#where is the angst of having your second husband that you married for decade back in the same day you came back to life AND get your

[achillesuwu]

I mean, She must have lived for many years after Arthur death (in an interview they even said ‘at the end it’s always these two [Leon & Gwen]’ implying that they will end up together) so it could still work but more in a : we used to know each other, but we had to let each other go. Who are we ? Who we used to be is long gone.

Arthur who left yesterday

Gwen who lost him decades ago,

Perceval & Leon who were at her side to see her reign

Elyan who couldn’t watch his sister grow old

Lancelot who knew Merlin’s secret but never saw the golden age

Gwaine who must feel guilty about his weakness

Merlin who saw humanity rise, fall and rise again, who is older than any of them can even dream of.

Maybe it’s my aromantic ass speaking here but I’m not so fond of the ‘I only loved you for 1500y arthur (merlin)/I only loved you my whole life arthur (Gwen). I think people deserve to move on. Anything could happens relationship-wise at that point which is way more interesting than ‘Let’s go back together because we were married/each other destiny’

"There's no reason why a Merlin Remake can't be explicitly gay! Merthur!!"

Gwen? Y'all forget the absolutely beautiful Queen Gwen? She wasn't the most beautiful woman in the world to be cast aside.

[artsninspo]

VERY MERRY MARTINI🍸 - RIO X READER

「 ✦ full library & archive ✦ 」

: ̗̀➛ rio's library - good girl nbc

𐙚 based on this request | ♡ a flash forward of this

summary: Returning home for Christmas dredges up old wounds and unexpected sparks. Between family chaos and a chance encounter with her first love, Rio, she’s swept into a whirlwind of bittersweet memories and heated confessions. Can they rewrite their story, or will their past keep them apart? A cocktail of love, nostalgia, and second chances awaits.

tropes: second chance romance, small town nostalgia, reformed bad boy & unresolved emotional conflict - angst, fluff and a sprinkle of steam

pairing: Rio (Good Girls) X Reader

word-count: ~ 2K

You pluck a peppermint from the dish at the bar, untwisting the wrapper and pluck the candy into your mouth as nostalgia hits you. Sucking on the candy you remember a time where your granny’s crystal dishes were full of them and Christmas meant family and holiday cheer instead of restaurants and swanky parties. Your parents divorce has shattered all the warm and fuzzy feelings and in spite of being back in town for the first time in almost a decade everything feels different - but not in a good way. Being a child of divorce to two prideful parents is a full time job.

“What can I get for you?” a young bartender smiles.

“A … merry martini” you respond with a smile checking the menu.

“Coming right up” he winks flirting for his tip. You shift in your seat looking at all the other rejects who like you have nowhere better to be. The drink is slid in front of you and you open your purse.

“You're too pretty to pay” he winks, making you smile.

“Merry christmas” you say, raising a glass to him and taking a sip to take the edge off. Your holidays are stacked with activities and outings. Both of your parents want to show off their girl - like you’re some prized fucking heifer. They’ve tried their best at normalcy so there's no room for honest discussion on how much the chaos hurts. Your father went from married man, to divorcee where you and boxing were the light of his life. But you had been replaced with a new wife and a son who could be his prodigy. Then there was your mother who’d left the marriage committed to becoming her own light. Now she shines so bright it's blinding. Her and her husband are so perfect it’s hard to share space with them. Not to mention the competition between both parents had you in a constant tug of war.

“Another one please” you smile shamelessly placing a twenty in the tip jar.  The bartender nods without judgement making another one. This time you wince at the strength of the first sip. “Perfect” you wink and he smiles tending to the other patrons.

“Davis”  a man introduces himself to your left. Your mind tells you he's a predator. When you’d been looking your best he had not approached but after two drinks in under five minutes he's grown a pair.

“Not interested” you respond dismissively.

“Why not, you dont think I'm handsome?” he asks but you'd bet your last dollar he was married. You glance at his left hand and bingo, there's a faint indentation. The vulture in front of you thinks he’s gonna get some easy ass.

“I could be piss drunk and never give you the time of day or night - get lost” you tell him not in the mood to be used and discarded or sold a dream.

“Is that so?” he asks a glutton for punishment.

“Mhm” you respond, draining cocktail number two and he smiles handsome enough under the right circumstances.

“Maybe I was just being kind to the trainwreck at the bar. Spreading holiday kindness to the less fortunate” he jabs.

“No wonder your wife doesnt fuck you, I wouldnt either. How does putting me down make you feel, mister kind man?” you ask patronizing him some more. His chest rises and his body goes rigid.

“Careful Davis, this one’s pretty but will lay your ass out” a voice says, giving you goosebumps. “Her pops owns the three boxing gyms in the city. That means after she’s done with you - if she tells pops at least one of the guys will catch you outside” he continues and Davis looks between you and the man with resentment before standing and finding somewhere else to be in the bar. You feel your heart race and try to get yourself together before you turn around.

There he is, in all his glory somehow more attractive now than he’d been all those years ago. Your eyes catch a tattoo on his neck and he slides you your third drink but that's way too dangerous now with him in your midst.

“You were never afraid” you mutter and he smiles.

“Ahh, I lack good sense remember. Your pops only had one gym at the time” he shrugs using the line you used in your break-up. He’d done you dirty, broke your heart and then thumbed your nose in it. He was a part of the reason you never came back home.

“Right” you nod and he looks at the drink with an amused expression. It hadn't been all bad. He could still vividly remember all the nights he spent looking up at his ceiling because the morning couldn't come soon enough. He couldn't wait to see you, feel you, kiss you, sneak you into his house while his granny was working. Nobody topped the feeling you gave him till this day. The two of you had been inseparable and he never cared what people said - he was in love with you and wearing it for everyone to see. It was why your rejection hurt so bad and Nick’s betrayal cut so deep. You never listened, never stopped to hear him out while hurling insults through tears. He couldn't get a word in and then you never spoke to him again - not even when he tried being civil at your graduation.

“How long are you back for?” Rio asks testing your energy towards him.

“None of your business” you respond, making him smile.

“So it’s like that?” he asks.

“It’s like that” you respond.

“So what? Are we gonna be beefing forever?” he asks.

“Why are you behind the bar? You aren’t nice enough to be a bartender.” you comment sipping slow.

“You know me well. I'm the owner,” he says.

“Makes sense,” you nod, looking him over again. The prime location and atmosphere, along with the internet reviews was a signifier of success. “Graduated from illegal to legal impairment” you swallow.

“Look, enjoy your drinks, if you need a cab have my boy call you one” he snaps in bad humour before walking away. He didnt take shit from anyone these days and that would never change. The edge is back on so you scroll looking for another bar and when you find one you head to the bathroom to sober up. Finished from relieving yourself you re-apply your lipstick and fix your hair in the mirror when Rio enters locking the door of the swanky bathroom behind him.

“What's all this?” you ask genuinely confused.

“In case I never see you again I didn’t sell drugs on the job that summer. I stopped like you asked and it fucked Nicks business up because I was the money maker. He asked me to come back and I said no because I was all in on us and the naive shit we had planned. Nick being the spiteful bitch he is, set me up, he knew you’d dump me and you did. You wouldn't hear me out and I couldn't say shit to the cops or my granny would have had two of us inside at once. Couldn't write it in the letters you didn't read either cause they read it and you wouldn't be near me.” Rio says and you look into his eyes. One thing remains true - you still can't tell when he’s lying. Your brain wants to say something smug and spiteful but your heart wants to accept it as truth and move on.

“I was alone and I needed someone to be angry at - it couldn't be my parents so I made it you. Don't sweat it” you shrug, opting for something in the middle.

“Your pops misses you like crazy” he surprises you.

“How do you know that?” you ask.

“We have dinner together once a month, he signed on as my mentor as a part of my probation. Even gave me a loan for this place” Rio says, telling you things you’ve never known.

“He always liked you,” you nod.

“Yeah we’ll I only really meet with him to hear updates about you, every fucking time I hold my breath hoping that I dont hear youre married or engaged because in my head youre still mine” Rio declares speaking directly to your heart. It was the Rio you knew and not the one that got in a relationship with one of your classmates when he was free from his stint in juvie. Although you knew it was just to hurt you, it still did.

“I’m gonna go” you whisper walking forward but he doesn't move around the barred door. He’d been your safe place through the most turbulent times and you’d not returned the favor. Tears well and you wipe them away feeling the effects of the alcohol. Rio catches your arm as you reach for the lock, his eyes lowering as he looks down at you. A thumb swipes away the tears.

“I’m sorry” he whispers, maintaining eye contact. You're seventeen again and find your face scrunching up embarrassingly. Rio continues wiping the tears away feeling emotional himself as he takes you into his arms cradling you into a hug. There was so much that was different, your perfume, your shampoo, how your body felt in his arms, the heels instead of sneakers. The bathroom bar instead of sneaking into the one at your fathers gym. His love for you was unrivalled. The tears slow to a halt after a few minutes and Rio’s hands slide lower down into your lower back. When you look back at him his eyes are encouraging. It's a relief that he finds no satisfaction in your moment of weakness.

“Fix your make up, stay pretty” he says kissing your temple in a gesture so casual it could only be out of love. You don't question him getting your items from your purse again and doing a quick touch up. When you're finished Rio examines the armour you’ve crafted to protect yourself from your own vulnerabilities and gives a nod of approval. Your heart swells with love for him. He takes your chin leaning in for a kiss. It had been too long since your lips had known his. Too long since his tongue claimed yours while being body to body. Since his hands grabbed handfuls of ass and trailed up against the skin of your torso. 

Loud knocks on the door ends the steamy moment.

“I need to PISS” someone slurs on the other side of the door. You smile, stepping back and ridding the smudged lipstick from Rio’s lips. He does the same for you, unlocking the door and moving aside. The drunk patron rushes into a stall paying neither of you any mind.

“Let me take you home,” Rio offers.

“I don't want to go home” you respond.

“You’re going home, I’m not touching you again until you're sober. I need you to feel and remember my shit, you don't get to pretend to forget after I’ve been waiting this long” he says holding your hand. You can't help but smile at his mean ass. He drags you to his office where he gets his keys and to the black truck waiting in the barking lot. He gets your door like old times adjusting the seat to your comfort. His heart races the entire trip to your hotel and he stays in the car knowing he doesn't have the will power to refuse you twice. He watches you turn around and he rolls down his windows so you can see him instead of the tints. Smiling makes you feel optimistic for the first time this entire trip. Hand to lips you blow him a kiss. He smiles, unable to maintain his hard exterior.

“Fuck me” he laughs knowing hes down bad for you. 

Heading to the hotel you hum along to the Christmas music playing in the lobby, sucking on another peppermint you smile at the nostalgia of your and Rio’s good times. Excited to be back home and for the promise of a very merry Christmas.

authors note: thank you for reading, i'm working my way through the holiday requests so yes this will be a one of one, since I'm pretty sure we all knows what happens next. it rhymes with next without the t 😉

Writing for this amazing community is such a joy, and your support helps me keep creating.

If you enjoyed this fic: ❣ Like the post to brighten my day! ❝ Comment—whether it’s a detailed review or a single emoji, I’d love to hear your thoughts. ↺ Reblog to share the story and connect it to others who might love it too.

Vote below and let us know which trope has your heart! ❤️

tags: @meadows5 @wnbweasley @becauseimher @ariiaeltheedonn @woahthatshitfat @miniaturehideoutmentality @kokobells @ffenthusiastt @sowhatariyana @1xtral1983 @theegoddessofmelanin @fictionalreads @roxytheimmortal

[strawberrystepmom]

to forgive is divine & to err is human

pairing: Natsuo Todoroki x F!Reader (romantic), Touya Todoroki x F!Reader (familial)

word count: 7.5k

about: when Touya is released to Natsuo’s care following his 8 year prison stay, the fragility of the dynamic between the three of you threatens to derail everyone involved.

contents: cw: contains descriptions of depression, trauma, smoking, bad coping mechanisms, alcoholism, Touya dyes his hair black in a white sink (ugh). angst with a happy ending, set in canon universe but not canon compliant, established relationship between Natsuo and reader (married), Touya and reader are both assholes at certain points.

notes: tbh I've been meaning to repost this and since I'm currently in my "yes girl give us nothing" era, the time has come. Thank you to everyone (then and now) that has read this baby bc I did indeed put my ol' Kendussy into it so I didn't really change anything about it other than fixing grammar and I'm sure there are still mistakes. This is is how I wrote a year ago and that's okay and I'm proud of how far I've come.

Posting this as a double feature bc it feels too idk self promo-y to split them up again so enjoy my creature feature with my beloved Natsuo and his stinky brother. chain divider thanks to @/cafekitsune ♡

The large, red letters across the paperwork make your eyes hurt by simply gazing at them. 

“RELEASED” stamped with what you can tell was a mostly dried out ink pad, the red darker at the beginning of the word than at the end. You wish you could close the growing pit in your stomach knowing Natsuo will soon arrive back to your home, rehabilitated brother in tow, but the uncertainty makes it hard to settle as you re-stack the documents given to you by the Hero Public Safety Commission when they formally announced they would permit Touya’s release so long as someone would be responsible for him.

When the conversation came up, Natsuo volunteered without a second thought. It hurt at first that he did not ask you before making the decision but after having spent nearly a decade at his side, you trusted his judgment. Six months after the initial inquiry, you still do. Touya is a practical stranger, someone you have only met through grainy video chats, but you have been briefed by many HPSC coordinators. They have conducted home visits, interviewed both of you as if you were the criminals, combed through every bank account and piece of mail to ensure that they are putting their inmate into good hands. A good word from Endeavor, something your husband reluctantly accepted, sealed the decision. Your eyes scan over the handwritten letter from Enji, tucked in the stack of documents. 

“No one is more qualified to care for his brother Touya than my son Natsuo. He is a licensed medical professional, specializing in psychology and mental health services and has experience in dealing with traumatized children. I ask that the Commission consider no other placement for Touya.”

A tired sigh escapes as you flip through a few more pages, squinting through descriptions of you and Natsuo. Your personalities, your hobbies, where you work, who you associate with - all vital information, the panel assured you. The final page of the documents has the official ruling, the top left corner of the page curled in from how many times the pair of you have read over it.

“Todoroki Touya, thirty two years of age, is to be released to the custody of his brother Todoroki Natsuo, twenty eight years of age. Todoroki will be required to wear a location monitoring device at all times per the agreed upon terms of release. He is not permitted to be in contact with any of his prior associates. If contact is initiated, he will be required to return to the custody of the HPSC immediately and will no longer be eligible for release.”

Your eyes scan the document again and again, searching for some kind of strange loophole that could prevent all of this from happening. Guilt crawls up your spine and makes you shudder at the thought. How could you not want this for your husband? He has spent years dreaming of having a second chance to love his brother differently, to help him heal. It makes you feel vile to even entertain negative thoughts about Touya. 

Touya. You know little about the man aside from his name, or names, rather. His time as Dabi concluded, he was sentenced to 8 years of rehabilitation instead of prison. A victim of child abuse needed recovery, the commission reasoned, and they were willing to give him the space to do so within reason. The entire Todoroki family agreed with and supported the commission and their decision, his siblings and parents being granted permission to visit him if they chose to do so. 

Natsuo went as frequently as possible, excitedly telling you how much his brother has improved after every visit, eagerness infectious. You listened to his every word, rapt, as he talked about how different Touya looked now that he was eating well, how far he had come, how he seemed emotionally stable for the first time in his life. Genuine excitement danced in his eyes at the thought of having his brother back, not a shell of a boy or a man. Not Dabi but Touya, someone who was cruelly taken from him when he was too young to fully understand why. 

The true agony was seeing the metaphorical stitches ripped open, cruelly and callously. The entire country was witness to the explosive truth - Touya Todoroki was alive. Even Fuyumi with her limitless poise gnawed her lower lip hoping it would ground her enough that she could stay strong for everyone else. “I can handle this,” she assured you as you wrapped your arms around her shoulders the day after the video aired. She knew the person who would need you the most was her brother. Looks were deceiving - Natsuo was big and strong, a grown man, but his feelings were delicate. She trusted no one but you to look after him.

Natsuo had only asked you to be his girlfriend weeks before his brother revealed his true identity publicly. You will never forget the way grief was etched into all of his features, his strong brow downturned for weeks; retraumatized. It took every ounce of strength in his body to muster a smile, much less anything else, but he did it. For Fuyumi and Shouto, for his mother. 

You can remember every moment of the years following Touya revealing himself. The nights when Natsuo woke up sobbing, burying his face into your chest and balling the fabric of your shirt up between his fists as if it would keep him from losing touch with reality completely. He stopped eating for days at a time, depression sinking him into depths he didn’t know existed. You were always there with a soothing touch and okayu, a rice porridge Fuyumi taught you to make for him. 

“When Touya died, it’s all he would eat,” she explained. Your heart crumbled at the thought of a 13 year old version of your beloved future sister in law having to keep her 9 year old brother moving through the pain of loss. How did they keep themselves together?, you wondered more than once as she breezed through the difficult times with a tight smile. 

The more you watched the man you love sink, the more conflicted you felt about Touya. Those feelings lingered even into today. Natsuo is healing, therapy and love and compassion all coming together to create a whole man instead of pieces of a hurt child in a big body, but you can’t help the simmering anger you feel when you think about watching him experience the hurt in real time. Some memories stay etched forever. 

Natsuo continued to live despite the difficult times. You helped him study and make his way through medical school - a feat that he often credited you wholly for. It wasn’t true but the praise always feels good. Three years after Touya was sentenced, Natsuo opened his clinic that offers a variety of therapeutic services for children with difficult quirks or those who have suffered because of them. A year after that the two of you were married. 

“I knew you were the one when you gave me a reason to keep trying,” he tearfully admitted as you exchanged vows during your small wedding ceremony. The details weren’t for everyone else to know, but the pair of you knew exactly what he was talking about and the admission still makes you feel weepy if you start to think about it for too long.

Love feels like too shallow of a word to explain how you feel about him which is why you agreed to this in the first place - your love for Natsuo is stronger than your distaste toward Touya. You remind yourself of the mantra as you hear voices outside of your front doorstep, one immediately recognizable as belonging to Natsuo. You stand and take a deep breath, composing yourself and closing the file folder on the table as the door opens and the two white haired men crowd into the small genkan, talking amongst each other. 

“We’re here!”

A practiced, measured smile is what you can manage as you watch the situation carefully. Touya scratches the back of his head and offers a small and impersonal wave and you’re surprised by how different he looks. Thin but healthy, his skin grafts have been properly secured, his lashes are the same white as the ones that frame your husband's kind, gray eyes. The similarities between the two are striking but so are the differences - Natsuo greets you with a smile and a peck on your forehead and Touya glowers from the doorway. 

“Welcome home, Touya,”

He looks around, eyes narrowed as he takes in the sights of your well lived in home. It reminded you eerily of the way the representatives from the commission sullied your safe place away slowly, searching every corner to make sure you would not enable any more bad behavior from the man standing in the doorway. Your home had only just begun to feel like yours again.

“Nice place. Guess that’s what being married to a doctor gets you.”

His crass comment made you feel stricken, flinching slightly as your practiced smile wavers. You aren’t Fuyumi, full of endless grace and forgiveness - you can’t fake it. You aren’t Natsuo who believes in the potential of people more than anyone you’ve ever met. You are you and right now you are angry. Clenching your fists in a way you hope is imperceptible, you fake a laugh and your husband looks at you with wide eyes, noticing your change in demeanor.

“Well, it’s your place too now. Guess that’s what being a doctor's brother gets you.”

Touya purses his lips and nods, arms folded across his chest. You look over his scars, his healed skin, his cold eyes. “Do you want to show him to his room, babe?” Natsuo asks, voice shaky, as if he’s anxious for your response. “I can find it myself,” Touya answers for you, heavy boots in his hands as he pads through your home toward where his room lies. You spent weeks helping Natsuo prepare it for him, filling it with photos and books to help him gain back the time he lost while he was away. The taste in your mouth is nothing short of bitter and sour as you think about it.

“I don’t know what that was about, I asked him no-,” you raise your hand, cutting your husband off mid sentence as your fake smile finally falls and gives way to a slight frown, corners of your mouth downturned. “Don’t worry about it.” 

Touya has always felt suspicious of you. Your intentions, your affections for his brother, your involvement with his family - it’s hard not to be uncertain about someone who fits so flawlessly in the dysfunctional outline created by being a Todoroki. What are you hiding? What do you want? 

He tosses his boots down on the floor of the room at the end of the hallway. Instinctually, he knows this is his space. Covered with childhood photos of the Todoroki family, a quilt he received as a child covering the bed, he wants to be impressed with the effort put in but instead he feels hollow. This life never fit him in the first place, happy smiles for photos and dinners and whatever the fuck was expected of him, and now he had no choice but to live it. 

It is a hell of a lot nicer than the four white walls that housed him for eight long years. The bed looks a lot more comfortable, he thinks as he settles down on the edge of it, lying back with his arms behind his head. Fixing his gaze on the ceiling, he takes a moment to think in the silence of the space. The entire car ride his brother talked about you and your life together. Touya eventually began to tune him out, watching the trees pass by the window with the occasional red light flashing on his monitoring anklet catching his attention.

Rehabilitated. The connotations of the word weighed heavily on Touya - one fuck up and it would be so easy for you to convice Natsuo to send him back. You could never understand him the way that his family does. You couldn’t forgive him the way they had either, something both of you would never communicate to each other. 

“Hey,” Natsuo’s voice rasps from the doorway and Touya sits up slightly, grunting his response. “You like it alright?”

“It’s fine.” 

Natsuo sighs, carefully entering the room and shutting the door behind him as he slumps down on the bed next to his brother, shoulders sagging beneath the weight of the huge change that has come over his otherwise peaceful life. “You don’t have to lie, Touya.”

Touya sits up, using his elbows to support his weight, and offers a half smile toward his brother. “I’m not lyin’, it’s fine. Just feels like too much.”

Natsuo nods, trying to tamp down his urge to play therapist instead of brother. It was something he did all too often growing up and probably why he has made fixing people his mission in life. Touya was no exception.

“It’s the least we can do. You’ve been through a lot.”

We, Touya thinks to himself. Always we. He wonders how much Natsuo has surrendered of himself for your sake. Does he have any hobbies besides being a doting husband? Is his world filled with anything besides this little bubble the two of you live in?

“Don’t act like she had anything to do with all of this, Natsu. I was released to you.”

Touya slips a hand in his jacket pocket and fishes around for his pack of cigarettes, popping one out of the packaging with expert precision and sticking it between his lips as his brother sits next to him silently. “Lemme guess, need to do this outside?” 

Natsuo nods and Touya sighs, sliding off of the bed and leaving a rumpled quilt behind him. Heavy footsteps trail down the hallway as he peers into the kitchen and notices the backdoor, quietly slipping through it only to be met with a glowing red cherry on the other side, smoke streaming from your mouth as you stand with a cigarette between your fingers.

“Didn’t take you for the type,” he starts, pulling his lighter from his pocket and clicking it until a bright flame catches the cigarette dangling from between his lips. Once upon a time he would’ve just used his quirk but the prescription blockers he was given by court order prevented that. “All he ever talks about is how perfect you are.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” you shoot back, flicking your cigarette ashes onto the ground below before taking another drag. 

The mutual distrust permeated the air between the two of you. Touya reminded you so much of your father in law it was like looking at another version of him. You reminded Touya of everything he hated about this world - false pretense and unattainable perfection. He doubts you have ever walked around without a hair out of place, a Todoroki would never.

“Any other deep dark secrets I should know before being trapped inside of this house with you 24 hours a day?”

You chuckle, dropping your cigarette on the ground and stomping it out, bending to pick up the butt once you’re done. 

“Your brother won't let me drink anymore,” you start, hoping the vulnerability warms your brother in law. His steely gaze convinces you otherwise and you begin to walk away, arms folded over your chest with a cigarette butt in your fist. “Just another fun part of the aftermath of your little warpath.”

Touya knows he fired the first shots but he’s taken aback at your accusatory tone. 

“Anything else you want to question me about? Figured the commission briefed you on all of my dirty laundry.”

He shakes his head and exhales smoke through the corner of his mouth, the plumes drifting in your direction. “Good chat, Touya.”

The back door slams as you enter your home through it, windows rattling slightly. Your first instinct is to pour a drink but the reminder of your rock bottom lingers on your mind as you instead toss your cigarette in the trash and turn down the hall and head to your bedroom, Natsuo sitting on the bed.

“Why does he hate me so much?”

You hate how hysterical your voice sounds, anxiety rising like bile. Rising to his feet, your husband gathers you against his chest and presses a kiss to the top of your head. 

“Give him time, he’ll warm up.”

You don’t share your husband’s boundless optimism as you hear the back door slam and hear footsteps heading to the bedroom opposite yours. Natsuo plants another soft kiss atop your hair and squeezes your hand gently as he walks back over to Touya’s room. 

“You alright?” Natsuo asks and Touya rolls his eyes, shrugging off his jacket and draping it across a hook on the back of the door. “Fine. Thanks for the concern.”

Natsuo slips through the door completely and closes it softly behind him, leaning against the solid wood.

“What happened out there?” 

Touya chuckles and shrugs, sitting on the bed in the same place he had left. “Nothing worth mentioning. I’ll make sure I keep my bottles hidden from her though.”

His eyes widened, Touya’s antagonistic tone nothing new, his shock coming from the fact you told him about your struggles with substance abuse in the first place. It wasn’t a secret but it certainly wasn’t a fun fact you gave out at trivia night. 

“Uh, yeah, thank you.” Natsuo fumbles through his words, unsure of the right thing to say. “That would be great. She has come a long way but there are still times that are difficult, especially when big changes occur.”

Your substance abuse issues began about a year after your marriage. Blissful happiness wasn’t enough to numb the intense pain of the years prior but copious amounts of whiskey while Natsuo was busy with work were good enough. Blind confidence convinced you he didn’t notice a thing, not your sunken eyes or decreased appetite, but he did and he confronted you as gently as he could.

The next day you started therapy of your own and have continued to go to meetings for others struggling with addiction since then. Nothing drastic has happened in your life since you quit drinking, calm falling over the Todoroki household, making it easier for you to maintain your wits.

He would never say it but Natsuo truly worried about your sobriety. Every time he left for a trip or wine was passed around at family dinner, he wondered if it would be the day you changed your mind. Sticking with you was easy, though. You did the same for him at his low point and he would never stop doing it for you.

“She smokes, you know that?”

Natsuo nods, Touya’s raspy voice breaking the silence caused by his brother’s overthinking. “Have to let her have one vice, you know?” 

“I think you forget that you weren’t the only person who had to live through that fucking horrifying life! It didn’t just go away when you did.”

Your voice cracks as you raise it at your brother in law, his turquoise eyes wide as he watches you yell with an intensity that leaves your hands shaking. He has never looked more like your husband than he does now, the same white hair sticking up on top of his head, his fingers carding through it and yanking the strands as he paces your living room floor. 

“There are times I don’t think you realize that your actions have always had consequences because you’ve truly faced so few of them,” you feel your face flame as Touya’s expression turns from surprised to angry. “You didn’t have to clean up the messes. I did.”

Seeing the similarities makes something inside of you crack, a piece of your heart perhaps, your chest heaving. Regret consumes your mind; you’ve gone too far. You struggle to catch your breath, rubbing your fingers over your cheeks to hide evidence of your tears. Silence blankets the room like a dense fog.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

Your voice sounds meek and thin even to your own ears, the screaming match you have been engaged in rendering your throat raw. Painfully, you swallow what little spit you can and shut your eyes tightly as you listen to Touya’s rhythmic footfalls. Taking a deep breath, you sink into an armchair and dab at your eyes with the back of your hands, opening them long enough to see Touya staring intently at you. You drop your hands and sigh. 

“I can’t imagine what you have been through,” you hiccup, warm tears sliding down your cheek and dripping onto your wrists where they sit in your lap. “But you weren’t the only one going through it and I hope your brother can forgive me for saying all of this to you.”

The white haired man remains silent as you rise from your chair, hands balled into fists at your sides. Your gaze turns directly to him and you sniffle, tears subsiding. 

“He has always loved you despite everything you’ve done, exactly as you are. Please remember that.”

The words feel cathartic to say aloud, astute eyes narrowing to watch you as you turn on your heel and begin to walk away. Your tense posture tells him exactly how you feel about the entire situation and you reason that giving Touya space seems like the best option to end the strange battle of wills the two of you have found yourselves in. 

The gravelly sound of Touya’s voice from over your shoulder stops you in your tracks. 

“Then I owe it to him to try.”

There is no apology to be found in the words but you swear you can feel it as he says them, looking over your shoulder. For the first time you don’t see Dabi or Touya, you see someone completely new - your brother in law. A blank canvas, someone you could perhaps get to know under better circumstances. 

“We both owe it to him,” you respond as you turn around and make your way back to the chair you were sitting in moments ago, sitting stiffly against the back of the chair, shoulders still held tensely by your ears. “But how do we begin?”

Touya sighs and sits opposite you, rubbing his hands over his face as he rests his elbows on his knees.

“Hi, I’m Touya.” You laugh for the first time in a week and he can’t hide the half smile that comes across his face. “I did some fucked up things and spent eight years paying for them but I fucking love my family.” He stomps his foot, emphasizing his point. “That includes you now so we better get our shit together, yeah?”

Another tear falls as you nod, a watery smile settling over your features.

“Yeah, we should.”

A year later, when you think of your brother in law Touya, a memory from your childhood comes to your mind.

You are six, maybe seven and at the zoo. Your parents hold both of your hands dutifully to make sure you don’t run off, squeezing your tiny palms between theirs as you excitedly gasp and croon at birds, snakes, and butterflies. A flamingo makes you shout, a duck makes you quack.

Steps slow down as the three of you approach a large glass enclosure. “Black panther - panthera pardus” says the sign extending from the ground in front of the glass. You don’t know that, of course, until your dad reads it aloud to you, asking you to repeat the name.

“Panthera,” you repeat, a tiny voice bouncing back at you off of the glass.

As if you summoned the cat itself, it appears and you flinch. Black, lithe, wild eyed with muscles wound so tightly you can see the shape and size of each of them. You wonder if the panther knows how to relax, the same way your mom tells you to when you cry too hard. Maybe he needs to take a deep breath. 

“Why does he look so nervous?” 

In your young mind, the question surfaced before you had time to think about it. Of course he’s nervous, you reason, all of these people are staring at him like the attraction that he is. A dazzling thing to see locked between four glass walls. 

“He isn’t nervous honey, he’s probably just thinking about what he would do if he were outside with us.”

Pondering your mom's polite whisper, you nod and accept the answer. Grown ups always know best anyway. 

As a keeper enters the enclosure and carefully stalks toward the cat, your eyes widen in surprise. How can he let someone so close? You wonder if you could ever get that close to him. To see the sunlight in his fur just enough to reveal the spots under the dark of his coat or to watch his ears twitch as he listens for sounds of danger. Would he ever trust you? Could you trust him?

The crowd around the glass increases in size, delighted whoops as the keeper dangles the cleaned carcass of a large bird above the panther. You drink in the way he crouches and springs, tight muscles unwinding for a moment as large paws capture the food between them. 

A sight you’ll never forget.

A sight you see as Touya stalks through the living room of your home, tightly running his fingers through his hair. Muscles taut, standing and walking but trying to simultaneously fold in on himself.

“What the fuck would they even want to talk about?”

You sigh, shrugging at his words. The “they'' in question is the Commission and one year after his monitored release, he has been asked to return before the panel and answer some questions. Natsuo sits next to you on the floor in front of the chabudai, sorting through the papers sent to him to review ahead of Touya’s scheduled meeting. The three of you only found out about the date today.

“I dunno, Touya,” your husband shoots a bit impatiently toward his brother. “Let me read this and then I’ll tell you.”

Silently, you watch as he scans the documents, flipping them between his fingers. You hear the heavy pounding of Touya’s footsteps across the floor, reverberating through the otherwise silent room. Your house is too quiet. There is no crowd to filter out the silence.

“Potential restoration of privileges,” you hear Natsuo mutter from beside you. He continues to read to himself and you wonder what that truly entails. Would Touya be released from his supervised period completely? Would he be allowed to wander more than 50 feet away from his guardians? 

“God Natsu, read faster.”

Natsuo’s eyes shoot a frosty glance toward Touya from over the top of the papers in his hands. Placing them on the table, your husband sighs.

“They want to see your progress and maybe give you a little more freedom.”

Touya freezes in place for a mere second before turning on his heel and rushing to the edge of the table to snatch the documents and look over them, brows furrowed in concern that this is some evil trick the two of you have decided to pull on him. Revenge for the last twelve months of him and his fits, his angry words, his snarling. 

You’ve realized during the months he’s more meow than he is hiss.

“But,” Natsuo starts, clearing his throat, Touya tossing the papers back on the table and interrupting his brother with a clear as day “fuck!”, beginning to pace once again. “We have to give testimony.”

The royal we is something Touya has hated since the day he moved into your home. It always makes him feel as if it’s two against one, no separation between yourself and Natsuo and how you feel about the situation. He assumes if you’re mad at him, his brother is too. If you’re frustrated with Touya drinking the last of your nice matcha, Natsuo must be too. If you’re angry at Touya for dying his hair black in your bathtub and staining the shiny white tiles, Natsuo must be too.

He’s wrong about that, of course, his brother never holding any of his minor blunders against him. You don’t either but it would be tougher to convince Touya to believe that than it would be to build a house by hand, despite the tentative peace that exists between the two of you. You’ve allowed him into your home, your world, your once peaceful little family and have found that you are better for it. Natsuo is better for it. But there will always be a level of distrust. 

Like that panther you think of so often, Touya must wonder what it would be like to be free and trusted. 

“Touya, I don’t know how to say this,” Natsuo says, trying to keep his tone even and calm despite how anxious you know he must be feeling. You feel your stomach drop as well, balling the fabric of your linen pants between your palms to keep your hands from shaking. You looked at the date on the documents and noticed that it was a day you knew he’d be unavailable, working on a particularly tough case with multiple children from one family. “I can’t do it.”

Touya chuckles, a bitter and hollow sound that makes you flinch. “Of course not.”

“She can, though.”

Unexpectedly, Touya’s bitter chuckle turns into a belly laugh. You wonder if he’ll double over from the strength of it, scarred hands clutching his middle. Natsuo stands, approaching his brother carefully.

“Her?” He points at you and you feel like the one being questioned. Despite the grasp on the thighs of your pants, your hands do shake and your fingers slip. “She probably wishes I would have died every single day despite the little “play nice” bullshit she does for your sake.”

Gasping at the accusation, you hope he can’t see the way your eyes glance downward. You had assumed the two of you were past this, arguments coming to a halt around six months ago when you told him you simply didn’t have the energy for them anymore. 

You then began taking him to pick up cigarettes every other day, riding in your car together silently but comfortably. His fingers always drum against his thighs impatiently and you clear your throat, mouth dry until you arrive. You have to be close to him the entire time but you linger on the edges of the small shop in your neighborhood, giving the elderly shopkeeper time to fuss over Touya the way he needs. 

The two of you then silently ride back to your home.

“How could you say that, Touya?”

Much like the smaller version of you felt compelled to speak outside of the gleaming panther exhibit, you do the same now. Your voice sounds weak, thin, defeated. Natsuo rushes to your side, kneeling back down and placing one of his large arms around your shoulder.

“Oh here we go, gotta rush to defen -” 

Touya’s words are cut off by a sharp glance from his brother, a look he has never seen before. Smothering all of the fire inside of him, hurting the one person who has endlessly forgiven him, he is doused by humility.

“I don’t hate you,” you look up and see Touya’s turquoise eyes that are narrowed and hard staring directly at you. “I don’t wish you were dead,” you continue as you shrug your husband’s arm off of you and begin to stand. “In fact, I was stupid and thought we were finally fucking past all of this!”

Punctuating your shout with a frustrated grunt, you stomp off down the hallway and leave the brothers to figure it out amongst themselves. Natsuo would simply have to find a way to make the date work for him because you couldn’t bring yourself to beg the Commission to be merciful toward someone who detests you so much. You aren’t a big enough person for that, lacking the careful compassion of your husband.

“Are you fucking serious, Touya?”

Natsuo cursing at his brother makes his steely gaze falter, eyes glancing downward toward the floor. Touya remembers a time you went too far, not long after he first moved into your home, and he feels guilty knowing he has done the same.

“Whatever,” Touya responds dismissively as he stomps off. 

Natsuo hears the back door slam and rubs his hand over his face, eyes fluttering closed for a moment. He’s transported back to 12 long months ago when he didn’t even want to be in the same room as the two of you, the tension making him incapable of dealing with his own uncertainty about the ability to rehabilitate his brother. 

As Touya steps outside into the cool air, far less suffocating than the inside of the house, he fishes around in his pockets for his lighter and mutters obscenities as he realizes it is inside. Of course, he still can’t use his quirk thanks to the very strong suppressants he has to take daily as part of his release, so he flings the door back open and stomps inside. 

Hearing hushed muttering from the living room, he closes the door quietly and creeps to the doorway of the kitchen. He shoves himself against the wall, trying to hide from view as he hears your voice.

“I don’t understand why he won’t give me a chance, Natsu.”

His brother sighs and Touya sinks further against the wall. He knows the sound - fed up, frustrated, struggling. Natsuo is the last person he ever wanted to create those feelings in and shame, a bit of an unfamiliar feeling for him, creeps up his spine and makes his stomach turn. 

“You didn’t exactly make the best first impression, of course he doesn’t completely trust you.”

Natsuo’s words make you blow out air in frustration. Touya can’t see you, but he imagines you look as downtrodden as you always have after these little battles. His brother’s defense of his behavior is surprising, though, and he idly rubs his thumb across one of the graft scars on his hands.

“I know,” you relent with a sniff. “I know.”

Your words shift Touya’s perspective, precious humility trickling over him and making his left eye twitch - a stress reflex he tried to hide for years. 

You were the first person who noticed it and on your usual trip to the small store to pick up his cigarettes after, you passed him a box of anti-inflammatory medication and a bottle of eyedrops wordlessly as you buckled into your seat. He hasn’t twitched since.

Acknowledging the hurt you’ve caused is the first step of atonement, he remembers reading in a book Natsuo brought him while he was still locked up.

He peeks from around the wall, stretching his arms over his head and locking his fingers on the back of his skull, buried in poorly dyed black hair. Natsuo looks up through his light eyelashes at his brother who approaches carefully, settling on the opposite side of the table from where the pair of you sit.

“You can do it.”

The words are simple and cause both you and Natsuo to look up. Touya refuses to meet your puffy eyes and rises back to standing as quickly as he sat, slapping the tabletop once before skulking down the hallway to grab his lighter.

You and Natsuo resolve not to ask questions, with only two weeks until the panel meets time is of the essence and your testimony will be key to helping Touya if you choose to help him. 

Sitting in front of the panel is more nerve-wracking than you expected. A group of five familiar faces all staring at you with discerning eyes as you shuffle the hand-written pages of your testimony between your fingers.

These people have rummaged through your home on more than one occasion, interviewed all of your close friends and family, sifted through every piece of your dirty laundry and you’re at their mercy once again but this time you’re more willing.

“You may begin as you wish, Todoroki-san.”

Nodding respectfully toward the head of the panel, you clear your throat and exhale as you look down at the papers in your hands. You can feel Touya looking at you from across the room, Fuyumi and Shouto seated beside him and Rei on the other side of his sister, but refuse to look up at them for fear it’ll make the little courage you’ve summoned disappear.

“When Touya first moved into our home, I was uncertain of his ability to be rehabilitated.”

You spent the last two weeks reading this exact same speech to Natsuo, rehearsing it in your bedroom while pacing across the floor. The ink on the page is smeared in places from wet tears that dripped down onto the paper, black bleeding into blue and drying into rippled and raised spots. Those spots remind you of Touya, the way he has woven his way into part of your everyday existence. 

“The process of allowing him into our lives felt very invasive. Respectfully, our lives were torn apart in preparation for him. Our home was combed through, our mail was intercepted, my husband was followed by a member of this committee on his way home from the clinic he tirelessly uses as a means to help others on more than one occasion.”

You keep your tone even to avoid sounding accusatory. These are all facts the Commission themselves have confirmed via their own documentation but standing in the face of the very force that can decide your future as well as Touya’s is more intimidating than you expected.

“The day Touya moved in, our lives shifted in a way that no amount of preparation could have made us anticipate. Difficult interpersonal dynamics forced us to take a good hard look at the future of our family and the future of what we desired for Touya. How did we want his rehabilitation to look?”

Taking a breath, you look up from the sheet of paper for a moment to meet Touya’s gaze and it strikes you as odd to see something almost tender. You sniff, nose twitching, vowing to hold yourself together until you’re alone or with Fuyumi or anywhere but sitting in front of people who have made their living off of judging, doling out punishment, changing lives for better or worse.

“While we’ve had many difficult times, I am not here to talk about the difficulty I caused Touya with my inability to coexist for the first several months. Rehabilitation takes a team and I was not a team player,” you pause and hear shuffling from the seats across the room. “Despite this, Touya has dedicated himself to improvement and has continually adhered to every request the commission put forth in the original terms of his release.”

While you don’t want to continue to air out your dirty laundry, there is a therapeutic feeling in knowing you’re publicly admitting to handling things wrong. In front of Natsuo’s family, nonetheless. Touya’s family. Your family. 

At the end of this lies the fact that you are all a family and forgiveness is inherently woven through the relationships and bonds you share.

“It is the recommendation of both my husband and I that Touya’s privileges of release be expanded upon, including reduction of supervision and permission to travel to the homes of his mother and siblings independently if he chooses.”

Rising to your feet, you bow before the panel once more before walking toward the back of the room and quietly exiting as they take time to deliberate and make their decision. 

Touya rises and comes to the front of the room, standing before them. He hates the way he feels, like a caged animal with his muscles tensed, in a suit that doesn’t even belong to him because why the fuck would he ever own a suit? The sleeves are too long, it is Shouto’s after all, and he pulls the cuffs over his hands with his thumbs.

The panel head speaks and the room is so quiet you’re even unnerved from the other side of the door. Pressing your ear to the wood, you listen.

“Our decision will not be immediate. You can expect further communication from the panel in the coming weeks. As of right now, your terms of release remain the same until you are otherwise notified. Thank you for your time today, Todoroki-san.”

Touya bows and joins his family, missing the member he wishes to see the most.

You back away from the door as you hear the knob turn and rest against the wall, arms over your chest as you greet your in-law’s with a subdued smile. 

“Natsu will be so proud of you!” Fuyumi beams, rubbing your bicep in a comforting gesture. You just shrug, unable to speak. You exchange a few additional pleasantries with Shouto and Rei, wishing them goodbye as they leave you and Touya standing on opposite sides of the hallway.

“It’s okay, you know.”

Touya’s voice is a rasp, as always, and you look up through your eyelashes at him. Fiddling uncomfortably with the cuff of your shirt in the same way he’s been fiddling with his own cuffs all day, it just further emphasizes the similarities you share. It isn’t just love for Natsuo you have in common anymore.

“None of this shit has been easy and you’ve done your best. I’m not exactly a fuckin’ easy person to get along with.”

You chuckle, tension diffusing.

“I think you’re going soft, Touya.”

He chuckles back and your eyes meet, the two of you walking toward the center of the hallway to leave the building together and walk back to your car. Your footsteps are quiet and so are his, both of you slumping as you saunter out of the door and into the bright midday sun.

“Nah, just tired of being an asshole all the time.”

The news comes as you stand at your kitchen sink, Touya bent over as you help him rinse black hair dye down the drain. Your hands are wet, his shirt is soaked, but you agreed to help him after noticing a huge white patch still at the back of his head from his attempts to do it himself. 

“I dunno why you want it to be black so bad, don’t you want to look like Natsu?”

Touya snorts and the sound echoes through the steel basin. “I have to keep a little edge. Let me live.” You shut off the clean running water, allowing the dark droplets to work their way out of your sink. There was more rinsing to do but you wanted to be sure of how much more.

“It’s here!” Natsuo shouts from the doorway and you hear his hurried, large footsteps trek into the room, ripping of paper ringing in your ears.

You want to leave Touya’s side and go to Natsuo, to read over his arm, to see for yourself but you resolve to be patient and continue to lightly massage Touya’s scalp. He needs comfort right now, you can tell.

“Expansion of privileges,” Natsuo mutters to himself, scanning the page as quickly as he can. “Unsupervised access to other family homes! Holy shit!” 

Tossing the papers onto the counter, your husband bolts toward you and wraps his arms around your waist. “No, no, no,” you chant as he picks you up and you accidentally pull Touya’s wet strands of hair. He yelps and you let go, hissing apologetically.

“God Natsuo, down boy.”

Your snarky brother-in-law draws a giggle from you as your husband presses a kiss against your cheek and reaches down to slap him on the back. “Do you wanna tell mom or should I?” Touya looks up, head still dripping, and rolls his eyes at his brother. “I could just show up at her house, that’d have more impact.”

Wiggling away from Natsuo, you reach for the towel on the counter and wrap it around Touya’s neck so he can sit up and not drip black water all over your floor. He gives silent thanks in the form of a tight half smile and you smile back, stepping away to let the brothers converse about how they’re going to break the news to their siblings.

As you watch the two of them, the panther and his handler once again come back to your mind. 

The reason that the handler was able to come so close to the cat is because he trusted him. The cat could learn to trust others, to let people in, to let them be on his side. You won’t have to wonder if you could have gained the panther’s trust any longer and he won’t have to wonder what it’s like to be on the outside with the rest of us. 

[wildemaven]

fall apart, again : chapter four | joel miller

pairing: joel miller x ofc!genevieve word count: 3156 content warning: 18+ blog; heavy angst, child loss, talk of death, talking about Sarah, heavy emotions, grief, fluff, vague talk about being with other people while married (but neither know the other was alive/nocheating), reader has a name but has zero descriptive features, reader is wearing some of Joel's clothes, no age given but is within a couple of years of Joel, if l've missed anything please let me know notes: oh look what I managed to whip up! Joel was on the brain and I was thinking of these two so I just let things flow- needed a break from Dave I guess. Big thank you to @gnpwdrnwhiskey for her continued support and help as I worked through this— love you!! This writer supports Palestine and does not share or support the views of tlou creator. series masterlist | previous | next

Contentment blooms somewhere deep within you. It fills in every fractured part of you that’s been lost and forgotten for so long. It brings a sense of peace, a feeling that you’ve searched for through bleak and uncertain times.

There’s a twinge of guilt that starts to prick at you, shame at how quickly familiarity has settled in. Less than 24 hours ago, your life had shattered on that hillside. Leaving you broken and left to figure out how to move forward with little hope of ever finding placidity of any sort. Only to seemingly be put back together after stepping foot into this new place, reacquainted with your old life. For it to be ripped apart again. 

You decide to focus on the stillness that bleeds through the morning air. Focus on how sleep came with ease as you settled into bed, far easier than it should have— has been for years. Focus on the way the sunlight catches the tiny dust particles that have been floating in front of the bedroom window for the last hour, each one on its own lofty path. Focus on the warmth that radiates from Joel as he still sleeps soundly next to you. His body instinctively found yours in the night— after all this time, he still fit perfectly against you. 

Joel. Your Joel. Alive and here with you. 

Your mind tries to replay every detail that has led you to this conclusion, replaying that reunion over and over. A happenstance of pure luck that you’re here, laying in the arms of your husband. 

A second chance? But why? Even as you will yourself to revel in the beauty of reconnecting with Joel, your heart still fights to grieve— Steve… Sarah. 

“Whatcha dream about?” A question you haven’t heard in two decades, Joel’s voice low and laced with sleep as his lips brush over that little spot behind your ear. 

It transports you back to a time where mornings together were sacred and unhurried. The sun barely pours through the opening in the curtains, still enough darkness to remain entangled and unbothered by the day's menacing agenda. Joel’s warm body spooning you from behind, his leg anchored between yours, a heavy arm securing you to him. 

Whatcha dream about? Was his good morning-love you-how did you sleep? He’d listen intently as you spoke about the wild imagery that filled your mind through the night. Whether it was a silly little blip of a dream or some drawn out story that had you dissecting its meaning far longer than your mornings allowed, Joel was fully invested. Humming along as he absorbed the details, only interrupting in the form of feather light kisses he strategically placed on the little spot behind your ear, the crook of your neck and slope of your shoulder. 

In turn, you always asked him the same. What dreams graced Joel Miller's brilliant mind? And he always responded the same, I don’t need to dream when I have you. 

“About that one summer, I think Sarah was 8, maybe 9. We decided to have that barbecue, and invited all the neighbors over.” Joel’s nose gently slides over your ear, his forehead resting against the side of your head. “Sarah was in heaven with that slip n slide she begged us to get once the heat finally hit. We had to beg all the kids to take a break so we could fill them up with hotdogs and chips— then they were right back at it again. I remember a few of them cried when their parents told them it was time to leave, but Sarah being so sweet told them they could come back again the following weekend.” 

Joel’s arm tightens around you as you talk, soaking in the memory he so vividly remembers. Sitting together on the blanket you had laid out on the lawn, tucked into his side as you both sipped on ice tea while you watched Sarah and the remaining few neighborhood kids, hyped up on soda and popsicles, splashing down the plastic water slide until the sun finally dipped below the back fencing. 

“That was the same weekend Tommy thought he was invincible. Made it a whole two slides before he was hollerin’ like a baby and I was drivin’ his dumbass to the urgent care.” You can feel Joel grinning as he recalls his own recollection of that day, little puffs of air hitting your neck followed by a singular kiss— his lips hesitate briefly, lingering just enough to not make you uneasy, but enough to convey the love he still holds for you. 

“Yeah— I can’t remember if it was the blonde or the redhead he was trying to impress that time. He got her number either way,” you add on. Joel’s light hearted laugh doesn’t go unnoticed, you smile at the sound as a single tear plunges into existence, rolling down your cheek and falling to the cotton pillowcase below. 

Tommy. 

“Tommy—“ You gasp, your stomach drops at the notion of Joel losing his brother. Turning in his arms so you're facing him, Joel’s eyes fluttering open at the sensation of you lightly brushing over his patches of grey whiskers . “Tommy. I— he’s…”

“He’s alive.” Joel’s expression is soft as he says it, his heavy lids lifting to take all of you in, grateful that this wasn’t some ruthless dream his mind was torturing him with. 

“What— Tommy’s alive? Where is he?”

“Here. He’s kind of in charge— always wanted make a name for himself somehow. Him and Maria actually put this whole place together.” His heart nearly gives out seeing your face light up. 

Joel takes advantage of the proximity, really taking in every detail of you in this morning light. He’s not surprised how even as the world shifted into darkness, you still managed to emerge into this season of life so gracefully. Noting how so much of you has changed, in gradual ways he wishes he could have witnessed first hand, but you’re still you— even more beautiful than he remembered. 

“Maria— She’s Tommy’s wife?” You ask, softly laughing as your mind begins to connect the dots to when she had mentioned you would be staying in her brother in law's house and elated Tommy had found himself such a strong woman to settle down with. 

“Yeah. Maria invited us over for dinner— whenever you feel up to it.

“Mmhmm. Yeah, I’d like that.”

You watch your fingers trace over Joel’s golden skin, still soft but slightly matured with age. Their curiosity produces tiny goosebumps as you reacquaint yourself with each tiny freckle and ridges of his chest. 

Joel’s own fingers dance over the hem of the shirt you're wearing. There’s hesitation at first, bloodshed and sacrifice embedded into every creased line, every rigid callus he’s collected. The weight of them is too rough and repulsive to share with you. But you don’t notice the way they’re marked with flaws gained through surviving and enduring. His progress becomes less reluctant as he soothes over the sliver of exposed skin on your hip, resisting his own temptation actively burning through him. 

“Did you and Tommy come here together?” 

“We went to find you, but the hospital was empty by the time we got there— just assumed, you not bein’ there meant that you were…” Dead. “We left Texas, eventually made our way up north to the Boston QZ— taken in by Tess and her crew— had us smuggling. Tommy being Tommy, was fed up with it, you know how he gets. So he left, joined the Fireflies before finding Maria and settling here.”

It’s condensed. Leaving out how the obscure nature of this world had hardened him into a depleted shell of a man. He knows it will eat away at him, keeping it from you. Though for the time being, it’s a burden he’s willing to carry. 

“We kept in touch for some years after through the radio but then he stopped contactin’ me. Tess n’ I decide to go find him— how we got the girl.” 

“Ellie?” You pull your head back and settle onto your pillow, watching as Joel’s face morphs through a multitude of emotions as he speaks. 

“Yeah, Ellie. After Tess— she was bit— I had to save who I could and keep movin’. We finally made it here, Ellie and I. She’s a spitfire that girl. I was such an asshole to her too, but she never gave up on me— think she saved me more than she realizes.” 

“Ellie mentioned her yesterday, Tess. You two were— partners?” 

“We— she and I were— we—“ Joel finds it hard at this moment to put an exact label on what they were, especially when explaining it to you, his wife.

It’s evident Joel harbors the same guilt as you. The two of you navigating a new life apart, your hearts seeking refuge in this destroyed world. You can see it, the shame slowly stitching its way into Joel’s features. How it pains him to verbalize it to you. To admit to something that in a different setting, your old life with him, would rip you apart.  

“Joel, it’s fine— whatever you both meant to each other. We were apart, not knowing the other was alive. You don’t have to explain anything to me.” You pause briefly. You let your own words sink in. Steve still heavily in your peripheral thoughts. 

This is your chance to start over, to be happy— do that for me?

Steve’s last moments with you, a premonition of sorts. This is your starting over. Here. Back together with Joel. A man you’ve held in your heart during the darkest of times for so long. 

“There was— I wasn’t alone either.” Joel's quiet but lends you his full attention, giving you the impression you don’t need to explain or justify anything either. “He was bit right before we got here.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

There’s a lull in the conversation. The room is quiet as you both bask in each other’s touch. The inevitable of what’s been left unsaid hanging over you both like an ominous cloud of dread. Joel is already preparing himself for what you’re expecting to hear. Your heart prepares itself for the inevitable of what you want to know. 

You swallow the lump that’s settled in your throat. “Was she here— did Sarah come here with you?” Your fingers stilling over a familiar scar on his shoulder that you’ve traced over a hundred times in the past. 

“Eve— we don’t have to talk about this today.” Not really sure if it’s for your benefit or his— perhaps both. 

“Joel— please.” Your voice cracks ever so slightly, lifting your gaze to his, tears already burning your lash line. 

He falters. Considering the caliber at which you have lost already, his heart begins to construct walls. Solid and impervious to the reality that’s haunted him for so long. Locking it away as he always does, suppressing the pain over and over. But as you look at him with your eyes glossed over, ignoring the subject isn’t an option anymore. Not with you. Not with the woman who gave him his purpose, his life— his babygirl. 

“No. She didn’t.” He releases a heavy sigh. “She— it was the first night of the outbreak—“ His voice trails off when he sees you’ve figured out the rest, nodding as your own tears silently overflow. 

Joel’s breath hitches. Reliving the incident through your eyes has what is left of his heart shattering against his chest.

Fail her. Again and again. 

You feel it in your bones. A hurt so deep it feels unbearable. Beyond any capacity you think you can handle. It splinters and forks out, penetrating every layer of your being. 

Joel wraps his arm around you, seeking a closeness he’s longed for in your arms. 

You cling to him desperately. Trembling as your hearts fuse together, reinforcing a love that’s managed to withstand lost time. Picking up where you both left off— 21 years ago. 

*

It’s some hours later. Tears dried and breathing settled. The heat radiating from the window warms the bedroom a few degrees above the morning chill. 

Shuffling coming from downstairs wakes Joel. Pots and pans clanging about, alerts Joel that Ellie’s grudge against him was short lived, for now at least, especially since it seems as though hunger has struck. He knows he’ll have to face her sooner than later, snuff out any remaining teenage rage still actively smoldering.

A glimmer of light refracts off the window pane, collecting in the tiny diamond nestled in the center of the ring on your left hand that’s resting on his chest. 

It draws him in. Like a moth to a lit flame, mesmerized by the sight, needing to consume its beauty wholly. His fingers fidget with the dainty gold band, again struck by how you still felt compelled to hold true to the vows you both shared, evident in the way you're still wearing it. 

Joel’s contemplation of the ring pulls you from the edge of sleep. The stammering of his heart, wavering somewhere between a nervousness or exultant leveled rhythm, is the first sound you audibly recognize as your eyes take in the rest of the room. 

“You’re still wearing it.” Joel's voice rumbles through his rib cage against the walls of his chest. 

“Hmm?” Your sleep addled mind absorbing and deciphering to its best ability. 

He lifts your hand, thumb running over your most treasured possession. Your fingers splay out above where you both still lay in Joel’s bed, cotton sheets kicked away, neither of you willing to let go of the other. 

“Yeah— kept me going when I didn’t have any reason to.” 

The watch still wrapped around his wrist doesn’t go unnoticed. Its face no longer resembles the pristine condition it once had. The arms frozen in place. A time forever displayed as such. The cause of its destruction is not of importance right now— another time. 

“Wait— I have something.” It’s all you say before you extract yourself from Joel’s arms. “My bag.”

Joel sits up alongside you, pointing to the corner of the room. Your tattered leather bag slumped on the floor next to the wooden dresser. 

Your tired legs carry you to your belongings on the other side of the room. The floorboards cool beneath your feet during the short distance it takes to grab the bag and haul it back to the bed where Joel rests propped against the headboard. The mattress dips as you climb back in, reclaiming the space next to him. 

Joel watches as you sift through the opening, in search of something hidden within the bag’s contents, in a spot only known to you. 

A small smile breaks across your face the second your fingers clasp around the small item. 

“I made it back to the house after some time— had to see if I could find you. It was sitting in its usual spot in our bedroom. It’s been with me ever since.”

Your fingers slowly unfurl, revealing a simple gold band resting in your palm. “I believe this belongs to you.” 

Everything stills as you watch Joel take in the sight of his wedding. Find it hard to discern what he’s feeling at this moment. His relaxed features now clouded by sadness and confusion, causing you to second guess your intentions for wanting him to have it back at this time. 

“It’s okay if you don’t want it right now— or ever. I know this is all still a lot to take in for both of us. So I understand if you don’t. I just—“ 

“No— No, Eve. I do. I definitely do want it.”

It fits back where it was intended to be with ease. The metal intense the second it makes contact with your skin, Joel’s large hands cradling your face as he delivers a gentle kiss of gratitude to you. 

“Thank you. For keeping it safe for me.” He says softly against your smile. “Forever mine.”

“Forever yours.”

*

Joel’s moving about, pulling clothes from over stuffed drawers, dressing himself for the day. You're occupied on the edge of the bed, unpacking the remaining items from your bag in preparation to find permanence in this space Joel calls home. He’d mentioned the idea of you living here with him, giving you the option of taking his room for yourself while he camped out in the living room, which you turned down immediately. You had just gotten him back, and you wanted it to stay that way. So you agreed to stay permanently in his room, under the condition that he would be in it too. 

The bed shifts when Joel sits next to you, groaning as he leans down to pull on and lace up his scuffed work boots. 

“What all you got in there?” Joel’s focus oscillates between you and his hands working at his worn laces, watching you empty 21 years worth of life that’s been crammed into the small space. 

“Pad of paper, a few books, some maps, some first aid equipment, a change of clothes that desperately needs to be cleaned.” He listens to you intently, the bag deflating as you pull each item, inspecting it then strategically organizing them on the bed for the time being, glancing over when you hear Joel chuckling as you rattle off one thing after the next. “Some other random things I’ve collected over the years.”

Everything accounted for, you toss your bag to the side. It hits the floor with a muffled thud in front of Joel’s boots. You miss the small folded paper that slips onto the patterned rug that lays beneath the bed. 

“This somethin’ of importance?” Joel asks, hold the paper between two fingers. 

“Not sure. Might just be some trash.” Taking it from him, promptly unfolding it for further consideration. 

It’s a letter. Not one of your own, although it’s directly addressed to you. Your eyes flit over every word. Then once more. And then again. Picking up on key words each read through. 

Eve… Genevieve… Jackson… Radio… Joel… Bit… I’ll be waiting for your letter… I love you… 

“What is it?” Joel’s hand settles on your thigh, your silence slowly becoming worrisome as you stare at the paper, its edges crinkled in your grip. 

“Joel— what’s your job here?” Your voice cracks in the air. 

“Patrol mainly. Took over the radio sometime ago. Help out here and there— wherever I can. Why?” His thumb strokes over your leg, a subtle mixture of coaxing and grounding, equally preparing himself for whatever it is that you’ve just happened upon. 

Each droplet hits the paper with a sharp plunk. 

Plunk. Plunk. Plunk. 

The words blurring, squeezing your eyes shut tightly, releasing the tears all at once. 

Plunk. Plunk. Plunk. 

“Eve— what is it?”

“You helped guide Steve and I here—“

[lymtw]

It Could Have Been Great

Pairing: Gojo Satoru x f!reader

Content: NSFW, Angst, Fluff

Content Warnings: 18+ themes, Reader almost crashes to save a dog, crying, talk about Satoru being husband material, mentions of having children, kissing, fingering, clitoral stimulation, major downfall, 18+ themes x2 for those that missed the first one ;)

Word Count: 2.1k

Description: The beautiful ups and the terrible downs that came with being Gojo’s favorite person.

You and Gojo were set to live happily ever after the moment you agreed to be his girlfriend. He was as good as a boyfriend could be—husband material by the end of your first month together. He took care of you, but didn’t underestimate your ability to take care of yourself, and vice-versa.

It was a lucky first shot because he was your first boyfriend. You met in high school, and though you weren’t his first girlfriend, he always said that his love life didn’t start until you showed up. You put a bar up where one didn’t exist, and he never looked back and compared what he had before, to what he had then.

Gojo had never been more ready to marry you than when you came home crying one day.

You were driving home, singing along to the song that blasted in your car when suddenly a dog ran into the road. You braked instantly, turning the car in the opposite direction of where the dog was running, almost hitting another car in the process. You got honked at, but it didn’t matter because the dog got away scot-free. You lost the ability to breathe for a few seconds and your brain felt like mush, and in all the fear you felt in that moment, you broke down. You were glad that you were only three minutes away from home when it happened.

The minute you walked in with puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks, Gojo was by your side.

“Hey, talk to me. Are you hurt?” He walked you to the couch, sitting down with you. He noticed the shakiness of your hands as he held them in his. “Baby, don’t make me dig. What happened?”

You took a shaky deep breath, exhaling to get your emotions in order.

“I almost ran over a dog on my way home.”

Gojo’s hand comes to a halt while he’s drying your tears. He looks at you, not knowing if you were being serious or not.

“It ran into the road while I was driving and I had to brake so fast, if I had kept driving a second later I would have hit it. I-I almost hit a car, and it honked at me. Fuck,” you lose your breath as you recount the story, your eyes getting watery again.

Gojo releases the breath he was holding since you walked through the door, his shoulders losing the tension that had built up in all the worry.

“God.” He immediately pulls you into his arms, a much needed, suffocating embrace enveloping you. He smothers your face with kisses, the saltiness of fresh tears on his palate. “You scared me to death there, honey. I thought somebody hurt you.”

“I can’t have a dog’s life on my conscience, ‘toru. I would need decades of therapy to even begin to forget about it.”

He cradles you in his arms, his eyes closed, and a smile on his face as he holds you like you’re all that matters in the world.

“I love you. I love that you worry so much over the life of an animal—one that is still living, at that. I love that you even did what you could to save it,” he murmurs. “But, please, be careful at all times. I don’t know what would become of me if I lost you.” He chuckles, lightheartedly.

Gojo was best at one thing and that was making you feel loved. He proposed two weeks after the incident, claiming that he wanted to break the seal on the love he had stored for when you promised to spend an eternity with him. If you felt loved as his girlfriend, you had no idea of the adoration that came with being his wife.

There were occasional talks of children, but you both decided that there was no room for them in your relationship. It would be selfish to bring a child into the world together, knowing that you would not love them as much as you love each other. You decided to wait for your hearts to make more room in order for children to be a possibility in the future.

Gojo was very good at tending to your needs. Your very occasional material needs—a new dress for date night, or maybe a new bottle of perfume because he had a habit of spraying it everywhere when you were away, claiming that your essence would suffice until you returned.

Your intimate needs were also met, frequently. Gojo was clingy, and he couldn’t sleep unless you laid next to him. Sometimes, sleep was the last thing he wanted as he laid next to you in bed.

“Baby,” he whispers, his index finger tracing your spine above your shirt.

“Hm?” You hum, still not turning towards him.

“Baby,” he repeats, this time as a mumble into your ear. He leeches himself onto your back, his chest warm against you.

“Yes, ‘toru?” You respond, verbally, this time.

“My pretty baby,” he continues. His hand makes its way beneath the front of your oversized shirt, stopping just below to play with the elastic band of your underwear. His lips make contact with the nape of your neck, and though he's desperate to see the effect of his ministrations against your body, he didn't want to dive in and give you what you wanted so easily.

His hand moved upward, riding up your warm stomach until he reaches your breasts. “You’re so warm.” He cups one of your them, gently rubbing your nipple with his thumb until it quickly hardens. You loved how big his hands were, easily squeezing what attracted them like you were insentient.

“You’re so perfect, baby. I could never get enough of you, even if I have every bit of you all to myself.” He sees the curl of your lips from the side. “I’m not sharing you. You’re mine.”

This made you giggle. He was getting possessive and all his actions pointed to one goal.

He pulled his hand out of your shirt, using it to pull down your shorts and underwear. You felt his breath against the nape of your neck when his hand made contact with your cunt. “Oh. Were you expecting this?” Your wetness coated his fingertips instantly. “Were you expecting me to touch you?” He rubbed your clit, the feeling making your stomach tremble.

“Maybe. U-Uh, yes,” you admitted when a finger dipped inside you.

“I’m not that predictable, am I?” He asked, kisses applied to what was accessible of your neck.

“Not at all, but you would never leave me hanging, would you?” You rolled your hips slowly against his fingers, your ass doing something for the hard-on Gojo was sporting in his sweats.

“You tell me how many orgasms you want, and I’ll get you there.” He went silent for a second to hear your heavy breathing. “Only the best for my love.”

You gasped, your hand gripping his forearm as your first orgasm washed over you. A little whimper escaped you, and you trembled against him, his fingers vacating you.

He flipped you onto your back, wanting to give you more.

“Wanna fuck?” He asked, a grin on his face.

“You make it sound so dirty.” You chuckle.

“We rarely make love, sweetie, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

“You’re too impatient.”

“Is it a crime to want you to scream my name?” He sat on his knees between your legs, a clear view of your pussy from under your long shirt in this position.

“Your name can sound sexy even if I don’t scream it.” You smile up at him as he leans towards you, his face inches away from you.

“Prove it.”

After that night, you and Gojo made love two out of the five times you were intimate in a week. He discovered something amazing, the softness of your voice when he built you up and let you melt down on him. It was melodic and intriguing. It made him wonder how thin the line between your angelic self and the sacrilegious version of you was. Sometimes he liked to push you, just to see if he could have both in one session.

In all of these wonderful experiences with Gojo, there were dreadful ones as well. At some point there was more bad than good going on between you and him. There were just so many times when you had to walk away from him just to make sure you and him would sleep in the same home that night. He did what he thought was best as well, meaning sometimes he would sleep on the couch because he couldn’t risk having to bite back words that weren’t intentionally meant to hurt you when you were being inconsiderate.

Dinner with Gojo progressively went quiet. If anything, you would talk about how work went, responding with hums of acknowledgement for lack of words. You would often zone out and think back to when you would feed each other off of your own plates, even if you were having the same thing. It occupies the silence that lingers between you two, which is more comfortable when you can’t even look at each other.

Gojo decided enough was enough and made sure to find a time for both of you to talk about what happened, and where things were going. The conversation was a difficult one. For gods sake, he was the love of your life for years, and suddenly things were burnt out.

“Maybe we spent our love too quickly.”

“How is that even possible, Satoru? We’re supposed to love each other with every ounce of our souls.”

It was so strange to hear you say his name in that tone. You haven’t called him baby in months.

Even if things didn’t look so good for you guys, it was hard for Gojo to see your nervous mannerisms while talking to him. You kept fidgeting with your hands and picking at your nails. At some point he had to stop you, holding your hands in his own.

“I don’t know, but i’m trying here. I don’t know what to do.” His eyes may be good, but they lack a clear view of the future.

“Is this us forfeiting?” You look at him, glossy eyes reflecting his image.

“Don’t make me decide. How would you feel if I had asked you that first?” His voice threatens to reveal the pit of sadness he’s feeling in his gut, but nonetheless he finds his composure in order to move forward in the conversation.

“We need to do what’s best for us, Satoru. If our love is dead, we can’t keep living amongst each other just barely acknowledging one another.” A tear rolls down your cheek. “If you can’t make the decision that puts an end to this… affiliation that we are, let me do it. I’ll be the bad guy.”

“Fine.” He pauses, staring at your ring-less ring finger. “Is this us forfeiting?”

“Yes.” Your voice breaks as you try to hold back sobs. Rivers of tears spill down your face. “I’ll have all my stuff packed, a-and i’ll be out by tonight. Your shoulders tremble, a much needed sob being suppressed by your need to stay strong enough to finish this talk. You pull your hands away and stand up from the bed.

“I should get started.”

Gojo did not move for a while. He couldn’t move. He sat on the bed with his back hunched over, his hands covering his face. He could hear you moving room to room, sniffling as you packed what you brought into the relationship, away.

Finally, you were done. You had your suitcases waiting at the front door, and all that was left to do was say goodbye. Goodbye to the first man to love every part of you, down to the bones weighing down your aching skeleton.

When it came down to it, you were both speechless, just standing there in silence, something you were both now used to. This time it was different. The suitcases weren’t for a vacation you were going on together, it was a single relocation due to seemingly irreparable issues.

“See you, Satoru.” You opened the door, and dragged your suitcases along the sidewalk, on your way to meet your driver. Gojo followed in the spur of the moment, but walked on the opposite side of the street, just to make sure you got to your car safely. The whole walk, you would not look away from each other for more than a second, if anything just to make sure you didn’t walk into objects.

You reached the car and put your suitcases away. You looked at Gojo once more and waved.

Those red taillights shattered the heart that was cracked inside him. He sighed, his face aimed up at the sky.

Though the end was like pouring rubbing alcohol over broken skin, it would be an honor to do it all over again.

[itskindofidontknow]

What dreams know about love?

Dream of The Endless/Morpheus x Love!OFC

Summary: The Queen of Love has grown used to the absence of her husband, the Dream King. After banning her from the Dreaming, they only saw each other when Morpheus summoned her for social or marital duties. He would go decades without calling for her, enamorated by a variety of mistresses. It broke Love's heart. Not that her husband cared. However, after being imprisioned for a century, The Dream King wants to regain his Queen's love. She doesn't believe him, not after centuries of neglect. The question is: Can dreams repair a broken heart?

Tag: Established relationship, arranged marriage, regency romance, eventual happy ending, angst, morpheus is a dick prepare to hate, love is eoster from west germanic mythology, typos are to be expected

A/N: First time bringing my work here. I posted this on my A03 it has multiple chapters, that I'll probably post it here, if you guys like. I am heavily inspired in Pride and Prejudice, Bridgertons, Marriage Story, Scenes from a Marriage, and every primetime drama of rich white people that has a stepford smiler broken bird with an impecable taste in clothes. Comments, questions are all welcome!

"He is back" A shiver runs through the silk-like skin of the Queen of Love, as her ladies and lords in waiting stare at her. It's been years since her lord husband summoned her. But she could never forget his calling.

The sacred vow they shared make it impossible to ignore or forget. A mortal silence takes over the music room where a few seconds ago, you could hear young maidens from all the different realms , daughters from different gods, suns and stars in flower crowns laughing, while dancing to the elegant harp concerto, young lords trying to find words to finish sonnets, the older ones sitting in comfortable chairs around their Queen, keeping pleasant and polite conversations or moving lazily their handfans, more from habit than from heat. Since the climate is always perfect adequate at the Garden of Lovers. The light atmosphere changed the minute Lady Love mentioned her husband. The whole court felt the cold wind whoosing through the white curtains and the sudden change of the pink and orange skies to a blue grayish color. They knew it would rain later.

As it did, since their Queen got married to before the king of dreams vanished.

"I must make haste. Alone." She announces while her maidens got up. They exchange worried looks hesitating before bowing and staying still. She knows her husband well enough to know he is not going to be in his best mood. And her maidens do not deserve to deal with him. He never was in the best mood with Love. 'Oh no, only his lovers get to see that' The Queen bitterly thought exiting the music room, almost running through the salmon marble floors that decorate the whole palace.

"My Lady". She heard Elijah running to reach her. Elijah was her most trustworthy cupid, her husband once called him ‘The Queen's Lucienne’ "My Lady Eostre, if I may speak freely, you don't have to…" She raises a hand, stopping him before he could finish and most likely commit treason. Love knew exactly what he was going to say. How she had grounds to ignore his calling, to never come to his aid ever again. After the abuse and disrespect of over a milennium. She knew it. She thought of it for years. But no matter what she thought, they were still husband and wife, king and queen, and although marriage may not be of any importance to her husband, to Love it was the most sacred institution

" Yes, I have. I must. He is still my lord husband as I am his lady wife, we made a sacred vow" The Queen looked sternly to her cupid, warning him " My good cupid, be careful, Dream is still your king, and one could take your words for treason" It was well-known that it is not wise to commit treason against an Endless, and to even suggest that a Endless' wife shouldn't come to his request was a dangerous territory. He lowered his head in respect "Apologies my Queen. It is a joyful occasion if our King is back." A mechanic polite answer. She nods in agreement, even if his face was heavy with worry for Eostre and not at all showing any joy in Morpheus return.

The lovefolk was not fond of the Dream King. They saw how their Queen's spirit got crushed with a loveless marriage over the centuries. How careless, and neglectful her husband was. Everytime Love would come back from the Dreaming, the entire Garden flooded with rain, mirroring the Queen 's tears, as she would lock herself in the bedroom and cry for days. She could never tell which was worse: Her husband ignoring her, without even a single kind word or a glance or when he impatiently acknowledged her, treating her as she was a burden to bear, a constant annoyance he needed to deal with.

The Queen of Love, however, believed in love, she believed that if she just tried hard enough, Morpheus would see her devotion, and they could actually have a happy fulfilling marriage. Love, better than anyone else, knew that most arranged marriages were a disaster. However as anthropomorphic manifestations of love and dreams, they weren't so different.

Mortals either dreamed of love or loved to dream for as long as they were created. Their marriage made sense. They even inspired the same mortal in two different occasions. He inspired a play called Midsummer Night's Dream, and she inspired Romeo and Juliet. They could be happy. She strongly believed in it.

How naive she was.

Dream didn't agree with their union from the beginning. A trick from his dear sibling, Desire, that became a political marriage. When Dream realize his sibling’s trap, it was already too late. Lady Love was infatuated by the love letters she received from her fiance (who, she later discovered, never wrote her any letter. Desire did. Misleading Love to elope). A few mischievous squemes made their union impossible not to happen.

As a Queen, Eoster tried for years everything a good monarch could: She tried to learn everything about the Dreaming, followed Lucienne around, asking for help to understand the dreamfolk, the laws of the Dreaming. Everything in her power to best fulfill her duties and help her husband with the burdens of a realm. She learnt how to love the dreamfolk, to care for them, to even bring peace of mind to distressed nightmares, to explain and defend her husband's harsh ways, to ease heavy hearts. It was easy for the dreamfolk to adore and become devoted to The Queen of Love.

As a wife, Love was by Morpheus' side at every official event and Endless reunion. She wanted to be more than just a lady wife, she wanted to be his partner. So eager to be a part of his life, although he didn't seem interested to be a part of hers.

Never even bothering to visit the Garden of Lovers, his wife's realm. Even with the king neglect and coldness, the Queen kept loyal and faithful. Dream could scan her sleep and never find any sinnful thought about a secret lover. She never wished for anyone besides him. Even with plenty of opportunities and suitors, her doves bringing letters of poems and sonnets from devoted mortals to sun-gods, praising her beauty, eager for her kisses, suffering from her loyalty, even then, Love never took a lover or indulged in immoral activities.

Eoster was ever obedient and submissive. An Endless outranked her, so due to her status. and to tradition, she never spoke out of turn or raised her voice. She always abide by his commands and attended to his every need. Even in private, she was dutiful. Never denying her husband, opening her legs to welcome him, whenever and wherever he saw fit. She would let him rip off beautiful long nightgowns, designed especially for nuptials, gladly taking him for as long as he wanted. Most times, she didn't take great pleasure in it. and Morpheus always seemed to be performing a duty. He didn't whisper sweet nothings, was gentle or cared for her after.

That was the first piece of her heart to be broken by her husband. To realize she was nothing but a quick-release for him. Only useful to scratch an itch he happened to have. As a goddess of love, purity, marriage and fertility, she knew how intimacy between lovers could be of burning passion, beautiful, caring, a true lovers' dance. How cruel her husband was to deny her, of all entities, even this pleasure. But he did. And the worst part was that Love knew he didn't even know he was causing pain, he just didn't care enough.

Another thing she didn't expect was that they almost never shared his bed for the night. Most of the times, after fulfilling the Dream King's needs in bed. She would be dismissed to her private chambers. ‘Like a common whore’ she often thought. If Morpheus ever thought of her, embarrassed, half-naked, wrapped in sheets, tip toeing crossing the corridor to her room, he never said anything. Love would especially be ashamed when bumping into Lucienne. The librarian always offered a respectful bow, looking over her glasses. Professionalism wouldn't let her say a thing, but the Queen could see the pity in the librarian's eyes, as Lucienne could see the Queen’s cheeks wet of tears.

As she savoryly remembers the nights of being used and discarded, she squeezes Elijah hand in reassurance "My sweet love child, worry not. I'll be back before you know it".

And just like that, the Queen of Love returned to her husband.

[amjustagirl]

chapter 14: burn away your fears

chapters: 14 / 15

pairing: miya osamu x f! reader

genre: romance / angst / fluff

word count: 5.4k

summary: miya osamu does not dare set fire to his heart. it burns anyway.

(prev / next)

A year later, it’s surprising how much things change. 

Atsumu, of course, has the most dramatic change of trajectory. He announces his professional volleyball after a lightouts game against the Adlers where he wins with a setter dump and a record four dramatic aces. The stands are silent, the audience tearful when he bows to them with uncharacteristic humility, kneeling down to touch the polished wooden floors one last time before he leaves the arena. Olympic medals, V-league medals, two stints in Italy (the second one sanctioned by Kaiyo and the kids), and he closes this chapter of his life on the highest of highs.  

He knows it’s difficult for Atsumu to envision what’s next because volleyball has been all he’s known from the age of eight, and gods does Atsumu mope to no end, hanging around the restaurants with a long face until he has to banish him for scaring his customers, growing more despondent after unsuccessful career talks with Meian Shugo (now, a professional sports agent), Bokuto (a junior coach), Kiyoomi (a suit in the JVA). 

It’s lucky he has Kaiyo on his side. 

She very shrewdly sets up a meeting with her cousin Azumi, now happily married to Sakusa Kiyoomi, a sports writer with numerous contacts in the sports media industry. A deal is cut quite quickly, because corporate sharks move in to capitalise on Atsumu’s marketability - good-looks and a charming Kansai accent with the credibility from being an Olympian. He’s booked as a commentator for both Inter High and Spring High -  much to Shino’s dismay though, in her first year of high school volleyball she has to deal with her dad bawling into the microphone when her team wins a match, but it seems be a success because jobs flow in after that, and Atsumu is jetting around the world for gigs, even going viral when he’s filmed on a flight to the volleyball world championship in Rome loudly professing his love to Kaiyo to the consternation of the cabin crew who just want him to turn off his damn phone. 

Shino - well, she breaks her father’s heart (an exaggeration, she’d say, with a flick of her ponytail) by taking a scholarship to Niyama Girl’s High School in Sendai instead of staying in Osaka - her uncle Hinata’s delighted because that’s Natsu’s alma mater, though Atsumu’s somewhat pleased that it puts distance between her and Meian Makoto. Not that it works, he walks in on them making out during a school break when she’s back home and Shino runs off to Kita’s farm in Hyogo to complain and give her father more heartache. 

“Kids are a pain”, Atsumu whines. 

“Nah, just yours. Cos they take after you.” Osamu retorts. 

Shoma’s his usual self, a snack perpetually in hand, intent on learning to cook more dishes so he can feed Asami-chan whenever he visits the Kitas on their farm in Hyogo - Kaiyo and Ichika of course are planning their kids’ wedding more than a decade too early. Not much has changed other than surprising his dad by voluntarily joining volleyball as a club activity. He’s actually pretty good, for an eight year old, though it’s not settled whether he likes setting or spiking better yet. 

Kaiyo’s just her usual self. Everything’s right in her world - she has no more friends to meddle with (maybe she should deal with Suna, hrm), she’s happy with her job, her family doesn’t give her too many headaches (well, other than Shino finding out that ‘Tsumu was a shit husband and dad for the first three years of her life and throwing a snit about it, the aforementioned debacle of Shino running off to Hyogo, Shoma buying tickets and nearly running off to Hyogo by himself) - okay, maybe her life isn’t exactly drama free with two madcap kids and a husband who behaves like a lovesick kid, but it’s pretty smooth sailing nonetheless. She and Ichika regularly have sleepovers (no one’s ever too old for a pyjama party with pizza) and you’re often invited along as a third of their unholy trio. 

Though…you did call out of the most recent one, saying you weren’t up to it. 

He chalked it up to stress from work. Your business is growing strong, though you still find the time to help out at his restaurants, despite him protesting that he doesn’t want to eat into your free time, that you should take your off days seriously, laze in bed or go out to cafes with Kaiyo or Suzuki-san, anything other than rolling up your sleeves to make batches and batches of onigiris with him and the crew. 

“But you’re here, aren’t you?” 

He finds himself unable to argue with that. Even though you’ve finally given in and moved into his apartment, insisting on paying rent to him (now it’s funny because you’re each other’s landlords) which he only accepts as your pre-condition to moving yourself and Kombu-chan in. He’s squirrelling that cash into a little fund for - well, he doesn’t quite know what to do with it, but he has plans that potentially involve a long holiday to Thailand and a ring. 

For now, it’s nice having you to come back to every night after a long day of running the restaurants. It’s a little more crowded, a little messier - a litter box and cat bed that he trips over in the living room, a ludicrous amount of kitchen utensils and never enough space on the countertops, but it’s all the better for it. Catching each other’s eyes in the toilet mirror whilst brushing teeth and cracking up over a joke you just shared, playing tetris with a too-full fridge, babysitting Shoma and introducing him to the wonders of a blanket fort party when Kaiyo and ‘Tsumu go for their weekly pizza dates - he never thought he could be this happy so easily. 

His apartment truly feels like home. 

“What time are you coming back?” 

A text from you isn’t amiss around this time. It’s past the lunch crush and he usually heads back to the apartment for a quick nap, since he’s usually covering the dinner shift as well. You’re often in the kitchen experimenting, drawing up the menu for the weekend, and he should find you there. But the apartment remains quiet even after he calls out a cheery tadaima, so he goes to investigate, kicking his shoes off in the genkan, padding around until he finds signs of life in the toilet. 

The door is locked, but he can hear the unmistakable sound of someone emptying out their guts. Alarmed, he jiggles it open, and you just groan, head lolling against the seat. 

“Hey”, he murmurs, approaching you gingerly, the way one might with a feral cat (like you and Kombu-chan, a funny coincidence). 

You hug the cistern for dear life. 

He picks you off the floor as if you weigh no more than a bag of rice. Wipes your mouth with a damp towel, urges you to gargle your mouth while he mixes day-old rice with the chicken stock he always has on hand in a pot, serving it to you in a bowl when it comes to a boil. You barely take three spoonfuls of it before pushing it away, claiming you’re full.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, rounding the table to kneel in front of you, taking your hands in his.

“Nothing”, you say, but it’s as unconvincing as Shoma claiming he’s not hungry when he’s staring at food with eyes the size of dinner plates. 

“Shall we make an appointment to see the doctor? I think we should, if you’re not feeling well.” 

“I think you should”, he argues, unconvinced. “You’ve been feelin’ so sick recently, I don’t know whether it’s been a particularly bad batch of shellfish, maybe. And lately you’ve been getting more and more tired, even though you’re going to bed early and sleepin’ in.” 

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s something”, he stresses. “You’re clearly not well - cos you’re pukin’ and you’re tired, and I gotta be honest, you’ve been a bit moody and your back hurts even though your period hasn’t come in the past -” 

Oh. 

It finally clicks. 

“Sweetheart”, he says gently. “Are you pregnant?” 

You confirm his suspicions by breaking down, burying your face into the cradle of your arms, you bawl brokenly. “I can’t do this”, you cry. “I can’t, I - I can’t - ”

It’s not that you’ve never talked about having a family before. In truth, you’ve both left it up to chance, being lax with - well, protection, because if fate decrees it - then well, it’s meant to be. He definitely dreams of a family, made up of you and him and Kombu-chan and a kid that’s got a little bit of him and a little bit of you. And you’re so good with Shoma (he follows you around, convinced that you hold all the secrets to the kitchen in your hands), with the kids who visit the restaurant, going out of the way to add little decorations to their onigiris - a smiley face cut into the nori sheets, an extra bit of fruit sliced into stars and bunnies and hearts. 

But your happiness is worth far more than any of that to him. 

“It’s okay”, he says, measuring his every word. “You don’t have to have it. The baby, I mean - cos’ you’re pregnant, aren’t ya? Iif you don’t want to.” But then he trips himself to add (because the spectre of ‘Tsumu in his chaotic, storm filled years looms, large and ominous), “but if you want to have it, I’m gonna be here for you, every step of the way. It’s your choice, sweetheart, and I’ll support whatever it is you choose.” 

It just makes you sob harder. There’s nothing he can do but rub circles into the small of your back until you hiccup into his shoulder. 

“I don’t know what to do.” 

“It’s okay”, he says, because really, what else can he say? “It’s okay.” 

But it isn’t okay because you keep him at a distance over the next couple of days, even though you cancel the next few engagements you have to hole up in bed, your eyes red and puffy, and you refuse to eat more than a few bites of all the treats he offers in an attempt to lure you out of the fort you’ve built with all the pillows and blankets you have at home. 

He waits, not because he’s a patient man by nature, but because he knows that burns hurt, raw and red. Rushing back to the kitchen before the memory scabs over will leave one too scared to approach the roaring flames in the stove. And if you need time to consider the implications of how your life might change, ponder your choices, weigh what you want your future to hold, you have every right to. 

He’ll wait for you. He’ll support whatever decision you make. 

(even if he dreams and hopes of you and him and well - it’s not his choice to make) 

He waits until you stick a hand out of your blanket fort, fumbling around in the dark to grasp his hand, doesn’t say a word until you croak, staring up at the ceiling, counting the cracks. 

“I can’t do it. I don’t know how to.”

“Neither do I”, he admits, though he burns to add that he’ll try, gods does he want to try with you. 

“I’ll be a terrible mother”, you say. “I don’t know how to keep a kid alive. Do I feed it rice? What if I drop it? What if I start resenting the kid for hijacking my life - I mean, it’s literally a parasite isn’t it, at this point? What if - I don’t know, I mean - my parents weren’t exactly great - and what if, what if my kid ends up unhappy, I wouldn’t know how to make a kid happy, what do I do - what do I do -”

“I’m scared too.” 

Your grip tightens. “Yeah”, you exhale. 

He waits for your breath to even out to unearth you from your hiding hole, removing each pillow from your carefully constructed tower, brick by brick before wrapping himself against your back, arm over your sternum. “It’s okay to be scared.”

You only hiccup. 

“But”, again, he chooses his words with care, mindful not to imply that it’s anything but your choice. “Whatever you choose to do, you don’t have to be brave by yourself.” 

Again, you hiccup. “And if I chose to have it? A baby, I mean.” 

“Then I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

His heart leaps, skips a beat, then two and he almost forgets to breathe when you laugh, a watery sound but a laugh nonetheless. 

“You’re a brave man to promise that, Miya Osamu.” 

“Not as brave as you”, he replies, because it’s true. 

Having courage doesn’t have to mean going out into the great, wide world, performing bold, dashing feats of heroism. It’s as simple as putting one foot in front of the other day after day without letting your fears and insecurities chase you back into your safe hiding place. Life can be hard as fuck sometimes, and it’s so easy to lose sight of your dreams and passions, but you’re trying your best to leave your ghosts behind, overcome everything that’s been placed in your way and by gods, does he love you for it. 

So it just seems like the right time, a week later, to get down yet again on his knees before you, a box with a gold ring inside instead of a bowl of porridge. “Marry me”, he says, the entire speech he’s prepared for the occasion flying out of his head, all he can think of is here and now and there’s nothing he wants so much as to solidify that you and him and the baby and kombu-chan are a family. 

His family. 

You ruffle his hair with a rueful smile. “You shouldn’t propose just cos’ because a baby’s on the way.” 

He’s startled into a laugh. “D’you seriously think I’m proposin’ cos of the baby?” 

“...Yeah?” 

“Nah. That’s not why I’m proposing.” 

He gathers you into his arms, meets your frown of confusion with a kiss on top of your nose. 

“I love you. I’m proposin’ cos I’m greedy and I wanna make sure I can tell everyone that you and Kombu-chan and that baby in your belly is my family.” 

You push him away, gaining some space between you and him. “Why me?”  

“Why you?” he echoes. “It’s always gonna be you. There’s never been anyone for me but you.” 

Your frown deepens. “But…I’m just me.” 

“That’s right”, he tucks your hair behind your ear. “You’re you. And that’s all I want.” 

There’s a smile creeping onto your face, spring sunshine after a long, dark winter. “That’s not answering my question.” 

“You want me to give you a list of reasons why I wanna marry you?” You tweak his nose, and he thinks that means yes. “You’re brave, even though there’s so much to be scared about. You’re kind, even though life is hard and the world can be a shit place full of shittier people. You’re smart and gorgeous and funny and patient and all of you makes me wanna be a braver, better man so I can catch up with you and be by your side.”

“Sweet talker”, you poke his side. 

“Well, you asked”, he chuckles. “So, how ‘bout it?” 

“How about what?” 

“Sweetheart”, he groans. “You’re killin’ me.”

A few beats pass, the longest pause in his life, where he’s waiting and hoping at the crossroads for you. But then you take the box out of his hand. With shaking hands, you slide the ring onto your fourth finger, a shimmer of gold in the shadows. 

“You make me happy, Miya Osamu.” 

He takes your hand, the hand with his ring on it. He wants to tell you that he’ll keep trying his best to make you happy, because you’ve made him the happiest man of earth by agreeing to be his family (you, kombu-chan and the baby in your belly), but there’s a tidal wave of emotion that swells in a rush of salt and water in his eyes, tears that you wipe away with a tender smile. 

You take his hand, humming a tuneless melody as you dance in the kitchen, laughing like children as you trip over each other’s feet in an uncoordinated waltz. Heedless to the world spinning off its axis, crashing and burning. He has you and Kombu-chan and the baby and as long as the lot of you are headed in the same direction together (a family), then he’s happy. He has all that he wants. 

He sets fire to his heart, lets it flare bright in the blue dawn sky. 

It is not a lie. It is not a dream. 

You are happy. So incredibly, impossibly happy that you have to pinch yourself to convince yourself that it’s real, this is your life. Like champagne bubbles that pop, you have to savour every sip. “D’you think grillin’ these onigiris will counterbalance the sweet glaze?” Osamu asks when you wander out of the bedroom, long after the sun hangs in the sky. 

“You can always try”, you offer, still groggy as you slip into a seat by the breakfast counter. 

“Eat up”, he passes you a plate full of onigiris and pork bone soup and pickles and - when did he get up to get all of this ready - “You and the kid needs feedin’.” 

“Osamu”, you murmur. He drops everything to pay attention to your every word, leaning his full weight on the countertop. 

“What’s wrong?” 

You’re not sure if it’s the raging hormones, or the fact that you’re just overwhelmed by how happy and content you are, but you’re suddenly overcome with the need to weep and belly laugh and tell Osamu how he’s made you so, so ridiculously, uncharacteristically giddy, that you do all of the above. 

“Hey, no - sweetheart, c’mere. Why’re you cryin? Was it somethin’ wrong my big mouth said?” 

You let him gather you into his lap, rocking you as if you’re the baby (and not the one growing one), hiccuping and crying and giggling and - yes, you’re definitely going insane - it’s too much but not too much at the same time. 

“I’m - I’m too happy, ‘Samu - and we have a wedding to plan!” 

The tense line of his shoulder relaxes. He presses a kiss to your hairline, smoothing out the wrinkles in your brow. You can feel the curve of his smile grow against your cheek. 

“There’s no such thing as too happy, sweetheart. And don’t worry ‘bout the wedding. Leave everything to me.” 

That was what he intended. 

But leave to Kaiyo to have everything in hand when she finds out that not only are you pregnant, you also need a wedding planned, stat. It’s not that either of you made a big announcement, wanting to wait until you were at least twelve weeks along, but she deduces it for herself when you religiously avoid any alcohol or raw food at your next izakaya get-together, even asking to meet somewhere which bans indoor smoking.

She swings herself (and Ichika) into full wedding prep mode with so much enthusiasm he has to tell her to calm herself down, because she whips out her old Shiromuku kimono that both she and Ichika wore to their weddings and starts chattering about making arrangements at the Miya family shrine, the traditional wedding venue where she and Atsumu got married more than a decade ago - 

“We were thinkin’ of gettin’ married at Kita’s farm instead.” 

Ichika squeals and calls Shinsuke immediately. Kaiyo just gives him a small smile of understanding. 

There are too many parallels between him and Atsumu as it is. 

A baby before a wedding - of course, it’s not quite an accident since you and he left the question of a baby to chance, and it wouldn’t be the whoopsy daisy accident that Shin-chan was to ‘Tsumu and Kaiyo, both on the cusp of starting their careers. And a wedding that’s accelerated because a baby’s on the way - not that he needed to be walloped on the nose to marry, gods he can’t wait, but still, but still, he’s not the foolish, selfish Atsumu of yesteryear. 

“You’ll make a great dad.” 

Shoma’s over in the kitchen with you, eight years old and holding a knife without any fear whatsoever, producing neat, evenly sized slices of fish that even adults would be hard pressed to do. Atsumu’s ‘hanging out’ with him - though that’s just a euphemism for crash my brother’s shop and bug him to make a load of fatty tuna onigiris for me. 

“Thanks for the vote of confidence”, he replies, tone drier than that awful pitcher of sake Gintama produced in his backyard. 

“You’re welcome”, Atsumu says cheerfully, gobbling up yet another onigiri. “You’re damn good with Sho-chan, he probably wants to hang out with you more than he does with his dear old dad-” 

“Because I always have food and that kid thinks with his stomach-” 

“And Shin-chan comes to the restaurant to mope whenever she has a bad game - ”

“Reminds me of a certain someone, huh.” 

“The point is”, Atsumu swallows a mouthful of rice. “Thanks, y’know? For steppin’ in and helpin’ with my kiddos and Kaiyo even though you didn’t need to. And now it’s your turn. You’re gonna do great.” 

You don’t need to thank me, he wants to tell his twin. Cos you’d do the exact same for me. 

But it’s two o’clock in the afternoon and he’s not about to reach into the well of his emotional depths. “You’re just laughin’ that I’ll be having sleepless nights with night feeds in my old age.”

Atsumu gets it though. He always does. 

“I mean, I’ll help whenever I can! Commentating for games means my hours are kinda chill now, so -” 

Osamu pinches the bridge of his nose. “If your ‘helpin’ means teachin’ the baby to set with frozen grapes, then I’d much rather not, thank you.” 

Strangely enough, his twin does not take offence. He just remains seated, placidly sipping his miso soup, whereas if Osamu’d said that exact thing to him (save the commentating - that’s a recent career move following retirement), he’d have been at the risk of being severely throttled, ‘cos ‘Tsumu’s a hothead like that. Osamu squints at him. Old age perhaps (but that means he’s old too, and he’s not). Or maybe fatherhood has finally mellowed him out (a more probably explanation, cos parenting Shin-chan would tire anyone out - she’s like ‘Tsumu but female and with Kaiyo’s smarts, a lethal combination). 

“Why’re you starin’ at me like that?” 

If he shares what exactly is flitting through his mind, he’s definitely in for a beating, and it’s too late in the afternoon for that. “Nothin’”, he mutters. 

Thankfully, Atsumu’s attention is diverted by the last onigiri on the plate. Or at least, that’s what Osamu thinks because when Atsumu wipes his plate clean, he’s still oddly quiet, whereas typically, he’d be chattering about the mundane shit that happens throughout his day or week - like the fact that he pissed Sakusa-san off during a recent tournament by pointing him out as a former teammate on camera, even though he’s no longer a professional (but it’s Omi-Omi! Even if he is a stuffy suit with the JVA, he’s still one of the best spikers ever!) or when he interviewed Shin-chan before Spring High and asked if she plans to win, as is the Miya family way and promptly got embarrassed, because she pointed out that Inarizaki never took home the title with them (I mean it’s true, but she has NO TACT), never mind that’s exactly how Atsumu himself would have responded as a cocky fifteen year old. 

But now, Atsumu is oddly quiet. The calm before the storm. 

“What’s with you?” Osamu asks, impatient. 

Atsumu takes his own sweet time to reply. Takes far too many beats, as if he’s considering his words which he’s probably never done in his entire life. 

“D’you think we’re livin’ up to Oto-san’s standards?” 

Osamu promptly takes a swig of Gintama’s sake from a flask he hides under the counter for when he encounters a stream of tough customers and requires a break. “Woah. That’s way too deep for two thirty in the afternoon.”

Atsumu throws back in his head and laughs. “I guess he’s probably just relieved that I didn’t end up gettin’ kicked out by Kaiyo. He’d be proud of you though.” 

It’s not the alcohol that burns the back of his throat. “You think so?” Osamu croaks. 

“I don’t think it, I know it”, Atsumu pronounces with the cheesiest grin ever, and he’s about to reach over and slap it off his face when he realises that there are cracks in the facade, a dull shine in his twin’s eyes that telegraphs regret, guilt perhaps.

As much as he shits on Atsumu’s past transgressions, he’s more than made up for it - at least vis a vis the kids. He’s attended every single game of Shino’s that he’s humanly able to, rushing from practice to sit at the stands and yell encouragement after every spike, successful or unsuccessful, so vociferously that she’s tried to ban him from her games until he learns some semblance of volume control (imagine her horror when her FATHER is the commentator for Spring High). For Shoma - he’s never once expressed any jealousy that the little boy prefers hanging out in the kitchen with him, buying child-appropriate kitchen utensils and watching umpteenth youtube videos about cooking and food for the kid, even worriedly checking if Sho-chan’s really, truly, one hundred and twenty per cent sure that he wants to join volleyball as a club activity in elementary school (I didn’t want him to feel like he had to play volleyball cos I did, he explained).

“I think you’re a good dad too.”

Atsumu sniffles. “If I’m ever a bad dad, make sure you punch me.” 

“Happy to.” But even as Osamu rolls his eyes, he adds. “And if I’m ever a bad dad to my kid -” 

“I’d be happy to break your nose.” 

“Don’t sound so happy when you say that, it’s gross.” 

“Sho-chan”, Osamu hears you chime in from the kitchen, airily light but with a hint of steel. “Please don’t listen to your ‘to-san or ‘ji-san when they talk about breaking people’s noses, okay? If we’re going to nourish people with our cooking, we shouldn’t harbour thoughts about hurting them.”

“I broke ‘Tsumu’s nose ‘cos he was a jerk to Kaiyo.”

 “Yep.” Atsumu confirms. “Definitely deserved that.” 

You shake your head. “You are both good fathers, despite your penchant for violence. Sho-chan, make sure you don’t learn from them. I’m sure your Okaa-san would agree with me.”

Shoma pipes up. “‘Ka-san told me to kick anyone who says cookin’ is for girls. They’re wrong. Cooking’s for everyone.”

You look horrified, especially when Osamu nods his head approvingly at Shoma. Atsumu just guffaws. 

Thankfully, you’re still willing to marry him despite your horror at the Miya family’s penchant for violence. The entire Miya family decamps to the Kitas’ farm, much to the delight of Kaiyo and Shoma, the guesthouse is bursting the seams with wedding guests - the entire Inarizaki team, the Onigiri Miya crew, your adopted Thai aunties you kept in contact with and their families, even Nishinoya Yu - he remembers him as the libero Atsumu targeted the first time they played Karasuno (it almost bowled him over to find out that you ran into him in Chiang Mai, what even are the odds of that!).

Much of the day before the wedding is spent catching up with his old classmates - heck, even Aran flies back for the wedding despite coaching duties in the States, and a very rowdy afternoon is spent reminiscing about their school days over pints of beer, before everyone convenes for dinner, the spread prepared by you and your Thai aunties - curries and fruit salads, salt grilled fish cooked over an open fire. His crew will take over for the wedding lunch tomorrow as their wedding present to him. With all the chefs in attendance for this wedding, everyone’s stomachs will be kept very, very full. 

Shoma even gets in on the action, volunteering to wake up early with Asami-chan and Obaa-chan to cook porridge for breakfast tomorrow morning, before everyone will make their way to the village shrine. A simple ceremony conducted by the Shinto priests, taking three sips of sake (alcohol free for you), before celebration over lunch back on the farm. From the sound of murmuring between Morita, Ishida and Miyamura, it seems like they have no plans for lunch to stop anytime before supper, so it’s going to be a raucous, all-day feast, for sure. And between speeches by Atsumu and Kaiyo, Suzuki-san and Kita, it’s going to be a long, long day. 

Luckily it’s summer, where the days stretch past the horizons, the season of love. “You should look for your bride, make sure she hasn’t run away yet”, Suna says without bite. So he takes his leave from his friends, finding you under the forsythia shrub, sheltering from the multitude of well wishers and the summer heat. 

“Have you eaten yet?” 

“Too much”, you groan. “People keep trying to feed me. And Kaiyo and Ichika had this weird competition in the kitchen that they made me the judge of, where they’re trying to deep fry the weirdest things in a vat of oil - which is made even more ridiculous by the fact that it’s summer and it’s boiling hot.”

“Judgmental?”

“You try eating deep fried kimchi stuffed in a bittergourd - “ 

“I’ll pass, thanks”, he laughs, shuddering as he plops down on the grass beside you. 

You both fall silent, listening as the cicadas chirp, the evening breeze whistling through the wheat fields. Birds sing to each other, calling each other home as they wheel about in crazed circles in the still bright sky. 

“I was wondering”, you say conversationally. “Whether my parents would be proud of me now.” 

He stiffens but you don’t seem to notice, or perhaps you do and continue anyway, chuckling to yourself. 

“I have the feeling that they’d be horrified at what I’ve done. Shutting down the restaurant, spitting in years of tradition by changing up family recipes, getting pregnant before getting married - I’d probably get disowned. They’ll probably even pretend that I don’t even exist. And I used to wonder why - everyone else seemed to have parents who cared, parents who didn’t force their own expectations and dreams on them - and I just didn’t. And I spent years trying to get over it, hating what I was trained to do, aiming low out of spite even though really, it only affected myself.”

Your voice cracks. 

“It’s the night before my wedding and I hate that I’m still worrying about my parents even though they’re long dead.”

“Does it matter what they think?” he asks. “Look at how far you’ve come despite them.”  

There’s no use railing at ghosts. Death takes them beyond the veil, leaving behind ash and bone and a trail of troubled memories, nothing else. To his relief, the corner of your mouth quirks upwards, not quite a smile, but far from a frown. 

“You’re right”, you reply. “I’m lucky to be where I am, right now.”  

“For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing great.” 

“Of course you’d say that, you’re marrying me tomorrow.” 

“Yeah”, he breathes, suddenly giddy. “Definitely doin’ great.”

He’s still on a high when you laugh and kiss him good night, hardly able to drift off to sleep between his excitement for tomorrow and Suna’s snoring, and it’s remiss of him, but he almost, almost forgets this conversation amidst the sheer joy that simmers in his heart long after you exchange vows to be each other’s forever, your gathered family and friends erupting into whoops and cheers once outside the solemn Shinto shrine, the party lasting late into the night until everyone nearly collapses from too much food. 

“We’re married”, you whisper, lying back on the grass.

“We’re married”. He echoes almost in disbelief, hand in yours. 

Even with the glow of lights from the farm, there’s a glimmer of starlight in the violet-dusk sky. Fireflies dance over the sea of flowers in bloom, the wheatfields singing in the wind.   

“I’m happy, ‘Samu”, you say, unbidden. “I’m happy.”

He grips your hand tight. There’s no need to say what you already know.

a/n: we are finally, finally within sight of the end :) hope you guys like this chapter!

[tripthelightfandomtastic]

Whiplash- J.M.K

Author’s Note: This is the second installment of my new Royalty Series. I’m gonna be making one of these period pieces for each boy set in this era, none of them are connected but I just wanted to explore the genre. So keep an eye out for the next two, and go read my first story of this series, Shining Armor- D.R.W if you haven't already! This is also my first time ever making Josh a little rougher and kinda douche-y so that was a fun change, I always make him so soft and that’s just because I love soft!Josh but this was a delightful change of pace. Also, Shambala is not a real place obviously, it's the name of a fake place in a Three Dog Night song, so there’s a fun fact for ya. 

Synopsis: What happens when your family forces you into an arranged marriage to help save your enemies' kingdom? How will you even get along when all you two do is argue? Nothing a ball can’t solve.

Word Count: 9.2K (lots of angst to unpack)

Pairing: JerkPrince!Josh x Female Reader

Warnings: 18+ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. Foul language, angst, alcohol mention, oral, Douchebag!Josh, light dom/sub (but they're both switches?), light degradation, raw sex (Wrap it before you tap your soon to be husband you hate)

Whiplash- J.M.K

“Why shouldn’t I let their kingdom fall into ruin? The way they’ve treated our family name with such disdain over the past few decades, why should we help them?!” You shout to your mother, her patience wearing thin as she adjusts the pins in your hair. “Darling, if we do not the entirety of the country could fall into economic despair. Our own kingdom’s people would suffer, so many lives could be lost, we could help so many people if-” “If I were to marry the Prince of Shambala.” You cut her off, meeting her gaze in the mirror of your vanity, a long and heavy silence hangs in the room. 

“Yes. I am sorry dearest-” “He is wicked, mother! He is hurtful and cruel! He doesn’t care for me!” You cry out, standing from your seat, as you fight back your tears. There is to be a grand ball tonight here at the palace, anyone who was anyone in the political stratosphere will be attending, including the Prince of Shambala, Joshua Kiszka. His family's kingdom is on the brink of bankruptcy, increasing their peoples taxes to rates that could not be afforded, the fields of wheat were not producing what they had in the past, and having an unwed eldest son was just the perfect way out of such a problem. Your own kingdom however was thriving, vineyards that produced some of the sweetest wine were enjoying an abundant harvest and the economic wealth of the people was steadily increasing with the fine season the summer was providing for tourism, trade and farming. 

You had been in the same circles as Prince Joshua before where he insisted that you call him Josh. He has been at nearly every ball and party held across the country and every time you were taken by how arrogant and crass he was and how he seemed to look down on you in particular, and for why you could never understand. Making jabs at your expense right in front of you, engaging in gossip about your family, and even once insinuating that you had been flirting with a married Duke, which you were not. This evening, it will be announced that the two of you shall be wed and that there will be a merging of your two kingdoms, putting the fears of the citizens of Shambala at ease. You stare at the ceiling as you try to quell the tears stinging at your eyes, “I only wish I could ease you of this burden my darling, but I’m afraid there is no other way.” Your mother pleads as she makes her way slowly over to you, her hand holds yours, bringing you back to look at her. She obviously knows you’re in pain but for the good of the country, it must be done, “Come now, get dressed.” She says, giving your hand a gentle squeeze. 

You stand with a vice-like grip on your bedpost, holding tightly as your ladies maid pulls at the laces of your corset. All you can do is get through this evening in the hopes that you can keep yourself from killing the Prince the minute he makes some stupid remark. The soft silk of your gown pulls you away from your thoughts as you look into the mirror, He doesn’t deserve any of this, you think to yourself as you admire your reflection. Pinned up curls adorned with pearls, blush pink lips and a white and gold silk dress that would make any man fall to their knees just to kiss at your gloved hand. Josh Kiszka is a lucky man. 

Standing at the doors before the ballroom had you somewhat anxious, the muffled rumbling of chitter chatter behind the french doors made your stomach churn as you were waiting to be announced. The Kiszka family had already been introduced upon their arrival, surely grateful for the plans that were ready to be set in motion. You stand in the hallway alongside your parents, ready to make your entrance and find the nearest glass of champagne to calm your nerves. All eyes were going to be on you tonight and the thought of being betrothed to a man you so loathed absolutely made your hands tremble as the moments ticked on. 

Finally, the double doors open, you take a deep breath as your family is announced, “Ladies and Gentleman, your Royal Highnesses of Shangri-la.” You step out into the light of the chandeliers, watching from your descent of the stairs as all of the many fine guests smile and politely clap as their hosts for this nights ball have arrived. Glancing around the room with a kind smile, you search for familiar faces, someone you could confide in, any of your friends whomst you could tell of your situation, but you find none, it is a political affair after all. This crowd only really consists of members of parliament, Lords and Ladies from across the country and many others high in status, not exactly the crowd you were hoping for when you were to announce your plans to be married. 

You make your way down as the string band begins to play, your cool facade falters as you meet his eyes, those dark brown eyes that only ever feel so cold. You make your way down the stairs and to your utter dismay, he begins to walk towards you. 

Your heart slams in your chest as your heels hit the marble beneath you, you cannot move, you are perplexed as he comes forward and greets you, extending a hand for you to take as he is now on bended knee, head bowing to you. “Your highness,” he begins, his eyes flitting up to yours. 

You suddenly remember how to move again and gently place your gloved hand in his, he brings your hand to his lips, kissing your silkened knuckles tenderly. “You look ravishing tonight.” He smiles as he soothes your hand with his thumb, Oh he’s really playing the part, isn't he? You think to yourself as you mentally roll your eyes. 

If there was one thing you knew about Josh for certain, it was his ability to work a room. 

Knowing just the right way to tell a story, to entertain a crowd, how to truly put on a show. A talent to be sure, but you know better, it's simply an act because once you are alone he can be a royal prick. You withdraw your hand and curtsey to him out of sheer expectation more than sincerity, “Prince Joshua, you look well.” You say softly yet a bit curtly as you look him over, surely he was joking; he was also wearing a suit of white and gold, the same colors as your gown, was this planned? Why? To seem like a united front? 

He smirks at you, surely noting your irritation, he stands, still holding your hand in his, “May I have the pleasure of having the first dance?” He asks, you take in the crowd for a moment, all eyes trained on you and Josh, it's almost silent save for the music of the band. Your eyes return to his, “The pleasure would be all mine, Prince Joshua.” You say flatly, you follow him as you give his hand a subtle squeeze, one you hope he will interpret as irritation as the band begins to play a waltz, a dance you never were too good at. 

He leads you to the center of the dance floor, of course he would, and begins to dance with you. His hand rests gently on your waist as you begin to move in step with him, his hand in your own holds you gingerly as he moves with you across the floor. Other couples file in onto the dance floor, dancing along to the beautiful strings playing in the massive hall. You grit your teeth as you try to look anywhere else in the hall, moving in time with Josh. He gives your hand a gentle squeeze but you ignore it, “Oh come on,” He says softly, you lazily look towards him, a look of obvious irritation in your eyes. “Loosen up, have some fun.” he says with a grin. You roll your eyes as he twirls you, “This isn’t exactly my idea of a good time.” You mutter to him, “Really? Because I love dancing with people I can’t stand.” He smirks, you bite your tongue, the amount of things you would like to say right now but his hand on your waist is strangely very distracting to you. 

“You should be kissing the ground I walk on for deciding to help save your family from financial ruin.” “Like you decided anything.” Josh laughs, making your face heat with anger, “I make plenty of my own decisions.” “Did you even pick out the dress you’re wearing now?” He says simply, rendering you speechless. “Don’t get so down about it, we’re both just pawns in this whole scheme, playing a part. Might as well sit back and just enjoy the ride.” He reasons, his voice softer than before, you think over his words as you look around the room at the dancing couples, watching your parents talk to the Kiszka’s. “Even if you didn’t pick it out, it’s still a beautiful dress.” he adds kindly, pulling your attention back to him. You give him a reluctant smile as you try to focus on the dance. 

“Thank you.” You murmur. “Aw, so the kitty puts her claws away and decides to play nice.” He jests, you glare at him with that same look of disdain. “Oh, no, there she is. Ever the tiger.” He smiles as he twirls you again, giving you a chance to watch as everyone has their eyes on the two of you. 

“I just don’t enjoy-” 

“What? Being the center of attention?” He finishes for you. “Why not?” He asks curiously, 

“Because I don’t need everyone to love me.” You hiss, “And you think I do?” Josh asks back with a scoff. 

“I do.” You simply say, Josh pulls you in tighter to him by your waist, whispering against the shell of your ear. 

“Well get ready to practice saying those last two words sweetheart, because you’re going to have to at least pretend to love me.” His breath on your neck sends goosebumps all over your body. 

The feeling of his body against yours like this ignites some sort of fire in you, one you don’t quite understand. You look over Josh’s shoulder to see couples dancing around you stealing glances at the two of you. 

“Please Josh, people are staring.” You whisper harshly, a worried tone giving you away. “Just look at me.” He says gently, bringing you to look at him and those stupid golden brown eyes of his. His thumb runs over your hand once more as he attempts to calm you down. “It’s just you and me.” He smiles, prompting you to timidly smile back. “Relax, and let me lead.” He instructs, causing you to huff out a frustrated sigh, “I’m just so used to leading.” You insist, you know it isn’t like a lady to lead when dancing but you just can't help it, how are you supposed to give up control when everyone is watching. 

“Trust me.”

 “I don’t.”

“Then just pretend you trust me.” He says, silencing you, you give him one last stubborn eye roll as you relinquish all control and let him take the lead. He moves you quite easily around the floor, his hold on your waist is firmer now as you stop clutching his shoulder and let him move you rather than both of you trying to lead. You step gracefully in time together, the flow of him against you so closely like this has your heart fluttering and you feel so light in his arms. He gives you a smile of approval, sweet dimples appearing on his soft cheeks, you’d never even really noticed before, now that you thought about it, you’ve never been this close before. 

You look over his face, gentle eyes, a smile that reveals such perfect white teeth, carefully manicured facial hair and warm golden skin. Your eyes linger on his plump pink lips, such a soft looking shade, you pull your eyes reluctantly away to look back up at him, “What are you thinking about?” he asks slyly. 

Your heart jumps and your eyes widen, cheeks blushing as you open your mouth to speak, “Just thinking of how I could wish all of these people away.” You half truth, something about Josh’s new found demeanor tonight has you curious, but of what? Why now? Why this night of all the nights to be kind and gentle to you now? 

After this dance would it all fall away and he’d resort to his old ways? You almost never want to stop dancing if it means keeping him like this. “Why? You want to have me all to yourself?” Josh teases, “If it means we can talk uninterrupted, then yes.” You answer simply, “I’m sure that can be arranged, your grace.” He speaks without sarcasm, an interesting turn from his usual way of saying your titles, his promise makes you smile. 

“I think there’s something I must do first.” Josh hints, you’re almost confused when he gives you one final twirl, the music fading, the audience clapping as you curtsey to him, he bows similarly. He stands and takes both of your hands in his and gives them a small squeeze, “Just try and act surprised.” Josh instructs and your eyes widen as you realize what he means. “And, don’t forget to trust me.” He says finally before getting down on one knee. 

The last thing on your mind was thinking about acting, the look on your face was utter shock. The way he had hypnotized you with the way he held you while you danced, the softness in both his voice and his eyes had you almost completely washed away all of the anxieties you had thinking of this moment that was to happen tonight. The room was silent aside from a couple of surprised gasps from the onlookers, your mother and father standing beside the royal King and Queen Kiszka watch with bated breath as Josh begins to speak. 

“Your beauty outshines all others, you have captured my heart with your kindness and bewitched my senses with only your smile. I cannot bear the thought of spending one more day without you. Will you please, do me the utmost honor in being my wife?” Josh asks, of course projecting enough for the whole hall to hear. 

His words seem to have such little effect on you, he doesn’t mean any of it, you know that, but some part of you almost wants him to. You freeze as you look down upon him, your head swimming as the air in the room is thick as those around you await your answer. He gives your hand another gentle squeeze to prompt you to speak, you nearly jump at the sensation as you realize it's now your turn to reply. “Yes.” You almost whisper, your voice falters as you become overwhelmed with the promise you’ve just made, this is it. It's all happening now.

The crowd erupts with cheers and congratulations, the band kicks up in a happy tune as you see your father shaking the King’s hand. Josh stands up with a wide grin and pulls your frozen form into a tight embrace, one you move a second too late into, your arms encircling him as he whispers in your ear, “Do you think they bought it?” His sentence nearly makes your heart crack in two. “I think so.” You respond reluctantly with a fake smile on your face. 

Josh pulls away from you, his hands clasping your cheeks as he pulls you in for a kiss, the sound of cheers roar in the hall as his lips are pressed against your own. The feeling of it all is more of a surprise than his proposal, your heart feels as though it's broken from these faux gestures, why do you feel anything at all if you don’t even care for him? 

You don’t. 

Right?

Before you can really even move, Josh pulls away and holds you by his side, smiling at the audience around the two of you. He takes your hand and leads you over to your families, they overwhelm you both with hugs and words of best wishes and compliments of the whole scene. You feel numb to the whole situation, everything is so loud, the whole thing feels so meaningless, can no one see that? “I need a minute.” You mumble as you walk away from talk of searching for the perfect ring for your engagement. 

Your heels carry you through the doorway out and down the hall to the library. You open the heavy doors and slam them behind you, the darkness of the dimly lit room giving you some sort of peace and quiet, the only sound being the crackling of the fire in the fireplace beside you. The castle’s library was always the place you would escape to in search of somewhere to think, surrounded by walls of books, so high you’d have to use the rolling ladder attached to the shelves, furnished with a large mahogany table covered in stacks of books you were reading and scattered papers of your own poetry littering the tabletop. A comfortable leather couch big enough to lay out on and fall asleep from a late nights read, accompanied with smaller arm chairs resting on top of a grand, deep red persian rug, it was the ultimate hideaway. 

“Hello, my fiancee.” Josh jokes happily as he walks into the room, closing the doors behind him. “What is your problem?” You ask angrily, arms folded as you turn to face him. “How much time do you have?” he jokes again, sending a wave of anger throughout you. “You’re unbelievable.” You huff as you walk over to the stare into the fire, knowing that you have no patience for his games. 

This was the Josh you knew, that man who held you gently and guided you on the dance floor was a stranger. A ghost, never to be seen again. “Why are you so upset? It all worked out!” He asks in irritation as he takes another step towards you, you snap around to face him, “Yes Josh, I guess it has all worked out. For you.” You reply, your eyes threaten to well up with tears when you see him, but you push the feeling away as you collect your thoughts. 

“I don’t understand?” He says confused, “Of course you don’t! Your kingdom is saved! You’re the hero your people needed and it's all worked out for you! Congratulations!” You shout sarcastically, waving your arms at the ridiculousness of it all. Josh continues to look confused at your anger, 

“That was the plan you agreed to-”

“I never agreed to anything! Like you said, we’re all pawns!” You clap your hands down against your dress in defeat at your sides. 

“Don’t you understand?! I’m the one getting screwed!” 

“You’re no prize either, sweetheart.” Josh laughs, your jaw drops from his comment. 

“You know what, you almost had me fooled.” You chuckle in utter disbelief, your eyes begin to glisten again.

Taking a brave step forward towards him as you continue, his arms are folded, awaiting your tirade. He watches you in the firelight of the darkened library, a halo of flame lighting you as you march ahead. 

“You are nothing but a low life, arrogant and selfish man who only cares about himself and whatever it takes to get ahead.” You poke his chest with every insult you fling at him, the anger inside of you boiling over, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you and I are in the exact same spot. This is just how the royal world works! I’m not exactly thrilled to be engaged to such a hateful and controlling woman!” Josh says throwing his arms up, 

“Hateful?! You are such a whore for attention you were practically putting on a one man show out there!” You shout as you point towards the door, “At least I was trying! You were as stiff as a board and looked scared to death to even dance with me!” Josh shoots back.

“I really thought you were being genuine with me for once when we were dancing, I must really be an idiot because even I bought it.”

“You really are an idiot because I actually was trying to have a decent conversation with you!” He slams your words back at you, the idea of Josh being truthful with you with no airs about him one minute, then going back to being a prick the next is giving you emotional whiplash. 

“You’re such an ass for saying all of those flowery things, you and I both know we can’t stand each other.” 

“Well darling, I can’t wait to see what the rest of our lives look like together, we make a perfect pair.” 

His words hang amongst the bookshelves lining the walls, they bounce around both of your heads as you both are starting to comprehend just how your future’s really are sealed from now on. Josh paces the room in irritation, his hands on his hips with his head hanging low, you on the other hand feel absolutely frozen. Your jaw is clenched in anger as you stare at the intricate crown molding where the ceiling meets the wall, a spot you never really found all that interesting until now while you work to bite your tongue. Your arms are crossed, your gloved nails pressing firmly into your arms as you stew on everything that’s transpired tonight. Trying to focus on anything else, you peel your gloves down your arms, tossing them irritatedly down on the chair beside you.

Of course, Josh can’t leave it alone as he begins to chuckle to himself, reigniting the fury between the two of you. “And, at least I try to get people to love me, you are so prudish you would’ve thought I tried to undress you when I put my hand on your waist.” 

“You’re a terrible kisser anyway, I couldn’t even think of you undressing me!” 

“Ha, that was merely a peck, you would know if I had actually kissed you.” He scoffs as he flashes you a grin only making you more irritated.

“So what, now you’re the prude?” You laugh in amusement at the irony. “Oh, I’m anything but a prude, you could learn a few things from me doll.” He says as he steps towards you, closing in on the massive space that was between you earlier. "You disgust me." You hiss back as you roll your eyes, arms firmly crossed as you look away from him and to some other interesting corner of the room.

“I wasn't so disgusting back on the dance floor when you couldn't stop staring at my lips.” Josh says lowly, reveling in the way you snap back to look at the smirk you wish you could slap off. 

"That was before you opened your mouth and said all of those stupid things, you are exactly who I thought you were, I know plenty of men like you." You say, puffing your chest at him and poking him once more, Josh seizes your wrist and holds you still. "Oh Princess, you have never met a man like me." His words are full of a rasp that floats with his lowered tone.

"In fact, I think you almost liked it. Seeing me down on one knee, saying all of those pretty things to you, being the one in the spotlight for once. I think some place inside you loved being the center of attention." He taunts as you pull your wrist back in a flash, "You don't know a damn thing about me." You spit back in a hushed tone, Josh steps closer making you step back until you're practically leaning against the wall of books. 

"Then teach me. Because all I know right now is that even though you say you can't stand me, you're still here." He says with a devilish tone that makes you blush, you hesitate as you search for an answer. "This is my castle." Your voice is weaker than before, giving away that even you don’t believe what you’re saying. "You know that's not what I mean. You could have walked away from this conversation a long time ago and sulked in your bedroom and yet here you are, inches away." Josh insinuates, your eyes search his, not realizing just how close he is until now.

"Because, I do not take well to being disrespected." You answer with a pitiful excuse. 

"Oh, I bet you would love to be disrespected by me." Josh leans in closer with a smirk that makes you weak. 

Your eyes flit down to his lips again, so close to you now, you shouldn’t be thinking this way, but here you are, pressed up against a wall and you’re not even attempting to escape. 

His words dance in your head, almost like a dare, you bring your hand up to slap him but he’s quicker, catching your wrist and pressing you up against the bookshelf with such force some of the books fall from their places, the feeling of him pressing against you makes you gasp. “Feisty little thing aren’t you?” He whispers against the shell of your ear, the feeling of his breath on your neck makes your shudder and your knees grow weak beneath you, a whimper escapes your lips before you can stop it, further heating your cheeks. “Don’t think I didn't hear that, baby doll.” Josh says, almost threatening to bring you to your knees. 

You tentatively look into his eyes as he looks at you like a snake with its hypnotizing gaze while its grip tightens on its prey. “I know you love the attention.” Josh grins as he looks down at your lips, his thigh slotting up against your dress, pressing up against your core. You press against his thigh for more, unsure of what to even say without whimpering out for more of him, all of your thoughts are nearly incoherent, you bite your lip in frustration. 

“I think I know you better than you think, because I think you’re wondering how to get what you want without having to admit it, but darling, I’m gonna need you to use your words for me.” He taunts as though he’s read your mind. 

In defiance you move against his hold on both of your wrists that he has pressed against the shelf, “Tell me, Princess.” He says just ghosting over your lips now, you look back at them, so pink and plush looking, fuck it. 

“You said I would have known what it would feel like if you had really kissed me,” You tease, his entire attention on you as he is practically teetering on every word. “Then show me what I’m missing.” You whisper, and without a second's hesitation, he engulfs your lips in a kiss. 

It's full of emotion, the way his lips are slotted against yours has your heart slamming against your ribs. So much force from the two of you, desperate to feel the other. Josh runs his tongue over your bottom lip and you oblige him entry, sighing out at the beautiful feeling of his warm tongue running against yours as he deepens the kiss. His lips against yours feel invigorating, his hands on your wrists let go and move to hold your face and in your hair, his grip on you is firm and intoxicating, the way he held you so gently on the dance floor is almost like a different person from the man pressing up against you and kissing you so deeply. 

You let your now free hands take firm root in his hair as you lap your tongue against his, you want to feel more of him, to make you forget about everything going on outside of those doors. You take his bottom lip between your teeth and bite down, the low groan Josh lets out makes your heart flip and the arousal underneath all of these damn layers pool in your panties. You pull away from the kiss as the two of you are searching for breath, the look of Josh’s kiss swollen lips have you aching for him.

“Oh you’ve gone and done it now, Princess.” Josh says as he backs away, pulling his coat off to undo his shirt, you watch him in amazement as he undoes the last button, revealing such beautifully toned muscle beneath. You step off of the wall on wobbly knees, never leaving his eyes as you pull the string of your dress from behind your back, Josh moves towards you, so close to you, his breath washing over your lips as he pulls the laces undone, pulls the dress over you and tosses it to the side as he pulls you close to him, only in your corset and petticoat. 

He spins you around and pushes you up against the shelf, your face pressing against the books as he kisses at your exposed shoulder while his hands work at undoing your corset. “Now what was that you said about never thinking of me undressing you?” Josh says, mocking your words from earlier, “You’re so much more attractive with your mouth shut.” You jab with a smirk, he finally pulls the corset off, revealing your bare back to him, he spins you back around to face him, giving him a full view of your breasts. “Aw, you think I’m attractive?” Josh jests, making you roll your eyes. 

“I actually like the pretty sounds that come out of your mouth, Princess.” He says lowly and almost endearingly as his hands travel up your waist and to your breasts, massaging them so perfectly in his warm hands, watching as the veins on the tops of his hands move so elegantly while he pinches your nipples, making your back arch towards him, a moan rolling up your throat and into the warm air. “Just like that.” He smirks, “Give me some more, baby.” He says as he bends down to suckle at your nipples, your head falls back at the feeling of his tongue running over the hardened bud in his mouth. 

The feeling of him running his teeth lightly over the sensitive spot makes you groan and close your eyes. You pry them open to watch him massage your other breast, his thumb running back and forth on the hardened nipple while he sucks at the other. Your hand in his hair pulls firmly at his curls, earning a deliciously muffled moan from Josh, he moves to suck on your other breast, the cool saliva on your nipple working for him to twist it softly as he bites gently at your other breast. 

Gentle sighs and moans fall from your lips as Josh suckles at your tit, his eyes look up at you, he unlatches from your chest with a scandalous pop. He moves back to kiss you and you take control, holding his face in your hands as you walk him backwards, pressing him back until the large mahogany table stops him, letting you press yourself against his frame. His skin is so soft and warm against your torso, both of your arms are encircled in a tight embrace, you want him closer, much closer than this. 

Before you can think, Josh pulls away and slides his arm over the table top, knocking over all of the books and papers you had placed now on the floor, clearing the space. He moves you towards the desk, bending you over until your face and chest are flushed against the cold, hard wooden table top. “You said you liked me better with my mouth shut, well, I know a better use for my mouth anyway.” He smirks sarcastically as he pulls your skirts up and exposes your backside to him. 

The cold air makes you shiver, but it's Josh’s lips kissing the back of your thighs while his hands run up the front of them that makes your knees shake. His hand runs up your clothed pussy, “Oh Princess, you’ve soaked your panties, is this all for me?” He teases, his fingers grazing over your fabric covered clit, you hum out a response, “Mhmm.” You reply, “Say it baby, I know it kills you to, but I wanna hear you say it before I even think about giving you what you want.” He threatens, his hand still gently touching your aching pussy. 

“Yes, all for you.” You mumble, the words barely making it out, you may be bent over half naked on a table with a man between your legs, but you will not let him win without a fight. “I can’t hear you babe, you’re going to have to speak up.” He prods again, the smile in his voice clear as a bell. “It’s all because of you.” You say again, only a tad louder than before. Josh sighs as he stands and pulls you by your hair, craning your neck as he speaks into your ear, “I said, who made you this wet?” Josh says, his gravelly tone in his voice giving his own lust away. You manage to meet his eyes, even in this harsh position, “You did Josh, it's all for you.” You choke out, Josh gives you a satisfied smile, “Good girl.” He praises as he lets go of your hair, you assume the position you were in before, bracing yourself for whatever comes next.

Josh gets on his knees behind you, spreading your legs and slowly pulling down your panties, revealing your wet pussy, so desperate to feel some sort of relief. You sigh at the feeling of his hands on the back of your thighs, softly running up your flesh, his breath fanning over your core. He finally moves forward, his tongue connecting tenderly to your pussy, licking over you slowly, you let out a gasp at the incredible sensation, “So fucking sweet.” You hear him mutter behind you, almost to himself as he goes back and licks at you again, his curls tickling at your thighs as he laps at you from behind, tongue running gently over your clit making you whine and moan uncontrollably. His hands hold onto the fronts of your thighs, holding firmly while his tongue glides through your folds. He groans beautifully against your core, making you quiver from the vibration and the sound of his own pleasure. His tongue slides up and inside of you, his tongue darting in and out making you cry out, “Oh Josh, ahh.” You moan, your hands clutching at the edge of the table, your climax within reach that you're gripping the wood so hard just to keep you from absolutely falling apart. 

Suddenly he pulls his mouth away and stands up and presses himself against you, his fingers slipping inside of you while he leans over to kiss up your bare back. He begins pumping his fingers in and out of you at such a pace that you cannot stop the sounds that come from your mouth. "See how good it feels just to let go and enjoy, Princess? Always so conscious of everything," He says with a smirk, his fingers curling into you just so that he's hitting some perfect spot that makes you even closer to the edge than you were before. "Fuck, Josh, oh fuck." "Yeah, you like that pretty girl?" He whispers in your ear, "Mhmmm." Is all you can muster. "Too good to even speak? Oh honey, you need it bad, huh?" He says mockingly, you turn your head to see him in just the corner of your eye, your eyes doing all the pleading for you. 

His eyes meet yours, he watches you carefully as he brings another hand down to roll over your clit, your eyes practically roll into the back of your head it feels so good, it’s so much, "Oh, God, Josh, I'm-" "Come on sweet girl. Fall apart, I wanna watch you cum all over my hand like the whore you are." He rasps, the edge in his voice makes you sigh at his choice in words, fuck, you liked that. 

His fingers fucking into you with his bare chest pressed against you, feeling his hardened shaft pressing on the back of your leg, his foot pushing your heeled one to the side to keep your legs open, paired with his finger swirling on your clit has you crashing hard into your climax, one that hits so hard you can hardly make a sound until you breathe out and you cannot hold back the moans and cries of Josh's name, you reach behind you and pull at his hair, just to have him closer to you. He lays his head against your shoulder, his hands never stopping as he bites at the flesh of your shoulder muscle, softly biting, making you cum even harder on his fingers. He pulls away as your breaths come out in harsh pants, licking over the bite, soothing the tender skin, melting away any soreness that you couldn't help but welcome. 

His hands slow to a stop as your orgasm slinks away, leaving you feeling as though your body has turned to jelly. "Such a good little girl for me, I bet you've never been fucked over a table like that before. I think you liked it better than whatever soft and sweet romps you've had in the past." 

You cannot stop the whimper that comes from your lips at his words as he pulls out his fingers, leaving you feeling empty again. You need him, you need to feel all of him. 

Standing up on shaking legs, you turn around to face him once more, something about him simply smirking, his eyes casting over your face, waiting for you to say some smart remark makes the fire inside of you burn even hotter. He’s always so collected, always one step ahead, it's almost infuriating. 

You shove him harshly, the backs of his thighs now against the table, cornered to your will, he looks slightly confused. Bringing your hand to slide down the front of his pants, pressing against his hardened shaft making him gasp, your eyes never leaving his, “You’ve never bed a woman like me.” You snark back in return, a mischievous glint in your eye as you pull his pants down around his knees, you give into the spasming of your legs from your orgasm and sink to the floor, your full skirt rippling like a wave around you. Pulling his underwear down as well, you free his erection and he’s bigger than you envisioned when you felt him against you when he had you over the table. You can’t help but smile as Josh looks down at the sight before him, and what a sight it is, a Princess topless, half dressed in her skirts, flushed from the afterglow of an orgasm, loose curls falling in her face from their pinned place in her hair, a look of pure evil in her eyes and that's all it takes to get Josh, Prince of the Kingdom of Shambala, to hurriedly strip himself of his remaining clothes almost embarrassingly quickly and ungracefully just to be in her presence. 

Letting out a giggle and an eye roll as Josh throws the remainder of his clothes off, his garments hitting the rug covered floor with an anticlimactic thud. “So desperate and what for?” You smile smugly with a pause, reaching to take his hardened shaft in your hand, he shivers at your touch along with a groan he tried miserably to suppress. 

“All for me?'' You finish as you pump his cock slowly, your wrist rolling him into your hand, swiping the precum over the pillowy head, spreading it over him and minorly increasing the speed. Josh lets out a muffled moan as he lets his hands hold against the table behind him, “You have a Princess on her knees Joshua, do not hold back anything I give you or I will stop.” You say almost annoyed, your tone stern enough to straighten Josh’s posture, you grasp him just a bit harder as you pump faster, “Follow my lead, Josh. Come on. Trust me.” You whisper almost sinisterly, mocking his words earlier on the dance floor. 

“Yes, Princess.” he huffs out most deliciously, “Good boy.” you smile as you lean forward and kiss the tip of his cock, almost immediately earning a fully carried out groan from Josh. You reward his quick learning with kitten licks on the head, making Josh grasp the edge of the table, you hold his length up just to press kisses into the underside of his cock, marveling in its length and thickness, how perfect it feels in your hand, how it feels so soft against your lips, your curiosity to see how it feels on your tongue makes you open your mouth and take him in. 

Josh moans lowly at the sensation of your mouth, the way you begin to move up and down his length with such purpose, eyes fluttered closed as you relish in the feeling of him in your mouth. He feels so soft, so warm, it's unlike anything you had ever felt before, you had never gotten to have a man like this before and the moment your lips connected to his cock, you knew you’d want to do this again and again, but only to Josh, something about watching a man so prideful and smug all of the time, easily melt in your hands was something you would dream of for nights to come. 

The way his brows tilt upward into the most pleasure, his jaw goes slack as he struggles to keep his eyes from squeezing closed as he loses himself in the feeling, to hear those desperate moans, sighs and whimpers, well, it's enough to make you absolutely soaked all over again. 

You take him as far as you can and Josh’s hands fall to your hair, “Fuck,” he cries, his hands do not push you or guide you, they merely take hold in your once perfectly done hair, his nails scratching dully against your scalp makes you moan, the vibration from your throat makes Josh nearly double over, a whimper so angelic you can feel your core pounding in aching need. 

Josh quickly stands back up and pulls you by the hair from his cock, you let out a gasp for air as your watery eyes meet his, “You keep that up and I’ll leave your pretty little pussy to ache all night without me.” He says, finding that ever present attitude you’ve grown so familiar to. 

Fearing he'll do as he threatens, you move and stand before him. He moves toward you as you finally take in the beauty of his stark nakedness, he looks almost as though he was but a sculpture come to life just to have his way with you, to indulge in such sin with only you. 

He makes his way over to you, somehow the tension between the two of you is almost thicker than earlier, his hand drapes over your clothed hip as he undoes the long ribbon that holds your petticoat to you, the fabric loosened enough that it falls away, leaving you now completely naked before him as well. His hand comes to run over your belly, the softness of the back of his knuckles running over the gentle flesh beneath makes goosebumps rise over your skin. 

Finally, the two of you are stripped down to the person beneath all of the finery, down to what could be considered your truest selves. Both you and Josh allow your hands to roam over each other, touching and exploring the other in a silence only interrupted by the snapping of the logs in the fireplace. 

Your eyes meet his, and it's like a switch flipped and you cannot help but kiss him, he meets your lips with an equal amount of fervor and need, that the combined passion between you feels as though it's too much to bare. Josh leans down and picks you up, legs wrapping around his hips as he carries you, your lips never ceasing their kiss as he brings you to lay on the plush couch. He moves to be on top of you, his hand leading his cock through your folds, you break from the kiss as you release a moan from the blissful sensation. 

“Are you sure?” Josh asks so genuinely with a hint of nervousness you can’t help but blush, you never took Josh for the gentleman type of lover, but you’re learning all kinds of things tonight. “If you don’t fuck me right now, I am going to break off this engagement.” You snap, he chuckles in return as he goes to kiss your neck, his hand guiding him to your entrance, slowly slipping inside of you. He lets out a shaky sigh as he presses into you, your arms on his sides pulling him closer to you as you moan at the burn of him stretching you out, one that feels so delectable you can’t stop your nails from digging into the muscle of Josh’s back. 

He moves to be fully seated inside of you, the both of you sighing in pure bliss. Josh waits a moment, “That feel okay, Princess?” He asks, that candor of kindness laced in his words makes your heart soar, is this the real Josh? This gentle and protective man you can’t help but want more of, you can only nod, hoping not to scare this version of him away, “No, I need to hear you say it, tell me baby.” He asks again, you whimper at his words, so different from the way he asked you to speak earlier, it’s almost as though something has changed. 

“Yes. I need you, want to feel you, Josh.” You whine, your voice faltering on his name seems to only make the barrier around his false and cocky persona crack away more. “Then let me give it to you.” He says as he begins to slowly thrust into you, the both of you whimpering as he moves in and out of you, his pace picking up has you staring up at him and it's so intimate, like he can see right behind your eyes and into your thoughts, he brings you both back into a kiss, muffled moans from the both of you as he begins to set a pace that has you both crying out in pleasure. “Oh, Josh, oh fuck baby, yes right there-oh fuck.” You choke out as he slams into you. He looks so stunning above you, his curls bouncing in time with his movements, his eyes closing as his cock hits so deep inside of you, some place you’ve never even felt before. 

You can feel the coil in your lower abdomen begin to tighten and you know you’re close. You sit up and kiss him, moving him with you as you get him to lie down on the couch, wanting to ride him so you can watch more astutely the way he falls apart underneath you. His hands fall to your hips as he sits back and watches you sink down on his dick, the two of you groaning at the change in position, the way he fills you up so well has your head falling back and eyes closing as you begin to bounce. 

"Oh God, Princess." His moan empowering you to look down at him and bite your lip, glancing down at him with such confidence it makes you put your hands in your hair, you're the one putting on the show this time. 

Maybe Josh was right about you liking the attention? God don't let him figure that out or his ego is going to skyrocket, ah fuck it, you think as you swirl your hips and bounce up and down on his length, his eyes trained on the private show before him. 

Watching the way your hands run over your breasts, tweaking your nipples, how your head falls back, your loosened curls swaying with you as you roll your hips in such a deliciously sinful manner. Josh's hands grasp your ass, his dull nails digging into the soft flesh beneath, his eyes consuming you like you were an angel from the Sistine Chapel. "Ah, you keep bouncing like that and I'm-" "I am too." You say with a huff, Josh's fingers come down between your legs and runs his thumb over your clit. This action alone has you doubled over, your head buried into his neck, whining and crying out in pleasure, kissing and biting at the skin of his neck, your climax soon approaching. 

With a move that makes your head spin, he stands from the couch, hands gripping your ass, your legs wrapping around his legs as he moves you both to the rug covered floor in front of the blazing fire. Your back lying bare on the rug is so soft as he thrusts into you, his thumb continues rolling over your clit. You moan out, eyes rolling back in your head as your legs tighten around his hips, pulling him closer, sliding so deep inside you. 

The desperation between the two of you reaching a fever pitch for your own respective peaks, the way your eyes meet seem to hold something more than just need, it's almost a sort of fondness? More than lust, it's too gentle. Right when you think you've found the right emotion behind those big sweet brown eyes, your own orgasm starts to take hold, "Oh, ah, Josh-" "I know, pretty girl. Come on, I'm here." He pants, voice breaking in such a way that you can't help but pull him into a kiss. 

He sighs out a moan against your lips as your back arches off the floor, his hips moving in a sloppy rhythm that only proves how on the verge he is. "Ah, Josh, oh you're so fucking huge, oh fuuuck, please, cum with me Josh, need to feel it." You beg him as you weave your fingers in his curls, your eyes pleading him. 

He looks at you a moment, his eyes searching your face, mouth agape, "I'm- ah-" His response is cut off as his hips slam against you, his cock deep inside of you makes the both of you fall into bliss. You can't hold back the need to pull him flush against you, nails scratching down his back in such a way it makes Josh's voice tremble as he spills inside of you, his voice soft and desperate as he whines out your name in the sweetest way that you've ever heard it said before in all your life. The two of you can't help the way you're clawing at each other, looking to keep the other close, closer than even possible. 

Your legs loosen their hold on his hips, his face is buried in your neck and the both of you are searching for breath and quite possibly a way out of this situation that will continue the dance you two used to dance before you broke and ended up in this mess. But nothing snarky comes. 

The silence is deafening, it's the most comfortable silence you and Josh have ever shared, and it only took being completely naked on your library floor in the light of the fireplace with his dick still buried inside you. 

You almost pray you never have to move from this spot, but the moment can't last forever. Josh sits up and moves to hover above you on wobbly arms, the two of you only share a look. 

"So-"

 "Please don't ruin this." You interrupt making Josh smile.

"I was only going to say, if we end every argument like this, I think I might end up liking this arranged marriage thing." He grins at you before moving to pull out of you. "Ah," you whimper, the sound making its way out before you could stop it, "Especially if I get to hear those pretty sounds again, Princess." He smirks as he leans back over you, kissing you on the cheek before standing to grab both of your clothes. 

"I don't think we can show back up to our own party again tonight." You say as he hands you your undergarments and dress, "Why, you think everyone will be able to see how I fucked you into oblivion?" He chuckles as he pulls his underwear back on. "If they don't notice the hickies on your neck first." You smile as you pull on your own panties. Josh moves swiftly to a mirror against the wall, fingers sweeping against the rosy and purple marks. 

"You're going to pay for that." He replies with a smile as he turns back to you, "Besides, I don't know how well I can dance with my legs shaking like this." You say as you cautiously stand, your thighs twitching from your earlier activities. Josh comes back over to you, his lips inches from yours. 

He moves down to run a finger up your inner thigh, collecting the cum that had leaked down your leg. He brings the finger to your lips, you open your mouth expectantly, his finger laying on your tongue. You close your lips around his digit, sucking the delightful taste off of his finger. His eyes darken at both the sight and sensation, you release his finger and look up at him with the biggest doe eyes you can muster. He sighs as he pulls you closer by the waist, his hand cradling your chin, your chests pressing flushed against each other. He smirks as he speaks, voice just above a whisper.

"You are going to be the death of me." 

"Oh honey, I'll certainly try." 

Tag list:

(Thank you all so much for your continued support, I love you all 🧡)

@tripthelight-fanfic @emsgvf @ageofstardust @dakotadovato @screechesincoherently @gretavankleep37 @strangeh0rizons @capturethechaos @kiszkathecook @jakeslovehandles @depressingdarlin @gretavanfleas @maverick-rose @prophetofthedune @josiee-gvf @doodle417 @readthinkbeme @katie-gvf @lallisonl @toxbexannouncedx @kdarling1

@lilstanxd

[mrskurono]

title: Healing || Izuku Midoriya x fem!Reader a/n: I watched the World Heroes movie and all I could think about was riding Deku and kissing his freckles word count: 2k tags: fem!Reader, angst ish, pwp, minor self inflicted pain (Izuku's hands are fucked up after a fight like normal), vaginal fingering, unprotected sex, vaginal sex, light cervix fucking, creampie, no dom/sub dynamics, established relationship, exhibitionism if you squint, soft sex, unedited character(s): Izuku Midoriya (bnha) synopsis: pro hero Deku still treats his body like a second thought. Recovery Girls great grandkids do a good job healing the renown pro but it still drives you sick with worry to see your husband like this.

Horror flicks and jump scares of your youth about empty hospitals didn't seem to bother you as much now. And hospital kitchen's always closed earlier than your stomach did. So with a husband bed bound and sleeping, there was little you could do but munch your feelings away.

With how much time you'd spent in them because of your husband. It was a miracle you didn't just rent a place closer to the hospital Izuku always ended up with. Though his recklessness had tapered down as you both grew. Somethings couldn't be stubbornly outgrown.

Izuku's stubbornness to save people was certainly just that. Stubborn.

Luckily his will to live was just as head strong. Leaving you to follow him with assurance that he'd always get better. He always did. So just like your fear of empty hospitals. The fear of seeing him asleep and bandaged in bed had lessened just ever so slightly through the decades.

Back with a bag of mini cookies and the clock above the door way signaling how close it was to midnight. You sighed without an ounce of tiredness to your name just as you sat back down next to Izuku's bed. Thankfully though he seemed to still be sleeping peacefully. Allowing you to rub his arm while you sat there silently looking down at the unopened bag of cookies in your other hand.

"...did you bring me some?" His voice murmured from the head of the bed.

You look up with little shock on your face. Only a soft smile where tears threatened your lashes just as you gave his forearm a gentle squeeze, "You should be asleep."

"But you have something good." Izuku's cheeky brimming smile made your heart melt all over again. Still plastered on his face as you leaned up and kissed his forehead for the hundredth time.

"I won't open them. Get some rest and I'll make sure cookies pair well with whatever they serve for breakfast tomorrow," You set the bag on the bedside table, "Go back to sleep."

Eyes shut as he laid in the sea of white linens, Izuku sighted softly when he reached down and rubbed his thump along your knee, "I won't be able to if you're not in bed with me."

"Izuku."

"C'mon." He looked over at you smiling, "Lay with me. Please?"

The idiot. Smiling in the hospital bed like putting your nerves at ease were more important than his own healing. You knew what you married. Izuku just still left you soft and wanting him after all these years.

Cramped but comforting. You two managed to lay together on the hospital bed. Careful not to bump too many of the bandaged areas on his body. Izuku seemed less careful when all he could do was wrap his strong arms you. Yanking you to him until all you could do was the same. Curling around him and cradling your husband's face to your chest.

It didn't take long before the first tear fell.

"I'm sorry." Izuku murmured into your chest, squeezing you tighter, "I know how much you hate this."

You press your lips to his green curls and rub a gentle circle against the side of his neck, "I'd hate this if you never got better. You've got people who want you to come home you idiot."

Sniffling Izuku pried his head from your chest to look up at you. Green eyes glossed over with tears and his smile twitching trying to keep the tears away, "I'll always come home to you."

Exhaling a stifled little laugh. You don't want to cry either. Leading you to press your lips against his even as you feel Izuku's nose drip a little and his hold on you tighten, "I know you will."

With hot breath against your lips. It didn't stop your kiss from deepening. Izuku's hands traveling up your back. Your lips pressing harder into his. Finding your fingers curling into his hair at the nape of his neck in the seconds Izuku parted his lips wanting more.

The kiss deepened. As did the way his swore hands lingered on your body. Izuku grabbing and rolling your hips against him with your lips locked. Allowing only muffled moans to fill the empty hospital room. No longer concerned about being outside the privacy of your own bedroom. This place really was a second home with how much time you both had spent there.

"Izuku-" You whispered against his lips as he rubbed his fingertips against the crotch of your panties. Still not entirely sure in the heat of the moment how your bottoms ended of. But they were and your husband couldn't stop his lingering touch, "You should be resting. You're all beat up and-"

"I want you." He moaned against your lips. Fingers toying with your panties as Izuku tried a few times to pull them aside to no avail, "I want you so badly love."

His pleas made your core ache and set your body on fire. Izuku's breathy pleas against your warm lips sold the fact you couldn't wait until discharge either.

Even with his banged up hands. The man was able to draw the crotch of your panties from your core. Immediately enjoying the softness of your cunt lips as Izuku drew his touch up your slit. Drawing more than a simple moan from you. Making out on hold as all you could do was grip his broad shoulders and feel the fleeting touch of your lips each time either of you moaned.

"Warm-" Was all Izuku could mutter into the crook of your chest when his fingers delved past your lips. Well scared and calloused fingertips brushing your twitching insides now. Izuku's head resting heavily on your chest as you felt him slowly pick up speed with stirring your insides up.

One finger turned to two. Deep as his knuckles would allow just as Izuku swirled his swore fingers inside you. Wincing only a little with the pain still residual in his arm. That couldn't stop the man though when you grabbed his head and bucked up against his touch. Driving his strong fingers deeper inside you with each swipe against your sensitive folds.

"Izuku- Izuku wait-" You hardly had any of your senses to you. Feeling your walls clench around his fingers and shudder with each the slightest movement he made. It really tested your sanity but you still knew he was recovering, "-let me."

There was undoubtedly a wince from the way he pushed himself. Just like the big idiot. You could ride his fingers forever some other time. Right now it was your sweet hero that needed more tending too.

Relieved of the strain of fingering you. It didn't stop Izuku from protesting a bit about it all until you got on top of him. Straddling him between your legs and allowing your hips to lean back until you felt his cock brush against your slit. Revealing right out that he didn't have any bottoms on before you even got into bed with him.

Grinning with a dusting of blush, Izuku looked up from his slightly propped up position among the pillows at the head of his bed, "What? I told you I wanted you..."

No arguing that now. You allowed him to position his tip against your entrance. Izuku drawing his touch away and replacing it on your hips just as you sunk back fully on his cock.

What your husband might have never made up for in vertical height. Was made up in the way his cock curved right against your sweet spot. Stretching you nice and wide with a thick cock you swore even felt like a snug fit after all these years. As you fully sat yourself back on Izuku's cock. All you could do was grip his hands on your sides and shudder.

" 's to big-" You gasped out. Feeling him still inside you but still it felt like your cervix was being kissed but Izuku's tip, "God-" You couldn't help fall forward into him a bit and grab for his shoulders for support, "Fuck- Izuku-"

"Shit- You keep getting tighter-" Izuku groaned from under you. A face full of breasts as you clutched his face to your bust. Hands remaining on your hips amidst the way you wiggled and ground yourself down on his length, "Amazing-"

Hushing him quietly. You find yourself adjusting to the upgrade. His cock filling your senses and making you already feel a little fucked out and stupid before even moving. It was all the closeness you could want as you held his face in your palms. Making him look at you above you as you slowly began moving.

Half lidded green eyes fixated up at you like you were the moon in the sky. Izuku gripped your thighs with his sore hands but didn't set the pace you moved with. Savoring the way your cunt swallowed him up each time you moved down. His own muscles tensing in his tired body though with your juices dripping down his aching cock as you rode him.

"Izuku-" His name rolled breathlessly from your parted lips. Gentle rolling of your hips turned to a frantic jerk of your body a top his. Fucking yourself with desperation on his cock with the added sensation of your untouched clit now finally rubbing against his pubic mound. Your poor untouched bud throbbing each time it ground into his mound of green hair. It wasn't your fingers or his. But paired with the way Izuku angled his hips up so you could feel him kiss your cervix each time you bounced down on him. Was simply too much for either of you.

"Cumming-!" Izuku cried out from under you. Hardly moving a muscle and yet his pleasure was too much to control with how you milked him with your hips, "I'm cumming love!"

"Shhh- Fuck- I can't-!" You interrupted yourself with your own lips pressing to the freckles of his cheek. Baited breath even as you peppered his face in kisses and held him close. Rolling your hips chasing the high as Izuku's voice cracked in his chest and his fingertips dug into your sides. Just a little more of your clit grinding into his pubic bone and the second his cock twitched against your cervix brought you to the same euphoric bliss he was.

Hips shuddering on his own. Izuku's soft moans leaving his lips like pleas when his cock twitched and emptied everything he had to give. The cummy mixture only making more of a mess as you rode out your orgasm. Bouncing on his overly sensitive cock just as you twitched and spasmed around him. Neither of you able to say anything. Consumed in your orgasm and the hot breath of your lips against his cheek and Izuku's heavy breathing near your ear.

Slowing down. Until you simply sat back on his cock. Feeling the soaked mess dripping out of you even as his cock softened inside you. Neither of you made the motion to move yet. Izuku's eyes fluttering shut when you began peppering his face in tender kisses.

"Tch- Couldn't wait to be discharged even?" You tease even though you wouldn't have wanted to wait either. Still pressing gentle kisses all over his face as you feel Izuku curl his arms around your back and pull you down on him completely.

"Couldn't wait." Izuku smiles into the crook of your neck when he feels you finally relax entirely on him. Arms curled around each other, "Not when you make me feel better than any medicine ever could."

[perwaineintsomi]

FIRST

Pair: Thranduil X Female Elf Reader (You)

Pair: Thranduil X Female Elf Reader (You)

Words: 3,152

Warnings: Slight Angst

Summary: You and Thranduil reminisced your first interaction as strangers to each other.

It has been a decade since you and Thranduil have been married. Ever since then people in Eryn Galen—"Greenwood the great" as mortals call it— became fond of the new couple. They have been asking for an heir as you recall it on your first day as a couple.

Although both of you wanted an elfling, as a member of the royal family your responsibility keeps on piling up so you both agreed that your first responsibility is the realm especially Sauron and Sauron's minions been eyeing Amon Lanc for half a century now.

Paper works, countless meetings from the council regarding the rising attacks of orcs from your borders, realms of both men and other elven kingdoms asking for aid, and so on. It bothers not only you but the people of Eryn Galen.

"Are you alright?" Thranduil asked when he noticed that you've been staring at the window for 10 minutes.

"Do you need to rest?" his voice said in worry.

"Yes I am alright and I do not need rest, there are people whose safety rely on us, and as your wife, a princess, that means I must help you to your responsibilities as a prince whilst King Oropher been busying himself to the upcoming war in which in my opinion is not a good idea. I am not just worried about you but our soldiers as well. They have family Thranduil, like us. But Sauron keeps poisoning our peaceful time here on middle-earth, I do not know what to do or think anymore".

While you were speaking, you did not notice that Thranduil went to your chair and he hugs you from the side. Normally, you don't talk about serious things like this but now you can not help it. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers might go to war to leave their families behind without knowing if they will be able to come back or they will end up in the halls of Mandos.

You, yourself is scared as well not only for Thranduil, your husband but to your second father, King Oropher.

"Meleth nin(My love), I know what you feel. You see, war is a dangerous game where it is a matter of life and death. I, myself have been to many wars before and as far as I know, you joined some of them, yes?".

You nodded and yes he was right. Right before you became Thranduil's wife you became a soldier from Lothlorien. Although you are a respectable lady since your family is one of the Lothlórien's council, it did not stop you to join many battles. Elves considered you like the best archer in Arda since you hit every target dead on the spot.

"Enough of this subject and let us focus on something else. Since we are already talking about you being in too many battles, do you remember the first time that we saw each other?" Thranduil stuttered as his eyes shimmered looking back in the memory of you together.

"Yes I remember, father still finds it amusing though. The first time when we met together I thought you were a guard because of how filthy you look."

You both laugh in tears remembering that day.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

You were in the battlefield shooting arrows to every orcs you see. Left and right, front to your back as they continuously emerge from somewhere. You did not know where.

You ran to your father's side when you saw him guard less.

"Valar, You are too open." You muttered to yourself when you saw your father being his clearing being too open, as if he's inviting the orcs to come to him.

"You always got my back sellig. (Daughter)" You rolled your eyes hearing those. Again. For the nth time.

Minutes later, your coast is clear and thankfully some soldiers only received small to mild wounds.

"Y/N, daughter let's get back to the king's tent to see our next plan. Orcs that arrived in our area is suspiciously lower than we anticipated. They're maybe plotting for something and we must alert them to what we have noticed."

You nodded and followed your father back to the King's tent. King Gil-galad, Highest king of Noldor and is a highly respectable king in arda.

Although you're not a Noldor, they still accepted your parents refuge to Lothlorien-and also because if Lord Celeborn-for some time now especially Sindarin elves are enormously low due to the fact the Noldor elves attacked the Teleri elves in Valinor. Right after the kinslaying, your parents departed to Valinor to help aid the other elves from the destruction of Sauron.

The Valar granted the remaining elves in Valinor to help them to fight against the upcoming destruction of Sauron. Many elves departed Valinor and some chose not to, for their grief towards their kin is still painful. In result, all of the Noldor are banished from Valinor due to their traitorous wicked act.

Your parents has been together since they are still in Valinor and when they reached Middle-Earth. Thingol, the high king of Sindar elves accepted your parents refuge to Doriath. Your father became part of his council and became friends with many Sindar elves like King Oropher of Eryn Galen and Lord Celeborn of Lothlórien.

When the destruction of Doriath happened, elves despised the dwarves for their obsession of jewelry and killing their Sindar King, Thingol. Queen Melian, wife of King Thingol, Mother of Lúthien warned your parents about what she saw in her vision. Y/N's future.

-------------------------

"You must understand that your daughter is a gift from the Valar and raise her well for she will play a huge part during this time. War and destruction, poisons, accursed lands and betrayals. I hope that you will take care of her, nurture her with knowledge of both worlds. Train her with different weapons and most important of all, love her and cherish her for we do not know what future lies to all of us." Melian said to both of your parents whilst holding you in her chest.

"Every elfling is a Valar gift to all of us elves and you Y/N, I see your future so bright but with a hint of darkness in it. However, it will be in a long time and we are not in a hurry. You can find love in this world and cherish it like the love of your parents." Melian said that only you and your parents can hear. She kissed your temple before she gave you back to your parents.

"You must go now, seek a refuge to other realms if you have to. Doriath is gonna fall any time of the day now. Many soldiers have died protecting this realm so as innocent ones. Flee my friends, my heart will weep upon your leaving."

Your parents understood and immediately left Doriath with Lord Celeborn's company and there you grew up into a beautiful, wise and respectable elleth. Many centuries had passed since the fall of Doriath and the thought of it made you stronger, braver, and confident in every battle you face.

At first, your parents did not agree to you to partake any war since you are too young to experience it. But your determination and heavy preparations of training made them agree to you to join battles.

And one of them is this.

You and your father finally reached the elven king's tent to report the anomaly that happened in your troops. Upon entering the said tent, you noticed a tall ellon standing next to the Sindar King Oropher that made you think that they have arrived at the same time as you and your father.

The ellon stared at you for a moment but you did not care about it at all. You listened to both kings as their observation about the said orc attack is not normal.

10 minutes and they're still discussing about the possibilities that might happen next hour or so. But you noticed that the ellon is still staring at you and of course you're already used to it since having an elleth to an army is rare.

You stared at him back, eyebrow rise as if your telepathically talking to him saying "what's wrong?."

He then cleared his throat and pretends to listen to both kings but your composure is still the same.

Little did you both know that King Oropher noticed his son's odd behavior earlier and he just silently observing and waited for your reaction towards to his son.

Normally King Oropher knows that every elleth and women has been obsessed, head over heels to his son Thranduil. Now the situation has changed and it excites him to know what will happen next.

King Oropher cleared his throat and said,

"Why not the both of you go outside and help the healer aid the wounded soldiers, I know that both of you have quite knowledge about elven medicine and I think the healers appreciate it if they have more helping hands out there." He said looking both at you and Thranduil.

Your father stared at you and gave you a nod as an answer that you are dismissed so you march outside right after you give your curtsy to the three of them.

Thranduil followed you heading to the healing tents and no one even bother to speak a word.

When you both are near, Thranduil suddenly speak.

"What is your name?" He asked curiously staring at your hair.

"Y/N" you shortly replied without looking at him.

Thranduil find it annoying when you did not turn to talk to him so he then said.

"Are you really in such hurry to help the healers? You know, the king just said that to dismiss us without saying it."

"I know." You said and turn to him, looking straight in the eye.

"Since you already know my name, may I know yours so I am not calling you orc. You seemed to enjoy their company earlier and decided to shower their blood all over you as a souvenir, no?"

You asked as his face looked amazed instead of being mad.

"I am Thranduil and yes I enjoy the battle earlier however I have no control of their blood spilling or whisking at me." Thranduil snapped back but you just want to laugh because his appearance is quite horrid than expected.

His armor, half of his hair, or even half of his neck is smeared with orc blood and you find it worrisome because it don't usually happen to everyone, unless, they're reckless.

You rolled your eyes at him as you turned your back.

"Since we both are heading to the tents you might as well want to get yourself cleaned. Base on your situation, you might be a veteran warrior yet a reckless one as well."

"How do you know that I'm good in the battlefield?" Thranduil asked as you two began to walk towards the healing tents.

"I noticed that you do not possess any wound from the battle earlier, all the bloods belong to the orcs that you and your company have slain."

"That is a good observation, however I did not notice that you looked at me even for once." Thranduil said in a sarcastic tone.

"Well, with all due respect your majesty, I have seen enough already." You said leaving him outside once you entered the said tent.

You immediately asked for a bucket of water and a towel.

Once when Thranduil entered. He was shock to see you holding a bucket of water and a towel and giving it to him.

"Clean yourself." you muttered.

"Then I will help you clean your hair."

Thranduil immediately took the bucket and the towel and he began to clean himself whilst you began to wash his hair.

Surprisingly while you wash his hair. You noticed that his hair is not really blond but rather a white-ish silver hair.

"Your hair is paler than I anticipated." You said to him while drying his hair.

"I got it from my kin, we are Sindarin elves. Are you a Sindarin elf, yes?"

"Yes I am Sindar but my hair is not the same of our kin. Queen Melian had said that I am a gift from the Valar but I do not know why they decided to color it brown." I said to him.

Honestly, many people thought that I am Noldo because of my hair but once they look at my physique it is really a Sindar.

"Maybe the reason why they gave that color is because it glows in the sun like gold. Your hair reminds me of Laurelin tree in Valinor however I did not see the tree myself." He said turning at you.

"Well since you compare my hair to the golden leaves of Laurelin might as well I compare yours to Telperion. Since the leaves of it gives a shiny white light like hair of yours." You said and you swear you saw him smirk.

You stand up and was about to return the bucket of now cloudy water.

When he grabbed your wrist and said,

"Do you know me?'' He asked raising his eyebrow yet his eyes is full of… amazement?

"I do not know you personally since we have just met earlier however…" his gaze is now in mere anticipation when you said "however".

"However?..." He continued waiting for your answer.

"I noticed that you might be a boastful ellon yet known to mischief." You said then he let go of your hand to continue your plan earlier.

His mouth agape and was about to say something but he laughed. Teary-eyed prince watching your every step once you came back to his side.

"What?" You asked in confusion. You mean what you said to him since his gaze from you earlier feels like a judgment. You had met so many people already and you only know one thing. Their eyes says it all. A woman, elleth or whatever form they are as long as they are female, they have no place in males world.

You are sick of it.

Sick and tired of being ridiculed because of your gender.

No matter how many times you prove them they're wrong, they'll just shrug their shoulders and says things such as; "She is just lucky", ''I can do that with my eyes closed." Whatsoever.

Now staring at Thranduil's blue eyes. You thought of nothing.

And you noticed it.

He was trying to read your emotions through your eyes for eyes cannot lie, however, he was failing. Miserably.

You noticed his eyes being nervous so you decided to head out and pull his arms so you two can have air.

"Why did you laugh? I am telling the truth." You said boringly.

"You thought of me being boastful yet you are not scared?"

"Why would I be scared?"

"I am a prince of Greenwood the great and no one ever dares to say horrid things such us that."

He said firmly but Thranduil noticed your smirk and deep inside he smiled to keep his scary mask on.

"You really think I do not know you? I have heard of your stories to multiple battles already, it seems that you have a dungeons worth of elleth or even women. If you think of me as one of them, you are wrong. The look that you gave me earlier is the look of many men and ellon for centuries now. They all judge me as not part of the guard just because of my gender and that idea pisses me off. With all due respect your majesty. Prince Thranduil of Greenwood the great…" You said the last line in a sarcastic tone.

"My duty for your hair is already done so now I need to help the healers in the next tent, you did not forget it, do you?" You said but you noticed a hinge of change in Thranduil's face. He was not mad but more of like… puzzled?. No. Excited?. No. It is more of like a….

Challenge.

"I was not expected that the Lady of Lothlorien have heard about me. Unsurprisingly, I have heard about your great battles as well Lady Y/N." His looks gave you a confirmation that he is challenging you.

"How so?" Challenging him back.

"You are not the only one who can observe here Lady Y/N. I noticed that you're not looking back at me and it confirms my suspicion earlier. You thought that I was judging you but no. Like I said, I have heard of your stories as well… ''

"And what are those stories about?" Nervousness being your number one enemy right now.

"That the Valar sent elleth is glowing like a tree of Laurelin. Many eldar that had seen the both trees compared your glow to Laurelin. I stared at you because you are beautiful." Thranduil said trying to hide his pink cheeks by standing taller.

Your empty thoughts earlier is now a bucket full. No. A working fountain perhaps.

You stared at him with "you-do-not-know-what-to-say-because-I-am-flattered-look".

"You think you are the only one who can be blunt and honest at the same time, do you not?" Thranduil smirked but his cheeks are still pink.

"You say what you want to say, but there are people out there that needs our help regardless of our title, let us help them since there are only few healers in our party right now." You said while turning back to him but now your…smiling.

Little did you know that when you turned around Thranduil sighed and smiled and he is happy that you can not see his reaction right now or else, that would be embarrassing.

-----------------------------------

You both laugh while telling each others point of view and feelings.

"Wait, do you know that your King Oropher planned it all?" You said to Thranduil that is now currently in your side.

"What do you mean Meleth?" Confusion in his eyes yet you know that he is eager to know more.

"Ada said that the three of them were bystanders, they were just hiding inside the tent only peeking through the doors. It turns out that King Oropher talked to King Gil-galad to pretend we are having an orc attack for us to meet each other and talk." You said to now wide-eyed Thranduil.

"They used their previous battle plans to study all the orc activities." You said while smiling.

You noticed Thranduil scratching his neck as if he's trying to remember something.

"No wonder why Ada showered me with orc bloods, do you know when we all finished decapitating each orcs before burning it, my father threw their heads at me." He said in a tone of betrayal.

"Well at least now we know each other then." Looking at you with shimmering eyes. He then pulled you to his lap and kiss you with laugh…I mean love.

-----------------------------------

A/N: This is my first time writing a ff so please if you found a problem. I am sorry. I will improve it once I am confident enough of my writing skills but for now, so be it.

[earlgreydream]

lover of mine.

| winter soldier!bucky barnes x reader | angst | fluff |

lover of mine.

/When I take a look at my life/And all of my crimes/You're the only thing that I think I got right//I watched the world fall from your eyes/All my regrets/And things you can't forget/Light them all up/Kiss them goodbye/

“You loved him once. You can love him again.”

“I never stopped loving him. That’s what you don’t understand.” 

The fellow Avengers had watched the world fall from your eyes, the joy draining from you with every headline that involved Bucky. Not only had he changed, but you had too. You became completely enthralled with your missions, pouring every waking second into the Avengers. Because if you thought about anything else, you would break. 

Steve begged you to take breaks, begged you to take time off. You insisted you were fine, never wanting to be left alone with your thoughts. You didn’t want to think about the newsreels of Bucky-- the winter soldier-- wielding machine guns. 

You couldn’t bear to see the love of your life slaughtering people.

“I’m not picking up Parker from school... He’s in high school, he doesn’t need me to pick him up! He can take the subway! Or use his webs!” You snapped at Stark, who stared at you impatiently.

“You need to rest. This is how you’re filling your afternoon.” Stark was insistent, and you shook your head, grabbing the keys to a Tesla. 

“Steve?”

“Go, Y/N.”

You sighed and went down to the garage, driving uptown to get the teenager from school. You parked outside of the high school, leaning against the hood of your car while you waited. 

You never got used to the modernity. You were like Steve and Bucky. You’d been alive in the 40s, and frozen like they were. Luckily, you’d fallen to S.H.I.E.L.D. instead of Hydra. You’d managed to stay safe with Steve, and become an Avenger, not suffering Bucky’s fate. 

Before the war, you and Bucky had been married. The memories in your mind of dancing in the kitchen, jazz bars, drive-ins, and reading the Hobbit when it came out, were all raw. Before he was deployed, there was a wedding.

You’d been surrounded by flowers and your friends, celebrating the love of your life. Steve was the best man. You’d left the ceremony with Bucky in his yellow vintage car, going to the coast for your honeymoon. 

You remembered the beach house, and running in the sand with your young husband. It was perfect back then, before Hydra got their hands on him. He was loving and gentle, the kind of man who danced with you in the kitchen and brought you flowers. 

You remembered when he’d gone off to war. You wore his dog tags, and hung a flag in your window. You’d kissed him goodbye, tears blinding you as you tried to focus on the silver eyes that were full of adoration and love. You remembered when Steve came back, and Bucky didn’t. 

There were so many memories of crying in Steve’s arms, and falling asleep with him beside you. Even when you’d moved to Stark Tower with him, even after becoming an avenger decades later, you still slept beside him. He’d listened to you sob for Bucky a million times; Steve had witnessed a lifetime of your heartbreak. 

You remembered waking up from being frozen, and finding out who James Buchanan Barnes had become. 

“Y/N?!” Parker’s cheerful voice snapped you out of your thoughts as he came bounding down the stairs of the high school. 

“Hey kiddo. Stark sent me to get you.” You stood up off the car and hugged him. He waved goodbye to his friends and got in the passenger seat. He immediately started chattering, and you welcomed it, appreciating the distraction from the deafening silence. That was why you were fond of Parker, he was easy to be around, and he was always happy to fill the silence.

“Let’s go to Starbucks!” He announced as the two of you drove back to the tower.

“Are you joking?”

“No! It’s on me.”

“It’s on Stark,” you smirked, and Parker broke out into a wide grin.

You and Peter walked into Stark Tower a half hour later, chattering and laughing. Parker was the only one of the Avengers who cheered you up, and he never made you feel bad for not wanting to talk about Bucky. He was bubbly and warm, and always made you laugh. You were giggling at a story from his school as you went upstairs to the penthouse, unaware of what you were walking1 into.

You nearly crashed into him, stopping dead in your tracks.

“Y/N!” The voice was so familiar, and yet, you thought you’d never hear it again.

You were suffocating. The air was ripped from your lungs, and you couldn’t breathe. It felt like the earth was swaying underneath you, everything shattered. 

Steve ran to you as you passed out, and Parker caught you with a shout before you hit the floor. He knelt on the marble, your head in his lap, and Steve shouted for Banner, who came running to follow you to his medical lab.

“Stevie, what’s wrong with her?!” Bucky demanded, and everyone looked at him. 

“It’s the shock of seeing you.” Steve admitted, and Bucky looked like he was going to break. 

“I’m better now, I’m no longer the...” he couldn’t even say it, his eyes anxious and frightened.

Bucky had spent months trying to free himself of Hydra’s psychological bonds. He was free now, motivated by the thought of coming home to you. Bucky had waited years. Now, he was home, and the second he said your name and laid eyes on him, you’d panicked and blacked out.

Steve attempted to comfort him, and even Parker, the boy he didn’t know. They tried to explain to Bucky that you were just in shock, but his heart broke. 

“I took care of her, Buck. She still loves you, she always has. Just give her some time. Seeing you like that...”

“I know,” Bucky breathed. 

Everyone left Bucky alone with you, giving you privacy. He sat beside the bed where you were asleep, Banner assuring everyone that you were fine, you had only fainted.

He watched you. Bucky hadn’t watched you sleep like this since the 1940s.

He was suddenly back, leaning in the doorway, the soft light pouring behind him as he drank a cup of coffee, taking in the sight of his sweet wife sleeping before he went to work. You’d glow in the golden light of the morning, your face peaceful and serene. It was so intimate back then.

Bucky sat up as you stirred, familiar eyes slowly opening. You didn’t know where you were at first, your mind running through events. You’d picked Parker up from school, stopped for a snack, and came back to the tower. And seen your husband.

You sat up suddenly, and he put his arms out, one made of vibranium. His eyes were soft, full of love, not the empty steel you’d seen on the news. Your name fell from his lips, desperate and anxious.

You jerked away at first, startled by the reality of what was happening. You were frightened, alone in the room with your husband. You scrambled back against the headboard, trying to put distance between you and his outstretched hands.

You were about to scream when you realized he looked just as frightened as you. You slowly sank back against the headboard, slowing your breathing as you stared at him.

“James?”

“It’s me, doll. I’m home.”

You didn’t know how long the silence lasted, but it felt like hours. The two of you stared at each other, and when you finally decided he wasn’t going to hurt you, you gingerly moved toward him.

“I’m free from them. It’s just me, it’s not the winter soldier anymore,” Bucky’s voice was soft, and you blinked back tears.

“It can’t be you. You were gone.” Your voice trembled as you spoke.

“I’m back now. I came back for you. I’m never going to hurt you, or anyone else again.”

“James-”

“I’m not a killer anymore.”

The plea broke your heart, the shattered boy begging you to believe him, begging you to take him back. Tears slid down his cheeks, terrified of your reaction.

“James, I love you.”

“I love you, Y/N.”

Bucky felt like he’d waited a million years to say it, and the words spread through you, filling your empty soul.

You wanted to fall into his arms, to hold him close and feel him again. You wanted all of it to happen instantly, but that’s not how it was. You needed time, time to adjust, and time to trust him again before you returned to your husband fully.

You reached out to touch his arm, and he noticed the wedding ring wasn’t around your finger. His eyes flitted up to yours, and you pulled the chain from around your neck that hid beneath your shirt. It held his dog tags, and your wedding ring. Relief flooded Bucky, and you offered a the slightest hint of a smile.

“What happened?” You asked, cautiously running your fingers along the vibranium.

“I lost my arm when I fell from the train. Steve told you?”

“A bit... you fell, he didn’t know what happened after.”

“Can I touch you?” Bucky spoke gently, understanding your hesitation and being patient.

You nodded, and his hand slowly lifted to your face, fingers brushing over the curves of your skin. You laid your hand over his, kissing the inside of his wrist. He cried softly, a smile crossing his face as he felt you, promising it wasn’t a dream.

“Bucky, we need you for a meeting.” Stark leaned into the bedroom, hours later.

“Stark, now?”

“I’m sorry. Y/N will be here when you get back.”

“I’ll wait for you.” You promised, and he nodded, the words falling heavy between you.

Bucky followed Stark out, and you sat on the bed, processing the day. Bucky had quietly explained the Hydra brainwashing, about how he was held captive in his own mind. You believed him, but it would always be hard to shake those memories of him on the news.

“Hey, we didn’t mean to just drop this on you.” Steve came inside, sitting down on the mattress.

“You couldn’t have kept from me that my husband was suddenly free and home. Is he really, though? It is him? He won’t kill me in my sleep?” You asked, and Steve gave you a sad smile.

“It is. He’s traumatized, he won’t be the same as before the war. But it’s not the winter soldier, it’s Bucky.” 

You knew it was true. You knew the man before you, his heart and his soul, and you were going to grow to know his mind again.

You were curled up in bed, Steve beside you on the other side of the large mattress. 

“Stevie? Y/N?” you heard a soft voice from the doorway, and you sat up in the dark. You had trouble sleeping, and you were awake when he came in during the middle of the night.

“Bucky?” 

“I can’t sleep.”

“Come here,” you whispered, moving over in bed, closer to Steve, who was waking from the disturbance. You didn’t fear Bucky, especially not when he looked so frightened and upset.

You lifted the blanket, and Bucky got in on the other side of the bed. You pulled him to you, silently wrapping your arms around him. You felt Steve against your back, leaning over to place his hand on Bucky’s arm, smoothing over the skin slowly to comfort him. 

“You’re okay now, it’s over, my love,” you whispered, settling between the warm bodies.

Your head rested on Bucky’s chest, and you realized how long you’d spent waiting for it. You felt his lips press a kiss to the top of your head, and Steve bury his face into the back of your neck, needing to be close.

[samuel-de-champagne-problems]

Right Where You Left Me

Summary: Y/N never expected to see him again. He tore her heart out and left her in the dusty heat of a Las Vegas diner. She never wanted to see him again, but sometimes the heart wants what heart wants.

Word Count: 3.7k

Author's Note: This is the first prompt that I wrote for 400 followers and it is based on Right Where You Left Me. Some background info: Spencer and Reader (Female pronouns) were lovers when they were 23, Spencer left to join the FBI and Y/N never recovered.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem Reader

Content Warning: Angst till the very end, one use of f--k, reader cuts her hand on glass so blood is mentioned.

Right Where You Left Me

2009, Enterprise Diner, Las Vegas, Nevada

The bell above the door always sounds the same, no matter who walks into the little diner. Whether it’s exhausted truckers looking for a cheap cup of coffee or lonely souls looking to be a little less lonely for even an hour, the bell’s chime is always the same.

From the first time she met Spencer Reid, Y/N knew that boy was destined for greatness. His greatness is exceptionally painful when it juxtaposes her intense ordinariness. Part of her always dreams of the bell ringing and telling her that he’s back. He’s back and would no longer just haunting her dreams. But he isn’t back. He isn’t back and she’s right where he left her.

Y/N wipes the counter with a worn napkin, noticing how her skin is cracked from her fingertips to the butt of her palms. The bell rings and Y/N picks up her head. An elderly couple walks in holding hands. It’s amazing to her, to be that old and that in love. She wonders what it would be like to have the kind of love that you’ll never run out of things to say. If her past has taught her anything, Y/N tells herself she’s not the kind of girl that gets a lifelong romance. She’s not the kind of girl that gets someone who gets her.

She’s the kind of girl that’s frozen in the place right where he left her.

September 2012, Enterprise Diner, Las Vegas, Nevada

“One of these is not like the other,” Sabrina says in a singsong kind of voice. She walks out from behind the counter, finished with her shift. She wishes Y/N good night before she leaves the diner, telling her to lock up and handle the clean up. The busboy makes his way to the table of men with two kinds of coffee, decaf and regular, in her hands. Y/N follows, rolling her eyes, behind with three coffee mugs.

Apparently, there is a missing child case and the FBI has gotten involved. The two men, dressed intimidatingly in black suits and gray ties, looked very different from the younger man who sat across from them. It only took her a second to recognize that face. It’s the face of all her dreams that at one point was just out of reach. But now it’s just the face of rejection and hurt.

Before she even realizes it, the coffee mug that Y/N holds in her hand drops and shatters on the floor. The men, even vigilant, turn towards the noise. Y/N wanting to disappear into the night, drops to the floor to clean up the glass. She hears a shuffle from the booth and in comes a pair of well-worn converse into her field of vision.

“Here,” he says, his voice just soft and steady as ever, “let me, Y/N,”

Y/N drops the glass like it burns her. But in reality, she’s trying to get as far away as possible from Spencer, because she knows if she touches him again, she’ll never be able to survive letting go.

Spencer.

Spencer Reid crouches down before her just inches from her face all these years later. It seems unbelievable to see him in the flesh, but it’s him, even if he looks a little older and a little sadder.

“Thank you. I’m going to get you a new cup. I remember how much you love coffee,” Y/N whispers, wishing again that she could turn into the wind and disappear.

Y/N tries to ignore the way Spencer’s co-workers eye him when he returns to the seat. Clutching the pieces of glass, Y/N cuts her thumb. The dark red blood rushes out and she can feel her pulse rise. She wraps a white cloth over the cut. By the time she gets to Spencer’s table, the blood has pooled to the surface. She places the cups on the table, turning to leave, but a strong, yet gentle hand grasps her elbow.

“You’re bleeding?” Spencer says, his voice ends on a high note like he’s asking her more than telling her.

“Yeah, it’s fine Spencer. I’ll take care of it later, it’s just-”

“Let me help you,” he says, the two men, his co-workers, share a thoughtful glance. Y/N has the sneaking suspicion that they can read her mind or very much close to it.

She narrows her eyes at Spencer as her thumb pulsates and the blood soaked napkin grows even more red.

“Last time I checked you’re not a real doctor,” Y/N says, the venom in her voice all too apparent. The man sitting across from Spencer with the kinder eyes puts his hands up in defeat.

“What the hell is going on here? Do you know her or something, Spencer?” he says, his confusion about who Y/N is growing into frustration by the second. The man sitting next to the man with the kind eyes doesn’t say much. Y/N expects that he’s soaking in the entire interaction or is too tired to care about his co-worker’s personal drama.

“Huh, you didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell you FBI friends about me, Spencer? Huh, can I say that I’m not surprised by that at all,” Y/N responds, fumbling with managing to pour the coffee and covering her cut with the napkin.

“Please, Y/N you’re being ridiculous, let me help you,” Spencer asks or rather, begs Y/N. Y/N tries to not let him know how much it affects her when he rubs his thumb on the crook of her elbow.

“Fine, make it quick Spencer, I’m closing up tonight and I want to get home soon,” Y/N says, walking away from the table before Spencer can even get the chance to get up from the booth.

Y/N is too far past the booth to hear Spencer whisper to his co-workers that he’ll find his own way back to the hotel. She runs her thumb under the running water, watching as the blood clears up, revealing her clean finger. Y/N can feel Spencer’s looming presence behind her. She can smell his cologne and thinks if he cans any closer she’d be able to feel his body heat.

“You’re not supposed to be back here, Spencer,” Y/N says, she knows she’s being short and clippy with Spencer, but she supposes that should be expected, considering how he left her all those years ago.

“That never stopped me, or you for that matter before,” Spencer says, taking a step forward. His hand comes up to gently hold Y/N’s. She can feel his fingertips on her skin for the first time in years. Y/N has to close her eyes to focus on anything but how close Spencer’s body is to her’s. It’s restraint in it’s finest.

“Things have changed, Spencer. People have changed,” Y/N says, she doesn’t make a move that tells Spencer she doesn’t like him touching her. Spencer, whose hands have a slight tremor as they hold Y/N’s, practices an equal amount of restraint as Y/N does. He has to stop the thoughts of what it would be like to feel his hand against her hand again or how she’d sound if he could muster up the courage to kiss her again. He can’t even think of the first place he’d want to kiss her if he had the chance again.

“I’ve changed, Y/N, I’ve changed,” Spencer says, knowing fully that he’s pleading with the girl whose heart he broke 7 years ago.

“I have a hard time believing that one, Spencer. You were always the exception to the rule, whether you liked it or not,” she tells him. Her voice has lost all venom. It’s bare to the world without any weapons to wield.

“Let me fix you up and I’ll be out of your life again,” He says, still holding on to her wrist, still holding on to hope.

Y/N nods and tells him where he can find the first aid kit. She watches as he reaches up to the top shelf and carefully places the kit on the counter. Y/N holds out her hand as Spencer takes an alcohol wipe to her wound. He grimaces more than she does, afraid that somehow, all these years later, he’s still causing her pain. What he doesn’t know is that his touch stings more than the strongest rubbing alcohol in existence.

“So,” Spencer starts, hating that there’s silence between the two of them, when a decade ago that would have been impossible, “how’ve you been?”

“I’m good, Spence, I’ve been good. All I ever wanted was a quiet life, and I guess that’s what I got,” Y/N says, Spencer knows her answer is cordial. It's an answer that you give when you really don’t want to give an answer.

“That’s good, Y/N. I’m happy for you,” Spencer says, he doesn’t realize that he’s been rubbing his thumb against Y/N palm until she reaches into the first aid kit and tosses a band-aid at him. Spencer blushes slightly, but thinks that he’s not offending her too much since he’s still at the diner.

“What about you, Spence? Did you ever find uh….someone that could…” Y/N says, her voice trailing off, too afraid to finish the sentence herself, but aware that Spencer is probably the only person on Earth that could fill in the blanks. He was always good like that, he could always fill in her blanks and make sense of her senseless.

“Find someone, like a wife?” Spencer asks, the blush returning to his cheeks, “no, Y/N I’m not married. Are..are you? Do you have, um, a husband?” Spencer asks, hating the way that he stumbles over the word “husband” like it’s a dirty word. Though he supposes that it is a dirty word when Y/N’s husband is not synonymous with Spencer Reid.

“God no, Spence. I couldn’t not after, you know,” Y/N says, again letting Spencer fill in the blanks and hoping beyond belief that he’d pick up the pieces too. Spencer looks over at where his co-workers sat when they were working, he can't say he’s disappointed to see that they are gone.

“I never really apologized for what I said to you, Y/N. I know that I’ll never make it up to you, but..”

“It’s okay, Spencer. You didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, I’m just a waitress. And you, god. You are you. How could I ever think that I’d get a happily ever after with someone like you,” Y/N says, brushing past Spencer to collect the coffee mugs from the table.

“Please Y/N don’t believe that for a second,” Spencer says, his voice full of pain and regret.

Y/N thinks about the times that she would dream of seeing him again. She can’t remember if she’d rather him to be sorry or if she'd rather him rush back to her and sweep her off her feet again with a love confession that rivals the greatest stories ever told. But then again, waitresses don’t get knights in shining armor. Especially when those knights wear sweater vests, despite being in law enforcement. Spencer always loved facts, and he told it to her in a few more words than necessary, people like Spencer Reid don’t end up with people like Y/N Y/LN.

“You still think too highly of me, even after I hurt you, I can’t apologize enough for what I did to you,” Spencer says, hanging his head low. His hair, that’s grown much longer, falls into place over his eyes, as if it’s shielding Spencer from Y/N.

“Did you come here tonight thinking I’d be here? Did a part of you still want to see me?” Y/N asks, she wants to reach out and touch Spencer’s hand, she wants to reach out and feel that his hand is still the same hand that would caress her face and make all her worries vanish. But it’s hard when that hand is attached to the man who destroyed you.

“I didn’t think you’d still work here, Y/N. You always hated living in the desert. Remember how we talked of getting a place somewhere cold where you can see the snow, but still be warm-”

“And safe inside? Yeah, Spencer, I remember that. But that was our dream, how can I still want that when it’s tainted by you,” Y/N spits, walking towards the last booth in the row. She plops down, sinking into the plastic covered cushion. Spencer, nervously, sits down next to her. He doesn’t say anything, knowing how Y/N’s bated breath and tapping foot tell him she’s going to unleash 7 years of pent of hatred and frustration. And somehow, 7 years of desire and want and love.

“I lied Spencer,” Y/N says, looking down at the table. “I lied. I hate it here, you’re right. God, why are you always right?” She smiles wickedly and Spencer has to tell himself to not give way to his emotions. He needs to let Y/N finally release her justified anger onto him.

“You moved on, Spencer. You moved on and I’m right where you left me,” Y/N’s strained voice is perhaps noise that Spencer knows will haunt his nightmares, “It’s like I’m a ghost of that girl I was when I was 23, waiting for someone who’s moved on. Waiting for you, but god, no one wants to love someone so fucking pathetic,”

Spencer wants to react, he wants to reach out a kiss away Y/N tears that fall down her cheeks. He wants to make her pain go away, but how can he when he’s her pain. Spencer knew he never wanted to end up like his father, yet sitting in that corner booth watching Y/N cry, Spencer realizes he’s his father’s son. Spencer realizes that he ran away from the best thing that ever happened to him, when thought he got a better opportunity.

“I never moved on Y/N,” Spencer says, reaching down inside himself for the courage to tenderly hold Y/N’s hands in his own. Even all these years later, her hand still feels the same inside his.

“I’ve thought about you every single day of my life. It’s a curse, Y/N, not being able to forget how much I hurt you. As much as I try, I’ll never be able to erase the look on your face when I told you--”

“When you told me I wasn’t good enough,” Y/N finished for him. It looks like she can fill in his blanks as well as he can fill in her’s.

“I didn’t mean it, Y/N. I didn’t mean it and I know that you’ll never look at me the same way, but I’ve never stopped loving you, Y/N. I’ll never stop loving you,” Spencer says, he’s sobbing at this point. The tears trail down his face and his skin in blotchy red.

“Spencer,” Y/N says quietly, like she’s trying to control the mix of passion and fury that threatens to take control of her, “I need to get this out without interruptions, so just please listen to me,”

Spencer nods and tries his best to not react when Y/N reaches down to his lap and takes her hands into his. He tries to hold in the emotions that split seems in his not-so tough exterior.

“I created a fantasy for you Spencer. I gave you the life that I could never give you. In my head you had kids because I needed you to be deliriously happy. I gave you a wife and I hated her because I love you too much to hate you. I needed you to have the life that I couldn’t give you, because it beats thinking you’re a mess. It beats thinking you ended up like me,” Y/N professes.

Spencer brings his hands up to her cheeks wiping away the tears that fall rapidly. Even the time he was kidnapped, the countless of times he was beaten or held hostage, his heart never ached quite like this. His heart never yearned to soothe someone’s pain as it did when Spencer watched Y/N come to terms with the years and years of heartbreak Spencer left her in.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart, I’m so sorry,” Spencer says, his fingers lacing through Y/N’s pinned up hair, “I hated myself for years for doing what I did to you. I knew that there was no one else, there’s no one else for me, Y/N,”

Y/N’s cheek presses up against Spencer’s chest, his warm body is home and is spicy, yet sweet cologne the closest thing to paradise. She tries to get control over her breathing, trying to steady it and not slobber too much over Spencer’s soft shirt. His hands anchor her to him. They latch on to her elbows, begging her silently to not shove him off and kick him to the curb, even though it’s what he deserves.

“Oh god Spencer. You really still are my Spencer, aren’t you?” Y/N asks, her voice slightly muffled by Spencer’s chest. She can hear his heart beat, even now, it’s still in sync with her heart beat. After all these years, between all these miles, throughout all this pain, Y/N’s heart still beats for Spencer’s.

“I don’t wanna lose you again, Y/N,” Spencer says, the tears back on his face, some have dried slightly and new ones make their way down and pool onto the back of Y/N’s head. Spencer brushes his fingers against Y/N, making sure that he’s actually holding her in his arms in this little diner he thought he’d left in the past.

“Please don’t hurt me again, Spencer. I love you too much to lose you again, but I can’t get hurt like that. I can’t bear to do that again,” Y/N says, raising her head to look at Spencer in the eyes.

She can see the glistening tears that fall down his face and the way his gaze softens when his eyes latch on to her. They could spend hours drinking each other in, making up for the lost years. She searches his face, finding new age lines and wrinkles, and maybe even a gray hair or two. But underneath all that, he’s still Spencer.

“I though our love was dead, Spencer. I thought I had my chance real young and the rest of my life was going to be spent haunting this booth, waiting for a man that in my delusions was married to a wife that wasn’t me and with kids that aren’t mine. But good God, Spencer, you really are too much sometimes?” Y/N says, her voice breathy and exasperated as she leans in close to Spencer.

“Can I take that as a yes?” Spencer says, terrified for her answer, even though he knew it already, based on how deeply Y/N looks into his eyes.

Y/N is quiet, and even though it’s just a moment it feels like forever. They are so quiet that all they can hear is their heartbeats. The little diner where their fateful love story took flight is never quiet, yet in that moment you can hear a hair pin drop. Spencer counts the seconds that pass, reading Y/N’s eyes, reading her emotion, and praying to a God he’s not sure is real that she’s not going to leave him this time.

“Yes, Spencer. I love you too much to let you walk out here again,” Y/N says, leaning into Spencer’s face.

She bridges the gap that they’ve both been ignoring since they realized they were in each other’s company again. Spencer is still when she leans in, he doesn’t realize until her soft lips kiss him how much he’s missed her. Before his mind is able to run off the far away places called doubt and denial, Y/N wraps her arms around Spencer’s neck, hooking him in closer. Having each other so close has never made them feel so utterly helpless and giddy. Spencer feels like he needs to tether himself to Y/N’s because he still feels like she’s going to float away. The world was dizzying and Spencer was the only solid, strong thing, holding her to Earth. Y/N always knew he was her anchor, it was just a matter of time before Spencer realized it too. Spencer’s quiet whimpers and shaky tremors spurred her on, kissing up and down the openness of his face until she felt the need for air.

“You’ve been practicing? You’re better at this than when you were 23,” Y/N says, not wanting to let go of Spencer’s neck.

“No, God no, Y/N. I haven’t been with anyone since you,” Spencer says, slightly ashamed to be reminded of his deepest mistake.

“Spencer, baby, you know I forgive you, right? And considering you kiss like that now, I know how you can make it up to me,” Y/N says, planting a couple light, feathery kisses up Spencer’s neck and to the corners of his mouth. Her lips are like a paintbrush on his, turning the grimace he holds into a winning smile. He remembers that it’s near impossible for him to not be flustered near Y/N. He’s glad, even now, that still rings true.

“Thank you, Y/N,” Spencer says, he leans his forehead against Y/N’s and lifts her hands to his mouth, kissing each of her fingers as he says “you are enough, and I’ll hope you’ll let me spend the rest of my life making it up to you,”

Y/N kisses Spencer on the nose as he scrunches it, causing her to laugh. She slips out of the booth and holds a hand out for Spencer to grasp. He takes it without hesitation and pulls her in closer. She supposes that after being apart for so long, it would take some time to get back into their rhythm. Y/N knows that it will never be the same; they aren’t 23 years old anymore. They’re scared and wounded, but together, Y/N thinks that they’ll never run out of things to talk about even if they are old and gray and wrinkled.

THANK-YOU FOR READING :) <3 <3

I really appreciate every like, comment, and reblog. It helps me know what people like about my writing things I should work on.

TAGLIST

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[dangermousie]

Mousie’s absolutely subjective, very biased Top 10 web novels list

Please note that this is hardly aiming to be objective, if one can even be properly objective about a work of fiction. It is 110% based on my preferences, which means this list is heavy on the angst and has nothing set in the modern day. It is also heavily danmei-centric, even though I read way more het romance than danmei, because for whatever reason, most of the danmei I’ve read has been insanely good.

10. Return of the Swallow - one of the two non-danmeis on this list. Smart and nuanced and with a large cast of characters. Our heroine is a long-lost daughter of the family that is brought back in and has to cope with familial struggles, crazy royals, court intrigue, invasion et al. It’s SO GOOD! There is romance with the sexy smart enemy general but honestly, it’s the heroine that is the main selling point for me.

9. Transmigrator Meets Reincarnator - the only other non-danmei novel on this list, this was my very first web novel and what drew me into this insanity. This is just a ton of fun, probably the lightest novel on this list, not an ounce of angst to be found. But it’s hilarious and features competent heroine and tsundere hero and I will always love it for opening a new world to me. Anyway, our heroine transmigrates into the novel as the female lead. Unlike the original lead though she doesn’t want to seek adventures and angst - she just wants to comfortably live with the wealthy, nice husband heroine has. Alas, said husband is no longer nice since he has previously lived this story where he was betrayed by FL and then transmigrated/reincarnated into the past. Oh well, the heroine opens up businesses and makes friends. And eventually, her husband realizes his wife is way different this time around. This actually doesn’t have much romance, not until close to the end, but this is so fun I don’t care.

8. Lord Seventh - I am only partway through this so far, but it’s already on the list because it’s smart and somehow intense AND laid-back (not sure how this works, but it does) and is honestly just a really really solid and smart period novel, with the OTP a cherry on top of a narrative sundae. Plus, I love the concept of MC deciding he is not going for his supposedly fated love - he’s tried for six lifetimes, always with disaster, and he’s just plain done and tired. When he opens his life in his seventh reincarnation and sees the person he would have given up the world for, he genuinely feels nothing at all. (Spoiler - his OTP is actually a barbarian shaman this time around, thank you Lord!)

7. Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS) - oh come on, how are you even on this tumblr if you don’t know MDZS/The Untamed? This was my very first danmei and it’s so much fun! I love everything about it - the unreliable narrator, the looping structure, the main OTP, Wei Wuxian’s laidback, traumatized insouciance, everything. Anyway, the plot in the event you somehow transported here from 2005 is that the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, Wei Wuxian, was defeated by the righteous sects over a decade ago and fell of a cliff to his death. Only now that same Wei Wuxian opens his eyes in another body and everything that was supposed to stay in the past starts again.

6. Heaven Official’s Blessing (TGCF) - people either love its meandering narrative, picaresque structure and cast of thousands, or find it a detriment compared to much more compact MDZS. I love it even more than MDZS for those very qualities. It does have a rock-solid, darling OTP, but what really elevates it to me are the MXTX trademark combo of snarky/light tone hiding a ton of trauma underneath, the insanely intricate world-building, and what it has to say about the nature of grace and goodness. Xie Lian is one of my top 5 web novel characters and probably in top 10 from anywhere. Oh, and while MXTX’s stuff is not as angsty for me as Meatbun’s or even Priest’s, there are always exceptions, and there is one chapter in this novel that pretty much broke me and sometimes I still flashback to it and feel unwell.

Anyway, what is it about? There is a commotion in the heavenly realm - Xie Lian, the Crown Prince of a long-destroyed kingdom, has ascended to Godhood. That in itself is not so exciting. However for Xie Lian this is the third time (!!!!) as he’s ascended and lost his godhood twice prior. And now, the biggest joke of the divine realm is back, throwing the heavenly realm into chaos. And elsewhere, Hua Cheng, one of the four most powerful demons of that Universe, sits up and takes notice.

5. Golden Stage - my perfect comfort novel. Probably the least angsty of any danmei novel on this list (which still means plenty angsty :P) It also has a dedicated, smart OTP that is an OTP for the bulk of the book - I think you will notice that in most of the novels in this list, I go for “OTP against the world” trope - I can’t stand love triangles and the same. Anyway, Fu Shen, is a famous general whose fame is making the emperor antsy. When he gets injured and can’t walk any more, the emperor gladly recalls him and marries him off to his most faithful court lackey, the head of sort of secret police, Yan Xiaohan. The emperor intends it both as a check on the general and a general spite move since the two men always clash in court whenever they meet. But not all is at is seems. They used to be friends a long time ago, had a falling out, and one of the loveliest parts of the novel is them finding their way to each other, but there is also finding the middle path between their two very different philosophies and ways of being, not to mention solving a conspiracy or dozen, and putting a new dynasty on the throne, among other things. It always makes me think, a little, of “if Mei Changsu x Jingyan were canon.”

4. Sha Po Lang - if you like a lot of fantasy politics and world-building and steampunk with your novels, this one is for you. This one is VERY plot-heavy with smart, dedicated characters and a deconstruction of many traditional virtues - our protagonist Chang Geng, a long-lost son of the Emperor, is someone who wants to modernize the country but also take down the current emperor his brother for progress’ sake and the person he’s in love with is the general who saved him when he was a kid who is nominally his foster father. Anyway, the romance is mainly a garnish in this one, not even a big side dish, but the relationship between two smart, dedicated, deadly individuals with very different concepts of duty is fascinating long before it turns romantic. And if you like angst, while overall it’s not as angsty as e.g., Meatbun stuff, Chang Geng’s childhood is the stuff of nightmares and probably freaks me out more than anything else in any novel on this list, 2ha included.

3. To Rule In a Turbulent World (LSWW) - gay Minglan. No seriously. This is how I think of it. it’s a slice of life period novel with fascinating characters and setting that happens to have a gay OTP, not a romance in a period setting per se and I always prefer stories where the romance is not the only thing that is going on. It’s meticulously written and smart and deals with character development and somehow makes daily minutia fascinating. Our protagonist, You Miao, is the son of a fabulously wealthy merchant, sent to the capital to make connections and study. As the story starts, he sees his friend’s servants beating someone to death, feels bad, and buys him because, as we discover gradually and organically, You Miao may be wealthy and occasionally immature but he is a genuinely good person. The person he buys is a barbarian from beyond the wall, named Li Zhifeng. It’s touch and go if the man will survive but eventually he does and You Miao, who by then has to return home, gives him his papers and lets him go. However, LZF decides to stick with You Miao instead, both out of sense of debt for YM saving his life and because he genuinely likes him (and yet, there is no instalove on either of their parts, their bodies have fun a lot quicker than their souls.) Anyway, the two take up farming, get involved in the imperial exams and it’s the life of prosperity and peace, until an invasion happens and things go rapidly to hell. This is so nuanced, so smart (smart people in this actually ARE!) and has secondary characters who are just as complex as the mains (for example, I ended up adoring YM’s friend, the one who starts the plot by almost beating LZF to death for no reason) because the novel never forgets that few people are all villain. There is a lovely character arc or two - watching YM grow up and LZF thaw - there is the fact that You Miao is a unicorn in web novels being laid back and calm. This whole thing is a masterpiece.

2. Stains of Filth (Yuwu) - want the emotional hit of 2ha but want to read something half its length? Well, the author of 2ha is here to eviscerate you in a shorter amount of time. This has the beautiful world-building, plot twists that all make sense and, at the center of it all, an intense and all-consuming and gloriously painful relationship between two generals - one aristocratic loner Mo Xi, and the other gregarious former slave general Gu Mang. Once they were best friends and lovers, but when the novel starts, Gu Mang has long turned traitor and went to serve the enemy kingdom and has now been returned and Mo Xi, who now commands the remnants of his slave army, has to cope with the fact that he has never been able to get over the man who stabbed him through the heart. Literally. This novel has a gorgeously looping structure, with flashbacks interwoven into present storyline. There is so much love and longing and sacrifice in this that I am tearing up a bit just thinking of it. If you don’t love Mo Xi and Gu Mang, separately and together, by the end of it, you have no soul.

1. The Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha/erha) - if you’ve been following my tumblr for more than a hot second, you know my obsession with this novel. Honestly, even if I were to make a list of my top 10 novels of any kind, not just webnovels, this would be on the list. It has everything I want - a complicated, intricate plot with an insane amount of plot twists, all of which are both unexpected and make total sense, a rich and large cast of characters, a truly epic OTP that makes me bawl, emotional intensity that sometimes maxes even me out and so much character nuance and growth. Also, Moran is my favorite web novel character ever, hands down.

Anyway, the plot (or at least the way it first appears) is that the evil emperor of the cultivation world, Taxian Jun, kills himself at 32 and wakes up in the body of his 16 year old self, birth name Moran. Excited to get a redo, Moran wants to save his supposed true love Shimei, whose death the last go-around pushed him towards evil. He also wants to avoid entanglement with Chu Wanning, his shizun and sworn enemy in past life. And that’s all you are best off knowing, trust me. The only hint I am going to give is oooh boy the mother of all unreliable narrators has arrived!

The novel starts light and funny on boil the frog principle - if someone told me I would be full bawling multiple times with this novel, I’d have thought they were insane, but i swear my eyes hurt by the end of it. I started out being amused and/or disliking the mains and by the end I would die for either of them.

[americancowgirl19]

Prince of Hell

Summary: You’re Esme’s brother. You two haven’t seen each other in a long time but now she needs your help to keep Renesmee safe.

Warnings: Death, violence, a little fluff and a little angst

Reader: Male Reader

Pairings: Demetri Volturi x Male Reader

Word Count: 3,108

A/n: Might make a part two

Masterlist

Esme stands in the doorway of Renesmee’s bedroom. The little girl sleeps soundly without a care in the world. Carlisle comes up behind her and embraces her tenderly.

“She’s going to be ok, we’ll protect her.” Carlisle whispers kissing the side of her head. A couple of hours earlier Alice had gotten the vision about the Volturi coming for Renesmee. They came up with the plan to find witnesses to protect her. Esme fears that it won’t be enough.

“Nothing will ever be the same,” Esme whispers. “The Volturi won’t forgive those who stand on our side. Not everyone has a coven to protect them when this is over. They could pick them off one by one when they leave.”

“We won’t force anybody to help us, they’ll know what they’re getting into.” Carlisle whispers. Esme sighs turning in his arms.

“There’s another option,” Esme whispers. Carlisle tilts his head. She slips out of his arms and leads him toward the living room where the rest of their family sits. They’re all planning on who is going to go to who. 

Edward’s the first to look up. Esme has no doubt he’s reading her mind by the curious look on his face. A second later, Alice’s eyes go distant. When she comes back, her eyes fall on Esme.

“What is it?” Bella asks noticing both of their looks. Soon, everyone’s looking at Esme.

“When I was human I was married to a dangerous man,” Esme begins. “When I became pregnant I knew I couldn’t stay with him anymore but I didn’t have the money or the resources to leave,” Esme takes a seat on the plush chair toward the middle of everyone. “So, I went to my brother and told him everything. He got me out that night,” Esme smiles softly as she thinks of you. “We had been close as children but drifted apart as adults. But that night it was like nothing had changed. He took care of me, kept me safe,” Her eyes fall down into her lap. “Then I had the baby and two days later... I lost him,”

“Greyson?” Edward question remembering her son.

When Carlisle changed Esme she had a week old son named Greyson. He grew up with them after Esme learned how to control herself.. He didn’t want to become a vampire and had died of a heart attack only a decade ago.

They had been able to hide him from the Volturi. They had only found out about him when Edward went to Volterra when he believed Bella to be dead. By then, however, Greyson was dead.

“Yes, Greyson,” Esme nods. “He had a lung defect. He was supposed to be dead which is why... Why I jumped off the cliff before Carlisle found me.” Carlisle places a comforting hand on her shoulder. She smiles up at him and places her hand over his.

“How did he survive?” Bella asks.

“My brother, Y/n... He sold his soul to save my son.” Esme told them. 

She remembers the day he had done it. Esme had been spiraling and you just knew she wouldn’t live in a world without her son. You couldn’t bare the thought of losing Esme and knew you had to do something to save her son.

By the time you sold your soul, Esme had already jumped off the cliff. You had a few years before the hounds of hell came to collect you. Esme stayed with Carlisle and learned control. A day before your time ended, you found Esme and gave her the five year old son.

“Sold his soul?” Emmett asks, raising an eyebrow. Esme didn’t blame them for being skeptical. There were fewer demons on Earth than vampires. The ones that were on Earth stayed hidden and played with the humans from the shadows.

“He’s a demon.” Alice whispers connecting the dots.

“A demon? Those exist?” Rosalie asks. Esme nods.

“Where do you think nightmares and tragedies come from? Deaths so unexplainable that not even a shapeshifter or a vampire can understand?” Esme asks them. “Most of them are locked away in hell and can only come up if they manage to escape or are summoned by someone. They’re stronger than a thousand newborns combined,”

“That’s why the Volturi were afraid of him,” Alice says thinking back to her recent vision. “None of their powers worked on him and he was more powerful than all of them,”

“So, how do we get in contact with this guy?” Emmett asks.

“It’s not that simple,” Esme tells him. “It’s very dangerous. If we mess up we could be releasing something far more dangerous than him. If we do it right, there’s no guarantee that he’ll help us. He’s been a demon for almost a hundred years, there’s no telling if my brother’s still... himself.” 

Bella turns her head toward Edward. Esme watches them waiting for someone to say something. A few moments later, Edward looks back at Esme.

“How do we contact him?”

The moment the question leaves his lips the room drops in temperature. It’s enough to send a shiver through Jake’s spine. The lights flicker as the windows begin to be covered with frost.

“Ask nicely,” Everyone’s head turns toward the corner. Sitting in the shadows is a man dressed in black slacks and button up shirt along with an equally dark vest. His hands are hidden behind gloves with a leather jacket that reaches down to his midthigh.

“Y/n,” Esme whispers standing up. You smirk and push yourself up as well. With a snap of your fingers the lights return to normal and the frost melts away.

“Sorry for the dramatics... I like to make an entrance,” You states, a lop sided smirk on your lips. “I was in the neighborhood, thought I heard someone talking about me so I decided to drop by.” You explain sauntering into the middle of the living room. Your eyes look around, observing the home around you. “I hear you’re in a bit of a bind, little sister.”

“It’s my granddaughter... She needs your help,” Esme tells you. You chuckle darkly before spinning on your heels to look at her.

“It’s always a child with you, isn’t it?” You ask smirking. She gives you a small, unsure smile. “What do you want me to do? I can’t very well sell my soul, I already did that for your first child. One soul, one child,” You sit in a chair, draping your arm over the back, your ankle resting on your knee.

“Do you know of the Volturi?” Your eyes slide away from your sister to the pixie hair cut girl, Alice. You knew everyone in the room. You had been keeping tabs on your little sister and knew who she came in contact with and who she adopted into her family.

“Ah, yes, the Volturi,” You smirk, looking back at Esme. “They’re good for business. Send plenty of souls to hell for us to feed on,” Your comment makes most of them unease. You soak up the anxiety.

“Mommy?” You’re eyes snap to the little girl by the steps. You stand up at the same time her mother flashes beside her. You had heard about this little girl but this is the first time you’ve seen her.

“So, this is the child you so desperately want to protect,” You state, your eyes remain on the girl as you move closer.

“The Volturi believe she’s an immortal child,” Esme says.

“How idiotic,” You whisper kneeling in front of the child. “Her soul is much too bright and her heart is much too active. Hello, little one,”

“Hi,” She whispers, hugging her mothers waist. You send her a small smile and a playful wink before standing up.

“You never answered my question,” You say, turning back to Esme. “What do you want me to do? Kill the coven? Possess them? Make them fall to their knees and beg for mercy?” By the end your lips are curled into a sadistic grin.

Esme looks at you for a moment and all she can feel is sorrow. When you were human the only person you ever wanted to harm was her husband. Now, you would kill and torture without a second thought. In fact, you seemed to enjoy it. 

Hell had twisted your soul into someone almost unrecognizable. She was relieved that you held a little bit of goodness in your heart to at least consider helping them.

“We just want them to leave us alone,” Esme tells you. You pout at the boring request.

“Well, I can do that,” You nod walking away from the child not failing to notice how the room relaxed as you put distance between yourself and her. “However, I don’t do anything for free anymore. I’m going to need something in return,” You whisper standing toe-to-toe with Esme. You gently brush your knuckles along her cheek like you used to when you were human and she needed to feel safe. “little sister.”

“What do you want?” Esme asks quietly. You hum stepping away from her.

“Oh, the endless possibilities,” You whisper, sitting down in the chair you had previously occupied. “How much is that little girl worth to you?” You ask the people in the room. “Are you truly willing to make a deal with the Prince of Hell?” You ask.

“Prince of Hell?” Jake asks. Your eyes flicker to him.

“Well, at least I’m not the Devil,” You joke before tilting your head side to side. “Not yet at least,” You shrug. “I’ve been in hell for 80 years... That’s human years, time moves differently down there. Once they dragged me down by my ankles I began working my way up with my hands. My ambition has payed off... Who knows, maybe in another 80 years, you’ll have had the pleasure of knowing the Devil?”

“Lucky us,” Emmett mutters.

“Yes, lucky you, indeed” You growled standing up. “I may be the Prince of Hell but I am still your older brother,” You said looking at Esme. “While my services are no longer free, I will always answer your call. You all are her family which makes you my family which means that I will aid you when you need me but like I said... I don’t work for free.”

“So, what’s your price?” Edward asks. You turn to him. You stare at him for a moment before looking around the room.

“A favor,” You tell them. “One favor,” You hold up your pointer finger and spin around for everyone to see. “A favor anybody, or everybody, in this room can fulfill,”

“And the favor?” Bella asks, tightening her hold on Renesmee. Your smirk you send her is enough to strike fear into her unbeating heart.

“I don’t know,” You shrug putting your hands behind your back. “I will come whenever I am in need of your services. You fulfill my favor and you’re free. I will make sure Renesmee is protected from the Volturi and all will be well again,”

“No,” Esme shakes her head regaining everyone’s attention. You arch an eyebrow at her. “You want someone to do you a favor, you ask me, not my family.” She says sternly. “I will not allow you to hold this over their head,” You smirk deviously.

“You’ve grown clever, little sister” You praise her. “Much smarter than you had been as a human, I’m proud.” Esme holds your gaze. “Fine,” You give in. “One favor and only Esme can fulfill it,” The rest of the family tries to argue but you ignore them and walk up to your sister. “Please don’t die before I cash that favor in,”

“You’ll know how to find me,” Esme tells you. You nod before giving her the first genuine smile you’ve given anyone in decades.

“I am truly happy to see you, little sister,” You whisper to her. You gently kiss her forehead. “Renesmee will be safe, I promise,” You vow because vanishing in thin air.

Within a few seconds, the Volturi castle began to suffer the same side effects of your arrival. All the vampires looked around as the lights flickered and frost covered the windows. When the lights went back to normal, the vampires noticed a new presence in the middle of the throne room.

A few of the Volturi guards hissed in alarm but you paid them no mind. Your eyes zeroed in on the man in the middle, Aro.

“Who are you?!” Caius shouted, standing from his throne. You ignore him which doesn’t help his temper.

“I’ve come to inform you that Renesmee Cullen is not an immortal child, she’s a hybrid. Leave the Cullens alone and I’ll allow you to live.” Aro chuckles while Caius glares harder. Marcus seemed indifferent but his eyes continued to go from you to another vampire.

“And what proof do you have to back up your statement?” Aro asks, stepping closer to you. You smirk.

“I don’t have to answer to you and I’ve already given you your warning. Shall you continue to go against the Cullens, there will be... consequences.” You warn him. “I’ll be watching,” Once the final word leaves your lips, you disappear.

“Intriguing,” Aro whispers before turning to Demetri. “Find him.” Aro orders. Demetri bows before leaving. Only problem, he can hardly feel your tenor. 

You kept your eye on the Volturi. Just as you hoped, Aro didn’t stop planning against the Cullens. You were about to prepare yourself to make another appearance when you sensed something.

“I’ve never met anyone who could sneak up on me,” You state, walking to the chair to put your jacket on. “Although, you are the first who’s been able to sneak into my home.” You turn toward the intruder. He slowly comes out of the shadows. 

You stare at him and tilt your head. He’s certainly one of the more attractive vampires you’ve seen. Then there’s the fact that he was able to hunt you down. You were impressed and highly curious.

“How did you find me?”

“It’s my ability... I can find anybody,” You hum moving closer to him. His scent begins to fill the room and it was slowly captivating your attention.

“But I’m not just anybody,” You whisper, inching closer to him. “Vampire abilities aren’t supposed to work on me... Not like they usually do, at least”

“And why is that?” He questions. You begin to smirk, sauntering even closer. He shifts on his feet but his eyes remain locked with yours.

“Why do you think?” You ask, not hesitating to invade his personal space. “Come on,” You whisper, taking a deep whiff of his scent. “You know the answer,” Demetri doesn’t answer. “You and your kind wonder the Earth thinking your the demons but you’re just child’s play.”

“Why do you care about the Cullens?” Demetri asks.

“I had a human life at one time, a human life I shared with a Cullen. They asked for a favor and I’m about to go back to the Volturi to finish it. Care to join me?” You ask, offering him your arm. He looks at it, pinching his eyebrows. “It’ll be a lot faster if we do this my way,” You whispers, sending him a wink.

Hesitantly, Demetri links arms with you. You grin at him and transport the both of you from your apartment to the Volturi Castle. When you arrive, Caius stands alarmed. Demetri moves to the side to stand with his fellow guardsmen. 

“Aro, Aro, Aro,” You tsk slowly. “You were warned,”

“And I explained that I needed proof. I have to protect us, this child may be a threat.” Aro states.

“Maybe,” You shrug. “But you won’t be around to see it,” You tell him. A few of the vampires growl at you. You pay them no mind. 

You then feel a prick in the back of your mind. A familiar feeling you get when a vampire tries to use their abilities on you. Your eyes shift to the blond girl by the steps.

“Performance issues, sweetheart?” You smirk. She snarls at you. You raise your hand to grab the vampire that tried to attack you. You grab his throat and lift him off the ground. “Sloppy,” You whisper and squeeze your hand so tight that his head just pops off. You then straight your vest and adjust your jacket. “Anyone else?” You ask, opening your arms welcomingly. 

A most of the guard tries to take you down but you don’t break a sweat dismembering them. They try to use their powers but they’re ineffective on you. You turn your head and notice Demetri standing by you. He rips a nearby guard member to pieces. He turns back to you, his eyes pitch back.

You slowly grin finding his black eyes just ask attractive as his ruby red ones. Tearing your gaze from Demetri, you look back at Aro. The king hisses but before he can move you’re in front of him. You place your hand on either side of his face forcing him to look into your eyes.

“You believe vampires don’t have a soul,” You whisper. “How wrong you are,” You chuckle, feeling your eyes blazing brightly. “You have a soul... It’s just pitch black. No worries, I’ll rid you of it.” Aro begins screaming as you suck his soul out of his body.

As Aro dies in your hands, what’s left of the guard disperses. When Aro’s soul is gone, you toss his body to the side feeling refreshed. It was the first time you consumed a vampire soul. Demon usually leave vampires along but after having a taste of the power his soul gives you. You want more.

“Well, Demetri,” You hum turning toward him. “I have a mission,” You walk down the steps. “At the moment, I am known as the Prince of Hell,” Demetri raises his eyebrows at you. “I don’t plan on staying a mere prince. I want the whole kingdom, I want to be king.” You state stopping in front of him. “Consuming the souls of vampires might just give the power I need to overthrow the current monarch.”

“And?” Demetri asks. You smirk, brushing the tips of your fingers along his jaw.

“Help me, Demetri,” You whisper, loving how his name rolls off the tongue. “Help me find vampires, help me become king, and I will give you everything you desire” You promise, trailing your fingers down his throat and over his chest. “I’ll give you the world and I will give you Hell.” You smirk playfully.

“I know just where to start,”

[lattechans]

𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: any romantic relationships between an elf and a human have dire consequences but you're still willing to try

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: elf!hyunjin x female reader

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: smut, fluff and a hint of angst

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: praising, piv, marking, nipple play (all in all pretty vanilla love making)

𝐚/𝐧: this is for the collab project created by @binniesthighs and wow i don't think i've ever written anything like this before but i'm quite proud of it! maybe i'll write fantasy more often from now on...

₁₈₊

you were taking notice of the scenery around you; the outline of the kingdom hazy from such a great distance. this place has become like your second home after many years of traveling. as a child, you were always a wanderer, so it surprised no one when you, as an adult, decided to go off and search for the ancient elven realms that only a few humans knew about.

the first time you met an elf was entirely by coincidence, and was the main reason you chose to look for more. hyunjin was his name, and he was the most ethereal being you had ever laid your eyes upon although you found all elves to be eerily beautiful creatures – hyunjin was different.

he had shoulder length dark brown hair, his eyes warm like caramel compared to those of his parents or the other elves, who looked more cold.

only one person truly knew about you and hyunjin, and she was the reason you were able to meet like this without constant concern for others finding out the true colors of your relationship. the two of you could only go so long sneaking around the kingdom, hiding together in the halls or stealing kisses in the library when someone could see you at any moment.

hyunjin knew that if the two of you were caught together like this, you’d be banished from the kingdom without hesitation and he would never be able to see you again.

you see, the elves had no problems with human visitors, nor even friendships. in fact, the royal family was once known for welcoming humans into their family; the queen had married a human decades before you or hyunjin were even born.

however, the times changed as the queen was betrayed by her husband, who stole one of the most treasured relics in the kingdom and killed many of the creatures who lived in the kingdom as he had fled. ever since then, no romantic relationships were allowed between elves and humans as they were believed to only bring wickedness and evil to the kingdom.

it goes without saying that ever since then, elves and humans alike had been punished for such relationships and although, for the humans the consequences were only banishment and shame, for the elves – the consequences were much worse. a true heartbreak would eventually kill an elf. this is why you needed a secluded place just for the two of you, safe from suspicious eyes.

a few months ago, you had approached the lady you had to thank for all this even being possible, aelvavorna, or aelva for short. she was one of the greatest wizards known in all of the realms, her powers stretched even to the human realm. however, even with such great power she preferred to help those in need and keep a low profile, right here in this kingdom.

the surprise wasn’t that you fell for hyunjin. practically anyone from the human realm would be mad not to pine after both his handsome features and his kind, generous demeanour. the surprise, in your mind, was that he somehow fell in love with you.

and aelva understood your relationship as soon as she met the two of you. in fact, aelva was glad to help the two of you; finding the rules of the elven kingdom when it came to elf-human love.

you vividly remember how she grabbed a heavy book and a small metal box from a table and placed them on the great stone table in the middle of the dimly lit room. “i have an enchantment that can create a safe refuge for you and your love.”

she explained the workings of the enchantment to the two of you and opened the metal box, revealing an odd assortment of rings and jewels, most of them old and tattered, and collected from where you'd never know. from the box, she selected a pendant with a dark blue, rectangular stone on a silver chain. she held it aloft for the both of you to see.

“whoever wears the pendant will be the one who can open the door, and who determines what lies inside,” she explained in a whisper.

“who will be the one to keep it?”

hyunjin took your hands in his without hesitation.

“will you?”

“yes.”

aelva fastened the pendant around your neck before pulling out the book of spells and handing it to hyunjin to hold open. she touched delicate fingertips to the pendant that hung against your collarbone, her other hand coming to rest on the book hyunjin held.

with the little light filtering in through the windows from the sliver of moon hanging high in the sky, aelva began to chant in a tongue you’d never heard before, reciting the spell she read from the page. you felt a quick surge of heat that made you gasp, and in moments, it was over.

she studied you carefully, a smile on her lips before giving her final instructions.

“the one who wears the pendant needs only think of what they’d like to find behind the door—a room, a country, anywhere—and when they turn the handle, that is the place they will find inside. only the wearer of the pendant and those that take her hand may enter; all others will not be able to find the door hidden in plain sight. but bear in mind, the pendant creates only illusion. nothing you find beyond this door is real, except for the two of you. but you will be safe here.”

you remember squeezing aelva’s hand, a tear rolling down your cheek. “thank you.”

“anything for true love.”

just before you left, hyunjin leaned down to kiss your lips with a promise. “i’ll meet you there tomorrow night.”

and so he did, not only the next night, but many, many more nights to come.

and now, in the shadow of an ancient tree, the last traces of sunlight were finally falling below the horizon, you watched as the streams of light glimmered across the fields, shining lights of green and yellow trailing behind them.

the tiny creatures living together in the elven kingdom illuminated the landscape as you leaned back against your lover’s chest, letting your head fall back onto his broad shoulder as you looked up toward the sky. his hand, warm and trembling, brushed down the side of your neck and shoulder, pushing the sleeve of your dress away so that he could kiss the bare skin underneath.

you sat between his legs, the smooth material of his dress shirt soft against your back, and you sighed as one of the fluttering lights bounced off a flower just a short distance away. you reached back, placing a delicate hand over hyunjin’s on your shoulder, and sighed. “i wish this could last forever.”

you felt his exhale against your ear. “so do i, my love,” he whispered before pulling your hand up to his lips for a chaste kiss. but alas, your time was running short. you both needed to return home, and if you weren’t back soon, you’d surely be missed.

hyunjin’s fingertips grazed the tiny flower buds he had carefully woven into your hair, placed just so to adorn you. but as the minutes dragged on, though all you wanted was to stay cradled in his arms, you knew it was time to leave the meadow and head for home.

hyunjin helped you to your feet and took up the bag you had brought with you, filled with delicious pastries and fruit, all the while, holding your hand tightly in his. as you walked through the meadow that was located on a far away hill, the glow of the grass and setting sun faded away behind you. it was only a short walk before you came to the door which was only known to you and hyunjin.

as if it had sprouted from the ground, the great door, seemingly wood and iron with an appointed arch over the top, stood in the downhill. as you stepped to the other side, you entered the same meadow that was connected to the kingdom, however, the huge door disappeared behind you.

a simple spell that hid you and hyunjin’s romance from the peering eyes of anyone else. you reached for the small pendant hanging on a chain around your neck and tucked it safely under the collar of your dress.

before parting, hyunjin wrapped his arm around you, his hand resting at the base of your spine, pulling you close for a languid kiss, slow and silent, neither of you wanting to let go. the danger of the kiss making both of you feel lightheaded. a breath passed as he broke the kiss, leaning his forehead against yours for only a moment, knuckles brushing your cheek. you exchanged no words, but you felt it, his love and passion that you returned tenfold under the cover of the kingdom now wrapped in the night .

you dared to stay long enough on the quiet alley to watch him disappear around the corner before hurrying the opposite way yourself. your heart full but aching.

more months passed this way, your rendezvous with hyunjin becoming more and more frequent. with this secret hideaway you shared, it was easier to spend time together, to crave each other’s presence in a place where no one could separate you. each time you met, hyunjin held your hand in his as you pictured the location you chose to visit on the inside. never did hyunjin make a request, even when you asked him to. it was his gift to you, he said.

“where to tonight, my love?” he asked, a dreamy tone in his voice that lit a small fire in some deep fragment of your soul. you wrapped your fingers around the pendant, concealed under your clothes during the day, and sighed.

you knew exactly where you wanted to go tonight. holding the thought in your mind, you reach for the emptiness, only for the door to erect out of thin air, turning the handle, the fantasy materializing in front of your eyes.

you found yourself in an unfamiliar room with a comfortable air about it. the walls and carpets were dark, rich reds and deep green floral patterns warmed the atmosphere before you. heavy wooden furniture was arranged just so, dark mahogany woods twisting in ornate patterns that looked like the roots of trees that had grown out of the floor. candles burned on the dressing table and a mirrored vanity, tossing shadows across the room, leading your eyes to a bed covered in velvety bedsheets.

“but this is—” hyunjin breathed.

“your bedroom. i wanted to see it.”

with the door safely closed behind you, you led hyunjin to his bed – the illusion of his bed – and sat beside him on the plush bedding. he dropped down beside you, running his hands over the designs on the blanket, an exact replica of the one he slept under every night.

everything in the room was exactly as it would be if he returned to his home at this exact moment. though it was almost uncanny to be sitting there, he felt a fluttering in his chest as he gazed upon you, your form against the backdrop of his most private space.

you, on the other hand, could hardly stop from observing the room, curious as to every detail, even if this was only a false vision of the real thing.

it was as close as you might ever come, and you decided to make it count. an urgency washed over you, the intimacy of peering into hyunjin’s bedroom overcoming your senses with a haze of lust. you reached out to his face, suddenly desperate to touch him, to feel his body, to be near him in the most carnal sense of the word.

you breathed his name before he took you in his arms and pulled you close, your lips crashing into his as instincts began to overcome him as well. this was where you belonged, in his arms, in his bed.

you opened up to him, letting your jaw fall open as he forced his tongue into your heated mouth, breathy moans and gasps escaping the both of you as your body rolled against his. his hands roamed down your back and around to your hips as you clung to his neck, both gripping the other as if you would never let go. clumsily, hyunjin’s slender fingers fumbled with the laces down the sides of your dress, messy in their desperation to remove the layers of clothes separating his body from yours.

“please, my love,” he whispered, hitching your breath in your throat as you realized he wanted you as passionately as you wanted him.

you rose to your knees and began untying the various fastenings of your dress until it fell loosely around your shoulders. hyunjin sat up to help pull the fabric over your head, leaving you in only your white underclothes, an image he held in his mind during lonely nights in this very room, when the two of you could not be together for one reason or another.

he marveled at your body like it was the first time he was seeing it, though this was far from the truth. the glow of your skin in the candlelight left him breathless, the curves of your jaw, your neck, your nearly exposed breasts, and your thighs almost too much for him to handle.

his hands traced the line of your shoulder, down your arms to your wrists, where he took hold and pulled your hands up to his lips, kissing the tips of your fingers as his dark lashes fluttered closed, drinking you in with his lips instead of his eyes.

clothing was discarded piece by piece, flung into a pile somewhere on the floor until the both of you were bare, chests heaving for breath as he kissed you, longing for your taste on his tongue.

you dragged your fingernails over his defined shoulders and chest as he kissed your neck, his teeth digging into the soft flesh he found there.

his hands wandered your hips and thighs, indecisive fingertips squeezing the curves of your legs and the globes of your ass until he couldn’t fight the instincts in his head any longer.

hooking his strong hands under your knees, hyunjin flipped you over on the bed, claiming a position on top of you where he had better access to your body. thick erection pressed tightly against his stomach, he leaned forward and captured one of your breasts in his mouth, sucking the tender flesh of its underside as his hand cupped the other side of your chest.

with nothing to dampen your moans, you cried out in pleasure as his lips moved to cover the hard bud of your nipple, his teeth digging in just enough to bring you to a place of dizziness.

“my love, ” he moaned between wet kisses, lips pressed against your skin with a shudder.

he sucked harder still as his dominant hand pinched your opposite nipple and massaged the mound underneath it in circles. you writhed under him, calling out his name as he ravaged your chest. your fingers burrowed into his locks, your body scrambling for anything to hold on to as if you would float up without doing so.

your ankles came to lock around his lower back, heels pressing into his spine as he nipped at your most sensitive areas, the ones he had come to know so well.

just as your neck was starting to feel unbearably hot from the pleasure, beads of sweat rolling down both your forehead and his back, he finally released your breast with a pop of his lips, gasping as he came up for air. he leaned back on his thighs, sitting upright to survey the traces of love bites and fingertip bruises he’d left across your chest, carefully kept below where the neckline of your dress would cover the next day.

as both of you caught your breath, he stared down at the pendant that gave you this power, which rested perfectly between your breasts, glinting as it caught the light from the nearest candle. it sent hyunjin’s head spinning as he touched his throbbing cock in one hand, preparing himself for you.

“let me fill you, please.” his thighs tensed between your legs, spread wide for him, straining to hold himself back. a glistening bead of pre-cum formed at his tip, but he didn’t break eye contact with you as he spread it over the blushing head of his cock with his thumb.

“please,” you whispered, hardly able to make a sound, as hungry for him as he was for you.

hyunjin released his grip between his legs and instead reached under your knees, folding your legs into your body, knees on either side of your chest. you felt him pressing forward, putting his weight first in his hands against the back of your thighs, spreading you wider in preparation. you wept for him, slick and trembling from his ministrations on your chest and the sight of his impossibly thick cock. you knew he would fit inside you, but only just.

with a sharp inhale, he teased his cock at your hole, the head swiping at your sensitive skin before he started to push himself inside you, inch by inch as he groaned. you felt the delicious burn as his thickness stretched your walls, both inside and out, to accept him.

“that’s it, my good girl, let me fill you,” he grunted, sweat dripping off the tip of his sloped nose and onto your chest as you whined in pleasure. he pulled out slowly before thrusting inside again, this time forcing himself inside you with a singular motion that had you clawing at his shoulders, mewling as his cock filled you completely.

hyunjin moaned deliciously as the pushing and pulling began, the dragging of his thickness creating intense friction between your legs. the sheer size of his cock splitting you in two had your head thrashing from side to side as he began to lose himself, lips moving almost on their own.

his eyes rolled back in his head with a gasp as his hip bones touched your thighs as he continued to pound himself into you. his thrusts came harder and faster yet, the muscles in your thighs trembling from being spread so wide for so long. the wet squelching of his cock sliding in and out of your heat couldn’t drown out hyunjin’s cries.

“y/n, oh my g– mine, my girl. mine” his words fell from his lips like a prayer, begging for salvation but not forgiveness, finally pushing you to release. your thighs bucked up against the strength of his legs as your neck and back arched severely off the bed, head thrown back in a scream as you came on his thick cock.

despite how you gasped, hyunjin didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, until you were filled with him. slick dribbled from your hole, wetting his cock even more as he slid in and out of you, pushing himself past his own limit.

“my love, i love you, i love you,” you panted, reaching to squeeze the muscles of his sturdy arms, impossibly flexed as he thrusted deep inside one last time before coating your insides with his load, his entire body shaking.

he collapsed beside you then, lungs gasping for breath, eventually pulling you into his chest, glistening with sweat and heat. his forehead dropped onto your shoulder and he curled into you, silent sobs wrenching from his lips as he began to cry. numbly, you lifted your arms to encircle his waist before sinking down to the mattress, your bodies slotting together as you held each other..

as soon as he could gather himself again, hyunjin spoke.

“i just want to spend forever with you but–” he didn’t have to say what it was. you didn’t want him to, afraid that admitting it aloud would cause your world of illusion to disappear.

“what will we do?” you asked, your heart breaking at the sight of him. tears welling up in your own eyes.

after a moment of silence, hyunjin slowly placed the pendant around his own neck and took your hand, pulling you up quickly. with one deep breath, he reached for the door the same door you came in from, pulling you alongside him as he lifted the iron handle of his door.

you followed, and with a flash of light, you stood on a green hillside at sunrise, grass under your bare feet, your bare body now covered with a white dress of his creation. you looked up at him and found him dressed not in robes, but in a simple white tunic and pants, the wind touseling the fabric.

he held both your hands as you gazed out behind him, the breathtaking view of the similar countryside dotted with stone fences and thatched roof cottages. everything around you felt calm, including the look in his eyes. “why here?” you asked.

“because,” he replied, “in a place like this, i’m just hyunjin, and you’re just you.”

tears welled in your eyes as he reached up to stroke your cheek. perhaps it was for the last time, you thought with a twinge in your chest, maybe this was the end for the two of you. you couldn’t go on like this. but his lips fluttered lightly over yours, pulling your eyes up to meet him when he released the kiss. his hands found your face, and you waited for the final goodbye.

but you found forever in his eyes. hyunjin tucked the pendant into his shirt and offered you his hand. you took it and began to walk alongside him, over the rolling hill, toward where the sun was now peeking over the horizon.

he squeezed your hand in an unspoken promise.

he’d leave everything behind, the kingdom, everything – to stay here with you. he would wander these pastures by your side for the rest of his days, hand in hand.

maybe this world was merely a fantasy, but it was the place you could be together. it was real as long as you were together.

[suhtorus]

𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁

⥅ eren jaeger / 1.8k words

warnings. manga spoilers, fluff and angst, gender neutral reader

a/n. my entry for anilysium's collab, don't forget to check the masterlist !! thank u sm temi for the beta ♡ @thefairywalker

hope is what makes someone hold onto a promise. and that hope it's worse than the broken promise itself.

—

845.

an autumn-like breeze cooled down the summer afternoon, and with the sky barren of any clouds, it was easier for the sun rays to land on those familiar blond strands.

"over there!"

eren's small hand—even though it was big enough to cover yours—wrapped around your wrist before it tugged you through the crowd. your rapid breaths were all you could hear while you mentally prayed to make it on time, just a couple more steps and you would be within reach, already staring at armin’s frightened face which caused your heart to jump. but what finally managed to send you in a state of despair was the sight of eren shoving the bigger kid away.

“what do you think you’re doing, yeager?!”

“are you hurt?” tears gathered at the corners of your eyes while you helped armin up on his feet, you didn’t have to turn around to know eren had received a punch, his pained wail making you flinch.

armin took your hand and together faced the scene before your eyes, holding onto each other's hands while tears dampened your cheeks.

“leave him alone!” the tremble in your voice was obvious, even after multiple fights with those kids it always ended up the same way. armin and you crying in fear for eren and mikasa's safety.

only this time mikasa was nowhere to be seen.

“shut up!” 

“don’t talk to them like that!” with a kick on the shin, eren managed to keep the bully out of commission for a few seconds. but that was enough for your saviour to arrive.

“leave before i call the garrison.”

relief began to relax your tense stance, you all knew that it wasn’t the moment to be wasting their time in a kid’s fight, the shortage of food seemed to worsen each day and keeping the people on a tight leash became harder as the days went by.

the kid seemed to finally realize he wouldn't win this time, so with a scoff he took a couple of steps back, "this isn't over," his annoyed gaze traveled from eren to you, "and try not to piss your pants next time."

the three of you watched him run away while the rush of adrenaline began to wear out on your bodies and gave in to the tiredness. had mikasa not intervened, the outcome would've been way worse.

"hey," eren was the first one to break the silence, turning towards you and landing a hand on your shoulder. unfortunately, the softness in his voice was your catalyst and soon you allowed the distress to overcome you, "oh no, don't cry!"

it was useless to try to get your tears to stop, falling one after another as your chest racked with broken sobs, "i-i'm sorry i couldn't be o-of help!"

armin watched in worry as eren tried and failed to get you to calm down. he could tell you were scared when you confronted the bully, your hold on his hand so tight he feared you would end up hurting yourselves. but even so, you had pulled through your fear and stood your ground, something he admired from you.

with a tug on your shirt, mikasa signaled you to start walking, her impassive yet reassuring gaze letting you know she was there for you.

"let's go home."

—

the warm steam that blew onto your blotchy face felt soothing, the taste of mrs. yeager's freshly brewed tea successfully relaxing the tightness in your chest as it ran down your throat.

you could already feel the tiredness hitting you all at once, begging you to lie down and close your eyes so you could rest your mind after the afternoon's occurrences. but with eren's eyes observing you, you knew you weren't off the hook yet.

"better?"

not trusting your voice, you hummed and smiled behind the cup resting on your lips, sniffling slightly when a flashback of eren being punched on the face appeared on your mind.

however, he didn't seem to be done with the topic.

"why did you stand up to him if you were so scared? you were lucky he didn't go for you." 

"'cause i didn't want him to keep punching you."

"i don't need your help," his tone gave you the wrong impression. were you bothering him? a frown pulled your lips in a wobbly pout but he was quick to realize his error, "i mean, we should focus on armin, right? he's the one always in trouble."

you rocked your feet back and forth, watching them dangle from the chair as you mulled over his words. he wasn't lying, it was armin who often ended up as the victim of those bullies. at least when neither of you were around to aid him.

"i have a plan!" eren suddenly perked up, eyes brimming with excitement and pride as he obviously found his plan a good one, "dad always says that it's his duty to protect mom because they're married. so, if we get married, i can protect you and we can protect armin—together!"

you couldn't help but gasp, "married?! but we are too little!"

"not now, dummy. when we grow up!"

"what if i cry again and can't protect armin?" you voiced out your biggest worry as you pushed the cup away and made room on the table for your arm, resting your chin on top of it after yawning.

"i'll protect all of us," he didn't even hesitate, “and we have mikasa too.”

the silly promise made so much sense to your 10-year-old brain, which is why you held onto the hope and safety it gave you and agreed.

carla yeager squealed the news to her husband once eren and you had fallen asleep.

—

850.

there wasn't a day where you didn't regret not going with them.

the lively days soon became dull without eren and armin’s excited voices as they discussed the fire and icy lands in armin’s book, mikasa’s reassuring presence gone as well. but you knew you wouldn’t make it through the strenuous military training—or at least that was what you had told yourself.

truthfully, you wondered how were they not scared of continuing with their suicide mission of joining the legion, all those sacrifices just to see what was outside the walls. why couldn’t they be happy with what you already had? it wasn’t much, but you had each other, which was more than what most people could say.

with shiganshina gone, you became one of the refugees that lurked in the streets of trost. the conditions to live growing harsher, food and shelter becoming escarse and a luxury, but eren’s promise gave you enough strength to go on with your days until you landed a job as a waitress at a pub. 

you missed them, all of them.

their names flew from the mouths of the military police and other higher ups that passed by, making you wonder what they were up to. however, when news spread about eren’s abilities to shift into one of those creatures, that old sense of worry shook you to your very core.

was he hurt? mikasa wouldn't let anyone lay a finger on him, but what if they separated them?

multiple scenarios ran through your head, many of them not so pleasing and only worsening your nerves. but if their names kept coming up in the authorities’ conversations after each and every mission, then it meant they were still alive.

unfortunately, all you could do was pray for their well-being and silently beg them to return.

—

854.

after years of not hearing his voice, it took you several seconds to recognize it.

“where– where are we? why–”

“you’ve changed,” his tone was soft yet hints of curiosity sept through as he marveled at you, “you look older..." prettier, he wanted to say.

having spent so many years without the intensity of his gaze, you realized you had grown unused to it, “you’ve changed too.”

it seemed like everyone had disappeared, except for you and him. dunes of fine sand slithered under your feet and a bright light illuminated the starry sky, converging by the horizon and causing his green eyes to shine in a way you had never seen before.

“eren… what’s all this?”

one moment you were surrounded by chaos, people screaming while an army of colossal titans walked south and eren declared war against the rest of the world; and the next it all had gone quiet, a man—eren—standing next to you while holding your hand.

"they will pay, and then we will be free," his thumb rubbed the skin on the back of your hand gently.

you caught the way his gaze hardened for a second, rage clear in his features but what confused you the most was the amount of hurt swirling in his eyes.

​​what did he mean by 'they'? you were aware of marley's feelings towards the eldians but was it truly that bad? there were so many questions you wanted to ask, but something told you that you didn’t have enough time so you chose to stick to the most important ones. 

“how's mikasa? armin... is it true? he’s the colossal now?”

eren pulled you closer to him by tugging on your hand, cradling the side of your face with his free hand as a smile took over his lips.

"mikasa's busy kicking everyone's asses," he joked and you couldn't help but laugh, relieved at the sudden lightness in his voice. your eyes closed briefly when he leaned forward and rested his forehead against yours, licking his lips before continuing, "armin... yeah, he's the colossal. looks like i need to find another excuse to marry you, hm?” 

you found it unfair how after almost a decade, he could still hold such a power over your heart, the butterflies in your stomach feeling worse than what you recalled.

“you remember?”

he didn't miss the hope in your tone, his own heart aching at the thought of you assuming he had forgotten about your existence. there wasn't a day where he hadn't wondered about your well-being, were you safe? had a titan stole your life just like they had done with his mom? it was armin and mikasa who consoled him whenever the intrusive thoughts became too much to his already stressed mind.

“i never forgot.”

it was subtle, the way that kids promise evolved into a lifetime vow—but neither of you minded.

“i need you to promise me one more thing," he murmured, his breath fanning over your lips while your own faltered at his proximity.

“you’re leaving again,” it wasn't a question.

“i have to.”

it pained him to no end, but it had to be done. the warmth of his lips touched your forehead, your cheeks, and lips; staying longer on the latter while your hearts synchronized for a moment, sharing years worth of affection.

"stay here, on the island. find somewhere safe to stay until it all ends.”

a mere murmur on your lips, that was all it took to harm your hopeful soul.

"and don't wait for me."