#told ya I’d combine all 3

[bunnygirl678]

I'm so sorry everyone...

But here it is, (again i'm sorry, also this is a partially written story so expect it in the next year, once I’m done with January from hell) my hanahaki, omegaverse, soulmate au (AKA the big 3 verse)

I had a soulmate au that i had half written that I didn't feel like really was interesting enough on it's own so I kept playing with it and decided to add the other two.

-soulmate au, kind where first words of your soulmate show up on your wrist, but not everyone has a soulmate, not necessarily rare, but not super common either, think green eyes

-little Green's first words are "I hate you, Green" he's v upset, obviously

-he already has a hard time cause he's a male omega (v rare), his parents are really supportive, love him a ton ect..

-they die, he and Daisy move in with the prof, he's very anti-omega, always treats green like shit not abusive but an ass,

-green and red bond, red never speaks to green (he really only talks to his mom and even occasionally), green doesn't mind red's an alpha who doesn't act like an alpha, green is an omega that doesn't act like an omega

-red's first words are pretty generic "let's play with your pokemon" or something to that effect, sure green said it but so have lots of other kdis

-it's time for the journeys, everything goes pretty canon both start hating each other to a certain degree, they're angry/hurt/you know, after the defeat red and green get into a fist fight,

-Red says his first words to Green, "i hate you, green"

-both of their wrists start burning 'oh shit we're soulmates'

-green runs off to his sisters, red runs off to mount silver (not that anyone knows where he's going)

-green becomes gym leader, he's doing... well not great, he's always got alpha suitors, has to constantly prove himself cause he's a male omega

-plus his soulmate rejected him, he starts coughing a lot right after the loss, Daisy tries everything, eventually he coughs up a flower petal, does some research, oh

-doesn't tell anyone, starts taking meds to help with the symptoms, can help prolong his life some, but he's going to die, he's got maybe 10 years unless his soulmate loves him back

-lives his best life, he's gonna die he's accepted it whatever

-gold (another omega! one who has a soulmate too! and is a champion!) and him get super close, sure gold looks a ton like Red but they’re nothing alike except the fire that burns (and that fire burns in green too)

-gold finds red on mount silver, green goes up because red needs to go home to his mother

-he’s able to convince red to come home fairly easily, he and red kinda start being friends

-they’ve both hit puberty at this point so heats and ruts are things

-greens hanahaki starts getting worse, cause he and red are friends again but he’s so sure that red doesn’t love him, I mean he has the proof on his wrist

Will he tell red about his hanahaki? Does Red actually love his soulmate? Does green go into heat at an inopportune time?

Those questions will be answered once I have time to write again!

[bluebeary-jay]

CONGRATS!!! 1000 FOLLOWERS IS SO AWESOME AND I'M HAPPY FOR YOU!!🥰🩷

For the celebration I'm thinking Joel has lived in Jackson for months and has a bad reputation so people mostly avoid him and he always keeps to himself. BUT reader is the exception, always with a big smile and really polite to him (and he has a terrible crush on her). She always sees him alone at the bar looking around and seeming dislocated and decides to ask him "may I have this dance" cause she likes him too, but he panic and refuses. Later he realizes he's missing his chance with her and tries to fix it. Just some nice fluff (with age gap please🙏)

HIIIII SO SORRY FOR THE WAIT NONNIE

(okay so I'm back-ish, I apologize to everyone for disappearing but i had a rough couple of weeks and had to deal with a lot of stuff. i actually finished this fic some time ago but didn't have strength to post it but i'm more ready now so here you go <3 i hope you'll like it, i had a lot of fun writing it!! and thank you for requesting!! love you 🥰)

Joel Miller was a recluse. Everyone knew that, though not many were aware that he didn’t exactly choose this kind of life for himself.

He really hoped that things would get better after he settled down in Jackson with Ellie, but the residents of the town made it very clear that they didn’t want his company. It stung a little, especially since Joel didn’t think he gave them any reason to be wary of him, but he hid his hurt well. With time he got used to nasty whispers, people giving him a wide berth and basically everyone but Tommy and Ellie avoiding him. It was unpleasant, sure, but he learned to just deal with it.

Well, there was also you.

Joel had no clue what your deal was. Why you weren’t shying away from him like your fellow peers and why you went out of your way to always catch him into a conversation or smile at him whenever you saw him.

“I think she’s crushin’ on ya,” Tommy told him once during a dinner at his house. Ellie and Maria weren’t present, the latter showing the teen some clothes she might want – and thank fuck for that. Joel would murder his little brother if he said such nonsense in their presence.

“The hell you’re talkin’ about?” he spluttered, his eyebrows furrowed when Tommy sent him a smug, knowing grin. The question was completely unnecessary, of course, since they were already talking about you, but still Joel hoped he somehow misinterpreted his brother’s words.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Joel.” He sprawled out on the chair, still with that stupid smirk. “I really think she’s into you. I’d ask her out if I were you.”

“There’s no… I assure you she isn’t.”

“But if she was–”

“She’s not. Now can I eat my meal in peace?” Joel placed his hands on the table, but Tommy shook his head.

“But you like her, right? She’s nice.”

Joel sighed. “Yeah, she is.”

“And pretty.”

That Joel didn’t fall for. He glared at his brother.

“Jesus, Tommy, let me have it. I’m lucky she even wants to talk to me, with all her friends tellin’ her I’m bad news and me being half her age older.”

His eyes became solemn and voice took a lower, quieter tone, which told Tommy the matter was hitting Joel harder than he let on. He sat up straight, getting rid of the teasing smile.

“Alrigh’. Sorry for bringin’ it up.” Joel sighed and nodded, signifying that everything was okay. “I just want you to be happy, y’know. Maybe you should give yourself a chance.”

The older Miller didn’t answer and took a big swig of whiskey out of his glass.

The problem was, he didn’t need Tommy to tell him all that. Joel would have to be blind and stupid not to notice how breathtakingly beautiful you are, and this, combined with your intelligence, passion and sense of humor, was his ultimate undoing. Every time he talked with you, it was all he could do to hide the redness in his cheeks and the weakness in his knees.

But he did. ‘Cause, let’s be real – even though Joel recognized he had a terrible crush on you (though it took him weeks to make peace with this fact) he knew there was no way in hell you’d find him even a fraction as attractive as he found you. He was almost twice your age,  for heaven’s sake, and such a young, gorgeous woman as you would never agree to throw her life away to be with an old man.

But God knew that with each day you broke down his walls, the desire to kiss you was becoming more and more agonizing. Every smile you sent his way worked only to feed his imagination of how soft your lips would surely be if he could only brush his thumb across it, not to mention touch them with his own. He wondered how your hands, so much smaller than his calloused ones, would feel on his stomach or shoulders. How it would be to embrace you with his arms, skin to skin and without any layers in-between.

Those were not the thoughts he should be having, especially in public – yet here he was, several days after his conversation with Tommy, imagining impossible while he watched you laughing on the dance floor with your friend. You looked so carefree, so happy and full of life, your energy only reminding Joel sourly of his own old age.

He noticed you glancing his way several times throughout the evening but he knew it didn’t mean anything, it would never mean anything other than your innocent friendliness. So he just quickly looked away lest you realize he was staring.

Joel took a swing from his glass and looked around the bar, trying to take his mind off you – fruitlessly. His eyes still darted back to you every few seconds, involuntarily roaming over your exposed skin visible under the nice outfit you picked for tonight. It was driving Joel insane with longing and need, and all he could think of was the mental image of how kissing and touching you gently would feel like.

Bet you’d feel so perfect under his palms.

He closed his eyes and propped up his forehead on his fist, trying to tune out the music and all the distracting background noises.

Keep it together. 

He had to remember that he was way too old to be this enamored with a young, pretty girl like you. You would surely be repulsed if you had any clue about what was going on in his head, and some of the thoughts he had–

Then, Joel felt a light touch on his shoulder and lo and behold – there you were, standing right in front of him with a bright smile, as if summoned by his thoughts.

“Hi,” you said, tilting your head in that endearing way that made his insides tighten. “What are you doing here alone, cowboy?”

Joel prayed that he wasn’t blushing, though his hope diminished increasingly when your eyes wandered curiously across his features. Your eyebrows rose slightly and he cursed internally.

Fuck, you were so beautiful.

“M’not…” He cleared his throat and started again. “M’waitin’ for Tommy. He had to sort somethin’ out with… uh, someone.” He drummed his fingers against the table but stopped immediately, not wanting to give you an impression that the conversation with you was boring him. “You don’t have to do it, darlin’.”

You gave him a puzzled look, and he explained. “Y’know. Hang out with me. The people like to talk nasty things and I don’t wanna expose you to that.”

“It doesn’t bother me.” You shrugged with a sweet smile which Joel could kill for just to see it one more time. “And I… enjoy spending time with you.“

It didn’t mean anythin’. You were just bein’ friendly.

But even though he kept repeating it to himself like a mantra, Joel could not take his eyes off you. You were a vision – your profile bathed in the soft lights of the bar, your bottom lip between your teeth as you looked over your shoulder, deep in thought, at the stereo tower. The current song’s notes died down and a new one, much slower and romantic, started to play. You took a deep breath and let out a nervous laugh. “Actually I wanted to ask you something. If you don’t mind.”

“Ask away, darlin’.” He offered you a small smile, hoping to put you at ease, and you wetted your lips – which nearly gave him a heart attack and caused him to almost miss your next words.

“May I have this dance?”

Joel’s world stopped for a moment. He was in the middle of lifting the glass of whiskey to his lips but his muscles stiffened and the tumbler slipped out of his cold fingers. It didn’t shatter, but the rich liquid spilled all over the table. Your eyes flickered to the overturned glass, but Joel didn’t pay it any mind, too stunned to look at anything else but you.

“C-come again?” he stuttered, his voice strained and small. In the corner of his eye he noticed people at the next table glancing their way, alarmed by the noise, but he forced his attention back to you.

“This is my favorite song,” you explained shyly, an adorable blush spreading across your cheeks and neck. “So… may I have this dance, Joel?”

Now the people sitting around them definitely heard that, because they started smirking and whispering, and one person went to another group standing nearby on the dance floor. Joel felt his own face growing hot as he watched them pointing not-so-discreetly in his direction.

It was like the most wonderful dream and the most horrible nightmare come true at the same time.

He couldn’t do it. There was no way, not in front of all the people of Jackson who hated and despised him. He didn’t want to give them a show to gossip about or worse, subject you to their disdain.

But you still stood in front of his chair with an innocent, hopeful smile, though you started to shuffle the longer Joel was silent. The song – your favorite, supposedly – was passing in the background but you kept waiting patiently for an answer to your question.

He had to come up with something. Or just explain to you that he doesn’t dance – the sweet little thing you were, you’d probably understand and not pressure him into doing it. At least he hoped so.

C’mon, say somethin’.

“No.”

Your face fell instantly and Joel’s eyes widened at the mortifying realization of what just came out of his mouth.

Anythin’ but THAT.

You stared at him for a couple of seconds in the silence of the bar before your eyes started to glisten and you averted your gaze. Someone to Joel’s left snickered derisively and in the next second whispers erupted all around you two. You seemed to shrink in yourself, embarrassment and regret marking your beautiful face, and Joel’s heart almost broke when a tear slipped from your eye, and then another one fell down your other cheek.

“Okay,” you murmured, wiping the treacherous tears quickly and keeping your gaze trained on the floor. “Sorry. Sorry.”

You turned on your heel and went to exit the establishment, your step gradually turning into a run when the giggles and whispers around you became louder. The door swung open on the winter wind and just like that, you were gone.

Then all eyes turned to Joel – and the shame Joel felt increased at least tenfold.

He saw Tommy standing up and walking toward him from the other side of the room with worry written all over his face, but Joel didn’t stick around to hear what he had to say. He stood up and left through the same door you did, glaring threateningly at anyone stupid enough to still snicker at the situation they witnessed.

Ten minutes later Joel was standing in front of your door, trying to keep his knocking below the ‘desperate’ level.

He realized that he had to tell you. He intended to keep the feelings he harbored for you bottled up for the rest of his life but you needed to know the reason why he turned you down. You needed to hear from him that he cared about you, that it wasn’t some malicious act toward you but sheer cowardice stemming from the problem that he was madly in love with you.

“Hello? It’s… it’s Joel,” he choked out through his tight throat as he knocked again, a little louder this time. “Darlin’, can I talk to you?”

No response came, though he saw the lights in your house were on, and Joel had to take a deeper breath to calm his nerves. He prayed that he hadn’t completely screwed it up, but for now all the evidence spoke against him.

You wanted to dance with him. You gathered your courage just to ask him for a dance and he said no.

Joel knew he lost his chance. He lost you. You were his only friend in town and he somehow managed to fuck everything up with just one word.

He was so lost in his wallowing in despair that he almost missed the door opening slightly. In the gap of the doorway he caught a glimpse of your iris – and though it was only for a split second, Joel could clearly see that your eye was red. A pang of guilt pierced his chest but once you saw it was him, you shut the door again.

“No, darlin’, please. Please, just let me explain.” A wave of desperation and fear threatened to drown him and Joel’s heart clenched in his chest. “I’m so sorry, I acted like an asshole but I never wanted to hurt you, I just… I-I panicked.”

He was babbling, not even knowing if you were still there on the other side of the door, but the desperate and remorseful words were spilling out of him like a waterfall.

“I’m so sorry. Sweetheart…” Joel sighed, putting his hand on the cold wood of the door and listening for a couple of seconds, but there was no sound coming from inside. “Please. I’m beggin’ you, open the door.”

Then he heard something – a sound like blowing one’s nose. Joel froze for one, two… three seconds, and nearly collapsed in relief when you unlocked the door.

“You can come in,” you said, but didn’t meet his eyes. “You’re probably freezing, no?”

Joel nodded, feeling his throat going dry at the sorrowful sight of you. He crossed the threshold, closing the front door quietly behind him and looked you over. You hadn’t changed out of that pretty outfit of yours yet, although it was now covered by a long cardigan that you draped over your shoulders. In your hand you held a crumpled tissue but quickly pocketed it when Joel’s eyes fell on it.

He opened his mouth with a sharp inhale but before he could apologize, you beat him to it.

“I’m sorry for that,” you blurted out and glanced up at him but quickly looked down at the floor again. “I shouldn’t have asked you to dance in front of all those people and I overreacted because then everyone was looking at me… Look, it wasn’t even that big of a deal so don’t read into it. Everything is fine.”

“No, it’s not,” he said softly and you pressed your lips into a thin line. “You have nothin’ to apologize for. I’m sorry for embarrassin’ you. I panicked ‘cause I–”

“It’s fine,” you muttered again. “Just forget it.”

“I can’t. Listen, sweetheart, I panicked ‘cause I wish I could let myself read into it.”

Your head snapped up and Joel swallowed heavily, realizing how stupid that sounded.

“What I mean–” Fuck, he really was shit at talking so openly about these stuff. “I… I have feelings for ya. Had ‘em for a long time now but I never planned on actin’ on ‘em ‘cause I know I’m too old and you’d never��”

“You’re… really?” you asked with wide eyes, but he tuned your words out, fearing that you were going to kick him out at any second.

“I’m only tellin’ you all this ‘cause I need you to know I care about ya and I didn’t say ‘no’ outta malice or… or ‘cause I don’t like you. I do. Too much, I’m afraid.”

You were staring at him, mouth agape and silent. Joel didn’t move, awaiting your reaction – whether you tell him to get out or scream how disgusting he was, he was going to take it. And then, if you never want to see him again, he’ll accept it. One day. But he doubted his heart would ever recover.

“Let me fix it,” he begged, his voice just above a whisper when you didn’t give any reaction to his confession. “Please, darlin’.”

Your eyes skimmed over his face as you hummed to yourself, almost irritably calm. Joel swallowed, the weight of guilt and anticipation pulling him down – and he was ready to fall to his knees before you when finally you lifted your hand to brush his lower lip with your fingertips, so delicately he could barely feel it. He froze and tried not to breathe, not wanting to cause you to pull away.

“I noticed something when you were rambling,” you said with a hint of reflection. Joel had no idea what was happening or why were you acting that way, but he daren’t move. He briefly entertained a thought that he was dreaming, but then his attention got caught by the sight of the corner of your lips twitching slightly, as if you were keeping yourself from laughing.

His chest expanded with hope so strong, it was almost unbearably painful.

“What is it?” he forced himself to speak, the nerves making his voice weak and raspy.

“Your accent gets heavier when you’re nervous,” you mused, as though to yourself, now trailing your fingertips down his stubbly cheek. “It’s cute.”

His heart lurched at your words. You gazed up at him and absently bit your lip, which Joel found downright sinful.

“Do you have any idea how long it took me to gather the courage to make the first move?” Your words were bitter, but there was a trace of relief in your voice. Joel let your fingers wander across the lines of his jaw and cheekbones, wishing he had enough boldness to touch you like that, too, but suddenly, your hand stilled and your eyes met his again. “Did you mean it? The things you said?”

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation, his own fingers twitching as he restrained himself from reaching for you. His head was spinning, trying to comprehend the meaning of your actions and words. “But do you–”

You touched his lips lightly again, silencing his question, and your features slowly were overtaken by a large, bright smile, which seemed to lift all the heavy weight of worry from Joel’s shoulders.

“You wanted to fix it, right?” you asked in a teasing whisper. He nodded. “Then just ask me.”

You weren’t angry. You weren’t pulling away.

You wanted to dance with him and you gathered the courage to do so, and now Joel had to do the same. He couldn’t waste this second chance you gave him.

The corner of his lips quirked upwards and he exhaled shakily.

“May I have this dance?”

You pursed your lips to hide your joy and side-eyed him, but your eyes were sparkling with playfulness. “You know, I think I should respond the same way you did. Just to be fair.”

“Sweetheart, don’t play with this old man’s heart,” he whispered and smiled shyly when you giggled at the exasperation but also uncertainty in his voice. Joel still felt kind of out of it, too stunned to trust his mind that this was really happening – but the sound of your laughter brought him right back to Earth, to the place he wanted to be more than anywhere else.

“You’re lucky I’m feeling generous tonight, Miller.” You took his hand and brought it to your hip, making Joel’s breath hitch in his throat and cheeks grow warm. His reaction didn’t get past you, and you smiled at him so radiantly that his world started to spin. Then your arms wrapped around his neck and you pressed your body against his. “But you’ll have some atoning to do.”

His throat was dry, but Joel returned your shy smile, stepping to the side and guiding you carefully to the thumping rhythm of his heart.

And a couple of minutes later, after more hushed apologies and assurances during your slow-dancing, Joel placed his hand on your cheek, almost letting out a relieved whimper when you nuzzled your face into his palm.

And after another few minutes went by, when he leaned in and you didn’t stop his lips from meeting yours, he knew he was a goner.

He couldn’t get rid of the big smile on his face – perhaps the first real one since arriving in Jackson all those months ago.

[daytaker]

5. Othello

(Existing Sucks So) Let's All Be Shadows.

A Satan-centric Nightbringer Timeline Fic (Read on AO3)* *This combines Chapters 7 (Othello) & 8 (Cats & Curses) from AO3.

Chapter Starring: MC, Satan, Mammon Chapter Word Count: ~5.3k Chapter Warnings: Canon-typical violence, Wrath

“If you saw a drowning cat, and you reached out to help it, and it scratched you because it was scared and hurt and flailing around... Would you just let it drown?”

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I woke up late the next day. After tossing and turning in bed, trying to get the memories of what Satan had told me out of my mind, I’d finally fallen into a fitful sleep about four in the morning. 

I probably would have woken up even later, actually, if it hadn’t been for my D.D.D. ringing on the nightstand by the bed. Half-asleep, I fumbled for the device, and after a few messy attempts, I managed to answer.

“What’s the matter?” I muttered as a greeting, still half-asleep.

“What ain’t the matter!” Mammon’s voice boomed through the speaker. “Listen up, we need ya down here stat! Satan’s throwin’ a fit and Lucifer ain’t here to stop it!”

“What makes you think I can do anything about it?” I groaned as I rolled onto my back. Honestly, the last thing I needed right now was more of Satan’s issues to deal with.

“You ain’t one of us! He doesn’t wanna talk to his broth–” I could hear crashing in the background, and Mammon seemed to pull the speaker away from his mouth and shout, “COOL IT, WOULD YA? I’M TRYIN’ TO GET HELP!”

I rubbed my forehead, already exhausted, but I dutifully climbed out of bed and started getting out of my pajamas.

“Listen, just hurry over, alright?” Mammon had shifted gears and was talking to me again.

“Aye-aye, cap’n,” I sighed, and I hung up.

I stood in my underwear, resting my forearms on the dresser for a few seconds as I breathed. In, and out… In, and out… I could do this. 

Half an hour later, I stood in the front hall of the House of Lamentation. Belphie came running up to me and practically collapsed in my arms. “What took you so long?” he whined into my stomach.

Deeper in the house, I could hear the rumbling and clattering of the house being slowly destroyed, one piece of furniture at a time.

“Where’s Lucifer?” I asked Belphie.

“He’s out sucking up to the future Demon King,” he told me, rolling his eyes. “Mammon’s trying to manage Satan on his own, but he’s doing about as terribly as you’d expect from him.”

“You’re all too hard on Mammon,” I sighed, setting my bag down against the wall and rolling up my sleeves. “It isn’t like any of the rest of you can handle him either.”

“Mammon’s the second-born,” argued Belphie petulantly, his voice tinged with an edge of whininess. “He’s supposed to be stronger than Satan. So is Levi, for that matter…”

I picked my bag up again, and Belphie followed me as I made my way deeper into the house. “What’s happening, exactly?” I asked.

“He’s been on a rampage since early this morning,” sighed the youngest.

“Why?”

“Nobody knows.” He shrugged. “Maybe he stepped on something when he got out of bed. Probably there’s no real reason.” 

I nodded grimly. There was always a reason, though. Maybe not a great reason, maybe not an obvious immediate reason, but there was a reason. Yesterday taught me how little I knew about what’s really going on in his head. 

“So what are you going to do?” Belphie asked. “Are you going to pull something like you did when you first got here? What was it you said… ‘Stay’?”

I grimaced inwardly. “Not if I can avoid it,” I replied. Lucifer would put me through the wringer if I did that again. “I brought something that might help snap him out of it.”

“Is it some sort of cursed artifact?” Belphie tilted his head. “Satan loves things like that.”

“No,”I said, “but that’s good thinking. I’ll stow that away for next time.”

We had arrived outside the door to the observatory, where the volume of the crashing and clattering inside made talking nearly impossible. I gestured to Belphie that I was going in, and he watched me with some trepidation as I opened the door and stepped into the room.

Inside the observatory, Satan and Mammon stood on opposite ends of the sofa, which looked as if it had been chewed up by a pack of hyenas. Mammon was clearly on the defensive, and he was gripping his left wrist with his right hand.

“You’re here!” Mammon exclaimed with relief as the door closed behind me. Satan’s eyes flashed in my direction, and he snarled in frustration.

“Why are you here?” He hurled a lamp across the room. I was amazed that there were still lamps in the house to be destroyed.

“I’m here because Mammon called me.”

Satan looked around the room with bloodshot eyes and snatched up the remains of a painting he’d already trashed. He looked like he was struggling to decide what to do with it. “I don’t want to see you right now.”

His voice was quiet, and tight, and quivering. It was tinged with rage but subdued as if smothered under a blanket of exhaustion. It was frightening.

“Mammon, is your wrist alright?” I asked him, not taking my eyes off of Satan.

Mammon seemed surprised at the question. Through my peripheral vision, I saw him look down at the wrist he was grasping, then back up at me.

“Uh, yeah. It ain’t nothing.”

“Go ask Beel to wrap it up.”

“Eh?” Mammon started, walking towards me. “No way! I ain’t gonna just leave you in here with–”

“Mammon.”

I turned and hit him full on with an entreating stare directly in his eyes. This might be a different time period, but I knew what I was capable of, with or without magic or pacts. Mammon quickly averted his eyes, but he stubbornly stayed where he was.

“...Please.”

He grumbled audibly, but I knew he’d relented. “...I’m stayin’ right by the door.”

I smiled at him gratefully, and as he headed to the door, I looked back at Satan. He was crushing the outside of the broken picture frame between his fingers.

The door latched shut, and an eerie silence descended on the room.

I set my bag down on the ground and folded my arms. Then I unfolded them again. It was probably best not to take a defensive posture.

“...Well?” Satan growled.

Today didn’t feel like yesterday.

Yesterday, I was powerless. Satan was under control and in control, calling the shots, standing in home territory. Today, he was off-balance. He evidently wasn’t expecting me, and he certainly hadn’t planned out any grim revelations to drop on me. As scary as it was to see him angry, it felt less threatening than whatever had happened the day before. I took comfort in that.

“Why are you angry?” I asked.

He snorted disdainfully as if I had just asked him an idiotic question. “I’m the Avatar of Wrath, or did you forget?”

I wasn’t about to let my question get obfuscated so easily. So I repeated myself.

“Why are you angry, Satan?”

“Don’t play stupid!” He finally threw the damaged painting into the ground, snapping the paneling. “Why did you tell Lucifer?” He stormed in my direction, dark energy circling the air around him like a hurricane. He almost walked through me; he surrounded me without quite touching me, somehow, his feet inches from mine when he stopped short, his face close enough to mine that I felt each heavy exhale on my skin. But he was on all sides; he was everywhere. It was his tail, I finally realized. His tail curled around me; never touching me, but putting me in a snare that might snap shut if I made any wrong moves. 

“I didn’t tell Lucifer anything,” I responded coolly. I could feel hot irritation bubbling up inside me, but I swallowed it. The last thing the situation needed was for both of us to lose our tempers. “What, did he say something?”

“Just that I should watch who I talk to about family matters.” His eyes were blazing, and his quivering tail nicked me in the arm. I flinched. “You said you weren’t just loyal to him! You said you were my attendant too!”

“I didn’t tell Lucifer anything,” I repeated more vehemently. I couldn’t tell if this rage of his was rooted in jealousy or a sense of betrayal. “He probably just heard we had tea together from one of your brothers. Is that really what made you so angry? What else did he say?”

“It isn’t any of your damn business what he said!” His tail flicked, and he paced around me in tight semi-circles. “Why do you think I talked to you yesterday?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out, and I haven’t yet,” I said, lowering my voice. “Satan, you scared me yesterday.”

“So you went to Lucifer.”

“So I went home!” I jabbed a finger in his chest. That stopped his relentless pacing, at least. “I went home, Satan, and I was miserable! I actually worry about you, you know!”

Satan’s tail recoiled before the rest of him could. He didn’t look convinced–in fact, he looked more suspicious than ever. But he was no longer quite so close, or quite so ready to lunge at any opening I might offer. His green eyes searched my face silently for a few seconds, then he spoke again.

“Why?”

Ah. There was the tricky part. Why indeed? I couldn’t exactly say, ‘Because I’m from the future and in that time I’ve developed a very close bond with you and your brothers, and I love and care for you, so seeing you in such obvious pain breaks my heart.’ And I didn’t think ‘because I’m your attendant’ would cut it this time either.

“If you saw a drowning cat,” I said, trying to choose my words carefully, “and you reached out to help it, and it scratched you because it was scared and hurt and flailing around. Would you just let it drown?”

I thought I was going to reach him with that. I thought that analogy would somehow click. What I didn’t expect was that Satan would look me straight in the face and respond by asking: “What’s a cat?”

I blinked at him. He stared back at me without blinking once. I considered rephrasing the scenario with a child as the drowning victim, but I was much less confident that Satan would feel like he would, in fact, want to save a child even if it was screaming and scratching at him. 

I rubbed my face in my hands. “...Never mind, then. I just… I worry about you because you need someone to worry about you.”

“That’s a stupid reason.”

“You really want me to tell you that you’re right, and I don’t actually care, huh?” Satan didn’t say anything in response to that. He just looked at me as if challenging me to confirm that he’d nailed it. I couldn’t really tell if he was desperate for me to validate all the horrible thoughts he had about himself or if he was begging me to insist he had it all wrong.

Instead of following up my rhetorical question, I reached into my bag and pulled out a folded board and a box of black and white game tokens. I sat cross-legged on the floor, in an area with relatively little debris, opened the board, and patted the spot across from me.

Satan stared down at me for a few seconds before slowly walking over and sitting down across from me, hugging one knee.

“Do you know how to play Othello?” I asked.

He shook his head no.

The corner of my mouth quirked into a smile. Satan was the one who taught me the game. Now it was time for me to return the favor. Or was this paying it forward?

“It’s pretty simple. We start with four tokens in the middle like this…” I set up the board. “Then we take turns putting tokens on the board. One of us is white and the other is black. You try to surround your opponent’s tokens on two opposite sides, and you switch them to your color. If you can’t put any tokens in a flanking position, you skip your turn. And when the board is full, whoever has more tokens facing up is the winner.”

“It sounds boring,” mumbled Satan.

“Then it should be easy to beat me.”

“At least give me a few turns to figure out how it works. Then I’ll start beating you.”

For the next ten minutes, we sat more or less silently in the observatory, surrounded by wreckage as if the place had been hit by a bomb, carefully studying the board and placing our tokens.

I won the first game. It was the first time I’d ever beaten Satan at a game of Othello. It was also the last.

“I was still getting used to the game mechanics,” growled Satan as he cleared the board. He was annoyed, but not angry, and when he bested me in the next round, he looked hesitantly pleased.

“…You didn’t lose on purpose, did you?”

“Absolutely not. I play to win. You’re going down in the next round.”

That satisfied him. But he won the next round too. And the one after. I guess it was only to be expected. He was wickedly clever.

“Satan?” I asked as we cleared the board and set up for another game.

“Mm?”

“You never said why you had that talk with me yesterday.”

He fidgeted uncomfortably, turning one of the tokens over in his fingers a few times. Black, white, black white. “...I had to tell somebody .”

“Did you…?”

His tail snapped irritably against the floor beside him, knocking the board askew. I rearranged the tokens as he searched for words.

“Yes, I did.” He looked at the board like he was trying to set it on fire with his mind. “Now I know not to tell anybody else.”

“Why did you tell me? Yesterday, you said you wanted to tell me specifically. To see my reaction.”

“And I saw your reaction,” he snapped. His tail slammed the ground even harder. I paused, then started to rearrange the board again. “Now I know not to tell anybody else! I just said that!”

“Was there some sort of way you wanted me to react?”

“I don’t know. Stop asking me stupid questions. It’s making me angry.”

I obliged. Nothing good would come from pressing the issue when he was adamant he didn’t want to discuss it, and it was probably a useful skill for him to identify when he was starting to feel angry if he ever wanted to learn to control that emotion.

Satan had just wiped the floor with me for the fifth time when I looked up at the devastated room around us, then checked the time on my D.D.D. Lucifer was definitely going to expect me to help clean this up.

“...Hey, Satan. Let’s go to the library.”

“What…?”

“Your room is too empty.” I thought about how barren the space felt yesterday. “You should fill it with things you like.”

Satan stared blankly at me, then squinted slightly. “Are you mad that you keep losing?”

I laughed at that, and Satan blushed, scowling. “No. I was just thinking that I don’t want to be here when Lucifer gets back.” I nodded to our surroundings.

That was enough to convince him.

I put away Othello and led Satan to the observatory door. When I opened it, I felt a thump and heard a pained yelp on the other side. Mammon quickly darted out from behind the door, rubbing his nose.

“You coulda warned me you were gonna swing that thing open!” he whined. His gaze darted from me to Satan, then back to me again. “...What the hell did you do?”

“We played Othello,” I said, and my gaze shifted to his wrist, which appeared to be swelling. “I thought I told you to have Beel wrap that wrist for you.”

“And I thought I told you I was gonna wait right out here,” Mammon retorted. “What the hell is Othello, anyway?”

Satan impatiently sidestepped Mammon and continued down the hall. “Come on,” he called to me. Mammon looked at him over his shoulder, then looked back at me, his expression heartbreakingly puppy-like. “Now you’re goin’ somewhere with him?”

Leave it to Mammon to make me feel guilty. I put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. I’ll check on your wrist then, but it had better be wrapped. Got it?”

Mammon let out an exaggerated sigh, but he nodded.

I patted his shoulder. “Good boy.”

“Don’t call me–”

“Are you coming or not?!” Satan’s voice called from up the hallway.

I gave Mammon an apologetic smile. “Later.”

“You better give me the full 'wounded soldier' treatment when ya get back, understand?” I nodded as I slung my bag over my shoulder and hurried down the hall. Mammon called after me, “I got injured in the line of duty, y’know!”

------

I wasn’t sure how we would be received when we entered the library with a wheelbarrow, but apparently, with Satan’s status as one of the Seven Rulers of the Underworld more or less accepted, he could get away with it. At any rate, the library staff seemed more at ease with the wheelbarrow than they had been last time Satan was here, carrying dozens of books piled one on top of the other in a single precarious stack. 

I stood back and watched while Satan piloted the thing in and out of aisles, tossing books into the bed of the wheelbarrow one, two, five at a time. He was collecting quite eclectic material, too. Novels, spellbooks, medical tomes, astrological works, zoological and botanical indices, and, of course, dozens and dozens of books on curses.

Taking one at random, I perused the cover. “Book of Forbidden Spelles and Hexes,” I read out loud, glancing up at Satan with a raised eyebrow before opening it at random. “A curse to put upon thine enemy which shall in due time render him blinde and tooth-less, a wondrous revenge against sorcerers wielding ye Eville Eye.” Satan smirked to himself as he continued looking through the shelves, and I flipped to another page which was bookmarked. “Septinfermium. A curse of sevenfold agonies to befall thy adversary, amonge these being a scourge of boiles, loss of hair, perturbation of tongue, loss of vigour in the loines, a sickness of sweating, incontinence of bowels, and sanguinity of urine.” I closed the book and looked up at Satan, who appeared to be suppressing laughter. “If I read that right, you’re looking into a curse that’s going to make Lucifer pee blood, crap himself, and turn impotent?”

“That about sums it up, yes. Along with boils, balding, sweating, and stuttering.”

I tried to picture Lucifer under a curse like that, but I found that I simply couldn’t. “You’re actually going to do that?” 

Satan turned to look at me, frowning. “You think I wouldn’t?”

“It’s not that, it’s more…” I hesitated. “...You don’t really think you’d get away with it, do you?”

“I don’t worry about whether or not I’ll get away with something.” He shrugged and looked back to the books on the shelf. “If I did, I’d never do anything. That said, that particular hex is extremely complicated and requires a good deal of preparation, so I don’t plan on attempting it just yet.”

Not just yet, hmm? “Why do you hate him so much? Lucifer, I mean.” I’d heard this question answered a few times, but never from this Satan.

He turned around to face me, yet another book in his hands. He stared down at it thoughtfully, opening it and flipping through the pages without really seeing anything.

“He pretends to be so incredibly responsible and put-together… He lords it over the rest of us. But the fact that I exist at all is proof of how flimsy his pretensions really are.” Satan slammed the book shut. “He’s a hypocrite, and he’s irresponsible enough to create an entire sentient being without any thought as to what kind of existence that being is going to have to endure.” His knuckles were turning white as he gripped the book and stared at its cover. “I never consented to my own creation. But he acts as if he’s done me an enormous favor by shoving me out into the world. Never mind it’s a world where we’re all social pariahs and just about the only emotion I can experience is a mind-numbing rage. And on top of all that, I'm made out of him. It's disgusting.”

Again, Satan was talking about his very existence as if it was a burden; something he would never have accepted if given the choice. It was stirring up all the unpleasantness of yesterday.

“You sound like you hate being alive.” I leaned forward a bit, taking a good look at him.

“I can’t say I love it.”

“Doesn’t anything make you happy?”

Satan smacked his palm lightly with the book in his hand, continuing to stare at it without seeing. “...Not really.”

I hadn’t actually anticipated that answer, so it hit me like a gut-punch. He sounded so earnest and resigned–not even sad, just resigned–that I instinctively raised a hand to reach out in his direction. But what was I supposed to do? Take his hand? Ruffle his hair? Gestures that felt like second nature in one sense seemed out of line here and now. My hand returned to my side, but I still couldn’t accept Satan’s response.

“...I’ll help you figure out how to feel happy,” I said after a lengthy silence. I clenched my fists and met his gaze when he glanced over his shoulder at me in surprise. “That’s a promise.”

Satan looked me up and down for a few quiet seconds before he cracked a bemused smile. “...You’re a really strange demon.”

“Mhm, like you’re one to talk.” I smiled impishly at him, trying to hide how dry my mouth felt. It was strange, but somehow, he looked a little bit different from this angle. Not soft, but softer. It made me want to touch his face.

I didn’t, of course.

Over the next half hour, while Satan kept adding more and more books to the wheelbarrow, I considered my self-assigned task: find something to make Satan happy. Of course, there was an obvious course of action that wasn’t lost on me. I had to introduce this man to cats.

“Are we heading home, then?” I asked Satan as I pushed the wheelbarrow out the library doors. As much as I cared for the guy, I could never accuse him of being too conscientious, and he seemed to consider it a given that his attendant would be the one to roll a few hundred pounds of books along for him.

“What, so Lucifer can lecture me on things I already know?”

I set down the handles to the wheelbarrow and looked at him with what I hoped was a withering gaze. “If you think I’m going to push this thing all around the Devildom, I have some news for you.”

“I’ll buy you ice cream.”

“You’ll have to do better than that.”

Satan looked around as we walked, clicking his tongue as he thought. “I’ll buy you dinner?”

I’ll admit, that idea appealed to me just a little bit more. But now that this had started, I didn’t want to fold without seeing what my options might be. “Dinner from where?” He sighed tiredly, and I slowed down. “It looks like we’re coming to a hill. I’m going to need some real motivation to tackle this.”

“Alright, stop whining,” Satan snapped. He elbowed me aside and took the handles of the wheelbarrow himself before barreling up the incline.

“Oh– hey!” I pursued him, crestfallen. “Wait, does this mean you take it all back?”

“Maybe,” grunted Satan as he pushed the thing forward. “Are you disappointed?”

“A little,” I admitted. I could see him smirk out of the corner of my eye. “Are you laughing at me?”

“Yes,” he replied without any concern. “You shouldn’t test me like that when you have such a sorry poker face.”

I sighed, and he laughed. It was a nice sound. I hadn’t heard it much lately. Not a genuine laugh, at least. So in spite of myself, I smiled.

“Whatever,” he said with a soft sigh as we reached the top of the slope. “I’ll still buy you ice cream, at any rate. Maybe if we can find a table we can play that black-and-white game again.”

“Othello,” I reminded him. “Sure, if you want.”

He seemed to have a place in mind already, so I was content to follow after him until we reached the ice cream vendor.

“I would like to order a double scoop of stewed hell ham with salamander gizzards.” Satan’s voice when ordering was almost painfully formal. He glanced over at me. “What do you want?”

Now, I have to be honest. I’ve never gotten used to Devildom ice cream. I’ve learned to look past the ingredients in most meals, but there’s something so inherently unappealing to a human about “hell newt ice cream” or “demon squid ink sorbet” that I can’t really get past it. Fortunately, most places sell a flavor called blood anise, which is probably the Devildom’s equivalent to human world vanilla, and although it isn’t fantastic, it mostly just tastes like frozen licorice.

“I’ll just have a scoop of blood anise,” I told Satan.

“Any hell beetles to top it off?” cut in the vendor.

“No thanks, just blood anise.”

“No extra charge for stewed toad sauce.”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“We’re having a special discount on black and yellow bile chunks—”

“Are you deaf? Just blood anise!” Satan thundered. For a second I thought he was going to grab the vendor by his collar and shake him, but he seemed to regain control of himself before it came to that. The vendor looked like he’d been shaken though, and he ducked into the stall to prepare the order.

Satan stood with his arms crossed, lips tight, scowling down at the wheelbarrow. He almost looked…embarrassed. When the ice cream was ready, he paid without speaking and carried both cups to an outdoor bistro table, leaving me to roll the books along after him.

“…Was I scary?” he asked me as I set up the Othello board.

“Hm?” I looked up at him questioningly.

Satan dragged a hand down his face, exhaled as if this required all his stores of patience, and spoke lowly. “…That demon who sold us the ice cream. He looked terrified.”

“Oh…” I glanced back at the ice cream stand and Satan snapped his fingers in my ear, startling me back into facing him.

“Stop, don’t look at him!” he hissed.

“You want to know if you were too scary?”

Satan hesitated, tapping the table with one of the game tokens. “…Did I embarrass you?”

I hadn’t expected him to approach the issue from that angle. I shook my head and swallowed a smile. “No. You look like you embarrassed yourself, though.”

Satan’s cheeks, already a little pink, darkened in color as he grabbed his spoon and shoveled a mouthful of frozen stewed hell ham with toad spleens or whatever it was into his mouth. Whoever came up with meat-flavored ice cream deserved whatever horrible thing they inevitably had coming, I decided as my stomach churned. 

“It isn’t that big of a deal,” I continued after a sullen silence on Satan’s end. “You didn’t actually hurt him.”

“Right?” Satan glared down at his ice cream with the same amount of loathing that I felt for it. “And he shouldn’t have been pushy about toppings in the first place. It’s his fault.”

With that out of the way, he placed his token on the board, and the subject was dropped.

We were around halfway through the game when I noticed Satan looking distracted. He kept glancing at something behind me, and when I turned around to look, I saw a tawny cat peeking out from between two buildings. I couldn’t believe my luck.

“Are you looking at that animal?” I asked, looking back at Satan.

“Yes,” he answered. “It looks comfortable in a very uncomfortable place.”

“That’s a cat,” I told him. There was something deeply sad about the fact that Satan was aware of things like hexes, and bowel incontinence, and impotence, but not cats–though it did make some sense. Satan had a natural curiosity for all things esoteric, and he was the owner of a body with anatomy that, presumably, made bowel incontinence and impotence things he might have had some personal experience with, or at least a conceptual understanding about. I didn’t know. I wasn’t in a position to judge. But since cats weren’t animals used in Devildom cuisine, there wasn’t really any reason for Satan to have heard of them before, especially considering he had never even left the Demon King’s castle until a few weeks earlier.

“A cat… The thing you talked about drowning?”

Of course Satan had remembered that bit of what I’d said back in the observatory.

“No–no, not really, I wasn’t actually talking about any real cats,” I insisted. Satan looked at me with what I could only describe as general disapproval. “...I’ve never hurt any cats!”

“You scared it,” Satan informed me with a frown. I turned around to look, and, indeed, the cat was no longer there. It had probably darted back between the buildings.

“How do you know I scared it? Maybe it just got bored!” I didn't like how this interaction was painting me as some sort of cat abuser.

“You shouldn’t be so loud,” Satan said coldly.

“That’s rich, coming from you,” I huffed.

Satan continued to stare at the spot where the cat had been. “I like how its ears looked. They were very triangular.”

My irritation softened a little bit. “You should keep an eye out,” I told him. “Cats aren’t uncommon in the Devildom, though they can be a little wary of people.”

Satan nodded. His interest in the board game in front of us had clearly petered out. “...Are you going to complain about rolling the books back down the hill as much as you complained about rolling them up?”

“Back down the hill?” I asked warily. That just sounded like a disaster waiting to happen.

Satan nodded. “I need to return to the library to find reading material on cats.”

“Can’t we bring these to the House of Lamentation first, then go get cat books?”

“As if Lucifer would let me leave once I show up.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “Well, then, why don’t I take these books to the house, and you can go to the library on your own for…cat research materials.”

Satan was still staring at the now vacant spot where the cat had been. He was frowning. “You need to check on Mammon?”

Actually, it wasn’t until he said it that I remembered I’d promised to check back in on the second oldest. A surge of guilt pooled in my belly. “I just don’t think rolling a wheelbarrow full of books down a hill sounds like a scenario with a happy ending,” I said.

Satan sighed. Apparently he saw the justice in my words, because he looked a little less resentful and a little more resigned when he nodded. “Fine. If Lucifer asks where I am, tell him you don’t know, but I said something about visiting an alchemist’s shop.”

“You had that loaded and ready, huh?”

“Of course. Don’t clean that up yet.” Satan stopped me as I stood and reached out to clear the Othello board. “Let’s finish the game.”

I sank back into my seat and cracked my knuckles. “Are you ready to lose?” I asked.

I lost.

[lillecc]

Lille’s Aging Mod - Now with Infants and Pets!

Behold, I live! And I mod! Been a while hasn’t it?

Anyways, with the Infant Update out now my old Aging Mod was in dire need of an update.

This is that update. In the nearly 7 years since I made the original, EA has tinkered with the aging on their end, added pets that I never made changes for and generally changed things about behind the scenes, so I remade the entire thing from scratch.

Details, Numbers, Reasons, and of course, the download link, under the cut!

As with the old version, this Mod changes sims’ and now also pets’ lifespans to something I find more reasonable/useful. Since there is now 3 differently tuneable Lifespans (Short, Normal, Long) as opposed to the old Normal + Multiplier System, I figured I’d combine my personal setup with 2 fairly popular setups I am used to from Sims 2: 1 sim day=1 year and Gestational Based Aging, where 1 sim day = 3 months, based on pregnancy length.

Here’s what is getting changed to what:

Sims:

Cats:

Dogs:

For my personal, aka the “Normal” Lifespan settings I wanted my sims to live longer, have more time for fun things, friends and dating, while also preventing the awkward situation I used to frequently run into where my sims would not get to meet their grandkids because they turned into elders in the middle of their kids being children/teens. I also added a full 28 days to the YA lifespan instead of the like... 8 that EA added, so your sims can be young adults AND have the university experience, since getting your first degree always takes at least 3 weeks.

For both Day=Year and Gestational Aging I rather arbitrarily set the Age Up Milestones as follows:

Babies: 0-1

Infants: 1-3

Toddlers: 3-6

Child: 6-12

Teen: 12-18

YA: 18-32

Adult: 32-60

Elder: 60+ with a general life expectancy of 80

And for pets:

Kittens: 0-1

Adult Cats: 1-10

Elder Cats: 10-18

Puppies: 0-1

Adult Dogs: 1-9

Elder Dogs: 9-14

That should be all. I of course haven’t tested it extensively, so I might update/tweak as I go. Ya know, the usual for my things.

If you have any problems/suggestions/questions, feel free to let me know!

Now, to the good stuff:

DOWNLOAD(SFS)

22/07/2023 - Horses Update!

Now includes a file to adjust horse aging as follows:

On Short/Gestational I picked chose the following values:

Foal 0-4 years

Adult 4-24 years

Elder 24-30 years

Which is what google told me makes sense for horses, so we’ll go with that.

For normal I changed the values as follows:

Foal: 7(EA) -> 8

Adult: 50(EA) -> 52

Elder: 13(EA) -> 20

So not that much changed, but I haven’t really played with horses much yet so I don’t know if their lifespans will bother me.

[lia-land]

Caraval by Stephanie Garber

4.5/5

Spoilers for the first book in the Caraval series by Stephanie Garber.

I loved this book!!!

However, the more I think about it, the lower I want to rate it. You really do have to enjoy it on the surface, so I’m not going to it pick it apart as much as I’d like to here (and yet, somehow this still ended up being super long...). Quality wise, it’s a 4 star book at best, maybe even 3.5, but I had so much fun reading it.

I’ve seen a lot of criticism for this book and admittedly, I did go into it biased and expected to DNF but I thought this was amazing. When I say ‘amazing,’ I mean I really enjoyed reading it, not that the actual story and writing were amazing. It was good from page 1 and I read 1/3 the first time I opened it. I didn’t feel like I was waiting for it to pick up, because the pacing was consistent throughout. It’s fantasy, but in its own category. It’s kind of like a combination of the Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and a bit of Coraline. Maybe a little Now You See Me. Whatever it is, I want more.

Here’s an example of why you should take this book on the surface and not think about: while writing this, I remembered that Caraval was meant to be a competition, but the plot didn’t acknowledge that. We were constantly told that Caraval was a game AND a competition, but we barely saw how any of the other players were progressing. The other players were so irrelevant that it really would have made no difference to the story whatsoever if they weren’t there. Not sure how an editor didn’t pick up on this. I think the publishing house is either Macmillan or Hachette, so what happened here? I’ve noticed that a lot of popular fantasy books recently have poor writing/plot holes and most of the time, they’re backed by one of these big publishing houses. I want quality > quantity to come back. You could argue that because this specific run of the game was designed for Scarlett to win, she never had any competition, but the point is that Scarlett didn’t know that. As readers, we also didn’t know that. It’s lazy to write that it’s a competition and have other players at the start to make us intrigued, just to later not do anything with it. The closest we got was when everyone was in Tella's room at the start.

The plot twists were interesting. I felt like it was incredibly obvious from the start that Julian was Legend, then he was, and then he wasn’t. But we still don’t actually know who Legend is, so we’re left wondering if he could still be revealed as Legend in the next book. A very interesting tactic from Garber and perhaps even a dig at current popular fantasy books where so many times, it feels like the author is treating the reader as someone who is not intelligent. Looking at you, Jennifer L. Armentrout.

Most of the criticism that I’ve come across is about the world building and how it’s basically non-existent. I disagree, I think this was a very immersive universe and a very unique one in YA, especially for the length of the book. Of course, if we compare this to current popular fantasy books with faeries and politics, then yes, the world building does not have the same level of detail in the sense that we don’t know what’s going on on a global scale, but Caraval doesn’t need that. So much of Caraval’s story relies on interpretation and mystery. More details would have taken away from that. This book is more about the characters and the game. Knowing the history of the world in Caraval wasn’t as necessary as knowing the history of the game. We were given what we needed and there’s a lot of fantasy series now with world building that is far too convoluted to get through, so this was a nice change.

This might be an unpopular opinion (update: it’s not) but I really wanted Legend to be the main love interest, and still do. Or at least for Julian to have been Legend the whole time. The way Legend was portrayed throughout the book and all the mystery surrounding him was intriguing, and I found Julian and Scarlett a bit odd since Scarlett was under the impression that Julian had also been with Tella. None of her inner dialogue acknowledged that, though. Her main reason was always the fact that she was engaged to a stranger, and never ‘my sister has hooked up with this guy.’

I didn’t notice this until after I finished Caraval, but there’s actually only two somewhat developed characters. Everyone except Scarlett and Julian were just extras with a few lines. Dante was somewhere in between, but then he died halfway through and we didn’t see much of him. Tella’s character became prominent only towards the end, which I suspect was only for the sake of writing a sequel, as Caraval was originally meant to be a standalone. For any other series, I’d consider this a really big negative, but Caraval’s focus is the game and the idea of Legend. There’s also a big theme of unfamiliarity and having no idea who Scarlett can trust, so for this specific series, it works.

Scarlett is not very interesting, but I didn’t dislike her. I felt the same way about Poppy from the Blood and Ash series, in the way that she felt like a lens for us to see the plot unfold, rather than her own character. Writing developed characters is not something that Garber does well or at all in this book, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless. I really just cared about the plot and finding out about Caraval’s intentions and Legend. Julian was also inconsistent, but I think that was meant to come across as unpredictable and mysterious. I feel like he’s still not entirely done with lying. I’m still waiting for him to end up being Legend.

The ending was underwhelming and overwhelming at the same time. Overwhelming because too much happened very rapidly with not enough explanation, and underwhelming because what did happen didn’t really seem worthy of the nearly 400 page build up. I kept waiting for another twist that made more sense. Again, I personally enjoyed it regardless, but I can acknowledge that it didn’t fit perfectly. I don't know if it gets cleared up in book two, but it was still a rushed ending. Since Caraval was originally written to be a standalone, it makes a lot more sense. I wonder if the intention was for us to never meet Legend at all. I actually think Caraval as a standalone story would have worked well, if not better.

Also, I don’t think Scarlett ate anything for the entirety of the game. I feel like there should have been at least one scene where she would be skeptical to have anything on Caraval since we know the food and drinks can have effects.

This is a book that I would love to see as a film or TV show adaptation. I might even enjoy it just as much as through a visual medium. As pretty as all the writing makes the settings out to be, I was a tiny bit bored of continuously reading descriptions towards the end of the book. As many have said, there is a lot of purple prose and some of the sentences might make you do a double take, but it’s not unbearable. It could definitely benefit from another round of editing, especially at the start, but once you get used to it, it’s fine (it definitely improves in the sequels). Reminds me of an old joke about English teachers and how they’ll tell you that blue curtains symbolise the characters’ depression and whatnot, when the author just meant that the curtains are blue. I feel like someone should tell Garber that sometimes, it’s okay for the curtains to just be blue. On the other hand, Caraval wouldn’t be Caraval without all the weird and wonderful settings, so it’s not that I want less description, but maybe striking a balance between comparing feelings to colours and describing colourful settings would make this perfect.

Honorary shoutout to the following sentences:

-“Scarlett had an emerald-green premonition that she would make a discovery inside.”

-“It tasted like the moment before night gives birth to morning.”

-“He tasted like midnight and wind, and shades of rich brown and light blue.”

All the vivid imagery made me want to make a very 2014 tumblr vibe playlist:

Young and Beautiful - Lana Del Rey

The Poison - The All-American Rejects

Wonderland - Taylor Swift

The Greatest Show - The Greatest Showman soundtrack

Disturbia - Rihanna

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived - Taylor Swift

The Writer - Ellie Goulding

Hotel California - Eagles

So It Goes… - Taylor Swift

House of Memories - Panic! At The Disco

The Black Dog - Taylor Swift

Starry Eyed- Ellie Goulding

I Hate It Here - Taylor Swift

Game of Survival - Ruelle

Figure 8 - Ellie Goulding

Centuries - Fall Out Boy

Mad Hatter - Melanie Martinez

[aquilapolariz]

in business, in life (silvio ricci x oc [hyacinth])

Event: Ikemen Prince gift exchange hosted by @ikemenlibrary and @sunnyikemen || Hugehugehuge thank you to these two for being such amazing organizers and guiding me through my first-ever gift exchange <3

This was written for the lovely @tacogawa ! This is something I wouldn’t normally write, so I hope I did your OC and Silvio justice- i had so much fun and inspiration writing this, plz enjoy!!

Summary: Silvio claims he’s the best businessman in all of Rhodiolite and Benitoite combined. After finalizing an investment plan with his fiance in her bookstore, she challenges that claim in a series of business competitions!

Notes/Warnings/Tags: Established relationship (Silvio and Hyacinth are engaged) + Found family with Leon, Clavis, Jin, and Nokto aka some of the other princes that were requested + my attempts at humor + fluff at the end; EXTREMEEELLYY minor spoilers for Silvio’s backstory, it’s only there if you squint!

Word Count: ~2.7k

“There’s one last thing I need to show you,” Hyacinth declared, close to finishing up the tour of her bookshop. She stopped right in front of an unassuming door that said STAFF ONLY.

“I don’t need to see your supply closet, Hyacinth,” Silvio said brashly.

“But-”

“I trust that you know how to spend your money on cleaning expenses and your facilities.”

“Oh,” she blinked. “Why can’t you ever give a straightforward compliment?”

“It’s like you always say: I’m hopeless.” A ghost of a smile could be seen upon Silvio’s lips.

Hyacinth playfully rolled her eyes at him, “At least you’re self-aware.” She gestured to the door, “This is not my supply closet, though. It’s, well, let me just-” Slowly opening the door, she walked inside the room and turned on the light switch. Silvio followed closely behind.

His eyes scanned the room which was filled with rows of display cases containing gems of all colors and sizes, reflecting light from the chandeliers dangling overhead. Some were unrefined, but many of them were polished, placed within jewelry as the center stones of rings or hanging onto necklaces and bracelets. “Not bad,” he said. He held some unrefined sapphire in his hand and squinted. “These are…Obsidianite, aren’t they? All of them are.”

Hyacinth nodded.

“How did you manage to obtain these?”

“Remember how my parents were Benitoitian pirates? I still have some connections, some old friends who provide me with a…variety of goods, some would say.”

“That’s one hell of a way to stimulate the economy.” Silvio ran his hands along the display cases, “Always full of surprises, ain’t ya?”

“I just thought you should know now since you’re actually planning on moving forward with investing,” Hyacinth explained. “If, somehow, I get caught, I don’t want you to be in hot water too. Not as a prince of Benitoite.”

He snorted. “Is that really why you haven’t told me about this? If I’m investing, there’s no way you’d get caught, and even if you did, I’d bribe them into silence.”

Hyacinth let out a breath of relief. “So, really, this is okay?”

“Business is business. Though, this ain’t the way I’d do it.”

“Oh yeah?” Hyacinth crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame as she watched her partner walk through the room. “How would the great Prince Silvio do it?”

“First of all,” he picked up a necklace with a sparkling light pink diamond, laying it on his palm to see how it would reflect the light. “I would store these better. The light and humidity here can degrade some of them over time.”

Hyacinth sighed. “I know that. You think I have enough money to get full-scale climate control here?”

“Second of all, the reason you’re not making enough money for that is because this is a bookshop,” he continued, ignoring his fiance. “I would auction these off instead of running this store underground. You’re not gonna reach the right audience by selling these here.”

“I’m not trying to sell to rich strangers. I like forging personal relationships with my buyers. I want these gems and jewelry to go to the people who will take care of them.”

“You’re not making any money like that.” Silvio put the diamond necklace around Hyacinth’s neck and whispered into her ear. “This is why I’m the better business person out of the two of us.”

Hyacinth stepped forward and turned around to face Silvio. “No way!”

Silvio smirked, ignoring Hyacinth’s words while admiring how beautiful she looked with a diamond necklace that matched the engagement ring he gave her.

“Silvio, you are not checking me out right now!”

He merely shrugged.

“Okay,” she paused as the gears turned in her head. “I challenge you to a barter battle,” she said, pointing her index finger at him. Hyacinth’s eyes flitted around the room. “Whoever can trade up to the most valuable item-“ her eyes landed on a pencil next to Silvio. She grabbed the pencil from the table and shoved it towards Silvio “-from this pencil, is the better businessperson.”

He took the pencil from her, unimpressed. “Y’know you’re talking to the number one negotiator in all of Benitoite and Rhodiolite, right?”

“Do you accept my challenge or not?”

He sighed. “You know you’re gonna lose, right?”

“We’ll see about that,” Hyacinth replied. “Okay. If we’re doing this, though, we need to do it properly. We need a third party to determine the value of our final goods.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully, “Ah, yes! Jin and Leon should be in town later in the evening. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”

“Those two aren’t qualified to judge-”

“You’re scared to lose, aren’t you?” Hyacinth asked, taunting him.

“As if, woman. Even with their biased judgment, I’ll still win,” he smirked, flashing a cocky smile.

“May the best businessperson win!” Hyacinth exclaimed triumphantly.

+++

“After our long deliberation,” Jin started, “we are now ready to declare a winner.”

Hyacinth couldn’t stand still, the air around her was charged with anticipation. Meanwhile, Silvio stood still next to her, his arms crossed with a cocky smile on his face.

“Before we do that though, we just wanna say that we thought both of you did a great job and that the final monetary value was very high from each final item, much more than we expected,” Leon stated cordially. “The winner of this barter battle is Hyacinth!”

Silvio’s jaw dropped momentarily, stunned into silence.

Hyacinth grinned, “Aw, thank you so much, guys. Not for choosing me as the winner, but for taking the time out of your busy schedules to do this.”

“Of course, Hyacinth! You’re family, we’re glad to do anything we can. Plus, we haven’t been able to see you as much ever since Silvio took you away,” Leon teased.

“Yeah, it’s not fair that he gets to have you all to himself now,” Jin frowned. “He better be treating you right.”

“Absolutely. He treats me like I’m royalty.”

“How did Hyacinth win? What was her item?” Silvio asked in disbelief.

“Given that his brothers are also royalty, then I don’t think that’s a good thing,” Leon laughed, ignoring Silvio.

“Um, he treats me like a queen?” Hyacinth tried correcting herself.

“His mother was a queen, remember? That didn’t pan out well,” Jin added.

“I’m right here, dammit!” Silvio exclaimed. “Hyacinth, what the hell was your item?”

A soft smile painted her lips, “Let me show you.” With everyone following her, she opened the door to her bookshop. They walked past shelves and shelves and arrived at the back corner. Silvio was met with a deep purple rolled-arm sofa, one that was definitely not here before. Its arms were gilded in gold and the velvet was fit for royalty. “I managed to get some seating for the space. I’ve gotten so much customer feedback about having a more comfortable space to read, so I managed to trade for this.”

Trying to hide his pride in Hyacinth, Silvio opened his mouth to speak but then closed it.

“Yeah, we ultimately decided Hyacinth as the winner even though your item had a larger estimated value. It’s because she keeps her customers in mind. We thought that was the most important aspect of business,” Leon clarified.

“I knew I traded to the highest value,” Silvio retorted. He turned to Hyacinth, clicking his tongue, “I could’ve just bought you a sofa. As many as you wanted. As many as your customers wanted.”

She shook her head. “These sofas are actually from a customer’s family. They’re priceless.”

Silvio only sighed as Hyacinth stared at the furniture fondly.

Jin let out a hearty chuckle, “Your business strengths complement each other well. You make up for each other’s weaknesses. The two of you are great business partners and life partners.”

Hearing Jin’s words, Hyacinth grinned widely at Silvio. He couldn’t help but smile back at her.

“Thank you for being our entertainment for the day, we were able to kill two birds with one stone! While we followed the two of you around, we were also observing all the townspeople and places today. Rhodolite feels like a major trading hub whenever Silvio’s in town,” Leon said. “Thanks for that.”

“Money follows me wherever I go,” Silvio said smugly.

“The results of our competition tell me otherwise,” Hyacinth mumbled under her breath.

Silvio’s eye twitched in irritation and laughter erupted from Jin and Leon. “Take care, you two. We gotta head back to the castle. We’ll see you soon,” Leon said, bidding the pair farewell.

Silvio and Hyacinth watched as the two princes of Rhodolite walked away. “The only reason you won is because they’re softies! Jin and Leon don’t know business,” Silvio complained.

Hyacinth hummed dismissively. “You said you’d still win despite that though.”

“I traded up to the highest value item. Is that not winning?

“Not to Jin and Leon. And to me,” Hyacinth snickered. “We could have a rematch if you’d like, say, with Clavis and Nokto as the judges. A new challenge, perhaps.”

“Those judges know commerce a little better. What would this new challenge be?”

“Whoever has the most sales in a day wins. I’m sure you’re an investor in some other nearby bookstore. Be an employee for the day.”

He scoffed, “My days of working for someone else are behind me.”

“Well, do you have any better ideas? You’re not scared again, are you?”

“Again? Since when was I afraid of any business challenge? I never was and I sure as hell am not now. I accept.”

“Great! Clavis and Nokto could monitor us to see our customer interactions as well. They can determine the winner holistically,” Hyacinth said cheerfully.

+++

Silvio approached the sign that said ROSE PETAL PAGES. The urge to kick the door down was raging through him, but he thought about what Hyacinth had always told him: “What if you break the door? It’s gonna be other people that pay for it…not everyone has money to throw away like you.” He sighed and glared at the door. Begrudgingly reaching for the doorknob, Silvio shuddered at the rare feeling of having to open a door.

The disgust on his face stayed. “Prince Silvio?” the merchant at the sales desk greeted him. “H-How are you doing? We have a new shipment of the finest books from-“

“I’m here to sell, not buy. You can take the day off, I’ll do your job for ya today. I’ll pay ya too.”

“W-What?”

“I’m here on important business. Take the day off or risk losing your top investor.”

“Y-yes, Prince Silvio.” Hurriedly picking up his bags, he rushed out of the door.

“Are all your investees this scared of you?” A voice asked from behind a shelf.

“Clavis,” Silvio greeted the purple-haired prince dryly.

“A little birdie told me you’d be at a bookstore in town.”

“Yeah, and that same birdie told me you and Nokto would be better judges than those other brothers of yours.”

“Indeed, business expertise does fall more under the domain of the foreign affairs faction. Hyacinth did mention that you felt last week’s challenge wasn’t being assessed objectively.”

“It wasn’t,” Silvio replied curtly as he walked behind the sales counter to evaluate the money box.

“Did you try to bribe Jin and Leon into naming you the winner? Prince Silvio of Benitoite begging at the feet of Rhodiolitian princes — what a headline!”

“Hyacinth bribed them with attention before I could get to them with money,” Silvio grumbled.

“Well, I can’t blame them. She seems busier than us these days. Luke always complains about her lack of presence these days.”

Silvio was always aware of Hyacinth’s relationship with the princes, all of them acting like her older brothers. He sighed, “How’d you know I’d be at this bookstore?”

“Just because you’re investing in private businesses doesn’t mean that information is private,” Clavis smiled slyly.

“Fair,” Silvio replied as he opened the money box and dropped in some money for the worker he just told to leave.

“It seems you’re paying that man more than three times his daily wage,” Clavis observed.

Silvio scoffed as he shut the money box, “What sort of patron do you take me for?”

+++

“Good morning, Hyacinth. What lovely books are you selling today?”

“Nokto, it’s been so long! Thank you for indulging me and judging these silly business games.”

“I’d indulge you anytime,” he said with a wink.

“Uh huh,” Hyacinth deadpanned. “I have a book just for you.” She grabbed a tattered book from under the desk, some of its pages falling out. “It’s been gathering dust, waiting for you.”

Nokto’s face instantly turned sour as he looked at the cover. The almanac’s title was Growing Bellpeppers: From Planting to Harvest. “Ugh, I think I’m gonna throw up.”

Hyacinth laughed, “Go throw up outside then!”

“Please, you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

“But you’re gonna drive away all of the female customers,” Hyacinth whined.

“Or I’ll bring them in.”

Hyacinth stared at Nokto in mock disgust as he grinned back. The two of them almost immediately erupted in laughter.

“Don’t mind me, I’ll just watch you work as I lounge on your new, luxurious couch. Jin and Leon told me about the look on Silvio’s face when they said you were the winner. I’d love to see it myself.”

“Silvio and I expect you to judge us fairly,” you said, giving him a pointed look.

“Sure, sure,” Nokto replied as he put his arms behind his head, sinking comfortably into the sofa. “Anything for the future princess of Benitoite.”

+++

“For his shrewd marketing and patronage of his businesses, Nokto and I have declared Silvio as the sole winner of this…little game of yours,” Clavis announced.

“As expected,” Silvio acknowledged.

“No! Don’t tell me it’s because I showed Nokto that book,” Hyacinth feigned offense.

“Unfortunately, no. It was actually because you hurt my feelings, saying I would drive all the ladies away. Oh, how you scorn me,” Nokto replied sarcastically.

Hyacinth just shook her head with a smile. “As much as Hyacinth is a great communicator, Silvio just had more sales. He was very clever, using his princely status to draw in a larger crowd.”

“Ah, nothing beats the prince privilege,” Hyacinth noted in defeat. “If only I had that.”

Nokto shrugged, “Maybe, but you could’ve used your future princess privilege to draw in a crowd. I’m so sad that you couldn’t take my hint.”

She sighed, “I guess you’re right. Silvio actually won this one fair and square.”

“Damn right I did,” Silvio replied.

“At least I lose with grace!”

“The two of you complement each other well. Silvio is savvy with negotiations and the handling of money, while Hyacinth is incredibly attuned to her customers’ needs and efficient in organization,” Clavis concluded.

“Leon and Jin mentioned something like that too,” Silvio mumbled.

+++

“Thank you, my love, for entertaining these games of mine,” Hyacinth said as she leaned into Silvio’s shoulder, wrapping an arm around his torso where they sat next to each other in the moving carriage.

“It was my pleasure,” Silvio said quietly as he ruffled Hyacinth’s auburn hair. “You held your own against me, I’m impressed.”

“We’re tied, one to one, I think I did more than just ‘holding my own.’”

“Headstrong and savvy,” Silvio observed, “This is why I’m gonna marry you.”

“Ah, so you’re just marrying me because I’m a good business partner?” Hyacinth teased.

“I’m marrying you because you’re my life partner. You make up for everything I can’t even imagine doing or being- not just when it comes to business,” Silvio said sincerely. “Sure, you push me to be a better businessman, but you push me to be a better person too.”

“I love you,” Hyacinth muttered into Silvio’s chest, inhaling his salty, metallic scent that always reminded her of her childhood — the sandy ports of Benitoite, filled with barter and brine.

“I love you too,” Silvio replied as he ran his forefinger across the engagement ring that found its home on Hyacinth’s finger. It wasn’t made with the finest Obsidianite minerals, despite how easily Silvio could’ve obtained them. Instead, its band was filled with the sand of Benitoite’s beaches, and the center stone was a modest light pink diamond, exquisitely carved into a Rhodiolitian rose. It symbolized not just a union of allied nations or trading partners that helped each other, but that of a Rhodiolitian citizen and a Benitoitan prince. A union of two people — two lovers — who vow to cherish and support each other in business and in life.

[marvel-fanfic-writer-8675]

My Cute Assassin

Pairing: Bucky x reader

Warnings: fluff, shitty government

Summary: your cute, loving, clingy super soldier is trying to get his pardon and you are fed up with the things they are saying and take matters into your own hands

“Look at him! Even his demeanor alone should stand as proof that James Barnes is a evil man who needs to be put behind bars. He claims he was brainwashed, but everyone has some control of themselves and he still should’ve realized killing people is bad!” They were once again trying to pit a case against your boyfriend, and you weren’t having it.

Yesterday they had played videos of Bucky being tortured as evidence, and Bucky had started crying. You had moved up to comfort him, and when the judge told you to go back to your seat because it wasn’t allowed, you shot them a look that would’ve killed.

“Your honor, if I may, can I present some counter to the said reasoning?” The judge, now knowing not to mess with you, allowed you to do so.

You’d come prepared that day. You spent last night combining pictures and videos of your Bucky being the cute, adorable teddy bear he was. You brought up the video on a screen that was brought out. “As I play this video, I ask you, jury members, Judge Conners, how does this adorable teddy bear of a guy, look ‘evil’?” You pressed play.

There was one of the many times Bucky would sit on the couch, cuddled into you like a little spoon. There was the time you wished to dress up in a duck onesie and dance around and Bucky agreed to do it with you. The pictures of Bucky with the kittens at the shelter you volunteered at. Even Bucky playing with Clint’s kids.

After the video was over you could see Bucky smiling and blushing. When you looked over at the jury they were all looking a lot more sympathetic. “Is that all the evidence we have for the trial? If anyone has anything to add, please speak now.” You rose up once again to say your final words. “I’d like to say one more thing, your honor.” It was granted and you started. “Jury members, look, that guy right there,” you pointed to Bucky, “is not the winter soldier. That man is Bucky, a victim of Hydra, like so many others, who’s lives have been taken. He was used as a weapon by Hydra, tortured, forced to do things against his own will. He’s been hurt enough, gone through enough pain for over 3 lifetimes. Please see him as the man he really is, the kind, loving teddy bear he is. I know this man more than anyone else in this room, other than Rogers over there maybe, he’s the love of my life, and he doesn’t deserve to be out through any more pain, and I will protect him from as much as I can, that’s why I’m here today, to state my case and to ask you, to judge fairly, and with both your brains and your hearts.” The judge called for the jury to go and deliberate, so they went.

You, Bucky and the rest of the room anxiously waited for the jury to come out and for the judge to state the verdict. “Hey, Buck, love, I’m here for ya no matter what. I love you no matter what. I’ll wait for you for however long, and I’ll send multiple plums a day to you in jail if I have to, and I’ll visit every single day,” you whispered to your boyfriend, squeezing his hand for reassurance. “Love you doll, remember that, please.” You gave him a kiss and promised to always remember that.

“James Buchanan Barnes is deemed by the jury….” All breaths were held across the court room, “not guilty.” The mallet banged down and Bucky twirled you around, happy tears streaming from both of your faces, Steve’s as well. “Thank you doll, couldn’t have done it without ya.”

[bigboomboi]

Kindered Sparks

This is my entry for @gg9183’s soulmate collab - Oof, I was almost late for your birthday ( I know that I'm technically no where near late, but I put this out so much later than I would've rathered. Sorry, I'm a Virgo, mate.) Anyhoo! Happy Birthday! And congratulations on your amazing Milestone! Thank you for organizing this collab too and allowing me to be apart of it! Honestly, I love soulmate pieces so much, so I was so excited seeing this prompt (I'm excited to read the others as well!) My friend helped me put together an idea for a SM connection and I really enjoyed writing it, hope you do as well :) Happy reading!

Fem!reader x Denki Kaminari

Soulmates au; People are born with a dream realm connecting them to their Soulmate. Warning; harsh language, Hurt/comfort, pretty fluffy, cursing. Implied readerxfemale relationship. BakuKiri relationship (I got bullied last time I didn't say that was a pairing, so, just being safe)

Word count; 4.6K

“Another lonely night in this stupid world.” Y/N grumbled staring up at her dreamy night sky.

A sky she was supposed to share with someone else.

In this wonderful, bittersweet world, you were tied to another person. Destiny decided from day one of your birth who you’d be with for the rest of your life and then set you in a special plane of existence only accessible when you fell asleep, once you turned the ripe age of fifteen. The kindred-plane.

A place specially made for you and your soulmate to meet each night when you fall asleep. It was a place to get to know each other without the prying eyes of all those around. A shared dream land you could even decorate and make your own. It was your partner’s and your safe space.

It was a place you guys could explore together, where your imaginations combined like an amazing world of minecraft. Some people made completely different lives in their heads at night. Others used it to see their long distance lovers. Hell, there was a blog story sharing what sounded like a whole scripted tv show where a woman’s soulmate had set off to save her from an uncompromising kingdom.

Sadly though, your shared safe space could be destroyed in a matter of moments. It wasn’t unheard of for your soulmate to reject destiny’s plan and divide your dreams. You could absolutely reject your soulmate and quite literally lock them out of your dreams. All presence of them would disappear from your dreams within a few nights, sometimes even faster, and you’d be left alone with only your creations.

Of course, being divided from your soulmate hurt. But something hurt much worse.

Your soulmate being unintentionally stolen from you. A divide where you lose your soulmate despite neither saying they’d like to divide. A situation where your soulmate dies.

Y/N sighed at the reminiscent of her once was soulmate. So sweet and kind, someone Y/N fully imagined meeting one day in the daylight. Yet, now at the sad age of seventeen, Y/N had no dreams of ever seeing her soulmate ever again.

She only had the one year of memories they made…

“Class, This Y/N. She will be joining our class for her final year of hero training, treat her well.” Aizawa introduced her to the class of 3-A.

“Thank you, Sensei” Y/N bowed slightly. “Nice to meet you all.”

Not even a moment of silence was granted before the class erupted in questions. Half about her quirk, the other half about where she was from. A few off hand questions about why she transferred. All a mess.

“Enough!” Aizawa shouted, hushing the entire class. “You all can get to know her later, on your own terms. For now, Y/N please take your seat.”

Y/N nodded and scurried back to the only free seat in the back. Between a pretty pinkette and sweet looking round faced brunette. Before she was even seated, Aizawa began his lesson.

Y/N quietly sat through the classes of her day, ignoring the judging looks aimed her way, as the new girl. She could hear the quiet whispers going around, speculating what type of person she was and tried to ignore those as well. She was well aware of the fact that she appeared very off-standish.

Dark eye bags, complete resting bitch face that quite literally screamed ‘I will stab you with a pencil if you speak to me’, earbuds tucked into each ear and a hunched over form that could rival Quasimodo. Thankfully, the aura she set into place actually warded off her new classmates for several days.

Up until a week later in the common room where her bubble was invaded.

She didn’t look up at the person sitting next to her and subtly tried to turn up her music. She felt the presence of several others join her and they all stared at her silently until finally, the pinkette she sat next to on her first day, plucked her book from her hands. Y/N slowly looked up at her dully and raised an eyebrow.

She reached out for her book, but the girl pulled it back out of her reach. She tried again, reaching forwards further, but the book was yoinked by a strip of tape, pulling it across the coffee table. Gritting her teeth slightly, Y/N stood up to reach across the table and the music in her ears paused.

The girl had unplugged her headphones.

“You just have no regard for personal belongings of others, hm?” Y/N sighed, sitting down.

“We just want to get to know our new classmate!” The pink girl grinned. “I’m Mina!”

“Hi, Mina. Now give me back my shit.” Y/N tried to grab her phone, only for someone behind her to tug her ear buds away. “Seriously?”

“We’ll give you back your things if you let us get to know you.” Mina smiled.

“Or, you could just give it back.” Y/N tried to grab her earbuds from the bright blonde behind her.

“Nope.’ He said, a grin on his face as well. “I’m Kaminari Denki, nice to meet ya, beautiful.”

Y/N sighed and rolled her eyes. “Or, I could just take my stuff back.”

“You could but there’s five of us and one of you, good luck.” A bitch faced blonde mumbled, flipping through her book.

“Fine. Here’s one thing about me.” Suddenly she appeared behind the bitch blonde and snatched her book. Another one of her appeared behind the one who taped her book away and grabbed her book mark. Two other Y/N’s came into existence on opposite sides of her seating couch to grab her phone and ear buds. All while the original Y/N sat in her place. “Don’t touch my things.”

“Woah, you can make multiple you’s!” The redhead gasped excitedly. “That’s so manly!”

“That’s so cool! They feel so real!” Kaminari said, poking the side of the one near him. It yelped and swatted his hand.

“They are real! Don’t poke me, I’m ticklish!” Y/N snapped, rubbing her side.

“Woah, can you feel this?’ The tape one reached out to pinch the clone’s arm.

Y/N’s other clone smacked him with her book. “Yes, I can feel that! Ow!”

“So your quirk is duplicating yourself? Boring…” Bitch face rolled his eyes, another Y/N appeared behind him and swatted the back of his head.

“My quirk is omni-replication. I can create continuous versions of myself and others. But they can act on their own.” Y/N sighed, bringing herself her book.

“Woah, make another me!” Kaminari grabbed her arm.

“G-Get off of me!” Y/N shoved him away, ignoring the literal spark between them. “I can’t make one of you now!”

“But you just said-.” Mina tried.

“I have to know your ins and outs. Otherwise I’d just make a weird melty blob of you.” Y/N sighed. “I need to know more about you guys before I can make you. I need to know you, how you fight, how your quirk works, I need to know how to play the game before I can participate.”

“So, what I’m hearing is…” Mina smirked. “You need to get to know us to succeed.”

“Oh god…” Y/N groaned. “I have no choice in this do I?”

“We have a specialty of making friends with people that don’t want to be friends.” The red head threw his arm over bitch face’s shoulder.

And thus a new friendship was born.

“Bakugo, why do you keep moving my pillow in our dreams, it’s so not manly.” Kirishima whined.

“Neither is the massive rock sitting in the middle of nowhere, dude.” Bakugo argued.

“It’s not just a rock.” Kirishima mock sniffled. “It’s a boulder.”

Y/N snickered at the reference that earned the kind redhead a smack to the back of his head. “Are you delivering pizza on it?”

“Yes!” Kiri grinned.

“No! Don’t encourage him!” Bakugo shouted.

“Aye, don’t shout at me. Your boyfriend is a literal rock, he’s encouraging himself.” Y/N laughed, throwing a fry at him.

“Oh yeah, what trash has your soulmate cluttered in your dream world?” Bakugo argued back.

Y/N’s laughter silenced and immediately her lips curled into a scowl. A light switched on and they remembered the one rule they had set in place. No one talks about Y/N’s soulmate. Or lack thereof.

“Bakugo!” Mina snapped.

“Shit, I didn’t-.” Y/N didn’t give him the time to apologize and stood up from the lunch table.

“Wait, no, Y/N! He didn’t mean to!” Kaminari grabbed her arm.

She flicked him in the forehead and pulled away. “No, it’s fine. You guys talk about your soulmate shit, I’m going to the training field.”

“Wait, Y/N, really!” Mina tried. “It’s just, we’re so used to casually talking about it!”

“I don’t care if you guys talk about yours, but you know I don’t have one, so we don’t bring up mine!” She huffed, before taking a breath. “You know what? Never mind.”

Y/N ignored her friend’s protest and stomped out of the dinning hall. She rushed to the training area, stopping by the locker room to change and grab gear, briefly.

Activating her quirk she began fist fighting her clone, taking her anger out on herself. Very early on into her friendship with the group she told them she didn’t want to talk about the soulmate shit. At least not her own. She told them she didn’t have one, leaving them to believe she never did.

They were incredibly understanding after they found that it upset her. So much, to the point that she copied Kirishima to punch himself when he kept asking. After that ordeal and several days of being ignored, they respected her wishes of not bringing it up.

She knocked herself down and punched herself in the face. She turned off the connection to the clone so she wouldn’t feel the pain herself. Disconnected clones only had a few minutes to live really and faded away with enough damage. Once that one faded, she created another in its space and continued pounding away.

“Stupid soulmate bullshit.” She huffed each word with a punch. “Stupid divide rule.” Another clone. “Stupid. Fucking. Erg- Everything!”

Y/N beat her final clone to death and didn’t bring a new one out. She sniffled, the tears she’d been holding back for years now finally breaking her dam. She hated the horrible lonely feeling she had been surrounded by for so long. She missed out on so much sleep, just to avoid going to her dream world. She set alarms to wake her up every hour or so to stay away from it and at this point, she was losing her mind.

She cried more thinking back to the last time she had been in her kindred-plane. She’d avoided it for a few days before exhaustion actually hit her like a bus and made her sleep. This time her plain little dream seemed to have adopted new items in her absence.

A bundle of comic books, a guitar, even a really, really big pikachu plushie.

Not that they were placed anywhere in particular. The guitar was outside of the little home she had reimagined, laying haphazardly on the ground. The pikachu was placed in front of a tree, facing it and the books were strewn across her loveseat couch. It was like her dream realm had become a lost and found for thrown away items from other planes. Which, honestly, Y/N could believe, as she didn’t use it so much.

She wished she could just give away her realm and dream of nothingness.

“Y/N?” She jumped, hearing her name and quickly wiped away her tears, ignoring the way they stung her open knuckles.

“Kaminari, I’m not really in the mood to talk.” Y/N muttered.

“Okay, that’s fine. We both know I talk enough for the both of us.” He joked, coming to sit in front of her.

Y/N turned to look away from his seating and ignored him, but he set off into a spiel about a new game he got. He did what he did best when one of his friends were upset, he talked. And normally that worked, but minutes into his yabbering, she started crying again.

“Hey, no! No crying! Crying is sad!” Kaminari tried.

“I am sad Kami!” She snapped. “I am really fucking sad! Everyone gets to have stupid fucking soulmate but me! And all because mine fucking died!”

Kaminari immediately paused his frantic attempts to calm her. “Huh, I thought you said you didn’t have one?”

“I don’t because she died! My god damn soulmate died literally months after meeting each other damn it!” Y/N yelled, sinking her fingers into her hair. “And now my kindred-plane is empty and lonely and shit keeps getting piled into it like a fucking trash can!”

Kaminari was silent for a moment while she cried. He slowly crawled over, closer to her and pulled her into a hug. This wasn’t a moment for talking randomly and he knew that. So they sat for the rest of the lunch period in silence, save for her soft hiccups.

After that, somehow, Y/N started talking to her friends the next day. She rationalized that it wasn’t their fault she was sensitive about the subject, they didn’t deserve the aggression. So with a tense apology, she was back to sitting with them at lunch and hanging out.

Y/N was determined to not let her disrupted dreamland destroy her outside reality.

“Okay, really?” Y/N blinked at the ugly rug that appeared draped over her bookshelf. “How the hell did you even get there?”

She tugged it down and stared at it in disgusted contemplation. “Guess you get to go in front of the fireplace…”

Y/N walked towards the warmth and paused, noting that it felt like it took a few more steps than usual. She looked around and found that the picture she carefully centered on the wall was no longer centered. Was her house getting bigger? More and more shit was popping up out of nowhere and her place felt spaceyer…

“What the actual fuck universe?” Y/N furrowed her eyebrows and laid down the new rug.

An odd whooshing noise sounded behind her and she turned around to see a lamp fizzled into existence, a hand accompanying it this time. Y/N fumbled over own feet trying to hurry and grab it. Someone was putting shit in her realm and she was about to find out who.

Actually she wasn’t.

The moment she grabbed the hovering wrist, it was like she had rubbed her socks across her new rug a million times and then touched an outlet. The hand shocked her, hard. She yelped and fell backwards on her butt, accidently taking the lamp down too, except when it fell apart it fell backwards toward the floating hand and disappeared from her plane.

Y/N gasped sitting up out of her bed, the shock kicking her out of her own dream. “Ow, what the hell?”

Y/N looked over at her clock, finding that it was five in the morning. She sighed and climbed out of her bed, grabbing her ear buds and phone. There was no school the next day, it was Saturday so she aimed to sneak down to the common room and spend her day dead on the couch, fighting off sleep again.

Not ten minutes after snuggling into a comfy spot on the couch, it dipped slowly as someone sat on the other end of it. She looked up from her book, to find Kaminari on the other end. He held up a bag of doritos in exchange for her company.

“What are you doing up?” She asked, pulling out her ear buds.

“Got startled awake by something in my dream world.” He answered, holding the bag out to her.

“Ah, that sucks.” She hummed apologetically.

“What about you?” He asked carefully.

Y/N snorted. “Kami, you know I don’t sleep.”

“Yeah, I know, but you’ve been up for the past few days.” He sighed, remembering seeing her in the kitchen at three am. “You’re going to trash your health if you don’t sleep.”

“Eh, it’s alright.” She crunched on a chip, before yawning. “Plus, you stay up every night gaming, bite me.”

“Gladly.” He winked. “But seriously, a lonely dream realm can’t be all bad.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, wondering if he was going to continue this topic of conversation. And he did. “I mean mine’s pretty lonely and I think it’s alright.”

“What?” She furrowed his eyebrows.

“My kindred-plane has but just me since like, forever, and I don’t think it’s that bad.” He shrugged.

Kaminari didn’t have a soulmate? That didn’t make sense, he’d tell them about all the adventures he’d run on in his dream. “You said you were helping some Jill girl fight zombies and stuff, just the other day.”

“Yeah, Jill Valentine. From Resident Evil.” He laughed. “I figured out a long time ago that I could just make her up in my dreams if I played the game until I fell asleep. She’s not my soulmate-.”

“You don’t have one…” Y/N whispered, sitting up.

“Nope, never did.” He offered her more chips, but Y/N just looked at him with sad eyes.

She cried in his arms about her soulmate dying and it turned out he never had one in the first place. “Don’t look so sad, Sunshine. It’s okay.”

“Denki, you don’t have a soulmate. That shit sucks.” Y/N flailed her hands.

“Yeah, but at least I didn’t get attached to mine and then they died. That sucks even more.” Kaminari argued.

Y/N slumped back against the couch. “This soulmate business is quite literal shit.”

“Yeah, but other people are pretty happy with it, so it’s okay to me really.” Kaminari hummed, nonchalantly. “Plus, no one can yell at me for my taste in decorations. That can really make or break a relationship ya know.”

Y/N laughed. “Oh yeah, totally. If my soulmate tried to decorate our space with half the shit that seems to appear in my room I’d have to throw hands.”

“Stuff appears in your dream?” Kaminari asked. “What, like, someone’s statue of Scooby doo?”

“Kaminari Denki, please tell me you don’t have a statue of Scooby doo in your kindred.” She tried not to laugh.

“No!” He said quickly. “I have a statue of Scrappy Doo.”

“Oh my god, no, you don’t!” She gasped.

“Yep! There’s a pond in front of my house and he’s in the dead center of it.” He grinned proudly. “And he looks amazing there.”

“Oh I bet he does.” Y/N snickered. “Bet he pulls the whole place together.”

“As a matter of fact he does.” Kaminari declared smugly. “What about your plane? What’s one big special thing you’ve got in it?”

Y/N hummed and thought for a second. “There’s a really big oak tree just behind my house and it’s covered in string lights, with a small ladder up the trunk. There’s a flat area in some of the branches so I can sit up there and read.”

“That sounds beautiful.” Kaminari said, fondly. “I have a tree kind of like that in mine too.”

“Does yours have a massive Pikachu in front of it?” She taunted, laughing.

She just barely missed the furrowing of his eyebrows before he answered. “I’m not entirely sure, I think, I’d have to take a look. I hope I do though, otherwise, I’d have to come steal yours.”

“Absolutely not! He’s my friend!” Y/N gasped and shoved at his leg. “Stick with your Scrappy Doo statue.”

Kaminari smiled. “Fine, fine. But if I don’t have a Pikachu in my dream, you owe me.”

“Mmhm, sure.” Y/N grinned.

For the next few months, Y/N and Kaminari grew closer, having bonded over their lack of soulmates. While they grew closer, not only did Y/N become happier, her kindred-plane seemed to get brighter, despite all the random things finding purchase in her realm and the fact that it was still growing. It was nice, she didn’t hate spending the night there anymore. She didn’t run into the disembodied hand anymore, but that was okay.

With what was happening in reality, she wasn’t too bothered by her dreams anymore. Instead, she focused on her friends, they were a wonderful reminder that life didn’t go to complete shit. For the first time, she actually let these people get close to her and drag her out of her hole she kept herself in.

… And out into the living room to watch the boys yell at each other over Mario Kart.

Y/N cursed and pushed Kaminari’s face away from her own as he laved his tongue across her cheek. “Denki, I swear to god if you don’t stop licking me, I’m going to bite you!”

“Ooh! Promise?” He flirted, smirking. “What else are you gonna do with that mouth?”

“Hurt your feelings, Sparkler boy.” She laughed, squishing his cheeks.

Kaminari threw himself into her arms, taking her to the floor. “So mean, I thought you loved me!”

“Oh yeah, she totally loves you with the way she made you beat yourself up today.” Bakugo snickered.

“Yeah, dude, she used your quirk against you better than you.” Kirishima pipped up.

“Hey, hey, clones don’t get fried when they use their ultimate! They just disappear and another one pops up!” Kaminari argued in defense.

“Jesus, Denki, you’re heavy!” Y/N shoved at his body, half heartedly. “Get off, you loser.”

“Uhg, fine, only because I have a race to win.” He rolled off her, to grab his switch controller.

“Oh thank god, I was going into the light for a second there.” Y/N gasped, dramatically.

Kaminari pinched her leg in retaliation. “Hey, I’m not that heavy!”

“Your head is though.” She stuck her tongue out.

“So mean.” He pouted as she turned to lay her head in his lap.

Y/N giggled as she pulled out her phone, to scroll through Tumblr for a fic to read. Moments went by before a snapchat notification popped up. Tapping on it, she found a common message from Mina.

‘You guys are too cute.’- Pinkiepie

‘We’re just friends, Mi.’-Y/N

A snap picture appeared in their feed and she tapped it open. There she was laying in Kaminari’s lap and there he was looking down at her, sweetly. ‘He’s giving you major heart eyes.’- Pinkiepie

‘Stop taking pictures of people, it’s stalkery.’- Y/N

‘That’s why you took a ss.’ -Pinkiepie

‘Oh fuck off.’- Y/N

‘Oh come on, just give him a chance, neither of you have sm’s so your not stealing him from anyone.’- Pinkiepie

‘You’re*’- Y/N

Y/N sighed and looked up to Kaminari’s face above hers. It apparently hadn’t been uncommon knowledge that Kaminari was Soulmateless, probably why the group had been so confused as to why she was so upset about it. It was normal to them, because it had always been Kaminari’s story.

Would it be so bad to make her own soulmate? Most divided soulmates stayed by themselves for the rest of their lives, but would it be alright if they didn’t?

“Oh, guys! I meant to tell you; I think I actually do have a soulmate!” Kaminari blurted into the air.

His admission quite literally derailed the entire room. Bakugo drove off the map in Mario Kart, Kirishima completely looked away from the game and Mina choked on her spit and her eyes flew to Y/N who paled significantly.

Sero was the only one who appeared unaffected. “Guys, he’s probably just saying that to throw us off, he’s in last.”

“I’m gonna blow you up, you put me in fourth with your little stunt.” Bakugo threatened.

“No, I’m serious!” Kaminari argued. “Over the last few months my dreams have been changing and stuff. Like it was making room for another person. My house is super spacy now, new decorations have been showing up for no reason, like there was a vase of flowers on the floor near my door, and my curtains changed colour, they’re a cute lavender colour now. Plus there’s a really big pikachu next to a beautiful oak tree in my yard.”

“Woah, dude, really?” Kirishima paused the race and turned to his friend.

“Yeah, totally.” Kaminari nodded, subtly looking down to meet Y/N’s wide eyes. “I was super confused for a while.”

“Holy shit, you’re serious.” Sero laughed. “Have you met them yet? Or are they just leaving surprises for you?”

“Well, I’ve seen her a few times, but I haven’t got the chance to talk to her yet, she wakes up pretty fast.” Kaminari shrugged.

“That’s so good Denki, I’m so happy for you.” Mina said softly as Y/N sat up.

“Me too, Denks. But speaking of waking up, I’m tired, so I’m gonna go take a nap.” Y/N hummed, yawning.

“Okay, see you later, Y/N.” They all chimed as she walked away.

“Yeah, see you later.” Kaminari called, carefully.

Y/N tried her best to contain herself and all but ran to her dorm. Along the way, her phone buzzed, no doubt a message from Mina. Once she was in her room, she flew to her bed, never had she been so eager to fall asleep before.

She quickly responded to Mina, ensuring her that she was alright and actually wanted to sleep. Y/N even sent her a reassuring picture of her smile with a short caption ‘I’m off to go see a Pikachu.’ After that, it didn’t take long for her to fall asleep, but it was too long.

Y/N blinked open her eyes, finally appearing in her kindred-plane and spun around, trying to identify things in her dream house. She hurried to open the door and looked over to her tree, with the ever so famous Pikachu there. She turned and jogged in the opposite direction for the one thing she needed to see to make sure she was correct.

There it was. Scrappy Doo. In the middle of her pond.

Y/N jumped up and down, squealing to herself. It was happening, oh my god, it was happening. Now she just had to wait.

And wait she did. She had run back to her tree and climbed up to sit and await her soulmate. The soulmate she actually had again. Someone to share her dream world with again.

She had a soulmate.

Quietly for the next hour, Y/N sat and read one of her books, waiting almost patiently for him. She’d made it through the third chapter when a voice startled her away from the pages.

“Sorry, I couldn’t fall asleep for the life of me.” Kaminari said, smiling.

Y/N bit her lip and grinned. “I thought you missed my cue for a bit there."

"No, I was just a little too excited to fall asleep." He crawled up into her tree nook. "You see, I suddenly got a new person roaming my world almost like, uh, a forever person or something. What's it called?"

"Mm, I don't know. Kinda sounds like you've got a soulmate there, Denki." Y/N whispered as he came closer.

"Fucking finally." He muttered, leaning forwards to connect their lips.

But before he could make contact he ran into her hand first. “But, really, we are going to have to talk about your decorating choices.”

“Yeah, yeah, we can talk about that after this.” Kaminari chuckled and moved her hand to kiss her.

[problematicfavesareproblematic]

Ignorance Is Blitzed (Part 7)

Ron Speirs x Reader

Summary: When you come into contact with some substance that makes you sick while on a routine building search, Ron realizes he may not be as emotionally detached as he’d thought initially thought.

Warnings: SMUT! YA GIRL FINALLY WROTE THE SMUT!, light angst, fluff, SMUT, Ron is a dom but he’s so into you he turns into a soft!dom, Reader is a mess, Ron is a tease, SMUT!

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~ ~ ~ ~

Lewis Nixon was a dead man.

Even if Ron’s sudden (if not minute) PDA hadn’t clued you in to the fact that someone had told him about Nuremberg, the look of fear in Lewis’s eyes when you’d caught his gaze basically confirmed it.

 You’d mumbled something about getting some air to Ron as you watched Lewis hightail it out of there, hot on his heels as he tried to escape the wrath that you were sure showed plainly on your face.

He doesn’t get far.

 When you catch his elbow in what seemed to be the hotel staff’s dining room, he whines like a wounded animal and holds his hands up pleadingly.

 “I swear to God I, thought you’d told him already—”

“I’m going to kill you.”

Nix scoffed at that, despite the fear clearly paling his face.

“Okay, one- people were going to find out eventually. Two? How in the hell was i supposed to know that you hadn’t told your boyfriend—”

 “Not my boyfriend—”

 “—yes he is your boyfriend- about it? And three: and he doesn’t even seem to be mad about it!”

 You scoff at that, hands going to your hips as you stare at him in disbelief.

 “It wasn’t something for you to tell- if the news that I was being asked to go in hadn’t come from you in the first place, I’d never have told you either! No one was supposed to know—!”

 “What were you going to do, just dump him and disappear?!”

 Your rebuttal sticks in your throat, guilt flooding through your veins at the bluntness of his question.

It must show on your face, because Lewis furrows his brows and looks at you in disbelief.

 “No… Y/N, you aren’t seriously trying to tell me that you—?”

 “I was giving him a clean break. I am giving him a clean break.”

 You’d made the decision after you’d heard about Ron’s decision to stay with Easy and go to Japan, when you’d realized that neither of you were going to be going home anytime soon. 

In Ron’s case, he may not come home at all- and if you knew him as well as you thought you did, you knew what that would mean for the two of you. 

Hollow promises to keep in touch, followed by equally well-intentioned agreements to find the other when it all was over, both of you ultimately knowing in your heart of hearts that those commitments would inevitably fizzle out and die the moment the going got tough.

 You didn’t want that, didn’t want to trap Ron in something that was destined to fail from the get-go.

As much as he liked you, cared for you, you also knew who he was. What he would always be.

A ruthless, brilliant soldier, ready to lay it all on the line at the first opportunity. And you loved him too much to ever ask him to be anything else.

 He deserved to find happiness- even if it wasn’t with you.

 Nix looked at you pityingly, a forlorn look on his face as he digested what you’d said.

 “Look, I don’t know the guy well,” he mumbled, clearing his throat and taking a step towards you to rest a hand on your tense shoulder. “But anyone with eyes can see that you mean a lot to him.”

 You nod and offer him a tight smile, eyes drifting downward to avoid letting any potential tears come to the surface. “I know I do- I don’t doubt that. It’s not about how things are right now, though. We don’t get to live in the right now for much longer.”

 The hand on your shoulder squeezes at the muscle there, a small sound of admonishment escaping under Lew’s breath as you feel him watch you. He doesn’t like what you’re saying- you can tell that he wants to argue that you’re being ridiculous.

 But even he knows that it wouldn’t be of any use. It wouldn’t change your mind.

 “I don’t like the idea of leaving you here, Y/N. I’d bet if the others knew, they wouldn’t like it much either.”

 You sigh, biting the inside of your cheek as you look back up at him and nod. “Guess I’m breaking up with all of you, aren’t I?”

 Nixon’s eyes are shining, and you wonder if he’d be this upset if he were 100% sober. When you step into him to embrace him, he beats you to the punch and wraps his arms around you quickly, taking a deep breath that seems to make his chest expand to twice his size.

 “I suppose you’re right. Not that being dumped ever stopped me before,” he gives you a sad smile when he eventually releases you, giving your shoulder a final pat before taking his hands away. 

“Don’t be surprised when I show up at your window, drunk as a skunk and proclaiming my undying love for you at 3 am sometime in the near future.”

 As you open your mouth to reply, you see Nix’s focus flick to something past your shoulder.

Even if you hadn’t seen the fear on the man’s face, you still would’ve known that it was Ron.

 Because of course it would be him. 

 Gritting your teeth, you sigh and close your eyes. Dread tasted sour on your tongue as you turned your head to peer over your shoulder, flinching at the look of silent fury marring his handsome face. Sniffing, you force yourself to speak despite the tightness clenching at your throat.

 “You should go, Lew,” you say quietly. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

 Lewis says nothing as you turn around to face Ron, the sound of his retreating footsteps barely registering in your ears as anxiety sends blood thrumming loudly in your ears. Ron’s sharp eyes make you feel impossibly small, and you think you can now understand what everyone else had been talking about for the past few years. Ron was scary. You did feel scared.

 “You and I need to get some things straightened out.”

 His words are clipped, and if he sees you flinch at the tone in his voice he doesn’t show it. You inhale shakily, realizing you had been holding your breath for too long and wetting your lips as you searched for the right words to say.

 Just as you open your mouth to speak, Ron turns on his heel and begins to stride off, and once you are able to unstick the soles of your shoes from the floor you trail after him cautiously. When you reach the doorway, you see that he’s stopped a few paces from the door frame, waiting. In a move that surprises you, he uncurls his hand from the fist it had been in and holds it out to you, eyes heavy and dark and trained on you.

 Quickly, you flicker your eyes between his face and his hand, only stepping forward and taking it after you’ve mustered up enough confidence that it wasn’t going to be something you regretted doing. You’d never had someone mad at you like this before, at least not for as intimate a reason as he was now. Of course, you’d never allowed yourself to care for someone like this before either- maybe this mortifying combination of guilt and heartbreak was normal.

 The moment your hand finds his, he turns away from you and starts walking again, and as you follow you realize that he’s leading you towards the room you both share. There's no softness in the way his hand holds yours, the grip firm and unyielding. It almost makes you feel like a child being pulled off for a private scolding from a parent.

You hate it.

 The journey to your room is both too long and not nearly long enough, and it’s only when he opens the door and releases your hand that you fear that you may never get the chance to feel his touch ever again. That reality was already one you’d been dreading, with him leaving so soon to go where you could not follow. The thought of that time coming sooner because of something like this was devastating.

 You stand in front of the door once it closes, ready to have him ask you to leave at a moment’s notice. Unblinking, you watch him shirk off his jacket and toss it on a nearby chair, shrugging the suspenders down from his shoulders with a spark of agitation. His hair has begun to fall into disarray, and the idea of him hating you while looking so unfairly handsome makes your heart tighten painfully in your chest. 

Unwilling to wait out the inevitable for a moment longer, you clear your throat at steel yourself.

 “Ron-”

 “You don’t get to hide that kind of shit from me.”

 He doesn’t look at you as he speaks, his voice quiet and uncomfortably devoid of emotion. As he walks over to the table that held a decanter of whiskey and fine crystal glasses to pour a drink, you tuck some of your hair behind your ear and try again

 “I was just trying to give—”

 “—give me a 'clean break', yeah. I heard.”

 Bringing the glass to his lips and taking a sip, you watch as he clenches his jaw and swallows.

“Did you ever think about asking me what I wanted?“

 That does throw you, and as he sets the glass down and turns to look at you you make no move to hide the look of confusion on your face. Glancing down at your shoes, you shake your head softly and try and find your voice once more

 “I- but you don’t want this. You don’t want to be tied down—”

 “And what makes you so confident that you know what I want, huh?” 

There's clear anger in his voice now, and you look up just in time to watch him walk over to you. You straighten as he comes to a stop right before you, hands braced on his hips as he all but glowers down at you. 

 “You don’t get to make those sort of decisions for me- got it?”

He emphasizes the bite on the ‘t’ in ‘it’, the puff of air from his breath hitting your face. 

 When you make to turn away from him, one of his hands flashes up to grip your jaw- his touch gentle but authoritative enough that you know it’d be a bad idea to go against it.  Something about the movement irks you, makes your heart beat faster from something much darker than fear or dread. Pressing your lips into a thin line, you tilt your head back infinitesimally. Defiantly. 

 Ron notices, his nostrils flaring slightly. “Last time I checked, you aren’t a mind reader- and even if you were, you’d be a shit one because if you think what I want is anything other than you, you really don’t know me at all.”

 “Stop it, Ron,” you mutter quietly, watching as his eyes flicker down to your mouth before dragging back up to meet your eyes again. “You’re being mean.”

 He exhales sharply at that, a ghost of a rueful smile quirking his mouth before shaking his head. 

“Am I?”

 When you roll your eyes, he steps into you even more, using his hold on your jaw to tilt your head back further so you are still able to hold his glare.

 “Like it or not, Y/N, you’re it for me- you got that? If you don’t want to believe me, that’s fine- but know that I’d tear this whole entire goddamned continent apart if you wanted me to—”

 “Why!?” you snap, his declaration bringing forth the sadness you’d managed to temporarily quell. 

 At the sight of tears refilling your eyes, Ron’s brows furrow and some of the darkness leaves his face. Shaking your head imploringly, you bring a hand up to circle his wrist. 

 “You could do anything, be anywhere with anyone you wanted! We….we’re just children, Ronald- and I love you but I’d never delude myself into pretending that I know the first thing about how to do this- any of this!”

You bring your other hand up to rest lightly on his chest, lowering your gaze to look at the slight tremble of your fingers as you do so. 

 “You were born for greatness, born to lead and fight and conquer….but all I was born to do was just exist for other people- like my parents or my family or whoever else needed something from me. Then, eventually, become somebody’s wife and give him a family. But….. I threw away any chance of that future in order to be here, and now that this is ending I have no idea what I’m supposed to do!”

 Swallowing in a vain attempt to keep your voice from breaking, you look back up at him, offering him a small, shaky smile.

“I won’t drag you down that mess with me, you deserve more than that- than me. I won’t ruin you, too—”

 “Y/N,” Ron murmurs admonishingly.

 “What?!”

 With an ease that you two had only just begun to establish, he seals his mouth to yours, effectively shutting you up and forcing you to take the first deep breath you’d taken in a long time. There’s an edge of desperation to it- just as there had been in your first kiss back all those months ago in Foy. 

 Only this time his lips taste like whiskey and something a tinge more wicked. 

A promise of more.

 Breaking the kiss but keeping his face close you yours, Ron brings his other hand up to cup your face. Brushing his thumb across your bottom lip, he eyes you softly.

 “Don’t tell me what I deserve.” 

Kiss.

“Stop telling me what to do.” 

Kiss 

“Let me conquer.”

 This kiss is filthy, his lips plush and confident and unafraid in their mission to leave you completely mindless. Ron has stepped so close to you that your head has tilted all the way back into his hands, his fingers purposefully twisting in your roots so he has more control over the kiss.

 Despite the fact that he’s never handled you this way before- you have no desire to ask him to slow down or be gentler.

You like it. You want more.

 When you whimper into his mouth, you can feel him grin briefly before sliding one hand down your back to fist at the material of your shirt and bunching it free from where it had been tucked into the back of your pants. 

 Up until now, Ron had been nothing but gentle when it came to you- and while you knew him to be dominant and ruthless in battle you’d considered what his temperament would be like as a lover. Clearly, the confidence translated. 

 You slide the hand that had been on his chest up and around his shoulders, your elbow hooking around his neck and pulling him closer. As you nip at his bottom lip, Ron hums low in his chest. The hand he’d had on the small of your back has moved down to grip at your ass, and with a quick peck he pulls back slightly.

 “Hold on,” he grumbles, and just as you open your mouth to ask for clarification Ron wraps his arms around your hips and lifts you so you’re having to lean into him, your feet stumbling across the floor as he turns you both and quickly walks the both of you to the bed. 

 He’s barely set you down before his hands find the hem of your blouse again, rucking it up your sides before your brain catches up with him and you tear it over your head. Your skin feels hot, and it feels even hotter at the feeling of Ron’s lips mouthing at the tops of your breasts as you fumble with the clasp of your bra.

 “Shit,” you hear yourself curse, hating your fingers for being so uncoordinated. Undeterred by the fabric of the bra you’d pinched from one of the homes the lot of you had been asked to secure a week ago, Ron bites softly at your nipples until they stiffen. When you finally unhook the fastenings, he pulls the cups of the bra down easily and continues his attentions.

 You curse again, head swimming at the realization that his own fingers have found the zipper of your pants and begun to pull it down. Carding your hands through his hair, you desperately try and calm your breathing while distantly realizing that he’s still fully clothed.

 “Ron,” you gasp, looking down your chest and meeting his bright eyes as he sucks marks down the valley between your breasts. “I wanna see you—”

 His hum is dark as he mockingly tilts his head at you, successfully pulling the fabric of your trousers down your hips until gravity takes over and it all pools at your feet.

 “You are seeing me,” he insists quietly, trailing his blunt fingernails down your hips until they catch your underwear and shucking them down your legs as well. When you frown he bites some of the skin just under your left breast, chuckling wickedly at the squeak of surprise you’re unable to hide.

 “Take your shirt off!” you nearly whine, your head falling back as he laves at the bite with his tongue. “You’re not being- shit….you’re being unfair—!”

 “Then do something about it.”

 You do whine at that, too frustrated to worry about being gentle as you take your hands from his hair to claw at his shirt- bunching and pulling at the fabric covering his back until you manage to get enough in your fists to pull it gracelessly over his head. Pure want has boiled your blood like a fever, with the only two thoughts in your mind being more more more and faster faster faster.

 Before you can work his shirt any further down his arms, he shoves you back unceremoniously onto the bed, quick to pull your hips to the edge of the bed before bothering to continue undressing himself. 

With a nearly comical desperation, you toe off your shoes, licking your dry lips as you watch the muscles of his torso bunch and lengthen as he strips the remainder of his clothing off- his eyes on you the entire time and his gaze doing nothing to calm the heaving of your chest.

 “Christ, look at you,” he says quietly, a clear note of pride in his voice. “Too pretty for your own good, aren’t you?”

 You blush at that, swallowing audibly at the praise and squeezing your eyes shut.

It all just was so much….

 When you open your eyes again, you moan at the sight of him kneeling before you and pulling at your legs until they were over his shoulders. As you start to sit up you are pushed back down again by his hand on your chest, the feeling of his breath on your sex robbing you of any speech capabilities you had previously possessed.

 “Just like that,” he commands gently. “Stay just like that.”

 Maybe it was because it had been a while since you’d had any sort of sexual intimacy with another person, or perhaps it had more to do with the fact that your previous sexual partners hadn’t been particularly invested in the act, but one thing was for certain:

 Ron Speirs was unfathomably good at cunnilingus.

 You could only gape stupidly at the ceiling with your mouth open in a silent scream of overwhelm as he took your clit between his lips and absolutely ruined you- his tongue and teeth and fingers tearing you away from reality with a nearly cruel proficiency. It was almost humiliating how effectively he dismantled your already tenuous sense of composure, and if you had any sense of pride left you probably would’ve hated him for it.

 He was making a mess of you, and he was doing it too easily.

 Feeling a sheen of sweat glisten your skin, you can only hold onto him as your body trembles- and it’s all you can do to keep your hips on the bed as your back arches and your body rocks.

 “Ron, please….I’m gonna cum—” you hear yourself choke out in warning, squeezing your eyes shut as something burning hot and sugar-sweet builds deliciously in your lower belly

 “Oh yeah?” you feel him ask, one of his arms hooking around your hips to help still you. “Want to bet?”

 Your eyes flash open

“What—?!”

 You nearly howl in fury when he takes his mouth away, instantly sitting up to watch in betrayed dismay as he curls two fingers inside of you and adds a new kind of stimulation- one that keeps you on that cruel precipice without offering you any sort of relief.

 He smirks up at you, and any affection you’d previously held for him is jeopardized by his clear mirth at the situation. 

 “Sorry, Sweetheart,” Ron says lowly, nothing in his voice conveying any sort of remorse. “But you don’t get to call the shots right now.”

 You open and close your mouth desperately, unable to decide which sort of response would get you what you wanted. A frustrated shriek slips out in the interim, and when his smile broadens you remove your hands from his hair and smack at his head.

 “Jesus Christ, Ron! What’s the matter with you—?!”

 “Do you have any idea how good you taste, Y/N?” He continues as if you hadn’t spoken at all, ducking down to place a greedy kiss to your sex before pulling back again. “To think you were going to have me leave without letting me get my mouth on the source….absolutely heartless—”

 “I get it, okay? Fuck Ron! What more do you want me to do?” 

 You wince at the addition to a third finger inside of you, the stretch adding the tiniest bit of ache to your horribly prolonged almost-orgasm. The forearm across your hips holds you down when you try to squirm in any direction in hopes of getting some more stimulation.

 “Apologize.”

 You widen your eyes at him, a scowl on your face as you look down your panting chest at him. “What?”

 Like the cruel bastard he is, Ron shrugs as if the solution to all of this has been obvious the whole time.

“Say you’re sorry, and I’ll make it all better.”

 Shaking your head, you hear yourself scoff. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

 You yelp as he turns his head to bite your thigh, fisting a handful of his hair to pull him away.

 Smoothing the flat of his tongue over the bite, he closes his eyes wistfully and sighs.

 “Close, but that’s not what I want to hear,” Ron says before tilting his head and looking back up at you, the tendons in his forearm pronounced as his fingers tirelessly continue their strokes inside of you.  

“Say it. Say ‘Ron, I’m sorry.”

 Biting the insides of your cheeks, you fix him with a glare and sigh with frustration.

“Fine! I’m sorry, okay? I’m really fucking sorry, Ron!”

 He purses his lips, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. You whimper as he slides his fingers out from inside you, but before you can think yourself victorious Ron uses those fingers to start rolling your clit- still keeping you on the edge while giving you just a hint of what you needed.

 “Goddamnit, RONALD—!”

 “Tell me that you deserve me,” he demands, his words taking on a gravelly tone. As you search his eyes, you see a heartbreaking shine of sincerity staring back at you.  “Say it and then I’ll let you cum.”

 Your throat is becoming tight, an unexpected wave of emotion hitting you and bringing tears to your eyes. The hand not currently torturing your clit squeezes your hip, and with a shake of your head you close your eyes.

 “I-I deserve you,” you acquiesce, feeling your lower lip threatening to quiver. “I’m sorry.”

 “Gutes Mädchen (good girl).”

 Your head falls back with a moan as he latches his mouth to you again, body bowing as he ruthlessly finishes what he’d started and destroys you- sending you spiraling into bright euphoria and letting you float in the heat of it. You’re suddenly thankful for the arm across your hips, for it’s the only thing anchoring you to the real world as you shake for him.

 “So perfect,” you can hear him saying, his voice now at your ear as you become aware of the press of his cock between your lower lips. “You’re the most perfect thing I've ever seen.”

 Whining pathetically, you tilt your head back and clutch at his back.

“Please,” you beg, eyelids heavy and gaze unfocused. “Please—”

 He doesn’t draw it out this time, quickly hooking his arm under your left leg and opening your hips so he can press himself inside of you. Still wrung out for your orgasm, you can only cry out softly at the feeling of him bottoming out, a broken sound of his own vibrating through his chest into yours.

 You’ve never considered Ron to be a particularly talkative person, so when he begins to babble it catches you off guard while simultaneously endearing him to you further.

 “I can’t believe how good you feel You surely were sent to ruin me God you’re such a good girl Better than I could’ve imagined Squeezing me so tightly I don’t want to be without you I want nothing else than this In what world would you think that I wouldn’t adore you I am yours entirely you ridiculous woman Shit I can feel you shaking Getting so tight Fuck do that again Are you going to cum again I want to hear you scream….”

 Too lost in his words, you don’t know if you actually screamed as you came again- but you do know that at some point you’ve turned your head and sealed your lips to his. His hips stutter as he cums with a breath shout, his free hand dancing up and down your side with a carnal desperation that you could understand but not replicate- not now.

 Because now you are well and truly wrung out.

 The weight of Ron’s body atop yours is welcome, and the sweet way he kisses you is almost too much for your fragile mind to process.

 “Y/N?”

 Ron’s voice is soft, and as you blink your eyes open you cannot help but smile satedly up at him. He looks beautiful, and the soft way he’s looking at you makes you feel beautiful, too.

“Hm?”

 He brings a hand to your face and smooths some of your hair behind your torn ear. 

“You weren’t born for someone else,” he says the words carefully, as if he is struggling with ensuring that they are the right ones. “But…. I’m starting to think that maybe I was. Or that, maybe we were…..Do you get what I’m trying to say?”

 Taking his face between your hands, you take a deep breath and let your eyes drift across his handsome face.

Lifting your head, you lightly press your lips to his and sigh.

 “Yeah, Ron….I think I do.”

 He deepens the kiss, pulling you with him as he rolls to the side and holds you against him.

 “Mo Leannan,” he murmurs into your hair as you rest your cheek against his chest. “Mo Chridhe.”

 You furrowed your brow, the words unfamiliar and in a language you could not identify. It was common knowledge that Ron spoke a passable level of German, but from the way his mouth wrapped around these words, you wondered if he was fluent in another language and had just never told you about it.

 “What did you say?” you asked softly, exhaustion having crept into both of your bodies and rendered you mostly immobile.

 Humming, Ron wraps the hand you’d rested on his chest in his and brings it up to his face so he can kiss your palm.

 “Later,” he says sleepily before lowering your joined hands to rest on his sternum. “I’ll tell you later. Rest.”

 And because you believe him, you do as he says and allow yourself to be swept away.

~ ~ ~

HELLO AND HI! This took forever and a day to write but only bc I overthought everyhting and got distracted by other shiny things SO WHOOPS MY B! Anyhoo- I love ya’ll and remember to hydrate!

Taglist: @mrseasycompany​ @itswormtrain @mrsalwayswrite​ @happyveday​ @sunsetmando​ @ricksmorty​ @liebgotttme​

[dani-is-a-pixie]

Shit they don’t tell you about Autism/Aspergers

Well, I’ve been learning more and more about different signs of being neurodiverse and I thought I’d put my own experiences here just in case it might be able to help someone else understand their diagnosis or themselves better. If you feel you have Autism, please speak to your GP or doctor to be able to talk to a professional because like all things, self diagnosing isn’t a good idea, ya feel me. - Let’s talk clothing b. Yes, so basically Autistics like to dress more comfortable, probably hate things like tags (I used to cut them off) and might only wear certain fabrics. Some people might wear certain colours only as well. Although, the general thing is that Autistics “aren’t expressive” you’ll find a lot of Autistics are and that might be reflected through their alternative clothing choices. Another thing is you might have very sensitive skin, washing powder can cause rashes and itchiness, you might not even be able to use soap. - Hair. Hair is so gross. So basically you might feel that having your hair in your face is so annoying. Ever since I was little I always remember just tying my hair up and leaving it like that. Wanting short hair to avoid it touching your face because of sensory issues. Although, you might like to have it coloured and expressive you might struggle to have your hair down because it just feels so gross. In relation to hair when washing it you might hate the sensation of shampoo and water and all that. - Although, being very monotone is a sign of Autism being very expressive is also a sign. The thing is I feel a lot of Autistic people without the correct support have probably got a diagnosis of depression or anxiety and I feel like that combined with feeling Autistic might make it hard for you to put any energy into things, whereas you know you are a expressive person. Also you probably have hella empathy. I know that is like the opposite of what you hear but seriously, myself and some other people I know with Autism are very empathetic people and feel emotions to an extreme. Although, it might not seem like we feel anything from facial expressions and responses we might be feeling so much it’s just too overwhelming to express it. - Let’s talk acting like a child. Not saying this to dig because I’m the same way, but most people who have Autism might regress into a childlike state which is known as age regressing. It’s usually a coping mechanism to deal with stress but I suppose it could also be triggered by sensory issues? Like I find when I’m really happy I’m very childlike. Oh and you might act younger then you are or be really immature, not always taking things seriously or understanding things. Which is okay and why having a specialist to help support you with the stuff you struggle with is key. - Stim. Stim. Stim. We hear about happy stim, sad stim but honestly you might just stim for every emotion. Also people with Autism might seem like they have tics but they can have vocal stims as well as motor. - Gender is complex right? Yeah I feel you. Feel like you flucuate between genders, have no gender, feel in the middle or might even be trans - although, this is a sensitive topic Autistics actually are more likely to have different relationships with gender due to how we view and feel about the world. So whatever gender you are b, you are valid! - Identity is confusing. The thing is you might feel like you have alters or different versions of yourself as well, which is why Autism is not diagnosed and you might be diagnosed with BPD or like DID. The thing is identity for us is always so confusing and we have such a different relationship about things about ourselves and how we view things. Sometimes it feels like someone were not and sometimes we feel like a different person, but that is okay and valid. - Control as a stress management. Now this is where things like eating disorders can be developed, maybe self destructive behaviours like self harming or perhaps being very toxic to keep everything the way you can because you feel like your life is going out of control. I really do feel you - and that’s why seeing a specialist can help you cope with shitty times like this. But that is a sign. - You have a safe space. Probably your house, your room and you barely leave it. You feel so fucking overwhelmed outside. Too many people, too many noises, too many things going on, which is why Autism can seem like an anxiety disorder but you just feel things very sensitive and can have sensory overload. - If you’re an adult now, probably as a child you were told you were just intelligent and there’s nothing wrong with you. Yep. Same here. Parents tried to get me diagnosed as a young age but they wouldn’t even test me. - For me, I cannot stop listening to music. I express myself through music. I’ll send people songs and tell them to pay attention to the lyrics or the video because it’s how I feel and it’s how I express myself. Some people might do that with art or writing or something they use to express that isn’t vocally with words, people might sing or make songs. There tends to be a creative or different way you express your emotions. - Special interests. They might change throughout your life. I thought you had to have something you were interested in since a kid but they can change and it’s known as hyperfixations! It can be literally anything, and they are valid. You probably hate talking to people if they don’t share one of your hyperfixations because you feel misunderstood or weird or lonely. Doesn’t have to be anything out of the ordinary. - Might blurt out how you feel to people, like having no filter. You like to have deep meaningful relationships and want friends you can talk about your deep routed emotions and dreams with rather then wow there is something on the news. That shit doesn’t interest you at all. - This might be an embarassing one but you might have a lot of issues with going to the toilet (ie. bleeding or runny stools and etc), especially when you’re stressed you might have really bad stomach issues or abdomen issues. That aren’t always explained but are probably stress induced when everything is too much for you, people tend to be more sensitive to those types of things if they’re Autistic due to sensory and sensitivites. - Meltdowns can be shown in crying breakdowns, anger breakdowns, can also be shown as completely shut down and you might experience catatonia, where you struggle to talk or move because you feel so sad, you might get so worked up and might even feel as low as feeling suicidal and might self harm as well when in these meltdowns. - You hate injustice and you probably are an advocate for the mentally ill or disabled. Seeing injustice might actually trigger a meltdown because you want to change things - due to your extreme empathy but you struggle to accept you can’t save the world. - Might have fake friends but as you grow older might cut those people off for using your energy and might end up with having barely any to no friends. Might feel extremely lonely and not understand why people can’t just be nice to you. - Relationships you probably take very seriously, like full on planning marriages when it might just seem like nothing to someone. This can make you prone to abusive relationships and you might not always notice if that person is good for you, no matter what they do you probably try to continue to fix the relationship. Took some notes from p-3a-s-life-resources <3 and personal experience.

[genesisrose74]

Up Late -> S. Ishigami

Hey I physically cannot get Senku mf’ing Ishigami off my brain and it is one in the morning, so time for nighttime concepts written by ya girl :3 This is sorta a headcanon/short oneshot scenario combination that I made on the spot. Hope you enjoy it!

Good gracious I just love him and wanna give him a hug, is that too much to ask for

*****

As much as he claims to be against the thoughts of himself in a romantic relationship, Senku would sacrifice a limb for the people dear to him in situations of vulnerability and the like (ahem,,, nearly crying after hearing his friends’ voices over the phone after so long apart, making cola for Gen on multiple occasions, etc.). Therefore I reject the idea that you’d always have to be the one to initiate intimate moments between you both, and will today entertain soft Senku appearing at night time. He’s very often awake later than others in the village because he has a hard time reigning in all his thoughts and plans quickly, and if you happen to catch him at these hours it is a blessing and a half. Not that you’ve told him that.

He’s still his joking and oddly charismatic self, of course, but he’s noticeably more attentive. Things like, “you need rest if you’re gonna keep working tomorrow” and, “it’s not the smartest to be out in this colder weather, you know” fall from his mouth and into the crisper night air if he encounters you milling about without much rhyme or reason. If he’s working on something smaller in the little observatory house, you’ll get invited up to look through his telescope at all the gorgeous stars — ones that seem to twinkle that much brighter in the comfortable presence of each other.

One moment Senku’s tinkering with one of his little projects to wind himself down, and the next he’s quietly watching as you lean out of the makeshift observatory’s opening, looking up at the sky with such contentment reflecting back from your own observing gaze that it makes him unreasonably intrigued.

“Wouldn’t you rather see everything up there a bit closer with the telescope?” He inquires a bit jokingly, the subtle smirk in his tone clear as the night display above. Yet your mouth only twitches upwards at his question, and the scientist who almost always has a logical explanation for things simply grows more interested.

“It’s pretty just taking everything in at once, too,” you hum thoughtfully. “Don’t you think?”

He does. As much as he likes seeing all the pieces that make up the contents of the universe beyond, looking up at it now in one big framework seems to give him that usual feeling of exhilaration.

Maybe you contributed to the scene as well, as Senku takes note of the way you balance on your tiptoes before rocking back onto your heels, really for no good reason but entertaining him all the same. And he’s barely even thinking about it further as he places his things safely to the side and stands to his feet, wandering over to get a better look at what you’ve become so enraptured with.

Your eyes swim with the light of billions of stars that stare down at the village, glossy with something that neither you nor him can really pinpoint, and Senku offers a light nod in response to your earlier question. The little gesture in your peripheral causes you to crack a smile, and it only sticks around longer when the crimson-eyed boy slips off his winter jacket to hand over.

“If you stay out of bed any more today, the cold won’t be very forgiving,” he notes, and to his satisfaction, you take the warm article of clothing without further persuasion.

“I might stick around for a bit,” comes your reply. “The walk back does not sound all too appealing at the moment, but I’ll get the motivation eventually. Hopefully.”

He scoffs lightheartedly with a shake of his head. Stubborn, he thinks, just like how you would sometimes get before the whole petrification phenomenon. He quite liked it. Back then and right now.

“You know,” he starts, slowly turning away from the roof’s opening, “if you’re that opposed to going back, there’s room here.”

The offer is menial and simple, something Senku would offer up no matter the person to which he was speaking, but he’s truly hoping that you’ll say yes to the proposition. You shift in position to lean your jacket-covered back against the wooden wall, soft smile and warm figure the only thing running through the young scientist’s head as he tilts his head to look back at you.

“If you wouldn’t mind housing me for the evening, I’d very much like to take up that offer.”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I minded,” he points out, the faintest of grins tugging at the corners of his lips. “Come on, let’s go to bed.”

And you do - both of you. And maybe he lets you hold onto that winter coat until morning, because you melted into its warmth with so much ease that sleep overtook you in minutes, a gentle smile ever present as you nestled into the cozy fabric.

After the next few times that it happens, Senku gets a jacket made similar to his own and stores it beside the telescope, just in case you’d like to stay the night with him again.

[angelicamerlinbarnes]

Okay but like I feel like Diego is the kind of person to flirt with really bad pick-up lines and Klaus is just Not Having It

featuring: Diego being a flustered Mama's boy and Klaus being a disaster dumbass and the two of them being completely in love with each other anyway

DISCLAIMER: None of the pick-up lines are mine, but the responses and ensuing shenanigans are :)

(there's fifty of these so buckle up kids :) sorry not sorry <3)

seriously though some of these are really bad

#1: He A Snack

Diego: Baby, you belong in the vending machine because you’re a snack.

Klaus: Diego you know I’m claustrophobic.

Diego: Don’t you mean Klaus-trophobic??? *finger guns*

Klaus: *blinks*

Klaus: I want a divorce.

#2: I’m From Hell

Diego: Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?

Klaus: I’m a veteran addict and abuse victim who can see ghosts, Diego.

Klaus: Everything hurts.

#3: Animal Puns

Diego: *points to TV screen playing the Discovery Channel* Hey Klaus.

Diego: You’re my otter half.

Klaus: Diego those are meerkats.

#4: Stars

Diego: The stars are beautiful tonight.

Klaus: Yup.

Diego: You know who else is beautiful?

Klaus: Ben.

#5: Get Out Your Handcuffs Mister

Diego: You’re under arrest… for stealing my heart.

Klaus: Diego you got kicked out of the police academy like five years ago, just give up.

#6: Bad Boys

Diego: *leaning against the doorframe like a moron* So. I hear you like bad boys.

Klaus: Diego you cried because you accidentally stepped on a bee last week.

Diego: Well yeah but -

Klaus: You held a funeral for it. You made us all speak. You had Allison fly in from California. It was a fucking bee, Diego.

Diego: … I wear leather?

Klaus: So does every other kid who shops at Hot Topic. You’re not special.

#7: Prince Charming

Diego: Your knight in shining armor is here -

Klaus: One, that’s a turtleneck, not armor.

Klaus: Two, you’re covered in blood. That’s the opposite of shiny.

Klaus: Three, you smell like dead fish. Go take a shower.

#8: Chemistry

Diego: Did we have a class together? Because I could’ve sworn we had -

Klaus: Chemistry? Yup. Also English and math and foreign languages and history and like every other fucking thing because we grew up in the same sadistic boarding school, Diego.

#9: The Store Can’t Just Give Away Things For Free. That’s A Terrible Way To Run A Business.

Diego: I like your pants.

Klaus: Thanks. I got them out of a dumpster. And yes, you can have them 100% off.

Diego: *voice cracks* Really?

Klaus: No.

#10: Boyfriend Material

Diego: My jeans are made of -

Klaus: You’re wearing leather pants Diego.

Diego: Okay but -

Klaus: So they’re made of leather and they’re not fucking jeans.

#11: Digits

Diego: I lost my phone number. Can I have -

Klaus: None of us have phones, Diego.

Diego: I can… buy us some?

Klaus: Fine. I want my number to be 1-420-420-4201.

Diego: Baby no.

Klaus: *pulling out the puppy dog eyes* Pwetty pwease?

Diego: Fine, but mine’s gonna be 1-696-969-6969.

Klaus: I love you so much. Marry me. Have my babies.

#12: Love At First Sight

Diego: Do you believe in love at first sight or -

Klaus: If I did I’d have already fallen in love with a lot of hot ghosts.

Diego: - should I walk by again?

Klaus: You’ve been pacing for the past ten minutes, Gogo. I think if it was gonna happen it would’ve by now.

#13: You Have Fine Written All Over You

Diego: Are you a parking ticket? Cause -

Klaus: Diego I can’t drive.

#14: His Eyes Are Green Not Blue You Dipshit

Diego: Your eyes are an ocean, and I’m lost at sea.

Klaus: ... can’t you, like, hold your breath forever?

Diego: *blinks* Baby, I love you, but you’re ruining this with our childhood trauma.

Klaus: Well since you’ve refused therapy I just thought this was the next best option.

Diego: I take back what I said about loving you.

#15: Math Is Dumb And I Wish School Would Stop Teaching It

Diego: Are you a forty-five degree angle?

Klaus: Actually, because humans have non-linear body shapes, it’s impossible for their specific angles to be measured -

Diego: Are you high or have you been defiling Five’s books again?

Klaus: *blinks* Why can’t it be both?

Diego: *rethinking life decisions*

#16: Baby I’m All Yours

Diego: Do you have a name?

Klaus: Klaus.

Diego: Or can I call you mine?

Klaus: I mean I prefer “baby”, but sure.

Diego: *super wide eyes* Really?

Klaus: *melts into a puddle of glitter* Yeah, Gogo.

#17: (Not) Bookworms

Diego: Thank god I brought my library card. Cause I’m here to check you out.

Klaus: *through a mouthful of waffles* God isn’t real. We all die and rot beneath the earth to be eaten by maggots. There is no such thing as a higher power.

Klaus: *swallows waffles and takes a really loud slurp of an orange juice and chocolate milk combo*

Klaus: Oh, and the library’s closed for renovations til, like, Christmas so you’re outta luck, sorry.

Diego: I thought you met god? Little girl on a bicycle?

Klaus: Her? Nah, only Satan’s got that much sass. Plus, that wasn’t heaven.

Diego: And you know this how?

Klaus: *squishes Diego’s face with both hands* Think about it. Do you really think dear ol’ dad’s in heaven?

Diego: Can you let of my face please?

#18: Bad Move, Buddy

Diego: Are you a pre-historic fossil? Cause you’re my missing link.

Klaus:

Klaus:

Klaus:

Klaus: Did you just call me old?

Diego, backing out of the room slowly: What? No! No of course not! No, obviously no, absolutely not -

Klaus: *releases savage war cry*

Diego: *runs for his goddamn life*

#19: I Rate This 0/10

Diego: Are you from Tennessee? Cause you’re the only -

Klaus: I don’t know where I’m from. I’m an orphan.

Diego: Oh… I know, baby -

Klaus: And the piece of shit that adopted me lived in New York anyway. We’re in New York right now actually. Do you need a geography lesson? I think Pogo’s got a map -

Diego: Klaus.

#20: Oh Shit

Diego: If nothing lasts forever, will you be my nothing?

Klaus:

Klaus:

Klaus:

Klaus: *tears up* I’m nothing?

Diego: Oh no. No no no. No, baby, you’re not nothing, don’t cry, I’m so sorry, that’s not what I meant, baby - oh my god please don’t cry -

#21: You’ve Got Everything I’m Searching For

Diego: Is your name Google? Because -

Klaus: Diego. For the last time…

Klaus: My name is Kimberly Linda Aerealia Ulysses Saffron Hargreeves the Twenty-Fourth. I don’t know why I need to keep explaining this to you -

Diego, kissing him quiet: You’re my favorite person in the world, you know that?

#22: Don’t Make Bets You’ll Lose, Luther.

Diego: Luther bet me a hundred bucks I couldn’t talk to the prettiest person here. How do you wanna spend his money?

Klaus: Drugs.

Diego: Baby -

Klaus: *beams* Nah, I’m just kidding. Stuffed giraffes.

Diego: *grins* For Five?

Klaus: *nods* For Five.

Diego:

Klaus:

Diego: He’ll hate them.

Klaus: Exactly. Let’s go.

#23: Deja Vu

Diego: Have we met before?

Klaus: Yes. Obviously. Are you also high?

Diego: No -

Diego: Wait, you’re high?

Klaus:

Diego:

Klaus:

Diego:

Klaus: No?

#24: Such An Optimist

Diego: Are you a time traveller?

Klaus: No, that’s Five.

Diego: Cause I think you’re my future!

Klaus: *stares blankly*

Diego: No? Nothing? Nada?

Klaus: In the future we’re all dead dipshit.

Klaus: Because. Ya know.

Klaus: THERE’S A FUCKING APOCALYPSE COMING.

Diego:

Diego: Okay then.

#25: Please Go To The Hospital.

Diego: Are you my appendix? Cause my stomach’s fluttering and I think I should take you out.

Klaus:

Klaus: Did you drink water from the fish tank again?

Diego: *turning green* Luther dared me to okay???!!!!

#26: Suicidal Tendencies

Diego: Hey gorgeous -

Klaus: Let me guess. I should drop dead?

Diego: What?! No! Baby -

#27: Infinitely On The Naughty List (And Not The Good Kind Of Naughty List (If There Is One I’m Asexual I Don’t Know))

Diego: Are you Santa Klaus? Cause you make all my wishes come true.

Klaus:

Klaus:

Klaus:

Klaus: You have five seconds to run.

Diego: *already two streets away* Fucking shit -

#28: You Can’t Use That Every Time We Have An Argument, Tony.

Diego: Kiss me if I’m wrong, but dinosaurs still exist right?

Klaus: I mean, there’s one in the corner of our living room right now, so I guess?

Diego:

Diego:

Diego:

Diego: *squeaks* You - you can see dinosaur ghosts?

Klaus: I mean, there’s a chance that thing Ben’s petting is just a super deformed ostrich, but yeah, I think so.

Diego:

Diego:

Diego:

Diego: *tearing up* That’s so cool.

#29: A Whole New Kind Of Thirst Trap

Diego: I’m thirsty. But guess whose body is 75% water?

Diego: *smirks*

Klaus: *frowns*

Klaus: Hold on, I know this one…

Diego: Klaus -

Klaus: *snaps fingers* Oh, I know! Luther!

Diego: *horrified* What the fuck Klaus why the fuck would you say that -

#30: What A Tragedy

Diego: You must be a campfire. Because you’re super hot and I want s’more.

Klaus:

Klaus: Diego sweetheart, you’re allergic to marshmallows.

Diego: *tearing up* I know.

Klaus: You wanna hug, baby?

Diego: *crying* Yes please.

#31: That Can’t Be Allowed

Diego: Don’t tell me if you want me to take you out to dinner. Just smile for yes, or do a backflip/somersault/counter-spin gymnastics combination for no.

Klaus: *smirks*

Klaus: *does a triple flip and lands perfectly on the top of the bar counter*

Diego: *turns bright red* That was h-h-hot.

Klaus: *beams and jumps down into Diego’s arms bridal-style*

Klaus: *kisses his cheek* I know, baby.

#32: Merry Christmas

Diego: You’re the reason Santa started the Naughty List.

Klaus: *blinks*

Klaus: *pouts*

Klaus: No fair! He told me last week I was on the Nice List!

Diego: What? Klaus? What does that -

Diego: OH MY GOD KLAUS IS SANTA DEAD???!!!!

#33: I’ll Keep You Safe, Honey.

Diego: I lost my teddy bear. Will you sleep with me instead?

Klaus: *pulls out a stuffed tiger*

Klaus: He got lost in the kitchen. Don’t worry, I rescued him for you.

Diego: *takes soft tiger*

Diego: *voice cracks* Oh. Thanks.

Klaus: *kisses his forehead* You’re welcome, baby.

#34: Excuse Me?

Diego: The only thing your eyes haven’t told me is your name.

Klaus, internally: Shit. What if he finds out I stole like five of his knives and all of the cookies last week?

Klaus, externally: *blinks*

Klaus: Um… Stefonopolis?

#35: I Am Not Apologizing For This One

Diego: If you were a steak, you’d be well done.

Klaus: But I’m so unique…

Klaus: I talk to the dead, Diego.

Diego: Okay…?

Klaus: *smirks*

Klaus: So wouldn’t I be medium rare?

Ben: Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

#36: Leonardo Da Vinci Was Arrested Multiple Times For Homosexual Activity.

Diego: Is this a museum? Cause you’re a work of art.

Klaus: *dancing to the soundtrack of High School Musical 3* Actually Five took me back to Italy once. Leonardo da Vinci and I had some fun.

Diego:

Diego: Oh my god. Seriously?

Diego: *looks up picture of Mona Lisa, now titled Mona Klausa*

Diego: How the fuck -

#37: Why Would You Say That Though

Diego: Am I sleepwalking? Cause I’ve only seen you in my dreams.

Klaus: *sitting on the counter and eating a donut in one bite* Are they dirty?

Luther: *chokes on a pickle*

Diego: Oh my god no -

Diego: Well sometimes -

Diego: I mean no of course not -

Luther: *praying to whoever’s up there to just kill him already*

#38: Be Safe Kids!

Diego: Can you hold this for me?

Klaus: Sweetie, you need to wash your hands.

#39: Apocalypse Averted!

Diego: If looks could kill, you’d be a weapon of mass destruction.

Klaus: *blinks*

Klaus: I thought that was Vanya.

Diego:

Diego, panicking: Holy shit Klaus you can’t just say things like that -

Vanya: *crying from laughter*

#40: Attractive

Diego: Do you swallow magnets? Because you’re -

Klaus: *shoves him up against the wall*

Klaus: How did you find out? Who told you? Was it Ben? I swear to god I’ll kill him -

Diego: *squeaks* What?

#41: First You’ve Gotta Propose Diego

Diego: Wouldn’t we look cute on a wedding cake together?

Klaus: Diego. Did you buy me a cake?

Diego:

Klaus:

Diego:

Klaus: I’m waiting.

Diego: Right sir yes sir right away sir -

#42: He May Not Be A Kitten But He Is As Soft As One

Diego: If I followed you home, would you keep me?

Klaus: I’m homeless, Diego.

Diego: What? You are? Oh no, baby - you can come stay with me?

Klaus: *looks up from Disney Princess coloring book and raises an eyebrow* Is your bed available?

Diego, blushing: Ye-yeah, b-ba-baby. Whe-whenever you-u w-want.

Klaus: *smiles*

Klaus: *takes Diego’s hand*

Klaus: Okay.

Diego: *dies a little bit inside (in a good way)*

#43: It’s Just You.

Diego: Is it hot in here or is it just you?

Klaus, blushing: I -

Five: DIEGO. THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE. NOW IS NOT THE TIME.

#44: ‘Scuse Me, Mate?

Diego: You know, penguins mate for life. Wanna be my penguin?

Klaus: Eh. I’ve always been more of an iguana man.

Diego:

Diego:

Diego:

Diego: What?

#45: You Look Like… Antonio Banderas With The Long Hair.

Diego: How’s the most beautiful person in the world doing today?

Klaus: *buried in a Vogue magazine* I don’t know I’m not Antonio Banderas.

#46: What The Fuck Klaus

Diego: Do you have a map? I keep getting lost in your eyes.

Klaus: *hands him a Candyland board* Here. I stole it from Pogo.

#47: You Dumbass

Diego: I hate my last name. Can I borrow yours?

Klaus:

Klaus:

Klaus:

Klaus: We have the same last name, Diego.

Diego: *blinks*

Diego: Fuck you’re right -

#48: Okay But Diego Would Make A Great Aladdin Though

Diego: I’m not a genie, but I can still make your dreams come true.

Klaus: *wrinkles his nose*

Klaus: You can get me a pink elephant with jaundice?

Diego: *blinks*

Diego: What the fuck Klaus -

#49: HELLO

Diego: Is that a knife or are you just happy to see me?

Klaus: I don’t just have random knives on me Diego, I’m not you.

Diego: So you are happy to see me?

Klaus: I mean you just interrupted a very riveting episode of Sesame Street, so… we’ll see.

#50: It’s Always Best To Start With The Truth.

Diego: I love you.

Klaus: *beams* That’s all you had to say, darling.

[sisterspooky1013]

Only One Choice, Part 2, Chapter 10

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

From: dscully@fbi.gov

Sent: April 28, 1997 10:46am

To: mreyes@fbi.gov

Subject: Coffee?

Hi Monica,

It’s Dana, from pathology. I was wondering if you’d like to get coffee tomorrow around lunchtime? I have a break in classes from 11-2, so anywhere in there would be fine.

I hope things are going well with VICAP.

-Dana

From: dscully@fbi.gov

Sent: April 28, 1997 10:48am

To: fmulder@fbi.gov

Subject: Wednesday/Thursday

Hi,

I’m mildly shocked that you hadn’t already emailed me before I got in today. Are you alive?

If you’d like to meet up for lunch or coffee this week, I can do Wednesday or Thursday, sometime in the 11-3 timeframe. Let me know which works for you and I’ll block the time out so nothing else ends up on my schedule.

From: mreyes@fbi.gov

Sent: April 28, 1997 11:12am

To: dscully@fbi.gov

Subject: RE:Coffee?

Hi Dana,

I’m so glad you reached out. I’d love to get coffee tomorrow; I can meet you just outside the autopsy bay at 1pm, if that works?

I look forward to it.

-Monica

From: fmulder@fbi.gov

Sent: April 28th, 1997 12:16pm

To: dscully@fbi.gov

Subject: RE:Wednesday/Thursday

Hi Scully,

I see that my exceptional self control has paid off in spades. I am alive, and have resisted emailing you this morning through a combination of sheer will and a two-hour budget meeting.

Wednesday sounds perfect, I’ll be there at noon. Don’t ask me how many hours that is from now because I haven’t calculated it and I have no idea.

———

About an hour after returning from her coffee date with Monica, which was very pleasant and is something she hopes to repeat, she starts to feel just a little bit achy. She pushes through the rest of her work for the day and by the time she slumps through her apartment door at six, there’s no denying that she’s sick. She takes some Tylenol and goes to bed, hoping it will have passed in the morning, but when she wakes up it’s even worse. She calls in sick to work and goes back to sleep.

When she wakes again, the phone is ringing. She ignores it, only for it to start ringing again the moment the machine picks up. Dragging herself out of bed with a pained moan, she trudges to the hallway, retrieving the cordless phone and walking back to her bedroom as she answers.

“Hello?”

“Scully! Are you okay?”

“What? Yes. Mulder?” She burrows herself back under the covers with the phone tucked against her ear.

“Yes, it’s me, you didn’t answer my emails all morning and never showed up for our coffee date. I was worried.”

“Shit, Mulder, I’m sorry. I came down with something yesterday and called out sick. I totally forgot we were having coffee today.”

“You’re sick?” he asks, clear concern in his voice.

“Yes, just a virus or something, I’ll be fine.”

“Can I bring you something? Soup? Juice? Bad movies?”

She chuckles a little. “No, you don’t need to do that.”

“Who's gonna take care of you?”

“Mulder, I’m a grown adult with a cold, I can take care of myself.”

“Are you sure?” She can tell by his tone that he wants to do this more for himself than for her.

“Yes, I’m sure. I don’t want you to see me all sick and disgusting, Mulder. It’s too soon to ruin your image of me,” she says somewhat sarcastically.

“Seeing you sick is not going to change how I feel about you, Scully,” he says very tenderly, and she knows he means it. Still, she doesn’t like the idea.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? Sorry to make you drive an hour for nothing. Rain check?”

He sighs noisily. “Okay, fine. I think you inadvertently left ‘stubborn’ off your list of flaws, though.”

“Well, I didn’t want to ruin all the surprises,” she replies with a smile.

He reluctantly says goodbye, and as soon as he hangs up, she calls the first number on her speed dial.

“Hello,” calls Missy in her typical singsong greeting.

“Missy, can you come over?” she whines, little sister mode in full effect, “I’m sick.”

Missy arrives forty five minutes later and fusses around, gathering a glass of water, Tylenol, and the thermometer that is buried in the bottom of a bathroom drawer. Dana has relocated to the couch, and makes a face around the thermometer propped under her tongue when Missy sets four crystals of different shapes and colors on the coffee table, along with two herb-filled capsules. The thermometer beeps angrily and Missy plucks it out of her mouth, shaking her head.

“One hundred and two,” she says with a frown, “here, take these,” she holds out two Tylenol and two of the herb capsules with a glass of water.

Dana takes the Tylenol and leaves the others.

“Whatever those are, I’m not taking them. And you can pack up your crystals,” she says to Missy as she pops the Tylenol and chases them with a big gulp of water.

“They’re just echinacea, Sis, they won't kill you. And neither will the crystals.”

“But they also won’t help,” Dana says dryly, setting her water on the coffee table and burrowing back under her blanket.

“Well, I’ll just leave them right here,” Missy says, standing and going to the kitchen. “Why’d you call me, anyway? Shouldn’t playing sick maid be Mulder’s job now?” She’s looking through cupboards, pulling out a pot and a can of soup.

“It’s too soon for him to see me all congested and disgusting,” Dana replies, stifling a shiver. “He wanted to come over, but I told him not to.”

There’s a knock at the door. Dana sits up, exchanging confused looks with Missy.

“Did you order food?” Dana asks, and Missy shakes her head, moving to the door.

Dana watches from the couch as Missy opens the door to find no one on the other side. She looks at the floor, then down the hall one direction and the other. She stoops down and picks something up, then walks back to the couch with a paper bag.

“What is that?” Dana asks, and Missy shrugs, setting it on the coffee table and sitting at Dana’s feet. There’s a sheet of paper stapled to the bag, and Missy plucks it off, opening it while Dana explores the contents; a carton of tom kah gai soup.

Missy’s face is a mask of confusion as she reads whatever is written on the paper.

“What does it say?” Dana asks, and Missy hands it to her.

Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still.

Dana’s chin puckers as her bottom lip sticks out in a pout. “Oh my god,” she gushes, “it’s Mulder.”

“What the hell does this mean?” Missy asks, taking the paper back and reading it again. “Does he write poetry or something?”

“No,” Dana answers, pulling the lid off the container and breathing in the spicy coconut smell, “it’s a quote from Jane Eyre.”

“Oh my god,” Missy says with a disgusted look, “you two really are meant for each other. This is sickening, Dana, you realize that, right?”

Dana is smiling, taking sips of the hot Thai chicken soup that he somehow knew she needed. “Yes, he’s also a giant nerd, if that’s what you’re saying. But beyond that, I don’t think we have much of anything in common, actually.”

“You both work for the FBI,” Missy offers.

“Yes, but in totally different areas. And he’s an atheist, and believes in unverifiable phenomena like aliens and spontaneous human combustion. And he’s impulsive and easy going, and he makes decisions with his gut,” Dana lists off Mulder’s attributes like she’s describing the trim level on a car. He’s cute, and he has a leather interior.

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t use any of those words to describe you,” Missy says pointedly, setting the note on the table, where Dana plucks it back up and reads it again. “But there’s something to be said for being with someone who’s different from you.”

“I don’t really buy into the idea of ‘opposites attract,’” Dana says flatly. “I think that’s just a lie people tell themselves to justify horribly mismatched partnerships.”

“I think ‘opposites attract’ implies that your qualities clash, like the odd couple. One is messy and the other is clean,” Missy replies, propping her elbow on the back of the couch. “But I heard about this idea of ‘perfect opposites’ which is more like someone who complements you, or helps kind of level you out. So perhaps you lean to the extreme in some areas where Mulder leans to the other extreme, and you learn to meet somewhere in the middle.”

Dana gives her a doubtful look. “What is the middle between believing wholeheartedly that Bigfoot exists, and knowing that he doesn’t?”

Missy takes this under serious consideration. “I think,” she says without a hint of sarcasm, “that the medium would be accepting that it’s possible that he exists, and possible he doesn’t, but there's no way to know for sure.”

“So a Bigfoot agnostic?” Dana asks, and Missy nods in confirmation.

Dana shakes her head. “Maybe you should have gone out with him, I think you two might be better suited.”

“Don’t give me any ideas,” Missy says with a coy smile. “Speaking of which, does he have any single friends?”

Dana shrugs around a gulp of soup. “I don’t know, I haven’t met any of his friends.”

“Well, when you do, keep an eye out would ya? Now that I’ve lost my single buddy, I may as well get back out there. God knows it’s torture enough hearing your lurid tales from the bedroom.”

“Missy, I haven’t told you a single lurid tale,” Dana chastises.

“I know, what’s up with that?” Missy retorts in mock offense, “speaking of, what happened when he took you out to dinner Sunday night?”

Dana shakes her head.

“Oh come on, Dana. I have no life, let me live vicariously,” Missy whines.

Dana shakes her head again. “The only thing I’ll say is; maybe don’t eat off the kitchen counter,” she says before giving Missy a guilty look.

Missy’s mouth drops open.

“Wow, I’m not sure if I’m more grossed out or jealous,” she says as she stands, “I’m gonna get out of here, if you’re good. I think I need to go pick up a guy at a bar for some meaningless sex.”

“Yeah, I’m okay. Thanks for coming by. If you need a condom there are some in the bathroom,” she adds with a sarcastic smile, and Missy sneers at her.

“Ha, ha,” Missy replies as she slips on her shoes and opens the door, “last time I checked, you can’t get pregnant from a vibrator.”

Dana gives her a sympathetic pout and Missy pulls the door closed behind her.

———

It’s a quarter past eight when the phone rings, and he pushes Priscilla onto the floor to retrieve it from his desk.

“Hello?”

“I can’t find it,” says a garbled voice.

“Hello?” he asks again, “who is this?”

“It’s really cold. It’s also too hot,” the voice says around a sound like fabric moving over the mouthpiece.

“Scully?”

“Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

There’s a pause. “Mulder?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Are you okay?”

“Mulder, where are you?”

“I’m at home. You called me at home. Is Missy there?”

“No, she had to take her vibrator to a bar,” she answers, and it’s clear that she’s completely delirious.

“Scully, I’m coming over,” he says, standing up to find his shoes and wallet. “Hey, Scully, I need you to do something for me, okay?”

“Hmmm?”

“Can you stand up, and walk to your front door?”

She sighs. “That’s very far.”

“I know it is, but I need you to unlock the door so I can get in. I don’t think your super would be very happy if I broke it down.”

He hears her groan and her voice becomes quieter, then disappears. He waits, and just when he thinks she may have hung up, she picks the phone back up.

“Hello?”

“Hey, did you unlock the door?”

“Mulder?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Mulder, where are you?”

He snickers a little. “I’m on my way over, did you unlock the door?”

“I...I don’t remember,” she says, and she sounds exhausted.

“That’s okay, go back to bed. I’ll figure it out. See you soon, okay?”

“Okay, bye, Mulder.”

He waits but the line doesn’t go dead. He hears her shuffle around a bit and then it’s quiet for a long time. Setting the phone on its cradle, he drives over to her apartment.

The door is, thankfully, unlocked, and all the lights are off.

“Scully?” he calls out, not wanting to scare her. “Scully, are you awake?”

When he gets no response, he slips off his shoes and makes his way to her bedroom, calling out her name intermittently. He finds her twisted up in her sheets, and one touch to her forehead has him jerk his hand away with how hot she is. He strips the blankets off of her, finding her in only a T-shirt and panties underneath. Next he finds a washcloth in the bathroom and soaks it with cold water, then grabs two Tylenol and a glass of water. When he returns to the bedroom and drapes the cloth over her forehead, she starts and opens her eyes momentarily, but then closes them again.

“Scully,” he says softly, shaking her shoulder, “I need you to wake up, honey. I need you to take these.”

Her eyes open slowly and she blinks at him with heavy lids.

“Mulder?” she asks groggily, and he gives her a sympathetic smile.

“I’m here. Can you sit up and take these?”

He helps her prop herself up just enough to swallow the Tylenol and a sip of water before she collapses back against the pillows.

“I feel like shit,” she complains, but her eyes are already closed and she’s on her way back to sleep.

“I know. Get some rest. I’ll be here.”

———

She wakes up to harsh beams of sun pouring directly through her eyelids. Her first thought is that Ethan forgot to close the blinds again, but then she remembers that she and Ethan aren't together anymore and he doesn’t live here, so she must have forgotten to close them. She moves to roll out of bed and is met with the shock of aching muscles, and remembers that she had been raging with fever last night. She probably shouldn’t have let Missy leave, but thankfully the fever seems to have broken during the night. She rolls away from the window, no longer motivated to get up and close the blinds, and finds herself nose to nose with a sleeping Mulder.

“What the hell?” she says out loud, and he opens his eyes and smiles at her.

“Hi,” he says softly, “how do you feel?”

She gives him a perplexed expression. “Confused. How long have you been here?”

He chuckles “I knew you were out of it, but I didn’t think you were that far gone. You don’t remember?”

She shakes her head ruefully.

Mulder rolls to his back and stretches, then turns back to face her. “You called me last night, totally out of it, and I came over to make sure you were okay.”

“How did you get in?” she asks skeptically.

“You let me in.”

Her eyes widen.

“You were burning up, I just force fed you some Tylenol and kept an eye on you. Around 3am you started shivering, so I think that’s when the fever broke.”

She is quiet for a moment, taking in her surroundings. “Mulder...am I not wearing pants?”

He holds up his hands in self defense. “That’s how I found you, Scully, Scout’s honor.”

“What time is it?” she asks, feeling disoriented.

He peeks at his watch. “A little after nine.”

She sits up too quickly and gets dizzy. “I’m late for work,” she says, one hand to her head.

“Scully you were delirious with fever six hours ago, you’re not going to work. I called for you,” he says, sitting up too.

She gives him an incredulous look. “You called out sick to work for me?”

He nods.

She sighs and looks away from him. “I got the soup, and the note,” she says, “thank you.”

“Of course,” he answers, rubbing a palm over her back.

She looks back at him, taking in his sleep rumpled hair and second day stubble. She furrows her brow, a slight scowl on her mouth.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“You’re my boyfriend, aren’t you?” she says with a defeated tone, and he laughs.

“I’d sure like to be, if you’ll have me.”

She groans and slumps against him, sighing as he wraps his arms around her, petting her hair.

“Okay, fine,” she says flatly.

“Well don’t sound so excited about it,” he teases, and she pulls back and smiles at him.

“Thanks for taking care of me,” she says softly.

“Thanks for letting me,” he replies.

[sopxhiea]

Lush

Alfie Solomons X Reader

Summary: Alfie finds out that the wild little lady has more tricks up her sleeve than he’d initially thought but it all makes him want her even more and this time, she has no contradiction to the fact.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

“You’re so wild that I want to be the one to tame you.”

“I’d be whatever you want me to be.”

Dumfounded.

A deer in headlights, a young kid caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing or the face of someone after a bomb went off. It depended on the person or the situation.

But you concluded that Alfie looked like all of those things combined as he stared at you.

It had been an uneventful day for him, he had taken you out and learned a thing or two about the infamous wild girl the cockneys were banging on about. It wasn’t as easy as he’d thought, this little game he played with you. He doubted that you knew any better but it was a good filtration system to see who’d last and he’d play all the games you’d want if it meant that he’d have you to himself at the end.

A painted smile graces your lips, the lips Alfie had dreamed about for too many times. He looked at you from head to toe and felt his throat dry. He didn’t even blink twice when staring at the barrel of a gun yet here he was, feeling himself go weak at the sight of something half his size. 

You raised your eyebrows, your way of telling him to speak up but he needed a moment to regain his voice so he just stepped to the side instead, urging you to come in.

You looked like a sin walking around in your kitten heels, a sin he was dedicated to committing. 

He recognised the fur coat from earlier that day and wondered if you were wearing underneath the thick material and his questions were soon answered when you threw the expensive clothing on one of the sofas. The sheer dress earned a gulp from him, a deep one at that before he cleared his throat and spoke. It took him a solid minute and you’d been eyeing him the whole time.

You’d kiss him, you’d made a mental note of doing so.

“I’d have you picked up, yeah, if I knew ya were comin’.” he said, eyes roaming all around your body before they landed on your eyes and he found himself a bit too restless.

He wanted to mark you, claim your soft skin as his but the game was still on. He didn’t know when it’d be the end, where you’d open your arms and offer him all that you were but he’d been working the ground for that to happen and he prayed to his gods that it were soon or else, he’d need to deal with the tightness in his pants a bit sooner than he’d want to.

“I prefer walking.” you said while sitting on the sofa you’d sat on the first time you had come around and he felt his blood rise to his cheeks when you crossed your legs and offered him a look at your upper legs.

While he was busy ogling you, you looked around for a sign of anyone around. You knew he didn’t have many close friends, none that came over anyway as he’d told you the first time you’d met the broad man. Your eyes met his blue ones then, a bit hesitant since this part of the game was always a bit nerve wrecking.

The dancing and the enticing was all fine. You’d smile, use your wit and words to interest them further. Men were easy to deal with when they only used the tool between their legs and not their mind. You’d been dealing with Alfie the same way at the beginning.

But soon found out that it was a mistake.

He was easy to rile up and his anger swam at the surface but he was insanely calm. He was calculating, even when it came to a small lady like yourself. He knew you wouldn’t hurt him but that only a fact when it came to physical terms. He knew all along that you could easily wreck him, split his soul into two with a smile so he was careful.

He dealt with liars and manipulators on the daily and he also came to find out that you weren’t the usual deceiver. You had your ways, just as dangerous and thrilling that would get him into endless trouble if he let you do what you wanted. His guard was mostly down, letting you land any hits you’d have but he was strong, too. Body and mind.

“Couldn’t get enough of old me, eh?” he teased as he faced you, sitting on the couch right in front with feet apart. The adventure in the morning had been tasteful to say the least and he had passed the little test.

“Something along the lines of that.” you spoke, voice soft around the air as he watched. His eyelids moved slowly as he inspected you.

It was clear that you were there to get something.

He would give it to you. Hell, he’d give you anything if only you’d ask. But you never would and he figured that was the chase. He watched your lips move as you offered him a smile, genuine this time and he hated the way his chest vibrated with a single act that came from you.

Such danger in a little thing, he thought.

For a while, the both of you just stared at each other. Slowly blinking, you assessed the man before you. He was handsome, calculating and a handful to say the least but those were all things you’d dealt with before, just not all at once. 

You wanted to be wanted, and he was very beautiful under the fire lit room.

Your eyes wandered off to the fireplace but his remained on you. You spoke then, knowing he would stare at you until the moon was decorating the black sky and even when the sun would come up. “You weren’t expecting me.” you said, as a matter of fact.

“Nah. A pleasant fuckin’ surprise, it ‘s.” he said, not missing a beat after your words. Almost like he had been waiting to tell you that.

“Yeah?” you spoke, words enticing as your breathy voice filled the air. You got up in the process, walking towards his sitting form. 

He was almost as tall as you while sitting, his broad form was welcoming. His arms opened to the sides, waiting for you to sit on him. You got the hint and a shy smile formed on your lips. There was a flash of surprise in his eyes as he looked into yours, he had never seen you like this before. Like a cat under the sun, calm and content.

You obliged, for the first time in his time of knowing you.

Your legs lifted and you put them on top of his, slowly. He watched you as your hands reached for his open arms, gripping onto them gently to place yourself securely on his lap. A minute later, you were on top of the man, chest to chest as he looked at you. His hands were on your waist and lower back as his eyes rested on your features.

You were a sight for sore eyes.

He was surprised at your gentleness as he looked at you, speaking in a lower voice than usual. “You’re so wild that I want to be the one to tame you.”

It brought a smile to your lips.

You were known to be the one to run away. Commitment, gentleness or mercy were not things you were known for. You were good at dancing in a sinful way and whispering sweet nothings to strangers’ ears to get what you wanted. You were the one to run away, to sneak out and break all the rules imaginable. 

But there you were, sitting calmly on your handsome stranger’s lap with a smile on your lips. You were calm as a bird as you smiled at his words, eyes looking at your hands as your cheeks slowly flushed. This was a different side of you, just as deathly as the one Alfie knew but it was slightly softer.

“Let me know if that works out.” you whispered against his face, the more you spoke the more closer he got to your face.

He nodded, ready to come up with a snarky remark to match yours as he usually did. It was natural, this banter between the two of you and he doubted it would change. He didn’t want it to. But he watched your eyes change under the fireplace’s light, something shifted and you leaned forward, inch by inch.

You’d kiss him tonight, you’d promised yourself.

There was no hesitation when his lips met yours, the plump pillows you’d dreamed about melted against yours. It felt like the sound of a click, like the key had been put into its rightful position but you ignored the feeling when his large hand grasped the base of your skull in a gentle manner. You smiled against his lips as his tongue met yours. Small mews came out of your mouth as he kissed you.

He was a good kisser, you hadn’t doubted it but this just proved the point further. Your hands remained on his chest while his other hand explored your back. You were so breathy when you kissed that he was losing his mind. The air in your lungs slowly disappeared and you broke the kiss, lips swollen and red from his breathless kiss.

The sight felt like a bullet wound in his chest as he looked at you.

You licked your lips and he felt himself reaching for them but stopped. You had been the one initiating it but he still wanted you to be comfortable with his kisses. Once he knew you were, he’d never leave you alone. You sensed the hesitation and pulled his face against yours using the collar of his shirt.

You’d always had the upper hand until now, you still did but now you were the one seeking him out as opposed to the usual dynamic. He concluded that he liked it better this way, when you were the one to initiate things. You licked your lips and reached for him.

He didn’t need to be told twice.

His lips felt like velvet against yours, he was drinking every moan and mewl that came from you as you gave him the upper hand for the first time, letting him take over the kiss. It soon proved to be the best choice, you thought while he kissed you like you were a breath of fresh air while you ran out of the very same air, dizzy with swollen lips.

After you gently broke the kiss, you saw it in his eyes. The thing you’d been chasing, not in every man but in this particular one. It was usually lust you’d see after a kiss, a hungry pair of eyes that belonged to the gent kissing you but this time, it was mixed with something else. Something quite foreign.

Adoration.

Licking your lips once more, you got up from his lap and like nothing had happened, sat on the couch you were sitting on when you first arrived in the room. He looked a bit disheveled, chest rising rapidly as he looked at you with hands on his legs. You offered him a gentle smile and he thought for the countless time, he’d give you anything.

“Where’s Cyril?” you spoke, voice breathy and he thought it was a joke at first but soon realised that it was dead serious.

He saw the game you were playing.

All along, he had wanted a taste of you. You’d kept him on his toes, dancing and prancing around with fancy words and smart remarks until he could no longer stand the teasing. Now, you had given him what he wanted, a taste but he saw it all now. It was an extremely smart move from your part.

He wasn’t satisfied with just one kiss, you knew he wouldn’t be. He thought you tasted like a spring day when the flowers blossom and the grim weather is replaced with the smiling rays of the sun. He wanted more, much more, and he was weaker than before, now that he knew how sweet your kisses were.

You had him on the hook.

The big scary shark was in your hands now, tied to the strings you’d wrapped around his broad body without him realising. You wouldn’t hurt him, no. You’d play with him a little, push all the red buttons and see how far he goes when it comes to certain things. And you’d tease him to no end, now that he was completely addicted.

You gave him another smile as he spoke, his lips were swollen too. “Out.”

A chuckle escaped your lips at the short answer. Was he mad now? It didn’t matter, as long as you had him under the spell and from the way he was looking at you, he was in the right space. “Out where?”

“With a fuckin’ friend.” he spoke, eyes glaring at you as you licked your lips. Cyril was with Ollie for the time being, needed a change of setting and Alfie trusted Ollie enough, more than he trusted you.

“Hm.” you nodded while humming. 

He wasn’t livid but you knew by now that Alfie’s anger swam at the surface.

And he was angry.

Angry that he had fallen for the oldest trick in the book. The forbidden fruit. You had been that fruit for the longest time, only because you were playing a game and he was willing to play it with you but he didn’t know. He didn’t know how sweet your lips tasted or the way your small body seemed to fit his when you sat on his lap. 

But he knew he’d miss the warmth of your body and the soft skin of your face against his. He was screwed, he soon realised. Now that he had a taste, you were all he’d ever ask for. He saw the victory in your eyes, a pat in the back was well deserved for you in the little game you were playing with his old heart.

“Alfie..” you said, breathy voice gaining his attention in the matter of a second. He was still mad but his need and want to kiss you would overshadow that.

He looked at you, as if to say ‘speak up’. So you did.

“All you need to do...is ask.” you said, legs uncrossing and crossing again. 

He knew that.

He knew that if he’d ask for a kiss or a fuck or a dance, he’d lose. That was the game. He had been the one to seek you out all the other times but it was never a question, it was more of a ‘I’m here now and you’ll come with me’ sort of thing. It fit the game.

But if he were to ask, that would mean that he was the loser and you could do anything. He knew you’d wreck him, like you’d been doing for the past months of knowing him. He didn’t want to lose, he just wanted you to himself but he also wanted you to be impressed and liked this push and pull dilemma so he’d keep the game on, play as well as he could.

He wouldn’t ask. No matter how desperate he was to do so.

“Hm.” he grunted while tugging at his beard. His eyes roamed all over your body, a gulp present on his throat as you looked him in the eye.

Alfie was a joy to play with.

“If only you’d ask...” you spoke, getting up and swaying your hips while walking towards him. He was in a trance, too dazed to get out to a point where even a bullet wouldn’t help. “I’d be whatever you want me to be.”

That was the last straw.

You had skilfully knocked him out, no air in his lungs as he stared at your small form standing right on front of his seated one. He didn’t get it, just how dangerous a small thing like you could be.

He blamed himself.

He’d been told these things before but thought that the blokes were just drunk at the time, the liquor giving them illusions regarding what had happened. They’d told him about the danger in your eyes, the one residing in your smile that could surely bring down any man but he thought, foolishly, that he wasn’t just any man.

And he wasn’t, but that didn’t change any of the facts.

You saw him gulp first. He was staring at your eyes as you stood in front of him, helpless and tender. You knew he’d do anything you’d ask for but you needed him to be the one to ask. That way you had the upper hand. He looked at your body from head to toe and his eyes landed on yours again. 

He was fucked. Simply and utterly fucked.

“Cat got your tongue?” you spoke, a giggle at the end of the sentence and he swore he was ready to have right then and there.

Men were scared of him, many mighty gangsters of different lands have said less and had their brains scattered on the pavement. You were far past the line of pushing it and Alfie saw it in your eyes that, as a matter of fact, you didn’t give a single fuck.

“I’ve fuckin’ killed for less.” he spoke, more to himself than you but you heard the gruff in his voice. He was coming around.

“Well, If you killed for less maybe you’ll fuck for more?” you spoke in a heartbeat and it took him a solid minute. There you were in a sheer dress, asking him if he wanted to fuck you and he knew you wouldn’t let him at the end.

“Lass...”he said, a warning in his tone as he eyed you.

You got the clue.

“Alright, old man.” you said, walking away to sit on the sofa again. “You look all hot and bothered.” you said, sarcasm dripping from your words but it was true.

It wasn’t right to fuck you now, Alfie knew the rules. There was still much needed foreplay and all that, he knew that for a fact. He also knew that you weren’t done playing and it would still take some time for you to let him close to you, let alone have you. 

He’d wait, he’d made that decision the first night he’d met you.

“You’re playin’ with the wrong fuckin’ person, Y/N.” he spoke, saying your name in a way that made tingles appear on your back. You smiled at the words before crossing your legs again.

"It’s quite fun.” you spoke, leg bouncing up and down as he kept his eyes on you.

What a curious thing you were.

You were dangerous, far more than the gangsters he made business with everyday and he’d give you that. You had bigger balls than a dozen proper lads he knew but there was also something in your eyes he couldn’t quite place. It was not sadness or agony, you wouldn’t show him that.

 It was the need to be adored.

Your looks and moves contributed to the whole charade, he knew, but you liked to be adored, loved almost. He didn’t know if it was love yet, only that you had him wrapped around your dainty finger. He’d gladly do anything you’d ask and you knew that but that was no fun. Fun came to be when he was the one demanding things, it was more thrilling that way.

He wondered if you’d let him have you that night. You had come all the way to his house and were the one seeking him out, it was usually the other way around. He didn’t ponder on it for too long, he’d just get disappointed if he did. He looked at the smile on your lips and then sighed, he was in deep.

“Can I see your library?” you asked, almost like a little kid this time. 

There was a switch, he thought.

He’d seen you act like a bold lady with a million dollar smile, a kind lady in a boarding school who was well behaved and a little kid who just wanted some attention. He saw the look in your eyes change every now and then and wondered this time, whether there were more sides to you.

Women were complex creatures, you were the proof of that.

“What kind o’ fuckin’ prize do I get out of it?” he spoke, voice gruff as he looked at you. He picked up the game really quickly and you were slightly surprised at the question but carried on nevertheless. 

“I won’t tell Annabelle I stayed over.” you spoke in a low voice.

He unpacked the words, slowly.

Alfie was not a fearful man, everyone around knew the fact. He had killed men with bare hands before and had even crushed one of their windpipes with his left hand. But he was slightly annoyed by Annabelle, the head teacher in the boarding school was nothing but useless talk.

He didn’t even think you’d be staying over and it meant nothing but trouble, he’d welcome it with open arms. He looked at your eyes first and then your body. He’d promised himself to behave, that he’d be proper tonight and keep his hands to himself.

But only if you wanted him to.

“Right.” he spoke and got up, walking towards the library and you followed him like a small kid. He felt a smile tugging at his lips as he opened the large doors and concluded that he was getting too soft for his liking.

The doors were large and tall, almost extended all the way to the ceiling as your eyes scanned through them. Alfie pushed the door slightly after removing the lock underneath the floor. You didn’t realise he was waiting for you to get inside until he put his hand on the small of your back and realised you were too busy staring at the tall doors.

You shot him a smile, no threat underneath your lips and walked inside. The library space turned out to be his study, countless shelves decorating the space and his desk on the other end of the spacious room. The detailing was all in wood, something you thought suited him as you sat down on the large chair in front of the desk.

His chair, to be exact.

He smiled through the thick beard, finding a flood of emotions in his heart. It was all fun and that, he agreed but he was a man of taste and got what he wanted, always. He soon realised that maybe that thing wasn’t the deal he was making behind the Russians or doing shit behind the Shelby’s back but you, just a small girl who was too lethal for her own good.

“Show me your favourite book, Mr. Solomons..” you whispered as you stood close to him near one of the shelves. He was aware of your close proximity but tried to pay no attention to it. You looked at his face first and then his hands as they reached across the shelf and picked out an old, torn out cover.

He handed it to you but that was no good. You grabbed his hand, pulled him across the room to where the large sofa was and made him sit down. He didn’t protest, didn’t say anything but just looked at you. You got comfortable on the sofa, and handed the book back to him.

“Read it to me...” you said in a hushed voice, almost like this was not a part of the deal. You were being quiet as a lamb now, not like the dangerous woman he knew but he decided both sides were equally fascinating to him. You gulped and heard the voice of Annabelle on your head, shouting at you for not using proper greetings and spoke up again with the softest gaze. “..please.”

How could he say no?

So he started reading but you weren’t looking at the book. Shifting closer to his large body, you leaned against his arm after putting your head against it. He was a dream to snuggle with and you realised what kind of a man he was while he read to you in his glasses. 

He was a rare one.

Most men, who were proper enough to be able to see you after the first date, would try to fuck you or have a kiss at least. None of them would wait after hearing the word going around, about how had it was to tame you. Alfie had waited for over a month, didn’t even try anything funny until you were the one sitting on his lap, in his home with your lips against his.

You decided you’d keep playing the game, but for a bit longer than the usual.

You didn’t let him stop reading as you stared at his face, he was very aware of your ogling and the fact that it wasn’t sexual, not in any shape or form. You were measuring something, whether he’d be worth keeping.

All men did was disappoint and you’d given yourself countless pep talks about how worthless it was to think any of them would have the capacity to love you, after the years of wild dancing and making a name for yourself. A tinge in your heart told you that maybe this man would but it was hard to trust the tinge.

So you decided you’d test him, more than once.

You put all the ideas of love and the possibility of having something with this man into a box as you watched his lips move while he read to you. You’d pull all of those ideas out once you were sure he was worth keeping, that he wouldn’t hurt you and you put on your game face. You’d tease him instead of asking him to love you, this wasn’t the time to ask for tenderness but to see what he was playing at.

He was a gangster who had fucked people over before, after all.

“Alfie.” you spoke, only the second time you were referring to him by his name.

He looked up from the book almost immediately and grunted, as if to say ‘speak’. You noticed the things swimming in his blue orbs but ignored them.  “Ask me.”

He promised himself he wouldn’t.

If he asked, he lost. If he asked, he was in trouble, even more so than he was in now, with you in his house for the night.

“I won’t tell.” you whispered against his face, closer to his handsome features now.

He wasn’t going to ask, that wasn’t the plan he had made with himself.

He didn’t know what you’d do with him, if he were to ask you. You could ruin him with one word like you had almost done earlier and he wouldn’t regret it but the game was still on. The desperation in his tone would take over, he knew that much and if he were to ask you, he’d never have the upper hand again, not if  you were kissing him like you had been earlier.

But he forgot all of that as you stared at him with soft eyes, wanting only one word to come out of his mouth.

He was the one to come visit you, take you places unannounced and get you from dinner parties you should’ve been attending. He had asked you if you’d fuck him that day in his office and the one to put a gun in your hand. If someone asked, he was fucked. In the accordance of things, you seemed like a poor girl he kept dragging around.

It could turn around, very easily. And he didn’t want that.

But the way you looked at him made him forget almost everything and his lips were moving before he could register the thought. “Kiss me, lass.”

And you did.

His lips were soft, heavenly even as you leaned forward and kissed him once more. You wouldn’t tell anyone that he had lost this round, as well as all the last rounds you’d played with the gangster. His hand moved to your waist as your upper body was on top of his, head no longer resting against his arm but in level with his as you moved your lips against his plump ones.

You had kissed guys before, enough of them to know that Alfie was a damn good kisser. A small moan left your lips and he swallowed the sound, too eager to kiss you as much as he could so that he could convince himself that this wasn’t a dream after all.

Breaking the kiss almost hesitantly, you licked your lips to savour the taste of his kiss. He looked down at your flushed cheeks, your hands still resting on his chest while his remained on your waist. You didn’t look up to meet his eyes this time, too afraid that it would reveal something about you to him. Transparency was not something you wanted him to see, especially not the storms he was stirring inside you with his velvet kisses.

“You can..uh....” you spoke, caught off guard since the first time he’d met you.

And you were beautiful like this.

Cheeks flushed and lips swollen, struggling to get the words out even though you had many for him a minute ago. Your hair was messy than before, heart beating loudly against his chest while you avoided his blue orbs.

And he thought, for a split second, that he might have a chance with you after all.

“..continue reading the book.” you spoke while lifting yourself off of his chest. You were still trying to catch your breath, a look of slight panic on your face every now and then but it was too brief for Alfie to comment on it.

“That what you want, pet?” he spoke, in the softest voice he could muster and you felt your emotions stir.

He was the one playing the game now.

You had not used any of your cards til now, he’d been the one to do all the hard work during the push and pull but you had to use one of them now or you’d lose the upper hand, that meant check mate and you’d never lost a round. You had not even come close to it during all your time spent playing this game.

“I could ask you the same question.” you spoke, the devious smile back in a split second and he no longer saw the softer part as you covered it up with your bold moves and pretty smile.

“Right..” he spoke, putting the glasses back on his nose to their rightful place and he ignored his need to kiss you senseless as you sat on the same sofa, just not as close as before. “Back to the fuckin’ book it ‘s..”

He kept on reading, words becoming tangled in your mind as he groaned every now and then about the events taking place on the yellow pages in front of him but you were too busy thinking to listen.

If you weren’t careful enough, this man would win.

Not because you didn’t know the game or didn’t play it well, It was the opposite. You played it so well that he was learning from you. The little winks sent your way, the small touches and the open end questions, not to mention his kisses that made you feel all dizzy. 

You weren’t going into the panic mode but plan strategy instead. You looked at him, his golden beard and plump lips and the words that kept coming out of his mouth. He was smart but you knew the patterns too well, you had played this game longer than he had.

You’d keep him around but he needed to be put in his place, to be shown that you would always have the upper hand in any situation when it was the two of you alone. You wouldn’t lose any rounds, he’d lost almost all of them until now and there was still a smile on his lips due to the events that just took place.

But the night was long and he had many buttons you hadn’t pushed.

------

Tagging: @clairecrive  @parkbearum @sourirez  @vetseras​ @mollybegger-blog @babylooneytoonz @peakascum @fuseburner​ @r-rose08​ @innerpaperexpertcloud @caffinated-tree @cathartichaoss  a/n: I hope january is treating everyone well! I hope you enjoyed this chapter as it has a bit more spice :) Let me know what you thought and/or if you’d like to be tagged!! <3

The next chapter may be delayed since i’m having a busy month in school but it’s in the works :)

[raiseyourcups]

Sorry that I lost our love

Pairing: Din Djarin x Ex-Mandalorian Reader Warnings: Not so vague allusions to sex, Star Wars cursing, actual cursing, violence (more than canon-typical imo), angst peppered throughout, angst ending Word Count: 4.2k (because I can’t write short things to save my life) Notes: If you think I should add anything else as a warning, let me know. I wrote this in an inspired rush and it was 3:30am by the time I finished this. Also please let me know if there’s any stray she/her’s that refer to the reader or anything that describes reader in any way. Thank you!

Summary: A Mandalorian lands on Tatooine and you would like nothing more than to dig a hole and hide in it until he leaves. Too bad you work for Peli Motto and have no choice in the matter. Thankfully he leaves for a bounty but of course that’s when things go sideways. 

Sequel with less angst

The armor was new, all silver beskar but you would recognize that stance anywhere. You had grown up learning everything about him and vice-versa. There was a time when the two of you knew every inch of the other’s body, fumbling around in the dark together, twin blindfolds covering their eyes just in case the lights turned on. Yes, you used to know Din Djarin like the back of your hand. But then he had gone against Guild Code and they came after the Covert. Someone had pulled off your helmet before you could get them off of you and that was the end of that. 

The Armorer had been understanding but everyone knew the Creed, your helmet had been removed by someone other than your family. Not that you had any family. Once upon a time you had wished for it to be Din but now…

You had been able to get passage on a ship, got as far as Tatooine which still wasn’t far enough for you but you hadn’t been able to catch another ride yet. Rather than wallow in your sorrow, you found somewhere to work despite being utterly useless at everything outside of fighting. Peli Motto was a beacon of hope, had taken one look at you and taken you in as an employee. At first it was small things, cleaning up after the droids but eventually she began to trust you with a spanner. 

And now back to the present.

You didn’t know how much time had passed since that bounty hunter had damned you, when a familiar ship limped its way to the spaceport you had started to call home. You made yourself as scarce as you could as Peli went out to speak with the owner of the ship. You were close enough to hear what was being said but hid behind a piece of junk that even Peli couldn’t fix. 

“No droids.”

“It’ll cost ya more but fine,” Peli said before turning her head in the direction she had last seen you. “Starbird, get over here!”

Peli had given you the nickname when you told her you didn’t want to reveal your name to her, not because you couldn’t trust her but because you hadn’t heard someone say it in so long. Well...hadn’t heard someone other than Din but that would never happen again now. You had taken to wearing a scarf, covering your hair even though it wouldn’t matter, and you adjusted it as you walked over. It made you feel more secure, like you weren’t dar’manda even if you knew the truth. He wouldn’t recognize you, had never seen you without your helmet and those nights didn’t count with the pitch black of the room. As long as you didn’t speak around him, you could help Peli fix his ship and he would be gone again. 

“Mando here doesn’t like droids so it’s just you and me fixing this rust bucket, got it?”

You nodded silently, ignoring the confused look your silence got you from Peli. The Mandalorian, the one you thought you had known so well, tilted his head and you could almost feel his gaze on you. You and Peli move towards the ship to take note of the obvious damage and you can’t help but cringe when you finally see how bad of a shape it is. 

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were in a shootout and you have a fuel leak!” Peli kept muttering to herself as she found more and more things wrong with the Razor Crest. You pointed out a few more things to her, still keeping your mouth shut. “This ship is a mess, the fact you were even able to land it! This is gonna set you back.”

“All I have is 500 Imperial credits.” The Mandalorian held the credits out and Peli wasted no time snatching them away from him. “That’s all you got? What do you think, Birdie?”

You shrugged and held a hand out, palm facing the ground as you tilted it from side to side. It was going to take a hell of a lot more credits to fix up the Crest, the fact that it was pre-Imperial making it even harder to find spare parts. 

“Well then, this should at least cover the hangar.”

“I’ll get you your money,” The Mandalorian said bluntly, but you could just about hear the desperation beneath the vocoder in his helmet. You were taken aback, had never heard him sound like that before. 

“Hmm, we’ve heard that before.”

“Just remember…”

“Yeah, no droids. I heard ya, you don’t have to say it twice.” Peli watched as the Mandalorian walked away before letting out a scoff. “Womp rat.”

Peli sat with the droids, starting up a card game with them, dealing you in without asking. You let out a sigh because she knew how kriffing bad you were at every card game. 

“What was that?” You asked, staring at the gangway of the Crest as a loud shriek echoed from the Crest.

“Oh so you are gonna speak today?”

“Sorry, I just-”

Peli cut you off, “Nope, I said I wouldn’t ask questions when I hired you and I meant it.”

You were about to thank Peli for being so understanding when you both hear a cry coming from inside the ship. Peli turned to the droids, “Shh, quick, grab my blaster rifle.”

“Peli, I don’t think you’ll need it.”

“Better safe than sorry, who knows what he has on that rustbucket.” The two of you inched closer to the Crest slowly, Peli with a trigger finger ready to go. “I’d stay in that ship if I were you!”

The tiniest creature you had ever seen started walking down the gangway, smoke and dust getting in its eyes. You let out a gasp, bringing up a hand to cover your mouth when it dropped open. Peli looked at you confused but lowered the blaster rifle, there was no way this...thing was a threat. The little thing let out a coo and looked at you both with its sad eyes. You couldn’t help but move forward to pick it up when it raised his hands in the air. 

“Oh honey, did he leave you all alone on the ship?” You asked it, cradling it in your arms before looking up at an equally confused Peli. You gave her a shrug, unsure what else to do. She moved closer and looked into the child’s big eyes and was stumped. 

“Would you like some food? Are you hungry?” The child seemed to like that idea, letting out a loud coo as his little stomach growled. Peli turned to the closest droid. “Fetch us something to eat, quick!”

“Maybe something with bones in it,” you added when you caught sight of his little teeth. The droid took off in search of food. “Okay, so here’s the plan, little one. I’m gonna look after you until the Mandalorian gets back.”

“And then I’m gonna charge him extra for watching you, see how that works?” Peli added before heading off to do some repairs, a new pep in her step at the thought of a bigger pay day. 

You couldn’t put the child down, just stunned. Was this why he had broken Guild Code? Was this tiny little thing the reason you could never go back home? If it was then more of the anger you had let fester inside of you dissipated, you couldn’t blame Din. As more time passed, the more sleepy both you and the child seemed to get which led to you telling Peli that we were going to give the child a nap. She waved you off saying that she probably would take one too, it wasn’t like you two could do anything for the ship without more credits.

You didn’t even notice when you fell asleep but a loud shout scared both you and the child awake. You let out a quiet shriek and the combination made the child start crying. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. I”m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Where is it?” You heard the Mandalorian growl to one of the droids and you walked as fast as you could to where he was. 

“He’s right here, now keep your voice down. He was taking a nap,” You tried to keep your voice steady, not only to calm the child down but also to still your beating heart. You bounced the kid in your arms a few times, staying light on your feet in order to sway a little as you tried to shush him. The Mandalorian tilted his helmet at the sound of your voice but then he realized that you were still holding the child. 

“Give him to me.” He pointed at you threateningly, or at least you supposed he was trying to be threatening. It wasn’t going to work since you were so annoyed with him right now. 

“No. You can’t just leave a child alone on a ship like that!” You didn’t mean to raise your voice but you did as you pointed your own finger at him. “I can’t believe someone would trust you enough to have a child with you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Oh I know more than you think I do,” You said, glaring up at him and hoping that you were making eye contact so he knew how serious you were. 

“What’s going on out here?” Peli asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes but alert nonetheless. 

“Mando’s back. And he woke up the baby.” You said your last words with a glare towards that kriffing rustbucket. 

“Oh well, while you were gone, I started the repair on the fuel leak while Birdie here watched the kid.” Peli gestured towards you but you paid her no mind as you made sure the kid was okay. “There were a couple of setbacks that I want to talk to you about.”

Peli kept going on about the repairs, how they took longer without the droids or your help since you were preoccupied with the child he hadn’t warned you two about. He walked into the ship and you moved back over to Peli, unsure what he was doing. He came back down with a bag and looked at you both.

“We figured you were good for it since you have an extra mouth to feed,” you said, no longer worried about speaking in front of him. He once again tilted his head at the sound of your voice. 

“Thank you.” He said before walking away. You were, once again, stunned at how rude he was being. First he leaves a child alone on his ship, threatens you when he realizes you’re holding the kid, and now he’s just going to leave again. You shot a look towards Peli before you followed after him, kid still in your arms. 

“You know it takes a lot for Peli to keep those droids powered up, right?”

“Hey, Mando, what do you think? Not too shabby, huh?” A new voice spoke once they were out of the spaceport. You rolled your eyes at the sound. Calican. 

The Mandalorian gave the speeder bike a once over, looking over Calican in a way that made it obvious he wasn’t impressed. “What? This isn’t Corellia. Hey, Birdie, still looking good.”

You rolled your eyes at him before turning around to head back inside of Peli’s shop. Those brief seconds of speaking to Toro Calican were more than enough for you. You heard the speeders take off and knew they probably wouldn’t be back until later. 

“Well now that we’re all awake, let’s get some more repairs done,” Peli said, already getting ready to do so. You joined her, placing the child on one hip in order to pass her any tools she may need. The suns went down and there was still no sign of the Mandalorian or Toro so you and Peli just kept working. There was nothing else to do. But even repairs couldn’t take forever and soon enough it was just you and your thoughts. 

With no sight of either bounty hunters everyone decided to head in for the night, you kept the child with you since you knew Peli already had her hands full with the droids that were like her own children. Morning came quicker than you were prepared for knowing that the Mandalorian and Toro would probably be back soon. 

Part of you knew you couldn't wait for the Mandalorian to leave the planet but another part of you, the younger and dumber part of you wished that he would recognize you before he left. You didn’t know what that would do for you, it wasn’t like he could do anything. You were dar’manda now, you could never be together again, no matter how much you missed him. 

“Hey, Birdie, I’m gonna head out to the cantina for a bit. Wanna come?” Peli came out of her room, having changed into a slightly cleaner jumpsuit. 

You looked down at the child in your arms before looking back up at Peli. “I’m not taking a baby to a cantina.”

“Suit yourself, and if that Mandalorian comes back while I’m gone, make sure he pays before he leaves.”

“Got it, have fun and don’t drink too much.”

“What are you, my mother?” Peli replied shortly but with a smile on her face as she left. You shook your head, a smile on your own face as you looked down at the child. 

“Looks like it’s just you and me, kid.” 

“Hey, Birdie.” You flinched at the sound of Toro’s voice from behind you and spun on your heel to face him. Your brow furrowed when you noticed that he was alone. 

“Toro? Where’s D-- Mando?”

“About that, put that thing on the ground before I shoot you.” He was aiming his blaster at you before you could even blink.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I really don’t wanna shoot you, you’re too pretty to die.”

You weighed your options and knew that it would best to listen to him and put the child down before making your move. So you did, placing him on one of the empty fuel drums that you and Peli used as a table. 

“I said the ground, are you stupid?” Tora asked as he moved towards the child which is when you moved. Faster than he could react, you rushed forward and hit him with your shoulder, knocking him off balance. He didn’t lose his grip on his blaster, unfortunately, since you hadn’t been able to hit him on that side but you took advantage of his being off balance. You rolled forward and grabbed a spanner as you got back up on your feet and rushed towards Toro again. You pushed him against the Crest, hitting him with the spanner several times before he finally grabbed your arm and held it out to the side, letting you throw a punch with your other fist. You dropped the spanner without meaning to but you had another idea.

You grabbed his blaster, spinning away from him in an attempt to get him to let go of it, even throwing your head back to headbutt him. He wrapped his arms around you and picked you up, dropping you onto another fuel drum. You groaned out in pain, wishing you still had your armor, but you didn’t let go of the blaster even as he picked you back up and you two fell to the ground. You forced him up, grip still hard on the blaster as you tried to break it on a piece of metal. Kriffing Toro and spending all his credits on high end bantha shit. You heard something pop and took the chance to punch him again, followed by a quick elbow to keep him down just a little while longer while you looked for another weapon.

Where was Peli? Or Din? Was Din even still alive?

You didn’t have time to ask yourself anymore questions as Toro grabbed you by the arm, dragging you to your feet, and throwing a punch at your face. Using your arm as leverage he tossed you into the side of the Crest and you turned just in time to block another punch with your arm before bringing your knee up into his side. You put your arms around his neck and flipped both of your bodies over and onto the ground. It was getting harder to catch your breath and you had no idea Toro had that much stamina when fighting. It had been too long since you fought anyone. 

You tried to get to your feet before Toro but he beat you to it, throwing several punches your way. You got up, kicking out at him just for him to grab your leg again. But it left you open to punch him yourself, one to the face and another to the stomach. He grabbed your arm, bringing up his own knee to your wrist causing you to let out a shout of pain. He put a hand around your throat but you brought your knee up to his crotch making him fall to the ground. He wasn’t unconscious though so you went for another kick, this one to the face, but he grabbed your leg and flipped you onto your back again. 

Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t get back up and you felt so weak all of a sudden. Maybe it was the blood gushing from your nose or the fact that you had now been dropped onto your back twice or the ringing in your ears. Either way, Toro had won. You could hear the child crying from where you had left him, it was amazing that you two hadn’t slammed into it during the fight. 

“Didn’t think you had that in you, Birdie.” Toro said as he forced you up. “That was stupid though, I was going to let you go but now...now you get to be my hostage.”

He pulled your hands behind your back, wrapping a cord around them tightly. You could feel it digging into your skin but there wasn’t anything you could do now. You willed yourself to not let him see you cry, cursing yourself for being so Maker damned emotional. “Why are you doing this, Toro?”

“Because that thing has the highest bounty I’ve heard of and Mando...well he’s worth even more with that armor.” The unspoken meaning behind his words hit you like a flash of lightning. 

“No!” You thrashed in his grasp, he couldn’t. No, he couldn’t take Din’s armor, he couldn’t be like you. He couldn’t. 

“Stay still or I’ll shoot you right now,” Toro growled out. You did as he said because you couldn’t help Din if you died before he made it back. He dragged you along as he went over to where you had placed the child and you winced as he picked him up roughly. As the hours passed, you grew more and more worried for Din. Toro was just getting angrier and you were scared he’d shoot first and ask questions never. You hoped Peli stayed at the cantina a little while longer. 

The suns had already gone down by the time he showed up and your breathing had gotten a little more labored. You were also sure that your back was bruised to haran and back. Toro stood a little straighter, pushed you forward a step before speaking. “Took you long enough, Mando. You missed a hell of a fight.”

He shoved his blaster into the middle of your back and you walked down the gangway and into the moonlight to see Din pointing a blaster at you. Really it was on Toro but you were in the way. He took half a step back and his helmet twitched to the side when he caught sight of your face. You were sure you looked a mess, Toro hadn’t even bothered cleaning the blood off your face. 

“I’m the one calling the shots now. Drop the blaster and raise ‘em.” 

Din did as he was told and placed his hands behind his head. Toro pushed his blaster into your back again before undoing the cord around your wrists. “Cuff him and don’t try anything.”

You let out a quiet growl of anger but ripped the cuffs away from Toro and moved over to where Din was.

“You’re a Guild traitor, Mando.” Toro said, before pointing a gun towards the child. Your hands tightened on the cuffs. “I’m willing to bet this is the target you helped escape.”

You moved to place the cuffs on Din’s wrists when a light clink caught your attention. You looked up and saw your potential saving grace. “Oh you smart man.” You couldn’t help but whisper, only loud enough for him to hear. 

“Fennec was right, bringing you in won’t just make me a member of the Guild, it’ll make me legendary.” Toro said. You pretended to shut the cuffs on Din’s wrists, shuffling them behind you as you walked out from behind Din to stand next to him. “Say, Birdie, one last thing before I shoot you.”

“What?”

“What is your real name?” 

You didn’t have to answer, you could give Din a signal to set off the flash charger but you couldn’t stop yourself. “...Y/N.” You answered.

A delayed second later and Din pressed down on the flash charger and you shut your eyes before dropping to the ground and rolling behind a fuel drum. You would just get in the way now. You watched as Toro blindly shot at nothing while Din moved behind the crates to the left, popping back out in time to shoot Toro just as he turned. You rushed forward as Toro fell off the gangway, he had still been holding the child. 

“Stay back.” Din’s voice was a weird mix of stoic and emotional, the vocoder in his helmet making it sound off. 

“He had the child,” you said as Din leaned down to move Toro onto his back. There was no child. “Where did he go?” 

You didn’t mean to cling onto Din’s arm as you both looked in every direction. A quiet babble caught your attention as the child game out from behind a couple of baskets. Your heart slowed down from its rapid pace as soon as you saw him. “Oh hun, there you are,” you said as you picked him up. 

“You’re okay now,” you bounced the child a few times as Din grabbed something off Toro’s body. He came over to where you were and you pretended to be very interested in the child. 

“Y/N.”

“Yes.”

“What happened?” He asked you and you weren’t sure if he meant the wounds on your face, as he reached out to oh so lightly stroke your cheek, or if he meant the fact that you had broken the Creed you both took. 

“I tried to fight back, I lost.” It was true of both occasions. Din stared down at you as the child continued to babble. You still couldn’t look up from  looking at the child. 

“Come with me.” That got your attention, head snapping up to look at Din like he had lost his mind. You knew he could be dumb sometimes, breaking Guild Code an obvious example, but this took the uj cake.

“I can’t.” 

“Why?”

“Din, you know why I can’t go with you.” The fact that he could see you, really see you should have made it clear why you couldn’t go with him. 

“I don’t care.”

“You say that now but what about tomorrow, or next week, in two weeks? I’m dar’manda.”

“And it’s my fault, cyar’ika.”  Din said as he moved forward, bringing his helmet down to gently rest against your forehead.

“Don’t call me that, not anymore.”

“Y/N…”

You let out a shuddery breath, blinking away the tears that threatened to rise. “Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be, you need to find somewhere safe for the child, and I cannot go with you.” 

Din stared at you for one more long moment before reaching out to take the child, silently passing you the pouch he had taken from Toro. You opened it and let out a gasp, looking back up at Din in shock. He started to reach out again but stopped himself, nodded once, and turned to get back on the Crest. And you just watched him. Kept watching as the Crest took off, leaving you behind once again.

You wished you could go back to the beginning, when you had first met Din as kids with scraped knees and elbows from trying to do all the fight moves the adults could do. Growing up with each other, feelings changing until that first kiss in the pitch dark of someone’s room, you couldn’t remember whose it was. The first time you two snuck out of the covert to rent a room, tying blindfolds around your eyes in order to show how deep your love went for each other. 

But you couldn’t. You never could.

[ratonnhhaketon]

Still Breathing

Read on Ao3 | Next Chapter

Summary: Six months after the defeat of Thanos, the world is still in chaos. The threat of the Flag Smashers combined with the new headstrong Captain America means it's time for Valencia Zicari to help save the world one more time. But, in doing so, she also has to pick up the pieces of a broken relationship.

Warnings: Major TFATWS spoilers, Swearing, Angst, Fluff, Slow-Burn, John Walker (just in general)

A/N: HHH, new fic time! TFATWS has been consuming my brain these past few weeks and it was only a matter of time before I made another oc and wrote for Bucky. I’ve had this in the works since the first episode but I’m super excited to finally be ready to start posting! This fic will be relatively short but I do also plan on doing a prequel fic eventually to further flush out my marvel oc, Valencia Zicari. I apologize that this starts off kinda slow, with just two phone calls at the beginning, but it will pick up a lot in the upcoming chapters. In the meantime if you have any questions or comments about the fic or Val’s story, don’t hesitate to send them my way! Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1 - Your Number On Speed Dial

Bucky’s eyes shot open, his throat closing and lungs gasping for air. He felt the sweat covering his body, the thin blanket tangled between his legs. The cool metal of his dog tags swung against his chest as he sat up, chest heaving as he sucked in breaths and tried to regain his breathing. He looked around his surroundings, slowly calming down as he noticed he was in his apartment. 

Another goddamn nightmare. 

Realizing he was alone, Bucky instinctively reached up onto the chair next to him for his cellphone. He flipped open the phone, eyes squinting to adjust to the light of the small screen in front of him. He noticed the time, 3:08 am. While he knew that she would more than likely still be up and wouldn’t mind talking, he felt guilty for instinctively reaching out for her this late. Still, he let his hand press accept and after only two rings he heard her familiar voice pick up. 

“Hi Buck,” she said with a smile, exhaustion evident in her voice.

“Hi,” he replied with a hoarse voice, sleep still clinging to his vocal chords. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?” 

“I could ask you the same question,” she said with a small laugh. “But, yeah. Probably. I’ve been working my ass off trying to get in contact with Fury and nothing is working.”

“Not even through the SHIELD lines?”

She sighed, a hand coming up to rub at her temples. “I’ve tried, but he’s ‘on vacation’ and is only taking messages if they’re life or death.” 

“I mean, shouldn’t he be able to make an exception for you? Given, y’know..”

“Unfortunately I lost the ‘you’re my adoptive daughter’ privilege when I decided to grow up and join the Avengers.” Bucky chuckled in response, his nightmare finally starting to fade from the back of his mind. “I’m just.. worried about Wanda. The whole situation still isn’t sitting right with me, especially since any information has been classified and no one at all can access it.”

“Val,” Bucky said quietly, his metal hand coming up to rub against the chain hanging around his neck. “When was the last time you took a break?” 

He heard an audible sigh over the phone and a pause before she spoke up. “Not since half of the world disappeared.” 

“Well, how about this. Thursday, you finally put all of that aside for a few hours and we can grab lunch. I’ll buy.” 

She thought it over for a moment, Bucky’s breath hitching in his throat in the few seconds it took before she spoke up. “Yeah, that sounds nice. We can go to that sushi place you used to take me to.” 

“Sounds perfect, doll. I’ll see you then. Now go get some rest.” 

“You too, old man.” 

~~~~~

Valencia stood in the common room of the compound, a scowl present on her face as she watched the tv. John Walker’s Good Morning America interview was playing at a low volume. She hadn’t even met the man yet and already hated him. Partly because of how he talked about Steve without knowing the first thing about him, and partly because every journalist in the state of New York had been contacting her in an attempt to interview her about the new Captain America. Pulling her eyes away from the screen, she noticed her phone vibrating to announce an incoming call. She answered, a smile tugging at her lips for the first time in the past day. “Hey Bucky.”

“Hi,” he said shortly. She could feel the anger in his voice. “Have you seen the news?”

“Absolutely,” she replied, her scowl returning to her face. “Everyone has been bothering me about it for the past day. I had to tell Pepper that if one more reporter asked to take a statement from me I’d throw someone out of a window.”

“Jeez. Little harsh, don’t ya think?” 

“Probably,” she said with a small laugh. 

“Hey, have you talked to Sam recently?”

“Yeah, I was just talking to him earlier before you called. He was telling me about having to go to Munich today, something about the Flag Smashers? I don’t know, he didn’t really give me a lot of information.” 

“No, that's great. Thanks, doll. See you Thursday.” 

“Alright, Buck. See you then.” 

~~~~~

Any normal person would be astonished by the amount of trouble one person could get into in the span of 18 hours. But, in terms of being an Avenger, it’s just a normal Wednesday. Especially when it’s Sam and Bucky’s fault. But, Valencia still found a way to be freaking out when Pepper rushed into her room, shoving a phone into her face to announce that Bucky had a warrant out for his arrest. And had subsequently ended up in a Baltimore jail. 

In under an hour she had flown down to the city and found the facility Bucky was being held in. She pulled open the door to the jail, eyes quickly scanning the crowd of people before landing on Bucky’s literal partner in crime. 

She made a beeline straight for the dark haired man. “You want to explain to me what’s going on here, Sam Wilson?” Eyes narrowed, lips pulled into a tight line.

Upon seeing her he pushed himself out of his chair. “Val! How ya’ been? You been doing okay?”

“Oh cut the shit, Sam. You better have a good explanation for why I found out that Bucky not only had a warrant out for his arrest, but then ended up in a Baltimore jail leaving me to haul ass down here to figure out what in the hell is happening.” 

“First, I need you to calm down. Promise me you won’t freak out?” 

She glared at him. “Are you-” 

“Val,” he said in a stern tone. 

She let out a huff before nodding. “Alright, fine. I’m calm.”

“He helped me with that mission in Munich I told you about and then wanted to introduce me to someone in Baltimore. And he may have missed his therapy appointment in the process.”

“He missed-!” Val immediately yelled out, voice louder than anticipated, which drew the attention of the people around them. Sam put an arm around her shoulder and led the two of them over towards an unoccupied side of the room. “Sam, are you serious? He’s been doing so well! He put in so much effort to make sure he made the appointments and you let him go with you?”

“First of all, I told him repeatedly that I didn’t want him coming, but you know how stubborn he is.”

She let out a defeated sigh and dropped her hands to her sides. “So what do we do now?” 

“Well lucky for you they’re actually releasing him.” 

Before Val could reply she was cut off by the sound of heels clicking before a familiar voice spoke near them. “Sam. I’ve heard a lot about you.” She reached out to shake his hand. “I’m Dr. Raynor. I’m James’s therapist. It’s good to see you again, Valencia.” 

Val gave her a smile. “Good to see you too, doc.”

“So nice to meet you. You two already know each other?”

“I took Bucky to the first few of his appointments to make sure that he would, y’know, actually go. But that was before..” she waved a hand in the air, “everything.” 

Sam nodded. “Well thank you, Dr. Raynor, for getting him out.”

“Oh, that wasn’t me.” 

From across the room a booming voice spoke up, instantly grabbing their attention. “Christina!” The three of them all turned in unison and were met with none other than the new Captain America himself, taking pictures with a bunch of fans. “It’s great to see you again.” 

“You’ve got to be kidding me. You know him?” Sam spoke up with a frustrated sigh. 

“Yeah, we did some field ops back in the day.” 

“I heard you were working with Bucky, so I thought I’d step in.” Val watched as he approached the group, her arms instinctively crossing over her chest. “Miss Zicari, it’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve been trying to reach out for a formal introduction for several days now.”

“It’s Agent, actually. And unlike you I’ve had a lot of other pressing matters that required my attention.” 

“Right. Well, anyway. Bucky’s not gonna be following a strict schedule any longer.”

“What?”

“We haven’t finished our work. Who authorized this?”

“Um,” John used both hands to gesture up towards himself. “He’s too valuable of an asset to have tied up.” 

Val’s attention went from John to the sound of a metal door closing behind her. Her head turned towards the sound and she was met with none other than a familiar set of blue eyes side-eyeing the blonde man in front of her. She felt the corner of her mouth turn up in a half-smile as his head turned and saw hers. Almost instantly the token frown he wore at all times faded and turned into his own partial smile. She walked over to him, her arms finding their way around his neck subconsciously. “Hey, Buck,” she breathed as his arms wove around her middle, pulling their bodies flush together. 

“Hey to you too,” he said with a small laugh. “Pepper finally let you leave the compound?” 

She pulled away to look at him. “Less her letting me leave and more so her immediately getting me a flight and shoving me out the door when she found out you got arrested.”

“Alright lovebirds, break it up.” Dr. Raynor said from behind them. Val’s arms dropped to her side and before she had the chance to correct her, the woman spoke up again. “James, condition of your release, session now.” Bucky let out an audible groan, rolling his eyes slightly, to which Val couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle. “You too, Sam.”

“That’s okay, I’ll be out here with Val.”

“That wasn’t a request.” 

She pulled her phone from the pocket of her leather jacket and noticed an incoming call. “Just go, I’ll be outside. I gotta take this anyway.” Val walked outside of the jailhouse, sliding a thumb across the screen to answer the call in the process. She partially paid attention to what Pepper was telling her as the new Captain America walked past her, obviously checking her out with a side-eye as she leaned against the chipped bricks. Her eyes narrowed at him as he turned to steal another glance her way before turning her eyes away and down the opposite side of the road. 

“Yeah, he’s okay… no, I don’t know the specifics of how it works out with the pardon... I’ll keep you updated, but it doesn’t look like I’ll be back any time soon. I kinda feel like I’ll be joining the idiots on whatever they plan on doing next… Alright, I will. Keep me updated on the whole Westview situation and tell Morgan to stop stealing the snacks from my room. Oh, haha. Take care, Pepper.”  

As she hung up the phone she saw the door next to her swing open with a visibly angry Sam walking out of it. Bucky trudged out a few seconds later, looking angry but more upset than the man in front of him. As the door started to close behind him he saw Val and walked over to her.

“Do you think Steve was wrong about me?” She could tell he was fighting back tears by the way his voice cracked at the end.

Her hands cupped his face. “Bucky, no, absolutely not. Why would you say that?”

He looked away, not able to look her in the eye. After all the nights they spent together, her talking him down from a nightmare, reassuring him and chasing the negative thoughts away, he couldn’t admit that part of him still felt that same way. “It.. doesn’t matter.”

“If it’s making you this upset, then yes it does.” 

He let out a huff as her thumb began to lightly rub against the stubble on his cheek. “Sam shouldn’t have given up the shield.” 

“I know, Buck, I know. But there’s nothing we can do now, so let’s just try to figure out what’s happening with..” she lifted a hand from his face and used it to make vague gestures around them. “Everything right now.” 

The loud siren from a police cruiser halted their conversation, the sound making Val physically jump. She looked towards the source of the sound and scowled. This asshole again. “Gentlemen,” John’s eyes scanned Val’s figure quickly before adding, “and lady. Good to see you again.” Begrudgingly, she followed Sam and Bucky’s lead and walked towards the blonde haired man and his sidekick. “Look, if we divide ourselves we don’t stand a chance, you guys know that.” 

Sam crossed his arms over his chest. “So what do you got?”

“Should she be hearing this?” John gestured to Val. 

She scoffed. “I’m on board now, so out with it.” 

“Alright. Well the leader’s name is Karli Morgenthau. We’ve been targeting civilians that have been helping Karli move from place to place. They geotagged a location, then scrambled the signal. But our satellites have found their symbol popping up in various displaced communities all across Central and Eastern Europe. We think that she's taking the medicine she just stole to one of these camps.”

“Well there’s been hundreds of those put up across the planet since The Blip,” Valencia interjected. “So I guess you’ll have to look real hard.”

“Good thing I have 20/20 vision, huh?” John shot back, annoyance prevalent in his voice.

“Where is she now, Walker? Do you know?” Bucky spoke up, patience quickly being stretched thin.

“No, we don’t know, Bucky,” Walker’s voice rose dramatically. “It’s only a matter of time before we find out.” 

Bucky cocked his head to the side, eyes narrowing at the man in front of him. “Things are really tense for you, aren’t they Walker?” Val rested a gentle hand against Bucky’s chest, holding him back as a reminder not to do anything irrational- although she definitely wanted him to. 

Sam approached the super soldier, putting a hand in the air to further make him back off. “Take it easy. Look, Walker’s right. It is imperative that we find them and stop them. But you guys have rules of engagement and all kinds of authorizations you have to get. We're free agents. We're more.. flexible. So it wouldn't make sense for us to work with you.” 

The trio started to walk off before Walker stood up from the cruiser and spoke. “A word of advice, then.” The three of them turned to look at him once again. “Stay the hell out of my way.” 

Knowing that it wasn’t worth it to get a final word in, Sam put a hand on either of their shoulders and pushed them to keep walking away. Once they were a reasonable distance down the street, Val turned to Bucky and noticed he was deep in thought. “What’s on your mind, Buck?” she asked with a hand coming up to rest on his shoulder. 

“Well, I know what we have to do. When Isaiah said “my people”...” he trailed off, still staring ahead. 

“Oh, don’t take that to heart. That’s not what he meant-” Sam tried to correct him before Bucky cut him off. 

“No, he meant HYDRA.” He paused for a moment, feet coming to a stop as he looked between the pair next to him. “HYDRA used to be my people.” 

“Bucky,” Val spoke up cautiously.”

Sam scoffed. “Not a chance.” 

“Walker doesn’t have any leads.” 

“I know where you’re going with this, no.”

“He knows all of HYDRA’s secrets. Don’t you remember Siberia.” 

“Oh, you cannot be serious,” Val said as she dragged a tired hand over her face. 

“So you’re just gonna sit in a room with this guy?” 

Bucky hesitated for a moment, obviously not thinking about his idea that much ahead of time. “Y-yes.” 

Val sighed, shaking her head slightly. “Out of all your ideas, this has got to be the dumbest.” She looked at Sam, who shrugged his shoulders and nodded. “Fine. Let’s go see Zemo.”