#I JUST NOTICED I PUT FLOOR TWICE IN THIS FFS

[ckret2]

The latest installment of "literally nobody is happy about Bill being the Mystery Shack's prisoner," chapter 8: Bill attempts to manipulate the humans with the only weapon he still has at his disposal: grossing them out. Also featuring: dramatic arguments with Ford, a surprise bath, and me trying my level best to convince you all that hair is the most disgusting substance in the universe, let me know how I do at that. Chapters one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven if you missed them.

A few days into summer vacation, just before dawn, Dipper and Mabel were woken by a series of thunderous crashes and pained screams, followed by Bill's piercing, maniacal laughter. They were armed and out the bedroom door in seconds.

Mabel said, "Who did he kill?!"

"I think he blew up a wall to escape—"

They skidded to a stop at the top of the attic stairs. Bill had tumbled halfway down, crashed into the wall where the stairs made a ninety degree turn, and was now sprawled upside-down on the steps, giggling.

Dipper lowered his weapon. "What."

"I ff—" Bill was interrupted by a wheeze of laughter. "I forgot how stairs work."

He spotted the kids—Dipper holding a metal claw hammer, Mabel holding a kitchen knife longer than her forearm—and abruptly stopped laughing. "Wow, you kids came ready to commit murder! Just waiting for the first excuse, huh?"

"Shut up." Dipper looked at Mabel. "Wanna go back to bed?"

"I think my blood is all adrenaline now."

Dipper sighed. "Yeah. Let's get breakfast, I guess."

They trudged down the stairs, shoulders pressed to the wall to stay as far from Bill as possible. As they passed Bill, Dipper muttered, "You could at least get out of the way."

Bill—who'd been about to gingerly sit up—lay back down and spread out across the landing. "Think I'd rather mildly inconvenience you!"

Mabel threw in, "And take a shower! You smell like an outhouse."

"That's my human-repellant forcefield."

The twins headed for the kitchen for a snack they could take out of the shack—and were blocked by Stan in the doorway. "Hold on. Don't go in there. You smell that?"

Dipper and Mabel sniffed the air, and grimaced. Mabel stuck out her tongue. Dipper said, "Ugh. We thought that was Bill, but it's worse down here."

"One of two things happened here," Stan said. "Either a squirrel and a raccoon fought to death under the fridge and started rotting; or the space demon cast some kind of stink curse. Personally, I'm hoping for dead wildlife. But until I find out, you two stay out of the kitchen."

There were several more crashes as Bill tumbled down the second half of the stairs, a groan, and a muttered, "What am I getting wrong?"

Stan rounded on Bill. "Hey! Demon. Don't suppose you happen to know why the kitchen smells..." He gestured vaguely, "like that."

Seated on the floor, Bill had been absorbed in prodding his limp left arm; but at the question, he looked up with a worryingly bright smile. "It just so happens I do!"

"Explain."

He twisted his left arm with his right, jammed it back into its proper position with a pop, and straightened himself up. "Funny thing—you know how I can't open doors? Because of the curse your brother put on me? Of course you do. Well—darnedest little quirk of human architecture—I don't know if you noticed, but it just so happens that all of the toilets in this house are behind doors!"

Stan's face blanched. "Oh no."

"At any given time, this body I'm in is freely secreting about half a dozen different bodily fluids—snot, spit, sweat, I could go on—and you humans are perfectly comfortable with that. But you think one bodily fluid is special and can only go in the special white bowl. Me, on the other hand—I'm an energy being that doesn't leak all day! Your fluids are all equal to me! I don't care about your special white bowls!"

Hotly, Stan said, "You're in my house—"

Immediately twice as angry and twice as loud as Stan, Bill said, "So if you think I'm going to lower myself to asking three times a day for permission to use a STUPID TOILET for YOUR COMFORT—"

And that was when they started screaming.

Dipper looked at Mabel. "Let's eat out."

Mabel nodded. "You know that burger place where Wendy gets breakfast—?"

"If we hurry, we can probably meet her there."

By the time they'd changed and come back downstairs, Ford had joined in the argument, Abuelita had set up a folding chair to watch it like a wrestling match, and the volume had doubled. (Bill: "BE GRATEFUL I USED THE SINK INSTEAD OF YOUR CEREAL BOXES! NEXT TIME I WON'T BE SO MERCIFUL!" Stan: "I'M GONNA INSTALL A DOOR KNOB ON THE KITCHEN FAUCET AND THEN YOU'LL NEED MY PERMISSION TO DRINK, YOU LITTLE—") Dipper and Mabel squeezed around the crowd, slid out the door, and biked into town.

They decided they'd just stay out the rest of the day.

They'd been doing that a lot lately.

####

When they made it home that evening, the first person they ran into was Soos, relocating a detached door. "Oh, hey dudes! Okay so, update on the Bill situation." Soos leaned the door against the wall. "We removed the door on the downstairs half bath and nailed up a curtain instead, so, now it's curse-accessible, but Bill can't lock himself in and do—" he wiggled his fingers, "secret Bill things. So. If you wanna use a bathroom with a real door, you've gotta go upstairs now."

Mabel considered that. "The bathroom with the tub still has a real door, right?"

"Yeah dudes, it's fine!"

Dipper said, "So... do we have a way to get him to shower...?"

Mabel said, "Yeah, whatever Bill's been doing in the kitchen sink—"

(Soos said, "And the trash can, it turns out.")

"—it hasn't included sponge baths, and it's getting obvious."

"And I'm not really comforted by his 'human-repellant forcefield' comment," Dipper added.

Mabel nodded. "I'd kinda like Bill to clean up before he gets as bad as Dipper last July."

"Hey."

Soos pointed toward the attic. "Ford's working on that right now." He whispered, "He's got a theory that Bill's just just too proud to ask for permission to use the facilities? So maybe if we ask him to take a shower, he'll go, 'oh, okay, I'm doing you guys a favor,' and then he'll agree to be let in and out of the bathroom."

Dipper grimaced. "I don't like the idea of begging him to shower."

"Uh... I'm fine with it." Soos shrugged. "Better smug than smelly."

####

"All right, Cipher."

Every time Ford came upstairs, Bill was curled up in the window seat, one side pressed against the glass. If it weren't for the crumpled jerky and granola bags and the empty energy drinks scattered beneath Bill's window seat—or the occasional downstairs argument—Ford would have suspected Bill hasn't budged in days. It made him nervous. There was an ice pack on Bill's left shoulder that had sat there so long it was completely melted.

"You got the bathroom you wanted. Now, would you take a shower?" Ford mustered up all his willpower as he prepared to mortify himself, and added, "Please."

It was important to note that Ford had spent his youth as the golden child; Stan had been disowned before his desire to please his parents had a chance to wilt and die; and Ford had barely seen Shermie's teen years. He'd spent his own adolescence isolated from his peers, and hadn't gotten to know any youths except Dipper and Mabel since then.

All of which was to say, the look Bill Cipher gave Ford, shocking in its ferocity, was utterly alien to him; but would have been familiar to millions of humans around the world.

It was the same look received by authoritarian parents whose tyranny had squeezed a little too tight, and whose offspring had realized they were grounded so severely they no longer had anything left to lose. It was the wrath of the defiant teenager. 

And then the most pleasant smile snapped on Bill's face, quick as flicking a light switch. "What's in it for me?"

Ford blinked in disbelief. What needed to be in it for Bill? It was a shower. "Being... clean?"

"Eh."

Ford's shoulders sagged. "At least use deodorant?" he pled. "Change clothes? Brush your hair? Something?"

"No, no, absolutely not, aaand no. What's the matter, Stanford? I've been staying out of your way! You don't even see me up here. The stench can't be getting to you that much, so what do you care what I do to this body?" Bill's grin widened. "Guilt starting to set in? Must be hard to pretend you're a hospitable host rather than a kidnapper when your 'guest' is living in squalor—"

"Enough," Ford snapped. "So this is what, your way of protesting your own captivity? You have to realize how stupid this is."

"Buuut it's wooork-iiing," Bill said, a singsong lilt to his voice. "It's getting on your neee-eeerves."

"You're going to cause yourself problems in the long run! Diseases, infections—don't tell me I have to explain germ theory to you, you're smarter than that."

Bill scoffed. "I'm flattered you're so concerned about my health, but you can relax. I've been washing my hands and brushing my teeth like a good little potential disease vector. But you humans are so safe inside your modern fortresses with minimal carnivorous bugs and flesh-eating fungi—most of your hygiene expectations are cosmetic! I'm more willing to put up with itchy dandruff than you are to put up with the smell."

"Are you listening to yourself? This is—" Ford paused. "You've been brushing your teeth? Where did you get a toothbrush?"

"I've been using the dish brush and liquid dish soap in the kitchen." Bill laughed. "Wow, look at you—lecturing your prisoner on poor hygiene when you didn't give him any way to clean up! That's not a good look, pal."

Ford made a mental note to find a spare toothbrush for Bill. He flung his hands out in exasperation. "But—why put up with itchy dandruff at all? Why refuse to shower, of all things? And don't say to be annoying—you're cutting off your nose to spite your face!"

"Because cutting off my nose is the only bargaining chip I've got, and you know it."

Seeing expressions on Bill's face—smiles and scowls and smirks and sneers, mouth and tongue and cheeks and eyebrows—still felt wrong. No matter what expression Bill put on, it always felt to Ford like he was using his face to tell some sort of lie. But his eyes—Ford was familiar with Bill's eye, and doubling them didn't banish that familiarity. He knew this heavy, hard, emotionless look. It was the same look he'd seen just before Bill had shown him, through his own eye, the sight of his home dimension burning. Of all the looks he'd seen in Bill's eye—curved crescent with sadistic glee, literally red with fury—something about this heavy look chilled Ford the most. It was, somehow, the cruelest he'd ever seen Bill.

Bill got to his feet, wincing as he uncurled his hunched back. He stretched, spine cracking, as he sauntered lazily toward Ford. "Can I speak frankly with you, Sixer? I can't do a lot of tricks in this body. Heck, I'd try to tell you I don't have any tricks right now—but I'm sure you'd just say I'm lying to get your guard down, blah blah; so let's agree that, at least, I don't have the power to escape or kill you all, or I would have by now! This body—" he gestured grandly down at himself, "—as far as I'm concerned, is a dirty sticker stuck on the bottom of my shoe. It's trash. It's disposable. It's worth less than nothing to me. But it's all I've got at my disposal. So I'm going to be disgusting, until you start doing me favors to make me stop."

"Favors," Ford said. "And if we don't?"

Bill shrugged, hands raised. "Then I guess I'll keep being gross! But I cannot overemphasize just how little I care about your species's ideas about minimum hygiene standards, or how far I'm willing to go to irritate you all. This morning's hazmat crisis in the kitchen was just a warning shot. You will cave first."

As unnerving as that heavy look in Bill's eyes was, simply seeing it wasn't what rattled Ford. It was knowing that Bill could wear that cruel look while talking about committing quiet, passive violence on himself.

Bill stared Ford down for a moment; then apparently took Ford's silence for a small victory. "I want a drink strong enough to rot a bootlegger's guts, a hot meal that hasn't been cooked by Grandma Guilia Tofana down there, or—" Bill pointed toward the attic window that his curse prevented him from opening, "a breeze and some fresh air. I'm flexible. Let me know when you're ready to negotiate." He returned to his seat in the window. "I won't be far."

Giving Bill "a breeze" would obviously give him an escape route, and Bill was no doubt angling to accumulate tiny, "harmless" favors until he tricked the humans into doing something that would let him escape; but... Ford eyed the empty junk food bags on the floor. He tried to remember whether he'd seen Bill eat anything except for unrefrigerated factory-sealed snacks he could forage from the open kitchen shelves—or if the last fresh food Bill had tasted had been Abuelita's cyanide cooking.

Bill wanted Ford to pity him. That was what this whole charade was about. Ford hated that it was working. Not because of Bill's performative filthiness—but because Ford knew, too well, what it was like to be trapped, powerless, and hungry in an alien dimension; and because even when Bill was all but confessing he was trying to exploit Ford's pity, he was still trying so hard to pretend he wasn't afraid. 

"I'll let you know what Stanley says."

Bill didn't turn away quite fast enough to hide his smile of triumph. "I'll be waiting." He settled back down into the same position he'd held for half a day and stared out at the night sky.

####

After several days in this body, Bill could definitively conclude that sleep was the worst part of being human.

Repeatedly blacking out and coming to, only to realize he couldn't remember anything for the past several hours. Usually he didn't even remember dreaming, even though he knew he must have dreamt for at least a couple hours. He hated not knowing what had been happening around his physical body for all that time, and he hated not knowing what he'd been doing in his dreams. Anything could have happened to him during those missing hours in the mindscape.

The few dreams he remembered were little comfort. Nightmares about dying, about faces and places he was galled to find out had been lodged in this human brain's subconscious—but the subject matter wasn't the important part. What mattered was that, while he was dreaming, he didn't know he was dreaming.

He didn't know how that was possible. He couldn't remember how the dreams started, what trick they must have pulled to persuade him that this was reality even though he couldn't remember what had happened five minutes earlier, or how they hypnotized him into unquestioningly playing along with their bizarre impossible Wonderland plot lines. Waking up was more terrifying than his nightmares, as he reoriented himself to reality and he had to grapple with how helplessly delusional he'd just been—and the knowledge that it would happen again, and again, and again.

Bill knew how human minds worked. He knew how humans dreamed. He'd been swimming through their dreams for millennia. This was normal for humans, and the knowledge that it was normal was the only thing keeping him from going mad with terror.

But the fact that it was normal for humans didn't mean it was normal for him. Because he was not human, and he hated blacking out for hours at a time, and he hated being so foggy-minded and vulnerable in the mindscape.

Most of his diet of the past few days consisted of energy drinks. His throat constantly blazed with heartburn. He needed a better solution—and maybe he could think of one once he got a decent meal or a drink that could help him sleep without dreaming.

He was hungry, he was tired, and he was weak.

####

But in spite of the caffeine, at some point Bill must have fallen asleep—because he woke up. 

For once, he didn't wake from the searing heat of psychic fires.

He woke from the deadly chill of ice cold bath water.

"HELP!" Bill flailed, bashed both elbows and a heel against porcelain, and went under. He came up spluttering. "Mayday! Charybdis! Carpathia!"

The bathroom door slammed shut. From the other side, Stan shouted, "We considered your terms, and uh—we decided we're rejecting your demands, you get nothing, aaand you've gotta bathe."

Bill heaved himself out of the tub, flopped on the floor, and lay there wetly. Like a fish out of water, if the fish had given up the will to live. "Texq exmmbkba?"

"We dropped you in the tub," Ford said. "And we're going to do that every time your stench becomes intolerable, unless you bathe voluntarily. Is that clear?"

("What the heck language is he speaking now?" "Not a language. Caesar cipher." "You're tellin' me Cipher was Caesar, too?")

Bill coughed out a mouthful of water. "I'll drown myself."

"No you won't."

"I'd enjoy it. It'll be fun."

Ford hesitated. "Knowing you, you probably would. But you could only do it once."

"I'll slaughter you both."

Stan laughed. "Sure, if you ever reach us!" He jiggled the doorknob tauntingly.

Bill dragged himself across the floor and pounded on the door. He hollered, "I'll make meat linguine out of your skins with an orange peeler! I'll cook it in bone broth made by boiling your teeth!"

There was an awkward pause. Stan said, "I don't have teeth."

"You two are a loser who was only ever likable when you were pretending to be your brother and a puffed-up self-pitying nerd who never learned that no one's impressed by a child prodigy after age twenty-two! The biggest impact you'll ever have on each other is derailing each other's life dreams, and all your friends are worse off for knowing you! Your father died ashamed of you both and if he knew the truth about your lives he'd have been even more ashamed! Sherman has no positive memories of you, your obituaries will spell both your names wrong, and I'm going to feed your souls to an ouroboros that will repeatedly digest and defecate you for ten thousand years!"

After a couple more minutes of threats and insults, when Bill had to slow down to catch his breath, Ford calmly said, "Have you got that out of your system?"

A pause. "Think I'm good now." Bill slumped back to the floor, his cheek pressed to the cool, damp floorboards. "Okay. You win. Name your terms."

"You're not coming out of there until you've bathed," Ford said. "We'll let you out when you tell us you're clean. If you're not clean, we close the door again. If you want to sit there and sulk, then we'll leave, and once you're clean you'll have to wait until somebody feels like checking on you. Is that clear."

"Clear as crystal."

"Good. On the cabinet by the tub, you'll find a towel, washcloth, brush, comb, bar of soap, and shampoo. Are you familiar with how to use all of them."

"Sure! Course I am." Bill picked up the bar of soap, dipped it in the water, and experimentally rubbed it on his forearm. He pursed his lips dubiously at the results of this experiment. In a flash of brilliant inspiration, he peeled the cardboard box off of the soap bar. "How hard can it be?"

"Fine. There's a clean change of clothes next to the supplies. If you can get this over with in a timely manner, without wrecking the bathroom or wasting all the toiletries, we can talk about letting you choose a shampoo brand for next time."

Bill considered pointing out that that was a pretty stupid bribe to offer a creature who didn't have the slightest emotional attachment to organic toiletries; but then he remembered one of the cults he was affiliated with in New England made a shampoo line using its traumatized worshippers' tears, and he grudgingly decided he'd like to support them if he could. "You're enjoying this, aren't you."

"No." Ford was enjoying this.

"Gimme an hour. I've never done this start to finish before."

"Fine. We'll be back in sixty minutes."

Bill could hear the creak of the floorboards as the Pines left, and the fading sound of Stan's voice as he quietly asked, "Do you think what he said about Shermie..."

Yeah, Bill hoped that haunted him. He reached for the towel, and then jerked back his hand, startled, at the sight of another person in the bathroom.

"Oh." Bill experimentally waved a hand at the human, confirming that the strange alien staring at him was a mirror. "Hey, there." He stared glumly at the face he was trapped inside.

He'd never seen it before.

He was sure there used to be more mirrors in Ford's shack, but they must have been among the "potential weapons" the Pines had hidden away. Up until now, he'd kept imagining himself as a triangle. Some half-dead shape fraying golden curls around the edges, fused atop the rib cage of a humanoid puppet. Seeing the reality felt wrong, disorienting, like staring at an optical illusion but not being able to pick out how it worked.

He searched for any sign of himself in the face staring back at him. It was like trying to find something reminiscent of Chopin's piano Nocturnes in the shape of a lawnmower: a task so impossible it was unintelligible. 

The only thing at all familiar was the color of the hair; not quite as bright as the dazzling electric gold of his true form, but still achingly similar.

Gold formed into lines—gold lines that bent and curled with acrobatic, contortionist flexibility.

"Well, whaddaya know," Bill sighed. "It only took a few dozen eons—but you finally grew up to look like your mother. Ha. Ha ha." The joke left a bitter taste behind his eye. (Eyes.) "Ekoj kcis a fo aedi ruoy siht si, Ltoloxa?"

The Axolotl didn't answer. Bill didn't expect him to.

He tossed the clean shirt over the mirror, discovered the bathroom had a second mirror, and took off the shirt he'd been wearing for almost a week to cover that one, too. He unpeeled the rest of his clothes, trying to avoid looking too close at the human body as he did—it seemed worse now than it had when he'd first gotten this body, with the image of that alien face seared into his memory, knowing he wasn't on this body but dissolved inside it.

Once he'd cleaned this body to the humans' satisfaction and gotten out of here, he could handle future hygiene issues by scrubbing off in the sink in his curtained bathroom downstairs. He'd only have to go through this indignity once.

So just get it over with. And use the time to think up new ways to irritate the humans into doing what he wanted.

####

He tried first bathing in the filled tub, until the cold water had him shivering so hard he couldn't properly coordinate his hands; then drained it and tried showering; and then filled it with warm water and attempted bathing again.

Most of him, he supposed, was clean enough for a human's tastes—any signs of peeling dead skin scrubbed off, no visible dirt, no noticeable smell but the smell of soap—but he doubted the hair would pass muster. It still had asphalt dust in it from almost a week ago, not to mention whatever his scalp had been shedding since then.

But, unfortunately, the hair was the worst part. He could scrub skin with no trouble; but when he was bathing, sunk down to his chin, trying to feel weightless again, the hair floated around him like a grotesque ghost, closing in. When he was showering, it dangled on his face, clinging to his skin, like it was trying to creep under his eyelid and down his throat and choke him. Just knowing it was there made his stomach turn; touching it made his throat burn as energy drink bile tried to escape his stomach. 

Maybe if Bill brushed the tangles out first. That would knock out some of the dirt without him having to touch it himself. He sat on the edge of the tub, letting the growing tingling pain in his legs as his circulation was cut off distract him from the feeling of hair sticking to his cheeks and shoulders.

He tried to brush it out with his eyes shut, and his knuckles accidentally dragged across the filaments, wet, clammy, clingy. He yanked the brush free and felt hundreds of hairs jerking against their follicles. He forced himself to try again with his eyes open, holding the brush by the very tip of the handle. The bristles sank into the lumpen tangled mass of dead curling skin, and, as he tugged it down, slowly peeled the soggy strands of flesh apart—

His stomach hurt with the force of his retch. He clapped a hand over his mouth, dropped to his knees, and barely managed to get his dinner on the floor instead of on himself.

Voice a shaky, plaintive whine, he said, "Stop doing that to me." He shut his eyes, pressing his sweaty forehead to the cool rim of the bath tub. (Should he have aimed for the tub? Maybe the toilet? Were the humans going to get on his case for getting sick?) "It doesn't help," he hissed. "If I'm already neauseous, purging a load of bile does not help. It makes—it—worse. Why are humans built like this."

The Pines were tyrants. If he begged to be let out with his hair still grimy, the best he could hope for was mockery. Any pleas for mercy would cost him dearly. He wasn't getting out of here until he'd dealt with the hair.

He pulled the makeshift curtain aside on one of the mirrors. His vision was bleary from soap; the soggy hair draped in a loose, disheveled triangle shape around his head, like a mangled corpse. He shuddered and let the fabric drop. 

A knock on the door. "It's been an hour, Cipher."

Ford. Bill rubbed his throat and hoped he didn't sound like he'd just been sick. "Gimme another hour."

"That's ridiculous. It takes less than ten minutes to shower, how could you possibly need two hours?"

"So I haven't had the practice at scrubbing skin folds that you have! Give me a break! How many hundreds of showers do you take a year? Do you know how hard it is to hold a bar of soap for more than half a second, or are you so used to it that you've forgotten these things are slippery?"

There was a pause. "You can't hold soap."

"My hands are small, Stanford."

"Fine. One more hour, but that's all you get."

"Fine, I don't care! If I'm not done in an hour, kick down the door and call the hygiene police on me." Bill was pretty sure you couldn't even get a call through to the hygiene police from this dimension. "Go away. I'm focusing."

Why had the Axolotl given him hair. Why hadn't he dumped Bill on Earth bald and balloon-smooth, let the patchy human fur patterns grow in over time? Why hadn't he at least given Bill less hair—why did it need to be so long—

But his hair didn't need to be long, did it? Bill didn't need to have hair at all. Hair was the easiest human body part to self-amputate, easier even than fingernails or ears. Inspired, Bill started searching the bathroom cabinet drawers—et voila. The Pines had no doubt removed any razors or scissors before leaving Bill in this bathroom, but he managed to find a bottle of hair removal cream. Probably courtesy of Question Mark's girlfriend. Cosmetic acid: one of humanity's many endearing little quirks. This would liquefy the roots of the hair, and Bill could get out of here.

It was easier to touch the hair when he was powered by rage, sliding his cream-coated fingers through the clingy filaments in service of burning it all away. The tingle on his scalp was a welcome distraction from the feeling of the hair itself, and feeling the tingle gradually blossom into a full blaze was a relief. Chemical burn. That was a luxurious pain—it tightened his lungs and squeezed rapturous tears from his eyes, so good he almost forgot there was another goal to this pain.

Maybe it would damage some of his follicles enough to prevent the hair from regrowing. Maybe he could wring some pity out of his captors—see this damage, isn't it hideous, look what you made me do—how long could he milk that? A few weeks?

He tolerated the burn as long as he thought he could get away with it without requiring hospitalization, then turned the shower on again. The ice cold water didn't wash the dead hair off fast enough. Some of it stuck to his skin; some was brittle, but not quite fully dissolved.

And that one, last, tiny inconvenience was more than he could stand. 

The hair stuck to his chest, his arms, his hands as he ripped it off. Dead flesh, peeling apart and rotting, dead flesh all over him. He ran his hands over his head, fingers trembling with disgust, and tore out clumps of hair to fling to the ground. His eardrums boomed with his heartbeat. If there had been anyone else in the room he would have murdered them with his bare hands just to purge some rage. Over and over, desperate, obsessed, get it off get it off—

Until his head was so smooth that the pain of the chemical burns masked what few fibers were left. Until the icy shower left his skin so cold it hurt. He stepped out of the shower, triumphantly tore the shirt down from the mirror to see the results—and froze in horror.

When a cloud of gold hair had dangled down from his scalp, he'd looked like a triangle rotting apart—the corpse of Bill Cipher.

Now, he looked at his face, and he didn't see Bill Cipher at all. He'd destroyed the last of himself.

At his feet was a murder scene, all mangled golden gore.

####

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #gravity falls #gravity falls fic #my writing #my art #bill goldilocks cipher

[x-infernhoes-x]

Dangerous Game- Dominic x Reader [SMUT]

Dominic aka Hot Aswang Leader, Abswang, Zadddy Aswang x Reader

Warnings (?):  Smut, Blood, Biting, Implied Relationship, Implied Consent, Dominic being slightly possessive? M A R K I N G S, Oral (female receiving), THEY BE GOING AT IT NON-STOP

Genre: Good Ol’ Fashioned Forbidden Love (if there’s a genre like that LMAO)

Description: I wrote this at 3:40 am last night while listening to Dangerous Game from the Broadway Musical, Jeykll and Hyde and my brain immediately went, why not coconut? So have this little brain fart I just got when I’m supposed to be sleeping. Come get y’alls juice Dominic simps. Also, reader is AFAB but I’ll try my hand at a gender-neutral one if ever I get possessed by the spirits of determination, diligence and inspiration. Also included a Bridgerton reference there and maybe an Ang Darling Kong Aswang reference too kasi why the fuck not.

PS. I’ve managed to finish this up sometime around 2:45 am today and yes I did sleep last night/yesterday and no, I didn’t spend my whole weekend writing this fic. Maybe.

He knew this was all sorts of wrong from the start and yet here he was, standing within the bed chambers of the woman he burns for more than anything in this world and a strong and almost otherworldly desire that only could be satiated by being with her. Dominic knew that his kind and his lover’s kind would be at odds due to how their nature was as a creature of the night to prey on humans. Although despite this, he was feeling hopeful that his relationship with his beloved would last. As the Aswang Prince, he was well aware that was happening around the clans he ruled over and he also knew of the union of Elisa who happened to be one of his people and her now husband, Victor. He also knew about the bloodshed that had taken place during that time and how it led to the civil unrest and rebellion within the tribes of his kind that rages on up until this day.

The wind from the open window where he had come from seemed to rage on and about outside as if there was a storm brewing. There before him stood (y/n) clad in her sleepwear with her back facing him, dark eyes wide in disbelief and brows furrowed in uncertainty and the Aswang Prince could tell from the way she stood and presented herself that she was thinking about the same thing as him. Shrugging off his coat, he then took a step forward towards his beloved who seemed to be unmoving before him, strong arms wrapped around her shoulders, his sharp nails gently running down the tense woman’s arms, back before halting to a stop on her neck and stomach with a gentle yet vice-like grip, his face gently nuzzling against her warm skin, breathing in her scent like a drug.

I feel your fingers- Brushing my shoulder- Your tempting touch, As it tingles my spine- Watching your eyes As they invade my soul- Forbidden pleasures I'm afraid to make mine.

“D-Dominic, what are you doing…?” His lover would ask, trying her best to pull herself away from the prince, breath hitched in her throat, soft lips trapped in between her teeth. “Hindi natin tong pwedeng ipagpatuloy….delikado na.” Tilting her head towards him, Dominic responded to her, breath ghosting over her lips, “I know…Pero wala na akong pakilam kung mahuli pa tayong dalawa.” Before he would bestow his lover a searing and passionate kiss hotter than the flames of hell and the santelmo could ever conjure, his hands relinquishing their hold upon her throat as they made their way down past her shoulders, breasts and stomach only to disappear between the valley of her thighs where his fingers would make quick work of her folds, already dripping wet with her arousal, making his lover groan out in pleasure, his hips bucking against her backside.

At the touch of your hand- At the sound of your voice- At the moment your eyes meet mine- I am out of my mind- I am out of control- Full of feelings I can't define!

With Dominic’s left hand still relentlessly working upon his lover’s heat, he could feel (Y/N)’s hands attempt to push him away once more, her chest heaving and skin flushed a deep red, letting out a fragile keen of his name escape her lips before he took a step back once he felt her tug on his jeans, a hint for him to take off what was left of his clothing, the thick plume of desire that once clouded his mind seemed to dissipate when he felt his own arousal escape the confines of his now discarded garments as he let out a moan of his own once he saw (Y/N) drop her night dress to the ground, awakening something primal within him, eyes drinking in every single curve, dip and imperfections that his lover had. To him, (Y/N) was the most beautiful woman he had set his sights on regardless of what she would say and it was pretty ironic to say that an Aswang like him was starting to believe that God was real and that God was definitely a woman that took the form of his lover who was perfect in every way.

It's a sin with no name- Like a tiger to tame And my senses proclaim It's a dangerous game!

With their lips pressed together in a heated kiss that seemed to drive them both wild, the raven haired Prince of the night drew back with a low snarl, his teeth trapping her lips between his enough to draw blood as he pulled away with a smirk, the dark red liquid staining both of their lips as he spoke, voice raspy and deep, “I’ll make sure that you’ll only feel me and only me tonight and leave marks on your skin as a symbol of my love. Sa akin ka lang at ako sayo, naiintindihan mo ba?” his words seemed to send chills down the quivering woman’s spine as he dragged his sharp nails down against her soft flesh, his lips and occasionally his tongue and fangs would trail lower and lower, his face disappearing between her legs, eating her out like a starved beast, his nose brushing against the soft bundle of nerves, hands gripping her thighs and hips tightly with his unnatural strength, his nails dug into her flesh, which left miniscule bleeding marks where Dominic held her, his eyes boring into hers, drinking in the sounds (Y/N) made like fine wine.

It's a sin with no name- Like a tiger to tame And my senses proclaim It's a dangerous game! A darker dream That has no ending Something unreal That you want to be true.

They’ve done this a million of times but Dominic would never get tired of hearing his lover’s needy pleas for him whenever they made love like this, his fingers would tease her entrance relentlessly, watching her squirm and thrash upon her mattress with an almost sadistic delight. He loved how she would beg for him, how her body reacted to his fervent touches and how breathless she would get after he would kiss her. He loved every second of it and it was safe to say that Dominic was proud of himself to be able to make his beloved to become like this and all for his eyes only. After a few more flicks of his devilishly talented tongue, Dominic then pulled away a grin plastered on his face while his partner mewled rather pathetically, almost as if to ask him why he ceased his relentless teasing just as she was this close on reaching her much needed release and was surprised to feel two of his fingers enter her, curling and twisting inside of her clenching walls that made Dominic groan the same time his love had yelped and screamed his name out like a desperate prayer and all at once his fingers came out of her with a satisfying ‘pop’, admiring how her juices coated his fingers and glistened in the dim lighting of her room like ambrosia.

A strange romance Out of a mystery tale The frightened princess Doesn't know what to do!

Does she just run away? Does she risk it and stay? Either way, there's no way to win! All I know is, I'm lost And I'm counting the cost My emotions are in a spin! And though no one's to blame...

“Here, have a taste of yourself.” Dominic stated, pressing his fingers against (Y/N)’s lips, which of course the overstimulated woman took in with such eagerness, sucking on his digits like how she would suck on a lollipop, her gaze hazy and pupils blown, almost turning themselves as dark as the night and that was enough for Dominic to enter her without warning but had enough preparation for him, her moans silenced by the fingers that were still in her mouth, her tongue now swirling around them making him growl against the junction of her shoulder and neck, his fangs piercing the skin there as well before he pulled his fingers away from her mouth, replacing it with his own, not minding the slight metallic taste from the incisions he had left a few moments ago.

It's a crime and a shame! But it's true, all the same It's a dangerous game!

No one speaks- Not one word- All the words are in our eyes Silence speaks Loud and clear- All the words we want to hear! It was an all lips, tongue and teeth type of kiss that seemed to flare both of their senses up into overdrive and making the lovers both drunk and high off of the euphoria they were sharing. Both of their bodies rocking against each other, their hands grasping whatever their fingers could touch, grab and tug at. Dominic could feel (Y/N)’s nails run down from his shoulders and down to his back, edging him to go as fast as he could on her, his hair sticking haphazardly onto his now sweaty skin, hips furiously slamming into her with no breaks at all. Dominic was living for it and this action alone made him hoist (Y/N)’s leg up to rest upon his shoulder while the other one snuck behind her, reeling the woman in closer by her haunches, both of them moaning in delight. At that moment they both couldn’t care less about the sounds they made, the important thing was that they were both here together, regardless of what the consequences that would soon bestow upon them.

What happened next between them was all a blur save for the things they’ve done in one whole night. Dominic took (Y/N) to great heights with him making love to her continuously, he had her pressed against the wall with him taking her from behind, on the floor, on her dresser, on every possible surface and position he could think of down to the point where the two of them did it in front of the mirror where he would watch his length disappear within her and the way her breasts would bounce every single time he would thrust into her, his hand would grip on her throat and would tighten slightly, lips would ghost over her ear whispering a string of curses and words that would give Satan himself a run for his money and his lover would respond to every word he would say with a moan or a mantra of his name and it was a sign that she was close, coming for whatever time that night and he was nearing his climax too from the way he was holding her against him.

I am losing my mind- I am losing control- Full of feelings I can't define! It's a sin with no name Like a tiger to tame and though no one's to blame It's a crime and a shame And the angels proclaim It's a dangerous game!

“D-dom, I-I’m close!!” (Y/N) cried out with tears in her eyes the moment Dominic had thrown her upon her bed, her toes curling and hands balled up into fists, . “Then come with me, my love. I w-want to see you break.” The prince would respond as he pulled her into a tight embrace, still rocking against her like there was no tomorrow and soon enough, they both came together leaving (Y/N) mumbling out his name like a babbling child, her insides coated with his own juices as she shakily held into her, both trembling from the extreme ecstasy they both felt.

Once they both had come down from their respective highs, the Aswang Leader could only pull his face back from its previous position from (Y/N)’s shoulder, his touch soft and light as he brushed away some strands away from her face with a soft smile as the two basked in the afterglow of their passionate love making, the two would merely hold entwine each other’s hands as a silent promise to never let go of each other before Dominic pressed a sweet kiss upon it. “Mahal kita.” He spoke firmly, eyes full of love, warmth and vulnerability that only she was allowed to see as the female responded with a kiss and a soft smile before saying, “Mahal din kita, Dominic.”  And soon the two lovers fell asleep, with their bodies pressed up against each other.

It's a dangerous game! Such a dangerous game...

#trese #trese netflix #aswang leader #dominic #trese x reader #fanfic #smut #dominic x reader #dominic simps come get y'alls juice #lemon #trese dominic #iTS ALMOST DAYBREAK FFS #BACKPAIN AND SHOULDER PAIN IS REAL #ENJOY YA SIMPS #Also a side note #please for the love of all that is holy proof read your works #I JUST NOTICED I PUT FLOOR TWICE IN THIS FFS #trese imagine

[sailorhyunjinz]

~ High on hatred ~

Warnings: SMUT, college!au, stoner!jisung, fem!reader, goodstudent x badstudent, illegal substances, fingering, blowjob, aggressivity(?), choking, hairpulling, penetrative sex (stay safe :c), nicknames (babygirl, slut..), hickies, cuddles!

Word count: 3,134 words (ok cherry slow down ffs) 

Requested: yesyes~ thank u anon for requestiiing cc:

Note: ok huge note here! i literally know nothing about drugs/illegal substances (or even legal substances for maybe except my raging caffeine addiction)  (where im from most substances are illegal heh) so please understand if this shits written like shit) also bad boys x good girls is my WEAKNESS since i always want some “bad boy” to wreck my good girl agenda hahahsh 

Jisung wasn’t the most outstanding student in college but somehow you ended up being partners for a group project. The quiet straight A kid with the failing stoner, you could already imagine how this would go. You sat next to him in the lecture hall after your professor had announced the pairs and dreaded introducting yourself but your parents raised you with the belief that kindness comes first so you took a deep breath and said: 

“Hi! I’m y/n” you smiled at him. His gaze met yours, those dark brown eyes were somewhat bloodshot and his aura reeked of smoke. 

“Sup, Jisung” he waved with his thumb, pointer- and middle finger lazily towards you as his gaze scanned your body. You felt a bit uncomfortable by his predatory stare so you shifted in your seat, adjusting the white flowy skirt you had on. 

“Ehm.. so.. how do you want to structure up the project? I was thinking that we could divide the parts by-” you were stopped by his scoff. You looked at him in confusion. This would be much more difficult than you anticipated.

“Come over to my house tonight babygirl” his corny smirk and raspy voice made you want to punch him. Taken aback you turned your head slightly as you said; 

“What? So I can be another one of the girls you fuck?” your blood was boiling. Who does he think he is with his snapback and  dangly silver earrings? 

“Chill, I was thinking about working on the project but you seem to have other plans in mind with me” he smirked, still observing you. 

Your face turned beet red and Jisungs cocky attitude did not help in the slightest. 

“I.. I d-didn’t mean that..” you stuttered but you decided to shut up to not make the situation worse. Jisung reached for the post-it notes that were by your side and wrote something down. He teared it off the pad and just as you stood up, hoping to walk away and never see him again you heard him say;

“Babygirl, come at 7″ he stretched out his arm, hand holding the note. 

You grabbed it aggressively and stomped off as you heard him yell “Come safely babygirl” 

♡ 

On your way home you crumbled up the note and stuffed it in your pocket. You had no intention of meeting him but when you arrived home you reached for the pink note in your pocket as you took off your backpack and sat down in the kitchen. The pink note had his adress on it. The urge to just scream and rip up the note was strong but something stopped you and that was the fact that you needed to get this project done. You were not going to fail because of some stoner. You unpacked your bag and started studying on some of your other courses but the note always lurked in the corner of your eye. 

Hours later you stood infront of your mirror putting different shirts on hangers against your torso, comparing the colors. Being preoccupied with choosing the cutest shirt you didn’t notice the fact that you tried to look your best for Jisung. Eventually you snapped out of your good girl side that always wanted to look presentable. Why do I care about what he thinks of me? You rolled your eyes and put the shirts back into your closet as you took out a sweatshirt and a matching pair of sweatpants. “This will do” you said under your breath as you slipped into the comfortable fabric before you ordered a taxi. 

“Shit better be worth it” you sighed as you clicked “proceed” and saw the sum. You packed your bag with the necessary stationary, threw on a fluffy ivory jacket and grabbed the keys with a jingle. 

You greeted the taxi driver whose taxi stood infront of the apartment complex. Before you headed out you managed to grab the pink note and now showed it to the driver that nodded whilst the soft radio static played in the background. The town looked so peaceful in the evenings, the artificial lights from the thousands of offices reflected in your glistening eyes as you looked out the window. You noticed that your shoulders were tense signaling that you were nervous which was dumb. Why would you be nervous to meet a dirtbag that has the right to call you ‘babygirl’? A shudder cascaded down your spine at the though of that awful nickname, especially when it echoed in your head in Jisungs voice. 

The taxi halted infront of a long block of brick apartment complexes, the nightlife being busy as usual in the big city you resided. A small “thank you” slipped out of your tongue before you opened the car door and were met by the cold breeze. The entrence had grand glas and wood double doors which opened with a loud creek. You looked at the note once again, checking what apartment number the boy lived in. “248″ you muttered as you made your way up the stone staircase. “Found it”, you stood infront of the slightly bashed ivy colored door. Your hesitant fist made it’s way to knock on the door and after 5 nervewracking seconds the tall, slim boy opened the door with a joint between his lips. Smoke was emitting from behind him and the organic scent hit your nostrils. 

“You came babygirl” he leaned against the door frame as he drew in the smoke from the joint and blew it towards you. You coughed and waved your hand infront of your nose, clearing the smoke. 

“What you standing for? Come in” he snapped his head backwards as a sign for you to step in. You looked down and entered the small smoke-filled apartment. He went to his room and you followed behind with small steps observing the disorganised living space that was cluttered with takeout boxes and photos of friends. His room wasn’t any better. Piles of laundry sat everywhere in the small room and the bed wasn’t made. Did he seriously think that the two of you could do the project when there was a mess wherever you looked? He kicked a pile of clothes away from the carpet and threw a cushion from the bed towards you. He sat down on the carpet as he drew in another breath of smoke into his lungs. Reluctantly you sat down on the cushion opposite to Jisung that was dressed in a boxy white t-shirt and black basketball shorts. 

The big bunch of papers that were required for the project came out of your backpack that was sitting beside you. You spread out the papers on the carpet to make sure Jisung could see but he didn’t seem interested. Instead he kept on smoking as he stared at you intentively, that preditory gaze of his returning. As you were about to start talking about the ideas you had he stretched out his hand offering you a puff. You furrowed your eyebrows as a response to his action. 

“No thanks, I don’t do... that..” you said whilst shaking your head gently. 

That teeth-gritting smirk was plastered on his face as he said:

“You sure babygirl? It will help you relax” he heightened his eyebrows at you. 

Normally you would be very stubborn. You never let anyone do something to you that you didn’t like but in that moment you were swooned by his presence. Was it your feelings or the smoke that you had been breathing in? Without thinking twice you grabbed the joint from his hand to which he licked his lips, grinning.

You put it against your lips and puffed deeply, tasting the smoke in your mouth and feeling it spread in your lungs. A loud cough startled Jisung a bit and you passed the joint back to the brown haired boy. Instantly he looked thousands times more attractive. ‘I must be crazy’ you though as you gently shook your head and tried to concentrate at the papers laid out infront of you. In your peripheral view you saw Jisung shift closer to you and you lifted your head up to look at him. There was something intoxicating about him. The way his brown locks hanged over his eyes or how his piercings shined in the light from outside or maybe it was that veiny hand that held the flaming joint. Whatever it was you found yourself leaning closer to him. Just as he hit the joint again, the smoke spreading in his mouth, you attached your light pink lips onto his plump ones. Jisung opened his mouth in the kiss, crashing his tongue on yours which made the smoke enter your mouth. Being to caught up in the moment Jisung put out the joint on the dark wood flooring which probably was a huge fire hazard but did either of you care in the moment? No. 

The kiss was passionate coming from the tremendous amount of sexual tension in the air. Jisung veiny hand cupped your blushing cheek for a second before it snaked around the back of your neck, pulling you deeper into the wet sloppy kiss. You broke the kiss for a moment to stand up and Jisung did the same but only for a moment as you were pushed down against the unmade bed. It smelled just like him. The substances he was smoking accentuated his natural smell because of course it wasn’t just weed but tobacco as well. You remembered the countless times he had been smoking a cigarette with his friends outside the college department and the momentary eye contact the two of you made before you hurried off to your other classes. It always seemed like his gaze lingered on you even as you walked away. 

You landed with your hands beside your head. As Jisung hovered above you he held both of your hands in his, pinning you to the bed. The wet patch in your panties was growing simply by seeing him on top of you. He leaned down to kiss you once again, biting so hard on your bottom lip that it almost drew blood. The two tongues fought for dominance but the second his hand crept underneath your sweatshirt you lost, a low whine escape your mouth in defeat. Your heads twisted as the makeout session got a slow but steady pace. His hand was warm but more substantial than you though against your boobs which he squeezed harshly through your white bra. Involuntarily your hand grabs a fist of his hair making him smirk against the kiss.

“Desperate babygirl?” he coaxes you. 

“Desperate to get this over with so we can work on the project” you answer inbetween kisses.

“I think you have a much bigger problem to worry about” he growled and looked down for a split second.

As if the smoke wasn’t enough this just added fuel to the fire, both to the deep red color your cheeks were stained with and the wetness in your panties. His clothes were off in a blink and before you knew it he was pulling away yours as well, leaving you with nothing but your slightly embarrassing pink panties that were decorated with a small animal print. 

“Aren’t you adorable?” he cooed at you as his hand trailed down your torso and plummeted into your panties. 

“Shut up-ahh” your attempt of trying to bring his cocky attitude failed once again when he brutally entered two fingers into your sopping cunt. You couldn’t help but to moan as he started to pump his digits inside of you obviously enjoying the sight of the good girl being demolished beneath his touch. When he started to circle your clit with his thumb you held on to his wrist, digging your nails into his skin in order to stop a loud moan. Jisungs fingertips grazed your g-spot and by this point your small whines turned into breathy moans. 

“I though you didn’t like me?” he said arrogantly.

“I don’t” you tried to keep your composure even though his fingers felt so good inside of you. 

“Judging by your wet cunt you seem to like me very much, babygirl” he said while grabbing a fistful of your hair. You couldn’t argue because if you really hated him why were you so desperate to have his length inside of you? 

Jisungs fingers pulled out of you, your juices covered his digits and as his fingers got closer to your face you opened your mouth and sucked them clean. He harshly pulls you up by your hair, now sitting on the edge of the bed as Jisung stands infront of you. His dick had both girth and length which made your mouth water by just the sight. The red tip was decorated with a bead of precum and as he still held your hair he put the tip against your lips. Instantly you started sucking him off. First you kitten licked the tip of his immense dick being a bit afraid of his size but Jisung got impatient and yanked you by your hair once again, making you take him fully in your mouth and choking. Your eyes burned as they teared up but that didn’t stop you from sucking him off, hollowing your cheeks and bobbing your head profusely. He didn’t seem too impressed though. 

“I think I found one thing babygirl can’t do. Sucking dick” he grinned as he looked you deep in the eyes for a second before he bucked his hips into your mouth and facefucked you. His length hit the back of your throat everytime he fucked into you but you were to busy looking at his perfect face. Those sinful grunts that came out from his mouth made you rub your thighs in desperation. How could someone you hated look so ethereal with his dick in your mouth? The way sweat beads formed around his temple and coated a couple of those light brown streaks. The way his big hand held your hair tightly and most importantly those sounds. Those lewd sounds that rolled off his tongue. 

He rolled his head back and then looked back at you, catching you staring at him. 

“No I definitely think babygirl likes me. Those loving eyes don’t lie” he uttered, staring at you and stroking a piece of your hair behind your ear. 

As he pulled out you caught your breath and coughed a for bit before you scooted back on the bed, dragging Jisung by his hand which landed him on top of you once again. He seperated your legs with his knee and lined himself up with your entrance before slowly pushing into you. His girth with the slow movement made you roll your eyes back, the feeling of being filled made you content. 

“Fuck...you feel so tight” he said, brows furrowed as he started to slowly push in and out of you. You wrapped your arms around his neck pulling him into a kiss to muffle your moans. The pace steadily increased as you bit his bottom lip while kissing, returning the favor from before that contributed to your swollen lips. When the kiss broke a string of spit seperated your lips as the both of you panted from the thrusts that were becoming more aggressive. You moaned as you gripped onto the bedsheets upon which your knuckles whitened. Jisungs noises turned you on crazily but when he snaked his hand around your neck you could only whine in response. He choked you and held you pinned down stopping you from squirming away.  The other hand was circling your clit which only heightened the pleasure, eyes rolling back into your skull. A squeak erupted from the bed everytime Jisung pounded into your soaked cunt but that wasn’t the only sound. The both of you moaned in unison which fit the sound of skin slapping that was filling the room. You tightly shut your eyes trying to silence a moan but opened them soon after, meeting Jisungs brown orbs. His lids were low from the blunt smoke but that only gave his arrogant attitude a boost. 

You could feel that he was near by the way his dick twitched inside of you. Feeling cocky you decided to clench against his length which also pushed you closer to your own release. He was clearly getting pissed and leaned down to your neck, sucking purple marks onto it which would be impossible to cover up. You whined and squirmed as you needed to go to school tomorrow and couldn’t bear the strange looks from others when your neck was covered in bruises. 

“That’s what you get for clenching around me like a little slut” he growled against your neck as you clenched around him once again earning a moan from him. Now he was getting really close and so were you. His thrusts got harder but sloppier, your boobs bouncing with the pace. You clenched around him one last time and that was the trigger for Jisungs release. The vein on his neck popped up to the surface as his jaw hanged open. Your cunt filled with his warm load which made you cum grip tightly on anything beside you. The both of you rode out the orgasm which made your legs shake and spine bend up from the mattress. Eventually Jisung pulled out leaving you feeling empty with his white cum dripping out of your hole. He layed beside you and panted, chest heaving. You layed there in silence for a minute, only the sound of heavy breathing could be heard in the dark evening. Deciding to clean up the mess he had made you stood up causing the cum to leak down your unstable leg but before you could take a step Jisung grabbed your soft hand and pulled you down onto the bed again. You looked at him in confusion. 

“You weren’t planning on leaving me without any cuddles?” he said with a slightly whining voice.  

You couldn’t believe what you heard. Before another thought could cross your mind you were already snuggled up in his arms, your head against his heaving chest. It was cozy and you felt safe despite that you barely knew him. You stroked his cheek gently as you observed his perfect facial features. Sure, his attitude could use some work but his face had a flawless charm. 

“We should study more often” he muttered against your hair as he kissed you on your head. 

Even if the caring boy was high off his rockers your heart fluttered at his words. You blushed as you snuggled closer to his chest, falling sound asleep in his grasp. 

#stray kids smut #stray kids imagines #stray kids fanfic #stray kids drabbles #stray kids reactions #skzsmut #skz smut #skz fanfic #skz x y/n #stray kids x y/n #stray kids x reader #stray kids x stay #jisung smut #han smut #han x y/n #jisung x you #jisung x reader #jisung x y/n #han x reader #kpop smut

[gottaenjoythelittlethingzz]

Early Evening

Part 2 of the ongoing, loosely interconnected series Swellview has a New First Lady.

Summary: When Ray returns to the Man Cave after a particularly messy battle against a villain, we get to see the internal workings of Cheyanne's and Ray's flirty, romantic relationship. And Cheyanne reveals exactly how much sway she holds over Ray.

*Keep in this series can be read on AO3 & FF.*

~~~~~

Cheyanne had just finished closing up the store for the night. Another shift gone over without a hitch. The counters were wiped down, the junk was newly organized into bins and separated from any loose odds and ends, and the sign hanging on the glass entrance to Junk N’ Stuff read, ‘Sorry, we’re NOT in’. The cash register was emptied, and she carried the day’s meager profits in the elevator, counting bills as she rode down.

When she stepped into the Man Cave she noticed it vacant. This suited her well. It was nice when she could turn in for an early evening. A rare occurrence in these parts.

She was halfway to the sprocket which would lead her further into the expansive underground maze when a swooshing noise halted her footsteps. A single tube shot abruptly to the floor and a blue-and-red-suited superhero dropped in.

“Honey, I’m ho-hughhh.” Ray came tumbling out of the tube clutching his stomach and nose independently. His sarcastic comment lost behind a violent, extended wrenching noise. Since he’s so use to the tube ride it was clear his nausea was in response to the black soot smudged across him from head to toe. The gooey substance was largely crusted on and had entered ever crevice possible. It replaced his normal golden eye makeup with a smoky eye look. The smell it produced wafted across the Man Cave floor and Cheyanne smelt it herself before he approached her.

Cheyanne went to cover her own mouth and nose before smiling sardonically and using two fingers to trace a subtle path from her manicured brow to her peaked lips. She tapped them lightly when questioning, “So, how’d it go?”

“Terrible!” Ray roared. He further smudged the muck on his face and temporarily lost his balance when he could no longer see. Thankfully, he stopped with a few feet of flooring between himself and Cheyanne to correct his eye sight. “Professor Putrid had us chasing him all over down town and into the Swellview ‘Sludges and Slops’ disposal plant. I fell into a vat of tar trying to land a punch on him when he sprayed me with canned skunk spray.”

“That’s horrible.” Cheyanne made her voice sound soothing and sympathetic while simultaneously desiring to reach for a bottle of Febreze. “It should really be a more difficult place to break into. How did – hmph – how’d you catch him? I assume you did in the end.”

“You better believe we caught him!” Ray scraped at his skin with both his hands looking much like a kitten trying to cleanse itself without help until he opened one eye and then finally the other. “Henry used his super power to taunt Professor Putrid in a game of tag. Led the gross weirdo underneath a bucket of quick dry cementing mud. Done in by his own prototype. They’ll have to chisel his face free to get a clear mugshot of him.” Getting his first proper look at Cheyanne in what had been hours, Ray attempted to draw nearer to her while regaling his heroic tale. “The bucket was just dangling there. Suspended ten feet off the ground. Can you believe it?”

Cheyanne made a circular motion with her arms to raise them in question. A visual distraction as she took a sizeable step backwards at the same time. “Who would have thought?”

“You’re one to know, Chey. Anyone who would do half of something like this to the Man Mane is going to serve time.” He ran his hands over his hair trying his best to peel strands loose. The tar had plastered the locks to his scalp and refused to budge. He took another step forward. He hoped to be met with affirmation of his character. “Man, I’m going to have to do my most advanced hair care routine.” The process was designed to be grueling, employed numerous creams and gels, and was assured to undo most any damages.

“It sure is a good thing there’s a new suit in each gumball because that tar is never coming out.” Cheyanne tried to take a step forward to meet him halfway, but another wave of vile odor hit her nostrils, and she relaxed her arms by her sides. Least he think she was offering her hands. “Speaking of taking criminals to jail. Is that were Henry is now?”

An expression flitted across Ray’s face, one like he had not only forgotten his sidekick had been with him mere minutes ago, but it was as though he had forgotten the teenage apprentice existed entirely. “Yeah, yeah. Henry’s taking Professor ‘Pitiful’ to Swellview county prison. Should have dropped the mad scientist off by now.”

“What have I told you about making Henry go by himself?” Cheyanne’s voice shifts from playful to maternal.

“Henry knows where the prison is. He’s been enough times. He’s totally fine!” Ray manufactured excuses. “This was just an annoying level three villain who didn’t even have a superpower. It’s not like I asked the kid to take Arson Boy to jail by himself.”

Cheyanne shook her head with concern. Her brown eyes were always warm, deep pools of understanding but could turn stern all the same. “I don’t like Henry taking criminals to jail on his own. Some of the officers pick on him for his age. The criminals could escape from him. And besides, a crime isn’t solved until the perpetrator is put away. You should have to complete each job with him. I don’t care if Henry’s getting older and is able to handle more responsibilities. It simply isn’t fair to him that he ends up pulling more hours at work than his boss.”

Ray renewed his tactic with an equal level of enthusiasm that he carried with him down the tube. “But, what if I said I wanted to hurry home to spend more alone time with Mrs. Manchester?” His eye brows climbed his forehead. He reached for her again. This time planning to snake his arms around her curvaceous waist.

“No, no, no.” Cheyanne skipped around the couch, using the furniture as a barrier between herself and the immature man. “Not until you’ve thrown that suit out in a dumpster somewhere far, far away, and taken a long, long shower.”

“Come on,” Ray clasped his hands against the rim of the mobile amenity. He made quick crab walking steps to the left and right while verbally taunting her. “You know I like to fool around in uniform.”

“That’s fine, except we can’t actually see it underneath all that foul muck!” Cheyanne was able to expertly predict Ray’s movements. She herself was unable to bite back the adoring smile from creeping onto her face.

He pointed an accusing finger her way. “Don’t act like you don’t like it just a little bit when I come back sweaty and grimy from an epic battle. You know you’re the only person I can temporarily share my ability with, huh?” Ray’s face was completely overtaken by his perfect teeth shining through his victorious grin. He could easily be swayed by his own words even when they didn’t work on anyone else around him. “It’s kind of our ‘thing’, right?”

Cheyanne gasped playfully and brought a hand up to her chest, bracelets shifting noisily to follow the path through the air her arm created, suggesting she was offended by his lewd suggestion. “There’s a lot more going on with you than natural bodily fluids, okay?”

Before she could condemn him further Ray sprang into action. He catapulted his legs over the couch, slide across the table, and landed with his feet on the cushioned seat directly in front of Cheyanne. She was startled by his boisterous movements and leapt backwards straight into the monitors’ chair. She was able to narrowly dodge his sweeping arms.

“Ulch,” Ray complained. He collapsed against the backrest. His head and arms drooping over the edge. “You’re really not going to jump on this opportunity while there are no crimes in progress, and no one is down here to bug us?”

Cheyanne cocked her head and calmly stood from the seat. She spun it in her hands and walked behind the object to place it between them. “Maybe I will reconsider…” She tapped her nails rhythmically to call his eyes onto her. “But first you must get rid of that old suit. And you have to shower - twice.”

Ray smirked at the images his idea called to mind. “Or maybe you could join me in the –.”

“Shower twice!” In a flash, his face morphed with disgruntlement. Flopping dramatically onto his back and sliding off the couch feet first, he began begrudgingly heading towards the stairs. His feet stomping. He might have mumbled something under his breath.

“And darling,” Cheyanne called to his retreating form.

Ray stopped to look over his shoulder. Hope swelled upon hearing his pet name used.

“Put on one of the shirts I like.”

Ray rotated his shoulders to face her, his expression suddenly befuddled. “You mean, don’t put on one of the many loud button up shirts I wear?”

Cheyanne clicked her tongue and nodded assertively.

He brought his hands up to his chest where he tapped his fists together. “Th-the blue one or the purple one?”

Cheyanne gave him a once over before replying with a curt, “Surprise me.”

“And then, maybe…” his voice trailed. The back of his neck warm to the touch.

“I can be persuaded.”

With an emphatic nod, Ray stated, “I can do that.” He promptly headed towards the shower. A new sense of urgency in his steps.

~~~~

No edit this time, but maybe in the future. Feel free to let me know what you think of this couple so far!

#nevada writes #wip series #henry danger fanfiction #oc: Cheyanne #henry danger #ray manchester #i ship them #writeblr #writeblr community #humour

[ofmermaidsandmarauders]

stolen dreams took our childish days - chapter 3

read on FF or AO3

I hope you all enjoy this next chapter in Jamie and Claire’s foster care adventure. It’s a bit shorter than usual, but... Enjoy! xoxo

March 2020 

It’s about three weeks before they’re able to arrange a visit after school for Fergus to see his mom. It means Jamie has a few extra hours to kill before he has to pick him up from the visitation center. He’s finishing up at the office when his phone dings. It’s on do not disturb which means the notification is from Claire, the only person whose number will bypass the setting.

Maybe you should pick up a treat for Fergus. I’m sure that he’ll be sad to be leaving his mom. He told me that he loves chocolate chip cookies. Or maybe ice cream. Or idk, Jamie, maybe he won’t need a snack and his mom will have brought him something.

He could sense Claire’s frantic energy in the text, a grin splitting his mouth wide open. 

Breathe, Sassenach. What a fine idea. I’ll pick him up something special. See you tonight.

Glancing at the time, Jamie decided the workday was done and that he’d need a few spare minutes to pick up a treat for the lad. 

It didn’t take long at the bakery to pick out a cookie, and before he knew it, Jamie was waiting patiently in a vinyl chair with no support. He kept glancing at his phone, answering a few emails before he heard a door open and looked up. A kind woman with cropped curly hair and dark skin with a badge around her neck stood in the doorway of one of the rooms just to the right. “Mr. Fraser?” she asked, at which he stood and nodded. “I’m Veronica, I’m the one covering the visits.”

“Aye, I am. It’s nice to meet ye as well,” he responded softly, taking a few steps toward her. 

“Fergus is having a difficult time leaving his mother. I’m not sure if you have a few minutes, the transition during the first visit is always the hardest,” Veronica explained, gesturing to the room.

“Would it be alright if I said a quick hello and tried to help ease the lad back to my home?” Jamie inquired, the bag from the bakery in his left hand, lifting it as if showing that he had brought bribery.

“Well, alright… As long as you’re comfortable.” Veronica turned back into the room and Jamie stepped toward it, stopping in the doorway as he saw Fergus crying in his mother’s arms, the woman’s own eyes appearing glassy.

“Fergus, lad?” he called softly, knocking on the dark wooden door. Fergus’ head peeked up before he started to cry harder, burying his face back in his mother’s neck. 

“I don’t wanna go!” Fergus cried out, his knuckles white from the grip on his mother’s shoulders. 

Jamie took a moment to observe the interaction. Fergus’ mother appeared younger than he expected. Very young, actually. Jamie was preparing to turn thirty-two in a few months and made the mistake of assuming that Fergus’ mother would be close to his own age, but she looked as though she couldn’t be older than twenty-five. 

Her curls were thinner than his wife’s, but she had the same dark hair. For a moment, Jamie envisioned her as a younger version of Claire, like a younger sister who had lost her way in life. Claudia was nothing like the monster that he had created in his head. She looked tired, her eyes were sunken in a bit. Her skin was pale and the lass was thin. Eerily thin. 

What Jamie then noticed was how fiercely she was holding Fergus, like she was afraid to let him go. He felt guilty, as if he was the one forcing the two apart, but he had to remind himself that this wasn’t the case.

“Och, lad. Are ye no’ going to introduce me to yer mam? I ken ye’re sad but I’d like tae meet the lass!” Fergus looked at Jamie and cracked a smile, likely at Jamie’s accent.

“Mama, this is Jamie. He talks funny, but he’s real nice. He and Claire… that’s his wife, you ken? They’ve been really nice. Claire said that maybe me and you could talk on the phone before bed at night if you’ve got a phone. And Jamie makes Mickey pancakes really good and…” Claudia held up a hand, a pained smile on her lips, though Jamie was sure Fergus couldn’t tell the difference. 

“Maybe I could introduce myself to Jamie, now?” Her smile became softer and more teasing as she kissed Fergus’ forehead before placing him on the ground, stepping tentatively toward Jamie. He squared his shoulders before holding his hand out.

“It’s a pleasure tae meet ye, lass. Fergus speaks verra highly of ye. He’s quite the lad. Brilliant and funny and charming,” Jamie trailed off, his cheeks going pink as he realized he was telling her about her own son.

“Oh, well… I thank you for that. It’s obvious he’s fond of the both of you.” Claudia looked at her hands, picking at the cuticles. She swayed on her feet before looking back at Fergus.

“I hate to say it’s time to go, lad, but ye have yer schoolwork to finish, aye? Say goodbye to yer mam,” Jamie instructed, feeling uncomfortable with the fact that he had to be the one to end the visit. Wasn’t Veronica supposed to step in at some point and do this? Why had he said that? Maybe he was being too forward?

“Mr. Fraser is right, Fergus, but I’ll pick you up from school again next week and you’ll get to see your mom again, alright?” As if on cue, Veronica stepped in and began tidying up the toys in the room, speaking softly to Claudia before Fergus gave his mother one final tight hug and kiss. Jamie picked up the lad’s knapsack in his free hand, gesturing for Fergus to lead the way from the room.

“I bought ye some cookies. Claire told me they’re yer favorite. Ye can have one in the car if ye promise to be careful with the wee crumbs. Do ye have a lot of work to do tonight?” Jamie filled the silence on the walk to his car, helping Fergus into the booster seat in the back. Fergus, normally chatty after a day at school, was noticeably silent as Jamie prompted him again with the question. Refusing to leave until Fergus had spoken to him, Jamie squeezed himself into the floor of the backseat, looking up at Fergus’ sad face.

“I don’t want to leave my mama. I don’t want to be apart from her anymore. It’s not fair!” Fergus sounded frustrated, and Jamie didn’t blame him. To only be eight and have to leave your mother not once, but twice. With no say in the matter, either. He didn’t blame Fergus for thinking it wasn’t fair.

“Och, weel, the both of us ken it’s not quite fair, but ‘tis what must be done until yer mam can keep ye safe and healthy. And in the meantime, ye’re always welcome with me and Claire, whether ye want to be there or not. We love having ye in our home, lad. I hope ye ken that.” Jamie was worried that his attempts at reassurance were a waste of time, but Fergus appeared to be comforted by them as he reached his small hands down to pat Jamie’s shoulders.

“Thank you,” the boy whispered softly, letting his eyes close as he sunk back into his seat. 

Assuming the conversation was over, Jamie moved back into the driver’s seat and began their journey home. He had much to discuss with Claire before bed that night.

_________________________________________

“Claire, ‘twas mebbe the most horrible thing I’ve seen in my life. The lad wouldna stop weeping. ‘Tis a shock my own heart isna torn in two at just the thought of it!”

Claire couldn’t contain a giggle at his dramatics, even if it was a depressing thought.

“Jamie, of course he’s sad! He had to leave his mom after finally getting to see her. I can’t believe you met her. What was she like?” she asked, the question coming out before she even knew it was one she had.

“Kind. And sad. Thin. Tired. Young. Verra young. Mebbe ten years younger than you, Sassenach. Sae thin, sae young. The lass looked like she would fall apart. She’s got a heid of curly hair just like her son. Much like yers, in fact. She was… She was just his mam.” Jamie’s shoulders felt at this last statement, his body settling into the mattress for the night. He hadn’t expected the thought to shake him so much. Jamie hadn’t even planned on meeting her, but something had pushed him to go in that room and coax Fergus out. Rolling onto his side, he thought deeply about what brought them to take in a child in foster care. Their goal had been to provide a safe and healthy home to a child in need. He thought he was protecting Fergus, but in fact, he was worried he may have been doing the complete opposite. Were they keeping the boy from the one person in life who would unconditionally love him?

Claire could sense that Jamie was deep in thought, and she took the opportunity to wrap her arms around him, climbing on top of him. Her cheek settled against his chest and she let out a little sigh when his hands found their place in the curve of her lower back.

“She’s just his mam,” Jamie repeated, the words causing a shiver to run down his spine.

“It’s not your fault that he’s here, Jamie. We’re just keeping him safe and giving him a good home until they can be together again, that’s all. You’re doing a good thing.” Claire peppered kisses along his skin between her statements. Her left hand rose to cup his cheek, thumb stroking over the curve of his upper lip. She felt her fingers start to dampen and realized that Jamie had been so shaken that he was crying. It was only then that she realized Jamie had lost his own mother, Ellen,  at Fergus’ exact age. 

“Oh, Jamie,” she breathed out, her hands going to his shoulders, holding tighter to him. “It’s alright. He’s going to be alright.” 

“I ken, I just hope we are more help than hurt for the lad.” Jamie’s voice was hoarse, his hands stroking at the soft skin on Claire’s back. 

“I love ye, Sassenach.” The words meant many things, more than he knew how to put into words, and he knew that Claire would understand the hidden meaning.

“She would be proud of you,” Claire whispered, the words coming out before she even knew they were there. Jamie stiffened beneath her for a moment before letting his body relax. His grip tightened for a fraction of a second before loosening his hold so that his hands could stroke beneath her t-shirt. “You’ve turned into an amazing person, Jamie. Ellen Fraser would be so proud of the man you’ve become.”

Jamie didn’t say anything else, just let the tears he had been holding in freely flow while his wife wiped them away.

#outlander #outlander fic #jamie x claire #JamieClaire #ol fic #foster care #foster care fic

[jisungyah]

Dream State - 22 : HoOoNG~

“That was unessarily loud” Hyunjin stated, hands clasped to his ears looking up at Wooyoung from his seat on the floor. 

Wooyoung saw San gulp, eyes still staring back at him. He didn't look back to Yeosang who he heard taking a sip of his drink a little too loudly.

Hyunjin's hands left his ears, now supporting him up instead as he stared at Wooyoung, his mouth agape waiting for some explanation.

Stupid, Wooyoung was stupid, he was embarrassed and felt guilty because he got caught. A palm raises to cover his face he couldn't believe he thought he could get away with some stupid plan.. it wasn't even a thought out one, he just wanted to avoid San.. he didn't even know why? only the reasons he made up for Hongjoong and Yeosang.

"I'm Wooyoung.." he let out a sigh before continuing "..the same Wooyoung from the Haechan Neck account, I didn't want to tell you at first cause it's embarrassing honestly.. being known as ‘the flirt’ online would ruin our first impressions..but lying about it is probably worse but, I just panicked.."

Wooyoung had been keeping eye contact with San through the whole confession, practically pleading San to forgive him with his glassy eyes.

"it's okay I get it.. to be honest, I kinda knew you were Wooyoung um.. I was just waiting for you to feel comfortable enough to say it I guess..", the eye contact was broken for a few seconds as San tried to consider his next words, once connected again Wooyoung's eyes were starting to fill with more tears, "Really it's fine! we all have an online facade.. right?" San nods to himself and turns to the two others for a little help.

Yeosang was kinda thrown off by this reaction from San so he kept quiet while Hyunjin reassured "RIGHT! if you're hyuck's neck maybe we could be moots! you wouldn't happen to know King Xiaojun... "

Wooyoung was not expecting the conversation to turn to Hyunjin admitting he was an 18+ RP account. As Hyunjin rambled about his account being worse in ways they couldn't imagine, far worse than just flirting as a parody account, Yeosang nudged Woo as to say 'I told you so'.  

"you know since we're all friends and this has kinda cleared things up.." Yeosang started.

"Okay but I'm seriously really sorry, that was stupid and I don't wanna blame alcohol but I get more obnoxious when I'm tipsy.. and I was even panicking before so-"

Yeosang rested his hand on Woo's shoulder to calm him from babbling further.

"tsk Wooyoung obnoxious?" Hyunjin let out, laughing to himself while taking a sip of beer, when he finished he realised the others hadn't reacted. Maybe the alcohol was getting to him already. "woah. Wait ! that sounded offensive.. I meant like you're really not obnoxious if we're talking 'obnoxious'? we're talking Minho"

"So we're all good? Wooyoung you don't have to keep apologising, stop worrying about it" Yeosang reassured, hand now wrapped around Wooyoung's shoulders. San giggled at Woo's little pout and if Wooyoung's heart wasn't fluttering already it was racing now. "May I ask ..? did you do the same to Yeosang?"

"Well.. no Hongjoong got to him first"

"SO YOU WERE GONNA..?"

"No !Yeosang !"    "Bitch I know what you look like!"    "BITCH?! I didn't even know you could use that word!"

"Oh.." San seemed to be a little disappointed but no one seemed to notice, Woosang busy teasing each other while Hyunjin laughed at their banter.

"But wait, how'd you know I was Wooyoung? I mean like Haechan's Neck.." Wooyoung inquired turning back to San, sitting up fixing himself after sending Yeosang into a laughing fit with tickles.

"I recognised you from a photo you sent in the group chat"

"w-what?! which pic?"

"When you announced that you went back to your natural hair..? It was only half your face but.."

"I-"

"Idiot, you sent it to both group chats" Yeosang finished Wooyoung's sentence beginning another set of laughter for himself. Wooyoung gave a glare as a first warning, then raised his hands to his friend's waist threatening Yeosang with more tickles which got him to shut up immediately.

"But I was really doubting myself.. added up though. You and Yeosang, Seoul Uni.. but.. didn't you say to Min you weren't coming to the party?"

"We forgot about Min!" Yeosang exclaimed.

Thanks to San's question Wooyoung was reminded to check his phone, silently asking the group with his pointer finger up to excuse him for a moment as he scrolled through the 'PARTY' group chat’s messages. The others quietly waiting for some update on their mutual friend.

"He seems pretty content with Taeil"

Yeosang gave him a stern almost threatening look, "Twice, you said you'd be there for Min"

"Fine.. what do you want me to say?"

Woosang seemed to have a private conversation to themselves before Wooyoung was focused on his phone and Yeosang turned to question San, "Wait, Min said you weren't replying to him? and you haven't been active on the group chat"

Wooyoung whispered something being Yeosang's pick-up line, Yeosang ignoring him keeping his eyes on San like he was in trouble.

"I was busy being lost.. and classes and when I wasn't in class Seonghwa kept me busy" a gulp preceding San's answer.

San seemed to retreat a little to himself, head down unable to make eye contact with Yeosang which caused the latter to feel guilty.

"Sorry, of course you were.."

"To be fair we both were busy with each other too" Wooyoung said to ease the atmosphere, finally putting his phone back in his jacket's pocket.

"Well that's cause you wer-" Wooyoung knew Yeosang was going to make fun of his panic about San and the party, swiftly interrupting with another apology.

"Sorry I- .. We-we're all over the place but I just didn't want Mingi to feel alone or left out, so I um pretended I was busy with an assignment than coming to the party so he could text if he felt lonely.." Wooyoung explained.

"Oh .. that's actually really nice of you..."

Wooyoung didn't mean for anyone to feel guilty but that's how San felt now, knowing he was doing what he didn't want anyone to do to him to one of his best friends.

"I mean Wooyoung doesn't seem like the one.." "Wooyoung is just that nice" "-the kind to lie out of malice! he even taught me that phrase"

Hyunjin and Yeosang accidentally talked over each other but Hyunjin continued anyway, starting to become less aware of his surroundings. He was swaying side to side to the faint music, eyes closed barely open when he responded to the others.

They kept the conversation going, allowing some time for Woo to reply to Mingi and trying to distract Hyunjin from drinking any more. Soon their hyungs gathered with them, Hongjoong tried to slip away for Wooyoung's sake but Woo caught him, it wouldn't hurt they'd be leaving soon anyway.

Although Hongjoong couldn't even introduce himself before San announced that they should get going, saying it was getting late for a school night and Seonghwa wasn't in the best state either. Hongjoong seemed to match Hwa, their few more drinks than what they planned beginning to show some effect on them.

They exchanged goodbyes before introductions could take place, San and Minho helping Seonghwa stand straight, his arms around their shoulders, getting hold of him before he could flop down on top of the boys on the couch.

"Hhhow much longer you guys stayed? we-we we can have fun by ourselves"

Minho noticed Hyunjin's state which was.. pretty drunk for Hyunjin, he left San with Seonghwa while he tried to pull Hyunjin away to leave with them. Wooyoung didn't notice San already leaving with Seonghwa, preoccupied with a whining Hyunjin trying to get away from Minho's arms.

"I'll help you out with Hyunjin if Yeosang is alright enough to get Hongjoong" Wooyoung offered.

"awwhhhh Wooyoung-ah don'tlet-let- don't be such a killjoy cause of Minho!" Hyunjin grumbled escaping from Minho, only to stumble into Wooyoung's arms, face pressed to his classmate's chest causing him to giggle.

"Seriously Hyunjin, how's Kami gonna react seeing you like this?" Minho sighed finally trapping him.

"Ff*ck.. I forgot"

"You're not sleeping over, I'm surprised you didn't get a curfew"

Hyunjin stopped squirming, trying to get himself together when he remembered he'd be returning to his parents in his drunk state.

With the help of Minho and Wooyoung, he made his way down the stairs safely with Yeosang and Hongjoong following behind them, conversing about nonsense until they reached the bottom.

By the time they got down, Seonghwa was free from San's grip trying to make himself comfortable on the side of Minho's car, even after San offered his shoulder as they waited for their driver.

Minho took care of Hyunjin the rest of the way to his car, a few more waves goodbye before the 'Just gotta TOUCH' boys were all seated in the car.

San now in the passenger seat, Minho still the driver ready to take the boys home safely. The other two boys sharing the back seats, leaning on each other still somewhat awake but on the verge of sleep. Hyunjin trying to sober up before being dropped home to his parents but the alcohol in his system tempting him to a short nap. Seonghwa was out of it only half awake because he had some thoughts to discuss with the boys.

The trio left behind began their walk together after seeing Minho drive off. Wooyoung taking over Hongjoong duty knowing Yeosang's stop was only a five-minute walk away, although with their current pace the time could be doubled.

Wooyoung didn't know whether it was Yeosang slowing down in consideration for Hongjoongs drunken state or because he also wanted to enjoy more time together, even if they technically weren't alone. He appreciated it though, the dark night allowing stars to glow through even when the city lights fought against their shine. Setting the mood..

The odd car passing by allowing a flash of light to hit Yeosang, who was shielding the light from the slowpokes. 

The short distance they travelled so far was mostly filled with silence and a few grunts from Wooyoung struggling to keep Hongjoong up because he was distracted by Yeosang.

The few street lights they walked by flattered Yeosang's features with its warm rays, catching him in the process of thought.

Wooyoung was getting used to Joong's weight over his left shoulder. Yeosang suddenly turning back after taking in the stars, causing Wooyoung to trip on his step.

Yeosang meeting Wooyoung's admiring eyes as he looks back to check on the two. "You know you don't have to walk me back, maybe I should be helping you get Hongjoong back to yours"

"No we're getting-" "No no we'll get you back safe first!" Hongjoong speaks up, whispering a sorry for interrupting Wooyoung. "We're getting you safely back to your dorm, we can just take the bus from your place to ours. I can handle Joong"

Yeosang seemed to take their answer but then a smirk played on his lips before mentioning, mostly to Honjoong, that San was still looking for accommodation.

"Yeah I know Yeo.. I was in that conversation with you" Wooyoung tried to dismiss it.

"Yeo?" Both older males asked at the new nickname.

"What? you both call me Woo?? its just a nickname"

"huh, I like it.." Yeosang blushed on top of the residual tint of the alcohol in his system. He never really had nicknames from friends mostly just family but he was called "sangie" or "sang" and although Wooyoung had texted him the nickname before, it felt different hearing it out loud.

"Does that make me Hong?"

Wooyoung giggles at his Hyung still under the haze of alcohol, eyelids half open and sporting a small pout.

"hehe yeah, that makes you Hoooonnngg~" Messing with the pronunciation of the new nickname earning a disgusted judgemental look from the now called Hong. [like how he said in the one ep of ateez salary lupin]

"Soooo San..??" Yeosang starts up again after a few giggles from the '99 liners at Hongjoong's reaction. The trio now continuing their journey after their short pause.

"We said we'd do interviews sooo.." Wooyoung hoped his mention of their plan would prevent Hongjoong from thinking about just giving San the spare room.

"San..? but Seonghwa said-oh wait yeah we can get San an interview! he seems nice I mean we just goddamake sure he leaves the nsfw stuff on Twitter"

"pffft-" "JOONG!"

"I thought it was Hong!?" Yeosang blurts while laughing

-

San content staring out the window watching the street lights go by but he notices Seonghwa from the rearview mirror pouting. A small smile on his lips with his tongue peeking out trying to take a quick picture while the older had his eyes closed from drink and tiredness.

"Y'all didn't get to meet Hongjoong" he whined a little like a disappointed child when he saw San facing him. San is quick to take the picture and drop his phone but not quick enough to turn around before Seonghwa's eyes are fully open.

"Sorry Hwa-hyung, but I'm tired and you didn't seem to be handling the alcohol well" San spoke with a faint but reassuring smile before turning back to sit in his seat properly.

"San was the only one to not meet Hongjoong, and me and Hyunjin were literally right there" Minho added, trying to make Hwa less frowny-faced.

"Correction, Hyujin and I."

"Oh just shut it Jin and focus on sobering up before we get to your place, your lucky enough I'm giving you extra time heading to Seonghwa's first"

Hyujin is now sat straight, rolling his eyes at the driver sat in front of him. "Oh San! did you know Joong and Woo have space? maybe they can take you in" Hyunjin suggested while brushing his hand through his hair gathering himself together, it would only last a bit longer before he’s feeling woozy again.

"They do? but .. I don't know I-I don't wanna be taken in like a-a a stray cat.."

"I mean you're not far from one" Minho commented flashing San a smile before quickly turning attention back to the road. San was always compared to a cat sometimes even to his own cat by Mingi and his parents. He didn't know whether it was because of his physical features or personality, maybe even both? But he was surprised and flattered that Minho noticed since he had three cats of his own.

"I-I didn't mean for it to sound like that! what is wrong with me today ahhhggghh"

"you're literally always like this?" Minho replies when he spots Hyunjin throwing his head into his hands in an exasperated manner.

Seonghwa was mumbling something about Mingi and Yeosang in the last few minutes of their drive. He didn’t form enough coherent words for the others to make sense of it. 

They finally reached the house. San was glad that Seonghwa’s aunt was already asleep but kept the door open for them. Somehow San manages to help Seonghwa into bed and takes off his make up, not bothering to try changing him into PJs. He also ends up charging Hwa’s phone and setting an alarm for him before he takes care of himself. 

San plops himself on the bottom bunk of Seonghwa’s older cousin’s bunk bed staying in the room across from Seonghwa, for now at least. Bringing the nearest plushie to his chest to cuddle that night San also picks up his phone to check up on the others. 

-

Pan ic : 

Well the jig is up! don’t know how far pretending to be jongho wouldve gone anyway..

also didn’t Hong say something about not drinking too much earlier and he’s going home like that?? i think seongjoong bad influence on each other but wooo ooo WooSang going strong ... for now 

pt.21 < Masterlist > pt.22.5

[ Social Media Woosan AU:

Having finished his first year of college, Wooyoung spends his summer with friends.. online friends mostly., friends made through his Lee Donghyuck parody acc..

Will he be ready to spend his second year with these crackheads ? and what if his twt crush starts attending his university ? ]

A/N if the hyung isnt always accurate its because they are close friends and dont say it often.. also its been awhile .... college was hard second semester soo i didn’t get a chance until recently sooo sorry its very late 

#DREAM STATE #woosan #woosan au #atiny #ateez #ateez social media au #ateez au #NCT #nctzen #nct au #nct social media au #social media au #skz #skz au #skz social media au #markhyuck

[joa-quin-phoe-nix-fan]

I AM ALIVE Charlie Sisters FF/imagine

I AM ALIVE

You had begun to worry. Charlie had been gone for 6 months, with only 7 letters even giving you any proof that he was still alive. You sat near your window, in the open prairie, worrying away like you did every day, thinking about how he could be dead, he could be lost, he could be kidnapped by one of his targets, he might not see his baby be born. You rubbed your belly sadly, the time was drawing close, and you really wanted your baby to see its daddy. More than anything you wanted Charlie to see his baby. You couldn’t imagine life without Charlie, who would take you hunting every Sunday that he was home? Who would make you the best baked beans in the entire west coast? Who would make funny, rhyming names for things like a Mean-Bean or a Dorsie-Horsie? Who would help you with the baby? Who would love you like Charlie did? You sat there silently, wracking your mind of reasons why he hadn’t written in 2 months. All of them more worrying than the last, when you heard a knock at the door.

You jumped up as fast as you could in your condition, rushing to the door, hoping and praying to see Charlie’s smug face looking back at you, holding the money he earned from the Commodore, ready to sweep you off your feet, covering your face with kisses. Sadly, it wasn’t him. It was Rex, a colleague of Charlie’s that you knew to avoid most of the time, Charlie said he was a sleaze who took married women away from their husbands while they were away. Normally, when he came over, you could almost smell the desire coming from him, but this time he looked genuinely concerned, his eyebrows furrowed close together. “Hey there, um...Missus Y/N. Hav-have ya heard from Charlie recently?” you moved closer to the doorframe, hoping it was one of his womanizing schemes “Uh...no Rex, I haven’t.” You started to panic, “Why do ya ask? Did somethin’ happen to Charlie? Oh Lord please tell me this is just another plot of yers!” Rex waved his hands in front of him, defensively, “Woah, woah YN, please don’t get ya bloomers in a bunch! The commodore has just been askin’ ‘cus he ain’t heard from him in a while...and the last thing we recieved from him was this...” he handed you a leaf, and your heart jumped you knew that even if he ran out of paper, he was known to send leaves with letters written on them. You turned it over and gasped. On the other side of the leaf was written, in now dried blood; ‘I AM ALIVE” Rex sighed and held your shoulder gently, “and I promise ya darlin’ this ain’t no plot...we’re all worried about him, and by association, you.” Your stomach dropped. This was the worst situation you could’ve imagined for Charlie, him MIA in the dangerous wilderness, after some bloodthirsty criminal, with the last message from him being vague and written in blood. You breathed in sharply to hold in the tears, “I-I ain’t heard nothin’ from him, Rex...I’m sorry.” Rex sighed sadly and shook his head, “I’m the one who should be sayin’ that to you, Missus...I’m real sorry...” he bowed slightly, tipped his hat, and left. Looking sadder than a dog left out in the rain.

You closed the door, putting your back against it when it had shut. Tears filling up your eyes as you held you hand up to your mouth in shock and slid down slowly to the floor, the weight of that news hitting you like a ton of bricks. It was one thing for him to not update you on what was happening, but he never forgot to message the Commodore. Where was he? Maybe he was too far to send letters...yeah maybe that was it. He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be.

You woke up much later, still by the door, your eyes still stinging from crying yourself to sleep. It was dark out already. You grabbed the nearby stairwell railing to pull yourself up. You knew that the cows sure as hell were not gonna be pleased with how late you were but it’d be better if you milked them tonight, rather than have a cow-riot tomorrow morning. After you heaved yourself up again, you grabbed your gun, your bucket and a lantern, you walked outside, ready to vent to the cows about your day. It was a rather silly habit, but a habit that was strangely therapeutic and one that despite you being rather upset, seemed to calm the cows down...maybe they just liked hearing you talk.

As you walked to the cows, you saw what you assumed was a figure riding a couple acres away. You took no notice, thinking it was a lonesome hunter going back home after a long hunt. It was only after the first three cows that you realized that the sound of hooves hitting the dusty ground had gotten much closer. ‘It’s someone looking for Charlie!’ you thought as you jumped behind a bunch of hay bales, cocking your gun before they got close enough to hear you do it. You had no idea how much time had passed by the time you heard the hooves stop by the stables, the rider jump down, and hitch up his horse. ‘Why would a killer or a robber do that?’ you wondered to yourself, with your finger drifting off of the trigger as an impossible thought passed through your head, ‘is that Charlie?’

You heard him walk slowly and tiredly up on the porch, shuffling his feet as if removing them from the porch would mean that he would instantly tumble over. If this was Charlie, you had never seen him this tired and sad before. Then you suddenly heard the man drop to his knees, at this point you thought it wouldn’t hurt to just peek at the man, you looked up, seeing a man with significantly longer hair and a smaller build than Charlie, kissing your porch! At this point you knew for a fact that it wasn’t your husband so you jumped up, grabbing your gun and aimed it at the man as you quickly walked towards him. “You best be getting off ma porch! My husband’s a bounty hunter and if he were here, he’d kill you quicker than I gaddamned will!” You knew it was a bad idea to tell this stranger that you were home alone but because he looked so small and sickly, you knew you could hold your own in a fight against him. The man crawled back, his hands in front of his head, shaking like a leaf in a tornado. “please...listen to me. I ain’t who ya think i am...” he whispered, hoarsely. Even with the hoarseness, you knew that voice as if it was your own. You dropped the gun, running close to him and cupping your hands around his angular face, “Charlie? Oh my god, is that really you, honey?” Charlie nodded weakly, tears now running down his face like a waterfall. “yeah, it’s me darlin’...”

After a long moment of hugging each other and crying, you brought Charlie into the house, sure that he was cold and hungry. As he sat in his armchair, you truly saw the difference, the crease where the top of his head usually ended was miles above the small, unshaven man sitting in the chair. He looed like a tiny scared puppy in a doghouse built for a doberman. It would almost be hilarious if the situation wasn’t so serious. After giving him some bread, butter and chicken, that he scarfed down, almost choking as he did it, you started talking with him.

“W-where have ya been? I was worried sick...” you asked, hugging yourself and barely being able to even look at him in this situation, suddenly you remembered, reached into your pocket and pulled out the leaf letter and handed it to him, sitting down next to the chair, “and what...what is this?” he held the leaf weakly and sighed, defeated “I...was robbed...” he sighed, his voice only slightly less hoarse now, “My horse, my gun, my money, my paper and pens, my food, everything.” He stared off to space as he told his tale. “I barely begged hard enough to keep my clothes and the tiny shreds of my dignity that I had left. So I had to walk or crawl my way home. I ate wild animals and random leaves and berries I found. I got myself poisoned that way twice. I never took you out of my mind. When a man on a horse came past me and offered his help in exchange for my shoes, I didn’t ask for his horse, I simply asked him to send a letter to Oregon for me. That was the leaf. After he left me I realized my mistake and i kicked myself right there, but much further on I saw a horse lying on the ground, it honest to god looked dead. But it weren’t. I fed it half of the food I had scavenged and somehow it survived the last month of the journey. That’s the horse that’s outside, could ya maybe feed him? I named him Savior. He really helped me when I was at my worst.” This story was terribly sad, it rocked you to your core that he had gone through this all this time while you were at home, moping about how lonely you were. “I’m so sorry...if I had known I-” Charlie shushed you gently, stroking your hair, “You had no way of knowin’...I’m just glad you’re safe and alive, and that the baby hasn’t been born yet.” You giggled. Despite how sad the situation was, you were incredibly grateful that he was home and you loved how he could easily make a morbid situation even slightly humorous.

He stood up slowly, pulling you up at the same time. Once you were both standing fully (which took a while) he held you close to his chest. Despite him being much skinnier, he still stood quite a bit taller than you, he held your head up to his heart, it sounded much stronger and healthier than you expected. “It’s so loud...” you whispered to him, he chuckled lightly “It’s singing to you, ‘cause it knows you’re here...”

sorry if the ending is kind of short XD I still have no idea how to end stories correctly lol

#charlie sisters #charlie sisters x reader #joaquin phoenix imagine #joaquin phoenix #joaquin phoenix charlie sisters

[hesesols]

of soap suds and broken dishes

Summary: There will never be a right time for some conversations. In which Rukia has some exciting news to deliver and the timing is ... less than ideal. 

Rating: T

FF/ao3 

x

Chapter 1: Timing Is Everything

Her hands started shaking even before her mind processes the gravity of the situation.

The plus sign on the pregnancy test stick is staring right back at her and no amount of heavy breathing; thigh-pinching; fervent prayer that this is all a bad dream she's ten seconds from waking up from; is going to change that.

She gulps.

Ichigo.

Ichigo needs to know.

She needs to tell him and part of her is scared shitless of what he's going to say.

She doesn't tell him.

It's not intentional on her part- at least for the first few days after she found out.

It just slips her mind sometimes about her new condition and then there's the fact that she could never seem to find the right time to tell him. This doesn't feel like the sort of thing that is light enough to be shared over the breakfast table or when they're cuddling in bed with their bedclothes on, mind switched off, body wrapped around each other.

Outside these hours, their lives are bound to the vigorous demands of the mundane world and its limitations. Time is finite in this world. Him with his busy university classes and lab sessions, her with her odd shifts at the local coffee shop and double-life as a seated officer of Gotei 13 meant that dinner is sometimes take outs and pizzas served on cheap plastic plates, wine in everyday mugs, excuses they make to ignore the presence of the growing pile of dirty dishes in the sink.

That there are mornings when Ichigo will jump out of their bed with a curse and start throwing on wrinkly clothes from the day before, screaming about how he's late as he shuts the front door with a bang that's loud enough to rattle the whole building but not before he rouses her, barely awake and squinting from the brightness with a goodbye kiss.

That there are nights when she will come back after a week-long stint in Soul Society and the ache of separation hits her more than she would care to admit but Ichigo leaves the light on. He greets her with his pretty eyes and hungry kisses and they'll spend that morning and the next in bed, making up for the lost time in the coil of their needy bodies.

This is a snapshot of real life for the two of them living together in relative anonymity in the Human World. She loves Ichigo and he loves her. Society has come a long way since feudalistic times and what Nii-sama doesn't know won't hurt him.

.

Take away the Shinigami aspect of their lives- the crazy out-of-this-realm misadventures they get swept into, wars between worlds waged and won in the span of a summer holiday, the battle scars adorning their bodies and they're literally as normal as their next door neighbours, human and barely out of their twenties, trying to find their place in this strange cruel world, somehow made warmer with Ichigo's hand in hers.

Being with Ichigo just makes her happy- happy enough to live in the now and not think ahead. She doesn't want to ruin what they have, doesn't want to upset the resemblance of a normal life she's constructed and cocooned herself in within the confines of their tiny apartment.

They haven't even talked about the future in so much as to where they would live after he graduates from college. Springing this on him just seems cruel- cruel when his life is only just beginning, about to take flight and she's gone ahead and done the unthinkable to clip his wings.

What if he's disappointed?

.

What if he doesn't want the baby?

.

The last thought renders her physically sick. Sud-covered hands reach instinctively for her baby bump that's barely showing.

For now, anyway.

.

Give it a few more weeks and he's bound to notice something. He's not that dumb (or at least she hopes he isn't). There are only so many times she can say no to the casually-offered beer and wine or mumble something along the lines of that time of the month to disguise the however many trips to the bathroom before he catches on.

.

.

.

"I'm home."

The sudden noise makes her jump and she loses her grip on the slippery half-washed dinner plate. It clatters to the floor, broken.

.

Shit!

.

Swearing comes entirely second nature when she cuts herself on the edges.

"Rukia?"

"In here," she calls out to him, holding the cut finger under the running water. Truth be told she's more upset about the broken plate- there were four in a set with matching bowls and now they're one short- than her injuries. The cut doesn't even look deep and the bleeding is bound to stop soon.

"Let me see."

Ichigo seems to think otherwise as he unceremoniously drops his bags and the heavy groceries by the door, eyebrows furrowing deep as he crouches down next to her, inspecting her wound.

Though calling it an inspection may have been a stretch.

He barely even glanced at it before he's hollering at her to stay put while he grabs the first aid kit.

"You're being ridiculous! It's just a cut!"

He should know better- what with his experience of violence and theoretical knowledge as a future physician. She's been through worse. They both have. Cuts that are deep enough to see gaps of bones in between, torn ligaments, broken bones, ruptured organs, a fist through the stomach- the memory makes her shudder now more than ever. He shouldn't be fussing over her for a flesh wound that barely registers on her scale of pain.

But he doesn't let go of her hand and merely grunts when she calls him a fool for making a big deal out of something as trivial as this.

"It'll heal quick. I don't s-"

She hisses, surprised by the sudden sting of antiseptic over broken skin. His gesture is uncharacteristically apologetic when he presses a kiss to her knuckle.

.

It doesn't make sense.

She's suffered much, much worse in her line of duty. He knows she has and she has survived, grew stronger and thrived. With every cut and blow that aims to knock her down, she rises up, bloodied and valiant to meet the next challenge. Yet she doesn't think she has ever seen him quite so serious, cleaning her cut and dwarfing her hand in his like she's soft, fragile like glass and twice as likely to break. Lord knows that she has never been neither of those things.

"I'm sorry. We don't have any bunny plasters but Yuzu left some Hello Kitty plasters in the first aid kit the last time she restocked it for us and I think you'd like them- why are you crying?"

Tears.

She can't remember the last time she felt them running down her cheeks. Have they always tasted so salty?

Through the burn of them, she sees his panicked face. His fists clench tight and grip at her as he holds her- shuddering breath and all, waiting for her to still and quiet so she can tell him who to hurt and who to maim.

This idiot!

Look at what he's reduced her to- this teary-eyed walking bundle of hormones who tears up because her boyfriend/baby daddy gave her some Hello Kitty plasters when she cut her finger.

"I'm pregnant, you dolt."

Ichigo wears his heart on his sleeves and the vulnerability on his face- the sheer multitude of emotions- shock, awe, joy, love, above all, love- when he absorbs the impact of the news and embraces his new reality is enough to make even a hardened warrior like her choke on the waterworks.

His eyes widen and the grip on her tightens as he presses her deeper into his embrace.

"H-How long?"

"It's early."

She thinks she's barely passed the sixth week mark.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wanted to!"

Her hands fist at his clothes. She has lost count of the number of times when she wanted to reach for his hand under the covers as they spooned against each other and whisper it soft and slow into the night and put it to rest.

But every time she wants to open her mouth and speak, doubt makes her swallow those words whole because-

.

What if this isn't what he wanted?

.

This isn't something that they've planned for and she is too in love with the tranquillity of the moment, the peaceful look on his face, smiling at her- like she makes this life worth living for, to even consider ruining it. Is it wrong for her to think that the news can wait for another day if only to make tiny beautiful moments like these last a little while longer?

"…There just doesn't seem to be a right time to tell you."

He deadpans, "and you think now is the perfect time for us to have this conversation?"

There are soap suds in her hair, dirty dishwater stains on the front of her shirt. He has dark circles under his eyes, stinks of alcohol sanitizers, looking tired like he hasn't slept well for days. In the background is a precarious mountain pile of dishes to be washed waiting in the sink, shattered pieces of a broken dinner plate on the kitchen floor that still needs to be swept away.

Them in the comforts of their own home- the very essence of their domestic mundanity stripped down to the bones- messy, loud, less-than perfect; but at its heart, once the initial embarrassment of her housekeeping skill or the lack-there-of passes, is love.

.

She sighs, resting her forehead against his chest. "This is all your fault. This would have never have happened if you listened to me when I told you it's your turn to do the dishes."

"You could have waited?" he challenges, "You know class ends early for me today."

Rukia rolls her eyes as she informs him rather drily, "We ran out of clean plates two days ago."

Laughter rumbles low and throaty from him, his heartbeat thrumming steadily from his chest- a symphony strung along with bits of heart and soul, hopes for tomorrow that sooth her.

When the laughter dies, he buries his face in her hair, soaking up the warmth of her tiny body with his. He holds her, drawing lazy circles on the skin of her bare arm, tentative as he asks.

"Rukia. Were you afraid that I'd be disappointed? Or angry?"

She squirms in his arms, ashamed almost when she tells him, "A little of both."

A snort followed by a fond exasperated "Idiot. I love you and I promise to love you and to love our child forever and always and-" his breath catches, his world whirling, and he's looking at her like she's made of starlight and moon dust and- "you're carrying our baby!"

The hard lines on his face soften, his hands clearly shaking and the disbelief from the happiness that threatens to leave him in tears as he presses kisses to her- "We're going to have a baby."

The heat of his open palm is reassuring on her still-flat stomach. She smiles, mirroring his joy, and keeps his hand there, holds it in place with her own.

"We're going to have a baby."

.

There is never going to be a right time she realizes.

But that's ok.

It's ok if he's there with her, holding her hand through it all. As long as he's there with her, she thinks, she is brave enough to do anything. They can take on the world and be none the wiser for it.

He is her rock and he grounds her. Now more than ever when her soul feels light enough that she just might float away.

.

.

"As far as your brother is concerned, this baby is conceived immaculately. Agreed?"

She snorts and kisses his forehead. As if Nii-sama is the person he should be worried about!

Clearly her absentminded idiot is forgetting about his overly enthusiastic father and the man's over-the-top antics and flair for drama during the bi-monthly Kurosaki family dinners, scheduled to happen sometime this week.

Rukia humours him anyway. He'll catch on soon enough.

"Agreed."

FF/ao3

Reblog, review, like or comment or even ask to send some love my way  :D

#ichiruki #ichiruki month 2020 #IR month 2020 #of soap suds and broken dishes #mine #fanfic #us against the world #warning: FLUFF #all is well #686 who? #day 9: us against the world

[dontcomeherebye]

part 2 to that weird ff.

Hwa placed a finger on joong’s lips, and stared into his eyes. He leaned in for kiss. Hongjoong knew he wanted it, desperately. He was starving for that kind of affection from Seonghwa, but he wasn’t ready. He pushed him away and walked into his room. Hwa and wooyoung shared a glance, and went back to their room.

Joong couldn’t sleep that night.

“Why would he try to kiss me? He literally fucks with wooyoung. Was it just out of pity?? How dare he!!” He turned to his side and pulled his blanket over him. Mingi smirked. He knew what was happening. 

Seonghwa couldn’t sleep either. He finally understood why joong gave awkward expressions when hwa was with wooyoung. And why joong loved spending time with seonghwa. He always had a new plan for the weekend, and it always only involved him and hwa. Seonghwa felt..guilty. He didn’t understand why, but he was sure it was guilt.

The next evening, Hwa took an opportunity to speak to hongjoong alone. He wanted to know what hongjoong felt. He wanted to let him know that he cared. That his feelings mattered. He took hongjoong to his room, where wooyoung wasn’t there. He was out at the mall with mingi. They sat on the bed.

“What’s the matter..baby?”

Hongjoong looked into his eyes with a surprised look. “ba-by...?” he thought. 

“Tell me. I’m there for you. I don’t want you to have to hide anything from me.”

“umm.. well... uh just. whatever i said yesterday- that’s.. all...”

“You like me?”

“Yea” joong blushed. He lowered his gaze to the space between his knees and seonghwa’s.

“Since when? And why didn’t you just tell me?”

“How could I have told you! You literally fuck with wooyoung every single night! I wouldn’t wanna tell you only to get turned down.” Joong was anonoyed and upset at the same time, his eyes locked with seonghwa’s again. 

“Listen. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry! I am the one who should be sorry” Hongjoong was tearing up, and hwa could make it out, even though joong tried to hide it.

“Listen...” Seonghwa locked his pretty lips with hongjoong’s. Hongjoong didn’t like the though of it, but he loved what was happening. Seonghwa slowly held joong’s waist and pulled him closer for more. Hongjoong loved it. They were a hot mess, hugging each other tightly, kissing each other in the most passionate manner. Seonghwa’s hand crept into hongjoong’s T-shirt, but Hongjoong put a stop to it. He pushed hwa away. Hongjoong had a very hurtful expression on his face. 

“Don’t do this out of pity for me. A kiss was enough. Let’s stop.” Hongjoong got up to leave the room, but hwa caught his hand. 

“I have a lot to say to you myself.” Hongjoong looked at him with a disinterested expression.

“The.. stuff with woo.. it doesn’t mean anything. We.. aren’t together.” Hongjoong was perplexed, to say the least. How could two men, who didn’t mean anything to each other do such things at night?

“But-”

“Yea. We do it without any feelings for each other. Kinda weird right?” Seonghwa giggled. Hongjoong was still too stumped to say anything. He only thought people who loved each other did it. 

“So you were... never together..?”

“We were. Very long ago. Back when we didn’t even live together.” Seonghwa broke into a soft smile. He lightly tugged at joong to return him to where he was seated. 

“We broke up long before we even moved here. Coincidentally, we were put in the same room. It was easier though, you know, cuz we were more comfortable with each other.”

“Why would you do it with someone who doesn’t mean anything that way to you anymore though?” 

“I guess you could say we’re humans haha” Hongjoong didn’t get it. “well, you know, we obviously have our..desires” Hwa felt so uncomfortable saying it to joong that it almost felt like a crime. “And you gotta feed these urges. Plus wooyoung and I know what we like so... It’s kinda like how you just wanna get off alone sometimes, except we just do it together” Hongjoong understood what he was saying but he just didn’t know how to process that information.

“But why did you make a move on me too then? Just cuz you wanted to get off?”

“umm.. no. I.. love you. I really, really love you. A fucking lot. I.. just couldn’t... tell you.” Joong looked at him with big eyes. he was happy, but also baffled. He just could not bring himself to fathom what hwa had just said. He just.. confessed to him. 

Joong caught Hwa by his t-shirt and pulled him in for a kiss. Seonghwa liked it. He loved it. He hugged joong by the waist and their kiss deepened. Joong hugged him tighter and pushed him onto the floor, their lips intact. Seonghwa looked beautiful like this. His eyes, his dirty expression and pretty little moans. They were all too much for hongjoong to handle. He broke the kiss and started exploring other parts of seonghwa. He kissed him just below his ear, and then trailed his tongue lower. As he reached his sweet spot, seonghwa let out a dirty moan. Hongjoong loved what he had just done to hwa. He dug deeper in, earning louder, dirtier moans from him. He got up to remove his tshirt, and looked at seonghwa, expecting him to do the same. But seonghwa just replied with “the door is open, baby.”

“It’s alright. Nobody’s at home. Besides, I wouldn’t dislike it if people saw us like this. I’d be proud.” Seonghwa was convinced. He pulled his tshirt off. Hongjoong loved the view. Hwa’s abs on full display, his chest that continued up to his very hot neck. His blonde hair hanging behind, leaving his forehead exposed. Hwa caught his man staring at him, and gave a dirty little smirk, licking his lips and looking away from joong.

“You’ve seen me bottom for woo twice, but do you really think you can top me?”

Hongjoong blushed. With a quick movement, hwa pushed hongjoong down, and he was now on top of him. The view was even prettier. Seonghwa’s hair was now hanging only a few centimeters away from joong’s forehead. He lowered in for a kiss, as their clothed, painful arousals came in contact. Hongjoong let out a beautiful moan, making hwa smile even more. He left a trail of bruises all over his naked body. His hand crept to joong’s tracks, pulling them off. Joong’s movements made it easier. He held the hem of Hwa’s pants and pulled them off for him. The two men were now on the floor in their boxers with the door of the room wide open. Hwa took a glance of joong’s arousal, and joong looked at hwa’s. They both gave a mutual laugh at what they had done to each other, and hwa dropped down to hongjoong’s lips, their hips moving against each others’. They soon removed the last piece of clothing covering them, and their moans got louder. The look of how wet they both aroused a lot of heat in them. 

“Fuck me, hwa”

“Oh I will, baby”

Hwa trailed his nose from hongjoong’s belly button, down his beautiful happy trail, to his throbbing dick. He let his tongue explore joong’s full length, pulling out scandalous moans from joong. He felt his hair being grabbed by two careful hands. Hwa was encouraged. He played around with joong’s thighs, watching him moan helplessly. Hongjoong let out a loud moan as hwa took his dick in his mouth. The grip on his hair got tighter.

“Just like that babyy I love it...”

Hwa’s head moved faster, sucking passionately at joong’s dick. It couldn’t get any better. He could feel himself getting closer to his climax. 

“I’m...I’m close.. hwa, baby.. i’m gonna come..” Hwa left joong’s dick.

“No! Please don’t stop! I’m close.. I wanna come!” 

“Oh no honey, not yet. You’ll come with me” Seonghwa gave a very sexy smirk, and touched hongjoong’s hole, evident through his already spread-out legs. Hongjoong let out a loud moan. Hwa’s finger probed further, into a hole that clenched his finger with an unbelievable tight grip. But that did not stop hwa. He thrusted another finger in, making joong’s back arch with a sudden, strong movement. Hwa went as deep as his fingers could, and joong suddenly let out a strong, loud, moan. He had found it. Joong’s pretty little spot. He removed his fingers, and joong felt something bigger entering him slowly. Joong screamed out his man’s name, making hwa thrust into him. He went harder with every thrust, and joong loved it. Hwa was hitting his sweet spot with ever single thrust, but it started getting painful. Hwa noticed the pain on joong’s face, and gave him a deep kiss to distract him. 

Mingi and Wooyoung returned home. They walked up to the door to their dorm, but they could hear hongjoong screaming hwa’s name. They both gave each other an understanding smile and walked away.

Meanwhile joong was having the best day of his life. He was told that his biggest crush loved him, and now they were fucking in the wildest manner possible. 

Hwa and joong both felt their orgasms close. Joong said it first. “I’m gonna come.. pease don’t stop.. go faster!”

“Come for me baby, I’m gonna come too.”

“Inside me... please!!!”

“Fuck, that’s so sexy baby.” 

With one strong thrust, hwa threw his head back in pleasure, and joong felt his warm cum fill him up. A split-second later, Joong shot his cum onto seonghwa and himself. He was exhausted. They both were. Seonghwa fell down onto joong’s chest, who caressed his beautiful blonde locks. 

A few minutes later, they both got up and helped eact other clean up. None of them could forget about what they had just done. They put their boxers on and went to bed. Seonghwa carefully covered his baby with the blanket. Joong caught seonghwa’s farther shoulder, and lay his head on his wide, warm chest. Hwa caressed his hair affectionately, and wooyoung returned to see them both asleep in that position, with their tshirts and pants on the floor. 

Hongjoong didn’t replace wooyoung though. He had just joined the duo, although he was Seonghwa’s only boyfriend.

HELP WTF DID I JUST WRITE PLEASEKADJHSDG

#ateez #seongjoong #woohwa

[artistic-writer]

Love Finds a Way :: CS Jurassic World AU :: Ch 10

Title: Love Finds a Way by @artistic-writer​

Summary: Emma Swan is the Head of Operations for David Nolan’s exotic adventure park, Jurassic World.  She has a son, Henry, and is loved and respected by her colleagues. Her life was perfect until a new dinosaur the park created, Indominus Rex, decided to escape.  Oh, and her one night stand, Killian Jones - he’s there to help contain the asset. Just to complicate things even more.  Jurassic World AU.

Rating: M (for people getting eaten)

Also on: AO3 - FF

A/N: We are so close to the end of this fic and I have never had so much fun writing about a dinosaur battle than I have in this chapter!  This chapter took me a bit to write because, as you’ll see, it is mostly action with very little dialogue and is a tad longer than those previous, but as ever, I hope you all enjoy yourselves! Captain Cobra feels ahoy! This chapter also leads immediately on from ch 9, so if you haven’t read that one, you can find it HERE Also, pushed a few little easter eggs in there, as found by my lovely beta @resident-of-storybrooke​ - can you find them too? ;)

Taglist: @hollyethecurious @kmomof4 @resident-of-storybrooke @cocohook38 @sherlockianwhovian @wordsmith-storyweaver@winterbaby89 @kymbersmith-90  @killianmesmalls @killian-whump @nonnyj @jennjenn615   @thislassishooked @searchingwardrobes @doodlelolly0910 @cs-forlife @darkcolinodonorgasm @mariakov81 @xemmaloveskillianx @carpedzem @effulgentcolors @shardminds @hookedonapirate​

Please show your appreciation for my writing and artwork by buying me a Ko-fi.  If you are unable to do that, then please enjoy it and show your appreciation with a reblog. Or leave me a comment, i’m a sucker for that.  Any feedback welcome :D

——————————————————————————————

The hall was narrow, the three of them rushing back the way they had come, Killian’s boots scuffing the floor as he struggled for balance. The gun in his hand made him heavier on one side, biceps bulging under the rolled sleeves of his shirt as he gripped it and clung to Emma’s hand with the other. He practically dragged her along, Henry completing the human train as he gripped his mother’s sweaty fingers in a desperate attempt to keep up, his younger legs taking twice as many steps to stay with them. The door was in sight. Outside would be dangerous, Killian knew that, but the chances of them remaining alive whilst trapped inside a lab with a raptor who had tasted blood were very much against them.

The shattering of glass made Emma scream and she pinched her eyes closed as Killian tugged her arm a little too hard to stop her from advancing any more. Delta, having finished off her Walsh sized snack and hungry for more, burst through another pane, showering cubes of safety glass all across the hall in front of them. The dinosaur skidded awkwardly to a stop, scrambling for a foothold as Killian turned them all around and pushed Emma and Henry ahead of him, putting himself between them and Delta.

The raptor let out a screech, short and frustrated, something Killian had come to recognize from her as he had raised them. She had always been a bit of a troublesome youngster, too quick to react instead of thinking a problem through like her littermates. Killian used it to their advantage, using the time it took the man-height dinosaur to work out she couldn’t chase them at full speed on the slippery, tiled floor to make their escape. The sound of their feet pounding the hard floor was lost in the thundering footsteps of Delta behind them, both echoing around them as the hall opened up into the visitor’s center main lobby.

“This way!” Killian urged quickly, nodding his head towards the other side of the lobby.

Emma gave Henry another small push, making sure the boy was ahead of them both and running as fast as he could. Delta screeched again, closing in on her targets, and the sound reverberated around them, making Emma’s skin crawl with a tingling sensation. Sweat beaded her brow and the top of her bosom, her skin clammy, sticking the vest she was wearing to her skin. Henry’s hair had stuck to his forehead, adrenaline coursing through his body, but even though his vision was slightly cloudy from the room whizzing past his as he ran, his mind was as sharp as ever.

The middle of the room was where the visitor center had a holographic interactive dinosaur learning computer. Users needed to push a button to engage the learning module, complete with a life sized holographic version of the dinosaur they had chosen. As they ran passed it, Henry slapped an open palm to one of the glowing buttons, hoping, praying, that it would buy them some time. After a millisecond, the computer beeped and a full sized Dilophosaurus sprang up behind them, causing Delta to crane her neck back as she slid to a stop just in front of the dinosaur now in her path.

The hologram hissed, its neck frill flaring in aggression, something that since the first park opened, scientists had proved to be false. Henry ignored the inaccuracy because it had worked, Delta rearing and giving a screeching cry at the shaking dinosaur in front of her, claws ready to swipe as she began to circle sideways. The hologram didn’t move, repeating the hissing action as a narrator talked from the speaker behind it. Delta let out a roar, jumping at the intruder who dared interrupt her hunt, only to come out on the other side of the blue shimmer confused. She spun on her heels, attempting the move again but to the same result, giving Killian, Emma and Henry enough time to reach the front doors and slip outside without her noticing.

The heavy wooden doors were rigged to close behind them, so Killian led the charge down the steps in long strides, only to rush head first into another of the raptors. Blue, with her distinctive coloured stripe down her neck and body, was standing to full attention in front of them, eyeing the man she saw as Alpha with two morsels. Her yap of excitement told Killian she was keen to share his spoils, thinking that he had brought her food, so he put himself between her and Emma and Henry, puffing his chest out. He knew it might not do any good, not with the Indominus around, and especially when he heard a bang on the doors behind them and Delta appeared at the top of the staircase in search of her lost quarry.

She roared, moving down the steps slowly, deliberately, eyes with slit like pupils fixed on Henry. Killian turned to her, towering over Emma and Henry as he stared her down, reducing her cries to nothing more than a hiss as she circled them with her blood stained maw still dripping with her last meal. Killian’s grip on the gun tightened even more, his fingertips turning white as he instinctively lifted an arm to try and hold the raptors back, a move he would forever be weary of around Delta, but still hoping they understood his gesture.

The high pitched screech of a third raptor made Henry cry out, his small body bumping into his mother’s as Echo appeared beside them, her sandy coloured tiger like stripes almost flashing brighter with her excitement at finding prey. She took a step towards them, Killian watching her out of the corner of his eye and Emma and Henry huddled up behind him, the gap between them and the three raptors becoming ever smaller as the reptiles formed a circle around them.

“So, that’s how it’s going to be, eh, ladies?” Killian said softly, keeping eye contact with Blue. Even after all the times he had been there for his girls, fought to keep them as wild as he could, he would never fault them for simply being themselves. If they tore him limb from limb, he would never blame them. It was their nature, a nature that man had no right trying to tame.

The beta raptor growled, the sound in her throat more than anywhere else as she took a step towards the three of them. Delta and Echo were in attack formation, closing in on both sides, so there was no escape. Blue made an odd crackling sound again, her pupils dilating and her eyes flashing in the overhead lights as Killian slowly leaned sideways to put his gun down. The muzzle touched the ground first and without breaking eye contact with his beta, Killian let the barrel slide along the pavement until he had no choice but to drop the gun the rest of the way. The stock hit the floor with a clattering sound and he righted himself, face to face with Blue.

She had calmed somewhat, seeming to have her own internal conflict about the situation laid out in front of her. Her sisters cawed and screeched, eager to sink their teeth into what they saw before them, but they wouldn’t until Blue gave the word. And Killian knew it. His face was so close to Blue’s that each time she breathed, the hot, putrid air from her nostrils fogged his face. She blinked, a small affectionate grunting noise coming from the back of her throat as she simply watched her Alpha, a silence falling between them that made Emma start to shiver and sweat even more than the humidity had made her already.

Killian closed the gap even more, slowly raising his hand, trying to abstain from shaking. Blue’s lips curled back in a low growl of warning, her eyes flicking towards his hand as Killian moved it higher still, almost touching her snout. Blue snapped, not really meaning anything by it other than another warning that Killian promptly ignored.

“There, lass,” he whispered smoothly and Emma wondered how his voice managed to remain so even. “Easy.”

Blue snorted but allowed his advance. Killian watched her, knowing that he would have no time to respond now if she decided to change her mind about being amicable. He lifted his arm a little higher, moving to the back of Blue’s head, her beady eye swivelling in its socket as his palm made contact with the ridges of her reptilian skin and she let out a human-like groan.

“Easy,” Killian whispered, his words almost inaudible to Emma who clutched Henry to her even harder.

Blue relaxed a little, blinking her eyes a few more times as he growling turned into a purr at Killian’s touch, the approval of her Alpha all she was seeking. Killian’s fingertips reached the lock keeping Blue’s headcam fixed to her head and turned the mechanism towards himself, the click and snap of an opening buckle making Blue rear back a little. Her movement dislodged the head strap and the weight of the camera pulled it free, and it hit the ground with a smashing glass sound.

Blue simply purred again, the offending item now gone where it had previously been such an aggravation. Her eyes softened, subtly, so subtly that only he would have noticed, and Killian’s lips ticked up at the corners as he slowly lowered his arm.

“There, that’s better, isn’t it, lass?” He quirked an eyebrow at the raptor in front of him and Blue’s lips rippled a little, something Killian’s recognized she only did when she was pleased.

 They all stiffened when a roar sounded out from in front of them, morphing into a growl. Emma could barely stop herself shaking with fear, her eyes glazed over and fixed on the darkness. The raptors were one thing, but this growl was from something much larger, something more dangerous, unmistakably the Indominus Rex. Her hand wrapped around Henry’s so hard that he winced in pain from her fingernails, not even really noticing when his eyes fixed onto the ripple of water in the puddles as huge footsteps grew louder.

Blue whipped around, her tail almost slapping across Killian’s abdomen as the Indominus Rex appeared from around the side of a kiosk, the strewn chairs becoming a mess of mangled metal under her feet. The ground shook as she stepped forward, long, steady strides than made the ground beneath their feet feel like it was moving out from under them. Delta and Echo both switched positions too, still at Killian, Emma and Henry’s side, but now obediently focused on the much larger dinosaur approaching them.

The Indominus took a few more steps before coming to a stop and letting out a roar, the stench of rotten meat and fish coating them all in a fine mist from her breath where she was so close. Blue reared up, seeming to make herself higher, shielding Killian’s view. He was frozen in place, arm still outstretched as if he could control the huge, part raptor dinosaur just as he could with his own raptors, eyes burning with the need to blink where he was so focused on the threat in front of them.

The Indominus made a chirping noise, the size of her vocal cords making the sound much deeper and almost like a cough, but Killian knew it was unmistakably her trying to communicate with the raptors. More short barks followed, her massive jaws opening just a tad each time, her tails whipping to the side furiously and her claws clenching her hands into spiky fists as she spoke to her kin. Killian wasn’t a stupid man, and after their interaction in the forest, he knew exactly what she was trying to say. When Blue turned to face him with a hiss of her own, it was clear.

The Indominus wanted what Blue had. Three tasty bite-sized prizes.

Killian shifted his weight, inching back a little and letting his arm drop to his side. It wasn’t up to him anymore. Blue let out a series of yips, high pitched and almost like toddler chatter as she took in Killian and let her lips curl. She was trying to tell him something, Killian knew it, but he had never been in this sort of situation before. All he knew was that her eyes were soft, the ripple of her lips along her mouths edge was a good sign, a happy sign, and he had to have faith in her.

He gave her a quick smile and she seemed to understand, blinking rapidly in excitement. Blue was asking what to do, what her alpha wanted her to do, and Killian couldn’t stop the smirk on his face as he blinked, refocusing his gaze on the Indominus, and Blue instantly spun to face the Indominus with a screeching roar. Ragefully, the huge dinosaur roared back, the sound vibrating right through them where they stood, as she lunged forward and headbutted Blue out of the way, sending the smaller dinosaur flying into a nearby concrete pillar.

Blue’s body hit the hard surface so hard that the concrete crumbled like sand, exposing the metal rebars inside the column. Her tail flew out and hit a window, shattering the glass that spilled out onto the floor and created a bed of shards that her lifeless body fell onto. Blue lay still, the brightness in her yellow eyes disappearing as her eyelids closed and she exhaled hard. Killian had to rein in his emotions, turning back to face the Indominus with a renewed hatred for the hybrid as, satisfied with her actions, she took a menacing step towards them.

Killian’s arms flew out to the side and he tried to shield Emma and Henry as best he could, stumbling a little over a crack in the floor as he eased backwards and they moved with him. Emma began to cry harder, a whimper in her voice that he knew she was trying to hide from her son. Henry clutched the back of Killian’s shirt, pulling the material so it felt tight against his shoulder, but Killian ignored it. He stared down the rex, another huge step closer making him seem even more imposing than she already did, when Delta suddenly let out an almighty cry from beside them.

Killian’s head whipped sideways, watching Delta as she squatted low and tensed her claws against the ground. Echo joined in, mirroring her sister and roaring at the Indominus, the sound of the water fountain behind her lost in the sound. They were ready to attack, their claws flexing on their front feet eagerly, whole bodies tensed to the maximum so that every single one of their muscles was visible to their enemy. Killian’s stomach dropped and he inched another step backwards with Emma and Henry, knowing exactly what was about to transpire.

The raptors were asking permission from him, their Alpha.

Killian took a huge breath, steadying himself, before curling his bottom lip under his teeth and then whistling as hard as he could. The sound came out, thankfully, louder than all of the commotion around them, and the two raptors moved instantly. Echo was quicker, racing towards the Indomnius as low to the ground as she could, gaining as much speed as her legs would allow, before leaping into the air with an attack cry and sinking her claws into the side of the Indominus Rex. The larger reptile roared, trying to dislodge the smaller one, but Echo held on, tearing into the Indominus’ shoulder and sinking her jaws into the ridged bumps along her spine.

Delta was quick to join her sister, leaping onto the rex’s neck and digging at the skin there like a terrier, her claws effortlessly slicing through to the bone. With another angry bellow, the Indominus spun around, trying to dislodge her two attackers, disoriented and confused by their sudden mutiny. She tried to reach them, jerking her head backwards but unable to grab ahold of either of them, her claws ripping into her own skin as she changed tactics and tried to pull them off that way.

Whilst the dinosaurs were distracted, Killian saw their opportunity to reach safety, grabbing his gun for good measure. He grabbed Emma’s hand, knowing she would grab onto Henry’s too, and pulled with all his might, racing out of the situation under the tail of the Indominus Rex. Her tail swung around behind them, narrowly missing Henry as she smashed one of the fountains, sending shards of glass and droplets of water everywhere. Henry broke free from his mother, taking the lead and vaulting over the counter of a nearby kiosk, Emma following suit and both of them landing inside with a grunt.

Killian circled around the dinosaur in front of him, her piercing screech tearing through his ears like a needle. He ignored it, lifting the rifle to his face for stability and better accuracy as he looked down the iron sights and pulled the trigger. The muzzle of his gun flashed with orange, the short bursts of bullets hitting the Indominus right where he had aimed, more blood flowing out of the creature as she cried out in fury. The sound of the raptors pulling at her flesh made him pause, swallowing hard and trying to ignore the fact that they were probably too far gone to recall now. He had to be careful, lest they turn on him too.

The Indominus changed her stance, attempting to remove the two dinosaurs ripping into her flesh by dipping low to the ground. Her tail flew up, narrowingly missing Killian as he took shelter behind another fountain, the giant, orange glass sculpture a replica of a mosquito stuck in amber. He leaned against the glass, the material cold on his back, and fumbled with the mechanism of his gun, trying to reload the rifle with one eye on what was going on behind him. He took his eyes off the dinosaurs for a second, unable to reload the weapon without looking, and then looked up to see one of his raptors slide across the wet ground in front of him.

Echo righted herself quickly, almost coming to a stop outside of the small shop Henry and Emma were huddled inside for safety. Henry jumped a little, freezing to the spot he had made into a sort of teddy bear fort at the back of the kiosk. He was scared, but he couldn’t stop thinking, his brain churning over and over with the same thought.

“We need more,” he whispered to himself, counting on his fingers to confirm his thoughts.

“More what?” Emma spun to look at him from where she had been watching Killian over the counter and gave him a questioning frown. Henry nodded, half to himself and half to her, meeting her gaze.

“More teeth. We need more teeth,” Henry said quickly, still short of breath from running.

A moment of confusion for Emma was followed by a moment of realisation. Of course. Henry was right. He was always right. They needed more teeth because the Indominus was full of them, her hybrid status making her more formidable than any other carnivore that had ever walked the earth. There was only one way they were going to defeat her, for good this time, and that was, indeed, with more teeth.

“Stay here,” Emma whispered to her son, grabbing his face in her hands. Her thumbs brushed over his cheeks, wiping away the tears stains on his slightly red cherub cheeks. “I’ll be back, I promise,” she nodded. When Henry nodded back, Emma leaned forward and kissed his forehead, sealing her promise with the soft press of her lips to his skin.

Scrambling to her feet, Emma reached for the first aid box on the way. She slammed her hand against the latch, sending the lid falling until it hit a shelf, and grabbing the flare that was inside. She was going to need a little more help for her plan to work fully, so she also reached for the radio that each employee used to communicate around the park, the sound of static hissing from the speaker.

With a short, nervous breath that shook her entire body, Emma clambered over the kiosk counter, ignoring the sound of gunfire and the roaring shriek of the raptor that flew passed her and leapt back onto the back of the Rex once more. Killian watched, his brow pulling together in confusion, as Emma ran off into the darkness, the sound of her heels against the tarmac echoing into nothing as she got further away. He didn’t know where she was going, and he didn’t have time to find out before the Indominus shook the ground with another hefty step towards him.

Killian wasted no time when the opportunity to fire was so obvious, leaning against the yellow glass to stabilize himself and aiming straight at the massive reptile. One, two, three direct hits had her whirling around towards him, but she didn’t have a chance to see him because Echo was back on her, crawling up her back and sinking her teeth into the back of the Indominus’ neck. It was a fatal mistake, Echo’s blood lust blinding her strategy because it gave the Indominus time to reach around and clamp the smaller raptor in her jaws.

Echo’s high pitched shriek was cut short as her life ended, her body falling limp in the Indominus’ maw before she was thrown through the window of another nearby kiosk. Killian wasn’t sure what the kiosk was for, but when Echo’s body hit a still burning gas barbecue style burner, the canister of gas exploded and engulfed the dead raptor in flames. The Indominus spun around on the spot, trying to reach the other dinosaur terrorizing her, and when she whipped her tail into the amber sculpture Killian was hiding behind, it sent him racing for somewhere else to hide.

Chunks of orange glass littered the ground around him but he managed to dodge them in an attempt to reach the kiosk where Henry was already hiding. Just as Killian leapt over the counter, hip sliding against the metal surface and the arm holding his gun held aloft to balance himself, the Indominus managed to snatch up Delta in her powerful jaws and flung her aside like she was nothing. Killian landed in the kiosk silently, crouching down in front of Henry and silencing the boy with a single finger that he pressed to his lips. He cast his eyes sideways as if he could look behind him when the rumbling snuffle of the Indominus reverberated through the air as she searched for more prey.

The kiosk was plunged into darkness, the Indominus casting a huge shadow over the whole area as she walked past. Her growl was different now, somewhat infuriated, and Henry swallowed hard as her huge head and eye appeared in his view. Her pupil narrowed and she let out a roar at having found what she was looking for, the whole kiosk rocking from side to side as she bashed into it with her bulk. Toys and other merchandise tumbled from the shelves overhead, hitting both Henry and Killian, who had tried to shield the boy as much as he could with his bigger bulk.

Killian would die for Henry, he was pretty sure of it in that moment. He wasn’t his boy, but Killian understood what people said when they loved a child so unconditionally that they would be willing to sacrifice themselves for that child’s life. If the Indominus wanted Henry, she would have to go through him. Henry screamed, his voice so high pitched that the sound reminded Killian of just how young the boy was and how real his fear would manifest at that age. Killian cradled him in his arms, trying to cover his view, but when the Indominus punched a hole into the side of the kiosk and tried to claw them out with her scythe like fingers, Henry screamed even louder.

Killian pulled Henry with him as he flattened himself to the opposite wall, bunching the boy in his arms. The rex reached in further, one of her fingers nearly catching Henry’s leg, but Killian was too quick. He pulled Henry closer still, the razor sharp talon just missing the boy’s flesh and scoring a line into the concrete floor as she withdrew it, the sound of Henry’s cries echoing in Killian’s ears.

--

“Ruby! Ruby, can you hear me?” Emma yelled into the speaker of the radio in her hands. Her voice was jostled on account of her running so fast, and she nearly dropped it a few times, but when she released the button and heard Ruby’s voice return, she was so relieved.

“Yes! Yes, I’m here!” Ruby answered enthusiastically, pressing the one speaker headset to her ear so she could make out Emma’s words clearly. “Hey, where are you?” Ruby urged, eyes scanning the operations room as if Emma was there.

“I need you to open paddock 9,” Emma ordered, feet pounding the pavement as she ran, her ankles aching in her high heels.

“Paddock 9?” Ruby asked quickly, frowning. She slid her wheeled chair sideways to the gate control panel and shook her head at what she was seeing. Paddock 9 was huge, industrially built to house one of the islands main assets. “Are you kidding?” Ruby squeaked, entering the override code but hovering her fingers over the enter button reluctantly.

“Ruby, just do it!” Emma repeated, looking directly at the camera next to the paddock gate that she was sure Ruby was watching. The not so distant roar of the Indominus made Emma’s heart pound even harder in her chest and she gripped the flare in her hand even tighter. “Do it now!”

Ruby dropped her headset, fixing her gaze on the camera footage of Emma. She was dirty, ruffled hair and torn clothes, but definitely powerful as she stood outside the huge metal gates and stared into the camera defiantly. Emma tossed the walkie aside, the plastic device disappearing off the screen as Ruby fought with herself internally. Opening paddock 9 could be disastrous, and she had no idea what Emma was thinking, but she had to trust her. Emma wasn’t just her boss, but her friend, so with a grimace, Ruby touched the enter button on the screen and a siren sounded to warn of the gate opening.

There was a red light beside the gate’s keypad and it flashed and spun around in its little dome. A claxon sounded out and Emma took deeper breaths, hoping the shake in her legs would not hinder her plan in any way. She pulled the lid of the flare, a bright, red flame shooting from the end and bathing the whole area in a glow like a warning beacon. The smell of the flare filled Emma’s nostrils but she ignored it, watching, waiting, fighting her flight response as the four foot thick door rose in front of her.

The silence was broken but the even thud of footsteps, paddock 9’s occupant drawn to the sound of the door opening. Years of conditioning had taught her it was food that came through the door, day or night, saliva dripping from her worn toothed jaw as she made her way towards the red glow in the doorway. Emma stood fast, unable to make out anything in the blackness of the paddock in front of her, the ground shaking beneath her feet and the stench of rotting flesh wafting out of the trees as her fingers gripped at the flare even harder. This was madness. There was already at least one dinosaur full of teeth running free on the island, but the sound of rumbling breath told Emma it was too late to go back now.

She was here.

All Emma could see was darkness were two tiny pinprick glows that approached the light she held in her hand, growing bigger with each step the dinosaur took, its eyes reflecting the flare in the darkness. Emma, frozen to the spot, watched as, out of the darkness, a Tyrannosaurus Rex approached her, eyes fixated on the flare in her hand. When the dinosaur reached the threshold, Emma waved the flare a little, making sure she had her full attention, before spinning on her heels and breaking into a sprint away from the paddock gate and back towards the visitor center.

So far, Emma’s plan was working. More teeth, Henry had said, and more teeth she had found. Despite its lack of attention from the new visitors to the island in the wake of newer dinosaurs, the T-Rex was one of the biggest and most dangerous carnivores on the island. In fact, she was the exact same dinosaur that had been introduced to the original park, the beast matured and monstrous now she had aged by two decades, her body scarred to prove her superiority. Emma had to run faster than she had anticipated to keep out of her reach and when the deep, ground shaking footsteps behind her were lost behind a deep, guttural roar, she couldn’t help the panicked squeak that escaped her lips.

Emma’s ears buzzed with adrenaline, the water from the puddles she was stepping in soaking her feet, but she ignored it as she ran through the gates to where the Indominus was still wreaking havoc. The T-Rex was still behind her and she could almost feel the dinosaur’s breath on her neck as she rushed into the light, the Indominus noticing her at the last second before Emma launched the lit flare at the dinosaur and peeled off into the darkness.

The flare hit the Indominus in the shoulder, singeing the opening wounds she had sustained there and making her turn towards what had caused her so much pain. The flare was forgotten almost instantly when she laid eyes of the T-rex, the other dinosaur breaking through a skeleton with an almighty roar of dominance, challenging the Indominus who returned the roar. As the two dinosaurs took each other in, circling around and crushing debris beneath their feet, it was clear that it wasn’t just raptor in the Indominus. She was clearly part Tyrannosaurus Rex too, her thick thighs and three toed bipedal stance almost an exact mirror image of the older dinosaur in front of her.

Emma, who had been displaced by the T-Rex breaking through the skeleton, lay behind her newly acquired ally, staying as still as she could behind the T-rex as the Indominus tried to intimidate the other dinosaur with another piercing cry. Emma locked eyes with Killian who had stood up inside the kiosk at the sound of another huge dinosaur. Seeing Emma made his heart flutter, a relief washing over him, but she wasn’t out of danger yet, the two dinosaurs sizing each other up mere feet away.

The rex took a lumbering step forward and her deeper roar shook the whole kiosk. Henry was up now, curiosity overriding his fear. The T-rex had always been one of his favourite dinosaurs, powerful and mean, with a tiny brain that was attuned to just the most simple of tasks. Eating, breeding and killing. This was her island, and she would kill to defend it. When Henry moved a little too close to the front of the kiosk, Killian’s arm flew across his chest to stop him, just as the T-rex broke into a sprint, jaws agape and eyes wide with intent as she headed straight for the Indominus.

The two dinosaurs collided in a mess of teeth and claws, the Indominus having the reach advantage because of her long arms, but the T-rex getting the better of her when she grabbed her by the neck and crunched down through the Indominus’ slightly armoured skin there. The dinosaurs shifted position, the T-rex holding onto the Indominus’ neck as she spun them both around to gain more of an advantage. The Indominus lowered herself in an attempt to slip from the rex’s jaws, but it just aided the giant dinosaur in gaining more of a grip. One of their tails slammed into a lampost, sending the metal pole flying and sparks shooting from the damaged electrics so close to Emma that she was shaken back to reality.

The T-rex pushed harder on the Indominus’ skin, the ridges much tougher than her own, her teeth taking a while to pierce through. It gave the Indominus a window of opportunity that she took, circling her head out of the T-Rex’s mouth and then turning offensive, using her longer arms to claw at the T-Rex’s face. One of her sharpened claws dug in, slicing the T-Rex across the face, causing the dinosaur to stumble back a little, carelessly snapping her jaws in an attempt to end the assault.

Her foot slipped out from under her and the T-Rex fell to the ground, a desperate roar strangled in her throat when the Indominus clamped her jaws down on her neck. Her back legs flailed wildly, her only other means of defense, but it was to no avail, and the Indominus dragged her huge bulk sideways and tossed her aside where she smashed through the side of the kiosk Henry and Killian had been hiding in.

Killian rushed Henry aside, the open jaws of the T-Rex only just missing him as she cried out, her yellowed teeth mere inches from his face.

“Run!” Emma screamed, drawing Killian’s attention.

When the dinosaurs retreated out of the kiosk to continue their fight, Killian hustled Henry’s fear frozen body forward and out of the hole that had now been created in the side of the kiosk.

“Go! Go!” He ushered hastily, ducking to avoid debris when the Indominus overpowered the T-Rex again and sent the dinosaur crashing to the ground behind them.

They ran towards where Emma had hunkered down behind another fountain sculpture, this one of blackened lava rocks, her arms wide open and expectant. Henry rushed into her embrace, burying his face in her chest, his arms wrapped so tightly around her body that Emma thought she might break in half any second. Killian laid a hand on Henry’s back where it brushed against Emma’s and she looked up from kissing the top of her son’s head to meet his gaze. There was something in Killian’s eyes she hadn’t seen before, something that scared her a little, more so at this moment than any other, and she wanted - needed - to know if Killian felt the same way she did.

Maybe it was the adrenaline, or maybe the imminent danger, but Emma surged forward and grabbed Killian’s face with one hand, pulling his lips to hers where she kissed him as hungrily as she could with her son pinned between them. Killian kissed her back, pushing hard, his lips sliding against hers and his head tilting to accommodate her nose as it brushed his face, the tip cold from the night air. He felt the same, he always had, and despite this moment being that absolute worst time to figure it out, Emma wanted him as much as he wanted her.

The sound of the T-Rex roaring again broke them apart, the moment fading away in the anguished cry of the nearly defeated dinosaur. They both looked, Killian keeping a gentle grip on her elbow to stay tethered to her, and the T-Rex was down. She had sustained some injuries, fresh, red blood dripping from wounds as the Indominus towered over her and had her pinned to the ground by her head. There was a soft snuffling noise that came from the Indominus, victorious and pleased with herself, but it was drowned out by the call of a raptor that had everything with a pair of eyes looking towards the visitor centre doors.

The sound echoed again, a battle cry of sorts, as Blue came thundering around a kiosk with her head held high and her feet pounding the ground confidently. She raced towards the two dinosaurs, gathering speed with a lowered stance and a hiss of aggression declaring her intentions. The Indominus looked up in time to see her leap into the air, vault off of the downed T-Rex and attach herself to the side of her, Blue’s claws on all four feet sinking into her scaly flesh once more.

In the center of her back, Blue was unreachable, the Indominus violently shaking her body from side to side in an attempt to rid herself of the annoyance. Blue held on, jaws pulling chunks of flesh from the back of the dinosaur who had dared to oppress her and her sisters. The Indominus was not a raptor, she never would be, and distracted by Blue clawing at her skin, she had failed to notice the T-Rex had got back to her feet until her neck was once again in the vice grip of her jaws.

With a renewed energy, the T-Rex used her added weight to push the Indominus back until she hit the side of a building, the tall glass windows shattering and showering them with shards and sparks from a broken electrical outlet. The T-Rex ignored the Indominus when she cried out, desperately clawing at anything that would rid her of the assault. The T-Rex’s short arms were out of her reach and she rearranged her grip on the Indominus’ neck, twisting the collection of muscle and bone until the Indominus roared a pained cry.

Blue jumped between the two dinosaurs, using the T-rex for balance and cover when the Indominus managed to swipe a claw too close. The Indominus was running out of steam, Killian could tell, her raptor based genes built for sprinting and not a marathon. The energy she had exerted during this fight was taking its toll, and Killian used the opportunity to make sure Emma and Henry were on their way to safety. With a nod he motioned for them to move, all three of them running under the tail of the T-Rex as she, again, reasserted her grip on the Indominus by clamping her jaws shut around her head.

Henry led the charge away, through a shop that was partially open at both ends because it had no doors. Half way through the outlet, the sound of glass smashing made him skid to a stop, Blue sliding through the broken glass where she had been tossed from the back of the Indominus. The raptor simple rose back to her feet, none the worse for wear, and jumped back into the action, her shrill cry piercing the air as she leapt back at the Indominus Rex. The T-rex had the Indominus by the head again, shaking her own in an attempt to disorientate her foe. At one point, the Indominus wriggled free, but the T-Rex simple heaved her bulk into the other dinosaur who went crashing through an entire building where she fell onto her side with a groan.

The T-rex didn’t relent, chasing after the huge reptile and grabbing her by the head once more, blood from the Indominus’ previous wounds now restricting her sight. With a heaving sigh, the Indominus flailed her back legs, wildly kicking out at nothing as the T-Rex dragged the hulk of a dinosaur along the ground with her powerful neck muscles, finally tossing her aside like a rag doll where she crashed through a safety barrier next to the huge Mosasaurs lake.

The T-Rex and Blue watched from a distance as the Indominus rose to her feet, shaking her head from side to side like a wet dog, parts of glass and rebar sticking out of her body in all locations. One of her forearms had become limp and she was unable to keep herself steady as she attempted one last roar of defiance at the T-Rex. Defensively, Blue and the T-rex roared back, but there would be no more fighting between them, because, as she prepared to attack once more, the Indominus was grabbed by a gigantic Mosasaur. The monstrous aquatic beast breached the lake surface to beach itself on the concrete, taking the Indominus between her jaws and pulling her prey back into the lake to drown it.

A silent calm fell over the whole area, just the spark of electricity and the ripple of disturbed water the only sounds that could be heard. Blue let out an appreciative grumble noise in her through, the sound barely moving her lips as she took a tentative step back from the T-Rex. The huge lumbering beast simply stared at her, tired and weary from her fight, gave her a quick glance before heading off into the darkness of the island. Emma, Henry and Killian were all looking on, shocked by what had transpired, least of all Killian, who had never known raptors to work with any other species but their own. It seemed humans were not the only ones to band together for a common purpose.

Killian stepped forward out of their hiding place, Blue watching his every step. She was making a purring sound, the sound of happiness, the sound she only made when he was around. She was injured but they were superficial wounds and Killian knew they would heal just fine in time. He stared at her, watching the look in her eyes that told him she wanted to be free, to be able to live her life the way nature intended, and so Killian was caught in an internal struggle. For the safety of the island, she should be contained, but he had never seen the spark in her eyes as bright as it was now, and so he simply watched as, after a soft nod, she too disappeared into the forests of Isla Nublar.

#cs au #cs ff #cs fanfic #love finds a way #lfaw #ch 10 #jurassic world au #jw au #killian jones #emma swan #liam jones #henry #walsh #ruby lucas #dinosaurs eat people #fanart for fanfic #have you noticed how I did all the fanart? #after saying i never would after BNAN #im a sucker

[sarah--goff]

Their Dark Materials: Chapter Ten: Knock, Knock

_*_

You trudged along, in the blaze of the sun you had been walking along the top of the walls of the Labyrinth for what felt like ages, seemingly undetected.

You had been able to mentally map from above which paths were dead ends or fatal, it made you wish at that moment you had your beloved camera with you so you wouldn’t have to remember them all.  

You meander your way along the thorns, watching your footing, following from above a path that was meandering closer to the Goblin City. It suddenly stopped at a wall and you jumped down to meet it.

“Oof”

You dusted yourself down, wiping your hands on your jeans.

Crazy to think that in a few hours you’d be standing within the palace walls. You felt as though you’d been in this labyrinth for so long. It would all be over soon.

The scene around you was very much the same dusty yellowed walls and green hedges.

You came face to face with twin doors in front of you. This must be the wall where the path stopped.

Maybe these would lead to the castle. Then again it was probably another fruitless trick. What choice did you have? Please no more riddles.

You hesitated flicking your eyes between the identical doors, with the exception of different golden knockers each has a large hoop and funny faces.

Which one of these ugly characters would you choose to go through? Left, or right? This seemed to be a recurring theme in the Labyrinth, choice after choice, poor decision after another…

“It’s very rude to stare!” the one of the left snapped with the large ring knocker through its ears startling you.

“Sorry! I was just wondering which door to choose”

“WHAT?”

“Mmf mo mmf masking mim – mmm mef mas a mmst” the other knocker said muffled by the hoop in its mouth

“Don’t talk with your mouth full!”

“Mhat mo mu meam- !” the one on the right protested but you couldn’t make out what it was saying

“Wait a second I can’t understand you” you shifted the bundle in your arms wishing Hoggle's bag was big enough to stuff in there.

“WHAT WERE YOU SAYING?”

You removed the heavy hoop from its mouth setting it down on the dirty stone . It smacked its mouth in relief rolling its eyes “Ahhh. Oh-ho! It is so good to get that thing out!”

“What were you saying?” you repeated

“I said it’s no good talking to him, he’s deaf as a post-“

“Mumble, mumble, mumble ! You’re a wonderful conversational companion(!)”

“You can talk!” it snapped back “all you do is moan!”

“No good” the one with the hoop in its ears sniffed “can’t hear you”

“Where do these doors lead?” you interjected holding your hands up .

“WHAT?”

“Search me- we’re just the knockers!” it wheezed with laughter rolling its beady eyes back

You tried pushing the wooden door but it wouldn’t give. You tried the other door pushing “well...how do I get through?”

“HUH?”

It wouldn’t budge , come on.

“Knock, and the door will open” the other said behind you wisely.

“Oh, right” you nodded.

You picked up the golden hoop from the floor easing it back into the knocker’s mouth

“Ergh! I don’t want that thing back in my mouth!” it protested firmly shutting its mouth so you couldn’t put it in.

“Come on, I wanna knock!” you said holding the hoop up encouragingly .

“Nm-mm!” is shook its head.

“Ha! Doesn’t want his ring back in his mouth, eh?” the deaf one quipped “can’t say I blame him”

The knocker still refused to open its mouth.

“come on, I need to go through or I can’t win- I’ve had enough of this place already!” it kept its lips sealed “if I don’t open this door I’ll never get out of here!”.

You noticed it breathing heavily through its large flat nose and had a mean idea.

You bit your lip and suddenly lurched your hand out to grab its hooter to its surprise.

It struggled for a while refusing to open its mouth as you kept the hoop close to it. "Just open your mouth will you!"

It gasped for air and you stuck the ring in. The knocker grumbled in its defeat

“I’m sorry, but I have to beat the king” you looked at it with a shrug and earnest smile

You knocked twice proudly.  The door swung open and you whooped going through as the knocker grumbled.

“Sorry again!”

“ffs fall figh fime fused fo fit”

You blinked going through adjusting your eyes to the dimness.

The scene had changed severely from the cute neat trimmed courtyards and fountains. Now it looked as if you had stumbled into another world completely.

You were in a jungle or wetland of some kind. A frog croaked, you could hear the hum of flies and other creatures around you. The air was humid. You removed your jacket with a bead of sweat on your forehead. You surmised this would lead you somewhere along the way to the Goblin City.

It looked as if the evening was finally beginning to arrive. There were tall and thick weeping willows everywhere surrounding a large lake.

A lake!

Here? In the labyrinth? Were you still in the labyrinth? There were no ...walls. Where...were..the...paths...

You stared at the lake, and these worrying thoughts began to melt away…

You had a sudden urge to swim.

Just a little swim, it would do you good, make you more focused for sure. You had more than enough time now didn't you?

You found your feet walking between the trees, carefully brushing the long willows’ vines from your eyes and to the water’s edge. How lovely it looked in this twilight! The moon reflected on its ripples like diamonds.

You dumped your jacket on the spot along with the cloak, which you folded neatly, and Hoggle's bag.

You walk right up to the banks, toed out of your shoes and stuck a foot in, thankfully it was not as cold as the water fountain.

You let the glimmering water slip up to your ankle and put the other in. You sighed with relief at the sensation suddenly feeling very grimy from all the running and rolling in the dirt you’d done today.

You were about to dive head first and bite the cold bullet when something yanked you back hard.

“Hey!” you jumped leaping out the water.

“Don’t go in there!” An old hag hauled you away from the pretty lake you so desperately longed to swim in.

Irritation bubbled over you, you had been on your feet all bloody day running around in circles and right now all you wanted to do was wash off the dirt on your face and relax your aching muscles.

“Let go of me- I want to swim!” you said to this rude stranger. Who was she to tell you, you couldn’t?!

She was stronger than she looked and pulled you further still until you could barely see the water through the willow trees, dragging you backwards much to your uproar of protest.

“Listen to me, child!” She pointed at the lake once you were both far from it, “the lake will kill you! It has strong magic to make it seem alluring, but it holds dark power!”

You shook your head at this old crazy woman, gesturing to the lake “I don’t know what you’re talk-“ you looked back at the water and now it looked different, black and bleak and oozing it was repulsive. You were sure it was crystal clear just now. What was up with this place?

The old woman took your arm, “You see?”. You did see and you stared and shuddered at the thought of what might have happened if she hadn’t been there. You were suddenly calmer now , the desperation passed over.

A long sigh left you, it seemed like just when you were on top, you were getting yourself into trouble.

You collected your jacket, cloak and bag.“Thanks… thank you” you said hearing your elevated pulse in your ears, “I don’t know what came over me back there, I should have seen that coming”.

She nodded, large hoop earrings jangling. She looked like a peasant wearing a long robe under her shawl that showed only her muddy bare feet.

“It’s dark magic, dear, it’s enough to draw anyone in if they aren’t familiar. Come! You’re shivering”

She waved you over to what looked like a make-shift camp, a stove and fire, a cloth tent.  It was certainly colder now that the sun had gone.

You may as well join her, all thoughts of sleep and resting had long gone now.

“Please, sit down” she offered. You sat opposite her now on a crumbling willow log. You couldn’t help but notice the large basket of bright intoxicating roses of all colours at her feet. You stared at them.

She noticed, following your eyes, half-smiling.

“I sell them in the market sometimes, would you like one?” she picked up a honey gold rose and held it out to you.

Yes, you did.

More desperately than you’d ever wanted anything else in your life, more than the lake.

You looked at it hesitantly in the old woman’s withered hands. Hoggle’s explanation drifted into your mind “when you take gifts from fae it means that you owe them back whatever they want”

Never accept faerie gifts.

You didn’t think she was fae as such, but still you stuck to your guns, after all it was this exact mistake that got you here in the first place!

But it looks so bright and alluring- like it could be made of solid gold.

You shook yourself resisting the urge and looking away from the rose. You didn’t need that debt, especially not in here.

But you really wanted to look at that rose, just for a minute longer. You reached out your fingers. But…

“I’m sorry, I can’t take this, it’s too pretty and I might lose it” the lie rolled off your tongue you forced your eyes to stare at the grassy floor.

“Ah, no worries child,” The old woman nodded and winked, drawing the rose back to place on the pile in the basket “I can tell you’re a smart one, not accepting things from strangers”

You had to laugh at that, the irony, you smiled at her. “Not as smart as you think, I, uh did- accept something. That’s kind of why I’m here”

But it feels so long ago…I’m a different person now.

Her green eyes widened “you’re not from here, are you?” she rolled them over you like she was searching inside you for something “but you look magical, why, you could be fae, or elven at least with that skin!” .

You smiled, “Maybe I am”, relaxing a little and blushed at the compliment although you hadn’t the faintest idea what eleven skin looked like.

The wind blew harsher and you decided to enjoy the only bit or real company you’ve had since you’ve been here.

“I take it you don’t have many human visitors here then?”

The peasant woman was checking something nestled in a pot resting on the fire. She looked thoughtful for a second. “Not often no…we fae always sense when they’re here”

She looked pointedly at you to which you both grinned.

“you folk are always getting yourselves into trouble one way or another in here” her smile pulled back her mouth to reveal some blackened teeth. “Have you eaten my dear? You look quite peaky”

It was at that moment your stomach rumbled loudly as if on cue, and you remembered you hadn’t eaten since this morning, before school, just like any other day, hours before your life was turned upside down. Forever.

She handed you some food using large leaf for a plate. “It ain’t much, but it’ll keep you going, especially if you want to win the labyrinth”

"Oh goodness!" You accepted the food gratefully.

You couldn’t be sure what it was but it seemed like an imitation of a meat pie that you got back home.  It was golden brown and warm, just bigger than your hands put together and you didn’t give a shit what the meat was, you never knew when you’d have your next meal, especially if you lost. You could be doomed to live in a dungeon with scraps for the rest of your life. You shuddered at the thought.

“Thank you, again, it looks like I seriously owe you when I get out of here- ” You took a large bite, so pleased that it tasted so delicious, it was the best thing you’d tasted in a while like something you’d get on Christmas day, stuffing maybe?

“Oh, wait I don’t even know you’re name!” you said mouth half full, embarrassed at your rudeness.

She waved her hand “never you mind about payments an’ all, but if you must know, it’s Sage, and you are…?”

“Sloane” you shook hands, gulping the food down “Sloane Hazel”

“A sweet name,” Sage nodded “the ‘little raider’ “ . You nodded, wiping your mouth.

She turned back momentarily to her make-shift stove. You willed yourself to look away the lake in the distance in case in ensnared you again, choosing instead to gaze at the stars above you, they stood out so brightly against the now black sky. You were grateful for the fire’s light otherwise you might be afraid or the dark especially had you been alone.

It was beginning to turn bitterly cold; you unravelled the cloak much to your displeasure of even needing it, but your jacket alone wouldn’t be enough.

You studied its unique beauty in your fingers before whirling it around your shoulders and threading the button through.

It was heavy and snug, shielding you completely from the night-air chill. It was big enough to wrap around you completely almost like a blanket.

The cloak was around your shoulders and jaw, you couldn’t help but inhale the woozy scent of wood and roasted chestnuts emanating from it. It smelt of him. You drew it to your face closer intoxicated by the sweetness of forest smells.

“Ah, what a pretty cloak you have!” Sage admired it tenderly and you felt a little bad that she herself had nothing to keep the cold out but perhaps she didn’t need the protection…magic and all that…

“Wherever did you find such a fancy thing?”

“Oh, just an… associate of mine…gave it to me” you shrugged, you didn’t bother to divulge -not that you wanted to.

“I see” she didn’t pry noticing your retreat.

She was watching over the fire “you also realise, my dear, that once the labyrinth is won, you can never return here again, so you couldn’t repay me an’ all?”

You shook your head, taking another bite, almost finished already! “why’s that?” you asked curiously although you felt like breathing a sigh of relief at the thought.

“It’s the rules, the king made” she stirred at what smelt like spicy soup. Your mouth watered a little at it.

“The king” you repeated, kicking at a rock by your foot.

You sighed. There was still that problem.

Sage carefully extracted two helpings of soup to a wooden bowl.

“Ah, well acquainted with his majesty then” she read your face, handing you the piping hot bowl and a spoon.

“I guess you could say that” You blew at the soup, stirring it thoughtfully, suddenly gone off your appetite.

She made a small ‘hmmf‘ acknowledging your change in tone. “Am I right in thinking that it’s because of his majesty that you’re here?”

You nodded but then shrugged, holding your arms “it was my own fault really” you admitted sheepishly, ducking your head. Something in her expression made you turn away to stare at the willows under the papery moon.

Sage patted your knee, seating herself across from you “it’s tough, winding up in a place like this alone, but you’ll see, King Jareth can be cruel- but he can be reasonable”

He had been anything but reasonable so far, that cheating, alluring, bastard.

Sage gestured to your elaborate cloak “he gave you that, didn’t he?”

You looked down at it, its grandness and you softened a little.

It certainly wasn’t an old rag he’d thrown at you. He’d chosen it especially, he’d known even in your jacket you’d freeze to death in the night. It was a selfless act, sure.

Sage served herself the soup. “He must care for you then a lil’ surely” she suggested her croaky voice grating on you.

You pressed your mouth in a line, knowing that she was right, but so what? It didn’t make his actions magically alright.

Sage tutted shaking her head, her large earrings tinkled against her hidden dark hair under the shawl “he has a good heart in him somewhere, though few see it”

“You know him?” you asked pricking up a little.

Sage made a so-so gesture “everyone knows the king,” she seated herself “but few wish to cross his majesty. You follow?

The words ‘bog’ and ‘eternal stench’ sprang to mind.

You nodded. Sage sighed setting down her own bowl to cool. “His majesty is a good king that is certain, but there is troubling inside him-“ Sage noted your empty bowl “oh you’ve finished your soup!”

Your cheeks went a little red. You were still hungry.

“Here, you may as well finish it” she plucked your bowl filling it once again to the brim.

You looked at her a little guilty “are you sure Sage? I don’t mind, promise, you’ve already done so much” you offered it back, but she shook her head firmly.

“You need the energy dear”.

You were so glad she said that and immediately tucked it.

“Good?” Sage laughed watching your eagerness.

“Very good!” you took another sip. You wondered if it would be rude to drink from the bowl.

You thought about what Sage said.

Okay, yes, he gave you a coat of his, but he stole you from your home right under your nose and not to mention his switching arsehole/ flirty attitude you couldn’t keep up with. Jareth was making you feel things you didn’t want to think about, you couldn’t go on second guessing yourself like this forever.

When you won the Labyrinth and left for good, would you miss him, after everything? Would you?  You were being tricked into thinking you had feelings, you didn’t, you just hungered for the attention he gave. Ugh it was too much.

You didn’t want to think of him anymore so instead you said “you made this?” pointing to the soup with your spoon.

“Made it myself, yes siree”

“It’s amazing I've never tasted anything like this”

You lifted the spoon to your lips blowing.

Even the vegetation tasted better in the Underground. Maybe living here wouldn’t be so bad after all. You shook your head. Where had that come from?

Sip.

Thoughts turning over in your mind.

Sip.

Something she said earlier….

You spooned the warm soup in your mouth, feeling better already but something was nagging at you.

“Hey, Sage, how did you know I was running the labyrinth?” you look back at her, but your eyes swim a little...You felt like you were drunk…Must be… tired. You were… ever so tired.

“Eat the soup dear” Sage said cheerily. You took another sip, one away from finishing it, but you tried to stand and leave.

Something was off.

“I -I need to lie down” you couldn’t say why, but you had a strong desire to sleep.

“Sage?” you tried to see through the blur.

You looked down at the bowl throwing it as if it burnt you.

There was very something wrong with this soup

“Sage what have you done!”  you cried looking around for her helplessly.

She was gone.

You stumble to a nearby tree to hold it and steady your wavering self, your vision blurred in and out. You felt your knees buckle and dropped to the floor, the cloak engulfing your body.

#labyrinth 1986 #labyrinth fanfiction #labyrinthmovie #jareth x reader #jareth the goblin king

[lastbluetardis]

Family of Six (10/14)

After James and Rose bring their newborn twins home, they work to find a balance between all four of their children, and each other. Ten x Rose AU, Soulmates AU.

This chapter: Teen, 6700 words

Ages of the Tyler-McCrimmons at the start of the chapter: James: 39, Rose: 34, Ainsley: 9, Sianin: 6, Twins: 2.5 months

If you like reading my stories, consider leaving me a tip? Or leave a reply on this post to tell me what you thought? And as always, reblogs are very much appreciated so more people can see this.

Next update: October 22nd

AO3 | TSP | FF | Perfectly Matched Series

Ch1 | Ch2 | Ch3 | Ch4 | Ch5 | Ch6 | Ch7 | Ch8 | Ch9 | Ch10 | Ch11 | Ch12 | Ch13 | Ch14

“My tummy hurts,” Sianin whined over breakfast one morning in mid-May. She pushed her fried egg around her plate with her fork, pulverizing it with the tines and resulting in a goopy yellow mess.

“Where does your tummy hurt?” James asked, reaching over to dip his toast into the broken yolk.

She circled her hand vaguely in front of her stomach. Very helpful, he thought with a sigh.

“Do you feel like you might throw up?” James asked. She shook her head. “Do you need to poo?”

Again, she shook her head. He pressed the backs of his fingers to her forehead. She wasn’t warm, but her lack of appetite indicated she wasn’t faking it.

“Do you think you can make it through school?” he asked, standing to take her plate.

“I guess,” Sianin said. 

“If you’re really feeling poorly, go to the infirmary and we’ll pick you up.”

“Who’s feeling poorly?” Rose stepped into the kitchen, a twin in each crook of her arms. James stepped forward to take one from his wife, allowing Rose a free hand.

“My tummy hurts,” Sianin said.

“She doesn’t feel warm,” James said, absently bouncing the baby he was holding. “But she didn’t eat much of her breakfast.”

After a brief examination, Rose agreed with James’s conclusion for Sianin to attempt the school day. She and James hovered near their phones though, waiting for a call from the school telling them to come get Sianin. But no such call came. However, when James went to pick the kids up from school, it was clear that Sianin still wasn’t feeling well. 

He found his daughters on a bench, Sianin half-bent over and hugging her middle while Ainsley rubbed her back.

“Tummy still hurting?” he asked, crouching in front of her. She nodded. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well. Let’s go home; I’ll give you something to help your tummy.”

He watched Sianin carefully as she walked to the car; her steps were slow and shuffling, and there was a slight hunch to her shoulders, as though she couldn’t bring herself to stand up straight.

When he helped her into her car seat, she grabbed his hands and said, “Daddy, don’t strap me in too tight.”

“All right,” he said. He kept the buckles as loose as was safe. He kissed her forehead, testing her temperature and giving her comfort at the same time. Her skin felt a little warm. “Love you, Sian.”

Sianin was quiet for the drive home, not contributing to the conversation and only giving a brief account of her day. Her silence unnerved him, and his heart broke for his daughter.

When he got home, Rose ambushed Sianin at the front door, asking about how she was feeling and how her stomach was all day. She answered her mother’s questions succinctly, then went right over to the couch and laid down.

Ainsley followed her sister and crouched by her head, talking softly. A moment later, Ainsley patted Sianin’s cheek then went down the hall.

“I’m going to get paracetamol,” James announced to no one in particular.

Rose followed him to their room. “What do you think it is?”

“Not sure,” he admitted, hating the answer. He couldn’t help Sianin if he didn’t know what was ailing her. “I think she’s starting a slight fever though. Hopefully that will help burn off whatever bug she’s got.”

“Could it be constipation?” Rose asked.

“I don’t know.” He found the liquid paracetamol and went back to Sianin. She was standing beside the couch with her jeans off. Ainsley was handing her a pair of stretchy cotton trousers to slip on instead.

“I’ve got medicine for you, darling,” James said, shaking the bottle. “Take a bit of this, then you can lie down again.”

Sianin dutifully swallowed the dose James gave her, flushing it down with a glass of water Rose handed to her.

“Are you hungry?” Rose asked, brushing Sianin’s hair out of her eyes.

“No.”

“Did you eat any lunch?”

“A little.”

“Do you think you can try a bit of soup if Mummy makes some?”

Sianin shrugged.

“Well, it will take a little bit to make it,” Rose said. “We’ll see how you feel when it’s ready. Just rest, love.”

“Want Daddy to sit with you?” James asked. When she nodded, he slid onto the couch beside her. Instead of laying down, she curled up against him with her head on his chest and her knees pulled up. He absently stroked her hair, hating that she was sick. “Are you sure you don’t need a poo?”

“No, that hurts.”

“What do you mean, ‘that hurts’?” he asked, alarmed.

“When I try to push… it makes my tummy hurt worse.”

“Have you gone poo today?” he asked.

“A little bit,” she answered. “I don’t wanna talk anymore. I wanna sleep.”

“Okay, darling. You can sleep.”

The evening passed quietly, with Sianin dozing against James’s chest for most of it. She swallowed down a few bites of broth when it was done, but she eventually pushed it away, saying she didn’t want any more.

Her fever gradually built, and by the time James and Rose put her to bed, her face was burning up. They wanted to keep Sianin in bed with them, but she resolutely refused—the irony of her not wanting to share their bed after months of co-sleeping was not lost on them.

“I don’t wanna hear the babies all night,” Sianin said.

They couldn’t exactly argue with that. So they tucked her into her bed after giving her another dose of medicine, both to help her fever and to help her sleep.

“Please come to me and Mummy tonight if you need to. If you throw up or start feeling worse. Promise me, Sian.”

“I promise,” she mumbled, tugging her blankets up to her neck.

James didn’t sleep well that night. He awoke at the smallest of sounds, sure it was Sianin coming to get him and Rose. And any sleep he did manage to find was interrupted by dreams that he was awake and fretting over Sianin.

The twins woke up twice during the night, and after tending to their babies, James and Rose peeked into Sianin’s room to check on her. She was asleep each time they looked, but she was always in a different position.

“I think we’ll need to take her to the doctor,” Rose said when they curled up in bed together at nearly four in the morning. “She’s getting worse.”

“I know,” he said, rubbing his hand up and down her arm.

“I don’t know what it could possibly be,” Rose said, frustration straining her voice. “It’s not food-borne, ‘cos none of the rest of us are ill. And we haven’t gotten a notice that a stomach bug is going ‘round the school.”

“Unless she’s the start of it.” James pressed a kiss to the top of Rose’s head. “We’ll take her to hospital tomorrow morning, first thing.”

Rose remained in James’s arms for the rest of the night, and judging by her fidgeting and occasional sigh, she wasn’t sleeping either.

It was a relief when they heard Ainsley get into the shower a few hours later. At least they didn’t need to pretend to be sleeping any longer.

They went immediately to Sianin’s room, but she was dead asleep. Deciding to let her rest for as long as possible, they closed her bedroom door and got ready for the morning.

“Aren’t you going to get Sianin up?” Ainsley asked as she slurped down her yogurt and fruit.

“We’re keeping her home today,” James said.

Ainsley frowned. “She still doesn’t feel well? Are you taking her to the doctor?”

James nodded, then moved down the hall to wake Sianin. He and Rose had agreed he would take Sianin along when he dropped Ainsley off for school, then he would go with Sianin to the hospital.

Sianin was curled onto her side with her blankets twisted around her hips and her stuffed dragon hugged in a death grip. Her cheeks were flushed pink and her hair was a little damp with sweat. His heart squeezed.

“Rise and shine, darling,” he murmured, crouching beside her bed. He pressed the backs of his fingers to her forehead. She was burning up, worse than she was the night before. “Sianin, sweetheart.”

Sianin moaned and turned her head out of his touch. Her eyes fluttered open, then her entire face crumpled as she let out a sob. 

“My belly hurts. It really, really hurts now!”

James’s heart began to race at his child’s distress.  “Show me where. Let Daddy see.”

He brushed her hair away from her clammy forehead as she rolled to her back. She hovered her fingertips over top her belly button.

James pressed down where she indicated, and when he palpated the right side of her lower abdomen, she cried out and slapped his hand away.

“That hurts! Don’t touch!”

Dread unfurled through his gut as a niggling suspicion clawed at his mind.

“I’m taking you to the hospital,” he said, forcing his voice to remain calm. “The doctor’s gonna make you feel better. Can you get up for Daddy?”

Sianin sat up, then her face went white and sweat popped across her forehead before she vomited all over the floor.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered, crying.

“It was an accident,” he said rubbing her back gently as she retched again. “Let’s go wee, then we’re gonna go to the doctor. Can you stand?”

Sianin slowly eased onto her feet. She looked wobbly, so James went with her to the loo. When she was finished, he guided her back to her bedroom.

“I’m gonna get Mummy. You wait here. I’ll be right back.”

James smoothed a hand down her hair and kissed the top of her head. Then he turned down the hall and to the kitchen. Rose was sitting at the table with Ainsley.

“Rose,” he said, interrupting whatever Ainsley was talking about. “Can I borrow you for a sec?”

Rose must’ve read the urgency in his face, because she jumped to her feet. James went to the sink and grabbed a roll of paper towels, then bent to the cupboard beneath and grabbed carpet cleaner.

“Did Sianin throw up?” Ainsley asked.

“‘Fraid so,” he answered. “Finish up your breakfast, then Mummy will take you to school.”

Rose frowned at him, but followed him down the hall.

“Something’s very wrong with Sianin,” he said once they were out of earshot of Ainsley. “She threw up, and her belly hurts to touch. God, I think it might be her appendix. That’s on the right side of the stomach, right?”

As they approached Sianin’s bedroom, they heard muffled sobbing coming from the bathroom instead. Their six-year-old was kneeling a few paces in front of the toilet beside a small puddle of vomit. Tissues and toilet paper were tossed on top of the mess, as though Sianin had attempted to clean it up.

“I didn’t make it,” she hiccupped, rubbing at her streaming nose.

“It’s all right, baby,” Rose cooed, dropping beside their daughter. “Daddy’s gonna get you some fresh clothes, then he’s gonna go with you to see a doctor so your tummy will feel better.”

“It hurts, Mummy!” Sianin wailed, tears and snot streaked on her face. “I don’t feel good!”

“I know,” Rose murmured, pulling Sianin into her arms. She met James’s eyes, then cocked her head to the door.

He turned on his heel and went to Sianin’s room. He quickly cleaned up the worst of the mess Sianin had made, hoping Rose wouldn’t mind cleaning more thoroughly later. He then went to her dresser and grabbed soft leggings, a loose shirt, socks, and comfy slip-on shoes.

When he returned, Sianin was sitting on the lip of the tub in only her pants as Rose gently touched her stomach. She was running her fingers along Sianin’s skin and inspecting it closely, as though she could physically peer inside of their daughter and find what was hurting her.

“Not there!” Sianin cried, catching Rose’s hand as it meandered to her lower abdomen. “Please, Mummy, don’t touch it.”

“I got clean clothes, darling,” he interrupted. “Let’s get you dressed and we’ll go.”

“I’ll help her,” Rose said. “You get dressed.”

He realized he was in his sleep clothes of boxers and a t-shirt. He turned away from his family and went to his and Rose’s room. He grabbed clean clothes from his closet, not even caring what they were. He dressed in record time and slipped on his shoes before going back to Rose and Sianin.

“Let’s go, darling,” he said, hefting her into his arms.

“Wait. Can I bring Elliot?”

“Of course,” James said.

“I’ll grab him,” Rose said.

As James moved to the front of the house, Ainsley appeared.

“Is Sianin okay?” she asked, her brow pinching when she saw her sister curled up in their father’s arms.

“Her tummy is just really hurting,” James assured her. “So I’m gonna take her to the doctor and get it all fixed.”

“I threw up,” Sianin croaked, turning her head to look at her sister.

Ainsley reached up and rubbed her hand up and down Sianin’s arm. A moment later, Rose breezed down the hall with Sianin’s stuffed dragon in her hands.

“Here we go,” Rose said, handing it to her daughter. “Feel better, my love.” She brushed a kiss to Sianin’s forehead. Then she kissed James’s cheek. When she rocked back onto her heels, her face was solemn. “Let me know when you know anything.”

“I will,” he said, bending down to peck a kiss to her lips. 

Then he turned and went to the car. He buckled Sianin in as carefully as he could, then he drove them to the hospital.

He could have praised all of the gods that ever existed in the entirety of human history that there was hardly anybody waiting to be seen. He got his daughter checked in, then he sat with her in his lap in a hard-backed wooden chair.

As they waited, James pulled out his phone and they played Sianin’s favorite game: dots and boxes. Thankfully there were no more vomiting episodes, but it was clear his daughter felt miserable. Her entire body felt hot and soon he was sweating in the jumper he’d donned despite it being a warm spring day. Nevertheless, he kept his arms around his little girl, holding her close.

“Y’know, your mum and I used to play this when we were kids,” he said, trying to keep her distracted. “It was one of our favorites. But we didn’t have fancy schmancy phone apps. We had to continuously draw and wash the game board off our arms.”

That made Sianin smile a little. “Me, Elena, and Juliette do that with Pictionary. Daddy?”

“Yes darling?”

“My hair is annoying me.”

Indeed, her fringe kept falling into her eyes.

“Want me to braid it back?”

She nodded, and gingerly spun on his lap until her back was facing him. He fluffed her hair out away from her sweaty face and neck, then gathered tendrils of the fine strands between his fingers to weave into a simple French braid.

“You have such beautiful hair,” he murmured to her as he fastened the end of the braid with a hairband he found in his pocket.

“Thanks, Daddy,” she said, running her fingers overtop the braid to feel the ripples and bumps. “You should grow your hair out so I can braid it.”

“Grow my hair out?” he repeated incredulously. “I don’t think I’d look good with long hair, eh? But you can braid my fringe if you’d like.”

Sianin turned in his lap until her knees straddled his thighs. With her tongue poking out of the side of her mouth, she mussed his hair to get it to fall forward over his forehead. He ducked his head so she could reach more easily, then sat motionlessly while Sianin played with his fringe.

When four little braids were standing out of the top of his head, Sianin’s name was finally called. James stood with Sianin on his hip and walked her towards the nurse that had summoned them.

The nurse efficiently gathered Sianin’s height, weight, and temperature—she was running a fever of nearly 39C—and took detailed notes of her symptoms. Sianin remained folded up in James’s lap for as much of the process as she could.

When it came time for the physical examination, James could do nothing but watch as Sianin cried on the exam table while the physician poked and prodded her stomach.

“You’re doing great, Sian,” he encouraged, holding her hand. “Squeeze as hard as you need to. The doctor’s nearly finished. You’re doing so well.”

Next came a blood draw. James helped hold his daughter still as the nurse pricked her arm, and he forced Sianin to keep her eyes on him instead of the needle and vial of blood they were taking.

While the nurse left with Sianin’s blood sample, the doctor came back with an ultrasound machine.

“The doctor’s gonna use this to see inside your tummy,” James explained. “Do you remember the pictures of the twins that Mummy and I showed you while they were in Mummy’s belly? A machine just like this is what took those pictures.”

“It’s completely painless,” the doctor chimed in. “I’m gonna squirt a little bit of jelly onto your belly, then I’ll scan you with my magic wand.”

Sianin eventually reclined on the exam table and let the doctor scan her abdomen with the probe. The doctor was as gentle as possible throughout the scan, but James saw the discomfort on his child’s face.

Even though James already suspected the diagnosis, it didn’t make it any easier to hear it confirmed from the doctor’s lips.

“She has appendicitis. This means she has an infection that has inflamed her appendix.” The doctor rotated the ultrasound monitor towards James. She traced her finger across the screen as she talked about Sianin’s prognosis: her appendix was blocked and swollen and if they didn’t remove it soon, it could burst and cause infection to her entire abdominal cavity.

“When can she get in for surgery?” James asked faintly. “How serious is this?”

“I want to get her rehydrated and started on a course of antibiotics,” the doctor said, “but I would like to get her in for surgery today, if possible. The sooner the better with this kind of thing.”

“Daddy?”

James looked down at Sianin, who was pale-faced and close to tears. He forced his face to relax, then he smiled at her. He rested his hand atop one of hers and said, “Your pesky little appendix has a small injury. So the doctors are going to go inside of you to fix it right up. That will make you feel loads better.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It’s nothing to be scared about, Sian. You’re going to be all right.”

Sianin didn’t look particularly convinced, but she didn’t make too much of a fuss when she was transferred to a different room and hooked up to an IV line to replenish her fluids.

“We’ve got her on antibiotics and pain medicine,” the nurse murmured to James. “And we’ve also given her a small dose of an anti-anxiety medication. It should help her to relax. We will let you know as soon as we can get a surgeon scheduled.”

“Thanks,” James said, scrubbing his palms across his face. When he pulled his hands away, he saw writing on his wrist.

How is she?

Has she seen a doctor yet?

Hello?

Are you still waiting?

James, what’s going on?

For god’s sake, answer your bloody phone or write me back!

“Bugger,” he mumbled.

When the nurse left the room, James pulled a pen from the nearby desk. He tugged his phone out of his pocket before sitting by Sianin’s bedside. There were several texts from Rose waiting for him, demanding an update. He set the phone on his thigh, electing to use their soulmark.

“She’s got appendicitis. Going to need surgery,” James wrote. “They’re giving her fluids to rehydrate her. Not sure when the surgery is yet. Possibly later today.”

Barely fifteen seconds later, his phone lit up with Rose’s name and a photograph of the two of them, but he ignored it. Instead, he wrote, “I will give you a call, I promise. But please make sure you’re calm. Sianin’s nervous enough as it is and I’m here in the room with her.”

The phone call ended. A moment later, Rose wrote back, You arse. Let me talk to my daughter.

“I will. But please, love—”

I am bloody calm, so answer my goddamn call!

He exhaled slowly, and the next time his phone lit up, he answered it.

“Don’t you ever ignore me again,” Rose growled the second he accepted the call. “Not when it’s about one of our kids. I’ve been worried sick, James!”

“Hello to you, too,” he said cheerfully.

“Is that Mummy?” Sianin whispered, shaking his arm to get his attention.

“Yep, wanna talk to her?” he asked, already putting his phone on speaker.

“Hi Mummy!”

“Hi baby,” Rose replied softly, all traces of her agitation with James gone. “Daddy tells me your appendix is what’s making your tummy hurt.”

“Yeah. It’s infected,” Sianin said, sighing gravely. “The doctor said I hafta have surgery to get it taken out.”

“Wow. How are you feeling?”

“My tummy hurts still,” she answered. “But not as much. It reeeeeally hurt when the doctor was pushing on it. I didn’t like that. But Daddy told me to squeeze his hand really really hard.”

“Nearly bruised my knuckles,” James interjected playfully just to hear Sianin giggle.

“Good,” Rose muttered, and he frowned at his phone.

“The doctor put a needle in my arm,” Sianin said, not having heard her mother’s jab at her father. “It feels weird and hurts when I touch it.”

“Don’t touch it,” Rose and James said at the same time.

“Do you want Mummy to come wait with you before your surgery?” Rose asked.

“Yeah, I’m so bored,” Sianin moaned. “They have TV here but no good channels.”

“I’ll bring along a game,” Rose promised.

“Can you also bring an overnight bag?” James asked. “Change of clothes for me and Sianin. Shampoo and things.”

“Er…?”

“They said she’ll probably be staying the night,” James said. “I’d rather not wear these manky old clothes tomorrow, too. Obviously I’m staying with her.”

“Obviously?” Rose repeated, her voice sharp.

James clenched his jaw.

“Me and Daddy are gonna have a sleepover in the hospital!”

“Sounds like fun,” Rose said. “Daddy and I need to have a private chat. I’ll talk to you later, sweetheart.”

“Okay Mummy. Don’t forget to bring a game,” Sianin said.

“I’ll remember. Love you.” Rose made a kissing noise through the phone, and Sianin echoed it.

James groaned internally as he switched the phone off of speaker mode. He pressed it into his chest and said, “I’m going to be right outside the door, Sian. Okay? I’ll be back in a minute.”

Sianin nodded, and he exited the room. He put his phone to his ear and said, “Right, where were we?”

“You were being a twat,” Rose snapped.

“Rose, come on. Be reasonable…”

“Why is it automatically assumed that you will stay with Sianin?” Rose asked.

“Well for starters, I’m already here,” James said.

“That’s bullshit,” Rose spat. “I can be at the hospital in twenty minutes.”

“Someone needs to stay with our other three children tonight,” James answered.

“You could come home after Sianin’s surgery,” Rose said.

James bit back a growl. God, she’s stubborn. “You’ve got to be there to nurse the twins, Rose.”

“Excuse me, the last I looked, you were more than capable of feeding our babies.”

“All right, fine! Come stay with Sianin. Pump in the hospital room every couple of hours. Be my guest. Oh, but good luck finding a place to keep the milk cold, unless you want to let it go to waste. And I guess I’ll be switching the twins over to formula when I’ve gone through the small supply of milk in our fridge!”

There was silence on the other end of the line, and James exhaled raggedly, his exasperation gone. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re right,” she said, her voice quiet. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m being unreasonable.”

“You’re worried about Sianin,” he said gently. “That’s understandable. But Rose…” He scrubbed his hand along the nape of his neck. “You’ve made me feel like you don’t trust me to be here with Sianin.”

“No, James, I… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that. Of course I trust you with her. Of course I do. I just… I want to be there with her, too. My baby.”

“I know.”

“But you’re right,” she said. “It makes more sense for you to stay with her.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Come wait with us before the surgery. We’re just sitting in her room watching TV. Sian would love the company, and you promised her a game.”

“I’ll bring an overnight bag for you,” Rose said. “I’m going to drop the twins off with your dad, then I’ll be there.”

“Thanks.” He rubbed a finger into his tired eyes, then murmured, “I’m very sorry I didn’t give you updates like I said I would.”

Rose was quiet for a few seconds, long enough that James thought their connection cut out, when she finally said, “Two hours of silence from you, James. Two hours. Do you know how scared I was?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I was focusing on Sianin and, well…”

“Forgot about me?” Rose teased weakly.

“Maybe a little bit,” he admitted sheepishly. “Really, though. I’m so sorry, Rose.”

“I want to be furious with you,” she said, letting out a noise that he couldn’t distinguish between a laugh and a sob. “God, I want to be so furious with you. But how can I be when I know you were singly focused on our daughter?”

James didn’t know what to say, so he just said, “I’m sorry. I love you very much, Rose.”

“Love you, too,” she replied. “Right, I’m gonna get ready to go.”

“I’ll let Sianin know you’re…” James trailed off when he saw the doctor walking towards him. “Rose, I gotta go. Doctor’s here. I’ll call you back when I get a free moment. Love you. Bye.”

He disconnected the call and stuffed his phone into his pocket. “Has she been scheduled for surgery?”

“Yes, in a half hour,” the doctor said. “There was a sudden last-minute opening.”

“A half hour?” James repeated dumbly. “Is she ready for surgery that soon? Is the surgeon ready?”

“Has Sianin eaten this morning?” When James shook his head, the doctor said, “Then she’s fine. Shall we?”

James opened the door, guiding the doctor into Sianin’s room. She beamed at her father, but the expression slipped when she saw the doctor.

“Hiya, darling,” James said, walking up to sit on the edge of her bed. Sianin shuffled closer to him. “Looks like the doctors are ready to take care of that appendix for you.”

“In a few minutes, you and your dad are going to be moved to a new room, where we’ll give you something to help you fall asleep,” the doctor said gently, standing at the foot of Sianin’s bed. “And as soon as you’re asleep, we’re going to take you back and get that nasty little appendix out.”

“What if I wake up?” Sianin asked, clinging to James’s hand.

“The doctors are very good at their job,” James told her, rubbing his thumb across the back of her hand. “You won’t wake up during the surgery. You’ll be sleeping deeper than you’ve ever slept before.”

“Promise?” she asked solemnly.

“Cross my heart,” he said, making an ‘X’ over his chest, then hers.

“When we’ve finished getting your appendix out, we’re going to take you to a new room where your dad can join you again.”

“No, Daddy, I want you to stay,” Sianin pleaded, turning her big brown eyes on him. They were welling with tears, and his heart fractured. “The whole time. Please? Please can’t you stay with me?”

“I’m gonna be with you whilst they put you to sleep, and I promise—I promise—I’ll be there when you wake up,” he whispered, swiping his thumb across her fallen tears. “You’ll be so deeply asleep, you won’t even miss me.”

“I don’t want you to go,” Sianin hiccupped.

“I know, darling.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and tucked Sianin into his side. “I know.”

“I’ll be back in a couple minutes,” the doctor said, before she left the room.

“You’re being very brave, Sianin,” James said as he continued to hold his trembling child.

“I don’t feel brave,” she said, burying her face into his chest.

“Well, you are. Being brave isn’t not being scared. It’s okay to be scared. But you’re not letting the fear win out,” he said, leaning down to plant kisses across the top of her head.

They sat in relative silence for a while before the doctor came back, along with a team of nurses. James kissed the crown of Sianin’s head and slid off her bed.

“Daddy!” she cried, reaching for him. “No, you promised!”

“I’m right here,” he said soothingly. “But the doctors need to wheel you into a new room, and they don’t want to be pushing my weight around. I’m gonna walk.”

“You’re coming with me, right?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “No one on this planet could stop me.”

Sianin relaxed back into the mattress, and James followed the nurses as they pushed Sianin down a long corridor and into a sterile-smelling white room. The nurses left, and in walked a second physician.

“Hello, Sianin. I’m the anesthesiologist,” he announced.

“He’s the man who is gonna give you something to help you fall asleep,” James explained to his daughter.

“Hi,” she said meekly.

“We’ve got this cool mask for you to put on,” the doctor said, wheeling over a cart and showing her the gas mask.

Sianin’s glanced at it, then at James. He smiled reassuringly and stepped closer to her.

“When you put this on, a magic gas is gonna come out of it,” he said. “You’ll be asleep in no time.”

“You’ll stay ‘til I’m sleeping?” she verified to her father.

James nodded.

“And be here when I wake up?”

He nodded again. “Mummy will be here by then, too.”

“With a game?”

“With a game,” he said, even though he knew Sianin wouldn’t be up for a game after coming out of surgery.

Sianin looked up at the doctor.

“Ready?” he asked.

When she nodded, the doctor slipped the mask over Sianin’s nose and mouth. James smiled at her reassuringly when he saw panic rising in her eyes.

“Can you tell me about your friend there?” the anesthesiologist said, gesturing to her stuffed dragon.

Sianin clenched her fist around its neck and said, “He’s a dragon. His name’s Elliot. My gran got him for me when she and I went to…”

Her voice suddenly died off and her eyes rolled back slightly before her eyelids slipped shut. 

James exhaled raggedly, and he pressed a kiss to Sianin’s forehead.

“We will get you the moment she’s out of surgery,” the doctor promised, then with that, they handed Elliot to him and wheeled his baby out of the room.

“If you come with me, I’ll show you where you can wait.”

He turned mechanically towards the voice, and saw a nurse standing at the doorway. He followed her to a room with a bunch of chairs, where he was then given a pager. He took the pager and walked outside into the warm spring day to call Rose.

He ran his fingers through his hair and hissed when they snagged in the row of short braids Sianin had made at his fringe. They’d loosened over the course of the morning, and were now a row of snarled tangles. He teased them free as the phone rang at his ear.

“Hey, everything okay?” she asked. “It’s been a while. I just dropped the twins off and am on my way to the hospital. How is she?”

“They’ve taken her back for surgery,” he said, absently running his thumb across Elliot’s sequined wings.

“They’ve what? Already? But… but I thought they didn’t have a time for her yet.”

“Something opened up,” he answered. “They just took her back. Our baby… our baby’s getting surgery.”

Rose was quiet for a few long seconds. “She’ll be fine, James. It’s a routine procedure.”

“She’s having one of her internal organs taken out!”

“At least it’s not an important one,” Rose joked weakly. James managed a small snort. “I’ll be at the hospital as soon as I can. I’ve got a bag packed for you.”

“Thanks. A game too? Sianin made me double check. I don’t think she’ll be well enough to play anything, but I promised her I’d ask you.”

“A game too. I love you. I’ll be there soon.”

“Love you.” He disconnected the call, then strolled back into the hospital to wait.

Nearly a half hour after Sianin was taken into surgery, he heard his name being called out. Rose was walking straight towards him. He stood on stiff legs and opened his arms for her. They held each other tightly for a long minute, then they sat down on the uncomfortable chairs to wait.

“How long did they say it’d be?” Rose asked, chewing her thumb cuticle.

“Hour and a half, thereabouts,” James replied, pulling her hand away from her mouth and twining their fingers together instead.

“And how long’s it been?”

“Twenty-eight minutes.”

Rose sighed and rested her head on his shoulder, keeping silent vigil.

Another half hour passed. Then an hour. An hour and fifteen minutes…

Finally, just as James was about to go to reception and ask for any available updates on their daughter, his pager blinked. He and Rose strode to the front desk, where a doctor was waiting for them.

“We’ve successfully removed Sianin’s appendix,” she announced with a comforting smile. “There were no other signs of trauma or infection. All in all, it was a very routine procedure.”

“Will this have any effects on the rest of her life?” James asked the doctor. “Like when someone has their gallbladder removed they can’t really eat greasy foods and such.”

“She didn’t get her gallbladder out, James,” Rose said tightly.

“I was just drawing a comparison,” he hissed back. “Excuse me for wanting information about my daughter’s health.”

“What, and I don’t?”

“There shouldn’t be any lasting effects,” the doctor interrupted, glancing between them warily. “Really, the appendix is one of the most vestigial organs in the body. She should make a full recovery and never once miss her appendix. I’ll give you some information packets to read. I can take you to her now; she’s in a recovery room and sleeping off the rest of the anesthesia.”

“Yes please,” they said in unison. 

James threaded his fingers through Rose’s as they followed the surgeon through the long, endless corridors of the hospital. They eventually reached a room that had Sianin’s name scribbled on a whiteboard on the door.

It was eerie to see Sianin asleep in a hospital bed. It made her look too small. She was pale, and her head looked like it was propped at an awkward angle. Rose breezed past him to sit at Sianin’s head, where she gently adjusted the pillows. 

James came up and stuck their daughter’s stuffed dragon at her side. He pulled up a chair next to Rose, and he reached for Sianin’s hand, which was lying limply on the bed.

“Her hair looks nice,” Rose murmured. “I assume that was you?”

He nodded.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you. I didn’t mean to make you feel silly about your questions. I’m glad you asked.”

“I’m sorry too,” he said softly. “We’ve both been out of sorts with each other today.”

“We should’ve been comforting each other today, not bickering.” Rose scooted her chair closer to his. She rested her free hand on his thigh and her cheek on his shoulder.

“This is a first for us. First time our child has needed any type of surgery, let alone emergency surgery. We’re stressed,” he said, kissing her temple.

“I know. But I’m still sorry.”

They both descended into silence as they waited for their baby to wake up. 

It took Sianin about twenty minutes to wake up from the anesthesia, and when she did, she wasn’t entirely cognizant. She woke up for a minute, then drifted back to sleep for another five. This pattern went on for a while, frightening James and Rose even though they were assured by the nurses that this was a common reaction to anesthesia.

Finally, she opened her eyes and remained conscious for more than a few minutes.

“Mummy?” Sianin slurred, blinking slowly. She moved to rub at her eyes, but paused when she got a look at the back of her hand, where a needle was stuck. “There’s something in my hand.”

“It’s just there to give you medicine,” Rose soothed. “How are you feeling, baby?”

“Tired,” she said.

“Does your tummy hurt?” Rose asked.

Sianin shook her head, then furrowed her brows. “I can’t feel my tummy.” She tugged her blankets down and her hospital gown up to look at her stomach, as though to verify she still, in fact, had one. She poked it for good measure.

“The doctors gave you some medicine to numb you,” James explained. “Let us know if it starts to hurt again.”

Sianin nodded, her eyes fixed on the gauze covering the incision. She then looked at her mother with a sleepy smile on her face. “I got surgery, Mummy.”

Rose smiled. “I heard.”

“They took my appendix out,” she said.

“I heard that, too.”

“What did they do with it?”

“Chucked it into the rubbish bin out back,” James said with a quick wink. Sianin’s eyes widened, and he chuckled. “Nah, doctors have a special sort of rubbish bin that they put body parts into.”

“That’s neat,” Sianin said, yawning. “When can I go home?” 

“Probably tomorrow,” James answered. “The doctors want to keep you overnight to make sure everything’s all right before they let you go.”

“You’ll stay, right Daddy? You promised.”

“I did,” he said, nodding. “And I will. I’ll stay with you for as long as the doctor wants to keep you here.”

Sianin looked at Rose. “Will you stay, Mummy?”

Rose pursed her lips. “I need to go home and take care of your sisters.”

Sianin bobbed her head in acceptance. When she next blinked, her eyes rolled back a little bit.

“Are you still sleepy?” Rose asked, stroking Sianin’s cheek.

Their daughter nearly purred and tilted her head into her mother’s touch. Rose continued her ministrations, and Sianin melted into the mattress. Five minutes later, she was asleep again.

Rose’s happy demeanor evaporated as her shoulders slumped.

“Hey,” James said, taking Rose’s free hand. “She’s fine.”

“I know. I just… I hate that she got so sick. We should’ve taken her to the doctor sooner.”

“We would’ve received the same diagnosis,” James said gently, even as his own guilt threatened to swallow him. He’d sent Sianin to school while she was suffering with an infected appendix. “She would’ve needed surgery regardless.”

Rose cracked a small smile, one that James returned. “Will you ever stop being logical?”

“Nope!” he said, beaming manically. “It’s one of the things you love best about me.”

Rose chuckled quietly and threaded their fingers together, lapsing back into silence as they watched over their sleeping child.

If you’ve read to the end, consider leaving a comment or reblogging? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

#ficandchips #doctorroseprompts #dwfic #doctor who #ten x rose #ten x rose au #james x rose #au #soulmates #soulmates au #soulmates verse #romance #fluff #hurt/comfort #family fic #kid fic #baby fic #my fic #perfectly matched series #family of six

[theodej]

uhhhhh chapter 2 is up, come meet makwa

i’ll put it under the cut again, but after this i’ll probably just post them to ao3 ✌️ i’ll still link em here tho

The Wet Hen pub was overflowing with families and laughter that night. It was the kind of noise that shoved its way into every nook and cranny, bouncing off walls and seeping into the laminate.

It was someone’s birthday. (It was always someone’s birthday.) The girls were being corralled just behind the kitchen doors. Like every chain, they had their own butchered version of “Happy Birthday,” torn apart and glued back together with some particularly imperfect rhymes.

As was tradition, Makwa was hiding in the bathrooms. She’d shut herself in one of the stalls and sat on the toilet’s tank, resting her knee. It hadn’t been the same since she messed it up during soccer practice in high school. Hill didn’t like her wearing her brace to work. Of course, she never said a word about it; she couldn’t, unless she wanted HR up her ass. But she always treated Makwa differently when she wore it.

She didn’t trust the seats enough to actually sit on them, especially when it was her turn to clean. She flicked through her phone, waiting. It wasn’t long before the girls started singing and, muffled or not, someone smarter than her could probably pick out the dozen or so different keys they switched between. Whether you wanted to or not, you could hear the Wet Hen girls “singing” from the outskirts of town. It was the one thing they didn’t fake.

When the restroom door opened, Makwa held her breath. Footsteps shuffled on the tile—they didn’t sound like heels, boots maybe?—and stopped at the sinks. The taps were turned on, and the rush of water just barely covered the person’s sniffling. They muttered to themselves, tone hush but fervent, before shutting the water off. For a moment, all she heard was clapping and laughter from the restaurant proper. Then there was a soft sigh and, finally, they left. Makwa knew she should do the same, although there wasn’t any use in keeping up appearances anymore; Hill had definitely noticed her repeated absences during “birthday roundups.” One more minute of peace couldn’t hurt.

Hill wasn’t waiting outside the bathroom door for her, surprisingly.

“…the same guy as last time.”

“And you passed him off to someone else last time, too.”

But she was close, and she was using that even, soft tone of hers. That tone meant trouble, and trouble meant Makwa should keep walking.

“He’s creepy! And he’s, like, twice my age.”

Hill had pulled the youngest waitress aside to have one of her not-so-private discussions. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. You can’t pick and choose your tables. If I let you switch now, would that be fair to everyone else?”

The girl bit her lip. She was clearly ready to back off. Hill saw it, too, judging by the sickly sweet smile on her face.

Just go already.

“You know the rules, Grace. You signed off on them.”

“I’ll take it,” Makwa said.

Stupid.

Hill turned to her, the smile melting off her face like wax. “Where have you been?”

“Just give me the table. I’m not doing anything right now, anyway.”

Grace’s shoulders relaxed instantly. “Are you sure?”

“Which table?”

“Twelve.”

Makwa nodded quickly before moving away, avoiding Hill’s eyes even as they burned a hole in her back. She gave herself a quick moment to scan the restaurant through the backroom door’s little window—a few new faces since she’d ducked away, all families—and headed back into the fray.

The Wet Hen’s décor could be best described as… overstimulating, at best. Imagine the tackiest southern belle you can think of. Now imagine her meemaw’s life exploding onto barn walls in a shower of sweet tea, cow skulls and ten-gallon hats. The paneled walls were covered in yellowed photographs and replica guns. There was even a tractor jutting out of one wall, as if someone was that desperate to get their hands on some over-sauced wings. It was a clusterfuck of colours and smells, and yet it was packed every Friday night.

“What dressing would you like with that?”

Makwa had found the table without any trouble. The man in question brought his wife and kid in, too, and despite his audience, it was immediately clear why Grace had made such a fuss.

“Balsamic, please.”

She felt his eyes on her.

She turned to the kid next. “And yourself?”

Makwa was painfully aware of the pub’s sorry excuse for a uniform—flannel and jean shorts.

“He’ll just have the chicken fingers.”

Makwa and her big mouth. She shouldn’t have cared.

“All right…”

She’d deliberately left him for last. Makwa didn’t ask him what he wanted, simply made eye contact (even if it made her spine crawl) and waited.

“Steak. Rare.”

Why did she always do this?

“And for a side?” She stared down at her notepad, moving slow, as if “steak” was taking all of her mental faculties to spell.

“What happened to the other girl?” He was smiling now. “She took our drink order!”

“I’ll get them. Your side?”

“Hey, I’m not complaining. Maybe I’ll like you better,” he chuckled.

Makwa was still writing, waiting, and could his wife not see the look on his face? Or was she trying to ignore it, too?

“Just fries is fine.”

Finally. “Is that all?”

The moment his wife started nodding, Makwa was off. She felt eyes on her the whole way, and didn’t stop until she was safe in the backroom. Grace was there, looking for all the world like a scolded dog, a tray of drinks held in her shaking hands. Makwa only glanced at her before stopping at one of the countertops. The order was crumpled in her hands. She’d have to write a new ticket.

She cast quick glances over her shoulder as the girl approached. “You- you didn’t need to do that, you know. I mean, thanks, but you… I didn’t mean to make you feel like you had to.”

“It’s fine.” The kid looked so relieved, and that made her look even younger. Makwa swore she must’ve lied about her age to get hired, but Hill probably didn’t care either way.

Grace was peering over her shoulder at the crumpled note.

… garden, balsamic kids tenders steakkk fuckk fuck you ff fries

“Did he, uh… do anything?”

Makwa shoved the paper into her pocket. “It was fine.” She hung the new ticket up with the rest, skin itching as Grace followed her. “Really. Don’t worry about it.”

Grace just stared. “Ms. Hill said–”

“Don’t worry about her. We’ve got your back here.”

The girl’s smile almost made this whole ordeal worth it. “Oh! Right, these are, um…” She looked down at the drinks, and Makwa took them without a word.

The man was smiling at her return, his eyes focused nowhere near her face.

Almost.

The last hours of her shift flew by. The creep’s family had finished eating a while ago, but Hill wouldn’t call it loitering yet. They were talking money, which meant their kid had resorted to running toy cars off any ramp-shaped surface in the restaurant, apparently hellbent on getting in everyone’s way.

The man had just ordered his fifth beer—the light ones, but what was the point if he drank so many?—and the inappropriate comments were only increasing. His wife gave her sympathetic looks, but didn’t acknowledge it otherwise. Makwa was starting to hate them both equally. When she trudged back, drink in tow, the kid was nowhere to be seen. He was someone else’s problem for now.

She had her eyes fixed on the table as she walked, counting the minutes till her shift ended—when her legs flew out from under her. Makwa landed flat on her ass, a shrill crash sounding behind her. Her knee ached. A few people came forward as she slowly registered the beer soaking through her shorts and the toy car rolling away from her.

That fucking kid.

“You okay?” The man stooped in front of her, reaching out with one hand.

There was a screech. Makwa scooted back, eyes fixed on him. His fingers only brushed her shoulder, but it felt like a burn. That heat shot to her hands next, and it took her a second to realize she was leaning on broken glass.

A modest crowd had gathered by then. Makwa shot upright despite the pain, took one second to check her knee—nothing out of place—and darted past them. There was a first aid kid in the back. Not that it did her much good. She fumbled with the latch, hissing. It kept slipping between her bloody fingers.

Someone was behind her.

She jumped back to see Grace, who took it as an invitation to open the kit herself. Makwa gave up and slumped against the wall. The pain wasn’t bad, but it was still too much. Hill was nowhere to be seen. Probably apologizing to that fucking asshole.

When Grace reached for her hands, it took everything she had not to pull away. The girl was gentle, but the contact couldn’t end soon enough. Makwa kept her eyes shut.

“We’ve got each other’s backs, remember?” Grace said quietly.

Back on the floor, one server had drawn the short straw and was sweeping up the glass with a hand broom. There wasn’t a lot of blood, but what was there looked so bright against the laminate. The brush bristles left red tracks behind them, drawing hypnotizing patterns with every movement.

“Um… Can I get you anything else?”

He hadn’t realized he was staring. He chuckled. “Nein, thank you,” he said, turning back towards the bartender. “Just the bill is fine.” He gave her a bright smile, and she nodded, returning it nervously as she looked at the scene behind him. Cute.

By the time he turned back, the unlucky server had switched to a mop. It wasn’t long before the mess was cleaned and sterilized, as if nothing ever happened. Soon, the manager dragged the waitress back out. Poor thing. She was apologizing, but didn’t look too happy about it. Her fingers picked at the bandaids covering her hands.

What a lucky day he’d picked to come! It wasn’t his favourite place to drink; the usual crowd wasn’t really his type. But he never turned his nose up at dinner and a show.

#btd #might start tagging it as tnt so im not flooding the tags w irrelevant shit #admittedly this was written before i even started the prologue but i didnt get time to rewrite until today ahsdjaskf #i hate what i named the pub but that's partially why i chose it lmfao

[ellanainthetardis]

I fully expect tonight France will be World Champion so first of all YEAAAAAAH! And now... Let’s go to the cityyyyyy!

[ff] or [ao3]

73. 22 Months & 10 Months (2)

“Which one of the babies do you want?”

Haymitch barked the question more than he asked it and he immediately regretted his tone. The tension in the small room as the hovercraft began his descent toward the Capitol was already reaching its peak. It had been two weeks of tension actually. Two weeks of Effie frantically designing and sewing proper outfits for the trip, packing only to unpack, roaming the house at night and scrubbing it from floors to ceilings all day. It had been a while since she had been so agitated, so fragile and…

“I will take Snowball.” Effie replied in a soft, almost faint voice.

She grabbed the leach Haymitch had just clipped on the dog’s blue sparkly collar. Their fingers brushed and she flashed him a poor excuse of a smile. He forced himself to smirk back but it was strained.

He hadn’t been able to relax either since Plutarch’s phone call.

It wasn’t just the perspective of her publicly acknowledging what had happened to her during the war when she could barely talk about it in private. It was the fact that they were heading to the Capitol – that they were now about to land in the Capitol– with their kids. All of their kids. It made him anxious, paranoid…

The Samoyed wasn’t used to the leach at all and he shook himself, probably hoping to get rid of it. Haymitch felt bad for him. They usually let him roam free but in the city… It would have been wiser to leave him behind but to whom? He had left the geese is Sae’s care but she was far too old to handle the dog. The Clarkes had offered but while they were close friends, it was such an imposition to leave Snowball to them for more than a week that Effie had refused. Besides, he knew just how much the dog could calm her down and make her feel safe and he knew it might come in handy at some point.

“Be careful out there, yeah?” he still requested. “He’s not used to all the cars and everything.”

She gave him a meek nod and crouched to scratch Snowball’s head, hoping to calm him down. After three hours trapped in the hovercraft, the Samoyed was understandably restless. Haymitch thought they all were.

“I’m taking April.” Katniss declared, not leaving much room for debate. She picked up the sleepy toddler who, far from protesting, simply grabbed the girl’s leather jacket with a hum, hugging her cat rag doll close to her chest. She had been sick twice on the way already, her young body not receptive to the flight.

Katniss had been fidgety for the last hour at least and she looked just as anxious as Haymitch felt. She looked ready to fight teeth and nails if necessary and the way she was holding April tight…

For a moment, he let himself wonder why they were doing this at all when it would have been so much easier to stay hidden in the Village.

“Do you want the luggage or the jellyfish?” Peeta asked, jolting his knees so Aidan would laugh in delight.

Haymitch’s son had made himself at home on the boy’s lap during the last hour of the flight and Peeta was the only one still sitting. Not just because of the baby, either. Peeta was the only one who didn’t look overly worried.

“I’m gonna leave the luggage to you.” he joked – or tried to but it came out harsher than intended. “I’m an old man now.”

“When it suits you.” Katniss mocked.

And then the hovercraft touched ground, jerking them all for a second, and any attempt to joke the situation away was forgotten. Haymitch strapped the baby carrier sling to his chest and after Effie made sure the babies were both suitably wrapped in their coats, scarves and beanies, they all exited the hovercraft.

As it turned out, Peeta had the best part of the deal because the hovercraft attendants insisted they would take care of their luggage.

They emerged out of the hovercraft on a military landing strip on the outskirt of the city, as agreed beforehand, to avoid too much press attention too soon. They were all aware they wouldn’t escape it forever but they wanted to control it as much as possible.  

“At last!” Plutarch exclaimed, quickly walking away from his slick black limo to meet them halfway with a big smile.

Uncharitably, Haymitch thought he had put on more weight since he had become Secretary of Communication and that the hair implants weren’t working that great for him. A sharp elbow in his side reminded him that voicing any of that aloud was probably a sure way to get scolded later on. He glanced at Effie, whose features were schooled in a polite pleasant expression, and he smirked. If she was still watching out for his manners, she was alright.

“Effie!” Plutarch exclaimed first, planting a daring kiss on her cheek despite the Samoyed’s protective grumbling. He then moved on to Katniss whose cheek he kissed too before patting April’s head with a stupid enchanted smile. “You do have a lovely girl.” he praised and then shook Peeta’s hands with enthusiasm before finally moving toward Haymitch with arms open wide.

It was very obvious Plutarch was going for a hug and Haymitch would have probably avoided it altogether if there hadn’t been another pointy elbow in his side. This time, he shot Effie a glare but she simply lifted an eyebrow. The whole thing lasted less than a second and when Plutarch finally closed in, all he could do was turn a little sideway to avoid Aidan getting crushed in the middle. The sideway hug didn’t deter Plutarch who clapped his shoulder twice before peering at the baby in the sling with another delighted smile.

It wasn’t that Haymitch didn’t like Plutarch. He had been happy to call the man a friend in Thirteen. They had shared a compartment, a vision about what they wanted Panem’s future to be… But then the actual taking of the Capitol had happened and… Katniss might be blaming Gale Hawthorne for what had happened to her sister but Haymitch had his own set of culprits. Coin hadn’t taken the decision to launch the Hummingbird Operation alone. Plutarch had been there every step of the way. And he hadn’t talked her out of it.

And it wasn’t something Haymitch could forgive.

“I am so happy to see all of you again!” the Secretary of Communication insisted, ushering them toward the limo that wouldn’t be really inconspicuous even in the city.

If he noticed the less than enthusiastic answer, he didn’t let on. Once they were all comfortably settled in the car, Effie made an effort to keep up with the conversation while Haymitch kept his baby girl close to his side and a protective hand on Aidan’s back. The dog had curled up on top of Effie’s feet. Katniss stared through the window with her jaw clenched and her fists bundled on her lap until Peeta covered one of her hands with his. The girl relaxed and smiled back at the boy.

Haymitch didn’t relax or smile. He was too far from the window to get a proper look and he wasn’t sure he wanted to anyway. Rationally, he knew everything would look different. The city had been badly damaged during the war and most of the buildings had been destroyed, entire blocks had collapsed… The layout would be different, it would be like being in another city entirely.

And yet…

He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or feeling even more dreadful when the car finally came to a stop after a good forty-five minutes drive. April had been awake and irritable for the last twenty of them, not used to being trapped in such a small space any more than the dog was. Effie had settled her on her lap but the toddler remained ill-tempered and they eventually figured she still wasn’t feeling that well. The hovercraft trip hadn’t agreed with her stomach and she refused water and food.

On that account, he was glad to arrive but knowing everything it would trigger…

The street was lined with impressive looking houses that seemed designed to make visitors feel insignificant. The display of wealth was so obvious it made him wrinkle his nose as soon as he stepped out of the car. Before he could make a comment though, the front door of the closest house opened and out came Elindra and Tadius.

They didn’t rush, of course, because it would have been inappropriate and Haymitch could feel the eyes of the neighbors spying on them from behind their curtains but they certainly looked eager enough. Elindra had pale pink hair nowadays and he had to swallow back a gibe as soon as he saw her.

Fortunately, the woman was more interested in the baby strapped to his chest than by him and thus she didn’t see his mocking expression.

“Oh, how you grew up…” she beamed, immediately stealing Aidan away from Haymitch. It was hard to resist the instinctive urge to grab the baby back. Not that he didn’t trust Elindra now but being back in the city… Finally, the Capitol looked up at him with a genuine smile that was a rare sight on her face and briefly squeezed his arm – partly in greetings, partly in thanks for finally agreeing to come, he figured. “Haymitch. Welcome home.”

This isn’t home, he wanted to say but he suffered the air kisses on his cheeks and her clucking of tongue when she declared he looked tired and should invest in some foundation powder. Soon enough, she had moved on to her daughter and granddaughter and he was facing Tadius’ outstretched hand. He shook it gladly, letting the Capitol pat his shoulder twice, knowing the Trinkets were honestly happy to see them. If anything, that made the trip worthwhile.

It had been a recurrent request of theirs for Haymitch and Effie to bring the children over.

There was a lot of noises and exclamations, greetings being exchanged, goodbyes when Plutarch declared he needed to go back to the office…

They were all herded inside the house by Elindra.

“Leave the luggage, Peeta dear, we have staff for that.” she chided the boy, nudging him toward the front door.

And there was a staff. A butler who supervised the others, a ballet of maids in dark uniforms, a couple of men… It made him uncomfortable so he took a good look around instead.  

The main hall was… cold. All marble and gold moldings that looked very grand but also very… soulless.

Effie leaned against his side, her eyes darting around, probably taking note of what had changed and what was the same… They hadn’t really discussed that, he realized, coming back to her parents’ house… It had been her idea but the last time she had been there they had kicked her out and…

“Alright!” Elindra declared, speaking loud to cover the different conversations that were going on and the joyful chaos of coats, scarves and hats being taken away by the maids. “I am sure you all must be very tired after that trip and would like to rest for an hour or two. Tea will be served at four in the small parlor for those of you who wish it.”

“That means everyone regardless of personal wishes.” Effie whispered blankly for Haymitch’s attention alone.

“Jenkins will show you to your respective rooms.” the Capitol continued, nodding at the butler who professionally nodded back.

“I think I can find the way by myself.” Effie replied, her tone polished to sound casual rather than confrontational.

Elindra blinked and, for a second, there was an odd tension between the two of them. Haymitch briefly wondered if being in the Capitol would destroy all the progress they had made. Effie hadn’t been happy in that house, he knew that – and he also knew only too well how some places could wake up old wounds.

“Naturally.” Tadius cut in with a good-natured chuckle. “The nursery is ready for the children. It is perfectly suitable, you will see. We had it refurbished a couple of years ago for Bryden and Timotheo. And we bought beds for the babies… They should be comfortable. I was assured it was the best on the market…”

“I am certain it will be perfect.” she agreed easily, her tone softening. .

“We thought you may like your old room.” Elindra said suddenly, a bit hesitant. “But there is another guest room closer to the nursery if you’d prefer. The maids can have it ready in a tick.”

Effie hesitated and Haymitch shuffled his weight on his feet because… Closer was better in his book. They had packed the baby monitors naturally but…

“Whatever you organized is fine, Mother.” she said eventually.

Elindra seemed to relax a little. “Very well. Katniss and Peeta are in the green guest room.”

“Thank you for having us, Mrs Trinket.” the boy timely offered. “Katniss and I really appreciate it.”

“Nonsense.” Effie’s mother dismissed with a brisk wave of her hand. “You are family, are you not? It won’t be said I let family go to a dreadful hotel when there are perfectly suitable guest rooms in my house.”

Haymitch felt Effie relax next to him. Acknowledging the kids as part of their extended family was a step in the right direction. Elindra flashed her a hesitant smile that she answered in kind. Still, he thought the peace might not last forever when he heard Elindra mutter to Tadius “Did they have to bring the dog?”. He quickly nudged his wife up the stairs, hoping she hadn’t heard. It would be stressful enough for all of them without their feud flaring back to life.  

The rest of the house was just as cold as the main hall.

Oh, it was all prestigious looking but… He couldn’t shake off the feeling it lacked everything of importance. There were elegant furniture but none of the clutter of a lived-in home, the walls were painted a sad shade of white, the framed paintings – while probably expensive and originals – looked bland,  most of the tables and dressers were see-through or metal when it wasn’t marble…

Effie paused on the first floor to push a door while the kids continued down the corridor, following the taciturn butler…

“This is the nursery.” she declared.

He peeked inside to find everything had been prepared for them. There were toys neatly aligned on shelves – although most of them had probably belonged to Effie and Lyssa first given the numerous amount of dolls, there were also a few that were clearly her nephews’ and some that were obviously brand new and more adapted for small children – soft plushy rugs on the floor and two identical beds made out of pale wood. The first thing Haymitch did was check April wouldn’t be able to get out if she tried to – and she did try to more and more.

“Katniss and Peeta’s bedroom is down the corridor.” Effie continued, adjusting her hold on April who had insisted on being carried at some point. She was still clutching Snowball’s leach in her other hand and the dog was getting impatient to be allowed to explore, he was sniffing around like crazy. “Ours is on the third floor with the master bedroom and Lyssa’s old room.”

One floor up from their kids…

He wasn’t sure he liked that.

“Lead the way.” he grumbled.

Neither of them suggested leaving the children in the nursery and Haymitch was already plotting how to get those two beds up in their bedroom – assuming they would fit.

He was aware Effie’s breathing wasn’t quite natural. She was clearly making an effort to remain collected but he wasn’t sure if it was because she was fighting a panic attack or because the house brought back memories. Sometimes she discreetly brushed her hand against the wall or her lips stretched into a small sad smile…

“You’re okay?” he asked eventually when she stopped in front of a closed door that he assumed to be their room.

“Yes.” she promised. “I simply never thought I would come back here again.” April was fussy in her arms and she pressed a kiss against her forehead. “I know, darling. It will get better.”

She pushed the door open to find their suitcases piled in a corner. Haymitch looked around eagerly, having been ready for a teenager’s room and disappointed by how… neutral the whole bedroom looked. He had seen two of her apartments over the years – and he had seen what she had done with his house – this wasn’t an Effie Trinket place to leave. The walls were a boring shade of caramel, the framed artworks on the wall were very generic and there was absolutely no personal touch. None at all. None of the eccentric colors he had gotten used to, no crazy spark, nothing.

“That’s your old room?” he scoffed, disappointed.

She placed April down on the immaculate bedcover before flashing him a smile over her shoulder. “My parents turned it into a guest room two weeks after I moved out.”

He wrinkled his nose, putting Aidan next to his sister. “Harsh.”

She shrugged it off with apparent casualness but he could see it still stung. He couldn’t imagine doing anything like that to their children.

He watched her dig into one of the suitcases, fishing out April’s huge stuffed dog that looked so much like Snowball – Snowball who was very busy investigating the en-suited bathroom for the moment but who would ask to be taken out very soon. He grabbed the water bowl from another suitcase and filled it with water for him, taking a second to shake his head at the amount of luggage they had. He traveled light – or he would have if Effie hadn’t insisted on packing up suits and public event appropriate outfits – but she had two suitcases for herself, one for each of the kids – clothes, baby related stuff and toys alike – and a bag full of Snowball’s stuff – his bed, the purple monkey, a spare collar and leach, a brand new dog harness in case he was being too difficult outside because they didn’t want to take any risk with his safety, his plate, his water bowl and a few chew toys. What had happened to the time he could live a month with a single bag?

“Here you go, my darling.” Effie hummed in the bedroom. Haymitch petted the dog for a couple of minutes, watching him lap the water eagerly. “And here for you, my jellyfish.”

When he walked out of the bathroom, Aidan was sucking on the bottle full of water they had packed for the trip. A similar bottle was capped on the bed next to April but the girl seemed happier cuddling her toy, curled up on the bed.

“You think she’s alright?” he worried, immediately feeling his daughter’s forehead. It was a little warm but nowhere near feverish.

“Just an upset stomach, I think.” Effie shook her head, taking the children’s shoes off since they were both on the bed. “The hovercraft didn’t agree with her and that car trip felt endless.”

He flopped down on the mattress next to their daughter who immediately used his thigh as a pillow. He ran his fingers through her disheveled blond hair, not quite reassured. “I give it two hours. If she’s still feeling sick I’m gonna ask your dad if he knows a good doctor.”

“Agreed.” Effie hummed, tickling Aidan’s tummy. The boy wriggled and laughed but soon grabbed his stuffed giraffe and crawled closer to his sister, his eyelids drooping. He hadn’t napped in the hovercraft and the trip was starting to take its toll. It wasn’t long before Snowball jumped on the bed to curl against the boy’s back, completing the mass of sleeping babies. Effie’s lips twitched with unabashed amusement. “Aren’t you all cute.”

Haymitch rolled his eyes but alternated between petting April’s hair and rubbing Aidan’s back when he wasn’t scratching the dog’s head. He took a couple of seconds, let it sink that they were all alright. Yes, they were in the city but that didn’t mean anything bad would happen. They would all take care of this anniversary stuff and their children would be safe with their grandparents, they would have fun – as much fun as possible with Elindra anyway – and they would get to spend some time with their cousins which was… Well, Haymitch wasn’t sure what it was. He had never expected to get a family that large but he wasn’t against it now that he was used to it.

“Are you alright?” Effie asked carefully, gently reaching out to brush his hair away from his face.

He snorted and looked up at her, a self-deprecating smirk on his lips. “Shouldn’t that be my line?”

Her smile was tentative and didn’t reach her eyes, still when she leaned in and stole a kiss, he didn’t protest.

“Apil too.” their daughter mumbled.

Effie chuckled and bent down to give the requested cuddle, careful not to wake Aidan who had fallen asleep, his little fist clutching his sister’s sweater. He watched her straighten up and kick off her heels before turning to the suitcases. He wasn’t surprised when she immediately started unpacking.

“Being in the Capitol feels weird.” she admitted after a couple of minutes.

“Don’t tell me.” he sighed, flopping down on his back and staring at the cream colored ceiling. Who painted ceilings? “You think Annie and Jo are already here?”

“They are only arriving tonight, aren’t they?” Effie frowned. “I am fairly sure that’s what Johanna told me.”

“And tomorrow the circus starts.” he grumbled, closing his eyes. He wasn’t eager to be paraded around again. He wasn’t eager at all.

It would start with a press conference for the surviving members of the Star Squad and the remaining victors. Then an official dinner at the presidential mansion, followed the next day by the commemoration ceremony and the unveiling of whatever statue was waiting at the City Circle – and how Katniss was going to go through that he wasn’t sure but they could probably get her excused if she didn’t feel like doing it – and the day after that there would be Paylor’s announcement and Effie’s big speech followed by the ball at the mansion. There would be more stuff afterwards, some interviews and campaigning for the next election that only concerned him.

Effie didn’t comment and kept on putting clothes away in the dresser and the wardrobe. He watched her carry their toiletry bags to the bathroom and gave her a small pout. “So, I don’t get to see your childhood bedroom but do I get to see embarrassing baby pictures?”

She came out of the bathroom with her lips pursed but a spark of amusement in her eyes. “I am afraid none of those exists.”

“Liar.” he accused. He would ask Tadius, he decided. He was interested in baby pictures. He wanted to see if their children looked like her younger self.

“Now, now, darling…” she chided, laugher in her voice. “Is that any way to talk to your wife?”

He shrugged, propping himself on his elbows. “My wife refuses to be embarrassed.”

“How disappointing of her.” she grinned, her hands on her hips. She studied him for a moment and then rolled her eyes. “Very well. If you insist.”

Before he could ask what she meant, she was kneeling next to the bed and blindly feeling around beneath it. He sat up straighter, watching her with curiosity – and jerking April who sighed as if it was a great inconvenience and sat up too, her rag doll and the stuffed dog both clutched to her chest, before reaching for her untouched bottle of water. His attention was momentarily diverted when his daughter shook the bottle in a commanding fashion with something akin to a demanding grunt.

“Words, sweetheart.” he reminded her.

They always encouraged her to talk rather than make noises but the unimpressed look she threw him at that second – so very similar to Effie’s pissed off one – made him roll his eyes and take the lid off the bottle. She sucked on it eagerly, which, he supposed, meant she felt better.

Meanwhile, there was a popping sound from under the bed and Effie exclaimed in triumph.

“The fuck you’re doing?” he frowned.

“Watch your tongue in front of the children.” Effie reminded him, half her body was under the bed now and when she finally came out, she had a couple of floorboards in her hand.

“Your mother’s okay with you destroying the floor work?” he mocked.

Effie tossed him a glare. “It has always been loose. I used the space as a hiding place.” It took some more work but she eventually managed to level out a square box from under the bed. She shifted to sit down before rubbing her palms together to get rid of the dust, her nose wrinkled. “There. Now you can make fun of my teenage self to your heart’s content.”

He eagerly snatched the box from her and opened it while she went to thoroughly wash her hands in the bathroom – he didn’t make fun of her for that, he knew only too well how she hated feeling dirty and how easily it could trigger a flashback.

He opened the box, smirking hard when he found what unmistakably was a pink diary. He set that aside for later consideration, not sure she would mind him poking around it or not. There were a couple of trinkets, a battered packet half full of cigarettes, a pink lighter that probably didn’t work anymore, a few folded sketches of ridiculous looking dresses… And at the very bottom.

He laughed when his fingers closed around the action figure. He couldn’t help himself. “Seriously?”

She leaned against the bathroom’s threshold and folded her arms in front of her chest, a teasing smile on her lips. “You wanted to mock my naïve self, didn’t you? Here is your chance.”

He inspected the toy, still chuckling. There had been action figures of all victors. They were toys for children mostly but he knew some crazy people collected them religiously. He had seen a couple of his from time to time, he had even signed some. The likeness had been good but now that he wasn’t sixteen it was really hard to tell, the action figure’s hands were empty but he knew it originally came with a set of plastic knives. Later, it had been re-edited with a knife and a bottle.

“Tell me, sweetheart…” he teased. “What did you do with that toy?”

She lifted her eyebrows in challenge. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

He could just picture it. Her twelve year-old self romancing the action figure and inventing ridiculous stories in which he fell in love with her at first sight… And then, when she had been older…

His mind was saved from falling into the gutter by his daughter reaching for the toy.

“Apil?” April asked, looking at him with those blue puppy eyes he could never say no to.

He looked at Effie uncertainly, not sure he was comfortable letting their child play with that. It had been funny when he had thought about his wife doing it but… It was a reminder of a time long gone, of something he wasn’t proud of and…

“I do not see the harm in it…” Effie hesitated. “It is just a toy. And how many children can say they have an action figure of their father?”

He licked his lips and studied the action figure, unable to really see himself in it anymore. He used to hate those things like he hated everything reminding him of his arena, of his status, but now… That had been so long ago…

“I guess.” he relented eventually, letting April take it. It was heavy for her little hand and it fell on the bed. Their daughter didn’t see the victor when she looked at it. She was just seeing a toy. And like all kids presented with a toy, she wanted to play with it. “You’re feeling better, shrimp, yeah?”

He felt her forehead again, happy to find her skin cool to the touch. Color had come back to her cheeks too and he let himself breathe, relieved that it had just been motion sickness and not something direr. He hated to see his kids sick.

“We should all change.” Effie declared, clapping her hands once. “We will feel better in clean clothes.”

“I’m good.” he protested. Of course, she pursed her lips at him and he ended up rolling his eyes. “I’m gonna walk the dog and then I’ll change. Deal?”

“Deal.” she humored him, as if she hadn’t just gotten her way.

She selected a new outfit for April – a dress Elindra had bought her – and started the long process of undressing and then dressing the child again, of course interrupted by April’s timely “Potty!” declaration. Aidan was still sleeping so they didn’t disturb him for the moment. Instead, Haymitch watched Effie discard her traveling outfit for a dress that color coordinated with April’s and he swallowed back a remark because he didn’t like when she did stuff like that. There was no harm in it, he knew that, and the girl loved wearing matching outfits with her mother but he couldn’t help but feel it was all too… Capitol.

“We should drag one of the baby beds in there.” he suggested after a while of watching her get ready. Two beds wouldn’t fit but they could probably wedge one between their bed and the window. “April can sleep with us if it’s too tiny for them to share.”

She considered it, he saw it, saw her eyes traveling over their children, but then she shook her head. “I don’t want them in the same room as us. I… I don’t know about you but I am fairly certain I will have nightmares and…” She licked her lips and looked away. “There is another guest room closer to the nursery. Or if you want to sleep in there with them…”

“I’m staying with you.” he cut her off. She would need him more than the babies would. He knew that. He also knew the babies would be alright and safe. It was just… This was a foreign house in an hostile city. “You’ve got the baby monitors packed anyway, yeah?”

“And Peeta and Katniss will be down the nursery’s corridor.” She nodded. “They will be safe, Haymitch.”

“Yeah, I know.” he admitted.

But knowing and accepting weren’t the same thing.

She cleared her throat. “I have something for you.”

He lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “Yeah?” He had something for her too but he was saving it for the day she would give that speech. “What?” And then he smirked because when she gave him stuff… “Kinky lingerie?”

She laughed at the hopeful hint in his voice and fetched something from one of the suitcases. It was wrapped in silver paper with a neat red bow on top. She was a little hesitant when she handed it to him, a small blush on her cheeks. They didn’t really do spontaneous gifts. He didn’t know how to accept them graciously and she always started thinking he had something to atone for when he gave her stuff.

“What’s this for?” he frowned, unwrapping the gift quickly before April could get it into her head to help him. His frown deepened when he found a familiar dark blue box, marked with Twelve’s only jewelry shop brand. It explained why the owner had asked him if they had an anniversary coming on. He glanced at the old battered and scratched golden bangle around his wrist and made a face. “Tell me it ain’t the matching manacle.” She narrowed her eyes at him and he lifted his hand in a defensive gesture. “Fine, fine, no joking…” he grumbled before opening the box.

There was a watch in there. And not any watch but one he had actually been eyeing in the store’s window for a while but had denied himself because… Well, he didn’t really need it and money was better spent on other stuff. But, then again, he had the suspicion she hadn’t bought it with their money but with what she earned with her dressmaking job – otherwise he would have seen it when he had checked the bills.

“Effie…” he whispered, a lump in his throat. “You didn’t have to…”

“I know I didn’t have to.” she replied. “I wanted to. You have been…” She stopped and let out a long breath. “You have been so patient and supportive and now this, coming back here for me…” She gave him a small shrug. “I saw you looking at it and you never buy anything for yourself so…” He picked it up from the box, intending to put it on, when she cleared her throat. “There is an engraving.”

He turned the watch around, brushing his thumb against the words carved in the silver.

Forever yours. E.

He smirked because that was exactly the sort of foolish sentimental display she was fond of and he hated. He put the watch on, the brown leather straps warming quickly against his skin, and admired the elegant face for a second. Then he stood up, cupped her cheek in his hand and drew her in a deep kiss that was a little too dirty given their audience.

Not that April was paying them any attention, she was very busy making his old action figure straddle the stuffed dog like a pony.

“I love you.” he reminded her, the words slipping from his lips with more ease than it used to. He told his children from time to time because he never wanted them to doubt. They were always difficult to utter but he always meant them. “There’s no need for thanks in there.”

“I love you too.” she grinned, stealing another kiss. “And, yes, there is.”

He kissed her again because they would have to agree to disagree on that.

#hayffie #effie trinket #haymitch abernathy #april showers

[purrincess-chat]

Lady Luck CH 5: APRIL FOOLS

After many months of waiting, I have finally updated Lady Luck! Read it below, and forgive me for taking so long!

FF | AO3

Chapter 5

Fading orange light shone over Paris when Marinette and Alya made their way down the front steps of their building, dressed for a night of dancing and singing to their favorite rockstar. For once they’d convinced the boys to meet them at the venue which allowed for a peaceful walk to the subway. Or rather, as peaceful as a walk could be with Alya.

“So, things seem to be going well with you and tall, blond, and handsome,” She said with a knowing, scandalous smile.

“We went to dinner once, and I’ve met him for coffee twice this week. I’d hardly say we’re in a relationship,” Marinette shot back, rolling her eyes a little.

“I never said anything about a relationship.” Alya smirked, and Marinette felt her cheeks flush.

“We’re just friends, okay?” She insisted, descending down the steps of the subway quickly, forcing Alya to keep up.

“That’s more than you were willing to say about him two weeks ago.” Marinette chewed her cheek at that, averting her gaze grumpily. “I’ve known you since collége, M. I can read you like a book. You like him.”

“I don’t have time to be in a relationship right now.” Alya cocked an unconvinced brow, so Marinette shifted her weight a little. “Only a little…”

“I knew it!” Alya beamed as the doors slid open, and they climbed inside the car and grabbed onto the standing poles.

“I doubt it’ll go anywhere.  He’s super nice and charming and all, sure, but ever since we’ve started hanging out, he’s not nearly as flirty anymore,” She said, shifting her gaze down to her feet and pursing her lips. “Not that I’m necessarily itching to be anything more than friends, but it seems like he isn’t interested in me romantically.”

“Well, if you’re not interested in being anything more then why do you seem upset?” Alya cocked a brow.

“I’m not upset. I just don’t understand why he tried so hard to get me to notice him if he just wanted to be my friend,” She said, crossing her arms over her chest stubbornly.

“Boys are strange. If you want something more with him, why don’t you make a move yourself?” The train car slowed to a stop before the doors slid open, and they followed a crowd out into the terminal.

“That’s just it, Alya. I don’t know what I want. On one hand, I really want to focus on school and starting my career, but on the other hand, I’m finding that I also really want to kiss his face…” She bit her lip as Alya giggled in delight, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“You have always been like this, girl. You need to learn how to multitask. You can do both if you want, ya know.”

Marinette considered it a moment, pursing her lips, and just as she opened her mouth to speak, a familiar voice called her name. She turned to see that mop of blond hair waving them over with a wide grin, and she felt her cheeks warm a little. Even if she did make a move and they became something more, she wasn’t certain how much time she could devote to him between school and work. Of course she suspected that he’d be very understanding and supportive, but it mattered to her how much attention she’d be able to give him in return. She shook herself a little, pushing the issue away. Alya was right; she thought too much.

“Ladies.” Adrien nodded when they approached before fixing his gaze on Marinette with a warm smile. “You look nice.”

“Oh, thank you,” She said, glancing down at her dark jeans and fitted Jagged Stone crop top to hide the flush to her cheeks.

Nino and Alya greeted each other with a kiss, embracing tightly with affectionate smiles while Marinette and Adrien stood by awkwardly avoiding eye contact. Marinette never thought it was possible for two people to be third wheels simultaneously, but somehow it was happening.

“So, did you ask her,” Nino said softly to Alya, nodding in Marinette’s direction.

“Oh, no, I totally forgot!” She leaned her head back, scrunching her face up.

“Ask me what?” Marinette’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Um, well, I was going to ask if it was alright if Nino stayed over at our place tonight, and if you could stay at your parent’s house, but I totally forgot,” Alya said, tapping her fist against her forehead. “It’s too late for tonight, but would you mind tomorrow?”

“She can stay at my place tonight,” Adrien piped up, and all heads snapped to face him.

“I-I wouldn’t want to put you out, Adrien,” Marinette said, holding up insistent hands.

“I don’t mind.” He fixed his gaze back on her with a friendly smile, and she rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly.

“I mean, if it’s alright with you, I don’t mind,” She said softly, rocking back on her heels a little.

“Thanks, bro.” Nino punched Adrien’s arm appreciatively, but Alya shot Marinette a questioning look, cocking a brow as if to confirm that her friend was truly okay with the arrangements. Marinette shrugged and waved it away to say that she’d manage, so Alya accepted it with an apologetic wince.

“So, shall we go in?”

The venue was loud with the chatter when they entered and found their place, and Marinette clasped the railing, glancing anywhere but at the boy standing beside her. Sometimes she hated herself for being too nice, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. It’s not like she expected a similar night to Alya and Nino out of him, in fact the thought of it made her heart palpate, so she had no reason to worry, but she couldn’t help but wonder why he offered so quickly.

It was a question that plagued her through most of the concert, no matter how hard she tried to push it away and enjoy herself. The room was crowded, and she spent most of the night with her shoulder pressed against his, feeling the firm ripple of his muscles anytime he moved. It didn’t help contain her rapid emotions, and the only thing keeping her from kissing his face was the fact that she refused to look at him, even if that meant she caught sight of her best friend making-out with her boyfriend more times than she cared to.

“Is something wrong?” The heat from his breath on her ear, startled her.

“No, it’s- everything is fine- I’m fine,” She replied smoothly, offering him an unconvincing smile, and he frowned.

“Is it because you don’t want to stay with me tonight?” His eyes burned into hers, so close that she could feel his breath kiss her cheeks.

She dared to steal a glance at his lips feeling her stomach clench with longing. They were too close. Too tempting, and for a moment she thought she’d close the distance between them. More than anything she wanted to grab those chiseled cheekbones and kiss him senseless, but if she did, she’d likely never be able to look at him again.

“It’s fine. I just don’t want to put you out,” She said, blinking to clear her head.

“I promise not to do anything weird to you or fill your hand with shaving cream then tickle your face with a feather. I just wanted to help out.” He rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

Marinette rolled her shoulders back a little, plastering on a sincere smile. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

He seemed to accept that as he turned back to enjoy the show, and Marinette breathed a sigh of relief, placing her hands on her hips to air out her arms. Why did he make her so hot? It was those stupid gorgeous eyes of his. And his lips. And that soft hair… She shook herself, blowing a sigh between her lips. It was going to be a long night.

After the concert ended, she and Adrien stopped back by her apartment to grab a few things while Nino and Alya took the long way home. They made useless chit-chat about the show along the way, and the moment Adrien veered up the steps of a tasteful little house, she stopped short.

“You own a house?” Marinette’s eyebrows raised in surprise as Adrien dug for his keys. “In Paris?”

“Yeah, I bought it myself when I moved out on my own,” He said with a shrug as if it wasn’t a big deal. “Why?”

“Nothing. It’s just not normal at our age.” He turned over his shoulder and flashed her a grin as he opened the door.

“I’m not normal.” He gestured her inside politely, shutting the door behind them as she marveled at the grand foyer. “Make yourself at home. The guest room is up the stairs and down the hall to the right.”

Marinette couldn’t find words, so she simply nodded and quietly made her way up, feeling slightly relieved that he offered the guest room. It seemed as if her hunch about the nature of their relationship was correct. Adrien only saw her as a friend and had no intentions of going beyond that, and if she were being honest, she still hadn’t decided if she truly wanted it herself. Of course, Adrien was polite and sweet and funny and, who was she kidding, drop-dead gorgeous, but fashion was her life, and there was no way she’d ever give that up for some boy, no matter how lost she got in his eyes.

The guest room was spacious and well-kept, much larger even than her bedroom at her parent’s house. Everything was perfectly in order, except for the plump black cat sprawled in the center of the bed snoozing peacefully. She set her bag down on the floor and carefully sat down on the edge, stretching to stroke his long fur gently.

“You must be the grumpy cat I’ve heard so much about,” She said with an amused giggle when he lifted his head and licked his lips before a low purr rumbled through his body. “Plagg, was it?”

“His favorite spot is behind the ears.” She jumped at the sound of his voice in the doorway, and straightened up abruptly. “He seems to really like you. That’s rare.”

“When you said he was grumpy, I expected some resistance when I tried to pet him,” She said, scratching under his chin while his delighted purrs filled the room. “But he’s just a big sweetheart.”

“He’s a good judge of character. You’re a really good person, Marinette, and I think he can tell,” Adrien remarked softly, running a hand down Plagg’s back as Marinette’s cheeks flushed. He scooped the ball of fluff up and leaned back against the bed, holding him up in the air before lowering him down onto his chest and resuming petting with both hands.

She supposed that statement could be taken either way. Adrien thought highly of her, but did that mean that he had feelings for her? Her head was spinning, and seeing him reclined on the bed with a content smile while he stroked and cooed at his cat only made her thoughts race faster. She had finally found her one weakness: gorgeous men snuggling cats.

“Oh, would you care for some wine?” He glanced at her and cocked an offering brow.

“Yes, wine would be lovely,” She replied without hesitation, and Adrien sat up, plopping his furry friend on the bed before getting up with Marinette following in tow.

“I’ll bring it into the other room. Why don’t you pick out a movie you like?” He suggested, pointing through the arched doorway across the foyer.

“Okay.” She nodded, picking awkwardly at a loose thread on her pants before retreating to the impressively decorated living room. Everything in his house seemed so classy and expensive, and if she were being honest, she was a little afraid to touch anything.

She stopped in front of a large wall lined with bookshelves of movie cases, and she felt her jaw drop a little. Adrien owned a wide variety of classics, foreign films, romantic-comedies, action films, and a surprising number of anime, she noticed with an amused smirk. It was almost too cute for words, and she silently cursed him for being so perfect.

“Find anything you like?” He asked, pacing into the room with an expensive bottle of chardonnay. “I hope white is okay.”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” She blinked a couple of times to clear her mind before turning back to the shelf. “You’ve got quite the collection.”

“I spent a lot of time indoors growing up, so I needed something to pass the time,” He said while he poured their drinks.

“Well, it’s quite impressive. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much anime in my life,” She teased, flashing him a playful grin which he mirrored, setting down the bottle and striding over to offer her a glass.

“Laugh all you want but Tamaki from Ouran High School Host Club was a romantic genius,” He said with a smooth laugh, and Marinette took a big sip of her drink, hoping the alcohol would aid in slowing down her rapidly flowing stream of conscious. It didn’t.

“I knew you were just a big dork underneath all that swagger,” She said, swirling her drink a little.

“Guilty.” He nodded proudly, and she bit her lip before randomly selecting a case from the shelf.

“I wanna watch this one.” She held it out to him, and Adrien accepted it, taking a sip of his wine as he examined the cover. “Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir. You didn’t strike me as the type to be into kiddie superhero stuff.”

She felt her spine stiffen, suddenly regretting selecting without thinking. “Oh, uh, I don’t, or I mean, I don’t mind them, but we can watch something else if you want.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s been a while since I’ve watched this, but I always liked it as a kid,” He said, popping it open and pacing over to his oversized TV, and Marinette slumped onto the couch, hanging her head a little in embarrassment.

“It was Alya’s favorite too. She made me watch it with her when we were in collége,” She replied, taking another healthy sip.

“Now that I can believe,” Adrien chuckled, plopping down beside her and draping an arm over the back of the couch. “It has its moments. The writing was a little lackluster at times, but the characters were fun.”

“Alya had a whole blog dedicated to it. She was obsessed with the whole love square thing.” She eyed his arm anxiously before downing the rest of her wine which Adrien promptly refilled for her before returning to his position.

Relax. She told herself. His arm wasn’t technically around her, so it didn’t mean anything. Guys always put their arms over the back of the couch, and it didn’t mean he was trying to make a move or anything. Besides, as she’d come to learn the hard way, he was usually much more direct in his approach.

“Ah, the love square,” He remarked with a nostalgic sigh. “I was totally into LadyNoir.”

“Alya’s favorite was Brilix. Sometimes she shouted at the TV over it.” Marinette smiled, thinking back on it, remembering all of the crazy fan theories Alya would stay up all night telling her about at their sleepovers. It distracted her briefly from her current arm-almost-touching-her-shoulder situation, but it didn’t last as long as she’d hoped.

“It is kind of ridiculous to me that they couldn’t recognize each other’s voices in and out of costume though. I mean, Ladybug looks the same! At least Chat Noir had different hair,” Adrien said with a grunt, pursing his lips as the opening credits played. “But I suppose that’s a trope that will never die in superhero worlds.”

“I dunno, I almost didn’t believe you were who you said you were when we first met. I don’t think it’s that farfetched.” She nudged his side a little with a smirk, and he laughed at that.

“I suppose that’s fair.”

They fell into silence as the first episode started, and Marinette took another gulp of her wine, feeling her limbs gradually growing heavier, more relaxed. Her mind was slowing down, but when she leaned back, she could feel Adrien’s arm just brushing the back of her neck which he made no effort to move. She needed more wine.

After another glass, she was feeling significantly looser, and her mind was blissfully quiet as she focused most of her mental energy in not falling asleep against him and drooling on his shoulder. It was a surprisingly good incentive, and after a couple episodes, Adrien reached for the remote and turned it off, stretching his arms above his head with a groan.

“It’s getting late. I should turn in. You’re welcome to stay up and help yourself to whatever you want,” He said with a yawn.

“No, yeah, I should go to bed too. I have to open tomorrow at work.” She stood up at the same time he did, wobbling a little, but ultimately steadying herself.

They walked up together in silence, but Adrien paused outside the guest room door and turned to face her. Something in his expression made her heart skip and her head spin, and she was grateful to have alcohol to blame for why she leaned against the door for support.

“Tonight was a lot of fun. I’m glad we got to spend so much time together,” He said with a sincere smile that made her cheeks warm. “I want to get to know you more, Marinette.”

“Yeah, I’d like that too,” She said with a slight nod. She really wanted to kiss him. Like, really wanted to, but she supposed that wouldn’t be something a friend would do. Then again, she’d chugged enough wine to not particularly care so much.

“Good night, Marinette.” His tone was warm and soft, and before she could think better of it, she placed her hands on his chest and stretched up to touch her lips to his, lingering for one brief, sweet moment before abruptly pulling away. Adrien’s eyebrows raised in surprise as he stared at her in bewilderment, but before he could speak, she shoved open the door to the guest room and disappeared inside with a half-hearted “Good night” tossed over her shoulder as she slammed it shut in his face.

She leaned against it, wincing at her own smoothness before stumbling over to the bed and crawling under the sheets, hoping to die of shame in her sleep. There was no coming back from this. She’d have to move cities, assume a new identity and dye her hair. She’d miss her old life.

As she heard Adrien’s footsteps slowly retreat up the hall, she buried her face in her pillow with a moan. Alya was going to get quite the scoop tomorrow.

#miraculous ladybug #adrinette #adrien agreste #marinette dupain-cheng #lady luck #my writing #april fools!

[seriouslyhooked]

Some Call It Magic (A CS AU) Part 17/17

When Killian Jones moves to Storybrooke he instantly senses something strange about this little town in Maine but he’s willing to overlook all the bizarre signs for one reason: the single Mum living next door to him. There’s only one problem. Killian is nearly positive she’s a witch, a brewing potions and casting spells witch. But when true love is involved, does a little thing like magical powers really matter? Story rated M.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9,Part 10,Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16. Also On FF Here.

A/N: Hey everyone! So I am back with the last official chapter of Some Call It Magic (though I do have an eventual epilogue crafted in my head already, so not to worry, the fluff is not completely over it will just take some time to get here). It picks up a few months after the last chapter and includes some of my favorite elements of CS happy endings that I have written many times before. I am sure some of you have guesses of what those might be, but nevertheless I hope that you all enjoy and thank you so much for reading!

Since landing here in Storybrooke all those years ago, Emma had grown accustomed to the seasons. The summers were warm but breezy, though a serious heat wave or two did show up once or twice. The autumn, her favorite time of year, was pure magic, but often over too soon thanks to their northern region’s propensity for the cold. And the winters… well they usually seemed to drag on forever. There were no mild March days, heck, there were usually still snow storms in April, but the long slog of winter had come and gone just as quickly as all the other seasons of late, and suddenly spring was here with the flowers and the sunlight and the renewed hope that life and vibrancy and joy were back within the natural world once more.

Of course Emma hadn’t lost any of that sense of warmth during her winter months, instead finding a comfort and a solace that she cherished more and more with every passing day. Things were good – no, things were fantastic – and they were only on their way to getting better. In a little over a month the day she and Killian had been waiting for what felt like forever for would be here. Their wedding was drawing closer and closer, and on the summer solstice (chosen specifically because Henry insisted it would bring good luck) Emma would be walking down an aisle dressed in white and saying ‘I do’ to the only man the world over who could ever entice her into such a life. She was ready for it too, more ready than she’d ever been for anything, and it was hard to find the patience for that next step, though the happiness that she and her kid and Killian had already found was the surest cure to her wishing for more. Things were damn near perfect in the Jones/Swan household and Emma truly appreciated just how lucky she was to have any of this at all.

“If you keep daydreaming like that I’m making you put a dollar in the jar.”

Ruby’s teasing voice cut in from across the kitchen and Emma grinned as she looked up from the cookie dough she’d been absentmindedly tossing together, not bothering to argue that she had been distracted. It was just so easy for her mind to wander towards how good things were, and if that meant Emma had to fork up a few extra bucks a day and put them in a jar that Ruby had designed so that they could raise the funds for them and all their friends to go on a trip next year, then so be it. As far as Emma could tell it was a win-win: she got to linger in the happiness that was her life and invest in a vacation for all their friends that had been years in the making.

“Didn’t I hear you on the phone earlier?” Emma asked with a knowing smirk. “You know technically the rules include stolen conversations with your husband as being jar worthy too.”

“Fair enough. We’ll call this one a draw,” Ruby acquiesced and Emma only laughed, glad for the humor of it all and the genuinely joyous fact that Emma wasn’t the only one with a happily ever after to keep her occupied. All of her friends had found loves to hold and keep forever and that was a special thing indeed. “That being said your time is up, Ems, and Mary Margaret is adamant that we get our asses out there. Also apparently if we fail to bring chocolate cake there will be hell to pay.”

“What else is new?” Emma joked as she grabbed the treat for their weekly lunch and followed Ruby out into the café. Little did she know that this gathering was about to reveal quite a few new things all at once.

“Wait, so Will is moving here? Just like that?” Ruby asked, playing up her shock when Emma knew she was anything but. Everyone had seen how swiftly the connection had formed between Killian’s friend and Belle over the Christmas holiday and in the months following. It was just a matter of time before one of them relocated, and since Belle had always loved this town and her friends and family here, Emma had never imagined that she would be the one to leave.

“Yeah, just like that,” Belle said with a cheerful smile. “Can you believe it?”

The friends all agreed that they could and offered their congratulations to Belle. Emma was actually even more excited if it was possible, not just because Belle had found her special someone, but because this meant that the last piece of Killian’s old life that he really valued would be coming back into place. Having Will in Storybrooke would no doubt be a comfort to him, and now that she thought about it, Emma doubted there was any way Killian hadn’t already known his friend’s intention. She made a mental note to ask him about that later, but then Elsa had some news of her own to share which distracted Emma from the personal musings.

“I’m going to ask Liam to marry me,” Elsa blurted out before anyone else could fill the silence, and at the proclamation and all the friends’ jaw’s dropped. They were each of them stunned into silence, a rare state for most of them, and it was obvious to Elsa that she’d truly surprised them all with her intentions. “What? I love him guys, you know that.”

“We do, Elsa, and he loves you too,” Emma said, finding her words first and trying to soothe the anxiety that their collective shock had sparked for Elsa. “We’re just surprised. Are you sure you want to be the one to ask? If Liam is anything like his brother – which we both know he is – then he’ll have it all planned. It’ll be perfect.” The other friends nodded their agreement but Elsa just sighed.

“I know, I just… I don’t know. I don’t want to wait anymore. All this talk of Emma’s wedding has just made it more and more clear to me that I want that too. So why wait? Anything could happen, so why waste time when we know it’s right?”

“You’re right, Elsa,” Belle agreed, taking her hand in a supportive gesture. “If this is what your heart is telling you to do then you should do it.”

Everyone else agreed with the assessment but there was one noticeable silence in the group and it came from a source usually filled with commentary, especially when it came to Elsa’s love life: Anna was currently sitting there fidgeting in her chair and avoiding the eyes of everyone, but most noticeably Elsa, and if that wasn’t a dead give away that something was afoot Emma didn’t know what was.

“Anna?” Elsa asked and Anna let out a flustered sigh before the walls she’d had up came crashing down and her words came flooding out.

“Oh God I swore I wouldn’t say anything, because Liam wants things to be a surprise, but if you ask him then it will mess things up and you really don’t want to mess this up, Elsa. He told me his idea and it’s like the story Mom and Dad used to tell us about Dad’s proposal only somehow sweeter. Trust me, sis, just a little more patience. If you can wait – oh sheesh, well I guess I’m giving it all away anyway. He’s proposing tonight. There I said it.”

All of the reactions of the friends ranged at that point, with Mary Margaret falling victim to those happy tears she was famous for and Ruby laughing boisterously as she claimed that she ‘knew’ there as no way that Liam wouldn’t be the one to ask. Meanwhile Elsa looked like she was walking on air, her smile was so wide and then she was standing up, probably on her way to go look for Liam when Emma pulled her back down.

“Not so fast, girl. This isn’t the kind of thing you want to rush. Let me send Killian a text. He’ll know every detail I’m sure, and we can maybe tell him to get a move on without totally giving away that you’re in the know now.”

“Thank you Emma,” Elsa said gratefully as Emma smiled and sent the text, hoping Killian would give her good news to give Elsa.

“Wow, so this is kind of a big day? Anyone else got any other announcements. Now’s your time,” Anna joked and at the same time Mary Margaret and Ruby began speaking, then they laughed and both told the other they should go first. In the end it was Mary Margaret who shared her news first.

“I’m pregnant,” she whispered, looking happier than she’d ever been and all of the friends burst with their excitement. For over a year she and David had been trying, and there were a few times when Emma had thought perhaps the stars were aligning and Mary Margaret was getting her wish, but to hear that she was really getting it now meant so much to every friend there. For Ruby, however, there was a different kind of reaction as she gawked for a moment before sharing her own news, which was that she too was expecting. One baby was one thing, but two new additions on the way left all of the friends completely floored and then all freaking out at once.

“Holy crap, seriously?!” Belle asked as her hands clapped together. “That’s amazing!”  

“It really is,” Elsa agreed with just as much happiness as she’d shown at her own incoming proposal. “But you guys being pregnant at the same time? I mean, what are the odds?”

“Well I’m thinking they were better than normal since I made it my New Year’s wish at the ceremony,” Ruby admitted, reminding them all of the protective spell they’d placed on the town and the people they loved as the new year rang in. 

All of them had participated in the new year ritual as they always did, but their usual goal of protecting the town and its citizens then ended with each of them offering one silent wish of their own as well. Now, all these months later, it turned out some of those dreams were coming true. In fact, it turned out that Mary Margaret had made the same wish, Elsa had wished to marry Liam, Anna had wished to see her sister as happy in love as she was with Kristoff, and Belle had wished for a way forward with Will. The coincidence was too much, but then everyone looked to Emma expectantly wondering what she wished for.

“So, what was it Emma?” Ruby prodded and Emma shrugged.

“I just wished that we’d all be happy and healthy and safe. I feel like I already have so much, I didn’t really think to ask for anything more.”

As she said the words though, Emma remembered one small part of her wish that had seemed almost trivial at the time. In the little fantasy that had played out in her head, the one where she and Killian were together with Henry as a family, it hadn’t been her house that they were living in. It was the big yellow Victorian not too far from the center of town that had long been a favorite of hers. Maybe it was silly, but she’d always pictured that as the setting for a perfect kind of living. She’d never been able to justify trying to live there if it was just her and Henry, and the owners had never given any indication that they were looking to sell, but now that Killian was a part of this family too and there was a chance that someday their family might grow, Emma couldn’t help but picture it and want to know if maybe the magic of the new year had blessed her over too.

Standing suddenly, Emma offered an apologetic look to her friends and said she’d be back after she went to check on something, and as they looked after her Emma moved through the door of Stay a Spell and headed off towards the house in question. It wasn’t a long walk by any means, but Emma felt this charge of energy coursing through her and she didn’t know if it was hope or anticipation that was getting the best of her, but she knew in her heart she had to come here. Maybe if she spoke to the current owners and just mentioned that she’d be willing to buy if ever they were looking to sell it would ease this sudden want in her, but as she turned the corner and her eyes fell on the house, the initial calm that it inspired was crushed by the sight of a big and bold SOLD sign out front.

“I’m too late,” Emma whispered and her stomach sank as the hope she’d just been feeling faded away.

Standing in front of this place that had long been a cornerstone of her secret dreams for a future life, Emma couldn’t help the twinge of sadness that came. She shook it away as best she could, knowing that it would never matter where they were, as long as she and Henry and Killian were together that would be the perfect home. Still, if ever there were a place to spend forever, to share a life, to raise a family… well this was the fantasy, and it had been for Emma for years now. Giving that up, even if it had never really been hers to begin with, was harder than she expected. All she could hope at this point was that the new owners would treat this place with the love and care that it deserved. Emma hoped this house held the happiness she’d always pictured here, and then she accepted the fact that next time, if a dream like this presented itself, she’d have to strike faster or risk losing out once more.

As that idea of letting this home go began to settle, however, Emma watched the front door of the house open up and two people exited onto the expansive front porch. To say they were the last two people she would have ever expected was an understatement, and then a prickling feeling of almost-awareness moved through her. Killian and Henry weren’t here by coincidence. Something was up with those two, and where they’d teamed up in the past, Emma had only ever found the most beautiful, thoughtful, and glorious results.

“Oh shoot,” Henry said a second later as he descended the front steps of the house and made his way to Emma’s side, but even as he said it, her kid shook his head and smiled like he wasn’t really shocked to see her at all.

“Henry?” Killian asked, after having locked the door behind him, but when he turned and saw Emma, Emma knew in her heart what was coming. “Emma! What’s brought you out this way, love?”

“It’s kind of a long story. We were all at the café and then I just ended up here…”

“Should have known we’d never keep the secret long,” Killian said with a chuckle before coming down and taking Emma’s hand in his. “Henry and I had other plans on how to tell you, Swan, but it seems that plan must change.”

“I still don’t understand,” Emma said, even though she followed enough to realize that this house she’d always loved was about to be theirs.

“Operation Our Home is a go, Mom. Killian and I agreed we needed a new place for all of us to build our new memories together, and we figured the best way to get you on board was to pick a house you couldn’t say no to.”

Emma worked hard to keep the happy tears at bay, but her throat was tight with emotion at the lovely sentiment. And they were absolutely right. She would never say no to this place because it was one that she loved so much. She just couldn’t get over these constant grand gestures. Yet even as she thought that Emma knew they would be a constant. Loving a man like Killian who was thoughtful and kind meant that she’d always feel this way. He was a man with his heart set on one thing, making her and her son happy and building a life with them, and as such Emma knew she was in for years and years of similarly spectacular moments.

“So what do you think, my love?” Killian asked as he pulled Emma into his arms, kissing her temple softly. “Can you picture forever here with us?”

“Yes,” she whispered before looking from the house back to Killian and then down to Henry. “Forever with you two is all I could ever need.”

So with that affirmation from Emma, the three of them all headed back into the house to take a look at the new home that was now theirs. As expected, it was gorgeous and filled with possibility, and over the next few weeks the three of them all crafted a plan for the beautiful future that would be had here for now and always. They added their little touches and unique imprints to make their new home all that it could be, and the best part of all was that Emma knew this house was destined to change and grow in the years to come. For this would be a house for a lifetime, a home for a family, and a place where she’d know the peace love and magic that she’d always wanted her whole life long.

…………….

Holding his wife as the swayed upon the dance floor the night of their wedding, Killian could safely say that he’d never known a joy quite like this.

True, he’d been saying that since the very first moment that he had met his precious Swan, but today had been different even by their incredibly high standards. For today, the two of them had stood before their friends, their family, and practically all the town and vowed to love each other now and always. They’d promised each other a partnership and passion the likes of which so few people would ever experience, and Killian knew in his heart that there was more to this than luck. This was, as Henry liked to say, fated from the start. He was meant to find Emma and love her always, and now he would finally have his chance.

As the music played around them, Killian hummed the tune, much to the amusement of his wife, but the soundtrack of his evening wasn’t the funny irony of Frank Sinatra singing about love and witchcraft. It was a loop of the vows they’d exchanged just a few hours before. All he could see was Emma in that transcendent moment when she became his and he became irrevocably hers. Dressed in the ivory lace gown she still wore currently, her golden hair pinned back but with loose tendrils in the front, and her eyes filled with happy tears that made those jade pools he was constantly lost in shine even brighter, Emma was an angel made real. She had been a true vision in the moment they were wed and remained so all evening long, making Killian keenly aware that he was the single most fortunate man the world over.

“Killian, for so long I was scared to even dream of letting someone into this life I’ve made for Henry and me. My past had taught me that love like this wasn’t in the cards for me, and so I shied away for it for a long long time. But thankfully my heart knew better – heck my kid knew better – and because of that faith and a little bit of magic, here we are.”

Those words had caused a stir amongst their audience, who had hardly been contained as the ceremony went on. Not that Killian was surprised. Between the noisy but thrilled tears of half of Emma’s friends and the commentary streams from Ruby, Henry, Liam, and the others it hadn’t been the solemn, sanctified wedding of tradition. But it had been perfect all the same, and Emma had let out a giggle at their antics that Killian still felt deep in his soul as she continued.

“Since meeting you, I’ve felt a change within me and I’ve sensed a shift in this life I always swore to protect. I thought before I had more than any one person could ever need, but I was so wrong. You’ve shown me the light that love brings in, and that magic can be more than I ever thought possible. Together I know we will build a life truly worth living, a life filled with love and laughter and today I get the realest blessing of calling you my husband. I couldn’t be happier for that, because it means I get to walk this path and start this journey with you, the man I love, the man who makes my dreams come true. I’ll love you forever, Killian Jones. Forever and then a little more.”

In the face of her sweetest words and promise of love Killian had been choked up himself, but despite what tradition might dictate, he was unable to simply dive into his own prepared words. Instead he’d pulled his almost wife and better half close for a kiss that wasn’t supposed to take place just yet. The hoots and hollers of their friends reminded them of that, but as he’d broken away and told Emma that she was everything to him, he knew the woman who held his whole heart so gently in her hand didn’t care about tradition. The happiness in her eyes was testament enough that they were in this together and making their own way, no matter what others might think or feel.

“Emma, from the moment we met there has never been a single second where I wasn’t sure that you would change my world. In an instant you anchored a restless a soul that had been wandering too long. I was lost out in the world, but the greatest cruelty was I didn’t even see how much I was missing until I was led here, to the home I so desperately needed.”

“See! He gets it,” Henry had whispered to Liam loud enough for everyone to hear and another laugh was shared throughout the space.

“Aye, lad I do,” Killian responded, turning back and nodding at Henry before looking back again to Emma and proceeding on.

“At first I thought the town itself held something special, something different. But you were the change I needed, Swan. You were the love I’d never hoped to find and through all you are and all you’ve given me you have made it impossible not to love you. In truth, I can’t express just how deep that love goes, for words cannot contain all that I feel. Just know that with every passing moment my love for you grows, and every day I thank God for all we have because you were willing to take a chance, and because fate intervened and showed me the way to the only life I could ever want.  What we have here is more than magic, Emma. It’s something meant to be, and I swear to you that I will cherish you and our family for this day and all my days forever more.”

With those sacred vows now out between them, Killian hadn’t feel any less charged with emotion, and that was only made more real and tangible when Emma too broke form and pulled him in for a kiss before their officient could give them both permission. It was perfect though, every single detail of it, and the party that followed with all the well wishers in their life was beautiful too. It was an evening under the stars, lit up by lanterns and twinkling lights in the same glen on the property of their new home where Killian had proposed at Christmas. Here now wildflowers blossomed, some from the summer season itself, but others magically crafted by Emma and her friends. Fireflies too flashed in the wooded area just beyond, and the subtle sound of waves upon the shore sounded from the beach not too far away.

This was, by every kind of measurement, a runaway success, a wedding to remember, but the only thing that gnawed at Killian was that in all of the festivities Emma and Killian hadn’t had the chance to really be alone. It had been more than twenty-four hours, in fact, since he and Emma had spent the night before their wedding apart, and though he was assuaged on some level by holding her in his arms as they swayed across the dance floor, his heart yearned for the chance to steal Emma away and show her just how much he loved her.

“How much trouble do you think we’ll get in if we make a run for it now?” Emma asked, her voice trickling into Killian’s thoughts and so closely resembling his own line of thinking that he had to grin as he pulled back to look into her eyes, his hand cupping her jaw as his thumb traced gently at the corner of her mouth.

“I’ve been assessing that very question for some time, my love.”

“And have you found any answers?” Emma asked, pulling him in closer by the dress shirt he was wearing so he was only a whisper away. “Because I’d really like to start my wedding night with my husband right about now.”

“Say no more, Swan,” Killian replied before surprising her and lifting her into his arms to carry across the dance floor and from the reception. The cheers that went out at the action were of a raucous if well-meant variety and after a brief check in with Henry, who was staying the night with Liam and Elsa, Killian brought his wife up the pathway from the meadow where they’d just held their reception and to the new home that they’d found together and crafted into a place perfect for them.

Tonight would be the first time that they’d spend in this house despite their owning it for about a month now. They could have moved in sooner, but Emma had made mention one night as they lay in bed together in her old house of how romantic it would be to have their wedding night be the first one spent in the place they’d be building their lives from here on out. Killian had decided in that moment that that was exactly what they’d do. He had no desire to deny his bride in any way, not when his surest form of pleasure was seeing Emma satisfied, but before he could take her upstairs and make love to her the whole night through, there was one last thing he needed from the woman he loved – and he felt his hands begin to shake after he’d carried Emma through the threshold and put her down in their home.

“There’s just one thing left, Emma, and I know it’s a little out of the ordinary in terms of a wedding present, but I was hoping I might ask for mine specifically.”

Emma looked a little puzzled at his words, and then looked surprised when he pulled out a file of papers from a drawer there in the living room, but upon reading what they said, tears filled her eyes and a small smile graced her lips before her hand flew up to cover them. She scanned the lines, trying to be sure of what she was reading, before looking back at Killian with so much love it almost hurt to see it and not sweep her upstairs right now.

“Today you’ve already given me the world, Emma. Becoming my wife, joining our families, it means everything to me, and I never want to pressure you or Henry, but just as my love for you sprang from our first encounter, so too did my love for your son.”

“Our son,” Emma said happily. “Killian this is – God it almost feels like too much, but it’s not, it’s perfect. I know Henry would love to have you as his Dad officially, and nothing would mean more to him than to be a Jones too.”

“You really think so?” Killian asked, hopeful that Henry would be amiable to the idea but never wanting to take the boy’s approval of him for granted.

“I know so,” Emma said with a firm sense of assurance that couldn’t be denied. Then she put the papers back on the side table next to them and pulled Killian in close once more. “And I also know that I can’t wait another second to be with you, Killian. So please don’t make me wait.”

“Never,” Killian promised before they made their way upstairs and to the master suite all laid out and arranged for this evening and the life they’d share here.

Part of Killian felt like the familiar dance of stripping off the layers between them moved too quickly even as it seemed to take an age to reveal his wife to his hungry gaze. With deft fingers Emma had removed all the garments that kept her from him, but when it came to be his turn Killian tried to take it slower. He wanted to commit every element of this to memory, from the way Emma’s wedding gown slipped off her a little more when each button was undone, to the reveal of the barest scraps of white lace underneath that left him even more crazed for her. Every second that past was another moment to hold close forever, but perhaps none struck his heart as surely as when Emma flashed him a knowing grin as her hair hung loose around her shoulders. She had never looked more poised and confident and sure of herself and of him, and that was all he’d ever wanted since meeting this remarkable woman all those months ago.

“Much as I love the way you’re looking at me, I can only take so much waiting tonight,” Emma said, moving back into the bed and bidding him to follow like a moth drawn to a flame. “I need to know that this is real. I need you to show me.”

“Nothing’s ever been more real than this, Emma, and I’ll spend the rest of our lives and then some proving that to you.

Killian punctuated each of those words with kisses against her skin, first at her lips then down her jaw, trailing a teasing path that didn’t exactly hurry, but built momentum towards what his wife ultimately needed. Emma thought hard and fast was the answer, but with a whole life ahead of them Killian had no intention of speeding up the clock. He’d savor every moment, taste every part of her, and sate every need his Swan could possibly conceive of, and then he’d do it again and again before the sun was up. That was his duty as her husband, and Killian would never back down from his honor and his right to lay the world at Emma’s feet.  

With the aim of satisfying both of them in mind, Killian found the balance between sweet and torturous tension that would soon lead to release. He let his hands roam across the expanse of her soft skin, tracing underneath the flimsy bra that she still had on her and feeling her intake of breath. Moments like this were intoxicating, stronger than any high he’d ever felt. Some might say it was like being caught up in a spell that she had cast months ago, but Killian had never felt freer or more alive than when he had Emma in his arms like this. Feeling her writhe beneath him as he stripped her of the garment that stood between them and brought his mouth to her breasts, Killian held back the moan at the back of his throat that came from Emma’s earnest pleas. Hearing his name tumble past her lips over and over mixed with words of her love and her need were almost too much to bear, and when he knew he had her frenzy building higher and higher his hand trailed down, slipping past the lace between her thighs and sinking home to her waiting sex, finding Emma already at the very edge of climax.

“Killian.”

His name this time was barely more than a whimper, caught up in the feeling as she was and Killian looked up to find her eyes closed as she chased the feeling of bliss that would come when he let her fall apart. Perhaps a stronger man would have waited, would have prolonged that state for the sake of more payoff down the line, but Killian couldn’t. Instead he swirled his thumb against her clit with just the right amount of pressure to have her clinging to him as she broke apart in his arms, reveling in how freely Emma gave herself and how undeniable her trust was that he would never steer her wrong.

Seeing Emma in such a state only fueled the need within Killian further. He was aching for his own release, but unable to comprehend it just yet. If this was going to last and he was going to get his fill of his beautiful wife he needed to be patient and draw this out. He did this by slowing back down to a languid speed, kissing his way down Emma’s body and leaving the faintest of marks as he went, much to Emma’s pleasure. Sated as she’d seemed a few moments before, it didn’t take long for Killian to rile her back up again, and by the time he was positioned between her thighs ready to take her with his mouth her eyes had filled with that same glint of need and her skin flushed pink with heat and desire. Then he ripped off the last remaining piece of lace keeping Emma from him and she swallowed harshly, fighting to find words because even in their most intimate moments her wit couldn’t be contained.

“And to think I thought you’d like those…”

“Like isn’t the word I’d use, love, but they were in my way and you know I don’t stand for anything that keeps us apart.”

With those words spoken between them and the responding look in Emma’s eyes that said she felt the same way, Killian descended towards her slick flesh and Emma caved to the sensations in an instant. Time had taught Killian exactly what his Swan desired and every flick and suck and lick was purposefully meant to stoke the flames she felt within. It was all done in the hopes of watching her shatter again, and by God he did, but before he could send her tipping over for a third time she pulled him back with her hands in his hair and shook her head, trying to silently say what she needed before she found her words.

“I need you with me this time, Killian. Please.”

That one word rendered him powerless to resist Emma’s wishes, not that he’d ever want to. He was at the edge as it was, but when he’d slipped home and filled her in one solid thrust that state of mind-numbing lust shocked his system once again. She was so damn tight it cast out all other thoughts from his consciousness. They fit together like they were made to be one and every time they made love was more powerful than the last, but tonight was different. Tonight they were man and wife and the comfort and peace that came from that was matched only by the adoration Killian always carried for Emma and the endless love he felt for the woman who had transformed his whole world.

Eventually, despite his plans to make this last as long as could be, they came together, crashing into ecstasy side by side and panting for breath as they did, but they both knew it was just a short reprieve. They’d be like this all evening, wrapped up together, neither of them letting go when all they wanted was this closeness. If they slept at all it would be a miracle, but who needed sleep when they could have a love like this instead?

“So… is this the part where the guy and the girl live happily ever after?” Emma asked, her cheek resting on Killian’s shoulder as her fingers traced a delicate design along his chest. Killian smiled, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head before replying.

“Aye, love. That’s typically how these stories go. At least that’s what they tell me.”

“According to Henry our story has a few more characters on the way,” Emma said thoughtfully and Killian felt his heart skip a beat at the mention of more children. He hadn’t wanted to say anything or push Emma to go faster than she was willing, but by bringing it up he had to believe she was more ready for that step than he’d originally anticipated and God knew he was just as willing to start that journey together.

“Well it is our destiny it seems. And if we’ve such a destiny ahead of us then perhaps we better get a move on,” Killian murmured as his fingers trailed up Emma’s stomach lightly, bringing out goose bumps as he did.

“We actually might already be there,” Emma whispered and Killian’s eyes flew up to hers, searching for an answer. “I haven’t taken a test or anything, but I’m a few days late and last night I had the strangest dream…”

“A dream, eh?” Killian asked, biting back a smile since dreams seemed to have a very powerful implication in this family.

“Yeah. It was eerily similar to some I’ve only ever had once before.”

“And when was that, love?” Killian asked, though he already knew in some way where Emma was going with this.

“When I was pregnant with Henry. Before all of this I might have thought it was just a coincidence but now…”

Would wonders never cease? Killian couldn’t imagine how one day could bring all of this joy into an already happy life, but here he was feeling like the universe just kept on giving. A wedding, a wife, a son, and possibly another child on the way… Could there be anything to describe this other than that he lived a charmed life?

“But now,” Killian said as he took Emma’s hand in his and kissed it lightly. “Now we know not to question your magic, my love.”

“Or the magic we make together,” Emma said with a laugh and Killian couldn’t stop himself from laughing too as Emma clarified her statement. “Okay I’ll admit that was cheesy, but I figure we get a pass because it’s true love right?”

“Aye, love, the truest love that love can be.”

And the beautiful thing was that it was a pure and unyielding kind of love, the likes of which are ripe for magic and joy and every good thing. Years would come and years would go, and in the life that Emma and Killian built together, their love, and the magic it inspired, always seemed to follow. Good things came, and trials came too, but in the end it was a happy union that the two of them shared together, and thanks to the strength of their love and the unbreakable bond they’d created by saying yes to their hearts’ desires, that magic would never die and never waiver, instead extending to their children and their children’s children for generations and generations to come.

Post-Note: It is always so bittersweet to come to the end of a story, especially ones like this one where not only was it a joy to write, but it clearly was a new favorite for a lot of my lovely readers. So I just want to thank each and every one of you who reached out about this story in any capacity. Whether it was reviews, comments, messages, or what have you, you guys fed the muse even through the driest spells of my PhD program and for that I am so grateful. As I said before, there will undoubtedly be an epilogue (or a couple epilogues) to come for this story, because how could I ever not show a better glimpse into the happy ending a few years down the line? But I just don’t know when that will be at this point. It might have to wait until my next school break but it will come. Anyway thanks again, I really hope you all have enjoyed and be on the lookout because I have plans for a new AU coming out in the new year and many more oneshots to boot. Thanks again, and happy New Year!

#captain swan #captain swan au #cs fic #cs ff #cs fluff #cs smut #cs wedding #captain swan fic #captain swan ff #emma swan #killian jones #henry mills #the whole storybrooke gang #ouat au #cs multichapter #some call it magic #some call it 17 #some call it au #real world magic