#why does tumblr blur everything I make so so badly?

[mewniemoon]

Six Narinders, Six different flavors. Btw, don't trust Sand Cat's cute shiny eyes, he will slaughter you at any given opportunity

[fleetingpieces]

My One in a Million CH 7

Y’all, this chapter got so out of hand and it’s so lOnG (or at least longer than any other chapter I posted) Thank you so so much @inloveoknutzy @knittingdreams @heyitssmiller and @donttouchmycarrots !! You all helped with this chapter in different ways and I appreciate you all so much❤️❤️

Tag list (let me know if you want to be added!)

@whataboutmyfries  @justdyingontheinside @heyoitslysso @sunflowerfox87 @hereforwolfstarr @potterlocked24-7 @cheekeebabe (i can’t seem to find your tumblr :( ) @domesticatedbeetlenamedjorge

CW: mentions of past animal abuse, emergency clinic, mention of needles

Masterlist

Ao3

Chapter 7 - Rough night

“Go home, son.”

Remus lifted his head from where it’d been buried in his hands for who knows how long and looked at the doctor smiling sadly at him.

It was well past any reasonable time, he’d probably been sitting there for hours, but Remus couldn't bring himself to move from his spot in the waiting room.

He didn't want to go.

He couldn't stand the idea of going back home alone, of Cocoa not being there with him. He felt as if he wasn't really there at the clinic, his mind was miles away in a deserted, foggy forest, where a furry little puppy was chained to a tree, barely keeping his eyes open, his ribs protruding like a black skeleton. How could he just go?

The feel of Cocoa’s body trembling with spasms in his arms as he’d carried him to the car was still fresh in his mind; how he’d whined pitifully from the back seat while Remus sped through the city until he reached the emergency clinic, how both their hearts had been beating a thousand miles per minute when he picked him up again and burst through the front doors.

The fear clutching at his heart had made him numb to anything else going on around him, to the way he’d practically screamed at the poor guy at the reception desk until someone came to help him. And even though he knew it was exactly what he’d come here for, parting from Cocoa and watching as they took him away had almost broken Remus all over again.

He would give anything to feel that heartbeat under his palm right then.

A hand settled heavily on his shoulder, grounding him back into his body. Remus didn't want to listen to those words again. Go. It sounded a lot like he was abandoning him.

"You need to rest. And Cocoa needs to stay in observation, but I promise we will take good care of him. You can come back tomorrow afternoon, he’ll probably be ready to go home by then."

Resigned, Remus nodded. He knew he couldn't stay and that Cocoa was in good hands, but that did nothing to quell his guilt.

He thanked the doctor, who squeezed his shoulder once, and walked numbly out the building.

The next half hour was a blur. Remus had no idea how he got back to his apartment building, he only had vague memories of getting back into his car and driving through the mostly empty streets.

All he knew was that he was now there, standing in front of his door, staring at the pattern in the wood without really seeing it, picturing the empty flat that was awaiting for him on the other side instead. Remus counted to ten and sighed. He figured it wouldn’t get easier any time soon, so he fished in his pocket for his keys.

Only to realise he didn’t have them.

He stared at his empty pocket as he replayed in his head how he’d dropped the keys to the floor when he’d gotten home earlier that day, and in his haste to get Cocoa checked, he hadn’t grabbed anything other than the car keys.

“Fucking fuck, just...fuck!” he slammed his fist against the door once, like that was going to solve anything.

Suddenly he felt exhausted. He’d been through way too many emotions in just one day and all he wanted to do was lie in bed, but he couldn’t do that ‘cause he was fucking locked out. Remus let his back hit the wall and slid down to the floor, hiding his head in his knees. Despite everything, part of him was kinda glad that he didn’t have to go in when he knew there would be no one there expecting him.

He’d left him at the clinic. Alone. Probably inside a tiny cage, with no one there to comfort him and those horrible intravenous lines piercing his skin. Remus knew first hand how uncomfortable those were.

His eyes burned as tears started prickling behind his eyelids and dampened the fabric of his shorts. It was his fault. Two years ago he’d promised he would take care of Cocoa, make sure he was happy, and look how that turned out.

“Remus?”

Oh, fuck. Remus tightened his grip on his knees as he heard fast footsteps approaching.

“Remus, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

The rustle of a bag thumping against the floor close by was the only warning he got before he felt someone kneeling next to him, but Remus refused to look up. What the hell was he doing out at this time? Remus was not sure he could deal with this right now. Not with the tornado that was Sirius Black.

He could feel the other man shuffling about, most likely not sure what to do, until he finally said softly, “Remus, please look at me?”

There was such a plea in his voice, and a level of concern he hadn’t expected. Remus knew he couldn’t stay this way forever, so he reluctantly raised his head, doing his best to dry his face on his clothes as he did. He just hoped his eyes didn't look as bloodshot as they felt.

Sirius' eyebrows were furrowed, worry written all over his face as he knelt there, his hands half-raised like he wanted to touch Remus but wasn’t sure if he was allowed to.

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

Remus stared into silver eyes, trying his damn best to school his features into a mask of impassiveness. “I...I forgot my keys.”

“Ok…” Sirius eyed him wearily. “Do you have any spares?”

“Leo does, but I can’t ask him to bring them now,” Remus shrugged.

“So what, you were just going to sit here all night?”

Remus didn’t reply. He just shrugged again, his gaze glazing over and drifting to the wall in front of him. He wasn’t sure he had many options, and his brain wasn’t cooperating to come up with a solution. Maybe he could force the door open. But then he would have to pay for the damages, and he might not be able to close the door again and leave it broken for the night.

A sigh brought him out from his unhelpful thoughts. “Why don’t you come to my place?”

“What?” his eyes snapped back to Sirius, who quirked an eyebrow at him.

“You can’t possibly spend the night here Remus. For one, it’s freezing cold and you’re only in your gym clothes. And for another, I won’t allow it.”

It did seem like a very reasonable option, but then Remus noticed just how close Sirius was from him, his warmth radiating from his body and warming Remus’ numb fingers. Suddenly, all he could think of was how he’d almost kissed this man just a couple of hours ago. What if Sirius was only asking because of that? Was he purposely trying to get Remus alone?

“Ah, thank you, but I can go to my Mum’s or...or I could sleep in my car.”

“Remus don’t be stupid. It’s the middle of the night. Your Mum lives far away and she’s probably sleeping right now, and seriously? What the hell are you thinking? Sleeping in your car? No fucking way, that’s dangerous, and I have Netflix, ice cream, and a perfectly good guest room just three feet away.”

Remus hesitated. Even if he felt more comfortable knowing there was a guest room available, he still wasn’t sure he could face Sirius and whatever had happened in that pool. Wouldn’t it be awkward?

But Sirius did have a point, he couldn’t go back home. And though he was reluctant to admit it, he didn’t want to be alone right now and Sirius’ voice was strangely calming.

“Are you sure?” Remus asked, biting his lip.

“Of course.” Sirius smiled and got up, picking up the bag that he’d dropped on the floor. It was from the shop down the corner, full of snacks and a pack of cigarettes as far as Remus could tell. He offered Remus a hand and helped him get up, then led the way to his flat without another word.

Remus followed numbly, using what was left of his strength to lift his feet enough not to drag them over the floor. Once inside, he glanced idly around, noticing a few more details now that there were no people partying everywhere. There was a weird mix of decor going on: some of the stuff was tastefully modern (and very expensive), while other things were the kind of trinkets you would most likely find at a thrift store or in a street market. A Queen flag hung from the same wall as a street sign that had clearly been stolen, right next to a huge telescope that looked out the window.

“Make yourself at home,” Sirius said over his shoulder as he went over to the kitchen.

Doors closing and the sound of ceramic clinking came from the place Sirius had disappeared to. Remus moved in autopilot to sit at the couch and glanced down at his hands. His brain felt like mush, his mind going completely blank while he waited.

He didn’t move an inch until Sirius came back a few minutes later, holding a steaming cup of tea that he offered Remus. It took him a couple of seconds to figure out how to move his arm again, and when he did, it was trembling so badly that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold the cup without spilling tea everywhere. He hoped Sirius wouldn’t notice, but by the way he frowned, he had no such luck.

Indeed, Sirius placed the mug on the coffee table before Remus could get a hold of it and sat down in front of him. He then reached slowly to clasp Remus’ hand in both of his.

“Jesus fuck Remus, you’re fucking freezing. Just how long were you sitting out there?” he asked in a reproachful tone.

Remus simply shrugged. He had no idea, and besides, he was too focused on Sirius’ big hands around his. He knew he probably shouldn’t, that the other man probably didn’t even mean it in that way, but he took comfort in that small touch, in how gently Sirius held him. It was as if he was scared Remus would break, or disappear in a cloud of smoke. He vaguely wondered if Sirius realised how long it’d been since Remus was touched like this.

When he spoke next, Sirius’ voice was softer. “Ok, this is what we’re going to do. You’re going to forget about that cup of tea, go take a hot shower and change into warmer clothes. Warming your fingertips and digestive tract is pointless if the rest of you is still freezing. And after that, we’ll get you sorted for the night. D’accord?”

A steaming shower sounded like bliss right then, especially now that Remus was painfully aware of how cold his shaking body was. Just accept it, he told himself, but all that came out of him was “I don’t have clothes to change into.”

His voice sounded dull even to his own ears, but Sirius kindly ignored it and waved a dismissive hand.

“I’ll lend you some. Now come on,” his tone didn’t leave room for arguing.

Remus was finding it harder and harder to look at his face, so he let his head drop. “I don’t want to be a bother.”

“Remus.”

Slowly, warm fingers extended towards him, touching lightly below his chin to make him look up. Sirius’ face was a wonderful mix of fierce and caring as he stared at him intently.

“You are not a bother. Ok? Not now, not ever.”

Remus’ throat closed up, and he didn’t trust his voice to sound steady, so he just nodded quickly. Sirius smiled reassuringly and brushed his fingers in a feather-like caress, and Remus found himself jutting his chin forward to prolong the touch, but, much too soon, Sirius let go and got up.

He guided Remus through a hall and into a spacious bathroom that had both a big bathtub and a shower cubicle. Sirius went straight to open the hot tap so the water would warm up, and then he reached into the cabinet under the sink, pulling out a soft looking white towel, which he placed on the counter. He turned to look at Remus.

“Toiletries are just in that corner, use whatever you need. I’ll just go get some clean clothes for you and be right back.” He smiled again and left.

With nothing else to do, Remus let his eyes wander around the room that was slowly filling with hot steam from the shower, until he looked on top of the sink and was startled at his own reflection in the mirror.

Damn, he was a fucking mess. His clothes were rumpled, his hair ruffled and dishevelled from all the times he’d raked a hand through it, and his eyes were red, puffy and a little bit dead.

“Here you go.” Sirius walked back in, carrying a pile of neatly folded clothes which he put next to the towel. “Call me if you need anything, d’accord? Take your time.”

Remus nodded and thanked him, not quite able to meet his eye. Sirius closed the door behind him and Remus took off his clothes and stepped in the shower. He hadn’t realised how taught his muscles were until the jet of hot water hit his back and he relaxed under the pressure. It was very soothing, standing there for a while, slowly working his body to loosen up, while thinking of everything that had happened that day and trying to calm down.

By the time he finished, he hadn’t succeeded completely, but felt a lot better all the same. He snagged the towel, draping it across himself, and went through the pile of clothes that Sirius had left for him, a warm feeling spreading through his chest.

The feeling extended to his cheeks when he picked up a small square of black fabric, only to realise it was a pair of Sirius’ underwear.

Oh God, was he really going to wear his neighbour’s underwear? His hot neighbour’s underwear? His hot neighbour whom he very much had wanted to pin against the pool tiles and kiss senseless?

He bristled and looked up at the ceiling. Well, it’s not like the air between them could get any more awkward, could it?

***

Sirius started tugging at his bottom lip for the ninth time since he’d sat at the sofa. Remus had been in the shower for a really long time and he was starting to get worried. He still felt slightly thrown off-kilter by the way he’d found the man sitting by the door, curled in a ball and hugging his legs as if his life depended on it.

And the despair in those amber eyes when he’d finally looked up at him… How the fuck was he supposed to ignore that? He never wanted to see that look in Remus’ eyes ever again.

He was just about to go over and knock on the door when he heard some shuffling, and his head perked up to see Remus walking into the room and stop by the archway awkwardly. Sirius tried to ignore how cute Remus looked in his sweats and hoodie that were two sizes too big for him. His wet curls were flopping over his forehead adorably, but damn, it was certainly not the time to be smitten by the man.

Remus was clutching his own clothes against his chest in a protective stance, like that could shield him from...Sirius had no idea what.

And that was exactly the problem, wasn’t it? This man was so open one minute and incredibly guarded the next; Sirius could tell he was desperately trying to protect himself from something. But he just didn’t know why.

He mustered up a smile, trying to make Remus feel more at ease, and approached him. “Hey there,” he eyed Remus’ face discreetly. He looked better, but still seemed to be a bit off and he held the bundle tighter when Sirius got close. “I can show you where the guestroom is if you want to lie down, and then I’ll make you another tea. I’m afraid I drank the other one while I waited. Both cold and warmed up tea should be a crime,” he said, trying to lighten up the mood. Anything to get Remus to drop some of his walls.

The corner of Remus’ mouth quirked up slightly, and, given the circumstances, Sirius took that as a success.

"Actually, I… I don't think I can sleep right now," Remus said, rubbing at the side of his neck.

"That's ok," Sirius reassured. "Do you want me to stay up with you? We can play games or watch a movie. Or would you rather I leave you alone?"

And then Remus had that look again, that seemed as though he was drowning, and Sirius prepared himself to be shut out without knowing why. But then again, Remus never seemed to do what he expected him to.

"I wouldn't mind some company, if that's ok," he said, before he hurried to add, "but don't feel like you have to."

Sirius smiled brightly at him. "My work schedule is fucked up anyway, so don't worry about it. Why don't you go sit on the couch? I'll get us something to drink."

While Remus nodded and sat down, Sirius went back into the kitchen and turned on the kettle. He was actually meant to be editing his last recording, even more now that he had more of a reason to do it.

He’d received Remus’ merch a few days ago, and had made a video using it for the sole purpose of imagining Remus’ face when he saw it on Padfoot’s channel. Usually, Marlene was in charge of doing the editing, but he’d asked her to let him do this one himself. He knew it was stupid, but even if Remus wouldn’t know, he wanted it to be something personal.

The eagerness to finish them tonight was almost consuming him; he was sure they would lift Remus’ spirits. But he couldn’t leave him alone right now.

The water boiled, Sirius filled two mugs with a nice aromatic tea, and, after a moment of hesitation, he grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard and walked back into the living room. 

Keeping a safe distance between them, he sat on the couch next to Remus, who raised an eyebrow when Sirius placed the bottle at the table. He simply shrugged in response.

"I thought you might want some."

Remus narrowed his eyes and held his cup in both hands, but after taking two sips he seemed to think better of it and reached over to pour himself a healthy dose. He sighed when he drank next and stared ahead, his eyes getting that faraway look again. Sirius wasn’t sure he wanted to know where exactly Remus was at that moment. 

He’d been wondering for a while as to what could have gotten Remus in this state. The man was usually so composed, except for those few moments Sirius had gotten a glimpse of, when he could practically see him closing up. He hated that feeling, hated not knowing how to help him or avoid those reactions.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked after a moment.

“About what?”

Sirius raised an eyebrow even though Remus was not looking at him. “You don’t seriously think I believed for a second that you were crying in the hallway because you forgot your keys, do you?”

Remus flinched but still kept his head down, avoiding his gaze, and a horrible thought occurred to him.

“I...I don’t want to assume anything,” he started, feeling a weight drop in his stomach, “but if this has anything to do with… you know, with what happened earlier then I…” he fumbled for the right words as he gestured vaguely with his hands, and finally Remus looked back with a confused expression on his face. He frowned for a second and then realisation dawned on him and he hurried to shake his head.

“No, no that’s not it. I...Something else happened and I had to leave my flat in a hurry. It’s...it’s not about that.”

His face turned to a lovely shade of pink, and Sirius had the sudden urge to cup those cheeks in his palms and feel the soft skin beneath them. He balled his hands into fists to keep himself from reaching out.

“Ok,” Sirius said, relieved but still worried. Remus seemed uncomfortable, and though Sirius had a million questions he was dying to ask, he knew it was not the time. Instead, he added some whiskey to his own tea. “Well, I’m here for you, in whichever way you need.”

Silence stretched between them, and it didn’t seem like Remus wanted to talk, so Sirius found a silly movie that could take Remus’ mind off things and they sat in companionable silence. They sipped from their spiked teas while the movie rolled, and when those were finished they moved on to straight whiskey.

He could tell Remus kept stealing glances at him, and even opened his mouth a couple times, but ended up closing it back in the end. He gave him the time he needed and waited.

“Sirius,” Remus called after a while. When Sirius glanced at him from his spot by the armrest, he found soft eyes, warm like melted caramel, trained on him. “Thank you.”

His voice was earnest and loaded with emotions that Sirius couldn’t figure out, but it sent a flutter through his stomach. He smiled fondly at this gorgeous, unpredictable man that had stumbled in his life at such a dark time. “Anytime, Rem.”

Remus' face turned almost pleading, and it was becoming physically impossible for Sirius not to get closer and pull him into his arms. Not when he was clearly upset about something and possibly a bit drunk.

No, he didn't want to do it like this.

He raked his brain for a safe topic and said the first thing that came to mind. "So, you said your classes were going well?"

Remus blinked a few times and then made a vague gesture with a hand, almost knocking the bottle in the process.

Well, he was definitely a bit drunk.

"It's great. Everyone is very nice and welcoming. And it's amazing that I got to know Lily and Natalie. Although Nat can be a bit hard to deal with," he said, but there was no real annoyance in his voice. In fact, he seemed rather fond of both girls.

Remus stretched forward to grab the bottle again, his mug tilting precariously on his leg. Sirius wasn't sure it was a good idea for him to keep drinking, so he snatched it right from his fingertips and placed both mugs on the table.

“Hey!” Remus protested.

“You're clearly ahead of me, I’m just catching up,” Sirius smiled mischievously as he gulped down, the warm liquid burning his throat, and laughed when Remus scowled at him. “Tu es mignon,” he said before he could stop himself.

Fuck. Maybe he should cut back on the alcohol too.

But Remus didn’t comment on it, just stared at Sirius with those big eyes that somehow were so much like his pet’s. And suddenly something clicked in his head.

“Oh crap. Will Cocoa be ok?” he asked Remus, who just stared. “Y’know, with you being locked out and all.” Remus continued to stare, his hand flinching the only indication that he’d heard him. Sirius raised an eyebrow and watched, alarmed, as tears started welling in Remus’ eyes. He fumbled around, flustered, wanting to hug Remus but not sure if Remus would want him to. “Ok, merde, don’t worry. Maybe I can climb over to your balcony? But I don’t think I can get in unless you left the window open…”

Remus sniffed. “My dog…”

“Fuck, wait here. Maybe I can open the door anyway, I’ll just go-” he was already stumbling out of his seat, but stopped when he felt Remus pulling at his sleeve.

“He’s not there.”

“Not there? What do you mean?”

“He-” Remus sniffed again and his breath hitched, “he’s at the clinic.”

Sirius sat down slowly, his heart beating fast. “What are you talking about?”

“I… I got back home and he… he’d found some of my chocolate, I don’t even know where he got it from.” Remus paused to take a shaky breath. Sirius could just imagine the moment, and Remus’ worry, and his heart ached for him. For both of them. “He was all… trembling and stuff. I took him to the emergency clinic straight away.”

“Is he going to be okay?” he asked as gently as he could.

“I think so. They gave him something to absorb the toxins, but he had to stay in observation just in case.”

“That’s good news, isn’t it?”

Remus’ tears started falling harder; great, heaving sobs shaking his body. He was a wreck, eyes swollen, wet tracks down his red cheeks, and Sirius couldn’t help it anymore. He took Remus’ hand, who held on as though that was the only thing keeping him together.

“But I left him alone at the hospital! When I found him chained to that tree, I promised I would take care of him, that I wouldn’t abandon him just like his old owners had. Just like I was ditched too. And I just left him there!”

Sirius started at that. What did he mean ‘he was ditched’? Every new detail about Remus’ past that came to light felt like having his vision go clearer and darker at the same time. Some questions were answered, but a lot more appeared that were worse than the ones before. He didn’t understand why Remus’ mum or Leo hadn’t been at the hospital with him, or exactly why he’d been stuck in bed in the first place. But he knew it was still hard on Remus. He could only imagine what leaving Cocoa at the clinic would have done to him.

“It’s my fault he ate the chocolate in the first place…”

“Oh no, we’re not going to do that. This is not your fault.”

“But he almost died,” he said, with his head bowed in shame.

Sirius scooted closer and held Remus’ tighter, while he used his free hand to wipe the other man’s tears with his thumb, first on one cheek and then the other. He pressed his palm against Remus’ cheek and locked eyes with him.

"Remus, the way you reacted is probably what saved his life. That dog loves you, anyone can tell, and I know you would never do anything that would hurt him. Cocoa is going to be fine."

Remus’ breath hitched again as he leant into the touch.

"How do you know?" he asked helplessly.

Sirius smiled softly at him. "’Cause he's a fighter just like you are."

It was small, but slowly, an actual, genuine smile spread across Remus’ face, looking at Sirius as if he was seeing him for the first time, and Sirius felt his world stop.

It didn’t feel like the sun was rising after the longest night. It was more like coming up for air after being underwater without even knowing it. It was melting every barrier he’d ever built. It was wishing he could see that smile every day, because if Remus smiled like that, then everything was a little bit better.

Before he could get his mind riled up about how deeply enthralled by the man he was and the panicking that would ensue, Remus yawned.

"C'mon, let's get you to bed."

Stretching his arms over his head, Sirius stood up and turned the TV off. Remus tried to follow but stumbled over his feet and would have crashed over the table if Sirius hadn't caught him in time, draping a hand around his middle.

"Oops," Remus chuckled, and Sirius inwardly winced at how adorable he was.

He put an arm under his shoulders and helped him to his room, not bothering to turn on the light. He opened the bed covers for him, and guided him down; Remus’ eyes were halfway closed even when he was still sitting, and Sirius had to force himself to turn around and leave, but just as he did, long fingers slid into his hand, holding on to him.

“Don’t go,” Remus whispered, his eyes now on Sirius’.

What was he meant to do about that? They were both drunk, Remus had been through a lot, and he didn’t want it to look like he was taking advantage of his state.

“It’s ok, I’ll be in the room next door if you need anything,” he assured him. He tried to get Remus to lie down, but he held on to his hand and didn’t let go.

“I can play you some rain sounds?” he offered, a bit desperate, not quite thinking straight as the alcohol was making him a bit dizzy. Or maybe that was just the effect Remus had on him.

“No, you,” Remus pouted, tugging at his arm.

Sirius wanted to. He really, really wanted to lie down with him, tuck him close and hold on for dear life. But it didn’t feel right, Remus might not want the same thing if the circumstances were different.

“Please? I don’t want to be alone.”

The conflict in his mind dimmed and he sighed, defeated, ‘cause there was no way Sirius could say no to that.

Please, don’t regret this tomorrow.

He nodded, and Remus smiled and let Sirius tuck him into bed with the blankets up to his chin. Sirius removed his shoes and went to the other side of the bed, lying on his side on top of the covers.

Remus turned on his side as well, and then they were face to face with just a few inches between them. It was dark, but not dark enough that Sirius couldn’t see Remus’ face, his soft curls, the freckles over the bridge of his nose, those beautiful honey eyes, the curve of his lips...

How the fuck was he supposed to sleep with him right there?

It would be impossible. All he could think about was how only a few hours earlier they’d also been this close to each other, how their breaths had entwined, driving him mad. He’d been so sure that Remus was about to kiss him. And he’d wanted him to, fuck, he wanted it so badly. The need to be closer was becoming unbearable.

But maybe it was all just wishful thinking, considering the way Remus had ran from him.

He hadn’t realised he was still staring at Remus’ lips until they moved, just barely, to whisper almost inaudibly.

"Goodnight, Sirius."

When he looked up, Remus’ eyes were already closed, and a few seconds later the sound of slow, even breathing filled the room.

Sirius watched him sleep for a while; his face finally relaxed and more open than it’d been all night. Stretching slightly forward, he tilted his chin up to press a soft kiss on Remus’ forehead.

"Goodnight, Re."

[seijuurouxryuu]

Of Death, Of Time

Title: Of Death, Of Time Author: Shiro (TeitoxAkashi [AO3]/ seijuurouxryuu [tumblr]) Rating: T Pairing: Death/Tsuna; Reborn/Fon Event: @khrrarepairweek Prompts: Necromancer AU | Unknowingly Flirting Tags/Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warning

Day 5: Rain Day

Tsuna was a witch—a necromancer in his first mortal life. He didn’t know how he became one, but one day he became aware that he was one. One who steals from Death, one who forces the souls it reaps to work for him. And that was all he does.

Every life he went through, every reincarnation—he called upon the dead souls, and called upon Death. He was the unrest of the world.

AO3

“P-please,” The boy rasped. “S-save her. Just her, please don’t take her away too.” Death looked down at the boy expressionlessly, face half humane half bone. “It’s her time.” It whispered, ghastly and solemn, time ticking in the background like a countdown, like a reminder. “It’s both of yours.”

 The boy sobbed, tears mixed with red as he coughed out blood, head bleeding all the same. He couldn’t move, couldn’t scream, only whisper. To the reaper of souls, to the one who looked far sadder than he who would soon die. He was unwilling, but he knew there was nothing he could do. Clutching on his sister’s hands, as cold as his, unmoving, pulseless. He could only resign to it—resign to fate.

 He was unwilling, but seeing Death’s boney hand clutching against the scythe tightly, he relented.

 “W-where will we go next, then?” The boy tried to smile, tried to relief Death’s sadness. Ah, how many has it seen, the pleads of those whose time were up? How many times had Death seen the rage, unwillingness, sorrow, fear? How many times had Death went through such events that even it felt such overwhelming sadness for humans?

 The boy could only wonder as he felt his strength slipping, sleepiness and darkness slowly engulfing him. For a moment, he felt as though he was home with his sister beside him, safe.

 “… Home,” Death said as it watched the child relented to eternal sleep’s grasp. “You both are going home.” It tilted the tip of the scythe down gently and reaped the souls, watching both the boy and girl, two glowing children, pulses and disappear to where they would reincarnate; to be siblings once more.

 ‘Thank you.’ They both whispered.

 Death watched as they went, and it disappeared into thin air.

 .

 Tsuna was once a bird, a tree, a child, a father, a mother, a fish, a dragon. He was once a lot of creatures, and was once nothing. He was once air, and he was once the ground.

 He was everything.

 Tsuna never knew how he came to be, but he knew he was what he was. He was the universe itself. He remembered of vague changes, shifts, and stutters of the world. He experienced those changes, helped the build up of civilization, watched life came to be and left.

 He remembered mostly of Death, at every step he took.

 Tsuna was a witch—a necromancer in his first mortal life. He didn’t know how he became one, but one day he became aware that he was one. One who steals from Death, one who forces the souls it reaps to work for him. And that was all he does.

 Every life he went through, every reincarnation—he called upon the dead souls, and called upon Death. He was the unrest of the world.

 “My lord.” Tsuna opened his eyes, glowing orange as he looked at Death who stood by his bed, looming and blending into the darkness. He saw him all the same, as clear as daylight. He smiled.

 “Welcome home.” He reached out and encircled his arms around Death.

 .

 The boy and girl had a long dream during their journey home. It was but a blur, but they saw; of their past, present and future. They remembered, of those they forgot. And they yearned, to see their home sooner.

 Lambo and I-pin.

 They wanted to see Tsuna.

 .

 Tsuna woke up again the next day in Death’s embrace. He didn’t mind, he loved it even. He smiled at the half humane half bone face, kissing the white skull and whispered a greeting. Death was never asleep, it remained awake even as Tsuna slumbered. The humane part of its face crinkled in silent delight at that as it let go of Tsuna.

 Tsuna stretched, back arching as the blanket that covered his naked upper torso slipped down, letting Death sees every part that it knew oh so well. Tsuna stepped out of their bed and got dressed. He picked up the ring of Time on the desk and slipped it onto his right middle finger, playing with the chains around it.

 “They are here.”

 Tsuna smiled, relieved. His shoulders relaxed as he felt for the souls of his family, warm and burning in the ring. He could feel the youngest two were restless, all but wanting to see him again. He would, soon. He would get to them soon.

 Not just yet.

 “You would be the harbinger of blood in next life.” Death piped out from where it was.

 Tsuna barked out a laugh. “When am I never, Death?” He teased. “I am your reflection, after all.”

 It shook its head, walking over to caress Tsuna’s cheeks, feeling the warm radiating to its bones. “You may be my representation, but you are you. You are yourself; not me.”

 Tsuna sighed, nuzzling against its hand. “I know.”

 “… And I don’t think you are allowed to summon the dead souls next life.” Tsuna raised an eyebrow at that.

 “Why not?”

 Death’s lips were pursed, disgruntled yet resigned. “… Life reincarnated.”

 Tsuna paused and stare at it.

 “… It will be your tutor next life.”

 “… Fuck.”

 .

 When Tsuna remembered, he was 34 and the Vongola Neo Primo of Vongola Famiglia. That night, he went to sleep drunk from the party of his 34th birthday, and he woke up with a splitting headache from the rum and gin the Varia and Reborn chugged down his throat.

 And as he groaned, he remembered everything. Life fucked him up so badly this lifetime.

 “Rise and shine, Dame-Tsuna!” Tsuna snapped his fingers and the shadows of undead shot straight towards Reborn. The hitman—Life—merely snorted at the weak attempt and squashed all of them, straight away sending them to reincarnation.

 “Fuck you, Life.”

 It rolled its eyes at Tsuna, grinning ferally. “Good morning to you too, Time. By the way, stop playing with those dead souls every time you remember. It’s so annoying.”

 “My business.” Tsuna hissed. He shook the hangover gone and gathered the rest of the undead souls from every corner of the house. Soon, shadows and silhouettes of those once alive gathered in his room. He looked through each and one of them, pelting a few at Reborn who punt them into reincarnation, and breathed, keeping the rest in his indispensable space for those dead.

 The pocket watch in him ticked. And stopped.

  Life leaned back and started floating to the air like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. It pouted, black obsidian eyes turning white as it stared right through Tsuna’s space.

 “Why keep such untasteful bunch of souls? Why not just let them reincarnate and suffer in the mortal world?”

 Tsuna knew that it was trying to make him let the souls go, but he wouldn’t. Not like he needed those souls, but he knew keeping them would piss Life off, which it deserved for throwing Tsuna all over around for almost two decades of his mortal life.

 “Whatever that is you're doing, it’s not working.” He huffed as he clenched his right fist. Opening it up, there sat on his palm was the ring of Time, sealed. He smiled and pull off the chain, and it glowed as Tsuna’s sealed powers returned to him.

 “Worth a try.” Life muttered, too used to Time’s chaos that rip the balance of life and death apart just to keep Death in its track. “It took you long enough to wake this time.” During last lifetime, it remembered that Tsuna woke up the moment he was nine in mortal world.

 Tsuna shrugged. Maybe because he overworked Death this lifetime, with the number of people he had to kill. Or maybe because he was just lazy, who knows. Time did not have such concept as long or short. It just knew when to continue or stop.

 Tsuna blinked and his eyes turned bright orange. Standing by his side was Death, still half humane half bone. Tsuna smiled up to it and reached over. Death easily took him into its arm.

 “I missed you.” Tsuna hummed, nuzzling.

 Death whispered of the same as they kissed.

 Life rolled its eyes at the two sappy being of unrest and disappeared off to its own beloved.

 Tsuna soon pulled away and blinked cheekily at Death. “Time to start summoning to piss of Life.”

 Death’s lips tugged up into a smile. “It is no longer disturbed by such moves.” Tsuna rolled his eyes. “I don’t care. I’m going to make it a bigger event this lifetime. Reborn screwed me inside out for almost two decades, I’m angry.”

 Death stroked his fluffy hair and shook its head resignedly, letting Tsuna do as he liked. It didn’t matter anyway, because whatever Tsuna did would mean lessening its workload and it could spend more time with Tsuna.

 “Whatever you are happy with, darling.”

 .

 Two years later, a zombie apocalypse happened.

 Reborn almost shot Tsuna to death if not for Fon stopping him.

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

A/N: Death is Death! Tsuna is Time! Reborn is Life!

Yes this is Death/Tsuna + Reborn/Fon fic :3 although Reborn and Fon didn't have much screen time uwu

First part is during their previous life before Vongola; Tsuna and the others left earlier than I-Pin and Lambo, who were last of them to leave the mortal world. Timeline's a bit wonky, but ye. They are always the youngest. ALWAYS.

A bit of lore, which is Tsuna or Time was the first existence of the universe, but remained asleep when Death and Life appeared. Then somehow he woke up when civilization started, and forcefully wedged himself between the balance Death and Life created. He hated how Death has to go through all those sorrow when he reaps humans' soul so he made it a goal to at least screw Life up once every time he reincarnated into a human. Which is a handful of time.

But yeah, Time Tsuna who is also a necromancer since he could just isolate-turn back time of the soul right after Death reap it and before it gets noticed by Life, and make it his minions or something. Always hits up Life's workload :3

Anyways this is a sudden plunny that popped out so have a short impulsive story from me :D

[I apologize for any grammar, spellings, etc. etc. mistakes]

[zestyquetzalcoatl]

Luck is petty.

Like everything else about his luck, Gladstone hates this and loves it in equal turns, often both at once.

It’s pettiness means he always knows that people’s minds are their own (or at least not influenced by him). Once someone has decided he is insufferable and deserving of only a kick in the pants, it cannot make them give him things or put up with him anyway (ignoring the odd encounters he’s had with a chicken in a bright pink cape.*1 He’s pretty certain something entirely different then luck was at play there, though he has no idea what), which is why he mostly gets given free stuff by strangers instead of people who have met him before. It can influence the physical world, and that alone.

He loves this about it because it means he can exert some level of control over it, want and hate and whittle down its options until it’s forced to give him what he actually wants. He loves it because he is terrified of what it could do if it wasn’t petty. How far it could go, how much it could effect, how badly it would twist the world around it, while he would have no control or hope of containing it.

He hates it because petty luck is petty. It cares about riches, wining bets, getting free things, and curtailing talent and hard work. It can’t (and doesn’t) win him friends or happiness or love. It protects his physical health but doesn’t give a damn about his mental, content to let him be abused and taken advantage of (especially if that gives it another chance to win a prize), so long as he isn’t hungry, isn’t homeless, and isn’t injured. (Liu Hai’s was not the first gilded cage he’d been trapped in, just one that was unusually hard to escape.)

Luck is petty but Gladstone is not.

Sometimes (when the chips are down and the stakes are high) this means that his luck has to play by Gladstone’s rules.

———————————————O0—0—0O————————————————

Gladstone had run into Fethry by complete chance earlier in the day, and he’d spent the last several hours cheerfully walking and chatting with his red-hatted cousin as they meandered their way across town. Gladstone’s luck had been in full effect as they walked, guiding their route via construction sites that had blocked roads, flying $20 bills and interesting butterflies that tempted them down back alleys and side streets, and a very memorable dumpster that gave Gladstone a bad jump scare by falling over and releasing about twenty cats into the general area. The path they’d taken had been dictated largely by whatever looked like the least hassle, and had eventually ended up with them down by the docks, getting lost amongst the warehouses and shipping containers of the many trading companies that had operations in Duckburg Harbor.

Gladstone didn’t mind being utterly lost, he never had. His luck meant they’d get where they ought to go without being late, so he was content to simply wander at random while he enjoyed his cousin’s enthusiastic rambling.

Popping out of a particularly out-of-the-way alley, he realized that he and Fethry had ended up at the main road, less then twenty yards from the beginning of the pier. What was more, he could see Donald’s car.

It was pulled just off of the asphalt and onto the concrete, and parked behind a pile of boxes large enough that it likely couldn’t be spotted from anywhere except the small alley they’d just exited. The 313 was old, and in even worse repair then normal, with one of its mirrors duct taped on, and a couple of its fender skirts boasting decently sized dents. Slumped in the driver’s seat was Donald, with blood on his beak.

For a moment Gladstone felt like he had been plunged underwater.

He had seen his unlucky cousin injured before, many times even. Donald, Della, and Scrooge were always finding a way to get themselves into life-or-death danger, and even when they weren’t trouble managed to find Donald anyway. He’d seen his cousin thrown through walls, struck by lightning, almost crushed by falling boulders, and passed out in all sorts of places weirder then his own oddly parked car. But for all that, he’s rarely, if ever, seen his cousin bleed, so he thinks it’s probably the blood that makes everything about his just scream wrong.

The underwater-feeling, the feeling of wrongness, is intense, blurring the edges of the world and muffling all sound. He can just barely hear himself shout through the veil of unreality that, for one long moment, seems to drown him.

“Donald?!”

Beside him Fethry stops talking, then the underwater-feeling shatters to make way for the electrocuting feeling of ice-cold terror, and the next moment he and Fethry are both sprinting for the car.

Donald wakes up when they reach the car, both of them somewhat crashing into it in their panic. The more important thing, is that there are bloody petals in Donald’s lap. Gladstone suddenly feels like there’s something caught in his own throat that he has to force words out past, because he knows what bloody petals mean, but no no No NO—

“Donald, Donald what, w-who—“

Any doubt is swept away when Donald goes to respond and starts choking instead, coughing up not just bloody petals but entire flower heads. Red, Blue, Green, Pink, Gold, and White, all different shapes and kinds. Gladstone feels like every emotion he has has been flicked on at once, a white-hot intensity that burns through him just waiting to explode outward. The world around him is in crystalline clarity, all his senses turned up to eleven and recording in overwhelming detail, and he’s feeling everything at once. He knows what hanahaki is but he doesn’t know his flowers, can’t decipher what’s before him. Can’t know and can’t guess and can’t let Donald die.

Donald finishes hacking up a morbid bouquet and starts trying to tell him and Fethry, voice garbled even worse then normal, about having several hours left and wanting to be next to the ocean. Fethry is listening to Donald. Gladstone is doing anything but.

He hasn’t been Cloverleaf in years, and it’s been just as long since he actively controlled his luck. Focusing in the draining way it takes to Curse or Bless is not something he does outside of the mask, instead just letting Gladstone Gander be blown wherever his luck wishes to take him.

But by god he does it now, pouring everything he can into Blessing Donald more intensely then he’s ever done before, wanting and pushing, making bets against himself with devastating consequences if Donald dies. Deciding, with no hesitation or room for chance, what he’ll do —do to himself— if this goes wrong. Gladstone will never be okay again if Donald dies, making his luck agree is just a matter of making sure it knows that he means physically too.

He stifles and kills the urge to Curse whoever hurt his cousin, because that won’t help Donald now. But eyes are burning red with roiling anger, fear and worry adding fuel to the fire, the temper he shares with Donald on the few occasions he’s well and truly ticked on full display. And he will not release his death grip on his cousin’s arm.

And Gladstone doesn’t know it, but Paperinik has seen Cloverleaf Curse and Bless before, and can very much recognize the light static electricity jumping between his cousin’s feathers and the look of vicious concentration on his cousin’s face, even if he wasn’t expecting it at all.

Several miles across town in McDuck Mansion, six people discover they abruptly need Donald for something all at once. The worry that begins to break out when they can’t find him anywhere bubbles over into full blown panic as one of them trips into a trashcan, and a bunch of bloody petals are flung out as it goes flying.

———————————————O0—0—0O————————————————

Well! That wasn’t how I was expecting to loose my day. @bamboozledeagle this is your fault, I woke up to your Hanahaki post sitting at the top of my Tumblr dash, and spent the whole rest of the day writing it on-and-off. Then when I went to post it the WiFi crashed :/ so I had to wait a day.

This is completely unedited, so sorry about any glaring mistakes. I probably change style several times and I think I even changed tense once on accident. Oops. Also sorry about the formatting, I wrote it on notepad and then just copy-pasted to here, and only bothered fixing the italics.

The Gladstone/Cloverleaf on display here is my own version that I started playing around with after reading this post by @adamarinayu: https://adamarinayu.tumblr.com/post/176467180262/hey-yall asking for a competent version of Cloverleaf, but haven’t actually written anything with prior to this.

Blessing and Cursing is just what he calls manipulating his luck to make good things or bad things happen to other people. It also has the added bonus of helping protect his identity by making Cloverleaf seem magical instead of lucky.

Oh and Bam, the chicken in a pink cape line is also your fault by the way: *1 https://bamboozledeagle.tumblr.com/post/617956657118511104/i-love-how-in-your-and-other-peoples-aus

Sorry if the links don’t work on mobile.

[snekdood]

~hidden between the branches and leaves

lies a hundred stars beyond the trees~

about:

hi u can call me snake or animal, im a shapeshifting trickster elf, im a man, im 27, he/him, and im a vegan (but not annoying about it, and no, none of my vegan takes are about targeting native americans tyvm 😌 idgaf what they do.), anti fascist, solarpunk and eco friendly, and i really like to draw, cook, garden, sew, carve and make bead bracelets with gemstones and learn new things and grow and change everyday :^) oh also i like weed 🌿 ओम नमः शिवाय

im not perfect, but neither are you, so lets make it work.

stay wyrd ✌️

[18+] no childs please

art | comic → deviant art | insta | youtube | twitch | links | hate mail

to whom it may concern, here’s information you definitely don’t need to know about from my bio at all and probably haven’t even earned the right to know about but that ppl will demand out of me regardless surely: 

BASICALLY IM OFTEN SEEN AS “WHITE” BY PEOPLE AND SOMETIMES NOT AND IT USUALLY DEPENDS ON HOW THEY FEEL ABOUT ME MOMENT TO MOMENT, LEFTISTS BEING CHARITABLE ABOUT ME TRY TO SEE ME AS BEING MIXED, LEFTISTS BEING UNCHARITABLE ABOUT ME TRY TO SEE ME AS WHITE, RWINGERS BEING CHARITABLE TOWARDS ME TRY TO SEE ME AS WHITE, RWINGERS BEING UNCHARITABLE TO ME TRY TO SEE ME AS MIXED, MAKE OF THAT WHAT YOU WILL. I DO NOT CONTROL HOW PEOPLE TREAT ME. I DO NOT OWE YOU DISCLOSING WHAT ETHNICITIES I HAVE IN ME ESP SINCE I DONT EVEN REALLY KNOW ANYWAYS. WHITENESS IS A FAKE USELESS DIVISIVE CONCEPT CREATED BY WHITE SUPREMACISTS. YES I UNDERSTAND WE NEED TO HAVE CONVOS ABOUT IT SINCE THEY MADE UP THE TERM AND A LOT OF “WHITE” PPL ARE ATTACHED TO THEIR PRIVILEGE OF BEING SEEN AS WHITE. BUT ULTIMATELY IT IS A TERM I THINK WE NEED TO GET RID OF. “THE MASTERS TOOLS WILL NOT DISMANTLE THE MASTERS HOUSE”, ETC. I THINK DISCUSSIONS ABOUT COLORISM IS MORE USEFUL, BUT STILL ULTIMATELY DIVIDES PEOPLE INTO BOXES THAT PPL CANT EVEN AGREE ON SO IDK. I THINK CULTURE IS MORE IMPORTANT AND TELLS YOU MORE ABOUT SOMEONE THAN SKIN COLOR/TONES, AND ALL YA GOTTA KNOW IS IM A EMO MIDWESTERN MURICAN’ WHO’S BASICALLY HAD TO INVENT MY OWN CULTURE FOR MYSELF. I'VE NOT BEEN MISTAKEN FOR BEING BLACK, I DO NOT HAVE DARK SKIN, AND DONT CLAIM TO BE BLACK OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. SOME PPL ASSUME IM OF SWANA OR NATIVE AMERICAN DESCENT SOMETIMES, BUT IDK WTF IM MIXED WITH ENTIRELY. I DONT CLAIM TO BE MIXED OR ANYTHING EITHER BC I DONT FUCKIN KNOW, BUT IM ALSO NOT WILLING TO SHARE WHAT ALL I DO KNOW I’M MIXED WITH, BC YALL CANT BE TRUSTED TO NOT PUT THINGS IN PRISTINE, NO LINE-BLURRING, B/W BOXES THE WAY WHITE SUPREMACISTS WANT YOU TO DO. I’M NOT GONNA CLAIM THAT IM NOT WHITE, OBVIOUSLY SOME PPL PERCEIVE ME TO BE, BUT IM ALSO NOT GONNA SAY THAT I AM BC I DONT IDENTIFY WITH WHITENESS BC I DONT THINK WHITENESS IS REAL. AND SINCE I GET MISTAKEN FOR OTHER STUFF AND DONT KNOW EVERYTHING ABT MY ANCESTRY ANYWAYS, WHO FUCKIN KNOWS. WHY DOES IT MATTER. LOOK AT MY FUCKIN INSTAGRAM IS YA WANNA KNOW WTF I LOOK LIKE SO BADLY. AS MUCH AS YOU MIGHT BE BEGGING ME TO JUST “TELL YOU” I AM ALSO BEGGING GOD TO TELL ME SO I CAN TELL YALL TO SHUT UP BUT I WILL PROBABLY NEVER KNOW AND I THINK HOW PPL TREAT ME IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO CONSIDER IN MY SITUATION.

BE HONEST: THE ONLY REASON YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT MY “RACE” OR ETHNICITY IS IS SO YOU CAN KNOW IF YOU CAN YELL AT ME ABOUT CERTAIN THINGS. FUCK OFF AND DIE IDK, FIND A HOBBY MAYBE

I have expressive language disorder and severe anxiety. i also have seizures and i might talk abt it sometimes. other issues too that i dont feel like I need to mention that’s really relevant to tumblr, all you need to know is im mentally ill bc of severe trauma.

reasons i dont want you to follow me:

I used to have a paragraph in here about having “discussions with people i disagree with” but something about this website makes people incapable of not being bad faith assholes so idc to try anymore. maybe I will if I actually think you’re being good faith but that hardly ever fuckin happens on here, so, I’m not waiting around to find out anymore. it’s impossible to have productive conversations on here I’ve concluded.

anyways, aside from that:

terfs/tirfs/swerfs/radfems out, baeddels out, transmeds/truscum (still dont know the difference) out, pedophiles/pedo apologists/maps gtfo, white supremacists, ethnonationalists, racists, nazis, hindutva’s, fascists in general out, ancaps out, authoritarians out, class reductionists out, mls/tankies out, accelerationists out, anti theists suck and should gtfo too

[send your hate mail here, i prolly wont be reading it tho]

[idnek83]

Aid - Chapter 13/13

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Soda Kazuichi/Tanaka Gundham

Tags: Alternate Universe - Island Mode, No Game Spoilers, Masturbation,  Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Semi-Public Sex, Grinding, Wet Dreams, Anal Fingering,  Friends With Benefits,  Getting Together, Internalized Homophobia, Anal Sex

Summary: Everyone is hot and half naked because of their beach vacation. Soda is horny and tries to do something about it. Gundham tries to help and does. It all gets a little out of hand.

Chapter: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Read on Ao3

This Chapter: Soda finally realizes how stupid he's been: Soda runs towards his problems, he's the only one surprised by the outcome.

*Tumblr doesn’t have a word count, so heads up: this is 7.7k long

_____________________

At some point his jog had turned into a run.

He couldn’t stop all the doubts and shitty thoughts swirling around in his brain, so he just focused on getting to where Gundham was as fast as he could, before he started doubting himself again.

But it didn’t matter.

When he arrived at the ranch, Gundham was nowhere to be seen. Soda walked a loop around the place, even managed to find a foal Gundham had been taking care of, but there was no sign of the man himself.

The urge to give up was overwhelming.

No. He needed to talk to Gundham, he couldn’t keep putting it off every time he encountered a little obstacle, or he’d probably never talk to him again.

Think dumbass . If Gundham wasn’t at the ranch, where would he be?

Maybe he got hungry? It was still kind of early for dinner, but for all he knew Gundham had missed lunch, so it wouldn’t be that strange if he had gone to the restaurant for a bite to eat.

Or maybe he’s just hiding because he doesn’t want to talk.

Soda shook his head and ran off towards the hotel. He had plenty of experience running from his problems, it felt good to run from his excuses instead.

He was out of breath by the time he reached the restaurant, it had been a while since he’d run so much. Once he reached the top of the stairs he stood, panting, as he turned his head in every direction, looking for any sign of Gundham.

Nothing.

He’s avoiding you.

His cabin then? Sonia had said he had the Devas with him at the ranch, so maybe he had decided to return them to their lair.

He caught his breath and sprinted back down the stairs and towards Gundham’s cabin.

He really hoped Gundham would be there, his legs were starting to cramp up and he didn’t know how much more running he’d be able to do.

Just give up.

He knocked on Gundham’s door.

“Gundham? Are you there?” He paused. “I know you don’t want to talk, but there’s something really important I need to tell you!” He pressed his ear to the door but heard nothing, maybe Gundham really wasn’t here either?

He’s just pretending he’s not home.

Where else then?

Soda backed away from Gundham’s door. He didn’t know where he would go next, but he knew he needed to keep moving. He took a deep breath and turned to run back the way he came.

And Gundham was there.

Standing at the crossroad between the boys’ and girls’ cabins and looking around anxiously.

Was he looking for him?

Only so he can avoid you.

“Gundham!” It felt like time slowed as he shouted his name. The second the word had left his mouth, Gundham turned and ran away from the hotel.

Away from him.

See? He’s ignoring you.

It must be something else.

He ran the second you called his name.

Maybe he hadn’t heard him.

There’s no such thing coincidence.

No. He had to follow him.

He doesn’t even want to look at you.

No… he just…

He hates you.

No…

Stop lying to yourself. You’re disgusting and stupid and you fuck up everything you touch. Of course he ran from you. He should have done it sooner.

“Why have you not apologized?”

He doesn’t want your apology, he wants you to just disappear.

“That doesn’t really sound like Gundham…”

He never wants to see you again, never wants to have to hear you speak again.

“He does not want to talk because you have not apologized yet!”

It’s too late, he hates you and there’s nothing you can do about it.

“You’re not really ready to give up on Gundham.”

He won’t listen, even if he does it won’t matter, it won’t change anything.

“At least he will know that you are sorry!”

Sorry for what? Sorry for treating him like garbage? Sorry for fucking things up the way you always do? Sorry for wasting his time with your worthless existence? Apologize all you want, he’ll still hate you. Maybe not right away, but eventually. You’re not worth his time. You’re not worth anything. You’ll just keep making mistakes.

“Then apologize.”

The voices of his friends echoed around his head, Hajime and Sonia battling his own doubts as he waited for one side to win. He knew he was moving, knew he hadn’t given into his own despair yet, but he wasn’t sure how long that would last. He wanted so badly to just give up, to just let Gundham hate him.

He had run. He didn’t want to listen.

“When you are ready, I will listen.”

But that had been before he had fucked everything up.

“I will always be here for you.”  

Had he meant that? Had he just said it to get him to stop crying? Gundham didn’t seem like the type to say things like that if he didn’t mean them but he been acting like a pretty big pussy…

“You are too hard on yourself, my sweet consort.”

He wouldn’t give up yet. Maybe it wouldn’t matter, maybe he’d have to chase Gundham down and corner him to make him listen, but he wouldn’t give up yet. He owed that much to Gundham, for being so kind to him, and he owed it to Hajime and Sonia as well, for putting up with all his shit.

But he couldn’t run anymore, his legs were too tired, and he had lost the mental drive that had let him push himself earlier.

He wouldn’t give up, but maybe he could take his time…

You’re making excuses again.

He wasn’t… he might be. He wasn’t sure. He kept moving, told himself he was looking for Gundham, but his legs were carrying him towards the little beach they had found for Gundham’s swimming lesson. Maybe he thought Gundham would be there, or maybe he just wanted to be alone. He really wasn’t sure anymore, all the voices in his head were blurring together now, becoming little more than noise that was slowly giving him a headache. Maybe he could just take a nap. Maybe Gundham would want to talk when he woke up…

He reached the secluded beach, and he wasn’t sure if he was actually disappointed that Gundham wasn’t there, or if he was pretending to be so he could act like he hadn’t given up yet.

Had he given up yet?

He laid on his back in the sand.

Maybe.

He wished he could give Gundham another swimming lesson. Wished Gundham would trust him like that again, wished Gundham would let him see him so vulnerable again, and wished he would let him help him again. He didn’t care if they never had sex again. He would have treasured that night forever, treasured watching Gundham slowly improve and become more confidant with his help, even without everything that happened after. It had been good, really good, but all he really wanted was to be able to hold Gundham again, to be able to laugh with him, and cry with him, and to just be with him again.

He felt a weight on his chest.

He paused.

On his chest?

He opened his eyes and looked down.

There was a hamster on his chest.

“Jum-P?” He was going crazy. He had to be going crazy.

He slowly lifted a finger to try to poke the thing on his chest that absolutely could not be Jum-P.

It bit him.

Soda flinched and sat up, remembering to catch Jum-P at the last second, and looked down at the apparently non-imaginary hamster in his hands.

“What the fuck?”

Jum-P just stared back at him.

“What the hell are you doing all the way out here?” Shouldn’t Jum-P be with Gundham? OR at least back in his cabin?

What if-

“You’re here to punish me for upsetting Gundham aren’t you?” He laughed to himself. No matter how good Gundham was at training animals, there was no way he could train a hamster to hunt Soda down and bit him… right?

He looked down at Jum-P and laughed when he moved in a way that almost looked like nodding.

“Well, if that’s what you’re here for then you can bite me all you want, I deserve it. It still wont hurt nearly as bad as knowing how bad I fucked up though…” Jum-P didn’t bite him, so Soda shifted him into one palm and started petting him. It reminded him of the first time he had held Jum-P, back in Gundham’s cabin. “Can’t believe I didn’t realize how I felt back then, looking back, it was pretty obvious.”

He heaved a heavy sigh. Why the hell was he talking to a hamster.

“Did you know, little man? Animals are supposed to be pretty sensitive to feelings, aren’t they? Did you know I was crushing on your overlord?” He laughed a little as Jum-P nuzzled against his finger. “You wanna know something? I think I did know. I think I was just pretending I didn’t cus I never thought I’d feel that way about another guy, y’know? Something like that… it’s scary. You probably don’t get it cus you’re a hamster, but lots of humans can be pretty shitty about that kind of thing…”

Soda closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Maybe he wasn’t crazy enough to hallucinate a hamster, but he was still pretty crazy for talking to one. Whatever, it felt nice to finally say this stuff out loud, the hamster was more of an excuse than anything anyways, so might as well keep going. He re-opened his eyes and smiled down at Jum-P who was wiggling around in his palm now, apparently taking in the sight of the rocky hill behind him.

“I think… I think I could handle it though, if it was for Gundham… with Gundham. It still scares me shitless to think about how my dad would react, or even some of our friends… and don’t even get me started on strangers, but…” He thought of Sonia and Hajime, and by extension Nagito. He was pretty sure he could count on all of them to support him and Gundham if they ever got together. “I guess I have a few people in my corner to rely on… and if it meant I got to be with Gundham everyday? I think I could take it.”

He paused for a moment. He realized he really meant it. Even if his dad never wanted to see him again and he lost some friends, with Hajime and the others behind him, and Gundham at his side, he could still be happy. He could wake up everyday knowing he had made the right choice, as long as it meant he got to hold Gundham’s hand, and see those soft little smiles, and feel those warm forehead kisses…

Too bad about all that though.

“You know I really fucked up, little man. Gundham probably told you, right? I was too busy being scared and stupid to realize he feels the same way about me that I feel about him… or, maybe he did. I guess I don’t know exactly how he feels, I just know he likes me- oh, um, liked me… before I fucked everything up…” He thought about wiping away the tears that welled up in his eyes, but he was scared he’d accidently drop Jum-P, and besides, it’s not like the hamster could judge him. “I guess now I’ll never get to know exactly how he felt, huh? Never figure out if he felt the same, but I-” He took a deep breath.

“I love him.”

There it was. He felt his face heat up at the words. The words he should have spoken days ago. The words that could have stopped this whole situation from happening. The words he’d probably never actually get to say to Gundham, so he just said them again to his hamster.

“I love him. And I’m so fucking stupid for not telling him earlier!” Jum-P started squeaking at him, and he imagined it was his way of encouraging him. “I love Gundham! It’s not even hard to say!” He deflated. “So why the fuck didn’t I just say it earlier before I fucked all this up? Now I’ll… I’ll never get to tell him… Now that I know how damn good it feels to say… it’s too late.”

“Perhaps… it is not.”

Soda froze and Jum-P hopped out of his hand, running off behind him. Soda turned to see where the hamster was going and watched as he crawled up a tall black boot.

He couldn’t bring himself to meet Gundham’s eyes.

“H-how long have you…?”

“You spoke of animals being sensitive to feelings as I approached…”

Soda glanced up at Gundham’s face, he was looking away and blushing harder than Soda had ever seen him blush before.

Soda felt stupid sitting in the sand, so he stood up. When he looked back at Gundham’s face their eyes met. Neither of them said anything, they just stood and stared in silence, neither of them really sure what they should do.

Soda knew he should say something, knew this was the moment for his big speech where he explained all of his shitty actions and all of his feelings and begged for Gundham’s forgiveness.

But he couldn’t find the right words, didn’t know what he should say, so he just said what he was feeling instead.

“I love you.”

They weren’t the right words. Gundham furrowed his brow a little and Soda could tell he was hurt, could tell he was looking for something to tell him Soda was lying. He didn’t know what to do so he just kept talking.

“I’m so in love with you it’s stupid, and the only thing stupider is me for not saying it sooner… and I’m sorry I hurt you! I really didn’t mean to! I really didn’t know how you felt!” He was scared to stop talking, scared that the second he did Gundham would leave, and that would be the end of it. “I just thought I was making things up in my head, reading too much into things, and that we had to be doing a f-friends with benefits thing, b-because there was no way-” He was crying again. “No way anyone would-” He couldn’t breathe “-anyone could feel anything like… like this-” he made a vague gesture between them. “-about me.”

Then there were hands on his face, thumbs wiping his tears and a voice saying things he was sure he must be imagining.

“You’re wrong, my consort. I do.” Gundham gently tilted his head back so he could look him in the eyes. “I love you.”

Soda felt like time slowed down as Gundham leaned towards him.

The kiss was soft, and warm. It only lasted a few seconds, and Soda was still crying, but he wouldn’t change it for the world.

Gundham was smiling as he pulled back.

Soda’s mind filled with so many things that he could hardly think, so instead he just wrapped his arms around Gundham’s neck and pulled him back down for another kiss. This one is longer, and messier because they both can’t stop smiling into it, but it still felt perfect.

Everything else seemed to melt away. Every painful second Soda had spent agonizing over his feelings for Gundham, every thought he had about being inferior, or gross, or worthless because of it, didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered were Gundham’s arms around him, his lips against his, and the fact that he felt the same.

He loved him. Gundham love him. Even after he had fucked things up so badly.

He could hardly believe it.

He smiled even wider into the kiss.

Their teeth clashed and they both pulled away laughing, and Soda took the opportunity to bury his face into Gundham’s chest. Gundham pressed his nose into Soda’s hair and they both let themselves just enjoy the feeling of holding each other for a moment.

Gundham moves first, kissing Soda’s forehead before pulling back to look at him. Soda sees Jum-P poke his head out of Gundham’s scarf. He chuckles a little.

“So why was Jum-P here anyways? Did you send him to find me or something?” He suddenly remembered Gundham running from him earlier. “And if you sent him to find me, then why’d you run from me earlier? You could have just told me if you wanted to talk.” The words felt a little hypocritical coming from him, but he ignored it for a moment.

Gundham stepped back, grasping his hands as he did, and looked confused.

“I did not send Jum-P after you, nor do I recall absconding from you. I thought that you had found Jum-P and brought him to this beach to console you, but it would seem I was incorrect.”

“You thought I ‘found’ Jum-P? Where the hell would I have found him? He’ always with you or in your cabin.” Gundham didn’t think Soda had broken into his cabin to steal his hamster or something weird like that, right?

Jum-P squeaked at them both from Gundham’s shoulder.

“Ah, I believe I am beginning to understand the situation. You see, earlier today Jum-P disappeared without my knowledge. Once I noticed his absence, I began to worry. Many of the creatures on this island would be worthy foes for Jum-P in his current form, so I set out to find him. It is likely that during my search is when I appeared to have run from you, as I was entirely focus on finding Jum-P.”

That more or less made sense. Soda could easily imagine Gundham being so worried about a missing animal that he didn’t notice someone calling out to him. But still-

“Has he ever run off before? I thought all your Devas were pretty well trained?”

“He has not. I am not sure what caused him to…” He looked down at the squeaking hamster on his shoulder and began to blush. “Ah.”

Soda waited, but Gundham didn’t elaborate.

“Ah? ‘Ah’ what? Why’d he run off?”

“It would appear he was worried…” Gundham looked back at him and squeezed his hand. “About us.”

Us.

Soda liked that. Soda really like that. ‘Us,’ like they were one unit, a set, a couple. They were now, weren’t they?

The voice in his head told them they would have been a couple ages ago if he hadn’t been so stupid, then Gundham smiled at him and tugged his hand, and the voice was gone.

He squeezed Gundham’s hand and they walked back to his cabin in comfortable silence.

–

As they entered Gundham’s cabin, Gundham released his hand and moved to put Jum-P into his cage. Soda just stood back and watched.

Gundham was smiling softly at his hamsters, the rest of the Devas coming to greet him as he opened the enclosure’s door. He could hear Gundham talking to them, thanking Jum-P and scolding him in the same sentence, his low voice coming out soft and quiet. He felt himself smiling, felt that warm feeling swell up in his chest and let it grow, felt it spread through his body as he realized he’d never have to push it back or pretend he didn’t feel it again. He slowly walked to where Gundham was standing and placed hand on his shoulder as he leaned in to kiss his cheek, just because he could.

Gundham closed the door to the Devas’ cage and turned his face to kiss Soda’s lips, before pulling back and looking down at him. They smiled at each other, and Soda could see his own feelings reflected in Gundham’s eyes. He was too happy to wonder how he had never noticed before, he just leaned into it when Gundham bent his head to capture his lips again.

It was slow, their lips moved against each other’s languidly as they held each other close. Soda sighed as Gundham gently sucked his bottom lip and hummed contentedly as he began to slowly part his lips with his tongue. He brought his arms up around Gundham’s neck, pressing their chests against each other as he let Gundham slowly explore his mouth. The arm at his waist tightened as Gundham raised a hand to cradle the back of his head, and he couldn’t help but let out quiet, soft moan as gently scratched his nails across his scalp.

Soda couldn’t help but think nothing had ever felt so right before. He felt safe, standing there in Gundham’s arms, and he felt warm and happy and loved. Nothing was scary in that moment; the opinions of his father, of his friends, of the world, they didn’t matter, they couldn’t touch him when he was feeling this good, couldn’t hurt him when Gundham made him feel so secure.

Gundham parted their lips for a second, the leaned back in for another peck before gently leading Soda to the bed. Gundham sat and Soda stood between his legs, bent down to kiss him again, deep, but still so slow. They were both savoring every moment. Gundham drew him forward, onto the bed, and he sat with his knees on either side of Gundham’s hips, returning his arms to their place around Gundham’s neck, sliding a hand up into his hair this time. Gundham placed his hands on his hips and drew him even closer.

They both drew a sharp breath as their hips met, before returning their mouths to each other’s. Something had shifted, and the pace of the kiss increased. They began to move their hips together, not quite grinding, just slowly dragging their bodies against each other. Soda felt Gundham growing hard as he did, and moaned at the feeling of their mutual arousal.

Gundham shifted his hands down to gently grasp at Soda’s ass, not quite squeezing, just flexing his fingers against him. Soda gasped at the feeling, and Gundham took the opportunity to begin kissing down his chin to his neck. Soda was starting to feel hot, and, as if reading his mind, Gundham reached up to unzip his coveralls. Soda withdrew his arms to shrug out of the sleeves, and pull off his tank top, loving the way Gundham’s eyes ran across his chest and stomach before retuning to his face, eyes still so full of love, but beginning to cloud with lust as well.

He took Gundham’s face in both his hands and tilted his head to kiss him deeply. Gundham pulled his hips down against his own, harder than before, and Soda moaned into the kiss. He slid his hands down to remove Gundham’s scarf and slide off his jacket. Gundham had to remove his hands from Soda’s body to take his jacket off the rest of the way, but he kept moving his hips at the pace Gundham had set, continuing the slow grind as Gundham removed his own shirt as well.

Before Soda could capture his lips again, Gundham leaned in and closed his mouth around one of his nipples, sucking gently while his hands returned to Soda’s ass. Soda let Gundham take control of the rhythm of their hips again as he brought a hand to his mouth and closed his eyes, arching chest forward against Gundham’s lips and losing himself to the feelings of pleasure and love.

It felt so different from the other times they had touched each other, so much more intense, so much more satisfying. He felt overwhelmed in the best possible way.

Gundham shifted, and Soda found himself being laid back onto the bed, Gundham hovering above him. They smiled at each other before their lips met again. It was hungrier this time, they were both breathing harder, sliding their tongues against each other in a way that made Soda blush as he was reminded of the way Gundham’s tongue had felt on his cock. He reached down to cup Gundham’s ass with both his hands and pulled him down till he was lying between his legs, their hips once again flush against each other.

Gundham began grinding down into him and Soda whined at the friction. The angle was so much better now, and he canted his hips up to meet with Gundham’s, slipping his tongue from his mouth to lick up his neck and bite at one of Gundham’s earlobes. Gundham gasped and Soda gave his ass another squeeze, drawing out a real moan from him with it.

He slid his hands around to the front of Gundham’s pants, pushing him back just far enough to undo them. He was surprised when Gundham’s dick sprang forward, unencumbered by underwear, but Gundham reached down to palm him through his jumpsuit before he could comment, and the thought slipped his mind. Gundham moved back to pull Soda’s jumpsuit the rest of the way down, but stumbled as his own pants got caught up around his thighs.

They both laughed, and Soda decided to remove his own clothes while Gundham did the same. Once they were both naked, they stopped, took some time just to appreciate each other’s bodies with their eyes. Gundham broke their trance, leaning forward to grab Soda’s hand and kiss his cheek.

“My beautiful consort.” Soda blushed and squeezed his hand. Beautiful? He wouldn’t have believed the word from anyone else, but Gundham sounded so genuine, and his voice filled him with confidence.

“You’re not half bad yourself, my…” Soda paused. “Huh, I guess I don’t have a name for you yet…”

Gundham smiled and pressed another quick kiss against his lips. He brought a hand back up to Gundham’s ass.

“It may be quite cliché, but I did enjoy when you called me ‘baby’ before.”

“What? When did I do that?” Gundham had laid back down between his legs and was kissing down his neck. He was having a hard time thinking straight, but he couldn’t remember ever calling Gundham something like that.

Gundham chuckled into his neck and reached down to wrap a hand around them both, his own breath catching as Soda moaned.

“When last we laid together.” He licked up his neck. “I believe it was right after you found your release.” Gundham was pumping their dicks together slowly and smirking up at him teasingly. Had he really said that? He knew he had thought about saying it at one point but-

“O-oh. I… I guess I didn’t realize I said it out loud?” He laughed nervously, his gut tightening from embarrassment at the memory of how he had finished way before Gundham.

“Mmm.” Gundham hummed behind his ear. “I thought as much, but I truly did enjoy you using such an affectionate name for me, even if it is a quite common one.”

Gundham silenced whatever response he might have had with his lips, sliding his tongue back into Soda’s mouth. He felt his embarrassment dissipate as Gundham stroked them faster and his mind clouded with pleasure. He squeezed the hand that was still clasped with his. It felt so good having Gundham so close, no clothes between them, bodies and feeling laid bare as they kissed and touched each other freely, but Soda realized he wanted more.

He pulled back from the kiss.

“Gundham?” He had returned to kissing his neck.

“Mm?” He hummed against his neck and squeezed their cock a little tighter, still pumping.

“Ah, Gundham! B-Babe-” He blushed, was Gundham really okay with such a basic pet name? “S-stop, babe.”

Gundham froze and looked up at him with concern.

“Is something-” He pulled him in for another quick kiss, he couldn’t stand the uncertain look on his face.

“I’m good, it’s just…” He had to look away. “Well I was thinking… I mean, if you wanna, like, y-y’know…” He couldn’t say it out loud. He remembered how hot it had been when Gundham had asked him to fuck him, but he just couldn’t make himself be so direct.

Gundham chuckled and leaned in to whisper against is ear.

“You wish to take me again?” He knew Gundham felt the way his dick twitched in his hand, it was just so hot to hear Gundham say things like that, but-

“N-no. Well, kind of? I guess… um?” He kept tripping over his words, too embarrassed to tell him what he really wanted. Gundham pulled back, releasing their cocks in favor of placing a reassuring hand on his cheek. He looked into his eyes, raised their clasped hands to his mouth and kissed Soda’s knuckles.

“What is it you desire, my beloved.” Soda’s chest swelled with emotion at the word, and maybe he started to tear up a bit, but Gundham’s face remained so calm, so open, so loving that he knew he had no reason to be embarrassed.

“I guess I was just thinking… maybe it’d be nice to, um, switch?” He looked into Gundham’s eyes and waited for a sign that he understood. Gundham smiled.

“Are you certain? It can be quite… intense if you are not accustomed to that kind of stimulation.”

“I-I know, I’ve, um, tried it before…” Gundham gave him a questioning look. “J-just a couple days ago, uh, with my fingers?” He couldn’t look at Gundham anymore. “I… thought about you.”

Gundham seemed pleased by the admission, he unclasped their hands and used both of his own to turn Soda’s face back towards him. When he kissed him again Soda noted the renewed hunger in it.

When Gundham pulled back he reached for side table where Soda knew the lube and condoms were. He placed a single condom on the table and set the lube on the bed, before tuning back to continue kissing Soda. It was hot and messy, leaving no room for doubt about whether Gundham wanted him or not, and his cock twitched from the thought. He wrapped his arms around Gundham’s neck again, leaving his body exposed for Gundham to do as he wished.

Gundham slid his hands down, pausing to tease his nipples before sliding down to his hips and around, finally landing on his ass. This time Gundham squeezed, and Soda gasped as he began massaging his cheeks. Gundham lifted Soda’s hips up to meet his and Soda was too distracted by the way their dicks rubbed together to notice Gundham had removed one of his hands from his ass.

Then he felt Gundham’s slick fingers press against his entrance. He instinctively tensed, anticipating the feeling of those fingers sliding into him, but it didn’t come. Gundham just rubbed slow, gentle circles around his hole, shifting his other hand back to Soda’s dick and pumping it loosely. He began to relax again, enjoying the feeling of Gundham teasing him.

But he could only take so much.

Soon he was panting, Gundham pulling back between kisses to admire how desperate he looked, but never moving to give Soda more stimulation.

“Gundham…”He moaned as Gundham nipped at his bottom lip.

“Yes, my love?” ‘My love’, god.

“Please… You can, y’know…” He was really going to have to work on his dirty talk, but he was sure Gundham got the picture.

“I can what?” Gundham was smirking at him. Oh. So he was going to make him say it.

“Y’know, you can, um, start…” He looked away and took a deep breath. He could do this. “Please just fucking finger me.”

“Of course, my love.” Soda wasn’t sure if it was the repeated pet name made his heart beat faster, or the finger that slowly slid into his ass.

“Fuck, Gundham.” He closed his eyes and couldn’t help but buck back against the intrusion. It already felt so much hotter than when he had done it himself, god, he just hoped he could last long enough to get to the real thing.

“Enjoying yourself, my paramour?” Gundham kissed down his neck, stopping this time when he reached his shoulder to bite down and suck at the abused flesh. Soda just let his moans answer for him as Gundham’s finger lightly grazed his prostate.

Gundham continued thrusting his finger into him, stroking his dick all the while, and moving to mark up a new spot on Soda’s neck. He moaned louder as he felt Gundham prod his hole with a second finger, preparing to push it in beside the first.

There was a second of discomfort as it breeched him, but then Gundham was grazing his prostate again and he vision blurred.

“G-Gundham!” He was getting close, he didn’t want to cum yet. “Slow down! P-please, I can’t, ah-”

Gundham paused his movements, allowing Soda to catch his breath.

“I apologize, beloved, I did not anticipate you would be so… receptive to this kind of stimulation.” Gundham was smiling.

“I t-told you I had tried it before.”

“You did not tell me you enjoyed it this much.” Gundham squeezed Soda’s rock-hard cock.

Right, he hadn’t said he enjoyed it, just said he thought of Gundham and assumed the rest was obvious. He needed to stop doing that, he had to start communicating clearly if he wanted this to work. So-

“I liked it so fucking much, i-it was one of the best orgasms I ever had in my life.” He watched as Gundham’s eye’s widened at the admission and saw the way his cock twitched out of the corner of his eye. Oh. Communication is kinda sexy, got it.

Gundham claimed his lips again, wasting no time fucking his tongue into his mouth as he began thrusting his fingers into Soda, harder than before.

Communications is really sexy, then.

Soda tangled a hand into Gundham’s hair, and when they parted he took the opportunity to bring his mouth to Gundham’s neck to leave some marks of his own. He could feel Gundham spreading his fingers inside him, and he bit down at the strange new feeling. Gundham moaned in a mix of pleasure and pain, and he stopped himself before he could draw blood. He pulled back to assess the damage and realized that he definitely needed to leave as many marks on Gundham as he possibly could. It was just too fucking sexy, seeing the imprint of is own teeth on Gundham’s neck. He leaned in to kiss Gundham’s shoulder, marking his next target.

As he distracted himself with marking up Gundham’s neck and shoulders, he felt a third finger begin to slowly work its way inside him. He had to stop and just hold Gundham tight to himself. The stretch was more than he had experienced before, and it felt so fucking good. He opened his mouth to let Gundham know, but then he was thrusting against his prostate again and all Soda could do was moan.

“You’re doing so well my paramour, so well.” Gundham was pressing kisses against his scalp, sounding breathless. Soda hadn’t even been touching his dick, yet Gundham sounded almost as turned on as he was, was he really that into fingering him?

God that’s hot.

But he wanted Gundham to start feeling good for real too.

“B-babe?” It still felt embarrassing to call Gundham that. “I’m.. I’m ready now, so please…”

Gundham removed his hand from Soda’s cock and pushed him back to look at him. He smiled softly, but there was a teasing glint in his eyes.

“Please what?” God he was the worst. Soda loved it.

He wanted to be sexy for Gundham, so he pushed back his embarrassment and locked his gaze with Gundham’s.

“Please f-fuck me.”

He barely had time to berate himself for stuttering before Gundham was pushing him back down against the bed and kissing him. He withdrew his fingers from Soda’s ass, and he whimpered, both from the empty feeling and from the knowledge of what was about to happen.

He heard Gundham feeling around on the bedside table and laughed at the frustrated huff he let out when he had to break to kiss to look at what he was doing. Gundham tried to look annoyed, but ended up smiling back down at him as he opened the condom.

He watched as Gundham rolled the condom onto himself. God he was so big, would Soda really be able to take him? He felt anxiety build up in his chest.

What if he couldn’t do it, he was the one who had asked for this, if he backed out, Gundham would be pissed and-

Soft lips pressed against his and brought him back to the moment. Gundham was stroking his cheek and smiling softly at him.

“It is alright if you have changed you mind.”

“Really?” Gundham kissed him again.

“Of course, my love.” Gundham was still smiling at him. Soda searched his face for signs of disappointment. “We may aid each other in another way if that is your desire.”

Gundham looked entirely sincere as he waited for Soda’s response. Soda felt embarrassed for doubting him in the first place.

“What if… what if I change my mind, like, half-way through?”

“Then we can stop.”

“You won’t be mad?”

Gundham scrunched up his face in disgust, before leaning in to kiss Soda gently once more.

“Of course not. I wish for your pleasure as much as mine, my love. I would never be irate with you for requesting we stop something you are not enjoying.” Gundham stroked his cheek with his thumb and Soda felt himself tearing up. His chest felt like it was going to burst from holding in all his emotions.

“I love you, Gundham.” He smiled up at him. The words were still new, and part of him still feared rejection.

“I love you too, my consort.” Gundham pressed a kiss to his knuckles. He felt all of his doubts wash away.

He could do this, and even if he couldn’t, everything would be okay.

“Okay, I’m ready. For real this time.”

Gundham pressed a quick kiss against his lips before pulling away once more to coat his cock with lube. When he was done he slid his hands down Soda’s sides, over his hips, and under his thighs. He lifted them up and spread them. It was embarrassing how turned on the feeling of being so completely exposed made Soda.

Gundham teased is ass with his finger a little before lining up his cock. He looked back up at Soda, before slowly pushing in.

Soda let out a shaky breath as the head slid in, Gundham was thick, but the stretch felt good. He moaned as Gundham pushed a little deeper and wondered what he had even been worried about in the first place.

Gundham took his time, working his cock in slowly and keeping his eyes on Soda’s face, watching for signs of discomfort, but finding only pleasure. Soda was panting by the time he was halfway in, already starting to buck his hips back into him. It made Gundham chuckle and lean forward to kiss him.

The new angle was even better, and Soda brought his legs up to wrap around Gundham’s waist, trying to pull him in deeper as he moaned into his mouth. Gundham resisted him, refusing to sink in too quickly, but he did speed his shallow thrusts a little, encouraged by his partner’s desperation.

“Gundham, please! More- ah!” Soda wasn’t sure if the hard thrust had been intentional, or if Gundham had lost his restraint for a moment, but if felt so good Soda couldn’t help but beg for more. Gundham swallowed hard before finally pushing forward and burying himself completely inside of Soda.

Soda moaned so loud he was sure the whole island could hear him, and Gundham quieted him with his tongue.

They stayed like that, Gundham fully inside him, holding his hips still with his hands and exploring his mouth with his tongue, for what felt like an eternity. Soda ran his hands up and down Gundham’s back, mapping out the muscles and scratching lightly, making Gundham hum against him. He felt one of Gundham’s hands move from his hip and travel up to find his own, intertwining them and bringing them down to rest next to Soda’s head.

He didn’t break the kiss as he started thrusting. Slow and shallow, practically just grinding himself against Soda with how little he pulled out between thrusts. Soda squeezed his hand and prayed Gundham wouldn’t try to touch his dick, he was already so close, and he wanted to make this last.

Gundham kept things slow, though he did increase the force of his thrusts. His mouth strayed, kissing along Soda’s chin, down his neck, up his cheeks to his forehead, but always returned to his mouth before long. He sped his thrusts just a little and Soda knew he wasn’t going to last.

It was strange, when Soda dreamt of fucking it was always hard and fast, dirty, filled with loud moans and filthy words, yet none of it compared to this. It felt wrong to even call it fucking, the word too obscene to really fit. As Soda felt Gundham’s hand grip tighter around his own and felt his breath ghost over his ear, he thought this must be what people mean when hey call it making love.

He felt so much pleasure, but there was more to it than that. The safety and vulnerability, the acceptance and the rightness of it all made it so much more. He knew he was crying, could feel him self chanting Gundham’s name and broken strings of ‘I love you’, and all of it just felt so good.

Gundham shifted his grip on Soda’s hip and the new angle caused him to pull him in closer, wrapping both his arms and his legs as around him as tightly as he could. Gundham was rubbing so perfectly against his prostate, and with just a few more of those slow, powerful thrusts, he was pushed over the edge.

Soda felt his cum splash against his stomach as Gundham kissed him deeper and slowed his hips. That wasn’t what he wanted. He broke the kiss and begged Gundham to keep going.

“Please, I-I want it Gundham, so please.” Gundham swallowed, before resuming his thrust and leaning forward to whisper against his ear.

“I love you, Soda.”

He felt like he was floating, sated and warm as Gundham thrust into him and whispered his love into his ear. He whispered it back and hey were kissing again, Gundham squeezing his hand as his thrust sped up a final time, before he pushed himself fully inside Soda, moaning against his lips as he came.

Gundham panted against him and Soda kissed along his chin as he caught his breath. Now that he was coming back down from his high he was starting to feel a bit sore, but he’d wait a moment longer to move, wait till Gundham came down too.

Once Gundham’s breathing steadied, he turned his head up to kiss Soda as he slowly pulled out. The action drew a tired moan from them both. After disposing of the condom, Gundham laid beside him, and Soda immediately rolled to his side to wrap an arm around him and rest his head on his chest. Gundham wrapped an arm around him in return and gently kissed his forehead.

Neither of them spoke for a while, both simply enjoying the afterglow. Soda felt sleepy, and wondered if Gundham would be okay with taking a quick nap before dinner.

Dinner. With their friends.

They would know. The second they saw them, massy hair and covered in hickeys, they would know.

Soda’s heart beat faster.

What would they say? Would they force them out? Would they-

Gundham began stroking his hair and pressed a sleepy kiss to his forehead.

“Perhaps we should rest and regain our energy. We may miss the evenings feast, but that may be for the best.”

It was like Gundham read his mind. He just laughed and buried his face into Gundham’s chest as he felt his anxieties melt away once again.

He knew there were plenty of things he would have to face moving forward; his friends, his father, himself, and none of it would be easy. But lying there curled against Gundham and on the brink of falling asleep, he knew he could manage, knew he could face his fears.

“I love you, Gundham.” It was becoming easier and easier to say.

“And I love you, my consort.”

He remembered his thoughts from that afternoon, while he had been reflecting on the nature of his relationship with Gundham, and a question bubbled up in his mind. He was embarrassed, but it would be best to just ask, right? He was trying to get better at clear communication after all…

“Gundham?”

“Mm?” He sounded so close to sleep, Soda looked up and saw him gazing down at him with barely open eyes and a soft smile. God he loved him.

“What’s, um…” Maybe it wasn’t the right time. He should probably just let Gundham sleep.

“What is it, my beloved?” Gundham looked slightly more awake, a touch of concern on his face. Better just ask then, so Gundham could stop worrying.

“Well, it’s just… What’s a consort?”

Gundham’s eyes opened wide as he stared at him. Soda panicked for a moment as Gundham raised a hand to his face to cover his mouth. But then he realized he was laughing.

“W-what?” Gundham was still covering his mouth, but the sounds of laughter were no longer contained. Gundham gave up and kissed Soda’s forehead, laughing openly as he did. Soda tried to put but Gundham’s good mood was contagious and he laughed a little too. “C’mon, just tell me. What’s so funny?”

“It’s nothing, my love, it’s just…” Gundham bent down to kiss him properly on the lips. “This explains quite a lot.” He chuckled to himself again.

Soda was a bit embarrassed, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Gundham was making fun of him for something.

But mostly, he was just happy.

Happy to be able to laugh with Gundham, as they laid naked in bed.

Happy to hold him and be held without having to hide how good it made him feel.

Happy to know he could look forward to many more easy, joy filled moments like this one.

 Happy to finally be with the man he loved.

[akkalatechlabs]

The Rise of Amadeus.

So after some talk with @artisticzaati I’ve decided I’ll post the side storyline that blossomed the most Amadeus art and really shows how he is at his peak. It’s written by him and I but I altered it a bit to make it more... readable for tumblr. You’re welcome!

--

TW: Extreme descriptions of violence and major character death.

--

Ravii awaited at the spot they made the deal at; Fort Hateno. The corrupted king sat upon a decaying guardian, looking up at the clouds slowly moving across the moon. Round and bright... Closing his eyes he listened to everything around him, the crickets, the wind blowing into the hollow guardians... it was honestly, peaceful. Not for long however, once that man step foot on the field, the kingdom was going to fall into his hands. If everything fell into place as he planned, like pawns on a chessboard, he would sweep this land and take it by force. It all depended on one man. The one who better hold his end of the bargain. If he did not show however...

Ravii takes out the locket in his pocket, looking at it. Opening it up it has a simple name in it beside the picture of that man and a woman together: 'Purah.'  

"Purah... Hm.." He closes the locket and shoves it back into his pocket, "I will see you soon it seems." He sighs, hopping off the guardian.  

Robbie, far from Ravii looked down at the new sword hybrid in his hands, swallowing nervously. This was all Ravii wanted and it was over.  

  Simple.  

“... Alright. Alright! Get ahold of yourself...” Robbie whispers to himself.

  (HE IS GOING TO TURN ON YOU.)  

Robbie freezes in place. No... not him. Not now!

“... everything will be alright.” Robbie reassured himself and... the other.

Nodding to himself he walks to Fort Hateno, raising his gaze on Ravii walking away. Robbie inhales and runs over to meet him, breathing heavily.  

“Wh-wait-! I am here, as promised! I... I also brought this, as promised!” He holds out the sword bladesaw combination, looking up at him for a moment then bows his head down, holding up the sword over his head.  

“It is light and swift as a normal sword but when you pull the trigger, it activates the bladesaw part...” He swallows nervously, staring at the ground. He can feel the other's gaze on him. Looking down on him. Burning into him... He hated every moment of it. But he needed to protect Purah and their child from this man at all costs.

"Impressive... you made it pretty quickly too." Ravii raised an eyebrow, taking the sword out of Robbie's hands. He takes out his other sword to compare the two blades carefully. Testing out the weight of each blade. He swings the ancient tech sword, humming to himself. Swings his other sword right after.  

Another amused hum leaves the King.  

"You are quite talented. Never met someone who can craft such weaponry like this before..." He glances at Robbie, seeing his head still bowed, "You impress me." He pulled the trigger and gasped as it went off.  

Immediately Ravii dropped his old sword on the ground to grasp the new blade with both his hands. Swinging it side to side, full force. Turning around he looks at the decaying guardian and swings at one of the legs, immediately cutting through it.  

"It is incredible! Such power..." Ravii smiles and looks at Robbie once more, pulling the trigger to make it stop, using the tip of the blade to lift Robbie's chin to make him look up.  

"You have my trust. All of it."  

  That was no easy feat.  

Sweat dripped on Robbie’s forehead as he looked up at Ravii, forcing out a smile.  

“Of course! It is always a pleasure to create new weapons... this was a difficult one but I did it! It is one of my best...” He slowly stood up, carefully pushing the tip of the sword away with his finger and took a deep breath.  

“Are... Are we done here? I brought you the sword. That is all you asked for, right? Is... is there anything else?” The Sheikah regrets opening his mouth already. He HAD to ask if there was anything else... Careless again.

  ... As always.  

Robbie's expression slowly changes to a grin, crossing his arms and shrugs.  

"Not that I would give you anything else. The sword is all yours now, can I leave, your Majesty or whatever you are.”  

Robbie suddenly snaps out of it, his eyes widen and he covers his mouth.  

“NOT NOW... NOT RIGHT NOW... YOU IDIOT” Robbie thought to himself, directing it to the other.

“ ... M-My apologies I... I...” Robbie swallows nervously. The other one was going to get them both killed at this rate.  

Ravii was taken aback by the sudden expression change of the other. His sudden... tone of voice and atmosphere around him sent the King to a genuine shock.  

"... What did you say to me? Repeat yourself." He aims the sword to Robbie's face, the tip of the blade just mere inches away from nose. Ravii leans closer to Robbie, glaring intensely at him. Eyes sharp as the blade itself.

"Say that again to me." Ravii glared at the Sheikah.

Robbie’s eyes widen as he gazes at the tip of his own creation in from of him. Slowly his eyes travel up to Ravii's face.  

“I... erm, I don't remember. I have this uh, c-condition it's uh... very serious. My brain just mutters weird things and I cannot control it!” This was incredibly unbelievable. Lying was not his best suit, that's for sure. But there was half-truth even with how ridiculous it sounded...  

“K-King Ravii, I apologize if I said anything to trouble you. Please forgive me. I beg of you! I'll make it up to you! Another weapon! Or... or... just...” He had to remain calm, this would go very badly if he screwed it up.

“... Th-the guardians. I'll make you a custom one that only listens to you! I can d-do that! Simple!” Robbie held his head down now, looking at his own legs wobbling from the amount of tension and fear he was facing right now. He felt sick, unstable... as if he could faint right here from the high stress.

"... Such disrespect for me will end up being your end. Do not speak to me again like that." Ravii lifts the blade slightly, tilting it to the side, slicing a bit of Robbie's cheek deeply.  

"... Understood? You are mine. You speak ill towards me and you will face the consequences. I do not care if you were to die, I'll get to you and..." Drawing back, Ravii nods his head up, ordering Robbie to stand.  

"... Purah, was it? If you wish to go against my words or even disrespect me even slightly... her blood will be on your hands. Do you understand me?”

All the color in Robbie’s face drained when he spoke her name... He knew her name.

   He... knew her name.

Purah isn't safe anymore.  

More was at stake now. More than he could handle. He couldn't handle this, he wanted to run far away with Purah for safety...  

Swallowing nervously Robbie stood up, wiping the blood that dripped from the fresh cut on his cheek against the sleeve of his jacket. Smudging the mixture of crimson red and a dark glimmer of black color across his cheek, making a larger mess on his face... His eyebrows furrowed as he hissed in pain between his clenched jaw. Being cut by his own created sword, at least he knew it worked... how ironic was that? Robbie forced a chuckle under his breath at the thought alone. How dare this man make a fool out of his work like this?  

Ravii turns around – his back facing Robbie. His cape gracefully following behind him.

  The symbol of the Triforce was on it... Ravii wore it with pride.  

"Now tell me... these guardians." Ravii spoke, glancing at Robbie with a side glance over his own shoulder, "How can they follow only my orders alone? How do you make them listen to your orders? Is it those ugly things you wear?" Motions his hand to his forehead, speaking of the goggles.  

"They do not work for me when I took them. Why do these 'guardians' only listen to you? What makes such a simple person like you so special?" Ravii spat at Robbie, glaring at the Sheikah. He turns around again, about to grab his collar until ... what was that black on his cheek? Ravii clicks his tongue, quickly inspecting the blood and whatever the black stuff mixed with it was.  

"Are you... even a Sheikah?" Ravii spoke as he scoops a little of it on his finger and rubs it between his index finger and thumb, looking closer.

"What is this? And why does it...burn?" Ravii wipes it on Robbie's jacket, frowning. "Ugh...disgusting. Let us go, you strange individual.... Clean yourself up. I don't want to be seen with such a mess of a person."  

Robbie slowly raises his hand to his cheek, wiping the malice mixed blood onto his hand and his vision starts to blur. Taking a deep breath, he shook his head to gain his focus back.  

“Ah... y-yes. The guardians and I are uh, you see... we are linked by a telepathic force. It took a while to master it but with the help of the ma-... ancient texts, I figured it out. It is a technique only the Sheikah can master. Especially me, since I... I have ancient technology built into me.” Robbie smiled a little as he taps his left temple, showing his burnt-out eye as it flickers for a moment.  

“Without me, they will go haywire. Well, the ones under my control. There are still some that I haven't gotten to save yet... but that aside! If you have me, the guardians will also be on your side!”  

 Maybe with that fact he won't get hurt again, Robbie thought to himself.

“Meaning you lied to me just now, didn't you?" The corrupted king looked down at Robbie, his grip on the handle shaking, twitching... aching to cut the man testing his luck in front of him again.

"So, what is the truth? Can they only listen to you or perhaps... they will listen to me if they see who is stronger? Is that it?" A crooked grin slowly arched on Ravii's face, his expression becoming more twisted before the other's eyes.  

"They just need to see who is the true leader here! The true king! I will guide them... I will guide them all... rushing to get what I deserve. I don't think I even need you anymore..."

Robbie’s eyes widened at the King, “No-! No... I am not lying! If I make it from scratch, I can program it to listen to you. The other ones are harder to do that. I swear! If I were to get hurt or..." Robbie swallows nervously, “...worse, they will target whoever hurt me majorly. A simple cut will not trigger them... but anything more severe? They will all go haywire and out of control searching for whoever hurt or killed me. I would never lie about something like this.” Robbie glances at Ravii's hand clenching the handle as he spoke. He could tell this man was clearly unstable. Worse than Astor, even...  

“I will make you many guardians that listen to your orders! I just need more time! More time... I swear it! Please...  

 ... Please...” 

There was a sob slipping in his voice, Robbie was becoming scared and couldn't hold back anymore. Tears were pooling up as he felt he was begging for his life right now.

Ravii shook his head, laughing.  

"Look at you! The real colors come out when I drop you. You beg for a use again... how humbling... but also incredibly pathetic." Ravii leans down, face to face with Robbie and wipes the tears off the other man's cheeks.  

"Fear not... your actions will not be in vain! I know people like you. You only live to be useful for others. Over and over... but there is always someone better, isn't there? A replacement. Just know... that you will always be in my heart. This senseless vicious cycle will end..."  

Ravii smiled, patting Robbie’s chest where his heart was, "And I'll make sure your dear Purah knows how proud you made the kingdom with your sacrifice..."  

Ravii drew his hand back and with a swift movement, he lunged the blade into the Sheikah's chest, leaning closer to Robbie's ear, smiling widely. "A worthy right-hand man you were."  

Robbie's eyes widen at the sharp pain in his chest, slowly glancing down at his own creation... no...  

   Robbie tries to push Ravii away as he drew closer again to him.  

“... ngh!” Robbie mutters out as his gaze started to blur. No... he can't do this. Everything was blurring.  

  The pain was unbearable.

Ravii pulls the blade out and kicks him onto the ground as he takes the locket out of his own chest pocket, tossing it beside Robbie.  

"As promised... Now then... I have a kingdom to take over and guardians to control. Goodbye, Robbie." Ravii turns on his heel, swinging his sword harshly to whip the blood off his blade as he walks away from the other laying on the ground. Ravii picks up his older sword he dropped from before, placing it back by his hip as he carried the new sword in his hand.  

“Pu...rah...!” Robbie whispers as he lays on the ground. Clenching his teeth, he tries to pull himself up - sharp pain would travel throughout his body with every movement.  

 He cannot let him get Purah. No.. No....

Ravii’s ear twitches as he heard Robbie muttering something under his breath.  

"Purah? Oh, that dear one? I'll take very good care of her. She is a pretty one... Maybe I'll make her MY wife!" The King cackles.  

“...Ra...vii!” Robbie speaks a little louder, making sure the other could hear him.

With his final breath he whistles for the guardians, glaring at Ravii, his eyesight clearing on the other man. Focused. Scanning. Making sure the guardians would destroy him from where he stood. Even with his last breath he would make sure Purah would be safe from this man.  

Ravii, still cackling at the Purah comment suddenly pauses as Robbie whistles. Tilting his head curiously.

Robbie slowly pointed at Ravii as guardians flew over him. Ravii, raising his head glances up at all the guardians flying towards him. 

Ah. This was his chance!  

"Hear me, mechanical beasts! I have defeated your... leader. You must listen to me now-" Robbie cuts him off with his last breath, simple two words that made Ravii freeze up.  

“... destroy.... him!" The Sheikah screamed in pure anger and hatred and dropped. He had no more strength to move anymore.

All the red pointers all focused on Ravii - as much as he adored the attention, he knew this would end badly.  

"... You bastard." Ravii clicks his tongue and takes a deep breath, glancing at the lifeless man across from him.  

"You were telling the truth, huh?" Ravii shakes his head. Sighing, Ravii rushes towards Robbie and skids to a stop, sitting beside him.  

"Shoot me. Your leader here is in shots way... want to hurt him more? Go ahead you idiotic beasts." He glares at the closest skywatcher to him dead center to the eye as he pats Robbie's head, cackling.

"Come on! Do it. Or listen to me..." A smirk arched Ravii’s lips.

The skywatcher scanned Ravii and Robbie beside him. Errors popping up on their side of the screen. Not knowing whether to shoot or not.  

“ . . . (bzzzt) . . . Smart.” That was... Robbie's voice from the guardian? No. It was more glitched than his voice.  

  What was that?

“You are pretty smart for a royal pain in the ass, I'll give you that.”

Robbie's hand suddenly slammed on Ravii's shoulder as he used him to sit up, shaking his head and took a deep inhale and exhaled. That same black ink from before was manifesting by the blade wound.  

Ravii flinches at the sudden hand on his shoulder as if all time stopped, he slowly turns his head, seeing the man he watched just die rise as if nothing happened. Like a phoenix from the ashes, he rises again... but this wasn't the same man.  

No. He could feel the overwhelming power from him. There was something dark within him and it chilled even Ravii - nothing ever made him flinch.  

 Not like this.

“That hurt, you know. I told him you would betray us and he fell right into that one, the idiot.” Laughing 'Robbie' pats Ravii's shoulder, leaning his face in front of Ravii's with a big grin on his face.  

“How dare you kill Robbie! We were just getting along too! But fret not, I'll save him eventually...  

 ... but!

   Until then! It's my turn to shine!” The corrupted Sheikah quickly grabs the hybrid sword he made and stands up fully.  

“Time to rock!” He smiles as he swings the sword by Ravii's face

"What?! How are you still alive?!" Ravii screams and goes to grab his old sword just as the other swipes it from him, swinging it by his face - cutting a few hairs hanging from his forehead.  

He was faster than Ravii in the state. What happened for him to change?

"What do you mean? You speak as if Robbie has died yet you - Robbie - are speaking to me right this moment! Have you gone mad?" Ravii swallows nervously as he jumps to his feet. He draws his old sword from his side, holding it up while watching the other closely.  

"...Just who are you?!" Ravii glares at him, standing his ground now.  

‘Robbie’ laughs and points the sword at Ravii while walking slowly around him, gazing.  

“Finally someone asks! But you of all people...” His grin grows wildly as his stare intensifies.  

“... I am Amadeus. I do not know what I am, but I have a body and mind, anger and passion. Am I alive? Who knows what I truly am. Perhaps I am merely apart of Robbie who was caged for so long... begging to be freed, or someone of my own. Malice with mind and soul of my own somehow? Despite it all...

  ... All I know is I am alive....and that we are one the same - two sides of the same coin. Unlucky for you, you ran out of luck with this flip. And now that I have full control again thanks to you, well...” Amadeus flips the sword in the air and catches it by the handle, snapping his stare at Ravii again.  

“I'm going to make sure you regret threatening Purah into this mess. Robbie begged for her safety and trust. I am not so nice like that.” His head twitches as he glares at Ravii. Thinking for a moment his expression changes, a mischievous grin on his face quickly flashes.  

“I'll be kind, I'll pretend to be Robbie for a moment though, just for fun! How would you like to go? A beam from one of my babies here or a sword into your empty void where your heart is supposed to be like you did with us?”  

Amadeus taps his arm in a ticking rhythm. Grinning still.  

“Tick. Tick. Tick... hurry before I choose for you!”

   ... For once.  

For once in Ravii's entire life, he was speechless and terrified. What WAS this man? No ordinary Sheikah... why didn't he sense that power around him? Did he somehow keep it locked away within him? No... there was no way he could have done that. Ravii shakes his head and glances at the guardians above and the ones quickly scurrying on the horizon. More were coming and he was going to be surrounded - no escape. He had to think quick... Maybe if he struck them like last time, he can kill this "Amadeus" as well...  

"You say you do not know what you are... perhaps I have... no, I truly did underestimate you. If you join me, imagine what we could do together - you and I! You could then discover who or what you are! Don't you realize what you can do? With this... with these..." He raises his hands up, looking at the guardians above them, "... we could take over this kingdom so easily. Just you and I alone!" Ravii was clearly shaking and avoiding the choices of his own execution.  

"We can take over together, Amadeus. You have so much potential... and you are wasting it on me. Why not of grandeur scale?!" He was pointing his sword at him now; his voice was panicked - he couldn't calm himself.  

"Please! I beg of you! Work alongside me!" Ravii’s voice was laced with desperation and fear. He stood, watching the other tilt his head in thought as he screamed and plead for Amadeus to join him.

“Oh, what was that? You beg of me? Wow... doesn't THAT sound familiar or WHAT?  

 Say it again, 

     say it again!” Amadeus cackles, clapping and walks towards him as two guardian stalkers follow him closely.  

“Yeeeow... muuuusic to my ears!” Amadeus grabs Ravii by the front of his cape and with his other hand he loops his sword around Ravii's sword, knocking out of his hand. Amadeus then slams him against the wall, glaring at him.

“Tick TICK...

  Actually, that is too bad... times up.”

“Wh-?!” Ravii winced as Amadeus slammed him against the wall, staring at the corrupted man in horror.

Amadeus tilts his head and pulls the trigger of the sword, making the smaller blades go on, rapidly spinning like the bladesaw.  

“You said you want to see who I am? Want to work with me? Well...  

  ... I made my decision. 

You hurt me twice with my own weapon, now you'll see it's ‘true potential’.”

Just as Ravii did to Robbie - with a quick motion he drives the sword into the corrupted king, not breaking eye contact as he does so. Watching Ravii as all the color on his face drains. Just like he did with them.  

Pulling the trigger again the blades stop and he let's go of the blade, leaving it there lodged in his chest.  

Ravii coughs violently as his eyes widened at the horror in front of him. Not the guardians or even the sword... that man in front of him. Ravii has never felt so much fear in his life. The sword he requested was now in his own chest by the creator himself.  

“I work for no one. If anything, I want to see this kingdom in ruin by my guardians. No kings nor queens, no monarchy... nothing. I don't care.  

  ... Oh, and you can keep the sword. It was made for you after all.”

Ravii’s vision was shaking, blurred... he felt panic, nausea... all at once and suddenly he felt ...

     ... Cold.  

Dropping to the ground he glanced up at the glowing eye of the monster in front of him. No, not the mechanical beasts... that monster he let out of the cage. Amadeus' eye glowing a dark, deep red looking down on him.

Amadeus watches Ravii fall to the ground and his grin only grows wider. It would be the last thing he sees along with the guardians lasers aiming at him. He waves his hand as he picks up Ravii's old sword and walks away.

The fallen king watches Amadeus pick up his sword and walk out of his sight. Now focusing on the red lasers of the guardians.  

Amadeus hum one last word that would be the last thing Ravii hears.  

As if all time stopped, everything was silent.

  “... Boom.”

The guardians fire their beams all at once and the king's scream were drowned out by the loud boom of the beams.  

King Ravii was no more.  

Nothing, nor even the sword was left.  

   Like the kingdoms he left behind.

[the-shy-shrimp]

Well, hello! I am one of your readers from the AO3 and I just wanted to say that I enjoy your lotr related works very much! And since you allow asking for commission, there is one thing I would love to see if you ever felt inspired and that is Elrond Peredhel being hurt in a fight.

Adding in the rest of the ask because this came to me in three parts:

It seems that since he is a healer in most stories it is quite rare for him to get physically hurt – which is understandable of course... But I would love to see that written by you, as you are quite good at portraying this amazing hurt/comfort stories.

The floor is all yours, but maybe it would be nice to see how his family would react to that? Or any Imladris inhabitants. But you know, it’s just an idea, no pressure. Thank you very much! And whether you decide to use this idea or not I hope we will meet in some lotr-related work. Have a nice day! :D (And sorry for sending three asks - I am not used to Tumblr :c)

So here you go! Sorry it took forever, but I made a bad decision (very, very bad) when scheduling an exam that my entire career relied on me passing, so I was pretty brain dead for the two weeks after I got this ask... But here it is! Enjoy!

...

Pain is the first thing that registers when Elrond wakes, pain and the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that comes from fighting for one’s life.

Strange, he can’t remember being in a fight, not recently. Yet here he lays, sprawled out on the floor of his study, exhausted and aching for no clear reason. Attempting to move proves to be unwise, bringing dizziness and nausea with each shift, but the alternative of lying prone until someone finds him seems even more unsavory.

He goes slowly, first turning onto his side as he tries to deduce what has happened. His face and his jaw hurt the most by far, though the rest of his body is not far behind. But his jaw had been tightly clenched for several days now, likely the result of stressing over his third child’s imminent arrival, and so he finds it difficult to relate that symptom with the rest of what he feels. His hands wander over his body in a search for injuries. While he does not discover anything new, he does find his shoulder to be red and hot, the small puncture wound he sustained in a skirmish over a week ago now open and weeping. He groans internally at the finding.

It should have healed long before now, and that knowledge fills his gut with dread. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

The simple act of using the corner of his desk to pull himself upright leaves him shaking, and the idea of forcing himself to walk down the hallway to find Erestor is daunting to say the least. But it must be done. He presses onward, putting one foot in front of the other, desperately clutching whatever furniture seems sturdy enough to lend some support as he shuffles toward the door. Once out in the corridor there would be little to hold onto, unfortunately, but it was only a few yards between the doors to each of their workspaces. He would have to manage.

After fumbling with the doorknob for a moment, he breathes a sigh of relief upon finding the hallway to be entirely empty. The last thing he needs to be gawked at in his present state.

His movements are slow, but determined, as he makes his way along the wall, eventually coming to a stop in front of Erestor’s door. He attempts to knock before entering, but the sound is weak and piteous, barely heard over the sound of his own breathing. He has better luck with the doorknob this time around, and with minimal struggling, he tentatively steps into his friend’s space.

“Elrond? Is something the matter? You don’t look well.”

Erestor is at his desk, several papers in his hands and concern written across his face. He seems to be debating between getting up to rush over, and letting Elrond speak first.

The Peredhel swallows thickly, then gives an almost imperceptible nod, taking one, then two steps beyond the doorway. When he opens his mouth to speak, however, the ache that had thus far been sitting quietly in his jaw crescendos into a roar that races down his neck and back and into each of his limbs as pain engulfs his entire body.

A strangled cry is the only sound he makes, and Erestor’s cursing is the last thing he hears before the world goes dark.

-

“You really are the worst, you know.”

Erestor’s chiding is soft, lacking its usual barbed timbre, and is accompanied by the warm weight of a thick blanket settling over his body. The Peredhel gives him only a quiet sigh in return, blinking until the image of his friend comes into focus. He is not sprawled across the floor of Erestor’s office, as he halfway expected to be, but is instead tucked into a cot in the middle of an unfortunately familiar room. He groans, feeling even worse now than he did before, every muscle in his body wound tight as a bowstring, unable to relax no matter how much he ached.

It doesn’t take more than a minute before Elrond decides that he does not like being the one in the sickbed, and much prefers to stay within his role as a healer.

“Why didn’t you have the wound looked at when you returned? If one of your sons had pulled the same stunt you would have had their head on a platter.”

He can see the poorly veiled concern in Erestor’s expression, creeping through every time Elrond fails to suppress the violent shivers that come in waves almost too intense to bear.

“T-T-T’was only an, an, arrow…”

His voice is weaker, shakier than he would like it to be, stuttering as he tries to keep the shuddering at bay. His advisor only scowls down at him, looking more hurt than angry.

“Yes, only an arrow with a rusted head. If you were fully elven you might have been able to ignore such a detail, but you aren’t, Elrond! Now the poison is already in your blood, and it might just kill you. Andûnél says that it probably won’t, but there is still a chance.”

“I’m s-sure I’ll, I’ll be f-f-fine.”

Erestor leaps to his feet at that, sending the stool he had previously occupied flying back to clatter against the floor.

“Fine? You think this is fine? You cannot take risks with your life like this! What if you don’t make it, hm? Everyone in this valley depends on you, son of Eärendil. Your family depends on you. What if this is what does it? Would you leave your children to grow up fatherless, leave your people leaderless? You are all we have left, Elrond. They don’t have a high king to follow anymore, no one is going to step in and take care of things if you perish.”

He turns on his heel, disgust written on his face as he slams the door shut behind him.

Silence descends on the tiny room, and Elrond finds himself whimpering as the next wave of shivering hits him full force. He knows he isn’t alone, not truly. Someone will be around to check on him eventually. But for the moment he cannot help but feel abandoned. He wants Erestor to come back, but he will need time to sulk. He wants Celebrían, but he knows she won’t be back in Imladris for another week. Perhaps shamefully, he finds he wants Maglor most of all.

Maglor who had done his best in spite of circumstance, who made sure their needs were provided for. Maglor who held him when the tears didn’t seem to have an end. Maglor who sat with him late in the night when sleep wouldn’t come because of nightmares or insomnia or the disturbances that had come when his foresight finally began to manifest. Maglor who was the closest thing to a father he had ever really had.

It wasn’t until Andûnél knocked and entered that he realized there were tears in his eyes.

“Now, now, none of that.”

She sighs softly and dabs at the wet spots on his cheeks before anything else. He is grateful for the way her touches are nothing short of professional, devoid of the almost motherly tenderness they held when he and Elros were just young things being brought to her with scraped knees and sprains and broken bones. He already feels small and broken enough without being coddled.

Was it because Erestor had yelled at him? Probably. Being reminded of everything, everyone, that relied on him had left him feeling grossly inadequate. There was no high king. No one was around to supervise him and yank him out of his stupidity anymore. Ereinion couldn’t come to his rescue. Galadriel might, but not because she actually cared for him. She would come out of responsibility, and likely regret allowing her daughter to marry him as a result. Just a stupid, half-blooded fool who managed to survive long enough to reproduce in spite of his own idiocy—

“Elrond? Look at me, Elrond.”

He hiccups twice while trying to blink away the tears, and it takes several more minutes of dabbing at his eyes before he can actually see her face as more than just a wet blur.

“That’s better. Now, are you weeping because you are in pain, or because you are upset?”

“Pain.”

The single syllable is rasped out, barely louder than a whisper. The look in her eyes tells him that she knows he is lying, or at least telling only half the truth. Maybe the pain was a part of it, but Andûnél clearly knew it was just as likely a combination of the two.

“Alright. I can do something about that, at least.”

She leaves his line of sight immediately. If his neck didn’t ache so badly he might have tried to watch her, but he could barely move at all with how tense he was. He settles for staring at the ceiling and trying to breathe evenly. At least he could hear her moving about the room, and so he knew she hadn’t left him. Not like Erestor had.

Another whine escapes him at the thought.

“Hold on, I’m coming.”

He doesn’t get the chance to feel any more sorry for himself before she pries his lips apart and sticks a dropper full of bitter medicine in his mouth. It tastes foul, as all her tinctures do, but it works quickly, dulling the ache in a matter of only a few tense minutes, and for that he is grateful.

“Better?”

“Better.”

Elrond sighs, relaxing against the bed beneath him as the pain is driven back for the moment. He hadn’t noticed just how much the tension in his body was bothering him a moment ago, but with it now under control, its absence leaves him feeling weak and jittery.

“Unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do outside of managing the pain that comes with the muscle spasms.”

Andûnél’s voice feels far away, even if vaguely registers that she now sits beside him in the stool Erestor had previously discarded. She smiles down at him, looking tired above all else.

“There isn’t an antidote or any effective treatment for it. You’ll just have to wait it out until your body rids itself of the toxin.”

The idea sits poorly with him, although there isn’t anything he can do to change things, not now. The healer is quick to remind him, of course, that had he gotten the wound treated sooner, properly cleaned and bandaged as it should have been, he might have avoided this unpleasantness altogether. She says he ought to know better, and he knows she is right. But she takes his silence as exhaustion rather than the moping that it is, and mutters something about the two of them being the sole purpose someone came up with the adage that “healers make the worst patients” before tucking another blanket around him and getting up to leave.

“I will send Camaenor in to sit with you while I take care of some other things that need my attention. He will probably be so engrossed in whatever book he brings with him that you’ll hardly notice him, but at least he’ll be present if you need him.”

Elrond is asleep not long after Andûnél latches the door behind her, snatching up what sleep he can while he has the option. He’s seen this sickness before, in mortals wounded by pieces of old metal, and he knows that it is likely to get worse before it gets better.

When it does get worse, either Andûnél or her reedy apprentice are always present, ready and waiting with another draught for the pain and muscle spasms that make his limbs cramp and his back arch off the bed. The Peredhel is grateful that it is only the two of them who see him like this. Not that he doesn’t trust the discretion of the other healers, but he knows that Andûnél will not gossip, and Camaenor has been so absorbed in his studies that he is likely to follow his master’s trend.

The days all blend together, a cycle of sleeping until he is awoken by excruciating pain and downing more medicine until he can once again rest comfortably. More than once he wakes in the dead of night, due not to the constant muscle contractions, but instead because the apprentice perched nearby is struggling with his reading, stumbling over some new term or another and attempting to sound it out.

The first time this happens, it leaves Elrond confused and disoriented, wondering if the apprentice is trying to speak to him and his brain is simply failing to interpret the words. Eventually though, after hearing several similar sounding terms in a row, he realizes what is happening, and rasps out an answer.

“Parenchyma.”

Camaenor nearly jumps out of his skin when his charge suddenly speaks, but quickly recovers and nods his thanks before asking if he would like some water, or if he was in pain. Elrond decides then that the boy will make a good healer, someday, and resolves to help him study during his precious moments of wakefulness and clarity. It is the least he can do.

He loses track of how many days and nights he’s been bedridden, knowing only that it has been long enough for him to grow tired of it. The only break in routine comes when Erestor returns to his previous position, constructing a nest of bookwork at Elrond’s bedside to keep himself busy while he sits with him. He says nothing of the outburst that resulted in his several-days-long absence, but instead chatters on about all the things going on in the valley that he’s missed since this all started. Profit margins for new trade routes. Personal correspondences that need attention. Setbacks in planting a new section of the orchard.

His chief advisor says nothing of Celebrían’s whereabouts, and so he assumes that she has either not been informed of his current state or has chosen to remain with her parents until this has all blown over. Part of him hopes for the former. This pregnancy has already been hard enough for her, and it has only just begun. She doesn’t need the added stress.

It comes as a surprise, then, when the soft morning light brings him toward wakefulness and he is assailed not by the whole-body ache he has come to expect, but by the soft velvet of her lips on his. He sighs, thinking it must only be the remnants of some very pleasant dream, but the gentle brush of her fingertips over his eyelids tells him otherwise.

“Wake up, my love.”

A weak smile finds its way to his face, the first in days, as he slowly pries his eyes open. His silver queen is waiting for him, her soft expression framed by the wild platinum curls of her unbound hair. She kisses him again, more fiercely this time, and though his attempts at reciprocating are sloppy at best, it still fills his heart with joy.

They still cling to each other, even after Celebrían finally stops nibbling at his lower lip and stretches out on the bed beside her husband. Neither of them says a word about what happened, about what Elrond has suffered through in the past week, or about the fact that they are celebrating their reunion here instead of the quiet intimacy of their bedroom. None of it matters, though, at least not to the Peredhel.

The presence of his beloved is like a balm on his aching soul, and in her strong arms he is reminded of what it feels like to belong and be loved. He sighs, burying his nose in the tangled nest of her hair and breathing in the scent that is undeniably hers, causing her to giggle and throw her arm over his bared chest and drag him closer.

“I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.”

[ceescedasticity]

director’s commentary

Dammit, tumblr, why much you make everything difficult.

Anonymous: Director’s commentary: Chapter four of Echoes in the Void, the conversation after they have to leave the Metaverse?

Oooooh, yes. This. Actually I think I’ll include a little earlier, too…

To recap, Goro started second term at Jikken, where the “evaluation period” was over and things were getting nasty/weird. The second day they held him after school and made him run laps after he reflexively tried to headbutt someone who got in his face; the third day they wanted to know why he wasn’t showing interest in any girls, and he made a cutting remark about their interest in the sexuality of fifteen-year-olds being creepy, and they made him run laps with no shoes, resulting in badly abraded feet.

This probably explained the bastinado rumors, anyway. Those had been rather implausible.

Goro wondered, distantly, whether it was a second offense thing, or they actually found mouthing off more of a problem than attempted head-butts. That seemed like the sort of thing they really ought to explain.

The punishments Jikken is dealing out are completely unreasonable, but their prioritizing of offenses actually isn’t completely illogical. The attempted headbutt was because his instincts felt physically threatened and there was no choice or thinking about it involved. He knew it was a bad idea to make a nasty remark and did anyway. Therefore the second is a worse offense. And they definitely should have explained this.

Afterwards the school nurse was standing by to carefully clean the scrapes and apply antibiotics and bandages and lecture him about taking proper care of the injury.

Idk how many of my Start Again readers read my ‘Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind’ Homestuck fic? Jikken wants to be the goblins. They have all the bad ideas of the goblins about Fixing People, but they’re bad at it.

He couldn’t say what he thought about that. He must not say what he thought about that. Lashing out would make things even worse. Just smile. Just thank her. Just smile.

He was dissociating at least a little to deal with the pain, but having to act grateful about it is what pushed him over the edge into a prolonged episode. He’s done this before – locked himself away behind what is supposed to be Pleasant Goro, but… isn’t, exactly.

Afterwards he wasn’t hungry, so he skipped dinner. No one at the group home asked why he was limping. (Was he even limping? Both feet were equally injured, it wasn’t like he wanted to favor one of them.) His roommates noticed the bandages when he took off his slippers before bed.

“Fuck, look at pretty boy’s feet.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Ask him.”

“You ask him, he’s doing the psycho smile again.”

Goro tries to keep up Pleasant Goro appearances with the group home supervisors, but is really inconsistent about it with his roommates. They therefore both scorn him for being a pretty-boy suck-up and are kinda afraid of him for being vicious if you cross him. They generally don’t mess with him when there’s any chance he’d catch them at it.

(He dreamed blurrily of smiling, smiling as blood ran down the face of the first person he’d felt a connection to since—)

Canon!Akechi wasn’t dissociating the entire time, or for every murder, but that was how he dealt with Shido, and that was how he dealt with killing the closest thing he had to a friend.

The smile stayed in place the whole next day of school, too, through his math teacher accusing him of not paying attention and grilling him on properties of cotangents. It even stayed in place through the nurse checking on his feet and reprimanding him for not changing the bandages himself. But besides that mild scolding he wasn’t in trouble today, so he didn’t have to stay after. Good.

I wrote this and I’m still kind of shocked by the gall they have to scold him about not changing the bandages.

When he met Noir and Niijima — Noir and Queen, she was Queen in the Metaverse — outside the laboratory, Noir put a hand on Queen’s shoulder. “Crow?”

“Yes?”

“Are you… all right?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

Haru is seeing a lot more of Future Akechi than she ever has before and is on high alert.

It was good to get back to work. Good to solve a puzzle lock with perfectly well-remembered properties of cotangents. When there turned out to be a Battle Fiend waiting behind the door, good to tear its fucking face off—

“What in—”

“Crow! Stand down!”

—with his bare hands it could just die make something else bleed—

The Shadow melted away into nothing, and he slammed a fist on the floor. And again. And again. And again, because at least he could feel it his face was about going numb—

From an outside perspective Goro just went from creepy plastic smile to berserker rage with zero warning. Haru isn’t as shocked as she might be because she knew the creepy plastic smile wasn’t good and she knew what Akechi was capable of, but she still wasn’t expecting attacking a Shadow with his bare hands.

“Amrita drop!”

Goro jolted. Stilled.

Probably Makoto suggested the Amrita drop, because it sure looks like a status effect, and Haru thought it was worth a try. Why did it work, when it wasn’t actually caused by a spell? Maybe because it basically was a status effect? Who knows, cognition is weird.

His hand hurt. His feet hurt. His face hurt. His mask was completely blocking his peripheral vision.

The more isolated and closed-off he is, the more his mask looks like a helmet.

“Did that work?” Queen asked anxiously, somewhere behind him. “If it wasn’t a spell that caused it—”

“I don’t know, I’ve never— Now he’s hyperventilating.”

“No I’m not,” Goro said, or at least tried to. It came out garbled and wheezy.

“I’m going to—”

“Yes, good idea.”

The hallway blurred around him, and then they were outside the Palace. Goho-M.

“Crow?” Noir said. “We’re going back to the real world, and then we’re going to want to move fairly quickly. Is it safe for Queen to take your arm?”

Okay, this is back to the volatile but human Goro who Haru has  known since coming back in time, and in clear distress. She still wants  to know what the fuck just happened, but she knows who she’s dealing with, now. …And she knows that who she’s dealing with is someone you don’t touch without warning if you can avoid it.

Goro tried to get his breathing under control. “Just. Just a. Minute.” Sit on the ground. Knees up. Head between his knees. Breathe. “Just a minute.”

They gave him the minute.

How novel.

Not sure this needs to be commentary since it’s basically text, but he is not used to people listening to him about his mental/emotional needs.

“All right,” Goro said finally. “Just — slowly.”

Queen did indeed move slowly enough that it didn’t set off any panic responses, and carefully helped him to his feet. “Where are we going to go to talk about this?” she hissed, presumably at Noir. “Should we have gone to a safe room instead?”

“No, I don’t think being in the Metaverse is doing him any good right now,” Noir replied. “I’ve noticed a park about two blocks south — there’s a picnic shelter which shouldn’t be visible from the street. We can talk there.”

Oh joy.

Maybe he could run away instead.

He probably wouldn’t have run away even if he could have, he’s too invested in this group by now, and he trusts them more than anyone else, but he would’ve been tempted. He really doesn’t want to talk about this.

It turned out he could not, in fact, run away, as the second they returned to the real world the distant throbbing in his feet turned to raw agony, and his knees buckled for a second. Niijima had to support him. She didn’t, mercifully, offer to try to carry him.

“Is there something wrong with his—?”

“I guess so, come on, we’ll ask about that, too—”

Goro stared at the sidewalk as they walked and tried not to wonder what they wanted to talk about, exactly. Instead he wondered if it was sweat or blood making the bandages feel damp. It could be sweat. But if it was blood, and he bled through his socks… he hadn’t budgeted for new shoes, this could be a problem.

He’s not exactly dissociating at this point, but he’s not exactly fully engaged with his surroundings, either. Although having to buy new shoes WOULD be a problem for him, so the tangent isn’t out of nowhere.

So when they reached the picnic shelter, he sat down and started taking his shoes off without prompting. “I may need to ask one of you to get me some plastic bags… Good.” It looked like only traces of blood had penetrated the socks, so his shoes were safe. “But I will need some plastic bags. And bandages…”

There was a rather loaded silence.

“What. Happened,” Noir said.

They were not expecting to see blood. Real-world injuries isn’t something either of them has had to deal with a lot.

There was probably some way to avoid the question, but— “Running laps. Without shoes.”

“Without— Does that happen often?” Niijima demanded.

“It can’t be that often per student or people’s feet would toughen up,” Goro said. “I don’t know. Often enough that they sterilize the track frequently, I think.”

“That’s barbaric.”

“Agreed,” Noir said. “But considering we did already see the principal’s cognitions of the teachers vivisecting cognitions of the students, it’s not… unexpected.”

“It’s not unexpected,” Goro agreed.

“What was unexpected was your showing up smiling like some sort of, of creepy talk show host, and then killing a Shadow with your bare hands, in some sort of… something that Amrita Drop apparently brought you out of. I was not expecting that.” Noir crossed her arms, and looked at him. Expectantly.

Aaaaaaand Haru has decided it’s going to be necessary to get him out of  that school. Because what the fuck. That’s not normal. That’s not even  your standard unacceptable physical discipline, that’s – what the fuck.  And clearly it’s bad for Goro in particular, because he still scared  her with his Future Akechi impression. Let’s get some answers about that  part; the school isn’t as much of a priority because she will remove it from the equation.

…Yeah, it had probably been too much to hope for that that would go unremarked. “That… I wasn't… I wasn’t planning on that. It just… happens sometimes.”

“Happens sometimes?” Noir said incredulously.

“Like… spontaneously?” Niijima asked.

And what a liability he’d be if it did. “Not… exactly. Do you know — I know you know, Noir — how sometimes you have to do something you don’t want to, but you also can’t let on that you don’t want to?” Niijima probably did, too, to a lesser extent.

“Yes…”

I’m not sure whether Goro has never encountered the concept of dissociation or if he refuses to connect it with his PERFECTLY HEALTHY COPING STRATEGY, SHUT UP, IT WORKS.

“Well, there's… a sort of… Sometimes I can… really hit my stride, I guess. Get so it gets easier to just… keep what I’m feeling separate. Keep me separate.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “So that’s good, but then sometimes — not often! — it sort of… overloads. And the overloads are worse in the Metaverse, for whatever reason.”

The purpose of Dissociation Goro is doing things necessary for his   goals/purposes that Regular Goro does not want to do or finds too   difficult. By ‘overloads’, he mostly means that sometimes Dissociation Goro apparently loses track of the goals and priorities of Regular Goro, and ends up doing unnecessary things.

“Probably the lack of consequences,” Noir said dryly.

“If my subconscious is counting on a lack of consequences for physically tackling Shadows, I’d like a few words with it.”

“…Point.”

It’s mostly that the cognitive world, with its Personas and Shadows running around, already his one’s consciousness a little more spread out than normal; it’s easier for the dissociation driver to get accidentally wired to input from the id or the intrusive thought generator.

“But if it originated in the real world, why did Amrita Drop work?” Niijima wondered. “Did it just shock you out of it? Is it because the… ailment was cognitive to start with?”

Goro shrugged again. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t have expected it to work.”

“Well, it’s good that it did,” Noir said. “Still, it would be better for it not to come up.”

“I'll… I agree, and. And I can try.”

I’m not 100% sure how he’s planning to try, here, without a strategy to get out of Jikken. Dissociation is still an important part of his toolbox of 500 variously functional coping mechanisms. But he doesn’t like going off the rails like that, he really relies on his self-control, and he agrees it’s not a good thing.

[tsar3na]

Sunrise and Dusk

Fandom: Festival di Sanremo RPF (Amadello) Words: 1682 Notes: This was a fanfic I’ve been working on for a while and debating whether or not to post about it on Tumblr. But I guess I’ve done this sort of thing before so I bit the bullet and did it anyway. It was supposed to be a one-shot but my planning decided to go to more than ten chapters so there’s that. For now, I’ll post the first chapter here then the rest on Archive of Our Own so please support me there, thank you. Ao3 link: [here]

i - Mattina

Days have been a blur for years. Things had a harmonious monotony to them. Fiorello will wake up at 6am, always on time, by an old flip-phone. Take time to say his morning prayers. Clean his body and think of the day ahead. When he doesn’t have a service in the morning, a hot coffee and bread roll can rejuvenate him until lunch. After cleaning his plates, he chooses from a selection of plain polo shirts or turtlenecks paired with smart trousers and shoes. 

A small brown and white cat would leap onto his balcony at the dot and of course, Fiorello will take a can of tuna and give it all to her. Once done, he cycles to the church, passing by the numerous buildings, towards the open market closeby. He’s usually the first to arrive so he’s responsible for opening the church and doing light cleaning inside and out. He is not quite a priest - all he does is officework from paperwork to phone calls asking for visits. Yet he’s an integral part of the church, going around the community and volunteering just for a simple “Grazie”.

Around the afternoon, he goes gets ingredients for dinner and catches up to fellow friends along the way. Then he heads home, looking back at the sun crack its warm tones around the sky as it starts to settle. His food is also simple, perhaps saving some for the next day. For entertainment, he opens an old TV and catches up on current affairs. At exactly half past 10 is he ready for bed, ready to wake up the next day and do this all over again.

Rarely does this ever change.

He never suspects a surprise package, or a phone call from a stranger announcing a journey he has been requested to join. His family hasn’t spoken to him for years, not even knowing of the new leaf he has turned. In his youth, he has fallen in love but he’d never reciprocate the feelings in return, so unlikely that he’ll suddenly fall in love again. Was it boring? He didn’t think so. But sometimes, when he looks out, he sees life in people’s windows. Of family, of joy, of tears, of life. Yet he can’t complain, he thinks, as others have had it worse. He has had it worse. Compared to what had used to happen, this was just but a dream. Now in his growing ages, perhaps a man was ready to settle down. Still, he can’t always escape the past he had buried and lied about, a past in which no one knew his name. If only something had happened, something breathtaking that was fresh, unexpected, beyond something that will challenge his whole philosophy.

Nevertheless the alarm rings at 6am.

Thursday morning was looking to be cloudy but break skies before noon. His radio played classic tunes from his childhood as the cat purred on his patio table. Fiorello wanted to change something hence buying a new brand of tuna for her. The cat didn’t have any markings relating to an owner, so he baptised her with the name Ciuri. Sometimes he would joke to himself that she is more akin to a partner or a child, masking some sort of looming insecurity. His phone rang. That was odd - there was barely anyone that he had given his number to. Must be serious.

“Hello? This is Rosario speaking.” he answered.

“Ah, I’m glad I got the right one this time.” the voice on the other line cheered, “Listen it’s Roberto. I’m calling you because there seemed to be a leak in the church. Small leak. Very small. It’s flooding the floor. Okay, big leak. Very large.”

“Oh my goodness, really? Are you okay? Is everything safe?”

“Yes, yes, we saved the important bits. And don’t worry, your area isn’t affected. But the altar and nave are badly flooded so I had to close the church for a while.”

“Oh dear…”

“Emergency closing, I do not know when it will be open again.”

He paced up and down his small kitchen, his anxiety growing, “When will it be fixed? Do we have the funds? Last time I checked, we might but I don’t know if this one we can handle.”

“Don’t worry about all this, I’ve talked to the local offices and they should help us. Listen all you need to do is relax for a few days, get some sun. You’ll know when everything will be back to normal.”

The anxiety immediately turned into panic; “Wait, hold on, what do you mean? I don’t know what to do!”

Beep.

Suddenly his plans have been ruined. Fiorello was about to cycle to work but I guess he has no work to even go to now. This sort of disruption never once came into his mind. Since taking on the job, he refuses to take days off. Even when ill, he would try to march in at least before being sent back to rest. He had never prepared what he might do for a day of just himself. “Okay relax, we can do this.” he thought and very much not relaxing. Ciuri meowed for food. At least this he knew what to do.

He moved from Catania around 25, 26 years ago yet only a handful of times has he really travelled around the village. He had to stay in Sicily, there was no chance he would return and work in the cities further on. The place had a charm to it, powered by the people around. Its history of medieval architecture made it a hotbed for tourists, but during the colder months they were little to none. When he first settled in, he had made a crude list of places he would have liked to go to but never did. Today, he grabs that paper from the cupboard he refuses to touch and was thankful his list was fairly short:

Meet and befriend a stranger

Do something new

That’s it

Even looking at two simple tasks, he was already discouraged. Obviously he has done it before with colleagues and neighbours, but it’s been years since he has made a connection with someone brand new. The rest seemed like dreamy bullshit he thought of as a teen when he decided he wanted to get married to his 3rd highschool sweetheart.

No time is best to break his normal life than now. He waved Ciuri goodbye and headed off with his trusted bike.

To start this new thought of life, he veered from his typical path and into the idyllic green landscape. The views were always spectacular from his window but it was a whole other feeling viewing it from below. Waves of flora stretched as far as the eye can see, scattered with farm animals and a fence or two. The air was getting warmer as the morning began to settle in. He felt the breeze through his body, whispering to him thoughts of change. Maybe tomorrow he will cycle through that path, or he can slow down there and see what was inside the tree. It never felt so good making these small and insignificant choices. Or even trying to make sure his bicycle does not suddenly collide with the parked car just metres ahead of him. If his eyes were closed at the moment, he would be doing one impressive front flip and crashing down onto the dirt. Thankfully screaming seemed to have alerted Fiorello and prevented any sort of trip to the hospital from happening. The man near the car seemed worried, no surprise, and kept asking if he was okay.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” Fiorello kept yelling out. “I just, I usually don’t expect cars here, and I was not paying proper attention so I nearly dented your car.”

“Ahh well nothing you can do about it. This old thing has been through so much not even a hammer can stop it from moving.” the stranger boasted.

This man was someone he had never seen before. His clothing screamed tryhard to look younger than he is and the hat casted a nice shadow over it. Without being rude, all Fiorello can tell was his large nose and fox-like eyes. Seemed to be around his age too, albeit maybe showing more signs of wear and tear. As he kept waffling on about his car, all he could look at was how he had a certain smile on his face. It was mesmerising to say the least.

“Anyway so I got lost and tried to find some signal but couldn’t and then you nearly got killed. And now we’re talking.” Wait was he dazing off. He didn’t notice how he kept going on. “Mind giving me some help then? Hotel or something similar. You can hop in if you point to me around.”

“Of course, I don’t mind. What about my bicycle?” he asked, getting back into reality.

“You can just throw that in the back, I don’t care.” They both got in the car as the man started to ignite the engine and Fiorello tried his best to shove the wheels in as best as he could.

“By the way, I haven’t caught your name. Are you a local?”

“I’m Rosario Fiorello. And you?”

He shook his hand briefly. “Amedeo Sebastiani. Most people just call me Amadeus. Intercontinental reporter.” and started to drive.

“A reporter? Nothing that interesting ever happens around here. Nothing that you could notice from the outside anyway. So, what is your intention?”

“I’m mainly here on holiday. I run a travel blog and I’m just wanting to tell my readers some quaint spots around Sicily. It’s kind of embarrassing, I’m a traveller that gets lost a lot so you can see why I say I’m a reporter first. Anyways...”

“That’s interesting.” he glanced then looked out the window. Amadeus did not stop talking for the whole ride. Only now came in his mind why he let himself in a stranger's car. But he guessed, considering the man’s excitement, he’ll be staying around for a while.

[therainroguefanfiction]

❉ 139 Dreams (Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu) Memory

📑 Table of Contents

Genre: Fluff, Slice of Life, Friendship, Angst, Drama ☁

Word Count: 4,826 ☁

Pairing: Reader x Tetsutetsu ☁

World: Boku no Hero Academia ☁

Author’s Note: First time writing for Tetsu and he’s probably so out of character haha I don’t know why, but it was so hard to focus on writing this and I’m not sure if it was the fic doing it or just because I can’t focus on one thing for more than two seconds (thanks tumblr). But I powered through and I think the ending is okay?? Either way, enjoy nearly 5,000 words of Tetsu pft Oh, by the way, I cried working on the middle so good luck.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁

Your earliest memory that you could recall was about Tetsutetsu, standing over you with a curious expression on his chubby cheeks. It was the height of summer, cicadas singing without pause as the sun beamed down with angry rays of heat. You hated the summer, but your mother was tired of you spending all your free time on the computer, so she ordered you outside to get some exercise. And at the age of six, who were you to argue? Plus, she threatened to cut the internet cord if you didn’t so so, which was a big motivator.

This boy, with his mop of silver hair and black eyes, teeth as sharp as a razor and eyes lined with tan-colored spikes, had seen you fall dramatically to the grass and had rushed over to make sure you were not injured. Screaming in your face admittedly wasn’t the best way to approach someone that might be injured, but his worry touched your heart, even if you didn’t realize it at the time.

As the two of you sat there, talking about all of the things you both enjoyed or couldn’t stand, time quickly ticked by and, before you knew it, the sun was hiding behind the mountains in the distance. You had, surprisingly, completely forgotten about the internet and the anime you had been binging that morning.

When he noticed the darkness quickly setting in, he stood up and offered you his hand. “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”

“Sure,” your hand slid into his own and he pulled you up with little effort, but he didn’t release your hand, nor did you try to pull away. “Ne, what’s your name? Mine is Y/N.”

He grinned widely, his shark-like teeth glinting under the light of the streetlamp. “My name’s Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu! Remember it, because I’m gonna be a pro-hero!”

You honestly didn’t know how to feel, unable to wrap your young mind around how a parent could doom their child with such a name. Did his family hate him? Was it some sort of dare gone wrong? As badly as you wanted to ask him about it, you thought it rude to do so. “Thanks for walking me home, future hero.”

Before you could pull your hand away, he increased his grip. “Can we hang out tomorrow, too?”

You considered this for a moment before nodding, offering him a grin. “Sure!”

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁

The second memory that sprang to your mind took place when you were just twelve years old. Spring was coming to a close and you had decided to confess your feelings for your classmate, Yui. The pink-haired boy was your first crush and your first heartbreak, and you had made the mistake of confessing to him during lunch, surrounded by your peers.

It didn’t go well.

“I’m sorry, Y/N, but -”

“He would never like you!” Yua, his twin sister, forced herself between the two of you, her loud voice drawing the attention of the other students. “You’re too ugly for him and you look like a hippo! Hippo Y/N, hippo Y/N!”

Tears stung at your eyes as you looked to Yui, waiting for him to stick up for you, but he only turned his head away, eyes cast toward the ground. The other students soon joined Yua in her teasing.

“Hippo Y/N! Hippo Y/N! Hippo Y/N!”

Your sneakers squeaked across the floor as you ran toward the door, tears blurring your vision. Your nearly ran into Tetsu and his friend as they entered the lunchroom, but you dodged his hands when he tried to reach for you. His brow furrowed in confusion as he stared at your retreating form. Why were you crying? And then he heard the other kids chanting and laughing. As badly as he wanted to yell at Yua, who was clearly the mastermind, you were his top priority. He had to make sure you were okay, but… where had you gone?

The roof was off-limits to the students because of how rusted the railing was, so the doors were kept locked. That meant nothing to you, though, as your quirk, Key, was able to easily bypass this. It was a fairly simple quirk that allowed you to create a key for any lock you touched, but it disappeared after use.

The janitor had left the door unlocked once, allowing a group of girls to skip class by hiding out on the roof. When the staff found out about this, the janitor was fired and the girls received a month of detention each. Since then, the roof has remained unused, no one wanting to risk spending a month with Jamison-sensei. The place was perfect for you to hide away from the other students.

You headed to the far side of the roof, sliding down the side of the metal air conditioning unit, the fan whirring loudly. The sound helped to block out the sound of your sobs, though you did try to muffle them by stuffing your face against your knees.

Tetsu was panicking as he ran through the school, trying to find his best friend, but you were nowhere in sight. As he rounded the corner, he suddenly came to a stop, spying the thin staircase that led directly to the roof. Something compelled him forward and he raced up the stairs without a second thought. Though the door was closed tight, his eyes just barely caught sight of the gray dust left behind in the lock from your quirk – a fine, barely visible powder.

He pushed the door open, the metal creaking loudly. A choked sob reached his ears, making his heart seize painfully as he followed the sound, finding you curled up within yourself, body shaking. The sight left him feeling a pain he had never before felt and he didn’t hesitate to throw his arms around you, whispering softly into your ear as you clung to his shirt as if your life depended on it.

It took a couple of days before you were back to your normal self, and you were surprised that the other kids weren’t still teasing you. While you assumed they had just gotten bored and moved on, the truth was that Tetsu had yelled at anyone he found to be making fun of you, threatening to pound them senseless if they didn’t stop.

You didn’t need to know that.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁

You never wanted to be a hero. Really, there wasn’t anything that you wanted for the future, you were just kind of living life and enjoying your youth by binge-watching anime. Maybe you could be a video game designer? Or perhaps you could get a job at the local internet provider. Maybe then they would have better download speeds because it takes far too long to download your anime.

Tetsutetsu was different. He had been motivated to be a hero since he was a child, and he was training hard to get accepted into U.A. high, the leading school for hero hopefuls. Being his best friend meant that he forced you into training with him and even managed to convince you to sign up for the entrance exam alongside him, which you thought was a complete waste of time. After all, how could someone with a Key quirk become a pro hero? Still, you wanted to support your best friend and you had nothing better to do, so you agreed.

The written test was troublesome, mostly because you couldn’t stay focused with a winged boy sitting to your left. His wings would react to his thoughts and feelings, so they kept expanding and shuddering and you couldn’t possibly concentrate until you touched them.

He did not appreciate that.

When it came to the physical test, you had a lot more fun than you had expected. With Tetsu’s training, you were able to dodge most of the robot’s attacks, though one did sock you in the gut, leaving a nasty bruise. While dodging, you just had to locate a control panel or emergency shut off switch, to which your quirk became quite useful. It was pretty cool to see so many different types of quirks in action, you had to admit.

There was one person specifically that caught your eye; a blonde boy with some kind of explosion quirk. Though he didn’t seem to be anything too impressive, he was so aggressive and angry that you couldn’t help feeling intrigued. He was someone that definitely demanded attention.

When the results of the exam finally came in, you were surprised to find that you had been accepted into the hero course. You immediately headed over to Tetsu’s house to see if he had gotten his letter, as well. He had, but was too afraid to open it and made you do so for him.

“You got in!” You grinned after the holographic video ended. “Congratulations, Tetsu!”

He threw his arms around you, sniffling as he tried to hold back his tears. “I got in!!” And then he paused, pulling back so he could look at you. “Did you?”

“Yup! Class… A, I think?”

Tetsu’s smile faltered for half a second, barely noticeable to most, but very much so to yourself. “That’s… great!”

“What’s wrong?” your brow furrowed.

“It’s nothing. I was just hoping we’d be in the same class!”

“Oh, yeah, that does suck. But we’ll still be best friends, don’t worry!”

You made the mistake of believing him.

You’d pay for that later.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁

You remembered it like it was yesterday, though it had been about two weeks already. It was, by far, your most painful memory to date, but you couldn’t help feeling like it was all your fault. You had misinterpreted the signs or just missed them altogether. What kind of friend were you? After everything he had done for you over the years, this is how you repay him.

You stole his dream away from him.

It was right after the announcement for the sports festival. The other classes had gathered outside of class 1-A, scoping out the competition because, after you all had been attacked by villains, your class was front-page news. Tetsu was also there, yelling up a storm as he usually did. You couldn’t help but giggle at his antics, but he didn’t appreciate that.

His eyes narrowed at you, fists clenched tightly at his sides. When he spoke, his voice wasn’t raised like normal, it was deadly calm. “You think this is funny, Y/N? This has always been a joke to you. You don’t even want to be a hero, but you get put in class A… you’re pathetic!”

It left like his words had been turned into sharp arrows, piercing your heart with each sentence. In all of the years you’ve known him, he had never talked to you like that, never raised his voice or gotten angry at you. So what had changed?

“Tetsu, I…” But what could you say that didn’t make things worse? He was right, after all.

Bakugo, who you had gotten close to since starting at U.A., scoffed as he threw his back over his shoulder. “You’re just mad because you know you’re beneath us,”

“Katsuki,” you hissed, smacking his shoulder. “Stop trying to make things worse!”

Tetsu’s lip curled back in disgust as he watched you, not missing how you used the boy’s first name. He had witnessed first hand how close you had gotten to the ash blonde and he didn’t like it. “Y/N, this is my declaration! I will beat you in the sports festival and take your spot in class A!”

“Ha! You can try, you damned extra, but you won’t get far! Let’s go, Y/N!” Bakugo took off down the hall.

You turned your attention back to Tetsu with a frown, but he only scoffed and walked in the opposite direction. You could only stand there feeling like shit, watching your best friend walk away from you.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁

You sighed as you fell into your seat, eyes trained on the window beside your desk. The sky was dark grey, completely blocking out the sun. Rain fell in heavy sheets, the wind blowing hard enough to knock thin branches from nearby trees. The forecast had said nothing about rain and, just twenty minutes ago, the sun was shining without a cloud in sight.

‘Maybe I have a secret quirk that changes the weather according to my mood,’ you sighed again, burying your face in your arms that sat atop the desk. It certainly reflected your current mood. You had been thinking on it a lot and you came to realize that Tetsu had been slowly distancing himself from you since the day you both were accepted at U.A. You had just assumed he was spending time with his new classmates so you didn’t pressure him, but now you wondered if that had been his subtle way of reaching out to you.

You wanted nothing more than to fix this, but you didn’t know how. You had gone to class B to try and talk it out, but that annoying prick, Monoma, had blocked your way, not missing a beat when it came to insulting class A. For some reason, though, he was careful not to insult you, which you did find strange, but you had more important things to worry about.

“Damn it, Y/N, if you sigh one more damn time I’m gonna kick your ass!” Bakugo jumped out of his seat, slamming his foot on your desk.

You only groaned in response, the sound muffled by your arms.

Kirishima frowned as he approached. “What’s wrong, Y/N?”

You muttered a response, but it was impossible to make out.

“Speak up, damn it!!”

You lifted your head, eyes glassy as you tried not to cry. Seeing this threw Bakugo off guard and he froze, not knowing how to respond. Your eyes met the red rubies of Kirishima, who reminded you so much of Tetsu. You would give anything to fix your relationship with him.

And then it struck you like a bolt of lightning splitting the sky. You knew what you had to do. You jumped out of your chair, startling the two boys who called your name as you ran from the room, nearly hitting Todoroki in your haste.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁

“Please, sensei!” You pleaded, bending at the waist as you bowed at the two pro heroes standing before you.

Aizawa rubbed the back of his messy locks, feeling annoyed with your request. “That isn’t possible, Y/N.”

“But why not?” You demanded, straightening your back so you could look him in the eye.

Kan grunted, folding his arms over his chest. “He has to earn his place, not be given it by someone that’s trying to win brownie points.”

“I’m not trying to win brownie points,” you snapped, fists clenching at your sides. “He has more than earned it! I shouldn’t even be here, he should!”

“Calm down,” Aizawa ordered, narrowing his eyes in warning.

“Not until you let Tetsu take my place! I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be a hero! All of this is meaningless to me if I lose him in the process!” Tears flowed down your cheeks but you didn’t care.

Aizawa’s expression softened as he stepped forward, his hand resting on your head. “I don’t know what happened between the two of you, but this is not the way to fix it.”

“I don’t know what else to do, sensei.” You sobbed, looking into his tired eyes. “Tell me what to do,”

“Talk to him and tell him how you feel. That’s the best advice I can give.”

“He won’t talk to me!”

“He doesn’t have to talk, he just has to listen.” He ruffled your hair. “You may not think so, but you belong here. You earned your place. Now go on, go fix this problem. I won’t have you distracted and causing problems.”

“Yes, sensei…” you muttered, rubbing at your eyes as you left the room. Maybe he was right – Tetsu didn’t have to talk to you, and even if he walked away, as long as he heard what you had to say, that was enough. You could only hope that your words would reach him.

With your mind made up, you furiously wiped away your tears before heading for class B. Most of the students had already left the class, but the most important one was still there, but so was Monoma. When the blonde noticed you in the doorway, he sprung up like a Jack in the box.

“What are you doing here, hmm? Did you get lost? Makes sense since from class -”

“Get out of my way!” You snapped, eyes narrowed at him. Even with your eyes red and puffy, he scared of what you might do, but Monoma was an egotistical idiot that didn’t know when to quit.

He laughed loudly, his tone going up an octave to mirror his nervousness. “Class A isn’t at all heroic! You’re all a bunch of villains in training!”

You rolled your eyes before turning your attention to Tetsu. He had clearly heard the commotion, but he continued to write in his book as if you didn’t exist. You swallowed hard, “Tetsu -”

“He doesn’t want to associate with villains from class A!”

“Tetsu,” you called desperately. “You don’t have to respond, but please just listen to what I have to say! I’m a selfish jerk that doesn’t deserve to have such a good friend. You’ve always been there for me no matter what and… all of my best memories are with you! I applied for U.A. because you asked me to, but a part of me did it because I was scared of losing you. I never intended to hurt you or take your place and you’re right, I am pathetic… but I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know how to fix this, Tetsu. You’ve always been better than me at solving problems. You’re better than me at everything! A better friend, a better fighter, a better person.”

While his hand stilled, he didn’t lift his gaze from the book. You were well aware of all the eyes on you, his classmates and several students that had been passing by. You probably looked like a fool, but you didn’t care.

“Do you remember the day we met? You told me to remember your name because you were going to be a pro hero one day. The truth is… You’re already a hero. My hero! You’ve always been there for me. A shoulder to cry on when I’m sad. A friend to confide in when I’m stressed. A knight in shining armor when someone messes with me. I can’t believe it took me so long to realize it, but… I’m in love with you, Tetsu. I have been since the first day we met. I’m so sorry for betraying you, I never meant… I didn’t…” Tears stung your eyes again and you didn’t bother holding them back. “I’m sorry,”

Having said your peace and knowing that Tetsu had no intention of responding, you turned around and left the room, hanging your head as the gathered students whispered about you. You had bore your heart for all to see and, while it hurt like nothing you had felt before, somehow you felt a bit lighter.

People always say you shouldn’t make decisions when you’re emotional, but they fail to realize that’s when you’re most motivated. With this in mind, you waited until class A was empty before slipping a folded piece of paper onto Aizawa’s desk – it was your resignation from from U.A. high. The whole point of coming here was to be with Tetsu because you were scared of losing him, but look where that got you. If Tetsu wasn’t by your side, you didn’t want to be at U.A. anymore.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁

BANG

The sudden, loud sound from downstairs jolted you from your sleep, nearly causing you to fall off the bed. A week had passed since you left U.A. and several of your classmates had been trying to contact you, including Bakugo who liked yo bang on your door for thirty fucking minutes, threatening to “burn your ass to ash”. Thankfully, your parents had gone overseas last week and weren’t do back for the rest of the month.

But that left you to wallow in self-pity and binge watch anime filled with romantic drama and tears. Your room was a mess, tissues thrown everywhere, clothes literring the floor, and empty ramen cups stacked up by the desk. Another bang sounded from downstairs and you glanced at the clock.

Six pm. That was a bit early for Bakugo’s visit, but maybe he was trying to catch you off guard. Either way, you couldn’t be botheted, choosing to fall back against the mattress and cover your body with the comforter. In your cocoon, you felt safe and it was the closest you had felt to content since falling out with Tetsu. Your heart clenched painfully just at the thought of him. Yui may have been your first crush, but Tetsu was definitely your first love and boy did it hurt a lot worse than just some crush.

SLAM!

You jumped in surprise, shooting up in bed. Bakugo was persistant, sure, but not that persistent. It sounded like the front of your house collapsed! Panicked, you hurried off the bed while simultaneously trying to throw off the comforter, but your foot got stuck and you ended up falling to the wooden floor face first.

Footsteps echoed loudly as they ran up the stairs to your room, the bedroom door opened with such a force that it bounced off the wall. “Y/N!”

That familiar voice made your head snap up, reddened from the impact to the floor. “T-Tetsu?”

His face was hard and angry, but it softened just a bit when he saw you on the floor. Normally, he would have run to you without a second thought to make sure you were okay, but with everything that had happened, he couldn’t bring himself to do so.

You slowly sat back onto your knees, legs on either side of your body. “Did you break into my house?”

His body tensed up, a small line of pink coming across his cheeks. “I, uh… You wouldn’t answer the door!”

You scoffed. “I wonder how many criminals have tried that excuse.”

An awkward silence settled over the room and neither of you seemed capable of facing the other. Had you ever felt this awkward around him before? You scanned your memory, but every instance you could think of with him felt warm and comforting. You wanted that back, but… just like a piece of water, once it was crumbled up into a ball, no matter how much time you spend trying to smooth it out, it can never be perfect again. And that terrified you.

Unable to take the silence any longer, you finally spoke up, but your voice wasn’t nearly as strong as you wished it was. “What are you doing here?”

“Did you really drop out of U.A.?” he didn’t even give you a chance to respond. “Are you stupid?! Do you have any idea how many kids would kill to get into U.A.?! Into the hero course?! And you just three it away like it was nothing!”

A surge of anger rushed over you as you got to your feet, eyes narrowed at your former best friend. “What the fuck do you care for, huh? I can’t fucking win with you anymore, Tetsu! I didnt even want to apply, but I did it for you and when I got accepted, you got pissed at me because they put me in class A. And then when I give up my spot and leave the program, you’re still not happy! What do you want from me, huh?! You want me to just roll over and die so you don’t have to -!”

Tetsu couldn’t control himself. One minute he was standing in the doorway and the next he had rushed forward, his palm connecting with your cheek.

SMACK

Your eyes widened as your head tilted to the side, cheek stinging from the impact. ‘He just… hit me?’

“Don’t ever say that!” he cried, tears stinging at his eyes. “I can’t live without you, Y/N!”

You didn’t know what to say as the boy fell to his knees, tears falling down his eyes as his body shook. You had never seen him so upset, so vulnerable before. He was always strong and filled with positivity and hope, but now… He was just as broken as you were. You kneeled in front of him, hands suspended in mid-air as you tried to decide if you should comfort him or not. You didn’t want to make the situation worse, but he made the decision for you, throwing himself against your body and burying his face in your chest. You didn’t hesitate to wrap your arms around him, gently running your fingers through his mane of silver hair.

“I’m sorry,” he sobbed, fingers digging into your back. “I just wanted to be your hero but then you got put in class A and started doing better than me! I got jealous and I said things I didn’t mean, I… god I’m so sorry!!”

You softly shushed him, your hand running across the length of his back just as he had done to you so many times in the past. “Its okay, Tetsu, I unders -”

“It’s not!” he cried. “I pushed you away, right into the arms of that damned Bakugo!”

“Katsuki?” Your brow furrowed. “What does he have to do with anything?”

“You think I haven’t noticed how close the two of you are? He’s your new best friend, right?”

“No!” You grabbed his shoulders, pushing him back so you could see his eyes, your hands gently cupping his face. “You are my best friend, Tetsu. You always have been and always will be. I consider Katsuki a friend, sure, but he’s got nothing on you!”

His eyes met yours, his large hands sliding over your own. “In class, did you… did you mean what you said?”

With a blush in your cheeks, you nodded, offering him a smile. “I did. I love you, Tetsutetsu. You’re my everything and I can’t stand the thought of losing you.”

“I love you, too.” He suddenly leaned forward, his lips capturing your own. In that moment, nothing else mattered. The fight was forgotten, the words scrubbed free from both of your memories. All that mattered was here and now, wrapped up in each other’s arms.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁

You stood on the porch, leaning on the wooden railing as you watched the wind blowing the field of flowers in the distance. The house you lived in was just outside the city, within a small town that valued nature over the overwhelming number of buildings the city offered. Plus, there was little crime in the area, making it a safe place to live for families.

The screen door squeaked as it was opened and shut, the wooden floor creaking under the weight as Tetsu stepped up behind you, his arms sliding around your waist, his warm chest pressed up against your back.

“What are you doing out here?” he questioned, voice groggy after having just woken up. A gust of wind blew across the house. “It’s so hot outside, you should come back inside where it’s cool.”

You chuckled, leaning back against him. “It hasn’t been this hot in a while. It brought back some memories.”

He hummed, his lips lazily moving across your neck. “Good ones?”

“The day we met, actually. It was also this hot.”

“Yeah, it was, but your mom still made you go outside.” Tetsu chuckled. “She threatened your internet, right?”

“Yes!” You scowled at the memory, crossing your arms over your chest. “The nerve of that woman. I would never be so cruel to my child!”

He quirked a brow, turning you around to face him. “You’re planning to have a child without me?!”

You pretended to think on it a moment, laughing when he pouted at you. “Hmm, I was thinking of having a kid with that pro hero, what was his name – – Real Steel, that’s it!”

“Oh?” he smirked, leaning down to pepper kisses across your neck. “And what makes him so special?”

You groaned when he bit down softly on your flesh. “He’s such a handsome man. Strong and caring, and those abs, my god.” As if to prove your point, your hand ran under his shirt, nails scraping across his stomach. His muscles tensed and he groaned against your skin.

“You’re such a tease, Y/N.”

You chuckled, tugging at your husband’s hair so your lips could meet his. “But I’m your tease, Tetsu~”

Tetsu smiled warmly, claiming your lips with every ounce of love within his body. Yes, you were definitely his, but he was just as much yours.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁

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[littlemissagrafina]

Fics That Give Me Feels

(Angst, whump, hurt/comfort etc.) Regularly adding new fics

Please note that some of these can and will be TRIGGERING for some so please be careful.

Depression, self-harm, mental health, death, etc. Sorry if I missed anything else that might trigger anyone (I haven't read through these properly in a while) if someone spots any triggers will you please let me know?

Stay safe babes, Agrafina out.

After the Storm Passed

Sometimes, Peter felt like he wasn't quite... real. Like maybe he wasn’t really himself but a bad copy of himself. Like maybe he’d come back wrong.

Lost boy's lullaby

"Goodnight my angel, now it's time to sleep

And still so many things I want to say."

- Lullaby, Billy Joel

Peter was surely tired and exhausted.

He has been exhausted since five... years ago? Right? He has been fighting Thanos since that time and he had been beaten up pretty badly. And of course, who would have forget the time that he actually died--disintegrating second by second on an unfamiliar planet, fighting the inevitable of fading away... fading into nothingness. He has been fighting since that time and now, he just couldn't get any break, could he?

i love you 3000, peter parker. whether you believe it or not.

what if, after seeing morgan, tony gets another visitor in the soul realm?

teach me to be comfortable in my own skin

"Mr. Stark?"

Mr. Stark hummed but did not lift his eyes from his work. "Yeah, kid?"

"Does it bother you that I'm not normal?”

Will I Ever Make A Sound?

Mental illness does not discriminate. It doesn't give a damn if Peter Parker is Spider-Man. It takes and it takes and it takes.

But there is hope. There is always hope.

By @losingmymindtonight

Being Alive (is different than living)

The lines between life and death become blurred for Peter Parker and his family and friends when Thanos snaps his fingers. But living again when you were once dead? Well, that's the hardest part. Peter finds that surviving and living are two very different things. It's a cruel and unfortunate thing to discover.

does it ever get better? (a journey through self-harm)

By @imstrandedonthemoon

the courage of stars

Peter falls silent again, exhausted, and Tony takes the time to study the kid carefully. Peter is sullen in a way he’s never seen before, shoulders hunched and weighed down by some unseen force.

He’s just not… Peter.

“Come on, Pete. Talk to me,” Tony prompts. “If you want to see the stars, I can take you. I’ll take you wherever you’d like.”

or

Sometimes, Peter can't breathe. Tony does his best to help.

+

mosaic thoughts

Tony watches, face tight with concern, as Peter swallows thickly. The kid’s hands twitch irritably where they rest on his thighs, and Tony’s eyebrows fly up at the increasingly open display of anxiety.

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Tony prompts gently.

Peter shakes his head fiercely again, face beginning to crumple as tears start to spill down his cheeks. Tony quickly gets up and kneels in front of him.

“Easy, kid. It’s okay, it’s okay. Just take some deep breaths and you can tell me what’s wrong.”

Peter makes another sound before finally choking out, “I can’t - I can’t!”

or

Anxiety steals Peter's colors, but Tony's there to bring them back.

+

to build a home

After the snap, Peter comes back, but nothing is the same. He's now faced with near-crippling anxiety, depression, and PTSD. But thankfully, he's got a Tony and amazing friends and family to help rebuild everything he'd lost. Recovery isn't easy, but it's worth it.

+

teach me how to say goodbye

Tony curls Peter into him protectively. “Don’t hurt him!” Tony warns, and the man laughs.

“Oh, I’m not going to do anything. You are,” he says, placing the gun down on the floor. “Well, technically you have a choice. Either you can kill your boy, or you,” he says, pointing at Peter, “can shoot Iron Man. I’ll leave it for you to decide. The survivor will be free to go, never to hear from me again.”

(In which Peter and Tony face the hardest decision they've ever had to make.)

By @tonystarkstan

I can't find a title for this

By @justme--emily

This hit really close to home and had me sobbing.

Tell Me You'll Be Fine

"Tony." A voice, gentle and warm, spoke from behind him. Tony frowned slightly, that sounded very familiar but..

Tony turned around to look at the boy- no, the young man. Tony balked slightly.

He was taller now, definitely taller than Tony was. He filled into his body well, his muscles thicker and shoulders broader, still lean though. His hair was a little shorter, too, but it was still the same brown curls. The same doe eyes. The same trusting smile.

"You're-" Tony tilted his head, taking a step forward and huffing in disbelief. The boy- no, man, walked up to meet him, smiling softly. "Pete?" Tony asked quietly, hesitantly.

"Hey, Mr. Stark."

You should be here

Since coming back from the snap May and Peter had been moved into the tower, easing the separation anxiety between everyone.

Aunt May had become Pepper’s personal assistant which meant she could see more of Peter.

Not long after the rest of the Avengers were pardoned and moved in as well. It was a little tense to start with but soon everyone was building their broken relationships back up, a lot of crying and apologising involved.

Peter soon found himself with an extended family that he loved very much.

Now it was his Eighteenth birthday, and he’s happy. He is…

by @marvels-blue-phoenix

Through Your Tattered Window Pane

While fighting a battle he wasn't supposed to be in, Tony loses his memory. He slowly regains it, seeming to remember everyone... except Peter.

+

Am I Just a Shadow You Drew?

Tony has been distant lately. Peter learns why. [AU: No powers]

By @emeraldmoon

broken by my own hand (put back together by yours)

"For the first time he realizes how perfectly the kid fits into his life. In his arms, against his chest, under his chin, in his entire world."

What Do I Need?

He's not coming. If I wasn't such a burden to him before maybe he would have helped me now. Maybe he would come pick me up and everything would be okay. But everything's not okay because I ruined everything. I should have lied more. I shouldn't have talked to my counselor. This. Shouldn't. Be. Happening.

By @scooter3scooter

Diamond of the Day

Peter couldn't let Mr. Stark die. He wouldn't let him die. He had lost Ben, he wouldn't stand by and not do anything.

Or

The Avengers Endgame/Merlin crossover that no one asked for and made me sad

+

Tumblr Drabble/One Shots

+

Whumptober 2019

By the stunning @itsreallylaterightnow

Resetting the Bone

"Morgan was being sweet, he knew that. She didn’t understand how Peter was sick. She had heard somewhere- how nobody could guess- that he was hurt on his left arm. She knew he had done it. Not a bad guy.

She’d come up with the idea that he needed a Band-Aid to keep on his wrist. Pride glowing on her face, she made sure he had one every morning. Peter wore it all day for her.

Morgan kept giving him Band Aids every visit. She didn’t give up. She was being sweet. She was trying to take care of him. But he really wished she would stop!"

these christmas lights keep shining on (without you here)

With Christmas right around the corner, Peter doesn’t know how he can move on without Tony. Thankfully, he has his family to help him through it.

By @marvelous-writer

Just gonna let em hate

It’s not like anything changed much.

Peter is usually great brushing off all the shit everyone gives him for being himself. It usually doesn’t matter what they think; what anyone thinks really.

So why is it getting so hard for him to do that recently?

By @starrykitty013

cracks in my glass house

Since adopting Harley, the adjustment period had been... hard.

Harley didn’t seem to think Tony cared about where he went or what he did or when he did it. He’d had to bail Harley out of jail more than once already. Harley had brought home girls and boys alike on various nights, only to send them home in the morning and never speak to them again (not that Tony could judge, but by this point he’d passed out more NDAs than he could keep track of).

But it was fine. Everything was fine. Tony loved Harley. He’d do anything for him.

Except let Peter become one of those nameless faces he spent the night with.

TLDR; Harley is a ~bad boy~ and Tony doesn’t want him to hurt Peter.

New Dream

“You ever tried to escape?”

Peter chuckled. “Yeah. Lots of times I end up back here, brink of death. Though, twice Tennison was so impressed he let me have extra dinner and no experiments the next day.”

“Wow, kiddo, living the luxurious life, huh?” it was astounding how quickly they’d fallen into a comfortable companionship.

“There was a guard who helped me once,” Peter’s smile dropped with his volume. “But he had to leave. They never found out he helped me. I was hoping…”

He trailed off and shook his head. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to hitch a ride with you when Captain America comes to bust you out, huh?”

Tony’s heart jumped. Oh, kid, if you knew just how much I wished for that. “Yeah, I guess I’ll let you come along. Only one stowaway allowed, though, you hear me? No weird mutated turtles or rats or something.”

Peter laughed again, and for a moment the cold cell felt warm.

[artificialqueens]

colour me blue, chapter two (branjie) - holtzmanns

(read on ao3) | (tumblr: plastiquetiaras) | word count: 7947

AN: Thank you so much for the wonderful feedback on the first chapter! This one’s going to be a short story, only one more chapter after this. Hope you enjoy. Writ remains the best ever for betaing and encouraging me throughout writing this, and this story would absolutely not exist without them <3

“-She’d taken off her nasal prongs, the reduction in oxygen saturation could have been fatal-”

“-transferring without a two person assist, especially as a falls risk is extremely dangerous, not to mention that she’d refused any orientation or training with the wheelchair beforehand-”

“-honestly Vanessa, you put not only your life on the line, but you scared the entire team, we were this close to calling a code yellow and starting a manhunt across the entire hospital-”

“-Mija, your father didn’t leave us just so you could act so irresponsible-”

Vanessa wants to scream, drown out all the voices that are threatening to overtake her brain and never let her think straight again.

“Fuck.”

She lets it drop under her breath, barely hearing the words being said around her that are blurring into a grey cloud above her head.  The ones from her healthcare team and her mom as they try to lecture her about things that they just don’t fucking get.

They don’t know what it’s like to be trapped in a bed, too weak to move and be a part of things and actually live for once. They’re all able to leave the hospital behind, head home once they’re done their shifts or visits and compartmentalize, because they’re not tied to the building. They don’t understand the feeling of being so dependent on others, so out of control about their own lives.

They don’t get it.

Vanessa her hands into fists as Nina starts fretting about ‘potential complications with the medications because of the lack of oxygen support’ and the pain radiating in her palms from her nails digging into her skin is grounding, somehow. Reminding her that she’s still here, she’s alive. Even though she’s stuck in an ‘emergency family meeting’ that’s been called for her, as if she’s a criminal or something.

As if not complying to hospital recommendations exactly how they want her to makes her deviant.

She doesn’t want to be here anymore. What’s the point, if she’s not going to be here much longer, if she’s not going to move up the waitlist for a new heart, if she’s going to keel over like her dad before she ever gets one? If she has to spend the entirety of her existence following the directions of others who’ll never understand what everything is like?

“I’m leaving. I’m out.”

The table goes comically silent once the words leave her lips, as everyone turns towards her with wide eyes.

Nina speaks first. “Vanessa, what do you-”

“I’m going. I don’t wanna be in the hospital anymore, I don’t care.” She doesn’t need to stay here to stay alive. She can do it on her own, she can leave.

“Don’t be stupid.” Her mom snaps in her direction, and it makes Vanessa bristle, because she’s not being stupid, she’s not. She’s just fucking tired.

“Why can’t y’all see it? There’s no point, I ain’t getting better anytime soon.” The words make her swallow hard because of their finality, the weight of their meaning and how true they feel.

Vanessa’s not getting better.

Her mom’s looking at her like she wants to argue and Nina’s eyes are full of sympathy and Vanessa’s never hated it more.

Vanessa continues because no one at the table says anything, none of the nurses or doctors because really, what are they going to tell her? That she’s getting better?

Even Vanessa’s more realistic than that.

“I’m stuck here and can’t leave my bed and can’t even do anything I wanna, while everyone else is getting better and leaving all around me. Why do I gotta spend my end in a hospital bed?” Vanessa can’t stop her voice from breaking at the end and it makes her mad, the way she has to wipe tears that are beginning to form.

“You’re not at your end, Vanessa. I understand how it can feel like that, how things haven’t been improving. But that doesn’t mean that they won’t in the future. We still have more things we can try-”

“They ain’t going to work. We know that. Nothing does. Unless y’all got a spare heart to give me but we know that ain’t possible.” She lets out a bitter laugh.

There’s a finality of sorts, when one accepts their own mortality. Realizing that they’re not going to be around forever, that their time is limited.

Vanessa’s heart already feels like it’s taking some of its last beats.

She’s not sure how she can tell. Maybe it’s the way that it lays so heavy in her chest, a sign that it was never, ever meant to work. A sign that she was never meant to be here for a long time in the first place.

Vanessa’s calm. It doesn’t make her want to cry, or scream about how unfair it is. It’s a bittersweet acceptance that lets her relax, stop fighting for once in her life.

Though Nina doesn’t let her have it for long.

“Maybe we should hold off a couple more days, see what else we can do. Then we can have another meeting, talk through some other options if you don’t want to stay here.” Nina reaches out, grabbing her hand, and Vanessa can feel her resolve crumbling because the woman is too convincing for her own good. “Is a few days okay, Vanessa? Just a few.”

Nina’s looking at her with big googly eyes and her mother’s looking at her with a death glare, and the rest of the healthcare team looks like they really want to have their lunch. But it’s nice to be in control of the cards for once, be the one who gets to make a decision rather than having one made for her.

A sense of control that she never gets.

“Fine. A couple of days, but that’s it.”

She doesn’t want to give more of herself to the hospital if she doesn’t have to.

Brooke is biting at her lip when Vanessa is finally, finally wheeled back into her room. Vanessa tries not to look at Brooke as the nurses help her back into her bed, tries to ignore the burning that she feels from her worried gaze.

Brooke, for her part, waits until the nurses have shut the door behind them, shifting in her bed to face her properly. Vanessa wants to close her eyes, brace herself against the questions that she knows are coming.

“You’re really sick.”

“And?” Vanessa runs a hand through her hair, trying to ignore the way her fingers catch on her nasal prongs.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” It’s not accusatory, per se, but Vanessa can hear the desperation, the hurt in Brooke’s voice, over the fact that she didn’t know.

“Does it matter?”

Vanessa so, so badly, wants it not to matter. Wants it all to go away, wants to be someone who heals. Who isn’t bound to the hospital with an iron chain around her ankle.

But she’s going to be orbiting it for the rest of her damn life.

Vanessa feels helpless, stuck. Physically, she is. She can’t leave for anywhere on her own, doesn’t have the strength to. So, what does it matter? What does it matter that she didn’t tell Brooke?

Just because she has to be resigned to her life doesn’t mean that others have to, as well.

“Yes, it does!” Brooke’s voice breaks and Vanessa finally looks over, stops fiddling with the thin sheets that drape over her form, and Brooke’s expression is a mixture of anger and pain both. “You’re doing things that are risky and could hurt you and-”

“Didn’t see you complaining when we went down to the cafeteria.” Vanessa crosses her arms, grumbles because it isn’t fair, Brooke isn’t being fair, not when she’s the one person who’s supposed to be on her side.

“Because I didn’t know that you were so sick that you practically need a new heart. That’s not a normal level of heart problems, that’s being-at-death’s-doorstep level of heart problems and you don’t even seem to care.” Brooke’s looking at her with that face that she gets from most people in her life, one full of sadness and anger and pity and Vanessa hates it.

“What clued you in? The extra oxygen? Me not being able to use a walker anymore?” Vanessa lets out a bitter laugh as she says it, shaking her head. “Being basically bedridden?”

“You could have told me.” The words are quiet, from Brooke’s lips. Vanessa looks over and she’s looking down at her own sheets and she sounds so defeated and the twisting in Vanessa’s chest is not entirely coincidental.

“And have you look at me with that same face you’re making right now? I see the pity there. I see it from everyone.” Vanessa crosses her arms. “I hate it. I don’t need your pity.”

She really doesn’t. Others giving her sympathetic looks that amount to ‘sorry that you’re dying’ feel pathetic. Useless.

“I’m not-” Brooke lets out a frustrated sigh and Vanessa can see the way her brow furrows before she continues. “I’m not pitying you, don’t you get it? I’ve been on this side, I get what it’s like to be almost at death’s door.”

“You don’t. You don’t get it.” Vanessa wipes at the stray tear along her lashes with more force than she needs to. “It’s not the same.”

“Like hell it isn’t.” Brooke’s mad, and Vanessa can’t help the way her own voice rises in response, ready to argue.

“You ain’t been stuck with that shitty appendix your whole life, worrying about it all crashing down eventually. This was just a freak thing that happened to you. And look at you.” Vanessa gestures to Brooke, at the way she’s able to sit up without any help. “You’re getting stronger, you’re gonna leave soon. So no, it’s not the same.”

“So then why shoulder that burden by yourself? Why pretend like not much is wrong when it clearly is?” Brooke’s pleading, her eyes wide and no matter how much Vanessa doesn’t want it, she can already feel the way her resolve is beginning to crumble, the way it seems to do with Brooke.

“Because everyone leaves!” The words are out before Vanessa can stop them and no, no, no, she wasn’t supposed to say them but now she can’t take them back, no matter how quickly she claps a hand over her mouth.

But it’s true. Everyone leaves for good at some point, never to come back. Her mom and the rest of her family. Her friends. Her coworkers. Leaving Vanessa alone with the four blank walls and endless beeping machines for company.

Because everyone else is busy living their own lives, right?

Vanessa shouldn’t be the one to keep them from doing so.

Brooke’s going to leave. Vanessa knows that now, knew it a couple days back, too. They’d been discussing a discharge date for Brooke during morning rounds since her surgery had been successful, and she’s on the path towards healing. She’ll be just fine real soon.

And it’s fine, it really is. Brooke is going to leave, go back to her shitty apartment in the city and her two cats that are also her phone background. She’s going to go back to her position in the corps and back to ballet, back to pushing her heart harder and harder as she dances, in a way that Vanessa will never be able to do with hers.

There’s no reason for Brooke to stay, no matter how desperately Vanessa wants there to be.

Vanessa’s not selfish. She’s not an anchor that’s going to pull Brooke down with her, keeping her from going after her dreams and living her own life. Because Brooke deserves better than that.

Despite the fact that Brooke seems to disagree, by the disbelief lining her furrowed brow and parted lips.

“I’m not.”

“You shouldn’t feel obligated-”

“How can you say that?” Brooke’s looking at her with wide eyes as she fists her hands in her sheets, and Vanessa can feel every beat of her own heart, every gasp from her lungs. “After all of this?”

“After what?” Vanessa can feel a lump in her throat and she’s not going to cry, she’s not, she doesn’t need it right now, not in front of Brooke. “Being stuck with me ‘cause we’re hospital roommates? You telling me that nothing’s gonna change after you’re discharged? When you can go back to your life and I’m still here, the way I’m always gonna be here? You telling me that?”

Brooke’s going to go back to her life. Vanessa’s going to be left behind. It’s not Brooke’s fault, not Vanessa’s either.

But it’s happened with everyone. It’ll happen with Brooke, too.

“I-”

“You’re gonna get to go back, Brooke. I won’t.” The finality of the words don’t make Vanessa wince, don’t make her upset. Because the words are simply the truth.

“But I’m not.” Brooke’s jaw is set, even though her hands are shaking and Vanessa wants to reach out and grab them, hold her steady, despite the fact that she’s being stupid.

“What do you mean, you’re not?”

“Ness, you’re-” Brooke’s jerky, halting, not looking as her as she pauses, not as if she’s trying to figure out what to say, but rather as if she’s trying to get the words to leave her mouth. “It doesn’t matter if I’m getting discharged. I’m not-”

Brooke cuts herself off, drawing in a breath and Vanessa can see the pleading behind her eyes, but it doesn’t make sense. So she pushes her more.

“You’re not what?”

“I’m not leaving you, okay? Even once I’m discharged I’m gonna be in that chair beside your bed, I’m gonna be here on evenings and weekends ‘cause I’m not leaving you.” Brooke’s so convinced of what she’s saying that she’s leaning over in her bed, scooting closer towards Vanessa, an earnest expression on her face.

Except that the words aren’t placating; instead, they make Vanessa want to shut her eyes tight, real tight. There’s a part in her heart that so very desperately wants them to be real. For what Brooke is saying to actually happen.

Except Vanessa knows that it won’t. They’re empty words now, words that Brooke will forget once she’s back at home and is dancing again and not even thinking twice about her hospital stay after she’s all healed. When Vanessa will only be a blink in her memory of the entire ordeal.

So the words instead feel like thorns, sharp and stinging along Vanessa’s chest and prickling without drawing blood, ones that taunt and tease her. She wants to pull them out, throw them far  away from her where they can’t hurt her heart more than they already have.

Vanessa, until recently, has kept her heart safe. She’s been okay with people leaving, expects it. But now? Brooke dangling a promise of her not leaving, one which she won’t want to even keep later?

It makes Vanessa mad.

“Don’t promise shit you can’t keep.” The words drop from Vanessa’s lips like poison, letting her keep Brooke at arms length, like she should be.

Brooke narrows her eyes. “You think I won’t?”

“I know you won’t.”

It’s a lie, because she doesn’t, because what if Brooke stays, what if she comes back to visit?

But Vanessa isn’t willing to take the risk of hoping and hoping and wishing and then being disappointed. Her heart is faulty enough.

“You don’t know shit.” Brooke crosses her arms and it isn’t fair, the way she looks hurt, it’s not. Because what does Brooke have to be hurt over?

“What don’t I know?” Vanessa knows plenty. She knows that nothing is forever, not even roommates that make her forget, sometimes, how much her chest feels like it’s caving in on itself, how much her body feels like it’s on its last legs. She knows that everyone has more important things to do than sit at a sick girl’s bedside, including Brooke.

“That I actually care about you, despite the fact that you seem to think I don’t.”

“I never said that-”

“You really think I’m gonna just leave?” Brooke’s voice is small, and Vanessa hates how much it’s affecting her. How much she doesn’t want Brooke to leave and never come back, either. But she knows what’s going to happen in the end.

“Everyone does.”

It’s true. And there’s nothing Vanessa can do about it.

“I’m not everyone.” Brooke’s looking at her with such an intensity that Vanessa wants to believe the words. Have them be true, have a chance where Brooke and her get to stay this close.

She wants it so bad.

But Brooke’s right. Brooke isn’t everyone. Brooke is…sunlight in their dreary hospital room, her smile enough to pull Vanessa out of her thoughts every time. Brooke is the way she gasps during their Great British Bake Off marathons, so caught up in the competition that she lets out little cheers every time her favourite contestant does well. Brooke is the content expression on her face whenever she shows Vanessa pictures of her cats, tells her stories about the funny things they love to do.

Brooke’s different from any other roommate she’s had, and Vanessa’s scared of how much she’s begun to matter to her. She’s taken more of Vanessa’s heart, her stupid malfunctioning heart, more than she wants to admit.

“You’re right. You ain’t everyone.” The admission is freeing, in a way. Brooke’s light and drive and the way she melts over certain things make her so special, so quintessentially Brooke. Someone who doesn’t deserve to be hung up over a person like Vanessa, someone who’s expiry date is a lot earlier than everyone else her age.

Brooke deserves better.

“And you aren’t, either, Ness.” Vanessa can see the affection in Brooke’s eyes, and half of her loves it, craves it. Wants Brooke to snuggle in closer to her, bridge that gap between them. But the other half of Vanessa knows how dangerous it can be to care for someone whose very existence isn’t guaranteed.

Vanessa remembers the way her mother became a shell of a person after her father’s death. The way she’d kept his favourite flannel around her shoulders, kept the photo album from happier years in her lap and held onto it like it was a lifeline. Like it would bring him back, while letting everything else around her fall to pieces, into dust.

Maybe it’s better if she and Brooke don’t become closer. In case, just in case things go south, and she leaves Brooke by herself to deal with the aftermath.

Vanessa doesn’t want Brooke to suffer too.

“B, I’m-” Part of Vanessa is trying to hold her back, stop from continuing, because she likes Brooke, dang it, and has someone in her life that thinks that she matters, and why is she going to try and ruin it?

But the other half of her knows it’ll be better for Brooke, in the long run.

“I’m really sick.”

Brooke doesn’t even flinch. “No shit. Pretty sure the entire ward heard the yelling in your emergency family meeting.”

Vanessa lets out a huff, because Brooke’s not actually getting it. “No, like really sick. Waiting for my own damn mortality to punch me in the face-type sick.”

“So?” Brooke raises an eyebrow, as if it’s a challenge.

“You don’t - you don’t wanna see that. Trust me. It’s downhill from here, it ain’t gonna be pretty. It’s gonna be me and a bunch of tubes against the world. It’s gonna be shitty.”

The reality of it is starting to set in more and more for Vanessa with each laboured breath she takes, every phantom pain that tugs along her body. She really is shutting down.

Brooke shoots her a look. “If this is some half assed attempt to push me away, it’s not working.”

Vanessa huffs, ignoring the way she’s beginning to feel a little lightheaded, a little tired from so much talking. “I ain’t joking. I ain’t gonna be like this all the time. It’s gonna keep getting worse and you shouldn’t have to watch-”

“You think me magically leaving you right now is somehow going to make that easier? For me or you?” Brooke sits up in her bed, her voice raising a little along with the disbelief written along her face, the furrow of her brow. “You think trying to cut me out is going to solve anything?”

Vanessa scowls. “It’s not like that.” It’s not. Brooke’s missing the point, that if they stay close she’s going to suffer, that she’s just going to make it worse for herself in the long run.

“Like hell it isn’t. You’re trying to protect me from something that may not even happen. And even if it does, you think I’d even want to stay away in the first place? That I wouldn’t want to be beside you the entire time?” Brooke says the words like they’re obvious, as if there isn’t anything she’d rather do. Which makes it just a little bit harder for Vanessa to try and drive her point home.

“You have your own life, B. A normal life. It ain’t this.” Vanessa points to the monitors behind her, wincing as she does because when did lifting her arm up slightly cause so much pain?

“My life is dancing for most of the day and stumbling home to a wet basement apartment with only my cats for company. It’s always just been pushing myself in ballet at the expense of everything else, letting it all go because ballet is supposedly worth it.” Brooke looks at Vanessa with those eyes that she can never tell if they’re grey or blue and Vanessa sees a mountain of unspoken words behind them. “But then I met you, and the appendix issues and near-sepsis and other infections my body was going through stopped mattering, none of the pain or extra surgeries mattered anymore.”

Brooke takes a deep breath before continuing, fiddling with her hands. “Because I’ve never laughed as much as when we’re joking around, never had as much fun as when we watch things together. Never told anyone as much about myself, let anyone else in like I’ve let you.”

Vanessa remembers back to one night a few weeks ago, when the two of them had stayed up until the early hours of the morning, whispering to each other so as not to disturb the nurses. Talking about their pasts, their futures. Where they wanted to go, what they wanted to do if they ever had the chance. Brooke had listened to Vanessa attentively when she brought up the idea of connecting with her dad’s side of the family again. Convinced her that it wasn’t a stupid idea, that she should do it.

Brooke’s already entrenched herself in Vanessa’s life through the way their memories and thoughts have become ensnared like vines, making it impossible for them to let go of each other.

But the longer Brooke spends close to Vanessa, the more it’s going to hurt her.

“I’m not here forever, B. The laughing and jokes and TV shows and late night talks are gonna be temporary. One day it’s all gonna end, and you’re gonna be left with nothing. I don’t want you to get blindsided by it.” Vanessa rubs at her temples, tries to will away the headache blooming behind her skull that’s making her feel a little dizzier than usual.

“I want the good days, sure. But the bad days, too. Someone to be there - don’t tell me you don’t need it, ‘cause I don’t care - when things feel low. When the rounds don’t sound promising. When a certain medication isn’t working anymore. For all of it.” Brooke reaches out a hand across the bed, close enough for Vanessa to reach. Vanessa has to grab the bed railing with her other hand to keep herself steady as she reaches for Brooke’s, tries not to give into the spots darkening on the sides of her vision.

Brooke squeezes her fingers and the pressure pulls her back down, keeps her head from exploding just yet. Vanessa takes a deep breath, in through her nose, out of her mouth. She’s not sure why it’s worse all of a sudden, why Brooke’s voice sounds a little warped. But she keeps listening.

Even though something is wrong. Very, very wrong.

“You don’t have to protect me from you. That’s not your job-”

“Brooke.” Vanessa pulls a gasp in, tries to fill up her lungs because they feel empty, too empty, like she has no oxygen left in her body.

The monitors above her are speeding up but the beeping is far away, like it’s in a different room, and so is Brooke’s voice (‘Ness? Ness!’), especially when she yells out for a nurse with a voice so hysterical that Vanessa wants to reach out and comfort her. Not that she can, by the way her lungs are clawing for air, the way her chest is burning up from her shoulder to her heart, the way her arms are tingling like they’re on fire. She’s warm, too warm, her forehead becoming damp with sweat because she can feel her heart pushing itself, on its last legs, trying to keep her going, but-

Oh, god.

Vanessa’s staved it off for thirteen years, kept her shitty heart pumping for thirteen whole years, but it hasn’t been enough, not nearly enough. Because she’s twenty-six in a hospital bed and so close, so close to a new heart that she won’t have the chance to receive, not anymore.

She’d been so close. Fuck.

Staying awake and hanging on is too hard, too much of a task to try and push her body to do, even with doctors and nurses pressing down with hard compressions on her chest while yelling about calling a code blue. And so Vanessa lets thoughts of Brooke’s hair and the way she so desperately wants to run her hands through it take her over until there’s-

Nothing at all.

The first time Vanessa had been put under was when she was six and had her tonsils taken out. She’d forgotten most of it aside from the aftermath of ice cream and endless reruns of The Magic School Bus, the show just a little much for her addled brain to follow. She’d gone back to school a few days later with no problems at all, the haze of anaesthesia from the surgery remembered the same way as her nightly dreams - just a little bit out there, a little bit nonsensical. Nothing that had stuck in her brain for too long.

As she got older, anaesthesia simply became a part of her life. Necessary for the surgeries as doctor after doctor tried to find solutions to keep her alive, none of which lasted, her heart falling back into disarray each time. She’d gotten used to it - being in and out of it after a procedure, waiting for her brain to become less and less foggy with time until everything went back to normal.

Back then, it was never unending.

Vanessa sees Brooke’s face a lot. Brooke dancing, despite the fact that she’s never seen it in person, only on Brooke’s phone screen. Brooke as a dancer in the corps, Brooke performing as a prima ballerina and spinning round and round and round, dancing in a way Vanessa can only dream of. Her final bow is graceful, a demure smile on her face as she waves to the crowd.

Vanessa wonders what it would be like, being the one to bring Brooke a bouquet of flowers at the end of a show.

She sees her dad, too, but the memories are fleeting, blurry. Little snapshots, like the time they went to the carnival along with her mom and he rode all of the rickety rides with her. The way her dad would take her to get ice cream after church on Sundays, and they’d sit outside the shop and eat on the bench while people watching. How her dad would always lift her up, sit her on his shoulders whenever she was a little too sleepy, a little too tired to walk anymore.

She sees glimpses of his funeral too, the way the priest had pronounced his last name (their last name) wrong.

Though the pictures fade as quickly as they come, the pain not sticking around long enough to have a chance to burn her soul.

Vanessa sees images from now, too. Or at least, what could be now. Beeping noises that never quite fade, ones boring into her skull that she wishes she could turn off. Hushed conversations, doctors and nurses talking about LVADs and the transplant list, but she can’t get her brain to focus, to tune in for long enough to know if it’s even real, or just another dream.  

She hears Brooke’s soft voice whispering to her (which surely, surely must be a dream), a light squeeze on her hand as Brooke tells her about the woman in the room across from them, about how her nurse is going on a date tonight, about how the neuro resident has a crush on the unit clerk. About how much Vanessa needs to be okay, needs to get better, because Brooke-

Vanessa never hears the end of her sentence, because Brooke always cuts herself off when she gets to that part.

There are times when Vanessa starts feeling every little pain in her body, when everything becomes real and tangible and she’s suddenly aware of the wires along her arms, the tube down her throat that’s taken over her breathing, and it’s too much, too much to handle when she tries to move and nurses begin to yell about pain meds and-

It never lasts for long, though, her mind wiping itself clean of the here and now and going back to broadcasting pictures of Brooke and the way she smiles.

Vanessa’s too small right now, in Brooke’s eyes.

The tube down her airway that’s keeping her alive looks like it’s taking up her entire face, while the IV lines in her arms are too big, too invasive. Like all the wires around her are going to drown her, kill her instead.

Brooke would be convinced that they are, were it not for the monitors behind Vanessa’s bed, the ones displaying her vital signs and signalling that she’s still very much alive.

Somehow.

Brooke wants to close her eyes, forget that all of this is happening and somehow just go back to their shared hospital room, before she’d been discharged and before Vanessa had collapsed with wide eyes and gasping breaths. When everything had been a little bit more normal.

Normal for them, at least.

But when Brooke closes her eyes now, all she can see is the way that the nurse had been pushing down hard on Vanessa’s chest, doing compressions that looked like they were crushing rather than reviving her. All she can hear is the flatline of the monitors, the rush of footsteps of the code blue team to their room. The way they’d intubated Vanessa right then and there. The way Brooke had been frozen in place, gripping her sheets so tightly that she’d nearly ripped them.

The way the bed beside her had been so empty without Vanessa after she’d been whisked away, the room a little bit too quiet.

The way Brooke hadn’t even known if Vanessa would still be alive.

The limbo was the worst. Vanessa had been in surgery, after the team had intubated and stabilized her and Brooke had been left in their room all alone, signs of Vanessa still lingering everywhere. The stack of romance novels on Vanessa’s bedside table, the ones Brooke had teased her for. The makeup beside them, all MAC because ‘imma take that employee discount, thank you very much’.

Being discharged had almost felt like a sense of relief, for Brooke. Being able to leave their room behind, one filled with laughter and affection for the girl who shared it with her, but also filled with fear. With the look on Vanessa’s face before she’d collapsed, the wide eyes and slightly parted lips that showed that she’d known what had happened.

The inevitable had finally arrived.

But it’s been three days, and she’s still here, Vanessa’s still here. Vanessa’s still alive. The hospital bracelet around Brooke’s wrist is gone, denoting that she’s healthy enough to survive on her own after the warpath her appendix had carved, but she’s still here. She’s not going to leave, not now.

She’d heard Dr. West talking about the transplant list, about how Vanessa’s urgent status has moved her up. How there’s a chance she can get a heart, how she won’t have to rely on an LVAD like she is right now.

Brooke so desperately wants it to be true.

“I miss you.” Brooke’s not sure where the words come from, why she whispers them as if Vanessa can hear them. Maybe she can, Brooke doesn’t know. But all Brooke knows is that she needs Vanessa back, because her own heart feels like it’s collapsing in on itself.

Part of her hates Vanessa. For keeping just how bad things are from her. For pretending that everything is fine and dandy while inching closer and closer to death’s door.

Vanessa had said that Brooke would leave, that she didn’t care enough. That Brooke should leave because she deserved better than seeing Vanessa deteriorate and it still makes her so mad, that Vanessa had thought that it would be the better option. That Vanessa had wanted to do it alone.

That Vanessa had thought Brooke would be able to leave her behind.

But Brooke can’t. She fucking can’t. She’s only known Vanessa for a couple of months, but it feels like it’s been so much longer, when she looks back at it. All the days and nights they’d spent together talking about everything and nothing had made Brooke fall hard, as much as she doesn’t want to admit it now.  

A couple months that had felt like a lifetime in their hospital beds.

She imagines what it would be like if they’d met somewhere outside, maybe at MAC. Brooke goes in there often to buy her favourite brow pencil and transition eyeshadow that she uses on stage, because the drugstore brands simply don’t cut it for those two items. She pictures going in, seeing Vanessa and her smile that never fails to light up a room.

God, she’d probably be head over heels for her right then and there.

Brooke pictures flirting with Vanessa over the makeup counter, asking her opinion on which shades look best on her. She can almost see how animated Vanessa’s face would be, talking about her favourite products in the store the way her face always had been when they’d had these conversations in their hospital beds.

Getting to know Vanessa outside of the hospital, away from the tubes and wires that reflected the breakdown of her heart. A scenario where they’d have endless time to get closer and closer because there wouldn’t be any time limits, not really. None holding them back.

To be fair, Brooke hadn’t known that their time right now would be so limited, either. That Vanessa would be intubated, on life support, with everyone else hoping and praying that the wires keeping her alive are working.

Brooke needs Vanessa back. She hasn’t even told Vanessa how much she cares about her, how important she’s become to her life and how is she going to keep going if Vanessa doesn’t pull through?

Brooke stares down at Vanessa’s sleeping form, her chest rising and falling methodically to the rhythm of the machine that’s filling up her lungs with oxygen. Vanessa’s closed eyes make Brooke realize that there’s a chance she may never see her eye roll again, or the way she sticks up one finger when she wants to interrupt her. Or that she may have to watch TV shows without Vanessa’s insane commentary.

Brooke buries the thoughts as far down as possible, because there can’t be a reality where she loses Vanessa. It can’t happen.

Somehow, Brooke’s heart has completely fallen for another person. One whose own heart could be the cause of her end at the ripe old age of twenty-six.

The way that life plays out its cards can be cruel. Leaving people like Vanessa with a short stick, a life too short that’s marred with uncertainty and a fight to stay alive.

The calmness in Vanessa’s face right now, as she’s out and sedated, makes Brooke realize just how weary Vanessa had become the last couple weeks. The way that the lines in her face had become more pronounced, the circles darker under her eyes, the undertones sallower in her skin.

Vanessa had done such a good job of keeping it inside, of pretending everything was okay. Of playing things up with Brooke, acting like everything was fine and that she was fine despite the shortness of her breath and the way her hands would shake as she’d try to sit herself up.

Vanessa had been fighting so, so hard. Brooke feels a pang in her chest, a guilt, that she hadn’t realized the extent of it herself.

Sure, there’s not much Brooke would have been able to do, having no medical knowledge. But she could have listened to her vent. Held her hand. Distracted her.

It’s eating at her, now. Should she have done more? Known that she should have done more?

She hopes Vanessa will understand when she wakes up.

If she wakes up.

There’s times when the pictures that float by in Vanessa’s mind become clearer than others. More realistic, almost tangible. Like when Vanessa sees Brooke sitting beside her, and can almost feel the way Brooke’s running her fingers through her hair. She wants to lean into the imagined touch, but doesn’t want it to disappear back into her subconscious.

Brooke’s whispering to her to wake up, baby and telling her about how she hasn’t been intubated for days, how she doesn’t even need extra oxygen anymore, because her new heart’s working and it’s working well. How Vanessa’s finally, finally, healing.

It’s a nice dream. Vanessa can see the way Brooke’s worry lines are beginning to relax, her shoulders a little less tense. The way her eyes are full of happiness - weariness still, yes, and a little bit of trepidation - but also full of relief.

She’s glad this dream Brooke is happy, the way Brooke should always be.

Dream Brooke lets out a little sniffle and it makes Vanessa want to frown, because she doesn’t want her to be upset, but then Brooke is pressing a kiss to her forehead before calling out for her nurse. A nurse who shines a light into her eyes, asks her questions like what day it is and where she is and Vanessa wants to answer, she does, but she’s never had such realistic dreams before.

“Thank god, thank god, thank god.” Brooke is squeezing her hand and Vanessa can nearly feel it, while hearing the shakiness in her voice. “Fuck.”

Vanessa opens her mouth and her voice is all but gone, barely above a whisper, but she needs to know for sure. “Dream?”

Brooke lets out a little noise in between a laugh and sob, squeezes her hand tighter, tight enough that it’s tangible, something Vanessa can feel. “Not a dream.”

Huh.

There’s a prick on Vanessa’s arm, making her wince as her nurse takes her blood. The ever present beep of the monitors is still there behind her, the bustle in the hallway outside too, but things are different.

Vanessa looks at Brooke, really looks. She’s tired and worn, in a sweater and jeans and it’s the first time Vanessa’s seen her in something other than the ever present hospital gowns. She’s folded in on herself on top of her chair, legs crossed as she leans forward and she lets out a little laugh when Vanessa flips over her wrist, looks for the telltale hospital bracelet.

“They let me out a week and a half ago. I’m not leaving, though.” Brooke lifts an eyebrow, almost as a challenge, and the words sink on top of Vanessa’s heart and warm it from the inside out, making it glow.

Brooke’s still here.

“A week and a half? How long have I been-”

Vanessa pauses, because she’s not sure if she wants to know just yet. But it’s long enough for her voice to be gone, long enough for Brooke to have been discharged.

Yet still be here.

So Vanessa changes directions, saves the tougher questions for later. “Your ass ain’t sore from that chair yet?”

Brooke snorts. “It is, but not as much as your mom’s. She’s been complaining about how uncomfortable the chairs are for days.”

Vanessa’s breath hitches in her throat, because Brooke’s just said-

“My mom?”

Her mom’s here? But-

Brooke points at a sleeping figure in the corner of the room, one whom Vanessa had completely missed earlier because Brooke is in front of her but her eyes aren’t lying to her, because it’s her mom.

“She’s been here since before your surgery. Surgeries. Signed the consent forms as the substitute decision maker and all that. She hasn’t left, either.” Brooke’s voice is soft.

Vanessa can feel a lump building in her throat, a mixture of relief and questions (Why now? Why not before? Will you go again?) that she’s not sure her mom will even answer.

Questions that Vanessa’s not even sure she wants the answer to, just yet.

“Consent forms for what?” Vanessa has to hold back a laugh at Brooke’s incredulous expression. “Bitch, I’ve been outta commission, how am I supposed to know?”

“You got a heart.”

The words hit Vanessa’s chest one after the other, nearly knocking her down four times over because it’s hard to distinguish between dreams and reality anymore, but Brooke’s squeezing her hand and pressing a kiss to her forehead and she so, so badly wants it to be real.

“You better not be playing.” Brooke better not be, because if Vanessa’s gotten a new heart that means she’s somehow gotten off the waiting list and she’s gone and survived and she’s going to have another chance at everything.

“What, did you think those sutures along your sternum are just for fun?” Brooke’s tone is light, teasing, but Vanessa can see the way her eyes shine, the way they’re holding back a flood of emotions. “You really did.”

“But-how?” It makes no sense, because Vanessa wasn’t very high up, she’s supposed to still have to wait months to years for a heart-

“Turns out going into heart failure and having an LVAD wire rockets you up the list.” The laugh Brooke lets out is one of disbelief. “They kept you alive in the ICU until they got you one.”

“Jesus.” Vanessa’s brain isn’t wrapping itself around the concept just yet, despite the dressings on her chest and the IVs in her arms, because after waiting so long, it doesn’t feel like it’s real. Vanessa had previously thought she’d be more alert for the process, at least. “If I knew before that having a code blue was all it took to get a brand spanking new heart-”

“Don’t you even joke about that.” Brooke swats at her arm. “I never want to think about that code again.”

Brooke’s voice is light but Vanessa can see the way her eyes cast downwards, how her hands shake slightly. The little breath she lets out.

Shit, Vanessa knows that going through it on her end was terrible, but watching someone else? It’s almost worse, seeing the way Brooke’s trying to hard to keep it together, to keep her from noticing.

“God, I thought I’d really lost you.” Brooke sniffles and Vanessa wants to reach out, wipe the stray tear on her cheek but Brooke’s too damn tall even when she’s sitting.

“I’m still here. Ain’t going anywhere just yet.” Vanessa doesn’t know if the words are true, or how much to believe them. But she wants them to be true. “Still got episodes of 90 Day Fiance to catch up on with you.”

“The most important reason, huh?” Brooke lets out a giggle as she brings a hand up to brush her cheek, and even her crying face is still damn adorable. Vanessa’s impressed.

“Nah, the most important reason is you.”

Vanessa’s always been one of those people who falls too hard, too fast. Falling for a girl on the same subway car or for a cashier at the grocery store. Falling for the occasional pretty nurse that smiles at her more than the rest of them do.

But Brooke’s different. Vanessa’s not even sure if she’d call it love, not really. Not yet. But Brooke had given her a reason to hold on, push on the last few weeks, then had taken over her subconscious while she’d been out. Brooke’s full of possibilities and a beacon of hope for a future, one that Vanessa hopes they can at least partly experience together.

Brooke’s seen her at her worst. She’s seen what Vanessa’s been through and stuck around despite it. Vanessa herself isn’t an expert on women (she’d leave that title to her MAC coworker, A’keria), but she can tell when she’s found someone special.

And Brooke, sweet perfect Brooke, who hides so much softness in her heart that only comes out when she trusts someone enough, is exactly that.

And Brooke’s still here. Which means she hadn’t listened to Vanessa when Vanessa had told her to leave, to save herself from pain that she didn’t need. But she’s stayed. She’s been here at Vanessa’s bedside for the entire time, it seems, from the way she’s folded up in the chair like she knows it so well, the way her jacket is in a corner of the room, a pile of her books on Vanessa’s bedside table.

Brooke hasn’t had to, but she’s stayed. And Vanessa’s beginning to realize that maybe, there’s no way that Brooke could have brought herself to leave.

Vanessa traces her thumb in circles in Brooke’s palm, looks down at the patterns she’s drawing. “I dreamt about you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Vanessa thinks back to the Brooke in her subconscious, dancing around and still sitting at her bedside and whispering soft things while being the most beautiful sight Vanessa’s ever seen. And remaining so now, too. “Dancing around like the Sugar Plum Fairy you are.”

Brooke snorts, but the adoration in her eyes shines through, makes Vanessa feel like she’s floating, like maybe, maybe, there’s more for them. A future. “There’s so much I gotta teach you about ballet.”

“I ain’t going on my tippy toes, though. That’s your job.”

“Noted.” Brooke’s smile is soft, but Vanessa’s ready to let it power her for days. “Though you’d be a good dancer.”

“You say that as if I can keep my ass sitting up for more than half an hour at a time.” Vanessa tries to picture herself back on her feet, dancing and running around, and the thought feels far away, from a distant life.

“Soon, you’ll be able to.” Brooke’s smile is soft and Vanessa can’t help but grin back, because all the hope and the possibilities that are laid out in front of her, in front of them, are right within her grasp.

“Yeah. Soon.”

[sparrowjaywrites]

In My Head

(Soulmate AU: You hear your soulmates thoughts but can’t tell them your name or what you look like.)

(Gender Neutral Reader X Cisco Ramon)

           You’d heard him since your twelfth birthday, your soulmate. People could begin to hear them at any point in their lives as long as both soulmates where over the age of five. No one really understood how it worked or why some people started hearing soulmates on their fifth birthday and some didn’t hear them until they were in their nineties. The only thing anyone knew for sure outside the age requirements is if one could hear their soulmate, their soulmate could hear them. Oh and of course there where the rules.

           Soulmates rules where considered to be as real and unbreakable as the laws of physics, or as unbreakable as they had been before Meta Humans had started running around. Rule One: One could not tell their soulmates their name. Rule Two: One could not tell their soulmate their age. Rule Three: One could not describe themselves to their soulmate. Rule Four: One could not tell their soulmate their location (Discussing future locations could work but no dates or times). Rule Five: One could not block out their soulmate.

           The rules where not the only things making finding ones soulmate hard; people could of course fall in love with people who weren’t their soulmate whether they could hear them or not. It wasn’t uncommon for people to wake up one day able to hear their soulmates only to find their soulmates where happily married and soulmate or not they were not willing to leave their marriage or their kids. Many people who ended on the unhappy side of these situations would end up taking their own lives within the year. This had prompted the invention of a device that could severe a soulmate connection; this severance could end very badly and had been banned in most countries, but some desperate people still found a way when needed.

           You had begun hearing your soulmate at twelve; you’d nicknamed him Westley after learning his obsession with the movie Princess Bride. In response he’d tried to nickname you Buttercup, that hadn’t ended well. After a few weeks of arguing he’d come up with the nickname Starlight, he would never tell you why.

           Westley was an interesting guy, way too smart for his own good sometimes, hilarious, obsessed with pop culture, sassy as all hell, and very good at reading people, even when they were simply a voice in his head. His favorite color is purple although that does tend to change weekly, his favorite Pokémon is Bulbasaur, and he really likes superheroes.

           You had decided not long after meeting him in your head the first time that you would find him someday. Of course the particle accelerator blowing up had put a damper on that for a while. When ones soulmate died the other wouldn’t know it, they would simply stop responding to them.

           When the particle accelerator had blown up, you had been thrown through a window by the dark matter blast, your injuries resulting in a yearlong coma. When you had woken up it had taken a few weeks for the connection to reactivate and Westley had flipped out. He’d thought you had died. You hadn’t told him why you had been in a coma for so long not wanting him to know you were a Meta human, scared of what he’d think.

           You’d woken up a Meta human nearly five years ago now, and had yet to meet Westley in person. He’d dated on and off during that time, hesitantly but excitedly telling you about his current relationship as he always had in high school. You had also dated of course but not as recently. At nearly thirty you just wanted to meet Westley in real life, you had fallen in love with him years ago, although you’d never tell him that. He was your closest friend, for obvious reasons.

           ‘Morning, Starlight, what are you up too today?’ You smile shaking your head as you slip a strand of (H/C) hair behind your ear.

           ‘Coffee at the shop, while I work on my book.’ You respond sipping your medium flash with vanilla bean creamer.

           ‘I’m getting coffee right now, maybe this is the day we’ll meet?’ Westley responds excitedly.

           ‘Of course, you’ll trip and spill coffee on me like in all the cliché fanfictions your always telling me to read on Tumblr.’ You snicker.

           ‘What makes you think I’ll be the one spilling the coffee? Who says it wouldn’t be the other way around?”

           ‘Because for one, I’m sitting down, and two even if I was walking I’m more coordinated then you.’

           ‘Are not! You trip over everything!’

           ‘Exactly and your still a bigger klutz, that’s my point.’

           ‘Well I never.’ He huffs mockingly laughing lightly. You snicker smiling at the laugh. The day passed as usual you spent your morning at Jitters working on your book interrupted every twenty minutes or so by Westley making a joke or asking you something. Your afternoon was spent working on tech for your company, (Y/L/N) Technologies.

           ‘I just looked at the sky and thought of you, my Starlight.’ You let out a small snort at the pickup line you’d heard a million times before.

           ‘I like the line and all Westley, but you need new ones.’

           ‘As you wish.’ You let out another laugh causing people to glance at your; you bow your head with a blush.

           ‘Shut up, you’re making people stare at me.’

           ‘Oh am I?’ That mischievous tone is one you know well, and it spells trouble. ‘Hmm maybe I should just look up something to read to you then?’

           ‘Don’t you…’

           ‘Here we go, the five times Luke walked in on Han and Leia and he one time they walked in on him, this will be a most interesting read wouldn’t you say, Starlight?’

           ‘Westley, I swear to god!’ You groan your face a bright red as you wish for the line to move faster or for your obnoxious soulmate to shut the fuck up.

           ‘Luke was bored, he wanted to go for a ride in the Falcon, but Han was not where to be found. Oh well he would just go for his ride and Han would never need to know… as he entered the Falcon he found something a strange, a random black boot sat in the doorway as if thrown there. Shrugging he steps inside more clothing were spread down the hall leading to the cockpit… oh double meaning!’ Westley reads dramatically clearly getting a huge kick out of your annoyance and protests.

           “A large flash to go with vanilla bean creamer please.” You order doing your best to keep a straight face.”

           ‘Luke’s eyes widened as he froze in place, in the captain’s chair was his twin sister, in far less clothing then he’d ever seen before, on top of her was his best friend in a similar state of dress. “Oh, Han, yes!” Luke quickly turned on his heel running for his life wishing he hadn’t seen that!’

           ‘Westley that’s gross, knock it off!’

           ‘It is pretty badly written, I’m sure you could write it better!’ Westley laughs.

           ‘Would you shut up, you damn idi…’ Your train of thought is derailed as a dagger spins past your face lodging in the counter in front of you. It glowed with a golden orange. You spin around in time to see a person in a black coat with a hood and mask standing in the doorway as people start screaming around you. The person holds out a black clad hand the dagger spinning from the counter into it.

            You take a step back; dropping your coffee clenching your fist silver sparks crackle around it for half a second before suddenly failing. Why weren’t your powers working?

           ‘Starlight?’ Before you can answer the dagger is spinning towards you, just before it can hit you’re tackled to the ground by a dark skinned woman with long black hair.

           “Are you okay?” The woman asks quickly.

           “Y… yeah, I think so.” You nod moving to your feet, pulling your gun from your ankle holder as you do, the dagger spins back across the coffee shop into the monstrous Meta’s hand.

           “It’s time for you to die.” The Meta says stalking towards them. You drag the woman who saved you to the side as the dagger spins towards them again. You raise your gun.

           “Back off.” The Meta throws the dagger again, you open fire, one bullet bounces off the dagger sending it off course, the Meta quickly dodges the other.

           “Are you a Meta human?” The woman from before asks you. “She’s after Meta’s that’s the new Cicada.” You blink at her looking back at the woman firing two more rounds that miss, embedding in the now empty of patrons shop walls.

           “Yes, I am.” You admit.

           “Leave them alone.” A vibrating voice joins the madness as a red steak appears in front of them, less than a foot away stood the Flash. Westley would be having a field day right now if he where there, he loved Meta Heroes.

           “Good, I can kill you too.” A purple blur suddenly shows and the next thing you know you are being set down in what looks like a lab of some type. Computer monitors surround you. The woman from the shop quickly rushes over to a computer talking to the Flash through a headpiece. Moments later XS and the Flash are standing in front of you.

           “Are you okay?” Flash asks gently taking your gun from your hands. You blink still processing where you are.

           “Um… I… uh,” You run a hand through the back of your (H/L) hair nervously, when did your hands start shaking? “I think so… where am I?”

           “This is Star Labs; we brought you here to get away from Cicada.” The woman speaks up. You slowly nod.

           “Okay… why the hell is this Cicada after me in the first place?”

           “She wants all Meta humans dead.” XS explains.

           “How would she even know I’m a Meta? No one and I mean literally no one knew but me before tonight.” You protest crossing your arms.

           “The dagger she was using has the power to block powers, it glows when near a Meta human, you probably were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Flash explains. You nod frowning.

           “Then what the hell am I supposed to do?”

           “We’ve gotten most of the Meta’s out of the city and into hiding?” A woman with long brown hair says entering the room followed by a man who you were pretty positive was Harrison Wells, which made no sense as he’d been dead for four years, a tall dark skinned man, the DA, Elongated Man, and Vibe… who was another person you thought was dead.

           “I can’t just up and disappear.” You protest looking around at the super heroes in front of you.

           “Protective custody is your best shot.” The man suggests stepping forwards and showing you his badge, Detective Joseph West, the DA’s husband and the head of the Meta task force at the CCPD, you’d met him once after the particle accelerator had blown up.

           “If this lady is after Meta’s then why haven’t all of you left?” You challenge motioning to the Meta heroes.

           “Because we’re trying to stop Cicada and this is our home.” Elongated Man says.

           “Exactly, this is your home. Central City is my home; I’m not going to run away because some new psycho with a thing for leather and hypocrisy wants me dead.”

           “If you don’t go you’ll die. We can’t protect you all the time.” Flash argues.

           “I can protect myself.” You shake your head.

           “Your powers won’t work around Cicada.” The DA speaks up.

           “I wasn’t referring to my powers, and if powers don’t work against them, then I’m on an even playing field as all of you.”

           “We’re not going to be able to convince you are we?” Flash sighs shoulders slumping a bit.

           “Nope.” Flash shares a look with the woman from Jitters and XS two blurs disappearing down the hall, followed by everyone but Detective West. The two of you stand there awkwardly for a few minutes before the group enters again.

           “I’m Iris, this is Caitlin and Sherloque.” The woman from Jitters introduces herself motioning to the brown haired lady and the Harrison Wells look alike. “That’s Cecille,” She motions to the DA. “And I’m sure you know who the different heroes are?”

           “I do.”

           “What’s your name?” Flash asks.

           “(Y/F/N) (Y/L/N), most people call me (Y/N/N).” You introduce yourself smirking when she sees the Flash’s eyes widen.

           “The CEO and founder of (Y/L/N) Tech?” You nod with a snort.

           “Yup.”

           “Oh…” XS says eyes wide, looking surprised. A few people look at her questioningly; she shakes her head at them with the universal gesture for later.

           “What are your powers?” Detective West asks.

           “Do I have immunity for anything I say here?” You ask narrowing your eyes at him. “I’m not a criminal but I’d rather not regret this little meeting later?”

           “Of course.” Cecille speaks up, smiling at you.

           “Any of you heard of the vigilante people are calling Starlight?”

           “Yeah.” Iris nods.

           “You’re looking at them.” You gesture to yourself.

           “But you look nothing like them?” Elongated Man says shocked. You snort. You push a few buttons on your watch; thin strands of metal quickly cover your body from your watch, your belt and your glasses. A simple black suit covers you, silver specks shimmering throughout. Metal wraps around your glasses turning them more into a mask. You clench your fists then open them, shimmering silver sparks quickly spread over the suit making the effect look like a shimmering night sky full of stars, your hair floats up a bit turning a shimmering silver, your (Y/E/C) eyes quickly turning a soft silver. “Whoa…”

           “That’s amazing.” Flash laughs. XS is grinning now looking beyond excited.

           “Okay, that’s cool.” Detective West says pointing at you.

           “That’s wicked.” Vibe laughs grinning; he’d been silent so far looking at you as if trying to figure something out. Your eyes snap to him. You knew why he’d been staring at you now… his voice you recognized it… you’d heard it every day since you were twelve.

           “Well since we know your identity it’s only fair.” Flash shrugs looking at the others who nod. He removes his mask, and holds a hand out to you, his brown hair now free from the rubber. “Barry Allen.” You look at his hand having to drag your eyes away from Vibe. You shake his hand.

           “Nice to meet you.”

           “This is Nora, Ralph, and Cisco.” Barry motions in order to XS, Elongated Man, and Vibe. You look Vibe over without his glasses, he was cute, Hispanic, with flowing black hair, a kind smile. You deactivate your suit, letting your powers subside, your hair and eyes quickly changing back to normal.

           “Well, (Y/N/N) if you won’t leave we’ll have to figure something out.” Barry says smiling at you.

           “You could join team Flash?” Nora speaks up stepping forward smiling hopefully at Barry. “You’d make a great addition!” You raise an eyebrow.

           “Nora, a word please?” Iris speaks up. The two step out Barry following.

           “So, Starlight? I see where you get the name.” Cisco approaches you as the rest of the group follow Nora seemingly to join the conversation you can hear getting heated in the hallway.

           “I had the nickname long before I became a Meta.” You eye him up and down. “But I think you figured that out… Westley?” Cisco breaks into a grin.

           “I thought I recognized your voice.”

           “I recognized yours as soon as you spoke.” You laugh. “But to be sure.” You hold your hand out to him. Cisco takes your hand hesitantly. A slight jolt shots up your arm.

           ‘So Westley, my name is (Y/F/N)… holy shit, it is you!’ You think to him slowly grinning as you realize the rules were gone. When a person first made physical contact with their soulmate after their connection was made the rules would break allowing them to talk more freely from then on.

           ‘I can’t believe it’s really you…’ Cisco thinks back grinning just as widely. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you, Starlight. I’m Francisco Ramon, I’m your soulmate.” Cisco says out load.

           “It’s wonderful to meet you too, Cisco.”

~~~

AN: And that’s the end of Part One? I may do a few more parts?

[let-it-raines]

Indirect Deposit (3/3)

Summary: It’s the oldest story in the world, isn’t it? Falling in love with your neighbor. Killian’s sure that he’s seen hundreds of books and television shows starting off that way, and he’s always thought them all to be entirely unrealistic. That is until he started getting to know Emma Swan, who just so happens to live across the hall from him, and he has absolutely fallen for her in a way that he hasn’t fallen for anyone in a long time. 

It’s the oldest story in the world...until it isn’t. Because it’s not just Emma he’s fallen in love with. It’s her unborn child too, and while everyone he knows thinks he’s crazy for falling in love with a pregnant woman, he knows that he’s not. Some things in life are worth taking the risk. 

Some people are worth loving. And some things about life may surprise you.

Rating: Teen

A/N: So I hear you guys are anxious for that cliffhanger to be resolved. Well, here you go! Thank you to @csmarchmadness for being an awesome event that has inspired a lot of writers and encouraged me to actually write this when it was sitting as a 1,000 word story for forever. And, of course, thanks to @wellhellotragic for letting me have her brain child and for talking through ideas and sending me badly photoshopped pictures of babies. I didn’t die of sickness before posting, so I guess you can’t give away the fake ending. 

AO3: Beginning | Current

Tumblr: Part One | Part Two | Part Three

Tag list: @emmas-storybook @effulgentcolors @kmomof4 @kingofmyheart14 @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @wellhellotragic​ @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @branlovesouat @dreadpirateemma  @ekr032-blog-blog @superchocovian @artistic-writer @andiirivera @cs-forlife @qualitycoffeethings @thejollyroger-writer @ultraluckycatnd @killiarious @scientificapricot @mez86 @snow-into-ash

“Do you think you’re Sawyer’s father?”

He drops the pair of socks he was folding at the sound of Emma’s voice behind him. She’s frantic, her voice strained and full of emotion, and he can’t move. He simply can’t. Emotion is lodged in his throat only to be pushed out or pushed down by shock. He really doesn’t know because Emma just asked him the one question he hoped that she would never asked him.

She also asked the one question he always hoped that she would.

But now that the words are out, that she’s said them, he can’t deny his thoughts. He can’t deny how he feels. He’s thought he was crazy for nine months. Nine entire months of thinking that luck or God or just something  had blessed him with this crazy coincidence of Emma choosing him even before she chose him, even before she knew him. He knows that Sawyer is his daughter. He does. He knows that the darkness of her hair and the blue of her eyes comes from him. He knows that she has his nose and his dimples. He knows that when he looks at her, just like when he looks at Emma, all he feels his love. He loves them both so damn much, and it wouldn’t matter if he thought Sawyer was his or not. He’d love them both all the same.

It’s one of the reasons besides his fear of Emma’s reaction and his inability to find the words that he’s never said anything. He’s fine living like this. He’s fine getting to spend time with both of his loves. Yeah, sometimes he wishes that Emma knew so that maybe he could take on a bigger role, so that maybe one day Sawyer would call him dad, but he’s never wanted to take anything away from Emma. Being a single mother has been such a big thing for her. This is her child, and just because he thinks all of this, just because he might actually be biologically related to Sawyer, it doesn’t mean that he has any right to her. He donated sperm for money years ago. He didn’t actively plan and try for a child with Emma. He has had no part of it. It was all Emma. He knows that Emma’s comfortable raising Sawyer on her own now, even though she allows him to help, and he knows that she has walls and issues that she’s allowed him to gradually take down like she’s done with him. Telling her that he thinks he’s actually the father to her child, well, he knows that it would fuck absolutely everything up.

With the tone of Emma’s voice right now, though, he knows that he’s likely done that from not saying anything. He can somehow already feel Emma retreating, already feel her backing away from him and from their relationship, and even though he doesn’t know what made her ask this, from the way she asks…he knows that he should have never hidden anything from her. Not like this.

How does someone even find the words for something as outlandish as this?

He’s royally mucked up, and it’s why he has to brace himself for the fallout that’s about to crash down around him.

He deserves it too. He’s lied to her, and it hasn’t been about something like what he had for lunch. It’s been about something so much bigger.

“Aye,” he says softly, tensing his shoulders and turning around to face her. She looks furious and ethereal and every thought he’s every had about her with the set of her mouth and the fire in her emerald eyes, blonde hair falling over her shoulders and down her back while her chest heaves. “I do.”

“Are you fucking insane?”

He nods his head toward the crib, toward where Sawyer is sleeping. “Do you think maybe we should not have this conversation in here?”

“No, we’re having it right here, right now,” she whispers, and the quietness almost makes her tone more terrifying. No, it definitely makes the tone more terrifying. “How long have you been lying to me?”

“Emma – ”

“How long, Killian? How long have I been letting you into my life, into our lives, while you’ve been hoarding away this secret? This crazy, preposterous secret that you could somehow be my daughter’s father?”

Her words sting, but he knows that he deserves them. They’re not supposed to keep secrets from each other. That’s what they said one night after spilling far too much about the depths of their hearts than any two people should in one night, and yet he still hoarded this one away in the depths of his heart.

He’s screwed up. He’s screwed up. He’s screwed up.

“Since the day she was born.”

Emma practically stumbles backward, her feet failing her, and the width of her eyes slant into a green so dark that he almost doesn’t recognize it, doesn’t recognize her. “So what? Everything you’ve been doing, you’ve only been doing out of some weird obligation? You’ve convinced yourself that of all of the men in the world who have donated sperm, I somehow picked yours? Do you even love me? Do you even love her? Or is at all only because you think she’s actually related to you? Would you even care otherwise?”

“Emma, no. I love you. I love Sawyer. I don’t care about any of that. I promise. I would love you no matter what. Yes, I do think you picked me. I do think you chose me, and that it’s been one of the absolute weirdest coincidences that we found each other. Everything you’ve told me about your donor, that matches up with me, with my life. Every bit of it.”

“She’s not your daughter.”

“Love – ”

“She’s not,” Emma sobs, covering her mouth with her hands as her shoulders shake, and all he wants to do is hold her. He knows that she won’t let him. He knows her well enough to know that. “She’s not your daughter. She can’t be your daughter, and I don’t think I can be with someone who’s been lying to me like this, who is thinking crazy things like this.”

“Please,” he begs, the emotion that he thought left from his throat coming back strong, making it difficult for him to breathe, “please don’t do this. Please think about this. Please let me talk, let me explain.”

“I can’t. I can’t do this. It’s too much, and I need you to go.”

“Emma.”

“Please go.”

“Darling.”

“Go,” she shouts, the volume loud enough that Sawyer begins to cry. Instinctively he takes a step toward her only for Emma to block him, staring him down until he backs away. “Get out.”

He nods his head before he does just that, letting his feet guide him out of the room even while everything around him seems to blur, his vision becoming murky with the tears that sting in his eyes that are only worsened by the shine of the Christmas lights moving off of Emma’s tree, wrapped presents resting underneath it. Staring at it makes the nausea come to him, and he has to quickly leave the apartment even if he knows that he might never get to go back. He might never get to see them again all because he wasn’t honest about his suspicions. He should have been honest.

How the hell was he supposed to be honest?

The nausea is almost unbearable by the time he gets into his apartment, his hands shaking as he turns the knob on his front door, and he barely makes it to the kitchen counter before he has to support himself on something, resting his head against the sweater that’s resting on the marble.

It’s Emma’s sweater, and he can smell her perfume on it. It’s her favorite one actually, and he nearly loses it thinking of how much of Emma he has in this place. It had taken so long for him to feel ready to let himself love again after being hurt, to want to take the risk, but he knows that this time, he’s the one who messed up. He’s not the one who’s walking in on his life being changed. He’s the one who’s causing everything to change.

“Why do you look like you’ve been hit by a bloody train?”

His eyes snap up to Liam who’s standing across the island from him, his clothes from earlier gone as he’s now dressed in a pair of flannel pajamas and a long sleeves t-shirt. It’s when everything suddenly clicks in his mind, like the gears have all matched up for everything to make sense, and he knows exactly how Emma found out he thinks that he’s Sawyer’s father. He’s only told one person, the person who he trusted most outside of Emma, and it was in a night of weakness when his mind wouldn’t turn off, when he needed to get his thoughts out of his mind for one moment. He’s an asshole for not saying anything to Emma, but Liam’s so much worse for betraying his trust like that.

At least, he’s worse to him right now. He’s thinking that Emma thinks he’s a bloody monster. She likely thinks his entire family is made up of bloody monsters.

“Why the fuck would you tell Emma about me thinking I’m Sawyer’s father?”

“I – ”

“Don’t you dare lie to me,” he shouts, his skin heating in anger while he straightens his back, standing up to his full height while his hands grip into Emma’s sweater, the softness calming him so that he doesn’t absolutely lose himself here. “You are the only person who knows I think that, and unless you told Loren and she decided to be a manipulative prick, I’m guessing you decided to share a secret that wasn’t yours to share with the woman I love.”

Liam’s calm as he crosses his arms over his chest, his shoulders broadening instead of shrinking, and it only increases Killian’s anger. He’s always done that when he’s trying to subtly let Killian he’s in charge, and it’s not going to work now. “Because there’s no way that child is yours, Killian. You’re letting yourself fall for a woman and a child who are never going to let you be their family. It’s going to be like Milah again or Hannah or even Tina, but I know that this time it’s going to be worse because of the child. I’m guessing she just blew up on you in there, that she doesn’t trust you, and it’s better to know these things now than learn them when you’re in too deep. I’m simply trying to protect you.”

“Protect me?” he scoffs, rolling his eyes while his heartbeat seems to sound between his ears, a drumline amplified. “You just fucked up my life. I’m thirty-four years old, Liam. I’m not sixteen. Yes, I’ve screwed up in the past, but that doesn’t mean you know best. You’re not some all-knowing being. You’re just a man who thinks that he’s smarter than he is.”

“You’re upset with Emma. You’re not upset with me.”

“I’m upset about Emma. I’m furious at you. I’ve let you do a lot of shit in my life because I trust you and I love you, but you just betrayed that trust and made me lose the two best things that have ever happened to me outside of our family. I love her. I love Emma, I love Sawyer, and I may never get to talk to them again because you couldn’t keep your mouth closed for long enough for me to figure my own shit out.”

“Little brother – ”

“It’s younger,” he huffs, unclenching his fists from Emma’s sweater so he can wipe away the tears on his cheeks. “It’s fucking younger. You and Loren can stay here tonight because it’s late and I’m not a monster, but I want you gone in the morning. Happy Christmas.”

-/-

“Do you see this?” Roland squeals, running up to Killian with his bike, pushing it through the apartment before Killian can even get the front door closed behind him. “Santa brought me a new bike.”

“That’s awesome,” he laughs, squatting down to Roland’s level and admiring the bike with him. “Are these racing stripes? In your favorite color? How did Santa know?”

“I don’t know. He just does. He’s magic.”

“He is. He even got your name on it.”

“Yep. The elves probably did that.” Roland looks over to him and the box he’s holding. “Is that for me?”

“It is indeed.”

“Can I open it?”

“Roland,” Robin scolds, walking out of the kitchen archway to wiping off his t-shirt, legs still covered in pajama pants, “you need to be patient. We’re going to eat breakfast, and then you can open your present from Killian and your stuff from me. For now, why don’t you go put your bike back in the living room?”

“Okay,” Roland shrugs, already wheeling the bike away. “How long until breakfast?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“Cool. I’m going to set up my Legos.”

He chuckles under his breath before following Robin into the kitchen, immediately settling down at the table while the smell of bacon fills his nostrils. He swears there’s some cinnamon somewhere too, but he doesn’t really trust a lot of his senses after the past four days.

“Happy Christmas, mate.”

“Yeah, Happy Christmas.”

“So you’re cosplaying at the Grinch this year then?”

He twists his head to look at Robin who’s cutting up apples into slices and not at all looking at Killian to see his reaction. He probably can see it without even looking. Dad powers or something. “I’m kind of having a shitty week.” “Aye, I know. Your girlfriend broke up with you, and you got into a fight with your brother who took an early flight back home, so even if you felt like forgiving him so you could spend Christmas together, you can’t.”

“Pretty much, yeah. No offense, mate, but I didn’t imagine spending the day with the two of you. I thought I’d get to spend it with my brother, Emma, my da – I thought I’d get to spend it with my family.”

“You’re Uncle Killian. You’re family here too. I just…hell, Killian, do you really think that Sawyer is your biological daughter?”

“She picked me,” he sighs, getting up from his chair to walk over to the kitchen and pour himself a cup of coffee. He’s so exhausted, physically and emotionally, and he needs coffee. “The donor she picked was me, Rob. What are the odds of that? What are the odds that I’d fall in love with this incredible woman and I’d happen to be the father of her child?” “Are you sure, though?”

“I mean, yeah,” he laughs, the craziness of what he’s saying beginning to sink in while the coffee burns his tongue and his throat, the feeling somehow comfortable when it shouldn’t be. “But it doesn’t matter to me. That’s the thing. It doesn’t matter to me if she really is mine biologically. I love her, and I’d love her regardless. It’s the same with Emma. I love them both no matter what. I just…I fucked up with this. I should have told Emma sooner. I shouldn’t have kept it from her.” “Why did you?”

“A part of me says that it’s because I know that none of it matters. Another part of me says that it’s because I couldn’t find the words and I knew it would freak Emma out, that there was no point because even if it’s true, she’d think I was crazy. Sawyer is her child who she conceived and carried and is raising alone, and I would never try to take her away from Emma. Never. Hell, I don’t have a legal right, and even if I did, I wouldn’t try. No matter what. But she’s not going to see it that way. She doesn’t see it that way, and now I’m missing Christmas with them…I’m missing life with them.” Robin sighs, sprinkling the cinnamon he smelt earlier over the apples before popping them in the oven. “Have you tried talking to her?”

“Yeah. She won’t answer my texts, my calls, and she sure as hell won’t answer the door.”

“I’m sorry, man.” Robin walks over to him and wraps his arms around his shoulders, pulling him in for an embrace that he so desperately needed, some of the weight on his shoulders lifting the slightest bit. “I’m sorry that Liam messed up, that you did too, but I know you and Emma. It might take some time, but you’re going to work things out.”

“I don’t know…I don’t know how to fix this one. I don’t even think time will.”

“It’s been fifteen minutes,” Roland announces, skidding into the room with his bike helmet latched over the mess of curls on his head. “Let’s eat, so I can open my presents.”

-/-

The New Year comes in with a bang, literally, as he can hear cheers outside of his living room windows and fireworks outside despite the fact that fireworks are illegal here. He doesn’t go out to celebrate, his moping reaching new heights. Instead he sits at home watching television, avoiding all of the shows that he watches with Emma, and drinks a glass or two (or three) of rum, letting the spice soothe him as he watches the ball drop on television. He knows that there are texts from his friends, a few colleagues, even Liam and Loren wishing him a happy New Year, but he honestly…he just doesn’t care.

Especially about the ones from Liam.

And even though he doesn’t believe any of the crap about new calendar years meaning new chances at life, starting over, and getting to be a brand new person, he does wish that maybe he will get some new chances at life. He wishes that he’ll get a chance to talk to Emma again, to get to read Sawyer another story at night when she’s about to go to bed, and he wishes that maybe he won’t be so pissed at his self-righteous brother who he misses despite everything. He lost his two best friends in one day, and it’s hitting him harder than he expected. He simply wishes that he were able to make up for everything that’s happened in the past two weeks.

But as the weeks go by and he starts a new semester of lecturing, loading up on even more classes than before because he wanted to save money for…future life decisions that will probably not be happening now, he realizes that maybe he’s not going to get new chances. Maybe he should stop holding out the little glimmer of hope that he has that things are going to get better. He still has a life without the three most important people he knows, but it’s definitely a little less bright. He spends more time with his colleagues than he usually does as well as spending a hell of a lot of time teaching Roland how to ride a bike or picking him up from school while Robin is at work. If anything, he can’t complain about getting to spend more time with Roland. It’s fascinating to get to see life through a child’s eyes. He gets so excited about everything, even when the snow starts falling despite the fact that it blocks the roads, and Killian thinks to himself that maybe he should try to think the way Roland does.

(It reminds him of how Sawyer will see things one day, and as much happiness as that brings him…he can’t.)

Of course, he knows that’s not possible. He knows too much. He knows too much heartache and heartbreak, and he’s aware of the realities of the world that Roland is blessed enough not to know. He hears all of the time about how childlike innocence is nothing but being ignorant, but he doesn’t believe that’s true. Childlike innocence is seeing the good in the world even when there’s only the slightest glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not about seeing the darkness. It’s about seeing the light.

So he tries to work and live with that philosophy throughout the month of January, even as the winter chill continues to bite him every time he walks out the door, sometimes even as he hides away inside, but then he sees Emma and Sawyer in the lobby of their building and it stops him in his tracks. Literally. He can’t move. His feet are glued to the tile, and he can’t move, can’t tear his eyes away from them.

Emma’s dressed in dark pants that reach up past her waist, a white sweater tucked into them to show of her slim frame, and her hair is pulled into a high ponytail on the top of her head that makes her seem even taller than she already is with the aid of the heels that he can see peeking out from under her trousers. She looks beautiful, stunning really, and she’s got Sawyer on her hip dressed in an outfit that he had bought her before she was born. It was an impulse buy, something he saw and figured Emma would need like one day for when Sawyer is a little bigger like she is now. It’s a blue jumper with ruffled sleeves, and Emma’s dressed her in a thermal shirt underneath to keep her warm in this weather. Her hair has grown quite a lot since he last saw her, the black lightening a bit as curls peek out around the back of her head, but it’s difficult to see under the floral headband Emma has her wearing.

When Emma turns around, she sees him. He knows that she does from the way her lips part, the red splitting apart, and from the way her eyes blow wide, green so much lighter than the last time he was able to look at them. Honestly, though, the worst part is the moment he realizes that Sawyer recognizes him. She squeals, giggling the slightest bit, and does absolutely everything she can to move out of Emma’s arms to try to get to him. He can physically feel the way his heart begins to malfunction in his chest, the pieces breaking even though it’s not possible, and the similar feeling of nausea comes back to him at the same time that tears sting behind his eyes.

He’s about to fall apart in the middle of this lobby, and it takes everything in him not to.

“Hi, Sawyer,” he whispers, waving his hand at her and taking a step forward until a glance from Emma makes him freeze again. “Swan, please. Let me talk to you. Or at least let me say hi to her.”

Her lips close, pressing into a firm line that he’s seen so many times and yet hates to see, before they open up again at the same time that her head nods up and down. “You can say hi to her for just a minute, but I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Emma – ”

“Please don’t push it. Just take what I’m giving you, okay?”

“Okay.”

He quickly walks over to the two of them and reaches out to grab Sawyer’s hands. He already knows that Emma is not going to let him hold her, so he doesn’t even try. He lets Sawyer grasp onto his hands as he moves them up and down as he talks to her as fast as he can, letting out watery chuckles every time she giggles or babbles. She’s saying Mama, and he knows that it’s probably just babbling, but he also knows that he’s likely missed Sawyer’s first word. And he wonders what else he’s missed, what else he’s going to miss. Those tears that were stinging behind his eyes come back in full force, and he doesn’t try to bother hiding them and holding them back while he enjoys the moment that he’s getting.

When he looks up at Emma, though, he sees a single tear running down her cheek, but before he can say anything, before he can try to convince her to talk to him, she’s making excuses about them needing to go, and he’s having to say goodbye to the two loves of his life.

For how long, he doesn’t know.

God, he fucked up.

-/-

“Dr. Jones.”

“Dr. Jones.”

“Dr. Jones.”

“Huh,” he gasps, startling up from his desk as one of his students stands at his office door. What’s her name? He’s pretty sure it starts with an A. Allison? Amanda? Autumn? He’s pretty sure it’s Amanda. He won’t say anything until he’s sure. “Sorry, sorry,” he apologizes, rolling back in his chair and adjusting his shirt, straightening the buttons. “I seemed to have zoned out, and I didn’t hear you. Do you need something?”

“Um, yeah,” she sighs, flashing her a smile while he tries to pull himself together. “I was wondering if you would be willing to write me a recommendation letter for an internship I’m applying for at this publishing firm. It’s at Houghton, and I kind of figured a literature professor I’ve had for two semesters would be a good person to help out.”

“Of course,” he smiles, ignoring the guilt in his stomach from not recognizing her at first. The more he wakes up, though, he remembers her enough to know that he can write her a recommendation letter without completely fabricating it. “That sounds wonderful, Amanda. If you want to leave me the information for who and where to send it, I’ll start working on it today.” “Really, um, okay great.” She walks toward him and hands him two sheets of paper, placing them on his desk. “Thank you so, so much, Dr. Jones. I’m sorry that I woke you from your nap.”

“Ah,” he sighs, reaching up to scratch behind his ear, “that’s fine. It’s not just the lot of you who are always tired.”

“Well, you do give us a hell of a lot of reading.”

He barks out a laugh, feeling it rumble in his stomach. “Too true. Too true. Thanks for coming by. I’ll get this into you before the deadline. I’ll send you an email when it’s finished, okay?”

She nods her head. “Thank you. Have a good afternoon!”

“You too.”

Now that he’s awake and thoroughly embarrassed to be caught sleeping in his office – he’d been up late last night grading essays, red lines marking his vision as much as they marked the essays – he spends the rest of his time before his afternoon classes writing Amanda’s recommendation letter and answering emails. Classes have only been in session for a month and a half, February nearly almost over now, but they’re all really getting into the swing of things as spring approaches. He’s excited to be in a rhythm, to be back into his old rhythm really, but mostly he looks forward to the way that the weather is beginning to change, frigid temperatures warming into comfortable mornings that will allow him to get back into running in the mornings without having to layer up so as not to freeze to death.

It’s the light at the end of the tunnel, the one that he’s been trying to focus on, and he’s doing a little better at it than he was at first. Helping that is likely the fact that he’s talked with his brother. It’s been slow going, mostly encouraged by Loren with her texts about them both being stubborn assholes (but mostly Liam), and slowly but surely he’s started speaking to his brother again. He’s still upset at what Liam did and still upset that even though neither Liam nor Emma (he’d have to be talking to Emma to know these things) have told him the true story of what exactly transpired between the two of them, he knows that Liam must have said something to Emma besides his thoughts about thinking that he’s Sawyer’s father. He’s learning, though, that his brother isn’t perfect. He’s human, he has flaws, and he’s going to screw up. The same applies to himself. And he doesn’t want to live his life without his brother just because Liam decided to be a pompous ass one night out of some sense of protection.

It’s been a lot of arguing, a hell of a lot of screaming over the phone, and he believes that there’s been more cursing in the two weeks that they’ve been talking than there has been in all of their phone calls in their years of living across the ocean from each other. And even though he still wishes that none of this had happened, he’s learning to forgive his brother.

He’s learning. He’s not quite there yet. His brother betrayed his confidence, and everything is not as black and white as he wishes it was. He thinks they’ll be fine, but there’s always going to be the niggling thought about not being able to give Liam his complete trust. He can forgive him, but that doesn’t mean everything is okay.

It doesn’t change anything but how he gets to feel when he wakes up in the morning.

If he could get Emma to forgive him, though, that would…that would be everything. She may never fully trust him again, but he’d at least like the chance to earn it back. He might not deserve it, but if she were to give him the chance, he’d do everything he could.

When he finishes his lectures for the day, he packs up his backpack and makes his way home, pulling his sunglasses down over his face to shield his eyes from the sun. He almost feels hungover from how tired he is and the way the sunlight is bothering him, but the coffee he was drinking in his last lecture is beginning to thrum through his veins, the caffeine alleviating his headache if only for a little while. All he really wants is to be home and to resume his nap from this morning, but he needs to go to the market and get food. It’s got to have been at least three weeks since he bought groceries, and he really needs to stock up on the basics and stop spending money on takeout when he’s trying to save money. He doesn’t really have the need to save like he was, but he figures it honestly can’t hurt to save a little something for a rainy day. He could always get fired or something.

God, that would be the cherry on top to the last two months of his life.

He stops at the market around the corner from his apartment, getting everything he can carry and making a mental note of everything that he’ll need. He’s out of sugar weirdly enough. He’s not sure when the last time was that he was out of sugar. Isn’t there an old saying about borrowing sugar from your neighbor? He could do that, but the only neighbor who he wants to borrow sugar from is Emma.

And that’s not happening.

Or maybe it is because when he gets home she’s pacing back and forth down the hallway, her hair sticking up in several directions despite it being pulled back in a braid. What the hell is going on?

“Swan.”

Her head whips around faster than he knew a neck could turn. “Killian.”

She looks relieved to see him. Why in the world would Emma be relieved to see him? She must hate him. He’s sure that she hates him.

“Swan, what’s wrong?”

“I – I…oh shit. I locked myself out of the apartment. I was carrying in a box and…and you know what, it doesn’t matter. I’m locked out. Sawyer is inside, and I really, really need you to still have your spare key. Oh God,” she sobs, covering her mouth with her hands and looking at him as if she’s about to lose her legs from underneath her.

He drops all of his groceries, likely cracking his eggs, but none of the matters to him as he turns his backpack around and grabs his keyring, finding the one to Emma’s apartment that he never took off and unlocking the door even as his hands shakes and his stomach rolls in on itself. The moment he gets the door open, he steps back, letting Emma rush inside. He doesn’t know if he should follow or go on his way, but he can’t not know if Sawyer is alright. He has no idea how long she was in there alone, how long Emma’s been locked out, and he simply needs to know.

He doesn’t have to look far to find them. Emma’s sitting on the floor of her living room with Sawyer help tightly to her chest, Emma’s voice reaching his ears even as she whispers. Relief immediately washes over him only to be replaced by more apprehension over the situation he’s just walked into.

“Is she okay?”

Emma looks up at him, her eyes the brightest emerald he’s ever seen, before she’s nodding her head up and down. “Yeah, she’s okay. She’s crawling now, can stand a little bit if she’s got something to hold onto, so I was really worried she’d get into something she’s not supposed to get into. Or that she’d knock the bookshelf over or that a knife would somehow fall out of the kitchen drawers that she can’t even reach.”

“She’s crawling?”

“Yeah,” Emma sighs before she presses kisses all of Sawyer’s face, “she is. I have a video, if you want to see it. I missed the first time because of work, but I’ve got the second time. Or you could just see it in person.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I was going to…I wanted to talk to you, actually, was planning on it tonight when she was asleep, but then I became the worst mother in the world…and yeah.” “Hey,” he soothes, the tenseness in his shoulders easing as he boldly takes steps toward Emma and settles down next to her, reaching out his hand when Sawyer wants to come to him. He’s surprised that she recognizes him like this still even though he saw her three weeks ago. She doesn’t see him like she used to, but he guesses he made a big enough impression in those first few months. “You are not the worst mother in the world. You had an accident, and these damn doors are so fickle anyways. I guarantee that if I google something like this, there are a million stories exactly the same, and every one of those people have a child who’s okay just like this little one.”

“But what if she wasn’t?”

“But she is.” He nudges his shoulder into her before waggling his brows, knowing that it makes Emma laugh. And she does. She laughs, even if it’s a watery chuckle. It’s a good sound to hear. “Besides, whenever you get locked out of your apartment, good things seem to happen to me.”

“You still think meeting me is a good thing?”

Sawyer clasps her hands over his cheeks, and he pokes his lips out to peck her nose, making her giggle. God, he missed her laugh too. She’s so beautiful. “I still think meeting you is the best thing to ever happen to me.”

“Killian – ”

“Can I talk first?” he asks, tilting his head to look at her, their noses so close that he could probably kiss her nose too. Or at least kiss her. That would be pushing his luck too much. He’s somehow walked into an opportunity here, and he doesn’t want to screw this one up too.

Emma doesn’t say anything. She simply nods, and he takes this as his opportunity.

“I’m sorry, love. I’m sorry that I…that I kept a secret from you. I’m sorry that I kept such a big secret from you. I don’t have a great reason. When I sit down and think about it…I don’t have a good way to explain it.”

“Can you try?”

Does she…is she…she almost looks hopeful. Does he have any right to feel hopeful?

“You’d just given birth, and neither of us had slept in awhile, and a nurse or two kept making comments about how Sawyer – ” Sawyer squeals at the sound of her name, and he and Emma both laugh at her as he starts bouncing her up and down in an attempt to entertain her while he gets this miraculous chance to talk to Emma. All of his food outside is going to spoil. He doesn’t even care. “ – they kept talking about how Sawyer looked like me, which was insane. It’s still insane, but it nagged at me. I knew there was no chance, but I asked you about your donor anyways…and while yeah, it could just be the freakiest coincidence in the world, the man you were describing, I’m that man. At least I think I’m that man. I had forgotten the I was once I donor, and I’m…I think I’m your donor.”

“I know.”

“What?” he whispers so quietly that he can barely hear the words himself.

“I know that you are. I’ve had a lot of time to think. I kind of…I shielded myself away from people. I shouldn’t have, but I did. And I had a lot of time to think. You do match every description. I went back and read the sheet. I had it on file or whatever, and there were so many more things that are just…you, which may very well be the craziest thing in the entire world.” “I agree with you on that.”

Emma presses her lips together in a soft smile, and he can see tears forming in her eyes. He can feel them in his own. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it before when I was getting to know you, but to me, I was never worried about the donor. I was going to be a mom, and I was going to do it on my own.”

“And you’re doing a bloody fantastic job.”

“Today not withstanding,” she chuckles, reaching over to push Sawyer’s hair back, staring at her for a long time before she looks back up at him. “But I don’t – I thought about coming to talk to you so many times, but I was so hurt about you lying to me, about you betraying my trust like that, and even though I know you would never do this, I was terrified that you’d try to take her away from me even though you legally couldn’t. I see crazy stuff like that nearly every day, families falling apart, and I couldn’t risk that happening. I still can’t.”

“I’m not going to try to take her away from you. Ever. You of all people know that biology doesn’t give me any rights to her. I don’t intend to let you down.”

“Yeah, but don’t you see how I could think that maybe you would try? I see that happen all of the time for parents and couples who fall in love, get married, and then decide to have kids only for it to fall apart. You and me…we’ve done things all out of order. We didn’t plan for any of it. I mean, I did. You sure as hell didn’t, and a part of me kind of feels like maybe…maybe you only stayed with me and decided to date me because you felt some kind of obligation to me for Sawyer. There are just…there are so many things that I simply didn’t know, that I don’t know.” “First of all, Emma Swan, I fell in love with you far before this little girl was born. How could I not? It’s not every day that a woman throws up in your toilet, and I knew then that you were something special from the beginning.”

“Did you really? The love part. Not the vomiting.”

“Aye. It was the night you came and made me go searching for that blasted bride’s cake ice cream. I went to so many stores, and I realized that there was not a person in the world who I would do that for besides you. And I loved this little munchkin before I ever had an inkling that she may be mine. Emma, I don’t think I have the words to let you know just how much I love you, both of you, and how much I would love you even if the situation wasn’t like it is. She’s your child no matter what, and I never want you to think again about how I could want to take her from you, to think that I only love you out of some kind of obligation. I love you both for you.”

He means it. He means every damn word and a million more. And as well as he thinks this is going, as relaxed as he’s become every with the way his heart is pounding in his chest, he knows that he still needs Emma to feel the same way. They were partners, and maybe they will be again. But he can’t do that without Emma feeling the same way.

“I love you too,” she sighs, and his heart nearly soars hearing the words. “All of this has been so hard because I do love you. And I’m sorry that you’ve missed so much. I’m sorry we got all screwed up. I don’t…I’m willing to try again, Killian. I think we have a lot to talk about, but I’m willing to try.”

He chuckles before looking at Sawyer, the blue of her eyes shining as she looks at him, hands sill messing with the material of his shirt. “My darling, can you close your eyes? I’m about to very indecently kiss your mum.”

“Oh my God,” Emma laughs, twisting her head from side to side until he places a hand on her cheek and guides her lips to his. They’re just as soft and warm as he remembers, but he doesn’t really care about any of that when Emma automatically opens her mouth to him, letting him flick his tongue out at her bottom lip and apply the smallest of pressures. Mostly he’s thankful to get to be connected to her again, to come together and expertly move against each other like they never stopped. He never wants to stop again. “If she could feel embarrassment, she would be mortified by us making out like that.”

“She’ll have to get used to it.”

“Hear that, baby, you’re going to be mortified by us.”

-/-

One conversation doesn’t fix everything. It never does. He hurt Emma, and she did the same to him in her reaction to his hurt, no matter how justified she was. Even if they both hate it, they can’t change it, but they can try to make amends, try to rebuild that trust. As much as he wants to dive back into things without abandon, he restrains himself and takes things as slowly as he can. He often has to remind himself that with he and Emma, everything has always been a gradual, natural build. Nothing about it has been rushed, and honestly, he thinks it’s that very thing that’s going to help them make this work.

There’s nothing he’s ever wanted to make work as much as he wants to make this work.

So there are baby steps for them (and none for Sawyer as of yet). They start with eating dinner again together. It’s not every night, but it nearly is. He starts cooking for more than him again, making the portions bigger, and Emma will come over to his apartment with Sawyer when she gets home from work. The things of Emma’s she left here, her sweaters and makeup and the occasional shoe – and really just the one at a time which he’s never even quite understood – start to multiply, the old being replaced by the new, but that’s nothing compared to the toys that scatter across his floor and the pureed food that fills his refrigerator and his shelves. As much as it bothers him to have his apartment all out of order, he’s learning to allow the mess.

He’s learning to love the mess.

It’s not as if he can tell an eleven-month old baby that her toys and her food are driving him into madness. When she’s older, well, that’s when he’ll teach her the wonder of organization. And maybe that’s when he’ll teach the same to her mother. The latter is less likely.

His life is his life again, but he likes this version so much better. Emma’s trusting in him, and that’s honestly more than he could have asked for. He screwed up in a lot of ways, and a part of him feels like he’s getting another chance at life. Emma didn’t have to accept him back into her life, their lives, in the way that she has. Forgiveness and love are powerful things he’s both gained and lost in his life, and he’s glad to have found them again.

“Should we have a birthday party for her?” “What now?”

“She’s turning one in three weeks,” Emma sighs, curling her legs up underneath her and tugging the comforter up to cover her waist, her entire body bundled in warm clothes despite the warming spring weather outside. “I think most people have first birthday parties with the smash cake and everything. I just…I don’t have any friends who are moms, so I don’t really – I don’t know what I should do.”

He puts his phone down on the bedside table after he finishes replying to a student’s email. They’re on spring break, and yet he’s still getting emails. These kids should really go out and have some fun. It’s not as if he assigned them work for over the break. “What do you want to do, love?”

“I think I might like for it to just be us. I don’t…you missed so much in those two months, and I kind of want it to be special, you know? She’s not going to remember it, but we are.”

“If that’s what you want to do, we should do it.”

“But what do you want?”

“Emma, darling, it’s your decision. If you want it to be just us, you should decide.”

Her lips form an “o” before they press together and she twists her body, turning her shoulder to him and her back so that all he can see is blonde of her hair falling down her shoulders over her sweater. He’s obviously said something wrong, so he moves over in the bed until he can touch her arm and gently nudge her back into looking at him.

“Hey,” he murmurs, making sure that his voice is low and soft, “what’s wrong?”

She sighs, her shoulders heaving, before she slaps her hands against the bed in what he assumes is frustration. It’s not even seven in the morning, and he’s already somehow messed up today. Or not necessarily messed up but…Emma is upset, and he doesn’t know why. “If we’re going to do this, this whole being together and being parents together, you have to make decisions too. You can’t let me make all of the decisions when maybe you have a different opinion. I want your opinion.”

He quirks a brow, confusion running through him. Is Emma Swan herself giving him permission to veto her decisions? Is this an alternate universe?

“Is that what we’re doing? Co-parenting?”

“I thought so.”

“Aye, I know, I know. I just – Emma, I know that she’s ours…technically…maybe…I don’t know how the hell to describe it, but I already told you, I don’t intend to step over all of your toes. Sawyer has always been yours, and I’m not sure how exactly I fit in here.” “What do you mean?” she asks reverently, reaching forward to cup his cheeks with her hands, the coolness that always seeps from her extremities invading him. “Killian, you’re her father. That’s – I’m not ready to change anything legally, but you’re her…you’re here for us. I trust you, I love you, and even though this is a weird situation, we’re still us.”

His heart stops for a moment, which cannot at all be healthy, before he nods his head up and down, letting all of that sink in. Their timing is all over the place, but maybe the conventional family thing is not going to be for them. Hell, he didn’t ever think that Emma would accept him as Sawyer’s father this soon, even if it’s rare that she says it. Then again, if he thinks about it, how can anything be soon when they’ve pretty much been together for nearly two years?

“So I’m allowed to have a voice on the first birthday celebrations?” “You’re encouraged.”

“I think we should have it be just the three of us with a vanilla cake with buttercream icing. I think she’d like it if it was in the shape of an octopus, since she really likes her Ollie the octopus doll.”

“Ollie?”

“Yeah, that’s his name.” “Baby, you named the stuffed animal?”

He chuckles underneath his breath before dipping his head and gliding his lips over Emma’s, her softness making him feel content while his hands move up and down her shoulders, holding onto her muscles and the warmth that radiates from her. Warmth from everywhere but her hands and feet in the mornings. “He needed a name.” “I love you.”

“For naming a stuffed animal?”

“Yep.”

“Well, I love you too, but I apparently have a lot of stuffed animals to name if it makes you love me.”

They do end up having a first birthday party for Sawyer with just the three of them. He sends pictures to his friends and family, and Emma ends up having to facetime Anna halfway through because the woman absolutely insisted that she see Sawyer and her cake, but it’s just the three of them. And it’s perfect, he thinks. Sawyer has no idea what’s going on, but like Emma said, they do. And besides, they’re giving a one-year old icing for the first time. They could be at a funeral and Sawyer wouldn’t care.

That’s a bit morbid, but it’s true.

And Sawyer absolutely loves it, very meticulously trying to eat the cake at first, something which he knows she gets from him, but once she’s had a taste, she absolutely smashes the cake into her face, covering her mouth with purple and blue icing. That…that she definitely gets from Emma. He has no doubt.

He barks out a laugh the more she does it, and Emma does the same, the video she was taking surely filed with the sound of their laughter, and when he looks over at Emma, she’s got tears running down her cheeks from how much she’s laughing. She looks so happy, and it fills him with a lightness he wants to feel forever.

“Oh, baby,” she laughs before going to get Sawyer out of her high chair, “you are a mess, and your daddy is going to be so upset if you get icing on any of the furniture.”

Every part of him stops functioning for a moment. His organs might even stop for a moment, but then everything is roaring back to life as he watches Emma move Sawyer over to the sink so she can wash her off. He can’t stop staring at them, can’t stop thinking about the slip of the tongue that just happened. He’s always hoped that maybe one day they’d get there, but he never assumed it would be this soon even with all that’s happened. He never assumed it would happen at all. He’s learned not to assume things. Maybe Emma’s not ready for that. Maybe it really was just a slip. Still. She said it.

There’s a difference between Emma accepting him as Sawyer’s father and her accepting him as an actual dad when she has no obligation to do that. She’s never once referred to him as Sawyer’s daddy, and he wants to replay the moment over again and again to make sure he hasn’t lost his mind.

“Killian, why do you look like you’ve just been slapped?”

“I – I – you called me daddy. You referred to me as Sawyer’s dad.”

“Yeah,” she smiles softly as she tests the water out under her hand, “I know. That’s who you are. I’ve been practicing the word with her because I knew you wouldn’t until I said something even though we’ve had this conversation so many times. I felt like the word should be in her vocabulary. You know, for a rainy day or something.”

God, he can’t believe this. He can’t believe that this is his life. He can’t believe that he’s been granted this stroke of luck. But he has, so he walks over to them and wraps his arms around Emma’s waist, tugging her in closer and resting his chin on her shoulder. “Thank you.”

“You deserve it. I don’t thank you enough for being who you are and for helping us even when I’m an idiot. It’s…I’m trusting my gut here by doing this, by not hiding behind things that I’ve been hiding behind. Now, help me clean this mess of a munchkin off before I try to salvage some of that cake so I can eat it.”

“I like that plan.”

He’s a dad.

-/-

“Hey, hey, hey,” he soothes, picking Sawyer up off the ground and holding her to his chest while she cries into his shoulder, the screams practically piercing his ears as the door clicks into its frame. “Mummy will be back, little love. Mummy is coming back. Oh, I know, I know. I miss her too, but she’s coming back.”

It happens nearly every morning that Emma leaves for work, but he’s never quite prepared for it. And it doesn’t help that it happens twice a day when he has to go to his lectures in the afternoon. He’d lightened his class load this summer after talking to Emma about Sawyer’s scheduling, and he was happy to work a little less so he can spend more time with his daughter. He didn’t realize there would be separation anxiety tantrums every day, but he knows that it’ll go away eventually. And he knows that it only lasts a few minutes before she calms down and wants to play or to read a book.

“Ball, Dada.”

Plus, there’s that. Not long after Emma started officially referring to him as Sawyer’s dad, his little love started doing the same thing, and he will proudly admit that he had a few tears slip from his eyes. It’s a moment that happens in every dad’s life, but with the way he got here, well, he’s eternally thankful for it. He’s thankful that both Emma and Sawyer accept him into their lives in any capacity, but this is something else. As Emma has pointed out to him in her real life Elle Woods capacity, ejaculating into a cup does not a father make. He’s known that from the beginning, but hearing Emma say it made him laugh. It’s not about biology. It’s simply not. It’s about being there and showing up and loving even when all you want to do is run away and go back to the life where the only person you ever had to care for was yourself.

In all honesty, he thinks that’s the reason he gets to be Sawyer’s dad. It’s not that he’s sure they’re related biologically. That doesn’t even matter to him. He’s biologically related to his father, and he never did a damn thing for him except fill him with false hope and every abandonment issue known to man for the longest time. He gets to be her dad because he’s been there for it all, and he will be there for all that’s to come. If he’s learned anything about Emma, it’s that being there to hold her hand when she needs it is far more important than any flowery words or promises that can’t be kept but that sound good in the moment.

Being a parent is about being there, and for someone who didn’t get to have that, for two someone’s actually, he never wants to let Sawyer go a day without knowing just how much she is loved by him but also by everyone in her life.

How much she’s loved by her mother is something that he can’t even begin to attempt to articulate.

“Yeah, you want to play, Sawyer? We can play this morning.”

He spends the morning rolling a ball back and forth to her before she gets bored and decides to push around her shopping cart that’s filed with all of her things. With as many things that Emma has, it’s nothing compared to all of Sawyer’s possession. He swears that they multiply, and then multiply again, but with how quickly she moves on from one thing to the next, he’s glad for it. And since she’s pretty much taken over his apartment as well, he wonders how exactly she accumulates all of these things.

He and Emma are definitely culprits, Anna too, but he swears that Liam sends her a package at least once a week. They haven’t seen each other since Christmas six months ago, but they still talk almost daily, often Face-Timing when they can, and as of late, after Liam and Emma had a few rounds of arguing with each other over the phone, Liam video chats with Sawyer as well. To say he’s a bit smitten is an understatement. It’s kind of a testament to the fact that having a conversation and talking things out can solve a lot of awful situations.

All of the relationships in his life are a testament to that too.

Sometimes trust can’t be earned back, and sometimes it can.

If Liam betrays his trust again like he did, Killian’s not sure he’ll be able to forgive that. But he hopes he’s never in that situation.

“Alright, baby,” he sighs, getting up from the floor even as his joints groan. Thirty-five isn’t old in the grand scheme of things. Really, it’s rather young. But he’s not exactly a fan of some of the lines on his face even if Emma tells him that she likes the lines around his eyes when he smiles, and he’s not a fan of the way sometimes he gets sore after making love to Emma or playing on the floor with Sawyer. But it’s his age as of last month, and there’s not much he can do about it. “I have to go to work, so you have to get ready to go to nursery.”

“No.”

He chuckles even as he picks her up, letting her keep hold of Ollie. “Yes, my love, we have to go to nursery because daddy needs to be able pay his rent so that you have two apartments to spread out your things in.”

She’s got no idea what he’s talking about, no idea that there are bills to be paid and food to be bought, and she’s got no idea that even though he and Emma sleep in the same bed most nights, they’re not living together. His lease lasts at least another half of a year, and honestly, as financially smart as it would be for them to officially merge their lives, they’ve only been together for a short time. Well, no. they’ve been together for nearly a year if he doesn’t include their time apart and friends for even longer then that. Honestly, he doesn’t even know how long they’ve been together, and he’s kind of wondering if that even matters. Their lives are intricately complicated, and moving in together may be the very last thing on both of their minds. Emma is being absolutely buried with work right now, and most nights she comes home ready to go to bed several hours past when she should get off work. She’s a badass in everything that she does, and even without him getting to witness her in action, he knows that she’s a fantastic attorney.

A fantastic attorney who’s very much in love with and who he’s happy being with as they are, preconceived timelines be damned.

After he drops Sawyer off at her nursery, he takes the T to campus, the heat too much for his usual walk. He’s only got a few lectures to do today, but he does have office hours and a bit of grading to do, so he knows that it’s going to be a late afternoon for him too. He enjoys his job, enjoys what he gets to do every day, but some days aren’t for him. Very rarely does anyone in his summer classes want to be there, especially when they could be sailing around the harbor or at the beach somewhere, so his students don’t exactly love listening to him talk. But it is what it is, and the hours move by at a leisurely pace that he’s content to be a participant in.

“Knock knock,” Emma says out loud instead of physically knocking on the door. He’s surprised to see her, and when he looks up from his desk to see the smirk on her face, he knows that was her intention. “Surprised to see me?”

“Only in the best way.”

“Oh cheesy,” she laughs, walking into the room and over to him before she bands down to quickly slide her lips over his as she settles her ass down on his desk, her dress moving up her legs to show the muscles in her thighs that he loves. Seriously. She’s badass in all ways. “But I cannot say anything about that because I’m here to very romantically whisk you away from the office and take you somewhere secret.”

He raises a brow, his mind already filling with ideas. “Swan, I believe that you and I aren’t supposed to have secrets.”

“Yeah, well, this one isn’t exactly on par with you knowing that you’re my daughter’s father for nine months.”

“Emma, I – ”

“Hey,” she soothes, taking his hand and placing it on her thigh, the skin smooth under the roughness of his fingertips, “that was a joke. That’s not…Killian, I’m not mad at you over that anymore. You know that, right?”

“Aye, I know. I just – ” He stops his words to keep running his fingers over Emma’s skin before he leans down to press a kiss on her thigh. “Sometimes I think about it, about how unbelievably fucked up we were for awhile.” Emma’s looking at him with her eyes widened, reverence and affection filling them, and it makes the sudden uptick in his heartbeat calm a bit. “I love you something fierce, Killian Jones, and I don’t know about you, but I stopped worrying about us doing things the conventional way awhile ago. And if you would like to close up shop around here a little early, I can show you that.”

“Where’s our little lady?”

“She is with Anna, who has been practically begging to keep her for weeks now.” “Are we going to miss bedtime?”

“Yes, my love, we are going to miss bedtime, but I think it’s going to be worth it.”

“Just what are you up to, Emma Swan?”

She winks, and he can feel the corners of his lips tug up into a smile. “You’ll see.”

-/-

“Swan, where are we?”

She doesn’t say anything, her hand simply tugging on his from where their fingers are interlaced as she guides him into a building he doesn’t recognize. And she doesn’t say anything when she guides him up three flights of stairs and down the hall into apartment 306, their footsteps echoing with each step. There’s no furniture in here, just polished cherry wood floors and large bay windows that look out onto the street that they just came from. It’s only a little bigger than where he lives now, but it almost seems more open somehow. It’s likely the way the kitchen doesn’t take up most of the room or because of the lack of furniture. Really, though, he thinks it’s the windows and the seats beneath them that he’d love to read next to.

“So,” Emma asks, squeezing his hand and tugging her bottom lip between her teeth, “what do you think?”

“I like it. Why am I looking at it?”

“Okay, so long story short. Anna’s boyfriend’s brother just moved to Philadelphia, and his lease is still good for nine months, which was crappy planning on his part. Anyways, he’s subletting, and when it’s over, I’ve already checked to make sure I can get the lease.”

“You’re moving?”

Disappointment rushes through him, and his lips curl into a frown. She’s moving. Emma’s moving. Why the hell would she be moving when they’ve got the good system with each other right now? This is at least a thirty-minute walk across the city. That’s a hell of a lot different than thirty seconds.

“I was kind of thinking that we  could move.”

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

“I’m sorry, what now?”

“I was thinking,” Emma begins, tugging him a little closer and releasing his hand so she can press up on her toes and wrap her arms around his neck, her lips curled into a smile that makes his frown lessen, “that we move here. I know you’ve still got some time on your lease, but mine is up in two months. We basically live together, Killian, and even though I really enjoy the nights where I can sleep diagonally in my bed, I don’t see the point of paying two rents.”

“How romantic.”

She slaps the back of his head before curling her fingers into his hair, a shiver running down each vertebrae of his spine. “Hush. Dr. Jones – ”

“I do so like when you call me that.”

“Dr. Jones, Killian, my love, baby daddy because you ejaculated into a cup instead of into me – ”

He scrunches up his entire face, eyes shutting for a moment. “Bloody hell, Swan, what an awful way to put that. And technically we still don’t have official confirmation that I’m – ”

She pushes her lips into his with such force that it makes him stumble back, his hands grabbing onto her hips and his fingers tightening around the material of her dress as their bodies come together while their mouths move in a kiss that very literally took his words and his breath away.

“I don’t need the test,” she whispers before she fully pulls back, her lips tickling his with their featherlight touches. “We’ve already said that. We don’t…Killian, I don’t need it. Whatever would come back on that paper, it doesn’t matter to me even though I already know the answer.”

“It doesn’t matter to me either. I believe you were trying to ask me something.”

“Oh yeah, you want to move in with me and your daughter?” “Bloody hell, yes,” he murmurs before slanting his lips over hers again and backing her up to where he thinks there’s a wall. He’s not really sure as he’s barely looked at this place, but he knows that there’s a wall somewhere. He knows he’s found it when Emma gasps, or that may be the way he flicks his tongue against her lips and presses his hips into hers, feeling his much of her as he can. “You should probably show me the rest of this place first, though, so I can make sure it’s better than what we have. I only want to move in with you for your money.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“I love you.”

“Yeah, whatever. I love you too. Do you think we can get away with christening the place before we even move in?”

-/-

Summer cools into autumn in the way that it always does, the miserable heat and humidity slowly fading away in a way that he doesn’t notice until he’s putting on a sweater to go to work. If anything, he’s thankful for it. His body produced enough sweat over the summer, simply from existing and carrying boxes of their possessions and actual furniture up three stories into their new apartment. It took he, Rob, Kris, and Graham to move couches and mattresses and new bedframes up the stairs in a full reenactment of the pivot scene in Friends. At least he doesn’t think he’s as much of an asshole as Ross is.

Half of his furniture is in a storage unit right now waiting to be sold, and the other half is already sold. He’s kept all of his possessions, books and trinkets and every kitchen appliance he can think of, but there was really no need for him to keep a ratty recliner when Emma had a nicer set of lounge chairs. They do keep his mattress, though. It’s larger and far more comfortable, and he’ll give up a lot for Emma, but his mattress is something that was always going to have to stay.

He’s known Emma for over two years now, even if it really feels like longer, but as they’re learning, you learn a hell of a lot more about a person when you officially live with them. To start, the storage unit their excess furniture is in also houses all of Emma’s father’s possessions. He never even thought about all of her dad’s things, and apparently Emma hadn’t either until one day he was talking about how they needed a few end tables and she casually mentioned that she basically had an entire furniture store worth of stuff, not to mention boxes full of photo albums and precious memories that she’s been too nervous to go through. So one day she had taken him down to the unit, and it had been absolutely miserable. Just…it was awful. To him, it was all things he had no attachments to, but he watched as Emma ran her fingers over dusty furniture, as she thumbed through old books, and when she got to the photo albums still stacked on a bookshelf like she couldn’t stand to actually pack them up.

“I’m so sorry, Emma,” he whispers, wrapping his arms around her and tugging her close so he can run his hand up and down her back while he simply holds her as he shoulders shake. “I’m so sorry that you went through all of this alone.” “I miss him.”

“I know, love. I know.” He presses his lips into her hair, knowing she can’t feel it, but he needs a little comfort too as he thinks of his mum and the memories of having to put her things away. “We don’t have to go through any of this today or until you’re ready, but I think one day Sawyer might want to be able to see her grandpa or her mum when she was a wee one.”

He feels her nod against his chest. “Can we do it another day?” “As you wish.”

It took three more trips to the unit before they got the end tables and the photo albums, and another ten before they left with a set of bookshelves that he’s painted white to replace the ones from his apartment that couldn’t be detached from the walls. But over the summer, an empty three-bedroom apartment began to feel like home. It was even clean for a little while, the throw pillows arranged artfully and the floor clean of everything but a checkered gray and white rug and a few house plants to lighten up the place, but then Sawyer came in like a gust of wind with her possessions that are still multiplying. Now the floor is covered in playpens and toys despite the fact the there’s an entire hallway closet artfully organized with storage bins, Emma’s penmanship written across the labels. She’s still not quite old enough for cleaning on a bigger level than “Sawyer, put the ball in the box” but they’re getting there.

Or he is.

He’s usually the one to clean up.

That’s another new thing that he’s learning even though he pretty much knew about it before. He’s much cleaner than Emma, definitely more organized, and even basically living with her for months, both consecutive and not, he was not prepared. He’s been to her office several times, and that place is like a showroom for cleanliness. Seriously, everything is in perfect order, but when Emma comes home, she kicks her shoes off wherever she pleases and leaves her jeans crumpled on the closet floor, her bra usually hanging on a bookshelf. And it’s never because they got particularly enthusiastic in the living room and undressed on the way to the bedroom. It’s because she just takes it off and leaves it there.

But she leaves it there because she’s home, at their home, and if he spends five minutes out of his day picking up one of Emma’s beige work bras or hanging a skirt so it doesn’t wrinkle, he thinks that it’s worth it.

They share a home.

With their daughter.

It is beyond anything he ever could have dreamed about or wished for or wanted. It is beyond whatever facetious novel he thought up on the day Emma threw up in his toilet and he wondered how his life could possibly get weirder.

“Daddy,” Sawyer sighs, the frustration in her voice so obvious for someone still only a year and a half old, before she falls out on the ground, her limbs sticking out in every direction.

“Yeah, Sawyer?” he hums, still grading papers at the kitchen table, a pen stuck in his mouth with his glasses falling down his nose. He’s honestly got to make an appointment with the optometrist soon.

“Juice.”

Without looking he grabs her cup off of the table and holds it up until he can hear her slowly making her way over to him. She usually moves quickly, but she’s been pretty lethargic today, which is what happens when she refuses to sleep the night before and keeps both he and Emma up when Emma’s spending her day in court and he’s working from home. She takes the cup and mumbles something resembling thank you, so he whispers back a you’re welcome before wrapping an arm around her waist and tugging her up to sit in his lap while she sips away. She’s pretty smart for her age (he’s not biased or anything), knows about twenty-five or so words even if she chooses not to use them sometimes and simply points. She’s the slightest bit dramatic, but her doctor assures them that everything is normal.

“Color?” she asks, smacking her hand down on the paper he’s marking up with a green pen.

“These are daddy’s colors, but I’m going to get you your own in a minute, okay? We can draw mummy a picture because she’s having a bad day.”

She doesn’t really listen to him, taking a pen and slashing a green mark across the table, and he immediately gets up with her so he can get her the crayons and large white rolls of paper that they let her have free reign on in hope that she doesn’t start drawing on the walls. They’ve still got the paint colors just in case.

In between drawing with Sawyer and grading his papers, likely missing things for how unfocused he is, the rest of their afternoon passes. He usually only has time like this in the mornings with her, all of his classes later in the afternoon this semester, but it’s kind of nice to have all day during the week. Now if Emma were here, well, then it would be so much better. But by the time Emma gets home he’s already fed Sawyer dinner and given her a bath. Emma’s usually not this late, but sometimes it happens. Her job is busy, but he knows that she likes it that way even if she would like to be home for dinner.

“Momma,” Sawyer gasps the moment Emma walks though the door, scrambling off her seat on the couch and running toward the door, only tripping once, before Emma’s dropping her purse and swooping Sawyer up in her arms. It’s a beautiful sight, one he’d like to watch forever. There’s something indescribably stunning about watching Emma with Sawyer. She wanted to be a mum, wanted it for a long time, and she does such a bloody fantastic job at it that he often watches with awe. He’s obviously glad that he came along, that they stumbled into this life, but there’s no a doubt in his mind that Emma could do this all on her own and kick ass like she does every single day.

He’s glad that she doesn’t have to do it alone, but she could. If there’s anyone in his life who inspires him, it’s her.

In every way.

“Oh, you’re already in your jammies,” Emma sighs after rousing Sawyer up, her giggles filling the room. “Are you ready to go night night?” “No.”

“Oh really? Because mommy is so ready to go night night, and I would think that daddy is too.” She looks at him for a brief moment, a soft smile on her face as she kicks out of her heels. “Hi, babe.”

“Hey, beautiful. I am so ready to go night night, especially if it means going to bed with you.” Emma rolls her eyes at him before looking down at Sawyer and affectionately rubbing her nose into Sawyer’s. “Your daddy is trying to flirt with me, baby, but the only thing we’re going to do is go to sleep like you.”

“That is totally what I meant.”

“I don’t at all believe you,” she sighs, propping up Sawyer on her hip as she walks over to him and collapses on the couch, her head landing on his shoulder as Sawyer crawls over them. “I’m so tired.”

He snakes his arm around Emma’s waist and tugs her in a little closer before kissing her cheek. “I know, love. I can put her to bed if you want to change clothes and eat dinner.”

“No, no,” she protests even as she yawns, “I’m going to do it. Just give me a minute to rest my eyes.”

The minute to rest her eyes turns into falling asleep on the couch within five minutes, and as much as he knows Emma wants to be able to put Sawyer to bed and to read her a story, he’s sure that just one day of letting her sleep a little bit will not be the end of the world. She’s exhausted, the day and this week obviously taking a toll on her, and even if she’ll probably get irritated with him for not waking her, he’s making a judgment call here.

After Sawyer is asleep, he makes his way back out into the hallway, fully planning on heading to the living room, only to be stopped by the opened bedroom door and the trail of clothes that follow it. Emma must have woken up, and when he finds her in the bathroom, she’s got one eye bare of mascara and the other smeared everywhere as she rubs it down.

“You should have woken me up.”

“You should have stayed asleep on the couch.”

“And kill my back? No thank you.”

“Love,” he sighs, resting his hip on the doorframe and crossing his arms over his chest, “you are killing yourself at work right now. You deserve to get some rest.”

“I’m supposed to put her to bed. That’s always my goal. I miss a lot, but I’m going to put her to bed. And I’m missing that because I’m falling asleep on the couch.”

“Emma – ”

“I know, I know. It’s just a bad week. I don’t know. I’m just,” she sniffs, wiping away at her makeup again before turning to the sink and splashing her face with water, “I’ve spent all day watching people argue over their kids and custody, and today didn’t even seem like it was about them doing what’s best. It seemed like they were being selfish, and the only people who were getting hurt were the kids. My goal in life is for Sawyer to never doubt how much I love her, and yet I’m missing things. What if she starts doubting that?”

“Hey, no,” he protests, walking away from the doorframe and moving to stand behind Emma so he can wrap his arms around her waist and rest his chin at her shoulder. “Don’t you dare start thinking that. Did you not see how she ran to you when you got home? She talks about you all day, and we spent half of our day drawing pictures for you. I don’t know what they are, but I can tell that she put a lot of heart into it.”

She chuckles, her body moving against his, and his emotions settle seeing hers do the same. “Life is hard.”

“Aye, I believe that it is.”

“Way to be optimistic.”

“Realistic.”

“Still.” She looks up at him through the mirror, and he tugs her a little closer. “On Saturday, I was thinking that we can take her to the park and then look for a Halloween costume. Anna said that her sister’s kids go to a party made for little ones, and I kind of thought it would be cute.”

“It would be adorable. You can have all weekend to spend time with the little lady, okay? She’ll love it. And I’m sure she’ll love whatever sweets we let her have.”

“Yeah, well, as much as I miss her, if she gets sugar in her, she’s your kid.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

-/-

He walks in the front door only to be bombarded by one hundred and twenty pounds of woman as Emma literally jumps in his arms, her hands holding onto his shoulders and onto his button down while her feet hang in the air, his senses coming back to him when Emma’s legs get a good grip on his waist. What in the world has he just come home to?

“Bloody hell, love, what are you doing?”

“I’m just really glad you’re home.”

He raises a brow at the hitch in her voice, but he doesn’t say anything as he continues to move them through the apartment until he’s sitting on the couch with Emma straddling his lap, her excitement palpable as she bounces up and down, which is getting him excited in a totally different way. He hasn’t seen her this excited since she got a pay raise in February a few months ago. They’d hired a babysitter and gone out to a far too expensive dinner and had far too much expensive wine. It had definitely been worth it.

“You want to tell me what has you vibrating out of your skin?” he questions as his hands settle at her hips and his eyes scan her face.

“I really, really do, but you have to promise that you’re not going to get mad at me.”

“I feel like I can’t do that until you tell me what exactly you’ve done.”

“That is such a Killian way to answer that.”

“Well, I am the one who answered it.”

She rolls her eyes, and he’s helpless to do anything but laugh. God, he loves her. “Okay, so as you know, your birthday is next week.”

“I was there for the birth.”

She slaps his chest, and he wonders if she has any idea how much strength she possesses in her arms. She likely does. It’s not as if she works out for nothing, but he seriously hopes she’s not lifting weights so she can slap him. That would be something else. “Okay, anyways smartass, your birthday is coming up, and I may have been working on a gift for you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, but it’s kind of a big thing, and I kind of…okay, I definitely need you to be on board with it. Legally, I can’t really finish this gift without you.”

“Color me intrigued.” He runs his thumbs over waist, feeling the soft skin of her stomach as he attempts to figure out what the hell she’s talking about. “Where’s our daughter, by the way?”

“Napping, which is good because this conversation is kind of about her.”

“Well God forbid the two-year-old hear us talking about her.”

“Anyways, so I’ve been thinking – ”

“Always a dangerous thing.” “You have got to shut up and let me talk.”

“My lips are sealed.”

“Good. So I have been thinking about things lately, about us and our family. Killian, there is no one in the world who I trust more than you. No one. I love you a ridiculous amount, and if you’re willing, I have some paperwork waiting to be drafted for you to officially adopt Sawyer as your daughter. There’s a lot of legal stuff that I’m not going to bore you with right now, and us being unmarried makes it stupid complicated – ”

“I know you told me not to interrupt, but I can fix that.”

He smiles at the confusion on her face as he tries to contain his happiness over absolutely everything that’s happening right now. It’s like the perfect opportunity has fallen into his hands.

Or his lap really.

“You can what now?”

“Fix the being unmarried thing. I’ve got a ring hidden on the bookshelf. Been waiting for a good time to ask you, and I figure what better a time can there be to ask you when you’re giving me legal talk about officially becoming Sawyer’s dad?”

Emma’s lips are parted, her cheeks tinted red, and despite the absolute exuberance he feels right now over absolutely all of his wants coming to fruition, he can’t help the smug smile that’s forming on his lips while his fingers continue to rub at her stomach.

“Are you serious?”

“I am indeed. Liam brought me our mum’s ring when they came to visit for Christmas so I could have it fixed up, and with the bastard’s track record at telling you secrets, I’m surprised you didn’t know.” “Well, he has obviously gotten better.” She has to readjust herself on his lap before she cups his cheeks with her hands and slants her lips over his several times in quick succession, each getting deeper than the last, stirring him up and settling him down all at once. “You have to ask me.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, you do now that you’ve brought it up and everything.”

“I mean, if you say so,” he sighs, mock annoyance tainting his voice even though he could not be happier than he is right now. “Emma Swan, love of my life, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

“Yeah, Killian, yeah I will.” Her kiss is slow and lingering, drawing him in as she draws it out, and he gets lost in it, lost in her, lost in them. He loves her so damn much, and he whispers the words against her lips the moment that they part before Emma speaks. “Killian Jones, love of my life, will you do me the honor of officially adopting your kid?”

“Yeah, love, yeah I will.”

-/-

Seven months later there are rings on their fingers, papers filed, and he thinks that there is nothing that could make his life any better as he sits on the floor of their bathroom with Emma sitting next to him, their toes knocking against each other while they both take deep breaths at the sight in front of them.

“I’m pregnant,” Emma whispers, the words reverberating around the room until they settle somewhere around his steadily beating heart.

“God, I hope I’m the father this time too.”

[mashitandsmashit]

America’s Got Talent: Champions 2 - Preliminaries 1

Hellooooooo, Tumblr!

So first of all, I would like to explain why I haven't moved this blog to WordPress as promised. Right now I'm not in the best position with money, which is something I will have to invest in order to open a blog there. It's not too much, but for now, I'll need to be in a more sustainable situation to start making such payments...But this site seems to still be up for the time being, and I have taken the liberty of archiving everything FrankDoc and I posted since Season 11. (Don't worry Frank, I won't post any of your stuff without your permission...It's just in case is all...)

So with that out of the way, let's talk about Champions, shall we?

To start, it seems like Julianne Hough and Gabrielle Union were too boring even for AGT! (Or some kind of behind-the-scenes drama with Simon, whatever...) So after just one season of them making so little impact on the show, they're out! Now Heidi Klum's back, and Alesha Dixon from “Britain's Got Talent” is taking the other vacant seat...Already, things seem quite a bit more lively now! And yes, I know this is just Champions, so we'll see if they keep this line-up for the main series...

So looking at this season's acts, I will admit, it's not nearly as exciting as last year's, though I suppose that's because there appears to be less American acts this time...And most of the American acts they DID bring back weren't exactly on my wishlist...

Kodi Lee is not part of this line-up, which is good, because we all know he would have won again, and every season's winner would just be whoever won the last season of AGT...The only AGT winner they're bringing back this season is Michael Grimm, who most people probably weren't dying to see again...But I for one am glad he's back!

And just to clear this up...I went ahead and read all of the spoilers for this season off of the Wiki forum, so I BELIEVE I already know how things are gonna go down...(I say “believe”, because spoilers I read for last season lied to me about who would win, as well as which acts made Fourth and Fifth, so I'm gonna follow them with caution...) Let's just say, there are gonna be some shocking advances this season, most of them in a good way...I think...We'll just see how everybody does...

Speaking of which...Let's start the countdown for Week 1!

10: Dan Naturman. I'm not gonna lie, I kinda forgot who this guy was in the five years since he competed...I guess his name sounds familiar enough, but otherwise, he kinda just blurs together with all of the other hack comedians we saw during the Howard Stern era of the show...(I guess that's what happens when the two most influential judges on the show are a Shock Jock and the guy from “Little Monsters”; We get unfunny comedians up the wazoo making actual progress in this talent competition...) Honestly, some of these jokes might have actually landed if this guy had better delivery. All that was missing was if he ended every joke by shrugging and going, “Eh? Eh?” I'd say the best part was Heidi basically roasting Howie over the low bar he sets for comedians! I guess I AM happy that she's back!

9: Jack Vidgen. It's good to see that he's overcoming the puberty curse that befalls a lot of boy singers, but that performance still doesn't even come CLOSE to what I saw from his fourteen-year-old self in those brief clips! I guess he's capable enough, but the vocals weren't all consistent, and in the end, it was just kinda dull and forgettable...

8: Paddy & Nico. This was precious! Not the first time I saw an old lady getting spun around by a man half her age, but this was arguably superior! Not enough to get my vote (not that it matters), but I'm still happy to have seen this! ...Not so happy to see a few too many shots up her skirt though...

7: Eddie Williams. If I didn't read his description on the Wiki already, this would have been a VERY amusing twist once he started singing! Now if he would sing WHILE lifting a bus, then I would vote for him in a heartbeat!

6: Mike Yung. Still one of the best singers I've seen on this show, even if the song choice wasn't the best display of his talents...

5: Hans. He's back, dahlings! And apparently Simon has suddenly lost his sense of humor with him...I guess he just BARELY made it through thanks to some troll votes (including Howie, who probably wanted him to make the Semi-Finals back in Season 13 THAT BADLY!) I will admit, this performance was a bit sloppy compared to his previous ones, and maybe THAT'S why Simon suddenly hates him now, but I'm still happy to see this guy get voted through! Let's just see how crazy and naughty it gets NEXT time...(Also, on a side note, I wonder if the judges will start picking the last act to advance out of three instead of two in the main show as well now...)

4: Junior Creative. The only shame of Hans going through is that this group had to be dropped in the process...That said, I have seen quite a few acts like this...Don't get me wrong, they keep raising the bar, and this was no exception! But knowing that this isn't the first of its kind, and surely won't be the last, it's no huge loss...Besides, there's another act in this genre performing on a later week that will HOPEFULLY live up to said bar!

3: Duo Transcend. I won't lie, I'm very happy to hear of the successful eye surgery! It always pains me to hear about people gradually losing their senses knowing that they'll have to spend the rest of their lives without it...But that still doesn't mean he isn't willing to perform without seeing! (Get it? 'Cause...the blindfolds? ...Yeah...) These were some of their best tricks, though I don't always notice because I might tune out here and there...I don't know what it is; This just isn't the most interesting act for me...But I'm still glad they advanced!

2: Dania Diaz. Not entirely original...This was pretty much a combination of things I've seen from Mat Franco, Shin Lim and MAYBE Jon Dorenbos in the past...But it was still the best magic trick I've seen in a while, especially after Eric Chien and Dom Chambers failed to live up to the hype! This lady is definitely talented enough to hold her own in this male-dominated art!

1: Angelina Jordan. Wow! Heidi actually gave the GB to a legitimately promising singer for once! We've heard “Bohemian Rhapsody” quite a few times on this show, but never performed Norah Jones style! The only pity of this selection is that due to her skipping the Semi-Finals, that means we only get to see her one more time in this game...This new format is a definite improvement over last season, but it can still use some tweaks...

This show...was okay...I guess the results were satisfying enough, though aside from Angelina and MAYBE Dania, nobody was super-exciting...Still not bad so far...

I'll talk about next week's acts once the list comes in...

Edit: It appears that next week’s acts should be quite interesting (if a bit of a sausage fest...) I’ll go ahead and rank them based on how much I’m looking forward to them...

10: Collabro

9: Oz Pearlman

8: Luke Islam

7: Spencer Horsman

6: Ben Blaque

5: Marcelito Pomoy

4: Marc Spelmann and X

3: Ryan Niemiller

2: Puddles Pity Party

1: Boogie Storm