#why am i always like a fraction of a person!!!! instinctively!!!!!!! like All The Fucking Time!!!!! oh my GHHHJooofjfndbdnsm

[pepprs]

•

[desertno3]

everything comes back to you (sean wallace x fem!reader)

Sean Wallace is the love of your life and had been ever since you were both sixteen. This is why, in the aftermath of his father’s murder, you do everything you can to make sure no one lays a hand him.

5.4k words.

A/N: To think this all came from me watching this scene of Joe from Volume (2012) and thought… I need to write about bb Sean. There’s also this post which is mostly what was in my head when I wrote this. Also, I was going to say Sean being soft around the people he loves is my own personal headcanon but like… it is actual canon, lmao. It’s so easy to forget because the man is cold most of the time. Anyway, I clearly have too many thoughts about this character. Enjoy. (also formatting on tumblr is shit so if you want to read this with the formatting I intended, head over here to AO3)

prologue.

“What the hell are you up to?” Sean demands as he watches you bustle around your shared bedroom, effectively turning it upside down as you stuff your belongings into a travel bag.

“Business,” You say, hardly pausing to look at him.

“Business?” He scoffs like he doesn’t believe you. You don’t blame him. Finn died mere days ago and every day since then you’d been acting strange. Between consoling Sean and helping the Wallace family with the funeral arrangements, you’d been answering calls at random hours of the day and going off to meetings even though nearly all business operations under the Wallace Corporation had been halted. Sean had been too caught up in everything to question it but now that you’d just told him that you were flying off to god knows where for alleged business, he was suspicious.

“You know something, don’t you?”

You don’t reply.

“Tell me.”

When you remain silent, you see his jaw clench in anger but that’s not what makes your heart squeeze painfully in your chest. What gets to you is the hurt you can see in his eyes, hurt that his fiancé of all people is keeping things from him. You know it’s unfair to be doing this to him right now but you had no choice.

You walk up to him, taking his face in your hands.

“You just have to trust me on this, Sean,” You say softly. “Please.”

“I can’t trust anyone right now, y/n.” He says it like a plea. He needs you to be the one person he can trust one hundred percent, wants to be able to put you apart from the rest of the world who seemingly had it out for his family right now. He can’t do that when you’re acting like this.

The statement doesn’t hurt you in the slightest. You understand where he’s coming from, understand why he can’t even trust you, but still, you wish he did.

“You can always trust me,” You tell him but you know it won’t be enough. That’s confirmed when his gaze goes steely and he pries your hands from his cheeks.

“If you step out that door, don’t bother coming home.”

You step back like you’d been burned by the ultimatum. “Sean, don’t-”

He shakes his head.

“Whatever you’re doing, I hope it’s worth it.”

_________________________________________________

one.

“It’s just so annoying, you know?” You huff, falling back onto Sean’s bed and pressing the heels of your palms into your eyelids. You’re sixteen and in the throes of teen angst, irritated by the confines of your parents’ demands regarding what you currently could and couldn’t do at that age.

“Yeah, I know,” Sean replies in solidarity from where he stands near the window.

You let out a sigh, the anger that was bubbling in your chest starting to dissipate now that you’d finished venting about it.

You’re so lost in your own thoughts that you don’t realise Sean has moved from his spot across the room to the bed beside you. The mattress dips a little as he sits and slowly lies back so he’s parallel to you.

You move your hands away from your eyes and your heart jolts when you crane your neck to look at him and realise how close he is.

“Thanks for listening to my ranting,” You murmur, starting to feel guilty that you’d come over to hang out only for it to end up being just him listening to your tirade.

He lets out a small chuckle. “Anytime.”

You smile gratefully, your heart rate accelerating as you continue to stare into his eyes. God, you like him so much. You have for a while now. As he inches closer, and you don’t know whether it’s deliberate on his part or not, you wonder what it would be like if you just kissed him right there.

“Y/n…” He says hesitantly, his gaze flicking down to your lips for a fraction of a second. “Can I-”

“Ooooh, Sean and y/n,” Billy sing-songs obnoxiously from the doorway - the doorway that both you and Sean had forgotten was wide open.

Sean leaps up from the bed and growls at his brother, who continues to tease him unfazed.

“Fuck off, Billy!”

He slams the door shut and everything descends into silence once more. You sit up and watch as Sean remains at the door, his shoulders tense. You get up and make your way over to him, feeling bolder than you ever have in your life.

“Sean,” You say softly, grabbing his attention.

He turns to you, the look in his eyes hesitant, and you use that opportunity to press your lips to his. You pull away just as quickly, gauging his reaction, but then he pulls you towards him again and this time the kiss is deeper, needier. Your hands steady yourself against his chest as his own move up to cup your jaw.

You’re both breathless when you pull away, sporting matching shy smiles as you look at each other.

“I really like you, y/n,” Sean confesses and your heart feels like it could burst.

“I really like you, too, Sean.”

~

When you and Sean get accepted into different universities, it worries you more than you let on. It would be the furthest away you’d ever lived from him and you were worried about what that meant for you both. You’d spent your last years of high school falling deeper and deeper in love with him and you weren’t ready to let him go. Not now, not ever.

“Hey,” He murmurs, noticing you’d spaced out again. “What’s wrong?”

You shrug it off but he’s not buying it. He shifts on the couch so that he’s sitting facing you and takes your hands in his.

"Talk to me.”

You end up telling him everything. How you don’t like that you’re not going to be able to see him as often as you do now, how you’re worried that the distance might put a strain on the relationship, how you really, really don’t like the idea of breaking up with him.

You half expect him to brush it off or to tell you that you’ve got nothing to worry about but he doesn’t.

“I don’t like it either,” He admits. “It’s going to be awful being so far away from you but it’s only a couple of years, yeah? We can do that. And then I’ll start working for my dad and you’ll start working for some cool startup and we can move into a flat in London. You and me.”

While your boyfriend’s vision of your future together warms your heart, you’re still hung up on the ‘couple of years’ you were going to be a good distance from each other.

“Babe,” He says, bringing your attention back to him. “We’re going to be okay.”

You nod, finally relenting and agreeing with him. There was no point in letting yourself get eaten alive with worry, not when he clearly loved you just as much as you loved him. It was going to be okay.

“I love you,” You tell him and he smiles, pressing a kiss to the back of your hand.

“I love you too.”

~

Sean’s vision of the future wasn’t too far off. You manage to secure a flat just before you both graduate and by the end of the summer, you’d moved in. Sean starts working immediately alongside Alex at the Wallace Corporation and you spend about eight months working for a new tech startup on the other side of London before Finn Wallace offers you a job. It goes over with Sean just as well as you expected it would - which was not well at all.

“Are you really going to throw away everything you’ve worked hard for? To be my dad’s fucking assistant?”

You sigh in exasperation. “I’m not throwing away anything, Sean! Do you think I’m that stupid? I’m going to use more of what I learned at uni as Finn’s assistant than I am now at that fucking sad excuse for startup and you know it!”

Sean knows you’re miserable where you currently work so you don’t know why he’s so against this.

“You don’t want me working with you, is that it?”

He sighs, palms pressing against his eyelids in frustration.

“No,” He says eventually. “No, it’s not that. It’s just… I don’t want my dad having a hold on the both of us. You’re supposed to be free from all the Wallace Corporation shit, out doing your own thing.”

Oh.

You step towards him and he instinctively wraps his arms around your waist. You press a light kiss to his lips, your fingers ghosting over the facial hair he had recently started sporting.

“Sorry to tell you this, Sean, but your dad’s had a hold on the both of us the moment we started dating. Maybe even before that. I’m sure if he didn’t approve of me, I would’ve been out of your life a long time ago.”

Sean grumbles at the realisation but he knows it's true.

You lovingly run your thumb over his cheek. "Nothing in London is out of Finn Wallace's reach."

You’re not a fool. You know Finn offered you this job for a very specific reason. If you were going to continue being with Sean, and at this point, everyone knew that was absolutely going to be the case, you were going to have to know how the company worked. And you weren’t against it. If Sean was to be the CEO one day, you refused to be the kind of wife who was oblivious to their husband’s dealings.

~

Gone is the youthful innocence of the lanky boy you fell in love with when you were sixteen. Sean is filled out and a lot more serious, trying to be more than what he is for his father’s sake. You suppose you're the same, too. It's not easy, being primed to eventually take over a multi-million dollar organisation (connected to an insidious underground one to boot) and Finn put just as much pressure on you as he did his son.

“It’s not my blood,” You mumble when Sean walks into the bathroom to find you soaking in the tub, the water around you a deep red. “Mostly.”

Wordlessly, he comes over and drains it before filling it back up with fresh water. You don’t move as he does so, still shaken and borderline catatonic from having just killed somebody for the first time. Sean doesn’t have to ask, he can just tell that’s what you’ve come back from. As he silently washes the blood from your skin, you look over to see his lips set in a tight line. You know he’s mad. Not at you. At his father, maybe. But there’s nothing he can do now. There’s no going back from this.

~

Everyone thinks you’re the power couple of the Wallace Corporation, steely and unfeeling, and you suppose in many ways you are but you also know that in other ways, you’re still the teenagers you were before, still completely and utterly smitten with one another.

“Hey,” Sean greets you, kissing your cheek before pulling out a chair and sitting beside you in the empty boardroom.

You look at him in surprise as he starts digging into some pre-packaged salad. “Hi. What are you doing?”

“Thought I’d have lunch with you.”

“It’s three in the afternoon.”

“The meeting ran overtime.”

You give him a sympathetic look and he rolls his eyes. “It’s fine. C’mere.”

You shuffle closer to him and let him tuck you under one arm while he forked salad into his mouth with the other.

“What have you been up to, hm?”

You let out an exhale, resting your head against his shoulder. “Meetings, same as you.”

You’re interrupted when Alex pops his head in with an apologetic look on his face, knowing he was disrupting a rare moment between you and Sean. Usually, the both of you would be so busy you’d only see each other in passing at work.

“Finn’s looking for you, y/n,” He tells you before disappearing again.

You sigh, getting up but not before kissing Sean on the cheek.

“I’ll see you at home.”

“Mm, see you.” He mumbles, swallowing his mouthful of salad before his hand shoots out to grab your wrist. “Wait, give me a proper kiss.”

You smile and comply, laughing when Sean pulls you back in for another and another.

“I have to go, Sean!”

“Alright, alright,” He says, letting you go. “I’ll see you later.”

~

"What's all this?" Sean asks when he comes home one night to find you in the kitchen looking like you’re in the middle of making a more elaborate dinner than usual.

"Just something to celebrate you finishing up that contract," You say, smiling when his arms circle your waist and his lips press a kiss to your cheek. "I was also thinking now that the contract's done, you've got all the time in the world to fuck me."

You all but squeal when he picks you up and carries you to the bedroom without a second thought.

"The food, Sean!"

"The food can wait," He murmurs, dropping you onto the bed. You giggle when he moves to hover above you, his lips brushing against yours. "I've got to take care of my fiancé first."

~

It’s those memories of your relationship with Sean that flood your mind as you lean against the brick wall of a Soho back alley, the hand pressing against the wound on your side not doing much to stop the blood seeping from your body faster than you would like.

Dread had filled you the moment you heard about Finn’s death and it had less to do with what happened to him and everything to do with the man you were engaged to, the one who was set to take over the company in his father’s wake. Despite Sean being the clear successor to the business, you knew Finn’s death would still leave a power vacuum in both London’s corporate and criminal worlds. You knew people would be out for Sean, trying to off him so that they could step up and take Finn’s place. And so, since the day Finn had died, you’d done everything you could to ensure Sean wouldn’t be harmed. Even after Sean’s heartbreaking ultimatum, you’d left and had been all over the country and London trying to stop the people that needed to be stopped. This last job you’d just carried out would have been it. It would have sealed the deal and would have kept Sean safe for good. Too bad you were probably going to die because of it.

You wince as your back slides further down the wall, your legs giving out and leaving you to drop unceremoniously onto the concrete. Each inhale felt like a billion knives entering your side and you knew you weren’t going to last much longer.

It was worth it, you think to yourself. It’s the last thought you have before your eyelids get too heavy to keep open, Sean’s last words to you echoing back in your mind. It may have cost you your life but was worth it if it meant you’d just ensured Sean would keep his for a long while.

_________________________________________________

two.

Despite the number of people crammed into your hospital room, the only sound to be heard is the steady beeping of the machines that had been attached to you. It had been a hell of a night for all of them and one that wasn’t over yet. Jacqueline’s frantic call to Sean about seeing you get wheeled into emergency surgery had cut short the tense discussion the Wallaces and Dumanis were having around the dining table. Sean had all but sped to the hospital, everyone else trailing behind him. Despite everything that had just been revealed to him that night, it all became secondary in comparison to the fact that Jacqueline had told him you were practically dying.

Everyone but Sean looks up when Ed steps back into the room, shoving his phone into his pocket.

“That was Jevan,” Ed announces to all of them. “Things have changed.”

“What things?” Marian asks, the tone in her voice still bitter. It’s a wonder neither she nor Sean have kicked the Dumanis out of the room but it was because there was still so much to be discussed - especially now that you were back in the picture and what happened to you remained unclear.

“The investors now want to keep Sean alive.”

A silence settles over the room at Ed’s revelation. It was mere hours ago that Alex had revealed it was the investors who wanted Sean dead.

“She knew,” Sean mutters, finally speaking up. His eyes raking over your nearly-lifeless face as you lay unconscious on the hospital bed and his mind thinks back to the last conversation he had with you. Business, you had told him then. Now, he had no doubt you had something to do with the investors’ most recent decision. “She knew they wanted me dead.”

“How?” It’s Alex who asks, vocalising the same thought Sean had been turning over and over in his mind. “How did she know where to find them? Who to talk to?”

No one has an answer. The machines beep steadily, filling in the silence until Ed sighs, a realisation dawning on him.

“Finn,” He states like that alone makes the answer clear. “She would’ve known through Finn. Think about it. When she was his assistant, he made her go with him to nearly every meeting he had.”

Everyone in the room was aware of the latter, of course. It was part of your job. It had even been a point of contention between Sean and his father at one point, why you were let in on meetings that he should’ve been in on too if he was going to take over the company one day. "She’s just there to make the coffee, son," Finn had laughed but that wasn’t true in the slightest. You were the one who took down the minutes, noted down anything of importance, kept tabs on any and all of Finn’s dealings with everybody. That was your job and through it, you ended up knowing more about the business than anyone else and you didn’t even realise it. You didn’t realise just how much you knew, how much knowledge you could use as leverage, as blackmail, until Sean’s life was on the line.

After Finn died, you did wonder whether he knew what he was setting you up for when he hired you, wondered if he always knew Sean would eventually need protecting and knew that you would do it without hesitation if you had the capability to do so.

It’s Ed, here in the hospital room, who comes to the realisation that he absolutely did.

“She knows more about Finn’s dealings with the investors than all of us in this room combined,” He continues. “Because he never actually needed her to be his assistant. He needed her to be someone who would know how to talk to them. To protect the company and its successor from them if need be.”

“Successor?” Marian asks. “You mean Sean?”

Ed nods and everyone jumps as Sean suddenly throws his fist against the bedside table in anger before whirling on the older man.

“You knew about this,” He seethes. “You knew he was doing this and you just let it happen.”

“I didn’t know this was his reasoning behind it, Sean, I promise you. But it makes sense. As his son, protecting you was a priority. Through her, Finn made sure you’d be kept safe.”

"Fuck that.” Sean spits in anger. “Fuck that. She's a priority too. You hear me? She needs to be kept safe too because if she's not alive I may as well be fucking dead."

_________________________________________________

three.

“I should’ve fucking realised that’s what she was up to. I should’ve fucking known,” Sean mutters as he looks at you, still lying there unconscious. “She risked everything for me.”

“Are you surprised?” Marian asks him. It’s just the two of them in the room now.

She, for one, isn’t surprised in the slightest. Having known you most of your life, she knew you had it in you. Maybe Finn saw that too, since it was what he ended up priming you for.

Sean sighs. He’s not surprised either. What he mostly feels is anger - at his late father for putting you in that position to begin with - and shame. He’s ashamed that while you were bending over backwards to try and keep him alive, he was doing fuck all for you. He'd even broken your fucking heart in the process. He’d regretted it the second you’d left the flat but he couldn’t get into contact with you afterwards. Either you’d changed your number or you weren’t answering his calls. He’d even hired a fucking private investigator to find out where you’d gone and what you were up to but they hadn’t come back with anything solid enough that could lead him to you. It was like you’d disappeared off the face of the earth.

"She paid you off,” Sean says bluntly the moment the PI enters the hospital room. It’s not a question. After everything that had surfaced in the last twenty-four hours, it clicked into Sean’s mind the reason the private investigator couldn’t find anything on you.

"She did,” They confirm.

Sean swears under his breath. He curses that fact that you were too good at this and curses the fact that it was probably Finn that taught you how, the same way Finn taught him. He should’ve fought harder to stop you from accepting his dad’s job offer. All those years ago.

“She paid me off,” The PI says. "But that doesn’t mean I didn't do my job."

Sean is handed a folder full of notes on your movements and a flash drive full of photos they’d snapped from a distance.

"You are a very lucky man, Sean Wallace. To have someone like her in your life."

_________________________________________________

four.

To say you’re surprised when you open your eyes to a sterile hospital room is an understatement. You were so sure you had no chance of getting out of that alley alive. Still groggy, you briefly wonder if it was the investors who managed to get you here in time - the strange puppet masters that they were - but your train of thought is halted when you realise Sean’s sister is in the room with you, sitting beside your hospital bed.

“About time you woke up,” Jacqueline says softly, a kind smile on her face. “How’re you feeling?”

Her question brings your attention to the relentless ache you feel all over your body.

“Like shit.”

She hums. “Well, you’re lucky you aren’t dead. You gave us all a scare getting wheeled in here the way you did.”

You shift a little, trying to get yourself in a position that would ease the pain somewhat. “How’s Sean?”

Jacqueline has to stop herself from rolling her eyes because of course that’s what’s on your mind right now. You coming back from the verge of death asking about Sean ran in a similar vein to the way Sean had been adamant about not leaving the hospital since you’d been admitted. Like two peas in a pod, she thinks. Always have been.

“He’s just out in the hall, actually,” She informs you. “On the phone to mum. He’s not going to be pleased he wasn’t here when you woke up.”

“But he’s okay?” You ask her.

“He’s okay.”

You let out the breath you didn’t realise you were holding, your head sinking further into the pillow.

“Good,” You say, shutting your eyes in relief. “That’s good.”

Only a few seconds pass before you hear the door open and shut and a heart-achingly familiar voice break the silence.

“How is she?”

Again, Jacqueline has to keep herself from rolling her eyes. Her brother would always ask that same question every time he returned to the room, no matter if he was gone for an hour or for just a couple of minutes. At least this time, she was glad to give him an answer other than ‘she’s the same as she was when you left’.

“She’s awake.”

Your eyelids flutter open and your heart jumps when your gaze lands on Sean.

“I’ll leave you both to it,” Jacqueline smiles when she looks between her brother and yourself. She comes over and rests her hand on yours. “I’m really glad you’re alive, y/n.”

You give her a grateful smile and watch her leave before your eyes flicker back to the man standing at the door. He looks healthy, you note to yourself. Exhausted, but healthy.

“Sean,” You whisper, breaking the silence.

“Hey,” He says softly, approaching your bedside. You slowly sit up and tears start to pool in your eyes at the sight of him here, so close to you. Safe and alive. He notices and reaches out to wipe away the stray tears that had rolled down your cheeks.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” He murmurs and you have to hold back a sob.

"I did it for you, Sean," You can barely get the sentence out, your voice catching as you start to get choked up by emotion. "Everything I did-"

"I know," He says, cupping your face tenderly. His eyes are glassy too. "I know."

“I couldn’t let them hurt you. I couldn’t-”

You stop as your tears start to flow uncontrollably. You’d kept so much of your emotions at bay as you dealt with everything and now that it was all done, they were spilling over in waves. He gently pulls you into his embrace as you cry, mindful of your injuries. One hand strokes your hair comfortingly as you cling to him, soaking the front of his shirt with your tears. You keep muttering apologies into his chest and he has to tell you to stop because you have nothing to be sorry for. He should be the one apologising, he thinks. No matter what he does for you for the rest of his life nothing would come close enough in magnitude to what you’d just done for him.

You sniffle as your sobs finally start to subside but you don’t let go of him just yet.

“I want to come home, Sean,” You say quietly, your cheek still pressed against his chest.

“You are home,” He assures you, his arms affectionately squeezing you ever so slightly. "You're here with me. You're already home."

_________________________________________________

epilogue.

Sean barely leaves your side while you recover - not for business, not for anything.

“The company needs you, Sean.”

He shakes his head. “Alex has it covered. You need me.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Believe me, I know. But still. In sickness and in health, right?”

You snort. “We’re not married yet.”

His arms wrap around your waist.

“But we will be,” He murmurs. “I would’ve married you a long time ago if I had it my way.”

“My mother would’ve murdered you.”

Sean chuckles, all too aware of it.

It was about a year and a half into your university lives that Sean decided he genuinely wanted to marry you and, of course, he had run it by your mother.

“I’ll give you my blessing, Sean,” She had told him. “But only if you promise me you’ll give it a few years until you propose.”

“Just trust me on this, okay?” She said after Sean had frowned and asked her why. “I know you love her and I know she loves you but there’s no need to rush.”

Sean had agreed reluctantly but now, years later, he understands where she was coming from. At the time, he had naively been sure there was nothing the two of you couldn’t handle. You’d both handled being at different universities so well, after all. Now, he cringes at the fact that that was his metric but he figures he couldn’t blame himself. At that age, he definitely never anticipated having to deal with all the shit life had thrown at you both in the last few months alone. He’s somewhat grateful your mum told him to wait because now, after everything, he’s more sure than he ever was about the fact that he wants to spend the rest of his life with you.

~

You’re finally back home, in your own bed, lying on your back because it’s the only comfortable way you can lay down with all your stitches and injuries yet to fully heal. You turn your head to look at Sean and you smile. He’s on his back as well, the both of you craning your necks awkwardly to look at each other.

“What?” He asks.

“This is very familiar.”

He snorts, knowing exactly what you’re referring to. He props himself up on his elbow and looks down at you.

“At least this time I’m not scared to do this.”

Your eyelids flutter close as he leans down to press his lips to yours. You reciprocate, leaning up to deepen the kiss before pain shoots up your side, making you hiss.

“Sorry,” He murmurs, pulling away.

“It’s fine, just the stitches.”

His thumb grazes over your cheek. “Rest.”

He smiles at the way you huff. You never did like staying still.

~

You let out a content sigh, sinking back in your office chair. It had felt like a lifetime since you’d been in here and finally being back felt like you were putting in the final piece in the puzzle. It was the last thing you needed to feel like everything was starting to go back to normal.

A knock on the door grabs your attention, Sean popping in to check on you. “You ready?”

You nod, gingerly getting up and following him to the boardroom for the family meeting.

~

“So you know Alex and I have been talking,” Sean says to you once everyone had filed in and taken their seats. “About what will be best for the business going forward.”

You nod.

“Things have settled down and we’ve managed to broker temporary agreements with everyone to keep them in line. However, we need to guarantee they won’t act out in the future. So we need someone heading the company who they will listen to, someone who they trust. Alex wants to continue doing the finances and I’m better off sticking to making the buildings so… we were wondering if you would be the CEO.”

Your expression goes slack in shock. “What?”

“We’ve run it by Ed and mum and they agree, too. You’re our best bet.”

You look between everyone in the room, bewildered. “Why?”

“Because you know more about dealing with the investors and shareholders than any of us,” Alex says. “You saw first-hand how Finn did his business with them, something me and Sean rarely did. And they not only know you personally but they trust you, too.”

“Y/n,” Ed pipes up. “Whether he did it deliberately or not, Finn taught you everything he knew about the most important part of running this corporation. Alex knows finance and sales, Sean knows property and asset management but you? He specifically taught you how to bargain. And bargaining and making deals is part of what keeps the Wallace Corporation on top.”

“All our shareholders, the investors, they’ll be okay with this?” You ask.

Ed gives you a look, “You tell us.”

The weight of the responsibility hits you in full force but you’re surprised when you don’t feel scared. You feel sure. They were all right, you’d been doing this already.

You nod. “They will be.”

And it’s not a threat so much as it’s just pure confidence on your part. You knew their strengths, their weaknesses, you knew you would be able to keep them in line with your words, either finding mutual ground or using certain things as leverage to get what the company needed. You could bargain with them the same way you’d bargained for Sean’s life. You could do this.

You meet Sean’s eyes across the boardroom table and he smiles at you, pride blooming in his chest at the thought of his girl, the one he had fallen head-over-heels for at sixteen, being the CEO of his dad’s company. You smile in return. God, you loved him. Your entire world, your whole heart, belonged to him. And his to you. It always had been, and it always would be.

_________________________________________________

End notes: The first kiss setting in one. I took straight from Volume, lol, and then two. is set after that meeting scene at the end of Episode 7 of Gangs but I’ve taken some liberties with that meeting and diverged from canon right before Ed tells them Finn never wanted Sean near the business because Sean’s reaction to that hurts my heart. So that’s not a thing in my fic world. Anyway! Too many thoughts about this show. Let me know if you enjoyed this fic!

[lovecinnatwist]

How do you feel about omega Jason Todd/ alpha Dick Grayson? Maybe Dick didn’t know Jason was an omega until Jason got hit with some of Ivy’s pollen...

GasP Anon what a great idea! I adore JayDick-  Alpha!Dick and Omega!Jason is a bop even if I don’t write it often.

I hope you don’t chaotic mess which is pining!Dick!

Sexuality Crisis Adverted

Tags: Omegaverse, Heat/Mating Cycles, omega!Jason, alpha!Dick 

The moment the dust settles around them Jason knows that he’s fucked. The groan that creaks from his chest is heavy and tight. A side effect- he’s sure- from all the Goddamn pollen. Why couldn’t Poison Ivy chill with it already? It hasn’t worked before and it isn’t going to work now. There’s a series of loud beeps in his ear, signalling the filtration system in his helmet shutting down. Not that it matters when the equipment hasn’t done its job in the first place. He undoes the latches with quick fingers all while Ivy heads out through the giant hole she’s made in the ceiling. 

Not like he’ll let that stop him. The cool air prickles against his face in a refreshing way. It feels wonderful against his quickly warming skin. He tosses his helmet to the side to deal with later. For now he’s got to get that bitch back in jail before she spreads more of the new strain about Gotham. 

He hunts her for what feels like hours. By the time he tracks her back to Robinson Park he’s low on ammo and his heat has finally begun to set in. The familiar cramps and aches make his joints squeak. It’s something he feels more than hears over the sound of whatever Ivy’s latest plan is. He shoots right through another blossom and more dust goes flying. Not that it matters. Even if his heat turns critical he knows exactly how much time he has and it’s more than enough to get her in Arkham. 

A flash of blue and black blurs in the background. His eyes can barely follow the movements between staying focused on Ivy. He dodges two of her attacks and fires. He nearly grazes her but a wall of vines take the hit. He curses and charges forward.

Sharp. It’s one of the benefits of heat. The starling clarity when your instincts are at a fine point does wonders for things like this. Well until the actual fever crashes down and you’re too sluggish and horny to do anything but sleep or get fucked. Jason doesn’t mind either, though with Roy and Kori off-world he’s sure he’s going to be doing more of the former this time around. 

Nightwing makes himself useful and the next time Jason shoots he hits his target. It’s only rubber bullets but her hiss of pain is satisfying. 

The two of them work seamlessly. Which is a feat in itself with the ugly filtration system Dick has on. He looks ridiculous and Jason makes sure to tell him that as soon as he gets a chance. The sound of alpha’s laughter follows him through the air as he performs an effortless flip out of the way. Jason can’t help the quirk of his lips and soon they are putting Ivy away together. 

Not bad for an impromptu team up.

Nightwing hands her off to the police while Jason lays on top of a nearby roof. He’s catching his breath as the fire within him cools a bit. The exercise made him tired but it's a good kind of ache. One that distracts him from the way his lower abdomen curls and unfurls repeatedly. Once he’s no longer struggling to catch his breath he starts thinking it’s time to head back home. 

Soft footfalls land behind him. He scoffs. 

“ What none of the pretty officers down there ask for an autograph? “

He’s teasing mostly but nothing but silence greets him. He pauses and cranes his neck awkwardly to catch the other man’s expression. The wonderment and awe there are foreign.

Dick opens his mouth to speak before closing it. He isn’t wearing that ugly mask anymore so now Jason can easily read his expression. It’s odd considering what a steel trap he usually is. Despite his body's protest he sits up and faces the alpha. 

“ You good? “

He can read the anxiousness in his body language. It’s helpful considering the fact that Dick is absolutely drenched in scent blockers. Jason usually is too but without hood and the impending heat- well he wouldn’t be surprised to be told he stinks. The idea of showering and curling up in his bed with a good book almost makes him purr. Dick says nothing again. He just stands there looking stupid and Jason- well Jason doesn’t really have time for it. 

His bones scream as he stands. The ache is setting in fast but he’ll be good to get home. He’s definitely traveled home in worse states and thanks to Dick he didn’t take too many hits. He stretches and twists, the soft pop in his lower back is gratifying. There’s a slight uneasiness in the air. The longer the silence goes on the more tension starts to form between them. Jason can’t be bothered with it so as casually as he can manage he starts shifting towards the edge of the roof. 

“ So- this has been fun but I gotta go. Need to shower this shit off before the fever sets in. Thanks for the assist. I’ll send my report so tell the old man he doesn’t need to bother- “

“ You’re an omega! “

Jason blinks. It’s probably the worst cut off he’s ever gotten. The lack of tact is new for Goldie and Jason for the life of him can’t shake off his discomfort. If it were another time he would laugh. The stupid way Dick is gawking his hilarious. The alpha smacks a hand over his mouth like he’s trying to keep from saying anything more.

Jason’s eyebrows fly up.

“ Uhhh yea? “

They don’t really talk about secondary genders. Not often or ever really. Sure technically Jason should have a bunch of pack jobs to do but since Bruce hasn’t formally asked him back he doesn’t bother. Cass is pretty good at nest building and caring for the others so there’s never been any need. 

If anything it’s been more of a relief. He’s always been pretty weird about his dynamic. Not because he thought it made him weaker or something. It’s more because the second anyone found out that all 6”2 and 215lbs of him is omega? Well they got this intense kind of look on their face. Kind of like they weren’t looking at a person anymore, more like a piece of meat.

Kinda like- Kinda like- how Dick is staring at... him... now.

The puzzle pieces click together all too slow. 

Dick removes  his hands like he can’t quite help it. His eyes wide in amazement and- huh is it the light or are his pupils dilated? The alpha starts to speak and the words start coming out in a rush.

“ I had no idea that you were an omega- I mean it makes sense- because you’re gorgeous and at first- at first I thought I was gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that- but like i’ve never been gay- like i’m into omegas always have been but then there was you and you just made me think all these things and feel all this new stuff and gosh I was so confused. Now everything makes sense though because now I’m not gay and you’re an omega and you smell good and fuck do you always smell like this? You smell amazing little wing. I hope our pups smell like you. It’s kinda sweet but spicy, like in a good way. Kinda like warm sheets out of the laundry and chai tea- I just wanna roll around in it and get it all over me- I know that’s kind of weird but like I’m a weird kind of alpha sometimes i’m sure it won’t really bother you too much through like I swear I’ll be a good mate and take good care of you and- God is it weird i’m taking so much when I should probably be taking you to nest? I should totally be taking you to nest. God I can’t believe i’m talking so much when you probably just wanna rest. Or well fuck? We could do that too I don’t mind you probably look so gorgeous all fucked and pupped up- I hope it sticks. I know I’m kind old to not have any pups yet but like I feel like I must have been waiting for you and now- “

Jason’s eyes have been growing widder by the minute. Dick’s mouth is still going and his heart is racing with every word. He’s practically babbling to himself. While Jason- Well Jason  is feeling a little frightened. He isn’t even sure how to stop the alpha either but then Dick is walking towards him taking about mating, sex and pups and well- well Jason has to put a stop to it there. 

He takes out his gun and shoots right past the alpha’s face. Dick had been so lost in his words he didn’t even notice Jason take the weapon out. Jesus just where is the alpha’s head at? Actually he knew where the alpha’s head’s at. It’s why he’s currently got his M1911 pistol between them.

Dick shuts up and Jason welcomes the silence with a silent prayer. Moments pass and when he sees the alpha doesn’t move, he lowers the gun a fraction.

He takes a deep breath. 

“ 1. What ever you’re talking about right now?  Isn’t happening. You’re saying a whole bunch I don’t get- but let me be clear. You are not getting anywhere near me, my nest or my vagina. “

Dick flushes at the word. He opens his mouth and there’s a quick ‘ but Jay’ on his lips. It’s kinda admirable but Jason doesn’t have the time. Heat fatigue is on him and the last thing he wants is Dick Graysosn trying to take care of him or- or doing whatever the hell he’s talking about. 

He fires another bullet this time close enough to graze the kevlar. 

“ 2. I don’t know how you apparently missed that i’m an omega but just because I am doesn’t mean we’re suddenly going to ride off into the sunset with me birthing barefoot however many pups you want. That isn’t happening this- “

He waves the gun back and forth between them. 

“ This isn’t happening. “

Dick looks determined and his mouth is in a tight little line. He opens his mouth to speak and Jason raises the gun again. The furrow of those perfect eyebrows is kind of adorable but mostly annoying. 

“ 3. If you even try to come within the radius of my den while i’m in heat i’m going to shoot you, Not in your leg, not in your arm, but right between your pretty pretty eyes. You got that? “

Jason prefers people to pale when he’s threatening them but instead the alpha lights up. 

“ You think my eyes are pretty? “

Jason groans. Alpha’s were such a pain. He never really took Dick to be like a typical one either. He kind of wants to put more thought to it but he can’t when his skin is starting to crawl and itch in a way that’s numbing. 

“ I think you’re pretty irritating, that's what I think. “

The alpha frowns and Jason takes a step back. 

“ Remember the rules Goldie or you might get yourself in trouble. “

He gets a solemn nod. Dick looks troubled as much as he looks confused. The alpha is standing there nodding to himself as if he’s gluing together an invisible puzzle. 

“ Yea- Yea that makes sense. “

Tension eases from Jason’s shoulders but then Dick starts talking again.

“ God I haven’t even courted you and here I am talking about pups and sex like a total knot head. I haven’t given you any gifts or even won any challenges- God talk about stupid. I’ll totally make it up to you Jason you’ll see I’m a good alpha I swear I just need a chance and then I’ll for sure convince you- “

Jason Todd is sure Dick’s lips are moving a mile per minute. There’s also a frantic quality to his movements that look- off but he’s in no shape to be the judge of anyone's state of mind. Maybe he had gotten dosed by something earlier in the night? 

Oh well- that’s a problem for the bats. Jason isn’t having any part of it. 

He hops off of the roof leaving Goldie talking to himself.

Getting back to his nest turns out to be easy which he’s grateful for because the moment he inches through the window is the moment he realizes how tired he is. He practically crawls into the shower. The only reason why he doesn’t skip it all together is because the idea of bringing dirt, grime and pollen into his nest sets his instincts on fire. He bathes thoroughly despite how sluggish and tired his movements are. After all, it's probably the only bath he’s going to be having over the next few days. Besides answering the delivery guy and bathroom breaks he doesn’t plan to do much else. 

Clean and cool he slinks his way to his bedroom, his hair still damp from the shower. He doesn’t have much of a nest going on but the half constructed walls from the other day are at least a base. He pads over to the closet and drags out the rest of his material. His body thrumming with fatigue and need. He knows from experience however that if he tries to sleep in a half done nest he’s just going to be fitful all night and have to do it anyway. 

Better to get it over now. 

He crafts everything together with slow, drowsy movements. One of the edges is a little lopsided but he can’t bring himself to care. He’s got a few things from Kori and a few things from Roy and as usual it all goes seamlessly with the rest of bedding that he kept around the house. He’s got a small pack but it’s his. The soft smell of milk and pup from Lian’s little yellow shirt makes him smile. It’s mute and a little dull but it does the trick. Especially when he keeps everything in the air tight containers Roy made him. 

Nest finished and body clean he crawls into the mess of blankets. It’s soft and soothing against his feverish skin. The contact calms some of the aching that’s been echoing in his bones. He sighs and melts, curling into his pillows as his eyes fall shut. It’s cozy and his and for now that’s enough. He passes out before he can have another thought. 

In the artificial heat, Jason sleeps like the dead. A good nest has always done wonders at keeping him pliant. Something he plans to reap all the benefits of as he takes some time off the streets. He rolls over and stretches, soft fabric wrapping around his ankles. He purrs and nuzzles deeper, a content thrum of safe, warm and happy running through his system. Heat sleep is always some of the most restful.

He basks in the warmth coming from the window, ready to roll over and go back to dreamland. At least he would be if some ass hole didn’t decide to start doing home renovations. 

The pounding sound is annoying. Almost like someone has decided to build an entire Goddamn shelf at whatever time of the afternoon it is. He hisses and buries his head under his pillow. It helps a little until he realizes that what he’s hearing is knocking and it’s coming from his front doors. He groans.

Maybe if he doesn’t answer the person will give up?

They do not give up. 

Jason drags himself out of his nest fully ready to shoot the person on the other side of the door. No one knows about his apartment. He’s always made sure not to give the bats the slightest idea where it is. After all they were too noisy and the idea of any of them being able to show up whenever they wanted gave him anxiety.

He wipes his face and it does nothing to wake him up. When he shouts out a gruff I'm coming the knocking stops. He groans his legs like led as he drags himself to the door. It only takes one peek through the spy hole to see who it is. 

His head falls back and he curses the day the universe decided to tredge his sorry ass back to life. 

“ A bullet between the eyes Goldie. “

He means it to sound more rough and threatening. For the most part though he just sounds tired. He’s gotten enough sleep of course but the demanding furnace of heat is only just starting to burn through his energy reserves. Something about the bodies need to redirect all energy toward reproduction or some shit. Jason always assumed its alpha propaganda but you know what? He welcomes the break because sometimes the only care he gets is from himself. 

“ I brought breakfast? “

Jason winces at the awkward tone of voice. He doesn’t move to open the door and Dick stays quiet for a tense moment.

��� I wanted to apologize for last night and figured maybe we could talk? I got your favourite. Baleadas from that place you like. Add Avocado and Bacon. “

The omega curses. At the mention of food his mouth immediately starts to salivate. With how quickly his heat came on he hadn’t really gotten a chance to prepare. Usually he likes to prep some meals and in the interim order take out. He has to admit that Dick knows him pretty well if the alpha is showing up with food. 

On one hand letting a viable alpha into his home is probably a bad idea. On the other hand he could most definitely take Dick if it came down to it. Decision made he reluctantly starts to disarm the security system. 

“ You try some shit- “

Dick’s worn face appears, take out held up like a peace offering. 

“ And between the eyes I know. “

Jason fixes him with a look and when the alpha doesn’t move he steps to the side to let him in. They head to his little kitchen after Jason shuts the door. The apartment is small enough that they didn’t even go far. He glares at the alphas shoes and Dick is quick to take them off. While he does Jason helps himself to the bags. 

When Dick had said breakfast he had been modest. There are at least three bags. Some with fresh fruits, some with expensive bougie chocolates you can only get up town, Baliedas of course, fresh made guava juice, heat pads, electrolyte drinks and a variety of cramp medicine. He rolls his eyes and digs through a little box that Dick pushes onto the table as he fidgets next to an open chair. 

Jason raises an eyebrow before grabbing the box and flipping it open. A happy trill leaves his lips before he can stop it. He pulls out a semita the smell of sweetness and cinnamon filling the kitchen. Roughly pulling out a chair he takes a seat, his mouth watering before he even takes a bite. When he does he moans happy and light as flaky pastry melts on his tongue. 

God had to be from Aliana’s. Shit was perfect. 

He scarves down one quickly, licking his fingers before reaching into the other bag to pull out a warm balieda in aluminum foil. The food is so good he completely forgets Dick is even there. For the most part his mute alpha scent is blocked away which makes it easy to ignore him. Well except for the soft smiles and what the man must think are sneaky looks thrown his way. 

He gets half way through his second semeta when he finally looks at the alpha who is sitting in the furthest possible chair. 

“ So- we gonna talk about last night? “

Dick has the decency to flush. His color darkens in an interesting way. Jason doesn’t ever think he’s ever seen him like that before. He chews slowly and the alpha groans covering his face in his hands. 

“ Was testing a serum with Alfred before we got the call about Ivy. It’s a new formula and didn’t seem to be working, didn’t kick in until we were half way done. “

Jason makes an understanding noise. It’s a good thing they got things done quickly but still Dick probably shouldn’t have been out compromised like that. He takes a straw and pops it into one of the juices. At the first sip his entire body flutters with alertness. There’s just something about sugar during his heat that could raise him from the dead. 

“ What the hell were you doing out with that stuff in your system? What if you got caught or something. “

The way Dick looks down and his blush travels to his ears is very telling. Suddenly the words from last night return to him. 

‘ at first I thought I was gay ‘

He blinks. Oh my God. Dick actually had a thing for him. Even when he for some unexplainable reason thought he had been an alpha. A part of him is actually flattered that the bone head would jump into the fray to give Jason back up. Not that he needed it but still the gesture had been nice. 

Now here he is, at Jason’s apartment, bringing him breakfast and things to help him with his heat. The scent of insecurity leaks through what must be industrial scent blockers because Jason can barely get a whiff of anything else. He hums low in his throat and blue eyes flicker up to his. Jason tries to read what he see’s there but Dick’s gaze drop down again. 

“ Thought you could use the help. “

‘ More like you wanted an excuse to see me ‘ Jason thinks.

He leaves the alpha to stew instead tucking away the new information he has. Now that he’s full and rested he can actually think a bit clearly. Dick isn’t a bad looking alpha. His skin is a gorgeous gold color that blurs the line between ethnicities. The contrast of his vivid blue eyes almost makes him look like they are glowing. His teeth are straight and he’s got a great smile with plump lips that will probably be nice to kiss-

Jason’s also seen enough of Dick coming in and out of the showers to know how crazy the alpha’s body is. All hard lines with battle scars and marks that make his inner omega sing. Something dark and dangerous wants to push and see how his marks would look amongst the collection. He sips his juice in silence, mulling over the possibility. 

Warmth pools in his stomach, waking up the first tendrils of arousal for his heat. Dick’s eyes look up and he swears he can see the alpha’s nostrils flare. He smirks and then laughs when Dick looks mortified to have been caught blatantly scenting him. 

“ Well this has been nice. Thanks for breakfast Dickie but you should probably get going before my fever flares up. “

When the man stands Jason’s eyes trail down his figure. The alpha jumps under his attention, skittish and shy. 

Not bad, not bad at all. The hunter in him purrs. 

“ Yea- sure totally glad I could help. I’ll just be going. “

The stuttering of his words is cute. Unlike the night before when Dick had basically been vomiting words, now he’s shut like a clam. The difference is endearing. Jason stands and Dick stumbles back. 

“ I uh… hope your heat goes well. If you need help, just call and i’ll do my best to get here. “

Jason fixes him with a look and the expression of sheer horror that crosses the alpha’s face is worth the drama. 

“ Not like that- just like food or whatever? Like if you have cravings or something. “

Dick stumbles over his words but the recovery is smooth. Jason watches Dick putting on his shoes. He heads back over to the plastic bag on the table.

“ Uh huh. “ 

He makes a show of stealing one of the wrapped candies and twisting it out of the foil. Dick’s eyes stare and his fingers. The blue follows, follows, follows until he brings it to his lips. Jason grins as he sinks his teeth in. 

The helpless way the alpha swallows him gives him a thrill.

“ Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. “

Because now that he’s looking- what an it is.

Dick gives him a terse nod before turning and twisting the knob. He tilts his head as the alpha leaves. When the door click shuts he gives a sound of appraisal.

Yea, Jason wouldn’t mind hittin that. 

After the impromptu visit he starts scheming. 

First, he finds out the ingredients of the serum. It turns out to be a pesky little thing that blurs the line between a person and their instincts. An attempt to make their truth serum recipe stronger. Some shady shit Bruce probably shouldn’t even be dabbling in. But then again it seems like it's okay for the line to blur as long as no one dies. 

He scoffs, tossing his tablet down. 

Focus- no wasting his heat thinking about Bruce. Not when Dick is clearly a better subject matter. He purrs low as warmth pools in his belly.  Reading the report made one thing clear. As frantic as the alpha had been, he had also been genuine. 

Luckily Jason doesn’t even have to do much to get the man to visit again.

His heat fucking drags.

Sure he’s usually quite long but this- this is just too much. Enough that Dick goes out of his way to drop food outside and leave it for him to find. The first time it’s a surprise but by the third- well Jason is opening the door before the alpha can run away.

He looks decadent in his Richard Wayne civies, smelling like expensive cologne and wearing something soft. The dark blue of the scarf brings out the lightness in Dick’s eyes. While the dark grey sweater hugs the man’s muscles in all the right ways. It’s nice to see all of his face too. The way the alpha’s features stand out in the plain hallway is almost overwhelming. Or at least it would be if Jason hasn’t been spending the last 5 days obsessing over him.

He decides to press his luck. Technically he could get away with at least this much, he is in heat after all. He smiles as he accepts the bags, making sure to brush against Dick enough to scent him. The quick little intake the alpha does is precious. It’s subtle of course but with how Jason’s heat stink is practically visible in the air Dick looks like he’s been smite. 

For seven entire minutes the man is stun stationary at the front entrance. It’s almost comical how long it takes him to recover. Jason’s already eaten an entire carton of nasi goreng and an egg roll.

Dick excuses himself under the guise of being late, his cheeks pink. The alpha nearly goes head first into the door frame in his embarrassment. Jason has to bite back his laugh. He busies himself with licking sweet and sour sauce off of his lips as the man retreats. The thought of ‘how cute’ doesn’t leave even when the food is done. 

It shouldn’t be this easy to fall for him. The clumsy way Dick goes about things is so different than anything he’s ever had before. Bless his sweet shy heart but the alpha is anything but assertive. 

In fact it reminds Jason of a romcom. When the male lead is obviously in love with the protagonist and everyone can see it except for him. It sort of feels like that. Though the more Dick tries to cover his tracks the more Jason finds neon signs of tender affection and desire. 

It’s courtship. 

He doesn’t know if Dick realizes it yet, but Jason’s sure as hell accepting it. The thickly drawn line he put down in the beginning is starting to edge away. Every little gift, every text message, every fleeting glance is chipping away at it until it disappears.

When leaves his curtains open a sliver at night, he can catch the alpha guarding his apartment. 

Now logically it could be seen as platonic. After all, Pack mates were meant to watch each other’s backs- especially during heat and rut. Jason hasn’t been there for any of his pack members' cycles, and in turn he never takes it personal when they haven’t been there for him. 

Now that he has it though he never wants it to stop. 

The next day when Dick stops by, Jason spills something on the alpha’s shirt. It’s an excuse. Something that a league alpha would see through. Dick however is absolutely oblivious and Jason takes great pride in making Dick leave in one of his. Stinking like possessive dangerous omega and in exchange he adds the alpha’s shirt to his nest. He also adjusts it to make it big enough for two.

It smells amazing and he sleeps with his face in it. 

Jason enjoys every moment of his heat. He soaks up the attention the alpha lavishes on him earnestly. On day 10 he actually finds himself saying a little thank you to Ivy. His heat isn’t nearly as strong as a usual one but the symptoms are still obvious enough that he has to stay shut in. It gives him more time to iron out his plan of action. Well it’s less of a plan and more like throwing himself at the alpha and taking and having until he’s full.

He purrs thick and heavily. The rumble is so dark it’s almost like a growl but Dick looks completely unbothered by it. He doesn’t mind most things Jason has been learning. The alpha doesn’t shame him for being taller and wider than him. He doesn’t make Jason feel like less than himself, or less than others in his caste. He’s just nice, oblivious but nice and Jason- well Jason has never had that before.

He licks cannoli filling off of his fingers while sneaking a peek at Dick. 

Jason has to hand it to him. He’s doing a pretty good job and pretending to pay attention to the movie. There’s no way he is though. Not with how Jason’s apartment smells like safe, happy, wanting omega. Not with the way Jason is making sure Dick knows just how comfortable he is with him in the room. 

Dick’s scent is mute because of the blockers but that doesn’t mean much against enhanced senses. He can still smell the brief wisp of indulgent pride at providing for him.

The delicious italian food is spread out of the low coffee table like a feast.

One thing Jason could say for certain, the alpha knew how to eat. The baliada’s had only been the beginning. Dick’s brought him some of the best goddamn food he’s had in a while. There’s been slow cooked ribs with all the fixings. A 4 cheese pizza with truffle oil, spinach and grilled chicken with fresh gelato for dessert. Then of course the handmade pasta they’re having now. 

Absolutely perfect and only a fraction of how the alpha has been spoiling him. 

He even made it a point of giving Dick a few challenges of his own. Simple things that he slowly increased the difficulty on. The first day he had asked for something elementary. A blue blanket. Nothing too hard because he just wanted to see if the alpha would. Then- 2 hours later he had the biggest, softed blue blanket that he’s ever seen. Adding it to his nest had been soothing to his instincts. 

Next he asked Dick to take over a case of his. Nothing with a time limit of course but the alpha took it anyway. He used all the information Jason gave up and two days later the bastards dealing to the middle school up north were in black gate where they belonged. That alone had been good- but Jason… Well Jason wanted the best. 

That’s what led him to this little idea. He’s got the most recently released rom com on screen, Dick’s soft blanket over them while he lounges on the couch with nothing but a thin white t-shirt and a pair of sweats that fit him in all the right way. Before Dick had come over he made sure that the place had been absolutely coated in his scent. Which had been kind of easy with how much his heat tends to stink up places. 

He leans against the alpha and feels him stiffen up against him. It’s minute but the man quickly relaxes when Jason purrs soft and sweet. A gentle sound made to relax alpha’s whether they wanted to or not. He shifts and feels Dick’s eyes drop to his chest. He feels hot knowing that the alpha can clearly see his nipples through his top. 

The movie drags on and Jason enjoys torturing the alpha. 

It’s dainty touches at first, just to test the man’s reactions. Simple and frequent enough that he’s sure the alpha knows he’s doing it on purpose. 

So what if he wants to cop a feel off of the alpha who’s courting him? It’s his right. 

He curls into Dick’s side, surprised how his body fits in the curve of the alpha’s arms. His breast presses against a bicep. A purr starts to build in his throat.

“ Movie’s good. “ He lies. 

The alpha grunts the affirmative. It’s obvious that he isn’t able to pay attention. To be truthful Jason would be insulted if he could. After all he’s purposely pumping out a perfume of sweet, wanting, waiting omega that must have Dick dizzy. 

Still the man doesn’t push and Jason’s heart pounds in his chest. 

They reach the end of the movie and Dick seems too quick to get off the couch. Jason stretches and lays down his entire body relaxed and warm. The last bits of heat are whispering out of him which he’s glad for. It means he has more energy and more than that- that he can’t be accused of being compromised. 

He hums as Dick straightens up the leftovers on the coffee table. He’s so diligently good that Jason just needs to reward him. He bites his bottom lip peering up at the alpha through his lashes. Slow and purposely he runs a clothed sock up the inseam of Dick’s black slacks. The way the alpha tenses and stumbles is equal part adorable as arousing. 

Blown blue eyes look at him and Jason’s purr grows. 

“ C’mere. “

Jason is pretty sure he didn’t let any sort of command slip into his voice. It had been nothing but a soft honest call but the way Dick just- lets everything fall to get back to him did things to his ego. Dick stares at him helplessly. Eyes struggling to stay on his face, but darting down to his lips, chest, thighs then back up in rapid succession. Jason sinks into the couch, the soft rumble in his chest merging with the credits on screen. 

“ ‘m feeling a little restless. Would you scent me before you go? “

Jason tilts his neck up, demour and willing. When he cuts his eyes at the alpha he’s sure there’s mirth in his gaze. He can’t help it however. Not when Dick looks like he’s about to short circuit. Almost like the only gravity in the room is Jason and if the alpha takes his gaze away from him for a moment he’ll be floating towards the sun. 

Huh, his heat must be cooling off if he could think up that metaphor. 

The alpha swallows not moving. Jason watches his hestitance gleefully. He knows what he looks like. The hard lines of his body posing in an open and friendly gesture. A wanting gesture that would have a weaker alpha already on their knees. 

Jason smirks, He can practically hear Dick’s heartbeat pounding in his chest. 

“ Sure Little Wing, yea I can do that. “

He can but he still hasn't moved. Jason would snort but he doesn’t want to give away the game too quickly. He wants Dick to move on his own. To see how the alpha will genuinely act if Jason leaves himself open and vulnerable. 

Instead of his neck, Dick lifts his wrist and uses it to drag up and down the smooth expanse of Jason’s throat. Jason’s purr crescendos to the point where it almost hurts. His vocal cords vibrate as his chosen alpha rubs his scent all over him. It’s mute because of the patches- but still undeniably Dick. 

Jason’s eyelashes droop. His entire body is warm content and happy. Dick stares and him and the omega stares back. 

“ I should probably go…. The movie was good, thanks for suggesting it. “

Jason didn’t watch a goddamn thing and he’s pretty sure Dick didn’t either. 

“ Anytime Goldie. “

He means it. The two of them bask in silence, the title screen flicking back up as the credits roll to a close. No one says anything so Jason is content to leave things where they are. He has all the answers he needs. 

“ See you around. “ 

Sooner rather than later? He wants to quip. He holds his tongue however. Patience. Tip your intentions too early and your prey will get away. League lessons ring true even now. He feigned nonchalance while nodding at the alpha.

“ Sounds good. Bring Sushi next time “

There’s nothing left for Dick to prove. Jason has already made his decision.

The alpha smiles soft and sweet. His entire face lightening up at the promise of another meeting.

“ Sure Little Wing. “

Jason grins. 

How clueless and naive. The poor thing had no clue that next time actually meant eternity. 

[heartofsnark]

I Wanna Ruin Our Friendship (Misty/Fem!V/Jackie) Smut

Notes: Sooooo, this isn't really canon to my V's like story, as far as like her actual series goes (which you should look at if you want plot with your porn ayyy) but more of a fun what if, that I was possessed to write at 8am and am now publishing at 2:40 am cause I've lost control of my life and wanna see these three fuck. 

Warnings: Vaginal sex, cunnilingus, creampies, unprotected sex (fucking wrap it before you tap it, fucking hell Jackie) blowjobs, oral sex, licking cum out of a vagina, just porn, so much porn.

Summary: V has a problem, many problems, but we're focusing on the one for today. Her, Jackie, and Misty are friends; really good friends. Completely platonic and chill friends. They're her best friends in fact, the closest friends she's ever had. So, why does she want to fuck them so bad? 

*Also, the V in this is my own, she is a cis woman and also deaf. 

V has a problem, multiple problems if she’s being honest, but one in particular has been overwhelming her as of late. She doesn’t do romantic love, she’s told herself time and time again. A misguided crush as a child and a ‘what could have been’ when she was a slightly older child. Times when she thought she was in love or could have ended up there, but her hopes were dashed with cruel words or chance. And every other encounter since has been either platonic or just sex. You can be V’s friend or you can fuck her; no room for romance or muddy waters in the merc’s heart. 

At least that’s what she says. 

At least that’s what she thought. 

Then she met Jackie and Misty. The Heywood boy who took her in. His sweetheart of a girlfriend. Her feelings are platonic, she tells herself. Friends, practically family, a platonic sort of love she’s so rarely found. And that’s more than enough, her feelings and desires don’t go  beyond that, she tells herself. 

She watches Jackie workout at times, meant to spot him.  His muscle corded arms strained as he lifts weights, veins prominent and sweat tracing patterns down his skin. Freckled face flushed with exertion and V’s mouth dry at the thought of tasting the salt of his skin. 

But, they’re friends. 

V will catch herself staring at Misty from time to time when she visits the older woman’s Esoterica shop, getting tarot card readings and helping sort any new inventory that’s come in. Never missing the way Misty’s skirt rides up her thighs, showing a peek of soft thighs wrapped in fishnet stockings. 

But they’re friends. 

It's purely platonic when Jackie ruffles her hair, a big warm hand the size of her head, a grin wider than a canyon and sun glinting off his gold cyberware. The butterflies in her stomach and the flush on her face mean nothing more, they’re friends. 

And it's strictly platonic when she and Misty bleach their hair together, legs practically entangled when they wait on the couch together. The way V’s breath catches at the press of skin and the sound of Misty laughing is just…  They’re friends, really, just friends. 

They’re just friends, her mind screams when she’s sharing a bed with Jackie, pressed close to his warm body and inhaling the smell of his cologne. His large arms wrapped around her and thoughts flickering to if he’d let his hands move lover. 

Just friends, she tries to beat into her own head, when she’s reminded of Misty’s hands gently holding her bruised chin after a bad gig. Close enough V could nearly kiss her black painted lips, what would it feel like having dark lipstick smeared across her neck? 

They’re just friends, but sometimes she wishes they weren’t; she tells herself in shame after a night spent thinking of them in Jackie’s bed, him out on a date with Misty. V’s hand wet with her own slick after hours imagining she was pressed between them, the smell of her sweat sticking to his sheets. 

Moving out will help, she decides. A little more space, a few more boundaries will keep those lines from blurring so easily. Her friends, just friends, are there to help her move in and set up her new megabuilding apartment. 

Once everything is settled in, V orders them all takeout for dinner, the least she can do. The trio sits on the floor around her table, the holoprojector showing advertisements above their head. The curved built-in sofa is behind them, but its too far from the table to comfortably eat, plus it doesn’t afford the comfort of being closer to each other. Misty and Jackie sitting, nearly on top of each other across the table from V.  Trying not to stare at the way his fingers toy with Misty’s sweater. 

“Can’t believe you’re actually moving out, chica,” Jackie comments after swallowing down a mouthful of dumplings. She swears she hears a hint of melancholy in his voice, but maybe it’s wishful thinking. 

“Can’t mooch off of you and Mama Welles forever,” she signs and talks, comfortable talking when it's just them. The words flow easier, her throat less raw and blocked off. 

“For the billionth time, you ain’t no fuckin’ mooch, V.” 

“So you say.” V rolls her eyes and takes a drink of Nicola. 

“Personally, I’m happy about it,” Misty states and that soda suddenly feels like cement in V’s throat. One of her worst fears potentially realized, that Misty or Jackie see her as an interloper, an intrusion on their relationship. That Misty is sick of some random woman sleeping in her boyfriend’s bed.

“Why’s that?” Jackie asks, half of an eggroll in his mouth.

“‘Cause now I don’t have to sneak around Mama Welles to see V, too.” 

“Oh,” V swallows hard, feeling the air return to her lungs, “that’s right, I’ll never understand that whole thing. ”  

Misty is one of the sweetest people in the world and V’s always considered Jackie’s mom just as nice, but for some reason the two can’t seem to see eye to eye. Mama Welles hung up on Jackie getting back with one of his ex’s. 

“She’ll come around eventually, Ma just takes a while to warm up to people.” 

“Me, not people, just me. Pretty sure, she’d jump for joy if you and V were dating,” 

V chokes on her noodles, heat flushing up to her hairline at the thought. Not helping, Misty, not helping. Misty laughs at her, V trying to recompose herself. 

“Why would you say that?” 

“Uh, ‘cause it’s true!~ She adores you, V. Not that I can blame her.” 

“Pfft,” V rolls her eyes, scoffing, “trust me, she’d turn on me in a heartbeat if I tried to steal away her precious baby boy.”  

V teases Jackie, reaching across the table to squeeze at his cheek, he smacks away her hand, grinning and a flush of red across his cheeks. 

“Fuck off!” 

“True, she is so protective of her precious, Jaquito~” Misty joins in, giggling and scratching her nails along his chin. 

“I didn’t sign up to be harassed today,” he pretends to complain. 

“No sign up necessary, my harassment comes free and unsolicited~,” V reaches for an eggroll and accidentally knocks an open can of cola into Jackie’s lap, “shit!” 

“Ah, fuck,” Jackie flinches a bit as cold soda hits his crotch. 

“Sorry, sorry,” V blurts out, grabbing up napkins and starting to reach over the table to dry him. 

“I, uh, got it! It’s fine!” Jackie quickly stops her and she realizes she was a fraction of an inch away from trying to rub his dick dry. 

“Uh, right, sorry, I, sorry.” V falls back on her but, trying to pretend she isn’t embarrassed by the instinct. 

“Its okay, V,” Jackie insists, trying to dry his pants, “what’s a wet sticky dick between friends?”

“Jackie!” V yells at his innuendo, the audacity of this man, meanwhile Misty is giggling behind her hand.

“It shouldn’t stain,” Misty says when she stops giggling, rubbing Jackie’s shoulder, “I think you left some clothes at my place, you can change there, so you don’t have to wear wet pants all the way back to Heywood.”

And that’s right, they’ll be leaving at some point. She’ll be having her first night alone in her apartment, just her…  She taps her fingers against the floor, staring at a seam on her couch. She’s an adult, she reminds herself, she can handle being alone. 

“Yeah, we’ll go ahead and get out of your hair, V.” 

“Yeah, yeah, appreciate the help,” she hopes her signing and voice don’t give away her discomfort. Then there’s a gentle hand over her own, neatly painted black fingernails on her skin, warm and smooth skin compared to V’s more calloused flesh. Misty having shifted closer to the side of the table, so she could reach V. 

“Unless, you don’t want us to go?” 

“Uhh,” what kind of adult can’t be alone in her own apartment, V admonishes herself, “I-” 

“You still have trouble sleeping alone, right?” Jackie asks, raising an eyebrow, eyes concerned. 

“I mean… I don’t expect anyone to coddle me, I-” 

“It's not coddling, V, we care about you. Adjusting is hard and if us sleeping here tonight helps, we’re happy to do it.” 

“You know we’d do anything for you, chica.” 

“Uh, okay then, I can sleep on the couch and you two can have the bed-” 

“Pffft,” Jackie scoffs, “don’t be stupid,  we’ve been sharing a bed half that size for the past three months, V. The last thing I expect is for you to sleep on the couch.” 

“Okay, if you’re both cool with it.” 

And that’s how she ends up in her new bed with her two friends. Misty wearing a set of V’s sleep clothes, the shorts and shirt riding up slightly on the older woman just a few inches taller than the merc. Jackie stripped down to just his boxer briefs and V is accustomed to that she reminds herself, her partner in crime, sleeping in his underwear next to her more times than she can count. But, lately everything feels...muddier. 

V faces the wall, on her side, Misty and Jackie cuddling behind her. They nearly pulled her between them, but she stopped them, insisting she sleep fine so long as there’s just someone near her. And that’s true, the warmth and knowledge that she’s not alone helps plenty, but more so she’s just not sure she would have survived the night pressed between them. Even like this… she struggles to sleep, feeling their bodies radiating warmth behind her.  She stares at the wall and tries to name stars, her go to trick for sleeping. 

Then there’s shifting movement behind her, the feeling of the bed shifting a bit, and Misty’s foot slightly nudging V’s ankle. The little merc twists around onto her other side to see what’s going on, if Misty or Jackie need something and her breath catches in her throat. 

Misty is pressed tight to Jackie’s chest, the couple spooning with her back to his front. His face is pressed into her neck, V can’t hear his face nor read his lip, but she can see them moving against Misty’s skin. Jackie’s large hands are toying with Misty’s body,  one hand down between her thighs and the other pushing her shirt up to grope her breast. Misty’s eyes are shut, head arched back just slightly, mouth slightly open as her boyfriend teases her. 

V can’t help but stare, face a sharp shade of crimson, at the sight of the shirt being pushed up to reveal the underside of Misty’s breast, the muscles in Jackie’s forearm tightening as he fingers her.  Its a lot to take in, the sight, the feelings; the knowledge that they’d do this just inches from V. Desire and heat build in her center, her cunt getting wet at watching her friends fool around, finding herself imagining what it’d be like to have Jackie’s thick calloused fingers pushing inside of her or how soft Misty’s breast would feel in her hand. Then Jackie pushes the shirt all the way up above Misty’s chest, plump breasts and stiffening nipples on full display. 

V shouldn’t be seeing this; shame and humiliation mix with her arousal. 

Friends. They’re friends, damn it!

The speed at which V turns away from the sight, sends her half into the wall; knee and hands hitting it. She can feel Misty and Jackie shooting up behind her, mattress shifting, V tries to burrow down into her pillow hoping the two will somehow be convinced she just moved in her sleep. But the hand rubbing over her shoulder tells her that’s not the case. She forces herself to sit up and face her friends, just friends… 

Misty and Jackie are sitting up more in the bed, Misty’s clothes back in place. Their faces are both flushed, Jackie isn’t making eye contact with V.  Misty hands V her hearing aid case, a gentle unspoken request for her to put them in so it’s easier to talk. And V doesn’t want to talk about it, doesn’t want to deal with this, doesn’t want to ruin this. But she can’t deny the soft look in Misty’s emerald green eyes, sliding her hearing aids in. 

“Sorry, chica…” Jackie awkwardly apologizes the second V can hear.

“Okay…night... ” Is all V can manage, hoping this will be the end of it, hoping she doesn’t have to confront everything swelling up inside of her. V reaches up to take out her hearing aids, intent on just quickly pulling them out and rolling back over, to pretend this never happened. 

Misty’s hand reaches her face first, cupping V’s chin and forcing the merc to make eye contact. Though her eyes do drift back and forth between Misty’s lips and eyes. The closeness makes it all the  more tempting to just kiss her… 

But Misty beats her to it, nothing but tender press of their lips together. And V never in a million years believed of the three that Misty would be the one to break first.  Yet here they are, a soft kiss that lasts all of a moment before Misty starts to pull away, a quick peck meant to test the waters, but V chases after it, capturing the older woman’s lips again.  Her kiss is a far cry from Misty’s, hungrier, deeper and anything but chaste as she pushes her tongue into the blonde’s mouth. 

“Shit,” Jackie curses, voice low and hungry as he watches his girlfriend and best friend makeout. V smiles into the kiss, finally breaking away. 

“We’re a pair of  Catholic school girl uniforms away from acting out Jackie’s favorite BD, aren’t we?” V can’t help but tease remembering a few… select pieces from her friends collection. 

“Hey!” 

V falls back against the bed laughing, that sort of tension and fear melting away. Misty and Jackie laugh too; the sound music to V’s ears, the merc suddenly thankful she kept the hearing aids in.  They kissed and the world didn’t end. There’s no irreparable damage and if they wanted maybe they could all leave it there, a weird exchange that ended in laughter. Nothing has to change. One kiss between friends, no big deal. 

Then Misty is climbing over her, moving to be on the other side of V, pressing against that side as Jackie moves in closer; placing her between them. 

“Hello, can I he-” she starts to tease, then Jackie’s lips are on hers. His large warm hand on her chin, keeping her in place as he pushes his tongue into her mouth. She works to meet his movement, to give as good as she gets, kissing him back with the same passing. A moan leaving the back of her throat and dying on Jackie’s tongue when he shifts the angle to kiss her deeper. She grabs his bicep, feeling his muscles to anchor herself. 

And, okay, it’s two kisses now. What’s two kisses between friends?

Jackie pulls away, pressing his forehead against hers, rubbing his thumb over her chin. 

“Been wanting to do that for a while, mija,” he admits tenderly. 

And that’s it, it's all too far gone and she’s done caring. 

“Need you, both of you,” V finally says it, puts the words out into the world and prepares herself for what comes next. 

Then Jackie pulls her shirt off over her head, leaving V’s breasts exposed, her nipple piercings glinting in the lowlight of the room.  Delicate fingers push past the waistband of V’s shorts, Misty finding and stroking V’s clit as Jackie dips his head to suck at the merc’s breast. She whimpers at the treatment, overwhelmed and squirming as the couple plays with her body. Slick coats Misty’s fingers and V’s thighs, the merc’s cunt clenching with every rub of her clit. Jackie’s tongue teases and licks at her piercing, he sucks at her breast, feeling her nipple stiffen on his tongue. Misty’s fingers slip lower, pushing inside of V. Its all too much, V’s pleasure building higher and higher inside of her. Jackie gives a little nip, not a true bite just the slight pressure of his teeth on her breast just as Misty adds a third finger. And it snaps, V crying out as she cums on Misty’s hand, 

Jackie pulls off of V’s breast and Misty pulls slick coated fingers out of her cunt, the merc panting. 

“Didn’t realize you were that sensitive, V,” Jackie teases, breath hot on her ear. 

“Shut up.” 

“It’s cute,” Misty assures her, kissing softly across V’s cheek and neck. 

“So, cute,” Jackie says, but his voice with that edge of condescension before he bites her neck. She whines but responds by rubbing a hand over his cock, grinning when he jumps. 

“Yeah, let's see how well you handle it,” she taunts, pushing him back flat against the bed as she straddles him. 

His hard cock rubs against her, her shorts and his boxers the only thing between them. She kisses across his chest. Tracing her tongue along his tattoos and freckles, sliding her hand between them to palm his dick, feeling the warmth of it through the fabric. She trails her kisses down, watching his head dip back against the pillow, cursing under his breath as she makes her way lower and lower down his torso and stomach. She pulls her mouth away when it hits fabric, as much as she’d love to settle between his legs and tease him through his boxers, She’s not about to forget about Misty. 

V pulls away to press closer to Jackie’s side, looking up to see Misty, staring at them, enraptured. The merc stretches over Jackie’s lap to catch the back of Misty’s head, tangling her fingers in the short layers of hair, bringing the older woman in for another kiss. She uses this to gently pull and encourage Misty over closer, until they’re both pressed tight against one side of Jackie’s legs, making out just above his erection. They break apart, with V giving a soft bite to Misty’s lower lip before hooking her fingers into the bottom of Misty’s shirt pulling it off over her head. She can’t help but get another eyeful of Misty’s chest, before turning her attention back to Jackie, intent on showing why having two people play with you tends to make a person more sensitive. 

V slips her fingers into the top of Jackie’s boxer briefs, starting to pull them down, Misty helping her as Jackie raises his hips for them. The girls quickly getting the boxers off; V swallows hard at the sight of his dick. He’s big, something she always figured considering he’s nearly a giant towering over both Misty and V.  Its flushed red at the head, thick with prominent veins, and leaking precum on his lower stomach. Misty and V get their tongues on him, making Jackie curse aloud. V lapping the head of his cock to taste his precum, teasing her tongue piercing along the flushed sensitive skin. Misty, tracing the underside, licking along the veins and shaft of his cock. 

V pulls away for a moment as Misty licks up Jackie’s cock. The merc watches as Misty takes the length of Jackie’s dick into mouth, inch after inch pushing past her kiss-swollen lips. V takes to licking the places where Misty’s mouth can reach, the part of his cock she can’t force down her throat without risk of gagging, V’s tongue chases after Misty’s mouth as she pulls up, tasting Misty’s spit on his cock, until she’s pulling off his dick with a pop. Before V can follow suit, taking her turn to feel his dick in her throat, he stops them. Large thick fingers tangling in bleached hair. 

“Stop, fuck, fuck, gonna-fuck,” he groans out, nearly choking on his words. 

“Aww, feeling sensitive?” V teases, biting at his thigh. 

“Not helping, V.” 

“I don’t think she was trying to help, Jackie,” Misty jokes, sharing a sly smile with V as they watch Jackie try to keep from blowing his load right there. Jackie reaches down and squeezes Misty’s ass, making her yelp at the sudden attention. 

“Wanna feel you, carina,” he tells Misty, teasing her cunt through her shorts.  

V helps Misty pull off her shorts, leaving her completely naked. The young merc can see the slick sticking to the inside of Misty’s inner thighs and all she wants to do is lap it up. But Jackie is already manhandling Misty, helping her move to straddle his lap, with her back towards him and facing V; reverse cowgirl style.  Misty puts her hands back on Jackie’s chest, leaning her weight back on him as he holds her hips, his fingers squeezing the soft plush flesh. 

Slowly, Jackie pulls Misty down on his cock, making her moan out as he fills her. He bounces Misty on his cock, fucking up into her. V watches agape, not sure where she wants to focus, from where the two meet, his cock pumping into Misty’s tight cunt. Or to Misty as a whole, the woman put on full display for V to watch as her breasts bounce with every thrust and she cries out with every slap of flesh hitting flesh. 

She settles for doing much more than just watching, V dipping her head between their thighs and licking where Jackie and Misty connect. Its a sloppy mess, trying to keep up with Jackie’s pace as he pound into Misty. V laps and licks at his cock where she can, tasting Misty’s slick on him, kissing where Misty’s cunt takes in Jackie’s cock. She sucks and teases Misty’s clit, her own cunt clenching at the way the added pleasure makes Misty scream out. V’s mouth and tongue are everywhere they can be, desperate and sloppy in her rush to taste the couple, to add to their pleasure. 

Misty grabs the back of V’s hair when she cums, pinning the merc in one spot as she screams out her release. V’s left to drool and keep her tongue out as Misty’s cunt and Jackie’s cock rub against her. She tastes the rush of Misty’s slick first, gushing and twitching as her pussy is overwhelmed.  Then V tastes the bitter salt of Jackie’s cum, him cursing as he fills Misty and then keeps cumming, thick white spilling out and dripping back down his cock. The couple still, both panting heavily and Misty relaxing, letting V’s hair go as the young merc continues to lick up the mess. Misty collapses, practically boneless laying on Jackie’s chest. 

Jackie gets his hands under her thighs and starts to bring them back, Misty whimpering as he’s able to hold her legs up, nearly bringing her knees to her chest. The shift in position causes his cock to slip out of her, his cum now spilling freely from Misty’s cunt, a wet messy show for V. 

“Clean her up for me, V?” He asks it as casually as he’d ask V to lend her car. And V is just as happy to oblige. 

V buries her tongue inside of Misty, moaning softly when Misty squeals at the feeling. Its a mess of Jackie’s cum and Misty’s, mingling on V’s tongue as she licks it up like she’s starved for it. Misty is a sensitive mess, being eaten out so soon after being fucked to pieces, but V doesn’t hold back; rubbing a thumb over the woman’s swollen clit while she laps up every drop of Jackie’s cum. There’s a shake in Misty’s thighs, instinct telling her to clench them shut, to trap V between her legs, but Jackie keeps her spread wide; only able to whimper and whine as the mess is licked up as her twitching wet clit is teased alongside every stroke of V’s tongue. 

With each lick V tastes less and less of Jackie’s mess, cleaning up the creampie he’d left inside of Misty. And she doesn’t know what it is that sends Misty over the edge, one too many rubs of V’s thumb over her clit or particularly deep lick, V desperate to truly swallow down every drop of seed. But something does and Misty’s sent into a second orgasm, trembling and gushing against V’s tongue, screaming out as the pleasure consumes her.  The merc slows down gently,steadily  easing Misty through the aftershocks, until she’s done trembling.  

Jackie lets go of Misty’s legs, letting her body relax as she gently moves to lay against his side. His cock is still half hard and there’s an itch inside of V that hasn’t quite been scratched, still wet and twitching between her thighs, the crotch of her thin shorts sticky with slick. But she doesn’t want to push it, she thinks as she goes to lay down on his other side. But, he has different ideas it seems, an idea catching in his mind as V’s in the midst of moving, on her hands and knees about to drop down onto the mattress. Despite his size he moves fast, grabbing at V’s hips and making her freeze, on his knees behind her as he pulls her ass back against his cock. She whines at the friction, as he grinds against her, quickly getting his cock fully hard again. Misty laying against the pillows next to them, satiated and content to watch the V and Jackie chase another orgasm. 

And he yanks her shorts down as far as he can without changing the position, exposing her slick needy cunt. 

“Fuck,” the low hungry curse sends a chill along V’s spine, the head of his cock leaving wet across her ass, before he rubs it over her sex. 

There's a part of her that thinks they shouldn’t, that this is the step too far, a line that can’t be uncrossed; as if she hadn’t just had her face buried in Misty’s pussy. But, she needs this and by the tight hold Jackie has on her hips, he does too. A line that needs to be crossed even if it can’t be undone. An experience that has to be had, just to know what it’s like. 

Then he’s sinking into her, pulling her back onto his cock, filling her. V’s eyes roll back, a silent cry on her tongue as she’s stretched and stuffed. Too much, too much; but exactly what she needs. Despite his size, he fills her easily, her body too needy to resist the push of him into her. He doesn’t give her time to adjust, not that she needs or truly wants it. They’re both at their limit, just needing this, to know what it’s like to be connected this way; to feel his cock pounding into her, to feel her cunt clenching around him. 

She lets him set the pace, too overwhelmed to do anything, whimpering as he brutally fucks her; pulling her back against him as he thrusts forward. Both too far gone and desperate for this to be softer. The skin slapping together, sound ringing out through the apartment, a wet squelch everytime he sinks inside of her. Jackie uses her like a toy, like a human sized fleshlight to chase his own end with. And she knows she means more than that, in the moment it feels good to just be used, to be manhandled and fucked apart, to be a pillow princess taking his dick however he sees fit to give it. Each thrust sending her spiraling deeper and deeper into her pleasure, fucked stupid and mindless, unable to think of anything but how it feels to be fucked by him. 

And that pleasure overwhelms quicker than she expects, bubbling over and orgasm hitting her before she even truly realized she was close. Mind going completely blank and throat raw as she screams out, cumming on his cock, toes clenching. And he fucks her through it, draws it out until he’s cursing under his breath and spilling inside of her. His second load, a little lighter than the creampie he left Misty with, but still thick and too much for V’s cunt to hold; the mess leaking down her thighs as she comes down from her high. 

She whimpers when he pulls out, suddenly empty and more of his cum spilling from inside of her. Jackie collapses, in the middle of the bed, between Misty and V, sweaty and panting. V can’t help but laugh, throwing her shorts completely off, as Misty curls up close to his side. Jackie wraps an arm around Misty’s  hip. His other hand skims V’s back as she leans over them to take her hearing aids out, putting them on the side table, then she’s pulled down to lay against his chest. V nuzzles in, looking at Misty’s face across the expanse of Jackie’s chest, V being held just as tightly to his side. Misty’s hand is on his chest and V reaches up, intertwining their fingers, earning her a soft serene smile from the older woman. 

And there’s a lot that’ll need to be talked about. So many questions as to what this all means; what does V even want this to mean? A one time thing they don’t talk about, don’t deal with. A friendship ruiner, the start of something… new.  So many possibilities and each one brings with it a different sort of anxiety. But for now, she’s content to sleep curled up under the sheets with her friends. 

[knifefather]

KnifeFather’s Kinktober 2020, 18+ NSFW ➼ Day 13: Breeding or squirting ➼ Pairing: Kars/Reader ➼ Word count: 2.2k ➼ Reader is AFAB and female pronouns are used. ➼ Also available on Ao3. ➼ Warning: This chapter contains dark themes such as kidnapping, Stockholm syndrome, major character death, and abuse. Proceed with caution.

Kars, as the strongest of the remaining Pillarmen, makes a decision for the future of his race. You are made into one and only queen.

*Author’s note: This fic takes place a month or so after the events of episode 20 of Battle Tendency. Caesar was killed by Wamuu, and Kars kidnapped you. He killed the rest of the protagonists, secured the Red Stone of Aja, and took over the world. He keeps you locked away as his prisoner, but also his lover. They remain in Switzerland because why not.

You looked out the wide, luxurious window at the gentle snow falling over the Swiss mountains. The plush room you sat in was oppressively lonely. Your captor-turned-lover was away, and you were left by yourself. Even with that considered, you were still acutely aware of the presence of the stone mask vampires that resided on the floors below yours. When you heard their hissing from behind your closed door, it sent a shiver down your spine and bad memories flashing through your mind. You had thought to read one of the many books that lined the shelves of the room to distract yourself. However, after thinking it over, you realized that you had read most of them all already. A few months ago, you were taken from Lisa Lisa’s group during the team’s assault on the first dilapidated mansion the Pillarmen had resided in. After discovering that Caesar was dead, you made a grave mistake. The actions you took were foolish--you tucked yourself into a far-off corner, hiding in the shadows, sobbing over the death of your friend when you were taken. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of you. You felt an iron grip across your midriff, and suddenly you were being stolen away deeper into the mansion, only one shrill cry escaping you before you were fully engulfed in darkness. The last thing you heard was JoJo screaming your name. You never forgot the way his voice sounded as he watched you disappear.

When you came to, you were laying on the cold, hard floor of the manor. You noticed that an attempt had been made to warm you. The quilt you laid on was soft, and you were wrapped up tightly in the fabric. Your bleary eyes opened slowly only to fall on another set of eyes, watching you intently. Red eyes. You jumped and quickly made to scramble away, a whimper of fear leaving you. You were a Hamon user like your friends, but not nearly as strong as the rest of them. If you tried to resist the Pillarman, then it was certain that you would be a goner. A second gaze fell on you as well, but the silhouette of the second person as much farther away from you. “You’re awake.” The silky voice spoke condescendingly, the being it belonged to having no need for sleep. The being stepped closer to you into the dim light, revealing the form of a large man. Kars.

He explained his reasoning for capturing you and that he had intended to keep you even despite planning to murder your friends. You tried to fight him at first, swiping your fingernails across his face, charged with Hamon, but he deflected you easily, breaking your wrist in the most agonizing way possible. It took quite some time to heal, and it was never the same again. You knew from then on not to challenge him further.

Your relationship with your captor turned sexual quickly. Many nights after the deaths of your friends were spent with him cradling you to his gargantuan chest, his cock inside you, carving out his place in your womb. He never came inside--he always pulled out of you in favor of painting your body with his spunk instead. It always left you needy and wanting more. He taught you many things about the female form and how good he could truly make you feel.

He taught you other things, as well. When he took you, your Hamon was weak. You were a poor excuse for a warrior. He trained you, educated you more on the science of the practice, and in a short time, you were strong enough to have taken on Joseph, Caesar, and Lisa Lisa all at once and won. Their absence made you train harder. What would have happened if you were skilled enough the first time always lingered in the back of your mind. Kars beat you mercilessly during training. Even with how much he held back, you were still no match for him, and it took much fortitude to even stand up to a fraction of his power. There were many nights where he was the one nursing you after he had been the one to bloody you. It fucked with you emotionally in ways that you had never thought possible before. You questioned the superhuman's intentions, even now.

Back in the present, you made your way over to the bookshelf anyway. You trailed your fingertips over the various titles that Kars and Wamuu had collected for you. The selection ranged from encyclopedias to fictional novels to cooking books. Curious, you grabbed one of the F volumes of the encyclopedias. You wandered over to the chair in the corner of the room and opened it to a random page. You scanned the book, recognizing many concepts that you were already educated on. A particular phrase caught your eye--"Freedom and free will". You swallowed thickly and read over the entry, tears forming in the corners of your eyes as you stared down at the page. Your thoughts were interrupted when you heard the door close against its frame. Your head whipped up to see Kars standing there, in all his glory, large and imposing. Quickly closing the book, you tried to ignore the feeling of dread that pooled in your stomach. You hoped that you didn't look guilty as you shoved the book away from you.

“Kars,” you said lamely, rising to your feet. “I’ve missed you… Where have you been?” you ask, drawing close to him. He accepted you into his arms, and you cuddled into his chest on instinct. “What’s important is not where I’ve been, but where I am now,” he said smoothly, holding you close. Even with such an intimate gesture, a flicker of fear lived in you. You were quiet and nodded in response before he pulled back from you. He held you away from him at an arm’s length, looking over you. Under his gaze, you felt as if he were undressing you in his mind, and it made you shiver. “My pet… We’re going to do something very important this day. Lay on the bed,” he instructed, his red eyes flashing inhumanly. You swallowed and made to obey his wish, laying on the lush sheets. He stripped himself of the simple collared shirt he wore, and you felt the apex of your thighs begin to grow damp already. He always had a certain air to him when he prepared to mate with you, and it made you shiver with anticipation. “Yes, my lord? What would that be?” you dared to question, watching him now move to his trousers. “As you know, Wamuu and I are the last of our kind,” he said simply, taking his time removing his belt and trousers. “Even with the company of you and the vampires, we’ve grown quite lonely. As the strongest of the remaining Pillarmen, I’ve made a decision.” His slacks fell to the ground and you were met with an eyeful of his impressive member. It didn’t surprise you that the superhuman went commando, but you still weren’t expecting the erect cock that hung in front of you. You stayed silent, eyeing him and waiting for him to continue. He moved towards you silently, his movements perfect and unfaltering. He settled himself in front of you and you opened your thighs for him absentmindedly. “We’re going to make more?” you asked softly, your question more of a statement than anything. Kars’s long, sentient hair began to curl around the both of you, lengthening and writhing on the mattress. “Correct, my pet. I’ve made arrangements for us to bed as long as we please with no interruptions,” he whispered, helping himself to free you from your clothing. You sucked in a breath of anticipation as he stripped you bare. Your body, covered in scars laid bare to him, and he licked his lips and he watched you. The Pillarman cut right to the chase. Already, he directed your body in the way that he wanted it: you were on your back, and he hiked your ankles up to your ears, you holes on display for him. You whimpered under the heated gaze he gave you, embarrassed even though he had already seen you in every position imaginable. “Prepare yourself, little human,” he warned, his words dissolving into a soft moan as he pressed the head of his girthy member inside you. Even though he had taken you before, you never became completely accustomed to the stretch of his manhood. You controlled your breathing as he sheathed himself inside you, the Hamon training working in your favor. Your palms itched with the urge to touch the god, but they flinched away before you could make contact. Kars chuckled at your reaction. “You may touch. This is a special occasion,” he said evenly, holding your legs up to your head. You whimpered and moved to grab his powerful arms, anchoring yourself as he plunged his impossibly huge member in your dripping opening. He was too large to hilt inside you fully, but he filled you as much as he possibly could. You were already on the brink of orgasm, the stretch doing wonders on its own. “Are you ready?” he asked you.

You nodded at him. “Yes, Kars…” you confirmed weakly, your cunt clenching around him. “I’m ready to… to breed,” you whispered. This seemed to set him off. Without further ado, the Pillarman brought his hips down to yours, dragging his cock sensually along your walls, and you cried out from the intensity of the action. He began with a slow, steady pace, watching your pussy lips stretch around his member. His breaths were deliberate, keeping a check on himself even during the throes of pleasure. “Please, Lord Kars, I can take more,” you moaned, your voice sounding more sure than you felt. He gazed at you through his thick, black lashes and laughed, the sound more of a growl.

“Good pet. I’ve trained you well,” he spoke before canting his hips faster into yours. You thrashed against the mattress as the head of his cock assaulted your G spot, and your first orgasm washed over you. You grabbed him for support, and his powerful body didn't falter as you did so. Kars’s endless amusement over how passionately you submit to him showed all over his face. The horns peeking from the mane of purple hair on his head made him look like a perfect devil, but the focused and serene expression on his face made him appear angelic. It was beautifully confusing, but the details were lost to you as his heavy balls slapped against your ass. They pulsed against you, and you knew his climax impending. “You can feel it, can’t you? I’m going to breed you, my dear… Fill you with my seed,” he promised. The ultimate lifeform spread your legs impossibly wide, fucking into your womb with amazing strength. Your head grew empty, leaving you only able to cling to him and thoughtlessly beg for his essence. Kars stilled to a slower pace as he emptied himself inside you, the carnal nature of the god commanding him to dig himself as deep as he could into your pussy. Your mouth dropped open in a soundless scream, moaning and beaming up at him. He recovered from his orgasm quickly and was already beginning a moderate pace once more.

You trembled as he continued pounding away at your core. You could feel the fullness of your tummy as it began to swell with his cum, your breasts jiggling as he snapped his body into yours. If you were full from just one load, you couldn’t imagine how you were going to feel by the time the day was over. In a rare moment of sentimentality, Kars leaned over you to plant a passionate kiss on your lips, his large thighs meeting the backs of yours rhythmically. He swallowed any noises of lust you produced, and your eyes slipped shut as he took you. The sheer amount of power that rolled off of him made you fold in on yourself, and he tsked when he noticed you shrinking away. “Come now, love, don’t be shy,” he encouraged, gazing down at where your bodies connected. “This is a significant moment. You’re going to be my queen, the mother of a race.” The god looked elated to be reminding you of that fact as he ground his hips into yours, the tip of his member pushing lovingly against your cervix.

You squeezed your eyes shut, reveling in the amazing sensations. “M-My lord… Thank you--” Your words of appreciation were cut off as another rush of his semen filled you again, sending your back arching off of the bed. Your head lulled to the side as he marked you, claimed you, and you let yourself be overwhelmed with bliss as you spent the rest of the evening being filled with his tainted love.

[batarella]

The Bullet: A Sequel to the Commander - Part 6 (Jason Todd x Reader)

FUUUUCK THIS TOOK SO LONG AM SORRY BUT MAAAAN AM I PROUD OF THIS. YES THE FLOYD LAWTON I’M BASING ON IS WILL FUCKING SMITH

WORDS: 10333 WARNINGS: IMPRISONMENT, STARVATION, DEHYDRATION, TORTURE, FIREARMS

MASTERLIST

THE BULLET MASTERLIST

-----

“How do you plead?”

Soulless.

Mindless.

Lifeless.

She finally became that cold, callous machine. It took her this far just to get there.

It was just about as painless as your skin and nerve endings being burned off.

A soulless, mindless, lifeless muster of steel and hard parts.

To every pair of eyes that looked her way, she was no human being. She was no woman. She wasn’t someone who loved or was loved. She wasn’t someone’s cousin, or someone’s lover. And especially not someone who could have been a mother. Taking care of a child would be nothing short of abuse.

She wasn’t Y/N. She was Deadshot. An eerie mimic to her infamous uncle.

With the cuffs on her wrists, three guards on her side, unarmed in case she could possibly reach out for them, she heard the distant flickering of camera shots and murmurs. Her silence was already something to note, with the reporters eating up this story like worms on a cold carcass. But not once did she look up from her feet, at the steel clinging to her skin. Her attention didn’t leave the coarseness of the bright orange suit, sticking to her skin like sandpaper.

“Guilty.”

Her own trial. And she barely paid attention. She didn’t listen to just about anyone who went up to speak, at the lawyers, the judge, the jury with their whispers. She didn’t listen to their stories about her, whether or not they were true. And even if it were a lie, it wouldn’t matter much. It would only add up to the countless life sentences she’d expect to have in the end. It wouldn’t change anything about her situation. Waller was going to win, whatever happens.

For the murders of fifteen different people. Fifteen different cases. It was barely a fraction of what she’d done just by the past few months alone, not including the last one since she swore off killing. But they were the ones she chose to admit to. By herself. Her part of the deal with Waller.

A trial that was supposed to last the whole of the day, ended up being adjourned after barely an hour. Barely any witnesses, barely any proof to go against her. If she hadn’t admitted to anything, she wouldn’t have gotten more than one or two life sentences.

Now, she ended up with eight.

And after her eyelids shielded her away from more visions of the reality in front of her, she still managed to watch herself being taken away. With even more unarmed guards around her in a circle and two standing from a fair distance away, holding AKs and pistols strapped to their hips.

She saw herself being cuffed on her ankles, lead to an armored car like a circus animal. Reporters all around her, snapping pictures and holding out their microphones trying to get something out of her. And despite everything Waller had said, about her histories, her crimes, and all the horrible things she’s done, not everyone immediately went back to looking at her scornfully. At the far off crowd outside the courthouse, there were a group of girls, holding up a sign with hearts around her name. Her real name this time.

And they all cheered for her to be let go. They cried out to her, calling her a hero, calling her things she clearly wasn’t.

A cop pulled her head back to look in front of her, back crouched over, face covered with her hair. When she got to the car, she could no longer hear screams of neither hate nor support. She never felt so alone. So dead. Dead beneath her skin despite her heart still up in a beat. But it was clearly barely there. She was barely alive.

They took her to a plane. Then on another car. Then she arrived in Belle Reve.

Guards gave her looks. And she didn’t care to think about what went on in their clearly corrupted minds. She was taken to a brightly lit room, and despite it being so lit up, everything around her felt cold and dark. Her eyes, dropped down, she let the guard take her hand and press her inked fingers onto a piece of paper. Then they scanned her eyes, took her blood, took a piece of her hair.  

She was given a sign to hold, with her name on it and alias.

She stood in front of the wall with the height meter and faced the camera.

And on her face, she finally gave off a taste of the emotions running through the labyrinth in her mind. Her eyebrows arched down, her shoulders crouched over, her hair coming down to frame her face and her mouth arching down the most terrifying frown.

And her eyes. They looked black from the hooded darkness.

Anger. So much anger. For everything around her. For everything that had to happen.

They took the shot.

Just hours later, her mug shot had circulated all over Gotham, all over billboards and television screens, and almost everywhere on social media. Mixed criticisms. People wanting her to be let out. People praising her to be so brave. People saying she deserved what she got. People saying she should be put on death penalty.

Deadshot. Even when her name was everywhere. Even when the world had claimed her real name for their use. It wasn’t hers anymore.

She will, and always will be, Deadshot.

-----

Cops weren’t supposed to shove him into the back of a car like a dog being tied down and taken to the pound.

Cops weren’t supposed to throw his rights out the window out of fear over the woman who was supposedly above the law.

Cops weren’t supposed put their fear of losing their jobs in front of treating other people with basic human decency and have some sort of humanity left in them.

Cops weren’t supposed to use their job as an excuse to hurt other people. An excuse to let out their personal angers out on people who don’t deserve it.

But Jason Todd, a vigilante who had just been relieved out of god knows how many murder charges over the course of just two years, he shouldn’t expect the cops to be nice to him. As much as they were kind to Batman, as much as Commissioner Gordon was considered saint, there will always be a number of them that are just as bad as the criminals they detain.

They took him almost a hundred miles away from the city. Out into an unknown country side he had no idea where to go to. Not a motel, a gasoline station, or a diner in sight. He must have been in that car for four hours. He didn’t exactly know. Just that it was almost day time when they threw him out, his face meeting the dewy grass and the youthful orange sky. And the air around him felt nothing like the cold Gotham winds. It was fresh, light, healthy to take in. That’s when he realized just how far off he really was from home.

Jason was hungry, throat starting to feel a little dry. And his clothes will barely be enough to hold him up. He had two days. Maybe three days tops. By then he’ll have to make sure he’ll at least find a motel to stay in. He searched his pockets. His phone had fallen off. But he had his wallet.

He started walking to where the car came from. If they ran in circles to throw him off, he’ll probably die before he gets anywhere near the city by now. When the sun had fully risen, his skin now starting to feel the prickling of his sweat and the burn of the hot rays of light, he kept going. He kept pushing his legs forward, one in front of the other.

By sundown, he felt something in his stomach churn and eat him away from the inside. He shivered, despite the warmth. Then he decided to rest for just a few minutes to press back the tingling pain in his horribly dried up throat. He sat on the grass, weight on his hands, then he looked up at the sky, at the lack of clouds and immense brightness.

And he wasn’t upset about any of it. He wasn’t so worried about his life as he should be, dying of hunger, dying of thirst, feeling the heat burn his skin, or that he might never get home soon enough to actually live. He wasn’t so worried about what could happen to him in the cold dark or if he ever actually does find shelter, or help, or a single car that hadn’t passed by him so far.

He was sure he’d survive. He’d gone through worse. So much worse. And it was no different from being a child at crime alley not knowing if he was getting some food on his plate that day or not.

But it wasn’t even because of that why he wasn’t crying out in desperation and scavenging for any sort of help he could find.

He didn’t worry, because all he could ever think about was what could possibly be happening to Y/N in Belle Reve right that moment.

Jason never liked being in the unknown when it came to her, when she wasn’t by his side. When they were apart, as often as he could, he made sure to follow her around when she wasn’t expecting it, keep tabs on her almost every minute of the day, know where she was going and what she wanted to do. It had always been something in him to make sure the one person he loved more than anything else in the world was okay. Watch her from afar. Make sure she wasn’t hurt. That she wasn’t hurting herself. When she came back to him he swore he’d never lose her again. He swore to himself, and to her.

And now it was that all over again. And this time, he might never get to hold her for the rest of his life. This time, he might actually lose her for good. There was no way for him to follow her, to know what she was doing.

And it scared him to death. Scared him so much that it tore away every rational thinking in his head. That was most probably going to kill him. His lack of instinct. His lack of the will to keep going. When all he could think about was whether she was actually still alive and not have the bomb in her neck explo-

Jason pulled on his hair.

He already missed her so much…

He was in the middle of nowhere and he didn’t have so much as a picture of her to look at.

Wait.

His wallet.

He pulled it out.

An old photo of her. From her identification all the way back from the militia. From when she was recruited. He got her files and looked through them. Found her picture. Thought she was pretty. Had the files on his desk for months and after a while he ended up bringing it with him. Kept it in his wallet for two years and completely forgot about it. He thought he was a creep then, especially since they weren’t even so much as friends, but he remembered.

He got out his wallet and took it out from an enclosed pocket.

Hair kept back, cropped up to her collarbone and her face staring at him blankly. But her eyes still had that remnant of brightness and her mouth was so subtly curving up on one side.

Jason had his eyes on that little picture until he realized he had to keep going.

-----

Floyd’s old cell.

Waller and her sick little game.

She wasn’t placed with the other women in the prison with shared cells and barred gates. She was forced into the old cell of Floyd Lawton. Instead its walls of iron were three inches thick, solid, indestructible. There was but a little opening at eye’s length and another by the handle to bring in her food. It wasn’t as small as she thought it would be. But it smelled like five rats had died there this morning.

Deadshot took too long to get in and a baton swung against her back.

She fell to the floor and swore she heard her spine crack. For a moment her nerves stopped working, a buzzing numbness in slow surges, all except for the sharp pain at the base of her back.

“Get in there!” the guard screamed at her then kicked her further down. Crawling into the cell, she heard the gate slam shut and the whole room grow dim, save for a single orange light at the corner.

She didn’t do so much as stand up for a few hours. Her head was stuck to the ground, curled up to her stomach just to cling into some parts of her body that wasn’t already in pain. Everything in her hurt so much. There was a small cot at the corner and a punching bag at the other side. That had to be for Floyd. She didn’t want it. She hated that she wasn’t so much as given her own cell and had to settle for yet another of whatever scraps her uncle left behind. She got his guns. His suit. His fucking name. and now, she fucking laughed, she got his kills, his debt, his life sentences, his squad, his boss, his cell.

Everything she had. Everything she’s ever stood to live for. It had all been a remnant of who Floyd Lawton was. Never hers. She had no identity. Nothing good ever came out of anything he’s given her. Only a lifetime of running and money and taking lives. There had only ever been one good thing that came out of it.

And she had to lose him, too.

Deadshot had no idea if Jason was ever going to be okay. That he wasn’t going to eventually get himself killed without anyone holding him back. She couldn’t check on him anymore. She’ll have no idea if he even dies.

So she was just going to have to tell herself that he’ll be okay.

When the late afternoon came, she finally took to standing from the ground, on her knees, then she held herself up with the wall and hissed at how her bones cracked at the lack of movement. Everything hurt so much. She went to the cot, sat on its edge, and waited until the sun fell and rose again.

In the morning, the guards threw in a single burnt toast through the hole on the door. She didn’t touch it.

When the sun fell once more, she fell back against the wall and closed her eyes. She didn’t even get to sleep. No matter how much her eyelids started to hurt.

On the next day, they threw an apple into her cell. Deadshot took a bite, spat it out, then threw it out of the single window through the bars.

That night, she couldn’t bare not being able to sleep anymore. She tossed around in the cot, turning off all her other senses even when it only ended up amplifying the dead, yet raging thoughts.

She wanted a life. A good one. And finally it was within her grasps and it went away as quickly as it came. This wasn’t living. This was merely taking up space. This wasn’t a life anymore and it sucked when she knew there was nothing to look forward to.

Everything hurt to think about. Everything. Except when it often trailed off to Jason. Then her heart would swell, her wonderous thoughts halted. Thoughts of him. Thoughts of how he was. It was as calming as it was painful. And even if it stung, it brought back her humanity.

So she resorted to him. When the pain became too much. When her cell got too cold, or when the guards started to taunt her. When the cot got too uncomfortable or when her most silent screams haunted her at night.

She thought of him.

Is Jason okay? Is he eating? Is he even alive? Is he back in their apartment or out of Gotham or…

No. He wasn’t going to be okay.

Even if he was alive. Even if he was eating three times a day or if he was out of the state.

She knew. Because the moment she walked out of the apartment all those months ago, when she regrettably left the love of her life, she never stopped looking after him. He had no idea. He thought he was the one following her around. But out on patrols when Red Hood thought he was working alone, Deadshot was a few hundred yards away, looking out on her scope, watching and waiting for anything that might come out to take him down or anything he might not get to handle.

She never loved anyone like she loved him, and she often smiled at how they came to be, how it wasn’t supposed to be. No one would have thought it would work, but when it actually happened, it always made sense. To everyone.

Her Jason. Her sweet Jason.

She clutched at her chest.

She’ll have her thoughts of him to keep going. That somehow if she stayed alive, it was a step closer to getting to be with him again. A step closer than if she were dead.

And subjecting him to that kind of pain, when she knew he loved her, too, when he’s always made it clear, always made sure she knew he loved her.

Okay. Maybe it wasn’t too calming to think about him.

If anything, it only made the pain even worse.

------

Was that a house?

It looked like one.

It had a windmill, too.

And probably a barn.

Twenty-six hours of walking on the side of the road. Twenty-six hours of no food. No water. No shelter. Twenty-six hours, and only two cars have passed by him. Not one of them stopped.

Jason’s hair was sticking to his forehead now from the immense amount of sweat that had seeped out of his hairline, which was only going to lessen his days to live from three to just two or one. His throat. It was practically as course as the cement road.

But when he saw the house. A triangular roof. A windmill. A field right in front and what looked like a small barn by its side.

He only hoped it wasn’t a mirage.

Jason kept going, and his feet felt so much heavier to lug around like they were sacks of rice strapped to his knees. But he kept walking, further down until he started seeing the house’s porch that had a rocking chair inside it. He might have even seen a dog, running out of the house with its tail wagging and going back in through the doggy door.

Once he reached the front yard, he almost fell to his knees. The sun was scorching and he was probably going to come out of this with his skin almost burnt off of his flesh. If he ever does get out of this alive. But he could see from the screen door that there was someone inside. Human beings that might actually have the heart to help him. Jason swallowed what little fluids there was left in his desert of a mouth.

When he stepped into the porch, the dog came out once again, barking at him. It kept its stance outside the door and snarled whenever Jason tried to go anywhere near the front entrance.

“Who’s out there?!”

It was the voice of an old man. Not so old to be rickety and harsh, barely enough to be audible with his mouth probably struggling to keep up. He seemed to be up to his sixties. When he went up to the door, he stared at Jason through the screen.

“You need anything, boy?”

Jason tried to speak, but even that hurt to do. He tried to cough it out but it was like running his throat through a wrought iron bar.

“I’m… I need help…”

The old man stepped closer, peering in through the tiny holes of the netting. “You look like shit.”

“Can I… have some water?”

The dog stopped his barking, it started to take interest in his smell, on his shoes in particular. Its tail was up especially when his nose started smelling up his leg.

“How long have you been out here? The next city’s hours away by car.”

“A day. Probably. I’m not too sure.”

The old man unlocked the screen door and leaned against the archway. “You look like a dangerous man. You ain’t here to rob me, are ya?”

“No sir. Please. I just need some water.”

Jason saw his throat hitch, looking away out into the field for a short while before he eventually nodded. “Take a seat. Right there. I’ll get you a glass.”

The rocking chair. To him, it looked like the softest bed. He slumped down, tried so hard to keep his eyes open when all of him weighed a ton. He heaved his chest up in a slow, steady pace and made sure not to go into whatever light there might be that greets him.

Jason actually did take a bit of a nap when the door pushed open and he jolted in his seat. The man handed him a glass of cold water.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

The dog was beside him once again. This time, it started to pant, like it was smiling at him with his tail wagging. He placed the glass between his lips and savored every single drop of water like it was liquified gold running down his throat. It hurt. All the way down his stomach. But he’s never had anything so refreshing.

“Can't walk back out there. You’ll die.”

“I have to. I can't stay here.”

“Plenty of bodies found at the side of the road with their stomachs inside out. I’m telling you, kid. You won't survive out there.”

With the glass empty, he pressed it onto his head just to cool himself off.

“Here. I’ll get you another glass.”

Jason didn’t want to ask for another but the man had already grabbed the glass away from him and went back inside. When he came out, he brought a sandwich with him as well.

“You’re very kind. Thank you.”

“I said don’t mention it. Folks out here getting lost. Some I offer to help and they end up taking an old family heirloom.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But when they aren’t pieces of shit, it’s nice to know I’ve saved a few lives.”

“Yeah,” Jason bit into the sandwich. “I know the feel.”

“I don’t have a spare bed. But you can stay over at the barn.”

“I really can't stay. Someone needs me.”

“Don’t be fuckin’ stupid. No car’s about to pass by and give you a ride and you’ll die before you’ll even get to Kentucky.”

“Kentucky?! Where am I?!”

The old man burst out a hearty laugh.

“Where you from, kid?”

“Gotham City.”

He whistled a hiss. “You're a long way from home, young man.” Jason took his time to drink up the water. Just so the man wouldn’t feel the need to get him another one.

“You're at the interstate going to Tennessee. From the looks of it, whoever dropped you off took you somewhere between here and Birmingham.”

Fuck. So the cops, if they were even cops at this point, didn’t drive for four hours. They were driving for twelve.

Fuck Waller and her men.

“I should be going.”

“Stay over at the barn. Every three days two buses pass along this road. One for each way. It’s either that, or the vultures will have you for breakfast. That’s more time than you probably have surviving out there by yourself.”

Jason stared at his half-eaten sandwich and his glass of water.

Yeah. Think rationally. He could at least do that for himself. The heat definitely was getting to him.

When he finished his food, he stayed on that chair until the sky went dark.

-----

The food was so disgusting, it was inhumane.

Two days. And all Deadshot had eaten was a stale piece of bread, two bites out of a rotten apple, half a bowl of chili, and a greasy patty. Her stomach was going to give out any second now. And the hot porridge of something they just threw in was definitely going to make her puke if she even had anything in her stomach right then.

Every part of her body numb, she went up to the punching bag.

One.

Two.

Three.

Her fists didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would. Even when her bones were basically made of jelly by now. She hit the bag, balled up her tight fists.

Six.

Seven.

Eight. Nine. Ten.

Floyd. Floyd. Floyd.

It had been a while since he spoke to her.

But every second in this cell, she’s heard Floyd’s name being whispered amongst the guards more than anything else there was. Referring to her. To what she was. Floyd’s second. Floyd’s niece. Floyd’s protégé. Floyd’s heir.

Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight.

She wasn’t Y/N. None of them cared enough about her real identity. Not even the news stations cared enough to flash her real name on the screen for more than a few seconds before calling her Deadshot for the rest of their report. She can't call herself Y/N in a place where all people would look at her for was to compare her to her uncle.

She heard voices. Outside. Guards.

Lots of them.

“OPEN THE GATES!”

“EVERYBODY, LINE UP FOR EXTRACTION.”

“LET’S GO. MOVE. MOVE.”

Huh.

So that was today.

They all had to be armed. And ready to take her down.

She can put up a bit of a fight. For the fun of it.

She turned away from the bag, fists secured up to her head. She saw their faces incoming. A large shield held by the front liner and about ten viciously armed guards trailing behind.

“Come on, motherfuckers!” Deadshot said.

“GO. GO.”

The door slid open.

The shield pushed her to the ground before she could even do so much as move out of the way. She jumped up, twisted the arm that grabbed onto her and kneed him to the pelvis, stomped on his thighs.

Guns started aiming at her.

“Don’t you dare shoot that gun!” Their leader screamed at them.

Not long after, her arms were being held back, another one grabbing her legs. She flailed and kicked about.

“I can walk, you assholes!”

“Can't take the chance.”

A chair. A wheelchair that looked more like a torture machine than anything else. She thrashed about and screamed just as they placed her to sit on it, strapping her arms and head in place so she could barely move at all.

She calmed. She didn’t struggle. She didn’t even ask where she was going. She knew exactly where she was headed.

When they took her to an impossibly dark hallway where at the end, she saw soldiers without armor waiting for her with a suitcase, she swallowed.

“This gonna hurt?” she asked.

“You won't feel a thing…”

She breathed. Breathed. Breathed. Slowly as the chair went closer to the station, she tried so much to hide her neck, but couldn’t with the straps.

And when she saw the size of the needle gun, she jumped up in her seat.

“It’s been six fuckin’ years since Floyd, you didn’t think to have a little upgrade in your equipment?”

“Shut up.”

They pressed the gun to her neck and shot the nanite explosive right past her flesh and muscle.

It was like surviving a bullet and staying awake the whole time it went into her skin. She screamed out in so much pain. It was a bullet. It was a bullet. It was a fucking bullet. She was shot. No. She was dying. Bleeding. She pulled on all the straps.

“Let me go!”

“Take her back to the cell.”

Every hair on her body was sticking up. She swore she felt it bleed. There was something running down her neck. Onto her orange suit. The whole time she was taken to her place, she wouldn’t stop screaming and crying out for the help that was never to come.

They took her back in, undid the straps.

Then she fell to the ground.

“Calm down,” the guard said. “Everybody move out!”

Once again, she was alone. In an old, dusty prison cell that wasn’t even hers to begin with.

At least she thought she was.

“You shouldn’t be so scared of bullets…”

No.

The nerve of this man.

He just had to show up now.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“You have no one else to talk to.”

“That doesn’t mean I need you.”

Floyd was sitting on the edge of her little bed, crouched over to his knees. “Get up,” he said.

Something within her, so used to doing exactly as he told her to, it wouldn’t let her say no. She shut her eyes closed and crawled over to a wall so she can pull herself up. Her hand went over to her neck, at the same mark Floyd had on his.

“Don’t touch it.”

She leaned against the wall, arms over her chest.

“Even when you were scared of bullets coming right at you, you were never afraid of guns.”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

“You love guns. You love what you do. Don’t pretend I put you up to a life you never wanted.”

“This?!” she pointed up around the cell. “This wasn’t what I wanted. Not by a long shot.”

“But you knew there was a risk. You took it anyway. You put yourself in more danger than you can handle because you wanted to.”

No. He fucking wasn’t going to use that against her.

“I cleared your debts. I’m here because Waller wanted another Deadshot on the team. It’s because of you, I have a bomb in my neck. I always wanted to be a fucking great markswoman, but it doesn’t mean I wanted to be you.”

It would have probably stung him if he was here at all. But frankly, a figment of her imagination wouldn’t have its feelings hurt if she didn’t want it to.

Floyd let out a sigh and patted the side of the cot to let her sit beside him.

“Y/N…”

Only in her head. She finally hears her name after two days.

She rolled her eyes and took the damn seat.

“You know why you have that fear?”

Her attention never left the ground.

“You know how much you hurt people. All the way back from when you shot your first target. The more you killed, the more you realized how painful it was going to be when the world bites you back and gives you what you think you deserve…”

“It is what I deserve.”

“You think irony is what’s going to kill you.”

“Stop it.”

“But this is who you are. You have never been me. You have always been a different Deadshot. And I knew that. Always. Zoe could see it. Jason could see it-“

“Don’t. Say. His name.”

“This is you. And you're forgetting what you used to call yourself when you were little. When you weren’t so afraid of it taking your life. I never gave you a name because you’ve already named yourself-“

“FLOYD-“

“You are The Bullet. If you think irony wants you dead, bit it back in the ass. Become your fear.”

“AGH!”

She swung at her side, but Floyd was gone.

-----

A pile of hay was actually nice to lay down on.

The cow that was staring at him the whole time, though, was quite unnerving. The chickens as well. And they woke him up just as the sun began to rise, and Jason never would have thought he’d have to wake up to ten chickens and roosters screaming at his ear, as a well a dog with so much salivation licking up his face.

He relieved himself, scratched his head, splashed his face with a bucket of water. Already, he felt so much better.

When he walked out of the barn, Jason saw the old farmer stretching his arms at the porch. He turned over to him and waved. Jason waved back. then he saw him gesture for him to come over and reluctantly, he did.

“Got a good night’s rest?”

“I certainly did. I can't thank you enough.”

“Don’t thank me just yet. Come on. Let’s get some breakfast.”

“I really should-“

“Oh, young man, you shouldn’t feel like this is of any trouble. ‘Cuz you are going to get your breakfast yourself.”

He wasn’t so sure what that meant. “What?”

“Here’s a basket. Stay away from the chicken at the far back. She likes to peck out of your fingers.”

Oh. Well, shit.

“Okay,” Jason swallowed.

He went back into the barn and walked on over to the chicken coop. There were a few of the females in their cages laying eggs. And the roosters were just strutting about like they owned the place.

A certain one with a smooth head and red and yellow feathers started pecking at his feet. “You know, you remind me of a certain replacement back at home.”

The rooster clucked, then walked away into the hay piles.

“Okay, don’t kill me,” Jason kept his head away when he reached in and felt for eggs in the nest. It was still warm to touch. He took two and placed them on the basket. He did the same over the other ones until he reached the last one. The largest one.

But she had her own eggs inside and there wasn’t really much for both of them to eat. He closed one eye as he reached over…

“BUUUUUCK!” The chicken bit his hand and rapidly flapped her wings at Jason, then he instantly shut the cage door.

“Shit.”

He went back over to the house and knocked on the door. The farmer smiled at him as he took the basket.

“Come on. You can wait over at the table and I’ll fry these babies up.”

“I don’t mean to impos-“

“Eh, come on over.”

The old man had already turned around and went into the kitchen. His house was so small. There was only one couch. No TV. A lot of books. A dinner table that sat two.

He went over to the shelf.

It wasn’t so much the kind of books he read. Not the classics. They were all dime romance novels you’d find at a gas station store. And there were a lot of them.

“My wife left them behind,” the farmer said to him. “I read one everyday. Just to keep some kind of memory of her.”

He smiled. Because he didn’t say it like he was someone to pity over. He said it like it was something to be proud of. And it was.

“You read the paper, boy? It’s over there.”

He pointed at the newspaper on the table. “We got a delivery boy from the next house. I pay him a hefty price just to come all the way up here everyday.”

“They still have newspapers?”

The old man narrowed his boys. “Youngsters.”

He took the paper and sat on the table. Nothing much interested him. Mostly just news on a town in Tennessee.

But there was one, tiny section at the corner that caught his eye.

‘Dead Billionaire Falcone Found Penniless’

‘Gotham City’s billionaire philanthropist Carmine Falcone, after being murdered in his office underneath the Gotham Museum of Art, was discovered to have left nothing to his apparent heirs, as the title of all his assets, the museum included, had been secretly sold out and transferred ownership to various other enterprises from all across the world. This includes all the recently bought out conglomerates and properties from other businessmen of Gotham, such as Salvatore Maroni and ten others. These assets have since been liquidated just days prior to his death. But as they checked all of Mr. Falcone’s accounts, the numbers were as good as zeroes. It is unknown where the money had gone to and why the billionaire chose to do so. The Falcone Family insists on investigating the matter and getting the inheritance that their patriarch had left behind.’

 The old farmer then placed his plate of eggs on the table, as well as a few strips of bacon.

“Killed that boar just a few days ago. Pig’s been feeding me everyday since then,” he chuckled, then he took the seat beside Jason and ate up his food.

When Jason was washing the plates, the old farmer had fallen asleep on his couch. It was refreshing, seeing folks like this so trusting. It will kill him, one of these days. If he ever lets in the wrong kind of people. And looking around, he didn’t even look like he had a gun. If Jason had one with him, he’d give it to the old man just so he’d have some chance against the evils out there.

Jason sat out the porch, on the rocking chair. He watched as the field of wheat danced along the wind, as the grass fluttered with that beautiful, calming sound brushing against each other. Every so often, the wind strengthens, and it was with the bells hung on the door and the windvane that sounded so well with the leaves being blown away. It was so different from Gotham.

He pulled out the picture of Y/N and instantly, everything felt even lighter. And heavier. At the same time. Lighter because she brightens up everything there was, wherever he was. And heavier because she wasn’t actually here. And while he was this lucky to have found the help he needed, she, on the other hand, wasn’t.

He’s never had anyone sacrifice so much for him more than she did.

She loved him so much…

And the prison was all the way over to Louisiana. The opposite side of where he was going. After a night’s rest, he realized there wasn’t even anything waiting for him at Gotham. She wasn’t there. Everything he hated, on the other hand, was. There was nothing left for him. Nothing he could go back to.

“Pretty thing, she is.”

The old man was leaning against the wall behind him, looking over his shoulder at Y/N’s picture.

“Yeah… the prettiest.”

“Your girl?”

He nodded.

“She who you going back to in Gotham?”

“She… uh… isn’t there.”

“Where is she then?”

This man didn’t know anyone five miles outside his house. It probably wouldn’t matter. “She’s… in Belle Reve.”

“Oh,” He wheezed through the spaces in his gums. “Sorry to hear that.”

“I should have gone there with her.”

“Belle Reve, eh?” the farmer asked.

“Yeah.”

“Take the bus across the street. You’ll end up going back to where you came from but that bus’s going all the way over to Louisiana.

“There’s a bus going to the prison?”

“Aye. I suggest you go after her. You got better things to do back at home?”

He didn’t answer. He just stared at the fluttering wheat and the tall grass around it.

“I served my time. Four years. My wife visited me all the time. Made me feel appreciated. Like she never gave up on me. Doesn’t matter what I did or what I’ve done to deserve it.”

“What did you do?”

He laughed. “What didn’t I do? I was a bad kid. All the way up to my thirties. Everyone looked at me like I was some sort of rat. Especially my son. He left the minute he could walk and never came back.”

“I’m sorry…” he shook his head. “And I know how it feels. Being a troubled kid.”

“Then that woman of yours better look at you differently than everyone else, ‘cuz they be the only ones we hang on to. Makes us want to do better and prove them right.”

Yeah. Definitely.

That night, he slept on the rocking chair looking up at the stars. When he woke up, the farmer had placed a blanket over him.

-----

“AAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!”

“Get up from the damn floor, Lawton!”

“My name…” Deadshot spat at the floor. “…isn’t Lawton.”

“I don’t care. Get up.”

The taser was brought right back up against her spine. Daring her. Waiting for her to try to snap another neck. Then with both her arms held back, they started leading her out into the open field.

“Usually, we do this far away from the facility. But with Waller here, she wanted to see what you can do.”

“Ah. Tryouts. Do I get this fucking bomb off my neck if I fail?”

“No. It will detonate.”

“Fuck you.”

Out into the bright, glimmering sunshine, she squinted her eyes and shielded her face with her hair. But she could barely do so much as blink when there were five guards around her, armed this time. She could probably reach out into a man’s hip and grab a gun without them looking if she didn’t already know where she was headed.

Out on the bright, orange field. Clear of grass and littered with human shaped shooting targets. They were, however, laid out side by side, closely to each other. She would have thought they’d be further apart. And they all stood on top of a black, outstretched tire that went in a large circle.

Amanda Waller. One of her men held out an umbrella for her despite her being a few inches taller. There were even more armed men littered around. One more so than the rest. A pale-skinned man with a large AK over his chest, a bullet proof vest, military gear. Sunglasses that shielded his eyes.

Rick Flag.

“So you’re the new Deadshot,” Rick greeted her as they dragged her toward the range. “I see the resemblance.”

“She’s even more daring than Floyd,” Waller said to her. “I’d be careful.”

“Well, we might as well know now if she’s any better than her uncle.”

“I am.”

“Are you now?”

“That’s what she says,” Waller raised a brow at her.

“Unlock her.”

She waited for the guards to take out the cuffs. Smoothing out her wrists, she stretched out her arms.

“How would you know I won't shoot you?”

“I don’t. But I’m here to see if you're just a fraud or if you're at least half as good as your uncle. Now get to work.”

Her neck stretching over to the side, Deadshot went over to the table. A whole arsenal of weapons. AKs. Sniper rifles. Pistols. With all the magazines and ammo she needed. She walked on over and picked the pistol.

The daylight young, the people around her silent, everyone turned their watchful eyes on her, guns out, ready to pounce.

She pointed the AK-47 at the targets and fired.

At the ten targets. One shot on each of their heads. She shot it all within a second, just as she told Waller she could do. And at the next round, she shot those exact same bullet holes in the same length of time. And all over again five times over.

There was only just one hole on each target. A hole she’s shot at several times from a hundred yards away.

She placed the AK back onto the table.

“Done. Can I go now?”

“No. We decided to give you more of a challenge.”

The rubber tire, or what looked like one, where the targets were standing on, they all of a sudden started spinning slowly in a circle at a click on Rick Flag’s remote. Turning over the corner, back facing Deadshot, before it turned back to face her again. It was a fucking conveyer belt.

Deadshot bit onto her gums.

She took the pistol this time.

“Go.”

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

“We didn’t have this in our time,” Floyd said to her ear.

“Shut up.”

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

The targets had turned. She had to shoot their backs. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

Almost missed that one. She placed another magazine.

Fifteen.

Sixteen.

Eighteen.

Twenty-two.

The target looked like it was about to break. Even with it made of metal.

Thirty. Forty.

Then the target got faster.

She took an M-16 Carbine.

The recoil was sharp on her shoulder, painful when it pushed her back. She kept firing. Firing. She was slower, took her time just a bit more. She reloaded it not long after until finally, one of the target’s heads actually blew off.

Sixty. Seventy. Eighty

Finally, the Barret MRad Sniper rifle.

The targets started spinning even faster. But she didn’t flinch. She kept her focus.

She breathed.

She slowed her heartbeat.

She cleared her thoughts.

Ninety-seven.

‘Come on.’

Ninety-eight.

‘You’re almost there.’

Ninety-nine.

‘Become the bullet.’

One fucking hundred.

Breaths out, she put the gun back on the table.

Then Flag turned off the conveyer belt.

One hundred shots. Which meant each target should have had around ten bullets pierce through it’s head.

But there was only one bullet hole on all of them. Right at the center of their heads. The same ones she had already made.

“Sorry about the other one,” she shrugged. “Didn’t realize your equipment wasn’t up to par.”

Flag didn’t move his head, but let his eyes follow her until she walked over to the guards, put her hands behind her and smirked.

“I’m surprised you're not asking for a million dollars like your uncle.”

“He asked for Zoe to live a good life. And you couldn’t even give that. And trust me, I’ve already made my deal with your boss. Am I right, Waller?”

Waller’s frown was something no one would be able to draw. Her nostrils were flared up, and the way Deadshot just smiled at her, it was braver than anyone else in the whole building had done.

The guards kept their silence now. Didn’t stick a taser up her back. Didn’t beat her with a baton on the way to her cell. But when they locked her up, they added just one more lock on its hinges. She placed her elbows against the door and looked out through the opening, watching the guards avoid the look on her eye.

-----

Six eggs. The last chicken finally let him hand over her lays and he walked happily out of the barn and walked back into the house.

“Here,” he gave it to the old man.

“Thank you, son. You’re a real good man.”

“No. I don’t… I don’t know how to thank you enough. You saved my life.”

“Ah. Don’t mention it. The company you’ve given me? More than what I could ask for. You remind me so much of my son. Except, you're a lot nicer.”

Jason watched him crack the eggs into the pan.

“I should get going.”

“You won't stay for breakfast?”

“I can't. But thank you.”

“Here,” he went over to his fridge and took out a sandwich. “Prepared it for you. For the trip back.”

He didn’t even know how much he’s thanked this man so far. Who was he? Did he know Jason somehow? Was he someone he forgot?

Probably not. He was just a lonely old man in need of company. His wife would have died three, maybe four years ago, and he only ever goes out into the city once a month. He wasn’t sure if he even talks to people in between them.

“I guess I can have a bite,” Jason said.

The old man’s smile was incomparable.

They ate and laughed the whole time on that table. Jason ate the eggs, drank the freshest glass of milk he’s had in a long time. He had bathed in the barn that morning and he’s never felt better since he got dropped off in the middle of nowhere. It was humbling, where he was.

He could only wish he got to share this with Y/N. He and the farmer would have hit it off.

The old man went out with him on the porch. The bus to Gotham arrives in five minutes.

“Here.” Jason took out his wallet and took out a few bills. “For your troubles.”

“Son, I have no use for money. I grow my own food. I buy only the absolute necessities. You would end up needing it more than I do.”

“Please…”

The old man held out his hand, shook his head. Every time, he surprises him.

“I can't believe I never caught your name…” Jason said.

He grinned from ear to ear, tipped down his hat, then laughed. “Name’s Bruce.”

It caught him off guard. Just for a second. “What?”

“Bruce Larkin. Lived in Tennessee my whole life.”

He stretched out his hand for him to take. Eyes not leaving his face, Jason took it. “What’s your name, boy?”

“Jason. Jason Todd.”

“Young Jason. Pleasure to have met you.”

“You're a good man, Bruce.”

“I may have done my deeds, but I lived a good life. Now go. Bus should be here in a few seconds.”

It almost hurt having to leave the old man behind. One of these days, he’ll come back. Pay a visit. Still, it made him wonder who this man truly was, what his intentions actually were.

He’s only met so many good people, truly good people, ones who never think of anything in return and take happiness out of helping strangers they didn’t know. It was hard to believe that no matter the cruelties he’s dealt with his whole life, there were the pure angels out there to lift him back up.

And, the one thing he couldn’t believe he noticed, Farmer Bruce never once mentioned the mark on his face. Didn’t think it tainted him or looked at it long enough to make him squirm.

He looked back out at the house. Bruce was still there, hands in his pockets.

The bus stopped in front of him and the door split open.

If he gets on, he’ll be off to Gotham.

If he stays behind and crosses the street, he’ll wait another five minutes for the bus to Louisiana. He’ll risk his life and do anything to see Y/N again.

It wasn’t even a hard decision to make.

Jason watched the bus doors closed. Then when it left, he crossed the street. Minutes later the next bus stopped and he got in. Waving at Bruce through the window, he settled down and closed his eyes.

He watched the miles of grass, wide open fields, swamps, forests, and lakes pass through him in the window. He let the calmness help him mellow down. And although it helped, it only guilted him into remembering the tortures his one love had to be going through right now. While he was so lucky, she was suffering. Fuck.

He had no idea what to expect. The day turned to night, then turned back to morning. He was in the bus for hours. Absolutely nothing went on in his mind. And he was scared. He didn’t even have a plan. He was probably going to have to break into Belle Reve. And that was if they hadn’t already taken her away to some god awful mission and possibly lose her life.

He couldn’t sleep on the bus. But he was ready. He was going to stop at nothing to see her.

The gates of Belle Reve. He hopped off the cab and stared at it from the outside.

Then he saw a few guards doing their rounds around the perimeter.

If he was fast enough, he might catch one of them alone. It’ll be all he needed. So he watched the cameras. Found a blind spot. And it was a risk without his visor on.

But for Y/N, it didn’t seem like much of a risk at all.

-----

This cot was going to blow out anytime soon.

It wasn’t even that she was heavy. It was rickety and old, probably the same exact one Floyd used. And Floyd was a large man. The seams started to rip and the place where her ass lays against was as worn out as a dirty rag. She didn’t like to think about why that was.

But god help her if she even cares much about the stupid cot. She laid against the wall, knees up to her chest. The wall was staring back at her like and she wasn’t about to let it win. Was she going crazy? Probably. She didn’t care much about that either. She’ll be working with Harley. She’ll have to be crazy to deal with her.

She heard guards from outside. So she closed her eyes and pretended to sleep.

Only one guard, it seems. There weren’t any talking. And there was only one set of footsteps coming her way. She hated that even more. Then the taunting and catcalling and harassing won't be in any way hindered.

“Y/FN Y/LN?”

That was a first. No one’s said her real name in… ever.

“What do you want?”

She heard the small opening at her door slide open. The guard’s voice was less muffled now. “It’s me.”

Who-

That voice.

She looked up.

“Oh my god…” she leapt up the cot and ran all the way over to the door. Hands on the iron, eyes watery and gleaming against the dim, orange light.

Jason was the most beautiful man in the whole world and he looked no less than an angel disguised as a guard, half his face covered with a mask. But it was, without a doubt, his bright blue eyes that was staring right at her.

“I’m here, baby…”

“Jason…” The endless tears. All of it. She hadn’t even cried her whole time in Belle Reve. She’s screamed. She’s yelled out in the most horrible pain. But she never cried. And all those days of torture, it came out of her now. Even more so when Jason pulled down his mask and pressed his forehead against the door to get as close to her as she could.

At the bottom opening, he had his hand out. Y/N took it and held it so tightly that her fingers started going numb. He took off his gloves so he could feel her warmth. Or rather, let her feel his warmth.

“You are a complete dumbass for breaking in here,” she cried.

“I know. I am. But I’ve always been one for you.”

“God,” she reached out with her other hand, holding both of his. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Are you alright? What did they do to you?”

She wanted to lie. Tell him she was okay. Even though she was barely even holding up on her own two feet. “Just about how every prisoner gets treated here…”

“Fuck… Y/N…”

His thumb over her skin, she never felt so happy over something that was never going to last.

“I swear I’ll do anything to get you out.”

“Jay…” she cried. “You’ll die…”

“And if I don’t, you’ll die.”

“I’ll be alright. They’ll let you visit. After a while. I think. I’m not too sure.”

“I’m not taking that chance.”

“Jay-“

“No. I mean it. I’m not going to let this go. You can't possibly expect me to move on…”

No. She didn’t. Not without the worst kinds of pain that’ll possibly drive him mad.

“I’m so sorry…”

“Look at me.”

She did. He was so beautiful…

“I’ll get you out. You won't have to suffer for long. I’ll make sure of it. One way or another, I’m getting you out.”

He’s never held his hand so tight.

“Okay…”

Footsteps. They were coming.

“Shit…”

“I love you.”

“I love you so much. I promise you. I’m getting you out of here, Y/N.”

Y/N. She was Y/N again. Always had been.

Jason stuffed something small into her palm.

Then he left before the other guard could turn to the corner and see them together. He looked at Y/N, who was staring out the opening.

The guard squinted at her, walked closer, then shut the hole closed.

She looked at her palm.

The brightest blue engagement ring stared right back at her.

-----

Jason had to get out.

But he had to do this fast. He was at the guard’s lounge, where plenty were taking their lunch breaks. They didn’t give him so much as a glance when their eyes were focused onto the TV watching a football game. There was a telephone at a wall nearby. One he didn’t have to pay for.

He walked to it.

When he said he’ll do everything, he meant everything.

His pride could fucking suck it. His ego can die. He didn’t care if those assholes will have to think he’d grown soft. This was about Y/N. He didn’t care if he had to strut naked out at the Gotham Plaza. Though, this was so much worse.

Farmer Bruce would have done the same.

And he was going to get all the help he needed.

“Hello?”

“Dick,” his mouth trembled against the phone. “It’s me. Jason.”

“Jason?! This is a fucking collect call-“

“Then you better listen. Y/N’s in prison.”

“What?!”

He told him everything. About the deal with Waller. Her place in the Squad. The bomb in her neck. He tried with all he can to sound as desperate as he actually was. Dick, as much as it pained him to hear, wasn’t so convinced in what he asked of him.

“Jason, if you're asking me to help you get her out-“

“Please. Please. She’ll die. We need Oracle. And Robin.”

“Jason...” He heard Dick sigh.

The cops roared at the TV. Someone scored a goal.

“What Waller’s doing is wrong. You know that.”

“I know, but she made a deal with Bruce that he wasn’t to interfere with her task force.”

“We’re not Bruce. This is Y/N. Please, Dick, she’s the only thing I’ve got… You say you want me back in the family. Well, she’s my family. And I swear, if you help me with this, I owe you my life.”

“Okay. Okay,” he let out a sigh. “Okay. She’s… I understand.”

Jason’s breath was shaking against the phone. “I should be back in Gotham in a day’s time.”

“We need to do this as legally as possible. What did you have in mind?”

“I’m- I’m not so sure. It’s impossible to break her out of this place. They’ve upped the security since Harley broke out.”

“So we wait?”

“On her first mission out with the squad. We can go with them and sneak her out when no one’s looking. And I’ll need Oracle to come up with something that can disable the bomb in her neck.”

“Jason, that could be months from now.”

“Or days. Waller seemed persistent to get her here. I thought she might have been preparing for something. You heard about the news on Falcone?“

“Yeah. Real shady stuff. All his money went out to so many ghost accounts under different names of people that don’t even exist. And they’ve all been withdrawn. That’s billions of dollars.”

“Exactly. What if it’s just one guy? Waller knew about Falcone. She’s been warning Y/N not to work for him for a while. What if she knows exactly who’s behind it the whole time? Falcone’s puppet master to get him the money he needed?”

“That’s a long list of suspects, Jay.”

“We can narrow it dow-“

Loud groans from the guards screaming boos at the TV. When he looked up, he saw the game had been interrupted by breaking news.

Jason stopped talking to Dick when he saw the picture on the screen.

“Jason? You there?”

“Dick… Turn on the news…”

“Reports from Gotham City where it seems to have had history repeat itself from the night before the Arkham Knight Militia occupation. The National Bank of Gotham had just been exposed to a familiar cloud of fear toxin. One-hundred twenty-six people were inside the building as the smoke dispersed, and almost all of them had fallen victim from the bank’s armed guard, who had used his gun to massacre more than twenty people in the building. The victims were shown to have displayed severe cases of mania and hallucinations, causing them to act almost inhumane and do countless of harmful acts.”

“Fuck…” Dick said to the phone. “Not again…”

“The man behind this infamous toxin is no other than Dr. Jonathan Crane, also known by his alias as the Scarecrow-“

Vicki Vale stopped talking to the camera and pressed on her earpiece.

“Hold on. I’m getting reports on Scarecrow releasing a broadcast over at Times’ Square. Air it now!”

The camera switched over to one at the square. It faced the billboard.

Nothing changed. Not even his face. And if he weren’t paying attention, if Jason hadn’t been behind the camera the first time Scarecrow released his city wide warning, he wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.

“This city… cannot so easily escape my reign of fear… If you thought the last time was the worst I can do, I am telling you now… Citizens of Gotham. This is no longer just about you. You can no longer escape. There is no use in evacuating… I have amassed a new Cloudburst weapon powerful enough to engulf the whole of the country in my latest toxin… This is not a warning to Gotham.

“This… is my only warning… to America…”

“Dick…” Jason said over to the phone. “Wanna bet on where he got the funding for that weapon?”

-----

MASTERLIST

THE BULLET MASTERLIST

------

everyartistwas-firstanamateur  @sarcasmismyfirstlove @damned-queen-of-gotham @idkmanicantenglish @wunderstell @birdy-bat-riya @get-loki@everyday-imfangirling @comic-nerd-dc@multifandoms916@icequeen208@offendedfishnoises@egdolan@xemiefx@arkhamtoddler@elsenthal@mythicbitchx@supremehaunter burning-alive  @lucy-roo  roseangel013bf @ loxbbg  reclusive-chicken-nuggethttp-cherriesshadowsndaisiesriver9noblezphilophobiazannoylinglyaries@knightfall05flowersgirl02 @l-inkage​ @hyp-oh-critical​

[ourladylennon]

this is a stress rant and also I absolutely have to get these thoughts out of my head and onto something so that I can understand how I'm feeling. so pardon me.

I have some very mixed feelings about my latest tattoo experience and it has been incredibly, astoundingly stressful. For anyone who was interested in how it went.

and after typing out this whole rant and reading it back my advice is: ALWAYS make sure it is exactly what you want. ALWAYS speak up if you don’t.

I have a specific style, as everyone, but the style of tattoo I have is a bit of a niche that can be hard to find: geometric design with dotwork/pointillism/stippling techniques to create shading rather then standard fill in shading. This shading style is incredibly time consuming and taxing for the artist and I've had a lot of trouble finding people who specialize in this (and within my area).

I started with an artist about 3 years ago, whom was new to me but known to be good. Got my appt set up, he drew me an entire sleeve- it was absolutely gorgeous. Went through two sessions and his work is genuinely amazing. Clean. Precise. Detailed. Unique. I didn't vibe with him too great but it was something I kind of put aside. But without explaining the whole fucking mess that became, just know that our artist-client relationship fell through. This left me with only the beginning of my tattoo. The whole ordeal was really stressful and upsetting so I put down the goal of getting it finished to try and recoup. And I just continually hit roadblocks trying to find artists who are good at dotwork and willing to do it. Often times they live in other cities/states/etc. Obviously this involves meeting a new artist, trying to figure out if it's a good fit, driving out for consultations/redoing all that process- s t r e s s. Now with covid, it's even more difficult because almost every artist I've come across that I've considered has closed books. All of them being out of town which is fine because it would be worth it. It's expected.

But after three years of this go around of trying to find someone, I was getting really put out by the process and just wanting to get this thing going. (Mistake #1- or #2 technically cause fucking up w the first artist is where it all started and I do regret it to this day).

A new shop opened IN my town- a miracle!!! I started following an artist whose work I found to be particularly amazing. Clean lines, clean shading, artistic seeming. Didn't see any pointillism, but I just like kept seeing her work and thinking damn that's good. So I decided to reach out and told her this is what I'm looking for, a dotwork sleeve and here are some examples of the style I like. I specifically mentioned this and asked if they'd be interested in working on it because I know that dotwork is not everyone's thing. The artist replied and said they've been wanting to get into and would like to do that (we'll call this mistake #3. Do not assume the artist, even if very good at other things will be good at all things. Do not go to an artist wanting a specific style without having seen their work for THAT style).

At this point I sent over pictures of my current tattoo that we'd be adding onto for reference. In my mind this is what I thought would mean: "I am looking at what you have to see how to incorporate it into a new sleeve design and see how I can create a collaborative piece and mesh the two together." (Mistake #4: that was not the case. Do not assume. Anything. Ever.)

The appt date was relatively quick despite the fact that I figured she'd be booked out for quite some time (red flag #1: not because she wasn't busy. But because this was not a whole lot of time to come up with a design but I figured "Well she knows her capabilities better than I do and she wouldn't suggest it that soon if she weren't sure). In my previous experiences, the artist will send you a proof or have a separate appt to review the design. I never received an email with said design (red flag #2, in my personal opinion. But I thought I was just being...extra? Also just thought, okay I'll see it at the appt and it will be OK, right? <- mistake #5).

I show up, there is no sleeve design. (RED FLAG #3) There are two single mandala tattoos. Outlines only. No shading. I'd also like to say my style is much more geometric fractals than it is mandala. A lot of people find these interchangeable but...they're really much different. (RED. FLAG. #4). I genuinely did not see that coming. Maybe I'm wrong to say, but this was negligent in my opinion and experience. A sleeve design ensures that your finished piece flows, that it works together, you can see the whole picture, modify, etc. Especially with it being an addition to my existing work. Cannot stress how much of a red flag.

I'm wigging out at this point. I don't love them but I want this tattoo. I'm going back and forth thinking, "maybe it's just because the shading isn't filled in I can't picture it." (MISTAKE #6: trust your gut!!!). I tell her OK well I like this about this one and that about that one. She only nods and listens, where I was expecting feedback; perhaps an "OK well we can draw it on" or "I can rework it" etc. She didn't and I am too paralyzed to speak up. (Red flag #4)

Mistake #7: I accept it at this point. I pick between the two. She has to go resize it. I'm having a literal internal freak out and battle. I am someone who DOES NOT know how to speak up for themselves. In any way. EVER. For any reason. At any time. I am a fear based individual, in fact, I am nearly certain I have APD (avoidant personality disorder) and it effects me severely and deeply. To the point that simply speaking to someone can be hard for me.

But my brain was screaming you cannot do this! You aren't sure! This is for life! It's your body!! You HAVE to say something! (RED fucking alert)

She came back with the one design resized and my heart is thumping, my chest is constricting, the throat feels like it's closing. I make myself say it. I tell her I don't think this is what I'm looking for. I literally almost busted into tears trying to say it because I was so fucking terrified and overwhelmed. I've never been in a position where I genuinely wasn't sure whether I liked what I was looking at. She says you don't need to be sorry you should speak up this is your body. So immediately, I lost a lot of tension because of her kindness. I thought she would be angry or rude or upset, just because I'm fearful. She proceeded to kind of go in and shade in with a pencil on the stencil to give me a better idea and apologized that she should have had that prepared. I continue asking questions to assuage my concerns and feel....better....ish. she offers to redraw and reschedule but I went against my gut, gave into my desperacy to continue my sleeve, dismissed my feelings as being just my typical overexertion of fear and did something I NEVER do: turn my back on my instincts. (Mistake. Mistake #8)

She was pleasant and I genuinely enjoyed her, felt comfortable with her which is not something I can say about previous artists and that's a good chunk of why I decided to continue. I liked her, I liked her other work I've seen, I just thought that once the stippling was in that I'd see it was really nice. However, I am laying there and I'm like I do not feel poking, which is literally how dotwork is done. Dot by dot. I'd feel her do the tiniest bit of dot-dot-dot and I'm like OK OK I'm just not paying full attention and missing it. But then I'd hear and feel her shading- standard shading. I'm like why is she using a shading tip? I'm just confused honestly. I'm like I have no idea what the could be for, just assume it's necessary for something I didn't realize. But I can see because I'm laying and my arms at a weird angle.

I finally get a peek while she's pausing and its....not dotwork. It's not dotwork at all, in fact. It's too late at this point in my eyes. It was only partially done but what am I gonna do? Stop her in the middle and have an unfinished tattoo? And then what? (Try to) go to someone else to have them do dotwork and have a half unmatching tattoo? There was nothing I could do. So I resigned and accepted this as the consequences of my actions and ill choices. And that's honestly been the hardest part to deal with: I let this happen to myself because I could not speak up. The only person who could have stopped this was ME. And I could not do it. That's how deeply my issues of fear run. And that is terrifying, pathetic, sad.

I'm not saying I got the world's ugliest tattoo. It's okay. Just okay. In the words of RuPaul, meh. I don't want meh. I want astounding. And I didn't do what I needed to to make that happen or not happen.

I just have been in awe over the fact that I asked for dotwork and the artist expressed no concern over this, literally had my existing tattoo right above where they were working and continued to not emulate that style of shading at all. Most of this is my fault, 90% of it. But there was negligence on the artists side and I genuinely don't think they meant it to be. I just don't think they had enough experience, but they too should have spoke up if they didn't feel they could carry it out. They gave me no inclination that they could not or would not be doing dotwork. At any point. And I do feel upset that I don't think they put in the effort or care to work off my existing tattoo in their design, and in looking back, their design also does not look nearly anything like the designs I gave for example. It was my job to walk away and request a redesign or to cancel and I didn't. So in the end this is on me. And it has been very taxing on my mental state.

To end this shit show: the tattoo I just got costed half of what my first one did, while only having taking the fraction of time as my first and being less then half the size of my first. It is not nearly as clean, it certainly reflects their level of experience. The shop environment was not fantastic: it felt a bit like as if I had walked into a chain restaurant...but a tattoo shop. There were no private rooms, there were no tattoo chairs. They were literal stools and that's not...not professional or normal. And I chose to continue.

I'm faced with some really tough decisions moving forward. I am at least thankful it is relatively small ish and wraps towards my inner arm which makes it less visible. But I'm at a crossroads of whether I go through the whole mess of trying to find a FOURTH artist to try and finish my sleeve the way it was meant to be finished (dotwork, whole sleeve design etc) and make the best of it at the risk of having a fucking patchwork arm. Or I continue to work with this artist and see the design through myself (literally design it myself which I didn't want to do but it doesn't appear that I should leave this to them), so that at least the remainder of my arm is consistent shading and work.

And because I've made it sound like the tattoo is atrocious, be assured it's not trash by any means. It's just not what I wanted. Big sis learned a big lesson.

(the immediate center is bothering me the most. But I think it can be altered. Nonetheless. The skill/experience level shows, unfortunately. And you can certainly see the difference between the stipple shading on my first tattoo and the regular shading on the new one.)

I am trying to be positive and that's all I can do. I accept the results and I think it can be fixed to a certain extent, and I can only hope as I move forward that I make the right decision and that the end product is something I enjoy.

[redhawtriot]

Caught in The Act (Bakugou x Reader x Todoroki)

Tip Jar ☕- Not expected but always appreciated💞

This chapter is TAME compared to what’s coming next, but needed to be added (a calm before the storm, if you will).

Hope you like sexual tension.

Also a special thanks to @godtieruwu for giving helping me out with the chapter!

HnM💕

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 5

Part 4:

Your crying had mostly subsided by the time you parked in front of Todoroki’s residence. With your now unblurred vision you immediately recognized his small, surprisingly normal sedan. It still shocked you to envision the unworldly man driving even though you’d witnessed it many times,

“Holy shit, he really did finish work up quickly,” you softly announced as you lightly shut the door of your vehicle.

You could feel your heart rambunctiously jump in your chest as you walked to his front door. God, just how long has it been since you had seen him? Almost an entire year?

You tried to remember yourself from this time last year, but she seemed to be a complete stranger to the woman you were today. You nervously wondered if Todoroki would even like the version of yourself that you had become—less composed, more pathetic, a fraction of the confident woman that you used to be. Overall, you had changed for the worse and was terrified of how one of your closest friends would react to the metamorphosis.

You pulled your hand up to give a few slight knocks onto the wood of the very large, very Japanese house.

Your heart dropped as the large door clicked and then slid open, “Y/N,” he warmly greeted you. You blinked a few times in surprise as your brain scrambled to take in his appearance. 

You tried to tame your fluttering heart as you forced eye contact with the soft smiling man, “Hey, Todo,” you lamely replied as your eyes flew away from his face.

Why were you so shocked by his appearance? He hadn’t changed at all-- save for the extreme growth of his hair, “it’s been a long time, huh?” you softly chuckled. 

“Yeah about a year,” he replied, ever so widening his slight smile. It greatly contrasted with the the look that suddenly enveloped his eyes-- his hard gaze igniting a blazing fire within your stomach. He looked as if he was examining you even harder than you were, him.

“Yeah,” you awkwardly retorted. Oh god, did you forget to wipe your face off before you came in? Were your eyes still red?? Were your cheeks still puffy? Were you still crying without even realizing it? These thoughts raced each other in your mind in a twisting swirl, and the heat in your stomach found itself running as well as you felt fire flee to your cheeks, “So- uh-- can I come in?” you awkwardly shifted your weight as the wind suddenly reminded you of the cold air.

“What happened?” Todoroki said very flatly as his eyebrows slightly scrunched to the center of his expression—his calm demeanor slightly fading, “You’re upset,” he instantly reached out to grab your face. His hand was extremely warm in contrast to the cold air, but the heat was fleeting as he suddenly pulled his hand away, as if it were a mistake. He looked down to the ground with a blush that you felt like probably matched your own before awkwardly escorting you into his home—his hand now warming the small of your back, sending hopefully unnoticed shivers up your spine.

“No I am fine! I mean—” you tried to move past the awkward exchange, “I was—upset that is, but I’m okay now I just… had a long night.” you breathed out heavily as the words finally slipped from your mouth.

“I am surprised that you came to see me,” he said before removing his hand from you, “I never thought Bakugou would allow for that,” his facial expression remained as calm as ever, but you could swear that you saw a hint of spite sprinkled into it.

“Well, I am my own woman,” you teased as you tilted your head to the side—slipping from yourself from your jacket.

“Of course,” he gave a slight chuckle as he grabbed the coat and hung it up on a nearby rack. You had accidentally followed him a bit too closely as he walked to the rack and as he turned back around, you found yourself dangerously close to the man.

You felt the heat of his breath on you for only a moment before you instinctively leaned yourself back, but not before your heart jolted in a quivering movement against your ribs.

Of course there was a legitimate reason that Bakugou didn’t necessarily like when you and Todoroki were close. No matter how fleeting your guys’ relationship was, there was no denying that there was a certain… tension.. in the atmosphere between the two of you.

Your eyebrows flew the top of your forehead as you immediately backed away from Todoroki, “Anyway,” you gave a slight cough to clear the nervousness from your voice, “Bakugou and I are…n’t on good terms.”

“I’m…” he obviously tried to hide the small smile that pulled at the corners of his lips, “so sorry to hear that,” he lied.

“Yeah, we just ended things not to long ago,” you shrugged your shoulders, unbeknownst to him also shrugging away the heavy feelings of sadness and guilt that weighed down your heart. You just ended things today.

You shouldn’t have even come here.

“Please, have a seat. We can talk about it if you want,” he sounded almost too eager to have you comfortable in his estate, “I’ll grab us some coffee—or tea for you, if I remember correctly,” Wow, not even Bakugou catered to your love of tea over coffee.

“Yeah, that would be fine,” you tried to pull your lips into a smile, but you were sure that it came off as more of a grimace. His eyes seemed to’ linger over your expression for a moment before he nodded and walked to the kitchen.

“So. I am assuming that you are not happy with your split?” he called out.

“I… uh- it was sudden to say the least,” you bounced your weight around uncomfortably on the couch, “He- uh- well I caught him with someone else.” C’mon. This was the entire reason that you came here, isn’t it? To talk to someone. To rant your sadness away. So why is it so fucking hard for you to strike up that burning passion that you have felt for the last fifteen hours?

Because you were an idiot and chose to talk to the one person who you could have very easily ended up on the opposite side of the situation with. It was hard to be so pissed at Bakugou when you were foolishly throwing yourself back into your ex’s life.

A twinge of guilt struck your heart strings.

“Caught him?” Todoroki questioned as he peeked back into the living room. His entire body followed before he calmly tilted his head to the side as if to say ‘go on.’

“Um.. I caught him—ahem—in the act,” there it is. The emotions that you had temporarily lost came back with a vengeance as your eyesight became blurry once more.

“Are you serious,” Todoroki was immediately by your side after he placed the tea down onto the coffee table, “That damned fool,” he said very lowly before taking your face in his hands and gently wiping the tears away, “I told him if he were to ever hurt you I would kill him.” You couldn’t tell if he was trying to be funny or not. You hardly ever could with him honestly.

Whatever the intent, you couldn’t focus on much else besides his lingering grasp on your face. You internally prayed for him to stop touching you like that. Was he always so bold? Was a new, special sense developed in your body now as a single woman. 

Single woman.

 Don’t kid yourself you only just ended things with your fiancé.

Guilt tugged at your heart, pulling you away from the man as you apologized, “I thought I had gotten most of the crying part out of the way already,” you gave a small laugh, “I actually came here to radiate some bad bitch energy and rant about how terrible he is.”

“We could still arrange for that. I have a list.” You laughed even though you knew that he was probably wholly serious.

“No. I don’t think I am ready for that. It’s too fresh.” Your voice burned you as the back of your throat constricted to capture a sob, “I can’t bad mouth him just yet,” Your throat was tight, but it completely closed up as Todoroki clumsily and stiffly pulled you into him for a hug.

Had you ever even hugged him before?

You tilted your head up to throw him a confused glance, but instantly regretted the decision to do so as you realized just how close your faces were.

You had never seen him so closely. As he turned his head down to look at you, you could take his beauty in fully. God, he was gorgeous. His soft features and strong eyes willed you to come closer as you flashed a quick glance at his lips-- he took notice.

At your gesture he gently cupped the back of your head to guide you into position as the heat of your breaths mixed in together, and the hot space between you became smaller and smaller. Your damp eyes slowly closed as you awaited the soft impact.

“Y/N,” Todoroki groaned as he frustratedly pressed his forehead against yours and regained distance between the two of you’s lips, “I think you’ve misread the situation,” he calmly implied.

Misread?

You would have to be pretty damned illiterate to misread that!

Todoroki slowly stretched himself away from you, “You see, I have—"

All of a sudden the front door opened and a small petite woman frolicked inside. She almost strode right past the living room before she caught a glimpse of the two of you on the couch, “Oh!” she sang, her melodious voice sounding like chimes, “I didn’t know you’d be home so early, Todo.”

Todo? Only you had ever called him that— or so you thought.

“I had to wrap things up quickly to host our visitor,” he coolly stood up and gestured for you to follow him and the two of you greeted the woman, “Fae, this is Y/N. Y/N this is Fae, my roommate.” For some reason your felt a wave of relief melt in your chest.

“Hello,” you genuinely smiled at the woman. As she greeted you back, you completely ingested her appearance. She seemed very tranquil, having soft features and smooth expressions. A very light cloud of happiness graced her aura, even when she wasn’t smiling. The cool undertones of her demeanor spread to you as she shook your hand, causing your smile to slightly falter.

She was the woman that you had so desperately tried to be—the persona that you had feigned for longer than you would care to admit.

So ‘Todo’ has a type after all? You felt the corners of your lips twitch in surprise at the amalgamation of ill feelings that bubbled within you.

“I was just about to tell Y/N that she would be more than welcome to stay in our spare bedroom for a while until she gets her living situation figured out,” as soon as the words fell out of Todoroki’s mouth your jaw flew open in shock.

“Oh really?” her smile beamed, but you noticed that it didn’t reach her eyes, “That would be just wonderful!” she finished as your open mouth continued to fumble over itself. 

“Would you like for that?” Todoroki questioned. 

God, way to put you on the spot, Todo. I guess it’s nice to see that some people stay pretty much true to their character traits throughout life. He was obviously oblivious to both yours and Fae’s discomfort about the situation.

“I- um,” you continued to struggle before your phone began loudly ringing. Your first thought was Bakugou, but that couldn't have been since you had blocked his contact during your long, emotional drive around the city,

 “Excuse me,” you nervously shrugged your shoulders before walking down the hall towards the kitchen to answer your phone. You instantly recognized his contact with the goofy image that you had taken back in high school and reluctantly answered the phone,

“Kiri...?”

“Y/N! hey!” His loud, excited voice blasted into your ears, causing you to pull the device away from your head a bit,  “You never answered my text are you alright?”

“Y-yeah, I am fine,” You could hear familiar, loud explosions in the background. That man better not be ruining your favorite tapestries and scorching the good flooring you just bought. 

You punched those habitual thoughts out of your mind-- that obviously wasn’t your problem anymore.

“That’s good to hear,” Kirishima sighed into the phone, “‘Cause Bakugou is absolutely loosing his shit right now,” he nervously laughed and you could almost envision his scratching the back of his head like he tended to do,  “Anyway, where are you? And when are you coming home? If I have to Dr. Phil for you guys I will,” he joked, “I don’t like seeing mom and dad fighting.”

God, that is when you realized. Your family would also be breaking up. You and Bakugou obviously, but also Kiri, Kaminari, Mina, Sero-- everyone. The little loving family that you had spent years developing and loving was falling apart just as easily as your relationship had, “Kiri…” you choked, “I-I don’t think I am coming home.”

“Not tonight, huh? Sleep over at Jirou’s?”

Your heart fell at his utter optimism, “No I mean...I am really not coming back. not at all.”

“What? What do you mean?!” you had never heard his voice like this-- desperate and scared, “All of your stuff is here! You.. you have to come back,” he sadly protested.

“Obviously, I’’ll be back to get my things but I don’t think that I am coming back to live with you guys, sweetie. Bakugou and I..” you had yet to say this sentence out loud, “we broke up today,” It felt dirty coming off of your tongue.

“You guys… what? Are you serious? It was that bad?”

“He cheated on me, Kiri.” you explained as your voice danced on the fine line of cracking. You waited a few uncomfortable beats for him to answer, “Hello?”

“Y/N, sweetheart. I am so sorry. I had no idea. I just...” your heart broke even more for him in that moment than it did for yourself. You knew how sympathetic he was, and you never meant for him to carry your pain, “I can’t believe he would do that to you.”

“It’s okay,” you tried to calm him down.

“No, it’s not. You are everything that he could ask for and more. I don’t understand how he could do that to you. You’re beautiful. You’re kind. You’re determined, smart, caring, loyal. I am sorry he couldn't appreciate that. I really am,” Your eyes were well on their way to tearing up at his words until--

“IS THAT FUCKING Y/N?!” you heard a familiar raspy scream on Kiri’s end, “So you’ll answer the dammed phone for shitty hair, but not me?!” Bakugou screeched loudly. You could tell that he had snatched the phone from Kiri by that point, “You should never have been driving so upset, you idiot!” Oh, okay. So now he suddenly cares about your health. He didn't seem to care that much when he was fucking that slut unprotected,

“Y/N, you need to answer your phone when you are doing dumb shit like that!” But he didnt bother on calling you when he was being dumb, shit-faced drunk. He continued but you couldn’t care less, “I was thinking you could have died or-”

Click.

You ended the call, before walking out of the kitchen, down the hall and throwing a smile over to Todoroki on the other side of the room, “I’ll stay.”

Todoroki had been thrilled at your decision-- well at least as thrilled as his stoic demeanor would allow for-- and he had instantly taken to showing you around the large estate. Being a top ten hero paid very generously it seemed. 

By the end of the night you had ended up alone in the bare guest bedroom as Fae had stolen Todoroki to do some thing or another. Todoroki seemed to reluctantly follow, but only after your reassurance. You honestly didn't mind. 

You needed time to absorb the heavy events of the day.

You sat in your new room and let all of the events soak in your head as you replayed them and stared at the ceiling. You had cried so much that you were likely dehydrated at this point. Tears no longer fell down your temples as you gazed above you.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door, “Y/N?” Todoroki questioned before peeking his head in your room. You had to stifle a small laugh at the fact that he didn't even wait for you to answer before inviting himself in. 

“We never got to finish our conversation on the couch,” he continued.

“No, it’s okay I get it,” you rolled over onto your side toward him and attempted to stretch the awkward feeling in your bones.

“You do?” he slightly raised an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, don’t worry about that almost kiss thing. It probably would be better to pretend it never happened at all,” you once again attempted a calm, passive demeanor. 

“It would be?” his eyebrows fell back down, “I don’t think we are on the same page, Y/N,” you opened your mouth to speak but he quickly cut you off, “I wanted to kiss you. I still—uh want to. I just don’t want to be your rebound. I want to wait with you and take things very slowly if it means that I get to be the one for you.” You threw yourself upright as a ticklish feeling erupted within your stomach. Your mouth still sat open as he finished speaking, 

“I don’t want you to think I am just preying on a heart broken girl after her breakup.”

Practically anything that this man has said you you all day set a fire in your heart that you had never felt before. It was slow and gentle—much different from the blazing inferno you had craved from Bakugou for the past many years.

The passion with Bakugou felt so natural, but was this slow burning love something that you needed?

As you stared at the Todoroki in the silence that had enveloped you, the feeling within your lower abdomen certainly screamed that that wasn’t the case.

Your legs started moving before you could think as you walked up to the handsome man. You knew that it was probably safer to move slowly, but that didn’t stop you from softly grasping him at the base of his neck.

Should you take things slow with Todoroki? Or move at a passionate pace?

YOU DECIDE

Follow this link to cast your vote!

[bird-in-a-cage]

5 + Harringrove please

Hi anon, thanks for the request! The rest of the list can be found here.

I had an idea for this one pretty much straight away, I hope this lives up to what you were expecting! 

#5 - I feel stuck. And everyone is moving without me.

Clawfoot

The master bathroom was Mrs Harrington’s pride and joy, whenever she was around long enough to use it. Steve remembers the remodel taking forever because, above all else, a clawfoot bathtub was essential. Apparently it had been extremely expensive too, something about the floor needing strengthened, causing more than one bitten off fight around the dinner table Steve was too young to understand at the time. But he remembers them. Vividly.  

Now neither parent was really around, Steve claimed it for his own. Left his toothbrush and hair products all over the sink in front of the mirror that was bigger than the one in his bathroom. Left towels on the pristine white tiles for far longer than they should have been there. But the tub was his favourite part. Especially after a long day of being a minimum wage drone with nothing really to do other than think too much. 

He turned the water on, waited for it to get hot to the point of being almost blistering before allowing the tub to fill, before stripping off the Family Video uniform and sinking into the bath with nothing more than a small hiss as the heat attacked his skin in sharp prickles. But it was good. He needed this. The pain stopped the thoughts from swelling too far. Thoughts about how he was going to be stuck in Hawkins forever. 

Usually he was able to brush off the ever increasing self doubt, it still lingered but he tried not to let it show to the outside world. Still the same Steve he’d always been, just more mellow now. Less concerned with popularity and being king. Surviving three near death experiences in quick succession will do that. Little things didn’t tend to matter anymore. He woke up breathing in his own bed every morning. Sometimes that was enough.

Robin got into college today. It was her day off but she came into the store to show off her acceptance to UCLA to major in languages, and to tell Keith to go fuck his stupid job and his stupid hair and his stupid cheeseball breath. Steve was happy for her, of course he was, but it was just another piece falling away. Another support beam crumbling down.

He sunk into the red hot water up to his chin. Let the prickles sink down to his bones. He was growing to like being boiled alive. Sometimes it was nice to feel like a lobster the moment before it realises it's going to be slathered in melted butter and served for dinner.

With Robin going there was no one left. Dustin didn’t count, he was a high school kid now and Steve couldn’t hang around high schoolers anymore. It was too weird. He didn’t want to be known as that guy. Nancy and Jonathan were happy in Washington last time he’d heard. He hadn’t spoken to Tommy in years, but he apparently left town to travel around a bit, find himself. And Billy was dead. Everyone left seemed to be able to just pick themselves up and carry on. Why couldn’t Steve? Why, every time he closed his eyes, could he still smell fireworks and smoke? Why could he still see tunnels in his dreams? Why was he still being chased night after night by monsters no matter what new drug the government appointed therapist put him on?

The tub was the only thing that brought even a second of relief. The feeling of pain mixing with pleasure to create a weird soup. Every small movement and splash echoed around the tiles. It was calming. It almost wasn’t real. Time didn’t exist.

Steve hated that therapist. He would talk for almost the full hour every week about how he couldn’t sleep through the night without keeping the lights and the radio on, about his nightmares when he could finally drift off that caused him to panic and sweat and scream with no one to hear it, about how a bus with burnt out brakes screeched outside Melvalds not too long ago and Steve felt his heart stop because it sounded like those monsters coming back. All he would receive in return was silence, a pen scratching on paper, a new prescription.

Robin wouldn’t talk about what they’d been through. The only other person in the whole world who would maybe understand even just a small fraction. Steve had tried to bring it up once, after a sleepless night where the room was swirling and it felt like those Russian drugs were back in his system again somehow, but was shut down with a simple “I don’t want to talk about that”. Steve had to respect her wishes, it would be unfair to just dump his trauma out in the open. That was probably just how she dealt with it. Pushed it aside and moved on. Steve did talk about it though, when she was doing returns or sorting new releases with headphones on and music blaring loud. He would say things to her she would never hear. At least, she never acknowledged she could hear anything. Everything said with a smile so, even though no one was listening, no one would suspect anything was true. All just a joke. Same old Steve Harrington.

“Hey, remember that time we nearly died and no one would ever find our bodies if we had? Yeah, fun times.”

“I don’t think my parents would come home for my funeral, probably just send a card in the mail. Funny though, ‘cause I’d never be able to read it.”

“Hey, so, last night I cried so hard I threw up. Imagine that! I’m too old to be doing that shit anymore, but, here I am. A pathetic mess.”

“I feel stuck and everyone is moving without me...”

“Everyone deals with life in different ways,” was all the advice the therapist would ever give, even when Steve was begging for more. Something that would actually help. But really, the sessions were only there so they could gadge if anyone else knew about what happened. Who Steve was talking too, who was important in his life. It was just the government keeping tabs. God forbid they actually help.

Steve’s sigh echoed around the bathroom. He sucked down one last breath before slipping under the water completely, letting it burn and soothe and burn some more. Letting the heat attack the thin skin around his closed eyes and flood his ears. Holding his breath until his lungs ached and he could feel his heartbeat thumping louder and louder. Forced himself to stay down, stay under as long as possible, putting his hands over his mouth and nose, pushing his bare feet into the porcelain of the tub to fight the urge to rise too soon. Until all he could hear was his heart. Until all he could feel was burning. His lungs on fire and every inch of skin alabaster pink. Nothing mattered at the bottom of the tub. It was a million miles away from everything. Misery didn’t exist down here. Sadness and the inability to just move on, like it was the easiest thing to do, didn’t exist. All that mattered was his baser instincts fighting through to survive.

The first breath was always the sweetest. The first gulp of steamy oxygen. Gasps and splashes echoed around the bathroom, bouncing and reverberating. Water sloshing over the sides of the tub and dripping onto the tiles. Still alive. This time. That’s all that mattered.

Still alive.

[quidfree]

tdbk hurt/comfort?

writing this just made me think about my long-running theory that principal nezu is a mastermind villain who is taking out his grudge on humanity via slowly destroying the next generation of heroes bc how ELSE can you explain the amount of personal injury-lawsuits-that-never-were within UA’s supervision 

anyways i would have made this w shouto injured but i feel like IGFTD already has enough of bakugou babysitting him so *reverse uno*

(definitely not at all thinking abt the latest updates of the manga aha..ha)

it’s hardly the first time shouto has seen bakugou get his ass beat. he doesn’t have midoriya’s abysmal track record, but midoriya mostly destroys himself; bakugou tends to get battered by external forces. now that he’s thinking about it he can’t think of another classmate with worse luck, except maybe mineta, but that’s more punitive justice than anything.

habit is a great deadener, or so he’s read. that may be true on a day-to-day basis, but it does nothing to diminish the gut-punch of worry when bakugou’s explosions stutter to a halt so abruptly that it makes him look up just in time to see him plummeting out of the sky, jagged shard of rock protruding through his chest.

midoriya is yelling from somewhere, panicked cry of ‘kacchan!’ turning into a furious scream midway, and shouto is skating upwards on instinct, ice solidifying beneath his feet, arms extending and pulse thudding with memories of ‘how sad, todoroki shouto’ echoing through his mind. 

not so slow, this time. bakugou knocks right into him, gauntlets and all, heavy enough to knock them both off the ice; it shifts and reforms beneath them as he grapples for a better hold. somewhere above them a berserk midoriya is exploding into green light, blows breaking through the villain’s crumbling shell as the mountainside continues to fall apart; shouto’s hands are slick with what he can only hope is sweat as he rides the ice to safety.

they land roughly between the trees, rumbling from above muffled through the foliage just enough that he can hear bakugou cussing, which he has rarely been so happy to hear. 

“get your damn hands off me, icyhot,” bakugou snaps, as shouto’s heartbeat slows incrementally. when their eyes meet his are uncharacteristically hazy, sweat and grime sticking his hair to his face. 

shouto’s eyes lower, and his gut clenches. 

“stop that,” bakugou demands, as shouto’s ears buzz. the rock has embedded itself in his abdomen, and all around it red is soaking through even the dark materials of his suit, torso slick with blood. 

“bakugou...”

“i’m fine,” bakugou grits out, with unconvincing anger. somewhere distant there is a final sounding boom, and then the ground starts to shake. “worry about the damn- earthquake.”

“shit,” shouto says, under his breath, mind racing. earthquake, and mountain, and- landslide. and bakugou, with a poisoned piece of stone stuck right through him. 

he rises to his knees. when he moves bakugou recoils, smacking his hands away with an alarming lack of violence. 

“bakugou,” shouto says. “i’m not going to leave you behind.”

“worry about your damn self!” bakugou retorts, though his gaze flickers to the mountain above. “you’re not carrying me out of here.”

for a second, panicked frustration overwhelms him; he inhales deeply, stands. 

“fine. come on. get going.”

it’s cruel, really; bakugou’s face twists, and then he’s stumbling to his feet, leaking blood as he does. he barely makes it two steps before he’s swaying violently, face gone sheet-white under the mask. 

silently, shouto hoists an arm under his shoulder. bakugou, jaw clenched tight, looks away. it’s as much of a concession as he’ll get.

ice carries them upwards, over the trees, and he glances backwards to find bakugou’s warnings prescient: the mountain top has deteriorated, great chunks of rock sent spiralling downwards with increasing speed. midoriya and the others are fine, he tells himself. he can’t focus on two things at once.

what he can’t stop himself from focusing on, as they make rapid progress overhead, is the way that bakugou is sagging into his hold, dampness spreading through his suit; the pallor of his cheek and the rasping quality of his breaths. he feels faintly nauseous. 

bakugou isn’t dying. not now. what a stupid, ridiculous way to die this would be- three years into UA, having survived every other ridiculous thing life has thrown their way. dying at the hands of some elemental villain, for the price of diverting his attention from his exhausted classmates. 

fuck, why does this always happen to him? his fingers closing on air as dabi whisks bakugou away- his father in his grip as shigaraki pierces through bakugou right above him- it’s always like this, in his face, like fate derives some personal enjoyment out of his helplessly witnessing bakugou’s near-death experiences. 

he doesn’t realise how tight his grip is getting until bakugou hisses in unwilling pain; he relaxes it a fraction, guilt sickening, as he lowers them towards the rocks. there’s enough height and distance that the landslide won’t reach them- or won’t reach them fast enough to disrupt the process, anyways.

bakugou all-but crumples as soon as they’re on firm ground, folding inwards like a house of cards, and shouto is on his knees besides him instantly, hands fumbling for his medical kit. 

he’s a third year; he shouldn’t be so shaky when it comes to rescues, but his fingers are unsteady. 

“i’m going to have to take that out.”

“rule one of on-site aid,” bakugou rasps. his eyes are half-lidded, torso jerking irregularly as he watches shouto move.

never remove the knife from the stab wound. “i know. but you’ve seen what these rocks do. it’s hurting you worse than the blood loss can.”

“came first on the medical test, but who’s counting,” bakugou mutters. he keeps spasming, face tight with pain, and shouto remembers his brushes with the stone- like having fire ants crawling over your skin, red-hot and vicious. to have that inside of you-

ten minutes, if you’re lucky, aizawa had said. 

“i’m taking it out,” he repeats, redundantly, and wills his hands to stop shaking, ice spreading around the shard as bakugou gasps and flinches. 

“fucking- get off me, you bastard, get-”

he’s freezing around the stone now, forces himself not to react to the wet sounds of ice sliding through blood and organ to wrap itself around the intruding shard. bakugou’s cursing has turned to incoherent noise, and he can’t bring himself to look up, own breathing heavy to his ears as he coils the ice like a hook, tugs softly then harder.

“fuck!” bakugou howls, as he grits his teeth and painstakingly pulls back another fragment; a defensive explosion hits him right in the side, and he pulls too hard on instinct, whole shard yanked free as bakugou screams bloody murder. 

shouto falls back with a piece of rock the size of his forearm in his lap, covered in blood and tissue and ice, almost gets sick at the feel of it. instead he drops it hastily, slams an arm down over the gushing wound as his free hand grabs for the spray. top of the line hero resources; knits any wound back together, hatsume had promised, and why the hell had he trusted hatsume mei of all people with his tech? if this is one of her misses-

he sprays, blood splattering him in the face when he withdraws long enough to do so, and then keeps spraying so violently that his hand cramps, watching tissue knit itself in a disturbing parody of organs as the bleeding slows. 

for a beat he just sits and stares, chest rising and falling. there is still a hole through bakugou, but it’s like it’s been half-sketched in the way it’s supposed to look, veins and muscle and what could be a kidney half-fleshed out within the empty space.

“motherfucker,” bakugou chokes out, tight, and then shoves himself half-upright just in time to throw up off the side of the rock. shouto’s hands have resumed shaking.

bakugou collapses back onto the rock, arms wobbly from the exertion, and for a second he just lies there, shouto’s pulse slowing ever so slightly as he takes in the mess they’re in, blood and guts and ice and some half-mended massacre in bakugou’s abdomen. 

more than ten minutes, though. enough to get actual medical care. that has to be enough. 

“todoroki,” bakugou says. shouto startles, leans over. his gaze is unfocused, hazily attentive.

“am i dying?”

it’s said matter-of-factly; instinctively his stomach turns. 

“no.”

“don’t lie to me.”

“i have never lied to you,” shouto retorts, intent. “you’re not dying.”

bakugou looks at him, brow furrowed deeply with effort as he blinks in frustration. can’t quite muster up the energy to concentrate, shouto assumes. it makes him look oddly like his younger self, all screwed up suspicion.

not dying, shouto tells himself, fiercely. not fucking dying. 

he stomps down the emotion, but he’s lost his touch over the past three years because bakugou’s mouth twitches wryly, eyes briefly sharp. 

“’f i’m not dying what’s with that look?”

“what look?”

“the fucking- hero’s crisis. failed rescue.”

“shut up,” shouto says, abruptly harsh. “that’s not- shut up. you’re not dying.”

“feel like shit though,” bakugou mutters, eyes drifting shut again. 

if the roles were reversed bakugou would have said and you look like it too. but he’s not bakugou, even if he is the only other person in the class that’s as poorly equipped to play nurse; he can’t muster the normalcy to banter. he just keeps replaying bakugou’s screaming, eyes caught on the tear-tracks on his cheeks. he hadn’t even noticed him crying during.

help is coming. help has to be coming. bakugou will last until then. but he’d hate for them to find him like this.

of its own volition, his hand retrieves a sanitary wipe from the medikit. then it’s dabbing at bakugou’s face. 

“the fuck are you- get off,” bakugou protests, albeit with more bewilderment than anger. shouto’s hands resolutely do not listen, wiping dutifully ahead, and at some point bakugou gives up, just lies there with confused annoyance in his frown. when his face is clean shouto folds the wipe away, sits back. 

“i’m sorry i made you walk earlier.”

bakugou’s eyes flicker open, slanted red. “’s whatever.”

“it was petty of me,” shouto continues, half a sigh. “i was panicking.”

“yeah, well,” bakugou mumbles. “would have kept bitching if you hadn’t, so. for the best.”

not dying, not dying, not dying. “don’t suddenly become reasonable just because you think you’re on your deathbed.”

“fuck you,” bakugou retorts, managing a snort before it turns into a coughing fit that leaves him curled up and sweating, eyes squeezed tight with pained humiliation. 

if midoriya were here, shouto thinks- but that’s stupid. he and bakugou are friends too, really. have been for much longer than bakugou would admit. he should be able to do something. 

he can’t move him, though. not with the fragile hold hatsume’s gadget has on his internal organs. he’s not exactly going to kiss him better like recovery girl would. and when it comes to conversation, he’s never really had a knack for keeping bakugou placid.

he keeps thinking about all of the times he hadn’t caught him. bakugou out of reach. that sick feeling, worsening every time. 

hesitantly, his hand finds bakugou’s. 

“what the fuck.”

instinct should make him jerk it back, but stubbornness supersedes the urge. he winds their fingers together as bakugou lifts his head to glare at him. 

“get your damn hand off me, half ‘n half.”

“no.”

bakugou tugs, hard and ineffective, falls back with an outraged glower. 

“are you fucking kidding me? what is this, a k-drama?”

“i don’t know what else to do to make you feel better,” shouto retorts, nebulously self-conscious but entirely resolute. “so unless you have any better ideas i’m not letting go.”

“it’d make me feel better if you stopped touching me!” bakugou snaps, coughing. shouto ignores him, runs his thumb over his knuckles, vague sense memories of his mother coming to him as he does. had she held his hands, back then? he thinks maybe. he can’t think where else he’d have picked it up.

bakugou has stopped struggling, but has not died. shouto relaxes a fraction.

holding hands is sort of nice. bakugou’s hand is sweaty, which makes sense, but also very hot, and calloused. after a while he sort of forgets the circumstances, just starts absently playing with it, pressing his fingers into the pads of his hand. he thinks he was right about his mother. he can sort of recall the sensation of her hands in his.

“if i don’t die,” bakugou says, after a minute, sort of resigned sounding, “i’m going to kill you.”

“yeah,” shouto says, squeezing his hand. “sure.”

he wonders if bakugou’s parents held his hand a child. he thinks probably yes. he seems like the type whose parents love him a lot in spite of his attitude. that’s mostly how everyone treats him, in the end.

mitsuki bakugou looks a lot like her son. the last time he saw her she was aggressively ruffling his hair into even greater disarray, voice strident as bakugou yelled back obscenities and made no real effort to displace her.

it must be hard, shouto reflects, for a civilian parent. midoriya’s mother certainly has reason to worry. bakugou’s is probably a close second by now.

“stop looking at me like that.”

“sorry.”

“no you’re not!”

“well, if it bothers you...”

“can you just be a normal damn person for once?”

bakugou hits him when he starts messing with his hair, but he doesn’t let go of his hand. 

(he also doesn’t kill shouto when he’s released from the hospital, but then shouto had sort of expected that.)

[diazevans]

and then they were married (it's a funny story)

Buck is looking at him like he is particularly like he is clearly missing the point, the same Christopher does when he doesn’t understand some obvious conclusion he has reached. It makes him smile, just for a second, before it disappears when Buck speaks again.

“She says we are already married.”

Eddie is really not strong enough for this.

or Buck goes a little bit crazy with birthday planning, but Eddie loves him too much to care.

“Edmundo, if you are not down here in five seconds I’m leaving without you!”

“You need to calm down.”  

“We are going to be late!”

As a matter of fact, Eddie knows they are not going to be late. It’s only a 15 minute drive from the station to Christopher’s school on the worst days of traffic and they are not supposed to be there until 11 am.

It’s 10:20.

But he is not going to go against Buck, at least not right now when he seems into some birthday planning panic for the millionth time this week. It’s cute and yeah, it does make him want to grab his shirt and make out with him for two hours straight, but it’s also getting on his nerves a little bit. Eddie has to remind himself this is the first time his best friend is planning Christopher’s party at school and it’s just the desire for it to be perfect for his son that makes him be so on edge. Later, when all of this is over, he is gonna make sure to laugh at him for months, but right now he just needs to help him get everything as it’s supposed to be.

There is also this tiny, tiny , hope that once Christopher is in sight, Buck will chill out. Maybe just a fraction; he will take whatever he can get.

Once they arrive at his son’s school ( their son , he corrects. Eddie is inside his mind, he can phrase it whatever the hell he wants, thank you very much), they are greeted by Christopher’s teacher and together, they take all of the supplies out of the car and into the little space they use for birthday celebrations and, between decorations and food, he feels like they are on a mission. His mind barely has space to store how soothing it feels to have Buck by his side, chatting away with the teacher and moving beside him like they were two parts of the same whole.

“It’s really wonderful to see how both of you are so involved with Christopher’s school life. Some parents don’t really make the time.” Even when the teacher is still looking at Buck, Eddie knows it’s  a clear comment for the two of them.

He turns around from the glasses he is adjusting to give the teacher a smile, but he stops short when he sees Buck’s cheeks painted with a pretty pink and he can’t just look away. It’s not the first time he’s seen the other man blush, but it stops his heart every time, especially when they’re standing so close. Still, he feels the need to say something, mostly because he knows they are not alone.

He walks forward to where Buck and the teacher had been working on, pressing a hand on his best friend’s shoulder, but keeping his eyes on the teacher.

“We do our best.” Out the corner of his eye, he sees Buck’s grin grow a bit, nodding along with his words. But before Buck can say something, Eddie finishes his original thought “This party is all Buck. He’s been working on it for weeks, that’s why everything looks so good.”

And it’s not that he hasn’t told Buck before how much this means to him, because he has and he is pretty sure Christopher has been giving him even more hugs than normal, but he wants everyone to know how thankful he is for the other man’s presence and everything he does. There is not a day when he is not reminded of the luck he had to love a man like him and that by some miracle, he loves him back in some way.

Eddie and the teacher go back to their easy conversation, but he feels Buck’s eyes on him the entire time and when he looks at him, there is something deep in the blue that he can’t quite place. It’s nothing bad, but it does make him feel tense all of sudden and he is pretty sure that the only reason he is able to shrug it off it’s because it’s time for the kids to have their celebration.

As expected, everything goes smoothly.

Christopher has the time of his life surrounded by his friends, and Eddie and Buck work around them with bright smiles and easy laughs. When it’s time to sing Happy Birthday, the little ones surprise them by singing in English and Spanish, and Eddie has to look away for a second, because that is just too fucking cute. After they clean the place and give all the teachers their thanks, the ride home is filled with Christopher’s recollections of the day and for a long while, Eddie completely forgets about the look.

It comes back when it’s just the two of them alone, with the kid sleeping in his room.

Buck is seated on the couch when he comes back from putting Christopher to sleep and Eddie really wants to stay on the entrance to watch him from afar, but there is a concerned feeling in the way Buck’s eyebrows are knit together and that is enough to convince him to get closer and sit beside him. The blonde seems to be so in his head that he doesn’t turn his attention to Eddie and his eyes only focus on him when Eddie puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Is something wrong?” He worries something has happened in the party and he is already going through the whole thing in his head to see what could have been when Buck shakes his head.

“There is something I want to talk to you about.” His voice is serious, but Eddie can feel Buck’s body relax under his touch, especially when Eddie starts to rub circles with his fingers. It’s nothing new for him to comfort Buck this way, because he has learned with time that Buck feels more confident talking about his feelings when he is being physically reassured . So he waits for Buck to gather his thoughts, knowing that whatever he’s thinking about is important.

“Today, when we were talking with the teacher. You … You had this … proud look on your face and I just …”  

Eddie’s hand doesn’t stop moving, but he does hold his breath, unable to help himself. It’s basically taking everything he’s got in him not to run away from this conversation, mostly because he knows this could go horribly wrong. Yet he doesn’t, because there is no version of reality where he doesn’t prioritize Buck’s feelings above his own.

Their eyes find each other, and Buck’s smile is almost shy when he speaks again.

“Maddie’s been saying some things. About us.”

And here we go. There is no way back from this, is it?

“Things?” He has to ask, because maybe the God above is merciful and Buck is talking about something completely different from what Eddie is imagining.

“She doesn’t think we are dating.”  Intense blue eyes stare at him expectantly, and Eddie realizes that should mean something to him, but, yeah? They aren’t dating?

“... OK?”

Buck is looking at him like he is particularly like he is clearly missing the point, the same Christopher does when he doesn’t understand some obvious conclusion he has reached. It makes him smile, just for a second, before it disappears when Buck speaks again.

“She says we are already married.”

Eddie is really not strong enough for this.

He feels like he’s in some sort of a dream, like he is looking at the conversation he is having with Buck from the outside, and while he sees Buck’s mouth move, it’s like his brain has just shut off. Probably to preserve itself.

“And I know she was just being nosy but today at the party, I just…” There is a pause and the blue is far from his reach when Buck looks down “I’m sure this is how a marriage is supposed to feel.”

Eddie can’t be the first person in the world to truly wonder how Buck lives with his heart so out in the open.

Because this, right now? This is Evan Buckley showing him absolutely everything he feels, honest and raw, and Eddie doesn’t understand how he does it, even after everything that he has had to go through. He knows Buck well enough to know that this is really the first time that he had weighed their relationship like this, and that his first instinct was to reach for Eddie. Like he didn’t see any other way than to be completely honest with how he was feeling. No pretense or lies, no pinning or internal drama; just him and his feelings out in the open.

Eddie owes him honesty, if nothing else, , even when it breaks his own heart.

“Buck,” His voice is patient, and he is really trying to not sound like his whole world is one step away from slipping through his fingers, but he doesn’t know how well he manages that. “You are supposed to be in love with the person you marry.”

He doesn’t say it because he thinks he is stupid or because he is somehow dismissing what Buck is feeling. Eddie knows his heart, how big and bright it is and he has to make sure that Buck doesn’t think he owns him anything. That it doesn’t have to mean anything.

It’s clearly the wrong thing to say.

“I’m not a child, Eddie, I know that.” Buck moves away from his hand, indignation written clearly all over his beautiful face. But instead of standing up or storming out the door, he just sits impossibly closer on the couch, and there is a defiant attitude that was definitely not there a moment before. “Are you really gonna say to my face that you don’t love me?”

This can’t be happening. Has he always known?

“No, I …” And fuck, no, he can’t . “This is not about me” Because it’s not. It’s not about his heart; that has belonged to Buck for months, since the first time he saw him. It’s not about how he has never felt more at ease than with Buck by his side, or happier than when he gets to share Christopher’s life with him. It’s not about him .

But then Buck’s hands move to his neck and he doesn’t have the strength to make it about anything other than his own treacherous heart. He is smiling too now, which only proves his point that he is too far gone to ever go back.

“... You can’t be that dense, Eddie Diaz” Before Eddie can reply that yes, he for sure can, his best friend is moving forward and pressing his lips against his.

Two things happen at once: He kisses Buck back, and Eddie realizes that absolutely every second of his life that he hasn’t been kissing Buck has been a waste of his fucking time.

It feels so natural, so right, that the only thing Eddie can do when they part lightly is look absolutely dumbstruck. And fucked.

And so completely in love.

He still has half a mind to find his voice. “I guess we are a little married.”

“A little? Really ?”

Eddie has to laugh at that because yeah, he is pretty sure too that is more than a little, but he wouldn’t change a damn thing.

[siriusmuch]

Friday I’m In Love | Chapter Five

series masterlist here

word count: about 2.6k

warnings: it gets a bit depressing when the reader’s sister is brought up, but overall, it’s a pretty hurt/comfort chapter :)! and it’s super fluffy ;)

taglist: @interestingthingsthings @siriuslysirius1107@scaredofvscogirls @lizlil @themihala @mainstreambitchlife @phenylethyllamine @jellyfishbeansontoast​ @accio-rogers​ @blackpinkdolan​ @nickangel13​ @witchywrter​ please message me or send an ask if you’d like to be added to the taglist! if you didn’t receive a notification, it’s because i can’t tag you.

a/n: i’m SO excited for this chapter and honestly, i was planning on writing more for this, but hopefully this is good for now !! thank you all for being patient with me :) 

-

“You’ve got the wrong person, Princess.”

Your hair hit your face as you whipped around. Almost immediately, your eyes met with gray ones, and your eyes narrowed. The last person you expected was Sirius, and you scoffed.

“Did I not tell you that I’m done with you, Black?” Your voice was icy, but you couldn’t help the pounding of your heart. The tiniest of urges to thank him was immediately pushed down by your grudge. You watched Sirius carefully, and you could see his eyes widen for a fraction of a second. Did he really expect you to go running back at him with just a prank?

“I seem to have a reputation of not following rules. Did you not expect me to do something?”

Your emotions were bubbling, and it took everything in you to contain them. “Well, you seemed to follow the unspoken rule of Gryffindors hating Slytherins quite well... And you even pulled a stereotypical Gryffindor move and decided that all Slytherins were bad.”

You watched Sirius stiffen up the more you spoke, and part of you felt guilty. Despite being a Slytherin, you weren’t as prideful as some of your other house members, and all you wanted to do was jump into his arms and tell him you forgave him. But you refused to let yourself sink to that level — you were ignored for five years. It wasn’t even that you didn’t try reaching out to him.

“Moony, could you give us a minute? You’re done with detention, right?”

You hadn’t been talking to Remus for the past few minutes, but you wished he would stay. He looked over at you, silently asking whether or not you wanted him to stay. You hesitated, before nodding. This was a conversation for you and Sirius only, and as much as you started to let Remus into your life, you knew this was something you needed.

Right before Remus left, he gave you a quick hug, whispering a quick word of assurance before stepping out the door. You watched him leave, nerves starting to build up. You felt much more confident while Remus was in the room. And although Sirius hadn’t talked to you for years, he always had a knack to be able to read you.

Were you even ready to have this conversation?

This was something you’d hoped to have for years. You couldn’t list the amount of letters that you’ve composed, begging for something, anything, from him that you’d burnt up. Or even the ones that you’ve sent for a few years before you realized he’d never read any of them. Or the gifts you got him, the ones that you had spent hours agonizing over before sending him. Everything you did for the first few years during Hogwarts was for him.

You wanted this so badly, but now that you were face to face with Sirius, all you wanted to do was run. 

“Look, (Y/N)...” Sirius started, breaking the silence between the two of you, “Honestly, I don’t know what to say. I’ve been an asshole for the past five years, and you didn’t deserve that.”

“Damn right,” You muttered under your breath. “I can’t... deny that you haven’t been. I’ve been hurt over and over by you, and I didn’t deserve that. No matter the house I’m in. Hell, we’re starting to talk right now, and I still have no clue what you want from me.”

You looked up at Sirius, trying to figure out what was going on behind his eyes. He opened his mouth a few times to speak, although no words came out.

“Alright. I’m going to assume nothing then, or at least nothing important. I can’t tell if you’re not saying anything because of your pride, or if it’s because this entire thing was on impulse. I’m going to go.” Any anger you had was quickly filled with disappointment. You could hear your father’s voice in your head, telling you how all Gryffindors were the same and how they were making a fool out of you, and in turn, you were making a fool of your bloodline.

“No!” Sirius reached out and took a hold of your hand, and you almost jumped at the sparks. You turned to look at him, and you were surprised at how genuine he seemed. “Please don’t go. Not yet, just. Give me a bit,” Sirius begged.

Your eyes softened as you continued to stare at him, and you knew that Sirius knew. His grip on you loosened, but he never once looked away from your eyes. Neither of you spoke, and you knew a thousand messages were being exchanged between you. Your hand was still in his, and you just waited.

“I can’t expect you to forgive me. At least, not yet. But I’m sorry, (Y/N). I’m truly sorry for ignoring you and making it out to seem like I haven’t given a fuck about you for the past five years. When I first started, it was because I was so angry yet so scared, scared that you wanted to talk just so you could break off this friendship,” Sirius paused, and you nodded at him to continue.

“That’s not an excuse for anything, I know. You don’t have to tell me. But then, as time went on, I was so ashamed of doing it and I didn’t know how to stop doing it. And I guess eventually, before this year, I started believing that you were just like everyone else in my family. I mean, you hung around Snivellus and at any house parties I saw you in, you always seemed like you were being the perfect daughter. And... once, a group of Voldemort supporters were at my house, and your parents and sister were there. So I just assumed. But after I saw that howler you got, I got reminded of just how similar you and I were. You hated my parents more than I did, and I completely forgot that we were in the same boat.”

You frowned at him, but you squeezed his hand gently to reassure him. The two of you stood in silence for a moment as you tried to compose all your thoughts.

“Siri,” You started, before hastily correcting yourself, “Black.”

Before you even had a chance to say anything else, Sirius cut you off. “Sirius is fine, (Y/N). Please don’t call me by my last name. I’ve always been Sirius to you, and I don’t want that to change.”

You smirked a bit at that, but you continued speaking. “Sirius, I don’t know what to say. I can’t forgive you,” you paused when you noticed his frown, “but it doesn’t mean that I won’t in the future. I’m a little scared that this is going to be a one time thing,” you confessed.

“It’s not! I swear to Merlin, it’s not.” Sirius quickly jumped in, and you squeezed his hand again.

“And I can’t tell you that I believe that that’s true right now either. It’s been five years, Sirius. Even though we were close before, it’s going to take a while before I allow myself to fully trust you again. It’s not that I don’t want to, because believe me, every ounce of self-control is thrown out the window when it comes to you. It’s taking me everything to not just forgive you on the spot,” your voice was somber as you continued to speak, “And I don’t think anything is going to be the same as it once was. You might think you miss me, but I’m different now. I’m not the same naive child I once was, nor are you. You might realize that you don’t want to be friends with me anymore.”

“I’m sorry, (Y/N). I really am,” Sirius brought his free hand up to your cheek, wiping away the few tears that escaped your eyes. You hadn’t even realized that you started crying at some point. Your eyes flicked down a moment as you tried not to close yourself off, but with one glance up at Sirius, you realized that he was about to cry as well.

“And, about the Voldemort supporter thing? I can’t deny that my parents don’t support him. They do, and there’s nothing I can do about that. Nothing I can do would stop them from doing so.” Your nose crinkled in disgust.

“If you couldn’t tell already, mine do too.” He gave you the slightest of smiles, and suddenly, you burst into laughter, instinctively leaning into Sirius. Seconds later, Sirius did the same, and the two of you just couldn’t stop. There was someone who truly understood what having Death Eater parents was like, and you felt the slightest of weights on your shoulder being lifted. Every time you and Sirius looked at each other, you both couldn’t help laughing even harder.

Within the next few minutes, you were finally able to calm down from laughing, the slightest of chuckles still lingering. The awkward atmosphere in the room had long left, and the two of you were closer than you had been in five years. You welcomed this feeling back with a grin at Sirius.

“I have a question, though,” Sirius started. You lifted an eyebrow, waiting. “That day in the hospital... You mentioned that you wish you were in your sisters place. And during the Hallowe’en Feast, you let it slip that your sister was dead. Are you... Nevermind, that’s a stupid question. Do you want to talk about it?”

You couldn’t stop your shoulders from tensing up. You sighed, looking away from Sirius before he gently nudged you, trying to get you to look back at him. You took a moment to ponder whether or not you really wanted to say anything about what had happened.

“Not... really,” You sighed, “I don’t like thinking about how it happened, or even why it happened. But I was telling you the truth. There’s been plenty of times I wished it were me. And when I said that it was your fault, don’t blame yourself too much. You didn’t know, no one did. Plus, it wasn’t entirely you. There’s been... other things.”

Sirius nodded, and he mindlessly ran his thumb against the back of your hand. It was like he was doing it out of comfort, like how he used to when you were younger, and you appreciated that he still remembered. Or at least, even if he didn’t, that he still knew to do it instinctively. 

“I don’t like thinking about her. I know you used to look up to her when you were younger, but don’t think she was a Voldemort supporter. I know you saw her with my parents, but she didn’t have a choice. She’s like me, a bit. We both don’t have the courage it takes to be like you, Sirius. You stand up against your parents, or, as well as you can, from what Reg tells me. I’ve never been able to do that as well as you have.” You sighed, “But enough about that.”

Sirius’ lips pursed, and you could tell that he wanted to say more. To ask about what happened, to get everything out of you. But you couldn’t — even if you felt more comfortable with Sirius than you had that morning, you still felt just the slightest bit uneasy thinking about telling him what’d really been going on in your life for the past five years.

“That day in the hospital... You also happened to mention something else,” Sirius started, and you tried racking your brain for what it was, “You said that you were trying to get over me... Platonically and romantically.”

Oh.

You blinked owlishly at him as the memory settled in your brain, and you could feel your cheeks start burning red. You tried pulling your hand away from his, but Sirius held on a bit tighter. “I’m not judging, Princess, but...” Sirius raised an eyebrow at you.

You bit your lip, swallowing nervously as you looked anywhere but at Sirius. You knew he was seeing you vulnerable, but your hand was still in his. You didn’t want to pull away from the feeling just yet, but you were so jittery.

“Well...” You started, “Um. I may or may not have been in l-love with you for the past few years. Or maybe my entire life. I can’t remember not being in love with you.” You admitted, your voice growing quiet as you tried your best to control your stammer.

The silence between the two of you was practically destroying you, so you rushed to continue speaking, “I-I mean, I don’t expect you to feel the same for me or anything like that. We haven’t talked in five years, and like, I heard you and Marlene had a thing for a while, so. Plus, I only mentioned it because I thought you hated me and that we’d never speak again after it, and I thought getting it off my chest would help, but...” You laughed nervously, and you hated how it sounded like one of the girls who’d fake giggle around Sirius.

“I’m sorry, (Y/N).” Sirius said, and your heart dropped. You hadn’t even realized that you were holding your breath, or that your hopes had gotten up a bit. You didn’t even realize that Sirius’ grip had loosened, so you pulled your hand away and wiped them on your robes. “I hope you still want to be my friend, or at least, still want me to try and get you to forgive me. But I just don’t feel the same way.”

If you’d been looking at Sirius, you’d notice that he silently had smacked his face. But instead, you were staring across the room, your eyes darting around and at anywhere but at him.

After a moment, you finally looked back up at Sirius. “It’s alright, it’s what I expected. But now that you know, I can finally get over you in peace,” You nudged him, trying to bring back the ease from earlier. But, it seemed to had the opposite effect. Sirius crossed his arms and had an obvious sour expression on his face, and for the life of you, you couldn’t tell where you went wrong. Your brows furrowed, and you wished you were able to read him as well as you used to be able to — it sucked, not knowing what was going on in his head.

“It’s... not because of you or anything. I just don’t think I’d be able to settle down. And from what I can tell, that’s what you want, right?” Sirius lied, not that you would know. You nodded, a sad look on your face, but you didn’t blame him. “You’ve always been important to me, (Y/N), and even though I haven’t been able to show that, you’re not like everyone else. I don’t want to give this a try and disappoint you.”

You nodded again, reaching out to grab onto Sirius’ hand. You hoped that your eyes conveyed just how understanding you were about all of this. Even though he didn’t want to give a try, nor felt any romantic sparks towards you at all, it was just nice to have him back in your life. Nice to have someone who knew you and knew you better than you knew yourself. Nice to have someone who truly cares and understands.

And when Sirius gave a gentle squeeze back, you knew that maybe it was okay for you to hope again.

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Not Killing Him

Orion Crown sat in his big, mean-looking SUV in the old parking lot. The dry heat of Vegas had ripped up the asphalt here over the past years, leaving it pockmarked and littered with potholes. His own car and one other vehicle in the lot were the only ones parked there, immobile, like silent steel corpses, cooling in the shadow of some abandoned warehouse.

The thick windows shielded him from the noise of traffic in the distance, so Orion sat in a weirdly muffled silence. Staring at the entrance of the derelict warehouse with its crooked, ajar doors. He felt sick to his stomach because he had slept little more than a few hours per night and his forehead was burning up.

He picked up his phone from the passenger seat, snatching it from where it was resting next to a loaded semi-automatic pistol. He thumbed through the display, checking his recent direct messages on your social media platform of choice.

Orion Crown, social media darling and super-giant of the statusphere. He flipped through business proposal messages from other influencers, something marginally important from his YouTube video editor, and an array of annoyed passive-aggressive texts from his producer-slash-partner. He let the list slide to a stop, with this finger hovering over the display. Hovering just over the message from “The Glass King” with the preview field only saying that it contained a GIF.

The internet star dithered. He could refuse to walk into that warehouse and refuse to use that gun. His career and life would be over, though.

The alternative was sucking it up, gripping the cold metal of the pistol in his palm, walking in there, and blasting away. Didn’t matter who it was. Didn’t know, didn’t care.

Even though seeing the message’s contents disturbed him every time he reviewed it, his thumb descended in slow motion. Like time almost ground to a halt, like the universe was trying to stop him from watching it again.

He tapped the message and it flicked onto full display on his screen.

The animated GIF flashed with disturbing imagery, all of it cut so quickly and abruptly that it became impossible to take it all in. Words and symbols displayed for fractions of seconds so that the mind could not really grasp what it read, and video footage that may or may not contain clipped recordings of overt violence. Violence he, himself, had authored.

The glare of his phone reflected in Orion’s glassy eyes, pupils dilating with dread and disassociation. Knowing that he recognized some of the things presented here so subliminally and viscerally, feeling guilt even though he had always rationalized the terrible things he had done in the past.

How was anybody better? How could anybody be better?

I am not a bad person, Orion thought. Nobody is.

After watching the animated GIF loop countless times, glued to the phone’s display as if bound in a trance, he put the phone back down onto the passenger seat, a hand’s breadth away from the gun. He barely registered the words that followed far down below the window of animation.

The threats. The instructions.

The sentences that had brought him to the locker where he obtained the gun. The address of this warehouse. And his mission, to kill anybody he saw inside this place.

Why didn’t this “Glass King” person just ask for money? Why this? How did the Glass King even get that footage? It had been destroyed long ago.

None of it made any sense.

No matter how many times he mulled it over, Orion Crown—born with the more unglamorous name of Kyle Howard—his sense of self-preservation, greed, and existential dread always won out. Always looped him back to doing as he was told as long as it served his own purposes. To get this over with, and walk away, and never let anybody know of his dirty secrets.

If the Glass King put any of that out—if they aired out any of Orion Crown’s dirty laundry—then he would be out of the game. Done. Probably also in prison.

Orion looked over to the gun. Stared at it, taking in every hard and unforgiving edge and angle of its sleek industrial design.

He had before, and he pondered it again, now: to just pick it up and stick the nuzzle right into his own mouth. Pull the trigger and end it right now.

But his vanity and pride, masked with religious guilt and eclipsed by copious amounts of doublethink, led him to believe that this was the only way.

He grabbed the gun and weighed it in his hand. Orion licked his lips and they felt funny. Not chapped, but uneven. Slimy. He bit his lip and chewed without realizing it, while his gaze swept up and down the crumbling building of this damned warehouse.

In one fluid motion, he got out of his car, slammed the door shut, and walked towards the entrance of the warehouse. The heat outside his car, even here in the shade—combined with the inexplicable fever he was running—made his head swim as if he had been drinking nonstop for the past day and night.

He gripped that pistol in his fist like his life depended on it. And as far as Orion was concerned, it did.

The rusted hinges on the big metal double doors squealed and he cringed at the sound of it, freezing in place. His heart raced, his pulse thundering in his ears. Eyes darted back and forth, looking for a sign of anybody in there. Whoever had parked the other car had to be in here, and Orion’s job was to gun them down.

Something heavy, like a brick hitting a pile of rubble, echoed through the decrepit and dingy halls.

Orion’s hand jerked and he pointed the gun out in front of himself, aiming at every dark corner and little thing he could perceive. With nobody in sight, the adrenaline pumped through his body, suffusing him with a quiet rage and driving the sweat to erupt from his pores, clouding his senses and sapping his reason.

He sidled through the entrance and crept through the abandoned place, twitching at any possible sound he thought he heard and any shadow he saw in the corner of his eyes, expecting someone, anybody, to jump out at him.

Something chugged and sputtered, causing him to freeze once more. He continued sneaking on when he recognized those sounds to be coming from a gas-powered generator, hidden somewhere deeper within the warehouse’s bowels.

He kind of hoped that someone would jump out at him from a blind spot. Thinking it would be much easier to pull the trigger if it felt like self defense.

Instead, he found a large, wide, pillared hall, awaiting him at the end of a long twisting and turning through claustrophobia-inducing corridors.

Someone had arranged seven door frames in a perfect circle, bolted down with plywood feet to support their weight, sawdust and power tools littering the dirty floors, and that distinct smell of freshly cut wood hanging in the air.

Each door frame held a door, closed and looking far too new to fit into this warehouse. An array of four construction site spotlights illuminated the doors from their center, connected to a tangle of bright orange power cord extensions, leading his sweeping gaze to the generator he had been hearing chug away all this time.

The doors were just standing there, out in the open, connected to no walls. Leading nowhere.

Orion gripped the pistol in both hands, holding it outstretched far in front of himself. He had never fired a gun before in his life. Without realizing it, he both wanted the thing to be as far away as possible from himself, but also wanted to use it and for things to be over fast.

But nobody was here. Right?

Wrong.

Arriving in the center of the seven doors, he blinked and inspected a small pile of objects heaped up in between the four spotlights.

A bunch of broken smartphones, a black wig, a small cracked hand mirror, a pile of about twenty credit cards that had been sloppily cut in half, a bunch of different keys that looked far too old to fit the locks on the doors here, and all of the objects rested on top of a local city map that someone had drawn all over with a black magic marker.

A pebble crunched underneath a boot. But not Orion’s shoe. He swiveled, almost getting dizzy at his own speed as he pointed the gun at the source of the noise.

Standing only steps away from the other person, he held the pistol out and swallowed. No matter how many times he had tried to mentally prepare for this moment, he hesitated and his index finger trembled instead of squeezing around the trigger.

Nobody jumping out at him. Just standing there.

She stared into the barrel of his gun for a split second and then met his gaze. A woman in her twenties, dressed like a man. Or—at second glance—androgynous, like she was in some sort of getup for a rock or punk band from the 1990s. Clad in a ratty leather jacket and dark jeans; covered in studs on her clothing, a chain hanging from her belt, and spikes protruding from a choker around her neck; way too much makeup on her face; and a poorly-cut hair-do of shaved sides and long top that could constitute as a fashion crime.

More distracting, however, was the hand she held in her hand. Orion did a double take on that before he fully absorbed what he saw there. A waxen hand with candlewicks sticking out from the fingertips, gripped firmly in her slender hand.

“Who the fuck are you?” she asked Orion. She squinted at him.

He squeezed the trigger. It didn’t work. The fucking gun refused to work.

Orion turned it over and looked at it and realized that it had a safety setting which he had forgotten to take care of before walking into the building.

Clink. Snap.

The woman flicked a lighter on and guided it to the waxen hand in her hand and he had flicked the safety and pointed the gun at her and the next thing Orion knew, his wrists hurt. And so did his neck. And his lower back.

Chafing against exposed skin, coarse rope and the smell of burnt candles still filled his nostrils. He began thrashing but found that his limbs did not obey his instinct to struggle against his bonds because of how tightly he was tied down. He scraped his skin against something like rough rock or rusty metal behind him.

Blinking and fighting the fever back down, the taste of iron clung to his tongue. His vision blurred here and there and reality caught back up to him with disjointed delay. She had tied him to something in sight of the circle of seven doors.

The woman crouched in front of one of the doors, her back turned to him.

With a loud PLOP, she opened something in her hands and whatever she was doing, it resulted in the door being splattered with something dark and red.

Hoarse, the words croaked out of his throat and left him sounding more like a toad. “Hey,” Orion emitted. “Let me go!”

The woman whispered something and it dawned on him that it was no response to him.

“What the fuck are you doing? You’re gonna get into so much trouble if you don’t let me go,” he said. But it really was just pathetic pleading, masquerading as feeble threats. “Police’ll be all over your ass, lady.”

She continued whispering and splashed more of the dark crimson liquid over the next door, to its left.

Something crunched. It drew both Orion’s attention, and that of the woman. They both stared at the thing crawling into the large hall, emerging from the corridors he had entered from. The way they paused, paralyzed with disbelief—and the failure of the human mind’s capability to process what they were looking at—took in the thing moving along the floor.

It looked like a pile of trash, like someone had kicked over a garbage can and the contents of four weeks of refuse had spilled out over the ground. With a stench to match. But parts of it looked fleshy, or sponge-like. Wobbling but staying whole, like a block of jello. Other bits, like stalks, or tentacles, tiny and too many to count, coiling and recoiling and almost like they were looking in every direction, but seeing without any discernible eyes.

Death and evil incarnate, crawling over the filthy floors. Hungry, but slow. Creeping. Part of the world’s abandoned things, coalesced and fused into something awful, something trapped in between the realm of the living and the realm of non-existence; a vessel to something worse, something spawned in the darkest recesses and the deepest abyss of human sin. Crawling, and more than one. Another pile of living muck and vomit-inducing presence followed. And another. And another.

Rejects.

They headed towards the seven doors with painful slowness. But one of them began veering away from the rest, inching closer towards Orion.

Thwuck. Shlack. Scrape.

Orion wanted to throw up. He started wriggling, thrashing, fighting against his bonds, but none of it helped. He looked back at the woman in desperation.

She breathed through her teeth, “Shit.”

Haste colored her every movement now and she haphazardly sprayed more liquid onto the doors. One by one. She whispered all the while, though the whispers had made way to hectic chanting. Orion had no chance in understanding it, for the words sounded nothing like any language he had ever heard before.

Almost matching the sounds made by the Rejects, creeping forth.

Scrape. Flesh. Shlef. Thwuck.

The Reject crawled closer. Ever closer to him.

Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes, first blurring his sight a little, and then a lot. Orion had no time or space to realize how that might have been better, he only felt the deep-rooted dread in his stomach. The certainty of death by this abomination, crawling up to him. Only an arm’s length away from his kicking feet.

The stench intensified as the thing got closer, robbing him of any speech, making him wretch.

Images of the GIF on his phone flashed in his mind. The violence he had inflicted, captured on camera—his own recordings, not meant for public consumption—sent to him by the Glass King.

Just like these monsters had been sent by the Glass King.

Orion screamed for help.

A figure in a long black duster emerged from the corridors, standing still at the edge of the large hall, staring at the seven doors. Orion screamed for help from him, now. But within just a few beats of his heart, pounding so hard that it wanted to burst from his chest, he knew deep down that this man was the master of the Rejects.

No—this man was the Glass King, and he cared nothing for Orion’s plight. Hell, he probably enjoyed it. Orion sensed that just much malice from the presence of his man, and his imagination ran wild in response to the evil emanating from his body, hitting his entire being like a truck.

“Will you even be you when you return from that place? If you return from the house?” asked the man, directing his words at the woman by the doors.

Cold and uncaring about Orion, who was now screaming at the top of his lungs. Because something cold and wet and slimy slapped against the bottom of his shoe. And slithered up it, tugging at shoe laces, wrapping around the leg of his pants by his ankle, and applying pressure. Pulling itself upwards.

Onto him.

The woman never stopped chanting, flinging blood at those doors and then sticking something white and misshapen into the keyhole of one of the brass knobs, exposed by the glaring cone of light from one of the spots. She stopped chanting.

“You can’t stop change. Everything changes. That’s all you’re really afraid of, isn’t it?” she shouted. Anger making her voice tremble. Also something insecure. Or fear.

She ripped the door open and ran through it and slammed it shut behind her, but she didn’t emerge from the other side.

Just gone. Vanished into thin air.

Orion had neither eyes nor mind for this phenomenon, however. He only felt the many tiny tendrils of trash touching, feeling, finding their way up his limbs. A path of disgusting discovery, exploring his body like an alien creature trying to figure out human anatomy, but in reality just so depraved and sinister that it pretended to be doing so when it fed on his festering dread and despair.

Was this what it was like to be helpless? To be used, and chewed out?

To cry for help, but be ignored?

He had no capacity left for clean, deep thoughts. Only terror filled his being. The Reject crawled up over him, exerting the weight of a full-grown person, pinning him down and amplifying his sense of helplessness.

Some part of him expected to feel tiny teeth from tiny mouths chewing away at him, but the slithering and worming motions only reflected the darkness in his own heart, mirroring the corruption that had always haunted him. His screaming died down, petering out into a hoarse unintelligible something that transformed into whimpering.

The man in the duster—the Glass King—clicked his tongue but ignored Orion, approaching the seven doors.

“You didn’t answer my question, Kimmy. You fear the answer, or you’d say it out loud,” muttered the Glass King.

Orion expected the sensation of cold metal to be cutting his flesh, but the wet something was more like saliva dispersed from tongues, oozing across his skin. He expected for those rubber bands and spongy stalks to wrap around his neck and choke the life out of him, but they only squeezed a little bit. Just enough to be uncomfortable, and just enough for the Reject to enjoy it.

It breathed on him. The Reject engulfed him, not killing him.

The man in the duster turned on his heels.

Eyes wide open, stricken with unnatural knowing accumulated from a thousand lives and a deep-seated and all-devouring madness—staring into Orion’s eyes. The Glass King’s stare reached deep inside, prying away at his secrets like a lunatic ripping away at the fabric padding lining the walls of a forgotten cell, for those crazy eyes had seen the same GIF as he had. Knew what he knew. Knew his every dirty secret.

Much worse was the grin plastered across his face. Toothy, sadistic, and stretched far too wide to look fun or what was natural for that human face.

“Oh, Kyle, my boy,” said the Glass King, with the grin never wiping itself off his face. “You had one job and you bungled it. But no worries, I still have use for you. Your name, your reputation—your face. Enough mojo there for me to milk for a far greater purpose. Good on you for at least coming here, huh?”

The Glass King took a few steps closer towards Orion. Neared. Menace echoing with each step of his boots thumping against the dirty floor.

Orion wasn’t even whimpering anymore. Before a sheet of paper with something cold and wet and fleshy clinging to its underside had fully crept up the side of his face and covered it—before he closed his eyes and lost sight—he wanted to protest.

But he had no words.

Some part of him, matched only by his urge to vomit, knew he deserved this. Every second of it.

The Reject breathed on him, hot and damp and unpleasant. It almost entirely engulfed him, satisfied with the almost.

Not killing him.

—Submitted by Wratts

[anika-ann]

WINSoD - Pt.5

If One Should Fall...

Type: series, soulmate AU series  (part 1, part 2, part 3)  

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader  Word count: 3120

Summary: In which distribution of forces on the stones-retrieving mission changes. Because— reasons.The reason being a special visit someone pays you.

Warnings!: skip to post-Infinity War and the summary of it - you can imagine; deaths, violence....briefly tho, + language, mention of the inability to bear children, brief suicidal thoughts, kinda religious motives because SPN

A/N: Enormous time skip, because obviously CA:CW didn’t happen and the timeline is changed from canon already. Also, the title (What I’d Never Say or Do had I been in my right mind) is reeeeeally applicable in this one and somehow… it felt right to connect the chapters like this. Do not murder me…?

Part 4

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Forever was a funny word. A funny concept, perhaps. People always said they wished for some moments to last forever and what they meant was for them to last as long as possible, with no change in sight. Or they said that something unpleasant felt like it lasted forever, their souls craving an end of the misery, a fundamental change as the polar opposite to the first case.

You lived through both in the past years.

Sitting on your ass in a Wakandian palace, watching a battle unfold in front of you, an ensemble of great warriors fighting yet another army from space, that felt like forever, a never-ending nightmare and you only got to watch.

It set a pattern for you for several more years to come. To only watch.

You watched an alien creature steal the sceptre that the Avengers had decided to store in the palace and it did so while killing everything in its way. Princess Shuri had the great idea of hiding you and cuffing you so you wouldn’t stand in the creature’s path while she tried to stop it with the others. She ended up in shattered glass, only unconscious, as if thanks to a miracle.

You watched as… as she fell apart to ashes only minutes later; just like many, oh so many others.

Half of the population, they said.

Thanos, The Mad Titan, had wiped half of all living creatures.

The moment was carved into your brain forever. And the eternal time you waited for anyone to come back from the battle, to see Steve alive, because God, please, let him live – yes, that sure as hell felt like forever too.

Lives were lost. Bucky, Sam, Ryan, Wanda, Pietro, Peter, Shuri, T’Challa, Strange, Fury… the list went on and on. All of them, gone. Forever.

The world changed. Avengers  ow officially didn’t exist and yet recruited new members all over the freakin’ space, which was the only way of finding out Tony Stark, who had disappeared on a spaceship, in fact, survived.

The missions of the greatest defenders of Earth changed as well. Some members took off to start a family, lucky enough to still have a partner to do so. Or to have the ability to pass their genes.

You couldn’t. Or maybe Steve couldn’t, it didn’t matter. You never pried after the source of your inability to have children; you two were one, a unity. You didn’t want to know so you could point fingers. You could tell Steve blamed himself, as well as he knew that your irregular period was definitely not helping. You made your peace. In fact, you admired Tony for finding the courage to create an environment for a child in this mad world; your lack of faith in being able to do the same had the opportunity rose ironically helped you to come to terms with the fact of your body was not functioning right.

In a way, it only drew you and Steve closer. You had valued each other before, yes, but now… you truly were like one. You backed him up in how he decided to honour Sam’s memory by starting a support group and he was the one to sense that in a search for reassurance, strangely materialistic, you craved an official bond with him, despite never saying a word.

You were Steve’s wife now – and you were each other’s rock, even during the poor attempt at defeating Thanos again.

Five years was a long time, a forever, one might say, but when Scott Lang, one of the people believed to been dusted, reappeared, forever and never became relative again.

Which led you to now; what was left of the Earth’s mightiest heroes was planning on retrieving the infinity stones.

Because they figured out how to time-travel.

Observing your reflection in the mirror, the circles under your eyes, you couldn’t but run your hand down your face and sigh.

You were still struggling with accepting the incredible fact of the possibility of coming back in time, yet you had to shush the hope inside you. Hope was a dangerous thing; certainly on such big scale as everything could being as it had been, hope that all the people who had lost their lives during the Snap could be resurrected.

As for a person who in fact had died once, it was easier for you to believe it was possible and you weren’t sure that it was a good thing. The fear of losing what you still had – read Steve, mainly – in the process, was paralyzing. It would mean your end, one you might deliver by yourself if it came to it, because you weren’t as strong as your husband. You wouldn’t make it through. Not after everything that happened.

You sighed again and tried to shake off the darkest thoughts.

When your eyes fell on the reflection again, a man stood behind your shoulder.

You spun on your heels and jerked away, your bottom bumping into the sink with a startled yelp escaping your lips.

In a fraction of second, several ways of defending yourself flashed through you mind; but the man was already three feet away; in a blink of an eye, before you could even move further.

Chest heaving with frantic breaths, hand over your heart, you stared at the intruder dressed in a three-piece suit and a red cravat. Of average height and maybe few pounds over healthy weight, smoothly shaven so his smirk could stand out, he looked… peculiar, especially given the fact he had found himself in the ladies’ room.

It shouldn’t have surprised you he spoke up with some kind of an accent on top of everything, but it did.

“Saving the world is exhausting, isn’t it?”

You stared at him, speechless. Your brain kicked into an overdrive, analysing how much of a threat he was, if he was like Pietro, too fast for Friday to catch him, or what was he-

“Who the-“

“I’m Crowley, darling. And you don’t need look so scared. If I wanted you dead, you’d be already lying here in a puddle of blood,” he reassured you like a sleazy businessman, all pretence at kindness.

You winced at the visual and narrowed your eyes.

“Alright, Crowley, what do you want? And what exactly are you?” you demanded, uncertain why you felt calm despite the man appearing out of thin air and speaking of you dying in the bloodiest way. Were you truly so numb these days?

He smiled, as if he was old friend. “I am a friend of Moose and Squirrel-“ What. “-or Sam and Dean, as you know them. I have no doubt they mentioned me. After all, my mother is assisting them more than she would like. You met her, incidentally.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure it out – you hadn’t met many people during your time with the Winchesters. This man�� was probably a warlock. A witch. Rowena apparently had a son.

Well. Shit.

“Okay. So… you’re a witch or something. Means I shouldn’t trust you fully. Noted. Now what do you want?”

His face twisted in a theatrical insulted grimace, his palm laid on his chest as if you just shot him through the heart – which, by the way, would probably do nothing to him.

“First of all, I am here to help, so I don’t think you have other option than trusting me. Second of all, I am not a witch, I am the King of Hell, thank you very much-“

Somewhere in the back of your mind, Sam Winchester’s voice whispered something about the King of Hell having been Dean’s bestie for a while, which did not make you feel any better, only more confused.

“And thirdly… I’m here to tell you what you, my darling, need to do for this mission to be successful.”

You stared at him incredulously, his casual stance and animated speech bewildering, and had no clue what to make of it.

Yet, you let him speak. You let him give you the advice no one ever wanted to receive. Ever. But this sleazy man had told you about how he had saved the world before, side by side with the Winchesters and everything suddenly made sense.

Crowley, the King of Hell, answered the most burning question you had been asking yourself ever since coming back from the death, doing so more and more often these days.

Why.

Why were you given the second chance at life? Why you of all people? What was the purpose?

And now you knew.

Rowena was the greatest witch the supernatural world had ever created and she supposedly looked through all the possible futures she could. Tony had once told you, drunk and hurting, that Strange had done the same right before the battle and he only saw one way of how it could end with Thanos’ loss. Now Crowley told you the ‘one’ future was still in play, that everything was actually still on the way to the world’s victory.

The price of victory was high. History had taught you that.

But the price people paid for losing was higher.

And as much as you hated what you apparently had to do…

“Okay,” you rasped, guilt already gnawing at your chest, tears strolling down your face, fear eating you up from the inside, fear of unknown and yet known, instincts fighting the urge to do the right thing and finally actually help to the heroes you found yourself among while still useless.

You were only watching too long. Forever, one might say.

“Okay?” he echoed, clearly surprised by your antics.

You only nodded, wiping away your tears and forcing your breathing to calm and steady. There was no way you could go back to the base of operating in the living room like this. You needed to be a fucking grown-up. Grown-ups had to be okay with not being okay. You must finally become worthy of being Captain Amer- Steve’s wife.

“Yes, Crowley. I’ll do it. Though I still have no idea why you came here to tell me. Aren’t you supposed to be the bad guy?” you teased him lightly, your mouth speaking its will without permission, the question only half-expecting an answer.

“Well, my darling. It’s the end of the world as we know it. It doesn’t matter now if you’re good or bad. Not if you want the world not to end.”

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You were a terrible actress; a Razzies-nominee kind of actress. You couldn’t lie to save your life (the irony of such statement was not lost on you, yet it wasn’t properly appreciated either) and you were aware of the fact that Steve liked that about you. You could never lie to him. So you never tried.

You knew you couldn’t break that streak now, because he would see right through you. So you stooped lower than ever. Omitting the truth. Lying by not sharing the whole story. Whether you could make that work, only time would tell.

When you finally managed to compose yourself – at least more or less – and exited the bathroom, you found out that not much had changed. The team was still debating the details of best approach, uncertain but determined expressions on their faces.

Steve spared once glace at you and instantly was able to tell something was wrong. He hid you from the view of the others by his broad figure, concerned eyes scanning your face, observing and searching for any clue; for the source of your distress. As if the fact that they were – you all were, even if they didn’t know yet – about to time travel wasn’t enough to give one palpitations and serious stress-induced headache.

His tender fingers tucked a loose strand of your hair behind your ear as if it would help the mess your hairstyle must have been. A small encouraging smile graced his lips despite his own mind no doubt weighted down by numerous worries.

He didn’t have to ask for you to start talking, the brilliant colour of his eyes sweet and inviting enough.

“What if something goes wrong?” you questioned in a hushed whisper, not having to pretend to have such haunting thought. “What if… I don’t even want to think about what could it be. You’re going to need someone capable to pull you out. I am… I am not that capable. Definitely not when it comes to science of time-travel.”

Despite Steve acting like a human shield, your concerns were acknowledged by everyone, their heads snapping your direction. Steve, feeling all the curious eyes, cleared his throat and gently took your arm, leading you away from the prying ears.

“….excuse us for a second,” he hummed absently, waiting until he was out of earshot to speak with you again. “Doll… what- what is this really about?”

“What do you mean-“ you bluffed lamely in an instant, but the look Steve gave you shut you up.

“I know you, sweetheart. You can’t lie to me.”

If you weren’t dreading what you were about to do, you might throw a ‘watch me’ back at him. Instead, you aimed for an irritated tone – one that would be justified in case he would truly be questioning the claim you were about to point out.

“So you think I’m not afraid for you?”

A frown crossed over his face, his palm on your bicep tightening before he eased his hold to brush his thumb over the very same spot. “No! That’s not- I just know there’s something more. What is it?”

Gulping and averting his gaze, because the intense burn of genuine concern was unbearable, your mind raced with the effort to find the right words.

Your stomach was tied in tight knots, turning at the idea of playing Steve, more so for such nefarious purpose. But how else you could have convinced him that it couldn’t in fact be him and Natasha going to Vormir to retrieve the soul stone?

“I… I want to help. I need to help, Steve. You’re— you're so strong, always the hero and I’m not even close, I-“

“-need to prove my worth?” he finished easily, a knowing look in his eyes, and fuck him, how did he know—

He might not understand fully, he had no way of knowing what Crowley told you to do, but still, Steve was still able to recognize what fuelled your determination, what were your motives.

You opened your mouth uselessly, a shaky exhale brushing Steve’s face as he lowered his head to you, his eyes wide and genuinely troubled. God, you couldn’t bare the intensity of his gaze.

“Christ, doll. Where’s this coming from? Don’t be rid-“ From the corner of your eye, you saw him lick his lips as he swiftly cut himself off before calling you ridiculous. His large warm palms framed your face, forcing you to lock your gaze with his, passionate words accented by the burning fire of his irises. “You don’t need to prove anything to anyone. Not to them, certainly not to me. You are my everything and you are the most amazing person I have ever met-“

You closed your eyes, a soft smile tugging at your lips despite your better judgement. You never doubted Steve’s feelings, yet he was always quick to reassure you, having the patience of a saint whenever he noticed a hint of insecurity.

“I know. I swear I know that, I know how you feel, but- let me do this. What if… what if you don’t come back? What if you don’t come back and I’d be just sitting here, knowing I could have done something, but I didn’t. You’re too familiar with that feeling, Steve. Please. Let me come with you,” you pleaded in a hushed voice, hating you reminded him of losing you, but knowing it might be effective. “You know you can protect me when it comes to it.”

Brows drawn together, Steve observed you, baffled and yet understanding at the same time, torn between the instinct to have you protected at the compound and the responsibility he felt towards this mission. This was the fight of your lives; deep down, he must have known he couldn’t afford to jeopardize that even if it came to you. Which, naturally, didn’t mean he had to like it.

A clearing of one’s throat that sounded a bit like a clap of thunder interrupted your staring contest and you both glanced towards Bruce’s huge green form in the doorway, sheepish expression comical on his massive face.

“…sorry to interrupt, but… we kinda all think she has a point so-“

Steve’s sucked in air between his teeth, letting his hands drop from you face, only for one of them to run through his hair, the other balling in a fist.

You shrugged, the battle of emotions – victory and defeat at the same time, because God, why – no doubt visible on your face as Steve turned his attention solely to you once more.

“I’ll give you guys another sec…” Bruce hummed, backing out of the door, leaving you to deal with clearly irritated and reluctant Steve.

Thanks, buddy.

Wordlessly, Steve’s fingers slipped beneath your jaw, pulling you in for one of the strangest kisses of your life. H poured all his emotions into one simple gesture, hungry and intense, intimate wet sound of a dirty encounter of mouths echoing in the otherwise silent room. You allowed yourself to get lost in the sensation of Steve’s lips on yours, in his arm grabbing you and pressing flush against his hard chest; it was all too harsh for anyone to believe it was not a display of affection of a half-desperate man.

Breathless and with vertigo nearly overcoming you, you rested your forehead against Steve’s, mirroring his action once you parted. His eyes were closed shut, as if too heavy to kept open, but you could see that something in his expression shifted; you and Bruce won.

Peripherally, you noticed Crowley’s faint figure, the shortest of appearances as he nodded in approval and goodbye. You suspected he did something so Steve gave in; you didn’t care what and how, hoping it didn’t harm your soulmate.

Tears stung in your eyes when you realized what was to come and you forced them to be kept at bay, shutting your eyes close again.

“Fine, have it your way,” Steve rasped, his voice clearly irked, yet resigned. “But if you get one scratch on you, doll, just one, I’ll hold you responsible.”

No, you won’t.

You charmed a guilty smile, a lame tiny thing, and he inhaled sharply, only for huffing the air out.

“How could I, having my chivalrous man by my side?”

It earned you a kiss on your forehead, Steve’s fingers interlacing with yours when you made your way back to the other room where everyone waited.

Oh, how much it now hurt, the amount of faith Steve could put into you, charmed by your teary smile, that little thing puling on his heartstrings.

Oh, just how much it would hurt…

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Part 6

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This chapter might seem a bit strange, but hopefully it fits the atmosphere of Infinity War and Endgame…

Thanks for being here. I love you for your encouragement :-*

P.S. Here, have the last part of a SPN guide - visuals and references for Amara (God’s sister who gave back ‘reader’s’ memories) and Crowley (from this chapter).

[croookvillin]

This was from an rp yes I’m extra but no I will not make my rps shorter *TomTord* ( half monster Tom btw)

The dead leaves crunched under the heavy weight of his feet as he ran.

The world was silent, the only real noise reaching up to his ears was the constant pounding of his heart and the swooshing of the wind passing by him.

Tom didn’t dare look back, but either way, he knew no one would be able to reach him at this rate; and even through gritted teeth and short bursts of breathes, he continued to run straight ahead into the open, grassy fields.

He didn’t know where exactly he was headed to, but his body and mind both cried at him to continue, to continue to zoom past the giant nicotine-brown trees blocking the way, and to continue on through the throbbing, searing pain of his legs as they urged him to stop.

The eyeless Brit did not alter the quickness of his pace, even as the branches distorted looking into twisted limbs and reached out for him, trying to keep him away from his goal that even he was not certain what it was. Tom didn’t let them slow him down, and he cut and clawed anything in his path, tearing down twigs and other things to clear his way onward.

And then he came to an abrupt descend, his legs pressing harshly down onto the ground as to not accident swing him forward harshly onto the ground. Tom extending his arms out beside him, trying his best to restore his balance and ground himself onto the solid dirt.

The voices had long since came to an abrupt decease, and only now Tom was left alone with his jumbled thoughts as he recollected his breath.

He took in a long breathe through his nose, enjoying the sweet smell of fresh air and crisp waters as the sound rattled in his ears.

The water constantly pounded onto the rocks below, only to be silenced as it joined the rest of the stream ahead. The bliss pool at the bottom was varnish clear, and dozens of trees surrounding around, almost as if shielding away the beauty from the world; and Tom found himself removing the rest of his shambles he still called clothing as his eyeless eyes focused entirely on the beauty infront of him.

The water below seemed to call out to him in its soothing waves, and the flowers scattering around nodded their heads through the wind in agreement.

Tom could not deny them.

After removing the last piece of clothing from his body, (you know already ain’t no explaining needed) the Brit let his instincts overcome as he raced forward, ignoring the pain of his legs again as he launched his upper body forward and dived into the clear waters.

——-

“Thomas!” He’d called out again for what was the hundredth time that night. (Bro imagine though he’s living his best life and Tord gotta be looking for him smh.)

The grey eyed male continued to trek forward, still making sure to follow the path of the deep set tracks that lead into the dark forest ahead. The trees were still bared and naked from their usual mint green leaves, and Tord was thankful for the winter season still in motion that now allowed him more view ahead.

Still, he couldn’t deny the creepiness of it all as he stalked forward, his head raised and held high as he stepped a tentative foot into the unlit forest.

The naked trees were practically staring him down like silent sentries, and Tord took that as a silent threat as he continued. He wouldn’t let a handful of scary looking trees halt him from his ongoing search for the stupid Brit.

He continues to walk ahead, making sure to keep a sharp eye out, not wanting to risk getting spooked by anything secretly popping out at the most unnecessary times; but still making sure to check if Tom was nearby. His tracks stated otherwise though, since they seemed to stretch on towards the farthest north side downwards. The trees in the forest loomed over him, and during the day, Tord would have found it quite relaxing as the shielded him from the violent UV rays of the sun, but now, in the middle of the night with not even the stars guiding him, the Norski found it rather terrifying.

His heart raced, and he took a couple minutes to recollect thoughts from the rising panic.

Oh how his anxiety could be such a dick, and making him see things that aren’t even there to begin with. And if he wasn’t scared of Tom, then really-he had no excuse to be afraid of anything else.

So he marches onwards, his guard on high and the silence deafening to his ears.

Tord was leery about the whole situation, more so now that he had zero means of self defense. He tried hard not to breath in so much, as the musty air surrounding him made it almost painful to breath in, and luckily for him, the tracks were coming to an abrupt end, and Tord could faintly make out the sound or running water somewhere nearby.

He followed the sound, trying to make out whether it was all real and not just some hallucinations. The sound was more distinct every time he got closer. A waterfall.

The Norwegian picked up his legs and ran, his pace quickening with every step he took. His vibrantly red shoes hit the earthy ground with loud thumps, his heart quickening its pace as the tracks finally ended up ahead.

Tord gasped, the sight alone enough to blow the rest of his breath away as he stood in awe.

It was loud enough to get even Tom’s attention, who was busy showering himself in the clear waters underneath. His ears perked up, and stopped splashing the water around him as he swung his head around to stare Tord right into his blazing grey eyes.

He looked beyond pissed now.

“Are you fucking kidding me!? I have been going through this scary ass forest and looking for your over exaggerating ass-while you, deeming yourself worthy of some form of award, have been bathing here this whole time!?” He stepped closer with every complaint, his face reddening out of anger as he waved his hands around in gesturing motions. “I always have to be the big person in the group! Always! You never care about MY feelings, and you never care to ask how I am! Even before in highschool, you abandoned me like I was some sort of toy for your entertainment! Like I wasn’t good enough for you anymore-even when I had put myself through hell and back!” Tord took in a sharp inhale through his nose, “I know I’ve always stated ‘Put yourself in someone else’s shoes’ and even as I’ve done so, I still don’t understand why you’re such a dick to me! I always got the shorter end of the stick from you, and you never seem to even be bothered by it-always acting like we’ve never even been best friends before! Like everyone else matters except for me!” His lower lip quivered a fraction, and the Norwegian tried to man through the tears of rage that threatened to descend downwards, “And here I am! Slaving myself for you and your selfish needs and I always end up labeled as the bad guy! You know what Thomas! I’m so-!”

His ongoing rambling speech was cut to a halt as he felt something, a claw like hand tug at his ankle. Tord doesn’t even get a chance to cuss the other out before he’s being pulled and dragged into the water underneath his feet. He’d unknowingly stepped so close to Tom that he practically almost submerged himself into water.

Tom lets out a roaring laugh, the water splashing around his face and wetting his hair a bit. He keeps a hold on the Norwegians armpits and hoist him back up, not wanting to accidentally drown the poor man to death.

The Norwegian raised his head, his chin just barely above the surface of the water as he stared at Tom with full blown panic. His strawberry blonde hair plastered flatly onto his head, and Tom was able to now see the full length of it. It went down gracefully past his shoulders, and he had the urge to twirl one of the strands around his finger-if he could of course.

Tord tried to blink away the beads of water that had collected onto his long lashes, his mouth slightly agape as he gasped for short spurts of air.

His clothes were weighing him down and Tom’s clawed hands are the only thing keeping him from accidentally sinking downwards.

The Norski had barely let himself fully recollect himself before he’s pulling away, his wet brows furrowing again in rage, “Hva er galt med deg!”

Tom seriously had no idea what he’d said, but he pulls the other back forcefully.

“I couldn’t find another way to keep you quiet.” The Brit starts, before shushing the other and continuing with what he was saying, “-look Tord,” god it felt weird using his first name and not something snarky, “..I know we haven’t been on the best terms, but I care about you. I know I’ve been the biggest douche bag to you, but I always hated how I felt around you. How you of all people made me feel something others could not. It’s why I pushed you away, because I just didn’t want to get attached and risk getting my feelings hurt in the process. I was scared you leave like the rest, and even more now that you know the darkest parts about me. So if I pushed you away, I wouldn’t be so upset if you up and left because it was my doing.”

He carries the Norwegian back to shore, setting him down onto the dirt as he kept a bit of space between them.

Tord doesn’t say anything at first, he just kind of looks around before he’s letting his entire body slam into the ground behind him.

And then he’s laughing aswell, his stomach bouncing slightly as let’s the laughter bubble out of him.

The laughter soon dies down, and the Norwegian continues to lay there with his arms extending at his sides, the now moist dirt stinking to his clothes. “I always thought I did something wrong. That maybe I just wasn’t amusing enough for you. But this, this is rich.” He whispered out, grinning from ear to ear as he peeled open his eyes.

Now he was finally able to get a better look at the sky, for the stars were in fact out tonight, and they scattered like white paint over a black canvas. It was a sight, a beautiful sight that always had Tord gushing like a hopeless romantic.

The full moon looks like a giant cheese ball, he notes, as he props his elbows onto the dirt and heaves himself up. (God he’s a fatass)

Tom hadn’t said anything after that, but he did in fact, continue to stare at Tord the whole time. Their eyes met again, and the Brits ears perked up a bit unknowingly as his roommate softly smiled.

The Norwegian raised an arm above his head as he pulled the hem of his signature hoodie upwards, trying to pry away the clothing that clung tightly to his skin.

The eyeless Brit could only watch as the other undressed himself, tossing the red hoodie carelessly to his right as he made move to remove his grey shirt. Tom decided to look away, instead staring a bit too hardly at the water that cascaded down onto the marbled stones.

“I’m not a female. You didn’t have to look away.” Tord’s voice reasoned, laughing lightly again as he stood up to unbuckle his pants. “How’s the water?” He asks, shimmying out of his way too tight dark black skinny jeans.

“It’s nice..”

“Make room for two.” Tord stated simply, tossing his clothes carelessly to the side.

Tom hated to admit,

But he smiled so hard when he heard the splashing of water right behind him.

[fanfictionaries]

Thank You

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC (platonic), Bucky Barnes x OFC

Summary: Things are difficult for Annie after the snap, more than anyone realized. 

Words: 2K

Warnings: Swearing, suicide, depression, grief

Author’s Note: I’ve been in a really weird head space all weekend. I had to channel it all through this bit of writing. I bawled like a baby writing this, so I hope you like it! 

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It was a quiet night in Brooklyn. The nights always seemed so quiet now. Now that everyone was gone. Annie was sat on the fire escape, trying not to shiver at the light breeze that blew past her. It was mid-November and the weather was beginning to have a bite, especially at night. She hugged the jacket tighter around herself. His jacket. She liked to imagine that it still smelled like him, but after so many months of constant wear, it pained her to realize that the only scent it held was hers. It was one of the many things she had still relucted to give up. To move on from. She tried to remember the times that they would sit together out there and just look up at the sky. They would talk for hours about what life was going to be like for them. Now, all of that was gone and it was her. Just her.

On the outside, she really did look like she had it together. After everything was said and done, she’d taken a week to really grieve. To shut herself away and cry, but very quickly after she realized that nothing was going to change what had happened. Especially after Steve and the others had returned to tell everyone that Thanos and the stones were gone. Any hope of any of them returning was gone. She’d gone back to work. She’d connected with the friends and family that had survived. Hope, she told them. Hope for a better future and a brighter tomorrow. The ones they loved were gone, but they were still there. It was a gift and they shouldn’t squander it. The people they lost would want them to continue on. Everyone praised her. They told her they were encouraged by her strength. Grateful for her ability to rise above the grief and be there for those that could not.

She was such a liar. It was getting harder every day. Harder to lie through her to teeth to everyone around her. Harder to pretend like every moment that he wasn’t there didn’t feel like a slow, torturous death. Who was she to tell people that they should move on? She still lived in the same apartment they had shared. All of his things sat where he’d left them. The book he’d been reading still sat on the counter. The socks on the bathroom floor still laid behind the door. The sheets on their bed the same ones since before he’d left. They hadn’t been changed in almost a year and while Annie knew it was gross and unhygienic, she just couldn’t bring herself to take them off.

Slowly she dragged herself back through the window and into her apartment. Her feet and legs numb from the cold almost giving out under her. Tired. She just felt so tired all the time. Entering the small bathroom of the one-bedroom apartment, she stared at the toothbrush in the cup next to hers. His toothbrush. A deep and aching pang shot through her chest and she had to brace herself on the counter to keep from collapsing. Looking up into the mirror, she tried to recognize the person staring back, but it just felt like a stranger. A person she did not know. A tired, broken person. How could no one else see it?

All day long, she wore a mask of acceptance and happiness when in reality it was just that. A mask. And she couldn’t do it anymore. So many people had gone. Disappeared. What was one more?

She didn’t know if it was fate. Destiny. God? That made Steve decide to come by that night. He hadn’t been by since he’d gotten back from Wakanda. Since they’d lost everyone. Annie always assumed it was too hard for him. She didn’t blame him; she knew exactly how hard it was. She knew exactly how hard it was to be in a place that used to be so full of warmth and love and for it to feel empty. Foreign. Cold.

Steve had knocked on the door, holding some Chinese takeout from down the street and a 6-pack of beers. Annie wasn’t expecting him, but Steve knew that she was home most nights and that she often forgot to eat dinner. It was after the 5th time knocking that he began to worry. It was too early for her to be in bed. She could have been out, but something just hadn’t felt right to him. Pulling out his keys, he used the spare they had given him for emergencies only. The apartment was cold and dark. The lights were out and the window in the living room open, letting the chill fall air in. Setting his stuff down onto the kitchen island, he rushed to close the window and then looked around him. It was quiet.

“Annie?” he called out into the depths of the dark space.

Turning on a few lamps, he felt an unease take over him as he took in the space. Every trace of him was still left untouched; clothes, keys, wallet, all of it sitting like he’d never left. Dishes sat piled high in the sink. Mugs and cups littered the coffee table and counters. Peeking into the bedroom, he found piles of dirty clothes and a stale scent in the air, like he’d opened a time capsule.

“Annie?” Steve called again; this time louder.

Entering further into the room, he saw the bathroom light on and the door slightly ajar. He didn’t have to walk into the room, to feel his stomach sink and know that whatever was in there wasn’t going to be good. He rushed towards the door on instinct, falling to his knees on the cold tile when he saw what was behind it.

“Oh Annie. No,” his voice wavered and cracked as if his heart was being ripped from his chest. He pulled her limp body off of the tile and into his arms.

“What did you do? Huh? What did you do?” he asked, looking down at her closed eyes and parted lips. The orange prescription bottle next to them caught his eye. Picking it up, he looked at the label through teary eyes. Pain medication. From when she had broken her arm a year before ice skating. She had refused to take it. It was empty.

“No, Annie. Come on,” he shook her. He needed her to wake up. God, he needed her to wake up. He shook her harder, tapping her face with his open hand. Nothing. He tapped her again, this time bordering on a full-on slap, but he didn’t care. He just needed her to wake up.

“Wake up, Annie. Wake up. Don’t do this. Don’t do this.”

“Steve?” it was quiet. A whisper.

He looked down, her eyes open the slightest fraction, bleary and unfocused. It wasn’t much, but it was something. It was her.

“Come on, sit up sweetie. Sit up,” said Steve, propping her up so she leaned head-first into the toilet.

“I need you throw it all up. Come on, that’s a good girl,” he had pleaded and cooed as he shoved his fingers down her throat, forcing her to wretch up the vile pills. And she did. They sat there on that bathroom floor until Steve was sure that she’d thrown up every last pill and every bit of stomach acid left in her. He’d placed a wet wash rag to her forehead and had her take tiny sips of water until she was finally coherent enough to be moved to the couch.

She was shivering, but her color was coming back and her vitals seemed alright. Apparently, he had gotten there just in time. Any longer and the pills would have dissolved more into her system. Steve turned the heat up in the apartment and grabbed every blanket he could find, before wrapping her and pulling her onto his lap on the couch. They sat there for hours. Neither of them saying anything. Just them and the silence and a cold, empty apartment.

“I’m sorry,” said Annie, her apology faint but cutting through the thick air around them.

She felt Steve take in a deep and shaky breath, “Why Annie? After everything, after everyon-” he choked on the words, swallowing thickly, “I can’t lose you too.”  

The words hung in the air, filling Annie with an emotion she hadn’t felt in a very long time. Anger.

She flung herself from the blankets and Steve’s embrace and began to pace the room. “Why?! Why Steve?!” she yelled, really yelled at him; the man in front of her stunned into silence by her reaction.

“Do you honestly have to ask me why?! I am drowning Steve. I’m fucking drowning without him. I don’t eat. I don’t sleep. I can barely get myself out of bed in the morning because it means having to face another day without him and no one has noticed,” Tears began to stream down her face, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. The dam had burst, and everything came rushing out. Everything she had been keeping in for the last eleven months.

“Every day I walk out that door and I put on a smile and I tell people that everything’s going to be okay and that we should move on, but I can’t. I can’t! It’s like there’s this black hole where my heart used to be and any day it’s just going to swallow me up and…”

She felt her knees buckle under her and she collapsed to the floor, holding the worn jacket tighter around, “I just miss him, so much.”

“Oh Annie,” Steve’s voice was a whisper of sadness and regret as he rushed to her side and pulled her into his arms, “I’m so sorry. I should have been there. I should have been there for you. I should have known-I just, I miss him too. I miss him too.”

They stayed like that, wrapped into each as they both sobbed, finally feeling like they could express the loss they had both been feeling for so long.

They had found themselves on the floor the next morning. Their backs ached, but their hearts felt lighter as sunlight filled the small space around them. Then they got to work. Sheets were changed. Dishes were cleaned. Clothes were washed and put away. Annie had even found the will to put the radio on again as they worked. They scrubbed the tiny 900 square foot apartment till it shined. But most importantly, his things were put away. All his books, his clothes, his keys and wallet, stored in boxes and put away in the closet. The two had made the unspoken decision that she would no longer live in a museum of what once was. A new day and a new future. For both of them.

Annie had just stepped out of her room, freshly showered and dressed when she saw his jacket laying across the back of the couch. Slowly, she approached it, touching the soft brown leather with her fingertips.

“I figured…” Steve spoke up, walking up behind her, “not everything had to go. It’s okay to still hang on to somethings.”

Annie nodded, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as tears began to well in her eyes. She clutched the jacket to her chest, hugging it tight and bringing it up to her face, she realized that it smelled like him once again. She swung around, looking at Steve with a confused expression.

“How—"

“I may have found some of his old cologne when I was cleaning out the bathroom. I figured you’d—oof!” Steve was cut off by Annie as she flung herself into his arms, hugging him tight.

“Thank you,” she spoke into his chest.