#you said you were difficult to get ahold of recently

[gay-dorito-dust]

if you’re taking lockwood and co requests can i ask for “you can hold my hand if you want” with george karim?? maybe reader and george like each other but are both super nervous

“Oh for crying out loud.” You groaned into your pillow as you came to realise that you’ve -once again- found yourself awake at 3 in the morning. This very same scenario has happened so frequently, that it was beginning to get increasingly difficult for you to track when the last time you had decent amount of sleep was.

Instead of trying to get back to sleep, knowing firsthand how fruitless that endeavour was, you stumbled half asleep down the stairs towards the kitchen, where you’d make yourself some tea that you’ve read somewhere that helps with sleepless nights. Only to then afterwards head off towards the library to read a random book of your choosing in hopes of it boring you so badly you fall asleep in the armchair within the first five minutes of reading.

However as you entered the kitchen to make your tea, you took immediate note of the additional company of George, who looked just as exhausted as you probably looked if you had even bothered to look into a mirror, nursing his own drink between his hands as he stared off into the distance. “George?” At your voice, George’s brown eyes glanced towards it’s source almost immediately and just as fast as he looked over at you, his eyes found solace in a area of the thinking cloth pinned beneath his ceramic mug.

“Couldn’t sleep?” You spoke again when he didn’t as to avoid awkward silence only to find that insufficient and began to move yourself deeper into the kitchen to grasp your mug, plop a teabag inside along with your preferred amount of sugar to then flipping on the kettle, waiting with your back pressed against the counter as the water boiled. “I guess we’re in the same boat then.” You chuckled awkwardly, growing a little more uncomfortable with standing in utter silence across from your crush as time passed both you by unbearably slow.

So when the kettle finished boiling, you, feeling as though your company wasn’t warranted, were just about to leave the kitchen and head back upstairs but just as you passed him by; George was quick to grab ahold of your sleep shirt-albeit gently- preventing you making it any further out of the kitchen then had you intended. “Wait.” He said, letting go of your sleep shirt here he noticed that he had your attention, “keep me company?” He asked and a small smile drew itself onto your face as you agreed to his request by drawing out a chair a little way aways from his, only to be stoped when George patted the chair next to him.

“Why sit so far from me. I’m not cursed am I?” George joked as he pushed his falling glasses back up onto the brim of his nose, smiling almost playfully which made the corner of his eyes crinkle into crows feet. He always looked his most beautiful smiling, talking passionately about his most recent findings, or when he- well you thought he was beautiful all of the time. Yet seeing him doing small actions only added to his beauty and god was he beautiful in your eyes.

So beautiful that he made you nervous within his presence.

“Not to my knowledge you aren’t, unless your withholding something from us?” You responded playfully as you sat yourself on the chair next to him, tensing up whenever you felt his shoulder brush against your own periodically. “Even if I was you’d be the first to know.” George said almost as though he were on autopilot from the lack of sleep fogging up the more coherent parts of his mind. His words sounded genuine enough for you to believe in but what caught you off guard was the pressure you felt ontop of your hand.

Which frightened you to almost literal death as you instinctively drew your hand from George’s with a sharp gasp that had worry flashing across the speckled males face as he quickly drew his hand from yours as though touching your skin burnt him. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable I’m-“ “you can hold my hand if you want.” You found yourself saying without much filter, cutting him off abruptly as you laid your hand palm up as an invitation for George to gingerly place his hand on top of your own.

They fit together perfectly like puzzle pieces, that you both released a breath neither of you knew you were withholding until you both looked up from your clasped hands to stare into each other’s eyes instead. The breath left your lungs as you allowed yourself to get lost in his features as he got lost in yours; so much so that neither of you were aware of the fact that your drinks had gotten cold and there were a matching set of dopey smiles mirroring one another.

[homesickn]

Isn't bite also touch?

Chapter four, check chapter 5!

(Loki x Female demon!reader)

Summary of the chapter: You try to observe how the humans act and then proceed to annoy Loki even more. As always.

Loki was at a loss, now enduring the pain that is dealing with his unforgiving thoughts. Lost inside his own mind he questioned what he could do to get away from the superheros, including the demon that got ahold of him and was settled on clinging on to him for life.

He couldn't yet figure why he was so angry, he didn't know if it was the simple interaction you had with his brother that left him feeling this way. His golden brother was so charismatic he could manage to get anything from him, he always did. It would only be a matter of time for you to switch sides and notice how Loki truly was— meant to be alone.

Seeing the way you behaved with the group made him realize you were difficult in the matter of interacting with them, however, that didn't mean it would be impossible for you to adapt. If Fury gets what he wants you'll be nothing but another pawn for Earth's delight, not that Loki minded (that's what he told himself), but he also knew that it was all just a matter of time. In the back of his mind, he knew the lingering feeling of loss he felt was strongly attached to the thought of you becoming another one of them . Because he despised them, that's surely the only reason.

You wouldn't want to be with him for too long, no one did. The Avengers will make you realize that sooner or later, then you'll see how much of an outcast Loki truly is, how he doesn't fit in with any of them nor ever really did anywhere else.

He told himself he wasn't bothered, he just had to keep his distance.

And then you touched his arm bringing his attention to you, “What are you doing here?” He asked, startled. “You were still in the meeting room a few seconds ago.” He briefly looked at the hallway he recently got out of.

You just smirked at the remark and gave him a look as if he doesn't remember a key detail, leaning your body close to him. He rolled his eyes. 

“Why are you following me?”

“You just walked away, I was concerned.” You shrugged.

“Concerned? You?” His eyebrow raised at the imposition.

“Why yes, am I not allowed to be?” You kept your mischievous gaze on him.

“Doesn't seem very honest to me.” He shared the same mischief in the eyes, the one he always has most of the time.

“I wonder why,” You pretend to be curious. “You know I won't leave.” 

He stopped the staring and looked around the futuristic-themed main room. Huffing at the sight as if to underestimate the midgardian's choice in… probably everything. Or this demon is really messing with his abilities to keep his patience. His shoulders drop before he speaks up again.

“You won't leave?” He inquired, “You can leave, anytime, you know that. I bet they wouldn't keep you here, they aren't going after you.” He says softly.

“I know. I just don't want to.” You quietly made your way to sit on the puffy seat next to a window. “We could still run away.” You brought up.

“And where would we go? We'd be found in no time. And the cycle would repeat, you heard what they said.”

“I know, but I could try another spell…”

“They seem prepared to deal with your underworld magic, I don't see us getting any success from this.” He wanted you to get over this and stop trying to prove your worth, moreover he soon kept walking to a room that's supposed to be his for now.

“Is this where we're going to stay?” You arrived far too quickly in the room after him.

“You have to stop teleporting when it's unnecessary.” He jumps when hears your voice but recomposes himself quickly, putting his hands on your arm as you're really close to him. You clearly didn't mind personal space.

“I didn't, I walked,” You lift your pinky finger midair. “I promise.” And gave him an innocent smile, this time he didn't sense any lies.

He just closed his eyes and massaged his temple, turning to his room and just now realizing what you said. “No, no. You have your own room.” He crossed his arms. You could notice the muscles defining his body as he completed the movements. You should probably stop looking when that happens, you gulp looking guilty and look elsewhere.

“No one told me anything about me having my own room.” You whined, “If that were true they would warn me.”

“Then you should go,” He turned your body around and softly pressed his palms on your back as if to induce you to walk away, gesturing the way out, “and solve this issue with them.” Referring to the people that would likely be at the main room by now.

You frowned at him, turning yourself back in a quick motion. For a few seconds you thought if you should say anything as your mind went through your options.

“What?” He asked after your uncharacteristic silent response.

“Nothing… doesn't matter.” You muttered as you decided on a quick plan. “I-I'm…going to talk to them.” 

'Nothing suspicious about that…' Loki was left to think, he only shook his head one more time and decided to leave it behind.

As you left Loki all alone, he took the time to breathe out in relief, locking the door afterwards. He was aware it was useless when it comes to you, nonetheless, one could never be too cautious, he enjoyed his single privacy for while it lasted.

It didn't take too long, when the moon came along so did you, tiptoeing your way into his room, not-so-elegantly. 

“The Avengers said–” You almost stumbled as you stepped in.

“You should knock.” He exclaimed motioning to the door by your side, trying to persist in his harsh posture even after your clumsy display. You just shook your head and made a dismissive movement with your hands.

“The Avengers are convoquing us to…dine. In a friendly manner.” You finished announcing with a smile. “You and me. With them.” You gesticulated your finger back and forth to where he was, and where you were.

The god closed his golden-speckled leather covered book with a hard breath that you couldn't even hide the amusement it gave you. Your lips fought not to curve up more than it would be politely acceptable in response to his frustration. 

“You good?” You asked, blinking at him.

“I wanted to stay alone for a second and you're here despite the lack of invitation.” He accuses.

“Well, yes…about that…” You lifted your finger up. “There just happens to…not be any other room left for me, they weren't planning on adding another treasure to their box, you know.” Loki's eyebrows went up with the implication that you could possibly be a treasure, you just kept your glee very well known. He also knew you were lying.

“What does that mean?” He asked, fearing the answer you'd come up with already.

“They said I could stay around! The room's big enough for two.” You sounded very cheerful, he gave you a curious look, but said nothing. You were prying into the room all ready to present your ideas to future changes, and what you're going to add.

“My stuff is not moving anywhere, if you want to move in make sure to stay very far from whatever is mine.” He said sternly and you turned around with the same intensity as his in your eyes, it wasn't often when you looked seriously annoyed. But you rapidly changed your expression, softening your eyes once again.

“Sure, I'll try and remember that.” Loki just knew something about your reaction felt out of place to him, he tried to keep in mind that being from Hell makes you look weird nevertheless, but there was something about it that was still incredibly off-putting even for him. “They will probably hunt us down if we delay any longer. Shall we go?” 

You didn't know what to expect out of dining with superheros, honestly the experience made you feel like an outsider. You kept fumbling with the cutlery blissfully unaware of the clear expression of boredom you were wearing. However you held the consciousness of how uncomfortable you made the people around you, their stares would be descriptive as suffocating to human eyes.

But you were used to the uneasiness, you just never had to spend so long bearing it. To you, Loki's stare from the other side of the table was the one that burned the most. 

Your plate was filled by the deliciously-scented and recently cooked chicken breast, unconsciously giving you a reminder of the food Loki prepared for you, making the tip of your lips unintentionally curve up without your permission. You wondered if you'd scare them away by saying you prefer it dead , you wondered which sentences would be the limits for their fears.

“You're quite unlucky I'll say.” Clint began, starting serious and then coming closer to mention his next words. “You arrived just the night it's Steve's turn to cook.” He finished with his lips deep in a proud smile.

Thor's hand touched Clint's back as support as he laughed. “Imagine having this bad of a first impression! Oh poor you.” He said with a twinkle in his eyes. “If I had to experience Captain America's food as my first midgardian meal, I'd perish on the spot, death would be a preferable option than coming back!”

“You wouldn't want to defend the humans with this thing!” Hawkeye burst the words out with mirth as his eyes began to tear up. You looked at both of them, feeling very entertained, you always stayed in quite awe watching humans cry out of joy.

“Ok, ok, I see.” Steve took it lightly, coming out of the kitchen and giving a kind smile to the group. “You're already tainting my image in front of this… being.” You could see he was trying to be nice.

“Rogers is one of the only ones here who believes in God.” Bruce explained quietly to you, hesitant.

“Really?” You answered amusedly, looking back at the mighty and heroic American symbol.

“Yeah. He doesn't fully accept the Gods from space here either.” Pointing to both Thor and Loki. “Says there's only one God.” 

“That's because they're more aliens than gods.” Again, Steve explained, ready to put some more chicken from the frying pan to Nat's plate. “I didn't think I'd need to explain, to be honest. It's pretty obvious. Just look at them.” 

“I'm surprised Loki didn't correct him yet.” You joke around.

Loki who had his posture rigidly strict against the chair as he was giving you a death glare, now rolled his eyes at your statement. “I don't need to correct him, he's Steve Rogers, everything, from his heroism to his morals are imprecise. But midgardians think he's an example for his undying sense of justice and serum applied to his veins that make him look like an angel compared to their frail lives.”

“You're one to talk, calling out others for being morally questionable.” You expressed. Loki opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted.

“I see we're starting dinner well.” Stark bumped in, “I enter the room and I see someone putting the Captain in place.”

“Look, Tony…” Steve begins and doesn't finish, instead just turns around with the pan holding the chicken. It made him look like a babysitter or a housekeeper of this team of adults, you could see he was trying his best to be understanding and take everything as a joke. You put your elbows to the table and cross your fingers to rest your head on top, so you can observe them. "Let's just not. Not now.” 

Whilst Tony made his way to sit and prepare his part, everybody began talking about something with one another, changing the topics. Some were forcing themselves to remain casual in their speech and act as if you're not there. Thor tried to make his brother speak more but Loki just seemed lost, and, by all means, a bit tired. 

You could sense he himself seemed impressed by his own lack of energy, although he didn't want to show any sign of weakness, you could see it. Your head tilted to the side as you tried to read him with clarity, until the moment Thor tried to bring up their reason to be on Earth.

“If it happened to you, father would have made an excuse to keep you on Asgard.” Loki snarked his words in a fit.

“I have been banished before, as you remember. And you were on Asgard, you had the throne.” Thor accuses and tries to remain cool about such touchy subjects for both of them.

“The throne?” He chuckled humorlessly. “Don't even mention those times.” He looked pained to remember, “You don't know what I had to do. In my turn, he just keeps me here locked up on this planet.”

“At least he still kept your power. His punishment could be way worse.” The other god seemed sensible in his arguments.

“He didn't even want to see me to make his decision!”

“He doesn't need to–” Thor tried to speak.

“Hey–” Natasha cut your gaze, bringing your attention to her while they're both still discussing. “Come with me.”

She brought you to the kitchen that was only occupied by Steve and his venture at cooking. “Thought you needed an out.” She said, giving you a small smile. Steve tried to ignore you two and focused on his task. 

You could sense they all tried their best not to be too…offensive, with their words.

You just looked at her, you could see she was tormented by grievous memories, and yet somehow she seemed the lightest in welcoming you, incredibly genuine in trying not to be judgemental, you gave her a quizzing look.

“I was asked,” she said looking at Steve, smiling, and then back at you, “to make some smoothies. Thought you might wanna help, if you want.” She offered. “If Fury wants you here, I want to be sure not to stick to your bad side.” She said but seemed unafraid. Then, wandered off to say again. “And…I know what it's like, I just didn't want anyone to feel left out. This team, as chaotic as it is, is still pretty special to me.” She finished giving you a smile that could surpass a lot of…humane feelings unable to be described.

“Will you help?” She pointed to the berries casually, as if you're already part of her considered family.

You looked at the strawberries sitting on the cupboard, they looked unwashed and recently harvested. “Sure…” You affirmed diffidently. Moving to grab some strawberries with your hands, tainting them with their red juice, the texture being new to you. It's not as if you ever had to deal with such a mundane task.

“Perfect! Clean them and put them in this bowl right here.” She placed the bowl near your arm, so you began your small work with a certain detachment. “The ones that are too weak,— you'll notice when you give them a tiny squeeze or when they don't seem red enough— it means that they're rotted. In that case,” She finishes, “you throw them away.”

You blink at her. And then blink to look at the strawberries on your hands. You begin to do as she says whilst keeping an ear to Thor and Loki's conversation in the area just next the kitchen.

The seconds barely pass when you see a vivid green flash coming from this area, and you hear Thor's grunt and small bluish flash following.

The ones that are too weak, they're rotted. Your muscles shake to squeeze the tiny berry. In that case, you throw them away.  

The only place you actually felt moderately calm was when you're not around them, and that finally happened when you settled on Loki's sofa before his arrival. Summoning a dark blanket out of thin air to keep you company for the chilliness of his room.

Loki came in afterwards, not at all surprised to see you're already there. His mood was worse than possible, he actually seemed more agitated after speaking about his father, or maybe it was the fact he had a fight with his brother. Or maybe, all the situations happening today, that in itself is pretty draining.

You noticed he had some bruises and a paleness that you assumed appeared to be a cause of electric shock.

He just tossed his shirt off his body and let it fall somewhere in the room, your eyes round at his offhand act, then you bite your lips shamefully, looking away as he does so. Loki tries to hide his glee, stifling his smile at all costs and looking at you seriously once again. You were beginning to get used to his expression of demand.

“Behave.” He pointed at you.

“You're the God of Mischief, and you want me to behave?” You asked excitedly about the prospect, wishing to misbehave.

“I'll take a shower and I expect you to be on your best behavior around my chambers. That is all.” You reckoned he meant the room with the term 'chambers', you had to be mindful of where he came from.

“A shower?” You lifted an eyebrow, almost making him snort with the unexpectedness of your next words. “May I watch?”

“Tempting, if I didn't know you, I might've even accepted. Your body would probably make up for all your peskiness.” He let his eyes wander to your figure lying on the sofa, trying to snitch further the blanket covering you still looking playful.

You gasped, forging shock and bringing the blankets higher to reach your neck. “You were a gentleman before, at the tunnel…”

“And you can make a bed appear out of nowhere if you want to, no need for deceit.”

“I much prefer to comment on your chivalry.” You sing, “For someone that gave me a blanket when I was cold to suddenly leave me to hurt my delicate muscles on this hard couch.” You dramatically hit the skeleton of the sofa to prove your point, Loki lightheartedly shakes his head at that. “So painful, who would even keep this weapon in the comfort of their place?”  

“The sofa's not mine. That's a problem for you to deal with.” He turns his back and goes to shower, ignoring whatever you could say next.

When he goes to bed, you try to rest, and moreover, snicker to yourself at the moment the hard surface makes itself present once more as you lay. You wait a few minutes, closing your eyes and checking on what Loki's doing. And he's reading. 

You shift tensely on your tiny space, unquiet. Loki thinks to himself “how long does it take for you to drop the act?” and keeps absorbing whatever the pages of his book has to give to him, blocking your huffs and —quite prominent —fake grunts of pain. 

He notices you peek out of the blanket to look at him, then just slips the blanket further on the couch, and moves on your tiptoes to come closer to the bed.

You approach with a suave stance and saccharine charming smile, your hands putting down his book to make him pay attention to you. “Let me sleep here.” Your tone is all soft-spoken and gentle as you give him your best puppy dog eyes.

He lets the book fall and hitches his breath unwillingly as he looks at you. You see his pupils dilating as he struggles to keep from shivering, your heartbeats beating loudly in comparison to the silence from his answer. 

He felt so alive to you at the moment, your hands twitch to touch his chest and feel his rapid breathing beneath your fingertips, you hope your admiration isn't so perceptive. You wondered what you've done to make him so responsive.

This feeling dries your mouth so you lick your lips and bring your right hand up to cup his chin carefully. You could see he was in a fight with himself behind his eyes.

“Are you really a Succubus?” He quivers under your gaze and heaves to keep his hands stuck in place. You straddle his lap on the spur of the moment and he gapes in response, a grin plastered on your face so nefariously you wouldn't think twice before assuming that his words were factual.

“You feel so alive. I've barely even moved.” Your voice was raspy and your smile thrilling regarding the circumstances. The closer you got the more you could feel his blood beating fast-paced under his skin.

He grits his teeth at your statement, not sharing the same amusement as you, and uses his strength to push you off him. Thinking he caught you off guard but you keep your cheerful mood, his attempt at making whatever it is stop only making it all more interesting to you.

“You won't fool me, devil.” He spat with a fury he carried only towards you. 

You trembled in your position due to his comment, his usually-luring voice was low and soaked with denial in the tone of each word, you were still graciously smiling up at him in delight, “Who knew the only thing I had to do is take the first step to share your bed?” You swiftly move to approach his thighs, easily now that he moved position, kneeling to him. “Is that all it takes? Have you desired me since the cabin?” Your eyes darken as you say.

He licks his lips, feeling the lust clouding his mind. “I… I could always make use of your warm body, seeing as your passion won't allow you to leave.” He smiles menancily, allowing his desire to take place. “Demoness, I was starting to think your beauty was a scam and all too useless. Seeing as you wouldn't put it to good use.” He leaned his body against the headboard as he looked down at you, breathing out air thinly through his gritted teeth. The sight of people kneeling for him would forever be his weakness. The power dynamic in the vulnerable performance makes him weak on his knees.

You make your way between his thighs and grip them firmly with your delicate hands, never taking your eyes off him on your allure, seduction certainly wasn't unfamiliar to you.

“Will you let me rest in your bed, with you? If I do you a favor?” You give him another sinful look and voice edges on pleading. “You know, I would be restless in the morning if I were to be kept awake, the pain down my spine as a result of that torturous couch, we wouldn't want that…” Your hot breath neared his clothed hardening erection, you let yourself enjoy the pleasure of having your face in such an intimate part of him. Nuzzling your face gently against his crotch, his rushing blood was deafening to your senses and you were drowning on it.

He grips your hair forcefully pulling you away and bringing your face up to his in one sturdy, although clumsy, move. 

“Do I make you nervous, Loki?” You fluttered your eyelashes as you asked, now face-to-face.

You are smiling like the devil you are while he increases his rough hold on your hair strands, making a ruffling mess under his fingertips, giving you a threatening glare with such a dark gaze that your shivering makes you seem human.

“Cease the act.” His voice is demanding and powerful with his rich accent. 

His jaw is clenched and his breathing unsteady as he locks eyes with you, you were persistent on your teasing and bucked forward his chest to get your body closer to him. Ignoring what he asked of you.

Proceeding to lick his lips as he continued to express his moodiness, catching him off guard, his eyes closing as the cold of your tongue made contact with his face.

His shock is clear and he gapes at you, for a moment you can see the blatant touch-starving man presenting all the vulnerability of finally having someone wishing to touch him. Of having someone touching him.

At first you think he's going to indulge in your touches and continue, but his sudden rage comes like lightning and now he has the full intention of hurting you.  

His grip doesn't relent as he shoves you off him like falling off the spell of a wicked siren luring a jolly sailor to the sea.

His force actually takes you by surprise, he manages to grip your wrists with such strength it would undoubtedly leave marks even on someone like you, you could feel the skin scratching but he has no clue during his wrath. You struggled against his furious dragging, feeling like a monster getting repelled and caught in your deceitfulness. 

He madly drags your body out of his room and pushes you on the floor of the main area. You fell with a hiss, looking up at him and deranged by the audacity, you felt the stinging pain on your scalp and the burn on your wrists. 

“This is where you deserve to sleep.” He said as coldly as one could muster. You tried one last time to reason, even knowing you could reach his chambers in no time no matter how much he tries to keep you away.

“Loki…you can't possibly leave me here.” You smiled forcefully through your rage. “You should know I'm going to enter no matter what you say.” It's as if another mask is falling off as you speak.

“Oh no, little demoness.” He smiles, giving you the same amount of mock-up kindness. Kneeling to reach your height where you now sat. “Try that again and see where that'll lead you. You don't want to mess with me, trust me. I'm not in a good mood.” He warns.

“When are you ever in a good mood?” The cold contact with the floor was making itself very present by now. You were beginning to get impatient. “Let's stop this game, and I'll let you rest.”

“You never cease your games. You are a creature born in addiction.” He cups your face with both his hands and grins cruelly at you. “And I won't be tricked by the devil.” Pressing his nails further in your flesh as he's done and tosses your face aside, leaving you fuming by his disrespect.

[scorpio-marionette]

Christmas Cravings

Pairing: Max Phillips x F!reader

Rating: R for Restricted; 18+ ONLY

Warning: Mentions of pregnancy, cravings, snow storms, and breeding; pre-established relationship

A/N: This is inspired by an actual Spanish Bakery in St. Augustine, which is about an hour away from me.

Part of @toomanystoriessolittletime December Writing Challenge

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It shouldn’t have been possible. Afterall, Max is technically dead. The most he can guess is that the biology of vampires is either under researched at best, and at worst grossly assumed and guessed. Regardless, you were pregnant with his child. The usual symptoms were expected to occur. Morning sickness, body aches, fatigue, cravings. What wasn’t expected was just how prominent your appetite would become. Both for food and for him. You’re practically insatiable, and that’s saying something. When Max had turned he was akin to an animal in bed, but you? You are a goddess who seeks that which she desires. Wringing out your pleasure and his as if the world ended that day. You tire him out. He wonders if his vampirism magnifies the hormones your body creates. Again, the lack of knowledge fails him. Luckily this time it isn’t a moment of you jumping his bones to fill you with another child. Rather you’re looking to fulfill a sweet tooth. Though the fact that you have more or less mounted him, bare legs on either side of his hips and your lace clad pussy bearing down on his cotton covered cock doesn’t escape him. Neither does the way you subconsciously grind down onto him as if to just slide him into you for a moment. Max controls himself however. His lady needs a very special pastry after all.

Your request on this very early morning is for a unique pastry that can only be found in the little Spanish Bakery, in the small historical town about an hour away from your shared apartment. You had fallen in love with the sweet yet tart taste of the fruit on the flakey, pastry bed, but it’s difficult to get ahold of it sometimes. The Spanish Bakery only bakes enough for the day. Once they sell out you have to try again tomorrow. One good thing about being woken up at 4 a.m. by your pregnant girlfriend is that Max now has the time to dig out the car, drive to town, and buy the bakery out of your desired treat. One bad thing is that now you’re awake… and you want to go with him… outside… in the snow…

“Absolutely not.”

Max will not have you leaving the house, pregnant with his miracle child, while it’s freezing outside! It’s not safe nor healthy for the baby, or at least that’s what he’s read. You should stay home and do menial exercise. Nowhere does it say you should trek through snow for a midnight snack. But alas, you refuse to take no for an answer. Max may not realize it, but you feel you’ve been cooped up too long. The surprise at having a seemingly impossible pregnancy has made Max cautious. Making him want to keep you safe, but locked away. You want to get out of the house for a little bit. The recent snow storm makes you even more eager to go. The news said there should be about a foot and a half of frozen water piled up outside your door. Why wouldn't you want to go see that?

Your lover argues that him going makes sense because the cold doesn't affect him at all. You argue that you're getting in the car whether he likes it or not. Huffing at your insistence, he hauls you up into his arms and carries you up stairs. At first you think he's going to leave you there. Using his inhuman speed to run to the door. Instead, Max drags out a pair of his socks, sweatpants, and the hoodie he wore last night. He pulls the socks onto your feet. Their size is a bit too big for you. He pulls the pants up your legs. Their elastic ankle cuffs hold your socks in place. He tucks your shirt into the pants to hold it down as well before pulling his hoodie down over it. A wishful thought that his scent will keep you from doing anything more rash. He asks which hat you'd like to wear and you naturally ask for one of his. He makes sure the black woven beanie is secure over your ears before picking you up again and walking you out to the car. Already dressed to play the part of the desperate boyfriend freezing to get his girl a snack.

On the road, you stare out of the window. Some people have opted to leave their Christmas lights on all the time, so you delight your senses in the colorful twinkling lights. As you enter town, you're astounded at the festive feel though most people are still asleep. The window displays have yet to resume their performances but the effort is palpable in their static presence. You long to run from shop to shop to see what they've done with their decor, but one over protective vampire makes you stay in the car.

Pulling into the parking lot behind the bakery, you can see an inviting golden glow among the other darkened store fronts. Max exits after he's sure you won't leave the safety of the vehicle. As he approaches the front door even he is amazed at the warmth that seems to fill him. As if this bakery were magic. He knocks on the door. He shivers a bit when the grandmother opens the door. Using his best apologetic smile, he asks the woman if he can come in. And it's as if his heart had beat again.

What he thought was the front of the shop was actually the back of another. The chocolatier next door actually. The grandmother graciously informed him that the bakery was in fact closed for the day, but that she and her grandchildren have been baking all the usual to take door to door for their neighbors as snow day treats. Max quickly apologized for intruding and explained why he had come. Never one to leave anyone out, the grandmother simply turned around to a tray of freshly made pastries. She pulled out a cake box and promptly filled it with all the pastries on the tray. Max was actually going to tell her that it wasn't necessary to give him all she had, but the woman merely waved him off.

"There's something special about you," she claimed cryptically. "And I have more in the oven."

Thankful, Max takes the box and returns to you. Clamoring in, he presents you with the kind gift from the grandmother. You squeal in delight at the sight of your beloved snack. Much more in the box than you could hope to eat, in a day at least. You throw yourself over the box to smother Max in kisses, but stop before your appetite switches to him. Settling back into your seats, you take a couple pastries as Max starts the car. Once back on the road, you hand Max his treat. You prop your feet up on the dash, much to his displeasure, and enjoy your snack on the way home.

[frustrationinexcelsis]

I’ve had a look into this, and it’s definitely not something that originates from Hades.

(For reference, all links here lead to the Perseus Digital Library, an archive of Classical Greek and Roman texts managed by Tufts University.)

The earliest source I could personally find here is Pausanias, a Greek traveler and geographer from the 2nd century, who refers to the Minotaur as Asterion in his Description of Greece (Hellados Periegesis), a travelogue and geographical guide:

[2.31.1] In the market-place of Troezen is a temple of Artemis Saviour, with images of the goddess. It was said that the temple was founded and the name Saviour given by Theseus when he returned from Crete after overcoming Asterion the son of Minos. This victory he considered the most noteworthy of his achievements, not so much, in my opinion, because Asterion was the bravest of those killed by Theseus, but because his success in unravelling the difficult Maze and in escaping unnoticed after the exploit made credible the saying that it was divine providence that brought Theseus and his company back in safety.

In broadly the same time frame you get Pseudo-Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca, a collection of myths, which starts his account of the Minotaur legend thus:

[3.1.4.] [Pasiphaë] gave birth to Asterius, who was called the Minotaur. He had the face of a bull, but the rest of him was human; and Minos, in compliance with certain oracles, shut him up and guarded him in the Labyrinth.

Getting into modern sources, the earliest notable one is the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges’ 1947 story "The House of Asterion" ("La casa de Asterión"), which retells the Minotaur story from his perspective and refers to him by that name throughout the text.

There’s also a handful of recent works that use the name, such as Fred Saberhagen’s Books of the Gods series (late 90s/early 00s), the Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes side book for the Camp Half-Blood series (2015), Fate/Grand Order (2015), and a handful of others, all of which predate Hades’ 2018 release.

Here’s what I think happened: there is evidently a tradition of referring to the Minotaur as Asterion or Asterius in classical antiquity. This does not seem to a super widespread tradition -- the two I mentioned are the only two sources I happen to personally be aware of, and note that they're both from the second century, well after the Classical Greek period -- but it does exist and is relevant enough for contemporary ethnographers to feel a need to mention. Then, in the modern day, Borges gets ahold of it, decides that it’s interesting, and uses it as the name and title of his short story. Later writers read Borges and use it as well, and others read them and do the same, and by the time Supergiant is putting together Hades the idea of calling the Minotaur Asterion or Asterius already has some history behind it.

Worth noting, I think, is that it also so happens that Borges had a not inconsiderable influences on modern fantasy, more than you’d expect from how few people outside of Argentina know his name nowadays. For example, perytons -- winged deer that eat humans to steal their shadows -- were invented whole cloth for another thing of his, but were depicted as something he got from an older source that doesn’t actually exist, were mistaken for a genuine mythical entity, and still turn up in fantasy from time to time in that capacity.

ok imma yell about this over here for a min cause i actually have the patience of a squirrel on fire but this stuff is exactly my bread and butter. it fascinates me that so many people are adamant that the minotaur’s name is asterion or asterius or what have you. ADAMANT. and i’ve looked into it! i’m not a fuckin scholar or shit but there’s absolutely no indication that was his “real” name! and none of the people saying it was his name can even elaborate on that fact like. did his mother name him that? the king? did he name himself asterion somehow? and then told who exactly? (fwiw i’ve yet to see a non-modern version of the myth that has the minotaur able to speak or communicate in any way).

so i’m 99.99% sure this is all from the hades game, which means everyone calling him that must’ve played it or been a fan in some way OR it’s escaped containment to the point that people who don’t know the game/that part of the game are referencing it regardless.

which, as far as misinformation goes, is fascinating. it’s mostly harmless misinfo too, even as far as understanding the source material. but the hyperfixated part of my brain does kinda want to scream bloody blue murder at all the wrong people for how wrong they are.

[perriwinklesblog]

I like how Karl forgot to tell Quackity, who has been absent and missing from everyone’s lives doing his own shit and not communicating on his part, about Kinoko Kingdom and so everyone decided he must have forgotten Quackity altogether.

Just skip past the ideas

that he just forgot to tell him.

that Quackity had been absent and Karl wanted to tell him in person but Quackitys never around

Legitimately thought he had told him because people do that sometimes

Had told Quackity in a note but that note got lost

No, we going straight to HE HAS FORGOTTEN QUACKITY COMPLETELY.

Quackity even says he’s not been around and difficult to get ahold of. How is Karl or Sapnap meant to tell him if he’s not there.

In fact in an early Kinoko stream do they not complain that Quackity is busy and therefore isn’t there for building? It might of been out of character but it’s pretty much what happened in character.

Quackity is as much to blame for this miscommunication as Karl.

My sympathy is minimal.

[plus-size-reader]

Domestic

Natasha Romanoff x Plus size!reader

Word Count: 2000 words

Warnings: none

Summary: Nat has a super cute wifey who likes to have mass dinners for all the avengers at their home

—————————————————————————————————

The arrangement that Clint had for Laura and the kids had worked for him.

By all accounts, most people didn’t even know that they existed, which in this life, certainly helped to keep them alive.

Having people that you loved made you vulnerable, and it also put all of their lives in danger. Clint knew that all too well, and made sure that no one would know who or where they were in order to protect them.

It was a good plan, a smart plan, and when you and Natasha got married, she wanted the same thing for you.

You were the love of her life, and one of the only people in the world she truly cared for. She had spent her entire life sure that she would never fall in love, or get too close to anyone, but you had easily broken down all those walls.

That made you more valuable than gold to her.

You were her everything, and if hiding you away was what she’d have to do to keep you safe, no one would need to know about you. It had been easy for Clint, and others like him, so there was no reason it couldn’t work for her too.

Fury understood that Natasha wasn’t taking this issue lightly, so he and Colson took special precautions to make sure that no one would ever be able to find you unless they had high enough clearance and couldn’t be registered as a threat.

After all, Nat had no shortage of enemies and getting ahold of you would be all they would be after.

You were valuable to them too, for a much different reason.

Getting to you would put Natasha in quite the predicament. Using you as leverage, there was virtually nothing they couldn’t find out, which meant it was in S.H.I.E.L.Ds best interest to keep you hidden too.

They had too many secrets to keep, and Natasha held the key to most of them.

So, she kept you hidden away.

It was safer for the two of you to just keep the love you shared under wraps and you didn’t mind that. You understood that there could be real danger if you weren’t careful.

It was just something you had to do if you wanted to be with her, and you certainly did. Quite frankly, there was nothing you wouldn’t do for her, even if it meant uprooting your whole life and practically going into witness protection.

However, staying there forever wasn’t an option either.

As with all things, nothing could stay a secret forever. At some point, the secret was bound to get out to someone; though, it wasn’t as detrimental as you had always assumed it would be when it finally came to light.

The visitors you had were more than welcome.

The knock at your door wasn’t one you had been expecting, but when you opened it, you were anything but worried.

Standing there, entirely unannounced, was the woman you’d married and all of the avengers.

“What are you doing here?” you gasped, throwing your arms around her shoulders before she could so much as say hello. Technically, you weren’t supposed to be so open right away, but you didn’t care.

You hadn’t seen Natasha in months, and you weren’t sure you could hold back much longer with her right in front of you.

Living out here, while safe, was lonely.

Still, Natasha with as much as she missed you was paranoid by nature. Even this much, out in the open, made her nervous.

“Inside honey” she reminded gently, gingerly walking you back until you were safely within the confines of your home. It was only when the door was closed and locked with all of you inside that Nat visibly relaxed.

Understandably, she was uneasy about this whole thing.

Not only was she telling them all about you and the secret she’d been hiding for years at this point, but she was also gathering all the people she cared about in one place.

With a past like hers, it was a little stressful.

Though, she also found some amount of comfort in getting to see you again after all this time. The recent events had made it hard to sneak off and visit you without attracting suspicious or unwanted attention.

There was silence for a moment or two as the waiting crowd tried to figure out what was going on, or what about this place made it Natasha’s very important stop. She had been very clear that they couldn’t go anywhere until they came here.

There had to be a reason it was so important.

Natasha had never done anything like this before, and until this moment, they were sure that she didn’t have any personal connections to anything or anywhere. A woman like her, doing what she did, didn’t get that luxury.

...or, at least, they didn’t think so.

Almost immediately, of course, Tony connected the dots.

There was just something about the way she looked at you, and the way you looked back at her in turn, he’d seen it a million times before. He’d seen it in his own parents on the rare occasions they weren’t fighting.

You were in love.

The fact that he didn’t know you existed until today, or the fact that she’d hidden so much from him didn’t bother Tony in the least. In the lives they lived, everyone had their secrets, no one more so than Natasha.

If anything, he was glad she’d chosen to share with them now.

“This is your special lady, isn’t it?” he teased, doing his best not to be as awkward as he was sure it was coming across. Natasha was just so cagey about the things in her life, especially her love life, and this was news to him.

Good news, but news none-the-less.

You weren’t entirely sure what to say at first, taking your place at Natasha’s side. You knew who they were, of course, and you’d heard a lot about them but you had never had the privilege of meeting any of them before.

You didn’t get to meet many new people ever, for that matter. You were a little concerned that your people skills had gotten rusty.

It was impossible to know who was dangerous or not, and you didn’t want to risk running into the wrong kind. Being on high alert made it really hard to connect with people, even when you were sure they were safe.

It was new for you.

“This is my wife, Y/N” Natasha hummed, practically beaming as she finally said those words out loud. She had never had the privilege before, but this seemed like the perfect place to finally make it happen.

This was safe.

These people were safe, and even with as nervous as you were to be meeting them, you knew that Nat would never bring anyone even remotely dangerous to meet you.

The fact that she trusted them enough to bring them to your home meant that she trusted them, and if she trusted them, you could too. So, rather than hide behind your beautiful wife all night, you stood up a little straighter and decided to just give this thing a try.

“Hello, you must be the avengers” you tried, ignoring how strange the sentence sounded falling from your lips. It was hardly a normal thing to say, and hardly the most smooth delivery you’d ever given but it wasn’t the worst.

...And no one seemed too offended by it.

All in all, it was an okay icebreaker, and before too long, conversation was swelling all around you. You had gotten ready to start dinner when they arrived, so it seemed like the perfect thing to busy yourself with while they talked and checked out your home.

It was a cute little place, one Nat had practically fallen in love with, partially because of the close family floorplan and mostly because of the isolation.

The two of you sometimes talked about getting a bigger place, or moving somewhere far away from here, but for the pair of you, this house was just fine. It was decorated nicely, your way of having some agency over the situation you’d been put in with pictures and artwork everywhere.

“So, you’ve just been living here? Isn’t that a little difficult?” Steve asked, sitting down across from the island where you were stirring a bowl of what looked to be pasta salad.

This whole thing was blowing his mind.

In general, most everyone else had come to accept the arrangement you two shared as just part of being married to a spy but Captain America was less used to this whole thing, even now. The idea of hiding away your life partner was blowing his mind, even for safety's sake.

It seemed like it would be hard.

“It isn’t easy, but it’s just what we have to do. Nat’s made a lot of enemies over the years” you shrugged, doing your very best to explain the situation in the same way you did with everyone else.

It was just how it was.

You sometimes dreamed of what it would be like if you didn’t have to live like this. If you and Natasha could just go strolling down the street, hand in hand, without the fear of being kidnapped and tortured in the middle of the night.

Unfortunately though, that fear was justified. There were people everywhere who would have gladly gotten their hands on you, in this country, and all over the world.

“Well, you’ve got some allies in your corner now too” he smiled, finishing what was left of his glass of juice and then going to look through your wedding album with the others on the couch.

Clint had snatched it from the shelf as soon as he came in, after giving you a hug and a kiss on the forehead as he always did, and insisted on showing it to the others. Your wedding pictures were some of his favorites, especially because he’d been the only other person in attendance to the event.

You hoped that for your sake, Steve was right. You had grown so accustomed to seeing everyone else in the world as a threat that it would be nice to know that you had some friends in this world as well.

“You forgot to stir the noodles, honey” Nat grinned, gliding past you to the stove where the pot was bubbling away. You had a habit of getting a little far off, especially in a kitchen setting, with a million thoughts swirling around in your head.

It was something you hated, but couldn't seem to get a handle on, but Natasha found it endearing.

It reminded her of the first time you’d offered to make her dinner and ended up burning most of the spaghetti to the bottom of the pan.

It reminded her of why she’d fallen in love with you in the first place.

~

Eventually, with the quick rescue of the spaghetti from Nat, dinner was ready which meant that your small, meant for two dining room, was full to the brim with assassins, super soldiers, and avengers of all varieties.

It wasn’t exactly how you saw tonight going, but as everyone crowded around the dining room table, you were anything but upset about that.

This was what you’d always wanted. A house full of guests, a warm dinner spread out over the entire table, and the love of your life at your side.

It was absolutely perfect.

You didn’t get to experience things like this very often, but you had a feeling that now that it had happened, this was going to be an ongoing occurrence for you and Natasha, who enjoyed these things much more than she’d ever admit.

After all, this group was her family, and it wasn’t going to kill her to be a little domestic from time to time.

[reallunargift]

ana-pt said: When the Nedport vibes are strong… You are pulled into them You can try, but you will always comeback

i just can’t resist making Ned suffer ;) it’s fine, the money Port paid him to get back Brazil surely helped mend his heart

sisididis said: Aaaaaaahhhh, thank you so much for this. I definitely see Port as the type to leave one’s messages on “read” (the modern day equivalent to not sending letters back) or repeatedly not answer one’s calls (unless he’s startled from sleep and accidentally answers the call instead of rejecting it) 😆 Everyone has that one person in their WhatsApp group that they just can’t seem to get ahold of. That’s Port.

Oh he absolutely is the type to do that! Anytime he gets a call he’ll say “it’s fine, if it’s important they’ll just call again”, and they do call again but he just... doesn’t pick up. He’ll see 420 unread messages next to a group chat and think it’s part of the group name lmao

sisididis said: I, too, think that he’s allowed himself to grow sentimental only recently, when modern day politics allow it and are not as cutthroat as before. Surviving centuries of highs and lows without rendering yourself numb to a certain extent is not likely if you’re to survive. Especially when the pain and the mistreatment that he was subjected to were inflicted by those he considered “close”.

Yep, obviously he had sentimental tendencies before, especially in regards to humans he knew, but I think he had a good handle on that part of his personality and never slipped into it too much. That control became more tenuous in the mid-1800s onwards, and it’s really in the 20th century that I think it almost became a personality trait.

sisididis said: I don’t see Port being a hoarder, either. I feel like Francis might lean more towards that, really. But I do feel like Port can’t leave a museum without feeling bitter 😅 “I had an identical one centuries ago. Now they’re selling it at auctions for thousands and I threw it away for nothing.” (I’d be bitter, too).

oh, this is interesting! I never actually thought about Francis in that regard! I’m interested in your take on it, I always imagined Francis as someone very good at not falling into that trap but I’m admittedly not as familiar with him

sisididis said: I feel like during the zenith of his empire, it was very difficult for him to settle, to feel content in one place. It was terrible to venture out to sea for so long, but returning home to four empty walls, with the sea so mockingly close was even more terrible. (“I spent months sick with longing, but now that I’m here, I can’t stand it.”)

oooh yes! I do believe that at the end of the day, regardless of where he was headed, he really is the type to enjoy the journey itself the most as long as it’s out in the ocean

“I spent months sick with longing, but now that I’m here, I can’t stand it.”

I love this line! and it feels really fitting for him, both for places and people...

sisididis said: I still can’t let go of that one headcanon that I read on either your or Trevo’s blog, hidden in the tags or in an answer. It was about young Port growing up alone, but aware of Spain’s existence and somehow using that knowledge as a pillar for when times worsened. Witnessing the ebb and flow of human mortality while you remain immortal is indescribably sad. “But as long as he’s still there, I’m alright. I’m not alone.”

oh yes, I mentioned something like that in an ask before! I like to think that through the good and the bad, they at least always had each other as a constant in their life. Good or bad, at least they knew the other was still around, even if not physically near.

sisididis said: On a happier note, Portucale reminds me of the Romanian word for oranges 🍊 “portocale” 🥰

well that’s because Portugal brought sweet oranges over from Asia, and so quite a few countries named it after him~ that’s actually one of my favourite bits of language trivia hahaha

[twisted-imagines]

leona, jack and floyd realizing they have a crush on a male student and how they manage to get their S/O attention please 🥺

That's a weird mix of scenario and headcanon format, but that's all I can post for now 😅 I'm really glad you're so patient with me, fishies~ I'm not doing the best right now and it bothers me quite a lot... I worry more about my writing than I actually write.

The reader is gender-neutral in this one btw, there are no pronouns at all, crush is such a universal thing~

Please, while waiting for more content from me, enjoy this ❤

Getting his crush's attention

Leona Kingscholar 🦁

• Scurrying and running about. Those herbivores were really irking his nerves, and Leona just wanted to sleep peacefully. But there was a particular person among that crown. It was somebody who managed to catch his attention and never let it go. What was so special about you, that made him so weak and vulnerable, longing for any bit of affection you would sometimes offer him? Walking past you in the corridors, he couldn't resist to graze you with his tail, a ghost of a touch on your skin. He fell asleep purposefully in the areas he knew you visited often. Just how soft did he become?

Weak and feeble, possessing this annoyingly beautiful smile, you were currently Leona's only daydream. He closed his eyes and your image immediately surfaced up in his mind. He opened them, and once again the only things he saw were you.

Speaking of that, why were your face above his?

• "Oh, you're awake, prefect Leona. Ruggie was searching for you. You choose a really secure spot today."

"And you herbivore still found me. So, proud of yourself? Now go or you'll face consequences."

It wasn't too threatening, coming from somebody who could barely lift his eyes and so you persisted, trying to make Leona go to his own dorm, like Ruggie wished you to do, in case you found his dorm leader.

•"Shut up. Ugh, so annoying, I warned you!"

His rebuttal came pretty fast and before you could react you already were in his arm, pressed to his side. You could feel his warm breath on your face and the rhythmical beating of his heart under your hands.

"Um, prefect Leona? Leona?..."

But the lion was fast asleep.

• After the surprise of waking up hugging your warm form, Leona hadn't gotten a break from intrusive thoughts of your peaceful face, when you went ahead and fell asleep on him that day or the lovely scent of your hair. They were imprinted in his memory and at your every sight his instincts were screaming at him to go up to you and relive it once again, show everybody that you were his. But, you, in fact, were not and Leona knew he had to do something about it ASAP.

• Alas spending time with you became increasingly hard for Leona. You had no lack of attention, didn't you? Always in company of some other punks, he couldn't get you alone at all. If he thought about it, he didn't see you much recently. It was driving him mad, just like a possibility that some other man, and not him, could be spending more time with you then he did. And if it was on purpose, that he couldn't get ahold of you, did you really think you would be able to hide from him, Leona Kingscholar, the only apex predator in the whole college? Naive herbivore.

• Dorm leader of Savanaclaw was always difficult, but after that incident, you no longer understood how to act around him. You got to know him better, much better than even some members of his dorm knew him, but were you two really close to such an extent? It made you question the nature of your relationship, and the way Leona felt for you. Think of the devil. You were careless, not scouting your surrounding properly and the prefect was steadily approaching you now. He wouldn't allow you to run from him, would he?

"Hey, herbivore, long time no see. I almost thought that you got expelled by chance. But were you actually avoiding me?"

"Prefect Leona! N-no! Why would I?"

A scowl twisted his face. What a troublesome prey, but Leona couldn't allow himself to give up. Wanted he that or not, you were occupying a place in his heart now and getting you out there would not be that easy. It was worth a shot, his ego would get a word in later.

"Tsch, don't try to lie to me. I can see past that pathetic act of yours."

The lion moved closer and closer still, until you had nowhere to go, a wall against your back and his hands on both of your sides, a prey for him to feas upon. But there was no malicious intent in his eyes. Green orbs, two will-o'-wisps, playful and mischievous, were also holding some tenderness to them. Itching even closer, Leona came impossibility near. The man's deep voice reverberated near your ear.

"Quit fooling around. You made me work quite a lot for this, so now listen. I like you, [Y/n]. If you have any objection against becoming my mate, better tell them now."

Trapped between the wall and Leona's hot body, you were milimeters away from his face. It would be so easy just to lean forward and press a kiss to those lips. Was it what you really wanted?

Jack Howl🐺

• That morning you were shocked to see Jack Howl dragging his feet, barely paying attention to his surroundings and sporting horrible eyebags. The sight was alarming, you had never seen him be so tired in the morning, not even once. Like the best friend that you were, you rushed up to him, just in time to drag Jack away from a pole on his way. Apparently, he didn't even notice it.

"Wow, Jack, careful. Morning. Didn't get much a shut-eye at night?"

His reaction wasn't immediate, but when he finally registered you holding his hand and closely inspecting his face he jumped up a foot, instantly turning a dark shade of crimson. Incoherent "I"s and "you"s were everything you heard from him before he ran away, too fast for you to follow.

• You met him neither at your classes, nor at the cafeteria, nor after school. It couldn't be a simple coincidence. Did he not want to meet you? This thought resonated with a painful pang in your chest. Did something happen? You thought you two were good friends.

• Jack however could no longer see you as "just" a friend.

"Jeez, aren't you an obvious little puppy, Jack? You're head over heels for [Y/N]. Everybody except for you two can see it."

"Shishishi, Leona-san, look what you did. You broke this poor freshman. "

Every time Jack looked at you now, he could hear Leona's words in his head once again. He didn't even protest, didn't tell them they were not right. He did like you, and he could no longer ignore it or tell himself that what you had between you was purely platonic. And if he wanted to get rid of this agonizing grip, that constricted his breathing and crushed his heart every time he just thought of you, he had to act.

• Easier said than done. He couldn't help but keep a certain distance from you, afraid of spilling the beans instantly and that's the last thing he wanted to do at that moment. He didn't want to endanger your friendship, no, anything but that. Jack became even more observant, and to his great distress now every little joke Ace told you or how familiar others were with you now seemed too "friendly" for his liking. Were they always like this? What if he's not the only one who harbored such feelings for you? The more Jack thought about it, the more anxious he got. What if somebody "snatched" you before he could at least confess his feelings to you?

• With that worrying thought in mind Jack gathered enough courage to come some evening to your dorm after his club activities. What a surprise it was for you, to meet him at your doorstep, after the days of going without as much as hello form him, not even a glimpse of his tall frame in college hallways, even though you knew he was fine. His dorm leader said as much when you cornered him a Botanic garden. The sudden rift between you was saddening, even more now that Jack was standing before you, barely looking at you. Was he angry? Was he going to put your friendship to an end?

• Yes and no. But how could you know that, without him saying it out loud? Jack was trying though, but his pure heart wasn't allowing him to do that, hammering loudly in his throat. Whatever speech he prepared, it seemed so lacking, so stupid now, when you were everything he could see. He's been observing you from afar, while he longed to be near you, to touch you, to do those things that lovers usually did.

Yes, he'd decided. Losing you completely was not an option, Jack understood, you were too precious to him. But remaining close, and doing nothing about those feelings was an idea much more appalling to him. He had to try, hopefully, your answer would calm the turmoil in his heart.

"I've been thinking a lot. Mostly about you, [Y/n]. And the way I see you, it's not just friendly anymore. I want us to become something more."

"What will you say? I'll respect any your decision, but I still want to be a part of your life. As a friend or as a lover, any is good, but I like you, [Y/n]."

Floyd Leech🦈

• "Sh ri m py - chan~" There it was again. You no longer tried to escape, you learned it the hard way you were no match for his speed. Once again Floyd Leech was crushing you in his hug the first thing in the morning. It was a normal occurrence, really, you didn't mind it as much now as you did at least a month ago. He was friendly with you, it definitely wasn't the short end of the stick if you were to compare it to how Floyd treated other NRC students.

The times you were luckier you met him at the lunch break. Did he now specifically go out of his way to search for you in the morning?

You were no wiser, that yes, he did. Floyd didn't meet such interesting people often, even on land, and usually, he quickly lost his interest in them. But you? You were a special case. You were so amusing, so warm in his arm, so squishy and cute. He considered to just gobble you up a couple of times, and each time you gave him that pointed look that sent shivers down his spine. Indeed, Floyd liked that little shrimp~

• But it seemed you didn't share his feelings though? No matter how much he lavished you with his attention, scared away other competitors, or made advances at you, he didn't get any reaction back... It boiled down to one interaction that nearly broke poor eel's heart.

"Shrimpy~~"

"Floyd? Can I ask you for what reason do you yawn at me?"

"What? Shrimpy, I'm not yawning. C'mon, look~"

"I-I honestly don't what you're doing and it's drawing even more attention than usual, could you maybe stop?"

Bewildered, you could only look how fast Floyd strode away, displeased expression on his face. It's not like you didn't know about his moody nature, but wasn't he just too strange today? No matter how much time you spent with him, his heart was still a mystery to you.

• "Jade! Jade-!"

"My, my, Floyd, what got you so agitated? Oh, are you... Crying?"

Jade couldn't remember when was the last time he saw Floyd with tears in his ears, and not fake crying, there was unfeigned sadness within those mismatched eyes, while he harshly bit his lip to the point of bleeding. Jade tried to approach his twin when Floyd suddenly took the offensive stance.

"You were lying! Shrimpy doesn't love me, I've tried times and times again-! No reaction...Even told me to stop."

What a predicament and Jade genuinely thought his brother had all the chances, he definitely saw you reciprocating his hugs and the way you smiled at Floyd, not out of politeness, but of adoration. Were all of those signs actually misinterpreted? A curious thought visited Jade's head. He had to ask something important first...

"Ahaha! I can't believe it! Floyd- No, haha, it's too much even for you. Did you really think that a human, from an entirely different world altogether, would understand that your gaping was actually you flirting?"

"It was Jade who told me to "just be myself"! Quit laughing, or I'll make you stop. Don't try me~"

Who could have thought a misunderstanding like that would happen? At least Jade was able to clear this one out. The next action, approaching you in a way that you would understand, was entirely on Floyd, who now got much more useful advice from his brother and was already on his way to you, eager to finally hear your answer.

• "Shrimpy, there's something I want to talk about."

It scared you, Leech twin's voice emerging out of nowhere, right behind you. You warily turned to him. Floyd left very angry the last time you spoke, and he was standing before you, face more unreadable than ever. It instilled fear in your heart nonetheless. You two were good acquaintances...friends? Some kind of understanding was developing on your side, but maybe you were wrong? What was he going to do?

"I'm listening, Floyd. What do you want to talk about?"

The man was fidgeting, his hands behind his back for some reason, probably hiding something. That was getting into the direction you didn't quite follow. Tracing with your gaze up to his face you found it had turned completely red, the shade being the most prominent on his cheeks. He looked cute, an involuntary thought emerged in your mind.

"Shrimpy and I have been spending a lot of time together and... Damn, that's not it! And, well, little Shrimp is very interesting to me and I..."

"Ugh! Just take it! Why is confessing like a human so hard?!"

Standing there, with a bouquet of your favorite flowers thrust in your hand, you had to become the one continuing this conversation.

[mca-attack21]

Words Unsaid

AN: This is loosely based off of The Final Problem and is Sherlock x Reader. There is violence and death, so consider yourself warned. I hope you enjoy and as always feedback is appreciated. 

Emotional Context. Sherlock had once been able to deny its importance, instead, governing himself with logic and reasoning. However, his connections with his friends and the people who cared about him had started to change his mind on such matters. This came with both benefits and negatives as it had opened him up to new vulnerabilities and pain, especially now. As it was during this time that he discovered that his sister was more than just a suspicion. In fact, Eurus was a secret that scared his dear brother Mycroft more than anything else. 

Sherlock struggled to retrieve any memory of her. That was at least until the name “Redbeard” was brought up. He had loved Redbeard his faithful dog and childhood best friend. He couldn’t remember what had happened to him, at least not until Mycroft filled in the gaps. Since that discovery, he, his brother, and John had left to check in on Eurus’ security. Sherlock and John wanted to prove that she had left multiple times once impersonating as a girl that Sherlock met during a case, and once as John’s new therapist. Mycroft was insistent that this was impossible, so they went to settle the matter once and for all. What they were not expecting was for it all the be a trap.

They were soon captured and forced to complete trials that tested personal morality and will power all centered around Sherlock. It seems that Eurus was fascinated by her brother and wanted to better understand him. It didn’t help that she had previously formed an alliance with Moriarty and knew more about Sherlock than he did her. But that was all Mycroft’s fault now wasn’t it? The first challenge forced Sherlock to choose either John or Mycroft to shoot an innocent man in order to save his wife. Both inevitably refused and the man in a last-ditch effort took his own life in front of them. Eurus didn’t hesitate to kill the wife, questioning the three whether or not keeping their hands clean costing two lives was any better than taking one life and leaving one to survive. She then ordered Sherlock to collect the gun, which now only had one bullet, and continue.

The next trial was equally grim. Sherlock was forced to deduce which of three brothers was a murderer provided only the gun and three pictures. To add to the suspense, she presented the three brothers hanging over the ocean tied up with weights. If they dropped they would inescapably be drowned. Sherlock made the correct deduction much to everyone’s relief, but Eurus dropped all three explaining that the life of an innocent weighs no less than the life of the guilty.

The third trial was where it got personal. There was a small wooden coffin. It was nothing special about it. Sherlock quickly deduced that it was built for a woman, one with no close family, one who was sensible, one that- he was interrupted when Mycroft brought over the lid which had a mere two words on it, “Words unsaid”. 

“Whatever does that mean?” John asked.

But deep down Sherlock knew and he feared what was about to happen next.

“It’s Y/n,” he replied.

“Y/n? What does she have to do with this?”

“Why quite a lot Mr. Watson, and very good Sherlock. Now then, this ought to be fun. In a moment, I am going to give her a ring. She’s alone in her apartment which is hooked up with explosions. Now then brother, you will have two minutes to get her to say the magic words. The catch? You can’t say them yourself, you can’t give her any indication that you or she is in danger. Just play your mind games like you used to,” Eurus grinned.

“What are the magic words?” Mycroft asked.

Sherlock’s face fell into a pained expression as he considered the task at hand.

“He has to get her to tell him that she loves him,” John realized.

“Yay! Now that everyone is on the same page, let’s give her a ring.” Eurus cheered, “Oh and for added fun,” she clicked on the tv showing video of you in your flat.

Sherlock studied the video feed, you looked horrible, something had clearly upset you. He could tell that you had recently been crying. As the phone rang he prayed that you would answer it. The clock seemed to loom over him as it continued to click down. He watched as you slowly retrieved yours and glanced down at the name answering it almost immediately.

1:40

“Sherlock?”

“Ah, Y/n, I-” he started.

“I ought to kill you for giving me such a scare. Baker street exploded it’s all over the news and I’ve been trying to get ahold of you ever since. Are you okay? Is John okay? What happened?”

“We’re fine, just a little accident,” Sherlock replied calmly.

“I thought you were dead, the least you could have done was sent me a text” she whimpered.

“Oh come on now, you know I’m more clever than that, besides I’ve been busy, you know how it is” he mused.

1:20

“Y/n, do you remember the phone call we had just before Reichenbach, right as Moriarty had begun his master plan?” he asked feeling rushed.

“Of course I do, I still have nightmares from that call,”

“Well, I need you to tell me what you said that day,”

“There’s no way in hell,” you replied. Sherlock was able to see how much this upset you and clenched his eyes shut feeling the pressure.

“Please Y/n, I really need to hear it,” he begged softly.

0:60

“Sherlock, is everything alright?” you asked concerned at his unprecedented demeanor.

Eurus warned her brother to remember the rules. 

“Everything is fine, I just need to hear you say it,”

“Why? This better not be one of your experiments,”

“It’s not, I promise. I wouldn’t do that, not to you,”

“I don’t get the big deal,” 

“Please Y/n,” 

0:30

“I-I can’t”

“Why not?”

“Because you didn’t say it back,”

0:25

“If you meant it then, if there is any chance that you mean it now, please say it again,” he begged.

“Sherlock,” you pleaded

“Please Y/n, please tell me what you said that day on the phone, our last call together before the fall,” he said with such sincerity and emotion.

0:18

“You called me to tell me that everything had been a lie, that Moriarty was right. You told me that  you only had one choice left. I begged you to stop, to wait until I could get to you, that together the two of us would figure something out. But you said it was too late,” you recalled tears streaming down your face.

“And then…” he prompted.

0:12

“And then I pleaded with you not to do it,”

“Why? What was your reason?”

0:08

You hesitated for a moment, “ because I cared about you,”

“That’s not what you said Y/n, what exact words did you say?” His own eyes were betraying him at this point.

0:03

“I told you that I loved you, that fake or not, I would still love you” you cried, “And you didn’t say it back.”

Just then the phone clicked off as Eurus ended the call. 

Sherlock redirected his attention to Eurus’ screen, “Okay Eurus, I won. I made her say it. What now, what happens next?”

“Funny isn’t it? I don’t recall her actually saying the words ‘I love you’. She said ‘I loved you’ and ‘I would still love you’ and while close, I just don’t think that cuts it for me.” 

“Wait!” Sherlock screamed launching forward as Eurus hit a button and he was forced to watch your apartment explode. All that Mycroft could manage was staring in shock as the tv quickly cut to black. John went to his friend who had sunk to the ground staring vacantly.

“You didn’t tell her before Reichenbach and now you’ll never be able to, tell me Sherlock, are all those complicated little emotions worth it? Because to me it seems that the emotional context is what destroys you. Now pull yourself together as the next challenge is even more enduring.”

She paused for a moment before adding, “take your time,” and shutting off her screen. 

Sherlock rose to his feet and John and Mycroft hesitantly went towards the next door, turning back when they heard him whisper “no” before aggressively attacking the empty coffin taking out his rage and immediate grief. After annihilating it, he sat back against the wall. 

Regretting that he could not properly console his friend, John forced himself over to Sherlock handing him the gun saying, “I know this is beyond difficult and you are being tortured, but you have to keep it together, we have to keep moving”

“This isn’t torture, it’s vivisection, we are experience science from the perspective of lab rats,”

“Right now, we are soldiers who just need to survive, this is not the time nor place for mourning,” John said firmly.

“Alright,” Sherlock agreed and John helped him up.

The three men continued to the next room where Sherlock was tasked with choosing whether to kill John or Mycroft. He made his decision, Eurus’ game was over, and he pointed the gun under his own chin taking a calculated risk.

When he awoke, he was alone in a small cell plastered with pictures from his childhood. He quickly called out for John and Mycroft. John answered explaining that he was in a well, but otherwise seemingly fine. There was no response from Mycroft.

Sherlock quickly figured out that he was not actually in a cell but rather in a collapsable structure outside his childhood home. Eurus tasked him with discovering the location of Redbeard and upped the stakes as she started filling the well that John was chained to the bottom of. Sherlock racked his brain trying to solve the same problem who’s solution had evaded him as a child. That was at least until in an escape attempt, John solved an important piece of the puzzle.

Redbeard was never a dog.

Sherlock suddenly remembered his childhood best friend Victor Trevor who his brain had so cleverly disguised to help preserve his psyche. With this new information, Sherlock was able to figure out the Eurus’ song corresponded to the gravestones with the weird dates. He quickly deciphered the message and went to free John who was running out of time.

Outside of the well, he discovered his sister, “I’m so sorry Eurus,” he spoke sincerely.

“You needed me and I abandoned you, I could have saved you,” he added.

“I just wanted my brother,” she replied childishly.

“I’m here now, and we can fix this, just free John, don’t make the same mistake you made with Victor,” he pleaded.

“I don’t want to quit playing the game, I don’t want you to leave me again,”

“I’m not going to leave, I’m going to save you,”

Not knowing how to respond she simply stepped back and allowed Sherlock to save his friend. He dove into action turning the water off and then retrieving a key carefully tossing down to John so that he could free his ankles. He searched for a moment to find what Eurus had used to get John down there to begin with and found some rope that he leveraged against a tree and tossed down to his friend. 

It was as John was climbing over the side that the police cars and helicopters arrived. Mycroft’s people were there to collect Eurus, who went with them peacefully. Sherlock and John were both checked over by the EMT’s and given shock blankets. They were informed that Mycroft was safe and simply left back in Sherrinford. Once he regained consciousness, he his people and sent them in helicopters to take care of Eurus. But then? Who called the police?

“William Sherlock Holmes” you yelled slamming the door to Greg’s station car.

John and Sherlock had never turned around so fast in their lives. How were you here? Hadn’t they both watched your apartment go up in smoke? Or, was that merely another one of Eurus’ tricks?

“You’d better have a good explanation for-”

“I love you too,” he interrupted shocking both you and John.

“What?” you asked in disbelief.

“I said I love you too, I wanted to say it during that call two years ago, and I wanted to say it earlier today. I promise I will explain everything, and I understand if you no longer fill the same way, I’m sorry for not saying it before,” he confessed. 

You stared at him in awe, taking a step closer still staring at him. You closed the remaining gap between the two of you and smoothly connected your lips with his allowing them to communicate for you. After an instant of shock, Sherlock reciprocated allowing the blanket to fall off of his shoulders as he pulled you in closer. When he pulled away, both of you were slightly dazed and smiling. 

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” you whispered.

“That I do,” he answered.

From there, Greg dropped John and Sherlock off at John’s place where he happily greeted Molly and wasted no time collecting Rosie. The next day the three of you would meet up at 221B Baker Street and begin cleaning and repairing that flat as Sherlock did as promised and explained everything. After two weeks the renovations were complete and John and Rosie moved back in with Sherlock who had decided to utilize space in 221C for experiments to keep Rosie away from them both for her safety and his sanity.

You became more than a frequent visitor and eventually moved into one of the bedrooms of 221C however you spent far more time in Sherlock’s bed than in your own. You watched Rosie as the boys went out on cases and would occasionally tag in for John. Being in a relationship with Sherlock was interesting to say the least, but you wouldn’t trade a second of it. 

[pips-fics]

ask: Just discovered your fics :) - I’m missing Chan hurt comfort, so maybe a fic where he overworked himself? Either getting dizzy in front of the members or panicking or getting really sick? Pretty open but just thought I’d throw it out there :)

ask: Hi! I know you’re on hiatus, and that’s totally ok :) but I didn’t want to forget to send so. Could you possibly write a fic where Chan gets really claustrophobic in a crowd and has to be calmed down by the members (maybe by Minho?)

——

chan had been overworking himself for weeks, and it was catching up to him.  all the members had begun checking in on him regularly - felix making sure he’d eaten at least one meal in the past 24 hours, jisung making sure his water bottle hadn’t been empty for too long.  seungmin helped make sure he got to his appointments on time.  hyunjin brought him snacks whenever he went to the dance studio and jeongin often brought him hot chocolate in the early morning hours, when he was inevitably still awake, working on tracks in the office.  changbin had developed a habit of attempting to force chan to bed earlier than that, usually finding him at around 3 am and on the verge of passing out.

chan thought he was managing alright.  

when he started to feel sick, he knew it was from lack of sleep, so he ignored it and pushed forward.  this meant spending the morning retching unproductively into the toilet and then eating a full lunch not long after.  they had a free day after their fan meeting, so if he needed rest, he could get it then.

the fan meeting was… more difficult to get through than chan had expected.  his head started pounding about halfway through, and focusing on fan’s faces became a real struggle.  he was surprised to find himself relieved when it was over.

as they shuffled out of the meeting room, chan grabbed minho’s shirt sleeve without thinking.  in an instant, minho spun around, and chan let go - he wasn’t sure why he’d done that in the first place, other than a vague but powerful fear that he’d somehow be left behind.  but minho seemed, somehow, to understand something that chan did not, even without words.  he dropped back a bit, letting chan walk slightly in front of him so that minho could place a hand on chan’s back.

for a moment, chan felt his heart’s erratic beating slow.  and then, as they stepped out into the main foyer of the mall, chaos broke loose.

there were so many people.  chan got jostled and, feeling weak already, was carried towards the center of it all.  it was all noise and sweat and a sort of unintentional violence caused by the large mass of people.  it was fear and powerlessness and sheer exhaustion - a headache and a too-fast, too-loud heartbeat, shaking hands and not enough oxygen to go around.

he felt like a kid lost in a mall.  chan had done that once - it hadn’t been horrible actually, since he’d been lucky and cute enough to find someone to help.  getting swept up like this, he felt as lost and uncertain and small as he’d been back then, except now he also found he couldn’t breathe at all.

——

after he’d lost chan to the crowd, minho spent a stunned half-second cursing himself out for being so careless.  then he started making use of his elbows and made his way into the mass of bodies before him.

he wasn’t gentle, exactly, but he got the job done.

he found chan somewhat near the center of the crowd, eyes wide, breathing heavy.  minho snarled at the people surrounding chan, crowding him in even more with every second, completely ignorant that he was having a full blown panic attack.  “move!”  minho growled, and people ebbed slightly away, very briefly.  it was enough.

he grabbed ahold of chan’s arm, wincing as the older boy startled, but not letting go.  upon recognizing him, chan’s eyes filled with tears and his knees gave out.  minho hoisted him back up.

“we need to get out of here!”  minho shouted, trying not to worry too much over how badly chan was shaking.  he glanced around, looking for the closest exit.  he saw their manager with a few of the others, but they were further away than minho was hoping.  he spun, and saw a small, relatively empty hallway, about 10 feet away.  that was their best shot.

“we should— oh, no,” minho grimaced.  when he looked back at chan, his skin was ashen and he had a hand clamped over his mouth.  “hyung!  can you walk?”

looking far from certain, chan nodded.  minho adjusted his grip to chan’s wrist instead of his arm, and tugged the older boy behind him.  he looked back to check on chan often, and caught him gagging a few times, and pushed people out of his way with a bit more force.

as soon as they make it to the hallway that minho had identified as their escape, chan falls to his hands and knees, throwing up.  the few people nearby scatter, and as he rubs chan’s back, minho silently wishes luck to anyone who enters the crowd.

it takes the better part of 5 minutes for chan to empty his stomach, and there’s a sizable mess when he’s done.  minho helps him stand on shaky legs and guides chan to a bathroom to let him clean up a bit and rinse out his mouth.  as he does so, minho puts the back of his hand to chan’s forehead.

“fever,” he comments.  chan makes a strangled noise, and for a second minho thinks he’ll be sick again.  but no, it turns out he’s just offended by facts.

“‘m not sick,” chan protests.  “claustrophobic.”

minho rolls his eyes.  “yes, that too, i think.  but you’re also sick and need to spend the rest of today and tomorrow resting.  you’ve been working too much recently.”

chan makes a valiant attempt at a scowl, but with his sweaty hair and plain-to-see exhaustion, he looks, at best, like a wet puppy begging to be let inside.

“let’s go outside and get some fresh air while we wait for the others, yeah?”

suddenly chan’s eyes widen and he nearly sprints out of the bathroom.  minho runs after him, catching his wrist just before he darts back into the crowd.

“are you crazy?  chan-hyung?  are you insane?  what the—”

“jisung— we have to— we have to find him, minho, let go!”

minho gives chan’s arm a good tug and grabs him by the shoulders once they’ve got some space between them and that terrifying, ever-growing mass of people.  “he’s fine,” minho says, panting.  “he’s with the others, i saw him earlier.  come on,  i’ll call hyunjin once we’re out and prove it to you.”

chan looks skeptical, but the fight has drained out of him, and he lets minho lead him to the doors.  it’s a very nice day, fortunately, and they find a grassy place under a tree to rest.  minho, as promised, calls hyunjin, who passes the phone to jisung, who is, unsurprisingly, just fine, as he assures both chan and minho on speaker phone.

after that, minho takes the phone back to share details on their location with their manager and chat with a few of the members very briefly.

“hyunjin said there’s some big sale or something - i don’t know,” minho reports after hanging up.  “they’re going to bring the car around and meet us here.”

chan doesn’t respond and minho glances at him to find that he’s already drifted into sleep.  minho feels something uncomfortable swirl in his chest - a mixture of relief, and fear, and frustration, and something else.  gratitude, maybe.  chan does so much for the rest of them, and minho can only scratch the surface of paying it back - but he will gladly play watchdog until they can get chan home, safe and sound.

——

feel free to send more asks!

[myheartrevealedocs]

Untouchable Ch 21: Elephant’s Memory (S3E16)

Warnings: murder, mentions of terrorism, mentions of drugs and addiction

Ch 20 | Ch 22

~ ~ ~

“I’m proud of you,” Spencer said, speaking up for the first time on their drive.

“You’re proud of me?” she asked, startled.

“Yes,” he argued. “Look at you! You’ve got a car now. Twenty-four years old, teaching two college classes and working for the FBI.”

“I’m more proud of you!” she shot back. “A full year sober! I can’t imagine how difficult it has been for you.”

“Thank you for coming with me.” Spencer sunk slightly in the passenger seat.

After the death of Ryan Phillips in front of the two of them, Spencer had been struggling with his cravings again. He hadn’t relapsed, of course, but he was plagued by nightmares and a lack of motivation. When he admitted this to Lydia, she’d suggested he look up some support meetings nearby. Tonight was going to be his first time attending the Beltway Clean Cops group.

“I’m more than happy to come along!”

The two of them sat in the back of the room, listening calmly to different people talk about their situations. Spencer had just gotten the courage to take the stage when Lydia got a text from Hotch.

Briefing in 30. Can’t get ahold of Reid. Please tell him.

Lydia dropped her head into her hands. Could it not wait just a few more moments? He had barely started speaking aloud and Lydia could see him trying to ignore the buzzing phone in his pocket.

“Hi. Uh… My name’s, uh, Spencer, and I’m uh… I don’t really know what I am.”

“Hello Spencer,” the crowd greeted.

“This is my- This is my first meeting,” he sputtered, his eyes locking with Lydia’s every few seconds. “I guess I, uh… I know I had a… a problem with Dilaudid, but… I stopped. My girlfriend helped me to stop about a year ago. I thought it was over, but recently I’ve really been… your literature uses the term ‘craving’. It started about a month ago. A- A suspect was murdered in front of me. A kid. And I thought that I could save that kid, but I couldn’t, and… Sorry.” He pulled out his phone, rejecting another call from their boss.  “I’ve seen a lot of that stuff before, but for some reason that kid’s face is really, uh… stuck in my brain. You know? It’s really- I can’t… And I want to forget… about him. And I just want to escape.”

Once again, he pulled his phone from his pocket and stepped away from the microphone, mumbling his apologies. Lydia got up and ran around to the side door to follow him out.

“I’m sorry,” she said as they met up and started walking to the car. “I didn’t want to interrupt you-”

“It’s fine,” he breezed. “Let’s just… get this over with.”

~ ~ ~

“Sorry we’re late,” Spencer announced as he and Lydia jogged into the conference room..

“Do I want to know what you two were up to?” Morgan teased.

Lydia was quick to cover Spencer’s secret for him. “You sound as if going to the movies is scandalous.”

“Movies, hm?” Rossi  joined. “Tell us what the movie was about.”

“Wouldn’t know. We didn’t get to finish it.”

Both boys gave the couple a look. Spencer started to shrink in his seat, but Lydia kept up her stance, not wanting them to push for anymore answers.

“I know it’s late,” Hotch interrupted. “I know we’re tired, but we’ve got two dead cops.”

“Alright.” JJ opened up the file in front of her and continued briefing the team, pointing to what looked to be a massive house fire displayed on the scene. “The resident, Rod Norris, was DOA. They’re still trying to ID the remains of the second victim, whom they believe is his 16-year-old daughter Jordan. From the condition of the remains, she would have had to have been inside the house, close to the source of the blast.”

“Clearly they used the bombing to set the officers up for an ambush,” Emily noted.

Spencer nodded. “It’s a well-established terrorist tactic. The first wave takes out civilians, the second wave takes out first responders.”

“The locals are thinking terrorism?” Morgan asked. “In West Bune, Texas?”

JJ nodded. “Not exactly a tier-one target, but DHS did issue a terror alert for the border states yesterday, just due to the timing and nature of the attacks.”

As the team argued about the chances of this being an actual terrorist attack, Lydia looked over her file. An explosive went off in Rod Norris’s house, and when two cops arrived on the scene, they were shot. Hotch probably wanted her working on identifying the explosive and seeing if there is any evidence to recover from the house.

Simple enough.

~ ~ ~

“The blast was localized here,” Lydia announced as she walked onto the scene. “The room was sealed off. There’s plastic and duct tape on the doors and windows.”

“Cordite,” Rossi added as he smelled something on the ground. “Gunpowder.”

Reid was looking through his file. “Yeah. They found a dozen canisters, it says.”

Rossi and Prentiss put their heads together, determining where Jordan and Rod were standing when the explosion happened. Lydia ran her fingers over the door frames. Whoever set this up wouldn’t need to clean up their evidence. There was no way she could recover anything out of the pile of ashes that used to be the Norris house.

“They didn’t care about the rest of the house,” Spencer said, more to Lydia than the others. “The whole thing’s designed to focus the blast on whoever came through that door.”

“If that’s true, something had to trigger the blast,” she reasoned.

Emily held up a charred box of cigarettes. “Rod Norris was a smoker.”

Lydia glanced at the floor where all the gunpowder had been set. Drop a hot cigarette on that? Kaboom.

“I’ve been working with you profilers long enough to know that no terrorist is going to watch Rod Norris long enough to know that he was going to enter through this door and be smoking a cigarette at a specific time,” Lydia replied. “This is too personal.”

~ ~ ~

The more they learned, the more the case reeked of personal problems.

Their unsub was a boy named Owen Savage. His father was one of the responding officers on the Norris scene. He’d staged the explosion to kill Jordan Norris’s dad and look like Jordan had died too. Then, when his father showed up, he shot him and his partner. They were pretty sure that Jordan wasn’t a part of the murders and was either a hostage or was completely unaware of the situation. She had been dating Owen for a long time, so it was likely she had agreed to leave with him, without checking in with her father.

Lydia had been talking with Garcia about the teens’ families when she saw Spencer storm away out of the corner of her eye. He had just… left.

Finishing up her conversation, she ran over to Hotch.

“Did you send Spencer away?”

“Have you seen how he’s been acting?” Hotch snapped.

She wasn’t surprised to hear that Spencer was moody. Leaving that meeting so suddenly was hard for him and he was still dealing with Ryan Phillips’s death. Working on another teen-involved case was probably not helping.

“Lydia, you two promised-”

“This isn’t a relationship thing!” she defended before he could say anything else. “He’s dealing with something else. The only reason I’m involved is because he told me about it. Please just…”

“Talk to him,” Hotch ordered. “His passive aggressive attitude is going to get him into trouble. The town’s already pissed we’re here.”

Lydia nodded, switching topics. “I heard that Officer Lett’s wife freaked out on you guys earlier. I’m sorry.”

“The police are under a lot of pressure to find who did this. They don’t need some angsty teen from the FBI telling them they’re stupid as well.”

She blinked. “He called someone stupid?”

“Talk to him,” Hotch repeated, ignoring her question.

“Yes, sir.”

~ ~ ~

“Has she calmed yet?” Lydia asked Emily.

They had been able to get in contact with Jordan Norris and tell her about what Owen had done, convincing her to run away from him and join them in the station, but she still didn’t fully trust them. It’d taken much persuasion and a lot of promises not to hurt Owen for her to give up where he was hiding. And now she was sobbing, half in fear, half in shame, in one of the private rooms in the station.

“No,” Emily replied, bluntly, on her way to get the girl another cup of water. “Did you hear from Hotch?”

Lydia nodded. “Owen wasn’t at the ranch. He left a note, I guess, about returning his mother’s necklace.”

Emily simply shrugged. “He can’t have gotten far. I’m sure the rest of the team will find him.”

She walked back to the grieving girl, who JJ was currently comforting, leaving Lydia alone in the bullpen of the station. That is, until Spencer came rushing in, brushing past her to get to their evidence boards.

“Spencer?” she called, already on his heels. “Why are you back?”

“They think he’s going to his mother’s grave,” he breathed, yanking a photo from the board and then looking around for Jordan.

“Isn’t he?” she demanded, seeing that the picture he had grabbed was the photo of Owen’s mother that he kept on his laptop. She was smiling, pointing to her necklace, which said ‘Hope’.

Hotch had assumed by Owen’s note that Owen was taking that necklace to his mother’s grave, as a way of ‘giving it back’ to her. But when Spencer interrupted Jordan and JJ’s conversation, throwing the photo in the young girl’s face, Lydia understood what he was thinking.

“He was gone when we got to the ranch. I want to save his life, but I need to ask you a question. This necklace-- he gave it to you?”

He spoke so fast, it was hard to differentiate between sentences, but Jordan took a second to process what he had said, then nodded. “I left it at the ranch.”

“He’s coming here,” Spencer said, already on his way out of the station.

Lydia jumped in front of him, already holding up a hand to stop him. “He’s going to do everything he can to get to Jordan.”

“I can’t let him do this, Lydia,” he hissed, trying to push past her. “It’s a suicide mission. I won’t let him die.”

“I know this is hard for you,” she told him, still maintaining eye contact to keep him in place. “But I can’t let you do this alone. Tell me the plan, and we walk out together.”

He glanced at the door, clearly anxious to leave before Owen got there. But his eyes were somewhat relieved to tell her what he was going to do. “Leave your gun. He wants to go down shooting. If we don’t have weapons, he has no reason to kill us. The only thing he wants more than death, is to apologize to Jordan so… I have to make it clear that that’s still an option.”

Lydia was already pulling her gun from its holster, setting it down on the desk beside her. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

He nodded, sternly, and unarmed, the two of them walked out of the station, side by side.

The sun was unbearable outside. The two of them could barely see Owen’s dark figure approaching down the block, but the shotgun across his chest was hard to miss. Lydia’s hands were already up, her palms facing outwards. Spencer followed suit as the boy saw them approaching and aimed his weapon in their direction.

“Reid!” Prentiss screamed, leaving the station just in time to watch them walk into danger. “Ambers!”

The two of them ignored her, Spencer stepping forward to speak. “Owen, we don’t have guns on us. My name is Spencer, this is Lydia, we’re with the FBI, and we’re here to help you.”

“Yeah?” he cried. “I need you to stay back.”

There were tires squealing behind them and Lydia finally glanced behind her to see a black SUV with Rossi, Morgan, and Hotch inside pull up behind them. As Spencer continued, they threw open the doors and positioned themselves behind them, guns at the ready.

“I know the only reason you joined the wrestling team was for your father. I know that he blamed you for what happened-”

“Stay back! Right where you are!”

“-I also know the only reason you killed Rod Norris and Kyle Borden was to protect Jordan. I know the harder you tried, the worse it got, and it felt like everyone just stood there watching you suffer, and not a single person even tried to help.”

“They didn’t,” Owen sobbed. “They didn’t.”

“I know you want to escape… and forget. Believe me when I say I know… I know exactly how that feels.”

Lydia, listened to him speak. This case with Owen was really hard for him. She knew that he was dealing with cravings, but the way he spoke to Owen made her think it was something more. She’d never imagined that highschool was easy for Spencer. He was only 12 at the time. But there was clearly something specific on his mind.

Lydia kept glancing back so that she could position herself between Owen and the rest of the team. Hotch was going to kill her later. She was certain of it. But she was convinced that they were more likely to shoot Owen than Owen was likely to shoot her or Spencer. And for Spencer’s sake, she’d do anything to keep Owen from dying.

“Owen, there’s so much more for you out there,” Lydia finally spoke up.

“No. No, I’m already dead.”

“You aren’t dead,” she promised. “If you die, you’re going to leave Jordan. And right now, she’s in the station begging us not to hurt you.”

“You don’t want to leave her like your mother left you,” Spencer agreed.

“Ok.” Owen’s head shook wildly, trying to keep the upper hand on the situation. “Bring her to me. Bring her outside.”

“I can’t bring her outside,” Spencer quickly told him. “But, if you put the gun down, I swear to god, I’ll take you to her. I promise, nobody will hurt you. You’ll say goodbye to her, and you’ll give her the necklace. Alright? So what do you say? Let’s put the gun down. Let’s go inside.”

Lydia could see the battle in Owen’s mind, so she added, “Owen, Jordan loves you so much. If not for your sake, come in peacefully for hers. She’s been through so much, don’t let her live with this on her conscience as well.”

Finally, he nodded, reaching underneath his overcoat and taking the strap of the shotgun off his shoulder. Pointing it away, he stepped forward and put the weapon softly on the ground.

Now that he was unarmed, Lydia stepped to the side and let the team see Owen, his arms already above his head.

“They have to cuff you now, Owen,” Lydia told him calmly, trying to maintain eye contact with him so he didn’t see all the FBI agents running towards him and freak out. Spencer moved the gun aside and stepped up next to her. “You did so good, Owen. I know this is scary, but just stay calm. I promise we’re taking you to Jordan right now.”

“You two okay?” Morgan asked as he grabbed Owen's arms and locked them behind his back.

Spencer nodded, patting the boy down and pulling a knife from his belt as well as his mother’s necklace. “We’re fine.”

Lydia turned and finally made eye contact with Hotch. A very, very pissed off Hotch.

~ ~ ~

The night had hit fast and the whole plane was quiet. Lydia leaned into Spencer’s shoulder, her mind drifting with everything that had happened on the case. As much as she had to be worried about, her mind kept coming back to the same point: despite how stressed he was, Spencer told her the plan. He let her come with him. And that said volumes about the trust between the two of them. She knew that. She could see it so clearly now.

The strong connection she felt to him in the moment, couldn’t even be broken when Hotch sat down across from the two of them, his face a state of unwavering seriousness.

“You two knowingly jeopardize your lives and the lives of others. I should fire you both.”

Reid bit down on his lip nervously. “You have to understand that this was entirely my idea, sir.”

“Ambers?” Hotch addressed. “Do you believe Reid deserves the blame for this?”

“No, sir.”

Despite his clear anger, Lydia knew that Hotch wasn’t going to fire them. In fact, she doubted they’d get much punishment at all. He was good at understanding the intentions of his team.

He looked at Spencer again. “You’re the smartest kid in the room, but you’re not the only one in that room. You pull something like this again, don’t expect lenience from me. The same goes for you, Lydia. Am I clear?”

Spencer nodded immediately, “Yes, sir,” with Lydia following suit.

“It won’t happen again.”

“Thank you,” Spencer added.

“What were you thinking?”

Lydia dropped her hand over her boyfriend’s and waited patiently for him to answer. She may have followed him into the line of fire, but in the end, it was his decision, which would have happened with or without her.

“I was thinking that that would have been the second time a kid died in front of me.”

“You’re keeping score.” Hotch shook his head in warning. “Just like Owen.”

“It was my turn to save one,” Spencer joked, without much of the humor.

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“It should.”

Lydia listened intently to their conversation. This was obviously a talk the Spence needed to have with his boss on his own. They both needed to address the death of Ryan Phillips.

“I know it’s painful when the person you identify with is the bad guy,” Hotch told him and Spencer’s eyes fell to his intertwined fingers with Lydia.

“What does that make me?”

“Good at the job.” For the first time that night, there seemed to be a hint of a smile on his face.

Lydia leaned back onto her boyfriend’s shoulder as the unit chief stood up, but he continued to speak to them as he stepped into the walkway of the jet.

“I know it’s none of my business, but when we land, I think you should go and catch the rest of that movie.”

Lydia almost stupidly asked him what he was referring to, forgetting all about the cover she had set up for them at the beginning of the case to excuse their tardiness.

“He has to know that was a lie,” Spencer mumbled into her hair.

“No doubt,” she agreed. “But I think he knows that whatever it was was important to the two of us. That’s all that really matters, right?”

“Right,” he whispered, tiredly drifting off against her side.

Tags: @kris-stuff, @wooya1224, @arthurmorrgans, @anotherr-fine-mess, @eddysocs

[goldinavonlea]

Prompt: Anne/Gilbert courting they’re in Anne’s room and then marilla returns so Gilbert has to sneak out lol!

OKAY HERE WE GO! I actually finished something for once! It is TOO LONG and SELF INDULGENT and I had the BEST TIME! A few people have expressed interest in this (madmen, all), so I’ll tag you in then post with a cut, or you could rock on over to read it on Ao3! @platonic-oxymoron, @jump-on-winds-back, @chocolatelatte121, @andim-pirate, @neliel-deathberry

So without further ado (or only the brief ado it takes me to figure out how to cut on desktop)…

Summer had arrived in Avonlea. In all truth, summer had arrived in Avonlea several weeks earlier, but the inclement internal weather of Anne’s life of late had rendered the view rather cloudy from her window for a while there, and so perhaps it was better to say that summer had arrived—finally—in Anne. 

And what a summer it was.

The Snow Queen had advanced her reach so far that year that, with Anne’s window thrown open to the warm breeze, her outermost boughs reached past the casement and allowed the scent of blossoms to settle without having to do the tremendous injustice of cutting any sprigs loose. In the deliciously lazy few hours after lunch, the sun was in its prime and perfect position to extend its rays into the gable room, that so beloved tree stepping in again to render the light not sharp or overbright, but soft and golden and glorious, throwing shifting patterns on the floorboards. All the air was warm, perhaps under other circumstances too warm but with the light wind, the shade being indoors offered, the lack of necessity—there, in her own space—for long thick stockings or fussy aprons, no one to tell her to roll her sleeves back down her arms, rather than oppressive the afternoon seemed sweet, a little sticky but not unpleasantly so, stretching out slow and endless like toffee.

The house was quiet, Matthew tending the back field and Marilla having retreated to Rachel’s for the afternoon, leaving Anne alone but for the beating embodiment of her sudden shift in seasonal outlook, making himself quite at home as he lay, barefoot and trousers rolled to the knee, nose in a book with his head hanging upside-down off the edge of Anne’s bed. 

He had more freckles, in the summer. Anne could count them all, if she wished to, but for the moment found herself quite content to sit propped up against the footboard, a book of her own in her lap, watching. 

Well. Almost content.

“I don’t believe for a moment that actually works.”

“Sure it works,” came Gilbert’s reply as he lazily turned a page, the book obscuring his face for a moment though she could hear the smile in his words. “The brain needs oxygen to function, oxygen is carried in the blood, blood is as amenable to the affects of gravity as anything else, therefore: lying upside-down makes your brain work better.”

“There’s a logical fallacy in there somewhere, I can smell it.”

“Oh can you?” Gilbert asked, the smile in his voice broadening. “Where?”

“Don’t know,” Anne replied with a sigh, flicking a strand of hair out of her eyes. “It’s too hot to think: ask me again in Autumn.”

“I strongly suspect neither of us will remember to raise the argument again come Autumn.”

Anne snorted. “Me, miss an opportunity to point out a flaw in your intellectual argument? I think not.”

“Well that’s true,” Gilbert agreed, his smile finally reappearing to Anne’s eyes as well as her ears as he set his book down, still open, on his chest. Blinking at her a few times (and looking rather comical doing so, being as he was upside down), he sighed. “I’ve been reading the same three pages for half an hour and I don’t think I’ve taken in a word of it.”

“Probably too much oxygen to the brain,” she quipped back, before setting her own book aside. “I never would have thought there was any circumstance that could deter me from the written word, but even I am struggling to process much from the page on so compellingly syrupy an afternoon,” Anne said, swallowing down a yawn and swinging her legs round so that she could lie back besides Gilbert, eyes drifting shut. “It’s like bathwater: I just want to fall asleep.”

“If you fall asleep now you won’t tonight, and then you’ll have hell to pay from Marilla when you refuse to get up in the morning.”

“Oh why should we get up in the morning, anyway? There’s so much day to be getting on with at the moment, surely some small portion of it could be given over to that most delightful and rare of luxuries that is the lie-in?”

“I thought mornings were for chores around here,” Gilbert said with the grin of one allowed entirely free reign over his own comings and goings.

Anne groaned. “Oh don’t, it’s summer: a season much too romantical to be tainted by the likes of laundry before ten in the morning. And don’t think I can’t feel your smugness without looking at you, Bash keeps you on entirely too long a leash.”

“Hey, I do laundry!”

“You do laundry precisely when you do everything, which is at whichever point in the day suits you. I love Marilla with the depth and wholeness of my heart, but Lord in Heaven does the woman love a schedule. I swear, once I have my teaching certificate and the promise of endless, uninterrupted summers, I won’t be getting out of bed before eleven a single day of them. I won’t even sleep that long, I’ll just wake up and stay in bed for hours and hours and hours, simply because I can.”

Gilbert’s grin softened at this, all teasing and fond. “I don’t reckon you could last ten minutes in bed after waking up without being bored to tears.”

“I certainly could,” Anne insisted, warming to her theme. “I’d keep a veritable mountain of books on my bedside table and spend the whole morning just reading. Maybe I wouldn’t even bother with a bedside table: just pile up all my books on the floor and balance my coffee on top of them.”

“If you don’t plan on getting out of bed,” Gilbert began slowly, clearly aware that he was walking into a trap and full of the imminent delight of being thus caught, “how do you suppose you’ll be getting ahold of coffee?”

Anne paused, then rolled her head ever so slightly to the side and cut a pointed and speculative glance at Gilbert.

The beaming, boyish smile that overcame his face was thrilled.

Gotcha. 

“Now that seems decidedly unfair.”

“Well,” Anne sniffed, returning her gaze to the ceiling. “Doctors don’t get summer holidays.”

“That is a sore wound and rubbing salt in it is actually very cruel.”

“Oh how you shall suffer, upheld as you shall be as a paragon of upright gentlemanliness wherever you go—”

“I’ve no doubt you plan to make that very difficult.”

“Positively fawned over by your grateful patients bringing you flowers and cakes and… and jars of various preserves—”

“From which you will get equal if not greater enjoyment, so you are, in advance, welcome.”

“People naming their dear children after you—”

“God, I hope not.”

Anne pulled up short at that, snapped out of the playful exchange as she turned again to Gilbert with a frown. “Well what’s that supposed to mean?”

His face screwed up in evident distaste. “We have to swear an oath, you know: Do no harm. Not sure I’d be able to say I was honouring my promise if my presence lead some poor child to being named Gilbert.”

“What’s wrong with Gilbert?” Anne asked, contrarily offended on his behalf. “I like it.”

He gave her a look that suggested she might have gone quite mad.

“Well I do! I don’t think I’d considered it all that much prior to coming to Avonlea, and… I will admit for a while it did prompt a thrill of what I generally assumed to be rage, but now… names are just words for people, aren’t they? Gilbert is the word that means you, so naturally it has to be one of my very favourites.”

Again his faced softened, became something that wasn’t exactly a smile but was so unflinchingly open, so tender, Anne was of half a mind to look away. She didn’t. 

“You know,” he said, absently tangling their fingers together on Anne’s faded quilt, “for someone who seems to relish in being mean to me you can be incredibly sweet when the spirit moves you.”

Anne shrugged. “I contain multitudes.”

Like that, the broad, delighted grin was back. “That’s Whitman—Song of Myself.”

“I know. I might have to wait until sunset at the moment but I have managed to do some reading.”

“And you chose to read Whitman.”

“Of course,” Anne said, genuinely a little baffled that he seemed so very pleased by the fact, as though it wasn’t obvious the copy of Leaves of Grass would leap directly to the top of her extensive to read list the moment he placed it in her hands. “I know it means a lot to you.”

He simply blinked at her for several moments, before his mouth went crooked in a wry smirk. “I might start handing you copies of The Lancet, just to see if you could force yourself through all that dull writing.”

Anne, forsaking for a moment the mantle of a mature young woman, stuck out her tongue. “Now who’s mean?”

“I suppose we’re equal.”

“Well then, rejoice old world, for all is as it should be.”

He squeezed her hand, his eyes soft and brown-sugar warm, something in them that, even in the summer, always seemed to remind her of Christmas. He smiled. “Yeah.”

Anne wasn’t sure, with all the years and years of promise she had ahead of her in order to test the truth of such a belief, that she’d ever grow accustomed to this part. For all the marvellous, sweeping romances she’d read through the years not one of them had ever truly provided any great detail on a kiss, shying away into the vagaries of metaphor which, while lovely, paled in comparison to the focus and specificity of the real thing, and to that entire grand pasture (until recently existing entirely unbeknownst to Anne even in her wildest imaginings) of all that was around a kiss in and of itself. 

For example, this: those breathless moments leading up to it, wherein contact became an inevitability and yet still—even after several seemingly eternal weeks of increasing familiarisation with one another—the thrill of nerves, the restless, impatient aching in the palms, the sides of the neck, the small of the spine that those eyes, suddenly heavy, brought forth in her. The fading out of the outside world, only ‘fading out’ wasn’t quite right, it was more like fading in, all the focus that had been spared for other things narrowing its scope (and how could she ever have imagined that a narrowing of scope might bring such a rush of muchness!) until all it encompassed was her, and him, and them—this thing that they became together, united in purpose and humming like one of Miss Stacey’s wires, the length and breadth of them startling and electric and alive. 

God, he hadn’t even touched her yet. Perhaps attempting this with their heads hanging off the edge of the bed wasn’t their wisest of plans: the whole thing left her light-headed enough when she was the right way up. 

Still, Anne had never been one to back down from a bad idea, and Gilbert had never once tried to dissuade her—only ever asked for the chance to join in. 

He asked her now, with the tilt of his head, his breath warm in the already warm room, the soft downturn of his softer eyelashes blurred to dark brown smoke from this close (and he really was terribly good at getting that close without Anne entirely realising it was happening. Probably she should ask how he did it, but really she already knew that the answer was magic).

Anne, as she was so often inclined to do where he was concerned (now that she had allowed her inclinations the free reign they rightly deserved) said yes.

Oh, she was certain she’d never get used to this.

It started soft, as it usually did, the barest brush of lips that sparked and made her breath catch, reminded her that she was breathing at all. His fingers, still intertwined with her own, tightened their grip involuntarily, and even with her eyes closed Anne could feel the furrow of his brow, that little line of concentration and control that baited her, bothered deliciously at her until she inevitably managed to soothe it flat, until he relaxed and melted into it like clay under her hands.

That wasn’t just yet, though: that part came a little later. 

For now it was delicate and fluttering, not indecisive but unhurried, a little awed. There was no reason, Anne had concluded, no reason at all why placing one’s mouth on someone else’s ought to be so thrilling to every last thread of her, except for the fact that every point of contact, every movement of his lips against her own (a little firmer, now, a little longer, a little more intent) sang with the knowledge that this was Gilbert, Gilbert with the good heart and the gentle hands and the lopsided smile and the brilliant mind, and that that mind had chosen in that moment to put his mouth to her, to kiss her this way and then that, that of all the things that he could have elected to be doing right then it was kissing her that he wanted… that was where the thrill lay. Kissing in general, she supposed, might well be fine enough, but kissing Gilbert…

He shifted his attentions from Anne’s top lip to the bottom, and she pressed her sudden advantage to slot them together properly, like puzzle pieces sliding into place. Surely no-one else would fit her the way he did? Surely they were made for each other, when they worked together so well?

Ever so gently, his teeth scraped against her lip, and any question marks in her thoughts turned to dust.

Loathe to lose the contact, Anne decided against trying to sort out which fingers belonged to who on their entangled hands, instead rolling onto her side just enough for the hand she had spare to reach Gilbert’s face, trace the high of his cheek, the cut of his jaw of which she was so inexplicably fond—perhaps because its sharpness under her palm felt so very real, perhaps because the roll and motion of it took her back, again, to the mechanics and deliberation and will—his will, Gilbert’s!—behind his mouth on hers, or perhaps because of the way that every time she touched him there he shivered a little, and she felt the kick of it in her bones. She felt rooted, certain of and one with her skin in a way she rarely had the luxury of experiencing: she knew she was solid, and grounded, and there, because Gilbert was, and she had moved him. What a power that was, she thought as her fingertips skimmed the shell of his ear, found their way to the curls at the nape of his neck (which she had found she was also tremendously fond of)—to know that she could put her hands on him and he would move for her, just like that. She couldn’t entirely fathom what she’d done to deserve such a thing, but then she felt the instinctive shift of her own spine under his hand as it found her waist, and realised perhaps that was it: the utter trust it took Anne to be able to respond to him without thought or hesitation was a gift that earned the same in return. It was about balance, and faith, and equality, in this as in all things between them. 

She loved it.

She ran her fingers down the line of his throat to his collarbone, felt him draw a sharp breath straight from her own lungs as his hand flexed, tightened against her waist, and then gave her breath back in the shape of her own name.

“Anne.”

She wondered whether that was one of his favourite words, too—it certainly sounded that way, when he said it—and decided it was only fair she got the same opportunity to voice the name of her own joy that he did.

“Gil.”

Things blurred and sharpened then, the passage of time becoming hazy and malleable even as otherwise minute details—the exact pinpoint location and pressure of his thumb against her ribs, the back of her foot brushing against his shin, how she could just feel his heartbeat against her palm with her fingers hooked over his shoulder, the only fast thing in a world gone slow as honey. 

What a thing, to feel with her hand the impact she had on the heart of him; to know his love (he loved her, he loved her!) as something tangible, this thing she’d longed for no longer only curled through the landscape of her imagination but right there, held close, a rhythm against her skin.

His mouth sought out her throat, the exact spot just above the collar of her dress where her pulse beat strongest, and how could she do anything but smile, laugh breathlessly at the reassurance he was searching for? Yes, she said, with her fingers tangled in his curls, with the tilt of her head to make room for him, yes, Gilbert Blythe, I love you too.

And so they went, the tick of Anne’s clock forgotten amidst the heady sweetness of being together, and close, and in love in their own little corner of the world, into which nothing else might enter and from whence no-one might remove them.

Or… almost nothing. Almost no-one.

Divinely and determinedly distracted as she was, even Anne’s dubious sense of self-preservation cut sharply through that most pleasant of fogs at the creak (oh blessed creak!) of the kitchen door. Gilbert, who had eventually corralled enough mental direction to unwind their joined hands and set about one of his favourite pursuits—the utter destruction of whatever sense of order Anne had managed to impose upon her hair—displayed less wisdom, taking a few moments to respond not to the sound of the door itself, but the sudden tension of the girl in his arms. 

“Anne?” he asked, withdrawing with evident reluctance from the crook of her neck, eyes dazed, colour high in his cheeks and—and this Anne noticed with a dangerously distracting level of satisfaction—his hair just as dishevelled as her own would inevitably be.

“Shh,” she hissed, utterly still as she strained to hear any further sound from downstairs, as yet hopeful that she might have been imagining things. 

Footfalls, sharp and eminently recognisable. Anne’s eyes snapped back to Gilbert’s, wide and alarmed as the same sudden understanding dawned on his face. “Marilla.”

Sitting bolt upright (and fighting the sudden head rush the movement prompted), Anne let out a soft curse she’d never have voiced in any other company, hands flying to one of her braids as Gilbert followed suit, the protocol for such a disruption already perhaps an undignified level of established. 

“I thought you said she wouldn’t be back until five?” Gilbert whispered sharply, doing, Anne had to admit, an admirable job of not becoming sidetracked as he combed his fingers through her hair and set about reconstructing her right braid. 

“She’s an autonomous being, Gilbert: evidently she changed her mind! See this is precisely why we should meet at your house instead of here.”

“And risk Hazel wandering in? If you’d like to explain to Bash how his mother came to have a heart attack then be my guest!”

“You have a barn, don’t you?”

“You have a barn!” Gilbert replied, sounding just a little hysterical as he fumbled with her ribbon and dropped it. Twice.

“My barn is regularly occupied by both Jerry and Matthew, idiot.”

“And mine by Bash.”

“Better Bash,” she said, turning her focus to the potentially tricker task of flattening out Gilbert’s hair into some semblance of decorum, “than Marilla.”

“I… that’s fair. Okay, what am I doing?”

Anne bit her lip, casting about the room for escape routes. “You could climb out the window?”

“Out the window?” he repeated, managing to sound simultaneously amused and horrified. “Anne, I’d land directly outside the window downstairs, do you not think she might notice?”

“Well what if I climbed out the window?” Anne asked, rather clutching at straws at this point.

Gilbert was evidently trying to swallow down laughter. “What good would that do?!”

“Fine, okay, okay you’re just going to have to be quiet and hope she doesn’t come in here, and then we’ll… figure it out.”

“Anne, what do you—”

“Shut up, shut up she’ll hear you just, just shh!”

“Alright, alright I’m—” he stopped mid sentence, falling abruptly silent at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Again they stared at each other, eyes locked in panic, although it became rapidly obvious that this was a mistake as Anne felt a fit of giggles bubbling up her throat.

“Anne? Anne, are you up here?”

Praying that the Good Lord (being entirely responsible for sending trouble her way) might allow her passage through her current trials unscathed, Anne swallowed the laughter down and attempted to even out her voice. “Afternoon Marilla!”

If the look on Gilbert, eyes screwed shut and the back of his hand pressed to his mouth as his shoulders shook silently, was anything to go by, her attempt had failed.

“Oh, you are home! I’d not have expected to find you inside on a day like this,” came Marilla’s voice again from the other side of the closed door.

“I… it’s only, you know,” Anne began a little desperately, thwacking Gilbert with the back of her hand as the trembling of his suppressed laughter increased, “sunburn is such a tremendous pain to be dealing with, I thought I’d better not chance it.”

“Well now. How uncharacteristically responsible of you.”

At this Gilbert threw his head back, having to turn his hand to cover both his mouth and nose as tears pooled at the corners of his eyes, the suggestion of her responsibility whilst she desperately fought to evade the detection of a young man in her bedroom clearly proving itself too much for him. Not today, and perhaps not even tomorrow, but some day soon Anne was going to push him into the Lake of Shining Waters for this.

“Yes, well. Thanks.”

“Well I’m only back for a minute or two—Rachel’s gotten it into her head that she absolutely must furnish you with a new quilt when you leave for Charlottetown, honestly that woman has too many sons and is far too intent on spoiling other people’s daughters,” Marilla added in a undertone which threatened to unbalance Anne’s tenuous grasp on herself and reduce her to Gilbert’s level of amusement, “so she’s sent me back to collect all my patterns that she might judge the most appropriate.”

“That’s… that’s very kind of her. She really needn’t trouble herself.”

“As I have endeavoured to explain to her, though she’s having none of it. Still, I don’t suppose it can do any harm—I do hate to imagine you getting cold all alone, come winter.”

Something about the tone of Marilla’s voice bled the hysterical amusement from the moment, leant it a fond softness that Gilbert clearly felt too, since he was able to uncover his mouth and reach for her hand, thumb brushing softly across her knuckles.

Anne squeezed his fingers. “I won’t be alone.”

“No,” came Marilla’s reply, before a pause. Anne, who was well acquainted with Marilla’s various pauses, could hear the smile in it. “No, I don’t suppose you shall. Well, anyway, I just thought you ought to know my return may be a little later than I’d anticipated, what with Rachel on a mission, so you and Matthew may have to fend for yourselves for dinner. Stick to the stovetop, mind, and don’t be laying a finger on the cake in the pantry, it isn’t for you as you well know.”

“Yes, Marilla, I know.”

“Good. And enjoy the rest of your afternoon.”

“You too,” Anne replied, the tension slowly draining from her shoulders as she heard the footsteps retreating back down the stairs and then, a few moments later, the opening and closing of the kitchen door.

A further few beats of silence, and then a great relieved sigh from her co-conspirator. “Well. That was a bit close.”

Anne, entirely without hesitation and displaying the height of dignity, picked up the small cushion Marilla had sewn for her and whacked him over the head. “You rogue, you utter disaster of a man, could you not have made a little more of an effort to contain yourself? She could have heard you!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Gilbert laughed, sounding anything but as he raised his hands in defence.

“You are not, scoundrel, you’re no good at lies and they don’t become you so you’d do much better not trying. See if I invite you here again.”

“Perhaps it’d be wiser if you didn’t,” he replied, still evidently amused. “Wouldn’t want Marilla thinking you aren’t responsible.”

“Oh she already knows I’m not,” Anne said primly, standing at last from the bed and smoothing out her skirts. “It’s your dishonourable conduct she’d be shocked by: she thinks you’re such a nice young man.”

“Most do,” Gilbert agreed cheerfully, leaning back against her headboard with that lopsided grin again, entirely at his leisure. Oh how intolerable of him, to make her love him so even when he was being absolutely insufferable. “And what do you think, Miss? Do you find my conduct to be dishonourable?”

Though he smiled, Anne was attuned enough to him by now that she could detect the undertone of sincerity in the question. Seating herself again on the bed beside him, she raised a hand to his face then ran it back through his curls, flooded with impossible fondness at the way he leant into the touch. “I believe… that there surely cannot be anything dishonourable in offering a young lady precisely the affection with which she longs to be treated.”

“Well then,” he said, his hand coming up to cover hers where it had come to rest against his cheek. “Can’t imagine anyone else’s opinion matters all that much.”

Anne grinned. “Except Marilla’s.”

“Except,” Gilbert said, tilting his head in deference to her point, “perhaps Marilla’s.”

They sat like that in tender silence for several long moments, before Anne sighed and broke it. “You do realise you have to leave now, right?”

The wide-eyed, childlike disappointment on his face was Anne thought, tremendously comical. “What, why?”

“Because if you don’t we’ll only end up having this exact palaver again in a few hours.”

“We’ll keep an eye on the time!”

“Do you have the faintest idea what time it is now? No, don’t look.”

Having been instructed away from the small clock on Anne’s bedside, Gilbert narrowed his eyes. “… One…ish?”

“It’s half past three,” Anne informed him, unimpressed.

Blatantly disbelieving, Gilbert sat up to get a look at the clock himself. “It never is, it can’t…” He stopped, blinking at the hands. “Are you sure that’s right?”

Anne grabbed his hand and pulled, tugging him up from the bed. Probably her pillows would smell like him that night. “Come on, out.”

“No, Anne, come on, don’t make me go home: Dellie’s teething, the crying’s unbearable.” He fought her as she dragged him to the door, not hard but enough to make her laugh at his recalcitrance. And to think, she’d once thought mystery and melancholy to be the grand romantic ideal: how much better this was, to love and be loved by someone who shared his feelings with her unreservedly, however fleeting or ridiculous they might seem. 

“Then don’t go home,” Anne suggested, pulling him behind her down the hall, then giving him a gentle shove in the direction of the stairs. “Go for a walk, get some fresh air: they say it’s terribly good for you, Doctor Blythe.”

“Sunburn isn’t,” he argued, somehow managing to reach the ground floor without falling as he took the steps half-backwards, eyes still on her as she followed him. “It’s a terrible pain to be dealing with, I hear: I could be laid up in bed for days, and then how would you feel?”

“Find some shade,” Anne said, restraining a grin as she held the kitchen door open for him.

“Surely, being the far greater adventurer of the two of us, you’d be much better at such a search than I would,” he said, standing firm in the doorway and giving her a look of such utterly unconvincing false innocence she couldn’t help but laugh. “Come on, it’s a beautiful day: how could you stand to miss out on it? And think—it’s a matter of weeks before we’re off to the city, surrounded by smog and buildings and the great urban sprawl.”

“Eight weeks, which is in fact two months.” 

Gilbert elected to ignore this correction. “Think how badly you’ll long for a summer afternoon with trees and flowers and rivers then. Can you really throw away this chance, when it’s right here for the taking?”

Anne crossed her arms, fighting a smile and doing, she knew, a very poor job of it. “I suppose it is a glorious day…”

“Glorious,” Gilbert agreed, nodding enthusiastically.

“And I wonder… have I introduced you to my very favourite tree yet?”

He tilted his head, considering. “The Sugar Maple, up near the Andrews’ place?”

“Elm, outside of town—past the old bridge beyond the schoolhouse?”

“Then no, I don’t believe you have.”

“Well then,” Anne said, answering his triumphant grin with one of her own as she fetched her hat from the hook by the door and slid into her boots. “Who am I to deny the most wondrous call of summer?”

“Who indeed?” Gilbert replied, grabbing hold of her hand and pulling her beside him, out into the sun.

[4pondsinabox]

11XRiver & The Ponds

A/N Written for the sole purpose of giving Amy her “Molly Weasley Moment.”

River raced through the underbrush, weaving her way through the thicket of alien trees and leaping over fallen logs, while dodging the onslaught of arrows from behind. She ducked behind a large tree trunk and trained her blaster on her pursuers, shooting several down. When a dagger narrowly missed her ear, she decided to move on, making a sharp turn deeper into the woods. Thanks to her part-Time Lord biology, she had a much higher endurance than most and soon the angry shouts faded into the distance. River continued running long after the last arrow clattered against a tree behind her, until finally she felt safe enough to come to a halt. Crouching in some foliage, she listened intently for any sign of her pursuers. She had lost them. Unfortunately, River had also apparently lost the Doctor and her parents, which was much more problematic.

She pulled out her scanner and searched for nearby signs of human life, cursing the very day her husband had thought it a good idea to visit an uncharted planet on the outskirts of the universe. Admittedly, it’s not like any of them knew that the planet’s humanoid inhabitants were cannibals - or the otherworldly equivalent of eating anything that moved - but River wished the Doctor would think twice when her parents were on board. It was one thing when just the two of them were careening across the universe, but she’d be damned before she let anything happen to her mum and dad.

The archeologist heard a rustle in the surrounding foliage and her hand moved instinctively towards her blaster, when a familiar long nosed face appeared between the trees, looking rather lost. Relief washed over her. “Dad-” He turned just as movement caught the corner of River’s eye. “Get down!”  Rory ducked as she whipped out her blaster, taking out the hunter behind him, who’d had a spear trained at his back.

He let out a long breath of air. “Thanks for that.”

“Anytime.”

River stepped towards the fallen figure, crouching to inspect it as Rory’s gaze warily swept the surrounding trees.

“You wouldn’t happen to have seen Amy and the Doctor lately?”

River shook her head, unsheathing an unusually long dagger from the body’s scabbard. “I was hoping they were with you.” She stood, holding out the weapon to her father. “Here, you can never be too careful on wild planets like this one.”

 He balanced the blade in his hands for a moment before gripping the hilt as one normally would a much bigger sword. River watched him with a thoughtful tilt of her head.

“I never asked, where did you acquire your sword fighting skills? Leadworth certainly hasn’t got any training facilities.”

Rory glanced at her before quickly looking away again. “Oh, I uh … It’s a long story.”

“Spoilers?”

“Yeah.”

River had taken out her scanner again but looked over when the other fell silent. Rory was once more observing their surroundings with apprehension.

“They’ll be alright, you know,” she said, reassuring herself as much as him. “They’ve been doing this sort of thing long before either of us joined them. From their point of view at least.”

Rory simply nodded, expression unchanged. The corner of River’s scanner lit up. 

“I think I’ve found something.” 

She motioned for him to follow her and they continued their way through the thickening trees – if that’s what one calls twisting umbrella-esque lifeforms that stretch hundreds of meters over an average human’s head. Silver leaves were visible covering the undersides of each umbrella top, glittering slightly in the breeze. River supposed the sight would be quite beautiful if they hadn’t just escaped from being made into a meal for the planet’s less-than-friendly inhabitants.

“River, come look at this.”

River backtracked to where Rory was standing, inspecting several dark markings on a tree.

“Burn marks from an Althurian blaster.” The same kind she had strapped to her leg, except she had never ventured to this part of the planet before.

“I didn’t know the specifics, but I did figure they weren’t your usual flame residue. And there’s also that.”

Her gaze followed his pointing finger up towards the tree canopy, where a long robotic arm hung, unmoving, from one of the branches. River’s breath caught at the peculiar sight.

“Now that is fascinating.”

“Have you seen one like it before?”

“Can’t say I have.”

Rory followed her as she tried to get a solid focus of the object on her scanner, eyes darting between it and the blaster marks.

“I don’t get it; the Doctor said this planet’s inhabitants were primitive. How could there be signs of superior technology here?”

“The Doctor’s been wrong before.”

“Except…?”

River turned to face him. “Except you saw their village, we both did. Mostly skin, bones, and earth; not a single piece of material that could conduct energy in sight. Which leads me to think whatever left these markings behind aren’t native to this planet.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we are likely not the first aliens to pay a visit here.”

She slammed the palm of her hand against the side of the scanner with an annoyed huff. “It’s too high up to get an accurate reading, this could take a few minutes.”

“I don’t think we have a few minutes.”

River looked up to find a curtain of bronze colored birds rising out of the mossy ground, squawking in distress.

“They’re coming, we have to move quickly.”

They ran, the thickening umbrella trees proving more and more difficult to navigate between.

“River, what do you think happened to the others? The visitors who came here before us?”

“Think about it, Dad, is that really a question you want answered right now?”

“Fair point.”

Suddenly, River stopped. They had reached an abrupt end to the forest and now stood before a towering cliff-face. The zig zag of reds and blues coloring its surface confirmed it was an alien mineral River couldn’t name off the top of her head. Rory came to a halt beside her, trying to catch his breath as he looked skyward.

“What now?”

“How good are you at climbing?”

“You can’t be serious.”

River was rummaging in one of her belt pouches, which held an assortment of immensely useful items meant for moments just like this one.

“Oh, I’m very serious. Unless you have another plan that doesn’t end with us being eaten by the locals.”

Rory looked from one end of the large land mass before them to the other, neither of which were visible from where they were standing.

“We could… walk around?”

River raised her eyebrows.

“Ok, fine. We’ll do it your way. Just please tell me you have some kind of alien climbing equipment, because I cannot promise I won’t fall otherwise.” 

She handed him what looked like gloves with bits of metal woven through them.

“Cyberkinetic climbing gloves,” River explained. “They can latch onto every known natural substance in the universe, so you shouldn’t have any trouble scaling this cliff. Mind you, that is my only pair, so do be careful with them.”

Rory, who had been hurriedly pulling on the strange looking contraptions after tucking his recently acquired dagger into his belt, looked up sharply at her words.

“Your only- River, I can’t take these and leave you without a way up!”

“Who said I don’t have a way up?”

She grinned, grabbing ahold of the rocky cliff-face and hoisting herself up, only to find her dad’s hand on her arm. The look of panic on his face was something she’d only ever seen directed at Amy.

“Do you have any idea how stupidly dangerous this is?”

“No more stupidly dangerous than our usual outings.”

“If you fall from up there, you’ll die.”

For a very brief moment she was at a loss for words. She knew her parents cared about her of course, but it had always felt a bit disconnected, as though they still saw her as the dangerous space lady now married to their best friend. The look in her father’s eyes now said otherwise.

“I’d best not fall then.” River quipped, as the moment passed. She turned back to face the towering landmass before them and pushed forward, even as her dad continued to shout up at her.

“Do you really place so little worth on your life? Just once let someone else take the risks so you don’t have to.”

“Believe me, I have,” She muttered to herself, “And I’ll never forgive myself for it.” 

River turned to look down at where her father stood, staring up at her. “I admire the sentiment, but have you ever scaled an alien cliff without proper climbing equipment before?”

“No. Have you?”

“There’s a first time for everything. I’d get moving if I were you, we don’t know how far behind us they are.”

Rory was clearly still less than satisfied with the arrangement but did as she asked, placing one gloved hand after the other to start climbing just several paces behind her. They slowly made their way upwards, the alien sun glaring angrily at their backs.

“Everything alright down there?” River called down as they neared the top.

“Yeah. I mean – I think so. There wouldn’t happen to be cyberkinetic climbing boots or something would there? Because those would really help.”

“Funny you should ask, yes. Quite the fashion statement aren’t they.” She showed off one of her boots to an incredulous Rory.

“You had them on the whole time-”

“I’m joking, these aren’t cyberkinetic hiking boots, they’re not even really hiking boots. I fully intend to get my hands on a pair though.” She made a point not to elaborate how.

River knew she was in for a proper scolding by the look on her father’s face, but a familiar voice from above cut him off before he could start.

“River! Rory!”

Her head snapped upwards to where a shock of bright red hair was visible on the cliff above them. 

“Amy” her father breathed out in relief. He quickened his pace, clattering over the uneven rockface less than gracefully to bring himself up alongside River. 

“Hello!”

The bowtie wearing idiot who gotten them into this mess appeared next to her mother.

“How’d you two get down there? Never mind, I’ve picked up a signal from the TARDIS, we shouldn’t be far now!”

He waved his sonic screwdriver in the air with enthusiasm.

“Sweetie.”

“Yes dear?”

“Next time I tell you not to mess with one of her settings, particularly when it involves immediate relocation in the face of danger, you’ll do well to remember this.”

He made a face but didn’t contradict her point. Amy pouted.

“Aww, but that’s half of the fun!”

“It’s truly astounding any of you make it anywhere alive without my help.”

River didn’t have to look over at her dad to know he was anything but amused. But he didn’t have a chance to reply before-

“Duck!”

River dragged Rory down the cliffside a few paces, just milliseconds before Amy’s warning cut through the air, an arrow lodging itself in the crevice where his head had been moments before. Her gaze followed the trail of falling rubble released from their sudden movement, stomach clenching at the sight that met her eyes. Their pursuers had gathered in a large mass below them and the first few were already swiftly ascending the tall edifice at a rapid pace. A handful had climbed up the knotted tree trunks that stood a few paces back, to better aim their bows at the escapees.

“Go!”

River nudged Rory back up the cliff, towards Amy’s outstretched hand, and he complied without protest. River pulled out her blaster once more to take out the closest attackers, feet braced uncomfortably against the rough face of the cliff for balance. She shifted slightly and another trail of rubble broke free beneath her right foot.

“River, come on!”

Eyes still trained downwards; River pulled herself slowly towards her mother’s voice as she continued to dodge the persistent arrows from below. One by one they clattered against the rock around her and fell back downwards. Her blaster made good work of the leading figures behind her, until she felt close enough to toss it over the side where her parents and the Doctor stood anxiously waiting for her. River reached for her mother’s hand and grasped it tightly, pulling herself upwards. She had barely reached the ledge where the others stood when several things happened at once. A deadly silver glint caught the corner of River’s eye as it sped towards them and cries of terror rang from both the Doctor’s and Rory’s mouths. Instinctively, she pushed Amy to the ground just as a searing pain entered her side.

-

Time slowed down. It so often did at the worst possible moments, but never had he wished it to stop moving entirely as he did now. The Doctor watched in horror as River once more sacrificed herself for another, the arrow cutting sharply through the air and into her side. The force knocked her body forward, taking Amy down with her. A strangled scream echoed in his ears. Was it his? He wasn’t sure. The Doctor raced to their side, but Rory beat him to it and was already helping an ashen-faced Amy gently shift their daughter off her.

“River … ohmygod River-”

“She’s still breathing, but I can’t know for certain there hasn’t been serious damage in the body until I have a proper look – Doctor -!”

He had rudely pushed himself into the nurse’s space but couldn’t be bothered to apologize at the exclamation that followed. The Doctor had eyes for only one person, and she lay with an arrow shaft protruding from her side. He reached for her wrist and held it until he was certain: a pulse. Placing a second hand on her cheek, then forehead, the Doctor felt his pounding hearts subdue somewhat. Warm but not too warm. The wound itself was a clean cut but it was difficult to tell what the damage inside was-

“Hands, Sweetie.”

The Doctor’s head snapped upwards to find River staring at him with a bemused expression.

“Not that I would normally mind, but I’m afraid we’re on a bit of a tight schedule; wouldn’t you agree?”

“Your...” 

Alive? Conscious? He wasn’t sure what word he was looking for; but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so happy to see those captivating and very alive green eyes fixed on him. Her gaze dropped down to where the arrow stuck out of her side and her smile faltered.

“Right… well, I suppose I’ve had worse.”

River shifted slightly to try and prop herself up on her good side but stopped to clench the Doctor’s arm as she inhaled sharply. It was Rory’s turn to intervene.

“River stop, you’ll only make it worse.”

“I can… manage.”

“You’re not moving until I have this looked at, nurse’s orders. I can’t risk pulling out the arrow until I know exactly what it has hit.”

River was shaking her head, eyes shut against the pain.

“No time.”

The Doctor didn’t have to look over the side of the cliff to know that she was right. They had to find cover and fast.

“Rory, take River and go; the Doctor and I will cover for you.”

He tore his gaze away from his wife for the first time to stare at Amy in shock.

“I can’t just leave her Pond-”

“You can and you will, because right now you’re emotional-”

“I’m not-!”

“-And I will not have an emotional Time Lord crowding my daughter when what she needs right now is medical attention.”

Amy’s eyes blazed, daring him to argue. The Doctor clenched and unclenched his hands, belatedly realizing they were still holding River’s. How to explain that he had stay by her side and try by every means possible to make her well again because, last time, in another life, he was never given the chance.

“Amy…”

“Doctor, I’m a trained nurse. Please let me do what I can.”

The Doctor looked back and forth between the two Ponds before settling back on Amy’s penetrating gaze. Fish fingers and custard. He had to trust her on this, his Amelia Pond. Sometimes he forgot how grown up she was. Reluctantly, he let go of his wife’s hand to pull out his sonic and hand it to Rory.

“Find the TARDIS. Keep River safe.”

“Always.”

They all gave a start at the sound of a blaster discharging. While the three of them had argued over how to best handle the situation, River had been the only one paying attention to what was happening behind them. Slowly but stubbornly, she had reached past Amy to pick up her fallen blaster and train it on the first of the locals who had made it over the edge of the cliff, sending it right back over. Three more went down before River’s arm fell back in exhaustion, the grip on her weapon slackening. Amy was quick to snatch it out of her daughter’s hands and start her own crusade against the attackers, motioning urgently for Rory and River to get a move on.

“Go! Now!”

The Doctor and Rory helped River to her feet, her face draining of color as she steadied herself against her dad for support.

“River, if you can’t stand-”

“I’m fine.”

Her words were sharp and final but clearly not as confident as she wanted them. The Doctor shared a concerned glance with Rory, but they didn’t have time to argue.

“May I?”

He indicated the dagger tucked in Rory’s belt. The other man obliged, taking it out to hand over to the Doctor.

“Doctor, a little help here!” Amy shouted from behind him, and he spun around to find a line of very hungry looking locals advancing on her. The blaster was the only thing remotely keeping them at bay, but that was evidently not going to last for long. He padded his coat pockets, before remembering – his bowtie. The Doctor quickly undid his favorite neck accessory to tie it very precisely around the dagger’s hilt, with a sizeable loop hanging out.

“Amy, get back!”

Picking up an adequately sized stone from the ground, he fit it snugly in the fabric and rotated the contraption above his head, letting the stone fly. Amy had scrambled backwards and watched in bewilderment as it hit its mark, the unfortunate hunter tipping off the side of the cliff it had just arrived on seconds before.

“Did I ever tell you I was the slingshot champion of the seventh Grecian Olympics?”

Amy shook her head as he loaded another stone into his makeshift slingshot, giving him a sideways look.

“Didn’t the Ancient Greeks compete naked?”

“Yep!”

“Right. I don’t think I will ever unsee that mental image, thanks.”

Amy dropped to the ground as a spear sailed over her head, rolling to her left to aim River’s blaster at the hunter nearest her. It took three attempts before her aim finally rang true.

“Hang on, slingshots were definitely not a part of the ancient Olympics. How did you manage that?”

Three stones left the Doctor’s slingshot to connect with three of the of the newest arrivals on the cliff. Each fell backwards one by one like bowling pins.

“Amy Pond, shouldn’t you know by now you humans are the worst when it comes to accurately documenting your own history? The Olympics were first recorded in 776 B.C. but the Greeks had been holding the games for approximately 567 years by then. I may have accidentally gotten the slingshot banned at the games in 980 B.C. which is why they don’t show up on any records.”

“Of course you did. Should I be worried you’re just tossing these guys over a thousand-foot ledge or …”

They bolted out of the way as a hunter charged at them, moving farther from the growing group at the cliff’s edge. Amy grabbed the spear that had fallen behind her earlier and rammed it against their shins. It toppled over and was knocked out cold.

“Not at all!” Replied the Doctor, far too cheerfully. “I’ve noticed the locals here are a far less breakable lot than you humans. That thick skull of theirs isn’t hiding a larger brain at all, but gives them extra cushion, so a fall from this height will stun them for maybe an hour at most.” 

“Great, so you’re telling me we’re up against invincible aliens?”

“We’re the aliens here Pond, and not invincible, no. That thing you’re holding will do about equal amount of damage here as it would anywhere else in the universe.”

Amy looked down at the blaster in her hand as the Doctor tossed another couple stones at arriving hunters, each making direct contact. He glanced over at Amy and noticed her face had hardened.

“Good.”

She aimed the weapon once more at the unbelievably persistent hunters before them and the Doctor was surprised when he made no attempt to stop her from pulling the trigger. Seeing River’s body appear as lifeless as it had, for even a split second, had awoken something immensely dark inside him he had thought long dead. No Cyberman or even Dalek could ever be on the receiving end of a fury unleashed by those who dared try to take his wife out of the universe. He found himself wishing he’d thought to reach that blaster for himself before Amy had.

The number of carnivorous locals had multiplied to a point where stones were no longer helping. Amy lacked the practiced aim of her daughter so, while the hunting party was no longer its former formidable size, the Doctor realized she was no match for it. They were outnumbered.

“Amy.”

“Yeah; run.”

They turned on their heels and made after Rory and River, both of whom had disappeared.

“You realize,” panted Amy, “we’re leading them directly to Rory and River, yeah?”

“I’m working on it Pond, just keep moving!”

The pounding footsteps behind them appeared to only grow in volume as they raced across the barren, rocky landscape. The Doctor whirled around to plunge the dagger into the ground with as much force as he could muster. At first, nothing happened. Suddenly, a deep rumble uttered from far beneath them and the terrain shook, splitting from where the dagger had entered it.

“Uh oh.”

He backed away, before turning back around to run for his life – only to find Amy no longer in front of him.

“Wh-!”

Suddenly, the ground disappeared beneath his feet and he was sliding down a steep incline into the alien terrain. The Doctor’s feet hit flattened rock, grinding him to a sudden halt. He bolted upwards, peering into the dark to try and find a familiar face.

“Doctor? Amy?”

Rory. The Doctor dug into his pockets again to pull out the large torch that had been so handy in Venice, and it filled the cavern with its brilliant blue light. He made out Rory’s figure a few paces back but didn’t have time to wonder why River was no longer beside him, because Amy had taken off back towards the entrance where the first of the hunters had started to make an appearance over the edge.

“Amy, what are you-!”

She was training River’s blaster back on them again, each shot punctuated with the Scottish fury of her words.

“Not. My. Daughter. You-”

She was cut off by a loud rumbling overhead.

“Amy!”

The Doctor ran forward, grabbing her by the hand to pull her farther into the cavern as large pieces of rock began falling from above. It wasn’t long before the entire entrance was caved in, leaving their attackers and any form of sunlight trapped on the other side. They paused to catch their breath as the dust settled. The Doctor wasted no time rounding on Amy.

“What in the hell were you thinking Amelia Pond? Do you want to get yourself killed? I suppose arrow was next on your list for Bravado Bingo-”

“Oh, don’t lecture me on bravado Doctor,” she snapped, “This is my family and it is my choice how I protect it! 

“Yes, and we’ll be eternally grateful when we carry your lifeless body off of this planet!” He’d overstepped and he knew it immediately. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“I know.”

They looked at each other, and the bright flame in Amy’s eyes subdued somewhat. The Doctor could almost feel a sense of relief creeping up on him, until-

“Doctor.”

He directed the torch towards the sound of Rory’s voice, which sounded far too urgent for his liking, his hearts coming to a full stop when he noticed who the nurse was kneeling beside.

River no longer appeared to be conscious, what little color that had remained her cheeks now gone. The blue lighting that filled the cavern only accentuated the deathly pallor that had spread across her skin.

“I don’t know what happened,” Rory rushed to explain, as the Doctor wasted no time to join him, setting down his torch in the process, “She was fine - I mean hurt, but moving without much trouble – when suddenly she just … collapsed. Doctor, I’m no expert on arrows but I do know a normal one could not have done something like this.”

“You don’t suppose it was poisoned?”

Amy hovered anxiously nearby with her arms folded tightly across her chest.

“That’s what we need to find out.”

Rory had taken out his small bag of medical equipment and was carefully picking through it, placing several items on a pristine, white cloth he had lain on the ground beside him. The Doctor reached for his sonic, which he had noticed lying at River’s feet, and did his usual scan for information. His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw the results.

“Rory, get that arrow out of her now!”

“Wh-”

“It’s been too long already, it’s a miracle she’s still breathing-”

“Doctor, an arrow can’t just be taken out without the possibility of creating more damage to the body; I need to do this properly. It would help if I knew what the problem was.”

The Doctor was busy cupping his hands around River’s face, speaking in a low, rushed tone as though they were the only ones in the room.

“River please, please if you can hear me, don’t fight it. I know you have been, and I know you still want to, but that will only make it worse. Please.”

He touched his forehead to hers, eyes closed for a moment, before pressing a kiss to her forehead. He could feel Rory’s eyes on him, waiting. How was it that he always managed to be so patient? So trusting and relaxed even when facing death itself? It both aggravated the Doctor and inspired him. But, he supposed, that’s what made the man such an excellent nurse.

He ran a hand through his floppy, brown hair and stood up to pace restlessly. They couldn’t waste another moment, wasn’t it clear that River’s life was on the line? But Rory deserved an explanation. They both did. No matter how much it pained him to relive those memories.

“It shouldn’t be possible; I don’t know how they managed to get ahold of this technology. It should have been destroyed with everything else that day. Mind you, it wasn’t even finished-”

“Tell us what is wrong with our daughter Raggedy Man, or so help me I will jab this blaster where it really hurts.”

“Right. Yes.” Stalling. He was ever so good at that. The Doctor swallowed. 

“In the final days of the Time War, my people – the Time Lords – were developing a new kind of weapon, to be used not just against the Daleks but any misbehaving citizen who didn’t follow orders. Meant to be an addition to every high-tech weapon on the planet, it would drain its target of all immediate energy. Like a modified virus. The more someone would fight against its effects, the faster it would act. Intended to bring down the strongest fleet of enemy soldiers, so they could be brought in for a more “suitable” execution. Of course, I could never let something like that get out in the universe.

“The problem was it was never perfected. The casualty range was too broad with far too devastating results to serve the Time Lords as they needed it to, so the weapon was never used in battle. I’ve never seen one compacted into something as small as an arrow before.”

Rory was looking at him, aghast. “This is Time Lord technology?”

“But how is that possible?” asked Amy. “Everything in their camp was made of stone, skin and bone; how could they have known how to use something like this?”

“River and I came across some remnants of what could have been a robot earlier, do you think these people have been taking whatever they can understand from the ships and visitors that have landed here?”

The Doctor was pounding the palm of his hand against his forehead as he paced, in a vain attempt to make all the dots connect somehow.

“I don’t know, I don’t know. None of this makes any sense!” 

That weapon, like so many of the others the Time Lords had had in the works, should not have even had the chance to leave the planet, let alone be improved upon. Its mere existence as it is now should be impossible. 

Rory’s voice broke through his thoughts again.

“Doctor, what should we do? This technology is more advanced than anything I’ve ever worked with; how do we help River?”

The Doctor stopped his pacing, facing away from the three people he had long since allowed himself to consider as family. He felt his hearts sink further at his next words.

“A Time Lord virus can only be cured by Time Lord technology. That’s what makes them so deadly to contract off-planet.”

“There must be something we can do.”

“Remove the arrow, block the signal. That much I know.”

He waited until he heard Rory begin preparing for surgery, and then took off deeper into the cavern. Amy called after him but knew, for once, she wouldn’t follow. Not with River in her condition. He felt guilty for leaving them, but the Doctor knew there was only one way he could ensure his wife’s survival and that was by finding the TARDIS. River Song did not die here, she couldn’t. Their timelines were too fixed for that. Yet her final words in that library still echoed in his ears. Not one line, don’t you dare. He wasn’t willing to risk even the possibility of that happening.

The ground sloped downward, and he broke into a jog. How he was going to find another way out from down here, he didn’t know, but a plan usually manifested in his head somehow. Any moment now would be ideal, an irritated voice in his head chastised. But he was finding it incredibly difficult to focus when River’s all too pale face remained fixed in his mind. A face that was always and meant to be brimming with life.

The Doctor activated his sonic again, which made little difference in the surrounding dark, but at least made him feel like he was doing something useful.

“Come on, do this for me just this once.”

But those readings couldn’t be correct, he was far too deep underground. Just another thing to add to the list of things on this planet that didn’t make sense … he paused. There was a faint glowing up ahead, with a bluish hue that was all too familiar to the Time Lord. Had he really come full circle and rejoined the Ponds again? He couldn’t have. It took only a few steps more for him to realize what shape was standing out against the inky blackness of the cavern.

“Impossible.”

But there she stood, as tall and proud as the day they had first run away together from Gallifrey; the bluest blue in all the universe. The TARDIS brightened as he ran over to greet her.

“You’re here, it’s really…”

The Doctor ran a thumb down where the doors met, unable to believe his luck. Their luck.

“You’re cutting it a bit fine you know; I don’t suppose you could have parked any closer at a more convenient point in time?”

The TARDIS emitted what could be interpreted as a noise of indignation.

“Yeah, I know I know, it’s my fault.” He sighed; forehead pressed against the door. “Isn’t it always.”

“She needs you Old Girl, River she-” his throat tightened, and he shut his eyes for a brief moment. “I can’t save her, but you can. All those memories, my future … I can’t risk losing them. I can’t risk losing her.”

A low hum came from the TARDIS and the Doctor felt a new energy burn through him. He wasn’t alone in this, he had her. His constant companion and confidant, the best doctor in the universe. No virus could compete with that. A robotic arm and impossible technology were problems for another day. There was something far more important that needed doing first. As he opened the door to step into the consul room, there was no doubt in his mind that River Song would live and laugh again.

[sapphetti]

Announcement

Hello!

My blog is going to change slightly and I want to be transparent and explain why.

My mistake:

So recently I have been looking into copyright laws and realized that oh shit some of my posts might be copyright infringement. I know I probably should have looked more into copyright laws before I started this blog but let me explain why I didn’t. Mainly, I saw a lot of people doing the same thing so I thought it must be okay. Secondly, my reasoning was “this blog is for a good cause, it’s not like I’m trying to gain financially from this so it must be okay”.

Well after reading up on it I have changed my mind. I was entitled to think that it was up to me to decide how another person wanted to distribute their artwork, and for this I am very sorry. But I don’t want to just say sorry and do nothing, I want to actually make up for it So what I have done these last few days is I have removed all the posts I suspect might be copyright infringement. This includes a lot of poetry, photography, screenshots from movies & music videos and modern paintings.

I will of course continue to post though. The change is that for my new posts I will take advantage of two cases where it is actually allowed to post artworks that aren’t yours. Those two cases are:

1. When the artwork falls under public domain. To my understanding, unless the artwork is protected under some special license (which seems to be rare), the copyright for an artwork dissipates when the artist of the artwork has been dead for 70+ years (in some countries the time is a bit shorter or longer than 70 years, generally it’s always 50-100 years). Today the year is 2020 so if the artwork was made by an artist that died before 1950 it is in the public domain and I can post it.

2. When I have gotten permission from the artist. Before I sometimes posted the artworks even if I couldn’t get ahold of the artist (like for example photographs by famous photographers or poetry by writers I didn’t know how to contact). But from now on I will only post artworks if I have gotten permission from the artist, even if it’s a famous artist that is difficult to contact.

Also, I have always done my best to reblog instead of posting artworks. Sometimes you might have seen me post artworks from smaller artist. The reason for that is that the smaller artist haven’t had a tumblr account, so I have asked them on instagram if they were okay with me reposting their art on tumblr and they have said yes. The artists I haven’t gotten permission from have been more famous, often older artists without social media or a website with contact info. But from now on I will try better to contact those artists, or if I can’t get ahold of them simply not post their artworks.

How this will change my content:

Paintings: There will mainly be older paintings, since they more often belong to the public domain. These might not be very diverse and are often made by men but of course I will do my best to make it as diverse as I can.

Photography: There will be less photography from famous photographers (such as Catherine Opie, Donna Gottschalk etc) and probably less photography overall since I will need to ask for permission every time (most photography was made in the last 50 years or so and therefore does not fall under public domain).

Music: There will be no screenshots from music videos as those fall under copyright laws. I will still post a link to the song and the music video (if there is one). By the way, I will not ask permission from musicians when posting their music as tumblr has a feature that I will use where you can post links to audio clips without it being copyright infringement.

Movies: I will not have any screenshots from the movies. Instead I will only have a link to the trailer of the movie, and I will try to always link the trailer from the official account that belongs to the movie’s creators so they will get the revenue.

Books: I won’t include a picture of the cover of the book. Instead I will link to the GoodReads page of the book where you can see the book cover.

Poetry: I will either post older poetry that falls under public domain, poetry that I have got permission to post or videos made by the poet where the poem is read out aloud.

Sculpture: Pictures of sculptures can fall under public domain, therefore I will only post links to websites where you can read about and see photos of the sculpture or in some cases links to videos where someone has filmed the sculpture.

What I need from you:

Please reblog instead of repost my posts. If you do not know the difference, please read this post.

If you see me making a post that you think is copyright infringement, please tell me about it and I will look into it.

If you own the copyright of an artwork I have posted and want it to be removed, tell me right away preferably through sending a message.

Respect the copyright laws. Do it for your own sake, do you really want to risk getting sued for a simple post? But more importantly, do it for the artist’s sake. Making a living through being an artist today is really difficult and people stealing art without giving proper credit is a big reason as to why. This causes a lot of people who might have created masterpieces to stray away from the art world. I don’t know about you but I love art and it would be absolutely amazing to see a world with more thriving artists in it.

If you really, really, really want to repost instead of reblog one of my posts please follow these guideline:

Look up who the artist is and if they are dead or alive. I always write the name of the artist in the post. From now on I will also include the year they died (if they are deceased) in the post. If you still find it unclear, message me and I will provide further explanation.

Is the artist deceased? Look up the laws about the length of copyright in your country (here’s a list). If the copyright for the artwork has dissipated, also look up if any special license applies to the artwork (my best source for this is Wikimedia Commons, let me know if you know of any other reliable sources for this). If the copyright for the artwork has dissipated and there is no special license applied, the artwork falls under public domain and you are free to use it however you like.

Is the artist alive? Contact the artist and ask them for permission to repost. Here is a guide of what to include when asking for permission. 

Apply fair use. This is an exception to the copyright laws that applies when you are using someone else’s artwork for either commentary/critique or parody. I am not very knowledgeable in what exactly does and does not constitute fair use so I would advice you to look into this further through other sources if you’re interested.

I want to add that I have neither studied law or art so my knowledge on this topic is of course limited. If you have more knowledge of these topics and have something to add, please do so! I really value all your opinions and feedback.

Lastly I want to say that it’s okay to make mistakes. I mean I even just admitted to doing the exact same thing. But I also think it’s important we really start paying attention to this issue as every day I see tons of reposts of artworks that doesn’t even give credit to the artist and honestly it upsets me.

That is it for now! Sorry for a long post, but I have really been wanting to speak about this. Stay safe out there <3

ps. I have recently become more active on my instagram, so go give me a follow if you’d like!

TL;DR: I have made the mistake of not asking some artists for permission when posting their art, so from now on I’m gonna do that. I ask you to follow the copyright laws and reblog my posts, not repost.

[gamerwoo]

Junhui: Fear the Experiment

Characters: Junhui x reader (gender neutral)

Genre/warnings: superhuman au, horror, angst, very slight fluff, torture/abuse, knives

Word count: 2,224

Summary: Love me, who can’t cross this line. The way I love, the way I love. Even if I’m hurt by you everyday.

Tag list: @exo-chan-kai @purpleseleva @mntax @squishy-yamdumplings @linophobia @fullsun-donghyuck @greenmetalroof @svtbitch

Fear Masterlist

Subject #1796. When the lab obtained him, his name was Wen Junhui, but you only knew that from his files.

“We don’t use names for the experiments here,” one of the doctors had explained. “It makes everyone uncomfortable.”

So you were a doctor who worked on Subject #1796. He was given up by his parents, but the files didn’t say why. There were rumors that he had shown signs of being more than human before the labs got ahold of him, but most people just said his parents didn’t have money to support a family. But you did know he was just barely a year old when they started experimenting on him.

The first time you saw Junhui, he looked awful. Though, his appearance never changed other than healing wounds and bruises. His left eye was permanently a sickly yellow with a bright red iris from a failed test to shoot lasers from his eyes. His skin had a soft blue tint to it from trying to slow down his heartbeat, and you could see some of his veins through his skin like he was getting frostbite. He had fangs like some sort of beast on his top and bottom teeth instead of normal human canines, and they would occasionally get caught on his lips. But the most impressive thing about Jun might’ve been the large black wings that sprouted from his shoulder blades. He could never hide them, they were always sticking out. But he never expanded them unless they had to be measured. They were always just resting at his sides.

Back then, you were afraid for Jun. You still saw him as a person, and maybe the fact he was about your age partly had to do with that. But back then, you were also just an intern that assisted in monitoring Junhui. You didn’t assist in experiments or have any control over anything. All you could do was take his vitals, and pass the time by talking with him.

Jun was silent at first. He was wary of everybody who worked in that lab. He knew the doctors only brought him pain, discomfort, and nightmares to follow. And even if he’d never seen you before, he didn’t trust you.

It wasn’t until your third week there while you were with Jun that he said anything. You were doing your usual things to check him out and make sure he was the lab’s standards of okay. You always either spoke to him -- or more to yourself since he never replied -- or hummed a song quietly. That day, it was the latter.

“What song is that?” you heard him mumble softly.

You glanced up from where you were checking his blood pressure to see his eyes looking back at you.

“Huh?”

“You’ve hummed that song everyday this week,” he noted, though you were unaware he was paying any attention to that.

You shrugged, “It’s u-um... It’s an old song that’s been stuck in my head recently. It’s on some commercial that comes on a lot.”

“Does it have words or is it just that melody?”

“It has words.”

“Can you sing it?”

You didn’t reply, but it wasn’t because you were opposed to Jun’s request. It was because you were confused as to why he wanted you to sing for him. Did Jun even get to listen to music? Did he even know what music was?

“Do you like music, Junhui?” you wondered.

He blinked at you, his eyes widening a little, “J-Junhui...”

You quickly slapped a hand over your mouth, remembering the rules, “Oh, I wasn’t supposed to call you--”

“They think it makes me too human,” he nodded. “They only call me Subject 1796. But...I like hearing you call me Junhui. And...I do like music. I haven’t heard music since I was little. It would help me fall asleep.”

“Do you not hear music anymore?”

“After I turned thirteen, they said I was too old. That I should just go to sleep on my own. They didn’t want to keep babying me.”

You wanted to say that experimenting on a child was far from babying them, but you weren’t sure if the two of you were being monitored at all. So you kept your mouth shut. Instead, you went back to taking his vitals, and you sang the song to him.

Of course, Jun had changed over the course of you working there. Experiments never ceased on him. The doctors said they wanted to make him the ultimate superhuman who would be able to do anything -- even if they never mastered getting him to shoot lasers from his eyes.

There was one in particular that changed the way Jun saw you. He always saw you as one of the nicer doctors, but this experiment made him able to detect the emotions of others -- at least, for a little while. It was a prototype that eventually wore off, but for the couple weeks he was able to do so, he realized how you felt about him. He could sense worry and fear for him, yes, but the overall emotion he picked up on was that you cared for him and even loved him in some sense. But as somebody who had never been shown care or kindness or love, he saw it as all the same. And so, Junhui fell in love with you because you were the only person who had ever felt that way about him.

It was no secret you were his favorite. You were always so kind to him, even when you were upgraded to assist with injections and whatnot with Jun. You cooed at him and promised it wouldn’t hurt as bad if he didn’t fight it. You even learned that singing to him greatly calmed him, which was probably because it used to be what made him fall asleep. So you were almost detrimental to the doctors, which meant you were always around him.

However, despite how important you were to keep Jun calm, they noticed that you had grown dangerously close with him. They feared if somebody who was around the experiments began to care too deeply for them, their lab would be shut down. To the outside world, these experiments would still be considered human test subjects. And while they were, the doctors had learned to not think of them as such -- the grotesque appearances definitely helped with that, though you always thought Junhui would’ve looked very handsome as a regular human underneath all of the oddities about him.

But your little friendship with Junhui was an issue, and they had to deal with it. It wasn’t a new problem, though. They already knew what to do. This had happened before with other experiments, so they already knew what to do.

The only issue was Jun. He was clearly fond of you, which was why he listened so well to you. They couldn’t ruin that, or they’d be back to having him be difficult and unwilling to listen. They hadn’t had to deal with him like that for a few years now, so they had to be careful on how they approached this.

The first step was to make sure you didn’t get too attached to Jun.

“Oh, _____!” one of the doctors grinned, almost bumping into you as you were leaving Junhui’s room. “I’m glad I caught you.”

“Why, is something wrong?” you wondered.

“Well, no. It’s just that we’ll be doing an experiment on Subject 1796 that may make it harmful to normal humans to be around him for a few weeks,” he explained. “You’ll have to see Dr. Kang to get injected with a serum to make sure you won’t be harmed by it while being around 1796.”

“Oh,” you nodded slowly. “What’s the experiment supposed to do?”

“You know you’re not authorized to know that quite yet,” he smirked. “You just need to know if his vitals are normal and how he’s doing. If the experiment works, then we’ll give you the details. Now go find Dr. Kang and tell her I sent you.”

You nodded, “Yes, doctor.”

Of course, you were really being injected with something vastly different. It was actually a serum they’d made to use on one of their other experiments. It caused him to not feel a single emotion or feeling toward others. However, they had tried to see if they could perfect it, and they tried it out on a different experiment. They found that combining the serum with the DNA of somebody, she was unable to feel emotion toward that specific person, but still show emotion toward others.

The second version of the serum is what you were injected with, and the serum contained DNA from Junhui.

The next time you went to check his vitals, you felt...different. You coudn’t place what it was -- because you obviously didn’t know what was done to you -- but you didn’t feel the same. Still, you went into his room to check his vitals and to make sure he was doing well.

“_____!” Jun grinned upon seeing you enter, sitting up in his bed.

You merely nodded, not feeling it in you to smile or do much else to react to his excitement.

Jun didn’t see anything wrong with how you were acting. In fact, he was so blinded by his love for you that he probably wouldn’t have cared even if he did know. You could do anything to him, and he would still love you. He would still listen to you.

The doctors knew that, and they planned to use that to their advantage.

You were unaware that you were being watched as you did Junhui’s checkup. There were three doctors that watched as you checked his blood pressure, his reflexes, and even got a small blood sample from him -- the latter normally taking fifteen minutes and a small army of doctors to keep him from freaking out over the needle.

“I assumed we would have an issue,” one of the doctors noted as he watched in particular how Jun watched your every move with such a bright twinkle in his eyes, “but he seems oblivious to how _____ is acting. Maybe this won’t be as difficult as we thought.”

“Maybe now _____ could even conduct some of the tests,” another mentioned, watching as Junhui leaned in toward you as you asked the basic questions you were required to. “It would save us a lot of trouble.”

The first doctor hummed, noticing how Jun didn’t even bat an eyelash as you finished your work and began to collect your things, “Maybe...”

-

They wanted him to be able to regenerate limbs. Of course, they had to start small with testing if it worked, so they had to see if he could heal his wounds quickly on his own. That testing was some of the most painful of all. He had to be cut open with knives while he was strapped up to a wall to keep from moving. However, he stayed perfectly still the whole time.

“Would you want to help conduct a test for Subject 1796?” one of the doctors had asked.

You nodded, “If you need my help, I can assist.”

So you were brought into the lab they were doing the experiment in. You were explained what they wanted to happen, what you were to do, and then you were handed a knife.

You didn’t even think twice. The blade cut into Jun’s arm at first, not going very deep. They wanted to start with shallow, small cuts first. Jun hissed a bit, the cut feeling like a small paper cut. It stung, but it wasn’t bad. But he also didn’t flinch because it was coming from you, and he trusted you. He had felt how you felt toward him -- he knew you would never betray him. He knew you loved him.

When they realized those healed fairly quickly, they had you slowly work your way up to bigger things that were harder on Jun. He had to bite down on his lip to keep from screaming as you cut across his chest, his fingernails digging so hard into his palms that he was sure they’d even start bleeding soon.

“Is the subject doing alright?” one of the doctors asked, noticing that Junhui was starting to struggle a little.

You pulled the knife away, looking back at the doctor before you looked at Junhui. His eyes were squeezed closed, but feeling your eyes on him, they opened. His expression softened looking into your eyes, despite the fact that they didn’t hold the softness and warmth for him they once did.

But he didn’t know that.

“I-I’m okay,” he breathed, not wanting you to get in trouble, either. “Keep going.”

Without hesitating, you brought the knife to his bare stomach and dragged it across. Junhui pressed his lips into thin lines, his teeth biting down. His fangs had even pierced the inside of his mouth, and he could taste the metallic flavor of his blood on his tongue. But no matter what, he would bear it. He would deal with any pain, as long as it was for you. Because he loved you, and it was that love that blinded him from the truth.

[realllllfangirllllll]

More Than Friends ||

Chp. 25

Masterlist

CEO!Jaehyun AU x Reader

College Student!Jaemin AU x Reader

Summary: After a complicated relationship with the infamous CEO, you want nothing more than to live your life as a normal college student; however, Mr. CEO just can’t let you go.

{ Previous / Next }

You angrily tapped on your phone, texting Soyeon that you’ll kill her the minute you see her. Your taxi has just left you and now you’re standing in front of the door to Soyeon’s house. You stood there in fury and anxiety, scared Jaehyun might see you.

You didn’t know why you were so scared to bump into Jaehyun again. Maybe because deep down, you knew if you saw his face, your heart would start racing on its own accord; but then your heart will shatter the next minute when you remember what he had done the previous meeting. To say you were shocked was an understatement. You would constantly look back to that day and wonder: Who is he to kiss some chick in front of you? Who is he to say I can’t kiss another guy when some random chick throws herself on him? Why did he think I even kissed Jaemin to begin with?? The only lips I wanted to ever kiss was his...

You took a step back from your thoughts. You mentally slapped yourself when you found yourself thinking about his lips. Even though you cursed at yourself for such thoughts, you couldn’t help but think back to when you first fell in love with his lips.

~~~

It was almost time to start school again and you dreaded the day to come. Naturally, you wanted to make the most of your last day. You were planning to go out with Mark and Soyeon but you guys just hung out the day before, so you thought it’d be better to leave them alone.

Not knowing who else to call, you dialed the first person on your ‘recents’ list: Cocky Hoe. Yes, he is cocky and a hoe, but when either one of you was bored (and not horny) you guys actually had a lot of fun.

Today, the two of you decided to go to an old record store near his house. To your surprise, Jaehyun knew a lot more about you than you thought. The reason he brought you to the record store was that he saw old books on the opposite end of the store. Your eyes lit up at the rows of classic novels stacked neatly onto the shelves.

Jaehyun saw your reaction and laughed. He grabbed your chin and made you look at him, “Wipe your chin baby, you’re drooling.”

You squinted your eyes and glared at him, wiping your mouth you responded, “Leave my body liquid alone.”

He laughed again, this time you can see his chest rising up and down as his dimples appeared on the sides of his face. He looked angelic, you thought. Some would even say, sweet.

You shook your head and stopped gawking at him, focusing on the endless shelves of books instead. One particular book caught your eye and you step forward to grab it. However, the book was placed too high and it was making it very difficult for you to get ahold of it. You let out a puff of annoyance as you attempt to grab it again, tiptoeing your feet. Suddenly, you felt a figure shadow over you. His lips pressed on the skin above your ears and he said in a low tone, “so you’re gullible and short.”

He easily grabbed the book from the shelf and chuckled, opening the leather-bound book and flipping through the pages. “What’s this book about?”

You huffed and rolled your eyes, “Maybe if you let me read it, I’ll know.”

He laughed and handed you the book. When you reached for it, he pulled the book back. You glared at him, “Really Jaehyun? We’re playing a ‘push and pull’ game now? How old are you?”

He smirked and said, “I’ll give it to you only if you admit you’re short.”

You sealed your mouth shut and crossed your arms in defiance, not willing to give in to such insult.

He chuckled and bent down just a little so his face was right in front of you. He subtly licked his lips and then reached his hand out, ruffling your hair. “Not going to give in, 5’4” shortie?”

You let out a huff of annoyance and uncrossed your arms, “Fine... I’m sho-”

He was ready to win the childish argument, but you suddenly extended your arms and tickled his sides. He dropped the book and you laughed in victory, grabbing the book from the ground and running towards the end of the store.

He let out an exaggerated gasp and playfully shouted, “You little monster!”

You sat on the ground towards the end of the store. With your back leaned on the bookshelf, you peacefully started to read your book. Jaehyun found you a few minutes later and sat down beside you. He stared at your relaxed figure and reached forward to push the stray hairs behind your ears. He leaned forward and, yet again, placed his soft lips above the skin of your ear, whispering, “I didn’t think you’d be the romantic type.”

You were startled by his sudden contact and stuttered, “W-What makes you think that?”

He turned his head back towards the front of the store, and you almost felt disappointed at the sudden loss of contact. He slightly tilted his head your way and pointed at the pages of your book, “Well you’re reading Pride and Prejudice.”

You raised your eyebrows, “And you knew that just by looking at this page?”

He replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, “Yeah.”

“Look over here,” he scooted closer to you and read along the lines of the book, using his index finger as a pointer. His voice mesmerized you as he read, “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” He paused for a moment, making eye contact with you. At that moment you really thought that he was, in fact, Mr. Darcy himself reciting those lines. He opened his eyes and his normal ‘Jaehyun’ self was back. He smacked his tongue and said with a little smirk, “Yup. Definitely said by a lovestruck Darcy.”

You looked at him skeptically, “I still don’t believe you’re that cultured.”

Jaehyun placed his hand over his chest and faked a surprised reaction, “What? You’re calling me dumb? I’m hurt baby.”

You laughed at his dumb reaction and nodded. “Mhmm, you’re definitely uncultured and nothing’s gonna change that.”

He then turned back to the book and began flipping the pages, the light reflecting off his rings. You looked as he was searching for a specific page. His serious concentration can be seen by the way he bit his lip. You stared as he pulled his pink, plump lips between his teeth, slowly falling into a trance.

He pulled you out of your thoughts as he said triumphantly, “Right here,” gliding his long fingers along the lines he spoke, “Do anything rather than marry without affection.”

He chuckled as he continued reading in his mind, “It’s a classic really. Jane Austen does wonders.”

He then looked up at you, closing the gap between you both. He stared into your eyes, “Y/n, will you marry me?”

You froze, taken aback by his words. You would have never imagined someone saying such a thing to you. Let alone in the back of an old bookstore with your fuck buddy. You got a grip on yourself and rolled your eyes, “Shut up you idiot.”

He pouted and turned his head back towards the front of the store, sighing he said, “I thought a classic Pride and Prejudice line would make a girl go crazy for me... but I guess Miss shortie here is too cold-hearted.”

You gasped, taking offense to his words, “Hey! I’m not cold-hearted, and I only read Jane Austen because I know her novels are purely fictional. No real love exists, they all gradually fade away or it was never there to begin with.”

He shook his head at you, “It may be true that not all love lasts, but it’s nice to see for yourself because you never know if you don’t try.”

You replied, “Well Mr. ‘All of a Sudden I’m Really into Romance but I Still Like to Fuck Around for Fun,’ I don’t believe in love but I’m not cold-hearted either.”

He chuckled and asked you, “Oh yeah? Did you cry while watching The Notebook?”

You scrunched up your nose and replied, “No. Why would I?”

He shook his head and laughed, “Of course you wouldn’t. You’re the ice queen, you know that?”

You looked at him confused, “I’m not the ice queen. I don’t get why I should cry over a movie.”

He scoffed and looked down at the ground, “Well I did.”

You stared at him blankly, then burst out laughing. “YOU. CRIED. DURING. THE NOTEBOOK???”

He glared at you, “If you ever tell anyone, I will have my company sue you and then murder you.”

You laughed so hard, you started to tear up. Jaehyun just continued to send you daggers through his eyes and subtly pouted.

You never saw this side of him, only knowing the part of Jaehyun that likes to sleep with you. But today was different, you got to know what he liked, and surprisingly, he knew what you liked. You wouldn’t admit it, but the little things he does make your heart beat a little faster. You stared at his little pout and found yourself smiling from the inside.

The next second, you lost all control of your body and you kissed him softly. Naturally, his hands went to your hair. This time, however, his hands didn’t grab your hair, instead, he touched it gently as if you could break any moment. You pulled away from the kiss, startled from your own movements, and tried your best to hide your embarrassment. You chuckled and told him softly, “You’re cute when you pout.”

He laughed, showing his beautiful dimples, “It’s cuter when you pout.”

~~~

Your heart started racing again as you thought of his lips. You thought, “That’s it. I have to leave here before he sees me or else I won’t be able to control myself.”

Just then, your phone buzzed with notifications. It was Jaehyun spamming you with texts.

He caught me.

You quickly hid behind the gates and looked for a way out. You called your trusted neighbor for help, in hopes that he will come to your rescue. To your luck, he came to pick you up a few minutes later.

Thankful that Lucas was such a reliable and caring friend, you let your emotions sink to the bottom of your heart as you listened to the R&B songs playing from his car speakers.

———

• I’m mentally sketching ideas for a ‘Highway to Heaven’ themed chapter 🤪 •