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nyx3927 · 3 years

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@musicfeedsmysoul12 and @lurking96 this is both of y’all’s fault with that thread about how too many fics where Izuku jumps, gets a quirk and just make Bakugo regret it without any actual character change. Just: Izuku goes splat, and now Bakugo is an uwu soft boy who’s really sorry but had no character development visible.

Y’all both get some of the blame for this fic outline I created after a bang, chocolate, and on 2 hours of sleep. It’s still a really rough outline and I don’t have time to polish it up into an actual outline, draft, then fic with my summer classes and job right now. Enjoy my stream of thought with no filter

The Ripple

Izuku has a concussion from Bakugo attacking him at school so his eyesight is off. Everything else is the same up to when All Might leaves him on the roof.

The concussion fucked with his vision, balance, and depth perception. So he ended up accidentally stepping off the side of the building. (Hush, I know that there’s a railing. We’re pretending that when All Might jumped away from Izuku on the roof, he accidentally took like half of it with him.)

Crash, boom, blood. Ambulance carted him off to the hospital and that’s the last we see of Izuku for a while.

They don’t know that All Might was the one who got him up to the rooftop because the notebook with the signature was blown off the roof and into the river. By the time that it was found, it was nothing but mush and the writing was illegible, all runny and blurry. They also just assumed that a villain ripped the railing off in a previous battle and the owner hadn’t gotten it fixed yet.

Inko tells Mitsuki that they think it was suicide because he couldn’t have accidentally gotten up on the roof (No evidence of All Might). Katsuki hears that but refuses to tell anyone that he told Izuku to jump off a roof because that could hurt his chances of being a hero.

Entrance Exam

Fast-forward to the entrance exam, everything proceeds as canon except for the bits with Izuku, which never happened.

Uraraka is stuck under the boulder with the zero pointer bearing down on her. Canon shows no evidence of any pro except Present Mic at the site, and he was last seen at the gates so he isn’t close by to Uraraka.

Uraraka couldn’t escape from the boulder in time and the kill switch takes up to 30 seconds to receive and process. So, the robot steps on the boulder and crushes her leg. She’s rushed to Recovery Girl but the damage is so severe that they have to amputate a leg.

As compensation, UA takes care of all the medical bills and offers her a spot in the Hero Course at UA with her entire tuition paid for all 3 years. Uraraka accepts to make it easier financially on her parents, so she shows up to the first day of classes with a prosthetic leg that she painted pink in an effort to make it less sad.

Quirk Assessment

A random extra is put into 1-A, but they and Mineta are promptly expelled. The extra just didn’t try at all, relying upon the idea that the teacher wouldn’t actually expel anyone on the first day. Mineta was just too pervy/not heroic enough so he got the boot.

Aizawa was reminded of the death of Oboro when Uraraka nearly got crushed, so he’s on high alert to expel those that he believes would never be good at heroics/ would just get themselves killed. Extra not trying and Mineta just focusing on being a perv, made him convinced they would get killed so he just expelled them straight away [No readmission for them]

This shocked Momo who thought he was bluffing and made her more cognizant of the fact that not everyone plays by the same rules as her.

Battle Trial

Battle trials happen. Momo and Uraraka are paired up together and fight twice in the trials. They won both times because Uraraka floated the bomb and Momo in the fight against Todoroki so that it was impossible for Todoroki to capture them. They win against Iida and Bakugo because Uraraka takes advantage of Iida’s unwillingness to hurt someone he views as disabled/helpless and knocks him out with a bat from Momo, then touches the bomb, Momo just created water and soaked Bakugo so he couldn’t use his Quirk and then ran from him.

All other trials proceeded as in canon.

USJ

Since Tsuyu is the only one in the Water Zone [Midoriya not in the story and Mineta expelled], she just went straight for the shore and got back to the entry area via the river. She witnesses the entire beatdown of Aizawa and his fighting, so she’s very traumatized. But because she’s amphibious and is completely underwater [In my hcs, she can breathe underwater as long as water can access most of her skin. So her suit is very permeable and water can get through it], Shigaraki never sees her and so he doesn’t try to kill her.

Rest of the USJ goes as canon dictates including Aizawa getting his head smashed by the Nomu

Sports Festival

Because 1-A has 2 less students, only the first 40 to get to the finish line can pass on. Todoroki ended up getting first place by icing over Bakugo’s legs at the tunnel entrance. Everyone else that originally passed in canon, also passed.

All the teams are the same, except for Uraraka’s team which doesn’t have Midoriya, and Shoji’s who doesn’t have Mineta.

Bakugo is going after Todoroki instead of Uraraka’s team because he’s focused on snagging the winning headband.

Uraraka uses her Quirk on her team and they just hang out in the sky for awhile, since after the boulder, she practiced to be able to lift more weight so that never happens again.

Shoji’s team is the same as canon, especially because Mineta never actually did anything important to the team.

Todoroki never uses his fire because he used his ice to create a dome that kept everyone else away from his team. Bakugo runs around stealing other headbands since he can’t get to Todoroki.

At the end of the round, Todoroki is in first, Bakugo is second, Uraraka is third and Shinso is fourth.

Ojiro and Shoda both drop out citing the fact that they couldn’t remember the event as the reason. Shiozaki Ibara and Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu replace them

So now we have the 1v1 battles with the following students.

Uraraka Ochako

Tokoyami Fumikage

Hatsume Mei

Bakugo Katsuki

Kirishima Eijiro

Ashido Mina

Sero Hanta

Todoroki Shoto

Iida Tenya

Yaoyorozu Momo

Kaminari Denki

Shinso Hitoshi

Aoyama Yuga

Shiozaki Ibara

Tetsutetsu Tetsutestu

Shinso gets a free pass onto the next round because he is a gen ed student so they wanted to allow him the best chance possible and it’s better for the optics of UA for watchers to see a hero student beating up another hero student instead of a gen ed kid.

Todoroki v. Sero -Todoroki won ala iceberg

Kaminari v. Shiozaki -Kaminari won by sending electricity through her hair and knocking her out because Aizawa forced him to start thinking outside of the box after he nearly died during the USJ [shiozaki has to have nerves to control her vines and nerves have electricity traveling through them. So they’re a conductor and Kaminari can send his electricity down them]

Iida v. Hatsume -He doesn’t accept her gadgets and just pushes her out of bounds. After the Uraraka debacle in his battle trial, he realizes that he can’t just go off his perceptions and has to be wary of them.

Ashido v. Aoyama - Ashido won

Tokoyami v. Yaoyorozu - Yaoyorozu won by creating an explosion of light and blinding them, then pushing them out of the ring. Uraraka taught her to take advantage of what she can do and Aizawa forced her to realize that others don’t have the same rules.

Tetsutetsu v. Kirishima - Kirishima won by charging Tetsutetsu and knocking him out of the ring. Again Aizawa forced him to not just behave as a shield because of the USJ

Uraraka v. Bakugo -Uraraka won by taking off her prosthetic, leaving it as a decoy and floating herself so that he couldn’t hear her coming, and the dust from his explosions had blinded him. She tackled him from above and hurled him out of bounds. He got a concussion and Recovery Girl forced him to stay in the infirmary.

Todoroki v. Shinso -Shinso won by coming after Todoroki’s weak spot and making him talk

Iida v. Kaminari -Kaminari won by shocking Iida’s engines when he tried to grab him. Made him collapse, and then just dragged him out of bounds.

Tokoyami v. Ashido- Tokoyami won by Dark Shadow kicking her out of bounds

Uraraka v. Kirishima -Uraraka won by preying on Kirishima’s desire for manliness and to not hurt a girl. Got close enough to float him and then just push him out of bounds. Aizawa has plans to lecture Kirishima about when to be manly and when to not be.

Shinso v. Kaminari -Shinso won. He could tell that Kaminari was a memelord, so he just took advantage of that and said a meme that Kaminari couldn’t resist completing. [Don’t know what yet, I’ll figure it out later]

Tokoyami v. Uraraka -Tokoyami won. Uraraka lost because she couldn’t use her Quirk on Dark Shadow and Dark Shadow was the one to attack her. [See doc of quirk analysis for more in depth in case we forget]

Shinso v. Tokoyami -Shinso won by mirroring Tokoyami’s speech patterns which knocked him off guard and got him caught into Shinso’s Quirk.

Shinso got first place, Tokoyami got second, Uraraka and Kaminari shared third place.

Hero names

Todoroki -Shoto

Bakugo -King Explosion

Iida -Tenya

Uraraka -Weightless [As a pun on weigh less because of her amputation and her quirk. She’s not quite as bubbly and didn’t feel like uravity reflected her anymore]

Tsuyu -Froppy

Kirishima -Red Riot

Yaoyorozu -Creati [I really want to change this but I don’t know to whaaaat!!! I’ll come back to it later]

Tokoyami -Tsukuyomi

Jiro -EarJack

Shinso -Silencer [Stupid but his quirk makes people silent plus I love MLB silencer design of the , not the helmet tho that is ugly looking and the coloring needs to be more muted imo]

Internships

Shinso gets an internship with Aizawa to assess whether or not he’s fit for heroics. Aizawa also prescreens all of his students' internships to make sure that it’s a good fit for them. [He’s a lot more protective of where they because he wants them to be actually learning useful heroics not shit like how to clean and pose for a camera.]

Mirko offers an internship to Uraraka because she wanted to teach a fighting girl that was perceived as helpless by society. [Society views disabled as helpless, a girl is also viewed as helpless, both is bad combination. Mirko wants to prove anyone can be badass with the right training]

Yaoyorozu gets put with Fatgum because Aizawa sees that she’s struggling with the fat part of her Quirk and knows that if she went with Uwabami, she’d develop more insecurities. [Uwabami is a TV actress/model. She’ll pass on weight/beauty related insecurities because that’s what a lot of actresses have and she seems focused more on a fanbase]

Kirishima goes with Rock Lock to be faced with the blunt truth that ideals are nice, but you can’t have them rule your life as a hero. [Canonly, he’s very blunt and pragmatic, so he’d believe that trying to be manly is fine, but there is a time and place for it.]

Everyone else goes with their canon internships.

The Nomus attack Hosu. Because Gran Torino isn’t there, the Nomus are more dangerous and more civilians die. All the heroes are focused exclusively on managing the Nomus and the interns kinda fall to the wayside since they can’t do anything.

Iida slips away and Manual is too busy putting out fires to notice.

Iida runs off and finds Stain. Battle commences and Iida loses.

Stain calls him and Native fake heroes. Native gets a sliced throat. Stain is a little more lenient with Iida because he is a kid. He goes through the fabric pants and slices the femoral artery to the bone. [Femoral artery cuts can lead to death within minutes especially with Iida running on adrenaline which kicks up the blood pressure and rate of bleeding.]

Endeavour comes through with Shoto burning all the nomus and destroying them. Finally the city is quiet and the search for the dead begins.

Every hero in Hosu grid searched the entire city to retrieve the dead and bring them to the morgue for claiming.

Manual was the one to find his dead intern and Native. He had to call UA and tell them that he got a student killed while under his supervision. He gets blacklisted by UA and Aizawa puts out a warning on the Underground network that if others are under his care, that he might lose track of them.

Once everyone returned from their internships, they left red spider lilies on his desk as a way to guide him to the afterlife.

Training Camp

The villains still want Bakugo because they saw his aggression, violence, and determination to be the best during the sports festival and the internships. So they think he’d be an easy switch to flip.

This time, Aizawa doesn’t dump them out in the middle of the forest because he’s focusing on forcing his students to interact and bond with each other instead of doing their own thing. So they all stay on the bus and Aizawa makes them talk about something semi-important with a seat partner for 10 minutes before switching so that everyone talks to more than just their friend groups.

When they arrive, Kota is his bratty self and Aizawa shuts that down fast. He tells him that he has two options, one: stay with his aunts and uncle or two: stay with Aizawa. Aizawa can’t have an itty-bitty child running around loose in the forest when 17 hormonal teenagers are letting off their Quirks which are dangerous. [it was an awful idea in canon to let Kota hide in his treehouse. Imagine if one of the kids near the mountain lost control of their quirk.] Kota chooses to stay with his aunts and uncle at all times because Aizawa is scary.

Once the training starts, he pairs everyone up with different partners to force their Quirks to improve.

Ashido-Kirishima to strengthen her acid and his hardening by hurling acid at him

Tokoyami-Kaminari-Aoyama to force Aoyama to maintain his laser beam for longer, Tokoyami to force him to strengthen Dark Shadow against light, Kaminari to power multiple light sources without burning them out and not going into whee mode so he can avoid the laser beam and Dark Shadow

Ojiro-Koda to force Koda to vary the animals that he calls and Ojiro to give him experience with fending off multiple opponents of varying sizes and skill levels without seriously injuring them.

Todoroki-Bakugo-Tsuyu to force Todoroki to be able to control both sides of his quirks and switch them easily, Tsuyu to force her to get accustomed to varying temperatures and making sure they don’t knock her out, Bakugo to force him to sweat more in both cold and hot temperatures so that he’s more versatile.

Jiro-Shoji-Hagakure to force Hagakure to improve her stealth and fighting, Jiro to make her be able to detect people sneaking up on her, and Shoji to improve his locating skills and stealth. [Shoji is a big boy and needs to work on stealth]

Sero-Sato to help Sero with his dodging and speed, and Sato to help him retain more of his planning and forethought while his Quirk is activated

Uraraka-Yaoyorozu to make Uraraka work on her sickness and weight limits and Yaoyorozu to adapt to planning on the fly and create items quickly.

Aizawa forces them to break away from their training partners when it’s time to make dinner and everyone is required to help in some way during the meal. The help can be gathering the ingredients, preparing them, doing the actual cooking, plating, setting the table, cleaning up after, anything as long as they contributed.

Repeat until the trial of courage.

Vlad wants to do the trial and Aizawa refuses to do it. Aizawa is actively trying to squash out the competitiveness of his students in order to make them work together and ask for help so that they’ll survive longer in the hero society. Uraraka lost a leg because people wouldn’t cooperate to help her in the entrance exam and Iida died because he was too focused on himself and didn’t ask for help. The trial would just reignite the competitiveness and ruin his progress.

1-B does the trial on their own while 1-A is given a maze they have to navigate.

The maze is created by Pixie Bob and is huge. It’s large enough that the students on the ground can’t peek over the walls to see the path. There are two students on the ground, the leader and the guide. The leader can see the walls and the turns but has earplugs in so they can’t hear the guide if the guide tries to talk. The guide can hear the directions from the person who sees the entire maze but is blindfolded and has to guide through tapping the shoulders of the leader. The person outside and looking down has to direct their team through the maze quickly without crashing into other teams. The leader can’t just guess a direction because Pixiebob will shift the maze if they try to do that so they can’t backtrack. It’s in teams of three so Aizawa is directing the last team. [Kinda inspired by survivor but with my own twist]

All of them rotate through each position with different teams each go round to impress on them the importance of all the roles.

In the last round, Bakugo was the person issuing instructions, cursing and screaming through the mic the entire time.

That’s when the villains attacked. But there were a few changes in the lineup.

Toga wasn’t there because the police picked her up and Inko got her case taken on to get her on parole and took her into her home when she saw her at the station while continuing with the criminal charges levied against the owner of the building that Izuku had fallen off of. The appearance of a girl bullied and ostracized for her Quirk, who was going down the path of no return, Inko saw Izuku in her. As such, she wanted to care for her and show her that villainy wasn’t the answer and that there are people who cared for her in spite of her blood Quirk. [Toga is stuck with Inko at this point in time and has a tracking anklet to make sure that she’s behaving. Rehab is going really well with the unconditional care that Inko is providing.]

Dabi got an infection and landed in the hospital ER as an unknown patient and wound up in a coma while his body was busy trying to fight the infection of his staples. [The man’s a walking open wound. You can sneeze in his general vicinity and have a high chance of taking him down in a couple weeks. Haven’t decided if I want to wake him up or not. Depends on my feelings]

Mustard joined the attack via Toga due to them being closer in age and talking. No Toga, no Mustard. [He’s sulking in detention right now.]

So the only ones left are Mr. Compress, Magne, Spinner, Muscular, Moonfish, Twice and the Nomu. Much smaller and no long-range attacks.

Their mission is to get in, extract Bakugo and get out with minimal damage. That’s what happened.

Muscular, Moonfish, and the Nomu all rampage on the opposite side of the mountain to draw attention to them. Magne and Spinner break up the 1-A class and drive them apart. Twice and Mr. Compress work together to snatch up Bakugo in a marble and then they all book it. Muscular and Moonfish are both left behind to keep the heroes distracted long enough for them to get back to Kurogiri and through the portal. Nomu ended up buried in a mountain via a very anger Tiger at the disruption of his naps. The students all worked together to try and bring down the villain to retrieve their classmate, but when that failed, Yaoyorozu managed to attach a tracker to the villains top hat.

Injuries were minimal and the three heavy hitting villains were arrested and locked up. The only casualty was Bakugo being kidnapped.

Kidnapping Arc

Blah, blah, join us you can be stronger and win a villain-Shigaraki

No, fuck off, go fuck yourselves-Bakugo

Repeat until All Might shows up

Then AfO activates goop Quirk [really need a better name for that. better than vomit transport quirk at least. That was my first thought], drags the league and Bakugo to him. Bakugo is held by him, hand on his temple ready to crush him.

Rest of Heroes all show up on the battlefield but aren’t moving so that Bakugo doesn’t get hurt. Essentially a stand off.

You know, you can tell whether or not someone has the potential for villainy by their greatest regret -AfO

AfO has a quirk that allows the user to see someone’s greatest regret, with more details the longer that the quirk is activated. He also has a quirk that allows him to project whatever he’s thinking about in a video format for everyone to see. [the man is old. he probably had a habit of taking whatever quirk he wanted when he was younger before all might turned him into a very ugly potato/alternate darth vader]

Quirks activate and it’s the scene of Bakugo telling Izuku to get jump off a building spliced with the news from Inko that Izuku was suspected of jumping off a building

Interesting. Why is that your greatest regret?-AfO

Quirk gives him more details.

Bakugo only regrets saying that because if it ever became public, he'd never reach the spot of number one hero which is his only goal in life.

Guess you are nothing but a villain after all. Too obsessed with yourself to see the damage you caused.-Afo

Afo shoved the boy away from him and forcibly activated Kurogiri’s Quirk to allow the league to escape.

Every hero on site is frozen in shock at the reveal of what a hero student of UA, the most prestigious hero school that graduated most of the top heroes in Japan, actually believed.

At that point, AfO flips All Might the finger and just goes through the portal because the news would shake society’s faith in UA which is really good. He can kill All Might later. [or just wait for any infection to take the man out. He lost his stomach so he probably lost his spleen too which is kinda important for the immune system.]

Fallout

Bakugo is booted to gen ed because Aizawa refused to teach someone that was just going to end up hurting someone later in life. Because Aizawa is an Underground Hero who specializes in information and predication, schools tend to believe in what he says about the potential/future of heroes in training especially when he has evidence to back up his beliefs. So no other school will take him on as a hero student.

Bakugo is essentially blacklisted from heroics because everyone wants to believe that a hero is good and just. And when the illusion is broken before it has a chance to solidify, they have no chance of becoming a hero.

Aizawa goes and apologizes in person to Inko. Because even though he had no way of knowing, he feels like he should have recognized the abusive tendencies and/or egocentrism of Bakugo earlier. So, allowing it to continue was a slap in the face to his victims.

Inko accepts his apology because she didn’t know about it either so how could she blame him when she was closer and still missed all the signs. She offers to let Aizawa visit Izuku because Eraserhead was one of his favorite heroes because of how much skill he had. But because Eraserhead was underground, he didn’t have any merch or enough information to write about him.

*Split path here depending on the angst level I want

1. Izuku is in a coma, all healed up, just hasn’t woken up. When they came, Izuku had just woken up a half hour ago so the doctors were busy checking all his vitals, memory, joints, etc. Inko cries, Aizawa stands away because he’s allergic to emotions, and Izuku is just silently fanboying because he sees one of his favorite heroes.

2.Izuku is in a coma and doesn’t wake up. Inko introduces Aizawa to him and tells Aizawa about his dreams and his story. Aizawa makes sure that at least once a week, he comes and visits to talk to him. He also brings other heroes to introduce to Midoriya to make sure that others know about him.

3.Aizawa and Inko go to a graveyard and the name Midoriya Izuku is carved into a family grave marker with flowers and an All Might figure in front of it. Inko tells Aizawa that Izuku died from falling from the building. They thought he jumped randomly, but with the new info, Inko is thinking that Bakugo might’ve pushed him verbally over the edge. Aizawa promises to investigate more.

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha #mha #fic outline #fic ideas #anti bakugou #consequence #cw suicide attempt #doesn’t actually happen #but characters think it did #aizawa shōta #alternate universe #canon divergence

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thexanwillshine · 3 years

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Author: thexanwillshine (twitter, ao3) Pairings: Levi x Hange Cross-Postings: AO3 Notes: made for Day 2: Confessions of Levihan Week 2021

“But Levi,” Hange whines as she slumps her head on the back of her sofa and closes her eyes. “Kissing scenes are so tricky to write.”

Perhaps it’s the fact that it’s almost 5:30 in the morning. It could also be because he's tired from lack of sleep. Whatever the case, Levi Ackerman’s filter completely disappears when he asks, “Do you need a demonstration?”

Levi Ackerman can argue that every writer he’s met is always a little bit more eccentric than the average person, but no one proves his theory more than Hange Zoë.

Hange wakes him up in the middle of the night, voice screeching on the phone in her excitement. He responds groggily—as one does when their sleep is disturbed at an ungodly hour by an overly-excited author who acts as if they’ve just found out the answers to the universe—and tries to keep himself sober enough to understand what in the goddamn fuck Hange was talking about this time.

“Levaaiiii,” she says, drawling out his name in a manner that was both annoying and endearing, “I’ve figured it out!”

He can almost imagine the look on her face: starry-eyed in her joy, mouth stretched wide into a grin, fingers shaking as she bounces in glee, shifting her weight from the heels of her feet to the tips of her toes . . .

And Levi exhales in both relief and the tiniest hint of delight, because this is exactly how he wants Hange to be: happy .

Nevertheless, he replies “Figured what out?” snarkily.

Hange’s response comes out quickly, as if she needed to say everything that had to be said in the span of five seconds or less. “So you know how I’ve been trying to write a fiction novel because I wanted to get out of my comfort zone?”

Levi hums in acknowledgement as he fixes the covers over his legs before turning on his bedside lamp. He leans back on the bed frame and closes his eyes to listen to her ramble.

“So I was thinking, I wanted to write a romance novel, because you know how people fall in love and stuff?”

“No Hange, I’ve never heard of that concept in my entire life,” Levi says in a deadpan voice.

Hange laughs, because of course she would know that’s his pathetic attempt at lighthearted conversation. Levi is glad that she knows him better than most people, and it is this sense of familiarity that made him feel particularly comfortable when graced with her presence.

“Just because you’ve never fallen in love before doesn’t mean it’s not real, Levi!” Hange tells him in jest.

Wrong, Levi thinks.

“After all, you’ve probably never wanted to kiss someone your entire life!”

Wrong, Levi thinks.

“Sure, Hange.”

He rolls his eyes at her teasing, because yes, Levi has fallen in love—and maybe, just maybe, he’s still on the road to understanding what it meant to treasure someone far more than just a regular friend.

He shakes off such thoughts before maneuvering Hange back to the initial reason why she had called. “So, what did you want to tell me?”

“I finished,” she proclaims on the phone, her voice proud, “I finished writing the first ten chapters.”

Levi blinks in confusion before sitting straight up, the information processing in his mind that was still a bit drunk with sleep. “You what?” “I couldn’t stop writing,” Hange told him sheepishly, detecting the slightest hint of concern in her editor’s voice, “I’ve been writing for the past 24 or so hours. Maybe more.”

Levi grunts in annoyance, pulling the covers away from his body and jumping out of his unmade bed. He runs a hand through his dark locks, sighing. “Four-eyes, you need to get some sleep.”

“But Levi,” Hange says in protest, “I need you to read my draft. There are some parts I just don’t think are super natural.”

“And I was sleeping like a regular human being,” Levi retorted as he shrugged off his shorts. After that, he put on jeans that he had recently washed before patting down the shirt he was wearing in a pathetic attempt to get rid of the wrinkles that had accumulated while he tossed and turned in bed.

“Oh my gosh, Levi, I didn’t realize the time!” Hange replies, and he can almost feel her guilt starting to set in. “You should go back to sleep,” she immediately adds. “Take care of yourself!”

Levi slips on his rubber shoes and grabs his umbrella before answering. “Coming from you? Not that credible.”

Hange laughs light-heartedly, and his heart flutters just a tiny bit. Levi pushes the feeling away almost as quickly as it had come.

“Have you eaten?” he asks, almost dreading the reply.

There was none.

“Hange,” he calls, but there’s still no response. “Hange. Answer me,” he says firmly, prodding her on. “Have you eaten?”

The laughter that comes out from the other end is nervous. “Woops.”

Levi sighs. He opens his car door and slips inside smoothly, grabbing his keys from his pocket and starting the engine. “Hange, you’re supposed to eat.”

“Sorry,” she tells him honestly. “I really didn’t want to ruin my momentum. I can’t believe I forgot.” She mumbles her second sentence, sounding almost deep in thought. “I’ll go find food now! Want me to email you the working draft? You can look at it in the morning when you wake up.”

“No need,” Levi tells her, placing his phone on his dashboard and accelerating his car. “I’m on the way.”

“Levi!” Hange exclaimed excitedly as she heard her doorbell ring at around four in the morning.

She rushes to the door in delight, opening it to reveal Levi standing in front of her, a paper bag in his hand and a jacket half-heartedly slung over his shoulder.

“Hi,” he greets calmly, before walking inside and letting himself in.

Inwardly, Hange thanks whatever god is out there for her foresight. Her unit was relatively clean since she hadn’t really done anything since Levi’s last visit. The place seemed to pass Levi’s health protocols, since he sat on her couch and placed the paper bag on the table right across from him.

“Eat,” he tells her, crossing his arms over his chest.

Hange grins, before plopping down beside him and opening the paper bag. “What did you get me?”

“You’ll see.”

She raises an eyebrow at his ambiguity, before taking a glimpse inside the paper bag.

The smell of quesadillas immediately fills the room, and Hange lets out a soft squeal, taking out the food from the bag quickly.

“Oh my gosh,” Hange says as she nudges him on the shoulder. “You also got me onion rings! You know me too well, Levi.”

“Unfortunately,” Levi responds sarcastically, and Hange laughs almost automatically.

As Hange hums in glee, picking apart the paper wrapped around the food items, Levi maintains his silence. They stay like that as Hange eats. Every so often, she would comment about how the amount of cheese was perfect and how the onion rings just about melted in her mouth. Levi alternates between watching her eat and scrolls through his phone placidly.

Soon, he chooses to break the silence. “So where’s your draft?”

Hange is munching on her last piece of quesadilla when she glances in his direction. “Oh, it’s on my laptop! I can’t believe I forgot to tell you, this food was just so good.”

Levi stands up and heads on over to Hange’s room, gently pushing the door open and scanning the area for her laptop. On top of her unmade bed was a half open Macbook Pro, which he gently took before returning to his seat beside Hange.

Without hesitation, Levi opens the laptop and inputs the password. For some reason, Hange made it his birthday—1225—because she claimed that no one would guess such a random date. He is greeted with a blaring Google Docs document entitled “a;lskfjdk.”

“Nice title you got there,” he comments, and Hange chuckles.

“I didn’t want to think of a title yet, okay!” Hange pouts, and Levi nudges her foot gently in an attempt to comfort her from his own teasing.

He scans the document first before reading it. Hange is a good writer, but fiction is an entirely new genre for her. Immediately, he notices common habits from writing research papers leak into her new work: overexplaining, using words that are too formal for her target audience, sentences a little bit void from emotion.

He takes note of these comments on her notes app before going over her draft again, this time more meticulously than he had done previously. During this time, Hange finishes eating, wraps her trash and tosses them all inside the paper bag before standing up and dumping the entire thing inside her garbage bin.

“Levi,” she calls as she washes her hands through the sink faucet. Levi gives her the smallest hint that he’s listening by raising his eyebrow, but he doesn’t take his gaze away from her laptop. “I’m going to take a shower,” she announces, and he waves his hand dismissively.

Hange smiles to herself. Levi is always nagging her whenever she would accidentally hyperfixate on her writing, but he acts the same way when reading her works.

When Hange stepped inside the shower, Levi was already conducting a deep dive in her third chapter. The gears in his head slowly begin to turn as he begins to analyze her work.

The story revolved around the tales of the people who went to the clinic. The first chapter was a brief introduction on who the main characters were: There’s Janelle, a bright-eyed psychologist whose passion influenced the people around her. Together with El and Bea, her trusted assistants studying under her guidance, they would aid the people who went to the Hopiatria Clinic seeking care.

Meanwhile, the second chapter featured a child who felt as if she was being blamed for the death of her mother by her father. Her mother had died in a plane crash shortly after the young girl wished that her mom could go home on her sixth birthday. Janelle talks to the child gently while El and Bea provide emotional support, offering the child toys and biscuits whenever the need arises.

The third chapter was trickier, and it was there that Levi noticed a twist in Hange’s writing. The story revolved around a boy busy getting her doctorate, and a young girl who had been in love with him ever since they were in college. It’s the young girl who comes to Janelle’s office, and she relays the tale of her unrequited childhood romance to the psychologist.

The young girl is passionate, and wanted to take a step forward in order to guide her towards falling out of love with her best friend. Janelle presents two suggestions: (1) confession, while being fully-open to the possibility of rejection, and (2) accepting rejection without confession. The young girl decides to go with the first option, but to her surprise, the boy returns her feelings.

Everything seemed well-written up until the end of the chapter, where Hange had written,

And then they kissed.

Levi scrolled down the page, tilting his head to the side in slight confusion. That’s it? He thought, trying to find the rest.

Everything had been so well-described; from the girl’s internal turmoil—caused by her fear of destroying their friendship and the pain that came with unrequited love—to the boy confessing his own emotions for her.

The ending was anticlimactic, to say the least.

As he blinked at the google document in confusion, already typing out his comment on her notes app, Hange emerged from the bathroom. Her hair was loose on her shoulders, wet from her shower. Wrapped around her waist is his bathrobe, which she had borrowed from him long ago and never bothered to return it.

Levi scoffs as he glances in her direction. Here she was, parading with the cloth on and rubbing that specific fact in his face.

“Hey,” Hange greeted, smiling as she ran a hand through her brown locks, “How’s the reading going?”

“It was okay until the third chapter,” Levi says honestly, pointing the laptop screen in her direction. “The ending’s anticlimactic.”

Hange hummed, pursing her lips together. “Yeah. I didn’t really know how to end it,” she tells him as she opens her cabinet and grabs a few pieces of clothing. “Give me a bit, I’m going to change.”

She disappears into her room and Levi focuses on her story, trying to think of a way to spur Hange on and perhaps actively improve the ending’s writing.

Hange emerges in a loose t-shirt (which was, once again, his) and shorts. She sits down right beside him, leaning over his shoulder to glance at her laptop and read the specific line that particularly irked Levi.

“It’s that one, right?” Hange asks, pointing at the last sentence. “And then they kissed.”

“Yeah,” Levi responds, shaking his head. “Everything was so well-written up ‘till that point. You were able to describe the emotions perfectly, and the narration’s not that bad . . save for a few paragraphs that maybe should’ve stayed in your research papers.”

Hange chuckles. “Old habits die hard,” she responds, before taking her Macbook from his lap and transferring it to hers. “So what should I write?”

Levi shrugs. “I’m just your editor. You’re the writer.”

Hange pouts. “Yeah, but I don’t know how to make this better.”

“Maybe describe the scene more,” Levi suggests. “Everything ended so abruptly. Every emotion you’ve created and built disappeared in that one line.”

She nods in agreement. “But Levi,” Hange whines as she slumps her head on the back of her sofa and closes her eyes. “Kissing scenes are so tricky to write.”

Hange’s eyes shoot open immediately, and Levi’s face turns red just as quickly.

“F-Forget it,” he says, interrupting her just when he saw Hange open her mouth to speak. Any semblance of calm in his body disappears immediately, and his heart starts pounding against his chest in a rhythm that reminds him too much of a beating drum.

Hange, however, looks elated.

“You want to kiss me?” she tells him in excitement, blinking at him. “I’d like that. It could help me write this scene, you know.”

Levi looks away. “It was just a spur of the moment question.”

“So, you’re not going to kiss me?”

He actively avoids her gaze because he can already see from his peripheral vision that she looks sad, disappointed even. He grunts in response, closing his eyes and focusing his attention on a random spot on the wall.

“Oh,” Hange replies, “Well, I thought it was a good idea.”

Contrary to popular belief, Levi does want to kiss Hange. More than anything.

There were many reasons why: Because she looks so handsome and beautiful at the same time, and her very smile could light up any room she’d walk into. Because she says his name in the most endearing way. Because she understands his flaws. Because she has one of the kindest hearts he’s ever seen. Because she welcomes him with open arms, not a single thread of hesitation in her mind.

Most of all, it was simply because she was Hange.

He steals a glance in her direction, and she’s slightly fiddling with the hem of his shirt, her head downcast. Her sad expression tugs at hi

Levi thinks he’s already in this too deep, so he decides to speak.

“Did you want me to kiss you?”

From his periphery, he sees her look up at him so quickly he thought her neck would break. “What would you do if I said yes?”

He doesn’t dare turn his head in her direction when he replies quietly, “What do you think?”

“Would you kiss me?” Hange asks inquisitively, tilting her head to the side.

Levi’s heart skips a beat.

“Maybe,” he says in a voice barely above a whisper. “If you’d let me.”

Hange is silent for a moment, and Levi thinks this is it, I’m going to be rejected, but he feels a gentle finger touch his chin and turn his head in Hange’s direction.

He is met with her brown orbs, shining just a bit in what seemed like hidden glee. He cocks an eyebrow at her then, confused.

“I’m letting you,” Hange says, laughing. “Kiss me, I mean.” Her face is already slowly nearing his, and he can almost see the way her thick lashes brushed against her skin.

Slowly, Levi raises his head just a tiny bit and responds against her lips, “Okay.”

Hange smiles and closes the distance between them, wrapping her arms around his neck as he does the same around her waist. She tastes like the peppermint of her toothpaste, smells like his shampoo (which he had kept in her apartment since he always found himself staying over), and felt warm as her skin made contact with his. Hange's lips are gentle, slow, and a little shy—so different from how she usually is. Levi knows it’s because she doesn’t want to scare him off, so he makes the first move and nips at her lower lip, taking it between his teeth and sucking it gently.

She lets out a moan, and Levi takes this as a sign to continue. He slides his hand over her back, and she shudders and deepens the kiss at the same time. Her tongue meets his, and they battle for dominance. Hange’s hand sweeps over his undercut and pushes him towards him, and it is then that he lets out a sound that vaguely resembles pleasure.

After a few minutes, Hange whispers “Levi,” as her lips make contact with his. He hums in response, pulling his lips away from her and connecting his forehead with hers.

“Hange,” he says, breathless.

“Is this you telling me you like me?” Hange asks, closing her eyes.

He doesn’t form a reply through words, but he nods and closes his eyes as well.

“Great,” Hange tells him, pecking his lips with her own. “Because I like you too. Ever since I met you, I’ve liked you. Even though you were so rude to me on the first day of college.”

He chuckles silently in relief, pulling her closer to him before placing his chin on her shoulder. “Think you’ll be able to write the ending now that you know what a kiss feels like?”

Hange laughs, and it vibrates against his shoulder as she hugs him tighter. “It’s exhilarating. I probably wouldn’t be able to put into words how good I feel that you like me back.”

“Try,” Levi teases.

“Well . . . you know that alternative title I wrote for the fictional novel?”

Levi’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “The keyboard smash?”

Hange nods. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I feel like right now.”

a;lskfjdk.

#levihan #levi x hange #levihanweek 2021 #LHW 2021 #LHWeek Day 2

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rainydayathogwarts · 3 years

Text

𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐒 𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐃 𝐎𝐍 𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 >> 𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐄 𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐒

Second person p.o.v Warnings: the title says it all There are a few characters on here. Steve, Tony, Bucky and Thor! Tell me if you want a part 2 with the guys or one with Natasha, Wanda, Carol and Maria (and any other girl you'd like).

This has been in my drafts for a while and an anon just asked for a hp girls one so it reminded me that I should probably post this now

-Steve Rogers: Steve panted and let his hands grab the white covers, one of them threatening to go to the back of your head. You giggled, continuing to press teasing kisses on his abdomen. When you got to the elastic band of his boxers, Steve held a hand out, saying, "Wait, honey. Fuck, sweetheart, are you sure we have time?"

You looked up at him with doe eyes, shrugging slightly. "We should. I mean, I doubt we'll need more than thirty minutes." Steve sighed, "Maybe we should skip to the actual, well-uh thing? I don't know darling I just-" You smiled, shutting him up with a kiss. He groaned, trying to deepen it, but you pulled away. You took off your-his shirt that you were wearing and smirked when you saw him running his eyes over your body, only one part covered by a pair of small panties.

One of his hands reached up to your hips to press you down on him and you complied, rolling your hips to get some friction. He moaned quietly and his hands worked on ridding you of your underwear and you did the same with him. Steve groaned, throwing his head back, but the moment was ruined by a knock at the door. "Steve! The meeting with Fury's been moved down, come one, we need you, man."

Steve shot up, his eyes widening. "What!?" He yelled, not only to Clint, who was on the other side of the room, but to you too. You threw on the shirt you were previously wearing, hurriedly helping Steve into appropriate clothing for a meeting. You looked him up and down a few times and nodded in approval. There was only problem though.

"Okay dude, I don't know what's going on in there but I'm coming in." Clint opened the door, expecting something terrible but he looked at the two of you staring at each other with wide eyes. "Okay, lets- oh no I see what happened." He didn't bother hiding his laugh as he walked out of the room, muttering "Horny fuckers."

Tony Stark: Tony was known to have a high sex drive by like- everyone. Literally everyone knew. So when the both of you had your daughter Morgan, he had some trouble keeping it in his pants. You never knew if she'd wake up during the night and come to your room to see something that would scar her for the rest of her life and with your busy schedules, doing it while she was at school wasn't really an option.

"Baby..." Tony started one morning when the both of you were laying in bed. You responded with a hum. "Morgan's still asleep..." he started, knowing you'd get the hint. He wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you close to him so your back was up against his chest.

"Tony," you mumbled, eyes wide, feeling him getting harder and harder. "I-fuck. Go lock the door." Tony shot up, running over to lock the door. He jogged to the bed again and immediately climbed on top of you, peppering you with kisses. You bit your lip, wrapping your arms around your husband to pull him closer to you.

He leaned down, kissing you once, twice, three times, before taking off his shirt you slept in. You giggled, mustering up the strength to flip the both of you over, shocking not only Tony, but yourself. He pulled you in for another kiss but you were interrupting by the sound of the doorknob rattling.

Just like Tony had previously done, you shot up, picking up the shirt from the floor and pulling it over your head in record time. Tony groaned, hiding the bottom half of his body under the duvet. "Mommy...?" Morgan's quiet voice sounded through the door just as you opened it.

Her eyes lit up and she made grabby hands at you. You picked her up, walking back in the room as you asked her how she slept. "Good, but I'm hungry." She yawned, covering her mouth with her tiny hands. "Hi daddy!" She spoke, just as Tony said "Good morning sugarplum."

You finally found your slippers, sliding into them and went to give Tony a kiss, whispering in his ear "Don't be too long or she'll ask about you." Before you made your way back to the hallway, giving him a small wink.

Bucky Barnes: Getting used to the 21st century was difficult for Steve and you new for a fact that it was going to be an even bigger challenge for Bucky. So far, he was actually doing great, and even got himself a girlfriend - you.

The only thing he had trouble keeping up with were Tony Stark's parties. After the civil war passed and the two made an effort to become friends, good things happened and that's where this story leads to.

You and Bucky had just entered the party and, as usual, headed straight to the bar for some liquid luck - or in other words - vodka. Even though Bucky was physically incapable of getting drunk, or tipsy on alcohol from earth, he enjoyed having a couple or more drinks with you. You shot your handsome boyfriend of what was now four months a lopsided smile before turning to find Natasha.

When you found her talking to a pretty blonde woman, you figured you'd let her have a chance and go find another dancing partner. You spun on your heels once more only to bump into Bucky. He smiled at you, looking back at the people dancing. "That's one thing I haven't gotten yet- new dancing." He told you and your eyes immediately lit up.

You took hold of his metal hand and dragged him to the dance floor, so that you were only surrounded by other people dancing. This wasn't one of Tony's fancy parties, no, it was one of his 'Let's get drunk and hook up with random strangers parties.'

"No, no, no, (Y/N), I just told you I don't know how-" "Just follow my lead, Buck, you'll be fine." You giggled when he looked at you with a horrified expression, grabbing both his hands and placing them down on your hips. You swayed to the rhythm of the music, throwing your head back, and pressing your body to Bucky's. You saw him swallow and smiled, turning in his arms.

You dropped your head onto your boyfriend's shoulder, moving your body against his. He groaned, leaning down to kiss your neck briefly. "(Y/N) this isn't a good idea." He spoke in your ear, rolling his hips into your backside. "Oh I beg to differ." You retorted, turning around once more and capturing his lips into a breathy kiss.

He pulled away after a couple dozens of seconds to tell you again "Doll it's embarrassing to get a boner so early in the night." "Well either meet me in the bathrooms or hide it for a little while until it isn't." You winked at him, walking over to the bar and taking another shot, yelping lightly when Bucky appeared at your side and pressed a strong kiss in the crook of your neck, inhaling your perfume and whispering "30 seconds, don't disappoint me." before he disappeared into the hallway.

Thor Odinson: There was never a "bad time" to do it with Thor. Whenever he got in the mood, nothing was going to stop him unless it was your discomfort, even though you never were uncomfortable with him and would never say no to some great sex with the man that you loved.

This time, he had just come back from a mission and had insisted on seeing you instead of going to get his cuts fixed up and taking painkillers. That's how you ended up fixing him up yourself in your now bloodied up bathroom. Thor sat on the toilet seat in nothing but his boxers, watching as your eyebrows furrowed in concentration, wincing in pain every now and then.

Then all of a sudden, he wanted you. He started thinking about how sometimes you made a similar face in bed and how you always treated him like a king. How sometimes you'd bring him breakfast in bed when he slept in after missions - and he thought, maybe tomorrow you would too. He grinned to himself, pulling you in for a short kiss, promptly managing to surprise you and confuse you at once.

"You're too good for me." He told you, and groaned as he felt himself hardening beneath the thin fabric of his boxers. "Thor, you're hurt." You argued, but it was no use; he had already made up his mind. He wanted you, now.

"I'll be fine as long as I'm with you." he spoke in his gruff voice. He stood up, his arms wrapping around your waist and hauling you into the air. "Thor, you're going to hur-" "Do you really think now is a good time to underestimate a god's strength?" He asked, only half joking. Your eyes widened as he dropped you onto the bed, taking off the last of his clothing.

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katytheinspiredworkaholic · 3 years

Text

Correspondence, Chapter 04

Pairing: HotchReid

Summary: An AU where Reid never joined the FBI, but got roped into consulting for the LA field office while working and teaching at Caltech. Hotch gets his email referred from a fellow agent, and they start to work on cases together -- until they start talking on a regular basis. Regular becomes frequent, frequent becomes constant. They know nothing about each other, but they don't really mind.

Rating: Mature/Explicit (eventually)

Chapter CW/notes: Action-y in that there is offscreen violence and peril, injuries, talk of surgery and symptoms/effects of medical grade narcotics (morphine), more on that big ol’ age difference. Side notes: Agent Anderson of the L.A. field office has no relation to Agent Anderson of Quantico, VA, because Agent Anderson of the BAU is a national treasure. (I’m considering going back and renaming the OC, but as of right now this is the last we hear of him for a while). And I know no one really pays attention to them, but the time stamps on the texts match the time zone of the scene setting. Set in season 6, self beta’d.

Word Count: 8893

Masterpost Link

Ao3 Link

Chapter 04

Late September 2010

Spencer Reid wakes up to the early grey morning two weeks later, a perpetual haze shrouding his room long before his alarm was supposed to rouse him. He reaches blindly, blearing eyed and checks his phone for what feels like the hundredth time, only to find no messages waiting for him. A terrible, horrid feeling has been clawing at his chest and throat the longer it gets -- the more time that passes -- and he still hasn’t heard from Hotch.

They’ve been messaging each other near constantly for months now, and it only seemed to get more intense after that fateful talk at the beginning of September. Where Hotch finally revealed he’d thought Spencer was much older than him, and not the other way around. Spencer had set him straight, as much as he could, and even that had been nerve-wracking to say the least. The two men were crossing into a territory neither really wanted to put a label on, and Spencer was both afraid of it and excited by it. Of what it could mean, and how long it could last, but he’d thought he’d had time to figure out a solution to his inadvertent secrecy.

Then, Hotch began working a case in Delaware two days ago.

It seemed like a textbook unsub; maybe a little aggressive with anti-establishment overtones, but nothing they couldn’t handle. Nothing the BAU hasn’t seen before. They’d been closing in on the suspect, no location yet but some prospects that needed checking out, and the last Spencer had heard from Hotch…

It had been lunchtime for him, and midafternoon for the older man. The exchange hadn’t been anything of consequence, just their usual, easy correspondence. Hotch was going to check out that lead they’d spoken of, Spencer had a budget meeting as soon as he was done eating in the middle of his office hours, and they had a plan to play chess online that night. Hotch is still terrible at it, but he keeps coming back no matter how thoroughly Spencer wipes the floor with him. Now, sometimes they just forget about the game entirely after the first few minutes. It makes him smile each and every time, soft and fond and lighting a warmth inside him Spencer has… never felt before.

Then Hotch hadn’t messaged him the rest of the night.

Hadn’t shown up online to play chess.

Hadn’t texted him goodnight, or even sent him an update on the case.

Nothing in their conversations warranted such ostracization, and although Spencer has been ‘ghosted’ before (as his doctoral students would say) he knows Hotch would never do that. Not after everything, the history they’ve built the past months -- leaving nothing but the dread to sink in and spread like a stain.

All night, he imagines the worst.

By morning, he all but expects it.

[]9/22, 18:59[] Are you alright? Did something happen with the case?

[]9/22, 19:10[] If you were that scared of losing at chess, I can also beat you at online poker instead.

[]9/22, 19:30[] I’d suggest scrabble but that’s honestly not fair to you.

[]9/22, 21:55[] Hotch?

[]9/22, 22:30[] I’m assuming that lead panned out, and you caught your unsub and are neck deep in interrogation.

[]9/22, 22:36[] I don’t want to imagine anything else, so that’s what I will picture.

[]9/23, 00:06[] Hotch please answer me.

[]9/23, 05:32[] Please be okay.

Spencer arrives at Caltech looking a little more of a mess than usual. More than most are used to seeing him, at least, and it causes a few second glances from students he passes and other faculty -- but he really can’t find it in himself to care, this morning. His unruly curls, getting longer again, falling into his face and over his ears, are frizzy in their unkemptness. Bags under his eyes, normal, but he’s settled for glasses instead of his contacts. He has a spare pair in his desk, he’ll have to change them before class. His glasses somehow always make him look even younger. A mystery that boggles the mind, because once he had grown into his face a few years ago (around 26 or 27, close enough he had worried he would forever be cursed with a ‘baby face’) Spencer had thought he would finally be getting away from that.

And yet, square jaw and ‘grandpa’ glasses and thin frame towering just over six feet did nothing in the slightest to aid him. Certainly not stopping a man outside the campus coffee shop from shouting “Watch where you’re going, kid!” as he near barrels over him on the sidewalk. Not his sweater vest or half suits, attire straight out of a 1940’s noir film (he’d even sported a vintage inspired undercut with his waves combed over for a while there, too. Way too much upkeep, as nice as it looked). Nothing makes him any more grown up in the eyes of the unsuspecting world, than he’d been without his five doctorates and board of director’s seat. No matter what he tried, it seems.

This has been a subliminal thing for years, something Spencer always said didn’t bother him in the slightest. And for a long time he didn’t care one way or the other, he just kept getting more degrees. All his life Spencer has been ‘too young’, always been ‘kid’ or ‘sport’ or ‘tiger’, even when running quantum physics equations in his head. And it didn’t matter. Not with his credentials and accomplishments and everything he now has to his name.

Until Hotch.

Now, Spencer cares.

Notices, even through his haze of worry and sleeplessness, how on the street it’s “Watch it, kid!” and fifteen yards later it’s “Good morning, Dr. Reid” as he steps into the Physics building where everyone knows him on sight. Knows him, and what he’s capable of.

What if when Hotch met him all he saw was… another kid?

If they ever met.

“Whoa, rough night Dr. Reid?”

“Yes, you could say that,” he mumbles out as he signs in and scans his ID card, taking the stack of mail that the desk attendant hands him. But stops before he gets too far from the desk, backtracking. “Hey, have you watched the news this morning? Did anything show up about New England or Delaware?”

“Not that I saw, Dr. Reid,” she says in confusion, looking up from where she had been texting on her phone. “Just a whole lot of coverage on the shitshow at capital hill, as usual. Oh, and more depressing reports about the earthquake clean-up in New Zealand.”

Of course, why would there be a news story about a killer in Delaware here in California. He’d have to look up everything online himself.

“Thanks anyway, Carla.”

“No problem, Dr. Reid.”

Spencer spends way too long online that morning, searching for anything about the case Hotch and his team are working. He usually prefers paper copies of news media, at first barely knowing where to begin, but he falls into a wormhole of news outlets and local Delaware station websites, reading the thousands of webpages faster than he can scroll and click through them. But he can’t find anything pointing to a disturbance related to the case. There's nothing about a raid, or a shooting, or even an arrest -- which could all just be a part of the ongoing media blackout -- but it also does nothing to stop him from panicking. Spencer gives up after an hour, and diverts to other resources. Ones with a direct line to Hotch.

With a drafted email pulled up to Ms. Penelope Garcia, the BAU's personal tech analyst, he ponders how to... even word this without it sounding too personal. Too much like he and Hotch have more than just a working relationship.

Because they do. They have... something.

Something that gives him fluttering sensations in his stomach, makes him check his phone constantly, and react to even the slightest chime similar to his text tone. Makes him smile when he sees Hotch's name on his notifications, in his email inbox, makes him message the man in the middle of the day at the most random thoughts. Just because he wants to make him laugh.

[]8/21, 15:36[] You're going to get me in trouble.

[]8/21, 15:38[] You didn’t laugh in front of your team, did you? The scandal.

[]8/21, 15:42[] I'm at a crime scene. There's a dead body in front of me.

[]8/21, 15:43[] Then why are you checking your phone?

[]8/21, 15:45[] You know why.

But that’s not something that is shared with the rest of the team, he’s sure. So he should be careful how he words his email, lest Ms. Garcia realize that Spencer isn’t asking purely as a colleague.

Surely they know he has friends, though?

Chewing his lip, Spencer types out a brief email asking if Agent Hotchner is feeling well since he missed an appointment the night before and hasn’t been returning his calls. It’s a phrase he’s used often, so it comes naturally to Spencer as he types it out, and he realizes… he hasn’t called. He’s sent a dozen text messages, but not a phone call. Never a phone call. That was against the rules, the unspoken ones that always kept this friendship easy and free-flowing and evolving into something more.

But this feels like the closest to an emergency they’ve ever encountered before.

He looks to his phone beside him on his desk, and tries to fight back the dueling forms of panic clawing at his chest. Listed in bullet points behind his eyes. Panic that Hotch might not answer, panic what that means for the man he’s been… becoming more and more inclined to than any other person he’s met in so long. Panic if he does answer, breaking that barrier of written words to spoken, and the opportunity to hear Hotch’s voice. But he would also hear Spencer’s, and then there would be no hiding just how… how young he really is. He still didn’t have a plan for that, wracking his overworked brain day and night for a way to incorporate the information into a conversation that wouldn’t stop everything in its tracks.

But his phone is in his hand before he can stop himself, Hotch’s contact pulled up and his thumb hovering over the phone number with baited breath.

Was he really going to do this?

He presses the touch screen and can hear the line connecting, the dial tone ring even before he gets the phone up to his ear and waits. It rings, and rings, and rings a fourth time -- before clicking over to voicemail. And Spencer’s hyper-fast thought processes fail him as he realizes far too late that he’s going to hear Hotch’s voice for the first time, anyway. Frozen in a panic, unsure if he wants to or if that had been something he wanted them to do together that the seconds slip by like water through his fingers and suddenly it’s too late.

“You’ve reached the voicemail box of -- (703)-567-8790 -- this caller is not available. Please leave a message after the tone--”

It’s an automated, female voice that rattles off the numbers and generic call back message, and Spencer hangs up before it can begin recording him. Exhaling a shaky breath, relief a flash flood on his nerves that nothing had been ruined between him and Hotch thanks to an ill-timed phone call.

He keeps the momentum going without much thought, and adjusts his email to Ms. Garcia before sending it.

It feels so understated, and yet over dramatic the more he thinks about it. The more he reads it.

Please let me know of his well-being.

God, no wonder Hotch thought he was in his 60’s.

But Spencer has to keep the façade up, for now, not give away anything he doesn’t want to just because the emotional part of his brain is running rampant over the rational one. There are… many explanations as to why Hotch isn’t answering him. His gut feeling aside, he doesn’t need to be panicking like this. The world is still turning, he still has work to do, so Spencer tries to gather himself into some semblance of order and preps to talk to his doctoral students within the hour.

His morning routine progresses as usual, as if nothing at all is wrong with the world. Dr. Reid has his mandatory round up with his doctoral candidates going over thesis and dissertation parameters, class lecture schedules, updates, the works. Like morning announcements, but he requires them all to be there and to listen, and they all show up. Everyone knows of Spencer’s eidetic memory. He will certainly not forget a single date or schedule change, and he expects his students to not forget as well.

But this morning Spencer is fully distracted, his mind elsewhere, somewhere in the state of Delaware with an agent who may or may not be in danger. Because Spencer cannot shake the feeling that something is wrong. It almost seems more like a fact than a feeling. The juxtaposition of his daily routine and this unfounded worry throws him entirely off kilter, and all of his students seem to know right away.

Then, his distraction reaches its peak when his email pings, right in the middle of his department announcements. A response from Ms. Garcia of Quantico, VA flashing across his laptop screen. Spencer’s eyes skim the preview sentence in the pop-up box, and his voice trails off as his mind… whirls.

Dr. Reid, I’m sorry to tell you I don’t know when Hotch will be available again. There was an incident, and he’s still in surg-

Surgery.

That vice-like grip of worry that has taken hold of him since last night tightens further, to the point Spencer can’t breathe. Hotch is in surgery, Hotch is hurt, and if he hasn’t been answering his phone since last night -- or even late yesterday afternoon -- it was not a minor thing.

Hotch is hurt.

She doesn’t know when he will be--

If he will be --

“Dr. Reid? Are you okay?”

“I--” he’s still looking at the email pop-up box, and is clicking on it before he can stop himself. Immediately disconnecting his laptop from the projector as his email loads there. It takes him a fraction of a second to read the email. “I’m sorry, an emergency just came up. Kimmy, finish reading off the schedule for me?” He doesn’t even wait until she answers him, just picks up his laptop and retreats to his office as fast as his long legs will carry him.

--surgery and we’re still waiting on word. I know you 2 talk on the reg so I’ll keep you posted.

Fret not, genius professor, our fearless leader has been through much worse than this.

She’s using informal speech patterns, which she has never done before. It bleeds her nervousness, and worries Spencer even more. Teetering on the edge of panic. Ms. Garcia also revealed she knows he and Hotch talk, but surprisingly that doesn’t have the effect he thought it would on his already rattled nerves. Instead, any and all reservations fall away as he types out a response much in the same way he and Hotch had started their friendship all those months ago.

Please, is there anything you are allowed to tell me about the case or his condition? We --

Spencer pauses, bites his lip as he considers crossing this boundary into the uncomfortable unknown, and then thinks about Hotch on a hospital operating table three thousand miles away.

“Screw it,” he mutters and continues to type.

--We’ve become good friends and I’m very worried.

The reply is almost immediate.

That makes 2 of us, boy wonder, but I’m already hacked into the hospital records database and Prentiss is in the waiting room for any immediate actions.

I’m sending you the case files and the incident report from last night. Maybe you can see some shiz we can’t b/c the bossman is tough but he’s been in surgery a long time.

Of course, whatever he can do to help. Spencer’s heavy heart-beat triples in his chest as pulls up the files and immediately prints them out so he can read through them faster. Utilizing anything and everything he can do to aid the BAU team, and whatever Hotch has gotten himself into. But then, his mind sticks on something from the email. Boy Wonder. It stalls his hands mid-movement.

Ms. Garcia knows how young he is.

She must have done a background check on him, that would make sense since he’s been consulting so much lately. But why would Garcia know his age, and not Hotch? Wouldn’t she send the files to him directly? Had Hotch really known, all along?

Or did she do it on her own, and not tell him? Assuming her boss already knew everything about him. It’s too many questions and possibilities and they are interfering with what’s most important right now. Best to get it out of the way, no time to be indirect about it.

Ms. Garcia, did you update my dossier with the bureau after you ran my background check?

If you’re referring to why Hotch seems to think you’re rocking the senior discount at restaurants and not still getting carded for beer, then no I didn’t update it. I’m very anti-gov files having every detail of our lives in them, that’s what I’m for, and I figured there was a reason he didn’t know. Your secret is safe with me, sugar bean.

Spencer hadn’t meant for it to be a secret at all, it just happened that way.

The real reason is Agent Anderson of the LA field office is a dick, with a bully streak he never outgrew after high school, and didn’t bother filling out a full file on him the first time Spencer consulted for the FBI. Then, he couldn’t be bothered to update it when his consultations became more than a one time thing.

But that was all in the past now, and Spencer can’t even be upset about it. Because now he has Hotch.

Thank you, Ms. Garcia. I’ll let you know my findings soon.

He skims the file quickly, pulling information out at lightning speed. It appears a very straight-forward case. As straight-forward as a murderous sociopath can be, anyway. Very anti-establishment, like he and Hotch had discussed the previous day, aiming for specified targets that devolved to anyone in a uniform. Anyone who appears too official, or labels as official.

It’s easy to see, now, why the unsub attacked Hotch instead of running from him. He practically served himself up on a silver platter. But there’s something about the kills that’s bothering Spencer. The knife wounds, bludgeoning, even the gunshots during the first murders when the unsub still hesitated -- it’s all overkill. Rage. Every single target has died from massive internal bleeding, M.E. reports all label the knife wounds and beatings as the cause. But the amount of blood left over, measured during autopsy, doesn’t add up. They bled too much. No wounds indicating intentional bleeding occurred, and the tox screens are all clean.

Except, every victim’s hospital records show elevated potassium rates. Spencer’s hands, skimming down each and every page quick as they can, stop on a dime as his gaze zero in on the information.

“Oh, God,” Spencer whispers, quiet and horrified. “--Hotch.”

There’s no time for email.

He picks up his phone, goes to an older email that has full contact details in the footer, and dials Ms. Garcia’s direct line in Quantico.

“Speak, and behold greatness.”

“Ms. Garcia, it’s Dr. Reid,” Spencer says, and his tone and quickened speech patterns gives way to his panic.

“Dr-- Dr. Reid?”

“Yes, quick there’s no time. Do you have Hotch’s hospital records in front of you still?”

“Yes,” Garcia says, her voice a musical thing even in it’s breathless reaction to his heightened state of haste. “Updated every two minutes.”

“Is his potassium elevated?”

Some quick typing of keys that move faster than even he could ever hope to type. “...Yes.”

God. “Okay, okay I need you to call the hospital right now,” Spencer says in a spiel that all sounds like one word. “Whatever you have to do, he needs Sodium Polystyrene Sulfonate as soon as possible, to counteract the chemical imbalance or he’s going to go into kidney failure and bleed out.”

There’s more typing going on and Ms. Garcia’s breathing has gone a little labored.

“Alright, alright I’m getting patched through. What else can you tell me?”

“I think he’s been dosed with something called an XG Compound, either Eastman or Zhao I have to look up the specific components and chemist. But they are a series of banned, experimental military-grade drugs that suffer effects of thinning the blood, that’s why they can’t stop the bleeding around his stab wounds and old scar tissue.” Hotch’s old wounds from Foyet would only exacerbate the condition, once it reached the kidney failure stage, but up until then the intrusions of hardened tissue is the only reason his abdominal cavity hasn’t been flooded with blood and drowned out his other organs.

“Okay, okay I’m through, I’m keeping you on the line. Stand by-- ” then she clicks over and he’s left with a pulsating silence. Nothing remaining but continuing his work, and hoping he’d called in time. Hoping that Hotch will be alright.

Spencer is digging through his floor to ceiling bookshelves for the biology book on airborne pathogens given to him by a visiting Professor two years ago and he is hating himself for never cracking it in that moment. It’s nearly the last book he gets a hand on, because of course it is, and he makes it a third of the way through the book before Garcia is back on the line. The phone on the floor beside him and just barely within reach.

“You literal genius, I could kiss you,” Garcia tells him in what can only be overstated relief, and Spencer snatches up his phone with a very undignified scramble. “They’ve had to do two transfusions on him and are prepping a third, but you were right he’s been dosed with that XG compound.”

“He’s going to be okay?” Spencer asks, still cross-legged on his office floor surrounded by books and holding his phone to his ear like a lifeline.

“Yes, yes my dear he’s going to be alright. They think. He’s not out of the woods yet and the surgery is still going on, but he -- he would have died within the next hour if you hadn’t found out what was wrong.”

Spencer’s heart is in his throat, her words doing the exact opposite of reassuring him. Hotch had been that close to dying, to being forever out of reach, because Spencer had been too scared to pick up the phone.

“I should have called sooner,” he says, so quiet even someone in the room wouldn’t have heard him correctly. “I knew something was wrong.”

“Oh no, sugar don’t think like that. You just saved his life,” she pauses, like she wants to say something else, but diverts to an adjacent topic. “How did you know?”

“Autopsy reports. There wasn’t enough blood left in the bodies, they bled out too quickly. Then I saw the elevated Potassium,” he murmurs it all, rattled off without really thinking about it.

“And you just… knew all of that, without looking anything up?”

“That’s basically what I do. The only reason anyone calls me,” Spencer laughs but it holds no humor. “I know too much, make connections, and drink too much coffee.”

“You drink and know things, oh God I hope you get that reference because you’re getting a coffee mug.”

Spencer laughs a little, despite the situation, and feels… lighter, somehow, even with the worry still plaguing him. Caught up in his chest like a bad cold.

“I’m reading this textbook on airborne pathogens, I have a hunch, and I’ll send you anything I find that can help with the case,” Spencer continues, his voice not so heavy for a moment. “Just… tell me when he’s out of surgery? Keep me posted?”

“Of course, honey, you’ll be my first message,” Ms. Garcia assures him, but then she pauses again -- and he almost hangs up because it feels too anticipatory. “You should tell him, B.T.Dubs.”

Spencer hesitates more than is probably necessary.

“... I don’t know what good that will do,” he admits, quiet and unsure. “I’m not -- I’m not ready for this to be over.”

“You’re not that young, honey. Does he know you like him?”

“Mmhmm,” Spencer makes a nervous, affirmative sound. “And… he likes me, or who he thinks I am.”

“Don’t write him off just yet, Doc, let him speak for himself when he wakes up,” Ms. Garcia all but scolds him, in as gentle a way as possible and Spencer appreciates that, at least.

“--I’ll think about it.”

Not long after Spencer finds what he’s looking for: military grade poisons that were banned for causing adverse effects, listed and categorized by chemist and agency. It is the Eastman compound, originated during the first invasion of Afghanistan. Their unsub has prolonged exposure, Spencer is sure, and that will narrow down the suspect pool immensely.

After he sends the information to Ms. Garcia, Spencer looks to his phone once more, where there is a block of text all from him himself in his correspondence with Hotch. Begging him to be alright, to answer him, and now that he knows that the man has a fighting chance -- or as much of one as he will be able to have, with where advanced medicine resides in the current conjecture of time -- there really isn’t much he can do now. But hope. And wait. And pray.

Except Spencer doesn’t believe in prayer, or God, or anything that might hear him. The only thing he really believes in is science, and facts, and none of that is very helpful to him right now. Except maybe the coincidental balance of the universe, in a theoretical physics sense, and unexplained phenomenon that have an equal and spatial balance to it. Anything with the descriptor ‘unexplained’ always draws him in like a moth to flame, and he knows he can typically find a semblance of comfort in the way his brain constantly connects dots and far off specks of information that not everyone can see at first glance. Constellations in the sky. But only when he has someone to tell it to, that even pretends to listen for a moment, and for a long while now… Hotch has been that someone. Hotch always listens to him.

Before he knows it, he’s typing into the text box once more --

[]9/23, 11:10[] You’re in surgery still, but Ms. Garcia has confirmed the treatments are working and they are able to actually repair the damage instead of treading water like they have been the past ten hours. I’ve had her personally in contact with the doctors and surgical staff, and all they’ve been able to tell us is to let them work and just pray for you.

[]9/23, 11:13[] Which is such an odd thing; men of science telling people to pray like the outcome of a surgery isn’t in their hands, but some theoretical astronomical entity. I know it’s probably just a ‘bedside-manner’ tactic, but it doesn’t help me in the slightest so it just irks me instead.

[]9/23, 11:15[] I don’t believe in prayer -- a shock, I’m sure -- but I do believe in the phenomenon of universal affirmation. It’s an interesting trend in history and spans cultures where if someone has something awaiting them, to live for, even if they are unaware of it… they will fight harder to cling to life.

[]9/23, 11:18[] But I also know you will fight tooth and nail for Jack, and for your team that you treat like family, and maybe even me. I’d like to hope I’m included in that, and no amount of books or IQ points can make me think of something to contribute to help you keep fighting.

[]9/23, 11:19[] Just please keep fighting. Come back. And if I come up with something to entice you… I’ll let you know.

It eases a lot of the tension in his chest, talking to Hotch like this -- even if he’s just talking at him, in a place where he might never know what Spencer has had to say. But he can hope. Hope that Hotch will wake up and have thirty missed messages and see they are all from Spencer and it will make him smile.

Spencer would give anything to see him smile, and he allows himself to hope that one day... he might get to.

He might as well, while he’s sitting there hopelessly hoping for things beyond his control.

Come back to me.

Spencer almost types it out, can see it in the text window though he hasn’t pressed a single letter, and closes his phone before he can. Pressing it to his mouth and closing his eyes and just…

Hoping.

The hours roll over into the afternoon, and there’s still no word.

Spencer has spent the majority of the day messaging Ms. Garcia, who has had no information beyond trivial updates here and there and Spencer has read more about surgical procedures and practices than he has in his entire life. Even raided the biology department’s library, surrounding himself with the comfort of books and files and filled his head with the soothing monotony of medical terms and safety protocols.

But once noon has come and gone he finds himself staring into the bookshelves across from where he sits on the floor, among stacks of textbooks, with an epiphany trying to make itself known to him. Despite his every attempt to ignore it.

His phone is back in his hand, there’s an email correspondence from Ms. Garcia that only briefly says Still nothing. And that makes up Spencer’s mind.

[]9/23, 12:49[] I’ve thought of something.

What he types next makes it hard to breathe, his heart lodged in his throat, and it all comes flowing out of him much like before. His fingers keep moving, his emotional part of his brain steam-rolls over the rational one, and then he’s done and he’s tacked on six extra messages and Spencer has to put his phone away before he rereads it beyond what is deemed healthy or sane.

Because he’s done what he could, and all he can do is believe that will be enough to… subliminally keep Hotch fighting. The day is only half over, and Spencer feels like he hasn’t slept in a week.

It would be hours before he got the message that would send relief through his spine like a shot of Novocain. Just three words from Ms. Garcia, sent in haste in a text instead of an email.

{}9/23, 14:58{} He’s in recovery.

Hotch wakes up just barely the first time, the room spinning and hit with that familiar smell of anesthesia he can always taste as it fills his senses, before he slips back under.

The second time is to a small pencil light being flashed in his eyes, staccato movements meant to test his pupil reactions, and an older woman in nurse’s scrubs saying his name and calling to him. He hums an affirmative, even though he isn’t fully returned to a working state of mind. Instinct, more than clarity.

“Welcome back, Agent Hotchner.”

“About damn time,” he hears Prentiss say from somewhere across the room. Probably leaning the wall, if that faux drone is anything to go by. The nurse gives her a look but his agent isn’t even fazed by it, as far as Hotch can see. It takes him a moment for his eyes to adjust that far. But he knows the look well enough he doesn’t actually have to see it.

“Where is everyone? Is anyone else hurt?” Hotch can feel the words form on his tongue, droned out in a haze, his mind slowly coming back to him.

“Good to see you, too, boss,” Prentiss says in mild exacerbation, coming up to the side of his bed but not taking a seat. She must have been waiting a long time, her whole stance jittery just like after long flights on cases. “Everyone is fine, you’re the only one that got into a knife fight with an unsub who’s into biological warfare.” Hotch blinks at her, trying to make her words make sense without asking it of her. He remembers going to a warehouse to follow a lead, but not much else after that. It’s coming back too slowly to keep up with her. Prentiss just sighs, and repeats herself. “Everyone is fine.”

She regales him with a play by play, his own memories appearing like raindrops on a windshield to accompany her commentary. Slowly beginning to form a picture of what had happened. He’d been stabbed before, more than he cares to think about, and he’s been dosed with military-grade drugs before as well -- but never both at the same time. No wonder he feels like he’s been hit by a truck.

“You’re lucky to be alive, honestly,” she points out, hip resting against the plastic side panels of his hospital bed.

“Yeah, I’m gathering that.”

“And your phone has been blowing up like crazy.”

Hotch is finally able to sit up enough and see straight without his vision swimming, to find that his agent does indeed have his cell phone in her hands.

“What?”

“Yeah, eight missed calls and three voicemails, and--” she squints at the screen before looking at him in astonished confusion, “eighty-seven missed text messages, from a whole bunch of people. I’m not reading through all of them. I didn’t know you were that popular.”

“I’m the Unit Chief, popularity has nothing to do with it,” Hotch deadpans, more himself. Wanting to reach for his phone but his arms are still dealing with pins and needles sensations, sluggish to lift and his fingers uncooperative. “Who called me eight times?”

“Let’s see,” she unlocks his phone -- somehow, god damn it Prentiss -- and scrolls through his notifications. “Two calls from Jessica, one from me, three from Strauss (Jesus), one from Dr. Reid, and one from Garcia. It doesn’t say who the voicemails are from.”

Hotch suddenly feels much more alert, his heart rate monitor picking up but he does his best not to draw attention to it, instead looking up at Prentiss as carefully guarded as he ever is.

“Dr. Reid called?” he tries to keep his voice even, and unaffected, but the aftereffects of the drugs in his system leave a little more hitch in his voice than he would have liked.

“Yeah, he’s been talking to Garcia,” Prentiss says without much comment, still scrolling through his phone and making Hotch a little more than nervous. “Busted the case wide open, and saved your life while he was at it. We never would have known you were dosed with something if he hadn’t figured it out. Think you owe that old man a fruit basket.”

“Can I have my phone back?”

“Don’t think you’re supposed to have it,” she says without looking up, still scrolling through his notifications. “Lots of junk e-mail…”

“One of those voicemails is probably Jack, I should call and let them know I’m alright,” Hotch tries to reason with her.

“He and Jess are already on their way up, they’ll land in an hour,” Prentiss tells him, but looks over her shoulder for that nurse as she makes to hand Hotch his phone anyway. Still hesitant despite her predilections to breaking every rule she can get away with.

“I still want it back,” Hotch insists, regretting saying it as soon as he does.

It catches Prentiss’ attention a little too sharply. “...why?” But at Hotch’s steady stare and solid silence, unwavering like he hadn’t just been in surgery for hours on end, she finally relents and hands it over, still giving him a suspicious look.

“It’s important,” he finally admits, when she doesn’t stop staring for a good couple of minutes. Those perfectly shaped eyebrows raise near to her hairline, the profiler in her connecting more dots than should be humanly possible.

A small smile teases her lips, though not fully forming there. “Now I wish I’d read them.”

Hotch just gives her a reprimanding look of his own, but it’s short lived.

“Thank you, for staying.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Prentiss assures him, her smile going softer. “I’ll leave you to your mystery woman.” A beat, another raised eyebrow. “Person.” A knowing look, but then she exits and Hotch is able to look at his phone at his own discretion.

Hotch goes through the text messages with a brief glance; there’s so many of them. Other agents and agencies, his team in a group chat Garcia had started, Jessica left fifteen before someone got a hold of her, and Jack’s school sending reminders about soccer and parent teacher conferences.

But 39 are from Spencer, and his heart constricts in his chest at the worry he must have caused the man. Aches next to the scars on his chest and the blood that doesn’t belong to him in his veins. And somewhere in the recesses of his mind, it’s coupled with a torturous feeling of longing. Even subtle jealousy, because even half drugged out of his mind Hotch hadn’t missed the precise word choices Prentiss used. Garcia has been talking to Spencer -- talking.

Garcia got to hear him.

She talked to Spencer, when he still hadn’t, because of some unspoken rule Hotch isn’t even sure when they decided upon. He still knew so little about the man, and Spencer’s voice could tell him so much with just a few words. He could fill volumes with what he would learn from just a single message --

Without much further thought, Hotch pulls up his voice mail. Listens to the automated voices and the three messages there. None are from Spencer, although his heart had beat a little harder in anticipation -- enough his heart monitor beeped audibly next to him. Embarrassing as that was, like a lovestruck teenager. He’d glared at it and centered his breathing until his heart rate slowed back down, not wanting to alert the nurses station. Two of the voicemails are from Jessica’s phone, one of her worried out of her mind, and the other of Jack telling him they are coming to see him and he hopes he feels better soon. Just listening to his son speak more strongly than his aunt had or anyone else should in his situation, telling his daddy he loves him while the sounds of a commercial airline filter through the background, makes Hotch want to smile and sob all at once.

The last voicemail is from Garcia, telling him a similar story to what Prentiss had earlier, but with a bit more detail on her end. How ‘Dr. Reid’ called her out of the blue, because there had been no time for his usual emails, and gave them the information that saved his life. He’d been working the case diligently, ever since, and was checking up on him a lot. More than a lot. ‘Let him know you’re okay, when you wake up and get this. The poor guy is worried sick, and my updates only give him so much comfort.’

Spencer had actually called Garcia, when he hasn’t physically spoken to anyone in Quantico the entire time he’s consulted for them, just to save a few precious seconds to relay what he’d found. He’d even broken their rule, probably before hand, and called Hotch -- just to make sure he was okay. Hadn’t stopped working to help, the moment he found out he wasn’t.

It’s a strange thought, that if not for Spencer -- Hotch would be dead. That Jack would be flying up here for a very different reason.

Hotch switches over to the text messages with a lump in his throat. Not at all prepared, emotionally, but needing to know.

The 39 messages start from the night before, when they were supposed to have had their usual online chess date. They range from playful banter, teasing edged in worry, and escalate to panic as the night wears on. Anxious worry bleeding through the single sentences, building and building until that lump in his throat feels like it might block off all air soon.

Please be okay.

God, that alone starts to set a tone -- and reveals something Hotch hadn’t expected to find. Those three words give way to his speech pathology training, and all indicate that Spencer is… very likely younger than he’d originally thought. Some of Hotch’s assumptions might be close, even the teasing ones he’d only said because he’d been sure they were wrong. The other man is obviously beyond worried about him, as well. Petrified, despite knowing the risks of his job. They had become so close the past few months, were most definitely past the flirting stage and into something so tentative and wonderful Hotch can barely believe it some days. But they had never talked about this, about the possibility that Hotch might walk into a situation one day and not walk back out of it.

Spencer’s messages soon give way to him just… talking at Hotch. Relaying what was happening, philosophical rants meant to ease his own mind and Hotch finds himself smiling softly at the man’s constant stream of thought, lectures at genius levels that he still feels so compelled to share with Hotch. Because they are that close. They really, truly, are -- and it brightens the fluttering feeling in his chest all the more. How Spencer is trying, subliminally, to draw Hotch back to the light. Three thousand miles away.

Please come back.

Hotch hears it loud and clear, the come back to me. Even unwritten. And it makes his heart skip a beat, aching as it does.

Then…

[]9/23, 15:49[] I’ve thought of something.

[]9/23, 15:52[] I’m 29.

Hotch doesn’t understand, at first. But then it hits him.

Years.

29 years.

Spencer is 29 years old. Proven, further, by the following messages sent after that.

[]9/23, 15:56[] I’m a certified child prodigy, on a registry and everything. I graduated high school at just twelve years old, and had my first Ph.D. by 15. Youngest in CalTech history.

29.

Jesus Christ, no wonder he hadn’t wanted to tell Hotch his age. 29 is… far younger than he expected.

When Spencer was born, Hotch was getting his driver’s license. 16 years difference in age…

He keeps reading, despite the numb aftermath of a bomb going off inside his head, trying to process it and also hear the younger man out.

Younger. Spencer is 16 years younger than Hotch, and he finds himself scrubbing at his face to try and wake himself up further as he reads what Spencer sent.

[]9/23, 15:57[] I turn 30 at the end of October, and I was trying to wait until then to tell you.

[]9/23, 16:00[] I’ve noticed a prominent dynamic shift in perception, between listing my age as in my 20’s and ‘almost 30’. It’s a numerical allusion our brains can’t help. You hear 29, you think 21. It happens with decades, too, once someone is outside the familial range of 10 years. +/- either side.

[]9/23, 16:02[] An age gap doesn’t sound as bad when I’m 30. That’s why I wanted to wait, just a little while longer, but if that universal affirmation phenomenon actually works for us -- I don’t mind dealing with the consequences.

[]9/23, 16:03[] Just please come back.

[]9/23, 16:07[] Please be okay.

[]9/23, 16:10[] I miss you.

His heart is about to be ripped to shreds.

Hotch feels terrible, because Spencer is right. 29 sounds so young, and it keeps repeating in his head over and over. But 29 isn’t the same as 21, he isn’t some college student still stumbling around trying to figure out his life. He has five Ph.D.’s, runs three departments at one of the best universities in the country, is consulted by the FBI and Homeland Security and very obviously has a reputation he upholds to the highest regard. Hotch had guessed Spencer was 32 not so long ago, what was the big difference between that and his actual age? From what little Spencer just shared of his life story, he’s never gotten to be a kid, so who was Hotch to consider him one? What gave him the right to be floored by this, did it actually change what he thought of Spencer? How he felt about him only moments prior to reading that?

I miss you. Come back. Please be okay.

I’m 29.

It could be the recent flirtation with death, the anesthesia or the morphine, even the gratitude that Hotch will get to see his son again and not leave him without both his parents -- there’s so many reasons for him to take pause as he considers the messages in front of him.

But it feels a lot like the months of talking, and the countless late nights spent together, that pile up and up in his chest. A rising pressure that reminds Hotch that he and Spencer have something, and it’s not a normal, regular situation for either of them. Something that precedent, and everything Hotch has ever been told to hold to standard, doesn’t seem to fit. He and Spencer don’t seem to fit, when looked at afar or even on paper -- but they do. They really do. It was never supposed to be something that could be this easy, or normal in any capacity.

But what about their lives ever was?

[]9/23, 18:26[] I’m so sorry I worried you.

[]9/23, 18:26[] I miss you, too.

[]9/23, 18:27[] If I stop answering you, the nurse took my phone away. I hate hospitals.

[]9/23, 18:29[] Hotch, you scared me to death.

[]9/23, 18:30[] I know, I’m sorry.

[]9/23, 18:31[] From what I heard, you saved my life.

[]9/23, 18:33[] I don’t even know how to begin thanking you for that.

[]9/23, 18:36[] Just get better.

[]9/23, 18:38[] Which means resting, don’t glare at your nurses too much. They’re there to help you.

There’s a long stretch of a pause in their correspondence, which picks up so smooth and easy it’s as if they had never stopped. Like the last few days hadn’t happened at all. But they had, they were both looking at the messages to prove that. He does take pause, maybe more than he should, and Hotch knows miles away Spencer is just as nervous. Staring at his phone.

Hotch isn’t wrong. Spencer let out such an exclamation of relief at Hotch’s name on his notifications he about sobbed with it. He never cries, hasn’t in years -- but his eyes sting with relief and worry and… an emotion he doesn’t want to name.

[]9/23, 18:44[] What day is your birthday?

[]9/23, 18:45[] October 28th.

[]9/23, 18:45[] Same week as mine. November 2nd.

Hotch pauses, again, considers his next response… and 3,000 miles away Spencer can barely blink as he stares at his phone with mounting dread.

[]9/23, 18:49[] I understand why you didn’t want to tell me. It’s alright.

[]9/23, 18:51[] Am I correct in assuming you’ve never been in a relationship with this much of an age gap?

It takes Hotch a moment to even gather the courage to type that out and send it. Knows it sounds almost too formal, for them, but Hotch also knows that he and Spencer are balanced on the edge of a knife, here, and… no matter what the outcome, everything is about to change between them.

Spencer licks his lips in nervousness, reading the line over and over although he has no need to. It feels like a tipping point, and he’s still… terrified this will be his last conversation with Hotch outside of case work. Ever.

[]9/23, 18:55[] Never.

[]9/23, 18:57[] I haven’t had many relationships at all. My peer groups have always been older than me, and people my own age never understood me enough to be interested. So it’s just something I was used to, going without.

[]9/23, 18:59[] This has been… the closest thing to what I’ve been told is normal that I’ve ever experienced. I’ve never had the chance to have something like this with someone, or connect in this way. I gave up, for a long while there.

[]9/23, 19:01[] I’ve been in a similar situation before, on an intellectual spectrum.

[]9/23, 19:03[] I’ve never--

Hotch pauses, again, putting his thoughts in order. Weighing it all, before taking that final leap. Spencer waiting with baited breath, all the more.

But Hotch doesn’t regret what he sends. Not one bit.

[]9/23, 19:03[] I’ve never dated anyone younger than me like this, before, so we’ll both be on a learning curve.

[]9/23, 19:03[] But we will figure it out. Together.

Spencer’s breath catches, and he can’t seem to release it again. He can’t believe what he’s reading. What Hotch has sent him.

He said ‘dated’.

He thought they were dating. Spencer isn’t quite sure he can trust his own eyes, despite the words being there in stark black and white on his phone screen.

[]9/23, 19:06[] Dating?

Hotch smiles, because he just knows -- from that single word text -- that Spencer has sent it not in admonishment or anything negative of the sort. But in hope. Confident that he recognizes the nuance in Spencer's voice even without ever having heard it, Hotch just knows, and it makes warmth blossom anew in his chest. Sends his heart rate monitor skittering across the machine all over again.

[]9/23, 19:08[] Hate to be the one to tell you, but all of those late nights where we talked for hours instead of playing chess? Those were dates.

Spencer has his hand over his mouth, still in disbelief that he hadn’t… fucked this up beyond repair. That his age hadn’t been the deal breaker he’d feared so vehemently for months now. That everything is still as it was, age difference and life-threatening situation, aside.

They were dating. All this time.

[]9/23, 19:10[] I should have worn nicer clothes.

Hotch laughs at his phone at the same time Spencer laughs at his own, having reread what he’d sent.

3,000 miles away, and their quiet laughter coincides perfectly.

[]9/23, 19:11[] Our next one I’m sure I’ll be in a hospital gown, so I think you’re in the clear.

[]9/23, 19:12[] Sounds like you’re making plans, already.

[]9/23, 19:12[] You still need rest.

[]9/23, 19:14[] Well, I have to thank you somehow. And, I saw something about poker instead of chess? I’m actually not bad at poker.

[]9/23, 19:15[] … you remember I’m from Vegas, right?

[]9/23, 19:16[] We’ll play for fake money.

[]9/23, 19:18[] No such thing.

[]9/23, 19:19[] I do play for favors, though.

[]9/23, 19:19[] Oh?

Hotch feels a wild, youthful thing unfurl in his chest as he types away. Mischievous, almost, in a way he only gets when he and Spencer are hours deep into conversations in the middle of the night. But it’s broad daylight, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling too wide. Getting lost in the thrill of it all. In the officiality of it, now, and another curtain unveiled between them.

[]9/23, 19:20[] Did you have something in mind?

Spencer has to be blushing seven shades of red, right about now, and he hides his face from his phone for a moment before he realizes how ridiculous that is -- Hotch can’t see him. He can stop messaging the man any time he wants to.

Except he doesn’t want to.

[]9/23, 19:24[] I’ll get back to you.

Hotch can’t help it as he grins at his phone. A wry, suggestive thing, but he manages to school it before a passing nurse can see him -- how his eyes are alight with possibility. With elation, just from talking to the younger man that had seemed to capture a part of him he thought wasn’t available to anyone any more, and types out one last -- slightly more flirtatious subtext to put a cap on their conversation. To indicate he’s awaiting more, always wanting a little more of Dr. Spencer Reid.

He can blame it on the morphine, later.

[]9/23, 19:25[] Looking forward to it.

(tbc...)

Tagged List: @spencehotchner @ssa-sarahsunshine @gothamapologist @reidology @marsjareau @dragon-snaps-fandom @emmyraebird @just-an-emo-rat @aaron-hotchner187 @dk18077 @more-heid-pls @fakin-it-til-i-make-it @merpancake

#I legit added like 1500 words while editing this afternoon so I'm hella worried it's convoluted but HERE IT IS #Getting this show on the ROAD #cross your fingers and pray I have this damn tumblr formatting thing figured out #hope you enjoy everyone I love ALL OF YOU #super duper long chapter #Correspondence #HotchReid #Heid #Updates on Saturdays hit me up if you want in on the tag list #katyswriting

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sinkix · 4 years

Text

~ Haikyuu!! Boys baking with reader - Ft. Ushijima, Tendou, Oikawa, Hinata & Nishinoya ~

YO! SO UHHHH... I’M BACK??? I GUESS?? MAYBE??? After a little break I had this in my drafts for a while and realllyyy wanted to complete it since it’s such a cute concept. Honestly at this point my posting frequencies are so sporadic and random pls forgive me lmao.

@deathcab4daddy gave me the inspo to include Ushi and it was so funny coming up with ideas for him, he is no.1 country boi chef

Dude I’m listening to the Mario Kart soundtrack ‘Coconut Mall’ while I continue writing this someone save me. Like u think I’m joking. UR WRONG.

Ushijima:

The most straightforward yet idiotic baker you will ever come across.

Before you even THINK about performing step 1, he will read the entire fucking leaflet like it’s a Shakesperean monologue.

INGREDIENTS INCLUDED.

LIKE SIS I DIDN’T NEED TO KNOW IT CONTAINS MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE THANK YOU.

I’m surprised he doesn’t count every single particle in the brownie mix.

You bought him a frilly cupcake-printed apron stating ‘best wife’ not expecting him to actually wear it

But since he’s secretly a big softie and treasures anything you buy he wears it proudly.

His stoic and dignified disposition is a comical contrast to the words printed on the front lmao.

Ushi best wifey bro.

The tight fit of the apron is pretty hot since it outlines every ridge of his pecs and tightly toned torso.

Gotta resist groping your mans while stirring the brownie batter.

tbh he’s more likely to grope you, he can’t resist that a$$.

And let’s face it he’s def an ass/thigh kinda guy.

Can and will try to casually initiate some form of unholy activities by lifting you up onto the kitchen counter, goading you to slowly lick the spoon and locking gazes before pulling you in for a deep, open-mouthed kiss to get a taste of the incomplete creation himself.

Ushi’s lips and brownie batter are a knock-out combo js.

Literally has the most serious face when he’s cracking the eggs into the bowl

The amount of concentration is equivalent to that of when he’s performing a serve at match-point.

HAS to set the temperature to the EXACT degree stated on the box

Everything is done by the book if you do one thing out of place he will pull you up on it lol.

“(Y/N) you were supposed to stir it for 5 minutes, not 7.”

When its done you feed him some and he can’t help but smile its so ADORBALE AHHH.

You end up eating most of it since Ushi doesn’t strike me as much of a chocolate/junk food lover.

STILL A VERY FUN BUT F R U S T R A T I N G EXPERIENCE.

Tendou:

The complete opposite of Ushi

Does everything wrong and the unconventional way.

Absolute disaster but doesn’t even sweat it since Tendou basically thrives in chaos and the disorderly.

To him instructions are purely equivocal, will read them for five seconds then toss them away.

Step aside Gordon Ramsey, Chef Tendou is here.

Despite doing everything the unorthodox way it still comes out amazing.

Like??? how???

Will cheekily place a dollop batter on your nose then lick it off fh3jkeffefds

Or if he’s feelin’ a lil freaky, he’ll swipe it off with his long ass finger and make you suck it clean, smirking at your submission as you coat his finger with your saliva.

oop-

Constantly cracking jokes and shitty food puns, pretending to drop the bowl to make you go into preemptive cardiac arrest before you can swat him with the spatula.

While you’re waiting for the timer to ping, Satori being the schemer he is will use this as an opportunity to pull some fuckery and tease you in any way he can.

u better be praying like bodhisattva TanaNoya rn because he is MERCILESS.

Suggestive comments, the brush of his fingers against your thigh, it’ll leave you A C H I N G in frustration by the end of it.

Unholy activities aside, once your baking session is completed you finish it off by feeding PHAT forkfuls of brownie to each other and giggling like dorks when it gets all over your mouth.

The jackass actually got a fingerful and SMEARED it over your cheek and forehead, drawing a little cross and snickering when the crumbs fall onto your nose.

Tendou was smart to draw a cross bc he gonna need jesus with the ATTACK you launch on him after that, which promptly leads to an all out food war in your kitchen that neither of you want to clean up after ward.

Don’t worry though it’s Tendou, he’ll somehow find a way to make such a mundane activity fun.

Nishinoya:

stirs WAY TOO VIOLENTLY

IT’S LIKE AN ELECTRIC WHISK ON OVERDRIVE.

IT WILL SPLATTER OVER THE COUNTER, CUPBOARDS AND EVERYTHING YOU HOLD DEAR WITHIN A 1 MILE RADIUS.

You best believe he will try and eat some of the batter and you have to swat the spoon away from his mouth since he has NO REGARD FOR THE FACT HE COULD GET SALMONELLA.

Plus you know what Noya’s like once he starts eating something the whole thing will be gone in a matter of milliseconds.

He somehow managed to get Baking powder EVERYWHERE and even gave him self a little moustache with it.

The white substance kinda looked like something else but you didn’t really wanna say lmaooo.

could explain why he has so much energy all the time oK ILL STOP-

While you’re putting the mix on the tray he is SO extra and will do fancy lil swirls and over extend his arm like a swan to gracefully spread the batter

until he nearly fucking knocks it over.

During processing time since he is so excitable and impatient you best believe he’s gonna suggest a game of ping pong or something because my guy can well and truly never sit still.

ping pong match with the spatulas, kitchen island and a hard boiled egg.

Pls be careful he will rolling thunder that egg and pimp slap it so hard with the spatula it’ll damn near give you a concussion, not intentionally, but like protect your noggin. Wear a helmet.

For the remaining 5 minutes of baking time y’all just sit like kids in front of the oven and watching it rise like starved hyena’s observing it’s pray before demolishing it into sad particles of cocoa.

And lemme tell u, once the timer pings, that baking tray is free real estate for Noya. Half of your creation will be devoured before you can even put it on a plate and marvel at your handiwork.

He kicked your ass at spatula ping pong btw I’m sorry sweaty but short kings stay winning.

Oikawa:

Such a dramatic bitch like he got the whole she-bang going on.

Strapped with a pink apron, a whisk at his side and standing proudly with both hands on his hips.He is prepared like a greek gladiator going into battle.

You better believe he gonna make some snarky remarks and tease your method of doing things.

“Ah-ah-ahhh (Y/N)-chan you’re doing it all wrong, let me show you how a PRO does it.”

Proceeds to drop entire bowl on his foot and yelp like a little girl in pain.

Well and truly embarrassed with himself, you put a band-aid on his toe and he piped down after that.

Shattered big toe and mixing bowl aside, actually a really good baker??

He is a PRO at decorating, y’all decided on cupcakes since its literally his forte to make them look aesthetic and pretty.

You almost don’t wanna eat them from how good they look.

jk almost

You take it in turns breaking bits off and placing pieces into each others mouth with a loud “aaaaaahhh!”

Places a piece in your mouth, leans forward and locks lips with you in a soft, passionate kiss before pulling away and uttering the words “It tastes even better coming from your mouth ;)”

hnnnNNGGGGGGggGg.

You both whine and bicker over who cleans up after.

“You cleaaannnnn!”

“no Toru YOU clean!”

“but I made the cupcakes look pretty :(”

“not as pretty as you <3″

He did the cleaning after that.

Like just stroke his ego with some compliments and he’s whipped with a smug grin on his face for the next 30 minutes.

You decide to save the rest and bring them to his next practise.

Literally on the verge of tears when he sees you beaming and holding the platter of treats, Kiyotani mauls half of them in a matter of seconds to which Oiks gets salty over LMAO.

Hinata:

So excited oh my god he’s so precious please protect him I will CRY-

Has a little sunflower apron on and JBJKNDDDKDW IM SMILING JUST IMAGINING HIM FIDGETING IN EXCITEMENT OVER THE THOUGHT OF BAKING COOKIES.

Yes you decided on cookies bc he goes rabid for some choc chip biccies.

You have to guide him v carefully because of how easily confused and clumsy he is.

Cannot for the life of him crack the eggs without getting a quarter of the shell in the bowl so you have to do it instead.

Has a surprising amount of strength and forearm power bc holy shit boy can stir FAST.

Hums a little tune while he does it and bobs up and down with a wide grin on his face it’s so adorable, he has such a gentle singing voice I can’t-

Attempts different shapes with the batter when pouring it onto the tray but fails pretty miserably lol.

he tried ok???

Once they’re done he takes the tray out of the oven and since it was heavy, subconsciously propped it with his knee and nearly dropped the entire tray from the pain. (I’ve actually done this before when making chicken nuggets I do not advise being that brain dead)

Had to put some burn cream on the bbies knee :’((

When you decided to dig in, he handed you a cookie that looked like a crooked circle and said he tried to make that one a heart and insisted he feed it to you.

Blushed VERY hard at the moment of silence and intense eye contact while he fed it to you.

Nearly short circuited when his fingers brushed against your lips.

Moe moe x100000000000000000000000000000

You offer to do the cleaning after because he hurt himself and you didn’t wanna make him do any work, but he still offered to wipe the surfaces for you bc he’s an angel <333

literally just wanna marry him.

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floofsol · 3 years

Text

a promise’s a promise

word count: 1.5k (i apologise, this is a lot longer than i usually do)

member: Joshua

genre: mafia!joshua. prosecutor!reader, irritatingly posh-is!hreader

summary/prompt: you and your best friend made a pact. you both agreed that if neither of you had gotten married by the age 30 then you’d marry one another. it’s now time to fulfil that promise, the thing is, over the years, your best friend has become the leader of mafia. you have become city’s top prosecutor

warnings: cursing, mentions of blood and violence

a/n: i got this prompt from an ig account called writing.prompts.re and the moment i saw it, i thought it was perfect to write about sooooo here it is :))) on a side note, i do try to keep my reader’s “character” as genderless as possible, but i finally realise that i can do more to be more accepting. so from now on, i’m going to use they/them pronouns for the reader and if you notice, i also try to keep the reader’s past relationships genderless as well so that i don’t stay too heteronormative. so i really hope that you won't mind and this will obviously change how i write but i hope that you can still appreciate it anyway!!

You were never known for a sloppy memory. But you have never wanted to forget anything more than this, considering the reminder was in your hand. Said reminder was in the form of a letter. Now that you look at the letter, you even remember writing it...you remember sitting at the cafe with your best friend at that time. And if you think even harder, you can roughly recall how the conversation went...

“This is just sad....”, you pouted.

“What is? The fact you get to spend time with your best friend???” Jisoo was starting to tease you about your mood. You felt the biggest eyeroll come out of you.

“No, you idiot. I’m probably gonna end up sad and alone...I doubt I’m gonna be married by 30...”A sigh came out of you. You knew it was still a little young to think about it but being an only child, your parents had always told you that you would need to carry on the family line. But how were you going to that when you barely had time to have a relationship in the first place? How would you even find som-

“Hmm how about this....if the both of us aren’t married by 30....we’ll marry each other.” Jisoo said it with such confidence that you almost agreed without actually processing the idea.

“The fuck? You complain that my crackheadedness is tiring already and you want propose a marriage?” Needless to say, you were at a lost for words.

“Well...it is sort of a last resort for the both of us. And I’m pretty sure that the both of us will find someone by then....soooo, deal?”

You could tell that he was being serious about this, that this wasn’t a jokey “haha here’s a weird idea”. And you thought to yourself, ‘Why not? It’s not like Jisoo would be the worst person to marry if it came down to it..’

“Then, it’s a deal. If we are both lonely, sad losers at the age of thirty, we’ll marry each other. Let’s seal the deal with a letter...” You declared your decision.

Why younger you chose a letter you can’t remember well but knowing yourself, it would have had something to do with a letter writing phase at that time of life. It would get really stressful and writing letters were therapeutic for you. You had found one of those services that holds on to letters and that would send them out at a later date. Both you and Jisoo agreed for the date to be the first day of the year after since Jisoo was born near end of year so a few days wouldn’t hurt right.

And with the letter dealt with, the both of you had went on with your lives. You remember that you parted ways with him because you disagreed with some friends of his. They would sometimes get into trouble and with you studying law, you didn’t know how to feel about this and when you voiced your troubles to Jisoo, he had dismissed them entirely and said that if you didn’t like it, you could leave. And to his surprise, you actually did.

With that letter in your hand, you brushed the thought aside. You knew long ago that it was a joke. And you left for work, knowing that with your recent promotion to the top prosecutor position, you would have a mountain of cases to look through. The blood, sweat and tears that took for you to finally be promoted to this esteemed position paid off. You knew that it was an honour to be where you wanted to be. This expectation stemmed from your own overachieving tendencies and the fact that your parents had also worked in law, along with several family members. Being an only child only fuelled that expectation further and as such, people who were close to you understood that sometimes you had to pour your free time into cases as well. You had lost many relationships that way, with your partners saying that you never spared them any time or that you loved your job more than them or the fact that you could always procure a solid point in any fight due to your experience in court.

And with every failed relationship, you came to accept that with your work life, you would never be able to find a partner understanding enough. Although that meant that you having a lasting relationship was low, you were content. That feeling came from knowing that you tried and you could accept if it wasn't written in the book of fate for you to find a loving partner.

The letter brought you back down to earth. You were shocked, to say the least, that you didn't even open it until you drove to work. You obviously knew what was written inside but weren’t ready to face it yet but you knew you would have to sooner or later. You heaved a sigh and read the letter;

Dear future me,

I know that this might be sudden and this might not even apply to you now but you made a deal. Do you remember it? The deal might not even apply ti you now and it might sound crazy but hear me -yourself- out okay?

If you aren’t married by now, well then you are kind of engaged to JIsoo...go give him a call or something

And if you are, well then, you can throw this or keep it for a laugh lol

Love,

You recalled how close the two of you were. All the random hang outs and Netflix sessions at each others houses. All those sweet moments where you remembered why the both of you because friends in the first place. Those thoughts brought a grin to your face.

Until you remembered why the friendship broke off..

You were starting to worry about Jisoo. Especially about the company he was hanging out with. They were definitely not of the savoury type. You passed it off at first, until you realised that it was affecting Jisoo as well. And that was when you knew, you had to speak up about it once and for all.

You were nervous. This would obviously not be a very comfortable experience but you just knew it had to be done. You decided that it would be best to bring it up as nonchalantly as you could which happened to be during a platonic Netflix and chill session.

“Hey Jisoo,” you began shakily.

“Yea?” He seemed to not expect anything, which was advantageous to you.

“Umm, about you know, Seungcheol and your other friends...are you sure it’s...you know...in your best interest to be uhh hanging out with them?” It took you a lot of effort to bring this up.

He heaved a sigh.

“y/n, it’s really none of business and also not in your best interest to ask...Plus, it’s not like you know what’s best for me and you also do not know anything about them.. ” Jisoo was understandably irritated. This was not the first time that you had hinted about this.

His comment had really gotten under your skin. What’s best for him?? He says that you would not know, even though you spent the better half of your lives looking out and taking care of each other. And yet, he now cites that you don’t know anything about them either...

“I know plenty about the riff-raff you are hanging out with. They are borderline CRIMINALS!” You don’t know why you had shouted that last word but it definitely took a weight off your chest.

It also seemed to dislodge Jisoo’s surprisingly calm attitude.

“You don’t know anything so don’t say shit that you will never understand! You were brought up with privilege you never knew you had. My friends didn’t so I don't see what’s wrong with me making sure that get that privilege now. And that’s all I’m going to say about it. If you aren’t happy, then you can leave.”

And you did. You left that day and never looked back on your friendship. And if you had physically turned around that moment, you would have seen the broken look on Jisoo’s face. But you walked off, towards the future that you never knew was coming.

The memories plagued you sometimes and there were moments where you felt guilty, after all in your line of work, you knew that sometimes the accused were partly innocent but a job was a job. And with that memory resurfacing, you shook it off and continued your day as per normal.

It was a long day, full of paperwork and meetings about new cases and everyone was blabbering about a group that was becoming dangerously powerful. It was a mafia at this point and you knew that one day, you would have to face them and try your best to put them behind bars.

You were more than happy to reach home and take a nice long shower and just..relax for ten minutes. But before you could even put your bags down, your phone rang.

It annoyed you. The probability of it being someone from work calling about a missing file was high. And you answered the phone with an annoyed, “What”

“Is that how you greet everyone, darling?”

The voice was lilting and somewhat familiar and yet, you couldn't place your finger on it.

aight imma end it here for now, this has been in the drafts for a while as i was slowly writing this

as usual, feedback is welcomed!! thanks for making it this far!!!!

#svt #svt joshua #svt jisoo #floofsol #svt angst #potential angst at least #svt fluff

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a-happy-little-cactus · 4 years

Text

Midnight Cuddles

Summary: You can’t sleep, so you go to your friend Bakugou for help, though it’s a bit more than what you were expecting.

Word Count: 1,571

Genre: Fluff

Warnings: None

A/N: Hey ya’ll! I haven’t posted in a really, really, really long time, but here ya go! Let me know what you think! (Also, I’ve been meaning to write this for a very long time, but never got around to it. Super happy I finally did!)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

As much as you loved it here at UA, it had officially screwed you up.

Within a few days, you have somehow managed to go from great eating habits and sleep schedule to living off Bang, Monster energy drinks, and black coffee while getting somewhere around 2 and a half hours of sleep.

With midterms starting in a few days, for both normal and hero classes, your sense of self-preservation seemed to have taken a nice long vacation. Between studying and training, self-care was pretty much one of the last things you were worried about at this point.

As of now, you were looking aimlessly between your computer and your notes, debating how many questions you could miss on this test without absolutely failing. Hearing a sudden knock at your door jolted you back to reality, though it took you a minute to register what was going on.

“(Y/N)! I know you’re still awake in there! Let me in for a minute!”

Usually it wasn’t weird for your best friend Mina to want to have random midnight talks, so this wasn’t too out of the ordinary. Pushing yourself out of your chair and taking a swig of your coffee, you walked to the door, careful not to run into anything on your way over, since you had forgotten to turn on the light even after the sun went down.

“Hey Mina,” you said tiredly.

“Hey girl, I-” Mina paused, glancing behind you at your room, which was currently being illuminated solely by your computer screen, as well as the mess that was currently occupying your desk.

“Uh, is everything okay?” she asked.

“Hm? Oh, yeah it’s all-” you stop, having to yawn, before plopping yourself down on the bed- “It’s all good. Just a bit of studying.”

“Okay, girl, what cup number is that?” Mina asked, gesturing to the coffee cup sitting amongst the many other empty cans.

“Honestly, I’ve stopped counting,” you replied, laughing tiredly.

Mina rolled her eyes, walking over and grabbing the cup of coffee, despite your objections, “Look, you’re going to sleep. This can wait until tomorrow. Besides, Aizawa’s not gonna be too happy if you pass out in the middle of his class.”

“Ughh fine, I’ll go to bed,” you said, accepting that that was probably the most you were going to be able to cram for tonight.

“Good. Well, good night (y/n)!” Mina half shouted from down the hall, in somewhat of an attempt to not wake up everyone else.

“Night!” you yelled back, forcing yourself up from off the bed to get ready to go to sleep.

~time skip~

Despite being unbelievably tired, it had been about 30 minutes since you had finished getting ready for tomorrow morning and laid down, yet you had been completely unable to fall asleep.

‘Stupid caffeinated drinks’

You cursed yourself internally for drinking so much coffee. Frustrated, you thought about your options:

You could sneak out downstairs to the common area, but if Aizawa-Sensei happened to be down there, you’d definitely be in trouble.

You could try to cram some more, but you had a feeling if you looked at your Chem. notes one more time you would actually die.

Lastly, you contemplated doing something completely and utterly stupid and irrational: Asking to crash in one of your classmates’ rooms.

You didn’t know why, but for whatever reason, you found it a lot easier to fall asleep with others near by. Usually this wouldn’t be a problem, since none of the girls really ever minded having an unplanned sleepover. However, considering the fact that it was just over one in the morning, and class started in five hours, you guessed they were all probably asleep.

You thought about asking one of your guy friends, but Kiri slept like, well, a rock, and wouldn’t wake up without a blaring alarm. You would ask Kaminari, but he was probably still gaming, and it’s not too easy to fall asleep with him yelling at his console in the background. Sero would be a good choice, but he was at a family gathering, and wouldn’t be back until next week. Considering you didn’t really feel comfortable asking the other guys in your class, that left you with one other choice: Bakugou.

While yes, usually Katsuki did go to bed earlier than everyone else, like you, midterms had screwed that up. Even though he was still doing well in class, you had actually bumped into him during a 2am snack run a few days ago, so you guessed it wasn’t too far off to say there’s a chance he might still be awake. Even if he did end up telling you to screw off, it was at least worth trying.

Walking through the boy’s dorm hall, you noticed that you were indeed correct, as even while passing his dorm you could hear Kaminari shouting. What intrigued you though, was seeing the light peeking out from the doorframe of Katsuki’s room.

Knocking, you called for him, “Katsuki, I know you’re at least awake, can you open up?”

After about a minute of silence, the door to his room swung open, and you had a rather irritated looking Bakugou staring you down, the draft flowing from his room making you shiver.

He was wearing a black hoodie with sweats, and had a pair of glasses on, which made you notice the pile of notes, costume redesigns, and other sheets of paper scattered across his desk.

“What do you want dumbass, it’s late, and I’m busy,” he said.

“Uh- Oh right! Um, so, I was uh-” you stuttered out, trying to figure out how to word your sentence, which was proving difficult with the combination of his glare and your tiredness.

“Get to the point extra-” he warned.

“Look, can I sleep in your room tonight?” you asked.

His eyes widened, before regaining his irritated composure.

“How come? You got a room, don’t you?”

“Well, I can’t sleep,” you admitted, though that part was obvious.

“And what makes you think sleeping in my room is gonna change that?” he asked.

You looked away, before answering in a quieter voice, “It’s just, well, it’s just easier for me to sleep when other people are around.”

“Can’t you ask one of your other friends?”

“No, they’re all sleeping, and I don’t want to wake them up,” you replied.

After a moment, he sighed, before opening the door all the way and stepping aside to let you in.

“Fine. But you owe me,” he said.

To that, you lit up, nearly knocking him over with a hug, “Oh my gosh thank you so much! And yeah, that’s fair.”

Katsuki froze, before pushing away from you, averting your gaze.

“Whatever, just don’t bother me,” he said.

“Okay, that’s fine. Do you have any extra pillow’s I can borrow? I’d sleep directly on the ground, but it is hardwood, so I don’t think my skull would particularly like that,” you asked, taking in the rest of his room, which was really just a bed, dresser, and some more miscellaneous papers scattered across the room.

“Why the hell would I have extras, I’m not Mina. And don’t sleep on the floor dumbass, you’re going to wake up with bad back and neck pain, and you’re not going to be able to be at your best for when I beat your ass tomorrow,” he said.

Realizing what he had said, you felt the heat rise to your cheeks.

‘Just use his bed? But then, is he meaning he wants us to share?’

The more you thought about it, the more you blushed, so you put the thought away, and made your way into the bed. Thankfully, he only had his desk light on, so you faced the wall to deciding you should be able to sleep just fine like this.

“Oi, scoot over. You’re hogging the bed,” you hear after a few minutes.

‘Wait, what?’

You turned around to face him, confused, but he only gestured for you to move.

Blushing slightly, and glad he had turned the light off, you comply, giving him room to slip into the bed.

“Um, I uh, I thought you were working?” you ask, glad that the two of you were currently facing opposite directions, though it didn’t really help with your nerves.

“I was working. But it’s two in the morning, and I guess your dumbass reminded me to go to bed,” he said, chuckling lightly at the end.

“Oh.”

After a few minutes of silence between the two of you, you felt the draft of his room again, even with the covers. You had known he kept his room cold, but this was just stupidly cold.

“Hey Katsuki?” you called weakly, in case he had already fallen asleep.

“Hm,”

“It’s really cold, do you have any extra blankets, or could you like, change the AC settings?” you ask.

After a moment, you felt him shifting behind you, before feeling him put his arm around you, his body pressed against yours, and sending warmth back towards you.

You couldn’t do anything other than sit there, a blushing mess, and yet again unbelievably grateful that he couldn’t see your face.

“Better?” he asked.

“I-um, uh, yeah,” you stutter out, covering your face with one of your hands, making him laugh.

“Good,” he said, sounding a bit proud of himself for his job well done.

That night, despite everything, you two slept better than you had in a very long time.

#bnha x reader #bakugou x reader #bakugou fluff #bnha #katsuki bakugou #mina ashido #bnha imagines #bnha fluff

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halictus-writer · 4 years

Text

Welcome to Seattle (Ch. 3 of 5)

Remus deleted Tinder the second the app finished downloading. He was sitting at the dining table/desk combination of his studio apartment, and, unsurprisingly it was raining just outside the window. Seattle felt so new to Remus, although it had now been months since he moved away from his previous life. It took a lot of journaling and time, but he had begun to feel like what had happened–– his ex breaking his heart an hour before his twenty-sixth birthday party–– was meant to happen. His life hadn’t been his own. It was full of so much compromise, as is necessary for a life shared by two people, but the compromises that were made did not further his growth. He was stuck in a rut in his career, he was still in his college town, and he hadn’t even written a word of the novel he told himself he would write after the next big thing––graduation, holidays, birthdays, travel–– finished.

And now, here he was. Living in a big city, alone, but doing it the way he wanted. He had a job that furthered his growth, he had supportive friends, and he had already filled entire notebooks with the ideas, character charts, and plot diagrams that would eventually become his novel. Suddenly realizing that no one was here to complain about the cold, he cracked the window open, letting some of the fresh, rain-scented air in, and shrugged on a sweater.

He was at peace with himself, and for that reason he felt he was ready to give dating another shot. He re-downloaded Tinder, chose a few random pictures of himself, and typed out the bio that Dorcas had helped him draft, cringing the entire time. He closed the app without viewing the other Tinder users within twenty-five miles and two years of his age.

As a treat for his bravery, he decided to get a margherita pizza for lunch. If he exercised self-control, he could save half for tonight’s dinner as well. It was really a matter of simple economics.

***

Remus immediately noticed that the restaurant looked a little different in the midday light, but he also immediately noticed that Sirius was not on the clock. He ordered his pizza to-go.

As he walked back to his apartment, one hand tucking the pizza close, the other brandishing an umbrella, he tried not to think about the fact that he had so far only received free–– and unsolicited–– dessert items when Sirius was working.

***

An hour later, Remus had made his first matches on Tinder. He had also accidentally “super-liked” a person named “DL Top” with a gray image as their only picture, frantically looked up how you could “un-match” with someone, read a very patronizing how-to article on basic Tinder functions, and decided to choose “block” for good measure.

One of his matches was a graduate student at the University of Washington, and Remus liked that his profile said he loved to read. They exchanged normal greeting messages, before the man asked Remus if he was “a LTR kind of guy.” Remus answered him by saying “Tolkien is an amazing writer, obviously, but I have to admit the movies were kind of long.” The man didn’t reply, and Remus figured that his opinions on the Lord of the Rings franchise must have been a deal-breaker for the other man.

Dorcas and Marlene were adamant about hearing his progress with Tinder, so he sent a group text to the two of them.

Remus: Tinder day one is a thing, I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong yet

Dorcas: Yes! Proud of you

Marlene: what’s the weirdest thing that’s happened so far!!!!???

Remus: well, someone asked me what I thought about lord of the rings on the second message, does that count?

Dorcas: haha seriously? What did they even say

Remus: “so are you an LTR kinda guy or what?”

Marlene: HAHA

Dorcas explained that LTR in this context likely stood for “long-term relationship,” with intermittent texts from Marlene such as “how in the heck even” and “you are my favorite person oh my god.”

Remus decided to give Tinder a break for the rest of the day.

***

He made a good deal of progress within his first week of online dating, especially when considering that he started so low, with the misunderstanding of slang and accidental super-liking. It was now a Friday night, and he had a real-life, in-person date set for six o’clock. On Wednesday Remus had met a different match for coffee (but only after Dorcas had cross-referenced his story, friended him from a blank Facebook profile, and found pictures of him at his high school senior prom from nearly a decade ago. “You should be arrested,” Remus had said, horrified but a little grateful). Coffee had been perfectly pleasant, but both men agreed that they would rather be friends than anything more. They even friended each other on Facebook so that Remus could be added to his book club.

Meeting new friends was a welcome side-effect, but Remus was still in the market for a boyfriend. Hence, the anxious shuffling as he waited for the clock to get closer to six. Remus wished his apartment was larger, if only for the chance to have more space to clean. He had already Swiffered the floor, cleaned the bathroom mirror, and remade the bed, and it was still only a quarter past five. The cleaning was just for something to do with his hands and nerves, he knew that his date wouldn’t be seeing the inside of his apartment tonight. As per Dorcas’s prescriptions (and his own self-preservation), Remus’s first dates with strangers met online would take place completely in public.

At 5:45, a message from his upcoming date announced that he was being held a bit late at the office, and asked to reschedule for 6:30 instead of 6. Remus, wanting to be easy-going and amicable, kindly agreed, wishing him luck with his pressing work matters. Internally, however, he was frustrated that he had already taken the garbage out, since now there was absolutely nothing left to clean.

6:30 turned into 7:00, and by 7:15 Remus had taken his shoes off and was laying on the top of his neatly-made bed. The excuses changed from finishing at work, to a friend in need, to traffic, and Remus was beginning to consider just preemptively cancelling it himself.

At 7:45, the match asked if they could just skip dinner and maybe move straight into watching a movie “and cuddling” at Remus’s place instead. It was the final nail in the coffin Remus already saw, so he wasn’t even too disappointed.

Remus sent a polite but clear no, and knew that whoever this person was, he was not someone Remus would be building his life with. His stomach growled suddenly, reminding him that he still hadn’t eaten the dinner he was supposed to have hours earlier. Instead of going to all of the trouble to devise a meal at home, Remus decided that his troubles with the cancelled date warranted a very cheesy, doughy, and effortless meal. He quickly changed from his date clothes–– button down shirt, khakis, and tan buck shoes–– into a more comfortable, eating-pizza-alone-on-a-Friday-night ensemble: cozy sweatshirt, old blue jeans, and nikes.

When he got to the restaurant, he was still moping about getting blown-off from his date. He had sent a quick text to Dorcas and Marlene to let them know that his date was cancelled (otherwise they would have been checking his location religiously every fifteen minutes), but said he was doing okay since he didn’t want to interrupt their own date night plans with his sorrows.

Truthfully, Remus was pretty upset about what had happened. So far, online dating had not been a success, and Remus found himself returning to his secret fear that he wouldn’t ever successfully date again. Maybe it was because he was just too old, or perhaps he was out-of-touch, or it was simply because he had no real experience with dating since he had only ever had to go on one first date, and everything afterwards seemed to fall into place. If Lily was right, and he needed to meet someone organically for a relationship to work, he hoped it would happen soon.

Just then, his inner wallowing was interrupted by Sirius, carrying silverware and a glass of water. Somehow, Remus had forgotten that Sirius may be here, and hadn’t had time to prepare himself for the sight of the attractive waiter. His hair was swept into a loose bun, seemingly held together with a pencil.

“Hey there, how’s your Friday night going?”

Remus almost laughed at the question. Clearly, his night was not fantastic, because if it was, he would not be sitting in the booth of an Italian restaurant, alone, at 8:30 PM. He tried to shake off his own self-pity before answering. “Fine, thanks. How about you? Has it been busy tonight?” One of Remus’s favorite tactics when avoiding conversations about himself to his friends was to get them talking about themselves instead. Or, in the case of James, talking about Lily.

“It hasn’t been too busy today, or at least not since I got here at 5. Although,” he said, smiling almost conspiratorially, “I’ve had three different tables tell me ‘you too’ after I brought them their dinners.”

Remus laughed, and filed away the knowledge that Sirius remembered their inside joke from last time to the back of his mind for unpacking later. “I’ll have to see if I can get that number any higher then.”

“Oh, but you won’t be able to if I change up my script when I bring you your small margherita pizza. I’ll just say something like ‘here it is,’ no wishes of enjoyment included.” Sirius said, with faux sincerity.

“And what if I changed up my order on you?” Remus was surprised but pleased that Sirius remembered not only their jokes from last time about customers stumbling over words when presented with their food, but also the very food that Remus had ordered.

“I hope not, since I told the kitchen to start making it right after I saw you walk in.” Sirius grinned, but then suddenly looked almost bashful. “Although if you wanted something else, you still can order something else, that would be fine, I just thought, well, since it’s kind of late, we might as well give the ovens a head start?” His voice tilted up at the end as the statement turned into a question.

Remus liked this more approachable version of Sirius. He made him feel at ease. “No, you were right, I came here specifically for that margherita pizza. Thank you for starting it early for me.”

Sirius’s nervous smile turned soft.

***

The pizza was delicious, and succeeded in making Remus feel slightly better about the cancelled date. After all, he wouldn’t have been able to eat this much on the date, hindered by an abundance of good manners.

When Sirius dropped off the check, he also let Remus know that they would be closing soon. “You’re welcome to sit as long as you like, but the kitchen did just close.”

“No worries, I’m ready to head out. Thank you!” As Remus signed the receipt, a small to-go box was placed in front of him.

“Kitchen is closed, but you may want that for the road.” Sirius smiled warmly at Remus. “Have a good night!”

As Remus left the restaurant, carrying the small box, he reflected on Sirius’s parting words. He did have a good night, all things considered. Comfort food is one for addressing his emotional turmoil, but having a light conversation with a few inside jokes with another person is another thing entirely.

He also happily noted that he would get to bring the enclosed tiramisu with him to his breakfast with Dorcas and Marlene tomorrow. Pawning off the soggy dessert on them would be good for both reducing food waste and generating karma.

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begayish-docrime · 3 years

Text

Quotes and conversations I found either in my Twitter drafts or already posted

“I thought it was black!” “It’s pale fucking pink!”

“There’s a random lama. Now there’s 3 random pieces of leather.”

“Pick a number between 1 and 5.” “6. Wait-“

“I wonder if I can make this a Slip n’ Slide.”

“I have PENI”

“Can you put lotion on your armpit?”

“You don’t look cool. You just look like you killed a homeless guy.”

“We’re not straight people. I wouldn’t have married you if I hated you.”

“I’m just gonna say he committed suicide because that makes it better.”

“They talk so fancy like their last name isn’t Blossom. Fucking Powerpuff Girl.”

“Why does he simultaneously look every age from 15 to 67?”

“I mean, I’d probably whisper if I saw an emo twink too.”

“Just try not to kill anybody.” “What if I want to?” “Well don’t because that is illegal.”

“I mean it’s not gonna kill me. I think. I dunno my body’s weird.”

“Dream I think you somehow broke them.” “DREAM LITERALLY JUST CAME UP IN MY QUICK ADD.” “Yeah Dream you broke them.”

“Technically speaking my great grandfather died of fall damage.”

“I didn’t fuck my mother. That’s incest”

“Just got attacked. Pack it up theater class.”

“Cat look like peee” 5x

“Ha! Get reverse Philza’d bitch!”

“Awh no more rainy boy. You’re a whore!”

“I said don’t touch me. Good lord. Never heard of consent or something?”

“Well they aren’t married!” “Oakley you are literally sitting in front of a picture from when they got married.”

“That’s not a dog cage. That’s my mom and dad.”

“You know what’s gay?” “Me.”

“It’s like someone asking if you’re dead. Like no I’m just cosplaying Prince Philip.”

“My outfit looks gay. I’m literally wearing a space gay pin of course it looks gay.”

“We’re mean to each other because we’re nice.”

“Girls stop fighting!” “We’re not fighting! We’re probing our point by yelling at each other!” “Khloe I think that’s the same thing.”

“Is this a peach?” “That is not a peach.” “Well what is it then? Is it a granberry?”

“Rune of holding.” “Tune of undying.”

“Potassium is fucking healthy for you do you have a fucking problem.”

“If you come near me I will stab your family. No not you, Pampy. I’d willingly stab your family.”

“You whore.” “I am a whore.”

“I mean drugs are kind of hot tho ngl.”

“Don’t yawn, bitch. It’s not healthy.”

“I protect my dildo.”

“Why is it always like 30+ year old men that complain about everything girls enjoy? Like go do your taxes and hate your wife”

“Why can I not spell striagh” half a second later “Fuck.”

“Why am I a tree.”

“That almost hit me in the face.” “That’s okay.”

“I don’t know what that is.” “You don’t know what hot chocolate is?”

“How is a raft supposed to carry a raft?”

“Catwoman!” “Yes!” “YEAH!” “Wait no”

“✨Grass Worm✨”

“Adults rule! Kids drool!” “Haven’t we won every other game besides this one?”

“Hummingbirds are tiny and cute. Unlike Liyah.”

“Purple. Purp. Purpur. That’s a Minecraft block.”

“I can’t break the tie because I don’t care.”

“I’m sitting on my knees. I do that a lot.”

“I have sea shanties stuck in my head right now do you think I’m okay?”

“No I just had an obsession with a book about people on a ship.”

“We do. Some people have 11.” “My friend has 9. She lost her pinky toe on a treadmill.”

“Okay couldn’t I just count the dice?” “Whoah whoah whoah put the dice down!”

“A cockroach created the world.”

“Don’t they eat snails? It does sound like a French thing.”

“Oh it’s geography. I’m not good at geography.” Hears the question. “Oh never mind”

“I don’t know what peace is.”

“What’s in your hands? Oh it’s just your hands.”

“I’m hoeing.” “When are you not?” “Fuck you!” “That just proves my point.”

“How would you describe me?” Simultaneously “Cute.” “Bitch.”

“Guess how many emails I’m logged into on my phone.” “How many?” “Yes.”

“You mean my gender can’t be a bunch of rats in a trench coat.”

“Hey Pampy. Hey hey Pampy guess what.” “What?” *the beginning to That’s What I Like*

“I WANNA STAB SHIT! I WANNA A CHURCH GIRL THAT GOES TO CHURCH AND READS HER bIbLe”

“What’s the chemical formula of water?” “Oxygen peroxide!”

“At this point they aren’t stealing points from you. They’re stealing your limbs.”

“How did you sleep?” “Yeah.”

“You’re tired. I can smell it in your voice.”

“I can hide behind this computer sexually”

“Someone put something in this applesauce.” “Probably more drugs.”

“What are you doing stepladder?”

“They’re gonna gun you down Pampy!” “Pog!”

“The only straight thing about me is my straight F’s.”

“Sleep is for the straight.”

“‘Mommies should only be kissing daddies’ but Santa Claus is daddy.”

“You know what I do like? Incest. That’s a joke.”

“You know how they say ‘You are what you eat?’ I think I’ve figured out how to remain eternally young”

“Technoblade may be the 2nd worst thing to happen to those orphans but I’m the reason they’re orphans”

“COCKS IN CALL TORTURE”

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whatwashernameagain · 5 years

Text

Keep him safe - Chapter 31

You can read the previous Chapters here: Ch 1, Ch 5, Ch 10, Ch 15, Ch 20, Ch 25, Ch 30, previous chapter, Ao3 Link, Lo’s, Pat’s and Virgil’s aesthetics, Fantasy AU You are Magical, I’m dying to be with you

Pairings: Logan/Patton, Roman/Virgil

Words: 6.944

Warnings: effects of addiction, personal loss, insecurity, cursing onself

Summary: Detective Logan Sanders and his best friend and dorky partner Roman Prince have made a dear friend in the lovely pattisier Patton. Logan however feels a lot more than friendship for the sweet man, even though he knows he cannot possibly have him. Their routine is broken abruptly when Logan finds bruises on Patton’s fair skin and slender wrists he could hardly have received from his costumary clumsiness. Meanwhile his partner Roman has his own demon to fight, which comes in the form of a little delinquent who seemed to have been pulled into a street gang quite against his will. Roman is determined to help the strange young man. It would be so much easier though if he just stopped hissing at him!

Notes: As many of you noticed I had a moment where I felt a little lost and unloved last week and you all came to my support immediately and cheered me up so much. I didn’t even manage to answer all of the kind and loving asks I’ve gotten due to working late every day. I hope I can tell you all this way that I appreciate your efforts so much! They were just what I needed! I usually post the new chapter only when I’m done answering the comments, but since I promised this one, here we are!

Chapter 31

This was madness. Utter insanity. Virgil was the last person fit for this. Logan should have left him to watch Patton, he could have easily handled his weird neighbor. Considering how tired the dude had looked, if he’d misbehaved a little bump on the head would have sent him into a well-deserved nap pretty quickly.

Maybe his tendency for violence had been the reason Logan had sent him to retrieve Roman.

Still, this was a bad idea! He grew mean when he was anxious and right now he felt like he was bursting at the seams! How could Roman be so stupid, though? Possessive anger pulsed through his veins as he marched up the creaking stairs.

He had Logan and Patton and... he had people who cared, alright?! How dare this piece of shit try to charm him?! He wasn’t some naive, pretty price to be won in some deranged game. Virgil knew exactly what was going on! This glittery bitch was trying to toy with Roman because he was beautiful and protected and therefore unattainable – a prize. Not to him, though! Virgil had seen that he was more than a dramatic stereotype of an attractive jock waiting to be dazzled and claimed. He was selfless and respectful and dangerously sensitive. He was infuriating and loud and soft and attentive and strong for everyone else. And he was weak for someone to come and give him what he craved. Roman just wanted to be loved. And Virgil was filled with icy panic at the thought of this son of a bitch giving him what he needed. He’d lure Roman away with the promise of being the only one. The treasure he’d put on a pedestal to be draped in expensive fabric and admired. That was not what Roman really needed, though. He needed a home. He needed someone who still loved him when he was whiny and obnoxious and so fucking special he made you want to strangle him!

Ugh, Virgil, you utter asshole!

He was the one who deserved to be strangled. The peeling wallpaper of the staircase looked pretty appealing to his fist right now.

All Roman wanted was a bit of attention, a bit of human warmth from him! His mind went to places of sexual favors immediately but even then, he knew he wouldn’t expect that. He just wanted to be loved. The detective’s wishes were so innocent, and even that was too much for Virgil. He was such a fucking- ugh. He hated himself quite a bit right now. Roman asked for so little. And even that was too much for him.

It wasn’t, though! He- damn, this was the most irritating thing! He wanted to give those things to Roman! He wanted to make him smile and feel beautiful and – and even desirable. He wanted to tell him how soft Virgil was for him and how annoyingly adorable he was and how he liked the way his hair fell into his eyes and…

Overwhelmed, his mind just shut down on him. The heat of his blush was probably cooking his brain.

He couldn’t possibly be expected to say those things! Thinking them almost killed him! This was this fucking, manipulative, damned thief’s fault!

That glitter-brained menace knew how to spin words and create grand gestures and make Roman go all starry eyed by playing to his idea about what love was supposed to look like. This was what Virgil hated most about them! They made Roman think shallow, expensive gifts and grand gestures and poetic pain were their love story and it worked because this was the love Roman had grown up with! He’d learned to desperately see love in the expensive lifestyle his absent father had given him or in the flashy gifts his mother had shoved at him instead of going through the trouble of actually loving him.

Fuck, this realization hurt like a knife between the ribs. After all those years, his parents were still hurting him! Virgil wanted to cry for little Roman. He didn’t deserve to have those innocent wishes for warmth and attention used against him. The thief hadn’t talked to him once but had made him feel like a prince needing to be bought with gifts. Like he was important and deserving of expensive shit, as if that was what love was instead of hurting each other and forgiving and working on yourself, working to deserve the other. Facing them even when being seen by your own reflection felt like too much. Wanting to tell them everything bouncing around your erratic brain even though you had no words to explain your ideas yet. Wanting to see them, every day, and needing to know they were close even when being in the same room was too much. Being haunted by their pain even when your own became a pale, common thing you grew used to ignoring. Thinking about what they would say all the time, wanting to tell them about your day at random moments, at all moments. Wanting to be touched, even when the thought was frightening. Wanting their happiness more than your own.

The 9 next to the faded blue door was hanging by the bottom nail, making it appear like a crooked 6. Only as he raised his clenched fist to knock did Virgil’s brain catch up with his panicked emotions.

Wait, he was in the wrong place. This building had a look about it that Virgil was depressingly familiar with. It looked like the bad side of the district he’d grown up in, where prostitutes and unemployed alcoholics and addicts lived. He was pretty sure in his distraction he’d passed an abandoned meth lab on the way up. Loud music was pounding through the thin walls next to him and a couple was screaming above him. Even outside the apartments, he felt the draft of badly isolated windows. It carried the smell of weed and microwave food. Down the corridor, a light was flickering so erratically, it threatened to give him a headache.

Reaching into his pocket again, he pulled out the address Logan had written down for him and checked his phone when the uneven gait of a drunk man climbing the stairs distracted him.

The middle-aged male dressed in a brightly colored track suit looked him up and down slowly. As he opened his mouth, smelling of tequila even from two meters away, Virgil glared at him acidly and hissed, “Keep moving if you know what’s good for you, asshole.”

Taken aback, the guy closed his mouth with an audible click before thinking better of his plans and stumbling away. This little thing with the furiously clenched jaw looked ready to cut him.

Virgil was half disappointed to see the man leave. He could have done well with a chance to blow off some steam. A fight was better than facing Roman this way again and once again losing control of his temper. This place was reminding him of others quite like this one where he'd worked. Of the smell of cheap alcohol. The taste on his tongue. The bitterness and salt.

Turning back to his phone with a curse, he found the address to be correct.

“Fuck.”

He had an idea about what was going on and he hated it. Suddenly, he felt like he had so many nights, standing at the door of his mother’s room, hardly daring to make a sound for fear of missing the sound of her breathing. Terrified of the moment it would stop. The uncertainty was eating him up even now.

He had to wrap his arms around himself to ward off the trembling, the burning tears in his eyes. He needed to grab Roman and bring him home, right now!

Raising his fist, he started banging on the flimsy door almost violently.

“Roman, get your ass here, now!” He hollered. There was a hysterical note in his voice he didn’t like. His breath came short and quick. Hating the fear crawling up his back, he kicked the door hard. The urge to look over his shoulder to check for attackers trying to pin him against the wall was almost impossible to suppress. Where was Roman?

The door was wrenched open hard. A large body framed by murky light filled the doorway, making Virgil flinched and force him to tip his head back to look up a the face of the other man.

Seeing Roman, despite having come here for him, was a shock. He hadn’t really expected to see the graceful, well-groomed man in this place after all. Yet here he was, perfect curls falling into his handsome face, dressed in a pristine white shirt and dark blue trousers and that fucking, bloody scarf thing. His face was pale with surprise.

“Virgil, what’s going on? Are you hurt?” He asked, looking him over worriedly and sweeping the dusty corridor with his gaze. He didn’t ask him inside or move his large body past the narrow opening of the door.

Virgil stared at him and tried to keep his ridiculous, dumb heart from giving out. This was too much.

“Roman, what the actual fuck?”

His voice came out differently than he’d expected. It sounded dry and tired-of-your-shit. And he was. He wanted to bundle Roman up and take him home.

“Um, I- what are you doing here?” The young detective asked, startled. Self-consciously, he hunched his broad shoulders, yet his bulk still managed to hide the flat behind the half-opened door from view. He looked ashamed.

“What do you think, dude? You just- you just up and disappeared and you- you took that and you left this fucking thing?” Virgil hissed, glaring at the cravat and brandishing the note in a white-knuckled grip. “You think I wouldn’t come to- you ran into a fire for this asshole and then you bring his bribery or whatever and a fucking love letter, and you think I wouldn’t come after you?!”

Roman seemed at a loss for words for a moment. He didn’t fight Virgil’s harshly voiced accusations. When he spoke his voice was docile and submissive.

“I didn't intend to make you anxious, Virgil. It’s nothing you need to worry about. I won’t do anything to cause you trouble anymore. You can go back to Logan and Patton.”

“Go- no! I’m not leaving you while you’re being followed around by a fucking stalker!” Virgil screeched, nearing the end of his patience. This place was creeping him out, he didn’t understand what Roman was doing here and he needed him out. He knew what was going on behind walls like these and he couldn’t leave this naive idiot here, he was already a target and so soft for this thief and he needed him where he knew he was safe now.

Grabbing his arm, he tried to pull him along, barely hearing anything over his rising fear of- of whatever it was his fucking brain was coming up with right now- he just- he needed to get him out of here!

Of course, the wall of muscle that was Roman wouldn’t be moved if he didn’t want to be, and for the first time, he wasn’t indulging Virgil.

“I am so sorry, Virgil. I can see that you are distressed. This is no place for you. Please just go home. I won’t worry you anymore.” He promised gently as he pried the pale hand loose from his sleeve. The younger man felt like he’d been punched. Pushed away from Roman’s life. Frustrated tears rose to his eyes.

“NO! You stupid idiot, are you actually this fucking draft? You need to listen – you can’t- you can’t stay here! What the fuck are you staying at this weird place for anyway? For them? You seriously think they’ll- this is fucking madness!” He howled, pulling his hair away from his face roughly. He wanted to punch something. He should have punched that wall. Helplessness made him terrified, and angry.

“Are you serious about this shit?! They are trying to win you but they don’t even know you! Trust me – they have no idea about how exasperating you are – how you spread out your presence wherever you go and make everything messy with shiny stuff like glitter and bright fabrics and shit. I don’t get why you pretend to be so annoying and selfish and then you make me see how much more there is to you - you aren’t the front you put up – that gorgeous, stupid, annoying idiot who tries to be the center of attention because he thinks he’s god’s gift to the world. You’re a mess and you’re reckless and kind to the point of being naive and you – you’re so patient with me, no matter how fucking- how I don’t deserve it and- and they don’t know! They think you’re this stupid façade, but I know you! I don’t get you, no matter how much I think about you, but at least I- ungh fuck, I- just- kill me now…” He whimpered. Miserably, he added, “They don’t want you the way you deserve.”

Stricken, Roman stared at him. He looked hurt and shaken and… utterly lost in the world.

“But… at least they want me.” He muttered softly.

Virgil could swear he heard the moment his heart broke for this stupid man. He barely managed to swallow a scream of utter frustration and humiliation. “But I-” He broke off helplessly, hiding his burning face in his hands and muffling his voice.

“I… you are… I want you, okay?! I don’t- DON’T you dare think this means anything or – I’m not saying- it’s just that you’re- and you-

Disbelief and confusion washed over the younger detective. Totally overwhelmed, he tried to make sense of the stuttered confession. Virgil was already barreling on, though, powered by his frightened anger.

“You can't just fuck off and leave me behind! Do you think I – we - you think we don't give a fuck if you just run off with that extra, bedazzled creep?” He complained, his melodic voice deep and scratchy. He was giving Roman whiplash with his moods.

“I- I’m sorry, Virgil. I didn't mean to hurt you. But- you flinched when I got close to you, and after the fire you were so angry and hid from me. I thought you couldn’t stand to look at me.” He muttered. The rejection still hurt so badly it made tears rise into his green eyes. This couldn’t possibly be true. He didn’t want another repeat of their kiss. Virgil couldn’t sacrifice himself again for what he thought Roman wanted.

“No, I- it’s not your fault!” Virgil groaned in distress. His confession burst from his chest like a physical thing.

“I was ashamed, okay? I was such a dick to you. How could you think I’d think badly of you? You saved someone from a literal burning building – you’re the most heroic, incredible, impossible dumbass in the world – who does something like that? That sort of shit happens in movies, not with real people! I just – I panicked, alright! I got so terrified you’d die, you don’t know how terrible – you can’t die! There’s no one else like you – in the whole fucking world - and if I lost you- I couldn’t- I can’t lose you! What you did was stupid, but it was also so brave and so you, and now that I have that in my life I couldn’t live without it! I got so fucking scared you’d be taken away by your own stupid heroism and treated you so badly because I don’t know how to just- be a fucking decent person anymore and then I couldn’t take it back even though-”

He ran a frustrated hand through his messy hair, his face burning. He hadn’t been this uncomfortable in years. This was too much honesty; it might just kill him.

“Even though I – I admire you, okay?! Saving that person – that was – I don’t know. Pretty brave, I guess. What you do for others, just like that, it just fucking awes me. And exasperates me, too. How you make everything so fucking bright and look at the good side and how you always try to save everyone – that’s not my world. It’s not how people are, but you are that way, just like that. Don’t you get it?” He whispered tiredly.

“My life was ending in hurt and shame and I was just ready to fucking die already and then you came along and just fricking saved me. You- how can I-” Blinking back mortified tears, he groped for words. He couldn’t let Roman keep thinking he was afraid or disgusted with him.

“Sometimes I look at you and I can’t believe you’re real. I wake up at night and think I dreamed you. You’re like- like a-”

Shame made the young man almost lose his courage, but he soldiered on, unable to look at the other man. Roman felt small and insecure and was about to make a terrible mistake because Virgil had made him feel this way, so he had to be brave for once in his life and change that. Roman wasn’t there for the taking. He was… he belonged to someone.

“You’re like the impossible hero I never even dared imagine. You just appeared like a mirage and made everything so… safe. And beautiful. Logan gives us stability, but you- you’re like bloody magic. You took me in your arms the way I was and make me laugh and feel things I’d thought were impossible after – um, you k-know. Point is, you’re a fucking irritating, annoying miracle and I couldn’t handle the thought of losing you. I’m so fucking sorry, Roman. I hurt you when you needed me and made you turn to someone else and I knew you deserved better, but after I fucked up again I just became so ashamed of myself. I couldn’t look at how hurt you were and I couldn’t find words to apologize, so I hid like a coward and – and now… fuck. I drove you away.”

With shaking hands, Virgil unfolded the crumbled note, holding it out to the man who’d chosen the person who’d left it to him, because Virgil had broken his confidence.

“I’m sorry. I know you need something, but this, this isn’t real, even though it might be as… glittery, or whatever, as you deserve. I’m not much, and I can’t really promise- I mean- I’m in over my head, dude, but-”

He was interrupted as his hands were being taken, impossibly tenderly, in larger, shaking ones. Finally daring to look up, Virgil found Roman in tears before him. His green eyes were wide. He was shaking. Then, he was laughing.

A lightness flooded the handsome detective he’d never felt before. It was like he could fly, like he was falling and wouldn’t ever come down. His heart raced with euphoria. He was soaring. Virgil may be burning up with terror and humiliation and he’d take care of him in a second, but right now, he could hardly believe the things he’d told him.

Virgil admired him.

His heart leaped.

Virgil thought he was a hero.

A laugh broke from his chest, watery and unbridled.

Virgil might possibly, unbelievably, just a little bit, want him.

Roman lowered his face and cried overwhelmed tears of joy.

He knew his thundercloud wasn’t propositioning him, he wasn’t ready for anything and didn’t need him like this. The poor, beautiful creature was probably terrified of the expectations he thought he was creating – as if Roman would ever demand anything from him. There were things he’d need to tell him, reassurances to be made. But first, he needed a moment to feel all of this weight fall off his shoulders.

Rubbing his cold hands slowly, so not to startle the jumpy creature that was probably unconsciously waiting to be ambushed after giving a man an opening, no matter how small, he smiled at him tenderly. Finally, he felt like he was permitted to look at him with softness.

“It’s alright, my starry night.” The endearment hung in the air between them for a moment. Virgil looked shaken but didn’t contradict him. He probably felt like he needed to be complacent to tempt Roman back. That would not do. Still, he felt like they were finally on the right path. He’d just need to show Virgil there was a healthy way to move forward, where he didn’t need to offer himself to make Roman happy.

“You don’t need to promise me anything or trade yourself for my complacency, dearest. I vowed not to demand anything from you and a prince stands by his word. The thought of having driven you away with my affection shattered me, but to learn that you don’t feel discomfort in my presence and perhaps even gain a tiny bit of satisfaction from our friendship is enough to make my heart soar with the clouds. And don’t be afraid. This is just fine. It’s all I could wish for.” He promised earnestly, squeezing his hands softly.

“You couldn’t drive me away with anything as long as you actually want me there. I’m happy to come with you, wherever you want to go.”

The utter softness of the detective’s voice brought the young barista up short. Virgil’s breath caught on his emotions. Mortified, he needed to blink back tears. Oh god oh fuck oh shit what had he just told him?! Had he just made a fucking confession? Oh no no no he wanted to die.

Sensing his mortification, Roman offered the safety of his arms hopefully, ready to protect him from this place that made him anxious and to let him hide his face. Knowing the alternative was punching Roman unconscious and running away, Virgil gratefully dove into his arms. What the fuck was supposed to happen? He’d already made a fool of himself, might as well get a hug out of it as well.

“I know you’re scared, little bird.” His deep, hoarse voice rumbled softly against Virgil’s ear where he pressed it against Roman’s chest. He sounded utterly calm, like all of his fears had left him. Like he was where he belonged. His arm settled around the narrow waist and held the trembling creature close while his other hand cupped the the back of his neck in a warm grip.

“There is nothing to fear with me.”

Virgil took in a shuddering breath, overwhelmed by the sudden wave of affection that hit him. He clutched the taller man tighter, squishing their bodies together. He smelled good, of cologne and this heady, male scent that made warmth spread through his veins. Though he was terrified of the possibilities for terrible, terrible things he’d just created, he knew he wouldn’t take those words back if he could. The silk of the cravat tried around Roman’s neck was cool against his cheek, taunting him with the threat of seducing him into another person’s arms. A fire blazed in his chest at the thought. He clutched at the muscle under his hands with sudden possessiveness. He was the one Roman had wanted first. The one he’d fought for and called ridiculous fucking names and gotten in trouble for. He was the one who would protect him from his silly mind that tried to betray him with stupid, romantic idea. He’d protect him from them. And if he had to face his feelings and try to somehow find a way to give him what he needed from him, then he would do that. Despite being frankly terrified. If things went wrong he could destroy his family. He could break Roman’s heart. He was likely to break Roman’s heart actually. He didn’t do lovey dovey relationship stuff! He didn’t even know what he was supposed to do with him! Sex was potentially no problem, of course. He knew he could satisfy him, there was nothing he hadn’t tried and excelled at yet, he was a genius gymnast after all. The problem was the- the emotional bullshit. He didn’t know if what he was feeling was even what he was supposed to feel in a relationship and-

“Hush, darling.” Roman rumbled in his ear. “You’re thinking too much. It’s all good. This is perfect.”

Oh. Okay. This he could do.

Relaxing into the embrace, Virgil allowed himself to be cradled by larger hands, marveling that they remained safely on his back and sides even after his stuttered confession. With the excuse of staying in this position for Roman’s benefit alone, he could breathe quietly and just feel the pleasure of being held onto as if he were the whole world. This actually felt really, really good. All of Roman’s attention was focused on him. He was safe and tender and a dork and so pretty Virgil sometimes hurt just looking at him. And he needed Virgil. He wanted Virgil without demanding anything. He was his for the taking, if he wanted him.

Oh fuck, Virgil wanted him.

He wanted him so much he was ready to straight up murder this bitch if they ever dared so much as breathe on his man again.

Possessive, fierce anger at the thief made Virgil curl his fingers into claws, digging them into Roman’s back. Before he could fully realize he might be hurting him, the taller man gasped and shivered in his tight grip. He didn’t try to hold Virgil harder or pull back. He just let the former criminal have his way with him and fuck, if that wasn’t the hottest thing that had ever happened to him. For Roman, the unloved, undemanding, ignored child, this vanilla, huggy, friendshippy thing might be enough, but it dawned to Virgil that it wasn’t for him. He wanted to grab Roman and have him all to himself. He wanted to be the one who got to claim him and touch him – be the only one who got to touch him - and make him laugh as freely as he had after his confession. He wanted him to look at him alone with those awed, beautiful eyes. He wanted to somehow make him happy and confident. He wanted- he wanted… so much.

Still, even as he realized that he really wanted to touch Roman more, at least as long as he remained so docile and nonthreatening under his hands, he knew the pleasure he could give him as a former prostitute wasn’t what Roman needed. Even though he claimed he would be fine with the little attention Virgil had just given him, he knew he dreamed of more. And the thief would continue to be there to fearlessly court him. Which meant, if Virgil really wanted to keep him, which he, oh my fucking fucking shit, really actually wanted, then he needed to step up his game.

Trying to breathe through the rush of panic at the realization that he would have to try to talk about his feelings, he buried his face in Roman’s neck, standing on his tiptoes to get closer.

Since when did he try to get closer instead of away when he was frightened?

Obediently, Roman’s arms tightened around his waist to support him. A small, pleased sigh escaped him.

Neither knew how long they’d held each other when a creak in the hallway woke them from their comfortable bubble. Drawing back from his hiding place, Virgil immediately felt his face burn crimson. This was worse than that one time he’d almost told Sam Gallagher in High School that he’d liked her. He could have never faced her again. Unbelievable that he’d been stupid enough to say those things to Roman, he lived with the man! Oh fuck.

Roman on the other hand appeared more relaxed than he’d been in weeks. His smile was tender and radiant. Every breath seemed to help him unwind further. He was beautiful.

Virgil forgot a little bit of his shame as he looked at him through his bangs. He’d done that. He’d really put this smile on Roman’s face. It was… amazing. A fluttering lightness warred with his embarrassment and fear. He liked that he’d made him feel this way. It drove away the awful, ugly feeling of guilt and anger inside of him and made space for… whatever the fuck this exciting, dumb thing he was experiencing was. He wasn’t quite ready for more emotional revelations today, so instead he growled, “Can we go home now, dude?”

A little laugh shook Roman’s broad shoulders. He tangled his fingers together in front of him in an unusual show of bashfulness. Virgil liked that too.

“Um… yes, I guess we can return to the apartment, dear.” He answered. Virgil felt safe enough to glare a little at the nickname. That would have to stop once they were of safer ground. He was still a hardened criminal, not some fancy poultry or shit like that. Speaking of the apartment.

Daring to peer around him curiously, Virgil asked, “The heck is this place, anyway?”

“Oh. Never mind that. It’s just more of my tragic, not-at-all-fun-to-listen-to origin story. Let’s just return home and drink cocoa. Perhaps the- the professor has left already.”

Virgil growled. “He better have.”

His anger seemed to calm Roman a great deal. What was the moron thinking? That he’d prefer this weird, trashy, horny man-child over him? Delusional, seriously. And he was way too shy again. Virgil, incredulously, wanted him to talk to him. He wanted him to want to confide in him.

“It doesn’t have to be fun to listen to, you know?” He tried softly. “If you wanna talk feelings I’m here. I give a shit about your past, I guess. Helps me understand you better and… I want to understand you. Weirdo.” He added tamely. Too much niceness would make him break out in hives, he was sure.

Roman chuckled at his attempts to help him open up, ever appreciative of the little effort Virgil was capable of. His shoulders sagged a bit as he considered it. After a moment though, he stepped aside.

Curious and anxious to find a way to get this over with and make him smile again, Virgil stepped past him silently and peered into the wide, empty space.

The apartment was in bad shape. The old, wooden floorboards were scratched and in need of a thorough sanding and a fresh coat of varnish. The walls looked even worse. Long strips of wallpaper were peeled off by nervous hands in many places. What was left of it was splattered with suspiciously reddish splashes and yellowish stains. A narrow bathroom was visible through the door on the right side of the room. The sink was chipped and the mirror above it was spiderwebbed by cracks focused around a point of collision the size of a man’s fist. With horror, Virgil spotted the telltale black shadows of mold on the upper corner. The opposite wall of the bathroom was kicked in partly and revealed the cheap wooden construction underneath. Nothing but a table and a chair were placed in the cold, drafty space aside from a tiny kitchen corner with an old stove and a small fridge that rumbled noisily, and a plastic box filled with dish soap, detergents and such. Despite the deplorable state, everything was as clean as it could possibly be.

Drifting into the damp-smelling room and shivering at the cold air wafting through the badly insulated windows, Virgil took everything in, trying to make sense of what he saw. The door on the other side of the room drew his attention. It was half open and admitted a view of more furniture. Almost afraid to step inside, Virgil slipped through the crack and stopped in his tracks.

On wooden pallets, a mattress covered in clean, dark red linen was placed. At the foot of the improvised bed a plastic sheet was folded that appeared to have usually been pulled over the fabric to protect it from the dust raining from the ceiling. A space heater sat on the ground to ward off the chill the clearly broken radiator couldn’t get rid of. Next to it, Roman’s phone was charging on the ground. On the far wall, a vanity with beauty products sat. On Virgil’s left, a long rack was holding hanger after hanger of clothing tidily zipped up in white cotton covers. And there were boxes. All of them closed tightly with tape to protect them from dust or hungry animals, and all of them tidily labeled. Swiping his gaze over them, he deciphered the swooping handwriting.

Octavia’s books.

Stepping closer, he discovered another sharpie-written label.

Octavia’s PlayStation games.

Another box, tidily and carefully sealed and labeled.

Octavia’s boots/jean jackets.

Crouching down and running almost reverent fingertips over the writing, Virgil continued to read with a sinking heart.

Octavia’s writing/notes/drawings from primary school.

Another box.

Octavia’s t-shirts.

And two more, placed close to the bed and sealed as tightly as the others, unopened.

Octavia’s buttons/jewelry/belts.

Octavia’s pictures/phone/laptop.

Virgil’s vision was blurring as he spotted the bottommost box.

Octavia’s stuffed toys/post-it notes from Nana.

Wiping his eyes, Virgil rose to face the detective making himself as small as possible in the doorway.

“Oh fuck, Roman.” He muttered. Crossing the room with long strides, he grabbed the larger man and pulled him into his arms hard.

Roman shuddered with a suppressed sob and folded himself into the embrace.

“It’s okay, man. I’m here. It’s alright now. I know.”

And he did. He knew in his bones that this was the last place Roman had seen his sister. This was the apartment she had ended up hiding away in to consume the drugs she had fallen prey to. This might even be the place she had died in. The place young Roman had found his big sister in. It was the only thing he had left of her.

He understood, in a way, how you could be so trapped in your pain and your awful memories of the end of a life that you couldn’t look past it too see the good times. You couldn’t remember what the person used to look like before, happy and healthy. The only thing you could remember was their pain and your failure. You could remember nothing but the things you did wrong, instead of the ways you helped. The times you made them smile. The happiness you put into their lives.

He could barely recall the times he’d come home from school to see his mother wave from the window as she’s spotted him walking up the street, so happy to see him. The way her cooking had smelled, the way she had sat at the kitchen table with her feet up, with the slippers with the three buckles and tiny pink flowers on them. The way she liked to go shopping with him and look at the flowers and decorations in the shop. She liked to buy little things to put on the windowsill. A pained, small smile stole its way onto his suddenly tear stained face, surprising him.

“Tell me about what she liked to do best.” He whispered to Roman softly, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

Roman took a deep, shaky breath.

“She… she liked skateboarding. She started secretly learning how to do it in the stables at home. Our parents wouldn’t go there unless they wanted to show off our priced horses. She was so proud when she learned to do a kickflip.”

“That’s pretty cool.” Virgil mumbled into sweet smelling hair, daring to bury his fingers in the thick locks and massage the back of Roman’s head gently. The taller man sighed at the pleasant sensation, unwinding under the pale hands.

“Yes, she was very cool. Mother wanted her to learn how to ride, so Octavia taught the horses tricks. She wanted to do donuts with them. With limited success.”

Virgil laughed incredulously. Roman joined in, reveling in the memory that suddenly became clear before his eyes.

“She was a kick-butt PlayStation player as well. Her and Nana liked to play Mario Cart. They both kept wiping the floor with me. I was always more one for the finer arts.”

“Your fricking Nana played PlayStation?” Virgil asked, delighted with this tidbit of information. He made sure to settle his limber body comfortably against Roman’s, encouraging him to keep holding on.

“Oh yes. Yes, she was good at learning things she wasn’t supposed to as a lady. She used to go rock climbing in her youth and she always owned the fastest cars. We learned how to drive in a Dodge Viper. That turned out to be a very poorly thought out idea, since I got it stuck between the bushes at the estate.”

Virgil gasped with horror and laughter. He pinched Roman’s ticklish side just because he deserved it. “You fricking moron, seriously?! You got to drive a classic sports car and you put it in the bushes?”

Roman yelped and tried to squirm away, with limited success, since he was still holding on to his attacker. Stumbling and getting tangled up with each other, they tumbled to the ground in a heap of limbs. Spluttering with laughter, they settled on the mattress, close enough to lean against each other.

“I’d like to see you do better with a teacher who shows you the wheel and accelerator and tells you to punch it!” Roman howled, playfully offended.

“Octavia managed to finally do her donuts though.” He added. “She went to the horses afterwards and told them to suck on that.”

Virgil giggled, leaning more of his weight on the man huddled close to him. Roman brought his arm up and held him. The young barista continued to weasel happy stories about Octavia and Nana out of the detective until he unpacked one of the boxes, possibly for the first time since he’d sealed it years ago, and showed him her writing. She’d been really good. Rude. Virgil liked that. They poured over her drawings and feisty poems and playfully insulting post-its she’s left for Roman until their shadows grew longer and Logan’s worried texts started making their phones vibrate.

Deciding to end the day on a happy note and to boost Roman’s confidence even if he’d have to deal with the aftermath of his honesty tonight while hiding under his covers, Virgil pulled a few crumbled, glossy magazine pages from the pocket of his jacket.

“I think we better get home. Let’s pack up this stuff with Logan some other time.”

Roman nodded quietly, a soft look on his face. He didn’t protest Virgil’s blatant attempts to steamroll him into moving out of this place. He seemed relieved. Unburdened.

“Here.” Virgil muttered, already feeling a blush coming up and trying to hide it under his bangs. “Let’s look at this fucking picture of you so you can preen again, alright, dude?”

Curiously, Roman flattened the crumbled pages Virgil had ripped from the magazine he’d spotted and impulsively bought on the way home.

It was him.

A large, full color image of Roman. He was striding from a building alight with roaring fire behind his tall figure. Orange light was framing him while smoke billowed dramatically. In his arms he was clutching a slight body huddling close for protection. Despite having felt disoriented and half suffocated as he’d stumbled outside, on the photograph he looked strong and confident, even heroic. A streak of soot was artfully brushed across his cheek. Brightly burning sparks were dancing around him as if he’d been bending the very fire around his body. It was a stunning image.

Baffled, Roman stared at himself, printed in a magazine titled with the lines This detective is on fire. Skimming the text on the second page, phrases and words stood out to him.

‘Detective Roman Prince, who was credited with recovering the secretly stolen St Edward’s Crown as well as bringing down the gang The Howling Scorpions with his partner Logan Sanders…’

‘…fearlessly put his life on the line…’

‘…stormed a factory already blazing brightly due to a suspicion of a missing person…’

‘The precinct asks to respect the hero’s privacy during his recovery…’

‘…will hopefully soon be available for interviews on his daring rescue…’

‘…an idol for young, aspiring officers and civilians alike…’

A chuckle drew him out of his stupor. Virgil was glancing up at him from his hunched position, warm amusement reflected on his features. He looked like he was gazing at something he liked. This look, more than even the article, gave Roman a boost of strength and courage he’d never felt before. Virgil had found and kept this picture of him and as he glanced down at it with a flush, Roman could see that he enjoyed the image. And why shouldn’t he? Roman looked simply radiant! Pride filled every corner of his being. Virgil liked him! Virgil thought he was heroic! He’d probably dream about this image of him – brave and strong and chivalrous! Roman finally, blessedly felt like himself again. Better than himself, he realized as he tenderly gazed at the pale, lovely wildcat shielding his face behind purple locks. He felt like the man Virgil saw in him. He’d never felt his beautiful. Like a hero! An admirable knight!

Feeling a rise of ideas Virgil didn’t appreciate at all, he boxed Roman’s arm firmly.

“OW! WHY?” The detective howled, rubbing his poor, sore arm.

“To cool down your ego.” Virgil growled at him. “Come on. Patton’s making cocoa. We can buy the other magazines for you on the way.”

“THERE’S MORE?!”

*************

It looks like Roman’s arc is starting sooner than anticipated. Virgil will have to work to keep him for himself since Deceit surely will try hard to win his prize. And I wonder who will see his picture in the newspaper?

Next Chapter

#Sanders Sides #my writing #keep him safe #detective AU #Roman Sanders #Virgil Sanders

164 notes · View notes

harrysscheshirecat · 5 years

Text

Met

The one where H makes a new friend, (Y/N), and they sneak away for a bathroom quickie (1.8k) (SMUT)

“Hmm?” (Y/N) leaned into Harry. Her hand found his bicep. “I wish there was somewhere quieter we could talk.” still having to shout over the party chatter.

Harry had to chuckle at the use of ‘the line’. He was known to’ve used it on more than a few occasions, but (Y/N) beat him to it in this case. At any rate, he knew a place. There were the public bathrooms, which were sure to be packed. But Vogue had cordoned off another set a little more out of the way for staff and designers. Alessandro had pointed them out earlier in the evening.

Harry led his new friend the same way. He only hoped his title as chairperson granted him access to the more exclusive area, not just when he was with the creative director of Gucci. He breathed a sigh of relief when the nearby security not only didn’t bother them, but adverted their eyes at the sight of the couple. Anna had them well trained. Even when (Y/N) teetered in her sky-high heels and their drunken giggles echoed through the otherwise quiet museum hall. “Sure you don’t want to take those off?” Harry teased, keeping her steady with with his hands on her hips. He was just happy for a reason to hold her, which he only stopped doing when he had the door to open for her. “M’lady.”

“I’ll leave them on, thanks.” Her eyes narrowed at him but her smile told him she wasn’t too mad. “Sure you don’t want to take yours off?” she quipped without missing a beat, playfully kicking at his own heeled shoes on her way in.

Harry followed close behind. He was sure to lock the door behind him before he started making his way to the handicap stall but (Y/N) grabbed his hand and pulled him to the sinks.

“I want to watch.” was the only explanation she gave. Harry didn’t need another. Their lips met in a feverish kiss whilst they stumbled to the massive mirror that hung above the washbasins. She tasted warm and sweet, of the fruity cocktails she had earlier. It just made him want to taste the rest of her. His lips hungrily worked across her jaw, and down her neck.

“-There. Right there.” she breathed when his lips dragged over the base of her neck. She swept her hair to one side and tilted her head to grant him more access to the sensitive patch of skin. Harry happily indulged. Meanwhile, (Y/N)’s deft hands worked between them, undoing his shirt buttons. Then the button and the zipper on his high-waisted trousers. She sure didn’t lack any confidence, which had always been a turn-on for Harry but this was all happening so quickly. He needed to take some control back.

“I thought you said you wanted to watch.” Harry panted, twirling the girl around so they both faced the mirror. She looked stunning under the lights. Her dress glittered and accentuated another curve to be appreciated with every move. “That is a magnificent dress.” he commented in her ear, his hand splayed across her crystal encrusted stomach.

“230,000 crystals.” she moaned out as they swayed together. Harry’s hand slid down her sides and he started bunching the fabric up her hips. “Careful. This is going on display tomorrow.” she warned with a sly smile. It only made it all the hotter. Harry separated and squatted down to gather the delicate fabric of the dress and worked it the rest of the way up her gorgeous legs. He payed extra care at her hips, the fabric becoming exceedingly tighter with her curves. As soon as the fabric was past her hips, it easily fell to rest at her waist.

She had a cute, tight little bum he was sure she worked hard for. And when he ripped her blush colored knickers down, it revealed a glimpse of a pussy that deserved far more time dedicated to it than a bathroom quickie could possibly provide. He could take her back to his place but the 30 minute ride to his hotel seemed like a bloody eternity. Harry straightened up and reached around her front. “Ohh.” he groaned as he slipped two of his fingers against her slick folds, wet already. (Y/N)’s legs spread wider at his touch, his fingers swirling across her clit.

“Mmm.” she voiced her pleasure, her head tilting back to rest against his shoulder whilst she watched his hand work in the mirror. “You’re good at that.” Her hips rolled forward to meet his hand, then back, her bum pushing against his happy cock.

Fuck it, they’d get a quick shag in here, they both needed it. Then Harry could take her back to his for round 2. He’d eat her out until the sun rose. Harry guided his cock from where it stood proudly erect against his stomach to (Y/N)s pussy. He dragged the head of his cock up and down her slick folds to lube himself up. He teased her clit with it too before finally, slowly, burying himself deep inside his new friend.

She moaned for every inch, her back arching as she fell forward to grip either side of the sink, whilst he did the same with her hips, making sure she didn’t get too far away from him. Harry liked to savor the moment, and this was a hell of a moment. Balls deep in a girl more gorgeous than the designer crystals her body was dripped in. But (Y/N) was already swirling her hips against him with what could only be described as a satisfied grin. She was getting hers, grinding herself down on him. “Mmm. I wanted to do this the moment I saw you on the carpet.” she told him.

“ ‘m I as good as you thought I’d be?” Harry wondered out loud with a smirk, ego easily taking over the conversation as (Y/N) took over his every sense.

“Better. So much better.” she moaned. Her encouraging words coaxed a harder thrust from Harry. They both had the same goal. He concentrated on her face in the mirror as he did so, watching for a flutter of her eyes or furrow of her brow to let him know he was hitting the right spot. “Faster. Faster” she pleaded. He obliged, fingers digging deeper into (Y/N)’s beautifully fleshy hips and quickening what he already considered a decent pace. Her swirling eventually turned to a short bounce. “I’m gonna… I gonna cum for you. All over your big dick.” Jesus, the mouth on this girl made Harry’s head spin.

“Ohh yeah.” He felt her tighten all around him as her head lulled forward. For the first time that night she had no smart remark or quip. He fucked her through her orgasm at a frantic pace, feeling his own orgasm starting to build in his lower stomach. “Come ‘ere.” Harry pulled (Y/N) back up against his sweaty chest and wrapped a supportive arm around her to keep her ever closer. His hand ended up resting at the base of her neck. He just needed more of her skin on his. He could feel her heart thundering against her chest. He watched as her eyes fluttered shut in the new position. He didn’t like that at all, her eyes told him so much. “Open.” Harry panted with a thrust. “Open your eyes.” he gently urged.

(Y/N) did as she was told. Her expressive eyes fluttered open for him, brow immediately furrowing, mouth popping open. He was doing that. The noise of their bodies coming together filled the bathroom. Mixed with his low determined grunts with every thrust and her eventual sweet chants of the word, “yes”, it was a melody Harry could easily get lost in.

“‘m gonna make you cum again.” he promised. His thrusts were erratic at best, Harry loosing more control by the second. He was close, but so was she, and he was determined to fulfill his promise. His head dipped back to the spot on her neck she liked kissed so much and his fingers found her clit and circled the sensitive bundle of nerves. Her pussy spasmed around him, begging for his cum. He couldn’t resist it if he wanted to and let the orgasm wash over him with her.

“That was…amazing.” Harry fell back against the bathroom stall wall to catch his breath. (Y/N) was already back in front of the mirror wiping the corners of her mouth. He was almost offended. “You have an amazing recovery time.” he huffed.

(Y/N)’s gaze met his in the mirror and her sly smile returned, “I crossfit.”

Harry laughed but made serious note to up his cardio. And look into Crossfit whilst he was at it. “Did you want to go get dinner or something?” He dragged a hand through his hair and spotted (Y/N)’s long-forgotten knickers on the floor. He reached down to retrieve them for her without much thought.

(Y/N) busied herself with her dangle earrings. “A nice thought,” She fluffed her hair, “but I have a deadline.” There went his plans for the night.

“You’re leaving already?” He couldn’t hide his disappointment.

“My editor is probably already waiting on me. I just needed to make an appearance in this thing.” she tugged the dress back into place. “Do you have the time?” (Y/N) turned to face him. She looked as breathtaking as ever.

Harry pulled out his mobile to look at the clock. “Half one. Can I get your number?”

(Y/N) whirled around to face him. “Don’t worry. If we’re meant to see each other again, we will.”

Harry nodded slowly. He wasn’t used to being rejected. And it only made him want her that much more. “You could’ve just said ‘no’.” ��

(Y/N) sauntered up to him with her lips pushed out in an exaggerated pout. “Don’t pout. I’m sure you won’t be alone for long.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek that felt an awful lot like a consolation prize. “Have a good night, Harry.” (Y/N) disappeared leaving a faint waft of her perfume as his only reminder of her. He didn’t even have the chance to give her back her knickers. She left him with his trousers unzipped and the reality of the situation quickly sinking in. He was in a public bathroom alone, half dressed, with a pair of random knickers in his hand and the door now unlocked. He could hear people outside. Harry stuffed the kickers in his pocket and fumbled to zip the long zipper on his trousers.

____________________________________

This has no real beginning but it’s been in my drafts for way too long, so I’m posting it now, rough and unedited. Apologies. (Y/N)’s dress is loosely based on Rihanna’s Swarovski crystal dress. First ‘(Y/N)’ blurb, let me know if I should do more! Any feedback is always appreciated.

#Harry Styles #Harry Styles FanFic #Harry Styles FanFiction #Harry Styles smut #imagine #Harry Styles Fan Fic #Harry Styles Fan Fiction #blurb #smut #writing #1D #(Y/N)

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jackjots · 3 years

Text

#24 Storytelling

Wayward Guide for the Untrained Eye 30 Day Prompt

(This takes place after Episode 10)

Day #24 @30daysofwayward

(I do not own any other characters or place names outside of Shelby St. Ranger, this is just for fun)

I smoothed the pages out with my shaking hands as I tried to makeout the scribbles. Under the words “it is said that a bite from a werewolf can cause the ability to become a werewolf” there was a line that led to the margin that said: “a scratch makes half a wolf”. This left me with more questions than answers as I started to search through the pages for more information about “half wolves”, but I couldn’t find anything. Half a wolf. What did the even mean?

The knock on my door made me look up so fast my neck ached in protest. It was a hesitant and quaint knock, but I was so unaccustomed to it that I took a moment before answering the door. I smoothed my hair to my skull and adjusted my stained, but very comfy, t-shirt and slowly opened the door to reveal Aubrey, already looking mid-apology before his mouth even opened.

“Shelby! Our local author. I was wondering if I may have a word?”

“Of course.” I waved him in and realized the pages about werewolves were right on the couch.

He turned to face me before getting that far as I shut the door. “Forgive the intrusion. I stopped in at the local drinking establishment.”

“The Dead Canary?”

“Yes, and I was informed by some inebriated patrons that you are familiar with what’s really going on in this town?” He leaned on my couch and raised his eyebrows in a dramatic sort of way.

“If they said I am, I probably am.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

He took a deep breath; shifting his eyes around as if anyone else would be around to hear us. “Werewolves?”

All I could do was nod.

His face seemed to exchange itself from one of insecurity to one full of energy and glee “Precisely, werewolves! No one will reveal more to me than what I already happen to know. They refuse to tell me as I’m not a werewolf myself.” He said this with some regret. “But that is not why I came here tonight.”

“No?” I still felt uncomfortable with where this was going. Maybe it was because he had started the conversation by calling me “our local author”. It was not the first time I had been pitched a book idea by a random acquaintance.

“I was wondering if you would like to write a book with me. About werewolves.”

Even though I had been completely correct about my worry that all he wanted was to pitch me a book idea, I was surprised that I actually thought it was an interesting offer.

“About Connor Creek?”

“Yes. I’d like to combine the knowledge of my great-grandfather, and the knowledge we have learned here, and make a novel that would be worthy of him. To honor him. As no one believed him.”

I noticed how he emphasized ‘we’, as he seemed to know that I knew more about what had happened than he did. “We should ask them.”

“The werewolves? Yes. Yes I suppose we should. Could you do that?”

“You want me to ask them? I’m new in town, I don’t really know if they’ll trust me.” I lied to them about being a half-wolf, I continued in my head.

“Come now Shelby. You’re one of us now. So, are you interested then?”

I released my arms. “I am interested, Aubrey, but only if they agree to it. And only once the first draft of my book is done.”

“How long do you think that will be?”

“Six weeks at most.” His face fell. “But I can try to get it out in three. No promises.”

“Do what you need to do, Shelby. Thank you for even considering helping me in this storytelling. I feel it would be the best way to honor those who lost their lives.”

“Thanks for thinking of me.” I said as I moved to let him leave.

“Of course. I do want to apologize for not telling you more when you came seeking answers before.”

“It was understandable, Aubrey. I only wish your great-grandfather could know, could really know that he was right.”

“I think he did. I think the knowledge faded once he did. And that’s why I want to write this book. I don’t want it to fade.”

I watched him leave my house and thought about the fact that the werewolves wanted it to fade, and how they might not take kindly to Aubrey and I making a record of it.

I shut the door and looked at the pages on the couch. Of course if I was one of them, I thought to myself, that would probably change things.

Whether that was in my favor or not, I didn’t know.

#30daysofwayward #waywardguidefortheuntrainedeye #tin can bros #werewolves

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ivyveil · 5 years

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Love is the Punchline 2

the one where you are drunk and want pizza, but your fingers call Harry instead

A Continuation of LITP (masterlist here)

Your heartbeat demanded to be felt through the entire body, your attention memorized by the motion of right to left from your chest to your fingertips.

They were tapping irregularly on the dining table, as if they instinctively knew the beat of your heart breaking. As it had been all week, truthfully, but since work had ended for the week, your thoughts were dominated by the shadows you had hoped left. Liquor didn’t help, particularly the cup in front of you that sullenly watched you make an idiot of yourself in front of your potted plants.

“The cactus doesn’t care, Mr. Grey Goose,” you reasoned, leaning back on your chair slightly to point at the plant, who seemed generally unimpressed by your antics. “He’s a prick anyways. You care too much what others think, just be you.” You blinked, soulfully, at the cup, trying to mentally send it the emotional strength you were lacking.

The cup said nothing, but you felt the stare go from critical to one of pity, the exact emotion you were drinking alone to avoid. Company would just feel sorry for you, and you didn’t know if you could handle the atmosphere of sympathy. It was your fault, anyway.

If anything, you deserved the harsh disapproval of alcohol. Perhaps you even deserved his silence, though it felt incredibly wrong. You traced a line of dew down the side of a water glass, which hadn’t been depleted after an hour of your Official Weekend Breakdown. It had swooped on you quickly. Your morning had been normal, and at work you even managed to forget about the situation for a few hours. When you got back to your home, you had decided to undergo a quick cleaning.

Your closet was under siege, shoes littering the floor from when you kicked them off without bothering to check they went into proper storage. The Questions You Didn’t Like To Ask had been lurking in the corners of your mind, but you managed to set them off for the most part. Who had the strength to go through all that mental analysis, when the answers couldn’t be properly found? You didn’t know what Harry was feeling, because he didn’t tell you. Nothing more to it.

Then, you saw them. A few shirts folded up in the corner, stacked high and surrounded by a fancy ass designer cologne you had never bought before. You still recognized it, and the bitter pain flooded your senses again. The loopy writing of ‘Styles’ on the pocket confirmed it (as if you need confirmation that the silk Gucci shirts weren’t yours, being stuck in the midst of random 5k shirts you had collected over the years).

The entire situation still confused you, whether it was a proper fall-out or just a miscommunication. How to go about solving it was a mind fuckery, leading down roads of self-criticism you couldn’t deal with at the moment.

Your head swam a bit above the current of drunkness to realize the idea of ordering pizza was remarkably brilliant. However, there were a few flaws that kept you from going straight to your phone.

It involved sitting upright, getting out of your chair, and moving to the front door to then converse with the pizza man, collect the pizza box, hand over the money (which then meant you would need to go get money before reaching the door) before coming back safely inside. Which was a problem, because the ceiling kept becoming the floor, and the floor itself kept swaying.

Your body felt smooth, in a numb, little-bit-over tipsy sort of way. Your day had started the same as they had been for the past week, without any texts from him. It wasn’t entirely unusual for Harry to go a few days without contact, his job being fairly demanding, but the situation at hand made you feel as though it was something more. Something more than not having the time to send a quick text.

Not that you had sent one, either. You had written plenty, enough to possibly draft a book called Regrets and Texts, an Autobiography. But none had made it through the consideration pile to be properly sent.

Sometimes there simply weren’t words to explain yourself. (Which might have been a lie, because you had three perfectly good words, but they did a lousy job at making up for your actions). You groaned, loudly, like an injured cow. Unattractive, and somewhat cathartic, because after you got it out of your system you were able to take another sip from your drink. Your eyes squished together as you got it down, your tongue sticking out in half-disgust and half-instinct.

“Why does it hurt so good?” you groaned, keeping your eyes closed. Your cactus mumbled, “What a mess.” You agreed. Everything echoed of repetition; your daily life was holed by what was missing. You didn’t know what could fill it, you were frustrated by the isolation you had trapped yourself in and the physical borders that kept you from where you wanted to be.

Harry wasn’t everything in your life, not even close. You had a multitude of friends, a caring family, those people at work you talk but never tell anything personal to, and you had a lot of hobbies that typically kept you busy around town. You loved Harry, but you weren’t usually constantly consumed by the thought of him.

Harry wasn’t your air, he never was, but for the past few days you couldn’t fucking breathe.

Essentially, you had only begun to realize that you had collaborated with your demons, your own fears, to keep you away from the possibility of happiness. All for what? The fear of being vulnerable, the fear of opening up and saying, “Come take me as you can find me, Harry, this is all I am and I hope to God it’s enough.”

Instead, all you had to say for yourself was, “Don’t.” All you had to text was, “No.”

All he had to say was that he loved you, and put himself out there. Twice. Which you knew, from having plenty of romance-oriented conversations with him in the past, was a big deal. He wasn’t the type to make a huge move, too wrapped up in having to know it would go perfectly before he even considered making a tiny move. He knew he was phenomenal on stage and with his words, but sometimes as a person, there were doubts.

You shifted in your seat and regretted it immediately. Perhaps it was all in your imagination (who knew, at this point), but the sloshing around in your stomach was enough convincing to make you dead-set on finding some starch to consume, and fast. And honestly, fuck the saltines in your pantry – you needed some good, gooey, cheesy pizza to get through tonight.

Your hands, finally, made their way towards your phone, and you opened up the dial app, your fingers clicking on their own accord.

Sometimes our bodies know how to fix our lives better than we do. After all, that’s how you ended up hanging over the toilet at your senior prom, vomiting for 30 minutes. It had meant you lost your chance at hooking up with the cute guy from your physics course, but later in the year you found out he had been sneaking shady stuff in the boys’ drinks to try and up his chances with some of the girls.

If it hadn’t been for your inability to hold a proper amount of drink, you would’ve most likely victim to that type of absolute, unforgivable douche-baggery. Your body was looking out for you, you reckoned.

Now was a similar moment, it seemed. Your body had leaped at the chance, saw your incapable state and just went with pure instinct to try and straighten out your course.

So, instead of the friendly, middle-aged woman named Andrea at your local pizza shop (who you occasionally went to Thursday Knitting Club with, and who knew more about your emotional life than perhaps even you did) it was a deep, slow, masculine voice.

You froze in your chair, feeling aggressively more sober than moments before.

“Hi, this is Harry. Leave meh a message, I’ll get back to yeh when I can.”

Beep.

Stupefied, you pulled your hand back and looked at the screen. The photo you took of him at a carnival was shining back at you, his face painted like a tiger. It had been a fun few days, especially since a family member of his needed a quick babysitter. Walking around with Harry and a tiny child clasped between the both of you had sent your emotions all over for the next month and a half. You’re pretty sure your friends who had kinda picked up on your thing for Haz had been truly tested by your maternally-driven rants for that portion of your life.

“Noooo,” you groaned, putting your phone back down and propping your elbows on the table. You put your head in your hands, mumbling several profanities. The tiny voice in your mind wondered, simultaneously, why you hadn’t hung up yet. You told the voice to mind its own damn business.

“I’m sorry, Haz, I meant to order Andrea. Or the pizza, not the lady. Like, human trafficking is fucked,” you began, squishing your cheeks between your hands and looking at your fridge. His face was too much to look at, it would be too real. Although his cheeks didn’t have pink, sparkly whiskers in real life, the idea was still prevalent.

You fell silent, toying with various words in your mouth and wondering if you would be able to properly speak this time.

“I’ve been thinking, a lot. Questions I don’t want to ask, about myself. They’re conversations with myself I’ve tried to avoid, at all costs, for years now.” A pause. Then, furthered confession.

“I don’t imagine you’re super interested in them, I don’t think I would be if I were you. I think I just hope you hear this and regret not texting me back. Which sounds super elementary once I’ve said it out loud, I mean, I guess I could’ve texted too. But what was I gonna say?” you drawled, gesturing outwards with an open palm to signify that no, you had nothing to say.

Which was a lie, but you hadn’t had much success in telling the truth as of late.

“You wanna know what’s really funny, Haz?” you stared out into nothing, as if you were truly speaking to him and had a momentary revelation. Completely fabricated, but in the haze of your mind it felt like a brand new concept all over again.

Your cactus was suffering from very deep, very tragic second-hand embarrassment in the corner.

“I wanna capture all your words. They’re so beautiful, you’re like a masterpiece and I just want to be there all the time. I wanna see you at like, 1:42 pm and see how the light goes differently ‘cross your face, as the day goes on. Am I making sense? Like, I want to see your morning hair and your afternoon stubble and how quiet you get at night. I’ve gotten pieces of it, but not in full.”

A moment’s pause, a quiet reflection.

“But that’s not what’s funny,” you admitted, sullenly. Your nails grew more interesting as the confession grew deeper, and you picked at them as you spoke. Your apartment was starkly silent, compared to the rush of noise you felt in your head.

“It’s funny how much I love you, that I love you so much my heart hurts and my eyes can’t help but cry because it’s overwhelming. I don’t think it’s strange, though, but it’s not like I’m well-equipped with this. So I end up pushing you away. That’s fucked up.”

You hiccuped, a sad smile pulling at the corners of your lips.

“Really fucked,” you agreed with yourself, your fingers twirling around a loose piece of your hair again and again. Your phone didn’t have much to say back, so you pushed onward.

“I love you, so I’m trying to let go. I truly am, Haz, swear it, for you and I guess a little for me? You don’t deserve this, you know,” you gestured at yourself, eyes widening to emphasize your point.

You two had equally seen each other at some of the lowest times, in the worst situations. It was nothing new to have Harry see you breaking apart, and likewise vice versa. Yet, the idea of needing to be put-together in order to jump into something serious was engraved on your skull, the necessity of not needing someone else before having someone else.

“I can’t ignore my fear forever, that I have some secret I didn’t even know about. I don’t want to see the disappointment in your eyes, like I do in theirs. It would break me, Haz.

“It happens every time, I start off going steady with some guy and it’s great, I’m so happy. And I think maybe I’ve got it wrong, that love is possible for me. That it’s not just for our rom-coms and Ryan Goslings of the world.

“But then I start seeing it. And it’s the worst, you know? ‘Cause I can’t stop it, it’s just a byproduct of being with me. The disillusionment starts in their eyes, it’s when they find me. It’s like a curtain’s been lifted and the guy started tearing down my walls because he thought that’s what he was supposed to do.

“And it turned out, what was behind it wasn’t what he was looking for. Which has me freaked, because how is my true self different from what I’m aware of - I’m not projecting a false image of myself out there, right? I’m just altogether too much, and not enough. And I don’t know how to fix me.”

You traced the condensation of your water, tears glassing up your vision. This was a portion of insecurity you hadn’t fully shown Harry before, mostly because it felt like a massive pity-fest and you knew he would listen with large, puppy eyes and hold you until your chest didn’t feel so tight. Nothing would be solved, though, so it didn’t seem worth mentioning.

“And I don’t want that for us,” you confessed, choking back the urge to properly cry, “I like it when you look at me and I don’t notice any change in your eyes. It’s just you and it’s just me.”

You sniffled, the tears escaping nonetheless and rolling down your cheeks. You smudged them off with hurried hands before they went much further, wanting to fully focus on the task at hand.

“For me, I don’t know if I could’ve, if I could’ve survived seeing us break apart, like that. Dramatic, yeah, but I’m just tryin’ to be honest,” you took a deep breath.

“Yeah, honest. But I suppose we have, now, haven’t we? Because I couldn’t say the right words when it mattered.”

You laughed, a feeling of foolishness washing over your soul and delighting you in the most tragic of ways. How sad, drunkenly calling the boy you loved when you had told him, only a week ago, that he wasn’t worth the risk of going for it? A mess of hypocrisy, you knew you had called your friends’ exes horrible names for doing a lot less.

What was most frustrating, was you clearly could see how unproductive your mind-set was. You knew the proper tips and training for taking care of yourself (the amount of bubbles that had been born in your bathroom the past two days alone could fill the entire sky, you swear) and you recognized your self-worth. It wasn’t a situation of having a devastating wreckage of insecurity to battle, but more like when it was called into question, your ego hesitated a bit too much to claim the title as Worthy.

Letting out a bitter sigh, you put your head on the counter, next to the phone that was recording one of your lowest lows and transferring it in waves to the man who used to help you back up. And all he would do is realize how fortunate he was, to have escaped the mess you felt colliding against your rib cage and into your throat.

Kissing him had felt like you had never kissed anyone, before. He felt assured, comfortable. It had taken a lot to help ease you into ‘romantic’ situations before, but with Haz it felt more like an expression than a deed. More like a physical manifestation of how he made you feel, how you wanted to share that love through your lips. How you wanted to draw his feelings out from his. It was a symphony of simplicity, which was mind-blowing because you had never imagined it could be that good without the nervous laughter and self-conscious puddle of anxiety beforehand.

“I heard you crying,” you murmured, half-unaware you were speaking out loud.

“I heard it, and I didn’t know what to do. And that scared me, maybe even more than how I feel for you in general. Because I always thought I would be able to go and fix things, situations, people...but all I did was listen. All I did was listen,” a lump in your throat began to obstruct the passage of your voice, you knew he could hear the tears coming now, faster “and I hate myself for that. I hate that I couldn’t have been there for you, when I’m trying do to right for the both of us. I just can’t tell anymore, where the lines are. Where I love you as a friend and love you as something more.”

Your voice cracked by the end, a breakage of both spirit and will. Your chest felt tight, your heart had given up long ago, sitting in its cage and chain-smoking until the doomsday. Nothing could be salvaged from this, speaking to him in that state would only prolong the suffering between you both.

“I gotta go, Haz,” you apologized softly. “I need my pizza, and you need to stop listening to me word-vomit everything when it’s frankly too late in the game.”

Your finger hesitated over the red ‘end’ button, unable to bring itself to do it before you could plead for a sober chance to discuss everything.

“Just text me, okay? I don’t want this to change things between us, I want us to look at each other.”

With that, a singular beep signaled the end of your Next Big Regret. Or what would be, when you remembered in the morning.

You groaned again, moving to properly call the pizza shop, being very conscious of the buttons you pressed along the way. Maybe you’d make it a deep crust, you deserved it.

“Thanks, have a nice night,” you grunted, accepting the box and handing over what was most likely an absurd tip for the 10-minutes-late delivery. You didn’t particularly care, half-hoping the karma would impact your life in the future and maybe you would win the lottery. There’s no harm in trying, after all.

When you shuffled back to your dining room, your phone screen had just turned to black again. Racing over, dumping the box on the table, you reached out and snatched up the device quickly, feeling your heart beat back to life and pittering up your throat.

When wouldn’t nerves be the absolute death of you?

One missed call from “H”.

You stared at the notification for a long time, allowing it to register in your psyche before unlocking your phone. Calling him back meant the continuation of a conversation you were, at the time, very pleased to be having one-sided. It took away the possibility of hearing his response in real life, in hearing his breath and knowing the thoughts in the intricate patterns of his sighs and groans.

The drunk part of you urged your fingers to hit ‘call back’ so that any fuck ups could be blamed on the vodka, as opposed to your sober self who would have no where to hide behind. It was quite the conundrum.

Another notification.

This time, Voice Mail from “H”.

You hit “Listen.”

He sounded tired. Really tired.

“Hey. I, I just got a message from yeh. Dunno if you’re awake still and just didn’t wanna answer. Or if yeh fell asleep. Or got pizza, I don’t know, fuck.”

Silence.

An exhausted laugh.

“I truly...God, Y/N, I truly don’t know what to say. Those men were properly insane, to not love every bit of you. I wish I could say y’ could have all of me, but I...”

A lump rose in your throat, eyes filling up quickly with tears. You sat down as he was speaking, covering your eyes with a hand and shaking your head. Hearing his voice again, was just too real. Everything felt overly saturated and dramatic, but that little voice in your head reminded you this was what love was, sometimes. Just on another level from all else, the craziness is just a slice of the experience.

“When you said we wouldn’t be worth it, that shattered me, love. Not love, sorry. Didn’t mean to, slipped.”

He groaned, and you could practically see him in a hotel room somewhere, sitting at the business desk over his phone, rubbing his hands down his face. The desk lamp would be glowing, the only light source in the room.

“Yeh can’t say we’re friends and just friends, and call me with this. Isn’t fair. Not when I’m tryin’ to...to get over you.”

You knew, you knew that. The guilt was already creeping up your lungs.

“I still love yeh. But I can’t love y’ouand know you love me, and not...it’s just….I can’t. ‘M sorry. I also don’t think it’s best we talk over phone, yeah? Just complicates things.”

The message ended.

Your apartment was cloaked in silence, a deep depression. Harry had been so rational, when you were the one fighting for the title. You were utterly confused as to what you were supposed to do now, after such emotional turmoil. Your drunken mind was bitter, mostly at yourself.

Why wasn’t Harry worth fighting for, to you? A day ago, you had realized how much you would’ve sacrificed for him, if given the proper chance, and then it had occurred to you that the chance had come and gone. And for some odd reason, you hadn’t recognized the flashing neon lights until it was too late.

“He still loves me,” you whispered, curling up in the seat and blinking at the wall.

You stayed like that for a few more minutes, mind racing a million miles a second. Eventually, an idea came to mind. One you felt would solve everything, would change the tragedy to something salvageable.

Maybe the flashing lights were still there, ‘late’ was better than ‘never.’ You had previously only wanted Harry to see you for your strengths, for him to see you in radiant light and want nothing but your positives. Perhaps to show more of your weaknesses, it could make the situation more fucking realistic. You huffed, silently telling yourself off for not registering how insufferable the idea of giving up loving Harry was. This was worth it, it moved your soul into something more aligned, closer to the emotion of feeling ‘okay.’ And maybe that’s all you could do, fight to feel more okay. Do the actions that made your heart feel lighter and true, and let the outcomes fall as they may.

The next morning, your bank account had a flight ticket to America charged. The price was an absolute joke, but if that’s what it took to get to Harry, love was going to be the punchline.

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

A/N: Check the masterlist of LITP here, and let me know your thoughts if you would like!

#harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #archive of our own #mine #one direction fanfic #one direction fanfiction #one direction fic #harry styles fluff #harry styles drabble #harry styles blurb #harry styles fic

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