#‘from the memories that never fade away’ | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

wlwoceaneyes · 17 hours ago

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After all this time, I’m still into you

word count: 3.4 k summary: Months after your divorce, an unexpected encounter at a charity event brings old feelings back to the surface. In a room full of strangers, you and your ex-wife, Emily Prentiss, rediscover the quiet gravity between you: grief, laughter, memories, and the kind of love that never truly lets go. It’s not about rekindling what was lost. It’s about recognizing what never truly faded. tags: divorced!reader, divorced!EmilyPrentiss, mutual pining, unresolved feelings, second chances, mentions of child loss/miscarriage, angst, emotional reunion, heartbreak and healing, still in love, grief and love A/N: Got an anonymous request, thank you for trusting me with it :) I might’ve gotten a little carried away with this one… The editing process took longer than I expected, but I truly hope it was worth the wait. Enjoy.

You see her before she sees you. Of course you do. It’s like a magnetic pull, the universe trying to mock you. She’s the sun, and you still rotate around her. And even after all this time, your orbit never changed. Just the silence between you did. And the weight of what wasn’t said.

It’s a charity dinner, not Bureau-mandated, but there are enough suits in the room to make your skin prickle the way it used to in Quantico hallways. You’re here because someone in your department asked you nicely, their voice tilted just enough at the end to make refusal feel like cruelty. And you’re not great at saying no when someone looks at you like that. Old habits. Older guilt. You could scold yourself for never saying no, and now? Now you are here. Between people you don’t like. And her. And a version of you that hasn’t breathed properly in sixteen months. There’s a part of you that hates yourself for still hoping you might see her. Still dressing like she might look at you one last time like she used to. Like you’re hers.

The room hums with practiced politeness and small, sharp laughter. Your glass is half-full, clutched too tightly in your hand. And then the door opens. She walks in with her head held like a question she’s already answered. Shoulders straight, jaw set, her dress midnight-dark and clean-cut, a narrow silhouette against the soft, flattering lights. Black, of course, it’s always been her armor of choice. Her heels click against the marble floor, sharp as punctuation, and her hair is pinned back with the kind of precision that makes your throat ache. You remember that pin, where it is from. The history, the pain, the love. You bought it in Rome, and she pretended not to like it, but you caught her wearing it at least a dozen times. You remember how her eyes softened the first time she wore it.

And now she’s wearing it again. Your heart stumbles at the sight: why is she still wearing it? You want to believe it means something. That maybe not everything between you was discarded, not completely. That maybe she still carries a piece of you, the way you carry her in every quiet corner of your day. How you search for her without meaning to: in music, in crowds, in dreams you don’t talk about. You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. She still has that effect on you, that magnetic pull. The way your thoughts spiral in her orbit the moment she enters the room.

She scans the room with that old profiler instinct, measured, practiced and deliberate. Her gaze moves like it always has: quick but never rushed, alert but never obvious. And then her eyes catch on something, on someone, and there’s a pause, subtle but telling. The smile that follows is slow to arrive, a beat too late, like her body remembered the script before her heart could catch up.

Beside her stands a woman, dressed in Bureau black, posture straight in that telltale way of seasoned field agents. A colleague, clearly. You recognize the dynamic in a glance, the slight lean toward one another, the mirrored alertness. Professional and familiar. Nothing intimate. Still, the woman notices the shift in Emily. She tilts her head, just slightly, a flicker of curiosity crossing her face, not suspicion, but awareness. As if she’s seen that kind of smile before. The kind that fractures at the edges. The kind you give when something or someone slips past the walls you thought were solid.

But it isn’t about the woman beside her. It never was. It’s about you. Because that smile? That hesitation? The subtle pause she tries to mask? That’s all yours. Always has been. And now it’s betrayed her, not to the room, not to the world, but to you. To the one person who once knew exactly how she looks when she’s trying not to fall apart.

You catch the flicker in her eyes, the quick intake of breath she pretends is nothing. But you know better. You feel it too, that tightness in the chest when a memory enters before a thought can block it. That ache of recognition. Of almost. Of still. And even across the crowded room, she’s searching for you, because deep down she knows you’re here. You hope she knows it, too.

You turn back to your glass before your hands can betray anything. The wine is too sweet to your liking, but you drink it anyway. Maybe it will calm your nerves, or maybe it will damn you to a pounding head tomorrow. Possibly you want the pain. It’s easier to manage than the tremor in your chest when you look at her. It’s a quieter hurt, one you can control.

It has been sixteen months and three days since the divorce was finalized. Not that you are counting. You were married for eight years. Eight years, four homes, a dozen cities, two dogs, and one miscarriage you still don’t talk about. And then there was the silence. The way it grew in the spaces between phone calls, between cases, between the words you didn’t say. It came like fog: soft at first, barely there. Then thick and then smothering. And you didn’t notice when you stopped kissing her goodbye. Like when she stopped turning off the light when she crawled into bed beside you. You adapted without thinking, without realizing how much it would hurt now, like grief, and yet like a fresh wound that still stings.

She used to laugh with her whole body back then and for a long time, that was enough. You loved making her laugh, loved that it was you who could, being the reason she smiled, the one who brought laughter to her lips. But eventually, even her laughter felt like something you had to chase, like a sound from another life. Now, even the memory of her laugh feels like a betrayal, because you still want to be the one who pulls it from her. You still dream of it sometimes and wake up aching with the loss of something you once had the key to.

Softly, you try to pull yourself out of your thoughts, fingers nervously tracing the rim of your glass as you fixate on the subtle tension in your chest. Your eyes flicker to the smallest shifts in her expression, as if measuring the moments until she finally sees you. Her shoulders are rigid, posture guarded, yet there’s the same quiet resistance in her that you recognize in yourself, a shared reluctance to be here. And yet, here you both are, in this space, at this moment. Coincidence or fate? It doesn’t matter anymore. Because as you stand amid the crowd, a restless flutter stirs in your stomach, unraveling you slowly, pulling you back and pushing you forward all at once.

You remind yourself of who you are beneath the nerves: a forensic psychologist for the Bureau. You still are, even if the city and the building have changed. The work remains the same: profiles, trauma interviews, the soft, relentless art of translating pain into something useful. The same ghosts, just wandering different corridors now. It was on a case that never ended the way it should have — a triple homicide in Virginia — that you met Emily. One shared hotel room, a morning coffee later, and before you knew it, a year had passed and you were moving in together. You weren’t meant to fall for her, but somehow she fit seamlessly into your life, like she had always been waiting for the door to open.

She hasn’t seen you yet, but she’s moving closer, drawn by the same invisible force you’ve never been able to resist. You know you should turn away, offer a polite smile, and disappear into the crowd, away from Emily and the weight of this first meeting after months apart. Back into the safety of anonymity and unfinished drinks. Yet your legs won’t obey, or perhaps it’s your heart that refuses to let go. You catch yourself wondering if she feels it too, that subtle shift in the atmosphere, like the crackle of electricity just before a storm breaks. Is she aware of your presence, as much as you are of hers, or is your mind weaving illusions from longing? Like some part of you had always been saving space for her.

She spots you mid-scan and stills. Her expression remains composed, but something subtle gives her away. The gentle slackening of her shoulders, the slight parting of her lips, as though she’s caught a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Slowly, unmistakably, recognition dawns in her gaze, tinged with disbelief, touched by something softer. Something like grief or longing. God, you used to know how to read her. The micro expressions, the pause between words, the language of her silence. And despite everything, despite the time and the distance and the undoing, you still do. You understand her too fluently, even now. Even when you wish you didn’t.

Especially now, when remembering the syntax of her love hurts more than forgetting ever could. And for the first time tonight, you’re not sure if understanding her is a gift or a wound.

“Hey,” she says softly, a trace of uncertainty in her voice as she stops before you. As if the sight of you has stirred something she’d tried too long to forget. As if you were a wound she didn’t know was still tender.

“Emily.” Her name slips from your lips like it still belongs there, like your mouth remembers the shape of it even if your life no longer does. A subtle hitch in her breath betrays that she felt it, too. The silence that follows isn’t empty. It hums with memory, thick with the weight of everything unsaid. You both stand there, trapped in the space between what was and what might still be, if only one of you were brave enough to reach first.

The silence that follows is familiar. Not tense. Not awkward. Just full of all the versions of you that used to exist in the same room. Full of what was lost. And everything you both were too afraid to fight for.

She looks good. Of course she does. But it’s not the dress, not the heels, not the polished edges or the soft sheen of perfume you can’t quite name but know in your bones. It’s the way she holds herself, like she survived something. Maybe you did too.

Her gaze settles on you with that same quiet intensity that once undid you, dark eyes that see too much, split beneath the surface of who you pretend to be. It catches you off guard, that look. Leaves you slightly unmoored, like she’s peeled back a layer you thought was safe. Her eyes travel the length of your dress, the long red one she always loved on you. You can see the moment recognition flickers behind her lashes. Red. Her color on you. Her favorite.

And then her gaze catches on your earrings, long, white and delicate. The ones she gave you years ago. The ones you almost didn’t wear tonight. You wonder if she remembers. Of course she does. She’s staring at them like they mean something.

Still, you only nod. You don’t say she looks stunning. You don’t say that seeing her like this makes your chest ache in old, familiar ways. You don’t say anything at all. Because if you open your mouth now, you’re afraid it won’t stop with just a compliment. You’re afraid the truth will spill out: the missing, the longing, the quiet, constant ache of her absence.

Eventually, the conversation finds you both. A server passes with a tray of champagne; you shake your head, but she accepts a glass. The flute looks delicate between her fingers, too fragile for the heaviness that hums quietly between you. Together, you drift toward a quieter corner of the room, away from the low thrum of polite laughter and performative ease. You settle across from her, in a way that feels almost familiar. Like the quiet moments after a case, when the adrenaline fades but the weight of what happened still clings to the air. When no one speaks much, not because there’s nothing to say, but because everything still lingers too close to the skin.

You ask about work. She asks about the new apartment. It’s polite, measured and mostly safe. Neither of you says the word lonely, but it hovers between your sentences, visible and bold. You don’t talk about how you’ve been sleeping on just one side of the bed, or how quiet mornings feel louder than they should. You avoid the ache, the truth, the missing. Instead, you circle around it, skimming its edges with small talk and half-smiles, as if naming it would make it too real, too fragile. But the silence between your words? That speaks. Loud and clear.

She tells you she still consults, though not as often.

“More teaching now,” she says, “more oversight.” Her voice lifts at the edges like she’s framing it as a good thing, something settled. But you hear what lives beneath, the quiet dissonance of letting go too soon, of being needed less before she was ready to stop offering herself to the work. You don’t press. You’ve never been the one to push when silence was softer than answers. Instead, you give her space the way you used to. It’s muscle memory, this way of holding her without touching her. And somehow, even after all the time and distance, this still feels familiar.

You mention your new office, the view it offers: wide green lawns, people jogging, golden retrievers tugging at their leashes. The same breed you once shared. A joke slips out, soft and familiar, about profiling the dogs, just like you used to do together when yours did something odd and you tried to explain it in forensic terms. It’s a weak joke, not meant to land hard, but it comes from somewhere deep, a part of you that still remembers what it felt like to laugh with her without thinking. Maybe you say it just to see if she’ll smile. Maybe you say it because a part of you still needs her to.

You used to love making her laugh, used to know how. And then, somewhere between the pause in conversation and the hum of low music, she says, “I never stopped. You know that, right?”

You look at her, uncertain. What does she mean? Stopped what? Loving you? Wanting you? Hoping? But you don’t ask, you understand anyway. Because you never stopped either. You just learned how to live like a phantom, moving through your days without her hand in yours.

Nevertheless, your throat tightens and your skin prickles at her revelation, because hearing it, really hearing it, undoes something in you. It’s not just the relief of knowing you weren’t alone in it, not the only one carrying the weight of what was lost. It’s the sudden, aching rush of being seen again, of realizing the thread between you never fully snapped.

“I know,” you say quietly. And it’s the most honest thing you’ve said in months.

She looks into your eyes, and when she sees only love, or at least hopes that’s what it is, she reaches for your hand, slow and tentative, like she’s afraid you’ll vanish. Her fingers brush yours, and your whole body shivers like a struck chord. You don’t pull away, because her touch is still familiar, and your body is a traitor. She feels like home. Because after all this time, you are still into her.

“I wasn’t ready to stop being angry,” you whisper. “I think I thought if I held onto it long enough, it would mean I didn’t still… feel everything else.”

Her thumb moves gently along your knuckle, tracing memory. Just like she used to when you were upset, or crying, or simply in need of something steady to hold on. “I was angry too,” she admits. “But mostly with myself. For letting us get that far apart without noticing.”

The truth is, it wasn’t just one thing that broke your marriage. It wasn’t a fight, or an affair, not even the job, at least, not on its own. It was the slow accumulation of absence. The long stretches of silence after midnight. The missed calls that stopped being explained. The way she would come home, but never really arrive. Her body was there, in the doorway, but her mind was still tangled in whatever case had followed her there. The dinners you waited for, then stopped cooking, because they always went cold anyway. And bit by bit, quietly and without much notice, the distance grew. Especially after she became Chief of the BAU. Suddenly, the job was her priority, the work consumed her, and she let it. And you? You stopped asking her to come home. You stopped reaching. Stopped waiting up. Stopped hoping.

And she let you. You both became excellent at pretending it was fine. Until it wasn’t. Until the house felt more like a memory than a home. When touches grew scarce, thoughts stopped being shared, and reading each other became a struggle.

But you remember the quiet mornings, too. The smell of her coffee, yours already waiting on the nightstand, milk just the way you liked it, slightly too hot to drink. The way she’d slide one arm around your waist while you stood at the sink, toothbrush in hand, barely half-awake. That silent kind of affection that didn’t ask for anything in return. You remember how she kissed your shoulder when she thought you were still asleep. How she loved to play with your hair, her fingers tracing the sensitive skin of your neck. She even made you a hot water bottle when your period cramps hit hard, knowing how you could barely get out of bed from the pain. She knew exactly where your pain lived, even when you didn’t say a word. She always knew.

You remember the sound of her laugh echoing off the bathroom tiles, warm and spontaneous. The way she danced barefoot in the kitchen on hardwood floors when your favorite song came on, twirling you into her rhythm even if you protested. You remember everything, not just in pieces, but whole. And you miss her with a kind of ache that sits deep, somewhere just beneath the steady rise and fall of your chest.

“I’ve missed you,” you say, and your voice nearly breaks under the weight of it. At the revelation. The truth behind it. It’s not a confession; it’s more like a wound. One she mirrors in the soft tremble of her mouth as she nods.

Her eyes close for a moment, like the words landed somewhere tender. “I never stopped wearing the ring,” she says. “Not in my head, anyway.”

You know what she means. That she still turns to the side of the bed you once filled, your toothbrush is still in the drawer. That her heart still bends toward you, even if the paperwork says otherwise.

You sit like that for a while, quietly absorbing the presence of the woman you love but once let go. Around you, the room buzzes with clinking glasses and bursts of laughter, but your world has shrunk to this single moment. She squeezes your hand gently, her warmth lingering on your skin, grounding you both in an unspoken connection.

“Can I see you again?” she asks. “Outside of this?”

You nod, your heart thumping loudly. It’s not a small nod, nor it’s hesitant. It’s the beginning of something you thought was already over.

Later, alone in your car, you press your fingers to your lips, still tasting the ghost of her touch. You don’t know where this leads, not exactly. But for the first time in a long time, you want to find out. Not because it will be easy. But because it might be worth it.

Because even after everything, she still feels like home. Home isn’t always a place. Sometimes, it’s a person. Sometimes, it’s her.

Taglist: @imightbethewriter pictures: Tamara Govedarovic Unsplash // Sandy Millar Unsplash

#emily prentiss #emily prentiss x reader #emily prentiss fanfic #criminal minds fanfic #emily prentiss fic #emily prentiss fanfiction #criminal minds fanfiction #emily prentiss x you #emily prentiss x y/n #emily prentiss fics #emily prentiss imagine #unit chief prentiss #divorced

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h7llow · 2 days ago

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— how dae-ho would react if he found your diary which contained your deep and private thoughts that you never informed him about

kang dae-ho x fem!reader.

.̩₊̣.̩✧*̣̩˚̣̣⁺̣‧.₊̣̇.‧⁺̣˚̣̣*̣̩⋆·̩̩.̩̥·̩̩⋆*̣̩˚̣̣⁺̣‧.₊̣̇.‧⁺̣˚̣̣*̣̩✧·.̩₊̣.̩ .̩₊̣.̩✧*̣̩˚̣̣⁺̣‧.₊̣̇.‧⁺̣˚̣̣*̣̩⋆·̩̩.̩̥·̩̩⋆*̣̩˚̣̣⁺̣‧.₊̣̇.‧⁺̣˚̣̣*̣̩✧·.̩₊̣.̩

You had just returned from a nice restaurant with Dae Ho; everything was terrific.

Both of you laughed, danced while enjoying the company of each other.

“You think you're so strong just because you beat me in 1 arm wrestle?” you laugh while you continuously tease him

Dae ho then starts tickling you out of fun because you kept teasing him, you also have a cup of chocolate milk in your hand and it spills on your shirt when he was tickling you.

You stayed still with a shocked look on your face. “Dang it dae ho you really are something” still giggling about the silliest things ever, “I’m going to take a quick shower, try not to get into too much trouble.” You laugh while you’re getting your clothes for the shower.

He smirks, “Yeah I’ll try not to. But if I do, what can I say?” He laughs while grabbing your waist and pulling you in for a hug. “I’ll still hug you even if you have a chocolate milk stain on your shirt” teasing you, he then slightly pushes you into the bathroom door to make you hurry up then closes the door.

He walks away laughing, his head back, then walks into your room. He’s seen it a million times already and he still keeps looking around as if it’s his first time stepping foot into there.

He then walks towards your desk, looking through random things, he was reaching for a journal that had all of y’all’s memories in it but then the side of his hand knocked something over, so then his eye catches a small black diary, he had always thought it was a book so he never touched it because he’s not really interested in books, but then the book fell open, so he figured out it wasn’t just a book, and picked it up.

Then he falls backwards on your bed holding the diary up in the air and opens it back up. The first few pages were just little drawings so he kept on looking because he loves looking at stuff you have done.

As soon as he is about to stop, he sees something you wrote on the side of the drawing page, his gaze instantly becoming fixated on it. He began to read and his face instantly turned into a frown, “There are so many things in life we can't explain. Often, things happen for a reason and we are forced to deal with the outcome. There are people I think about every day who are no longer present in my life. Simply due to choices made by themselves because they think of me as “crazy”. Nobody knows how i smile and cover the hurt and pain underneath. Attempting was the lowest point of my life, I still often think of doing it, not just because I’m sad. But it’s also because I’m sick of hiding, I’m sick of being alone, trapped in my thoughts. The feeling of just letting go is something I understand. And something that will cross my mind every single day.”

His eyes then travel to the next page reading more of how you have felt. The more he read, the more tears streamed down his face. He then starts to become stiff while sinking in everything he has just read because, how did he not know? How did he not acknowledge the things you've been enduring? His heart shatters completely, not only because he didn’t notice these things, but the thought of you not trusting him broke him even more. Did you not think he was capable of listening and understanding? Did you think he would leave like the other people in your life did? Did you not even consider thinking he will comfort you in so many ways that those thoughts will fade? His thoughts get interrupted by the bathroom door being opened, “Dae ho, i’m out! better not have broken anything or got into anymore trouble like snooping around in my room” the sound of your voice make him instantly rush to put the diary back in its place it was originally, or atleast he thought it was at before.

He then rushes to the bed and gets under the blanket, grabbing his phone to make him seem fine as if he didn't just come across something he would've never wanted to see, while wiping his tears with the blanket, he then starts to pretend he was scrolling on social media, even tho in reality he was broken, he was broken into pieces. He felt so guilty for not ever thinking of how you feel.

“Dae ho, can you help me pull these curtains down? They are a bit too long, and it hurts my back trying to reach and pull them down,” you sigh while on your tippy toes.

He gets lost in thought, thinking of all the things that were in your diary. He didn’t realize how much you were struggling and how you managed to keep a happy face on. How did he not notice? He asks himself then quickly jolting back to reality as you tap on him and call his name repeatedly

“Huh? Oh yeah, let me help you real quick.” he quickly jumps up and you instantly sense something is wrong.

“dae ho, are you okay? It looks like something is on your mind, Talk to me.” You frown knowing something is off.

He sighs and sits on the edge of the bed, “Y/N, you know you can talk to me, right? No matter how big the situation is you can talk to me, I’m here for you. You don’t have to struggle with anything alone. And I mean it sweetheart, I really do.”

You raise your eyebrow pretending that you're confused, “Yes dae ho, I know. Now help me with this curtain please!” you say, trying to avoid the depth of the conversation.

He then helps you quickly but immediately goes back to questioning you. “Are you feeling okay right now? Is there anything you’re thinking about that is making you overwhelmed?

You then look to him, he looks as if he knows something is going on, which he does in fact know something that you don’t think he knows about. “ No dae ho, I’m fine. Why? Are you okay?”

He sighs and he needs to take his mind off this for a while, which he knows isn’t going to happen. He��s not just going to let this go, he’s going to question you even more, but only after he try’s to clear his mind. “ah, um. I’m going to take a quick shower.” he says while pacing around the room and only accidentally grabbing his shirt.

“Uh, oka-“ you then stop talking after he just runs off to the bathroom as if he just saw a ghost. You then sit down trying not to think much of it, but then you turn to turn left you see the diary, it was in between a purple binder and a book. It was originally in between other books to blend it out because you know he doesn’t even lay a finger on books.

You then stand up immediately and run to your desk to grab the book, you open it to the pages with your writing and see tears on the pages. Your heart starts to race and your hands begin to shake. What if he saw everything that was in here? What if he’s mortified of the things you wrote? What if he’s leaving right now? What if he doesn’t see you the same anymore? tears are pouring from your eyes with the diary still in your hand.

He comes rushing back. “I forgot my-“ he then stops talking and looks at you with the book in your hands and he looks at your face and you're crying.

You sigh and your breathing becomes uneven.” Did you go through my diary..” you say while covering your mouth, trying not to sob.

He then hesitates to speak, knowing it wasn’t right of him to look through your personal belongings. “I-I’m sorry, I was just looking a-and I came across it, If I knew what was actually in there I would’ve never touched it..” He says while having a concerned look on his face.

You exhale, slowly. “If you're going to leave, please do it now and save the judgmental comments,” you say while tears are streaming down your face and looking down.

He looks at you, so confused, and so miserable. He was so angry because so many people have hurt you to the point you think he will leave over feelings you can’t control. “Leave you? Why would I do that my little dove?” he says while walking closer to you.

You then look at him, and your heart melts. You’re truly in love with him. He’s the only person who has ever looked at you the same as he did before finding out how you have been feeling.

“You’re not going to leave?” You looked to your side and looked up at him with a shocked expression on your face.

He then wraps his hand around you, pulling you into his chest. “I will never leave you, no matter how much you feel. I’m here for you through all of it, no matter what. I mean it Y/N. Through everything, I will always love you for who you are.”

You then press more firmly into his chest and let every cry out you have held in for so long. He hugs you, not talking. Just holding you while you let out everything. He then brings you to the bed and lays you on your back while he gets on the side of you. He doesn't tell you to stop crying, instead, he encourages you to cry. Because he wants you to be fresh and start new after you let everything out. He loves you so much, he follows you around like a little puppy, he always shows you love, and he’s the most affectionate person you have ever encountered in your life. And you never want that to go to waste

After you're done crying, you sigh and look up to him, he has been staring at you so you don’t need to wait until he looks back at you. “I'm sorry if I was too overwhelming, and I'm sorry I haven't told you before, I just don’t know how to express the way I feel. It’s difficult, and I’m sorry for letting you down. i guess i just cope better by writing how i feel.”

He stares intensely at you, and cups your face “You don't have to apologize for anything. My sweet Y/N. But from now on, please tell me if you feel like that. Please, my sweet girl. I hate seeing you hurt.”

“I will dae ho, I promise I will.”

.̩₊̣.̩✧*̣̩˚̣̣⁺̣‧.₊̣̇.‧⁺̣˚̣̣*̣̩⋆·̩̩.̩̥·̩̩⋆*̣̩˚̣̣⁺̣‧.₊̣̇.‧⁺̣˚̣̣*̣̩✧·.̩₊̣.̩ .̩₊̣.̩✧*̣̩˚̣̣⁺̣‧.₊̣̇.‧⁺̣˚̣̣*̣̩⋆·̩̩.̩̥·̩̩⋆*̣̩˚̣̣⁺̣‧.₊̣̇.‧⁺̣˚̣̣*̣̩✧·.̩₊̣.

this is my first fanfic post, english isn't my first language so please excuse grammar errors!!

if you enjoyed this please consider reblogging!

∗ ࣪ ˖༺ ♡ ༻˖ ࣪ ∗

#dae ho x reader #dae ho squid game #dae ho #dae ho x you #player 388 #player 388 x reader #squid game #squid game fanfic #fanfic #squid game season 1 #squid game 1 #squid game season 2 #squid game 2 #squid game season 3 #squid game 3 #squid game x reader #squid game x y/n #squid game x you

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itoshiierae · 2 days ago

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bumping into your ex, nagi seishiro, five years later ₊˚⊹ ࿔

people always say it’s special — being each other’s first love.

but honestly? being someone’s first partner means stepping into something they’ve never learned how to do. they don’t always know how to communicate, how to show up when it really matters, and they don’t often realize that love isn’t just about the feeling; it’s about the effort you keep putting in, no matter how many years have passed by.

you and nagi got together at 16, but broke up at 20 — when the spark dimmed, and love alone stopped being enough to keep things going.

after all, you were both still young & still figuring yourselves out as individuals. over time, you slowly learned: growing up doesn’t always mean growing together. and somewhere along the way… he stopped putting in as much effort as he used to. maybe because he got too comfortable. maybe because he thought you’d always be there, but ohh he was wrong.

sure, he never cheated, and he wasn’t cruel — he just… got lazy. somewhere along the way, the effort faded. the texts came later, the dates became fewer, and the attention??? almost absent. he even forgot your birthday once… and your anniversary too. you really tried to be patient. you kept hoping he’d show up differently. but eventually, something in you just gave out.

so after four years, you ended it. not out of anger, but because you were tired of being the only one trying.

now, it’s been five whole years since the break up — you’re both 25 and haven’t spoken since... not until now.

you know the universe is playing a cruel trick on you when all it takes is one accidental run-in after years of silence, sends a familiar ache through your chest — not quite pain, but the kind of nostalgia that only a first love can leave behind, even when you’ve both supposedly moved on and are living completely different lives by now.

“s-sei…? is that really you??”

he turned around at the sound of your voice.

and when your eyes met, it instantly felt like being 16 again. it was almost as if your heart didn’t remember how to beat without him, like no time had passed at all.

you honestly didn’t know what you even expected from this interaction. a brief smile? a nod? or maybe even for him to walk away like strangers do?

but he didn’t, he just stood there like he was seeing a memory come back to life. it was almost as if the years that had stretched between the two of you meant nothing at all.

“… funny seeing you here,” he said.

you laughed almost breathless, “that’s the first thing you decide to say to me?” his lips twitched — not quite a smile, but something close. a flicker of surprise in his eyes, followed by a soft realization.

“… huh. wait— i said that the first time we met at the arcade too, didn’t i??”

you did remember. and maybe a small part of you wished you didn’t.

back when everything felt easy. when the only thing you had to worry about was who got to choose the movie or where to go after class. because at that age, love wasn’t about the future — it was about the now, and just being together was simply enough. but as you grow older, that’s when it really hits — compatibility, communication, compromise. you’ll start to realize that love itself isn’t always enough if you’re not aligned in the ways that truly matter.

the pause lingered, heavy with years of what-ifs and all the things you never had the courage to say.

“… uhh. how’s life been??” he asked, voice softer now.

you looked at him. and you instantly spot a few changes. he was taller, more built and more mature around the edges. but his eyes? they still held the same warmth that made you fall for him the first time.

“… i’ve been okay,” you said. and in a way, you were. just not in the way he used to know.

“… you?”

he hesitated. then nodded. “… yeah. been trying, i guess.”

trying.

that was always the word with you two, wasn’t it???

trying to make it work.

trying to hold on.

trying to let go.

maybe this was the cruel part. not that he was your first love. but that even now, some part of you still wondered if he was meant to be your last. but the moment you glanced down at the ring on your finger, you were instantly reminded.

he wasn’t your person anymore. and maybe… it was finally time for you to let him go.

not just from your mind, but from the corner of your heart you kept him hidden in — the part that still remembered how he used to hold you, how he used to love you, and how you both were each other’s first love. you never told anyone, but a part of you once held onto the hope that maybe, someday, the two of you would eventually find your way back to each other. but life kept moving & so did you. some promises just aren’t meant to be kept. and some relationships… they’re only meant to teach you how to grow; to help you learn more about yourself, what you need, what you crave, and what you’ll no longer tolerate in love.

as much as nagi was your first love, and as much as he’ll always have a soft spot somewhere deep inside your heart — that doesn’t mean he was meant to be your last. because now, you’re with someone who shows up constantly. someone who loves you, fully and gently for exactly who you are.

afterwards, your phone vibrates in your pocket — you pull it out to check who’s calling.

incoming call 📞: isagi yoichi ♥︎

a small smile tugs at your lips — and yeah… you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.

(( and no there will be no part two xoxo! 😘 ))

#blue lock #bllk #blue lock x reader #nagi seishiro x reader #nagi seishiro #seishiro nagi #bllk x reader #bllk nagi #nagi seishiro angst #blue lock nagi #bllk drabbles #bllk angst

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illumeew · 2 days ago

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childe/tartaglia x reader. loving you, silently.

it’s late and the house is quiet, save for the soft shuffle of blankets and the occasional sleepy murmur from teucer, curled up on the couch again with the stuffed animal you'd gifted him a few hours prior.

you're bustling around the kitchen, softly humming a tune as you clean up the leftovers from dinner. tartaglia watches you from where he’s perched lazily near the window, faded in the soft glow of the lamplight.

and by the archons, he hates this feeling brewing in his chest.

you look tired, but happy. there’s something about the way you move, careful but natural, that makes it obvious you’ve grown into this strange role you never asked for: friend, comrade, another sibling figure to his own—a steady, warm figure in his bizarre family.

he watches as you crouch down to adjust teucer's blanket, your voice soft as you murmur to him in his sleep, smoothing back his hair.

you’re gentle. too gentle for this world, for this life you’ve been tangled into with him, and tartaglia’s heart twists.

somewhere along the way, it became normal—this life, this odd home, the two of you orbiting each other under one sky like some mismatched constellation.

and all at once, it hits him.

i love you.

the words slip into his mind, uninvited, sharp, and terrifying.

he swallows it down before it can go any further.

no. he won’t ruin this.

this peace. this strange, fragile thing that feels too precious for his bloodied hands.

he watches you laugh quietly to yourself at, maybe, another funny memory, as you rinse a bright and (awfully) colored cup under the faucet, eyes soft and half-lidded from exhaustion but still smiling.

he could stay like this forever, couldn’t he?

but he doesn’t say it. he doesn’t dare.

instead, when you glance over and catch him staring, he rolls his eyes and leans back with a lazy smirk, flicking lint from his shoulder like he wasn’t just moments away from unraveling.

“you look ridiculous,” he teases. “domesticity isn’t a good color on you, comrade."

you scoff, throwing a dish towel at him.

but you’re smiling, too.

and he thinks that’s all that matters.

so he lets himself bask in it, loving you in the way only someone like him can—silently.

recycled drabble from an existing fic on my ao3 - it was js tew good to not post on here :(

#genshin fanfic #genshin imagines #genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact x you #genshin x reader #genshin x y/n #genshin x you #genshin fluff #childe x reader #genshin angst #tartaglia x y/n #tartaglia x you #tartaglia x reader #childe x y/n #childe x you #childe angst #tartaglia angst #dividers ⓒ @hyuneskkami

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archivesctrccio · 2 days ago

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wathing the sunset with natalie!

꩜ warnings.. none!

꩜ words.. 522.

✎ᝰ. jinx notes.. I didn't like this one very much 😭😭

You and Natalie snuck out.

Again.

The old car she drives is too loud for someone who wants to disappear, but the sound of the engine is lost when you take the dirt road that leads to that forgotten beach, about twenty minutes from the city— far enough that no one would see you, close enough to run back if you needed to.

Natalie parks behind some overgrown dunes. The radio plays Fade into you softly, hissing in the corners of the music. She turns off the car with a soft sigh and grabs a worn sarong from the back seat.

— Shall we watch the sunset? — she asks, as if inviting you to escape the whole world.

You smile, nervous and in love.

On the beach, there's no one. No one from school. No one from the city. No sidelong glances, no whispers behind your back. Just the sound of the waves and the wind rustling in the baggy clothes you wear to hide more than you should.

She sits on the sand with her legs stretched out and pulls you by the hand until you fall to the side. The sun is still high, but it has already begun to gild the sky. The smell of the sea mingles with the faint perfume Natalie wears— something cheap, bought at the drugstore, but which smells like a fond memory on her.

— I never thought I'd like the beach, — she says, lighting a cigarette.

— And why do you come so often?

She shrugs.

— Because here I can look at you without having to hide it.

You lower your face, your heart pounding. Natalie always says these things so calmly, as if they didn't live in a place where just holding hands is a risk of getting hit. Or worse.

— I hate having to hide it, — you whisper, looking out to sea.

—Me too.

She throws away her cigarette before it's half finished, as she always does when she's nervous. The breeze blows harder for a second, and you feel like lying on her chest. To say out loud what you feel. To exist freely.

But you can't.

Not yet.

So she just holds your hand lightly, your fingers intertwined in the sand, almost hidden. Natalie squeezes back. It's not much, but it's enough.

— One day we'll get out of here, — she says. — And you'll kiss me on the street. You'll hold my hand at the supermarket. you'll introduce me as "this is Nat, my girl."

You chuckle softly, and so does she. The sun begins to dip into the sea, tinting the sky pink and orange.

— Promise? — you ask, looking at her.

She turns her face, and her eyes are as full of light as the sky.

— I swear. Even if I have to drive all the way to California with you in the trunk and us sleeping at a gas station.

You laugh for real now, and Natalie pulls you close and kisses your temple. The world can't see yet, but there, by the sea and in the late afternoon, your love shines brightly, even if hidden.

#yellowjackets #yellowjackets x reader #x reader #yellowjackets x you #archivesctrccio #natalie scatorccio #natalie scatorccio x reader #natalie scatorccio x female reader #natalie scatorccio x you #natalie yellowjackets #yellowjackets season 3 #yellowjackets s3

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howisjoostfanfictionforfree · 1 day ago

Text

Four Times as Many ///// Again for the Last Time

Real person fiction! Joost Klein x vampire!reader

CW: 18+, MDNI, RPF, sexual assault, murder, mild gore, cannibalism, unprotected piv, angst, tiny dash of noncon, please let me know if I’ve forgotten anything

Reader: vampire!reader, fem!reader, AFAB!reader, not descriptive of readers appearance, implied to be smaller than Joost but by an unspecified amount

Notes: Set in Amsterdam December 2022. You can read part 1 here and 2 here. Thanks for reading again after so long. Huge thanks to my moots as always! My life is yours.

Word Count: ~10,600

Track: Runrunrun by Dutch Melrose

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There’s a soft touch on your cheek. So different from the cold unyielding ground that presses too hard on your bones where the skin is thin.

How long have you been laying here? Where is here? It’s dark and freezing and the only colors that can be seen swirl in flashes, eyes unable to focus and vertigo pinning you flat. There is an unnatural heaviness to your joints and a burning in your throat. Something metallic, something chemical. Nothing like the hot, salty iron you expected when you ripped his throat out.

Anger stirs.

You did eat him. The context is just out of reach, just behind a curtain so thin you can almost see through but can’t seem to sweep aside. Still, you know you did.

His face is half-obscured in your mind’s eye. The rage and the panic muddled everything together but the simpering features and godforsaken low taper fade linger in the memory and make you want to tear him apart all over again.

The touch on your cheek turns into a palm, cupping your face.

It reminds you of the touch on your waist that had turned into a grip on your arm and then into a threat. A demand disguised as a request until soon it wasn’t disguised at all.

You shy away from the touch, nauseous all over again.

That man is dead, you know it because you feel him churning in your stomach. Whatever poor stranger that found you lying here is at no fault for trying to comfort you but the feeling is unbearable. Any additional sensation is too much. They should just let you be, leave you alone until the spinning stops. Until the seeping, cloying strangeness scrambling your mind and poisoning every cell leeches away. You just need to wait it out.

The hand pets at your hair. There are soft words but they feel so far away you can’t parse them. Fear mixes with the anger and queasiness, you need to be alone. Who knows what incriminating evidence you weren’t able to hide in your delirium. You need to hide, need to clean up, need to be able to think. Is there blood on you? Did you leave blood in the alley? Did you leave any of him behind?

A second hand joins the first to slip underneath you and the world spins as you are lifted, boneless, and your stomach roils violently.

The misguided samaritan tucks you against their chest and despite the acrid stench in your sinuses they do smell nice. A small comfort, but one that doesn’t keep you from thrashing. If you can call it that. It’s pathetic, barely a twitch.

How did this happen? Time is fractured, chunks missing and the rest fuzzy. You weren’t drugged, you tore him apart as soon as he pulled his iridescent green cool guy knife, swaying on his feat but intent unmistakable. Were you drugged after? Where did you go? Where are you now?

The repetitive murmurs of the person carrying you do little to soothe as the bounce of each step only increases your nausea, the chemical tang in your mouth unignorable. If you were drugged, why isn’t it wearing off? Nothing ever sticks with you this long.

Strong arms readjust you and the panic cranks up a notch. Where are they taking you? Do they think you’re sick? Are they taking you to the doctor?

That can’t happen.

They’ll find out what you are and what you did and it will open door after door after door that can never be closed.

Time flows unevenly as the sickening rhythm of steps lulls you into an inescapable loop of thought and panic, trapped inside your own mind as you remain unable to move. It’s hard to tell if the groan you feel vibrate your chest is loud enough to reach your would-be rescuer. You try to focus, to stop the spinning for even a moment to see their face, but it’s futile.

Every sense is warped and each flash of a streetlamp blends into the noise of a car and twists together with the feeling of the cold air on your face. Snowflakes spin overhead to meet the horizon and the leaves of trees replace them before melting into familiar shadow. The sloshing in the canals ebbs back and forth with the wet sounds in the chambers of the heart inches from your ear. It all melts together, one into the next, over and over and it takes every effort not to loose the contents of your stomach.

It might feel better if you did but there's no way to know what will come up.

Finally, mercifully, things are still.

You don’t know when it happened but you’re lying down again. Cool, hard flooring. Blue stripes separate white tiles and your eyes flit between them until the belated realization that you can focus your eyes.

How long has it been?

It’s cold. Nothing like where you lay when they found you but way too cold for what looks like the concerningly familiar inside of a bathroom. Are you naked? Your numb leaden muscles still fight you but there is enough sensation to stir slightly, the sting against your skin confirming the suspicion.

There’s a shuffling behind you and then the unmistakable sound of a bath. With concerted effort you roll over, moaning with the strain and the feeling of joints bending just slightly wrong. The person hunched over the bath straightens and turns.

Joost.

Pale and worn. Bags under his eyes and a weariness to how he holds himself.

Fuck.

The panic must show on your face because he looks pained. “Schatje…” He kneels and it draws your gaze to the bloody pile of clothes beside him. Your clothes.

“It’s me, it’s me, are you with me?”

You want to cry.

You are with him, most unfortunately.

You tried so fucking hard to stay away. You laid low and silenced your phone, didn’t answer the door for the past couple weeks as you waited for the paperwork to go through. Who knew that falling in love would have kept you from remembering things as simple as renewing your passport?

He came knocking at least once a day, even took to sitting outside your door sometimes, sure that he would catch you coming home or going out. You had to leave the house at odd hours, checking the mailbox for the forms at two in the morning and looking both ways before stepping off the stoop if you did go out.

You couldn’t stop yourself from listening to his messages, hadn’t been strong enough to not read his texts. Message after message begging you to answer, apologizing for scaring you, promising he was fine. All of it missing the point. He wasn’t fine. You hurt him and it can’t happen again. You can’t risk killing someone again.

But then, you just did.

You did and despite your best efforts you are face to face with Joost.

Shadow blots him out as you curl an arm over your eyes weakly, unable to face his pathetic expression. It makes you want to hold him, to comfort him. There are so many reasons why you can’t.

“Baby…please. Are you hurt?” He sounds so small.

“Joost…” You slur. “Get out of here.”

He chuckles sadly. “This is my bathroom.”

Ah. As good a place as any to be naked.

“...Why?”

“I didn’t know where else to take you.” He pauses. “What happened? You don’t look hurt but when I found you you were…I don’t know. I didn’t know what to do.”

You want to disappear. “I don’t know.... Where did you find me?”

“On your porch. I couldn’t find your keys.”

A heavy sigh escapes your lungs that feel wet and hollow. The weight and darkness of your arm are a poor shield against the nausea and adrenaline, still fighting for control even now. “How much…blood was there?” Maybe you can still clean up before the sun rises.

A bare but bloody ground flashes in your mind’s eye, shining behind the last chunk of him in your hands as you bring it to your mouth. It's a clear piece of memory among all the fuzz and it tempers the panic slightly. If nothing else, you ate all of him. There won’t be much to do but scrape up the frozen spatters.

“There was a lot. You-... I tried to clean your porch but you were so cold I had to get you out of there.”

Your hands curl into fists as you begin to shiver. You’re cold now too but it’s the farthest thing from your mind. Joost is almost unbearably sweet even though the hurt in his voice is palpable. After you injured him and avoided him and made him accessory to a crime he doesn't even know the details of yet he is still so kind.

His hand startles you, fingers wrapping around your wrist as he peels your weak arm away from your face, looking down at you miserably. “Can I put you in the bath?”

You nod after a beat, fighting tears, and let him scoop you up once more. It’s hard to remember the days when you weren't bothered by much more than the minutia of work and hoping Joost would come over that evening. What the weather was going to be and if Joost would like the drink you bought for him at the convenience store.

The alternating agony and numbness of the past week made it seem so far away and now, even as he holds you in his arms, you know it is impossible to go back. Not after what you did to him and not after what you did tonight.

You really did it again.

He sets you in the hot water and you notice the blood stains on his hoodie where he held you as they press against the edge of the tub. Small waves lap at your skin and the blood blooms outward from where you sit like it's reaching for the other half of itself coating him. Joost retrieves a small cup from the cabinet and uses it to start pouring the water over you as he kneels.

The water only gets darker as he bathes you in silence, touches chaste and methodical but eyes wandering as he continues to check you for injury. He dabs at your skin so gently with the washcloth as you sit there, still residually intoxicated. Under any other circumstance it would be relaxing but the tension in the air is almost a physical thing.

It all feels like a sick twist to an already doomed ending, one last glimpse of him before you have to tear yourself away for the last time. Joost’s jaw is clenched, eyes wet, and each time your eyes meet he blinks down to focus on his movements. He drains the water and fills it again, stroking down your back to soothe your shivering as you wait for the water to rise.

Eventually, he breaks. “Are you…do you feel better?”

You hum in disagreement.

He meets your eyes this time. “I don’t think…I mean I don’t know, but, that seemed like a lot of blood…Was it your blood?”

“No.”

“So…someone you drank from?”

“Yeah.”

He takes in your clipped responses, pausing his gentle wipes at your cheek. “Please…” It’s almost a whisper. “Why were you on your doorstep, in the snow, half dead, when I came to ask you for the hundredth time not to leave me?”

A part of you curls up and dies.

“Why did you leave? I know you’re worried about me, I know that’s why you're avoiding me, but I’m worried about you too. I know you don’t have anyone and it’s not-, it’s not pity or whatever,” His voice breaks. “it’s just that I fucking miss you!”

You bring your knees to your chest sluggishly despite the way your heart pounds, muscles fighting to tense but failing against the heaviness of the poison. “You don’t know what you’re saying Joost…You’re nice, you’ve always been nice, but I shouldn’t be here…You can’t come looking for me any more.” The words are slow, just as drawn out by how much you hate to say them as by residual intoxication.

“Why!? Can’t you see I’m fine? Please just answer the question, I still don’t even know if you’re okay! When I found you you didn’t…you didn’t even recognize me.”

“Joost…” How can you make him understand without saying it? How do you even begin? “I fucked up.”

“Are you talking about what you did to me or whatever happened tonight? Because if you’re talking about the papercut you gave me then you need to take a good look because I am just fine!” He pushes his bangs up with one shaky hand.

True to his word, there is only a thin red line, held together by two small clear bandage strips. Head wounds bleed a lot but even so you were sure it had been to the bone.

You sit there, staring each other down as you both tremble.

“I…I’m glad you’re okay. I’m sorry I left you alone like that…Did Tantu take care of you?”

He snorts derisively. “The ambulance got there first. Patched me up even though I could have done it just fine myself. When Tantu showed up he thought I was dying, the paramedics being there really spun him up. You might want to steer clear of the studio for a while….”

He huffs, brow knit as he tries to collect himself, beginning to massage the blood from your hair with soapy fingers.

“I just mean…You never needed to do any of that. Everything was fine. Honestly, it would have been fine even if you had bit me. I know you think it’s a bad idea but I don’t care if it hurts and I know it’s not dangerous because you drink from people all the time. Who cares if you go a little extra crazy on me? I like that I make you crazy! I wasn’t gonna push because I thought it would end up happening anyways but then you fucking-, you ghosted me and I just- !”

“Joost…” Your veins are filled with ice.

“Please! Can you please, just, explain anything?! What happened tonight?!” He’s breathing hard now, clenched fists coming down to rest at the edge of the tub as his eyes dart over your face.

You can only look at him, unable to find the words. He has no idea how wrong he is.

You thought you had made up your mind, to do everything it takes to keep him safe, but some small traitorous part of you knows there is no getting him back once you tell him, no second chance. A part that refuses to draw the line by speaking it aloud.

“Say it! Just say it! Whatever it is you’re always never saying, you can tell me. You’re not going to scare me. I knew what you were from the beginning. I knew what I was getting into!”

Being yelled at naked in the bathtub, even if well-intentioned, starts to take its toll. You hug your knees weakly, trying not to cry as the nausea kicks up stronger.

“...I can’t stand the way you will look at me…” It’s only a whisper.

“Would it be worse than me never looking at you again!? You were going to leave! I talked to your landlady, she said you’re moving out!”

Oh Joost.

“I literally killed someone!”

“I literally don’t care!”

Of course.

“No! You don’t fucking get it! I killed someone and I ate him and I’ve done it before and I could do it to you and it’s fucking crazy that I’m sitting here in your bath talking to you when there is an entire person in my stomach!”

He freezes.

Not a word.

Not a twitch.

Face blank.

His heart picks up, slowly at first like he’s still registering what you said, then, all at once it skyrockets as the scent of fear perfuses the room.

Oh.

Fuck.

You pitch forward as your gorge rises too far to hold back, clutching the far side of the tub as you puke over the edge onto the floor. It isn’t much, mostly blood, but you gag over and over as you watch it spread into a perfect red pool around the mush at the center. The hand you clutch over your mouth barely keeps more from coming up when Joost scrambles backwards, his face a mask of horror, eyes fixed on the point of impact like if he loses sight of it for even a second it might hurt him.

You knew it. There was never a world where anyone would be that understanding. You let your eyes fall, unable to look at him as shame starts to set in, when you see what he’s really looking at.

There, in the middle of the puddle like some kind of dollar store halloween decoration, is a single eyeball.

Oh fuck oh fuck.

You grab it, unthinking, and swallow it as fast as you can just to make it disappear. The sound of Joost gagging almost makes it come right back up again.

God.

Fuck.

Make it stop.

You stumble up and out of the tub, limbs impossibly heavy. The guy you are still digesting must have been rolling on something. There’s no way anything else would take so long to burn off.

You fall to your knees harshly in front of the toilet and frantically gather a wad of paper to press against the puddle. Anything to cover it. Anything to make Joost stop looking at you like that. You throw the wad into the toilet and grab another, wiping up the splatters as Joost continues to heave in the corner. You stand slowly, shakily, water dripping everywhere, and step towards the door.

The sudden hand around your ankle brings you down hard.

“Fuck! Sorry! I'm sorry! Don’t go! Please, I’m sorry!” Joost has a death grip on your leg, tears streaming down his face even as he reeks of terror.

“Let go! What are you even doing!?” The slight ache of the impact is nothing compared to the sight of him as you twist to look over your shoulder, his face twisted in despair that rends your heart clean through.

“Just wait-” he gasps, crawling forward and grabbing at you desperately as you scramble against wet, slippery tiles. He uses his entire body to press you into the floor, the breath leaving you in one big whoosh. He grabs both wrists, holding them in front of you as you continue to struggle ineffectively, still too weak. “Just wait.” He chokes between stilted breaths, the kind that you can’t take properly when you cry. He buries his face in the back of your neck as he continues to shudder wordlessly, his death grip remaining firm.

His heat at your back, even through his clothes, is a sharp contrast against the cool porcelain on your bare front. It’s clear you're not going anywhere and slowly you let go of the little tension you had been able to muster. The solid weight of him makes it impossible not to relish in the contact for a moment, the last you will ever have. He really is so much bigger, it’s a shame you never got to be beneath him the way you wanted.

“Joost… Let me go.” You murmur.

“Stop talking. Just gimme a minute to process okay…Just, wait. You always run.” He hiccups and it makes your heart squeeze.

“I know…and if I weren’t drugged to hell you wouldn’t be able to stop me. I’m gonna leave anyway when it wears off. Let me go, Joost. There’s no way you can tell me I’m not bad for you.”

He sobs once, loud and wet.

“Joost…” Your own tears finally fall.

“I love you, I don’t care if you are, I love you!” The words are smeared into the skin of your shoulder.

The breath seizes in your throat.

Everything inside you wails, shrieks, howls to say it back. Your teeth find your lower lip and you press your forehead to the tiles. He deserves to be loved and to know he's loved but you can’t give him hope, not now.

He shakes apart above you, the minutes stretching on and his hot tears sliding down your shoulder as he absorbs the weight of your silence before he finally speaks.

“Why did you eat them?” His voice is thin. Choked.

“...That's just what vampires do.”

“No, I mean, why them? You say it like you only eat some of them.”

He knows everything now. Everything important. There's no reason you shouldn’t explain. If you can’t give him what he really wants, what you both want, at least you can help him understand. Maybe it will help him let you go.

“Two. There were two…The first one tried to rape me, maybe kill me, I don’t know….when I ate him I ate all of him... I didn't know I could do it. I had no idea if it would happen again. I thought I could move on from it, I tried so hard, but tonight….fuck. I didn’t think something like that could happen twice, I hoped, but I was wrong….You asked me once why I started traveling. The first one is why I left home….It's time for me to leave again. Joost, I have to go.”

He winds tighter against you with each word. “Schatje…I’m sorry…” a pregnant pause, “That’s so fucked, that so fucked that that happened to you ….but… that was self defense. That wouldn’t happen to us. You’re not gonna do that to me and they’re not gonna catch you! Nobody will ever guess. Nobody is gonna know, you don’t need to go anywhere!” he sniffles, rocking his forehead against the back of your neck, trying to come up with the right words. Any words to make you stay.

You remain silent. It could happen. He makes you react in ways that make no sense and he always has. But if the hard, bloody evidence on his tiles wasn’t enough, then trying to reason with him now is pointless.

He knows. He doesn’t care.

He really is something else.

Eventually, when his crying tapers off and he realizes you’re done fighting, he eases his weight and crawls off you. “Sorry, that can’t be comfortable.” You smile dimly as he helps you sit up, more than happy to have endured it just to feel him a little longer.

“You still haven’t told me why you were on the porch like that. Why were you so out of it?”

“The guy was on drugs I guess. I didn’t know before I ate him.”

He swallows thickly. “Oh…well, how do you feel now? You’re a lot better than when I found you” He glosses seamlessly over the homicide.

“Weak.” It’s too much effort to do anything but answer him simply and honestly now, the emotions of the night have drained you dry and the inevitability of what you have to do brings a certain numbness. He still smells like discomfort and it’s not hard to guess that it’s because he’s unsure of your silence. He can’t tell if he has won.

With a small frown he nods. His long arms reach above the medicine cabinet for a new cup which he fills and hands to you wordlessly. Joost drapes a towel around you so gently you almost want to cry again, and when you’re done drinking he scoops you up and carries you into the bedroom. He sets you gently on the edge of the bed and grabs a stack of clothes from his desk.

“Here. These are the ones you left.”

They are the very same. The cute shirt you had thought Joost might like, the bralette that had hung around your bound wrists as he licked your pussy so sweetly. You almost blush.

You set down the pile and attempt the basics, forgoing the bra, but it’s still a struggle to do more than the shirt. Warm hands cover your own when he sees you shaking to tuck your knees and he pulls the underwear up for you, ignoring your soft noise of embarrassment. A pair of his own huge comfy pants follow right after and then he sets to work squeezing the water from your hair with the towel.

He strips his own clothes down to the boxers, finally showing some skin after such an unequal bathing experience. You can’t help but smile. The sight of his golden chest hair and soft tummy, his strong arms and long, long legs before he pulls on his own pajamas is one you try and memorize. You’ve never actually seen him this naked before and you never will again.

Joost seems to sense your melancholy but doesn’t comment as he approaches, tucking your hair behind your ear and holding your face in both huge hands.

“Stay.”

You say nothing. You will make no promises.

But, when he crawls onto the bed and gathers you to his chest, you don’t protest either. His body is warm and soft and the sigh he lets out when you relax against him drains the very last dregs of panic from you. The drug still lingers, heavy in your limbs, and he smells like something good and safe. Maybe, you can have just one more moment. Maybe goodbye can wait until morning.

When morning does come, so does the profound dread. There is nothing like a good night’s sleep to sharpen the mind and refresh the ability to freak the fuck out.

Joost is in danger every second he spends in your presence whether he’s willing to admit it or not and you’re in danger every second you wait to go and see how much blood is left on your porch. The cops might already be waiting for you.

Sitting up in his big warm bed, enveloped by his scent with the renewed effect of stirring your arousal now that there are no drugs in your system, the noises of Joost in the kitchen trickle through the crack in the door. Standing, you retrieve the bralette from his desk. There's no telling how soon you will have to leave. You slip it on quickly, giving one last long look around his room, taking it in one last time, and step out into the living space.

Joost is cooking.

Not just making coffee or toast but actually cooking.

Not once in all these months have you caught him holding a frying pan. Joost hates cooking in a way you have seen from very few people. Almost every time you come to his place you end up ordering out, and just as often he shows up with bags of takeout when he comes to yours, like he forgets that you can cook. It does seem to be more about ability than anything else. He just doesn't know how and you wonder how he never learned. The few times you’ve asked he brushes it off with humor but it’s clear you’re straying close to that nebulous thing he never talks about. You’re only becoming more sure that something terrible has happened to him too. It feels awful that you’ll never find out.

Thank god he has friends.

He stirs something in the pan with a furrowed brow, frowning at the contents, but looks up with a smile when he hears the soft padding of your feet. “Good morning!” he chirps. ‘How do you feel now?”

“Good…Better. Normal I think…Hey, are you cooking?”

Joost grins wide as he fiddles with the gas. “Yeah I thought you could use something normal to eat.”

You approach the counter slowly, easing into one of the stools so you can stay upright when you deliver the final blow. “Yeah that would be good…thanks.” The sight of Joost in the kitchen frisking about fully dressed like he’s your lover about to wake you up on an ordinary morning does nothing to help your panic. You need to get this over with. “You’re being weirdly okay about cannibalism.”

He barks a laugh. “I mean, that part was kind of a shock but I told you already, I know you’re a vampire, I kinda figured you’ve killed people at some point.”

It’s impossible not to stare at his beautiful face as he nudges charred looking onions and peppers back and forth in the oil. So cheerful. So opposite to the apprehension in your gut. Golden bangs glow in the morning light, hair just enough of a mullet now to fan out around his ears a little with bedhead. Perfect lips smile wryly as pale eyes glance back and forth between you and the situation in the pan.

He shouldn't be this calm, this sunny, no matter what he says. Not after what he saw. After the confession you didn’t return and the plea you didn’t answer. His heart is beating a little fast but it’s the only thing that seems off. Maybe he senses your unease. Maybe breakfast is a distraction.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. All these gentle words to make you stay, insisting he doesn’t mind, trying to make light, only delay the inevitable. It’s tempting to listen, to imagine that things could be that easy, but one night in his arms was already far more than you should have allowed. Being drugged and boneless were your excuses but now you have none left.

It’s time.

“I’m sorry you had to see it, any of it…”

“It’s okay. I’m just glad you're back.” He turns off the stove and scrapes the dubious vegetables onto a plate before beginning to chop new ones.

“Joost, I should go soon.”

He doesn’t look up at first, eyes fixed on his slices. The corner of his mouth barely twitches like he’s pretending he didn’t hear you.

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to rush today! I already went and checked your porch again. Everything is clean but I still didn��t see your keys. You should just hang here and we can go bug the landlady for new ones later so she can see I’m actually your boyfriend and not a stalker. I don’t think she believed me. Besides, I need you here to taste my first-ever omelet.” He’s smiling again but it’s forced.

Something painful flips in your chest. He’s never called himself that before. Boyfriend. Not directly.

Even after he bared his heart on the cold bathroom floor and you refused to return his words as he sobbed into your skin, he isn’t giving up.

God.

The words burn in your throat. Every moment is a conscious effort not to say them back. To not interrupt him. To not scream it. To not make it so much harder on him when you leave anyways.

You’ve never wanted anything like you want him.

It takes a moment before your voice feels like it won’t tremble. “Joost, I gotta go…”

“I know, I know, don’t worry we’ll go after breakfast. Your landlady is always around. Honestly, she’s seen way too much of me recently.” His voice remains light but the knife starts to meet the cutting board with harsher strokes.

You slide off the stool and his gaze snaps up, no longer smiling.

“Thank you for last night… Joost I-” You halt mid sentence, the nervous rhythm of his knife against the bright red pepper he’s no longer looking at sends a chill through you. “Hey careful, you’re gonna-”

The knipe slips.

“Ah- fuck!” He drops it, sucking his finger into his mouth immediately.

It’s only a small cut, just a knick, but your attention narrows to the smear of blood on his lip within a millisecond.

All sound cuts out. Your peripheral vision darkens as your eyes shift in an instant. The whole world exists in the few feet between you and him and his blood that smells exactly as good as last time.

His eyes widen as he realizes what you’re about to do.

You turn in place, muscles winding, grateful for the large if substandard meal you had last night. Even if you could easily fit more, even with the visceral knowledge that Joost would smother the lingering bitterness in your throat with something exquisite, the remains of your attacker sitting in your gut allow sanity one last win.

It’s the only thing saving you this time. No threat of someone coming around the corner, no pain on his face to stir your guilt. Only the dead man in your stomach to stave off your worst instincts.

The stool crashes into the counter as you propel yourself away, lunging for the door.

“NO NO nonononono wait!” He crashes into the cabinets as he scrambles around the counter over the slick linoleum but you're already jumping over the couch and fumbling with the door. The lock snaps open and you tug violently.

The door doesn’t move.

Your eyes dart over the face of it as you continue to tug, desperately now, and then you see it.

A new bolt.

He fucking got a new bolt.

A bolt with a chain.

When? This morning!??

You reach for it, fingers wrapping around the chain and ripping it free in an instant.

As the links clatter to the ground, a hand closes around your shoulder.

God.

You just-

You can’t anymore.

You round on him and sink your teeth right in.

His shout is sharp, strangled, and his hands shoot up to clutch at you. Your nails dig into his sides and the burst of hot wet ecstasy into your mouth makes you bite even harder. He moans in pain but he's not fighting you. His shaky arms come around your back and pull you closer.

The punctures you've made at the junction of his neck and shoulder are bigger than you really need. Everything about Joost makes you want to rip and tear. The blood flows quickly and you gulp it up just as fast. He tastes just as good as he smells, better even, like adrenaline and arousal, sharp against his natural sweetness and a slight tang of fear. There really isn’t enough fear. The small corner of your mind that hasn’t completely given up bemoans his lack of natural instincts.

He is in so far over his head.

It’s so fucking good.

You don't know if you can stop.

He slides his hands down and hooks them under your ass, lifting you up carefully. You let him, unbothered, and wrap your legs around his waist to support your angle on his neck. You distantly wonder where he's taking you as he turns and walks back into the room. The answer comes in the creak of the couch as he sits down shakily, clutching you to him. It jostles you and he whimpers at the way it tugs on his flesh where your teeth are anchored.

His heart is racing, delivering the mouthfuls to you without any real need to suck. You do anyways, just to hear him groan. It sends the first real bolt of arousal through you and you worry your teeth in his flesh to hear him do it again. He gasps loudly this time and you can really hear the hurt in his voice. The wet, desperate quality to it. His grip on your hips is vice-like. Still, he doesn't do a thing to protest and you are left to continue as you please.

You can barely taste the cigarette he must have had earlier. Just wet and warm and metal and meat and him. All him. Joost starts laying little kisses on your hair. Lays a few on your shoulder and then back up again with his limited range of motion. He makes a small huff every time you swallow and you can’t mistake his arousal climbing higher and higher on your tongue. It's delicious. You wish you could stay here forever.

Maybe you can.

It's not like you can get too full.

Without meaning to you pull with your teeth and he sobs pathetically, shuddering. It goads the inhuman part of you to tighten your grip, pressing him down where he sits, and suddenly the rigid length of his cock is snug against your belly.

Oh your precious little freak.

Enough blood left for a diamond hard erection at least.

He groans, strangled, and any pretense he might have been holding onto flies out the window. He starts grinding up into you with soft little whimpers, chasing your hips to try and ride out the pain. He slides both hands up under your shirt, clutching at the skin of your back as you find a rhythm together.

The sound of his pain both hurts and excites you as you continue to work the muscle between your teeth. The part of you that can think is screaming but you can't pull away to save your life. Not to save his life.

You try to take smaller swallows and wonder if he knows how close to death he is, if he truly appreciates it.

His hands move over you desperately like he does know, grasping like if he doesn't feel all of you now he’ll never get the chance again.

They fumble with the clasp of your bralette and skate around to cup your breasts when it pops loose, massaging them, grasping as much as possible in each hand. His thumbs tease your nipples, brushing back and forth before he lets go to pinch softly and then move on. His hot palms burn your skin as they slide all the way up and around to curl into the hair at the back of your head, tug lightly, make their way back down again and grab greedily at the soft curve of your ass.

Your panties are starting to stick uncomfortably where you grind against him and it's like Joost reads your mind as his hands hook in the waistband of your thin lounge pants, tugging gently. As much as you are onboard with this plan, you can’t spare the attention to help him, too focused on fighting to pace your mouthfuls. After a few frustrated moments of failing to pull them over your hips with the way you are glued to him, he grabs either side of the ass-seam and tears.

If you weren't so busy trying not to kill him you would have laughed out loud.

Joost wastes no time tugging your panties to the side. He swipes his fingers through your wetness a few times, swears, and drops his hands to start pulling at his belt almost violently. You hear the click when it finally pops open and feel him shove his pants down frantically along with what are undoubtedly Joost Klein boxers.

Joost fights to raise his hips, only able to get the fabric down a handful of inches with the way you're pinning him like an animal. Finally his cock springs free, bare now, the wet tip sticking to the skin of your inner thigh.

You shift forward grinding down again with nothing in between and the hot slide of him through your drenched folds almost rivals the feeling of his life in your mouth.

Joost inhales sharply, starts pawing at your hips, desperately trying to control your movements and line himself up.

You can't really help him, can't control yourself at all really. It feels too good to grind him against your clit and you're so much stronger he can't really stop you. Giving up on trying to get your help, Joost takes himself in hand and after a few desperate attempts to maneuver under you the tip finally notches at your entrance.

He takes the opportunity and slams up into you as far as he can.

Oh.

He’s hot and hard and absolutely huge. You suspected it from every time you’ve felt him pressed against you when moments have gotten heavy, but feeling it inside you is something else. He’s so thick. Thicker than anything you’ve ever taken before. It’s too much too fast and it’s perfect. The length of him pulses tightly against your walls in time with his heart. The stretch burns but it's the good kind of hurt.

The delicious ache matches the pleasure of holding something between your teeth.

It’s maybe the only thing that ever has.

You're frozen above him. The almost single-mindedness of bloodlust faltering. Joost slides out a little and sinks back in again with a groan, gentler this time but just as deep. The feeling becomes overwhelming.

Before you know it you are unsinking your teeth with a wet ‘shluck’.

You can’t believe it.

You didn't know this urge could possibly overcome the other. Not when they go so hand in hand.

He looks back at you with huge wet eyes. So innocent looking if it weren't for how he's pressing on your womb. “Ngggh, why’d you stop?” His voice is thick with pleasure.

Of course he would ask that. “Oh my… Oh my god are you okay?”

“Yes, why’d you stop?”

“Idiot! You only have so much blood!”

He grins and gives a tiny roll of his hips, reminding you he has plenty. “I told you everything was gonna be okay.”

“You are so lucky! If your stupidly big dick didn't feel so good just now I probably wouldn't have stopped!

He actually giggles. “Sorry, sorry, I should have told you about all the tools at your disposal.”

You bite him again just to spite him. The other side this time.

He curses loudly. Grips you and shifts as if to flip you. Something in your hindbrain screams and you lock your legs to brace them firmly on the cushions. One hand shoots up to grip the back of the couch next to his head, pinning him where he sits. He pushes at you for a moment longer, struggles, but gives up when it becomes clear he won’t win.

He resorts to kissing at your shoulder again, open mouthed and sloppy now, whatever skin he can reach as he runs his hands up and down your sides. You keep your teeth shallow this time and take only occasional swallows. It’s easy when your attention is so consumed by the way Joost fills you as your hips unfreeze, allowing him to go truly balls deep when you sink down to meet him.

He starts feeling you up again in earnest. His hips work up into yours, doing as much as he can from where you've pinned him, but it's mostly you setting the pace. It feels so good to raise your hips so only the tip is inside and then feel the drag of him sinking into you all over again as you slide down oh-so-slowly.

You can’t get over the way he stretches you wide open. The way he's angled when he’s seated fully inside presses at something good. You do it again. And again. It's leisurely and you can tell he wants more from the way he pulls at your waist, but he does his best to match your pace when he can't budge your hips to go any faster.

You drag your tongue against his broken flesh and he goes for your nipples immediately. He tugs and pinches, alternating back and forth under your shirt, much more aggressive than before. The feeling shoots straight to your pussy and you arch so hard you have to detach from his shoulder again to throw your head back and keen. Joost lets out a strangled moan at the way you clench around him.

“MNNHHH~ fuck! What the fuck! You’re strong everywhere! Did you know that?!” The words tumble out of him.

He makes a good point. You resolve to think later about the necessity of doing kegels as a vampire. Though, it’s hard to feel too bad for him when he's looking at you like he is now, obsessed. “Hah, sorry.”

He makes a face like he can’t believe you're laughing at him. The ridiculousness of it all allows you the presence of mind to finally pull your shirt off and remove your bra the rest of the way. He freezes for a beat, watching you do it, eyes glued to your tits, then does his utmost to try and flip you again.

You let him struggle for a moment. You really do want to let him, but for some reason you just can't.

“Come on baby pleaseee. Lay down for me.”

You frown, incapable of putting into words why your body won't allow it. Joost’s shirt has bloomed red at each shoulder where both wounds continue to seep slowly and you peel it off him as you try to put together your own thoughts.

“Baby please, schatje, I need you.” He’s almost begging.

Well, fuck.

You put a hand on his shoulder and push him firmly against the backrest, quieting the little animal voice in your hindbrain, and start bouncing on it like dick pays rent.

His mouth snaps shut.

You really can't believe how perfect his cock is. You haven't gotten any since well before you turned but even so you know it was never this good. Joost fills you up in a way that makes you want to stop and just keep him there, feel it, but the pressure of him sliding oh-so-close to that one spot each time keeps your hips moving.

His eyes are fixed now on where you’re connected, the filthy wet slide of him into you over and over. You are so wet it’s dripping down him and the sticky slaps fill the room each time your hips meet. You lean back a little to angle him better, searching for that spot.

The pleasure is blinding.

You can’t control your moans at the way he hits into you now. It's getting way too good and you let your hips speed up to take you all the way there. He's gasping each breath as he grips your hips and looks up again to watch your face as you bring yourself to the edge. “Oh fuck, oh baby, are you gonna come? Gonna come on my cock?” He looks so fucked out, whole face pink and eyes misty like he’s the one cumming, not you.

You don’t have time to answer. When the drop hits you slam down, taking him as deep as possible, and pray to god you're not hurting him. He moans loud when you clench hard again and again, twitching up into you as much as he can in your iron hold.

You rest your forehead against his so you can whimper through the comedown. His hands cup your waist, thumbs rubbing soothing little circles as he looks back into your eyes. He brings one hand up to your cheek and pulls you into a kiss.

Fuck.

Finally.

You didn't even realize you hadn’t been kissing. Too frantic to drain his blood and then to drain his balls. It feels better to kiss than to breathe and you reciprocate hungrily, still awash in endorphins. You open your mouth to him, letting him in. The slide of your tongues is immediate, delirious. He might as well be trying to swallow you.

Eventually, your kisses become more languid as your pleasure slowly settles to a simmer.

His remain full of desperation.

You pull back to look at him and he chases your mouth. You dodge and put a hand on his chest again, keeping him there.

You feel more sane than you have since the moment he cut himself and you see now through clear eyes how ruined he is. His chest is heaving and his hips continue to jerk up into yours futilely, unable to move as you continue to press him down. He's running his hands up and down your back, clutching at your ass and your sides like he can't decide where to put them. You stare too long and his brow, slack with pleasure, knits in frustration.

“Ah, please, can you-, can we-, can we keep going?” He can barely get out the words as he writhes underneath you.

It’s almost cute that you've brought him this high and now he can't do a thing to go higher. You leave him to struggle for a moment yet again, unable to help the smile that creeps over your face. More than ever you want to let him flip you, take out his frustrations, but the part of you that must still see him as some kind of prey just won't let it happen. He notices your grin and his expression becomes one of despair.

“Noooo please please please, baby, come on, let me fuck you!”

His huge blue eyes have you instantly weak.

“Sorry, sorry, don't worry, you just looked so cute, I’ll help you.” You whisper as you lean back into his lips.

Joost meets you feverishly, teeth clacking against yours, and gasping into your mouth as you finally start to move again. You’re oversensitive but it's not a bad feeling when you know what it's doing for him. You start off slow, but soon return to a healthy pace. You want to get him there too.

He can barely keep the rhythm, his need overcoming him as he thrusts up furiously, cut-off groans escaping as he fucks you the way he wants. This and the slide of your tongues distracts you from the slide of his hand over your hip and you gasp when his thumb finds your clit. He swallows the noise, mouth recapturing yours immediately as his thumb works overtime. It makes you clench all over again and he keens.

You didn’t expect to get off a second time but Joost’s desperation is infectious. The texture of his thumb rubbing you tirelessly in combination with his animalistic enthusiasm in your guts has you climbing quickly. Boobs bouncing so near his face become too much and he detaches from your mouth to bury his face in between, mouthing at the skin. His mustache tickles but it only adds to the onslaught of sensation.

He changes from little circles to an up and down swipe over your bud that he can do in time with each crash of your hips. Each bounce punches little noises from you and he's murmuring obscenities into your skin to match them. You're almost there now. You can tell he is too.

There's only one thing that can make this better.

You sink your teeth into the muscle of his shoulder for a final time and fall apart.

Joost all but screams as his head slams back into the cushions and his back arches as he shoots into you. You ride him through it, compromising your own orgasm this time to milk him for all he's worth. You stop drinking so you can watch him dissolve. His eyes are rolled back and each spasm of your pussy causes him to full-body convulse, face frozen in mind-rending ecstasy.

The pulsing of his cock and each thick scalding spurt against your cervix are beyond vivid. You had no idea it would feel like this. His hips continue to jerk up into you like he can get even deeper, hands on your hips tight enough to bruise if you were capable of it.

Joost whimpers over and over as he twitches through the aftershocks. It takes a long time for him to come down. His eyes have slid shut and his chest continues to heave as you kiss at his temple.

You are starting to feel weird, tingly, more so than an afterglow usually does. The sensation grows quickly and before you know it it’s almost like being underwater. Your thoughts are sort of syrupy as you gaze down at his angelic face. Sounds are muffled and the whole room has become strangely pink, a bit fuzzy around the edges. He blinks slowly at you now, back on planet earth, and you gaze right back, smiling. He smiles too and pulls you into another kiss you return without coordination, sloppy and slow.

He mumbles against your lips “Was that okay?”

You should be asking him that. You open your mouth to speak. Or, you try, but no words come out.

Hm?

Earlier, you just couldn't come up with the right words to tell him what you didn’t fully understand about your predatory instincts. Now, the words are right there but it's like the brain to mouth connection has been cut. It should be frustrating, alarming even, but you're too happy to just be in his arms.

“Baby?”

You can only blink back, too blissed out to fight whatever haze you're in. He looks concerned now.

“Schatje?”

When you still don't answer, Joost pulls up at your hips and eases himself out, meeting no resistance. His cum oozes down your leg and the sight captures him for a moment but he tears his gaze away in favor of sitting forward and shifting you off him gently. Careful hands guide you to sit beside him but you're not helping at all and he ends up lowering you to the couch. You go so easily his concern melts into alarm. This is exactly what you wouldn't let him do before.

He says your name, tension plain in his voice.

“Are you okay? Do you want your shirt?”

Distantly, you realize you're freaking him out. That and you're only wearing shredded sweatpants. Hah.

It takes more effort than you would like, but you lift your hand to cup his cheek. Words are oddly impossible but you move your thumb back and forth, as soothing as you can. After a moment he seems to understand that something else is going on as his face softens, head turning to kiss at your hand.

“Let me get a towel."

He kicks his pants the rest of the way off from where they've come to pool at his ankles and moves to stand. The second his skin breaks contact the most pathetic whine bubbles from your throat.

Joost looks at you sharply, eyes wide, and sits back down, smoothing his hand over your hip.

“Okay, okay.”

The tension leaves you just as fast as it came. You don’t know why but you need him to stay with a visceral, primal sort of impulse. Need him close. The idea of him leaving the room for even a moment feels wrong in a way you can't explain, so different from earlier when you itched to flee at the first opportunity. He gets the hint when you tug weakly at his arm, wedging himself down next to you and pulling you to his chest. He rubs his hand over your back soothingly as you snuffle at his skin, happy.

It takes ten, maybe fifteen minutes, but slowly you start to feel less limp and floaty. The tell-tale tug behind your eyes that accompanies bloodlust is long gone and the probing tip of your tongue tells you your teeth have retracted. Finally your arms find the strength to come up and hold him back. Joost sighs in either contentment or relief, you’re not sure, and shuffles down to make eye contact.

“Are you with me now? Where did you go?”

You speak, only a little slurred. “I was right here, I don't-, I don't know. Felt fuzzy. Good fuzzy. Weird though.”

“Were you still a little high or something? Are you still digesting that guy?”

“I don't think so, I mean, there's still some of him in there but whatever he took wore off last night. I don’t know what this was…”

It really did feel like being high. You mentally rework the events of the past twelve or so hours, sifting for anything that might have caused it. Any additional source, any reason for delayed effects. It’s easier than you expect to sort through the memories now, to separate yourself from the horror of some of it when you’re here in his arms knowing your very worst fear didn’t come to pass.

He’s here with you. He’s alive and you didn’t kill him and nothing you did matters since, against all odds, he doesn’t seem to care. He will bear the scars but in a way you feel just as marked in return, the slow seep of his cum from your puffy entrance reminding you of just how badly he needed you too.

Oh. His cum.

“What?” He sees the quirk in your brow.

“I, wow. Um, remember when I said that I can smell when you're all horned up? Like your pheromones or something? I think it’s like that but like, concentrated. I mean…I’m saying I kinda think it was your cum…It all soaked in.”

His dick twitches. “Right…Just vampire things.”

You curl into him again, laughing. Logistics about lack of protection and potential interspecies compatibility can come later. “Mmm, yeah, speaking of, are you okay? I bit you a lot.”

Joost hums, contemplative.

“Yeah. It hurts, but yeah. I liked it. Told you it was gonna be okay.”

It all comes back to you in a rush.

You sit up quickly and he does too, startled. “Fuck! You fucking idiot! I could have killed you! What were you thinking?!” He opens his mouth but you are miles from done. “Why would you chase me? Did you want to die? I almost couldn't stop!”

“But you did, I knew you would!”

“No! You didn't know that!” You can’t stop now, he needs to understand. “I literally ate someone last night! I killed him and I ate him! Whole! Why doesn’t that land for you?! Look at your fucking neck! When I bit you so hard it was because I wanted to take a real bite, do you get it?”

His eyes are huge but he says nothing.

“Maybe I don't have a problem most of the time but you know I have a problem controlling myself with you! You know! I told you it wouldn’t end well, I told you we could never go there and you fucking pushed! I-” your voice wobbles. “-I could have killed you.”

You’re breathing hard now, heart pounding alongside his.

“The reason I move all over the fucking world is because I’m running away from murder. I like it here, I like you, but-” You pause. No, no you're just gonna have to say it. “-this is just another stop on my getaway. You know how I feel about you but it was insane to think this wasn't gonna happen eventually.”

He looks so pained.

“Okay, but…what do you mean by ‘this’? Nothing bad happened? Not to us.”

“No you're not listening! You make me crazy!”

“No you're not listening!” He looks ready to cry again. “I’ve been telling you this whole time! You're so busy being afraid you don't trust the evidence that's right here! You have always controlled yourself. From the night we met until right now. Everything that's happened, maybe it was intense, but it wasn't bad. You never hurt me, not in a way I didn't want!”

You try to deny it but he cuts you off.

“You were so afraid of what would happen but now you know! It’s nothing like what happened with either of those guys and I honestly don’t know how to feel that you thought it would be!”

His voice goes soft. “I mean- fuck, I don’t mean it like that. I just mean that I know you're just worried about me and it makes sense that you're worried but please, please, I promise that will never be me. That will never be us. Trust yourself like I trust you. I can't imagine what it's like to know you can do that stuff so I won't try to guess. But surviving what made you do it? Living your life knowing that it all happened? I feel lucky that I have you right here. Nothing like that will ever happen again. You're staying right here because I don't care what you did and this is nothing like that and it will never happen again because I’ll protect you too.

For some reason, those last words are what get you.

The tears come before you even realize and Joost pulls you to his chest in an instant, frustration dissolving immediately as you start to full-on ugly cry. He holds you tight as he rocks you against him.

You never knew you needed to hear it. All this time what you were capable of was just a fact, an inconvenient one that guided your choices, another facet of your new reality that you had to take care of because it was the only way forward and no one else could take care of it for you. No one else even knew. The idea that someone else on this earth might bear even a part of it, that they might take care of you, was an idea you had shredded and left behind to spare your own feelings so long ago that to feel like it’s possible again almost hurts.

It never occurred to you that you could be lonely. As much as you always remained wistful for normalcy you were too busy enjoying the world in all its supernaturally unlocked detail. Now, hearing him repeat those words over and over into your hair you know you've been lying to yourself.

You don't understand how he doesn't care about any of it. How he isn't scared. How he’s so sure.

He keeps whispering sweet nothings as you shake apart and he holds you together.

“Don’t leave me.”

“Never leave me.”

“You won't hurt me.”

“I’ll protect you.”

“I love you.”

You clutch him tighter. You don’t need to understand.

You’ll take it. You’ll take anything he gives you.

Hours later, when both your tears have dried up and you’ve long lapsed into soft silence, heavy and comfortable in each other's arms, you continue to exchange small kisses and slow, sleepy touches. A thumb over his cheek bone, his palm cupping your face, your fingers in his hair, his hand gliding over your back. Over and over in a feedback loop of dull pulsing pleasure at the base of your skull. It’s a kind of comfort you didn’t know existed.

Eventually, when the winter sun is high enough to break through the clouds and shine through the window, burning away every last shadow between your bare bodies, you both drag yourselves from the trance. His stomach growls audibly and you giggle as you’re reminded of the omelet that never was. You take his hand, kissing once at the small cut and then once at his answering smile before you stand.

He laughs when you cringe at the stiffness of dried cum between your legs and preens over his newfound ability to get you quite literally ‘dick drunk’. When you step into the shower together he washes it off for you with gentle fingers. Joost lets you wash the blood from his own ragged gashes with closed eyes and deep stuttering sighs, and for the time being neither of you address the way his cock stirs.

He dresses you in his clothes and takes you to the corner store, hand in hand where you buy new ingredients for a new meal. You cook together, him watching you more than anything, and no one cuts themselves this time. You eat together and promise him he can come with you when you get new keys from the landlady.

When you both slip into pajamas again Joost opens a new toothbrush and puts it next to his without saying a word, hesitant but hopeful.

That night, when you sit on his balcony under the same blanket, underneath the same stars, and he looks at you like he’s not afraid anymore, like he knows he can keep you, telling him feels simple.

“I love you too.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#joost klein x reader #joost x reader #joost fanfic #my writing #vamp!au

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salemrph · 22 hours ago

Text

The taste of apple and pomegranate

Ch. 9: Crossed feelings

Nav: Ch. 1 / Ch. 2 / Ch. 3 / Ch. 4 / Ch. 5 / Ch. 6 / Ch. 7 / Ch. 8 / Ch. 9 / Ch. 10 (coming soon) // AO3

Summary: You just wanted to survive university, not fall for either of them—let alone both. Two handsome idiots who somehow made your apartment their second home. You, Sylus, and Caleb were supposed to be just friends. So why does everything feel like their is more going on?

Character: Sylus x f!reader x Caleb // Tara, Rafayel // AU - College, Student

Genre: romantic, fluff, intimacy, humor, friends to lovers, poliamore, slow burn

Warning: light sexual content, tabaco

Word count: 2.5k | Reading Time: 10 min | AO3

A/N: This one’s more of a short, episode-style story. I just wanted to have some fun throwing these two into everyday situations and seeing what kind of chaos unfolds. Hope you enjoy the mess!

Tag list: @thechaoticarchivist @peacedreamer14 @blessdunrest @strwberriiblnde @plzdonutpercieveme @sylusqt @sakuraneko-sakupanda-chan @peacedreamer14 @escapeis @plzdonutpercieveme

The semester was coming to an end. You'd been buried under a mountain of textbooks and those goddamn revision notes, dead set on acing your finals so you wouldn't get stuck with any lame extra credits. The comforting routine of late-night study sessions with Sylus and Caleb returned, and with it, a sense of almost-normalcy. They seemed more relaxed than before, the strange tension from the amusement park faded into something quieter, almost tolerable.

The clock blinked 01:12 a.m., glowing faint blue against the stacks of textbooks and half-empty coffee cups. The room was a mess—highlighted printouts, sticky notes clinging to walls like ivy, an open bag of chips dangerously close to a pile of flashcards.

During short breaks from studying, you find yourself drawn to the balcony. Again the night is warm and you feel that the summer is crushing in…

You lean against the railing, cigarette perched between your fingers, exhaling a slow stream of smoke. It curls upward, languid and lazy, like your thoughts. You hadn’t expected Sylus to follow. It’s rare to see him smoke. He never asks for one of his own. Instead, he takes yours when you offer, fingers brushing as he plucks it from your hand

It feels like an indirect kiss; you smile faintly at the thought.

An indirect kiss.

He stands close, eyes half-lidded, smoke curling past his lips… Those lips. The curve of them is maddening. Full with small cracks from lack of hydration but they seem to be so soft. Painted in shadows and a so deep and impossible color that doesn’t exist in nature.

You stare long, long enough to wish to be close. You catch yourself doing it, but you don’t stop.

A kiss with Sylus…

Would it taste like the cigarette or like the black coffee he always drinks?

Sylus exhales, the smoke slipping from his mouth like a sigh. He leans on the railing beside you.

“You always smoke slower when you're thinking too much,” he says, not looking at you.

You blink, caught off guard. “You keep track of my smoking habits?”

“I keep track of a lot of things,” he replies, tone casual, but there’s a flicker in his undertone.

You glance at him. “Like what?”

He takes another drag, then offers the cigarette back without meeting your eyes. “The way your shoulders tense when you’re overworking. How you tap your thumb when you're lying.

“You sound like a stalker,” you tease, smoke slipping out between your teeth.

He huffs a breath of a laugh, quiet and low. “I just happen to have a good memory.”

Then, softly: “Do you always do that? Memorize people?”

Sylus looks at you then. His eyes are dark, the shadow of the light makes them unreadable, but there’s something warmer than usual tucked in their edges. “No,” he says. “Just the ones I can’t stop thinking about.”

The cigarette burns down between your fingers, forgotten. Your heart might be doing the same.

Your brain stutters. Was that—? No. Maybe? It had to be a joke. Right? You glance away, suddenly very interested in the cherry-colored ember at the tip of the cigarette.

That last line echoes louder than it should.

“Just the ones I can’t stop thinking about.”

Your jaw drops slightly. You can’t decide if you want to hit him or kiss him. “You’re so annoying…” you say low and flustered.

Sylus chuckles, the sound indulgent. “You’re cute when you’re stressed.”

You clear your throat, pressing the cigarette into the ashtray and glancing toward the door.

“After you.”

══════════════════

Your head throbbed from too much reading. Or maybe not enough sleep.

Caleb sprawled on the floor, hoodie pulled halfway over his face, one leg twitching restlessly as he muttered equations under his breath. Sylus also sat on the floor, back leaning against the sofa next to you, twirling a pen and looking down at the textbook you swore he hadn't flipped a single page for ages. You sat cross-legged in the middle, surrounded by notes, trying to stay focused.

“I swear,” you groaned, letting your forehead fall onto your notes, “I’ve been reading the same line for at least an hour, my brain’s starting to leak out of my ears.”

“Stay focused, kitten.” Sylus murmured, not looking up.

Caleb rolled onto his side, tossing a candy bar your way. “Eat something.”

You caught it, barely. “Thanks, but I need more coffee. Anyone else?” you asked, standing and stretching, your spine cracking.

“Black. Strong.” Sylus didn’t even look up.

“Same.” Caleb groaned.

You padded off toward the kitchen, leaving them in the thick silence again. Caleb reached out, hunting blindly for a textbook just as Sylus instinctively leaned forward to help. Their hands collided. Palm to palm. Then Caleb looked away. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

Sylus pulled back slowly. “It’s fine.”

They both looked away at the same time, as if the room had suddenly gotten too warm. Neither of them said it, but this had been happening for weeks now. A near-conversation, always interrupted. A tension that never found the space to breathe. Every time they tried, someone called, you entered the room, another excuse sprang up. And so time kept passing and they stayed stuck in this middle place, not quite ready to face what was simmering underneath.

Sylus had given him space. He hadn’t brought it up because Caleb was clearly not very open to speaking about it.

And in the meantime Sylus couldn't stop thinking about the shape of Caleb’s mouth, the small of his lotion when he passed by. He growls silently and taps his digital pen against the screen. Why did he feel like he was stuck between two burning stars?

His gaze shifted, this time to you moving in the kitchen. You were tired, yawning, fixing your messy hair. Oblivious. Beautiful. Everything in Sylus sparkled to life when he looked at you. You were becoming something he didn’t know how to live without.

But it didn’t erase what was happening with Caleb. And that’s where it got complicated because if he was being honest, Sylus wasn’t sure which feeling hurt more: The yearning to have you… or the guilt of wanting both.

Love was easy when it stayed in fantasy. But this? This was a mess. You smiled at him and his stomach twisted. Caleb’s hand brushed his, and it felt like swallowing fire. Did he have to choose? And what would that choice even mean?

When you returned with coffee, they were back in their respective corners. You were flipping through a notebook, humming softly. Caleb swallowed hard. Sylus was sharp and magnetic, chaos just under the surface. He had always felt like they balanced each other out—him with his heart on his sleeve, Sylus with his storm behind calm eyes. And then there was you.

The girl who could make either of them bend without realizing it. The one who laughed like sunlight and held them both without ever needing to pick sides. With you, things felt… right. Like coming home. He needed to figure out what the hell was happening inside his chest. For now, though, he forced himself to smile and leaned closer to look at your notes, ignoring how good you smelt.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Want me to quiz you?”

You lit up. “Yes, please.”

══════════════════

The clock blinked at 3:28 AM.

Your notes had long since slid from your lap to the floor. The pen was nestled somewhere near your elbow, and your head lolled against Sylus’s shoulder, your breaths deep and steady. Caleb looked up from where he sat on the carpet and gave a low whistle.

“Out like a light,” he said.

Sylus looked down at you. You were clutching the fabric of his t-shirt like it was the only anchor you had in your dreams.

“She’s going to wake up with a sore neck,” Caleb added, amused.

Sylus gave a tired sigh, easing your grip gently. You mumbled something unintelligible and clung tighter.

“Kitten…” Sylus muttered.

“Don’t wake her up, Sy.” It was the first time Caleb called him like that, that nickname is normal yours to use. He could tease him about but, instead he scooped you up, careful not to jostle you too much. Your arms instinctively wrapped around his neck, a little whimper leaving your lips as you nestled into his chest.

“So clingy in her sleep,” he muttered.

“Some would say you’re lucky,” Caleb said for himself before following Sylus toward the bedroom with a slow stretch.

As Sylus tried to lay you down, your grip tightened again, eyebrows twitching like you were about to wake. You mumbled, slurred and half-asleep, “Just sleep… all together. Like last time…”

Sylus froze. Caleb blinked from the doorway.

“We don’t fit in here, sweetie."

You whine a bit. “Sy, Caleb… stay.”

Sylus exhaled sharply and sat beside you. “Alright, spoiled kitten.”

You made a happy little sound and loosened your grip just enough for him to tuck the blanket around you. He stood, dragging off his pants and tossing them toward a chair.

“What are you doing?” Caleb asked, confused.

Sylus arched his brow like it was obvious. “Not going to sleep in those.” Standing there in a dark T-shirt and black boxers.

Caleb made a vague, uncertain hand gesture. “But—what—why—”

“I sleep in my underwear during summer,” Sylus said, tone dry and a little smug. “You’ve seen worse. Why are you being shy now?”

Caleb looked away, jaw tightening slightly, clearly conflicted. “This is testing my limits.”

“I’m sleeping here,” Sylus snorted. “You can choose: sofa, this bed, or the long walk home.”

Caleb hesitated. His eyes flicked to you, now nestled peacefully between the pillows, cheek squished slightly. You shifted a little in your sleep and mumbled something unintelligible, and that was it. His expression softened as he exhaled, heavy and quiet. He crossed the room and crawled onto the other side of the bed, movements hesitant and stiff. For a second, he just sat there, perched on the edge like the mattress might bite.

The bed dipped again as Sylus eased in behind you, the heat of his body already radiating into the space between. Caleb finally lay back, his shoulders tense, careful not to touch you—but the bed was small and you were warm and inviting.

Sylus turned off the light, while muttering under his breath: “Don’t hog the blanket, Appleboy.”

“Shut up,” Caleb murmured,

And with that, silence returned. Pressed together with just enough space between bodies to pretend they weren’t all tangled in something deeper.

══════════════════

The sunlight slipped through the edges of the curtains in golden slivers. You stirred, the heavy haze of sleep clinging to your limbs. The bed was so warm. Too warm, really.

You shifted slightly, and realized why.

Caleb’s arm was looped over your waist, his chest snug against your side, radiating heat like a living furnace. On your other side, Sylus had curled just a little closer sometime during the night, one arm draped lazily over your hip, his hand resting low against your stomach. You were completely pinned between them, cocooned in warmth and muscle and the rhythmic sound of two sleeping heartbeats.

Trapped was an accurate word. But also… comfortable.

You blinked slowly, still dazed. Caleb’s breath was steady against your temple, his face tilted slightly toward yours. You tried to wiggle your arm free, but it was locked between your chest and his. He was sleeping soundly, lips parted, breath steady. His face was maddeningly peaceful. His lashes kissed the tops of his cheeks. And his skin, gods, was like silk under light. He looked infuriatingly beautiful.

You shifted again, trying not to wake him, and….

Oh.

There was something… pressing against your thigh. Your gaze darted downward instinctively. That was definitely Caleb. His hips were tilted ever so slightly forward in his sleep, and the hard line of his erection against your leg left no room for confusion

Is big…

And just as you had that thought, Sylus shifted behind you. His arm around you tightened a bit, as if his body recognized the movement even in sleep. His breath brushed your neck. You swallowed. Yep. That was a very awake and hard part of him saying good morning, too. You exhaled through your nose, trying not to overreact. It wasn’t like you hadn’t imagined this, after all. But imagination was very different from being sandwiched between two dangerously attractive men, their hard-ons pressing against you. The fantasy had become an undeniable reality, beyond the safety of friendship.

You closed your eyes again. How can you leave this trap? Can you take advantage of this? Should you try to feel a bit more? Move your hips and feel the pressure?

Oh no, no, no… You started to feel arousal and heat coming in your body. Small pulses between your legs, the unmistakable feeling of wetting your panties. If Caleb’s dick is so big… what about Sylus’s? You tried to concentrate on the pressure you felt against you; it was so incredibly hard. Dear God, why did I do wrong? You're sweating that for sure.

You looked at Caleb’s sleepy face, his lips, the line of his nose, the little pores on his skin. He is always so patient with you. So correct, but you wonder… would he also be calm in bed? Is he the type to lose control… would he moan?

It wasn't just friendship anymore.

“Pipsqueak…” Caleb moaned, his voice thick with sleep and desire. Your heart stopped and your soul left your body.

Okay, I need to get up.

You wiggled your way free, the urgency to escape overruling any concern about waking them. That sound Caleb had just made was too much… you were going to lose your mind if you stayed there three seconds longer.

Shower now…

You practically sprang from the bed, running almost to the bathroom and clicking the door shut behind you. Inside, you leaned against it, heart pounding, trying to steady your breathing.

On the bed, in the space you'd just vacated, Caleb shifted, a soft sigh escaping him. Without missing a beat, his arm, which had been around you, now reached across the empty space. Sylus, still deep in sleep, instinctively rolled closer, his own arm tightening around what he assumed was your waist. Moments later, they were tangled together, limbs intertwined, both seeking the familiar warmth that had just slipped away, neither of them quite aware that the body they were now instinctively spooning was each other’s.

Sylus stirred, his hand moved soft, starting with the solid curve of a back beneath his palm, the unmistakably broader frame, the slightly different cadence of breath. His brow furrowed as his mind cleared, this wasn’t you. He opened one eye fully. A beat of pure silence passed, broken only by the rustle of bedsheets and the quiet inhale of Caleb’s breath beneath him.

The soft sound of the shower running in the distance broke the silence. He should get up. He should move. He should not be laying here, arms loosely curled around the waist of his best friend. But instead, Sylus let his eyes slip closed again, just for a moment. Just long enough to breathe in this feeling.

A/N If you have seen my post to "Taking a break" ... you know I'm trying to reconnect with life. That doesn't mean I will stop writing fanfic, is will be a bit slowed down. If I can, I will make a double post with Chapter 10-11. But without rushing the story.

Release every 2-3 weeks

Nav: Ch. 1 / Ch. 2 / Ch. 3 / Ch. 4 / Ch. 5 / Ch. 6 / Ch. 7 / Ch. 8 / Ch. 9 / Ch. 10 (coming soon) // AO3

Back to MASTERLIST

#The taste of apple and pomegranate #caleb x sylus x reader #university au #friends to lovers #they all care but don’t know how to show it #reader is trying her best #soft heartbreak #slow burn with feelings #gentle angst #sylus #love and deepspace #slow burn #caleb x reader #sylus x reader #poly love triangle #no one knows what they're doing but they're in love #applecrow #crowapple #easter eggs

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slveepyscwrs · 3 days ago

Text

Shadowvanilla headcanons except this time we're putting the DOOMED in doomed yaoi (angst edition bc i wanna cause PAIN 👹)

-"I HATE you. You AND your Soul Jam!"

-Little did the two know, this would be the point where their fates forever diverged.

-Above all, Shadow Milk felt betrayed... but this wasn't because of him not retrieving the Soul Jam.

-For a moment, he let himself believe that his other half had embraced deceit. But the real reason why this had made him feel over the moon?

-Shadow Milk truly thought that the only way he deserved to be close to another was through Deceit.

-After all, why would Truth ever want to associate with someone who's only ever known how to Lie?

-And the way Pure Vanilla acted after crushing what little sliver of hope remained in Shadow Milk? Even asking to be his friend?

-For a while, even the thought of it made him mutter curses under his breath... until he saw the former Truthless Recluses's robes laying on the ground.

-They still had his scent on it. They still had the same scuff marks from when they fought.

-Even after so much hatred, all he could think of was Pure Vanilla.

-But even more than that, there was the piercing regret.

-If he had toned down the antics just a bit, would Pure Vanilla have stayed?

-If he had hesitated for just one more instant before lashing out, would things have been different?

-Whatever the case, the truth was that it was now too late. Pure Vanilla had now moved on, wielding his newfound power with pride.

-And now Shadow Milk was left behind, forever doomed to remain as nothing more in his other half's memories than just another villain.

-But regardless, he was still the Cookie of Deceit! Denying the truth at all costs was in his very dough.

-He took the Truthless Recluse robes to the now empty bedroom that once belonged to Pure Vanilla, placing them on the bed.

-The room still faintly held his warmth, things strewn about as if he had never left.

-And Shadow Milk intended to keep it that way.

-If he pretended hard enough that Pure Vanilla was still there, then maybe, it would be as if that warm hand was reaching out to him one more time...

-He forbade Candy Apple and Black Sapphire from going anywhere near the bedroom, and if they did, he would take out unspeakable anger on them.

-The facade that Shadow Milk desperately clung onto could not last forever, though.

-Eventually, the warmth faded, and the robes that were once vividly Pure Vanilla's now lay as a mere lifeless cloth.

-And yet every night, when not even the ghosts roaming the Spire were around to hear him, he would whisper everything he never got a chance to say: details about his past, how happy having him around made him, and how he wished it could have lasted...

-Nonetheless, the burden of Pure Vanilla's absence soon became too much for Shadow Milk himself.

-His already dwindling sanity was slipping away faster and faster. He needed closure, although deep down he already knew it was impossible.

-And yet, his vain attempts and lies to himself continued as he ventured into Eternal Sugar Cookie's garden...

-Pure Vanilla liked berries, and the berries from the Garden of Delights were always the sweetest...

-As he donned his Lady in Azure disguise, he hoped this would be a quick in and out mission, but lo and behold, the Bringer of Happiness herself appeared before him.

-He knew about her obsession of having her own other half all to herself, and even though he was never the type to give benevolent advice, he couldn't help but see Pure Vanilla's reflectionin this very situation.

-After cautioning Eternal Sugar to not repeat the same love-crazed mistakes, he left the garden to send the berries away to the Pure Vanilla kingdom, with the hopeful lie that its ruler would accept them...

-Little did he know, all the chaos he had caused forced the Pure Vanilla kingdom to ramp up security, so as soon as guards detected the deceitful essence radiating from the Berry basket, they destroyed it and the longing it catried without another thought.

-Shadow Milk had no way of knowing this. The lies in his heart only grew, as he continued to wait day by day for a response that would never come.

-When that didn't work, he would constantly send Black Sapphire and Candy Apple to spy on Pure Vanilla... Surely, at least his other half would still be speaking his name, right?

-Yet, his two minions brought home the same news every time.

-Pure Vanilla was just as happy without him, in fact, he seemed to be even happier.

-On top of that, they hadn't heard him mention Shadow Milk out loud even once.

-The more they reminded him of this even more bitter truth, the more Shadow Milk strayed away from it, instead brutally accusing the two of lying.

-And still, each shout had his heart screaming internally:

"Please, this can't be the end... I don't want to be alone... I don't want a life without him..."

-The constant travelling just for nothing wore down the two minions, especially Black Sapphire.

-Pent up exhaustion and frustration laced with the constant fear of his master's sanity snapping for good kept boiling up inside him.

-One day, when he couldn't take it all this as well as seeing little Candy Apple in such a deplorable condition herself, he argued against his master for the first time.

-Practically at his knees with desperation, he screamed with the might of all his repressed pain and tears,

"He's gone, my master, he's gone and he's not going to come back to the Spire, so fucking stop this bullshit before we crumble too, and THEN you'll know what it's like to be truly alone!"

-Shadow Milk is silent now, shaking with anger at Black Sapphire's insolence as well as self-hatred for acting so pathetic this whole time.

-He curses and yells back at him even louder than usual, but this time, a small stream of tears rolls down his face too... something he swore not to let out eons ago.

-After seeing Black Sapphire shiver in fear and realising the gravity of what he had done, he runs away to the Garden of Delights again.

-This time, he was going to check whether Eternal Sugar's other half had run away, or whether the demon in disguise had actually heeded his advice.

-If there truly was no hope for him, at least he could live vicariously through her, right...?

-But yet again, his remaining lies and hopes were shattered upon seeing the Garden now in shambles.

-On top of that, seeing Eternal Sugar trapped in the same delusions of another half that was forever gone, knowing that he didn't do enough to prevent it...

-For a moment, he was the Fount of Knowledge again, watching helplessly as his attempts at bringing truth led all he loved to crumble away.

-And now, all he could do was stand with the same helplessness as back then and think to himself:

"I really am too broken, too deceitful to be deserving of love..."

"And if that's true, I guess Silly-Vanilly and I were never meant to be together in this life after all..."

(SORRY FOR MAKING THIS SO LONG, if you made it this far let me know if you want Part 2 with Pure Vanilla's point of view!!)

#angst #writeblr #my headcanons #headcanons #heavy angst #doomed yaoi #cookie run kingdom #shadowvanilla #pure vanilla x shadow milk #pureshadow #shadow milk x pure vanilla #shadow milk cookie #shadow milk crk #pure vanilla cookie #pure vanilla crk #angst headcanons

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cod-imagines · 3 days ago

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imagine #5

character: Phillip Graves words: 4984 cw: 18+, drinking description: in which you and Phillip share a drink after a mission goes south (sort of part 2 to this fic). a/n: I’ll take any opportunity to write more stuff for Graves (requested by the lovely @echojays)

The bar you were holed up in looked like it had been carved out of a fever dream and left to rot in the sun. Somewhere between dive and ruin, its wooden siding had long since faded into a splintered, sun-bleached grey, the neon sign above the door humming with a dull, terminal buzz. Letters were missing. The ones that remained flickered like they were stuttering through their last night alive. Inside, the air was thick with old cigarette smoke that had worked itself so deep into the walls it felt alive, like a bad memory.

You’d picked a booth in the back without even thinking. Far from the bar, close to a sagging dartboard nailed unevenly into the wall. One dart hung crooked from the cork, the others strewn on the floor like someone got bored halfway through a game and never came back. The overhead light above your table buzzed low, casting everything in a sickly yellow that made the liquor bottles look like jars of piss and syrup behind the bar. There was no music playing. Just the soft clink of glass being dried by the barkeep, and the muted mutter of a man hunched over the wooden bar top, too drunk to finish his story.

You hadn’t planned to end up here. Hell, you hadn’t even planned on leaving the motel, not at first. But after two hours spent pacing a floor that smelled like mildew and bleach, staring at a television that only got static, you'd snapped. You needed somewhere else. Anywhere else. Someplace with noise, with other people’s lives happening around you, even if they barely noticed you. You wanted to vanish into someone else’s night for a little while. Needed to get out of your brain before it started chewing through your skull.

But the drink wasn’t helping. Your margarita sat in a chipped glass that sweated against your palm. It was too warm, the tequila so harsh it tasted like detergent. You drank it anyway. You weren’t after comfort — you were after numbness. The kind that pressed like a gauze in your chest and made everything a little less sharp, a little more manageable. But so far, it had only made things worse.

You’d been riding high. Ever since Tbilisi, it had felt like the tide was turning, like you were finally becoming more than just another green name on a list. Your missions had gone clean. Your instincts had been sharp. People were starting to trust you, starting to see you as more than just the youngest person in the room with a badge and a mouth. You’d put in the work, made calls that mattered, turned assets that no one else could reach. And now all of that was unraveling.

You’d believed the intel. You’d put your faith in a source who swore the deal was happening in Reno, that the buy would go down this week, that your presence would matter. But you were days too late. The warehouse you’d scouted had already been cleared out, every crate gone, every handler long vanished. The floor had been swept clean, not even a footprint in the dust. You’d shown up armed and ready, and there was no one left to kill. Or question.

It wasn’t just a failed op — it was an embarrassment. The kind that left a mark. The kind people whispered about in corridors and turned their noses up at. And the worst part? You didn’t know yet if it was a mistake, or if someone had fed you bad intel on purpose. Either way, the responsibility was yours to carry.

You tilted your glass again, watching the salt stick to the edge where your mouth had touched it. You should’ve ordered something stronger. Vodka. Whiskey. Something with less sugar and more pain. But you hadn’t been thinking clearly. You hadn’t been thinking at all, just moving. Muscle memory.

The front door swung open with a groan.

You didn’t look up right away — your body reacted before your eyes did. A shift in atmosphere, a pressure in your spine. You knew those boots. Heavy steps, scuffed soles. The casual, low conversation that followed — you recognized that too. The unmistakable sound of men who moved through the world like they owned every hallway. Shadows. Three of them.

You glanced up, and sure enough, they were walking in like they’d been here before. One gave a nod to the bartender, who nodded back. Familiar. Comfortable. They looked different out of uniform, but not enough to hide the way they carried themselves — upright, sharp-eyed, quiet but always watching.

And then came Graves.

Your stomach turned. Not in surprise. Of course he was here. Because if anyone was going to show up at the exact moment you didn’t want to see him — if anyone was going to walk into your silence and make it louder — it was Phillip fucking Graves.

He didn’t rush. He never did. Moved like the room owed him something, like the floor wouldn’t dare creak under his weight. Jeans, rolled sleeves, sweat still drying on the edge of his collar. The shirt clung to him in all the places it shouldn’t have, sun-bleached cotton stretched across shoulders that never slouched.

His eyes scanned the bar lazily. You knew the exact moment he saw you — the small shift in posture, the way his hand brushed over his belt like he was settling in. That look crawled across the room like it had a purpose. Slow and uninvited. You didn’t need a word from him to know what he was thinking.

Your lips pressed into a hard line, glass raised halfway to your mouth. You stared back for one breath, then turned away, jaw clenched.

“Fuck off,” you muttered under your breath, as if that would be enough to keep him away. But of course it wouldn’t. Of course not.

His Shadows spotted you before you had the chance to finish what little was left of your margarita. Their boots echoed across the sticky floor as they crossed the room, a rolling tide of sweat-slick confidence and uninvited familiarity. You didn’t bother looking up. You knew the rhythm of their footsteps too well by now. Ives, Reyes, Dipaolo — they came like a storm that had already decided where it wanted to land, all cracked grins and worn jackets and too much volume for a place this dead.

“Jesus, you look like someone ran over your dog,” Reyes drawled, sliding an empty barstool aside just to lean on it. “C’mon, don’t tell me you’re drinking that watered down garbage. That’s not how we do post-op, princess.”

Dipaolo thumped a heavy hand against your shoulder, half affection, half impact. You winced. Not because it hurt — though it did — but because you were trying so hard not to react.

“Lighten up, Langley,” he said, grinning like he’d won something. “You didn’t single-handedly lose the Cold War. You’re fine.”

Ives just chuckled, low and sharp, eyes scanning the dartboard beside your table. “Damn shame no one’s playin’. I’d bet good money she throws darts the same way she gathers intel. Horribly.”

You looked up through your lashes, trying to pretend the burn in your chest was something other than embarrassment. Or fury. You weren’t sure anymore. It had all started to blur together the second the Shadows walked in — no, the second he did.

Graves hadn’t said a word at first. Just watched the scene unfold with that unreadable glint in his eye, jaw loose, mouth curved like he was chewing on a secret. Then he moved — smooth, quiet — and slid into the booth beside you like he belonged there. His thigh pressed firm and warm against yours, no room to scoot away. The scent of leather and the faint trace of gun oil clung to his shirt, freshly laundered but still distinctly him.

You shifted, but he didn’t. He just draped his arm across the back of the booth, casual as sin, fingers brushing your shoulder. When the bartender finally shuffled over, Graves barely turned his head.

“Another round,” he said, voice low and solid. “Millers for the table, and—” he glanced at your half-finished margarita, then at you, eyes narrowing slightly. “She’ll have a real drink this time. Whiskey. Neat.”

You opened your mouth, already halfway to snapping something venom-laced, but he beat you to it. His hand tapped the edge of the table once — not hard, but sharp enough to quiet the words on your tongue.

“Sit down. Breathe. Drink.” His voice was flatter now, low and tight. “You’re not stormin’ a safehouse, you’re sittin’ in a bar. No one’s shootin’ at you, so calm the fuck down.”

Your mouth closed, jaw tight. The words stung more than they should have. Not because they were cruel, but because they were true. And you hated how easily he could disarm you. How the very sound of his voice dropped anchor right beneath your ribs.

The Shadows made themselves comfortable without needing permission. Reyes kicked his boots up on a nearby chair, Dipaolo helped himself to a basket of stale pretzels someone had left behind over at the next table, and Ives had already flagged down the bartender again for God knows what.

“So, boss,” Dipaolo started, leaning toward Graves with a grin, “you ever run another mission where your intel shows up three days too late and still expects a medal?”

Graves didn’t look at you — not exactly — but you could feel the smirk forming on his lips.

“Oh, don’t tease her,” Reyes chimed in, eyes sparkling. “She tried so hard. Probably even used coloured tabs in her little dossier.”

“Poor girl thought she’d break the case wide open,” Ives added, deadpan. “Instead we got an empty-ass warehouse and three rats fucking in a cardboard box.”

The table erupted in laughter.

You stared down at your new drink when it arrived — golden, sharp-smelling, amber clinging to the sides like it had weight to it. You hadn’t touched it yet. You weren’t sure if you were going to. Your pride was still sitting heavy on your tongue, and this little roast session wasn’t helping.

“Fuck all of you,” you muttered, lifting the glass anyway. “I should’ve told Halvorsen not to send you along.”

“Please,” Reyes scoffed. “You’d be dead in a day without us.”

You took a sip. It burned going down. Good. You needed something to hurt.

Graves turned his head then, finally letting his gaze land on you. That look again — too smug, too knowing, too close. His arm was still behind you, fingers now grazing the back of your neck, just barely.

“You always this much fun when you’re hurtin’, sweetheart?” he asked, drawl thick with amusement. “’Cause if so, I might start screwin’ up your missions on purpose.”

You glared at him, but your heart wasn’t in it. You could feel the heat rising under your skin again — not the kind from the whiskey.

“Try me,” you said, chin lifting, voice cut from defiance.

And Graves — oh, he smiled now. Real and slow, like he’d been waiting all night for you to bark back properly.

“Was hopin’ you’d say that.”

“God, you really are touchy tonight,” Reyes laughed, reaching over to ruffle your hair. You smacked his hand away, half-hearted, but he just chuckled and grabbed one of the paper menus from behind the napkin dispenser. “We ordering food, right? Ain’t no post-op drinks without greasy shit to soak it up.”

“I swear to Christ, if I see one fucking salad on that list—” Dipaolo started.

“Relax,” Ives cut in, already pointing at the laminated mess of offerings. “Wings, onion rings, chili fries, mozzarella sticks — look at this culinary excellence. Bet this is how Langley trains their analysts. All grease and caffeine.”

“Explains a lot,” Reyes muttered under his breath, loud enough for you to hear.

You rolled your eyes so hard your skull ached. “You know I could kill you with a paperclip, right?”

Reyes raised his drink in a mock toast. “It’d be an honor, sweetheart.”

While they bickered over sauce choices and what level of heat qualified as “not for cowards,” Graves stayed beside you, his arm still stretched behind your shoulders. His hand brushed the base of your neck again when he shifted — not intentionally, maybe, but you felt it all the same. Felt the heat of him, solid and settled like he wasn’t planning on moving anytime soon. He hadn’t said much since ordering the whiskey, but now, with the others occupied and the bartender wandering back to the kitchen to call in the food, he turned slightly toward you, voice low and almost lazy.

“So,” he said, dragging out the word like molasses, “what’s next, Langley?”

You didn’t look at him right away. Instead, you let your head fall back against the booth with a sigh, the weight of the day pulling at your spine. The movement brought your temple against his forearm where it rested across the top of the booth. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t move away.

“Please,” you murmured, eyes fluttering shut for a moment, “don’t talk about the fucking mission. I just wanna forget it happened.”

There was a brief pause. A shift in the air between you, something softer. Something with weight.

“Well,” Graves said eventually, “that can be arranged.”

The relief was instantaneous. As if saying it aloud gave you permission to let go of the last seventy-two hours and the barbed wire they’d wrapped around your chest. When you finally opened your eyes again, the others had moved. Reyes and Ives were crouched on the ground a few feet away, sweeping their hands beneath the dartboard and the surrounding tables. Dipaolo had found the missing darts from earlier and was now lining them up on the edge of a nearby stool like a man setting the table for war.

Reyes caught your eye. “You’re on deck after me,” he said, pointing a dart at you like a dagger.

“I’m not playing,” you called back.

“That’s what all losers say.”

You flipped him off, earning a dramatic gasp from Ives and a middle finger in return. Then the Shadows fell into their little game, each one pretending it wasn’t competitive while slowly becoming unhinged over scoring.

You and Graves stayed seated. Still pressed together on the vinyl booth, heat blooming where your legs touched. The table between you was littered with half-empty glasses and napkins someone had scribbled nonsense on, and he glanced at the mess, then back at you.

“So what do you wanna talk about?” he asked, arching a brow.

You turned toward him, resting your arm along the top of the booth too, touching his, mirroring his posture. You felt looser now, more yourself, which in your case usually meant being an insufferable little shit.

“I don’t know,” you said with mock sweetness. “Wanna tell me all about your tragic little backstory? What made the great Phillip Graves the way he is? Some girl break your heart in Texas?”

He snorted, eyes narrowing slightly like he wasn’t sure whether to be amused or offended. “Jesus. Right to the therapy questions, huh?”

“Well, I figured we’d skip the small talk,” you said, playing with the edge of your napkin. “We’ve already suffered together. Seems rude not to get to know each other now.”

Graves smirked, leaned back a little, his fingers tapping against the booth behind you. “Alright. You wanna know about my time in the Marines?”

You nodded, more serious now. “Yeah. I do.”

He was quiet for a beat. Choosing his words. You didn’t push. That surprised him, you could tell — he was used to you wanting his answers fast, or not at all.

“Joined right outta high school,” he said eventually, gaze fixed ahead, watching Reyes line up a dart with exaggerated focus. “Didn’t have much waitin’ for me back home. Small town. Real small. Not much but busted trucks and busted marriages.”

“Hence your accent.”

He glanced at you with a crooked smile. “What, you got a problem with it?”

“No,” you said, smiling back now, “I just think it’s convenient. You get away with more shit when you sound like sweet tea and church bells.”

Graves laughed — really laughed, low and rich and full in his chest. You didn’t realize how much you liked the sound of it until it lingered a second too long.

“Christ, you’re a piece of work,” he said, shaking his head. “Anyway. Did my time in the Corps. Recon. Loved the work. Hated the politics. Got out, figured if I was gonna keep gettin’ shot at, might as well make money doin’ it.”

“Shadow Company.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Built it up myself. Contracts rolled in, got the right people, cut the fat. Rest is classified.”

“Classified, huh?” You rested your chin in your hand, eyes narrowed. “That just your polite way of saying I don’t wanna talk about it, sweetheart?”

“Exactly,” he said, grinning. “But you say it with that mouth of yours, and somehow it sounds prettier.”

You felt that one land — a soft impact low in your stomach, more spark than punch, but still there. Still humming.

“You really don’t turn it off, do you?”

Graves leaned in a little, voice dipping just enough to send a chill down your spine. “Only when there’s nothin’ worth turnin’ it on for.”

You didn’t move. Didn’t speak. The air felt heavy between you again, heavy with the noise of the bar, the bad aim of the Shadows, the warmth of his arm behind you. You looked at him — really looked — and he met it, gaze steady, mouth twitching like he was seconds from saying something far worse.

You beat him to it.

“You ever get tired of hearing yourself flirt?”

Graves tilted his head, eyes gleaming.

“Nope.” He smirked, blinked, and took a sip of his beer. “But you keep givin’ me looks like that, and I might start thinkin’ it’s workin’.”

Maybe it was the whiskey. Maybe it was the noise of the bar around you softening into something almost warm, almost bearable. Or maybe it was just the weight of him sitting beside you, heat steady where his arm stretched behind your shoulders, fingers brushing faintly against the line of your neck every time he shifted. You’d been toeing the line all night — flirting, arguing, teasing — but now something quiet had crept beneath it. And your voice slipped out before you could stop it.

“This whole act of yours,” you said, gesturing vaguely at him, your fingers tracing the air in a lazy loop. “The charm. The slow drawl. The smug little smirk. You really think it’s gonna win me over, cowboy?”

There was a beat of silence. Then he let out a low laugh, settling deep in his chest and worked its way into your ribs before you could block it. His grin was lazy and crooked and entirely too pleased.

“Well,” he said, dragging the word out like it was meant to provoke, “you ain’t exactly runnin’ for the door, are you?”

You scoffed and rolled your eyes, but it didn’t have its usual bite. Because you weren’t. You were still pressed close, still half-leaning into the booth like his arm was something anchoring you. You hated that. Hated how easy it had become to fall into this rhythm with him. Like you hadn’t spent the last few months pretending he didn’t live under your skin, rattling around with his pouty lips and silver tongue.

“I’m not running,” you said slowly, your fingers tightening slightly around your glass, “because I haven’t finished my drink.”

“That so?” Graves murmured, tilting his head. “You sure that’s all it is?”

You didn’t answer right away. The joke was there, low-hanging, an easy path back into the safety of snark — but instead, you went quiet. The noise of the bar kept humming around you, Reyes shouting something about a bullseye, Ives groaning in protest, Dipaolo laughing too loud. And still, you stayed focused on the condensation sliding down the side of your glass.

Then, barely above the din: “I’m sorry.”

The words hung there, awkward and raw. Too soft. Too real. You didn’t look at him when you said them — you couldn’t — but you felt the way he stilled beside you. No more lazy fingers tapping the booth. No more smirking breath at your ear.

“I know we said no work talk,” you added, still staring at the table, “but I needed to say it. Tbilisi… that was on me. You shouldn’t’ve taken that bullet. I froze. I fucked up. And I didn’t say it before because I didn’t want to give you the satisfaction.”

Graves let out a slow exhale.

“You’re right,” he said, voice low. “We did say no work talk.”

“I know.” You finally looked at him then. “But I’m sayin’ it anyway. Because you’re not gonna hear it again. So enjoy it while it lasts.”

For a moment, there was something unreadable in his face — not the usual smugness, not amusement either. He looked at you like he couldn’t quite decide whether to take you seriously or not. Then his lips curled slowly, and that look came back, the one that made your skin heat in places you didn’t want to admit.

“Well hell,” he said, his voice dipping low again, that Southern warmth curling around the syllables like smoke, “if that’s the only time I’m gettin’ an apology from you, then I reckon you better make it count. Y’know, properly.”

You blinked. Felt the heat rise to your cheeks before you could stop it. “You’re unbelievable.”

“And you’re deflectin’.”

“Fuck off.”

He grinned. “You like it.”

Before you could say something mean enough to wipe the smile off his face, Reyes returned with his arms full of food baskets like he was offering a feast to the gods. “Alright, degenerates, dinner is served.”

Ives followed, dropping down beside you with a groan. “I swear, I pulled something playing darts. My shoulder’s never gonna be the same.”

“You pulled your pride, maybe,” Dipaolo said, already digging into the fries. “That score was embarrassing. I’ve seen toddlers aim better.”

“You’ve been aimed at by toddlers,” Reyes added. “Remember Bucharest? That four-year-old with her sippy cup?”

“Fuck you. She had rage strength.”

You snorted into your drink, unable to hold it back. Something about the sheer ridiculousness of it, the banter, the ease. It shouldn’t have felt this light. You were surrounded by men who’d probably all killed more people than they’d saved, eating fried garbage in a no-name bar with the scent of hot sauce and beer clinging to the air — and yet it felt like breathing. For once.

“Here,” Ives said, nudging a basket of wings toward you, “get your protein, Langley. Might help you next time someone tries to shoot you.”

“Ha ha,” you muttered, grabbing one anyway. “Eat a dick.”

“You offering?”

Reyes practically choked on a fry, wheezing through a laugh. “Jesus. You walk right into it every time.”

“At least I have manners,” you said primly, licking hot sauce off your thumb. “Unlike you gremlins.”

Dipaolo raised his beer. “To gremlins then.”

Everyone clinked glasses. Even you.

⟡

The walk back to the motel stretched longer than the street it was on. The heat of the day still clung to the asphalt, rising in slow, ghostlike tendrils from the pavement, seeping into your boots and bones. Somewhere behind you, Reyes was singing — badly — and Ives kept interrupting to correct the lyrics, which only made him sing louder. Dipaolo barked a laugh that startled a dog behind a chain-link fence.

You should’ve been annoyed. Any other night, you would’ve snapped at them to shut the hell up. But instead, your shoulders had dropped somewhere along the walk, your chest loosening with every step away from the bar. The sounds of them felt oddly comforting, like radio static in another room — not intrusive, just there, proof that the world hadn’t fallen apart.

Graves matched your pace. Quiet beside you, like he wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere. It shouldn’t have felt so strange, but it did. You weren’t used to this silence with him. You were used to the bite of his voice, the smirk that came with every correction, the push and pull that defined nearly every interaction since Tbilisi. You weren’t used to him being still. Or kind. Or even just steady. It threw off your rhythm, made you aware of every inch of space between you. Not that there was much. Every time your hand swung a little wide, it brushed his. Every time your stride lengthened, he caught up. He didn’t try to touch you. He didn’t need to. He was close enough that you felt the weight of him anyway.

You didn’t know what it was — the whiskey, the heat, the fucking failure still sitting heavy in your chest — but something about his presence tonight had begun to feel less like a threat and more like gravity. Quiet and consistent, like he’d anchored you to the ground without meaning to. And that scared the hell out of you. Because comfort was a luxury, and Graves had never been safe.

Still, you couldn’t help yourself. You couldn’t let the softness settle without kicking it a little.

“So what’s your plan?” you asked, glancing at him from the corner of your eye, your voice light and needling. “Gonna walk me all the way to my door and hope I trip and fall into your lap?”

Graves didn’t even blink. “Wouldn’t be the worst way to end the night,” he said, voice low, casual, smooth like warm honey. “But I was thinkin’ more along the lines of you beggin’ me to stay.”

You scoffed and looked away, but your cheeks were hot, and he knew it. You could feel him watching you, feel the faint curl of his mouth without needing to see it. You hated that he could do that — get under your skin with just a few words and the slow slide of his voice. Hated it almost as much as you wanted more of it.

The motel was close — an old roadside dump with sun-faded doors and numbers that peeled off in strips. The paint was the colour of toothpaste left out too long, bleached by decades of Nevada sun. A flickering sign buzzed above the office, the Y in VACANCY sputtering weakly like it was on life support. A single row of rooms stretched out in both directions, all with the same rickety screen doors and blinds drawn crooked behind dusty glass.

Reyes and the others stopped a few feet ahead, clustered near the chain-link fence that surrounded the pool. The water shimmered under the yellowed floodlights, still and clear, untouched since probably the beginning of summer.

“Fuck it,” Reyes muttered, peeling his shirt off over his head. “It’s hot as hell. I’m goin’ in.”

“You’re drunk,” Ives said automatically, already following him.

“And I swim better when I’m drunk,” Reyes replied, kicking his boots into the grass.

“I believe that,” Dipaolo called out, toeing off his own shoes. “You float like shit.”

You paused, watching them climb the fence one by one, the metal creaking under their weight. They were a mess. Sloppy, loud, reckless. And they were yours. If only for tonight. The thought hit you with something sharp and bittersweet — the rare ache of something resembling camaraderie, something you hadn’t felt since before the badge around your neck meant anything. You lingered a moment longer, then turned back toward your door.

Graves followed without being asked.

He didn’t say anything until you stopped in front of your room. You stood there with your key in hand, heart drumming too fast, pulse loud in your ears. The porch light above your door cast him in amber and shadow, cutting across the strong line of his jaw, glinting off the metal buttons on his shirt. He looked at home here, somehow. With you. Just with you.

“So,” he said, that low voice settling in your gut like smoke, “you gonna let me in? Or you just gonna make me stand out here, wonderin’ what I did wrong?”

You turned the key in the lock but didn’t open the door.

“I don’t remember inviting you,” you said, quiet, not quite teasing.

“I figured I earned it,” he murmured, stepping just a fraction closer. “Took a bullet for you, didn’t I? Thought you wanted to thank me properly.”

There was heat behind the words, slow, smouldering. You felt it bloom low in your stomach. The air between you shifted, tightened, pulled taut with something unspoken but understood. You knew you shouldn’t. You knew exactly what this was, how messy it could get, how wrong it would look in the morning. But all that logic, all that hard-earned self-preservation, felt distant right now. Like it belonged to someone else entirely.

Because you wanted him.

Not just in theory. Not in passing.

You wanted his hands, rough and sure, skimming up beneath your shirt, wanted the press of his hips and the heat of his breath against your throat. You wanted to taste what that smirk felt like under your mouth, what that drawl sounded like when it was broken by pleasure instead of banter. You wanted the weight of him pushing you back against the door, his fingers digging into your waist, his voice low in your ear asking if this was what you’d been thinking about since Tbilisi.

Because it was.

You swallowed hard, chest tight.

“You’re real proud of that wound, huh?” you asked, bolder now. “Want me to kiss it better?”

Graves smiled slowly, crookedly.

“Somethin’ like that.”

You stared at him. Your fingers hovered over the handle. Then, without another word, you turned the knob and stepped inside, leaving the door open behind you.

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friedesgreatscythe · 13 hours ago

Text

the reacher is maelle at her worst and also her strongest. she lets alicia's weakness, a fear of heights, control any enjoyment she could have with the wonder of the place. she brushes off the gift of wings--wings!--with a shrug. maelle never had any problem with heights before. she loved traveling across rooftops, loved being up in the hanging gardens with gustave, and even had no problem sitting on a cliff's edge with sciel, watching the night sky. but it's only after she remembers she is alicia does she let that fear override her, a fear she mentions so blithely as to take it as a fact that cannot be denied or changed. she laughs as nevrons kill each other, so disconnected from the consequences of these creatures fighting each other. maelle, the one from the start of the game, wouldn't find that funny. she might be surprised, but not amused. not entertained.

she is strong enough to separate herself from painted alicia, strong enough to know where they connect and can understand each other; strong enough to know that painted alicia deserves her chance to speak (figuratively), deserves a chance to decide what to do now that her painted family is all but gone. she remembers her life as alicia, uses that to empathize with painted alicia, and through that assumes (rightly) what her painted self wants more than anything. she is able to look at painted alicia and not be afraid. maelle is able to look at painted alicia and know that she deserves freedom, she deserves what to say and do about her life. especially since she let go (literally) of her dream (the letter verso gave back to her).

but maelle is cruel. she doesn't even considering giving verso a chance to say goodbye, doesn't even look at him as she puts painted alicia through the gommage. she looks at painted alicia fade with an expression that is almost terrifying in its ambiguity--is she disgusted? does she feel anything? is she proud of what she did? does she feel better? worse? does she feel triumphant, that yes, finally, the last hurdle of aline's painted family has been stricken from the canvas? that yes, finally, the other sister is gone, and now verso is hers? verso, who introduces the expedition to the area by saying "my sister is at the top." his sister. his family.

when verso grieves and tries to explain to maelle that his whole family is gone, maelle insists that he has her now and that's where she is perhaps at her worst, which is so heartbreaking. verso means his family, the painted family, the replicas of the living, breathing dessendres. they're all gone. the family he's known for his century in the canvas are gone. but maelle doesn't see that. she sees that she has family now, finally--but she doesn't want the family waiting for her outside the canvas. she doesn't want the living, breathing family. the freedom of being in the world again, of changing her life, of growing and healing. she rejects the wings made for her. she wants the painted brother. she wants the little doll she can cling to in a world where nothing and no one can take him away.

it makes me wonder how maelle would feel--maelle without alicia's memories. maelle, who only knew gustave and emma as family. what would maelle say about this? we can't know. we'll never know. that maelle is gone, completely. and that's its own kind of death.

#clair obscur: expedition 33 #clair obscur spoilers

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bubblegumrabbitwriting · 1 day ago

Note

What would the ROs reactions be to MC saying they had a nightmare where they abandoned them?

You wake up in a cold sweat; the ache of the empty space next to you digs its claws in your chest and rips away any comfort the blanket draped around you could provide.

Your panic rises with you as you frantically look around the darkened room, praying for any signs of other life.

Only to be met by the same quiet that haunted your dreams, driving the sense of loneliness deeper and deeper into you. You knew this wasn't ever going to last, but you let yourself believe and hope for a different ending. One where you're not sitting, confined, alone.

Breath comes shallow, as the ever-increasing tightening in your chest causes your eyes to close and fists to ball.

What were you thinking? You must be a masochist with the way you consistently build yourself up so you break yourself down brick by brick.

You did this to yourself, opened yourself up to spite yourself? to finally feel anything? something?

The feelings coalesce and meld into a weight pushing down on you...all broken by the creak of door hinges.

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

Echo -

Echo stands, hand pushed into curls and phone screen lighting her face. Another stressful call that you know will be weighing on her mind the rest of the night.

All the stress that plagues her seems to dissipate as her eyes land on you, her hand slowly falling from where it tangled itself in her hair.

"MC_name." She comes to you, slowly, gently. Like a ghost of a dream, filtered by the fear of a nightmare.

"What's wrong?" The slow touch of her fingers on your arm, cementing that this is reality. She's here, present in a way to mock your manifested misery.

It takes a moment for your mind to recognise the safety with the typhoon of thought that batters it.

"N-nothing, i-it was just a nightmare..." That same calloused shield that you raise to protect yourself.

But she knows, she always does. Know's you better than you know yourself in most cases.

And you know it yourself, as her arms circle you. The gentle embrace born of love that you crave. "Nightmares are sometimes worse than reality."

Like always, you don't need to word your distress; you don't need to dwell on the cause. Only medicate yourself with the aftermath, the real.

You lay there, in her arms, drink her warmth like your first glass of water in years.

Until she retreats far enough that the warmth of her body is still present in the air. "You want to watch that movie you've been talking about?"

It seems random, but you know what? It is a distraction. An opportunity to drown the isolation in a moment of togetherness to spite the worst that memory can conjure.

And you're not fool enough to deny it.

Cy -

Cy stands, like a mockery of the events that have replayed themselves in every fibre of your being for the past two years.

An effigy to abandonment made manifest to torment you with the reality.

One glance at them and you break down further, the lines between real life and subconscious dream fading with every moment until you can't tell you're awake.

But their arms around you, the comfort of touch, and the joy of warmth. It has to be real, because you don't know if you could face it not being.

"MC_name..." The words are whispered, close enough to your ear that it forces you to focus on them.

"I'm here, I'm here." So, so simply. But the mantra is enough to rip the tears from your eyes and stoke their shirt.

They're here now, maybe not in the past but in the here and now. They're here.

"Never again." Spoken quieter, not for you but for themself. A quiet acceptance bathed in guilt became a promise for you both.

For all the pain inflictted, you are still in their arms, leaning onto them for protection from a world that you have never understood.

And you will always be with them, until the day you both break apart and return to the ash that litters that same world.

That is enough; forgiveness might never come, but you know they will work towards it with every minute you have left. given or not.

A -

A stands looking as exhausted as you feel. Clearly they are only just getting back from another night of whatever it is they do.

But even with bags under their eyes, they seem to be breaking you down all the same with a single look.

You know they can tell something is wrong; you could see it in the way the muscles in their neck tensed the moment they saw you.

So you don't attempt to hide; you let the walls break themselves down and put faith that they will be there to build them again.

And they are by your side in a moment, shielded from the isolation that tries to drag you into it.

"Nightmare?" A asks simply and almost convinces you it is that simple.

You give a nod, leaning into their embrace and letting their steady heart beat lead your own.

"You want to talk about it?" Easier said than done, but the whisper of their voice on your ear is enough to make you want to try.

"Y-you were gone, just...gone, and I was left. Exactly the same as then..." The words die in your throat; you can't say more, the noise cementing in your mouth before they have a chance to leave.

"I wouldn't ever do that to you, not like them." You know who they are referring to; maybe, somewhere deep down, they are the cause of it. But you don't have the energy to voice the realisation.

You sit with A in the silence, letting them be the ground to find your footing.

"Let's go out." The invitation comes suddenly and causes you to face them fully.

"It's 1am..."

"So? Who needs sleep anyway? It's not like you're going to get a good night's sleep anyway." Well, when they say it like that.

Salem -

Their Salem stands, backlit in a way that accentuates the sweat that coats her body, a clear sign she just got back from a late-night gym session, if the towel resting on her shoulder wasn't a giveaway already.

With a single look she has already moved and crouched in front of you, looking into your eyes as all you can do is watch the movement.

There's no need for words, as she reaches out and slowly wraps her arms around you. Allowing you to flee the comfort if you dare, but you can't.

You just rest your head on her shoulder, allowing yourself to be cradled and sheltered.

The silence that haunted you before melts away with the overwhelming isolation as Salem's warmth reminds you that at least in this moment you're not alone.

"I'm here." It's simple: the words that dance along your ear. An equation simplified to a dreamlike fantasy.

But...at least for now, maybe you can let yourself be swept away by the joy such a fantasy could give.

At least for now you aren't alone, and the promise in the two words can stave off the fear of the opposite for a while at least.

Harper -

Harper, blurry-eyed and wrapped in a fluffy robe two sizes too big, said, condensation from the glass of water in their hand slowly dripping to the ground.

You would hug them if you weren't completely frozen by your own shock.

"Mc_name? W-what's wrong?" Their voice comes out soft, softer than you remember. Grounding in a way that causes tears to prick at the corners of your eyes.

"I'm fine." You croak out in a broken little voice.

Maybe it's the slight break in your voice or the quiver that seems to stick to muscles, but it's clear Harper doesn't agree, abandoning their glass of water on the bedside table and sitting next to you on the bed.

They don't say anything, just offer open arms that you fall all too easily into.

Your head leans on their chest, their heartbeat a steadying call that lulls your own into submission.

"I had a nightmare...you were gone and..." The confession works its way out of you and into the quiet of the room. Dying as quickly as it existed.

"Never." Harper's reply is single-worded, not a denial, not a contradiction. A single word with the weight of a promise as sure as the sun's rise.

You try to reason a rebuke in your own head; the falsity in such a sure statement. But fail as the words wrap around you and provide comfort undeniable. "You don't know that..."

"I do." They don't and can't know. "I will prove it to you every day." But maybe you could throw yourself into such an impossible dream.

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

I don't know what happened when I was answering this, but my brain went straight to causing as much emotional damage to the MC as possible.

Thanks for the ask! 💖

#blink_if #interactive fiction #ask #dashingdon #cogdemos #writing #br: c #br: echo #br: harper #br: salem #if wip

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helpimstuckposting · 2 days ago

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✨ WIP Weekend ✨

Thank you for the tags @machtaholic @pearynice @queenofshenanigans @tinytalkingtina @mission2mordor !!

IT'S BEEN A WHILE BUT WE'VE GOT A NEW CONTENDER IN THE RING FOLKS!! As always, send me an emoji (or multiple) and I'll write 3-5 sentences for that fic!

👻 — I’m a Ghost and You Are a Shadow

⚰️ — Funeral Song (from a young age Eddie time-loops every time he dies, and witnesses all of his funerals)

⏰ — Time Loop, Scoops (Steddie Bingo)

🍪 — Sugar Daddy, Argyle, Madonna (Steddie Bingo)

🍦 — Steve Harrington Big Bang*

🤫 — Steddie Big Bang*

Tagging: @strangerthingswritersguild @hbyrde36 @sourw0lfs @medusapelagia @devondespresso

Snip from ⚰️ below the cut! (tw: death, implied parental abuse, alcohol abuse)

Watching your own funeral is… strange. Especially the first time.

He thought he was asleep, at first. It was like a dream, in the way that he didn’t have a body really, but he could see the whole room and focus on specific details — specific people. Eddie was in middle school, that first time. It… wasn’t pretty. Although, he wasn’t sure any death was, especially as a child, but you don’t ever expect your parents to be the cause.

All he remembered was the car going really fast, and his father slurring as he yelled, and then nothing. Nothing until the quiet white chapel faded into view, and he saw his uncle Wayne sitting in the front row, eyes red rimmed and shaky.

He’d only met the man once or twice. He wasn’t Al Munson’s favorite person, ranting and raving about how much of a pussy — how much of a pansy and a coward — Wayne Munson was. Eddie thought maybe he was over compensating, like they’d had an argument and instead of confronting it, Al just decided he wasn’t in the wrong and he’d rather keep a grudge instead.

And yet.

Wayne, and a couple people by his side that Eddie didn’t recognize were the only people in attendance. The chapel was otherwise empty, just a small casket and a large picture of Eddie — the one from the yearbook. He wished they’d picked a different one, he looked like a dork, but he supposed they really didn’t have any other pictures.

He watched Wayne for a while (though, there wasn’t much else to watch, to be honest). He just sat, staring ahead, as one by one the people at his side patted him on the shoulder and left, until it was just them — just Eddie and Wayne. He got to his feet after a few moments, and Eddie thought he’d leave like the rest of them, but he didn’t. He walked up to the casket — and the long velvet pad for kneeling — and he sank to his knees like they were weighted, too heavy to keep standing.

Eddie’d never seen a grown man cry before. Not on TV, not in movies, certainly not Al Munson — and yet, Wayne, who he’d only known as a distant relative, wept for him. For him. He sobbed, all alone in front of a casket too small to look real, as Eddie’s stupid braced up, buzz-cut head smiled down on him. He didn’t feel much like smiling at the moment, felt like maybe he shouldn’t even be here, like he should turn around and pretend Wayne wasn’t there, even though he didn’t have fingers to jam into his ears and block out the sounds of shuttered, wet gasps. He kind of wanted to cry now, too. Though he wasn’t sure he even had eyes right now, the phantom prickle of tears jabbed at him like a memory he couldn’t shake.

As the gasps calmed to hiccups and then silenced entirely, Eddie wished this was all a dream. He hoped and prayed and begged before the large golden crucifix that this wasn’t real, that he could wake up at home again and this was all just a nightmare. He couldn’t took away, couldn’t close his eyes or turn around as Wayne got back to his feet, one gentle hand pressed tightly to the lid of the casket as he whispered “I’m so sorry, kiddo,” and walked out of the chapel, leaving Eddie, his body, and the wooden box that cradled him behind.

He woke up three months earlier, January 1st, like it was all a dream. Except, he remembered each day after like he’d lived it twice. His mother’s death anniversary was in March — the month he’d remembered dying — and every time he stepped foot in the car with his father, he had a panic attack. Al would yell at him for it, call him a wuss and an attention seeker, but he couldn’t help the fear that gripped his heart and squeezed, like someone was trying to rip it from his chest as he pictured the funeral that hadn’t happened yet, the tears streaking across his uncles face, and that stupid, stupid, yearbook picture that leaned over his casket like a storm cloud.

He figured if anyone was going to protect him, it would be the man who cried over his altar and apologized, even if he didn’t know Eddie was listening.

#wip weekend #stranger things #steddie #helpimstuckwriting #steve harrington #eddie munson #wayne munson

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2b4st4r · 6 hours ago

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Ashes and Admirls 2

˖°𓇼🌊⋆🐚🫧

Part one!! ||has warnings, words, etc||

˖°𓇼🌊⋆🐚🫧

It wasn’t you.

You didn’t speak much.

Didn’t argue. Didn’t smile.

You followed orders. Lifted beams. Reconstructed barracks. Gave reports. Nodded when spoken to. But it was like your soul had been scraped thin—something that once sang with fire now left quiet and hollow.

People noticed.

They whispered behind your back.

“She hasn’t laughed once.”

“Did you see her eyes? It’s like… she’s not even there.”

“I heard she hasn’t spoken to the Fleet Admiral since the war.”

“I heard she left him.”

You didn’t respond. You never did.

Even the soldiers who used to stand straighter when you walked by had stopped trying to catch your attention. Your presence no longer lit the room—it only dimmed it.

Even Sengoku noticed.

He passed you once near the reconstructed war table. Paused. Looked like he wanted to say something.

But when you glanced up at him, your gaze so quiet and unreachable…

He only nodded and walked away.

—

At home, Garp tried.

He tried so hard.

He cooked your favorite meals. Made loud jokes like he always had. Sat on the porch with you in the evenings and talked at you, even when you didn’t talk back. He brought up Luffy every so often—tenderly, carefully—just to see if you’d respond.

You didn’t. Not at first.

You’d sit in the same spot every night, hands folded neatly, your cup of tea gone cold by the time the moon was up. You didn’t cry. You didn’t scream. You just stayed there—quiet and still and wrong.

Once, he came into your room and found you sitting on the floor beside your old chest of memories.

Your hands rested on a faded drawing Luffy had made when he was small—him, you, and Ace with enormous heads and no necks.

You didn’t say a word.

Just stared.

Garp knelt beside you, placed a hand on your shoulder, and felt your body flinch under the touch like you weren’t used to warmth anymore.

“You don’t have to carry it alone, you know,” he said quietly.

You looked at him then. Your eyes were dry, but they looked like they hadn’t rested in years.

“Don’t I?” you whispered.

He didn’t answer.

He couldn’t.

Later that week, a few of the younger Marines tried to approach you at the worksite.

“Lady Y/N,” one of them said, timidly, “we—we made this. For… for Fire Fist.”

He held out a small wooden carving. Simple. Sloppy. But made with care—a likeness of Ace, holding his hat and smiling.

You stared at it.

Then took it gently, your fingers brushing the carved lines. You traced them slowly, and for a moment… a small breath caught in your throat.

“Thank you,” you said softly.

The boy looked stunned. Then nodded quickly and ran off.

It was the first time anyone had heard you speak in a week.

But you didn’t smile.

You just sat down on the stone steps and held the carving to your chest.

And far away, up in the Marine command tower, Sakazuki watched from the window.

His hands were behind his back. His face unmoving.

But he watched you sit there for a long, long time.

And said nothing.

It happened just over a month after the war ended.

The official announcement came during a high-command meeting, though the decision had been settled days earlier in quiet corners and shadowed conversations.

Sengoku had stepped down.

Sakazuki had taken his place.

You heard the words in silence.

Nodded when they were said.

Even offered the briefest congratulations when protocol demanded it.

But your heart didn’t move.

It hadn’t since Ace died.

Since Luffy vanished.

Since your world broke open.

You didn’t go home that night. Not then.

You walked back to Garp’s house. Sat on the porch. Listened to the sea. Let the truth settle on your shoulders like another stone you’d never put down.

But the next day…

You went home.

The house was just as you’d left it.

Everything in its place. Spotless, silent. Your shoes still beside the door. A cup you’d left on the counter—washed and set aside. He’d been here. He’d waited. Or maybe he hadn’t.

You weren’t sure anymore.

You stepped inside, closing the door behind you with a soft click. The air felt tight, too clean, like no one had really breathed in it in weeks.

Then you heard him.

“In the office.”

His voice, low and clipped, floated through the hall. It didn’t sound like victory. It didn’t sound like anything at all.

You walked in slowly, your heels soft against the polished floor, and there he was.

Sakazuki.

Now Fleet Admiral.

He stood behind the wide desk where Sengoku once stood, his arms behind his back, eyes locked on a stack of reports he hadn’t even flipped through. His coat was freshly pressed. His rank, heavy on his shoulders.

He didn’t look up.

You stared at him.

This man.

Your husband.

Your executioner.

“…So,” you said quietly, “you got what you wanted.”

He turned his head slightly. Just slightly.

“It’s what the world needed,” he said.

You didn’t answer right away.

You stepped further into the room, your voice growing colder. “And what about what I needed?”

That was the first time he looked at you.

Really looked.

Your eyes met, and it was like something long buried cracked open.

His jaw tightened.

“I did what I had to do.”

“You killed my nephew.”

“He was a pirate.”

“And he was mine!”

Your voice cracked—sharper than the wind outside, angrier than it had ever been before. The grief you’d bottled up was unraveling, the ache spilling through your chest like seawater through a cracked hull.

“You didn’t just kill Ace,” you whispered, stepping closer. “You let them drag him through the streets. You let them chain him. Humiliate him. You stood there and watched the boy I helped raise die screaming—and you did it in the name of justice.”

“I did it for peace.”

You laughed.

A hollow, wounded thing.

“There’s no peace in you,” you said. “There never was. You just wanted power. You always did. And now you have it. A title, a chair, a bloody crown.”

“You think this is about titles?” he snapped, eyes flashing. “Do you think I wanted to be Fleet Admiral so I could sleep better at night? So I could feel good about what had to be done?”

“No,” you said bitterly, “I think you did it because you couldn’t stand not being the one in control.”

His hands clenched. “You’re acting like I took joy in what happened.”

“You didn’t take joy—you took pride.”

You were shaking now. “You believed in it. That’s worse.”

A silence fell between you, deep and sharp.

You looked at him, eyes wet, voice shaking but steel beneath it.

“I loved you. God, I loved you. I thought—maybe—I could be enough to make you see the world differently. That my love, that our marriage, that Ace and Luffy—that I could matter enough to make you pause.”

He stared at you.

You stepped back. Just once. Just a single step. But it felt like the whole house shifted.

“You chose justice over me,” you said.

And that’s when his voice broke.

“I am justice.”

You stopped breathing.

It wasn’t just a motto anymore.

It was his truth.

And you knew, right then and there, that this—this—was the beginning of the end.

Your eyes welled with tears you couldn’t hold anymore, but your face remained steady, even as your heart shattered for the second time in thirty days.

“…Then you don’t get to have me anymore.”

And that’s where it started.

The shouting. The accusations. The heartbreak.

The scene the whole damn base would hear through the walls.

Where the Fleet Admiral and his wife—the woman once called the kindest heart on the sea—stood in their home, torn by grief and love and everything that had ever mattered between them…

And burned what little they had left.

“You don’t get to have me anymore.”

The words hung between you like a gunshot—suspended in the air, echoing in every corner of that house that had once held laughter, late-night tea, kisses on the kitchen counter, and the quiet warmth of a love people never understood.

And Sakazuki—Fleet Admiral now—he just stood there.

Jaw clenched.

Eyes dark.

Unmoving.

You’d never seen him look so human.

And then—he broke.

“You think this was easy for me?!” he snapped, stepping forward, fists shaking at his sides. “You think I wanted to stand there and do nothing while you looked at me like I was the one who put that hole in his chest?!”

“You were!” you screamed.

The dam shattered.

“You were the one! You didn’t pull back, you didn’t hesitate! You saw him, you knew who he was to me, and you did it anyway! Don’t you dare talk about easy!”

“I did what I was ordered to do!” he shouted, “What had to be done!”

“No one held a gun to your head!” you cried, stepping closer, your finger jabbing his chest. “You weren’t some pawn! You chose it! You chased Luffy down like a rabid dog—my nephew! You were going to kill him too!”

“He’s a pirate!”

“He’s a child!”

You were both shaking now.

“You stood by and let them hang Ace on a stage like a spectacle!” Your voice trembled with fury. “And when he was free, when we had a chance, you ended it. You looked at his back and you still—you still—”

You choked.

Your knees almost buckled.

“He called me mom once,” you whispered.

Sakazuki went still.

“He was little. Five or six. He was sick. I was holding him. He had a fever, and he couldn’t stop crying. And he just… he curled up against me and whispered, ‘mom.’”

Tears spilled freely now.

“And you killed him.”

His face contorted—anguish, rage, restraint all at war.

“He stood in my way. I gave him a chance to move.”

“HE WAS PROTECTING LUFFY!”

You were sobbing now, but your voice didn’t lose its edge.

“He died to protect the only family he had left. And I watched him—I held him—while the fire ate through him, while your justice burned a hole clean through his back.”

Sakazuki turned away.

His hand clenched around the edge of the desk so tightly the wood cracked.

“I’ve done things you’ll never understand,” he ground out. “I’ve carried this world on my back longer than you know. If we hadn’t stopped him—if we hadn’t sent a message—”

“To who?!” You flung your arm out. “To pirates?! To children?! To me?! Was that the message, Sakazuki?! That even the people closest to you are expendable?! That love doesn’t matter if justice is involved?!”

He turned back toward you slowly.

And his voice dropped low, like stone sinking to the bottom of the sea.

“I lost you the moment I let you love a pirate.”

Silence.

Silence so loud it rang in your ears.

Your heart stuttered.

You stared at him. Really looked at him.

And for the first time in years, he felt like a stranger.

“I didn’t lose you at Marineford,” you said, voice barely above a whisper. “I lost you the day you started believing the world needed you more than I did.”

Something flickered behind his eyes.

Guilt. Regret.

But not enough to change him.

You stepped back, a breath between each retreating footfall.

“I would’ve followed you anywhere,” you said. “I did. I gave up everything—my title, my freedom, my family—for a man who swore he wasn’t like the world he fought.”

Your hands trembled at your sides.

“But the truth is, you’re worse. Because you knew what love was. And you chose to set it on fire.”

His expression faltered—only for a second.

But it was too late.

You turned. Walked toward the door.

And just before your hand reached the knob—

“Y/N.”

His voice, cracked. Almost broken.

You stopped. One breath.

Two.

Then, without turning around—

“…Don’t call me that.”

And you left.

It wasn’t announced.

There was no formal declaration.

No news headline, no trumpet of war.

But everyone knew.

By the next morning, the air in Marineford felt different. Heavier. Too quiet in the wrong places, too loud in the others. No one had seen you enter the main base. You hadn’t slept there. You hadn’t even passed the gates.

And his office door never opened.

That was the first sign.

The second was the bed in his quarters.

The one you shared.

It was stripped bare—your side cold and untouched. One pillow missing. One coffee cup gone. One coat—yours—vanished from the hook by the door.

You hadn’t taken it.

You’d left it at Garp’s.

But to the eyes of the Marines, it was as if you’d disappeared.

And slowly, the whispers started.

“She didn’t come home.”

“They say she left him for good this time.”

“She’s with Vice Admiral Garp again.”

“No, she left the base altogether—she’s never coming back.”

“They say she screamed at him. Called him a murderer to his face.”

“They were married for years. I didn’t think it’d end like that.”

And then came the sound of burning.

A few of the younger Marines had returned to the rec room, to the drawer where they’d kept the old betting pool—the long-running, half-joking collection of predictions for when, and how, you and Sakazuki would finally split.

Divorce. Death. Disappearance.

No one had guessed “war.”

But when they opened the drawer and pulled the tin box out—

No one could touch it.

Not because it was cursed.

But because it hurt.

There were coins. Slips of paper. Wagers spanning over five years.

And in silence, one of them struck a match.

No one stopped him.

They burned the entire box on the balcony overlooking the sea.

There was no cheering. No final toast.

Just flames. And silence.

And someone murmuring, “It didn’t feel like this when they got together… why does it feel like the end of the world now?”

—

Garp didn’t say much, either.

He was quieter than usual. His laugh came less often. His punches were softer—still strong, but distracted. He’d cook enough food for three and only set two plates. He left the back door unlocked every night, as if still expecting someone to return.

He checked on you, of course. Every morning.

Sometimes you’d be sitting on the porch, tea untouched in your hands, eyes locked on the horizon.

Other times you weren’t there at all—wandering down near the docks, barefoot in the early mist, looking out at the waves like they might bring something back.

He never pushed.

Never asked.

Just stood nearby and waited.

Once, after a particularly quiet breakfast, he looked at you across the table and said—

“I never liked him.”

You blinked.

Then offered the barest breath of a smile. “I know.”

He sighed, rubbed the back of his neck. “But I know he loved you.”

You stared at your tea.

“He loved justice more.”

“…Yeah,” Garp said. “He did.”

Neither of you said anything else for a long time.

—

Sengoku, meanwhile, didn’t ask questions. But he watched.

He noticed the emptiness in Sakazuki’s eyes during the next meeting. Not the cold, focused intensity they’d all come to expect from the new Fleet Admiral—but something hollow.

A piece missing.

He said nothing during debriefings. He didn’t scold anyone. He didn’t argue.

He just sat there, signed documents, issued orders.

And when Sengoku approached him in private, closing the door gently behind him, he asked only one thing:

“Was it worth it?”

Sakazuki didn’t look up from his desk.

He just murmured—

“…You tell me.”

Sengoku studied him in silence.

Then, after a long breath:

“You know, I thought you’d destroy her.”

Sakazuki’s shoulders tightened.

“But I think maybe… she destroyed you first.”

And he left.

—

That week, no one spoke your name in the mess hall.

No one joked about your beauty.

No one asked about your smile.

Because the woman who once turned magma into calm, the woman who could sit beside a volcano and make it purr, was gone.

And all that remained of your love…

Was smoke.

No official report was filed.

No transfer.

No discharge papers.

But when you left—

You were gone.

You weren’t a Marine.

Not by title. Not by blood.

You never had a rank, never wore a proper uniform.

But you had been a pillar.

A presence so steady and deeply stitched into the bones of Marineford that even without stripes or stars, they all turned their heads when you entered a room.

And now… you didn’t enter anything.

You stopped going to meetings.

You stopped walking the halls.

You stopped returning letters—if anyone dared send them.

And Sakazuki…

He stopped vouching.

There had been a time where he defended your space in the Marines, whether people liked it or not. He spoke quietly, sternly, to officers who questioned why you were there. Who you were. Why you stood beside him without a badge.

But not anymore.

He said nothing now.

And his silence was your funeral.

—

Garp found you early in the morning, just after sunrise.

You were folding your things into a modest travel bag—the few items you’d left behind when you moved in with Sakazuki all those years ago. A blanket. A carved sea stone. A few letters from Ace, a drawing Luffy made, and a pendant you hadn’t worn since the war.

You didn’t flinch when the door creaked open.

You knew it was him.

He stood there for a long moment in the frame. Scratched the back of his neck, like he was trying to rub the ache from his chest.

“You sure?” he asked.

You nodded. “Yeah.”

He looked at you then—really looked.

His daughter. His bright, beautiful girl. The woman who used to laugh like the ocean and fight like a storm, now folding up her life like a flag taken down after battle.

He didn’t ask where you were going.

Didn’t need to.

He only stepped forward, gently took the bag from your hands, and helped you pack the last few things in silence.

When it was all done, and you stood by the door with your coat draped over your arm, he finally said—

“You don’t have to run, you know.”

You glanced at him.

“I’m not running,” you said softly.

“I’m just… done standing still.”

He nodded slowly.

Then pulled you into his chest—arms warm, large, secure—and held you for a long, long time.

When you pulled away, his eyes were red.

So were yours.

And then you were gone.

—

The first person to notice was Sengoku.

He came to deliver a sealed report, stopped outside your old quarters, and found them empty. The bed made. The drawers bare. The pendant on the windowsill, glowing in the morning sun.

He closed the door quietly.

Then told no one.

They would find out soon enough.

—

Then came the whispers.

“She left.”

“She’s really gone.”

“She didn’t even say goodbye.”

“Where do you think she went?”

“Maybe back to Wano. Or the Calm Belt. Somewhere no one would bother her.”

“Do you think she’ll ever come back?”

No one answered that last one.

Because it wasn’t just that you’d left.

It was the way everything shifted after you were gone.

The meetings were duller. The walkways colder. Marines spoke more carefully now, like they were afraid even their tone would dishonor your memory.

And Sakazuki—Fleet Admiral Sakazuki—was never the same.

He no longer sat in meetings with his jaw set and spine straight.

He slouched now. Quiet. Heavy in his chair.

He didn’t yell as much.

Didn’t erupt.

Some say he stopped carrying his coat half the time. Just walked the halls in silence. No one dared ask why. No one dared speak your name.

Because your name wasn’t gone.

It had become sacred.

A name they whispered like a prayer.

A ghost on the lips of the strong.

And even though you had no rank—

Even though your name was erased from the official rosters—

Your absence left a crater where a whole legend used to stand.

And in that silence, for weeks to come—

Everyone realized…

they had never really known what you meant to them until you were no longer there.

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