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binunus · 4 years ago

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afk | yoon sanha (m)

a/n y..oon...sanha...really do be acting up...also idk why but whenever I think of husband!sanha I can’t seem to write anything which is why I’ve been staring at this request literally for the longest time, but when I think of like just bf!sanha I get so many ideas...is it me? am I just weird?? maybe it’s bc I’m literally not in a headspace to think about marriage or commitment sksksk but uh yeah thank you for coming to my ted talk

{request: anther sanha husband smut please? 🥺 the one u wrote was so good ‘m not a creative person so the plot coulld be as you wish 😼}

→ pairing: idol bf!sanha x f!reader

→ genre: fluff, smut

→ tw: unprotected sex (conceal before you feel loves), reader riding sanha as he’s playing his game oops...and 00 line is on the other end hehe, dirty talk?? well...sanha tried okay, multiple orgasms, slight overstimulation, embarrassment

→ word count: 4k _____________________________________________

*afk → away from keyboard* for all my non-gamers :) I’m not a gamer, I just live with them...

Your POV

You were ecstatic, a little jump in your step as you neared your boyfriend’s dorm. You haven’t seen him in almost a month due to his busy schedule and comeback preparations. You were excited for him and his group, one of the perks of dating an idol member was knowing the secrets and spoilers of his plans long before they were revealed to the public. But with those perks also came the disadvantages of not being able to see your boyfriend as much as you’d like to, or even be open with your relationship in general.

Anyway, you were excited to see him. The text messages, phone calls, and FaceTimes could only satisfy you for so long, seeing Sanha in person was a completely different story. The last time you saw him was before he dyed his hair from black to the sleek dark red that it was now.

As soon as you received the text from your boyfriend asking if you were free to come over, you literally dropped everything that you were doing and got dressed to leave your apartment. You arrived at his dorm within thirty minutes, not wasting any precious time that you could be spending with him.

You were warmly greeted by their eldest, Myungjun’s excited tone alerting the others about your appearance. “y/n! We haven’t seen you in so long!”

You laughed and wrapped your arms around him in a hug, giggling as he lifted your body and shook you around, “I know, oppa! It’s so good to see you! You look so good! I’m excited for your album to come out.”

“Oh you cutie, stop it.” He beamed, patting your head as he set you down. “Sanha’s playing games in his room right now. If you get bored of him, just come find me and I’ll entertain you.”

“Will do oppa,” You chuckled as you bounced in the direction of Sanha’s bedroom. Your heart rapidly beating in your chest as you opened the door, revealing your 6′1 sweet boyfriend who was sitting intently on his gaming chair. You felt the oxygen knocked away from your lungs as he turned his maroon head of hair to face you. You almost had to do a double take from actually seeing his new hair color in person. Sure he’s sent you a bunch of pictures as soon as he dyed it and you’ve seen it through video calls, but wow...was this good looking man really your boyfriend?

He held his hand out to you, smiling as you approached him. He moved the mic away from his mouth before kissing the back of your hand, “Hey baby, I’m just playing a match real quick and then I’m all yours, okay?”

You nodded excitedly and leaned in to press a kiss on the cheek which wasn’t being covered by his headset. Sanha squeezed your hand affectionately before you hopped on his bed, pulling out your phone to pass the time while you waited for him to finish his match. Every now and then, you would look over to observe him and his game. You noticed that even his gaming setup has changed in the past month you haven’t seen each other, he was finally using the light-up keyboard you gifted him for your one year anniversary.

You could vaguely hear his friends through the headset, chuckling at his conversations with the esteemed ‘00 line. You found yourself grinning as Sanha furiously clicked away at the keyboard, even though your boyfriend is a famous idol, at the end of the day he was still just a regular young adult at heart who loved playing games.

You understood that this was probably one of his only ways of de-stressing as of recent, so you were pretty lenient about his gaming habits...

Until one match turned into two, which turned into three, and before you knew it, you’ve been waiting on his bed -- affection-starved -- for almost two hours.

Your lips pursed in annoyance, huffing as you locked your phone and tossed it aside somewhere on his bed, standing to get some water. Sanha turned his head at your movement, his mouth opening a bit in shock as he watched you leave his room. At that moment, he knew your patience was running thin.

You saw Jinwoo and Bin in the kitchen, the two smiling as you joined them. You found yourself pouting as you waddled into Jinwoo’s arms which opened in a welcoming hug. With dating Sanha, you also had the opportunity of getting to know his group, gaining five older brothers who treated you like one of their own. You got babied by the five of them a lot since you were dating their baby.

You let out a sigh as you retrieved a glass of water, resting your head on Jinwoo’s shoulder as you took small sips. You’ve received more affection from the rest of Astro than you have from your own boyfriend during this whole visit so far. Bin cooed as he pinched your cheek, “Why do you look so upset?”

You rolled your eyes as you took another sip, “Sanha’s been playing his game for the past 2 hours, I don’t even know why he asked me to come over if he wasn’t at least going to talk to me.”

Jinwoo gave you a sympathetic smile, patting your head as he nodded, “You know how he is y/n. When he doesn’t have a schedule or practice, he’s practically glued to his computer chair.”

You groaned and finished the rest of your water, placing the glass in the sink before you rested your hands on your hips, “If he doesn’t stop playing after this match, I’m literally leaving.”

The two elder boys laughed, respectively patting your shoulder and rubbing your back. Bin chuckled, “You do what you have to do. You know, scold him for us too. His eyes are gonna go bad from looking at that monitor too much.”

You nodded, asking them to wish you luck as you went back into Sanha’s room. When you opened the door, you noticed his chair turned around so that his back was to the desk, the monitor on the loading screen, and Sanha on his phone. He looked up with that big puppy expression on his face when he knew he’s did something wrong. He quickly placed his phone on the desk, pulling you in towards him as soon as you were in arm’s reach. He gently squeezed your hands as you stood in between his legs, resting your weight on one foot. “I’m sorry, baby.”

You narrowed your eyes in the slightest, “And what are you sorry for?”

“For ignoring you and just playing my game...” Sanha said quietly hugging your waist. He nuzzled his face against your stomach as your hands went up to play with his hair, all annoyance fizzling away in an instant. Damn, he was too cute for you to stay mad at him. You sighed and kissed the crown of his head, “Sanha, we haven’t seen in each other in so long because of your comeback. If you want to invite me over, I sort of hope that we’re spending time together and I’m not just watching you play...is your game really that much more interesting than me?”

He shook his head against your body, his voice muffled as he immediately said no. The tiniest of smiles crept its way onto your face, endeared at how cute your boyfriend was.

And then you heard his best friend through the headset, ruining the soft mood in an instant. “Sanha load up, c’mon where are you?”

You let out a sigh, God dammit Bomin.

Sanha lifted his head to meet your eyes, he sensed your frustration again immediately. You pursed your lips, reading the conflict swimming through his pupils. You knew that he wanted to keep playing, but he didn’t wanna make you mad. And in Sanha’s perspective, he did honestly plan to spend time with you when he invited you over, but then Daehwi asked him to play a round and when he gets immersed in his game, he needs to play until he’s literally sick of it for the day. “Baby..?”

You averted your gaze for a moment in thought, an idea popping into your head. Humming, your fingers twirled a strand of his hair, “You can keep playing, baby.”

Sanha blinked at you in surprise, his eyes widening, “Really? You won’t get mad if--”

“But! I’m sitting on your lap. I haven’t gotten any cuddles from you in at least three weeks and I’m not going back to your bed without you.”

He nodded eagerly, satisfied with the win-win situation. Sanha grinned patting his lap as he spread his legs to give you room. You chuckled, maneuvering your body through the space of his chair as you got seated atop his thighs, both of you face to face. By habit, Sanha’s hands rested at your waist, smiling as he pulled you into a sweet kiss. You felt the butterflies flutter in your stomach at the action, responding instantly. Your lips formed a little pout when he pulled away, your boyfriend smiling cheekily as he nuzzled his nose against yours, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” You said before resting your head on his shoulder, leaning your body weight on his chest as a means to get as close to him as you possibly could. Sanha rubbed the skin of your waist affectionately before reaching for the headset and unmuting himself, “Bomin, I’m here.”

“Hey! What took you so long?”

“Chill, y/n’s here.” He said, glancing at you with a smile, “She can hear you by the way.”

“Yeah so watch your mouth, Bomin.” You said jokingly, turning your head briefly to speak into the microphone. Sanha grinned, pressing a kiss to your cheek as Bomin laughed through the headset. You heard Bomin -- along with Sanha’s other friends -- greet you, chuckling as your head returned to its spot on Sanha’s shoulder.

You let your boyfriend play one match peacefully, still enjoying finally being in his embrace. You closed your eyes, taking in the comforting scent of Sanha’s detergent and let yourself relax for a short while. When he got killed during the first match, his arms immediately wrapped around your waist, squeezing your body tightly as he kissed your temple. You hummed, listening as he watched and conversed with the others who were still alive.

It was then that you noticed the slight new definition of his muscles, the gears in your brain turning as you thought about how to proceed with your plan. Although you were literally on top of him right now, the majority of Sanha’s attention span was focused on his monitor, so you knew he couldn’t sense the growing arousal in your mind.

Early into his second match, you subtly shifted your ass around on his lap, making it seem like you were trying to readjust into a more comfortable position. At the same time, you moved your head to his other shoulder, pressing a kiss to his cheek as you did so. Your boyfriend smiled at you, still oblivious to what you were trying to do.

And then your hands gently started rubbing at his sides, the touch featherlike as you began to press kisses in the crook of his neck. You felt Sanha tense in the slightest as he quickly pressed the mute button on his mic, “Baby...what are you doing?”

“Hm?” You asked not even bothering to lift your head, “I’m kissing you, can I not?”

The male closed his eyes as he let out a muffled groan, his body reacting immediately to your ministrations, “y/n, are you trying to make me moan into the mic while I’m playing with the guys?”

You chuckled dryly as you started to start to suck on his skin, not hard enough to leave a mark because you knew his stylists would literally kill you if you did, but enough for him to get affected. And he did.

Sanha let out a breathy moan, subconsciously tilting his head so that you had more access.

“You ignored me for two hours baby. Since you wanna keep playing your game while I’m here, you’re gonna have to do so while I’m making you feel good. Now unmute and keep doing your thing.”

He bit his lip, narrowing his eyes at you as you moved your ass directly over his crotch, which was quickly getting hard. He was about to say something, but was cut off by Daehwi asking him where he was, Sanha cursing internally as he pressed unmute and responded. You smirked against his skin, still trailing kisses along his neck and intending to move up his jawline -- which had definitely gotten sharper since the last time you saw him.

Sanha tried his best, you could see how hard he was fighting against your temptations. Admittedly, you were a bit impressed with how well he was masking what was going on to his friends.

But you were a brat and you wanted to see your boyfriend’s self-restraint crumble. He managed to get through one match, trying to compromise with you once the display showed the loading screen, “Fuck, baby, I’m done. I can’t play anymore.”

You smiled at him as you got off his lap, going over to lock his door. Sanha sighed in relief, getting ready to tell his friends that he was logging off for the night, until you held your finger up at him, confusion on his features. Casually, you pulled down your pants and underwear, placing them to the side as you leaned down for a kiss. Your hands reached for the waistband of his sweats, Sanha lifting up his hips to help you pull the fabric down his legs.

“You’re gonna play one more game, baby.” You whispered against his mouth, the boy sighing in frustration as you climbed back onto his lap. His cock was already hard from all your grinding, he could not believe you were teasing him like this right now.

You were soaked, you knew that Sanha would slide right in without any resistance. You let out a sharp inhale as you lined yourself up with his cock, burying your face in his shoulder as you sat down in one go. The two of you let out a synchronized groan at the feeling, it had been too long since you last had sex. “Shit, y/n, you’re so fucking tight--I-fuck can’t we just take this to my bed?”

“No,” You said, voice shaky as you tried to calm yourself down from the initial intrusion. “This is payback for making me wait so long.”

Sanha’s hands gripped the meat of your ass, squeezing as he thrusted into you just once, “God, you do realize we’re both gonna suffer if you make me play another round.”

“You’re going to suffer more than I am,” You said devilishly as you unmuted his mic, “Sorry boys, Sanha went to the bathroom but he’s back now.”

He shot you glare, reluctantly removing his hands from your ass as he wore his headset again, “Guys, I think this is gonna be my last game, I’m getting pretty tired.”

“You know, I can’t believe y/n really just let you play with us this whole time. That’s love right there.”

“You’re a real one, y/n!”

“Sanha doesn’t deserve you, y/n!”

You laughed into the mic, sweetly responding to Sanha’s friends as you clenched your walls around his cock, watching with a lustful glint in your eyes at the contortion of pleasure on his face, his teeth harshly dug into his bottom lip to prevent any sounds from escaping.

“C’mon, start game.” Sanha said shortly, the grip on his mouse tightening as you clenched again. You stayed still for the first couple of minutes, letting Sanha adjust and play his game so that his friends wouldn’t be able to tell that something explicit was happening on his side of the screen.

Of course all Sanha could think about right now was the way your walls just sucked him in so nicely, wanting nothing more than to pin you to his bed and fuck into you with no restraints. But he knew that you wouldn’t let him do that until he finished his match, so he tried to focus on completing this game as fast as he could.

He felt himself freezing as you started to kiss his neck again, mentally telling himself to stay calm and not make a noise. As soon as his guard was down, you lifted your hips so that only the head of his cock was in your cunt before slamming your ass down on his lap, a loud slap sounding from the contact of your skins. Sanha lurched forward, a strangled moan fighting in his throat as you tightly clenched your walls, squeezing his cock.

“Woah-are you okay, Sanha? What happened?”

“Y-yeah, I hit my knee against the d-desk,” He stuttered a lie, one of his hands gripping your waist as you started to slowly fuck yourself on him. It was getting harder for you to conceal your moans, burying your face in his shoulder as you tried to chase your high, this position allowing Sanha to hit so deep in your cunt.

His eyes flickered back and forth between the screen and you riding his cock, his legs subconsciously spreading as far as the chair allowed him. Sanha knew it was over for him when you lifted yourself off his chest, your eyes blown wide with lust as one of your hands fisted the bottom of his shirt, the other sneaking down to where the two of you were connected, making contact with your clit. You threw your head back at the added sensation, your mouth opening in a silent moan as you clenched your walls again.

“Sanha, where are you? Why are you standing still--”

“Fuck--AFK guys, AFK!” Sanha said hurriedly, throwing his headset off as he muted his mic. He pulled you in for a searing kiss, moving his lips fiercely against yours as you grabbed at his shoulders. “You’re fucking evil.”

“That’s what you get for not paying attention to me,” You panted against his mouth, sluggishly getting off his lap. Sanha practically kicked his gaming chair back as he towered over you, removing both of your shirts before he pushed you down on his bed. He pulled your thighs open, positioning his cock at your entrance. “Fuck, do you know how hard it was to not fuck you while I was playing?”

You whined as he moved his tip up and down your slit, tapping the head at your sensitive bud. “Now you have all my attention, baby.”

The two of you moaned loudly as he sheathed himself in your cunt, momentarily forgetting that there were five other inhabitants of his dorm. Sanha started a brutal pace from the beginning, thrusting into you with no restraints. Your hands tangled themselves in his hair as you pulled him down for a kiss, muffling your moans against his mouth.

“Mmmf, Sanha--”

He groaned, biting your bottom lip before lifting your thighs so that your legs hung from his shoulder, allowing him to penetrate even deeper in your cunt, “Shit, I missed your pussy baby. You’re fucking dripping on my sheets, God.”

His hands flew to your chest, roughly groping your breasts as he used it for leverage to fuck into you at a faster pace. The sounds in his room were obscene, the squelch of your arousal and the smack of his balls hitting your ass drowning out anything else.

Sanha felt like he was drunk on your cunt, breathing heavily as he tried to get more sounds out of you, your moans music to his ears. He hissed as your nails clawed at his arms, a telltale sign that you were nearing your end. “S-Sanha, I-fuck!”

“Are you close, baby?” He asked authoritatively, his heart swelling as you nodded with a whine, your hands scrambling to feel every inch of his skin. You keened as he called your name, commanding you to look at him as you reached your orgasm.

The tension in your stomach snapped when he snuck a hand down to play at your clit, rubbing it between two of his fingers as he tweaked your nipple, fucking you through your high. Your toes curled in pleasure, legs convulsing as you let out a high-pitched moan. You tried your best to maintain eye contact, but the dizzying euphoria made your lids flutter close, Sanha harshly sucking hickeys in your neck as he too, chased, his high.

He cursed, still drawing circles on your clit as he rutted his hips into yours. You screamed as you were forced into another orgasm, your tight pulsating walls around his cock enough to push him to the edge. Sanha groaned gravelly, his nails digging into your waist as he released his load in your cunt.

Sanha pulled out when he felt his cock fully flaccid, sitting back against his palms as he watched both of your cum leak out your entrance. Your chest heaved up and down as you tried to regain your breath, meeting his eyes from where you laid. Sanha chuckled, kissing your knee before standing to get some tissues, coming back to carefully wipe your cunt clean.

You reached your arms out for him to lay down next to you as soon as he threw the soiled tissue away. He smiled lovingly, joining you on the bed and wrapping his arms around you in a hug.

“Are you upset with me?” He asked cutely, pecking your nose. You grinned and buried your face in his chest, kissing the space between his collarbones. “No, you’re here with me now.”

Sanha giggled, stroking your hair as he tapped his fingers at the small of your back, “’M sorry for ignoring you, baby. I love you.”

“I love you too,” You said, humming as you closed your eyes, sleep slowly overtaking you. He tutted, removing his arms from your body as he sat up, “No! y/n, you have to pee first before you sleep.”

“But I’m tired,” You whined, reaching for him again. Sanha shook his head, gently pulling you up, “Baby, if you get a UTI, you’re gonna hate yourself. Now c’mon, peeing only takes a couple seconds.”

You grumbled as he found one of his oversized t-shirts, dressing you before finding a pair of shorts for himself. You let out a woah as you stood, holding onto Sanha for support as your legs started to wobble. Your boyfriend chuckled smugly, squeezing your waist as you regained your balance, “You good, baby?”

“Shut up.”

The two of you glanced at his computer, which was now at the main screen of the game. “Do you think they heard, baby?”

“No way,” Sanha said, though he couldn’t deny the slight fear in the pit of his stomach if his friends really did hear you and him having sex. “I muted myself...right?”

You shrugged, not really minding before going to open the door, leading the two of you out of his room. Your face flushed, your feet stopping dead in their tracks as you came face to face with the rest of Astro, all five of them giving you and your boyfriend knowing looks as they sat dispersed around the living room.

“Ah hyungs!”

“I really hope you two used protection,” Eunwoo lectured, though you saw the smirk on his face.

“I’m--bathroom--peeing...yeah.” You said embarrassed, scurrying off to the direction of their bathroom, yelping as your legs almost gave in.

“Woah, careful y/n,” Rocky snickered sending a wink in Sanha’s direction. The boys began teasing their youngest as soon as you closed the door to the bathroom, Sanha hiding his face in his hands, “Are you really going to do this every time y/n comes over?? It’s been more than a year!”

“No, we only do it when you two kids are loud as hell.” Bin said bluntly, slapping Myungjun’s arm in amusement. Jinwoo chuckled, lightly pointing a finger at your boyfriend, “You better have this much energy during promotions, Sanha--”

“Hyung!” ______________________________

4-6-21

#woah where did this come from?#im also just obsessed with sanha's part in one and that mayhaps was the inspiration #and also gamer tingz #sanha #yoon sanha #astro #astro smut #astro fluff #astro au #astro scenarios #sanha smut #sanha fluff #sanha au #sanha scenarios #request

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karlsjackbox · 3 years ago

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the end. | irl!quackity x gn!reader

A VIEW OF two people falling out of love.

type: angst

warnings: taking pills (brief, not much context), swearing, fight, death threat

w/c: 1.6k

quackity pushed his hair out of his face, fingers placing themselves in a rhythm on the keyboard. music played through his headphones, placed on the second to last volume to help soothe his aching headache. eyes traveling to the corner of the screen, his eyebrows furrowed at the sight of it being 4:57am. rubbing his eyes, he leaned back and let out a sigh. saving the document he was writing on, quackity shut off the monitor and shuffled his feet.

the door across the room opened. snapping his eyes forward, quackity was met with his s/o holding their cat, tired smile adorning their face. quackity mirrored the smile, pushing himself off of the chair and standing beside his love. “you’re awake late.” he muttered, though his words slurred together. y/n looked at him with a lopsided grin, pressing a short kiss to his lips. “couldn’t sleep without you.” quackity gasped, using his hands to cover tiger’s eyes.

the paired laughed, dragging themselves to the bedroom.

it had been a few weeks. y/n’s eyes forced themselves open, bed empty beside them. quackity was laughing down the hallway, having to ignored the text from y/n asking him to tone down just a little. rubbing their eyes, y/n sat up and tapped on their phone. 4:23 am. muttering a curse to themself, they laid back down. shutting their eyes, y/n eventually fell asleep to the sound of their boyfriends muffled laughter and curses.

quackity ended the stream near 5am. he leaned back with a sigh, rubbing his face as the discord call eventually dropped. grabbing his phone, he check notifications and read the text from y/n with a frown. he texted a quick sorry ! just saw this :( coming to bed now <3. with no text back, he pushed himself off of the chair and shuffled his way to the bedroom. tiger rubbed against his leg, the mexican biting a smile back. y/n laid curled up, body facing the wall as they snored quietly.

quackity shuffled out of his day clothes, sliding into pajamas as he laid beside y/n and fell asleep.

y/n danced around the kitchen, music playing quietly through their phone as they made their breakfast. they hummed along, carefully pouring their cereal into their bowl. scratching their chin, they turned at the noise of somebody behind them. quackity stood in the doorway, hair messed up from sleep. “hi, my love.” y/n greeted.

taking a minute to answer, quackity shut off his phone and sighed. “good morning.” he sat down at the table, rubbing his eyes. “whats up?” y/n asked, pouring their milk and grabbing a spoon from the drawer. they sat across from quackity, who had picked up his phone as it buzzed.

“tommy wants me to record today and george wants me on his stream. i’m trying to make them both work and i just don’t know if i can.” quackity explained, using his hand for more emphasize. y/n swallowed the cereal before answering, crossing their legs at the ankle. “i think you need a day off.” they huffed, eyes rolling. “i wish.” quackity responded, standing to make his own cereal.

“i’m serious. we haven’t spent time together in forever.” y/n shrugged, getting no response. “i can try for soon, but definitely not today.” quackity kissed y/n’s temple before he sat across from them again.

quackity didn’t talk to y/n until the next afternoon.

y/n sat on the couch, holding a mug of hot cocoa. their legs were crossed, eye trained to the television screen as rapunzel played. they hummed along to the songs, turning at the sound of footsteps. quackity held his phone to his ear, laughing at something somebody said.

y/n smiled at him and gave a short wave, quackity repeating the wave and making his way into the kitchen. the refrigerator door opened and closed, y/n turning their head and resuming the movie.

quackity took out the strawberry container from the fridge and made his way into the living room, standing at the doorway as he listened to karl talk. eventually he tossed the container away, finishing the strawberries and going back upstairs to his recording room.

by the time the movie finished, the sun was barely kissing the horizon. turning spotify on through the tv, music started to play through the playlist, ‘y/n & quackity!!’. y/n smiled at the memory of them sitting together and making the playlist on their second date.

making their way into the kitchen, y/n opened the cabinet and pulled out the pasta noodles. pulling out a pot and filling it with water, they began to boil it and dump in the noodles. their phone gave a simple ding! and another notification came through.

alex<3: can u plz turn music down? streaming soon x

y/n frowned, though gave a simple thumbs up. they tapped the spoon on the side of the bowl and left it to drip, entering the living room and shutting of the tv in a whole. tiger sat on the couch, head peeking up with a quiet ‘mrrp?’ as the noise suddenly ended. cooing, y/n walked over and scooped him up, cradling him as they made their way into the kitchen again to stir the pasta.

setting tiger down on the floor after 15 minutes, y/n scooped the pasta into two seperate bowls and ran butter through them. deciding against sauce, y/n placed the bowls on the table and texted quackity.

you: made pasta !! <3

the food was still untouched by the next morning.

it had been a while since then. y/n woke up before quackity. they were faced with his back, black sweatshirt hugging his body. they sat up slowly, sun fading through the curtains and hitting the blanket. they shivered a little, blinking hard a few times to try and wake themselves up. after a few more moments, they pulled their legs out from underneath the blanket and carefully moved away from quackity and out of the room.

quackity woke up an hour or so later, groaning softly as the sun had now positioned itself to hit his eyes directly. he sat up, head turning to look at y/n. frowning as nobody was there, he picked up his phone and drug himself out of the room. the house was empty as he searched around for his s/o, frown adorning his face.

standing in front of the fridge, a sticky note hung to it.

quackity ripped off the sticky note, crumbling it in his pocket as he opened the fridge to search for his breakfast.

y/n returned home that night to the noise of muffled swears and laughter, though y/n wore mainly a frown. their bones ached and a headache roared. sighing, they dropped their bag and kicked off their shoes and made their way into the bathroom. they opened the medicine cabinet and took out tylenol, swallowing the pill with sink water in their mouth.

rubbing their nose, y/n made their way upstairs to their bedroom. they grabbed clean clothes and made their way into the bathroom, turning on the shower and letting the water run until it was hot. they stripped and dropped their clothes onto the floor, pushing them into the corner before stepping into the shower. y/n couldn’t help the sigh that escaped their mouth as everything from the day washed away, lathering their hair with shampoo and conditioner.

quackity ended the stream around the same time that y/n stepped out of the shower. he sat at his desk for a moment longer, chatter with his friends slowly dying down. “hey guys, i’m gonna head off now.” after a wave of goodbyes, he left the discord call and stood up.

quackity made his way into the bedroom, y/n sat on the edge of the bed. sliding off his beanie, quackity ruffled his hair and let himself fall beside his s/o. they didn’t talk, y/n texting somebody before shutting off their phone. they let out a sigh and rubbed their face, tossing their phone beside them.

curling up, y/n and quackity fell asleep facing each other for the last time.

they woke up at the same time. y/n sat up and rubbed their eyes, yawn falling from their mouth. there was a tension in the room quackity couldn’t figure out. “hey, wanna watch a movie?” y/n asked, scratching their nose as they met eyes with their sleepy boyfriend. “mm.. i can’t. i have homework and i have to be on a stream,” quackity slurred, missing how y/n’s eyebrows furrowed. tsking, y/n stood. “right.”

quackity’s head shot up at their tone. “what do you mean?” he questioned, choosing to stay silent on their eye roll. “you haven’t spent time with me in ages. i’m shocked i even fell asleep with you beside me.” the younger shrugged, opening their closet to pull out a sweatshirt.

“yeah, because its my job? the fuck do you mean?” quackity sat up, leaning his weight on his hands. “okay? you can still make time for me. i’m not just somebody who feeds you, alex.” y/n turned to meet his eyes, hands resting on their hips. “i can handle myself, you know.” quackity rolled his eyes.

“i wanna see you fucking try.” y/n looked the older up and down. “you just mooch off of me anyway. if you’re so pissy about me working then leave.” quackity seethed, anger radiating off of me. he froze as the words fell out of his mouth, y/n’s hands dropping. “i hope you fucking starve. waste of space.” y/n cursed, turning and grabbing their bag from the closet.

“y/n, i didn’t-- we didn’t mean that.” quackity apologized, stepping towards the younger. y/n stayed silent, shoving random clothes into their backpack. quackity didn’t try to fight them, standing and watching them pack with tears brimming his eyes.

“..is it the end for us?” it was silent. the silence pushed against quackity’s skull, taunting him in a way he would remember forever. y/n turned, face blank as their eyes were puffy.

“it was the end a long time ago.”

#quackity x reader #quackity x you #mcyt x reader #streamer x reader #streamer x you #mcyt x you #dsmp x reader #dsmp imagine #dream smp imagines #dream smp x reader #dsmp imagines

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hansolmates · 4 years ago

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cherry contact |🍒

summary: jihoon has access to all versions of you - your credit score, shopping habits, work emails, even your terrible tinder history. pairing; fbi agent!jihoon x civilian!reader (f) genre/warnings; fluff, crack, it’s really just that “your fbi agent” meme that caused everyone 8 years ago to put tape over their webcams, questionable viewing habits for an fbi agent, language, dick talk, mentions of sex, jihoon has feelings and is confused, he is a PINER, tw—sexual harassment w/c; 3.3k a/n; i can’t believe i finished this😭😭 part of meraki’s job collaboration and i’ve been dying to do a svt collab since the dawn of time and finally today’s the day! it’s been a hot moment since i’ve written for jihoon, glad i managed to get those svt writing muscles going! a huge thank you to @merakiiverse and @woozisnoots for putting this together. readers pls definitely check back on the masterlist linked above to see more of the other talented cwc writers and their rendition of the job prompt!

if you like this fic please consider giving it a like n’share!🤓🖥🤓🖥

“Kevin, 32, works at Kodak,” you scroll further to the description, “I love being tied up and need a dominatrix, have swing at home—no.” Swipe right.

“Lisa, 24, works at Infinity Dance Studio,” you definitely are weak for athletic ladies, “My hobbies include cuticle care and online shopping! Looking for a sugar daddy or mommy that can spoil me rotten—definitely can’t afford that kind of relationship.” Swipe right.

“Hansol, 26, works in an art museum,” sounds promising, you love art, “wait, why are all his pictures of him holding fish? Is he inside a fish? Who the heck finds that attractive?” Swipe right.

“Billiam, 31, works in finance. Needs a bratty baby girl who can triangle,” you grimace, “what is with these guys and stating their kinks from the get-go? Gotta take a girl out to dinner first, and the fuck is a triangle?”

You swore off Tinder since the dark ages, also known as senior year of college. However you’re in a particular slump, thirst-trapped between needing some serious dick and a committed relationship. You’d prefer the latter, but after a stressful day at work and the fact that it’s the ass crack o’dawn, you’ll take what you can get.

“Bye Billiam,” you sing-song into your phone, moving to swipe right.

Except you accidentally drop your phone between your sheets, and when you pick it up you accidentally swipe left.

“Fuck fuck fuck me with a fuckin’ fuck nugget!” you cry out into oblivion. You’re so glad you live alone at the very least, it stops you from looking like a crazy person when you talk your potential sexipades out.

Billiam has Super-liked you!

“No. Nononono—” you bludgeon your head against your pillow, frowning when your phone opens up a chat for you and Billiam.

Billiam: hi can u check if my dick is too small

You: please, don’t send me a picture of your dick.

Billiam is typing…

You: for fuck’s sake—

“—that’s disgusting,” Jihoon curses, and immediately sends out the screenshot for sexual harassment.

“What’s disgusting?” Mingyu chimes, swiveling in his spinny chair from his side of the room.

“Don’t look,” Jihoon gags, reaching for a bottle of Coca-Cola from the mini-fridge. “You’ll throw up your fried chicken.”

“My person is a twenty-one year old nympho who also happens to be a incel,” Mingyu chastises to his screen, closing up the eighth tab of BBC porn he’s seen this week, “he doesn’t know how well he’s avoiding the FBI’s eyes,” Mingyu shakes his head, “so I’ve seen some pretty bad shit, but I’ll take your word for it.”

“No,” he echoes your name like you’ve done the most heinous thing in the world, “no, no! Why would you swipe left on Jackson? You’re way out of his league! He literally looks like he has a pea-sized brain!”

“He does look like he has half a brain cell,” your voice reverberates through his noise-cancelling headphones, unknowingly agreeing to Jihoon’s passionate throw of anger, “but I’m deprived and desperate, so!”

It’s like you can hear his sentiments exactly.

“Literally, you could have any person you want,” Jihoon chastises through his desktop, glaring heavily at your bedroom camera, “you’re wasting your time with these losers!”

Oblivious, you let yourself dangle across the bed. The camera isn’t the best quality, but Jihoon watches intently at the rise and fall of your chest as you attempt to fall into a fitful sleep.

“Some yell at screens for soccer,” Minghao says to the air from his cubicle, “some yell for Starcraft, but Jihoon yells for Tinder like it’s an Olympic sport.”

“Jihoonie,” Mingyu rolls around his chair, resting a long arm over the backrest, “do you have a crush on your civilian?”

Jihoon immediately swivels around his hair, meeting the amused eyes of Mingyu. “No,” he says sharply, whipping around to glare at his screen.

He glares harder the longer Mingyu’s simple question sinks in. He doesn’t have a crush on you, he likes you. Jihoon swallows his sigh, wondering why you would want to go as low as Tinder to look for a potential tryst. From your profile, you’re absolutely beautiful and intelligent. You have simple pleasures that match his—a hot cup of tea right after dark, snuggling under a weighted blanket while watching anime, and sleeping in on Sundays.

Unlike him, you don’t see the world through half a dozen lenses and a plethora of information right at your fingertips. No, you’re lucky.

“Hey can you grab me my water bottle?” Mingyu asks over his shoulder.

Jihoon thinks nothing of it, leaving his post for the thirty seconds it takes to get to the mini-fridge and grab Mingyu’s Hydroflask.

“You got a call,” Mingyu says when he plops the bottle on his desk, indicating to the red blinker on Jihoon’s computer.

It isn’t until he puts on his headphones does he take care to see why his blinker is going off.

He’s getting an incoming call. From you.

You’ve been waiting on the line for about two minutes. He lets two additional minutes breeze by because Jihoon is internally screaming. You’re calling again. There’s a fire blazing in his brain, his fingers hot as he twitches against the spacebar of his keyboard.

From the monitor he can see that you’ve given up on sleep, hands pawing through your drawer so you can take a final swipe at your magenta-tinted lip balm before nesting yourself in the sheets. You’re kicking around as if you don’t have work at 9AM, smacking your lips to apply the shiny salve while you wait for your call to be picked up.

“Why is my civilian calling me,” it isn’t a question, it’s a thinly veiled indication that Jihoon is ready to fight whoever compromised him like this.

Mingyu and Minghao fail to answer. That’s okay, he isn’t opposed to killing both if neither fess up.

It would be so easy for him to ignore the call, or redirect it to another part of the office. Yet he aches to talk to you, for real talk to you. As if you’re just two regular plain-old human beings with normal lives, and as if he didn’t know every nook and cranny about your daily routine and your favorite breakfast foods.

Call it pride, call it confidence, but Jihoon’s been pretty good at games and he hopes prior experience helps him get over this hurdle. Slipping on his headset, he accepts the call and answers in a controlled voice, “This is the local hotline for sexual harassment reports, are you here to report a case?”

Okay, so this is the closest thing he can get to having a full-fledged conversation with you, so he’ll take it.

“Hi,” you mumble your name into the phone, and he nearly disintegrates right then and there. It’s different when he can hear your voice directly in his ears, definitively reaching out to him as opposed to being a fly on the wall, “I received an email that a report was sent out for my previous chat as sexual harassment, but I didn’t send out a report.”

“Yes,” Jihoon replies smoothly, tapping his nails against his thighs, “it’s a new update.”

“Oh, well thank you,” you reply, and Jihoon sees from the camera that you’re staring at your phone in curiosity.

“It’s my job,” he says, and the words hold more weight than you think, “are you okay?”

“Is it also your job to ask how I’m doing?”

He smiles wryly, and he looks up at the monitor to see how you’ve considerably relaxed on your bed. Your legs dangle in the air, and you’re hugging a mango plushie with all the love in the world. “Not really, but I figured I’d ask. I don’t think I’d be able to recover from a dick that looks like an unhinged toenail.”

Your laugh flutters in his ears, and his stomach is flip-flopping with more than just his shitty ramen lunch. Your face curls and wrinkles into happiness at the lewd joke, and you rest your chin on your stuffed fruit.

“I’m okay,” you finally answer, “it’s not the first time I’ve seen subpar dick. But thank you… what’s your name?”

“Uji,” he says, a codename that he considers as precious as his actual name, “feel free to call or text this number if you’re ever feeling uncomfortable and in distress.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, good night Uji.”

“Good night.”

That wasn’t so bad, Jihoon thinks as he hangs up the phone. He dims the monitors to let you freshen up and get ready for bed, as per your schedule. After tonight, he hopes he can be sated with his curiosity of you. Maybe he needs to follow your plans and open up a dating account or something, he feels that he’s starting to get a little too engrossed in your presence.

The waning starts today.

You: help, i’m feeling uncomfortable and in distress

Uji: what is it this time?

You: i can’t decide which weighted blanket i should get. Will more weight make me feel more comforted or will i accidentally suffocate myself in my sleep?

The waning of you did not start that night, in fact it never began. Jihoon’s been on edge for weeks, simultaneously teetering between what he calls the high-school equivalent of the talking stage and an absolute catastrophe.

It started as an accident, you meant to call your friend’s number for cooking help but since the last call before your friends was his, you called Jihoon instead. To your surprise, he knew how to roll out homemade pasta without a pasta machine. You kept him on the call for the entirety of dinner preparation, and he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pride when your pasta turned out perfect and you were happy and full for the entire night.

Weeks later, and you’ve been texting each other for shits and giggles. At first you chalk up your insistence that he’s basically Human Google and has the answers to seemingly anything and everything, but over time it seems that you enjoy your daily interactions with him. Whether it be a simple phone call asking how to unclog your drain or a screenshot comparing two different KitchenAids, he’s at your disposal.

The burner phone he’s been holding as of late is on silent, but he’s able to pick it up immediately. It’s almost intuition, coupled with the way he notices whenever you seem in a pickle and you need to contact him. However he does not have a chance to formulate a reply, as you’re now calling him.

“Couldn’t wait?” he speaks as if you’re familiar with each other, as if you’re friends. Jihoon longs for that so much, he would love to be upgraded to someone other than the IT guy you text for funsies.

“Yes,” you say, voice laced with determination, “I’m deciding on whether to just like or Super-Like this guy on Light a Flame.”

Jihoon deflates a little, but steels himself. You’d never want to go on a date with the IT guy, it seems that you enjoy the anonymity of your recent communications. Your conversations are definitely meme-worthy.

“Who is it?”

“His name’s Lee Jihoon, 25, works in the FBI.”

He chokes on his coffee, precious beans from Argentina, and the liquid is flying across his keyboard.

Pulling up your phone view, it confirms the worst. In a moment of Weakness with a capital W, Jihoon had caved and made a Light a Flame profile the other night. It’s an app reserved for more serious relationships, which means you’ve finally graduated from Tinder.

“Are you okay?” he wants to cry when he hears you on the other line, genuinely panicked. “Do you need me to send you his profile?”

“N-no,” he sputters, rubbing a rough napkin from McDonalds over his dripping chin. He thought he privated his profile last week after he realized there was nothing he could do to let loose of you. Turns out that isn’t the case, because you’re currently pursuing his profile and actually kinda-sorta considering him for a potentially serious relationship.

“C’mon, Uji,” you tease lightly, “you always seem to know what to do. This is your area of expertise after all, since you work for that kind of department.”

What should he do, scratch that, what can he do? It’s a complete violation of policy to be fraternizing with his civilian life. Sure, there has been episodes of civilians and agents meeting each other, but only minor violations that both parties forgot about shortly after. He’s so far deep at this point, he can risk being relocated or losing his civilian—losing you.

“Do you think he really works in the FBI?” you say when he doesn’t reply immediately, “he’s really cute, though. Totally looks like my style, and he likes My Hero as well! C’mon, I just need for you to check as to whether he’s a homicidal maniac or a compulsive liar.”

Liar. He’s a liar.

That self-accusation prompts him to slump in defeat, and he mumbles in the phone, “I don’t think he’s worth it. I’d say pass.”

“Hey, Coups has seniority,” Soonyoung pats Jihoon thoughtfully on the back with one hand, and grilling meat with the other. Barbeque always lifted up Jihoon’s spirits. “Why don’t you give it a chance and meet her for real? And then he can give me your super cute civilian and then he can give my shitty civilian to some newbie.”

“And if it doesn’t work out, I just lose her,” Jihoon’s eyes are watering, most likely from the excess smoke around their grill, but it does align with his current state of sadness. It was the right thing to do, he thinks over and over as he replays that phonecall from last night. “Hoshi, if you were in my situation, would you have done the same?”

“Like I said–” Soonyoung—codename Hoshi, waves his tongs around like a magic wand, “your civilian is super cute, so I would be making a beeline to her house and—”

“Okay, don’t finish that sentence,” you’re his civilian, not Soonyoung’s.

“Cheer up, c’mon,” Soonyoung’s filling his bowl with all sorts of delicious things, charred vegetables, mixed rice, and pork belly. Jihoon’s favorite is pork belly, so eventually he relents with a timid smile, taking out his chopsticks to appease his friend, “there it is, Uji. Food always makes things better—”

“Uji?”

Both off-duty agents freeze, hearing the familiar ting of your voice as it glares holes into Jihoon’s back. It’s you. Since they’re off the clock, he would have no idea you’d be here. Usually that’s fine, it’s early morning and it’s pretty unlikely that you’d run into your civilian considering you’re supposed to know every second of their schedule. It seems that tonight you’ve varied from the norm.

“Uh, hey?”

His back is still facing you, and he’s side eying Soonyoung in a panic. He’s wearing a cap and a nondescript hoodie, feeling like a shlub as your familiar voice pings back at him with excitement.

“I knew I recognized your voice!” you’re unfazed, definitely not realizing the distress the two men are currently going through. “What a small world, I didn’t think we’d ever actually run into each other!”

“Talk to her, you ass!” Soonyoung hisses, and immediately swivels his chair so he has no choice but to face you.

You’re so, so pretty. Prettier in person, prettier than any crappy 480p screen can give him. You’re definitely not dressed for barbeque, in fact you look like you’re just passing by to pick up a to-go order after a night out. You’re dressed in a silky looking velvet off-the-shoulder top, the cherry red color practically melting onto your skin. The black skirt paired with it has Jihoon salivating for more than just barbeque, and he has no idea how to look away.

The smile is wiped clean off your face however, and you recognize him almost immediately. “Jihoon?”

This should be a moment of joy for him, after all it’s far too late to go back at this point. You look a little hurt, your face twisted in confusion as you put two and two together.

Soonyoung excuses himself to go to the bathroom, although neither party seems to care. The lame, over-distended EDM music that plays over the cacophony of the barbeque place seems to melt in the atmosphere, much like how the smoke hits the fan, and it’s just you two in the room. Jihoon gestures a pale hand to Soonyoung’s seat, and you take a beat to reluctantly sit yourself down.

You clutch your skirt with both hands, thumbs ringing against the pleats and ironing them out. “So, you’re also Jihoon?” your voice is tiny, small and sad. Jihoon feels liquid guilt inject in his veins, and he wishes he could reach out and pat your shoulder, hold your hand, something. However no matter how much he knows you, he’s a stranger to you. “Why did you lie to me?”

“It’s… complicated,” you shake your head at his pathetic reply, and Jihoon hates this. He feels like he’s drowning in smoke and mirrors and the cloying scent of pork belly is now sticking to all his senses, immobilizing him.

With a cross of your arms, you scoff, “It’s always complicated.”

“Please don’t think I said those things the other night because I don’t want to date you,” Jihoon tumbles the words out like a hamster wheel, wanting to speed up to your pace as fast as he can, “I want to, I really do, but it’s—”

“Complicated.”

“Yeah.”

The two of you sit in silence, letting the noise back into your little bubble. Jihoon feels his stare on you, akin to how a teacher looks over your shoulder during an exam. He robotically eats rice, grain after grain as he lets you have your look.

The slope of his nose, the cotton smooth skin, the lean yet strong stature. You can’t believe he matches the Light a Flame profile perfectly. Other than the frumpy clothes, he matches the man on your phone, a simple picture in a black suit that reminds you strangely of the movie Kingsman. You mentally roll through what you remember from his profile, his hobbies, his likes and dislikes, his occupation—

“Wait,” you pause, your brows knitting together, “so the FBI thing on your profile… is not a joke?”

Jihoon forgets to chew his last bite, and he swallows a whole two centimeters of meat down his throat. Ouch.

“It’s—”

“Complicated.”

The adjective has a whole new meaning now. It’s crazy how in so little words, so much is exchanged between you two. You might not be realizing it, but Jihoon’s so attuned to you he feels like the pick to your guitar, strumming and humming along your chords like it’s second nature. It really isn’t fair, but anticipating your reactions helps greatly.

“There’s things you’re not telling me.”

“Right.”

“And things you can’t tell me,” you add.

“Yes.”

“Then what are some things you can tell me?”

“I’d… rather not here,” Jihoon’s eyes dart around the room, looking for all the pinholes and micro cams attached to the restaurant. By the bonsai, under the table, in the koi tank, “I need to work out some paperwork before anything.”

“Paperwork?”

Jihoon nods mutely, but he looks at you with a litany of emotions in his eyes you’re reeling back in your stool. Why do you feel like this man knows you from a simple five-minute interaction? And why do you feel like you can trust this man with your life?

“Okay,” you finally say.

“Really? Okay?” you think he’s cute, the way his eyes perk up and his back straightens.

“Really.”

Silence fills the space once more. This time however, it feels more at ease.

“The only reason why I’m saying yes,” you pretend to nonchalantly play with your fingertips, a manicure reserved for a date you’ve long abandoned for this evening in favor of a new flame, “is because I think FBI agents are kinda hot.”

A flush blooms on Jihoon’s cheeks, and you can’t help but giggle.

#jihoon x reader #woozi x reader #caratwritersclub #kwritersworldnet #svtcreations #jihoon fic #woozi fic #seventeen fic #seventeen fanfic #seventeen scenarios #jihoon scenarios #woozi scenarios

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arhvste · 4 years ago

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MIYA ATSUMU - PROVE EM WRONG

- summary - irked by his brother and his wife’s flirting in front of him, astumu decides it finally time to prove to his family that he too has settled down and with someone he genuinely loves at that - fluff - x f reader

- an - this is the alternative route to the osamu fic i wrote which is based off of this ask an anon sent in earlier, someone suggested i do both brothers with this plot and i think they were joking but i did end up getting a little carried away and writing two different routes for it so here u go >:)

“Oi, Samu! Stop flirtin with ya wife right in front’a me and get cookin, I’m starvin!” Atsumu whined as he rested his head against the kitchen prep counter which was currently occupied with countless cooking utensils scattered across the cool metal surface and various ingredients dotted around.

“Yer just jealous I have a gorgeous wife and you don’t” With a smug smile, Osamu wrapped his arm around his wife’s waist bringing her in close enough for him to press a quick kiss to her flour dusted cheek.

“Yuck! Not over the food I’m beggin ya!”

She giggled and pulled her husband back in close to her before turning to give a quick smile to his irritated twin.

“Perhaps we should find you a girlfriend Tsumu! I know a few people who I’m sure would be at least willing to go out on a date with you.”

“Yeah, you’d probably have to pay em first!”

Atsumu huffed before sitting up properly with a smirk painted across his face.

“Actually, no need. I’ve got a girlfriend already.”

Osamu narrowed his eyes at his brother unsure whether to believe him or not. Atsumu was known for being sly especially when it came to him.

“Really? How comes we’ve never met ‘er then?” Osamu quizzed, eyes boring into his complacent brother’s.

“Cause she’s always busy and when she’s not she’s usually at my practices, besides, media’s a pain in the ass we don’t want them following us and bein annoyin wherever we go.” Atsumu spoke matter-of-factly.

Still not buying his brothers claims, Osamu thought of something that would surely catch Atsumu out of his potential lie. He nodded towards his wife to back him up and she sent him a knowing smile already knowing what he was thinking.

“We were thinkin of having the family over this weekend for dinner cause we’ve got an announcement to make, why dont’cha bring yer girl with you?” Osamu observed his twin watching for any signs of panic or discomfort but Atsumu’s face stayed content as if he was trying to provoke the couple in front of him.

“Lemme see if she’s free, I only have training in the morning but I’ll check if she’s got anythin going on before I drag her out.” Atsumu pulled out his phone as he stood up after checking the time. “Ah shit, I gotta get back, Omi’s gonna kill me if I’m late one more time, see you Saturday I guess.” He shrugged and waved to the confused pair left in the prep kitchen.

“Yeah, see you and yer girlfriend then.”

Atsumu smirked as he headed out to leave for practice, the sudden excitement for Saturday to arrive flooding his mind.”

If there was anything Atsumu loved more than you, it was proving people wrong.

“y/n! Baby I’m home!” Atsumu called out, entering the sleek apartment closing the door securely behind him.

“Coming!” Your melodic voice called out to your boyfriend bringing a smile to his face. He heard the sounds of your feet padding across the heated floor towards him. After a few seconds of waiting, you finally reached your tired boyfriend who offered you a lazy smirk as he brought you into his arms.

“There’s my girl.” He muttered pressing a feathery kiss to your cheek before pulling you in for a deep kiss to your lips. He pulled you in even closer, hand supporting your lower back and the other moving down to give your ass a quick squeeze signalling for you to jump so he could carry you. Never letting his lips leave yours, Atsumu dragged his hand from your back to help his other hand in supporting the weight of your body now your legs had instinctively wrapped around his slim waist as your hands carded through his soft golden tufts. He carried you over to the couch and sat, having you straddle his waist before pulling away to allow yourselves to catch your breaths.

“What’s gotten you so worked up?” you huffed as you leant back slightly to look into his glinting eyes.

“Nothin much, saw Samu and his wife earlier… they don’t believe you exist.” A pout etched onto his face as you raised your eyebrow.

“Should I be offended?”

“Nah, guess they’re right, they haven’t met’cha yet, but we’re both so busy we never found the time to introduce ya.”

You hummed as Astumu pouted, face buried in your neck, his warm breath tickling your neck.

“Actually,” Atsumu began. “Would’ja mind comin to meet them on Saturday? Like, my whole family. You can say no if yer busy or if yer not ready I totally get-”

You shut the boy up with a quick peck and smiled gently at him.

“Tsumu, I’d love to meet your family.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course.”

Atsumu felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulder, he didn’t think convincing you would’ve been that easy. He was confident that you would’ve been open to meeting his family at some point, but there was still the lingering thoughts of doubt in which you may not have thought he was taking you or the relationship seriously, but after seeing your genuine smile and hearing your firm answer, Atsumu’s doubts washed away and a satisfied and relieved smile came over his face.

“They’re gonna be so mad when they see just how hot my girlfriend is, yer gonna show everyone who comes up, I just know it angel.”

You playfully hit your boyfriend's chest with a firm look on your face as he laughed.

“Don’t say that! I bet your family's great Tsumu, I can’t wait to meet them.”

Although you’d already said yes to meeting his family, Astumu felt his heart warm at the sound of you saying you were excited to meet his family. The fact you were happy to be involved even more in his life only made him want to let you even further in if he could. Atsumu was never really one for long-term relationships hence why he’d never bothered introducing any previous girlfriends to his family because he knew it would end eventually due to the fact he had to spend so much time travelling and at training. He had been taking a break from dating when he met you. You were introduced as the new MSBY social media manager, you were given the task to run the team’s official social medias, monitor the player’s accounts and keep an eye on certain articles while organising interviews and event appearances. It was a big job but you took it head on from the get-go thoroughly impressing Atsumu who made no attempts to hide his interest in you. Hell, he even went as far as to get scolded by you a few times for posting some risky shirtless pictures to his instagram purely for the fact he knew you were monitoring the accounts and that you’d see them.

5 months later and Atsumu had finally convinced you to let him take you out on just one date. But one date soon turned into two, then three, then seven and the rest was history. He wasn’t sure why you’d eventually given into his persistent flirting and whining but he didn’t particularly care either. He had you now and that’s all that mattered. You were the only girlfriend he’d had who understood and accepted his demanding work schedule because you yourself were on a similar schedule which he thanked the heavens for. Thinking back, Atsumu probably should’ve brought you to meet his family sooner but with the excitement of constant games, intense training, interviews and event appearances and grasping onto whatever time he could get alone with you, proved to overpower the thoughts of how significant it is for your partner to meet your family.

Whatever, they were getting the chance to meet you this weekend so better late than never he supposed.

Saturday rolled round quickly and you and Atsumu were exhausted from a weeks worth of demanding work but there was no way in hell Atsumu was going to forget about how he needed to wipe his brother's smug smirk off his face when he introduced his incredible girlfriend.

Dressing nicely, the two of you rushed out of the apartment a little later than planned but Atsumu didn’t mind. Being a little late just meant more people would arrive before him allowing him to make a big entrance and cause a scene about who he’d brought along. You weren’t an accessory to Atsumu and he hoped you weren’t thinking that’s what today was about. Sure he had a petty side goal, but he was genuinely proud of you and would show you off whenever he could especially in front of the other MSBY players who’d only scowl at him when he’d wrap his arms around your smaller frame from behind while mouthing a ‘mine’ for the other men to sulk over.

You arrived after a 15 minute drive and Atsumu opened your door for you guiding you up towards his twin’s spacious home.

Knocking a few times, Atsumu gave your hand a quick squeeze of reassurance as you felt your heart pound ever so slightly quicker at the thought of meeting your boyfriend’s whole family.

The door was opened by Osamu who already had a look of amusement written across his face, ready to ridicule his brother for lying. His face dropped when he saw you holding his brother’s hand and blinked a few times to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him.

“He didn’t pay you to come with him did he?” Osamu questioned with shock as Atsumu sent a sharp flick to his brother’s shoulder. You hummed in amusement before smiling lazily at your boyfriend’s twin.

“My presence is an extremely high price, I doubt he would’ve been able to afford it if he wasn’t so persistent and annoying.”

“Tsumu, I approve, I like her.” Osamu snickered before letting the two of you enter his warm home filled with members of the Miya family.

A chorus of welcomes came their way as many family members rushed over to gush over how ‘out of Atsumu’s league’ you were and ‘why had you wanted to date someone as messy as him’ only for you to laugh brightly and tell his family countless stories about Atsumu’s antics at training and post match celebrations.

Astumu didn’t even mind you were poking fun at him every so often, growing up with Osamu had gotten him pretty used to it but he was more focused on how naturally you fit into his family. It was like you were meant to be a part of it.

Watching you as you spoke and laughed with his family, Atsumu let his thoughts wander to when and how he’d eventually go about making you officially part of his family one day.

general taglist → @atsumuwoah @bloody-bella @bbymilkbread @miracleboy420 @doggonudez @atsunakaashi @peteunderoos @tsukishimagizzard @saturnfarie @toffees-main @zumisace @boosyboo9206 @totorosleaff

#miya atsumu #atsumu x reader #atsumu x you #atsumu fic #atsumu scenario #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader #hq

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keilemlucent · 4 years ago

Text

lavender latte: v

(T (for now!))

hawks | takami keigo x reader

ao3

chapter 1 || chapter 2 || chapter 3 || chapter 4 || chapter 6 ||

word count: ~4k

coming to terms now, are we?

warnings: descriptions of medical settings, discussion of surgery and injury but nothing graphic, god fluff, nasty big fluff

——

wow. halfway through y’all. thank you to each and every ONE of you who have given this story a chance. enjoy some fluff and get ready for next week 👀 once again, beta-ed by the wuv @keiqos !!

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Exhaustion had long since clawed a hole in your skull.

It was one of the many forms of malefactum that came from your fucking quirk, damn it to hell. The days following any sort of intense overstimulation episode of yours were always hellish. Constant fatigue, burning migraines, dry eyes, and confusion always waited for you by the time you rolled out whatever pushed you over the edge.

The villain attack was probably the worst episode you’d had, ever.

The entire trip to the hospital had been sort of a nightmare. There were so many people that needed treatment after the attack, so many of them worse off than yourself. You were lucky enough to get into a dark hospital room fairly quickly, allowing some of your symptoms to dull.

You were just coherent and aware enough to deal with everyone you needed to, paperwork and legalities of your visit sorted. You even managed to send a few texts to your parents and work groupchat to confirm that you were safe.

After a myriad of late-night tests and exams, it was confirmed that the next morning, you’d have a procedure to mend your leg.

...

Fixing the internal damage to your leg caused by the tearing of the glass was a fairly quick affair, according to your kind-smiled surgeon.

“I know it seemed abrupt, to do it so quickly,” The surgeon stuffed her hands in the pocket of her scrubs. “But, we’ve flown in extra medical personnel to help deal with injuries from the attack and well, you’re an easy fix.”

You smiled, the best you could, groggy with the anesthetic, “I’m glad it isn’t too bad.”

“Nope! Not at all,” She laughed, far too pleasant for all the chaos just outside your dimly lit hospital room. “We’ll keep you here tonight, and you should be able to go home tomorrow afternoon. You’ll need to keep weight off of that leg for about three weeks. We’ll have a follow-up appointment then, and make sure you’re healing alright. Sound good?”

You nodded, some tension releasing from your chest.

The procedure left you with a heavy plastic boot, clasped up to your knee. Not to mention your body ached with fatigue.

Most of the rest of that day was spent spinning in and out of sleep, only waking for basic checks and a delivery of flowers you received from the teashop’s owners complete with a passive-aggressive reminder that ‘this had nothing to do with us, you can’t sue <3.’

Your constant company was Hawks’s scarlet feather. As you moved through the bends of your quirk and post-surgical recovery, you held onto it like a lifeline. With each stroke of the soft filaments, your heart rate monitor would beep slower and slower towards a relaxed rhythm.

It made you think of him, and how he felt with your quirk activated.

Despite how shitty the circumstances were, really feeling Keigo with your quirk was heavenly. Feeling him in general, physically was a fucking blessing. You spent a lot of time that night and first day at the hospital fantasizing about how the beat of his heart felt like amber drops on your tongue and orange-bound warmth in your chest.

You wanted more of it.

Keigo stayed around to help deal with the mess, for once in his career. It was weird for him to spend the following day after the attack helping out on the scene. It was even weirder for the other Pros around that were aware of his reputation of simply not doing that.

It was out of character for him.

But, then again, Keigo hadn’t ever spent as much time at someplace he enjoyed like the teashop. Hell, the whole street. He’d patrolled plenty of areas for long stretches of time, but he’d never grown attached.

You were, obviously, a big part of that.

Seeing you hurt left him frazzled and fucked, and staying behind to help pick up the mess and provide aid made him feel a hell of a lot better. Sure, it was different, having local Pros look to him for guidance when he had to purely rely on his training from the Commission as opposed to his professional experience. He did well, he knew, especially based on the way the scene calmed even when he simply flew around.

Keigo had the power to bring people ease, even if he struggled with it himself.

The idea made him think back to you, undoubtedly still in pain, but more than likely entirely fine. He ignored the urge to text you anxiously as he was still parsing over the very sweet interaction the two of you had, even if it was in such a bad circumstance.

Your sweetness at the end was his constant reminder that you would be okay.

The implication and Keigo’s knowledge post- ‘the miel incident,’ as he was calling it, was obvious, and god, he wanted to fucking drown in it. The thought of having you so close that he could hear your heartbeat and feel the drum of your voice against your chest made him weak.

He was so fucking weak for you.

It was distracting, as it always was. It seemed fairly unavoidable especially as anxiety chewed at him. The one thing that lulled him was the far off feeling of the feather he had tucked in your hand. It had to be close to you still, the beat of your heart sending him shudders if he focused on it hard enough.

It became too much, thinking of you.

As his feathers swept piles of rubble, he pulled out his phone, the sun beginning to sink in the evening sky.

You had spent most of your recovery time in and out of consciousness, enjoying the time to rest and sleep.

A short buzz from your phone forced you into a half-wakeful state. You reached to the table next to the hospital bed, grappling for your phone.

[birdboy]: hey r u alive,

[birdboy]: how r u feeling

[birdboy]: speak 2 me

You cracked a sleepy smile.

[you]: alive, tired, surgery-ied.

You took a quick snap of your booted, propped up foot.

[you]: getting discharged tomorrow babyyyy

[birdboy]: oh fuck what happened?

[birdboy]: u sure ur good

The feather against your collarbone twitched, filaments waving. You thought little of it.

[you]: i tore some shit in my leg

[you]: and yes, just tired as fuck and want to be home

[you]: hospitals SUCK

[birdboy]: true, true

[birdboy]: would u...

[birdboy]: like a visit perhaps?

[you]: u sure??

[you]: i know ur busy and i dont wanna use up ur freetime

There was a pause in Keigo’s nearly instant responses.

[birdboy]: dove.

Your breath stuttered in your chest. That was newer; you only remembered it vaguely from the . It felt far more intimate than just ‘angel,’ and it made you shiver as you read it.

[birdboy]: busy schedule??

[birdboy]: i’ll make the time angel

[birdboy]: i’d love to come visit u

You couldn’t help the smitten expression that burst across your face.

[you]: and i’d love to see you

You wished you could’ve continued the conversation, but your night nurse knocked to offer you pain medication and sedatives and you couldn’t say no to more rest. Your mind and body needed it.

As quickly as it was administered, you were out again.

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You were exhausted. Still.

When you heard voices just outside of your door, you couldn’t help cracking open your dry eyes. It seemed far too early for them to collect your vitals. The room was still dark, large windows only showing a trace of the dawn’s light stretching from the east.

Your sleep-addled mind stretched to listen:

“Thank you so much for the autograph! My son is such a huge fan of yours.”

“Oh, really! Tell him I say hi! I really adore my fans.”

Giggling.

“Is she a fan?”

“Sort of, more of a friend of mine.”

He... said it again.

A shaft of light sprayed into the room, your quirk firing at the sudden intrusion. You groan, pawing at your eye with your fist, the feather held between your fingers blocking some of the light.

Even with your diminished vision and tired mind, you still caught it when he laughed at your reaction, stepping into the room.

Honey, softness, cream and heat that made your chest thrum like embers.

“H-Hawks?” Your voice was still itchy with sleep.

“That’s me.” His laugh rolled over you as your quirk receded, palms thrumming with the silkenness of his voice, “It’s good to see you, dove.”

“S’nice to see you too,” Your chest thrummed with his words and you couldn’t restrain the smile that spread across your face, “‘Ya know, you woke me up, just now.”

Hawks gave you a little chuckle, moseying his way to a chair nearby the bed and window, “Sorry about that. I had to sneak in here before official visiting hours so I didn’t cause a ‘scene’.”

You snorted.

“You, causing a scene?” You asked, raising your eyebrows at him, “Hawks? Never. Not once.”

He stifled a laugh, dragging the thinly-padded chair closer to the bed and leaning back into it, “Glad to see you’re in good spirits, considering you’re still here and all.”

“From what I can tell, it could be a lot worse, especially compared to other people that were there,” The end of your sentence turned sullen, your expression darkening.

Hawks let out a little sigh, “It wasn’t pretty, that’s for sure. But, you’re safe, and most folks are safe. Bright side.”

“Bright side.” You repeated, softer, looking up from the plain sheets to meet his gaze.

You took him in, quickly.

He looked a bit worse for wear, the exhaustion from the days before still visible on his features. The dark circles under his eyes almost looked worse, perhaps uncovered and deeper since the attack. His wings weren’t even visible from your angle, plucked too short and sparse to be of much use.

But, Hawks was, undoubtedly, still stunning.

It was almost distracting, how unavoidable mentally eating him up was. You’d felt what he was like during the attack and that had apparently broken some mental dam for you. Holding back just how much you liked him seemed futile, at least mentally.

You would let yourself be honest, at least with yourself, as a treat.

What probably also pushed you over the edge was the fact that he wasn’t in his hero uniform, for once. You’d only ever seen him in his tan and black get up before. Seeing him casually dressed was shocking and very hot.

Hawks wore a simple black long sleeve with a long, wool jacket over it, black jeans, nothing seemingly extravagant except for the nicer looking chunky sneakers he wore and the fat gold watch on his wrist. It was all designer, knowing his paycheck. Without all of his normal regalia, you could better see that his pierced ears carried some light yellow stones that played off his eyes.

His feathery golden waves were messy, falling over his forehead and temples. The curves and angles of his jaw looked accented by the rising dawn light that was just beginning to filter into the room. There was the smallest quirk in his plump lips, but it hardly detracted from how stunning he was.

He was remarkably gorgeous, naturally, and you let yourself think about it freely.

Keigo felt a bit bad, seeing you in your state.

He tried to be subtle, looking you up and down, heart-thumping his chest as the feather in your hand-picked up your own pulse. It had sped up when he entered the room, even more so when you started to beam at him despite your state.

You looked like a bit of a mess, and with anyone else, Keigo might’ve indulged himself in being a little bit of sarcastic shit about it, but he didn’t with you. It didn’t seem right.

Your booted foot was propped up, a hospital gown askew over your collarbones under some thin blankets you were nested underneath. Your dark circles could’ve been worse, but your eyes were shining and alert, all directed on him it made him ache all over in the best way.

The feather twitched in your hand, your gaze darting to it. Heat spread across your cheeks.

“Oh, uh, shit,” You stretched your arm to pass the feather back to him. “Here’s this back. Sorry, I’ve kinda been holding on to it... a lot.”

“It’s alright, that’s why I gave it to you,” Hawks assured you, the feather whisking from your hand on its own and back to the downy stubs that Hawks had left. “Just a little reminder that good ol’ Number Two is looking out for you.”

You hardly needed a reminder. Thoughts of Hawks had been filling your head since it had stopped from swirling from your quirk. The thought of him leaving a bit of him with you only warmed your insides.

“How could I ever forget?” You leaned back into your pillows, releasing a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding. “Thank you, Hawks.”

Hawks blinked at you, reaching down to rustle something down by his feet, “For?”

“You know, saving my ass.”

“That’s my job, angel.”

“Still. You thank me every time I make you your drinks, right?” You shrugged at his wide-eyed expression. “Same principle. Except, your life isn’t on the line when I make you lattes.”

“Oh, angel,” Hawks drawled and deflected. “That is a false statement. I rely on those. They’re my lifeblood.”

A little realization dawned on you.

You gave him a sad little smile, rubbing your own knuckles for some semblance of comfort, “It’s gonna be a while until I can provide anything life-giving, then.”

The teashop was destroyed and who knew how long I’d be until they reopened. Not to mention that your leg was post opt and you couldn’t exactly work on it.

Practicality aside, what saddened you most was that Hawks didn’t have much of a reason to see you without the shop.

As much as you had feared it at the beginning of your friendship, you had gotten comfortable with Hawks’s presence in the shop and in your life.

Too comfortable, and now it was biting you in the ass.

Thorns stabbed in your chest.

Keigo noticed your slow-falling expression and frowned, “What’s on your mind?”

“It’s nothing, just, uh...” You shook your head, blinking up at him,

Your voice cut off as your gaze refused to settle on him, Keigo clearly seeing your discomfort.

“Without the teashop, you know...” Then, with that honesty that scared him, you finally met his eyes, gripping the sheets of your hospital bed, “I’m gonna miss seeing you.”

The principle made Keigo’s mind swirl.

You missing him.

His thoughts slipped back to ‘the miel incident’, and your mutual feelings that you very obviously didn’t fucking know about. If you did, he was sure you’d know that he would be missing you a lot without your normal interactions.

This certainly wasn’t the setting to tell you, you were still stuck with an IV and probably somewhat traumatized by the event, even if you seemed in good spirits.

But, he could help assuage your fears. Subtly. Let himself use his honed arts to comfort rather than connive.

“Dove, it’s alright,” He gave the softest smile he could, shreds of real vulnerability in it coaxed out by you without you even being aware of it. “Just because the teashop isn’t around right now doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you.”

The stunned expression on your face would’ve been cute if it didn’t make Keigo’s heart stutter painfully in his chest.

“You... You do?” Your voice was so soft, you surprised yourself.

Hawks was a busy, busy man. Why the fuck would he bother with you? There was no cute coffee shop aesthetic in your foreseeable future. Maybe some decent drinks, but you wouldn’t be very mobile. You had some supplies and gear to make teas and some drinks at your apartment, but nothing as expansive as was destroyed at the shop. If it was flirty banter keeping him near, there were certainly other people he could go to for some natural chemistry, right?

He doesn’t need you.

Why the fuck would he bother with you, outside of what you could offer him?

“Dove,” Hawks’s voice shook you from your thoughts. “I’m here right now, aren’t I?”

“Uh,” You stuttered, mind catching up to the very obvious conclusion that, yes, Hawks does like having you around. “I guess, yeah.”

He frowned, leaning back in his chair as one of his smaller feathers whisked to your forehead, patting it a few times, “(Y/N), I like spending time with you. I care about you.”

Oh.

That was a little more vulnerability and truth than either of you expected.

Your eyes darted up to meet his, seeing a hint of unbearable fear before it was wiped away.

You didn’t know it, but it was just you that pushed that fear off Keigo’s face.

He forced his shaking hands to be still, mouth drying after saying words that he wasn’t sure he was ready to say yet. God, they were true, but were they okay? For him, or you?

And then you gave him the gooiest, biggest smile you’d ever graced him with, “I care about you too, Hawks. Thank you.”

It made both of your guts turn to mush.

In a stunned moment of silence, both of your breaths stuck in each of your throats. Neither of you could tear your gazes away from each other.

You both tightened your grip on your respective fabrics, your heart rate monitor beeping faster as you swallowed.

Hawks opened his mouth, inhaling, but he was quickly interrupted by a knock on the door. A head poked in, the same nurse as before.

“Hey, sweetheart, we need to take your vitals quick,” She came in, waving to Hawks gleefully.

Hawks’s softened eyes were gone, you realized. Torn away from the moment and now speaking comfortably with the nurse as she checked what she needed to.

Your hands shook.

Keigo noticed it, too, his own trembling as well.

The idle chat between Hawks and the nurse fell on your ears, though you didn’t process any of it. You were far too busy mentally coming to terms with the fact that Hawks cared about you. And, based on his tone and that familiar (but usually hidden) adoration in his eyes, it was a bit deeper than you expected and knew how to swallow.

You took a slow breath as the nurse left, Hawks waving with a wide smile plastered on his face.

When the door shut once more, there was a lull of silence that settled over the room. More early morning sunlight was beginning to slant into the room, throwing gold over the otherwise drab and lifeless greys and whites of the room.

The intense mood had been thoroughly interrupted by the nurse, but perhaps it was a hidden blessing.

Both of you were terrified, but so deeply yearning. You both were a bit too raw.

Maybe it would be better to let the fear fade, just a bit more.

“Oh, shit, I nearly forgot,” Hawks reached down next to him, pulling out a bag you hadn’t realized he had brought him. He set it on the edge of the bed. “I got you something.”

“Hawks.” You groaned, shaking your head and running your hands down your face. “You need to stop being so nice.”

“Can’t do that, (Y/N). I’ll be as nice as I want,” You could see that his grin was shit-eating through the space between your fingers. “Besides, you haven’t even looked at it yet.”

You took the bag into your lap, noticing the ruffles of tissue paper that puffed from the top.

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” You told him, albeit still pulling the paper from the top to reveal a small, wrapped, fluffy object.

Hawks hummed, leaning forward to set his elbows on his knees, “You’re right. I didn’t have to. But, I wanted to.”

As carefully as you could, somewhat suspicious, you peeled back to the paper.

Your eyes widened.

It was a plushie, round and soft with a filling that made it feel like a marshmallow in your arms. The design was familiar, a character from one of your favorite cartoons, but you’d never talked about it with Hawks.

“I figured you could use a little pick me up after all this,” Hawks tilted his head and winked. “Did I get the character right?”

Your mouth fell open, blinking, “How did you... know? That I liked this one?”

“The little pins on your apron,” Hawks tapped his chest. “I figured you must be pretty fond of this one, since you had a couple of buttons for them, right?”

You wanted to give you a coherent, thankful statement to Hawks. Really, you did. Instead, you stared down at the doughy, round-eyed plushie. Maybe a few overwhelmed tears gathered in your eyes, which you promptly sucked down and shook your head.

“Thank you, really,” You rubbed at your eyes with the back of your hand. “But, fuck, Hawks—”

For a moment, Keigo thought you were upset with him. Based on the slight contorting of your face, and the wetness in your eyes, his heart seized up. His fingers twitched from where they cupped his chin, wanting to shoot out and comfort you somehow.

However, Keigo stayed put as you turned back towards him, plushie carefully gathered in your arms and hugged snugly and perfectly to your chest.

“You gotta stop being so fucking nice,” You sighed, pressing your face into the soft fabric of the gift. Your words were muffled, but Keigo heard each one perfectly. “I’m gonna start getting ideas, you know.”

Sure, Keigo could’ve pushed some of your buttons and fluffed himself up for some fun, flirty banter that would be undoubtedly lovely, but it wasn’t the time. You’d had a very long and tiring few days, and Keigo could see and imagine that you were in all sorts of disrepair.

Keigo stood slowly, moving just next to your bed where you turned your head upwards to look at him. Carefully, he placed a worn hand on your shoulder, feeling the small bit of bare skin exposed by the thin gown.

“Don’t worry about that right now, dove, okay?” Keigo let his voice go soft, quiet, and gentle as he could make it. Without thinking, he squeezed your shoulder, rubbing his thumb just under your collarbone.

It was too much, maybe. But neither of you would complain.

Keigo could see and feel the way you relaxed, eyes going half-lidded and leaning into his touch, even putting the slightest amount of your weight into it.

It was probably the most precious and sweet gesture he’d ever experienced.

He made it his goal to make more like it.

(Anything to see you so instantly mushy.)

“I saw a coffee machine when I was coming in,” Hawks voice was a hum, hand on your shoulder not moving. You didn’t want it to. The heat pressing against your skin made you melt. “Want me to grab us some? I know I need it.”

You managed to giggle, craning your neck to fully look up at Hawks. You swore you could see the slightest quiver in his bottom lip.

“I’d love some.”

“You sure you can stomach shitty coffee?” The thumb rubbed over your collarbone, Keigo’s pretty eyes searching your face, portraying far more than your words. “That’s my territory, angel.”

“I guess I’ll stoop to your taste,” You gave him a smirk like sweet lightning and tentatively, carefully, reached your hand up to wrap around his own, squeezing. “I take my coffee black.”

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taglist: @thepandapopo @sinclairsamess

#lavender latte #salem writes #hawks x reader #hawks x y/n #hawks x you #takami keigo x reader #takami keigo x you #takami keigo x y/n #hawks fluff #hawks fanfiction #this is a transition chapter shhh y'all are getting spoiled the next few chapters #enjoy a lil preview of the sweetness :'^)#hawks mha #takami keigo

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theartoflovingthomashunt · 4 years ago

Photo

dx: a Ticking Clock [AU]

Masterlists: [Thomas Hunt x Alex Spencer] [Ethan Ramsey x Ellie Shepherd] [Love & Scotch Crossover]

– – – Characters: Alex, Thomas Hunt, Ethan Ramsey, Ellie Shephard (OH: MC), Naveen Banerji, Baz Mirani, Zaid + other OH characters mentioned Prompt: fear @choicesoctoberchallenge2020 Word Count: +/- 1,400

TW: character death mentioned (same warnings as would apply to OH2 CH11)

Series Background: This takes place in my Hollywood U AU. Alex and Thomas are engaged. Ethan is an old friend whom the couple reconnected with recently. Alex is the biggest shipper of Ethan and Ellie(MC), and is thrilled Ethan finally took her advice to do something about his feelings

Chapter Background: This takes place after Two Words (Thomas and Alex come to Boston to offer assistance during the crisis and support their friends) and at the same time as Never Let Go (Ethan spends the night with Ellie in quarantine)

Catch up on Love and Scotch

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The hallway hummed with the murmur of the doctors collaborating with only one goal in mind—saving Ellie and Rafael. The diagnostic’s office had become overrun with the number of hands that offered assistance. The conversations quickly became a cacophonous ruckus rather than a productive dialogue of possible solutions. They decided to split into groups, in the hope of exploring more ideas in less time by allowing greater opportunities for everyone’s ideas to be shared and tested. Naveen headed the team that remained in Ethan’s office. Tobias led the team stationed in the conference room. Both groups worked diligently, knowing that time was of the essence and a wasted minute could be all that stood in the way of saving their friends’ lives.

It hadn’t taken Alex long to discover Ethan’s hidden stash of coffee and his secret espresso machine. She caught a whiff of the rich, but subtle notes of the premium blend tucked in the bottom drawer of a cabinet while tidying papers on his desk.

“We don’t touch that,” Baz noted, leaning against the bookshelf behind her. “Ethan doesn’t let anyone touch it. He will tell you he is a connoisseur and no one quite grasps the delicacies needed. He’ll trust us with patients but not his espresso machine.”

A smile played on her lips, the machine buzzed to life under her skilled touch. “Ethan may think he knows coffee, but it’s kind of my thing.”

“On your head be it.” Baz breathed out a soft, skeptical laugh. “When this is over, I’d quite like to see his reaction to you informing him he is not as wise to his coffee as he believes.”

Alex worked her magic setting the machine up and readying it for her first request. “Something like ‘you know nothing, Ethan Ramsey’.”

His hearty laugh overtook the somber tone of the room, even if just for the two of them. "Except, he really would know nothing because that reference would go over his head.”

“True! Anyway, I’m sure he won’t mind. After all, it’s for Ellie—” The words slipped out of her lips in a tone she worried said too much. “What I meant is, I’m sure he’d want his team to be well cared for and fueled to assist any member of the team that could find themselves in mortal peril. For the EMT too. And anyone, not just Ellie,” she rambled trying to cover up for any slip that may have occurred.

“It’s okay, I know.”

“You know?” The last part of the word lingered as Alex dragged it out questioningly.

“I know.” He nodded, quirking a brow at her.

“You know, as in you know?” Her chocolate brown eyes narrowed on him knowingly.

“I know,” he reasserted, grinning proudly.

“Do they know?”

“Ellie might. Ethan doesn’t.”

“How?”

A low laugh rumbled in his chest. “How can you not notice? They haven’t exactly mastered the subtleties of being in a secret relationship.”

“By they, you mean Ethan?” Alex grinned to herself. The first round of espresso shots began to drip, filling the office with a warm, inviting scent.

“It’s like you’ve met him!” He teased, the two of them giggled in the corner like schoolgirls sharing a juicy secret.

“I like you, Baz,” Alex decided. “So if Ethan throws a tantrum about me using his coffee machine, I won’t even blame you,” she teased. “Maybe your brother though.”

“As long as I’m there when you tell him.”

“Deal. Now, what can I make you?”

Ethan’s precious supply of premium beans dwindled as the hours passed, Alex kept everyone caffeinated and alert, while Hunt brought food and water to the weary doctors. With each glance to the ticking clock, the lines of worry etched on their tired faces grew deeper.

***

Hunt’s hand clasped on the older doctor’s shoulders, jerking him to attention and pulling him from his thoughts. “You need rest, Naveen.”

“I will when we’ve solved this puzzle.” His weary eyes fell once more to the research and medical charts scattered on the table in front of him.

“At least take a walk to clear your head,” Hunt suggested.

He shook his head side to side in contemplation. “I can’t. Not until I have an answer. Not until they’re safe.”

“Naveen, no one will fault you for taking a break. Everyone else has.”

“I will,” he insisted. “But not yet. If something were to happen while I was gone or if we were ten minutes too late because I took a break…” His voice quivered, unable to finish the thought as dread twisted in his gut. The color drained from his face at the possibility of them being too late.

Hunt nodded in understanding, knowing there was nothing he could do to comfort the man before him.

“Not just because Ellie saved my life last year,” he lowered his voice, keeping the next part between them. “I don’t have any children, I have Ethan. He may yet think that love is a weakness, but it’s not. Whether he’s ready to admit to it or not, he needs her. I don’t know if he could survive losing her.”

“I know what you mean.” Hunt’s gaze fell to Alex busy across the room. “There are some people we’ll go to any length to save, no matter the cost.” His hand found Naveen’s shoulder again, offering a consoling gesture. “If there’s anything I can do.”

***

Ethan’s gloved hand glossed over her tousled, sweat-coated hair, being careful not to wake her. She had finally let sleep overtake her not too long ago, though he didn’t dare join her. Fighting his own exhaustion, he kept a steady gaze on the monitors ensuring no sudden decline in her vitals.

Alex watched for a few moments, giving him time with her. Her eyes misted over; she’d never seen him so tender before. She recognized that look on his face, if only Ellie could see him now. Luckily for him, the entirety of the hospital was too busy determining a cure that they would be oblivious to the obvious connection between the two doctors in the room before her.

Her finger lingered on the intercom button for what felt like an eternity. She spoke softly, “Can I get you anything?”

Ethan’s blue eyes shimmered like the glassy surface of the cool ocean. “Anything yet?”

She shook her head side to side. “Sorry.”

He gently rested the plastic shield of his protective suit against the top of her head. His lips pressed against the clear surface. “Hold on just a little bit longer, Ellie.”

Alex sniffled, the pads of her fingers collecting the tears before they could fall. She needed to be brave for him.

Ethan shifted, inching away from her. “Will you stay with her? I can’t ask you to come in even with protection, but just stay there and let me know the minute she wakes or if any of her vitals change. I know a nurse can do it, but I’d rather it be you.”

“Of course, Ethan. Whatever you need. What will you be doing?”

His fingers hovered once more over her, tracing the length of her arm. “Finding a way to save her.”

“I’m proud of you,” she whispered, as he began the procedure to leave quarantine without spreading the contaminant.

“What for?”

“You took a chance.”

His tone was harsher, “look how that turned out.”

“This is just a chapter, I can’t believe it’s the end,” she offered, glancing back to Ellie sleeping soundly. “Take the advice you gave her. ‘Just hold on a little bit longer’, you’ll save her. I have to believe it.”

Ethan offered a curt nod, leaving in silence, pausing only for a moment to glance back to Ellie lying helplessly in the small hospital bed.

Alex focused on the steady pulse of the monitors, watching and listening for even the slightest shift in the information. Her hand rested over her phone in her pocket ready to call Ethan within seconds if needed.

Hunt’s arms snaked around her from behind, causing her body to shake at the unexpected contact. “Hi.”

“Hi, yourself.” Alex leaned into her fiancé, letting the warmth of his embrace calm her racing mind.

“How are you holding up?” His beard tingled against her skin as he brushed a kiss on her cheek.

She spun quickly, wrapping her arms around him. She leaned up on her tiptoes to bury her face in the crook of his neck.

“I know.” His fingers combed through her dark hair. She didn’t need to say what was on her mind, he knew the weight of what was troubling her. “Just have faith in them. He’ll find a way, I know he will.”

“How can you be so sure?” Alex sniffled into his shirt collar.

“Because he loves her.”

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

(tags in a reblog, trying that again to see if it makes any difference in my posts staying in search/tags)

#thomas hunt #thomas hunt x mc #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #open heart #red carpet diaries #hollywood u #hunt x mc #professor hunt #thomas orson hunt #dr. ramsey #hunt x alex #alex hunt #fan fiction #love and scotch #choices fan fiction #ethan x ellie #thomas hunt x ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x thomas hunt

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saiilorstars · 5 years ago

Text

The Beginning of Everything

Fandom: Doctor Who

Pairing: Female OC x 10th Doctor

(OC Face claim: Marjorie de Sousa)

// Story Masterlist //

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Ch. 7: Partners in Crime

Chapter Summary: Renata struggles traveling with the Doctor after Martha's departure. She tries to follow the Doctor through his crazy ways of helping people but she just can't help but point out how many rules they break! And the Doctor doesn’t make it any easier when he tries to argue with her.

"It's crazy-"

"Of course humans wouldn't be able to detect any-"

"-what you're saying-"

"-extraterrestrial signals but I have the-"

"-I mean what's the point of-"

"-TARDIS constantly checking for anything strange and there it was," the Doctor pushed the monitor so that it was in front of Renata. "Adipose Industries. Bunch of conspiracy theories-"

"Doctor, the humans are always looking for crazy theories-"

"Well it happens that these are not so far off. We really should just pop in and check to make sure everything is alright."

There was a clear 'why' written across Renata's face. "What is your obsession with planet Earth?" That was one question she'd been asking ever since she met the Doctor on Gallifrey. Up to now, she suspected there wasn't a clear answer.

The Doctor just smiled at her question. "Renee, I really think we need to check it out. Just a couple of investigation scenes and-"

"Which will involve us breaking in and lying to officials - no, no way!" Renata turned away from the monitor, intending on going into the corridors so that she wouldn't have to listen to anymore of the nonsense.

"Oh we're not going to be doing anything bad!" the Doctor reached forwards and grabbed her arm.

"Really?" Renata pulled her arm and crossed them. "What does your little plan entail, exactly?"

"Just, you know, bit of the pyschic paper and-"

Renata stopped him with a hand in his face. "Psychic paper? You mean that little portable lying booklet?"

"That's...a strange name to give it but...sure," the Doctor nodded his head.

"And in that little paper we're going to lie and say we're some other people to get ourselves into the Adipose headquarters?"

"Um...yes," the Doctor had to contain himself under Renata's scolding face. To him, honestly, it was both funny and a bit scary how serious she got sometimes. He'd come to learn that it was often.

"Do you hear yourself?" Renata raised her hands in front of her, making it clear she wanted no part in this plan. "You're going to go in that building, interrupt business and for what? Conspiracy theories?"

"Renee, I'm going," the Doctor left it clear, turning for the console and preparing the controls to land on Earth. "Question is, will you be coming to make sure I don't get into trouble or will you be here."

Renata's eyebrows raised almost increduliously. "Am I to be your babysitter?"

"Well, no, but you seem so determined to give yourself that role…"

"Doctor!" Renata huffed.

"Well, you are!" the Time Lord turned around to defend himself before she decided to smack him on the back.

"We've been at this for a month-" Renata gestured between them, "-and you can't seriously understand that I am against the lying and breaking in?"

"You didn't have trouble in 1913," the Doctor mumbled under his breath.

Renata's eyes widened. "I was doing that to fit in! Not to break in all silly-nilly!" A small smile began spreading across the Doctor's face. "Why are you smiling?" Renata crossed her arms, expecting there to be some joke she hadn't caught like usual.

"You said silly-nilly, but somehow I'm the one that uses childish words."

Renata air-strangled him but brought her balled hands to her mouth. "Sometimes I just can't with you!"

"So you've said in this past month," the Doctor said all proudly which only irritated Renata even more.

One month she had been in the TARDIS with the Doctor after Martha left them, and somehow she hadn't strangled the Doctor into his next incarnation. Yes, the Doctor had done everything in his power to make sure she felt welcomed in the TARDIS - which she truly did. And yes, he was never purposely rude to her and he was always attentive to what she needed or where she wanted to go. But that didn't stop him from frustrating her with his childish antics and constant rule breaking and running.

Renata honestly wondered how he had made it this far without regenerating again.

Every day he had somewhere new he wanted to go and almost every time there was something he just needed to help and save which would then bring along danger and a lot of running. When they weren't travelling, the Doctor was 'fixing' the console and causing things to break. He was a fast talker when he was excited and thus had Renata's ears nearly fall off when they were together discussing things of home or some experiences they've had.

It truly felt like they were those young Time Lords again still messing around in her foundation.

Renata tried pushing those feelings away, every day, but being so close didn't help. Now there she was...bickering away with him...and remembering everything she'd fought for so long to forget.

"Renata, c'mon, it'll be fun," the Doctor smiled incredibly wide and held out a hand for her, wiggling his fingers.

She hated herself. She truly did. Renata took her hand, ignoring the Doctor's face momentarily go smug, and let him bring her back to the console.

~ 0 ~

A couple of hours later, the two embarked on a journey for Adipose Industries. As the two walked along a busy street, Renata continuously looked around like they were already going to get caught. The wind blew much of her blonde hair on her face, making it more difficult for her to keep a 'look out'.

"I see it," she said to the Doctor once she caught sight of the large building meant to serve as headquarters for the company. "But there's plenty of security check, I'm sure."

"Good thing we're going through the back," the Doctor pulled her to the left to go along the building towards its back.

Renata's head did a double-take in the process. "The back? What? Like actual thieves?"

The Doctor preferred not to get into a whole argument on the technicalities of what they were doing. Renata grew even more self-conscious as they arrived to a fire exit.

"What are you doing?" she nearly hissed when she saw him pulling out his sonic screwdriver.

"Getting us in," he motioned as he flicked on the sonic.

"Oh my God, we're actually breaking in - ah," she put a hand over her chest and looked around, properly frightened.

The Doctor hid his amused smile in his work. It was actually rather adorable the way she got so worked up over things he did so normally. When the door opened, they crossed into a set of solitary corridors. All the noise came from their quick strides.

"Doctor," Renata had another near attack when she saw a security guard walking opposite of them. Her arm curled around his on instinct.

Without conflict, he just pulled out the psychic paper and flashed it at the security as they passed on by. "John Smith, Renata Cartwright, Health and Safety."

"How do you do that so calmly?" Renata whispered to him despite leaving the security guard well behind.

"Do what?" the Doctor repeated rather cluelessly.

"Great," Renta unwinded her arm from his and sighed, "You don't even realize you do it anymore."

After making it to the higher levels, they discovered that there was to be a private lecture from the very head of the company herself.

"You don't think they'd notice two unregistered people waltzing into the lecture room?" Renata had to ask as she followed behind the Doctor in a hallway.

"That's why we're not going there, clearly."

"What?" Renata stopped, dumbfounded. "Then where are we going?"

"Projector room, c'mon!"

Renata slowly continued to follow. "But...how are we getting in?"

~ 0 ~

"Health and Safety. Film department," the Doctor once more showed his psychic paper to a man working the computers in the projection room set right above the lecture room.

Renata shook her head behind the Doctor.

They were able to see the head, a blonde woman with glasses who went by 'Miss Foster', describe the components and process of her company's products to the small audience. "Adipose Industries. The 21st century way to lose weight. No exercise, no diet, no pain. Just lifelong freedom from fat. The Holy Grail of the modern age. And here it is. You just take one capsule, one capsule, once a day, for three weeks. And the fat, as they say…the fat just walks away."

Renata couldn't help scoff as she listened. "Do all the humans have an obsession with thinness?"

Beside her, the Doctor nudged her to be careful with her words. He motioned to the man working the computers who was giving Renata a curious look for her statement.

"U-uh," Renata flustered and looked at the window again. "I meant...the lot of humanity."

The Doctor gave a discreet shake of his head, fairly amused. Renata was one woman who did not know how to travel. That was novelty.

~ 0 ~

"Don't you think we're playing our luck here?" Renata walked right beside the Doctor through an aisle of small cubicles.

The Doctor had a bright idea to go to one of the employees and pick up a couple more information.

"Just relax, Renee," the Doctor wondered if he would ever get tired of telling that to her. Because everytime they traveleld somewhere, it was the same thing. She was overly nervous about getting caught.

They came into the cubicle of a young, dark-skinned woman who was in the middle of a call with a customer.

"John Smith, Renata Cartwright, Health and Safety. Don't mind us," the Doctor whispered so as not to interrupt her phone call. He let Renata take a seat first then took the one next to her.

Soon as she was done, the Doctor got straight to questioning. It truly amazed Renata how well he did it. There was no faltering, no stuttering, not a trace of nervousness in his face.

"If you could just give us a list of some of your customers we'll be on our way," the Doctor finished it off with a big nice smile.

The employee, Clare, seemed more than happy to oblige.

"That's the printer there?" the Doctor stood up for a moment, unknowingly giving Renata a hearts attack thinking he might get caught by Miss Foster. She'd only been in the room 15 minutes ago, what's stopping her from coming back?

"By the plant, yeah," Clare nodded.

"Brilliant," the Doctor beamed but Renata yanked him down to his seat again. Soon as her hand let go of his arm, he sprung right back on his feet. "Has it got paper?"

"Yeah, Jimbo keeps it stocked," Clare found him amusing.

Renata did not. She grasped the Doctor's arm and pulled him down with all her might. "Sit down!" she hissed. She then smiled at Clare. "Anyway, if you could print that off. We'll be on our way. Thanks."

The employee typed on her computer for a moment before giving them the 'ok' nod. Renata stood up followed by the Doctor but stopped when she heard the Doctor ask, "Oh, what's that?"

Renata turned around to see Clare giving him a piece of paper.

"My telephone number," the woman answered his question.

Renata raised her eyebrows.

The Doctor looked between the paper and Clare. "What for?"

There came a smirk across Clare's face. "Health and Safety. You be health, I'll be safety."

The Doctor stammered for an excuse. Renata...did not.

"I am going to report you!" she threatened the woman as she snatched the paper from the Doctor and slammed it on Clare's desk.

"What-"

"You can expect a call from your superiors tonight!" Renata grabbed the Doctor by the arm and yanked him out of the cubicle.

Honestly, she thought. Where was that human's professionalism!?

~0~

Night time fell and instead of going back to the TARDIS like Renata believed, the Doctor dragged her to continue investigating. This time they were set to pose as employees of Adipose Industries who made house visits. As the Doctor flashed his psychic paper to a lucky customer they were visiting, Renata rolled her eyes on the side and began to count the many times he'd done something like this and gotten away with it.

She couldn't count that high without losing her place.

Now sitting in the customer's, Roger's, living room, they listened to him how the pills had worked for him in so little time.

"I've been on the pills two weeks now, I've lost fourteen kilos!" he finished excitedly.

"That's the same amount every day?" asked the Doctor.

"One kilo exactly. You wake up, and it's disappeared overnight. Well, technically speaking, it's gone by ten past one in the morning."

Renata's brows knitted together. "I-I'm sorry...how...how is that?"

"That's when I get woken up," Roger answered in a matter of fact tone. "Might as well weigh myself at the same time."

"U-um…" Renata glanced at the Doctor to see if he was as confused as she was.

He was. "Could you...could you tell us more about that please?"

"Ten minutes past one, every night, bang on the dot without fail, the burglar alarm goes off. I've had experts in, I've had it replaced, I've even phoned Watchdog. But no, ten past one in the morning, off it goes."

"But with no burglars?" Renata asked to be sure.

"Nothing. I've given up looking."

The Doctor still did not falter. "Tell me Roger, have you got a cat flap?"

Renata made a face at that but nonetheless she followed the plan. Roger showed them to the cat flap on his front door, more than happy to show another person in case this one actually figured it out. "It was there when I bought the house. Never bothered with it. I'm not a cat person."

The Doctor had already begun screening it with his sonic. "No, I've met cat people. You are nothing like them," he murmured.

He's met cat people. Renata inwardly sighed. Of course he's met cat people.

"It's that what it is then? Cats getting inside the house?" Roger frowned.

"Well, thing about cat flaps is that they don't just let things in, they let things out as well…" the Doctor said slowly, still coming up with ideas to follow.

"Like what?"

"The fat just walks away..." The Doctor pushed himself back on his feet and turned to Roger with an excessive smile. "Well, thanks for your help. Tell you what, maybe you could lay off the pills for a week or so."

"Probably forever," Renata added. "You could just try the regular eat healthy and exercise thing..."

The Doctor stiffened when he heard a small 'bleep' from inside his jacket. "Ooh, we gotta go, sorry."

"What-"

The Doctor hurriedly opened the door brought Renata along with him. He reached inside his jacket to pull out a device he'd hand made earlier that day.

"When did you make that!?" Renata gave a face at the device, fearing it would explode like the last thing he made.

"This morning! Now hurry!" He let go of her completely and picked up his pace. Renata was also not good at running.

Groaning, Renata did her best to keep up.

She managed to catch up when he made a stop by the corner of one street. He banged a hand on his device, ignoring Renata's sarcastic 'that'll make it work' then ran off again.

"What are we looking for!?" Renata panted when they stopped again.

Not answering, the Doctor held up the device for a better signal. He waved it around then lowered it to check the readings. When it dinged, he beamed and ran again.

"Oh my God," Renata groaned and chased after him. They were nearly ran over by a rushing van in the process. However, soon as it passed by, the Doctor turned in the same direction to follow it...apparently, the signal was coming from it.

He finally came to a stop at an intersection and was disappointed to find the signal gone.

~ 0 ~

Much later would find the Doctor examining one of the golden capsules of the Adipose company. He was looking at it through a magnifying glass, far interested in its components. "Ohh, fascinating!" he gawked. "Seems to be a bio-flip digital stitch, specifically for…"

"Are we still on that?" Renata's voice stopped him in the middle of his discovery. He glanced back to find her leaning against the corridor's threshold.

"Well, uh, I was…" the Doctor motioned the magnifying glass still in his hand then lowered it.

"Still investigating," Renata finished for him, giving a small shake of her head. "Honestly Doctor, don't you ever get tired of fixing everyone's problems?"

Because she had asked in a simple, curious manner, the Doctor entertained it. "What do you mean?"

Renata shrugged her shoulders as she came off the threshold. "I mean just what I said. You always go and find a problem - like Sto's government and a broken water pipe - that you have to fix. Last week it was some planet's default engineering settings and today it's…" she had come up to him in the while of her explanation and took the Doctor's magnifying glass from, "...Adipose," she looked at him through the magnifying glass, her brown eyes enlarging from the glass.

"Are you asking me why I help people?" the Doctor raised an eyebrow, finding the question too far even for her uptightness. Because yes, it only took a month to realize that Renata was uptight.

Knowing how that sounded, Renata ventured to clarify herself. "I don't mean that you shouldn't help people I just…" she thought about it for a second, "...isn't there the Shadow Proclamation to help with cases like these? They are the police and it should be up to them how things get fixed. I don't see why you have to keep doing it."

"The Shadow Proclamation is never that good," the Doctor gave a roll of his eyes, clear dislike for the place. "And I like helping. I can do it, don't see why I shouldn't."

"Yeah, I can see that you like to," Renata chuckled.

"And I can see that you not so much." And the Doctor truly appreciated how Renata was doing her best to keep up with him in his shenanigans.

"I do! You have no idea how much I love to help people, but...when I did it...it was with...our people."

"You don't like to help the humans, then?"

"I do, if I have the chance then...sure," Renata nodded, but it was easy to tell that she wasn't all that into the idea. "But in the end...they're just humans to me. For so long they were only a means to hide myself from the rest of our kind. I miss helping my kind, you know? People I can share my ideas with, my perspectives, my everything. People that would understand me."

The Doctor tilted his head, a faint smile writing itself across his lips. "Renee, what did you used to do back on Gallifrey?"

The question set Renata into nervous state. "U-uh...l-like my...my job?"

"Yeah," the Doctor didn't catch any of her nervousness, too curious imagining her in different positions. "Cos you're all uptight and-"

"Hey," Renata pointed at him but he went on.

"-strict on rules so...I would think of you as one of the teachers at the academy."

Renata blinked, for a moment in disbelief. "You think I was a teacher?"

"Well," he straightened up. "Were you?"

"No," Renata shook her head. "I wasn't."

"Then, what were you?"

Renata stared at him for a minute, the ongoing battle within her taking a bit more than she thought. It wasn't like she hadn't thought about telling the Doctor more about herself - in fact, she already had. Bits and pieces had been exchanged between the two about their past lives on Gallifrey but Renata was always careful not to disclose too much about herself that would risk her identity with the Doctor.

"I...was…" her eyes flickered to the side, "...I worked at a foundation."

Technically, she wasn't lying.

Those were the rules she set herself for. Loopholes.

"You did?" the Doctor became even more curious.

"Mhm. I worked with all sorts of people in need. Children who weren't quite ready for the academy came for some lessons. People who just needed help, whether emotional or physically but didn't have the resources were always welcomed to stop by," Renata looked into the distant, remembering more and more about her foundation. She missed it so much. She missed her workers, her kids, her friends…

"Renata?" the Doctor gently shook her arm to get her out of her thoughts.

She realized she'd let herself think far too much and released an awkward breath, smiling in a flushed manner. "Sorry," she waved a hand at her face.

"No, it's okay," the Doctor softly said, reaching for her waving hand. He liked seeing her remember their home due to the fact she hadn't disclosed much about herself on Gallifrey. He had made it his mission not to get overexcited and push Renata to tell her stories when she wasn't ready. To say, she hadn't even said whose family she was from. But still, the Doctor was forcing himself to be patient.

"Do you want some dinner?" Renata was the one to pull him out of his thoughts this time. With a warm smile on her face, she took his hand. "It's all set up like usual."

The Doctor smiled, forgetting his investigation from then on till the next morning. Renata made it a custom that they were to have dinner every night like normal people. She made pretty damn good meals.

"C'mon," Renata said quietly, still smiling as the two headed for the corridors.

~ 0 ~

The next day, Renata was not the least bit surprised to have the Doctor practically pounding on her bedroom door shouting for her to wake up because they had to go back to Adipose Industries. Swooshing herself out of bed, she got ready and came out of her room...and then smacked the Doctor on the chest and stalked for the console.

"I hate mornings!" was the only explanation the Doctor got for being hit.

They left the TARDIS in an alleyway close to the Adipose Industries building and once more used the fire exit to gain entrance. The Doctor led the way down the same empty corridor but this time stopped midway and turned to a storage closet.

"What...are you doing?" Renata blinked as he opened the door to the small room.

"We need to hide, c'mon," the Doctor didn't wait around for her to warm to the idea and pushed her inside first. As he sonicked the door shut, Renata raved with her back to him.

"Are you mad!? This is wrong!" her hands waved above her head. "First of all, we're bound to get caught! Second of all, it's just wrong!"

The manner in which Renata had said her last statement made the Doctor turn around questionably. "Why? What's wrong?"

In her moment, Renata whirled around to face him and bumped into him because he was literally standing right in front of her. Her eyes blinked rapidly trying not to overthink it. Meanwhile, the Doctor was still demanding to know why she was so freaked out.

"Renata? Why did you say it like that?" his eyebrows knitted together in the manner they always did when he was confused.

Renata slowly looked up to meet his gaze and soon wished she hadn't. She found that she was vulnerable to his long look no matter how she felt at the moment. It threatened to give her identity up.

"Renata?" the Doctor finally broke through her thoughts which, admittedly, were making her face warm. "Well?"

"...it's just inappropriate…" Renata quietly said, turning away and walking the most she could inside the small room which turned out to be seven small steps.

The Doctor scoffed, giving a sway of his head. "Really? But it's not to live inside a TARDIS with me?" the moment turned sideways with alarmed eyes the Doctor regretted his response. "N-n-n-n-n-no! Forget I said that!" and he rushed up, but because of the small room he nearly rammed into her.

"Doctor! Just stop!" cried the blonde, swatting him away with her hands.

With a big sigh, the Doctor listened and retreated to the door. He took a seat on the floor, back up against the door. He watched Renata look for a spot of her own until she settled for a small box positioned over another.

"Renee…?"

"Hmm?" Renata wearily glanced over to the Doctor, hoping that whatever came out of his mouth would not send them into another round of bickering.

"On Gallifrey...were you part of...high society? Before you married off, of course."

"Why would you think that?"

The Doctor made a gesture at her. "Just...just the way you act...the way you think. It has all the...makings of a high class Time Lady."

Renata looked down, her fingers fiddling with each other. "And you hate that," she recalled from oh-so-long ago.

The Doctor wasn't about to lie and say he was best friends with that part of their people. "I mean, they weren't particularly the best people for me to spend time with."

"So then why do you tolerate me and my...uptightness?" came Renata's honest question. She knew she was not the ideal companion and she doubted she ever would be.

A warm smile spread across the Doctor's face. "Because I like you of course - you and everything I know about you so far. You're not like the others of your class and I'm happy. Otherwise it would have been a real shame for such a pretty woman with big hearts to go to waste."

Renata's face softened. "Doctor…"

"You working at a foundation just proves it," the Doctor shrugged. "By the way, I've been meaning to ask.. " he cleared his throat, suddenly nervous, "The foundation...did it...did it happen to be…the Auxilium Foundation?" It was like Renata's whole world just stopped. The Doctor was too delved into his own memories to notice it. "There was only a couple foundations and...and you seem the sort to want to help Gallifreyans despite what Time Lord society thought. Was it?"

Renata couldn't bring herself to lie more, at least not in that moment. It was too many memories, too many fond memories she couldn't get rid of. "Yeah…" she passed a hand down her hair, secretly shooting him a glance. "How do you know about it?"

The Doctor released a breath, a dreamy one actually that sped up Renata's hearts in the second."Oh, I, um...I knew someone there…"

"You need to see it, Zuriah. I bet the pictures don't do Earth justice!"

Zuriah laughed softly while the Doctor rambled onto her about what he'd learned of Earth that morning. She shook her head at him and moved on around the empty tables, soon to be filled up with their daily visitors, to set up some of the materials. "Now I know why you probably failed some of your coursework in the Academy. Did you ever stop talking in those classes?"

The Doctor sent an unamused glare her way. "I'll have you know I have my moments of silence."

The scoff Zuriah gave in return was one of clear disbelief. "Just help me out here, please?" she motioned with her hands to the mess of toys on the ground. "Some new recruiters' kids found my stash of toys and didn't exactly learn the rule of 'put it away'."

The Doctor rolled his eyes but got up to help. "So, do you think you could somehow incorporate this planet in your activities?"

Zuriah waved him off. "I don't know. We haven't done the schedule for next week. Perhaps..."

"Oh c'mon! You know you'd love to!" the Doctor hurriedly threw some toys into the bin she'd set up. He followed her around the tables, rambling on about the benefits her people would get if she incorporated Earth into activities.

"Look, Doctor, maybe we could - AH!" she had stepped on a toy and slipped backwards. Her basket went flying in the air along with the materials. She herself would've fallen to the floor if the Doctor hadn't caught her.

"Hm, didn't take you for the klutz," the Doctor smirked at her. Zuriah looked up, her face flushed when she realized their closeness. The Doctor felt it too, but he didn't think about telling her of it. Although he did take notice of how many freckles were over Zuriah's face...they were lovely...

Renata was utterly stunned to see such a soft look on the Doctor's face. He was clearly remembering something...

"Zuriah, that was the, uh..." the Doctor shook his head out of the memory but no matter how much he tried, the freckled-face ginger still smiled at him. It'd been so long since he thought about her...

~0~

After a full day passed, the Doctor finally declared it was time to leave and investigate. Since they had fallen into bits and pieces of conversation after the foundation topic, Renata was itching to get out of there. She was afraid that the Doctor would begin to ask questions about 'Zuriah' which was her before she picked her graduating name.

You can't hide it forever, Renata. The same sentence passed her mind over and over but somehow she still couldn't act.

"Where exactly are we headed now?" Renata inquired once they were striding down the dark corridors.

"Up to the office of course," the Doctor flashed a smile that warned it wasn't technically literal.

Renata would have questioned further had it not been for him pulling her into a hasty walk. They found the staircase and went up...and up...and up…

Of course he meant the roof. Renata actually blamed herself for not seeing this earlier.

The Doctor went straight for the edge and sonicked the cables holding…

"What are you doing?" Renata slowly approached the edge, eyes glued onto the Doctor who was in the process climbing into a window cleaner's cradle.

"Getting a look at the office, what else?" the Doctor shrugged then motioned with a hand for her to join him. Instantly, Renata incredulously blinked. "Don't give me that look! C'mon!"

Nervously, Renata inched closer to the edge and took one look down to the high view. "Um...is this a bad time to tell you...I have a fear of heights…"

"Not surprised," the Doctor said. He then reached over and grabbed her arm, pulling her slowly. "But for another time!"

"Doctor…" Renata struggled to let the Doctor bring her into the window's cradle.

"In you go," the Doctor slipped his other arm around her waist to get her into the cradle.

As soon as Renata felt the cradle wiggling a bit she gasped and latched onto the Doctor for dear life. "We're going to die! We're going to die! We're going to die!" she cried with eyes shut.

There was a fierce determination in the Doctor not to laugh. But he was still thankful that she couldn't see his face right now.

"This is it! This is where you finally kill me!" and because the Doctor didn't know who Renata was, he thought she was just talking about their short time together...when in reality Renata was remembering all the adventures their younger selves took because of him.

"Calm down, it's not moving," the Doctor peeled her off him and aimed the sonic at the controls. Renata gasped again when the cradle descended. "And duck!" he ordered when they were nearing Miss Foster's office.

"You're gonna get us caught," Renata whispered.

The Doctor ignored her and poked his head just slightly above the cradle to peer into the office. He saw a young dark-skinned woman being tied to a chair by body guards while Miss Foster watched. Unknowingly, an old friend was also watching from the other side of the office, right in front of its door.

"What's going on?" Renata curiously asked, still not taking the risk by peering herself.

"Can't hear much," the Doctor mumbled. He could see Miss Foster showing her prisoner a capsule.

"Well, it is a window-"

"Donna!?"

Renata made a face and looked up to find the Doctor, stunned, staring ahead. "What? What is it?"

'Donna?' she watched the Doctor mouth.

What she didn't know was that across the office stood the Doctor's old friend, Donna Noble who was also stunned to see him there.

"DOCTOR!' she excitedly mimed back, her face right in front of the door's porthole.

'But... what? Wha... What?!'

Renata tried following along but the Doctor was just opening and closing his mouth to her.

'OH MY GOD!' Donna continued miming happily.

'But... how?'

'It's me!' Donna pointed her thumbs at herself, as if the Doctor hadn't yet made the connection it was in fact her.

'Well, I can see that!' the Doctor gestured his eyes then pointed at Donna. Beside him, Renata was still hopelessly lost. She was not risking herself to see who it was.

'Oh this is brilliant!' Donna would have laughed if she could.

The Doctor, on the other hand, was perturbed. 'But what are you doing there?'

'I was looking for you!' Donna pointed at him.

'What for?!'

Now Donna, being Donna, did her best to mimic what she was saying which went along the lines of…

'I, came here, trouble, read about it, internet, I thought, trouble = you! And this place is weird! Pills! So I hid. Back there. Crept along. Heard this lot. Looked. You! Cos they…' But when she happened to jerk a thumb to her right she found that Miss Foster, along with the tied-up woman and her body guards, were staring at her.

The Doctor too had caught it.

"Are we interrupting you?" MIss Foster loudly, sarcastically called to Donna.

'Run!' the Doctor urgently mimed for Donna then aimed the sonic ahead to lock the door of the office and give Donna time to run. Without notice, he waved the sonic above and pulled the cradle above.

"DOCTOR!" Renata nearly cried when the cradle shot up.

"Sorry! Sorry!" the Doctor hopped out of the cradle fast and turned to help her out.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on!? Besides probably getting caught - like I told you!"

"Old friend of mine-" the Doctor grunted as he pulled her out, "-in a bit of trouble! Hurry!"

They ran back for the door that laid the staircase. Despite Renata asking questions of who this 'friend' was the Doctor didn't answer many as he was focused on helping Donna out before she was hurt. They came down another set of staircase where they bumped into a redhead. Donna had encased the Doctor in a big hug, ecstatic with finding him. Renata's eyes just flickered from one to the next.

"Oh my God! I don't believe it!" Donna laughed but suddenly stopped to give the Doctor a look over. "You've even got the same suit! Don't you ever change?" The Doctor sarcastically rolled his eyes. "Yeah thanks Donna, not right now."

"Well…" Donna finally noticed that the Doctor was not alone. "Hey-" but that was all she could say to Renata before the Doctor saw the guards and pulled them both up the stairs.

"Doctor! There are guards!" Renata had looked below to see several guards coming after them.

"Yes, I've noticed!"

Donna was too cheery to be affected by the guards coming for them. As they made it back to the roof she explained the events that led her to the building. "Cos I thought, how do I find the Doctor? And then I just thought, look for trouble and then he'll turn up! So I looked everywhere, you name it - UFOs, sightings, crop circles, sea monsters. I looked, I found them all…"

During this, the Doctor had started working on the cradle controls with his sonic. Renata had half a mind to scold him for even thinking about using the damn thing! But she was quick to discover Donna had a rambling mouth much like the Doctor.

"...like that stuff about the bees disappearing, I thought, I bet he's connected. Cos the thing is, Doctor, I believe it all now. You opened my eyes. All those amazing things out there, I believe them all. Well, apart from that replica of the Titanic flying over Buckingham Palace on Christmas Day, I mean that's gotta be a hoax!"

"What d'you mean the bees are disappearing?" the Doctor picked the sentence up by random.

"I don't know. That's what it says on the internet!"

"Doctor!" Renata helplessly watched the Doctor get back into the cradle, and was even more astonished to see Donna so easily getting in as well. "Aren't you even going to question why you're getting in?" she demanded from the ginger.

"I figure it was to escape?" Donna glanced at the Doctor but quickly looked back to Renata. "I'm sorry, what's your n-"

"Renata, get in!" the Doctor urgently said.

"What for!?" Renata argued. "They'll just bring us up again! I'm not here to go up and down like a stupid amusement park ride!"

"No no no, cos I've locked the controls with a sonic cage. I'm the only one who can control it," he promised. "Not unless she's got a sonic device of her own. Which is very unlikely."

The door burst open again and out came Miss Foster.

"RENATA!"

Flinching, Renata clambered into the window cradle. Soon as she was in, the Doctor made it go down.

"How are we getting out!?" the blonde held onto the railing as they went down and down, but suddenly they started going dangerously FAST faster.

The Doctor managed to stop it with the sonic but the force knocked all three down for a moment. Being the first one to get up, he aimed the sonic at the window. Up above, Miss Foster ordered to the building to be deadlocked.

The Doctor retracted the sonic. "Can't get it open!"

"Well, smash it then!" Donna had grabbed a large spanner from the floor and used all her might to shatter the window.

Renata helplessly looked from Donna to the Doctor, wondering how much worse it could get. Her answer came in the form of sparks and smoke from the cradle. "She's cutting the cable!" she shrieked after looking up and seeing Miss Foster aiming some sort of laser pen at the cables. At her words the Doctor and Donna instinctively grabbed on but Renata hadn't had the time and so when the cable broke and the cradle lurched to the side, she was flung back screaming.

"RENATA!" the Doctor wanted to go in after her but calmed after seeing her feet dangling under them.

She'd manage to get ahold of the broken cable and was currently, and dangerously, swaying back and forth. "DOCTOR!"

"Hold on!" the Doctor tried reaching for the cable sustaining her to pull her back up but he just couldn't.

"Doctor!" went Donna this time who was staring up, seeing Miss Foster about to break the last cable.

Angrily, the Doctor aimed the sonic above just at the right moment to make it spark and fall out of the woman's hand. He caught the second sonic and climbed up the cable to another window. He managed to get it open and ordered Donna to follow him.

"I'm not gonna fall am I!?" Donna asked for the blonde below who was crying out in terror.

"Get in! Get in!" the Doctor didn't want to waste time answering obvious questions. His hearts was racing unbelievably fast as he thought of Renata so close to danger (and because of him).

Meanwhile, Renata was crying out to be helped. Her eyes were stinging with tears and from the hard wind hitting her from every direction. She was sure her hands were slipping from the cable and that at any moment she would fall and splat on the ground like the television showed.

Oh God I was wrong - this is how he finally kills me!��And yet Renata felt not an ounce of anger with the Doctor. It was just so like him to get near danger, like a taunt, and then get away from it like nothing. It was actually one of the things that attracted her after getting to know his ways. Her hearts pounded like never before yet it was not a new sensation for her.

"AH!" she screamed all over again when she felt hands on her ankles. "LET ME GO! LET ME GO!"

"Renata, it's me!" the Doctor managed to cut through her screams. "I've got you! Stop kicking!" He slowly pulled her down and into the office he and Donna coordinated would be the room of the next window down. "There we go! I've got you!"

"Oh my God! I thought I was going to die!" Renata clung to him with teary eyes. "Oh you stupid, stupid man!"

The Doctor soothed her with a hand on her back and regretted he couldn't do more at that moment on account of still being on the run from Miss Foster. "We have to go, I'm sorry," he pulled away and felt a pang of guilt seeing her tear-stained face.

He took her and Donna out of the room but not before untying the journalist in the office and telling her to go home. They only made it to the call center because Miss Foster and her guards were already waiting for them.

"Well then," Miss Foster pulled off her glasses and raised her head at the trio, "at last."

"Hello," Donna nervously laughed, the thrill of the chase still clouding bits of her.

The Doctor was just the Doctor who said 'hello' to everyone. "Nice to meet you, I'm the Doctor."

"And I'm Donna!"

Renata crossed her arms, deciding the Foster didn't need her name.

"Partners in crime," Foster concluded, eyeing Renata who seemed to falter every now and then from her brave stance. "And evidently off-worlders, judging by your sonic technology."

"Oh yes, I've still got your sonic pen. Nice, I like it," the Doctor raised the sonic pen to give another look. "Sleek, it's kinda sleek." He let Renata and Donna give it a glance as well, but Renata lowered it down.

"I don't think it should matter the form of the thing that nearly killed me."

The Doctor winced and retracted the pen from Renata. "Now-" he looked at Foster, " if you were to sign your real name that would be...?"

"Matron Cofelia of the Five-Straighten Classabindi Nursery Fleet. Intergalactic Class."

"A wet nurse?" Renata gawked for a second. "What...and you're using humans as surrogates?"

Foster gave a curt nod. "I've been employed by the Adiposian First Family to foster a new generation after their breeding planet was lost."

"But who gave you the right to use humans as cows for your reproduction methods!? It's against Shadow Proclamation rules!"

Beside Renata, the Doctor silently laughed that she would ignore a planet being lost because of 'rules'. "How do you mean lose a planet?"

"Oh, politics are none of my concern. I'm just here to take care of the children on behalf of the parents," Foster made a gesture, shrugging her shoulders.

"What, like an outer space super-nanny?" Donna crinkled her nose.

"Yes, if you like."

"So... so those little things they're, they're made out of fat yeah, but that woman, Stacy Campbell, there was nothing left of her." Donna still couldn't shake off that horrible feeling of seeing a nice woman like Stacey disappear into little white blobs of...fat?

"Oh, in a crisis the Adipose can convert bone and hair and internal organs. Makes them a little bit sick, poor things."

"What about poor Stacey!?" Donna incredulously returned.

"Enough," Renata's sharp edged voice cut through the womens' conversation, and the hand she had for Donna was, frankly, irritating the ginger. "Seeding a level 5 planet is against galactic law - you should know that!" she said to Foster who merely raised her eyebrows.

"Are you threatening me?"

The Doctor then put an arm in front of Renata. "We're trying to help you, Matron. This is your one chance; cos if you don't call this off, then we'll have to stop you."

Foster smirked. "I hardly think you can stop bullets." And just as she said it, her guards flanking her took aim.

Alarmed, Renata stepped back.

"No, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, one more thing, before... dying…" the Doctor settled for the blunt word. "Do you know what happens if you hold two identical sonic devices against each other?" he once again gestured to his sonic and Foster's sonic pen.

"...no?" Foster doubtfully answered.

"Nor me, lets find out!" the Doctor happily pointed both sonic objects at each other, activating them at the same time. A high-screeching rang in the room, causing everyone to squirm uncomfortably and a glass pane behind to shatter.

"Come on!" Donna was the one to pull both aliens out of there.

In the process, the Doctor took the lead and ran them down an empty corridor, stopping by a door of a cupboard.

"No more cupboards!" Renata nearly pleaded. Small spaces meant more talking and more talking meant more chances to risk her identity.

"Not quite," the Doctor opened the door and started throwing out the storage's supplies.

"You can't just throw those things out!" Renata said, scandalized as he created a wad of mess on the floor. "Those are some employee's utensils!"

"Another time, Renata!" the Doctor rolled his eyes, this time a smidge of honest annoyance for her lack of priorities.

"Renata?" Donna repeated the name, looking a bit confused as she studied Renata head to toe. "So you're not Rose, then?"

Recalling the name, Renata scowled. "No I am not! Why would you think that?"

"Dunno…" Donna shrugged, "...blonde...and stuff."

"I'm not her," Renata's eyes briefly glanced at the Doctor and saw him working. There was glowing green machinery built into the wall.

"Well, I'm Donna Noble by the way," the ginger held a hand to Renata, realizing that they hadn't been introduced properly.

"Renata," Renata shook Donna's hand. She looked over at the green panel and frowned. "Okay, what's this for?"

"It's the inducer. For the Adipose. It's wired up the whole building...I...I'll need some time," the Doctor paused, running a hand through his big hair.

"Then get to it," Renata made a motion. "I'm not sure if I can distract but...but I can certainly try." The Doctor made a face at the prospect of that idea. "I can to you know," the blonde insisted now more than ever.

"Okay."

Renata bubbled with instant anger. "Listen to me you idiot," she began sharply, "I nearly fell off a window's cradle because of you!"

"Which I will make up for later, I promise!"

"That's not the point!" Renata's voice cracked and she took it a sign to calm down. With a sigh, she put a hand on her forehead and took a moment for herself. "Sorry," she said a minute later, truthfully.

"I get it, I do," the Doctor didn't stop his work but gave her an honest face. "You're making an effort and I do see it and appreciate it." Renata lowered her hand from her face and smiled.

Donna silently studied the two aliens in front of her, a bit curious of what they were and just who was Renata overall. Renata crossed gazes with her and realized she had yet to ask something important.

"How do you two know each other?" her finger pointed from Donna to the Doctor.

"I met him on my wedding day - the big starship in the sky at Christmas?" Donna waited for Renata to remember. "That was us."

Renata blinked as something donned. "It was you who drained the Thames!" she turned on the Doctor with an accusing finger. The Master had never clarified the happenings of that evening, but then again she wasn't exactly in the mood to be talking to the Master during that period.

"It was such a crazy day," Donna continued. "In the beginning, I thought he kidnapped me actually," Donna had a small laugh.

"You too!?" Renata incredulously asked of the Doctor. "What, did you throw her over your shoulders too?"

"No, I didn't!" the Doctor defensively said.

Renata huffed. "Well, that's unfair."

"What do you mean?" Donna fit in the pieces together quick. "Did he do that to you?" Renata nodded and gestured being thrown over a shoulder. "Doctor," a great smirk took over Donna's face as her eyes landed on the Doctor, "I didn't know you were that sort of man."

The Doctor looked mortified at her assumption. Renata face palmed. "I meant a thief!" she exclaimed.

"I was not a thief!" the Doctor stopped for a minute to argue. "You-" he pointed a finger at her, "-were being stubborn!"

Renata's eyes blinked rapidly and her mouth parted slightly. "M-me? You're saying it was my fault? What part of 'you threw me over your shoulder and brought me into the TARDIS' did you forget about?" The Doctor said no more but his scrunched face said the words alright.

Donna burst into laughter, making the argument stop. "I'm sorry, but...what?" she couldn't believe what she was hearing honestly. The Doctor had actually slung the poor woman over his shoulder and forced her into the TARDIS? No, hold on, the woman had to be forced in the first place? Who wouldn't want to travel the stars!?

Grumbling, the Doctor returned to work.

"It's really not that funny," Renata crossed her arms and muttered. "Least Martha didn't laugh."

"Martha?" Donna repeated. "Was that a friend at the time?"

"Yeah. My only human friend who I still keep in contact with," Renata thoughtfully said, since Joan was dead and she had left the family in 1959.

"Is she here? In the TARDIS?"

"No," the Doctor said then. "She was brilliant... but... I destroyed half her life."

Renata's annoyance was gone the moment she saw his guilt-ridden face. "You did not," she softly said then looked at the surprised Donna. "Martha decided it was time for her to go back home. But she's fine. She's good."

"Oh," Donna nodded then thought for another moment. "What about Rose?"

"Still lost," the Doctor mumbled, missing Renata purposely looking away. He had yet to tell her anything of Rose and he frankly didn't know when. He actually thought that perhaps Renata would be scandalized to know he had developed an attachment to a human. He was, for a lack of a better word, scared of her reaction.

Renata, on the other hand, thought his lack of explanation arose from the fact she wasn't trusted enough, and that perhaps he didn't see her as a friend at all. By this point, she knew who Rose was. The Master had taken joy rubbing it in her face that the Doctor had exchanged her for a human.

"I thought you were going to travel the world?" the Doctor suddenly remembered it was Donna's grand plan after her failed marriage.

The cheery face on Donna was quick to fade away. "Easier said then done. It's like I had that one day with you and I was gonna change. I was gonna do so much. Then I woke up next morning, same old life. It's like you were never there. And I tried. I did try, I went to Egypt. I was gonna go barefoot and everything. And then it's all bus trips and guidebooks and don't drink the water and two weeks later you're back home. It's nothing like being with you. I must have been mad turning down that offer."

"What offer?" the Doctor failed to recall.

"To come with you." But now Donna was a bit nervous that since Renata seemed to be on board maybe the Doctor was good on companions.

"You didn't want to go into the TARDIS at first?" Renata was a smidge more impressed with the woman. Usually, every human jumped at the chance to get into the TARDIS.

"I didn't understand," Donna tried to explain herself. "I was...I was all emotional...and-and...just…"

Renata swayed her head till she met the Doctor. "I mean...I wouldn't mind, honestly."

The Doctor was surprised to hear such easy acceptance from her. "Really?"

"Yeah, maybe we would bicker less," Renata recalled that was her excuse for when Astrid Peth had asked to come with them. It was true, as much as she loved the Doctor - and boy did she - there were moments where she just needed a break...or at least someone to stop her from strangling him. She was sure that the feeling was mutual.

"Oh yes!" Donna cheered.

'Inducer activated.'

Renata peered into the cupboard to see the green machinery. "What's it doing now?"

"She's started the program," the Doctor groaned.

'Inducer transmitting.'

"And...what does that mean?" Renata now stared wide-eyed at the machinery.

"Up to now the customers have only been losing weight but the Matron has gone up to emergency pathogenesis."

"Oh no." Renata glanced at the end of the corridor where they could see doors. She was sure that outside swarms of little Adipose were going to be gathering real soon pathogenesis.

"That's when they convert…" Donna, too, remembered.

"But that's skeletons, organs, everything!" Renata exclaimed. "A million people are gonna die!"

"Gotta cancel the signal!" the Doctor took out the golden capsule they'd gotten the previous day and pulled one of its end to reveal a chip inside. "This contains the primary signal. If I can switch it off the fat goes back to being just fat." He hooked up the capsule to the machine hoping to God he was right.

'Inducer increasing.'

The Doctor panicked. "No no no no no, she's doubled it, I need... Haven't got time! It's too far, I can't override it! They're all gonna die!"

"Can we do anything?" Renata asked, Donna nodding her head in agreement.

"Sorry, this is way beyond you - and I mean no disrespect but I have to double the base pulse, I can't…"

"Doctor, tell us what do you need," Donna sternly cut him off. Rambling was no good to anyone.

"I need a second capsule to boost the override, but I've only got the one. I can't save them!"

Donna blinked, remembering something very important. She reached inside her pocket to take out a second gold capsule. Renata laughed when the Doctor froze in shock.

"Here!" Donna waved it in front of his face till he snapped out of his stupor. He nabbed it and hooked it into the green machinery, making all its lights shut down.

A couple seconds, a loud horn filled the place.

"What the hell was that?" Donna frantically looked around.

"I suppose it would be...the nursery ship," Renata said.

"But when you say nursery you don't mean a creche in Notting Hill?"

"Nursery ship," Renata repeated.

'Incoming signal.' the machinery had come back to life for a minute and began with a voice that spoke a different language.

"Hadn't we better go and stop them?" Donna made a gesture for them to leave.

"Hang on, instructions from the Adiposian First Family," the Doctor put a finger on his lips to listen in. "She's wired up the tower block to convert it into a levitation post!"

"But now she's the one in trouble," Renata said soon after she heard.

The Doctor didn't waste a chance and hurried back for the roof. Renata and Donna ran after him. When they got up all they saw were blue beams levitating thousands of Adipose babies into the large nursery ship in the sky.

Most of them were smiling and waving at the trio.

"What you gonna do then? Blow them up?" Donna curiously asked the Doctor beside her.

"They're just children," the Doctor made a face for a brief moment. "They can't help where they come from." Besides, something told him that if anyone threatened those children they would come across a raging Time Lady. God help those fools.

"Doctor, there she is!" Renata called as soon as she spotted Foster coming up in one of the blue beams.

The Doctor ran up to the edge with Donna. "Matron Cofelia, listen to me!"

Foster stopped right at their lever. "Oh, I don't think so, Doctor. And if I never see you again, it will be too soon."

"Oh, why does no one ever listen? I'm trying to help! Just get across to the roof. Can you shift the levitation beam?"

"What, so that you can arrest me?" Foster's eyes briefly flickered to Renata.

"No, you're going to want to listen," Renata promised. "Because the families you worked for know that it was a crime to breed on Earth. So what's the one thing they want to get rid of? Their accomplice!"

"I'm far more than that. I'm nanny to all these children."

"Exactly!" the Doctor frantically waved a hand. "Mum and Dad have got the kids now, they don't need the nanny anymore!"

And just then, the blue beam sustaining Foster disappeared and she fell all the way down screaming. Donna hid her face in the Doctor's shoulder and Renata covered her mouth.

Sometime later, when the police arrived to the site, the Doctor and Renata, along with Donna, exited the building. The Doctor chucked the sonic pen into the nearest trash bin.

"Oi, you three!" the journalist the Doctor had thought followed his instructions to go home was coming up to them...tied to a chair again.

"Didn't you let her go?" Renata whispered to the Doctor, blinking rapidly.

"I did," the Doctor defensively replied.

"You're just mad. Do you hear me?" the journalist cried. "Mad! And I'm gonna report you... for madness!"

Donna silently watched the woman leave, barely able to hold her laugh back as she said, "You see, some people just can't take it."

"No," agreed the Doctor.

"But some people can. So, then - TARDIS!" she excitedly said and grabbed the two aliens by the arms, pulling them away.

They headed back to the alleyway where the TARDIS had been left...and apparently Donna's car as well.

"That's my car! That is like destiny!" Donna laughed. "And I've been ready for this." She rushed up to the car's trunk and opened it to reveal a series of suitcases. I packed ages ago, just in case. Cos I thought, hot weather, cold weather, no weather…" she pulled out the top luggage and loaded them into the arms of the Doctor, who was too stunned to say a word at the moment. "...he goes anywhere, I've gotta be prepared." She then loaded more into Renata's arms.

"You've got a... a... hatbox?!" the Doctor found his words after Donna loaded him with one last box.

"Planet of the Hats, I'm ready!" Donna declared and shut the trunk of her car, excitedly heading for the TARDIS. "Do I need injections though, do I? Like when you go to Cambodia, is there any of that? Cos my friend Veena went to Bahrain, and-"

Renata suddenly began to laugh hard, making Donna stop just outside the TARDIS doors. Even the Doctor was oddly staring down at the Time Lady. Donna eyebrows furrowed together, thinking Renata was laughing at her.

"Oi! What's so funny!?"

"This!" Renata motioned with her arms to the luggage and then the situation in general. "You're so funny! I love you!"

The Doctor gaped. "Wow…" he had never seen such a reaction from Renata, so lively and happy…

Renata walked up to the TARDIS, sobering slowly from her laugh. "I like you, I do. Doctor, can we take her?"

"I'm not a dog," Donna made a face. But it did feel better to know Renata wouldn't mind if she came along with them.

"It's really fine with me," the Doctor admitted, staying right where he was. "It's just...it's a funny old life, in the TARDIS."

Donna knew that sort of tone well. It came when one was fired or the casualness from her mother. "You don't want me."

"I'm not saying that-"

"But you asked me," Donna frowned, glancing at Renata for some help.

"Doctor, it really is okay with me," Renata shrugged. "It's your TARDIS. You can bring whoever you want." She wished he would make up his mind faster because Donna's luggage was getting heavier by the second.

"I wouldn't mind either. In fact, I would love it," the Doctor clarified, letting the luggage in his arm drop to the floor. "It's just...the last time, with Martha, it... it got complicated. And that was all my fault. I would want nothing more than a mate-"

"You just want to mate?" Renata blinked, eyes impossibly wide. Beside her, Donna was losing it believing in what Renata heard.

"You're not mating with me, sunshine!" Donna shouted.

The Doctor had a hard time keeping up with both women who'd heard horribly wrong. "Renata! I didn't say that-"

But Renata was trying to control herself after her first outburst. "No, no, that's fine. What you want to do in your TARDIS is your business-"

"What - no!" the Doctor once more tried to cut in but then came Donna.

"He better find someone else cos I'm not into that sort of alien thing, no sir!"

"STOP!" the Doctor finally cut over both of them. "I said a mate! Nothing more!" he frantically waved his hands.

"...oh," Renata looked away, embarrassed yet relieved.

The same applied to Donna. "Well just as well, because I'm not having any of that nonsense. I mean you're just a long streak of... nothing," she motioned to the Doctor who took it with an unamused face. "You know, alien nothing." She then passed a casual glance at Renata and shrugged. "You could probably find yourself someone quick. Kind of curvy."

Renata laughed.

"There we are, then. OK," the Doctor was glad to have things clarified and corrected.

"I can come?" Donna anxiously asked.

"Yeah. Course you can, yeah."

"I'd love it!"

"Great," Renata pushed the TARDIS door open to begin bringing Donna's things.

"Car keys!" Donna suddenly remembered, gasping.

"What?"

"I've still got my mum's car keys! I won't be a minute!" she held a finger to them and ran away.

Renata started to laugh again as she returned. She stopped at the doorway and smiled. "I think I'm gonna like her. She's so...spunky."

"Yeah, she is," the Doctor agreed and left his part of luggage inside.

"And you know," Renata stopped him just outside after he came out, "It really is your TARDIS - even though you stole that too," she mumbled and the Doctor rolled his eyes, "So you can bring anyone in without having to consult me. And...do whatever you want inside."

"Yeah…" the Doctor sucked in a large breath, "...no thanks."

Renata couldn't help the stupid smile that quickly set on her face. She forced it away as best as possible. "I-I mean...it's it's your choice…"

"Renee," the Doctor tilted his head, close to laughing at the subject they were somehow talking about again.

"I'm only saying! I respect rules and...and in here-" Renata gestured to the inside of the TARDIS, "-they're whatever you want-"

"Renee! C'mon," the Doctor laughed. "None of that please. We should focus on the fact we're having a new guest in the TARDIS who I am sure is going to love your dinners."

Renata smiled. "You think so?"

"Oh yeah! Who wouldn't?" the Doctor reached for her hand and brought her inside the TARDIS.

A couple minutes later, Donna came rushing in, happy than ever. "Off we go, then!"

"Here it is, the TARDIS. It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside…"

"Oh, I know that bit," Donna interrupted the Doctor's favorite bit. "Although frankly, you could turn the heat up."

"So, whole wide universe, where do you want to go?"

"Oh, I know exactly the place," Donna smiled widely with just one spot in her mind. "Two and a half miles, that way!" she jerked a thumb to her left.

Although confused, the Doctor and Renata obeyed. It became clear where they were headed when they saw a street lined with similar houses. Donna hurried to the doors, to get them opened. It was almost an instant when she saw her grandfather looking up into the sky through his prized telescope. She waved ecstatically below. Renata and the Doctor waved from behind, although neither was sure if the grandfather would see them. Still, it didn't hurt to be nice.

Afterwards, when all was calm, Renata started for the corridors. "I'm just going to get dinner started. Donna, allergic to anything?"

"N-no…" replied the finger, fairly confused. "Though if it's alien meals then I wouldn't know would I…?"

Renata chuckled. "Fair enough." She disappeared soon after.

Curious, Donna looked to the Doctor who seemed quite at home. "Uh...since when do you do dinners? Last time I asked you disappeared into the night."

The Doctor smiled and looked up from the console after setting them in the time vortex for a peaceful night. "Oh that's just Renata. She does that every night. Sort of our tradition actually."

"Sorry, I never asked...are you and her…?" Donna gave a meaningful tilt of her head.

"No!" the Doctor quickly clarified before word made it to Renata. "No, we're not! Actually," he moved around the console, "Renata is one of my people. She's a Time Lady. Last one."

Donna didn't know what happened to the Doctor's home but she assumed it was not good. It was incredibly good to see that the Doctor was not alone anymore.

#10th doctor x oc #ocappreciation #ocapp #dw imagines #10th doctor imagines #doctor who #10th doctor #noblecrescentedit #oc: Renata Cartwright #donna noble #10th doctor x original female character #10th Doctor imagine #dw fanfics #doctor who fanfics #fic: the beginning of everything

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jungle321jungle · 5 years ago

Text

Forms of Family 3

Part Three

Dee’s nerves were shot.

He had spent so much time- he didn’t even know how much anymore- talking to doctors who asked him the same questions so many times he wasn’t sure he knew the answer to them anymore.

On top of big general worry over Virgil’s condition, Patton would sporadically start to cry out of worry (in any other situation Dee would find it adorable), the twins were antsy as they began to rough house with one another, and finally Logan paced insistently as he kept trying to call their father (using Dee’s phone) to no avail.

Virgil was paler than he usually was, and his small chest heaved as he took short shallow breaths. His dark eyes were closed tightly, as if he was pain- and it only pained Dee more.

“Daddy?” Dee looked away from Virgil at the sound of Patton’s voice as he looked up to see the doctor had returned.

Patton climbed out his arms allowing him to stand slowly before he followed the doctor further away from the boys to speak.

“Based on the tests run and what you explained to us we believe he has a virus most likely caught for your other son, which led to an infection.”

Dee nodded digesting the information, “So he’ll be okay?”

“He will, but we will need to stay here for possibly a few days so he can have antibiotics, and monitoring. I’ll have him transferred out of the ER and into a more permanent room in a different part of the hospital.”

Weight fell from Dee’s chest as he gave a sigh of relief. No he didn’t want to be there longer, but long as Virgil was going to be okay that’s what mattered.

~~~~

Dee was thankful for his friends.

Despite his telling them that things were fine Brenda, Miranda, and more had come to offer well wishes. They brought him a change of clothes from the house and activities for the boys to do, and they had even offered to let the boys sleep in their homes as Dee was rooted to the spot.

Everyone was there to offer support.

Everyone but his husband.

“Daddy?” Patton asked pulling on his shirt.

Dee nodded and stood up and after making sure the other boys were fine he headed out the room to the bathroom.

He was gone for less than five minutes.

Less than five minutes.

And yet when he got back what did he find?

Virgil crying, Logan holding back a kicking and screaming Roman, and Remus- Remus had sunk his teeth into the nurses hand.

Dee was frozen and shock for half a moment until he noticed the nurse’s hand rise up to strike. But Dee’s fingers curled around her wrist before she could dare.

At his sudden appearance Remus released the woman and she wrenched her hand back. She tried to move back so Dee let her go.

“Do everyone a favor and watch your kids,” she snapped.

Dee held back a retort, he wasn’t going to piss off someone watching Virgil. “Remus apologize, now.”

Remus looked smug, but he gave an apology anyways, “Sorry.”

She hurried from the room then leaving Dee alone with his sons. The first thing he did was take a breath before he picked up Virgil and bounced him a few times to get the baby to calm down a bit. When he had quieted slightly he turned the others, “What happened?”

Logan let go of Roman, who then took up post beside Remus before he spoke. “Vee was crying and Remus wanted to help, but she came in and said we couldn’t touch him!”

“He’s our brother not hers!” Remus added in. “I know how to hold him! So she tried to pull me away, so I bit her! And she tried to hit me!”

“So I kicked her! Until Logan became a buzzkill!”

“She didn’t want you to touch him because it’s a matter of being sanitary, not familial ties,” Logan explained.

“So?”

“Yeah so?”

Dee gave a sigh, “You can’t bite people Remus. And I need you guys to listen to what the doctors and nurses say, alright? It’s what’s best for Virgil, okay?”

“Okay...”

“Fine... But if she’s mean to him, I’ll kick her again.”

Dee held back an eye roll (Logan didn’t), “Fine. Whatever, just sit and quiet down.”

“Fine parenting,” Logan muttered.

“Logan, I’m not in the mood.”

“Noted.”

~~~~

It took two nurses, one doctor‍, and his friend Miranda to pull him away from the hospital room. But the furthest he would go is the first floor to get a coffee.

“So glad I pried you from that room,” Miranda commented as they stepped out of the elevator onto their floor.

Dee sipped at his coffee, “Yeah, the bad coffee is totally worth it.”

She rolled her eyes and was quiet for a moment before she spoke, “Have you heard from...?”

Dee gave a sigh as his fingers involuntarily clenched and unclenched into fists. “No. I left half a million messages and sent twice that in texts... and I got nothing.”

Miranda paused in thought, before she stopped in her walk and turned to face him with a serious look. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but personally I think you’re better off without him.”

“Miranda I-”

“I’m not going to overstep more than that. But if you are still set on trying to contact him, maybe you could try using someone else’s phone? He might have you blocked.”

Dee opened and closed his mouth unsure of how to proceed, but she nodded slowly.

“If you need a phone feel free to use mine.”

He watched as she pulled out the device and held it out to him, but he shook his head and turned. He couldn’t be blocked... right?

“We should head back,” were the only words he could force out as he turned to walk the way they had come.

The walk back was silent, until he slid open the door and was greeted with the scene inside.

“I win!”

The shout came from Roman and Remus playing some game on their iPad in the corner. Apparently Remus had won whatever it was. Beside them Logan was nose deep in a book while Patton lay on the floor with a coloring book. It was a scene so normal he almost wished he could pick the whole thing up and drop it in his house. That Virgil would be healthy and things could be back to normal.

When he entered the room they all looked up at him, but he said nothing making his way back to Virgil.

“When can V come home?” Patton asked him.

Dee gave a sigh as he sat in his seat, “Hopefully soon Patt. Tomorrow or the day after.”

“That’s far away.”

“I know, but it’s to make sure Virgil is feeling his best, alright?”

“He needs to feel better faster then.”

Dee nodded, “I agree.”

~~~~

“Pacific.”

“Pacific. P-A-C-I-F-I-C. Pacific.”

“Paralysis.”

“Paralysis. P-A-R-A-L-Y-S-I-S. Paralysis. Come on give me something harder.”

“Fine, sorry, I thought we starting easy and building up. Um so... exasperation.”

“What’s the point?” Roman interjected. “Logan wins every year. He doesn’t need to practice. He’s the best speller! ...Er...”

“Speller. And why do you go to soccer practice then?” Logan asked him. “You guys won the last three games.”

“We don’t play soccer anymore,” Remus put in. “We’re gonna do karate.”

Dee sighed, “That’s not confirmed yet.”

“We can’t do karate?” Roman asked. God the kid sounded like Dee had done something terrible. He grimaced,

“I’m not saying that either. I need to look into some things first.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“It’s a maybe.”

"Maybes are yeses!"

Dee gave a sigh as Logan frowned, “They are not. Do- do you know the definition of both words?”

“It’s not a yes right now,” Patton threw in. “He has to talk to Dad first!”

Dee felt a pain in his chest as he gave the boy a smile, “E-exactly Patt.”

“What’s the next word again?” Logan asked changing the subject.

Dee nodded thankful for it, “Um... we were on exasperation.”

“Exasperation. R-O-M-A-N-A-N-D-R-E-M-U-S. Exasperation.”

Dee just shook his head, “I need a nap.”

~~~~

When the name flashed on his screen Dee swore his heart stopped beating.

His eyes flickered to his sons to find Logan watching him curiously. He gave a hard swallow as he grabbed his phone tightly and walked out into the hallway. The nothingness in his heart was suddenly replaced by a jackhammer as he finally answered the call.

“Hello?” His voice shaky, quiet, and weaker than he wanted it to be.

“You always take forever to pick up,” grunted the voice on the other side.

“Virgil he-”

“Where’s your watch?”

Dee felt himself deflate, “What?”

“Where’s you watch?” He asked again. “The one I gave you on our honeymoon? I need it.”

“What? W-why?”

“Does it matter? Where is it?”

“I don’t know. But why-”

“Of course,” there was a banging and shuffling on the other side. “You fucking lose everything. I already checked your side table and the safe, do you have any ideas on where it could be?”

“Virgil is in the hospital,” Dee stated bluntly. “He has been for two nights now.”

“What does that have to do with a watch?”

Dee gave a laugh of disbelief as his anger began to rise, “Nothing at all. But he’s your son too, so shouldn’t that be where your concern lie? With your son? Or with a fucking watch?”

“...Don’t swear around the kids.”

“Oh now you’re concerned?” Dee shouted. “You hate that I swear, but you can’t fucking come to the hospital see your son? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Don’t raise your-“

“Don’t! Don't you even try to tell me what to do anymore. I’m done with you and all this bullshit. So listen up, you have two choices. You come here now and be with your children, or you get the fuck out of our lives and never contact us again.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Yes I can! I’m done lying to the boys! I’m done lying to myself! I gave you your choices. Come and be a father or get out of our lives.”

“Damien,” his voice was slow and angry, but Dee couldn’t bring himself to care.

“What?”

“You are aware that I pay for everything right?”

“...I guess you made your choice.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“If your money is more important that your children then you made your choice. So feel free to take your money with you. I’ll keep my kids.”

“Damien I-”

Dee cut him off by hanging up the phone. He stared down at it for a moment before he took a deep breath to stop the tears burning at his eyes.

“Dad?”

The soft call came from behind him and Dee turned to see Logan and the twins standing in the doorway. He opened and closed his mouth, but no words came out. He moved back into the room and sat in his chair before he felt small arms pull him into a hug.

He lost his battle against the tears as he hugged Roman back. There was a short pause before the other three joined and Dee held his children tightly to his chest.

“Daddy’s not coming back?” Patton asked quietly.

Dee forced himself to take a deep breath as he pulled back enough to look them all in the eye. “Our family is going to be a bit different now,” he started slowly. “But it’s okay. There’s many forms of families, and now ours is just us. But it’s okay, we’ll be okay. Can you guys trust me on that?”

Logan nodded and adjusted his glasses, “One hundred percent.”

“Good, I’m gonna need your help Logan.”

“You needed my help even when he was around.”

Dee smiled ignoring the way his tears still fell, “Glad I can count on you.”

“We thought he wasn’t coming back anyway,” Roman admitted.

Remus nodded solemnly, “Dad’s never been gone this long... Does he really not care anymore?”

“I’m sorry,” Dee told them both. “I want to think he does, but I don’t know. But I’ll be here for you guys regardless okay?”

Dee looked to Patton and it pained him to find tears in the young boy’s eyes. He pulled him close mumbling apologies as he was unsure what else to do. But Patton held him back saying that he loved him. And that was good enough.

Because even without him, they were still a family. And while some could try to cause rifts and difficulties to break them up, Dee would always be there for them as their father- as their dad who asked for nothing in return.

~~~~~

Thank you so much for reading!!!!

Part One • Part Two (1/2) • Part Two (2/2) • Part Three

#roman sanders #sanders sides #virgil sanders #ao3fic #patton sanders #logan sanders #deciet sanders #dad!deciet #dad!dee #dad!au #formsoffamily #kidfic #thingsssssssssss

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jmeelee · 5 years ago

Text

Sterek Bingo 2019 • Theme: Wild Card

Cora’s twenty-first birthday party is in full swing when the vibration of an incoming text jiggles Derek’s right ass cheek. He pulls his phone from the pocket of his too-tight jeans to find a befuddling text: There myst be sumething wrong w my eyes.

Derek’s future does not include being an Alpha, and that’s fine; he’ll happily leave the politics, management, and difficult decision-making to his older sister, Laura. Instead, he’s been training the last few years—learning languages and studying cultures and meeting werewolves all over the world—to become his pack’s liaison. He’s young, but his good name and reputation are already circulating, so he automatically thinks, this must be a young werewolf in need of help. Plus, it’s no secret to the supernatural community that his beta-shifted eyes are blue, instead of gold.

His thumb’s hovering over the touchscreen when a drunk girl bumps into him, her red solo cup full of cheap beer exploding like a water balloon all over the front of his olive-green henley. “Oops,” she slurs, lids drooping over bloodshot blue eyes. She gropes his soaked pectorals with her bare hands.

Derek’s eyebrows berate her before he heads for the staircase. He’s tired of pseudo-babysitting intoxicated college kids anyway.

By the time he’s showered off the stale booze and changed into pajamas, almost an hour has passed. He grabs his phone off the nightstand to finally reply to his cryptic messenger, and finds a new text: i can’t take them off of u.

What the hell? It wasn’t a cry for help at all; it was a lame pick up line. Derek’s mood sours as he imagines Cora egging one of her immature girlfriends into sending him the terrible come-on. The culprit is probably downstairs right now. He swipes over the message, deleting it, and powers off his cell before climbing into bed, pulling a pillow over his head to drown out the noise.

He’s so done with this day.

A week and a half later Derek’s pushing a cart up and down the aisles at the grocery store when his phone chirps. He stares at the flashing number of the unknown contact, wondering why it looks vaguely familiar before he opens the text. Did you invent the airplane? Because you seem Wright for me.

At least there are no typos this time.

He almost deletes the message right away, but the split second he hesitates gives him an excuse to type back. This is clearly Gustave Whitehead erasure and I won’t stand for it.

The return response comes before he can black out his screen. Dude. Are we having our first fight?

Derek doesn’t hesitate this time. Find someone else to annoy.

Rude.

He puts his phone away and staunchly ignores the smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

He’s already in bed, and would never have heard the vibration except for his supernatural hearing. My name’s Microsoft. How about I crash at your place.

Derek blinks the sleep from his eyes enough to type back, I own a Mac.

In the morning, he sees the response. Harsh dude.

You must be a trumpet because you’re making me horny.

Wow. This is your worst one yet.

Is that a challenge, Derek?

NO!

Did it hurt when you fell from the vending machine? Because you a snack!

Please stop.

“Derek, answer that or I’m going to punch you in the face,” Laura threatens between spoonfuls of cookie-dough ice cream. The harsh buzzing of his phone sounds like a jackhammer to their sensitive werewolf ears, and it’s disrupting their movie marathon.

If you were a transformer, you’d be Optimus Fine. Oh lord.

“What’s with the sappy smile, big brother?” Cora coos.

Derek schools his face into a scowl. “Nothing.”

She throws the blanket off her lap and lunges for the phone in his hand. A tussle ensues. Derek is older and stronger, but she’s fast, sneaky and not above fighting dirty, and she grips the phone before he knows what happened. “What the hell is this?” She’s screeching with laughter, holding his cell out so Laura can look. “Who’s sending you lame pick-up lines?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” he gripes. “You put her up to this.”

Cora furrows her brow. “Uh, what?”

“The night of your birthday party, the first pick-up line came through. It was someone at your party. I figured you put her up to it as a joke.”

She checks the number again. “The only person I ever gave your number to was Erica, for official pack business. This isn’t Erica’s number.” She grabs her cell off the coffee table and punches in the digits. “Well, I’ll be damned.” Cora laughs so hard her eyes water.

“Who is she?” Laura asks.

“Not a she.” Cora holds out her phone with a shit-eating grin so Derek and Laura can read her contacts. “It’s Stiles Stilinski.”

Terse silence follows her declaration. Then Derek asks, “Who the fuck is Stiles?”

6 & 7

“Forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one…” Derek counts out his squats in a whisper, monitoring his form in the full-length mirror. He feels his phone vibrate, and the grin reflecting back at him is disgusting. He should be ashamed.

He gently places the weight back on the rack when he completes the set and digs the phone from his mesh shorts.

Is your phone in your back pocket? Because that ass is calling me!

Derek honestly can’t say what possesses him to turn around, open his camera app, and hold the phone over his left shoulder. Perfect timing ur not following me r u? he writes back, attaching a photo of his butt. A dude doing kettlebell lunges across the gym gives him the stink eye.

Stiles answers with a string of peach emojis, which Derek understands, and a single unicorn emoji, which he doesn’t.

I know who you are, btw. Stiles Stilinski, the sheriff's kid? Cora figured it out

Usually, the response comes immediately, but Derek’s walking out to his car before he receives two simultaneous replies.

Well since the cat (be gr8ful i didn’t say pussy) is out of the bag

my mother used to tell me to follow my dreams so… where will you be tonight?

Derek sits behind the wheel, staring at his phone, weighing the pros and cons. He’s never gone on a blind date before, and he’s been burned, badly, in the past. Being single is sometimes lonely, but at least it’s safe. He doesn’t want to put a defenseless, unwitting human in harm’s way. His brain keeps supplying him with a list of perfectly rational reasons why he should leave their playful correspondence in the sandbox of cyberspace, but his heart furtively whispers what if.

8 & 9

There’s a live band at the bar, guitar player crooning a popular rock ballad while Derek nurses a beer for show. He checks his smartwatch for the seventh time in a span of three minutes and happens to catch the message notification as it pops up.

Do you know CPR? You better learn because ur taking my breath away

He spins around, searching for guys on their phones, frustrated to find almost every man in the bar staring at their screen. A baby-faced guy plops down on the open stool next to him as Derek’s eyes scan the crowd.

“Scott bet me I wouldn’t be able to start a conversation with the most beautiful person in the room.” Derek glances back, startled, to find a generous mouth smiling at him. “What should we do with his money?”

His first thought: HOT. His second thought: young. “Tell me you’re twenty-one,” Derek greets him. “Actually, please tell me you’re legal.”

Stiles dramatically crosses his heart, eyes wide. “I only look seventeen, I promise. It’s a blessing and a curse.” He holds out a sturdy but slender, long-fingered hand. “I’m Stiles. It’s nice to officially meet you.”

Derek takes his outstretched hand in a firm grip and swears he feels a zing when their skin makes contact. It’s official; he’s been single too long. “Derek. Let me buy you a drink, and you can tell me how you got my number in the first place.”

Stiles winks as Derek flags the bartender. “A gentleman never reveals his secrets.”

“Gentleman?” Derek, cold, fresh beer in hand, arches a brow. “Based on some of the texts I’ve received, I’m not sure gentleman is the correct term.”

Stiles clinks his drink against Derek’s. “Touché.” He eyes Derek over the lip of his brown bottle. “So, did you lace your pilsner with wolfsbane, or do you enjoy the taste?”

Derek, mid-sip, spits his beer onto the bartop. “What the hell?” he sputters, mopping at the mess with the world’s least absorbent cocktail napkin.

Stiles calmly takes a sip. “Come on, dude. My father’s the sheriff, and this town is literally a supernatural shit-show. If that wasn’t enough, my best friend is Scott McCall.”

“McCall?” Derek leans closer, soggy napkins forgotten, to whisper, “The True Alpha?” Derek’s met Scott at a few local pack gatherings.

“Yup,” Stiles replies. “He was bitten by a rogue werewolf when we were sixteen. So you could say I’ve been a little-” He makes exaggerated air quotes- “involved in the supernatural scene the past few years.”

Derek leans back, accessing Stiles in a new light: deceptively lean physique, handsome, impish face, the ability to make Derek laugh, and take him by surprise. The laundry list of reasons not to do this quickly goes up in smoke in the face of being able to show his true nature to a partner. Stiles smiles like he knows exactly what Derek is thinking.

“So, what do you say? Do I pass the test? Should we give going on an official first date a shot?”

“One condition,” Derek demands, holding up his index finger. “You’re not allowed to use a single pick up line all night.”

Stiles squawks, tossing long arms into the air. “You might as well ask me not to breathe! Or the Mets not to lose!”

“Chicken?” he asks, leaning into Stiles’ space. Derek quirks a brow and lifts his chin, eyes drawn like a magnet to Stiles’ tongue when it sneaks out to wet his lips.

“Hell no. Challenge accepted. Eight pm Saturday night.” An impish grin. “I’m gonna date you so hard, Hale.”

As far as (official) first dates go, it’s pretty damn amazing. The conversation flows as easily as the wine at dinner, and Stiles’ running jokes and commentary during the shitty movie doesn’t bother Derek at all. He’s thrilled to find their easy banter translates to real life, after weeks of electronic flirtation.

“Hey,” Derek whispers as they say good-night at Stiles’ apartment door. He wraps his arms around Stiles’ waist, pulling him close. He brushes a kiss, feather-light, across Stiles’ mouth and smirks. “Are you a magician? Because when I’m with you, everyone else disappears.”

Stiles leans back, arms still locked around Derek’s shoulders. “What the hell, man! You said no pick-up lines!”

Derek tuts. “I said you couldn’t use any. I never made the same promise.”

Stiles’ eyes narrow. “Serious question?”

“Shoot.”

“Will there be a second date?”

A second, a third, and more, if Derek has any say in the matter. “Absolutely.”

Stiles’ grin is slightly manic as he untangles slim fingers from Derek’s hair. “Well then, there’s probably something I should show you.” He holds up a hand in front of Derek’s face and snaps his fingers. A spark of light fizzles to life before his eyes, emanating from Stiles’ palm, and burning ozone singes the fine hairs inside his nose.

“Huh,” Derek replies, dumbly. “I did not see that coming.”

Stiles’ coy smile ignites something hot inside him. “I have some other party tricks I could show you if you want to come in?”

Derek leans forward again, chasing the bright glimmer of magic between them, the one that’s been there the whole time. “Oh, absolutely.”

——

For @evanesdust and based on THIS PROMPT by @faladrast

#eternalsterek #haleinski #sterekbingo2019 #sterek #sbwildcard3 #sterekbingo

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luvknow · 6 years ago

Text

out of my mind | lee minho

genre: lee minho x fem!reader feat. jisung, woojin, & chan | angst ; fluff ; science experiment au ; kind of soulmate au ; “maniac” tv series au ; au within an au ; mentions of mental illness summary: you and minho are two of ten strangers who are test subjects for a series of pills that supposedly cures all disorders of the mind. while under the influence of the pills, you fall into your dream world that overlaps with minho’s every time. as you two live multiple lives as partners in crime, lovers, or simply strangers in passing in the dream realm, the bond between you only strengthens as the testing continues. wc: 15.6k a/n: based off of the netflix show “maniac” and this gifset i made! this is a wild genre i’m not used to, in both writing and reading, so i hope it’s not too far-fetched for this fandom and i hope you guys like it!

You can’t count on your hands how many e-mails your school would spam you with about participating in some sketchy experiments with promises of some pocket cash. What you did know though was that each time you received one, you trashed it right away. What was the point in wasting so much time for such little money? Might as well just get a job.

Last week’s email was the only one you didn’t throw away.

Essentially, the email went like this:

Participate in District Pharmaceuticals’ trial for their new and radical product, The ABC pills! Designed by Dr. Kim Woojin, The ABC pills are a sequence of pills made to cure anything and everything about the mind, from mental illness to heartbreak, without any side effects. Our company is in the final stages of testing, just before we are able to release this on the market, where participants will test out the effectiveness of the full sequence for the very first time. With your help, you will be helping us change the lives of billions.

As a participant, you will:

Stay at our facility for an extended period of time (food and housing provided).

Consume and test the potency of the pills within that time frame.

Answer post-testing questions to help us better understand the effectiveness of the pill.

All participants who complete the entire testing scheme will receive a whole year of free tuition, regardless of whether or not testing passes FDA approval. Are you interested? Stop by District Pharmaceuticals for more information.

This company was obviously catering to your young adult needs, as nothing else could convince you to do something this stupid besides being offered a whole tuition-free year at school. It was one thing when hospitals would ask to monitor your sleep patterns or your diet and exercise or take multiple pints of your blood, but this company was asking you to ingest not just one drug, but a whole sequence of them! That meant they would only get stronger as the pills progressed, which could mean a high potential for you or someone to experience side-effects that the company claimed wouldn’t happen, develop a dependency, or even die of overdose. For a reward that generous though, you expected the risk would be at a maximum.

For now, as you stood in line at District Pharmaceuticals, the only thing you had to worry about was whether or not they would allow you to test. You would think that most people in line have seen a professional and have been diagnosed properly with whatever they had, so obviously their chances were much higher than yours. You’ve never been to a therapist, or a psychologist, or a psychiatrist, but you didn’t need a professional to determine that something was off about you. When there were days you couldn’t get out of bed; or when you cried for three hours straight so you could sleep; or when your wrists bled but you felt nothing; you figured that they would up your resume even if it was just a little bit.

Even with such a high reward, you had to be out of your damn mind to be signing ten pages worth of consent forms along with a questionnaire with only a backpack full of your belongings in the building today. Maybe the pills could cure your stupidity, too.

After completing the forms, you walked back up to the counter to hand them to a lady behind the counter. She told you to wait so she could confirm a denial or approval of your stay in just a couple of minutes. You took the time to look around and see who else was willing to go through such high-risk testing. Though your email provided promises of free tuition, some of the people here looked way beyond their years of college. Sure, they could be just older folks who decided to go back to school, but there was no way all of the potential participants here were like that... You had to have been the youngest person here.

You finally saw someone your age next to you in another line. A boy with dark brown hair handed his consent forms over to the same lady and waited patiently alongside you. He must have felt your gaze on him as he turned to face you and gave you a friendly smile.

He looked exhausted - like maybe the testing was his last chance at something.

After shyly returning the gesture, you quickly turned away, deciding that maybe it was best that you mind your own business in a place like this. Who knows what kind of skeletons people were hiding?

The same lady came back and stood between you and the boy on her side of the counter. She handed you and him laminated cards on a red lanyard. You had number one and he had number nine.

“Take a seat in the waiting area. When it’s time, we’ll call you both up.”

You and the boy gave each other a quick look, questioning the vagueness of her statement. Did this mean you both passed and were approved for testing? You decided not to question her though, as she looked annoyed that you both hadn’t moved since she said anything. Before she took your badges away, you did as you were told and walked towards the waiting area with the boy following closely behind you.

Minho sat across from you in the waiting area and tried to figure out what was it about you that made you familiar. It wasn’t the clothes you wore, or the way you tied your hair, and it certainly wasn’t the way your eyebrows raised as you read your badge, but there was just something about you that made him believe he knew you.

Maybe it was in a dream.

The way you looked at your badge must have meant there was something interesting on it, so Minho took a look at his, too.

9. Lee Minho Occupation: Student Defense Mechanism: 7 Level: X X X X X

Nothing else was on it. Not his birthday, height, weight, IQ, literally nothing else that would indicate he was a good candidate for testing. It seemed like District Laboratories only cared about his occupation and his defense mechanism, but he was unsure what ‘level’ meant and if five X’s was a good or a bad sign.

He wondered what was on your badge.

“Hey.”

Your voice pulled him away from his thoughts. As if reading his mind, you openly exposed your badge to him and pointed to the bottom line, where your ‘level’ held the same five X’s. Your name was _____ _____, you were also a student, and your defense mechanism was four.

“What level are you?” you asked, hoping it didn’t sound as stupid to him as it did to you.

“U-Uh, I also have five.”

“Really?”

“The Level just means the risk of the study,” another voice chimed in. “It has nothing to do with you personally.”

A couple seats down was a boy with blond hair who was also around your guys’ age. He didn’t look up from his cell phone as he said those words nonchalantly, indicating that he seemed familiar with this whole process.

“Have you done this before?” the boy across from you asked.

“A few times. Enough for them to pay for a bit of my schooling, at least,” the handsome blond boy finally turned his attention to the both of you, finding it amusing that you two seemed terrified of what’s to come. “I only participated up to Level Three testing, though. I have no idea what Level Five entails, but hey, high risk high reward.”

“You're not scared or anything...?” you asked.

“Nah ~ I’ve tested here plenty of times to know that these things are harmless, regardless of which Level I’m in. Is this your guys’ first test?” Both you and the other boy nod. “Ah, not surprised - you two seem like newbies.”

“Odd numbers, please report to Gate Three. Odd numbers, please report to Gate Three,” said a voice over the intercom.

“That’s us,” the blond sighed, slinging his roughed-up duffel bag over his shoulder. As his tag swung around, you noticed that the number on his ID was five.

Numbers one through nineteen lined up in numerical order at the gate, where two heavy-set body guards stood at the entrance and one walked up and down the line confiscating all electronics, including cell phones. You should be intimidated and feeling vulnerable without your phone, but somehow you felt calm in their presence, like you hoped they would be the ones to protect and save you throughout the duration of this experiment.

When the doors swung open, you saw the most handsome man you’ve seen in your entire life wearing a long white coat.

“Hello, everyone,” he greeted happily. “My name is Dr. Kim Woojin and I will be leading this experiment for the entire duration. If you will all follow me, I will take you to the facilities and we will have an overview of what’s to come.”

Dr. Woojin gives you a gentle smile before gesturing you to follow, to which you gladly obliged. With a man like him being the lead, maybe the testing wouldn’t be so bad after all.

He led you and the single file line behind you through a long, dark corridor with no windows. You and the other nine subjects followed Dr. Woojin mindlessly while trying to pay attention to the history lesson he gave you as you walked through a confusing series of different doors and hallways. He talked about the time his father found the cure for the common cold, how his grandfather found the cure for HIV/AIDS, and how his older brother just released the famous cancer-killing pills out on the market for hospitals all around the world to purchase. Dr. Woojin had some big shoes to fill.

He must have recited the history enough times to know that as soon as he finished, you all arrived to the facility. Through the sliding doors, you were the first to enter a huge room shaped like a perfect cube with no windows to the outside. In the center was a circular table with ten chairs meant for all of the test subjects with a bright, white light that simulated a sunny day shining down on it. On one of the walls was a huge window that looked into another room with another set of ten chairs and two metal plates at the headrest - a room you promised to look into more later. The third and only thing that mattered to you was the wall that contained all of the beds. Well, more like sleeping pods or incubators arranged like a morgue. No matter the look, since the mattress was soft and the blankets smelled like fresh linen.

When you popped out of your pod, you noticed that number nine took the pod right next to yours. For that, you were thankful, hoping that either he or number five could be your friend until this was all over, whenever that was.

You sat next to each other at the round table and you wondered if he felt the same familiarity about each other as you did. You’re not sure what it was, but you found yourself dangerously less nervous than you should be and you think it’s because of number nine. Not knowing his real name was killing you, so without him noticing, you took a peak at his card.

His name was Lee Minho and his defense mechanism was seven, which doesn’t seem much higher than yours, but if this was on a scale out of ten, then you were screwed.

Lee Minho... the name was unfamiliar, but you thought it suited him nicely.

“Welcome to your testing facility,” Dr. Woojin began. “You are sitting in the common area, where all of you will stay when we are not testing or conducting a post-testing review. You can talk to each other, read a book, do some crafts, play a game - we have provided endless amounts of entertainment during your awake hours. The room over there,” he said, pointing to the huge window, “is where the actual testing takes place. I will explain more later tonight when we conduct our first test. Next, are the sleeping pods, which you all have already settled into, the bathrooms are over there, and lastly, this is the round table, where all meals will be served.”

“Question,” the blonde boy piped. “How long is this testing?”

“Six days.”

“Wait, a week? That’s it? For a Level Five testing?”

“Correct.”

Dr. Woojin didn’t elaborate further on the topic, raising the suspicion of all the test subjects. As much as he wanted to, Number five didn’t press the matter further.

“The testing scheme will go as followed: as I said, tonight we will conduct our first test, which will be for Pill A, followed by a post-evaluation. Tomorrow we won’t test. The following evening will be Pill B and a post-evaluation, then another day of no testing. On the last night, we will be testing Pill C, which will go into the morning the next day. A final evaluation will be recorded, and from there, we will determine whether or not you are cured.”

“Just like that, we’ll all be cured?” Minho muttered incredulously.

“I wouldn’t say ‘just like that’... It may not work the same way for you as it does with someone else who was cured. That’s what this study is for, though, to make sure that everyone will be cured.”

“In just a week...” you trailed off. There was no way this only took six days. There had to be a catch.

“We will discuss more later tonight in the testing room. For now, please enjoy your dinner. I will see you all at midnight.” With that, he left the room.

“Cryptic, but ok,” you scoffed as a plate of food was placed in front of you. At least it looked good.

“He has to be hiding something from us, right?” Minho whispered to you. “There’s no way this is that easy...”

“Like he said, it may not be that easy.”

“But come on, look at all of us! Clearly we all have a lot of damage and it’s impossible that three pills would be capable of curing all of us in six days, right!?”

“Well, people once said curing the common cold and HIV was impossible and look where his bloodline got us.”

“You’re uncomfortably optimistic.”

“One of us has to be. Lee Minho doesn’t sound like an optimistic name, anyways.”

An embarrassed blush spread across his cheeks when you said his name. “Agree to disagree then,” Minho sighed.

He prayed that this would all be worth it in the end.

Dinner was quiet due to the fact that everyone was still trying to get used to the fact that testing had technically already started. Jisung, number five’s name you found out, was the most calm out of everyone. Naturally, since he’s done this plenty of times, but he was still wary.

“Something doesn’t add up,” he told you and Minho in secret by the sleep pods. It was only 9:00 PM when you three met up. “Never, in my two years of being a test dummy has the testing scheme lasted shorter than a couple of months. A couple of weeks is one thing, but six days? To complete an entire Level Five testing scheme!? That’s sus, you know?”

“Do you think we’re in danger?” Minho asked.

“We might be. Even so, we signed a contract and consent forms... We knew what we were getting into when we signed them. Legally, we can’t back out.”

“You think we’ll die?” you asked nonchalantly while casually flipping through a magazine. After listening to Jisung and Minho panic for over an hour, you were begging to get bored and desensitized of the fear.

“No ~ They wouldn’t let that happen to us...! I think...” Jisung gulped.

Until midnight, you three stayed together and talked about life outside of these sleeping pods. Turns out, all three of you had a lot in common. You all also agreed that despite going through your own struggles with mental illnesses, the other test subjects probably had it much worse. Everyone else’s IDs had a green sticker on them, while the three of you had red, which Jisung said it indicated that everyone else was mature enough to actually seek help while you three didn’t have the time, money, or patience for all of that.

The one thing you noticed about Jisung’s ID was that his defense mechanism was eight - double the amount of yours.

“Do you know what it means?” you asked.

He shrugged. “I’ve never had that section on my ID before. If it’s out of ten, I think Minho and I are good. You, on the other hand...”

“Lucky me, huh?”

“Maybe it’s not important,” Minho reassured. “Could be just a random stat. Like your blood type, or something.”

“Even if it was important, it’s not like they would just blindly throw you into knowing that.”

That, and Minho’s gentle smile, calmed you down a little bit. “Thanks, guys.”

A few minutes before the clock struck midnight, the entire cube fell silent, anxiously awaiting orders from our doctor. Everything was so up in the air at this point that the best you could do was expect the unexpected.

On the dot, Dr. Woojin walked into the room.

“Good evening,” he greeted. “Let’s all go to the testing room.”

The testing room was a lot bigger from the inside. Ten reclining chairs were nailed down in a circle all facing each with two large metal plates hung on each side of the head rest. The security guards instructed all of you to choose one to sit in and you, Minho, and Jisung decided to sit next to each other. Once the seats were chose, the security guards handed each of you a small cup with a pill shaped like the letter A.

“Tonight we will be studying the effects of Pill A. Out of the three pills, Pill A has the lowest concentration of the active ingredient, so the team behind the double mirror,” Dr. Woojin paused, pointing behind him, “will be making sure that everything is within the range of that concentration. All of our data is measured through the metal plates on each side of your head. The data measured is just like any other sleep study - brain waves and eye movement are measured through the built-in electroencephalograph and the electro-oculogram. The duration of the test will take six hours, around the average time a person spends going through all of the sleep cycles. That’s about it - the other two tests will be conducted similarly. The only precaution that I have to offer is that you may experience extremely vivid dreams to the point where you remember every detail, to which we will use in our post-evaluation. Are there any questions?”

No one raised their hand even though it looked like you all had a million questions to ask.

“Perfect.” Dr. Woojin and the body guards exited the testing room to go in the room where his team would be monitoring your sleep. “Please take the pill,” he ordered over the intercom.

You, Minho, and Jisung gave each other one last look before downing the chalky, cherry-tasting pill without water. You felt the sedative kick in right away like it was the strongest form of Nyquil you had ever experienced.

“Lights are dimmed. EEG and EOG are on. Pills are ingested. Testing will begin in three... two... one...”

You’re in a coffee shop sitting at one of the tables in the corner by the large window-wall, casually flipping through one of your many dating apps waiting for your partner to arrive. He was always fashionably late. Even if you purposely told him to come at an earlier time, he saw right through you and would still arrive later than you expected. Luckily, you hadn’t ordered anything yet, so at least your drink wouldn’t be cold.

“Sorry I’m late,” Minho said half-assed as he plopped down on the chair in front of you. He held two cups of coffee in his hands, to which you gladly took one.

“No, you’re not.”

“I bought our drinks, so we’re even.” From his backpack, he pulled out several folders stuffed with papers and documents and dropped all of them on the table. “Are you ready for this?”

“Why are we doing this here? This is so not discreet, like what kind of a spy are you!?”

“That’s the beauty of it, love - they would never expect us to be this stupid that we’d be discussing our business in the open like this.”

“If I die on the clock, I’m blaming it all on you and will spend my time in the afterlife haunting you until you join me,” you scoffed before sipping your coffee. “So who’s our target this time?”

“Son Chaeyoung, heiress of one of the country’s most popular airline companies. She’s supposedly one of ten people in the entire world who owns a pair of the famous pink diamond heart-shaped drop earrings.”

Her name sounds painfully familiar. You recognized the stinging pain in your chest at the sound of her name, but chose to ignore it, unsure of why this was happening to you.

A whistle escaped your lips upon hearing her history. “Must be nice to be rich.”

“Actually, her fiance gave it to her.”

“That must be nice, too.”

“... Anyways, the plan is to go to the party she’s hosting at her mansion and steal it then.”

“You and I are going to steal from her own home?” Minho nodded casually as if it was a simple favor he was asking of you. “How do you plan on doing that without getting caught!?”

“Seduce her, of course.”

“Yeah, like you could seduce an heiress,” you scoffed.

"Wanna bet on it?” he challenged with a smirk.

“Didn’t you just say she’s engaged? Isn’t this really risky?”

“When have either of those factors ever stop us before!?” You fell silent at his truthful statement. Seduction was just one of your’s & Minho’s many fields of expertise. Sure, you’ve had your fair share of flirting with engaged men just for Minho to snatch up whatever was on the wanted list, but that didn’t mean you never felt bad about it. “Look, the resell price we could make from this set is far too good for us to pass up. Think about it, we wouldn’t have to heist for months! We can take a break and buy a ticket to any corner of the world - just you and I. You’ve always talked about going to Singapore, right? Let’s go there!”

There’s something in you that says that seducing this poor girl for her beautiful jewelry given by her fiance is totally wrong and that you should move on to some other poor rich sucker, but there’s a stab in your chest whenever you hear her name and for whatever reason, you really wanted to take those earrings away from her.

“Fine, I’m in.”

“Yes!” Minho cheered, rubbing his greedy little hands together. This was the type of adrenaline that he lived for. “Let the heist begin.”

For the duration of your time at the coffee shop and up until the weekend, you and Minho spent nearly every waking hour together coordinating the master plan. You were in charge of getting the blueprints of her mansion, finding out what type of man she was into, and somehow receiving an invite to the party. Minho was in charge of the attire, the equipment, and the itinerary. The blueprint was the most important tool in the heist, which allowed you two to gauge where her bedroom was so no time was wasted aimlessly wandering around. Of course, her bedroom was at the farthest corner relative to where the party was being held, but you’ll make your way there somehow. You just hoped Minho would be able to distract her long enough.

“How did you manage to get an invite?” Minho called from your room as you were getting dressed in the bathroom.

“I had Jeongin hack into her assistant’s laptop and add us to the guest list. We couldn’t get a physical copy of the invite, but apparently that’s just for aesthetics - they still check off names at the door.”

“That’s incredible! We should hire that Jeongin kid one day. Maybe we can be a threesome.”

“That sounds like a great idea as long as you don’t call us a threesome.”

Minho halted his snickering when you waltz out of the bathroom head-to-toe in the ensemble he picked out, jewelry on and everything. He’s seen you in this type of clothing all the time, but you were always a sight for his sore eyes.

He whistled lowly while cheekily eyeing you up and down. “Lookin’ good, partner.”

“Not so bad yourself,” you grinned while you smoothed out his suit. “Are you wearing your Bluetooth set?”

He tucked his hair to show you the little pod in his ear. “Yup. Got your cute and tiny gun?” he teased.

"It’s not cute and tiny, it’s stealthy and practical,” you pouted while exposing the gun strapped in by your garter.

“Whatever you say. But anyways, I think we’re set. Are you ready, partner?”

“As I’ll ever be. Let’s get our tickets to Singapore.”

Minho drove his fancy all black car that had those butterfly doors that opened upwards just so he could flex on all the other rich men who thought they were all that. You thought it was a bit too extra and might raise suspicion from some wary guests, but there was no turning back now. On the way to the mansion, you quizzed Minho on the topics that would make Chaeyoung fall head-over heels for him.

“Ok, so she collects art pieces from all over the world, right? She loves the Baroque period, but she’s gained a huge interest in Surrealism so I’ll say some shit like I have an original Dali piece, or something.”

“Hey, that’s pretty good. I'm feelin’ pretty seduced right now.”

“Really!? That’s a good sign coming from you,” Minho chuckled cutely.

The mansion was nothing short of what you expected it to be. It was huge, with white columns, each covered with flowers that were different shades of pink. The valet took Minho’s car keys once he approved both of your names on the guest list and that was the green light for you two to start the heist.

The inside was naturally even more stunning than the outside. From the marble tiles, to the staircase, and to the shining chandelier, everything was all-white and gilded in gold. You’ve seen more extravagant mansions, but for an heiress no older than you and Minho, this was pretty impressive.

“All right, partner - seduce away,” you teased.

“Will do. Don’t get caught or die or anything, ok?"

“No promises. Give me the green light whenever you’re ready.”

With that, you both went your separate ways. It still felt like you were near each other though, because every once in a while one of you would comment on some cool thing you saw in one of the infinite rooms or hallways. While exploring the depths of Chaeyoung’s palace all the while trying to layout the blueprints you memorized, you noticed there was a tall staircase just as beautiful as the main one that was closed off with a velvet rope.

“I think I’m close,” you muttered to Minho in your earpiece. “I found the staircase that led up to one of the corners of the second floor.”

“Hey, great. But don’t go in there yet - I think Chaeyoung’s still making her rounds.”

It wasn’t until two hours into the party after you and Minho devoured in hors d’oeuvres and painfully resisted champagne when Chaeyoung finally approached your handsome partner who was eyeing the Vanitas Flower Still Life by Willem van Aelst.

“This is one of my favorite paintings in my collection,” you heard Chaeyoung say through your earpiece.

“A fan of the Baroque period?” Minho replied.

“Oh, yes. I can’t explain why, but there’s something about this style that just draws you in, right? Maybe it’s the way the pastels sit on a dark negative space.”

You wondered if he understood what any of those words meant. “I’m more of an Impressionist kind of man.” Minho ignored your ugly snort when he said that. “Monet is a classic favorite, you know?”

“Agreed!”

“But do you know what my absolute favorite movement is?”

“What is it?”

“Surrealism.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I have an original Dali piece hanging in my study.”

When Chaeyoung bit her lip and grabbed Minho’s hand to take him to God knows where, he figured he got this in the bag. As the two of them were walking through a crowd of loud and drunk guests, he took this opportunity to talk into his earpiece.

“Go now.”

“Huh... That was easy.”

“So is she, I guess.”

As quick as you came in, you hopped over the velvet rope and ran up the stairs. You ditched your heels in one of the laundry chutes in the process, as you found out that even the second floor was laid out in white marble. If you remembered the blue prints correctly, you knew that her bedroom was on the other side of that floor level, which might not sound so far in a normal home, but considering that was the size of a hotel, you had to figure out how you would make your way over without getting caught.

It was hard to stay focused when you could hear sloppy kissing on the other end.

“Can you be quiet, for Christ’s sake!? All I hear is saliva!” you whispered.

Minho ignored you scolding and continued on with his task. So you wouldn’t puke all over her nice floors, you lowered the volume and kept going. This was going to be a long night.

After avoiding Chaeyoung’s house staff and running down several long hallways, you were finally face-to-face with the only black door in the whole house. This had to be her room.

“Hey, I think I found it,” you told Minho.

“Mm,” was all you received, either as a confirmation or he was in the moment still with his new heiress friend.

The door was unlocked and inside was a man dressed in his pajamas casually sitting on the ginormous king-sized bed. Panic began to rise in your chest and you think you have to use your gun, but he didn’t seemed startled when he saw you. Rather, he gave you a gentle smile that flipped your heart and a simple wave. There’s something familiar about him and it pained you the same way when you saw or heard of Chaeyoung.

“Hi,” he greeted. “Can I help you...?”

Fuck. “O-Oh...! This isn’t the bathroom?” you burst out into a loud giggle that hid your panic. “Silly me! I must have drank too much champagne.”

“Yeah, that can happen. There’s a bathroom around the corner if you need it.”

“Oh, thanks!” Before the handsome man could say anything else, you run into the room next door.

On the other end of the line, you heard Minho excuse himself to find a bathroom of his own. “What happened!?” he whispered.

“Her fiance is in the bedroom! What do I do?”

“Guess you have to seduce him, too.”

��You’re not serious.”

“Do you want to get the fuck out of here, or not!? I’m sacrificing myself by seducing Chaeyoung, you should, too!”

“Oh, shut up, you’re enjoying this way more than you should be,” you mumbled. “Fine. I’ll let you know what’s up.”

“Ok, good. I guess I’ll get back to making out with my target now...”

You ignored his last remark and check the time on your watch. The hands read 00:00, but that couldn’t have been right... You swear that you and Minho have been there for hours beyond that. The seconds hand was stuck right on the twelve mark and you’re not sure if that’s a coincidence or if something was up. You let it slide, thinking that your watch was simply broken.

You invited yourself into their bedroom once more, making sure to give the fiance a knock on the door as a warning. Again, the man is not surprised nor is he upset. Instead, he found this quite amusing.

He found you quite cute, too.

“Can I help you again?”

“Yeah, uh... I’m not feeling too hot. Do you mind if I sit with you...?”

“Please,” he encouraged, patting down a spot next to him. “I’m watching some trashy drama. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, not at all! I love shitty dramas. But why aren’t you downstairs with everyone else?”

“Ugh, I just hate huge parties like this. I tell Chaeyoung every time that I never want to attend these functions, but you know her, she just goes and does whatever she wants. I’m just her fiance, after all,” a tired chuckle escaped his lips. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I ever introduced myself. My name is Bang Chan.”

There’s a sting in your heart that felt like several nails were being hammered in at all angles and all crevices when you heard his name. You know you’ve heard it somewhere before and you know there’s a reason for all the heartache, but you can’t put your tongue on it. But that was crazy for you to believe you knew his name - you’ve never met this man in your entire life! You didn’t even know what Chaeyoung’s fiance looked like before this heist, and yet there’s something about him that made you believe you’ve spent at least one lifetime together, just by hearing his name.

Maybe it was in a dream.

“And you are...?” he trailed off.

You swallowed hard. “_____ _____.”

“Nice to meet you, _____.”

“Bang Chan, have we met before?”

He thought for a moment and shook his head. “No, I don’t believe so. I would have definitely remembered you if we have.”

Your cheeks warmed so quickly so embarrassingly, but Bang Chan thought it was charming, so he laughed. It sounded like hearing your favorite song for the very first time.

“_____, get out of there!” Minho hissed, breaking you away form your broken thoughts. “Chaeyoung is wearing the earrings right now and she’s going up to her room to change!”

“U-Uh, I have to go,” you muttered, hopping off of the bed.

“Oh, ok...” For a moment, you thought he was sad you’re leaving, but that couldn’t be it. “I’ll see you again sometime?”

“Sure.”

“Promise?”

You didn’t answer. “Good bye, Bang Chan.”

You then slipped away from the bedroom and hoped to never see his beautiful smile ever again. But the feeling of leaving his side was more painful than when you met him.

When you turned the corner, you bumped into the ever-so famous and beautiful Son Chaeyoung, who looked annoyed that someone had dared to touch her other than Bang Chan or art-enthusiast Lee Minho.

“Watch where you’re going!” she scolded, not even questioning why you were up there in the first place.

You didn’t let her snobbiness bother you. How could you let it, when one of her pink heart-shaped diamond drop earrings fell on the floor right in front of you?

You snatched it off of the floor and sprinted down the stairs, where an impatient Minho waited for you.

“Go go go!” you giggled, grabbing the hand of the confused man. He didn’t question it though, thinking that your giggling was a good sign.

Minho grabbed his keys from the valet, telling the nervous boy that he’d retrieve his car himself, since you were already halfway to the parking spot. Never in either of your careers had you two so messily escaped a scene just now and never had he heard you laugh like a hyena before.

“Why are you being so weird!?” he asked after speeding away from the mansion. “I’m sweating so much right now.”

“Look!” you beamed, holding up the one heavy earring, and soon Minho joined you in your wild laughter.

“You know how that happened?” Minho began his story, rather than making it a question. “While I was, you know, ‘doing my job’, I would have my hands on the back of her head and I’d try to loosen the backing of the earring. I can’t believe it fucking worked!”

“I feel like crying,” you said once your giggles subsided. “Ready for Singapore, partner?”

“Yeah, but we only have one earring, so spend your half wisely.”

You awake in your chair sweating like your finished a marathon. It took a second for you to realize that yes, you are definitely breathing, but you should calm down before you pass out. Other than the heavy breathing and gross amounts of sweat, you feel just fine - as fine as you were before taking Pill A.

Oh, that’s right - you must have completed the first phase of testing just now. You were in District Pharmaceuticals, you were a test subject for a sequence of pills, and you just had a vivid dream with Minho in it. Dr. Woojin warned you and the other subjects six hours ago that these dreams were possible, yet knowing that Minho, a complete stranger to you, was in them felt... not necessarily wrong, but it definitely didn’t feel right, either.

Next to you, Minho was thinking and feeling the same thing. He was sweating, it was hard for him to breathe, and when he looked at you, it was like he knew what you dreamed about just now because hes was in there with you. Maybe that’s what happened when a bunch of people are dreaming and are surrounded by all the rays that measured their brain activity. Maybe other subjects’ dreams overlapped with each other’s, too.

“No, I was alone in mine, with only people that I knew poppin’ up here and there,” Jisung said when you asked him. It was just you two sitting at the table drinking some water while Minho went straight for his sleeping pod, clearly not wanting to socialize after something like that. You didn’t blamed him. “Were you not alone?”

“No, Minho was in my dream.”

“Really!? That’s crazy! Were you in his?”

“I have no idea. But you what else is crazy?” Jisung leaned in. “I have this feeling that he and I were having the same dream.”

“What? Like you two had two separate dreams and you just somehow appeared in each other’s?”

“No, even weirder - I think we had the same, single dream bubble.”

“Maybe Dr. Woojin can help you figure it out during post-evaluation.”

“Number one, you’re up first,” ushered one of the security guards.

“Speaking of. Good luck in there, friend. Let me know how it goes,” Jisung reassured.

“Will do.”

The security guard led you through an unfamiliar hallway that you swear you didn’t pass through yesterday. Who knows though, maybe you did and you just didn’t realize it. All of the hallways were starting to look the same at this point.

It’s been about half an hour since you woke up from you vivid dream with Minho. You could still picture every second of that scenario and could describe it in detail if Dr. Woojin asked that of you. You didn’t question why that specific plot line was how your dream went because did any of your dreams ever make sense? No, but you couldn’t figure out why Bang Chan and Son Chaeyoung, of all the fucking people in the world, appeared in your dream. After today, Dr. Woojin was probably going to tell you how your traumatic experiences with them contributed to your well-being, or some bullshit like that, but you didn’t need an expert to tell you that. Somehow, though, seeing them felt... relieving?

“Welcome, number one,” Dr. Woojin greeted as you stepped into the room. “It’s _____, correct?”

You were too mesmerized by all of the cameras surrounding the chair you would sit in that pointed at different angles. A bunch of monitors hung on the wall behind you and you were starting to get nervous. You didn’t like being recorded.

“Y-Yes, _____ is right.”

“Please, have a seat.”

And so you did, with the eyes of at least eight cameras staring right at you. Then, with you barely noticing, Dr. Woojin linked you up to some heart rate monitor or brain wave monitor - you couldn’t tell the difference when only your hand was connected.

“I will be asking you a series of questions and monitoring your answers as we go along. Do your best to answer as clearly, concise, and honest as possible, ok? This won’t hurt, or anything.”

His reassurance was enough to calm you down just a little. “Ok,” you replied.

“Good. First question. Describe your experience when you took Pill A.”

You take a deep breath to calm you beating heart. “Pill A was chalky. Kind of like those Flinstones vitamins you used to get when you were a kid, you know? Cherry flavored is what I can recall. After that, I fell asleep.”

“Would you say your experience was satisfactory?”

“If the purpose of it is to knock me out, then yes, very satisfied.”

“Excellent,” he jotted down several words you couldn’t read and check marked several boxes. You hoped that was a good sign. “What was the first thing you noticed after that?”

“I noticed that I was out in public.”

“What did you see?”

Minho. “A coffee shop. I was in a coffee shop.”

“Did you see anyone you recognized?”

You lied and shook your head. “No, not there.”

“But somewhere else?”

“Yeah, I... It was weird. I was like, a spy or something? I was on a mission to steal some really expensive earrings so I could travel to Singapore.”

“How did the heist go?”

“It went well - I got one earring, hopped in the car, and drove away. The dream ended there.”

“So you saw someone you recognized sometime during the heist?”

Your jaw was beginning to hurt from the grinding your teeth. “Yeah, I saw my ex-boyfriend and the girl he cheated on me with.”

“What was their role in your dream?”

“I was stealing the earrings from her and my ex was her fiance. Weirdest fucking dream I’ve had in my entire life.”

“How did you feel after that?”

“Invigorated. Like they got what they deserved, and I didn’t even have to punch them in the face for it. But god, just seeing them was so painful... I mean, really I should be over it by now... It’s been over a year since that happened. But I could never seem to let it go.”

“Would you say you could now?”

“Well, since I’m not actually in Singapore, not 100 percent but... I feel like I’m a one step closer to doing so. It’d be the most progress I made since it happened.”

“That’s good. I’m glad,” Dr. Woojin gave you a calming smile. “Your evaluation is over. You may return to the common area.”

A heavy weight lifted from your shoulders and you’re starting to see the purpose of the study a bit clearer than last night. You initially thought you were just going to pop some pills and call it a day, but oh no, this was way beyond your expectations and you’re not sure if you should be glad you took up this opportunity or terrified that this could actually work.

And where did Minho tie in with all of this? You had to find out.

When you arrived back in the common room, you spot Minho’s head lift up from his book to catch your gaze. He looked both terrified and unsettled as he made his way back to his sleeping pod and shut the curtains.

You needed answers from him. You needed to know if he dreamed the same thing.

“Hey,” you muttered, opening his curtains just a tad. His back was hunched over facing you, not wanting to acknowledge you even a little bit. “I need to ask you something.”

“Please close my curtains,” he asked, not turning around.

“This is important.”

“Can’t it wait until later?”

“What did you dream about last night?”

Minho’s brief moment of silence was enough to answer your question. For some reason, he just wasn’t as excited or interested in this as you are - you, on the other hand, found this fascinating. How was it that two complete strangers were able to experience some form of life together? In that dream, you felt like Minho was your best friend. Was it destiny or some weird fate that brought your dream bubbles together?

Minho sighed and turned around to face you, surprised that you made yourself comfortable inside of his pod. Clearly, you wouldn’t be leaving without an answer, and in a way, he knew that. “You know what I dreamed about.”

“I knew it! You were totally there with me!” you beamed. “That’s crazy, right!?”

“Yeah...”

“How do you think this happened?”

“Computers and testing go wonky all the time. Maybe they accidentally crossed us over, or something.”

“For the whole duration of the dream? No way.”

“I don’t know.”

“You know, you weren’t this shy in our dream.”

“Do you want me to steal jewelry for you, too?” he scoffed. He gave up trying to ignore and turned around to face you, who was already inside his pod uninvited.

You only rolled your eyes. “Hey, tell me something - did you see anyone you knew in our dream? Like, a friend you know or like a teacher while we were separated?”

Minho shook his head. “I was confused, if I’m being honest. Usually when you dream, your brain uses faces you recognize to form the people that pop up in your dreams. But I didn’t recognize anyone. Did you?”

“Yeah, a couple.”

Minho didn’t press you for an answer, thinking your matter was private and he respected that. He had to in a place like this.

“By the way, about the post-evaluation,” you whispered, leaning in closely. “I didn’t tell Dr. Woojin that I saw you. I was afraid he’d throw one of us out, or something if he found out we’re overlapping.”

He nodded and understood. “Thank you. I’ll do the same.”

“Thanks!”

Minho kind of liked the way you smiled and leaned back against his pod like you were at peace with this moment in such a place like this. You seemed to be taking this whole testing thing a lot lighter than everyone else here, aside from Jisung who was used to all of this by now. Maybe that was the right attitude you needed to survive all six days, but then again it was only day two.

He can’t explain why, but he’s glad it was you of all people he got to share his dream bubble with. If it were anyone else, he’d probably beg to be taken out of the experiment saying some shit like he was unstable to continue forward. But he trusted you as much as he could trust just any random girl he met at a testing facility. And he enjoyed his dream with you, at least. You were fun to be around in that world, like he had experienced it with you hundreds of times before.

“Do you think we’ll see each other again tomorrow night?” you asked, breaking his thoughts.

He shrugged, "It’s possible. I won’t be too surprised this time around.” Though he secretly hoped he’d see you.

“Let’s hope the next time won’t be as dangerous,” you teased.

“Oh, but Danger is my middle name.”

“As long as we don’t die. You know what they say ~”

“You die in your dream, you die in real life?”

“Something like that.”

“I’ll make sure to be extra careful then.”

You were oddly excited for the following night. You couldn’t wait to see what type of dream you would have next, and whether or not Minho would be there to join you. It wasn’t that you needed him to be there, and was fun having a buddy with you to live a life you could literally only dream about living, but if the rest of your dreams would be as traumatic as the first, then having him there would help a ton.

You wondered what kind of dream you’d have next - maybe you would pass through a different era? Maybe this time you’d solve a murder mystery? The possibilities were endless! But you couldn’t control anything, so all you could do was hope.

And there was something about him that you couldn’t put your finger on - it was on the tip of your tongue - that made you feel a sort of natural attraction to him. He pulled you in without any intention. It was like you were meant to meet here. All the more reason for you to figure him out while you run through more adventures in your dreams together.

The daytime went about calmly. You, Jisung, and Minho were just hanging out talking more about your lives before any of this. Jisung tried to see if there was any kind of overlap with your’s and Minho’s lives that would explain why you two experienced the same dream, but nothing was connecting. You and Minho came from two different sides of town, different social class, different universities - pretty much nothing about you and Minho was even remotely similar, so yeah, Jisung concluded that this was some act of fate.

“Wow, nothing adds up at all,” Jisung said, completely baffled.

“Pretty cool, right?” you admitted.

“I don’t know if cool is really the right word...” Minho mumbled.

“Maybe you two were fated to meet.”

“In our dreams as test monkeys?”

“Fate is fate, Minho. Who knows, maybe you guys are soulmates, in some twisted way. That’s kind of romantic, right? Are both of you guys single?”

“Shut up, Jisung,” you and Minho said simultaneously.

Although you couldn’t wait to take Pill B, when you entered the testing room for the second time, the chairs and head plates were still terrifying. To maximize the likelihood of merging dreams, you and Minho sat in the same chairs right next to each other. Pill B was then given to everyone in a small dixie cup. This time, the pill was blue.

“We will now commence the testing of Pill B,” Dr. Woojin said over the intercom. “Ingest Pill B.” You all did as such with much less hesitation. This one tasted like blueberry. “Everything is set. Testing will begin in three... two... one...”

The first thing you saw was yourself as you looked into the mirror, dressed in an elegant jewel tone gown ready for a night out. You must have been inside your bathroom and not a public one, as you saw all of your expensive make-up, perfumes, and some jewelry scattered all over your side of the Jill sink. On the other side with the Jack sink laid shaving equipment, skin care products, and cologne untouched as their owner was out of sight.

Just as you were thinking about him, a pair of warm, strong arms wrapped themselves around your waist.

“Hi,” Minho whispered, nuzzling his head against yours in the softest manner. His stray hairs, all messy from bed still, were tickling your neck. “What are you looking so beautiful for?”

“Nuh-uh, don’t even try to compliment your way out of this one. We have your parents’ wedding anniversary, remember?”

“Mm, I was hoping you’d forget so we wouldn’t have to go.”

You turned yourself around so you could face your loving husband who now pressed you to the side of the sink. He wanted to be as close to you as possible because he could never get enough of touching you. It was his way of telling you how much he loved you without having to say a word.

“Don’t be so pouty tonight, ok? Let’s have some fun - tonight’s a night to celebrate love.”

“We can do that in the bedroom ~” he mumbled lowly, lips travelling to the crook of your neck to that one spot that made your knees weak.

Playfully, you shove your handsome man off before you caved in and made your way out of the bathroom. “I’ll be in the kitchen whenever you’re ready.”

“We can celebrate there too, if you want!”

You ignored his whines and waited a patient half hour in the kitchen while he got ready. Tonight was your in-laws’ celebration of their 25th wedding anniversary. Before meeting the Lees, you’ve never even heard of an anniversary celebrated before the 50th year, but the Lees were a special kind of expensive family who celebrated anything and everything. If you thought their 24th anniversary party last year was huge, this year’s was going to be ginormous.

Mr. Lee Minho, CEO of the Min Hotel and your loving husband, slyly walked towards you with his signature smirk that made you fall for him at first sight. He wore some designer suit you couldn’t pronounce and his cute dangly earrings.

“Hey, handsome. Come here often ~?” you teased.

“Can you imagine if that’s what you asked me when we first met?”

“Instead of ‘hi, would you like to try our special peppermint latte today?’ No, I can’t imagine.”

“Did I ever tell you that was the best peppermint latte I’ve ever had?”

“Only every other day. Are you finally ready to head out?”

“Do we really have to go...?”

“Yes, we do. We don’t have to stay long. At least to go see your mother.”

“Fine, but don’t you dare leave my side unless it’s for food, booze, or the bathroom.”

“Ok, whatever you say ~”

Minho’s driver pulled up to meet you at the front door. He was also your driver, but you’ve never found a need to use him so often when you could just drive yourself. You don’t think you could ever get used to your husband’s lifestyle, no matter how long you two have been together.

The car ride was spent with your head on Minho’s shoulder while holding his hand. He liked playing the game of drawing little shapes and words on the back of your hand and you’d have to guess what he drew.

“That’s a star,” you said.

“Mhm.”

“That’s a... cat face?”

“Soonie or Doongie?”

“Soonie!”

“Wow, you’re good. How about this one?”

“That’s inappropriate, Mr. Lee,” you scolded, slapping his hand away.

Minho chuckled and held you closer, peppering little kisses all over the top of your head until you finally looked up and pulled him in for a real kiss. Neither of you could stop smiling nor kissing like newly weds on their honeymoon.

“We have arrived,” your driver announced through the crack of the partition.

“I really don’t want to go,” Minho sighed into the kiss, feeling a painful sting in his chest.

“Just for a little bit,” you reassured. “C’mon, we’re already here.”

Hand-in-hand, you and Minho walked into The Min Hotel, the number one luxury hotel in the country. Minho was already overworked running this place and now he had to actually socialize and attempt to enjoy such a place. You could tell he was tense the second you both walked through the doors, so you squeezed his hand reassuringly.

“Remember to have fun, ok? You’re not working today or anything.”

“I’m here with you, so of course I’ll have fun,” he said.

The ballroom was decked out in twinkling lights and white lilies, the same decorations that were arranged at his parents’ actual wedding. Only the finest plates and crystal glasses were at the tables with open bottles of expensive champagne ready to be poured. Even if you could think up the biggest most expensive wedding reception of your dreams, this venue could not even come close to your imagination.

But that’s ok, because you already lived your dream wedding - just you and Minho, alone with the minister in a rose garden as you said your vows. Neither of you needed a huge audience to witness.

“Minho!” you both heard his mother call.

Like a true mama’s boy, he ran up to his mother happily and gave her a big hug. She was dressed in a beautiful long, white gown and looked like she hadn’t aged since she got married twenty-five years ago.

His father was nowhere to be seen.

“_____, you’re as stunning as ever,” his mother complimented, immediately going in to hug you.

“I’m nothing compared to you,” you said back.

“Ah, you always make me feel so young ~” she gushed happily, blushing as pink as a rose.

“Where’s Dad?” Minho asked reluctantly.

“At the bar, as usual.”

“Well, that’s one corner I know to avoid.”

“Hey, be nice tonight, ok? It’s our anniversary, for God’s sake,” his mother scolded, pointing an accusatory finger at her pouty son. “Now you kids have fun, ok?”

“Yes, mom...”

For the first half of the night, you and Minho delved into the luxuries of the party. You both snacked on caviar and capers that the waiters handed out on silver platters, drank golden champagne from the crystal glasses, and spent an eternity at the dessert table. The entire affair was too way too extravagant for such an occasion, but at least the food was to die for.

While you were trying to have fun for the both of you, Minho couldn’t shake off the anxiety he felt whenever he saw his father. He was boring holes into his stupid, designer tuxedo, yet he never gave him the time of day. He didn’t stop to say hi on his way to the bar for the fifth time, didn’t wave, and didn’t even look his way. Even though he was the star heir to the hotel, Minho might as well have not existed to his father. It was like he was the child of disappointment and regret all over again.

This dream was starting to get too real... Then it clicked.

Fuck this pill.

“Hey,” you said, tearing him away from his moment of existential crisis and self depreciation. “Dance with me?”

You must haven’t realized this was the effects of Pill B yet, but your smile was so warm and loving, how could he say no? In this lifetime, in this world, this version of you, you were so deeply in love with him and he needed that so desperately right now.

In this dream, he loved you so much, too, so he’ll play along until it was time to wake up.

“Of course, love,” he said, taking you to the middle of the dance floor where the whole venue could see.

You delicately wrapped your arms around his neck while he rested his at the small of your back. For three dances, your husband was quiet, eyes drooping lowly like he was about to fall asleep. Was it that late already? You checked your watch for the time.

00:00, with the seconds hand stuck on the twelve.

Everything clicked.

The space around you both began to change and it did not go unnoticed. By the fifth song, the twinkling lights dimmed to blackness. No longer could either of you see the rest of the guests and even his parents, who you thought were approaching you two just a second ago, were nowhere to be seen in the darkness. All you could see was Minho’s handsome face just centimeters from yours.

“Are we still dreaming?” you whispered, though already knowing the answer.

“I really, really hope so,” he admitted.

“Are you ok?”

“Yeah.. Uh hey, since we’re dreaming... can I kiss you?”

You only nodded in response, and before you stopped, Minho immediately leaned down to press his lips to yours. Even if this was a dream, it felt so, so real - his lips were soft, warm, and desperate, finding solace by molding with yours. You felt ever bit of sadness he experienced in the dream in his kiss and you figured this was something he needed.

The second he pulled away, he disappeared and your vision went black.

You awoke in the same manner from two nights ago - covered in sweat, gasping for air, with a sped up heart rate. Minho woke up the same way, and neither of you could look each other in the eye after that dream.

Pill B contained a higher concentration of whatever active ingredient it had, and you supposed that correlated with the intensity of the dreams. Compared to the dream from Pill A, Pill B felt much shorter, almost half the time you experienced in Pill A, but the realness of the dream felt like it was ten times stronger. This dream was about Minho and his relationship with his father, but the minor details of the dream were meant for you to delve in.

You had complete and entire memories in that dream bubble. You and Minho had memories of when you first met, of your first date, of the day you got married, and every kiss, fight, and laughing fits you ever experienced. Truly, you two lived an entire life filled with love under the influence of Pill B - a life you could only ever dream about. When your ex-boyfriend Bang Chan left you for Son Chaeyoung, you never thought you could experience a love so true ever again. You lived in constant fear and pessimism that love was never real and that everyone was only lying to themselves when it came to the matter. But in this dream, you experienced a life full of love that you’ve always wanted with Chan. And even if you would never experience that with Chan - even if you experienced it with a stranger named Lee Minho - you knew this was something you wanted in your next relationship.

Soon you would learn and accept that a love like your’s and Minho’s would come easily - as easy as it would in a dream.

Again, you were the first to give your post evaluation. You said all there was about it, from beginning to end, and what you thought it could mean. You didn’t say you were with Minho. You said you were with some faceless man and said how that represented the void that you felt when Chan left you. Or some bullshit like that.

You didn’t care about the post evaluation. You just wanted to talk to Minho again.

But maybe you would be over-stepping your boundaries. This was pretty much his dream, after all. You didn’t want to be nosy by asking him what the dream and the kissing at the end meant to him.

Maybe you were taking this testing too seriously. You would never see him again after this was over anyways, right? But for some reason, just thinking about that made your heart drop to the pit of your stomach.

There was something in Pill B that made you feel extra light headed after your evaluation, so you headed straight for your sleeping pod, ignoring the curious stares of Minho and Jisung. Today, you were the one not up for any socializing.

Hours passed as you not only napped in your pod, but read a few chapters of some book, ate your breakfast and lunch, and did a couple of puzzles in your pod, also. You had to keep yourself occupied in a prison like this. How else were you going to survive such a powerful and painful mental cleansing? Even after all of that, your light headed-ness was still present. Didn’t Dr. Woojin say there were no side effects? Maybe that was due to your level four defense mechanism.

To your surprise, sometime at around 8:00 pm, your curtain was pulled open.

“Hey,” Minho greeted shyly. “Can I come in?”

Wordlessly, you nodded, scooting over so he could sit next to you. You could really use his company right now.

“I, uh, figured I should explain why our dream was like that.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“I want to, if that’s ok.”

“Of course, Minho.”

Hearing his name sent a shock through his body. “You met my mom in the dream. She actually passed away a couple of years ago. Since then, my dad hasn’t been able to keep a job or complete any regular daily tasks other than downing any alcohol he can find. He’ll put the blame for her death on himself and then on me, and soon I really began to believe it was my fault. He can’t even look at me anymore.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“It’s ok.”

“Why are you telling me this, though? I’m just a strange girl in your dreams, for all you know.”

He shrugged, not really knowing the answer himself. “I don’t know. I just... wanted to talk to you. I also thought me giving you some background information would somehow justify me asking to um, kiss you earlier, but it really doesn’t, does it?” he chuckled nervously.

“Is that the reason you ended up here?”

“Yeah... that, and other personal struggles, but yeah. I miss her a lot, you know?”

“You look a lot like her.”

“Do I really?”

“Yeah,” you smiled. “I bet she would be proud of you for coming here and trying to seek help for yourself.”

Cautiously, Minho laid his hand on top of yours, painting the same little shapes on the back with his thumb. “Thank you for saying that.”

“Wanna hear my story?”

“I would love to.”

“You know our first dream with the heist?” Minho nodded, listening attentively. “Chaeyoung is the girl my ex-boyfriend cheated on me with.”

“Ouch...”

“Yeah. Her fiance I met upstairs in her room was my ex. I caught them at a party one night last year. He left my side and said he was just going to make his rounds and say hi to his friends, but when I went to look for him after a while, they were in some stranger’s bed. It really doesn’t sound like a big deal - other people who get cheated on, they could just drop him right away and move onto the next person just like that. But how could I when he made me feel like I could fly for those years we were together? It wasn’t even him cheating on me that made me lose my sense of self, you know? I was just so dependent on him for self-worth... It was like I didn’t know who I was without him. This past year without him has been really hard, to the point where I almost flunked out of school. And so I ended up here, because my heart is so very weak and pathetic and I need to fucking fix it.”

“You’re not weak or pathetic. Just fragile.”

“That’s just a nicer word for it...”

“Eh, yeah. That’s what my mom used to say to me. My dad would call me weak a lot and then afterwards, my mom would wipe my tears and say that I wasn’t weak, I was fragile. I just needed to be taken extra care of.”

“Your a soft dude, Minho,” you teased. “Is it weird to say that I really enjoyed being married to you for those five fake years?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You took extra care of my fragile, level four defense mechanism of a heart while we were together. It really, truly felt like you did that for five years.”

A dark blush burned his cheeks. “I’m glad you thought so.”

“Mm. I hope to feel the kind of love I felt for you for real one day.”

“Me, too.”

“Tell me your life story, Minho.”

“Ok. I was born on October 25th...”

You spent the next couple of hours talking to Minho like he was your best friend while you both continued to play with each other’s hands. He gave you a very detailed timeline of his life from the day he was born up until he met you and you did the same, losing track of time completely. Then the next morning you continued on talking about your favorite movies, books, foods - anything you could think of to fill in the gap until it was time to test the very last pill, the strongest of them all.

“What do you think we’ll dream about this time?” you asked excitedly.

“We’re both idols.”

“Ugh gross, I don’t wanna dream about that! Besides, I don’t think Pill C would be called the strongest pill if that’s all we end up dreaming about.”

“Ok, how about we’re cowboys in the wild west with those weird American accents? We have guns and stuff.”

“Ooh interesting, I like that one. Or how about assassins?”

“A little risky considering if we die in the dream, we could die in real life.”

Then midnight came around. After tonight, everyone would have their final evaluation and then you’d be cured! Well, maybe. One thing for sure was that in a matter of hours, you would no longer be with Minho. You two would move on with your lives like you never met, like those fake five years married together and being partners in crime meant absolutely nothing.

It broke your heart, just a little.

“Welcome to the last test, Pill C,” Dr. Woojin said over the intercom after everyone was settled in their seats. “Pill C has the highest concentration of the active ingredient. You will experience the most vivid and possibly violent dreams you will ever experience in your lifetime. The final test and the evaluation that follows will ultimately determine if you have been cured - a confrontation of some sorts. Although my description remains to be as mysterious as ever, I hope by now that you all have faith my testing scheme to continue forward through completion. We will now commence the testing of the last pill. If you will now please ingest Pill C.”

The flavor was grape.

“Excellent. Pill C has been ingested, instruments are operating, and the last testing will begin in three... two... one...”

You see black; you smell blood; you taste fabric that’s been wrapped around your mouth to keep you quiet; you feel your wrists chafing against the rope that held them together; and lastly, you hear a gun cock before it’s being pressed to your forehead.

The gag in your mouth gets yanked off and you can finally breathe, though you’re not sure for how much longer.

“Who do you work for?” an unknown voice threatened lowly in your ear.

“I work for no one,” you said as you were always taught.

A hard slap hits your cheek and you feel high levels of heat rising to the point of contact. Your whole body stung in various ways so a slap to the cheek just added to the pile.

“Who do you work for?” he repeated.

“I work for no one.”

Another slap to the other cheek and this time you think you taste blood.

Your sweat-covered blindfold finally gets taken off and thrown to the floor. It takes you several seconds for your eyes to adjust to the single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. Your surroundings are familiar - you’re in a clean, smooth-walled room with no windows, a table, and a single man standing in front of you inspecting his shiny glock. You were still in their interrogation room.

The cold metal of the gun rested on the bottom of your chin and forced your head up to look at the handsome man straight in his catty eyes. Despite his position in front of you at the moment, you would have never expected such playful eyes to take part in the mafia.

“Are you a cop?” he asked.

The longer you refused to answer, the more the gun was being pressed to your throat until the back of your neck hit the chair and you were trapped in between.

“No, I’m not,” you spat out.

“Then who do you work for, hm? That snake Seo Changbin?”

“No.”

“If you don’t work for anyone, why were you at our rendezvous spot?”

“Mere coincidence.”

“Coincidence?” he scoffed, finally letting the gun fall so he could twirl it around careless like a toy. “You think it was a coincidence that you ended up at our spot while our drug-moving got busted? At the fucking pier?”

“I like to jog by the ocean.”

The young mafia lord burst into a loud fit of laughter, really surprised that you were keeping up this facade for as long as you could. He had to give you props - no one had ever sat in front of Minho without confessing right away or pissing their pants on the spot. Either you really didn’t care to live or you were extremely loyal.

He’ll give you credit for that.

Your not sure what’s taking this guy so long to just pop your head off. There’s something he wants from you, and you know it, but he should know by now after days of interrogation that you weren’t going to spill. And it wasn’t like the precinct was going to find you anytime soon. It would be so easy for him, too - like ok, you weren’t going to give him any sort of information? Fine, he’ll just end it there, saving both him and you tons of time and unnecessary torture.

But maybe that’s what he wanted - to torture you and starve you to death. He would never actually shoot you. No, that would be way too easy. Lee Minho, The Boss of his Mafia in District 9, wanted to squeeze you dry until the very last drop where you’d confess everything and he’d let you go.

If that was the case, this guy was a cruel man, though you didn’t expect anything less.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

Why did it matter? Shouldn’t he have asked you this two days ago? “_____.”

“_____,” he repeated with honey dripping from his voice. “Such a pretty name for a pretty girl.”

“I guess...”

“And what does _____ like to do for fun?” The man was now sitting on the other chair with the gun on the table, not really interested in using it at the moment, accompanied by his feet. We he trying to make small talk with you?

“I like to read...”

“That’s not very fun.”

“What do you like to do for fun?”

“Do I look like I have time for fun, my love? Well, actually this is quite fun.”

“Is this a normal thing in daily Mafia Boss life?”

“For Lee Minho it is.”

“Why even bother? Can’t you just shoot me and get it over with?”

“Because there’s no fun in that, silly! Besides, I kind of like you,” he winked.

“Wh-What?”

“You’re not scared of me, you’re loyal to your team, and you’re obedient. It’s a shame you don’t work for me - I would have loved to have you on the team.”

“It’s not too late ~”

“Ah, nice try. You’re funny, _____.”

There’s an odd shiver that traveled down Minho’s spine whenever he said your name. It felt hot, as if someone spilled hot coffee down the back of his shirt. There’s a weird familiarity about you that he can’t put his tongue on, but he pushed that thought to the back of his mind when he saw you falling asleep again.

“What’s your favorite food, _____?” he asked, jolting you awake.

“I don’t know... pizza?”

“Hm, good choice. I’m more of a fried chicken guy.”

“Fried chicken makes me break out.”

“Ah yeah, it can do that.”

“Lee Minho, is it?”

Another hot sensation runs down his spine. “Yes it is, my love.”

“Do you like being the Boss?”

“Do I like it? Huh... Honestly, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know...?”

“I’ve never been asked that question before.”

“How did you end up in your position then?”

“My father was the boss before me. When he saw that it was time I took over, I did. Whether I wanted to or not, I didn’t have a choice. So I can’t really answer your question if I’m here against my free will.”

“You either like murdering people and pushing drugs or you don’t, which one is it?”

Minho shrugged, too lazy to punish you for such a tone. “Asking if I like what I do is a hard question to answer. I have to do it, so why go through the trouble of trying to like it when I’ll be doing it anyways?”

“Are you always this difficult?”

“Are you?”

“I’m still here on day three, aren’t I?”

A sharp tisk left Minho’s lips. “Maybe I should have just killed you...”

Suddenly, the entire room began to shake. The table, the chairs, and you and Minho start to vibrate with the floor and nothing is heard but a low hum for a solid ten seconds. Panic was rising in both of your chests, unsure of what the source of such a phenomenon could be. You constrictions only raised the panic even more.

An army of footsteps could be heard from above followed by an overkill of gunshots.

“Fuck,” Minho cursed, grabbing his gun. “Looks like your crew came and found you. At midnight on the dot, too.”

“Midnight?” you muttered, swinging your head around to where Minho saw the time.

A white clock is hung high on the wall, completely mismatched from the environment of the interrogation room. You saw your trigger - all three black hands are on the twelve, with the seconds hand struggling to pass. In the midst of all the madness, you thought to yourself that Dr. Woojin was fucking insane for formulating Pill C this way.

You see Minho start to panic, unsure of whether he should kill you first before making a break for it.

“Minho!” you cried out. “It’s me, _____!”

“No fucking shit, Sherlock -”

“Listen to me, we’re dreaming right now. This is it, this is Pill C! Do you understand?”

Minho tried to understand. Your words made sense, but they didn’t make sense to him, at least not fully. Pill C... what was so familiar about Pill C?

“Pill C, Minho! We’re testing, remember? You’re number nine!”

The gears in his head clicked. Number nine, Lee Minho, with a level eight defense mechanism.

“Fuck, we have to get out of here,” he said, rushing to your side to untie you.

The footsteps and gunshots sound like they’re coming closer and there wasn’t much time left to lose. After successfully freeing you from the ropes, Minho worried deeply about your well-being, as your wrists bled from all the chafing and it really looked like you were roughed up those past fake-two days of interrogation. But that didn’t matter now, because you thanked the heavens that Minho snapped out of it before you died in your own damn dream.

Mafia Boss Minho took your hand and ran out the only door in the room with the gun in his free hand just in case. He has a faint fake memory of the layout of his base and if both of you could get to the elevator, you would both be safe for the time being.

A bullet whizzed by you before breaking a window.

“Guide me that way. There’s an elevator that can get us out of here. I’ll shoot,” Minho ordered, already taking down a bunch of unknown men.

“Who are those people!?” you asked while gripping onto Minho for your life. Shooting enemies while running backwards was not an ideal tactic.

“I think it’s your defense mechanism? Dreams have that, right? They must have sensed you were in danger.”

“That’s so fucking stupid. Way to go, Minho!”

“What!? I didn’t do anything!”

“In front, in front!” you screeched as you saw some men sprinting.

With ease, Minho eliminated them like it was nothing. He handed you a gun from a fallen soldier on the way to the elevator and you thought that probably wasn’t the best idea, considering you haven’t held a gun in your entire life, but anything can happen in dreams as you eliminated with one-shot kills each time. Minho never thought that he could be attracted to you in this way.

“This is supposed to be level four!? What the hell would level seven be!?” Minho cried out.

“Just be happy we won’t ever have to know!”

After shooting dozens of men down, cutting hundreds of corners, and nearly dying every five seconds, you both made it into the elevator. As soon as the doors shut, you both fell to the floor with a heavy thud, still hand-in-hand.

Neither of you were willing to let each other go.

“Where do we go from here?” you asked after catching your breath.

Minho shrugged. “Try the star button.”

So you pressed it. “What do star buttons mean in regular elevators again?”

“The lobby.”

“Do mafia properties usually have a lobby...?”

“Not mine.”

From whatever floor you were at below ground level, the elevator began to take you all the way up to the star floor. It was a long, torturous, raggedy ride and you thought at any moment, the elevator was going to give out and drop you all the way down. Minho figured you were nervous for what was to come as you haven’t loosened your grip on his hand since he freed you from your ropes.

You flinched when he ran his thumb across your wounds.

“I’m so sorry I did this,” he whispered, unable to look at you.

“You didn’t do it. Maybe one of your minions did,” you teased.

“But what if I did?”

“We’ll never know. Even if you did, you were just being Big Scary Mafia Boss Minho, right?”

“Still...” He returned his hand for you to hold again, which eased his anxiety tenfold. “Were our guesses for what our dream would be way off, or what?”

“I don’t know, I think my assassins guess was pretty close.”

The elevator made a dinging noise and stopped at level nineteen. You and Minho stood up, getting ready with your guns in your hands with whatever was to come at you next. But as the doors slid open, you see test subject number nineteen still living in their dream bubble, running through a meadow of sunflowers without a care in the world.

“This testing scheme is... elaborate...”

“I can’t believe Dr. Woojin did all of this. Why weren’t any of our dreams like that?” you pouted.

The next level the doors opened for was seventeen, and you figured the elevator was going to open its doors to everyone’s dream bubble until the very last subject, which was you. This must have been how everyone else got to this point - this very elevator.

“This must be what that confrontation thing Dr. Woojin was talking about,” Minho sighed. “Do I have to face my dead mom, or something?”

“Pill C for confrontation? Clever.”

Level nine was next and the last thing Minho wanted to do was leave you in the elevator to face what was to come. But he made it to the very end - both of you did. You both came all the way from opposite sides of the country to make yourself better again and neither of you were going to back out of this one like you backed out of all the other important decisions of your lives.

Level nine was here and the doors opened to reveal Minho’s beautiful mother sitting on a couch reading one of her many books she’s read many times over. She looked up to you two with a bright smile and waved like you were coming to visit for some lunch.

“I can’t do this,” Minho told you.

“Do you want me to go with you?” He only nodded in response. “Ok. I’ll be right behind you. But you have to do this on your own.”

He bucked up the courage to leave the elevator first and you soon follow, only taking a couple steps out. From afar, you watched Minho join his mother on the couch and pull her into a long, warm hug.

“I miss you, mom,” he told her.

“I know you do, dear. I hear you’re not doing so well?”

“No, I’m not,” he admitted, holding back his tears. “I don’t have you, I don’t have Dad, I have no one. How am I supposed to go on without you?”

“You just do,” she said. “I know it’s not something you want to hear, but sometimes people leave and you don’t know why. You can’t keep dwelling on my death, love. You have to live your life to the fullest and go see the world! You can’t do that if you’re stuck here with me.”

“You expect me to get over this just like that?”

“Of course not. It’s not easy losing your mother. But I promise you, with time, it will get easier. You love me, don’t you?” Minho nodded. “Then live your life the way you would if I was still around.”

“Ok... I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask of you.” She pulled her son in for another loving hug. “I’m so, so proud of you, my son.”

“I love you, mom.”

“I love you, too. Promise me something else?”

“Anything.”

“Try to be more understanding of your father. It’s not easy losing someone you’ve loved for twenty-five years.” With tears in your own eyes, you watched his mom wipe away her son’s tears gently. “Now leave. You’re almost done.”

Before he changed his mind to stay, he followed you back into the elevator. He grabbed to hold your hand again hoping it would fill the empty void of what was left of his mother.

“How do you feel?” you asked.

Through the tears, he gave you genuine grin, one you haven’t even seen in your dreams. He looked so beautiful this way.

“I feel good.”

“I’m happy,” you smiled back.

“Are you ready for yours?”

“No. Can you come with me?”

“Of course.”

Level one - the last level before the star. The doors revealed to you a patiently-waiting Bang Chan at a coffee shop, the very one where he asked you to be his girlfriend.

He saw you once the doors opened and shot you the same dimply smile you fell so deeply in love with and you think to yourself that there’s no way you can do this. Then Minho’s hand is at the small of your back and he guided you out the elevator.

“I’ll be right here,” he told you.

You made your way to the empty chair in front of Chan. In front of you, he ordered your favorite drink, customized just the way you liked it. He always paid attention to the littlest details about you.

“Hello, _____,” he greeted first.

You wasted no time jumping right into it. “Why did you cheat on me?”

“You know I can’t answer that when you don’t know the answer yourself. I’m your subconscious, remember?”

“But I need to know why!”

“Are you going to let that question keep you from finding love again?”

“Yes, because you made me believe that you were in love with me as much as I loved you! What if I never meet someone who will love me the same way? What if my love is never reciprocated? What if I’m not lovable!? I can’t trust myself to find that person.”

Chan reached across the table to wipe away the one tear you allowed to fall. He took your hands in his and looked at you with the same intensity of the sun.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be the person who you wanted me to be. But there is someone out there who is. He’ll love you and care for you way better than I ever did. He’ll make you feel like you’re flying above the heavens among the Gods. You have to believe that one day you’ll find a man who will look at you like you’re the only thing that matters in this cruel world.”

“I hate that you made me feel this way for so long.”

“I know.”

“I hate that I thought I couldn’t be loved because of you.”

“I know.”

“And I hate that you’re right.”

“I know,” he chuckled lightly.

“But I can’t forget about you...”

“Maybe you can’t now, but when you find that someone, you will.”

“Promise?”

“I pinky promise.”

“It was nice loving you, Bang Chan.”

“I’m glad. Now go back - you’re almost done.”

Before you reached the elevator, your vision went black.

You woke up clean and dry without a single drop of sweat on your forehead, which was surprising considering the dream and the confrontation. You were the last to wake and the last to enter the common area where Dr. Woojin and his crew were waiting with bright grins on their faces. You and all the other test subjects looked the same - confused, exhausted, and ready to go home.

“Congratulations, subjects,” Woojin greeted. “You all have completed the final test - the confrontation. From your results, I can conclude that you are all cured.”

“Just like that!?” Jisung exclaimed.

“Just like that.”

Nothing made sense. Sure, the dreams had their purpose, but literally nothing made any fucking sense, I mean how as Dr. Woojin supposed to confirm something huge like that!? But no one argued, and you weren’t about to either because you think, well... maybe he’s right.

Like zombies, everyone gathered all of their belongs they came in with and mindlessly and silently walked out of the common area back to the main lobby of the company building. The same lady who you handed in your evaluation to six days ago handed you a pamphlet and said something about making sure you completed a satisfactory rating and that a follow-up email would be sent regarding your tuition, but it went in one ear out the other. All you wanted to do was leave and take a taxi home.

Wait, where was Minho?

You were afraid it was too late when you lost sight of him. He was nowhere to be seen in the lobby nor among the crowd of people and you think that was it. Not ten minutes out of the testing facility and you already lost the only person you wanted to see. You would never see him again.

Begrudgingly, you walk outside to the line of taxis. You were about to get into one until you saw Minho sitting alone on one of the bus benches staring off into nothing. You ran to him.

“Hey, handsome. Come here often?”

Minho didn’t have to look up to see that it was you. He smiled at your flirty comment, but he wished you didn’t find him.

“Why did you leave so quickly?” you asked.

“I just want to go home. I’m so tired. I want to sleep for days and dream of nothing.”

“Did you... not want to keep in touch...?”

He dared to look at you and instantly regretted it, seeing the hurt look written across your beautiful, gorgeous face.

“What happened in there was crazy, right?” he began. “Never in a million years did I think I could live as a spy with my best friend, or be happily married for five years, or even a damn Mafia Boss all within a span of six days and sharing that experience with you. I’ve lived three fulfilling, loving, and thrilling lives with you, and you’ve seen the deepest parts of me that no one else ever has. It’s as if we really knew each other for those five years, and there’s something telling me that maybe you’re meant to be in my life, but... I can’t think anything of this.”

There’s a sting in your chest, but you’re unsure why when you wholeheartedly agree with what he’s saying. Regardless, you asked, “Why not?”

“We barely know each other, _____! We spent what, a couple of hours actually talking and getting to know each other? That’s nothing!”

“Then let’s get to know each other.”

“You don’t understand. The same thing happens every time I meet someone or get close to someone. I mess it up. You don’t know me outside of that facility. I’m gonna get frustrated with you one day and… and then you’ll stop calling back. I’ll be so deeply in love with you, but I’ll get frustrated and you’ll change your number and it’ll break my heart,” his voice cracked somewhere in between. “I wish you stayed a dream. It’s just easier if you’re not real...”

“But I am real,” you insisted, taking his shaky hands in yours. He forgot what it felt like to hold your hands and he begins to miss the feeling even while you’re still holding them. “I really like you. I want to get to know the spy Minho, the Mafia Boss Minho, and even the husband Minho.”

“What about the emotionally unavailable Minho?”

“He can me the emotionally unavailable _____.” You take Minho’s chuckling as a good sign. “Why can’t we just start off simple? Will you grab food with me?”

His mom’s words echoed in his head and he can’t believe he’s about to spend the day with a stranger he stole with, fell in love with, and almost murdered in his dreams.

“As long as it’s not caviar and capers again.”

“Ok, then you choose - pizza or fried chicken?”

“I think you already know my answer to that question.”

796 notes · View notes

bubmyg · 6 years ago

Text

room 304a - pjm

pairing: jimin x reader

genre: college!au, e2l but you don’t have to squint quite as hard, fluff

word count: 1,969

summary: maybe if you wouldn’t have agreed to carpool with park jimin to the airport then you could have made an earlier flight and not gotten delayed or where you end up sharing a hotel room you can barely afford on christmas eve with your worst enemy

a/n: part 3 of my holiday drabbles!! masterlist to the series will be added later but in the mean time if u need it, don’t hesitate to send me an ask :’-)

The woman’s leg you tripped over upon departing from Jimin should have given you some sort of clue to your eventual fate. She was propped up against her suitcase, neck cocked at an odd angle, passport clutched in the hand over her stomach, a giant grey hoodie curled over her eyes. A few feet down and there was another one, this time a businessman, hoarding the two outlets with his laptop he was hammering furiously away on and the smartphone tucked between his shoulder and ear.

You had a sneaking inclination that the fine layer of ice that had fishtailed the front tires of Jimin’s car would lead to a few cancellations. You’d almost considered not even making the trip outside, calling off your free ride to the airport and going back to sleep to try again another time. Another day. Another holiday. You’d shut off three alarms and nearly coaxed your eyelids back to sleep when an incessant honking could be heard outside your complex.

He’d flipped over his phone screen when you’d angrily tore open the passenger door, hair frozen permanently from a combination of sub zero temperatures and the thick, flakey precipitation falling from blackened clouds.

“My flight’s not canceled yet,” Jimin insisted, shaking the device again at you. You’d barely taken it from him when he was prodding, “Is yours?”

Frozen hair and nearly falling face first off the front stairs to your complex when your suitcase wheel got lodged in the shutting door didn’t seem worth the lie that would cause you just as much trouble to lock yourself back in your apartment. “No,” You flung the device, catching in between the crease of his thighs, “It’s not.”

He grinned, rolling the engine back over and cranking on the heat. “Well get in. You’re going to make me miss my flight.”

It was nearly the same discussion two weeks prior, the lecture droning out on deaf ears as you absently scrolled through your laptop. You already had a flight picked, slightly out of your budget but early enough to bypass the plagued amount of snow predicted to fall. There was a handful of cheaper flights, barely making the cut off for inches of ice that would proceed feet of snow. Your monitor hovered on one of them, just long enough for you to cup your phone in your palm and consider the damage to your bank account.

You felt the embroidered logo of whatever fraternity hoodie Jimin wasn’t a part of brush against your shoulder, arm traveling down the link of yours to point a ring clad index finger against the flight currently splayed across your screen.

“That’s what day I’m leaving,” He announced, voice an obnoxious whisper against your cheek.

You ignored him.

“We could carpool,” He prodded, nail clipping against your laptop screen. The lid jumped with the jerking movement, “Like, I’ll drive you. If you want.”

“That’s okay.”

Jimin sighed, plopping into the seat next to you. Bright eyes under fluffy bangs dodged, trying to meet your eyes under your phone until you finally relented, dropping it against your keyboard to meet his gaze.

“It’ll save you the like fifty dollars to get a car there,” Deft fingers stroked through stark black locks and you wanted to bite him, “If you can handle being in a car with me for forty minutes.”

“I’d really like it if I weren’t around you now.”

“Babe,” His lips quirked when your shoulders sagged at the endearment, “Let me drive you to the airport. Our flights would be at the same time. It’ll save you money and the risk of dying—” He grinned, nudging you, “—I’m a great driver.”

Was the combined hundred and twenty dollars it would take for a car and the expedited flight worth braving forty-five minutes confined to a limited space smelling of stale beer and and Jimin’s tangy cologne? The sensible part of your conscious spoke before the irritated half could argue, rolling your tongue over your lips and forcing the words of strangled agreement out of your mouth.

Softly, you relented, “I’ll pay you a little bit.”

Triumphant, he wiggled around in the chair, thumb stroking over the far end of keys on your laptop. “I’ll only charge you for your portion of McDonald’s breakfast on the way,” He leaned back in his chair, hands folded behind his head, “and another thing? Don’t make me late for my flight.”

You switched out of the tab with your offhand, adding the different tickets and absently poking in your credit card number while he pattered at your free hand with drumming fingers.

“Fine.”

He diverged paths, gate on the opposite side of the airport from yours, leaving with nothing but a promise to text him for a ride back to campus after break ended. It took no more than common sense and five minutes for you to discover your flight was canceled, slumping against a wall and pulling open a text thread of the person you hoped not to be contacting for three weeks, not three minutes.

Coming, stay put.

You saw the screaming threads of his ripped jeans wrapped around his thighs first, swallowing your irritation at the snug black denim that morphed into baggy black hoodie and black beanie being adjusted by the heel of his palm over tousled black strands. He waved the contents of his free hand when he caught your eye contact, dimpled smile pressing into his skin as he shouldered past the last of the crowd.

“Bad news, my flight was canceled too,” Jimin’s backpack hit the wall next to you, thighs bulging in your peripheral when he crouched, fluttering the papers once more, “Good news. They gave me a voucher for a one night stay in the adjourning hotel.”

You snatched the papers into your lap, scanning them with knit eyebrows. “What…” He still had that stupid smile written all over his features, tiny giggle emitting as his eyes pressed into soft crescents, “How? There are like thousands of people waiting here—”

“Fly with the right airline,” He shrugged, “...or cash in on your dad’s flyer miles and pure luck that they just had a room come open.”

You handed the papers back to him, trading your grip for the strap of your carry-on instead. “Well, that’s good for you—” You shifted, flopping your cheek against the stitching, “—I hope you sleep well in a bed.”

Jimin’s fingers wrapped around your bag, tugging until your cheek faltered and you had to sit up to glare at him. Wide eyed, he spluttered, “What are you talking about? You’re coming with me.”

“I barely had the money to pay you for McDonald’s after spending money on this stupid flight I can’t even make now,” You glowered, “so what makes you think I could ever pay you back for an overpriced hotel room on one of the worst weather nights of the year?”

“You still owe me fifty-six cents for that McMuffin, by the way.”

You had to blink three times to understand he was kidding, and even then you still whacked his shoulder as hard as you could manage.

“Dad’s card paid for most of it,” Jimin leaned closer, “He doesn’t have to know you stayed with me. You don’t have to pay me back. Consider it partial reimbursement for me copying your notes all semester. And for letting Tae drop that drink on you at Kappa. And whatever else you hate me for.”

“I don’t hate you,” You mumbled.

“Great!” His hand was thrust in yours before you could blink, squeezing, “Then do me the honor of sharing a ridiculously overpriced hotel room with me for one night.”

You sighed.

“Fine.”

You barely had time to be startled by the single king bed occupying the majority of the darkened hotel room when Jimin was shrugging past you, hand lingering across the swell of your waist to drop his bag somewhere near the bathroom door. Crooked arms engulfed one entire side of plush pillows, dragging them onto the floor near the foot of the bed. You let him work for a moment, only shuffling in enough to let the door shut behind you to give some support to your shoulders.

“What are you doing?”

He grinned toothily, peeling back the extra blanket folded neatly to the corner of the mattress to plop on top of his mountain of pillows. “Making my bed,” He cocked an eyebrow, sitting into his hip with arms crossed expectantly over his chest, “What are you doing?”

Your bag dropped audibly on top of his, rolling and plopping against the floor in the silence. You mirrored his stance, arms folded tightly, shoulder pressing into the wall.

“You’re not sleeping on the floor.”

“What are you going to?”

You sniffed, rolling your shoulders, “Yes.”

Jimin laughed, giggled, throwing his stature sideways into the bottom of the bed so hard the frame creaked and groaned under the weight of his joy. He came to just enough to lay out a hard no before breaking into another fit of giggles.

“Nice try though, babe.”

You waited until he ventured downstairs to find something edible, parking yourself underneath the mountain of blankets he’d piled to the carpet with your neck craned upward at the mindless newscast scrolling over the television. He was silent to your petty actions upon reentry, wordlessly dropping a plastic bag onto your chest before grunting, “I’m going to shower.”

He humored you, planting his ass in the rocking chair adjacent from your cocoon, feet kicked up on the corner of the mattress as he squinted at his phone screen. It wasn’t you waddled back from the bathroom, turning off the television from the same feed of the blowing snow outside and announcing, “I’m going to bed”, did he change course of action.

The light of Jimin’s phone disappeared in your peripheral, dull anyway from the puffy sheets tucked around your cheeks. You were hypersensitive to his movements, socked feet pricking at the creaking carpet until your sheet tent shifted at the tangle of your legs. Your neck snapped, nearly smacking your forehead against Jimin as he was lowering himself in beside you.

“What are you doing?” You hissed, tensing when an arm draped over your waist.

“Sleeping on the floor,” Soft brown glittered amber from the snowy ambiance reflecting through sheer curtains. He shifted, making room for himself on your pillow, “What are you doing?”

You swallowed, nose a featherweight away from Jimin’s. “This is ridiculous.”

“You started it.”

You groaned, twisting and nearly impaling a protruding metal frame through your eye in the fumbling process it took to stand in the darkness. You hoarded the sheets and blankets to your chest as you went, leaving Jimin curled up on nothing but a pillow on the floor. You tossed the heap aside, holding out wiggling fingers to the amused boy below.

“C’mon.”

He took your hand, feigning dead weight when you tugged on him. “First you don’t want to be anywhere near me and now you want to share a bed with me,” He wiggled an eyebrow, twisting to a sitting position with elbows on bent knees, still clutching onto your fingers, “Should have got stranded in an airport with you months ago, babe.”

“Jimin,” You traded holding his fingers for lightly nudging his shin with your toes, once, twice, four times until he winced, “Get in bed with me.”

He fumbled too except metal on the mattress became the caps of your knees, clutching around the back of your thighs as he stabilized his figure. His chin dug into the seam between your thighs, grinning up at you with swollen eyes and tousled hair and the entire weight of your rapidly beating heart threatening to spill out of your ribcage.

“Yes, ma’am.”

#park jimin #bts #bts reactions #bts scenarios #jimin scenarios #park jimin scenarios #park jimin imagine #jimin imagine #jimin x reader #park jimin x reader #bts x reader #jimin fluff #all is calm series #:'-)#this isn't edited btw #like at all

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vinylackles · 6 years ago

Text

my girls

word count: 2,815

summary: all is wonderful when john miraculously reappears, until dean realizes exactly what it will cost him - you, and his daughter charlie

(this is a ton of dad!dean okay, I could literally write it till I die)

this work contains spoilers for ep300, u have been warned

all my works || request imagines here

Dean stared at the war table, trying to keep the memories out of his brain.

When they’d gotten back to the bunker, he could feel it. And when he went down the hallway and threw open the door of room 10, his knees buckled. If Sam hadn’t been next to him, he would have fallen to the ground.

The room he’d spent so long turning into a nursery was back to it’s barren walls. The dresser was back where her crib should be. The walls were still white, instead of the light purple he’d painted them. There were no pictures of her, not even the one of her wrapped up in Dean’s flannel just days after they brought her home from the hospital, only a few months ago. Not a single trace of his little girl, his world, was anywhere.

Charlie Jo Winchester didn’t exist. And she never had. It hit him like a ton of bricks. In that corrected timeline, he’d never met Y/N, never fallen for her smile. They’d never gotten together, never had their daughter. And that was the final straw.

His mind wandered again, back to the conversation he’d had only a few hours before. It felt more like a dream than anything.

“Dad I’m sorry.” He had said, his voice cracking.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. This is all I ever wanted for you - a family of your own, for you to have your mother back. All that, or just me? That’s a no brainer son.” Those were the words that set him free, let him make the call he’d wanted to make as soon as he realized that you weren’t a part of his life.

“I wish you could meet her, meet both of them. They’re the most incredible girls dad.”

“Do you have any pictures?”

“What?” Dean wasn’t ready for the change in his tone.

“Well, if I can’t meet my granddaughter, I’d love to at least know what she looks like,” John murmured, his voice hopeful. Dean pulled out his phone, praying that somehow the technology had been immune to the paradox.

He was, for once, in luck. There were still a few pictures in his library, casual ones that he had snapped of her. Her tiny toes, her in the little leather jacket he’d bought her. When the got to the picture of Sam holding her, he heard John suck in a breath. He looked away, letting his father tear up without a watching eye.

Everything happened quickly after that it seemed. They had said their goodbyes, and Sam had crushed the pearl. John disappeared, and when Dean went back down the hallway, room 10 was back the way he had made it. All the tiny diapers were back in the basket, all the stuffed animals had returned to their spots on the shelf. He’d picked up her blanket, the soft blue one she always slept with, and carried it back with him to the war room.

And now it was time to wait.

“Why don’t you just call her?” Sam asked, eyes on the hand he had clenched around the fabric. He missed her too, and Dean could tell he was anxious to see them both.

“I don’t want to scare her. She doesn’t know that anything happened.” Dean sighed. She had only gone out to buy a valentine’s day outfit for Charlie - she would be back soon enough, there were only two shops in town that sold baby clothes anyways.

Sam got up, disappearing for a moment before returning with an ice pack.

“If you don’t want to scare her, I’d put some ice on that.” He nodded towards Dean’s cheek, which was swelling rapidly due to Cas’ blow from earlier. He gave him what he could muster of a thanks, which was only a small, close-lipped smile.

So the boys waited in silence, running through everything that happened in their own minds. Dean kept a hand wrapped in the blanket, rubbing the fabric between his thumb and pointer finger.

The thought of Y/N he could stomach. He’d imagined her off living in some other state, being better off without him a thousand times over. It didn’t matter how many times she told him she loved him, that he was enough, that she would never leave him. It hurt like hell to imagine her anywhere but with him, but he could handle it if he had to. It would break his heart, but he could handle it, if she was alive and happy somewhere else.

But Charlie. Not having that little bundle of pure joy, pure love in his life was too much. Thinking about never holding her in his arms, never seeing her gummy little smile; she’d only been in the world 3 months and he already couldn’t imagine it without her.

The metal clang of the door made both of them jump. Dean looked skyward, already feeling the tears begin to prickle in his eyes.

“I found, the cutest outfit, you all are gonna love it.” Y/N’s voice filled the space, warming it back up immediately. Dean hadn’t realized how cold it had been. The tears began to fall, and he watched the concern wash across her face when she looked down at them.

“What... what the hell happened?!” She almost yelled, abandoning the shopping bag on the balcony and rushing down the stairs, going as fast as she could without disturbing Charlie too much.

Dean watched as she passed his daughter off to Sam, moving towards him.

Seeing her there, right in front of him, he knew immediately he’d been wrong. He couldn’t live without her either, not for a minute. He was stupid to think that he could.

“Are you alright?” She asked, running the last few steps to him. He could tell she was about to grab his face and look at his wounds, but he didn’t give her the chance. Instead, he took her waist, pulling her as close as he could, crushing her to him hard enough to take her breath away.

“Baby you’re scaring me, what happened? Why are you all beat up?” She said in his ear, but she just held him like she knew he needed it somehow. He buried his face in her shoulder, breathing her in.

“I’m okay. I’ll be alright.”

He looked over her shoulder then, saw the little girl squirming around in her uncle’s arms. He choked at the sight of her tiny form.

Y/N let go, let him move over to their daughter. Sam passed her over to him without any hesitation, and she fit into his arms like she was made to stay there forever.

“Hey beautiful, hi sweetheart,” he cooed through his tears. And when she smiled her little smile up at him, the sobs broke free. He pressed his quivering lips to her soft hair, focusing in on the weight of her there with him as he wiped away one of the tears that had landed on her head. There was no doubt he was scaring the living crap out of Y/N but he couldn’t pull himself together, not yet.

“Do you need me to take her?” Y/N asked, her voice soft as he shook. Charlie didn’t seem to mind, only stared up at him with wide green eyes.

“No, no I got her. I just need to hold her, that’s all. It’s uh... it’s been a day,” he croaked, his throat tight. He looked up at Sam with bleary eyes, begging.

“I can explain everything Y/N. I think he just needs a little time with Charlie. C’mon, I’ll make some tea,” Sam coaxed, knowing exactly what his brother needed, just like always. He told him thank you with a look, and Sam nodded in acceptance.

“Okay. I’ll come check on you two in a little while,” Y/N’s voice was gentle, and there was no judgement there. That somehow made him want to cry even more.

“Okay. I love you.”

“I love you too,” she smiled, coming over to kiss his cheek before moving to follow Sam. This wasn’t the first time he’d needed some time to just hold his daughter and remember that she was real. She grounded him in a way that he didn’t think was possible.

He waited until they were gone to the kitchen to move, deciding to take Charlie to her room. He tossed her blanket over his shoulder, bouncing her a bit while they walked. His eyes never left her as he made his way down the hall, pushing the door open with his back as soon as they got there.

When he looked at the clock, he was surprised that it already read 6:30. He was even more surprised that his daughter was still awake.

“Let’s get you ready for bed, hmm?” He murmured, shifting her into the crook of his arm so he could grab a new diaper and a sleeper. She didn’t fuss at all when he laid her down on the changing table, not even when he took off her outfit and diaper.

“There’s my sweet girl,” he whispered, closing the tabs of the new diaper. He looked her over, marveling at the creation he had in front of him. Her soft skin, her little round belly. Tiny hands and tiny toes. The fact that he had any part in making something so beautiful was enough to bring him to tears on a normal day. But of course, today was no normal day, and that made the tears fall even easier. He couldn’t stop them, even as they dripped down onto her.

“I’m sorry sweetheart, I’m sorry,” he whispered, using the shirt he’d taken off of her to dry them off. She didn’t make a peep, only gazed up at him and smiled. He moved on to dressing her, guiding her little legs and arms into the onesie and zipping it up. It was blue, covered in tiny little clouds - a gift from her Uncle Cas, he remembered.

When the zipper reached the top, she began to wiggle around a bit, cooing and reaching, her tiny fingers grasping until she found her dad’s hand, wrapping around his finger. She held tight to him, and he let her, just watching her and letting his heart take it all in.

He picked her up, moving over to the rocking chair. She settled in his arms and he covered her little form in her blanket as he hummed her favorite lullaby - hey jude, though she didn’t know it. It was only a few minutes before her eyes were closed, her lips pursed with deep breaths as she dreamt.

He felt the next round of tears coming, so he stood up and placed her gently in her crib, turning the monitor on and kissing her head before leaving the room. He found Y/N waiting outside, tears in her eyes as well.

His legs stopped working for a moment as he looked at the woman before him. There was nothing but love in her eyes as she looked him over, checking to make sure he was okay the same way he always checked on her.

“She asleep?” Y/N asked.

Dean nodded, hand still on the door handle.

“I’m gonna put this outfit up, why don’t you go wait in our room. I’ll be in there in just a second.”

He nodded again, and let his feet take him one room down the hall, where he just stood there aimlessly. Had today even happened? Was it real? With every passing minute it all seemed to be fading away, though the grief still gripped his chest, squeezed his lungs.

It got a bit easier to breathe when Y/N came back into the room. Her hand on his shoulder anchored him again.

“C’mere,” she whispered. She pulled him into her arms, let him relax there. He didn’t know how he had any tears left, but somehow more began to fall. If he could measure it, he was sure he’d cried more today than he had all year.

“Sam told me everything. I’m so sorry.”

“S’Okay,” he muttered back, though it was so muffled he barely heard it.

“What can I do?” She asked.

“Just be here. Just need you here, that’s all.”

So she pulled his jacket off his shoulders, let him strip down to his boxers and a t-shirt and they climbed into bed, settling back into each others arms. They were silent for a while, just running their hands over each others skin. But after almost an hour, Y/N broke the silence.

“What was it like? Without her.” Dean had to suck in a breath through his teeth before he answered. It was as if she had poked a fresh wound.

“I can’t explain it. I mean, she’s only been here for three months, it shouldn’t have been such a drastic change. But it was like my whole world crumpled. You weren’t here, she wasn’t here.”

“You got a little bit of time with your dad though,” Y/N offered, running her fingers through his hair.

“I made peace with my dad being gone a long time ago. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was nice to see him again, and to see mom so happy. Sammy got to get some stuff off his chest. But as soon as I realized you all were gone, I was ready to change it all back.”

“Do you wish you hadn’t done it? You know, used the pearl?”

“I don’t know. If I’d known what would happen, I’m not sure if could have gone through with it. Y/N, I mean even the nursery was gone. There wasn’t a trace of her, of either of you, anywhere. It was awful.”

“I can’t imagine.”

He didn’t want her to. He couldn’t stand to think of her in the kind of pain he was in.

“Well, what’s done is done I suppose. And everything is back the way it should be. I can live with that.” And he meant it, he really truly did.

“I love you. So much.”

“Love you more,” he sighed, pressing a kiss to her forehead. He closed his eyes, trying to let himself sleep even though he knew it was futile. So instead he just ran his fingers over Y/N’s back, feeling her deep breathing against him until the monitor began to light up with the sound of Charlie’s cries.

“She’s probably hungry. Bring her in here?” Y/N asked. Even in her grogginess, it seemed she knew that having both of them away from Dean would be too much for him to take. She shifted off of him, letting him up as he went to get their daughter.

Her cheeks were red when he got the crib and scooped her up. Though it calmed her a bit to be in her dad’s arms, it wasn’t who she was looking for, and she continued to cry.

“I know sweet girl, I know I’m not momma, we’re gonna go to her, it’s alright,” he cooed, bouncing and soothing her as he carried her back to their room. When he returned, Y/N had already moved over and rolled onto her side, lifting her shirt (one of dean’s, of course) to reveal her breast. He wasn’t sure he’d seen anything more beautiful in his life.

He passed Charlie to her and let them get situated before he climbed in. Once she had latched on and was happily suckling away he slid in behind her, careful not to disturb the balance of her tiny body. He traced his finger over her little head of hair, peach fuzz soft against him, listening to her little quick breaths as she filled her tummy.

“Do you think you’ll ever regret it? Sending your dad back?” Y/N asked, eyes closed. She wouldn’t have asked that if she wasn’t practically drunk on sleep. He smiled anyways, reaching over to brush some of her hair back from her eyes.

“Not a chance. I’ve got my girls. That’s all I need.”

She hummed approval at that, relaxing slowly back into sleep as Charlie continued to eat until she couldn’t anymore. Dean scooped her up gently, laying her on his chest so he could burp her. By the time she was done, she’d already fallen back asleep, and he knew that no matter what he did, he wouldn’t be able to get any rest.

So instead of getting up to take her to her crib, he reached over and coaxed Y/N’s shirt back down so she was covered - she stirred at the contact, rolling back over and curling up to his side again.

His daughters hand grasped his shirt, little fist balling up the fabric as she slept and dreamed, safe there with her dad. He held her there the whole night, his hand on her back.

And he knew everything was going to be okay. Because he had his girls. And that’s all he would ever need.

#this is my THIRTIETH imagine on this blog adfasldj #what even #thank you all so much for reading i love you guys so much #aintnonetwork #spn imagine #supernatural imagine #dean x reader #dad!dean imagine #dean winchester imagine #dean winchester x reader #spn fanfiction #spn imagines

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septic-dr-schneep · 6 years ago

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JSE Fanfiction - In Time of Need (Part 12: Coalition)

Summary: Unable to stand by and let Anti harm the man she loves, Signe takes matters into her own hands and calls for backup.

As soon as Anti hung up on her, Signe tossed her own phone onto Jack’s recording desk, covering her face with a trembling hand and leaning a shoulder against the foam on the wall. It wasn’t long before the rest of her body followed, sagging against it for support as her legs refused to support her weight on their own.

Her thoughts were flying faster than she could process them, her heart quickening in tandem and stealing her breath. It felt as if all of the air had been sucked from the room and all of the warmth in her blood had seeped away with it, leaving nothing but the shivering numbness of aftershock. The strangling sensation of panic eventually coalesced into one horrifying thought:

This very moment, Seán could be dying.

It took everything in her to push herself off the wall and return to her phone, fumbling for her contacts. She couldn’t let it happen. She couldn’t lose him. Her fingers were tingling as she hurriedly texted, autocorrect mangling her message as she hit all the wrong buttons in her urgency.

She couldn’t think straight enough to fix it before it sent; her mind was consumed with questions as she rushed out to the hall and began throwing on her shoes, hat and coat. What time was it over there? Was he going to be awake? Was his phone even going to be on? Would he know that something was wrong?

The phone burst to life a minute or so later, nearly causing her to drop it in her rush to answer.

“Hello?!”

“Signe?” Mark’s concerned voice filled her ears and her chest with immense relief. “I just got your text. I was in the middle of recording—what’s going on?”

“Anti! Anti has them,” Signe burst out breathlessly. “All of them! Seán, the Egos, they’re hurt. They need your doctor, Iplier! I don’t know what he’s gonna do to them!”

For a few beats all she could hear on the other end was Mark spitting hasty curses and fumbling with his equipment to turn it off. “Alright, Iplier’s at Egos Central; it takes me about fifteen minutes to get there—”

“Mark, fifteen minutes is—!” It was an eternity. Anti could kill them fifteen times over in every minute they spent with him.

“It’s the best I can do, I’m sorry! I’ll take the van, I’ll pick up the doc and get the Host to narrate us to you! We’ll be there soon, I promise! Try—try to stay calm, Signe.”

Stay calm? Had he really just told her to stay calm? Signe wondered incredulously as the dial tone cut off her next words. This was the man she loved and his creations; how he could expect her to be even remotely calm or collected in a situation like this?!

Sure enough, as soon as the infamous van seen in Mark’s vlogs appeared outside, Signe sprinted out to it as if an explosion were chasing her down a tunnel.

“How do you know Anti was there?” Mark demanded as she scrambled inside and he swung a U-turn.

“I got an alert from their emergency communicators and tried to FaceTime with them, then the phone got dropped. He picked it up,” she explained, wrapping her arms tightly around herself as she hunkered down in the back of the van. “He showed me the Egos covered in blood…He showed me Seán…He told me to beg for them and then he hung up. That was right before I texted you.”

“Well, judging by how slowly Mark drives, they’re going to be dying by the time we get there!” Dr. Iplier snarked from the passenger seat, casting a pointed glance at his creator.

“Shut up.”

“I’m also worried about Robbie,” Signe cut in, leaning forward so they could hear her over the rumbling of the engine. “When the phone fell, Jameson was just going to check on him. I don’t know what happened, but he was attacking someone—Jameson or maybe Anti, but it was silent for a long time afterward. Then Anti picked up the phone. Robbie might not be…right in the head.”

“Then perhaps Mark and the doctor were right to bring the Host along,” a lower voice spoke up from the far back of the van, causing Signe to jump. Her hair swished around her face as she twisted sideways to glance between the Host and his creator.

“He shouldn’t be here,” she stated nervously.

“We needed him to get us here!” Mark protested, a stressed laugh bursting out of him as he rounded the next turn. “And y’think I’m going to take our only doctor to Anti’s last known location without some kind of backup? He’d never go!”

“That we can agree on,” Dr. Iplier admitted, tightening his grip on his medical kit.

“Yeah, well, you forget how well I know you.”

“The Host doesn’t intend to force himself on any of the Septics, if that is what Ms. Hansen is concerned about,” the other Ego assured her. “He won’t even speak a word to them. He’s there to watch over the doctor’s work, nothing more. They will hardly know he is there.”

What kind of protest could she offer in the face of that? “Jackieboy’s not going to be happy,” Signe mumbled, shaking her head as she huddled into her coat against the unnatural chill that crawled down her spine. She hated to think of what might happen—of what had happened when Jackieboy and the Host were put at odds.

Naturally it could be blamed on Dark; he and Jackieboy had once respected each other—not because their morals aligned but because they stayed out of each other’s way, they each intended to run a coordinated household and they had a mutual enemy in Anti. Signe hadn’t heard all of the details, but one of them had infringed on the other’s boundaries and it had led to the Host stepping in on behalf of his friend. Threats were made and weren’t appreciated by either side and by the time the smoke cleared, there were major casualties on both sides and a significant fissure between the two households.

The Host was no friend to Jackieboy and he wasn’t a neutral party anymore either. Hopefully he wouldn’t be seen as just another threat to the ones who were hurt. Jackieboy would be all too eager to come to their defense.

Wait a minute…Signe realized, lifting her head as she recalled the sweep Anti had done to show her the room. Where was Jackieboy?

“Is this it?” Mark asked rhetorically, leaning over the steering wheel to see the rectangular house looming a few hundred yards away. “Only one story, out in the middle of nowhere…They got minimalistic tastes?”

“Jackieboy has a secret identity to keep; he doesn’t want people know where he lives,” Signe explained hastily as she spilled out of the van and sped toward the entrance.

“Signe, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,” Dr. Iplier cut her off, his medical kit flying out behind him as he leapt out to cut her off. “Let us go first; we need to scope this out. If Anti hates you as much as he hates Jack—”

“Can’t the Host see what’s happening in there?” she demanded impatiently as Mark and the Host caught up with them at the door. As the Host ducked his head to concentrate, Signe cast a vaguely surprised glance at the bat Mark held close to his side.

“He’s letting me borrow it,” the other YouTuber mumbled with an indicative nod at the Ego beside him, keeping his voice low as the Host let his Sight work.

“…Two pairs of four, tiles stained and cracked and smeared—Jameson Jackson is standing against the far back wall not far from Jack’s medical bed, shaking violently as he stares into the shadows, afraid to tear his eyes away,” he narrated distantly. “The fear churns through him as he scans the darkness, looking for any shadow out of place. He can hear breathing but he sees no one there.”

“Is it Anti?” Dr. Iplier questioned.

“Jameson cannot see to know. The battle overwhelmed him; he shielded himself, covered his face and was blind to its outcome. He can scarcely dare to move, standing in the middle distance between Jack’s bed and the magician’s prone form. He strains his ears to listen to Jack’s medical monitors, hoping against hope that Jack is still well. There is blood under his feet.”

“Alright,” Dr. Iplier muttered, settling his head mirror more firmly on his forehead. “Who’s in the worst condition and who’s most accessible?”

“The Host can See Jameson, the magician, and the doctor. Chase Brody and the zombie are hidden from him…Jameson’s hand is damaged. Marvin is bleeding from the abdomen and Schneeplestein has wounds scattered over his chest, neck, and skull.”

“What about Seán?” Signe forced herself to ask, the words leaving her throat dry.

“Jack appears to be unharmed.”

“Appears to be?” Mark echoed tensely as anxiety visibly swept over Signe’s features.

“Jack lies very still in his medical bed, the monitors around him steady. He appears to sleep undisturbed,” the Host emphasized. “There’s no trace of blood or injury on his visible skin.”

That news was meant to be a relief, but somehow the way the Host had phrased it only kindled another spark of worry in Signe’s stomach as she unlocked the door and let the men pass.

“No more stalling then. Let’s get this over with.”

Everything in the outer rooms looked as it should be; all of the lights were on, the air conditioner rattled faintly somewhere over their heads and there were dirty dishes and a pot of coffee scattered across the kitchen table. It looked just as if the others had dropped what they were doing and run out for a trip to the movies on the spur of the moment. Fleetingly Signe recalled the time they had done just that and Jack had given them a stern word or two for worrying him so much when they returned. Then of course, unable to stay mad at them, he’d asked them how the movie was and they’d spent the rest of the afternoon acting out all of the humorous moments for him and Signe to enjoy vicariously.

“That’s the lab at the end of the hall,” she murmured, pointing over Dr. Iplier’s shoulder and earning a subtle nod in return.

The door was already cracked open, they discovered. With a slow, deep inhale, the doctor nudged his shoe into the opening to slide it further. The hinges squeaked ever so slightly, earning a startled clatter from within as Jameson flinched back, bumping Jack’s IV stand in the process.

“Jameson?”

“D-Doc? Is that—Mr. Fischbach and the Host are with you…? And Miss Hansen, thank heavens!” Jameson immediately shifted toward them and then remembered himself, frantically glancing back at the darkest corner of the room. “Wait, wait, no, step back! Don’t come closer, I beg you! I think Robbie’s watching! He sees you coming anywhere near us and he’ll rend you limb from limb!”

“What happened to him?” Signe whispered gingerly as she slid past Dr. Iplier along the side wall.

“I should never have turned my back on him,” Jameson agonized, twisting at the hem of his vest as he stared into the shadows. “I was speaking with you on that enchanted device and w-when I wasn’t looking, Robbie caught a case of the horrors! He—He fancied the blood…wanted a nip or two of it, if you understand. I didn’t. I tried to go to Chase and he…” A deep shudder rolled through him as he remembered and he curled into himself, shaking his head to free it of whatever terrible memory had arisen. Signe had a feeling she could imagine it.

“The Host and I can get through to him,” Dr. Iplier murmured, which only strengthened Jameson’s head-shaking.

“Doc, he’s like a rabid mutt! He froths at the mouth! He tossed Antisepticeye—the Antisepticeye!—about the place like a slab of dead meat and—and Chase…Oh, golly, he dragged Chase off somewhere over there. I don’t know what he’s done to him!”

“All the more reason why we need to find out,” the doctor countered, taking a series of cautious steps forward and faltering only when a low growl echoed from the far corner. The doctor stiffened, glancing over his shoulder at the Host and his creator. Swallowing hard, Mark skirted slowly around the door toward the nearby series of switches. After a nod of agreement between him and the doctor, he flipped it.

Signe’s heart surged into her throat as light spilled down over Robbie’s hunched form. His expression was almost unrecognizable; she had only ever seen him as the innocent, childlike persona he always was…never like this. He was hunched over, almost on all fours, dark waves of blood staining the torn remnants of his shirt as they cascaded from multiple wounds in his back. Brighter, redder blood and trails of saliva were smeared over his mouth and chin, dripping into small puddles onto the linoleum—and onto the still form of Chase Brody lying underneath him. Now that they could see him, Robbie could clearly see all of them, thumping a hand down on Chase’s chest and twisting his fingers into his shirt.

“Chase!” Jameson’s shoulders shook with a half-stifled sob.

“Okay…I can see where you were coming from with the ‘rabid mutt’ assessment,” Mark concurred in uneasy amazement, tightening his grip on his bat. “Signe, any ideas?”

“This is new,” Signe confessed with difficulty, drifting closer to the doctor and earning a warning rumble from the zombie for her movement. “We could, um…we could try to sedate him?”

“But how do we get him away from Chase so we can?”

“Has he seemed interested in any of the others?” Dr. Iplier asked with a sideways glance at Jameson.

“Myself, briefly, and Antisepticeye. I don’t think he’s noticed how much Marvin and Schneeplestein are bleeding,” the gentleman answered, fidgeting. “I was only bleeding after he attacked me, so there wasn’t enough to entice him forever. When Antisepticeye arrived, he d-drew Robbie’s attention away from me…He wanted his throat.”

“That’s always bleeding,” Signe murmured.

“Well, it’s not like we can throw one of the others to him and swap ’em out for Chase; we’d still have the same problem!” Mark protested.

“The Host believes their solution may be simpler than they think.”

The Host had been true to his word; Signe had barely remembered he was there until he spoke again. He tilted his head around at his companions for several seconds, letting his silence simmer, and when none of them seemed to gather what he was implying, he breathed deeply, brushing between Mark and Signe with measured steps. As Robbie sat up, on alert, the Host lifted his hands to his hair and tugged deftly at the knot securing the bandages over his face. Dr. Iplier’s eyes widened.

“Host, don’t—!”

A thick splatter of blood spilled onto the floor at the Host’s feet and Robbie let out a roar that shattered the air, lunging over Chase’s fallen form and charging manically across the slick tiles toward the source. Dropping his medical kit, Dr. Iplier ran at him from the other side, grabbing the Host around the neck from behind and hauling him a few yards back, hollering something unintelligible that Mark somehow understood. Diving out into the open, he swung the bat.

“Don’t hurt him!” Signe screamed on impulse as the weapon connected with Robbie’s ribcage, bowling him over into the far wall.

“It didn’t, it didn’t!” Mark shouted in alarm, cursing up a storm as the zombie rolled back onto his hands and knees just as quickly, shaking himself down to recover for only a moment before he threw himself to his feet, howling feverishly as he charged them again.

Barking his own frustrated curses as blood gushed down his cheeks, the Host wrangled himself out of the doctor’s grasp and threw up an arm, blinding golden threads materializing up and down his sleeve, lashing with the force of a whip as he swung his hand out.

Signe could only watch in shock as Robbie hurtled right into them, intent on tearing past, only to find that they were unbreakable. The more he clawed at them, the more ensnared he became as more and more of them appeared around him, manipulated by the reality-warper with increasing strength and speed. In less than a minute, Robbie was on his back on the ground, his knees bound to his chest, arms twisting and turning in vain against the restraints.

“Doctor!” the Host spat, hiding his eye sockets against his free sleeve and thoroughly soaking it. Dr. Iplier rushed to his side, throwing out his palms and creating a dazzling blue glow from them to contrast with the golden threads of reality. Robbie’s struggles faltered as the energy field washed over him and after another few tentative moments, he relaxed inch by inch, blinking in bewilderment.

“That’s it…” Dr. Iplier hissed, lowering his hands as the tension in the zombie started to ease. “That’s it…Just relax…”

Signe shared an uncertain glance with Jameson as he came to stand at her side and watch. Heaving a sigh, Mark let the bat clatter to the floor as he approached from the left.

“Iplier rarely uses this,” he explained quietly. “It’s a…healing field, I guess. Whoever’s within it gets a double dose of peace and hope. Sounds cheesy, but it really works. He should probably use it more often.”

It was working. Robbie eventually went completely limp, hugging his knees against his chest and blinking up at the newcomers with nothing but mild curiosity. Breathing shakily, the Host allowed his threads of reality to go lax around him, thinning and dissolving as he hunched his shoulders.

“The Host would like to request—” he began, his voice muffled in his sleeve.

“I’ve got you,” Dr. Iplier assured him, sprinting back to his fallen kit and withdrawing his bandages. “That was one of the stupidest things you’ve done in a while.”

“…The Host won’t disagree.”

As Dr. Iplier redressed the Host’s eye sockets, Signe looked past them to see Robbie sitting up, shuffling awkwardly so he was sitting cross-legged. Apprehensively she approached him, only daring to kneel in front of him when his eyes sparked with recognition.

“Seen…?”

“H-Hi, Robbie,” she greeted tentatively, bending down in front of him. It was hard to look him in the face with all of the blood smeared across it, but she valiantly made the effort. “How are you feeling?”

Robbie paused, as if thinking it over, and then fidgeted with his hands in his lap. “Back…” he murmured pensively.

“That’s right, you are back,” she concurred, unsure why tears were starting to blur her vision.

“Back,” he repeated more emphatically, tilting his head back indicatively. “Back…hurts.”

“Oh. Well, don’t worry, buddy.” Forcing a shaky smile, she lightly offered a squeeze to his scarred shoulder. “You and the others are going to be fixed up. Just be patient.”

“Hungry.”

“…There’s probably some meat in the fridge. We’ll take care of that too.”

#youtube #jacksepticeye #fanfiction #youtube fanfiction #signe hansen #robbie the zombie #jameson jackson #dapper jack #markiplier #dr iplier #the host #major character injury #violence #hurt comfort #hold onto hope

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