s message. Her Consorts, of course, were already in late pupae stage, she was barely transitioned from pre-pupae to pupae and she was immediately ejected into a Super Carrying Cell and had to get digital downloads and rush her own finishing process en route here. She only emerged from her cell 1 single minute before she took over, and in that minute, isthed with her first consort to jumpstart her own biological cascade in order for the Hive Mind to accept her as a fully functional Queen.” Jaxx supplied. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Hazi growled and buzzed angrily as she let her feet touch the ground and just held her head in her hands and rubbed tiredly at her face as her brain processed all of that. 

“Great, this is just great, our Super Queen is barely developed in body and mind. Is barely pubescent in maturity and she controls an army of unmated and super intelligent Super Consorts who are fucking their way through my sisters for the fun of it! And she’s wanted to kill me before she even met me. Great. This is just…great!” Hazi ranted sarcastically as she began to pace in the room as the unmated Consorts seemed to give each other meaningful looks. It took a lot for her to get this pissed. She was liable to kill Jaxon if she wanted to. And was cleared to do. 

“Ok. Jaxon, please tell me that you had a plan of probabilities put in place and safety protocols put up before you contacted the home world.” Hazi demanded but all Jaxon did was bow his head sheepishly and look away guiltily. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake! Did any of you think this through?! Did any of you come up with anything even remotely similar to an idea of how to survive Queen Kat’s Royal Wrath when she will undoubtedly change her mind about all of this and bring this Hive back to factory specs and settings?” Hazi demanded of the others. 

“Actually, I’m working on a way to cement Queen Kat’s pheromones into the Hive Mind so that only she and only a Super Princess from her will be able to control the Hive Mind and will completely block out all pheromones of any other. Granted, it will mean that we will have to live under her and her offspring and this Hive will never be able to be taken over by any other. But, it will ensure the safety of not just your sisters, but also the safety of the Princesses as well.” Jaxx volunteered. 

“And we’ve since found a way to make ourselves stronger than the Super Consorts, so that should any of them turn on us. We would survive and instead, be strong enough to kill them.” Jago offered as Hazi realized he was covered in new spikes himself. 

“Great, what is it?” Hazi asked. 

“Seafood. Specifically, the meat and most importantly the shells of seafood.” He answered. 

“Oh no, the water insects?” Hazi made a disgusted face. 

“When cooked with spices and cut down into pieces, you barely notice them as bugs or insects. Just food, very, very delicious food. I highly suggest the Princesses all partake of some once they emerge from incubation.” Jabari volunteered. 

“Well, I guess for me and my sisters sake. I shall have us partake of it too.” Hazi sighed. 

“There’s just one issue. Queen Kat thinks it’s worse than cannibalism to eat it and refuses for any to be brought to the Mother Ship.” Jago informed her. 

“And Nursery Drones are never allowed to leave the Nest on the Mother Ship.” Hazi hissed. 

“Well, actually since, your reclassification. You and your sisters are actually given permission to leave the mothership for any reason you want- even vacation. However, if you want it to stay strictly business, you can always claim that you are doing research to find new food sources for her to bring Queen Kat up to breeding size. Surely egg yolks and sea urchin roe- uni- will only take her so far. That would get you off the ship and able to bring new food in. And we could always bring in our own seafood ourselves and you and your sisters and especially the Princesses can come and “taste” what we brought.” Jaxon offered. 

“Like that’s not its own form of hypocrisy. When they’re the literal cannibals here.” Jye grumbled nearby. 

“Yeah. Ok. So here’s what we’re gonna do. Jaxx, by all means, make as many possible solutions that you can to either keep Queen Kat as the Super Queen, or if she ends up being a threat to us as a whole and a detriment to the hive, find a way to oust her. Even with a normal Queen if we have to. I will need to eat this seafood, as will my sisters. They are having us all move closer to the Queen’s Sanctum. I will stay in our old quarters. I’ll say I’m experimenting with Jaxx, Jaxon and Jabari and even Sable, with food to find new foods for Queen Kat but I don’t wish for the smell to offend anyone. I already have a Super Consort keeping his eyes extra closely on me as it is. I don’t need anymore. There is a Princess, Little Stubborn, who- last I checked, has not taken to the change very well. She may still have enough Royal Sense in her. That we can still use her to oust Kat if we need to. But I also need to keep her safe from suspicions, both to Queen Kat and her Super Consorts. Jago, use the Super Networks to make for us free and secure private networks that even the Super Consorts, nor any other Super Queen, or hell, any other Hive Mind will have access to. I want all of us to both hide in plain sight and be able to vanish from the Hive Mind if need be. Jaxx, I’m also going to ask your team to find a way for us to vanish too. I’m thinking, making us disguises so that we can parade around like a sister species, that we don’t even appear to be Jika at all.” Hazi as she sent her invites to Jago to do as Klip had invited her to do earlier. 

“On it. Also. I’m finding new ways to create new venoms by eating different flora. I shall send you and your sisters flower arrangements. You will all need to eat them to gain their poison to improve your own venom and toxins.” Jago offered. 

“Good, also, how many of you are looking to get your own “private Isthantaries”?” Hazi asked before they all sheepishly raised their hands. 

“Oh Dear Sweet Jelly. Do all of you have death wishes?” Hazi asked. 

“But there’s an app now.” Jinx contested as he held up his smart phone. 

“While we don’t wish to court death, it’s why we’re counting on you to warn us, because you are Queen Kat’s Mistress of the Royal Comb, hell the entire Nest Complex, you should get on her Private Network to find and read her thoughts and warn us and warn your own sisters.” Jago insisted.  

“You know, the whole, keep your friends close and your enemies closer kind of thing.” Jinx offered with a hopeful smile.  

“I am not a spy! I’m a Nursery Drone damn it!” Hazi challenged. 

“No, that’s the one thing you’ve never been- is a drone. You are finally classified for what you are, Mistress of the Royal Nursery, Nest Complex and a Royal Nursery Executive, second only to the Queen herself. Mistress of the Hive.” Jago gently corrected as he did as she asked him to in creating perfectly safe and secure private communications networks for her, her sisters and them, now that she shared such powers that Klip had given her only moments before to do so.  

“A promotion before death, how kind of Queen Kat.” Hazi sneered. 

“Maybe you shouldn’t judge her as harshly as she first judged you and has since reconsidered and changed her own view. You always give the newly hatched the most grace and the most patience. I’m sure if you gave Queen Kat the courtesy of the benefit of the doubt and gave her the same gentle kindness we all know you are capable of, the same gentle kindness, I’m sure you will give the Princesses once they emerge from incubation as Royal Nursery Executives, that you’ll see that Queen Kat is just trying her best. And if anything, as far as I can tell and sense and see- is just as overwhelmed as you are. We all make mistakes when we are overwhelmed and none of us are at our best in that state. Queen Kat realized she didn’t treat you with the respect you deserved. That’s why Super Consort Klip and all the other Super Consorts interceded for you. They saw you and your sisters for what they were and have tried to protect you and your sisters in your stead. And have seen the value of what you did. And took your actions, even as rushed as they had to be, spoke volumes about who you are as a person and they all respect and admire that.” Jaxx countered since he had been the first to volunteer to help Queen Kat deal with her “problems” in her smooth transition into the Royal Throne and it’s Hive Mind. 

“Only because they have the intelligence to see it themselves because they haven’t isthed fully with the Queen yet.” Jye added. 

“But what I’m scared of is when they do fully isth with her. If they show any partiality to either me or any of my sisters, we will all be killed for it.” Hazi murmured worriedly. 

“I can help Jaxx find a way for them to fully isth with Queen Kat without losing their higher mind, intellect and personality. Especially since it was the lack of intellect and personality that Queen Kat disliked so much.” Jarek offered. 

“Thank you.” Hazi offered before Jago was done building the private networks before he handed them over to Hazi, while also making copies of the tools himself to build more later. 

“Mistress.” Jago offered once he did. 

“That’s not funny. If you need to call me Mistress Hazi in the Queen’s presence or her Royal Consort’s presence, that’s fine. But don’t any of you dare call me Mistress when they’re not around.” Hazi grumped as she took them back mentally and double checked them over to make sure they were safe for her and her sisters and them to use without anyone piggy backing onto them, the same way they had piggy backed onto the Hive Mind themselves. 

“Fuck. Why? Why is he especially so…possessive?” Hazi asked as she made a disgruntled face as she mentally sorted, arranged and organized the series of private networks that Jago had made for her. 

“Maybe once we’re done, you should get back and get some sleep. We’ll be by once all the others move out to respin your nest for you. And really help you make that Comb your own individual home.” Jabari offered.

“That would be quite nice actually, thank you. Also, why didn’t any of you try to feed me your royal jelly while I recovered from saving the Princesses?” Hazi asked.

“We were barred from even entering the Nest Complex and were only allowed to enter the Inner Sanctum and only the Royal Sanctum. Our routes both in and out were plotted out so that none of us could even get near your comb. The Super Consorts themselves took turns guarding you and your sisters. Super Consort Klip especially has been most territorial about you.” Jago answered. 

“Don’t ask questions like that if you don’t want honest answers from us.” Jinx warned. 

“Oh no, he likes me doesn’t he?” Hazi guessed as her shoulders dropped and her face was one of disgust and disappointment. 

“If you had been a true queen, he would have been ready and willing to kill Queen Kat to follow you, wherever you will lead. That’s how much he “likes” you. Your actions proved what kind of woman you are. And he was immediately smitten. Humility, kindness, gentleness, graciousness and selflessness in Queens is rarer even than Supers. He’s attracted to you. He understands your weariness and your distrust and is ready and willing to wait out however long he has to- to prove it to you though his own actions. In fact, he’s the one that approached me to find a way he can Isth with Queen Kat, but still keep his intellect and his mind intact so he can then devote the rest of himself to you.” Jaxx volunteered. 

And while Hazi didn’t argue further, only made a pained expression, she was still weary. 

“Shit, I’m being summoned by the Queen. I gotta go. Use our private network to communicate all measures being taken. However, all countermeasures, don’t even trust the private network to communicate those. Communicate counter measures in private and in person only, it’s a hive network- everything is recorded, no matter how private it would be.” Hazi ordered 

[levi-my-beloved]

Birds of a Feather

Chapter 4

Parings: Canon!Levi x F!Reader

Content Warnings: Violence, torture, this one gets a little spicy y’all, descriptions of sexual acts, hints of abuse (please let me know if i’ve missed any)

Word Count: 14.8K

Summary: You were the most notorious criminal in The Underground City. With your organisation of highly skilled professionals, only one man could take you down. He also happened be be Humanity’s Strongest... and your ex.

Previous Chapter

First Chapter

A/N: well, you guys wanted it all in one post! this is by far the longest chapter, yet, and possibly the longest chapter in the entire fic maybe? i’ve caught myself up now with the progress of writing, since i’ve only completed one part of the next chapter so chapter 5 won’t be out within the next three days like these last four have been. i’m thinking i’ll need maybe a week? not sure, but the next part has a little flashback section which i hope you’ll all enjoy!

god these a/n’s are really long aren’t they? asdfghjkl sorry i’ll make the cut off now. hope you enjoy!!!

𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔

Whether it had been thirty minutes or thirty years, you couldn’t tell. Struggling to stay conscious as the four soldiers brought your limp body back to your cell. Your legs no longer work, gathering dust as they drag across the ground. Your abdomen and back were on fire. You were convinced. They had simply thrown you into hell to cook for a bit before dragging you back out. There was no other explanation. Other than the countless, seemingly endless beatings you had just taken. Whether your legs were tired or if your spine was broken, you couldn’t tell as they tossed you back behind bars, removing the rope around your wrists. You didn’t have the strength to fight back. Didn’t have the strength to even raise your head as they left.

Broken, split ribs sent agonising jolts of pain as you shifted in a lame attempt to curl up into a ball. You hadn’t cracked like they’d wanted you to. You hadn’t screamed, cried, begged them to stop. And you wouldn’t. When they came back for you, you would hold your tongue once again. You had never broken in the past. Whether you’d been compromised during an assault on a rival gang, or whether it was one of your mentor’s training exercises to get you used to torture. You had never broken.

You weren’t about to start now.

Still, the throbbing in your body prevented you from sleeping. You didn’t know what time it was. Time had escaped you during that ordeal. You didn’t even know what time of day it was, pretty sure it was night when they had come for you.

Fuck, your body ached. But you knew comfort was a long way from here. It always seemed so far away from where you were. Did you ever have comfort?

You lay there for god knows how long, seconds turning to minutes, minutes to hours. Hours could have turned to days for all you knew.

When the now familiar echo of footsteps reached your ears, you didn’t move. You didn’t care. Whoever it was could rot in hell for all you cared. Wishing death upon these fucking soldiers was the only thing keeping you from giving up right now.

“The bed not good enough or something?” Levi. Shit. The one person you didn’t want to see you like this.

You didn’t answer, choosing instead to try and count as many marks on the wall as you could. It helped to keep your focus off the dull throbbing coursing through your body.

“Oi, ‘you seriously still asleep? It's almost midday,” the singing of metal caused you to wince slightly as he rapped on the bars in an attempt to wake you from a sleep you weren’t in.

“Get the fuck u—” You had a vague idea what caused him to stop his impending barrage of insults you knew were about to flutter effortlessly from his mouth, and you couldn’t tell if you were thankful or not. On the upside, you didn’t have to hear whatever colourful language he was about to spew. On the downside…

“What happened to you…?” it was the second time he’d asked that question, but from the tone of his voice, you could tell this was less a passing thought and more of a question prompted by horror.

Levi froze. His breath caught in his throat. He had expected you to be awake by now. To be up, with that crooked, cocky smile on your face. In fact, he’d half expected you to be leaning against the wall, the door flung wide open as you twirled the keychain around your finger, simply begging him to ask you how you’d done it.

The last thing he expected to see was you, on the floor, curled into a ball. The shirt on your lower back riding up enough for him to see violent, deep purple bruises, blood steadily streaming from your spine and lower back.

Still you refused to answer, or even move. Filthy fucking soldiers, you fucking hated every last one of them. How fucking dare they? How dare they string you up like a piece of drying meat. They had no idea what you’d been through. What you’d had to do to survive. How dare they assume.

And yet,

And yet there was still that little voice in your head. That little kernel of doubt, convincing you that you deserved this. You had killed so many. So much blood was on your hands.

You deserved this.

You didn’t even notice Levi had entered your cell until a hand rested upon your shoulder.

“(Y/N)—”

“Don’t fucking touch me,” your reaction was instant. Instinctual. Immediately wrenching out of his hand, throwing yourself forward. A yelp escaped your mouth without your permission, fire igniting in your body as you moved so suddenly. It caused you to falter in your movements, landing harshly on your side. “Shit!” your voice broke as you yelped, agony flaring in your entire midsection, hand flying to clutch your side as you backed up against the wall. “Don’t fucking touch me,” there was no conviction in your voice. It was more of a plea than anything. If you had raised your head to look at him, maybe you would have laughed at his expression of twisted shock.

But instead you let your hair fall in front of your face, masking your own expression. Teeth grit in silent pain, eyes screwed shut.

Levi’s worry turned to outright unsettling fear. Over the last two days, he’s witnessed you more broken than he’s ever seen you before. He remembered sitting up with you after you’d woken from one of your nightmares. The two of you sitting on the floor against the wall, sharing a cup of tea to not waste resources. He’d seen you angry. He’d seen you upset. But he’d never seen you shattered.

“(Y/N)...” you’d forgotten how soft his usual bored voice could sound. Even after yesterday, you hadn’t heard that tone from him in years. It was borderline unnatural.

It prompted you to raise your head ever so slightly, glaring at him through thick, matted (H/C) strands. You refused to let your guard down, even though the sight of him squatting before you, eyebrows gently creased with suppressed worry almost made you relax. But you weren’t about to be taken away and tortured again.

Any scrap of trust that may have manifested yesterday during the carriage ride and your conversation had been crushed.

“Get away from me,” you looked feral, bearing your teeth animalistically as you snarled. Though it didn’t seem to deter him. He knew a dog only bared its teeth when it was wounded, fearing to be hurt further.

Levi sighed through his nose as he stood. You flinched at his movement and watched as he made more of a conscious effort not to startle you. Your eyes squinted in suspicious confusion as he took a small cloth from his pocket and started running it under the tap.

It seemed the faucet did work. Good to know.

Returning to squat in front of you, his eyes flickered from your face to your abdomen.

“Show me,” he instructed gently, and you almost obeyed him. Almost.

“Go fuck yourself,” you spat instead, bringing your knees closer to your aching body. If you hadn’t been trained to withstand pain, you would have cried out as your abdomen begged you to stop constricting your muscles.

“I’m trying to help,” your ears caught the slight irritation in his tone, but you didn’t care. He could kick you for all you care.

Actually, you really didn’t want him to do that.

“I don’t want your help,”

“You need it.”

“Burn in hell, Levi,” it was the first time you’d actually used his name since you said it back when they first apprehended you, and Levi couldn’t deny that it cut deep. A sentiment he masked with a frustrated exhale. Clearly he’d expected resistance. Either that or he was just as tenacious as he used to be.

“Well, I'm definitely not going up,” he responded, that same softness in his tone and despite your situation, you couldn’t help the slight huff of amusement. It seemed to put him at ease too, content you weren’t about to lunge for his throat.

Slowly, you uncurled from your position, visibly wincing as your torn, beaten muscles relaxed. Levi took this as permission to inch closer and you felt a small appreciation for his trepidation.

Still, you couldn’t help but flinch every time he moved too fast. A simple reflex stemming from your training. It wasn’t really something you thought about, but it prompted the raven haired man to freeze every time you moved.

You refused to meet his eyes as he gently lifted the fabric of your shirt, hearing his breath hitch slightly.

“Holy shit…” He breathed. You hadn’t seen how bad your body was damaged, but judging by his reaction;

It sure as hell wasn’t good.

Levi felt he could kill someone. Actually, a lot of someones. Shit, when he finds out who was responsible for this he would make sure they wished they were never born. The same rage he felt when seeing you flinch for the first time once again coursed through his veins, and this time, he didn’t think he could just let it simmer.

“Who did this to you?” you blinked, his question caught you off guard. Didn’t he know? How didn’t he know? Surely every soldier in the damn military would revel in the idea of you being tortured all night. You clenched your jaw, refusing to respond. You didn’t know why you were being so stubborn. Maybe it was the sheer principle of not wanting to show any sort of weakness in front of him.

In fact, now you thought about it, it was definitely that. Whether Levi sensed it or not, he chose not to press you for an answer. Perhaps he did already know.

You hissed as the cold, damp cloth gently soothed your inflamed skin, glancing back to his face. You hated the way his focussed expression calmed your heart. Loathed how that crease in his eyebrows eased your whirling thoughts. Despised how, from this angle, you could see just how annoyingly attractive he had become.

“Can you move?” he asked, silver eyes rising up to meet your own. The low torchlight highlighted the heus of deep blue you knew he had hidden away. You pretended you looked away because you couldn’t stand the sight of his face, rather than the reality.

You were far too tempted to lean up and capture his lips.

“Yes,” Levi couldn’t tell if you were lying, shifting slightly to help you move but stopping immediately when you flinched away.

“Lie on the bed,” for the first time in ten years, you were compelled to follow an order. You weren’t even obedient towards Viper most of the time. But nonetheless, you found yourself struggling to your feet, an arm braced on the wall behind you.

Clearly respecting your independence, Levi took a step back, allowing you to find your own way. If you weren’t slightly delirious from the pain, you would have missed a kernel of respect flashing in his expression, before he swiftly turned away, washing the cloth again as you collapsed onto the so-called ‘mattress’ with a hiss.

Levi rung the small cloth out onto the floor, focussing on the way the droplets collided with the stone, rather than the way every movement you made caused you obvious pain. Once again, every fibre of his being was screaming at him to cradle you in his arms and whisper soft nothings into your ear. He wanted you to fall asleep next to him, your face buried in the crook of his neck. He craved to feel your soft hair through his fingertips, gently coercing you into dreams. It hurt so much that he could see you, but he couldn’t have you.

Turning to face away from him, you once again shrivelled into a ball. You didn’t want this. You didn’t want any of this. You just wanted to be left alone. But the dip in the bed behind you told you that wasn’t an option right now, muscles tensing on instinct.

he didn’t ask for permission this time as gentle fingers gripped your shirt, dragging up to reveal your brutalised back. If you could see his expression, you might have even been afraid. Darkness shrouded his face, teeth grit in utter hatred. A muscle in his jaw twitching from the effort of clamping his mouth so tightly.

His first touch felt like you’d been shocked by the static that built up on the bed clothes. The damp cool gliding across the welts and bruises across your back. Balling your hands into fists, you refused to make any sound. Still having the mindset of not wanting to give anyone the satisfaction of hearing you in pain. It was a mindset you didn’t think would leave you for a while.

Levi worked in silence, allowing you to settle and almost relax after a while. You wanted to trust him, but you didn’t. Not really. However, right now, you trusted him not to hurt you further. Simply content to relish in the way he soothed the pain. It didn’t come naturally. Every time he pressed too hard it took all your strength not to lunge for his throat, but he would stop upon hearing your sharp intake of breath, waiting for you to settle before continuing.

After what seemed like an eternity of silence, you finally broke it with a question that had been budding in your mind.

“Why are you doing this?” your voice came out a rasped whisper, almost as if you hadn’t used your vocal chords for weeks. You were sure he wasn’t going to answer, opting instead to simply continue to clean your bruises. Another blanket of quiet had settled over the two of you before he responded.

“I don’t know,” he lied. Levi wasn’t sure why he lied. Honestly, he thought it was obvious enough. He still cared about you. So fucking much. It burned him to see you in so much pain. He’d never felt the mind numbing fury he felt when he saw what they’d done to you.

You weren’t really happy with the answer. If anything, it simply gave you more questions. But you were too tired to press for more. Almost too tired to notice when he’d stopped. Pulling your grimy shirt back down to your waist, you felt the mattress rise as he stood. You didn’t turn. You couldn’t turn. After the night you’d had, the exhaustion from the last 24 hours finally catching up on you.

Noticing how you were almost already asleep, Levi decided to throw caution to the wind.

You felt a soft caress through your dirt ridden hair, the action sending a pleasant buzz through your system. It was an action so familiar to the both of you, you wondered why you kept flinching away from his touch when all it did was gently drain you of energy.

“Sleep.”

You didn’t have time to contemplate his tone before the comforting nothingness claimed you.

꧁ꨄ꧂

Levi hadn’t been this angry in a long, long time. Sure, he’d been annoyed. When a solider made a stupid mistake or when a cadet didn’t know how to clean properly. But he hadn’t been this furious in years.

Maybe since the deaths of Isobel and Farlan.

It was obvious when Levi was in a bad mood. Sweeping through the headquarters like a storm. Cadets could almost feel his presence before they saw him, swiftly making themselves busy as he paid no attention to any of them. He had one goal in mind. One destination. And he didn’t even knock when he got there.

“Out. Now.” it wasn’t an order to disobey. When he opened the door to Erwin’s office, revealing a small meeting, Levi didn’t think twice to dismiss them, even if they were his superiors.

“Levi, what’s—”

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll all leave the room for the next half an hour. Maybe longer depending on how this conversation goes,” his swirling eyes met Erwin’s and he swore he could detect the slightest fear in the man’s gaze.

Good.

He should be afraid.

Without so much as a mutter of goodbyes, the squad leaders and section commanders all dispersed, leaving the Captain alone with the Commander.

Erwin was the first to break the heavy silence.

“I’m assuming this is about Raven?” his voice didn’t waver, seeming to have regained his composure from the initial shock. But Levi wasn’t here for a dainty conversation. The unbridled rage pulsing through his bloodstream clouded his vision, almost seeing red.

“Did you know?”

“Levi—”

“Did. You. Know?” Levi hardly ever raised his voice. Usually it was only out in the field or on a mission, and that was only because it was easier to communicate that way. Keeping his bored, flat tones when slicing open the nape of a titan didn’t seem possible.

Erwin pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a deep, defeated sigh.

“Yes. I knew. But Levi, you have to understand—”

“I don’t have to understand jackshit. Don’t you think she’s been through enough? She’s led a life being treated like an animal and now you’re allowing her to be beaten like one?”

“It’s necessary, Levi.”

“It’s barbaric!” Erwin had never heard such venom in his voice. Not even when he vowed to kill him all those years ago. He’d seen Levi’s rage. Witnessed it from afar. The way he tore through flesh like it was paper.

Never did he think he would be on the receiving end. Leaning forward, the blonde folded his arms against the desk, clearly conflicted.

“I know this is a difficult subject for you. You two grew up in the same environment, it would only be natural for you to care for her,” the conniving bastard. Levi borderline snarled at the statement. He did care for you. Deeply. But Erwin didn’t need to know that.

“But please listen. As I mentioned before, ties between the Military Police and the Survey Corps are taut. Any discord between us would cause them to snap. I already tightened them further by not allowing them to execute her publicly. I thought if she joined the Scouts instead, not only would we gain an asset, but she would also be able to survive. That didn’t sit well with Niles. He wants her to pay for what she’s done. If not by death, then by various other methods. This was the only way to keep both parties happy, Levi. Trust me,” Levi was starting to lose what trust he had in the man.

Whilst yes, his explanation made sense, it still didn’t sweeten the blow. How long would this go on for? Would they take you everyday, or just some days? How badly would they hurt you?

As if able to read his mind through his knife-like glare, Erwin continued.

“It’s only for this week. Whilst she’s in her cell. They don’t have permission to permanently damage her, only—”

“Only break her ribs and crack her sternum. Yeah, I saw,” he responded bitterly, folding his arms as he leant against the door. Fuck this. Fuck him. Fuck them.

Levi had never been so conflicted. Whilst the sight of you, beaten and broken, had shattered him, he also knew it was for your own good. It was this, or death.

He didn’t like the second option much.

But the memory of what they had done had burned into his skull. Running his fingers down your prominent, bruised spine. So fragile, but so goddamn strong. Muscles spread disproportionately about your abdomen and shoulders. Your stomach was concave for fuck sakes. And they were still beating the shit out of you.

It made him wonder. If he wasn’t so lucky…

Would he have received the same treatment?

Would he have been thrown in a cell and tortured for a week?

He doubted it.

Erwin waited for Levi to gather his thoughts. Waited for him to say whatever he was going to say next. He had expected Levi to find out. Had expected the man to have some sort of reaction, but nothing quite to this extent. Maybe there really was something deeper between you and him that Levi was keeping to himself.

“So this will continue for a whole damn week?” Levi asked, almost exasperated, running a hand through his obsidian locks. This was a nightmare. All of it. Nobody deserves this treatment. Not even Kenny, but especially not you.

It was Erwin’s slow nod that had his stomach dropping.

“Yes,” he replied quietly. “This will continue for the whole week.”

That was all Levi needed to hear. Whether it was right or wrong, he was powerless to stop it. Turning on his heel and heading back down the halls to his office, he tried to push the images of your broken body and spirit from his mind. Maybe he was hoping you were the same bright eyed, mischievous woman you were before he lost you ten years ago. How had so much changed since then?

How much had you changed so much since then?

He no longer saw that spark of life in your eyes. No longer able to bask in your genuine smile.

If he hadn’t seen so many young, hopeful souls shattered by the paralysing fear of facing a titan, or the desperate heartache of losing a loved one, he’d be surprised.

But he wasn’t. Not at all. Who knows what you have had to do to survive? Who knows just how much of yourself you’d had to sacrifice to get where you are now. But he wouldn’t accept that you were gone.

He would never accept that.

But from the looks of you, only a small fragment of your true self remained. Levi thought he was over being hurt by the changes in people he somewhat cared about.

Maybe he was wrong.

꧁ꨄ꧂

The week was gruelling. Taken from your cell at night and being subjected to both physical and mental torture was one of the toughest things you’ve faced. It was brutal, having to fortify both your mind and body nightly against the blows from the MPs. Sometimes it would change. Sometimes the original four switched out. Sometimes they had an observer. But every time was horrific.

You were sure you’d be dead by now if Levi didn’t visit daily to soothe your broken and cracked bones. If he didn’t ask his monotonous questions, all of which you either responded to with something sarcastic, or silence.

Very few times you actually gave a real answer.

Unlike this time.

“How did you get that scar?” It was always the question he started with. Always wanting to know what happened to you during the time he was away, and that scar down your right eye.

“Don’t you ever get tired of asking that question?” you huffed, tucking your elbows beneath your head.

“Don’t you ever get tired of not answering it?” since you’d seen him everyday since you arrived, you were beginning to relearn all the tells you knew he had, but had changed over time. For example, this smallest lilt in his voice when he found something amusing. He waited for your body to stop twitching as you laughed silently, before resuming the treatment of the damp cloth.

“Not really, it’s fun listening to you get more and more frustrated.”

“As charming as ever, Raven.”

You didn’t know how you felt about him using your alias rather than your name. You knew you’d asked him to, or rather, harshly told him to, but he’d used your actual name a few times since then. But you didn’t want to ask, not wanting him to feel uncomfortable.

You let the quiet blanket the two of you, debating whether or not to answer. You’d refused him everyday, but as more time passed, the more you remembered just how much you’d loved him.

“There was a rival gang in the neighbourhood next to ours. Always fighting us for territory or supplies. Honestly, I wanted them wiped out, but Prongs insisted that would make us far too many powerful enemies,” Levi had paused as you started the exposition, genuinely surprised you’d actually decided to give him a full answer, rather that the usual “I entered a sword headbutting contest” or something equally as ridiculous.

“We were at each other’s throats for years, never really landing a solid hit on the other’s gang, until the bastard managed to take one of my Shadows, Diablo, alive. I owed those people everything. They took me in when you—” you managed to stop yourself, but not fast enough for Levi to avoid feeling the gut punching guilt he felt whenever you accidentally mentioned him leaving. You really didn’t mean to, you were just used to talking more openly about it.

“Uh, sorry. Yeah, they took me in, so I owed them a lot. Plus, I’d known them for years by now. I trusted them and they trusted me. I wasn’t about to abandon her,” Levi could hear your conviction and resolve in the cadence of your voice, and silently wondered when you’d become so strong. He’d almost forgotten he was supposed to be treating you badly damaged back, until you hissed slightly. Looking down, he realised he’d pressed a little too hard with the cloth against your tender skin.

“Shit, sorry.”

“‘S’fine. Just concentrate, yeah?” despite your condition, you still had it in you to crack cocky jokes. Levi had half the mind to swat the back of your head with his cloth, but he decided to be merciful.

You left it a beat before you continued.

“Anyway, I didn’t have a choice. But it turns out, all the creepy bastard wanted to do was to make sure everyone knew I wasn’t untouchable. Then maybe we’d stop having smaller gangs ally with us. I let him scar my face, and in return he gave us Diablo back, completely unharmed. It was really fucking weird now that I think about it,” Levi pondered this for a moment, before another question popped into his head.

“What happened to him?”

“Who?”

“The creepy guy, idiot.”

“Call me an idiot again, I fucking dare you.”

“What will you do? You can hardly stand.”

“I don’t need to stand to beat your sorry ass.”

Shit, he’d missed this. This playful banter between the two of you. He’d missed it so goddamn much.

“He found one of my blades stuck in his throat pretty soon after,” Levi grunted in approval, a small smile bloomed across his face at the thought.

Good.

Creepy son-of-a-bitch.

The two of you continued in a comfortable silence for a short while, before your slightly mischievous voice cut through it again.

“Okay, my turn,” you sounded far too nonchalant for his liking, Levi narrowing his gaze to the back of your head.

“Your turn?”

“You’ve been asking me questions for the last few days, and I haven’t asked you one once,” if Levi didn’t know better, he’d say you were almost pouting. He was tempted to turn your head to check, but it seemed you still weren’t entirely comfortable with the whole being touched thing.

He hadn’t asked you about that yet.

“Alright, alright. One question.”

“How come you get countless and I only get one?”

“Call it a Captain’s privilege,”

“Pffft, Captain my ass,”

“Just ask your stupid question.”

You laughed at his feigned frustrated tone, knowing he was loving this as much as you were. You allowed yourself to think about how you wanted to phrase this.

“Are they still here with you? Farlan and Isobel?” you had been slightly hesitant to ask this, since he hadn’t mentioned them once. You didn’t know them personally, only seeing them fleetingly when Levi would usher you into his room, or having sparing conversation with them when Viper sold them that ODM. And judging by his pained silence, you now feared his answer.

“Yes and no,” your question had definitely caught him off guard. He didn’t even think you remembered them, so for you to ask after them was a little out of the blue. Hence why he opted to mimic your response from a few days ago.

You had clearly caught on.

“The hell does that mean?”

Levi realised he probably couldn’t tend to your back and tell this story at the same time. He was going to need all his strength to suppress the torrent of emotions he knew he was about to unlock. Sensing his change of tone, you slowly shifted so you were sitting next to him, making sure you didn’t move too quickly or awkwardly so as to not irritate your painful back.

You searched his features in the silence, partially hidden by the bangs you used to love running your hands through. You couldn’t help but wonder whether or not they were as soft as they used to be.

“It was my fault,” he admitted quietly. You hated seeing Levi like this. You’d only seen him like this once before, when Kenny abandoned him. You vowed you would never let him feel like this again as long as you were by his side.

This is what happens when you’re separated.

“What was your fault?” you gently prompted, not wanting to push him, but rather wanting to let him know that you were willing to listen.

“It was our first expedition. I was naive, agreeing to let them come with us, rather than the original plan which was for me to go alone. Raven, the reason I— the reason we left, was because we were recruited for a job, and killing Erwin Smith was part of that. But none of us knew what to expect beyond the walls. We’d trained but, we didn’t know what to expect when facing an actual titan,” you didn’t press further when he took pauses or longer breaths. You were happy he was comfortable enough with you now to even tell you this. “Everything was going smoothly. Too smoothly, and it wasn’t long before it all went to shit. I lost sight of them when the storm hit, losing them in the fog. I was completely powerless to stop an Abnormal. Shit, I didn’t even know it had passed me. I just saw bodies and limbs everywhere and knew I had to turn back. By the time I got there, it was too late. They were both gone,” Levi’s fist clenched into a ball, taking his focus away from the pain in his chest to the one in his palm. He didn’t even realise his eyes were closed until he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. He stiffened under your touch, not quite able to believe how far the two of you had come in such a short amount of time.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there, Levi,” he didn’t really understand what you were apologising for, or why you felt the need. Afterall, it was him who left you.

“I vowed after that day I wouldn’t have any regrets. Some jackass said that if I did, their deaths wouldn’t mean anything. But I knew I would always have one. I knew I would always regret leaving you behind,” Levi looked to you through his bangs, an expression of guilt etched into his hardened face. You forgave him at that moment. You forgave him for everything.

“I’m here now, aren’t I? And whilst I may not be the same girl you left behind, I still have her memories,” your hand slid from its position on his shoulder to rest over his heart, feeling it flutter within his sturdy ribcage.

Levi faintly wondered if he was dreaming. If you could feel his heart rate increase with every touch.

“That’s why you said yes and no, isn’t it? Because they’re not physically here, but they are here,” Levi could do nothing but nod, his eyes trained on your face like a hawk. He wanted permission. Begged for it through his dark, swirling eyes. Screamed for it in the way his eyes flickered to your lips, your face so close he could smell that scent of freshly baked bread you’d always carried with you, even beneath all the filth. A few centimetres further and you would have what you’d wanted for ten long years. What you both have wanted.

“You sound ridiculous,”

“Your fault,” he could feel the flutter of your breath against his face, wishing nothing more than for you to close the distance.

Levi slowly brought his hand from his lap, his palm rising to cup your cheek.

It didn’t even get close before you flinched, eyes darting to his raised hand.

And just like that, all the tension dissolved. As if you hadn’t been busy getting lost within the storm that were his irises. Levi pulled back, as if he himself had been struck.

“I’m sorry… I wasn’t thinking,” he rose from his position next to you, wanting nothing more than for the ground to swallow him whole.

How could he be so damn selfish? It was obvious you couldn’t do anything like that right now. Maybe not ever. And he was getting way ahead of himself. You had already said the girl who loved him was dead, he couldn’t even think how or why he would assume just because your body was present, your mind was as well. Just because he was willing, why would you be willing as well?

Except you were.

So. Fucking. Willing.

And you cursed yourself for these instinctive reactions. Every sudden movement had your mind flashing back to training. Back to Viper’s brutal learning methods. It wasn’t even that much longer after Levi left you were made the Raven. After Viper’s death, it was almost instantaneous. But that didn’t stop those seven months of brutal punishments to leave a permanent scar on your psyche. You wished you could find your voice to reassure him that you’d get over this.

But you couldn’t.

And Levi was once again the first to speak.

“I should go. I’ll see you tomorrow Raven—”

“(Y/N),” you corrected him. After countless times of him calling you by your alias, you didn’t think you could stand it anymore. Levi raised his brow, seemingly a little confused by your interruption. “I’m not The Raven anymore. Technically that title belongs to Prongs now. So it’s just (Y/N),” despite the awkwardness of your recent encounter, you still felt that familiar warmth blossom in your chest at his softened smile, and quietly wonder if anyone else ever saw him smile this much.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, (Y/N),” you returned his expression, before lying back down on your side. This was your last night in your cell, before you’d be free to join the Scouts. You silently scoffed at the irony of that statement, but nothing could quell your small candle of hope as you listened to Levi’s footsteps get quieter and quieter. Maybe things weren’t so shit up here after all.

꧁ꨄ꧂

“You know, Raven, I’m going to miss our little nighttime meetings,” another harsh blow to your stomach sent you reeling, eyes screwed shut in both pain and defiance. They were trying everything they could to break you tonight. Blood running freely down your abdomen. Fresh bruises now blossoming over the wilted petals of previous nights.

Still you refused to break. Solid walls of spite had erected around your mind, and they wouldn’t be cracked or broken. Not by anything. So you took it. You took your punishment, only opening your mouth to hurl obscene insults or vile curses in their direction. Mocking the way they struck, laughing at their lack of strength. It only resulted in harsher blows, but it was worth seeing the frustration on their faces when you didn’t scream in agony.

“You know who you remind me of like this? I only made the connection a few nights ago. Strung up and beaten like your good-for-nothing father,”

That struck a chord in you. Your eyes flew open, staring at the ground in horror. This is what had happened to him? They had taken him and beaten him? Was he still alive? Was he here somewhere?

The man, who you’d dubbed Dirt, answered all your questions with his next jab.

“A shame he only lasted a few days. You on the other hand… you’re much more fun to play with,” a feral grin sliced through his face as he circled you, drawing back to land three excrutiating blows against your lower back. You grit your teeth, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill from your eyes. You didn’t think you had a heart to shatter. You didn’t think any of it remained for it to be broken again.

The MPs had taken two father figures from you.

That grin still adorned Dirt’s face as he went to swing the metal bat again, only to be interrupted by the door behind you opening. Dirt’s eyes narrowed, before whoever it was seemed to please him. God you couldn’t wait for the day where you tore that venomous smile right off his fucking face.

“Captain Ackerman. To what do we owe the pleasure?” you froze. What the hell was he doing here? Why did he always have to arrive during the moments where you really didn’t want him to see you.

But you weren’t expecting to feel a kernel of hope as he spoke.

You weren’t expecting the small smile that etched into your sweat slickened face.

“I was sent to observe. Since she’ll be joining the Survey Corps, I’m here to ensure you don’t break her,” Levi sounded as bored as ever, and you almost huffed a laugh.

Dirt scoffed, in irritation that he wouldn’t get to sever your spine with brute force.

“Very well. However, I must ask you to stand back. She swings like a stallion’s cock sometimes,” If it weren’t directed at you, you would have laughed at the comment. In any other situation, it would have been rather funny.

Just not this one.

Levi had never felt so sick. As soon as he walked in, seeing you strung up like that, helplessly, he had to force down the instinct to rip every one of these torturous bastards to ribbons. He’d never had to have such a tight hold on his emotions in his life, because if that hold slipped…

This would become a blood bath.

“Anyway Raven, where were we?” he asked, though the question was rhetorical. You knew he remembered. He was just trying to provoke a response out of you. But knowing Levi was here gave you a strength you weren’t expecting.

Looking up through your hair, you shot a glare through the thick, matted strands.

“Choke on your own blood, fuckface,” you spat, kicking weakly towards him. It wasn’t the show of defiance you’d wanted, but it seemed to get the message across. You were prepared for whatever consequences there would be for such a demonstration.

The repercussions came immediately. Roughly digging his fingers into your chin, Dirt forced you head up to look at him, his face a picture of mock amusement.

Levi’s jaw clenched.

“Come now Raven. Not trying to impress Captain Levi now, are you?” your eyes flickered over to Levi, his expression unreadable, grey hues trained on the two of you. A rumble of laughter echoed around the chamber as Dirt took in your spiteful expression. “Now I’m left wondering, how somebody like you could come from somebody like your pathetic father. How somebody so defiant, so fucking strong,” —he harshly jabbed at your stomach with the hilt of his bat— “Could be the daughter of somebody so weak,”

“Shut the fuck up,” you rasp, hot fury surging through your veins. How fucking dare he? How dare he insult your father this way. He was a good man. An honest man. He did nothing wrong. Nothing to warrant his or your mother’s death.

“Hm. No, I think I’ll keep talking. This might finally break you.”

“I’ll fucking KILL YOU,” the hook keeping your arms above your head creaked as you thrashed, trying to free yourself to wrap your hands around his goddamn throat.

“You should have heard his cries. His pathetic whimpers as we carved into his flesh. They were… amusing.” No. This wouldn’t be your downfall. You refused. This wasn’t it. You would not be broken by this.

“At least tell me what he died for. At least tell me why you took him, you shit-eating pig!” you spat viciously, trying once again to get free. It was infuriating more than anything. You had so many questions, never knowing why your parents had been killed. Why you came back to your house in disarray, crimson staining the floorboards as your mother’s blood drained from the gash in her throat. Your father, nowhere to be found.

Though he managed to keep his expression neutral, Levi thought back to your father. For the short time he knew him, he was a kind man. He did what he could for the people around him, always feeding those who looked starving. He was convinced that was where you got your compassion from. Why the hell would they take him and torture him?

“Why? He didn’t tell you? Interesting. Your father knew the location of The Nest long before you became our problem. You thought it was a coincidence Viper just happened to take you in? Please, this job was enjoyable enough, don’t make me laugh with your naivety as well,”

“You’re lying. My father was a baker. He was a good man. He wasn’t involved in our criminal shit!”

“Have you noticed a pattern in your life, Raven? Have you noticed how we tried everything to prevent you from falling down this path?” your jaw flickered at Dirt’s tone, mocking you as if they had done you a service.

“We thought your father would introduce you to a life of crime, so we got rid of him for you. When you fell into the care of Viper; well, we got rid of him for you as well,” his smile was snake-like as flashes from that night plagued your mind. Pressed up against the wall as your mentor was savagely dealt with. Begging at them. Screaming at them to stop. To let him go. Only for them to raise a rifle to his head, and paint the wall with his blood.

Dirt imitated a gun with his fingers, putting them up to your forehead.

“Bang.”

Slowly, you stopped thrashing, though the hatred in your veins didn’t cool. You simmered silently, raising your eyes once again. No tears. No sorrow. Nothing but feigned indifference flickered in the low light.

Dirt looked at you for a moment, eyebrows creasing in irritation as he stepped back, twirling the bad in his hands before repeatedly cracking it against your empty stomach. Levi only just managed to control his breathing as he watched helplessly, flinching subtly as every blow connected with your too-skinny body. Clearly Dirt was taking out some intense frustration. He’d just managed to compose himself when the bastard’s eyes turned to him. That fucking smile poisoned his features as he extended the handle of the weapon.

“Captain Levi. She killed a few of your men, did she not? Why don’t you see if you can break the whore?” You almost scoffed in amusement. Levi wouldn’t do that. Not to you. Not after everything the two of you had been through.

You’d finally found each other again.

You were so sure.

You were so sure of yourself.

You were so sure of him.

You’d rekindled that trust over the last week.

You’d rekindled something you thought was dead.

You were so sure.

Until he took the handle.

And the white hot knife of betrayal twisted into your gut once again.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

What the hell was he supposed to do?

Shit.

The weight of the bat felt ten times heavier than anything he’s ever held in his life. The weight of what he was about to do.

Fuck.

As excruciating as this was to watch, he knew it was ten times worse for you. He knew every blow, every crack, was undoing hours of hard work soothing your aches and bruises. Each thud against your body sent jolts of electricity through him. Nerve ends alight with adrenaline, heart beating as if he was about to fight every single one of these bastards just to get them away from you.

Still you have not broken. He couldn’t pinpoint the slight warmth in his chest, couldn’t comprehend what it was. Was he impressed? Surprised?

Proud…?

Levi wasn’t sure if the look of soul shattering betrayal in your eyes was worth it as his hands gripped the cool metal, slightly slickened with your blood.

He would explain it to you.

He would.

Once you were back in your cell, he would tell you why he did it.

But for now, his glare only darkened as he stepped forward. He couldn’t stand the expression on your face. Confused bewilderment, as if trying to work out what he was thinking.

Levi begged you to stop. Stop looking at him like that. Stop trying to work him out because not even he knew if this was the right thing to do.

It was almost a relief when your wide eyes clouded with heartbreaking realisation and acceptance.

A hiss escaped your lips at the first crack. Somehow, this felt more painful than anything those pitiful soldiers could do. Your eyes screwed shut, jaw clenched so hard you were afraid it would shatter into a million pieces.

Each blow felt so precise. So measured and controlled. It stung your heart more than anything else. You’d been betrayed. Again. For the second time in a week. Betrayed by the two people you’d ever loved. Scarlett, who’d picked you up when you were sure nobody else could. Who nursed your broken bones and your broken soul.

And by the first man who ever held your heart.

And truthfully, still did.

Was that all this last week had been?

A ploy just to fuck with you. To earn your trust only to immediately shatter you once again? To break your spirit? Granted, nobody knew the nature of your relationship between you and Levi, but that didn’t matter. The man you loved had just stabbed you in the back.

Again.

So much had happened in the last week. So much had been brought to the surface. It would take years to unpack it all, not that you had any intention of doing that. You just wanted it all gone. To bury it with your fathers. To never think about it again.

You were dragged from your thoughts by a shock of agony sparking up your spine, stemming from your lower back. It was Dirt’s favourite place to attack. Whenever he thought you were being too feisty, too aggressive. He would land as many blows to your lower back as he saw fit.

Admittedly, you doubted Levi knew you’d been snapping back spitefully all session before he arrived, but that didn’t quell the raging fire of hatred as your lips parted without your permission.

A broken cry of anguished agony wracked from your chest, chilling the air of the humid chamber.

Levi froze, horror flashing across his usually schooled features.

He’d broken you.

Levi had broken you.

And with it, any bond he’d managed to salvage over the last week. Any bridge he’d started to rebuild now came crashing down around him.

That one well placed crack had ripped away at your resolve, exposing the tired, hurt, beaten girl beneath.

The room seemed to have stilled. All falling into quiet awe at what had just happened. A slow clap split the stagnant air as Dirt walked up from where he was leaning against the wall. Levi was tempted to turn the bat on him, but he found himself unable to move.

“Your reputation precedes you, Captain. Striking her lower back like that after leaving it to simmer? Genius! We should have asked you to join us earlier,” Dirt cackled in delight as he produced a knife from his pocket. Reaching up, he easily sliced through the ropes binding your hands.

Stone rose up to greet your body as you fell uselessly to the ground, legs too weak to hold you.

“Oh dear. Are you dead? Maybe you and your father had more in common that I originally thought,”

“Enough.” Dirt’s jeering was interrupted by the no-bullshit tones of Levi, causing the soldier to whirl around. He’d finally managed to find his voice, once again reining himself in.

“But Captain Levi, Sir, she’s The Raven. Don’t you think she deserves some extra time with us tonight?”

“If you don’t leave now I’ll make sure it’s you who won’t be able to walk. Go,” you couldn’t tell if this was a blessing or a curse. If he was an angel or a demon.

Actually no, scratch that.

He was a demon, and this was a curse.

You couldn’t find it in yourself to move as you heard busy footsteps around you, assuming the four horsemen were gathering their effects.

“I do hope you make her crawl back to her cell, Captain. We all know your reputation for cleanliness. It would be a shame to dirty your hands touching this filthy whore,” Dirt drawled one more savage insult, before you heard his echoing steps get further and further away. You hoped the day would never come where you had to see his face again.

The silence in the room now was suffocating. You could both feel the emotions radiating off each other now the MPs were gone. He could feel your loathing, and you could feel his disgust. Or what you thought was disgust. What you assumed was disgust.

How could he not be disgusted? He must be. To do what he just did. You didn’t understand why he would come down everyday and help you if he felt such hatred towards you.

No, that’s a lie.

You did understand.

But that truth hurt so much more than anything else tonight.

It had sowed the seed of doubt in your mind. You knew you weren’t a good person. In fact, to most soldiers and nobles you were a devil. But you’d always clung onto the hope that everything you did was to help people. You stole medicine, you slit the throats of rapists, you provided weapons to those who didn’t have enough to fend for themselves.

There was a small part of you that truly believed you were doing good.

That small part had just been crushed, along with several bones.

Gathering what little strength you had, you extended a limp arm in front of you. Fuck it, you weren’t going to sleep here on a floor soiled by your own sweat, blood and saliva.

You would crawl if you had to.

“(Y/N)...” all he wanted to do was hold you. All he’d wanted to do since he’d found you again was hold you. He’d been so close yesterday, but he’d fucked that up.

Now he was sure you’d never willingly let him hold you again. The bat fell from his hand as if he’d realised it was covered in poison, heart clenching at the way you instinctively threw your arms above your head, terrified of some other attack.

You hated how his voice carried so much comfort. Hated how it soothed your raging mind. God you wanted nothing more than to rip his fucking tongue out and make sure he never spoke to you like that again.

A gentle hand landed on your shoulder, forcing you to stop.

“Get… get the fuck… off me… Get the fuck off me,” you couldn’t fight back as he tucked his arms under your legs and upper back, wincing as he lifted you into his grip. “Don’t… Don’t fucking touch me,” there was no strength left in you to push against him as he carried you back, but that didn’t stop you from weakly hitting the arms that held you.

You didn’t understand. One moment he was savagely beating you, and the next he was cradling you against his chest, holding you close as he took you to your cell.

Laying you down, he hoped you understood why he did what he did. It was a fool’s hope, he knew.

He realised you definitely didn’t understand when you started fighting back.

With a sudden surge of strength, you lunged for him. It was a weak attack, and you didn’t really know what you were trying to achieve as you threw yourself towards him with a cry of anguished rage, but you also didn’t care.

“I fucking trusted you,” you spat in between your flailing limbs. It really didn’t take long for Levi to pin your arms either side of your head, hovering over your body.

“(Y/N), stop,” He tightened his grip on your wrists as you struggled against his hold. It would have been a real test of strength for both of you had you not spent the last week having the life beaten out of you. You were weaker than you’d ever been, and he was taking advantage.

“I was right the first time. You don’t get to call me that. You don’t ever get to call me that. You sick, twisted BASTARD. So that was why you lied to me. That was why you didn’t tell me why you were helping me. You fucking coward, is that all you were doing? Convincing me I was safe with you? Tricking me into thinking you still actually cared about me you filthy fucking LIAR,” you barked a mirthless laugh, baring your teeth in a visceral snarl. “I swear to you Levi, I will not fucking stop until my knife is buried your goddamn THROAT!” you struggled again, twisting as much as you could beneath him, trying to free your arms, your hands, anything that could help you take him down.

He deserved this. He knew he did. Levi looked into the burning betrayal in your eyes and knew he deserved this. He would take every verbal blow you threw at him because he knew he deserved it. But he had to explain. He didn’t care. You could hurl whatever you wanted at him, but he wouldn’t leave until he had the chance to explain himself.

Then he would never see you again.

If that’s what you wanted.

“Just calm down, for a minute, please,” you hadn’t heard him beg like that in a very, very long time. Shit, you fucking hated what it did to you. In this position, your wrists held above your head, his arms caging you in, his legs either side of your hips...

The room suddenly felt far too warm.

“What could you possibly have to say to me? I fucking trusted you. You disgusting son-of-a-bitch. I can’t believe I actually thought—“

Levi finally lost his temper.

“What? You thought what? That just because we found each other again we’d play happy families? Grow the fuck up, Raven,” he spat your alias, finally releasing all the fury he’d pent up. He knew this was a mistake. None of this was your fault. He’d been angry with how you’d been treated. Utterly beside himself at Erwin.

And you were taking the fall for it.

“I didn’t lie to you, I didn’t have a fucking choice. If anyone saw me treat you any differently, they would start to question it. They would question why I was showing pity to a criminal. The Raven, no less. And I can’t—”

“Oh I’m sorry, I would hate to ruin your reputation, Captain,” you struck back with just as much venom. Just as much fury.

“Let me finish. I can’t let them get to you anymore than they already have. It was either them or—”

“Because I’m just so import—” you almost cried out as the grip on your wrists tightened, knowing they would leave yet another bruise on your body.

“Let. Me. Finish.” Levi narrowed his eyes, returning the glare you were holding on him and not continuing until you yielded, finally looking away and clamping your mouth shut. “It was either them or me. I could let them continue to beat the shit out of you mercilessly, or I could do it myself. I could try and make it better. I couldn’t fucking watch that shit anymore. I couldn’t fucking stand it. Those filthy bastards laying their dirty hands on you. Hurting you. Shit, you were half dead when I walked in. I was scared you were for a moment. Terrified they were just beating a corpse. But you’re so much stronger than I ever gave you credit for. They never fucking broke you. And they never will. Because if they touch you again, if they fucking look at you, I will go the the ends of the goddamn earth and tear them apart, because I care about you,” Levi hadn’t noticed he was panting. He hadn’t noticed the tears slipping down your cheeks. He didn’t think his self hatred could sink any deeper, but now he’d made you cry silent tears.

Loosening his grip on your wrists, he looked at you as though he’d been responsible for your murder.

“So, it was mercy? That’s what’s considered merciful up here?” you couldn’t really believe it. Twice in two days Levi had spoken more to you than you thought he ever did back when you belonged to each other. You didn’t think you’d ever sounded so small. So vulnerable. “Let me ask you this, Levi. Was it merciful on me, or merciful on you? Because you sure as hell didn’t make things better for me,” despite the quieter volume, your voice was still harsh.

But you had to know.

You wanted nothing more than to pull him in and thread your hands through his hair. To feel his body against yours. For his heartbeat to lull you to sleep. But you had to know whether he did this for you, or himself.

You understood now. You really did. And put in the same situation, you didn’t think you’d do any differently.

“Honestly…? Merciful to me. I couldn't bear it. I tried. I tried so fucking hard. But I couldn’t let them hurt you anymore,” his voice was no louder than a choked, guilt ridden whisper.

That’s all you needed to hear. Slipping your wrists free of his hands, you reached up. Cupping the sides of his face, you brought him down to you, since you couldn’t exactly sit up and go to him.

As soon as your lips returned home to his, you couldn’t stop the few tears from escaping your closed eyes.

Levi’s own eyes widened, and he was suddenly convinced he was dead. Was this actually happening? After everything he’s just done, everything he’s just said.

You forgave him?

When your tongue gently skirted his bottom lip, he decided contemplating forgiveness was something for later. Terrified of hurting you further, he rested his weight on his elbows, finally closing his eyes. He’d wanted this for so long. Since he laid eyes on you for the first time in ten years, he’d wanted nothing more than to envelop your mouth with his own.

With your eyes closed, you didn’t mind when his hand came up to gently caress the apple of your cheek. You didn’t mind when you opened your lips for his tongue to hesitantly slip in and explore your mouth, that slick muscle moving against yours. You didn’t mind when his hand travelled down to cup the side of your neck, tilting your head up to deepen the kiss.

Neither of you wanted to break away, having waited far too long for this moment. You reveled in the groan he emitted down your throat as your left hand found its way to his undercut, gently scratching and caressing in desperation. You hadn’t heard that sound in so long and you instantly craved more.

Levi’s eyes rolled back into his skull behind his closed lids, feeling your hands in his hair. God, he didn’t want to fuck you in a cell, but your hands and tongue were making it difficult for him to control himself.

He was the first to pull back, instantly missing the warmth of your mouth.

“I don’t understand,” he breathed, looking down into your eyes. You could see the swirling confusion in those sterling orbs as they flickered in the low light. You could see the arousal in his dark pupils. Feel it against your inner thigh. You wanted to take him right here and now, but not only did you acknowledge the fact you were literally in a prison cell…

You weren’t sure you were ready. Not yet. Not after everything.

“Levi… if you had done that for my sake, I would have shattered both your kneecaps,” you earned yourself a gentle laugh, his thumb coming up to smooth down your eyebrow. “But you didn’t. I know you feel selfish, and I know you hate yourself for it, but I also know that it was either that, or you beat them to death with that goddamn bat. I know you, Levi. You haven’t changed much yourself,” your left hand came back, softly carding through those ebony bangs.

Levi felt like he could fly. Felt as though you’d returned the wings he’d lost when he thought he’d never see you again.

(Y/N), I want to apolo—”

“Shut the fuck up.”

With that, you stretched up to capture his mouth again, instantly feeling like you’d come back home. You didn’t care about the surge of pain coursing through your abdomen and back. That’s what he was to you.

He was home.

You felt his length twitch in his constraints as both your hands found purchase in his hair, gently tugging at the black strands.

“Fuck…” he breathed into your mouth, his hips bucking involuntarily as you sucked his lower lip between your teeth.

You kept having to consciously remind yourself that you are in fact in a dank, filthy cell. And enveloping him between you increasingly slick folds was wildly inappropriate.

Levi thought it was entirely unfair how you were managing to drag whines and moans from him with nothing but your fingers and teeth. So he decided it was his turn to give something back.

His hand travelled down your body, almost instinctively finding the crease in your thighs. He swallowed his own groan of ecstasy as his knuckles grazed his arousal, opting instead to focus on the way your hips rose to meet the pads of his fingers, gently rubbing your swollen, clothed clit. His circular motions drawing out those small whimpers he’d craved to hear.

“Mmn, L-Levi... ACK, fuck!” your moan of pleasure turned into a small cry of pain as your abs contracted, sending yet another lightning bolt through your system. Levi withdrew his hand immediately, eyes instantly clearing and recognising your signs of discomfort.

“Shit (Y/N), your back,” you felt your heart swell at his concern, though internally cursed yourself.

“‘S’fine,” you insisted, rising up once again to grasp his lips with yours, only to be met with thin air and you ex(?) lover looking down at you.

“No, it’s not. C’mere,” Levi sighed and lifted himself off you, careful not to cause you any further damage. He looked for permission before gently turning you on your side, as if your tongue hadn’t been down his throat less than thirty seconds ago. He cursed his erection, finding himself a little hindered by it as he walked over to the faucet, allowing himself a few moments reprieve before removing the handkerchief from his pocket and running it under the tap.

Though the mirror was cracked, he could still see his slightly swollen lips, distorted against the spider webbing fractures. Could still see the mark you’d left on his face. Shit, he wished for those marks to be left elsewhere. His mind wandered back to the way you used to settle between his thighs, teasing him until you got him to crack. He loved the way you could coerce broken pleas from his throat. Adored the black-blue bites you left on the inside of his thighs, before your warmth enveloped him. Your flexible muscle flicking up and down his sensitive length, running over that prominent vein he hadn’t felt you caress in too long. He missed feeling the vibrations of your chuckle when he begged for you to let him cum. When he felt his balls tighten with release, and yet you denied him still.

But most of all he missed tasting you. He missed the way your arousal freely leaked onto his tongue. He missed the way your hips rose to meet his fingers, that breathy gasp when he found your hidden spot. The begs and cries you made when you wanted him to let you cum. When you whined for his dick to replace his fingers. Fuck, he missed the way your thighs locked his head between them as he brought you to climax with nothing but his tongue flicking over you little, sensitive button. Over, and over, and over again.

“Having trouble?” you grinned from your position on the sorry excuse for a mattress. You’d managed to turn yourself over to watch him, disregarding any agony you felt. You wouldn’t miss this for the world. You wouldn’t miss seeing Levi all riled up and unable to focus simply because of the administrations with your mouth.

“Shut up,” he grumbled, turning the faucet off and ringing out the cloth in the sink. You chuckled at his tone and his predicament, loving every second of it. Though you couldn’t miss the small glint of amusement in his dark eyes. “Oi, turn back ‘round. ‘Need to get to your back,”

“I bet you do,”

“(Y/N)...” he warned, with no real malice in his tone. If this was any other man, you would have lunged at them for taking that tone with you. But this was Levi. Your Levi. You knew he would never hurt you. Not unless absolutely necessary.

Case and point: hitting you with a bat to avoid a murder charge.

Begrudgingly, you tore your eyes from his face, haphazardly twisting on the mattress to face away from him.

“Hm, good girl,” Levi purred, eyes gleaming at the way your thighs clenched in reaction. But any spark of arousal was swiftly extinguished, when your body twitched away from his as he took his seat behind you.

You clenched your eyes shut, hating yourself for the reaction you couldn’t control. You didn’t blame Viper for your now primal fear. You knew he was just teaching you what you needed to know, but he had no fatherly experience, and possibly caused more harm than good.

“‘M’ sorry, it’s not you, I promise. I just—”

“No. No apologising. It’s not your fault,” you nodded, not trusting your voice not to crack if you spoke up now.

Levi thought hard about how he wanted to do this without causing any more reaction from you. Attempting to keep his mind from wandering too far, he tried to understand what made you comfortable enough to bring him onto your mouth. To gently tug on his lower lip. To thread your hands through his hair and--

“I have an idea… (Y/N), watch what I’m doing,” you did as he asked, turning your neck as much as you could to watch the movements of his hand. You tensed as his palm hovered over your side. But when you didn’t feel anything, you unscrewed one tightly shut eye, peering at him curiously.

“(Y/N), can you raise your body for me, just to reach my hand?” this might actually work. Levi had been wracking his brains for a way for you to feel comfortable again with touch.

Hesitantly, you slowly raised your body to meet his fingers, almost freezing as you felt no reaction. You didn’t tense, you didn’t instantly balk under his touch.

You hadn’t cried in years, and yet throughout the course of this long, long night, you had cried twice, the corners of your lashes growing damp as a tear slipped down the side of your face.

Growing increasingly concerned by your lack of response, Levi was about to move his hand from your side, but was immediately stopped by your own fingers covering his.

“Don’t. Stay. Don’t move away,” his heart burned at your broken plea, his worried expression softening in slight relief.

“I won’t. (Y/N), I’m not going to touch you without your permission. Ever. But, if you’re comfortable with it, we can do this. If you’re happy with this,” Levi gently moved his thumb against the fabric of your shirt, caressing your side. Your choked laugh of happy disbelief caused his small smile to broaden ever so slightly.

“Yes. Yes i’m happy with this,” still having trouble believing this was truly happening, you closed your eyes in bliss, allowing a few more tears to escape.

“Okay, I’m going to move your shirt up, alright?” your heart sung at his sincerity, nodding silently once again as you felt the fabric of your shirt bunch up ever so carefully. You loved how he always made you feel so precious. Nothing was precious in the Underground, but somehow he always made you feel worth diamonds and gold. You’d forgotten what that was like, until the damp cloth once again soothed your aching welts, chasing away the throbs of pain.

Those spears of guilt once again plunged into Levi’s heart as he saw what they had done to you. What he’d done to you. You were always so forgiving when it came to him. You always have been. He could lock himself in his room for days, not speak to you for hours on end and you would always be there to hold him when the pressure finally cracked. Always there to soothe him when he opened up after long weeks of isolation. When those memories of his mother dragged up again. When the day Kenny left forced him to hide away until he couldn’t take it anymore.

You always forgave him.

And could always sense what he was thinking.

He came back to the present when your hand squeezed his, as if you knew where his mind had taken him.

“It’s okay, Levi,” your soft reassurance broke his heart.

“I should be saying that to you,”

“Go on then,” you retorted, not even trying to hide the mischief in your voice

Levi chuckled, moving his hand from under yours to stroke your hair.

“It’s okay, (Y/N),”

“I feel thoroughly reassured,”

“Tch, shut up brat,” god, at this point your heart could have been a choir. Singing once again at the soft amusement gently lacing his tone. But you internally cringed as fingers threaded through your grimy hair, reaching up to move it away.

“Levi, don’t. It’s fucking filthy,”

“So’s your face but I recall sucking on it a few moments ago,”

“Levi!” you couldn’t believe he’d just said that. He was never one to make such jokes. But you couldn’t deny you loved it. Loved his low, breathy laugh at your indignant call of his name.

“What? Am I wrong?” you couldn’t see his slightly cheeky smirk behind you. Or the way one brow raised in feigned curiosity.

“Well no, but—”

“Didn’t think so.”

“God you’re insufferable. Anyone would think you’re— OW!” you turned to look back at him in mock anger. He didn’t actually hurt you, and by looking at your swiftly disintegrating expresion, Levi was able to decipher you were just fucking with him. Rolling his eyes, he continued his administration with the cloth, watching fondly as you settled back down.

You only spoke again when that hand in your hair started moving.

“Levi, seriously, it’s gross. Just focus on my back,” when he didn’t reply, you once again twisted back to look at him, unable to decipher the expression on his face.

“Stay here,”

“Like I’m in any condition to move, asshole,”

“Tch, don’t be difficult. I’ll be back in a minute,” with a final caress of your head, Levi chucked the cloth back into the sink before standing to his feet. You were a bit of a sorry sight, lying on your side, shirt ridden up to reveal your bruised, still bloodied back. He’d managed to gently scrub off most of the crimson staining your skin, but he wanted to provide you with just a little more comfort, if he could.

You didn’t even try to escape when he left the door open. Too tired to move. Your limbs felt like lead everytime you attempted to shift, exhaustion clinging to your bones like shackles. You didn’t know how long you waited, but you felt yourself start to drift in and out of consciousness, unable to help yourself marvel at how easy it would be to slip into a deep sleep. Your mind was far too heavy to sift through the lake of emotions you’d found yourself submerged in. Just as you were about to succumb to the call of rest, your faultless alert system brought you back to consciousness, adrenaline injected into your veins as you shot upright at the sound of footsteps.

“Calm down, it’s just me,” your brittle nerves settled at the sound of his calming voice, heart leaping when you saw what he carried in his arms.

Levi had brought everything he thought he would need. A small metal basin containing a small flannel, a wash-cloth, a small cup, the shower soap and hair conditioner from his own quarters and a large towel to spare the mattress of the water. Kicking the cell door almost closed with his foot, Levi crossed to the sink once again, setting out the contents on the cracked porcelain before filling the basin.

He left the faucet running, turning back to you with the town folded on his arm.

“Gonna need you to move if we want to set this down,” you raised a suggestive eyebrow, mouth pulling into a small smirk. Levi rolled his eyes. “Not like that, brat. Unless you want to sleep on a damp mattress. It’s up to you, really,” the amused spark in his eye betrayed his neutral, blank face as you gently shimmied down the bed, making a space for him to set the towel down.

You watched as he removed his jacket, mouth watering ever so slightly as his shirt clung to his back, unable to tear your eyes away from the movement of his muscles. They had certainly developed well.

“Oi, stop ogling,” he smirked to you over his shoulder, earning a sly grin from you in response.

“Can’t help it,” you chimed, eyes flicking to his forearms as he rolled up his sleeves. Fuck, if only you weren’t in a jail cell. Or utterly filthy. Or just not ready for that yet.

If only you didn’t have a thousand things stopping you from pushing him against the wall and engulfing his cock in down your throat.

But for now, you just had to settle with undressing and fucking him with your eyes. Something that clearly didn’t go unnoticed, if the way he writhed slightly under your pinning gaze was anything to go by.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Levi tried to steer his thoughts away from his length stiffening once again. Fuck, the way you were staring at him, he was starting to feel hot beneath his shirt, despite the naturally cool temperature of the room. Your heated chuckle only fueled the flames.

“Aw, why? Are you hard?” you teased, raking your eyes up and down his figure, lingering on the small tent in his crotch. You shifted slightly, almost groaning as the mattress below you rubbed against your swollen folds.

“Tch, obviously. And I’m not going to deal with it in this filthy prison cell, so don’t make it worse brat,” Levi marvelled at your laugh. A proper, head thrown back laugh. He couldn’t stop the fond smile spreading across his face at the sight.

“Alright alright, I’ll stop eye-fuckinig you,” you managed to say, after regaining some sort of composure.

“You’re filthy,”

“Isn’t that why you’re about to bathe me?” you tilted your head slightly, watching him lift the basin from the sink after turning off the faucet. He didn’t deem your comment worthy of a response, opting instead to look back at you with a blank, deadpan expression. Tucking everything else under his arm, Levi returned back to your side. He thought for a moment about how he wanted to do this before, wedging the water basin between his legs.

“Lie back, place your head on my lap. Gonna’ wash your hair,” he instructed, busying himself with getting the small, brown bottle of hair soap. But he paused upon sensing your hesitation. Looking back to you, he searched your face, before slowly bringing his hand up.

You shied away, closing your eyes instinctively, almost bracing yourself for the contact that never came.

“Hey, not gonna touch you without permission, remember?” you opened your eyes to see his hand hovering next to your cheek. He was waiting for your next move, and you could see the slight hopeful spark in his eye.

So slowly, you tilted your head enough to gently nuzzle into his palm, your own hand coming up to keep him against your face.

Levi smoothed the skin under your eye with his thumb, trying his damndest not to let any tears well up in his eyes.

Unbeknownst to him, you were attempting to do the same. Not wanting him to see you cry for the third goddamn time tonight. But it became impossible when he said something you didn’t know you needed to hear.

“I missed you so much, firefly,” your breath hitched in your throat at the old nickname. He’d only ever use it in the softest moments in the Underground. Stroking your hair whilst lying in his bed. Staying up and keeping you company when you’d shoot awake from a nightmare. He was never one for nicknames, so one day when he, out of the blue, called you his firefly;

you’d almost cried.

Your eyes widened, hand gently squeezing his own to ground yourself. You let out something halfway between a laugh and a sob.

“I missed you too. So, so much,” you hardly had to move forward before your face was nestled in the crook of his neck, his arms slowly tucking you against his body. “I missed you so much,” you whispered again.

Levi didn’t think he’d ever been this happy, at least not for a long, long time. Ecstatic you felt comfortable enough to let him hold you. Though he was usually so good at keeping his feelings to himself, so much had happened over the last week, he felt the walls to his emotional dam cracking ever so slightly, a few tears lining his closed eyes. He could feel the collar of his shirt dampen as you shed silent tears, his thumb rubbing small circles against your back.

Levi held you like this for what felt like hours. Content to just be in each other’s arms once again. In reality, it had only been a few minutes before he gently shifted you so the back of your head rested against his lap.

“Never known you to be such a cry-baby,” he lightly teased, gathering what he could of your hair and soaking it within the basin still wedged between his knees.

“I’m not. I haven’t cried in years. Literally. Probably since Viper’s—” you stopped yourself, not expecting the casual statement to hurt quite as much as it did. “Viper’s death,” you finished quietly, eyes avoiding any direct contact with his own.

Levi took note of your tone change, reaching for the hair soap. He was only vaguely aware of the relationship between you and the old Nest leader. Finding out through those vile MPs.

“Want to talk about it?” The tone of his question matched yours as he lathered the gel into your now cleaner locks to make sure the grime and grease was properly dealt with.

“Honestly? Not yet. Maybe not ever. I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to anyone about it. Not even Prongs, or Wolf, and they were his Shadows before mine,” you fell silent for a moment, before looking back to him. “How did you do it? How did you just… leave everything behind?”

Levi sighed at the innocence of your question. The raw guilt he knew you were feeling. Knowing you were up here, safe, warm, comfortable, whilst so many people down there were still suffering. Still dying from easily preventable illnesses.

“I didn’t. Not really. I still find myself thinking back to those poor sods down there. But I couldn’t think about it for too long, because I would find myself thinking back to you,” his hand stroked the top of your now damp forehead, smoothing down the wet locks of your hair.

The basin sloshed slightly as you nodded, disheartened by the fact that this feeling of suffocating guilt would probably never leave you. Levi saw this in your face. He saw the exact same swirl of emotions he felt when he knew he would never return.

But you’d left behind so much more than he did. You had a trusted group. A family who would only know what happened to you through the words of that young girl.

“They’ll be safe, (Y/N). He may be an asshole sometimes, but I trust Erwin. He wouldn’t break his word,” running his hands through your soaked hair, Levi gently teased the knots out with his fingers, easily gliding through the now freed strands.

His reassurance calmed your worries. Levi hardly trusted anyone, you only ever knew him to trust Isobel, Farlan and yourself. This Erwin guy must have really made an impression.

Reaching back to the small flannel he’d brought down with him, he began drying your hair, setting the basin to one side. You didn’t think you’d ever felt this pampered. This well looked after. You thought you could certainly get used to it. Returning your thoughts to the conversation, you exhaled a sigh.

“Yeah, I know. It’s just… My job was to take care of them. My job was to stop something like this from happening. Our entire operation was compromised because my shitty partner couldn’t get over some grudge she had against a boy she’d never met,” you poked his chest as he rolled his eyes, looking down at you with a brow raised.

“So it’s my fault?”

“I didn’t say that,”

“You implied it,”

“Oh don’t be so sensitive,”

“I wasn’t the one who cheated,”

You almost sat bolt upright at that, if it weren’t for him anticipating the movement. What did he mean ‘cheat’? You didn’t cheat. You would never cheat. Loyalty ran through your veins like blood, and if you weren’t so incredulous you would have spotted the smallest hint of mischief in his steely eyes.

“Wh— Cheat? I didn’t cheat. What makes you think that?” your genuine concern broke his heart, and he almost felt bad for teasing you like this.

Almost.

Taking your face in both his hands, Levi failed to suppress the fugitive smirk on his face.

“We technically never broke up, brat,” you breathed a sigh of relief, before turning back to scowl at him, tempted to lightly smack the back of his head.

“Don’t fucking scare me like that, asshole,” your scowl held no heat, too relieved that he was just being pedantic rather than actually implying you would ever be disloyal. But your glare melted away at the rumble of a chuckle emitting from his chest. You rolled your eyes, trying your best to feign annoyance and failing miserably.  

Removing the small towel from your now damp hair, Levi deemed it dry enough for you to sleep on without catching a cold.

“There. Think you can do the rest yourself? I don’t wanna… make you uncomfortable or anything,” it was your turn for your heart to break, his consideration for your comfort and wellbeing always seemed to be his top priority. You took his hand in yours, gently stroking your thumb over his knuckles.

“You’ve done more than enough,” earnest gratitude swam in your eyes and it was all Levi could do not to stoop down and kiss you.

Instead, he stayed put for a little while longer, stealing all the seconds he could. He’d realised, with you joining the Survey Corps, you two wouldn’t be able to do this anymore. The company you’d both enjoyed for the past week would be ripped away by expeditions, training and paperwork.

So he greedily took as much time as the two of you could spare, before you would inevitably have to part ways.

“I have to go, (Y/N),” Levi whispered, although every part of him was longing to stay, especially when your face slowly fell in realisation.

“I know,” you tried to mask your melancholy with a gentle smile, but your voice betrayed you, breaking slightly as you spoke. Neither of you wanted to be the one to move. Neither of you wanted to be the first to burst the protective bubble of familiarity you both knew you wouldn’t feel again for a long, long time.

But to save him from doing it himself, you were the one to shift, allowing him to rise from the bed.

“I’ll uh, leave all this here and collect it early in the morning,” Levi shifted slightly awkwardly on his feet, running a hand through his hair. You nodded, adjusting yourself carefully. Your midsection didn’t hurt as much, more of an echoing throb, but you were still cautious nonetheless.

“Right, yeah. Probably a good idea, before anyone sees,” you shrugged, avoiding having to look at his face. You knew it would break both of you if you’d asked whether there was any chance of him staying.

Just for a little while longer.

“I’ll see you soon… Raven,” you felt your soul crack as he replaced your name with your alias. You knew it was right. You knew it was for the best. But that wouldn’t stop every fiber of your being shattering.

Levi hated how you said nothing as he turned to leave. He pretended not to notice your heartbreak as he deliberately called you Raven. He suppressed the urge to pick you up and take you with him. To carry you to his bed and cage you in his arms as you both fell asleep in each other’s embrace.

He didn’t know your prolonged silence was because you were gathering your courage. Silently arguing with yourself over what was right and what was wrong until you stopped him by calling his name.

“Levi…” There was no turning back now. You took a breath, finally raising your eyes to meet his now on the other side of the bars. “I—” love you.

You immediately stopped yourself, finding those three words caught in your throat. You couldn’t say them. Shit, you couldn’t say them.

You were a coward.

“Thank you,”

Levi stayed searching your face. He knew. He knew that wasn’t what you wanted to say. Because that wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He let loose a breath he didn’t know he was holding, giving you one last look of badly masked longing, before turning away.

“Training starts tomorrow,” though the words themselves were cold, his tone was laced with mourning as his footsteps echoed out of earshot, leaving you completely and utterly alone.

Levi had managed all but three steps into the hallway before his name was called by an irritatingly familiar voice.

“Ah, Levi. Good. My office. Now, if you’re not busy,” Erwin had a way of saying ‘if you’re not busy’ that sounded like he was really saying ‘there is absolutely no debate in this, you could be bleeding out and missing an arm and I would still expect you in my office within the next five minutes’. Levi knew he didn’t exactly have a choice.

“Sure. Let me make some tea and I’ll be right there,” he knew he’d made a mistake. The look in Erwin’s cerulean eyes told him that the tall blonde had figured something out. Something dangerous that could compromise his relationship with you.

Actually, he’d probably figured out he had a relationship with you.

Shit…

He was in so much trouble.

[uniquevocashark]

A Good Servant Part 4

Content warnings:

Graphic depictions of gore, blood, smoking, lady dimitrescu washes the readers mouth out with soap and a horse brush so watch out for that, mentions of taxidermy, mentions of meat preparation (skinning), mentions of murder, aftermath of murder

“How dare I?” Lady Dimitrescu said, then her face split open in a wide smile and she threw her head back and laughed. It was light and hysterical, and she covered her mouth softly with one hand. Her bedroom was lit only with candlelight, her pet cowering on the other side of the room by her bed.

You glared at her and she met your eyes gleefully, striding over and grabbing your face in one hand. She squeezed your jaw and forced your mouth open, then rubbed your teeth through your cheeks. You grabbed her wrist and dug your nails in, but she didn’t so much as flinch, smiling at you with all the grace of a lion with an antelope in its mouth.

“Pet,” She called, and you glared, “Go fetch some soap and water, separate bucket for each.”

You glimpsed at her, at her smirk and her pose, the way it accentuated her perfect posture and the perfect way her hair fell and curled. The sleek stitch work of her hat, her cream dress, the strokes of her makeup brush that painted her white. Perfect, down to the last cell.

Lady Dimitrescu walked with you struggling against her, dragging your feet over the well-polished floor and well-appointed carpet to her bed. She sat down and pulled you forward with a quick yank, forcing your stomach against her knee. She reached over you to her bedside table, where she kept a specially designed toothbrush for her horse, Matthias.

“This is such a lovely little knick-knack,” She said pleasantly, twisting the dark wooden brush to catch the light, “It’s a shame I barely use it, don’t you agree?”

You grabbed her wrist in both hands and clawed and, though she swayed slightly, she manhandled you right back where she wanted you with ease. You grunted and she tapped your lips with the brush.

“Now, now, Wesker, no need to act an animal,” Her pet came back with a bucket of soap and a bucket of water, “Excellent choice, pet.”

Last year Lady Dimitrescu had taken to the scent of vanilla, and the smell was thick and syrupy the moment it was set down near you. She used a soft soap that gouged, somewhere between sloid and liquid, and pungent enough to drown your nose already. She scooped some onto her fingers, smiling, then looked at you with a grin crawling up her cheeks. “Try not to swallow.”

You took a quick breath, and she shoved her fingers into your mouth. The soap taste was unbearable, and she took obvious pleasure while she rubbed the soap onto your tongue. The taste filled your mouth, your nose, and no matter how hard you bit her hand she never wavered. She hummed a pleasant tune, tapping her feet beneath you while you struggled against her. When Lady Dimitrescu pulled away to grab the brush, you pulled in a breath and gagged.

She looked down at you, trapped against her and gasping between your violent gags, and smiled.

She tapped your cheek with the brush, and you flinched away from it.

“What a shame,” Lady Dimitrescu mused and tilted your chin up to watch the soap foam drip down your chin. She smiled slowly, her eyes widened softly, and she pushed the brush into your mouth. She scrubbed your teeth harshly, then your gums, your tongue and as far down your throat as she could push you before you were clawing desperately at her hand. She scrapped the brush against the inside of your mouth until you bled, until you had clawed holes in the skirt of her dress, until tears rolled down your face flatly and all you could smell, or taste was iron and rosemary.

By the time she had deemed your mouth clean, suds and spit covered your chin and her skirt. She released your jaw and let you sink to the floor and pushed the bucket of water over to you with her foot.

“All this, because you can’t listen,” She mused, taking her quellazaire from her pet. She turned to the tongueless woman and said, “Inside the bathroom, pet.”

You spat out a mouthful of blood and bristles, your hand shaking, running your tongue over your teeth and finding a few loose. Lady Dimitrescu was never gentle with her punishments to her staff, only her daughters were ever treated gently. She had told you not to cuss once before, in passing.

You wiped the spit off your chin and threw it into the bucket, your hands shaking, and your breath laboured. Rosemary tinted your every breath in when you heard the bathroom door shut.

“I would do that to Mother Miranda,” She said wistfully, relighting her cigarette, “if I could get away with it.”

“She’d kill you,” You choked out, coughing up a chunk of soap, “Speaking to her might help.”

“Mother Miranda doesn’t listen to me,” Lady Dimitrescu took a drag from her cigarette, “not anymore, at least.” She smiled at you, small and bitter, then turned her attention to the bathroom door and frowned.

You stared at her, and the bloody bristles covering your palm. “I know she doesn’t.”

“She speaks to you, a human—”

“Not a human.”

“A mortal,” She corrected absently, moving your chin towards her with the tip of her shoe, “is told over me. Does that seem… fair to you?”

You didn’t answer and she tilted her head as she took another drag from her quellazaire. Then she laughed, soft hiccup like chuckles more bitter than the taste in your mouth, smoke leaking from her ruby red lips.

“I’m obsolete.” She said, turning her eyes to the ceiling and then she laughed again.

“You are not,” You said, the words spilling blood from your mouth onto her shoe, “You have some uses.”

“Oh, thank you for the assessment,” Alcina crooned sarcastically, “It is ever so helpful.”

“I’m not good at this. And you scrubbed my mouth out with a horse brush.”

She pushed the tip of her shoe into your neck, just above the skin that hid your oesophagus. Her golden eyes glowed, “And you were just commenting on my daring, were you not?”

You glowered, then lowered your eyes to your murky reflection. “Yes, Madame.”

“By all means,” Lady Dimitrescu said, flicking ash onto the floor, “Speak.”

You picked up the still glowing end of her cigarette with a handkerchief and spat a glob of blood to smother it with. It was too late, predictably. The carpet was already ruined, “You are a hypocrite.”

“Hm? Did I not scrub hard enough?”

You pulled another bristle out from between your teeth.

“You never told me you had children.”

You dabbed the inside of your cheek with another handkerchief, pulling out a loose tooth as you did so. “I only had one.”

“You lied to me.”

You looked at her and shrugged, “I lie about a lot more than that.”

“Yes,” Her fingers tightened around her quellazaire, “I am aware of that.”

You looked away, into the bucket, then at the door. “It isn’t any of your business.”

"The lives of all my staff are my business."

“But I am not just yours.”

She leaned back a little, cocking her head to the side and smiling, “Yet.”

You glimpsed at her, at her smirk and her pose, the way it accentuated her perfect posture and the perfect way her hair fell and curled. The sleek stitchwork of her hat, her cream dress, the strokes of her makeup brush that painted her white. Perfect, down to the last cell.

“I know plenty about you,” She said, “A Frenchmen, a biologist, a test subject.”

“Easy things to learn from a file.”

“You hate the smell of brandy,” She continued in a dreamy sort of tone, “and acorns, whatever those are. You hate kidney beans and men who smoke. But you like cooking and you like me.”

You wobbled to your feet and took a few shaky steps away from her. She watched you and the blood that dripped down your chin with razor focus.

“I will likely be leaving.” You said, though it was much quieter than you would have preferred.

Lady Dimitrescu saw through your basic attempt and hummed, the sound reverberating through your bones. Then, mockingly, “Oh, are you afraid of dying?”

You looked at the draping on her bed, “You aren’t?”

“I am immortal,” She said, taking a drag from her cigarette then cocked her head, “Get out.”

…

You didn’t sleep that night.

So, after a few hours of soothing the pain in your mouth, you redressed and went into the kitchen. Alex was there, skinning whatever the Lady had deemed to her palate, so you moved to help with the vegetables. You didn’t speak for three hours, not until the prep work was done and the silverware was shining bright enough to blind.

You nodded as the other kitchen staff entered, “Ensure everything is perfect.”

And then you went to start your day.

You put your room to rights, cleaned the table, fixed the bedding and refolded any loose clothing. Then you moved into the dorm rooms for the other maids and roused them up fifteen minutes before six. You cleaned away the last remains of the five that had been eaten last night and dictated tasks down to the rest. Once the dorms had been cleaned to standard, and new bedding was placed on the once used beds, you moved to meet Mihaela at twenty past six and handed off the schedule for Lady Dimitrescu’s morning before Vanessa arrived.

Afterwards you sought out the three Dimitrescu daughters, who slept until half past seven before they deigned to rise. They kept their rooms warm as melted butter, with enough blankets to burn the scales off a rattlesnake, and you took a breath before entering. They were, as ever, aggressive but for Daniela who practically jumped into your arms. She smiled her wide smile and, after a little prompting, began talking excitedly about the necklaces she had made using your teeth.

You brushed their hair, first Daniela, then a yawning Bela and finally Cassandra who flopped half off the bed and snored while you fixed her hair. Once they were dressed, and their necklaces comfortably on their necks, you opened the doors and had breakfast brought in. The ate the dog meat with friendly chatter and warm tea. They weren’t as picky as their mother, nor as reliant on human flesh, and enjoyed tasting different meats when the opportunity presented itself.

But always you knew that they would bounce back onto human flesh. Such was their nature.

You took extra time to clean up their room as quickly and quietly as possible while they talked amongst themselves. Cassandra had disappeared immediately after breakfast, as she always did before you were finished cleaning and never returning until well after dinner. She was, as the other maids had told you, doing something in the opera hall and had barred all entrance into it while she was working.

Lady Dimitrescu always came to say good morning to her children, just after she had finished balancing her accounts and fielding any emergency phone calls. They calmed her considerably, and they talked while you cleaned around them in a flurry of movement. You did catch her eye one time, just as she was leaving, and she smiled at you with more mania than you had seen from her in a while.

At twenty-three past eleven, you went to clean the lower bedroom that Lady Dimitrescu worked in and found her pet hanging on the hooks with her chest broken open. Her ribs had been removed and you could clearly see her lungs inflating and deflating while she noisily took in breath. She would not live another minute, not with the glaze in her eyes as she reacted to your footsteps, especially not with the flies that buzzed out of your skirts and onto her neck. You watched her breath once and then turned your attention to the mess that was Lady Dimitrescu’s desk.

She had small roses made of glass, stuffed rodents that Daniela had made for her, flowers that Cassandra picked for her each morning from her private garden and small statues made of clay that Bela had made for her. And all of it was covered in blood which you would need to scrub and bleach from it all.

“At least you don’t have to deal with this.” You said to the hanging corpse and got to work.

When Vanessa did finally arrive, at one in the afternoon, you had been so thoroughly distracted by your work that you had run your fingers until they were bright red and throbbing. Lady Dimitrescu had watched you from her couch, tilting her head this way and that with feline laziness to track your every move.

Vanessa took tea with Lady Dimitrescu when she arrived, drinking the blood infused blend with a brave face and healthy smile. She always did have a stunning smile, matching to the Lady’s that you now worked under. The business they discussed, and discuss they did, loudly and bordering on obnoxious, was you. And Lady Dimitrescu twisted it into your past with almost reverent ease.

She was always too good at getting information from people.

“Cryogenically frozen?” Lady Dimitrescu asked, her smile stretching a tad too wide, “My, my. I had no idea.”

Vanessa smiled, and you could see the ticking of her brain as she tried to worm her way out of the current conversation, “Yes, it’s a fascinating process.”

“That sounds like quite the ordeal.” Lady Dimitrescu leaned forward, resting her head on her chin and you dug your nails into the platter you were holding.

“It was,” Vanessa said, “There are so many components that can go wrong.”

“Do tell.”

And so, it went on and on and on for two hours. By three in the afternoon, Lady Dimitrescu had weaseled herself into your personal life with as much finesse and subtlety as a charging rhinoceros, not that either you or Vanessa could divert her interest away from the topic. So when she left for work, brushing her hand under your chin as she went.

You watched her go for a moment too long, before Vanessa threw her arm around your shoulders and kissed your cheek.

“That is quite enough.” You said and shook her off.

Vanessa laughed and you went over to the dirty table and began stacking the dishes away. “Oh, come now, I haven’t seen you in twenty years!”

“That was on purpose.”

She sat back down while you cleaned, tossing her dark hair so that it caught the light brilliantly. She didn’t wear perfume, which made the room seem empty now that Lady Dimitrescu had left, and she seemed cold compared to the Lady. “Are you still mad at me?”

“I hope you’re quite finished.”

“You talk like that giant bioweapon.”

“She is,” You said severely, picking up the full tray and wiping down the table, “by definition, not a bioweapon.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Be more precise with your language.”

“Now you’re nit-picking.”

“Please, stop talking.” She smiled gently and you relented. “Fine. I missed you.”

Vanessa threw her arm around your shoulders again and gave you another kiss on the cheek. Daniela appeared before you and placed her sickle against Vanessa’s temple.

She scrunched her nose and her tone was soft and confused, “Why are you touching our things?”

[skellebonez]

i have been laughing for like an hour at that one post about Macaque with hiccups so. what if like. drabble about that with idk prompts number 9 and 72 i guess???

Anon, you have NO IDEA how much I loved this post by @animemoonprincess , I have been wanting to write something using this idea for so long. I just wanted to write silly goofy "Mac can't control his powers when he has hiccups" fic for a while and this was so much fun!

How long have you been standing there?/Don’t you dare.

"And... how long as this been going on?" Pigsy asked, torn between shaking his head in disbelief and worry and holding back laughter at the sight before him. He honestly felt kinda bad for wanting to laugh, but after all the stunts the immortal monkey had put himself and his friends through... he allowed himself a few chuckles.

"Three-hic-HOURS!" Macaque snapped, laying flat on his chest and gripping the sides of the table in front of him with a scowl. "I can't take i-hic-it anymore, you have to have some-hic-thing to make them STOP!"

Each hiccup made Macaque's tail bristle and fluff up, as if each one startled him, and made his glamor glitch awkwardly. If that was the best way to put it.

"Mac, you look miserable," Mei said, holding back her own laughter as she looked up something on her phone.

"I am," he said, uncharacteristic honest for the moment... but then again, it wasn't like he could hide this fact.

"Don't I know that feeling," MK offered in solidarity, patting the immortal monkey on the back and wincing when another stronger hiccup made Macaque jump.

They had all wondered why he was wearing a cloak and avoiding them for the last hour when he finally showed his face, only hearing the hiccups coming from him and seeing the way he jumped ever so slightly with them. He'd stayed as close to light as much as he could, very unusual for himself, and tried to just go about what his initial mission was (which was apparently getting some ice water in the hopes it would help alleviate his symptoms).

And then he has hiccuped just a little too hard at the wrong moment and managed to fall through Sandy's shadow and into the lower levels of the drone ship.

To say they were all grateful the ship wasn't flying at the moment and that he was on the upper level was an understatement... even if he would have survived the fall. Being immortal the way he was.

Right now he was in the ship's kitchen with the rest of their little group (minus Wukong who had seemingly vanished to... wherever it was he liked to hide), gripping the table as stated before to presumably not fall through a misplaced shadow again in the overly brought room, and looking... well...

He was blue. Literally, his hair had turned blue. Then he hiccuped and it became an odd shade that looked like his own mixed with stripes of Wukong's hair color. His eye that had a glamor over it changed color every other hiccup as well, and so did the color of his outfit (though he didn't normally have a glamor over that he couldn't control what glamors were put up or taken down it seemed).

The next hiccup was followed by a soft whimper of frustration as his two ears became six before their eyes. And that... made Pigsy pause.

"Does this hurt you?" Sandy took the initiative to ask, raising an eyebrow of concern.

Whatever laugher was about to bubble up from the group surrounding Macaque paused instantly once he brought up the possibility. MK in particular paused, a look of realization and slight guilt dawning on his face.

"No..." Macaque started slowly, seeming to think over his next words carefully before he sighed in defeat and face planted into the table. "But -hic-... it is very -hic- uncomfortable," the other admitted after, his ears changing color from completely normal to a rainbow on either side. "Imagine feeling the -hic- chest spasms but in what-hic-ever part of your body changes. And it's -hic- really tiring to have my -hic- powers activate like this."

Well... that was actually moderately concerning. Not dangerous sounding, exactly, but Pigsy could imagine how much this was affecting the other when the last hiccup made whatever glamor over the dark circles under his eyes fade away. They all knew that Macaque was hardly sleeping but this...

"Well," Mei said cheerily, jumping up from her seat and waving her phone. "I have a few idea on how we can get rid of these that are less dangerous than finding a rare flower that blooms under very specific circumstances. What have you tried already?"

~

To say they had been unsuccessful was an understement. They’d tried nearly everything they could think of.

Macaque had tried holding his breathe again, breathing exercises, drinking the ice water he had left his room to get. Sandy had suggested compressing his chest with his knees, but that hadn't worked either. Pigsy had brought him some ice to chew on with much the same result.

Mei's idea of eating a lemon slice or swallowing a spoonful of sugar, while creative, were even less well received when they did not work. There were other methods she found online that she immediately vetoed, no one wanted to anger the immortal by attempting to tickle them away (not after his snarled "Don’t you dare.")

MK's attempt at scaring them away was... laughable. Literally, instead of scaring Macaque the young man just sent him into a fit of laughter that only seemed to make him both even more exhausted and grateful for the short bit of amusement.

"Well now what?" Tang asked, checking off each attempt on a sheet of paper. "We've tried almost everything."

Macaque hiccuped again, groaning in exhaustion and covering one of his eyes with his cloak hood up to hide... whatever was on his face he didn't want anyone to see. No one said anything about it, the sight of the other making them just feel too bad for him to push the issue for the moment.

"Maybe if I pass out from -hic- exhaustion they'll stop," he almost slurred, leaning even harder against the table. He had been dealing with this for 4 hours with little to no relief sight. He looked awful. "Just let me pass -hic- out."

"No way!" Pigsy said firmly, helping Mei look up more cures on her phone. "What if they don't stop? You could fall through the floor again and we are not having-!"

Pigsy never got to finish that sentence because one second Macaque was alone at the table looking miserable.

The next Wukong was standing behind him and jabbed two of his fingers on either side of his neck.

"WHAT THE HELL!?" Macaque snapped after a yell of pain, breathing heavy as he clutched his chest and glowered at the Monkey King. "How long have you been standing there, Wukong!?"

"Only long enough to know that all of you didn't see me," Wukong said with a smirk, gesturing with his hand to the other immortal. "Hmn... sounds... awful quiet now... don't you think?"

Macaque paused, a look of confusion crossing his face before he realized... he wasn't hiccuping anymore. He stayed quiet for a moment, everyone did...

And no sound came aside from everyone's breathing.

"That actually worked!" MK shouted in relief, moving to hug Macaque in his excitement before realizing who he was hugging and letting go with an awkward chuckle.

"I know it's been centuries," Wukong said, face softening with a sad smile as his words continued. "But I remembered that worked for you... back then. You could have asked me for help, Mango."

"... yeah... thanks, Peaches," Macaque said slowly, looking at him with an almost suspicious gaze for a moment before he frowned oddly and stood to wander off. "I'm... going back to bed."

The group watched Macaque make his way to the hallway, movements slow and sluggish from his odd endeavor.

"Sleep well!" Mei suddenly shouted after him. "You deserve some rest after that!"

He paused just long enough to nod before heading on his way.

"You gonna explain any of that, Peaches?" Pigsy asked, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow. "The heck did you do anyway?"

"Compressed his wind pipe and scared him half to death," Wukong answered with a shrug. "It was the only thing that worked when we were... friends. And no, I don't want to explain. Not until he wants to."

No one said anything to that, just nodded in silent agreement.

When Macaque woke up the glamors were back up and where they used to be... except, Pigsy noted, whatever had originally been concealing the dark circles under his eyes.

He also noted how when Mei asked how he sleept he sounded more honest than he had since joining them.

[ppersonna]

tempestuous - kth | m

tem·pes·tu·ous - adjective - characterized by strong and turbulent or conflicting emotion

↳ summary- There’s no one who riles you up more than Kim Taehyung, your best friend’s brother.  He knows exactly how to make you fly off the handle.

↳ rating- explicit / 18+

↳ word count- 6.8k

↳ pairing- taehyung x reader

↳ genre- smut, minor angst i guess in the form of fighting, this is one big pile of smut, there’s some fluff too

↳ warnings- yikes where to begin.  angry sex, penetrative sex, unprotected sex (don’t be like dis), slapping, spanking, pain kink, dom/sub elements, facefucking, really rough sex, finger sucking, derogatory names, uhhh name calling, hate sex, tae is fuckin nasty yall im thriving

↳ a/n- I HAD TO REUPLOAD bc tumblr sucks lol well folks. here we are.  i was given a prompt by @ladyartemesia​ so i blame her.  as for tae, he really came for me this week and completely wrecked me, love that for me. i really popped off here and it’s only edited by me so i’m SORRY if there’s a lot of mistakes.  fun fact i actually wrote almost 10k of another version of this but it frustrated me so badly i scrapped it lmao  🤡 HERE WE GO! Enjoy!  feel free to send in your requests and i promise to try and get it done for you! 

Kim Taehyung could only be described in a few words.

Infuriating, bothersome, vexing.

Gorgeous, breathtaking, suave.

Absolutely, inherently maddening.

And you hate how much you absolutely melt underneath his gaze, the way your heart leaps into your throat with a single word.  Your body, the ultimate betrayer, opens up to him as your brain screams to abort, reverse, go back to start and do not pass go.

Kim Taehyung is not just the bane of your existence, no.  He’s the little brother of your best friend, Kim Namjoon.   Joonie had been in your life since you were in first grade and he in second.  Taehyung was your age, but you hit it off with the older boy and haven’t separated since.  Your mothers joked that you would get married one day and continue on the Kim line.  Until they found out that Namjoon was 1) bisexual and 2) hopelessly in love with, ironically, a man named Kim Seokjin.   He reasoned to his parents that they would at least carry on the Kim name.  

Where Namjoon was sweet, caring, and deeply compassionate towards you, Taehyung was his alter.  Taehyung was brash, cocky and relished in watching you squirm, whether it be out of fury or the god forsaken sexual tension.  All growing up, he was the one to pull your pigtails, trip you into puddles of mud, and tease you in front of your friends. Namjoon, ever the faithful companion, was always there to pick up the pieces of what Taehyung broke.

It’s been that way with Taehyung ever since. A constant tug of war with each other, both unwilling to give a single inch to the opponent.  

Your relationship with Namjoon remained steadfast as ever.  Namjoon eventually moved in with his now-husband, Seokjin, who easily settled into your life as an additional partner in crime.  You spent most of your days and nights settled into the couch, snuggled somehow in between or next to one of the two men you cherished most.  You had the two best friends you could ask for and a happy life, blissfully Taehyung-free.

Until it wasn’t.

A loud knock wakes you from an unexpected nap on Namjoon’s couch.  Your eyes crack open against the glare of the sunlight streaming through the windows.  It takes a moment to gather your surroundings.  You recognize that you’re in Namjoon and Seokjin’s apartment, and judging by the silence, you’re definitely alone there.  As you reach for your phone, the screen lights up the time.  5:34 pm.  Well, shit. You remember eating brunch and drinking mimosas at noon with your best friends and then lying on the couch to watch Netflix.  How had you fallen asleep for five hours?  How did you not wake? What the fuck did Jin put in his mimosas?

The knock is insistent again, louder this time.

“Joon! Jin! it’s me! Open up!”

The voice sounds familiar in your sleep-addled mind, but not quite enough to pinpoint it.   You push your limp body off the couch and wince at the feeling of sore muscles.  Couch sleeping isn’t all it’s cracked up to be once you’re past the age of 25.

“Sorry, Namjoon isn’t here-,” You open the door to explain to the guest and you’re cut off.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

You rub at your sleepy eyes and allow your vision to focus, only to feel your blood stand still in your veins.

Kim Taehyung.  Of fucking course.

“What do you mean, why am I here? I’m always here,” you tut as you fold your arms to your chest.  “What are you doing here?”

He rolls his eyes and holds up his hands, two suitcases clutched in each.  Who the fuck carries 4 suitcases up three flights of stairs? Kim annoying ass Taehyung does, apparently.

“I’m moving in.”  He pushes past you and into the living room.  

Your mouth gapes open.  Namjoon certainly didn’t tell you this.  Taehyung looks back at chuckles at your reaction.

“I’m guessing your best friend didn’t tell you the happy news?”

You shut your mouth, quickly jumping back into composure.  “No, he failed to mention that,” you sniff.  “I thought you lived with your girlfriend in Gangnam?  What was her name? Rose or whatever?”

Tae stiffens, just slightly for a moment, before he plasters back on the bravado.  “Obviously not anymore.  We broke up, she kept the apartment.  Got tired of moping at my mom’s house and I told Namjoon I wanted to come back to the city.”

You feel a slight tug at your stomach, guilt, perhaps?  You clear your throat.  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

He laughs as he sits on the couch, instantly throwing his feet onto the coffee table, like a heathen.  “No, you’re not.”  

“What do you mean, no I’m not? God, sorry for being polite!”

This, you reason, is why you can’t sustain longer than 5 minutes of civilized conversation with your best friend’s younger brother.  He’s impossible.

He just smirks, and you know he loves the rise he gets out of you.

“Because I know you, and I know you don’t give a fuck about my love life.”

Au contraire. If only he knew just how much you gave a fuck.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t be nice to you!” you nearly stamp your foot in frustration but hold yourself back. That would be too good of ammo for him to use against you.

“Okay, fine,” he acquiesces. “Whatever helps you feel you’re a good person.”

You’re seeing red and you know you want to continue screaming at him but you will not stoop to his level.

“Christ, I haven’t seen you in months and you’re still an asshole,” you say as you grab your keys and shoes. “And also, Jin will kill you if he sees your feet on his coffee table.”

You whip yourself around and open the door to leave and hear him call over your shoulder.

“Good to see you too, doll! Love the hairstyle, by the way.”

You close the door with a growl leaving your throat.  The absolute audacity of that man.

You stomp towards the elevator to take yourself to the ground level, when you catch your reflection in the shiny metal. Your hair is in what you can only lovingly call a complete hornet’s nest. It’s ratted and sticking out in places and you feel your cheeks burn.  Your first reintroduction with Taehyung is with a fight AND with you looking like a fool.

This would not do. No, sir.

“Kim Namjoon!” you shriek into your cell phone.  You’re awkwardly pressing it against your ear with your shoulder as you walk out of the convenience store under your apartment building with 3 bottles of soju and a six-pack of beer. You needed to drown your shame and sorrow, and fast.

“Hello, love of my life and moon of my stars,” your best friend replies and you can hear Seokjin chuckle in the background.

“No!” You chide, already cracking a beer open as you storm into your apartment building. “Don’t you Khal Drogo me, mister! Why the fuck didn’t you tell me your fucking asshole brother was moving in with you?!”

Namjoon is silent and you can tell he’s wincing on the other end of the phone. “Oops?” He offers.

“Yeah, big oops! A heads up would have been nice! Like, ‘hey best friend, your worst enemy of all time is moving in today. Maybe you shouldn’t fall asleep on my couch and wake up looking like Frankenstein’s ugly wife. Oh, and also my handsome boyfriend and I will just happen to not be there when he arrives’.”

By this time, you can tell Namjoon has put you on speakerphone because you can hear their rich laughter loud and clear. Rude bitches.

You stab your key code into your door and lock yourself in, chugging as much of the beer as you could handle.

“At least, even in her rants she thinks I’m handsome,” Jin gloats.

“I’m sorry babe,” Namjoon sighs as he finally calms down. “I didn’t know he would be there today. I just found out about it last night.”

You nibbled at your bottom lip, the annoying pit in your stomach feeling simultaneously guilty that he went through a breakup, unbridled joy that something brought him down a peg, and just a dash of excitement that he’s single now.

You let out a breath. “It’s okay, Joon.  It just surprised me to see him.”

Jin butts in, “And because you have a big, fat, unresolved crush on him.”

“Jin!” You admonish. The couple laughs again and you roll your eyes, asking yourself why you put up with the two. “I do not!”

They both hum a non-committal answer, implying they don’t believe you in the slightest.

“Whatever.  What are you guys doing, anyway?”

“We just got home from shopping.  God, Jin looked so good in these jeans he tried on.  I was actually just about to suck his coc-,”

“Kim Namjoon, do not finish that sentence! I do not wish to hear it!” You try to remain firm, but dissolve into giggles with the pair.

You could never stay mad at Namjoon long, even if his brother was the devil incarnate.

“Darling,” Jin calls through the phone.  “I still expect to see you at our place tonight for our sleepover.”

Christ, you had forgotten all about your scheduled sleepover night.  It was tradition and one of your favorite parts of your friendship with the couple.  Jin, a literal chef, prepared a five star meal along with dessert for you while you binge watched Netflix and talked incessantly.

But you also usually slept in their spare bedroom.  The exact one that Taehyung would be occupying.

“Fuck, while he’s there?”

“Oh suck it up,” Jin chides, like he’s your mother. “He’s probably not even going to leave his room.  You’re not getting out of this.  I’m making strawberry cheesecake.”

Your mouth waters at the idea of Jin’s famous cheesecake.  

“Fine, but I get to lick the bowl and not Namjoon.  Those are my terms.”

Namjoon squawked in defiance as Jin laughed.  “I agree to your terms.  Be at our place by 8.”

As you hung up the phone, you checked the time.  6:40.  God, he hadn’t left you with much time to get ready, did he?

And you definitely needed to get ready.  There was no way you were entering a room where Kim Taehyung exists looking like booboo the fool, not again.

Your fingers press the 6 digit passcode to Namjoon and Seokjin’s apartment, arms heavy laden with your bag of toiletries and pajamas, and a bag full of wine.

“Honey, I’m home!” You announce as you toe off your shoes and slide into the combined kitchen and living room.

You receive no reply, but greeted with the amused face of none other than the object of your filthiest dreams, Taehyung.

“Pet names already?  We’re moving pretty fast, wouldn’t you say?” He asks you as he lounges at the kitchen table.  He watches you open the fridge to set the wine, as comfortable in their home as you are in yours.

“Fuck off,” you grumble. “Where’s your brother?”

Tae seemed absolutely tickled by your disgruntlement.  “I think they mentioned something about taking a shower.  That was 20 minutes ago, though.”

“Great,” you sigh. “Those fucking horn dogs act as if they’re still newlyweds.  We’ll be waiting awhile.”  

You tug off your sweater, leaving you to remain in a fitted tank top and yoga pants.  You tried to maintain a comfortable look as you dressed for the evening, while keeping in mind which leggings hugged your ass and showed off your toned thighs, and a tank top that dipped low to your cleavage.  Okay, so maybe you had ulterior motives. You wanted to make up for your dreadful appearance earlier and make him squirm, payback for the years of him doing it to you.

You watch him as he lets his eyes roam your body, eying you like he wants to ravage you completely. You feel victorious… and also turned on. Fuck, you played yourself.

You flop onto the couch in a huff and Tae snorts before joining you.

“What’s so funny?” You eye him suspiciously.

“Nothing,” his smile feigns innocence. “I’m not allowed to laugh?”

You sniff in annoyance, not eager to fall for his tricks. “You’re allowed to do whatever you want, your highness.”  Sarcasm drips from your voice and Tae finds it even more humorous.

“I see you’re still a sassy bitch.”

You gasp, audibly startled by his language and rise from the couch, fists clenched.

“I see you’re still a conceited dick!”

He rises to meet you where you stand, eyes boring into your own with his stupid sexy grin on his face.  “I see you’re still not one to back down from a fight.”

You step closer, close enough to feel his breath on your face.  Idly, you note it smells like peppermint and you move closer on reflex.

“Yeah? I see you’re still not one to avoid starting a fight in the first place!” you huff.

“Oh, I started it?”  

“Yeah, you started it! You called me a bitch!”

You can’t believe this is happening.  You feel as if you’re 6 again and fighting with him over a toy.

“A sassy bitch, actually,” he corrects, taking another step forward, bodies touching.

“Fuck you!”

“Only if you say please,” he quips before he closes the distance and presses his lips to yours in a scorching hot kiss.

There’s not even a moment of hesitation on your end, immediately pulling him even closer and wrapping your arms around his neck and allowing his tongue entrance to your mouth.  Your body reacts to his instantly, as if it’s wired to respond to him and him only. Your mind was blank of anything except Tae, only Tae please, and you acted purely on instinct alone.  And instinct was pulling him closer and begging, more, anything he could give.

The sound of laughter coming from the hallway pulls you apart, neither of you wanting to get caught by Namjoon or Jin.  You stare at him, his lips are cherry red and slightly swollen and the image burns into your retinas.  He has such pretty lips after you’ve kissed him.

“Oh hey! What’s going on here?” Namjoon asks as he notices the intense eye-battle you’re engaged in with his younger brother.

It shakes you out of the spell, eye contact broken and hypnosis halted.  

“Just, errrr,” you falter to find the right words to explain the situation.

“Just getting reacquainted.”  Tae sounds completely unaffected, as if the passionate kiss you shared with him seconds ago was but a distant memory.  Asshole.

“I’m surprised you two haven’t thrown anything at each other yet,” Jin laughs. “Or thrown yourselves at each other.”

Both you and Taehyung whip to look directly at Jin.

“Her!?” Tae is incredulous. “Gross.”

You’ll never admit out loud that his words wound you.

“You’re an asshole, Taehyung,” you punctuate your words by turning away from him and towards Namjoon, who appears amused as ever.

“Ah, I love when my best friend and my little brother are screaming at each other.  Feels like old times.  Can one of you cry now to complete the moment?”

Taehyung grumbles under his breath, something you can’t catch, and stalks off to his room.  The slam of his door reverberates in the apartment and Jin jumps and turns to yell down the hall at his brother-in-law.

“Yah! Don’t break my apartment! I still owe money on this!”

Despite Taehyung’s appearance every so often in the kitchen or living room, the rest of the night goes on with no annoying disturbances.

Jin spoils you and his husband with expensive food, and the best cheesecake you’ve ever eaten in your life.  Plus, you’re given the bowl to lick clean despite a desperately adorable pout from Namjoon you were sure would persuade Jin.

You’re settled on the couch, snuggling in the middle of the couple as an action movie flickers across the big screen tv.  Truthfully, you haven’t paid attention to a single thing happening, your thoughts entirely too absorbed in Taehyung and that deliciously infuriating kiss.  

Why did he do it?  You couldn’t comprehend his reasoning.  Perhaps he was doing it to piss you off.  He’s never angered you with that level of intimacy before, but you didn’t put it past him.

You’re surprised when the credits of the movie start rolling and Jin and Namjoon fake loud yawns.

“Oh man, I’m beat,” Namjoon lies.

Jin is quick to join. “Me too, I think I’ll pass out the moment I hit the pillow.”

You roll your eyes at the men. “Will you two please go fuck already, I know that’s what you’re going to do.”

Namjoon blanches, but Jin laughs and kisses your cheek. “Ah, my smart, beautiful and chaotic child,” he coos. He leans in to your ear, voice low to keep his husband from listening. “I don’t think I’m the only one in this house who’s going to get pounded into a mattress.”  

He pulls back and winks at you, deftly ignores Namjoon’s confusion and sadness of being left out, and drags him to their bedroom with a loud ‘goodnight’.

You’re left to stew in your own emotions, which is never a good thing.  Was the tension that obvious? You always assumed it had been one-sided, but the kiss befuddled you more than you’d like to admit.

It finally snapped in your mind, all the dots connecting. That’s why he did it.  

He kissed you so you’d stew and simmer and eventually erupt, like you’re doing now.  Taehyung knows you too well for your comfort.

You grab your bag of clothes and storm towards the bathroom to change, promising yourself to forget about the kiss and not give Taehyung what he wants.

Except you’re not very good at promises, especially to yourself.

You can’t say you’re excited to sleep on the couch again.  While it’s a nice couch, it’s definitely not a bed and your back will pay the price tomorrow.  You supposed it was better than the floor, but not by much.

After dressing in your pajamas, a purposefully picked out combination of tiny shorts and a sports bra in case Taehyung happens upon you, you return to your bed for the night in the living room.

Namjoon graciously left blankets and a pillow out for you, and you’re complaining internally about Taehyung the whole time you make yourself a spot to sleep.  If it wasn’t for stupid Taehyung and his stupid existence, you’d be sleeping like a baby on the guest bed that you loved.  But no, they relegated you to the couch like an animal.

Sleep was not in the cards tonight, it seems.  You toss and turn and try to press at the cushions to move a lump around and get comfortable, but it’s all for naught.  You’re wide awake and very, very uncomfortable.  You didn’t understand how you fell asleep on this very couch earlier in the day.  Maybe the mimosas you had at brunch with the couple had been helpful.

A thought crosses your mind. Alcohol.  Maybe a nice glass of wine would help tuck you into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.  A nightcap. Of course.  You were angry at yourself for not thinking of it hours ago.  

You slipped out of your disagreeable bed and into the kitchen, trying not to make a sound.  Jin’s beloved kitchen was also an echo chamber of noise, even the slightest sound bouncing off its walls and amplifying it through the whole house.  You still remember the way you jumped five feet in the air when Jin accidentally broke a plate.  It sounded like a bomb explosion.

You bite your lip as you carefully pry the cabinet of wine glasses open, careful to not even allow a squeak of a hinge.  You silently beg to stay silent and not wake anyone in the house.  You didn’t want to be caught drinking wine at 2 am in the dark, that’s difficult to explain without looking like an alcoholic.

With glass in hand, you tiptoe the fridge to pull out the bottle of merlot, thinking the heavy red wine would be the best to get you sleepy and quick.  

You tug the cork from the bottle and pour a healthy amount into the stemware with a smile.  Liquid sleep.  And you had done it without making a single sound. Perfection. The smell of the alcohol permeates through your nose as you lift the glass, placing it to your lips to take a sip.

“Wine at this hour?” the unexpected voice of Taehyung echos through the kitchen, making you yelp and jolting you hard enough that you drop the hard-earned glass of wine to the tile floor, red wine splashing as the sound of glass shattering is reverberating off the walls.

“Fuck!” You screech at the intruder.  Taehyung doubles over, laughing as if he’s seen nothing funnier than what just transpired.  “You asshole!”

You listen past Taehyung’s incessant laughter to ensure the owners of the apartment hadn’t awoken during the ruckus. You definitely did not want to face a tired and agitated Jin to tell him you shattered one of his Tiffany crystal goblets.

Beyond Tae, the house is silent and you’re thanking whatever god is listening for keeping your best friends asleep.

The wine is everywhere, spilling into the cracks of the tile and splattered on the walls.  The crystal stemware is too; it shattered with such force that you see flecks of the shrapnel in all four corners of the room.

Tae wipes a tear from his face and you square a tempestuous look at him.  

“Fucking help me!  You made me drop it!”

Through snorts, he replies. “I didn’t make you do anything.  You did that on your own.”  Although he is arguing with you, he’s gingerly stepping into the kitchen and kneeling to pick up shards of glass.

“I wouldn’t have dropped it if you had come into the room like a fucking normal person,” you grit.

He collects the glass, the delighted grin on his face now permanent.  He’s relishing in your annoyance, you know he is, and it burns you from the inside out.

“It’s not my fault you didn’t hear me.”

“You could have turned on the light! Why were you in the dark like a freak?”  You’re grasping at straws, anything to pin this all on him.  It would quell the fire in your belly to push it all onto him, make you feel as if you’ve won.

Taehyung levels a look at you.  “And you weren’t also in the dark? Pouring a gallon of wine for yourself?”

Your cheeks flare red. Fuck, he definitely caught you there.  You’re playing verbal poker with him and the hand you’re dealt falls flat compared to his royal flush.  He grins, knowing he has you.

“Fuck you,” you snark, you go to insult when you’re backed into a corner.

“Ah, doll,” he winks.  “We talked about that.  Be careful what you wish for.”

The fire inside you is roaring to an inferno now, flames licking to your core. It’s a complicated mixture of anger and sexual energy. It’s infuriating that he’s able to make you feel every single emotion to the extreme. You hate that arguing with him turns you on, like it’s some perverse foreplay.  

You moisten your lips with your tongue as you process his words, and Tae’s eyes hungrily track the appendage as it glides over your lips.

“Fuck. You.” You emphasize perfunctorily.

All thoughts of wiping up the mess are forgotten as Tae drags both you and himself off the floor and steers you to the living room, lips feverish against your own.  He pushes you into the couch and tugs his shirt off, before replacing his lips to yours.  

“Fuck, you’re so fucking hot when you’re a bitch,” he groans as he snaps the strap of your sports bra. “Seeing you get all worked up makes me so hard.”

He’s not wrong. You can see through his mesh basketball shorts that he’s sporting an impressive package, rock hard in its clothed prison.

“Yeah?” You bite at his lip.

“Hell yeah.”  His hands work to the elastic band under your bust and tugs the offending material off, tits springing free as he throws it to the floor.  

“Holy shit,” Taehyung breathes as he gets a good look at your chest.

You shake them gently, grinning as he watches them jiggle.  “You like what you see?”

He smirks and pinches a nipple, wiping the coy smile off your face and turning it into a moan.  “I like when you’re mouthy, but don’t push it.”  

He lowers his head to the nipple he’s still pinching in his fingers, licking at it and replacing his fingers with his mouth.  He’s moaning around the nipple, and you’re gasping for more.  His hot mouth sucks at you, teeth nibbling and pulling it until you’re whimpering in delicious pain.

“Fuck!” He cries as he pops away from your nipple.  “You’re so fucking hot.”

Your body warms at his words, arousal pooling between your legs.  You’re sure that your thighs are drenched in your essence.

He slurps your neglected breast into his mouth, ensuring your nipples are equally abused.  His tongue is skilled but his mouth is messy, saliva dripping all around your tit and it’s the hottest fucking sight you’ve ever seen.

He’s pulling away again and pinching both nipples with his hands simultaneously. “And you’re so fucking annoying.”

You’re pleading for more or to stop, you’re not sure.  He continues.

“Mm, I’m gonna fuck you until you’re a good little bitch for me. Listening to every fucking thing I say.”

He releases your nipples, and you finally find the ability to focus again, staring directly at him.

“Oh, you think you’re that good?” you sass as you attempt to catch your breath.  “Put your money where your mouth is.”

Tae grips your chin roughly, face inches away from yours with a sadistic grin. “You’re going to regret those words, baby.”

Instantly, he’s standing up and tugging his shorts down to let his cock spring free.  Your brain misfires as you visually measure his cock and your mouth goes dry. He’s thick and long. The bulbous head is dripping pre-cum, begging you to slurp it up.

“How about I put my money where your mouth is,” he suggests as he grabs a fistful of your hair.  

He teasingly rubs his cock on your lips and cheeks, makes you whimper with need. Your tongue is sticking out, desperate for him to lay it on you.

“Already so fucking greedy,” he grunts and in one motion, directs his dick into your open mouth. “I’ll fuck your throat, yeah? Greedy bitches love getting face fucked.”  He is still for a beat more, eyes searching yours for consent and you nod with his cock still in your mouth. He winks, then begins a rapid pace, his cock fucking into your mouth and throat.

You’re sure you look like a goddamn mess with saliva dripping from your mouth as Taehyung punishes your throat with his thrusts.  You gag and moan around him, and he tightens his grip in your hair as you see stars.

It’s indescribable. Never have you felt such pleasure from sucking cock, but Tae commands your entire body, willing you to drip with anticipation.

“My little fuck toy, god you feel so fucking good,” he hisses. “You’re gonna swallow my cum, baby.”  

His hips are stuttering, he’s close, and you’re sucking him harder, cheeks pulling in harder to vacuum him in. The pressure makes him groan out loud.

“So good, so fucking good. Get ready for your prize, baby,” his voice cuts off in a gasp, as his cock twitches violently. His legs shake and he doesn’t hold back the moans of his orgasm, gasping as he feels rope after rope spill down your hot throat.

Your big doll eyes are twinkling up at him, lips still wrapped around his cock. Taehyung is sure it’s the hottest thing he’ll ever see in his lifetime.  You on your knees, subservient to him and thriving for it.

“Mmm, I like it when your mouth is full like this,” he slowly pulls out of your mouth, albeit reluctantly. “Can’t talk back to me when you’re sucking my cock like a whore.”

You smile and stick out your tongue, pleased to show him you happily accepted his cum.

“Good fucking girl,” he coos as he grips your chin again. “Did you like my cum?”

You nod, brain fried from the heat of the room.

“Use your words,” he grits and grips your jaw harder. It’s enough to shock you into compliance.

“Y-yes! Fuck, I love your cum, Tae.”  Your words are breathy and raspy, throat raw from his barrage.

“I knew you would, filthy slut.  Sit on the couch.” He orders and you’re quick to scurry and sit on the makeshift bed you made.

His hands are tugging down your shorts quickly. No teasing or seduction here, not now. You lift your hips, and he throws them aside. Your legs close on reflex, making him growl.

“Do not hide yourself from me.” His tone is dark and you can’t help but shiver as you open yourself up to him. You want to talk back, want to fight and bite at him, but you’re quickly losing the ability to even speak, and you’re aching for him.

“Where’s my mouthy little bitch? You’re awfully quiet. Did I finally break you?” He teases, pressing your legs upward, knees to your ears. It’s pornographic how on display you are for him, soaking wet cunt front and center.

“The great Taehyung thinks he can break me with his cock,” you mewl, mustering all the false confidence you can. You’re lying through your fucking teeth and you both know it, but you continue. “You’ll have to do more than that.”

Your pussy is quaking with need now, desperate for a single touch. His hands maintain purchase on the backs of your thighs, holding them up.

“There she is,” he bites at the flesh of your leg closest to him which makes you jerk in his hold. “Gonna fuck the brat right out of you.”

He removes a hand from your thigh and you’re quick to pick up the slack, holding the thigh in place to maintain his open show of your pussy.

“Try me,” you murmur, and you’re instantly regretting your words as a harsh slap descends and lands square on your cunt.

You nearly scream, pain flooding your wanton pussy, before turning into delicious pleasure that stings and tingles right at your clit. It sizzles, and warmth blooms where his hand was.

“That’s for not believing me.”  His eyes are feral and you want to bottle this memory forever.  

Another slap has your legs trembling, eyes rolling back as the burn turns to a low heat.  You’re dripping your wetness down onto the couch and Jin will kill you, but you don’t care.

“That was for calling me a dick,” he smirks.

Smack.

Tears spring in your eyes as the slap brings more pleasure than pain, desperately close to your edge.

“Look at you, you could cum just from this, couldn’t you?”

“F-fuck! Yes, please, I need more, please!” Your cunt is clenching around nothing, desperate for friction and leaking out of you like a faucet. Taehyung marvels at you, legs spread so far, with a cunt weeping with arousal for more. He can’t wait to dive in there, but he’s not finished with you yet.

“More? I don’t know if you deserve more, baby, you’ve been awfully mean to me,” he tsks, breathing hot air on your clit, making you whine.

“P-please! I’m sorry!” You’re sure you will black out with how desperately you need him. You need him more than you need oxygen.

“Beg.”

You’re quick to submit. Thoughts of fighting back are long gone, you’re his wanton little slut now.

“Please, please! Pleaseeeee, make me cum! I’ll do anything.”

“Anything?” He asks with an arch of his eyebrow.

You’re nodding wildly, gazing at him with desperate, watery eyes.

“Anything, I need you so f-fucking bad it hurts!”

By the time the words leave your lips, he’s thrusting two fingers into your cunt viciously, fingering you ferociously. He arches them, rubbing against your spongy g-spot and making you scream. He knows you’re close, knows you only need one little push off the edge. He plays your body like a skilled practitioner.

“Cum on my fingers, baby. Let me see my greedy little bitch milk my fingers.”

Your body and mind react accordingly, deep down you know your body is owned completely by him, all his.  Your orgasm explodes and you think you actually scream, your vision is black and your hearing goes silent for a moment as you cum harder than you have in your life.  You’re squeezing his fingers with your pussy so tight and Taehyung is gently licking all the juices from his hand with his fingers still inside you.

It takes time to descend from the separate plane of existence Taehyung sent you too, but you come back and watch as he laps at the liquid of your cunt and on his hand like it’s a vital necessity. His fingers remain in your walls, and he refuses to break eye contact with you. You’re positive you could cum again from the sight.

“My little cockslut tastes so good, just how I like,” he tells you tenderly. “Like cherries, so sweet.  My little cherry.”

Your cunt is aching and warming back to life as he pulls his fingers out of you. The loss is immense and you’re whimpering for more.

“Ah, ah,” he hushes you. “No whining. You’ll take what I give you.  Suck my fingers clean. Taste yourself.”

He presses his fingers into your mouth, earning him a sigh, the taste of you filling your mouth. You swirl your tongue around his fingers and suckle each one to ensure your tongue laves the entire surface.

“Fuck,” he whispers and it’s his first crack in his steel reserve. “Needy.”

He pulls his fingers from your mouth and presses against you to kiss. It’s gentle, sweet, and nothing compared to the man assailing your pussy with slaps moments ago. It thrills you just the same and you return in kind, threading your hands in his wavy hair.

He pulls away and presses his forehead against yours, a moment of gentleness you actively welcome.

“This little cunt ready for me?” He whispers and you’re whimpering your reply.

“Please, fuck me. I need you to fuck me until I can’t walk.”

He grins and presses a kiss to your lips again, sweet and chaste, before he pulls away and slides down to attach those same sinful lips to your pussy.

It’s so unexpected you flinch and manage a cry as his tongue slurps up more of your delicious essence and his mouth moves to suckle on your clit. You’re not sure where the fuck he learned these tricks, but you know now you will never let him go.

“Taehyung!” You cry at the sensation. “Fuck!”

After receiving the reaction he was desperate for, he slips his tongue into your walls deep and gathers as much of you as he can, before he’s pulling back and swallowing you down.

“I couldn’t resist. Your cunt was made for me to devour.”

He doesn’t allow for a response as he throws your legs over his shoulders and lines himself up at your core.

“Condom?” He asks you, and you level a quick look at him.

“I don’t live here! I don’t have any!”  You’re savage, terrified he’ll pull his cock away when all you want and can think about is the way he’ll feel pounding into you.

“Don’t be rude, baby,” he reminds you with a swat to your ass. “I’m clean, promise. You?”

You nod quickly, reveling in the spank’s tingle. “Same. I have an IUD too,” you sigh. Thank god for medical birth control implants.

“Good. You’re the only pussy I’m gonna fuck from now on,” he promises. You know you must talk about this later, when you’re thinking rationally and not with your aching pussy.  

Your heart stutters and leaps into your throat but all is forgotten as he plunges into your tight heat.

“Ohhhhh shit, ahhh,” he gasps. “Baby, you’re so fucking tight and wet.”  He’s on the verge of whining, becoming just as needy and greedy as you.  He wastes no time in setting a pace.

His cock fills you completely, his angle allowing him to go as deep as he can, pressing the beginning of your cervix.  This is surely what heaven feels like.  It feels like the completeness you feel with Taehyung fully sheathed inside you.

It comes alive with flames and explosions as he fucks you, hips pistoning to plunge in and out of you with tenacity.  He fucks you like he laces every single thrust with more, more than just sex. He fucks you with purpose.

You’re moaning like a pornstar now, high pitch wails and gasps and breathy moans are all you can manage. “Taehyung, yes! Feel so g-g-good!”

“That’s right baby, scream my fucking name. Make sure all the neighbors know who fucking ruined you,” he nearly spits, cock thrusting into your core at an impossible speed. “I want you to tell all of Korea who owns you. Who owns this tiny little cunt?”

The wind leaves you, and you’re gasping for air, gaping mouth open as you try to reply. It takes him fucking into you harder a few times before you feel it rush back into you.

“You, Taehyung!  You!  Fuck, I love your cock!”

His thumb rubs at your engorged clit, allowing it the friction it seeks.  He bends forward and wraps his other hand around your throat, squeezing.  

Losing air combined with the friction on your clit has you keening, so close to the edge. You try to babble his name but nothing comes out.

“Look at my pretty little slut taking my cock so well,” he praises.  “You have the greediest pussy, don’t you? You need my cock daily, baby. Need to put my mouthy bitch in her place, remind her who’s in charge.”

He slows his pace but his thrusts are punishing, fucking into you as hard as he can. Your orgasm is climbing so impossibly high.

“F-fuck!” You gasp as he releases his grip on your neck. “Gonna cum! Please let me cum!”  

“Yeah baby, cum for me.  Cream your greedy pussy all over my cock.”

The world stops spinning as you hit the height of your climax and plunge down.  Your vision goes black and your body is quivering and convulsing nearly as hard as your cunt is. Taehyung hisses at your walls sucking him in, as if you’re begging for his cum, begging for more.

“Fuck, good girl, baby, holy shit,” he’s breathless and so close.

You’re overstimulated, boneless, but he wrought two of the best orgasms you’ve ever felt in your life and you’ll be damned if you leave him high and dry.  You bite your lip as you move with him, hips pounding against each other. His face is scrunched up and you know he’s close when he’s stuttering on his words.  You take over for him.

“Please cum in me baby, please.  Fill me up. I’m yours, baby, mark my little cunt as yours.”  You don’t know where it’s coming from, but you keep it going. It feels as natural as fucking him does. “Please, Taehyung!”

At the sound of his name leaving you in a whine, he spirals down his own completion. He feels his cock pulse as he empties his load into you, your walls still reverently beckoning for him. He’s calling out your name, grasping at your tits as he finishes and you’re smiling from ear to ear. Your pussy is warm with his seed and you’re positive it’s the way you want to feel every single night.

“Holy fuck,” Taehyung rasps as he pulls his cock out of you. He thrills as he watches his cum follow, slipping out your folds and down your thigh. “I definitely marked you.”

You hum in reply, finally allowing yourself to soak in the haze of orgasmic bliss. Tae presses his head to yours again, kissing you sweetly.

“Come sleep in my bed?” He asks. He means more behind it. He wants to ask you to sleep in his bed every night, stay with him every day, be the one he grows old with. He knows there’s still more to talk about, wounds of the past to heal, but now you’re with him, and he knows he’ll work through anything.

You nod, and kiss him again, understanding his hidden meaning laced in his words.

A sly smile spreads across his face. “Last one to bed has to take the blame for the wineglass,” he teases. Your head spins as if you’ve got whiplash.  He can switch from dominating to sensitive to the little shit he is so quick.

“Hey! No fucking fair! You fucked my ability to run out of me!”

“Shouldn’t have been such a sassy bitch,” he winks before he tears away towards his room.

“Taehyung, you’re an asshole!” You call as you limp your way behind him.

From behind Joon and Jin’s door, a critical voice bellows, “YAH! I’ll kill you if you got your jizz on my couch! And what is this I heard about my glass!!? HEY!  Those are TIFFANY. CRYSTAL. THE DISRESPECT!”

You slip into Taehyung’s bed and wrap yourself around him, the two of you gasping with mischievous giggles.

Kim Taehyung will always be the one who knows how to drive you wild. He’ll always aggravate and infuriate you, send you reeling.

But now you didn’t think you minded it at all.

© ppersonna - 2020 - do not repost on any site, or translate without express permission from author.

[perfectpaperbluebirds]

@sicktember #1

Prompt # 1: Fever

Title: Damn Nick Fury

Fandom: Avengers/MCU

To kick Sicktember off, I'm starting with some classic Avengers sickfic. This is actually part of a longer work that I posted many moons ago on AO3. Still one of my favorite whump fics that I've written.

Clint Barton breathed slowly and deeply as he drew back his bow, sighting in his next target. He was so far unnoticed by the cultists they were fighting, perched high in a tree as he was. Below, Natasha was baiting and dodging them with ease, dispatching one every now and then to keep them occupied. Clint's task was to pick them off as she did so.

Another arrow met its mark.The archer sniffled wetly as he reloaded while cold water continued to trickle down the back of his collar. He had made Fury aware a day or so ago that he had a mild cold, as was his duty as an assassin. If he wasn’t at one hundred percent, his commander needed to know. However, Fury had insisted he and Nat take this mission, since no one else was available. The soaking rain they encountered when they arrived was unexpected. However, it turned out the rain had actually made it easier to obtain the objective of this particular mission. Meanwhile though, it was making Clint thoroughly miserable. Compared to other missions it was going quickly, but the five hour stakeout leading up to the current fight had not been pleasant in the continuous downpour, even up in a tree.

Wiping his nose on his shoulder, Cint again loosed an arrow. Only five more cultists to go. Then they could loot the bunker, get the map they needed, and go home. A drip of water hit him right in the eye, and he growled to himself, inwardly cursing Fury. He had started to shiver an hour ago, though he made sure his hands were steady as ever. He couldn’t wait to take a long, hot shower and sleep for at least twelve hours. He only needed to hold out a little longer.

The tickle in his throat had gradually become a low, irritating ache. He coughed softly. The sound did little to make his throat feel better, but it did make the nearest cultist look up at him. Before the man could do anything other than widen his eyes, Clint’s arrow ended him expertly.

Hawkeye sighed wearily. Four more to go.

~~~~~~~~~~

Thirty-six hours later, Clint and Natasha were relaxing on the couch in Avengers Tower. Natasha had her legs tucked up under her and was reading a book while Clint had his head pillowed in her lap with his arm flung over his eyes. Suddenly, his breath hitched warningly. Natasha lifted her arm in a practiced way to give him room to turn and bury his face into a tissue:

"HehyYIIZSHHhoo! hihtESHHHiew!"

She looked down at him with an irritated sound. "That is the third time you've sneezed in as many minutes. I'm making zero progress in this book. You're going to be finding yourself a new pillow in a minute here. Plus I'll kill you if you get me sick."

He sniffled wetly and blew his nose before replacing his head in her lap with a weak cough. "Aww, you would ndever kill mbe, 'Tash. I'mb the only one who puts up with your crap. But I'mb sorry. I can'dt help the sneezing. It's mbaking mbe mbiserable too if that helps."

She sighed in an annoyed way, but couldn't help looking down at him fondly. "You're lucky I know you well enough to understand what you're saying. And you're also lucky that it just so happens to be true that we tolerate each other better than most, so you're safe from assassination for now."

"Blame Fury. This cold wasn't so bad until I had to sid oud id the rain for hours." He sniffled thickly again, barely turning his head away as he followed it up with a cough.

Natasha made a face, swatting his shoulder lightly. "You're gross. Cover your mouth when you cough. And I don't *have* you let you lay here, you know. You have a perfectly comfortable bed only a short elevator ride away."

" 'm cold though. And if I go ubstairs there's ndo one to mbake mbe tea." He swiped at his reddened nose with the tissue, trying to look extra pitiful.

"You're extra whiny when you're sick. Not a good look on you, Hawk." She carded her fingers once through his hair. "And you're just cold because you're a little feverish."

Instead of replying, Clint halfway sat up again and brought a tissue to his nose, breath scissoring and nostrils flaring.

Natasha groaned as Clint once more exploded into a sneezing fit:

"Gihh-ESSHHshuuu! hehKSHHHshuu!" He coughed, then sneezed again: "ERRSHHhuh! Hih'EZSHHyue! --guhhh." Clint miserably rubbed the space between his eyebrows, slowly lowering himself once again to Natasha's lap.

"Apparently my partner has managed to catch the world's sneeziest cold. How did I get so lucky?"

Once again Clint was kept from replying as Natasha's communicator began to ring. She glanced at the screen, then at Clint.

"It's Fury," she warned.

Clint quickly sat up. She answered the device, turning it so they could both see. Fury's single eye met theirs, looking as serious and commanding as ever.

"Good, you're both here. Barton… your nose looks red. How are you feeling?"

"Aboud the sabe I guess. Sneezy."

"And feverish," Natasha said with a warning look at her partner.

"How feverish?"

"Ndot very. One hundred or so," Clint mumbled.

"That's… not ideal. But I don't have any other option… if at all possible, we need you both out in the field again ASAP. We've discovered a small Hydra base, but it's a crucial one. Some of their brainiest goons are posted there, working on something big. From some communication we intercepted, it sounds like their project is almost finished. I need eyes out there immediately. Recon only for now. Think you can handle that?"

The assassins glanced at each other. "We're good to go," said Clint firmly, though the sore-sounding rasp in his voice betrayed him slightly.

"I hope so. Don't disappoint me. I expect you in the air in an hour or less." With that their director ended the call.

Barton and Romanov glanced at each other once more, this time with a weary sigh from Clint before they stood and went to get ready.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Barton! What's your situation?"Natasha's voice crackled over the com.

"Being... chased by three. Heading... to the roof… of the base," Clint gasped around labored breathing.The metal steps made a sharp clanking noise as the archer sprinted up them, nocking an arrow as he went.

"Can you handle them on your own?"

"We'll… see...," he panted, sweat rolling into his eyes. "Backup… would be nice...."

"I'll be there as soon as I can. I've got 4 of my own. Hang in there, Hawk!" The line went dead for the time being.

"I'm gonna … kill Fury…," he mumbled breathlessly as he reached the roof. He darted to the far side of the area and spun around, taking a knee and aiming his bow at the stairway he had just vacated. The sounds of the three Hydra agents sprinting up behind him were unmistakable, but he was as ready as he was going to be.

"This was supposed to be... an easy recon mission, but noooooo…. It's another... full-on assault," he continued to mumble, trying to catch his breath as the shouting on the stairs got louder.

As an extra stroke of bad luck, it was pouring rain here too. Clint flipped the water out of his eyes with a toss of his head, his hair and clothes hanging on him limply. He hadn't stopped shivering since they'd gotten off the jet. His teeth were now chattering and his fingers were blue with cold. His throat was absolutely burning now, raw and inflamed, the pain exacerbated from running. He couldn't suppress a hoarse barking cough just as the first baddie poked his head through the opening. Clint dispatched him immediately, but the two still coming up were not dissuaded.

The second goon got lucky. Clint's hand slipped on the bow a fraction, and the Hydra agent got hit in the shoulder instead of the heart. The archer knew he was in trouble now. With trembling hands, he managed to kill number three with a final arrow, but the one he had wounded, by far the biggest of them all, continued to advance menacingly.

Hand-to-hand combat was evidently imminent. On any other day Clint could have made short work of this, but this miserable, feverish cold had him operating at around fifty percent capacity and falling. Clint pulled out his knives with shaky hands and another rasping cough. When his opponent was a foot away, Clint tried to leap up to get in the first hit. Instead he slipped and staggered, and the Hydra agent's fist, with all of his weight behind it, caught him in the ribs. Clint heard a dull cracking sound as he was flooded with pain, but he couldn't pause. He spun and ducked, trying to avoid the worst of the blows while trying to get in some of his own. At least ⅓ of his opponent's swings met their target though, and in minutes Clint was battered and bruised, barely clinging to consciousness.

He knew he only had enough stamina for one more try. In a split second, while the Hydra agent was off-balance winding up for another swing, Clint leapt once more, and at last his knife met its mark.

As the baddie crumpled to the ground, so did Hawkeye, wheezing weakly, every breath agonizing. He activated his com as his vision threatened to gray out:

"Roof... clear. Good...Nat?"

"All clear down here too. Mission complete. Nice job, Hawk. Let's turn this bunker inside out and go home."

"Mmph."

"You good, Barton?" she asked, concern suddenly in her voice.

"Gonna need... medevac… Won't… make it down… stairs…."

If Natasha replied, he did not hear her. He let his head fall against the cool, wet metal and let the grayness overtake his vision.

~~~~~~~~~~

48 hours later found Clint lying on a bed in S.H.E.I.L.D. medical with broken ribs and and a confirmed case of pneumonia. He was drifting in and out of consciousness from the drugs they were giving him, but his ears perked up when he heard Natasha arguing with someone nearby.

"He's stable. Not on oxygen. Fever is controlled. He can tolerate oral meds. There's no reason he needs to stay. I promise you, he won't recover while he's here. You need to discharge him home."

The haughty-looking orderly she was speaking with huffed angrily, muttering about shortness of breath and heart rate and changing oxygen requirements.

Clint let himself drift off again to the sound of their voices, trusting his partner to deal with the situation. A cool hand on his cheek awakened him a little while later. He blearily opened his eyes to meet Natasha's, for of course it was she that had roused him.

"We're busting you out of here," she whispered with a little smile. "They're bringing a wheelchair now."

"Thangk god," Clint groaned. "And thangk *you*, 'Tash. You're a lifesaver."

"Eh, you've saved my life plenty of times too. I think we're pretty even."

It took some maneuvering to get a very breathless, battered, and achy Clint out of the bed and into the wheelchair, but they managed it with minimal damage. Once he was settled in the chair, Natasha wheeled him away to their rooms.

Inside Clint's suite, they again had to coordinate getting him from the chair to his bed. Natasha was grateful Clint's pain tolerance was high, because she knew the transfer was far rougher without the assistance of the medical staff. He didn't make a sound throughout the process however, though his face was drawn in pain. As soon as he was settled though, he let out the breath he'd been holding in a rush, which quickly became a nasty coughing fit. He had trouble catching his breath for several moments even after the fit ended. He gasped and wheezed and clutched his ribs, sweaty and reddened and miserable. Natasha could only watch helplessly, stroking his hair to try to help him relax.

"Damn Fury," he croaked weakly when he could finally speak. "This fugcking sucks. "

"Language, please. But I can't argue with you there."

"I'mb gonna kill himb for sending me od thad mission."

"I think he got his just desserts since now his best archer is out of commission for a few months. But at least it seems like the sneezy part of your cold is better."

"You h- had to s- hih- say sumbthing, dih- dn't you?" Clint croaked, gingerly bracing his ribs as his breath scissored and his red nose twitched:

"Gih'tsschh! Ghhnxt'chf! Oh Fugck. Ow! Ow ow ow...." Clint groaned, gritting his teeth, eyes squeezed shut in pain. "Not doing that again."

"Yeah, stifling is probably not wise. Poor sick guy," Natasha murmured, carding his hair with her fingers as they waited for Clint's pain to subside.

After a moment, Clint opened one eye, looking suspicious. " 'Poor sigck guy?' Who are you and what have you done with mby partner?"

Natasha smirked as she sat on the edge of his bed. "Would you prefer I call you a whiny asshole?"

"Yes. Maybe. I dunno," Clint mumbled with a weary sigh and a grimace of pain as he exhaled.

"Well too bad for you, because right now *my* partner is sick and miserable and I plan to baby him at least a little until he's feeling better."

"Guess I'mb nodt complainig," Clint mumbled, stifling a cough, which only made him clutch his ribs in pain. "Hurts whed I cough. Hurts whed I try not to cough. Fugck me."

"Language, seriously. But what can I do to help? You need water, food, drugs, anything?"

"Nodt hungry or thirsty. Too sood for drugs. I just want to sleeb, 'Tash."

"That sounds like a good plan. I'll leave you be then. But I'll be back to check on you soon." She stood up right away, fussing around and tidying up his nightstand area before moving toward the door.

" 'Tash?"

She turned expectantly.

" 'm still cold," he mumbled thickly, looking pale and weary now.

Her face softened affectionately. "Well you're still running a fever, hotshot. You're gonna feel cold."

He groaned pathetically. She moved to his side once more.

"Aww, you're shivering," she murmured, stroking his cheek.

"Told you, I'mb freezing…."

She sighed, looking at him fondly. "Is this you trying to say that you need some extra body heat in bed with you for a while?"

He looked at her pleadingly.

"Okay, okay, no more puppy eyes. I'm coming. But if you get me sick--"

"I know, I know, you'll kill mbe. I'll try ndot to share."

"That's all I ask." She kicked off her shoes and slid into bed beside him, doing her best to jostle around as little as possible. They carefully arranged themselves so that Clint was tucked against Natasha, most of his weight resting against her, while her weight was against the stack of pillows behind them. This position seemed to cause the archer the least pain, and in fact he relaxed against her right away, his breathing deepening.

" I'mb sorry I'mb so warmb. You'll probably swelter," mumbled Clint sleepily.

"It's not the first time I've slept with you when you're running a fever, and I'm sure it won't be the last. As long as you're warm enough."

"Am now," he breathed, nearly asleep.

"Then that's all that matters to me."

[unholyobsessions]

Welcome to my dorm

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader

Warnings: eight year age difference. Mentions of kidnapping

Description: the FBI question you about your friend’s disappearance and you can’t help feeling for a certain doctor. (Inspired by scene above)

Part 2 -- Part 3 -- Part 4 There was heavy knocking on your door. You rolled over, burying your face deeper in the pillow. “Y/n l/n this is the FBI open up!” You let out a groan followed by a dry laugh. “Real funny Danny now let me sleep,” you yelled loud enough for who you assumed was your friend Danny to hear. The knocking continued, pissing you off. You let out a huff reaching over to your nightstand to put on your glasses and climbed out of your bed. “Damn it Daniel seriously if you don’t knock it off I swe-“ you opened the door and the words died in your throat. 

Two very attractive men were standing in front of you holding FBI badges up. You saw them eye you up and down which prompted you to look down at yourself. You felt heat rush to your face as you took in the loose booty shorts and bralette you were wearing. Both men put their badges away and stood awkwardly at the door. You snapped out of your embarrassed daze and cleared your throat. “I am not wearing the appropriate clothes for this. Come in.” You stepped out of the way and headed to your closet to grab a random sweatshirt, pulling it over your head. Once you were no longer exposed you turned to face the agents that were now letting their gazes wonder around your dorm room. You found yourself thanking past you for taking the time to clean it two days ago. When they realized that you were now fully dressed the dark skinned man spoke. “We are sorry to bother you this early, I’m Agent Derek Morgan and this is Dr. Spencer Reid and we need to ask you some questions.” The man who you now identified as Agent Morgan gestured to the tall curly haired man next to him. You smiled gently at both of them before pointing to the two chairs by the desk. “Questions regarding what, Agents?” You asked them as they sat down. “The disappearance of Haley Bowen. She went to school here.” This time it was Dr. Reid that spoke. Your eyes widened, you knew her. “Oh my God okay.” You took a deep breath, your brain not really knowing how to react. “Umm do you guys want coffee? I can’t really function without caffeine in the morning so I’m just going to make a pot.” You changed the subject quickly. Your friend was missing and the agents needed your help. You cannot break down. “No thank you.” Agent Morgan answered at the same time as Dr. Reid said, “Yes please.” You sent him a smile and started preparing the coffee. Morgan gave Reid a look and he shrugged as if to say ‘hey, coffee is coffee.’ “How do you take your coffee? Personally I take mine with too much sugar and too much creamer because I don’t really enjoy the taste of coffee but I’m still kind of addicted to it. Which my friends say makes me insane but I actually think it’s pretty normal. The taste is too bitter, reminds me of dark chocolate,” you stopped yourself. “Sorry I’m rambling I tend to do that in uncomfortable situations.” You looked at Dr. Reid expectantly and it took him a second to realize that you were waiting for his answer. “Oh uh three teaspoons.” He gave a small nod at the sugar in your hand. You smiled widely at him, seemingly glad that you were not the only one to enjoy overly sweet coffee. She’s cute, Spencer found himself thinking. After stirring sugar into both cups you walked over to the agents and handed one of the cups to Dr. Reid. Seeing as there were no more available chairs, you hopped on your desk and sat criss cross facing them. “So why are you asking me about Haley?” You took a long sip of your coffee. “She was last seen at the bar you work at.” Agent Morgan spoke but you couldn’t seem to take your eyes off Dr. Reid. He’s cute, you thought. “So she disappeared on Saturday?” You let out a sigh. “You remember seeing her?” This time Reid spoke making direct eye contact with you. You nodded. “She was a regular so we became friends over time. She comes in every weekend to blow off steam. She’s double majoring so she has a lot on her plate. She sits at the bar. Same place every time so I’m always her bartender.” Both Agents nodded at the information given, internally relieved that this interview could result in a lead in the case. “Did you notice anything different about her that night? Anybody that tried to approach her or payed more attention to her?” Dr. Reid asked you. “Well she seemed nervous. She talks to me a lot, rants about her professors and stuff like that. She didn’t talk much on Saturday and she seemed restless. Fidgeting in her seat and playing with the rings on her fingers. I just assumed she was meeting a guy and that’s why she was nervous. I pay attention to her, she gets drunk often and all of the workers like to make sure that nobody too drunk walks home alone or leaves with someone they are uncomfortable with. Whenever she was uncomfortable with a guy trying to make a move on her she played with her rings. That’s when I knew to intervene.” You took a deep breath and a gulp of your coffee, burning your tongue in the process. You felt tears pooling in your eyes and you did your best to blink them away. “Did you see a guy approach her that night?” Again it was Dr. Reid who asked the question, his voice softer this time. You hesitated before answering trying your hardest to remember. “There was this one guy,” you paused, letting your mind wander back to Saturday night. “He wasn’t drunk like most people there. He talked to her while he waited for me to serve him his drink. He got a coke which was strange for someone who was clearly sober to order. I recognized his face but couldn’t place a name. I turned around to serve another group and when I turned back the guy was walking away and Haley was asking for her check. She wasn’t drunk, barely tipsy so I didn’t insist on calling her a cab. Damn it why didn’t I call her a cab?” You couldn’t stop the tears anymore. This was your fault, you should have made sure she got home safely, you should have called her at least. She was your friend and now she could be dead and it will be your fault. Sobs racked your body, your half empty coffee cup slipping from your fingers and shattering on the floor, the sound only making you cry harder. Morgan instinctively reached for your hand the words of comfort ready to be spoken. He was stopped when Reid leaned toward you and grabbed your hand away from your face. He gave it a small tug to make you look at him. He didn’t know what came over him at that moment. He didn’t shake hands and didn’t really touch people but all he knew was that he wanted you to stop crying and he never wanted to see you sad again. “Hey it’s not your fault.” His voice was soft but firm. “There was no way for you to know what would happen and you had no way to stop it. What you told us right now is extremely helpful and will help us bring Haley back home. Okay?” You gave a small nod of your head trying to calm yourself down. “It’s okay just breath with me.” Dr. Reid took a deep breath and you mimicked him continuing until your breathing was back to normal and only a few stray tears were running down your cheeks. “Thank you.” You sniffled and smiled shyly at him. “Would you mind coming down to the station later and giving a description of the man you saw with Haley to a sketch artist?” Dr. Reid looked you in the eyes, his deep look telling you that although it was phrased as a question it was really the only choice you had. “Yeah that’s okay.” You wanted to reach up and rub at your runny nose but you noticed that he was still holding your hand. He felt the slight movement and realized as well. The both of you blushed and averted eye contact while Agent Morgan looked at the two of you with an amused expression. Both Agents stood up signaling that they were prepared to leave. You lead them to the door and they both thanked you for your time. Before you closed the door Dr. Reid handed you his card telling you to call him if you remember anything else that might seem important. You nodded at him, not trusting your voice. You gave him a wide smile which contrasted with your red teary eyes but he still felt the breath being knocked out of him. After the door closed Morgan looked at Reid. “What was that?” Spencer played dumb and started down the dormitory hallway. “What was what?” He pushed the door to the stairs open and looked back at Morgan. “What do you mean ‘what was what’ you were totally into that girl.” Morgan grinned at him and Spencer felt his cheeks heat up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Spencer started down the stairs, making a point to ignore Morgan’s laughter. • • • A few hours later you had taken a shower and put your contacts on. You put on a light face of make up and decided that this time when you met the agents you would be fully clothed so you put on a pair of jeans and a white tank top with a loose button up over it. You slipped on a pair of converse and headed to the police station. You walked up to the front desk and smiled lightly at the woman sitting behind it. “Hi I’m looking for Dr. Reid he told me I was coming in for a sketch.” The woman nodded and gestured someone over. You waited patiently as the two had a conversation and eventually Dr. Reid came into view. You smiled at him and it grew when he gave you a grin back. He guided you through the police station with a hand placed firmly on your back his hand pressing harder when one of the men in the holding cell wolf whistled at you. He brought you to a room where a sketch artist was sitting there waiting. “Here you go.” He mumbled under his breath. “Thank you.” You sat down as Reid left the room. You talked to the sketch artist for about 45 minutes trying to give as much detail as possible. You looked at your watch and noticed your afternoon shift at the bar was starting soon. You quickly thanked the artist and made a quick exit in hopes of not being late. You speed walked all the way to the bar and got there just in time to see the morning bartender ready to leave his shift. He sent you a tight lipped smile as you settled yourself behind the bar. The place was empty except for the man sitting at the bar who looked to be nursing a glass of whiskey. A few minutes later you heard the door ring signaling someone coming in. “Be right with you,” you called as you refilled the man’s glass. He was mumbling something about a cheating girlfriend which made you wince slightly. People dealing with heartbreak at a bar never ended well. You turned around to greet the costumer who had just taken a seat at the bar. Your eyes widened in surprise when you saw Dr. Reid sitting there with a sheepish smile on his beautiful face. “Dr. Reid what can I do for you?” He looked down for a second before making eye contact. He’s nervous, you thought. “I just needed to clear my head for a bit and I wanted to take a look at the scene and try to get a sense of what happened that night.” You nodded your head before giving him your signature smile. “Well can I get you something? I’m not going to offer anything alcoholic since you are still on the job but I do make a mean Arnold palmer.” You sent him a subtle wink, reaching under the bar for a glass. He snorted before accepting your offer. Setting the prepared drink in front of him, you spared a glance at the sulking man to find him slumped in his seat with light snores leaving his mouth. Damn, you thought, this is going to be a slow shift. You turned your attention back to the Dr. who was looking at you with a quirked brow having noticed the frown on your face. You quickly explained how you hated afternoon shifts because they usually consisted of you being bored out of your mind dealing with day drinkers. He struck up conversation to “relieve some of your boredom” as he so kindly put it. Conversation flowed extremely easy between the two of you, talking about anything and everything. From his experience in college to what your favorite song was at the moment. “I have a question,” he spoke after taking a bite of the french fries you had brought out at some point during the conversation. “I may have an answer. Ask away doc.” He smiled lightly at the nickname. “You’re a senior right?” You nodded your head, wondering where this was going. “So why do you still live in the dorms?” You let out a small laugh. “It’s part of my scholarship. I get free housing and I am also an RA.” He took a sip of his drink and mulled over the information. “Now it’s my turn. How old are you?” You told yourself it was an innocent question, that you held no ulterior motives other than curiosity.  His eyebrows rose before he set his glass down. “I’m twenty-nine. You’re twenty-one right?” “Yeah.” Eight years, you thought, not that big of a difference. You internally scolded yourself. You couldn’t be thinking that. He was here doing an investigation on your missing friend. He wasn’t thinking about picking up some random college girl who still lived in the school dormitories. 

Similarly, Spencer was having an internal battle about his feelings. He wanted to believe that what he was feeling was simple protectiveness over a witness, although it was pretty clear that you were not in any sort of danger. 

“So where do you live?” You asked in order to fill the silence that had taken place. “I live about and hour and a half away in D.C.” He felt the need to add the fact that he didn’t live far away from your current location.  “I’ve never been.” You said. He almost chocked on his drink. “You’ve never been to D.C.? But it’s so close!” Again with the proximity, could you be any more obvious? Spencer scolded himself.   “I know I know but I work most weekends and when I’m not working I’m studying so it is kind of hard to get free time.” I’ll take you. That is what he wanted to say. He had to stop before he made a fool out of himself. He didn’t know why he was feeling this way. Sure he has been attracted to plenty of girls before but you were different. You didn’t stop his ramblings about statistics and random facts that he had in his brain. You listened to him and sometimes even asked to him to elaborate more on a certain subject. You also tended to ramble like when he asked about your family, you went on a tangent about how your mom was your best friend and your younger sister had a dream of being a dancer. Or when he asked about your major and you went on to explain all the research you were doing. You were so passionate about everything you talked about. He smiled at the happiness in your eyes. They were still bloodshot from your breakdown this morning but they held so much happiness and hope that he couldn’t help but feel the same. He was about to reply when his phone rang and he realized he had been talking to you for over an hour. More than halfway to D.C., he thought. He answered it and heard Morgan’s voice telling him to head back to the station as they had found the name of the man who talked to Haley that night. “I uh- I have to go.” He gestured behind him to the door but he couldn’t bring himself to stand up yet. You nodded your head, slightly disappointed that he had to leave. You reached into your pocket and pulled out the card he gave you this morning, writing down your number on the back. “Call me if you find her. Please. Dead or alive I don’t care I just don’t want to find out from the news.” You handed him the card and he looked down at it. “Don’t you need my number if you need to call me? If you have more information that is.” He questioned. “Oh I already put it on my phone. Is that weird?” He looked at you with something that you couldn’t put your finger on. “No, not weird. Kind of cute actually.” He smiled down at you, having already stood up from the bar chair. You blushed and looked away from him. Your blush gave him a sudden surge of confidence. “Can I call you? Even if it isn’t about Haley. Can I just call you?” You smiled brightly at him. “Yes Dr. Reid you can call me.” “Spencer,” he said. You gave him a confused look. “Call me Spencer.” He took a step back heading to the door. “Spencer.” You tested the name on your lips, the smile never leaving your face. He grinned at you and walked out the door. • • • The next day you received a call from Spencer after your lecture. You smiled down at your phone before answering. “Spencer to what do I owe the pleasure?” “Hey y/n we found Haley.” Your heart stopped, the voice in your head praying for it to be good news. “She’s alive and being taken to the hospital.” A long breath left your lips as tears stung your eyes. She’s alive. She’s alive. Without thinking you hung up the phone and hurried to find a cab that could take you to the hospital. You payed the man quickly and took off after he pulled up to the curb. You saw Spencer with Agent Morgan and a woman you haven’t seen before but you assumed she was a part of their team. “She’s okay? Please tell me she’s going to be okay.” You started speaking as soon as you were within hearing distance of Spencer. As he soon as he saw you his eyes softened. “She’s in the ICU right now. They are setting her up and her mom is on the way.” He looked down at you and his heart broke at the tears that were making their way down your cheeks. “Oh thank god. Who was it? Was it the guy I-“ your voice broke before you could finish but Spencer understood what you wanted to ask. “Yeah it was. If it wasn’t for you remembering him it would have taken us a lot longer to find her. You saved her y/n okay?” He reassured you because he knew what you were thinking. It was written across your face. You could have stopped him. “You had no way of knowing. Don’t blame yourself.” He placed his hands on your shoulders as you nodded your head weakly. You leaned your head on his chest needing some sort of comfort from what you were feeling. He didn’t push you away. In fact he pulled you closer and let you cry, staining his shirt. Morgan and Prentiss gave each other a bewildered look because Spencer Reid did not hug. Much less strangers who were witnesses on a case. A doctor came into view and cleared his throat. “Haley Bowen,” he called out. You pulled away from Spencer and walked toward the doctor. “Yes?” He gave you a smile which you took to be good news. “She’s going to be fine. She has a concussion, bruised ribs and sprained wrists from being bound but I have no doubt that she will make a full recovery and be out of here in the next few days.” You let out a sigh of relief. “Can I see her?” The doctor shook his head. “Right now it is family only and I’ve been told her mother is not far but after she gets moved out of the ICU tomorrow you can come visit her at any time.” The doctor finished and walked away. You turned back to the three agents who were now looking at you. You felt awkward in their gaze so you locked eyes with Spencer. “Thank you Spencer really. I should go I have a class in about 40 minutes but hey don’t be a stranger.” You pointed an accusing finger at him and he let out a laugh. “Spencer?” Prentiss and Morgan mouthed to each other. “I won’t I swear. I’ll call you later?” He ignored the questioning looks his coworkers were sure to be giving him. “I’d like that. Maybe you can show me around D.C. sometime.” He smiled as he remembered their conversation yesterday. “Definitely.” You blushed, something that you found yourself doing a lot around him. “Bye Spencer.” “See you later y/n.” He watched you disappear from view before turning back to Morgan and Prentiss. “Okay what the hell was that?” Prentiss spoke up first. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He smiled innocently at both of them before walking away in search of coffee, ignoring his friend’s calls from behind him. He wondered if you would mind him calling you earlier than expected.

[josjournal]

Kisses for Nora

This fic is part of the One Direction Wordplay Challenge (@wordplayfics) and was written for the prompt "rise". To read the amazing fics for this prompt, click here, and to see all fics written as part of the challenge (including years 1-4), click here. You can also find the masterpost for this year’s challenge here.

Liam smiled as he looked at the clock on the hob. He did a quick mental calculation and knew that he would have to wake Nora for school soon. He remembered when Nora was newborn, colicky, and cried half the night away. Sleep was precious to Liam.

When she was about six months old, she started sleeping through the night and rising when Liam did for his morning workout. She’d smile and giggle while he went through situps and pushups, and when she became a bit more mobile, she would join in with her own versions of the exercises. He remembered her climbing onto his back while he did pushups and pretending he was a horse.

Now, she was taking after a different person in her sleep habits. When they’d first moved to the new town for Liam’s job, she’d spend her days with Zayn while Liam was gone to the garage to work. Somehow, in less than a year, Nora had changed from a morning person to someone who would rather sleep in than get up to see the sun.

Liam didn’t complain, even if he missed his morning buddy because it proved how well Zayn fit into their lives. When Liam had first found out that Dani was pregnant and didn’t want to keep the child, he’d fought her, saying he would raise her on his own. He had thought that he would spend the rest of his life being a single dad and hadn’t really cared.

Then he’d met Zayn, and everything had changed for the better. He’d fit seamlessly into their lives, stepping up as another parent to Nora and looking out for Liam when he wouldn’t take care of himself. When Liam had found the mechanic job three hours away from where he’d grown up, within walking distance of a fantastic school system for Nora, he’d thought that would be the end of them. He thought Zayn would never give up school, but instead, he’d transferred to a University less than a half-hour from the small flat Liam had found. He started out attending school only when Liam was home until Nora was old enough to start school, and he could go during the day.

Now, they’d settled into a routine, and it was up to Liam to make sure his sleepyheads got up every morning, so they got to their respective schools on time. Liam quickly made lunches for the three of them, packing them into their designated lunch boxes. He rechecked the clock and headed down the hall, smiling to himself when he saw Nora’s door ajar.

Peeking inside, he found her bed empty, which was a surprise, but he wasn’t worried. Stepping across the hall, he peered into his and Zayn’s bedroom. Two lumps under the duvet brought out a chuckle. The larger lump moved and groaned at the sound before moving closer to the small lump with a sigh. Moving closer to the bed, Liam began humming under his breath. The song was from a children’s show, and he heard a quiet answering hum from the bed.

Smiling, Liam reached out for the end of the blanket with both hands. No matter how much they tucked it under the mattress, it always got pulled loose by morning. With a swift yank, Liam shouted, “Wakey! Wakey! Eggs and bakey!”

“Bacon?” Nora mumbled, rubbing her nose against Liam’s pillow and blinking one eye open.

“Nope. Just cereal this morning, little princess,” Liam said, reaching over to tickle her side, smiling when she screeched and rolled over to bury herself into Zayn’s side.

“Baba, save me!” she shouted, and Zayn rolled to cover her body with his own.

Liam turned his attention to Zayn’s side, tickling just a little bit more roughly than he had with Nora. Zayn tried to twist away without jostling Nora, which just exposed his sides even more to Liam’s attack.

“Nora!” Zayn shouted, and the little girl scrambled out from under him and climbed on top of Liam, trying to tickle the sides of his neck while Zayn rolled to his back and attacked his sides.

The tickle fight lasted a few more minutes before they all collapsed to the bed, panting through their laughter. Liam turned his head to look at his boyfriend. “Do you think mornings will always be like this?” Zayn asked.

Liam thought about the ring that was hidden in the back of his pants drawer, smiling when Zayn pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth, eyes squinting shut in happiness. “I wouldn’t want it any other way,” he said before he leaned over to press a kiss to the tip of Zayn’s nose, not wanting to risk morning breath.

“No! No! Kisses for Nora!” she said, pressing her hands between their faces and pressing them apart.

“Alright, princess,” Liam said, winking at Zayn. “Kisses for Nora!” he shouted, and the two men tickled the little girl and pressed kisses all over her face.

Cross-posted to AO3

[soramel]

Curiosity didn’t kill the cat | jjk ff

[COMPLETE] Part 4

jjkxreader

Prompt: “You’re early,” said the grim reaper with a hint of amusement.

Fantasy au, sageuk au, royalty au, grimreaper!jungkook, reader, romance, slow-burn

Words: 1.9k approx. Part 4/7 Content warning: smut, violence, angst

This is the last part in my Tumblr account. Part 5 to 7 (fin) can be found in my wattpad account

--

You stayed home the whole morning, staring out the window. You watched the cars passing by the bridge crossing the Han river.

Now you're plopped down on the couch while Jungkook is vacuuming the floor.

"Don't you have work today?" you asked.

Jungkook shook his head in reply. "There's no one on my schedule. I checked."

"Why don't you have a TV here? How do you pass time?" you whined. You might be safer compared to being outside, encountering different souls and human energies, but you thought this kind of boredom could kill too.

You learned last night that you don't tire out like a human does. It's your energy running out, which can be restored by sleep, rest, or eating food offerings for those who passed. However, if you stayed long enough wandering, those wouldn't suffice. Ghosts like Taehyung's assignee and the man in that business district, they feed off from wandering souls like you. Your energy is still of a human because you died in a wrong time, but they could easily get your energy from your form.

Jungkook didn't respond and continued cleaning.

You sighed. You're fully rested, so you can't really go back and sleep the day off.

You jumped at an idea, "How about I visit my funeral?" you didn't really want to. You don't want to see your family and friends being sad because of your passing. Besides, the spirit guide promised you that you could go back to your old life. You just have to wait. And you have a powerful grim reaper protecting you, so you're all good.

He shook his head, and firmly said, "No. It's not safe there. I told you that's a hotspot for starving souls."

"But I have you!" you insisted.

Jungkook turned off the vacuum, placing a hand on his hip, squaring his shoulders. He then said, "Remember when the lady almost got you? What if we encounter five of them? I'm not omnipotent, Y/n. I'd lay my life to protect you, but I don't really die so it's pointless. Once you're out of my grasp, you're on your own."

His warning rendered you speechless. Unconsciously, you huffed in a pout.

Jungkook's expression fell at your reaction, but there's nothing else he could do.

The doorbell rang.

Both of you turned to the sound.

The grim reaper tucked in the vacuum, leaving it to stand, before going to the door.

"Sir Jeon," you heard a wavering man's voice.

"Mr. Choi, what brought you here?" Jungkook queried, his voice tensed. He repeatedly wished for you not to show yourself and he hoped telepathy would work. But of course, your curiosity won. You peeked from the hallway and saw a man in his 30's.

His gaze shifted from Jungkook to yours. His eyes widened in thirst. For a second, the white of his eyes faded.

"Mr. Choi," Jungkook snapped.

The ghost stared back to him, as his eyes went back to normal.

"Sir Jungkook. It's my daughter. She's having a fever and her mother's not yet back from the business trip," the man explained.

"Her nanny didn't show up this morning. She's been alone since last night," he went on, his sweaty hands fidgeting as he asked for help. "Please, help her."

Jungkook stilled for a moment, before responding, "I'm not allowed to make calls in the human world, Mr. Choi. I'm not allowed to interfere on that matter."

Mr. Choi kneeled, pressing his hands together, and begged, "Please, sir. I, I tried to help. I've been trying to possess a human's body but my soul is too weak. I haven't fed for weeks. I couldn't visit a burial without getting killed by a starving ghost. Please, you're all I have."

"Mr. Choi-"

"Her!" he pointed at you.

"She can help."

Mr. Choi looked at you, his eyes pleading.

"Please help my daughter," he asked you directly.

Jungkook backed away from the door, "No," he sternly said. "She's not fit for what you're asking."

The man argued, "She just died! I can feel her energy from here, she could possess anyone easily!"

Then insisted, "Young lady, please. It's not that much. Just bring her to the hospital."

Jungkook stood firm, resolved to kick the man out, "I said no. Go-"

"Jungkook. It's okay. I'll help him," you said to him.

"Y/n," his voice laced with disapproval, while the man bowed repeatedly. "Thank you! Thank you!" he uttered over and over in gratefulness.

--

When you arrived at the apartment complex, you started looking around for someone to possess. You saw a college student, much like you, walking. Jungkook stopped you before you could take a step.

"Not her. She's not well rested. You'll be stuck in her body if her soul surrendered."

You nodded and tried to look for another. There's another woman, but she's with her child. It seemed like they're waiting for a taxi.

You surveyed the area. There are only cars passing by the highway.

Mr. Choi hesitatingly spoke, "Please hurry, it took me long to get to you,"

He pursed his lips shut when Jungkook sent him a deadly glare.

Clasping your hands together, you decided to go for the woman. You looked at Jungkook for permission, but he's been nothing but adamant.

So, you strolled forward, with much determination.

Upon nearing the lady, you whispered, "I'll be quick, promise," though she couldn't hear you.

You stepped into her shell, her soul resisting. You can feel yours slowly seeping in.

You tightly closed your eyes and soothingly muttered, "I'll be quick. A young girl's alone in the apartment and she's been sick. Please."

You opened your eyes and felt your spirit settled. You stared at the lady's free hand, then you felt a tug.

Her son stared up at you and said, "Mommy, there's the cab," he informed.

You looked at the driver and waved your hand dismissively. You crouched down to the boy's height and held his face.

"Mommy needs to visit a friend's place first. Okay?" you spoke, while trying not to be startled by your new voice.

The boy nodded.

You gave him a reassuring smile which turned to joy when he smiled back. Showing a gap between his teeth.

Holding the boy's hand, you faced Jungkook and Mr. Choi.

Mr. Choi beamed and led the way to his daughter.

--

You sat beside the hospital bed as you listened to the doctor. "She'll be monitored every four hours. You have nothing to worry about," he smiled at you and to the boy beside you.

"Thank you, doctor. I'll call her mother right away," you informed him.

"Don't mention it. How kind of you to look after your friend's child, Mrs. Kim," he said.

You blinked repeatedly and smiled awkwardly, "Ah, of course."

Then you looked at him as you wait for him to leave.

After an uncomfortable silence, you renewed your smile, "Doc?"

"Ah, yes. Well, then... I have to go. Lots of patients to attend to."

You nodded in reply. You watched him walk away before tripping on his own steps. A chuckle escaped Jungkook's lips, he tried to suppress it to no avail.

--

By the time you managed to bring the boy and the lady back to their home, the sun was already down. The lamp post flickered as you stepped out of the building. Then a snowflake fell on your nose before it passed through, landing on the pavement.

You reached out your hand to catch the first snow only for it to slip through.

Your lips pulled into a bitter smile. At least, you couldn't feel the cold.

Noticing your feet, you moved forward, one step after another.

If you were alive, the road's roughness would scrunch under your feet, the falling snow crystals would land on your skin then would melt away; if you were alive, you'd see your breath in this unforgivable winter.

It's only been days since, but you couldn't help but become impatient. More than a week of waiting would feel like a year.

"You okay?" Jungkook asked as he walked beside you.

Turning to him, you said, "Could be better,"

He nodded. "Let's find a door,"

You touched his arm to stop him, you feel like walking. At least that way, you'd be able to feel the first snow with your eyes.

"Can we walk instead?" you asked.

He frowned and answered, "You look tired. You almost spent a day in someone's body. It should've drained you. I'd need to ask Yoongi or Taehyung to bring us food."

Taking off your hand from him, you tried your best to hide your disappointment. "Just 5 minutes," you bargained. He paused to think, assessing the situation. Afterwards, he agreed.

"Thanks."

You walked forward, watching the sky. The orange light from the posts sparkled against the falling flakes. You basked in the simple beauty you failed to appreciate.

The glitters on the pavement

The rustling of the road as a car passed by

The ding of the bicycle dashing through, towards you

You stood frozen in shock as the biker permeated. It felt like the gravity engulfed you out of your soul, if that's still possible. You're left with nothing now, this is your form at your purest state.

You wobbled and before hitting the ground, Jungkook pulled you by the elbow. Your chest flushed against his as you looked at his face. His features etched with worry.

It felt familiar.

his hold

his arms,

his eyes,

this scene,

the weather.

Everything.

A déjà vu.

Jungkook felt it too. That was evident on how his concerned frown softened into a gaze of longing and admiration.

He couldn't put a name on his emotions, but it felt unstoppable.

It felt right to close the distance between you.

It felt right to rest his palm against your crimson-painted cheeks.

It felt right to acknowledge the pull.

Your eyes shuttered close as his lips met yours.

Everything felt familiar.

You both knew.

And as if the spell that bound you worn out, you pulled apart from each other. Averting each other's eyes.

Jungkook broke the silence by clearing his throat. He then muttered, "Let's go home. You're tired."

After a while, he found a door by the sidewalk. He jerked it to see if it's open and after confirming, he shut it close again.

He laid his hand out to you, at which you took without protest.

Then you were now in his apartment's hallway.

The rest of the night were spent in silence as he retreated to his room.

--

"Taehyung brought this for you," Jungkook blurted as he saw you stirring awake.

The space was lit by the morning light and clanking of plates rung through as the two grim reapers prepare on the dining table.

"I heard you had a rough day. I wish I could've brought food earlier, but I had a graveyard shift," Taehyung explained in a sad face.

You waved your hand dismissively, "It's fine. No worries. I just slept it off."

Taehyung's face lit up, he looked at you, smiling, "I got porridge. They put shrimps and eggs on it. First class."

"I also got tangerines. Though we must save two handfuls for Yoongi-hyung. He's on his way here."

The main door banged open at once, startling you.

"Oops, sorry 'bout that. Hi Y/n," Yoongi greeted.

Jungkook placed the last plate on the table before looking up at the eldest, "Yoongi-hyung, come eat with us."

[Part 5 to 7]

[dorminchu]

ALL THESE THINGS THAT I'VE DONE

The war against Paradis is over. Eren and Annie are forced to confront their mortality in a world that seems to have no need of them, and their significance to each other. [Post-Canon]

I didn't know there was an ereani week this year until a couple days ago, but I figured: cool, I should probably post something. Title comes from the track of the same name by The Killers.

The prompt is: Day 3 (4/12): "I love you" / "I loved you"

[Ao3 | FFNet]

i.

When the war was over, it was Armin who took the glory. That was a new look for him, Eren thought. Smart but eternally overlooked until he inherited the role of the Colossus Titan. Willing to carry the burden of humanity's savior without much complaint, unlike his teenage self who had always been plagued by doubts and fears. Eren wouldn't have thought Armin would be ready to chew the bullet while he quietly slipped into the background—but he was the leader, and Eren had always been accustomed to his status of figurehead.

Their roles had inverted with age.

As part of an overarching deal with Queen Historia, Eren was granted quarters—a cabin ten miles from the border of what had once been Wall Rose—and a modest pension, as long as he held his tongue and did not make any attempt to intercept the negotiations between Paradis and the surrounding countries. Eren put in an application for professor at the local military academy and spent the days trying to record what he could remember of his experiences in Marley.

The cabin had been around since the start of the war. About ten or so miles from the nearest village. Perhaps even before Eren was born, when Paradis was just a penal colony in name and the boundaries on inhabitable territory were less strict. The pipes still worked and there was evidence of an outhouse as well as quarters for a small animal—he wondered if it had been a hunter’s lodge.

After growing up in the back end of Shiganshina for the first nine years of his life and living in barracks and halfway houses for the next ten, it was a lot quieter. He felt oftentimes as if he were on a permanent state of leave, awaiting orders that would never come. There was so much time to fritter away now, without a war on the backburner.

ii.

In a bid to lessen the severity of his scarring, Eren tried growing a beard. He couldn't sprout a full one like Zeke could, just the chin-hairs, an innate reminder of his days in Marley. Most often he kept his hair pulled back in a short ponytail or else cut it short in the warmer seasons, though never as short as it had been in his days of adolescence.

He'd regenerated his leg and other limbs since the ceasefire, regained his motor functions in a week-long, agonsing process that he was sure Hanji would've loved had she been alive to witness it—but a day or so after settling into the cabin the old pain was flaring up again. He had a vivid memory of asking Commander Hanji once, at seventeen, after exhausting his father’s journal, but the only conclusion either of them could come up was phantom pain. Even if he were whole and unmarred, he did not anticipate sleep as any source of relief. Colours in his right eye gradually turned dull and it was getting harder to read even by candlelight, disorienting to walk out into harsh sunlight. Eventually he just began wearing a patch for the sake of simplicity. His other eye was unaffected.

He could still remember Ramzi's face better than most of his dead Scouts and it kept him up at night for hours. His way of life—the Titans, ODM gear—was quickly being phased out, trading blades and canisters for rifles and ammunition. His place among the armistice seemed moot.

Eren thought more often of his father. He did not wish to, explicitly, but the memories of him that popped into his head were usually indecipherable and triggered by stress.

The doctors in Marley would define this as shellshock. Other times they left impressions like the outline of the sun under closed eyelids; warmth, family, agony, guilt that would eat away at him for the rest of his remaining life.

Eren was, at least, confident in the fact that he was nothing like his father. He didn't pretend he was doing anything morally righteous, nor had he allowed himself to be molded into a pariah like Zeke. He had only accomplished what those same men were afraid or unable to do. It was nothing to crow about. He did not blame Zeke for that upbringing. Eren had taken action, knowing he would be hated and feared by his own comrades. He could only leave behind his memories in print, and if by some Godforsaken chance they somehow managed to fall into the hands of a like-minded company—well, perhaps one day he would be understood or misconstrued further. Rotting in the ground he could not defend his truth or bias.

But while he was alive, he could not rest. He knew better than most that all of this was fleeting.

It wasn’t as though he was out of shape with all the walking. He still stuck to drills in the morning to keep himself busy; awaiting orders that would never come. It sounded like something Armin might say. But Armin was content to busy himself with the sons and brothers of deceased bureaucrats; the succeeding generation to the brilliant men and women who'd led them right into the mouths of hell and out again.

Commander Hanji was dead. Commander Irvin had been dead four years now. Captain Levi was on his way to retirement and attempting to get Mikasa to replace him.

After seven years of military service his soldier’s inclinations remained unshakeable. He'd wake up every morning, going through the motions as though he were still a stowaway in Marley. He'd never allowed himself to consider a life beyond the pretext of enlistment and eventual expiration within the Scouting Regiment, much less the seemingly endless war between Paradis and the rest of the world. In the best case he had assumed he would die eventually, of old age or a more unheroic death out in the field. He'd never allowed himself to be ruled by that fear of mortality because he had to eradicate the Titans first—it was a child’s logic that had gotten him through military academy. Yet here he was, nineteen, with four going-on three years left to kill. Annie had three, going-on two. That was the only certainty she'd admitted to him without need for prying.

So Eren had to be sharp for the rest of their sakes. The war on Paradis had ended and brought with it economic turmoil. A mourning period that seemed to extend indefinitely. The next decade of prosperity would not be won in a year, nor three, and it would come on the backs of the losing side and breed the same old resentment, and then inevitably the same slow descent towards outrage and madness and oppression. Always in the back of his mind like the learnt urge to drink, or his inherited memories—he could almost convince himself of his hard-won stability. It was a good enough reason as any to stop answering Mikasa's letters.

iii.

The door opened to reveal the very last person he had ever expected to see again. She was every bit the woman he had seen in Marley and little of the girl in the crystal remained. What could he say to a four-year old crush-turned-heartbreak whose face he could scarcely recall among the hundreds of thousands of other casualties? "You shouldn't have come back."

When he moved to close the door, she stopped him with her heel. "I'm no longer a Warrior, nor a soldier. I have nowhere else to turn. You and I understand each other, so there's no point in bloodshed."

He gauged this, chewing his tongue. "Did someone send you?"

Her shoulders stiffened. "No one you'd know."

"I suppose you were sent here to finish the job for Marley?"

"No." Bluntly, she forced herself into the doorway. "I came here on my own. I just—"

"—all right, it seems like there's been some kind of miscommunication between you and whoever sent you."

"I was told you'd be able to accommodate me." 

"I don't need anyone else here."

Annie squinted at him. Her hand was clenched tightly on the doorjamb. "You must get bored living up in the mountains. And you could use another pair of hands if you're not regenerating." Eren said nothing. "Did you carve your eye out again?"

"Goddamn you," he growled, and wrenched the door open.

He let her walk past the threshold. Looked at her once, and then away. "I'll set a place aside for you to sleep," indicating a well-worn sofa, "you can stay as long as you need to until you find somewhere you like."

"I don't know why you're so upset. You could have killed me years ago. You've had every opportunity, and yet—"

"—I've moved on." He said it flatly, almost resigned. "You haven't, obviously."

Annie didn't flinch. "So you're just going to stay here and wait to die?"

"I keep myself busy."

"What do you do?"

"I teach the new cadets over at the Academy. It's about two hours from where we are; nothing special, but they seem eager to learn."

"I see."

He turned finally to face her. "What about you?"

Annie hesitated. "Used to work with the other displaced soldiers up until a few days ago."

"How'd that treat you?"

"It was all right. Why, are you too good for it now, now that you're a war hero?"

Eren ignored the barb. "It's been a while since everything settled down, so I wondered how you would fare."

"What, so you just popped up in this house?"

He scoffed. "Of course not. There was a tribunal, and it was decided to let me live on the condition I'd be kept far away where I wouldn't bother with anyone. I can't say the same for the others."

"You sold them out?"

He chuckled. "I didn't have to say much. They did it to themselves. We shared a common goal at one point but never the same ideology. At the very least, I can say I took no pleasure in what I—"

"—Ackermann gave you an out?"

Eren gauged the sharpness in her tone, the stiffness of her posture. "I didn't ask her to." He frowned. "You never told me how you got here. Did Mikasa have something to do with this?"

Annie froze, then averted her eyes. "I didn't have much of a choice. It was either come here or work myself to death doing manual labor. I wouldn't have minded that."

"Why didn't you tell me that she sent you?"

"I don't know. She seemed to pity you."

"Oi, it's not your fault. She can feel however she wants." He sounded bemused, scowling. "What the hell else she she think I'm going to do in four years? I have no plans to start another war."

Annie finally eyed him in her peripherals. "We didn't talk much other than that."

Within the next few hours he'd gotten a few more details out of her. In exchange for agreeing to be quartered here, her record was wiped clean. She had recently reapplied for the MP brigade under a new name and secured a position as secretary in the Karanese district headquarters. She had also admitted to him that she was dying to get back onto the streets again.

As a bedfellow Annie was, in some ways, more than he could've hoped for. Despite the introduction, she talked far less than they had as cadets. She did not seem particularly happy or unhappy, just neutral. She woke up each morning at six hours and left to do her drills. She would come back in an hour and offer to help him with whatever menial tasks needed doing, as if they really were holed up together in the remnants of a cabin lost ten years ago to a threat that would live on in sordid, haunting memory. The kind of life one would find beyond the realm of a weathered photograph. 

Unobtrusive without becoming idyllic. The best outcome he could afford her was three years of uneventful domesticity.

They didn't spar anymore. Not for lack of want, or kicking the habit. Eren just couldn't keep up with her the way he used to. His leg was shaky and she pointed it out first. It would have an impact on the kind of punishment he could take as opposed to when he was fifteen and shrugged off every injury like it was nothing. His eye was not healing. 

Annie was in better condition. Just by studying her gait it was obvious that she'd taken better care of herself. She had not had to bunk up with a gang of stinking, vulnerable soldiers riddled by shellshock. Trying to communicate with them in German worked, but it got him a lot of funny looks and no end of comparisons to fathers and grandfathers enlisted or long since dead.

Annie wasn't interested in his stories from Marley but she didn't brush him off either. She just tolerated it in a much more polite way than Mikasa or Armin would.

At twenty years old she came up to his chest. Either the crystallization had stunted her growth or she was naturally short. She was also scarred enough down her face but it was of the same sheer consistency as her hair. You would only know what she was if you were paying close attention.

She got skittish and temperamental if he tried to push his luck training with her. Initially it had pissed him off:

"What do you think I'm going to do?"

She'd looked at him bluntly. "You're still recovering. Why overexert yourself?"

He'd never told her about his injuries but the idea of her picking up on it this quickly rankled for reasons he did not care to discuss. "I'm not a kid."

Something flashed in her eyes. "I'm not going to push you."

And that was the end of it. He'd decided that this ritual mattered more to her than him, and respected her space. He still did his own drills.

But every time they locked eyes now he'd get that same, absurd itch in the back of his mind from a year ago. Sharpened his tongue and made him want to speak in ways he didn't think he should attempt to justify whilst sober.

iv.

Days passed. He did not always see her until late in the evening.

In the middle of the night he rolled over onto his bad leg and the pain woke him. In silence he got up, not enough to require medication but still pretty uncomfortable.

“Eren?”

He went still. Annie was up herself, over by the window, staring at him as though he were on his deathbed. In the low light her eyes looked strange and luminous. “Does it hurt?”

“Does—what?”

“Your leg.”

Eren sat up slowly as not to aggravate his condition. She didn't say anything else. “It’s not so bad that I can’t sleep.” He studied her face for signs of age, finding naught but scars, a weariness in her eyes he could speak to. She didn't frown. She just watched him coolly. Eren shrugged. “You can’t sleep either?" No answer. "Thinking about to-morrow?”

“I can get you something for it.”

Eren shook his head. “That's not necessary."

"Don't be stupid."

"This isn't something I can just take pills for.”

"It's chronic." Her tone pregnant with incredulity. "Why haven't you seen a doctor for this?"

"Annie, what the hell is a regular doctor gonna do for either of us? We already fix ourselves. There are other veterans that have been stranded here, they aren't growing their limbs back. They need all the help they can get. Anyway, it's only, what, three more years of living? I can take three. Fuck, I've taken ten."

The more he kept talking, the darker her eyes became. Clench in her jaw, tautness of her shoulders, pronounced enough to notice from a distance—an involuntary reflection of his own revulsion.

"I don't know how you managed to win one war, let alone, if you can't even prevent yourself from running into the ground." Her voice was icy and distinctly contemptuous. She stalked over to him. Cold fingers dug into the meat of his naked shoulder, pushed him upright between the wall and headboard; tight, controlled movements. "Four years later and you still want to pretend you're a fucking martyr. It might've worked on Mikasa, but I'm not your sister. I'm not going to help you hurt yourself."

She kneaded at his leg in a much brusquer way than the way the orderlies in Marley. Eren didn't argue. She was not going to take no for an answer. When it was done she coaxed him to lie down again. He stiffened as he felt her weight join his on the mattress, curled almost tentatively against his chest. She didn’t try to hold him, just huddled as though for warmth. She did not explain herself.

Eren had a vague recollection of the last time this had happened. Back then she came up to his chin, rather than the middle of his chest; their disparity was only thrown into relief. He could feel the human warmth of her through the thin undershirt, the softness of her hair on his cheek. He’d dreamt about this a lot when he was sixteen, while the tragedy of her betrayal was no longer fresh but still painful in his mind. He had no energy left to hate her then, for she was not his enemy.

He heard her breathing even out.

She had stayed this long. There was no sense in abandoning her now.

v.

Sometime after that, Eren started noticing her in more tangible ways. Smell of her hair. The subtle glint in her eyes in lieu of a smile. She'd wait up for him in the mornings before he left. He'd tell her good-bye.

When he came home he’d catch her eyes lingering on him in profile.

Just one day too many of the same quiet inactivity. The fact that they had slept in the same bed was just a catalyst of how familiar they were with each other already.

She woke up an hour later than usual and, fuming, went out to train. A light rain had started. Eren made breakfast. Over the next twenty minutes the light sheet became much more torrential. Annie came back in about half-an-hour, dripping water all over the floor. He would've told her off but she grabbed his wrist. He turned as she leant up and took his face in her hands and kissed him like her life depended on it.

Maybe the situation had always been building to this. He had forgotten about its immediacy until the moment presented itself. But now there was nothing left to say. So he gathered her up and placed her on the counter, kissing her breathless, bunching up her threadbare shirt, palming her tits through the military-issue brassiere—he muttered, "see, I thought you were just being nice," and she scoffed, set her heel to the small of his back even as he put his mouth on her. She was chilled from the rain; it was not yet summer. Half-dressed and needy, he took her right there on the countertop. Afterwards, there was no shame or lingering uncertainty that would have been present as cadets. She pressed her cheek to his.

"I'm going to be away for a while. It's higher pay if I stay in Karanese. Maybe two or three weeks." She looked up at him. Her eyes were bright but her tone was stoic. "I just…" She trailed off because he was only looking at her face. Eren smoothed her damp hair away from her cheek.

"I love you." Then he stopped. Like he was finally coming to grips with the idea. Annie blinked rapidly. A crease formed in her brow. Her mouth worked but no sound came out. Eren kissed her chin. "But, if you're gonna be trackin' mud everywhere you'd best clean it up after yourself."

She finally came back to herself. Shoved him lightly in the chest. "Fuck off." Then hoisted herself off the counter, fixed her trousers, and asked in a dry voice where he kept the washbasin.

vi.

On his own the cabin felt distinctly empty. Sometimes he'd wake up hard and just—take care of it. Annie on top of him. On her knees. Pulling him up to her. He missed her a lot more than he'd care to admit to her face and it wasn't just in the sense that she was available. She'd probably just smirk at him anyway.

But when she returned it was nice to have her around, even for a little while. She kept to herself and he gave her space; it was as though she had never left.

It was still morning. He was working when he felt her come up behind him, hands slipping over his wrists. “Oi,” he muttered, “I’m a little busy.”

“You’re just sitting there.”

He scoffed. “Really? How would you know what I’m doin’?” No answer. Eren closed the book. “You really are demanding, ain’t you?” Faux-annoyance. But he turned.

She looked prettier in uniform. Hair pulled back into less of a bun, more of a severe ponytail. She was looking him up and down as though deciding something for herself.

She leant down, kissed him firmly, nipping at his lip until went with it, half-amused. She stepped back, breathing evenly, eyes glinting. She cupped his face, a vestige of tenderness he did not anticipate.

Then her eyes shifted, something empty, strange. A harsh crack against his jaw he could not anticipate and he took it, worked his jaw, blinking rapidly. “What the hell are you—?”

Annie jerked her head back slightly, fixing him with the same expectance he realised he’d completely misinterpreted. “Hit me.”

Eren didn’t move. Her jaw trembled, then set. He caught her wrist. “That’s enough.”

“Why?” She sounded annoyed. “It’s all right. I can take it.”

“What is this?”

“I’ll be dead before you anyway, it would be easier just to take—”

“—I said that’s enough,” he said, terse. “I’m not going to do anything to you."

Her brow furrowed. "I thought you understood.”

Eren just stared, fighting to keep himself calm when he wanted to grab her shoulders and demand her to justify why the hell she wanted to be hit. "What am I supposed to understand?"

Annie’s eyes darted over his face and then to his wrist. “I want you to hit me back.”

“I’m not going to do that.” He cupped her jaw and she almost flinched; his stomach twisted. “Do you understand me?“

Silence built up between them. "I know you’d stop if I asked you to.”

“I’m not going to wait until after I’ve hurt you to stop.”

Annie pressed her face into his chest. He took her by the shoulders, watching her stiffen.

“Do you hear me?”

She nodded.

"Why d'you want me to hit you?"

"Do you want a list?" He gripped her tight enough to make her flinch and immediately regretted the look of fear that came across her face. He let go of her. "I’ve been complicit in the death of your comrades.” Her voice thickened. “And I’ve taught you everything I know. You don't need me here for anything other than your own gratification.” Returning to the facade of impassivity with unnerving ease. “So, there’s no point in comparing our tallies.”

“Annie—"

“Are you stupid?” Annie spat, the most emotion she had exhibited thus far. “You've taken my country and my life and my father and you—now you want me to love you back. You want to marry me as if we're ever going to—I'm the one who killed your friends, why would you ever want to be reminded of—"

"You love me." She looked helpless in her vulnerability. "What? What's the matter?"

"Why would you want me? I—I can't even have children. I'm going to die in four years. I'm going to watch you die unless I kill myself fir—"

"—Annie—"

"—you could fuck anyone you wanted!" she exploded. "Why does it have to be me?"

"Because you don’t have to earn anything from me! I just want to be around you—can’t you accept that?”

Annie kissed him hard. He trembled though he was holding her.

“Take me to bed." Eren opened his mouth and she kissed his chin. “I want you to take me to bed. I—”

Even then, he was hesitant to touch her. She led the way, stripping down to skin and splaying on his bed. He caressed her when she asked him to, a gentleness in his hands that betrayed his own sympathy; for once she didn’t chastise him.

Her scarring was far more pronounced in the light. He'd noticed before, briefly on the counter and more clearly with enough attention, but not like this. It clustered around her sternum and down her spine. He wondered, briefly, if that was why she'd wanted to do it quickly. Now her eyes were bright and shimmering but she took him into her, reached for him.

"Is this OK?" His voice was a croak.

Her eyes flickered to him. Cautious, sure. "Yeah."

He was on his knees, lifting the small of her back, working her towards a much sweeter surrender. He slid one arm around her waist to support her and touched her breasts, the side of her neck, cupping her jaw. His thumb ran over her scarring.

“Annie.” She gasped at the sound of her name. “Ann. Look. Come here.” She was biting her lip. Head fallen back, her hair was almost diaphanous in the light. He murmured her name and she was shivering with emotion. She turned into her elbow and told him in an unsteady voice to go faster, and the bed creaked to match him.

Her body arched, jaw slack. She wouldn't stop shivering. Her voice did not rise in expectation. It just wavered, edgeless.

He took her wrist away from her face and—she flinched. This serrated, ugly, sound that jerked out of her body. He pulled out, holding her. “Look at me,” his voice hoarse and horrified, “please.”

Annie curled up against his chest and shook. Eren just kept apologizing. She didn't push him away.

Eventually she stopped. Raised her head. Their eyes met and she lost composure again. He brushed her hair from her face. “Stay,” she croaked, “please. I need you.”

He kissed her brow. She almost flinched. He tucked his chin into her shoulder, arms around her back, until she’d calmed down.

"You don't have to do anything," he said quietly. "Do you understand that?"

"I know."

Laying prone, she only came up to his sternum. Annie sat up first. She got to her feet and went over to the window. Her shoulder was parallel to the glass. His attention stayed firmly on her profile. “You’re gonna get colder than hell. Come back here.”

She turned and glanced at his forearm curled half-surreptitiously against his stomach. Scar tissue along her breasts was prominent. In the dead light of this cloudy, April afternoon she finally looked her age.

There was a naked uncertainty in her eyes that made him freeze. "You're not my father and you never will be. You've been kinder towards me than I deserve, given the circumstances. I wish I could despise you."

Eren rolled his shoulders. The silence held for a while. "I don't know if what either of us have done can be forgiven. But, as long as you’re here, I want you to know that I don't hate you." All she did was stare, a slight crease in her brow. “I never could.”

“You love me,” she said. Not with scorn. Like she was testing the idea in a way they would have shied away from as kids. She averted her face towards the window.

She watched him get up and tensed. He limped towards her in a couple strides and draped the blanket around her shoulders with the same tentativeness. She did not put her arms around him. She pressed her face into his shoulder. His arm came around her back and she closed her eyes, just existing in the cold slats of wood against her feet and the rise and fall of his breast.

He put the blankets around her and laid beside her.

He’d always supposed he would heal with enough rest. He didn't know how to put what he felt into words, but eloquence had never been his forte. It was not unlike laying on your deathbed, mulling over all the things that hardly seemed to matter until there was no time left to spare.

There was no pain now, just certainty in the presence of another—the old urge to drink was absent.

This is a cleaned-up version of a couple tumblr WIPs + some old/new material blended in for fun. Think of it as a pilot episode for a much larger fic.

For what it's worth I did like the ending of AoT. Elements of that ending will likely factor into the aforementioned larger fic. I am totally disinterested in arguing about ships or wasted potential—at this point, I’d rather write whatever seems interesting, and leave it at that, canon or not.

And hey, if you think acknowledging canon will override my crippling addiction to the "morally challenged antihero/problematic blonde" dynamic… I really don't see that happening. Even after exiting this fandom, it's like, ALL I've been writing for a year (looking at YOU Insult to Injury) and I feel like I'm going insane. Back on topic though: Now that AoT has concluded, I find I am far less stressed at the prospect for writing for this series again. It won’t be my main focus, but I do like this fic’s concept enough to flesh it out.

[mldrgrl]

Hello ! I love your fanfictions and i have a prompt for you: Scully discovers Mulder's secret talent. He gives the best back rubs. (ust to rst maybe ?).

Magic Fingers by: mldrgrl Rating: PG-13 to be safe

It was her shoulder, the first time.  She’d been hunched uncomfortably over an autopsy table for too long in too cramped conditions - the best a small town without an official medical examiner could offer - and she had paid the price that night that a handful of Tylenol couldn’t cure.

And Mulder wouldn’t stop talking.

He went on and on, arguing not even with her, but with himself, changing his theory as rapidly as he thumbed through the latest photos.  She tried to focus her attention on what he was saying, but the pain in her shoulder was too distracting and she was too weary.

As he droned, she reached up with her right hand and squeezed the top of her left shoulder.  He didn’t notice her wince or her whimper, which was just as well.  She closed her eyes, pressing as deeply into the aching muscle as she could with her fingers.  It was somehow both more painful and less painful at the same time.  Her brows drew towards one another in concentrated effort and after a few moments, she realized Mulder had finally, blessedly, stopped talking.  She opened her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she answered, lowering her hand and unconsciously rolling her shoulder back.  “My shoulder.  It’s fine.”

He looked at her with his head tilted, plucking at his bottom lip with his thumb and index fingers.  He scooted his chair over closer to hers and slid his pile of photos along with him.  He picked up where he left off and he reached up, one-handedly massaging her shoulder as he pointed to different things in the photos he wanted her to see.

She probably should have told him to stop, but she was afraid if she were to open her mouth it would be to weep with relief.  His thumb pushed into the back of her shoulder in the exact spot she needed him to and she had to bite her lip to stop from moaning.

With slightly trembling hands, she picked up one of the photos to examine the shape of some burn marks that he was insisting held a pattern that she couldn’t see.  Without missing a beat, Mulder stood and shifted his right hand to her right shoulder and his left to her left.  He leaned over her chair just a little, speaking down above her head as he continued on with a very firm and thorough massage of her shoulders.  

“I, uh…”  She blew out a breath and fought against dropping her head forward.  “It looks...it looks…Mulder, even if I saw what you did, what does it prove?”

“You’re right.”  He abruptly stopped his massage and his hands stilled on her shoulders.  He gave her one last squeeze and then gathered the photos.

“Leave them,” she said.  “I’ll look them over again in the morning, once I’ve gotten some sleep.”

He nodded and then looked at his watch and cringed.  “Sorry, Scully, it’s…”

“It’s okay.”  She got up to walk him to the door of her motel room.  “Thank you for, um…”  She gestured to her shoulder.  “It feels a lot better.”

“Anytime.”  He grinned and then wiggled his fingers at her.  “They don’t call me Magic Fingers Mulder for nothing.”

“Who’s they?”

He shrugged.  “People could.”

“Mmhm.”

“Night, Scully.”

“Good night, Mulder.”

****

The second time it was a headache that had been troubling her for the better part of an evening.  They were very inconveniently on a stakeout, trapped within the confines of the front seats of their rental car.  The headlights of passing cars would occasionally whiz by, the bright light making her flinch and try to surreptitiously sink below the dashboard.  It was only when Mulder would press the binoculars to his face that she could discreetly rub her temples or pinch the bridge of her nose for some relief.  She’d washed down a few aspirin with tepid coffee over an hour ago and the dull ache remained.  She’d also made sure the glove compartment was well-stocked with napkins for any sudden nosebleeds.

“Give me your hand,” Mulder suddenly said.

“My hand?”  Without thinking about it, she started to put her hand out to him, but then pulled it back.  “Why?”

“I’m bored, thought I’d read your palm.”  He put the binoculars down in his lap and turned his head to her and inclined his chin up at her.  “I can help with that.”

“Help with what?”

“Your headache.  Let me see your hand.”

“I don’t…”  She stopped her denial short when she saw his brows go up.  Reluctantly, she moved her arm up and held her hand out to him.  He folded his arm over hers and held it steady tucked up against his side.

“This is the Hegu,” he said, pressing his thumb into the divot between the base of her thumb and index finger.  In the same spot, but on her palm, he pressed with his index finger so that it was like he had her hand in a vice.

Almost immediately, she felt a lightness in her head.  The pain hadn’t gone away entirely, but rather she was numb to it.  She could still feel the thrum of the headache without actually feeling the ache.

“Tell me if I press too hard,” he said.

“It’s fine,” she murmured.  

“Guessing they never covered acupressure in med school?”

“No, they didn’t.”

He moved his thumb in a slow circle, massaging her hand while keeping an eye on the suspect’s windows.  Within minutes, she could no longer feel the pain in her head and finally she flexed her fingers and tugged on his grip every so slightly to indicate he could let go.

“Want me to do the other side?” he asked.

She wiped a hand across her brow.  “No, I think...it’s gone, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”  He picked up the binoculars from his lap and put them to his face again.  “Say something earlier next time.  You don’t have to suffer.”

“Okay,” she replied, with no intention of keeping that promise.

*****

She’d been awake since 4:30 am EST and it was currently 8:42 am PST.  That was over 31 hours by her estimation without sleep, on her feet, in the same boots she’d stepped into before heading to Dulles.

She hobbled into her motel room, barely able to muster the energy to remove her leather jacket.  She tried to drape it over the chair by the window, but it slipped off the back and she left it on the floor.  All she wanted to do was sleep.

Not bothering to turn the bed down, she crawled across the mattress and collapsed onto her back, sprawling diagonally and staring up at the popcorn ceiling.  Mulder pushed through the connecting door only moments later, already in fresh jeans and bare-chested.

“I booked the next flight out,” he said.  “We leave in twenty minutes.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” she muttered.

He chuckled and sat down by her feet.  “Tomorrow morning,” he said, unzipping her right boot.  She groaned as he pulled it off her foot.  He took her left boot off as well and then pulled his legs up to sit cross-legged with her feet in his lap.

“Oh my god,” she said, when he slid his thumbs up her insteps.  Her eyes slipped shut and she sighed.

“That good?”

“Don’t stop.”

“Careful, it’s talk like that that’ll lead to breaking the rules.”

“I don’t care.  Don’t stop.”

He worked both feet at the same time for a few minutes and then concentrated on the left with both hands, massaging from heel to toe.  She only let a few moans slip out.  He moved on to the right foot and she winced when he squeezed the knuckle of her pinkie toe.  She was fairly certain she’d developed a blister.

“Hurt?” he asked.

“Blister, I think,” she answered.

“Why do you wear them?”

“Why?”

“Don’t get me wrong, Scully, the heels, the boots, they’re sexy as hell-”

“Careful,” she interrupted.  “It’s talk like that that’ll lead to breaking the rules.”

“But, your poor little feet.”  He stopped massaging to gently caress the top of her foot.

“They’ll survive.”  She wiggled her toes at him to hint that he wasn’t finished.

“I could’ve been doing this for you years ago.”

“It matters more that you’re doing it for me now.”

He stopped and her feet slipped from his lap as he uncrossed his legs.  He hovered over her on his hands and knees and then bent down and kissed the corner of her mouth.  She opened one eye and then reached up and pinched his chin before he could actually kiss her lips.

“It’s a stupid rule,” he mumbled, turning his head and pursing his lips to kiss her thumb instead.

“I didn’t tell you to stop.”

“No, actually, I think I recall you telling me not to stop.”  He crawled back, returned to his cross-legged position, and took her feet back into his lap.

She yawned.  “Just let me get a few hours in,” she murmured.  “You should get some sleep as well.”

“You sleep.  I think I’ll take the rental and head to Lady Footlocker and get you some sneakers.”

*****

How things have changed, she thought, as she knocked on his door.  When she’d started feeling faint, feeling nauseated, instead of hiding away she went straight to Mulder.  This thing between them was new, still in development, playful and flirtatious and fun.  She’d never had to seek comfort or reassurance from him before, but she needed it now.

He brought her in, helped her into his bed and out of her shoes, wrapped his arms around her and whispered lovely things into her ear.  The chill she felt left her and she was able to stop trembling.  The nausea abated, but she still felt strange and restless.

“What can I do?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered.  “I feel achy and tired.”

“The flu?”

“It doesn’t feel like the flu.  It doesn’t feel like anything I’ve experienced before.”

He slipped out of the bed and turned off all the lights except for the dim vanity light in the bathroom.  He came back with one of the sample-sized bottles of motel lotion and collected all the photos that had scattered across the bed when he laid her down.

“Let’s get you out of these clothes,” he said.

“Agent Mulder,” she murmured.  “Are you coming on to me?”

“Only for the last seven years.  You just finally noticed a few months ago.  Can you sit up?”

She pushed herself up and tiredly brushed the hair out of her face.  He opened the buttons on her blouse and she twisted her shoulders this way and that to free her arms.  She unhooked her bra on her own and he rolled the comforter back and shoved the pillows aside as she pushed her slacks off her hips.

She laid down on her stomach with her right cheek pressed to the bed.  Mulder straddled the backs of her thighs and kept most of his weight on his knees.  The lotion he squeezed onto his palms smelled like lemons.  Not unpleasant, but not ideal either.  The next time he was inspired to give her a massage, she’d try to have something nicer on hand.

He started at the middle of her back and smoothed his slick hands up to her shoulders.  She pushed out a small puff of air as she tried to settle and relax.  He was quiet as he worked her shoulders and neck.  No jokes, no witty remarks.  She savored the silence and for once, allowed herself to just enjoy being taken care of.

“You really are good at this,” she murmured.

“I told you once before, they don’t call me Magic Fingers Mulder for nothing.”

“Yet you never told me who ‘they’ were.”

“Anyone who’s been lucky enough to have the magic fingers upon them.”

She smiled with the right side of her mouth and snorted lightly.  He braced his hands on the small of her back and then scooted down closer to the backs of her knees.  For her, it was at that point when the massage took a turn from gentle and comforting to unbearably erotic.  And it wasn’t anything that he purposefully did, it was simply that her brain suddenly seemed to register the fact that her skin and his hands had gotten intimately familiar as of late and she started to anticipate what should come next.

It was hard work to be still when every drag of his fingers down her back and the slow slide of his palms up to the backs of her shoulders made her feel like writhing.  Her pelvis ached and her stomach dropped and flipped and heat flooded her veins and made her skin prickle.  She could feel sweat forming at her temples and low back from the effort it took not to push her hips up into his hands.  Tears gathered behind her closed eyes and clung to her lashes before rolling slowly across her cheek and nose, dripping silently to the bed.

“Scully?”  Mulder paused and placed his hand lightly at the back of her neck, thumbing her hair out of the way.

“I love you,” she breathed.  “I…”

It took exactly two seconds for Mulder to respond.  “I love you too,” he said.  He bent down, touched his lips to the back of her shoulder and then continued with the massage.  His touch was a bit firmer though, more confident.  Saying those words out loud was like its own kind of release.  She felt satiated and calm.

At some point, she felt Mulder move off of her and felt the blankets being draped over her.  Half-asleep, she let her hand flop blindly across the bed, looking for Mulder.

“I’m here,” he whispered, sliding his hand into hers as he lifted the covers and slid in beside her.  He’d stripped to his boxers.  Warm flesh against warm flesh.  She put her arm over his chest and slid one leg between his.  “My little rulebreaker,” he whispered, kissing the top of her head.

*****

She was due in less than two weeks and she felt every bit as pregnant as she looked.  She hadn’t seen her feet in a month and she couldn’t last more than twenty minutes without needing a bathroom.  She loved it though.  She loved feeling the baby kick; finding a little hand or foot or elbow pressed against her abdomen; or the time the baby had the hiccups.  It was what she had hoped and prayed for.

What she didn’t love, was the constant ache that had developed in her hips and lower back.  She had yet to find a position she could be in, standing, sitting, or laying, that offered any relief.  She had asked about it at her last Lamaze class and the answers had been simple: take a warm bath or apply warm compresses, elevate the hips, try massage.  She’d tried the bath, tried the compresses, and elevated her hips.  None of it worked.

She was having a particularly rough day when Mulder knocked on her door.  Things had been so strange between them since his return.  She tried to understand his trauma, tried not to push, but she didn’t expect him to shut her out so completely.  He had only recently started to express a hint of interest in the baby, but had yet to ask her the questions she knew he must have.  He’d attended her last Lamaze class with her a few evenings prior and she had waited through the silence of the car ride home, willing him to say something, but he hadn’t.

“Pizza?” he asked, holding out his offering to her when she answered the door.  

“Come in.”  She pushed the door open and walked away to let him see himself in.  Waddled, is more like it.  She dug her fists into the small of her back and headed slowly to the couch.  He was lucky she’d already been up, on her way from the bathroom to the kitchen when he knocked, otherwise he’d still be waiting.

Mulder followed closely behind and set the pizza box down on the coffee table.  He shed his jacket and then pushed the sleeves of his sweater up as he headed to the kitchen for plates and napkins.  He seemed relaxed, almost jovial.  He brought the plates and napkins and then disappeared again, returning this time with two glasses of water.  She eyed him a little suspiciously as he doled out the pizza.

“What, um...brought this on?” she asked, watching him devour nearly half a slice of pizza in a single bite as she blew the heat off her own slice.

“Thought you might need some sustenance,” he replied around his mouthful.

She stretched her back and sighed.  “What I could really use are those magic fingers of yours,” she answered.

Mulder wiped his mouth with a napkin and glanced at her belly and everywhere else but her face.  When he finally looked her in the eye he cleared his throat and then looked away, setting his pizza plate onto the coffee table.

“I can do that,” he said.  “I’ve actually been...reading about it.  There was, uh...a pamphlet at the Lamaze place.  I brought it home.”

She waved her hand dismissively.  “It’s fine,” she said.  “I was joking.”  She was actually only half-kidding.  She would kill her beloved pizza delivery man for a massage from Mulder.

“You don’t want me to.”  The statement was very matter-of-fact and a little forlorn.  He turned away and stared at the coffee table.

“I just don’t want you to feel...obligated.”

“When have I ever felt obligated?”  He turned his head towards her and glanced down at her belly again.  He tapped his fingers together nervously.

“I suppose...never.”

“But, if you don’t want me to, I’ll...it’s fine.”

“I do.”  She put the pizza back onto the plate without taking a bite.  “I want you to.”

“Okay.”  He stood and then sat back down again and leaned forward off the edge of the cushion.  “Uh, it says the best way to do it is for you to lay on your side.  Should we…?”

“You’ll have to help me up.”

He took her hands and helped pull her from the couch.  She puffed her cheeks and expelled a puff of air with the exertion and then twisted the knuckles of her index fingers into her hips after letting go of him.  He put the pizza away in the kitchen while she went to the bedroom to lay down.  She took her robe off but left her cotton t-shirt and flannel pants on.  

Mulder stood in the doorway watching her arrange the pillows - one under her head, one between her knees, one clutched to her chest like a teddy bear.  He hovered there until she was in place and then he stepped out of his shoes on his way over to the bed.

“The guides said not a lot of pressure,” he said, one hand hovering over her shoulder.  “Long strokes and...if anything hurts or doesn’t feel right, you tell me.”

“I will,” she said.

He finally knelt behind her, but it was still a few more moments before he touched her.  She sighed immediately, even the soft pressure of his thumbs above her tailbone was immensely gratifying.  She groaned and his hands flew up.

“Too much?” he asked.  “Hurts?”

“No, it’s good,” she assured him.  “Feels really good.”

“Okay.”

For the first time she could remember, his touch was tentative.  He’d never hesitated over her before and she hoped it was only because the health scare she’d had with the baby made him nervous, and not because she made him nervous.  He gradually became less timid and her muscles were singing in appreciation.

“I want to confess something,” he said, suddenly, but didn’t stop massaging her.

“Okay.”

“I saw your chart when you were in the hospital.  You’re...38 weeks now.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not the best at math, but...when you felt sick, in Oregon, does that mean…?”

She swallowed hard and shifted her eyes to glance back at him.  “I found out the night you went missing.”

“Oh.”

There was an extended silence.  She counted the slide of Mulder’s hands up and down her back.  Fourteen passes and he said nothing more.

“Is there anything else you’d like to know?” she asked.

“I didn’t really know what was happening when I woke up.  I thought...I thought years had passed, at first.  I thought you had tried the IVF again or had moved on...with someone else.”

“You could’ve asked.”

“You could’ve just told me.”

“I didn’t want to push.”

“I was afraid of what the answer might be.”

She sighed and then he stopped and rested his hand on her hip.  She took it, laced their fingers together and brought his arm up and across her waist to rest on top of her stomach.  He shifted and laid down behind her.

“I saw something else,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re having a boy.”

“We’re having a boy,” she confirmed.

He pressed his face into the back of her head and breathed deeply.  His chest swelled against her back and she pulled him closer until he fit snugly against her.

“When do you think we…?” he asked.

“After you went chasing crop circles in England,” she said.  “I think.”

“I remember.”  He pulls his fingers free from hers only to rest his whole hand fully on her swollen belly.  “Scully, I’m not much of a catch right now - unemployed, recently raised from the dead, terrible cook, and I’ve been known to be a bit of a short-sighted, selfish SOB at times, but all I know is that one day we were in Oregon and we loved each other and suddenly it’s six months later and everything is different, but I still love you and...and I’m pretty good at keeping my fish happy and I tell great jokes and I can promise to give you really good massages every day for the rest of...for as long as you’ll have me.  If you’ll have me.”

“Mulder,” she whispered, hugging his arm to her chest and pulling his hand up to kiss his knuckles.

“You don’t have to answer right now or anything.”

“Shut up, Mulder.”

“Okay, but-”

She cut him off by turning her head and pulling him into a kiss.  It lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough to end any doubts for either of them.  She snuggled back down into his arms and he tightened his hold on her.

“Magic Fingers Mulder strikes again,” he whispered.

She rolled her closed eyes, but smiled.

The End

[itsmeevie01]

Bio!Dad Bruce Wayne Day 4 -Habits

I just wanted to put a trigger warning up at the top. It's not very well discribed, because this was edited at 3 am, BUT. Marinette... Disassociates(?) Toward the end of this. I know that it's a little different than what people usually discribe for her, but I kind of based off my experiences I've had and experiences my best friend has had.

The sun started to peak its way through the windows as Dick Grayson made his way into the kitchen at the manor. It wasn’t often that he was able to come back for long stretches of time, but when he was, he enjoyed beating his family down. As he walked in, he blinked in shock. There sitting at the counter, was Marinette. His younger sister (who he was still mad at Bruce for hiding from him) was siting there happily chatting with Alfred as she sipped on a mug of coffee. She was already dressed and seemed too chipper for 5:30 in the morning.

 At the sound of him slinging himself into a chair, Marinette threw him a smile that made Dick squint in return. He huffed in response and latched onto the mug that was passed his way. There was a reason he made sure to be up before the others, after all.

Tim was settled with his laptop when Marinette maneuvered into the sitting room. In one arm, she had her sketchbook, a bag of pencils, and a cup of water. In the other arm, she had her computer, phone, and a tray that was holding four cups of coffee. When she set one down in front of Tim, he hummed in appreciation. She sent a smirk his way and added “a gift to the lord of the room” his responding

“Hey! Get back here Little Bit!” was met with laughter. She threw him a smile and arranged herself onto the opposing couch. He smiled at her and returned to his homework. This was his quiet time, and she knew that. Recently she had been making a point to spend time working in the same space with him when they both were busy. Both times she had come to visit since Thanksgiving, he had found himself working with the girl. Somehow, she always knew when he needed a break, and the thirteen-year-old girl made sure to pull his attention away for an appropriately short amount of time. He had often found over the last few weeks that he was sleeping better because of it too. Now, as he reached over to grab the coffee, she had brought him, he smiled. Maybe he could convince her to make a habit of this.

Every week his sister had been at the manor over the course of her winter break, Dick had been beaten to the kitchen. As he stumbled through the kitchen once again at an ungodly hour of the morning, he realized that he could hear Alfred and his sister talking quietly in the smaller dining room. As he made his way into the room, he could make out the tail end of their conversation, “-do know that they would be more than willing to let you talk about this, Miss Marinette. You do not have to carry this burden on your own.” The sound of a disbelieving snort followed.

“I know you keep saying that, Alfred, but I just…they all have such busy lives and there’s so much going on in Gotham and- “

“and you are still part of the family, Miss Marinette. Master Bruce is starting to worry about you, and Master Dick is starting to notice that you are avoiding the topic. Do not shut them out, when they can help you. This situation may need an outside touch.” When Alfred finished speaking, Dick decided that he had overheard more than he should have.

“Alfred? Are you in here?” When he called out for the older man, Dick watched with a cringe as little Marinette jumped at his voice. “Hey Net! I’m not sure if I should be jealous that5 you keep beating me down in the mornings!” as he teased her, he watched her eyes light up.

“Well, Dick, you try being the child of two bakers- “as the girl started her comeback, a groggy voice cut through the air.

“what the hell are you all doing up?” the three turned to see Tim standing in the recently vacated doorway, clutching his water bottle and looking around with bloodshot eyes. “it’s like, 2 am.” At Tim’s declaration, Marinette giggled.

“Tim? Its almost 6?” the look of shock that flashed over the boy’s face made Dick frown. Tim’s all-nighters were becoming more and more frequent. The way the teen stumbled out of exhaustion was worrying.

“Hey Timmy? Let’s get you to bed.”

In the week prior to Christmas, Bruce made it a point to try and come home earlier so that he could spend more time with both Marinette and Tim, who were both supposed to be enjoying their winter breaks. He knew, of course, that Tim had wheedled his way into doing extra course work over the holiday to cut down on time spent in school. That didn’t mean that he expected the boy to focus solely on the work. Imagine his surprise when he had come home to both of his teens settled in the sitting room working. Marinette was sketching furiously, while Tim was typing away on his laptop with a ferocity that would scare many of the villains that populated Gotham. Bruce blinked in shock before turning to find Alfred standing off to the side smiling.

“They have adjusted their habits so that they can bond even though this season is busy for the both of them, Master Bruce.” He turned back to his children and smiled at the two of them as they continued working, unaware of anything outside of the sitting room.

The next morning, when Dick came down, expecting to see his sister and Alfred, he was instead met with the sight of macaroons cooling on the counters. On the island, there were croissants, and on the stove, there were pans full of freshly baked sugar cookies. He blinked in concern and turned around the room searching. On the other side of the kitchen was his sister, standing over the sink, hands unmoving, as she gazed out at the slowly rising sun. Her eyes were unfocused, and as Dick made his way over, his eyes focused on the slight tremor that was running through her hands. “Net?” When he received no answer, he moved closer, “Marinette? Hey- “the girl moved, and Dick’s hand shot out and caught the bowl that she had been holding and set it down. Gently, he guided his sister out of the kitchen and led her into the sitting room, where they passed Alfred as he made his way down for the morning.

Once Dick had Marinette settled, he sat next to her and held out one of his hands, leaving the offer for comfort open as the girl blinked and started to look around in confusion.

One moment, Marinette had been starting on the dishes, the next, she was sitting on the love seat in the siting room next to her brother. The sharp poke in her side that had brought her out of her mind was one that she could only attribute to Tikki. As she sat there, adjusting to the change in location, Marinette took a deep breath to ground herself. She wasn’t expecting her brother to speak.

“Do you want to talk about it, Net?” The girl studied the Man sitting next to her for a moment. When she decided that she couldn’t find any hint of insincerity, Marinette nodded hesitantly and trained her eyes on her hands. They were twisting in her lap, working as a distraction and an outlet for the nervous energy that had been building up since August.

“I- “Dick waited patiently for the girl to collect her thoughts, “I love Paris, I really do. I mean- it’s the place I grew up! But. Well, recently.” She hesitated again. She looked up at him, with tears in her eyes. “everything is wrong!” The phrase tore out of her, and she clamped her mouth shut afterwards as her mind flew through damage control ideas. “I mean. Well. Everything is do tense. Too perfect. No one can feel anything!” When had she started crying? Marinette could have sworn that she had a better handle on her emotions after spending the last five months held emotionally hostage. As she started to devolve into true sobs, Dick pulled the girl into a hug, and she clung to him. For the first time in almost five months the girl was able to truly process what was going on in her home city.

When Alfred came to check on them 20 minutes later, he found the duo sitting curled on the couch. In the other doorway stood a shocked Bruce. Alfred smiled at the look of shock on the fathers face before the man strode over to join his oldest and his youngest. As Alfred turned to go back into the kitchen and finish making sense of all of Marinette’s baking, the man shook his head. Who knew that the habits that Marinette influenced would be the ones that would bring the Paris situation to light?

so, i plan on picking up in the same place for tomorrow’s prompt (overprotection) so i didnt resolve anything. i think i have the rest of the month plotted out as well! as soon as i have a day where im not stuck at work all day, im going to go through and put all of these in a master post, along with my other fic *ideas*. 

just so that i can also clear up any potential confusion, no. Damian is not yet present in this. yes. he will eventually. at this point, Marinette is 13, Tim is 15, Jason (who is going to be in the background for a bit still) is 19(ish) and Dick is either 24 or 25, i haven’t decided. I do plan on including more of the Batclan as i go...

[toomanyfandoms02]

Tension // Spencer Reid x Reader

A blurb request for @emo---tional ! This is a bit longer than a blurb though OOPS AGAIN.

Summary - Reader and Spencer aren't exactly the nicest to eachother, but that all changes on a jet ride home.

Word Count - 1.2k (ITS 1.2K EXACTLY IM SO PROUD!)

Prompts - "Do you think you could just go ONE day without pissing me off?" -- "Is there a reason you're blushing like that?"

It was normal for this tension to be floating in a room when it was just me and Spencer.

Emily called it *sexual* tension, but I knew that was bullshit.

We remained at a precinct in San Francisco, California. We had just finished a case and the others had gone out to get a drink as a celebration. The jet wasn't able to come until tomorrow because of some fuel difficulties, so we were staying in a hotel for the night. Dr. Reid and I decided to stay here and get a head start on paperwork.

I sat criss-crossed in my chair, bent over a small stack of paperwork that was clipped onto a clip board. My pen scrawled across the page violently.

"You know you really shouldn't slouch like that." Spencer commented, tipping his chair back onto two legs.

"And you really shouldn't tip your chair back, you could crack your head open." He then continued as if I had said nothing, per usual.

"The slouching position puts pressure on your bones, thereby causing discs to become compressed and making you vulnerable to back pain. Also, it causes your pelvic muscles to go slack, which makes it progressively harder to support a well-aligned stance. Not that you have one in the first place." He mumbled the last part, returning to his paperwork.

"Do you think you could just go *one* day without pissing me off? Is it that hard to just keep your genius mouth shut? Or is that the only thing you never learned?" I snapped, throwing my pen on the table and standing from my seat. "I'm gonna go drink with the team. You should probably stay here and think of another smartass thing to say to me next time we're near eachother." I slammed the conference room door and headed to the entrance. The office lady Linda waved sympathetically at me as I left, I gave her a kind smile.

The moment I entered my car I set my head lightly on the steering wheel.

*Why is he such an asshole to me?*

*What even is this feud we have going on?*

I rolled my eyes at the thought. There was no use even questioning it, neither of us had an answer.

I started up my car and drove to the bar the team mentioned. I just needed something to loosen me up. He really knew how to grind my gears, and I was about at the end of my rope.

-

The jet finally arrived at 5 am. I hadn't been able to fall asleep until about 1 so I wasn't particularly in a great mood. My suitcase rolled loudly behind me on the runway. Just as I was about to the steps, Spencer had caught up to me.

"Someone looks like they got a lot of sleep last night." He raised his eyebrows and lightly pointed and rubbed under his eyes, silently stating that I had bags under my eyes. I wasn't in the mood so I didn't say anything back, I could feel my eye twitch in annoyance and my nostrils flare. I stomped my way onto the jet without a word. My bag was thrown near the couch and I plopped onto it. Time for a 4 hour ride home.

My eyes slid shut easily and I drifted to sleep.

-

Apperantly my body didn't want me to sleep, because here I was, just two hours later.

Wide awake.

I sat up, rubbing my eyes and adjusting them to the light. Everyone else was asleep, besides Spencer. He sat reading a book in the single facing chairs that were across from the couch.

I willed my legs to stand and take me the the back room for some coffee. I poured my copious amounts of sugar and cream in and headed back out to the couch.

"Yeah, that'll help you fall asleep." Spencer didn't even look up from his book to make the snide comment, just flipping mindlessly through the pages. I opted to not answer again, just rolling my eyes and sitting on the couch again. "What? No witty comment back?" My eyes were glued to the brown liquid that swished in the mug. I glanced at him, then back at the mug, barely acknowledging him. I could feel his eyes on me still.

"Do you need something?" My voice came out as exhausted as possible while I finally made eye contact with him. He stood from his spot, bringing himself next to me.

"You seem off." His shoulder bumped with mine as he sat. I just shrugged in response, my eyes remaining forward as I sipped my coffee.

"I'm fine." I turned my head to look at him, realizing just how close we were. Our noses were nearly touching. I could feel my cheeks heating up, so I whipped my head forward again and brought my mug to my lips. Hoping he wouldn't notice.

But of course he did.

"Is there a reason you're blushing like that?" His question came out so quiet. I was 100% sure that I was the only one that would hear it, even if the rest of the team was wide awake.

"I don't know what you're talking about." My voice was muffled by my navy blue mug, which I set on the table immediatly after, blush free. A hand was brought under my chin, forcing me to face him.

"Really? Because I definitely saw it." He teased. I shrugged once again, trying to come across as unbothered but I truly just wanted to kiss him right now.

But that was crazy.

*Right?*

Regardless of my thoughts, I felt myself leaning in, a sense of relief washing over me as I saw he was too. I put my hand on his chest as our lips met. His thumb stroked my cheek softly.

I had never felt a kiss like that before. It felt like a heated blanket on a winter night. Or when your mom would bring you tea when you were sick. It felt like the suns soft rays on your shoulders on an early spring morning.

It was so *warm*.

I pulled away to get some air.

"I'm sorry." He put his head on my shoulder.

"No! Don't be, I wanted to-"

"No, I'm sorry for being so rude to you all the time. It's very uncalled for. The only reason I started doing that was because I thought you didn't like me, even in a friendly way. So I wanted to beat you to the punch." He set his head on my shoulder, laughing a bit. "Sounds so stupid now."

"Do you think we should keep the whole charade up in front of the team? Just for fun?" I raised an eyebrow at him with a playful smile.

"Does that mean you want to continue this?" He asked with a tilt of the head.

"Obviously." A soft giggle erupted from my lips.

"Sounds like fun." He pulled me in for another kiss. "But we better stop before they start passing around betting money, I heard them talking about it last week." I pushed his chest a bit.

*This should be fun*

[zi-i-think]

Centerpieces

Pairing: Steve Rogers x fem!reader

Rating: SFW

Word Count: 1,500+

Warnings: Angst, Like one curse word

Request?: Yes @vxidsti1es​

Prompt: Angst

4. Y/n or character sacrificing themselves for the cause

5. “If one of us doesn’t make it-“ “Don’t say that.”

          The fate of the world rested on the shoulders of some of the galaxy's most capable heroes. 

          Five years ago, when half of the universe disappeared, everyone was left wondering “now what”. Everyone was left with a pit in their stomach that was so deep one might wonder if it would reach the entrance to hell.

         But when Scott Lang came back, with an outlandish idea to time travel, there was a spark of that hope people lost so long ago.

         It was risky and in all honesty, terrifying to everyone involved. No matter how heroic or brave or experienced, no one was spared the intrusive thoughts of “what if.”

         And now, the big mission was just a few hours away.

         Steve Rogers, America’s golden boy and the one everyone looks to for inspiration, stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. His hands were pressed on the sink as he leaned on it. He examined the scars on his chest and the recent bruises from a training session. 

         On the surface, his expression was unreadable. Stoic. But the pressure he felt pressing into him was building up and his mind just kept going back to tomorrow. He’d lost so much and couldn’t bear losing any more.

         “Hey, honey can you help me pick out some centerpieces ?” Steve heard from his shared room with his girlfriend. The woman he’s loved for years now and was now intending to marry.

         The man stepped out of the bathroom, seeing his fiancé focused on her laptop. Even when she was just sitting cross-crossed and hunched over on the bed, Steve couldn’t help but admire his darling y/n. The way her hair looked so effortlessly perfect and the way she seemed to glow in the low-lighted room.

         Steve’s lipped curved up slightly in a smile as he approached her and sank into the bed next to her, looking at the selections of vased flowers and candles she had picked out.

         “Don’t you think we should go to bed?” He asked, wrapping his arm around his lover’s shoulder and placing a firm kiss on her cheek. “We have a long day tomorrow.”

         “Yeah, I know. I just wanted to get a few things done. We’re already so behind on wedding arrangements and my mom is on my ass about choosing a centerpiece and…” She paused. Licking her lips and running her hand through her hair, y/n sighed heavily. “I just needed to distract myself from tomorrow.”

         With her confession, Steve just hummed in understanding. Noticing that she had now stopped scrolling through her Pinterest board, he leaned forward and closed the laptop. Y/n made no protest and instead just leaned back into his chest as Steve in turn leaned back to rest on the bed’s headboard.

         The two sat in silence, enjoying each other’s company. And y/n could just melt in his touch. The way he rubbed his thumb on the curve on her shoulder filled them with comfort.

         “What time is it?” Y/n asked quietly. Like if she were to speak any louder, she’d disturb the comforting silence.

         “Almost eleven.” He answered just as quietly. “You wanna go to sleep?”

         “Not yet.” With a soft exhale, y/n snuggled closer to Steve. Just feeling his warm arms around her waist and listening to his rhythmic heartbeat.

         “Y/n, listen,” Steve started, with a somber tone. “If one of us doesn’t make it-“

         “Don’t say that.” Y/n interrupted. She didn’t want to think about what might happen if one of them were gone. If he were gone.

         Here laid the man that she loved so dearly. Who showed her what it meant to be truly seen. He encouraged her in everything, helped her become stronger. Loved her like no man has ever been able to.

         To even consider the possibility broke their heart.

         Steve considered pressing on with his original statement. But then y/n craned their neck to look at him. Her eyes staring right at him. She already knew what he had to say anyway. 

         “Do you still want to choose a centerpiece tonight?” He instead asked.

         Y/n shook their head. “No. We can do that after we bring everyone back.”

         “‘Kay.”

         Steve leaned down, placing a soft and short kiss on her lips. 

         Y/n fell asleep first. Steve just held her in his arms for a little while longer. Taking in every part of her until he too, fell asleep.

         When everyone was planning on bringing the stone back to the present from the past, what no one expected was that Thanos would be able to also come to the present.

         And now, in the midst of the battle, with aching muscles and cuts that stung, all y/n could think about was keeping the people close to her safe. Specifically, Steve.

         “No!” She screamed in worry when the Titan slammed her fiancé to the ground.

         Scamming to her feet, her heart pulled her towards her love, but she stopped herself from going too far. Thanos had thrown Carol to the side, leaving the gauntlet all to him. 

         Y/n was too far to stop him from putting it on, but she ran at him. Just before he could snap his fingers, y/n jumped in, grabbing his hand and holding it open. 

         Thanks looked at her with surprise, his eyebrows tightly furrowed together and a grimace on his lips. And while y/n was focusing and of her super strength on holding his hand open, she also looked up at him with a determined glare.

         Her hand righted around the gauntlet, keeping him from snapping, and jumped up, preparing for a fierce punch.

         And for just a moment, it seemed like she’d get a firm hit. Maybe knock him down. But with Thanos, it was never going to be that simple. Y/n gasped when she realized that he reached for the power stone, yanking it off the gauntlet and clenching it tightly in his fist. The purple glow shined through the cracks of his fist and he swung back before throwing a punch.

         The impact threw y/n back. And she hit the ground with a rough thud. There was a high-pitched ringing in her ears and for a moment, she was sure she had forgotten how to breathe. But not only that, there was something else wrong. A sharp feeling somewhere in her chest, making her breathe heavily and groaning in pain.

         “Oh no.” She said heavily as she began to think of the different things that could mean. The lack of oxygen she felt she was getting. The sudden fatigue. The… the warm liquid that she was coughing up. Y/n wiped the corner of her mouth with a shaky hand.

         Blood.

         “Y/n?” She looked to her side, seeing Steve approaching her slowly with heavy steps. His blue eyes scanned the still state she was in and he sprinted the few feet towards her. “Y/n!” He then shouted.

         Things were beginning to blur together for y/n. Her vision, her hearing was starting to go in and out. And the next thing she knew, Steve was picking her off the ground, holding her up with one arm and the other wiping the blood from her mouth.

         “No.” He said under his breath in distress.

         “Steve…”

         “Let’s get you to the hospital. You’re going to be fine. Okay?” He insisted, however, it felt more like he was reassuring himself more than her.

         “Steve.” She said again before coughing again. The blonde man froze, terrified that he would hurt her more. “Honey, my rib. I- I think it broke and punctured my rib.” She coughed again, more blood spewing out from her mouth. “It’s bad, Steve.”

         “But, we can fix, you. We have access to the best scientists and doctor, you’re gonna be-”

         “You’re in denial.” Y/n croaked out. A thick silence filled the air. Tears began to fill Steve’s eyes and he looked down at the woman he loves. Y/n reached up, unclasping the man’s helmet and slipping it off before letting it fall to the ground.

         “You can’t be... This isn’t...” He tried to formulate some sentence, something to say. But he wasn’t thinking about sentences or last words. He was just thinking about Y/n and how she was slipping away from him.

         The woman’s hand reached up, caressing Steve’s cheek with whatever energy she had left. He placed his hand over her’s kissing her wrist softly.

         “I love you.” She whispered.

         Steve nodded in response, choking on his words. “I love you more.” He whispered back.

         Y/n smiled lightly, the blood continuing to fill her body in the wrong places. Until finally, it became too much. 

Steve felt her hand go limp as he still held it. And then he saw her smile fade and her eyes become dull.

         “No.” His voice cracked and Steve broke down into tears. His head relaxed and he brought her limp body up to cradle it. “We didn’t even get to pick out the centerpieces.”

[thewarriorandtheking]

The Bargain

For the @writersmonth challenge...

Prompt 4. Play

The King Under the Mountain’s daughter gets herself in trouble while playing explorer and finds some unexpected help.

(Still working on Prompt 3...) 

Warnings: None 

Find The Warrior and The King MasterList here

*******************************************

Freya flattened herself against the stone, willing the guards not to see her. She breathed a sigh of relief as they turned into the other corridor. Now her way was clear, she sprinted down the hall, under the carved archway that led to the mines and into a little-used side tunnel. Her mother was away in Dale, and her father had a day full of meetings. She could play explorer for hours before anyone missed her. It was one of her favorite games, to picture herself as Kaylea Wolf, her father’s Woman, the golden-haired warrior, off on an adventure.

She paused to put on Thorin’s magic glasses, a gift from Kaylea’s land. They were special spectacles, feather-light with wide lenses, you hardly knew they were there. But when you put them on everything was bright as day, even in the deepest shafts. Thorin guarded them closely, she knew she was not supposed to take them without permission, but she planned to have them back before the King noticed they were missing. She would only need them for a few hours.

Freya picked her way through the old tunnels. The rock was solid, but there was a lot of old equipment and debris in this part of the mines. She loved to examine the rusty machines and wonder what they were once used for. As the princess of Erebor she had learned a bit about the business of mining, but her tutors were always more interested in teaching her the latest dance steps. She had persuaded her father to take her on a tour, but that had been in the working mines. Techniques had changed since her great-grandfather’s time.

She found a wide tunnel that led steadily downward, found herself imagining she was traveling through the great mines of Moria. She had once heard Kaylea describe a journey through those mines, it had sent shivers up her spine. To think of traveling under the Misty Mountains, with dangers on every side! She knew there were no orcs or goblins here, even in the deepest parts of the mines, but she could pretend. Freya came to a place where a shaft had been sunk right across the tunnel. It looked deep, but narrow. She was confident she could jump the gap. Freya backed up to get a running start and leaped across. She easily made the distance, but landed on a loose stone. The floor gave out from under her, she grabbed for anything to hold onto, felt herself falling.

Freya awoke, aware some time had passed. She had lost the magic glasses in the fall and all around her was pitch black. She felt panic rising in her chest, and tried to calm herself as Kaylea had taught her. Three short breaths, three long ones. She felt her body, bruised but nothing broken. She folded her legs and closed her eyes, concentrating. No one knew where she was, it might be days before any search party came this way. She had a miner’s helmet in her bag, the light should last ten hours, but she would have to be careful only to use it if she heard searchers nearby. She had some apples and a bit of bread, enough to last a few days. Freya opened her eyes, now adjusted to the dark, she could just see the walls of the shaft stretching up to the tunnel, about thirty meters away. The walls were smooth and damp, a current of air caught her hair, she could hear dripping water. Moving carefully, Freya started to feel the stone around her, she found she had landed on a ledge in the shaft, maybe four meters square, past that was open space. Something moved under her hand and she jerked back, then realized it was her father’s glasses. Gratefully, she put them on, looking around curiously. The shaft continued on past the ledge, she could not see the bottom. She had hoped to find a way to climb out, but there were no handholds in the stone. She started to feel panic again, but told herself that her father would come. Once he found she was missing, Thorin would tear Erebor apart to find her, of that she was certain.

Freya knew she could do nothing now but wait. She moved close to the wall, away from the open shaft and tried to make herself comfortable. She chided herself for not bringing more supplies, for not telling her handmaids what she was doing. Her mother would never let her hear the end of this. She rummaged in her bag, rechecking her supplies and realized she had her dice with her. Hoping it would pass the time, she brought them out and played a game with herself. That one where you shook them in a cup and then tried to guess what you had rolled. Her father had told her there was a pattern to it, but she had never been able to find one. She had been playing for awhile before she suddenly realized she was not alone, something was watching her. She took her hand off the cup, reaching for her knife as she looked up.

There was a little creature sitting at the edge of the ledge watching her. He wasn’t a goblin, or an orc, in fact he didn’t seem threatening at all. He was about half her size, dressed like a miner, with pointed ears and sharp features. His skin was the color of the stone.

“What is this game you are playing?” The strange creature asked. “Can you teach me?”

“Who are you?” Freya asked, curious despite her fears. “Where did you come from?”

“This is my home.” He moved closer, Freya drew back. “We have lived here longer than your people.”

“Why didn’t the dragon eat you?” Freya asked, without thinking. She scolded herself, hoping she hadn’t offended the stranger. He didn’t seem dangerous, but she did not want to provoke him.

“Dragons don’t bother with us,” the creature chuckled. “And we don’t bother them.” He put his hand on the dice cup. “How do you play this game?”

Freya swallowed hard. “If I tell you, will you show me the way out?” Her hand tightened on her knife.

“Ah, a bargain!” He smiled, showing pointed teeth. “Very well. But I will have to take you, the way we travel you cannot follow.”

“Maybe I should wait for my father.”

“It will be days before he finds you down here, your highness.”

Freya gasped. He knew who she was, but how? “You know who I am.”

“Of course, everyone knows the King’s daughter. The one so careful to follow the old ways.” The little creature smiled again. “It has been a very long time since I learned a new game. Shall we play?”

Freya was afraid, but she did not feel that he meant her any harm. And he knew a path to the ledge. She nodded. “Yes, let’s play.”

For long hours they sat in the dark, the princess of Erebor and the strange grey-skinned creature, playing dice. They traded wins, using little bits of stone to place their bets. Freya had accumulated quite a little pile before she found herself becoming very sleepy.

“I’m sorry,” she said, yawning. “I’m suddenly so very tired. I can’t play anymore.”

The creature stood up and bowed. “I think you know that I will not harm you if you sleep, princess. I have enjoyed our game very much.”

“I had fun, too,” Freya told him. “You may keep my dice. You can teach the game to your friends.” Her eyes were so heavy. “Remember your promise to take me away from here.”

The last thing Freya saw was the little creature giving her a look filled with compassion, a smile of his pointy face, she felt the touch of his hand on her arm. It was cold, like stone. Then she had the strangest dream. She was moving through the stone, she could feel it around her, the ores, the layers. It was flowing around her like water. And then all was dark and quiet.

 When Freya woke, the first thing she felt was hard stone. She was no longer on the ledge, but in one of the mine tunnels, close to the active works. She could hear the hammers, the rumble of the ore carts. She barely had time to get to her feet before she heard shouts, iron-shod boots running toward her.

“Princess! Thank Mahal, you have been found!” The miner was staring at her wide-eyed, he moved to help her but then drew back, remembering he should not touch her. “Are you in need of a Healer, your highness?”

“No, thank you,” Freya drew herself up. “But if you could show me the way out, I would be grateful.”

“Of course, of course,” the miner bowed. “At your service! The King will be very relieved to see you, we have all been searching high and low.”

Freya felt embarrassed. “I’m sorry to have caused such a fuss. I was only gone a few hours.”

“A few hours?” The miner turned to stare at her. “Your highness, you have been missing for three days!”

 As they came closer to the palace, Freya screwed up her courage to face her parents. She knew the trouble she was in. And she really didn’t have a good explanation for where she had been. Playing dice with a strange creature in an abandoned mine shaft! Her mother was going to tear her to shreds.

The miner turned her over to the palace guard. As they led the way to her father’s office she regretted not asking the man’s name, he was certainly due some kind of reward. Freya took a deep breath before opening the door, hoping she only had to face her father. Thorin was standing at the hearth, hands behind his back. When he heard the door open he turned, then rushed forward to fold his daughter into his arms.

“My girl, you will be the death of me!” He told her, hugging her close. “Where have you been? We have been searching everywhere!”

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Freya answered, pressing her head against his chest. Her father always smelled so good, she always felt so safe when he put his arms around her.

“Let me decide what to believe, daughter.”

Slowly, Freya told him all that had happened. Thorin listened intently, asking many questions about the creature she had encountered. He nodded when she told him of her dream about traveling through the stone of the mountain.

“I didn’t know there were any of those left,” the King smiled.

“Of what?”

“They have a lot of names. Kobolds, nisse. Men call them tommyknockers,” Thorin said. “They’re a kind of spirit, harmless most of the time, but they can be nasty if they are wronged.” He smiled at some old memory. “I thought I saw one once, when I was about your age.”

“I would still be in that shaft, if not for him.”

Thorin nodded. “Yes, you did very well!” He held out his hand. Freya stared at it for a moment before reaching into her tunic to hand him the glasses. “You are not to take these again, not ever. And you are not to be exploring without telling someone where you are going.” He frowned at her. “Am I understood?”

Freya gulped. “Yes, father,” she managed to answer in a small voice. “I am sorry I worried you.” She curtsied low. “May I be excused now?”

“Yes,” Thorin couldn’t keep himself from pulling her into another hug. “Go get cleaned up before you see your mother.”

Freya quickly hurried away to her apartments, already planning her next adventure.