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hansoulo · 3 years

Text

lay back in cloying sin

part three of “Pillar of Salt”

Pairing: Boba Fett/Princess!Reader (she/her pronouns, no Y/N)

Warnings: NSFW-ish; references to marks and bruises, kissing, probably inaccurate descriptions of ballroom dancing, fluff, mentions of alcohol consumption

Word Count: 3.3k

Gif Credit: (x) by @/ktfhett

A/N: boba & reader: [tyler the creator voice] oh no i hope i don’t fall

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Dinner was a tedious affair, filled with hollow pageantry. It was one last hurrah before the send off of the honored guests, one of which you’d never talked to and the other who was nowhere to be found. The former, Lord Vader, sat at the head of the long table and made for very unamusing company. You had the distinct impression that he’d rather be anywhere than here, having to listen to his uniformed subordinates squabble in grating voices and your father simper about mining collectives. That made for two of you.

But the cavernous banquet hall was always beautiful, if a bit ostentatious, and the food never disappointed, so you consoled yourself with a loosened corset and the promise of a second dinner by servants who pitied your forced small portions.

You floated into the large room, shuffled through by the compounding procession before an older man offered to help you into your seat. The ornateness of your evening wear made you grateful for the help, watching in sincere thanks as he pulled out the high-backed chair.

“Thank you, um…” the color of his robes and the softness of his hands signalled high rank and you chanced a guess. “Duke...?”

“Sagcock,” he finished for you. “Jovron Sagcock.”

He has got to be joking.

Evidently, he wasn’t.

If the man saw you choke on a laugh, sputtering it into a hiccup as you sat down, he pretended not to notice. After all, princesses knew better than to be unbecoming or crass or know why any part of that exchange could be fodder for humor.

Fighting down one last cough, you attempted to regain some sense of decorum. What a wonderful start to the evening.

The arrangement of persons on this particular night was strange though, even disregarding the title of the man now seated beside you. There were more people than usual filling out the hall tonight, all fancily clad and buffed to shining. Boba wasn’t anywhere to be found.

The supposed importance of the occasion probably necessitated a shuffling of seats to soothe egos and encourage conversation, but you weren’t used to being so close to the head of the table, near parallel with your mother. Usually your elder sisters sat higher and provided you the benefit of distance. Of course, they were all gone now. Your brother was still too young to be at evening dinners, so there was no buffer between you and your parents’ ire.

Maybe this was the Maker’s way of getting back at you for your tiny tryst. Maybe they all knew about what happened in the garden and were just waiting for the shoe to drop, branding you as a harlot and finally letting you free. Vader’s static words travelled down the table and mingled with your father’s but you were too busy entertaining worse-case scenarios to understand conversation.

People were observing you, you realized partway through the first round of courses. Watching you with strange eyes as if you were the last scrap of halfway-spoiled meat for imperial officials and all the nobility that had come to pay their prostrate respects. No one had really given half a damn about you before, which made it all the more strange.

A heel foot softly kicked at yours underneath the table, breaking you out of your glazed thoughts. The fork you had been mindlessly moving across your plate stopping mid-swirl. Looking up, you met the quiet glare of your mother and cleared your throat.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” you asked. Your question was punctuated with a smile too large to be genuine. The queen’s head jerked towards the grizzled man seated to her right and you turned towards him at her behest, face open in trained invitation. “Oh, hello, General.”

General Enes, current commander of the army of Quas Killam. Not strictly Imperial, but aligned close enough to have him in the king’s good graces and to reside permanently at court. He was also a Duke and probably a cousin thrice removed, but who was counting?

“No need to stand on pleasantries, your Highness,” the gray-haired man assured you, one large hand resting over his stomach as servants replaced the dirtied plates in front of you with new ones. You only sipped delicately at your algarine as he chortled and remembered, “It seems like yesterday that you were running around the palace with your sisters. A little sprite of a thing, weren’t you?”

Was he drunk already? “Yes, I remember,” you tread pleasantly; carefully.

The general settled and let out one last chuckle before his eyes grew hawk-like again, trained in the jewelry and accoutrements that signified your being old enough to marry but young enough to have not yet been taken. Like a prize. Or a charity donation. “You’ve grown into quite the young woman, you know.”

So that’s where this was going. You resisted the urge to roll your eyes and tried to look gracious. “Thank you, sir. That’s a high compliment.”

“How old are you again, dear?”

Masking your surprise at the forwardness of the question, you supplied your age to a nod of approval from both him and your mother.

“A good age, I’d say. ‘Round the same as my youngest.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” you shot a look down the table and caught a glimpse of cropped flaxen hair, its owner sitting enough seats down to prevent any shared conversation. You counted your blessings for it and smiled, tight-lipped. “Your son and I shared company when we were children.”

“Well that’s very nice,” the queen interjected quite loudly and looked around the long table with a light laugh but cold eyes. “Isn’t that nice?”

Your father looked at you for the first time all evening as if on cue, boring a hole into your face with the words he seemed to be telepathically trying to put in your mouth.

The taste of bitter wine on your tongue made your thoughts fevered, though not borne out of alcohol so much as the memories of someone else’s touch in the same places. “Yes,” you repeated vaguely. “Very nice.”

Darth Vader apparently didn’t remove his helmet. You wondered why he came to dinner at all.

The remaining evening hours had been whittled away by dessert and drinks. Everyone who cared to stay shuffled into the ballroom, a behemoth of a thing filled with inky windows and sparkling artifice. It was a blur of waltzes and predetermined couplings with boys you’d been ignoring since you were old enough to kick them in their shins, but you didn’t care enough to go to pains to avoid it. They broke up the monotony of introductions, at least, and let your mind and body be somewhere else for a while.

All compounded, the night left you flushed and tired. You needed alcohol. Or air. The latter was probably the more reasonable choice of the two.

Being in the midst of ballroom theatrics allowed for an easy enough escape, and a side entrance to a balcony overlooking the palace grounds became the object of your attention.

The tall double doors lay open in their glass encasings and spilled out lamplight refractions on the guests’ gaudy clothing and gaudier jewelry, everything sparkling and warm. But you were far enough away from it to still be chilled by the night air, a balm for your flushed cheeks and fizzling temper.

Usually guests ignored it in favor of staying indoors, so you were fairly confident in the promise of solitude and an undisturbed breeze.

But someone apparently had the same idea as you.

“Hello,” you ventured out a greeting to the silhouette not yet fully in your vision. You stepped closer and the heels of your shoes echoed on clay tiles. “I’m sorry, am I bothering you?”

Royal Highnesses shouldn’t really care about whether or not they were disturbing strange party guests, you could make them leave if you felt so inclined, but something in you was feeling magnanimous tonight. You tried not to think about why.

The figure didn’t turn back towards you, still facing out towards the blurry glitter of urban lights far off in the distance. It looked pretty this far away, all glowing masses and amorphous buildings that scraped the sky. You’d never been close enough to see all the dinge and smog that made its home in places not populated by princesses. Marble felt more familiar than metal.

The man wore metal too, and his voice scraped at your chest when he answered. “You’re not bothering me, princess.”

Oh.

You ventured cautiously towards the balcony’s edge, next to the man you now could recognize as Boba. The thick stone railing was cool to the touch. “Hello.”

His helmet tipped to the left, which was probably his way of saying it back.

“I didn’t see you at the dinner,” you noticed quietly. Would it be presumptuous to assume he was avoiding you? Intellect said yes, but ego didn’t listen. You leant forward, the speckled marble digging into your elbows as you mirrored Boba’s sightline out into the city. “You know, you wouldn’t have needed to make conversation. Lord Vader was the guest of honor and all he did was sit there.”

“I don’t like crowds.”

“Ah.”

A silence lapsed between you, awkward as if you were strangers. You were though, weren’t you? Strangers. Not friends. Not lovers. Not really.

But if he asked you to crack yourself open for him, you would. You would rip apart every satin petticoat and snap the boning in your corsets until your hands were raw if it meant he would touch you; skin to skin. You’d run away and cite a hidden fountain as the reason why.

You didn’t know what he’d give up for you, if anything. Boba didn’t seem like the type to have much in the first place. Either by choice or by necessity.

The garden afternoon nagged at you after having time to form coherent thoughts, and the fizzy shine of palace lights reflecting off his helmet reminded you of what you’d been meaning to ask.

Night made you softer-spoken. “Why did you let me take off your helmet?”

Night made his edges sharper. “Why did you want to?”

“I asked first,” you volleyed back as reason enough to get an answer first.

Boba wasn’t a Mandalorian in the true sense of the word, at least that’s what gossip told you, so it didn’t really matter if he took the helmet off or not. But he kept it on in front of everyone else.

The hunter gave you visor-silence and your impatience made you concede. “I just wanted to see you,” you breathed out, still not looking at him. The admission sounded much more naive than you intended.

His words held their characteristic aloofness but were edged by gentle teasing. “What if I said the same?”

That he wanted to see you?

You still didn’t understand half of why he did what he did and what he wanted, but you turned to face him head-on anyway. Cold moonlight fell on your neck and the air cracked with fever. You tried to reply in jest. “Then I’d say that you were being stupid.”

“You’d be right.”

A swallow bobbed in your throat. He always seemed to take up your vision; fill it and suffocate you with seemingly no effort. “And then I’d ask you to do it again.”

“Do what, princess?”

He knew. He just liked seeing the words come out of your mouth.

“Let me take your helmet off.”

This time, he guided your hands up himself. They were slow and almost careful running across your palms, placing them on the mechanisms your fingers found in quick memory. Set on the balcony railing, the helmet seemed to be a prop. An upside down bucket filled with all the things you had yet to say to each other, spilling out onto the ground in a fog.

“I like you better without it,” you decided when he turned back towards you, his weight still resting on the railing with one cocked hip. Everything about the way he looked was dark: inky black curls and scarred brown skin and eyes that pushed the air in your lungs with a stall and a catch. They looked even darker next to tan clothes and green armor.

His voice wasn’t entirely lacking in humor. He did that. Humored you. “Do you now?”

“Mhm.” you nodded with fake seriousness, slightly giddy and slightly too brave. You blamed it on an excess of wine and good company. “Better-looking.”

He only scoffed, a flash of pearl-white canines serving as one half of a smile. A smile that had been wider when it was against your collarbones, your neck, your mouth. A smile that you wouldn’t mind being in other places.

You nudged Boba’s shoulder with your own when a waltz kicked up in the background, faint through the open ballroom door. “There’s music,” you implied, half-joking and half-expectant. There had been this whole time, of course, but acknowledging it now seemed better than never. “You should ask me to dance.”

“I’m not one for dancing, your Highness.”

The title made you roll your eyes, a commonplace formality that you usually insisted on but now found overly facetious. Coming from him, that is. “Clearly not,” you almost snorted. Pushing away from the marble ledge with a finality that seemed almost comical, you held your hand out and waited, eyebrows raising and fingers beckoning. Well? your face seemed to say, Are you coming?

His sigh was bone-deep and settled in your chest like chunks of black plaster, but it felt good. “You’re not going to let me leave, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” you replied, as if it’d be ridiculous to expect anything else. Princesses danced with men at parties. You were a princess. Boba was a man at a party. In a roundabout sort of way. “It’s easy, I promise,” you assured, wrapping your hand around his wrist and pulling him away from the balcony. His glove slipped down a bit; just enough that your thumb could press one soft circle against the tan skin over bone.

Uncomfortable wasn’t really the correct word for how you thought he felt. You doubted Boba could ever be uncomfortable. No. No, the right word would probably be… bemused. Like he was in a menagerie watching a creature, something exotic and pretty, with mild interest while it still had his attention. But you did have his attention. That was something.

“You put your right hand on my waist,” you moved to reposition the large fingers more accustomed to blasters than they were to bodices. Boba smirked, almost boyish, when you caught his hand wandering someplace else. “Not that low,” you chided with quiet exasperation, placing your palm atop his and guiding it back up.

The pale leather was warm underneath your skin and you bit down a smile, almost awe-struck at how strange your hand looked next to his. Yours was polished, weighed down by heavy gold bangles and softened by years of idle play. His, you suspected (for you didn't actually know; hadn’t yet actually seen), was anything but.

“That’s good,” you supplied lightly. “And then I do this,”your other hand reached to rest on Boba’s shoulder. “And then- no, no you give me your left hand. Hold it out- good.”

Still looking down, you were careful not to trip over your skirts or his boots. “And now we just-” you breathed out and glanced up, surprised to find his expression strangely careful. Almost tender. You gulped down the quiet notch in your throat. “-now we just um… sway. Like this.”

You eschewed complication in favor of a simple rhythm, just letting your feet fall wherever they liked so long as they didn’t tangle in themselves. Now wasn’t the time for anything laborious; you didn’t have faith enough in Boba’s footwork. But he actually wasn’t too bad all things considered. A bit stiff and a bit gruff, but those were part and parcel. It was a bit like dancing with a tree trunk. A very handsome, very broad, very taciturn tree trunk. It was easy to let yourself sink into it a little with how solid he felt.

The man arched an eyebrow when your fingers stretched to thread together with his. “Just sway?”

“You’re welcome to do a jig instead if you’d like,” you replied wryly as your weight shifted from foot to foot. The hand around your waist stiffened at the prospect and a grin escaped your face.

“Nevermind.”

The amusement that had previously only been in your throat escaped in a quiet laugh. “Thought so,” you whispered, victorious. Tension, bunched up in your shoulders and collected in your bones, melted completely when he pulled you closer and let your head fall against the space of his neck. Sinew fit against silk like puzzle pieces and warmed the quiet moment that followed. Neither of you spoke for fear of disturbing the fresh peace.

You found yourself dwelling more and more on hypotheticals. Unrealistic and stupid, you knew, given who you both were. But still you dwelt, unable to fathom a reality outside of the last nine hours and inside a reality within which Boba was gone.

Would he fit here, with the stucco and plaster and ivy? With all the sheltered society of an insignificant court? With you?

You wondered if he dwelt on hypotheticals, too.

Swallowing cold air as Boba thumbed the collar of your dress, you felt the light scatter of broken blood vessels from hours before smart again. Your cheek pressed against the pauldron of his beskar, but neither of you were really dancing anymore. “I- I wanted to talk,” you began quietly. “About earlier.”

“Did you not like it?” Did you not like me?

“No! No, I…” you shook your head, trying to rid yourself of his assumption. The crystals hanging from your headpiece tinkled with every soft movement. “No, I… I liked it. I like…” The lump in your throat seemed to travel down back into your stomach. “You,” you finished, swallowing the final word and leaving all its implications to settle in the night.

He could feel the rise and fall of your chest; delicate and airy and resigned. You spoke again. “But you’re leaving tomorrow and... and we could’ve been caught. And the more I think about it the more I really am not looking forward to the idea of some court scandal or being cloistered up like a nun because I—”

He called you your name.

He’d never used your name before.

You lifted your head off his shoulder, desperate-eyed and looking for answers you both knew he couldn’t give. “Yes?”

“Kiss me.”

You barely breathed out an okay before the arm around your waist tightened, crushing you against cold metal and a warm body.

He kissed you how a lover would. Like how a first kiss should’ve been.

It was gentle. Warm. Tender-mouthed and aching, placing promises down your throat with a soft hand and closed eyes. It was… It was…

It was broken up far too quickly.

A voice called out your name from somewhere far-off, regally accented and not at all welcome. It called your name again, first middle and last with all the titles in between with much less patience. Your mother, queen consort.

The groan of displeasure that escaped you was muffled in Boba’s mouth and swallowed up before it could give either of you away. He recovered much faster than you did, peeling back from your body with eyes already alert and scanning the shadows for passersby. There were none. For now.

“It’s my mother,” you whispered, letting your eyes roll seemingly out of your skull. “They’re probably doing some send-off for Vader’s entourage.”

Neither of you mentioned the fact that Boba was part of that entourage too.

Your last words were rushed before the footsteps became too close and the mercenary pulled away. You didn’t really want to stay to hear the answer. “Will I see you again?”

Boba Fett, you’d come to learn, wasn’t the kind of man to offer more than what he knew he could give.

The helmet went back on. “I don’t know.”’

#boba fett x reader #boba fett/reader #boba fett fanfiction #boba fett x you #boba fett imagine #boba fett oneshot #star wars fanfiction

215 notes · View notes

joheun-saram · 4 years

Text

right here (jhs)

Summary- “That’s the thing about dating your best friend, when you break up you not only lose your partner, you lose the person who would console you too.”

word count- 4.1k

pairing- college!hoseok x reader

rating- pg15

genre- angst, childhood lovers, college au

warnings- drinking, marijuana use mention, mentions of sex but no explicit descriptions

a.n- i’ve been obsessed with keshi’s song right here and so this fic was born. i love hobi and i hurt writing this. s/o to @papillonsgf for reading it and easing my worries 🥺

Feedback much appreciated! 💕 An ask goes a long way... to my heart.

gif is not mine! :)

March 8th, 2:04 am

Y/N: I know it's random, how you've been?

March 11th, 11:26 pm

Y/N: Do you remember 'bout this band you said you listened to?

March 16th, 1:17 am

Y/N: I miss you, Hobi :(

March 16th, 3:43 am

Y/N: Hope life is treating you better...

Hoseok watched across the room as you sat in Taehyung’s lap. Your hand was on his chest as you laughed at a joke while his hand laid on your bare thigh, caressing right where your skirt ended. Hoseok’s drink tasted bitter as he scrolled through the messages you had sent him last month.

He didn’t know why he was so held up on you still. It had been over three months since you broke up but every time you messaged him it was like his heart somersaulted in his chest. He had taken Yoongi’s advice to ignore your messages, in fact, Yoongi had suggested blocking you altogether so Hoseok could have some peace and move on but every time he tried to block you something stopped him. He could never bring himself to do it. It was like every atom in his body revolted against it.

You had dated for two years and even before that, you had been best friends for six years. Now you were a shadow in his life, always there in the background but he couldn’t feel you anymore. Ever present, but he could never catch you. He missed you. He always missed you but it seemed that you were happier now with your new guy. As he watched you cuddling cosily with Taehyung, he was sure that you weren’t even aware that he was at this party.

“I love you, Y/N. Please. I’m only saying this because I love you.” Hoseok maintained his tone despite how angry he felt at your actions. You had just casually told him you were flunking another class as you dressed up to go to another party. He couldn’t believe your cavalier attitude. You had been doing that a lot lately - going out with your new friends and getting wasted beyond your limit. This was how it always went. You’d go out and then come home late, stumbling into bed giggling, your breath reeking of liquor as you cuddled into him. He’d let it pass for months but he could see you disappear. He had tried to convince you to turn it down a notch time and time again but it always ended in the same ugly fight.

“You don’t control the people you love!” You snapped at him from where you stood in your shared bedroom, jacket falling off of one shoulder.

“I’m not trying to control you… Baby, please! I just want you to do better.” He went over to you, fixing your jacket as he cupped your face. He wanted you to understand how much it hurt him to see you this way. You shrugged him off, moving backward.

“Oh just because my grades suck, I’m not doing good?” Malice painted your tone as you raised your voice.

“You know that’s not what I mean, but this is not you. Showing up drunk to class? Staying all night at frat parties? That’s not you!” He matched your volume. He needed you to see that he was not the enemy. He wanted to shake some sense into you.

“Well, maybe you don’t know me, Hoseok.” Your eyes narrowed at him and he felt his heart sink. How could you say that to him? The ice in your tone running through his veins.

“I’ve known you since we were twelve!” He ran his hands over his face in frustration.

“That doesn’t give you the right to tell me how to live!” You poked him in the chest as your anger flared further.

“Please baby. Just talk to me. What’s wrong?” He softened his tone as he clasped your hand poking him in both of his. He knew you. Despite your words, he knew you. There was no way you were suddenly a party animal. There had to be something wrong.

“I just want to enjoy university, is that too much to ask?” You pulled your hand away from his harshly. He didn’t know what he was doing wrong but your anger fed his.

“And blacking out each night is enjoying it?”

“I can’t do this. I can’t have the same fight every night!”

“Then stop. Stop fucking throwing your life away!” He couldn’t help how his voice broke at the end of the sentence. He could never control his emotions, especially when it came to you, and anger fuelled the tears that threatened to escape his eyes.

“Fuck you Hoseok. Fuck you! I’m done!” You pushed past him as you made your way towards the front door.

“What do you mean you’re done? Where are you going?” He grabbed your wrist as you neared the door, tears freely flowing at seeing your face distorted in anger. “Stop. Talk to me.”

“I don’t want to talk to you. I never want to see you again.” Your voice was cold, almost formal. No hint of emotion whereas Hoseok was a bawling mess. He always hated how in control of your emotions you were compared to him.

“Y/N… You don’t mean that. I love you.” He pulled you into a hug and whispered into your hair, holding on for dear life. His heart was racing. He couldn’t lose you. He didn’t know who he was without you. How could you look him in the eye and tell him you never wanted to see him again? Did eight years mean nothing to you?

“I love you too but I can’t do this anymore. You’re suffocating me.” You pushed him off and he could see the tears in your eyes, betraying your carefully put together facade.

“Y/N… please don’t do this.” He pleaded, holding your hand before you harshly shrug him off again.

“Bye Hoseok. I hope you find someone you don’t have to lecture.” You opened the door as you gave him one last withering look before heading out.

“Wait! You can’t just end us like this!”

“I can and I have. I’ll move out tomorrow.” And with that you were gone, disappearing into the night, while Hoseok crumpled to the ground, sobbing, unsure how your relationship had gotten to this point.

Hoseok walked into the kitchen. He needed something stronger than beer. He spotted a bottle of tequila on the counter, thanking his stars that the frat hosting this party was one that provided alcohol. As he poured himself a generous shot, Namjoon appeared slinging his arm around his shoulders, clearly tipsy.

“Hobi! Are you doing shots without me?” He gasped mockingly as he poured himself one too. Namjoon and Hoseok didn’t used to be particularly close but after his breakup with you, both men had bonded over their broken hearts. Namjoon’s girlfriend had cheated on him a few months before and it became a tradition for the two of them to drink in his apartment together. In fact, the only reason Hoseok was here today was that Yoongi had insisted that the two of them take their drinking outside of his and Namjoon’s shared apartment and try to find someone else to get over their heartbreak. He was sure it was only because Yoongi was annoyed by how loud they both got and he needed some peace. He had been roommates with Yoongi in first-year and he felt bad to impose on his friend almost every weekend so he agreed to let Namjoon drag him to this party. Little did he know that you would be here tonight too.

“Never Joon! I wouldn’t betray the heartbreak boys!” Hoseok tried to muster as much excitement as he could, his smile half-hearted and not reaching his eyes. Fortunately, Namjoon didn’t notice as the two took three shots back to back. The sting in Hoseok’s throat felt welcomed, like antiseptic on a bad wound.

“So you know how the best way to get over someone is getting under someone else?” Namjoon questioned, his eyes glazed over, as he looked over Hoseok’s shoulder. Hoseok responded in a hum, barely paying attention as his thoughts clouded over and replayed the way Taehyung’s hands caressed your body. He wished he never saw you tonight. Going from seeing you every day to not seeing you for three months had been terrible, but not as terrible as seeing you in his arms. Before he could delve further into his pain, he felt a tap on his shoulder.

He turned to see a pair of women, one already going into Namjoon’s arms as she pressed her lips to his, and the other introducing herself to him. He barely heard her name and after still not getting it for a second time, he decided to not bother.

He didn’t want to make new friends, didn’t want to get under someone else as Namjoon had so eloquently put it. He just wanted you. She was persistent though, flirting aggressively, taking his disinterest as a cue to work harder. As the shots caught up to him, he just let her. Let her push him against the wall of the kitchen, let her kiss his lips, his neck. Let her run her hands under his shirt. He kissed her back after that but as he closed his eyes, he saw your face. He kissed her harder hoping the image went away but it grew stronger, the memories of you whimpering under him, memories of you laughing as you came. God, you always giggled as you came and he was so weak. The montage of your once happy relationship haunted him and he felt a strong pang of guilt. This girl deserved better than to be imagined as someone else. He needed to get out of here.

Mumbling an apology, he pushed her off himself and grabbed a beer before going to the backyard. It was quieter there, the majority of the partygoers too stoned to be chaotic, the music inside pouring out in a blur of bass and treble. He found a spot on the grass next to a tree as he sat down to compose himself. That girl, whatever her name was, was the first person he had kissed after you, and suddenly he felt an onslaught of emotions. A lump formed in his throat as he remembered your first kiss, after a similar party, when he promised himself that you would be the last person he kissed.

“Shhhhh! We’re gonna wake up Yoongi!” Hoseok giggled as he stumbled into his dorm room and you followed closely behind tripping on the shoes strewn by the door and falling onto him. He wished he was as suave as the guys on tv and caught you but instead he stumbled with you crashing on the floor in a puddle of hushed laughter, your head on his thigh.

“Let’s go to your room before grandpa yells at us.” You snickered as you got on your feet, pulling Hoseok up with you. The two of you walked slowly to his room, changing into sweats and tshirts, before collapsing on the twin bed, his arm under your head. This was a normal occurrence for the two of you. Every time you both went out, you slept over at one of your dorm rooms. In highschool, you would sneak into each other’s bedrooms but the freedom of university made it easier. Lying next to you, Hoseok felt comfortable. Just your presence put him at ease and soon your conversation was dying as his eyes got heavier.

“Hobi?” you whispered next to him making him turn around to face you. You always did this when you were drunk - bargained for cuddles - and as sleepy as he was, Hoseok didn’t feel like protesting as usual, so he put his arm around your waist and pulled you close, his one leg hitched around your hip.

“Goodnight.” He whispered patting the back of your head as he drifted off. What he didn’t expect was for your lips to touch his. It was a soft, lingering peck and it was like he was electrocuted, his eyes flying open. For a moment he thought it was some weirdly vivid dream until he heard you apologize. He had never thought of kissing you before, you were his best friend and he always thought of you as platonic. His platonic soulmate. But as soon as you had kissed him it was like a dam broke inside him, his heart beating fast, his lips tingling, and all he wanted was to do it again.

It was like he was on autopilot, his hand on the back of your neck as his lips silenced your apologies. This kiss wasn’t soft. It was eager, hungry, and Hoseok felt alive. It was like a switch went on in him, the feelings he had apparently repressed for years rushing to the surface at the same time settling him into a haze of endorphins. He couldn’t help grinning against you as your mouth parted for his tongue and he could finally taste you - the cheap wine coolers you drank, the one cigarette you bummed outside the party, and a sweetness that he could only describe as you. He needed you closer, inexplicably closer, as his grip around your waist got tighter, his leg pulling you in further till his knee was almost on the mattress, trying his hardest not to grind against you.

You moaned against his mouth and he knew he would never forget that sound. How did he go so long without realizing how much he needed you? You were always the smarter one between the two of you - of course you knew before him that he would fall for you.

He spent the night making out with you and he knew this was it. This was what they wrote songs about, started wars about. This was love. He felt it bloom within his chest, till the branches set each nerve ending alive. He knew everything about you and you knew everything about him and he never wanted to let anyone else in the way he let you in. He didn’t know if you loved him too yet, but he was ready to convince you that he’d never want to kiss someone like he was kissing you right now.

“This seat taken?”

Hoseok felt his heart clench at hearing your voice. He didn’t want to see you in this state. He was far too vulnerable and drunk right now to control himself when it came to you. He didn’t know how he’d react. Without waiting for his response you made yourself comfortable next to him on the grass, your back against the tree as your shoulder lightly grazed his. He felt like his shoulder was on fire, and he moved slightly away from you.

“How’ve you been Hobi?” Your voice was light, airy, as if you had never stomped on his heart. As if you had never left him sobbing on your porch just a few months ago without so much as a glance in his direction. He wanted to scream at you, tell you how you broke him, ruined him for everyone else, but before he could get a word out, you reached your hand and placed it on his. The innocent touch was too intimate, and he felt a tear roll down his cheek. How did the two of you get here, where your hand on his made him want to hug you and sob on your shoulder. That’s the thing about dating your best friend, when you break up you not only lose your partner, you lose the person who would console you too. All he could do in response to your question was just shrug. He felt pathetic. Why were you torturing him?

“I’m sorry for pushing you away,” you whispered as you squeezed his hand and he finally had the courage to look at you. You looked beautiful - the moonlight reflecting off your skin made you glow. His eyes traced your features from the curve of your brows, to how your eyes gazed at him softened, to the slope of your nose, to finally your lips, parted and shiny from your lip gloss. Before he could stop himself, he was leaning forward, crashing his lips on yours, kissing you quick and short, just enough to get rid of the taste of the girl before, just so he could hold on to you being the last person he kissed for a little bit longer.

It’s when he saw the look of shock on your face that he realized what he had done. Muttering a quick apology, he stood up, ignoring your calls of his name as he walked through the house. He had to leave. He was an idiot. He was an idiot who was never going to get over you. Was this his life now? Watching you from afar, unable to control himself in your presence.

He decided to walk the thirty minutes to your - well now, just his - apartment. He was slower than usual, hoping that the fresh air would clear his mind, but everywhere he looked he was reminded of you. He passed by the ice cream shop where you had your first date and all he could think about was the way you coyly licked the melted ice cream off his fingers and kissed him telling him mint chocolate only tasted good off his tongue. He passed the twenty-four hour tattoo shop where he held your hand as you got your first tattoo at 3 am because you were bored and always wanted one, a little star on your hip. He passed the park where he had found you sulking after your first fight and he picked a wildflower for you, one that he hopes you still have pressed in your favourite book. He could never escape you. When he arrived at his door, he saw you standing there and thought he had finally lost all semblance of reality. That is, until you spoke.

“Baby, are you okay?” The pet name made his heart ache as he looked at you in alarm, realizing that you were actually there. He couldn’t do this. He stumbled back, almost tripping off the porch.

“Y/N… please. I can’t do this.” He pleaded, but he was helpless as you held his hand and guided him into the house, easily navigating him to his bed. You took off his shoes as he laid there, not having enough strength or courage to ask you to leave. He missed the way you would take care of him and he let you even if it's the last time. You didn’t say much as you tucked him under the covers, slowly caressing his hair and arms as he liked so he could fall asleep. This was cruel and he told you as much as silent tears escaped him, your quiet apologies echoing in his head as he fell asleep.

He woke up with a start, blinking at the sunlight that fills his room, groaning as his head ached from the hangover. He thought about the vivid dream he had of you putting him to bed and he couldn’t help but grimace at how pathetic he had become.

Startled was an understatement as he noticed you sitting in the desk chair next to his bed. Your were legs propped on the corner of the bed as you snoozed uncomfortably, your head bent at an odd angle. He noticed the bin next to his bed, right where his head would have been, and the bottle of water with painkillers on the nightstand. It reminded him of the times he had done the same for you and his head replayed the memory of when you walked out on him. Why were you back? Did you really miss him too?

He saw you stir and before he could lie back and pretend to be asleep, you were up, your eyes staring into his. You both sat there in silence just looking at each other. It had been so long that he had forgotten how your eyes could drown him, pull him in inexplicably deep.

You reached for him and before his brain could process it, he was reaching back, muscle memory leaving your fingers intertwined. That was when your facade broke for the first time in months and Hoseok could see a blackened tear that slowly trickled down your face. His eyes followed its path down your cheek as it lingered on your jaw before dripping on to your chest, darkening a spot on the red dress you wore. A few more followed its journey, before you were sobbing, loud cries that seemed to wreck your soul, and Hoseok was weak, pulling you into his chest and letting you use him as a makeshift kleenex. He didn’t know how long you both sat there, you crying on his chest, him holding you tightly, wishing he could stop your pain despite whatever you may have inflicted on him.

By the time you calmed down, he still couldn’t let you go, walking with your hand in his to your once shared kitchen, setting the kettle on. He still stocked your favourite blueberry tea even though he hated the taste. You spoke first after what seemed like hours.

“I dropped out.”

This was not what he had expected. Despite your numerous fights about schoolwork, he still liked to believe he knew you. It was your dream to study art, travel the world to visit galleries, with visions of curating your favourite exhibits. He still remembered all the times you would drag him to the local gallery, waxing poetic about inspirations behind modern art pieces. He never cared much about visual art but your passion had him holding onto every word. He could still recite everything about the history of the impressionist movement and its influences on your favourite artists. He knew that even if you were failing, you wouldn’t just give up on your passions.

“Our family business went bankrupt and so I can’t afford it. It was either this or our house.” Your voice was calm now, even monotonous, as if you had just expelled all the emotions earlier. He let you talk. Let you tell him about how your father had insisted they sell your family home and move to a studio so he could still supplement your tuition. But you could never do that to your family, have them sacrifice their home for something as silly as your childish dreams. Life had brought you to your knees, and you mourned your loss through parties and friends who encouraged your vices.

Hoseok had a hard time processing - he thought he knew everything about you, but you were right that night, maybe he didn’t know you as well as he hoped. He racked his brain for any sign of the misery you spoke of, other than the late nights and he came up empty. To think, he’d been wasting time in the dance studio, with his hobbies, when he could have been helping you.

He felt torn, he felt sad, he felt guilty, but all he could say was “Why didn’t you tell me?” Why had you hidden this from him when he could have lightened your load. He could’ve helped, taken out a loan from his parents, worked a part-time job to help you cover your bills. He was in love with you, didn’t you know that he would’ve done anything to help you? Would still do anything to help you.

“For once, Hoseok, I didn’t want to depend on you. I wanted to do it by myself, for myself.” Your voice was small, almost timid, but your eyes held your convictions. They softened as he squeezed your hand, and you apologized once more, almost pleading him to understand why you had to spend the last months alone, why you couldn’t be honest, but you didn’t need to say much he already understood. He knew you.

He stood from where he was sitting on his stool and closed the distance between you, pulling you into his arms haphazardly, one around your head and other around your shoulders. He squeezed you tight as if he could meld your bodies together, take away the hardships you faced through osmosis. He didn’t know what you expected of him, but all he could do was hold you close, and when you looked up at him, cupping his cheek, he kissed you. He took his time, slowly reacquainting himself to the lips he craved. He didn’t know if the tears he was tasting were yours or his but all he knew was that you were here.

And as you whispered an “I love you” on his lips, he knew that no matter how broken you had left him, for you he’d always be right here.

I hope you liked this angsty piece, for more fics of mine check out my masterlist

#jhope imagines #jhope angst #jhope x reader #bts imagines #bts fanfic #thebtswritersclub #hoseok angst #bts angst #bts au #hoseok fanfic #bts fanfiction #bts scenarios #hoseok #jhope

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sweatergirlsposts · 4 years

Text

Imagine Billy asking you, his boyfriend, to come home to meet his family

Pairing: Billy Batson / Male!Reader

(A/N: I recommend listening to ‘No One Knows Us’ By BANNERS while listening to this)

Billy had been thinking about it for awhile now. You had kept asking to go over to his place, since you always had him over at your place, but he didn’t know if he was ready to come out to his family just yet.

In contrast to Billy’s family, your parents knew that you were gay from a very young age. One of the first signs was that you were interested in Shang from Mulan more than Mulan. At first they thought you were bisexual, until you openly came out as gay on your twelfth birthday. Of course your parents had to make some adjustments in how they see you but still love you no matter your interest.

When you started to bring Billy around your place, your mom would always try to be your wing-women, and you had to explain afterwards that just because you bring a guy around doesn’t mean you see him in that light. Billy was an exception.

Billy knew you were gay when he first met you through school. You weren’t obvious but noticing the different mannerisms you’d have interacting with others he could put the pieces together. Billy was afraid that you’d find out that he was routing for the other team, for he didn’t want you to ask to confirm or tell his family. Another family he was with were very devoted Christians that were not the most open about being gay, so he did what he only could do; he ran.

Before telling you that he was interested in you, as he liked to put it, he showed you his alter-ego. If you could handle that secret then he could definitely trust you to keep his secret, as well as your guys relationship.

Being born into a world full of superheros did have an influence in your preferences in guys. Not that you didn’t have a crush on Billy already but when he told you that he was a gay superhero made your stomach do somersaults.

“I think it’s time that I at least come to your place Billy,”

“I don’t know (Y/N), I just think that it would be kinda obvious if I brought you to the house. I don’t know how Rosa and Victor will react to me or us,” Billy paced back an forth in his shared room, that was vacant at the moment.

As part of your guys daily couple ritual, you guys would facetime about each other’s day and express your love when he couldn’t come over. Today you decided to bring up coming over for the sixth time, but to no avail Billy was still very apprehensive about it.

“Try talking to them, Billy, they are probably more accepting than you expect, hey they brought you in,” you cracked up.

Deadpanned, Billy just stared at you through the camera, “Ha ha, you’re so funny (Y/N). Can we just talk about something else”

“No because you keep avoiding it. I don’t want to nag on you Billy, I really don’t, but this means a lot to me. It may not seem as a big a deal as it is to you but-”

“What do you mean this might seem as big of a deal to me (Y/N)!? I don’t want to risk the chance of me being kicked out of another family because of who I can be with and love. For once I have a family that ‘accepts’ me and I have it good here. You don’t have to fear about your family saying that they don’t want you and kick you out because you’re gay. You can’t understand, you have a family that you didn’t have to fear accepting you.”

You didn’t know how to respond to Billy’s statement. For Billy, your boyfriend, to underestimate the amount of fear you had coming out to your parents baffled you. Coming out on your twelfth birthday was one of the most challenging and petrifying things that you have ever done, and for Billy to say that it wasn’t hard to do so made you internally livid and hurt.

“Billy, call me after you realize what you just said to me, and then we can talk. See ya around at school...,” you coldly countered and hung up the call. Immensely hurt by your boyfriends statement, you put your phone on your night table and decided to leave it for the time being and go do something else to distract you from your pain.

He really fucked up. Billy didn’t mean to put it like that. He just wanted to explain that he’s wants both you and his family in his life but if his family didn’t accept him then he’d move away. He couldn’t have both if things turned bitter.

Mad with himself, Billy decided that the only best way to get out this anger was to go fly for awhile. Making his way downstairs, he stumbled into Rosa on the last flight.

“Woah hey Billy what’s the rush?”

“I don’t wanna talk Rosa,” Billy put firmly trying to get past Rosa.

“Why is everything okay?”

“That’s none of your business”

Rosa didn’t like this. She’s noticed Billy’s mood swings in the last couple weeks, and have let it go, but she had to put her foot down at some point or another. That point was now.

“Actually William Joseph Batson, it is all of my business if you’re living under this roof. I have been letting go these mood swings you’ve been having but now you have to tell me if you want to leave the house,” Rosa crossed her arms looking at Billy waiting for an explanation.

“I can’t”

“And why is that?” Rosa still stood firm like a wall against deflections, she had to know. All Rosa wanted to know is if Billy was being safe. Billy didn’t answer.

“Billy I just wanna know that you’re okay. You really have been worrying Victor and I, honey. You sneak out at absurd times at night, you’re cooped up in your room talking to someone, you don’t tell us where you go after school and return at 10 o’clock. I’m running out options on how to help you and all I want to do is keep you safe Billy”

Billy could see the struggle to comprehend what was going on with him in her expression. Rosa made him feel the most comfortable in coming here other than Freddie. He found solace in Rosa after he found his real mother. In Billy’s eyes, Rosa was his motherly figure that he could depend on and really made him feel that he could come to her no matter the situation.

“Can we talk upstairs.” Billy whispered in more of a suggestion than asking.

“Of course,” Rosa followed Billy back into the shared bedroom. Rosa sat in the desk chair while Billy sat on the bed across from her. Billy could feel his palms sweat and collect moisture, so he wiped his hands on his pants.

“What is it th-”

“I’m gay,” slipped out of Billy’s mouth too fast for Rosa to catch it

“Pardon?”

“You wanted to know what was wrong with me, I’m gay” Billy huffed feeling the pressure to his chest increase waiting for the blow of Rosa’s response, “You happy?”

It took a couple of seconds for it to sink in before Rosa’s instincts kicked in.

“More than happy Billy. I’m so glad you told me” Rosa got out of the chair and sat beside him to give him a hug, “but that doesn’t explain where you go after school”

“About that I have this uh friend-”

“A boyfriend!?!?”

“Well I’m not sure after tonight,” Billy grabbed his phone from his pocket to check if you left any messages. Nothing.

“Well whatever you did, be sure to make it right. I want to meet this boy,” Rosa gives Billy one more hug before she stands up to exit the bedroom, “also Billy I’m surprised that you didn’t notice”

“Notice what?”

“That you aren’t the only one in this house. Pedro is gay too. No matter your preferences, we will always accept you in this house Billy, remember that,” Rosa consoled before exiting the room, leaving Billy to his thoughts.

Throughout the next day at school you avoided seeing Billy. Of course you wanted him to reach out to you but at the same time you knew it would be better to have space from him. The last bell had rung for the day, letting everyone know that they had to vacate the premise. Once you had gathered all your items from your locker, you started walking to the exit but were then pulled into an empty classroom.

You bumped into a hard chest which made you fall back onto your backpack. Looking up, from the ground, you see the person you weren’t expecting but still the same person you didn’t want to talk to at the moment.

It was Billy.....but in his alter ego.

“If you are here to apologize to me Batson, it would be pretty ingenuine to do it as him.”

“Well I need to get you alone somehow”

“That sounds really weird saying what you just said in this form Billy” you paused to expire, “I want to talk to you, the real you”

Looking down in slight shame, Billy whispered “Shazam” and reverted back into his true self. Your fourteen year old boyfriend made a step towards you but you stepped back. You weren’t going to give into his feel-sorry-for-me look. Seeing that you stepped away from him made it feel like you dropped an anvil down his throat, weighing him to his spot.

“I’m sorry (Y/N)”

You scoff not responding. Catching that a simple sorry wasn’t enough he continued.

“I’m sorry for saying that I said you couldn’t understand about being scared of being gay....”

“You should be”

“I was just scared that if I told my family about me and us that I would lose them and you” Billy paused and then carried on, “I told Rosa”

“About you?” you finally piped up shocked at Billy telling his adoptive mother, who he’s told you that he’s closest with in the family other than Freddie.

“And about us. That is also another reason why I wanted to talk to you other than apologizing of course,” Billy stepped forward and you let him. He grasped your hands in his before looking into your eyes.

“Since I told Rosa who is probably going to tell Victor, for which Darla is going to listen in on then she’s going to tell everyone, I wanted to ask you if would you like to come over and meet my family?”

“I thought you would never ask,” you smiled, you were still mad at Billy but this moment could not be ruined by it.

Billy leaned in, his eyes fluttering shut, and his head tilted one side. You copied his movements automatically to go in for a kiss. But fate had to mess it up.

You heard a gasp from the doorway. As soon as the door opened it was then slammed shut.

“If you guys are going to do anything in our room please close the door so I know,” Freddie called from behind the closed door

You laughed as Billy turned a deep shade red.

“Let’s try that again,” Billy turned to you, slipping his hand behind your neck before pushing his lips against yours. The kiss felt as if it was the full apology that Billy couldn’t get through with his words and that’s all you needed. You will forgive and not forget, but in this moment you would.

There had been mistakes made along the way to Billy coming out but he was glad that they were made. He would have never fully appreciated the gravity of the situation if there was none made. Billy was fully content that he could keep his family and the love of his life, you.

MASTERLIST

Request by @lavieroses-blog

#billy batson #billy batson x reader #billy batson imagine #billy batson imagines #shazam #shazam imagine #shazam x reader #shazam 2019 #billy batson x male!reader #male!reader #reader #x reader #imagines

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innittowinit · 4 years

Text

Abandoned amusement parks are the best place for young children (chapter 11)

Summary:

Techno, Tommy, Wilbur and Phil have been hanging out at the abandoned amusement park in the woods since they moved in. Techno likes knowing he's definitely alone with his brothers Tommy likes climbing on the old rides Wilbur likes having a place to play his music Phil likes spending time with his younger brothers

That is, until a group of brothers calling themselves the 'dream team' move in down the road. Will the sleepy boys give in and share the park or will they succeed in scaring the new kids off?

Chapter summary: Eret comes over to meet the family

Chapter word count: 2042

ao3

Dinner was going well. Of course ideally he’d have preferred if their parents were able to come meet their new friend too but Wilbur was very much old enough to understand the value of money, he knew everything they had was thanks to their parents working these insane hours, and if they were sometimes a little distant when they were home that was okay too. They were just tired.

He didn’t always understand why other families didn’t need to work so hard for their money, he thought it was weird that he hardly got to see his parents and his peers were lucky enough to see them whenever they wanted. It was confusing but it was okay. If he needed stability he had Techno, if he needed comfort he had Phil and if he needed distracting he had Tommy. Their little dynamic worked even if there was a lack of adults.

Eret was good though, unlike other people who would pester them all the time about why they were home alone and sometimes even threaten to call social services -which Wilbur had always been afraid of, he did not want to be split up from his brothers- Eret had simply accepted that this was the way they lived. Eret was good at accepting things; he didn’t pester Techno to talk which is one of the big things that helped Techno start talking to him. Countless times Wil had been confided in about how his brother wished people didn’t make such a big deal about it, how that only added pressure and made it harder when he tried. When Wilbur begrudgingly admitted he couldn’t leave his brother’s side after Eret had asked him to grab something, he accepted that too. He didn’t try to ‘help’ him come out of his shell like so many others had, Wilbur wasn’t even in a shell! He was loud and contributive in class, people just couldn’t seem to understand why he was so scared of leaving Techno. Honestly, he didn’t know if he fully understood either. Last Thursday, when Eret had asked if they wanted to hang out after school, when he was told they couldn’t because they had an appointment with their therapist, he accepted that too.

Needless to say, the twins became attached easily. Maybe their new friend didn’t always understand their quirks and habits but he didn’t need to, all they had ever wanted was for someone to see them as individuals who didn’t deserve to be judged for existing.

“Eret, gravy on your food?”

A shake of the head answered Phil’s question and the plates were laid on the table, Eret sat between Phil and Techno (since there was no way he was going to sit a new person next to Tommy of all people and he couldn’t exactly split up the twins.) A chorus of ‘thank you’s erupted as everyone sat down, ready to dig into the meal.

“By the way, While you were out Skeppy called. He said he might come over at some point, he had some game he wanted to show you two”

“He sucks. Tell him to stay home” Tommy grumbled through a mouth full of veggies, obviously still bitter over the last time their cousin had visited. He was always bringing games and Tommy rarely won. Unlike Phil, Skeppy didn’t let him win and whenever Skeppy was over, neither Wil nor Techno let him win either. It sucked.

Wil didn’t seem to share the same sentiment about the boy though, swiftly shutting up his brother with a brief yet painless smack to the back of his head. A warning.

“Skeppy’s our cousin, he thinks he’s good at a lot of things but he really isn’t” Techno sniggered as he explained the situation, “He’s fun though, you’ll like him”

The conversation trailed off there, stemming into what everyone had done that day, how they were feeling and a few over excited questions from Tommy, who was eager to try and learn more about his brother’s friend. As always, he was an absolute social butterfly, it made night’s like these easier, he wasn’t sure how things would have gone if Tommy also had issues with new people. The thought made Phil remember to pride himself on his younger brother too, maybe he wasn’t currently conquering a big fear but he was certainly one of, if not the, strongest of the kids Phil knew of; maybe not physically but he doubted most of his peers would have been able to soldier through such a rocky upbringing like Tommy had, such having caring brothers would have helped but objectively Tommy was the one who had lived through that.

Phil was very proud of all his brothers.

Even if they were sometimes a pain.

A sharp elbow to the ribs from Tommy was what brought him back down to earth, he wasn’t sure how long he had been zoned out but the twins were happily chatting with Eret and he didn’t need to worry about Tommy needing any kind of support while talking so he didn’t bother thinking too much about it. He glanced over at his younger brother as if to ask why he had been elbowed.

“Knock at the door” The kid grinned, smile gappy with missing baby teeth.

Nodding, Phil got up to go answer it.

The sound of a teenage boy sprinting into the room was the only introduction necessary, the boy in question had fluffy black hair and wore a thick blue jumper. He had some features that were similar to the boys, his hair and smile for example, and he seemed just as hyper as Tommy could be. Techno in particular had noticed how Skeppy could swing from being extremely hyper to basically passing about in the blink of an eye.

Practically throwing himself over Techno, who seemed far less amused than everyone else on the table, the boy whined about how long they were taking to eat. With a soft ‘thud’ he dropped his backpack to the ground and settled for leaning over Techno’s seat as he waited for them to finish.

“Who’s this by the way? I thought you hated new people. Or maybe they aren’t new and you’re just not including me in anything anymore”

He placed a hand on his heart, a theatrical sigh escaped his lips. So dramatic. Techno remembered how this ‘i’m so hurt’ act would work on the other boy they used to play with, he was always more Skeppy’s friend than his friend though, even so it had never worked on him. Maybe he was good at reading people from how much time he spent thinking, maybe he just didn’t care too much about other people’s emotions, either way he supposed it didn’t really matter as long as he wasn’t really hurt.

“Skep!” Wilbur piped up, maybe because he had been quiet for too long, maybe Wilbur was getting concerned that the amount of people surrounding him was overwhelming him, it wasn’t though, Techno was actually quite happy with the current situation but that didn’t change the fact that he’d let Wilbur carry the conversation if he wanted. Being silent was always going to be more comfortable than talking.

“Skep!” Wilbur repeated, grabbing the back of his teal blue hoodie and forcing him to turn around. “This is Eret! We met him at school, he’s cool, they like the same kind of music as me and their parents get her Burger king for lunch”

Wilbur looked very proud of himself that he had remembered to use all of the different pronouns they went by, he’d never met anyone that presented themselves like that before and while it was tricky to adjust to, he’d happily make the effort if that’s what made their new friend happy.

With his wide grin ever present, Skeppy nodded and grabbed Eret by the arm, dragging him to his feet before he could have the chance to protest before mimicking the action with both Wilbur and Techno.

“Finish your food later! You’re taking too long!”

His dark curls shook with mischievous laughter as the trio were dragged behind the admittedly much shorter boy towards the living room.

“Sit here!”

That’s when he disappeared into the kitchen, retrieving his backpack before sitting in front of the couch so all three of them could see what he had brought. Now, Techno wasn’t sure what Eret’s situation was, he appeared to be wealthy but he didn’t want to assume anything, nevertheless, that didn’t change the fact that his own family didn’t really have an abundance of money.

Above all, the goal was to get by and that they did.

So the excitement Techno felt when Skeppy pulled out the newest game on the market was immense. It was expensive. That much was obvious, Techno enjoyed games as much as any other boy his age -maybe even more so- but most of his games were either from the clearance bucket at GameStop or had been gifts from Skeppy. He would never have had a new game released the same day as he bought it.

“I thought it would be fun if we play together. It’s local multiplayer and I have no siblings so I thought maybe I could leave it here and we can play it whenever I come over. Obviously you can play it whenever”

“Dude! That’s so cool!”

Wilbur was already scuttling over to the TV, turning it on and setting up the console before popping in the game.

The four of them played for hours, taking a quick break to scoff the cornflake cakes that Phil and Tommy brought in before getting back to the game. At some point, Phil had gone off to work on his homework, leaving Tommy with the others since he was much too interested in watching his big brother’s play the game than to work on his own homework.

Phil had returned to check on them at around 7pm, ready to call an uber for Eret if he was still there since he didn’t exactly want to send a fairly young boy on a train alone in the dark. What he saw made his heart melt and he found himself regretting leaving his phone in his bedroom.

Skeppy’s head was leant back against the couch, resting on Techno’s knees specifically. Tommy was curled up into a little ball between Techno and Wilbur, who were snuggled up either side of him, and Eret was sprawled out across the remaining section of the couch. All five of the boy’s were asleep, the room only lit by the tv and the only sound being the various gun noises coming from the game.

Being the caring big brother that he was, Phil’s first reaction was to turn off the game, in case the violent noises gave any of them nightmares. Next, on came the light, and finally it was time to wake up the boys.

Honestly he wasn’t too bothered about Skeppy staying overnight since he could message his Aunt easily but he would have no way of contacting Eret’s parent’s so he’d have to be heading home soon. He definitely didn’t want to get himself involved in a missing child’s case all because he didn’t want to wake him up.

With a few grumbles and whined, all the boys except from Tommy -who Phil decided would be easier if they kept asleep- started to wake up. Eret was sent home in an Uber and Skeppy was sent to the guest room but only after Phil made sure he called his Mum to let her know he was staying at their place. The twins were sent to bed too after that, even Techno getting into bed on time, and Phil was assigned to carry the sleeping toddler, otherwise known as Tommy, up to his room.

Overall, today had been stressful, that much he was certain of, through trying to make the evening perfect for their new friend to trying to keep on top of his school work, there had been a lot on his plate, it was all worth it though.

Maybe it was good he had left his phone in his bedroom, maybe sometimes it’s better to remember the feeling than the moment.

#technoblade #skeppy #wilbur soot #philza #tommyinnit #sbi #sleepy bois inc #fanfic

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thereluctantinquisitor · 4 years

Text

An Unlikely Ally

It was that thick, heavy feeling inside his skull that drove him mad. He could handle burning eyes and heavy steps, open wounds and broken bones. But to feel like a stranger in his own head, wading through endless fog, was almost too much to bear.

He needed to sleep.

The nights seemed longer, somehow. Longer than when he used to watch over the clan grounds until dawn. Skyhold possessed an eerie stillness that made it difficult to distract himself. There was no investigating a rustle in a bush or a suspicious snapping of a branch. No need to follow a set of tracks to discern their direction, their numbers, their size and shape. Skyhold was just... there. Walled in and safe. He should be glad for it. It should be better that way.

Exhaling, Hanin raked his fingers through his hair, unbound and tousled from his earlier attempt at rest. He called it rest, now, because actual sleep seemed so impossible to achieve. How long had it been since he made it through the night? Days? Weeks?

How much longer could he keep this up?

Already, he was losing his edge. The bruises on his side from where he’d missed parries during training were a testament to that. Without thinking, he reached down, brushing his fingers over the welts left by the practice blades. In a battle, he’d be dead. Cut down by a recruit.

He didn’t hear Anacrea approach.

“It is late, Lavellan. Even for you.”

Hanin jolted, hand and mind pulling sharply away from his idle reverie. The mage was in a thick overcoat, the dark cloth falling to just below her knees. Beneath, he could make out nothing more than a simple affair, soft and warm. A thing for sleeping, he assumed. It was far from her typical attire.

“I could say the same to you,” he replied, returning to his empty contemplation of the courtyard. “If you have come to lecture me, know I do not take advice well.” He was about to add from a hypocrite, but stopped himself. After all, even he could see the irony in voicing such a statement. He wasn’t blind. Just tired.

The sound of her footsteps on the cobblestones was louder than he expected, given he hadn’t heard her approach. When she settled beside him on the bench, the thick cloth of her coat brushing his leg, he almost convinced himself to look over at her. Discern what she wanted. But in the end, even the thought of it seemed too difficult, so he just breathed, quietly and slowly, and hoped she would leave.

She didn’t.

“You cannot continue like this.”

Hanin snorted faintly, as amused as he could be at hearing his thoughts voiced so soon by another. “What choice do I have. The world won’t stop for me.”

“No,” she agreed. “It won’t.”

Funny, he could say it to himself over and over again - repeat it like a mantra - but coming from someone else it felt like a knife to the chest. An inescapable truth. His temple suddenly pulsed and he realised he had been clenching his jaw so tight that it ached. He forced himself to work it loose, but the conscious effort it took to keep it that way seemed almost more distracting than the pain. Not that it mattered where his focus lay. He had nothing to say to her. Whatever she was doing, it was wasting both of their time.

After about five minutes, Hanin broke.

“Did you just come out here to sit in silence?” He was leaning forward now, elbows on his knees, forehead resting heavily against his steepled fingers. They were cold against his skin. “If you have business with me, get to it.”

On a better day, he would measure his words carefully around the mage. He was smart enough for that. But at that point, he just couldn’t understand why she was tormenting him, sitting there, silent as the stone battlements that walled him in. Creators, berate him! Attempt to console him. Coddle him, even. Damn it, he needed her to do something so he could chase her away for it.

But she was just sitting there.

“I know you wished you were there. When your clan was butchered.” The simplicity of the words - the coldness of them - caught Hanin by surprise. So much so that he flinched and felt a growl curl at the back of his throat - a warning. A threat.

“Careful, Trevelyan.”

“No.” He felt her shift beside him, crossing one leg over the other. An act of ease. “I will not be careful.”

Was she mocking him?

“Then what do you want from me, shem.” Each word was like spitting blood. Especially the last. But Anacrea, true to form, seemed unfazed by his anger. His frustration. His brittle edges. Leaning back against the stone wall, the collar of her coat bunched at her neck, the air curling as she breathed it in and out. It was only after each detail registered that Hanin realised he was looking at her - glaring at her. With a grunt, he shifted his gaze back to the courtyard, but made no effort to soften it. Like his aching jaw, it was too hard of a fight. Another lost battle to add to his collection.

“Do your people know of Circles?”

Hanin barely kept the venom out of his voice. “Of course we do. We have mages. We know the dangers of losing them to humans.”

He was half expecting - hoping - she would take either the bait or her leave. She did neither. “My Circle was at Ostwick,” she continued. Her voice was low, but not quiet. It was the level of polite, midnight conversation. “When the mages began rebelling in Kirkwall, the Templars grew paranoid. Erratic. Saw threat where there was none. Cursed at writing on the wall that only they could see.”

She trailed off for a moment, prompting Hanin to sigh tightly. “Just make your point, Anacrea.”

If you have one.

“Very well. One evening, we were all summoned to the dining hall for the evening meal. It was nothing unusual, but we all felt the tension between us and the Templars. I raised my concerns, but they were... not taken seriously by my companions. While people sensed things were not well, they remained reassured. After all, we were not apostates. They had no reason to harm us.” There was a steel to her tone, now. An age-old bitterness Hanin almost felt he could understand. Maybe even relate to. “I chose to remain in my room that evening, cloistered by my own paranoia.”

The conversation was heading in a direction Hanin recognised all too well. He knew better than to try to stop it. “What happened?”

Her response was as abrupt as could be expected. “Like you clan, they were butchered. Right there in the dining hall. Defenceless in a place they thought they were safe.” She closed her eyes. “When I heard the screaming, I took my staff and ran towards it.”

Hanin, careful not to interrupt the story, gave a single nod of appreciation. “Brave.”

Judging by the winkling of her nose, Anacrea did not share his sentiment. “It was foolish. Had I not stumbled across other mages who had avoided the call to supper, I would have died along with the others. It was only the combination of us, and the distraction of the main slaughter, that saw us to safety.” Her brow twitched, as though seeking to frown but meeting resistance halfway. “There were less than twenty of us who made it out alive. I remember... passing the hall. The door was ajar. I saw them dragging bodies into a pile at the center of the room. It was... like collecting the dead after a war.”

Slowly, Hanin turned to regard the woman, his anger and frustration still lurking at the back of his mind, but no longer so overwhelming. Her face was blurry to him - most things were at that moment - but he could see the set of her shoulders beneath the cloak. The stiffness of her spine. “Not much of a war,” he murmured eventually, not exactly sure of what to say. Not understanding why she was telling him any of it.

“No,” she agreed. “It wasn’t.” She shifted then, and he felt the weight of her gaze upon him. “My point, Hanin, is this: I was there. I stood in that hallway. I passed that door. I saw the bodies of people I knew - people I cared about - stacked like rotten sacks of grain. I killed some people. Watched others fall.” She let the words hang for a moment, and Hanin had the feeling she was choosing the next ones carefully. “There is only one thing I have been able to come to terms with, after that night, and that is that none of it was in my control.”

Hanin frowned. “I... don’t understand.” She fought, after all. She was there. She made a difference.

“There is no one who made it out of there alive who did so because of my actions. I saved no one but myself. I am an excellent mage, Hanin - I am comfortable with my own ability. But I know my limits. My presence did not change what happened that night. It couldn’t. It is nothing but a fool’s wish - a desperate grab at grief and guilt - to believe otherwise.” Slowly, she reached up, adjusting her collar, drawing it closer to her neck. “All I am left with is a pile of bodies and blood on the walls. It is something I will never stop seeing.”

Some stubborn, irrational part of Hanin wanted to argue. To tell her that she had saved lives. That each Templar she killed was one less to harm those around her. If he had been there with his clan, he might have been able to buy someone else time. He might have...

I know my limits.

For the first time, Hanin forced himself to stop and think. Really think. He was not the only warrior among the clan. He was not the only one trained to fight, and fight well. Perhaps it was as Anacrea said - a strange mixture of guilt and grief - that left him with his hubristic notion that he would have been the one to save them. As though a gust of wind could change the course of a hurricane.

He really was nothing.

“How...” The word stuck in Hanin’s throat, but Anacrea did not attempt to hurry it. She just waited until he found his voice. “How do you stop... feeling like this?” His hands curled into fists, and he stared down at them as though they were not his own. Ineffectual. Useless. “Every time I... it’s like losing them over and over again. Every night. I can’t...”

“I am not sure it ever truly goes away,” she said. There was no measure of comfort in her voice; no movement to console him. In truth, he was glad for it. “But how you manage the emotions will change with time. You will learn what works, and what does not. You will find ways to cast some demons out, and handle others.”

It was like torture, to drag the words out. “What did you do?”

To his surprise, the corner of her mouth lifted in a trace of a smile. “For a long time, not enough. I kept myself closed off from anything that could cause me pain. I returned home and left just as quickly. I was... afraid. That I would add my parents’ bodies to the pile. When I came here I sealed myself away with plants and sketches. Things I could control. Create. Keep alive.” Glancing across, her eyes seemed to reflect torchlight that was not there, somehow golden in the dark. “But I began with sleep, Hanin. There are natural remedies to assist the process - things you can ease away from once you regain control of yourself. Then I... began to share. With myself, at first, in writing. But then with others...” She trailed off, breathing a quiet sigh. “There are many here who have gone through terrible trials, be it war or demons or plain tragedy. Speaking... listening to them... it has helped remind me that I am not alone.”

Hanin let out a soft huff, but it lacked the bitterness of before. “So... this is all part of your personal remedy, then?”

“To be truthful, yes.”

Well, at least she wasn’t shy about it.

“But I also spent too long wandering alone in... dark places,” she continued, “and if I can help shorten someone else’s journey, I consider it worth doing. So...” The fabric of her coat rustled gently as she stood, her hands coaxing the creases out of the front before she turned to face him. “If you will allow it, there are options.” She raised a halting finger. “Not cures. But options. Some will help. Some will not. The only question that remains is: are you willing to try?”

Somehow, the fog in Hanin’s mind seemed to clear for a moment. As he gazed up at Anacrea, her brow slightly arched, her expression patient without pity, he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was it. This was the moment that would define his path. Despite his better self, some dark part of him scratched and clawed, desperate to keep him in place. Hold him back. Where he was now... it was a strange kind of comfortable. He had grown so used to feeling empty that the idea of possibly filling that space seemed almost too daunting for words. He could manage one step. But another? Then another after that, over and over? How could he possibly drag himself out of it? Maybe he’d manage it for a day. Maybe even a week. But could he really risk the inevitable failure? That moment when he misses a step and goes crashing right back down again?

Anacrea waited silently, her form a dark silhouette against the greystone walls. Silent. Standing. Broken, but mending, solid on her feet before him. Just as she was the day before. Just as she would be the next day. And the next...

Slowly, Hanin felt himself rise to his feet. In a single step, he was at her side. Exhaling, he glanced to the barracks on the far side of the courtyard, then turned his face to the tower in the distance, gaze eventually resting on the balcony at the highest point.

“I will try.”

#dragon age #dragon age fanfiction #hanin lavellan #anacrea trevelyan #reluctant writes #so after thinking about the circle mage background #and Lavellan potentially losing their clan #I started considering how Ana and Hanin might navigate their grief #separately at first #but eventually finding some kind of understanding in one another #as people who have been through hell but will be damned if they don't drag themselves back out of it #so... this happened

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aliceslantern · 4 years

Text

Beyond this Existence: New Life, short 20--Storied

Recovery is a tedious, nonlinear process. Demyx, Ienzo, and the others living in Radiant Garden's castle have to learn to come to terms with their pasts and their memories, learn to grow, and begin to understand what, exactly, it means to be human. While there is unexpected joy in this, there is also unexpected sorrow. A series of oneshots set after Beyond this Existence.

Current short: “Storied.” Ienzo and Ansem attempt to repair their bond.

Read it on FF.net/ on AO3

---

Ienzo and Ansem were still getting used to one another. It was not at all like the halcyon days of his childhood; the ebb and flow of tension was a near constant.

Ienzo knew that really he should be more bitter towards the others, rather than Ansem; but he could not reconcile the feelings towards anyone else. Maybe it had something to do with their relationship with his Nobody? A child’s feelings were not necessarily logical, as much as he had thought he was an intelligent one; it was a stone in a river, causing infinite ripples.

He wanted desperately for things to be better between them, but there was so much muck to wade through; the collective mistakes of their pasts. It was one thing to want to forgive and forget; another to put in the work.

Ansem was waiting for him one afternoon, in his quarters. It seemed to be a neutral ground; it was one of the few spaces they'd spent time together that was not mired in bad memory. "I found a rather delightful brand of tea when I was out shopping. I do think you'll enjoy it."

"I'm sure I will. I'm not so picky. As long as it is warm." He was so much more sensitive to temperature than he used to be.

For a while they sat by the window, watching the pale sunshine. Ienzo found the tea to be a bit too citrusy and sharp for his tastes, but he was able to get it down without much fuss.

"I appreciate you coming to spend time with me," Ansem said. "I'm sure you have more pressing, and more desirable, things on your plate."

"It is my pleasure. I… know we want to get to know one another again."

"Indeed." Ansem took another drink, a longer one. "How are you, Ienzo?"

"I am faring… decently." He did not want to bring up his breakdown in front of Even… or, in fact, the one he'd had in front of Aeleus. Goodness. "To borrow a phrase Demyx uses, "a bitch be going through it.""

Ansem chuckled. "And things are going well on that front?"

"Well, yes," he said. "I feel… quite attached."

"I'm glad you have someone you can rely on."

"Things between him and I are not so complicated. At least, not as they are between the rest of us. If I may be so candid."

"Yes?"

To tell such naked truths was still difficult. "Ma--Ansem." Ansem insisted they be on a first name basis. "I did not think this would ever be something I'd experience. The ways we hurt people in the past, using their bonds against them… it all makes so much more sense. I can feel the pain and regret so much more acutely. If someone had done to me what I did to them, I'd be… shattered." Ansem opened his mouth; Ienzo interrupted him. "Before you say this is not my fault. I know this. Yet, there's the survivor's guilt, on top of what happened after all that. There is so much more to my past than those few awful months."

Ansen sighed heavily, and folded his hands tightly in his lap. "I realize this."

"We mustn't dance around it anymore. I did not metamorphose from the child you remember into the adult sitting across from you. There was a point when I was someone else. As were you, if I recall correctly."

Ansem shook his head. "DiZ," he said softly. "I believe I… understand what you're speaking of. I did not simply emerge from the darkness eleven years later. I dug myself out of it the only way I knew how--I embraced it."

Ienzo crossed his legs, letting the silence stretch for a few moments, running his eyes along the patterns in the worn carpet. "To a degree, some of what we did, we did to survive," he said slowly. "Neither of us could have possibly escaped those situations otherwise. I… for the sake of my sanity… had to believe wholeheartedly in what they did. In what I did. For the sake of the greater good. Knowledge. The potential for humanity, for a better world." He hadn't quite let himself go to this place in his mind, even all these months after he'd woken.

Ansem squeezed his hand. "Peace, Ienzo."

"I know." He took a breath, feeling the sharp lump in his throat. "If you would bear with me, I… would like to follow this train of thought. I think I need to." Ienzo took a moment to compose himself. "We engineered the fall of worlds," he said, with difficulty. "We manipulated those in power--using the same techniques we used here. It really can take so little to make or break a heart. And who do you think was at the center of this? The planning, the strategies? It was another puzzle, Ansem. And you know I love puzzles. Perhaps I did not kill anyone with my bare hands, but that likely would have been a mercy compared to what I did do." He found it difficult to look up. "The illusions were capable of so much more than frippery, self-defense. Show someone their greatest fears, or their deepest insecurities, and they'll eat out of your palm." He looked down to his own hands, which were trembling. "The most disturbing thing about all this was that I enjoyed the power. The sensation that I had their minds in my hands, that I could influence… whatever I wished. I said I only used that power for the greater good, but I believe I deluded myself into submission."

Ansem looked more sad than anything. "I did not… realize the extent to which they controlled you."

Ienzo could feel his face reddening. "It wasn't all them, Ansem. This you must understand. I committed… atrocities. Puppet or not, there was a point where I should have known better. Where I should have realized--" His voice was starting to break.

Ansem stood; for a moment Ienzo thought he might leave, his expression was unreadable. He crossed over to Ienzo in his chair and embraced him.

Ienzo took a sharp breath, a few strangely cool tears breaking through. A shuddering sob cut through him.

"Oh, my boy," Ansem said. "Are we not all guilty in some way? Every single one of us have done horrific things we regret--including your beloved. And you do not despise him for it, do you?"

"...No," he said at last, still crying freely.

"We are all atoning in our own ways. You mustn't despise yourself for it, either."

"I am trying."

"I know. You are excelling at it… as you do for everything you devote yourself to." Ansem stroked his hair. It was an oddly familiar gesture.

Ienzo tried to pull himself together. He realized he was clinging to Ansem, and let go. He dried his eyes quickly. "I… apologize."

"Whatever for?" Ansem smiled a little. "I shouldn't mind to take care of you. I have years to make up for."

"There is no point mourning what could have been. All there is… is now." He sat back a little, and Ansem returned to his chair.

"...Indeed."

What was left of Ienzo's tea was cold by now, but he needed it to soothe himself. "...Will you tell me? About what it meant to be DiZ?"

Ansem frowned. "I am not… proud of those days," he admitted. "As you said, I had the best intentions." This he said with malice. "Reeling with the unkempt trauma of the darkness, I only had rage. I was angry--with my wayward apprentices--with you."

Ienzo smiled.

Ansem seemed befuddled. “Why is it you have this reaction?”

“I was angry with you too. It’s good to know our feelings were reciprocated.”

Ansem laughed a little, but after a moment, he sobered. “I was selfish,” he said. “I sought vengeance, mostly for myself, and for my pride. I… believed that Nobodies did not deserve to exist, therefore justifying my abuse of Roxas in the digital Twilight Town, and also of Naminé. That poor girl’s life has really been nothing but horror, and Roxas didn’t fare much better.”

“If it’s any consolation, they are both flourishing,” Ienzo said politely.

“This I know--no thanks to me.” He smiled sadly. “I used them as pawns--and while I believed, like you said, that I was working for the greater good, to save Sora from the mess he ended up in after Castle Oblivion, how is my exploitation of them any better than anything you did in the Organization?” A pause. “Ienzo, we have both made mistakes. But we’ve learned. Once I… collect myself, I hope to devote my life to atonement.”

Ienzo considered this. He’d gathered from the scraps of information he’d had what Ansem had been up to, a year or so ago. He had a feeling there were still pieces of the story he was withholding; namely, the previous ten or so years he’d spent in the realm of darkness. “How are you faring?”

Ansem thought about it. “Better than I was, on the whole,” he said. “I do… write a lot. It helps to make sense of these things once they’re on paper. I doubt these memoirs are very palatable.”

“I do not need to see them, unless you wish to share them.”

“Perhaps someday.” There was a significant pause in the conversation, long enough that Ienzo wondered if it were impolite to excuse himself. But then Ansem added, “You’ve walked the realm of darkness, have you not?”

“Many times.”

“Did you ever… feel anything? Oh, that’s a vague query. Let me think.” He put a hand under his chin. “Rather, did it manipulate the way you saw things?”

Ienzo blinked, then squinted through the veil of his ever-weakening memory. “I cannot be certain, if I’m being honest,” he admitted. “Nobodies do not… experience emotion in the same way humans do, if they do at all. Even when I became older, and theoretically began to grow a heart, it was very… matter-of-fact. If I experienced any instances of ill temper while moving through it, I likely attributed it to something else.” He tried to think. “It takes a spark, and more than that, nurturing, to allow a heart to be that sensitive to such things.”

Ansem nodded slowly. “This… numbness. How much of it was your biology, how much of it was manipulation, and how much of it was the sheer level of trauma inflicted upon you?”

For a moment, Ienzo skimmed Zexion’s memories. In context, it made much more sense for Xemnas’s ideology that they were unfeeling, and therefore inferior (or superior, depending on the day) to take root. “Apples, oranges, pears,” he mumbled.

“Beg pardon?”

“It’s essentially tit for tat. Regardless of how exactly it happened, I did not feel much of anything. Versus now, when I feel… everything. ”

Ansem chuckled. “Making up for lost time.”

“So it seems.” He settled back a bit more comfortably in the chair. “I’m teaching myself to not mind these feelings. In the beginning--that is to say, my new life as Ienzo--I forced myself to exist in a false spectrum of logic and emotion. But that is simply impossible. I will feel regardless of how well I try to reason through it.”

Ansem leaned forward a little. “I hate to cause offense, but this is all rather psychologically fascinating.”

“It is.” He paused. “Some of these feelings, such as love, or joy, are intoxicating. But on the other hand… the guilt, the fear, the existential dread… is equally overwhelming.”

He twisted his scarf in one hand. “To a degree I feel the same. My numbness was deliberate, instead of biological. I used my anger to bolster myself against the pain of the betrayal.”

“I am sorry.” The words left him almost unconsciously.

Ansem squeezed his hand. “You were not at fault, dear Ienzo. At that moment in time you were so manipulated you could not have known better.”

“I know this.” He looked up, again fighting tears. “I still apologize.” He took a breath to smother the urge. “Do you still feel much… bitterness, towards the others?”

This question seemed to catch Ansem off guard. “We are not as… plastic, as you are,” he said. “I believe we need to process what this all means to us before we can begin to understand what we feel towards one another. I’m sure they all feel remorse, in their own way, perhaps more intensely than I can conceive.”

“But do you?”

Ansem scratched his beard. “How can I not? I trusted these men with my mind, my heart--and they took everything I worked towards and perverted it. I know they were under Xehanort’s influence, and had I not so foolishly taken him in we might be in a very different place. All the same, it is hard not to see that… when I look at them. It is hard to trust them.”

“Yes,” Ienzo said.

He let Ansem digest this for several minutes. Finally, he said, “I do thank you for sharing all this with me. I realize it is not easy to trust me, either.”

“It is becoming easier each day,” Ienzo admitted. “That day you called me your… son. Do you feel that way, despite everything that’s happened?”

Ansem seemed to not know how to answer the question; he hesitated. “Legally speaking, I was your father.”

“The law no longer exists as it once was. And I am grown.”

He thought about it. “I… would like to,” he admitted, with some embarrassment. “I’ve done nothing but made your life difficult save for a few moments of tenderness. But I care for you deeply, Ienzo.”

“I… feel the same.”

Ansem smiled; it seemed more genuine now.

Ienzo met his eyes. “I’m still… learning about the concept of family,” he said. “I know it’s what we once were. Not just you and I, but… all of us.”

Ansem scoffed. “A motley crew.”

“Yes. And among the many things Demyx has helped me realize, I… want nothing more than to have that again.”

He nodded. He seemed to relax a little, looking into his already-drained teacup as if it might spontaneously refill. “I admit, when I found out about the two of you I was… hesitant. Not as a critique of your orientation--never that--but because, well, we were all reeling badly. I did not see… what was compatible in the long term, and the last thing you needed on top of everything else was heartbreak.”

Ienzo took a deep breath.

“But now that I’ve gotten to know him as well… I think you truly balance one another out.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“I suppose I figured I was entitled to defend you, to make decisions for you. Alas, I am not.” He laughed.

“No, you’re not.” But he said this with humor. “This will… take time.”

“Indeed. Though it seems that things will only get better from here on out.”

“I should hope so, after all the trouble we’ve gone through.” Ienzo shook his head, to himself mostly; “trouble” was putting it lightly. “Well. I believe I should go start dinner. Would you like to join us?”

This startled him. “That would be… quite nice.”

#beyond this existence: new life #ienzo #ansem the wise #beyond this existence

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all-thingsstrange · 6 years

Text

Incident of Dr. Lanyon

O’Malley and Jekyll, part 2 of 3.

Part 1 here.

Three months later.

_________

A week had passed since the incident, and still I refused to leave my cabinet. Over this time, such incidents became nothing but more frequent and less manageable. Hyde cannot control the transformations any better than I can, now. At the time, I had one hand on a bottle of Scotch, the other on my pen, and a very different bottle already prepared on the table. Poole had made sure to deliver Utterson’s letter the moment it arrived, and I was doing my best - although even that was a very poor job, in my condition - to reply.

I was just adding my signature to my answer when Poole’s distinguished knock came again.

“Doctor, Mr. O’Malley is here to see you.”

I set my pen aside, took a deep breath, and walked to the door. Upon opening it, I saw Adam had come alone, which rang a deep note of fear in my mind. I still managed a weary smile, and, dismissing the butler, welcomed my friend inside.

As the door closed, I sighed. “I told them that if they suspected anything to have happened to me, they were to get Utterson first.”

“I came of my own accord.” He was solemn, and I could tell he was studying me closely.

“Ah.” I looked down. “This is about Lanyon, then?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve been to see him, too. I just heard from Utterson about him. I assume you spoke of the same issue.”

“Yes.”

I knew him well enough to know the meaning of his short answers. There was only worry on his face, however. None of the monstrosity he had held toward me after Carew’s murder was present. Realizing that I was staring, I looked away, and spoke softly. “And what did he say?”

Adam’s tone became grim. “He says he will die from what he saw. And he says you are dead, too, Henry.”

“That sounds like something he would say,” I mused absently, turning back to the desk and the scotch.

“He didn’t tell me what you showed him, Henry.”

My hand froze halfway through pouring the bottle toward a glass. The way he said my name… I turned sharply, scotch still clenched in my fist, brow furrowed and mouth in a distasteful frown. “You are suggesting that Mr. Hyde has power over my body, Adam?”

He noticed the cold tone my voice had taken with the question, but replied with remarkable calm. “I have yet to see him, Jekyll. For all I know you really do share a body.”

“The only reason you’ve never seen him is that he fears you, Adam. And with good reason, as you should know.”

“Still, I can’t be sure.”

“You’re right,” I admitted. “But I cannot risk allowing you to be sure. As I said, he fears you. He only feels two emotions, now. Rage and fear. He… he used to feel three.” My voice became soft, I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help but pity the creature I had created.

As if the very thought of him as his own person was enough, my chest exploded in pain, as cold horror clenched my mind. The bottle dropped from my hand and shattered to the floor, and I would have followed it had Adam not caught me. Desperately, I looked up - somehow I was facing the mirror, and my reflection was backing away from me, its expression horrified.

“Henry - not here, I can’t, not with him here, you know I can’t -” it pleaded, eyes locked on Adam, whose reflection was absent.

“I know…” I choked on my own words, trying to stand but falling back into O’Malley’s arms.

“Henry?” he sounded concerned. “Henry, what’s the matter?”

“Vial,” was all I managed, nodding my head weakly toward the desk. He half carried me there, and practically had to press the beaker to my lips himself. I drank, now immune to the bitterness of the tincture, and slowly regained my strength. Adam sat me down as my weariness faded away, and knelt beside the chair so that his face was just below level with mine.

Finally, when he felt I had recovered enough for interrogation, he asked me, “What was that?”

“Put simply,” I answered, “that was Hyde.”

His concern only deepened. “If that was Hyde, where is he now?”

“Safe.” I took a deep breath and rested my forehead in my hands. “That’s all he cares about, now. That he’s safe.”

“He may be safe, but what of you? Does that happen often?”

“More so of late.” I didn’t even bother trying to be careful. He would know the truth sooner or later.

Indeed, his next question was, “Have you told anyone?”

“Hastie is the only one who knows. Poole, I think, is at least slightly aware of the situation. And now you.”

“Is that what…?”

“Yes.”

His face was grave, but still there was no trace of anger. “You haven’t told me everything, Jekyll. You said you would let me know if he became to strong for you.”

I waved it off too quickly to be sincere. “It’s nothing, Adam.”

“That wasn’t nothing,” he retorted sternly. “Did he attempt to take control?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I already told you, Adam, he’s angry and he’s afraid. More of you, even, than of being discovered by Scotland Yard.”

“Henry,” he said, “you need to tell me everything. I swore that I would do what you could not, but I need every fact in order to make that decision. You gave me this burden. Help me to carry it.”

I met his eyes, those pale, almost white eyes, and then I nodded. I started from the beginning - from my first success, the first time I became Hyde - and told him every detail I could remember up to the present. Finally, I came to my unexpected visit to Lanyon, and the events there. How he witnessed something no other living man, besides myself, had ever seen.

“It left him shaken - I did my best to console him, but… we’re getting old, Adam. Our minds can’t take shocks like that, especially not one like Hastie’s. But… we’re not just aging in mind, like you.” A bitter smile found its way to my lips. “And age certainly hasn’t made us any wiser. I think that’s part of the reason I enjoyed playing Hyde so much. He’s easily twenty years younger, and spritely as a child.” I couldn’t keep the excitement from the edges of my voice. After all, this was the first time I felt I could speak freely of my creation to someone else. “And he has an appreciation for everything. That was his third emotion - he used to be able to feel happy. We both did. He could take pleasure from almost everything - and I could share his joy in almost anything.”

“Even murder.”

Adam didn’t share my enthusiasm, and his comment dampened my mood. I looked back at my reflection. “Yes,” I conceded. “Even murder.” I may have been horrified after the fact, but every moment of pleasure Hyde felt was one I felt as well. Even the wost crimes wrought a little joy in myself. Why should I deny it?

O’Malley sighed. “From what I understand, you don’t have much of the salts left, or you won’t, very soon. What will you do when they run out?”

A shrug. I hadn’t given it as much thought as I ought to have, but for the past week I had been forced to live as Hyde did, from moment to moment. “The transformations appear to be an effect of prolonged use of the formula. I may simply have to wait until the chemicals wear completely out of our shared system before considering my next move.”

“And if that leaves you as him?”

My only reply was another weary shrug. “Then you know what to do, I suppose. You did promise.” There was a strange lightness to my tone, despite the dark implications of the subject we were discussing. Hyde’s reflection looked as betrayed as I knew he felt, but I turned my attention back to my friend.

“You gave me your word,” I added, as if it was necessary.

“I know,” he said, softly, in reply. He stood up, and I watched him. His face was turned away from me, but I heard the pain in his voice. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

And then he was gone. I was alone with Hyde, and my thoughts, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether Adam O’Malley could truly bring himself to fulfill his promise.

_____

@distance-does-not-matter @lavinia-love-official @writer-grandma (Let me know if you want to be put on/taken off the list)

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footbaliimagines · 7 years

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yes (a whoever-you-want-it-to-be imagine)

this is the third and final part to my ‘unrequited’ series. you can read the first two parts here: (1) unrequited and (2) confession

Days pass, which soon become weeks.

It’s like she’s disappeared from the face of the earth. She’s leaving her apartment, going to stay with friends temporarily on the outskirts of the city, hasn’t posted anything on her social media and the team are currently employing a strict ‘no-one-mention-her-name-around-him-ever-ever-again-if-you-want-to-live’ policy. He misses her dearly, even though he doesn’t really deserve to, because he only ever saw her whenever he was there too, and could probably count the number of meaningful conversations they’ve ever had on one hand.

The last being particularly memorable.

(The panic and shock in her eyes as he confessed his feelings, the way her voice cracked as she told him how much of a friend he was to her, and how she squeezed his hand when walking him to the front door.)

He didn’t expect it to feel so shitty. Not because she rejected him, but because she hadn’t. She hadn’t told him no, or that her feelings for him were non-existent or friendly at best. In fact, the way she looked at him as he left and the soft, chaste kiss she had pressed to his cheek, said quite the opposite.

It was like he was at the top of a rollercoaster he had never wanted to go on in the first place. Experienced the build-up to the top, climbed the highest of heights, only to be held hostage at the very top, everything swinging in the balance, awaiting the thrill, pain, fear, elation and everything else of the fall.

(He was expecting it all to undoubtedly come crashing down disastrously in front of his very eyes, but he had always prided himself on being an optimist.)

(That being said, it had become increasingly difficult to wake up and try to smile as of late.)

He hasn’t even tried to contact her since, hasn’t known how to, considering that he doesn’t have her phone number and a Snapchat would probably be too casual. To make matters worse, he only found out what had actually happened when her fiancé- no, ex fiancé- turned up to training the next morning with red eyes and shaky hands which haven’t stopped trembling since. Now, he walks with slouched shoulders, always gripping a flask of triple-shot coffee to keep his eyes open and his eyes sting with tears whenever someone comes to console him or ask how he’s been doing.

It’s almost enough to break his heart all over again and abandon any hopes of reuniting with her. He’s the picture of a broken, deflated man, and he almost wants to offer a hand to him and bitterly jibe that hey, I guess that makes two of us who’ve had our hearts broken by her now!

(Like an exclusive club where they could bitch about her and giggle like gossiping teenagers about how they’re both much, much, much better off now that she’s gone.)

(Really, who’s he kidding?)

He doesn’t even know if she would have told him about his confession. Hopefully not, because otherwise, that would make the sporadic heart to hearts they’ve shared or the few times he’s turned up to his apartment with a takeaway, FIFA and 750ml bottle of bourbon a whole new kind of cruel.

And he doesn’t want to lose, as well as her, a genuine friend.

(Honest.)

Rumours are aplenty everywhere they go, scattered from the training ground to the team bus, from the hushes of the tabloid gossip columns to his Whatsapp group chat.

I can’t believe she broke up with him!!!! No point believing in love anymore if even they don’t work out

How shit. I feel so bad for him – he was absolutely head over heels.

I heard she just got up and left him, no reason and no explanation. Heartless if you ask me

(The worst is the rumour that she left him because there was someone else in the picture. It makes his blood run cold.)

Nevertheless, he’s quick to brush off these comments, quick to forget about their last exchange in which she’d told him she wouldn’t be able to go through with things, and he still goes home alone and heartbroken, with his shoulders slumped and his head in his hands. There’s the tiniest glimmer of hope and that’s his only solace, but the possibility of a happy ending is so tiny, and there’s still the realisation that she could simply get up and leave permanently, without him, a word or a proper explanation.

(Everything’s been awfully up in the air as of late and he’s not sure how much longer he can take it.)

His friends urge him to ‘make a gesture’, confess again and urge her to reconsider or at least give him a chance. And whilst he wants to, God only knows he wants to, he’s not sure how long is enough to wait. Or if he’ll be able to cope if she tells him no for the second time.

(And he really, really doesn’t want to be that guy. The bitter, rejected, friend-zoned guy who seems to think that she owes him something.)

But something deep inside of him is telling him that if he doesn’t try again, if he accepts defeat, he’ll never know what could be. Cutting off all ties wasn’t something he was prepared to accept just yet.

This time, he decides to leave the flowers at home.

She calls from within her flat to come on in because the door’s unlocked, and when he walks to her bedroom he sees her sat on the floor with her legs crossed, bundling up pairs of socks in her hands with the radio blaring in the background. It’s almost comical, the sight of her, so bewildered and tiny among a sea of crumpled clothes, cardboard boxes and suitcases, and he feels his spirits being lifted by merely looking at her.

“Hi. Do you want to stick the kettle on?”

“Can I ask you something?”

She raises her eyebrows, “Shoot.”

He strides forward, struck with a newfound and probably misplaced confidence, before crouching to meet her level. He can feel his veins burning and reaches forward to cup her face.

“What are you doing?!” She shrieks, looking at him with wide eyes and a maniacal look in her eyes.

“Making a gesture.”

“By trying to kiss me when I’m halfway through packing my socks?” Her jaw drops open and she shuffles backwards on her bum, throwing the socks in her hand into her suitcase and crossing her arms in a huff across her chest.

“Um, yeah?”

“God, you are fucking deluded. I just called off my engagement last week. I’m literally two days from moving out of this god damn apartment and you’re trying to kiss me?”

“Um, yeah, I guess.”

“You can’t do that.” She moans. “You really can’t.”

“But I love you-“

“You’ve already said that.” She shakes her head, covering her ears with her hands. “I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

He’s suddenly emboldened and takes her hands in his. She tenses up, but doesn’t pull away. “Tell me why.”

“Because I can’t.” She sighs. “And I don’t know what you want from me.”

“I want you to look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want this, want us, want to give us a chance.”

“There is no us!” She exclaims exasperatedly. “We’re friends, okay? It’s not like we have a history, or a relationship, or a past-“

“Tell me you don’t have any feelings for me and I’ll walk away.”

She pauses and he halts with bated breath, whilst she scrambles to her feet. “I’d be lying if I told you that my feelings for you were totally platonic, okay? And I’ll admit that part of the reason I broke off my engagement was because of what you told me. But that doesn’t mean anything can happen between us. I have to move, get away from this city and this club and his friends because everywhere I go his fucking face and his fucking team are paraded in my face and I feel sick and-“

She’s working herself up, gesturing wildly with her hands and her cheeks flushing. “It’s fine. Hey, it’s fine. Breathe.” He offers her a smile, which she returns gratefully. “If you don’t want to talk, it’s fine.”

She shrugs and starts to fiddle with her nails and is just about to open her mouth when he breaks the silence. “Can I ask you why you broke it off with him, then?”

He wants her to look at him dead in the eyes and tell him adamantly, without a shadow of a doubt, that she simply fell out of love with him, that somewhere along the road, it was like a switch had been flicked and she’d woken up a different woman who suddenly realised she didn’t want to be with him anymore.

“I just couldn’t go through with it.” Is what she mutters instead.

It’s vague and it offers him nothing.

(So, she couldn’t marry him. Big deal. It didn’t mean she wasn’t still in love with him.)

“What do you mean?”

She shrugs helplessly. “The idea of being married is just so alien to me. And I just couldn’t look him in the eye and tell him I was ready for marriage, that we were on the same page, you know? And my Mum told me that you shouldn’t marry someone if you have any doubts that they’re the person you want to be with for the rest of your life. Said it was the reason her and my Dad fell apart.”

Her voice cracks and she presses her lips together. “I understand.” He speaks quietly.

“Like, I know it’s normal to get cold feet and feel nervous and all that, but I had to genuinely sit down and ask my friends if I should marry him or not. They told me that if I needed to ask in the first place then the question kind of answered itself.” She chews on her bottom lip, looking up at him warily through her eyelashes, “How’s he been?”

“Fine.” He lies.

“Fucking hell, really?”

“No.” He admits, heaving a sigh. “Taken it really badly. But you know, dealing with it the best he can.”

“God, I fucked him over so badly. Led him on and made him believe that I was just as committed as he was. I’m a horrible person.”

“You’re not.”

“I am.”

“You’re not.”

“You’re just saying that because you- you…”

“Because I what? Love you? Want to be with you? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

Her mouth drops open like a goldfish and her cheeks flush, before she screeches, “Yes, that’s what I want to say! You’re looking at me like I’m some fucking angel and defending me screwing over a man who never treated me like anything less than a queen and it’s not fair. Not fair at all.”

Her eyes sting with tears again and she clenches her fists by her sides, resenting the fact that the slightest bit of confrontation or the smallest ounce of tension hanging in the air is enough to make her well up. She’s baffled and angry and indignant and worse of all, feeling all three at once plus this new feeling in her gut, one that makes her nervous but excited at the same time.

“This whole situation is fucking unfair.” He mutters venomously.

She shoots him with a glance, instinctually fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, when she steps forward, grasping the material of his jacket in his hands and pulling him in. “What I’m going to do now,” She whispers, her voice shaky. “Doesn’t change things. We still have to wait.”

“S-sure.”

She kisses him and it sends shivers down his spine, she tastes like lemonade and peppermint and he can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, all this heartache and waiting might be worth it.

(Maybe.)

When he asks her again, they’re at the aquarium.

She’d mentioned as a passing comment how much she’d always loved going to the aquarium as a child, and given the fascination clearly evident in her eyes and the way she’s standing with her nose to the glass, he knows he made a good decision to take her there.

“Will you give me a chance?”

She fixes her gaze on the coral in front of her. The ripples of light in the water in front of her are reflecting uniquely over her face, and he’s quite positive that she’s never looked as beautiful as she did right there. From the shadows of her eyelashes across her face, to the dimple in her chin, he’s not sure how he’s still finding endless ways to become even more hopelessly fascinated with her.

(He’s also not sure how he’s been able to wait this long without a definite answer, but that’s a different story altogether.)

“I'm not going to stand here and tell you how I feel just so we can scheme and plan about how now that I’ve sacked him off after promising to marry him just last month, I can move on with his teammate and more importantly, his friend. You know how I feel about you, and you know how conflicted I’ve felt since you told me how you felt. But I refuse to do anything, make a move, go ahead with whatever the fuck this is or whatever, this soon, okay? We were together for quite a long time, you know, and I’m not prepared to betray him like that. Not this soon.”

“I understand.”

She reaches across to squeeze his hand and looks at him tellingly.

You know how I feel about you.

He reaches to hook his arm around her waist, and she accepts it, resting her head on his shoulder. “As his friend, neither should you.”

“I know.”

“Can we get ice cream?”

“Sure.”

She presses her lips to his cheek briefly when he drops her off at home, before offering a hasty, apologetic smile and an awkward wave of her right hand.

(It’s a short kiss, shorter than the blink of an eye, but it sends him reeling nevertheless. And he’s just as dazed and confused as before, still in love and out of his depth, things are still painfully unresolved and the future of what could be is still up in the air, but at least it’s no longer unrequited.)

(Small steps, hey?)

(He goes home with a smile on his face and a spring in his step.)

He asks her again two weeks later and in response she giggles, before yanking up the volume of the radio and yelping above the sounds of 24K Magic that she’s pretty confident Bruno Mars is the most talented man to ever grace the earth.

She steals a glance at him, he’s smiling, virtually grinning from ear to ear, sunglasses flickering with the reflection of the roads in front of them and the sun pouring in through the window against the rich blue, cloudless sky behind. It’s mid-April and for once, sunny, and they’ve decided to take a road trip to the beach with a picnic basket and rug flung in the backseat.

Ever since that night, they’ve been spending more and more time together, and the lines between friendship and something more have blurred almost irreparably. By this point, trying to somehow show her that he’s right for her isn’t even a priority. Spending time with her, getting to know her, her little habits and funny stories from her childhood, is good enough for him, and every time he thinks about how their friendship has blossomed so quickly, so easily, his heart soars.

There’s a cool gust of wind whipping inside his car from the open window, they can both smell the sea air and her feet are propped up on the dashboard. Excitedly, she points ahead at where the sea meets the horizon, and he laughs fondly before resting a hand on her thigh. She entwines their fingers together and they both grin.

(Sometimes actions speak louder than words.)

The final time he asks her, he’s outside her door in the pouring rain, a soaked paper bag presumably holding food in one hand and a rather battered bunch of purple peonies, echoing that night, clutched in the other.

(She’s loved romantic comedies ever since she stumbled upon When Harry Met Sally as a naïve, wide eyed 14 year old. The sight of him, looking at her hopelessly, a man clearly at the end of his tether, hair sopping wet and teeth clattering in the rain, is so Nora Ephron-esque that had someone told her that this was in fact a still from a movie she’d have no problem believing them.)

“Hi.”

“Do you want to come in? Or are you going to just stand there?”

“I’m done.”

She quirks her eyebrow at him, scoffing, “What are you on about?”

Gesturing to the hallway behind him, she rolls her eyes and nods towards her apartment. “Come in, for God’s sake. Don’t ruin the food just because you suddenly want to stand in the rain like an idiot.”

“I’m just completely undone. In front of you, I’m falling apart. I thought that we could spend this time together to get to know each other a bit better, develop our friendship, but all that’s ended up happening is me falling in further, further than before, in love with you. And I know- I- I know that coming here again is a huge ask, and I’m not asking you to run away into the sunset with me, or for you to magically jump into my arms. I just needed you to know that I’m all in. Completely, wholly, undoubtedly, 100% all in.”

Her eyes soften and she feels tickles in the depths of her stomach. It’s not the first time she’s felt butterflies around him, but it’s definitely the first time she’s felt ready enough, comfortable enough, to look at him in the eyes and tell him she’s ready.

(For him, the future, for them.)

“Thank you for telling me.” She smiles softly, looking up at him and tucking her hair behind her ear. “For the, what, fifth time?”

Finally, he trudges inside, his socks leaving wet footprints across her hallway and his hair dripping onto his shirt. He clears his throat, “I’m not asking for a relationship, or for some grand gesture. I’m just asking you for a chance.”

(A chance, a possibility, a semblance of hope, a hint of feelings that shouldn’t be there but are nevertheless.)

She’s looking at him with a fond smile, like he’s an idiot, and he feels his face burning up. She approaches him and leans in closer, as his eyes flicker between her eyes and his lips.

He can feel and practically hear his heart hammering inside his chest.

She’s never been this close to him before, and he can smell her perfume from where she’s stood. Then she’s leaning in, resting a single hand on his chest and pausing hesitantly just before their faces can meet. He closes his eyes expectantly, but when he hears her speak instead of feeling her lips on his, his eyes spring open.

“Maybe this is wrong.”

“Then why does it feel so right?”

She closes her eyes and can’t quite fight the smile tugging on her mouth. “Did you seriously just say that? God, you’re so cliché.”

“It was quite cheesy, wasn’t it?”

“Far too cheesy. Like it was straight out of a film.”

He leans in again, bringing up one hand to cup her face and skate his thumb over her jawline. “So, where were we?”

“That’s even fucking worse than your ‘why does it feel so right’ line, I swear. Maybe you should just keep your mouth shut instead of spouting all this cheesy bullshit.”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

“Right, you’ve outdone yourself. Can I be excused forever, please?”

He waggles his eyebrows at her jokingly and she chokes out a laugh, looking at him in the eyes and then at his lips. Her gaze softens as she takes a step closer to him, glancing up before speaking tenderly, “I really really like you, you know. Let’s not mess this up.”

(He doesn’t have to open his mouth to let her know that if he did he’d probably never, ever forgive himself.)

When they kiss, it feels like everything is falling into place. As if before, the world had been slightly off centre, but was now back to normal, harmoniously in sync. But it doesn’t feel like a fresh start or a new beginning, it feels like they’re picking up from where they had left off, in some alternate universe where they had been together since the beginning and all this heartache, pain and perseverance had been non-existent.

And when he asks her to give him a chance for the fifth, final time, they both know that this time, for the last time, there is no going back. This time, he knows there will be no rejection, no heartbreak, no leaving, no going home alone with unfulfilled hopes. He knows this is it, and so does she. This time, she can tell he’s not nervous at all. He knows- she knows- there is nothing on God’s green earth that would stop her from saying yes.

She is delirious with excitement, and there is a surreal feeling in the air, a combination of nerves, elation, anticipation and delight. She looks at him, that one word on the tip of her tongue. And it’s a short, simple word, but the greatest he’s ever heard.

“Yes.”

A.N.: can you believe this series is finally finished!!!!! approximately 53 years later i’ve finally finished writing this and i hope i haven’t disappointed!! this imagine is a bit clunky i know and i don’t love it (it’s all a bit disjointed and i experimented with the structure so thats probably why) but i was just chuffed to have finally got it done to be honest haha.... as per usual please let me know what you thought and send in requests or just pop to my ask box to say hello!!!!!

you guys are always so patient and lovely to me and i am honestly so grateful so thank you so so much ❣️

#my writing #football imagine #footballer imagine #football fanfiction #whoever you want it to be #whoever you want it to be imagine #antoine griezmann #calum chambers #rafinha #aaron ramsey #rob holding #hector bellerin #aaaaah i cant think of any more ill update this later

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