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fascination-street-writing · 4 years

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Jumping on Someone Else’s Train | Narancia Ghirga x GN!Reader

His is the face of the one who lost everything, found everything, and lost it all again.

A Canon Divergence AU, in which Narancia does not follow Bucciarati on the boat in Venezia

- 200 Follower Giveaway Piece I for @vergissmeinnnicht -

Content Warnings: Regret, Angst, Mentions of Alcoholism, & Mentions of Other Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms

Men and women clad in suits of varying styles and colors stand along the proscenium of the tracks, waiting for the first wave of commuter trains from Venezia. With thoughts of unfinished reports, soccer practices, and uncertainties of whether to have spaghetti alle vongole or ai ricci for dinner, no one pays heed to the three battered teenagers seated just behind the line – who, mind you, certainly ought to be in school.

To your left, Fugo fumes; and yet, despite his ever-apparent anger, there is unbounded despondency in his violet eyes. Despondency indeed, perhaps for the mutual decision of yours and his, or otherwise, because of Bucciarati’s blasphemy. Although, you suppose that you cannot fault your former Capo. He has always had a proclivity for saving undesirables – yourselves, included. But his kindness is not your own.

To your right, Narancia leans over and slouches, clutching his head between two hands that have not yet healed from his scuffle with the first man of the assassination team. You cannot help but to notice that several of the crackling scabs have been picked open. You regret deeply that you had not offered to run Trish’s errands with the black-haired boy. And, though he will not admit it, as does Fugo.

The sound of a shoe tapping against the concrete flooring would be irksome to you if it were anyone other than Narancia’s doing. You cannot decide if he is merely growing impatient for the train to arrive, or rather, unequivocally conflicted about what has transpired within the past hour. A shuddering breath slips past his lips, expelling as his shoulders begin to quake. He might never forgive you for letting him snivel in public.

Gently, you place your hand on his back. Narancia stills at your touch and allows his own to fall from his reddened cheeks. Reluctantly so, he meets your concerned gaze. He fears he might disintegrate into nothing more than bones if you keep looking at him this way – like you adore and loathe him all the same.

You speak his name softly, reminiscent of some kind of lullaby that his mother might have sung to him during his early adolescence. “We need you to be here,” you tell him.

His nod is an automatic response. He contemplates the bluntness of your words, understanding well enough that they have sprung from a good heart. You have become more like Bucciarati, he thinks; your pension for austerity in love rivals his, to be sure. Narancia swallows and nods once more. “I’m here,” he insists.

He would wince at the cracking of his voice if you had turned away sooner. You pull your hand back and rest it atop your leg, curling your fingers into the threadwork of your pants. “Stay with us, then.”

The rotors of the train squeal as the machinery lulls to a stop. In truth, you would never like to board another train for as long as you should live. But this is not a luxury you can afford.

“Now boarding from Stazione di Venezia Santa Lucia to Napoli Centrale. Total travel time – seven hours and thirty-nine minutes. First stop: Ferrara.”

Within the compartment of the train, Fugo sits beside you and pours over a bit of reading that he had swiped from a kiosk before embarking. Narancia determines that the book the younger boy reads must be painfully dreadful, or implausibly wonderful. His brow furrows, as if deeply embedded in his own thoughts, but his fingers never bend to turn the page.

A quivery sigh escapes as you stare from the window, appearing to be as bored as ever. The Italian countryside passes by in blurs of likewise colored landscapes. Narancia wonders how it is that you can tell the difference between a vineyard and a farm against the speed of travel. Or maybe you cannot, though you try to anyways.

You stifle a yawn, finally succumbing to the exhaustion that has accumulated over the past several days. And yet, despite it all, you are still living. Narancia feels his own jaw beginning to twitch, and his mind drifts elsewhere, to the interlude of youth before life with Bucciarati became quite so complicated; good thoughts to keep him grounded amidst the unrest of divided loss.

As it were, he remembers the day when he first met you as if it were yesterday. Before Mista, Abbacchio, and certainly Giorno – back when the two of you, Fugo, and Bucciarati made for the greatest family whom he had ever known. The only other time Narancia has ever seen such strain upon your face was when Bucciarati took you into his home, still clothed in street-rags and muddied shoes. You had not even joined Passione yet; their then eighteen-year-old leader had acted of his own volition to take you in. He always has had a way of saving people.

Narancia knows your strife as if it is his own. Your mother died and your father neglected you; you took to thievery and pickpocketing to find whatever you needed to spend a night without an empty stomach. It was only a matter of time until, provoked by the unfortunate solidarity of utter hurt, you had clicked with the two boys.

But it was not always this way.

In truth, your eagerness to snub the boy is, of some emotional gravity, debilitating. He has always believed friendship to be deserving of the highest value of any other virtue in life. When you observe his struggles to solve seemingly simple math equations during tutoring sessions, with such an unreadable look on your face, he dreads that your hesitation has born itself from an aura of superiority that you harbor against him. The moment you turn away as Fugo’s chastisement rains upon him, he wonders how he might ever be good enough to earn your favor when he cannot be good enough for himself.

When he speculates his plan to befriend you, he thinks without fail that it must be the most brilliant little scheme in the world. Narancia begins by buying you a chocolate bar from the corner store down the street, because what peer of your age does not like chocolate? By the time he has returned home, it has begun to melt in his pocket. He hopes you will not mind, and if you do, he has already decided that he will go back and purchase a second one – cognizant to carry it instead, rather than stuffing it in his corduroys.

To his chagrin, you turn your nose up at the creased, seeping parcel. “I hate sweets,” you tell him with a heavy insistence and no succeeding explanation or defense. Never mind that he had caught you sneaking cake from the kitchen last night when you thought everyone else had gone to bed.

Alas, his resolve is strong. He supposes that it was wrong of him to assume that you would indulge in a chocolate bar, because it is simply not the same thing as cake. During an astronomy lesson with Fugo, a fetching optimism takes over. That evening, he forgoes dinner to sweep the terracotta roof of dead leaves and earthly dust. He rummages through his closet for the softest blanket he owns – blue gingham that had once belonged to his mother.

He runs into you in the hallway on his way to your bedroom; budding with courage, he asks if you would care to watch the stars with him on the rooftop, because the window in his room leads right to the widow’s walk. You roll your eyes and turn away, muttering, “Constellations make me dizzy.” But did you not tell Bucciarati in passing yesterday just how much you love searching for the little dipper when the night skies are forgiving?

Narancia’s spur is beginning to wane, though he cannot blame you. Perhaps he has been reading you wrong. He simply has not pinpointed your interests – that is all. Flipping through the channels of the television, he stumbles upon a culinary program of an older man demonstrating how to prepare bucatini alla carbonara. Struck with inspiration, the boy rushes to the market for pancetta, parmesan, and dried pasta; he has never quite had the patience for making fresh dough, so he settles for pre-packed bucatini. Surely, you will understand.

And so, he leads you into the kitchen with a grin on his face. While pointing to the array of ingredients on the counter, he asks you to lend a hand and to help him prepare dinner. You are all in need of a reprieve from Il Libeccio. “I don’t like cooking,” you say, disinterested. It surely must have been a ghost who prepared the rigatoni al pesto on this past domenica, then.

Narancia does not have high hopes when he extends to you the offer of catching the movie Panni Sporchi in the theater with Fugo and he. His crushed spirits know better by now. But it never hurts to try.

You set down whatever magazine you have snatched from the corner store and cock an eyebrow. “Comedies aren’t my thing,” you utter. “They’re not even that funny. Besides, they’re just poor imitations of life. So are romances. And dramas. Thrillers – horrors . . . Actually, I hate movies.”

He bears it with a curt nod, choosing to ignore that you had held a private viewing of Auguri Professore in the living room yesterday. His head tells him that you do not wish to be his friend, amongst other things – but his heart insists that one day, you will.

It is by chance that he should wake up this night with the irrepressible urge to use the bathroom. On his way back, skin still damp from the sink, Narancia tiptoes along the embroidered vines of the carpet. It is a solitary game he only partakes in when no one is around to question his antics. When he hears a hiccup, he surmises that he has been caught. His sock-clad feet sink into the floor as he stills and prepares himself for whatever beratement is sure to follow. Instead, there is only another gasp for breath.

No, not a hiccup, he notices: it is the sound of grief that came from your bedroom. With little regard to your privacy, he peaks his head through the cracked door.

“What are you doing, Narancia?” you demand as you wipe the back of your nose and hoist the blankets – wetted by your tears – up to your shoulders. “Get out of my room.”

In this moment, it is as if the clouds have parted and clarity canvases the sky. All this time, he truly was enough for you – it was you who was not adequate for yourself. And here you are, curled up in your bed with swollen eyes that beg him to stay even though you had told him otherwise. You are tormented by bad memories that ought to be shed like snakeskin.

Narancia steps forward. “I just wanted to tell you, uh, it’s okay to cry,” he says with a certain tenderness that seems so unfamiliar to you. He rubs the back of his neck, averting your gaze. “Even if you don’t think so.”

You gawk at him and say nothing, for words have failed you. The silence is deafening, all the same. It is an audacious move, but he smiles to you – a gesture of compassion – before turning to leave. He has overstayed his welcome, and your unrelenting stare does not make him feel any better.

“Wait.” He stops, anticipating your delayed retaliation. “Could you . . . Can you spend the night with me?”

As he lies in bed next to you, distance kept by a pillow wedged between your bodies, Narancia beams – but you cannot see outline of his grin in the darkness of the room. This night and many more will pass, and you slowly become something of a beacon. He is beholden to you, because you make him feel appreciated in the ways that not even Fugo or Bucciarati can. For this reason, he will always cherish you – a talisman encapsulated within a friend.

And now, though the seeds of regret have already begun to spring roots within him – hyacinths embedded in his heart –, he will stay strong, for you are like a pharos to him. If not resiliency for his own sake, then certainly yours.

At least, for as long as he can.

“Hey, Narancia.” Startled, he jumps in his seat and clasps his knees tightly. “Is there something on my face?” you ask.

“I – Huh?” he stumbles over any response that might have come to mind. “What do you mean?”

You chuckle. “Well, it’s just that you’ve been staring at me for the past ten minutes.”

“Uh . . . I . . .”

Fugo drags his gaze from his book to your face. “I don’t see anything,” he assures with a shrug. “Actually, come to think of it, I think your nose has gotten bigger.”

The banter of humor between you and Fugo is lost on the black-haired boy. Or rather, he is far too distracted to mimic it. He stands from his seat abruptly and reaches for the door to the compartment. “I have to piss,” he mutters.

He is gone before either of you can comment on his sudden brashness. In his absence, you nudge Fugo and gesture towards his book; just as Narancia had noted, you realize that your strawberry blonde friend has not gotten past the first page of the novel ever since you had departed. You left nearly an hour ago.

“My head is just elsewhere, I guess,” he confesses to your proclamation. He closes the book and sets it down on the seat. “I’m fine, though. As much as I can be. But Narancia isn’t.”

You hum in agreeance. “I’ll go check on him.”

Water rushes from the faucet and pools in the porcelain, ceramic bowl of the basin. Steam wafts towards the ceiling, blanketing the mirror in a cloud. Narancia’s fingers curl around the rim of the sink so tightly that the coloring flees from his knuckles. He feels like a phantom, for a part of him has surely died back in Venezia.

In another world, he imagines that he might have followed Bucciarati – as would have you and Fugo. But this is nothing more than a nonsensical thought that can never be anything more than an instance of intangible pondering. He does not wipe the fog from the mirror, because he cannot bear the sight of the boy who will greet him in return.

His is the face of the one who lost everything, found everything, and lost it all again. His stomach churns and his head whirls with aches. He has never been the type of person to boast of his character; it takes a humble attitude to realize that there is nothing special about oneself – until there is. Truly, Narancia once believed that he was a proper man, because he worked for someone as virtuous as the young Capo, whose confidence bred itself and more.

“I guess I’m not much of one now,” Narancia mumbles aloud with a sigh of vexation. “Not like Mista, Abbacchio . . . or Giorno.”

He taps the tip of his shoe against the linoleum floor. As it were, his socialization into Passione – no, into Bucciarati’s squad – has taught him the moral necessities of defending the weak who cannot otherwise safeguard nor vindicate themselves. Betraying him is a dreadful regret. How can he ignore the voice in his head that affirms his folly and tells him that he is no better for abandoning Trish in all her temperamental, vain ways, either?

When the sound of knuckles rapping against the door startles him from his thoughts, his first impulse is to lash out at whoever has disrupted his mind chamber of self-reflection. “Hey, can’t you read, idiota?” he demands, angrily. “Bathroom’s occupied.”

“Narancia, it’s just me.” The scowl on his face falters as he recognizes your voice. He turns the squealing faucet until it has dried. He does not stop to catch his staggered breaths before opening the door, and perhaps he should have. Even though you have become such close companions, you still make him feel like a child under your anatomizing gaze – as if there is something particularly interesting about him after all, which takes him for a good subject of study.

Your look of concern is jarring. For a moment, it is difficult to breathe, and he wishes he had tried to calm himself first. So much for staying strong for them. You step forward and lock the sliding door behind you. If it were anyone else – even Fugo – the proximity of your body to his might have made him uneasy. You drag a finger through the film of steam on the mirror. “I’m going to ask you something,” you begin to say, “and I’d like you to answer me, honestly. Are you alright?”

He chokes up at your words, because yes – he is perfectly fine; healthy, albeit a bit battered still from his fracas with Formaggio. As soon as he manages to stop himself from instigating the scabs on his knuckles, they will heal, and he will be left with nothing more than pink scar-tissue as an everlasting memento of these past few days.

But, in other contingencies of prosperity, he is unequivocally not alright. Against his better sense of control, his eyes well up with tears, and his cognition scatters.

“Narancia?”

There are many things that a person indulges in as a means of coping, some safer than others. Men fall to the bottle, like Abbacchio – and men lash out in violent rages, such as Fugo. He could keep picking at his scabs, find an emptied compartment to scream in, or pull out his unkempt hair. Contrition moves through him like a venom, and he supposes he should find a way to suck it out before it kills him.

His hands meet your arms in a shockingly gentle, clammy grasp; he jerks himself closer and suddenly, his lips are on your own and he is kissing you. His teeth scrape against your own and he pulls you flush, as if he cannot get close enough to you already, desperate to suffocate the detrimental notions running through him. Stunned and too preoccupied with dwelling on the sweet taste of his mouth, you have forgotten how to reciprocate.

You break apart and shrug the grip on your arms, unsure of what to say as his desperate indigo ogling gauges you for a reaction – whether you should berate him or express your equal adoration, anything is preferable than the silence. “I . . . I’m sorry,” he finally says when you have not.

“It’s fine,” you insist, an unreadable poignancy sweeping your face. “You can do it again, if you need to. I don’t mind.”

He must have heard you wrong; surely, you did not give him such a blessing as this. And yet, when he cups your jaw and meets your lips halfway, you do not shove him off. Instead, you repay the gesture and swipe your tongue along his own. His heart sings for you, like a schoolboy’s choir: thank you, thank you, thank you. You swear that your legs have become melting gold, for they quiver and you can no longer stand on your own.

Or maybe it is because the train has lurched forward. Despite the separation of your lips, Narancia catches you in arms that harbor unassuming strength, but make you feel guarded, all the same. It is strange, you reflect: he has always been something of a haven to you, ever since the night when you had cast aside all hesitations of welcoming him into your circle and did exactly that.

“I just want you to know that everything will be okay,” you tell him – about the kiss, about the train, or about your shared regrets, he does not know. No matter the intent, he enjoys listening to your voice. “You aren’t alone in this, Nara. We both made the decision to leave. You don’t have to suffer on your own, because I feel just as guilty, too.”

He frowns.

“Besides, we have all we need. You, me, and Fugo. I’m glad you’re here, you know; I couldn’t do this without you.” He hastily wipes away the tears that trickle down his cheeks. Stop crying, he sneers to himself. Stop it, stop it, stop it. You pull his frantic hand away from his reddened face and lace your fingers with his, so that he might not try it again. “It’s okay to cry, even if you don’t think so.”

He blooms and comes undone, sobbing into the crook of your neck and clasping your shirt so tightly that the spooling contorts and wrinkles. You trace shapes against his back, creasing the leather with your nails. Slow, tentative, and soft. He wishes to stay like this forever, bathroom or not – just so long as he has you.

While Narancia straightens himself and splashes fresh water upon his face, you wait for him at the door. He hesitates to follow you back to the compartment, because he can lose himself to grief exactly where he is without repercussion. You know this well, and so you extend your arm for him to take with a sense of hushed encouragement. His fingers meet yours, only this time, it is not to stop him from swiping at his face until his skin is raw. “We should check on Fugo, yeah?” you suggest.

“Yeah . . .”

Down the corridor, he trails behind you like a lost stray to his savior. In a way, that is exactly what you are, he thinks. And he will forever be grateful for it. It is not until you have returned to the strawberry blonde that Narancia lets his grasp fall from yours. You return to your seats, and Fugo offers his own attempt at a smile to you each. His book lies in his lap, untouched and unmoved.

“So, Fugo.” You drag out his name, as if deep in thought. “Did you get past the first page yet?”

| 3704 Words |

#narancia ghirga x reader #narancia x reader #narancia ghirga #jjba reader insert #jjba x reader

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monstersandmaw · 5 years

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Male alien x nb human (nsfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

Here's the winner of the 'which monster to write next' poll (at least it was at the time I started writing it). It’s been on early release for Patreon folks for about a week now, and I was supposed to post it here yesterday, but I forgot. I hope you enjoy it!

Lex is non binary, and if they lived on Earth at the moment, would most likely be assigned male at birth. Tarann (alien) is male, an assassin, and didn’t have what we might view as a normal childhood by any standards. As such, there is an awful lot he does know, and a lot that he's completely unfamiliar with...

Content: fluff, the tiniest pinch of angst, plus mention of genetic modification and sterilisation, 'creation' of genetic 'super-soldiers', nsfw, tentacle cocks (plural) Wordcount: 8000

The dull, steady voice of his ship’s computer informed him that faster-than-light travel would not be viable with all systems in their current state of blaster-riddled repair.

He cursed.

It then informed him that actually, since barely sticking the landing in a crumbling red-stone canyon, Tarann would be lucky to take off again at all.

He let out a long string of curses, even switching languages a couple of times.

“That was creative. I even detected some Tch’larian in there,” Menot, the androgynous computer, commented. “Been a while since I’ve heard you use your native tongue, Tarann…”

“Go fuck yourself with a Savaranian spiked tuber,” he grumbled, to which the computer had no qualms responding that if they were not a mere collection of unfathomably complicated code - which he had had no hand whatsoever in creating, they sarcastically pointed out - they might consider the directive.

Tarann simply shook his head in frustration and used the lower of his two sets of arms to smash the bulkhead open by the button on the wall, and stalked through the smashed-up ship towards his cramped sleeping quarters. The Spark was hardly a ship built for comfort. She was utilitarian; designed for quick escapes and aerial combat, and short-range sorties. She’d been his home for over a year now, and he’d be lucky if he ever got her to limp into the upper atmosphere of this backwater planet, let alone space. An unhealthy layer of fine red dust was already clinging to her wings and the intakes would likely need some extensive work before he could get her air-worthy again.

Mounting stress made the old implant scar in the side of his neck throb and he trailed his three-fingered hand along it, his skin currently a neutral, dull grey. Barefooted, as nearly all Tch’larians preferred due to particular shape of their three-toed feet, with one additional thumb-like digit that didn’t quite meet the ground when they stood, he padded silently along the metal floors of the ship and began to check and clean his weapons back in his quarters. The familiar monotony of clicking, sliding metal, and the smell of gun lubricant always soothed him.

“Think,” he hissed at himself.

Menot’s voice sounded over the system twenty minutes later and said, “Incoming transmission from the Agency. Would you like me to play it for you?”

He closed his four yellow eyes and inhaled steadily. Reluctantly, he growled, “Yes.”

“Agent Triskelion,” the familiar voice of his handler rumbled. “We understand that your ship took heavy damage in a dogfight after completing your last contract.”

“That’s a fucking understatement,” he snarled but he didn’t interrupt the message further.

“While it was unrelated to the contract on the Red Flame, your unplanned skirmish with Invaranian Rebels did attract attention and we have intelligence to suggest that they might have attempted to trace you following your escape. You are ordered to keep a low profile and your open contracts have been reassigned to other agents until we can be certain that the Red Flame is no longer looking for you.”

The metal of his blaster creaked under his grip and he relaxed before he damaged it, taking another deep breath. He hadn’t had a contract reassigned since he’d first joined the Agency all those years ago. The humiliation of it forced his skin to change from the dusty grey to a vibrant blue, dotted with teal. Feeling like a teenager again, he forced his skin back to its neutral grey and set the blaster aside, reflexively checking the safety before it put it down.

Back at the bridge, though it was barely large enough for him to squeeze around the seat, he snarled, “Menot, record this and prepare to send it to HQ.”

“Very good.”

“Agent Triskelion, acknowledging receipt of transmission and instructions to lie low. Currently grounded in a canyon twenty clicks north west of a small mining town on a planet that’s so fucking tiny it doesn’t even have an official name.” Tarann steady himself and added, “But I’ll get Menot to send coordinates with this transmission. Ship’s pretty beaten up and I’ll probably need extraction at some point. I doubt this place has the parts I need, but I can look. I’m going to head into the town at sunrise and I’ll take Menot with me. And I’ll keep a low profile.”

“As low a profile as one of the galaxy’s finest killers possibly can,” Menot added, and Tarann cursed whoever had coded sarcasm into their system.

“Exactly,” he said. “A stranger rocking up out of nowhere in a town that tiny is hardly going to pass unremarked, but I’ll adapt.” He snorted a little at the irony of that, knowing that his rather unique genetic melange was designed for camouflage. Not for him was the messy application of paints and disguises, though he couldn’t actually change his bone structure beyond accelerated healing. “So yeah, for the love of all you hold dear, please don’t just forget about me here. End recording. Menot, send it to HQ.”

With that, he slumped into the pilot’s seat for a moment and sighed. Menot helpfully informed him that dawn was three hours away, and he told them to shut everything down save for the essentials and maintain a vigilant watch while he attempted to get some sleep.

“I’ll wake you if anything needs your attention,” Menot promised.

With the sun high in the sky, Tarann stalked across the dusty plain that formed a ring around the town. In fact, it was much larger than they’d initially thought, and Menot quietly informed him in his hidden earpiece that the town appeared to go down into the earth, perhaps following the original mine shafts.

“Puts a new meaning on going to ground for a while,” he snorted.

He was relieved as he passed through dirty, dusty, narrow streets, to note all sorts of lifeforms here - some familiar and many not. With limited biodiversity, he might have stood out like a sore thumb, but the place seemed stuffed to the brim with hopeless outcasts from all over the system. There were even some humans here, which surprised him. The temperature was hot and arid, not ideal for the creatures he’d only had brief dealings with. Earth was seen as a backwater, with the emphasis on the water. It was the kind of place people went to retire to, and that was… about it. Enterprising humans had left centuries ago and gone to the newly terraformed planets like Mars - if they still wanted to remain in their solar system - and many more had joined up with the Federation and scattered all over the known galaxies.

When he passed a bipedal, slender human male, he asked Menot to give him a run-down on the species. “Both surprisingly easy and surprisingly difficult to kill, can be self-destructively curious and reckless, capable of making leaps of logic insurmountable to many species while being unfathomably illogical at other times…”

“Baffling,” he murmured. “Sounds like Agent Luna,” he said with a fond smile.

The legendary assassin had assessed him upon arrival at the Agency for unarmed combat, and somehow despite looking so… breakable, had had him on his back in two seconds flat. She’d also been the one to give him his field name, Triskelion, given that a decent number of things in his body, except his two hearts and four eyes, seemed to come in threes - three fingers, three toes, three lungs… The only trio of anatomical parts she hadn’t seen first hand was, well… elsewhere.

The fact that Luna was a fraction of his size and weight hadn’t seemed to matter at all in combat training, and he’d been very wary (and more than a bit in awe) of her since she’d returned from a mission with an injury that even the best surgeons at the Agency had said would kill her. Six months later, she was back in the field. He shuddered. Humans were like Anthariacs, once you thought you had a lock on their size and shape, they could simply morph into something else. Or perhaps they weren’t anything like that at all.

Unsettled, he shuddered again and nearly crashed straight into a small vendor’s stall in the narrow alley.

He heard the scraping voice say something, at which the ear piece translated, “Watch it!”

Shrugging off the encounter, he moved through the streets until he came to what looked like a bar with a noticeboard outside. Most of the listings were mundane requests and adverts for various services, and the rewards were in a currency he’d never heard of.

It took him a month on the planet to earn enough cash to stop having to make the twenty click trek out to the Spark every night to sleep. He would have slept in a doorway in the town had he not witnessed on his very first evening what happened to people who were caught unprepared and exposed. The sight of the slender wings being yanked off a tiny creature with a scream powerful enough to rupture eardrums had stuck with him and he’d risked the local wildlife - largely dirty great lizards - and gritty wind-storms on a daily basis to avoid that.

His handler at The Agency kept contact to an absolute minimum, except to update him periodically on the investigation that the Red Flame was still conducting and to tell him to stay holed up there. Boxed in with nothing to do, Tarann became irritable and jumpy. It wasn’t that he was itching for the next kill - he didn’t do his job for that - but the constant vigilance and insecurity of taking short, messy, shitty jobs here and there was waring him down, so when some jackass in the bar made a comment about that ‘four-eyed hill varanus over there’, he snapped. He’d encountered a hill varanus on one of his long treks back to where the Spark was still stashed out of sight in the canyon, and the enormous lizard had been curled up beside a large boulder, minding its own business until it decided to make Tarann’s sensitive inner calf its business with a maw full of teeth coated in thick poisonous saliva.

He’d been hallucinating by the time he’d managed to get back to the Spark - miraculously without dropping off the ledge and plummeting to the bottom of the canyon - and his body had been rippling through every colour in the known universe, and maybe even a few more, before he’d finally stuck a huge needle full of universal antidote into his left heart. It had taken him a whole day to recover enough to leave the ship.

Being compared to a hill varanus then - yes, his skin had the same gnarled texture as a number of reptiles found all over the galaxy, and yes, his saliva was also poisonous to a huge number of species - had suddenly broken all his carefully constructed control and he’d lunged at the large, slug-like creature, all four hands going around the thinnest point of its neck and squeezing until its eyes bulged.

“Oi!” a relatively high-pitched shout went up from behind the bar and a moment later a short blast of sound shot through the room and everyone cringed. The high-frequency noise made his insides crawl and he let go of the offending creature and staggered back a pace, toes splaying to try and steady himself. His skin flushed a sickly green before he could stop it.

Tarann turned his head and saw that the sound had emanated from a small, hand-held speaker which had been plonked down onto the surface of the bar. Behind it, wielding control of the button on the top of the speaker was - and he could have sworn that he felt his right heart lurch a little in his chest at the sight of them - a human. They had a blaster in their left hand and looked prepared to use it, if not necessarily formally trained. Their stance was pretty shoddy, but the distance of only a few spans between them more than made up for that. If the human fired, Tarann would die for sure.

“No fighting in my bar,” they said, voice stern and steady. “You got an issue with someone, you take it waaaay outside, am I clear?”

Both Tarann and the slug-thing nodded and he decided he needed another drink.

Approaching the human while they still held the weapon was probably not a wise move, but when he leaned his lower arms on the counter, his upper pair hanging loose and relaxed at his sides, Tarann saw a smile on their lips. “You must be new,” they grinned amicably, reaching below the counter to stash the blaster and pulling out a glass in its place. They then turned behind them to fill it up. “Haven’t seen any Tch’larians in here for a long time.”

He liked the way the human almost got the click at the start of the word but not quite. Some humans were known for their incredible mimicry skills, but this one clearly wasn’t as proficient. He also had no idea how to address a human after they’d just threatened his life, so he settled for a curt nod.

“And you’re about as chatty as the last one. Whatever that bit of pond slime over there -” they gestured with a bottle of distilled alcohol at the creature who’d insulted him “- said to you, just ignore them. They’re… a regular in here, but they don’t have many friends, if you catch my drift.”

“I wonder why,” he said flatly.

“It speaks!” the human chuckled. “And you’re fluent in sarcasm as well as Federation Common. Here, on the house.” And a small glass was shunted his way, sloshing with a clear, ruby red liquid. “You’ll like it. It’s a kind of brandy made with a fruit that grows in the mines. At least, the last Tch’larian I knew liked it. I could be grossly stereotyping an entire race based on one data point. Still, free booze…?”

“You talk a lot,” he said before sipping it. It burned his neon blue tongue pleasantly and then left a sweet aroma in his mouth that went up into his nasal cavity, leaving him with the impression he might breathe fire if he opened his mouth again.

“Yeah, well, you don’t, so… one of us has to balance the equation.” After a beat they added, “I’m Lex.” They held out their hand over the bar counter and Tarann vaguely remembered something about touch not being a taboo for humans. Not that it was taboo for Tch’larians either, but with so many people mingling under the Federation’s relatively peaceful protection in the past few centuries, it was still easy to offend someone inadvertently.

He noted the strength in the human’s hand as he slid his own three fingers into the grasp, and smiled at how smooth their skin was. Their hair was cut short at one side and had been left to flop a little longer at the top of their head, and he’d always wondered what a human’s hair would feel like beneath the pads of his sensitive fingers. Agent Luna hadn’t exactly been the type to let him try. He’d known that Agent Luna was female, but he had no idea what this human went by, and he was unfamiliar with human naming conventions, so that gave him no clue either.

Eventually he realised that he hadn’t told them his name, and murmured, “Tarann.” It seemed fairly safe out here, and most of the people who might want revenge on him for his line of work knew him as Triskelion anyway.

“Where are you staying?” Lex asked as they got back to work, keeping their head turned towards him a little so that he could still talk to them while they polished glasses and took orders from the odd patron.

“Out of town,” he said.

Lex paused halfway through pouring a bottle of something frothy and blue into a glass the size of a small bucket. “There’s nothing out of town…”

“My ship’s out there. Dead in the water, as it were,” he offered, taking another sip of his brandy. “This is excellent, by the way…”

His compliment was met with a grin, but the gesture quickly faded. “You’re not seriously sleeping in your dead ship out in the hills, are you?” they asked.

“Why would that be a problem?”

“You’re lucky the scavengers haven’t found you and stripped your ship - and you - bare…”

He tilted his head and blinked his four golden eyes at them. “I haven’t seen any sign of anyone out there except me. And the odd varanus…”

Lex winced dramatically. “Nasty fuckers those…”

Tarann nodded, rolling his right ankle. “Indeed.”

After a pause, Lex looked like they were about to say something, but the crash of glass on the other side of the room stopped them. “Shit, not those two again,” they hissed, and Tarann looked around just as a fight broke out for real this time.

They grabbed the blaster he’d seen before and the little speaker that emitted the unpleasant noise, and strode off around the bar, ignoring him completely where he sat. He had eased his lean, muscular frame onto a bar stool to take the weight off his frankly rather bruised and sore feet. The unpleasant sound seemed to do nothing for these two as they scrapped - all arms and teeth and roars, and even when Lex shot a quick, low-energy blast into the stone floor beside one of their feet, they didn’t break it up.

He should stay out of it. The human had guts, for sure, but the two creatures that were fighting were large and aggressive, and he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. A stray flail of the tip of one of their tails caught Lex in the face and they staggered back, yelling and spitting curses.

Making his mind up, he slid off the stool and approached the brawling patrons. Grabbing the nearest one by the scruff of their reptilian neck, he yanked hard and backed towards the doors of the bar, clearly catching them completely by surprise. Top thugs never expected to be bested by anyone, and it gave him a good few minutes of stunned compliance. Tossing them out onto the street with a snarl of his own seemed to sober that one up a mite, and a second later the other creature was booted out of the door with another curse, leaving Lex framed in the open doorway, blaster raised, face slightly bruised and utterly thunderous.

Something happened then in Tarann’s body that he was not expecting. A sharp, unfamiliar pang of arousal shot down his spine and fanned out through his entire nervous system. He shivered, a low-frequency rumble escaping him without permission. There was something about seeing a creature that should have been vulnerable in this situation - could have been crushed - standing there with a bruised face and blazing eyes, staring down two enormous beings three times their size, that made him hot all over. It was like mating season, or at least, his vague recollection of it from a brief talk at the Facility to explain that none of them would ever experience any of that because they had essentially had it edited out of their DNA. He’d escaped the Facility and joined the Agency and had never experienced the slightest tinge of lust since a brief flare in his teens. He bit those memories down and looked back at Lex.

“Thanks,” they grinned as the two brawlers separated and headed off in opposite directions down the street, yelling curses over their shoulders in their various languages. “How’d you feel about another brandy?”

He nodded and followed them back inside, watching the way their legs moved - their legs hinged forwards at the knee, which was intoxicatingly the opposite way to his own, their hips swaying rather alluringly.

“Listen,” Lex said as Tarann closed his fingers around his second glass of fiery brandy that evening. “If you’d like somewhere to stay, I’ve got a job opening here for a bouncer. The last girl I had got into trouble with some bounty hunter and had to scarper, but it comes with the offer of a room, use of the kitchen out the back, and a steady pay. It’s not great, but if I get tips, I’ll share them with you.”

Tarann blinked. “You can’t be serious…”

“Why not?” Lex shrugged, refilling a container with a viscous, silvery sauce that crackled softly as it sank into the jar.

Barely suppressing a shudder at the offending liquid, he made a mental note to avoid that at all costs, whatever the fuck it was supposed to be or go with.

Lex caught him staring sidelong at the fluid and laughed. “One of a small number of things on the menu that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone except a hazmat droid, or an Efulgari bombardier -” they added nodding across the room to where a frankly enormous creature sat waiting patiently, presumably for the bucket of viscous gloop in Lex’s hands. “Now, do you have to get back to your ship tonight, or do you want to stay here and think it over? You can let me know what you decide in the morning.”

He scowled softly; wary and distrustful. “You’d just let me stay?”

Lex shrugged again. “You’ve already earned your keep for tonight,” they grinned, revealing hopelessly small teeth. How could they hope to defend themselves with those? His own, by comparison, were two rows of viciously pointed fangs that could rip open the jugular of most of the known species that didn’t have exoskeletons, and even some that did.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll think it over.”

Lex left him in peace after that for an hour or so, but when the patrons began to trickle out into the night, they returned to him and asked, “Want to head up to your room?”

He nodded silently, and followed Lex through a door behind the bar and upstairs.

“That’s my room,” Lex said, nodding at a door with peeling teal paint which stood ajar on his right. “And this is yours. It’s not much, but it’s comfortable and I kept it pretty clean. There might be just a little bit of dust…”

Again, Tarann just nodded his understanding and set his small pack down gently beside the bed. The room was indeed humble, but that wasn’t an issue. He didn’t have many belongings anyway; just Menot in their portable device and some clothes and local coin. “It’s fine,” he said, turning round to find Lex leaning against the door frame in a way that spoke of casual trust and again made his skin flush hot. Embarrassed, he looked away, but Lex didn’t seem to mind, or perhaps they didn’t notice.

“Kitchen is downstairs - it’s the only other door than the one that leads to the bar. You can’t miss it. Help yourself. See you tomorrow, I guess?” they smiled, running a hand through their hair and messing it all up in a way that did nothing to help the rising temperature of his skin or the syncopated lurching of his twin hearts in his chest.

With a final nod from Tarann, Lex left him for the night.

He heard them closing up about an hour later, and then caught the steady tread of their footsteps on the metal stairs, the squeak and click of their door, the sound of clothes hitting the floor, and, another few moments later, the gush of hot water. In the corner of his own room was a sink, so he splashed the dust and grime off his face and decided to ask about a shower in the morning.

The rhythm of his life for the next few weeks was considerably easier than the first had been. Menot kept him abreast of activity both regarding his ship - nothing, mercifully - and the Agency. After three weeks working for Lex, the two had become the very thing he had always shied away from. Assassins don’t form attachments; they don’t form friends. Do the job, get out cleanly, and move on. That was how he lived, and yet, the regular ebb and flow of patrons - most of them familiar by now, a few of them new - and the easy manner of the ballsy human who ran the place lulled him quietly into a new life.

He constantly tried to remind himself that it was a borrowed life; a cover, almost. This cosy existence with its easy repartee between them and the comfort of a soft bed and regular meals was not his to keep, and he would have to shrug it off the moment that he was given the all-clear.

One evening, seemingly at random, Lex closed up early.

“What’s up, boss?” he asked as Lex politely shooed the last drunken creature out of the door and locked it behind her six scuttling legs. “What’s going on?” His natural instincts set him suddenly on edge all over again, perhaps because he’d grown so complacent of late. He didn’t like changes to patterns. It had taken him a little while to relax into this one, and even then, he didn’t exactly ease up on the vigilance.

Lex grinned at him like they’d won some kind of cash-prize, hands balled into fists at their hips, and announced, “It’s my birthday.”

He frowned. “What… What does that mean? You’re… You’re giving birth?” He looked at Lex’ body and couldn’t see any indication that they were carrying some form of offspring.

Lex gave a huge snort and bent nearly double laughing.

“Apparently not,” Tarann mumbled. “Apologies.”

“No,” Lex waved, straightening up again. “I’m sorry, it’s… that just… caught me off guard. No, I’m not giving birth to anything today or ever. It’s…” and then they fell quiet, almost sad, and said, “You really don’t know what a birthday is?”

He shook his head, feeling unsettled.

“Huh,” they mused. “Well, simply put, it’s a celebration of the day I was born. Back on Earth, we celebrate them roughly every 365 days because that’s one complete orbital cycle of our planet around our Sun. Roughly. Give or take a decimal point or two…”

They stared at him and he grew even more uncomfortable. Birthdays were not something celebrated at the Facility where he’d been… raised. The old scar in his neck where their implant had been throbbed and his skin changed colour quietly from grey to a dark blue.

Lex took a step closer and placed their fingertips on his upper forearm. It wasn’t the first time Lex had touched him, but it was the first touch like that; gentle, careful, concerned. “What does that mean?” Lex asked softly.

Tarann wanted to run, but instead he forced himself to ask, “What does what mean?”

“That colour change? I’ve worked out a few already. You go a kind of bright blue when you’re super embarrassed, but I’ve not seen you turn that colour before…”

“You noticed,” he said with a half-smirk, revealing all his dangerous teeth behind his thin lips.

Lex twitched a shoulder but didn’t let go of his arm. “It’s hard not to notice you,” they said voice shifting lower in pitch. “I love watching your skin change. You know, it reminds me of these old antique lamps back on Earth… they’re called ‘lava lamps’ but they’re not actually made of lava. It’s wax or something. Anyway, when you turn them on, they get hot, and the wax inside floats to the top of the liquid in a blob, and when it cools down a bit, it sinks down again. They’re super old and rare now, but some of them change colour slowly, and it’s kind of hypnotic. I remember going to a museum and staring at one for ages. It’s like that with your skin.”

They circled their thumb over a small area of his arm and he shuddered.

“I think it’s beautiful…” And then Lex’ skin flushed and he caught the way their pulse throbbed in their neck, the veins and arteries so close to the surface as to be impractically vulnerable, but they didn’t seem to want to protect it with armour. “Anyway,” they blurted, releasing him so quickly that he actually swayed a bit at the loss of contact, “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. What was I saying?”

“It’s your birthday,” he croaked after a pause.

“Yeah, so, uh… I figured maybe we could do something? There’s an Earth recipe involving pasta that I’ve finally managed to get all the ingredients for and I wanna make it. You game?”

“Game?”

“You want to help me?”

“Oh. Sure.”

Lex deflated a little. “You can take the night off if you’d rather.”

“No,” he said firmly. It never hurt to add to his knowledge.

“Ok then,” they smiled, and he caught the way their shoulders dropped a little, the muscles relaxing again. He’d answered correctly.

In fact, the meal ended up tasting alright. Human food seemed strange to him, and perhaps a little bland, but after the protein blocks he’d been raised on, anything tasted alright compared to those. What really made his evening was Lex’ obvious enjoyment. Their eyes were sparkling and alive, like jewels, and they laughed a lot.

They also made some significant inroads into the fiery brandy afterwards, and ended up slumped against Tarann’s left shoulders, smiling softly and running their fingertips over the slight, flattened bumps in his skin along his forearms.

“I can’t believe you have four arms,” they said, their voice slurred and their eyes vague.

Tarann, who wasn’t drunk, shifted slightly and jostled them. They snuggled up again immediately in a new position which forced him to put both his arms around their shoulders as they lay against this chest this time, and giggled. “Why not?” he asked, because he wasn’t sure what else to ask. They were beautiful and strong and tough at work in the bar and during the day, but he got to see a different side before and after work. The fatigue, the loneliness, the gentle-heartedness was never on show for the patrons of their scruffy, homely bar, but for him, they showed all that and more. Now, unwinding even further as the alcohol took effect, Lex became even more talkative than usual, which was saying something.

“Because you’ve got four!” they exclaimed, as if it was blindingly obvious. “And four eyes. I like your eyes. They’re like crocodile eyes.”

Tarann had no idea what a crocodile was and wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or not.

“And you said you’ve got two hearts?”

“Mmm,” he nodded, feeling brave and bringing his lower hand to rest quietly on Lex’s stomach as it rose and fell. Their body was warmer than his and he liked the tingling that ran across his skin at the touch.

Lex fell surprisingly silent for a while, their fingertips still trailing idle lines along his skin, until they looked up into his face from their slouched position - now with their head in his lap - and asked, “What did you do before you came here?”

Faced with the utterly open honesty in those deep eyes, he found himself suddenly unwilling to lie or even bend the truth. “I was a contract killer. I am still a contract killer. I’m just… lying low for a while.”

Lex blinked. “That explains it,” they muttered, eyes turning back to his arms.

They hadn’t even flinched at the revelation, which set a different prickling running across his nerves. “Explains what?”

“The way you watch people. You don’t see people though, do you. You see soft bits and armoured bits, dangerous bits and weak bits. You see exits from a room and weapons where there shouldn’t be any…”

Inhaling softly, he nodded. “Yes. Does that bother you?”

They shook their head. “No. But it makes me sad.”

“Why?”

“Because you… you haven’t really lived… have you?”

“I don’t understand.”

Lex lurched to sit upright then, dislodging Tarann’s hands from their stomach and swivelling to face him, their eyes now blazing with intensity. “You don’t think I’ve noticed the way you react when I touch you?”

The leap from ‘not living’ to ‘reaction to being touched’ was too great a one for him to follow and he narrowed his golden eyes in confusion.

Lex’s face softened and they climbed awkwardly into his lap, swaying slightly. The sudden, warm weight of their body so close to his own stole his breath for a moment and he felt his skin change from grey to acid blue to a dull pink and finally back to grey in the space of a few heartbeats. “See?” they murmured, rolling their hips invitingly and smiling as a low-frequency mating rumble left him before he had realised what he was doing. “You come alive beneath that touch…”

“I…” he began but stopped when he realised he had no idea what he was going to say. It was perfectly true. He did feel utterly different when Lex was touching him. “I’ve never… There’s never been any need.”

“What do you mean?” they asked, placing their hands on his chest, one over each thudding heart.

Tarann became almost painfully aware of his rasping breathing, the way his body was heating up, the stuttering rhythm of his hearts, the tingling in his groin that he’d never bothered to explore, even alone… “I was created to become a weapon. I was incubated and hatched in a facility which created weapons. They sterilised us before we were even born.”

Lex did look shocked at that. “Fuck… that’s… that’s so heartless… But even so, I can’t have kids, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like to get my dick wet from time to time…”

Tarann, again, didn’t understand. Lex was speaking Federation Common, but the nuances that the human put into their words were frequently lost on him.

Seeing his confusion, Lex laughed, rolled their hips again, and this time Tarann noticed something a little different at the front of their pants, a hardness that hadn’t been there - or hadn’t been as prominent - a few minutes earlier. “I still like to have sex,” they grinned.

“Oh.”

“You don’t have to have sex though,” they went on. “I’m just saying, it’s ok to let someone close. And to enjoy that. However you want to.”

“Oh.”

Lex laughed and tipped their head back a little, looking free and relaxed again now that Tarann’s confusion had been cleared up. Being unsteady with alcohol, however, they kept tipping back until Tarann was forced to grab them with both sets of hands to stop them toppling off; one pair around the waist and another around the arms.

“Steady,” he smiled. “I think maybe you should have some water. And head up to bed.”

“You’re probably right. I had a good birthday though,” they added, gently peeling the three fingers of Tarann’s lower right hand off their waist and bringing it up to their lips. The gesture they left there Tarann knew was called a kiss. Humans weren’t unique among lifeforms in nuzzling intimate parts of their anatomy against the other’s, but the strangeness of it for his species held an instant fascination. How could their lips be so soft? How could he never have done that? How could he never have wanted to share this kind of experience with anyone before?

And before he could stop it, his skin flushed a deep maroon all over like a drop of ink on wet paper, splotched here and there with dark purple. He knew what that meant for his species, and the sight of his own skin changing to the colours of an individual receptive to mating made him freeze.

“Well,” Lex chortled amusedly. Apparently they knew what it meant as well.

“No,” he said immediately, though he wasn’t quite sure what it was he was rejecting.

With a knowing but slightly melancholic smile, Lex clambered out of his lap and stood up. “Night, Tarann,” they said as they walked away. Their hands brushed against the door frame as they left the bar, and he stared at the spot where their fingers graced the woodwork even as their footsteps vanished up the stairs.

His skin did not change back that night, no matter how much he willed it to change. Half an hour later, as he lay in his bed, the sounds of Lex pleasuring themselves reached his acutely sensitive ears. The tiny, muffled moans and grunts that left their body set his skin aflame all over again. He moved one hand cautiously, experimentally down his torso to the slit where, to his astonishment, he was slick and sensitive. He gasped at the touch, and the three delicate, tentacle-like cocks which normally never left the sheath began to unfurl almost curiously into his hand.

Ordinarily, this might have repulsed him, but the sound of Lex gasping and the slick sounds that accompanied the moans, made the tentacles of his genitalia coil demandingly around his fingers. He knew almost nothing about his own species’ reproductive habits because he knew he would never need them. ‘You will never be a breeder,’ they had said when he’d hit sexual maturity - the first time he’d even bothered to explore his body, and, until that night, the last - and that had been that.

Sparks of pleasure shot through his whole body and he began to croon, the sound deep in his throat, rumbling and vibrating like an idling engine, filling the room. He couldn’t stop it. Balling his fingers into a fist, he felt his three pale cocks coil around it instinctively, and he began to kneed exploratively at the inside of the flower-shape they made around his hand, a thin, extremely sensitive membrane stretching between them from the root to about a third of the way down. The pleasure that that elicited made his back arch of the bed and his toes scrunched up the sheets as he lifted his hips too, pressing harder at the centre of the three smooth, increasingly slick tentacles.

Forcing himself to focus back on the sounds of Lex as they apparently approached their climax, he felt a wall of heat building in him. Something was approaching, and he let it sweep over him until the three tentacles surrounding his balled-up fist pulsed, gripping his hand tight as a vice, and warm fluid spurted from their centre over his clenched fingers in a series of messy gushes. His vision went white, his body went rigid, and his mind went completely blank.

Tarann floated in a blissful haze for a long time before he could even bring himself to move, his cocks too sensitive, his hand covered in sticky, slick release, but eventually his cocks retreated back into the sheath in his lower abdomen and he felt able to sit up. His hand was a mess, his lower body too, and when he tried to stand, his muscles felt shaky and weak, as though he’d run the training simulation at the facility for an entire day without breaks.

With his skin so sensitive that it was hard to fall asleep that night. Lex must have finished during his own orgasm because he never heard another noise from their room that night. Shame curled in to replace the pleasure as he realised that he’d eavesdropped on something that was private and not meant for his hearing, and in the morning, he could barely look Lex in the eye as he entered the kitchen in search of breakfast.

Lex, however, smiled warmly. The effects of the alcohol the previous night seemed only to have made their voice drop a little and their reactions were groggy and slower. “I think I'm going to keep the bar closed today,” they announced as they poured themselves a hot drink. “You’re not hungover at all, are you?”

“No,” he replied. “It takes more than that to get me drunk, let alone hungover.” ‘Hungover’ was a term he’d only learned since working for Lex.

“So…” Lex asked a little while later as they cooked breakfast for the two of them the hob. “If you’re only here to lie low for a while, do you know how long you’ll actually be here?”

“No.” Apparently Lex hadn’t been so drunk that they didn’t remember their conversation last night. He paused and added, “But the last transmission the Agency sent me indicated that the people who were looking into the disturbance after my last contract were no longer investigating.”

“So… not long then.”

“Probably.”

Lex poked at the pan with a wooden spatula and sighed.

“Why do you ask?”

He could see the way Lex’s jaw worked from side to side for a moment and recognised it as one of their tells. They were upset. “You think you’ll miss me when you leave?”

“Of course I will,” he said. “You’ve been extremely generous to me when I did nothing to earn it.”

“Right.”

Tarann knew he’d said the wrong thing immediately, but none of his intense training had prepared him for this kind of situation. He backtracked through the conversation, searching for something he could have said differently, something he could have handled better. Lost, he asked falteringly, “Will… you miss me? Is that what this is about?”

Lex nodded without turning around. “Yeah,” they said, voice cracking slightly. They cleared their throat and poked at breakfast again. It smelled ready but they didn’t seem ready to turn around.

Tarann stepped closer, his feet silent on the stone floor, and placed his hands boldly on Lex’ hips. The human immediately eased and leaned back, resting their weight against his body, though their head barely came midway up his chest. Taking the opportunity at last and sensing it would be welcome, Tarann brought his hand up and stroked his fingers gingerly through Lex’ hair. It was every bit as soft as he’d thought it would be, and he watched his skin change colour beneath the strands as they brushed over his fingers. Lex moaned quietly.

When he lowered his hand and Lex saw the maroon fading back to grey, they smiled and turned around, switching the hob off as they did. They put their own hands on his chest and he ached suddenly to have nothing separating them; to remove his close-fitting space-suit top and Lex’ loose-fitting shirt. As Lex slid one palm tentatively up to his neck, he felt the touch in a wave of heat and closed his eyes. His fingers tightened on Lex’ hips and Lex moaned softly.

“I want you,” Lex murmured. “I thought about you last night.”

Tarann opened his eyes a crack and blinked softly. “I heard you,” he admitted.

“Yeah?” Lex laughed, looking part bashful and part turned on. “What did you do when you heard me?”

“I…” he flushed neon blue and stepped back, ashamed.

“Hey,” they breathed, chasing after him. “It’s alright. It’s… really hot that you did that while thinking about me.”

“You don’t mind?”

They shook their head. “If you wanted to try together…”

That mating call thundered through him and he lowered his forehead, bringing it to touch Lex’.

“That a yes?”

“What about breakfast?”

“I overcooked it all already,” they laughed. “It’s ruined.”

Grabbing his hand, they tugged him out of the kitchen and back upstairs to their room.

They shed their clothes in a tangle, and once again Tarann was left staggered and enchanted by the human’s body. This time it was the sheer vulnerability of it. He could also see their arousal plainly - there was no sheath to tease - and something about that made his own sheath throb so hard he let out another mating croon.

“Fuck, that sound is so hot,” Lex gasped, lying back on the bed and tugging him down atop them. “Look at you,” they added, running their fingers down his heaving chest and playing with his sheath as he collapsed atop them. “I’ve always found Tch’larians attractive, but you… the way you move, the way you shudder when I touch you, the way you fucking croon like that…” He did it again - entirely involuntarily - as Lex crooked two fingers and delved carefully into his sheath, catching the inner walls of his three cocks inside and making them unfurl even quicker than they had last night.

They wrapped around Lex’ fingers and Lex moaned. “I want those on my cock… please…” they gasped, and Tarann felt like he might die if he didn’t do as Lex asked. His body was so tight all over, his skin flushing from dusky pink to dark magenta with every deep, sonorous groan that escaped him.

With one leg on each side of Lex’ thighs, he lowered his hips down until they were touching, and his cocks immediately curled around Lex’ own hard cock, covering it in weeping, slick fluid. Lex let out a string of curses and flung their head back into the bed beneath them, rutting their hips up into Tarann’s grip. The pressure of the tip of their cock against the point where the three cocks joined inside him made him growl with pleasure, his maw full of teeth opening, his saliva starting to fill his mouth, bright blue tongue lashing behind them.

“You know…?” Lex panted, thrusting up into the wet heat of the grip that his tentacle cocks had around theirs.

“Know what?” he snarled back, shaking from the effort of holding himself upright over Lex.

Lex reached up to his face with a fingertip and trailed it around his drooling mouth before putting it in his own and sucking. The sight of it sent Tarann into a fury of lust for some reason, and only then did he recall that his saliva was poisonous to many species. Before he could warn Lex, the human grinned and their eyes went wide, pupils blown until their irises were a mere whisper of colour. Apparently he wasn't poisonous to humans. Quite the contrary if the way Lex fucked upwards into his body and filled him with sparking pleasure with each thrust was anything to go by.

“Fuck, I’m close,” Lex hissed, and Tarann felt his cocks contract around the hard length inside him.

He didn’t have the breath or the words to agree.

“I’m… I -” Lex cried out, and suddenly heat flooded the inside of Tarann’s sheath and he felt his own cocks clench and pulse rhythmically around Lex’ cock as he came too. He drew every drop from Lex that they had inside them as his own orgasm rolled through him and left him mute, panting, and thrumming all over.

“Fuck that was intense,” Lex chuckled some while later, when Tarann’s cocks had finally let go of their own softening cock. “Are you ok?”

“Mmm,” he rumbled from his new position, slumped on the bed beside Lex, his trio of cocks lying limply across his torso, splayed out and spent and utterly sensitive.

Lex sat up, heedless that their own body was covered in their combined release, and trailed their fingers down Tarann’s torso towards his still pulsing sheath. “Can I?” they asked.

Tarann didn’t reply but he responded with a shrug. He had no idea what Lex intended, but he trusted them. What Lex did was to lean forwards and take one of his cocks into his mouth and suck on it gently. Tarann’s whole body lurched and he bellowed at the sheer volume of the sensation as it thundered in his head and under his skin all over again.

“Too much?” Lex laughed.

“No?” he gasped, trying to steady his spinning head and suddenly racing hearts. “No. Definitely not too much. Just…”

“Intense?” Lex supplied.

“Do it again?”

Lex did.

—

I really hope you folks enjoyed this one! Don’t forget to let me know if you did enjoy it by leaving a like and/or reblogging it!

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#alien #male alien #alien x human #exophilia #alien boyfriend #monster boyfriend #non binary character #non binary human

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lils420 · 4 years

Text

A lil something for the kids - Part 8

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader

Summary: Bucky is waking up from the ice, and because T’Challa just lost his throne, y/n has to deal with this alone. No time has passed since Part 7.

https://lils420.tumblr.com/post/617266281984491520/a-lil-something-for-the-kids-part-7-pairing

Warning: Some medical stuff, brief mention of torture

It was the next morning things started to go wrong. Y/n had trained in the morning, nothing out of the ordinary, and was having a break in the training room. With unease she had noticed that Shuri had not come down to check on her, or to tell her how the fight went the day before, which was probably not a good sign. Through the windows, y/n could see Wakanda, but the city radiated nothing but her usual vitality. The sun was dipping the rooftops in a golden light, and y/n stood in front of the view for a long time, lost in her thoughts. What a crazy time she had had. Maybe it would be nice to settle down, like the families she could spot through the window. A static noise interrupted her thoughts. Y/n turned around in surprise. It didn’t sound like someone entering the room, so it wasn’t Shuri, like y/n had hoped, and it was gone so suddenly, she thought she had imagined it. But just as she turned back around, she heard it again. It came from the fridge the other refugee was in. Slowly, y/n put down her water bottle and made her way to it. There was nothing out of the ordinary there, it was still showing some vitals at the side. Heart rate 80, a steady pulse, that stuff. Y/n was not a medic, but it looked pretty normal. A voice in the back of her head asked whether there had been a medic down today to check these things, but she couldn’t remember seeing one. The static sound came back, this time a little louder. “Where is this coming from?”, y/n mumbled and crouched to have a look at the cables behind the machine. To her surprise, she found a paper, one of the ones the medic had held yesterday. She picked it up. James “Bucky” Barnes it said on the top. Bucky. Y/n smiled at the nickname. It made the terrifying Winter Soldier Shuri had told her about a lot more approachable. A lot of the other notes on the paper were written in a native language, except for a Warning/ Safety column at the very side. Emergency procedures it was entitled and contained three points. Don’t shoot; Disable by AR-572. Make contact; Mention names Steve Rogers or Bucky. Arm only to be reinstated after psychic evaluation. Upon reading it, the amused feeling at Bucky’s nickname left y/n and reminded her the capacity for harm the Winter Soldier carried with him. Y/n folded the paper and put it in her pocket before turning around.

The static noise was gone, but to be safe, y/n decided to check the vitals one last time. The pulse was still steady, but, much to her surprise, the heart rate was at 90. She wasn’t sure whether this was normal or not and before figuring it out, it climbed again. 100. 110. Frantically, y/n turned around, expecting a medic or Shuri to be there, but it was just her. Her and a man on ice. “This is fine”, y/n assured herself, but she could hear her own voice shaking, “totally fine.” She wasn’t fooling anyone. The fridge started beeping. His heart rate was unsteady now, and at an astonishing 140. Shortly, y/n asked herself how high a normal heart rate should go up to, before she saw movement in the box. At first she thought she imagined it, but it repeated itself. A small tremble in his right hand. Y/n quickly glanced at the heart rate. 175. If only she could remember herself waking up on ice. But that memory was indeed very sporadic. Was she supposed to open the fridge? The man inside started moving more, still only little, but definitely moving. It looked like he needed space and without giving it a second thought, she opened the door.

After that, y/n simply stood next to him. He was tilted to lie on his back and strapped in at both feet and wrists. Nervously, she dug her finger nails into her skin. “Good Morning, James Buchanan Barnes”, she said softly, “you might remember me. I’m the girl with all the problems. And right now, I’m having another one”, she sighed. His pulse had climbed to 210, “I don’t know what to do with you. Are you going to wake up?”

As if he had heard her, his eyes shot open and his entire body started contracting and releasing at an unhealthy speed. The straps constrained him, but he wound himself, as if they hurt him. Helplessly, y/n watched him suffer. Although his eyes were opened, they didn’t seem to register anything. Sometimes, he’d blink, giving the impression he was waking up from a bad dream. “Hey, hey, it’s okay”, y/n moved closer to the man, but her words only seemed to make it worse. He started screaming, first almost quietly, but as he regained more of his consciousness, they grew louder. Drowning out the beeping of the fridge, the screams were ear splitting, containing the pain of someone who had suffered past the point of return. Someone who had died a million different deaths and still didn’t find away to escape. Someone who had watched the sadness of the world, but unable to stop it, contributed to it. As a spy for the CIA, y/n had heard many screams, including her own, and they all had been terrible, but these ones were the worst. Agony seemed to flow through this man’s every fiber, and y/n had no idea how to stop it. Vaguely, she remembered the weapon she had read about just a minute earlier. Don’t shoot, it had said, use an AR-something. Y/n had no idea what that looked like, she couldn’t even remember the name, so, in lack of a wiser choice she turned to point two. Reaching out to him with both hands, she turned his face to her. He was unwilling, but y/n was strong. “Hey, it’s okay, hey”, her voice had little influence, not even the screaming stopped, but at least she had contact. He was now looking at her. “You are Bucky. Bucky Barnes.” For a split second, the man stopped screaming, y/n didn’t know whether to catch air or because he recognized the name, “You’re friends with Steve Rogers. Friends. Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers.” Cursing herself for not being able to give him more information, she repeated those words over and over. For some reason, they seemed to work. The screaming stopped after a while, but y/n was still scared to let go of his face. “Bucky and Steve”, her voice seemed like a chant to herself, like a lullaby, “You’re friends.”

Y/n wasn’t sure how much time had passed before she had dared to break eye contact and check Bucky’s vitals, at 120 they still seemed a little high for a resting pulse, and it took her even longer to stop chanting. After what seemed like eternity, Bucky had fallen asleep. Her voice and arms were sore and she had a drink before deciding what to do with the man. It was clear that no medic would come down today, after all they should have been triggered by the alarm, and because her own experience is all she could use, she decided to melt the ice around Bucky. After all, that was how she had escaped it. Luckily, the training here had been highly beneficial, so it didn’t take her longer than ten minutes to melt the ice and transport Bucky to her bedroom. Her power she had found out recently, also allowed her to transport things. If she didn’t want it to, it didn’t burn anything, but as it still would move at her command, she had used to carry small things, such as bottles and weapons. A full grown man was obviously a lot harder, but she managed it with ease. Upon setting Bucky down in her bed, she broke down beside him, sitting on the floor, her head leaning against the nightstand. Like that, she fell asleep.

It was Bucky’s movement that woke her. Restlessly, he shifted in the bed, grunting and breathing heavily. With a dart, y/n scrambled to her feet, making it next to him just in time for him to open his eyes. They were a gorgeous blue, but y/n quickly realized that they were also hazy, as if Bucky himself was far away.

“Bucky?”, she asked softly, “Can you hear me?”

Bucky’s head darted to look at her. Now he looked startled and scared, his long brown hair falling into his eyes. His voice sounded raspy when he spoke. “Who are you?”

“I’m y/n. I’m Steve Roger’s friend”, y/n cringed at her own lie, but she wanted Bucky to feel safe. And she knew Steve, so that should count for something. “You can trust me.”

Although his gaze shortly softened at the mention of his friend, Bucky’s body was still tense. To her surprise, y/n realized he was missing an arm. Crazy, she thought, you’d think I’d notice these things before I notice an eye colour. Bucky spoke again. “Where am I?”

“Wakanda.”

There was a slow exhale. “Of course”, he whispered. Y/n took this as a sign he was remembering things. “How long have I been...”, Bucky seemed to search for words. “Gone?”, y/n finished his sentence, “I’m not sure. I just arrived a few weeks back.”

Slowly nodding, Bucky fumbled the edge of his blanket. For the muscular man he was, he seemed small and lost. Attentively, y/n reached her hand out to stroke his arm. Either he didn’t mind or notice, for he kept staring at his blanket. “It’s alright”, y/n said softly. They sat there for a while, before y/n cleared her voice and stood up. “I’ll get you a glass of water.”

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calligraphist-artemisia · 5 years

Text

Instinct (Part 2)

Summary: In which the paladins are unprepared for the strength of Keith’s instincts and Pidge is taken off guard by her own feelings. Pairings: Keith/Pidge; background Shiro/Curtis

Also posted on AO3 (note: I no longer post to fanfiction.net)

It has officially been too long since I last had a chapter of anything ready to post. Sorry, everyone! I got a little wrapped up in my project for the Kidgezine, but now I have a slight bit of time to get back to work on this.

Part 2

It was good to have Keith home.

Shiro hadn’t realized how lonely it was without him nearby until he was back, filling the void left in his life. He suddenly had a reason to look forward to returning to his apartment in the evenings, and waking up in the morning no longer meant hitting the snooze button until he absolutely had to get up. His little brother was home and he was going to enjoy every second until he had to leave again.

It wasn’t that he didn’t find enjoyment when Keith wasn’t there - those moments when he and Curtis spent time together were always wonderful and he looked forward to many more of them - but Keith being home made things feel normal. Better, in some ways.

Shiro woke up before his alarm to the smell of coffee in the air. He slid out of bed and gave himself a once-over in the wall mirror before deeming himself presentable enough.

“Morning,” Keith greeted as Shiro walked into the kitchen.

“You drink coffee now?” Shiro asked, already heading for the pot.

Keith shook his head and held up his mug. “Nah, this is chocolate milk. The coffee’s all for you.”

Shiro wasn’t even aware he had chocolate milk, but he shrugged that off in favor of pouring himself a large cup of coffee, adding an unhealthy amount of sugar and a little cream. “Any plans for the day?”

“Figure I’ll check in with my team later and make sure everyone is comfortable with their rooming situations. I sent Kosmo to Acxa with a note, so I should hear back from her soon about who wants a tour guide,” Keith said.

“Veronica will appreciate that. I asked her to put together a list of people who would be willing to do it. Curtis was right when he said she’d be happy to see Acxa again.” Shiro sat down at the table with his cup and took a sip, but it was too hot, so he set it aside to cool a little. “I have a presentation to give to one of the classes this morning, but I’ll be free after lunch if you want to do anything.”

“Day in or…?”

“Whichever you’d like. We could go driving, just like the old days,” Shiro suggested.

Keith’s expression was soft as he took that into consideration. “I’d like that.”

There was a quiet ‘poof’ as Kosmo suddenly appeared with a letter tucked into the collar around his neck. Keith reached over to give him a pat and then removed the paper, looking it over before passing it to Shiro.

“Looks like everyone’s interested in a tour guide. Give Veronica my contact info and tell her if she needs more details, she can call me,” Keith said. He glanced at the clock on the wall and quickly drained his milk before standing up.

Shiro watched him wash it out and set it in the rack to dry. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

“I told Pidge I’d go running with her this morning. I’ve got to get going if I want to meet her in time.”

“Pidge? Running?” Shiro asked in disbelief. He couldn’t have heard that right. Sure, she went to the gym once or twice a month, but it was always later in the day.

That wasn’t the only weird thing.

“Keith, what’s with the Batman shirt?”

Keith turned around, looking confused. “It’s not. This is mothman. Pidge got it for me when we went out yesterday.”

Once Shiro took a better look, he could see the differences. While the typical Batman logo was yellow with a black bat symbol, the one on Keith’s shirt was bright red, and instead of a bat, the silhouette was of a moth. “Ah, I see now.”

He really didn’t. What was mothman and why did Pidge get Keith a shirt of it?

“Have fun running with Pidge.”

Keith beamed, clearly not hearing the confusion in Shiro’s voice. He headed out soon after, clearly excited to meet up with her. Kosmo trotted at his heels, leaving behind Shiro to puzzle over what was happening by himself.

He felt like he was missing something important.

---

Healthy body, healthy mind.

That was what Pidge tried to keep in mind as she and Keith made another lap around the outdoor tract. She could feel her calves burning from exertion, but kept pushing on, determined to keep up with him. She thought she was still in good shape, even with her infrequent trips to the gym, but clearly she was mistaken.

She glanced at Keith, who’d barely broken a sweat. She was pleasantly surprised to see him wearing the shirt she bought for him and wished that she’d worn hers as well.

They exchanged them on their arrival back at the Garrison after their shopping trip. Keith had laughed in delight when she presented him with mothman, right before digging through one of his bags to hand over the one he picked for her.

The shirt itself was a super soft material and dark green in color. Printed on the front were the words “Hide ‘n Seek Champion of All Time” in silver font. At first she wasn’t sure if there was anything more to it, but then she saw it. Under the right lighting, there was a subtle difference in color to reveal the Loch Ness Monster.

Pidge loved it.

“Getting tired?”

“Never,” Pidge gaped out, hating how hard it was just to speak. She really needed to take up running in her spare time.

Keith huffed out a short laugh and slowed his pace. “Why don’t we take a break? I don’t want you to get hurt because you’re trying to keep up with me.”

“I’m not-!”

“You are,” Keith interrupted easily. “Pushing yourself is good, but not when it means you’ll be in too much pain to walk by this evening. Trust me, it’s not fun.”

Pidge begrudgingly admitted he had a point. She could already feel the ache settling in her legs and remembered the way she felt after the intense training Allura put them through in the early days. She had no desire to go through that again.

She slowed to a brisk walk and Keith matched her pace so they could cool down from their run. She focused on her breathing until she could speak without gasping for air. (She resolved to add more gym days to her schedule.)

“Any plans for today?” Keith asked.

“A few,” Pidge responded, thinking back to her meticulous, color-coded board of notes. There were so many projects she was eager to get started on, and some that she really needed to get back to work on, but Keith probably didn’t want to hear about those.

“I’m expecting a video call from Coran today, so I’m going to work on a few things while I wait for him. He sounded excited in the message he left for me last night, which either means he has some new discovery to share with me, or he needs me to do something for him. What about you? Anything fun planned?” she asked.

Keith smiled. “Yeah, Shiro invited me to go driving after lunch. I’ve been dying to try out a few maneuvers that my mom showed me. Maybe this time I’ll be able to win our race.”

“Just a ‘drive’, huh?” Pidge nudged him playfully.

“There’s driving involved!”

Pidge laughed at the indignation in his voice. “Good luck with your race. I get the feeling you need it.”

Keith was awful at faking any emotion, which made it all the more fun for Pidge as he tried to act mad. His lips twitched up into a smile and he looked away from her to hide it. “You’re probably right. I bet he has a new trick or two he’s been waiting to use on me, and that’s why he suggested a drive.” He shook his head fondly. “Do you remember when this all started? When you three interrupted my rescue of Shiro and we were lucky to escape?”

“How could I forget? I think that was the most scared I’d ever been up until that point,” Pidge said.

“Shiro taught me how to make that jump.”

It shouldn’t have shocked Pidge as much as it did. Shiro always tried to present himself as the mature, responsible one, but after all of their time in space and seeing firsthand his sense of humor, it was clear that he was just as childish as the rest of them. Really, if she thought about it, driving a hoverbike off of a sheer cliff for the fun of it was purely a Shiro move.

“You two need supervision,” Pidge said.

“Probably. You volunteering?” Keith asked.

Pidge shook her head. “No thanks. I think I’ll leave that up to Curtis, though I doubt he wants the job either.” She paused to rethink her statement. “Or else he’ll cheer you on.”

Keith laughed as they reached the lower loop of the track and headed back into the main building. Several cadets stopped to watch them, whispering and pointing, but Keith and Pidge ignored them.

“So you said something about a call from Coran? How is he doing?” Keith asked.

“He’s staying busy organizing everything on New Altea. Romelle and Tavo are helping him, or doing their best to help him. I get updates at least once a month from Romelle, so I know he’s eating and getting the bare minimum amount of sleep. Or the bare minimum as far as any of us know.”

Keith moved out of the way of a group of cadets, brushing in close against Pidge’s side and stepping away the moment they were clear. “I’m glad they’re watching out for him. I’ve been meaning to visit, but we never have time to stop whenever we’re nearby.”

“He’s like that. I would go, but… it’s just not that easy without the Green Lion,” Pidge said.

She missed her Lion. The freedom that came with her ship was something irreplaceable, and the bond it represented between her and the other paladins was a hard loss. Sometimes, if she focused hard enough, she could almost hear the purr of the cockpit.

“So, I hear from Lance and Hunk on a near weekly basis too,” she said, swiftly changing the subject. “Hunk likes to start up conference calls and won’t take no for an answer. And you I get updates on through Shiro. You know you’re allowed to call just to chat, right? Because anytime I hear you and Shiro on call, it sounds like you’re giving a mission report.”

Keith at least looked embarrassed. “I guess I’m so used to giving Kolivan updates that it bleeds over. Shiro keeps teasing me about it too.”

That wasn’t entirely her point, but at least Keith knew the way he sounded over video call. Pidge took a moment to consider emphasizing her original point, which was that he was the only member of the original team who she didn’t talk to regularly, but in the end decided against it. If Keith wanted to talk to her, he would.

She changed the subject instead, asking him about some of the more interesting planets he’d been to. Before she knew it, she was at the door to her family’s quarters.

“You still have a while before you meet up with Shiro, right? Do you want to come in and see what I’ve been working on?” Pidge asked.

“Sure,” Keith agreed with a shrug.

Pidge typed in the code and led the way inside, keeping an eye out for anyone else. It looked like they were all out, likely hard at work. She took off her shoes and placed them near the door before walking over to her room, which required a code of its own.

(And maybe that was overkill, but part of her felt the paranoia was justified, given everything happening with the WLC. She wasn’t going to risk anyone that she didn’t trust learning about her personal projects until she was good and ready to show them off.)

“If you ever need a place to relax while you’re here, the number is five-one-four-two,” she told him.

Keith looked at her in surprise. “You’re trusting me with that?”

“You’re my friend. And after everything we’ve been through together, of course I trust you,” Pidge said. The lock clicked and she pushed open her bedroom door, remembering a little too late the mess that was slowly accumulating. At least her dirty laundry was properly in the basket, waiting to be washed.

Keith looked around curiously and then smiled softly, reaching for a pile of junk in the corner nearest the door. When he pulled his hand back, he had one of the green nebuloids. The fuzzy creature vibrated happily at the attention.

“What are you working on that you wanted to show me?” he asked.

“It’s an upgraded version of the program my dad uses to keep track of project progress. The one their using now is useful for keeping track of who needs to do what and what parts are finished, but I think it could be better. I know it can be better. What I want to do is make it so he can input what supplies they already have and it will calculate what can be worked on based on that and what parts are already done,” Pidge explained.

Listening to her dad and Matt complain about their current work predicament was her inspiration. She doubted she would be able to finish it in time to be useful for their current project, but hopefully it would be ready for the future.

“That sounds really useful. I think Kolivan has something similar to keep track of members of the Blade of Marmora, but it’s not quite as in depth as that,” Keith said. “If you hit any roadblocks, he might be able to help. Or he could direct you to someone who could.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Pidge moved to her desk to pick up her tablet so she could show off what she had so far, and that was when she saw it.

Another package wrapped in brown paper, bearing her name in green ink. It was larger than the last one, roughly the length and width of a shoebox, but not as deep.

“How did that get there?” she muttered, staring at it with a frown.

Keith moved a little closer. “Is something wrong?”

“This is the second time I’ve come home to find one of these, and I don’t understand where they’re coming from! Only a few people know how to get in, and half of them are off planet. I swear, if this turns out to be Matt’s idea of a joke, he’s going to be in so much trouble,” Pidge ranted.

Once again, she found herself struggling to put the pieces together, and once again she had no answers that made sense.

“You… don’t know who it’s from?”

“No,” Pidge said bluntly. “There’s no note. No indication of where it came from. There’s just my name, and I swear I’ve seen that handwriting before, but I don’t remember where.” She slumped her shoulders and glanced at Keith to find him staring with a worried expression.

She cleared her throat, feeling the need to put him at ease. “It’s just weird, is all. Clearly it’s someone who I know and trust well enough that they can get in here, but the mystery of it is really bothering me. I can’t think of a good reason why someone wouldn’t give it to me directly. Why go through the hassle of waiting until I’m not here?”

Pidge picked up the package and was surprised by the weight of it.

“Are you going to open it?” Keith asked. He walked over to stand right next to Pidge, slowly petting the back of the nebuloid, which continued to vibrate.

“Someone’s curious,” Pidge lightly teased, though she didn’t blame him. She was curious as well.

She picked at the tape on one end, before making up her mind and tearing the paper away to reveal a sturdy metal box with beveled edges around the top. There was a simple clasp on the front and she squeezed either side of it to release the lock and lift the lid.

Inside were crystals of various colors, cuts, and sizes, all small enough to fit in the palm of her hand, and carefully nestled in individual compartments. Pidge took one of them out and found a note beneath it. In the same green ink was the designation of a Balmera.

“Balmera crystals,” she breathed. “But who? Why?”

It was too much. The hair pins were one thing, but crystals from different Balmera across the universe? The effort it must have taken to do such a thing, only for it to be quietly left on her desk for her to find, left a heavy feeling in her chest.

She needed to know who it was.

Pidge turned to Keith. “Do you think I should put up security cameras around my room?”

Keith took a moment to consider her questions while he looked around the room with a critical eye. “The door is the only way in or out, so I think that’s all you need to focus on. Or you could change the code to get in and see how it goes after that.”

“That does make sense,” Pidge agreed, mentally scaling back the number of cameras she could place. “Okay, one camera to watch the door, connected to my personal network. That shouldn’t take too long to put together, as long as I can get the parts for it. Want to help? Or, no, quiznak. You’re hanging out with Shiro today.”

“I am, but I could come by tomorrow and take a look,” Keith volunteered. He stroked the nebuloid one last time and then walked across the room to deposit it back in the corner, where one of the pink ones crawled out to see what was happening. “Or we could go out and put it to the test.”

“Lunch?” Pidge suggested. She knew of a cozy bistro that Keith was bound to enjoy, simply because it never saw a heavy crowd despite the delicious food. It even had Hunk’s approval.

Keith nodded. “I’ll meet you here and we can walk together.”

---

The next day passed without incident.

It took Pidge a few more hours that morning to cobble together a working security camera to keep watch over her door, and then she put it to the test by going out for a light lunch with Keith. She returned to find nothing on her desk.

A review of the footage showed that the camera was in perfect working order, and after a few minor tweaks, she spent the rest of the day polishing up something she’d been working on for Coran.

During his video call the night before, he revealed that he was ahead of schedule on some big secret project. He would arrive on Earth in the next few days to pick up the prototype camouflage device that he asked her to design. It was based on the cloaking she used with the Green Lion (which in turn, had been based off of particle shield technology), but used far less power as it was only meant for blending in rather than being rendered nearly invisible.

She spent a few hours running small-scale tests and it was only when her speakers chimed to indicate a call coming in that she took a break.

“Pidge!” Hunk shouted the moment she answered his call. He was beaming at her through the camera. “Oh man, you’re not going to believe this, but I got a call from Iverson yesterday - or I think it was yesterday. Time kind of gets away from me out here… Anyway, he asked if we wanted to run a food stall at some festival the Garrison is running? So we’re coming in tomorrow so we can talk about the details!”

It took Pidge a minute to remember that she already knew about the festival; her dad told them about it a few nights ago over dinner. “Hunk, that’s great!”

“We’re planning on stopping near Lance’s place to pick him up and put in an order for extra food supplies, so once we get there, it’ll basically be a Team Voltron reunion! Y’know, just missing Keith and Coran.”

“Actually, Keith got in a few days ago,” she told him. “And Coran says he’s going to come by sometime this week.”

Hunk looked absolutely delighted. “This is officially the best week ever! Okay, so we’ll see you all tomorrow, depending on what time we get in. I’ve gotta go clear a few things with the others before we reach Earth. Could you tell Shiro and Keith for me?”

Pidge nodded. “We have our monthly dinner at Shiro’s tonight, so I can tell everyone then.”

Hunk looked away as someone shouted to him, and it quickly became clear that he was needed elsewhere, so Pidge let him go with a quick goodbye and made sure her phone was set to vibrate if he sent anymore messages. It was high time she left her room to assist her mom with dessert, as was tradition.

Once a month, the Holt family and Shiro would take turns hosting dinner. The host would make the main course, while the guests would prepare a dessert to bring over. They tried to make it more fair for Shiro, but he insisted he didn’t mind, and so they swapped places every month.

There wasn’t much for her to help with when she peeked out of her room, and Colleen quickly shooed her off to redress in something nicer than a pair of sweatpants and an old shirt. Pidge figured she had a good point and swapped them out for jeans and the shirt Keith bought for her, adding in one of the decorative flower hair pins to spice things up a little more.

Less than an hour later, they were all seated at Shiro’s dining table, relaxing and talking about their days. Pidge found herself between Matt and Keith, listening to Shiro talk.

A few minutes into Shiro’s story about sitting in on a simulation run for the newest batch of cadets, Keith leaned over to whisper to Pidge.

“You’re wearing the shirt I got you.”

“I think it’s the most comfortable thing I’ve worn since I lost my old sweater after… well, everything,” Pidge said honestly. Her lounge clothes were comfortable as well, but the shirt was warm and soft in a different way.

“We lost a lot then,” Keith acknowledged.

Pidge tuned back into Shiro’s story and steadily ate her food. She hardly looked at her plate, only glancing down when she needed to spear a new piece of chicken or scoop up some of her dad’s favorite peas.

She didn’t notice the way she went through most of her meal without running out of her favorites.

Shiro noticed.

And just as he felt befuddled by the news that Pidge was willingly going for a run with Keith, his confusion rose even higher with every exchange between them that he witnessed.

The way they leaned toward each other whenever they spoke.

The ease with which they cleared the table together at the end of the night.

The way Keith subtly added food to Pidge’s plate throughout the night, seemingly without anyone else noticing what he was doing so.

Shiro had a theory, but he would need to observe them for a little while longer, just in case.

---

Keith was settling into bed when his phone beeped, indicating an incoming call. He picked it up and when he saw that it was Pidge, quickly answered.

“Is everything alright?” he asked.

“I found another one. It was sitting on my desk when I got back.”

It took Keith a moment to catch on to what she was saying. “Another gift? What is it this time?”

Pidge made a frustrated sound. “It’s… I don’t know. Like a snowglobe? But instead of a winter scene it’s a tiny galaxy contained in a sphere?”

Keith sat back against the headboard. “That sounds like a cosmolabe. They’re used more for decoration than navigation now, but Kolivan keeps a few on hand any time we travel someplace that interferes with advanced technology.”

He could hear her thinking through her silence and gave her a moment.

“Interesting… Would you show me how it works? I could probably figure it out on my own, but if you already know how to use them, then that would be easier. I want you to come over anyway and help me look over my plan for new surveillance cameras. Watching the door wasn’t enough or else they found some way to hack in and delete footage from when they were here,” Pidge said.

Keith frowned. “I thought you said it was secure.”

“It should be. I’m going to look everything over tonight. You can come by tomorrow, can’t you? Sorry, I know I just assumed earlier, and if you can’t, that’s okay.”

“I’ll be there,” Keith promised.

#voltron #kidgemas #kidge #Instinct #fanfiction #post season 8 #galra courtship

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xiubaek-13 · 5 years

Text

Sugar Induced Dreams

Prompt: Suho + “You taste like fucking candy.” + “Where are your pants?”

Setting/AU: Plane/Airport/Mile High Club

Warnings: Some smut.

Word Count: 1,158

“Do you have to carry around a bag of candy while we’re in the airport babe?”

You stared at your husband and raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s your problem with candy? It’s a happy food.”

He sighed deeply. You knew he hated candy. The guy was a health nut so you never got to eat it in the house and you just couldn’t say no when you left the hotel this morning and saw a little girl trying to raise money to buy a puppy. So you bought a bag of candy off her and you were currently wolfing it down as the two of you made your way through the airport. Suho had indulged you for about 5 minutes before realising that you weren’t just going to throw it out. Then the sighs and looks started which only made you eat more of the candy.

He was giving you that look right now. That look that said you are a grown adult and you know you’re only eating all of this candy to spite me, grow up. You probably were being childish but you also refused to be reprimanded in public by your husband on your way to your honeymoon.

“It’s unhealthy, you’ll be on a sugar high for the first hour of the flight and then you’ll crash and be moody and horrible to be around for the following eight hours. Also eating it out of that bag makes you look like a child. It seriously looks like a kids birthday party lolly bag.”

You choked back a laugh. “Babe, chill out. I’m clearly not a child, let me enjoy my treat.” You grinned at him and put another handful of candy in your mouth. He shook his head at you and you continued your journey to gate 48.

When you both arrived at the gate Suho asked you to wait while he went to check something at the desk. You nodded and took a seat, happily watching his peachy ass walk away from you. The two of you had been exhausted after the wedding and reception yesterday but as soon as you reached your hotel room neither of you were very tired. Maybe I’m eating so much sugar because someone exhausted me thoroughly last night. You smiled to yourself as you remembered the mindblowingly good sex you’d had.

***

“I can’t believe you got us upgraded to first class! You really are the best husband a girl could ever ask for.” You beamed up at him. He’d come back from the desk with a shit eating grin on his face and he’d refused to tell you why he was so happy. You say refused but he’d offered to tell you if you threw away your candy but like, fuck that. So he’d sat next to you at the gate, massive grin plastered on his face, laughing intermittently to himself and not telling you a thing for half an hour before he told you. You cupped his face in your hands and pulled him down into a kiss, his soft lips pressing against yours.

He broke the kiss and glared at you before muttering “You taste like fucking candy.”

You ignored him because you were too happy to care. Or possibly too high on sugar, who could know? All you knew is that yesterday you’d married the love of your life, celebrated with all of your friends and family, had phenomenal sex and then today you’d gotten a bag of candy, were flying first class and spending two weeks in Fiji with your husband. You were on cloud 9 and not even him fretting about the unhealthy food you were consuming (he refused to even call it food) could bring you down.

He was right though, you’d had a massive sugar crash about an hour into the flight and passed out. He was always right about shit like that and no matter how much it irritated you when he started with the ‘I told you so’ speeches you knew deep down it was his way of caring and looking out for you. He wasn’t stupid enough to bring it up while trapped on a plane with you after a sugar crash though. Instead he shifted around in the little cabin you had, allowing you to rest your head on his chest and draping a blanket over the both of you. “Sleep it off yeobo.”

Your dreams were all over the place and you were pretty sure if he could, Suho would gladly inform you that all of the sugar was making your dreams so crazy. You dreamt in technicolour, one moment you were running through an endless maze and the next you were chasing a bunny down a hole that led you to a strange lab where men in white were running all over the place. You blinked and you were in an underground casino sipping wine and gambling when a pink haired man, not unsimilar to Suho barged through the doors brandishing a bat. You blinked again and you were swimming with mermaids in the ocean, then joining a strange fight in space. There was no rhyme or reason to the dreams - just your subconscious running wild. Throughout all of these dreams you got flashes in black and white of skin against skin, hands gripping silk sheets, legs wrapped around hips, moans and whispers of untold lust.

You woke up flustered and confused…and a little lot horny. You shifted in the blanket and became very aware of two things. 1. You were not the only horny one and 2. Your new husband, your upstanding, perfect, model citizen of a husband, wasn’t wearing any pants. In public.

You smirked to yourself and reached down to grasp his length in your hand and slowly started moving your hand up and down. He sucked in a breath, not realising you were awake. You knew if you looked at him now, red would dust his cheeks from embarrassment but his eyes would be clouding over with lust. You were too turned on from the flashes you saw in your dreams and the last thing you wanted was for him to have a moment of clarity and decide that you needed to stop.

“Where are your pants?”

“I can explai-fuck” the sensation of your mouth around his cock stopped his train of thought. You bobbed up and down a few times before removing him from your mouth with a pop.

Now you turned to glance at him and he was grinning at you. Not what you were expecting.

“What?”

“Generally you lick a lollipop before you suck on it.” He kept grinning but it faltered when you lowered your head back to his cock and gave the tip a few kitten licks before licking him from base to tip.

“Hmm, in my dream it was tutti frutti.” You muttered to yourself.

“What?”

“Nothing. Now be quiet and enjoy yourself.”

#exowritersnet #kwordsmiths #thekpopnetwork #kloversnet #kpopwonderlandtag #1000 followers #drabble game #exo drabble #exo fic #exo imagine #exo scenario #suho fic #suho scenario #suho imagine #suho drabble #junmyeon fic #junmyeon drabble #junmyeon imagine #junmyeon scenario

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carmenlire · 5 years

Text

Satiable

Trigger Warning for disordered eating.

read on ao3

He doesn’t notice at first.

He doesn’t notice that he’s subsisting on coffee, that he can’t quite remember the last time he had a real meal. He’s just not hungry and he can’t figure out why his headaches have come back.

When he was a teenager, Alec suffered from terrible, pain in the ass headaches that made him want to collapse into bed where he could cry until he finally fell asleep and get some relief from the pain. It’s a dull ache in the back of his head, a sharp pain in his temples.

It’s been awhile since they’ve been this bad, though Alec doesn’t notice that their intensity-- and frequency-- has been ratcheting up. All he knows is that by mid afternoon he can hardly focus. He takes a deep breath and as his lungs expand, he feels a quiet easing of the bands that seem to tighten around his chest a little more with each day that passes. It’s a temporary relief from slogging through paperwork and approving expense reports but it keeps him from screaming.

Sighing heavily in the quiet of his office, Alec tosses his pen onto the blotter and brings a hand up until he can press fingers into his temples hard enough so that the blunt pain can drown out his headache for a brief, blissful moment.

Glancing at the clock, Alec sees that it’s almost six. Shadowhunters should be coming down to ops soon for their assignments and Alec’s glad that he gave Jace that responsibility a couple of months ago. He doesn’t know if he could leave the sanctity of his office right now and go into the control center where everyone would be talking, eager and ready to head off on patrol as their runes kicked in for the night.

The very thought of the controlled chaos makes his head pound a little more viciously.

Shaking his head a little, Alec works another hour or so until he deems the day done. He still has a thousand things that will be waiting for his attention in the morning-- and he knows a thousand more will drop in his lap overnight, no doubt-- but he’s done all he can for today.

Standing, Alec feels himself sway a little in his spot. Blinking, he frowns and reaches for the mostly empty mug of coffee that’s never far from his elbow. He takes a last swig and while it’s gone cold and more than a little gross, his shoulders lose some of their tension.

Reaching behind him, Alec shrugs into his coat and pockets his phone and stele. He’s out the door a minute later and manages to avoid everyone on his way out. Fall is sneakily fading into winter and Alec huddles a little tighter into his coat.

Magnus is out of town for a few days, tending to a werewolf pack illness in Dubai, so it’s just him as he swings the door open to their loft.

Alec briefly debates making dinner-- maybe heating a can of soup up or scrounging for some cheese and crackers-- but just the thought is exhausting. As he goes to walk past the kitchen, however, he abruptly stops as he realizes that the only thing he’s had today is six cups of coffee.

Suddenly, he’s starving and with a sigh, he enters the kitchen and heads straight to the fridge. Opening it, his head throbs as the fluorescent light pierces into his skull.

He’s not seeing a lot of options. He’s definitely not in the mood to cook and Alec briefly wishes that he’d had this realization just ten minutes before. He could’ve stopped by the pizza joint down the block or ordered takeout from the Thai place halfway between here and the Institute. Undoubtedly unhealthy but he needs calories and he's too tired to worry about their quality. He figures something is better than nothing.

Now, if he could just find something that wasn't too damned exhausting to prepare, something he wouldn't need to wait an hour for. He wants his bed so fucking bad he feels his eyes burning.

He’s just about to give up altogether when a deep blue Tupperware container catches his eye on the bottom shelf. Leaning down-- and that feels like so much goddamn effort-- just a little, he slides the box out enough to see a bright pink post-it on top.

This is for you, darling. I shudder to think what’s passed for a meal since I left you a few days ago. Before you collapse into bed, I want you to eat this entire bowl.

Love, Mr. Lightwood-Bane

Huffing out a laugh, Alec wonders idly that Magnus knows him too well. He hadn’t looked in the fridge in a few days but he’s filled with a quiet wave of warmth at Magnus taking the time to prepare-- or summon, for Alec’s not quite romantic enough to think that Magnus toiled away over this pasta when he wasn’t looking-- dinner while he was away. It's well known that Alec gets tunnel vision when he's at work. Magnus is used to Alec coming home and devouring the whole fucking kitchen once he's out of the Institute and breathign fresh air.

Alec tries to tamp down on the guilt that Magnus doesn't know that that's not what this is lately. It's not enough to be cause for concern, he tells himself and ignores it when the thought strikes hollow.

The pasta-- chicken fettuccine, his favorite-- warms up perfectly in the microwave. It’s delicious, even if Alec barely manages to eat half of the container before he’s too full to continue.

Figuring he’ll have leftovers tomorrow, he pours a glass of tap water and downs it while standing in front of the sink. Placing the empty glass next to the fork he’d used, Alec runs a hand through his hair before giving the room a once over and stepping out to the hallway, turning the lights off as he goes.

Pulling his shirt over his head and pushing his pants down until they pool on the floor next to his side of the bed, Alec slides between cool sheets and sighs into his pillow.

The weight of the day sloughs off him and he closes his burning eyes, finding almost immediate relief from the headache that’s held him in a vise grip for most of the day.

Sinking into the sheets, he falls asleep quick, pulling Magnus’s pillow to his chest and breathing in the scent of his husband’s shampoo.

The weeks blend together and Alec feels like his whole goddamn life is a never ending dumpster fire.

Well, that’s not quite true but he’s overwhelmed and stressed to the max and if Jace asks for special permission for a dumbass mission one more time, Alec won’t be responsible for his reaction.

His vision blurs as he reads over a request from the Clave that’s as subtle as a fucking grenade asking for his expertise to calm rising downworld tensions in St. Petersburg. Their flattery falls flat and Alec’s well aware that he’ll be portaling his ass to Russia by week’s end to deal with shadowhunters who will need to be brought to heel quickly and with as little bloodshed as possible.

That’s a headache for future Alec, though, he thinks with a grimace.

Reaching for the last bite of his pain au chocolat that he’d picked up along with his quad latte this morning, Alec barely tastes the damned thing. He figures it’s more than enough to get him through a day that’s busting with meetings and reaches for his coffee to wash it down only to scowl when the to go cup is unforgivably light.

There’s not a drop left and Alec growls a little-- there’s no one around to hear his irritation, at least-- as he stands, rounding his desk to head to the canteen, hoping to hell that someone’s bought more hazelnut k-cups since they were out last week.

Thankfully, Izzy is the only one there when he arrives and she bites into her sandwich as he grunts at her, the bare minimum greeting she’ll take and the most he can summon the energy to give.

“Rough day,” she asks dryly, reaching onto her plate for a cheddar and sour cream chip.

“Everything’s a pain in my ass,” Alec replies roughly. “If I have to hear another recruit talk back I’m putting them on ichor duty for the rest of the goddamn decade.”

Rasing a brow, Isabelle doesn’t say anything. She just watches him as she makes her steady way through lunch.

Alec opens one of the cabinets and breathes a quiet yet fervent sigh of relief when he sees the red box, almost three quarters full of his favorite k-cups. Placing his mug under the drip, Alec fires the Keurig up and selects the biggest size, tapping the button for strong before hitting start.

Almost immediately, the fresh smell of brewing coffee hits the air and his shoulders relax. It’s like coming home. It’s a brief respite and Alec inhales the notes of hazelnut and beans and prays that his headache stays away until after he has a chance to peak into the new recruits' training.

He’s just reaching for the almond milk in the refrigerator when Izzy asks, “When’s the last time you ate?”

“I had a croissant this morning,” Alec says absently.

“And before that?”

Alec’s quiet for a moment as he tries to remember. There was that granola bar he’d forced down last night as he’d been reading over a treatise draft. Frowning a little, Alec can’t remember anything else that he’d eaten yesterday and shit if he can remember the day before that.

He’s too busy to eat, he thinks with a frown. He’s never hungry in the mornings and by the time he gets to the Institute, he’s too busy to take a break. Most nights, he’s so damned tired that he takes a few mechanic bites of food before going to bed, just to wake up the next morning and do it all over again.

His plate is full to bursting and eating is as low a priority as he can have right now. There’s a little voice, though, that tries to slither its way through his head.

It’s not that he likes not eating. It’s not that it makes him the tiniest bit happy when he’s realized that he’s managed to go sixteen-- or twenty four or thirty six-- hours without anything but coffee to serve as a meal.

It’s something he can control. He can ignore his hunger pains through sheer force of will, even if nausea sweeps through him occasionally and he has to close his eyes to regain his equilibrium.

It’s something that’s plagued him off and on since he was in the Academy. When Alec was stressed-- when he was tired and the only thing he felt he could control was his eating-- his appetite vanished. It’s nothing unusual and Alec knows that in a few days, a few weeks, he’ll feel better one morning. Waking up won’t be so exhausting and he’ll go over to the East Village and have the best bacon burger in the city with an extra large fry and Oreo milkshake. Everything will go back to how it’s supposed to be and Alec won’t have to wonder when his last meal was, won’t feel his sister’s piercing eyes over a bag of Ruffles potato chips.

He doesn’t answer her and Iz doesn’t push. He pours a healthy dollop of milk into his coffee and leaves, resigned to going back to his office and getting through the day’s work.

Distantly, he wonders if he’ll have time to sneak in a quick training session before he calls it a day. He feels light and there’s an energy that’s simmering low in his gut that he knows from past experience just needs an outlet. Blowing across his coffee, Alec takes a slow, deep sip and wonders if he could persuade Jace to a sparring match tonight.

The next morning, Alec wakes up to a long line of warmth along his back. Sinking into the sheets, his breath catches at the dull throbbing in his ankle. He’d used an iratze after sparring Jace last night and he’s pissed that his ankle still feels off. Deciding to deal with it later, Alec relaxes further against Magnus and his eyes fall shut as he feels his husband nose along his spine.

He lets himself be urged onto his back and stares up at a sleep-rumpled Magnus. It’s a vision that still makes his heart ache in the best damn way, no matter that they’ve been together for a few years now.

Magnus studies him in the low light and Alec closes his eyes again as Magnus leans forward and nibbles across his collarbone, along his deflect rune.

“What do you say to waffles this morning, Alexander?” Magnus’s voice is a low rasp and Alec smiles a little even if words get stuck in his throat.

As though he knows Alec’s thinking, Magnus raises his head and studies him carefully. The intensity in his unglamoured eyes is a little unnerving.

Running a thumb over a stubbled jaw, Magnus smiles. “What do you say? Surely the Institute can wait a couple of hours.”

While there’s a part of Alec that’s uneasy-- while Magnus could be coy when needed, with Alec his attempts at subterfuge had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer-- Alec knows that Magnus has realized that his appetite has been damn near nonexistent lately.

Resigned, Alec thinks that he wouldn’t be surprised if his husband knew about his over-training. Alec’s not dumb. He might be pissed off but his ankle is screaming and the only reason that ever happens after applying an iratze is because his energy stores are too low.

Things have finally come to a head and while he still feels like he’s in a fog most days, he knows that something had to give sooner or later.

“Sure,” he replies hoarsely. “Let’s have waffles for breakfast.”

Magnus’s gaze eases just a tad even as the gold warms. He leans down and kisses Alec.

“Right answer, darling.”

The two of them get ready slowly, showering together, lingering under the warm spray. Magnus catches Alec’s wince when he forgets not to put his full weight on his left foot and his eyes sharpen.

He doesn’t say anything though, merely lowering until he’s kneeling on the marble of their shower, reaching a hand out to wrap it around Alec’s ankle. Alec watches as azure flows into his skin and the relief is immediate.

Magnus kisses the delicate bone of his ankle before lowering his foot back to the ground and stands, pulling Alec closer with arms around his middle.

They stand there for long minutes and Alec feels warmth that’s been missing for longer than he wants to admit.

He’s finally hungry. Not starving, not ravenous. But he can admit that he’s craving food.

It’s the breaking of the dam. It’s a start.

Alec knows the next few hours won't be easy but Magnus hasn't stopped looking at him, warm and open, and suddenly he's tired of hiding from his husband.

It feels like the quietest of snicks as the puzzle pieces align. Maybe, he wonders, if he felt guilty about keeping something from his husband then it was time to come clean.

He breathes easier at just the idea.

#satiable #my writing #malec fic

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thequeenofadream · 6 years

Text

Somebody that I used to know (Ben Hardy x Reader)

Summary: you used to be ben’s and ben used to be yours, but you broke up due to distance and media pressure. you both decide that beings friends is for the best, but ben barely even sees you anymore.

Words: 2,473

Notes: drinking is done (i’ve never drunk bc im not an illegal yes yes so sorry if this is not accurate i tried to do research) get rEKTT BY THE ANGST TRAIN.

A/N: i know it’s valentine’s but uh yesa.. um HAPPY VALENTINES!! <3 ps. this will probably be a three part series and if this flops u never saw me

🎊 tagging: @obsessedwithrogertaylor @malekdarling @i-padfootblack-things

~~~~~~~~~

You were a mess; much like a painting, a thousand words hid behind your gaze. Words of anger, words of sadness, words of relief; they all raced through your mind. He was a mess; much like liquor, he’d try to numb the pain, but he couldn’t delay the inevitable any longer. The day had come where he couldn’t hide behind a pillar of excuses.

You and Ben had been dating for a year now and six months in, you decided to go public. There have been many downfalls and peaks within that time. Ben was always out either shooting or doing press tours; meanwhile you were almost always on the other side of the world, busy with your own tour. Whatever time you had together would be miniscule; the way time flew when you were together was almost surreal.

You met on the set of Bohemian Rhapsody. You were called upon to do a cover of “Killer Queen” along with a small part in the movie; You obviously could not say refuse. You cleared your schedule for the next two weeks, right before you’d leave for tour, and packed your bags. When you got there, you were lost and late, but luckily a blonde british boy found you wandering the halls.

“Hey, are you (Y/N)?”

“Uhm, yeah.”

“Lots of people are looking for you.”

It blossomed from there, and it was what a feeling it was. You only spent two weeks in production, but you could feel the strong friendly energy radiating off of everyone, it was particularly amazing to watch Rami become Freddie Mercury. You had gotten acquainted with everyone, and even exchanged social media handles, but Ben was especially ‘friendly’. About a week before you had to leave, the blonde finally asked you on a date.

You were honestly completely oblivious to his efforts, because everything seemed to good to be true on the magical sets of Bohemian Rhapsody. You thought he was just being his kind, generous and chivalrous self, however all those intimate moments between you two did spark butterflies in your stomach. It kind of baffled you, trying to figure out what about you caught his attention. He took you out to see London, and at the end of the day he brought you to a cozy bistro where you were spent time alone. At the end of the date, he had built up enough confidence to ask you if you wanted to try and be a thing. With the adrenaline pumping in your veins, you accepted a million times over.

You spent the last week, absolutely smitten over one another and when you left you both called each other everyday. On your sixth month together, he flew all the way to one of your concerts. He surprised you after the show and you almost cried.

“I want the whole world to know you’re my whole world.”

That was when you cried. You agreed and you both went public. It had been a rough seven months, from cheating allegations to pregnancy rumours to the constant harassment from paparazzi and others. It was ripping the both of you apart, and there was so much pain because of your love. It was like being together, unravelled the both of you. The only reason you were still strong was because of him, but all the consequences had struck you down. You felt like you couldn’t be yourself without being associated to Ben, and he felt the same. You loved each other dearly, but you still wanted to have your own careers.

And this was where you stood, in Ben’s London apartment. You had a show tomorrow night, but you figured you had to talk to him.

You both at looked at each other, your faces full of sorrow and disbelief. You thought you could somehow last forever, but almost is never enough. You both knew what had to be done, you just didn’t want to imagine each other apart. You decided to speak up, sobbing softly.

“Ben, we can’t go on like this.” You held his hand lightly. You felt weak and tired, but you were holding onto whatever you had left.

“I know.” He said simply, tightening his grip on your hand. He seemed almost mad at himself.

“So that’s it?” You asked tears trailing down your cheek. You thought he would have something more to say. He took you by the waist and held you close.

“All we do is hurt each other. It’d be better for us to be friends.” He paused, running a hand through your hair.

“We just hurt each other, I knew this since before. I just didn’t want to believe it, but now I see that it’s unhealthy. I’m not worthing of saying I love you when I’m the cause of your everyday agony.” He speaks softly, his voice cracking at the end.

“You’re not the cause of my everyday agony. In fact, you’re my sunshine. ” You say quietly, hugging him as close as humanly possible.

“But you wouldn’t be in so much pain if it weren’t for me.” He replies, taking in your scent, holding onto it. He clung onto you as if you were never to see one another again. You just stayed in each other’s embrace, one last time in silence. It was a somewhat comforting silence, knowing the pain would be over, but you were going to lose who you thought was the love of your life.

After you had both said your goodbyes, you left. You agreed you would both still be friends, but it just didn’t seem right to you. Maybe, if you had both met in much more normal circumstances you would have reached the end, but that wasn’t going happen. You had to go on and put the best happy face for your concert tonight.

“(Y/N), Are you okay?” Lucy asked snapping a finger in front of you. She had gone backstage to check on you, before you went out. You had invited the cast to your concert, but you weren’t sure if Ben would even come which was understandable.

You were zoning off into the distance, unable to process anything. Ever since yesterday, everything had been a blur and you couldn’t get your mind off of him. You hadn’t been able to sleep, eat, and think straight. You missed him so much, and it was bad.

“(Y/N)?” Lucy asked once more, shaking your shoulders.

“Yes, I’m fine.” You finally said, sighing deeply. You were most definitely not, but who could tell? Ben usually did, that’s who.

“If you say so. You’re gonna kill it tonight!” She said smiling softly. She knew what happened, but you had basically told everyone to not mention it and told the media to ‘piss off’. You really needed to do well tonight. You flashed a weak smile, assuring her you were ‘pumped’. She left you to it and went back out into the crowds.

She sat down with Rami, Gwilym and Joe, who immediately started asking about you.

“Not so good.” She sighed as the rest of them sighed in unison. They had been trying to comfort you and Ben, but that was proving to be difficult as it seemed like everything reminded you both of one another.

“Where’s Ben?” Rami asked, worrying about his other friend.

“He’s probably watching a livestream of the concert. He said he was going to practice drumming, but we all know that it could be very much code for well..” Joe trailed not even daring to put them in the same sentence. Suddenly, the lights went out and the show was about to start. Gwilym quickly added “We’ll have to split up later.”

It wasn't that they wanted to meddle between your relationship. It was more like seeing their parents divorce or something. They didn't want to choose any side, and they didn't want to see either of you looking terribly miserable.

The show was typical. It wasn’t anything grand, but it wasn’t boring. Although if you looked closely, you could see hurt written across your face. You remember how you would send Ben videos of the concert and he would express how proud he was. Almost every love song you sang was inspired by him and you couldn’t avoid him while pouring out your emotions on stage. You had to physically restrain yourself not to become a sad and depressing loser who had broken up with her boyfriend. You started feeling hazy towards the end of the show, so you were pretty loose in those last moments.

“Goodnight everyone!” You chriped, faking confidence, before stepping off stage and heading to your dressing room, lying across your sofa. You had literally told everyone that you'd deal with whatever they needed later, right now you just needed to breathe.

Your closed your eyes, trying not to think of him.You blamed yourself for the downfall. Maybe if you hadn’t gone too fast, you both wouldn’t end up crashing and burning. Maybe you shouldn’t have said yes to being the girlfriend of a guy you had known for a week. You had let everything go to your head. It was all a mistake, a beautiful yet tragic mistake.

You decided that if you wanted to get over him you needed to get rid of everything that reminded you of him, but you didn’t really know how to. You weren’t ready to just throw everything away. You needed start small. You fell asleep whilst mindlessly thinking; honestly you just wanted to sleep for a thousand years.

Lucy and Rami arrived to see you passed out on the sofa. At first they were filled with absolute dread, but someone had informed them that you had just taken a nap. You weren’t sure you were taking a nap though, if it was possible you didn’t want to wake up. Rami shook you shoulder lightly, trying to wake you up and it was indeed enough to awake you.

“Hi, sorry, that really wore me out.” You said yawning as you sat up straight.

“It was a phenomenal concert afterall! I know exactly what would do you some good.” Rami said happily, desperately trying to brighten the mood.

“We should go out for drinks, maybe some dancing?” He continued, seeing your eyes somewhat light up at the idea. It was at least brighter than the darkness that had clouded your pupils since the break up.

“Yeah, that sounds nice.” You said nodding, feeling a genuine ping of joy. “But where are Gwil and Joe?” You asked looking around the dressing room. Lucy suddenly panicked trying to find an excuse or explanation to where they had gone.

“They had to head over to the pharmacy! Something about joe drinking a milkshake earlier.” She came up with a pretty believable excuse, enough for you to believe. You just nodded and let them take you.

The three of you wasted the night away drinking and singing karaoke; getting drunk also meant you letting loose which was just what you needed. You were actually drunk enough to mingle with other people on the dance floor.

“Hey I’m (Y/N) and-”

“(Y/N) (L/N)? Didn't you just perform a few hours ago?”

“Yeah yeah whatever, so I was thinking you looked cute and I think I look cute sooo..”

“(Y/N)!” Lucy interrupted your attempts at flirting and dragged you back to the booth the three of you had gotten. You were drunkenly protesting against this, wanting to go back, but she had a strong grip. She sat you down at booth, before she sat down, keeping you from leaving.

“Aww, party pooper.” You said teasing her.

“I don't think you should make rash decisions when you're drunk, love.” She said slightly annoyed by your complete ignorance to the situation. Hey, at least you weren't mopping about Ben. Rami came back with two drinks handing one to Lucy and sitting on the other side of the booth.

“How about me?” You whined, furrowing your eyebrows.

“Sorry,, but I think it's for the best.” Rami said taking a swig from his drink. You just grumbled in response, annoyed by his validness. He was most definitely right. The night went on with the three of you just hanging out; they shared funny stories on set and you shared funny stories on tour. You wish you could’ve stayed longer, but everyone has their responsibilities. Speaking of responsibilities, Rami looked at the time to see it was getting pretty late and they had an early day tomorrow.

“Hey (Y/N), We have an early day tomorrow so-”

“Say no more! I’ll just call a cab home.”

“Are you sure, you could go with us you know?”

“Nope, it’s totally fine, promise.” You smiled as they got up from the booth. Lucy gave you a knowing look so you just raised your hands in defense. “No rash decisions, promise.” You held out a hand and she took it, shaking on it.

“Get some rest, (Y/N).” Rami let out a chuckle, linking arms with Lucy. You nodded and watched them go off. You were left to your thoughts in a bustling and rowdy club. You thought about taking our your phone to call a taxi, but the fire coursing through your blood said otherwise. You ordered another drink or five, despite Rami’s past wishes, and sat all by yourself, wallowing in alcohol.

You liked it. You couldn’t feel anything, pain, regret, gloom, they were all gone. You had completely lost yourself, in the chaotic atmosphere. You didn’t feel guilty or sad or mad, You felt insanely confident. You decided to go back out to the dance floor and mingle.

“Hello there.” You smirked slyly.

Meanwhile, Ben was with Gwil and Joe watching action movies to get his mind off the subject of romance. Little did they know that this was yours and Ben basically watched every genre together, so it didn’t really work. He has spent the whole night watching your concert, before the two came along with ice cream.

Frankie was in his lap and he pet her gently as the movie played. He wished he was a better boyfriend; maybe he wouldn’t be guilty out of his mind. He should of visited you more often, he should’ve told you how much he loved you; but that was all in the past and he can’t do anything anymore. The mere thought of being in love with you made him feel liable for his actions.

He would always hold himself responsible for everything that came crashing down.

He looked on the brightside, you two could still be friends. Maybe without the media suffocating you both into romantic endeavors, you could spend time together openly. He kept telling himself everything was going to be better, but was it?

~~~~~~~~~

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kiruuuuu · 6 years

Text

Yet more Montagne/Bandit in which Bandit turns into a hissy cat and goes mountain climbing (thank you @zer0kaji 💝) because @magehir requested Bandit being jealous. This is a two-parter, with the second part coming (heh) either tomorrow or the day after! (Rating T, humour/fluff, ~2.3k words)

Montagne is talking to Fuze.

It’s a bit like looking into a mirror and Bandit decidedly doesn’t like what he’s seeing: the Uzbek’s resting bitch face not moving an inch as the tall Frenchman cheerily chews his ear off, both of them eating lunch away from everyone else at the end of one of the tables in the canteen, away from both the GIGN and the Spetsnaz, oddly enough. Normally, all the Russians stick together like mutated glue in that it can drink, hurl insults and laugh deafeningly, so seeing only one of them is decidedly strange. A little like spotting a lone porkling in the wild, even with the authenticity of a threat attached to it: the looming danger of its mother bursting out of the nearest shrub to smash faces. Still, Tachanka’s booming voice is directed at only two of his boys today.

He sits down and watches the odd couple suspiciously while pretending to be interested in whatever lame story Blitz is trying to tell him right now, nodding and huffing at the correct moments yet his gaze unwaveringly fixed on a vaguely uncomfortable-looking Fuze opposite of a smiling Montagne. It’s probably how Bandit looked in the beginning whenever the Frenchman (his lover, he corrects himself, still stunned at this reality, and barely manages to suppress a cringe when his brain helpfully supplies: his boyfriend) initiated a conversation with him: pained, disbelieving, sometimes even annoyed. He knows now it mostly stemmed from embarrassment upon Montagne knowing about some of his weaknesses while all Bandit had heard about his tall colleague was praise upon praise, so there was a certain power imbalance with which he was far from alright. It didn’t matter that Montagne didn’t know any details, him simply choosing to keep him company because he sensed Bandit needed it was enough.

So now he’s squinting at Fuze. Because he looks exactly like Bandit used to and hey, where did he end up? In Montagne’s bed. Faint nausea rolls over him and destroys what little appetite he initially had and with it gone, nothing keeps him at the table anymore. Ignoring Blitz’ questions as he wordlessly gets up to leave, he squeezes in past Montagne, drags his chair unnecessarily close and presses his side against his lover’s while fixing Fuze with a cool gaze which is returned just as coldly. “Hey”, he says and does his best not to sound bitchy right away because he’s not, definitely isn’t, merely curious, “what are you two talking about?”

Montagne remains blissfully oblivious to the glare the other two are exchanging and answers readily with a self-deprecating chuckle: “I was just telling him of my days as a piano player and before you ask, no, I never really got any good at it.”

Oh. Bandit didn’t even know he used to play the piano. But now Fuze knows and he even knew before him and his eyes narrow further. “Interesting”, he says neutrally, “I wanna get a soda, want to come with me?”

Under all other circumstances, Montagne would jump up immediately at the mere mention of soda – it’s his guilty pleasure (well, one of them, since Bandit supposes he counts as one) and he’s enthusiastic about doing anything as long as it can be done in Bandit’s presence… only right now, he hesitates. Throws a questioning glance to Fuze who looks like he literally couldn’t care any less about them leaving. “I’m not done eating though, can’t you -”

“No. Let’s go.” And as Bandit rises, basically dragging Montagne with him, he thinks he sees Fuze’s lips twitch.

“Why are you talking to Fuze?”, Bandit demands to know once they’ve arrived at the vending machine stocked with a wide variety of unhealthy, fizzy drinks which make Bandit’s stomach hurt and his belches smell terrible.

“Didn’t you hear? He had a fight with Alexsandr yesterday and it was so bad they’re not on speaking terms right now. And since the other two basically worship the ground Alex walks on -”

“That still doesn’t answer my question”, he insists, much to Montagne’s surprise. Bandit rarely pries and hardly ever shows any interest in other people’s personal affairs.

“I didn’t want to leave him sitting all alone. Alex is not going to get mad at me for it and everyone deserves some company, don’t you think?”

This is when it hits him. Montagne is a fucking bleeding heart. He sees stray dogs and adopts them, just like he adopts stray operators apparently – this explains why there was a phase in which Montagne hung around with Mute, right in the beginning when the young Englishman made next to no attempts to befriend anyone.

Another revelation dawns on him. Does this mean -

“Am I a fucking charity case?”, he wants to know disgustedly. “Is that what this is?”

Montagne seems thoroughly confused now which is understandable as Bandit might potentially be jumping to conclusions faster than Montagne can watch. “Dom, please, what are you talking about?” Trying to put it into words would make him seem not only insane but also bitter, so he decides not to elaborate despite the nagging feeling gnawing at him. He mutely turns to the machine, punches a number in without looking and shoves a few coins into the slot, only to be graced with a can dropping filled with stuff he can’t stand. Worst of all, Montagne knows this. For a few seconds, Bandit tries to make the soda spontaneously combust with the force of a dark look alone while Montagne probably regards him with this stupid fucking look he often gets when he thinks Bandit is being unreasonable and he is not, thank you very much, far from it because what if it’s all over once Montagne deems him integrated enough, just like he did with Mute once he befriended the disaster that is the rest of his team, and Bandit’s hands are getting cold now from holding the can and all he wants to do is punch Fuze’s ugly face in.

“Talk to me”, Montagne asks softly in that tone of voice which conveys he’s not going to judge and Bandit hates it because he never does. He doesn’t judge. He never discards Bandit’s mood swings as unreasonable or immature.

“Why do you like me?”

The words leave his mouth faster than he can scold himself for even thinking them yet they hit their mark, smooth Montagne’s expression because now he knows what he’s dealing with and can react accordingly. Regardless, his answer is not very reassuring: “I don’t know.”

“Wow”, Bandit replies sarcastically. Way to fill him with confidence.

“I wasn’t finished.” Smiling, Montagne mercilessly exploits his weakspot by reaching up to lightly scratch his beard, card his fingers through the coarse hairs and reduces Bandit to an almost-drooling mess in seconds. “I don’t have a simple answer for you, I’m afraid, but I just know that I do. Every room feels different to me when you’re in it. Watching you fall asleep next to me, on me, in my arms, has become the highlight of my day. And I’m happy about every second I get to spend with you. I can’t put into words why, though.”

Bandit blinks at him, pleasant sensations washing over him and making both his anger and his worry disappear effortlessly. He tries finding an answer for himself, why exactly he adores this man in front of him so much, yet only comes up with an earth-shattering feeling of deep-seated affection with which he’s afflicted in moments like these. Because you’re you, he thinks and leans into the gentle strokes over his cheek. “This is unfair”, he mumbles, making Montagne snicker and pull him into a quick hug he allows only because they’re half-hidden behind the vending machine. “You can have my fucking soda if you want it.”

“Gladly”, Montagne replies, amused, takes it and holds Bandit’s hand until it’s warmed up.

Montagne is talking to Fuze. Again.

They’ve just finished their physical training for the day, jumped, climbed and crawled their way through an obstacle course, ran until their muscles were on fire and even had to swim. Bandit doesn’t mind the exertion as it more often than not allows him to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep later yet he can’t deny he’s starting to feel his age – especially when he watches Rook ace the course with ease. He used to be very agile and extremely good at running but lost his touch a little (and if that isn’t ironic because running is most of what he seems to do these days), often lying to himself about picking up jogging again despite never following through. Right now, he’s comfortably exhausted and looking forward to maybe trading massages with Montagne, possibly dozing off to his broad hands kneading his shoulders and the thought alone makes a fluttery feeling rise in him.

Then he spots them, off to the side, Fuze actually having taken off his shirt and wiping his sweat off with a towel while Montagne talks at him with an oblivious friendliness – seemingly unaware of the way the Uzbek displays the muscles on his strong frame. But Bandit notices. Oh does he notice. He storms over with a scowl and just barely resists colliding with Montagne, keeping the momentum going and simply dragging him off.

“- more flexible, I’d suggest stretching regularly as it does indeed help”, the Frenchman finishes his sentence just as Bandit arrives and what. What kind of topic -

“Are you talking about how Fuze can’t even scratch his own back without dislocating half of his limbs?”, he butts in, shooting Fuze a dark look and earning a vaguely pained one from Montagne in return.

“Not everyone can be a lanky piece of shit like you”, Fuze replies politely.

“Being thin doesn’t have anything to do with being flexible”, Montagne interjects but stops talking as soon as Bandit starts bending his body to prove a point, reaching over his shoulder with one arm and around his back with the other, effortlessly hooking his fingers together. He does not miss Montagne’s intrigued expression and preens under his gaze, shows off a few more things and ignores Fuze’s growing amusement.

“Seems like those yoga lessons really paid off. Though you don’t seem all that enlightened to me.”

“You shut your whore mouth”, Bandit hisses and doesn’t manage to get the reactions he’s hoped for as Fuze is starting to grin now and Montagne looks almost shocked.

“Dom, if you’re tired, maybe you should call it a day”, he suggests hesitantly and it’s very clear he’s trying to keep the conversation civil.

A thought occurs to him and instead of protesting vehemently, he nods. “You’re right, I’m absolutely knackered, I can barely stand. Oh God am I tired. How am I even still awake?” He leans against his lover with enough force to make him take a step back, then swoons dramatically to which Montagne, as expected, puts his arms around him. “I don’t think I can actually make it back to my room. How about you carry me instead? Would you do me the favour? Otherwise I’ll probably faint on the way.”

Concern bleeds into Montagne’s confusion and he agrees, probably wondering why Bandit won’t allow him to hold his hand in public but carrying him is somehow okay, and so Bandit climbs on him, hugs him tightly and wraps his legs around his waist possessively. After a friendly goodbye, Montagne makes his way towards their quarters and Bandit can’t help but glare at Fuze over his boyfriend’s shoulder and give him the finger.

Fuze just snorts and rolls his eyes as if Bandit was a rebelling teenager.

“Why are you still talking to Fuze?”, he wants to know later in bed and no, he’s not pouting, he’s above that.

Montagne rolls onto his side, props himself up on one elbow and smiles down at him like the benevolent being he is, even reaches out with his other hand and lets it wander over Bandit’s chest, his warm palm travelling over his ribs, his abdomen and his sides, unknowingly making something further down twitch hopefully. Despite Bandit trying to push his hand lower through mere thought, it never dips into his underwear. “I enjoy his company. He’s gruff on the outside and may favour questionable methods, but he’s a good man.”

“He’s a fucking asshole”, Bandit objects and realises too late. Once again, he’s being mirrored and he doesn’t like it in the least. “Look, I have nothing against you talking to him -”

“It appears that you do.” Montagne is still smiling, still stroking over his skin. “You don’t need to be friends with him, I don’t expect you to.”

Is that what Montagne thinks is going on? He frowns and scoots a bit closer, stretches towards the tall man with the soft eyes and lets his own fall shut when they lock lips. It helps but ultimately does little to soothe the worry eating at him, even when Montagne leans over him, a comforting weight against his body and their kiss slow and intimate. He resolves to kill Fuze should he ever ask to borrow Montagne’s jacket.

He purrs into his lover’s mouth when he’s pulled closer, his dick (which has been hard ever since they went to bed, always is, always hopes for Montagne’s touch, for more) jumping enthusiastically at the gesture but when he pushes his hands under Montagne’s shirt, he’s stopped with a touch to his wrists. “I don’t want to tire you out”, Montagne murmurs and kisses his cheek, “if you can’t even walk back to your room, you should sleep as soon as possible.”

Now Bandit is pouting, the scowl on his face fierce even when they’ve found a comfortable position to sleep in because in his head, he’s cursing Fuze colourfully. Even when he knows he basically played himself.

#rainbow six siege #montagne #bandit #montagne/bandit #fanfic #protection mountain #we have this hc that monty adopts all the special cases #please imagine bandit fuze and lion all fighting for his attention #this triggered magehir's second hand embarrassment #and I'm so proud

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artificialqueens · 6 years

Text

Sit back and watch the bed burn (Craquaria) - SamWhity

A/N: I originally planned to write this story following the timeline of my other oneshots but the plot somehow changed while I was writing it and this is the final result. I hope you’ll enjoy it. :) The title comes once again from a song by Florence + The Machine called “Kiss with a fist”

Summary: Just while the older one was turning to face her, their lips crashed. It was unexpected, messy and awkward but they couldn’t let go. They spent a couple of minutes like that, looking at each other, connected by the lips and afraid to ruin the strange magic of such a precious moment. Or: Miz Cracker checks on Aquaria after filming and end up taking big life decisions.

“Have you guys heard from Aquaria?”.

Yuhua’s question broke an otherwise comfortable silence, while the queen, Monét, Miz Cracker, Dusty and her husband were having brunch. Monét took a spoonful of guacamole and put it on her gluten-free toast, before answering.

“I tried to call her yesterday but she hasn’t answered or called me back”, she said, before frowning and adding: “Do you guys think she’s not okay?”.

Dusty’s husband took a sip of his Mimosa, before sighing.

“You haven’t heard it from me”, he started, causing the others to look at him perplexed, “but it seems that she’s not doing well, after the last days of filming. Susanne is kinda worried, actually. You know, Aquaria is like the baby of them all…” he finished his sentence with a snort.

Miz Cracker sighed, before setting her fork down and taking a sip of her coffee.

“I’ll ask Katelyn”, she claimed.

Her relationship with Aquaria was a delicate balance of affection, admiration and shade she sometimes still struggled to understand: knowing the younger one wasn’t feeling well and decided not to call her made her heart clench in an unexpected way.

They ate their food in silence, before Yuhua asked: “Should we check on her?”.

Dusty nodded, before adding: “Maybe we should”.

Monét took a piece of fruit, before mumbling: “It’s maybe best if we ask Katelyn to call her or whatever. We all know how defensive she can get”.

Despite her cocky attitude, everyone who knew Aquaria well enough was aware of her deep insecurities and of all the, sometimes unhealthy, ways she tried to cope with them. The young queen used to hang out with loud personalities and motherly figures in order to feel safe enough to be herself and, when put under a certain amount of pressure, she tended to push people out of her life. After coming back from filming, she immediately started working again and managed to always find an excuse when invited to meet up with the rest of her NYC season sisters. They all got to see her new photos, they heard all about her wonderful performances but they never got to see her for long enough to have an actual conversation with her. Only Monét, being her loving and bubbly self, managed to exchange a couple of words with her young friend, during a Frankie Sharp event, and all the other one said, before running away, was: “I know, I’m sorry. I actually have to go”.

Without a word, Cracker took her phone and typed a message to her best friend, before putting the device away and sipping on her coffee.

“And now we wait”, she sighed.

Miz Cracker, 11:30 am: Have you heard from Aquaria? Could you please check on her?

Katelyn’s answer came a couple of minutes later.

Katelyn, 11:33 am: I tried to call and got a message saying she’s not feeling 100%. Maybe flu.

A second message was sent right after the first.

Katelyn, 11:34 am: I don’t buy it. I can stop by, bringing soup or whatever.

“Katelyn is stopping by. I’ll keep you posted”, Cracker said, before turning to Monét in desperate need of a change of subject: “Now, how was the show yesterday?”.

Katelyn came back home soon after Cracker, carrying a plastic bag with a couple of now empty Tupperware containers. The girl seemed tired and worried, much to the other one’s despair.

“What happened?”, asked the queen, as soon as her best friend sat on the couch with her.

The blonde shrugged, before answering: “So, I stopped by with soup and stuff, right?”.

Miz Cracker nodded, waiting to hear the rest of the story.

“Aquaria looked tired, she said it was the flu but… “she suddenly stopped, trying to find the right words, before finishing her sentence: “I don’t know. I’m not totally sold. I think it has to do with the show and her anxiety. She said something to me…”.

“What? What did she say?” the queen asked, interrupting her friend.

“She said something about disappointing the people she loves and feeling bad about things” Katelyn tried to recall.

“Things?” Cracker asked, hesitant and somehow worried.

The other one shrugged, before adding: “Maybe you should go. Or Monét. Just don’t send Yuhua! She’s sweet and lovely and stuff but…”.

“Yeah, definitely not Yuhua” Miz Cracker agreed, before smiling softly and adding: “Thanks for stepping in, Kat”.

Katelyn smiled back, before murmuring: “You know I love her, we all do. Some more than others”, she teased, before getting up and asking: “How about a cup of tea?”.

The following day, Miz Cracker wrote a quick message to Aquaria letting her know she would have stopped by to check on her. Needles to say, the other one didn’t seem thrilled about it.

Aquaria, 10:47 am: It’s not necessary. It’s just some stupid flu.

The queen rolled her eyes, before typing a quick answer.

Miz Cracker, 10:47 am: Already on my way :D

She put her phone away, before taking her keys and exiting the building.

Her phone buzzed.

Aquaria, 10:48 am: I don’t want you to get sick! It’s maybe better if we postpone…

Cracker sighed, before typing an answer.

Miz Cracker, 10:49 am: Nonsense! I’ll see you in a few :D

She made her way to the subway station: the train was arriving in the exact moment when she reached the platform, she noticed. She mindlessly put her headphones on and started listening to some music.

Just like she expected,after unlocking her phone the queen found a series of messages from a certain other drag queen.

Aquaria, 10:53 am: I don’t mean to be rude but can we please postpone? Not feeling well :(

Aquaria, 10:53 am: Pleeeeease

Aquaria, 10:54 am: Are you purposefully ignoring me?

Aquaria, 10:54 am: Stop ignoring me, you hoe!

Aquaria, 10:55 am: I just got out of bed and look like crap. Please, let’s postpone

Aquaria, 10:55 am: Cracker, let’s meet with the others at the end of the week.. it’ll be fun, the NYC girls all together ;)

Aquaria, 10:56 am: I feel like you’re purposefully ignoring me and I don’t like it

Aquaria, 10:57 am: Crackeeeeer!

Miz Cracker chuckled, before sliding the phone in her pocket and exiting the train. It was a short walk to Aquaria’s apartment and the queen spent it listening to an old mix she never got to lip sync to. She rang the bell, waiting to be let in.

“Yes?” Aquaria’s voice was low and a little raspy.

“It’s me. Let me in, pretty please?” the other one asked, before adding: “Or I’ll send Yuhua to check on you”.

Needles to say, she was immediately let in.

“I love the power of those threats” she thought, pretty pleased with herself.

Cracker made her way to the elevator, pressed the button for the 23th floor and waited for the doors to close. She istinctively checked her reflection into the mirror, before sighing and mumbling: “It’s not about it, stupid”.

The doors opened with a “ding” and the queen quickly exited, before turning to the left directed to Aquaria’s apartment. She knocked, before hearing a muffled “It’s open”.

The place was cluttered but not as chaotic as one would have thought, Miz Cracker noticed. Before she could inspect any further, she was greeted by the other one.

“You shouldn’t have come”, she sighed, “What if you catch something?”

Without answering the question, the older one made her way to the sofa in the living room and patted the spot next to her.

“Come sit with me”, she said with a smile.

Aquaria sat next to her friend, looking at her nails like they were holding the secret of life itself.

“How are you feeling?”.

Cracker’s question let her lips before she could even realize it, so she just added: “I mean, for real. How are you really feeling?”.

The other one joined her on the couch, before sighing.

“I’m just tired, and sick and…” she couldn’t finish her sentence, interrupted by the older one’s voice singsonging a teasing “Cranky?”.

Aquaria scoffed, crossing her arms and pouting adorably.

“I’m not cranky”, she mumbled.

Miz Cracker smiled, before passing an arm around the younger one’s shoulders and engulfing her in a slightly awkward embrace. They remained in silence for a couple of minutes, each one lost in their thoughts, before Aquaria started talking.

“Do you ever think about how they are editing everything?” she asked, before bringing her hand to her mouth and starting to chew on her nails.

The other one took her hand in hers and sighed.

“Stop, you’ll bleed all over and nail glue burns”, she started, before tightening her grip, “You don’t have power on whatever they will decide to play, Aquaria. You can’t spend the rest of your life in this cluttered cave just because of something you can’t control”.

Aquaria pouted adorably, before muttering: “I’m actually sick, you dumb. And it’s not cluttered!”.

Cracker smiled, before continuing to speak: “Listen, you had a great run. Sure, you had your moments but you did good. And you should be proud of yourself, instead of stressing out about things you have no control over”.

The other one nodded, before snuggling into Miz’s embrace and sighing, unable to hold her tongue any longer.

“What if I fucked up? Sharon will be so mad…”.

Aquaria’s relationship with her drag mother was a sensible topic. Everybody knew it. Sharon was the younger one’s role model, inspiration and often even confidant: the pressure of making her proud sometimes kept her drag daughter from taking certain risks or trying certain things and it seemed like neither of them was aware of it. It was a delicate balance made of late phone calls, Skype hangouts and occasional meetings and Cracker couldn’t help but ask herself why Sharon hadn’t already called to check on her. Maybe she had, she thought, maybe the young queen just ignored her calls.

“Why don’t you call her?” the older one asked “I can wait here, if you want” she then offered.

“Would you really stay?” the surprise in Aquaria’s voice made the other queen smile.

“Of course”, she nodded.

With a sigh Aquaria got up and went to grab her phone, before sitting back on the sofa and biting her lips.

“Here we go”.

“Pumpkin! Are you okay? What happened?” Sharon’s voice shifted from excitement to worry in a matter of seconds, “Giovanni, talk to me”.

Cracker couldn’t hide a smile: typical Aquaria. The thought that she couldn’t open up even to her mentor made her feel a little bit better.

“I got home from filming”, the younger one’s voice broke the silence “I’m… I’m kinda…” she reached for the other one’s hand and squeezed it without even realizing it “I’m kinda freaking out” she then admitted, chewing on her lower lip.

Sharon sighed, before speaking.

“Listen”, she said “You can’t expect for everybody to like you or what you’ll put out there, it just doesn’t work like that. Just remember that you did your best, I know you did. And that we have your back. I mean, I’m an old alcoholic drag-queen but no one will come for my baby on my watch” she said, before yawning “Pumpkin I actually have to go. Skype later this evening?”.

Aquaria nodded, before answering: “Yeah, sure. Thanks for answering”.

The other one scoffed.

“Of course, you dummy! I’ll talk to you later, okay?”.

After finishing the phone call, the younger one snuggled back in that awkward but somehow comforting embrace and sighed.

“See? Everything is going to be fine. No need to segregate yourself”, Cracker smiled, before adding: “And now shower, miss thing! We’re going out!”.

The other one nodded, before reaching to hug Cracker one last time. Just while the older one was turning to face her, their lips crashed. It was unexpected, messy and awkward but they couldn’t let go. They spent a couple of minutes like that, looking at each other, connected by the lips and afraid to ruin the strange magic of such a precious moment.

The older one moved slightly and, before Aquaria could even think about what to say, she said: “Go take your shower, okay?”.

There was an affectionate softness in her voice that made Aquaria nod and got up without a word.

Alone in the room, Cracker sighed.

“Shit” she murmured, before taking her phone and ignoring the message from her boyfriend just to quickly write to Katelyn.

Miz Cracker, 11:58 am: I think I like her. A lot. Shit. Talk to you when I get back.

That same evening, after a long chat with Katelyn, just before he was heading to bed, Cracker found a message on her phone.

Sharon Needles, 11:37 pm: I don’t know what is going on between you and Aquaria. I actually don’t even know if there actually is something going on but still… thank you. She’s all over the place, right now. Having someone to lean on that isn’t a dumb club-kid with ego problems is a good thing for her.

A second text quickly followed the first one.

Sharon Needles, 11:41 pm: Having said that, hurt my baby and you’ll be dead in a ditch.

She smiled, before opening another conversation and typing a message.

Miz Cracker, 11:43 pm: I think we need to talk.

The answer came in pretty quickly.

Jason, 11:45 pm: Are you okay? What happened?

The queen sighed, before receiving a second text, this time from someone else.

Aquaria, 11:46 pm: Thanks for stopping by and putting up with my dumb self. I’m sorry for what happened, I didn’t mean to, I know you have a boyfriend and stuff. Please don’t be mad at me, or at yourself. Please don’t be mad at yourself, Maxwell. I promise I’ll keep my distance and stuff, okay? Just please don’t be mad.

“Shit”, he mumbled, before abandoning the idea of going to sleep and sitting on the couch with her phone in her hands. She somehow had to sort that mess out.

Miz Cracker, 11:47 pm: I’m not mad. I just need to process everything. But I’m not mad and I don’t want you to keep any kind of distance. Please don’t keep your distance. I’ll see you soon, okay? I kinda feel like we have to talk.

Miz Cracker, 11:48 pm: I think we need to talk. Something happened and I would really much love to talk to you in person. Please don’t freak out.

Aquaria, 11:48 pm: Okay. I’ll wait for you.

Cracker smiled, before noticing another string of texts.

Jason, 11:48 pm: Now I am freaking out.

Jason, 11:49 pm: Can’t you just tell me what happened?

Jason, 11:50 pm: Baby, are you okay?

Jason, 11:50 pm: I feel like I need to come over. Can I stop by?

Cracker sighed, before answering.

Miz Cracker, 11:51 pm: Okay. Please bring coffee.

It was definitely going to be a long night.

Jason left after two hours of recriminations, screaming and tears. Words like “how could you?” and “it’s all so fucked up!” were also said and the man left the apartment just in time for the neighbours to say: “Do you actually know that people are sleeping? Have some respect!” and them being greeted with a grunt that sounded a lot like “Fuck you”.

Needless to say, Miz Cracker was exhausted and sad. In the year they had dated it never occurred to her that she could have been the one ending things. Not because she couldn’t stop herself for falling for someone younger than her and so incredibly endearing without even knowing it. Not because she kissed Aquaria and suddenly realized there was so much more to their relationship that just admiration. Funnily enough, she was the last one to realize the actual nature of her feelings and even her room-mate, a big supporter of Jason, smiled sadly and nodded when she brought up the fact that she was thinking about breaking up with him.

“It was the honest thing to do”, she mumbled to herself, before turning to Katelyn and smiling apologetically: “Sorry again for the noise, Katelyn”.

The other one shrugged, before hugging her tightly and patting her back.

“It’s okay. Do you want to talk about it?”, she asked, “It looks like we won’t be able to catch much sleep anyway”.

Cracker sighed.

“Not really. I kinda need to figure shit out. You should go to sleep, I need to make a call” she then moved to her room and closed the door.

Aquaria answered immediately.

“Are you okay?” she asked concerned, before mumbling: “Of course you’re not okay. Stupid question. I’m so sorry, I really am”.

The other one sighed, before deciding to bite the bullet.

“I need you to be honest with me. No bullshit.” she said, then added: “I broke up with Jason. I did it because I like you and I couldn’t be with him and still like you the way I do.”

“Okay” the younger one murmured.

“I feel like you like me too, and we both know what I mean with that” Cracker continued, not even noticing that she was raising her voice.

“I do”, Aquaria’s, on the contrary, lowered her voice.

“I know that you’re scared. Because of the show, because of this, because of things. I know it and I get it” Miz Cracker closed her eyes, before sighing and mumbling: “And I am too, but I thought… maybe we could be scared together?”.

Aquaria, laying in bed in her allegedly cluttered apartment, smiled. This was the Cracker she loved: this kind, humble and frankly adorable human being who was willing to trust her enough to share her fears with her. Maybe, she thought, they could make it work. Maybe they could really be scared together.

“I have a photo-shoot tomorrow. In front of the MET. Wanna meet up after that?” she asked softly, before adding: “I kinda feel like I want to tell you this in person…”.

“Tell me what?” the other one asked, slightly panicking.

“That I would love to be scared together with you. Because I like you a lot and…”.

Aquaria’s awkward speech was cut short by Miz Cracker.

“I’ll be there”, she said, before noticing how late it was and continuing: “Now go to bed, Aqua. We’ll talk later, okay?”.

A couple of minutes later, just when she thought she was finally falling asleep, the older one got a last message with an audio attached and, after listening to the track and reading the note, she couldn’t stop smiling.

Aquaria, 01:43 am: My mum used to listen to this song on repeat, when I was a kid. It says “because you’re special and I’ll take care of you”. Consider it your lullaby for the night. Yes, I’m dumb and corny and you can still run away from it.

Aquaria, 01:44 am: Please don’t run away, though.

She quickly typed an answer, before finally closing her eyes and falling asleep.

Miz Cracker, 01:44 am: I’m not going anywhere except to sleep. Goodnight, Giovanni.

A/N (2): Susanne is obviously Susanne Bartsch, club owner extraordinaire and creator of thos amazing lashes we all saw Aquaria, Milk and Hungry wearing. Here you can take a look at her Instagram. Also: I absolutely adore Yuhua but I needed someone to poke a little fun at and she was like the perfect (little) candidate. No bashing intended. Same goes for Cracker’s boyfriend, whose name I came up with. ;) The song Aquaria sends Cracker is an italian song called “La cura” by an incredible song-writer called Franco Battiato. It’s really beautiful and you can listen to it here.

#samwhity #craquaria #fluff #hurt/comfort #aquaria #miz cracker #rpdr fanfiction #canon compliant #s10

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plussizeappreciationfics · 7 years

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Series: Never be the same again

Pairing: Steve rogers x plus sized reader named Emmanuelle

Warnings: none

Summary: When Emmanuelle and her husband Steve Rogers try to have a baby, she finds out that she’s unable to get pregnant. She feels so disappointed and insecure that she’s incapable to naturally bare her husband a child. Her world comes crashing down when his ex girlfriend Sharon Carter is suddenly standing at their doorstep, appearing to be six months pregnant with Steve’s child.

Chapter: ¼

Word count: 2447 words

CHAPTER ONE: Insecurity

“That was fantastic”, Steve spoke breathlessly as he lied next to me on the bed, drops of sweat on his forehead. “Yes it was”, I answered, trying to catch my breath from the amazing sex we just had. We lied next to each other, the only sound in the room were our heavy breaths.

“I hope that it will work this time”, I exclaimed as I wiped the sweat off my forehead. Steve turned to the side and wrapped on arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him. “Hey it will work, don’t stress yourself honey”, he cooed and pressed a sweet kiss on my forehead. I sighed, wanting to believe my husband so badly.

“Okay”, I whispered, my voice clear with hesitation. Steve caressed my cheek with his large hand as he stared at me lovingly. “It will”, he spoke certain of his words. I nodded my head and rested it against the pillow.

“Or maybe there’s something wrong with me”, I said after a few minutes of silence. Steve scoffed loudly, “No baby don’t go down that road, we’re perfectly fine, and we’ll have a beautiful baby when the time is right okay?, he reassured.

I nodded my head after a few seconds, not knowing what to say. I let out a huge yawn, feeling exhausted of our previous activity. Steve sat up and pulled the covers over our naked bodies. I rested my head against his toned chest and wrapped my arm around his slim waist. Steve wrapped one arm around my shoulder and rested the other behind his head. He sighed and gave me a kiss on the forehead.

We were lying in silence our soft breathing being the only sound heard in the room. Besides the moonlight shining through the curtains, the room was dark.

I sighed, “Let’s get checked together, see if we’re able to naturally get pregnant”, I suggested and bit my lip afterwards, not knowing if Steve would like the idea. His chest rose and fell as he sighed heavily, “Okay darling, I’ll make an appointment tomorrow”, he promised.

“Let’s sleep now”, he whispered and pressed a sweet kiss on the top of my head. “Goodnight”, I whispered, already hearing soft snores leave his mouth.

I sighed and closed my eyes, a dozen thoughts running through my head.

Steve and I have been married for almost five years and were currently trying to conceive a child. We have been trying it for six months, but without any luck so far. We have been tracking my cycles and calculated the days I was the most fertile. I even changed my unhealthy diet and stopped drinking alcohol, replacing it with water an juicing.

We had sex almost on a daily basis, we were never able to keep our hands to ourselves but the thought of combining our love to create a new life made us crave one another even more.

Steve always wanted to be a father but didn’t think that it would be possible due to the fact that he was an Avenger and his life consisted of danger 24/7. But I always knew that I wanted to share my life with him, I knew that I wanted to have his children, so I did my best at juggling his dangerous lifestyle which made us grow closer as a couple.

Shaking my head to dismiss the swirling thoughts, I sighed heavily and closed my eyes. I focused on Steve’s steady heartbeat and slow breathing and fell asleep a few minutes after him.

*Beep Beep Beep*

I groaned as I rolled over and reached my arm out to stop my alarm. I sighed and let out a huge yawn before slowly opening my eyes. I blinked a couples of times before my vision became clear and I could read the time on the clock.

6:30 am

I let out another groan, feeling tired and sore from last nights activities. I removed the sheets off my body and sat at the end of the bed, stretching my body. I stood up and hissed at the soreness from in between my thighs. Sighing deeply, I made my way to the bathroom already hearing the water run.

Once I stepped into the bathroom, I saw that the room was foggy due to the fact that Steve was taking a shower. Once he heard the door close, he turned around and wiped his hand across the glass shower door and smiled, once his vision became clear and saw me standing at the door.

“Good morning darling, how have you slept?”, he asked sweetly. I smiled tiredly at my husband, “Good but I’m still tired and sore from yesterday”, I exclaimed while walking over to the sink. I took my toothbrush and paste before I started brushing my teeth.

“Oh sorry darling, I hope the pain isn’t too much”, Steve’s worried expression reflected through the mirror. I shook my head and spit the paste out, “No don’t worry it’s okay”, I reassured before I rinsed my mouth with mouthwash and turned around, leaning against the sink.

Steve turned the water off and hopped out of the shower, and drying his body off with a white towel, his back facing me. I couldn’t help but smile at my gorgeous husband. It’s like Steve sensed my eyes on his back because he turned his head around with a smirk, “Enjoying the private show?”, he asked seductively.

I chuckled, “Always have and always will my love”. We both chuckled before he walked over to me, and greeting me with a sweet kiss on the lips, “I love you”, Steve whispered after pulling away. I smiled up at him, “I love you too Steve and I can’t wait until we’ll have a baby”.

I giggled as a few water drops from his hair fell onto my nose. Steve gave me a gorgeous smile, “Me too, I can’t wait either”. We leaned in for another passionate kiss before I pulled away and walked over to the shower.

“I’ll make an appointment by our doctor when I’ll finish my training with Sam and Bucky”, he informed me before walking out of the bathroom. I sighed and hopped into the shower, once I turned the water on I closed my eyes as the warmth relaxed my muscles.

I started washing my body with soap, shampooed and conditioned my hair before I shaved my body. During all that time I had so many thoughts running through my mind about how Steve and mine’s baby would look.

“He or she will have his eyes that’s for sure”, I chuckled to myself before I turned the water off and hopped out of the shower and drying my body off with a towel. After putting body lotion and perfume on my body, I walked over to the sink and started putting make up on my face. I always kept it simple, eyeliner with mascara and some powder with lipstick.

I blew myself a kiss before leaving the bathroom and making my way into the closet. Steve was just finishing pulling his shirt over his head when I walked in, “I’ll be home at four, I love you”, he informed me before giving me one last kiss, “Okay, love you too”, I answered before he walked out of our shared bedroom.

I chose a black crop top with a dark printed peplum jacket and some black pants as my outfit while humming a random tune and after putting my close on, I completed my outfit with black heels.

After that I took my phone and purse from my nightstand and walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs.

One I arrived in the kitchen, I made some toast with butter and jam when my phone suddenly buzzed. I finished chewing the last bite before I pulled it out of my purse.

Hey girl! Are we still in for the binge watching session tonight?

My best friend Shayla asked me. I groaned loudly and threw my head back.

Rain check for tomorrow? Steve and I are trying to get an appointment asap to check our impotence

I texted her back.

Oh….No problem, just let me know the results okay? Good luck babe!

I sighed and thanked her before finishing my coffee and taking my car keys at the counter top. I walked past the living room to the front door and opened it. Once I got into my car I pulled out of the drive way and made my way to work.

I got us an appointment at 5:30 pm

Steve’s message said.

Okay see you at 4:30

I quickly typed back and hid my phone once my boss walked past my office, “Hello Emmanuelle”, he kindly greeted me, I smiled back at him and nodded my head before he walked away and out of my sight.

I sighed relieved and was happy that we still got an appointment today so we could close this chapter as soon as possible and concentrate on the positive. I cleared my throat and refocused my attention on the computer screen and to continue my work.

The hours passed quickly and before I knew it, it was four pm. I finished writing and sending the last report of the day to my boss, before I shut the computer down. I stood up stretched before I lifted my purse off the ground and made my way out of my office.

I walked past the reception, “Goodbye Nancy”, I said to the receptionist before walking into the elevator. Once I turned around, Nancy waved goodbye while talking on the phone and shot me a quick smile before the elevator doors closed.

Once I arrived at underground parking lot, I walked to my car and hopped in. I just had put my seat belt on when my phone buzzed on passenger seat. I reached over and grabbed it and smiled once Steve’s picture appeared on the screen.

“Hey babe”, I greeted happily while plugging the phone to the AUX cord and putting him on speaker while driving out of the parking lot. “Hey doll, how was your day?”, Steve asked gently. I smiled while driving through the streets, “Oh just a regular day, nothing special, and how was yours? How is the team?”, I asked.

Steve chuckled, “I kicked Sam’s ass during training and now he’s so butt hurt it’s so funny”, he informed while laughing at the end. I giggled and imagined Sam’s bitter face as Steve kicked his ass during training.

Steve cleared his throat after being silent for a few minutes, “So are you nervous?”, he asked me. I shifted in my seat and pulled into our drive way, “Hold on, I’m here”, I hang up and took my phone along with my purse and got out of the car.

I quickly walked up the front porch before arriving at the front door and opening it. Once I stepped inside the house, I was immediately greeted with a bone crushing hug from my husband. “Hey doll”, he chuckled while sighing and caressing my back gently.

“Hey babe”, I chuckled into his toned chest and closed my eyes for a mere second, loving the feeling of having him so close to me. “So are you nervous?”, he repeated his question.

I unwrapped my arms from his waist and looked hesitantly up to him, “Yeah a little”, I admitted. Steve sighed and ran a removed a strand of hair from my face, “Don’t worry darling”, he reassured me before pressing his lips against mine.

I sighed happily and closed my eyes while sparks ran through my whole body. Steve pulled me closer and rested his hands on my thick waist. “How long will it take before we get the results?”, I asked after pulling away from the sweet kiss.

“Right after the exams we’re going to know them”, he answered me and held my hand as we both walked to the couch and sat on it. “Okay”, I sighed as Steve squeezed my hand gently.

“And no matter what the results are, I love you okay? And we’re going to have a baby, I don’t care how”, Steve spoke while he held my head in his large hands and stared deeply into my eyes.

His words made my heart flutter and my insecurities disappear as his eyes showed nothing but love and support. I smiled and nodded my head before leaning in, capturing his lips in another kiss.

We relaxed on the couch for forty five minutes before we made our way to the car and drove to our doctor.

Once we arrived there, we checked in and waited until our doctor appeared, “Mr and Ms Rogers?”, he spoke up as he approached us in the waiting room. Steve and I immediately stood up and shook our hands with him.

“So I’ll check your fertility today, so please follow me”, he spoke gently and guided us through the hall way. “Okay Mr. Rogers, you will be examined in this room, please remove your clothes and put the gown on we provided for you. My colleague will examine you”, the doctor spoke and pointed at door in front of us.

Steve took a deep breath and turned to me, “Okay I love you and see you later okay? Don’t forget my words darling”, he quickly spoke before kissing me passionately and entering the room, closing the door behind him.

The doctor turned to me, “Your examination room is over there”, he walked until he reached the end of the hall and pointed at the door. I nodded my head and followed his lead. “Same goes for you, please put on the gown and I will examine you, the results will be up a few minutes after the examination”, he smiled at me and opened the door for me.

I entered the room and looked around. There was this huge machine, along with an examination chair and a small changing cabin in the corner. I took a deep breath and walked over to the changing cabin, removing my clothes and putting the provided gown on.

I let out a shakily breath as I tried to calm down my frantic heartbeat, as the doctor knocked on the door before entering it. He smiled gently at me, “No need to be nervous Emmanuelle, this will go by quickly”, he reassured me before asking me to lie down on the examination chair.

I did as I was told and nervously looked over to the doctor, who was putting on his latex gloves. I closed my eyes for a mere second before I reopened them and the exam started…

A/N: So here’s the first chapter of the “test series”, I put my own name in it because I was too lazy to pick out a random name. Don’t be afraid to let me know your opinion, and if this goes well, I’ll continue making more series in the future :D

Taglist: @buckybarnesappreciationsociety @pleasantdreamqueen @disneymarina @harleycativy

-Emma

#steve rodgers x reader #steve rogers #captain america #steve rogers x plus size reader #plus size

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furinjuru · 7 years

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Matchmaking Mission - Morning

Rating: G Word Count: 8,000~ Pairings: ChikaRiko, RubyMaru, background YouHane A/N: Happy (extremely late) Valentine’s Day! @frozentides9, I’m your Secret Admirer for @lovelivesecretadmirer2018! Sorry for how late this is, hope the does of cute ships make up for it! Massive shoutout to @galileosunshine (Joey) for beta-ing the ChikaRiko parts as well as@youriko-is-my-jam (Magi) and @polarishyn (Ochako) for beta-ing the RubyMaru parts! Next Parts: [ChikaRiko] [RubyMaru]

As the coldest months of Winter in Uchiura pass, a speck of warmth begins to return to everyone’s daily lives. Thick coats are deemed unnecessary as people ditch them in favor of something more-fashionable like a jacket or a scarf. People become ‘warmer’, smiling and laughing more frequently.

For Chika, it all feels bittersweet. After all, there are only two months left until the end of the school year and the third-year’s graduation. The end of Uranohoshi and their school idol club. All good things must come to an end, but she didn’t expect the end to come so fast. It felt like it was only yesterday that she had accidentally pushed Riko and herself into the sea.

Speaking of Riko, Chika notices that she hasn’t arrived yet, which is odd. She’s usually punctual, arriving at least half an hour before the bell rings, but now she’s nowhere to be seen. It worries her more than she lets on.

Ever since the New Years’ party Aqours held, Chika has been thinking about Riko a lot. One talk with Kanan later and she’s confident that she’s in love, but Chika thinks that she started liking the other girl romantically way earlier than the party. Maybe it was the morning of their training camp when Riko told her that she loved her (she still doesn’t know whether she meant that platonically or not).

Yeah, that was probably it. But Aqours took up most of her time then, so she couldn’t think too much about stuff like dating. Now, they’re in the finals and have a good shot at winning, with the entirety of the Shizuoka prefecture supporting them. They have their song, choreography, and costumes ready. Practice is being put on hold for a bit, which leaves Chika with nothing to think about other than her studies—she mentally gags at that thought—or her feelings. What a coincidence that today is Valentine’s Day, causing thoughts about the latter to become even more prominent.

She lets out a groan, burying her face in her hands. Everything would be so much easier if Riko would just confess again. That way Chika can ask what she really meant by it, and everything would work out. They would either start dating, or they would move on. It’s a decent plan that didn’t consider the possibility of Riko not being in class.

“Riko-chan isn’t here yet?”

Chika looks up, her eyes meeting You’s blue ones. She lets out another groan before shaking her head. You offers her a pitying look before sitting down on her seat beside Chika’s. “Cheer up. Hey, look what I got you!”

Chika turns her head, watching as You waves a box of chocolate in front of her. She immediately perks up. “Mikan chocolate!”

“That’s right!” The two smile as You hands the box towards Chika, the latter beginning to unwrap the gift. “But seriously, how can you not get bored of this stuff? It’s always the same every year.” Every year since elementary school, You has always given Chika the special mikan chocolate she loves so much.

At the question, Chika giggles a bit. “Of course I won’t get bored of it. This,” She points towards the opened box. “Is a symbol of our friendship. It’s been with us for as long as I can remember. And even though things in our lives change, our friendship stays the same, just like these chocolates.”

You stays silent, carefully processing the deep meaning behind Chika’s words. “Chika…are you alright?” She grins as her best friend’s smile turns into a pout. “I’m kidding! But seriously, I didn’t expect that from you. You really changed a lot.

“I can say the same for you,” Chika says off-handedly. “Oh! Speaking of chocolate….” She takes out a box of chocolate from her bag and offers it to You. “Here’s yours.”

You excitedly takes the gift, appreciating the nice wrapping before she opens it. “Thanks a lot! It’s nice getting friendship chocolate once in a while.”

“Look at Miss Popular here,” Chika teases. “I bet you’re gonna keep getting honmei all day. So much delicious chocolate….”

“That’s not a good thing.” You sighs. “Eating too much is unhealthy. And I feel terrible having to reject them. It’s so…sad.”

“Oh no!” Chika gasps, the shock on her face completely over-exaggerated. “You’ll have to reject girls who you rarely ever talk to and never even considered as a romantic partner.”

“That’s cruel, Chika. Even if it is true.” You chuckles as she looks for her book in her bag. As she does that, Chika takes a peek inside, finding a few other boxes of chocolate. Most of them look the same except for one that’s smaller and packaged in blue. You usually doesn’t discriminate between her friends, so for someone who doesn’t know what’s going on it would look more than a little odd. But Chika knows exactly what’s going on.

Her voice dropping to a conspiratorial tone, she leans towards You with a wide grin on her face. “Hey, You-chan...” She waits until her best friend looks up to face her before continuing. “Is that what I think it is?” She asks innocently, pointing at the box. You’s eyes follow her finger until they land on the box, her face turning bright red as she closes her bag to hide it. The reaction causes Chika’s grin to become even wider. “It’s for her, isn’t it?”

“Well yeah, but it’s not what you’re thinking.” You says, placing her book on her desk. “You know she loves chocolate, so I wanted to give her something nice. Really, that’s it.”

“You made this yourself, right?” Slightly embarrassed, You nods at Chika’s prodding. “Why couldn’t you have given her the same chocolate as the rest of us?”

“Of course I couldn’t do that. She doesn’t like mikans.” You seems proud of having thought of an excuse. Chika doesn’t buy it, however.

“So instead of buying chocolates that don’t have mikan in them…you decided to make the chocolate yourself?”

“Uhh….” You flushes. “…yeah?”

“You-chan, you’re a horrible liar.” Chika resists the urge to laugh when You turns redder. “I mean, it’s not like you have to hide it. Everyone in Aqours already knows.”

“Everyone?!” You balks. “Even Yoshiko-chan?” Her voice takes on a panicked tone as she wonders if she’s already outed herself.

“I guess not her…” Otherwise, they wouldn’t even be having this conversation. “But that doesn’t change the point. Your crush is super obvious.”

“You mean like your crush on Riko?” You asks, in a desperate attempt to change the subject from her.

“Yeah,” Chika answers unflinchingly. “So that’s why you should just confess. There’s nothing wrong with Yoshiko, and I’m sure she likes you too.”

You shakes her head, sighing. “I know that she likes me, but…what if she doesn’t like me in that way? What if she likes me as just a friend?”

Are we talking about the same person? It’s not like Yoshiko is less obvious about her crush. There are times when Chika wants to push them into a closet for an hour until they confess. Seriously, You-chan is hopeless without me. “I’m sure that’s not the case,” she says instead. “It’ll work out.”

You nods, Chika’s words helping to soothe her nerves. “…so, what about you? Did you make something for Riko-chan?”

“You bet I did!” She pulls out a nicely-wrapped box of chocolates from her bag, holding it up proudly.

“…that’s just mikan chocolate, isn’t it?” You asks.

“It’s the Takami’s special mikan chocolate!” Chika corrects her. “Passed down from each generation to the next, it’s a good luck charm to ensure a long, happy relationship!”

“I see.” You hums. “I never thought you’d be someone who believed in superstition, though.”

Chika shakes her head. “I usually don’t, but I’m super desperate.” She mutters, resting her head on her desk. “I’m so normal, and Riko-chan’s so amazing, so I’m willing to do anything to help my chances.”

Your chances are already really good, though. You sighs inwardly. It’s not like Riko is less obvious about her crush. They’re practically dating already with how much time they spend together. Seriously, Chika-chan is hopeless without me. “I’m sure Riko-chan will be blown away by whatever you made.”

“Thanks, You-chan.” Chika smiles at her best friend. “I’d wish you luck, but I don’t think you really need it. You make really good chocolate, and Yoshiko-chan loves chocolate, so it’s like a match made in heaven.”

“More like a match made in hell.” You says, her eyes meeting Chika’s flat stare. “…since, y’know, Yoshiko-chan is a fallen angel? Never mind, I shouldn’t ha-“

“Is that what you two do nowadays?” Chika teases. “Roleplay chuuni things together? I guess that counts as romantic.”

“W-we don’t do that kind of stuff together.” You quickly defends herself. “It was just a joke.”

“For now, but it’s only a matter of time before she turns you into one of her ‘little demons’ and you start joining her streams.” Chika ignores You’s whining as her attention is directed to the entrance of the class, perking up when she sees the person who just stepped in.

You follows Chika’s gaze, watching as Riko walks towards her seat, barely on time. “Riko-chan, good mor- are you okay?” As she approaches them, it’s clear that she isn’t herself. She seems to lack energy, and the foundation of makeup she had hastily applied can’t hide the dark rings around her eyes.

“Good morning you two.” She yawns while collapsing onto her desk. You would’ve guessed that she was asleep if she hadn’t spoken up. “The teacher hasn’t come in yet, has she?”

“Nope, you’re safe.” Chika suddenly stands up.

“I think I’ll go to the bathroom before classes start.” With that, Chika walks out of the class. You waits for her to be out of earshot before turning to Riko.

“Let me guess.” She smiles. “You stayed up late making chocolate for Chika-chan, right?” Riko can only let out a grunt in response. “I bet she’ll love it.”

“I hope so.” Riko sighs. “I’m not sure my heart will be able to take a rejection.”

“I’m rooting for you,” You says, hoping to lift Riko’s spirits. “I’m not sure I can take watching you two dance around each other for another day.”

Before Riko can muster up the energy to respond, the first teacher of the day comes in. Chika enters a bit later, earning a minor scolding from the teacher even though she was only in the bathroom.

Yep, You thinks to herself. This’ll be an interesting day.

“Yoshiko-chan! Wait up!”

The navy-haired girl stops at the school entrance, turning around to face the person who had called out to her. The girl’s signature red hair is a dead giveaway, and Yoshiko waves as Ruby approaches her, slightly out of breath. “Ruby, what’s up?”

“I want to give you something! Just hold on a second....” She mumbles, unzipping her bag. Yoshiko’s expression progressively becomes more horrified as the redhead rummages through the contents. Before she can say anything, Ruby pulls out a neatly wrapped package and presents it to her.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Yoshiko-chan!” She smiles brightly, not noticing Yoshiko’s distressed expression. “This is my gift for you, please take it.” Yoshiko stares at the package, wondering if she fell asleep on the bus and this is a dream.

She bites the inside of her cheek. Not a dream.

With shaky hands, she takes the item. The wrapping is simple yet elegant, and she can already guess what the actual gift is, considering the date. Ruby is still staring at her with her cheerful smile, which makes what she’s about to say all the more difficult.

“Ruby...I-I’m sorry.” She stutters, closing her eyes so she won’t have to see the other girl’s expression. “I only like you as a good friend, nothing more. So...I can’t accept this gift. I’m really, really sorry!” She bows deeply, hoping that the two of them can still be friends after this and Dia won’t kill her.

Ruby blinks, confused by Yoshiko’s reaction. “Huh? Hold on, I think you’re misunderstanding.” She waves her arms frantically, her face red with embarrassment. “This is just friendship chocolate!”

“What?” Yoshiko straightens up, once again staring at the package. “Friendship chocolate?”

“Y-yeah.” Ruby nods. “Even though we’ve only known each other for about a year, I think of you as a really good friend too.” Yoshiko continues staring at the gift like it’s a foreign object, and it takes a while for Ruby to realize why that might be the case.

Has she never received any before? I guess it makes sense, since she the last time she saw Hanamaru-chan was back in kindergarten. Other than that, it’s not like she’d receive friendship chocolate in elementary or middle school.

...That was a really mean thought, wasn’t it? Oh no. Ruby can feel her face turning even redder. “S-sorry.” Of course, since she didn’t voice the rest of her thoughts, it only leaves Yoshiko confused.

“What are you apologizing for?” She asks, beginning to tear apart the wrapping paper. “I should be the one apologizing. I don’t have anything to give you. I’ll…try to make it up to you later.”

“It’s fine,” Ruby assures. “Just enjoy the chocolates.” Yoshiko looks a bit better, but when she inspects the gift and realizes what brand of chocolates she’s been given, she instantly pales.

“Isn’t this that super-expensive brand from Tokyo?” She gulps nervously. “Is it really okay?”

“Of course!” Ruby pouts cutely, her expression resembling a cute puppy. “I’m being serious here, just enjoy it. You don’t even have to give me anything as long as you’re happy.”

Yoshiko chuckles, slipping into her fallen angel persona and poses. “Well, I suppose I can’t reject my little demon. Dark chocolate is the perfect offering for a dark being such as myself.”

“Sure, glad you like it,” Ruby says cheerfully, zipping her bag back up. “So you won’t be giving any chocolate today?”

At that question, Yoshiko blushes. “Well...not really. I’ll be giving one to someone.” Ruby perks up, her smile becoming even wider.

“I won’t tell anyone. Anyway, I have to go now. There’s still plenty of chocolates I need to give out today. Do your Rubesty!” With another wave, Ruby is off, leaving Yoshiko alone as she walks towards class. She considers putting the chocolate in her bag, but is worried that they’ll melt in spite of the weather, so she takes a chocolate piece and eats it.

It’s good, Yoshiko thinks. She eats another piece as she makes her way to class, walking through the school halls. She sees other students exchanging chocolates in the hallway, laughing and having fun. A few people even stop her to give her more chocolate, which she guiltily accepts while promising that she’ll return the favor soon.

By the time she finally makes it to class with a bag chock full of chocolate, she laments having to eat all of it before they melt. Still, as she stares at the chocolates, given to her by her friends, she can’t help but smile.

This is shaping up to be a pretty good day.

As the first bell rings and school starts, the previous lighthearted atmosphere vanishes almost entirely, replaced with palpable tension. With all kinds of chocolate having been exchanged already, there’s only one thing left; honmei chocolate. The main event of Valentine’s Day. Both teachers and students alike can agree that this is the worst day for school. Students can’t focus, and teachers struggle to teach students who can’t focus.

Hanamaru stares out of the window of the classroom, watching the grand sakura tree right in the middle of the schoolyard. It would be a nice place for a confession, like a scene from a book, but too many people share her thoughts. Call her a romantic, but she wants it to feel personal. Confessing at a place where many others do sounds like the opposite of personal.

She turns away from the window and towards her bag, catching a glimpse of a package wrapped in yellow paper. Her face flushes and emotion bubbles in her chest. She might not have a solid plan, but she’s more than sure of her own feelings. Somehow, she will confess.

Unfortunately, not everyone is as optimistic. Riko is one such example. As she glances at the energetic girl sitting behind her, she feels a tight knot forming in her throat, making her feel breathless. There are many reasons for Riko to be pessimistic.

First of all, even if Chika isn’t the most popular second year—that would be You—she’s still incredibly popular from virtue of being the leader of Aqours. She’s pretty, warm, kind and radiant. Chika is truly, utterly amazing, and Riko knows that. Riko also knows that everyone knows that. It’s not hard to imagine other people falling in love with the loveable girl.

That’s where the second problem comes in. Riko knows exactly how bland she is. When people hear her name, their first thought is ‘the transfer student from Tokyo’ more often than not. Arguably, it’s better than ‘the girl who reads doujinshi’, but it saddens her to realize that she’s so boring, to the point where the most memorable thing about her is that she’s from the big city.

Riko is so bland and uninteresting, unlike Chika. Chika can go on the same spiel about shining for the hundredth time and still captivate her, because that’s who Chika is. Chika is the girl who insists that she’s normal but keeps doing amazing things. Chika is the girl who never gave up on Riko, even when she’s given up on herself. Chika is the girl who, just from her actions, caused Riko to fall head-over-heels for her. Chika, the girl who wanted to shine, and became the light of her life.

Riko lets out a depressed sigh, returning her gaze to the front of the class. Why would Chika want someone boring like her? The chances of her feelings being returned are pretty much zero. Still, at the very least she wants to get those feelings off her chest. She seeks closure, even if it means getting rejected.

Even if it means getting hurt.

Because today is Valentine’s Day. The day where logic gets sidelined and emotions take up the foreground. As they say, love turns people into idiots. Even someone as calm and logical as Riko isn’t immune to its effects.

When the bell signaling lunch break rings, “Operation: Confess” begins.

#love live #love live sunshine #fanfiction #chikariko #rubymaru #youhane #love live secret admirer 2018

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littledonkeyburrito · 7 years

Text

That is so specific and no

1. Do you eat dessert after dinner? I don’t actually eat that much sweet stuff although I’ll often eat a mandarin after a meal 2. What is the fastest you have ever gone in a car? 200kph in germany when I was a kid. I probably shouldn’t have to specify, but I was not driving

3. If the last female you talked to told you that she was pregnant, what would you say to her? "How?” 4. If the last male you talked to told you that he was going to be a father, what would you say to him? "congrats on getting laid”

5. Who were the last people you had a group conversation with on Facebook? @aturinfortheworse, @intimidatethevoid and @thefreegladelancer

6. Have you ever had too much to drink and felt embarrassed about your behavior the next day? Several times

7. Have you ever gone into school or work with a hangover? Work yeah a few times with a mild hangover 8. What was the last thing your parents gave you money for? I asked to borrow money to survive until I go back to australia and start work again so I can pay it back 9. ho was the last person you took a photo of? Me 10. What’s the shortest song you have on your iPod? See you tonight - Green Day is the shortest I have on itunes. There’s more on my ipod but there’s no way I’m going to that effort for this question. 11. Who was the last new artist you came across that you really liked? Molotov, but mostly their relatively newer stuff. Also DLD 12. What was the last video you watched on YouTube? Sed - División Minúscula 13. How old’s the last male you messaged? 23 14. When you go out drinking, what do you prefer to drink? Beer, cider or rum&coke 15. What color was the last mug you drank out of? The only mug I have in my apartment. It’s from ikea and it has drawings of space and planets on it. 16. Is there a food or drink that you haven’t had before but would like to try? I totally should have tried dog while I was in southern china a few years ago. I’m always open to try new things 17. When was the last time you saw or spoke to someone you dislike? Thursday. The creepy boss guy from the telemarketing job (which I finally got paid for). He was always fine in the office but you could tell he’s a total sleaze and you would absolutely avoid him outside the office. 18. Does that person know you dislike them? Probably not. It’s not a strong dislike, I’d just rather not be around him, which is not a problem because I don’t work there anymore 19. Has anyone told you recently that they fancy you? No. Although the other day I did get a few guys stare at me which was unusual 20. If you were told that you were going to spend the rest of your life with the last person you kissed, would that make you happy? The rest of my life? I certainly don’t know him well enough to commit to that but I would defs be happy to see him again. 21. Who was your first boy/girlfriend and do you still talk to them? A guy I was friends with when I was 14. I have him on facebook I think but we haven’t spoken in many years 22. If you married the last person that liked your Facebook status, what would your new last name be? Coleman. But I really don’t think I’m going to marry my dad’s best friend.

23. Tell me about the first five photos you have on your phone or camera. 1) a photo to show how close my food is kept to where I use my laptop 2) The cinema screen yesterday to send to my mum to tell her that, yes, they did play the 20 fucking minute olaf the snowman animation before Coco. 3) whiteboard in the telemarketing office from when I stopped in to pick up my cash. I noticed they had a new office phone number so I took a photo of it to google later. I assume they changed it because the old one kept getting posted on scam forums. 4) A nice view down a street 5) The square near my house with the christmas lights lit up

24. When was the last time you had wet hair? Now

25. Describe your handbag. I don’t use handbags. A few years ago I went on holiday to melbourne with a few guy friends and as we went out one day I had my bag and they all had absolutely nothing I was super jealous. So the next day I went and bought a wallet to fit in my pocket and never looked back. If I have to carry a lot of stuff I use a backpack.

26. Have you ever been to the beach? If so, tell me the name of the beach you last went to and when. The last beach I went to was in the Bocas Del Toro archipelago in Panama. I don’t think I’ve even walked down to the beach here since I got back.

27. Do you have an unhealthy obsession with colored furry throw pillows that are different shapes and sizes? That is so specific and no.

28. Which passes by your house / street more often: a bus, a train, or an airplane? closest bus would be 100m at least, train is ~300m and planes come in from the ocean, not over the city. But only the street cleaners and occasional motorbike actually come down my street

29. Can you sleep without any covers on, or do you need at least a sheet covering you, even if it is really hot outside?29. I can sleep in just about any scenario

30. How many languages can you say ‘love’ in? english, spanish, italian, german. Portuguese is probably the same or very similar to spanish.

31. What’s on your “things to buy” list for the near future? Belt, umbrella, more undies. My life is so exciting

32. Do you know how to surf at all? I know the basics, in theory, but I have only tried surfing twice

33. How many times have you been kissed? Too many to count

34. How tall is the last person you kissed? Pretty tall. Maybe 6′2″?

35. If your parents read your texts right now, would you be in trouble? Why the fuck are my parents going to care that I, an independent 23 year old, am asking friends for videogame suggestions?

36. Were you single over last summer? Ehh pretty much

37. What did you do yesterday? I went to see Coco

38. Have you had sex with more than 5 people this month? This month? Fuck, I’m not that good at attracting attention from boys. I was proud of 5 in a year

39. Could you handle living with the last guy you messaged? We’d probably be pretty good flatmates actually

40. What’s your mother’s favorite color? It depends a lot on the context of the colour, but in general she likes yellow. The colours she wears most are purple, green and orange.

41. Honestly, are things going the way you planned? No, but that’s not always a bad thing. I never thought I’d have half the experiences I’ve had from travelling

42. If you could, would you take back your last kiss? No.

43. Would you spend a whole night with the last person you kissed? I would, gladly

44. How would life be if someone took away your cell phone? I would be pissed because I don’t have the money to replace it

45. If you were to paint the sky another color, what would it be? I’m not sure you understand how the sky works. It cannot be painted.

46. Have you ever been attracted to someone very unattractive? Attractiveness is subjective

47. Have you ever tried cocaine or heroine? coke yes, heroin never have never will

48. Are you scared of being alone in big cities? No. I am always alone in a big city

49. Does your phone slide or flip? lmao how old is this?

50. Can you speak any languages other than English? Puedo hablar español, pero no hablo muy bien

51. When you were younger, did your parents ever let you open a few presents before Christmas arrived? Mum would let me and my brother open our gift from our grandparents on christmas eve.

52. Do you really care how many friends you or anyone else has on Facebook? No but I go on a deleting spree a couple times a year so it generally stays around 200-250

53. Last person/people to play (an) instrument(s) in your presence? Which? I probably walked past a busker in the metro last time I went to the grocery store

54. When, where, and to whom did you lose your virginity? About 4 years ago, in my bed, to a guy I was friends with at the time

55. Last song you sang in the shower? I don’t sing in the shower because I’m pretty sure you’d be able to hear me from the building stairwell. I don’t need to inflict that on people

56. Have you eaten any fruit today? I had a mandarin earlier. I fucking love mandarins

57. How many houses have you lived in? Since I moved out of my parent’s place, I’ve lived in 5 houses/apartments

58. What colour is the last lighter you used? Blue

59. Last thing you threw in the garbage? Beer can but it was more of a gentle toss

60. When was the last time you sat in the back seat of a car? Whenever I last got a cab or uber

61. Have you ever cried in a movie theater? Yesterday while I was watching Coco...

62. Starting in what grade were crayons excluded from your school supply list? Why on earth would that be significant enough for me to remember into adulthood?

63. Do you have anything from IKEA in your room? so much

64. Are you excited to live on your own? I was pretty keen and it’s been awesome. People suck and living alone is amazing.

65. Next movie you’ll watch? Paddinton 2. The first one was so good

66. Now what are you listening to? Adiós - Ricky Martin

67. What job would you NEVER take, even as a last resort? I would never try telemarketing again. 68. If someone looked in your closet, how would they judge your style? They’d think I was fancy because the only clothes actually in my wardrobe are my suits. The rest are on my shelves.

69. The boy/girl you truly care about needs you at 3:00 a.m., would you go? My bank account would say no 70. What’s the largest age difference between yourself and someone you’ve dated? Dated? 4 years. Slept with? More than 4 years...

71. When did you meet the last male you texted? 2012

72. Your phone is ringing. It’s your ex. Do you answer? Yes because it must be important

73. What are you currently hearing? Aprender A Quererte - Morat

74. Are you a bad influence? On occasion

75. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone? Now that it’s winter it would be nice to have some warm to cuddle with

76. If the last person you kissed were calling you right now, would you answer? Yes

77. Who is your favorite family member on your mom’s side? Maybe my little cousin Jimmy. My whole family are pretty great though

78. Where is the last person you kissed? Somewhere in Costa Rica I assume

79. This time last year were you dating or talking to someone? I was seeing a guy

80. Who saw your last kiss? Nobody. It was like 4:30am and in a hotel room

81. Do you know anyone who still doesn’t have a smartphone? My grandma

82. Have you ever been on a cruise? Technically I have been on a cruise ship. At work one time I had to go up the gangway to talk to a crew member and get them to radio someone. But I don’t think I would pay money to be on one because I know how often they have gastro outbreaks.

83. Have you ever had an x-ray? Dental x-rays. Fun fact: I have 2 less adult teeth than I should because they just never grew. I am missing bones.

84. What is one food you couldn’t live without? Chilli

85. When was the last time you were at a church and why? I think I went into a church in Bogotá to have a look

86. What are your views on abortion? It is great that it’s an option

87. Do you believe in sex before marriage? Definitely

88. If you had to choose, what one country would you most like to visit? At the moment I really want to visit Mexico or Madagascar but would also like to go back and see more of Costa Rica and Colombia

89. Have you ever seen anyone die? Yeah, at the music festival I went to in July. An aerial dancer fell about 30m at the main stage and he died

90. Did you eat a cookie today? Yes

91. Do you like the snow? Quite a lot

92. Would you prefer a thunderstorm or for it to be snowing? Either would be fantastic. Snow is awesome, but I do miss tropical storms from home. They don’t really happen here. Got a couple in central america though 93. Remember the first time you kissed the last person you kissed? I sure do

94. What kind of pants are you wearing? Jeans

95. What are the names of all the people you have dated? Depends on definition. At the least, there was Corey and Michael. Fortunately those are pretty damn common names so I don’t mind sharing. The others who are less definite also have less common names.

96. Will you be under the influence of alcohol today? If I could be bothered going to the shop then I would be drunk right now

#Other potential titles:#totally should have tried dog #don’t think I’m going to marry my dad’s best friend #Attractiveness is subjective #I am missing bones

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ongsniel · 7 years

Text

[requested] the more i pick at you (the more perfect you are)

AUTHOR: ongniels (ali) FANDOM: WANNA ONE/Produce 101 RATING: PG-13 PAIRING: Kang Daniel/Ong Seongwoo WORD COUNT: 2,4k WARNING: cursing SUMMARY: Do you want to get some ramen?”

Daniel spits out the water he had just been drinking and stares at Seongwoo incredulously. The older boy looks at him with the most serious expression, sounding as if he really means it – as if he means everything that phrase entails.

[AO3]

“Do you want to get some ramen?”

“I’m sorry, come again?” Daniel manages to stutter out.

“Do you want to get some ramen?” Seongwoo repeats, accentuating every word as he opens his mouth ridiculously wide, believing it will make the other boy understand better.

“It’s like eleven in the morning, where do you want to get ramen at this hour?” Daniel whispers.

Seongwoo looks at him with the most exasperated facial expression he can muster, as if Daniel is some kind of stupid kid who doesn’t understand the adult world – and hey, that kind of offends him because of course he knows what Seongwoo means, he just isn’t sure if Seongwoo really means it.

“Not right now, you idiot,” the older boy finally replies. “Tonight. Let’s get some actual ramen. Not the chemically enhanced one.”

He sighs, he isn’t too sure if it’s in relief or disappointment though, when it finally dawns on him that Seongwoo is truly, really just talking about normal ramen. Now that he thinks about it, though, he is kind of confused as to where they are even going to get ramen when they are supposed to stay at the training center until Monday.

“And where do you plan on eating ramen? I’m pretty sure the staff doesn’t take requests when it comes to dinner,” Daniel asks, scooting closer to Seongwoo, who is sitting on the floor next to him.

“Well, obviously we’re going to sneak out after practice,” the older boy replies like it’s the most obvious thing on earth. “There’s a good restaurant not too far from here.”

Daniel’s eyes open wide.

Out of instinct, he looks around to see if anyone is listening in on Seongwoo’s master plan – as expected, there is no one. The rest of the Produce contestants are intensely practicing their choreographies for the next evaluation stage, doing exactly what the both of them should be doing at the moment.

“Don’t look so guilty already, we haven’t done anything yet,” Seongwoo laughs, his hand coming up to rest on Daniel’s shoulder. “Samuel told me about a loophole around the fence area on the other side of the dorm. He sneaked out to meet his mother there last week, says none of the staff ever checks the place out so he went and met up with her again yesterday. What do you say? You don’t have to come if you don’t want to though. I don’t want to force you; I can ask another person-”

“Don’t ask anybody else,” Daniel interrupts him. “I’ll come.”

Now it’s Seongwoo’s turn to look perplexed at the younger boy. He catches himself quickly though and throws himself into Daniel’s arms like the little kid he is. Daniel just embraces him back, telling him to be quiet if he doesn’t want to be found out even before they actually try to sneak out.

Daniel, also, easily ignores how his heartbeat quickens and his stomach tightens pleasantly at the skinship with Seongwoo.

***

“I knew this wasn’t a good idea, Jesus, why did I ever agree to do this?” Daniel mutters to himself as he walks behind Seongwoo. “If I’m kicked out of the show because of you, I’m going to kill you in a very creative and painful way.”

Seongwoo tries to muffle his laugh with his hands while he looks back at the younger boy.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you, Kang Daniel, Mr. I-am-afraid-of-killing-even-a-small-bug, will kill me in a slow and painful way,” the older boy agrees with a smirk.

Daniel narrows his eyes at him and hits him playfully, making Seongwoo hiss in pain.

“Where is that loophole anyway?” Daniel asks, anxiously looking around to see if any of the staff is nearby. “I thought it was near the dorms.”

“Just follow me, we are almost there,” Seongwoo sighs, rolling his eyes.

Instead of what Daniel had expected, which was for Seongwoo to start walking again without saying another word, the older boy holds out his right hand for him to hold.

He stares at it for at least ten seconds before he actually takes a hold of it.

Although Daniel has held Seongwoo’s hands a lot of times, mostly when he was nervous or needed some support, this time it feels so utterly different because his heart is thundering in his chest at the simple contact and his whole body seems to be focusing on the way the browned haired boy’s finger is softly caressing the back of his hand.

***

“See? It was really easy, wasn’t it?”

Daniel nods, smiling at Seongwoo before he starts to take in their surroundings, loving the way he can feel the breeze on his skin. Even though he has seen the buildings in front of him a thousand of times, they look more beautiful to him now that he is free.

“Let’s get some ramen, yeah?” Seongwoo suggests, pulling Daniel along as he starts to run.

“What are you doing you weirdo?” Daniel inquires but doesn’t stop. He likes the way Seongwoo seems so carefree while running in front of him, his hand tightly holding onto Daniel’s. “We’ve got enough time! We don’t have to hurry!”

“Yeah, but where is the fun in walking?” Seongwoo looks back at him with a grin as the words leave his mouth.

***

When they arrive at the restaurant, the both of them sit down on the steps of the entrance to catch their breath. They are panting and Daniel knows he is sweating a damn lot but he can’t help to burst out laughing when Seongwoo and he look directly at each other.

The older boy grins toothily, his eyes sparkling.

***

“Wow, the ramen is really, really good! I’m so glad we came, the food at the dorms is shit compared to this,” Daniel exclaims in between bites.

Seongwoo doesn’t even respond, too focused on his own food.

They gulf down their meal in less than five minutes, only a bit of vegetables left in each of their plates. Seongwoo says that the both of them are living unhealthy lives because they aren’t eating properly; Daniel tells him that they get enough exercise to make up for it.

That leads to them to them talking about the weirdest of things – the invention of spoons, the way the staff seems to be absolutely whipped for Jung Sewoon, how Minhyun had almost knocked himself unconscious while waking up and hitting his head on the upper bunk, what Pokémon they would be, etc., etc.

As Daniel watches Seongwoo wheeze while laughing, his eyes closing and his cute laugh lines appearing, he notices that this is the best time he has had in a long time.

***

“Oh?” a girl suddenly gasps next to them.

Seongwoo and he turn to look at her in surprise. She is covering her mouth with her hand and staring at the older boy with narrowed eyes.

“Aren’t you Ong Seongwoo? From Produce 101?” she asks excitedly, leaving her family behind on the table she was sitting and walking towards them.

Daniel feels kind of proud that Seongwoo is being recognized by someone.

“Y-Yeah,” Seongwoo stutters, a faint blush on his face.

“I have been voting for you since before the show even started!” She tells him happily, unlocking her phone to show him that he is her wallpaper too. Seongwoo grins at him before he turns back to listen to the girl. “Could you maybe give me an autograph?”

Although he hesitates for a moment, Seongwoo agrees with a smile. He tells the girl to please keep their meeting a secret since they are supposed to be at the dorms right now and it could get them in trouble.

When Seongwoo finishes signing a piece of paper, the girl turns towards Daniel.

“You’re Kang Daniel, right? Can I get your autograph too?” she asks shyly, handing him another piece of paper.

“I’m so happy you recognized me, too!” he says contently and signs the paper. “Please keep supporting us!”

As soon as the girl is back to her table, bragging to her family about the autographs, Seongwoo looks at him and wiggles his eyebrows excitedly.

“We’re celebrities now!”

Daniel just shakes his head as he laughs.

***

“I don’t want to go back yet,” Seongwoo whines when they arrive back at the fence.

On the way back, the brown haired boy had complained about how cold it suddenly had gotten and had plastered himself to Daniel’s side, his face almost buried in the crook of Daniel’s neck, Seongwoo’s cold nose sending shivers down Daniel’s spine, while Daniel’s arm was wrapped around his shoulders.

Daniel doesn’t want to let go and go back to the dorms either.

“Same,” he sighs, squeezing Seongwoo’s arm. “I wish we could stay out a little bit longer, I had a really fun time today.”

“Really?”

When Daniel looks down at Seongwoo, the other is peering at him from under his eyelashes, it makes his heartbeat quicken and his breathe get stuck in his throat. They are so close that if Daniel were to lean forward even just a millimeter, their lips would collide with one another.

Daniel shakes his head, trying to forget all the suggestive images that keep swirling in his head.

Seongwoo doesn’t seem to take notice of Daniel’s action and just almost lazily separates himself from Daniel, a shiver running through his body because of the cold. He slips through the hole in the fence and waits for the younger boy to do the same afterwards.

Then they quietly walk towards the dorm, Daniel clinging onto Seongwoo’s shoulders while watching out for staff members or other trainees.

Thankfully, they run into no one and safely make it to right in front of their room without anyone noticing, the older boy laughing about how nervous he felt all the way there. Daniel agrees wholeheartedly. He even shows the older boy his trembling hands.

“But it was worth it, wasn’t it?” Daniel asks, happily. “This night really felt like a dream, it felt really nice not to be followed by cameras or staff members for once.”

“Yeah, I agree… I’m glad you had fun during our first date,” Seongwoo says and wait – what?

“First date?” Daniel blurts out, eyes wide as he stares at the older boy in surprise. “This was a date?”

Now it’s Seongwoo’s turn to look surprised. He is staring at Daniel questioningly, one of his eyebrows rising as he licks his lips and cocks his head like a dog would.

“Obviously?” he replies. “What did you think ‘do you want to get some ramen’ meant? Everybody knows it’s a way to subtly ask someone out, normally into their houses and to do something else, I know, but like, I couldn’t think of a better way to ask you out on a date, so… Ugh, this is embarrassing! I thought you knew and got all excited for nothing…”

Seongwoo rubs his hands over his face tiredly before he cups his own cheeks. Daniel thinks he looks cute like that, pouting and blush creeping on his face.

Daniel can’t help but laugh, feeling a sort of giddiness running through his body.

“Don’t laugh at me, that makes this even more humiliating,” Seongwoo frowns at him, one of his legs softly kicking Daniel’s shin. “And it makes my heart do all kinds of weird things.”

That… makes Daniel’s own heart do some crazy stuff – it almost feels like it’s doing a summersault.

“Anyway, since I already feel like I am going to die thanks to,” the older boy wildly gestures around, pointing at Daniel and then at himself. “I’m just going to go into this room and maybe spend the whole night thinking about this totally embarrassing moment.”

He goes to the door, muttering something under his breath and is about to touch the door handle when Daniel’s brain finally reboots and kicks into action.

His hand automatically reaches up to take a hold of Seongwoo’s wrist. The brown haired boy stops in his tracks, head turning to look back at Daniel with bewilderment. Daniel doesn’t let that faze him and tugs at the wrist lightly.

“Listen,” he begins, his tongue nervously swiping over his lips. “I might not have known this was a date but that doesn’t change the fact that I like you.”

Seongwoo seems to immediately calm down after hearing his words, a small smile forming on his face as he keeps looking at Daniel.

“So you like me too?” the older boy asks.

Daniel notices that he has never heard Seongwoo speak like this, a mix between happiness and insecurity, like he wants to believe Daniel but is not quite sure that he can.

“Yeah,” Daniel grins, once again tugging at Seongwoo’s wrist to get the boy to turn around fully. “Yeah, I really, really do.”

“Good lord, thank you so much, I feel so relieved right now, Jesus –“Seongwoo starts but is interrupted by chapped lips softly pressing against his own, Daniel’s hand cupping his cheeks.

Since Seongwoo is taken aback by the suddenness of the kiss, it takes him a few seconds to relax into it. But when he does, it’s amazing. The older boy’s hands grab Daniel’s lower back and pull his body closer to Seongwoo’s, his hands then easily slipping under Daniel’s shirt and caressing the younger’s skin.

They end up against the wall, Seongwoo pressed against it as Daniel kisses his neck, lips trailing down the wide expanse of skin until he finds a spot he likes to leave a love bite.

He can feel Seongwoo’s every breathe against his cheeks, he can hear Seongwoo’s every moan right in his ears, the boy whimpering every time Daniel bites his skin softly only to then soothe the pain with his tongue.

“Quit playing around and come back here,” Seongwoo breathes out, right hand guiding Daniel’s face back to his own.

As Seongwoo kisses him, Daniel feels the urge to have Seongwoo closer, nearer. So he does what every other person would do and lifts Seongwoo up, the other boy’s legs easily wrapping around his waist, a moan escaping both of their mouths at the friction of their bodies.

“How about,” Daniel starts to say in between of heated kisses. “We get some real ramen now?”

Daniel doesn’t need a verbal response because the way Seongwoo stares at him longingly before leaning in for another passionate kiss is answer enough.

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