#i promise i will draw something normal and on theme soon

[black-and-yellow]

who wants to paint

@softyshibu

#one of those clips that crack me up every time #that and the anticlimactic pie face game #just watched the new power hour #strong episode #'no it's riEUUGGUHice' killed me #anyway this is stupid but whatever #one day I'll figure out how to draw Dan but today is not that day #10mph #ten minute power hour #game grumps #arin hanson #dan avidan #i promise i will draw something normal and on theme soon #please do not unfollow me Mic fans

[godsmenusuperbowl]

Stress Coloring ~ *Bang Chan*

Summary: Both you and Chris need a break. And what better way to spend a break than by coloring together? It’s very therapeutic.

Pairing: Bang Chan X G/N!Reader

Genre: Fluffyish Drabble

Word Count: 804

Warning: A tiny bit of crying but it’s resolved quickly

Masterlist

Taglist: @foxwinter @maeleelee @mxnsxngie @kpop-will-kill-me

A/N: What do we do when we have strong feelings and yet are so exhausted to properly convey them? We write. And we hand write when our eyes are too puffy from allergies to open all the way. So my hand hurts.

As soon as he walked through the door and saw that the light was still on, he sighed. They must be tired. Carefully and quietly, Chris slipped off his shoes, put his keys and wallet away, and hugged them from behind.

They hummed in response, leaning into his embrace. Amongst the mess of notes, outlines, and assorted pens and highlighters, they had their markers and coloring pages out. There was a half finished piece and a completed mandala on top of everything. Shades of orange and yellow mixed with the pinks and purples to create almost a sunrise scene. It was very ethereal and serene. It also reflected that they could really use a break right about now.

Kissing their cheek, Chris asked, “Need any help?”

“No.” They shook their head.

“Then do you mind if I join you?”

Again, they shook their head before flipping through their coloring book. It was sort of a tradition here. Whenever one or both of them needed a break, they would bust out their vast array of coloring books and coloring supplies. Sometimes, when they were less tired, the two of them would use crayons and make Kindergarten drawings of the other. If they needed more inspiration, there was a stack of canvases and acrylic paints in the back of their closet that was always well stocked. But when they were stressed out and tired, markers or colored pencils did the trick. They weren’t the only one needing relief tonight, which was why he asked to color too.

Chris finally selected one before saying, “What colors do you see?”

It’s not that he wasn’t creative; on the contrary, the two often joked that he had all the artistic ability in the relationship. But everytime they saw an uncolored black and white page, they knew exactly how they wanted it to look. So he let them decide the colors for him. It always made him smile when they carefully selected each color.

They shook their head. “Not colors this time. I see a style, a theme.”

“Oh yeah? What’s your vision?”

“Wizard of Oz.”

Chris nodded as they laid out each color of marker, explaining what each color represented. As they did so, he glanced back at what they were coloring. Besides the completed sunrise mandala, the half-finished piece looked like a hodgepodge of random colors. It wasn’t like their normal style.

So he pointed it out. “What are you coloring?”

They paused, reflecting on their work. Eventually they said, “My thoughts and feelings.”

He nodded again before taking his markers and sitting in the chair opposite of their desk. Carefully scrutinizing each color and the empty picture before him, he tried to envision the Wizard of Oz the same way they did. Eventually he managed to figure something out and he began coloring.

About twenty minutes in, Chris was about halfway done when he heard them heave a dejected sigh. Looking up, he noticed a tear slowly crawling down their cheek. Abandoning his paper and markers to drop onto the floor, he spun their chair so that they were now facing him. Using the pads of his thumbs, he wiped their tears, cupping their face as he did so.

“Hey, look at me.” Chris breathed as their eyes, still glittering with tears, found his. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

Slipping out of their desk chair, they hugged him tightly. “It’s just so much piling up out of practically nowhere.”

Stroking their hair, he kissed their cheeks. “I know love, I know. But you can get through this. One day at a time, just like we always say. Besides, you know I’ll always be there when stress coloring isn’t enough.”

Pulling away, they wiped their eyes and nose. Chris got them a tissue to help. Sniffing, they asked, “Promise?”

Smiling, he kissed their lips before pressing his forehead to theirs. “Of course I promise. What kind of boyfriend would I be if I wasn’t?”

They laughed before slowly crawling back into their desk chair. Blowing their nose once more, they gave him a small smile to let him know they were okay now. With a soft nod, he settled back into his own chair and got to work coloring again.

It was another thirty minutes later when they presented their art to each other. They nodded before giving him a bright, albeit tired smile. “It’s definitely Wizard of Oz.”

“Yours is a lovely hodgepodge as well.”

The two of them laughed before they shyly added, “I’m also halfway done with my essay as well.”

Chris perked up even more, his smile stretching wider. “See? I told you you could do it. I’m so proud of you, love!”

Again, they chuckled before they returned to their coloring book. Ripping out another page, they asked, “Another?”

#Stray Kids #Stray Kids Fanfiction #Stray Kids Drabble #KPop #KPop Fanfiction #KPop Drabble #Stay #Bang Chan #Bang Chan X Reader #Bang Chan Fanfiction #Bang Chan Drabble #Bang Chan Fluff #Chris #Chris X Reader #Chris Fanfiction #Chris Drabble #Chris Fluff #Oneshot #Fluff #Angst

[sunshine-for-serotonin]

Requested: General kissing with Erik

Enjoy, my darlings!!!! I’m using musical Erik for this one. Keep in mind my blog is yandere, so most of my works have these themes! This is kinda both, a scenario in headcannon form, as well as just general headcannons.

Kissing Erik is an experience for sure.

One of the first things Erik does after he kidnaps you to his underground abode is try to get pity points so you kiss him willingly.

You’re probably sitting on a settee near his organ while the gangly man is on his knees, sobbing into your stomach with his arms around you and begging for your love.

Let’s say you still don’t reciprocate his affection. Erik looks up at you with pleading eyes, taking your hand and moving it so it cups his face, letting out small sighs and hiccups as he calms down. Erik promises he’ll get you anything you could ever desire, he’ll take such good care of you, and you’ll want for nothing!

Slowly, he lifts his face up to yours. Erik knows your not going to kiss him back at this point, but he also knows that you know you shouldn’t pull away, lest Erik make sure something unfortunate happens to one of your friends.

With that thought in mind, Erik licks his lips and finally slots them against yours in a shy, yet longing, kiss. By the end of the kiss, he pulls away grinning manically and his face is so flushed it resembles your favorite red lipstick.

Breathing heavily, he pulls you back in for several more hungry kisses. Moving his mouth against yours feverishly, even if his lack of experience is clear.

Erik absolutely refuses to let you go, needless to say you’re going to be stuck on that settee for awhile.

Now, let’s say you do reciprocate!

While he’s kneeling down in front of you, you begin to slowly run your fingers over Erik’s head, your nails gently scratching his scalp.

The desperate wail he lets out is absolutely heartbreaking, drawing his arms tighter around you, scarcely believing you’re touching him of your own free will.

Gently, you cup his face and make him look at you and use your fingers to brush away his tears.

At this point Erik’s looking up at you absolutely awestruck, and he closes his eyes as he leans into your touch whispering ‘I love you’ every five seconds. However, because he has his eyes closed he doesn’t see what’s coming next.

Softly, sweetly, you brush your lips against your captors.

Immediately Erik feels sparks overtake his body, form relaxing into yours as he pulls you impossibly closer. He feels like he’s going to melt away into nothingness, his love for you boiling over in the form of more tears.

Gently pulling away, you take a minute to look at Erik. His lips are quivering as his body wracks with tremors, the emotions to much for him to express stagnantly.

Erik takes in deep, shuddering breaths. The brief kiss wasn’t enough! He begins to clamber his way up to your face, begging for more kisses.

Deciding to take pity on the man, you move to lay down on the sette. (With much difficulty on your part, Erik really doesn’t want to let you go.)

Patting your chest, you let out a soft whisper of “c’mere, Erik.”

Erik allows you to place your hands under his arms and half lift him up before he gets the idea and scrambles to cuddle with you, kissing you desperately as soon as your both settled.

“Je t’aime, I love you mon ange! You have no idea just how much I adore you, how I would do anything for you!”

Time for more generalized stuff-

Because of his birth defects, part of Erik’s lips are always puffy and reddened.

That being said, they are a tad bit more sensitive than normal, and that’s part of the reason why Erik enjoys it when you lightly suck on his lips or when you gently bite down on his lower lip. (The other parts of it is that it means you’re kissing him, as well as you’re guiding him, and all of the above combined makes him feel safe and loved.)

When Erik is the one to initiate kisses, they are really gentle but you can still sense the desperation and love he harbors for you.

Usually he begins to initiate by just looking at you. It could be he stares at you for five minutes, or he could stare at you for hours simply drinking in the fact that you’re here with him and how much he adores you.

After his staring phase, Erik needs to have some sort of physical contact with you. His favorite form of that is when your both lying down and your running your hands through his hair while he’s on top of you, but a really close second is when you’re both tightly embracing each other.

And finally, slowly and tentatively, he moves his face towards yours and allows his mouth to mold to the shape of your lips.

The first thing you can think of when Erik kisses you is the amount of love he pours into it. It’s almost overwhelming and you find yourself questioning how it’s even possible to express so much in one gesture.

The second thing you think of is how cute he looks when he wants your affection, he gives you the biggest puppy dog eyes before closing them and trying to push himself against you as much as he physically can.

Erik is one hundred percent whimpering, moaning, and crying into the kiss.

It’s not even a sexual thing, more of an ‘I love you so much, it’s too much and I have to express it someway or I’ll drown in it.’ type of beat.

Surprisingly, (or maybe not surprisingly) when you are the one to kiss Erik, he likes it a little bit more intense.

Cup his face, place kisses on all of his deformed areas, he’s melting into your touch and placing his hands over yours so you can’t pull away.

When your lips make contact with his, Erik likes it when you’re rougher with the amount of pressure you give him if that makes sense. He wants to feel you firmly against his being so he can reassure himself that this is actually happening and not just another one of Erik’s fantasies.

Gently bite on his lower lip and use your tongue to soothe the area. Erik will lose his mind and open his mouth with urgency, begging you mentally to let your tongue enter his mouth and play with his. (Be careful with this part, if you keep it up he’ll get aroused!)

You know those old cartoon bits where characters will leave lipstick prints on another’s face? Do that. Do it.

Leave lipstick stains all over Erik’s face, mask, and neck. He turns bright red.

While he may have to wash away the stains on his skin with sadness, Erik refuses to wash away the stains on his mask, and he’s fond of you using different colors of lipstick when you kiss him into oblivion.

———————————————————————————

@sloppyzengarden

That’s all darlings, I hope you enjoyed!!!

#Yandere Erik destler #phantom of the opera #yandere male #yandere erik destler #erik destler x reader #erik destler

[a-world-of-whimsy-5]

Heyyyyyy, can I request a fic of Feanor + female!elf!reader and squirting?

Basically, Feanor is trying to make her squirt (as punishment or normally-- you choose). Idk why, but when I started simping for Feanor, I always felt like he'd want to put his S/O first and is obsessed with seeing her get overwhelmed with the pleasure HE is providing, so... please just this fic for your horny anon follower.

My dear anon, I have never written a squirting fic before, so I hope this first attempt passes muster.

“Above all else”

Pairing: Fëanor x Fem. Reader ( Elf / Second Person POV) | Location: Formenos

Themes: Smut| Soft

Warnings: Fingering | Overstimulation | Squirting | Kissing | Dirty talk | Explicit language | Rough sex | Penetrative sex | Cream pie

Word count: 1.4k words

Summary: Making his consort feel unimaginable pleasure is something Fëanor lives for.

Rating: 🔥🔥🔥 | Minors DNI | 18+ | You are responsible for the media you consume.

Exile was a most wretched thing: confined to a single place, cut off from all those who could not or would not follow, having to wait until the allotted time had passed would have been unbearable for many.

Such was not the case for Fëanor. He found many and more ways to spend his time in exile, and not just in crafting and creating. The elven lord had more than one way to amuse himself while staying in the palace known to all as Formenos. And of those other amusements, many would only ever be found within the cool confines of his private chambers, such as now.  

"Yielding so soon?" The elf tsk’d and grinned wolfishly. "But sweetling, I have only just begun."

You found yourself snorting weakly. I have just begun, he says. Fëanor had been pleasuring you from the moment the light of Telperion waned and darkened, and the light of Laurelin waxed golden and glorious. He had unraveled your body in every way he had thought of, always bringing you to the edge of the precipice before drawing away and pulling you back, and always with a wicked smile that made his eyes burn like brilliant blue flames. He enjoyed every moment of listening to you whine and mewl, and watching while you writhed and shook beneath him. It mattered to his pride to know he was the only one who could make you sob into his shoulder even as you neared your release.

"Tis too much, my love." You managed a smile while being pulled even deeper into a red haze of fresh lust. "I cannot take it anymore." 

"But you must take it, my love. I insist," Fëanor replied. His hand, callused but deft and practiced, was still warm while it toyed with your clit. 

"There she is. There is my good girl," he groaned under his breath, thrilling at the dreamy sigh he heard, at the sight of your eyes slowly closing. Fëanor was patient as always, starting with slow, measured strokes that grew and grew until they reached a tempo so heated that it felt like your entire body was ablaze. Sparks smoldered and came to life in the blink of an eye. Your breath reduced to sharp, ragged gasps. It was too much.

"By the time I am truly finished," Fëanor vows, "you will not be able to leave our chambers without my aid."

"I will hold you to that promise," you retort, and a grin began to form. 

Fëanor chuckled and turned his attention to the pleasurable diversion at hand. He meant what he said, every word of it. He slid a finger into the wet heat of your slit, moving it in gentle, rhythmic thrusts that sent shockwaves licking up your spine. In time, one finger became two, and two soon became three. His lips captured yours in a violent, bruising kiss that left you dizzy and weak. Fëanor breathed deeply when your mouth opened beneath his and your lips parted for his tongue. Like all other things, he took his time to savor them—the warmth of your mouth and the sweetness of your lips. Pain and pleasure collided and mingled when your nails raked down his back. It hurt, but it was a welcome hurt. It meant you were nearing your release again. Fëanor was glad, knowing only he could make you experience untold rapture more times than either of you could care to count.

This time, he was not going to deny you. But first, "Are you close, sweetling? Do you want to cum and spill onto my hand?"

The relief that washed over you was palpable. "Yes, my love."

"Beg for it." Fëanor insists, his thumb grazing your nub. The sharp intake of breath and the arched back that followed, delighted him to no end. 

The Valar sent me to this place, he thought, highly amused, thinking it to be my punishment. And here I am, living well and without worry, all while fucking my beloved consort senseless.

He turned his attention back to you. "Beg for it, sweetling. Beg like the good girl I know you are," he commanded again.

The sensations of his fingers stretching your walls and his thumb rubbing against your pearl proved too much again.

"Please, my lord," you plead, desperately and shamelessly, "please let me cum. Please. Please."

Fëanor drew in a long, deep breath and made an otherworldly sound when he heard himself addressed as, "My Lord." He had heard it often enough; it was true, but hearing you address him in such a manner made him quiver. He picked up his pace, growing drunk on the sounds you made, growling in approval when you contracted around his touch, and warmth soon poured onto his hands. He did not care about the drenched sheets. He moved between your thighs even as you struggled to catch your breath, so eager was he to take you to greater heights. You had helped accomplish one fantasy, to pour onto his hand. It went even better than he expected. But it was not enough, for another had to be fulfilled. Fëanor craved to have that same warmth to pour over his cock.

"Ready?" he questioned, spreading your thighs apart even more.

You respond by wrapping your legs around his hips. "Please."

Fëanor guided his shaft into your slick heat, inch by slow inch. You opened your eyes and found him bathed in the golden light of nearby candles. His blue eyes glittered like perfect jewels, his raven hair falling over his shoulders, brushing your skin like silk. He was utterly beautiful, and you told him so. Such praise pleased him greatly. 

It did not take long. Fëanor nearly sobbed when you sheathed him in a velvety embrace, when your hands moved over to cup his back to aid him. He laughed triumphantly, teasing and tormenting you with quick, shallow thrusts that did nothing to sate your growing need for more. 

"Is this how you desire it?"

"No, my lord. You know me better than that."

Fëanor chuckled. "Then how do you desire it?"

It was just like Fëanor to make you say it. "Hard, my lord."

Fëanor nodded, his gaze traveling all over your countenance. He loved what he saw and feasted on the sight before him: your body bucking beneath his with each thrust, your breasts heaving, your mouth parted in deep moans. It was what he craved above all else—to see the pleasure he gave you with his own eyes. He fucked you deeper than he had ever done before, his cheeks clenching with every time he drove himself into you, his moans soon growing thick and hoarse when a gathering took root and grew in his belly.

"Look at me," he hissed when your slick walls tightened around his cock. "Look at me when you cum."

Again, it was just like him to ask such a thing. You did as he bid, finding his eyes darkened and locked on yours. Fëanor’s lips tugged at the corners, his movements pushing you deeper against the featherbed. He somehow managed to keep his attention on you, muttering a quick "fuck" under his breath when you grabbed his arse and pushed him deeper. The new angle he found let him set a torturous pace. Fëanor’s eyes, now clouded and hazy with lust, remained open, marveling at you surrendering to the wildness he led you to. A few more moments were all he had, and Fëanor watched while unimaginable bliss flashed in your eyes and your orgasm ripped through you. He dipped his head and brushed his lips over yours, frantic and hungry, his hips undulating against the insides of your thighs. He sighed against your throat when his name rolled off your lips in a cry that seemed to rise from the very core of your being. Feelings were all that mattered now: nails gouging little indents in his flesh, your body shaking and shaking, the sinfulness of your warmth spilling onto his cock, the warmth of his spend filling your cunt. He groaned, long and deep, before stopping, his body growing limp.

You had lost track of time, your vision still dark and hazy. A hand slowly brushed over your hair. Warm lips brushed your forehead. The darkness that blurred your vision faded. The first thing to catch your eye was the flickering flames of candles, the fire sputtering in the hearth. You felt the warmth and heaviness of the elf resting over you and the silk sheets against your back. It was all so wonderful. Too lazy and content to move, you lay where you were, running your hands over Fëanor’s spine. He sighed softly, kissing your cheeks, your eyelids, and the tip of your nose.

"A bath is needed, I think," he decided, rising and sliding his arms beneath you to lift you out of bed. "And fresh linen. I am not finished with you."

#Fëanor #Fëanor smut #Fëanor x reader #Fëanor imagine #x reader #reader insert #reader insert request #the silm #the silm imagine #the silm smut #kinktober #kinktober 2023 #💫a world of whimsy writes

[wildegeist]

Once I'm done moving and settled in it's back to Sableheart in full swing. I actually feel in pain from being too busy to work on it much and I'm so excited to get back to it- honestly, this is the most I have ever loved working on something. What I have at least for now is:

- I got mostly through updating Arctos’s theme music. I said I'd take a break from music until next week and then did not keep this promise, plus packing got mostly done quickly enough I was able to mess around more. The new instrumentation sounds better and I adjusted parts of the composition to make it sound a little richer. I just have some more sounds to iron out.

- I already had the general plot down for the prologue comic, but there were some details I wasn't sure how to write in that were important- the prologue is mostly completely devoid of dialogue, with most of the story being told through some narration (when it matters), and a lot of silent scenes. It's a challenging way to write, but really satisfying, cause I actually figured out how to portray pretty much everything I needed to. Most of what's left is to convert that into script and have some beta readers review it, then I can draw the pages.

- The one part of the prologue that DOES have character dialogue is already fully scripted and has been for a while. It comes in the closing pages of the prologue. I'm especially excited for getting to the pages of that part and it's one of my favorite things I've done for the prologue.

I certainly have plans beyond the prologue and quite a lot figured out for how to continue with the normal comic after, but I am just focusing on the prologue for now. I'm not gonna push myself too heavily since that leads to burnout and I want to approach this in a way that's healthy for me, so the work is just kinda going at my own pace, and it'll stay that way unless I end up naturally falling into some sort of non-stressful routine. I have genuinely LOVED working on this though and I feel great about being able to continue soon.

#noctambulant is also still a thing in the canon #i just decided to tackle that later in the Sableheart plotline because the themes will hit harder with things more established #wildemusings

[dr3amofagame]

take a shot - dsmp!mcc fic

MCC FIC! MCC FIC! MCC FIC! To be clear, I outlined this weeks back, when teams were first announced, and I took very very little from the actual MCC itself when it came to actually writing this - all I have are the same teams, but it really exists in its own continuity outside of Real Life MCC (obviously, as it’s using the dsmp characters) and everything like that as a whole! Just to be clear :D)

The worldbuilding is also Absolutely Bullshitted start to finish, as well as any and all medical information. Rip. We’re here for a good time, not for a long or particularly accurate one - hope you guys enjoy regardless!! I had a LOT of fun writing this fic, dsmp!mcc aus my BELOVED

title obviously from win it all by derivakat

---

Michael loves MCC.

But it’s one thing to love the normal Championships and quite another when his team looks like it’s falling apart from the inside out - and as the games progress, it becomes more and more obvious that losing, this time, might not be an option.

tws: C!QUACKITY CRITICAL (sorry i promise i love him but he is NOT portrayed very nicely here, very dark portrayal of him), implied trauma, abuse, torture, panic attacks, manipulation, gaslighting, needles, hospitals, MCC-typical violence, emotional distress, prison arc, pandora’s vault themes

(16k words !! :D long boi) 

Michael loves MCC.

Of course he does! It’s fucking MCC - like, who wouldn’t love it? MCC is how he met so many people, how he met Dream, that one time, the two of them teamed with Techno and Burren and winning it all - MCC is a goddamn blast and he’s thankful every time he gets the invite that he’s able to compete. 

Still- it’s hard not to be a little more nervous, now. 

Dream gave him an invite to his SMP right after they teamed, but it wasn’t until months later that Michael actually cashed it in. Entering the server, it became very obvious very quickly that the DreamSMP, as it’s known, isn’t quite the same as its shiny media appearance. The spawn was covered in blocks, creeper holes littering the ground. The people he passed were grey-faced, too stoic to be the same, smiling faces he remembers from only less than a year ago. The air stings of gunpowder and iron. Worst of all are The Crater, shoddily covered in glass that does nothing to hide the damage done, rending the server in two straight down to bedrock, and the Prison, looming on the horizon. Absent-mindedly, Michael rubs at his left shoulder, remembering the Warden setting the prongs of his trident against the skin in warning, just hard enough to barely draw blood. Yeah, that place is bad news. 

The fact of the matter is the server is a mess. And like, okay, whatever, Michael gets it. Everyone has their issues - it’s just the DreamSMP seems to have more than most. Despite his original worries, it’s honestly not been as bad as he originally feared upon logging in; yeah, Bad and Puffy and Foolish and the rest of them are a little more trigger-happy than he might’ve expected (and he’s not going to say that Bad crying over turtles wasn’t a little startling when he first joined, but honestly he thinks Bad is just Like That.) There’s way more death than he’s really comfortable with, and Puffy keeps mentioning Bad murdering her son (Foolish? He thinks? The guy is also a literal God but like, families are weird, who’s he to judge) in a way that’s way too casual to come from anyone entirely well-adjusted, but overall his experience has been alright. 

Still, he gets the feeling that nobody exactly wants the outside world to know about the issues with the place. It’s not an issue for him usually, not when his sleeping schedule is the exact opposite of most of the people he knows and he spends most of his time screwing around on the server, anyway (usually harassing the Warden until the asscrack of dawn if he’s being honest) but with MCC, with everyone watching - he’s starting to get why everyone from the SMP was so damn tense all the time, now. 

Anyway- he loves MCC, he really does. But even that doesn’t stop him from wincing when he sees his team card, the names Dream and Quackity and Sapnap written in Scott’s looping handwriting. He’s not seen Sapnap at all since joining the server, has only heard a little about his place (something Kingdom, not that he was paying attention) from Foolish, and has no idea what the man has been up to. Quackity is his own unique can of worms; Michael doesn’t know exactly what’s up with him and his country, but everything he’s heard so far has sounded like nothing but bad news, casinos and schemes and a trail of wreckage following wherever he goes. And Dream-

Michael looks out his window, chewing on his lip, looking directly in the direction where he knows the prison stands, impenetrable, intimidating. Where Dream’s cell is, in line with his house, where he’s been hidden for months without a trace. Where the Warden had confronted him that one night, a dangerous gleam in his eyes, blood splattered on his boots. 

There’s no real ignoring an MCC invite - not without good reason, not without the admins picking up on something being up. There’s not really a choice, here, but for Michael to duck his head down and pretend everything’s fine just like everyone else from the SMP. He directs one last glance at the prison before walking away, setting the invite on his counter. If he’s lucky, everything will turn out fine. 

(He ignores the part of him that asks what’s going to happen if they’re not. No point in worrying about what hasn’t happened yet - right?) 

---

Weeks pass, the tournament creeping closer, and Michael gets no alerts from his teammates on his comm. No one comes to his house to check in, say hi, not even a ‘hey, we’re kinda competing in a massive tournament in like, seven days, you ready?’ Hell, he even starts checking his goddamn mailbox for a letter or something only to come up empty-handed every time. Never mind performing well - it’ll be a miracle if their team manages to arrive at the tournament at all. 

It isn’t until the day before MCC, the sun high in the sky at what must be near noon, when he finally gets a message on his comm. Michael fishes it out with a frustrated huff, seeing Quackity’s name pop up first when he manages to turn on the screen. 

Quackity whispers to you: you down for some practice?

It takes a couple seconds for him to blink away his shock - out of everyone he expected to arrange practice for their team, Quackity was definitely not at the top of the list. He half-thought they would have to drag him to the tournament kicking and screaming; from what he’s heard, he’s been nothing if not devoted to his country. Shaking his head, he goes to reply; practice is practice, and their team really needs it. 

You whisper to Quackity: sure. practice server?

Quackity whispers to you: yes

Pulling up his server list, Michael scrolls for the practice server, finding it and then letting the server transfer do the rest. A few nausea-inducing seconds later, he’s at the practice server spawn, standing in the middle of a neatly paved road surrounded by colorful arenas and signs. 

“Michael!” 

He turns; there, by the Battle Box arenas, Quackity is waving at him, already dressed in a red varsity jacket and a pair of shorts, the jacket bearing a front pocket embroidered with a rabbit and a large R stitched onto the back. He reaches behind him for a red bag, throws it his way for Michael to catch mid-air. 

“Got these outfits for us last minute - hope it’s alright with you,” Quackity smiles, and Michael tries to prevent his eyes from clinging to the scar spanning the entire left side of his face. “Anyway- how are you, man? I feel like we haven’t seen each other at all on the server. How’s it been?”

“I’m good- it’s been good.” Michael opens the drawstring bag, cataloguing the contents - there’s a jacket, just like Quackity’s, a pair of shorts and sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a headband, all in varying shades of red and white. “Nice outfit- thank you. Is anyone else around?”

Quackity waves a hand behind him. “Yeah- Dream’s here. Should be coming out of the arena soon, actually.” Michael looks over behind his shoulder to where he’s pointing - there, walking down the stairs, is another figure wearing all red that must be Dream. “There he is- hey Dream! Michael’s here!” 

Dream hurries down the stairs; unlike Quackity, he is wearing the sweatpants along with the same jacket, hands stuffed in his pockets. His hair is a lot longer than Michael remembers, pulled back behind his head in a ponytail, mask, as usual, fastened over his face. He settles behind Quackity, giving Michael a small wave; his hands are covered by a pair of fingerless gloves. 

“Hey, Dream!” Michael grins; it’s been such a long time since he’s seen his old teammate, and despite the circumstances and everything that’s apparently happened since then, it’s still pretty damn nice to see him. “How’ve you been?”

Dream seems to freeze for a moment, before shaking his head. “Good,” he says, quiet, sounding almost breathless. Michael’s eyes go to the slivers of skin that show on either side of his face, to the slight shake to his hands. 

“You alright? You look a little pale,” Michael asks, and he definitely doesn’t miss the way Dream stills at the words, muscles tensing, gaze averting to the side even with the mask - doesn’t miss how Quackity steps forward, looking Michael in the eye as he tosses a casual arm around Dream’s shoulder, smiling brightly. 

“Don’t worry. This idiot has just been practicing a bit too much before you got here,” Quackity gestures with a flippant twist of his wrist, “You know how he gets. Right, Dream?” 

“Um- yeah. Ha,” Dream responds just a little too late to be strictly normal, shoulders tight and nearly pulled to his ears under Quackity’s arm. “Practice- I’m a little out of shape.” 

“You sure?” Dream’s breathing hitches and Quackity steps forward, just a little bit, eyes still fixed firmly on Michael’s own even as he shifts his gaze to try and look at Dream. “We can take a break if you need, Dream-”

“I’m fine!” Dream smiles with a little stuttered breath that turns into a small laugh, “It’s- uh. It’s fine. Thanks Michael, but we can practice. Not much time left to waste, you know?”

“You sure, Dream?” Quackity says, suddenly, voice soft and sincere. “I guess it has been a while since you’ve been able to practice- you sure you don’t need a break?”

Dream shakes his head firmly. “No- it’s fine. Really- where’s Sapnap? He should be coming soon, right?”

“If you say so, pal,” Quackity replies, doubt coloring his tone as he pulls out his communicator. “I told Sapnap to come, he replied a couple minutes back; he should be here soon, I think. You want to go meet him at spawn?”

Dream nods, and they begin to set out towards the center of the server, Quackity and Dream quickly taking the lead as Michael falls back. After a minute, Quackity falls into casual conversation, rambling about something as Dream nods, Michael trailing behind the two of them and adding his own input as he sees fit. Sapnap arrives soon after, and the noise level picks up even more after that, Sapnap and Quackity falling into an easy rhythm of banter and quips as they set out to practice Battle Box and Parkour Tag, carefully working their way through the different games under Dream’s tutelage and advice. 

And here’s the thing- Michael isn’t stupid. Yeah, he’d hardly consider himself a top tier MCC player, and he’ll be the first to say that he’s nowhere near qualified to deal with the literal laundry list of issues that affect every member of the SMP, but even so, he’s not clueless. He’s good at looking at multiple sides of a situation, doesn’t easily give into intimidation or manipulation, and he’s observant as all hell. So when Quackity wraps his hand around Dream’s wrist, fingers wrapping all the way around until his knuckles pale, when Dream winces, muscles in his arm locking before letting it go limp, not protesting when Quackity drags him forward except in the tiny, tight expressions that flit across his face every few moments, tight and gasping and shaky at the corners - Michael notices. 

“See you at the tourney, yeah?” Quackity calls to him after practice with a wink before clapping Dream on the back, Michael watching silently as the muscles of Dream’s neck pull tight, head ducking to his chest. “Good job, big guy,” he says, laughing. “Keep this up for tomorrow and we’ll be good.”

“Mmhm,” Dream mutters after a brief second, “We’re- we’re gonna win.”

“Betting on it, pal,” Quackity replies, voice light in a way that completely fails to explain Dream’s full-body flinch. “MCC, huh? Can’t fucking wait.”

“See you tomorrow, Quackity,” Michael says as he presses DreamSMP on his server list, pretending that a chill doesn’t crawl down his spine at the smile that the other man throws his way in return. 

---

There’s no real easy answer.

Michael comes to that conclusion at some point in the middle of the night, restless and pumped on way too much adrenaline to go to sleep. He can’t outright antagonize Quackity, can’t let him know he knows something’s up - not when Quackity had already spent the majority of practice keeping one dark, narrowed eye on him at all times, lips pursed in a slight frown whenever he thought Michael wasn’t looking. He’s not stupid; whatever’s happening between Dream and Quackity is secret, and kept that way for a reason. His mind goes back to the brief flashes of anxiety that had moved over Dream’s face before he could react fast enough to school them back into a carefully neutral position; whatever it is, he doubts it bodes well for Dream in the slightest. 

Unfortunately, his hands are pretty damn tied. He knows public opinion on the masked man in the server is overwhelmingly negative, but has no damn idea how far it extends. How many people are in on whatever’s happening in that damn prison? How many people know what would make Dream, bold and bright and recklessly confident in all of Michael’s (rather limited) memories, into someone so quiet, unimposing, nervous? His head spins with the possibilities, with the ever-present reminder to not make a fuss, let the tournament pass on, to never, ever let anyone find out what’s going on within the SMP. Should he do anything at all? 

Too soon, it’s morning, and he drags himself out of bed with a groan to glare at the sun streaming through his window. Somewhere, Quackity and Dream and Sapnap are also waking up, are preparing to compete in one of the biggest damn tournaments to exist. Michael sighs, glancing over to where he’s set out his outfit, freshly pressed and waiting. Any other day, and he’d probably be fucking ecstatic. Here, he buries his head in his hands, muffling a frustrated groan against the palm of his hands. 

He loves MCC, but he sure as hell doesn’t like whatever the hell is going on with the rest of his team. 

Getting into the server goes smoothly enough. The outfit is comfortable and looks damn good, props to whoever made the thing, and the sight of the multicolored crowd successfully manages to tamp down some of his nerves. He busies himself with saying hi to all of the members waiting in the lobby, happy for the chance to talk to some people he hasn’t seen in ages, feels the night of anxieties wash away with every stupid joke told and burst of laughter drawn from his lungs. 

They come back the moment Scott steps up in front of the lobby. “Teams, it’s time to head to your team rooms! The tournament will begin in fifteen minutes,” Scott says, expression sunny and bright, “we’re wishing you all luck for a great performance today! May the best team win!” 

In a flurry of movement, they’re all whisked to their rooms for a final few minutes of preparation and morale-boosting, and Michael enters the glorified dressing room to Quackity, Dream, and Sapnap already standing there, seemingly in the middle of conversation. 

“You ready to win?” Sapnap yells, and Quackity whoops, and Michael manages a small cheer of his own. They’re all visibly nervous; Quackity has scarcely stopped moving, pacing from one side of the room to the next; Sapnap is basically jumping in place where he stands. Dream stands at the very back of the room, looking tense; Michael directs a wave his way and gets a small one in return. 

“Game plan, game plan,” Quackity mutters, “do we know what games we’re playing first? Dream?”

He nods at Dream, and Dream stands up straighter, mouth falling open.

“Oh- um,” he hesitates, a strand of hair flopping forwards as he tilts his head in thought. “We’ll want to save Parkour Tag and Battle Box towards the end- maybe something more high-risk at the beginning, but not first, just to boost morale,” his teeth catch on his bottom lip, “Maybe something like To Get To The Other Side? If they have that- or Build Mart, if we can get it out of the way.” He shakes his head. “If that’s alright- I mean-”

“Great,” Quackity cuts in smoothly. “Sapnap? Michael? Does that sound good to you?”

Sapnap flashes a thumbs up, and Michael nods. “Yeah, sounds great. Thanks, Dream.”

Dream’s head snaps towards him, mouth slightly open in shock. The sight of it makes Michael’s gut twist uncomfortably; there’s something about how surprised he is, at the nervous hesitancy with which he spoke that was nothing like what Michael remembers of his easy leadership in that MCC with Techno, that doesn’t sit right at all in his stomach. Even with his expression largely hidden, there’s no mistaking the clear, genuine surprise on his face at the idea of someone thanking him - Michael tries to tell himself that he’s reading too much into it as Quackity continues to speak. 

“We’re going to win,” he grins, just a little too sharp at the edges, “so get out there and play like your lives depend on it, yeah?” 

Sapnap cheers, and again, Michael and Dream follow. It’s not until he’s outside the door, within the clamor of screaming teams and people counting down with the timer that Michael realizes that Quackity was staring at Dream the entire time. 

---

Michael curses, frustrated, when he’s knocked off a platform again, making sure to flip Krinios the bird before he falls into the Void entirely. When he makes it to the other side, Quackity and Dream are already deep in conversation - if you can call it that. Even from here, it looks worryingly one-sided.

“-were you thinking, falling off there-” Quackity’s hand is on Dream’s shoulder, Dream standing stock-still in front of him, “you better be taking this seriously, Dream.”

“Hey- sorry about that,” Michael calls with a wave, “I swear Krinios had it out for me. At least I made it across, right?” 

Quackity turns, startled, and in the split-second that it takes for him to register Michael’s appearance, his expression smooths over into something friendlier, more inviting. “Michael!” He says, enthusiastic, and it’s like the anger that had filled his words just seconds before was never there at all. “Don’t- don’t worry about it, man. We all kinda dropped the ball on that one, right Dream?” 

The words should be encouraging, just simple ribbing between teammates. Dream’s mask is still ducked down, facing the floor, shoulders slightly hunched in. 

“Um- Sapnap did pretty good,” Dream says, quiet, “he got top ten, right?” 

Michael looks over to where Sapnap is standing a little ways away, seemingly busy typing on his communicator. Quackity laughs, sharp and loud. 

“True,” he punches Dream lightly on the upper arm, and Michael watches the way he freezes the second the fist makes contact with his jacket, “come on, man, you’re losing your touch. You really gonna let yourself get beat by Sapnap?” he shakes his head, still laughing as he pulls open his communicator. “Jesus- even I beat you in that last round. Watch your spot, Dream, I’m coming for you.” 

“I mean,” Michael says when a second passes and it becomes clear Dream isn’t going to respond, “Dream was doing pretty well with the last two rounds, right? I thought I saw his name pretty far up there.” 

Quackity takes a second before responding, again, staring at Michael oddly as he does. “That’s true,” he concedes, “hey- I was just making a joke, don’t worry. It’s all for fun, right Dream?”

His gaze goes to Dream, and automatically, Michael follows. Dream seems to startle under the attention, twitching Quackity’s direction in the awkward silence that results. Michael watches as the mask slants slightly to face Quackity, as Quackity looks back at him with an intense, unreadable expression, shoulders strangely tense. Whatever unsaid conversation that seems to pass between them is entirely lost on Michael as Dream finally responds with a sudden, almost strangled bark of laughter. 

“Yeah- just jokes,” his fingers twist over one another, hands held close together in front of his body, “Though Qu- Q’s right, I- I should probably pick it up. We’re playing to win.” 

A ding alerts them to the end of the round, and Michael steadies himself in preparation for the teleport to the next map. As he turns, he catches Quackity’s expression, once again, and the self-satisfied smirk on his face as he continues to look at Dream. 

“Good luck,” he calls just before they enter the next round, and tries not to think too much about what he’s saying it for. 

---

They manage pretty well for the rest of To Get To The Other Side, finishing with a second place overall that got cheers from Sapnap and even a slight smile from Dream. Hole in the Wall, on the other hand, has been a lot less successful - though Michael will be the first to say that it’s his fault. His practice in the last few months has been lackluster (at best) and it definitely showed in the arena. 

He leans over the railing, watching Dream and Sapnap through the crowd of participants left that have yet to be knocked out by the giant walls of slime. Quackity’s standing next to him, having been similarly thrown off the platform early in the round, expression tight and lips set in a small frown, and looking at him for too long makes Michael uneasy so he looks down at the arena again. They’re in the last round, and they’re supposed to be making callouts anyway for their teammates still participating below.

Without thinking, once again, Michael looks over at Dream. Sue him, he knows the guy best and Dream has been acting odd all day, to put it lightly. Even ignoring the part of him that’s screaming that something’s wrong, that there’s something up that has everything to do with the beanie-wearing man standing besides him, it only takes a few minutes of observation to see that Dream is - for the lack of a better word - off. Michael watches as he vaults over another wall, only barely managing to bring himself to his feet in time on the other side. Dream’s movements - even to his untrained eye - have always been fluid, effortless. He jumped and vaulted and ran like gravity didn’t exist, like every physics-bending maneuver he made was as easy as breathing. Michael remembers watching him sprint over the parkour course before, time completely unmatched as he appraised each obstacle and basically flew his way through, sounding hardly even winded when he whooped loudly in victory from the top of the salmon ladder. In total contrast, Dream jerks away from the coming wall again, movements sloppy and harsh as he scrambles to the other side of the disc-shaped arena. He’s still fast, and still making jumps, but everything is strangely angled where it had once been fluid, stopping and starting suddenly, moving in bursts of speed and then skidding to sudden stops. 

“WEST!” Quackity shouts, and Michael watches as Dream’s head turns jerkily at the noise before he dives out of the way of the incoming wall and manages, barely, to twist around the side. Michael winces at the tumble he takes on the opposite side, clutching his chest slightly as he stands back up again. 

“North!” Michael calls, because he should probably actually help his teammates, huh, and Dream manages to move around this one better, jumping through a hole in the wall and tucking and rolling as he lands. “Nice jump- East!” 

It’s an easy wall, thankfully, and both Sapnap and Dream visibly take a breath as they stand in place for the wall to pass over them. As it passes, a droning buzz comes from the speakers, and the walls below them speed up. 

“South-to your right!” Michael shouts as they turn, eyes turning between all of the false walls before finally focusing on the right one, his shout echoed by a similar one from Quackity. At each one of the calls from the man besides him, Dream seems to tighten further, movements increasingly erratic as he dodges and weaves around the walls. There’s still a lot of people left - Michael follows Dream through the crowd with a frown, watching as he and Sapnap jump the next wall, Dream’s foot nearly catching on the top edge. 

“West-” Dream flinches, jumping over the two-high wall at the last possible second, landing completely off-balance on the other side and falling to the ground. He scrambles to his feet, but there’s already a wall at the west edge of the platform - his head turns, still searching for the wall - Quackity yells.

“LEFT!”

Something in Dream’s movements seem to shift, even in the distance - Michael watches as he immediately, almost robotically, steps to the left at Quackity’s voice, not even jumping, not turning his head to take in his surroundings, just moving instinctually at the words, and slams into the coming wall hard enough to get flung into the middle hole in the platform. Quackity curses, fist crashing into the railing as Dream falls and the chat message shows on their communicators, and a second later he’s materialized beside them, face oddly slack and mask focused somewhere faraway. 

“Shit,” Dream mutters when he seems to come back into himself, shaking his head and then turning to the two of them, still by the railing, “Dammit. Sorry, I-“ 

“Don’t worry about it,” Michael cuts in before Quackity can speak. “You did good.” 

“I-” Dream catches Quackity’s gaze, then pushes his head away, mask facing the ground. Something about it and his raised shoulders and the dark, angry glare that Quackity directs over the railing when Michael looks back makes him shift in place, uneasy. “Could’ve done better, ha. Sorry.” 

The three of them watch, silent, as Sapnap continues to compete. He manages to get pretty damn far, making it to the top three, but getting knocked off-balance by a wall and off the platform just before the timer sounds. Michael cringes back at the sound of it over the speakers, watches the other contestants settle into place, panting, in victory.

“Great job, Sapnap,” Michael shouts when he materializes in front of them, and the other two are quick to echo his sentiments. If they sound a little duller than they should be, if Quackity’s jaw seems clenched and Dream’s all coiled up like a spring, far too tense, it’s from placing lower than they wanted and slipping in the rankings, not anything else.

Keep your head down, Michael reminds himself, and everything’s gonna be fine. And if the words ring more and more hollow with every repetition, well, that’s for him to ignore and for everyone else to never, ever find out. 

---

Buildmart is chosen next, which they all groan at, but at least it’s going to be out early and not left to ruin all of their scores later. Michael takes his place at his build, one third from the left side - it’s some abomination of colored glass and white concrete meant, if he is to guess, to emulate a stained glass window. He’s between Dream and Sapnap, the former positioned in front of a flower-dotted grass field with a picnic table, the latter staring down a miniature car with black concrete for tires and stone buttons for detailing. He breathes a steady breath as they await the countdown, already planning for his trip to the Colors section to grab materials for his build and the others’- Buildmart isn’t his strongest game, but it’s not his worst either, and he’s damn well going to try his best. 

He skids into the portal with an armful of colored concrete and glass, spilling half of its contents inside a chest before running to his build. He pulls himself to the crafting bench to craft - he squints at his build - he needs four red glass panes and 3 yellow, right. As he brings the panes to his inventory and begins laying out the frame of the build in concrete, he looks over to Dream, who is noticeably struggling with placing the flowers in his build and getting the placements to match that of the original. He knocks away a white tulip with a muffled curse, sounding frantic as he looks back to the original, and places it again to no avail. 

It seems that his struggle hasn’t only caught Michael’s attention, as the statue to the leftmost side of the room explodes in gold coins and confetti - Quackity has finished his build and is now looking at Dream with narrowed eyes. Dream places the flower again, and the build refuses to respond. Quackity’s gaze narrows further, and he opens his mouth-

“Hey Quackity!” Michael starts speaking before he’s even noticed that he’s opened his mouth, fumbling as he regains awareness of what he’s doing and tries to find a direction for his sentence to go, “do you have any concrete?”

Quackity looks at him like he’s grown a second head, which is fair, considering there’s a block of white concrete pretty obviously visible in his hand. “Um- no? Weren’t you supposed to go to Colors?”

Dream finally manages to place the tulip where it belongs, and the build between them disappears in another explosion of gold glitter. Michael laughs awkwardly. 

“Sorry- haha. I got a little mixed up.” He places the last piece of white concrete, watching as his own build disappears. A little wooden cottage takes its place, made of what appears to be just oak wood and cobblestone. “Are you going to get wood? Or should I?”

“I- You get wood,” Quackity shakes his head, visibly frustrated, “And I’ll get stone. We have to hurry, we’re falling behind.” 

After that, Michael finds it a little too easy - or maybe not easy, but at least tolerable, to interrupt when Quackity looks a little like he’s about to fall on the side of being angry versus just annoyed, stepping between his angry glares at Dream with a forced smile and an incessant string of annoying questions- 

“Hey Quackity, do you have any spare iron?”

“Hey Quackity, I think you placed that a little too far back.”

“Hey Quackity, can you take a look to see what I placed wrong?” 

It’s not perfect. It’s hardly even functional; Michael knows that Quackity has begun with the habit of directing death glares at his back whenever he thinks he’s not looking, his responses to Michael’s questions becoming more and more clipped, often paired with irritated grumbles and sighs. Sapnap, when Michael looks at him, seems largely engrossed with his own builds, but he’s also begun looking over at the two of them with a vaguely dissatisfied expression, and Dream only seems to be getting more jumpy with every frustrated growl out of Quackity’s mouth. Even Michael’s forced levity and falsely ignorant questions can’t do much against Quackity’s anger when they walk out of Buildmart dead last for the minigame, dropping their team all the way down to seventh in the overall rankings, and the tension within the team as they walk out - Quackity nearly stomping, Dream following with his hands wringing around each other and head ducked fearfully - is almost enough to make Michael scream. He looks at the scoreboard with a worried expression as he enters the Decision Dome, trying to quell the sinking feeling in his gut. 

There’s still five more games to go, and he’s not sure how long they can last before something snaps. 

---

Battle Box is chosen next, and they react to the game with quiet cheers and slightly grim faces. Michael’s been in enough MCCs to know that this game, of any, is crucial - after their lacking performances in the last two games, a good showing at Battle Box will be crucial to pull them back into the competition and raise morale. With Sapnap and Dream, if this were any normal game, they should be able to sweep through a good amount of the competition without much effort. As it is, though, Michael looks at the two more combat-oriented members of his team with a worried expression, the two barely even able to meet each other’s eyes. Their interactions so far have been less than promising- if they can’t hold it together for this round, well. 

Michael shakes his head. They’ll do fine. They have to. 

Even so, the first round only seems to confirm his concerns - they get woolrushed almost immediately, and in Dream and Sapnap’s stumbling to get to mid, nearly crashing into each other and focusing their efforts on the same player by accident, the other team manages to fill out the wool, sending them back to the spawn box even more frustrated than before. 

“Amazing teamwork, guys,” Quackity snarks immediately, and Michael rolls his eyes. 

“Like you did that much.” 

Sapnap is still staring at Dream oddly, Dream turning his head to avoid his gaze. The two of them look largely oblivious to Quackity and his whole deal, even as Quackity whirls around to give him the stink eye. 

“You didn’t do anything either, if I remember correctly,” Quackity mutters, and Michael shrugs. 

“Fair.” 

A ding alerts them to the round’s end, and they resign themselves to preparing for the next round. Michael picks the extra arrows from the wall, knowing that no one else will want the kit, and watches as Dream anxiously runs his hands over the crossbow. 

The next round goes better, barely; Michael and Quackity end up knocked out pretty early, but Dream and Sapnap manage to kill the rest of the team soon after. He watches from the box as they fill in the wool, Dream looking awfully tense as he shears away the white wool for Sapnap to fill it with red. Quackity watches them both with a tight expression, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. 

Michael turns away, ignoring him, going back to watching Dream and Sapnap still standing within the arena. Both of them look awkward, oddly out of step with each other - Michael’s not watched them fight much, but he knows that they have a reputation as a pair, was there for the Sky Battle round where they completely wiped through the competition. Even here, Sapnap moves forward and Dream flinches back - there’s something heavy and tense between them, lingering in the few words they’ve spoken to each other, if they’ve even spoken to each other at all, one always rushing forward too fast or following just a little too slow. They’re still brilliant fighters, almost unrivaled in hand-to-hand combat and with swords, but the faltering communication is sure to hurt them more in the future. 

His worries come true just three rounds later, the two in between being narrow wins for their team, each a little more shaky than would be comfortable. Michael has found himself easing off the worst of his anxiety in verbally sparring with Quackity, jabbing at the other with offhand remarks and little needling jokes to keep his attention off the other two, especially as his glare has become more pronounced and his words more angry. Even so, nothing he does or can do will fix the odd tension between Dream and Sapnap, whose communication remains as stilted and awkward as ever. 

They’re facing a stronger team, PVP wise, with Punz and Seapeekay, and Michael ends up falling in a bow duel against Jack. He watches as the Captain falls to a potion by Sapnap, then as Jack is taken out by a crossbow bolt courtesy of Dream, just before Quackity falls to a well-timed bow shot from the opposing team. 

That leaves the strongest PVPers to battle it out, and Dream and Sapnap manage to team up and kill CPK - but not without taking a nasty damage potion to the face that must leave the two of them low. Michael watches Punz, booking it to mid with a crossbow, anxiously - both of them would be a oneshot with the thing, and on the condition that he takes no damage before fighting with either of them outright, he’s probably got enough health to hold out a few hits. 

Sapnap pulls out a health potion, and Michael grins - that’ll be good for the two of them, and should secure them the win - only for him to gesture roughly with his sword and for Dream to stagger backwards, panic flashing over his face. He only seems to grow more fearful at the sound of glass shattering on the ground, falling backwards further - far enough to be largely out of range of health pot - and in their shock, Punz manages to catch both of them off guard and nail Sapnap with a crossbow bolt that downs him for the round before similarly dispatching Dream in two hits of his sword.

Sapnap explodes upon respawn in the box - “What was that? I had a health pot!”

“I-” Dream fumbles, face still oddly pale, “Sorry I didn’t- I- I-”

“We had that round!” Sapnap’s arms flail forward as he gestures angrily, Dream freezing further as one hand skims past his shoulder. “I can’t believe- I had a health pot! Punz was on, like, half! We could’ve killed him!”

“Easy, easy,” Quackity moves forward, putting a hand on both of their shoulders - Sapnap seems to relax immediately, while Dream, if anything, only looks more tense. “It’s time for the next round - we’ll talk about this later, alright?” 

Dream nods, movements overly tense, and Quackity flashes a toothy smile his way as Sapnap moves back, still mumbling to himself. He and Quackity move to talk in the back corner, words quiet enough that Michael cannot make them out, and something sick and cold slithers over his spine. Sapnap and Quackity are fiancés, aren’t they? 

Michael looks over at Dream, mask still covering his face as he looks away through the glass to the arena, shoulders still tight as Michael’s pretty sure they’ve been for as long as he’s seen him since he came onto the server. He remembers the panic that make itself obvious on his face every time Quackity came up to him, even as covered as it is, the similar- if not the same- fear that had painted his face when he respawned fresh off of the Battle Box round after Sapnap’s sword had passed a little too close to his body. 

Quackity and Dream- he’s sure, even if he doesn’t want to admit it, that there’s something going on there, dark and dreadful and poisonous. Who’s to say that Sapnap isn’t involved, as well? 

---

They finish Battle Box decently well, but not as well as they’d hoped, pulling them up to fifth place with a decently large gap between them and fourth. Quackity and Dream disappear immediately as the Audience Votes begin coming in, leaving Sapnap and Michael to stand awkwardly in the lobby to wait for the rest of their team to come back. Michael watches the crowd for a glimpse of Quackity and Dream, comes up empty. A sigh fizzles through his teeth as he looks up into the sky, the endless blue doing little to ease his nerves - he’s worried, even if he doesn’t want to think about it, for his teammates. For Dream. 

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the man is scared of Quackity, that there’s an odd sort of history there that Michael conveniently has no information about. Whatever it is, it’s left Dream unsure and uncharacteristically nervous, left the entire team floundering without proper leadership to tie them all together. Really, a part of him knows that the Championships should be the least of his concerns - if he were braver, or a little better at combat, or a little less inclined to just let things pass as they always have, then he’d be raising a fuss. Getting in the way, talking to Dream, doing something other than making backhanded compliments to Quackity that he’s sure have been doing little more than annoy the man further. 

“Michael?” Sapnap comes within his line of sight, lips pressed together in a carefully put-together expression that Michael is sure will collapse the moment they’re away from others’ prying eyes, “Can we speak for a moment?”

Michael forces another easy smile to his face as he turns towards his teammate, feels a little disgusted at the amount of them he’s had to use to simply function with the rest of his team. “Sure! Where to?”

They walk at a brisk pace to the team room, Sapnap’s eyes focused forwards the entire time, not speaking. If he’s being honest, it’s a little awkward, but the lighthearted comment on his tongue to break the silence dies out the minute Sapnap closes the door and looks back at him with fierce, focused eyes boring into him. 

“What’s your deal?” He hisses immediately, words pitched low even though he doesn’t really have to - there’s no one nearby, and the team rooms are decently soundproofed. Michael feels his hackles rising as Sapnap’s arms cross in front of him, eyes still focused on his own as he talks. “I’m not going to lie- I don’t know you that well, even though you’re on the SMP now, but can you quit it with Quackity already?”

“Quit what?” Michael snarks - sue him - matching Sapnap’s tone with irritation of his own. 

“Don’t- you’ve been antagonizing Quackity all day,” Sapnap’s hand runs through his hair, messing up his hair and tangling it into knots, “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re kind of in the middle of a competition here? So it’d be really nice if you could save the fighting for until after we’re done?”

“Says you?” Michael can’t help the retort this time, huffing irately at the offended expression that flashes over the other’s face, “I don’t really know if you’ve noticed, but your teamwork has been a little less than stellar, today. Pot calling the kettle black, much?”

“What-” Sapnap looks confused, even through his anger, gesturing more and more wildly. “What do you even mean?”

“Oh, so are we just ignoring what just happened in Battle Box then?” 

Sapnap’s eyes flash as he closes into himself again, hands gripping at his upper arms as he crosses his arms in front of his chest once again. “That- that’s different. That’s because of Dream.”

“Oh, just keep blaming it on the other guy, why don’t you?”

“No-” Sapnap shakes his head furiously. “You haven’t been on here for nearly as long, you don’t get it, Michael. Dream- he’s-,” Sapnap flails, and Michael groans at the familiar words. 

“Dream’s what? I was on the team with the guy before, you know. It’s kind of the reason why he invited me in the first place?” He raises an eyebrow. “We worked together perfectly well then - am I supposed to believe that his self-proclaimed ‘best friend’ can’t do the same?” 

“You don’t understand,” Sapnap repeats, expression hard and oddly far away, “Dream- he’s changed- he’s done so many terrible things. I don’t know what he’s said to convince you, but he’s bad news, man. He’s hurt- so many people.” 

“Oh- you want to talk about hurting people?” 

Michael isn’t quite sure what comes over him - only really realizes a white-hot flash of rage lancing through his chest, a sleepless night and half a competition’s  worth of anxiety and frustration and build up combining into a sizzling spike of fury that briefly tinges his vision red. 

“How about the way Dream looks like he’s about to keel over whenever anyone gets close to him? How about how he flinches back at literally every loud noise and fast movement? How about how Quackity’s been making these stupid, angry comments at him for the entire competition that make him freeze for a minute each time? Or how about when you were in Battle Box and Dream backed away from your sword like he thought you were gonna drive it through his chest?” Michael barely feels himself stepping forward with each word, jabbing his index finger into the other’s chest. “You want to talk about hurting people? How about you go talk to that fiancé of yours and then come back to talk?” 

A loud, droning buzz comes over the speakers, alerting them of the end of the break. Michael steps back, face flushed in embarrassment, before the world whirls away and they’re teleported back into the Decision Dome. 

He adamantly refuses to meet Sapnap’s eyes as Quackity and Dream materialize in the sector with them, Quackity’s hand clamped around Dream’s upper arm as the other man keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, looking even more panicked and frozen than before the break. 

“You ready to win?” Quackity laughs, and Michael watches as his hand tightens around the sleeve of Dream’s jacket, knuckles paling from the strain. 

“Yeah,” Michael tries to cheer, and it feels like ash on his tongue. “Let’s do this.” 

---

Survival Games ends up being picked next - Quackity and Sapnap quickly pull up to the front of the group, close enough to be within eyesight but too far to really pick up their conversation. Michael keeps an eye out for the reddish glow of their bodies as they scout the surrounding areas for chest, staying back with Dream as they look at the other side of the road. He’d be lying if he said that he didn’t feel a smug sort of satisfaction of Sapnap seemingly confronting Quackity about whatever the hell has been going on, as awkward as his whole outburst had been. As it is, some time with Dream is nice without Quackity watching over his shoulder like a hawk - he directs a small, genuine smile at the man by his side that Dream seems to do a double take at before shyly returning it with one of his own. 

“There- I think I see a chest,” Michael points under a lamppost, running to the wooden box and flicking the lid upwards. He pulls out a chain chestplate that he promptly puts on himself, then throws over the iron boots to his teammate as well as a small stone axe that he’s sure Dream will make better use of. “We should probably catch up to the others - don’t want to be caught off guard while separated.”

Dream nods, and the two of them pick up the pace before finding another chest that Dream rummages through, this time, finding an iron sword that Michael takes for himself and a cake. 

“You’ve been doing really well so far,” Michael says after a few minutes of quiet, words becoming more firm when Dream looks up at him with a surprised expression. “Seriously- you’ve been doing great, man.”

“Thanks,” Dream smiles, words quiet and terribly sincere, and the sinking pit in Michael’s gut returns at the tone. “Not as good as I should, though. I’ve been underperforming a lot,” he laughs a little at the words, but even to Michael’s ears it rings hollow. “It’s not over yet, though.”

“No it’s not,” Michael concedes, rearranging his inventory as they run. “But it’s good enough, man, really - just look at my rankings.”

Dream huffs. “You’ve been doing good, Michael.”

“And you’ve been doing a hell of a lot better than me,” Michael tips his head in his direction. “Give yourself some more credit, man. You’ve been playing well.”

Dream smiles again, but even now the corners of his mouth seem tight, tense. “I need to play better, though, if we want to win,” he says, matter-of-fact, analytical to a damn fault. Michael rolls his eyes, but nods to concede the point. 

“Sure, but that goes for all of us, Dream,” he shakes his head. “And it’s okay if we don’t win, you know?”

“No.” 

Michael turns, frowning. Dream’s tone has become oddly flat, eyes dead as he continues to stare at the pavement under their feet. He seems to be chewing on his lip anxiously, startled out of his own thoughts when he looks up to meet Michael’s gaze. “I mean- I don’t know. I really have- want to win.” 

There’s something so carefully worded about the admission, quiet and scraped open and raw in the slow sincerity of the words. Michael wants to poke at it, wants to understand what’s left him so unsure of every step, what determination lies behind the words that has left desperation clinging to every shallow breath he draws. A crack of thunder on the horizon, heralding a player’s death, reminds him that now is not the time. 

Keep your head down. 

“Alright,” he smiles thinly, hoping that the fracturing, yawning pit of emptiness in his chest isn’t obvious in the words. “Then we’re going to win.” 

---

Michael skids to a stop at the finish line, feeling the elytra deequip as he’s thrown into spectator mode. He runs his hands through his wind-tousled hair, feeling it strain against his fingers as he roughly finger-combs it back into place. Dream and Sapnap are off to the side, standing next to each other but seemingly not speaking - Michael smiles as he floats over, still shaking the adrenaline off from the race. 

“Hey,” the two look up, smile in recognition, and Dream waves; there’s a small smile on his face, strained but present. “You both did really good!” 

“Thanks, Michael,” Dream laughs, earnest, “I did decent, I guess- haha. Top ten at least.” 

Sapnap whoops. “We’re popping off!” Michael cheers in agreement, and their efforts manage to pull Dream’s smile a little wider as he ducks his head to look away again. 

“Thanks, guys.” 

They watch as Quackity flies through the finish line, appearing in front of them and shaking his arms out as he gets his bearings. 

“Geez- that trident,” he shakes his head, looks up. “Hey, there you guys are. How’d we do?” 

“Dream got seventh,” Sapnap scrolls through his comm, looking through the rows of contestants and their times as they come in, interspersed by the occasional chat message, “And I got 10th. Michael got- 28th, I think? And you got 32nd.” 

“Hmm,” Quackity hums, “What do you think, Dream? Is that good enough to pull us to Dodgebolt?”

Once again, Michael watches as Dream stiffens under the scrutiny, head ducking down and looking for all the world like he’d rather be anywhere else. “Um- I don’t know,” Dream mumbles, “I messed up a trident- fell into the void once, probably could’ve done better otherwise-” his voice trails off, tensing further as Quackity takes his usual spot by his side, jabbing an elbow none-too-lightly into his ribs. 

“But you didn’t, though,” Quackity says, tone flippant, “so what do you think? With those placements- is it going to be enough?” 

“Hey, we did great, man,” Michael glares at him, more forward than he’d usually be - but all he can see is the shoulder that he has pressed against Dream’s arm, the way Dream’s stood stock still since the moment he made contact, “Lay off of Dream, would you? He did great.”

“Yeah, Q,” Michael’s eyebrows raise in surprise as Sapnap chimes in from the side, rising further when Sapnap moves forward to link his arm with Quackity’s own and half-drag him away from Dream. “Chill out, man, we popped off. We’re gonna fucking win this, ok?”

Quackity’s lips press together; he’s still smiling, but there’s no mistaking the seething darkness that lingers in his narrowed eyes and furrowed eyebrows, gaze still trained on the pale off-white disk of Dream’s mask. Still, with the rest of the team against him, he’s in a losing fight and he knows it; Michael watches as he visibly backs down, rolling his shoulders back as he lets Sapnap pull him further back. 

“We’re going to fucking win this,” he repeats, and Michael wonders how he manages to make the words sound so much like a threat.

---

“Sky battle,” Sapnap calls as the decision dome below them lights up in confirmation of the penultimate game, expression immediately becoming more focused as he turns back to the rest of the team. “Alright- strats, what are we thinking?”

“There’s the iron at spawn,” Dream starts, interrupted by the teleport to the Sky Battle arena, making him cut himself off comically and take a second to shake off the resulting disorientation, “And then there’s the iron in the nearby island. We gotta pick one, tower as soon as we can.”

“Got it,” Sapnap looks down, seemingly calculating, before looking up again - Michael has heard him compared to fire before, but he thinks this is the first time he’s really seen it; there’s a veritable blaze burning in his eyes as he looks at each member of the team, easily taking charge as they prepare for the first round. “Same buddy system as Survival Games - Q, stick with me, Michael, stick with Dream. I’ll tower to the next island- Dream, you good with getting the iron at spawn and crafting armor for us?” 

Dream startles, before flashing a small thumbs up at the other - Sapnap smiles wider, teeth bared dangerously.

“This is our game,” he cheers, and Michael enthusiastically whoops in reply, “we’re winning this, you got that team? Let’s go!” 

This, Michael thinks, is the way the games should’ve gone - they jump into action upon the start of the game, Michael watching as Dream races through both chests on the spawn island, getting the iron and jumping down cleanly with a water bucket before following Sapnap’s bridge to the other island. He tosses over a pair of leggings and boots as he lands, then takes Sapnap’s excess iron to craft the other pieces of iron for himself and Sapnap as the other man begins shooting at opposing teams. Their communication is near wordless, simple one- or two-word requests communicating all they need as they follow each other seamlessly into the main arena area, sealing off their entrance as they search the ring for other teams.

Sapnap, especially, seems to have shifted - instead of waiting for Dream to take the lead, he seems comfortable barrelling on forward on his own, trusting for Dream to follow his steps. Michael watches as the two of them easily work through the two lagging members of Orange, shooting through a gap in the wall to catch an unsuspecting Yellow player chased by the border. Michael ends up dying to an unlucky block of TNT placed on his head - curses out what appears to be Quig, bounding over to the other side of the arena, and follows Dream and Sapnap as they continue to fight their way through the competition. 

It’s not perfect, for sure - Dream hesitates at a bad place a minute later, ending with Sapnap getting 2v1ed and exploding in a flash of red sparkles. Dream is similarly dispatched a few seconds after, and the three of them watch Quackity, caught in the crossfire of two other teams, before he also goes down. 

“Good work, team,” Sapnap says as he appears, disoriented, in spectator mode, and they watch the remaining two teams battling in a rapidly shrinking border before Fruit falls as well, leaving Pink as the winners. “That was close- we’ve got this.” The conviction in his voice leaves no room for argument, and Michael, briefly, feels bad for anyone that stands in the way of it. 

With the second round, they once again fall into rhythm without any major hiccups - someone tries to cut them off before entering the main arena, but are made quick work of by Sapnap’s relentless onslaught. As Michael watches, Dream seems to regain confidence as well, moving more to fight with Sapnap side by side instead of just playing support, tugging him back from a risky play and catching Punz in a nasty combo that does him in when he manages to slip past Sapnap. 

The four of them end up in the final stand off in the middle, but end up getting caught too high up and killed by the border before they can jump down. Sapnap hisses at the narrow defeat, but the disappointment has hardly seemed to dim his determination - if anything, it seems to burn brighter. 

“Last round,” he mutters, and Michael watches as Dream walks up to him, bumping him lightly with his shoulder. 

“This is our game,” he says, a small smile appearing on his face, and Sapnap returns it with a fiery, blinding one of his own. 

“Ours,” he says, and even just standing on the side, watching - Michael believes it. 

Still, his concerns have yet to disappear - they linger in his mind as they jump into an adrenaline-filled last round, jumpy from excitement and victory just within their grasps. Dream is still more jittery than he should be, taking a second more than usual to react to fights, and his teamwork with Sapnap - while good - is still noticeably rusty. Michael’s lips thin at the memory of Dream backing away from Sapnap’s sword in Battle Box, hunched into himself, almost on the floor, with a clearly desperate edge to his expression - and no matter how he tries, he can’t quite manage to shake it off. 

Unfortunately enough, the third round doesn’t bode well for them from the start - Quackity gets bowed off while bridging to the main arena, and upon entrance there they end up flanked, hard, by another team in a conflict that gets Michael killed within seconds. Sapnap and Dream book it to the other side of the arena, where they manage to work through a full team without too much trouble - but the next minute brings another half-team flying at them from the back, catching them in the middle of trying to recuperate. The two focus Dream in the middle of eating a steak, and Michael watches as Dream steps back instead of moving forward to fight, that same shade of fear making his muscles seize as he stands, stock still, watching helplessly as swords fly his way- Michael cries out, but there’s nothing he can do-

Between one blink and the next, Sapnap is standing in front of Dream, a snarl painting his features as he whirls through both players in a fury. Michael watches, awed, as his sword weaves and dances between the two attacking Dream, making quick work of them both until they’re no more than items scattered over the ground, then grabs Dream by the wrist and drags him up a nearby ladder onto the upper floor, plopping him by the wall and then backing off. 

Sapnap stands back as Dream sits against the wall, breathing fast and labored, dropping to his knees with his hands in front of him, palms up, no weapons in hand. Michael watches, frantic, for the signs of any teams nearby - with Dream panicking and Sapnap’s back to the rest of the arena, they’d be easy pickings - but for once, luck seems to be on their side, because no one comes. Dream heaves a breath through his lungs, deep and shuddery - Sapnap watches, lips flat from concern, but doesn’t speak. 

“You good to continue?” he asks, when Dream seems calm enough to recognize his surroundings, and Dream looks up at the words, jaw slack from shock and disorientation, before his head dips in a firm nod. 

“Good,” Sapnap smiles, tight-lipped and fiercely determined, fiercely loyal, as he reaches out a hand that Dream moves to take. “Let’s go fuck them up, yeah? You and me, just like we used to.”

Michael watches, heart in his chest, as they stand together to face the rest of the competition, towering towards the middle and facing off with the remaining teams,  watches as they move forwards through explosions and buckets of lava, coalescing onto the middle island, as they battle through the remaining opponents as one in a clean spiral of clashing blades and flying arrows, fighting with their backs to each other in the center of the arena. He watches as a well-placed fishing rod by Dream knocks their final opponent off the platform, leaving them in the middle, triumphant, as the only remaining team - 

Watches, a brilliant, bubbling laugh in his chest as Dream and Sapnap take their spots in the middle of the arena, standing side by side as Sapnap raises Dream’s hand in victory, both laughing and cheering  into the sky.

---

Their performance in Sky Battle manages to pull them to third - but second place still stands a few hundred coins away, and they watch anxiously as Parkour Tag is chosen as the last game and they are transported over the arena. 

“Last game,” Sapnap calls, “We’ve got this, alright?” 

He gets terse, short nods in return - it’ll be a close game, and even Michael is feeling the pressure. He breathes a soft, quiet breath through his teeth as they prepare, looking over to the opposite team as they choose their hunters and runners. 

“Dream, you up to hunting first four?” Sapnap seems to be watching the effects of his words more, waiting for Dream’s agreement before moving forward, sliding into the position of leader easily when Dream seems to struggle. Dream nods and steps into the hunter’s box, lips pressed together, flat and focused, and Michael turns back to the arena to plan out his route. 

Parkour, by far, is not his strong suit. It hadn’t been his strong suit during Parkour Warrior and sure as hell isn’t it now - he enjoys it well enough, but with the pressure of a hunter on him or the time creeping past and the competition standings hanging over his head like a guillotine, he’s prone to slipping up and he knows it. The map is full of dizzying, multi-colored structures and difficult jumps, the twists and turns of the arena making his head spin. Being good at parkour is more than being good at movement - it involves being able to make split-second decisions and execute them with no time to hesitate. Unfortunately, Michael isn’t particularly good at any of that, so Parkour Tag mostly just stresses him the hell out. 

He sets out to the arena, listening for callouts over comms as he fumbles over the buildings. Halfway through the game, Dream’s voice comes through comms, quiet, focused. 

“Gottem.” 

“Nice, Dream,” Michael smiles, trying not to trip over a particularly hard jump, only to fall to being tagged in the back by the opposing team’s hunter - Ant, if he remembers right. “Sapnap and Q are still in- we’ve got this.”

Once again, each time, Dream races through the opposing team in seconds, seemingly going faster with each round. Michael has heard his reputation as a hunter before, but only now is he really appreciating the extent - the speed at which he manages to dispatch all three opponents is downright terrifying. They manage to win all four rounds, lingering around second place overall on the leaderboards, before Sapnap and Dream switch off for hunting. 

With each round, Michael watches Dream in the lobby, watching as he tenses further in focus and determination and no small degree of fear, but it hadn’t been nearly as obvious in between rounds. Now, with him in the arena with Quackity and himself, Dream’s jumpiness is all that more palpable, adrenaline making him pace and jump in place from where he stands at the edge of the place. The glass lowers, and he explodes into motion, bounding on top of the nearest tower to wait for the hunter to come towards them. 

Michael ends up caught first, early in the round, once again, and resolves to following Dream over the glass to watch his movements and make callouts for the hunter chasing behind him. Watching Dream move through the arena, dodging below fixtures and through tunnels and jumping from tower to tower with seemingly no regard for gravity pulling him down, it’s become all the more obvious that this is his element. He makes another hairpin turn around a pole, kicking himself up over a tower and then diving from it to a nearby building, landing on a ledge inside it, hands clutching the wall - Michael watches, quietly awed, as he outlasts the hunter, landing in small, panting breaths in the lobby. 

“Great work,” he cheers, quiet, as Dream shakes off the last dregs of the adrenaline, all of them watching the leaderboard anxiously, “Just three more rounds, alright?” 

The rounds that follow continue in much of the same vein - Dream, once he’s gotten started, seems near-impossible to chase down; Michael and Quackity provide support, distracting the hunter for as long as they can until they get tagged, but part of him wonders if it’s all even necessary. Dream flies from structure to structure seemingly unhindered by The Laws That Be, expression firm, if a little frantic, as he parkours his way through the arena. To their credit, the hunters chase, and several come pretty close - but Dream, worked up on adrenaline or anxiety or some twisted mix of the two, races over and around the buildings within the arena like his life depends on it.

It’s a surprisingly (if sickeningly) apt description - the skill in parkour is far from unacknowledged on Dream’s record; they all know his reputation with Parkour Warrior, all know that there are little that can match his skill as a traucer - but there’s something newly desperate in the way he runs, the muscles of his body tight and taut even in between rounds, expression permanently tight at the corners from fear. His movements, lacking in their usual fluidity, are made up with sheer speed and mad scrambles up walls that no one else seems to dare replicate. It’s concerning, even to Michael’s untrained eye, how frantic he seems the entire time, the flashes of expressions that he’ll direct towards the hunter like being caught by them will be his end, but- if anything, at least it’s effective. 

Between his parkour and Sapnap’s own skill, they manage to dominate the other teams without much issue, and the bonuses from eliminating the other team first combined with Dream’s survival points each round land them a first place for the game by just a few hundred coins. The four of them watch with bated breaths for the event standings, whooping and cheering together when it shows the red rabbits in second - 

“DODGEBOLT, BABY!” Quackity cheers, loudly, and the rest of them join him, laughing and screaming incoherently, “LET’S FUCKING GO!” 

“LET’S FUCKING GO!” Sapnap punches the air with a loud, resolute whoop of joy, and Dream - still shaking off the jitters of his last round in Parkour Tag - soon joins in with a few cheers of his own. 

Michael watches them all with a smile on his face as they cheer in victory - Dodgebolt has them against the Yellow Yaks, which will be a hard match up, but between Dream and Sapnap’s skill, if they all stay focused, they shouldn’t have any issue. 

They’ve done it. They’ve made it to Dodgebolt - if they keep their heads in the game, then they should win. All he has to do is keep his head down a little longer, long enough to win them the game, long enough for them to go home with new crowns and new coins, long enough for him to go back to living his quaint little life in his quaint little house - going back to heckling the Warden at night and hanging with Bad and Puffy, working on builds and living life away from the rest and pretending that nothing is wrong. The server will go back to normal come tomorrow, and it will all be okay. 

The smile slips off his face. 

They’ve done it. And then they’ll go back to the SMP, and Dream might evade whatever immediate consequences come with losing, but there’s no evidence that whatever’s caused that heartstopping, devastating fear that has characterized his every move is going to stop. They’ll win, and they’ll go back to the SMP, and they’ll keep dying and fighting wars and keep pretending that the world they live in is normal; they’ll go back to the server, and Michael will go back in his house while Dream goes back into his cell directly across from it, still locked in a black box with no way in or out, no means of communication with anyone outside, locked away with the key thrown away for anything to happen with no one to know-

Michael glances over to Dream, to the tense edge of his shoulders that has never left for as long as the tournament has continued and long before. To the grey-faced, grey-eyed inhabitants of the SMP, coming to the Championships with sealed lips and a shared determination to never reveal that anything is wrong, to pretend that things are normal and move on. 

Michael’s hands clench into fists at his side, then unclench, the helplessness cutting through his excitement like a splash of cold water straight through his chest. They’ll win the Championship, and then what? They’ll go back to the server, and then what? 

He looks up at the sky, avoiding the eyes of the rest of his team as they are teleported to the arena. Around him, nothing comes in reply. 

---

“Shit-”

Sapnap disappears in a flourish of red particles, and Michael winces as Dream picks up the arrow he left behind, biting his lip as he watches the opposite side maneuver on the ice.

Both of Dream’s shots hit true, and Michael switches to dodging over the ice as the opposing team begins to shoot. His mind is still buzzing with uncertainty, questions whirling around his skull and making his head spin, the reminder to just let things be raging against the anxiety that has wormed its way deep into his bones for the better part of the day. His performance has fallen a bit as a result, and they’re tied, 2-2, for the last round of Dodgebolt against Yellow - winner takes all. 

He doesn’t know what to do. He wants to tell, but he wants to fall back into the background. He wants to make a difference, but also wants nothing more than to go on pretending that everything is fine. It would be so, so easy to move on and wash his hands of the whole affair - it’s not like anyone else will know, only himself and the guilt that he’s sure will haunt him to remind him of his failures. Is there even anything he can do? He’s no genius at combat, or parkour, or strategy- all he has are his eyes, his ability to see what the hell is happening with no means to change any of it. 

An arrow whizzes towards him, too low to hit, and falls to the ice by his feet. Michael feels it plop into his inventory as he runs past it, shivering slightly from the cold or adrenaline or some mix of the two - not that he can really tell. The other team still has an arrow, the gleaming arrowhead catching the light as the person shooting - Jack, it looks like - moves it from one side to the other, looking for someone to aim. Michael lets the arrow into his hand, feeling its weight.

A sudden shock of clarity. 

He staggers back and nearly trips over his own feet, feeling relief rock his body when he manages to catch his balance - his eyes rake over the rest of his team, still dodging over the ice, completely focused on the opposing side. He worries his lip between his teeth - it’s a risk. It’s a hell of a risk, and if he messes up - they’re fucked. They’re more than fucked. There’s a good chance that this does more harm than good, a good chance that it won’t do anything at all. 

Michael takes a deep breath, and nocks his arrow. 

With his bow pointed to the floor, he doesn’t think anyone’s noticed yet - especially the rest of his team, gazes still trained over the centerline to the other side of the arena. Michael plants his feet, raises his bow, aims - he’s standing still, too still, and he can already see Jack swinging the bow towards him from the corner of his eye, preparing to let the arrow fly directly at him. That’s fine. It doesn’t matter.

Keep your head down. 

Michael lets go, and Quackity manages to turn just in time to see the arrow hit him between his eyes.

Not this time.

Michael just manages a wicked, satisfied smirk before the world disappears in a flash of red. 

---

“What the hell was that?” 

Michael teleports into the middle of the MCC main lobby, finding Quackity already mid-yell in front of the podium, where the Yellow Yaks have taken their places as the winners of the Championships, new, shining crowns on their heads as they greet the crowd with smiles and cheers. Michael turns to where the rest of the team has gathered in the corner, Quackity hissing angrily at Dream, curled into himself against the fence. 

“I- I-”

“You lost us the fucking game, that’s what you did,” Quackity grabs him by the arm, rage painting his features as he yanks Dream closer to him, ignoring the other’s panicked yell at the proximity and flailing to get away. “What the fuck- you had both the arrows. How the fuck did you miss that?” 

“Back the hell off, Quackity.”

Michael steps forward, bodily shoving Quackity out of the way - Dream’s head rises just enough for the two eyes painted on his mask to look  above where they’d been hidden behind his arms, though Michael’s far too lost in his own anger to pay any mind to him at the moment. Quackity turns his furious direction towards Michael, only seeming to get angrier as he meets his eyes. 

“Oh, fuck off, Michael- you-” he rakes a hand through his hair, “You fucking- we fucking lost because of you, you know that? We had that! We were going to win that, you fucker-” 

“And then what, Quackity?” The words Michael had been pushing back the entire day come forth, mixed with his simmering anxiety and muffled anger that he’d been forced to push down, game after game after game, one bubbling mess of emotion underscoring his tone and making Quackity rear back, “Then you’ll go back the SMP and pretend that everything’s fine and dandy? Go back to your shiny little country with a shiny new coin, beat up Dream a few times to work off the adrenaline because, hey, it’s not like anyone else is gonna know if he’s black and blue inside of that shitstain of a prison, is that right?” 

The flash of panic that makes its way over Quackity’s face is more than enough to confirm the worst of Michael’s assumptions, and the rage that has made a home in his chest only burns hotter. 

“What- what the fuck did he say?” Quackity barely manages to catch onto his tone, pressing harder with narrowed eyes and a snarl, “He’s lying, you fucking idiot, that’s all he ever fucking does-” 

“He’s not told me shit,” Michael presses forward, forcefully pushing Quackity away from Dream, who is cowering from both of them behind him, “But you would know a hell of a lot about that, wouldn’t you Quackity?”

“I have no fuckin’ clue what you’re on about, pal,” Quackity shakes his head, hair whipping past his eyes, “And I’d recommend you shut your fucking mouth before you go around hurling baseless accusations- I could have you sued for defamation, you know-”

“Oh, we’re talking law, now? Fine! We’ll talk legalities- how about we start with that casino of yours and work from there?” 

Sapnap moves over, quiet thus far as he watched from the sidelines, and Michael watches as Quackity relaxes, minisculely, at his approach - only to tense further when Sapnap presses a hand to his shoulder, meeting his eyes with blazing eyes staring right at his.

“Q,” Sapnap says, voice uncharacteristically serious, “tell the truth, now- what did you do?”

Quackity laughs - it sounds unsure, even in Michael’s ears, “Sapnap? You can’t tell me you believe-” he waves his hands frantically, “this- this fucking asshole, now, do you hear him? He sounds- he’s literally out of his fucking mind-”

Sapnap shakes his head, firm. “Quackity, I’ll need you to cut the bullshit. What did you do?” 

“He’s backing up Dream, Sapnap,” Quackity focuses his gaze on Sapnap, something creeping up in his tone, sweet and cloying despite the bitter tone, that Michael can’t quite recognize, “You know what Dream is like- he pulled the same shit with you, remember? You and George? Tommy?” He waves a hand at Dream, who ducks down further at the attention, “He hasn’t changed, man! He’s still pulling the same bullshit, still manipulating people for the hell of it- you know, the exact same thing he did to you? Don’t fall for that again, man.”

“I-” Sapnap seems to hesitate, conflict warring over his features. 

“Look at me, Sap - you know what Dream’s like. He pretends to be your friend, makes up some stupid bullshit to justify his shit - Michael hasn’t been around for as long, not like the two of us, remember? He doesn’t know.” Quackity brings his hand to Sapnap’s own, ignoring Michael’s protests as he laces their fingers together, “I care about you, Sap. All of this- I’m just worried that he’ll end up manipulating you again. I’m just trying to protect you.” 

“...liar.” 

“What?”

Sapnap steps back, wrenching his hand out of Quackity’s own. His expression, out of what Michael can see from the sliver of his face that is facing him, is stormy with fury and no small amount of regret - Quackity steps back, unease finally beginning to flicker in the corners of his self-satisfied expression as Sapnap stares him down. 

“You’re a liar, Quackity.” Sapnap draws himself up. “Now, I’m asking this for the last time- what did you do?”

Quackity’s expression stutters, falls, as Sapnap stands back next to Michael, the two of them between him and Dream. His eyes flick between their faces, then to Dream, then back again, frown deepening with every pass he makes between the three of them. Michael keeps his arms crossed in front of his chest, feeling his muscles tense with every second of silence that ticks by, Quackity seeming to grow more and more angry and tense under their scrutiny and unforgiving stances-

-a second passes, and he throws himself forward. 

“Quackity!” 

Michael only manages to throw himself out of the way of the man barrelling towards him just in time - too late, he realizes that he wasn’t Quackity’s intended target. He tackles Dream to the ground, pinning the taller man underneath himself onto the ground in a rough thump that seems to knock all the air out of him. Dream immediately begins to thrash aimlessly, jaw going slack in panic as Quackity levels his arm against his neck, going still as Quackity presses harder against his windpipe. Michael is only barely close enough to pick up what he says over the sound of the surrounding screaming, Sapnap rushing forward to pull Quackity off to no avail-

“-make what I did two weeks ago look like a fucking joke when we get back, going to make you wish you fucking died-” 

The world explodes into white.

When Michael’s vision clears, he’s face to face to the stony face of one of the MCC admins, their status displayed by the proud red [Admin] by their nametags and the fact that they’re floating several inches off the fucking floor. He backs away, strangely winded - probably from the panic or adrenaline or yelling or, more accurately, all three, as Quackity is pulled back effortlessly by an admin, easily caging his flailing limbs with a snap of code as he is frozen into place - and Michael whoops. 

“LET’S GO!” 

(The arrow hits Michael in the shoulder, and he disappears in a flash of red - only instead of going to his usual place above the Dodgebolt arena, standing with the other competitors, he finds himself teleported in front of a dizzying array of screens and buttons, too many to have any idea where they connect and how they work. Michael turns to meet the faces of the MCC Admins, each one looking at him with odd, concerned expressions and furrowed brows. 

“You shot your teammate,” one says - Noxite - and Michael nods to concede the point, not quite finding the words to speak. “Why?”

“If you had such a big issue with the teams, you could’ve just talked to Scott,” another one pipes up from the back, “I’m sure we could’ve worked something out.”

“I know, I know,” Michael runs his hand through his hair, both relieved at the plan working better than he could’ve ever fucking imagined and suddenly lost for words in front of the admins, each one looking at him with their full attention. Every nerve in his body rails against the scrutiny, reminds him to pretend that nothing is wrong - but it’s too late to pretend, now. It’s been too late for a long, long time. 

He remembers Dream, looking away all competition, voice dead and lacking all of its former vitality - remembers Puffy, hair a little greyer from stress, grief painting her face whenever she thought anyone wasn’t looking - remembers Bad, hands still shaking despite his attempts to hide it - the prison, looming on the horizon, unbeatable, impenetrable - himself, helpless, for all this time, to do anything but watch and wait. Until now. He takes a deep breath, steels himself- 

“Something’s wrong with Dream.”)

“Thank you for your information, Michael,” Noxite smiles at him, and relief throws itself through his system so fast that it makes him dizzy- “We’ll handle this from here. Good job.” 

“Holy shit- when did you get time to contact the fucking admins, Michael?” 

Michael ignores the clamor around him as the lobby bursts into activity and people talking over each other, each one probably trying to figure out what the hell just happened, ignores Sapnap muttering, awed, from beside him, to move towards Dream, still sprawled out over the floor. There’s an admin by him, standing by to seemingly keep the crowd away but not engaging with Dream directly, and Michael ducks by them to kneel down by Dream and meet his gaze. 

“Hey,” Michael smiles, still shaking from the leftover adrenaline as he presses his hands to the ground to try and hide it, “We’ve got you. It’s over- Quackity’s gone. You’re safe now.” 

“Michael?” Dream’s voice is so damn small when his head twists to look over, hair having fallen largely fallen out of his ponytail to land in wisps all around his face. “You- how-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Michael shushes him, chest twisting painfully. “It’s alright.”

“...I don’t feel so good.”

Dream coughs harshly, and Michael quickly maneuvers him to a sitting position as his shoulders shake with another one, hand flying to his mouth as he is wracked with loud, wet-sounding coughs. Concern wells up in his throat, watching as Dream shakes with more coughing, nearly choking as he curls into himself, muscles tense. After what feels like an eternity, he pulls his hand back, and Michael gasps at the sight.

“Dream-”

There’s blood, and a lot of it - mixed with the saliva in his palm, shiny and stringy over the planes of his hand, dribbling past his lips and down his chin. His teeth are similarly stained red when his mouth opens slightly, stance wobbling before he collapses altogether against Michael’s body - Michael can barely hear himself shouting for a medic as Dream heaves a rattling, wet sounding breath into his shoulder. 

“Th’ts not g’d,” he mumbles, quiet, before going completely limp. 

---

When you first get strong enough to go to the Nether and collect blaze rods and brew potions for the first time, the first thing that gets beaten into your head forwards, backwards, left, right, and every way in between is that health and regen aren’t a replacement for actual recovery. Instant health pots are famous for their tendency to heal everything affected to the same degree - which is bad when you have a particularly deep injury, as it’ll often finish healing it near the surface while the injury persists underneath. Regen pots tend to be better at that front, but even they cannot completely fix a serious injury - the two can only act as a temporary, emergency fix for severe wounds, often being an invaluable resource to stop the worst of the bleeding and hold everything together for long enough to bring someone to proper medical attention. 

Unfortunately, when someone tries to use health pots and regens to completely bypass the time and rest needed for the body to properly heal itself and recover, what usually ends up happening is internal injuries - not completely healed by the potions alone - continue to be jostled and irritated, which can lead to further, worse, problems with internal bleeding and bones shifting out of place if they’ve been broken, which can then pierce through muscle and organ tissue - to be honest, Michael was never the best with all the medical stuff, and he’s half-sure that the horror stories he’s heard were exaggerated to beat it into his head never to be an idiot that thinks that potions can solve everything, but either way, he’s never tested his luck with the things.

Unfortunately, Dream doesn’t seem to have done the same, as the entire day’s worth of intense activity, between practices and MCC itself, were more than enough to fuck over the healing effects of whatever health potions he apparently downed before coming to the Championships. From what Michael has heard, it got a little harried after he was first brought into the hospital, but he’s apparently stabilized since - recovery will be slow, both physically and mentally, but at least he’s out of that damn prison to actually start on that path.

“Simply put, your teammate is a bit of an idiot,” Scott tells him when he finally catches him in the waiting room, hair fluffed up at the sides from where he’s evidently messed it up in Admin-related stress. “But he should be alright now, with proper medical attention and lots of rest - make sure to tell him to actually rest, will ya? No more parkouring for him - he can wait until after he’s out of the hospital to show us all how it’s done.” 

Michael laughs, relief settling into his chest, “Thanks, Scott.” He directs a playfully accusing look towards the other, a grin tugging at his lips, “but you know, he’s only my teammate because you made it that way. Kinda sounds like your own fault there..” 

“Oh, quiet, you.” Scott laughs- he looks stressed, and Michael feels a twinge of sympathy. The administrative side of things after his whole stunt at Dodgebolt, and then especially with what happened in the main lobby, must be an absolute nightmare. “Anyway, I need to go back - Admin meeting,” he shakes his head, already looking at his comm. “You should go see Dream, by the way. I think he’s awake.” 

“Thanks for everything, Scott.” 

Scott smiles at him, soft, sincere. “Go see your friend.” 

He disappears in a flash of white light, teleporting away, and Michael looks at the empty space where he stood for a few seconds before standing up out of his chair to move towards the door. He hesitates at it for a second, hand on the doorknob but not yet turning it to the side - it’s suddenly awkward, without the pressure of the competition at his back and the relentless questions of what he should do. He doesn’t even know if Dream knows what happened, or if he’ll be happy with him - for all he knows, Dream was the one who started the whole ‘don’t tell the Championships what happens in the server’ deal. His teeth catch on his lip as he stands, lost in thought, at the door.

Well. Here goes nothing. 

He eases the door open, getting a glimpse inside the room - it’s white, clean-looking, the smell of disinfectant heavy in the air. There’s a bed in the middle of the room, a chair on the side with his Championships clothing and what appears to be some sort of padded body armor laid over the cushions. Dream, as expected, is lying down in the bed, unmoving; for a second, Michael thinks he’s sleeping, before he suddenly twists his head over to look at him.

“Michael?” 

“Hey,” Michael smiles, moving into the room and closing the door behind him. For the first time today, Dream’s face isn’t masked, a glimpse of it visible behind him on the dresser by the bed. He blinks up at him owlishly, eyes wide and green, looking even bigger combined with the hollow planes of his cheeks, overlaid by pale, slightly raised scars. “How are you feeling, man?” 

“Um-” Dream tries to pull himself up, visibly struggling, and Michael rolls his eyes as he hurries over to help raise the back of the cot because you’re supposed to be resting, Dream, just let the fancy bed do its job, and settles back with an odd look on his face as Michael pulls over a chair. “Good? I think? I mean-” he flails his hands a bit, “this is weird. And I kind of hate this gown- but um. Yeah.” 

“That’s fair,” Michael laughs, and Dream huffs a small laugh out of his own, settling back into his pillow. He looks strangely small, with all the layers stripped away, frail and skinny against the sheets. His skin isn’t that same paper-white shade it had been when he collapsed in the middle of the fucking lobby, but it’s still pale enough to be vaguely worrying, especially combined with the IV and other wires hooked up to him. 

“Apparently, I’m dehydrated,” Dream drawls when he catches Michael staring at the IV, making a small, frustrated sound through his teeth as Michael turns to look at him, “figures, I guess, but still sucks. I hate needles.” 

“Ouch,” Michael winces in sympathy, “yeah, those don’t look that fun.” Dream smiles up at him, before his expression shutters, dulls, and he looks away, not meeting his eyes. The sight of it makes Michael frown, quiet, remembering the way he’d drawn back from them all over and over again throughout the day - that fear and trauma won’t go away in a day, but it hurts all that much more to see his face as panic flashes across it and he pulls back, gaze carefully detached. 

“Dream?” Michael moves closer, but is careful not to make contact, “you alright?”

“Hmm?” Dream directs another small, tight smile his way, strained at the corners as his eyes flick away to the floor once again, “yeah- I’m- I’m fine.” 

Michael sighs, but decides not to push it. “Have you done anything else here, yet?”

Dream shakes his head. “No- I think that someone’s going to bring food over soon, I’m not sure. Not really hungry,” he mutters, half to himself, and Michael tamps down the concern that wells up in protest, “But we’ll see, I guess.” 

“That’s good,” Michael nods, and Dream looks up at him, expression startlingly unsure. 

“Um- do you know?” He wrings his hands together, eyes darting across the room nervously before flicking over Michaels’ face, and Michael tries to make himself look as calm and comfortable as possible, “I mean- do you know what’s going on with- everyone?” 

Ah. Michael winces internally- he probably should’ve expected this question, but in the fallout of what happened in the lobby and Dream, you know, passing out in his arms, he ended up brushing off or ignoring a lot of the chaos that resulted. He wracks his head for snippets of information that he’d seen in his communicator and from visitors to the waiting room, including people that had been there with him that had been pulled for questioning and meetings, Tommy’s expletive-filled yelling from the lobby still ringing in his head. 

“Um- I think that they’ve got a team of moderators pulled up to investigate the server, figure out what’s been going on,” Michael ticks names off on his hands, mentally going through the list of people that he’s been given information on, “They have Quackity in custody, I think, for the moment- they’re still waiting for more information on what to do with him, but they’ve got a whole MCC lobby’s worth of witnesses that saw him assault you so far, if you plan on pressing charges and stuff- um- Sapnap got pulled for questioning, nothing too major right now, I think that they’re going through the other server members that were attending the Championships for the moment.” 

“Are they- putting them in jail?” Dream’s voice sounds slightly tinny despite his forced calm, arms crossed in front of him, and Michael shakes his head firmly. 

“No- legal stuff between servers is weird, and I think they’re holding off on anything like that for now. Quackity’s just there at the moment because of assault charges on the MCC server - stuff in the SMP is still technically outside of their jurisdiction.” Dream visibly relaxes, and Michael smiles thinly, “It’ll be rough for a few weeks as they collect evidence and figure out what to do, but for now, they’re just focusing on recovery - giving people medical attention if they need it, lining up therapists,” he laughs, quietly, “lots of therapists.”

Dream hums, looking away. The corners of his mouth fall, eyes fluttering shut as he breathes a shuddery sigh through his lips.

“I- never wanted it to get this bad,” he opens his eyes, looking down at his hands, lip slightly trembling, “I don’t- I don’t know where it all went wrong.” 

“Hey,” Michael slides closer, ducking to meet Dream’s eyes with a soft smile. “You’re not alone anymore, alright? You don’t have to fix it all by yourself. Focus on yourself, on recovering.” 

Dream hesitates, breath seeming caught in his throat, wide green eyes staring into Michael’s own, before ducking his head to look away with a slight nod. Michael leans back in his chair, watching as Dream turns to the side, curling in on himself slightly with a small wince, eyes fixed on the window.

“Didn’t think I was going to see the sun again,” Dream says after a while, gaze still trained behind the glass to where the sun is slowly setting, rays of sunlight streaming past the slits in the blinds and casting glowing stripes of honey-gold throughout the room and over Dream’s face. Michael feels something cold press against the back of his throat, the quiet admission making air stutter in his lungs at the image of Dream, alone, huddled in the middle of an obsidian box for months and months and months, never knowing if he’d see anything other than the same black walls for the rest of his life. 

“You’re not there, anymore. You’re safe now.” 

Dream doesn’t reply, continuing to look out the window silently, breathing slowly as he moves his hand through a sunbeam, watching the way it streams between his fingers and warms his skin, seeming mesmerized by its soft glow. 

“Michael?” Dream looks over, and Michael feels the air punched out of his lungs at the soft, disbelieving sincerity held within his expression, the fearful edges for once pulled back far enough for the light to catch the quiet, heartfelt appreciation gathered in the slight quirk of his lips and downward slope of his eyes. He looks away a second after, a band of light cutting across his face and landing over the bridge of his nose, smile still on his face, voice almost too quiet to make out. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Michael feels his own smile widen, looking out the window himself- it really is a beautiful sunset. “What are friends for?” 

#-> my writing #my writing :D #c!Quackity critical #tw trauma #tw abuse #tw torture #tw panic attack #tw manipulation #tw gaslighting #tw needles #tw hospitals #tw emotional distress #pandora's vault #prison arc #god this was so fun #hope you all enjoy !! #long post

[nebulablakemurphy]

Total Eclipse Of The Heart (Part 1)

Jacob Black x Fem!Vampire!Swan!Reader

Summary: Jacob Black, alpha of his pack, would never fall in love with a bloodsucker, much less imprint on one. The problem is that Y/N Swan was human…until she wasn’t anymore.

Warning: making out lol (suggestive themes)

Prologue

“Y/N?” Charlie clears his throat, tapping lightly against his daughter’s bedroom door. “You…decent?”

“Yeah,” she swings the door open, mindful of her speed. “What’s up?”

“We need to talk.”

“Ok, shoot.” Y/N smiles.

“Are you in some kind of trouble?” Charlie asks, scratching the back of his neck.

“Not that I’m aware of.” She narrows her eyes at him. The brown contacts slightly irritating to her new irises. “Why?”

“Well baby, you gotta understand you were gone for almost a month with some virus. Come home with no appetite, I can hear you moving around up here until all hours so I know you hardly sleep-“ Charlie pauses, drawing in a breath. “Are you on drugs?”

“What?” Y/N huffs a laugh, “Dad, no. I promise. No drugs.”

“Then what is going on? Me and your mother are worried about you.”

Y/N’s face falls, “you told Mom?”

“I didn’t know what else to do.” The man shrugs.

“That’s fair,” She agrees. “Is she coming?”

“No.”

Oh thank god.

“Bella is.”

“Dad!”

“If you’re going through something, who better to help you than your sister?” Charlie reasons, leaning against the doorframe.

“Literally anyone else.” Y/N waves her hand.

“Don’t be like that.” Her father frowns. “She loves you.”

“And I love her, from a safe distance.” Dragging Bella into this shit show is the very last thing Y/N wants.

“You two used to be thick as thieves.”

“We’re not little girls anymore.”

“You are to me.” Charlie replies, somberly.

Y/N sighs, “I’m ok, Dad.” She hugs him, careful not to inhale so close to his neck.

“You’re freezing cold.” He grumbles, resting his chin atop her head.

“Drug side effect.” The Y/H/C laughs and Charlie chuckles.

“I love ya kid. That’s all.” He ruffles her hair for good measure.

Y/N is everything to him. “I know, I love you too.”

“While I have you here-“

“Mhm.” Y/N rolls her eyes, pulling away from her father.

“What’s the deal with Jacob lately? He’s very…clingy.” Charlie crosses both arms over his chest.

“He’s worried about me too I think,” she admits. “Once he sees I’m ok he’ll go back to normal.”

“Jake’s a good kid.” The chief taps his foot against the wood floor.

“He is.” Y/N nods.

“And treats you right.” Is that a statement or a question?

“I love him very much.” The girl agrees, not sure where this conversation is headed.

“Just tell me you’re being safe.”

“Dad,” if Y/N could flush she’d be bright red, her eyes as wide a saucers.

“I don’t like this either,” Charlie lifts a hand to his brow. “But I need to know that you’re at least using protection.”

“Please,” she covers her ears. “I’m safe! I promise, we are safe.”

“That’s all I need to hear! No details!” Charlie all but pleads.

“Good,” they both agree on that.

“I need to get going too. Bella should be almost to the airport, and you need to get to school.”

“On my way.” Y/N lifts her backpack from behind the door. Slinging it over one shoulder. “Oh and Dad, just for future reference, most people battling drug addiction don’t maintain a four point o gpa.”

Charlie shakes his head at her, the corner of his lips curved upward.

———————————————————————

“Y/N! Hi, how are you?” Alice greets as soon as the Y/H/C crosses the threshold of Forks high school.

“I’m good.” Y/N smiles, “you don’t have to worry about me. Everything is under control.”

“I know,” Alice grins.

“Yeah, I guess you do.” Y/N presses her lips together.

“It’s different with you though. I can’t see you all the time…I can’t see you when you’re with Jacob.” Alice realizes, her face set in a scowl.

“Well that is probably the best news I’ve got all day.” Y/N spins the dial of her locker.

“You’re not happy about your sister coming.” Edward says, having read her thoughts.

“You’re not happy about my sister coming either.” She points out, having caught a glimpse of his own thoughts. “Why is that Edward?” Y/N pulls open the metal door, stuffing her books inside.

“Don’t do that.” Edward warns.

“You started it.” Y/N scoffs. Her vampire abilities are the best, in her humble opinion. She can momentarily disarm and use another’s powers as her own. She can be a mind reader, a fortune teller or an emotional influencer all in one go.

“You’re worried about her finding out,” Edward’s voice is low, protecting the conversation from passerby.

“Yeah,” Y/N admits. “Look, I love my sister, but she’s safer in Jacksonville.”

“I’ve seen-“

“Alice,” Edward cuts her off. If looks could kill.

Y/N closes her locker, turning her gaze down to the wooden wolf charm bracelet at her wrist, toying with it subconsciously. As she does so often in the absence of Jacob. “Is she ok?” She asks. “I don’t need to know the rest.”

“Yes.” Alice squeezes her shoulder. “Bella will be ok.”

Y/N nods. “I should get to class.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Alice offers. Catching Jasper’s arm where he waits, partway down the hallway.

The day passes in a blur. Going through the motions until Y/N arrives home that night. Billy’s orange truck is parked in the driveway. The smell of pizza and beer fills her nostrils, alongside the scent of what she now knows to be explicitly Jacob.

Y/N catches a whiff of something new as well. Must be Bella.

Turning the handle of the front door, she steps inside. In the den, four smiling faces greet her. Bella stands up to exchange a slightly awkward embrace.

“It’s good to see you,” Y/N tells her.

“Yeah.” Bella breathes, “I’m glad you’re ok.”

The vampire pulls back, holding her at arms length. “Me too.”

“God, you look…” Bella shakes her head searching for the words. “I mean we have the same genes, this is so unfair!”

“Puberty will do that to a girl.” Y/N laughs it off. “And don’t sell yourself short, you’re like gorgeous, Bella. Seriously.”

“Agree to disagree.” Bella raises her brows, with a smile.

Jacob waits until the two of them are finished before patting the cushion beside him. “Hey beautiful.”

“Hey you,” Y/N grins, taking a seat. Pressing a kiss to his cheek, “how was your day?”

“Better now,” he breathes, pulling her close. “Bella and I were just talking about how we used to make mud pies together.”

“Mmm,” Y/N nods, “I remember.”

“Do you remember when you used to throw em at me too?” Charlie chimes in. “Never a dull moment with my girls together.”

Bella frowns, feeling slightly guilty. Having them together means the world to Charlie.

“It’s only gonna be worse now.” Y/N remarks.

“Don’t remind me.” Charlie takes a long swig of beer.

They watch the remainder of the game together, cracking jokes. It feels easy, good, having Bella here.

Y/N bids Jacob goodbye at the door. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Oh?” She whispers against his lips. “Sleepover?”

“If you want,” he taps his fingers against her waist. “Although technically sleepovers have been canceled indefinitely, due to the fact that you can’t sleep.”

“That’s true. I can rest my eyes though.”

Jake strokes her cheek softly, “I love your eyes.”

“Which ones?” Y/N wonders.

He smirks, “both.”

“See you later.”

———————————————————————-

Jacob Black has been jumping through Y/N’s window for years. Now she leaves it open when she knows he’s coming.

Changing into her pajamas, the Y/H/C stands at the foot of her bed. Turning down the sheets, she sits atop the mattress. This is very human and unnecessary. She doesn’t get tired of standing, or cold.

But subconsciously she knows that these things feel familiar to Jacob. More often than not, she is trying to emulate that very human girl he fell in love with.

Jake jumps through onto the floor, without so much as a thud.

“You’re getting pretty good at that,” Y/N notes.

“Practice makes perfect.” The wolf replies, quietly closing the window behind him.

“So I’ve been told.” Y/N wrings her hands out of habit. The feeling of this body is still foreign to her.

“I can hear the wheels turning in your head.” Jacob perches himself on the bed beside her. “What’s wrong?”

“I- nothing.”

“It’s gotta be hard with Charlie and Bella here.” Carlisle warned them about the thirst.

“It’s fine,” Y/N argues. She’s not a victim of circumstance, she refuses to be.

Jacob’s fingers graze her throat tenderly. “Does it hurt all the time?”

“No,” the newborn lies. It has gotten better, but her throat constantly burns. That’s part of it, what she is now.

Jake presses his lips there instead, using his nose to nudge her head back. Trailing kisses along the exposed skin. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, baby.” Y/N shakes her head, pushing him away enough to see his face.

“I should’ve known.” Jacob counters.

“How could you know?” Y/N fights the urge to roll her eyes.

“I should’ve been more alert. I should’ve-“

“You should’ve what?” She cuts him off.

“I should’ve saved you.” Jacob stumbles over the realization.

“I’m still here.”

“Not all of you.”

Y/N is sent reeling at the words. The notion that he considers her less that whole. Although she can’t produce tears the expression on her features must be enough.

“That’s not what I meant.” Jacob amends. “I love you, so much. You are still the same to me.”

“This is too much for you. I knew it.” Y/N says, moving to her feet.

“Y/N, don’t.” Jake grabs for her hand, bringing her back in. “It’s not too much for me. I am right here and I’m gonna stay here.”

“Out of obligation.” The Y/H/C scoffs.

“No.” Jacob sighs, wishing he could wash his mouth out with soap. “I made a mistake. You know my thing with word vomit but I’m working on it. I shouldn’t have said it that way. That’s not what I meant and that’s not how I feel.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m like…” Jake pauses, his gaze flickering down to her lips, “three hundred percent positive.”

“How do you feel then? When you see me; now.” Y/N traces a finger down the slope of his nose.

“I feel guilty. I’m sorry that I caused you so much pain because I didn’t realize what was happening. I feel guilty that your life changed. I feel guilty that someone took your choices away. I feel guilty that I can’t find them.” Jacob’s voice breaks, “I was right there and I couldn’t do anything. You are everything to me and I almost lost you.”

“But you didn’t. I’m still here.”

“Yes you are. Every part of you that has ever mattered to me is right here.” Jacob murmurs.

“I love you Jake.” Y/N presses a kiss to his shoulder through the material of his t-shirt.

“I love you more.” He argues, catching her hand and bringing it up to his lips. Trailing up her forearm, past her elbow, all the way to her mouth.

Their lips dancing over one another for a long moment.

“I want you.” Jacob breathes into her mouth.

“Jake.” She stops his wandering hands. “We can’t.”

“I trust you. You won’t hurt me.” Jacob watches Y/N through dark lashes.

“I-“

“Do you want me?”

“That’s not fair.” She all but whines.

“Do you want me, baby?” He asks a second time.

“More than anything.” Y/N admits.

“Stop fighting it.” His mouth is desperate against hers. “Stop pushing me away.”

“I’m scared.” She could miscalculate her strength and hurt him. He could phase from being so physically close to a vampire. They were now biologically engineered to be moral enemies.

“The second it’s too much we stop,” Jacob promises. “I’ll tell you.”

Y/N bows her head, “ok.”

Her hands send a shiver up his spine. But even still, her touch fills him with warmth, purpose. Love.

Maybe she can still have the things she once did. Maybe she can still be loved and cherished. Maybe she can still have him.

———————————————————————-

Y/N leaves her room the next morning dressed and ready for school; catching Bella in the hallway. The brunette’s eyes find her sister’s and she flushes beat red.

“What?” Y/N asks, “is there something on my face?”

“No.” Bella shakes her head. “So you and Jacob, huh?”

“Mhm,” the Y/H/C arches a brow.

“All night?” Bella chews nervously at her bottom lip.

Y/N can’t help but laugh. “Sorry about that…I’m not used to having anyone so close to my room. Dad sleeps on the couch a lot.”

“No, it’s ok.” Bella assures her. “Good for you I mean. You look really happy.”

“How could I be unhappy?” Y/N teases.

Chapter Two

#jacob black x y/n #jacob black x you #jacob black fanfiction #jacob black imagine #jacob black x reader #jacob black #jacob twilight #twilight x you #twilight fanfiction #twilight #twilight imagine #alice cullen #edward cullen #bella swan #charlie swan #billy black

[pingutats]

my dearest darling

in which you and harry spend a sunday morning having coffee & cake, and spontaneously decide to go engagement ring shopping together.

warnings: a little suggestive at the end. mostly just pure fluff!

word count: 3.4k

.                               .                           .                               .                           .

The little alleyway off the main street filled with café tables is a perfect place for you and Harry to sit unseen. In fact, in this little alcove, it’s easy to watch the world pass by the two of you. It’s a nice reprieve from the usual of the world watching Harry. 

He’s wearing sunglasses anyway, just in case—despite the overcast weather. 

You frown at him, resting your elbows on the table and lacing your fingers together to rest your chin on. “I really think that makes you more conspicuous.”

He scrunches up his nose. “Nah. Or at least, if people notice, they’re going to notice an odd bloke in sunnies, not me.”

“They’ll notice it’s you.”

He glances at the busy footpath. “‘S working so far, love.”

A young waitress rounds the corner from the cafe’s front entrance and sets your coffees down on the table. You move your elbows off the table politely to give her space.

“Thanks,” Harry says, reaching for his black coffee. 

You smile at the waitress as you wrap your hands around the latte you ordered, warming up your freezing fingers. You notice the way she hesitates before she leaves, how she looks at Harry like she wants to say something before before quickly spinning on her heels and walking away. When she’s out of earshot, you look at Harry. “She knows.”

He shrugs. “That’s different.”

The waitress reappears a minute later with the little cakes you ordered. This time, she’s braver. “I’m so sorry—are you Harry Styles?” she asks, saying his name in a voice that’s akin to a reverent whisper.

His eyes dart to you for a split second and he raises his eyebrow enough that only you’ll notice, conceding to you, then smiles at her. “Yeah, I am. Sorry, what’s your name?”

You watch him navigate the encounter easily, like you’ve watched so many times. The girl asks for a photo and he politely declines, explaining that he doesn’t want to draw attention, but offers to sign a napkin for her instead. He a short message (nice to meet you, all my love) to her and draws a couple hearts after he signs his name, then passes it to her with a sweetly genuine thanks her for her support. 

“Oh my gosh, no, thank you,” she says earnestly. “It was so, so nice to meet you.” She glances at you, then, and her cheeks go even pinker. “Thanks,” she says again, and then she’s gone.

You let a giggle free at the awkward way his fans treat you, like they don’t know if it’s appropriate to talk to you as well, and how they struggle to find something to say to you anyway. Once it might have bothered you. It’s just amusing to you now. You raise your brows at Harry. “All your love?” you tease, quoting the message he wrote on the napkin. “Where’s my share?”

He pouts from behind his sunglasses. “Don’t be like that.”

You kick his shin gently underneath the table. “I’m kidding around. She was sweet. I like watching you do that, you’re so good at it.”

His foot swings around to trap your ankle between his. “Trying to play footsie at eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning? You little minx.”

You roll your eyes and wrench your foot free, rattling the table as you do so. He laughs—a sharp barking ha! that makes you smile through your embarrassment at causing a small commotion. 

“Who’s conspicuous, sorry?” he asks.

 You shake your head at him and stab your fork into your apple and cinnamon muffin. He keeps giggling as he slides his own plate with the carrot cake to his side of the table and picks up a fork himself.

“Mm, that’s good,” he says after he swallows his first bite. “Better than the one I make.”

“Well, baking isn’t known to be one of your talents.”

He claps a hand to his chest. “I’m wounded.” He leans over the table and skewers a piece of your muffin on his fork, dodging your attempts to swat his hand away with great agility. He pops it in his mouth triumphantly, cocking his head like he’s challenging you. 

In return, you steal a piece of his cake. 

“That was a much larger piece than what I took,” he accuses. 

You shrug.

His phone, face down on the table, dings. He glances up at you. 

“Check it,” you tell him. You know he only has alerts on for his closest friends—otherwise his phone would be ringing all day long. “I don’t mind.”

He bites his lip apologetically and flips the phone over, reading it. “Oh, it’s Tom. Hang on a sec.” He starts typing back.

You crane your neck around to read the message—something about Tom being free at the end of July, and Harry is giving a thumbs-up to that.

“Where are you off to?” you ask. 

“France, maybe,” he replies. You’re aware that discovering this kind of information so suddenly would be jarring for most couples, enough to even incite a fight—but you and Harry aren’t exactly a normal couple, and international trips are just part and parcel of your relationship. Hell, he goes on world tours for months at a time. You’re lucky, you suppose, that you function just as well long-distance as you do when you’re living together. 

“Lads’ trip?”

He sends the message and clicks his phone off, leaning back in his chair. “Nah. Taking you to Paris and getting down on m’knee in front of the Eiffel Tower,” he says, nodding sagely. 

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, Tom’s there to get the photos.” He shovels a forkful of the cake into his mouth and then points his fork in the general direction of a street busker playing a violin across the road. He swallows. “And I’m getting that guy to play a little tune, for the atmosphere,” he adds. 

You raise your brows. “Oh, you’ve got budget for this, then.”

He smiles. “Nothing but the best for my dearest darling.”

You snort.

He carefully cuts a piece of cake with the edge of his fork. “Nah, we’re thinking of doing a trip down to his friend’s studio in—somewhere in France, I can’t remember really. Friends and family welcome too, if you want to come. Apparently it’s a real nice place.” He eats his mouthful and then lifts his sunnies to look at you with clear eyes. “We are getting married, though. I mean that.”

Your cheeks threaten to burst from how badly you want to smile, but you force yourself to assume a serious face, just to humour him. “Of course we are.”

Despite the butterflies it inspires, this conversation isn’t new. You’ve been with Harry a couple of years now and you both know you’re on the same page when it comes to your shared future. There are no hard plans, but the direction is set. You’re getting there someday. 

He puffs his cheeks out. “I feel like you aren’t taking this as seriously as I am.”

You sigh melodramatically. “Well, sweetheart, I haven’t seen a ring yet.”

“A ring? You should have asked,” he drawls, then suddenly sits up straight and points a finger at you. “Don’t take that as a challenge. I want to be the one to ask.”

You shrug. “Can’t make any promises.”

His arm shoots forward to grab at your hand and you almost laugh out loud at the puppy-eyes he’s making at you. “No, please, baby, I swear you can do everything else, but let me do the proposing bit.”

In your heart, you’re happy he’s so insistent, because this is exactly how you want it to be too. In your mind, though, you really enjoy tormenting him. 

“I’ll think about it,” you concede, and he groans.

“I’m buying a ring soon as I can, just to lock it in,” he tells you as he destroys what’s left of his carrot cake.

Once you’ve finished and Harry’s gone up to pay for the coffee and cake (he also took a moment to lean over the counter to snap a group selfie with the waitress who served you earlier and a couple others too) you walk back up the street in the general direction of your car that’s parked a few blocks down. The weather is pleasant today and the sun is even peeking out from behind the clouds now, justifying his sunglasses. 

Your mind starts to drift (his arm wrapped loosely around your waist anchors you to the real world) as you think about how nice it is to be with Harry, how you’ve learned to appreciate each physical moment you have with him because they are so precious. After the tours, the promotional trips, the film sets, and all the little things in between, you understand how to be with Harry. You know not everyone can handle a life like this, and you’re sure that if it wasn’t Harry whose return you awaited, you wouldn’t be able to either. But he always returns. 

Harry comes to a sudden halt in front of a shop window, gazing in. You’re nearly yanked off your feet as you keep trying to walk with your arm around him—he’s so steady that he doesn’t budge. You stand next to him and look into what you realise is a jewellery store. 

“What do you think?” he asks. 

“Huh?”

He looks down, his arm squeezing around your shoulder. “Said I’d get you a ring, didn’t I?”

Butterflies erupt in your stomach. “What, today?”

“‘M not asking. Just preparing.”

You raise your eyebrows up at him. “That is… that is really a technicality.”

“Humour me,” he says. “C’mon.” He shepherds you into the store, steering you by your shoulders. 

It’s small and pretty in here, the air from the fans cool against your sun-warmed skin. There are hardly any other customers at the moment, so you have some kind of valuable privacy. There are a couple of glass counters that run along either side of the store with meticulously placed themed displays inside them. You gravitate immediately to the closest thing, a cluster of rough amethysts hanging from necklaces. 

“Aren’t these so cute?” you comment to Harry.

His arms wrap around you from behind and you reach up to grasp onto his crossed forearms resting against your chest. “Oh, yeah, they are.”

You stay there looking at the necklaces for a little too long—it’s not like you’re really that fascinated by the jewels, but more that you’re just enjoying Harry’s head leaning over your shoulder and his chest pressed to your back as you stand there. When your gaze meanders along the counter and you see something new, though, you shake free of his grip and follow your whims.

This store isn’t labelled out front with a massive brand. You’re pretty sure it’s an independent jeweller, judging by the neat description cards that accompany each small collection, explaining the theme in a lively and personal manner. This is what makes you really fall in love with the place and feel sure that this is where you’ll find the perfect ring. You know Harry could afford any ring from any famous brand, the heaviest jewels imaginable, easily worthy of a feature article in Vogue magazine. He could probably organise to have a diamond dug up fresh specifically to go on your finger. 

It’s the fact that Harry could give you anything in the world that makes you not want it at all. Special, to the two of you, isn’t something that you’ll find in wealth or the crowds that adore him.

It’s found in a day like this.

“Oh, my god, H, look at this one,” you gasp, grabbing his wrist and pulling him over.

He bends over the counter, his gaze following the line of your pointing finger. “Oh, that is pretty,” he says. 

It’s a simple gold band with a small, neatly carved diamond fixed to it. It isn’t flashy at all, which is what drew you to it. You knew he’d like it too. Despite the decadence of his performances, he can be a different man behind closed doors and you love that part of him. The secret part, the one that only you know so well. 

“I’m in love with it,” you tell him.

Harry nods. “Yeah, I think that’s the one.”

You never doubted that he would agree, but his assent sends a bolt of excitement up your spine. It’s all so real, suddenly, and you can’t wait to see him on his knee for you, to see that ring on your finger. You know your ring size off by heart (how could you not, being in a relationship with the jewellery connoisseur that Harry is), so there’ll be no need for you to try it on today. You’re left with only the raw anticipation of the day he’ll slide it onto your finger. 

His hands come down to rest on your hips as you both stare at the ring. You imagine you can hear his heart, knowing that it’ll be beating erratically because his excitement must match yours—you know how he feels about the idea of marriage. 

He spins you around to face him, leaving his hands on your hips. He looks at you very seriously. His sunglasses are resting on top of his head now, pushing back his curls and revealing his green eyes and furrowed brow to you.

“You know, if we’re seen buying an engagement ring…” he begins, trailing off. He shrugs. “Just want to think about that.”

You screw up your nose. “According to some magazines we got married last week, and also six months ago. Just being in here is probably going to spark something.” You glance behind you, as if you’ll see journalists scribbling away on their theories, then flatten your palms against his chest, smoothing out his shirt. “I’m happy to ignore it. I want to just do our thing, H.”

He nods, pursing his lips, and gradually the crease in his forehead disappears. “Okay. Good.” Twin smiles spread over your faces and you have the feeling of being two giddy kids, high-schoolers about to have their first kiss. Something new, unknown, exciting, that the two of you are going into together. His eyes are practically sparkling at you. If this was a cartoon, you think his pupils would be shaped like hearts right now. Something is starting to bud and you can feel it growing up inside you and between you, preparing to bloom. 

“Alright,” you say, breaking the insulating silence to draw you both back to the real world. 

He blinks a couple of times as if he’s just waking up. “Alright,” he echoes. “Let’s get it.”

He waves over a man drifting through the store in a neat suit and points at the ring. “Excuse me, can we please have a look at this one?”

The two of you watch the man unlock the cabinet and slide the plate of rings out, placing it on the counter. He picks up the one Harry pointed out. “It’s a lovely one, sir.”

“It is,” Harry says. His hand finds yours and squeezes your fingers. “What size is it?”

The man checks the price and tells you, and your mouth drops open. Surely there is something supernaturally perfect going on, because it’s exactly your size. You and Harry look at each other incredulously. 

The man seems to notice your unspoken conversation, because he helpfully adds, “We can resize it if you need.”

Harry chuckles. “No, it’s perfect. I think…” he trails off, looking at you. “What do you think?”

You nod at him, grinning. You rub your thumb over the back of his palm as he tells the man, “Thank you. We’d like this one, please.”

You stand slightly behind him as he pays for it, flexing your hands and wringing them in front of you. You know it’s all in your head, but your left ring finger is tingling as if it senses that it’s missing a piece. You really just want to wear the ring at this minute, but when the man selling it to you offers, Harry shakes his head quickly. 

“I’ll hold onto it for now,” he says. He accepts the little box from the man and slips it into his pocket. “Thank you so much.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, sir. Enjoy it, and congratulations to the two of you.”

Harry snakes his arm around your waist as you walk back out to the street. His hips knock against you as he squeezes you into his side, and you can feel the little box in his pocket. You can’t help the grin that takes over your whole face. You worry you look like an idiot, smiling so widely at nothing, but when you glance up at Harry, he looks exactly the same.

Your car is parked down a quieter road and you get to relax a little once you’re away from the crowds of the main shopping strip. You can walk a little more slowly and Harry loosens up a bit. His hyper-vigilance starts to strip away. You can see the tension in his shoulders dissolving and here’s your Harry, emerging from his defensive layers. Most people wouldn’t notice this change, but you do. You feel how he adjusts the grip of his hand on your hip, how he leans into you a little more as you walk. In your closeness, you can smell his cologne and you think of how you watched him spray it on this morning—and how you’re going to be watching him do that for the rest of your lives.

He glances over his shoulder and you copy him. The narrow street behind you is empty, but you don’t get a moment to really register this before you feel his arms tighten around your waist and you’re swept off your feet for a second as he crashes his lips into yours.

You close your eyes, letting the kiss envelop all your senses. The sweetness of the cake’s icing lingering on his lips; his arms locked around your waist, holding you up; the rapid beating of your heart. He pulls away slowly and your eyes flutter open. His face is just inches from yours and he’s looking at you with such intensity you feel naked. Not for the first time, you’re in awe of how impossibly green his eyes are; you could make a palette from every forest in the world, and it wouldn’t hold a candle to what you see in front of you right now.

“Y/N,” he says. He cracks a grin. “I’m so fucking happy.”

Your reply is simply to grab him by the back of his neck and pull him in for another kiss. Your hand tangles in his hair and you feel his tongue running along your bottom lip before he pulls away again quickly.

“Fuck,” he says, sounding lost for breath. “Need to stop before I make a fool of m’self in public.” He even physically takes a step back from you, his eyes comically wide.

You giggle. Your gaze travels down his body and you notice the indent of the box in his pocket. “Is that a ring in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

He shakes his head at you. “You’ve gone all giddy. ‘M getting you home right now and then we’re celebrating properly.” He turns around and starts walking towards the car, his long legs carrying him faster than you can keep up.

Your stomach flutters imagining what his idea of celebrating might be. Suddenly, the only thing on your mind is getting back to your house as soon as humanly possible. You run after Harry, skipping around in front of him and jogging backwards as you waggle your fingers in his face. “So, when are you going to pop the question?” you ask.

“Oh, honey,” he says, patting his pocket with the ring. He grins. “It’s going to be when you least expect it, I’ll promise you that.”

.                               .                           .                               .                           .

thank you for reading! hope you enjoyed—if you did, a reblog or a message is really encouraging and lovely for me to see!! the title is taken from the song by etta james.

this fic is the first part of a series called “here we are in heaven,” and i’m really really excited about it. you can read my earlier fic, at last!, if you want to see where this will end up, but there will be more parts to fill the in-between. plus blurbs and stuff! let’s chat about it! 

my masterlist can be found here. have a beautiful day!

#harry styles fluff #harry styles fic #harry styles imagine #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles x reader #fiance harry #fic #here we are in heaven

[sunnyville36]

Put it on me

Requested from anon

Pairing: Lee Felix x fem reader

Themes/warnings: idol!verse Felix, light angst/argument, make-up sex, oral sex (f receiving), unprotected sex (stay safe out there folks!), slightly rough sex

Word count: 1.6k

As always, happy to hear your thoughts, and thank you for reading!

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

You’re staring at the half eaten meal on your plate when you hear the door open.

You and Felix have barely had 2 seconds to spend with each other the past few weeks with Stray Kids working on their upcoming comeback, so you thought you would surprise him by making your signature chicken carbonara that he’s been dying to try.  You had texted him earlier to tell him your plans and he had sounded super excited.  He mentioned dance practice might run long, but told you he would come straight over to your place when it ended to spend some time with you.  So you put his portion in the oven to keep it warm and waited for a text saying he was on his way, but it had been over 3 hours since their practice should have ended and you hadn’t heard anything from him.

Your boyfriend comes around the corner into the kitchen, and you can immediately tell he’s not in a good mood, but you hope some food might lift his spirits.

“Hey Lixie,” you say, standing up and crossing the short space to give him a quick hug.

He wraps his arms loosely around you, trying to keep his sweat-stained tank top from ruining your shirt.  “Hi Y/n.”

“How was practice?”

“Fucking exhausting,” he sighs, plopping down in a seat at the table and letting his head fall into his hands.

“I can only imagine,” you respond, making your way over to the oven.  “Maybe something to eat will make you feel better?”

“Oh, I-I’m not hungry, baby.”

You turn back to him, see his head is still in his hands.  He’s trying too hard not to interact with you, and you feel like something’s up.

“After that insanely long practice?  You must be.”

“I uh… I ate with the boys.”

You feel a knot twist in your stomach, but try not to jump to conclusions.  “Lix, dinner must have been hours ago by now; come on you should eat something, I kept your pasta in the oven - “

“I just came from eating,” he interrupts, looking anywhere but the spot where you’re standing with one hand on the oven door.

“You what?” you ask, voice quiet.

“After practice ended, we all went up the street to that 24-hour ramen place.”

His head is bowed, eyes looking at his lap, and you can tell he’s feeling guilty.  And you know it’s petty, and you should really just brush it off and move on, but you find yourself feeling more hurt than you thought you would.

“But I… we said we were going to spend some time together tonight, and I made this special just for you…” you trail off, trying hard to stem the tiny drops of tears threatening to spill down your cheeks.

“I know but - look, the members were at each other’s throats all night and it was such a tough session and I didn’t wanna just bail on them when Chan suggested we all grab food to sort it out - “

“So you decided to bail on me instead?” you scoff, anger rising in your chest.

“No, it wasn’t like that, I’m still here aren’t I?”

“You could have at least texted me about the change of plans.  I’ve been waiting here for hours thinking you’d walk in the door any minute when you might not have even shown up at all!”

“Well I’m sorry my life doesn’t revolve around how you spend your time sitting around!” he snaps back, throwing up his hands in an annoyed shrug.

“Right.  Because all I do with my time is sit around pining after you.  You know, this was one of the only free times for me too, and now it’s wasted.”

The air is tense between the two of you.  You’re rapidly moving towards a full blown fight, and this is far from how you wanted your evening to go.

“So I’ll just go then, if your precious plans are ruined,” Felix mumbles, standing to grab his jacket from the hook by the door.

In all honesty, it’d be better if you let him leave, give the both of you time to cool down.  But you’re too upset to think rationally, and all you can see is him not even caring enough to stay despite your disagreement.

“So you’d rather walk away than talk about this?”

He turns back, fists balling at his sides.  “We’re not talking, you’re just yelling at me, and I didn’t even do anything!”

“It’s not what you do; it’s what you don’t do.  You never even want to spend time with me anymore!  I feel like you only want me around when it’s convenient for you!” you shout, voice wavering.

Something shifts in his eyes then, as he stares at you from across the room.  He looks hurt, offended almost, more angry about what you just said than at any previous point in your argument.

“That’s not true.”

“Really?” you press, enthralled by his aura, his usual lighthearted demeanor being replaced with one oozing with dominance.  With desire.

“Of course I want to be with you.  Always,” he says, voice low.  Assertive.  Sexy.

“Then prove it.”

He’s on you in a matter of seconds, hands grabbing your face and lips crashing against yours.  Your own hands find themselves on either side of his slim waist, still sticky from sweat and exertion.  He pushes you up against the counter, melding your bodies impossibly closer as his tongue slips into your mouth.  The kiss is messy, filthy, nothing like the two of you normally do during your lazy makeout sessions.  His leg is slotted between both of yours, and the tensing of his thigh against your core as he moves to lean over you makes you heady with want.

Suddenly, you’re turned around in his hold, your back flush to his front, hiding nothing from you as you feel the hardness in his pants growing against your ass.  He’s frenzied, his normally delicate touches replaced with rough grabs, one hand sliding up to cup your breast, the other dipping below the hem of your skirt to run along the damp folds of your panties.  He brings his lips to your ear, his words sending a shiver down your spine.

“Want me to show you what I never get tired of tasting?”

“Mmhmm,” you whimper, letting him half-drag, half-carry you over to the living room and ease you onto the couch, the first gentle touch from him since this whole thing began.  That turns out to be short lived, as the next thing you know he’s on his knees in front of you, flinging your legs apart and waiting for your almost imperceptible nod before moving your panties to the side and bringing his mouth to you.

He devours your pussy, licking up and down your center and sucking on your clit.  You moan his name, and you can feel him smile against you as he focuses his tongue on teasing your clit with little kitten licks while ramming two of his fingers inside you.  Normally it takes you begging to get him to be this rough with you, but something about your fight must have got him really riled up, and you weren’t about to complain.

After bringing you to the brink of your high a few times but never quite enough to send you over, he lifts his head from between your legs, mouth dripping with your essence, and moves behind you on the couch, gently positioning you on your hands and knees.  He leans his whole body over yours, again whispering his question in your ear.

“Can I fuck you like this?”

You rarely do it from behind, but every time you have you’ve loved it, so you nod your head eagerly, letting out a breathy “yes.”

He’s ready as soon as you say so, pushing into you with such force you jolt forward slightly, your laughter-tinged gasp giving him a sign of just how much you enjoy it.

“Oh, you like that, don’t you, kitten?” he purrs, lifting you up off your arms so your torso rests on his chest.

“Yes… fuck... Felix, please more.”

He draws out then pushes back in, picking up the pace each time.  Soon he’s pounding into you, his left arm supporting your hip and his right arm wrapped loosely around your neck as you lean against him.  The way his cock is angled is causing him to hit you perfectly each time, and you’re moaning his name again as you feel his quick hot breaths next to your ear.

“You promise to never doubt how much I want you?” he growls out, voice strained from the effort not to release just yet.

“Yes, yes, Felix I promise, please let me cum, please.”

“Let go for me baby.”

You reach your peak at the same time, his groan in sync with your high pitched scream.

When you’re both aware enough to speak again, Felix pulls you down to sit between his legs, leaning you against his chest.

“You were right,” he starts, voice sincere, “about - about earlier.  I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where I was all that time and I’m sorry for leaving you alone when I promised we’d spend the evening together.”

You look up at him, wanting to apologize as well.  “I’m sorry about what I said.  I know you’re not intentionally neglecting me.  I’ve just been upset recently that we don’t have a lot of time together anymore.  But I should have told you that earlier; I shouldn’t have brought that up in an argument.”

“So we’re even then?” he asks, a mischievous glint in his eye.

You give him a playful punch to the chest, smiling.  “Yeah, we’re even.”

“Then I think it’s time for round two.”

#stray kids #stray kids fanfiction #stray kids fic #stray kids x reader #stray kids imagines #skz #skz x reader #skz fanfic #skz fic #skz imagines #skz smut #lee felix #lee felix fanfic #lee felix fic #lee felix x reader #lee felix imagines #lee felix angst #lee felix smut #felix x reader

[rocorambles]

Shiny New Toy

Pairing: Matsukawa x Reader 

Genre/Warnings: Military Officer Matsukawa x Prisoner of War Reader AU, Yandere, Non-Con/Rape, Bondage, Sex Toys, Degradation, Overstimulation, Objectification, Humiliation, Body Writing, Mentioned/Implied  Non-Con Branding, Knife Marking, Tattooing

Summary: Most people would consider having a white Christmas a stroke of good luck, but you’re about to find out just how untrue that is. 

Author’s Note: This fic is for the Lovesick Server’s December collab and the theme is Stormy Nights~ Be sure to check out the amazing work by other members here.

When most people dream of a white Christmas, they think about soft fluffy snow you can easily shape into snowmen, they think about fluttering snowflakes they can gaze at as they sit inside a cozy home surrounded by their family. 

Not you. 

When you dream of a white Christmas, you pray for a thunderous snowstorm, you pray for harsh winds, frigid temperatures, you pray for anything severe enough to serve as a distraction, to keep the demons and monsters at bay. 

And it takes every ounce of self-control not to accidentally betray how relieved and thankful you are as your guards for the day are sloppy enough to leave you uncuffed, hastily throwing down enough food to last you a few days in their rush to return to the safety and warmth of their barracks, unwilling to venture out more than necessary to feed you multiple times a day during the blizzard outside. 

They still have enough sense to lock the cell door behind them as they scurry back to the merry celebrations, too afraid to deal with the wrath of their superior officers. And you can’t blame them, not when Oikawa’s sadistic streak and Iwaizumi’s untempered rage are infamous throughout the nations, not when you’ve seen firsthand just how cruel the Seijoh Four can be. 

Painful memories of fire, screams, and blood flood your mind and you grit your teeth as you push them aside. There would be time for grief and mourning later. But for now, you need to escape first.

You examine the lock in front of you, the one thing separating you from freedom. It’s not a bad piece of work. Sturdy, strong, and reliable. But it’s nowhere near the craftsmanship and skill you’re used to. After all, when you come from Date Tech, the nation famous for its Iron Walls, its ironwork, its ability to manipulate all types of metal to do or be whatever the heart desires, nothing compares. And it’s laughably easy to make said lock useless as you quietly creep outside for the first time in months. 

It’s quiet. Not a soul is in sight and you slow your breathing and thoughts down as you concentrate. What’s the next step? Which direction should you go? What’s the overall plan?

For once you’re thankful for how the guards they’ve been sending could care less about your presence, treating you nothing more than an object as they blatantly ignore you and carry on conversation as if you’re not there. You know that despite the fact that most of Miyagi has been conquered, three nations still remain in an endless war against each other.

Karasuno. Shiratorizawa. Aoba Johsai. 

It’s just your luck that you’d ended up a prisoner of war by the worst of the three, humiliated and kept alive as a trophy and symbol of what they had accomplished. At least if Date Tech had been conquered by Shiratorizawa you’d be dead within seconds once Ushijima had deemed you unworthy and far too weak to live up the to high standards of his warriors. 

But Karasuno...you don’t know much about the crow nation, a nation that had kept a low profile for as long as you could remember, only to recently rear its head and prove that they’ve kept up with the best of the best despite their long isolation. But you do remember the kind faces of their high ranking officers when they had gotten into a conflict with Date Tech long ago, how surprisingly amicable the two sides were as Date Tech admitted defeat, preparing for the worst, only to be surprised as Karasuno had peacefully left after having your nation promise an alliance with them, leaving your home relatively in one piece, letting your authorities remain in power, allowing your people to live normally.

It’s decided then. The game plan is to escape to Karasuno and hope that Daichi Sawamura is as just and kind as you remember. 

Determined, you carefully listen and check your surroundings, grateful for the added coverage the snowstorm provides, relieved when you hear the distant drunken shouts and celebrations as the soldiers celebrate the joyous holiday, tucked away in the mess hall quite a distance from you. And you brace yourself as the wind howls around you, as the icy snow stings your bare feet and legs, soaking through your tattered clothing. But like hell you’re going to let something as silly as frostbite stop you and you darkly think that dying from hypothermia would be a preferable way to leave this world than by the hands of a Seijoh officer. 

Escape is tantalizingly close and you forget about the way your body feels numb from the bitter cold, forget about how your teeth chatter and your body shivers when you see the nearing enclosure, so focused on the exit that you don’t notice the solitary tall figure casually leaning against a wall nearby, curiously watching your stumbling weary body make its way towards the opening, amusement in his eyes when you pass him, completely unaware of his presence as your eyes sparkle from seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Matsukawa doesn’t care much for Christmas. Well to be fair, he doesn’t care much about holidays or celebrating in general, finding the rowdy atmosphere headache inducing, the raucous volume irritating, the crowds of people bothersome. But Oikawa and Hanamaki love their social events and it boosts squad morale, so needless to say of course there is an obnoxious holiday party raging on, with Iwaizumi playing babysitter. And Matsukawa had slipped out as soon as he could, finding strange comfort in the tumultuous weather outside, unfazed by the way snow slashed across his face as he walked and walked until only the sounds of wind and the night accompanied him. 

So imagine his surprise when their adorable little prisoner shows up in the midst of the blizzard like a ghostly apparition, struggling through the elements in a desperate attempt to escape. Honestly he doesn’t know why you’ve been kept in the cell for so long and he supposes you have Iwaizumi to thank for Oikawa not sinking his teeth and claws into you already, the green eyed general having a softer heart than most would assume knowing his reputation. But your luck has run out and not even Iwaizumi can save you from punishment and Matsukawa’s penchant for ruining pretty things. 

Suddenly Christmas doesn’t seem so bothersome after all as Matsukawa’s long legs swiftly carry him to you, his arm quickly wrapping around your neck from behind and squeezing until your nutrient deprived and half frozen body collapses in his arms. 

You groan when you come back to your senses, sinking into the soft surface you’re laying on. 

Wait. Soft surface?

Your eyes shoot open and your arms instinctively move to help you sit up, only for you to falter as something keeps your arms bound behind your back and you flail and struggle to move your tied up body as you gauge your surroundings, feeling nauseous when you recognize the turquoise and white uniform jacket hung up by the door, staring in disbelief and humiliation when you finally look down at yourself, the glowing Christmas lights adorning and highlighting your body as they weave around your breasts and between your legs. And you can only assume that’s what you feel wrapped around your arms, keeping them immobile behind your back as your naked body fights against its restraints on the bed you’ve been placed on. 

 But you scream, all thoughts of escape zapped out of you when two devices come to life inside of you and you sob in shame and panic as both your lower holes are assaulted by the vibrators inside of them, the tangle of lights looped between your legs keeping the toys firmly shoved inside of you despite the way you try to push them out of you. 

Matsukawa doesn’t understand the appeal of Christmas lights or decorations nor does he understand Oikawa’s fascination of sex toys and overwhelming his play things with plastic, rubber, and metal, preferring the surge of pride that courses through him when he wrecks his sluts with his body alone. But as he watches you writhe in front of him, your eyes glistening with hopeless tears, your nipples perky and erect, your moans and whimpers filling the room as he sits back and relaxes, his large hand slowly palming his hardening cock that he untucks out of his trousers, he admits that maybe he had been too quick to judge, grateful he hadn’t immediately dumped the box of gag gifts his brunette captain had gifted him bright and early this Christmas morning. 

“I know you don’t like toys, Mattsun. But you should test these out on the new batch of prisoners we get from the next raid!”

You aren’t a new prisoner, but he’s sure Oikawa wouldn’t mind that he was using them on you. If anything, the brunette would probably be jealous that he’d claimed you first. 

Time ceases to exist as Matsukawa watches you, fingers idly tapping away on buttons and a smirk spreading across his face at how receptive you are to the setting changes, how little he has to do to have your body contorting and your voice wantonly wailing as orgasm after orgasm is ripped from you. But he grows tired of watching from afar after he forces you to break apart countless times and he draws near, stroking his now fully erect cock as he mockingly whistles at how you’ve soaked the bed sheets near your cunt and drenched the lights shoved against your folds, laughing at how your back arches and your eyes roll back when he roughly pinches and twists your nipples. 

It’s like you were made to be played with. And suddenly Matsukawa can’t get his hands on his new toy fast enough, unwinding the soaked string of lights from your lower half and bending your legs before retying the lower strands of lights so that they bind your calves to your thighs, enjoying the view as the vibrator in your pussy easily slips out from your loosened sopping wet hole while he teasingly pulls and shoves back in the large vibrating plug he keeps nestled inside of your ass. 

You really are just like a sex toy or a fuck doll, other than that scowl on your face and the raging hate and disgust in your eyes. But the fierce look only stirs deeper lust and anticipation in the officer as he eagerly awaits the moment you completely break because of him, large hands easily hauling your bound body by the waist and forcing you to straddle his lap as he reclines against his headboard, smiling at how rage turns to a gorgeous look of fear when you feel the tip of his cock brush against your glistening entrance. 

It really is admirable how you hopelessly fight against him, against gravity as his hands guide you down and down, despair, pain, and maybe something on the border of pleasure overtaking you as you sink on an enemy’s shaft seemingly forever, the girth alone already stretching you far more than the vibrator had. But it’s the length that tears you apart and Matsukawa is painstakingly meticulous about making sure you swallow him at an agonizingly slow pace, making sure you have no choice but to feel every bit of him that enters you, that drags against your walls, further and further until you swear he’s in your cervix, in your stomach. 

You hate how sensitive his earlier torment has made you, how your pleasure addicted body is already chasing after another orgasm, your pussy fluttering in excitement around the new object filling it, your mouth drooling and unable to close as your mind goes blank from the sensation of being double stuffed again. And you sob in relief when you finally bottom out before you can humiliate yourself by cumming yet again, tensing as you wait for your captor to ruthlessly fuck you right away. 

But nothing happens and you stare in astonishment as Matsukawa merely reaches over to his nightstand to pick up a book, flipping through pages as you sit in his lap. 

“Be a good cock warmer and just stay still and look pretty, okay?” 

Humiliation courses through you at his words, but you obey. Or at least you try your best to. But he’s set you up for failure as the hand not holding his reading material finds its way between your legs, calloused fingertips gently and slowly rubbing against your clit in a way that has your body heating up, has your hips unconsciously grinding as they chase the building inferno inside of you until you’re desperately humping him like a bitch in heat in search of relief. And Matsukawa irritatedly sighs. 

“Aren’t fuck dolls supposed to just stay still and be quiet? If you want to cum that badly and distract me, at least entertain me.” 

You don’t even have the presence of mind to pay him any attention as you keep on bouncing as much as you can with your limited movement, completely ignorant of how he tosses his book to the side and rummages through the opened gift box besides him, a pleased hum escaping him when he pulls out two jingling objects. 

But you do notice the piercing pain from both your nipples as incredible pressure is applied to them and you scream as Matsukawa adjusts the nipple clamps, whimpering when he smacks your breasts and the bells attached to the devices loudly ring. Satisfied with your new decorations, once again he wraps his large hands around your waist and you wail as you’re easily lifted and slammed back down, face burning with shame and embarrassment when you realize you’re being fucked to the rhythm of Jingle Bells, the bells lewdly swinging from your sensitive buds only emphasizing your pathetic position with every shrill chime. 

You shouldn’t be enjoying this. You shouldn’t be moaning like a whore. You shouldn’t be on the verge of yet another mind blowing orgasm. And you clench your eyes shut as you try to remember your home, remember your family, remember your friends, anything to distract you from the present. But Matsukawa has other plans for you and pleasure and pain strike you down like a bolt of lightning when he rips the clamps off of you and you let out an animalistic sound of ecstasy as you experience your most intense orgasm yet, one that has you twitching and mindless, slumping against the broad body in front of you in post-coital bliss and exhaustion.  

But you weakly cry out when large hands hold you still as strong hips thrust up hard into you. 

“Your performance was so good that now I’m in the mood.” 

All your pride goes down the drain as you beg and plead for him to let you rest, to stop, making a mess of his shirt and neck as your tears and snot smear across skin and fabric as you exhaustedly bury your face in the crook of his shoulder, crying even harder when fingers trace slow patterns on one ass cheek before slapping you harshly to shut up your whining. 

“A toy’s job is to make its owner feel good. Plus, I’m curious just how durable you are. Clearly if you’re conscious enough to annoy me with all your sniveling, then you’re in good enough shape for me to use some more.” 

You can only brokenly cry as he rails you from below, your torso still propped against him, face still buried in his shoulder, as he manhandles your body, forcefully slamming you down with every thrust, making sure you’re completely filled and unable to escape the delirious fullness and stimulation. And you can’t even breathe, unable to think of anything except for the aching overwhelming feeling bubbling inside of you, threatening to consume you as you’re brought to new highs over and over again.

But your weakened body can only take so much and your squeals trail off into silence, darkness encroaching on your consciousness as your body shuts down from overexertion. It’s too much and you gladly and wearily welcome slumber, can practically taste it on your tongue as a part of you shatters deep inside when you vaguely register the hot thick spurts filling your insides as Matsukawa slams balls deep inside of you one final time. 

Your heavy eyelids flutter shut and you can feel your breathing begin to even out, but panic forces you to stay awake and alert when a low teasing voice murmurs into your ear. 

“You lasted longer than I thought, but I guess you’re officially out of batteries now. Don’t worry. I’ll charge you right back up.”

You don’t know what he has planned for you, but it can’t be anything good and despite how fatigued you are, you thrash and wiggle, doing everything you can to avoid the inevitable despite your still bound position. But it’s useless and you feel so small, so vulnerable as you’re shoved face down in the corner of his room, twisting just enough to see Matsukawa holding the vibrator that had been inside of you earlier and plugging it to an outlet in the wall. And your heart plummets when he gives you a lazy grin as he abruptly shoves the toy inside of you once more. 

“Can’t have it running out of batteries while it keeps you loose and wet for me.”

You kick and scream as he adjusts the lights wrapped around your legs once again, only pausing as he rains down hard and heavy hits to your ass, and if you felt vulnerable before, you feel absolutely pathetic now with a strand of lights keeping both the vibrator and plug firmly inside of you once again and your binds adjusted until you’re in a hog-tie position. But you don’t have time to dwell too much on it, not when both vibrator and plug are suddenly set at their highest settings and you shriek, tears streaming down your face from the onslaught of sensations in your already spent body. 

And you can only feel, feel, and feel, brain dead and numb to anything else happening around you. Even when Matsukawa crouches in front of you, you just dumbly stare at him as drool trickles from your mouth and lewd moans spill from your lips. 

But even in your depraved state, the last dregs of your pride shout at you to do something, anything, as the officer holds a pair of socks and black briefs in front of your face. 

“As beautiful as you sound, I can’t have the entire unit complaining about how loud my little doll is. And toys don’t need to talk or see anyway, so I’m going to wrap you back up until I’m ready to use you again, okay?”

It’s a rhetorical question and before you can even think of retorting, the socks are brutally shoved into your mouth and you gag and choke as long fingers cruelly push and push, practically deep-throating you with the thick fabric, more hot tears cascading down your face as he removes his now saliva coated digits and wipes them clean on your face. 

But as the elastic band of his briefs are pulled over your head and snapped into place right beneath your eyes, rendering your eyesight useless, making the buzzing torment in your lower regions even more prominent, you go completely limp save for the uncontrollable tremors of pleasure, any fight you had in you shattered into a million pieces as you fully register what has happened and what you have been reduced to. 

And Matsukawa takes a moment to appreciate how broken you are already, barely looking human with the glow of the Christmas lights surrounding you and your facial features hidden for the most part by his briefs, looking every bit like a depraved whore, like human furniture, like a lewd object to be used by anyone, anytime. 

But Matsukawa has never been good at sharing his belongings and he plucks a permanent marker from his desk, scribbling dark unmistakable lines across both your ass cheeks, smirking down at his new mark of ownership. 

Issei’s Toy

The words look good on you. His name looks good on you. 

Maybe if you survive his treatment long enough, he’d get it permanently tattooed into your skin. Maybe he’d carve it into your skin. Maybe he’d burn it into your skin…

The possibilities are endless, but for now, he has an appearance to make, sighing tiredly at the responsibilities he has as a senior officer. Curse Oikawa and his insistence that all of the Seijoh Four had to at least show face at the beginning and end of the holiday party. And he rolls his eyes as he straightens out his uniform and throws on his jacket. 

But before he departs, he spares you one more glance, mood instantly lighting up when he sees your wrecked pitiful form laying on his ground like a forgotten toy. 

At least something good came out of this dreadful day, he thinks, as he quietly hums Jingle Bells all the way down to the mess hall. 

#haikyuu smut #matsukawa x reader #yandere haikyuu #yandere matsukawa #yandere matsukawa x reader #haikyuu x reader #tw: noncon #tw: rape

[fandom-monium]

For the Holidays

Summary: In which Spencer does not want to go to his high school reunion, but you tagging along changes things. “You doubting my skills, Dr. Reid?”

WC: 2.1k

Tags/Warnings: Spencer Reid x GN!Reader, fake-dating trope, pining (so much pining), Morgan trying to be a good big bro (and wingman)

Spencer Reid does not hate Christmas.

“Reid, come on⎼”

“No.”

“Just listen to me.”

“I did, and it’s a stupid idea.”

No, really. Because hating Christmas would imply he didn’t care. Which he does.

Like when Garcia never fails to drag him into decorating the bullpen every year. Obnoxious Christmas music plays in the background as they bomb Hotch’s office, and it’s worth the smile on his face when he walks in the next morning.

It would mean hating Rossi and his extravagant dinner parties. And yeah, he always hosts but these are just as special if not more so. His mansion is decked in fairy lights and streamers, the food are traditional holiday recipes, and the whole place seems a little less massive.

And he doesn’t hate his breaks. He nearly spits out his coffee when Morgan grumbles about how he almost tripped and fell over from the ice. He has to scramble away as the older man bats at him.

Or when Prentiss drops off holiday-themed pastries? Mhm, just thinking of the ribbon-tied box makes him salivate.

Hating the Christmas card is completely out of the question. Henry and Michael make them every year for the entire team, and JJ makes an effort to shake them out carefully for. It has a boyish charm Spencer never had at their age, a mess of glitter and construction paper. He displays it on his desk anyway.

And you. It would mean hating all the various hot chocolate beverages you’ve made since December started.

Apparently, it’s serious business⎼the art of hot chocolate making. You’ve leaned against his desk, hands waving about as you try to articulate to him the relevance, going over anything and everything you can remember of its history and significance. Of course, he knows all of this already, but he likes you too much to stop you. He almost releases a loving sigh. Instead, he settles for nodding and grinning at you, and he doesn’t really get it but he loves it: the hot chocolate, your pensive expression as you await his critique, even though by now he’s sure you know he has no other comments except ‘delicious’.

He loves it all. He loves you⎼all of you guys. Obviously.

So, no. He does not hate Christmas.

But that doesn’t mean he loves it either.

Which is why, when Morgan leans against his desk, he greets him as normal, a smile forming on his lips as he sets his book down. There is no danger here, except Morgan’s guns. And the heinous green and red envelope between his fingers⎼

Where the hell did he get that.

Spencer’s blood froze. His collection of trauma was nothing compared to this.

Now here he is, packing away his things so he can go home to his warm, cozy apartment and order takeout like he does every year. He's not one for change. No need to break tradition.

But Morgan is acting like a child. Wait, no, even children are better behaved than this. Children at least give up faster.

“I’m telling you, it’s a good idea.”

“As a certified genius, I can say with all honesty, it is not.”

“I promise you it’ll be fine,” Morgan reassures him, voice soothing. The letter, colorful and bright and an eye sore, mocks Spencer. He wishes his reflexes were faster, so he can snatch the abhorrent cluster of sparkles and poorly printed holiday cartoons. And shred it.

Maybe if he glares hard enough, it’ll burst into flames.

“Morgan, my class hated me. The whole school hated me,” Spencer shoves another book into his satchel. It's harder than he means to, and he sends a silent apology to Stephen King; he usually handles his books with care. But not right now. Now, he's tired and exasperated and he just wants to curl up on his couch with The Doctor. "I'm sure I won't be missed."

"But you’re the life of the party!"

Spencer looks up.

Morgan winces, "Yeah, even I wouldn't believe me.” Spencer snorts, continuing to stuff his belongings into his satchel. Morgan’s relentless however. “But you deserve to show them up. You’ve got degrees⎼plural⎼and you're a hotshot FBI agent.”

“Are you not aware of the tragedy that is my high school social experience?”

“Oh, I'm very aware, and thank you for being vulnerable with me. But it's because I care that I’m telling you.”

Morgan’s hand falls heavy on his shoulder, making Spencer pause. He meets his gaze, the man’s expression solemn.

“You deserve to rub it in their faces until the only thing they can smell is your success.”

Morgan grins when that draws out a laugh from him.

Spencer huffs, “Shouldn't we be the bigger person here by not going?”

The older man grimaces, retracting his hand as if the idea offends him. “Fuck that. Be a show off! They deserve to be knocked down a peg after what they did to you in high school.”

Spencer bites his lip. Yes, he’s accomplished, and yeah, as Morgan said, he’s a ‘hot shot FBI agent’. But the memories surge in like a broken dam, cruel laughter and harsh words crashing into him as if he’s twelve years old again. He’s an adult now, so he doesn’t topple over from the impact like before, but the pain is a phantom limb, old and familiar, and leaves a pit in his stomach.

He was a child prodigy then. How would going back as he is now be any different?

Morgan's heart clenches when an unspoken pain flits across Spencer’s face, glossing over his eyes. He can't imagine how deep the emotional scars go, but he knows Spencer needs some form of closure from his past. So when he found the invite, he knew they had to seize the chance. If he wants to continue to move forward, Spencer has to learn to let go. And right now, this is his first class ticket. It’s why he’s pushing this so hard.

This is for Spencer.

But the doctor shakes his head, a strained smile tugging his lips. “Morgan, I had no friends. Even if I go, what am I supposed to do once I arrive? It'd be awkward enough as is.”

“True,” The older man contemplates, a light bulb going off as he snaps his fingers. “You know what you should do? Ask (Your Name) to go with you.”

“(Your Name)?” Spencer jolts, fumbling to catch his phone. Despite being a man of science, his eyes dart around, like you’re a demon summoned at the mention of your name. “Wha-what? Why?”

“They could act as your buffer. And you did say you wanted to be closer with them. This is the perfect opportunity,” Morgan shrugs. Like his suggestion is common sense, logical. Maybe it is.

But this is you they’re talking about. You would never. You’re too cool for a silly high school reunion.

At least, that’s what he’s convinced himself as Spencer’s face pinches. He catches his lip with his teeth. “Morgan, I appreciate the… thought, but I could never ask (Your Name).”

“Ask me what?”

… Oh no. You are a demon.

Spencer whirls around in time to see the glass door shut behind you. You stand there in all your poise and beauty, the fluorescent lights softening your expression. You're bundled up in a matching coat and scarf, the knitted beanie snug on your crown and clashing with your outfit (Garcia told you it’s not your Christmas present, but you’ve worn it everyday since). There’s sprinkles of snow all over you.

You’re not a demon, Spencer decides, even as you brush a clump off your shoulder, nose scrunched in annoyance. More like a snow angel.

You tilt your head curiously when Spencer doesn’t answer immediately. There’s a knowing look on his face as Morgan, realizing the poor guy probably won’t respond any time soon, steps up.

“(Your Name), I thought you went home already.”

You cross the bullpen. “I was. Garcia walked me down and I got to the courtyard. Then I realized she had me so distracted that I left my phone charger,” You rummage around your desk and without looking up, you reiterate, “So ask me what?”

Spencer blinks. “What?”

“You had something to ask me, right?”

Right. That. He runs his fingers through his hair awkwardly. “Actually, I don’t⎼oof.”

Morgan jabs his side, “Yes, there is something Reid needs to ask you.” He sends him a meaningful look.

“Shoot.” You nod to them before rifling through your desk drawers. Nope, not there. You card through files and office supplies, oblivious to the conversation Spencer and Morgan have with their eyes, shooting looks and mouthing at each other.

You bend over your desk as Morgan gestures, Ask them!

Spencer shakes his head vigorously, No!

Do it, or I'll do it for you, he mouths.

Spencer squints at him. You wouldn't.

Morgan smirks and Spencer's heart drops to his stomach. Before he can run, shout for help, literally anything, the man slings a buff arm around his shoulders, forcing Spencer to slightly bend down to his level, hugging him to his side.

He's trapped. Stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Fuck.

“Reid is going to his high school reunion,” Morgan starts, biting back a grin when the nerd squirms against him. Both men boys watch, one excited and the other petrified as you disappear behind your desk.

“That’s nice.”

"Yeah. But all his classmates are older than him and married…“

“Uh-huh…” You scan the dark floors, half-listening as Spencer frowns at the unnecessary detail. He never told Morgan such a thing. He didn’t even know, so how would Morgan-?

“So, can you guys pretend to be a couple or something?”

Thud.

“What!?”

Luckily, neither of you notice the other’s surprise as Spencer chokes on air at the same time you let out a pained hiss.

Morgan lets him pull away, withholding a snicker. “You good, (Your Name)?”

“I’m okay!” Your head pops up from under your desk as you rub the top of your head. You blink owlishly. “I’m sorry, did you just ask me to pretend to be your partner?”

“Yes! But Reid’s partner,” Morgan emphasizes, slapping the doctor’s back hard enough he nudges forward.

You stand and Spencer straightens up, trying not to fidget as your gaze burns into his. You’ve known each other for quite some time now, and while Spencer likes to think he knows you pretty well, it bothers him when your expression becomes unreadable. He knows it shouldn't but it does. He’s a profiler, yet your thoughts are completely obscured by a mask. It only makes him more nervous than he already is.

His skin feels hot when your eyes trail over him, and he prays his scarf is enough to cover the flush spreading from his neck.

He's about to disintegrate when you finally answer.

"Okay."

His brow shoots up and his heart flips. You move away from your desk as he sputters, "Really? Are⎼are you sure? I don’t want to put you out of your way.”

“I wouldn’t have agreed otherwise. Why?” You step closer, and he can’t breathe, not without it hitting your face. You stare him down the bridge of your nose, eyes narrowed. “You doubting my skills, Dr. Reid?”

“What? No, of course not!”

You raise an eyebrow expectantly. “Then it’s settled? We’ll pretend to be a couple for your reunion thing?"

A beat of silence. Spencer realizes you're waiting for his confirmation. But panic rises like bile in his throat and he hesitates.

Maybe he should back out now, retract the entire conversation and take the embarrassment like a man. Tell you he was never planning to attend the stupid reunion because his classmates were (and probably still are) assholes. Honesty is key to any relationship after all.

Especially between coworkers. Ahem.

A flicker of movement and Spencer glances over your shoulder. Morgan nods frantically at him, teeth flashing as he grins wider than before. He gives him two thumbs up.

Maybe, for once, he should pull a Morgan and just vibe it.

Yeah. Yeah!

Swallowing, he nods to you, giving you his signature white-person smile because he's sure if he speaks he might blurt out something completely inappropriate. Like statistics on workplace relationships (they’re great reading material, okay).

Your lips quirk up. "Cool. Text me the details when you get the chance.”

You brush past him before he manages a reply, your footsteps fading. Morgan waggles his eyebrows at Spencer. Spencer blankly stares after you.

“What just happened?”

“You just got a date to your reunion. A fake date, mind you, but you’re welcome nonetheless,” Morgan smirks at him. “So, you got a plan, Pretty Boy?”

His face falls, and the hearts in his eyes⎼shit, had they always been there?⎼chip slightly.

He does not have a plan.

Deleted scene:

“Did you do it?”

“It went all according to plan, Mama.”

AN: I fucked myself over and wrote 7k+ and still counting. Now it’s an unplanned holiday mini series. This kind of stems from Bonding as this uses Mysterious!Reader. Also, I seem to be into pining (fuck established relationships, suffer in silenceee). Whatever holiday you celebrate, I hope you still enjoy this one shot!! 

One of the biggest disappointments of CM: Spencer doesn’t confront his high school bullies. I read several fics of him doing so, but a lot of them have the bullies be just as much of an asshole as they were to him in the past, but he deserves more closure. 

This will be my take on it. It’ll be a lot of pining but I hope to focus on the his hardships in a less angsty, dramatic way.

Hope you enjoy it!! There will be at least 3 parts?

Also, spread the usage of the term ‘partner’, which can be used for same-sex and opposite-sex relationships.

#spencer reid x reader #matthew gray gubler x reader #mgg x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x oc #mgg fanfiction #mgg imagine #mgg fic #my writing #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds x oc #criminal minds x y/n #criminal minds

[annelapin]

Gringo boy

Chapter 1

( A. Arler x Black Brazilian! Reader)

Summary: a girl born and raised in rio de janeiro gets a scholarship to a private high school. There she meets Armin, a boy just arrived from Germany who is trying to adapt little by little to his new reality. (y/n is a bit OC, since I gave all her family members a name.)

Content warnings: bad language, prejudice, xenophobia (a little), things involving depression. not recommended for an audience under 17

word count: 8k

Note: hey guys, how are you? well, this is the first time I've posted anything other than drawings on Tumblr (even though I've been here since I was 13). Honestly, I was and still am a little unsure about publishing this story here. as it is a story told in first person in a very different cultural context than most people who normally read this type of story.

there is also the fact that English is not my first language.

there is also the fact that English is not my first language. I'm doing my best and I know it's not going to come out perfect, so I ask you to be understanding. if you like it, I can translate the other chapters (so far there are 3 published). There's also something I'd like to comment on but I don't know how. Y/N in this story is a black girl, but at the same time, she and most of the characters are Latino, and I don't know what to call that because I don't think it's a very common concept for American readers. however, here in South America, we have black people, and especially in Brazil, some cultural characteristics of each group are quite separate, but in the end we are all Latinos and this can be a little confusing at first, but I believe that with time you will understanding this issue better.

The day started like just another day in February.

The sun hadn't even risen when I woke up. The cicadas were still singing on the land next door, just like the speakers at Seu Jorge's bar that is in front of our house, which emitted the auto and almost deafening sound of the pagoda night, which extended into dawn and almost turned into day.

Even though I moved to this street a short time ago, such things have already become familiar to me. The truth was that this was a universal theme, present in every place I've ever lived, and will probably be present in every next one I'll live.

As well as the familiar sound of my private alarm clock, an offer from my guardians, who couldn't wake up silently and harmoniously like any other normal family.

It was always a rush, my mother fighting my aunt for something neither of them did, but neither of them would take any responsibility.

Even though these are a recurring situation, something in me never got used to it.

And that something made me always wake up in a bad mood.

Not the kind of bad temper that would be resolved with a cup of coffee, or a hot bath. It was the kind of bad mood that could only be resolved with music.

Some time ago, a teacher taught me that the music we listen to directly influences our state of mind.

If we listen to sad songs, we are sad. If we listen to religious music, we feel in communion with God. If we listen to lively and upbeat music, we are excited and more willing.

And that's why my body woke up begging for some Japanese pop music. It might not be my favorite style, but it helped a lot in those times when I needed to induce some kind of positive and motivating feeling.

This would be my first day of school, at a new school, with new people, in a different place.

And I promised myself to be a different person this time, for who knows, to finally live something different.

Maybe make friends, go out for a walk, stay up late on a phone call or just go out for ice cream at the mall. No big deal, just something anyone my age is more than familiar with.

But if I wanted any of those wishes to come true, I would have to take some initiative. And a good first step would be to get dressed as soon as possible. Since I spent considerable time sitting on the edge of the bed looking at the dark and deep emptiness in the corner of my room, waking up slowly and slowly.

So I got up, went to the bathroom and took a quick shower. When I left, I did my skincare routine and mustered up all the courage I had left to start putting on makeup. Trying to find the balance between having makeup on and creating makeup that doesn't make me look too makeup for a school day.

All this while wondering if my foundation would last a whole day in the Carioca summer, when the heat is almost always unbearable for the unaccustomed.

It was unnerving how some uneasy thoughts rumbled through my mind, from whether my uniform made me look like a church prayer circle lady, or whether the hairstyle I did with my braids flattered my face, to even what color stockings I should wear.

Worries that might be considered futile by an outsider, but which at the time plagued me to the point that in the end I ended up choosing anything and leaving the bathroom.

He was wearing a button-down shirt with the crest embroidered on the chest and beige tailored uniform pants. They were a little over-sized, but it was a conscious and purposeful choice.

What would be the reason? None, it just looked better on me.

The clothes still smelled like new, which I didn't know if it belonged in the store or was the fabric's own scent. Much less whether it was a good smell or not, just the standard new school uniform smell.

Honestly, they were futile thoughts, I know. But they were the kind of thoughts you can't shake, even if you really want to.

The only things I was sure of at that moment was that beige was not my color, and that the skirt, which was also a uniform option, devalued my body a lot.

Leaving the bathroom, I went straight to the kitchen for breakfast.

While I was drinking a glass of cold chocolate milk out of sheer laziness to heat the milk, my aunt came into the kitchen, already dressed for her work.

– Good morning, Y/N. Are you excited for your first day? – She went straight to the fridge to get her lunch box, which had been prepared the night before.

–I think – In fact, my desire to experience something new was proportional to my fear of the unknown. If it hadn't been such an important occasion, I don't think I would have gotten out of bed today.

– Look, I know your mom scared the shit out of you, but it's not as bad as it sounds – She tried to flash me an encouraging smile as she sipped her freshly brewed coffee. – There is a boy who was freshman in last year, he managed to socialize very well, despite being the only student in the class who didn't know anyone. You can try to talk to him, I think his name is Marcos, he's part of student council.

I wasn't able to answer those words properly, so I just mumbled some incomprehensible sound as I finished drinking the milk.

– Another thing, your mother is pissed today. Try to dress up a little before you show up in the room, you know how she is. If you go 'anyway' to class today, she'll talk about it until graduation.

– But I'm already dressed.

– I know, but we still have about fifteen minutes. I know you don't like it, but she cares a lot about what people think of you, so she'll only let you out if you're really pretty by her standards. – I know my mom and I know she'd make a fuss if I even tried. leave the house without my earrings.

And once again, I was in the bedroom, rummaging through my drawers desperate for any pair of earrings. And if I was lucky, a choker too.

Luckily, I found some accessories that matched. Soon after, I put on my new all-star, which my aunt had given me, took my backpack and went to the living room.

– Juliana, you don't understand, that woman is clueless, she keeps gossiping about everyone. Can you believe she told Doctor Luiz that I sleep in the middle of shifts? The worst thing is that they believe it, because the disgusting is sinic as fuck. She doesn't even feel remorse – My mom was practically lying on the couch, still wearing her work uniform. She looked exhausted, as usual, but somehow she still had the energy to complain.

– I take my job seriously, and all I don't want is confusion there. But let me wake up in a bad mood to see if I don't put that disgusting woman in her place... Juliana, are you paying attention?

– Of course. Scratches her car, punctures her tires, whatever – She wasn't being serious, but my aunt clearly didn't care about my mom's complaints. Even why, nothing we said about it was worth anything, as she always ignored it and complained about the same thing again the next day.

– I'll hit her face, that's right – She was also bluffing. Never in her life would she stoop so low, not even to prove her right.

As soon as she noticed my presence, her gaze darted in my direction. – Hey, why are you wearing pants?

-I didn't want to take the subway wearing a skirt, I don't feel well.- Which wasn't a lie, even if it wasn't the main reason.

-No, you don't leave this house looking like a man. I'm sure it was your internet friends who put this idea in your head.

-For God's sake, you're the one who bought the pants for the girl. Are you really going to fight her for wearing something you bought?

-You are protecting this girl a lot, Juliana. It's hot as hell outside and you want her to get out of her pants?

-The school's air conditioning is very powerful, it won't get hot. Besides, if she doesn't feel comfortable in a skirt, we can't force it.– Even with my aunt's pleading, my mother kept her naturally judgmental gaze on me, that gaze that could even suck your soul out of your body.

-So Y/N, how's it going?

– I... I really liked how the pants were on me.

– Ok, it's your choice, I can't interfere – She took a little pause and continued. – But you know, ugly like that no one will want to talk to you. Everyone's going to think you're a slum dweller who doesn't want anything to do with life, how do you think about making friends like that?

– For God's sake, Fabiana. Are you by any chance an idiot?

– What it was? Am I lying?

– Alright, I change – And once again, I was in the room, changing clothes and considering if this was really all worth it.a

When I was done, my mother looked infinitely happier. Saying how beautiful I looked, nothing too different from your standard everyday hypocrisy. But she also did her standard mother speech, saying she loves me, and saying it's for us to take care of ourselves.

Honestly, sometimes I don't know how to deal with this sudden change in behavior.

The drive to school was considerably smooth, the bus was packed, but that was to be expected.

My aunt only had three more months of internship at that school, so she was teaching me all the way carefully, for the day she wasn't there to take me anymore.

I wanted to believe it wasn't so bad to get out of the skirt. But honestly, if I had the power of choice, I would never go out like this again in my life.

Unconsciously, I was constantly checking to see if she had gotten up, or if someone was looking too much.

I was beautiful, but I didn't have a moment's peace.

I could barely pay attention to the things going on around me, but I forced myself to memorize the number of the next bus we took after arriving at the subway station.

In all, there were three drives. A van, a subway and a bus. All together, it took about an hour and a half just to get to school.

Walking through this neighborhood felt so…different.

It was fully wooded, so most of the buildings were very inconspicuous.

In fact, I've walked this street at least three times in my life, and I never realized there was a school here until the day I took the test.

It was quiet, peaceful, not much movement and just a few meters from the beach.

For a second, I managed to forget I was going to class, until my aunt stopped in front of the administrative entrance and grabbed my wrist.

– How are you feeling? – Her look seemed a little worried, and with good reason. Sometimes her attention strayed from me, as several sophomores and juniors stopped to greet her. But I knew she was paying attention.

– I don't know if I want to go in.

– Y/N, we came here. Do you really want to go home?

– No, I don't want to go back, it will be worse. Just... I don't want everything to be the same. What if I can't talk to them and everyone starts thinking I'm weird? Oh everyone will Oi start ignoring me and well... I don't know if I can take three more years of this.

– Well, if you want, I can ask Marco to keep you company.

– For God's sake, no. Wait, wasn't his name Marcos?

– Marco, Marcos. It's all kind of similar – She shrugged her shoulders. – You can use that as encouragement, I know you're too proud to accept help from others. So do your best not to interfere.

– Okay – There wasn't much I could say.

– Look, you can go to the secretary. If they piss you off, I can make you a matte tea in the staff room. Just please don't punch anyone, they have lawyers – And it was the first time that day that I laughed at something. – Did you see? If you loosen up a little, I'm sure they'll like you.

– Thank you for that... But I think it's better to go there, there are people watching.

– Now you're going to be ashamed of the family? I held you when you were a baby, be more – Her voice passed a false indignation. – But it's ok, go there, Nega. I love you and have a good day.

She hugged me and gave me a push towards the gate. As I was about to walk through the door, I could hear her screaming in the background things like "go, beauty", "you can do it!", "I love you". All in revenge for me asking her not to be clingy in front of the students.

Now there were more people looking, and some people were laughing. And even though I was freaking out a little, this situation felt funny as fuck.

This was the kind of thing that warmed my heart.

Entering the large main door, you found yourself in the entrance hall.

An exactly wide and spacious hallway, with a fork at the end that led to two separate areas of the school.

On the left, there was a large mural with one of the illustrations from the books by Karl Fritz, co-founder of the school.

But specifically the first book of his literary universe, titled as Gründungsgöttin in the original publication in German.

Now to admit as I do that I know about this... It's something I'm a little ashamed to admit.

To the right, the wall was occupied by a giant trophy case, which ran almost to the end of the hall. There were several records of sports and academic championships from the past, as well as some photos of sports teams over the years.

It was a really beautiful thing to see.

At the end of the hall, on the wall that divided the fork, there was a large bulletin board with the list of students for each class.

As there weren't so many people crowded there, I decided to take a look, even though my aunt had already told me which class I would be in.

"Class 1-B: 1-Annie Leonhardt, 2-Armin Arlert, 3-Bertolt Hoover, 4-Connie Springler, 5-Eren Yeager [...]"

Don't have any João Pedro? No Maria Eduarda?

I had to double check to make sure I hadn't magically lost my reading ability and was making up names.

The first names were even quiet. Annie was a rather common name, perhaps Bertolt was a tribute to Bertolt Brecht. But Mikasa? Floch? I thought our country had laws that prevented people from putting names that would make fun of their children.

But there was one name in particular that caught my attention. It sounded good, had an Amin Khader-like vibe.

– Connie we're in the same class! – A brown haired girl practically screamed next to me, totally snapping me out of my trance and causing me to have a mini heart attack.

– No way! So the principal was lying when she said was going to send a letter here warning us that we weren't supposed to be in the same class! – Behind her was a brown and bald boy, visibly as agitated as she was.

– Sasha, see if my name is on the list too?- Another boy started to approach, so I finally realized that I was probably getting in the way and took a few steps back.

Looking around, I saw many other common back-to-school scenes. Students hugging each other, the dramatic girls crying when they meet again, the boys giving their friends friendly slaps as a greeting, the little groups screaming with joy or lamenting the organization of the classrooms. All this while the aging inspector tried to control the more agitated students.

– Stop being lazy Jean, just look – The boy rolled his eyes and approached the list –Shit, am I really going to have to spend another year with you?

–We love you too, Jean-boy. But look on the bright side, Mikasa will too.- Apparently they were friends with the girl with the strange name.

– Is Mikasa in the class?!- and once again he fixed his eyes on the sheet, but soon his visible joy was replaced by an expression of disgust – Eren is too... And his weird friend too.

– What are you talking about me, asshole? Want to fight in front of the school on the first day? – Now, a tanned boy with green eyes was walking towards us, being dragged by the wrist by an Asian e-girl.

When closer to the time of the bell, the more crowded this room was.

He's saying that that boy you mentioned in the group these days is in our room.

– What do you mean Armin is in our class?! – And once again someone ran to this painting, but almost knocking this Jean boy down during the process. – Shit, is his name. But he wasn't supposed to be in our class, he doesn't know Portuguese well. He had to go to German class.

– Zeke said they ended up with the German class, the demand was very low – Said the girl who was also trying to see the list, giving a shy smile when she finally got it. – He's smart, I'm sure he can handle it.

I know I shouldn't be listening to other people's conversations, but my gossip side spoke louder at these times.

As soon as the bell rang, some teachers instructed us to follow the left side of the fork towards the gym.

I ended up not being able to hear the end of the conversation, as they decided to wait a little longer for this friend.

In high school, we first-year students would sit down and listen to a short talk about the school's history.

Much of it was about Karl Fritz, from his birth, academic career and until his arrival in Brazil.

They also explained why the school was called Santa Maria.

Contrary to what some may think, this is not a Catholic school. And that name was a direct reference to this guy's books.

It wasn't until after a great summary of the guy's life biography that they finally focused on us explaining about our academic part.

They started by talking about the institution's commitment to the education of students, about the exhausting routine that we would have from today, in addition to how the teachers will be there to offer all the support we need.

For me, this is standard school speech. Something that every principal pays lip service to just to sound nice to parents and students interested in studying.

Maybe I was forcing myself to be skeptical, but when I realized it, I was totally absorbed by the narrative they artificially created.

Especially when they talked about extracurricular activities.

Just imagining being able to do artistic activities outside of class time without restrictions made me more than passionate.

From theater, sports, even things involving technology. It felt so… surreal. But apparently these are also things that were part of the study plan developed by him.

They also showed a lot of freedom of thought and political expression, talking about the social actions that the students of the student council practiced, and about the debate teams.

Right after all that proud speech, we were instructed to sort the classrooms into rows and wait for one of our seniors to come along to take us on a short tour of the school.

This school was significantly small, so there were only two freshman-year classes with not much more than twenty people in each.

Honestly, that was a little weird to see. Two class here would barely make a class in my old schools.

And even though as a good student I seem to despise the mess that is a conventional classroom, the truth is that these are the things that make school interesting.

A few seconds later, a boy positioned himself in front of our line. He was tall, with neat black hair and freckles that covered his entire face. He was also the only student who wore his uniform shirt buttoned up to his collar.

– Good morning people! How are you?- He said with a lot of enthusiasm, but no one was really paying attention and they just kept talking. – My name is Marco, I'm vice president of the student council – As I realized that this was the boy my aunt was talking about, a boy from the back of the row gave a shout, which interrupted my reasoning and Marco's speech.

-Guys, speak lower please! The boy is trying to talk.- So the entire row was silent. Some out of politeness, others out of indignation at the way the boy spoke. But everyone was silent, and that was what mattered.

- Thank you...- He gestured for the boy to introduce himself, and the message was captured. His name was apparently Reiner. I just gave up trying to understand. – Thank you Reiner! As I was saying, my name is Marco, I'm vice president of the guild and I'm going to introduce the school to you today.

Then he made a gesture and began to lead us out of the gym, down a different path than the one we'd entered.

As soon as we walked through the door, we found ourselves in a hallway that led straight to a kind of built-in patio with the cafeteria.

There were several benches and tables around a large tree that was right in the center of the outdoor area.

And in the cafeteria area, they had another mural, only this time inspired by the book Kampf zwischen Himmel und Erde, and it was just as beautiful as the one at the main entrance.

The tables were set traditionally, not unlike my old school. Of course, apart from the visible absence of the penises that the students liked to draw on the tables and chairs.

The canteen was very discreet, and had a large marble counter and a small partition where people took their order and paid for their snacks.

Overall, it was a very cozy and clean environment.

The school consisted of a three-story rectangular building.

The entrance hall served as a good divider.

To the right were all the traditional classrooms, from the first to the last floor.

To the left was the administrative area, where I could even see my aunt working, which made for a slightly strange feeling. Upstairs we had the 'special activities' rooms, the one above was the science lab, dance room, computer room, and other things.

And it was precisely in this part of the school that we had our first class.

– So guys, here we end our tour. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it, and we will probably see each other again in the next few weeks thanks to the guild elections.- He still had that positive energy from the beginning of the tour, and I was still praying silently that my aunt hadn't told him about me. – If anyone is interested in being part of the guild, they can talk to me at halftime. I always sit with the same people in the outside area, in a circle that always plays MPB, it's not hard to find. If I'm not there, just ask the number of 'Marco who plays guitar' for the people they pass.

Shortly after he left, we entered the classroom. Once I had a general look around the room, I had to control as best I could my childish instincts of wanting to get out and mess with everything.

It was a large, dimly lit room that looked more like a cartoon mad scientist's laboratory.

Shelves with animals in glass, cylinders, test tubes, 3D cell sculpture, life-size skeleton, and what was most shocking, an extremely realistic sarue plush, were just some of the items that adorned the shelves and walls of this room. .

There was even a certain feeling of nostalgia, especially for students who had the chance to visit the national museum once in their lives.

And sitting right on top of the teacher's desk, with the stuffed armadillo in her arms, was a middle-aged white people.

They hair was brown and tied in a messy bun, they wore a white coat with the school crest and glasses. They was also dangling his feathers on the table like a bored child.

– You have no idea how much I love these beginnings of the year. There are so many new faces, so many minds waiting to absorb knowledge – They started, with a little scary mood for a teacher at nine thirty in the morning. – Probably your parents, uncles, brothers, parrots put a lot of fear in you about teaching average. Or they probably said you should make the most of it because the real challenges start in college. Which is no lie, for some high school is by far the best thing ever.

Even though his posture seemed more serious now, them tone of voice was still frantic, the kind you have to stop and pay attention to understand. clearly. – It was in high school that I made friendships that I keep to this day, I fell in love for the first time. And of course, it wasn't my ex-husband, who, by the way, I also met in high school. But for biology – Everyone let out a half-nasal laugh and they smiled back, as if his goal had been accomplished.

Then they jumped up from the table and positioned herself next to the shelf full of glasses and took one at the very bottom of the shelf, which had a snake inside –This is Juliet, a water snake. I found her on a school trip a good twenty years ago when I was about your age – So, They passed Juliet from table to table so that everyone had the opportunity to see her – Everyone from my class said I couldn't take a dead snake home, that it was disgusting, that I should go to the hospital or something. But then our biology teacher, Marcos Antônio, came and said that I could take the snake. Today I see that he just wanted to end the riot we were making, however, that gesture made my day! And even though that day no one chose to come back sitting next to me on the bus, I came back with Juju, and unlike many of those people, she is still a part of my life.

After the snake had been duly admired by all the students, and had left at least a year or two mildly upset, it was carefully put away in the same place from which it had been taken.

– And I know that no one asked, but I was the one who put her inside the glass without anyone's help – His voice passed a strong feeling of pride. – But the point I would like to make is, if you dedicate yourself to the classes, even if you think that everything you learn here is useless. I also thought it was useless, until I realized how much I liked the subject. And it was very frustrating to realize how much cool content I missed that could have helped me in college, or simply to accumulate knowledge.

– I would like during this first class, all of you to introduce yourselves. Okay so many of you studied elementary together, but others didn't, and activities like this are really good for you to get to know each other. It doesn't have to be anything personal, just the basics or what you feel your colleagues should know about you – They stopped swinging his legs and looked at us carefully, waiting for some living soul to manifest.

But it didn't.

–Why all this shyness people? I don't bite, you can talk!– No answer again.

-Okay, I see you guys are too shy for that. Well, we'll have to do it the traditional way. Tanned kid who's been talking in the back row since this class started, introduces himself. Out loud, please.- They said with a more serious tone and a hard look.

When I looked back, I saw the same stall boy from earlier today.

– Hey guys, are you all good? My name is Eren, I live close by, I really like to hang out, I love football and music.

– Do not play! Do you also like football? My dad and brother go to every game. - They returned to his excited state from the beginning of the class and apparently Eren let himself be infected by that energy.

With that, the students were little by little letting go more to talk about themselves.

I've heard everything from the traditional "I like to watch shows and sleep" speech to people who breed carrier pigeons.

Honestly, they didn't look all that different from my old classmates.

Alright, the chaotic anergy was considerably less. However, they still looked like teenagers with great destructive potential.

It was also cool to see the names I saw on the class list get a face, many were completely different from the idealization I created in my mind.

And I was silently waiting for the person I liked the name to introduce himself. I thought he would introduce himself to Eren, since they apparently knew each other, but that's not what happened.

The performances continued, and eventually I had to introduce myself too, and it didn't go as well as I had hoped.

I told about my likes, my hobbies, and like the others, I told them about where I lived and I could hear some students behind me laughing softly and muttering something to each other.

I tried to ignore it, but it was inevitable, this situation ended up lowering my energy.

Mr. Hanji noticed the scene and quickly cast a death glare in the direction of the subjects, who silenced them instantly. – Damn, Bonsucesso is far away, isn't it? I lived there near Tomaz Coelho when I married my ex-husband. It's been a good fifteen or sixteen years now. That place brings me good memories, ok not so many – And they started to speak, but the damage was already done. – This distance is not for everyone, I don't know if I would have the same courage you have at your age. Good luck!

Before I could answer anything, she amended the matter about her ex-husband and started to tell us about their life in Tomaz Coelho.

I even thought about saying something, but who doesn't like to hear about teachers' divorce? This is better than soap opera.

Suddenly a soft knock can be heard coming from the side of the room door. And with that, the teacher composed herself completely and walked calmly to meet whoever was there.

– The class started almost forty minutes ago, where were you? – His tone was once again serious and authoritative, and we couldn't understand what or who was talking to They. – No no, you don't deliver the medical certificate to me, you leave it at the secretary's office. You can sit down and then your classmates will tell you what you missed.

Hange took a few steps back, opening the door fully, allowing us to see the student who was entering the room, discreetly looking for a place to sit.

At first glance, I thought it was a girl, but the closer the figure got, I realized it was just a hairy boy. Wearing that haircut that moms with straight blonde haired kids love to do on their kids.

And indeed, he was a straight-haired blond boy. Really blond, blonder than anyone he'd ever seen in his life.

His skin was equally pale, he had big blue eyes and an uncomfortable expression on his face.

But of all, definitely what caught my attention the most about his apparently was the fact that he was wearing slacks and a long-sleeved shirt under his school shirt.

My aunt was right, the air conditioning here was strong. Strong enough that I was freezing cold in the skirt I was wearing. However, I'm not sure it was strong enough to keep him from getting hot. So really, I was intrigued.

As I thought about it, he simply sat down next to me, but of course, after noticing that the first two rows were completely full.

He also jumped a chair from the couple who were even more clingy now, so we ended up getting really close.

- Hi what's your name...? - He was looking into my eyes, but it seemed like a big effort for him. His tone of voice was shy, with a hint of shame and too low to understand without stopping everything you're doing to pay attention. He also had a strong accent, which even though he was trying his best to disguise it, was still more than noticeable.

- Y/N, what about yours? - I tried to convey as much confidence and sympathy as possible with those few words, since he was the first person that day to talk to me.

- My name is Armin, Armin Arlert.- 'So that was the boy with the cute name? Interesting.' - I was at the doctor earlier today and missed the first few classes. Did something important happen?

– Not much, unless of course you like start-of-the-year ceremonies and school tours – It was supposed to be a joke, but he didn't laugh. And I just tried to go along as if nothing had happened – Well, the only thing you really missed was the schedule of classes they handed out to us when we were downstairs. If you want, you can take a picture of mine – I said as I opened my folder inside the backpack to take the sheet and put it on the table.

Armin took his cell phone from his pocket and took a quick photo of the sheet while muttering a "thank you" under his breath.

I also offered to redo Marco's tour of the school with us, but he insisted he didn't have to, and I didn't want to force it.

The truth is that I felt a strong urge to befriend this boy. He looked nice, he wore anime pins and a kitty keyring in his bag, plus of course the Evangelion background on his cell phone. Judging by those little things and the way he acted, he looked like a shy geek. And I was a shy geek too, kind of seemed coherent to people, who knows, sit together at recess and talk.

- But what about you, Blondie sitting next to Y/N. You just need to introduce yourself. Reluctantly, he rose from his chair and took a deep breath.

- My name is Armin Arlert, I didn't study with anyone here before and that's it.

– You don't want to say anything else, do you? Like where do you live, what do you like to do, where does that accent come from, just things you feel your peers should- wait, did you say Arlert?

– Ah yes... I live in Itanhangá, west side, I like to read, and I have an accent because I haven't lived in Brazil for a long time. And yes, my last name is Arlert – And once again something caught the attention of a considerable part of the class.

- Wait, wait, it's a lot of information at once - as if it wasn't exactly what they asked for - Where did you come from?

- Germany.

- Were you raised there or were you born there?

- Born and raised there.

- Cool, do you know a guy named Joseph Arlert? It's just that you have such a similar surname, he taught me at UFRJ and such.

- Look, there's a good chance you're talking about my grandfather.

– OH FUC- sorry for the wording, kids – They gave a light cough and composed herself. – How is he? I haven't seen him for a long time, he stopped teaching for a while and we ended up losing contact. Damn I can't believe it, I liked his classes so much, he's definitely the kind of teacher that makes the class rewarding to watch, isn't he?

It didn't last long, as she started talking frantically, which left the boy visibly cornered.

– Mr. Zoe, could you please speak a little slower? I don't understand when they talk so fast... – He pleaded almost silently, which wasn't loud enough for the teacher to hear.

- Christ, I'm sorry, I got carried away. Well, I'd love to keep talking to you Armin, but now it's time for the boring part of the class. You can sit down now - The blond Channel boy just obeyed without having to ask twice.

And once he was settled, he laid his head on the table, using his arms to hide his face.

He was muttering some confused words under his breath as he tapped his nails nervously over the marble surface. it was something inconspicuous to the students around him, but something about his action made me uneasy.

The teacher started writing our quarterly schedule on the board while explaining the basics we should study before practical biology classes.

It was something important, especially for me who never studied at such a fast pace. However, the aura that that boy exuded was making me uneasy.

- Hey, are you all right? - I got no answer. - Sorry, but you don't look so good. If you want, I have water in my backpack, it's still cold and stuff. If you're obsessed with cleanliness, don't worry, I didn't even drink from it today.

- Nein, dan- he paused when he realized what he was saying - No need... Thank you.

- Are you sure? - I asked as I put my little pink water bottle on the table, next to him. - If you want, it's there. Feel free to fill it in the drinking fountain later - After that, I stopped insisting and started writing down everything the teacher said in my notebook.

A few minutes later, Armin came out in his cornered position and drank the water, keeping his lips a respectful distance at the mouth of the bottle.

– Thanks – He whispered, so that only the two of us could hear, and I just replied with a "ok" and put the bottle away.

After the blond boy had composed himself, he began writing in his binder everything that was on the blackboard. With some footnotes in German, probably reminders of something he didn't know how to write in Portuguese.

After that incident, he didn't dare say anything else during that class, nor did he look in my direction. He just turned his full attention to the teacher, visibly ignoring the chaotic screams of the backroom crowd.

When this class ended and we were packing our things to leave, I was surprised by the teacher's call, just like the boy who was sitting next to me.

I walked towards her a little fearfully, afraid of something bad I could have done, even though it was logically impossible.

- What face is this girl?

- I don't know, I don't know why you called me...

- Relax, it's not bad. And wait a minute there, Arlert boy. I'll talk to you already – I breathed a sigh of relief, until I heard the second part of this speech. - I happened to read your aptitude test and honestly, I was impressed. It was by far the highest score we had that year. But there's something you probably already know but have no idea about, the pace here is much faster than in public schools. I say this from experience, as I teach both types of schools and I know that even my best public student would be bewildered studying here.

- I see... Is that what you wanted to tell me? - A somewhat demotivating thing to hear on the first day of school.

- Yes and no, but the main thing was that if you need help with the subject, you can come talk to me after class. I also came from public school, and it's horrible to arrive with knowledge outdated in relation to our colleagues – They gave me a motivating smile, this speech is definitely something my aunt would say. I just decided to ignore the coincidence and be grateful for the help, as I'm probably going to need it.

I thanked him politely and left the room, leaving the teacher to say whatever she wanted to talk to Armin about.

Even though the teacher didn't say much, my heart was still racing. And I did my best to ward off any negative feelings by analyzing the things around me.

The school itself was very pretty, with a welcoming style.

I went down the stairs and walked towards the courtyard.

When I arrived at the cafeteria and saw that giant queue, my desire to have a snack just went away, so I ended up opting to go to the bathroom.

He was like an ordinary bathroom, nothing more than expected. Of course, apart from the fact that it looked too clean for a school bathroom.

But I ignored that fact, even because it was the first day of school. At least today he should be tidy, he very much doubted that on other days he would be the same way.

When I was washing my hands, I could see a group of girls laughing and talking against the bathroom wall. Nothing out of the ordinary, we already expect this kind of thing at school.

But when I saw that they were looking at me, my energy, which was already low, started to practically crawl on the floor. But once again, I did my best to ignore everything I heard them say.

I thought about saying a few things, but I couldn't.

I stood still, listening to everything, feeling everything, and keeping it to myself.

Coming out of the bathroom, I saw the group of students from earlier today, only now, Armin was sitting among them.

Sincerely? I was happy for him. A few minutes ago he seemed so anxious, and at least now he has someone to talk to.

How I didn't have the energy to do anything else, not even touch up my makeup. I decided to sit on a nearby bench and try to get my thoughts in order, but they just spoke too loudly.

- But like, so you're German born in Germany? - a girl with black hair asked.

- ... Is there another way to be German?

- I don't know, sometimes your parents are from there.

- My father is Brazilian and my mother was German, so technically I'm both...?

- But man, if you're German, why the fuck did you decide to come to this end of the world? - This time it was Jean who was asking the question.

- It wasn't my decision, just... Family problems.

- What kind of problems?

- The family type - And for a small fraction of a second, our eyes met, and he smiled at me.

And I reciprocate, but somehow, I felt overwhelming sadness right away.

Intense pain, even without knowing exactly where it was coming from.

But still, I knew this was going to be a long day for both of us.

AnneLapin © 2022

#armin arlert x reader #armin x reader #armin arlert #armin x black!reader #fanfic #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #armin x you #atack on titan #snk armin #aot

[13uswntimagines]

Your Ass Is Out of This World (Kelley x Reader)

Request: alex or kelley or sonnett x reader where they've been dating for a few years R is an astronaut for NASA and she gets to go to space

Author’s Note: Special thanks to @literaryhedgehog​ cause without her, none of this would have happened. 

Kelley wasn’t quite sure how she had ended up standing next to a dive bar sipping a lukewarm beer on a Friday night. In her defense, Ali and Ashlyn had convinced her it would be fun and had promised to pay for the Uber rides both ways. It had been fun for a while, dancing with them to some old 70s songs on the light-up dance floor, but half an hour ago they had disappeared off into a hallway somewhere, and she had no intention of third-wheeling (she knew she should have convinced Alex to join them). But she also wasn’t going to leave without them, because she wasn’t convinced either of them were sober enough to take any kind of transportation safely (someone needed to be there to make sure they didn’t puke in someone’s car).

So here she was, standing by the bar waiting for her friends’ sexcapades to be over, nursing her drink. The clink of a glass settling in front of her caught her attention. She blinked at the bartender. “I didn’t order another one,” 

The man’s lips ticked up and he shrugged. “Lady on the end paid for it. Said you looked sad,” 

Kelley looked up, following the man’s eyes towards a woman standing a few seats down the bar from her. She was also standing alone but was dressed as though for a different event altogether. Kelley had embraced the 70s theme of the bar slightly, wearing a jumpsuit and a scarf around her head, but this woman had just thrown a white NASA shirt--like the one Kelley got for her little cousin at Target-- over a pair of black jeans. As she bobbed her head to the music she met Kelley’s eyes and smiled. 

Kelley took that as her invitation to approach. Kelley’s eyes traced her form, lingering on the white material. She didn’t know those came in adult sizes...

“You must be a star, I can't stop orbiting around you” Kelley smiled charmingly as she approached you, setting her beer on the bar beside you and settling in the seat to the left of yours. 

“I do believe I was the one to buy you the drink…” you said, your lips twitching as you tried to keep a serious expression. “Shouldn’t I be the one throwing pickup lines here?”

“You bought me the drink, so I get to be the one to woo you. I’m Kelley, are you from Mars? 'cuz I wanna explore you with curiosity.” Kelley said, wiggling her eyebrows at you, enjoying the light blush coloring your cheeks. 

“Oh my god,” you groaned, “that was terrible. I mean really good but absolutely awful.”

“At least I got you to smile, but you still haven’t told me your name.” Kelley laughed, taking a sip of her beer. She was prepared to lay on the horrible pick up lines for your entertainment. 

“I’m Y/n,” you said, putting down your drink and holding out your hand, “pleasure.”

“They call me the milky way...Pleasure You Can't Measure,” Kelley smiled, shaking your hand as you laughed and pulling you a little closer “Why look at the moon, if I can’t touch it? Why look at your lips, if I can't kiss them,” she said, winking so you knew she was completely joking. 

“How do you know so many of these?” You said, shaking your head in awe. “ All I know off the top of my head is ‘do you work for NASA? Because you’re out of this world!’”

“Ah, a magician never reveals her secrets,” Kelley whispered conspiratoryly, bringing her hand up to cover her lips. “but my team and I have definitely had flirt offs for bonding nights,” 

“Your team?” 

“Yeah, I play soccer for the US and Washington,” She shrugged as if it wasn’t a huge accomplishment. 

Your eyes widened and you nearly spat out your drink. “Didn’t they, like, just win a World Cup?” 

“Yeah, No biggie,” Kelley said, side-eyeing you as she took another sip. 

“No biggie?  I’m surprised you don’t have a swarm of paparazzi shadowing you, that’s incredible! Weren’t the USWNT like the most successful US team in soccer?’

“Hm, there’s not enough drama for them, but we don’t mind. How about you? What do you do beautiful?” Kelley hummed. 

“Oh. I work for NASA,” you said, gesturing at the shirt. “I can’t wait to bring some of those lines back to work.”

“What??” 

****

“So do they at least give you a good choice of flavors? So you don’t get bored and stuff?” Emily asked from across the table, licking her dripping I cream cone. 

When your girlfriend decided to introduce you to the team after their match against Colombia, you were quite surprised she had chosen an ice cream shop as a venue. But with how food motivated the youngins seemed, you realized how appropriate it was. 

“I mean,” you said, your spoon suspended in the air as you blinked at Emily, “ice cream isn’t the only thing we will eat. I’m going to be on the station for like 8 months. Ice cream is not a balanced diet.”

“But it’s the only one they sell in the stores. You don’t have to lie cause the veggie lovers are here,” The defender said, leaning across the table, as though it would prevent the rest of the table from hearing her. 

“Babe, you literally love most veggies too,” Lindsey rolled her eyes, using her thumb to wipe a spot of chocolate ice cream from Emily’s nose. 

“Actually, I heard they’re a pretty good selection of dehydrated fruits and veggies and MRE’s and Tortillas and stuff. Plus I get to take a few things from home…” You mumbled, leaning back. 

She couldn’t be serious right? There was no way she thought you were supposed to sustain yourself on horrible freeze-dried dairy products for that long. Not to mention, freeze-dried ‘astronaut’ products for the most part weren’t actually possible to bring to space, with how crumbly they are. You were more likely to eat actual ice cream on the space station (less chance for an errant crumb being inhaled or destroying an important piece of equipment) than that gift shop garbage. 

“Oh yeah, MRE sounds way more likely than just eating the stuff they literally label as being for astronauts…” Emily said, rolling her eyes. “What does that even stand for? ‘Must reject Emily?”

You opened your mouth to answer, eyebrows furrowed, only for Kelley to nudge you softly. 

“It’s not worth the fight babe, trust me. Not the brightest lighthouse if you know what I mean,” Your girlfriend made a swirling motion with her finger next to her temple. 

You leaned in closer so your lips were nearly touching her ear. “She’s not serious right?” 

“I never joke about ice cream,” Emily answered seriously. 

You blinked at her, looking to your girlfriend who just shrugged and raised her eyebrows. 

“I’m, I’m not sure if they have a flavor rotation system for ice cream flavors. We haven’t been… briefed on that yet,” you nodded seriously. 

…...

“Can you hear me?” Kelley said, tapping her fingers impatiently as your face appeared in the video call. 

“He- -utiful,” You smiled through the glitchy computer screen. Your waving was broken up like a bad claymation. You leaned in to make out the fuzzy figures standing behind your girlfriend, assuming she was at camp or something. 

Normal long distance sucked, but literally being off-planet really made things difficult. It wasn’t like Kelley could just text you when she missed you, or randomly call you when she missed you at 3 am. Sure, she could email and you made a tremendous effort to schedule calls once a month, but it was still incredibly difficult (and slightly weird that a NASA tech dude had to monitor each call to make sure the connection stayed up). And sometimes even the best video-calling technology had issues. Like today (when a giant satellite or piece of space trash would block the signal). 

“Are you hav- -un at -amp?” You asked, grabbing your floating water pouch pushing out a sip sized water drop. 

“Yeah, it’s great,” Kelley said, watching you munch on your water. When you first got on the station you sent her pictures of artwork you made out of different drops of colored water- specifically making a giant water ‘soccer ball’ for her. Then you tried to boop it around and ended up losing control, amusing all your crewmates who watched you trying not to run into too many walls. “We’re looking forward to playing against Brazil on Friday, should be brutal.” 

“We’re set to be ov- Florida on -day, so I’ll try and tune into the ga-. Catch a nice - view,” You nodded, wiggling your eyebrows (which looked more like you having a seizure due to how badly you were pixelated). 

While Kelley wasn’t entirely sure what you were saying, she went ahead and nodded. “Let me know what you think!”

“Wh- color -it are you w-ing? Y- look -uper s-xy in the -ue,” you said, floating up in a ‘draw me like one of your french girls’ pose. 

“You’re favorite one,” Kelley said, winking at you. 

“-es!!” You cheered “-ake p-ture -or -“ the screen flickered dangerously for a second. Before a wobbly picture returned. 

“Babe you’re breaking up, I can’t tell what you’re saying. Y/n. Are you there? UGh. I love you! We’ll talk soon.”

“-ove y- -oo” 

Kelley blew a slow kiss to her camera before she heard a deep voice saying “Sorry ma’am. The connection was lost. Y’all still have five minutes on your scheduled call- Want me to try calling again? See if the signal improves?”

“Yeah,” Kelley shifted, rubbing the bridge of her nose as typing sounds echoed through the speaker. How she was going to make it through four more months of this she had no idea. 

“What if like the ship was attacked by aliens or something,” Sonnett whispered from her left, staring at the blank screen with real trepidation. 

“Not possible ma’am,” she heard him laugh. “But I doubt I would have the right level of security clearance to know.”

“great.”

Kelley grabbed a pen and marked a day off the calendar hanging on her wall. So much for ‘phone call with Y/n.’ She sighed. Just a few months to go. 

****

Gravity fucking sucked. It was disorienting and heavy and made you sick to your stomach. Space station alums always talked about re-entry and how bad that was, but you thought sitting in a NASA hospital bed while your equilibrium readjusted was way worse than your fireball craft plummeting into the ocean. 

“This fucking sucks,” You groaned, again throwing your hand over to pull out the IV. You hated how hard it was to move (and how you actually had to hold up a cup of water to get a drink but that was beside the point). 

“Whoa babe, I know you’re a little out of it right now, but that has to stay in. Just try and relax for a little while,” Kelley said, grabbing your hand and kissing the back of your knuckles. 

You frowned at her through heavy-lidded eyes. “Don’t wanna be here. Wanna be home with you.” 

“I know, but you gotta stay here until the re-entry symptoms have worn off a little more,” She said again. She knew that you weren’t going to be 100% when you stepped out of the spacecraft, but she hadn’t expected you to be so out of it. You were sick to your stomach and entirely unable to walk without assistance. 

The doctors assured her that you would be fine (residual effects from not being in gravity for so long and the impact of the landing or whatever), but it was still difficult to watch. It didn’t help that you were a horrendous patient. 

“Just watch the game. The US is even in Blue,” Kelley tried to coax. Even she was beginning to grow restless. But you couldn’t leave until you could keep down solid foods. 

“I don’t want to watch. You’re not in it,” You said, grabbing the remote from her and turning the television off. Then you tried to set the remote in the air, but instead of hovering like it should have done, it dropped to the ground. 

“Alright, commander Y/l/n. It’s dinner time,” one of the NASA hospital nurses said, bringing in a tray for you. Kelley thanked them as they left since you were too dazed to think of it.  

“God this food sucks, I hate jello ” you grumbled, lifting the spoon in front of your face (fully expecting it to float so you could take your bite) and dropping it as you want to open the pudding packet instead. “I just want a big juicy cheeseburger. With bacon and onions and-“ You trailed off, your mouth watering at the thought. You hadn’t had proper food in 8 months, and it had been your major cravings food. 

“A side of diabetes” she scoffed, picking up the discarded remote and spoon, “And are you going to keep dropping things everywhere?” She asked, carefully filling a spoon with chocolate pudding and guiding it to your mouth. 

“Fuck Newton. Things are supposed to float,” 

****

You loved the soft skin behind Kelley’s ear. It was so smooth, and it always smelt like a mix of her perfume, shampoo, and something inherently Kelley. It was a bonus that your exploration of the area always sent a shiver down her spine. You ran your nose along the skin there, nibbling on her ear before moving down her neck. Leaving little kisses along your path. Kelley sighed, sleepily scratching your scalp and tilting her head to the side to encourage you to continue. 

“You,” Kelley said. “ I like you.”

“Hm, I’m glad. It would be kinda scary if you were doing this with someone you didn’t like,” you mumbled against her skin, unwilling to part with it for even a moment. Kelley giggled at the tickling sensation. How you still had so much energy after you had thoroughly worn her out getting… reacquainted she would never know.

 “But what do you like most. Tell me, babe,” You said, moving your lips a little lower, towards where her shoulder and neck met. 

“I love… your ass. It’s out of this world.” She said sleepily, reaching around to grab her favorite asset of yours. 

“Well, it has been,” You laughed, pulling away reluctantly so you could look her in the eyes. 

“Shut up you goof,” She rolled her eyes, grabbing a pillow and whacking you lightly. You fell over dramatically, pulling her so she was on top of you. 

“Hm, I’m your goof,” 

“Yeah. You are. And babe?” She smiled down at you, leaning down to press a kiss to your lips. 

“Hmm?” You hummed against her lips. She leaned back to look you in the eyes, one forearm across your chest and her other hand beside your head supporting her. 

“No more space travel for a while?” 

 “Pinky promise,” You said, wiggling your hand so your littlest finger connected with hers. 

“Good. I can’t believe I was dating someone from TEXAS for a while.” Kelley pretended to shudder. “Jus think, one of your coworkers might have been a Houston dash supporter!”

#uswnt x reader #uswnt imagine #uswnt imagines #literalhedgehog #kelley o'hara x reader #kelley o'hara imagine

[krizaland]

Yandere Zim X Male Reader? There isn't many out there, and I sort of had a song in mind if you would like to listen: Rory by Foxing.

You got it, friend!

Be warned: There are themes of unrequited love, wasps and a graphic depiction of wasp stings ahead!

Here's the song that was used btw

From the moment he met you, Zim found himself captivated by you.

From your gentle eyes to your kind soul, Zim found you utterly fascinating.

You were nothing like any of the other humans! You weren’t ugly, and you didn’t even stink!

You may have been friends with Dib but that didn’t stop you from sticking up for him whenever Dib tried to expose him!

At first, Zim decided to use you as a good source of information as well as a way to keep up appearances without drawing too much attention to himself.

However, the more time he spent with you, Zim started to feel…strange to say the least.

His PAK would spark around you and his squeedilyspooch felt like it was tied up in knots!

“Computer! What are these HORRIBLE feelings inside of me?! What has that Y/N-human done to Zim?!” Zim demanded as he pointed to the ceiling.

“WELL….UM…”

“C’mon spit it out already!”

“WELL IT SEEMS THAT YOU HAVE FALLEN IN LOVE…”

Zim’s jaw hit the ground.

“WHAT?! ME?! IN LOVE?! WITH A HUMAN?! IMPOSSIBLE! Preform a full body bioscan!”

Zim’s computer sighed as a few mechanical tentacles wrapped around Zim.

“SCANNING…SCANNING….”

After a few minutes, the tentacles retracted,

“BIOSCAN COMPLETE. NO ILLNESSES DETECTED.”

“N-No! No! This can’t be! No invader can even experience love! Especially not for the enemy! What am I going to do?! ARGH! Computer! Create an antidote for my love illness!” Zim commanded as he tugged on his antennas.

“UM THERE REALLY ISN’T A CURE…”

“LIES!! Surely there has to be some way to get rid of these HORRIBLE FEELINGS!” Zim wailed dramatically.

“WELL…THERE IS ONE WAY TO GET RID OF THEM..”

“What are you waiting for! Tell me! Tell me the solution!!” Zim demanded as his voice quivered a bit.

“THE ONLY WAY YO GET RID OF YOUR FEELINGS IS TO ASK Y/N OUT..” The computer lied

“WHAT?! YOU WANT ZIM TO DATE THE ENEMY?! ARE YOU INSANE?!”

“Nyeh!”

Zim’s tirade was interrupted by Minimoose.

“Stay out of this, Minimoose! This doesn’t concern you!”

“Nyeh!”

“Aww! It’s sweet that you care about your master but don’t worry, Zim will be fine!”

“Nyeh!”

“Eh?! Ask Y/N out on a date to keep up appearances?! Never! didn’t I already make it clear that was a bad idea?! There’s no way I’d possibly show that kind of weakness to the enemy. But what if…”

Zim hummed for a moment as he stroked his chin.

“I’ve got it! I’ll ask Y/N out on a date to keep up appearances! Yes…I’ll simply use these feelings as a way to appear more normal so I can continue my mission!”

Minimoose was a bit annoyed but happily encouraged his master

“Nyeh!”

“I think you’re cool too, Minimoose! Now then, how to woo Y/N…Maybe one of those love note thingys.” Zim muttered to himself as he begin typing away at his keyboard.

After a few minutes of typing, Zim cracked a wicked smile.

“Excellent! With this loove note there’s no way Y/N could possibly resist my proposal!”

Zim burst into maniacal laughter as he printed the note.

“Now all thats left to do is deliver it!”

“OOOH!! OHHH!!! CAN I BRING THE NOTE TO RACECAR?!!” GIR squealed as he reached for the note.

“No GIR! I’m not going to risk this note getting damaged because of you!” Zim snapped as he snatched away the note.

GIR did like that answer.

He let out a loud shriek and threw himself to the ground.

He begun to kick and cry as loud as his voice chip would let him.

“ENOUGH! You may deliver the note to Y/N!” Zim grumbled as he held out the note.

“YAY!!!!!!!”

And with that, GIR grabbed the note with his mouth and flew off with it.

“Ugh, I better make sure GIR doesn’t ruin all of my hard work.” Zim huffed as he threw on his disguise and followed after GIR.

It wasn’t long before GIR managed to find you.

You were sitting on a bench in the park next to Dib, who seemed nervous about something.

“Dib? Are you ok? You’re acting kinda…twitchy”

“Twitchy? I’m not twitchy! Heh! It’s just um…the air! Yeah the air is really cold today!” Dib lied as he rubbed the back of his head.

“Dib it’s almost June. It’s like 88 degrees out here. What’s really going on?” You pressed as you gave Dib a sympathetic look.

Dib looked down at his feet and took in a deep breath.

“Ok, I’ll tell you but you have to promise you won’t be grossed out by me.”

“Dib, you’re my best friend! Not even hunting the most disgusting cryptid can make me grossed out by you!” You reassured with a chuckle.

Dib took in another deep breath as he turned to face you

“Y/N, I know we’ve been friends for like a really long time now and….well….”

“Well what?”

Dib swallowed thickly as he tugged at his shirt collar

“I think I might want to be more than friends!”

Dib’s words flew out a mile a minute before he clamped a hand over his mouth.

“Wait?! Are you serious?!” Your eyes lit up a bit.

“Gah! I knew this was a bad idea! Just forget I said anything!” Dib whimpered as he buried his face in his hands.

“No no! I’m actually really happy you told me that, Dib! Because…I want to be more than friends too!” You reassured as you put a hand on his shoulder.

Dib looked up at you and blinked in shock.

“Wait? Really?”

“Yes really! I’ve actually been wanting to ask you out for a while but I wasn’t sure if you felt the same.” You admitted sheepishly as you rubbed the back of your head.

“What?! You had feelings for me this whole time?! And you didn’t even- You know what? Who cares? All that matters is that we both feel the same about each other! Right?” Dib still seemed a bit skeptical.

“Exactly! That’s the spirit!” You cheered as you threw your arms in the air, smacking poor GIR out of the sky.

THUMP!

SPLOOSH!

GIR fell face first into a puddle, soaking Zim’s love note.

However it wouldn’t have mattered whether or not the love note was in tact. For Zim had witness the entire exchange between you and Dib and was devastated.

He let out a pained chuckle as he grabbed the soggy note from GIR’s mouth.

Zim was about to confront Dib when-

BONK!

THUMP!

Zim had walked right into s tree, causing a wasp nest to fall right on his head.

Zim let out a blood curdling scream as the wasps begun to attack him from all directions!

Soon he began to run amok, with more wasps trailing behind him!

It wasn’t long before Zim managed to make it back to his base.

Two robotic arms came down from the ceiling,

POP!

They pulled the wasp nest off of Zim’s head and chucked it out into the front yard.

Zim let out a pained groan as his grotesquely swollen face throbbed with wasp venom and glowing green pus.

The robotic arms carefully peeled off Zim’s disguise and another arm carried him down to his lab.

After a refreshing chemical shower, Zim’s face had returned to normal!

However, while his face had healed, his feelings were still in shambles.

He picked up the note and went back up to the kitchen.

Zim sunk to his knees as he shakily held the soggy note in his hands.

“I wrote you a letter, asked my robot to send it but it took to the sea before you could’ve read it…”

Zim’s grip tightened on the note as a few tears trickled down his cheeks.

“Retreated to snow capped waters of the unknown. Extracted my soul straight from my body! but glowing and red…And I swear that sweat would envelop your arms if you broke down and held it!”

“I swear I’m a good man-“ -Zim took in a heavy breath- “-I swear I’m a good man…”

Zim sniffled a bit,

“So why don’t you love me back?”

He looked down at the note in his hands.

“So why don’t you love me back?”

Zim let out a deep growl as he chucked the soggy note into the window.

“Instead of twisting up words you just say there in silence! In wind burnt homes sighing rays from a sunset!”

Zim rose to his feet and stormed towards the window.

As he peeled the soggy note off the window, he couldn’t help but notice that the wasp nest was still in the front yard.

“And all I could hear was the sound of the wasp nest, my head made a home for the hum of the insects!”

Zim took another glance down at the soggy note he had peeled off the window.

“But my hands shake and shudder at the mention of half written reasons we’ll only be friends!”

Zim’s fist curled around the note and punched the window.

“I swear I’m a good man…. I swear I’m a good man…”

Zim squeezed his eyes shut and let out a sob

“So why don’t you love me back?”

His hand slid down the window.

“So why don’t you love me back?!”

Zim threw the soggy note to the ground and stomped on it

“So why don’t you love me back?!”

He threw his head to the ceiling and shrieked

“So why don’t you love me back?!”

He clutched the sides of his head and wailed his plea once again,

“So why don’t you love me back?!”

Zim melted back down to his knees.

“So why don’t you love me back….”

A louder sob racked his body as Zim felt his world crash down around him.

How humiliating.

He was Irk’s finest invader! How could he be so wounded by one pitiful human?!

No, pitiful wasn’t the right word to describe you. In truth, Zim felt that handsome was a better fit.

Despite how devastated he was, Zim still couldn’t stop wanting you.

The need for your love sparked a fire deep within him.

The fire burned violently throughout Zim’s body! Pulling him out of his depression and making him more confident than ever!

Zim wanted you for some much more than appearances!

He wanted you to be his and his alone!

By taking you away from him, Dib had just made the biggest mistake of his life.

Zim let out a thunderous maniacal laugh as he raised his hands to the ceiling!

He put his disguise back on, grabbed a blaster, and hopped into his Voot.

“Prepare yourself, foolish Dib-monkey! I am coming to reclaim what’s rightfully mine! You shall rue the day you took Y/N away from Zim!”

#invader zim #invader zim x male!reader #invader zim x reader #dib x reader

[mellowyandere]

SCP Academia Eraserhead Part 2

Reader: F

Characters: Aizawa Shouta (main); Kurogiri

Summary: After struggling to find his way out with Dr. L/N, Eraserhead is offered some help. (This turned into a lot more exposition than expected. Part 3 will get steamy though I promise! I’m just a hoe for setting the stage.)

Length: 1442 words

Warning: Yandere-themes.

He had been running for a while now. Hallways and corridors bleeding into one another in a way that turned his head upside down. He hadn’t had to open any doors so far, and a strange absence of security set off little alarms in the back of his head.

Left…no right? He snarled in frustration. Curse this stupid foundation. He knew it wasn’t going to be easy but this was simply ridiculous. He peered down at your unconscious form, nestled protectively against his chest in a layer of his tendrils. So small and weak... he had to keep pushing forwards.

He had been forced to kill a couple of SCP’s along the way, not all being as sentient and rational as himself. Their desire to kill you forfeiting their rights to life.

Shit. Another dead end.

Something cleared their throat behind him, causing him to spin on his heel. His tendrils flared out ready to cut down whatever it was. To his surprise there stood what appeared to be a man made of mist, wearing human clothing. His sharp attire strongly contrasted his own, which consisted of an orange jumpsuit, the top half having been torn to shreds when he unleashed his tendrils, and a pair of standard issued boots.

“Move out the way. Don’t make me hurt you.” He didn’t have time for this, who knew when security would appear to regain control of the breach.

The mist man raised his hands to show his non-hostility. “You look a bit lost… would you like some help leaving this place?”

Eraserhead narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Why would you help me?”

“Don’t you find it odd..” Ah great this might take a minute. If he wasn’t blocking off the hallway Eraserhead would have left by now, but the man in front of him didn’t look like someone he could simply side step.

“Beings such as ourselves don’t belong here. By all means humans are nothing more than fodder in comparison. And yet they contain us? They’re witty creatures with dangerous minds, it’s what gotten them this far. But so are we. This containment breach was no accident, I’m sure you’ve already noticed almost every enclosure open, save for the truly unhinged ones. And a complete lack of guards to corral you back to your prison. No, there are higher powers at play. But now isn’t the time to delve into that, so I’ll ask again… would you like some help leaving this place?”

The mist man finished his little speech and opened his arms, inviting Eraserhead forward.

“What’s the catch?” Eraserhead knew better. Nothing in this world was done from the kindness of one’s heart. Well, except for you. You were the only real kindness he had ever known.

The mist man chuckled. “I see you are a man of caution. Yes this exchange is not for free. We’ll be keeping tabs on you. Your intelligence and abilities make you a very strong creature indeed. One day we’ll need you to help free our kind from the shackles of humanity.”

Lowering his arms the man took on a more sinister aura. “Let it be known though, I don’t need your consent to teleport you. I’d choose my offer. After all that human in your arms looks so frail, she might not make it out here alive if you keep at it.”

Shit. This bastard wasn’t leaving him with much choice.. should he fight his way out? He wasn’t exactly sure what his opponents abilities were besides teleportation. Even if he erased them, can you punch a man made of mist? His clothes clung to him, but who knew his real body composition.

No. This man was too dangerous, and his threat towards your well-being still hung heavily in the air. “Alright. Deal.”

The mist mans nodded with a hum, satisfied with his answer. “Start with continent, State or province, then major nearby city. Small nearby towns if applicable.”

Eraserhead listed off what was asked of him. His goal was to bring you to his old self-isolation home. He used to live amongst humans with little to no problems. His larger than normal stature at 6’10” raised a few eyebrows but nothing too serious. He kept the dark markings along his torso covered, and a scarf helped to hide his deathly white complexion. As for the eyes, he always wore sunglasses.

His issue had arisen with the month of his “birth”. For as long as he could remember, during the month humans called November, he went absolutely feral. Losing all control over his himself he’d slaughter anything that crossed his path. He’d make sure to isolate before November came along, and for the most part it worked. He had lived many centuries alongside humans with only the occasional slip up.

Five years ago he slipped up. And the SCP foundation had been all over him ever since.

“I can’t get you to any of the nearby towns, but I can get you to the city,” the mist man stated. “Step forward, I’ll take you there now.”

With that the man began to spread out the mist that defined his body, pooling out until he filled the entirety of the corridor. Eraserhead stepped forward into the blackish purple abyss, his vision going dark. Squinting he tried to peer through the pitch black that surrounded him, until finally he could see again. Stars lit up the night sky above him, and the sound of cars echoed down far below. Stepping onto concrete he moved out of the portal. This creature had quite a powerful ability. 

“What you do from here is up to you. We’ll give you some time to adjust and then we’ll contact you. Do not think that you can hide from us.” With that the mist vanished and Eraserhead was left alone atop a tall building with you in his arms.

It would be about a half a day of running to get you home from here. Meaning it would be wise to stock up on supplies now. That way he wouldn’t have any reason to leave you alone for the next week or two as you adjusted to your new home. The tall creature checked you over, making sure you wouldn’t wake up anytime soon before leaving you on the rooftop. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but he’d move fast.

Jumping from building to building he made quick work of locating and snagging some clothes from a local donation box in order to change out of the tattered orange jumpsuit. One extra-large black long sleeve shirt and accompanying extra-large pair of blacks pants. Grabbing a few bags that had also been inside, he headed for the nearest chain supermarket. He’d stock up on essentials like food and nest making materials, as well as daintier things that you might like such as feminine soaps and fluffy stuffed animals.

Due to the limitations in his interactions with you he didn’t really know what you’d want, but he had the rest of your time together to learn.

He was going to prove to you that he was the best mate you could ever dream of having. No one else would ever be good enough for you. And no one else would ever be good enough for him with you now in his life. He had never encountered a human like you before, and he’d be damned if anyone ever dared try to take you away or hurt you.

Making quick work of the supermarket he dashed out as the alarms rang. It hardly mattered though, he wouldn’t be coming back to this city. He had enough money stashed away that he’d be able to buy what he needed from small towns as to not draw attention to himself. Despite what the mist man had said about a new world order, he didn’t want to chance the foundation getting back on its feet and finding him.

Quickly climbing the building he left you on he was relieved to see your small form still sound asleep on the cold concrete. He wrapped his tendrils around his new stash of goods and scooped you up in his arms yet again, taking a moment to nuzzle his face into the crook of your neck and deeply inhaling your scent.

Even if he had to give up part of his freedom to get here, holding you in his arms had all been worth it. Now all he had to do was get you home, and then he’d make sure to repay every gesture of kindness you had ever shown him tenfold. His precious cute little human.

#yandere aizawa #aizawa x reader #aizawa shouta x reader #yandere shouta aizawa #aizawa x you #bnha aizawa #SCP Academia

[chxrrysangel]

Stark Tea Time

Summary || Morgan Stark drags Bucky to one of her legendary tea parties, Sam leaving him to drown in pink fluff and glitter.

Warnings || Bucky actually smiles

You do not have permission to post my work anywhere else

“Lay up Cyborg, live a little. It’s not like I’m gonna di—”

“Look! Sam, I drew something for you!”

The two men’s attention is diverted from their conversation as little Morgan Stark comes barreling down the hallway, paper flapping in one hand and an assortment of crayons in the other. Her hair is covered in little butterfly clips, strands adorned with a wide array of colors from the chalk dye strewn across her cherry wood floors. She’s wearing a massive tutu, dressing to the 9s in a blue ballerina costume.

Sam smiles at the little girl, always excited to see what she has to offer. Ever since Tony passed, all of the Avengers men have taken on a father-like role towards the child, always making sure she feels loved and cared for. It’s the least they can do.

He bends down to her eye level, giving her his full attention. The smile on Sam’s face is in complete contrast to the grimace adorning Bucky’s features.

“What’s up sweetheart? Whatcha got?”

The little Stark giggles in excitement, overjoyed to see her two favorite Avengers come to see her again. They’re always quite busy, saving the world and everything. So each visit is quite meaningful to her. They’ll never replace Tony, but they ensure that his memory and love for Morgan is something she’ll never lack. They’d all die before that happens, and she knows that.

She takes the drawing from behind her back and lays it out for both of them to see. It resembles some sort of bird-like figure, Sam thinks to himself. Next to it is a robot-type figure, not failing to notice the frown etched into his features with a Crayola marker. Shaking with excitement, the little Stark looks at the two men expectantly.

“What is it?”

Morgan sighs loudly, annoyed by their stupidity and lack of “artistic vision”. The two men have yet to figure out where she learned such a concept.

“It’s you guys! Duh!” Their mouthes form into an ‘o’ shape in understanding.

“Well it’s stunning. It’s absolutely beautiful Morg. You know, I might have frame this one actually. When you become a famous painter, this is gonna be worth so much money!” Morgan squeals, jumping around excitedly as Sam praises her.

“I think it’s kind of ugl—” Sam cuts him off by sending a small electrical current to Bucky’s arm, causing him to hunch over in pain as he’s being electrocuted.

“What he was trying to say is that it’s very avant-garde, meaning unique in the art world. Don’t worry little Stark, it’s a good thing.” Sam smiles at her encouragingly, hoping Terminator’s harsh words back there wash over her. She nods in understanding, James’s words already long forgotten.

The two men attempt to continue their conversation from before, discussing details about their next mission. There’s a hostage situation in the Palace of Westminster, the perpetrators threatening to blow the whole thing up with everyone in it. But before they can really strategize how to scope out the place, Sam feels a tap on his leg.

“Yes princess?”

“Can you guys come to my tea party?”

“Actually Morgan, we have to go so—” Bucky starts to say before being rudely cut off my bird-man to his left. Sam shoot daggers in his partner’s direction and the words die in his throat.

“Actually, I have to go take care of something really quickly. But Bucky can join you.” At those words, Bucky’s head jolts in his direction, giving Sam one of the meanest looks he’s probably ever seen. But the big man is all bark and no bite, so Sam just laughs in his face. Bucky’s fists tighten at his sides, thinking of all the ways he plans to torture and murder Sam when they leave the Stark house.

Morgan, on the other hand, is practically bursting at the seams. Bucky doesn’t know this, but he’s her favorite of all the Avengers, especially because his titanium arm reminds her of her dad’s suit. She feels closer to him when she’s with Bucky. Plus, they’re both kinda stoic, but it’s only an act in her eyes. She knows that deep down, he has a heart of gold.

Morgan takes Bucky by the hand, dragging him down the hallway back to her room. Meanwhile, Bucky looks back at Sam, pleading for some kind of mercy or aid. Sam, of course, provides no such thing and only cackles at his best friend’s misfortune. He says goodbye to Pepper, promising to be back once he finishes talking to Torres.

Meanwhile in a certain Stark’s bedroom…

Morgan bounced from corner to corner of her large bedroom, capturing all of the items she needs for this special occasion. It’s not often she has a guest for her weekly tea parties, let along James Buchanan Barnes of all people. She has to make a good impression if he’s ever going to come back.

Standing like a dark looming giant,surrounded by tiny chairs and more pink and purple than he’s ever seen, Bucky is clearly out of his element. At 6’0 tall, he stands taller than anything in this room, standing neck and neck with the canopy bed in the middle. Morgan doesn’t take notice of his discomfort however, she’s just happy to have him. She whips around him, gathering her stuffed animals at the table and setting up the placemats for each guest.

Almost as if having an epiphany, the mini Stark girl gasps and runs out the bedroom, yelling that she’ll be right back. Bucky wanders around the room, taking notice of all the little trinkets and toys that he, along with the rest of the team, gifted to her over time. His lips contort into a ghost of a smile, reminiscing all the times Morgan screamed for joy every time they came bearing gifts. The gifts didn’t really matter to her, though. It was just their presence that set her heart into cardiac arrest and her cheeks aflame. They were her family.

Not soon after, Morgan returns dragging a more normal sized chair into her room. Bucky is surprised at this action, as the small girl is barely breaking a sweat. That is, until he noticed the two small gadgets attached the back of the chair, marked with Tony’s insignia. So little Stark is smart, just like her dad.

Morgan sets the chair down next to her own pink, fluffy and bedazzled throne at the head of the table. She sits down, motioning Bucky to take a seat and calls the tea party into session. Bucky’s eyes wander over the pristinely white tabletop, taking in the wide assortment of snacks. From shortbread, frosted oatmeal cookies, to cheeseburgers and mini sandwiches, you name it and she’s got it. The baked goods are Pepper’s doing of course, courtesy of her daily afternoon attempts to become the next Martha Stewart. Morgan doesn’t mind at all, eager to indulge in a daily sugar high as the designated guinea pig.

“Tea?,” the child offers, “it’s raspberry, your favorite.” James can’t help but blush as her consideration of his tastes. For a kid, she’s a pretty decent host. He quickly covers up his blush by coughing and nods firmly.

After filling up the China tea cups lined up around the table, Morgan moves towards introductions. “Bucky, these are my friends. There’s Mr.Whiskers, Genevieve, Fae, Natasha, Tony, and James. They’re very happy to have you here with us. They think you look quite nice today.”

James? As in… Bucky can’t help but blush again, honored that Morgan named one of her beloved stuffed animals after him. He smiles shyly, staring at the lavender Elephant across the table. The girl doesn’t fail to notice his smile, happy that he’s happy.

“So James, how do you feel about glitter?”

~~~

The doorbell rings sometime around 7:00, just after sunset. Pepper opens the door to a smiling Sam, carrying a mysterious box by his side. He just left Torres house, the two men agreeing to scope out the place just before dawn when everyone is still sleeping. That way, they can get a good picture of what it looks like on the inside without having to use night vision technology.

“What’s in the box?”

“Lemon Merengue. For Morgan.” Lemon Merengue is Morgan’s favorite dessert. So by bringing her some, Sam hopes that she’ll forgive him for taking a rain check on one of her illustrious tea parties.

“They’re still down the hall.” Pepper points in the direction of mini Stark’s room, before returning to her baking. Tonight, she’s trying devil’s food cake.

Even from down the hall, Sam can hear the chatting of two distinct voices, a deep scratchy one and a much higher, daintier tone. He shakes his head at Morgan’s complete lack of an inside voice when she’s excited. They must be having a blast in there.

To Sam’s surprise, Bucky actually seems to be enjoying himself. He stands in the doorframe, watching the two chat back and forth while a Disney movie soundtrack plays in the background. From the distinct piano, Sam recognizes Beauty & the Beast (also one of Morgan’s favorites).

Sitting down obediently, Bucky gives Morgan his full attention as she places puffy stickers on his titanium arm and adds little doodles to his real one. He smiles as he watches her drawing a picture of the two of them with princess tiaras and feather boas, just like they are now. She babbles away, telling him the details of the movie she wants them to watch together. It’s called Tangled, he learns.

Sam decides to leave the two alone, going back to help Pepper bake in the kitchen. Although, not before snapping a picture of the two together, reminding himself to print it and put it on the fridge. He knows that Pepper isn’t exactly the kindest person to be in the kitchen with, as she is very bossy and demanding. But he’d take that over ruining this special moment in the princess-themed room down the hall.

He can still hear the faint giggles and screams of Morgan, this time begging Bucky to stop tickling her. She pleads for mercy but he refuses to budge, only making her laugh harder and her giggles to bounce off the walls like they’re in an echo chamber. And to think, he was gonna say no earlier.

#sambucky #tfatws #sam wilson #bucky barnes #morgan stark #marvel #the avengers #winter solider fanfiction #tony stark #bucky fluff #pepper potts