#until graves gives him a reason to hate him | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nadvs · 5 months ago

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home before dark (part eight) (end)

pairing rafe cameron x kook! female reader

rating mature 18+

summary as children, you and rafe were best friends, but then tragedy suddenly struck his family and he shut everybody out. years later, you need his help when a pushy ex-boyfriend won’t leave you alone. rafe is perfect for the job because everybody’s afraid of him. except for you.

content warnings stalker ex, violence, smut, substance abuse, death and mourning of parent

» masterlist

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You can hear gentle taps on the window behind you. At some point since you got back from the marina, it must’ve started raining. You’ve been too absorbed in your time with Rafe to notice until now.

Even though you’re trying to process what he just said, your instinct is to hope for his sake that it doesn’t storm. Because your instinct has always been to worry about him. His was always to avoid you. And now, if you actually heard him right, you know the real reason why.

You’re suspended in time as you stand in front of him in your kitchen, trying to silently compel him to look at you again. But his eyes are focused on the floor.

You were just upstairs, touching in the most intimate way, giving each other the best kind of pleasure. Now, in a matter of a minute, a chasm has opened up between you again. Rafe’s chest is rising and falling faster with every second that passes.

“What’d you just say?” you ask.

“I was…” Rafe shuffles in place, his temples beginning to throb. “Fuck. I was never going to tell you.”

“What do you mean because of me?” you echo his words, your legs weakening.

Hearing your voice sound so faint, a harsh contrast from the soothing, careful way you always speak to him, makes his chest tighten.

“Goddamn it,” Rafe mutters. “Why’d you have to push me to talk when I - I said I didn’t want to talk?”

His feet carry him to the other end of the counter just to create some distance. He figures it should be easy because for so long, it’s been second nature for him stay away from you. But he hates that he can’t touch you right now. This moment is too tense, the words he said too ugly.

Rafe finally meets your gaze. Every other time he thought you looked sad or scared or broken is nothing compared to the way your face is knitted in misery right now.

His darkest secret is out. He told himself he’d take it to the grave. But he just changed everything. He shoved a dagger into the heart of the only person who truly cares about him. And there’s no undoing it.

“What do you mean because of me?” you repeat.

Rafe swallows the lump in his throat. He knew you were wrong; he’s not good like you said he is. This proves it. He’s sick. There’s something wrong with him because a good person wouldn’t blurt what he just said out, no matter how much pressure they were under.

He nervously grips the edge of the counter.

“Rafe,” you urge. His head hangs low.

“It was right before your birthday,” he mutters. “Do you remember?”

“Of course I-” You inhale a sharp breath. “Of course I remember.”

After what happened, you cancelled your eleventh birthday party. You didn’t want to celebrate anything for years afterwards.

“Did that have… something to do with it?” you ask.

Rafe’s body goes cold. It had everything to do with it.

He begged his mother to go. She told him there were warnings on tv about a storm and that they could go the next day, that there was time, but he had to be such a brat about it that she finally agreed. She always gave into him.

“You never stopped talking about how excited you were for it,” he says, “and I wanted to get you something great and I made her take me. And you…”

His gaze hardens. This was supposed to stay locked inside him forever. At some point, behind his back, you got the key.

Your heart is in a vice. You’re waiting for him to say this is a cruel joke.

“You know what?” he huffs. “I don’t even remember what I was so determined to get you. I just remember…”

He pinches the bridge of his nose, a short, boyish whine escaping his mouth as he hears the sound of the tires skidding in his mind, over and over again. They didn’t even make it to the store.

You want to rush to him. To hold him. To let him dampen your shirt with his tears again. But you can’t. You’re frozen.

This is why Rafe never wanted you in his life. You’re not just a reminder. It was never that simple. You’re the reason for his suffering. And you can touch him and laugh with him and kiss him as many times as you want, but you’re sure he’ll never see past it.

He doesn’t have to tell you why he kept this from you. It’s clear. He didn’t want to hurt you. You thought he was being cruel all these years, but he was protecting both of you from this very moment.

You imagine the boy you knew, in the car, watching his world end because he wanted to be a good best friend to you. He was always sweet. Always doing what he could to show the people he loved that he loved them. And he paid for it in the worst way.

You’re crashing into a painful realization, as if the lights were just turned on, burning your eyes after you’d been sitting in the dark for years.

“I…” you begin. But you’re weak. Speechless. You hold the back of a chair at the kitchen table for stability.

For once, you’re not touching Rafe to comfort him as he cries. On top of the shame and frustration and guilt he’s feeling, a sense of loneliness sinks into him. He doesn’t know if he’d push you away if you came to him. But you’re not even going to try?

The sharp, comfortable feeling of anger overshadows it all. Like always. Being mad is the most familiar state for him to be in. Especially when it’s himself he’s angry at.

“And I just kept asking until she agreed to take me,” he mutters.

You can hear it in his voice that he blames himself, too. And if there’s anything you can do for him, it’s take away his pain. It’s what you’ve wanted to do for him for so long.

Guilt rips you into you. A hot tear rolls over your cheek. If Rafe has to blame you, if it’s defence mechanism, his way to cope, you can live with being the bad guy in his story. Because you love him. You’re afraid you always will.

Your phone rings in your pocket, blaring in your kitchen. You’ve had it on loud so you couldn’t miss a call from your parents just in case.

You clumsily rush to grab it and turn the sound off. You hang up before even looking at who’s calling.

“Who is it?” he asks.

“It doesn’t matter,” you say.

“Who is it?” he says more sternly.

You look at the notification. Your lawyer. You called her after the cops found the tracker on your car to update her. You’re sure you discussed everything you needed to. What’s she doing calling at almost nine at night?

“My lawyer,” you say.

“Call her back,” he orders.

“I can do it later.”

Rafe only says your name, his mouth a firm line. You hate that he’s talking to you like this again, as if he’s mad at you for existing around him.

But he’s right. She might have some important news. Your hands are shaking as you tap on your screen to call your lawyer back on speakerphone. She answers after the first ring.

“Sorry I called so late, but I wanted to let you know,” she says, “I hounded the police and I finally just got confirmation that they took Ty into custody.”

“He was arrested?” you say. You meet Rafe’s eyes. In the midst of all this, for a second, he forgot you’ve been living in your own horror.

“Yes,” she replies. “He’s been charged with the unlawful installation of a tracking device. They traced it back to him. They don’t always arrest for a misdemeanor, but I think the fact that you already had an order out against him helped.”

“Okay,” you breathe. “Thank you.”

“Again, I’m so sorry you’re going through this,” she says. “You did the right thing fighting back. I wanted to keep you updated. Call me if you have any questions. Have a good night.”

“Thank you,” you say. “You, too.”

You hang up the phone and realize you don’t even feel a morsel of relief that Ty has been arrested. Because Rafe just dropped something so earth-shattering on you that you’re not sure you’ll ever be the same again.

You don’t even discuss the call you both just heard. You stick to your private vow. You have to. He can blame you. He can hate you. He can feel whatever he wants if it’ll ease his suffering.

“You’re right,” you say quietly. You sit down, unable to hold yourself up any longer. “You’re right. You just wanted to be a good friend. It’s my fault. I’m so sorry.”

It doesn’t feel entirely dishonest taking the blame. They were on the freeway because of you. If you and Rafe never became friends, if you never fell into his life, he’d still have a mother.

His words from earlier when this all started ring in your head. We can’t do this. This conversation? Or everything?

“It’s always going to be hard for you to be around me, isn’t it?” you ask, desperate for the clarity. Because if it’s true, it’s better you know now.

Just this morning, he said you were friends again. Then in your room, you did something people who are much more than just friends do. And now, you might be doomed to going back to being nothing. Unless he denies it. Again, hope finds its way in your heart like it always does when it comes to him.

Rafe’s stare is distant. He grips the countertop even tighter.

“I don’t know,” he says. Truthfully, he exists in two places at once when he’s with you. He feels both peace and disarray. Both bitter and sweet.

You nod slowly, standing on wobbly knees to find a paper towel to wipe your tears away with. You stand by the sink with your back to him, rubbing it beneath your eyes.

I don’t know. It’s the worst answer he could give you. At least if he gave a definitive yes or no, you’d know what the future will look like. But I don’t know is what keeps hope alive, and you know by now the pain that hope can bring.

“I’m so sorry,” you repeat, muffled. “If you never met me…”

You think back to sitting next to him in the police station waiting room. He wrote in your birthday on that form without hesitation. He didn’t even need to think about it. And you know now it’s because he’s doomed to remember that date forever.

“You don’t have to stay here,” you finally say. “You can go home. I get it. I get why you never wanted to talk to me.”

You let out a shaky sigh, regretting the years you spent trying to reconnect with him. You were unknowingly hurting him every time.

The guilt sitting on your heart is so heavy that you’re sure it’ll never leave you. While you thought he kept you at a distance because of grief, because of the role you played in reminding him, you realize that was only scratching the surface.

Rafe’s eyes are trained on you on the other side of the room, watching your body tremble.

“I’m staying,” he says resolutely. You turn to look at him from across the kitchen. His eyes gleam with tears.

“He was arrested,” you reply. “He can’t hurt me.”

Rafe studies you. You look how you did the night this all started, when you rushed to him, asking him to pretend to be your boyfriend.

“But you’re still scared,” he says.

“I think I’ll be scared for a while,” you admit. Ty is still out there. Even behind bars, he’s someone plotting to own you. You try to push past the fear for Rafe’s sake. “But he can’t hurt me.”

“I told you that I’m staying with you until your parents get back,” Rafe says.

You feel like you’re spiralling. You know he kept this from you for a noble reason, but the realization that he always blamed you feels like it’s chipping away at you by the second.

“It’s okay,” you say. “Your job is done. You don’t have to do this anymore.”

“Yes, I do,” Rafe counters. You grimace. He’s being so stubborn. The rack of guilt, shock, and confusion has your mind racing.

“Why did we do… what we did upstairs?” you ask. “Why did you say you felt something for me?”

Rafe exhales slowly. Kissing and touching you like that was euphoric. He wants that feeling, again and again, without the ugliness of your shared history following both of you.

“Because I do,” he answers honestly. You twist your lips in sadness.

“You do,” you say, “but you don’t want me in your life?”

Rafe’s quiet, his expression unreadable. Suddenly, you feel selfish and ashamed to be confronting him about this after he revealed something so painful.

“Forget it. I’m sorry,” you say. You toss the damp paper towel in the trash. “If you want to stay, you can. But if you want to go, I get it. I’ll be in my room.”

You start to tread out of the kitchen, a sniffling mess at this point. You feel worse than ever for pestering him with your questions after he opened up to you.

You’re sure you’ve both spent more time crying than smiling since you tumbled into each other’s lives again. Maybe it’s best for both of you to be nothing. It’s not what your heart wants, but being together seems to bring you both more pain than happiness.

You turn, figuring this may be your only chance to tell him how sorry you are. If tonight’s your last night together and you go back to being strangers after this, you need him to know.

“I know nothing I say or do can make it better, but I’m so sorry for everything you went through. And I’m so sorry I was the reason for it,” you say, meeting his gaze from across the room. “I never stopped missing you. But I get it. We don’t have to be friends or… be anything. We’ll go back to how it was. This time, I won’t keep bothering you.”

Rafe watches you leave. The weight in the pit of his stomach gets a million times heavier. He would do anything to take back telling you the truth.

You’re curled up in a ball under your blanket, your throat growing sore from crying. You tried to break this arrangement with Rafe off the day he told you that you were always going to remind him of what happened. You told him all you do is hurt each other.

But he pushed. He said he wanted to take care of you. You’re almost angry at him for not letting you end it then. But as painful as the truth he dropped on you tonight is, you’re glad you know.

You’d rather take the blame for him. You’d rather never have to wonder what he meant when he said you did do something wrong, but not on purpose.

But you are angry at him for kissing you. For touching you. It gave him another piece of your heart that you can never get back.

Rafe is still hunched over in the kitchen. He fucked up. You’re upstairs, devastated, because of him. Since this started, you’ve been so worried about bothering him. You said he tolerates you. And he put so much effort into making sure you didn’t feel like a burden, but he just undid it all.

The way you apologized was like you were saying sorry for existing. Whatever he had left of a heart had been wrung out. He needs a distraction. But you can’t give it to him, because it’s you he needs the distraction from.

You eventually get to a point where you can’t cry anymore. You’re numb. You spend every passing minute hoping Rafe will come into your room to try to convince you that you can make each other happy.

But he doesn’t. You fall asleep alone.

A loud bang wakes you up. Your instinct tells you it’s Ty. A few seconds later, consciousness gets a hold of you and you remember your phone call. He’s in police custody. He can’t be here.

You sit up in the dark. Another bang outside. It’s still raining but the noises aren’t rolls of thunder like a few nights ago.

Rafe didn’t leave. If he did, he would’ve needed you to disarm the security system. You check the time. It’s nearing three in the morning.

Another thud. At this point, you’re scared. You need to find him.

You’re already panting when you reach the guest room. You knock on the ajar door.

“Rafe?” you mumble.

To your relief, you hear his tired hmm? from the other side of the door.

“I keep hearing noises from outside,” you say. “I think someone might be out there.”

The bed squeaks with his weight shifting and a moment later, you hear the unmistakable sound of him pulling out and pushing in the magazine of his gun. It adds yet another layer of fear onto you.

“Where?” Rafe asks as he steps out of the room.

You guide him in the dark to the window by your bed. You watch him lean to look out the glass, the gun in his hand.

“It can’t be him, right?” you finally say with a thin voice.

Rafe’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t want to say what’s been turning in his head since you got the call from the lawyer. He didn’t want to scare you. But it’s exactly why he stayed.

“Rafe?” you say.

“Someone could’ve bailed him out,” he finally replies.

Your heart is in your throat. The stress of tonight made you completely forget about that possibility. If Ty got bail, of course his wealthy family would pay it. You feel stupid for urging Rafe to leave. And grateful that he didn’t.

“Well, if he - if he did, wouldn’t the police make sure he doesn’t try to get to me?” you ask.

“The police are idiots,” Rafe says flatly, still angry over how passively they treated you when you filed the restraining order, how thoughtless they were to not check your belongings.

“If he’s trying to get in,” you say shakily, “the alarm will go off. It automatically alerts the cops if it isn’t turned off within a minute. Please, if you… have to shoot, do it just to stop him. Don’t kill him.”

The thought of putting Rafe through watching someone else lose their life is too much for you.

He turns to look at you, barely making out your features in the moonlight shining into your room. How could possibly want to spare the life of someone so evil?

“He’s not worth it,” you say. “I don’t want it weighing on you for the rest of your life.”

Rafe looks at you in awe. Again, you put him first. In this moment, where you’re surely terrified, you’re worrying about him carrying the weight of taking someone’s life. Because he already carries that weight for his mother. And tonight, he put that weight on you, too.

“Okay,” he says. “But if he tries to hurt you, I don’t know how I’ll control myself.”

A deafening, chilling smash of glass echoes from downstairs. The shrill security alarm starts blaring. Your hand finds the crook of Rafe’s elbow as your entire body stiffens.

“Stay here,” Rafe says. “Don’t come out.”

“Be careful,” you stammer. “I’m calling 911 just to be sure.” You watch him leave as you grab your phone to report a break-in, giving the operator your address.

A few seconds later, the security system stops ringing. It’s been shut off. And you know it wasn’t Rafe who did it.

Rafe reaches the bottom of the stairs, gun pointed ahead in the dark. His eyes land on Ty, standing by the door, his hand on the security panel.

“Get the fuck out or I swear to God, I’ll shoot you,” Rafe threatens.

“I just want to talk to her,” he replies tersely.

“Get out,” Rafe repeats.

You can make out muffled conversation. You stand by your door, opening it an inch to hear what’s happening downstairs.

“Do you have any idea what I’ve been through for her? Where is she?”

It’s Ty. He actually did it. He actually found a way to get to you again. Rafe is the only thing keeping him from you right now. You feel like you could throw up from how scared you are.

“You have five seconds to leave,” Rafe says. Your ex sputters a laugh.

“Or what?” Ty reaches below the hem of his shirt. “You think you’re the only one with a gun?”

Your blood runs cold. Rafe is facing a maniac you’re sure wouldn’t hesitate to kill him. This could end in someone getting shot. Someone could die here tonight. And if it’s Rafe, you won’t be able to live with yourself.

It’s a crazy, desperate idea, but you’re confident you can manipulate Ty. You know him well. You know what he wants to hear. He’d do anything to think he can have you again. And you need to buy time before the police get here.

“Put it down,” Rafe warns.

“Is this gonna be a game of chicken?” Ty laughs again, his gun gleaming in his hand.

Your entire body is tense as you step out of your room.

“Ty?” you call out, slowly coming down the stairs. Rafe stiffens.

“I told you to not to come out,” Rafe says sternly, his eyes still on your ex.

“These are the lengths I have to go to for you, huh?” Ty calls up to you. “Just to get you to talk to me?”

It’s still dark in your home, both men just murky figures.

“I’m turning on the light,” you say, knowing that surprising Ty won’t do any good.

You reach the bottom of the staircase, standing behind Rafe, and flip the switch, washing the entrance of your home in bright lighting.

You have to stifle your gasp when you see Ty. His face is swollen from Rafe beating him up last night. His clothes are muddy from creeping around your home in the rain, finding a way in. He must have jumped the gate.

The realization that he knows the security code crashes into you. He’s surely seen you punch it in from his visits back when he was your boyfriend. You never thought he’d be committing it to memory.

This whole time, he knew it. Something you thought was protecting you wasn’t. You wish you’d thought to change the code after the break-up.

“Go back upstairs,” Rafe says, his teeth gritted.

You place a hand on Rafe’s back, out of Ty’s sight.

“Let’s talk,” you say to Ty. “Put the gun down and let’s talk.”

“You know the cops came to my house and arrested me in front of my parents?” Ty says, looking utterly unhinged. “Why the fuck did you do that to me?“

His gun is still aimed in your direction, but it’s a little lower in his shaky hand. You’re getting somewhere.

“I’m so sorry. I was scared,” you tell him.

“And you let this asshole,” Ty says, eyes darting to Rafe, “hurt me. You just fucking watched him punch me and punch me over and over and then you left. You left with him.”

“I’d do it again,” Rafe mutters. He sees pure red.

“Hey,” you whisper to him. You force your anxiety away, knowing you need to calm Ty down, not provoke him.

You drop your hand and walk past Rafe, who harshly says your name. His fingers wrap around your wrist, pulling you back. You look at him.

“Stop,” Rafe mutters to you, still holding out his gun at Ty. “Go upstairs. I’m handling this.”

“I won’t let you hurt him,” you say, loud for Ty to hear. “I don’t want you anymore.”

Rafe knows you’re trying to trick Ty to avoid anything horrible happening here tonight, but your words make everything in him twist in pain.

You pull away and approach Ty, your heart drumming against your chest. You meet his wide, frantic eyes.

“Hey,” you say softly, walking towards him. “You were right. He was just a rebound. You know me better than anybody.”

“You’re lying,” Ty mutters. But he’s lowering his gun. “You’re just a liar.”

“Ty,” you say, mustering up forced affection. You reach him, standing mere inches away. His gun is at his side now. The thought of him raising his hand again is petrifying.

“I was scared,” you continue, “but now I can see how much you care about me. It’s why I came downstairs. I heard your voice and I realized how much I miss you.”

“I just wanted to talk to you,” he says. “This whole time. And what’d you do? You got a new boyfriend. You called the cops. I - I love you. I gave you everything.”

His eyes are sharp. Poisonous. He genuinely thinks he’s done nothing wrong. To him, tracking you and taking photos of you and forcing contact with you was okay. He wants you as an object to possess. Not as a person.

“I know. Nobody can love me like you do,” you whisper, echoing the words he screamed at you when you broke up with him. “I love you. I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it. I’ve always been stupid, right?”

It’s taking everything in Rafe not to charge at Ty. If he makes one wrong move, he doesn’t think he can restrain himself from putting a bullet through his chest.

Rafe watches your hand drag down Ty’s arm and he grimaces, sure you’re rattled with fear.

“Can you put this down?” you ask, your hand stopping at his, cupping the gun. “I want you to hold me like you used to.”

“You do?” Ty says, his anger slowly disappearing from his face. Relief pools through you.

“Of course,” you reply. Your hand is shaking as you find the barrel of his gun, slowly pulling at it. “I need you. I make bad decisions when I’m not with you.”

“Yeah, you do,” Ty says, a desperate grin spreading on his face. “You finally fucking get it.”

You force a smile at him, breathing out slowly as you take the gun out of his grip.

Rafe watches with relief when he sees you holding Ty’s gun at your back.

It’s terrifying facing him, but at least there’s no gun pointed at Rafe right now. It dawns on you just how much you love him. You came down here simply to try to keep him safe. To keep him from having someone’s blood on his hands. You approached someone you’ve been running from. You put your own life in danger. Willingly.

You pull back, forcing another smile as you gaze up at Ty.

“We’re getting out of here,” Ty orders.

You look up at him, hoping he doesn’t see the fear in your eyes. There’s no way you’re going anywhere with him. You know you have a second, maybe two, to get away from him. And you can only hope it’s enough.

“Let me get my shoes,” you say, trying to laugh as if you’re excited, as if you’re endeared by him.

You move as fast as you can, kneeling to pick the gun up off the floor and rushing back towards Rafe.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Ty spits behind you.

Rafe has never been more relieved in his life than when you reach him, cowering behind him, Ty’s gun in your hands.

Maybe you should use it, but you can’t fathom trusting your aim when you’re shaking like this.

“You lying bitch!” Ty shouts, striding forward.

“One more step!” Rafe warns louder.

Ty doesn’t listen.

“Look away,” Rafe mutters to you. You curl up behind him, making yourself small, shutting your eyes.

The gunshot pierces the air, echoing through the foyer, making you quiver. You want to wake up. Because this has to be a nightmare. This can’t be real.

You hear Ty moaning in pain. Your eyes are still shut when sirens blare in the distance.

It’s a blur. People rush in. The door is left open, rain drumming on the pavement. You hear another hard thud and you realize you dropped the gun that was in your hands.

You feel Rafe turn and he’s saying something to you, but you can’t understand it. A shiny, yellow badge gleams in the light.

“…happened tonight?” a stranger asks.

“Can’t you do this another time?” Rafe mutters, irritated.

“We need a statement.” You realize the police officer is talking to you, a notepad in his hand. You meet his eyes.

“What?” you breathe.

Rafe looks down at you with furrowed brows, worried about you and pissed off that you’re being questioned.

“Can you tell me what happened tonight?” the cop says.

“Her ex broke in,” Rafe says. “He had a gun. You guys arrested him, then let him go. There’s your statement.”

The police officer sighs, keeping his eye on you.

“Have you been physically harmed?” the cops says.

You find the strength to shake your head no.

“Do you have somewhere else to sleep tonight?” he asks.

“Yes,” Rafe answers for you. “It’s better she’s not here in case you morons let him out again, right?”

The cop shakes his head in frustration, but seems to decide that not engaging with Rafe’s angry sarcasm is the better choice.

“We’ll be in touch, miss,” he says. He turns all his attention to Rafe. “Can you answer some questions?”

“Fine,” he mutters, then looks to you. “You wanna go pack?”

All you can hear is your own quick breathing as you pack an overnight bag. You’re trembling, dropping things, moving as if you’re going to be late for something.

Your house is a crime scene now. You still don’t know what happened with Ty. You couldn’t look.

It’s a few minutes past four a.m. when you reach Tannyhill. You and Rafe haven’t said anything to each other since the cops left.

The enormous house is dark and quiet as you trail him up the stairs. You know it’s irrational, but still, you fear Ty will pop out from behind a corner and try to finish the job.

Even after your harsh conversation earlier tonight, you hope Rafe will let you sleep in his bedroom. You stop in the upstairs hallway, unsure of what to do next, but his hand finds yours, leading you, making the decision for you.

Rafe’s bedsheets smells just like him, warm and strong and comforting. You’re turned on your side, your back to him, as he settles behind you.

Now that you’re lying down, you realize just how hard you’re shaking. Your body is still trying to catch up with your mind.

Rafe notices.

“It’s over,” he says, voice low. “You’re alright.”

You nod, exhaling once you feel his hand rest on your back. His fingers gently run back and forth between your shoulder blades. You find your words, finally.

“I know you had it under control,” you whisper, “but I couldn’t just sit in my room and do nothing. I was scared of him but I was more scared he’d hurt you and I knew I could trick him and I know you’re mad at me-”

“I’m not…” Rafe interrupts with a sigh. “I’m not mad at you.”

He’s mad at how unfair everything is. And at himself. He should have never told you they were in the car because of you. The conversation with you in your kitchen is another memory he knows will haunt him.

You nuzzle into Rafe’s pillow. He’s still slowly stroking your back, granting you a sense of safety.

“Listen, I won’t lie. I wish you never came downstairs,” he admits. It killed him seeing you face someone who’s been torturing you. “I didn’t know what he was gonna do. But you… you knew how to deal with him. I… Thank you. You didn’t have to do it for me.”

Your heart is still pounding. Of course you had to do it for him. You’d do anything for him.

“You’ve been looking out for me,” you say quietly. “I wanted to finally return the favor.”

Rafe chews on his lip. He’s pretty sure you take care of him more than he does you.

“What happened?” you ask. “Did you…”

“Got him in the leg,” Rafe says. “They arrested him. Again.” He would’ve killed him if you gave him your blessing to. He knows that for sure.

You nod. Your eyelids start to flutter shut. He keeps rubbing your back until he’s sure you’re asleep.

For once, you start your day next to Rafe. He didn’t leave you to wake up alone this time. He’s pressed up behind you, his arm draped over you, his hand over yours. You feel his chest rising and falling against your back.

The room is washed in orange sunlight. The clock on his nightstand tells you it’s almost noon.

You don’t know what to do from here. You promised Rafe that after this ended, you’d stop bothering him. And he didn’t tell you not to.

You look down at his hand on top of yours. Your eyes trail over his fingers, once again thinking about everything he’s done for you. He’s kept you safe, taken on responsibilities for you, given you pleasure.

Minutes later, Rafe shuffles behind you, slowly waking up. Once he realizes he’s holding you, he pulls away, clearing his throat.

You sit up and collect your bag before you go to his ensuite bathroom, not making eye contact. After texting a friend to ask if you can come over, you mentally rehearse what you’ll say to Rafe as you brush your teeth.

He’s sitting up in bed when you come out. He can see how tired you are, but you still manage to be so breathtakingly beautiful.

“Hi,” you say. You take a breath, standing over him, your bag at your chest. “There’s no way I can thank you enough. You saved my life. If I was home alone, he would’ve taken me somewhere and…”

You look down, knowing you shouldn’t spiral into the what if’s.

“After what I did to you, you still helped me,” you say, quieter now. “I know you think low of yourself, but you shouldn’t. Because of you, I’m alive right now.”

Rafe stares up at you, his hair tousled over his forehead. Only you can give him this feeling of pride in himself. This feeling that maybe he has a reason to exist other than getting wasted and taking out his anger in every way he can.

“It wasn’t all me,” he replies. “You’re tougher than you know.” You offer him a small, thankful smile.

“I’ll get Sarah to drive me to a friend’s,” you say. “And I’ll stay there until my parents get back tonight.”

You start to walk towards the door, but his words stop you.

“I never stopped missing you, either,” he says tensely, remembering your words from last night. “Just so you know.”

You look at him with doleful eyes. Rafe’s heart pounds faster when you drop your bag and approach him. You duck, pressing your cheek against his shoulder, hugging him.

He wraps his arms around you and closes his eyes until you pull back and take your warmth with you. You can both feel that this is goodbye.

You’re grateful not only because he kept you safe from Ty, but because he allowed this arrangement between you to end cordially. He opened up one last time, giving you the comfort of knowing that he still cared about you even after the accident he blames you for.

He missed you, too. It gives you a reprieve from the pain, even just for a second.

You have a long phone conversation with your lawyer when you arrive at your friend’s house. Ty’s back in custody. There’s no option for bail now. He’ll be incarcerated until the trial. Your original court date has been nullified, as a judge has granted you the permanent protective order given the circumstances.

You give your official police statement, emphasizing as many times as you can that Rafe acted in self-defence and protected you. When your lawyer confirms he isn’t being charged with anything, you’re more relieved than ever.

You’re in a haze when you finally see your parents again. Telling them everything feels like you’re recounting a horror movie.

Your home is still deemed a crime scene, so your parents book a hotel room. You’re lying in the firm, cold hotel bed when your phone buzzes with a text.

It’s from Rafe. It’s almost midnight and you saw him this morning, but it feels like it’s been weeks. You doing ok?

You reply: yes. my parents got back and we’re at a hotel. are you ok?

He doesn’t text back. You take that as a response in itself. Whatever you had is officially over.

The next afternoon, you can finally go home. The window Ty broke is repaired. You have an irrational fear of seeing his blood on the foyer floor when you walk back into your house, even after your parents confirmed with the cops that the scene has been cleaned up.

Rafe is trying to get used to the way life is now. It feels wrong not being around you. You’re all he thinks about. When he wakes up. As he goes to sleep.

He should have replied to your text. But how can he put into words just how not okay he is? He kept it under wraps for years, then opened up to you just to ruin things between you all over again.

It’s been almost a week since he’s seen you. Other Kooks are gossiping about what happened, spreading theories and lies. They know to quiet down when they realize Rafe is in earshot.

He’s not sure if people think you’re still together or not, but they seem to know better than to blabber about it when he’s around.

It’s Saturday night and people are scattered across the massive wraparound balcony facing the beach behind Tannyhill. Rafe’s preparing a line of coke, falling into his old escapist habits.

He misses you. He’s afraid things really are back to how they were. He wants to see you. He just needs to figure out how to make it happen.

It’s loud and crowded. You haven’t left your bedroom in days, but finally, you’ve stepped outside after your friends encouraged you to come to a party. It made it easier to accept the invite when you heard it was at Rafe’s house. You want to check on him, even if it’s from a distance.

You can feel people’s eyes on you when you enter the party. It’s uncomfortable, knowing your trauma is being gossiped about and picked apart.

Ty’s in jail, but sometimes that isn’t enough. You can’t get it out of your head, the way he looked when he broke in, frantic as he waved his gun around.

You’re gazing out at the setting sun as you stand on the balcony, slipping into your thoughts as your friends chatter around you.

You’re worried you’ll be afraid of your ex forever. The safest you’ve ever felt was with Rafe and that was temporary.

You instinctually look around for him. You don’t see him, but then there’s a break in the crowd, and you spot him sitting at a table, hunched over, ready to do a line.

It’s like nothing has changed. You see Rafe the way you’ve seen him throughout your adolescence, chasing a high and acting like you don’t exist. Even after everything that happened between you.

Rafe’s about to breathe in his first line of the night. Until his eyes meet yours. And then everything goes quiet.

His fear that things are how they were before is shattered. They can’t be. Because instead of looking away, he doesn’t want to tear his eyes off of you.

You think you’re giving something to him by giving him space, but you’re not. You’re taking happiness and peace and love away from him.

Your breath catches when you feel a rush of tears thickening in your throat. Your heart is broken from so many things, but it’s mostly from the role you played in breaking his.

You excuse yourself and rush into the house, hopeful nobody will see you cry. You’re not even sure where you’re going. You just know you want to be alone.

You end up in Rafe’s room, simply because it’s the only room in the house that gives you the level of comfort you’re craving. You gaze out of one of the windows as you try to calm yourself down.

You remember entering this house for the first time. His father and yours fell into conversation like old friends do and Rafe was at his mother’s side, just barely leaning on her, enough for comfort but not so much that he looked like he needed the crutch.

You kept glancing at each other while the adults talked and when he finally offered you a shy smile, you smiled back, and you don’t know if he felt it, too, but at that moment, you knew you were going to be friends.

You sit on his bed, hands on your knees as you breathe through the hurt.

The doorknob turns. Rafe flips on the light when he comes in, his eyes boring into you. You quickly wipe away your tears. He was the last person you expected to follow you.

“Hey,” he says, shutting the door. “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry,” you say. “I can go.”

“No,” Rafe says. “What is it?”

You can’t put him through the honest answer.

“Sucks how everyone’s talking about it,” you say. Truthfully, you couldn’t care less about the gossip.

Rafe squints for a moment, slowly making his way to you, settling on the bed an inch away from you, his cologne drifting in the air.

“Is that really it?” he asks. You nervously clasp your hands, looking down. He knows that’s not really it. You can see from the corner of his eye that he’s still watching you.

You don’t answer.

“I hate myself for telling you,” Rafe mumbles. You wince at his words.

“You shouldn’t. It’s better that I know.”

“It’s not.” Rafe anxiously rubs his forehead. “It sounded so fucking wrong when you said it’s your fault. When I heard you say it out loud, it…”

It turned everything inside out. All he’s been thinking about these past few days is how and when to tell you this.

“You know when you said maybe it was your fault he wouldn’t leave you alone?” he asks.

You think back to that night when you confessed how terrible your relationship with Ty had been. You had told Rafe it’s easier for you to take responsibility because then you’re not just a victim.

“I can’t let you blame yourself like that again,” Rafe says. “You were a kid.”

“You really don’t blame me?” you ask.

“I don’t.” His words take a weight off of your shoulders.

“You were a kid, too, Rafe. You can’t blame yourself, either,” you say softly. “And if anyone else does, they’re wrong.”

You can tell by the way he grimaces that he’s been made to feel guilty for it by someone else. His father. You have no doubt about it.

“It’s different,” Rafe mutters.

“It’s not,” you reply. “You’re just as innocent as I am.”

Rafe knew his mother well. He knows she spent her last moments worrying about him, regretting that she made the decision to leave the house with him. She was an amazing mother. He’s sure she died thinking she wasn’t.

“I didn’t tell her I loved her,” he says, voice starting to falter. “The last chance I had.”

Your chest tightens.

“You know how you always picked flowers for her on our way up to the house?” you say. “And how she was so happy every time you gave them to her?”

The memory makes the corners of Rafe’s lips turn up in a smile. He didn’t know you remembered that.

“You spent time getting her flowers just to make her day, over and over,” you say. “You don’t have to tell someone you love them for them to know. You showed her in a million ways. She knew. I promise.”

Rafe’s been living in an unforgiving cycle of hating the world, looking for blame, all to keep from accepting the truth that there was no sense to what happened. No reason. It just happened. And it left him in pieces.

Your words give him a quiet feeling of freedom that he hasn’t felt in a long time. The cycle is addictive and comfortable, but it keeps him moving in circles. Getting him nowhere.

Talking about his mother doesn’t hurt as bad this time. Because you brought up a good memory, and he doesn’t picture her in the car like he always does, but he sees her downstairs, pinching his cheek, smiling, putting wildflowers in a small vase.

Rafe’s eyes find yours again. All he can feel is a warm, stirring gratitude sinking into him. His lips part for a second before he can reach for the words.

“Thank you,” he says. “How’ve you been?”

“It’s hard,” you admit. “I keep thinking I’m going to run into him. We’re just waiting on the trial to start and I wish I knew what’s going to happen.”

Rafe takes a deep breath. He’s terrified of letting you hear how dark his thoughts get, but right now, he’s as sure as he can be that you’re the one person in the world who wouldn’t look at him with judgement.

“I wanted to kill him,” Rafe mutters. “I would right now if I had the chance.”

He looks at you, scared as he awaits your response. You tilt your head and gaze at him with sorrowful eyes.

“I think if someone was doing something like that to you,” you say, “I’d feel the same way.”

Rafe knew you cared about him, but to know you feel just as intensely for him as he does for you is a relief. He’s still not sure he deserves it.

“How have you been after everything?” you ask.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he says, his words rushed. “I keep wanting to text or call but I don’t know how to say it.”

“How to say what?”

“How much I regret it all,” he says. Rafe combs a hand through his hair, heeling forward, his elbows resting on his thighs. “Every single time you tried to talk to me, I was such a dick to you. I’m sorry.”

You’ve imagined him saying this, but you thought it’d always stay a daydream. As you think about everything he’s told you, about how uncontrollable his thoughts can be and how badly he needs distractions and how utterly lonely he’s been, you feel nothing but forgiveness for him.

“You know that photo I took down?” you say. He nods, picturing the image of the four of you on the beach. “What happened, happened to that little kid. I think he handled things the only way he knew how.”

Rafe sits straight, tears threatening to form. You never run out of compassion for him. You’ve always been here, reminding him he’s human and that it’s okay to hurt and to need help.

His eyes are on yours again, and this time, he’s looking at you like he did the night before he kissed you. It’s like life is returning to his features, a pink hue blooming across his cheeks.

He recalls your words from your last night together. But you don’t want me in your life?

“I want you in my life, alright?” he says. He ducks his head just a bit, looking at you with a mix of infatuation and nerves. “If you still want to be in it.”

Your lips quiver with an endeared frown as you gaze at the multifaceted, complex, passionate man sitting in front of you.

“I do,” you say. Because the past few weeks have been so stressful, all you want right now is clarity. “You mean as a friend?”

“No,” Rafe scoffs, a smile quirking on his face again. “No. If you want that, we’ll do that. But I want more. Please tell me I didn’t fuck this up.”

You gaze at him through your lashes, feeling like you might just melt at the soft way he’s looking at you and speaking to you.

“Believe me,” Rafe says, “that I’ll be different. For real, this time. I don’t…” He sighs. “I never want you feeling like you’re bothering me. It’s the opposite. Every minute I’m not with you is just… it’s hell.”

He licks his lips from nervousness. He doesn’t like that you haven’t said anything yet.

“What are you thinking?” he asks.

You smile at him, bringing your hand to his, feeling that his knuckles have completely healed now. This right here is the moment you think you might be able to let go of the fear and instability and pain that’s existed between you for so long.

“I want more, too,” you tell him. He looks at you with furrowed brows almost like he’s in pain, like waiting for this has actually been hurting him.

Rafe hopes his impatience to kiss you isn’t too much for you when he leans forward, laying his lips to yours, but you meet him with the same hunger.

He holds you, cupping your cheek, stroking your skin with his thumb as your lips weave together. His tongue runs against yours and you raise your hands, one resting on the crook of his neck while the other runs over his hair.

With a quiet moan of pure desire, Rafe kisses harder, moving even closer to you so that your eyelashes overlap.

He separates to close his lips on your neck, trailing hot, desperate kisses over your throat. Then, Rafe’s fingers rest on your hips, fingertips dipping under your shirt.

“Can I take this off?” he asks huskily.

“Yes,” you breathe.

The slowly burning flame between you has sparked into a wildfire now. You feel the fabric of your top slowly dragging up your body, making you dizzy.

Rafe watches in awe as he pulls your shirt off you, all of his senses going hot when he watches the way your chest is rising and falling, the way your bra looks pushed against your body. He dips to kiss your neck again as he holds you at your waist.

“Tell me if I’m going too fast,” he whispers, “or if I need to stop.”

“Don’t stop,” you whisper back. Your hand drags over his hard jaw to pull him up to your lips again. Rafe is intoxicated by this feeling, by the promise of pleasure, by the pure joy of being wanted.

Your lips quietly smack together as his fingers skim up the side of your body, over your shoulder, down the line of your bra strap, finally wandering over your chest.

He massages you gently, earning breathy moans from you. With eyes still shut, you find the top button of his shirt, pulling it out of its loop slowly.

Your kisses grow even more impatient as you unbutton his shirt, moving down his chest, finally reaching the bottom. Your fingers slip under his collar, pushing his shirt down his shoulders.

Once Rafe’s shirt is on the floor, he leans against you, gently guiding you onto your back on his soft bed, still kissing you. You run your hands down the firm curve of his back, making him shudder into your mouth.

His fingers dip under your bra strap, feeling desperate to see you. His forehead presses against yours as he pulls back.

“Is this okay?” he rasps.

You nod and your breath hitches when he pulls the strap down over your shoulder and dips to kiss where it sat. His groin already feels so tight that it hurts.

Slowly, he lowers to kiss the valley between your breasts, making your heart pound even harder. When he finally pulls down the cup of your bra, seeing you bare draws a stunned, sharp intake of breath from him.

You rake your hand through his hair when you feel his hot mouth on you. You moan softly and the sound of you revelling in the pleasure he’s giving you puts him in an even deeper daze.

Rafe cups your waist and drags his hands to your back. You arch to give him just enough space to unhook your bra, and once he has full access to your chest, you shut your eyes as his tongue and hands roam over you.

He leaves wet kisses all over your chest and comes back up to capture your lips again. His movements are languid as he rests his hand between your legs and suddenly, your clothes feel suffocating. You’ve never needed someone more.

Rafe drags his fingers over you, pressing in gentle circles. You spread your legs wide as he hovers over you, holding himself up on his elbow.

His eyes are on you, full of lust and want, imagining how you’ll taste if you let him go that far. He sinks to dip his fingers beneath the band at your hips, pulling the clothing down your legs, taking his time.

He settles over you again, putting his hand back where it was, and even though there’s still one more layer of fabric to strip, he can feel you so much better.

You whimper as he drags his fingers over you, and then he lowers again, his head between your legs.

You meet Rafe’s gaze when he kisses you right over your panties, and the intimacy, the pure vulnerability thickens the air even more.

“Can I?” he mumbles, his breath warm. You nod in desperation.

He slides the last piece of clothing you have on off of you, and when his eyes drink you in, his heart pounds loud in his ears.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, dipping to kiss your inner thighs before finally tasting you. You breathe out shakily as his tongue curls against you, as his hands hook around the tops of your thighs, resting on your hips.

Your whole body is hot and trembling as he kisses and sucks and licks, worshipping every bit of you.

Rafe can’t get enough of you. He just started and he already dreads the thought of stopping.

Your hands sit on his and he squeezes your fingers as he buries his face against you, holding both your hands, gazing up to see the bliss written in your pretty features.

He shifts to bring one of his hands where his mouth is, gliding over you, working both on you to bring you to a mind-blowing climax that leaves you moaning.

Rafe holds himself up over you again, kissing you, letting you taste yourself, as you eagerly unbutton his jeans. He helps you pull his pants down and when you grip him over his boxers, he nearly whimpers in need.

You stroke slowly, your hand wrapped around him, the other pushing against his bare chest to gently lead him to lie on his back.

You drag his boxers down, looking at him with pure arousal. His face is twisted in pleasure when you put your mouth on him, tasting him, taking him in completely.

He couldn’t take his eyes off you if he tried. You slowly pick up your pace and he knows if you go any longer, he won’t last.

“Can we…” he rasps. You’re trembling in anticipation, already knowing what he’s asking.

You shift higher, resting on your knees, your bare bodies pressed together as you kiss him.

You lower your hand, holding him, dipping against him to just barely meet each other. It’d take just one buck of your hips to feel him inside you.

“You sure?” he asks.

“Yes. Are you?”

“Yes,” he groans. “Go as slow as you need to.”

You nod, shuddering as you position yourself and slowly sink onto him. You moan in unison at the sensation of your bodies meeting this way.

When you finally take all of him in, you pause to revel in the feeling, breathing heavily, your cheeks brushing.

“I love you,” Rafe says, his deep voice weaved with awe.

You pull back to look at him, not sure if you heard him right. You take in the color of his eyes and the beauty of his edges and your heart has never felt like it was glowing until this very moment.

“I love you, too,” you half-whisper. He almost can’t come to grips with the fact that you said it back with such certainty. Like you have no doubt that he has a place in your heart.

You roll your hips, taking your time to adjust to him. His hands are at your waist as he enjoys the slow ecstasy of your warmth.

You hug him tightly as you slowly move up and down. Eventually, you can feel him tensing beneath you, and you want to give him the control to reach the pace he needs.

You lift off of him, kissing him before you shift onto your back. He doesn’t waste any time to settle over you, slowly pushing into you again.

You’ve always worn your heart on your sleeve for Rafe, while he’s kept his caged. He thought he didn’t even have one anymore. But you remind him that he does have this side of him, that it still exists, that he wants to give all of it you.

“I love you,” he rasps again. “I love you. I love you.”

Bliss overwhelms you as you tenderly kiss his forehead. He gently rocks forward and back, filling you perfectly as his thrusts slowly quicken.

“You’re everything to me,” he whispers into your ear. “I love you.”

“I love you,” you say, wrapping your legs around him. His breaths quicken as he moves faster, writhing over you into a climax that makes him groan.

Your bodies are glistening with sweat, your breaths heavy. Rafe’s weight doesn’t leave you as he collapses in pleasure.

“Is it okay if I stay like this?” he asks.

“Yes,” you breathe. His face is nuzzled into your neck, panting as he breathes you in, still inside you, living in this perfect moment with you.

Rafe has felt homesick since he can remember. Even within the walls of his own bedroom. But you and the feeling you give him are home. Safety with no exceptions, love with no conditions.

“What’d I do to deserve you?” he mumbles against your skin.

“Exist,” you say with a gentle laugh.

Rafe plants lazy kisses against your neck as you hold him, slowly coming back to reality. There’s a whole party happening in his house, but in his world, it’s only you and him.

When he gets up, he isn’t prepared for how empty he feels when he loses the feeling of you wrapped around him. You lie next to him, facing each other with tired smiles.

“How was it?” he asks. The question sends you into a fit of laughter.

“You heard me, right?” you say, almost embarrassed from the sounds you made.

Rafe smirks and moves even closer to you, kissing you as you both lie on his pillow. You rest your palm on his face, gently tapping at the deep dimple in his cheek with your finger.

“You should show these more often,” you say.

“What?”

“Your dimples.”

He laughs, thinking to himself that he’ll do anything you want him to if you’ll keep loving him. He’s drunk on the feeling of the simplicity of being with you. It’s easy and pure.

Rafe asks if you want to shower together, and soon, you’re in his ensuite, standing under hot water ebbing over your skin.

Every movement between you is a slow expression of love, your bodies curved together as you share kisses and hold each other.

At one point, he’s clinging onto you, his lips pressed on your shoulder, and you’re holding him like you did the night in your house when he finally opened up completely.

Rafe is overcome by every emotion he’s feeling and it’s the first time in years that he cries without urging himself to stop. Because you’re here and you know everything and you still don’t want to leave.

You hold each other in bed wearing nothing but towels. He asks you if you want to go back out to the party and is relieved when you tell him you don’t.

“I’m falling asleep,” you eventually say, your legs tangled with his as he holds you. “I should go home.”

“No,” he says. “Why? Stay. Sleep here.”

You text your parents that you’re sleeping over. You know they’ll assume you’re staying in Sarah’s room, since you’ve done it so many times.

After you put your phone on Rafe’s nightstand, you snuggle into him, your head resting on his shoulder. You yawn, getting goosebumps from the way his fingers trail up and down your arm.

“Need a distraction?” you ask.

“No,” Rafe replies tiredly. For once, his mind isn’t racing. The mix of chaos and calm he thought he felt with you is no longer a mix at all. It’s just calm. It’s just peace.

You wake up in Rafe’s arms, feeling his heartbeat against your cheek and his breaths on the top of your head. It feels unreal recounting last night, remembering the amount of times he told you he loves you.

You shift slowly to get out of bed, putting on your bra and underwear and slipping into his bathroom. He’s sitting up in bed when you come back out. His eyes immediately trail down your body, a smile growing on his face.

“What?” you ask.

“You’re just…” Rafe exhales, resting his arm out on the bed in a way to beckon you to come back. “Perfect.”

“You mean as a friend?” you joke. You settle back into bed on your knees as he chuckles.

“Fuck no,” he answers, making you laugh. “Do you have to leave?”

“I don’t,” you say. Your body warms when you see the relief on his face. Now that you’ve sealed the rift that lived between you for so long, you can see just how badly Rafe wants you around.

But it doesn’t feel like a dream anymore. This feels right. Like you were meant to be with him all along.

“Would you wanna go down to the water?” you ask.

He nods. It’s like your kids again; he’d go anywhere you want just to see you smile.

It’s a windy morning by the sea. The sun is covered by clouds as you sit on the private beach next to Rafe. He drapes an arm around you, rubbing your arm to keep you warm. He feels like now that he’s been given permission to touch you, he can’t stop.

“The hours we spent out here,” you mumble. Rafe gazes at your profile as you look out at the horizon.

The dark blue sea makes you think of all the possibilities, of everything to come. You turn to catch him staring.

“I didn’t…” Rafe gently shakes his head. He didn’t know this was possible. “You know how people say they can feel someone around them after they… after they die?”

You nod. He feels guilty as hell with what he’s about to say.

“I never did,” he admits. Your face drops in shock and sadness. You can’t imagine how lonely he’s felt. “But right now, it’s like… it’s like she’s about to call us up to eat. I can feel her here.”

You feel like your heart is whole and broken at the same time. You lean to kiss his cheek over and over, the waves crashing in the distance.

“I need to stop trying to forget her,” Rafe says sadly.

He glances down at the sand, and you can tell anxiety is starting to grip him. You take a deep breath before you speak.

“I think she’d understand why you did,” you say. “What do you think about getting her flowers?”

Blue eyes find yours. He hasn’t visited her grave in years. If he does today, he’ll need you with him.

“Yeah,” he says simply, dusting the sand off his jeans as he heads to the patch of grass by the boardwalk.

The cemetery is quiet and tranquil. You drove over on his motorcycle, holding onto him tighter than you needed to. Your shoes pad over the paved walkway, feeling more and more nervous as you approach where she rests.

The headstone isn’t as big as Rafe remembers, but he figures it’s because he was much smaller when he visited last. He starts to cry as soon as he sees the photo of her in the center of the plaque. He forgot that was there.

Tears burn your eyes when you watch him slowly drop to his knees, his hands splayed on the lush grass.

You read the epitaph over and over again. When love is eternal, life cannot die.

Rafe forgot that he was holding the flowers he picked and he realizes he broke some stems, but when he looks at her photo again, he puts the flowers right at the corner of the headstone, knowing she was always happy with any bouquet he gave her, no matter the condition.

You sink beside him, resting a hand on his back.

“Should I talk?” he stammers. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You do whatever feels right,” you reply.

“Can you talk?” he asks.

“Yes,” you say. You’ve been yearning to talk like this with him for years. “You know you have her smile?”

“Really?”

“Yes,” you say. “It’s one of the reasons I love seeing you happy.”

Rafe nods, a tear dripping off his chin. He needs you to keep talking.

“And I remember she was always winking at me,” you say. “I don’t know if you saw.”

“She did that because she knew I had a crush on you,” Rafe mumbles. You smile sadly, rubbing his back.

“I’m pretty sure she knew I had one on you, too,” you say. “She was so smart and so sweet. Everyone could see how much she loved being your mom.”

Rafe offers you a grateful smile.

“I miss her,” he says, his voice brittle.

“Me, too,” you reply. “I’m sorry. I can go back to the parking lot if you want?”

You’re offering to give him time alone here. And to his surprise, he nods. He can do this. You kiss his temple and give him the moment he needs.

Rafe is sitting in silence for a minute before he finds the words. He stares at her photo.

“I’m sorry I made you drive that night,” he mumbles. “I’m sorry I always got mad at you when you called me your baby. I just wanted to grow up and you told me to enjoy being young and you were right.”

He clears his throat.

“I’m sorry I dug myself into a hole and tried to forget you. But I think she’s right. You’d understand.”

He cracks a small smile, remembering when he first told his mom he liked you, how nervous and giddy he felt.

“Still want to marry her,” he says. He can hear the way she laughed when her ten-year-old son told her he hoped you’d be his wife one day, but he’d still want to live at home so he’d beg for you to move in. “She never left my side, mom. I gave her every reason to but I think she saw how much I was hurting.”

Rafe promises her he won’t let so much time pass before he visits again. And when he finds you standing by his bike, he holds you so tightly that he feels your heart beating against his.

Everything is different for him now. He hasn’t had the comfort of permanence in his life for a long time. He can’t believe you want him, even after you’ve seen the worst of him.

Rafe never takes his hands off of you. At every party, on every date, he always has to be touching you in some way to remind himself that he has you for real.

It takes a few tries, but he manages to quit coke. And eventually, he quits waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for you to decide he isn’t worth the effort.

He’s with you every step of the trial. The lawyer says Ty getting five years in prison is a win, but he thinks the only win would be a life sentence.

Eventually, the trauma loses its power over you. You feel safe. Not because your ex is locked up, but because Rafe is with you.

You stand by him for everything. Every breakdown he has, every time he sinks into his grief, every storm that reminds him of the worst night of his life. You never leave.

You love him for long enough that he finally believes if someone as amazing as you can see something in him, it must be there.

Epilogue

You didn’t ask for much for the wedding. One thing that you were sure about was that you wanted an event artist, someone to paint the day on a canvas to capture it in a unique way.

Rafe is happy to to along with it, but then again, he’s like that with everything when it comes to you. You could never ask too much from him. He’ll forever feel like he owes you for never giving up on him.

The banquet hall is massive and beautifully decorated, and you can hardly hear your own thoughts over the crowd’s chatter and elegant music. The day has been a whirlwind.

When the artist waves you over, you take Rafe’s hand.

“Want to see the painting?” you ask.

“Yeah,” he says, beaming at you simply because of how excited you are.

You had secretly asked the artist to include Anne in the painting. When your eyes land on the canvas, seeing her drawn in with everyone else who stood at the altar warms your heart.

You look up at Rafe, whose mouth is just slightly agape. He stares at his mother’s image, smiling behind him, then looks down, scratching the back of his neck and finding your hand before he leads you away.

“Just a second,” you say to the artist before you let Rafe take you to a dressing room past the hallway.

He shuts the door behind you, facing you with glossy eyes.

“Did I mess up?” you say worryingly. “I’m so sorry. I wanted to surprise you. I thought you’d like it.”

“Hey,” Rafe says softly, hands on your cheeks. “I love it. I just didn’t want to cry in front of everyone. I’ve been barely keeping it together today.”

You laugh in relief, tipping your chin so he’ll kiss you. His lips meet yours. You’re pretty sure your guests could tell he got teary-eyed when he watched you walk down the aisle, but you’ll spare him that detail.

Rafe finds relief from your touch, like always. His mom was here today. He felt it. He feels her all the time now. And you’re still a reminder, but in the best possible way, because you show him that he can remember the good parts. That he can feel love even after someone’s left. That he doesn’t need to carry guilt. That he can look forward to the future.

Apart from the second he became your husband, this is the best moment you’ve had today, because it’s just you two, just like it was when you were kids on the beach, enjoying each other’s company, never wanting to part.

(the end) (continuation blurbs)

author’s note thank you to everyone who stuck with this series 💘 ps did you know tumblr has a text block limit? learned that the hard way lmao. so i’m sorry that some paragraphs got long! hated to sacrifice my structure but had to do it to keep all 10k+ words in 😋

#this is about 10k+ words so get cozy 🤭#rafe cameron x y/n #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron x you #rafe cameron and you #rafe cameron and reader #rafe cameron and y/n

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angelesca · 2 months ago

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need sunday's touch so bad but he is being emo about it

wc: ~1370 // content & warnings!: pining, so close yet so far grr, sunday x gn!reader, pet name("little bird"), kissing n' touching but nothing explicit, slow burn-ish a/n: i wrote this as a sequel in mind (part 1 here), but you could likely read this as a standalone. however, i make references to part 1 so it would probably flow nicer ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶

"SUNDAY," YOU FIRMLY STOOD YOUR GROUND, "WE CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE."

the stars shone in sunday's eyes, shining golden with undying devotion to your sacred temple. between yours and his desperate eyes, millions of unspoken words traversed back and forth.

in his room, your hands gripped both arms of his chair, confronting him face-to-face. today, you will shatter your fears.

his eyes lowered, face tilted away. "i do not know what you are referring to."

your eyebrows furrowed. "don't give me that excuse."

you were both trying to hinder the fierce, unbreaking desire to tip the edges, testing patience.

all the emotions you have clutched in your heart weighed down on you, and it punished you the more you realised your fondness for sunday. when your eyes searched for him - and there he was - in the shadows without fail. when you caught the lift of his lips, cheeks, and eyes as your gazes met. and you do not realise how your smile naturally jumped higher until he abruptly left you alone. to acknowledge how much his presence affected you.

it constricted you slowly, a vice that gradually tightened as days passed. the love you reserved for sunday cast pain and joy - a double-edged sword.

"do you hate me?" you asked, resolute, yet trembling at the thought of his response confirming your anxieties.

sunday's eyes narrowed, questioning the nonsense you were spewing, tracing your hazy expression to figure you out.

"then why do you avoid me so?" you asked, "you have never stood within even arm's length. you have never handed me anything in person. you have never picked me up when i fell over. and... "

always so close but never there, your mouth opened but did not convey these last words. you shut your eyes momentarily. "i don't get it. please, tell me, anything please, just some words to explain this silent distance between us."

sunday's stare softened, wordlessly embracing your vulnerability. however, he was conflicted on whether to comfort you. to indulge in this new light at the end of the tunnel, which you forlornly wrenched with your hands, would be to infringe upon your divinity. his hands that have known endless suffering and sacrifice, could never dare to brush yours unless he craved to provoke the gods.

sunday paused a moment before announcing: "i will be leaving soon coming the charmony festival."

"... what?"

his words parted a greater distance between you two.

your vision clouded. the vice - tightened. relentlessly. twisting deep into your weakness, stripping you bare of your guard. you were hearing crashing waves and everything tipped over all at once. this was it.

"if you're leaving, i respect your decision. but you cannot leave me like this," you replied, biting your lip, "do not leave me to wonder what your touch would've felt like." wetness coated your eyes.

"my hands are unclean. i cannot grant you this." sunday vowed. his fingers opened but withdrew them just as quickly.

"so stupid," you muttered. your chest exploded, "then just taint me. corrupt. with your 'blood and sin'. after all, i am no saint either."

your fingers ghosted over his pristinely gloved hand. hands that, which 'hid blood and sin', had never once sullied a speck of your blessed body, gravely frightened of dulling your radiance with the slightest trespass into your orbit.

"i am not some deity that needs sheltering. i am just another existence, just as you are." you finished.

sunday's eyes widened, thunderstruck. you articulated reason into his stubborn mind: you were no godly being. your brightness made him believe he was not worthy of you; you were on the far horizon that was unreachable to him. yet, you were just another existence, just as he was.

he spoke hesitantly, "of course not. you are one of the strongest people i have had the pleasure of knowing. i know of your gratuitous kindness, strength and bright eyes. you are not anything less," his voice withered, "i did not mean to discredit you."

"then what is stopping you from me?" you taunted.

your ears drowned out everything but the rapid lifts and falls, and the deep and shallow pacing of his breaths. his fingers twitched in response, attempting his hardest to restrain whatever fragile control he had left.

he did not think you would confront him like this. he believed living in your shadow would make him insignificant enough for you to forget him after his plans. but you both could not ever forget each other. how could he forget you at all? he did not plan for this. how stupid he was.

he listened to your breathing, mimicking as you did to his, pacifying his wavering worries. your comfort and company felt natural, like home. the sun was dimming and the stars began to set in your eyes as they whispered reassurances. the apprehension of tomorrow was blanketed by your steady voice which commanded mountains and soothed fires.

you had stood on his horizon, finally within reach, and he was right there with you. the waves were slowing in his ears - he had returned to your shore.

he swiped the tears varnishing your glistening eyes, but not close enough to touch your skin. he was about to let the scales tip in favour of you. "so you would not mind? you would not mind me?"

your eyes formed their crescent shape and sunday melted into it. "you can be so stupid sometimes."

fervours resonated, heartbeat-to-heartbeat, pulsing for one another's precious touch.

it pained both of you greatly to observe how the other needed, yearned, yet never touched.

magnetised, yet ill-fated to repel; parallel lines that would never meet; the inverse ebb and flow of day and night. the universe tried its hardest to work against them.

to brave beyond the barriers enforced by universal law would be to risk everything faithful in the world.

with one more breath, all fears finally shattered.

your touches finally found each other, joining at the horizon.

initially, awkwardness hung in the air. shuffling and shifting. fluttering fingers and bashful staring. contented smiles and chuckles at the unimaginable situation they had wandered into. like a mirror, reciprocating back and forth, neither knowing what to do. overwhelmed but delighted.

sunday decided to make the first venture. he gently unfastened his gloves, to your surprise, and you learned every scar, bump and discolouration on his bare hands. it was not hideous, nor did it bear any sin. it was only human.

your hand crawled up his palm and he quivered at first before settling into your solace. fingers instinctively intertwining - a key and lock that fit each other. his thumb grazed your knuckles. you drew along the lines of his lips and he released an unsteady breath, nestling into your touch.

the way his palm timidly sketched the outline of your body but did not initiate further. how he shrank as much as possible to house you on his lap. when he looked at you, infatuated, puppy-like, waiting for you to throw him a bone. anything. he was all yours to command.

so you shed your shame and press a kiss on the corner of his lips. you did not move far, lingering in front of his face. it took him by surprise, evident by the pink flush on his face and the fluttering of his wings above his ears. akin to a dog wagging its tail.

he inhaled deeply. an indiscernible look flashed on his face. his brilliant eyes eclipsed, darkening, and his face tipped over. his lips hovered by your ears, on the verge of precariously meeting if you did not back away.

"bad..." he mumbled, "you are a bad little bird."

electric ran up your spine as the words left his deceptively innocent lips. you sat up straight, at attention, the sensation of heat overriding your senses.

"a-ah..." you could only focus on the fire pooling below your stomach, writhing, as a tornado stormed your mind.

he pulled you closer. hands snaking up your shirt at an agonizingly slow rate, teasing you, corruption taking over.

"do not run away now. you will finish this mess that you have made."

and you and sunday crashed, collided, and met each other, all at once.

a/n: yikes this was longer than i hoped for. there are still many dynamics that i can envision with sunday but this was long enough. hopefully this fic makes someone happy out there ahaha ;'') thanks for reading!!😘

#hsr x reader #honkai star rail #honkai star rail x reader #sunday x reader #omg i forgot to add tags😪

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sunfish5149 · 4 months ago

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After rewatching round 6 for the nth time I just realized Till Win is reflected in Ivan's blood and OH. MY BMFUCCKIGBGOOOODDDD I HATE THEM I HATE THEM O HATE TJEM they could never make me hate you ivan.

Till standing next to Ivan while his body is still cooling feels awfully a lot like how a person would mourn at their loved one's grave, but I think that there's a lot more going on inside Till's head, and this just saddens me. I would crumble personally if I was him, because to me, Ivan's death also feels like a slap to the face I guess? Because until now his crush on Mizi allowed him to be selfish, to believe that once she was gone, he would be left all alone. He gave up his will to live, accepted defeat without further struggle, because he idolized and idealized Mizi to a point where his whole life depended on her existence. Perhaps he does have a crush on Mizi, but I fully believe that it partly stems from the love and adoration he saw Mizi offer to Sua, almost like "what if I could have that too?". He could not bear to part with the love and salvation he saw within Mizi, to the point where he gave away his freedom just to be near her, just for the chance that maybe he'd finally know what it feels like to be wanted, to be loved. He selfishly cut away at all the bad parts in this picture that he did not want to see, the worthless parts, the painful ones, the suffering he has endured at the hands of his captors, and ended up cutting away at the people that might've cared for him, that still do, until nothing but Mizi remained, who he foolishly believed to be able to offer him what he so desperately wanted. He made himself believe that he was alone, up until he truly, truly was. Until when can a man doggedly chase after one person until the death of what I dare call " the closest thing to family he has ever had" drop like flies around him? Round 6 offers us an answer.

I believe that part of the reason why he stood there as Ivan bled out is him processing that someone actually cared about him, loved the parts of Till that he saw to be loveless. It also feels like a wake-up call, the cut up picture that he has constructed his life around has finally been proven as the lie it is. He can no longer be selfish enough to close his eyes on reality, on his obsessive idealization for someone who will never, who cannot save him, on the fact that Mizi already loves somebody else so dearly, because the love he was searching for in someone, to be returned, was right next to him all along.

Too bad he only noticed Ivan when he was bleeding out at his feet. This is the closest thing to salvation Till will ever get from someone, to love so dearly one would give away their life without hesitation, to throw away their freedom, to not cut away at the corners of this picture, but to see it and love it and do everything to preserve it. Should Till look at such a picture, he would find the pieces of paper he has cut of himself which he believed to be loveless, reflected back at him in that puddle of blood. (I wrote this part fully relying on the muscle memory of my keyboard because my tears were deeply obstructing my vision)

This sacrifice will either ruin Till or give him motivation to live and the tenacity to fight back and free himself from the prison he has willingly walked in, and to finally accept that Mizi is a lesbiab and a ferocious grieving woman kisser. oh my god.

Edit: I JUST REALIZED MIZI ALSO IDOLIZES SUA THE SAME WAY TILL DOES WITH MIZI I HATE THEM I HATE TJEM J HATWHENM

Edit 2: this rant is lowkey outdated because first of all, I feel like I insulted Till's love for Mizi. Just as Ivan loved Till for his tenacity and fighting spirit, and whatever else he saw in that wet cat of a man, so did Till love Mizi, for her innocent happiness and love that poured out of her. She was the only one out of them who was blissfully unaware to the pain and suffering of the humans, and the shit the aliens put the rest through, the fact that Till was attracted to her partly because of that makes me feel miserable. I do wonder what he will think, should he survive and see just how much Mizi has changed, how she has grown to fight for what she wants to protect.

I also feel that I have underestimated Till's relation to Ivan, he truly did care for him, Ivan was just too cryptic to express himself

#alien stage #alnst ivan #alnst till #ivantill #alnst mizi #alnst round 6 #alnst round 7 #this was a wholeass #character study #im gonna go sob hysterically #ALNST #alnst

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shamixlour · 5 months ago

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The Bear - 3x10

This scene was a masterpiece and obviously horrendously tragic at the same time and that for multiple reasons.

For a little context, we're at EVER restaurant, funeral diner, everyone is having lots of fun and we get a glimpse of Sydney in the middle of her peers. She fits perfectly in, participates in the conversations, entertains and definitely grasps the heart of the people around the table AND YET you have Carmy totally absent. He is the one who invited her and he is not present, he is not here. Instead, he keeps staring down at his old chef two tables away. He keeps staring, dissociates himself completely from his environment and doesn’t interact at all with his old cuisine acquaintances. At first, no one really pays attention or at least you are pushed to think so until Luca asks him if he’s okay and remarks that Carmys is staring. Sydney finds an opportunity in this to ask herself and note that he is indeed staring and wonders who he is staring at. Carmy, eyes still locked on the Chef David Fields from Empire tells them and this is the only moment he interacts with the people around him. Right then and he starts painting the Chef’s portrait to Luca and Sydney.

Carmy : He's the fucking worst and one of the best Chefs in the world. Luca: Well, he used to be one of the best chefs in the world. Carmy: Total prick. Fuckface. The bastard made me very, probably mentally ill. Dead inside. Cold. Never turns it off. Accomplishes more by 10am than most people do in a lifetime. Sydney: "looks over Carmy gravely" Carmy: I don't think he sleeps. I don't think he eats. I don't think he loves. He hates black pepper for some reason I will never understand and he is getting up. Luca: Carm. Carmy. Sydney: Carm. Carmen.

The thing is, each word Carmy uses to define that Chef Fields is, imho, just another adjective to describe who Carmy is as a Chef himself.

I hated that moment. I did not like hearing him describe that man because with each syllables that split through his mouth, I realised that the person Carmy was supposedly describing, that horrible, vicious, toxic, controlling and overly awful Chef that had no heart, no empathy, no source of humanity left in him and destroyed him was in fact Carmy himself.

I felt like he was describing himself and it broke my heart because truly, what he showed of himself in the Bear’s kitchen this season 3 was just that.

A cold, controlling, harsh and judgmental Chef.

Someone that would not hesitate to crumble the ounce of confidence left in you (poor Tina) if you don’t meet his standard. Someone who would not respect you if you don’t reach his fucking stupid non negotiables. Someone who would say snarky comments at you, sometimes full of disdain and haughty, implying that he is better than you.

That is because I am better than you. That is because I have more skills. That is because you’re not good enough, you’re not excellent enough, you are not like me.

Carmy said shouted that to everyone throughout season 3. He did not care and that regardless of the history between them, regardless of the obvious efforts of the past, of the growth of each person in that kicthen. He did not give a single fuck of the looks of panic, of the shaking voice of Tina, of the dead glare of Sydney, of the feelings of distress.

No, Carmy was cold. He was just cold. A total prick. A fuckface. Demanding. Hard. Full of himself despite his failures. Arrogant and condescending. Ready to crush you mentally if you don't meet his expectations. He did not care. He did not sleep. He did not love.

That was Carmy of season 3 and I hated it.

I despised hearing him describe that Chef, watching him stand up and run after that man to tell him fuck you when Carmy became exactly fucking THAT. It was so tragic and sad and SO fucking hypocritical at the same time and I fear that Carmy was slightly aware, deep down within him. He knows what that man says to him is true, maybe he even knows the monster he described to Syd and Luca was himself and maybe that is why he cries in that corridor because Chef Fields confirms that to him in a way.

I made you excellent. I made you. You became me. One of the best chefs in the world. We are the same so you are welcome.

Carmy was okay. He left excellent but at what price?

I also wanna point out something during Carmy's depreciating monologue regarding Chef Fields. Not only Sydney stared at him gravely all along, the words resonating maybe a bit too much but also Luca said something I found interesting.

He said "well, he used to be one of the best chefs in the world." and I could not dissociate this from Carmy himself, from him maybe not being one of the best chefs in the world either if he continues like that, if he doesn't step away from the Chef he is now, if he doesn't go back to a track where he wants to get better, where he listens, teach and love and eat and sleeps and is alive.

If you read all of this, heart on you <3 let me know your thoughts, future meta about ep 3 is coming soon hehe~

#the bear fx #the bear #the bear season 3 #the bear meta #sydcarmy #sydney adamu #carmy berzatto #chef luca #will poulter #ayo edebiri #jeremy allen white #the bear spoilers #shâm's the bear talk

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violetarks · 1 year ago

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spit on my grave, but kiss my mouth!

anime: chainsaw man

characters: hayakawa aki, kishibe, yoshida hirofumi, himeno

summary: they hate you, they can feel it in their bones, but at the first opportunity to kiss you? who wouldn't take that chance?

warnings: g/n! reader, they/them pronouns used, second person pov, some name-calling, somebody tries to lush to get y/n's number in yoshida's, kishibe is in his late 20s bc holy smokes he would outshine the whole cast if he is was younger in the anime no lie, kishibe is also a little flirty in this bc that's how he was when he was younger, smoking, drinking (y/n gets a little tipsy), reference to nsfw themes but its legit just the lines "you need an s/o bc you're so tense all the time" and "we didn't... did we?", y/n and kishibe go home together, also a bit suggestive in himeno's part

↣ hayakawa aki

if there was anything he hated more than anything, aki absolutely despised slackers. anyone who postponed their work til the last minute, and for the result to be the most sloppy piece of shit he has ever seen. which is why he didn't understand why makima would ever think of hiring someone like you as a devil hunter.

you stood there, your uniform messily put on — for god's sake, your tie was undone, just hanging around your neck! even power and denji dressed better than you. how could these devils do better than a devil hunter?

you sat atop makima's desk, getting the crumbs of your sandwich all over her furniture. aki visibly cringed. how could you be so careless?

it wasn't like you were unattractive, it's just the way you acted at work that made aki dislike you. and in front of your superior. truthfully, the only reason makima hired you was because of your amazing skill as a hunter without the use of contracts. if you weren't so useful...

when he first met you, aki would admit, he was intrigued. you were pretty, and makima had brought you in to interview you. you were splattered in devil's blood, and you looked serious.

yet the moment that you locked eyes with aki, your demeanour changed. you were suddenly so sloppy. he saw the way you held out your bloodied hand to shake his, how you lazily threw your dirty coat on the couch. he knew from then on, that your looks were a waste, perhaps.

"are you finished, y/n?" makima asked, walking into her office in her trench coat. aki was called there for a morning briefing, so imagine his disappointment when he saw you instead. you nodded your head, hopping off the desk and sweeping the mess you made into the nearby bin. "good. now, you two are teaming up for your next mission."

aki wanted to refuse, so badly. he watched as you tugged on your loose collar, shirt not even tucked in, and stood beside him. he listened to makima outline the upcoming mission, and also listened to how often you yawned or shifted in your spot. you seemed so unintetrsted.

aki's never been on a mission with you, but he's seen the mess you leave behind, more than he would've left. and he's seen you guiltlessly nap in the car while everyone else cleaned up your leftovers.

you were careless when you fought, as seen when you dodge under the attack of a devil and trip over debris on the floor. aki slides in with his unpowered sword, slicing the mutated arm away and shielding you from another attack.

"get up, dumbass!" he calls, looking over his shoulder to see you brushing off dust from your lap.

"relax, geez. i'm up, i'm up." you scoff back, picking up your weapon again. aki wanted to slap some sense into you. "i'm so tired, let's get this done."

the fight continued on until it was at what seemed to be the climax. you were both beaten down, the devil on the brink of giving up. but you gripped your weapon tighter, rushing towards the enemy with determination. you were growing tired of this fight, both mentally and physically. you were imagining yourself at home, in front of the tv with some food in your hands. anywhere but here.

"aki?" you call, looking around the scene. you couldn't find him, and it was worrying you. "aki!"

you were met with silence, making you scowl and continue on trying to defeat the devil. maybe by then, you'll be able to find him and bring him back to makima for help. god, you hated dead weight.

with a few attacks landing on the devil, aki finally stands from his position beneath debris. he had been hit into a wall, making the ceiling fall over him. when he had made himself visible. you glance at him, relieved.

"y/n..." he heaves, drawing his sword. he was bleeding from his shoulders and you could count the tears and cuts in his uniform. and he blamed you for being dirty...

before you can speak, the devil immediately charges towards him. you widen your eyes, racing after it. "aki!"

he breathes in heavily, trying to gather his focus. but his vision is just so blurry that he can't think properly. the blood he's lost has already made him hazy, all he can hear is the loud footsteps of the devil. his joints click and falter as he tries to take his normal fighting stance. he's weak and you can see it.

with all your might, you rush towards him. you couldn't let him die, not someone as strong and admirable as him. while you knew he disliked you (aki definitely wasn't the most subtle), you couldn't deny his worth as a hunter, and as a person. you looked up to him.

aki doesn't know what is happening until he sees you jump high in the air and thrust your weapon to pierce through the devil's skin, knocking it off course. as it skids to the side, you tumble to the ground, rolling on the ground and getting dirt and blood all over you. aki blinks, clueless.

"are you alright, aki?" you huff out, tired. he slowly hums in confirmation. you send him a smile, which makes him gulp. "that's a relief."

the devil turns back to him though, not stopping on its tracks to get to aki. by this time, you're in front of your co-worker, holding your weapon to prepare yourself. with a deep breath, you wait for the devil to come closer before dealing the final blow, ending the devil's life.

once the devil falls lifeless, you let out a loud whine, "agh, finally! ah, i'm so beat!" you fall to the floor, knees giving out beneath you. aki watches you stay on the ground, wiping the sweat off from your brow. with a click of his tongue, he falls to the ground as well. you turn to look at him, blinking. "ah, aki. that devil really fucked you up, huh?"

you laugh makes him even more weak. you move closer to him, taking his chin and turning his head to see his bruises. "we should get you back to the office. i'll patch you up before denji and power see you, alright? they'd piss themselves seein' you like this." you joke, patting his shoulder. your carefree attitude was so irritable...but he couldn't deny that your words made him feel lighter.

so when he pushes forward and presses his lips to yours, he knows why his heart pulses harder when he's around you. he likes you. his palm rests on your neck to hold you in place, making you lean your hands on both sides of his waist to balance yourself. aki squeezes his eyes shut, as if to keep himself from seeing your shocked face.

you were speechless, frozen. but once you settled in, you kissed him back. you tasted like blood — maybe that was his own since he cut his lip — but neither of you seemed to mind. his harsh hand against the back of your head suddenly goes soft, trailing down to brush your cheek.

he sighed against your lips, upturned brows. he felt like he needed this. he needed you.

aki was mysterious with his true feelings, but this was the first glimpse into them. you let out a small sigh as you pull away.

"you—..." you mumble out, covering your mouth as you sit up straight. his hand leaves your cheek, now gripping the debris beneath him. he felt so embarrased. "idiot aki. c'mon, let's get outta' here first."

you heave aki over your shoulder, his arm over while yours is wrapped around his middle. he was also speechless, blushing so red that he kept his head down so you couldn't see. his heart was beating faster at your touch. but to kiss you? he was truly crazy, wasn't he?

↣ kishibe

"can you smoke somewhere else?" you scoff, bringing your glass to your lips. the rest of the room was filled with slight chatter, the sound if cups being clinked together.

"you see any spare seats at this bar?" kishibe asks, putting his lighter away into his pocket. the bar allowed smoking, one of the only bars in the neighbourhood that still did. he watched you roll your eyes and finish your drink, asking the bartender for another. "you're so uptight, ya'know?"

"you're the most annoying person i've ever been paired up with." you groan, watching your glass get refilled. you take your glass once more and glare at kishibe. "those things kill you."

"you drink." he says, putting down his own cold alcoholic beverage. you click your tongue at him. "you act like you're so much better than me."

"you smoke and drink, you smug asshole." you grunt, feeling a little woozy from the past hour of non-stop drinking you and kishibe have been partaking in.

this was his idea, saying that you needed to wind down. you enjoyed a few drinks every now and then, but today had been particularly hard on you. makima was really ripping into after a devil got away, making you go after them again with your partner present this time. you felt embarrassed at your loss. as much as you were strong, kishibe hated how weak you were.

there was no denying that you were somewhat talented, so why weren't you getting stronger? kishibe was already tired from his own work, but when he was paired with you, his job got even harder. you were lazy with your work, leaving hints of your weaknesses everywhere you stepped. and you wondered why. kishibe couldn't handle how much if a rule-follower you were when your strength wasn't anything impressive. sometimes he'd with you'd abandon your work and finally leave all this stuff behind. such an attractive person like you shouldn't be burning their brain trying to work as a devil hunter.

"why don't you just drink and shut up?" kishibe huffs, keeping his cigarette between his fingers. he blew the smoke into the air above you, making you cover your nose and scowl at him. you hated smoking, all the reason why you disliked being partnered up with him. he wasn't kishibe without his smokes. "you're do tense all the time, you need a girlfriend or boyfriend or something. maybe you'll relax a lil'."

"and you're telling me to shut up." you groan, waving the smoke away. kishibe rolls his eyes leaning his elbows into the counter. "you know what, kishibe? i've seriously had enough of—of your attitude."

he watches you down glass after glass; it was kicking in, the alcohol. he was wondering how long it would take before you started slurring your words. it was subtle, but kishibe has never seen you like this, not yet at least. it would be a fun way to tease you tomorrow morning when you come in to work. you glare at him, blinking a few times. he waited impatiently for you to collect your words.

"ever since i met you, you've been a pain in my ass, always runnin' your pretty mouth and rolling your pretty eyes at me." you complain, continuing to drown yourself in the sweet drinks you were taking. kishibe sighs to himself, already knowing that you'll be too drunk to pay your own bill. he pulls out his wallet to start counting bills as you go on to 'insult' him. he'd have to be careful now, he was starting to feel the alcohol too. "if you weren't so strong, i'd kick your ass myself!"

"oh yeah?" he says, deciding on when to stop you from ordering. he calls down the bartender for a few more glasses for you and himself. "you're too weak to pull somethin' like that, sweetheart. can't even hold your own against a low rank devil. need someone strong to protect you, huh?"

"what? says who?" you say, voice raising a little. he hated it when you did that, it was so annoying. you were so childish for someone only a year younger than him. "i was doing perfectly fine without you! makima needed me to babysit you..."

"what are you even goin' on about?" he huffs, taking in some smoke, "do you even know what i'm saying? are you that drunk?"

while you were a little tipsy, you definitely weren't drunk. you were just slurring your words a little, but you were conscious. you weren't saying anything you wouldn't say sober. you knew what you were doing, and how you were acting.

"'course not, shithead. i'm not getting drunk in front of you." you tell him, gulping down another drink. he thinks that maybe your tolerance is moderately high. "i'm just sayin', you're never gonna' get married if you're like that. you're lucky i tolerate you, somebody has to."

he raises a brow at that, then taking one last huff of his cigarette before putting it out in the ash tray provided. "so you're saying i'll only get married if my romantic partner tolerates me?"

"duh." you scoff, tilting your head at him. was he getting drunk? it was also your heightened confidence that he found annoying.

"and you're the only one who tolerates me?" kishibe presses.

"yeah." you answer so quickly that you don't even think. once you realise what you've said, you put your glass down. your face was burning now, and you didn't know whether it was because of the drinks or him. he chuckles. "shut up..."

"mhm." he hums out, now leaning close to you. your shoulders nearly press against each other. he sees no sign of you moving away, but you begin to stare at him, unable to figure out which eye to look at. "you wanna' kiss me?"

you let out a small sigh, glancing down at his lips for a second. but you harden your stare in his eyes.

"or are you asking me to kiss you?" he offers. your eyes widen a little at that, and it seems he has his answer already. but you were so cute like this, he just had to tease you. "but i've been smoking. it'll taste like it, y'know?"

"just let me find out." you mumble, placing a hand on the side of his stool, against his thigh, "kiss me once?"

"well, shit." he chuckles out, now resting a hand on your cheek. you blink at him, feeling comfortable against his palm. "you've got a little crush on me."

you furrow your brows and mumble out, "s—so?"

"ain't that cute?" he says, brushing his thumb against your cheek, "you're not gonna' slap me if i kiss you, are ya'?"

"only if you keep on wasting time." you huff, fist against the bar top. you would never ask him something like this out of the blue. but the atmosphere around you both... it felt suitable. a small smile dawns on his lips at your eagerness.

"fine." he sighs out, leaning forward and finally connecting lips with yours. you hold your breath, not really expecting him to do it. your hand on the stool tightens its grip as he slides his hand from your cheek to the back of your neck, deepening the kiss. your lips were so soft, and warm. he can tell that you haven't kissed many people, but that doesn't matter. he never thought he'd be kissing you either.

he had been smoking for the past hour, so he did taste like smoke. while you hated the taste, now, it was sort of masked by the drinks you were both having. and you just couldn't get it out of your head that you were kissing kishibe. the man you kinda' hated.

the kiss didn't last as long as either of you would've wanted, but it's a public place and you only asked for a sample. when he pulls away, you open your eyes to see his smug smile that always makes you irritated. but this time, you're just plain embarrassed. he begins to laugh at you softly, making you click your tongue and push his face away.

"d—don't talk about it." you say, standing up and grabbing your coat. you pay for your drinks with a tip and avoid eye contact with your partner. he downs the rest of his drink and puts his own money down. you begin to walk to the exit before kishibe reaches out and holds your wrist. you glare back at him. "what?"

"can't let you go home all by yourself." he says, standing up and shrugging his trench coat on. you squint at him. "and you don't wanna' let lil' ol' me walk home alone either, do you? let's take a cab to yours."

"seriously?" you mumble under your breath, walking to the exit with him behind you. "fine... you can sleep on the couch."

"aw, such a pity."

↣ yoshida hirofumi

"yoshida, may i speak with you for a moment?" the teacher asks after the bell rings, making everyone in the class turn to their classmate. a playful 'ooh' rang around the room to tease him, making yoshida roll his eyes with a smile. the rest of the class begins to tidy their things up until the teacher speaks up again. "class president, please wait outside for a few minutes.

you look up from your desk, blinking at your teacher. but you nod your head. "yes, ma'am." you respond, fixing your uniform and taking your bag, heading outside with your friends.

yoshida can't help but roll his eyes at the way you walk out of the classroom, all preppy and gracious. you don't even look at him, as if he was scum compared to you. the two of you weren't friends and that was clear enough. you were the class president and needed to keep everyone in order. the rest of the class had liked you and you were friends with other classes too. but the only one who didn't like you was yoshida hirofumi.

you told him that the school didn't allow all those piercings and that the standard were the studs. but he came back the next day with another piercing, showing it off with a diamond earring that he wore once for the purpose of pissing you off. you reprimanded him, disliking his laidback attitude and how he didn't take school seriously. what a waste of a student. you knew plenty of people who would do way better in his position. someone like you knew this and hated that he didn't.

yoshida hated how uptight you were and how you were such a stickler for the rules. he knows that he's not a good student, but why were you always on his ass for it? there were other people in the class — hell, there were tons of other people in the school that you could've been paying attention to, but you chose him. he hated it so much.

"to cut it short, yoshida, your grades have been dropping severely." the teacher had said, making the student snap back into reality. he stands up straight again, nodding his head. "i've decided to allocate you a tutor for all of your classes. you and—"

"don't say l/n."

"... l/n will be meeting on your own terms to study. they're an excellent student and have tutored many of your classmates, yoshida, there is no need to worry." the teacher continued, handing him a stack of papers. he holds them, heaving them under his arms. "practice exams, practice essay, practice tests. you will go through all of these with l/n."

"seriously?" yoshida huffs out, rubbing the back of his neck, "for how long?"

"until your grades are better." the teacher explains, sitting down to grade their quiz from today, "i understand that the two of you aren't close, but make-do for now. you need to rely on them."

"i understand." he sighs, taking the work and leaving the classroom. he sees you standing next to the door, bag on your shoulder as you read a book. he wants to cringe at the cliché scene. "hey. you're tutoring me."

"i know." you respond, tucking your book into your bag and starting on your way, "we're heading to the city library."

"wait, what? you knew?" he says, falling into step beside you. you nod your head. he knits his brows at you as you exit the school. "great. now i gotta' spend months with you."

"just get your grades up and you're fine." you respond, looking to the sky for some patience. he was already getting annoying. "trust me, even a delinquent like you can pass the next exam."

"you talk a lotta' shit for a goody-two-shoes." he huffs, swinging his bag recklessly around. the two of you board a train towards the city and you take the papers from yoshida, flicking through them and making notes of what to teach him. he watches you from his spot beside you. "even your handwriting is blinding. why is it so... neat?"

"you mean readable?" you scoff, looking at him with an aggravated expression. why did he talk so much? "i'm doing this for you."

"why did you even agree to this if we don't like each other?" he asks you, watching the roof of the strangely empty train. you look back to the work, sorting them into sections. "you have a secret crush on me or something?"

"what? no, idiot." you scoff, shaking your head, "i just don't want you to fall behind. it'd be a shame for everyone else to graduate without you." he looks back to you, a surprised look on his face. but you look away, outside. "don't look too much into it, yoshida. just trying to keep the class average up."

"yeah, whatever..." he mumbles, going back to hating you. any sliver of you being genuinely nice was now gone. he just listened to the way the train rolled across the tracks. he listened to you scribble down your notes.

he had watched countless people confess to you. just yesterday, a girl handed you a bouquet of flowers — your favourite ones, apparently — and confessed to you that she had feeling for you for a year. but you rejected her, apologising and saying that you did not return her feelings. it felt somewhat cold, yoshida was watching from around the corner. luckily you didn't notice him, you probably would've told him off for not doing his class duties.

he never understood the appeal to you. why did so many people want you?

a few minutes kater, you were in the library, setting up your things in a private study area. you gave him some work to try out and pulled out your own things to do. he sighs, taking out his pencil case to write on the paper, "put on some music or something."

"this is a library, yoshida." you retort, rolling your eyes, "just do your work and show me when you're done."

"jesus, i can't believe people actually like you." he groans, leaning back in his chair. you blink at his insult. "i don't understand why everyone flocks around you and throw themselves in your direction."

"i'm the class president, people come to me for advice all the time. maybe if you showed up to class more than one a week you'd notice." you huff out, glaring at him, "people like me because i'm good help."

"singing your own praises?" he snickers, flipping through the booklet. he hated how confident you were in yourself when he really saw you as overbearing. even the way you sat there, writing with your perfect handwriting. "i can't deal with you, president."

"i couldn't tell." you sigh, standing up. he watches your movements. "i'm going to grab you a book go borrow for the next week. it has all you need to know on the book we studied this semester. i don't have enough time to explain everything to you before the exams since it's in a few months. but that book will help."

"yay..." he mumbles out, moving onto the next set of questions. he waited for you to come back with your stupid book, but enough time had passed that it was suspicious. he even finished the booklet that you gave him, and that took him a while. he looks around the library, seeing few people walking about. "where are they go? don't tell me they abandoned me here..."

he stands up, positive your stuff would stay safe, and begins to look through the aisles. he doesn't see you yet, and he's getting pissed out. you made him come here, and you just ditched? that's so 'un-presidently' of you.

but he hears your voice in the next aisle, sounding pissed off. like always, when you spoke to him.

"thank you for showing me where the book is, but i should get going." you say, yoshida standing at the other end of the aisle, out of your sight. he could see the boom you were holding and your stupid hair, but you were blocked off by someone else. "please leave me alone."

"aw, what? i help you find your book and this is the thank i get?" the taller person says, hand against the bookshelf to keep you from walking off. you roll your eyes at them. "c'mon, just your number, that's all i ask for."

"it's your job to help people in the library find their books. you work here." you explain, tucking the book under your arm, "i don't owe you anything other than a 'thank you'."

"well i take my 'thank you's in dates." they respond. yoshida sighs, clenching his fists and walking towards the both of you. "what's somebody gotta' do to land one with you—"

"leave 'em alone, asshole." yoshida scoffs, tugging the worker back and standing in between the both of you. you widen your eyes at him before looking away, a bit ashamed to need his help. but yoshida is glaring at the librarian. "they're not interested."

"shit man, i'm sorry, i didn't know they—"

"yeah whatever. get outta here." yoshida scoffs, rolling his eyes. the worker only looks his up and down before walking off, muttering under their breath. once they're gone, yoshida looms to you. "you good?"

"yeah..." you mumble out, rubbing your forehead, "people like that give me a headache.

"mhm." he huns out, seeing how you lean against the bookcase. you stared down st the analytical text in your hands. you were so embarrassed that he had to come in and save you. some like him, protecting you...

you look back up and see his smug face, and you just know that he's aware of how you're feeling.

"who would've guessed it? i had to come to the class president's aid." yoshida chimes, leaning a hand against the bolted down bookshelf. you scowl at him, closing your eyes. "i guess you owe me one now, huh?"

"and once again, you're an ass..." you retort. your little scrunched up face makes yoshida smile. genuinely. he scans your appearance before tilting his head at you.

"what is it that makes people fawn over you so much?" he questions, looking confused. you open your eyes to see him standing closer. "i mean, sure, you're cute, but that's about it, no? your stubbornness ruins it all. as soon as you open your mouth, i wanna burst my ear drums."

"whatever, yoshida. i don't care what you have to say." you mumble back at him.

"see? so mean." he chuckles, take another step closer. you notice but don't say anything, to which he notices as well. out of all the people who have liked you, he's surely standing the closest. you haven't pushed him away, which is strange. you'd usually be out in a second. but you stand your ground. he smiles at you. "how could anyone find that attractive?"

you look to the side for a split second, only for yoshida to come unbearably closer. you can feel his breath on your cheek and his shoulder is against yours. his other hand stays in his pocket while the other braces himself. you hold your own breath.

"maybe people only like your pretty face." he says, not missing a beat as his hand slides down to hold the shelf beside your torso. his wrist slightly grazes your body. you shiver for a second, standing up straighter. yoshida pays attention. "you think so, y/n?"

"no, i—i don't." you stammer. yoshida is surprised when he feels you grasp his shirt, making him lean back jut enough to see your expression. you could barely hold your glare. so cute. "i'm... i'm a good person, so that's why—"

"that's the first thing people notice when they look at you. your looks." he claims, making your face burn hot. but yoshida just smiles at you. "you sayin' i'm wrong?"

you scoff at him, "why are you so close anyway...?" he raises his brows at you, eyes flicking to your lips for more than a second. you realise what he's looking at before you speak again. "yoshida...?"

"you don't seem to mind..." he trails off, "you can always push me away if i get too close..."

you don't say anything as he gets closer and closer until suddenly, he's kissing you. yoshida's hand stays at the shelf to hold himself up, but his other one gently holds your hand against his chest. you're kissing back before you can even think, your other hand still holding onto the book.

he tastes a bit savoury, probably because of the hot lunch he had before. but the drink he had on the table where you two were studying, is sweet. the mixture entices you as you as you are the one to deepen the kiss, pushing forward and catching yoshida by surprise.

you let out a small squeak; it was obvious you weren't experienced. with how seriously you took school, how could you be? yoshida didn't have his fair share of partners either but, he was so gentle with you.

when he pulls away, he opens his eyes to see your dazed look towards him. you gulp once you regain your sense of thought, then leaning back.

"i'm sorry, i—"

"i guess you're not a terrible kisser." he interrupts you, standing up straight and keeping his hands to himself. you feel somewhat relieved, but you nudge yoshida in the stomach due to embarrassment. "hey, stop. maybe that's why people like you."

"i don't go around kissing everyone, shit for brains." you claim, shoving the book into his chest. he stands back with an 'oof', watching you walk out of the aisle.

"so it's just me?" he chuckles, jogging to catch up with you. you glare at him. "how lucky."

↣ himeno

himeno didn't understand why aki spoke so highly of you. her friend, whose opinion was usually right, explained that you were a tremendous hunter and that you were highly respected. so why are you in her apartment, in your shirt and underwear, and eating out of her fridge?

"morning." you say, seeing the groggy himeno coming out of her room. she blinks cluelessly at you. "you hungry? i made breakfast."

"the hell are you doing here?" she grunts, walking closer to you in a hoodie and sweatpants. you look back at her, sorting the breakfast into two bowls. "and why are you using my food?"

"huh? you don't remember? you invited me over last night after drinks." you explain, taking out two spoons and shoving one into the food before pushing the bowl to himeno. "you're wearing my sweater, by the way."

"i was wonder when i bought this." she murmurs to herself. but she then shakes her head, sitting down at the counter and thinking to herself why would she ever invite the person she loathed the most to stay at hers? "we didn't... did we?"

"no, himeno. you were black out drunk, y'know." you say in an obvious tone. she clicks her tongue and eats her food. you begin to eat as well. "did you take the medicine and drink the water i left on your bedside table?"

why were you acting so nice? she gripped her spoon tighter, stopping her movements as she swallows her food. "yes. you didn't have to do that." she thinks she would've preferred if you didn't. now she feels obligated to return the favour.

"it's nothing. i didn't want you to wake up so hungover again." you retort, looking to the ceiling.

she scans you and wonders how you could be so indecent in front of her when you were 'well-respected'. your underwear was showing, you weren't wearing any pants, your shirt was crinkled and loose hanging, your hair was a mess and you just look tired overall. this was not the pristine presentation he was used to.

you catch her staring. "sorry, do you want me to put on my pants? i couldn't find em around here." you admit, looking at the messy floor. himeno feels a little embarrassed at the mess but doesn't keep her eyes off you.

"no, it's fine." she retorts, feeling her eye patch before running her fingers through her hair, "don't you have a mission or something?"

you think for a second before putting down the bowl. "yeah, i think. later, makima wants me to check something out with her." you tell her, watching her roll her eyes, "what's wrong?"

"you in love with her too?" she scoffs.

"no?" you say, tilting your head, "she's my boss."

"oh." you'd be the first she'd hear doesn't like her. she sits up straight on her stool. "really?"

"yeah, really." you say as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, making himeno stop. you continue to eat your food. "i don't date superiors."

"right..." she mumbles back, confused. but you accidentally drop your spoon on the floor, making you curse quietly. she's never heard you swear, and she stares at you.

you lick your thumb, a little bit of sauce on it, before you turn to her with wide eyes. "ah, sorry, himeno. paper towels?"

she points to the cupboard and finishes her food, watching you clean up your mess. you're not really clumsy, she knows, so seeing you drop something was strange. you were usually moving so perfectly...

"you always like this?" she hums out, chin in her hand.

you put the towels in the bin and take your empty bowls (hers as well) and clean them. "i'm sorry, i live alone. so no one really sees me mess up." you admit.

himeno hates your voice. you don't speak much, but when you do, she's rolling her eyes. what you have to say is usually so inspiring to the other hunters, but she finds them cheesy. kobeni was brought to happy tears by what you said to her before a mission, which made himeno stop everyone and wait for kobeni to stop crying.

you're so high and mighty. everyone loves you and you try to be so mysterious. she never understood why everyone liked you, why everyone tolerated you when you don't do anything. maybe you're strong, stronger than aki and kishibe, but you were just praised so much that she hated you.

but seeing you now, all over the dishes and struggling to clean the things you used, it makes you feel more human to her. she watches you from the counter, hearing you curse to yourself as the dishwashing soap falls from your hand and into the soapy water. you turn to her to see if she saw. she did. you embarrassed yourself, and you sheepishly look away. she smiles. and stops as soon as she realises she is.

you were like some high school kid watching themselves around their crush. the way you glanced at her told her all she needed to know.

"i'm gonna go and change." she says, standing up from her stool and moving to her bedroom. she doesn't wait for your reply, but she heard a faint 'okay' from her room.

she didn't understand the change. admittedly, last night was the only time she's seen you outside of work hours, where no devils were there to stop you from being just you. you were sitting quietly, listening to everyone speak. you didn't know what to say.

after you finish the dishes, you try to clean up around the living room and kitchen. there were blankets and pillows all on the floor, maybe she was having a party or something. but you pick them up, fold them, put them in their place. and you finally find your pants, sliding them on happily.

you look for your belt under the couch when you hear someone clear their throat. looking up, you see himeno standing in her work attire with her arms crossed.

"hey, i'm looking for something, sorry." you say, standing up. she hands you your hoodie, which you plan on putting over your work shirt and tie. you just needed to find your belt and you would be set. "i'll be ready soon—oof!"

you fall onto the couch, on your back, as himeno moves forward and clambers over you. she gives you a pointed look as you stare up at her, feeling your face heating up. you gulp, one hand bracing the cushion of the couch, and the other hanging off the side. she's loosely straddling one of your thighs, hovering above you as her hand still on the sides of your head.

"h—himeno—"

"do you have a crush on me?" she interrupts you, tilting her head.

"what? that would be unprofessional, i—i couldn't..." you begin, losing your voice as you feel how close she is to you. your heart speeds up. "i'm sorry..."

"i knew it..." she huffs, leaning to the side a little. she scans your face, how your eyes stay on her. "you're terrible at hiding it."

"i'm sorry." you say, gulping. she was leaning closer, and you were getting nervous. "please don't hate me for it. we're partners."

"i bet you wish we were more." she jokes, gently grasping your chin so you look her dead in the eyes. you look like a poor deer in headlights. "i already hate you. everyone talks about how cool and how strong you are. and you suck it all in, go along with it. makes you feel better, doesn't it?"

"what?" you whisper out, blinking innocently.

"i hate people like you." she says, enjoying how you helplessly stared at her. you looked so hopeless — hopelessly in love with her. without a word more, she leans down and softly connects her lips with yours.

you hold your breath, keeping still as she kisses you. it was so out of the blue — didn't she say she hated you? you carefully move your free hand to the back of her neck, squeezing your eyes shut and missing her back eagerly.

her hand drops from your chin, dragging down to stop at your waist, holding you from there. your breathing hitches, and you pull away slightly to gasp. she catches your lips again, setting herself down to straddle you properly. she continues to kiss you as you sit up slightly, elbows bent to hold your weight.

you felt hot in the face, you knew you were embarrassing yourself by being such a klutz. but as her lips leave yours, you almost chase. himeno was an enchantress. you loved her smell, the sound of her voice, the way she walked. and here she was, saying how much she hated you.

"i—i thought you didn't like me." you huff out, sitting up straight to be face to face with himeno. your lidded eyes and dazed expression made her hold her breath for a moment. but, as if you've gathered your confidence, you begin to lean in again. "do... you not wan—"

"don't you have to meet up with makima?" she says, placing a hand on your chest and shoving you back to lay down again with a huff. she hops off your, moving to grab her shoes. "c'mon, before you're late and your amazing reputation is ruined."

you take a moment to gather yourself. your hair was even more messed up, and you stared at the roof with a heavy heart. it was beating fast, making you take in a deep breath and sit up, fixing your outfit and hair. you look behind you, seeing your belt underneath the pillow. after standing up and putting it on, you see himeno waiting for you.

she was leaning against the wall, watching you scramble to put your shoes on. she herself was wondering why she had kissed you too. you were always good-looking, but the way you acted pissed her off. did your prettiness really cloud her judgement.

she looks down to you sitting on the floor, struggling to tie your shoelaces. she chuckles.

no, she just met the real you today.

#hayakawa aki #hayakawa aki x reader #aki #aki x reader #kishibe #kishibe x reader #yoshida hirofumi #yoshida hirofumi x reader #yoshida #yoshida x reader #himeno #himeno x reader #chainsaw man #chainsaw man x reader #csm #csm x reader

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cod-dump · 10 months ago

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Step dad Graves is so so funny. Especially if they’re close in age and both secretly love it whilst putting up a fuss. Let Ghost collect father figures and Graves get to impart knowledge . Let Graves hate it at first then get some Ghost lore and be like “…I’m not your stepdad I’m only 6 years older than you…… what do you mean you never had a birthday cake…… what do you mean you were made to laugh at a dying prostitute…… “well guess I’m getting this man a skull cake and we’re playing catch in the yard

The more Graves learned about Ghost the harder it was to pretend he didn’t like him.

They were barely friendly when they worked together going after Hassan and Graves’ betrayal ruined whatever that was. Graves cutting ties with Shepherd and fully working with 141 (to atone for his past and right wrongs all while being able to still work) Ghost had greeted him with much expected hostility.

And Graves responded with indifference. He figured things would stay that way, Ghost would never let go what happened and Graves would never show any care for the man beyond comrades. But then Graves started learning bits and pieces about him, the longer they were around each other the more Ghost started to start talking to him with actual conversations instead of threats. That’s how Graves learned about his fear of snakes. The Ghost, the man who would pick up a fucking spider bare handed, an animal lover to the core, was terrified of snakes.

Graves discovered this during a mission together. They had spent that time in that forest in almost complete silence, waiting for Price to give them the go ahead, when the fearsome Ghost jolted where he laid, flinging something into the bushes nearby before moving away from the spot he had laid in without even moving an inch for two hours.

“Fucking devilish bitch!”

Graves saw the tail end of a snake darting away, and that was when he learned about Ghost’s fear. And that would open up to him learning a lot more about Ghost, more than he ever imagined due to their not so friendly work environment. He, of course, originally was going to taunt Ghost over his rather surprising fear, planning to exploit it until it was no longer effective.

But, of course, he would learn something else related to the snake. Ghost seemingly was deep in his mind after running in with the limbless creature, and he offered up a explanation for his irrational fear (irrational considering all the other creatures he adores).

“Old man liked to force them in my face. Thought how I squirmed was hilarious.”

And just like that, after that piece of information was processed, Ghost didn’t say another word. Graves was left with that piece of history involving Ghost he never expected to learn, let alone from Ghost himself. And after that, Ghost seemed to open up to him more. Graves would like to think he heard himself some leeway with Ghost by not going through with his original intentions on teasing him. It was the only thing that made sense as to why Ghost was starting to warm up to him.

Warming up to him to the point he was willingly offering up more of his lore.

“Don’t like crowds, especially not in dark places.”

He dropped that on another mission, completely unprompted. It was a mutter just for Graves to hear, even though Gaz wasn’t far away. That made something stir within him, something about Ghost just telling him something instead of a man who he is considerably much closer with. And that slight tug of his heart strings became pulling when he learned why he didn’t like crowds. And his old man was behind the reason as well.

The more Graves learned about Ghost, the more he hated his probably long dead father. There was a twisted similarity to Mr. Riley and Graves’ own father. And that just made him become protective of Ghost. He started treating Ghost like he did his Shadows. He was pretty much Shadow materiel with skill and efficiency, but now he was a Shadow to Graves because of what he went through.

Graves had a type he went for when recruiting Shadows. He looked for skill, experience, attitude — But he also looked at their history. He has a soft spot for those with bad home lives, made him feel more connected with them. If he was looking over Ghost’s records with the intention of recruiting him into Shadow Company, man would’ve been a Shadow after he learned about Roba.

“Since when are you two friends?” Soap had questioned, Graves noticing the jealousy in his voice but also the curiosity.

“I can understand his accent better,” Ghost jabbed at Soap, his eyes squinting slightly to show he was smiling under his mask.

Soap made a very insulted gasp, “Oh, is that so?”

Graves felt at place finally, standing next to Ghost as he and Soap bickered. It turned playful rather quickly and Graves felt more at ease next to Soap than he had since they first met. And, dare he even think it, Ghost felt comfortable standing next to him. Finally opening up, finally dropping his metaphorical mask of hostility (Graves doubts he’ll take off his actual mask any time soon).

And, of course Price noticed. He noticed a while back, Graves knows he had. Man knows anything that has to do with his boys, especially Ghost. He hadn’t said a word, never hinted in any way to show he knew. He just acted like it had always been. It was like he wasn’t even surprised. Goes to show he knew Ghost was better than anyone.

“Good to see you two finally getting along,” Price said to Graves one evening, the two had long retired to bed while the boys stayed up playing cards (not UNO, they would be enemies before morning and it would take a few days to get them to drop the pettiness).

Graves hummed, taking a moment to realize what Price was talking about. He didn’t expect him to say anything without Graves mentioning it first.

“We’re tolerating each other.”

Price hummed back, slight smirk on his lips. He knew. He knew that Graves considers Ghost as one of his Shadows. As one of his boys.

#call of duty #modern warfare #ask #thanks for the ask <3 #simon ghost riley #phillip graves #john soap mactavish #ficlet #drabble #pricegraves

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m1ckeyb3rry · 6 months ago

Note

i just read your sae fic and it was absolutely amazing, gorgeous, life-changjng! and when i went on to check your masterlist for bllk, i was shocked when you were the one who wrote the nagi x reader x kira fic bc I've been following it for a while and then i immediately tapped the follow button :x but if you can (only when you have the time and energy), can you write rin whose family is a host for exchange student! reader from another country? it could be hs or college, depending on whichever you're comfortable with. thank you <33

── CHERRY TREE

Synopsis: You are one hundred percent convinced that Rin Itoshi hates you — and he does, but not exactly in the way you think.

Event Masterlist

Pairing: Rin x Reader

Chapter Word Count: 6.2k

Content Warnings: cheesy and cliched asf, otoya and KARASU <3 make brief appearances, rin is rude ngl but reader is as well, rin does not know what a “crush” is, he’s probably ooc as well atp i should just include that on all of my works jic

A/N: i can’t believe i started bllk because of a rin edit and yet i’ve never written for him��also i’m glad you liked seabird and peregrine anon!! thank you for following 💖 sorry it took me a min to respond to this

Additional: part of my 500 follower event! see the event description and rules to make a request of your own.

If you didn’t know that your parents would probably put you in an early grave for wasting their money, you would’ve caught the next flight back home from Japan in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, you were far too afraid of their ire, which meant you were stuck in this hostile environment until the end of the semester — assuming, of course, that you managed to survive for so long.

Over the summer, applying to your university’s special first-semester-abroad program had seemed like a good idea. You were already going to be traveling far from home to stay on campus regardless, so your reasoning was that you might as well experience a different culture while you were at it. Besides, the program claimed to pair participants with a host family that would be good fits for their personalities and needs — based on a survey, which in hindsight you really should’ve lied on — so you would be living in relative comfort, at least compared to the ancient dorms on the main campus that probably had thirty different species of mold growing on their walls.

Or, well, that had been the plan. Maybe it was even a reality for the rest of the people in the program, who had no doubt been placed in normal homes, with normal people, who had normal children and normal lives. For you, though, it could not be further from the truth — because you had had the great misfortune of being chosen to live in the same house as Rin Itoshi for the duration of your stay in Japan.

To put it simply, he hated you. He had started hating you from the moment you stepped foot into his house and put your things in his brother’s old room, and he had not stopped since. If you happened to cross paths with him, he’d scoff at you, and considering the fact that the two of you lived in the same house, this was a frequent occurrence. Whenever you tried speaking to him in Japanese, he’d wrinkle his nose and respond in English, telling you that you were so terrible at the language, you might as well give up now and move back to your country early. Once, his mother had suggested he take you to hang out with his friends, as you were all roughly the same age, and he had rolled his eyes so hard that it was a surprise they didn’t get stuck in the back of his head.

There was no doubt about it: your mere existence was a burden to Rin. You couldn’t explain it in any other way; after all, how could he have decided he disliked you before you had even spoken? So you did your best to be as helpful and kind as possible, keeping the house neat, cooking food whenever the elder Itoshis had to work late, staying silent if he happened to enter the same room as you, and offering nothing but slight smiles if you were forced into an interaction with him.

“You know,” Mrs. Itoshi began one day, as you were eating the dinner she had made for all of you. Rin was on your right, and Mr. Itoshi was across from him, his jovial face such a contrast to his son’s dour look. “Rin’s on the Japanese soccer team.”

“Wow,” you said noncommittally. You hadn’t known that; you had assumed that Rin’s hobbies involved throwing stones at unsuspecting children and tripping old ladies as they crossed the street. Soccer had been the last thing you expected, though it did explain his admittedly splendid physique. “Very impressive.”

“Not really,” Rin said.

“Why don’t you take her to watch your practice over the weekend?” Mrs. Itoshi pressed.

“She’s not interested,” Rin said. Of course, you really weren’t — why would you want to watch Rin and his friends kick around a ball for a few hours? It would be a waste of time, time that you could spend working on homework or clearing your ‘to-be-read’ list. But you also weren’t fond of people speaking for you, especially not him. He was the last person who could claim to know anything about you, so by what right could he say that you weren’t interested?

“Actually, I wouldn’t mind going,” you said, batting your eyelashes at him innocently when he glared at you out of the corner of his eye, his expression one of utter disgust and incredulity.

“There you have it! Be sure to introduce her to your teammates. I’m sure they would love to show her around,” Mrs. Itoshi said. Rin snorted.

“Oh, I’m sure they would,” he said, though when he did, it sounded different than what Mrs. Itoshi had surely meant. But you were obviously the only one who picked up on it, and you didn’t want to make dinner unpleasant, so you could only ponder what he might’ve meant in your head instead of asking him outright, as you really wanted to.

Although it was the weekend, Rin’s practice was early in the morning, before the day could really heat up and make exercising unbearable. That meant it was before even the sun’s rise that you were following after him, your books clutched in your arms as you waited at the bus stop.

“Why’re you bringing all of that?” he said when the awkward silence grew to be too much for either of you to bear.

“I’m planning on getting some homework done while I’m there,” you said.

“Why didn’t you just stay home if you wanted to do homework?” he said as the bus pulled to a stop in front of you and the doors flew open. Due to the early hour, there was almost no one else on the bus, but given your unfamiliarity with the route, you still followed after Rin, sitting across the aisle from him and putting your things on the seat beside you.

“I dunno,” you said. “I guess I wanted to meet your teammates. Since they would just love to show me around.”

“Stay away from them,” he said. “They’re a bunch of NPCs. All of them are probably the worst people you could ask to show you anywhere.”

“NPCs?” you said. “That’s pretty harsh to say about your own peers.”

“It’s not like we’re friends or anything,” he muttered, crossing his arms petulantly. “I’ll call them what I want.”

“Sure, whatever you say,” you said, massaging circles into your forehead to ward off your impending migraine. Rin raised his eyebrows.

“Got a headache?” he said, in that same clinical, detached voice he always used.

“Yeah,” you said. And you’re making it worse. You wanted to add that, but you thought it probably wouldn’t be prudent, so you kept your mouth shut.

“Don’t stay up so late on your phone, then,” he said.

“It’s the only time I can call my friends and family. They’re in a different time zone,” you explained before pausing. Why did you feel the need to justify yourself? It wasn’t like Rin particularly cared either way. He was just giving you that advice because he wanted to boss you around and be rude to you. It was a symptom of dislike, not worry.

You had imagined Rin to be an obsessively punctual person, but to your surprise, it seemed like you both were actually some of the later ones to show up. Perhaps the rest of the team was even more concerned with earliness than him, or maybe you had somehow caused him to be later than he typically was, but either way, by the time you walked onto the field, the others had already gathered, chatting amongst themselves while they waited for their coach to arrive and start the practice.

“There he is! We were beginning to think the world might’ve ended,” a boy with dark, styled hair and a beauty mark beneath his left eye said with a grin. “Nothing less could get you to miss practice, eh, Rin?”

“It still might have,” another boy said. His pale hair was streaked through with green, and he wore an inviting smirk as he pointed at you. “Yo, girl. What kind of blackmail does he have on you? Blink twice if you need help. We’ll get you out of there.”

“Um, he’s not blackmailing me or anything…” you said, glancing at Rin for aid before remembering that he would probably rather jump off of a cliff, backwards and into the jaws of a dozen waiting sharks, than help you out.

“So you’re hanging out with him willingly?” the pale-haired boy said. “Yikes. You can do much better.”

“I kind of have to hang out with him,” you said. “I’m staying with his family for the semester.”

“Oh, you’re the exchange student!” a third boy, this one with icy blue hair and wide, pretty eyes said. “We’ve heard a lot—”

“All of you, be quiet and leave her alone,” Rin said, finally, thankfully speaking up. “Otoya, don’t even look at her, or I’ll make sure you’re benched for the rest of the season.”

The pale-haired boy — Otoya? — held his hands up in the air and whistled innocently, shooting you a wink when Rin turned to address the rest of his team. You raised your eyebrows but suppressed your giggle, not wanting to condemn him to further rebuke from Rin.

“This is Y/N L/N. She’s the exchange student my family is hosting. She wanted to come watch our practice because…actually, I don’t really know why,” Rin said shortly. “But she’s just going to be doing homework on the bench, so if any of you were planning on showing off to impress her, then you can give up on that idea now.”

Otoya noticeably wilted at this, but the others didn’t seem to mind. The first boy, the one with the beauty mark and the strange hairstyle, gave Rin a thumbs up.

“Don’t worry, Rin, we’ll leave the showing off to you. It’s about time you—”

“Shut up!”

They must’ve begun practicing at some point, but you hardly took notice, too busy typing up the outline for an essay you had due in a couple of weeks to care much about what they were doing. Occasionally, someone would shout out a particularly creative insult, and you would have to pause your work to identify the trash talker in order to be able to congratulate them later, but for the most part, you were lost in your own world.

“Hey.” Just the sound of Rin’s cool voice was enough to send shivers of fear down your spine, and you hastily closed your laptop as you looked up at him. “Practice is over.”

“Okay,” you said. “Will you introduce your teammates to me now? I know you told them who I was, but I’d like to at least meet some people my own age.”

“Nope,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“Hold on, I only even came because I wanted to meet them!” you said. “Outside of school, you’re the only one I know. I get that you don’t want me infiltrating your friend group or whatever, but you literally said you don’t like these guys, so why’s it a problem if I become friends with them?”

“They’re so dull and half-baked that your opinion of this country will actually fall if you interact with them further,” he said. “This is just my national pride talking. Come on.”

You stomped after him. What was his problem? He didn’t want to be nice to you, but he also didn’t want anyone else to, either. Was he that determined to make you miserable? Why couldn’t you have been placed in a family with children who weren’t so weird and annoying? Which question had you answered incorrectly on the survey that had resulted in your match-up with the Itoshis? You wished you could retake that stupid quiz and end up somewhere else. You wished that Rin had been the one sent to Spain instead of his older brother, who was certainly more well-adjusted. You wished that you hadn’t chosen to study abroad at all, that you had instead stayed at home with your friends and had a typical first semester like everyone else.

After that day, you stopped even pretending to be polite to Rin. Both of you were cold, hissing insults whenever you passed in the hallways of the home, leaving the room if the other happened to enter, and generally doing what you could to make each other’s lives difficult. It was only in front of Rin’s parents that you maintained some semblance of civility; after all, making Mr. and Mrs. Itoshi choose sides in your silent war would be unethical and wrong.

“I really don’t get it,” you said to your best friend one night, the covers pulled up over your head, your phone screen dimmed so that you were not blinded by its light. “He’s such a jerk, and for what?”

“Boys suck,” she said, hunched over a calculus problem set. The time difference meant that sun streamed in through her window as she wrote, illuminating the shining graphite of her neatly penciled answers. “Did his teammates mention anything suspicious the one time you met them? They’d probably know better than you or I why he’s acting the way he is. Maybe this is just how he is with everyone — if that’s the case, then you can be reassured that it’s not something you’re doing wrong.”

“Not really,” you said. “He forbade all of them from talking to me. Which, by the way, is a real tragedy, because some of them were super cute.”

“Really?” she said.

“Want descriptions?” you said.

“As much as I would like to say yes, I need to focus on this problem set, and anyways, it’ll just make me jealous, so no,” she said.

“Jealous? Let’s trade places, because at the moment, I’m jealous of you. Maybe all of the guys at your school are ugly, but at least you don’t have to deal with Rin!” you said.

“Is Rin attractive?” she said.

“No — actually, yeah, I can see why a person would think he is,” you said. Personal biases aside, Rin really was very handsome, and that combined with his aloof arrogance afforded him the aura of a YA novel’s male lead. There was no doubt in your mind that he was popular with girls; however, you doubted he himself was aware of this fact. “He’s such a dick that it cancels out, though.”

“Personality is important,” your best friend said. “Oh, fuck!”

“What?” you said.

“I’ve been forgetting to add the integration constant to my answers. Easy fix, no worries. You can keep talking,” she said.

“Thanks,” you said. “There isn’t really much else to say.”

“Well, if you couldn’t get anything out of his teammates, why don’t you try talking to him?” she suggested. “Ask him to his face why he doesn’t like you.”

“Isn’t that kind of uncomfortable?” you said.

“Not like things can get much worse than they already are,” she said.

“True,” you said. “But the thought of confronting him is actually sickening. I’ll pass. This is character building, isn’t it? I’m going to come back home as an entirely new woman. You won’t recognize my mental strength and fortitude.”

“Sure, looking forward to it. I miss you,” she said.

“Miss you more, but it’s pretty late here, so I’m going to have to hang up,” you said, yawning.

“Goodnight, Y/N, and sleep tight. Don’t let Rin Itoshi bite!” she said.

“Oh my god. Go do your homework,” you said, hanging up before she could respond and almost immediately passing out as the moon rose higher and higher in the sky.

Things between you and Rin continued on in that tense manner for the next few weeks, until you became convinced that your heart might give out from the stress. You couldn’t continue to live in this way. You were supposed to be enjoying your time abroad, not counting down the days until you could finally go home.

Rin was watching a horror movie on the computer when you barged into his room. A woman screamed in sync with your entrance, and you jumped at the jarring sound. Rin did not react, clicking on the mouse to pause the film and then turning in his chair to face you.

“What?” he said.

“What? What? What do you think?” you said.

“I wouldn’t have asked if I had the faintest clue why you were storming into my room in the middle of the night,” he said coolly, crossing his arms. “The movie was finally getting exciting, too. So, what do you want? Hurry up and say it.”

Your eye twitched. “I want to know what your problem is.”

“Huh?” he said.

“Why do you hate me? What have I ever done to you that’s made you so determined to ruin my life? I could even understand if you didn’t want to hang out with me, but you brought me to your practice and then refused to let me talk to just about anyone! What’s the big idea? I just want to enjoy my semester!” you said.

“Oh,” he said. “That’s easy. You’re ruining my soccer career.”

“I’m ruining your soccer career,” you repeated dubiously.

“Yes,” he said.

“Care to elaborate on how I am accomplishing that, exactly?” you said, your hands on your hips. “I went to one practice, and I didn’t even speak the entire time. If your career can be ruined so easily, then it isn’t much of a career in the first place.”

He huffed in aggravation. “I keep thinking about you. It’s messing with my head. I need to focus on soccer and getting better, but for some reason, I can’t stop my thoughts from wandering to places they shouldn’t. It’s worse because I can’t escape you. If I could have just one day to clear my mind, I could forget about you and get back to considering more important things, but you’re always there, worming your way back in.”

Now it was your turn to be confused. “What?”

“I don’t get it, either. You’re not that special, so why can I quit it? Even my teammates have begun to notice. The other day, Isagi told me to go home early because I was ‘bringing nothing to the team.’ Isagi said that! Yoichi Isagi said that I was useless!” he said.

“That would be a lot more impactful if I knew who that was,” you muttered.

“You’re only here for a few more months, right?” he said. “After that, I can get back to my earlier performance and things will return to usual. Just leave me alone until then.”

Confronting Rin had the opposite effect that it should have. Instead of making things better, they actually became worse. What did he mean by saying that you were ruining his soccer career because he couldn’t stop thinking about you? What a stupid excuse! You weren’t that tiresome, so for him to claim that you were taking over his mind because of that was an offense.

“Y/N, Rin, will you be alright by yourselves for the week?” Mrs. Itoshi said when, once again, you all were gathered to eat dinner. The Itoshi parents had thankfully not yet noticed the enmity between you and their son, so family meals were a regular occurrence — meals in which you and Rin were made to sit by one another and act kindly, lest you make things awkward for Mr. and Mrs. Itoshi, too.

“It’ll be fine,” Rin said, answering for the both of you, the downturn of his mouth daring you to argue. “You guys should have fun in Spain.”

Apparently, Sae had invited his family to visit him in Madrid for the week that he had off from training, but unfortunately for the both of you, Rin was unable to go due to his practice schedule. It was unfortunate for Rin because it meant he couldn’t see his older brother, who he had the world’s most complicated relationship with, and it was unfortunate for you because it meant you couldn’t get a break from Rin’s dramatics.

The week started off normally enough, which meant that you and Rin did not speak, leading your lives with as much separation as was possible. It was actually easier than you were expecting, mainly because Mrs. Itoshi had left you both enough food to last the week, so you could eat when you wanted to instead of having to sit with one another. Gone were the days of turbulent coexistence at meals; now, you could finally enjoy eating without worrying about the boy beside you! You almost wished his parents would never come back, just because of that rare peace.

The fourth night was when it all went wrong. You were video calling your best friend as a storm raged outside, ranting to her about your professors and the heaps of homework you received every day, when the lights flickered.

“Is something wrong with your wifi?” she said. “You’re breaking up.

“It’s raining,” you said. “Pretty hard. The power’s kinda spotty, but I’m hoping it holds—”

The universe must’ve heard your words and decided to play a joke on you, because in that moment, the lights turned off and your call disconnected with a sad beeping sound, alerting you that your poor connection was what did you in. Pouting, you set your phone aside and stared up at the ceiling of the room, deciding you might as well try to fall asleep, given the late hour. Even if the power was out, you wouldn’t be able to tell with your eyes shut, so it was really the best option.

There was a scratching sound on your window, causing you to jolt into a sitting position once more. Rin had watched a horror movie just like this the other day. You remembered it clearly because you had turned on a rom-com once it had finished, and he had called it lukewarm, which made you so mad that you had turned the TV off and gone to take a shower instead.

What had been the plot, again? Oh, right. The power had gone out, and the victim thought that it had been because of a storm, but it had actually been a serial killer taking advantage of the weather to mess with her house’s fuse box. He had done it so that the cameras didn’t catch him as he climbed into her house through her unlocked window and stabbed her in her sleep. The resolution was that her neighbors saw him and called the police right before he killed them, too — yeah, it was a pretty gory film. Lots of blood and knife wounds. You weren’t sure what enjoyment Rin derived from watching it, but you figured it was another one of his irrational attributes that defied explanation.

Another scratching sound. Had you locked the window? What if the power outage wasn’t due to the storm at all? What if Rin had accidentally manifested the same ending for you as that stupid movie? And you were home alone, too, the scenario was just so similar…

This time, the scratching sound was more like an eerie drag of fingernails against the glass, and you couldn’t help yourself. Squealing, you turned the flashlight of your phone on to guide your way as you sprinted out of your room, racing towards the only other inhabited place in the entire lonely house.

“Rin!” you shrieked, convinced that the shadows were actually ghosts come to haunt you and strangle you and bury you alive. “Rin, wake up! We’re both going to die!”

The door to his bedroom banged open, and you pointed your phone at him, the harsh white glow sharpening the angles of his features, the awkward hang of his pajamas off his body, the way his normally neat hair stuck up in every direction.

“What are you talking about?” he groaned, using his hand to shield his vision from the blinding radiance of your flashlight.

“Do you remember that movie you were watching the other day? The scary one, with the fuse box?” you said.

“Yeah?” he said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and yawning. “Point your flashlight at the ground, stupid, or you’ll blind me.”

You did as he directed, belatedly remembering that the two of you very much did not like each other. But beggars could not be choosers, and it remained that at the moment, Rin was your best chance at survival, so you had to stick close to him.

“It’s happening,” you whispered. “It’s literally happening to us right now, as we speak. The serial killer already cut our power, and now he’s trying to break in through my bedroom window, and then — and then he’s going to kill us!”

“I cannot believe you woke me up for this,” he said.

“I’m serious!” you said.

“Seriously dumb,” he said. “Why would somebody try to kill us?”

“Don’t you have any rivals that hate you? Maybe they’re taking advantage of the storm to do you in while they have the chance!” you said, creeping closer to him.

“I play soccer. I’m not in a gang,” he said dryly. “No one’s going to come murder me for being better than them, trust me. Or else I’d already be dead.”

“Go see for yourself, then!” you said. “Wait. But I’ll go with you. People who split up in horror movies always die. There’s real merit to the ‘safety-in-numbers’ theory.”

“How many horror movies have you watched, to make you such an expert on them?” he said.

“You always have them playing, so of course I’ve learnt by osmosis!” you said, inching along behind him as he trudged towards your room. He gave no response bar a click of his tongue as he yanked open the door you had slammed shut in your haste, striding in authoritatively, grabbing your phone and lighting his own way with it instead of relying on your shaky hands.

He pulled the curtains open with a flourish, and you cringed, using his broad back to hide yourself, expecting to see some grotesque face and keeping your eyes screwed shut so you didn’t have to be met with the visage that would spell your death.

“Hey. Y/N. Open your eyes, dumbass. You made me get up because of a damn tree,” Rin said, shaking you by the shoulder.

“A what?” you said, opening your eyes against your will and then blinking properly when you saw there was nothing there but the boughs of the cherry tree planted in front of Sae’s room. The frenzied wind caused the branches to rub against the window, and this, you realized, was the source of the sound you had been so afraid of. “Oh. A tree.”

“I’m going back to bed,” he informed you. “Wake me up again and you really will be dead, but it’ll be at my hands, not some imaginary serial killer’s.”

You tried. You really tried to stay asleep — you were an independent woman, weren’t you? You had gotten full marks on all of your midterms. You had flown to a different country and learned to live there without much trouble. You had shared a house with Rin Itoshi for the past couple of months, and he was more like a creature out of a nightmare than anything else ever could be. Sleeping alone when the power was out was a piece of cake. You could do it.

It was not, in fact, a piece of cake, and you could not, in fact, do it. Tip-toeing to Rin’s room, you knocked as lightly as you could, half-hoping that he did not hear. You doubted he had made his earlier threat lightly, after all, and there was a real chance that this action would be your last.

“What now?” Rin said, answering the door a few seconds later. You crossed your arms and stared at the floor obstinately, your pride not allowing you to say anything. He waited for a moment, and then he pinched your upper arm. “Are you sleepwalking? Hello? Wake up if you are, so that I can get to bed myself. I have practice tomorrow, and I need to be well-rested!”

“I’m not sleepwalking!” you said. “I can’t.”

“You can’t sleepwalk? Okay,” he said. “I didn’t really care either way, so there was no need for you to tell me.”

“I can’t sleep at all!” you said. “It’s because of those dumb movies you always watch and those creepy games you play. I keep thinking that something’s going to happen, even though I know that those things aren’t real.”

He narrowed his eyes at you, like he was trying to discern whether you were telling the truth, and then he ran a hand through his hair.

“You have problems,” he said. “They aren’t real, but whatever. Come in.”

“Uh, what?” you said.

“I’ll take the floor, and you can sleep in my bed,” he said, rolling his eyes like you were the ridiculous one for being taken aback by the offer. “That way you can be less nervous.”

It was the kindest thing he had ever done for you, and you almost called him out for it, but then there was another crack of lightning, so you opted not to argue, darting into the room after him and diving into his bed without a second thought.

“Hand me a pillow,” he said, settling on the ground with a blanket he pulled down from the top shelf of his closet. You were about to throw it at him before wavering, considering what he was truly doing for you. Rin Itoshi, who was so careful with his body, who was a pro athlete that required an exact amount of sleep and the perfect balance of nutrients, had woken up in the middle of the night twice and was now offering to sleep on the floor, all because you were afraid of a power outage.

If only there was electricity! You needed to call your best friend and get her opinion on this. You had avoided telling her the results of your confrontation with him, believing that she would just make fun of you, but for some reason, you thought she might be interested in this development. You thought that she might be the only one who would understand it, because obviously, neither you nor Rin did.

“Um, you can have the bed, if you’d like,” you said, pushing the blankets away reluctantly, your neck protesting at the mere prospect of spending the night on the hardwood. “It’ll be bad for your back if you’re on the floor.”

“It’s not a big deal,” he said. “At least, it won’t be, if you give me that pillow.”

You caved, giving him the pillow and rolling to the opposite side of his bed, which was even larger than the one you were used to. He grunted out a thank you, and then both of you were silent, but it was obvious that neither of you were asleep.

“Rin.”

“Yes?”

“We could share. Your bed is pretty big, so if we put pillows between us, it won’t be weird. Anyways, it’s only until the power comes back, and then I’ll go to my room, so it won’t even be for that long,” you said. The suggestion was met with sputtering from the ground.

“You — me — what — share? No way! No way, terrible idea, why would you suggest that?” he said.

“I just feel bad that you have to be on the floor, that’s all,” you said. “Especially because it’s your room and you’re doing me a favor.”

He didn’t say anything for so long that you were certain he must’ve fallen asleep. “I don’t mind sleeping on the floor for you.”

“Really? I thought you hated me, though,” you said. The bed creaked from an unexpected weight dropping on it, and when you shifted, you saw that he had settled beside you, fluffing up a pillow to serve as a barrier, his face a light pink as he lay on his side to face you. You did the same, peering up at him over the pillow and swallowing when he did not avoid your gaze.

“I do,” he said. “A lot. But I also don’t.”

You furrowed your brow. “I don’t get it.”

“I’ve never been distracted by anyone or anything before,” he said. “That’s why I hate you. I hate things I don’t understand, and I don’t understand why you’re constantly on my mind.”

“Am I that annoying?” you said.

“Yes,” he said flatly. “You’re annoying every time you smile or laugh or say something — say anything, and you’re especially annoying when you act friendly towards my shitty teammates, especially that ninja bastard Otoya. You’re annoying whenever you talk to me, and you’re annoying when you do your homework instead of watching me at the practice you asked to go to. Your lukewarm movies are annoying, and so is your hatred of anything horror-related. It’s annoying that you’re nice to my parents, and it’s even more annoying that you’re better at coming up with insults than I am. You’re the most annoying person I’ve ever met.”

You didn’t need your best friend to translate this for you. Despite what Rin liked to say, you weren’t that stupid — you had been selected to study abroad out of hundreds of applicants, after all, and for the first time, you were so grateful for that fact. Because the thought of somebody else being here, in this bed, hearing these things from rude, haughty Rin Itoshi, was unbearable.

“Do you have a crush on me?” you said. He immediately stiffened, his eyebrows drawing together, low and heavy over his half-lidded eyes.

“No,” he said.

“Sure,” you said. “That’s good, because I’m going to leave soon. It would be problematic if either of us liked one another.”

“Exactly,” he said.

“You’re annoying, too, just to be clear,” you said. “The most annoying guy I’ve ever met in my life. Super annoying.”

“Uh-huh,” he said.

“I’m telling the truth. Once I go back home, I’ll be incredibly bored. No one back there could ever hope to irritate me even half as much as you do,” you said.

“Good,” he said, and at that you smiled into the softness of his sheets, hiding the expression from him. “They’re not allowed to. You’re the only one who makes me feel like this, so the reverse should also be true.”

“I won’t be able to come here again for a while,” you said after a bit. “Likely years. I’ll be busy with school and work and my friends and family, so it’ll probably be goodbye forever when I go.”

Rin’s voice was sleepy when he spoke, reminding you of the late hour and how early he had to wake up daily.

“Then I can finally focus on soccer again,” he mumbled. “That’s a relief.”

You reached across the pillow to pat him on the cheek. “Yes, you can.”

“After I retire, I’ll come and find you,” he said.

“That long?” you said. “What if I forget about you by then? Because I might.”

“Don’t,” he commanded. “Wait for me. Let me win the next World Cup, and then…and then…”

His words trailed off into a soft exhale as he finally succumbed to sleep. You allowed your hand, which still lay against his face, to trace his jawline before retracting it and holding it close to your heart.

He was definitely still a jerk, but maybe you did not hate him quite as much as you had thought You did. Actually, maybe he wasn’t that bad at all, and maybe you could not imagine what an existence without him, which you had craved so desperately only days earlier, might be like.

You weren’t sure what would happen if that day he spoke of came, if he did fly across the world to find you after the next World Cup. Would he still be himself, or would he be some gentler version? And what of you? Would Rin Itoshi still be someone you paid any mind to, or, by then, would he just be a not-so-fond memory? The strange boy who may or may not have had a crush on you, who was obsessed with soccer and horror movies, who argued with you constantly and made you more infuriated than you had ever been…well, if you thought about it, then there really was no chance of you forgetting him at all. Not so quickly.

So you sighed, turned away from him and let your own eyes shut as well. The house was dark and still, the familiar hum of the refrigerator silenced, the crushing of the ice-maker temporarily halted. Only Rin’s steady inhales and exhales cut through the blackness, lulling you to sleep despite the atmosphere you had previously found sinister.

“I guess I have no choice, huh?” you said as you, too, drifted off. “Brainless, rude, pesky Rin Itoshi. Fine, then. If that’s how you want it…I’ll wait. Just until the next World Cup, I’ll wait for you.”

#rin x reader #rin x y/n #rin x you #itoshi rin #bllk x reader #bllk #blue lock #reader insert #canon au #m1ckeyb3rry milestone #m1ckeyb3rry writes

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myrmica · 23 days ago

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having finished rewatching s4 and being past the vitalasy goodbye stream in s5 is so miserable what do you mean there's no more vitalasy. the fact that vitalasy leaves and that same day everything starts moving again, that same day zam has that conversation with planet where he keeps laughing mid sentence and going "i don't know how to do this anymore it's been so long," and in that stream bacon and zam describe it as if the wormhole had broken the fourth wall permanently, so now they have to open up to the audience in ways they hadn't before, but that's not quite right. the wormhole opened a door sure, season 4 changed things. but during wormhole zam slammed a door shut on vitalasy and that door stayed shut until this precise moment. so he and vitalasy never get to have the kind of conversation about their past vitalasy needed from him while vitalasy was still there, because the shell only starts to crack open the moment vitalasy is gone. vitalasy exits the stage leaving it all necessarily resolved off screen, leaving a book zam keeps private from the audience. it allows vitalasy to come back in s6 and say "we worked it out behind the scenes," and for that to be all you need to know. vitalasy is no longer a character whose history with zam keeps mattering to him, informing new choices and new problems. but zam is. zam remains a character with all of that history intact, who thinks about it, and uses it as a point of measure for other relationships in his life (or sometimes it seems for relationships, period), who alludes to it in conversation, who remembers it even though at one point he tried pretty hard to forget. so much did happen between them and it still doesn't feel like enough. it just gets cut off, and leaves behind this constant looming possibility space. makes you think well, now there might finally be enough distance from it all that they could really talk about it, that it might be okay. but vitalasy isn't here. and when he visits they never get more than a moment alone together, anyway. what is zam's memory of vitalasy; the things he has accepted and the things he still doesn't think about, the parts of it that remain warped in his memory; what is he guilty about and what is he still mad about; how would he describe eclipse to someone who wasn't there in s4 if he had to really sit down and go through it all; what would have happened if he did give vitalasy that apology heart during the mace trials, if they did get more than a moment alone together. if vitalasy was still present. if there was ever a reason to talk about him. and vitalasy's ghost is overwhelmingly present in s5. he leaves and that's the catalyst. destroying what's left of vitalasy on the server is always the worst thing zam can threaten, and then zam is banned fighting over vitalasy's grave trying to make good on that threat. and they never, ever, ever get to talk about any of it. all of those stupid hours of conversation in season 4 and then nothing at all forever. they worked it out but you don't get to see that part. vitalazam world. i hate everyone else on this minecraft server fuck all of you for real. whenever vitalasy isn't on screen you should be asking "where's vitalasy."

#m #i wrote this post like 3 days ago in some sort of state i'm not even rereading it i'm just going to release it into the world. whatever #i change my mind no readmore you have to see my posts

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going-to-ikea-for-the-fries · 7 months ago

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Bait and Switch. || Scammer!Reader x Victim!Ghost

Rating: M Words: 2.6K~ Pairing: scammer!Reader x victim(but not really)!Ghost CW: phone scams/conning (reader never actually cons him), financial issues?, threats (Simon threatens to find reader), degradation?. other tags: crack, OOC Simon., you/your pronouns (gn!reader but uses a female fake name), obviously fake names (pun/funny), lying, joking, the weirdest meet cute? a/n: this started out as a joke/crack and turned serious/dark at the end? idk how i did this.

Simon Riley would say that being legally dead is the best thing to have happened to him and that's because it allowed him to escape a bunch of responsibilities that regular men have to uphold.

He gets paid covertly, in full, and does not have to pay taxes on his income.

He rented a flat from a sweet ol' lady, who didn't run a background check or ask for a copy of his birth certificate (terrible choice on her part), and he pays her by dropping an envelope of cash in her mailbox on the 1st of every of the month.

He not only is old enough to drink but also sounds and looks old enough as well, which means he doesn't need I.D. to buy alcohol (not that any shops or bars really care enough to check).

He doesn't have a credit card. Or a debit card for that matter. Hell, he doesn't even have a bank account, so he doesn't have to pay maintenance fees.

He doesn't have a smartphone. And up until recently he only had a pager. In fact, the only reason he doesn't have a pager anymore is because it got shot in the crossfire during a mission... so Price forced him to get a jitterbug.

In short... Simon Riley can escape a lot of things (death, taxes, Philip Graves...). But telemarketers and phone scammers are not one of those things.

That's how, on a boring Wednesday afternoon, his new phone ends up ringing, like it had been doing multiple times a week for the last four weeks.

Telemarketers.

He never got telemarketers on his pager.

He hated telemarketers.

But that didn't mean he blocked them-

"What?" He answered as soon as he picked up the phone.

An automated voice came over the call, one of those typical Siri-esque robot voices, delivering a prepared speech: "Congratulations! You've won a free cruise to the Bahamas! To claim your prize, press 1."

Oh, now, this was different. He didn't need to hear more to know it was a scam call. But that didn't mean he was going to hang up.

So Simon pressed key 1, which caused a beep to sound over the call.

"Thank you!" The automated voice continued. "We are now connecting you to a live operator to claim your prize!"

Barely a millisecond went by before you took over the call. "Good afternoon, this is Stella Gormoni with Blissful Blessings Inc.! Who am I speaking with?"

As stereotypical as it is, Simon had expected a different voice on the other end of the line... maybe from a scammer in a foreign country who'd speak heavily-accented English...

But instead, he got a sweet and professional sounding person... It almost made him second-guess the scam that was being pulled on him.

His mind moved quick at coming up with a fake name. Not just a fake one, but a pun one too. "Wanh'a, first name Aiden." He replied, his gruff voice reverberating on the call.

"And how do you spell that?" You asked him politely, and, through your headset, he could hear your keyboard keys clacking in the background.

"That's A-I-D-E-N." He replied as he entered his kitchen, spelling his first, as if that was somehow what was causing you difficulty.

"Uh-huh!" You acknowledged in a peppy tone. "And... your surname?" You asked him.

"W-A-N-H-'-A." He continued spelling as he crossed the small kitchen, hearing your fingers tapping away at your keyboard in his ear.

For a moment, you didn't talk, as if stunned into silence. Had you just picked up on the fact he was trolling you by giving you a name that, phonetically, sounded like 'I Don't Wanna'? Probably. But you hadn't hung up yet.

"Well, congratulations, Mr. Wanh'a, you just won an all-inclusive, two-week long cruise to the Bahamas!" Your peppy tone made him bite his lip to contain a laugh. Well, at least you were dedicated in continuing the scam. "How are you feeling?"

"Very well, and yourself?" Simon asked casually as he leaned himself against the door of his refrigerator, leaning down to look inside and find a snack.

"I'm doing very well, thank you, sir." You replied in a cheerful tone. "So, let's process the information so we can get you your prize, shall we?" You announced in a polite tone.

"Go right on ahead, sweet'eart." He murmured as he grabbed a yogurt and closed the fridge with his hip, sitting at the table and peeling open the lid.

"Well, for us to start, I'm going to need your-"

"Actually, I have a question, before we start." Simon interrupted your speech, cutting off your silver-tongued lies.

You went silent for just a moment before you replied with a sweet little: "Of course, what can I help you with, Mr. Wanh'a?"

"I want to know how exactly I signed up to receive this prize." Simon replied before he placed a spoonful of yogurt in his mouth.

He was trying to accomplish two things by doing this: 1) throw you off your game and make you stammer and stutter, and 2) see how long it took for you to get annoyed, and hang up on him.

"Well, that's what I was going to explain, you see-" You replied, a smile behind your voice, but his trained ears could pick up the slight frustration. It made Simon smile.

"Oh, then, I'm sorry for interrupting you, sweet'art, please go ahead." He replied and gestured with his spoon, as if giving you the stage, unnecessarily so, because you were not there to watch it.

"As I was saying... You were entered automatically into the draw by buying a cereal box of any Kellog's cereal at Tesco. I'm sure you saw a 'Win a free cruise!' sticker on yours?" You asked in a professional and sickly-sweet tone.

He could see right through your scam, he had already done that. You name a famous brand, one people trust, to trick naive or impressionable ones into believing you...

Normal people would tell you they no longer have the cereal box, many of them naive enough to believe your scam despite the fact they hadn't even bought one of those boxes in the first place...

Next, you'd ask for the card used to make the purchase, and some people were dumb enough to read their number aloud to you...

Oh, how he hated scammers. Even more than telemarketers.

"I do remember seeing something like that..." He murmured, his voice deepening, before he popped another spoonful of yogurt past his lips, loudly smacking them right against the receiver of his jitterbug.

"Well, all I need is for you to get the box and read me the code that's imprinted on the inside of the flap!" You announced.

"Well, you see, I would, sweet'art... But my sight isn't so good anymore..." Simon replied. "I'm getting up there in age, you know?" He continued eating his yogurt.

"I understand, sir." You replied. "I'm sorry to hear that. One of my cousins also started losing his vision pretty early." You announced.

Huh.

There was no hint of forced sympathy in your voice.

No, you were being genuine. That was a real story of your life you were telling him...

But you had picked up on the fact he was trolling you, right? So why were you-

"Good thing though, about this system of ours, is that you can just confirm your credit card details so we can double check them and get you that prize!" You had, your tone right back to the scamming silver-tongue you had held until now.

Secretly, Simon had to admit that he admired your commitment to the bit. He couldn't help but smile a bit, amused.

"Oh, of course. Let me just set you down while I get my card." Simon replied and got up, finishing his yogurt and tossing out the plastic container, popping the spoon into the sink, and, after setting down his phone, he walked out of the room.

Simon glanced down at his wrist watch, noting the time on it, then, approached his bedroom door, grabbing his over-the-door pull-up bars, and began doing a quick set, leaving you to 'wait' for him in the kitchen.

After a few sets, he waltzed back into the kitchen and grabbed his phone again. "You still there, da'lin'?" He beckoned in a gruff tone.

You sighed, your politeness sounding slightly more forced. He had kept you waiting for over ten minutes after all. "Yes, sir, I am. Did you get your card, Mr. Wanh'a?"

"Oh, please, enough of this 'sir' thing, Mr. Wanh'a was my mother." He replied, then went silent for just a beat, almost like he could hear your frustration sizzling on he other end.

He was being more and more obvious with his trolling... And it pleased him immensely to imagine a parasite like you seething on the other end of the line, reaching your wits' end.

"You can just call me 'Ai', it's what my friends call me." Simon continued, a smirk forming on his lips. "And we're friends now, right? You're giving me a cruise and everythin'." He added, his tone just as charismatic and peppy as his had been.

"I guess we are!" You replied, returning the overly cheery tone. "So, 'Ai Wanh'a', then?" You asked, but he could hear the mix of frustration and amusement behind your voice.

"Yeah? What d'you want, babygirl?" Simon asked, unable to resist making a more impish remark. And, unfortunately, it had the desired result. It genuinely caused your brain to blue-screen for a moment.

Sure, you'd experienced plenty of people getting angry at you when you attempt to scam them, or even trolling you the same way this bloke was doing but...

It was definitely a first, to have someone flirt with you, even if it was still part of his trolling attempt.

"Your... credit card details?" You ended up adding, your voice still showing the surprise and light meekness that came from him catching you off-guard.

"Oh, of course. Are you ready? It's a very complex number." He replied.

"Ready when you are." You added as you steeled yourself for another smartass response or run around from him.

"Here it is: 1234-5678-9987-6543." He replied, reciting the numbers 1-9 in order and then backward. "And the three digits on the back are: 210."

Oh, he was so fucking annoying! He didn't get to troll you, even if it was pretty amusing of him to do so, then flirt with you, then go back to trolling.

"Sir, if you're not interested in the cruise, just say so. There's no need for this mockery." You replied, your tone serious and professional though you were definitely seething on the inside.

Simon could tell. And he reveled in it. "Oh, but I am interested!" He replied with a smirk behind his voice. "In fact, I want to know more. Will my cabin in the cruise have an ocean view?"

Simon heard you inhale aggressively on the other side of the line, steeling yourself not to hang up on him, or down right berating him on the phone. "Yes, Ai, of course!" He heard your fake cheeriness through your clenched teeth. "It'll be a luxury cabin, actually. Isn't that great?"

"No, it's not that great, actually. I get very seasick, you see?" Simon murmured. "Not to mention, ever since my pet goldfish died, I've just never been able to look at the ocean the same..." He added in a forced pitiful tone.

You went quiet again on the other side and Simon knew he had finally worn you out. He waited to hear the clicking sound of the call falling, but, instead, he just heard you let out a sigh.

"You're very frustrating." You murmured.

"Oh, my, is this how you speak to all your prize winners?" Simon gasped dramatically.

"Shut up... You didn't have to be a smartass, you know?!" You scolded him, as if you had any ground to stand on.

"No, I fear I did, sweet'art." Simon replied as he leaned casually against the kitchen counter. "You called me, interrupted my day, and wasted my time with a scam, of all things. I have every right to be a smartass and have some fun with it." He added, a smug tone obvious in the dulcets of his deep voice.

"Okay? You could've just hung up on me?" You were truly grasping at straws to justify your behaviour. It was comical.

Simon laughed dryly. "And waste an opportunity to annoy a parasitic leech like you?" He quipped.

That stunned you into silence for a moment and you couldn't help but pout a bit.

"Not to mention, what you're doing is illegal, you know that righ'? And I'm military, I could get you arrested for this." He added.

"For that, you'd need to know where I am." You retorted, maybe a bit bratilly. "Besides, I knew you were a soldier."

"And how did you know that?"

"You used the NATO phonetic alphabet while spelling 'your' name'." You replied directly. "Nobody spells 'Aiden' as 'Alpha-India-Delta-Echo-November'."

"So you knew I was military and you still went ahead with your little scam attempt? You're not that bright, are you?" He defied you, which earned him a scoff from your end.

"No, I already knew you were trolling me."

"Oh, so you just wanted to waste my time?"

"That's exactly it, Aiden."

"Sounds to me like you're just looking for trouble, da'lin'." He quipped, his voice having lowered to a gruffer tone.

Rolling your eyes, you scoffed. "Am not. I'm just enjoying myself. You're not the only one that can make jokes at people's expenses."

"No, you really are..." He tutted his tongue and shook his head. "Need I remind you you were trying to scam me, and other people?" He added in a tone that sent a shiver down your spine.

"I know what I was doing."

"Yeah? And are you proud of that? Proud of being a conniving little cunt who tries to take people's hard-earned money?" He taunted you.

You didn't reply. Of course you weren't proud. You still had a conscience! But you wouldn't tell him that. He wouldn't get the satisfaction of hearing you apologise.

"I see. You don't like what I'm saying, so you give me the silent treatment, is that it, sweet'art?" He teased. You could hear the smirk behind his words.

"I wonder if you'd still act like this if you had to face me and had to answer for yourself."

Closing your fists tight, you steel yourself again to gain some edge and reply to him. "I guess you're going to keep wondering then. Because it's not happening."

"You know, it's a shame your little computer spat out my phone number for you to call..." He trailed off.

"And why's that?"

"Because instead of anyone else, you got me... And that's just... really bad luck for you. Any other service member, you would've been fine..." He trailed off.

"What, are you some sort of General-Major-Chief thing, super high up the ladder?" You taunted.

Simon simply chuckled dryly on the other side of the line. "No. But I'm definitely the worst person you could've tried to play with."

"Oh, big scary man, what are you gonna do? Gonna come teach me a lesson?" You added, taunting him some more, clearly feeling comfortable behind your laptop, with your smartphone, sitting at home, comfortable and warm, with your pet at your feet. "Oh, I'm so scared!" You added, feigning fear in a dramatic tone.

"Is that a challenge I'm hearing, sweet'art? Inviting me to come pay you a visit?" Simon asked you, his brow cocking, despite the fact you couldn't see it.

You don't know what it was about the way he spoke. The way he said that. The way his voice sounded.

It sent a shiver down your spine, a cold sweat, like he was, for the first time, not joking around anymore.

"No...?" You murmured in reply, feeling your shoulders tensing in an unpleasant way.

"Yeah... That's an invite I'm hearing..." He disregarded what you said and chuckled. "Maybe I'll come pay you a visit then, hey? How does that sound, little leech?"

#ikea writes 💚#tw phone scam #cod mw2 #simon ghost x reader #simon riley x you #simon ghost riley #cod fanfic #masterlist #ghost x reader #phone scammer #crack fic #ddne #dead dove do not eat

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