#while still getting aus supplier stuff too | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

justatiredpotato · 4 years ago

Text

Set Me Free | Chapter 4

Chapter List

Pairing: hybrid!Yoongi x human!reader

Genre: Angst, fluff, coffee shop AU, hybrid AU

Word Count: Chapter: 5,000~ Total: 40,000~

Updates daily at 10pm MST

Warnings: anxiety, panic attacks, implied abuse and sexual exploitation

Summary: Yoongi, a cat hybrid, has been hurt time and time again by a world that would have him believe he’s worthless. One day he finds himself in your protective care, and gets a new family to boot. But is it really that easy to escape the past and embrace a new beginning?

Author’s Note: In this fic the reader’s name is Yeoji

You woke up the next morning delightfully warm. You shifted to tuck your nose back under the edge of the blanket, but found you were curling into someone’s back instead. Startled, you pushed yourself up on one elbow and blinked at the figure tucked against you. Your arm was wrapped around Yoongi’s waist, legs tangled together. You blushed and quickly detached yourself from him. He let out an almost childlike whimper and turned to try and pull you close again, but you tucked the blankets around him and moved out of his reach. How could you invade his space like that? You must’ve drank too much.

The air was cold even through your sweats as you climbed out of bed. It was still early morning. You never slept soundly when you drank. Figuring you wouldn’t be getting much more rest if you tried to go back to sleep, you started getting ready for the day. You quietly pulled out a simple fitted black dress and a baggy cardigan, creeping into the bathroom to slip them on over a pair of knit tights. After grabbing your work shoes you exited the bedroom, closing the door as quietly as you could so as not to wake a still sleeping Yoongi. The shop opened in about two hours, so you figured you could get some of the office work done before then.

You settled on the couch with your laptop and a notebook that held your accounts information, spending about a half hour making sure everything was balanced properly. You decided to spend the rest of the time reviewing your inventory and preparing the order for your supplier that month. As you stood to move to the kitchen, the bedroom door creaked open. A bleary-eyed Yoongi emerged, hair sticking up in all directions, partially obscuring his ears.

“Where’d you go?” he croaked, voice hoarse from crying the evening before. “Why didn’t you stay?” His eyes widened as he took you in, already in your work attire.

“Am I late?” he asked, suddenly awake.

“No! No, you’re off today.”

“Really? Why? I can work,” he said, almost sounding hurt.

“I have Jimin coming in today, don’t worry. Why don’t you work on your music today?”

He nodded, pondering. He seemed to acknowledge that it would be nice having some time to himself after yesterday's incident. You didn’t mention the fact that you were trying to hold off a bit longer before introducing him to the other boys. They were a bit energetic for Yoongi at the moment. You feared that Jimin’s affectionate nature would stress him out.

“Okay, well call me if it gets crowded. I can get ready and come out,” he eventually said.

“Thanks.” You smiled, walking over to ruffle his hair. “But don’t worry, this is my job.”

He mumbled some kind of acknowledgement, ducking his head but also pushing into your hand so you scratched his ears some more.

“Are you coming back here for lunch?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’ll eat with you. I usually go at two, can you wait that long?” He nodded. “Alright, I’ll be back then.” You turned and headed out front as he grabbed his bag and the bundle of papers you’d salvaged.

“Ah!” you exclaimed, turning on your heel. He jumped, looking at you questioningly. You hurried over to the bookshelf and pulled a notebook off of it. “Use this,” you offered, holding it out to Yoongi.

“Thanks,” he said, flipping through it and giving you a gummy grin. You suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to curl up next to him and ask him about his music. It felt like an actual tug at your heart, wanting to know the thoughts and feelings that he’d put to paper. You pushed the thought away, pulling your laptop closer to your chest.

“You’re welcome,” you said, turning to continue your way out front.

You went over inventory, finishing up about a half hour before opening. The order could be written up that night or the next morning so it could go out on Friday. You put your laptop aside and went out to the counter, making your regular coffee and Yoongi’s. You also made breakfast for the two of you.

He glanced up when you entered the room. He hadn’t moved from his spot on the couch. He flashed a smile, pulling one side of his headphones off his ear.

“Thanks!” he said, already going for a sip of his coffee.

“You’re welcome. I’ll see you at lunch,” you said, already turning to leave.

“You aren’t staying for breakfast?” he asked a little sadly.

“I have to go let Jimin in and open,” you answered over your shoulder. “But it’ll be lunchtime soon. And maybe you can show me some of your music after I finish up tonight?” you asked hopefully.

“Sure,” he replied, running a hand through his hair and smoothing over his ears.

Jimin was already waiting outside when you returned to the cafe. He waved cheerfully as you jogged to unlock the door for him.

“Noona!” He tumbled into your arms as soon as the door was open. You laughed, squeezing him tight and rocking side-to-side with the hug.

“How’s my Chim Chim this morning?” you asked, burying your face in his hair as he held you. To anyone else you might’ve looked like a couple, but Jimin just really liked holding people and being held, always had. It seemed to help him heal when he first arrived at Jin’s shelter, and you had been one of the first people he grew close to.

“I’m good, I missed you though!” he answered, finally pulling away a little. “You spent the whole weekend with your new kitty friend!” he pouted.

“We had a few things to do so he could settle in.” You laughed at his obvious jealousy. As excited as he was about another cat hybrid in the family, you knew he’d be jealous too.

“Is that why you smell like him? Because it smells like you’ve been all over each other,” he said, raising an eyebrow at you. You chuckled awkwardly pushing him away and rolling your eyes.

“We’re staying in the same tiny two room apartment. And I gave him my bed the first day, so that’s probably why.”

Jimin nodded dubiously, slipping past you and inside. He headed to the kitchen to put his backpack away while you locked the door so you could finish preparing for the day. Jimin took down the chairs and straightened the tables while you made him a coffee.

“You hungry?” you asked as you put the finishing touch on his mocha.

“Nah, I ate with Tae before I left.” He came back to the counter, accepted the beverage gratefully and took a sip.

“How’s he doing at the shelter?” you asked as you straightened cups and checked the register.

“He seems to like it. There are… hard parts of the job. But I can tell he feels good about helping people like he is there.” A sad smile flickered over his face. “He’s really strong, you know? Staying there, seeing all those things.”

You put an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close. “You know there’s nothing wrong with you choosing to do something else? Not everyone is suited to a job like that,” you said gently. “I don’t think I could do it.”

“But you are doing it!” he said confidently. “With your new kitty friend. You’re totally helping him!”

You laughed, releasing him to go unlock the door. “He’s not ‘my new kitty friend.’ His name is Yoongi. Yoongi-hyung, to you,” you scolded. There was no real firmness in your tone though.

“Another hyung?” Jimin whined. “Man, I wanted someone to boss aro- I mean take care of.” He seemed pleased with his joke.

“Chim,” you turned your best older-sister-look on him. “Play nice.”

He pouted again. “I’m always nice!” he argued, but you could hear the barely-suppressed giggle in his voice. “When can I meet him?”

“I’m not sure yet. Whenever he’s ready, I guess.”

Jimin nodded understandingly.

The morning passed relatively slowly. The festival only made things slightly more busy than any other Wednesday. Around one, you ran back to your house to make Jimin lunch and brought it back out front for him. You made him eat in the kitchen. He complained, but you explained that Yoongi was working back in your apartment and you didn’t want to interrupt him.

You slipped away for your own lunch a little after two. Jimin was clearly miffed that you were allowed to disrupt Yoongi’s work. But the sulking you’d have to endure was all worth it when Yoongi’s face lit up at your arrival. He already had stuff out to make sandwiches, slicing up tomatoes and cheese.

“I’m not a great cook, but I figured I could make this for you,” he said sheepishly, gesturing to the sandwich that was already made on the counter next to him. You grinned, running over to wrap him in a side-hug. Once he finished his sandwich you settled at the table to eat. Your break seemed to be gone in a blink as you chatted about what Yoongi had been working on (he said it was a secret), and you told him about your latest dumb customer (this Karen who’d come in demanding a fat-free breve, claiming she got one at Barstucks all the time). His laugh gave you this fluttering in your stomach, leaving a warm and cozy feeling that you chose not to read into.

You glanced up at the clock, cursing under your breath. You stood quickly, the chair scraping a bit on the floor. You’d taken an extra 15 minutes.

“I’ve gotta go, Yoongi,” you said, already heading for the door. He hurried after you, catching your sleeve and wrapping you in a quick hug, so light you barely processed it had happened.

“I’ll show you some of my lyrics tonight,” he said. He waved you off as if you weren’t just going out to the front part of the building. You waved back, chuckling at the silliness of it.

When you returned to the front counter, Jimin fixed you with a questioning look, eyes sharp.

“Yeah, he’s totally not glued to you,” he said with a sniff. He rolled his eyes, laughing as he no doubt smelled Yoongi on your sweater from the hug a moment before. “You’re so whipped.”

You grumbled but didn’t argue, knowing he would only take a stronger denial as confirmation. You weren’t trying to have him give the other boys the wrong idea. You would never take advantage of Yoongi by trying anything with him. A customer mercifully pulled you from your ethical quandaries about relationships with dependent hybrids.

━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━

By the time the last customer left and you and Jimin started cleaning up, you were eager to go check on Yoongi.

“You can go, Noona. I’ll finish up here,” Jimin offered.

“What? Why? I can help you finish up.”

“Just go see him. I’m sure he’s been waiting for you since the second you left anyway.” He snickered, eyes scrunching up with his smile.

You blushed, cursing hybrid noses and their ability to see right through people. You turned your back on him, energetically scrubbing at the counter. “Don’t be silly. If anything he’s waiting for dinner.”

“Well then you better not keep him waiting. Jin-hyung said he’s way skinny,” Jimin said.

You turned back to him, brows raised. “Jin told you about Yoongi?”

“Just a little. He said we should all help you so he can get better.” Jimin was already at your back, gently guiding you toward the kitchen. He pushed you through the door, toward your apartment. “Go take care of your boyfriend. I’ll lock up before I go.”

The kitchen door thudded shut behind you as he went back to cleaning up. If your face wasn’t red before it certainly was now. You took a second, hoping the embarrassment would fade along with the color in your cheeks, before continuing into the apartment. You were certainly surprised by what greeted you.

“Yoongi…?” you called, noting the set table with a couple dishes of food already on it. You started toward the kitchen just as Yoongi’s head popped up from behind the island, making you jump.

“You’re back!” He smiled nervously at you, a couple of glasses in his hand.

“What’s all this?” You reached the table and looked over the spread: spaghetti with meatballs, garlic bread, and a shockingly pretty salad.

“Ah, this?” he said, as if you might be talking about something else. “I just figured that since you were working all day I could do something around the house. I cleaned a bit, but I thought it might be nice if you didn’t have to make dinner. I hope that’s okay.”

“Okay? This is amazing!” You passed the table in favor of going and wrapping Yoongi in a tight hug. “I haven’t had someone make dinner for me in a long time! If I ever let Namjoon cook he’d burn down the house.” You felt Yoongi’s chuckle rumble in his chest, a faint rumble of a purr already starting as well.

“Well, I didn’t burn anything. I just hope it tastes alright.” He pulled away and led you over to the table. “I tried to do it just like the video, so I think it isn’t bad.”

“I’m sure it’s delicious!” You took your seat and watched as Yoongi returned to the kitchen for the glasses he’d been getting.

“The guy on Viewtube said wine goes with this. Does that sound good?”

“Sure! Whatever the chef recommends.” You eyed the food, and noted that Yoongi had even put on music in the background. Soft piano music played from his laptop on the counter. Yoongi grabbed the bottle of wine out of the fridge—which happened to be the only wine you had—and joined you at the table. He removed the cork and poured you each a glass, which you smiled and took.

You weren’t a big wine fan in all honesty. The bottle was just the remainder of a bottle Jimin had brought over a while ago. But you took a sip anyway, wanting to cooperate with what he’d prepared. Yoongi took the plate in front of you and started to serve the food, but you reached out to stop him.

“You don’t have to, I can get it myself,” you said.

“It’s okay, I want to do it.” His gummy smile made you sit back down. You smiled as he spun the pasta, something he must’ve picked up from the Viewtube tutorial. He set your plate in front of you with a hint of a proud smile, then made a plate for himself.

You glanced at him to find he was watching expectantly, clearly wanting to see your reaction. So you spun your noodles and took a bite. Your eyebrows rose as you looked at him, chewing for a moment.

“Edible?” he asked.

“Very edible. Delicious actually!”

He beamed at the praise, taking a bit himself. He gave a thoughtful hum, considering for a moment. “Not bad. I think the sauce should be thicker though? The guy in the video’s sauce was definitely thicker.”

“Maybe you can tweak the recipe a bit to get it just how you like it.” You smiled at him encouragingly. “I think you have real talent for this, Yoon.”

“Thanks, noona. Maybe I’ll try something new my next day off.”

“That sounds great. I appreciate this so much, truly.” You ate in pleasant silence for a moment before a thought struck you. “Did you get to work on your music today? I hope you didn’t just do housework.”

“Yeah, I got some stuff done. I can show you some tracks I’ve made after dinner, if you’re interested.”

“I would love that!”

“Actually… This is something I made.”

You blinked at him, not quite getting it. “This?”

“Yeah, the piano music. It’s all my stuff.” He nodded towards his beat up laptop, still playing soft melodies from the counter.

“All these songs have been yours?”

He nodded, avoiding your gaze. “Yeah. I mean, none of them are finished or anything. I don’t really have the tools I need to make a polished track. These ones don’t even have lyrics yet. And I don’t know any vocalists to do the melody. But I thought they would be good enough for backgr-”

“Yoongi.” You interrupted his ramble. “They’re beautiful. All of them. I had no idea you wrote stuff like this.”

The way you looked at him, truly amazed, made him shift in his seat. He didn’t know what to do with a compliment to his work, which was so dear to him. He cleared his throat before he spoke, not wanting to sound too... He didn’t even know what. “Thanks,” he finally said before quickly returning to his meal.

Once you’d both finished dinner you helped him clear the table and do the dishes. As you put the last plate in the cupboard you glanced at him expectantly. He snorted, grabbing his laptop and heading to the living room. You smiled and hurried after him. He opened his laptop, and seemed to steel himself, before turning to you.

“Now remember, these aren’t finished or polished or anything. I don’t have the tools or the skill to really make these good so don’t-”

“Yoongi,” you whined. “Stop selling yourself short. I’ve heard you perform. You’re really talented. And the songs you played during dinner? Amazing. So stop dissing yourself!”

Yoongi’s serious expression turned into a smirk. “Dissing myself?” The smirk turned into a grin, and you couldn’t help but start laughing. Any nerves he felt about showing you his work faded into the background as he laughed with you. Once you caught your breath, he played the first song he wanted to show you. You bopped along to a high energy club beat, then an intense diss track. Yoongi could spit rap so fast you almost couldn’t keep up, yet every word was clear. You glanced up at him as he focused on the computer screen, realizing how truly talented he was. A slightly slower tune with a driving beat behind it came on, something in the realm of a sexy slow-jam. Your eyebrows shot up, face heating along with the whole room as you listened. You weren’t expecting his lyrics to be so… bold.

The song ended and Yoongi clicked around a bit, glancing at you and noting your expression. “What did you think?” He was clearly nervous, but also proud of his work.

You smiled at him, trying to school your expression. If he noticed your flustered state, he was kind enough not to comment. “I would definitely dance to that. Or buy tickets to that concert.”

He grinned a gummy smile, a laugh escaping him. “I don’t think we’re anywhere near that yet. But I appreciate the thought.” He looked back at the screen, queuing up something else. “Okay, this one is a bit different than the other stuff. It’s not as… up as the other stuff. But I wanted to try writing something real. I don’t know if it’s any good, so tell me what you think.” He pressed play.

A soft piano melody began, and you quickly recognized it as something he’d played at dinner. But it quickly became clear this was a newer version of the piece as a base synth came in. After a moment of piano, Yoongi’s lyrics began. His voice was more familiar as the Yoongi you knew, not the cocky club persona from the other songs.

As you listened you felt your heart clench with every word. This wasn’t a song, it was a story. His story. He told you about moments, flashes of love and joy, broken and torn away by loss and violence. His voice strained, trying not to break as he told of greed and hate and finally, emptiness. When so much pain builds up that you are hollow. With nothing left to push you forward, you only need the tiniest push to send you over the edge and into oblivion.

You sat for a moment, looking at the coffee table in front of you but your mind was far away. Yoongi wrapped an arm around your shoulder and you looked up at him. His eyes were wide with worry.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, scanning your face before wiping at it with the sleeve of his sweater. You hadn’t realized you were crying. You didn’t answer him, instead you pulled him into a tight hug. He seemed to understand because he didn’t press you further. The two of you stayed like that for quite a while.

━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━

It was just you and Jimin again on Thursday. Business was picking up as the weekend approached, so you were kept busy with customers almost constantly throughout the day. At noon you ran back to check on Yoongi, but you didn’t even have time to take a real lunch.

Mid-afternoon there was a bit of a lull. You had just slipped back into the kitchen to take a breath and drink the coffee you’d made yourself when a customer out front caught your attention.

“Is your owner here?” the man asked. His voice wasn’t very deep, but his tone was imposing, almost threatening.

“I beg your pardon?” Jimin responded politely.

“Your owner. I want to speak to them.”

“You mean the shop owner?” The man must’ve nodded because Jimin called for you a second later. You came out of the kitchen and looked over the man in question.

He was average height, but stocky. The suit he wore was probably expensive, and you could see a fine gold chain peeking out of the unbuttoned collar of his shirt. You glanced up to meet his eye and were surprised to find a generally handsome face. A tattoo crept out from under his collar, under his jaw, and up behind his ear. He looked you over in return, mouth curving into a smile, but it had no warmth behind it. Actually, it almost sent a shudder through you.

“Are you the owner?” he asked.

“I am. How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for a lost hybrid. A client of mine mentioned she saw him here?”

You frowned, glancing at Jimin but making sure your unease didn’t cross your face. “A hybrid? I can’t think who you’d be talking about. Maybe he came in with a customer?”

“No, she said he was working here.” The man dug in his pocket and pulled out his phone. “This one, a cat. Name’s Suga, but he calls himself Yoongi sometimes,” he said, turning the phone to show you. The image you saw made your stomach drop. The photo was dimly lit by pink and purple neon lights, but you still easily recognized the boy in the photo. It was Yoongi, curled up on the floor against a couch. He was in just a thin t-shirt and underwear, obviously trying to avoid the camera. You schooled your expression before meeting the man's eyes again, feeling nauseous.

“I can’t say I’ve seen him. My friend here is a cat hybrid, so maybe she mistook him for this guy?” You glanced at Jimin, who nodded. He looked uncomfortable, probably sensing your anxiety.

The man sneered. “Believe me, she wouldn’t mistake this kid for any other kitty.”

You cringed internally but put on a polite, apologetic smile. “Well, I’m sorry we can’t be of more help.”

“Oh don’t worry. I’ll check in with the local patrol station. You know how the police have been cracking down on strays. When they find him they’ll get him right back to me.” You nodded tightly at him, still trying to keep a smile. “Let me know if you see him,” he said, pushing a business card across the counter to you. The name on it was Kwon Hyunjoong. You nodded and the man bid you farewell, You watched until he exited the shop and the door settled shut behind him.

You turned to Jimin. “Call Jin and Namjoon,” you said, already moving back to the apartment. You burst through the door, startling Yoongi from his place at the kitchen table. He pulled his headphones off and stood, walking to meet you by the door.

“Hey, what’s going on?” His brows were furrowed as he looked you over. “What’s wrong?” He placed his hands on your shoulders and that was when you realized you were shaking. You looked at him, panic in your eyes.

“There was a guy looking for you,” you blurted. You took a deep breath, but it ended up more of a sob. You couldn’t seem to catch your breath. “He had a picture of you. And he’s going to the police. He said they’ll find you and take you back to him and I said I hadn’t seen you but…”

Yoongi stopped you from saying any more, pulling you into his chest and stroking your hair.

“Woah, woah. Slow down,” he said. He was trying to sooth you but you could feel how he’d begun shaking as well, muscles tense as you clutched his shirt. “He doesn’t know I’m here right? And you said you hadn’t seen me.”

“That woman. That disgusting b**** told them she saw you. That you were working here. Yoongi, do they have papers? Can they take you? Oh god, even if they don’t I’m not sure what I can do. What if I can’t protect you? I promised I’d keep you safe and now I- I-” You dissolved into gasping sobs, imagining the police coming and dragging Yoongi out of your home. If they had evidence that they ‘owned’ him, or even had in the past, there’d be nothing you could do. Most of the police didn’t care, and you had no legal right to protect him. “I have to protect you,” you cried. You held him so tightly he winced a little, but he just held you closer.

Your sobs had quieted a bit and you were catching your breath when a knock came on the apartment door. Yoongi carefully disengaged from your arms and had you sit on the couch while he went to get the door. He glanced through the peep-hole before opening it to reveal Jin and Namjoon, along with Jungkook. Namjoon surveyed the older man, who was shaking, eyes puffy and watery. Then he glanced over Yoongi’s shoulder and spotted you curled up on the couch, trembling. He hurried past Yoongi and over to you, the others trailing behind him. You looked up at him as he crouched in front of you.

“Joon…” you whimpered weakly. He pulled you into his arms without a word. You started crying again, sobs renewed when you glanced up to see Jungkook with his arm around a terrified Yoongi. “You have to help me Joon. We have to keep him safe. We can’t let them take him.”

Namjoon glanced up at Jin, before gently pulling away from you. “Can you tell us what’s going on? Jimin only explained a little on the phone.” You nodded, sniffling and taking a shaky breath.

“Jungkook, why don’t you go help Jimin out front?” Jin said. The younger boy nodded, giving Yoongi’s shoulder one last squeeze before hurrying out to the cafe.

Yoongi came to join you and Namjoon on the couch, leaning close to you. Namjoon glanced at him and removed his arm from your shoulders, taking your hand instead. Yoongi quickly wrapped you in his arms, nuzzling into your neck in an attempt to soothe you. Jin sat in the armchair across from you. They waited patiently for you to gather yourself before you started talking. You told them the whole story.

“I don’t know how to keep him safe. Legally, I can’t do anything for you, Yoongi.” Your free hand came up to clutch at his arm, still wrapped tightly around you. “I can’t protect you without legal guardianship. You know how the police have been about so-called ‘strays’. Without papers, they’ll take you to a shelter and notify your previous owners. They’ll take you and I won’t be able to do a damn thing about it.” You released Namjoon’s hand, tears returning as you turned into Yoongi’s chest again and held him tightly.

“Well the easy solution would be to have her adopt you,” Jin said. He looked at Yoongi expectantly. That was the obvious solution, but you knew how Yoongi would feel about it. You felt him stiffen in your arms and you cried harder.

“Yoon, I know you don’t want an owner. And I don’t want to own you. But I can’t lose you. Please, please, I just want to keep you safe.” The room was silent as your pleas hung in the air for a moment.

Yoongi let out a shaky sigh. “Okay.” You froze, suddenly quiet except for the occasional hiccuping breath. “I trust you, noona,” he affirmed. “I… want you to adopt me.”

You pulled away to look him in the eye, scanning for hesitation. But as hard as those words must’ve been for him to say, you couldn’t see a trace of doubt on his face. He smiled softly at you and you smiled back, tears still falling.

“Thank you,” you choked out and he held you close again, burying his face in your hair. You turned to look at Jin. “When can I sign?”

“You got a computer and a printer?” he asked, already standing from his chair. Less than an hour later you were all seated at the table, papers printed and pens in hand. Jin had been able to pull up Yoongi’s records from the database online. Luckily, his former owners hadn’t bothered to keep the papers up-to-date since they first ‘acquired’ him years ago, so nothing was preventing you from adopting him. You signed, and Yoongi placed his fingerprint on the document.

“I’m going to run these to the registration office before they close. I’m signing as a reference, so luckily we can forego a background check or interviews as a first time owner,” Jin said, already standing and heading for the door. “Unfortunately, they’ll want you to have tags. But you only have to have them when you go out. They make earrings now too.”

“That’s what Jungkook and Tae have,” Namjoon added. “They’re actually pretty cool looking, for what it is.”

Yoongi nodded, clearly not thrilled with the idea of wearing a tag again. But when he saw the remorseful look on your face he smiled at you. “It’s okay, noona. Look, my ears are already pierced anyway.”

You looked and sure enough, he already had earrings: three on one side, two on the other. “We’ll get whichever one you want. Maybe we can find one that just looks like a regular earring,” you suggested hopefully.

#yoongi fanfic #bts fanfic #suga fanfic #yoongi fluff #yoongi angst #hybrid!au #cafe!au #hybrid!yoongi #yoongi x reader #min yoongi #suga #bts #bts suga #bts yoongi

84 notes · View notes

terresdebrume · 5 years ago

Text

The Witcher - Favorite Reads Masterpost

So, the previous one was getting really super long and Tumblr refused to save the latest update three times, which I’m taking to mean I’ve reached some kind of length limit. In view of that, and with a poke to @nyliekeo who asked to be tagged, here’s the second volume of my Witcher fic-reading adventures!

(Pretty much all Geraskier, because I’m only a multishipper in the sense that I have many ships across many fandoms.)

Volume 1

Last updated: April 10th, 2020.

Non geraskier fic

Her Current Is Pulling You Closer - TheMarvellousMadMadamMim

Specs: 1 900 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Eist/Calanthe - Swimming, shameless flirting

Summary: After nearly three years of marriage, Eist Tuirseach realizes there are still things to learn about his wife.

Becoming Water - Orockthro

Specs: 3 456 words - Mature - Trans woman!Geralt, curses, happy ending

Summary: When Geralt was a child his mother kissed his forehead, wove flowers in his hair, and let him dance around the campsite they shared with the other druids. He loved dancing, the way his body moved and flowed; he was like water.

And then she left him in the road, spilled water on his feet, and a faint trail of dust where she and the cart were no longer. And a man came and took Geralt and made him into something new.

“Were you short? Waifish? Did those witcher mutagens turn you into, you know, the hulking sexy man that you are? At least they gave you such male perfection, what with the stubble and the jaw and the--”

“Shut up, Jaskier.”

(Or, Geralt is cursed with a female body during their travels. Only it's not so much a curse as a gift she didn't know she so desperately desired until now.)

of cockroaches and men - Potrix

Specs: 1 442 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Yennefer & Jaskier, Getting to know each other, BAMF Jaskier

Summary: As if being stuck waiting for her supplier in this sorry excuse for a town full of narrow-minded, superstitious simpletons isn't already frustrating enough, the first familiar face Yennefer spots when she walks into the grubby tavern is that of her least favourite bard.

Or, alternatively; sometimes you misjudge people, but there's nothing some badassery and booze won't fix.

all cooped up - alittlebitmaybe

Specs: 4 205 words - Mature - Polyamory, Pandemic 2020, Non-explicit sex, instigator Yen

Summary: Geralt's old university roommate, Jaskier, needs a place to ride out the pandemic. Geralt and Yennefer conveniently have a couch and Geralt, inconveniently, has a crush.

Cover it over and write it out - TheArcheologist

Specs: 3 214 words - Mature - Dyslexia, implied child abuse, Dandelion is a noble

Summary: There is something Geralt has noticed, after traveling so long with Jaskier. It is nothing major, nothing world ending or even warranting bringing up, but it is there, nonetheless, a funny little habit he can’t unsee.

“You’re better at this stuff than me, Geralt, you read it.”

Geraskier fics

pride - Besully (Briar_Elwood)

Specs: 737 words - Teen & Up - Trans Jaskier

Summary: Geraskier Week Dealer's Choice

He only manages to get the shirt untucked from the bard’s trousers when Jaskier’s smile disappears, and he scrambles backwards, holding the edges of his shirt down.

Do It Again - thisgirlsays22

Specs: 6 771 words - Explicit - Time Loop

Summary: By the twentieth time Geralt has gone through the loop, he decides to just throw himself off the cliff’s edge after Borch.

He wakes up to his twenty-first attempt.

“Fuck.”

Interlude; The End of All Things - TabbyCat33098

Specs: 3 496 words - General Audiences - Growing Old Together

Summary: Geralt realizes Jaskier is growing old and tries his best to return the rest of Jaskier's life to him. If only Jaskier would cooperate and take it.

How much longer will Jaskier be content with weathering the elements and contending with the uncertainty of mercenary work? How long until Jaskier realizes that in devoting himself to crafting a legacy for Geralt, he has forgotten to create a legacy of his own?

After all, he does not have a wife or children, for their nomadic lifestyle is conducive to neither. He has no home to return to between stints with Geralt, whether a sprawling mansion vaunting his wealth or a comfortable cottage replete with souvenirs from his varied exploits. How many experiences has Jaskier sacrificed because some contract or irate nobleman drew them elsewhere? How many untouched fields of snow has Jaskier never seen; how many harvests at Novigrad has he yearned to celebrate from halfway across the Continent—

“You’re staring,” Jaskier points out.

“You wanted to go to the Kovirian coast,” Geralt responds.

a tapestry of scars - splendidlyimperfect

Specs: 7 688 words - Mature - Modern AU, Birpolar disorder, self harm, references to previous suicide attempt and car accident.

Summary: Jaskier comes into Geralt's life on a sunny afternoon in May - wide smiles and baby blue eyes; breathtaking stories and half-written song lyrics. He's mesmerizing and full of life, and Geralt can't look away. But sunshine doesn't last forever, and when Jaskier disappears, Geralt learns that beautiful things have dark and broken pieces, and even damaged people can help fix them.

Summer Mornings - The UnamazingTrashKing

Specs: 3 241 words - Mature - Fluff

Summary: Geralt and Jaskier are sort of a couple. They definitely wake up together and talk about spending the rest of their lives together.

An Incomplete Happiness - BlossomsintheMist

Specs: 22 497 words - Mature - Serious injuries, injuries recovery, unresolved sexual tension, unresolved romantic tension

Summary: Jaskier is traveling with Geralt when a hunt goes badly wrong and Geralt ends up injured. Geralt soon realizes that the bard can take care of Geralt better than he'd realized, in his own way.

Hide Behind The Mound of Dead Bards - Bones (Doctorbones)

Specs: 17 296 words - Explicit - Temporary character death, Graphic depiction of violence

Summary: Jaskier is really bad at two things: shutting up and staying dead. Luckily, he can do both at the same time...for a while.

faith in transience - unconscious

Specs: 12 532 words - Explicit - Monster of the week, Service top Jaskier, attempted mind control.

Summary: “I learn stuff about you to enrich my songs, thanks very much.” Geralt starts.

“Like what?”

Jaskier strums a chord. “Plenty of things. You always ask the contractor if they want the head or not instead of just showing up with it, because you don’t want to shock people. You eat normal amounts of food when eating in public, instead of your usual awe-inducing giant amount. You sleep more when you’re hurt, but that’s the only way I’d ever know. You’re a bit weird about your potions and you count them a lot.” He glances up and grins. “Shall I continue?”

A handful of contracts go sideways. Recovering is easier with Jaskier there.

when midnight breaks their sleep - SummerFrost

Specs: 16 736 words - Mature - Modern setting, polyamory, polyamory negociation

Summary: The first Snapchat that anyone ever sends Geralt is a picture of his own irritated face.

shrike_princess: can u believe this dumbass finally got a snapchat bc a cute boy asked him nicely

"It wasn't even that nicely," Geralt says flatly.

AKA: The one where Geralt is a bartender and Jaskier sings karaoke.

he, who i love - kinneyb

Specs: 1 279 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Established relationship

Summary: Jaskier looked forward to these nights the most; he was playing in a rundown tavern in a small town near the coast, coins gathered at his feet, knowing that at any moment Geralt would come bursting through the door.

He spun on his heels, strumming his lute with nimble fingers, the mark of a practiced player.

Jaskier had thought he’d reached his peak when he was younger. He had been proven wrong, of course, practice truly did make perfect. He was getting more attention than ever, and only half of it probably had to do with his new songs, all depicting the Witcher’s love story with a bard of the human variety.

He never directly mentioned himself, but the people had made the connection fairly easily, anyway.

Near the Coast - IantoPace

Specs: 2 164 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Dresses

Summary: Geralt finds out some of the feminine things Jaskier likes. This is inspired by the images of Joey Batey & Madeleine Hyland in the woods wearing each other's clothes.

Shoot First, Ask Questions Later - Ladivviniatravestia

Specs: 3 427 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Defining the relationship

Summary: Geralt and Jaskier fuck, then try to define their relationship. Too bad Geralt has no idea what he really wants and Jaskier has been hiding something.

parry, riposte - plutoandpersephone

Specs: 5 230 words - Explicit - Established relationship, competence kink, power dynamics

Summary: "How about it?"

Geralt looks at Jaskier like he’s just started to speak in some long lost, foreign tongue.

"You want to take me on in the sword ring?"

Jaskier challenges Geralt to a bout in the fencing ring. They both get more than they bargained for.

The Coast - NinjaSniperKitty

Specs: 1 856 words - General Audiences - Established relationship, overly protective boyfriend!Geralt

Summary: Geralt takes Jaskier up on his offer to get away and go to the coast for a while. While Geralt sees danger hiding everywhere along the coast, Jaskier hasn't been to the sea in years and only sees a good time!

Sweet, Silky, Soft, and Shiny - Girl_in_Red_Crossing

Specs: 3 251 words - Mature - Inappropriate use of candy

Summary: Just a couple of bros, sucking on sweet things... sharing silky things... lying in soft beds together... (kissing)...

The Witcher Wolf 2: Geralt’s POV - im_fairly_witty.

Specs: 15 338 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Animal transformation

Summary: It's been two weeks since Geralt drove Jaskier away from him on that mountain top and Geralt's been doing his best not to think about it by accepting every contract he comes across. But when a job goes badly he find himself cursed into the form of an injured wolf and is then saved by none other than Jaskier himself, who has no idea that the animal he's taken under his wing is his own witcher. Geralt must now try to alert Jaskier to his real situation and adjust to his new life traveling with the bard, learning several hard but very much needed lessons along the way.

Shadowplay - sospes

Specs: 26 539 words - Mature - BAMF!Jaskier, Espionnage

Summary: Geralt returns to Oxenfurt on a bright May morning to find flowers laid outside Jaskier's rooms and a fresh grave in the cemetery.

Except, as Geralt is about to learn, in Jaskier's world things are never quite what they seem.

An Old Man’s Tale - NotebooksandLaptops

Specs: 1 448 words - General Audiences - External POV, Old age

Summary: At the edge of the village, in a house surrounded by wild-flowers and weeds - re-built from its former crumbling foundations – there lived the Old Man. He’d earnt the rights for the capital O, capital M off of the rest of the villagers barely a week after he’d moved into their humble world. For he had not grown up here, like everyone else did. Yet he settled and settled as if he had always been there. He wandered the cliffsides, the beaches, the streets. He strung shells together and gifted them to the ladies of the village with a wink that betrayed the charming young man he once must have been. He bought the little ceramic pots Alicja sold on the market, and he filled them with weeds as if the weeds were flowers worth showcasing. And – most importantly – he sang.

-///-

Or, Jaskier settles in a costal village towards the end of his life.

For The Joy Of It - vvitchering (Witchering)

Specs: 848 words - Teen & Up Audiences - self esteem issues, body image

Summary: After spending years on The Path together, Jaskier and Geralt finally settle down. Jaskier notices one day that his new sedentary lifestyle has changed him in ways he fears Geralt won't accept.

The Silence Between Heartbeats - anarchycox

Specs: 7 969 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Jskier knows Geralt better than anyone

Summary: Geralt faced off with a sorceress, only instead of her magic killing him, it stole his voice. But this should be an easy fix, he knew many women who could heal this. But that would mean anyone noticing something wrong. He knew he was quiet, but seriously, did no one wonder why he wasn't saying a single thing? Months he traveled silent, no one noticing and it was driving him mad.

Until he runs into Jaskier, who notices immediately that something is wrong.Because of course it is Jaskier.

Who else in the end would it be, who properly saw the White Wolf?

tailored - jeannie_tangerine

Specs: 4 874 words - Explicit - Geralt has a kink and Jaskier is absolutely into it.

Summary: in which Jaskier finds out that Geralt has a kink and is more than glad to indulge it.

oh darling please be mine - kickassfu

Specs: 749 words - General Audiences - Introspective, fluff

Summary: Geralt’s head turns to him just as he’s jumping into his arms. Obviously, he catches Jaskier, in his very strong, very big arms. Still probably processing what’s happening, Geralt’s body is tense, unmoving. Jaskier doesn’t care.

New Monsters Stories - Kathkin

Specs: 20 209 words - Explicit - Urban fantasy, mutual pining

Summary: “So do you have a name?”

“Yeah.” The man who had saved his life less than an hour ago – the white-haired, absurdly buff, weirdly sexy man Jaskier might have called taciturn if he was feeling charitable and surly if he was feeling less so – dug into his second burger.

Jaskier waited. “Are… you going to tell me what it is?”

The man paused mid-bite, and looked at him reproachfully as if to say how dare you. How dare you interrupt me. Can’t you see I’m enjoying my cheeseburger. Can’t you see this cheeseburger is the most important thing in my life right at the moment. He swallowed, and said, “Geralt.”

It turns out almost getting eaten by a werewolf can make your whole life go careening off in a new, terrifying, wondrous, artistically flourishing direction. Who knew?

Professor Pankratz - martistarfighter

Specs: 1 147 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Established relationship

Sumary: “Come teach my class with me tomorrow.” He whispers in the witcher’s ear. He’s sporting a neatly trimmed beard these days, and it tickles Geralt’s neck in the most tempting way.

Geralt chuckles dryly, but the lack of an immediate quip tells him that Jaskier is serious. It’s a little scary how often they can read their minds by now.

“Don’t think so. You’re the teacher, Jask. I’ve got nothing to tell them.”

“But you’re the reason I’m still alive and teaching in the first place. Besides, you can just sit there, look pretty and answer some questions. My students have heard a lot about you, they’ll adore you.”

As someone pointed out, there's too much 'witcher watching out for his idiot' and not enough 'the witcher is a himbo who loves his college educated bard husband, who is qualified to teach' content out there. So I'm fixing it with a self-indulgent ficlet!

and i plan to be forgotten when i’m gone (yes, i’ll be leaving in the fall) - Stockholm_Syndrome

Specs: 18 083 words - Mature - Discussion of assisted suicide, discussion of suicide, depression, curse, no MCD

Summary: “That was more emotional than I expected.” He finally said “I didn’t think I’d have time to share this with you, and I.” Jaskier interrupted himself, as if unsure if he should continue. “I suppose I didn’t think it would upset you so.”

“Jaskier” Geralt growled, not able to express how ludicrous that idea was.

“Yes, I suppose I was wrong there.” Jaskier replied with a helpless shrug.

---- Or, Jaskier is cursed to turn into a monster. He doesn't think this is important information to mention.

Chopsticks - thisgirlsays22

Specs: 12 175 words - Explicit - Piano teacher!Jaskier, friends to lovers, modern setting

Summary: “Yennefer sent me a check for eight lessons for you,” Jaskier said the following weekend, wearing a beige button-down with--

“Does your shirt have owls on it?” Geralt asked, caught somewhere between amusement and horror.

Jaskier looked down and tugged on the front of his shirt as if he had to remind himself what was on it. He beamed at Geralt. “Yeah! Do you like it?”

“Not particularly.”

The smile swiftly disappeared.

“It’s not terrible,” he amended, stepping back to let Jaskier inside the apartment. Then Jaskier’s initial words sank in. “Wait. Yen did what?”

Hanging up on Yennefer was always a mistake.

what’s in a (pet) name? - janie_tangerine

Specs: 1 415 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Fluff, pet names

Summary: "So," he clears his throat one evening, having just rinsed Geralt's now clean, soft white hair, and damn how he wishes the man would just take care of it somewhat decently, "I was wondering."

"What?" Geralt says after he doesn't go on for a bit. It didn't sound particularly annoyed. Right on.

"This is a very broad question, but I was just curious, no need to answer if you don't want to -" Jaskier starts, having learned that giving the man a way out is always a good bet.

"Just get on with it, won't you?"

Jaskier clears his throat, leans down, puts his elbows on the rim of the tub. "How do you feel about pet names?"

Or: in which Jaskier has a question for Geralt. It doesn't get answered the way he had assumed.

As Long As You Were Mine For A Little While - whisperedstories

Specs: 12 815 words - Explicit - Friends with benefits, mutual pining

Summary: It starts with Jaskier offering a helping hand when Geralt needs to let off some steam. The thing is, Jaskier likes taking care of Geralt—however he can—and Geralt lets him, so he just keeps doing it.

And as long as they never talk about how he's in love with Geralt, they're both happy with the arrangement, right? Right.

Of Debt and Debtors - sp_oops

Specs: 5 136 words - Explicit - Semi-public sex

Summary: Two bros, chillin' in a ta-vern, five feet apart ‘cause they—fuck, they really missed each other, not that Geralt will ever admit it—and anyway, in a minute here, they're gonna have to get closer than they ever thought possible. (Or, sometime after Episode 6, they meet again, Jaskier’s in trouble again, and Geralt saves them. Again.)

This One I Shall Choose - DorkMagician

Specs: 3 751 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Quiet pining, the exact moment Geralt falls in love

Summary: Geralt falls in the river fishing for a djinn and winds up soaked. Jaskier sees the opportunity to do as his mother told him a long time ago and takes the first step when he offers Geralt his handkerchief.

Skin Deep - Sospes

Specs: 8 935 words- Teen & Up Audiences - Fluff, getting together, non consensual tattooing, implied/referenced rape, implied/referenced childhood abuse

Summary: “What’s that?” Geralt asks.

Jaskier blinks. “It’s a tattoo,” he says. “Have you never seen a tattoo before, Geralt?”

Geralt fights the urge to roll his eyes. “I know it’s a tattoo,” he says. “What’s it a tattoo of?”

They say there are 5 ways to show your love (and I don’t know any of them) - Mayathelittlebee

Specs: 5 989 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Fluff, humor

Summary: May be if Geralt stopped being so dramatic for a moment he'd finally realize that loving Jaskier is not as hard as he thinks.

I don’t mind if I’m with you - janie_tangerine

Specs: 11 152 words - Explicit - In which Jaskier has to quelle his murder instincts concerning how much Geralt’s life sucks

Summary: or: five times plus one in which Jaskier finds out that Geralt is missing on good life experiences and promptly sees to fix it.

Fill Me Up - Mysticmajestic

Specs: 402 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Romance

Summary: Geralt only knows how to give, and give, until he's empty. What is he to do with Jaskier, who only wants to give back to him?

Little Things - QueenForADay

Specs: 3 315 words - General Audiences - Domestic fluff, Ciri ships it

Summary: In the first few months of knowing the Witcher, he experienced first-hand how shut-off Geralt could be with the world around him and those within it.

At some point, and he can’t pinpoint where, that shroud started to slip away. He saw how much Geralt could, and does, actually care. It’s as fierce as the way he fights.

They spend a great deal of time watching each other; when they finally fell into a bed together, they spent most of their nights learning what the other liked, mapping the plains of skin and muscle underneath the other.

But it’s the other things, the little things, that Jaskier thinks about the most.

O, Empathy - almostnectarine

Specs: 32 624 words - Mature - Body swap, friends to lovers, questfic

Summary: “How did you manage,” asked Geralt, with infinite patience and only a desire to know the facts, and not at all a little meanhearted glee, “to insult a sorcerer while his tongue was down your throat?”

“Don’t make me recount the entire sordid affair, Geralt,” said Jaskier, with a surprising note of desperation breaking through his gruff monotone. “I’m already having a rather shit day and all I’ve done so far is wake up.”

“In my body,” said Geralt.

“Yes,” said Jaskier, with the insolent cadence that was unmistakably Jaskier’s, but in Geralt’s voice, emerging from Geralt’s face and frame.

“And I’ve got yours,” said Geralt, from Jaskier’s.

and for that love to be with men - sebviathan

Specs: 6 734 words -Mature - Emotional constipation, self discovery, self acceptance, geralt is a whole ass gay man who doesn’t know what being gay is

Summary: Something's not right about what I'm doing but I'm still doing it—living in the worst parts, ruining myself. My inner life is a sheet of black glass. If I fell through the floor I would keep falling.

The enormity of Geralt's desire disgusts him.

at last, at last, at last, oh I thought you’d never ask - elegantwings

Specs: 15 040 words - Explicit - Arranged marriage, slow burn, trans!Jaskier, in this house we love Yennefer of Vengerberg

Summary: Geralt is given firm instructions from Vesemir: He is to get married to a Redanian noblewoman in the hopes of improving relations between witchers and the rest of the world. Once the ceremony is over, he plans to drop his new spouse off at their new home and carry on with his life as he always has. Little does he know, his future wife is not a woman, and not so easily left behind. He's not really sure he'd like to get rid of Jaskier, either. Over the next several years, they learn to navigate their new relationship, first while Jaskier completes his degree, and then when Jaskier insists on accompanying him on the road. And no matter what anyone else has to say about it, Geralt is absolutely not in love with his husband.

it’s what my heart just yearns to say - chasing_the_sterek

Specs: 1 071 words - Teen & Up - Slice of life, Jaskier: what if I found a way to make Geralt admit when he needs things

Summary: "If you could have one blessing," Jaskier says, eyes lit green by the fire between them, "What would it be?"

Geralt looks at him. The whetstone is smooth and friction-warm in his palm, edges rounded from use. It's been with him for a long time: almost four years.

Jaskier has been with him for even longer, but he's never done this. Geralt squints at him, but only thing different to this morning is the yellow firelight changing the colour his eyes appear.

"What," he says.

not a goodbye, a thank you - Potrix

Specs: 2 915 words - Mature - Graphic depiction of illness, near death experience, talk about death, found family

Summary: Somewhere further in the courtyard, Lambert yells out a colourful curse while Ciri cackles maniacally. Eskel is taunting the former through his laughter, and Vesemir’s voice joins in with barked commands and corrections once the clang of steel against steel continues. Somewhere above them, on one of the balconies overlooking the yard, Geralt can hear the scratch of quill against parchment as Yennefer works on her correspondence, interrupted every now and again by the tapping of nails against an inkpot.

He realises what’s wrong an instant before everyone else grows suddenly, eerily still; Jaskier is quiet.

After Summers of Fasting (I Feel Hunger At Last) - Artemis_Unbound

Specs: 3 793 words - Teen & Up Audiences - A six pack you can see is not a good thing, Jaskier tricks Geralt into Not Being Starving anymore, Love confessions

Summary: Defined six-pack abs are a sign that someone has been starving and dehydrating themselves, not a sign of incredible strength. It's just not healthy.

Jaskier sees Geralt shirtless for the first time, sees all that defined musculature, and is Horrified. He's slept with enough warriors and soldiers to know what that means. And he decides, this stops now.

Tunes Without Words - foxy_mulder

Specs: 22 021 words - Mature - Self-esteem issues, past abuse, miscommunications, misunderstandings

Summary: The plan is this:

He will note all the things that annoy Geralt, and he will stop doing them, and then Geralt will want him around. It will work.

It has to work, because Jaskier cannot be left behind.

The Path Not Taken - sospes

Specs: 40 149 words - Mature - Extraordinarily bad misunderstanding, Idiots in love, Explicit sexual content

Summary: Jaskier comes across an injured witcher in a backwoods town, months after the events of the dragon hunt. It all just sort of escalates from there.

#The Witcher #Geraskier #Geralt of Rivia #Jaskier #My Posts #Witcher Fic #Fic Rec #Masterpost #100n #150n #200n

254 notes · View notes

kaleidoscopeminds · 4 years ago

Text

I’m going blind from this sweet craving

This came about because I wanted to write some Cake and my brain just went bakery!!! au!!!! Anyway this is very self-indulgent and driven by my own baking obsession. Please enjoy 6k of me talking about cake (literally) and a cheeky bit of side mashton because I couldn’t resist. For the club because everything I do is for the club <3

Warnings: horribly tooth rotting fluff, too many baking metaphors

Title from Cake by the Ocean by DNCE because I think I’m funny

Luke places the last piece of broken Oreo carefully atop the whirl of buttercream and wipes his hands on his apron, reviewing the set of cupcakes in front of him. He knows he’s hypercritical of his own work; he gets called a perfectionist by Michael at any opportunity (and not in a complimentary way), but he still maintains that it’s the only way to be to make anything good.

He deems this double dozen of the Oreo chocolate as close to perfect as he’s going to manage this morning and slides them next to the strawberries and cream set with mini meringue topping he just finished. He goes to the walk-in refrigerator and pulls out the layer cake that he made before he left yesterday, and then crosses over to dry storage to wheel out the trolley containing the carefully wrapped crates of bread that Ashton, their bread supplier, had dropped off about an hour ago.

He pulls the trays of croissants, pain au chocolat and pain aux raisins out of the oven deftly, and slides them onto a cooling rack to leave for a couple of minutes, before he can transfer them to the cabinet in the front of the bakery, and checks the clock. It’s 6:40, so he’s just on time to get everything stacked up in the front if he has a bit of help.

He hears the door at the front of the cafe slam, handle jangling ominously as it closes again and Luke smiles to himself, grabbing the trays of cupcakes and heading out into the front, opening the swing door with his hip.

“Hi Mikey,” Luke calls over as Michael struggles out of his jacket, pushing his glasses up onto his nose and grumbling incoherently.

“I’m not late,” Michael starts, attempting to pull his apron out of his backpack and hang up his jacket on the hook at the same time.

Luke doesn’t say anything, just turns his head to look deliberately at the large clock hanging over the coffee machine behind the counter and raises his eyebrows, smiling slightly.

“Well, barely,” Michael responds defensively. “You’re not the boss of me, Luke Hemmings.”

Luke laughs, “Unfortunately for you, I am. Supervising baker remember?” He opens up the display cabinet and slides the cakes carefully into place.

“Promotions gone to your overly large blonde head already, I see,” Michael says, struggling with his apron ties where they’ve got tangled around his belt.

Luke laughs again and goes over to Michael, untangling him and turning him round to tie his apron for him. “Go and drink your coffee Mikey, I made one for you about 10 minutes ago, should still be hot. I’ll get the rest of the stuff out to the front.”

“I think I’m in love with you,” Michael says genuinely, quickly walking behind the counter and finding the insulated travel mug Luke had filled with a latte earlier that morning. He pulls off the lid and Luke watches him practically inhale it, smiling fondly as he makes his way back into the kitchen.

“Remind me again why I always seem to be making coffee for you when you’re the trained barista?” Luke calls out as he carefully lifts the 4 layered cake onto a stand and carries it back out to the front.

“Ooh that looks fucking good what’s in that?” Michael asks, eyes lighting up at the sight of the cake in Luke’s careful grip. “And it's because you won’t admit it but you’re in love with me too,” He adds, putting his coffee down so he can take the cake off Luke to put on top of the cabinet.

“Chocolate hazelnut with Nutella and praline,” Luke replies with a smile. “Sorry to disappoint you Michael but we would never work, I couldn’t be with someone who hates mornings,” He says solemnly as he returns to the kitchen, lightly checking the pastries to make sure they’re cool enough before tipping them onto another tray.

“You’re going to be on your own for a while then!” Luke hears Michael call, and he laughs as he comes back through the swing door. “No one likes mornings,” Michael continues crabbily, downing the rest of his coffee in one gulp.

“You know who does like mornings?” Luke asks as he passes over the tray to Michael. “Our lovely bread baker.”

Michael blushes and ducks his head at the mention of Ashton. “Why don’t you ask him out then,” He grumbles, lining the pastries up neatly with the tongs in his hand.

“Not my type.” Luke wiggles his eyebrows at Michael. “Plus I think he might be more interested in barista types than cake-making types.”

“Shut up Luke,” Michael groans back. “I’ve told you before, he barely knows who I am. I only see the man for about 5 minutes every day when he comes to pick up the crates.”

“And yet every morning. I have to tell him that ‘No Michael’s not here yet, sorry,’” Luke smirks. “Honestly Mikey, you’re missing out not being here at half past five, lots of Ashton content.”

“Yes but that would involve, you know, being here at half past five,” Michael replies sarcastically. “Did Em make any tarts for today?” He asks.

“Yeah they look great, she’s done a new orange curd one with chocolate pastry which I’m excited to try.” Luke accepts the change of subject and goes back towards the kitchen. “Do you want to come and grab your boyfriend’s bread? Think that’ll be the last of it then.”

Michael glares at Luke and pretends to trip him up as he walks past, then follows him into the back.

“You’re such a dickhead sometimes you know that,” Michael says grumpily, pulling out the loaves of bread and stacking them on the counter.

Luke laughs, it’s too easy to get a rise out of Michael, particularly first thing in the morning and especially when it comes to Ashton. He opens the fridge again and as always sends a silent thank you to the angel that is Em, their evening baker, and the only reason they’re able to produce enough goods for the cafe. It honestly changed his life when his boss decided to employ an extra baker, now he can actually leave when the cafe closes; she picks up anything that Luke doesn’t manage to finish, as well as shaping the pastries to chill overnight and producing a few dozen tarts for the next day. He checks the new orange curd tarts and their customer favourite, the strawberry ones (perfect as always), and slides them off the shelves.

“You were literally declaring your love for me not 10 minutes ago I believe,” Luke says, checking the fridge to make sure he’s not missed anything.

He turns around frowning at the lack of a bitchy response, but Michael’s distracted by something in one of the crates.

“You okay there?” Luke questions.

“Yes,” Michael mumbles, blushing furiously, attempting to pull the crate out of Luke’s view. Luke quickly walks over, interest piqued, and grabs the crate out of Michael’s hands, ignoring his noise of protest.

In the bottom of the crate there’s one of Michael’s favourite chocolate chip hot cross buns, but instead of a cross on top there’s a carefully shaped ‘M’. Luke laughs delightedly.

“He barely knows who you are, hm?” Luke teases.

“Its..” Michael coughs embarrassed. “It’s probably just a friendly thing.”

Luke rolls his eyes. “Come off it Mikey, that’s the most obvious display of affection in enriched dough form that I’ve ever seen. Where’s my L eh? Nowhere to be seen.”

“Shut up,” Michael says, but he reaches into the crate and pulls out the bun, wrapping it in some baking paper with utmost care, before walking out into the front of the cafe.

“You’re meant to be stocking the actual breads!” Luke calls after him, grabbing the tarts and following Michael out.

Michael just raises his middle finger at him as he gently slides the wrapped bun into his backpack, still blushing.

Luke laughs and goes to fetch them himself, stacking them in the baskets at the side of the counter, ready to be sold or to be sliced for their toasties.

“Right I’m gonna start on tomorrow’s cake, let me know when you need a hand.” Luke says, turning to Michael who’s absentmindedly filling up the coffee grinder with beans and not looking like he’s heard Luke in the slightest.

“Earth to Michael, come in Michael.” Luke nudges Michael’s arm with his elbow and Michael looks up with a start.

“Oh yeah, sorry. That’s fine,” Michael replies quickly.

“Are you going to be okay out here on your own?” Luke jokes. “You look like you could burn yourself on steam or tip grounds everywhere at any minute.”

“Yes Luke,” Michael replies testily. “Now go and make some cake and let me do my job, I’ll call you when it gets busy.”

This is the way it works with the two of them in the morning, Luke getting a head start on his batters while Michael deals with the dribs and drabs of the early customers. When it gets to 8am and the little cafe starts getting really busy, Luke will step out to the front to help, and they will work seamlessly together; Michael tamping coffee and steaming milk expertly, whilst Luke takes orders and fills bags with breakfast pastries and muffins. After the rush dies down, Luke will retreat back into the kitchen and start the doughs for the next days’ croissants, until lunch time and he’ll be back out to give Michael a hand with slicing bread and toasting sandwiches.

He enjoys the buzz of service with Michael, moving round each other with a well practised air and smiling at customers, his favourite bit is getting glimpses of the joy they get from something that he’s created. He’s most comfortable in the kitchen though; in the sweetly calming clouds of icing sugar and the reassuring warmth of the ovens, most at ease on his own with slightly sticky hands, flour perpetually dusting all of his clothes and with a speaker quietly playing his favourite songs into the vanilla scented air.

“Luke!” He hears Michael’s voice float through the door, just as he’s closing the oven door on 3 sandwich pans of fresh raspberry filled sponge.

“Coming!” He responds, setting his timer for 30 minutes, and pinning it to the top of his apron, before washing his hands and heading out of the door to join Michael. He sees there’s a queue building up and quickly steps behind the counter and smiles at the next customer as Michael pours milk into 3 flat whites in quick succession, a perfect leaf in milk foam appearing in each of them with an artful flick of his wrist.

“Hi, what can I get you?” He smiles at the man who’s just approached the counter.

“A small black Americano to take away, and make it quickly, I’ve already been here 15 minutes and some of us have actual jobs to work you know,” an older man in a suit barks at him, not looking up from his phone.

“So sorry for the delay Sir, we’re very busy as you can see. Can I take a name for that?” Luke grits his teeth but maintains the smile on his face with some effort.

“It’s Richard,” the man says pompously. “And maybe you should employ more staff if you’re this busy.”

“We’ll take your feedback on board,” Luke replies, his smile coming forced. He writes the man's order, and “Dick” in tiny writing underneath on a cup before turning round and putting it on top of the coffee machine, rolling his eyes at Michael as he does so. Michael smirks in return, pressing his lips together to quell a laugh and slotting the portafilter into place under the grinder.

“That’ll be £2.00 please.”

“Actually I think I’d like to speak to the manager about the poor service before I pay,” The man says brusquely.

“She’s not here at the moment unfortunately,” Luke responds, not bothering to maintain the smile.

“Well then I’d like to speak to the most senior person here,” The man continues.

“You’re looking at him,” Luke replies coolly, crossing his arms. He’s never been good at dealing with difficult customers, which is why he prefers being in his quiet domain in the kitchen, but he’s dealt with men like this before, all talk but no action when pushed.

“I think you’re being incredibly rude, you’ve made me wait a ridiculous amount of time for a coffee which is priced extortionately, and now you’re going to be disrespectful to my face,” The man snaps.

“Maybe if people like you just paid and left then nobody would have to wait as long.” A calm voice comes from behind the man.

Luke looks around the rapidly reddening man in front of him to see the source of the voice and sees a man around his age in a suit, with a pair of headphones slung around his neck. Luke tries not to stare but the man is gorgeous, all deep brown eyes the colour of rich dark chocolate ganache, and swooping dark hair, his eyebrows raised and plump lips pursed slightly.

The older man starts spluttering angrily, “And who do you think you are to say something like that to me?”

The younger man just shrugs and continues to look at him calmly, not bothering to elaborate. Luke takes the opportunity to hold out the card machine towards the older man.

“£2.00 please,” He repeats.

The man scowls and taps his card against the machine.

“You can wait at the end for your drink,” Luke says with a dry smile.

The man grunts but moves away to the side with a glare.

“Thanks,” Luke says quietly, smiling at the younger man as he approaches.

The man’s lips spread into a genuine smile and Luke thinks they look even better that way if that were possible. “No worries, I think you were handling it fine, it was just an observation.” His voice is warm and deep, reminding Luke of a buttery caramel sauce.

Luke bites his lip and tries not to blush. “What can I get for you?”

“Flat white, please,” The man says, still smiling at Luke.

“Name?” Luke attempts to hide his face behind the cup he’s just picked up.

“Calum,” He says. “But I think I’ll take that to have in if you don’t mind?”

“Of course!” Luke says quickly, fumbling his pen slightly as he switches the paper cup for a ceramic one, peeling a sticky note so he can write Calum’s order. “Anything to eat?”

“I’m new here, what do you recommend?” Calum says, cocking his head slightly before looking over the display case. “It all looks amazing.”

Luke definitely blushes this time and clears his throat. “Well the pains au chocolat are quite good I think,” he says nervously.

“Let’s go with that then.” Calum smiles again and Luke thinks his legs might have melted into his shoes but he can’t seem to move them to check if that’s true or not.

“Or if you wanted something sweeter you could go with one of the lemon muffins, or the strawberry cupc-”

“Luke,” Michael interrupts from behind him. “Please stop flirting with this nice man and get on with serving the other eight nice people we have waiting?” He begs.

If Luke thought he was blushing before it's nothing compared to the heat he feels in his face now. He turns to Michael and throws him daggers.

“The pain au chocolat sounds perfect.” Calum fishes out his wallet. “And your colleague’s right, I’m being a bit of a hypocrite after telling that twat to hurry up aren’t I?” He pushes a hand through his hair and smiles apologetically.

“No, you’re fine it’s no problem at all,” Luke manages to get out. “That’ll be £5.60.”

Luke lets Calum tap his card on the machine and then busies himself with pulling the pastry out and onto a plate which he places on a tray with a napkin, ready for Michael to put the coffee on when it's been made.

“Why don’t you go and sit down, Luke will bring it over in a few minutes if you’re not in too much of a rush?” Michael suggests, pressing the buttons on the coffee machine and sliding a cup underneath to catch the espresso starting to stream out.

Calum looks bemusedly at Michael for a second before shrugging. “That’d be great, yeah. My office is just round the corner so I’ve got a few minutes. Thanks… Luke.” He says Luke’s name like he’s deciding how he likes the taste of it in his mouth, before quirking his lips once more, and heading to a table in the corner of the cafe.

“What are you doing?” Luke hisses at Michael as he takes the next customer’s order, writing quickly on another cup and fishing change out of the till when the woman hands over a five pound note. “You were just making a point about how busy we were!”

“I’m not telling you to go and sit down with him,” Michael whispers back, only just audible over the sound of the coffee grinder. “But he’s obviously into you, just take his coffee and flirt a bit and then come back and help me!”

Luke takes the most recent batch of completed coffees and distributes them to the waiting customers, smiling slightly when the rude man snatches it off him and storms out on his phone without even checking the name on the cup. He takes another order and passes it to Michael, just as Michael finishes off a flat white with a perfect heart.

“There,” He says in a pleased voice, setting it down next to the pain au chocolat on Calum’s tray. “Now off you go.”

Luke smiles at the woman he’s just served then glares at the tray and at Michael. “What have you put a heart on it for!” He yelps.

“It’s called flirting!” Michael starts steaming another jug of milk.

“He’s going to think you like him not me!” Luke protests.

“Just go!” Michael hisses, finishing up another coffee and handing it to a waiting customer. “Hi, how are you?” He intercepts the next person waiting at the counter before Luke can do anything about it.

Luke huffs noisily and picks up the tray reluctantly. He wouldn’t go over at all, but Calum did help him with the arsehole customer so the least he can do is actually provide the service he came in for and give the man his coffee. He heads over to where Calum is sat, with his headphones on and jiggling his knee as he types something into his phone. He looks up at the sounds of Luke putting his plate down on the table and smiles gratefully. Luke then sets down the coffee next to the plate and tries to tamp down his instinct to run away immediately. Calum looks at the coffee and then up at Luke, eyes twinkling and a blush in his cheeks.

“Hope you have a great day!” Luke squeaks out and speed walks back to the counter.

“So?” Michael asks as he fishes out a croissant and places it in a bag, tapping the end of the tongs on the glass.

“Uh, I told him to have a good day then ran away before he could respond,“ Luke mutters, snatching the bag off Michael and handing it off to the customer in front of him.

“Luke -” Michael starts.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Luke snaps. “Make coffee.”

“Okay boss,” Michael says, barely repressing a giggle.

Luke spends the next 15 minutes regretting every life choice he’s ever made and resolutely not looking towards the corner Calum is sat in, focusing entirely on the rush of customers. At about 8:45 he sees out the corner of his eye that Calum has stood up, brushing a few crumbs off his knee and patting his pockets. Luke turns around and busies himself with writing the next order on a cup for Michael so that Calum can leave without making eye contact with him. When he deems that it’s been long enough, he turns back to the counter, but standing just off to the side is Calum, scuffing a hand up through the back of his hair and smiling shyly at Luke again.

“Just wanted to say, an inspired choice on the pain au chocolat.” He says. “Send my compliments to the chef,”

“Oh erm, thanks, I will.” Luke stutters out.

“Bye, Luke,” Calum says. “Maybe see you tomorrow, and... Hope you have a great day too.” His face breaks out into a wider smile that reminds Luke of the feeling of getting just the right consistency for macaron batter, or a perfectly smooth finish on a cake or the way good puff pastry flakes into the perfect fragments when you cut through a mille-feuille. Or something.

With that Calum slips his headphones back onto his head and leaves the cafe.

“You are a useless sack of shit you know that,” Michael scoffs at him.

“Fuck off,” Luke mutters under his breath. “Two words. Ashton. Irwin.” Michael glares back at him.

They get through the last half hour of the rush as normal, Luke pausing only briefly to pull the sponges out of the oven, and he’s twitching more than ever to get back into the safety of his kitchen with some dough in his hands and the comforting whirr of his mixers.

“Okay I’m all good here, you can go,” Michael smiles at him shaking his head.

Luke basically runs through the doors into the back and inhales deeply. God, he needs to get a grip.

It continues like this over the next few weeks. Calum will come in most mornings, and sometimes he’s in a rush, smiling apologetically as he orders to take away. Most mornings though, he will appear earlier, choose something to eat on Luke’s recommendation and sits at the table in the corner for 20 minutes before complimenting what he’s eaten on his way out. Luke never speaks to him short of suggesting a new pastry or muffin (and maybe he’s also developing new options everyday just to be able to give Calum something else to praise), but he does spend quite a lot of time looking at Calum sitting in his corner, long fingers wrapping around his mug of coffee and mouth chewing thoughtfully on whatever Luke’s provided him with whilst he jiggles his knee to his music.

Luke swears that sometimes when he chances one of these looks over to him whilst he’s serving a customer, Calum is looking back at him, but his brown eyes always blink away as soon as Luke’s catch them.

Predictably, Michael is absolutely insufferable about it.

“Loverboy’s looking at you again,” He smirks, checking the most recent order Luke has written for him.

“Shut up, Mikey,” Luke says petulantly. “He is not.”

“He’s always looking at you, Luke,” Michael laughs. “You’re actually driving me mad, please just ask him out or something, you two have the most obvious thing for each other ever. ”

“We do not, he doesn’t like me like that,” Luke protests. “He could be looking at you for all we know, you were the one who put a heart on his flat white,” he adds, sourly.

“You should see his face drop when he comes in here and you’re already in the back,” Michael responds knowingly. “He looks like someone’s pissed in his coffee every time you’re not here to stammer at him about what cakes you’ve made.”

Luke’s face flames red and he turns his back on Michael deliberately to serve the next customer, as he hears Michael’s suppressed giggles behind him. Look, he knows Michael might have a point and that he could just talk to Calum, but Luke doesn’t really know how, unless he’s talking about pastry or ganache or sponges words just don’t come that easily to him. Especially when faced with someone who looks like Calum does. He sighs and closes his eyes briefly. When he opens them, as if summoned by Luke’s thoughts, there Calum is at the edge of the counter.

“Blueberry muffin was particularly good today,” He says quietly with his usual smile. “Have a good day, Luke.” He gives a small wave and exits the cafe. Luke opens his mouth to say something before he can leave, but nothing comes out so he just closes it again. He kicks the edge of the counter grumpily.

“I’m literally the worst ever,” He groans, spinning round and going through to the kitchen, swinging the door behind him, Michael’s laughs following him through.

Luke is having what he thinks might be the most disastrous day ever. It’s after 5pm, the cafe has just closed and he would normally think about going home soon but Em’s got the day off and he’s not been able to make half of the stuff he needs to for tomorrow. Every ganache he’s attempted has split, he’s burnt one batch of cupcakes and under-cooked another so they’ve sunk in the centre, he’s crystallised his caramel so its unusable, and the chocolate he tempered for the triple chocolate layer cake he has planned has come out mottled and dull. He hates to admit it but the worst part of it was that he didn’t even see Calum this morning, he worked out the front much longer than he normally does in the hope of seeing the other man, but he never turned up. Michael had just raised his eyebrows and given him a knowing grin as he had slumped back into the kitchen at well past half-nine. He sighs at himself as he pushes a hand through his curly hair which he’s had to pull back into a tiny ponytail at the nape of his neck, and tips another set of cakes into the bin.

He hears a knock on the back door of the kitchen, and the door opening. A curly brown head appears round the door frame.

“Hi Luke, Is this a bad time?” Ashton says, surveying the disarray before him, bowls and utensils on every surface, half finished cakes and fillings littering the other available spaces.

Luke huffs out a laugh and wipes his hands on his apron. “No you’re fine come on in, just having one of those days. Sorry for the state of it in here.”

Ashton smiles at him and steps into the kitchen, going to the store where he knows they keep the empty bread crates. “No worries at all mate! Oh I brought my flatmate with me, hope you don’t mind. Calum had the day off today and I roped him into helping me do the pick-ups.”

Luke’s mouth drops open as Calum Calum sidesteps into the kitchen and smiles at Luke embarrassed. “Uh, hi?”

Luke just gapes, spatula limp in one hand.

“Just going out the front for a sec, Cal, just need to check something with Michael!” Ashton calls quickly exiting the room. Luke thinks he spots a smirk on Ashton’s face and his eyes narrow in suspicion.

“Uh, sorry for barging in on you like this,” Calum starts, standing awkwardly by the door still. “When Ash said he did deliveries for cafes in the local area I didn’t know he meant yours as well.”

“Missed you this morning,” Luke blurts out, then promptly feels himself turn red, again. Jesus Christ where did that come from? He wants to disappear like, immediately and wonders whether he could shut himself in the walk-in without Calum noticing.

A small pleased smile appears on Calum’s face and he blushes slightly. “I thought it might be a bit desperate to also turn up when I’m not even in the office. But I guess I’m here anyway.”

“Well I’m glad,” Luke says quietly, ducking his head and biting his lip.

Calum’s eyes twinkle at him. “So this is where the magic happens?” He asks, examining his surroundings.

Luke groans. “Don’t look at it like his,” he begs. “I’m usually such an organised worker I promise, I’m just, having a few issues.”

Calum smiles and comes over to stand next to Luke. Luke inhales sharply and thinks that Calum smells like the freshly baked bread in Ashton’s van but also something else, sweet and spicy, like a hot cinnamon and apple cake or a warm speculoos biscuit just out of the oven.

“Can I help with anything while I’m here?” He asks softly, reaching out hesitantly and barely grazing Luke’s elbow. Luke focuses on trying to regulate his breaths which is proving almost impossible with Calum standing so close to him, the feeling of his warm hand through his sleeve and the sight of the concerned smile on his face.

“It’ll be okay I think,” he manages to get out breathily. “Thanks though, that’s very sweet of you.”

“No, I think that’s you,” Calum says quietly, reddening a bit but looking up to meet Luke’s eyes.

He reaches out and brushes a hand gently through an escaping curl on Luke’s face.

“You’ve got a bit of flour here.” He says quietly, tilting his head to one side and twisting Luke’s hair around his finger briefly. “And here,” Calum continues, skimming his fingers across Luke’s cheekbone. “Here too,” he murmurs, stepping even closer to Luke and dragging his fingertips under Luke’s chin and down the side of his neck, leaving them to rest curling slightly into the collar of Luke’s shirt and looking at Luke in the eyes. Luke’s not sure if he can breathe, lost in the gentle stroke of Calum’s hand and the swirling chocolate of his eyes, feeling the pink blush dusting across his skin, left in the wake of Calum’s touch. His eyes flicker down to Calum’s lips, and he sees them curve into a smile, before he leans forward slightly and catches Luke’s own lips in a soft kiss.

“Hm,” Calum murmurs as he pulls away slightly. “You taste sweet too.”

Luke honestly thinks this might be the best moment of his life so far, and slides his hand over Calum’s shoulder to pull him back towards him, but just as he does he hears a scuffling sound from outside the swing door into the main cafe.

“Mikey is that you?” Luke asks suspiciously, stepping away from Calum slightly and turning towards the door. Calum steps back too, but loops an arm loosely around Luke’s waist, fingers playing with the ties of his apron.

“No,” a voice comes through the door.

“Get in here,” Luke says bossily, “You too Ashton I know you’re out there.”

The two of them appear in the doorway, Michael having the good grace to look a little ashamed but Ashton doesn’t even bother, a huge shit eating grin on his face.

“What is going on here?” Luke demands, narrowing his eyes at the pair of them. He’s trying to stay stern but it's proving very difficult when he can feel Calum’s hands skim along his side and him gently nose his shoulder blade as he huffs out a giggle behind him.

“What I think is going on is that you, Lukey, and dearest Cal Pal might have been having a moment?” Ashton smirks at the two of them.

“I don’t know how you two are involved in this but I know you are and I want you to explain yourselves,” Luke says petulantly. He then looks at Ashton and Michael closer and catches sight of their hands clasped, hidden slightly behind Ashton.

“What is going on here?!” Luke repeats again, gesturing at their hands. He sees Michael (and Ashton come to think of it) every day, how has he missed this? Probably because he’s been lost in thoughts of Calum for the last 3 weeks he reasons with himself.

Michael blushes to the roots of his hair and pulls away from Ashton slightly but Ashton just tugs him into his body, curving his hand around Michael's hip and pressing a kiss into his neck before releasing him.

“Well Michael and I started talking the other week, and we found out that by some miracle that the Calum that happened to be coming in everyday to stare at Luke for 20 minutes and leave, was the same Calum who lives in my flat and won’t stop talking about the gorgeous cake maker who works at the cafe round the corner from his office.” Ashton says, laughing, as Calum makes a wounded noise of protest and hides his face in Luke’s shoulder. “And this very Luke that Calum wouldn’t stop talking about happened to be the Luke that I deliver bread to every morning and apparently won’t stop throwing longing glances at Calum from the other side of the counter when he thinks he’s not looking.”

Luke squeaks, and feels Calum giggle behind him, both arms coming round his waist and dropping his chin onto Luke’s shoulder.

“And you two thought you would mastermind a plan then I suppose,” Calum says amusedly.

“Why aren’t you more annoyed by this,” Luke gripes, turning his head to try to glare at Calum but managing only to brush his nose against his cheek.

“Because I got what I wanted out of it, regardless of the method,” Calum says sweetly, and Luke blushes again.

“That doesn’t explain.. This!” Luke gestures at Michael and Ashton, he doesn’t know quite why his brain has fixated on this development when he has Calum basically draped along his back but what has happened in the last 10 minutes has been too much for his brain to handle.

“Well we had to come up with a plan so I asked Ashton if he wanted to go for food,” Michael finally pipes up, a small pleased smile on his face.

“You did?” Luke asks in what he acknowledges is probably quite a rude way but this was a turn of events he was not expecting.

“Well maybe watching you pine so disgustingly made me want to do something about it,” Michael retorts, but there’s no heat in it.

“I knew the hot cross bun would work,” Ashton says solemnly, and Michael jabs him in the ribs with his elbow.

“Okay, I’ve decided that’s enough of the two of you,” Calum says. “Go and scheme elsewhere now please.”

Ashton laughs and salutes them before tugging Michael out of the back door.

“I honestly can’t believe this,” Luke begins, “they think they can just meddle in our business and force us into the same room together and that we’ll just kiss and they can pat themselves on the back for a job well done?”

Calum is quiet beside him and Luke turns to look at him. “Well?”

Calum smiles at him, that one that makes Luke feel like he’s floating in sweet mallow clouds and tips his head slightly to the side. “I mean I’m sorry Luke but that’s exactly how it happened, so yes I suppose they can.”

Luke begins to make a noise of protest but Calum just grabs the front of his apron and pulls him back towards him.

“You can carry this on later, but can we stop talking about Michael and Ashton for one second? I was sort of busy before they came in,” Calum whispers over Luke’s lips.

“Yeah okay,” Luke responds, leaning into Calum and catching his lips back against his own.

Calum pulls away after a couple of minutes and brushes another rogue curl out of Luke’s face. “So about that help you turned down earlier, I’m not taking no for an answer. I’ll start cleaning some of these things up and you can get on and do what you do best.” Calum leans in and gives him one last peck before heading over to the sink and starting to run the tap.

Luke smiles, slightly dazed and runs his fingers over his lips, thinking Calum tastes pretty sweet himself, a little bit like the warm vanilla air in his kitchen and a lot like home.

#5sos fanfiction #cake fic #5sos fic #cake #meg fic #this is meg from the past as i have SCHEDULED this as i am busy #ya girl wrote some cake content and it's entirely self-serving #this is probably too long to read nicely on tumblr i should probably sort an ao3 acc #also apologies for any errors im still getting to grips with this and i didn't get anyone to read this for me first #also FUN FACT all the things luke talks about making are my own recipes and things i make 😌 thats how self serving this js

27 notes · View notes

natakuchan · 4 years ago

Text

Alt!Story, Part III

Just woke up. Feel like sh-t. Means it time for some ranting!

Small Sans welcomes his dad, finding himself soon with a baby brother in his hands. Okay, that was not expected! Neither to heard its his brother and no, said Gaster, having a clo- brother doesn't mean mommy is coming back. To be honest, she's gone for good, now.

Gaster somehow regrets his lack of explanation about Chara but soon moves on. Sans, on the other hands, just understands that his mother was right there all the time, but she just did not wanted anything about him. And now that the other's here, she's gone for good?

Needless to say, even if Sans tried, leaving an infant with a child is not the best idea. If Papyrus survives (lucky him) he soon becomes a kid with a lot of anger issues and behavior related problems. One person save the day, though. It's Grillby's son, Happiness. The motherless kid is of the same age as Papyrus and they soon become besties. Papyrus has a little social experience inside the house, each time Happiness comes to play. And that's actually nice, cause everytime Sans did tried to get out lf the house, it led to him getting bullied, harrassed or beaten by the other kids he wanted to join in. Looks like being an evil mass' murderer son isn't the best help to make friends.

But something went sour. Happiness is taken away by the soldiers, since he's an obvious hybrid, and ends up killed during one of Gaster's experiment. The soul then goes haunting Toriel's ruins and he will end up as this AU's MTT in some years.

Grillby isn't really pleased by that. It would be an understatement to say he is destroyed. It's actually a lot to lose: Chara, his wife, his kid... Blaming Gaster for Chara's death was one thing but right here, the hatred becomes a little more intense. Good things Nocturne senses that and with a good negociation, the scientist traitor is sold and the village's bartender becomes the official supplier of Décembre's drug in Snowdin.

There's a little funeral and stuff for Gaster, who had been thrown off in the CORE while he was trying to fix it. This by a pissed off Nocturne. The CORE doesn't work a lot anymore, thanks to that so here goes the economical crisis. Grillby's bar grows and grows, plunging the population into dependency. He soon offers distractions, host services, private rooms and all, to go with the drug and the alcool. The air becomes oh so bad, Décembre's curtesy since the fog has engulfed the whole village, concentrating around the bar. Whenever you enter Snowdin, you feel light-headed, nauseous and have your head spinning. There's no way you can walk right. It's actually better for everyone to be able to afford an air purifier inside their houses or else the side-effects will follow them home.

Soon after killing off Gaster, Nocturne went to find the skeleton's researches where he has supposedly found how to kill the dark one. He rampages the house, finds there were twin artefacts, the Heart Lockets, that used together were enough to corrupt or purify someone. Yet the Heart Lockets weren't there. But the young Papyrus was. Terrorised and hidden under the couch. When Nocturne and his mens left, the youngling was still hidden but started crying.

Good thing the Heart Sanses were passing by. There was definitely some rukus in Alt!Story and they weren't going to let Nocturne do as he wants. Rêverie-now-called-Songe, who we haven't seen in a long time (Songe: "Hi folks! Missed me? ^^"), heard the cryings and went comforting the kiddo. For now on, he will have Papyrus on his protection and come frequently to take care of the abandoned kid, raising him to be a hero that would fight against Nocturne.

Shit has hitten the fan for Sans when his father died. Needed an air purifier for his weak brother not to fall down. Grillby was okay giving them food, but he did not pity at all the two orphans. So there was still electricity, running water, heating to pay off. Sans had to find something to do with his hands.

Good thing Grillby was hiring, then. From his 15 to (whatever the majority is where you live)years, the boi went from waiter to bartender. Once having made his baby steps in that world, an opportunity opened. It was to work as an host. At that time, and now that the bar received visitors from all around the Multiverse, this was a well-paid job. Enough to keep his brother safe. Enough to afford everything they'd need. There was no possibility to refuse.

Lacking so much early socialization and moreover being an introvert had not prepared Sans to be a host. As it was supposed to be his first evening of distracting and low-key flirting with clients, Sheep looked livid. Grillby made the remark the skeleton looked like a Sheep going to the slaughter and the nickname stayed.

Working as an host sucked. As a waiter? Nobody cared. Behind the bar? Safety from the distance. But people being able to pay to have a face to face with a mass murderer's son? Like, getting revenge and having to torture the little sh-t for the misery his father has done? Yeah, everyone started asking for the skeleton and entertaining the clients somewhat became unpleasant. Of course, there were good people too. But twice a week, there was a creep. The skeleton started hating on the ambiance candles when burn marks spreaded accross his arms.

His colleagues weren't of any support either. Being promoted as an host wasn't earned at all by the skeleton and he was really bad at it. Favoritism when two third of the population lived in extrem misery isn't the best thing that can happen to you. It was tense. With a few outbursts.

A few years later, we have someone leaving a note at his brother's door and going straight to Waterfall's cascade. Could be an idea to end it all.

Now, here's the trick. Nocturne happened to pass by and, seeing how depressed and ready Gaster's son was, he teased him a little. All that chaos surrounding him was really a feast for Genocide. But it would have been funnier if said skeleton talked back. Instead, he just sadly admitted all the insults then thanked Nocturne for being there. Dying alone sucked.

Nocturne didn't expected to be thanked and now he was really bored. So instead, he just told that he related and they ended up talking. Just. Having a friendly chat and stuff. Sheep finally changed his mind and all things were good in the bestest of worlds.

Well. Nope.

Songe had noticed and read the note. He had gone looking for his protegee's brother. And he had found him at the top of the waterfall, with Nocturne. Sure, sure, that dark evil lord was ready to push the poor skeleton into the emptiness. Couldn't be anything more to a villain (lawful good at his best, isn't that cute-). So Songe managed to attack Nocturne to protect Sheep. Sheep tried to defend the only person that had been nice to him ever. He slips. Falls.

Crap.

Nocturne catches his hand at the very end so no deadly skeleton fall tonight. Now could be a good idea to remind you, dumb characters, that blue magic is a thing. Sheep's being quite at loss with his magic abilities, though. He's weak for a Sans and isn't trained at all at that time.

After this epic fail, Songe just flee. Leaving another thing for Sheep to understand: The Goddess Pacifist's presence weaken Genocide. Having Songe nearby thus making Nocturne less corrupted. Not something a dark evil lord would want to be known so good thing he hasn't noticed that Sheep has noticed.

Anyway. From now on, and since that'll be wasting time to have rescued a skelly for nothing, Nocturne starts making Sheep work for him. The depressed one still works at the bar and as an host. But now, if he hears something interesting from someone, Nocturne would like to hear it as well. It's like a spy or something plus the evil lord is going to ensure the skelly stays safe. If the client becomes too much of a freak- poof- magic-! Dust in an alley. Wait. That's not magic, that murder!

Yay for everything getting better and Sheep and Papyrus being slowly turned against each other 👏👏

#Alt!Story

3 notes · View notes

gemstoneslesbian · 4 years ago

Note

I love you Matt hcs so much! So much inspiration for mine too!

Have you got any post-cannon hcs? (Maybe angst/Whump one? But that’s not so important I would love to hear any ^^)

Thank you sm!! :D

All right SO, my main niche in the fandom is fleshing out the Ace Attorney prison, examining the relationships between all the characters there, fleshing everyone out, considering their character arcs, etc. It’s definitely something I put a lot of thought into and get excited about ^^

I imagine there being three main prisons:

Prison A

The canon prison shown in Ace Attorney Investigations: 2. Prisoners are allowed one animal companion, there’s a supplier with influence over the warden (and, imo, the guards as well), it’s overall a prison that can be interpreted as more relaxed--with limited corruption, due to the fact that, in my opinion at least, Sirhan Dogen wouldn’t put up with much BS. Although he can’t control everything, Dogen has a decent amount of power that he uses to make his prison livable.

Prison B

This is the opposite of Prison A. Damon Gant is in charge, but in a different kind of way; after being Chief of Police for so long, he still has a lot of power and connections, and many officers hold respect and / or fear towards him. The prison is a hierarchy of power and control with a lot of corruption, and anyone who doesn’t work for Gant is in danger.

Prison C

The women’s prison. Dee Vasquez has the upper hand here, due to her outside connections with the mafia. She handles things in a more manipulative, underhanded kind of way--isn’t so much focused on the prison at large, but moreso on securing her own matters. She uses protection or exploitation sparingly, and when she does, she deflects attention off of it as much as possible. While the prison isn’t as horrible as Prison B, it’s not as safe as Prison A.

Now that the environment has been established, time to get into the details about Matt:

‎

Matt Engarde went to Prison A.

In Ace Attorney, fame and riches seem to make little difference when it comes to putting someone behind bars. However, the game does show that it can add complications, and affect things to a certain level. With that said, here’s how I imagine things went over with the arrest:

Things are a whirlwind of chaos and fear and pain at first, but it doesn’t take him long to get a deal set up with the prison. Sometime within the first week of his imprisonment. Thankfully, this is done quickly enough that his assets haven’t been transferred to his parents, yet.

His sentence is 10 years. No death penalty or life sentence, because the deal is that, for each year that Matt Engarde is alive and healthy, the prison receives $500,000. This would give them ample reason to take measures to protect him from De Killer.

Matt doesn’t have an endless amount of money, and he also doesn’t want to be stuck there forever. In his mind, hopefully De Killer would be behind bars or dead by the end of those 10 years, and if not... well, he’ll figure it out when he gets there.

He’s given the cell down the hall from Sirhan Dogen, the infamous assassin. This scares the HELL out of Matt at first, but the guards assure him that it’s for his own safety:

However, since he’s placed in this cell before the deal is made, there was an ulterior motive as well. Due to the fact that Shelly De Killer is another infamous assassin, Warden Roland considered it a possibility that he’s one of Dogen’s outside contacts. If Dogen were to rat out Matt’s location to him, the prison would be prepared to capture and arrest De Killer, and it would be confirmed that they had been contacts.

Obviously, Dogen could rat him out no matter which cell he’s in, but it’s more convenient to place Matt there as bait since the hallway is monitored so heavily--they’ll be prepared to restrain both De Killer and Dogen if/when that time comes.

If the deal were made beforehand, he likely would have been sent to Prison B; even though it’s a harsher atmosphere, no one in there is presumed to be a contact of De Killer’s. While he could have been transferred at this point, it’s decided that they’ll stick to their regular plan, just with added precautions and safety measures.

Matt, although suspicious, never has any sort of confirmation that he’s being used as bait--at least, not until years later.

BUT ANYHOW.

‎

Interactions and Reputation

I get into it a bit in this fic*, but the gist is this:

There’s no point in continuing to act charming when everyone knows it’s BS, and any chance of Toughness or Good Standing he could have had are kinda... shattered by his frequent (very loud) panic attacks late at night.

For the first year, he doesn’t bother trying to make friends. He doesn’t care about them, they won’t care about him, and he’s not interested in playing a tug-of-war with power dynamics when he knows he won’t always necessarily come out on top. So he’s kind of a loner here. Occasionally entertains himself by picking fights.

*(Spoiler warning for AAI2 in the fic I linked!!)

‎

Character Arc

From this point, I can see it going in several different directions. I have two different fic AUs where things turn out differently in each one, and I also have an extensive role-play I did with a friend of mine. In terms of imagining his “canon” life and his future, I definitely learn towards the events that transpired in the role-play, so I’ll focus on those.

(My friend and I made a post analyzing his personality and character arc, so most of the things I’ll mention here have been mentioned in this post in greater detail. HOWEVER the post is EXTREMELY long and also contains major spoilers for AAI2. So if you want to avoid spoilers and also want a summed up version, feel completely free to just read the summary below!) (oh also, with relation to the post I just linked, tw for?? a variety of common triggers)

I should mention that this might not be COMPLETELY spoiler-free, but I do avoid saying the spoilery name. It’s hard for me to accurately gauge what is and isn’t revealing, since I already know all the spoilers haha.

And, without further ado:

-Everything about his world has been turned upside-down. Instead of being adored, he’s despised. Instead of being the one with power, he’s the one under the thumb of others. Instead of a life of comfort and privilege, he’s confined to small, uncomfortable areas, and is barely paid anything for his labor. Additionally, he could be killed at any moment at any hour at any location--and this is something he’s forced to endure for years on end. The entire situation is incredibly stressful and traumatic for him.

-About a year after his arrest, a guy moves into his cell with him. Things align in just the right way that a friendship of some sort is formed between them: the guy is friendly, pretty, relatable, into some of the same hobbies he’s into, and he has power within the prison walls. It’s beneficial to form a friendship with him... and the guy isn’t annoyed with him for his (now much less-frequent) panic attacks, but rather, shows sympathy.

-Neither of them particularly trust one another, but they enjoy each other’s company.

-Humans need comfort, and Matt is no exception. Under the intense trauma and stress he’s enduring, it’s all too easy to form some sort of bond with the nice guy who dances with him and pets his hair and holds him.

-It’s important to mention that Matt is rendered unable to do his usual power & control shit. And he especially can’t get away with that kind of stuff when his new cellmate shows up. The guy is Very Alert to underhanded behavior (due to his own underhandedness + the fact that he’s dealt with one too many bastards), and is quick to call Matt out on even minor things. So Matt’s options at this point are either:

a.) try his manipulative shit and lose any small amount of power or comfort he may have had, with an added risk of retribution

b.) resist all forms of connection / interaction with other people, and just be miserable and alone and scared all by himself

c.) be friends with the guy WITHOUT being a shady douche, and getting to enjoy the comfort and benefits that provides

-So... YEAH. Long story short, he makes friends with the guy. And, also, lowkey catches feelings for him.

-Matt also makes friends with Simon Blackquill a couple years later (and that has its own backstory)

-His previous ways of moving through the world do not work at all here. In the end, Matt’s main goal is to get what he wants, and to feel good. With the circumstances, he has to completely change his approaches in order to meet that goal.

-Matt may be cold and uncaring towards other people’s emotions, but it’s clear that he does have very intense emotions. He shows much more vulnerability and pain now than he used to, because doing so makes him more sympathetic to his friends--but he also needs to learn to not be as manipulative about it, and to actually consider the other person’s emotions instead of making it all about himself.

-He does ultimately decide to make the overall changes necessary for healthy interpersonal connections, since it’s in his best interest to do so. It’s not easy, and he hits plenty of road bumps along the way. It definitely dredges up a lot of shit, a lot of painful emotions; he’s extremely self-protective, and genuine vulnerability is hard and frightening.

-The tl;dr is that he’s dragged through a healing arc, kicking and screaming the entire way.

‎

That’s what his life in like in prison, overall! There’s a ton of aspects and details, but I figured it’d be best to cover the basic storyline ^^

I also have thoughts on how things would go after he’s released from prison.

‎

...OH SHIT I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO MENTION THE SHELLY THING LMAO

I’m gonna make a post where I detail out what happens, and then link it here when I finish.

Edit: Here it is!

#Matt Engarde #aa post #Matt #thank you for the ask!! and thank you to everyone else who's been asking too aaa #I'm so happy people are interested in my headcanons #aaprison

13 notes · View notes

onthevirgeofdestruction · 4 years ago

Link

Dreaming While I Wake

Sanders Sides Foster Care AU - Roman-centric Angst & Hurt/Comfort & Abuse Recovery

Roman tries to be upbeat and hopeful despite all the shit that’s happened to him. And a lot of shit has. Luckily, his new foster home is with two literal rays of sunshine (and a sarcastic asshole).

Words: 3,354 Warnings: Spoilers and I’d consider checking them. Characters: Roman, Patton Universe: Dreaming While I Wake Genre: Power Angst

Chapter 20

chapter 1 for new readers - ffn mirror

“I’m so glad Mr. Hartley could find your brother and put us on the approved visitor list. It sounds like he had to pull a lot of strings to do it,” Patton flashed a smile quickly to Roman before looking back at the road. Roman fidgeted lightly with his hands and watched the road for a moment. He was still worried and was tired as shit for having to wake up early to drive out there for the visiting hours. Well, it was only a little early for the Sanders house but Roman still was the worst at sleeping. Especially when he knew he was going to finally see his brother the next day.

“Thanks again for being willing to drive me out,” Roman mumbled and curled into his jacket a bit. “You really don’t think he’ll be mad at me for not calling and stuff?” Roman asked nervously, glancing at Patton. Patton kept his eyes on the road.

“I think if you explain what happened he’ll probably understand,” Patton said plainly. That didn’t particularly inspire confidence in Roman. He side-eyed Patton for a moment, but Patton added nothing else.

“Hm, I’m hearing a maybe,” Roman said seriously, tugging at his seat belt to shift it away from his cracked rib again.

“Well, I can’t see everything, kiddo,” Patton smiled knowingly for someone saying he didn’t know. “But he’s your brother, and that didn’t go away with distance,” Roman hummed, not really agreeing or disagreeing. He wanted to believe Remus wouldn’t hate him. He just also had a ‘wildly miscalibrated’ sense of whether or not people hate him, according to Thomas. But even if his sense is off, it was a loud one and he didn’t know how to ignore it. Roman yawned and leaned back the seat a little, watching the road again.

“I know this is early for you. I can put the radio on classical or something and you can take a nap. The weekend visiting hours are offensively short and early,” Patton muttered bitterly. “You should be able to visit your kids and siblings all day on the weekend, not between 8 and 10 am. Who do they think they are? The state prison has better visiting hours!” Patton started ranting in frustration.

“I’m a 15-year-old felon, I can’t answer these questions,” Roman rubbed his head. It kind of hurt from Pat’s rambling. Or the lack of sleep. Or the knowledge there will be guards there. Or the roiling fear in him that Remus hated him now, and that he had every right to as someone in juvie while Roman had such a nice place to stay. Maybe there were lots of reasons his head could hurt.

“You’re not a felon, kiddo,” Patton furrowed his eyebrows, looking miffed. Roman just crossed his arms lightly and raised his eyebrow. “Well, not a convicted felon, anyway,” Patton trailed off slightly. “Let’s not bring up the whole drug trafficking thing at the JDC,” Patton chuckled nervously, shooting a look at Roman.

“Yeah, I definitely tell everybody about my crimes,” Roman’s tone was dripping with sarcasm as he rolled his eyes. “Thomas says I thought I was dead. That’s basically the only circumstance I ever planned to tell anyone,” Roman huffed angrily, though it was entirely at himself for letting it slip. He really didn’t like anybody knowing about it. Though Virgil was chill about it. At least that was something. Patton and Thomas, on the other hand? Roman wasn’t sure they had chill anymore.

“I suppose we should avoid panic attacks, then,” Patton said, sounding concerned and tapping his steering wheel with his fingers as he steered.

“Sure, I’ll turn off the panic switch,” Roman flipped his hand and mimed toggling a switch sarcastically. He looked out the passenger window, gripping his seatbelt in his hands both as something grounding but to keep it off his ribs again.

“Young man, I understand you’re scared and tired, but maybe turn down the sarcasm a notch,” Patton said seriously. Roman huffed indignantly, but sighed and dropped his arms after a moment.

“Sorry,” Roman mumbled and fiddled with his jeans.

“I don’t think marijuana charges should be a thing in the first place, by the way. I don’t think that in a just world you’d be a felon,” Patton said, consolingly. Roman winced and looked to Patton for a moment, deciding if he should correct him or not.

“You like honesty, right?” Roman sighed, looking over to Patton nervously. He may as well get this over with.

“Yes, I do! But I don’t like the sound of that question. Not in the context of this conversation, anyway,” Patton said nervously and gripped the steering wheel as if to brace himself.

“I guess because it’s hard to picture a teenager dealing anything harder than weed, or something? But there’s a reason I said drugs. It was just weed… at first. It… didn’t stay that way. Expenses went up. And it went from some very nice engineers who grew it outside of town to real mafia-type drug suppliers. That’s how the whole having guns pointed at me thing happened. We were kind of in over our heads, honestly. I was just making deliveries to white guys in flip-flops who’d tip well if I did magic tricks for them, other than visiting the engineers. It wasn’t that bad,” Roman swallowed. “Then it got worse, and I had to carry a gun just to protect myself and… it just wasn’t good. I’d still be a felon in a more just world,” Roman confessed quietly.

“You didn’t have to use the gun, did you, kiddo?” Patton asked, sounding deeply troubled and gripping the steering wheel enough to make his knuckles pale.

Roman held himself and swallowed heavily. “Can we not talk about this?” Roman mumbled, hating to have to remember this part. Hating himself for ever having to do it. Roman gripped his seatbelt again, unable to deal and trying to focus on literally anything else. Like the texture of the seat-belt strap and how it was weirdly sharp feeling or the signs through the window.

“I think we might need to,” Patton said carefully, but he was clearly holding back something by the expression on his face.

“First shot’s a warning shot. Second shot was to the legs,” Roman muttered. “That’s… that’s all I’m willing to say about it,” Roman said weakly, trying his damnedest not to remember.

“I suppose it’s a good thing you’re seeing a psychiatrist,” Patton swallowed. “I’m impressed at how strong you are to carry this guilt for so long, champ. At least you never intended to hurt anybody, right?” Patton said as evenly as Roman assumed as he could manage. He didn’t sound so sure that Roman never wanted to, though, and Roman felt like a dirtbag for it.

“No, I didn’t wake up thinking ‘I’m going to shoot some guy today’,” Roman said sarcastically. “I already know I’m not a good person. You don’t have to try to make excuses for me,” He added weakly and stared at his feet as the seatbelt cut into his hands from twisting it so tightly.

“Good and bad are a lot more complex than that. I know this stuff makes me uncomfortable, but your choices now are what matter. Not your choices when you had nothing but ultimatums in your life. It doesn’t sound like you wanted to make those choices, either,” Patton said thoughtfully, sounding resolute despite the shakiness in his voice.

“Learning to shoot a gun was cool,” Roman supplied weakly. There were things he liked that he knew he shouldn’t have. He enjoyed learning new stuff. He liked people cheering when he did sleight-of-hand tricks. He liked having enough money to buy his own clothes and pick what he ate and buy his own things. He liked some of the stoners. They were funny. He even liked Jet. “Jet’s a d-bag in high-pressure situations, but he was pretty chill most of the time. We hung out often, even though he’s years older than me. I didn’t hate all of it,” Roman admitted, loosening up on the seatbelt a bit.

Jet was the only person who knew, other than repeat customer stoners. But even they didn’t know it was Roman. There was one who invited him in to play Assassin’s Creed and Mortal Kombat, who saw him without the mask. Not that Roman would admit to playing those to Patton. Roman was certain that guy was just lonely and enjoyed talking to someone and probably thought Roman was older than he was. He was nice either way. He even let Roman stay with him one night to avoid a bad situation at home. There were plenty of things Roman liked about it that he knew he shouldn’t have.

“Finding joy when you’re in a terrible situation is okay and also doesn’t make you a bad person. It still just means you were trying to survive,” Patton reminded him. “You could have turned out much worse if you didn’t find ways to be happy with access to a gun and drugs. Well, you could have turned out much worse with any of those factors,” Patton said, sounding kind of strangely impressed.

“Yeah, I hope Jet’s okay,” Roman admitted quietly and looked back out the passenger window again.

“I hope he found a home that helped him out, too. But I am still proud of you for turning out so… okay, despite everything,” Patton offered, sounding genuinely pleased. Was that supposed to make sense?

“You and Thomas have done nothing but say I’m not okay since I got here,” Roman scoffed as he objected and rolled his eyes.

“Well, we had to re-evaluate where the bar was with new information. You’re okay, in a sense, for somebody in the situations you’ve been in… seeing as you don’t have a drug habit and are, well, you’re here. You still have to see the psychiatrist, though. You’re not okay in another sense,” Patton said resolutely.

“That’s so confusing,” Roman groaned and gestured in frustration. “Mr. Hartley said there’s no way to stop the state from having access to my medical records,” Roman pouted angrily. “You know I don’t want that.”

“We’re going to figure out the problems as they come. But Thomas and I aren’t equipped to help you. We will continue to be there for you and happy to assist, but you have lots of things that you need professional help to break down and rebuild into something healthier and more sustainable. For one, Thomas is really freaked out about you scratching at yourself when you panic. We don’t know how to stop that, and you can’t keep living life like that. It’s not safe or healthy,” Patton said firmly with a glance towards Roman.

“I can just wear gloves all the time like a movie villain,” Roman rolled his eyes. Patton was letting him leave them off for now, but they were in Roman’s pocket in case Patton changed his mind.

“Roman, it’s a temporary solution that you clearly don’t enjoy,” Patton said, shaking his head.

“I don’t like the reminder,” Roman sighed. “And I’m not wearing them at school. I’d get harassed non-stop,” Roman grumbled. “What if I pull a Virgil and refuse to see the psychiatrist?” Roman said hopefully, but it came out more aggressively than intended.

“We’re signing up Virgil for to talk to a psychiatrist online. We realize now that it’s dangerous to keep waiting for you two to want it for yourselves. Just because Virgil hasn’t had non-car related panic attacks we’ve seen doesn’t mean he’s not quietly at-risk while he sits alone in his room. He has trouble connecting to people, and we realize that it’s more dangerous to let go unchecked than we thought. We thought it just meant he couldn’t be around cars. We didn’t know there was a whole slew of other things that might be making his life harder,” Patton explained and used that serious parent tone.

“Thomas said that he had nine out of the fifteen things the ER doctor mentioned, and that’s without him talking to us. It will take some time to get him to talk to somebody, so setting up appointments now, even if doesn’t respond in earnest right away, is better than putting it off and it takes even longer. You boys might even need to be on some medications,” Patton said, sounding sympathetic despite the fact they were forcing this on him.

“I don’t want to go on meds,” Roman said angrily, refusing to meet his eyes and watching the rearview mirror.

“I’m on anti-depressants and Thomas is on anti-anxiety medications. There’s no shame in it. They seem scary at first, and they can be when you’re adjusting to them, but they’re there to improve your life and make it easier. It’s just like I have to take an allergy pill every day to treat cats. I could just suffer through the stuffy nose and watery eyes, but I don’t have to,” Patton admitted.

“Why in the world did you become a vet if you’re allergic to cats?” Roman asked incredulously.

“They’re just so fluffy! It’s not a severe allergy,” Patton cooed. “But seriously kiddo, kinda hoping to die quietly isn’t healthy. It might mean you have a chemical imbalance and need medical intervention so you don’t take risks since you don’t care if you live or die,” Patton said more seriously, looking sad.

“I care if I live,” Roman drawled defensively. “I wouldn’t have done anything I did to protect myself in the past if I didn’t care if I lived or not,” Roman spat bitterly, not able to even look at Patton.

“But you think things would be easier if you didn’t have to live anymore, right? That it would be nice if you just didn’t wake up one day? Maybe a coma sounds nice? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you died in a freak accident?” Patton insinuated and Roman bit his tongue with a frustrated exhale through his nose. “I told you kiddo, I’m on anti-depressants. I’m not in your exact same boat, but I do know a little about what you’re going through. You’re very high energy for somebody with depression, but I’m not a people doctor and there’s probably more going on than we see. Which is another excellent reason to get you properly diagnosed. So we can get you the right tools to cope and recovery for everything we know and don’t know you have,” Roman hated that this all started to make sense. He still didn’t want to do any of it. The thought terrified him. But he wished it didn’t make sense, still.

“You kinda get it, right? Is it… is it normal to still believe I’m okay and don’t need help?” Roman asked quietly.

“I think anybody who gets shut down when they ask for help long enough will eventually convince themselves they’re okay and fine on their own just to cope. But I also think both you and I know you’re not okay on some level and your brain’s just trying to play catch up with that fact since you’ve had to be ‘okay’ for so long,” Patton suggested kindly, but it still kind of hurt to hear. Roman curled in on himself slightly. Another thing he wished didn’t make sense.

“Try to sit up straight, Roman, your rib needs room to heal. I know it feels counter-intuitive when you feel vulnerable,” Roman wanted to object to being vulnerable, but he tried to straighten out, anyway. Maybe he was feeling vulnerable and not bitter. It sort of seemed like he’d have to re-learn some feelings from the ground up because he was doing them wrong.

“So, we’re almost there. Do you want to discuss what you will say to him to explain what happened?” Patton suggested genially. Roman considered it before shaking his head slowly.

“No, I’m not the best at following plans or even saying the things I mean to say. There’s not much of a point to that,” Roman sighed. “I’m just going to… try,” Roman said, kind of wishing he had something better to say. Or some way to convince Remus to forgive him. Or something better to give him. Just… he wished for lots of things.

“That’s all we can do sometimes,” Patton said brightly. It was weird how he could flip his moods like that. Roman still felt kind of off from their conversation. Maybe Patton was just good at hiding things. “Sorry that I accidentally kept you up instead of letting you nap on the way over,” Patton apologized.

“I’m probably too nervous about seeing Remus again to have taken a nap either way. I keep thinking I’m not going to recognize him for some reason. Or he won’t recognize me. But that doesn’t make any sense. And it’s not the only completely unreasonable thing going through my head,” Roman admitted sheepishly.

“It’s not unreasonable that he’d look different, kiddo, it’s been 4 years,” Patton said softly.

“What are you talking about?” Roman asked incredulously, looking to Patton and furrowing his eyebrows.

“Four years is a long time! You’ve both done lots of growing, I’m sure,” Patton possibly attempted to explain. What the hell was he talking about? Holy shit, did Patton not know? Oh, he had to see Patton’s face when he found out. Roman wasn’t saying a damn thing.

“Still. I just don’t think I would have rested well,” Roman said dismissively. He at least had something to look forward to. Remus used to love this kind of thing, too, so maybe Remus would laugh, and that would be worth it.

“All right, we need to leave our personal effects in the car according to the website. Put your phone, keys, and wallet in the glove box if you have any of them,” Patton said. Roman shifted slightly to extract his stuff while Patton pulled into the parking lot. Roman closed his things into the glove box and looked around the lot. God, this place was… depressing. It’s a giant concrete box, and it feels… wrong. Haunted, maybe. Just bad. Patton slipped his phone in the glove box and locked it before they both got out of the car.

Patton had to show his ID, and it took a bit of arguing, but they managed to find him and Roman on the approved visitor list after about 10 minutes. It was ridiculous that Roman wasn’t allowed to see his own brother under normal circumstances. Patton was right about that. They don’t have parents for Roman to come in with. Getting Patton and Roman on the approved list was probably the social worker equivalent of an act of god. Roman would have to thank him properly when he saw him next month. Maybe Patton would let him bake him cookies or something. Roman waited on one of the few chairs in the lobby until they were finally able to go through x-ray and security. They weren’t allowed to bring much to him, but Patton brought a bag of chocolates for Remus, which was nice.

The security guard brought them to a weird steel and concrete cafeteria-looking room, where they picked a table and were told to wait while they fetched Remus. Roman’s foot started tapping, and that hurt like a mother fuck, so he managed to move his nervous energy to drum on the table with his fingers. Patton tolerated the noise and offered him a soft smile every time he looked nervously to Patton as they waited. This part made Roman so restless it physically hurt. The guards made him nervous enough, but seeing his brother for the first time in 4 years was a whole new level. He fought to keep himself as level as he could with the sheer joy from the knowledge that at least, after all this time, he’d finally get to see Remus again.

Personal Taglist: @bunny222 @elizabutgayer @prinxietyforever @kanene-yaaay-o-retorno @the-sympathetic-villain @croftersjam15 @ollyollyoxinfree

the taglist repository:

High school: @dragonwithproblems @starlight-era @averykedavra @potatsanderssides

Roman Angst: @k1ngtok1

Hurt/Comfort: @callboxkat @nonasficcollection @supernovainthenightsky @evoodo123

Roman-Centric: @smileyzs @robinwritesshitposts @thatgaydemigodnerd

Fostering AU: @i-am-not-a-dinner-roll

literally everything sanders sides: @katelynn-a-fan @dwbh888 @grouptalekindnesssoul @the-hoely-bleach @anvil527up @fanficloverinthesun @brain-deadx0 @the-grounded-raven @ananonsplace

#tsss #sanders sides #tsss fanfiction #sanders sides fanfiction #tsss fanfic #ayri writes #dreaming while I wake #angst #tw guns #tw drugs #tw suicidal ideation #death mention #tw severe depression #ts roman #roman angst #ts roman angst #chapter fic #fanfiction #ts patton

22 notes · View notes

404gendernotfound · 5 years ago

Text

Take Me Home Part 1 (Hybrid!Yoongi x Reader)

Summary: You found a white tiger - a really rare breed hybrid - in the backyard of your workplace hiding in a cardboard box from the outside world. Knowing that it would rain soon and the nights were getting colder you decided to take him home with you.

Contains: some angst, fluff

Warnings: none

Wordcount: 3,0 K

A/N: I’m currently absolutely in love with hybrid au stories so I thought why not make a Yoongi hybrid au one shot.

Enjoy!

________________________________________________________________

Today has been a busy day at the supermarket. Our supplier had just send us a big load of food this morning that had to be sorted into the different shelves around the shop. A lot of customers went shopping for groceries today since tomorrow was Sunday and the shops would all be closed. It was now after closing hours and I was organizing our stock. I said goodbye to the co-worker staying in with me as he took off to go home while I stayed to take out the trash and check everything again before going home myself. As I walked out the back I already heard something weird coming from the containers. I threw away the garbage and then looked to where I had heard the noises. Between the two containers stood a cardboard box that was slightly opened. It was rather big and as I was about to go back in I noticed it move. Just after that a tip of a tail was seen hanging out the box carelessly. Was there a cat inside? But the tail looked rather big compared to a cat ones. I stepped closer and cautiously grabbed the lid of the carton and slowly opened it to look inside. Just as I could looked inside I got hissed at. Wait? So there really was a cat inside. But that cat was really big. I took another look inside to realize that this was not a cat but a hybrid. He looked scared and kept hissing at me as I got closer again.

“Hey. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to know how you got here”, I spoke quietly so I wouldn’t scare him ever more.

He turned his head towards me and scooted closer to the back corner of the cardboard box. Now that I saw him better I understood why he was so afraid. The color of his fur and the shape of his ears revealed that he was a rare breed. His fur was black and white striped and it looked a bit dirty just like the rest of him. This poor white tiger must have stayed on the street for quite some time. I stepped back from the box. I needed to somehow gain his trust so I could lure him out of this box and get him somewhere warm and safe. You never knew what kind of people were lingering outside and would love to find such a rare breed and try to make money of him. I didn’t even want to think about what such people would do to him. I decided to search for something I could bring him like food or some new clothes. I walked back into the supermarket and searched through our stock. I still had some leftover bread from today that I would usually take home with me since we would have to toss it into the trash. I took some fruits and then looked through our clothes sections. The boy outside looked pretty slim build so I chose some smaller clothes. I took whatever I could find and left the corresponding money for the things in the cash box which I then locked in our safe. After I had found everything, I packed it into a plastic bag and walked back outside. The tiger was still sitting in the box as I arrived there. I dropped the bag in front of the box and stepped back a bit.

“I brought you something to eat and some clean clothes to wear. You should find some shelter for the night. It looks like it’s going to rain soon”, I whispered and watched the box move a bit.

I waited for some time to see if he would grab the bag and eat something. It took some time until he peaked over the box to see if I was still there. He looked around before he grabbed the bag and instantly disappeared into the box again. The arm he had extended to take the bag had some bruises and cuts on it. Seemed like this hybrid already had a hard time on the street. I stepped closer again to see that he was happily munching on the bread and fruits I had chosen for him. Now that I could take a better look at him I saw that not only his arms were hurt but he had some cuts along his neck and cheeks too.

“You are hurt. Someone should look at your wounds. They might be infected”, I said quietly and saw him suddenly look at me.

“No. Please don’t”, he pleaded, his soft voice instantly touching my heart.

“Then at least let me get you somewhere safe. You shouldn’t stay here”

“No. I will stay here”

He looked at me with fear in his eyes. Something must have happened to him that he insisted on staying here. I crouched down and scooted closer to the box. He seemed curious too since he scooted closer towards me so that just the cardboard box was separating us. He sniffed the air and looked at me with his curious eyes. He still didn’t seem to trust me in any way but at least I was making some progress with him. A shelter didn’t seem like a good idea since he might have had bad experiences with that. Letting him stay here was even worse since the nights where getting colder and I didn’t really want a hybrid to freeze to death in the backyard of my workplace. The only other option was taking him home with me but I was sure that he would refuse. Well, I should at least try my luck.

“I know somewhere warm and safe where you could stay for some time if you’d like. My home is not really big but I have a guest room that you could have for yourself”, I suggested and saw his eyes open wide.

I wasn’t sure if he was thinking about if I was suspicious or if he was just thoroughly thinking about accepting or rejecting my offer. He then stood up and grabbed the plastic bag. Now that he was standing in front of me I just realized how tall he was. He was a bit taller than me but didn’t really look intimidating because of his small and thin body.

“Just because I’m coming with you doesn’t mean I trust you. I’ll watch you, human”, he said with a serious look and stepped out of the box.

“Understood. Now come with me. I’ll still have to close the store but then we can get you home.”

“Whatever”

That boy had an attitude. We walked into the backdoor, I locked it and then walked to the lockers to grab my stuff. The tiger followed me like a lost puppy. He offered to help we with my stuff as we walked to the front of the supermarket. We walked outside and locked the front door. I then walked to the parking lot, the tiger following me quickly. I took out my car keys and opened the trunk of the car. We stored my stuff there before closing it again. I walked to the driver seat and watched the tiger take his seat in the back of the car. As I sat down I turned around to look at him.

“You can sit in the front if you’d like”, I said and saw his head tilt to the side surprised.

He looked at me with confusion written all over his face before he left the car again and took his seat beside me. I smiled at his behavior and waited for him to put on his seatbelt before I turned on the engine and drove us home. Arriving at the garage I parked the car and then stepped out. I fetched the stuff from the trunk and waited for the hybrid to leave the car. After he walked over to me, I locked the car and walked towards the elevator. He followed me and stood next to me in the little cabin. I pressed the button to the third floor and watched the doors close. As we arrived on our floor we walked to the apartment and I opened the door.

“Go on. It’s a little messy but it’s warm.”, I said as he still stood at the door even thought it was open.

He walked in looking at his surrounding carefully. We took off our shoes and I went to stand at the side of the corridor watching him while he wandered around. He walked around the apartment and took in everything with big eyes. As he arrived at the guest room I joined him.

“I hope this room is ok for you. It’s usually empty since I don’t have many guests over. If you need anything you can just tell me. I’ll try to make it as comfortable for you as possible.”, I explained as he walked around the room.

“It’s fine”, he said and then came back to stand next to me.

“Do you want to take a shower? I can show you where the bathroom is”

The hybrid nodded and then followed me to the just mentioned room. I gave him a towel and some other showering utensils and then left him alone. In the meantime, I changed into something comfortable and took a seat on the couch in the living room to watch TV. It took some time before I heard the door to the bathroom open and saw him walk into the living room in the clothes I bought him from the supermarket and still wet hair.

“You should dry your hair. I don’t want you to get sick”, I said as he sat down next to me.

“Too lazy”, he answered and leaned back.

I rolled my eyes and walked to the bathroom to get a towel so I could at least dry his hair a bit if he let me. As I came back he looked annoyed as he saw the towel in my hands.

“I’ll leave you alone if you let me dry your hair. Is that a deal?”, I asked and sat down on the couch.

“Fine”, he mumbled and sat down on the floor in front of me.

I cautiously began to dry his hair. I had to make sure that I wouldn’t accidently hurt his sensitive ears so I tried to avoid them most of the time. After I was done I put the towel down and tapped his shoulder.

“I’m done. You can go and do whatever you like. If you need anything you can find me in my room”

I stood up from my position and left the living room. On my way back to my bedroom I stopped in the bath to hang the towel so it could dry. I then walked to my room and sat down on my bed. After scrolling through any social media app I could find on my phone, I grabbed my headphones and laid down. I put on some of my favorite music and turned off the lights. I loved to listen to music before I go to sleep. It always makes me calm and sleepy after some time. As I was about to put my phone and headphones away I noticed the door open slightly. I sat back up and turned on the light. A sleepy white tiger looked at me with his pillow in his arms.

“What’s wrong?”, I asked concerned.

“I can’t sleep”, he mumbled looking down at his feet.

As he looked up, a smile formed on my lips and he began to speak again.

“Don’t say a word. Just because I came to sleep here doesn’t mean that I accept you”, he said and closed the door behind him before he walked towards the bed.

His words somehow hurt me a bit. I decided to take him in and he was still this ungrateful.

“Understood. The same goes for me. Just because I let you stay in my apartment doesn’t mean that I care about you.”

I could have sworn that I saw him sulk for a second as these words left my lips. He climbed onto the bed and laid down next to me, but far enough so there would still be space between us. I somehow noticed that he seemed a bit sad after what I said. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I just wanted him to get a taste of his own medicine.

“I’m just kidding. I took you in since you looked hurt, exhausted and scared. I couldn’t let a hybrid, that looks like he suffered a lot, stay out there in the cold. I would feel terrible.”

After he didn’t react, I continued my monologue.

“You know…I could have just left you there, but I didn’t. I’m not asking you to thank me a thousand times or that you accept me right away and I understand if you don’t feel like talking a lot but knowing at least your name would probably make this a lot less awkward for the both of us.”

“Yoongi”, he whispered.

“What?”

“My name is Yoongi”, he said this time a bit louder and turned around so he could look at me.

“I’m Y/N. I hope we can get along in the future”, I introduced myself and smiled at him.

He tried to smile back but it looked a bit forced. Yoongi then yawned and I turned off the light and laid down.

“You should sleep now. Tomorrow is another day. We can get to know each other better then”, I said and turned so I was laying with my face towards him.

I noticed him moving around after some time. I opened my eyes and watched as he slowly scooted closer until he was laying directly in front of me. He noticed that I was still awake.

“Just because I-“

“I know. Just because you want to cuddle doesn’t mean that you accept me”, I finished his sentence and was surprised as he shook his head.

“No. I actually wanted to say just because I don’t know if I can fully trust you yet doesn’t mean that I don’t want to cuddle”, he said and I noticed a slight shimmer of pink on his cheeks as the moonlight shone onto his face.

“Oh”

I was surprised by his honest answer. I didn’t know that he would answer this directly. He kept looking at me as if he was waiting for something. I slowly understood what he wanted.

“Come here”, I whispered and opened my arms for him.

Yoongis eyes lit up. He scooted as close as possible and shyly wrapped his arms around my waist. I pulled him into my arms and wrapped them cautiously around his body.

“Is this comfortable for you?”, I asked and looked at the blushing tiger in my arms.

“Yes”, he whispered and hid his face in the crook of my neck.

I smiled at his behavior. I felt his tail flicking around excitedly under the blanket and giggled quietly. It was cute how he tried to play the tough one on the outside when he seemed to be a softy on the inside.

“Good night, Yoongi”, I whispered unsure if he was already sleeping.

As I received no answer I knew he fell asleep already.

“Sleep tight my little tiger”

I closed my eyes and drifted into a dreamless sleep. It wasn’t even 2 hours later when I woke up again. Yoongi was whimpering quietly and held me tight. I turned my head to look at him just to see that he was still sleeping. I reached out to pet his head trying to calm him down a bit without waking him up. His whimpering continued and I decided to wake him from his nightmare. I softly shook him by his shoulder.

“Wake up”, I said loud enough so it should wake him.

He woke from his dream, panting and trying to get out of my grip. Yoongi seemed to be a bit disorientated right now so I kept him in place.

“Calm down, it’s just me. You’re safe here”, I whispered and softly pet his head.

He looked at me and I noticed his breath steadying again. Yoongi calmed down and quietly began to purr. Seeing him relax again made my worry fade away quickly and was replaced by pure adoration for this boy. He pressed his head against my hand and encouraged me to pet him more.

“Are you ok?”, I asked after some time.

“I’m ok. Thank you”, he whispered smiling at me.

His slightly sleepy smile was beautiful. He looked like a cute little muffin. My gaze wandered to his cute nose and I couldn’t help myself from poking it. Yoongi looked at me with puppy eyes and a bit confused.

“Don’t look at me like that”, I said and his face turned sad.

“I’m sorry”, he mumbled.

“No no no. I didn’t mean it like that. You look really cute with that look on your face”

His cheeks blushed and he hid his face again.

“Stop saying that”, he whined and pulled on my shirt like a stubborn child.

“Ok. Whatever you say, cutie”, I teased and received a hit against my shoulder.

I just laughed and pulled him closer. He tightened his grip around my waist and used me as his bodypillow for the rest of the night.

Next Part

#hybrid au #bts #bts yoongi #bts suga #min yoongi #suga x reader #hybrid suga x reader #hybrid yoongi #hybrid yoongi x reader #yoongi fluff #bts fluff

369 notes · View notes

outerspaceisbetterthannothing · 5 years ago

Text

No Love Go [Alpha!Cal AU] - The Girl Who Cried Wolf. Part 3

The Girl Who Cried Wolf | Royal Blood | No Love Go | Gimme

Summary: How does it feel to lose something you’ve never had?

Warnings: ugh, usual stuff, lack of proofreading, smut and smut and some drama and, oh that’s new, graphic description of bloody violence, so 18+ kids and on your own risk only

A/N: without long prologues, here’s the next part of our favourite wolves’ adventures. Traditionally, all my love goes to my pixie @bringmethehorizonandpizza for kicking my ass and being my consultant reader. Traditionally, thank you @flannelpunkcalum for alpha Cal 😘. Enormous shout out to the wonderful @burncrashbromance for another mind blowing lyrics edit you can see in the moodboard (the theme song for this part is ‘No Love Go’ by Jesse Mac Cormack). And huge thank you to all of you who read, commented, sent asks and messages, kept asking when’s the next part coming and just patiently waited! I can’t even begin to explain how much your support meant to me! Anticipating future questions - yes, there will be a continuation, lol)) Feedback is extremely appreciated, as always. Enjoy!

***

Calum was sucking on your clit. His hands were holding your thighs, fingers leaving prints on your skin. His tongue was sliding up and down your entrance, teasing you, making you arch your back, but not entering you. Calum moved his lips to your thigh, kissing and sucking there, while his fingers moved to your core. His thumb pressed on your clit, drawing a long moan out of you. You stretched your arm out, burying your fingers in his curls, trying to move his head back to your already aching core. But he threw your hand off and kept sucking hickeys on your skin.

“Cal, please,” you begged, not capable of holding back anymore. You felt him smiling into your thigh, his fingers started teasing on your entrance.

You sobbed at the feeling, one of your hands squeezing on your breasts, while another went back to his hair. This time he gave in and turned back to your clit, his lips wrapped around the little bundle, while his fingers finally entered you. You groaned deeply, feeling all of your tension gather in one spot, where he was devouring you. You kept moaning out his name mixed with lustful yes’s and pushed through your greeted teeth fuck’s.

His fingers were fucking you with the breathtaking speed. You were so close, the pit inside your stomach burning harder, ready to explode. You felt his free hand find yours on your breast and squeeze. And that moment it happened.

Your alarm went off.

You opened your eyes to see it flicker with the red numbers. 6.35.

You rolled on your front, cursing the whole world, Calum and yourself. You hated waking up like that, aching for the release. And it was the second morning in a row it happened. Your body was missing him, longing for him, and no matter how hard you were trying to overcome it, you weren’t any close to it. You couldn’t get him out of your mind. But you also couldn’t give in to your instincts.

You looked at the clock again. At least you had some time to finish what he started in your dream. You closed your eyes and brought back the pictures, your imagination ready for you, your hand slipping lower on your stomach.

***

Calum opened his house door and bent down to pat his tiny dog.

“You do have the habit of saving lost souls,” commented Ashton, following Cal inside and closing the door. “First that dog, than Andy.”

“You wanna eat, buddy?” Cal asked the dog not paying attention to what Ash was saying.

The pup ran to the kitchen, two men followed him. Calum filled a bowl with the name ‘Duke’ on it with the dog food, while Ashton poured them two glasses of whiskey. They sat down on the opposite sides of the kitchen counter.

“Did you have any time to look at the chemicals suppliers offer?” Ashton asked, his eyes not leaving his friends face for a moment.

Calum nodded, spinning the glass in his hands.

“And what do you think of it?”

Cal shrugged. “Whether we sign it or not, it won’t change much,” he answered finally, his eyes still on the glass.

Ashton frowned. “The fuck is on with you, Cal?”

Calum looked up at Ash, but turned his eyes away pretty fast. “Nothing much. Just tired, is all.”

“Tired, huh?” Ash took a sip of his drink. “Is it your omega?”

Calum looked up again, sad smile on his face this time. “She’s not my omega,” he shook his head.

Ashton’s frown grew deeper. “Hold on, she went into a heat after you two fucked, right?”

Calum nodded and finally drank from his glass, the liquid burning his throat, distracting him from the memories Ashton brought up.

“And you were the only one to tame her heat?” Ashton went on with stating facts.

Calum nodded again.

“So you two are mates?”

“Obviously,” Calum muttered, knowing exactly where Ashton was going with that.

“Then why the hell would you say she’s not your omega? That’s exactly what she is.”

Calum nodded this time too. Ashton was right. And still, she wasn’t his omega. What could he say to that? He took another sip.

“Cal?” his friend kept asking.

Calum sighed and gave in, “Remember how we could only track her down to the last city she lived in, but never to her original pack?”

“Yeah,” Ashton confirmed.

“That’s because she ran away from her pack and tried pretty hard to cover all tracks.”

Ashton shrugged nonchalantly, “Not the strangest thing.”

“Taken out of the context, probably, not,” Calum agreed.

“And what is the context?”

Calum sighed again. Then said, “She’s from the Northern Lakes pack.”

“The one with the alphas bloodline?” Ashton gasped.

Calum nodded.

“Okay, but so what?” his friend obviously didn’t see much problem in that, until an idea popped in his mind. “Don’t tell me- Don’t tell me she was someone else’s omega before!”

“Are you out of your mind?” Calum looked at him, his eyebrows furrowed in displease. “She’s never been anyone’s omega before me!”

Ashton raised his hands, “Chill, man! You’re just being mysterious with that shit and you know things like that happen sometimes.”

“She’s the alpha’s daughter,” Calum dropped the bomb, enjoying Ashton’s dumbstruck face.

“But that bloodline produced only boys, that’s why they kept their position for so long,” Ashton mumbled.

“Yeah, well, she was the first, obviously,” Calum shrugged. He knew what people said about that pack. Still, he had his own sources.

“Did she tell you that herself?” Ashton asked and Calum heard suspicion in his voice.

“I checked her words, if that’s what you’re thinking about.”

“How?”

Calum shrugged again. “I have some friends on the north. They confirmed there was a daughter of the Lakes pack alpha’s and that she disappeared around ten years ago. The description matched.”

Ashton finished his drink and poured himself more. “Why did she ran away in the first place? Her bloodline is probably the oldest in the country and as the alpha’s daughter she could have it all.”

Calum sighed again. “From what I got, her family is pretty crazy.” Ashton chuckled to that. “Her father didn’t even presumed she could ascend as an omega. He was raising her as an alpha, future leader of the pack. So when she did ascend, things got rather harsh. She had to leave not to let her older brother kill her.”

Ashton kept gaping at Cal. “And what did her father think about his son trying to kill his daughter?” he finally asked.

“Oh, he was hoping she’ll kill her brother first.”

“Crazy, you said? I’d rather use ‘sick’ for this family,” Ashton stated, drowning half of his drink in one go.

“You don’t say,” Calum muttered in agreement.

“So what now? She has issues with her omega nature?” Aston asked some time after.

Calum just nodded, rubbing his chin. “She said she doesn’t have it in her, obeying to the man,” he added.

They kept silent for some more time, until Ashton came up with one more question.

“Maybe your dick play wasn’t that good?” he asked, smirking at his friend.

Calum looked back at Ashton in disbelief. “My dick play was gorgeous if you need to know! She was seeing stars and tearing up with my name on her lips.”

“You sure those weren’t tears of disappointment?”

“Fuck off, mate!” Cal scoffed to that.

“Just kidding, bro,” Ashton laughed. Calum couldn’t help but smile to that too. That was exactly why he couldn’t imagine his life without his best friend, who was able to make him smile even in the dark hours.

“What are you gonna do?” Ashton asked all serious again after his laughter went off.

Cal shook his head, “I have no idea. For the first time since I became an alpha I have no fucking idea what to do.” He sighed, finished his whiskey and added, “But not like there are so many options. I can force her into it. Or I can let her go.”

“You can’t let her go,” Ashton said. “You two are mates, you know it doesn’t work like that.”

Calum inhaled deeply, hiding his face in his hands. “But I can’t force her into it, either. I just can’t do that to her. So what options am I left with?”

“Just give it some time, Cal,” Ashton said with another heavy sigh. “Give her some time. She won’t be able to deny it. She just needs time to, probably, come to terms with that.”

Calum moved his hands off his face and nodded, looking at his friend. That he could do, he thought, while Ashton filled their glasses with amber liquid and raised a silent toast.

***

You strolled down the grocery shop aisles, debating on the fastest and easiest ways of not to die of hunger and still eat more or less healthy. You hated shopping on weekdays, having no power or patience enough for it after work. But as you spent your weekend first on going through the heat and then on bailing your eyes out and cursing on the whole world and your own damn nature, you had to do your shopping today, having a literally empty fridge. You didn’t even have any liquor there, all the bottles finished in an inefficient attempt to forget the past weekend.

You stopped next to the fridge with cottage cheese, thinking it would be the easier meal for tonight, when you noticed him. The wolf was standing next to yoghurts. His basket was empty. You forced yourself to look away before you draw his attention. You took a deep breath and tried to convince yourself there was nothing strange in a grown up man choosing yoghurts. Who said men only cared for meat and beer after all? Fuck the stereotypes and let men like yoghurts. That was logical enough if not for the couple of things. One of them being the fact that he left yoghurts without picking one and followed you to the vegetables aisle, his basket still suspiciously empty. And the other being the fact that you’d seen that wolf at least for the third time that week. And it was only Wednesday.

You looked back at him again. He was rather tall, but too lanky, so looked more like a teenager than a grown up man. Uneven haircut and a neck tattoo only added to the childish look of his. You felt he was an omega, and frankly his posture and shaky hands only proved you right. You’d expect to see a wolf like that somewhere like an outskirts of a big industrial area, living alone, being an outcast, exiled from a pack by stronger male wolves as a weak element. With bigger integration into human society there were less and less situations like that among your kind. You thought, picking on herbs, how much stronger the pack bonds were becoming in past generations. But there still were some less civilized communities, so the occasion of weak wolves being thrown away, unfortunately, wasn’t that rare. Maybe he was an outcast, you though. A wolf like that being used to hunt you down seemed rather unrealistic and, you hated to admit, offensive. But what if the look of him was delusional? You were an omega yourself, for god’s sake, yet you’d give any pure blood a run for their money. You threw another careful look at the guy. He was an omega, no doubts there, but there was something else in him, which left a taste of danger on your tongue.

You huffed, picking up a cauliflower and the couple of eggplants and trying to keep him in your eyesight. Were you thinking too much of it? The town was pretty small after all, but the annoying voice in your head was nagging it wasn’t that small. You hadn’t met Calum even once unless he wanted you to, yet you’d seen that guy every day. And even though you knew alpha had his reasons not to cross paths with you, while that wolf hadn’t, you still thought it was too strange for a mere coincidence.

You understood you lost him when you were paying for your food and let yourself relax. Not for long though, as you saw him again on a parking lot. The wolf was getting in his car. His hands empty. He left the shop not buying anything. You felt your hands starting to shake.

You got into your car and left the store parking, keeping eyes more on the rear view mirror than on the road in front of you. His car was following you all the way to your house. When you parked next to your apartment building, you saw him drive past. Then he parked at the end of the street and stayed in a car.

You felt danger slipping into your life again, anger raising inside of you. Why would it happen to you again? Why would it happen now?

You found shelter inside your apartment, persuading yourself he’d harmed you already if he wanted to. His task was obviously just watching you. But for how long? You were unloading your shopping bags, while your mind was running up to one assumption after another.

Was he your father’s wolf? Sent in search for the long lost daughter? The lucky one to come to the Lakes with the good news? In that case you had almost nothing to worry about, except for your past finally finding you, of course. If you knew your father, and you flattered yourself with the idea you did know him, he wouldn’t act spontaneously. He’d wait, look around, figure out chances and dispositions, and only after that he’d act. Which gave you time. And that also was the less horrible option, as your father was undoubtedly a sick bastard, but he didn’t want to see you dead that much.

If the wolf was from your brother, you were much likely to be screwed. Your brother was even sicker than your dad. The only question was if he wanted to kill you with his own hands, or would be satisfied with just your breathless body, brought to the Lakes. You had no idea what had been happening in the pack after your runaway, you could hardly predict your brother’s behaviour and that did leave you unsettled. But if you knew at least one thing, your brother wasn’t the type to send an omega after you.

The morning didn’t bring you any answers, as you were positive you were being followed to your work. The car was different, but not the wolf inside. And you could swear this wolf’s eyes didn’t leave you for a moment until you disappeared behind the office doors.

You kept thinking about that while working. As worrying as it was, some wolf following you kept your mind occupied and distracted you from thinking about alpha. The thoughts of him made your heart shrink with guilt and regret, so you were almost glad you got a break from it.

And then it stuck you. Your father and brother weren’t the only alphas who could have you followed. Could it be Calum? You started thinking. You were absolutely sure you hadn’t seen that guy from the yoghurt aisle before this week. You hadn’t seen that much wolves in general before Calum, they were careful with who they let see them. Could Calum have one of his wolves following you? But why? To keep an eye on you? To control you?

You felt blood boil in your veins. That was the reason why you hated being an omega. Every damn alpha being sure he could take control of your life without asking. You tried not to focus on the fact that the damn alpha in question was your actual mate, still trying to deny that fact. Even that didn’t give him the right to play you so dirty.

“Heey, sorry to bother, but I need to get your answer today,” you heard behind your back.

You looked back to see one of your colleagues, Jess. She was looking at you with a question in her eyes. You tried to remember what was that question she wanted an answer to, but your mind was too overwhelmed with all the wolf drama to concentrate on anything else.

“About?” you asked, trying to keep your tone calm.

“The trip we plan for the weekend. You remember, I told you on Monday. A little outing.”

“Yes, sure! Sorry, those reports are basically killing my brain,” you apologized.

Jess smiled in a friendly manner and rolled her eyes, “Yeah, tell me about it!”

“Remind me, please, where exactly it’s going to be?” you asked, having a bad feeling.

“In a campsite not far from the city, about forty miles or so. There’s a national park there, some really beautiful places,” Jess explained.

Your throat tightened immediately. You’d known your answer before it formed in your mind. You were prohibited to leave the town. “Oh, I’m sorry Jess. I thought it would be just for the couple of hours,” you decided to play dumb. “I can’t leave for the whole day, have plans in the evening.”

“Male plans?” Jess smiled to you.

You felt your muscles relax. You liked Jess, she was one of the first people to actually start talking to you when you just moved here and you felt like with time you could really become friends. That’s why you smiled and said, “Maybe.”

You didn’t completely lie, you told yourself. Even though you had no plans with Calum, he was the reason you had to say no to the trip. Jess left couple minutes later after wishing you luck with your plans. You sighed heavily. You needed something more serious than sheer luck to get out of the mess you called your life.

Somehow that short chat with Jess distracted you from your heavy thoughts and let you work in peace till the end of the day. But when you saw the same guy from the yoghurt aisle on the parking lot of your office building, all your worries overflown you instantly. You got in the car, understanding there was a simple way of narrowing the number of suspects in organizing this follow. So instead of driving home, you turned to the nearest bar.

You chose the first guy you saw. It wasn’t important how he looked like, the only thing that mattered was that he seemed to be interested and bought you a drink. Twenty minutes later he was ready to take you on that very bar counter if you pleased. You were mumbling some shit about leaving with him, as he leaned in to kiss you, his hand on your waist.

Before you felt his lips, a wolf’s hand lay on the guy’s shoulder, stopping him from what he was about to do and giving you all the answers you needed. You grabbed your purse and left the bar abruptly, letting the men sort out the situation themselves. The last things you heard before the door closed behind you were the guy’s exclamations and omega’s surprisingly low voice, explaining how you were “taken”.

You pulled out of the curb on a racer’s speed. You didn’t really remember where his place was. Leaving in a taxi the only time you were there, you were able to remember the part of the city, but didn’t even try to recall the actual address. But now you realised it wasn’t a problem at all. You didn’t even need to try to find his smell or use your instincts. You just knew where to go. You let out a low roar. If he wanted to be your mate, he had to deal with you finding him anywhere and at any time. Your blood was singing in your veins, your whole body shivered with anticipation as you were getting closer to him. You tried to suppress the longing you felt for him, fueling yourself with anger. Your breath was heated, you hardly could control yourself. But it was his fault. All of it was his fault.

His parking lot was empty, but you had no doubts he was in the house. You got out of your car not bothering with even closing the door, throwing a look to the garage door, probably hiding his black suv inside. The pictures of fun times in his car flashed in your mind, but you forced them away. You were here not for that. You were here to show that damn alpha who he was messing with.

You pulled the front door and stormed inside, the sounds of another car parking following you suit. You looked around, dim light of the hall and Calum’s scent messing with your senses. The sound of voices was on your right, so you followed it not losing any time.

You entered the living room as a little tornado, messy hair around your face with bright already blue eyes. What you didn’t expect, too occupied with your anger and, frankly, lust on the way here, was Calum being not alone. You stopped as four pairs of yellowish eyes turned to you. All the men in the room were wolves. One more alpha, who, you remembered, you saw at the party, where you first met Calum, and two more pure bloods. You had no idea, whose pure bloods they were, but, turning your eyes to Calum, who was already standing and looking at you warily, you understood one thing very clearly. No matter how much you wanted to come up to him and start scratching his awfully beautiful face in a rage of your fury (and maybe fall on your knees and blow him after that, but you did your best not to focus on that idea), you couldn’t do that in front of other wolves. He was not just alpha, he was your alpha, you though, squeezing your fists so hard, your nails were hurting your palms. You could have been furious with him, but you couldn’t do anything to hurt his reputation.

You hesitated for what seemed to be only a couple of seconds, but this time was enough for the yoghurt-less omega to approach you and grab on your forearm. You breathed out and turned your face to him slowly, looking at the bold wolf in disbelief. The fucker thought he had a right to touch you? More of it, to touch you in front of your alpha? You already opened your mouth to inform that idiot of all the things you were about to do to him, when you heard Calum’s low voice.

“Andy, let her go, please. It’s okay.”

The wolf let go of your arm and took a step back. Calum motioned you to the corridor behind him and put his beer bottle on a coffee table. “Excuse us,” he dropped to his friends, while you were already rushing down the corridor. You had no idea, what rooms were behind the doors in that part of the house and you didn’t really care. You just needed the farthest one. You opened the door you were aiming for and found a study behind it. Walls covered in warm colored wood, huge desk, windows looking at a rather wild garden.

You turned back to Calum and raised your hand to slap him the moment he closed the door. He moved fast, too fast even for you. You didn’t catch the moment he snapped your wrist, the next thing you knew, he was holding you tight, both your hands in his, like in handcuffs. You were pressed to his chest with your back, his scent overwhelming you.

“Easy, slugger,” he whispered and left a feather like kiss behind your ear.

You started bucking, trying to free from his grip. “Let go of me,” you hissed, twisting your hands.

“Are you gonna try to hit me again?” he asked, not raising his tone. You heard a smile in his voice, felt his lips linger down your neck. You had to gather all your strength not to dwell into his touch. He was doing it on purpose, you reminded yourself, he was trying to get an advantage of you.

“Fucking, let go,” you roared, kicking off even harder.

Calum unclenched his grit and you almost fell into the middle of the room. You felt like you only stayed on your two feet out of dignity. You turned back and just looked at him with all the anger and offence you had in you. He was standing right in front of the door, hands in the pockets of his pants. He met your sight and didn’t flick for a moment, no shade of guilt or understanding in his brown orbs.

“How could you?”

He kept silent. Just a quirk of an eyebrow being an answer.

“Prohibiting me to leave the town wasn’t enough for you? I can’t even go for a day trip with my colleagues, Calum! But your controlling ass decided to make your wolf follow me everywhere?”

“That was for your own good,” Calum finally said in the same low voice, yet you saw in his eyes he was getting angry.

“For my own good? Are you-” you huffed, not finishing the sentence. There was no point in asking if he was out of his mind. You knew the answer, had all the evidence on your hands. “That’s exactly why I never bother with alphas!” words fell off your lips like poison. “Too high up your own asses to even think you can be wrong!”

“I protect what’s mine,” said Calum and those words sounded more like a roar.

“I am not your, Calum!” you shouted, not able to keep it down anymore.

“Yes, you damn are! You think I don’t know what you were doing there?” he wasn’t shouting, but his words somehow hit harder than yours. You felt his anger in shivers on your skin, in the metal taste on your tongue. “Andy had a very simple instruction, he should have only get involved if you were about to fuck another human. Don’t you think it’s rather selfish of you to come after me when that’s what you were gonna do?”

“For your information, I wasn’t gonna fuck anyone! I was only checking who that wolf was working for!”

Calum chuckled to that. “I’m sorry, love, is there any other alpha desperate to keep an eye on you?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Calum, how about my freaking father?” you said, suddenly calm, as if all of your emotions were frozen instantly. “Or my crazy brother? How should I’ve known it wasn’t one of them finally finding me?”

You saw his expression change, from accusations to understanding and then to regret mixed with sorrow. He didn’t even think about it, you understood. He had no idea what awful whirl of emotions he put you through in the last 24 hours.

Calum took a step towards you, you stepped back.

“I-” he started, but his voice broke. “I’m sorry, love. I didn’t think.”

He took another step and lifted up a hand to touch, but you stepped back again.

“Of course, you didn’t,” you dropped, venom still on your lips. You knew you weren’t that fair to him, but you just couldn’t stop at this point, your resentment pouring out of you. “Because you’re an alpha and alpha’s never wrong, right?”

He shrugged a little, like warding off your accusations with his shoulder, and stepped forward one more time. You mirrored his action yet again and crossed your arms on your chest.

“Just call your wolf off, that’s all I ask,” you mumbled. You felt uncomfortable with him towering over you. You knew you couldn’t trust yourself when he was so close and you were scared of what could happen next.

“I can’t do that, love,” Calum shook his head, getting one step closer to you.

“I told you, I’m not gonna fuck anyone,” you sighed and took the last step back, as you bumped into his desk with your back, “if that’s your issue.”

“I need to protect you.”

“I’m a fucking wolf, Calum!” you rolled your eyes. “Living among humans. If anyone needs protection, it’s them, not me.”

“What if your family do find you?” he said quietly, closing the distance that was left between you.

“If that happens, your lanky little spy won’t stop them,” you sighed, feeling you had nowhere to run now.

“He’s tougher than he looks,” Calum chuckled and put hands on your waist. “I heard some omegas have that peculiarity,” he finished with the smile and bent down to you.

You held your breath before the kiss, yet his lips felt like breathing for the first time since Sunday morning. Calum pulled you closer, you had to stand on your tip toes even though you were wearing high heels. The kiss got deeper, his tongue claiming you once again. You tried to fight him, you honestly pushed him away for two seconds straight. You wanted to stop him, say that wasn’t what you came for, but instead you let yourself sink in the kiss. You kissed him back, your arms flew to his shoulders. It was crazy how intense your body’s reaction to him was. Your hands were shaking with lust, bright flashes twinkling under your eyelids, dark pit burning with desire in your abdomen. You were scared your heart would break through your ribcage, it was beating so hard, like it was trying to get close to Calum’s heart.

He picked you up and sat on the desk, the difference in heights not so prominent now. You felt his hands on the small of your back, wondering when he pulled your shirt from under your jeans. With your leg around his hip you involuntary brought him even closer. His fingers were burning your skin up, you only detached your lips to take a short breath.

“Please, stop,” you mumbled in one of the pauses like this.

“No,” he whispered back, his lips sliding down on your jawline, “haven’t touched you in too long.”

“It’s been just five days,” you managed to state between your moans, your hands already tugging on his shirt.

“Felt more like five years,” Calum groaned and moved back to you lips.

He was kissing you hungrily, his hands deep in your hair, his eyes shut so hard there were crinkles around them. He was so soft and felt so much like home at that moment, that you couldn’t keep it inside anymore, all the stress of the last day leaning over you. Your eyes watered up and you failed to suppress the sniff. Calum stopped abruptly, feeling something was wrong.

“Just stop, Calum,” you asked quietly. But there was no need, he wasn’t holding you anymore.

You jumped of the desk and fixed your shirt with your shaking hands. Calum tried again to reach you, reassuring ‘Hey’ falling off his lips. But you gained enough self-control to let this happen. You practically pushed him away, being met with sadness in his eyes. You knew he didn’t mean wrong. But you couldn’t let him have it. Not after what he did, not on his desk and not in the house full of wolves with perfect hearing.

“Call off your wolf,” you didn’t ask this time.

Calum didn’t answer anything, not like you expected him to. You gave him another heavy look and left the room.

The sound of your heels went around with an echo as you strode down the corridor. The wolves were still in the living room, looking at you with the mix of interest and judgement. You thought you saw another alpha having a ghost of a smile on his face, but you were too much in distress to look at him twice. As you headed to the front door, the lanky omega rose from his seat and made a few steps towards you. You stopped and looked back at him.

“Are you fucking serious?” you growled under your breath.

The guy lifted up his hands in a joking giving up gesture and stepped back to his armchair.

You huffed and left without another word.

Calum came out to the living room after your car left. His movements were slow and careful.

Omega turned to him immediately. “I’m sorry, alpha, I-”

Calum stopped him with a gesture. “That’s okay, Andy. You wanna beer?”

Omega nodded and looked at the others wolves warily. Calum handed him a bottle and gestured to sit down with them. They sat there in silence for some time, everyone too scared to bother Calum, and Calum too deep into his own thoughts.

Ashton was the first to speak up. “You remember I said it’ll take some time?” he asked.

Cal nodded.

“Well,” Ashton went on, giggling uncontrollably, “maybe it’ll take a little longer.”

***

Summer breeze was playing in your unruly hair, making them tickle on your cheeks. You spent the whole day on your little balcony, enjoying your book and the rare opportunity not to worry about anything. The serenity of the day relaxed all your tensed muscles and calmed down your mind. Worries of the past week died out inside as abruptly as they emerged, leaving nothing inside you besides the peaceful emptiness. You loved this state of yours, when all the emotions burnt down to the ashes and it felt like nothing in the whole world could ever worry you again. Of course, such calmness was the most temporary thing ever, but you were thankful even for a short break. You knew it wouldn’t last long.

Another wind blow brought you a familiar scent, marking the end of your emotionless pause. You sighed, mentally preparing to a new battle. You heard the car door close down on the street. You didn’t need to look to know it was him, but you did anyway. Calum looked up and saw you standing and watching him. He didn’t smile, as calm and serious as you were. Just looked at you before entering the building, a garment bag in his hand. You inhaled his scent deeper and went to open the door for him. You knew his visit wouldn’t probably end well, but you also knew there was no way out of it except through.

Calum entered your apartment a minute later. He was in a suit, navy blue button down a little stretched on his toned chest. He looked too good for your sanity. Sweat covered your palms, and you had to make an effort to steady your breath. You knew he felt how much of an effect he had on you, but he didn’t show it in any way.

Instead he handed you the garment, “This is for you.”

“What is it?” you asked, standing still.

Calum exhaled and put the bag on a hanger next to your door. “It’s a dress.”

“Why would I need a dress?” you asked in the same calm tone. You weren’t trying to provoke him or be a bitch about it. You just wanted to understand and get through it as fast as possible.

“Because I want you to wear it and go with me to some event,” Calum explained. He put his hands in his pants’ pockets and was watching you intently, like he was trying to see something under your skin. “My pure blood is about to marry Ashton’s pureblood and today is the ceremony of giving her away to the other pack. I want you to go with me.”

“I’m not going there, Calum,” you shook your head.

He took one hand out of the pocket and stroke his chin. You’d seen this gesture already, a little signal of him being nervous or thinking of what to do.

“And before you go with all the angry alpha roars and decide to order me to go,” you continued, not giving him a chance to try to force you into it, “I’m not going, because I have nothing to do there. These are not my packs, Calum, I don’t know these people and, even though I do wish them all the happiness, I don’t wanna be at their party.”

“One of these packs is yours,” he said through gritted teeth.

You felt his anger in your spine, but ordered yourself not to react on it.

“No, it’s not.”

“You’re my omega and you’re…”

“But I am not your omega, Calum!” you exclaimed back, stressing every word.

You thought that’d be it, the moment when you start shouting at each other, not capable of a civilized conversation anymore. The last time you shouted at each other popped up in your memory. Including the heated make-out session on Calum’s desk. Would this one end the same?

Instead of shouting, Calum slowly came up to you and asked, his voice calm, low and soft, “If you aren’t my omega, then why are you dripping for me already?”

You stared at him, taken aback and having nothing to answer. You were dripping for him, your underwear soaking wet since the moment you saw Calum in that suit. But damn you if you admit that out loud.

For better or for worse, Calum didn’t need your confirmation. His hand raised up to your face, caressed your cheek, then gripped the back of your neck and pulled you in. His lips were harsh and demanding, as his hands, clenching on your shoulders and leaving bruises on the pale skin. You tried to push him back, your hands pressed to his toned abdomen, teeth biting on his lower lip. His low roar, a reaction to your bite, set your blood on fire. His hands moved from your shoulders, one pressing hard on your back and the other sliding down to your butt and squeezing hard. You yelped in Calum’s mouth, when you felt his fingers slip between your butt cheeks and push into your wet core through your pj shorts and underwear. You tried to slither from that touch, raised to your tip toes and somehow ended up practically hanging on him, only easing everything for his fingers. You felt Calum smirk, not stopping kissing you feverishly, and groaned in displease. No matter what you were doing, it all was somehow helping him.

You lifted your hands higher and sank your nails into the skin of his neck. Calum lost his breath as your fingers slipped down to his collar, leaving red scratches. You smiled, feeling a little better at your small revenge, picked up the hem of his suit jacket and pulled it off his shoulders. You didn’t want to sleep with Calum, you knew it’d only mess everything even more. But fuck it if you could stop now, when he was sucking on your neck so damn good.

Calum let go of your body to help you with his jacket, but a moment later his hands went back. One was clasping on your hip and another slipped under the waistband of your shorts and panties, getting where it was before, but with no cover stopping him now. Calum had to lean forward a little for his hand to get to your clit, making you forget how to breath in the process. But that gave you some space to pay him back, as you didn’t waste much time and unbuckled his belt, unzipped his pants and let your hand sank down into his underwear, gripping on his already half hard cock.

“Still thinking you’re not mine?” Calum chuckled, getting back to kissing your lips. Instead of answering, you just squeezed his dick, not afraid of using your nails, feeling it getting harder in your hand. You brought your thighs together, turned on more at how you were turning him on more, and added to the pressure his fingers were producing on your clit. Calum chuckled again and detached his lips from yours, one of his hands pressing on your shoulder. You looked up at him and felt your body trying to sink down under his silent command. You tried to refuse, shaking your head, and scratched with your nail alone his slit. He nodded with the same smirk on his face and pushed you down more. Your knees betrayed you and you finally sank down. You hated the power he had over you and loved it to death.

Your hands pulled his pants down, your tongue licked on him through the soft material of the underwear, to your surprise, white this time. And you thought he only wore black. His dickhead was peeking out of the waistband, red and leaking precum. You felt your mouth filling with spit at the mere view. Calum pulled your hair up in one hand as in an improvised ponytail and pushed your head towards his dick. You put your hands on his thighs and pulled away, not giving in so easily. You looked up at him, devilish smile on your lips.

“Aren’t you one damn stubborn she-wolf?” Calum mused back, tugged down on his underwear with his free hand and lined up his dick for you. You shook your head again, same smile on your lips. He wasn’t smiling anymore, his eyes full of anger and lust. He pushed your head closer, making you almost crash into his crotch. You took his dick and let it slide on your cheek, the touch is light and almost innocent. You lightly pecked his head on the way back and looked back up at him.

Calum bent down to you and roared through his greeted in anger teeth, “You think it’ll help you, being such a fucking tease?” he shook his head in displease and then added in a low alpha voice, “Open your mouth!”

You couldn’t fight his order and so you obeyed, watching him dip his cock in your mouth. You gulped at how deep he went. You only had so much time to get a little air before he sank in again. You held on his thighs and tried to get used to the fast rhythm. Calum was practically fucking your face, like punishing for denying him all this time. You heard low moans falling off his lips, sinful sounds making the fire inside you burn brighter. You were so whipped for him, even now, being pushed on your knees, being forced in sucking him off, being fucking hard in your mouth, you were enjoying that. Just because it was your alpha, you could be that obedient just for him.

You felt him letting go of your hair carefully. You pushed back to take a breath, but curled your lips around his dick the moment later and kept bopping your head in the same rhythm. He stroked your cheek, whispering, “That’s my omega. Look how good you’re for me.” You couldn’t help your smile, looking up at him. Calum smiled back and started unbuttoning his shirt. The sight of his bare chest peeking out from under the shirt made you moan from desire, the vibration of you throat drawing a hiss from Calum. You pushed one hand down your shorts and pressed two fingers to your clit. The sensation was so hard, you moaned again around his dick and scratched it with you teeth slightly.

Calum groaned loudly from your teeth and looked down, trying to see what got you so worked up. He shrugged off his shirt, smiling at the sight of your hand going fast in your shorts, and bent down to you, pulling on your hair again, making you let go of his dick and look up at him. With your mouth open and gaping for air and lips glistering with your spit you looked so unholy, he had to make an effort to keep his moan back. Instead he held on your face, fingers pressing on your cheeks.

“Shall I cum on your face and leave you without your release for those sharp teeth of yours?” he asked, his sight slipping to your hand pleasuring yourself.

“No, alpha,” you sobbed quietly, his face blurry in front of you, all your focus on your clit.

He smirked and, giving a light slap to your cheek, ordered, “Hands up.”

You whined at a loss of the contact, but obeyed. Calum pulled your top up, hissing at the sight of your bare tits and pushed you on your back. You fell down on your elbows, watching him freeing you from your shorts and underwear in one move. You widened your legs, making sure your dripping pussy was right in front of him. You almost laughed at how he was looking at you.

“Can’t live without that cunt now, can you?” you asked, your voice full of mocking.

He looked at your face, growling lowly. Then grippen on your legs and pulled closer to him, hard wooden floor painful to your back. He spread you even more, lifting your legs on his forearms and, leaning down, sank into you to the bottom.

“And can you live without that dick?” he asked, enjoying your face, eyes rolled up and mouth opened, you lost for breath.

He pushed again, not giving you any time to adjust, you let out a long moan. Then he pushed again, just as deep. You felt his balls slapping on you, floorboards hitting hard on your body only adding to the pleasure. Calum huffed, going on faster and fasted on your, until your moans went into continuous wheezes, the only sounds you were capable of now.

A strand of hair fell on Calum’s forehead. He tried to shake it off, but it stuck in a sweat. You raised your hand up, pushing the strain from his face, making him look at you. You left your hand on his cheek, eyes not leaving him for the moment. You couldn’t say who started kissing who first, you hugged on his neck and pressed him even more into yourself.

“God, you drive me fucking mad,” he whispered between heated kisses, not slowing down his pushes into your. “How d’you do this to me?”

His lips sank on your neck, you felt his teeth leaving little marks on your skin. Your heart was beating so fast, legs started shaking. You felt your orgasm coming and closed your eyes concentrating on the feeling of him moving inside of you. You had no time to warn him, your release crushing you hard. “Fuck, keep squeezing,” you heard like from under the water, lost in your own pleasure. You felt Calum going a little faster, pounding into you with all the frustration he had, until he gained his release, coating your insides and roaring into your shoulder.

You had no idea how much time it took for the both of you to gain consciousness again, a minute or an eternity. Calum tried to lift himself off you as he came, but you gripped on his neck, forcing him to press you to the floor with his weight. Eventually he rolled off you, pressing a light kiss to your shoulder before that. He sat up and pulled on his underwear and pants, tangled around his ankles all this time.

“Mind if I smoke?” he asked as he finished with fixing his pants.

You shook your head. Calum fetched himself a cigarette and lay back down, taking a drag.

You wolf senses were in an overdrive. You heard water leaking out of a tap in an apartment above yours, kids shouting on a playground on the other side of the building. Could smell the gas on the street and Calum’s shaving lotion.

“How can you live here?” Calum asked, apparently being bothered with too many noises and smells too.

You shrugged, “Just switch my senses off.”

Calum smirked, “Still moments when you can’t do it that easily.” He handed you his cigarette. “Wanna drag?”

“Not smoking,” you answered, sitting up.

Calum felt the change in your mood, his hand stroking your bare back. “We can’t go on like that,” he said, his voice low.

“Can’t offer you anything else,” you shrugged. “Fuck me as much as you want, Calum, it doesn’t change anything.”

Calum sighed, finishing his cigarette, and stood up. He picked up his shirt and put it on, looked around for the suit jacket, took it from the floor and stepped to the door.

“Forgot the dress,” you told him, still sitting on the floor completely naked.

Calum looked back at you, his eyes drained of emotions. “It’s a present,” he dropped and left.

***

Lights hanging from the cedars branches were making this place look like a scene from a fairytale. Calum took another look at the future bride and thought, how fairytale was exactly what Gabbie deserved. She was so beautiful in her pale blue dress and looked so happy, Calum couldn’t help but feel his heart clench with pain. He was beyond happy for her. And still he was losing a loyal wolf tonight.

The ceremony of betrothal was beautiful and light. Calum persuaded Ashton to take the honor of conducting it and couldn’t be more right about it. Ashton’s joyful temper and his love for silly jokes made this evening as troubleless as it was supposed to be. And Calum was more than happy with his role of giving Gabbie away at the soon wedding, instead of her long late father.

Now people were just having fun, two packs living in such close connection that most of the times it felt like one big pack, where everyone knew and loved each other. Kids and young wolves were dancing and messing around, making older laugh and mock them. Some couples were sneaking deeper in the woods, risking of troubling the patrol. Guards, who were free from service today, were gathered in a small group away from the centre of a party with water and non-alcoholic beers in hands. Calum looked down at the same bottle in his hand.

“Not fair, huh?” asked Ashton coming up to Calum, nursing a glass of water. “It’s our own party and we can’t even relax.”

Calum shrugged. He came to terms with his duties long ago and didn’t see much trouble in it. “Life of an alpha,” he said, taking a sip from his bottle. “And it’s not our party, it’s Gabbie and Peter’s.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ashton frowned, “still.”

They stood like that for some time, observing their wolves having great time and feeling same satisfaction with their lives. That was what they were living for after all, to take care of their packs.

“You have a scratch on your neck, by the way,” Ashton noted after some time. “Got in a fight with a nasty branch?”

Calum let out a humourless laugh. “I know you can smell her on me. Why asking?”

Ashton shrugged, “Just giving you some privacy, mate.”

“Wanted to bring her here,” Calum explained. “But she refused. Again.”

Ashton only laughed to that.

“Seriously, Ash, what’s so entertaining in this for you?”

Ashton snorted, not able to hold back anymore. “I’m sorry, it’s just-” he broke, taking a deep breath and calming himself down. “Don’t you see the irony?”

“What irony?” Cal scowled even more.

“Remember how you never bothered with omegas?” Ashton went on, explaining. “Said, you hated how obedient to you they were and how never cared about anything but flattering you? Well, I think you found the only omega in the whole world who doesn’t want to obey to you, and she’s your mate. I’m sorry, Cal, but that’s hilarious!”

Ashton giggled as he finished and Calum couldn’t help laughing with him. As difficult as his situation was, Ashton was somehow right.

But their laughter died out the very next moment. Calum turned back to the woods behind him, he heard some movement and didn’t like it at all. Ashton’s low roar next to him only proved him right. Two alphas stood still, watching and listening to the darkness.

Calum understood everything first, the moment before a pair of yellow eyes became visible between trees.

“We’re under attack!” his voice went above the party like a thunderstorm, bringing everything in movement. Packs, chaotic at the first sight, started acting like a clockwork mechanism.

Guard, lead by purebloods of both packs, stood right behind Calum, bottles dropped to the ground, followed by jackets and ties. Ashton stepped back, organizing male betas in a circle around the kids and women, his task to protect the weakest in the pack. Calum heard his friend order Gabbie and Pete to stay with him, and to his own satisfaction heard no objections from Gabbie. He looked around, taking in the number of wolves under his direct command and started taking his clothes off, preparing to shift. He roared, seeing more and more wolves coming from the woods. He shook his head and shifted, his guards howling to him. Those fuckers chose the wrong night to attack his pack, he thought. He bent down on his front paws and prepared for a jump.

***

You were rereading the same page for the third time already, but the meaning kept slipping away from you. You huffed and started from the beginning, trying to concentrate on the plot. Couple minutes later the book flew to the wall, followed by your irritated groan.

It’s been hours since Calum left. You took a shower after it and cleaned the floor where you were lying and settled on your couch with a book in a feeble attempt to get him out of your mind. But, of course, Calum was the only one you could think about.

You kept replaying his earlier visit in your head. Not the sex scene, unexpectedly rough and filthy, for which you couldn’t blame him. You knew you made him go so hard on you, your stubbornness used to drive wolves with even stronger self-control mad. And you were not opposed to rough sex too, so that part didn’t bother you at all. What bothered you was his request and the way he left you after. You couldn’t help but ask yourself, if that was possible for Calum to actually be that alpha.

He demanded you to go with him, yes. But he never ordered. He knew you couldn’t disobey, yet he still didn’t use his power. He got angry with you, but never forced you. Like he wanted it to be your choice. He needed it to be your choice and not his command. Even in sex, when he was forcing you to get on your knees and ordering to open your mouth, you were pretty sure, you say no out loud at least once and he’d stopped. You knew he respected you enough for that.

So you kept asking yourself. Him being the alpha who wants you to follow him by choice and not only the instinct, could he be the alpha you’d finally choose to follow? Maybe you’d be able to obey him? Knowing he respected you and took you as a partner and not a slave. Could it be that your alpha mate was also the alpha you’d agree to bent to? You shook your head, which was blowing up with questions without answers. You knew him well already, but you still didn’t know enough.

All of the sudden everything around went black. You felt excruciating pain in your ribs, like something was breaking them from the inside. You heard a deafening shriek, full of fear and despair, and only a moment later you understood it was you, who cried. You closed your eyes and felt wet ground under your paws, the smell of pines and the taste of your blood in your mouth. Only you knew your own blood really tasted different. Your broken ribs were scratching on your left lung with every breath you took. You had a deep bite on your back paw and you were losing consciousness fast.

You came up to the surface of your illusion. Your body covered in thick sweat, pain still burning on your rib cage. You knew it was Calum. He was somewhere in the forest, hurt and in danger. You tried to think of something logical to do, but all the logic went out of the window under the pressure of your instincts. You almost fell on the floor, your legs were shaking so hard, you held on your left side with one hand. You were positive your ribs were totally fine, still it was impossible to move normally. You slid your feet in the flip-flops you saw near and picked up you keys on the way out. You didn’t care you were wearing the old pj’s or had a messy bun on your head. You gave no fuck about anything right now, except of your alpha needing you.

You emerged from the building entrance, rushing to your car as fast as you could with the feeling of broken ribs. You pressed a button on your key, your car signaled shortly, when the other thing you couldn’t expect happened. You heard your name being called behind you.

You turned back abruptly and stared at the wolf in front of you.

He was taller than you remembered, shoulders more broad and hair shorter. But you couldn’t help recognizing him. You knew him all your life after all.

“Matt?” you called, your voice feeble and shaky.

He nodded, taking in your appearance. Your mind was rushing around, jumping from one thought to another. How could he find you here, you spent so much time, hiding your tracks. Calum was in danger, you had to go. Did your father send Matt or your brother? You couldn’t waste any more time. Why was Matt looking at you so intensely? You really had to go.

“How did you find me?” you finally asked.

Matt shrugged, “It wasn’t easy.” He thought a little and added, “You weren’t the best of us for nothing after all.”

You shivered visibly. You felt danger, but couldn’t understand, was it your fear for Calum or was the danger you felt coming from Matt. You stepped back to your car.

“I’m sorry, Matt, I have to go,” you told him.

“You haven’t seen me in ten years and that’s all I got,” he smirked, looking around. “Don’t even wanna know why I took all that trouble looking for you?”

You sighed.”I really have no time right now, Matt. It’s a matter of life and death. We’ll talk later.”

He chuckled to that. “Was afraid, omega instincts would change you, but no, you’re still the same bossy little wolf you were.”

You frowned to that, opening the driver’s door.

“You do wanna talk with me, trust me!” he tried one more time.

“I told you, Matt, we’ll talk. Just not now.”

You couldn’t bear it anymore, pain driving you insane. You started the car, throwing the last look at the man from your past.

“You smell of another wolf,” you heard in the open window. You didn’t look back. It didn’t matter, he didn’t matter.

You took a deep breath and let your senses lead you, not giving another thought to where you were going. You left the living area and turned to the narrow road between the trees. Fifteen minutes later you saw lights in front of you. It looked like there was a party here, but people, mostly kids and women, weren’t having fun. Tables and decorations were thrown around like by a small tornado, people’s clothes dirty and ripped. There was no music, voices not louder than whisper.

You parked and got out of your car, heading to the centre of the scene. You inhaled deeply, feeling his scent everywhere. He was here not so long ago. Was he in the woods now? You looked around in search for anyone to ask. If these were Calum’s wolves, they could have known something.

You saw him gathering the younger kids together, the guy from the yoghurt aisle. It seemed like he wasn’t looking at you on purpose, doing everything for you not to see him. Too bad you already did.

“Hey, you, the yoghurt guy!” you called him, coming closer.

The omega handed kids to the young female pure blood, who eyed you with suspicion, and turned to you.

“First, my name is Andy,” he said. “Second, the hell you need here?”

You would lie if you said you weren’t taken aback by his attitude. You frowned, getting you were quite too bossy for calling on a wolf who wasn’t even from your pack.

“Where’s Calum?” you asked in a slightly softer tone, your hand still clenching on your side. The pain wasn’t burning so bright anymore, which thankfully let you think. But it was still there, not letting you care about anything else until you find Calum.

Andy shook his head, bitter smirk on his face. “Obviously, not here.”

You huffed and tried to go from the other side, “What happened here?”

The omega just shook his head again, not bothering even with saying anything. He turned to go away from you. You grabbed on his arm and made him look back. “You alpha is out there somewhere in pain and probably unconscious. You better answer me right now,” you hissed under your voice. You tried to be polite, you gave him the chance. Not your fault he chose the hard way.

“How do you know he’s in pain?” Andy looked at you with the same mix of suspicion and displease in his eyes, but a small trace of worry in his voice let you know, you got him.

You sighed, thinking of what you could possibly say to this to make that wolf believe you. “Cause I’m his mate,” you finally answered, settling for truth.

You saw the shadow of understanding in his eyes, him finally getting why Calum would ask him to follow you. He huffed, looking away, and already opened his mouth to answer you, when some rustle from the woods distracted you. You saw the grown wolves rounding kids and teens, you were slightly surprised by how well their protection skills were trained. You instinctively stepped in front of them, finding Andy and the pure blood girl you’ve seen before next to you.

When the wolves came out from under the cedars, you felt everyone relax a little. An alpha, whose smell you recognized and five more pure bloods were leading a big group of she-wolves and young pups. You saw some wolves in human shape running to their friends and probably relatives and hugging on the furry necks. The female pure blood, who was just standing next to you, ready to fight, kneeled down to the brown-furred wolf and stroke his back, human eyes looking straight into wolf’s. You turned away from this intimate scene, feeling uncomfortable, like you were peeping through a hole.

An alpha shifted aside of you, all women instantly looked back. All except of you. Andy was already handing him some pants. Alpha thanked him and turned to you.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. His tone wasn’t hostile, he was asking purely to get an answer, not to show you weren’t welcome here.

Still, you had no time for this. “Where’s Calum?” you asked him back.

Alpha frowned, looking around and then turning to Andy, “They didn’t come back?”

Andy shook his head, his eyebrows furrowed. Alpha looked around again, silently counting on pure bloods and guards around, some already shifting back into human forms, some staying wolves. “But they should have come already,” he mused out loud. “He, Luke and Mike left first to clear the way. They should have been in front of us.”

“Ashton, you were the only ones who came back,” Andy said.

Ashton, as Andy called him, turned back at you, being even more at a loss than you were.

“Why are you here?” he asked again and immediately added, seeing your irritated frown, “I mean, how are you here? Why are you looking for him?”

You sighed, clenching on your side, “I felt his pain.”

“You what?” Ashton asked, your words probably the last he was expecting.

“I felt his pain,” you repeated, getting tired of this talk, feeling burning in your ribs increase with every moment of your delay. “He’s got two or three broken ribs, scratched, maybe already torn lung and a serious bite on his back paw. And he’s unconscious, from what I can feel.”

Ashton was looking at you quizzically, like you were speaking some other language he didn’t understand. “Do you have your mating mark?” he finally asked.

“No,” you answered, wondering where that question came from.

“You don’t have your mating mark, yet you can feel his pain as your own,” he stated, looking at the side you were still caressing. “Damn, you’re more stubborn than I thought.”

You scoffed, “Can we actually concentrate on the fact, that Calum is still out there injured and in danger?”

“Right, sorry,” Ashton rubbed his forehead. “We were having a party, which you so eloquently chose to ignore, when they attacked us. Cal took the guards and fought back, as usual. The fight moved deeper in the forest, Cal always tries to push attackers away from the pack. We thought, it was okay and then men with guns came. They took women and kids and, of course, we shifted and followed them, most of the guard following us.We fought our people back pretty easily, Cal said he’d go forward and clear the way. It was probably just a trap. They only wanted him.”

“Who wanted him?”

“The Ripper,” you heard the answer from Andy this time, he was looking guilty for some reason.

“Is it some lame nickname or what?” you frowned, not getting the joke.

“He calls himself Ripper absolutely seriously. He’s an alpha of the biggest pack in the south. They with Cal have had bad blood for some time,” Ashton explained to you.

“Whatever,” you shrugged, that information was just as useless for you. You actually needed just one thing. “Where can I find them?”

“That’s the problem,” Ashton chuckled, “you can’t. They don’t have any kind of base.”

“Okay,” you nodded, “where did you see them last then?”

“In the northern part of the woods, closer to the town border.”

You nodded again, turned north and took off your top. All the wolves looked away like by the order.

“The fuck are you doing?” you heard Ashton hiss behind you.

“I’m going to get him,” you shrugged, like it was the most obvious thing ever. You stepped out of your flip-flops and took off your shorts and panties.

“You can’t go there! We don’t even know where exactly they are. We don’t know anything!”

You looked back at Ashton, who looked at your side, all blue and purple from the bruise you had there. “The only thing I can’t do is stay here, while he’s there. Anything else I can.”

“Cal’s gonna kill everybody for seeing you like this,” Ashton muttered, shaking his head, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

“Why are you still looking then, Ashton?” you asked with a smirk and shifted.

It took a couple moments for you to find your balance again. You heard Ashton curse behind you, taking his pants off. “Guard goes with me!” he called out. “Gabbie, Andy, you too. Jeff, divide everybody in groups and send home, all the kids and she-wolves stay with their group leaders until me or Calum come back. No one follows us no matter what! That’s an order!”

You sniffed the ground around, hearing wolves shift behind you, but there were too many tracks to chose one you needed. So you closed your eyes and let your pain show you the way. The pack lined up behind you, naturally choosing you as their lead, even Ashton slowing down his pace. And it just felt so right. Like you were sixteen again, hunting at night on the Lakes, your future pure bloods behind you, ready to fulfill your any order. But it wasn’t a child game anymore, the pain reminded you.

How do you know where you’re going? you heard inside your head.

You turned right and looked at Ashton, his dark brown fur looked almost red in the moonlight.

I’m his mate, that’s how.

But you haven’t submitted to him, that just doesn't work like that, he mumbled in your head.

You didn’t answer anything to that. You had no idea how it was supposed to work, but also had nothing against the way it was working now. If not for that bound, you wouldn’t know something was wrong with Calum.

You were running through the woods for some time, when you suddenly stopped in front of the tiny spring and started pacing along it in distress. The wolves ran forward and were coming back in circles around you.

What happened? Ashton asked treadding closer.

Can’t go further, you explained, feeling something stopping you and not letting cross the spring.

What? Why?

You huffed, looking around. It was a damn good question.

Let me guess, you said, we’re at the town border?

Ashton confirmed, wolves around him getting impatient.

Fucking shit, you hissed. Calum prohibited me to leave the town.

Okay, stay here, Ashton agreed far too easily. Less worries I’ll let my best friend’s mate die out of her stupidity.

Don’t even count on that, you stopped your pacing and brought up the memory of the pain you felt at first. The feeling of the ribs being broken, the fragile membranes of a lung being injured. All the despair and anger, you felt it all over again, letting the pain flood your mind, seeing red and not remembering anything besides pain, pain, pain...

You jumped over the spring and rushed forward in an attempt to run from all of that. Breaking your alpha’s order felt like breaking your spine, each backbone separately, but that didn’t change anything, your body already in too much pain to notice that. You heard the wolves following you suit, howls sounded behind you. You sank deeper into your wolf’s nature, feeling the pain step back and free some space for the animal instincts.

Soon the run was over, you came out to the abandoned industrial looking building on the outskirts of the woods. Ashton came up to you again.

Alright, let’s say, four wolves go first and take over the watch if there’s any. Then we send…

You didn’t let him finish, jumping out of your shelter and rushing to the closest window. You heard Ashton ordered his pure bloods to protect you at any cost and felt them reaching you as fast as they could. You jumped into the window, which didn’t have any glass in it for what seemed like a decade at least.

It was shabby and dark inside. Smells of rot and dirt made you huff. You treadded down the hall, peeking around the corner. Two wolves were there, guarding the door to the other part of the building. You couldn’t even call that a room, the borders of it more of a metaphorical type in the ruins of it all. You had no time to even think what wolf to start with, as two pure bloods passed you and jumped each their own wolf. You strode past them and entered a much wider space. Was here a factory or something? You could see a weak light on the other side of the hall and rushed towards in, more wolves at your side.

You didn’t see where these other wolves appeared from. One moment you were peacefully running to your goal, surrounded by your guard, and the next you found yourself in a middle of a wolves’ fight. You checked, that Ashton had more wolves than those who were attacking you, and speed up. They had they work, you had yours.

The room wasn’t empty, just as you hoped. You saw Calum lying away still in his wolf shape. His beautiful black fur was covered in dirt and blood, his eyes were closed. But he was breathing, and for now that was enough. You turned to the man standing above him. A wolf in his human shape, holding a gun in his hand. You growled, stepping inside the room. The man looked at you.

“And the fuck are you?” he asked, stepping away from Cal and turning his gun at your. “This pack had no blue-eyed sluts, I’d known already,” he informed you, like you cared at all.

You saw big scar running across his face, from his chin to the hairline. That was Ripper, you understood.

Please, just don’t do anything stupid, you heard Ashton asking behind you.

“And the loyal best friend, just as I expected,” Ripper smiled, looking at Ashton. “What a lucky day. Will finally kill you both and have two packs to myself.”

You looked around the room while that dickhead was talking. Calum was far enough for you not to hurt him in the process. The bulb hanging rather low was the only source of light for Ripper. You scoffed, looking back at him. What a wolf would chose a humans’ weapon over his claws and fangs? He truly deserved everything you were about to do to him.

Go right, you told Ashton.

He sniffed, not looking at you, displeased to get an order from an omega, but suppressed his nature and did as you said. Ripper, just as you thought, followed his movement, not thinking much of you. No one ever thought much of an omega.

As I jump, run behind his back and wait there, you instructed him.

I’m not gonna hide, he owes me too much.

Okay, stay where you are and catch a bullet, you mentally rolled your eyes. Always the same story with alphas. Was nice knowing you, Ashton.

And with that you jumped. Not at Ripper, you aimed at the bulb. It started swinning, shadows jumping on the wall, making it look like a dozen black devils were dancing around the room. As you expected, Ripper started shooting instantly. With satisfaction you noticed that Ashton whisked behind Ripper’s back. You were jumping in crankles, bending to the ground and trying not to catch a bullet yourself. You pushed off the wall in your last vault and aimed to Rippers hand with the gun. You knew you had close to no chances to avoid it, heard the gunshot when you were already in the air. Your teeth clenched around Ripper’s wrist at the same moment the bullet sank into your flesh. You heard the bones crunch and hoped those weren’t yours. Ripper shouted and tried to shake you off, the gun feel to the floor and shot one last time.

Any holes in you yet? you asked Ashton as you landed on your paws in front of the yelling bastard and prepared to the next jump.

Nope, you?

You didn’t answer, feeling the burning in your right paw. You jumped again, this time sinking your teeth in Ripper’s soft throat. Even his blood tasted disgusting, you thought, letting his body fall and thumping on his chest. He gurgled with his own blood for couple minutes more and finally died.

You’re bleeding, said Ashton, coming closer and sniffing your paw.

Just a scratch.

The sounds of the fight were getting lower, Ashton’s wolves kicked away all the wolves of Ripper, as you understood. You looked at Calum, still lying in the far corner of the room. You heart clenched with worry for him and you stomach churned at the thought of what you were about to do. Not like you had that much of a choice, there was only one way of preventing anything like that happen again. You jumped on the Ripper’s breathless body and started tearing on his clothes with your claws. As you were done with fabric, you plunged your claws into his still warm chest. You helped with your fangs, opening his chest up, making sure blood splashed all around you.

The fuck are you… you heard Ashton’s voice in your head, but blocked it. You knew how it looked like, but you had to do it.

As you broke through the ribcage, you snatched his heart and ripped it out of his chest, dropping it on the floor nearby. One lung was thrown to the opposite wall, the other to the entrance. You were going on consistently, stomach, liver, both kidneys, his guts, throwing his insides around like in a crazy ritual. You glanced around, as you finished, checking the result. Just the type of picture Ripper deserved, you concluded, shifting back in your human form.

Blood was covering the most of your front and the pain in your arm grew stronger, no animals instincts to suppress that now. You heard Ashton shifting behind you, as you came up to Calum.

“Why would you do that?” Ashton asked, glancing in disgust at the scene you left.

You carefully took Calum’s snout in your hands, feeling his warm steady breath on your palm. You saw something gleaming in the fur of his neck, stretched your left arm and pulled out a dart.

“Why would you do that?” Ashton demanded an answer, towering over you.

“To leave a message,” you explained calmly. “And for your information, your alpha voice doesn’t work on me. Look here,” you added, showing him a dart. “He was sedated.”

Ashton nodded, “That explains it all. Cal would never be taken down so easily.”

You dropped the dart and stroke Calum’s neck, his black fur stinky, but still beautiful.

“Can anybody of your men steal a car?” you asked Ashton, not looking up at him.

“I can,” you heard from the entrance.

You with Ashton both glanced there to find Andy gaping at the scene in the room.

“You said they came in a car,” you said, turning to Ashton again. “If we’re lucky, that car is not far from here. Please, be careful while carrying him there, his lung is fine for now and I’d much rather it stays like that.”

Ashton unexpectedly snorted. You looked at his face in confusion, trying to avoid looking at more intimate parts of his body.

“I thought Cal was exaggerating when he said you were a born alpha. But I see he meant every word he said,” he explained. You smiled shyly, hearing not judgement in Ashton’s voice, but more of a surprise and amusement.

He turned back to Andy. “Did you find Luke and Mike?”

“Yeah, they were also sedated,” Andy confirmed and then continued with a smirk. “Lara almost bit off the heads of the wolves who were keeping them.”

“Women ripping throats for their wolves,” Ashton chuckled, looking around. “Tell me about it.”

“Andy, please, bring couple more men to take Calum,” you broke into their little conversation.

You heard omega’s bare feet slopping on the concrete floor.

“Please, take care of him,” you asked Ashton quietly.

He looked at you, frown on his face. “What do you mean? You’re going with us.”

You shook your head. “I need to take care of the others,” you answered.

Three pure bloods entered the room. You stood up and took several steps from the Calum’s body to give them more space. They lifted your alpha and left without saying anything out loud, only Ashton’s head nodding told you they communicated differently.

Ashton looked back at you. “They’ve gone, my wolves took care of that.”

“They will come back as soon as you leave, to see what happened to their alpha,” you retorted. “They can feel his death, but they’ll come back to check.”

“Calum is against killing,” Ashton still tried to talk you round. “And I agree with him.”

You looked at the alpha, quirking an eyebrow. “I don’t need them dead, Ashton, that’d be a stupid waste of resource. I need them alive and scared shitless, so they can take a word about a crazy wolf protecting the town and ripping alphas’ throats as far as possible. So no one ever crosses your borders without thinking twice beforehand.”

Ashton smiled. “You are crazy,” he agreed, “but I like it. I’ll see you later.”

You watched him shift and run away from the room stinking of blood and dirty flesh. You shifted back into a wolf too and sat on the floor, preparing to wait.

***

Calum opened his eyes, squinted and closed them again. The light wasn’t bright, only a table lamp under a grey lamp shade on, but it was still difficult for him to look. His head was hurting from the sedatives, as he thought. The dull pain in his side signaling of his ribs healing up. He couldn’t remember when he’d shifted back in the human form, but decided it was for the better, imagining the pain shock from the broken ribs.

He listened to the sounds in the house, ground floor full of his pure bloods and some other wolves. He found Ashton and asked, concentrating his hardest on their mental bond, Have we lost anyone?

Calum sensed Ashton’s smile. You’re one lucky bastard, mate, his friend drawled with a giggle. Both packs are safe. Welcome back to the world of living!

Calum thanked his friend and gave couple of orders to his wolves and then turned to the little frame on his left.

You were the first thing he sensed as he woke. Not the pain, not the dizziness. You.

You were sitting on the floor, your head on your crossed arms next to his hand, fast asleep. Your right shoulder tight up in bandages made Calum frown, questioning, where could you get it. You were in Calum’s clothes, too big for you and only accenting how delicate you were. No makeup on your face, little frown between your eyebrows. Calum wondered, what was bothering you in your dream. You were the most precious creature Calum has ever seen in his life, mating bond or not. You were the best thing in his life. And that’s why he had to let you go, no matter how much he was aching from that decision.

You stirred soon, too soon for Calum’s liking, and raised your head, sleepy eyes shining with joy at the sight of Calum.

“How do you feel?” you asked, pushing some hair from his forehead.

“Like I was beaten up and sedated,” Calum answered with a smirk.

“Pretty accurate,” you smiled at him.

He looked at your shoulder, “Where’s that from?”

You shrugged, “Don’t worry, it’s just a scratch.”

You just sat there, looking at him, basking in the serenity of the moment. Although, you felt Calum had something on his mind.

“Have you been here long?” he asked finally.

“Almost since you were brought back,” you answered, omitting how much of an almost and looking at the dark skies outside his windows, “which has been a day already, I think.”

“Sorry for worrying you,” Calum mumbled, stroking his chin.

“No worries, I knew you’re tough enough,” you shrugged, sensing there was more to his apologies, than just worrying you with his injury.

“I can’t do this to you anymore, love,” he whispered, looking at your hands on his bed covers. “I can’t force you into being mine.”

“What?” you exhaled, looking at him in shock.

Calum met your eyes and said, “You can leave the town now. Can go away if you want. I won’t be bothering you and won’t try to stop you if you decide to move away.” He sighed and went on, while you were trying to comprehend his words, your brain went numb suddenly. “And I’m sorry for what happened in your apartment yesterday. You didn’t deserve such attitude, and I’m really sorry that I tried to force you into it with sex.”

You kept gaping at him in total disbelief, feeling a mindblowing mix of fury and adoration raising inside you.

“You’re such a fucking idiot, Calum!” you whispered, shaking your head. “You haven’t understood, have you? It’s never been up to you if I stay or go. I’m here, because I want to be.”

He looked at you just as surprised as you were, looking at him a minute ago.

“Don’t you wanna know how exactly your pack found you?” you asked, feeling the anger overcome all the tenderness you had for your alpha.

“They tracked me down,” he shrugged, giving you the most obvious answer.

You huffed, pushed off the bed and lifted his shirt you were wearing, not caring if you were showing off your breast. His eyes found what you revealed for him fast enough. You saw his plump lips round in a silent ‘oh’.

“Where’s that from?” he asked, as you lowered the shirt.

“That’s from your broken ribs,” you said what he was already proceeding.

“But this is…”

“Imposible? Yeah, guess our mating bond went a little deeper than anyone’s expected,” you huffed.

Calum looked up at you again, his eyes are even more full of sorrow than before. “You felt it?”

“All of it,” you confirmed, not trying to sugarcoat it for him. “I was the one to find you, Calum. I broke your fucking order not to leave the city to come for you and trust me when I say that shit hurt almost as much as your broken ribs. I caught a bullet for you. Hell, I killed for you, Calum. Not for you to tell me to leave now,” you finished.

“You killed someone?” he asked, completely taken aback by your tirade. “Who?”

“The Ripper guy, or what was his name,” you shrugged, showing it was the least important thing right now.

Calum shook his head, muttering, “Unbelievable.”

You shrugged again, “He was standing over you with a loaded gun, not like I had much of a choice there.”

“I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it,” Calum said, his voice slightly defensive, “I’m just surprised, is all.”

“Well, would gladly do it again, if I could,” you growled, pouting and crossing your arms on the chest and instantly wincing from the pain in your side and arm.

Calum huffed and with an effort sat up, leaning on the headboard.

“Hey, no no no, lie back down, your ribs are still…” you tried to stop him, your pout immediately forgotten.

“Comere,” he motioned on the bed, interrupting your mumbling.

“You need rest,” you protested, your voice weak. You wanted to come closer to him, to feel his hands on your. But the memory of his wounds and the pain he went through was still fresh.

“Bring your pretty ass up here!” he snapped at you.

You sighed and sat up on the bed as careful not to touch him as you could. Calum rolled his eyes at this, leaned forward, flinching at the pain in his body, grabbed your arm and pulled, making you straddle his lap. He hugged you with both hands, buried his face in your hair, which probably smelled of his shampoo, and finally relaxed.

“Thank you,” he whispered, “for coming for me and saving me. Though, I’d rather you didn’t need to kill anyone for me.”

“He had it coming, threatening my alpha,” you whispered back with a smile.

“You’re a maddening, maddening woman,” Calum sighed into the crook of your neck.

You sat like that for some time, holding each other and tasting the lack of heartache between the two of you. No hard thoughts, no regrets poisoning your bond anymore. You caressed his head, his hair soft under your touch, and looked at him. His lips were too close not to touch them, just once, only for a moment. The kiss grew deeper, soon you were diving in it, making your lungs ache for air. Calum’s arms squeezed your frame, making you writhe from the pain and still asking for more. Soon you felt him getting harder under you.

“Calum, stop,” you asked, it took all of your restrain to detach your lips from his.

He shook his head, reaching for you, “Need you.”

“You need to rest, so your broken ribs can actually grow back together,” you tried to argue.

“My ribs are fine, comere,” Calum pressed his crotch to your clothed centre, his lips assaulting your neck.

“You’re insatiable,” you giggled, his lips tickling on your skin. “Calum, stop, I’m not fucking you in a house full of your wolves.”

Calum looked up at you and smiled devilishly. “I sent them away while you were still sleeping.”

You listened to the house. And instantly understood he was right. The fridge was gurgling in the kitchen and Calum’s dog was shifting in his sleep on the couch. Apart from that the house was silent. It was empty. How come you didn’t hear it?

“You still need rest,” you tried again.

“I still need you,” Calum smirked and pushed you a little back in an attempt to get on you, but you pushed him back. You huffed, giving in.

“Let me ride you,” you whispered, sitting up and sliding from him.

“Where you’re going, baby?” Calum pulled you back.

“Wanna fuck me through your sweats?” you snarled back, wiggling out of the pants.

Calum chuckled. “Watch your mouth,” he warned, as you straddled him again. He already lowered the covers and his underwear and you sank straight on his dick.

You both lost your breathes at the first moment, feeling too intense, mixed with pain and pure euphoria of belonging to each other. Calum’s hands slipped under his own shirt, covering you now, to stroke your body, help you keep the balance. You whimpered quietly and lifted yourself, sliding back down and letting him go deeper. You were going slow, as slow as you only could, savouring the feeling. Calum was kissing you deep, his tongue moving in unison with your rocking on him. His hands were torturing your breasts and clenching on your butt. He didn’t try to rush you, taking all you were ready to give, whispering how you were his in your hair, inhaling your confirmations along with your moans. You felt like you lost yourself, becoming a part of him forever. Until you found yourself again, shattered to million little pieces, shimmering with bright happiness.

The sky was getting blue as you two lay in your bliss, your head on Calum’s shoulder.

“How bad is it?” Calum asked quietly, rubbing your bandage.

“Told you, just a scratch. The bullet barely brushed,” you whispered back, kissing his skin. You felt he had something on his mind again and waited for him to spill.

Calum sighed and asked after a while, “What now?”

“Hm?” you lifted your head up to see him better. “What now?”

“I mean-” Calum stumbled, looking away. “Do you still need time? Can I bring you to the pack? What are we doing now?”

You giggled, amused to see your big bad alpha so indecisive and unsure.

“Why is everyone laughing?” Calum groaned, rolling his eyes. “What’s so damn funny in all of this for you?”

You hid your smile on his chest, not missing the opportunity to peck on his collar bones.

“Don’t you think we started from the wrong end?” you asked only to be met with his confused sight. “You’re expecting me to spend the rest of my life with you, Calum. How about asking a girl out on a proper date?”

“What, sit in a restaurant, discussing worst childhood memories and favourite books?” he asked skeptically.

“Yes,” you nodded. “And also the names of first pets, what foods we’re allergic to and what political party we vote for.”

Calum let out a short laugh. He raised up a little and pecked your nose. “A date it is then.”

Then he lay back down and closed his eyes, pulling you in closer. You put your head down on his shoulder and closed your eyes too, ready to drift off to sleep.

Instead you saw a parking lot and a pure blood demanding of your attention. You froze, shivers crept up your spine, the realization striking you. Matt was in the town and wanted to see you. How the fuck could you forget about that?

“You alright?” Calum asked, feeling you shift uncomfortably, his voice thick and sleepy.

“Yeah, just, understood I have to be at work in several hours,” you lied.

“Call in sick,” Calum offered.

You mumbled something what you hoped sounded as an agreement, wishing you could just as easily call in sick to your past, which seemed to finally reach you this time.

***

taglist: @myloverboyash, @bringmethehorizonandpizza, @calumamongmen, @post-traumatic-mess, @empathycth, @calpops, @talkfastang, @cthoodsthetic, @ariannawoodxoxo, @dreamer-loves-lyrics, @fluffsshawn, @madformichael, @c-h-i-l, @woahitsannerieke, @rotten-kandy, @hopelessxcynic, @spankthetrashcan, @theodora-howyoudoin, @xcarondimoniox, @clummycal, @vexxybexxy-blog, @fictionalfrustrations, @notsooperfect, @rbforsmileycal, @lmao5sosimagines, @wantirwinback, @acapurso

Also tagging some mutuals and people who requested for the next part in comments (IF YOU DON’T WANNA BE TAGGED JUST LMK AND ALSO FEEL FREE TO IGNORE): @i-calumhood, @singt0mecalum, @rip-lukes-balsamic, @gorgeouslygrace, @5saucewho, @etherealhood, @inspirationcal, @calumfmu, @megz1985, @ficrec5sos, @toohardto-forget, @lockthisheartinchains, @imaginirwin, @josie-elizabeth, @danique001, @itsmeempar, @xheirjordanx, @viper-strike, @shawnsshimmeringsmile, @emptxwallts, @slytcashton, @talkfastromance4, @blahehblah, @allthelightwecannotsee, @calumsound, @lfwallscouldtalk, @xmeetyoutherex, @5sosses, @poetichoodd, @gosh-im-short

#sorry for double tagging the original post was flagged #calum hood #calum hood smut #5 seconds of summer #5 seconds of summer fanfiction #calum hood fanfiction #ashton irwin #ashton irwin fanfiction #my writings #tgwcw series

177 notes · View notes