#you have unlocked Loop crumbs but only crumbs

[mari-lair]

obligatory sus Odile event

[echo-goes-mmm]

Ambrose and Elliot #24

Masterpost

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Warnings: threats of non-con, threats of recapture

Elliot’s breath hitched and his heart stuttered. Fear buzzed under his skin like a swarm of bees.

He waited in the kitchen until he was absolutely certain Mr. Horneswood was upstairs and asleep.

He crept up the stairs and slipped into his room. He closed the door and locked it.

There was no way he was going to sleep in his bed. Too much of an invitation. He could hide in the closet, but then he wouldn’t be able to see him coming.

Sleeping at all was too much of a risk.

Elliot sat on the floor, back to the bed. He stared at the doorknob, waiting for it to rattle, waiting for Mr. Horneswood to burst through and take what had always been on offer before.

Two nights. One day.

He could stay awake. He must stay awake.

___________________

The bedroom was dangerous. It wasn’t clear to him before, but as he sat and waited, his eyes darted around in the shadows.

His beloved items and furniture provided hiding places, but they made it easier for him to be cornered.

He could be bent over his nightstand, pinned against the wardrobe, even the chest could be emptied and he could be shoved in and locked inside.

Elliot couldn’t stay in here, but it was the only place with a lock-

Oh.

Maybe Master Ambrose would let him upstairs? Mr. Horneswood wouldn’t dare hunt him down if he stayed up there.

But Ambrose would ask about it. What if he didn’t believe him?

Dawn approached as he thought in circles. By the time the light shined through the window, his bedroom had become as suffocating as a coffin.

He got up, and his vision went dark and blurry for a moment before clearing.

He unlocked the door, and slipped downstairs. There were chores to be done, no matter what he was feeling.

He bit his lip and glanced at the door across from his. It was still closed.

He breathed in and out. 

It might be fine. Elliot had a new master, and maybe, just maybe, Mr. Horneswood would realize there were different rules now. 

He went into the kitchen, and began to wash last night’s dishes.

___________________

“Good morning.”

He jumped, and turned to see Master on the steps. “Good morning, sir.”

Master Ambrose helped him gather up the decorations, winding the strung flowers into a nice loop before putting them away.

“I’m going to bring some more wood in, alright? We’re a little low. I’d appreciate it if you could sweep the floor. We’ll move the tables and chairs back after. And I think there’s some bacon in the larder if you haven’t had breakfast yet.”

“Yes, sir, thank you.” He watched Ambrose leave, the pit of dread in his stomach growing. He was too nauseated for rich bacon; and instead opted for a day-old biscuit and a bit of butter.

He grabbed the broom and moved to the far corner. There were lots of crumbs from last night that needed to be taken care of.

Elliot was lost in the work, making the floor clean and shiny, when somebody pressed up against him. He froze. Hands settled on his shoulders, squeezing.

“Hello,” purred Mr. Horneswood into his ear. “Isn’t this a pleasant surprise?”

Elliot whimpered, and Mr. Horneswood shifted to murmur into his other ear. “He looked for you, you know. For quite a while. I figured you’d died.”

Elliot twitched, but he couldn't bring himself to move away.

Mr. Horneswood traced a finger over his chest before suddenly gabbing his chin. “I’m going to drag your sorry ass back home.”

He mouthed at his ear, and Elliot shuddered. Tears pooled at the corners of his eyes.

“Maybe I’ll make you my little bitch tonight,” he mused. “Just us, before I have to share my favorite slut again.”

Oh gods, no-

“What reward do you think he’ll give me for bringing you home? I know, how about I get to-”

The back door slammed open, and Mr. Horneswood jumped away from him.

Elliot couldn’t look up from the floor, couldn’t bring himself to move. But Mr. Horneswood brushed past him, probably to get his own breakfast.

Ambrose didn’t come into the room, no matter how desperately he wished for him. 

Elliot kept sweeping.

___________________

When the kitchen half of the inn was opened for the day, Mr. Horneswood took great pleasure in ordering him around. 

He was nicer when Ambrose was in earshot, but his smug, satisfied face sent chills up his spine when Master was gone. 

“You look better now that you’re fed,” said Mr. Horneswood, as Elliot fetched him coffee. “At least your new master understands the importance of actually having an ass to grab. Too bad for you; that’ll change.”

Elliot looked away. “He- he doesn’t touch me,” he whispered. “It's not allowed.”

“No? All the better then. I look forward to how tight you’ll be.”

___________________

“Elliot? Could you help me with this?” Ambrose called from across the room.

Elliot grabbed the topmost box from him, and helped set the delivery on the counter. He could feel Horneswood’s eyes watching.

Ambrose disappeared down into the cellar.

“Look at you,” mocked Horneswood. “Even got yourself a new name. Do you want me to call you Elliot when I fuck you, or is ‘whore’ still on the table?”

Elliot said nothing. What did he mean by new name? He couldn’t remember having one before. His old master hadn’t given him one.

He bit his lip.

“At least get me some more water while you’re over there,” Horneswood ordered, snapping him out of his thoughts.

___________________

Finally, Ambrose went upstairs to pray, and Elliot made the excuse of cleaning the upstairs windows in order to follow him.

The door clicked behind him, and he locked it just to be sure. Ambrose looked up from the altar. 

“Is everything alright?”

“He’s going to hurt me,” he blurted, “He- I-” his breath came quick and shallow, and he struggled to catch it.

“Slow down love.” Ambrose crossed the room, hands on his shoulders. Elliot flinched away.

“I- I know him. From before.” Ambrose’s eyes went wide. 

“Are you certain?” Elliot nodded, desperate for him to understand.

“He- He said I was a- a slut and- and he was going to take me back, and-” his voice cracked. He gulped in air.

“He said he was going to make me his bitch. And so many other horrible things!” Please believe me, please believe me, please please please.

“Hush. Come with me.” Ambrose’s voice was tight and firm, and angry. Master turned on his heel and stalked into the bedroom.

Elliot followed him inside. Was he going to be punished?

Ambrose pulled the doors shut behind them, and the more layers of walls and doors between him and Horneswood the better. Even if Ambrose was going to beat him.

But instead, Ambrose pulled down a dagger and sheath from a hook on the wall. The hilt was a shiny thing, with gold and encrusted gems. 

Master pulled the dagger out of its leather, and he could see how sharp it was.

Ambrose put it on the bed. Elliot didn’t take his eyes off the shiny steel.

“Do you want to watch?”

“I don’t understand, sir.” He looked up at Master Ambrose. 

Master Ambrose looked at him, a cold glint in his eyes.

“I’m going to kill him. Do you want to watch?”

Elliot considered the knife. He thought about yesterday, how he somehow already knew how to fold the flowers even though he couldn’t remember ever doing it before.

He thought about Mr. Horneswood’s taunt about having a new name, despite being unable to recall an old name.

“Elliot? Do you want to watch?”

“Yes.” He looked back at Ambrose. “I have questions for him.”

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[fiveraccoonsinatrenchcoat]

Quiet My Fears (With The Touch Of Your Hand) Ch. 4

Steve Harrington x f!reader

Description: Robin doubles down and Steve's having nightmares, imagined and real.

Warnings: Language, Steve is extra sad in this one folks.

Word Count: 3635

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My Masterlist! - Series Masterlist!

Notes: I'm back! Everyone come collect your crumbs!

Summer heat enveloped Steve as he got out of the car into the garage, hot and soft on his skin after having sat in the harsh (though definitely welcomed) blow of the air conditioning during the drive back from the grocery store. He circled to the back of the vehicle, opening the trunk and deftly weaving his forearm through the loops of as many plastic bags as he could in one go; three on his right arm, three on his left, the final bag gripped in his non-dominant hand.

It wasn’t his parents' garage, he wasn’t sure whose it was, but the detail didn’t seem to hold any importance at the moment. 

The door to the house was unlocked, the residents home, so he carefully twisted the knob and inched inside. He winced as the bag containing the dozen eggs he’d bought bumped into the doorframe rather hard. He hoped the sliced cheddar cheese had taken the brunt of the whack.

“I’m home!” he called into the house and put the bags on the kitchen counter. He heard faint commotion coming from upstairs, followed by rapid footsteps.

“Oh, thank Christ,” you responded as you revealed yourself from behind the doorway to his right. It was most certainly you, though you seemed frazzled, and maybe a tad older than he thought you should look, though again, the detail seemed irrelevant. 

“What happened?” Steve questioned, concerned.

“Donny Dino has disappeared,” you explained. Steve seemed to grasp the severity of what you’ve just said, despite how silly it might sound to an outside observer.

“Not Donny Dino,” he proclaimed, a smile on his face despite the shake of his head.

“Do not laugh, this is a life or death situation!” you exclaimed, though you seemed to be suppressing a laugh of your own.

“It is not ‘life or death.’ It’s a stuffed Brachiosaurus.”

“A stuffed Brachiosaurus that our son loves more than both of us combined!” you declared. You moved across the tile floor to the other side of the kitchen, checking underneath the table as you went. “Why can’t these kinds of crises ever happen to you, huh? I go to the store, the kid sits happy as a goddamn clam, but the moment you leave, shit hits the fan!”

“We will find Donny Dino, alright?” Steve assured you. You bent down to look underneath the sofa, probably for the fourth or fifth time. “He’s here somewhere.”

“I know, it’s fine, but he’s panicked, and that always leaves me panicked, and-” you cut yourself off, straitening up and turning to look at Steve, when a small voice called with all its might;

“I found him!”

Another bout of quick, excited footsteps followed, a small boy bounding down the steps and stopping only just before ramming himself into Steve’s knees. Looking at him, with his own big baby deer eyes and the fluffy green dinosaur held tightly in his arms, Steve felt a swell of adoration bloom in his chest

“Where was he, buddy?” you asked as you scooped him up into your arms.

“Under the bed,” the boy explained very matter-of-factly.

“What?” you asked, deflating just a touch. “You told me you already looked there, little dude!”

“I didn’t see him the first time!” 

“Or the second time, or the third time, yeah, yeah,” you said, smiling as you walked into the kitchen with Steve following behind you. 

Steve worked quickly to get the groceries put away as you and the boy sat at the table pushed up against the windows, discussing the harrowing journey poor Donny Dino had to go through before finally being rescued from “the under the bed,” as the boy put it. Steve had just opened one of the cabinets, back turned towards the kitchen table, when a loud crack of thunder sounded, seemingly coming from nowhere. 

“That’s odd. Didn’t think it was supposed to rain today,” Steve said as he turned to look out the windows. The bright, sunny sky he had been under just a few minutes ago had darkened, turning a foreboding gray, filled with fat storm clouds and crackly lightning. A pit formed in his stomach; no, that’s not right, that can’t be right. 

“Steve?” you asked from behind him, voice small and unnaturally even, like you had to think out your words very carefully. 

You were standing now, and the boy in your arms had his face tucked into your neck. Steve was about to ask you what was wrong when big, horrible vines made themselves visible from behind you, wriggling and dripping with muck as they slowly, painfully slowly, began to intertwine around your neck, your ankles, your son.

“No,” Steve breathed out. “No!”

He ran, darted towards the two of you faster than he thought was possible. Not fast enough, though, as the vines ripped you backward into a thick black void behind you, sounds of your and your sons screaming mixing together into a horrible ring as you went flying away from-

Steve flew upright in bed, back stiff as a board. Not real, not real, it wasn’t real. His breathing was coming out strangely, though he couldn’t tell if it was too fast or not fast enough. Either way, he probably wasn’t getting the right amount of oxygen. He shut his eyes again, hard, and ghosted his hand to your side of the sheets to really, finally prove to himself that you’re okay, you’re asleep right next to him, and-

His hand was met by empty sheets.

Oh, god, what if it hadn’t actually been a nightmare? What if it had been real, and he had just forgotten? He threw himself out of the bed and scrambled out into the hall.

You were sitting at the end of the kitchen counter. The linoleum was raised above the rest of the surface there, and you were perched on one of the tall bar stools with a textbook laid out in front of you. 

“Are you alright?” you asked him.

“Yeah,” Steve supplied quickly. “Sorry, yeah. Just, uh, just a bad dream.”

“Your turn this time, huh?” you joked, though Steve was still reeling and could do little more than just nod his head and trudge over to you.

All of you still had upside down nightmares, though for the most part, they had steadily been slowing down, yours and Steve’s included. Unfortunately, however, yours had come back in full force over the last few months. Your doctor said it was fairly common; hormonal changes can result in very vivid and oftentimes upsetting dreams, she had explained. You’d been waking up screaming at odd hours of the night at least once a week for the past month and a half. It made Steve feel wildly guilty.

You greeted Steve with open arms and pulled him into the tightest hug you could manage from where you were sitting. His fingertips glided ever so delicately across your bump before his whole hand planted onto it. Still there. He had to double check.

“You wanna talk about it?” you asked.

“No,” he answered.

“You sure? Might make you feel better.”

“Yes.” He pulled away from you and hopped up onto the seat next to yours. His eyes caught the time glowing on the face of the microwave. It read 5:02. “What are you doing up, anyway?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” you said. “Figured I might as well do something useful.”

You gestured down to the textbook on the counter. You had finals next week and, should you do as well as Steve knows you will, you would be graduating a month after that. 

“You want help?” Steve asked you. He picked up a stack of flashcards you had made.

“You should go back to bed,” you said, pulling the stack right out of Steve’s hands. It made him laugh.

“Only if you go with me, and I know you won’t, so let me help,” Steve insisted. You considered for a moment, and when Steve gave you some fantastic puppy dog eyes, you conceded.

“Fine.” You handed the stack back over to Steve, who accepted it with a dramatic flourish.

“Thank you. Okay, first question. I definitely don’t know this one,” he began. “John William Waterhouse is known for painting during which artistic movement?”

Come sunrise, you and Steve had powered through Art History, Women’s Studies, and American Literature. If the flashcards were anything to go by, you were going to pass each and every one of your finals with flying fuckin’ colors. 

Eight a.m. rolled around far too quickly for Steve’s liking, and as much as he would’ve loved to sit with you for the rest of the day, he had an opening shift he had to get to in an hour's time. 

Monday mornings at Family Video were about as dead as any store could get, but the completely full return bin kept him relatively busy once the doors were opened. Actually, if he timed the rest of the opening duties correctly, he could generally get through the day without having to do any real work at all. Usually, he would have been able to fill any extra time by chatting with Robin, but that seemed unlikely for today, if the scowl on her face from the other side of the front door told Steve anything. Keith had a matching disdainful look on his face as the pair came inside, though that wasn’t a surprise to anyone. 

Robin, of course, barrelled right past Steve into the break room without a word. He desperately wanted to follow her but knew he wouldn’t be able to say anything helpful. Keith stopped in front of him.

“I don’t know what the hell you did to her,” he remarked, voice as lifeless as ever, “but you really shat the bed on this one, huh?”

“I’m aware of that, thank you,” Steve muttered.

“Just felt like it was worth reminding you.” 

The rest of the day moved silently, and Steve was sure it would never, ever end. Three p.m. couldn’t get there fast enough. 

Keith, always on Robin’s side of any conflict (even the ones he knew absolutely nothing about), let her spend the majority of her shift doing paperwork in the office. That not only meant that Steve wasn’t able to get in a single word with her, but also that Keith was out front with him. All day long. He didn’t even get to sort through the returns like he wanted to; Keith commandeered that task pretty much immediately, leaving Steve to mindlessly walk circles around the store and pretend to look busy.

Steve spent most of the day weighing whether or not punching him in the face was worth his job.

Just past two o’clock, Robin poked her head out of the office, calling simply, “Keith! Come here for a second?” She retreated just as quickly as she had appeared.

“Watch the door,” he ordered as he rounded the desk. “And don’t touch my returns!”

Steve grumbled but did as he was told anyway. 

The pile of returns taunted him from the counter the whole time Keith was away. His organizational system didn’t even make any sense! Clearly, it wasn’t alphabetical, but it wasn’t by genre either, so-

“Harrington!” Steve jumped out of his skin at the sound of Keith calling his name, charging out of the back like a freight train. “What the hell did you do?”

“What?” Steve questioned.

“You did something!”

“And?”

“And, now I’m losing my best employee over whatever stupid bullshit you pulled!” Keith raved, slamming a piece of paper onto the counter. Steve turned his attention to it, eyes skimming across the words scribbled across the page in Robin’s chicken scratch handwriting. The only words his brain was really able to process were ‘two weeks’ notice’ and ‘last day’. 

“No, that can’t be right, she-”

“Everything was fine, and then you two got into this dumbshit fight, and you are fixing this!” Keith demanded.

“What do you want me to do?” Steve inquired. “She won’t listen to a word I say!”

“I want you to go into the office and make her stay!”

“But-”

“Office! Go!” Keith pointed towards the door.

Reluctantly, Steve left the counter and walked away. Behind him, he heard Keith call “You fucked with my tapes, didn’t you!”

Stalking through the short stockroom between rows of too-tall metal shelves, Steve felt like he was about to burst into tears. He stopped in front of the closed office door and read over Robin’s two weeks’ notice one more time before knocking on the door.

“It’s open,” Robin said through the wood. 

The office, and the stock room too, had no windows; the only light in either space came from the hissing fluorescent lights in the ceiling (it didn’t help that at least half of the bulbs had gone out, and Keith couldn’t ever remember to order more). It was always freezing back there, and the Spring heat mixed with the day’s forecast of pouring rain and dense, dark clouds, making the whole building humid to the point where there was condensation pooling on the cinder block walls. The whole back half of the place felt more like a cave than a building.

“You’re quitting?” Steve asked, holding the letter aloft. 

“The only reason I work here at all is because of you, idiot. And there’s no way you can keep working here now. I’m not gonna keep torturing myself here because of some delusional idea that you’re the same person,” Robin spat.

“What does that mean?” Steve asked. Hurt pooled behind his eyes and in his throat; he was worried he might choke on it. “I’m still me, I promise.”

“You lied to me for months.”

“And I’m sorry!” he lamented. “I should never have lied to you. I should have told you everything that was going on, from the very beginning! I was an idiot, but I was fucking scared, and-”

“I don’t really care, Steve!” Robin said. “You can be as sorry as you want to be, but that doesn’t change how much it hurts to know that you’d rather keep this shit from me than just fucking talk!”

Steve just stood there, mute.

“My last shift is next Monday. I’ll make sure Keith changes the schedule so we don’t have to see each other.” Robin stood up from the rickety old desk chair and quickly gathered up her belongings  from her locker.

“Wait, please don’t leave yet!” Steve pleaded. “Can we just talk about this?”

“Nope,” she spat out.

“Hold on, wait!” Steve chased after Robin as she darted towards the front door. Keith’s eyes followed the both of them. “Your shift doesn’t end ‘til four. Can we please just talk until then, at least?”

“Keith!” she blurted. “Can I leave early?”

“Are you still quitting?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Then no,” Keith answered.

“See? Can’t leave yet,” Steve tried, desperate to get her to stay.

“Too bad,” Robin responded. She backed towards the door and called to Steve as she was pushing it open, sarcasm soaking her words, “ sure hope they don’t fire me.” 

Steve watched in silence as Robin unlocked her bike and peddled off, stormy winds whipping her hair and soaking her clothes.

“Great job,” Keith mocked. “I mean, really, that was a five star performance if I’ve ever seen one.”

“Fuck off,” Steve barked, walking passed the counter toward the stockroom door.

“Hey, you can’t talk to me like that!” Steve ignored Keith’s words as he gathered his own things to leave, his boss hot on his heels. “Where the hell do you think you’re going? You definitely don’t get to leave, I need you to cover the rest of Robin’s shift!”

“I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure something out,” Steve huffed, pushing the door open and stomping to his car. He sped out of the parking lot with a squeal.

Steve thought, sometimes, that he felt all of his emotions much stronger than everyone else felt theirs. He must, right? The only other person he knew who cried as much as he did was you, and that was really only because you were pregnant, so in his head, it didn’t count. 

He used to despise it when he was younger; he thought there was something wrong with him, though that line of thinking was most likely his father’s doing; Steve was always too sensitive for his dad. By the time he was in high school, he had gotten very good at pushing it all down, down, down, into the recesses of his brain, where sadness could transform into anger, anger into aggression. 

He’d grown up a lot since then, but he’d naively assumed that becoming an adult would make his feelings easier to handle. Clearly, he had been wrong, and he felt just as powerless and small in the face of his emotions as he had when he was little. It all felt far too big for him to have to face all by himself.

And he really did have to face it by himself. He had you, but it was really more like you had him. It was his job to shoulder the brunt of the weight, and god, he wished more than anything in the world that he hadn’t pushed Robin away like he did. He desperately needed her to untangle everything he was feeling, to revel in the joy and quell his incessant worry about what he (well, really you) was experiencing.

He knew that it was his own damn fault that Robin was angry, and the feeling left a physical ache in his bones. It wasn’t the baby she was mad about (he really hoped it wasn’t, at least) it was Steve’s cowardice. The lying, the sneaking, the fact that he was too much of a pussy to just tell her the fucking truth! And even in the end, she still didn’t end up hearing it from him! Every bit of vile anger that Robin threw his way felt completely deserved.

Steve had lost his mother, and now his closest friend, and if it weren’t for you, he might not have had anyone left at all. 

He had calmed down some by the time he made it back home. The sound of fat raindrops colliding with the roof of the car provided Steve with the perfect white noise to fill up his head and drown out his pathetic self-pity before he could walk through your apartment door and worry you with any of it.

Steve shut the door, turned to face it, and dropped his forehead to the wood with a thud. He shut his eyes and sighed. He could feel the condensation from his breath build up and make the paint feel sticky. So far, he had fixed exactly nothing. 

“That you?” you called through the apartment. 

Steve sucked in a sharp breath and responded, “yeah.”

You appeared in the kitchen. Steve tried his hardest to put on a convincing smile.

“How was your day?” he asked you. The absolute last thing he wanted to talk about was his own. 

“Good. Yeah, good,” you responded. You were fidgeting with the odds and ends on the counter, like you were pretending to dust. You flitted through the room. “My, uhm, my mom called.”

“What?”

“Told me they aren’t going to fly out for my graduation, so I shouldn’t bother saving them any tickets,” you stated very matter-of-factly. 

“Seriously?” Steve asked, dumbfounded.

“Yep,” you chirped. You began wiping down the countertop with a wet rag.

“Did you tell her. . .” he trailed off. He was sure you would know what he meant.

“Yeah. I did.”

“What’d she say?”

“Nothing. She just hung up.”

Steve wanted to kill your mother. He wanted to kill her for the way she treated you, and he wanted to kill your father for the way he did nothing about it. This was by no means a new desire for him, but whatever anger he had felt towards them in the past paled in comparison to how he felt hearing what you had just told him.

Your mother had reached a new level of cruelty that made his blood absolutely boil.

After the “earthquakes,” they wanted to move away, out of state, and you didn’t want to follow them. You had already turned eighteen at that point, you were an adult; they couldn’t force you to go, but your mother took it personally and your father was too much of a pushover to go against her wishes in any way.

Things just never really went back to normal after that.

“Jesus, that’s,” was all he could think to say. “That’s awful.”

“Y’know, honestly,” you began. “I think it’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” Steve asked. The tone of your voice, the way you told him all of this as if it was no different from any other anecdote about your daily goings on, made him think it was very much not fine. 

“I am,” you said. “They don’t get to be half in half out of my life. Either they’re here, or they’re not here. It’s all or nothing, I’m not going to force them to love me if they don’t.”

“They do love you,” Steve insisted, though you only responded with a look that read as ‘are you fucking kidding me?’. 

“All or nothing,” you reiterated. “They have chosen ‘nothing.’ No good reason to pretend like they haven’t.”

Steve made his way over to where you were standing in front of the sink with your back turned to him. His hands met your sides in a wildly delicate touch, your name a whisper on his lips as they met your left temple. You turned around in his arms and he held you tightly as you cried.

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[taeminyourmind]

REVLON #015 x Taemin (A)

Genre: Angst

Synopsis: Afraid Taemin has been cheating on you, you finally muster the strength to question his loyalty and find yourself heartbroken by the complicated truth.

Word Count: 1.8k+

Pairing: Taemin x Reader

Autumn came in like a lion, its cold claws tearing into the city while its roar brings a ferocious wind. The gray clouds overhead roll like giant waves about to take over the city, blanketing every surface with a gray hue. Only the red, orange and yellow hues of the dying leaves provide color and life to the dull city.

Large raindrops begin to fall, splashing against the window into smaller drops. You barely crack a smile at the thought of nature crying along with you as you use the corner of a napkin to quickly wipe your tears.

“Why don’t you talk to Taemin about it?” Jongah asks before taking a bite from her blueberry muffin and wiping away the fallen crumbs from her shirt.

You scoff softly and roll your eyes. “And say what? Are you cheating on me?”

“Yes!”

“It’s not that easy,” you sigh, pushing your half-eaten omelet away. “I’m in love with him and I…” your voice trails off when tears sting your eyes.

Jongah reaches across the table and gently squeezes your hand, her eyebrows knitting together in concern over your falling tears. “Talk to him,” she gently whispers, encouragement lacing her tone. “I know you’re scared of heartbreak, but you’re allowed to know the truth.”

Each step you take towards your and Taemin’s shared apartment makes your stomach drop. Your fingertips nervously feel the grooves of your keys while your mind races through loops so fast that you’re not aware of the sounds of babies crying and arguments around you.

‘I can’t stand out here forever,’ you think before closing your eyes and jamming the key into the lock before slowly opening the door.

The living room is dimly lit with the TV providing the brightest light. You throw your jacket across the couch and look around for any signs of Taemin.

“Taemin?” You call out as you look in the kitchen and hall bathroom. You stop at your bedroom door, your hand resting on the knob. The thought of opening the door and potentially finding Taemin giving his love to someone else.

The thought causes you to shiver as you remember the day your world turned upside down. It all began the night Taemin came home from visiting his family.

A marathon of rom-coms has you glued to the TV while an array of snacks are spread before you. You could barely concentrate on the movie as you eagerly awaited the return of your loving Taemin, who's been away for a week visiting family overseas. You wanted to join him, but the increased demand of your job barely left you time for yourself or Taemin. You often felt guilty when you would come home and find Taemin asleep on the couch from trying to stay up late so he could welcome you home. But tonight, you managed to get the night off so you could be home to welcome him back with open eyes. You fixed his favorite meal and dessert for a night of relaxation.

The sound of the front door unlocking pulled your attention away from the screen. A wide smile spread across your face when a smiling Taemin stood in the doorway with the door closing behind him. He immediately dropped his bags and ran to you. His arms engulfed you in a warm embrace, lifting you off the ground while your lips kissed all over his face in between the whispers of ‘I missed you.’

He gently set you on the couch before he quickly pressed his lips against yours, moving them feverishly. No words needed to be said to acknowledge or understand the need for each other’s touch and warmth as you made love to each other on the couch. His sweet whispers of admiration, tender kisses, and touches sent you into euphoria, never wanting it to end.

The next morning began with a shared shower before Taemin offered to make breakfast. You decided to put away some of Taemin’s clothes from his bags when a gold tube of lipstick caught your eye. A smile appeared on your face when the tube glistened in the sun’s rays.

‘He shouldn’t have,’ you thought before taking the top off. Your smile soon faded when you noticed the lipstick has been used several times. Then, a faint smell of warm vanilla caught your attention, a scent you never wore.

The sound of your name being called stopped your train of thought. “Coming!” You tried your best to hide the shakiness in your voice.

You hurriedly placed the lipstick back in the bag and forced a smile before walking out of the room. Where his smile and laughter would’ve made your heart flutter, you couldn’t fight the hurt and confusion that haunted the back of your mind.

The memory feels like a punch in the gut as you try to even your breathing. Suddenly, that familiar vanilla scent taunts you before a voice has the chance to speak.

“___! How was brunch?” Taemin cheerily asks with a laundry basket under his arm. His face falls when you turn to him with teary eyes. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

When he takes a step towards you, the scent becomes poignant causing the tears to fall down your cheeks. When you flinch at his touch, his gaze saddens in confusion.

“Who is she?” You ask shakily after a moment of silence. Your throat burns from holding back your emotions and your cheeks grow warm from Taemin's question of ‘Who?’ “I found used lipstick that I never use, a vanilla perfume that I never wear,” you pause for a moment, swallowing before finally meeting his eyes. “Are you cheating on me?”

The question causes Taemin to blink at a loss for words. He stands in silence, his eyes blank with emotion. “I’m not,” he finally says, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I’m having a hard time believing that,” you say flatly.

“It’s not easy to explain,” he says before grabbing your hand and leading you to the couch.

You sit on the opposite side of the couch, unable to look in his direction. The silence begins to feel suffocating until Taemin sighs and shifts in his seat.

“The lipstick you found,” he begins, “is mine.” You scoff and roll your eyes to his displeasure. “I’m telling the truth, ___.”

You remain silent for a moment, searching for the words that seemed to have quickly vanished. “And why would you own lipstick?” You slowly ask.

Taemin inhales deeply, rubbing his hands together. “It’s the only way I can still feel her lips on mine.”

‘Her?’ You think. So many questions swarm your mind before Taemin speaks again.

“Revlon #015. I can still see her put it on, her eyebrows knitting together as she glides the tube across her lips and I can still feel the beating of my heart when she catches me watching her and rushes over to kiss me, leaving some on my lips.” He pauses for a moment, smiling at the memory. “She would leave kiss marks on her love letters and spray it with her favorite vanilla scent from Bath & Body Works.”

The anger that rose inside of you quickly turns to sadness - for Taemin because he’s still in love and has been grieving the loss of his ex-girlfriend, and for you, because you’ve come to realize that his heart didn’t belong just to you.

“There are things I don’t want to forget about her, things I just can’t forget,” he softly says, his true feelings finally now allowed to come out. “And I can’t allow myself to lead you on anymore. I’m still in love with her and I love you,” he trails before clearing his throat. “I can’t, I can’t hurt you anymore. I won’t allow myself to do that to you.”

You swallow your sobs that want to erupt from your core. A sad smile disappears as quickly as it came as you muster the strength to finally look at the young man you love. His bangs hide his tear-filled eyes as he quickly wipes his tears away. You begin to wonder if you somehow forced him to begin your relationship before he was truly ready.

“I’m sorry,” you say weakly, your eyes falling to the floor.

Taemin looks towards you and reaches out to squeeze your hand. “I can never forget you or your love, ___. That’s nothing to be sorry about.”

You take a shaky breath before squeezing his hand back. ‘So this is heartbreak,” you think as you sit in silence, hands still intertwined. ‘They were right, it always gets you.’

A year has gone by since you’ve last seen or talked to Taemin. Every now and then you got the urge to contact him just so you could hear his voice, but that would’ve made the wound hurt more. Jongah was more than welcoming when she opened her apartment to you, even helping you move your things from your old apartment. For months, you lay awake thinking of Taemin and the memories you shared and the last hug you shared before you walked away, never to return.

It wasn’t until Jongah introduced you to her friend, Taehyun, that you thought about dating. When you met Taehyun, thoughts of Taemin no longer overshadowed your thoughts. Taehyun was like Taemin in his gentle ways, but you could see the unwavering look of admiration in his eyes when you were together and feel the excitement of being in your presence. With him, you felt your heart begin to be slowly repaired as he took everything slowly and did his best to comfort you and gain your trust.

The crisp autumn air causes you to shiver as you walk with Taehyun to your favorite lunch spot.

“Cold?” He asks. Wrapping his arm around you before you have the chance to answer.

The warmth radiating from his body pulls you closer. The changing leaves catch your eye as you watch one gracefully fall to the ground. A gentle bump against your shoulder makes you glance up.

“I’m so sorry,” you turn and begin to say. Your eyes widen when you see a familiar face. “Taemin?”

Taemin lifts his head enough for you to see his eyes from under his hood. A warm smile spreads across his face. “___,” he says before looking towards Taehyun.

“This is Taehyun,” you smile. The two young men shake hands bringing warmth to your heart. When Taemin inquisitively raises his eyebrows, you eagerly nod.

“You make sure you treat her right,” Taemin says, his tone stern. “She deserves the best.”

Taemin’s gaze brings a smile to your face. “It was nice seeing you.”

Taemin smiles, “Yeah, you too.”

Not knowing the right words to say, you bid him a farewell nod before grabbing Taehyun’s hand and continuing down the sidewalk. You refuse to look back as you cross the crosswalk.

‘My future is beside me,’ you think with a smile as you rest your rest on Taehyun’s shoulder and allow your fingers to intertwine with his.

[oh-for-merlins-sake]

CRUMBS ‘N’ CRUMPETS | gw

summary: ever since y/n opened a bakery across from weasleys’ wizard wheezes, george hasn’t stopped thinking about her. he hopes that holiday cheer, a blanket of snowfall, and one chocolatey recipe will give him the courage he needs to make his christmas wish come true.

pairing: george weasley x fem!reader

word count: 1.6k

warnings: several mentions of food, gets a lil steamy, alcohol

a/n: ok so i was feeling HELLA COZY and wanted to write a comfy christmas fic hehehehe. enjoy! and happy holidays!!! 💛

taglist: @iliveiloveiwrite @andromedaa-tonks @pansydaisy​ @a-little-too-much @slytherinsunrise @marvelettesassemble @msmarklee1213​ @letsgotothehop @finnishslytherin @starlightweasley @witch-and-a-half​ (message/ask to be added/removed, loves!)

The twinkle of shimmering white lights danced across your vision as George twirled you in a sloppy circle, keeping time with the vibrations of familiar Christmas songs that rattled your feet.

“I’m going to need to sit after this!” You laughed.

“Can’t keep up, darling?” George teased, a mischievous smirk tugging at his lips.

You gripped his arms, slowing him to a halt. “Oh, don’t flatter yourself, Weasley.”

He raked a hand through his disheveled ginger locks. “I don’t have to — you do plenty of it for me.”

George shot you a wink, but the only response you could muster was a dramatic scoff. Just as he opened his mouth to quip further, someone toppled into you, resulting in a heaping dose of eggnog poured directly down your front.

You gasped from the sudden, thick chill and glared at George, who was stifling a raucous laugh.

“‘M sorry, Y/N,” she mumbled.

“It’s all right, Eleanor, you didn’t mean to,” you assured as you propped her back up.

You passed her back to her seemingly sober friend who apologized profusely on her behalf. She tugged Eleanor out of the shop, and you heard a boisterous laugh erupt from behind you. You spun on your heel to find George with his head on the nearest display case, trembling from how hard he was laughing.

You feigned anger, “George!”

“Honestly, Y/N, I think eggnog suits you!”

You swiped your wand across your body to instantly launder your bright red blouse. George protested, “Oh, c’mon, at least save me some!”

You rolled your eyes and playfully shoved his shoulder.

The stuffiness of the shop began to settle on your sweaty skin as clusters of people roved around you. A gust of icy air blew in as another horde of people clamored through the door. The chill was inviting.

Your eyes fluttered shut as you tossed your head back, exposing your sticky neck as you relished in the fleeting cold. George bit his lip, averting his gaze, knowing all too well how he longed to taste your salty skin.

“I could really use some fresh air,” you sighed, opening your eyes. “Care to join me?”

“It’s getting a touch hot for me as well,” George nodded in agreement, absentmindedly loosening his tie.

You gulped at the sight and quickly pivoted to lead him towards the door. He followed achingly close behind, and you resisted the overwhelming urge to spin and close the gap.

You were grateful to reach the wintry air.

“You sure know how to throw a Christmas party, Weasley,” you said as you tamed your tousled hair.

George chuckled and shook his head. “Every year, we think it’s going to be a hell of a lot smaller than it ever is.”

“Well, it gets my official stamp of approval!” You curtsied before mimicking a grandiose stamping motion. “Of course, only if the new girl’s opinion even matters.”

George laughed. “‘Course the new girl’s opinion matters!” He pointed sternly. “Some may say it’s the most important one.”

Only a few months had passed since you opened Crumbs ‘N’ Crumpets, your bakery across the street, but it felt like you’d known George for years. Like clockwork, he’d stop in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, sampling the daily special and shoving a few bills into the tip jar; and every Saturday morning, you’d leave a steaming cup of coffee with a warm chocolate chip muffin on the doorstep to Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes; and after a bustling day of business, when the shops all closed and the keepers turned in, you’d both walk down the alley, admiring the colorful Christmas lights that strung above the streets.

Neither of you dared to discuss it, and neither of you would admit that the routine meant more than you ever led on, but as he watched you giggle and admire the twinkling lights above your head yet again, he knew that he was careening down a treacherous path.

“Fancy a snack, George?” You asked suddenly. “I’m starving!”

The firewhisky you downed earlier created a cavern in your stomach; and the same was true of George. “What can I get you?” He asked, turning back towards the party.

You stopped him and nodded towards the bakery. “I was thinking we could make something of our own,” you challenged.

A faint blush sprawled across his freckled face as you dragged him by the hand. “Are you sure you want my help? I was banned from the kitchen as a child — blew up far too many things with my brother.”

You giggled as you unlocked the door to the bakery, pushing it with your shoulder and causing the silver bell overhead to chime. Guided by the moonlight that crept through the storefront, you led George to the back before flipping a switch to illuminate the messy kitchen.

A doughy mixing bowl sat unwashed in the sink, patches of flour blotted the countertops, and a few holly-patterned pot warmers sat on the cool, linoleum floor.

“Neat as a pin,” George teased, nudging his hip against yours.

“Do you want a snack, or don’t you?”

George chuckled as you pulled a delicate recipe box from a nearby shelf and flipped through the cards within. Eventually, you withdrew an old-time favorite: your mother’s homemade, melt-in-your-mouth, triple chocolate cookies. George was eager to learn how to concoct such an extraordinary confection — or rather, pretend to learn.

Honestly, George couldn’t comprehend much when he was around you. You raptured every ounce of his attention and always managed to short-circuit his brain and send his stomach into an endless bout of somersaults. Focusing on anything but you was a fruitless task.

His heart fluttered as you danced around the kitchen, spinning dough, sprinkling flour, and sampling chocolate. You were completely in your element. It seemed an intimate blessing to be standing there, rolling globs of sticky dough between his palms beside of you.

“I shattered my ulna when I was eight, and these cookies were the only thing to get me through those bloody buckets of Skele-Gro,” you recalled, slapping the last ball of dough onto the aluminum cookie sheet.

George grimaced. He was all too familiar with the sensation that accompanied a hearty helping of Skele-Gro. “These must be pretty wicked cookies then!”

You laughed and slid the tray into the toasty oven. “You’re in for a real treat, Weasley!”

George’s mouth was practically drooling at the delicious chocolate aroma that wafted through the air as he scrubbed colorful measuring cups and wooden spoons in the sink. Each time he passed you a dish to dry, your hand would gently graze his, which sent him into a complete and utter tizzy.

As soon as the timer chimed, George practically raced you to the oven.

You laughed as you stood between him and the oven, turning off the timer and placing your hand against his chest. “You’ve got to let them cool, Georgie!”

He peered down at you, suddenly overwhelmed by how little distance separated the two of you. “Sorry,” he muttered. The faintest trace of a smirk lined his lips. “I can be a bit... impatient.”

You gazed up at him, stammering as you attempted to craft some sort of coherent response. You were well aware of the fact that merely standing on your tiptoes at this point would close the minute gap between your lips and his; how the scent of chocolate evaporated as you inhaled his musky cologne and the notes of cinnamon that escaped his breath; how you’d been standing in silence for probably longer than what was socially acceptable — perhaps you should say something, you thought.

“That makes two of us,” you whispered. You were doused with a sudden wave of courage before swiftly tugging George to your lips by his evergreen tie, worried that if you waited another second, that courage may dissipate into another missed opportunity.

His lips melted into yours as he pressed you against the balmy glass of the stacked ovens behind you. You sighed into the kiss and tugged the ends of his ginger hair as his large hands swept underneath your blouse to rake at the small of your back. You gently tossed your head back, giving George’s mouth free rein to finally dance across your neck. A soft moan escaped your lips as you hooked your fingers through his belt loops to pull him completely against you.

You were perfectly content to continue indulging in your finally realized fantasies until a faint, burning odor infiltrated the kitchen.

You gasped and pushed George off of you, flinging the oven door open to reveal greatly crisped, blackened cookies.

“Blimey, I’m sorry, Y/N!” George exclaimed.

You safely extracted the sheet of cookies and set it on the counter before turning off the oven. You couldn’t help but laugh at how carried away you’d gotten.

“Bet they’re still bloody delicious,” George assured, reaching for a scorched cookie.

You giggled as he audibly crunched on the sweet, doing his best to hide the grimace that threatened to surface. “Well,” he muttered, “Guess that means we’ll have to try again another day!”

The two of you tossed the charred sweets in the bin, both flushed and bashful about the events that had just transpired. Neither of you mentioned it as you locked the bakery once more or as you migrated back to the Christmas party across the street. You wondered when either of you would bring it up, if at all; if either of you would ever muster the courage to do such a thing again.

As you both maneuvered to settle against a wall, George chirped, “Oh, look!” He pointed above your heads. “Mistletoe.”

He smirked as you rolled your eyes.

Well that didn���t take long.

[limenysnocket]

Attention and Company

I couldn't help myself. @honorarytenenbaum

Summary: Sometimes you need someone to chill with, and that's okay. Maybe that person is your boyfriend who also gets a little roughed up at work sometimes. Pubs can sustain you both for only so long, but what you really need is to curb yourselves in the mall parking lot, right next to a shaved ice food truck.

Warnings: Just some light swearing, a bit of angst, a lot of fluff, and some brief mentions to "raunchy" behavior. This is a soft fic for y'all tonight, out here needin' some gentle lovin'.

A/N: Got some lonely feelings right now. I just wanna hug someone, dude. Yo, we could totally watch a movie over discord sometime... maybe.

○●□○●□○●□○●□○

Today sucked. Flat out. The bags under your eyes didn't lie, and now here you were, outside of your studio, sitting on the hood of your car, eating a granola bar to stave off hunger for a few more hours. Hopefully.

You pull your phone from your pocket, looking at the time for a moment, then looking at your screensaver. It was the only thing that could make you smile. You had your arm wrapped around one of your closets friends, Taika, and the phone didn't capture it, but he had his arm wrapped around your waist. His curls were all messed up, and the picture perfectly showed how drunk you both were by the fuzzy pink on your cheeks. It was 99 cent beer night at one of the local pubs, and unlike the first one held at a baseball game, all went well.

Of course, there was a limit to how much the two of you were allowed to drink, but that didn't stop the many failed attempts at stealing other people's drinks while they were looking away, just to get a taste more. Didn't matter that you guys were eventually thrown out of the bar for breaking rules and coming close to breaking a few faces, you had a great night.

That night also lead to a few other places, including his hotel room, but that end of the story has to be saved for another time.

Instead of staring at your phone for another century, you decide to unlock it and dial the man up. You knew he was somewhere around here, either charming his way onto another movie set to mess with his rich friends, or getting his tired ass kicked by daylight savings.

His number was saved to your favorites, so dialing him was quick and easy. The wait for him to pick up didn't last long either.

"Talk to me..."

God, his voice sounds like one big yawn. Looks like he needs a bit of perking up too.

"I've got two curbside tickets to eat a snow cone and watch kids do loops on their bikes in the parking lot. One of those tickets has your name on them," you grin, despite sounding exhausted too. The day really made you strain your voice.

His musical laughter really makes the sun look brighter from its low position in the sky.

"That's oddly specific... where would these magical tickets take me afterwards?" He had cocked his eyebrows up and leaned against his office door while he spoke to you.

"If this were a booty call, I would have told you already, Taik," you snort and tease him. "So, it's either make yourself fat on some weirdly flavored snow cone, or take your horny-ass home."

"Okay, okay... I'd like to make myself fat for a night, as long as your there," his voice is dreamy, desperate and warm. "You there already?"

"Nope," your lips pop the p, "but I'm nearby."

"I swear to God, if you're talking and driving, I'm gonna whoop your ass," Taika stood up, acting serious when he was just really worried about your safety in general.

"I'm not, I'm fine," you laugh again. "Not even in the car. Sitting on it though, trying to convince the world's sexiest man to go out with me again."

"And you said this wasn't a booty call," he retorts over the phone, making you playfully glare at the asphalt on the road. It's like he's in front of you.

"You coming or not?" you change the subject and you hear him laugh again, but softer.

"Yeah... I'll be there in a few minutes, gorgeous."

He always made goodbyes so easy. Maybe it was because you both knew you would be seeing each other again, no matter what circumstances you were thrown into. But the dial tone still had its effects.

You slip off the hood of your car, and take a seat in the driver's seat. The warm summer air makes your skin glow, and your brain went fuzzy only imagining it doing the same to Taika.

The drive feels so quiet. For a moment, you actually thought about calling him again, but you knew for a fact that he wouldn't pick up if he was driving.

As predicted, kids are zooming around on their bikes, showing off to their friends or trying to be cool, even though they all were obviously teary-eyed each time they scraped a knee. It was amusing to you and Taika, especially when some of the older boys would try to catch your attention and zip past you and Taika. It ended up being a heckle fest in the end, and some kid always went home with his butt hurt.

Keys and wallet in hand, you trek to the small, blue trailer tucked in the corner of the parking lot.

"Damn, you must have beat me here by just a few seconds," Taika calls, rustling his way through the small spaces between a couple of cars.

"Well, you've never been a speed demon type, so last place is your calling when it comes to racing," you guwaf and grin at him. He rolls his eyes and comes to walk right next to you.

"I pride myself on road safety," he hums, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

You glance at him from the side, just to silently check up on him. His hair was tousled and his eyes were resteless. It looks like he had it rough from the start. He had struggled to get dressed this morning, but picked the most eccentric clothes in his closet to make up from his lack of sleep.

"Dare you to try the dill pickle flavor this time," his cocky tone wakes you up.

"Like hell I will," you snort as you finally reach the trailer, where a teen boy happily greets the both of you.

"Oh come on, it'll be funny," he eggs you on, his bottom lip pouting.

"Keep trying to make me get dill pickle, and the next time we have a movie night together, I'm getting the pizza," you sniff and he rolls his eyes. He thinks it is an odd threat. "And I'm making it all Hawaiian pizza." That got his attention.

"Bull shit, you would never. Not on a perfectly good pizza!" He gasps.

"Oh, just watch me, pineapple boy," you snicker and point to his pineapple print shorts. You break conversation to order two piña colada flavored snow cones. Taika usually took for-fucking-ever when it came to picking a single flavor, so ever since the second time you've been out here with him, he assigned you to choose for him. He usually got what you got.

Now, you wait.

You plop yourself down on the curb, as you promised, and he joined you with a long, loud groan. You give him a bewildered stare, wondering if his age had really gotten him this much. He smiles at you through a wince.

"Sat on my keys," he wheezes and chuckles at his own stupidity under his breath.

Your eyes float down to where he pulls out his keys and you start giggling quietly.

"Oh, come on, I'm sure you've done the same thing," Taika says, not handling the fact that you have new material to mess with him, and also trying to get some stories out of you.

"Well yeah, but I don't sit down as violently as you do," you prod his bicep, and he laughs.

"Such a lady. Must sit down gracefully and slowly," he says, mocking an English accent, but he was horrible at accents so of course it was bad. You smack his bicep this time, and he playfully flinches, like it hurt.

"I really need to get you into some accent classes or some shit, before you get your teeth knocked out," you shake your head with a smile.

"What? I think I'm great at accents. My American accent is the best one yet, don't you think?" He smirks at you, and proceeds to demonstrate. "All you have to do is put an 'er' at the end of everything, right? That's totally how they speak around here."

"I would be careful, Mr. Waititi. Could get in some trouble if you say that too loudly," you roll your eyes, and he sighs. Yeah. Things were going to shit in LA. It was clear to everyone, but what could two hollywood producers do to stop things like that? Keep making films, you guess.

"Two, large piña coladas!"

You look up, and so does he.

"I'll get them," you volunteer, but he places his hand on your shoulder before you could get up.

"Let me," he speaks softly, in a damn near whisper.

He stands up and strides right over to the trailer with so much confidence, you're envious. He comes back with two large styrofoam cups in hand, spoons, and a warm smile. His smile was always warm. It set fire in your belly.

He sits down a bit more carefully this time, even though his car keys were sitting in the grass, far away from his landing zone. He hands you your cup and a spoon.

"Do these have alcohol in them?" He nudges you with your elbow and you shake your head.

"As if they would let a seventeen-year-old serve alcoholic beverages," you throw in logic.

"I dunno... ever been to a ballpark before? Pretty sure some of those kids are way too young to be peddling there too, but that doesn't stop people from hiring them," he says while pointing his spoon at you.

"Fair point," you finish, then look at your snow cone. You decide to start eating before it melts.

Silence swarms the air, but comfortably. There's the occasional murmur of cicadas or humming cars drowning them out. Birds would land on the scorching asphalt to pick at whatever crumbs were left by other patrons, before fluttering away at the sight of a zooming bike getting too close for comfort.

Taika will point out a few of the kids doing tricks. He picks his favorites for the night, and he keeps himself busy by watching them. You, on the other hand, are occupied with him. You examine him from the tips of his dirty white chucks, to his frazzled hairdo.

"You look like shit," you mutter. He barely pays you mind and that comment was hardly acknowledged. It was like the air had gone a bit stiffer. He was hiding something from you.

"What's going on, Taik?" you worry. He never kept things from you, unless they were hard to bear.

He sets his cup down and holds his hands together. He looks so tired. So solemn.

"Today was total shit," he whispers and runs a hand through his hair.

"Well, yeah, I get that. I wouldn't have known if you had looked a little spiffier," you say, reaching out and gently tucking a curl on his forehead back in place with all the rest of its friends.

"Look, I--..." he says, turning to you, lips parted slightly, and a yearning sensation bubbling from the tips of his fingers as he rests a single hand on you.

There were tough times with the occupancy you both, willingly, chose. The hardest part about it was making friends, or making love, then finding out you have to leave it behind for a new location the next morning.

"I have to leave... for Sydney..." he says, reaching to gently take your cheek into the palm of his hand.

"When?" you manage, though you were clearly becoming upset.

"In a few weeks. Thor is waiting for me," he sighs, barely able to look at you while his thumb rubbed your ample cheek.

"And what does this have to do with me?"

"I don't want to leave you," he says, tilting your head up just the slightest bit. "And I don't want to stop loving you."

Your eyes search his for a moment, wide and a bit confused.

"I thought you said we were just a fling with--"

He cuts you off, "A fling with benefits. I know..." he sighs again, "but every time I find myself waiting for you to call on a shitty day, each time you rest your head on my shoulder, all the times you smile at me and tease me, I find myself falling... more in love with you." He has to pause to breathe.

It's so quiet. Dangerously quiet.

"What happens if I love you too...?" you muster your courage, and look right into his expressive, brown eyes.

"I don't know," he says to you, thumb still rubbing circles.

"Guess there's only one way to find out, huh?" you breathe, and he nods.

Still as statues, you wait for words to touch the air. It's only when his foot makes a wrong move and knocks over his snow cone, does the tension break.

His bottom lip pouts for him again and you quietly pick his spoon up off the ground. You clean it on your shirt and hand it to him, all before taking your cup, and holding it out to share. He smiles down at you, taking his spoon from your hand and sticking it into the shaved ice.

Your head leans against his shoulder when the sun disappears behind the mall building.

"I love you too," you whisper.

"I know," he says back, sucking at the tip of his spoon.

"Think we can keep this up over the phone?" you ask, wondering about a brief virtual relationship, just until one of you catches a break.

"Guess there's only one way to find out, huh?" he says, lowering his spoon, wrapping his arm around you, and giving you his full attention.

[minttoy]

this love we share (Ch 2)

CHAPTER TWO

Summary:

She loves him and he loves her back. On the surface, it seems easy, but she knows in some dark crevice of her mind, that even though love is selfish – escaping to these mountains was selfish – it is also good.

Her source of strength. The root of his humanity.

Time will come when it will teach her to grow, too.

[Eren and Mikasa through the four years. Alternate reality from Chapter 138.]

Click here to read on FF.net.

Click here to read on AO3.

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Eren has less than four years left to live.

It is something she has always known. The unspoken truth that follows them. Mikasa still does not know how to cope with the thought of him leaving. Every time, she is ravaged with body aches and head pains. There are days she has the cabin to herself and she’s hit with a startling clarity that she must get used to this silence. A life without him, with only memories to spare.

Desperation grips her, and she wants to tear down the calendar on their wall, or plead to the goddess to save him. She feels it like a wound bleeding. A fear she has no courage to face. A battle she’s already lost. For all the pain she’s endured in her life, this one is still unlike any other.

Mikasa begins to wonder if she shouldn’t have furnished their cabin with so many personals. Jars filled with sand and seashells they collected from the beach sitting on top of the fireplace. Flowers and leaves they’ve pressed onto parchment and framed on the wall. Baskets woven by hand occupying the corner of the room.

All of these precious mementos soon to become aching reminders.

She shakes her head, tries to shake off the sore notion, but her heart unravels with every break and every snap. There are days she feels restless and it takes everything in her not to burst and spill hot tears.

Eventually, she preserves this cabin like a keepsake and takes nothing down.

The door unlocks and interrupts her train of thought.

“I’m back!” Eren calls out as he enters their cabin and stows his shoes away.

He makes it five steps into the house and then she’s on him, arms snaked around his middle and face buried in his shoulder. The distraction is enough. He floods her senses and she seizes him like an escape, embraces this like waking from a nightmare. He is dirty and muddied after his fishing trip, but she cannot find it in herself to care.

“You’re clingy today,” he murmurs in her hair.

She only hugs him tighter. “I just missed you.”

Eren chuckles, and she feels the reverberations in his chest. “I’ll make it up to you.”

Mikasa lets him go and reaches up to wipe dirt off his cheek. For the rest of the night, she hovers. She cannot help herself – it is her nature and love language. He stopped brushing her off a long time ago anyway.

----------

She bakes a small cake for his birthday: a vanilla-flavoured concoction topped with fruit and light icing. The recipe was given to her from the wives at the market, some of whom claimed to have been watching her for a while now. They gushed at young love, and giggled when her cheeks flushed pink. She shrunk and brushed off their comments, not wanting to remind herself the truth of it all. Mikasa swears she never scurried out of the market faster.

Later, she stares at the finished cake with more apprehension than pride. All she can think is that he has three more birthdays left, three more years, three more cakes and suddenly she’s half-tempted to throw it into the trash. It will do more harm than good.

She steels herself against it, and reluctantly presents it to him when they sit for dinner.

He turns to her with a surprised gaze and she carefully gages his reaction, almost waiting for him to harden and arrive to the same realization.

It never comes, but she grows anxious anyway.

“I made it for your birthday,” she starts, because he’s not saying anything. “I’ve never baked a cake before, which is why it’s so tiny. It’s nothing fancy either, and it probably doesn’t even taste sweet.”

She doesn’t mean to minimize her efforts, but the words pour out of her mouth before she can stop them. Meanwhile Eren stares, listening to her preamble and probably picking up the nervous cues behind them.

She swallows hard and continues, “We don’t have to make a big deal out of this. I just wanted to do something special for today, but instead all I could think about was–” Suddenly she feels like crying, and she has to blink the sting out of her eyes.

There is a deafening silence. For some reason, it always comes down to this.

From the corner of her eye, she catches him slicing the cake with a fork and taking a sizeable bite. He contemplates for a short moment.

“It’s delicious,” he finally says, gazing at her with tenderness. “You’re too hard on yourself.”

He cuts another piece and holds it out for her to taste. She accepts it, and savours the soft texture and taste of vanilla bean on her tongue. She’s right: it’s hardly sweet, but she thinks she prefers it that way. With a finger, she wipes the crumbs off her lip and notices him staring.

“Do you like it then?”

He nods easily. “I do.”

With a breath of relief, they trade bites one after another until the plate is cleaned.

Afterwards, when they’re in the middle of cleaning up, she feels the warmth of his body behind her, his arms looped across her chest and his lips pressed against her temple. She relaxes into him and when one of his hands trails down to her abdomen, she wastes no more time.

She turns around and catches his lips in a bruising kiss. She can taste remnants of icing and sugar on his tongue, and asserts her desire by pulling him closer, hands roving everywhere and slipping under his shirt. All her pent-up frustration from the day disappears like smoke, and gives way to a different kind of desperation.

He welcomes her boldness and tries to keep up, dragging her cardigan from her shoulders and peppering breathy kisses along her jaw. Not one to forfeit her dominance, she palms his length, stiff and hard against her thigh. He grunts in response, and finds her lips again.

Mikasa gasps when he hoists her up with one arm, and her legs instinctively wrap around his waist. As he walks them over to their bedroom, she concedes that the rest of her chores will have to wait until morning.

They know this dance by now. They’ve woken to several mornings twisted in bedsheets and limbs tangled. Many nights he encourages her to take control, experiment and satiate her curiosities. Meanwhile, she tries to convince him she’s not made of glass.

Tonight he doesn’t hold back.

Her back hits the mattress, and she watches as he tests her entrance. She is wet enough, and his fingers slip inside her so easily that her back automatically arches to meet him. He pumps at a steady pace, and draws out the sweetest whimpers from her mouth. Even as she urges him, he doesn’t let her finish.

She aches with unfulfillment, and before she can gripe about it, he hooks his arms under her knees, pulls her legs forward and starts to fuck into her hard and desperate. Mikasa cries out, mouth wide and loud with feverish groans. The rhythm he sets barely allows her to keep up, even as her body tries to arch and move with his thrusts. Soon she gives up altogether, taking whatever pleasure she can find, soaring into delirium and moans turning into strained gasps when he repeatedly hits that spot that makes her jerk and writhe underneath him.

When she reaches her peak, she throws one arm over her face and the sounds of her voice come out like sobs. It is enough for him to follow and find his own release. They lie together in the aftermath and haze, her hands stroking his hair and his face buried between her neck and collarbone.

Later that night, she is lying next to him, head resting on his bare chest and hand over his heart. His breathing is soft and calm, but she knows he’s not sleeping.

She pats his chest lightly, “Eren?”

He grumbles out a sound, indicating he’d heard her.

She feels awful bringing it up now, but it’s plagued her mind the whole day and she knows she won’t find rest until it comes out.

“How come you… I mean, why is it that you don’t…” she bites her lip, struggles to say it even now. He strokes her back, encouraging her to go on. “Do you not grieve? About our future, I mean.”

His gaze stays on the ceiling. “Grieve?”

She sighs. “Sometimes I think I worry enough for the both of us, but maybe you just do it when I’m not looking.”

“What brought this on?” he asks.

“Your birthday,” she pipes up, a frown marring her features. “It’s not fair. Everything has already been taken from me, and even now, I am still losing. I feel it every time I think about you leaving, or the years we have left.”

Eren brushes the bangs out of her eyes. He thinks of apologizing for his numbered days, for leaving too soon, for causing her pain, but knows it will change nothing.

She buries her face in his shoulder. “Sorry for bringing it up.”

He shakes his head.

“It’s fine,” he says. “And I do grieve. More often than not, actually.”

She takes it back, because of course he does. She can’t even recall what made her think otherwise. Even now, there are parts of him that are still subdued. Perhaps it’s for the better.

There’s a question at the tip of her tongue, and she hesitates to ask, “How do you cope with it?”

Silence befalls them once again.

She’s about to waive the inquiry – in hindsight, it’s a loaded question to ask a dying man – but she feels his chest rumble underneath her. Not the wracked and thrashing sort of tremble that accompanies grief or sorrow. It’s light, and effortless. Mikasa anxiously peers up at him.

He’s laughing, of all things.

“Sorry…” he says, clearing his throat. “You caught me off guard.”

Mikasa shakes her head. “You don’t have to say anything.”

“I cope because of you,” he says suddenly.

“What?”

He exhales a slow breath. She feels it underneath, and matches her own breathing to his.

“If I really wanted, I could spend the rest of my life fretting and worrying about what’s to come, but….” His gaze is heavy, filled with something intense, significant and purposeful. It spreads to her too, and the feeling becomes tangled in her heart, forms a lump in her throat. There’s not a word for it. He lets out another breath, and the corner of his lips tug to a smile. “…I’d rather spend it with you. Mikasa, wasn’t it you who gave me that choice?”

The words flow off his tongue easier than anything that’s been said, and the stark realization of it leaves her breathless.

Her face crumples, as if something within her bursts and breaks. For once, it is not the same and familiar body ache that’s ravaged her like a sickness. It is something different entirely. All her life she wished for this: a caring pair of arms to ease her through life and all of its cruelties; someone to shelter her from reality.

She thinks of his younger self, for some reason. Rude, reckless and highly temperamental. And yet, he’s also the same person lying underneath her now. He’s grown and changed so much, and yet she loves him the same.

Mikasa makes up her mind then, to make the same choice. She shifts in bed until she’s hovering over him, foreheads pressed together. She leans forward, presses a light kiss against his mouth until he’s returning it, pulling her down and deepening it.

I choose you too.

Right now, nothing can break this peace.

----------

It sounds strange, but Mikasa has to learn how to live in the present. How to live for now, and not worry about what happens a week from today, or months down the road, or the year ahead. The learning curve is steep, but there are many reasons for it:

She is no longer in the military, and is free to reshuffle her priorities that don’t push timelines or goals.

Eren is not the same impulsive boy he once was. He will not charge towards danger with reckless abandon, and he is within her reach every day.

Mikasa is happier this way. It allows her to forget, even momentarily, and minimizes the breaks that threaten to consume her whole.

Time slips away from her, and she lets it.

Days are spent gardening, fishing, and building a life she never knew she wanted. Nights are spent in his arms, either quiet for comfort or loud with passion. The relationship they share is nothing like the one she dreamt in her youth, but it’s better in all the right ways. Eren is actually the quieter one between the two of them, and she never has to clamour for his attention. In return, she takes care of him and tells him she loves him without needing to.

This love is real, she thinks. Much like the love of their parents, and she is grateful for their example.

But the grief still lingers every now and then.

It sneaks up on her in the most blissful moments, and comes in the form of small, nagging reminders that this will not last forever. It always catches her off guard, and she has to ground herself against them.

It catches up to him too. There are times he clings onto her, or distracts himself with work, chopping more wood than they need until nightfall. On the hardest of days, he holds her steadfast and tight, or makes love to her like it’s the last time.

She knows his desperation like it’s her own.

In these moments, she wishes time would wait.

----------

But it doesn’t, of course. Time has no agency and pays no heed to her cause.

This blissful life comes to a screeching halt when a storm festers in the sky and a downpour of relentless rain hits the mountainside and reaches their cabin.

Mikasa has to cut her hunting trip short when it starts to pour. As she runs home, the deluge of water quickly turns the dirt into mud, and every step she takes threatens to suck her boots under and cause an accident. The sweltering summer heat combined with the downpour makes her struggle for breath, as if she is drowning in this rain.

She is soaked from top to bottom when she finally makes it home. When she sees him, Eren is inspecting the leaks in the roof of their house. He’s laid out buckets all over the floor to catch the droplets of rain that have seeped through, and he is so caught up in the task that he barely notices her.

As she collects herself, she realizes with shocking alarm that part of their floors are flooded, their furniture is in disarray, and all the crops they have carefully tended and grown cannot survive if this goes on. The tampered state of their home strikes like an awful robbery and still, this indifferent rain and storm continues to hammer and beat down on them. 

It draws forth memories of that fateful day. Yes, that gruesome time she’d been forced to watch her own parents struck down in front of her, pale and bleeding, and how in that instant, her world collapsed and crumbled under her feet. She thought of how nothing could hurt more.

Right now, it feels as though it is still happening. As if she never left that godforsaken cabin.

Mikasa doesn’t even notice Eren in front of her until he touches her shoulder. His face is resolute, as if he has a plan. He’s being pragmatic, but somehow it’s not helping.

“Go find shelter outside, and stay away from the rain. I’m going to reinforce the rafters, and it could take a while.”

When realization dawns on her, she grabs his wrist before he can make it out the door.

“No!” she screams, because this is quickly turning into an awful nightmare.

He turns around and gazes with confusion.

She doesn’t know how to explain to him that she doesn’t want to see his titan again. She doesn’t want him to use it. They shouldn’t have to resort to that ever again. The mere thought of Eren biting into his hand, blood spilling and becoming that humanoid beast is something she can no longer stomach, because it is the very reason his life hangs in the balance.

“We can fix this ourselves,” she pleads.

His confusion only deepens. “But we’ll get sick in the rain.”

She shakes her head. He tugs his arm away, takes one step forward, but she catches the end of his shirtsleeve. “Eren, please! You don’t need to transform! You shouldn’t have to. It’s in the past now. We’ve moved on from that–”

“Mikasa.”

She stops, because she knows she is unravelling and now his expression hinges on anger. There is a fire kindling in his eyes that aches familiar, something she has not seen in a long while. She cannot recall the last time he’d been stern with her.

He yanks his hand from her grasp, and it sharpens the ache in her heart. As if noticing, he repeats his command, albeit much gentler.

“I’ll be back. Find shelter in the meantime.”

Eventually, she curls up against a sturdy tree with branches long enough to shield her from most of the rainfall. The lightning strike signalling his transformation blends too perfectly with the rain and storm, and it makes her wince. Even now, she still cannot fathom the swirl of emotions coursing her mind and beating at her heart.

Falling back to old habits, she brings the damp red scarf up to her nose. The familiarity of the old and tattered thing has never failed to comfort her in the most trying times.

Hugging her knees tighter, she forces herself to watch his titan. A hard-hitting sight to behold, because she hasn’t seen it in two years. This dull and harrowing realization sinks and cements itself in the spaces of her heart. Time is catching up to her now.

In the distance, he re-aligns the wooden rafters of their roof and secures one of their tarps over the leaks – a temporary fix. She knows he will use his titan again to rebuild it, and a bitter sensation settles in her mouth.

It is still raining when he finishes. By the time he’s cut himself out of his titan and makes it back home, Mikasa has already swept the debris to one side and is halfway through scrubbing their floors. Her efforts come off vain and hopeless, but it is difficult to care about anything besides restoring this place back to its former state.

When he crouches beside her, she quietly asks for space. To his cocked brow, she reassures him she’s not angry with him, because she’s not.

She knows this grief very well. A part of her always knew that it would find her again and take root. No amount of distractions will get it out this time. She is mortified and distraught, but somehow it feels important. Feels necessary.

She cannot find it in herself to say it loud, only knows it deep inside of herself.

----------

It doesn’t stop raining.

Mikasa falls asleep blocking the low murmurs of thunder, and wakes to the patter of rain against their windows. Her mind goes to the garden every once in a while, wondering if any of their crops could survive this storm. When the rain loosens to a light drizzle, she takes the chance to salvage what is left and gets her answer.

Nothing.

She punches a divot into the ground, knuckles white and shaking.

They are drowned. She only finds mud, wilted leaves and dead roots. Even her plants have suffocated from this storm. She sits back on her knees and feels the rain seeping her through her hair, and soaking through scarf and cardigan. The muddy terrain below her seems to boil and bubble underneath this sweltering heat and humid rain.

The downpour worsens then. She watches the thunderhead spiralling above the mountains, gathering another storm within its grasp. She should retreat to the confines of the cabin, but instead she sinks in this rain.

Fuck.

She mulls over the pain in the heavy fog of her mind, and weeps in the confined spaces. It was inevitable; every break and every snap colliding and bursting and erupting at the seams. There is nothing to wake her from this crumbling resolve. It hits her like open floodgates, a broken dam, or a single spark of wildfire.

I’m going to lose him.

Ackerman blood pumps through her veins, fuels her with the strength of a hundred men, and yet she is powerless to protect those who matter. She curses the stars and the goddess for saddling her with such a tragic and atrocious destiny; tending a love inside her that would grow beyond measure, only so she can watch him fade and wither too soon.

I would have to give this up.

She crouches into the field, head buried in her arms. Her hands grip the dirt beneath her like a lifeline, like it’s the only thing tethering her to this earth. She screams until her lungs give out, throwing her voice into the howling winds and joining the cacophonous sound. Her mind fills with images of life without him – she’s always resisted them – and the inevitability of it all comes down like crashing waves, robbing her of air and space to breathe.

She can almost feel the comfort of his arms starting to leave her. It renders her desperate and gasping for breath. Like a fish dragged out of water, or rain drying up in the sun.

I would have to forfeit all we’ve built and grown.

She exhales with exasperation, and feels her chest heaving.

But this life is paradise. Eren is my–

“Mikasa!”

Home.

She misses the panic in his tone. She misses his voice altogether.

He is all I ever–

A jacket is laid on top of her. Strong arms wrap around her.

Wanted.

She tries to breathe in deeply, and finds the task arduous with the weight on her chest and the lump in her throat. Her hands latch onto him like an anchor in this storm, and she holds on tight. He gently caresses her back in a steady rhythm – consistent and grounded in light of this erratic storm.

One, two, three. One, two, three.

Mikasa follows his motions like a musical beat.

Eventually, she finds her breath.

Somehow, her despairing soul is rocked to quiet mending.

What am I to you?

Eren takes her hands and pulls her to her feet. She grasps onto him and follows him home, knowing he will ease her out of darkness again. He is the only one to soothe her aches, quiet the noise and let everything else fade into the background. She loves him completely for it.

You are everything.

----------

Lucidness returns to her as she dries and changes out of her wet clothes. Her face is red and puffy and there is a heaviness to her gait, but she comes out of the bedroom anyway and joins him in front of the fireplace. For a while, she holds out her hands and gleans warmth from the radiating fire.

“The storm makes me restless,” she breaks silence, eyeing a few wandering embers.

He gives a hum of agreement.

She turns her head to peek at him. “I’m sorry. I promised I’d do my best not to bring this up, but…” She shakes her head, pushing herself to say it in spite of her reluctance. “…I can’t see beyond the next two years. There’s nothing there. No future, no cause... Almost as if time will stop completely. And then I find myself wondering if things would have been different had we chosen to stay behind, but it’s not as though the curse would…” Her voice trails off completely, and she rubs the sting out of her eyes. “Sorry. I don’t mean to ramble.”

He watches her, expression crinkling a little.

“It would have been the same,” he tells, just above a tired whisper.

Mikasa’s face drops and she swivels to face him, legs still tucked underneath.

“How?”

Eren swallows hard, face twisting in pain and jaw hardening. The same expression that finds him when he dreams in memories, or speaks of destruction.

“It would have been by your hand instead,” he says plainly, but not without reservation. “I’ll lose myself and use the founder’s powers to start a war. Destroy the world according to her will. I push through with it knowing it’s wrong and cruel, but my actions won’t be justified. You’ll stop me because of it.”

Her entire face becomes hot all of a sudden. She just stares at her clenched fists, unsure why he sometimes speaks as though it’s still going to happen, and refusing to comprehend how she could ever –

Eren touches her shoulder, as if reading her mind.

“Mikasa. You do it to save me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. You’ll save humanity because of it, and nobody will live in fear of titans after that.”

She’s shaking her head, eyes closed shut and nails digging into her skin. Even two years past, and she still doesn’t understand. She doubts she will ever understand. To choose between Eren and the fate of the world is too cruel of a decision to even fathom, let alone rest on her shoulders. As if the world hasn’t been unkind to her already.

She breathes with exasperation and looks at him with finality and defiance.

“I don’t want to make that choice,” she says, but then quietly, in the back of her mind, she wonders if she already did.

His expression softens a bit. “Everything changed the night you told me you loved me. It made me feel… human, because I loved you the same.”

She stiffens with the truth, face twisting and crumpling between anger, pain and confusion.

“No one ever made me feel that way. It was mine the whole time,” he continues, taking her clenched fists in his fingers and unwinding them. Her palms hurt, but she finds comfort in his hands folding over hers. She’s trembling like she’s on fire, but the calm and unchanging green of his gaze drowns out her rage.

“Escaping here was something I wanted, a choice I made with my heart. I would do it again and again, unless…”

She stares at him, unsure of the reason his voice breaks.

Eren sighs and dips his head, making certain they are seeing eye to eye.

“Mikasa, do you ever regret this?” he asks for the first time, with obvious difficulty. “I only have two years left. It will never be enough, and even now I still cause you so much pain and suffering–”

“No,” she cuts off, settling the argument once and for all. She shakes her head furiously, halting the thought before it sails. “I would do it again.”

And without thinking, she springs forward and throws her arms around his figure. Her kiss is hard and desperate. She is determined to prove every word. He returns it in full, and she cannot imagine why she would ever choose otherwise.

“I love you,” he says, even though he doesn’t need to. She feels it in everything he does.

They part only so their foreheads can press together, breaths mingling in between.

“I wish we had more time,” he murmurs softly. “That was the wish I made under the stars.”

She pulls back to memorize every line and curve of his face. “I love you too.”

It’s the only thing that needs to be said, and suddenly she is grateful for their choice.

Afterwards, she holds him tight and close to her, knowing she will do so until she is forced to let go.

----------

She loves him and he loves her back. On the surface, it seems easy, but she knows in some dark crevice of her mind, that even though this love is selfish – escaping to these mountains was selfish – it is also good.

It is clear like the blue reflective sheen of the ocean. Bright in the dark like the constellations in the night sky and the stars they wished upon. Beautiful in the midst of this world’s unending horror and cruelty.

Her source of strength. The root of his humanity.

This love is enough.

Time will come when it will teach her to grow, too.

----------

The rain stops and gives way to a brighter morning.

From her window, Mikasa spots the luminous streaks of colour in the sky, no doubt left behind by the storm, and feels as though a heavy weight has been lifted off her chest.

Eren is still sleeping beside her and quietly she extracts herself out of his embrace. She makes her way outside, where the sun warms her face and a soft breeze sweeps past her. The silence is easy and comforting. For a moment, she allows herself to bask in this delicate peace.

In the corner of her eye, she finds something in the garden. Perhaps not everything drowned in the rain.

Campanulas.

Mikasa crouches by the patch of purple-petaled flowers and traces her finger along one of them, careful not to disturb their growth. She wonders how they managed to endure the flood, even bloom as a result of it. So frail in appearance, but their roots must be deep, sturdy and strong.

Strange how this bellflower seems to follow her wherever she goes.

It grows under the wrath of the titans, and weathers the worst of storms. It is the only thing to survive the wreckage. It’s almost incredible how they managed to grow such a thing; she and Eren are so damaged themselves.

Perhaps this flower will remain. Just like the memories they’ve made.

Mikasa glances at her surroundings. The mountains in the distance, the trees circling their cabin, the river flowing downward and everything else still standing.

She sees this home they’ve built and finds pieces of him everywhere; his heart is carved in everything they’ve made, and said, and done.

When he passes on, maybe it will be enough.

----------

[sheerfreesia007]

Birthday Girl

Title: Birthday Girl

Fandom: Teen Wolf

Pairing: Stiles Stilinski x Reader

Author: @sheerfreesia007​​

Words: 2,487

Warnings: Oral (female receiving), Bondage (Handcuffs), Cursing

Permanent Tag List: @paintballkid711​, @fioccodineveautunnale​, @phoenixhalliwell​, @synystersilenceinblacknwhite​

Teen Wolf Tag: @linkpk88​, @pure-ghost​, @awkwardnesshabitat​

Author Notes: This was inspired by the prompt  “When we get home I’m cuffing you to the bed and going down on you all night until my jaw is sore.” Because who doesn’t need kinky Stiles with handcuffs. Y’all I’m thirsting for Stiles lately. I struggled a little with this one so let me know what you think! Feedback is appreciated!

Gif Credit: Google

You smile brightly at Denise as you walk into the Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Station. She smiles back and waves you through as you continue on to the door that leads into the bullpen of the station where all of the deputies sit. Your eyes dart around the room and spot your fiance sitting at his desk pouring over a case file. Adjusting your hand around the bag of fast food you nodded to the deputies that you passed before coming to a stop next to his desk.

         “Dad, I’m still going over the case file I haven’t finished yet.” he says distracted as he waves a hand to dismiss you. You smirk leaning forward to whisper in his ear.

         “I ain’t your Daddy, but you could be mine.” your tone takes on a sultry tone and your fiance jerks his head away to look up at you with wide eyes. When he recognizes you his eyes turn to a liquid amber color that heat with desire at your words.

         “You’re trying to kill me at work aren’t you?” he groans out to you and laugh brightly.

         “Actually I came to bring you sustenance, so quite the contrary.” you quip back to him with a smirk as you set the back of food on his desk next to the case file he’s got spread out. 

         “Have I told you I love you today?” he asks as his eyes fall onto the bag. You laugh again as he quickly collects all the papers for the case and stuff them back into the folder and sets it to the side.

         “Mmmm, only about ten times this morning when you woke me up with birthday-” you start to respond and he quickly cuts you off with a tender kiss to your lips that you reciprocate easily. When he pulls away he smiles as he sees your eyes still shut and lips still puckered.

         “You’re in a playful mood today aren’t you?” he asks sarcastically and you grin down at him before having a seat in the chair next to his desk.

         “It’s my birthday I get to be as playful as I want.” you quipped back and stuck your tongue out at him making him smirk and chuckle softly at you. You quickly divided up the food between the two of you and began sharing your meal as you chatted about what had happened during your day so far. 

         Not long after Noah, Stiles’ dad was calling him from his office doorway saying that they got a call and needed to leave. Stiles nodded and quickly helped you clean up with a sheepish look thrown your way.

         “I’m sorry I gotta cut lunch short with you babe. But duty calls.” he said regretfully and you shook your head waving away his apologetic look.

         “No worries sweetheart.” you said as you stood with him. You moved closer to brush off the crumbs from his uniform, his hands came to hold loosely at your hips as you leaned up on tip toe to press a kiss to his lips. “I’ll see you when you get home Deputy Stilinski.” you purr up to him and watch as his eyes darken with desire at your words. 

         “When I get home I’m cuffing you to the bed and going down on you all night until my jaw is sore.” he whispers into your ear making you shiver against him before he pecks your lips quickly and then side steps you. Leaving you in a haze of arousal all because of his words. “Bye babe!” he calls out over his shoulder with a wink.

         “Be safe!” you call out in response and he salutes you with two fingers and a smirk before he’s out the door of the station.

           It’s hours later and you’re pulling into your parking spot for your apartment complex after having dinner with Lydia, Malia, and Kira for your birthday. You don’t see Stiles’ Jeep and you’re slightly disappointed but you know that’s the life of a significant other for Law Enforcement. Your trek up to the apartment is silent as you think back on the lovely evening that you had with the girls. A smile is on your face as you come up to your apartment door and slide the key into the lock. You’re about to unlock the door when suddenly it’s flung open and you squeak loudly in surprise as Stiles grabs you by the upper arm yanking you into your apartment. 

         A loud moan falls from your lips as your back collides with the shut front door and his lips are instantly on yours as his body presses into yours. You can feel him hardening against you and your hands grab the belt loops on his jeans dragging him closer as you moan again.

         “Fuck babe, why don’t you take longer with the girls.” he gripes out against your lips and you chuckle softly at his impatience. His hands are clamped down on your hips and holding you against it firmly while his lips and tongue explore your mouth like it’s the first time back in high school.

         “Impatient as always Stilinski.” you tease and a low growl is filling your ears and you jerk back with wide eyes. An ever wider grin graces your lips and he rolls his eyes at you before he dives back in to begin kissing up and down your neck. His teeth graze gently against your skin and you mewl up at him as your hands slide under his arms to grip around his shoulders tightly. “Fuck that’s hot. You growling is so fucking hot.” you gasp out and he chuckles against your skin.

         “C’mon bedroom, now.” he commands and pulls you from the door, easily locking it before he’s guiding you down the hallway to your shared bedroom. He’s pressed up against your back and his hands are gripping around your hip bones as he walks you down the hallway. His lips are still dancing up and down your neck making you gasp softly as his tongue comes to drag along it wetly. “Did you have a good birthday babe?” he asks softly in your ear and you nod your head jutting your ass into his crotch and Stiles groans softly before you both stumble into the bedroom. “Fuck gonna be like that huh?” he asks huskily and you grin as you spin and face him.

         His large hands come to cup the sides of your face and his thumbs slide along your cheekbones before he’s pulling you forward into him hurriedly and his lips slant against yours. He backs you up to press your against one of the posts of your four poster bed. His hands slide around to your back and easily finds the zipper to your dress and slowly slides the straps of your dress down your body to your waist. He looks down and groans loudly when he sees that you didn’t wear a bra to dinner. “God you’re so gorgeous babe. Absolutely gorgeous. I’m fucking lucky.” he breathes out while his hands slide down the dress from your waist and hips. 

         You kick the dress away when it hits the floor and Stiles leans forward to flick his tongue against one of your nipples. You arc your body up towards him and he hums around your nipple making your hands come up to card through his hair and hold him against you.

         “Stiles, shit. That feels so good.” you whisper out in a breathy gasp. Stiles switches to your other nipple and sucks it into his mouth easily. You hum as your hands fall from his head to grip the bed post behind you thrusting your chest out towards him.

         “C’mon birthday girl get on the bed.” he says once he pulls away with a loud pop. You do as he says and step out of your shoes before crawling onto the bed. Wiggling your ass at him you yelp when he spanks it hard. “Lay on your back.”

         “Bossy tonight huh? I thought it was my birthday.” you snark back at him and he chuckles deeply.

         “Oh baby, what I’ve got planned for you. You won’t forget it’s your birthday tonight.” he teases you before he spanks you again. “On your back.”

         You gasp softly and roll onto your back for him getting situated by resting your head up on the pillows. He smirks as he quickly discards his shirt and jeans leaving him in only his boxers. You lick your lips absentmindedly as you spy the tent in his boxers before he’s moving up the bed and hovering over you. “Like something you see?” he teases as his hands begin to trail up your sides and he grinds down into you. You moan as you nod your head at him arching your hips up against him. 

         Stiles hands guide your arms up and with one of his large hands pins both of your wrists to the bed above your head. He’s smirking down at you before grinding his hips down against yours and dipping his head down for a sinful wet kiss that was all tongue. You lose yourself to the kiss and just let your desire for him take over your body that you don’t realize what he’s doing. But when you hear the clink of the handcuffs securing around your wrists and feel the cold metal resting against your heated skin you jerk against them and pull away from his mouth.

         “What the fuck Stiles?” you ask suddenly as you try to move your hands again. He’s straddling your body now, his knees on either side of you as he admires his handiwork. When he looks down at you a gasp is torn from your throat, his eyes have turned such a dark shade of brown that they’re almost black. Desire, lust and arousal are swirling in those usual bright amber orbs.

         “I told you once I got home I was gonna cuff you to the bed and eat you out til my jaw was sore.” he purred seductively at you. Your whole body clenches at his words and you’re instantly drowning in arousal.

         “Shit Stiles.” you gasp out softly and chuckles darkly before he leans down and kisses you passionately.

         “Only the best for the birthday girl.” he husks out against your skin as his lips blaze a trail down your neck to your collarbones where he nips and glides his tongue along to soothe the nip. His lips continue their path down your chest to your nipples once more. He circles his tongue around first one then the other before he’s blowing hot air against them making them harden. He grazes his teeth against them and you shiver in anticipation before he’s traveling lower down your body. 

         Your body is arching off the bed as his lips tease the skin on your lower stomach. His tongue darts out to trail wetly from your stomach down to first one hip bone then the other. Your chest is heaving at this point as every nerve ending in your body is keyed up to every movement Stiles makes. 

         “Fuck Stiles, please stop teasing.” you beg him softly and his eyes dart up to your as he comes to hover over your sex. 

         “I like it when you beg.” he says seductively and his tongue slips out to lick up your folds making you squeal loudly and high pitched.

         “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” you chant softly and try to thrust your hips up into his face making him chuckle. “Stiles I swear to- Oh my god!” you shout. Stiles mouth has completely covered your clit where he’s suddenly sucking like you’re his favorite lollipop. Your head falls back and your arms jerk making the handcuffs clatter loudly in the room. Stiles is sucking harshly on your clit and you’re gasping for air that’s not flowing through you. Your body is pulled taut and your stomach muscles are clenching as your orgasm builds and builds until suddenly it snaps within you.

         Your scream is so loud that you know you’re going to get a noise complaint from your neighbors but you don’t care. Pure bliss has surrounded your body and you’re benign launched into the cosmos by your fiance’s mouth. Stiles has let up as his tongue is now circling your clit and dragging down to thrust into your entrance. Your head is thrashing as your first orgasm doesn’t have time to settle over you before another is rearing up right behind it. “Oh shit, oh shit.” you gasp out before your second orgasm is crashing into you. 

         Moans are being torn from both you and Stiles at this point. Yours are from the pleasure that each orgasm has brought you and Stiles’ are from your taste that floods his mouth.He’s still licking and sucking at your core when he pulls one of your lips into his mouth and tugs it outward from your body. He’s then diving back in to thrust his tongue as deep as he possibly can into you. His tongue continues to fuck you as his nose nudges against your clit making orgasm number three start to rush forward. “Stiles, wait. I can’t. It’s too much.” you’re gasping out as you shake your head back and forth. Your body is covered in a layer of sweat and your thighs are trembling against the sides of his face.

         But Stiles hums against you as his tongue thrusts in one more time and your mouth drops in a silent scream as your vision starts to darken around the edges. Your body feels like it’s suspended in the air and you’re just floating when you come to. Stiles is laying on his side next to you smirking softly as he brushes a piece of hair away from your face.

         “There’s the birthday girl.” he coos at you softly and you smile dazedly up at him. “How’re you feeling?” he asks.

         “Fan-fucking-tastic.” you rasp out and Stiles chuckles proudly.

         “Good.” he says nodding his head as he presses a soft kiss to your lips. You wrap your uncuffed arms around him and drag him down on top of you as you return his kiss heatedly.

         “Give me like fifteen minutes and then we can help you with your situation.” you purr at him as your hand slides down to cup his erection. He grunts and shakes his head.

         “Tonight was all about you birthday girl.” he responds tenderly and you huff softly.

         “And what if the birthday girl wants birthday sex with her fiance, hmm?” you ask as you walk your fingers up his naked chest. 

         “Anything the birthday girl wants, the birthday girl gets.” he says grinning down at you before he pulls you closer to lay on his chest.

         “Best birthday ever.” you whisper softly against his chest and he chuckles happily at your words.

[omnyamaflowerz]

Baby Boy

A/N: It was time to try something new. I hope you guys like it. This is a black reader insert like all of my fics.

Warnings: smut and nothing else, dom/sub mechanics, spanking, orgasm denial, Dom!Reader

Viktor rushed in the door from the gym. He tossed his gym bag down and put his phone and keys on the hallway table. He hurried through the townhouse, cleaning. He shoved every bit of clothing into the washing machine he could pick up. He shoved the dishes from the sink to the dishwasher. He wiped down whatever surface he could with a disinfectant rag. He frantically looked around and made sure nothing was really out of place.

His phone chimed again. He dashed to it. Viktor cursed in Russian as he rushed back to the bedroom, trying to somewhat to make it up. He went into the bathroom, putting towels on racks and sprayed the shower. He frantically wiped it hoping the smell of the cleaner would not stick around for too long in the event you decided to wash up from your trip back.

Viktor rushed back to the kitchen. There was no food for you to eat but, he’d make it that he wanted to take you out for dinner. He went over things in his head trying to make sure there was nothing else.

You opened the door and heard a thud. “What the hell?” you said as you felt a force against the door. You stepped through, bringing your suitcase and carry on bag in. You huffed as you dragged it in and put it to the side. You grimaced as you found that Viktor’s gym bag was keeping you from opening the door. You put your purse on the hall table and walked into the kitchen.

Viktor was hurriedly putting dishes away. His head snapped in your direction. You stopped in the archway. You looked at over the dining room and squinted. You turned your head and looked at Viktor in the kitchen, almost frozen in place as he put plates in the cupboard.

You knew he didn’t keep the house clean. It didn’t even smell the way you liked. The trash was very much full and reeked. The dining table had specks of crumbs and ring stains from cups. You sighed and looked over at Viktor.

“So, you’ve slacked off since I’ve been away.” you said. “All you had to do was keep the house clean.”

Viktor turned to you, jaw clenched. He couldn’t give you an excuse. Nothing he could say would keep him from punishment. He missed you and wanted time with you. However, there was a tinge of disappointment in himself as you had to come home upset with him and his negligence.

You sighed, taking off your heels. “Go. Take off your clothes and get on the bed.”

Viktor nodded and climbed the stairs. You followed behind him, holding your heels. Once you got to your bedroom, you let Viktor undress and get on the bed. You put your heels in the walk-in closet and pulled the drawer out. You shed your clothes down to your matching set, placing your clothes in the hamper. You picked up the lavender colored riding crop before walking back into the bedroom.

“You know...I was prepared to come home and give you a reward.” you said. “I had missed you so much that I just couldn’t wait to come home and surprise you.”

Viktor kept still on the bed, hands and knees pressed into the mattress. You smiled at the sight but, remembered you had to be upset with him. He could hear the disappointment in your voice. And disappointment was dangerous.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” you asked, tapping the crop in the palm of your hand.

“I’m sor-” Viktor started. He hissed as the crop cracked on his backside. He took a breath calming himself.

“Mommy doesn’t like excuses.” you said. “I only asked for one thing while I was away. What was it?”

“Keep the house clean.” Viktor said. The crop hit his ass again. He welcomed the sting as he bit his lip.

“And you clearly didn’t do that.” you said, delivering another slap. You caught a glimpse of Viktor’s hand clutching the sheets. You chuckled as you rubbed the leather loop along his reddening ass cheek. “You were doing so well. I was so proud of you. You just had to ruin it.” You gave him another smack.

Viktor jolted forward slightly as you continued with his punishment. He had never been so weak with a woman as he had with you. Part of him loved it. The fact that he could be so vulnerable around you and at your touch. He was pulled from his thoughts when the crop hit him again. Viktor grunted through it while trying to hide his enjoyment. However, it was very much clear as you spotted his erection. “On your back.”

Viktor rolled on his back. The tip of his dick, glistening and a pale shade of pink. You licked your lips. Your mouth watered at the sight of him but, giving him head was a reward. You had a lesson to teach. You massaged his balls, a moan escaping his mouth. “You look like you have a load for Mommy. Been saving yourself for me?”

“Yes.” he said as he gripped the sheets, trying to restrain himself. “I wanted you to have it all.”

“Aw, that’s sweet. Well, I hate to break it to you.” You said, leaning into him. You kissed along his ear and neck as he huffed. “Only good boys get to come.”

Viktor’s eyes snapped open as he felt your hand leave his sack. He grimaced and began to whine. “Please, wait.” he started.

“Stay there.” you ordered in a stern voice as you went back to the closet. Viktor laid back on the bed, but turned his head to see you go back into the closet. You reemerged with a pair of handcuffs. You straddled him. You both looked at each other. Your eyes had a chill to them that scared him slightly. You didn’t break the gaze as you handcuffed him to the bed. You dragged your manicured nails from his wrists to his chest. Viktor’s heart raced as he felt the urge of having you. You looked so heavenly on top of him. You chuckled as you ran your thumb across this lips and the corner of his mouth, wiping a bit of drool.

“Now, you may not get yours, but I’m not doing all of this for nothing.” you said. You stood up in the bed. Viktor squirmed as he watched you from below, taking off your panties. Your arousal was clear but, the moisture that had spread over your lips a tad. Viktor grunted in anticipation. He could almost taste you now. You balled up your panties and put them into the palm of his hand, signaling for him to hold them. You lowered yourself to sit on Viktor’s face. He pulled at the cuffs as he lapped at your folds. You moaned as his tongue grazed your clit. One hand gripped the headboard and the other on the top of Viktor’s head.

Viktor used his tongue diligently as he tried to remain still for you. He still squirmed a bit. You reached behind you for the crop. You gave him a light tap on his knee, a reminder to be good. He dragged his tongue over your entire slit. Your head tilted back, your hips began to move. Viktor grunted into you. You leaned back, your hips moving to a rhythm. Viktor licked along with you. You reached back, slowly stroking him.

Viktor bucked his hips slightly, a physical request to go faster. A request that was denied. You stroked him, almost teasingly. You moaned as Viktor sucked on your clit for redemption. Lovingly, passionately bringing you to your orgasm.

“There you go, baby.” you said. “Just like that.” Viktor repeated those movements, soft sighs coming from him as you toyed with his member. The pressure in your stomach built up and you knew you were close to coming. Your grip tightened on Viktor’s dick. You stroked him faster. Motivating him, tricking him into thinking he was forgiven.

He eagerly licked and sucked on your clit. He felt your thighs squeeze around his head, signaling you were close. His member twitched in your hand. Breathy moans left your throat as you flinched. “Almost there baby.” you said.

Viktor’s toes curled as he felt his release rising. Just as you came, you came out of your position to hold onto the headboard. Viktor was left to catch your release on his tongue but, he had to go without his. You gasped, as you ground your hips against him, riding out your orgasm.

After a few moments, you rolled off of him. Viktor licked his lips clean but, looked to you with puppy dog eyes. You looked over at him and chuckled. “Oh, honey. I told you. No rewards.” You took the panties from his clutched hand. You leaned in, giving him a tender kiss then replacing your lips with your panties. “Open.”

Viktor heeded your command, opening his mouth. You stuffed your panties in his mouth. You got off the bed and turned on the TV, changing the channel to ESPN. “At least you won’t be bored while you sit here and think about what you did.”

You went to your bathroom, taking a shower. You took your time, purposely. Once you exited your bathroom, you locked eyes with Viktor. You sighed, walking over to the bed. You collected the keys from the nightstand and unlocking the cuffs. “Finish the kitchen and dining room. We’ll order out tonight.” Viktor promptly hopped off the bed, putting his briefs and sweats on. You were about to walk away until you felt Viktor’s hand grab your wrist.

You turned back and saw that needy look on his face. You opened your arms, hugging him. You rubbed his back, tenderly. Viktor pulled back for you to kiss him. He deepened it before you pulled away. He gave a soft smile.

“I missed you.” you said.

“I missed you, too.” he said. You patted his back, chuckling.

“Go fix my dining room so we can eat.” you chuckled.

FIN

[wilsonsnest]

[w&s] date night

more general store/diner au because everyone needs that extremely specific au in their life. i only posted the last one to ao3 because it was a spicy meatball. you can find both previous parts of wilson’s & stucky’s here.

every time i write one of these it gets increasingly fluffier.

pairing: samsteve, sambucky word count: 2,972 summary: sam and steve go on a date, then bucky and steve cross a boundary.

Steve often considers that anywhere else, hell even the next town over, what they were doing would be considered outlandishly weird. But he and Bucky had basically grown up in each other’s pockets, the only brief interlude being when Bucky had shipped off with the Army. Even one less arm and ptsd between them couldn’t shake their unbreakable bond.

So the fact that the ended up falling for the same guy wasn’t all that surprising. Them both agreeing to share had been a little more unexpected, especially since Steve knew he could be a possessive bastard when he wanted to be. But if there was anyone he was willing to share Sam’s affections with, it was Bucky. And Sam clearly adored Bucky, and he’d give Sam the world on a platter if he could.

It worked out for the most part. They spent a lot of time together at Sam’s place, though Bucky tended to sleep over more. Though their relationships often intertwined, there were some major differences. Bucky and Sam almost never went out on dates. Occasionally, they’d stop by Red/Hawk’s for a quick drink and to catch up with everyone. But they never stayed for long and Bucky always grew more uncomfortable the more crowded the bar got.

Steve and Sam on the other hand, went out as often as possible. The town of Ridley was about a 45 minute drive, and while it wasn’t huge, it had a movie theatre and a few chain restaurants that made for a fairly good date night. Steve absolutely treasured those nights with Sam. Holding his hands in the dark theatre while they giggled and scoffed at the latest stupid action thriller.

Before Sam, Steve had thought mainstream dating culture was tedious. Now that he was with Sam? He sort of hated that Bucky wasn’t able to experience the same thing.

Case in point. He was leaving the closing up tonight to Bucky while he and Sam caught a 10pm movie. He changed in the employee bathroom, running his fingers through his hair to try and look a little more presentable. Ducking into the kitchen, he caught Bucky slipping his phone back into his pocket.

“Hey, Buck, I’m about to head out. You good?” Steve had asked him at least twice already. Worrying about Bucky was second nature at this point.

“M’fine, Steve.” Bucky over at him, his mouth twisted into a complicated not-quite frown. “Your gonna be late if you don’t get outta here.”

“I’m getting there.” Steve huffed, smiling a little. “If you need anything—“

“Call you, yeah, I know.” Bucky rolled his eyes. “Tell Sam I said hi.”

“That all?”

“Fuck off, Steve. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I make no promises.”

x x x x

The movie date ended up being quite successful. They strategically chose a movie that had been out for quite a while, hoping to avoid the Saturday night crowds. Of course, being the weekend meant there were a few other patrons in the theatre. But Sam and Steve had arrived early and managed to commandeer the very back, and none of the other moviegoers seemed interested in sharing space. The scattered crowd meant that they could spend the movie holding hands and leaning over to whisper to one another during the frankly uninteresting feature.

Sam leaned over into Steve’s space, while grabbing a handful of popcorn from their shared bucket. “You still chugging through the Hobbit or did you give up?”

He couldn’t see Steve’s grimace in the darkness of the theatre, but he knew it was there.

“I haven’t ‘given up’.” Steve muttered, nudging Sam with his shoulder. “I’m just reading at my own pace. Taking it all in.”

Sam snorted and ate a few pieces of popcorn. “It’s boring, isn’t it. You hate it.”

“I don’t hate it.” Steve said stubbornly. “It’s just not my usual taste.”

Sam barely stifled a laugh. For some reason they started watching movie franchises. It had started after he, Bucky and Steve had watched all of the original Star Trek together and then decided to add on the films. Sam had suggested they do the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which they had all enjoyed immensely. Bucky’s suggestion came in the form of The Matrix, which kind of outshined Sam’s choice in a big way. Then of course Steve had to go ahead and suggest the Hobbit movies and Sam had put his foot down.

He asked Steve if he had ever even read the book. And if he really thought watching a children’s novel be spread out over three full length films was really the best use of their time. Steve had asserted that no he hadn’t read the book, and thus a deal was struck. If Steve could get through The Hobbit and still wanted to watch the movies Sam would acquiesce.

It had been five months now and updates from Bucky suggested that they still had a long ways to go before Steve was anywhere near finishing. They had moved onto the X-Men movies, much to Steve’s annoyance.

“By time you finish they’ll have remade the Lord of the Rings movies.” Sam said playfully.

With an exaggerated yawn, he stretched his arms up over his head, before looping on arm around Steve’s shoulders. He could feel his boyfriend shaking with laughter, trying to constrain his noise level. Sam smirked triumphantly even as Steve playfully slapped his chest.

“Real smooth, Sam.”

“Hey, I gotta take my chances where I see ‘em.”

They turned their attention back to the movie, which seemed to be in its final act as explosions seems to be setting off and everyone had very serious, determined looks on their faces. They finished the movie in silence, their hands occasionally brushing in the popcorn bucket. As soon as the credits hit, Steve stood, brushing the crumbs off his t-shirt and looked down at Sam.

“What’d you think?” He asked as he offered Sam his hand.

Sam smiled, Steve could be such a gentleman at times. It was endearing as hell. “5 out of 10, no idea what happened but everything seemed to work out at the end so I count that as a win.”

“Your generosity is one of the things I love about you.” Steve said cheekily. He swiped Sam’s coat before the taller man could grab it and helped him into the sleeves before Sam shrugged it the rest of the way on himself.

Steve led them out of the theatre, dutifully depositing their popcorn bucket in the trash as they headed out into the dark lobby. There were still a few movies playing, but the theatre was otherwise closed.

Out in the parking lot, the air was crisp and Sam quickly buttoned his coat. Winter was moving in much faster than Sam had anticipated, and it was one thing he was not looking forward to. He sighed in relief as Steve unlocked the door to the truck and climbed in immediately.

“You wanna stay the night?” Sam asked as he buckled his seatbelt.

“Hmm.” Steve reached over to turn on the heat and then the radio. “Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to come over to ours?”

Sam raised an eyebrow at that suggestion. Sam spent very little time at Steve and Bucky’s home. It was a beautiful two-floor stone cottage type, fairly close to lakeside. Sam liked the place, but it always felt like there were boundaries all over the home. Places were Steve wouldn’t cross and Bucky wouldn’t cross. Sam’s home truly was neutral territory for all of them.

Still the temptation was there. He would love to see Bucky tonight instead of just calling him before bed.

“He’d never say it,” Steve started as he pulled out of the parking space. “But he misses you when we go out like this.”

“Ah,” Sam sighed, looking forward out the window. “Do you think it bothers him?”

“No. Well,” Steve paused and tried to figure out how he wanted to phrase the next part. “When he goes to your house, I can always just drop by and visit. But he can’t… join us for stuff like this. It sucks.”

Sam wasn’t surprised to hear the depth of emotion in Steve’s voice. He could see his boyfriend’s hands were tense on the steering wheel. It was always so heartwarming to see how much Steve and Bucky truly cared about one another and their relationships with Sam. He remembered in the beginning, thinking that all three of them were going to date. Steve and Bucky had quickly assured him that they had no desire to date each other.

They were best friends. Brothers, really.

Sam thought it was more than that, platonic soulmates at the very least. But he knew both Bucky and Steve would just scoff at the suggestion. Sam was just happy to know that they cared about one another so fiercely. It made worrying less harrowing when you had someone else to do it with.

“It does kind of suck.” Sam admitted. He loved his date nights with Bucky. They would pile pillows and blankets onto the couch. Sometimes even light candles when they were feeling fancy and just watch re-runs of tv shows for hours. It was soothing, and Sam cherished those nights deeply.

But sometimes he wished he could do more for Bucky. His dark-haired boyfriend couldn’t quite hide the disappointment of not being able to take Sam out for movies, or dinner, or any of the other traditional date night activities.

“It’s alright though,” Sam murmured quietly, almost forgetting Steve was next to him. “I just like it when we’re together.”

He felt a hand rest gently on his thigh and looked up to see a soft smile on Steve’s lips. Sam couldn’t help the warmth that flooded his chest as he considered just how lucky he was.

x x x x

The lights were off by time they pulled up the gravel road to the lakeside cottage. Bucky probably wasn’t expecting Steve home and had likely gone to bed.

They hurried out of the car and into the home, trying escape the cold air, especially being so close to water. Steve flipped on one of the lights, while Sam shrugged out of his coat and shoes to hang them by the door.

“I didn’t bring anything to sleep in.” Sam whispered the realization. Since he rarely stayed over, it usually wasn’t a problem.

“You should be able to fit something of Bucky’s.” Steve finished taking off his coat and beckoned Sam to follow him.

They went to the small closet laundry room and Steve pulled out a shirt from the dryer. It was gray and worn, and far too big for Sam. It smelled delightfully of the detergent he had come to associate with both of his boyfriend’s.

Sam smiled gratefully and immediately pulled off his long-sleeved shirt, trying not to smirk at the way Steve’s eyes lingered on his body as he changed. Perhaps he was being a bit naughty, taking off his jeans right there in the hallway, but it was worth it for the look Steve gave him. If it weren’t so late, perhaps.

Sam bundled up his clothes and put them on top of the washing machine. He opened his mouth to speak when Steve quickly pressed him against the appliance. Sam felt his ass digging into the cold steel and he made an abrupt noise of surprise.

“Too damn tall.” Steve groused, as he pushed a knee between Sam’s leg and reached up to pull Sam down.

Amused, Sam obliged and leaned down to kiss his shorter boyfriend, sweet at first. Steve made a noise of regret as soon as they pulled away and tugged Sam down again for a much more intensive exploration. Sam could practically feel himself melting, the irresistible taste and feel of Steve tempting him.

He pulled away, trying to keep a cool head even as he looked down at Steve’s wet, reddened lips. “It’s way too late for this.”

“I can be quick.” Steve said cheekily, though his mood seemed more relaxed.

“You’re a mess, Rogers.” Sam laughed and shook his head. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead before playfully pushing him away. “D’you think Bucky would mind…?”

“I think he’ll be pleasantly surprised.” Steve answer encouragingly, putting a hand on Sam’s back. “Go on.”

Sam flashed him a grateful smile before heading up the stairs to Bucky’s bedroom. The door was only half closed, which made it easy for him to quietly enter. The room was fairly dark, though the glow of the clock on Bucky’s dresser made it easier to see. He carefully sat at the foot of Bucky’s bed, not wanting to startle him.

He reached out until he felt the lump of a foot underneath the comforter and called gently. “James?”

For a moment, he’d thought perhaps he had been too soft when he heard a shuffling and then movement underneath his hand.

“Steve?” Bucky’s voice was rough with sleep and he sounded adorably confused.

“Nah, the handsome one.” Sam replied.

In an instance, light flooded the room as Bucky turned on the lamp nearby. Sam squinted, startled by the sudden brightness and could see Bucky doing the same. His boyfriend’s hair was a mess, sticking up at odd angles and twisting around his head. He still looked half-asleep, blinking at Sam like he wasn’t quite sure of what he was seeing.

“Sammy?” Bucky finally asked, the question lilting upwards at the end.

“Hi Bucky.” Sam ducked his head, suddenly feeling a little shy. He watched at Bucky’s eyes flickered to the shirt Sam was wearing as realization dawned.

“Sammy.” His voice was almost achingly soft.

Sam couldn’t resist anymore and crawled up the bed to Bucky, smiling as his boyfriend immediately wrapped his arm around him. Barely awake, but looking at Sam like he was the most wondrous thing he’d ever laid eyes on. Sam smiled brightly before leaning in and kissing Bucky, heart fluttering at the other man eagerly kissed back.

“I missed you.” Sam said when they pulled away, looking up at Bucky from under his lashes.

“How was your date?” Bucky asked, the slightest protective streak coming out.

Sam reached up and cradled Bucky’s cheek, touched by his concern. “Perfect, well,” Sam shook his head. “The movie wasn’t good but the company was great.”

“Oh good, about Steve. Not the movie.” Bucky’s brows knitted together before he yawned loudly right in Sam’s face. “Oh, God, sorry.”

Sam’s shoulders shook with the effort of stopping himself from laughing. “No, you're exhausted, I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Bucky tugged him closer. “Glad you’re here.”

Sam smiled and tucked his head under Bucky’s chin. He sighed as Bucky laid back down, pulling Sam on top of him. The light was still on, and Sam was the closest, but he just wanted to lay there for a moment. Bucky’s familiar lavender soap and lemon-scented clorox wipe smell easily relaxing him.

“Where’s Steve?” Bucky murmured quietly, seemingly in no hurry to move either.

Sam didn’t have the answer as there was a knock on the door and then Steve poked his head in, probably seeing that the light was still on.

“Just saying good night.” He said sheepishly, probably feeling like he was intruding. “Closing went alright, Buck?”

Bucky let out a mock over-dramatic sigh. “Yes, Steve. I managed to survive the night.”

“I’m very proud of you.” Steve’s voice was so earnest that both Sam and Bucky had to laugh. “Seriously, I appreciate it. We had a good time.”

“Glad you're both back safe.” Bucky’s voice was warm, his eyes looking from Steve then down to Sam nestled against his chest.

“G’night then, Bucky. Love you Sam.” Steve reached to close the door when Bucky stopped him.

“Wait, wait.” Bucky raised his voice just a little. He bit his lip, hesitating only for a moment before he jerked his head up. “C’mon, the bed’s big enough.”

Steve’s eyes widened so much that Sam had to close his eyes to keep form laughing. The blonde just stood in the doorway for a moment, too surprised to even respond. This was not a boundary they had crossed over at their home. Sure, they’d done it at Sam’s because that was the only bed available, but here?

Sam finally looked and saw that Steve was obviously calculating the pros and cons in his head. But he also knew the longer Steve hesitated, the more anxious Bucky was going to get.

“Steve, its a cold night.” Sam spoke up, trying to ease the tension. “I’ll definitely need the extra body warmth.”

Both Bucky and Steve snorted at that. Steve’s body was about as useful as a heater as a thin towel in Alaska. Despite that, the sentiment seemed enough for Steve to take up the offer. Bucky scooted over so that Sam would be in the middle and Steve climbed into bed on Sam’s right. He turned off the lights before snuggling up against Sam’s back, sighing contentedly.

“S’just like when we were kids, huh, Buck?” Steve whispered, his breath ghosting pleasantly against Sam’s back.

“Sam’s a much better cuddler than Mister Honeysuckle.” Bucky asserted.

“Mister Honeysuckle?” Sam asked, confused.

“Big stuffed giraffe we won at a carnival.” Steve explained as a he wrapped an arm around Sam.

Sam hummed in understanding before letting out a yawn of his own. Quiet fell as all three of them began to answer the tempting call of sleep. Sam couldn’t help but be so grateful to be able to have them both like this.

“I won that giraffe, Rogers.”

Was the last thing whispered into the night.

[1kook]

crisis averted

❀: Chanyeol x (F) Reader

summary → The doorbell rings not even ten minutes later, and you buzz him up without even checking the little screen to see if it’s actually Chanyeol. But who else would show up at your door past midnight? → friends to lovers, sexual content (smut) → 5.2k 

this isn't proofread lmao mobile users: there is a read more inserted but it doesn't work unless the post is reblogged so I'm sorry if you have to scroll through all this! :(

for reference x! 

Chanyeol was in the middle of what was probably his third mid-life crisis when you’d first met him, his hair a pastel array of colors that seemed to reflect the tumultuous state of his emotions. You’d been alarmed at his appearance, never before seeing someone as mismatched as he’d been, his very obviously buff figure hidden beneath a multitude of loose clothing, his boyish facial features thrown for a loop whenever he spoke in that deep tone of his. He was constantly changing, balancing between the happiest person in the universe, and the biggest crybaby ever. But his emotional state wasn’t due to some traumatic event that had occurred to him, like the death of a loved one, or a break-up more severe than any drama writer could ever imagine, but it was simply because he wasn’t sure whether or not he turned the stove off that morning. 

In short, Chanyeol was an enigma, a perplexing being whose preferred choice of action always contained the most complex solution, even when the simplest answer was available.  

Perhaps thats why it’d been so easy to befriend him during college, with the way he fluttered from group to group, seemingly finding something to relate to within everyone he ever met. Chanyeol had become the planner of your group outings, mostly the instigator of all those weird three a.m. adventures, and though your friend circle seemed large, he’d always found a time to sneak in a little conversation between the two of you. Of course, he’d done that for everyone and his never-ending kindness was what had made him such a lovable character among you all, one of those guys that you remembered way after college as the life of the party, and, in most cases, the one that ended up a deadbeat crackhead. 

Yet Chanyeol was different in the sense that he had high hopes for his future, dreams that eclipsed any possibility of him becoming a failure. He was dead set on his career as an architect, putting aside his pride to even attend tutoring for that mathematics class he was falling behind in. His determination to succeed in life was so strong, that it was no surprise he did end up in the career he wanted, and had even advanced through different promotions all within your first year out of college.

The way he’d slithered his way into your life after graduation was also confusing.

Though you’d still kept in touch with the majority of your college friends, he seemed to be the one that stuck out the most, his presence nearly inevitable in your daily life. It wasn’t anything too major, not like his clothes were in your house, but just tiny things, like how he’d somehow managed to sneak his copy of Tokyo Drift into your movie collection, or the annoying habit of his to line up all your shoes every time he visited. It was those little gestures that seemed to stand out the most in your apartment, and eventually, you weren’t the only one that noticed. 

“Did Chanyeol come over?” Jongdae called from the kitchen, where he was supposed to be grabbing the two of you a bottle of water. You hummed in response, your attention primarily focused on the paperwork before you. Your current occupation was as an elementary school teacher, and though you loved working with kids, their handwriting was absolutely atrocious, and the only other person willing to strain their eyes for two hours straight happened to be your best friend. 

“Yeah, he dropped by yesterday,” you responded, handing a sheet over to Jongdae as he dutifully returned to his spot on the floor by the coffee table. In exchange, he handed you the water bottle, and you barely cracked the lid open when he dove into his interrogation. 

“He loves bothering you, doesn’t he?” He teased, and you could only offer a half-hearted shrug, gulping down the water instead. Jongdae nudged your side, and you slowly lowered the bottle, raising your brows at him as if he was saying something useless. He was, but he’d smack you over the head with a throw pillow if you said as much. 

“Don’t you think he comes over a little too much for someone who’s just a friend?” He sighed, and you blinked. 

The thought had occurred to you multiple times. Chanyeol’s visits were often, probably at least once a week, more frequent than Jongdae’s, and he was supposed to be your best friend. You didn’t mind them though, as his presence seemed to calm you in a way no one else’s did. But you could see why Jongdae had his suspicions, and from an outsiders perspective, it did seem like Chanyeol was a nuisance to you, and the fact most of the stories you shared about him included Chanyeol being a bit overbearing didn’t seem to help. 

But you knew Chanyeol in a way Jongdae didn't, despite you all being college pals, and you knew he wouldn’t understand that Chanyeol wasn’t bothering you for the mere fact he wanted someone to annoy, but because he cared about you, and valued your friendship enough to check up on you. There was also the fat he brightened your day when he’d pop in, even if his stay was only for a few minutes with the sole intention of grabbing a water in the middle of his jog. He was naturally friendly and nurturing, and the sight of him sprawled across your sofa as you reheated leftovers, waiting to hear about your week, was so ingrained in your mind already. 

You weren’t exactly sure when Chanyeol had morphed from ‘that one guy’ in your group to someone you found yourself relying on, even when nothing was wrong. Since your first introduction, he’d had two other midlife crises, the first one making him impulsively dye his hair a flaming red color, but he was your friend so you were mandated to be there for him whenever another minor inconveniences occurred in his admittedly fast-paced life.

Chanyeol’s hair had been that fiery color when your dirtbag boyfriend had dumped you two weeks before graduation. You remember the way you’d bumped into him as you climbed off the bus in front of your campus, and how he’d dropped his grocery bag in an attempt to comfort you. You’d barely known each other then, and the sickening crack his carton of eggs had made as he pulled you into a soft side hug had sent you into a spiraling panic. 

But Chanyeol hadn’t minded, he even walked you across the campus until you reached your dorm building. It was the first instance you’d found yourself leaning for him, any sort of reservations you’d had before flying out the window as he saw you to your dorm, and even went as far as waiting for you to wash your face and crawl into bed, before shutting the lights off and promptly leaving. 

“He’s my close friend,” you drawl when you realize you’d left Jongdae hanging for too long. He eyes you as if he wants to ask more, but you beat him to it. “You’re the one who said I should be nicer to him,” you point out, and revel in the defeated sigh he gives in response. 

Jongdae stays a while longer, but once the sun begins setting, he leaves. He’s been working weird shifts at work lately, so you don’t beg him to help you any longer, and even wrap up some of the homemade gelatin you’d made yesterday for him to take on his way out. 

You’re left alone in your thoughts for the rest of the night, until Chanyeol texts you around midnight, and you contemplate ignoring it as you open your retainer case, face freshly washed and hair pulled away from your face. You’re beyond tired, and tomorrow’s Saturday, so you can sleep in for as long as you want; you want nothing more than to collapse right now.

But your curiosity gets the best of you and you find yourself setting aside your retainers in favor of reaching for your phone, swiping a finger across the screen until your messages open up and your faced with a challenge. 

chanyeol [12:13 pm] we have a problem.

You can feel your last peaceful exhale leave you like the ocean’s pulling tide in the early morning hours, Chanyeol’s text burning itself into the back of your eyelids as you let them flutter shut. You can’t stop the palm you raise to your face, your pointer finger massaging your temples as you begin considering how to go about this. You could easily ignore the message and tell him in the morning that you’d already been asleep then. He was familiar with your sleeping habits enough to believe such a lie. But there’s also the possibility that Chanyeol really is in trouble this time, and not going through another minor inconvenience that even a toddler could easily get around. 

___ [12:15 pm] what is your problem?

He responds right away. 

chanyeol [12:15 pm] our* problem 

chanyeol [12:16 pm] i’m coming over.

You nearly slam your head against your vanity. Leave it to Chanyeol to deprive you of your sleep. After the week you’ve had, you have to talk yourself out of strangling him the second he shows up. It’d only taken him five minutes to ruin your night so it’s only fair. 

Pushing your irritation aside, you go about your apartment, picking up the stray socks here and there, and even doing a light sweep of the place. You weren’t kidding about your week, so it was natural your place had taken a little extra hit from your growing stress in the form of scattered cookie crumbs and misplaced shoes. 

The doorbell rings not even ten minutes later, and you buzz him up without even checking the little screen to see if it’s actually Chanyeol. But who else would show up at your door past midnight? As you walk past the front door, broom in hand, you unlock the door before continuing down the hall to return the broom to its rightful place in the spare closet. 

Chanyeol bursts in without knocking, a habit of his that had terrified the living daylights out of you when he'd first began visiting you. You don’t think much of it now, and don’t even flinch at his clambering as he tugs off his shoes, trailing your way back to the front door to greet him. 

“Hey,” you say and all is calm for exactly a quarter of a second, before Chanyeol’s entire face goes up in flames. You’re immediately startled, and don't waste time ushering him inside as he struggles out a greeting that is only half comprehensible, his flustered state worrying you the longer he stutters about. “Jesus, Yeol, what happened to you?”

Chanyeol’s looking every bit the abducted civilian as he sits awkwardly perched on your couch, his brown eyes hidden behind the thin glass layer of his spectacles. Suddenly, you notice the soft hues of his hair, peeking out beneath the brim of his hat. Without much warning, you snatch the accessory off his head, greeted by the sight of his wavy hair colored a pastel shade, similar to the it’d been when you first met. 

“I-I can explain!” he exclaims, snatching the hat back out of your grasp to stuff over his hair. He’s visibly a mess, and you can already tell he’s going through another one of his crises just by the way his gaze flickers between you and the potted plant behind you. 

“Oh, dude,” you breathe, trying to chance another peek at his hair, which he dutifully avoids by clamping a palm over the top of his hat, holding it down firmly. “You’re going through some shit, aren’t you?” You plop down beside him, criss-crossing your legs as you turn to face his tense figure. 

“You have no idea,” he whines, before slumping into the couch, long arms spreading over the entirety of the back. His hair makes him appear way tanner than he normally is, the soft pinks and purples curling around his ears where the hat doesn’t exactly cover. 

You know you should feel sympathetic, but you can’t help the snort that escapes your lips as you stare at Chanyeol. He’d been so put together last week as he’d rambled on and on about some new project at work, and how awesome Sehun’s birthday party had been. He’d just finished moving into a new apartment too, one that allowed him to finally reclaim his dog from his family home and live with him. From an outsider’s perspective, Chanyeol couldn’t possibly have anything to complain about, especially with the life he lead now. 

Carefully, you tug the black hat off his head, and when he doesn’t protest, you begin running your fingers through his newly dyed hair. You’re surprised he hasn’t begun balding, especially with the rate he changes up his hair; it’s unusually silky for someone who pours way too many chemicals into it. 

“Wanna talk about it?” You hum, and his eyes flutter shut beneath your touch. He sighs, and you can already tell he’s going to dive into the venting of a lifetime right now. Hopefully, you can derail his stress enough that he doesn’t impulsively dye his hair another color tomorrow. By the way he’s slowly dissolving into a puddle beneath your fingers, it’s possible.

“They wanna build a villa,” Chanyeol murmurs, head tilting just the slightest in your direction. “A fucking villa,” he repeats, and an unamused huff leaves his throat. “Can you believe that, ___? He contracts me for a bachelor pad, and after we’ve finally hammered out all the stupid little details he spent months crying about, his fiancée says she wants a fucking villa.” He groans, and you run your nails against his scalp, until his agitated grunt melts into a soft whine. 

You nod along, even though his eyes are shut, but you know he can feel your sympathy as you toy with his hair. “But it gets worse!” He shifts, so his head is pressed into the couch cushions and turned your way, his body slowly becoming one with the cotton beneath him. “Apparently, Toben can’t be in the complex backyard until I get him spayed, which, I could’ve sworn he was, but apparently he wasn’t!” 

“You should take him to Minseok’s clinic,” you suggest, voice quiet compared to his loud tone as he continues on complaining over you. You don’t mind, and just listen for a few more minutes as he tells you everything wrong with his life, including how he’d gone to dye his hair a dark red, only to hastily decide on the pastel mess it was now, without considering the fact his work dress code only called for moderately natural hair colors. Now he’d have to go again before Monday to dye it black or brown (’or something! I don’t know!’) again. 

You’ve long since abandoned combing through his locks, and instead chose to pick at a stray thread on one of your throw pillows, listening intently to everything he said. He rarely had moments like these, where every single thing seemed to get on nerves, but you yourself had plenty. And he was always there for you, so it was only just that you did the same for him. 

By the time Chanyeol’s irritation is reaching its end, he’s basically cursing everything, even things that don’t have any correlation to his current distress. “And also, I haven’t vacuumed the living room carpet in weeks, the bathroom soap is about to run out, and I haven’t gotten laid in three fucking months now,” he whines, eyes screwing shut as his lips push out into a pout. 

He seems settled after that, his ragged breath slowly turning into a soft sigh, until he’s completely cooled down from his blow up. “You should vacuum while Toben’s at the vet,” you say afterwards, brushing a stray hair behind your ear as you lean into the couch, one hand propped on your elbow. 

Unconsciously, your fingers stretch out to toy with his hair again, but this time, his eyes flutter open. “And there’s definitely an unopened hand wash under the sink,” you add as you recall the tangerine scented bottle you’d seen last week when you’d all gone over for game night at Chanyeol’s place. 

He sighs, leaning into your touch. He looks ridiculously soft in this state, and with his hair array of pinks and purples, the occasional baby blue peeking out, he looked almost heavenly. “You can’t have such an easy solution for everything,” he huffs, an though his comment is sarcastic, his tone is lighthearted. You give a noncommittal hum at his words, and his brown eyes slowly find yours. The glint in his eyes is different then, nothing like the jittery mess that had walked through your door. “What about getting laid?” He teases, the corner of his lip curling upwards. 

You roll your eyes. “Just go to a club, or something,” you reply offhandedly, before turning away from him to stretch your cramping legs out. Chanyeol shifts, and when you sit back again, he’s sat up now. 

“What if I don’t wanna go to a club?” He pushes, running his fingers through his hair until it’s pushed away from his forehead. 

You shrug. “Then go to a brothel.”

Chanyeol huffs out a cackle, which you ignore in favor of watching the way his lips pull tight around his smile, and his Adams apple bops as he throws his head back. When he’s done, he turns his gaze back to you, and for the first time, Jongdae’s words ring in your mind again. 

You shoo them away quickly though. “You have too many problems, Yeol,” you point out, and he chuckles again, though this time it’s more muted and less as amused. 

“Yeah,” he muses, eyes trailing over your face in a way he’s never really done before. He’s eyeing you again, which you try to ignore, but when your gazes meet, suddenly you feel taken away at the intensity of his stare. It’s as if you’re suddenly realizing your situation. Alone with a man on a Friday night, both of you gazing at each other too deeply for people who are just friends. The sudden realization startles you into looking away first, eyes landing on the papers scattered across your coffee table. 

A hand presses to your thigh, bare due to the length of your shorts. “My biggest problem,” Chanyeol murmurs, and your eyes instinctively snap back to him. He grins, his chest rising as he takes in another heavy breath. “Is you.”

“Huh?” You question, and for the first time, you feel nervous in front of Chanyeol. You feel unsure of the way he’s gazing at you, at the way his fingers press into your thigh, and the way he looks like he belongs there, nestled inside your apartment as if he’s always been there.  Perhaps he does, you think, as your eyes slowly trace down his face until you catch yourself staring at his mouth, his lips turned upwards in an arrogant smirk you rarely see on Chanyeol. 

He leans forward then, and your body betrays you, letting him press against you until he has you between his warm body and the armrest of the furniture. “You’re my biggest problem, ___,” he sighs, his mouth suddenly pressed against your neck, and you can’t help the tiny gasp that fights its way out of your throat. 

“I-I don’t understand,” you breathe, though your hands curl their way around Chanyeol’s shoulders, and can feel the twitch of his muscles as his hand trails up your side. “Chanyeol,” you gasp, when he suddenly presses a kiss beneath your ear, and your faithless body arches up into him. 

“God, ___” he says against the skin of your neck, and you jump when you feel his hand pull against the back of your thigh, slowly encouraging your legs aside until he’s cradled between your legs. “I come over here all the time, take you out to eat whenever you want, and I even buy you makeup shit that I don’t even know anything about,” he huffs, and nips at the vein in your neck. Your breath stutters and you find yourself melting under his touch, similar to the way he had been earlier when you’d brushed your fingers through his hair. 

“I’ve been trying to win you over for the longest time, love,” he murmurs, his mouth on your neck getting bolder with every word he says. He pulls away only for a moment, brown eyes meeting yours as he quietly says, “you stress me the fuck out.”

You can’t help the snort that leaves your throat, and the blindingly bright smile Chanyeol sends your way is enough to make your heart tap dance in your chest. “Yeol, you’re the worst!” You huff, rolling your head back until it’s over the curve of the armrest. He seems weirdly complacent as he watches you war with yourself, all your past theories suddenly bubbling to the surface. 

Jongdae was one hundred percent correct in his weird assumptions of Chanyeol, and though a deep part of you always knew he was way too touchy for someone who was just a friend, you hadn’t believed someone as marvelous as Chanyeol could be interested in you.

He doesn’t let you drown in your past self doubts for long before he’s resuming kissing along your neck, his lips slowly inching their way up. “Do you know how annoying it is having to watch you whine about how no one likes you every weekend,” he murmurs against your jaw, where he’s making quick work of reaching your lips. 

“Shut up,” you whine, arms twining around his back to finally pull him closer. “Just kiss me before I kick you out.”

Chanyeol complies, pressing his pink lips to yours in what is your first kiss with him. He’s a disgustingly good kisser, and for a moment you kick yourself for letting him wander off with random women at parties, women who’d gotten to see another side of him, when you could’ve been seeing him in this light, hearing the sounds he makes as he pushes against your core. “You’re so pretty, baby,” he chuckles when he pulls away, cheeks adorably flushed and lips sinfully red and plump. God, do you really hate your own obliviousness. 

Though he pecks your lips once more, he soon begins working his way in the direction he’d come from, lips pressing to your neck at all the right spots, leaving you a panting mess beneath him. The shirt you’re wearing only works in Chanyeol’s favor, and he crumples the over-sized material in one fist, pulling it away to expose one side of your neck. 

“Ch-Chanyeol,” you pant when he shifts against you, and something brushes against your core. Your hands dig into the back of his own shirt, fisting the material under your tight grasp. 

He hums, his hands finally releasing you to push up your shirt instead, long fingers tickling up your skin the further he goes. You’d tugged on a lacy bralette when he’d first announced his visit, too lazy to tug on a real bra but not bold enough to let the girls swing in his presence. Apparently, none of that mattered now as Chanyeol’s fingers traced along the soft lace of the only article keeping his hands from your hardening nipples. 

He pushes your shirt back, and leans away just the slightest to stare at the cute lace that hugged your skin. “Wow,” he breathes, flashing you another one of those dopey smiles. There’s a bow sewed into the center of the garment, a dainty little thing that sits in the valley between your breasts, and you know what he’s going to say before he says it. “You’re like a present.”

You pinch his bicep, though he probably doesn’t feel it through all that muscle because all Chanyeol does is laugh, obnoxiously loud for someone currently making out. But it’s endearing in a way you never thought sex would be, his hands stroking up your side as he gazes at you intimately. “Hurry up,” you tell him, deciding the best way to get him back on track is with more skin. So you tug the shirt over your head, and make quick work of disposing his own. 

“Relax, baby,” he says once you’ve managed to wrangle him out of his long sleeve shirt. There’s a new tattoo on his clavicle, a date that you hadn’t seen before, and when you point it out questioningly, Chanyeol’s only response is, “I love my mom.” 

“Of course you do,” you murmur, before pulling him by the neck to kiss you again. He does so without complaint, and repositions himself above you until he’s somewhat on his knees, somewhat lying down, his skin on yours scorching. 

Chanyeol’s hand is already under the soft material of your bra, fingers toying with your hardened nipple, when he decides he needs to kiss you again, surging forward to sloppily press his mouth against yours. His tongue is all too skilled as he licks into the hot inside of your mouth, and you know he has that stupidly dopey grin on from the way you occasionally feel his teeth press against your lips. “Stop it,” you quietly whine, fingers knotted in the pastel tresses of his hair. 

“I can’t help it, baby,” he replies, and you have a hard time swallowing the moan that builds in the back of your throat when he finally frees both your nipples from their clothed cage, only to capture them between his fingers. “You look so cute right now.”

Before you can point out his cheesiness, he’s manhandling you around the couch, until you’re seated in his lap. The dark shorts he’d shown up in have shifted from all the movement, until they’re clinging dangerously low on the dip of his waist, all taut muscles on display before you. He taps your arms, urging you to raise your arms, before he’s pulling the bralette over your head, and you’re left in the same state of dress as him, a feat he doesn’t let last long. 

Chanyeol helps you shimmy out of the cotton shorts you’d been wearing, and when you’re finally seated on his lap in only a lacy little underwear you’d bought at a Victoria’s Secret sale, he takes you in. His hands are as wild as he is, tracing over your shoulders and down your spine, a ticklish feeling that makes you unconsciously arch into him, pressing your breasts a little too close to his face. Chanyeol doesn’t mind, and had you not sat back down onto his lap, he’d have leaned forward to lick at your nipples. 

When he’s satisfied with the mapping out he’s done of your body, he lets his fingers trail between your legs, running one lone finger over the little dip where your folds meet. Your body twitches, and you bite down the moan building in your throat. “C’mon, ___,” he murmurs, lips pressed to your neck as his fingers continue their ministrations. “Tell me what you want.” He presses one finger against your clit, and you gasp, throwing your head back in pleasure. 

“Y-You,” you stammer, already feeling the last traces of control leaving your body as you submit to him, body completely malleable under his touch. “I want you, Yeol,” you whimper, and you reach your hands out towards him in a last ditch effort to stabilize yourself. One hand digs into the taut muscles of his shoulder, while the other tangles itself in that bright head of his, your fingers buried between strands of pink and purple. 

“Really?” Chanyeol grins, and before you can respond, he’s pushed aside your underwear and has one finger gently prodding at your slick pussy. His finger now halfway submerged inside of you, he presses a kiss against your neck, where a thin sheen of sweat has accumulated. His finger twists inside of you, and you're vaguely aware that he’s knuckles deep, as he adds in that low voice of his, “you like my fingers, baby?”

You nod, your lip bruising between your teeth. He’s only got one finger inside of you, yet you’re already a withering mess in front of him, thighs quivering with every curl of his digit, your whole body jolting when he brushes his thumb against your clit. 

Chanyeol continues on fingering you, basking in the sounds you make, and the way you cry his name when he brushes against the sweet spot inside of you. You’re sweaty and gross, but the way he glances up at you like you’re an ancient goddess makes your heart thud faster until you can hear the blood rushing in your ears. 

He slips another finger in to properly scissor you, and you nearly weep from the sensations coursing through your body. “Faster,” you beg, voice hoarse from all the incoherent babbling you’ve been doing, but Chanyeol complies, twisting his wrist hard and fast, until you’re pushing down into his fingers, desperate for more. 

“Look at you,” he says, lips sucking at your collarbone. At this point, you’re contributing equally as much as Chanyeol to your impending orgasm, rutting against his hand like an animal in heat. He doesn’t seem to mind as he kisses along your damp skin, sucking marks against places you know will be hard to cover up, but in the moment you don’t seem to mind. “You’re making such a mess,” Chanyeol sighs, and when you glance down, his hand is glistening with your own pleasure. 

Your orgasm is slowly creeping up on you, and your body feels ridiculously weak, your mind in an even more frazzled state from all that’s happened so far. You fall forward, burying your face against Chanyeol’s neck as his hands get faster and your hips get slower. 

“Yeol,” you pant, and his hips unconsciously thrust up into your core, drawing a long moan from you. The sound only seems to work him further, and you’re suddenly aware he’s been holding himself back in favor of pleasuring you first. “It’s so good,” you tell him, lips flush against his skin, you tongue languidly licking at the spot just beneath his ear. 

His makes a sound to let you know he’s listening, fingers curling inside of you as you continue whimpering against his chest. “Please, Yeol,” you whine, suddenly grinding your hips forward until his hand is trapped between the two of you and his covered cock is rubbing against your folds. “You make me feel s-so good.”

It doesn’t take much longer for you to finally release, the combined sensations of his thumb rubbing against your clit and his rock-hard outline against your lower lips enough to turn you into a whimpering mess before him, his name rolling off your tongue like honey, until your hips stutter against his, and you briefly fall into a placid state between his arms. 

When you come to again, the feeling of his raging cock beneath you is enough to make your legs tremble again, but Chanyeol doesn’t let it go any further just yet. 

“You were so good for me, baby,” he murmurs as he presses soft kisses along your shoulder, before grabbing your chin between his fingers to press his lips to yours. His mouth is still as hot as it was before, and you melt into his touch, running both hands through his light hair and tugging until he’s moaning against your lips, his hips slowly stirring beneath you. 

You pull away with a loud pop, quickly pressing your lips against the corner of his jaw, and sucking a light bruise onto the hot skin. “Well,” he sighs, voice airy, “that solves one problem.” 

You bite down hard, yet Chanyeol still laughs. 

[hayjeon]

Little Bit [02] ft. Yoongi

Drabble game #10 “I might have had a few shots.”

→ grumpy policeman!yoongi au, childhoodfriends!au aka extreme fluff, i think i’m gonna get cavities → 3k words, part 1 

To say Min Yoongi is fucking stressed out, is an extreme understatement. 

If the four cups of empty coffee cups on the corner of his messy desk and the black locks of hair that are tussled after carding his fingers through them in frustration aren’t an indication for everyone to back the fuck off, he doesn’t know what else is. The dark circles under his eyes are practically carved into his face and his eyelids feel like they weigh a thousand pounds. 

The case has been going in circles recently, the man who’d been terrorizing the entire county with the disappearing young women had been leaving bread crumbs all over the place, but Yoongi had a suspiscion that he was leaving random ones on purpose. Ones that made no sense, and would send the department on a wild goose chase until only time and resources were wasted. The guy was smart. A bit bold and brazen, but still, very smart. He was toying with them. 

And that frustrated Yoongi the most, to think that this guy was smart enough to capture and track down the movements of the police, but still had yet to do anything to you, who had literally been inches from his face. Yoongi knows that the culprit is probably keeping tabs on you, but the thing that makes him so anxious is that Yoongi has no idea when or where this guy will pounce. .

His work phone buzzes, and he picks up brashly. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey, boss, uh I’m not sure how to break this to ya, but I think you need to be here.” Hoseok yells into the phone, speaking over loud music.

“Huh? What the hell are you saying, where are you?” 

Hoseok hesitates. “Uh, the bar on 5th and Southeast. Y/N’s here…” 

Yoongi is about to chew the fuck out of Hoseok for wasting his time when he hears your name. “What? Y/n?!” 

“Yeah…the bartender called me because she texted me earlier, but she refuses to leave unless you’re here.” 

“Fuck no, I’m not going.” Yoongi mutters into the phone as he stands and puts on his jacket. “Why would I go?” 

He logs out of his computer to protect the info, and stuffs his keys into his pocket. 

“C’mon boss, she looks like she’s about to cry if you don’t come over here.” 

Yoongi scoffs, “She’s just bluffing, just argue with her a little more.” He checks himself in the mirror next to the door real quick to see what he looks like. His eyebags are pretty bad, but he stuffs a cap over his hair to tame the mane. This would do for now. 

He briskly walks out and unlocks his car, sitting in the seat and starting the engine. Hoseok is doing something away from the phone, but Yoongi can hear in the silence of his car that his friend is currently arguing with you. 

“Yoongi, hyung, I really think you need to be here.” 

Yoongi groans loudly into the receiver as he maneuvers onto the freeway, checking his rearview. “Alright, alright, but only because she’s not leaving without me!” 

“Yeah whatever hyung, just get over here. I’m leaving in 10.” Hoseok hangs up the phone and looks disgustedly at your drunk figure whining and groaning on the bar, and then glances toward his phone, rolling his eyes. 

“Fucking dumbasses, why don’t you guys just date?! I can fucking hear the sound of his car unlocking, dumbass. Oh shit no, Y/N, you are not fucking supposed to crawl on the floor—!” 

You’d seen it all. 

The beautiful ballet dancer that was involved in a case a few years back had gone into Yoongi’s office earlier today and dropped off a handmade bento box for him to eat during his breaks, and had giggled and flirted with him until she made the entire department fall in love with her. 

You’d seen the way he smiled at her, opening the door for her before she left, smiling after her and glancing down at the bento box before digging into it. And you didn’t know what to do, standing there with your tinier lunch box, only 2 tiers filled with rice, meat, and kimchi. Nothing compared to the 5-course meal she’d probably asked her chef to cook since last night. 

So when your girlfriends asked if you wanted to go drinking and clubbing with them, you hesitated. You hated clubbing, and especially these days, you were trying to be really careful to keep your promise to Yoongi and stay as far as you can away from trouble. 

But the image of Yoongi’s smile flashed through your mind and you’d agreed to them in a heartbeat and had cast a hard look at the pepper spray on your vanity before choosing not to put it in your clutch. 

Maybe it was time to get over Min Yoongi, after almost a decade of grueling after a man who only showed his beautiful smile to others. 

“Where is she?” Yoongi asks Hoseok as he walks through the doors. 

Hoseok sighs and points at your figure, surrounded by your girlfriends who are trying to convince you to get off. You’re slumped on the bar and Yoongi can see from the entrance how hammered you are. 

He groans and briskly walks toward your figure, and your friends notice and part so that he can talk to you. 

“Y/N, get up,” He mutters. Your cheek is still plastered to the bar, and your eyes closed tightly shut. 

“No! I’m not leaving until Min Yoongi gets heremmmppffff–” You grumble, and turn your face and clutch at the chair tightly. 

Yoongi rolls his eyes, “It’s me, Min Yoongi.” 

 You sit up too quickly, and everyone gasps as you wobble on the stool you’re sitting on and it immediately flings backwards along with your limp body. But Yoongi’s there, as he quickly reaches out and steadies the chair and your torso along with it, righting you up and sighing as you turn and practically launch your body on his. 

“Yoongi!” You squeal into his ear, slurring as you talk right into his ear. It tickles a bit but he loves it. “I missed you!!” 

“I saw you yesterday.” 

You back up a bit, arms still looped around him so your face is literally inches from him. Pouting with red cheeks, you grumble, “Ya! I missed you still.” 

Your friends and Hoseok are standing there awkwardly. One of them speaks up, “Um,” she says, clearing her throat, “Yoongi? We’ll leave her to you, then, see ya!” 

He just nods as they walk off, not sparing a glance at them. You look at them as they walk off, pouting, “Wait, but I want one more round!” 

Yoongi straightens you up, sighing as he pries your arm off of him for a second so he can pay the bartender. You cling to his left arm like a koala, burying your face into his shoulder and whining about something along the lines of bento boxes. He ignores you as he heavily tips the bartender and the guy gives him a bottle of water for you. 

“Girlfriend?” 

Yoongi doesn’t know what else to say, or how to explain this situation, so he just nods and thanks him, turns around and wraps an arm around your waist to steady you. 

“Let’s go, yeah?” He speaks a bit more gentler this time, now that you’re both alone from any prying eyes, and steadily maneuvers you towards the entrance. 

“Yoongi! y’know you’re m’best friendmphf right?” You blink up at him with bleary eyes and heavy eyelids. 

He helps you into his car. “Sure, Y/N.” 

“And y’know I really likephf you? Like, a looooooot.” You slur, as he gets into the drivers seat and starts the engine. You slump over the dashboard and bury your face into his shoulder. 

“A looooooot, Yoongi.” 

He turns into the street. “Mhmm.” 

You don’t say anything after that and Yoongi can’t help but smile a bit at how cute you look, slumped over into his shoulder and with your cheeks a pink mess. 

Your hand rests close to his lap so he lets go of the wheel for a bit and wraps his fingers around yours, silently praying that you won’t wake up. It doesn’t take too long for him to maneuver the car quickly into his driveway, parking quickly and reluctantly letting go of your hand so he can get out. 

He opens your door and sees you shiver slightly at the cold night air. 

“Y/N,” he says gently, and you don’t stir. “Y/N,” he tries, a bit louder this time, but barely above a whisper. You’re still knocked out, oblivious to his whispers. 

“Huh, I tried. I was practically yelling.” He tsks and unbuckles your belt and gathers you in his arms and kicks the door shut behind him. “I’m only carrying you because I have to, ok?” 

You don’t reply and just bury your face deeper into his neck, and Yoongi shivers when he feels the unmistakable soft brush of your lips against it, and almost drops you while trying to press the elevator button. 

You finally wake up somewhat when he’s pressing the door lock code and flinging open his door, cringing in his arms and muttering some incomprehensible words into his shoulder. He props you up on the corner of his bed, dropping your handbag on the couch. He pads over to the kitchen quickly to start the cup of hot honey tea, and quickly pours it into a cup before coming back to his bedroom. He almost drops the cup. 

You’re practically naked, only in a bra and the pencil skirt you were wearing, heels and coat and shirt all discarded haphazardly on the floor. Your eyes are closed and brows furrowed as you fumble with the zipper on the back of your skirt, whining and complaining under your breath as you try to get it off. Yoongi basically drops the cup on his nightstand with a loud clatter and clambers over to you. 

“Y/N, what the fuc—” He grabs your hands from unzipping the skirt any further, averting his eyes when he sees glimpses of your lace underwear peeking out from the slit you just unzipped. His crotch tightens and he closes his eyes as he breaths out heavily through his nose. He grabs your coat off the ground and pushes it towards you, covering your torso with it and wrapping your arms around it.

“Y/N, No.” He feels like he’s reprimanding Holly because immediately at the negative word you pout up at him, still red-cheeked and pouting as you whine, “But Yoongi, t’s hot.” 

He shakes his head as he makes sure you won’t strip any further before digging furiously through his drawers for a shirt and sweatpants that would remotely fit your smaller figure. The last thing he wanted was for you to be sleeping in his bed with just those lace undies on, for the love of God. “Shut up, it’s like 40 degrees outside right now. You’re just drunk.” 

You giggle at him as he glares at you, “Hell yeah I’m drunk.” He returns with a tshirt and sweats with tight drawstrings. 

“You can sleep in my bed, so here, put these on.” He turns to give you a bit of privacy. 

Also because he needs to stop himself before he pounces. 

You nod cutely, and begin putting the shirt on when you stop, glancing down at your chest. “Wait, I still ‘ave m’ bra on. Yoongi come back, heeeeeelp.” You pout again, whining as you struggle to wrap your unflexible arms far behind you enough to take off the thing. Yoongi stops in the doorway, nostrils flaring as he struggles with either knocking you out or knocking you up. Either one, he deems, is a bad idea. 

He returns, eyes cast upward. “Turn around,” he mutters gruffly, and only looks down when he’s heard you move. You’re slumped over in his bed, and he gathers your hair up so he can move it over your shoulder and expose the clasp. You’re sort of shivering, and he can’t tell whether it’s from the cold or from the anticipation, but it intensifies once he puts his fingers on your skin. 

Your skin is absolutely so soft, and he has to hold himself back from running his palms over it, something completely unnecessary than what he was about to do right now. Maybe he should’ve turned on the light so it wasn’t so dark and erotic, what he was doing, but it’s too late because the clasp of your bra unhinges with a light snap, and then you’re pulling it off quickly. 

Yoongi gets up from the bed like he’s been burned and briskly walks out of the room to let you finish what you’ve started. He shuts the door behind him, running a hand over his face to get himself back together. What the fuck? Over a bra? C’mon Min Yoongi, you’ve seen better. 

It’s true, he’s seen better. 

Back in high school, just to spite you and see what you would do, he’d flirt with the most sluttiest girls on campus. He knows. He was such a dick. But that was why he doesn’t deserve you. He was young, and stupid, and so undeserving of the unconditional love you gave him constantly. Why was it now, almost a decade down the line, that he realized his feelings for you? 

And he couldn’t even do anything about it because personal relationships with anyone involved in your cases was strictly prohibited. 

“You finished?” He says loudly, when the sounds of your whining stop from behind the door. A small mhm sounds and he sighs before opening the door again to see you slumped on his bed with the shirt properly on and the sweatpants loosely hanging around your hipbones. At least you’d gotten then up there, he gives you some credit. 

Sighing, he ties them for you, cursing under his breath when he accidently grazes your skin, which makes you shift and your underwear is revealed to him again. He somehow gets it done, his fingers feeling like sausages, and gathers you in his arms and hoists you higher up on the bed so you’re comfortably seated against his pillows. 

“Here, Y/N, drink some of this.” He props you up and lets you take deep gulps of the tea before you let out a cute little burp and settle back down. When he turns to leave, you blink up at him drunkenly, grabbing his sleeve. 

“Yoongi, ’m cold.” 

He looks down at your pathetic figure, buried in his thick covers. He chuckles a bit. “Weren’t you saying that it was too hot when you put that show on earlier?” 

You frown at him. “well, it’s cold now.” 

“What do you want me to do about it? I’ve already turned the heater on.” 

“Cm’ere.” You tug at his sleeve again, and Yoongi lets you tug him into the bed, sighing as he drops right next to you. The kitchen light is on, and he should probably go turn it off before he goes to bed, most likely in the living room couch, because this was definitely a bit personal. 

But he’s a bit tired. Right? 

Right. 

You blink up at him and wiggle closer so that you can snuggle into his chest underneath the covers, your legs tangling in between his and your cold hands coming onto his waist underneath his shirt. He shivers. But not from the cold. 

Your lips are near his collarbone and he can smell the liquor on you, but the sweeter fragrance of the perfume he once bought you years ago is apparent in your hair. His arm comes out to cradle your neck and another around your shoulder. 

Not because he wanted to hold you. You were cold. Body heat was a thing. 

You mumble something but he can’t hear it since it’s muffled. “Hm?” 

You say it again and Yoongi uncurls himself from you a bit to hear it. “–te you.” 

“What?” He says, pulling you back further so he’s looking down straight into your face. 

You whine when the cold air hits you as he shifts, but he stays as he waits for you to answer. “Wanna date you, not that ballet girl,” you drawl, cringing cutely at the last few words. 

He chuckles a bit, “Huh? What are you even saying, what girl?” 

You blink at him through heavy lashes, squinting at him. “I saw! Saw everythin’, saw you smilin’ at ‘er, hated it.” 

He chuckles a bit. “Oh, you mean, Hyemi?” 

You frown, voice raising a bit. “Yeah, she has a name now? Well Hyemi–” you hiccup, “–can suck my!” Yoongi squishes your cheeks together before you can respond. 

“Alright, alright. Sorry, I won’t smile at her anymore.” You nod at his response, seemingly content. You had no idea, no idea that Hyemi was actually only there because she had a boyfriend who works in HR and could probably figure out the paperwork when Yoongi finally grew the balls to ask you out. You had absolutely no idea. “And what was that about dating me?” 

You scrunch your face, looking up as if deep in thought. “Uhhhhhh,” you whine, trying to rack your memory. “Oh!” 

“Wanna date you, Min Yoongi,” you blubber, cold fingers curling against his waist.

“I think I’’m the one who’s supposed to say that.” 

You frown when he lets go of your face and immediately snuggle closer to bury your face into his chest. “Yeah?” 

He smiles into your hair, a hand coming to cup against your neck and play with your hair. “Yeah.” 

“Okay. Promise?” 

He chuckles a bit. 

The kitchen light can wait. 

“Promise.” 

to be continued ;) 

[geniusorinsanity]

streets a little kinder (when you’re home)

for @nurseyweek day 7: memories

Even as Derek hits the call button, he hears Dex’s voice in his head, telling him how privileged he is to be able to do this.

And full disclosure: like, he gets it. For all the baggage that’s written on his skin, that he carries on his body, he knows what his family’s money gives him. He’s never once not been grateful for it, especially not on days like this, when the quiet of Samwell gets under his nails, when he thinks he might literally kill for a burrito that wasn’t made by a white kid in the dining hall, when somehow even the fresh air coming off the lake feels so stifling he feels like he might choke on it.

He calls his mom, and when she picks up on the second ring, concern in her voice (because he hates phone calls, prefers either texting or FaceTime--would rather have simple typed letters or full contact, not voices without faces, where he has to read too much into tone without expression), he blurts out, “Can I come home for the weekend?”

There’s a moment of silence on the other end of the line, and Derek holds his breath. “Sweetheart,” his mother says. And then, “Are you okay?”

Derek hears what she isn’t asking. “I’m okay,” he says. “I just.” He swallows. “I don’t have a game this weekend, and I only have one class on Fridays and I can get out of that, and I just need--”

I miss you, he doesn’t say, but he knows she can hear it in his voice. She always does.

Sure enough, she says, “Oh, hayiti,” softly, in the same voice she’s used since he was small. “Of course, love. Of course you can.”

Less than five minutes later, he has an email from his mama, confirmation of a train ticket leaving South Station on Thursday night.

Derek closes his eyes, and feels something loosen in his chest.

…

The express Acela from South Station to Penn takes three and a half hours. Derek leans back in his seat and leans his forehead against the cool glass of the window, watching the scenery flash by, fast enough that it makes him dizzy, a little. He closes his eyes and dozes for part of the time, writes for a little more of it--small, half-formed lines of poetry that don’t really go anywhere, that tumble between languages even as they scrawl across the page of his notebook.

Around eight, just as he can start to see the lights of Manhattan in the distance, his phone buzzes. He shakes himself out of his reverie a little, and opens the message.

Mamaiiiiiiiii: will meet u in pennsy! :)

Mamaiiiiiiiii: text when ur train gets in <3

Derek laughs despite himself. Mama has a PhD from NYU. He’s read her dissertation; it’s a work of art. And yet, given an iPhone, she texts like a twelve-year-old.

Me: will do. Love you mama

Mamaiiiiiiiii: <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 !!!

He smiles, slipping his phone back into his pocket, and leans head back against the window again.

The skyline draws closer, bright and glittering. It’s a clear night, and this far out, it looks like a photograph.

Hello, beautiful, he thinks, and smiles.

To his surprise, the train gets in on time, and he shoulders his backpack--he packed light; it’s just a weekend, and he’s got clothes at home--and heads off the platform. He slides through the crowds with an ease born of long years of practice, moving half on autopilot, headphones in and music on.

The Pennsy is about as full as it usually is on a given weeknight, that weird mix of commuters, travelers, and late-night office workers. He takes advantage of his height, scanning the food court for--there.

It only takes a glance for him to realize that she must have come from the gallery tonight, not her studio. She’s head to toe in black, heels-tights-dress-coat, stopped by the pop of violet of the scarf around her neck and the turquoise of her earrings. Her curls are swept into a loose knot at the back of her head, her eyes fixed on her phone, lips pursed in the way she does when she’s composing an email to someone she doesn’t want to be dealing with.

Derek grins, adjusts the strap of his backpack, and creeps closer.

“Don’t even think it, quapito,” she says, not looking up from her phone, when he’s about a foot away.

He falters, caught. “How did you--”

She slips her phone into her handbag. “Tienes dos metros de altura, mijito,” she says, but she’s smiling. “Come here, baby.”

He has to bend down to hug her--and fair, she’s right, he is too tall to sneak, though he’s not quite two meters tall, Jesus--and he takes a deep breath, inhaling the familiar scent of her jasmine perfume. “Hi,” he mumbles.

“Hi, honey.” Mama squeezes him tight, firm, deceptively strong. She pulls back after a moment, studying him with dark, calculating eyes. “You look tired. Are you sleeping?” He shrugs, and she flicks his ear. “Mijo.”

“Mama,” he whines. “I’m in college. I’m not supposed to sleep.”

She snorts. “You don’t get that line of bullshit from your mother,” she says. “Oh, I almost forgot. Here.” She reaches behind her to the table she’s leaning against, and hands him a warm bag. He raises his eyes and peers into it, and is immediately hit with the hot, sweet smells of coffee, chocolate and salt.

“Fuuuuuuck, yes, Mama,” he says, reaching in. “Sea salt espresso cookie?”

“Like I’d forget your favorite,” she says fondly, reaching up to pat his cheek with a manicured hand. “Come. Eat and walk, Ammi’s making dinner. Do you want to get a cab, or--oh, Derek, honestly.”

Shameless, he swallows around the mouthful of cookie in his mouth--Mario by Mary gets him, okay, they get him in his soul--and shrugs. “We can take the train if you don’t mind swiping me, my card’s super expired.”

Mama hums. She reaches into her bag and pulls out her wallet, flipping through the card pockets and pulling out a Metro card. “Here,” she says. “Should have about forty on it, I got it when I left mine in my other purse last week. That should last you the weekend.”

He slips it into his back pocket and leans down to kiss her cheek, careful of the cookie crumbs. “Gracias, Mama.”

She takes half of his remaining cookie, eyes sparkling, and says, “Alright, let’s go.”

…

They take the 1 uptown because the C looks like a crowded mess, and have a brief staring contest over which of them should sit down in the open seat on the train. Derek wins because Mama’s wearing three-inch heels, and then has to deal with her gloating from 59th to 66th when he stumbles exactly once when the train hits a bump.

“This is homophobic,” he tells her.

“Try me, my baby,” she says dryly, blowing him a kiss. A teenager a few seats away who has Upper West Side baby queer written all over him giggles, and Derek winks at him. The kid blushes. Mama rolls her eyes at Derek, and he sticks his tongue out at her. She beckons him down for a kiss, and flicks his ear again. Business as usual.

They get off at 86th and walk from there, Mama’s arm looped through his. He keeps his steps even to match hers, but what she lacks in height she makes up for in working in Midtown, so their paces end up pretty similar.

Compared to the rush of downtown outside of Penn, their neighborhood feels almost like the suburbs, quiet and relaxed. They pass a few neighbors Derek’s known since he was little and stop for passing greetings. Mrs. Gomez’s aging pitt mix, Lupe, remembers him, and slobbers happily all over his face. Derek finds himself on his ass on the sidewalk with sixty pounds of dog in his lap while Mama snickers above him, and hears the click of her phone camera. He’s sure this will be on her Facebook later.

Finally, with a last scratch to Lupe’s ears, they say their goodbyes and walk the last half-block to the brownstone. Mama fishes the key out of her purse and unlocks the door while Derek bounces slightly on his heels, suddenly full of a slightly nervous energy.

He hasn’t been home in weeks--in months, not since the summer. What if everything’s different; Ammi’s been saying for years that she’s going to redo the kitchen, what if all his favorite things are gone, what if they painted, what if they turned his room into a yoga studio or something like Mama used to tease him about, what if--

“Mijito?”

Mama’s hands are firm on his arm, and he realizes with a jolt that his breathing is coming faster. He forces himself to take a long, slow inhale, and meets her sharp, worried eyes. She takes one hand off his arm and puts it against his cheek instead, gentle. “¿Estás bien, baby?”

Derek swallows. “Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “Si, Mama, estoy bien.”

She studies his face for a long moment, and then smiles softly, inclining her head toward the door. “Come see your mother, love. She’s missed you.”

Her cool fingertips pat his cheekbone, once, and then she gives him a firm push into the house.

And it’s home.

It smells the same, looks the same, feels the same. The walls of the entryway are still the same soft sage that Mama’s been threatening to repaint since Derek was twelve; the pair of Vans he left by the door in July are still sitting on the shoe rack; Ammi’s familiar pocketbook is carelessly tossed onto the entry table.

“Hang up your jacket,” Mama calls to him, but Derek’s moving on autopilot, towards the sound of singing in the kitchen.

Ammi’s sweet, easy alto is lifted along with an LP of jazz standards, drifting in from the old record player in the living room. Her back is to him as she stands at the stove, moving something in a pan. Derek inhales deeply, smells saffron and garlic and ginger, and grins.

His mother turns absently to open the spice cabinet, and when she closes it again, she catches sight of him leaning against the wall and yelps, nearly dropping the bottle of what he thinks might be paprika before turning the heat down on the stove. “Derek,” she exclaims, face lighting up. “Marhabaan bik fi albayt, baby, hi!”

She pulls him into a close hug, and he grins, letting her fold him into her arms. He’s been bigger than her since he was fourteen, but her hugs never fail to feel like safety to him. In her arms, the world isn’t terrifying; he doesn’t have to be afraid of anything, not even his own head.

It feels like a long time before she pulls away, and her eyes are bright and glistening at the corners. Derek clears his throat and brushes at her eyelashes carefully, more for his own benefit than for hers, really. “’ant aldhdhahab alatakhat alttarkib alkhass bik,” he says, a little hoarsely.

She clicks her tongue dismissively. “Nahyk ean ’ann,” she says. She switches abruptly to English. “How was your trip?”

“It was good. Fine.” He glances over his shoulder at Mama, who’s come in behind him, rolling her eyes when she sees he’s still wearing his jacket. “Thanks for sending the ticket so fast.”

“Of course, hayiti.” She tiptoes up to kiss his cheek--she’s five-three without heels, and unlike Mama, who doesn’t mind keeping hers on for the extra height for a little while, kicks hers off the millisecond she can--and then turns the pan on the stove back on. “You’re always welcome to come, baby. This is your home, too.”

“I know, I just…” He shrugs, and goes for false lightness, draping himself into one of the stools at the breakfast bar and drawling, “that anxiety, doooe.”

Ammi glances over her shoulder at him, frowning slightly. “Are you taking your medicine?”

He rolls his eyes. “Nem, Ammi.”

Mama takes his hat off his head, ruffles his hair a little firmly, and smushes his beanie back on. “Don’t use that voice,” she says. “She’s allowed to worry.” She leans over and kisses Ammi’s cheek. “Did you tell him about his surprise, cariña?”

Derek perks up, because he’s got a depressive, insecure streak a mile wide, but he’s still a youngest kid. “Surprise?”

Ammi chuckles. “In your room, habibi,” she says.

Derek shoulders his backpack, and barely catches her yell of “dinner in ten minutes!” before he’s halfway up the stairs.

The door to his room is closed, and he opens it without thinking, figuring that Filipa, the housekeeper, probably just shut it after the last time she dusted. He flicks the light on and tosses his backpack onto the bed, just as something solid and human flings itself into him from his closet.

“¡Qué demonios mierda!” Derek yelps, staying on his feet because he regularly takes hits from people way bigger than whoever just jumped out at him, but then the person starts cackling in his ear in the way a burglar or axe murderer definitely Would Not, and it clicks. “I--Farah?”

“Sup, baby brother?” She climbs off his back and he turns around to face her, reeling slightly. Farah grins up at him, her hair falling loose around her face in its short, curly bob, their shared green eyes sharper and a little more mischievous in her narrower face.

“What the fuck,” he says, and then pulls her into a proper hug. Farah laughs, hugging him back. “What the fuck, what are you doing here?”

“Ammi texted and said you were coming home for the weekend, of course I came home, tonto!” She pulls his beanie down over his eyes, and he pulls her hair in retaliation.

They grapple for a few minutes--he pulls his punches, because he’s 6’2” and an NCAA athlete; she does not, because she never has, and he’s pretty sure she’s learned a few dirty tricks since they last did this. They end up on the floor, him on his stomach, her perched cross-legged on the small of his back. “She also said you were having a rough time,” she adds, conversationally, like they never stopped talking. “What’s up, papi, is everything okay?”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Everything’s fine,” he says. “I was just, like--” He squirms. “Will you get off?”

“No,” she says.

“Ammi,” he yells.

“Farah,” Ammi yells back. “Get off your brother!”

“Baby,” Farah says, but climbs off and plops down on the floor. “You’re telling me later.”

He sits up. “You totally only came home for the free laundry,” he says.

She smiles, showing very white teeth. “Tal vez,” she purrs, and gets to her feet. “C’mon, Ammi’s making saffron chicken and couscous and I’m literally gonna die if I don’t get some, I’ve been inhaling the fumes for like an hour.”

Derek snorts. “Until you were hiding in my closet.”

“Yeah, where I was inhaling the fumes of your old hockey gear, which, gross.”

He adores her.

...

Dinner tastes like all the best parts of his childhood, sweet and spicy and savory, hot in the ways that build soft and subtle and warm, not in the ways that burn at the back of his eyes and throat. Ammi gives him firsts and seconds and hovers like she’s worried he won’t want thirds, and Mama finally pushes her into her seat and says “he’s a grown boy, Amali, he can serve himself.” The conversation flows in a mix of English and French, since those are the only languages all four of them speak, and there’s always been a house rule about speaking languages that anyone isn’t fluent in at the dinner table. Farah tells them about her thesis research--she’s in her last year at NYU, getting her degree in Media, Culture, and Communication, writing her research in depictions of psychotropic medications in mass market media.

Derek’s pretty sure he could write that for her, but he’ll read her version. Hers will probably be more nuanced.

They’re halfway through clearing the dishes when someone’s phone starts buzzing. Ammi and Mami both check theirs, and Farah, blinking, looks at hers and shrugs.

Then everyone looks at Derek.

He blinks. “Oh, shit, me?” he says, confused, because pretty much the only people who ever call him are in this room. His phone is on the breakfast bar, and he picks it up, flipping it over and startling when he sees Dex’s name on the display. “Uh,” he says, and gestures to the hallway. “I’m just gonna. Uh.”

Farah smiles like a shark. “Oh, don’t let us stop you,” she says, picking up Derek’s plate.

He beats a hasty retreat to the stairs, picking up the call right before it would go to voicemail. “Dex?”

“Nursey?” Dex’s voice comes through tinny and confused. “Dude, where the fuck are you?”

“I’m at home?” Derek sits down on the stairs. He has no idea what’s going on. Dex sounds worried, which makes exactly zero sense.

“What? I went by your room, you weren’t--”

“No, like--Like, I’m home home. In the city. New York.” It feels weird having to clarify that.

There’s a beat of silence. “You’re...what? Is everything okay? Are you okay?”

Why does everyone keep asking him that? Derek rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he says. “I just--We didn’t have a game, I just, I needed to get off campus for a little bit, you know?”

A thought occurs to him, and his anxiety spikes. “Is everything okay there? Are you okay?”

“What? Yeah, man, we’re all fine, just, like--no one knew where you were.”

Derek feels a guilty twinge. He’d emailed the coaches to let them know he’d be gone over the weekend, but yeah, he hadn’t told anyone on the team. “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry, I...I didn’t think you’d miss me.”

“I didn’t say I missed you,” Dex says, but he doesn’t sound pissed. More...fond. Exasperated. “When’re you coming back?”

“Sunday,” Derek says. “Seriously, dude, I’m sorry. I’ll let you know next time.”

“Yeah, yeah. Have fun in the city, Nurse.”

He says it dryly, but with a laugh curling around the edges of the words, and Derek’s smiling despite himself as he hangs up.

Both his mothers and Farah are lingering in the doorway to the stairwell when he comes back, clearly eavesdropping. “Wow,” he says. “Subtle.”

“Who was that?” Farah asks, linking her arm through his as he squeezes past them to get to the living room.

Derek flushes. “No one,” he says.

“It sounded like a boy,” she chirps.

“It was a guy from the team,” he corrects. “So like, you know, technically.” Farah arches her eyebrows. “Like,” Derek backpedals. “Like, he’s a boy, but he’s not a boy, he’s--oh, fuck you, Farah.”

“Ammi,” Farah says, “Derek’s swearing.”

“You hear worse on the subway,” Ammi says dryly, flicking both of them on the back of the head as she motions them towards the couch. “Come. You can come help me beat Mama at scrabble.”

Farah sticks her tongue out at him. Derek considers pulling her hair again.

Instead, he plays JUKEBOX on a triple-word score and dominates the game, which he figures is just as good.

…

His moms have an early morning, like always, so they say goodnight after the game, pressing kisses to his head and Farah’s. “I’m glad you’re home, baby,” Ammi murmurs to him, holding him close enough that he can smell her shampoo through the folds of her hijab, and he closes his eyes and hugs her back.

“Me too,” he says, his throat suddenly thick. “Thanks, Ammi. I love you.”

“I love you too, habibi.” She kisses his forehead again, and then takes Mama’s hand, and the two of them head upstairs together, leaving him and Farah in the living room alone.

“So,” Farah says, after a moment. “Roof?”

“Roof,” he agrees. “Meet you in ten?”

She nods. They high-five, and head up the stairs.

In his room, he pulls a pair of Andover sweatpants a worn henley out of his dresser. The shirt’s a little tight across the shoulders now--he’s put on more muscle in his arms since starting Samwell--but he’d packed his SMH hoodie, so he tugs that on to compensate. He grabs the strawberry-patterned pencil case from his backpack and then, as an afterthought, the comforter from his bed, and meets Farah in the hallway, and they head up to the roof garden together.

It’s a cold night for October, but clear, or as clear as it gets, for Manhattan. Not that they can see stars, really, but the dark sky is inky and smooth. Farah has the blanket from her bed as well, and they both wrap themselves up and sit down in the adirondack chairs by the roof garden, stretching out the long legs they’d both inherited from their dad, along with the strength of their facial features and a tendency to bottle up their emotions and drink too much.

“Alright,” Derek says after a minute. “I’ve got weed, what do you have?”

Farah laughs, a soft, startled sound. “Liquor,” she says, producing a flask from inside her pajamas, which he’s pretty sure are actually a onesie. “Wasn’t sure if I should actually offer you any. What are you taking now?”

He makes a face at her. “Zoloft,” he says. “And it’s fine.” He elects not to tell her that he regularly throws caution to the wind and gets bitch-ass shitfaced, mostly because he’s not in the mood for a lecture. “I’m literally a giant, and there’s not enough in there split between the two of us to cause a problem.”

She shrugs. “I trust you.” She nods to his pencil case. “Packing us a vape, then?”

“Bowl, if your delicate lungs can handle it.”

“Querido,” she drawls. “I was smoking weed before your innocent ass even arrived at dear Phillips Academy.”

“It’s adorable that you think I never did drugs before I got my ass dragged out to Andover,” he says, but unzips the case. He starts picking apart buds with practiced hands, setting them into the grinder, and then packs the bowl easily.

As a courtesy, he offers her the first hit. She laughs, and extends the flask to him. They spend a few minutes exchanging substances in easy, companionable silence.

“So,” Farah says finally, soft and calm, comfortable. “Why are you really home, papi? Out of nowhere?”

Derek exhales smoke, tilting his head back. Samwell’s silence makes him crazy, but damn, the stars are fucking pretty. “Do you ever,” he says, and then pauses, trying to think of the right words. Farah’s been back in the city for for four years, so she may have forgotten. “When you were at Andover, like. Did you ever feel this--just this itch, under your skin? Like the quiet was too much, like there was too much open space? That the smells were wrong?”

“Mm.” Farah closes her eyes. She looks soft, her features visible in the city lights. It’s never dark here, Derek thinks. He’d missed that. He’d never had to learn to sleep in the dark until he was fourteen, in his dorm room at Andover. It’s still strange to him, sleeping in darkness, in silence.

“All the time,” she says finally. “You might have been too young to remember, but I used to call home. Like, I’d--I’d beg, and beg, and ask to come back. But Dad got sway in schooling, remember?” Derek makes a disgruntled noise, the one that means yeah, and she huffs. “Yeah, of course you do.”

He trades her the bowl for the flask, and takes a sip of the whiskey. “Have you talked to him lately?”

It’s false lightness in the question. Her shoulders move in a shrug. “No,” she says. “You?”

“No.”

That’ll be the last they talk of it, he’s sure, until Father’s Day rolls around and Ammi makes them call. Farah hits the bowl and then says, “So, your boy.”

Shit. “He’s not,” he says, and then, “I don’t have a boy, Farah.”

“You were blushing when you hung up the phone.”

“I’m black, I don’t blush.”

“Bullshit,” she sing-songs at him, sweetly intoxicated, and then she laughs. “You sounded like you like him.

“He’s on my team,” he whines, and she laughs again.

“Okay,” she says. “Does your heart know that?”

“Yes,” he insists.

“Does your dick know that?”

Derek chokes on whiskey. “Farah!”

She cackles. “I’m just saying,” she says.

“You’re the worst,” he grumbles.

“Me amas,” she teases, sugar sweet, reaching out to slip one hand under his beanie and scritch at his curls.

He sighs. “I do,” he says. “I really do.” He leans his head back again, looking up.

Something feels loose in his chest, being here. He’ll have to go inside soon, he knows, but for now, he’s happy just being here, listening to the sounds around him. He can hear a siren--there are always sirens--a train, farther off, a dog barking. Someone laughing, down on the street. Someone singing. Music playing.

“Hey,” Farah murmurs. Her hand, cool and slim, slips into his. “Are you okay?”

Derek takes a deep breath. “I am,” he says. He smiles, a soft, easy thing that comes to his lips gently and without force. “I really, really am.”

She squeezes her fingers around his. “Good,” she says.

They finish the bowl and the flask, and then, long after both are gone, sit together in silence, watching the starless sky, and listening to the city breathe.