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kindersurprisebacterium · 7 months

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Steel (Dabi/Reader)

Explicit Sexual Content, MDNI

TW: knife play, degradation, scare actor Dabi, some blood

Gender Neutral AFAB reader

I peered out from behind a corner. The flashing lights and sweeping plumes of fog obscured my vision. I shifted onto the balls of my feet, trying to dull the click of my heels against the linoleum. Screams echoed through the winding hallways. I quickly ducked into a room. The decrepit wooden floors were scattered with debris. Old newspapers and thick white cobwebs. Thudding footsteps filled my ears. I quickly dove behind a dresser haphazardly placed in the corner of the room. The footsteps slowly grew closer, turning into thundering stomps.

“Oh come on. I saw you come in here,” the scare actor spoke loudly, swinging around his plastic machete. While it wasn’t real, it was still fun to pretend as if I were in a video game. I placed a hand over my mouth, stifling my laughter as I watched the actor frantically search for me. Cyan eyes snapped over to my location, squinting as he grinned widely.

“There you are.” He chuckled, holding out a hand. “Come on, stand up.” He held out a hand for me. I laced my fingers with his. He pulled me to my feet, spinning me around so my back was against a wall. His palms slammed against the wall, caging me in. His painted face leaned in close to mine.

“You gonna run, rabbit?” He asked, tapping me on the head with his prop machete.

“Nice house of a thousand corpses reference,” I laughed lightly as my eyes scanned up and down his face. Sharp features were drowned out by layers of face paint. “Well, now I don’t want to.” I pouted.

“Come on, doll, play along so I get paid.” He said, fingers grasping my chin.

“Give me a ten-second head start,” I said, pushing his arm so I could break free from his grip.

“Deal,” He smirked, stepping back, and twirling his machete between his fingers. I began sprinting down the hallway, glancing over my shoulder to see cyan eyes watching me run away. I ducked into a bathroom, what looked to be dried, brown blood was smeared across the white, tiled room. Reminiscent of a saw movie, an ankle chain sat buckled around a pipe. The door squealed, the lock clicking in place as a familiar pair of hands blocked my exit.

“I know we said ten seconds, but I can’t help myself.” He moved closer, machete clattering as he tossed it aside. His fingers slipped through my belt lips, pulling me close. His hot breath fanned against my neck. His lips lay just centimeters away from my heated skin.

“Just so I know I didn't misconstrue this…do you want me to fuck you?” He licked a stripe up my neck, right up to my earlobe. His teeth sunk down on the flesh.

“Looks like you have some brains in you after all.” I laughed, toying with the hem of his distressed shirt. He slipped the dirtied fabric over his head, revealing skin adorned with ink. “That thing is plastic, right?” I asked, pointing to the machete. He nodded, glancing back at the discarded prop.

“You want a real blade?” He asked, fingers grabbing something from his back pocket. He revealed a small switchblade and flicked it open to reveal a small steel blade around four inches in length. “Safeword is clavicle,” he said, pushing my back against the sink. He held the blade's hilt in his mouth as his fingers quickly worked on the button of my jeans. He quickly yanked down the zipper and pushed the denim off of my hips. The material fell down my legs along with my underwear. I stepped out from the material. His hands moved to my shirt, quickly ridding the cloth from my body. I stood naked, leaning against the dirty sink as he eyed my body up like a predator of sorts. He grabbed the knife from his mouth and gripped it tightly in his hand.

“You know, you really are bad at hiding,” he clicked his tongue, stepping closer to me. “Maybe I should carve you up. Teach you a fuckin’ lesson,” he said, dragging the blade up my thigh and to my hip. “Did you want me to find you? Want me to catch you again?” He pushed harder on the blade. The steel sunk into my skin just enough to pull bubbles of blood from my veins. “Huh?” I hissed at the sting of the blade. My skin began to heat up, my cheeks growing hot as he spoke again.

“You want me to fucking use you?” He asked, teeth biting down on my neck.

“Fuck, please!” I whined, my twitching hips pushing further into the blade. He quickly pulled the cold steel away from me, hands soothing over my quivering body.

“Careful, baby. Don’t move too much. I’m not done with you yet.” He tucked the blade into his pocket and sunk down onto his knees. He grabbed my leg and threw it over his shoulder. He dove in, licking a thick stripe up my cunt. I gripped at his black hair, pulling his face closer to my aching clit.

“Fuuuck,” I sighed, hips twitching as his tongue began flicking against my clit. My eyes rolled to the back of my head. My jaw went slack, and a stream of incomprehensible babbles slipped from my tongue like drool. Two fingers began circling my entrance, sinking in ever so slightly, just to pull back out again. I whimpered, thighs quaking around his head. He chuckled, the vibrations sending sharp jolts of pleasure through my core.

“Ohhoh fuck,” my words began to slur together as his tongue drove me deeper into bliss. His fingers plunged inside me. My hands gripped the porcelain sink tightly, thigh squeezing tightly around his head. A sharp slice along my outer thigh sent me careening toward a violent climax. My fingers yanked on his messy black locks, drawing a moan from him. The vibrations from his throat sent painfully overstimulating pricks of sensation down my legs, to my toes which were now curling. Another sharp slice through my skin ripped another burning orgasm through my core. My muscles contracted and relaxed, spasming violently as he fucked me further into bliss. Lips wrapped around my clit, fingers thrusting in and out faster than before. I screamed, voice straining as liquid pooled from between my legs. He pulled his soaked face from between my legs, hands roughly gripping my hips and turning me over so my chest pressed against the sink.

“Let’s see if we can get you to do that again, doll,” he smirked as he pulled his belt from the loops of his ripped jeans. My blurry eyes caught his reflection in the mirror. From underneath the smudged face paint were glimmers of pretty, pierced skin. “You on birth control?” He asked. I mumbled out a jumble of words. His fingers gripped my face, fingers digging into my cheeks to open my mouth.

“Fucking answer.” He spat.

“Pill!” I answered through his intruding fingers.

“That’s it, baby,” he smirked, fingers leaving my face, “See how easy it is when you just do what I say?” He pressed gentle kisses against my heated skin, over my neck, and down to my shoulder. The head of his cock began poking at my entrance, pushing in slowly. My teeth sunk down into my bottom lip as lines of barbells pressed against my insides.

“Mmg, fuck!” I moaned, legs shaking as he bottomed out. Soft pants escaped his lips, breathy moans slowly breaking down his tough exterior. His painted nails dug into my hips, leaving behind angry marks and droplets of blood. He started up a rough pace. His hard thrusts had my body rocking against the cold porcelain sink. Drool pooled from my lips, tongue only able to speak in slurred, incoherent babbles and pleas. My eyes painfully strained as they rolled back into my skull. With every tap against my cervix, and every brush of silver against my aching nerves, my body dove further into haze and static. Clouds of fog swarmed my thoughts, the only thing keeping me grounded being the rhythmic slap of his hips against my ass. My legs quivered, swaying and jolting as my muscle fibers went slack.

“Can’t even- uhn- hold yourself up?” He asked, voice laced with lust. “Fuck, you feel good,” he groaned, head falling back as his pace grew wild. He pressed the tip of the blade to my back. The sharp slice of metal against my skin had my stomach clenching as a wave of pleasure rolled through my body.

“Oughta carve my name into you. Or should I just cum inside you?” He spoke through heavy breaths. My response was a whine, accompanied by my cunt clenching around his cock.

“Mm, you want that?” He groaned, bringing the knife back down to my skin. Another slice across my skin sent me reeling into the depths of another climax. My count spasmed around his cock, milking him, pulling him closer to his climax. Another slice and he quickly pulled out. Through the reflection, I saw a bright flash, and then darkness. Fingers gripped my hair, pulling my chest away from the sink. I squinted as he shoved his phone in front of my face.

“Look,” He Said, shaking my head. I opened my eyes, letting my vision focus on the image in front of me. It was a picture of my back, a bloody D carved into my skin. “How do you like being branded like fucking cattle,”

“Fuck me. Please.” I spoke, wincing at the pain in my scalp.

“Oh you’re a fucking delight, ain’t ‘cha?” He grinned, letting go of my hair. “You want my cock? You want to cum again?” He asked, spinning me around and pinning me against the cold tile. He grabbed the back of my thighs, lifting me up and keeping me tight against the wall. The head of his cock nudged against my entrance. I nodded, unable to get out anything more than a whimper. He pressed his lips to mine in a soft kiss. My tense muscles relaxed as I melted into his touch.

“You okay, babe?” He asked, pressing a kiss to my cheek and pulling back. I nodded and wrapped my arms around the back of his neck. He slowly sunk his cock into me, breathy noises slipping from his lungs as he bottomed out.

The pace he set was slow but deep. My nails clawed up his back as my aching body was filled with pleasure again. My hoarse voice could only produce pants and soft whimpers. My lips, smudged and slick with saliva, stayed parted in a silent drawl of sorts. My eyes stared forward at the wall, and yet my vision was too faded and hazy to get a clear picture. My toes curled, stomach squeezing tight as I neared orgasm. His voice began to break and raise in pitch. His pace grew sloppy and erratic, his hold on my legs slipped slightly as he came. Warmth flooded my core, along with another burning orgasm that ripped my muscles and tugged at my tendons. His shaky hands ushered my feet to the floor. My legs buckled, my body plummeting forward into his chest.

“Shit, okay.” He mumbled as he slowly lowered me to the floor. He kneeled in front of me, hand cupping my cheek. He pulled out his phone, flicking the screen on before quickly putting it back in his pocket. “I’m off in fifteen. How about you hang around and I’ll take you back to my place?” He asked, pressing a kiss to my forehead.

“Tell me your name first.” I leaned into his touch, pressing a kiss to his hand.

“It’s Dabi. I’m…uh…sorry for not telling you earlier.” He pulled my shirt over my head, adjusting the fabric so it lay evenly. “I’ll give you my number. That way I can text you once I’m out.” He offered, grabbing my jeans from behind him. He stood up, holding his hand out for me. I grabbed onto his hand and braced myself against the wall as he helped me up. He held my hips steady as I stepped into my jeans. I redid the button on the front, watching as he opened the contacts app on his phone. He held the device out for me. I smiled, taking it from his hands and quickly typing in my number. I handed the phone back to him. Stepping forward, I pressed a kiss to his lips.

“Your makeup is fucked up,” I told him as I approached the door. “See you in fifteen.”

#ao3 fanfic #fanfic #read on ao3 #dabi smut #dabi x reader #touya smut #touya x reader #dabi x y/n #bnha smut #bnha x reader #bnha fanfiction

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sagitarrio · 1 year

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Day 3 - pets

New tricks

by MyBladeIsWorseThanMyBite

"Not allowed to participate" Hokuto grumbled, he was walking away from the stadium after watching Gingka's match with that arrogant new kid. He was feeling terribly indignant, "its discrimination!"

Hokuto knew he wouldn't have been able to win. Even with all his training, he was nowhere near the level of Japan's top bladers, but to not even be able to try! He had proven himself, he had made it to the Battle Blader finals, beating hundreds of other much taller bladers.

But nooo, just because he has four legs and a fluffy tail, poor old Hokuto is kicked to the curb.

But worst of all (and Hokuto would have a sob about this later, right now was he was too busy huffing) was that his best friend Gingka had just stood by and let it happen. After watching Gingka put himself on the line for his friends countless times, Hokuto couldn't help feeling abandoned.

"I'll show them, I'll show them all! The WBBA, Kyoya, Kenta... Gingka" he hopped on to a tram, setting his sights on new horizons "I'm going to make them acknowledge me, no matter what it takes!"

Gingka hit the ground, what was left of Pegasus scattered around his limp body. "HOLD ON GINGKA!!!" screamed Kenta, doing his best to check Gingka's vitals with violently shaking hands. Gingka drew a weak, desperate breath "I'm sorry Kenta" he whimpered "this was all I had".

"MUAHAHAHAHA" Damian stood above, looking down on Gingka curled up on the ground, looking down on everyone as the grim reality settled in their faces, "to think that this is the best humanity has to offer, it's pathetic" Damian doubled over in hysterical laughter, tearing up, until he ran out of breath and ended up wheezing.

A voice broke through the laughter "Too bad for you, it's not just humanity you're up against" everyone looked up except Damian, who was still regaining his composure, a hooded figure stood in front of Gingka. Kenta gasped, "Is that...?" The mysterious stranger spoke again, this time commanding Damian's attention, "I'm going to defeat you, and I'm going to save my friends." Damian let out a grunt of annoyance "how dare a gnat like you interrupt my victory", he flicked his hand and Kerbecs went flying straight for the stranger.

The stranger effortlessly stepped aside as Kerbecs shot past his head, blowing back his hood and pulling the cloak up behind him. There stood Hokuto, his once bright green headband dirtied, fur rough, and Kenta was close enough to notice a large scar running down his leg. But that wasn't what everyone else noticed, he was larger than before, rippling muscles, and an aura of strength almost as overwhelming as Damian's. His cloak came undone and flew away in the wind.

Hokuto pulled out his launcher, "Let's do this Libra", he felt Libra steady itself for battle "Let it rip!!" Hokuto launched his bey, feeling the friction of the gears, the resistance of the spring, the lagging inertia of Libra's growing momentum, the sensations of this movement had become known in every muscle, nerve, and cluster of brain cells in his body. The sense of balance, focus, and resolve, settling in his core as his spirit synchronised with Libra's, was as much a part of him as his tail.

Libra carved through the air, gaining energy as it accelerated towards Kerbecs, which had returned to its station in front of Damian. The turbulence whipped the water around it into a massive wave, but Libra still flew with a terrifying steadiness. "Libra, deliver justice!" Hokuto brought his paw down in a sharp strike, and Libra slammed into Kerbecs, throwing up a huge cloud of water and dust.

Damian felt the impact too, felt the crack along Kerbecs' Boost Disk, felt the heat rising in his cheeks and his heart pounding in his chest. "HOW... DARE YOU" the dust cleared and the two beys stood there, regaining their stance after the impact. Hokuto pointed at Damian, "You're in the dog house now, pal. The real battle starts now!" A green light began pulsating from Hokuto and Libra, and Libra began building up speed. "Destory them Kerbecs!" Damian screeched, and his bey's energy exploded, the beys collided again and again, each impact shaking the ground, until both beys began to falter.

Damian let out a sounds from the depths of Hades, his face a bright pink, voice shaking, "I simply can't! I can't! I can't lose to a fucking dog!!" Kerbecs began to vibrate, its energy becoming volatile, "Finish it Kerbecs!!!". It shot toward Libra, and missed, before swinging around and coming back even faster, this time making contact and nearly knocking Hokuto over. Kerbecs let out an erratic and wild barrage of attacks, often missing, but the energy of a missed attack would be added to the next hit.

"HOKUTO!! DON'T GIVE UP!!!" Blader DJ shouted, watching from a distance "Your our only hope! We believe in you!" the crowd began to cheer. Hokuto smiled "Let's finally finish this Libra", Libra started gathering energy and levitating slowly into the air, out of reach of Kerbecs. "Ultimate move! Destiny hammer!!" A perfect cylinder of solid energy thudded into existence around Libra, crushing Kerbecs beneath it, cracking the ground and boiling the sea.

The move ceased, and Kerbecs stood still, half stuck in the ground, Libra flew back to Hokuto's hand. "We did it bud" he whispered, then turned to face Damian "You're done for, pal, beyblades will never be weapons of war!" Damian said nothing, just staring off into space, mouth hanging open, a foundational pillar of his reality had shattered and now his mind was all over the floor.

The crowd began to cheer as Hokuto checked on his injured friend

"Thank you Hokuto!"

"You saved us!!"

"We're so sorry for kicking you out of the tournament!"

Gingka looked up as Hokuto sniffed his face "I'm sorry too Hokuto, I should have stood up for you" Hokuto smiled, tears rolling down his cheeks "I forgive you old friend, I missed you so much".

The crowd cheered as they threw Hokuto up into the air "Hokuto! Hokuto! Hokuto!"

The End

#mayblade 2023 #Hokuto was done dirty #In case it's not obvious this is meant to be like if Hokuto wrote a story where he saves the day #there's a fair bit of assumed context from the manga sorry if its confusing #For the other beyblade nerds out there he upgrades his bey to a Libra T125RF for the final fight #I'm really happy with this one #it's a real underdog story #oh and ignore that it's kinda fucked up for Hokuto to be writing about Pegasus being destroyed like that pls and thank you #its the compromise between interesting and realistic storytelling #mfb #damian hart #hokuto #mfbmanga #fanfic

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buck-nialled · 3 years

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Hello Kitty - B. Barnes

NOTE: for the sake of this imagine, let’s pretend that Bucky knows about HK. WARNING: contains smutty ending, do not read if you are below the age of 18! aka MINORS SCOOT! also this isn’t proofread so sorry if it’s shitty?

TAGLIST: @poetic-heart @hallecarey1 @moonlightbaby10 @5-seconds-of-bucky @bbl32 @wobblymug @iwannabekilledtwice @golden-hoax @barnes-lokison

SUMMARY: it’s your third date with bucky and you are dressed to impress...for the most part

“It’s our third date.” You admit shyly to Natasha and Wanda, who sat before you on your bed. The two women’s “oohs” had your body feeling much warmer in your bathrobe than moments before. You maintained your gaze on your bare thighs, with your fingernails continuously picking at loose pieces of fuzz on your robe.

“So what are you wearing?” Natasha quirks an eyebrow at you, the corner of her lips tilted up deviously. Wanda matches her expression, further encouraging you to stand up and retrieve the knee-length, red dress from your closet. Once again, the two “ooh-ed” simultaneously at the piece.

“I don’t think he’s ever seen a dress so revealing.” Wanda giggles. Natasha joins her with a few chuckles of her own.

“He might think he chose to go out with a harlot.” Nat jives, earning another barrage of laughs from the girl beside her. Yes, Bucky did have a few years on him, but it was nothing you enjoyed hearing others tease him about. Bucky Barnes knew how to put up a shell, and do it excellently. Something you are certain of though, is nobody enjoys having their age being commented on.

“Guys, come on…” You whine, tossing the dress onto your bed and returning to the seat at your vanity, where various makeup products lie scattered.

“We’re only teasing, Y/N.” Wanda’s hand, donning several rings, waves carelessly about. Natasha hums in agreement.

“What are you wearing underneath?” She questions.

“Underneath? Why’s that matter?” Natasha and Wanda both suck in a sharp breath, and exchange a wary glance. When they lock their bewildered stares back onto you and still say nothing, you begin to grow impatient.

“Hello? Am I missing something?” You fold your arms together, leaning back in your chair and looking at the expectantly.

“Y/N, it's the third date.” Wanda snickers.

“I know.”

“Then you should know that it’s important to wear the proper...undergarments.” Natasha mumbles.

“Look who’s sounding old now.” You turn in your seat and waltz over to your dresser. “What’s wrong with wearing what I normally wear?” You call back to them as your eyes study the selection of panties and bras displayed in your top drawer.

Natasha scoffs, before bluntly stating “Your sports bra and granny panties aren’t gonna get you laid, Y/N.” You take a deep inhale through the nose and spin around to meet the woman’s interrogating eyes. Part of you almost makes a comeback on the sports bra comment, but find yourself squeaking after processing her last few words.

“Laid?! Who says we’re going that far?” You nearly choke out, laying a hand on your cheek in mortification.

“Says anybody who’s ever dated anybody. Third dates require you to bring your A-game.” Wanda informs, now making you succumb to humiliation further. The girl is years younger than you and knows more about a stable love life than you ever could. “You have to dress up. Even underneath.” She adds.

You glance down at the sloppy bow you tied to keep your robe shut. “Well...that rule is stupid. And outdated. Who says we can’t go out on a third date, have a good time fully-clothed and end it that way?” You snip, turning back to grab a nude bra with a satisfied smile.

“Y/N, just take our advice. It’ll help you in the long run.” Nat begs, catching a sinister glint in your eyes. You make an indecisive noise, feeling giddy for keeping your friends on their toes, before declaring:

“No, I don’t think I will. In fact, to prove to you both how ridiculous that rule is…” Your hand shuffles around the drawer, away from Natasha’s and Wanda’s prying eyes. When you finally retrieve your most embarrassing pair of underwear, you elicit a devilish laugh and raise the piece of clothing, high and proud for their eyes to see. In sync, you watch their lips part and eyes grow ide.

“Y/N, no…” Wanda’s strawberry-blonde hair swishes on and off of her shoulders as she shakes her head furiously.

“Don’t do this.” Natasha continues pleading. But their desperate attempts to keep you from wearing the pair of panties, clutched tight in your grasp, is only further motivation for you to pull them on your body.

“Y/N, yes.” You nod. “If you two ladies don’t mind excusing yourselves, I have a date to get ready for.” Both women perceive your satisfied smile with doubtful frowns tracing their lips. Natasha and Wanda knew perfectly well that you would come to regret your decision later in the night. You, however, were too ignorant to realize the mistake you had just committed.

♥︎☆♥︎☆♥︎☆♥︎☆♥︎☆♥︎☆♥︎☆♥︎☆♥︎

“Thanks for taking me out, Buck. I had a really great time.” Your hand, entangled with Bucky's, lessens its grip. As the two of you approach the elevator to ride up to your floor, the red fabric adorning your body stops swishing at your knees. Bucky rests his vibranium hand against his chest, sparing you a smile nobody else in the compound would ever have the delight of seeing.

“The pleasure is all mine, Y/N.” His fingers remain laced with yours throughout the entire elevator ride up to your respective floor. When you began leading the way to your own bedroom, Bucky stops you with a proposal.

“Actually I was thinking about it, and uh…” the same hand on his chest moments ago winds behind him to scratch at the nape of his neck, “did you want to come to my room and chat a little longer.”

You graciously accepted the super soldier’s offer, but it was not long before your lips and tongues pursued more intimate activities. Currently, yours were forming escalating moans as Bucky’s mouth prioritized the space between your shoulder and neck, giving each patch of untouched skin his undivided attention.

“I gotta get this off of you,” he grumbles, yearning for more of your bare skin to meet his lips. Eagerly, his flesh hand searched the back of your dress up and down for a zipper. His vibranium hand remained at the bottom of your thigh, metal fingers tucked just below the red skirt of your dress and dangerously close to--

You suck in a sharp breath, eyes enlarging at the thought of the underwear shielding your privates. Bucky’s blue eyes, darkened by the dimly lit bedroom cast down to yours with concern.

“W-what happened? I didn’t hurt you did I?” You respond with a viscous shake of your head, desperate to not let this moment slip through your fingers.

“Just had a...small chill.” Your lips tremble at the sight of Bucky’s turning up into a smirk. You swear his eyes darken four shades in front of you too, complementing the burning list fueling your actions. His lips bend down to greet the shell of your ear, and this time, a sincere chill does run through your body. It sends tingles to your toes and an itchy feeling only Bucky can give you antidote for.

“Why don’t I warm you up, then?”

You’ll admit, for being over one hundred, the man still had power to every butterfly in your stomach, and each thump of your heart. Once glance from his blue eyes could send your knees wobbling, or worse, be to blame for a full on collapse. Currently, this charm of his was sparring with your inner-shame all because of what lies beneath your dress.

You remember why you put the pair of panties on in the first place, but you never expected your long-time crush to be witness to them. Taking a deep breath, you mentally prepared to deal with any future teasing from Bucky this moment would bestow on you. After all, it’d be quite nice to rub it in Natasha’s and Wanda’s face that you still got laid while wearing them.

“Yeah, I’d like that…” you elicit a nervous chuckle, following Bucky’s perusing eyes. You feel his hand still struggling to take hold of the small zipper and tug it down. His impatience grew clear when his warm palm and cool metal appendage dissipated from your back entirely, and instead, grasped the hem of the dress pooling at your thighs.

“Fuck it.” He mutters, and lifts the skirt of your dress up. By this point, your eyes were clenched shut and your teeth were grinding together in anticipation. Without realizing it, your fingers were clutching Bucky’s bedsheets for support of the various reactions feeding through your brain. Only did your hands release the cotton sheets when Bucky’s hands cloaked them.

You peeled your eyes open to see him, a cheeky smile lining the bottom of his face as he responded in a coy manner. “Nice panties.” A wave of heat filled your body from top to bottom, while your heartbeat reached a pace that you never knew to be possible. Bucky could hear each thump for himself, and chuckled to himself at the sight of you falling sheepish underneath him.

The blue beauties of his eyes dragged down your body to the light pink cotton underwear, where a familiar cartoon head was printed all around it. The yellow noses and dotted eyes stared up at him daringly, awaiting his next move. As did you.

A sharp breath leaps down your throat when a cool metal finger inserts itself through the side of your underwear, and you feel your stomach begin quivering at the feeling of Bucky’s vibranium hand sliding the panties down your leg in a teasing manner.

“Hello Kitty.” Is all he says, before introducing your wet heat to the magic trick that is his thick, pink tongue.

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astoryisaloveaffair · 2 years

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Sure Shot - Part 2: New Day Rising

Pairing: Clint Barton x BlackWidow!Reader, Yelena Belova x Kate Bishop

*Reader is ethnicity neutral and can originally come from anywhere in the world, but she does have hair long enough to braid/twist/dread, and she has an athletic body type considering the physicality Widows need to have

Fic Summary: Yelena frees you from your bonds and takes you to the best safehouse she knows. But there’s this Avenger...

Chapter Summary: You and Clint get to know each other better

A03

Inspo Playlist

Word Count: 3100

Rating: M for language

Warnings: Reader is an ex from the Red Room, so expect anything to deal with that. age gap, hand to hand combat, cussing, fluff

A/N: My brain wanted me to write chapter two of this. I hope you like it! Thank you to @musings-of-a-rose for help with Red Room knowledge, Clint’s personality, and being an overall awesome person and sounding board. This story is dedicated to her. As I said before, Laura and the kids do not exist in this universe, but everything else happened the same. I do what I want.

Suggested Song: Times Like These by Foo Fighters

You slept like the dead.

When you wake, you could tell it’s late. The sun is high and streams through the French country curtains in blotches on the quilt you’d thrown half off you in the middle of the night. It takes several minutes for your brain to catch up with your eyes, you forgot where you were and who you were with and why, your body moving just as slowly as you ungracefully stumble around the bed to the door.

The hallway is empty, the soft sunlight from open guestrooms leaking into the hallway making it unnecessary for you to turn on any lights as you pad down the creaking wooden staircase. The bottom floor is empty too, but you can hear a faint melody from beyond the back door, so you follow it.

When you get closer to the French doors at the back of the house you can see the source. Clint is sitting on the back porch stairs, an acoustic guitar in his lap with his back to you, the fabric of the white undershirt tank he’s wearing pulled across his broad shoulders as he strums absently, not focusing on any specific tune.

The door is ajar and you push it open more to exit and join him on the porch, settling quietly in a cushioned chair to observe him as he continues to play. His hooded eyes are closed and turned away from you, but you can still tell from his furrowed brow he’s lost in whatever song he’s creating in his head. The tendons of his craggy fingers twitch as they slide from string to string, muscles flexing up his deliciously veiny forearms up to the biceps covered in patches of dirt or dust, and a fine layer of sweat gathers at the nape of his neck in the curled strands at the base of his slightly flopped mohawk.

You sigh and close your eyes too, taking in the sounds of him playing, the chirps of various birds, the wind, the distant chatter of Yelena and Kate from somewhere you can’t see from this vantage point. It’s been four days of scattered thoughts and rattled nerves, so you revel in the fact that everything is at peace. At least for now.

“Morning.”

His raspy voice catches your attention, and when you look towards him he’s turned towards you with an easy smile, leaning against a railing column, his legs crossed at the ankle and hanging off the steps.

You huff out a laugh. “Afternoon, you mean.”

He smiles again, looking back down at his guitar and absently strumming a few chords here and there. “No judgment here. You probably needed it. There’s a plate of pancakes and some coffee left for you inside if you want it.”

“Oh, thanks.”

You were starving, like you hadn’t eaten at all last night. You head back into the house and to the kitchen, finding a plate of sausage and pancakes in the microwave. You heat it up a bit and grab a mug to fix your coffee. The pot must have been recently made because it’s still warm, even though there’s just over a cup of it left. You consider sitting at the island and eating alone, but the resumed music being played outside draws you back out, and you settle back into the chair you were in before.

You roll your eyes as you take a bite. Even re-heated, the pancakes are delicious. You wait for him to take a pause again, catching the way he tries to sneakily check you out. It’s more admiration than lechery, so you say nothing and don’t acknowledge the harmless glance, considering you’d seen him almost naked just last night. He notices you caught him and looks away again, twitching his lips as he instead stares out into the sky, his ice blue eyes squinting from the sun’s glare.

“Where’s Yelena? I should thank her for the food.” You break the silence.

“She’s round front showing Kate some hand to hand. I made the pancakes.”

“Oh! Well thank you. It was really good.”

“Thanks.”

The silence returns, you sigh and lean back in your chair, not noticing as he turns to look at you again, at how beautiful you look in the midday sun on his porch in a vintage AC/DC tee that had belonged to Stark, large enough to almost completely cover the tiny little sleep shorts you had on underneath it. He meets your gaze as you open your eyes again.

“I didn’t know you played anything. You sound good.” He looks down and chuffs softly at the praise, you can tell he is weird about taking compliments and you find it incredibly endearing. Do you sing too?”

“On special occasions.”

You take the last sip of coffee and stand, gathering your dishes to take them back to the kitchen. “Well then, I can’t wait for one of those.”

You turn without another glance and slip through the back door.

Clint sighs, setting aside his guitar and stands, stretching his shoulders and back. It had been a nice break, but he really wanted to try and finish up this repair. He circles round to the front of the house, a rare happy feeling blossoming in his chest as he notices Lucky on the front porch lying on his back basking in the sun. He gives Kate and Yelena a small wave on his way to the post light in front of the house, noting how much Kate has already improved in one hour.

He’d been struggling with the damn lantern all morning, his frustration building as he couldn’t get the electrical connections to spark, allowing the lantern to light up. There was seemingly no reason for it, and the concept that he couldn’t fix it was driving him crazy.

He watches Kate and Yelena as he pulls the pieces apart again to inspect the wiring, smiling to himself at Yelena’s tone, both warm and cold at the same time. Kate is an impulsive fighter. Spastic, a little ungraceful, and he was pleased Yelena had taken over hand-to-hand combat training. There was no one he’d trust more for Kate’s improvement. He was good, but not as good as a Widow.

There were flickers of something else in Kate’s expression as Yelena would make her pause and hold a position, adjusting her form with her hands or grabbing her close to show her how to break a hold. Clint suspected Kate’s nervous energy might have more to do with who was around her rather than lack of skill. He’d have to tease her about it later.

His attention switches to the front of the house as you exit and jog down the porch stairs, and he almost snaps his neck in half when he gives you a second look, your frame hugged by a tight strappy red sports bra and a pair of incredibly tight, high waisted black leggings.

You don’t notice, continuing as you meet up with the others and join in, taking some time to stretch out your muscles while Clint does his best not to openly gawk at you, fixing his attention back on his work. He doesn’t even notice when you’re right in front of him until he sees your feet stop.

“What’re you doing?”

He looks up, squinting up at your face in the sun, straining slightly as he tries not to let his gaze dip down to the curves of your breasts visible over the bra, the shape of your waist, the skin of your exposed stomach, the strength of your hips and thighs. “Trying to figure out why this piece of crap isn’t lighting up. I re-wired the entire thing underground and I’m pretty much done but for some reason the connections aren’t lighting. It’s pissing me off.” He huffs a breath with impatience, his incredibly toned forearm wiping the sweat off his brow.

“Mmmhmmm. Come on.” You reach your hand down to him. “Come spar with us. You can do this later. Get some of that frustration out.”

He sighs dramatically as he allows you to pull him up, tugging him towards Kate and Yelena. The four of you spar and goof off with each other, you’re surprised to find that both Yelena and Clint have a dry and sarcastic sense of humor that bounce off each other well. Yelena performs a dramatic reenactment of her first fight with Clint, then you switch partners for a bit until you are paired up with Clint.

He’s impressed with your skill, once again. You know all the standard styles a Widow should, but you have your own acrobatic flair to it that reminds Clint of capoeira. You rely more on your legs than your arms, the reason for your thick thighs evident in the sheer power you deal him when you hit him with a queixada spin kick to the shoulder. Your hand movements are similar to tai-chi, except sped up, the skill you have in deflecting and rolling off blows is better than Clint has ever seen. It’s like you turn your body into the very shuriken you specialize in, sharp jabs, powerful kicks, push hands, and disorienting spins.

It’s an even match, he’s not a bad fighter himself, and he meets you blow to blow until he finds one weak spot that shoves you back with a gasp as the air explodes out of your chest. The momentum carries him through, leaving his back vulnerable for long enough that you can get up and charge towards him, catapulting yourself from a handspring up and wrapping your legs around his neck just as he turns to you, the momentum allowing you to drag him to the ground with an ‘oof’.

But you aren’t as good at it as Natasha, you land unsteady and with his remaining energy he kicks your legs out from under you, pouncing on top of your thighs as he holds your wrists to the ground.

He’s panting hard, his warm breath fanning out above you. “Yield?” You wriggle under him with a growl but it’s fruitless, he’s too heavy and and too strong, and he’s using all his weight to keep you pinned to the soft grass below you.

“Fine. Yea.”

He releases your arms with a triumphant smile, sitting up on his knees, legs still firmly straddling your thighs. You hate how much you like that smile, the way his eyes sparkle before crinkling into little half moons. He is annoyingly cute. And annoyingly hot you remind yourself, as you take in his heaving chest, slightly softened tummy, biceps bulging with a sheen of sweat, the cords of his neck bobbing as he pants.

At least you’d given him a run for his money. And you always have to have the last word. Or move. You smile up at him sweetly before sitting up and slamming both palms to his chest. He falls back over your legs and onto his ass with a grunt as you swivel and land back on your knees in a low lunge pose.

“Very good, Lisichka, I was going to be disappointed.” Yelena teases, smirking at Clint as he sits up. “Do not let this old one win.”

“She yielded.” Clint observes.

Yelena shrugs, turning back to Kate and complimenting her on her work. You stand and reach for Clint once more, he takes your hand as you pull him back up. He’s close enough you can smell the tang of his perspiration, and you feel yourself responding as it swirls around you, jamming up your thoughts. You don’t even realize he’s asking you a question until he just barely pinches your waist to gain your attention. You were too busy staring at him.

“You okay?”

You swallow. “Yea, I’m good. Just…went somewhere else. What did you say?”

“Where’d you learn your form?”

“Oh. My first mission was in Brazil and in my spare time I learned capoeira.”

“I’ve never seen anyone do that before.” He marvels, and you can feel your cheeks burn under the praise.

It pissed you off. You nodded shortly and turned away.

After another round of coaching Kate altogether, Yelena was satisfied enough to release her, and the four of you head back to the house. Clint had taken your advice, putting the post light back together to try again tomorrow, and you angle yourself towards it as you follow everyone to the house.

Certain no one can see you, you place your hand against the lantern post and close your eyes, feeling the energy softly burn through you. When you enter the house the lantern is lit.

Exhausted from the vigorous workout, the four of you collapse onto the living room couches, arguing over what to get for dinner. You’re content to just sink into the couch with your legs stretched out. You tilt your head up, observing Yelena slightly leaning against Kate’s bent legs on the other couch. Kate looks absolutely smitten with her.

It makes you think about yourself and your own attachments. Romantic affection had never been a consideration for you, there was never time or opportunity for it and you questioned whether or not you were even capable of it. A familial type of love, yes. Yelena, like all the others, was your sister, and you loved them deeply. And Natasha…you loved her even though you hadn’t known her well. She’d saved all of you. Your eyes flick back to Yelena and hope that maybe it’s a possibility for her, especially after losing someone who had meant everything to her. As for you, you didn’t even know anymore. You’d been outside of your own body for so long it felt like you didn’t even know your feelings worked.

A light slap on your feet regains your attention, and you sit up to jokingly glare at Clint.

“What kind of pizza do you want?”

You blink. “What?”

“Do you know what kind of pizza you want?”

“Um, what is everyone else having?”

“We got a pepperoni, a veggie supreme, and a request for a Hawaiian.”

“Um…” Your voice trails off as your brain becomes completely blank, quickly shifting to panic as you realize everyone is staring at you. You can feel tears starting to form and you pinch the bridge of your nose to stop it, once again cursing how haywire your emotions have been since coming back to yourself.

“Lisichka.” Yelena murmurs, and you turn to her as she comes to sit next to you with her phone displaying the menu. “It is okay. Come, let us look and see. Just read one by one and pick one that sounds the most exciting.” You nod and lean over her, scrolling through the menu slowly. She lifts her head and looks at Kate, then Clint. “We never get asked to make choices before. It is a lot at first.” She explains. “This happened to me too. It will get better. Ah, have you found something?”

You hum, leaning against her shoulder, grateful for the support and comfort she gives you. “Yea, I think I want to try this white pizza. It looks interesting, and I remember seeing people eating a white pizza before and wanting to try it, but I never did.”

Order placed, everyone relaxes into the cushy furniture to watch some true crime. You excuse yourself, stepping outside to get some air. It’s a beautiful evening, stars bright and just cool enough. You focus on your breathing as you look from star to star like a connect the dots.

“You alright?”

Clint’s voice is soft and doesn’t startle you. You turn to him, leaning against a porch column. “Yes, thank you. I just…got a little overwhelmed.” You look away as you feel the tears prickling back in your eyes and you huff out in annoyance as they crest over your lids and down your cheeks. You cover your face with your hands.

“Hey. Don’t do that. C’mere.” He steps into your space cautiously, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and pulling you in for a casual hug. You heave a shuddering sigh and fold into him fully, wrapping your arms around the small of his back. He tightens his grip on you, cupping the back of your head with one large palm.

When he hears your voice vibrating against his chest, it’s so faint he can barely hear it. “You’re gonna have to speak up.” You look up at him and he taps a tiny hearing aid in his left ear.

“Oh. I just said I’m not usually like this.” You speak louder against his chest.

“It’ll get easier. Don’t worry about it.”

“I just feel…confused and my emotions are all out of sync or something…”

He takes you by the shoulders and steps back from you, your hands don’t leave their position on his waist and they slide forward to gather around his pelvis. He taps you under the chin so you look at him from beneath your watery lashes. “I get it. It’s not easy to have something else in your head, and then suddenly it’s not there. And you had it longer than me.”

“What happened?”

“Loki was in my head for a little bit. Made me turn on my friends. But Nat got me out of it. She bonked me on the head pretty good, then I had to go fight a horde of aliens almost immediately. It was insanity.”

You hum, backing up and wiping your face. “Well not many people can say they got mind controlled by the god of mischief.” He laughs at that and you can’t help but start giggling in between your sniffles too. “And the hearing aid? Is it okay if I ask about that?”

He taps his finger to his left temple. “I can’t hear mostly out of this ear. No idea how it happened, though I have some ideas.”

“Maybe you need to stop being around so much exploding shit.”

“Well that’s what I’m trying to do here.” He gripes. “Hey…what’s that name Yelena calls you?”

“‘Lisichka’? I think it’s like a Russian pet name. It means ‘little fox.’ She was only a little ahead of me in training, so I was with her a lot. She just started calling me that, I’m not really sure why.”

He nods, you see the flash of something cross his face like he wants to ask something else but changed his mind, interrupted by the reflection of the headlights of a car pulling up to the front of the house. He pats your shoulder and steps off the porch. “Pizza’s here. I’ll meet you inside.”

He heads to the front of the house and pays the delivery kid and is almost back in the house when he halts and turns back around.

The post light was on.

It’s late when you wake up, the fluorescent glare of the TV is the only light in the living room. You tilt your head to the other couch and smile when you see Yelena and Kate passed out on the same couch, legs intertwined and Lucky at the foot of the couch.

You close your eyes and consider for a moment heading up to bed, but the couch is so comfy, and you are so tired, you can’t find the motivation to get up. Just as you are about to slip back into sleep you hear the faintest rustle and the weight of something soft and warm covering your body. By the time you open your eyes, he’s gone.

Clint had tucked you in with a blanket.

Post A/N: Reader is lightly inspired by an actual Marvel character. Do you know who it is?

Let me know if you want to be on this taglist!

#clint barton #clint barton x reader #clint barton x you #hawkeye x reader #hawkeye x you #clint barton fanfic #marvel fanfic #mcu fanfic

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violetsoju · 3 years

Text

stay here with me (your heart in mine)

kunimi akira · fluff · 3.8k words

summary: 10 years. a lot can happen in 10 years. but if no effort is made in that span of time, then it's just back to square one, since one plus zero equals to one. and thats where Kunimi has been standing in these 10 years.

song rec: leehi - savior (feat. b.i)

a/n: im terribly late, but here's my fictrade piece for @heatwave2021 for dear mimi (@mimi-cee-hq)! ive gotten to know kunimi a lil better through this piece and i hope i did kunimi justice!! i hope you like it too <33 a huge shoutout to cath and amy for hosting this fictrade event too! this was really fun and also to moon (@moonboohoo) for giving this a once over ♡

“Do you know how great of a good friend you are?”

“Of course, I do.”

“Good. Because I’m revoking your good friend status now.”

Kunimi peers at the source of the voice over his shoulder, groaning in pain when he strains his neck sideways a little more than intended.

“Why so?” He croaks out, stretching his neck to ease the jabbing pain.

“Because a good friend would give their support by revising together or making themselves useful like bringing snacks or coffee. Not coming empty handed and sleeping on all fours like a slab of dead meat on the bed right next to me.”

A slab of dead meat is quite the fitting description, in all honesty. Kunimi’s face is buried into the pillow, butt up in the air, arms stretched out straight by the sides while his legs dangle over the edge of the bed just a little. It isn’t the best position to sleep in, but he can’t find an ounce of energy to move.

It’s quite the contrast from the latter. Kindachi has his face buried in the pile of notes before him, laptop screen staring brightly back at him with notes swamped all over his desk, a couple of empty cans of coffee sitting right on the edge of the messy desk waiting to be recycled. His supposedly easy-to-maintain short hair is somehow tousled from the non-existent wind. And if anyone didn’t believe that it was possible for a giant to shrink to a midget, then they would have to think twice because Kindaichi is the living proof in flesh. He’ll definitely be aching everywhere after his exam tomorrow from hunching all day long.

“Why should I use more brain energy when I’m finally done with my exams? There’s no more space for snacks or coffee on your desk either, so why bother.” Kunimi’s muffled response doesn’t help in relieving the stressed hunched giant.

“You could go somewhere else instead.” Kindaichi points out, jabbing his pen towards the window.

“She’s having her exams now. Plus, your place is nearer to mine.”

“Fancy you knowing who I’m referring to.”

Kunimi doesn’t need raise his head to see the ugly smirk dancing on Kindaichi’s lips teasingly. “You would have the same person in mind if it was you.”

“Nah, I thought it would be Yahaba-san you were referring to.”

“It’s not my fault that my building’s electricity is out till night without any prior notice.” He tries to change the topic.

There’s no way Kindaichi is going to let this slide easily. “Yeah, yeah. Sure. So you would’ve gone to her place if she was at home, am I right?”

Kunimi sighs into the pillow as he fails to make him drop the topic. “Don’t blame me for not being able to finish revising on time later on.”

“I’m already planning to place the blame on you after all.”

【☾】

“Aren’t you going to see her off tonight though?” Kindaichi questions, eyes still focused on the scribbled words inked on the papers scattered before him.

“For what?”

“Don’t you know? She’s leaving tomorrow.”

The new piece of news sparks Kunimi’s attention. “Where to?” He asks, rolling over to his side to face Kindaichi.

“I’m not quite sure,” Kindaichi taps his pen against his chin in thought. “Not quite sure what for either. Work placement, maybe? But I know that she won’t be coming back anytime soon after tomorrow.”

Kunimi’s raised eyebrows matches Kindaichi’s ones, albeit one in scepticism and the other in surprise.

“You seriously don’t know?” Kindaichi asks disbelievingly.

He finds the answer in Kunimi’s shift in position, back facing him again.

Sighing at his friend’s actions, Kindaichi resumes back to the pile of doom before him. “Well, this may be your last chance. Just saying.”

“For?”

“You know yourself best.”

Kindaichi knows that he should focus on the issue on hand that calls for urgency, but his idiot of a friend requires his immediate attention too.

“You’re actually pretty lucky, you know,” He can’t help but say. “All of these years, from primary school, middle school, high school, and even now in university. That’s more than 10 years. And you’re still in square one. That’s honestly quite an achievement.”

“I’ll take that as a complement.” Kunimi snorts.

“Seriously. I know life is a game, but it’s different from volleyball. There are still other matches after losing one, after the ball drops, but in life there’s some matches that end forever after the whistle blows. Even if you try and save the ball in the last minute, the libero may not be there to save your dig after the whistle blows.”

“I didn’t know you were so good with words.” Kunimi rolls over slightly to look at his friend.

His eyes light up in excitement. “I am?”

The grimace written on Kunimi’s face tells him otherwise.

“Okay, but in all seriousness again, you’re really an idiot if you don’t grab hold of the final chance this time. Don’t say I didn’t give you a heads up in advance.”

“You’re starting to sound a lot like Oikawa-san now with the nagging.” Kunimi comments as he rolls back to face the wall, shutting out the latter’s retorts as he sinks into his thoughts.

But Kindaichi’s right. From baby seedlings to the sturdy plants now, it’s been more than 10 years of knowing you. You have been a part of his life for more than half of his years, witnessing his and your growth over the years of stumbling and climbing back up again. To call you a mere childhood friend would be an understatement. Because he knows where you place in his heart. He’s smart enough to know, but perhaps not smart enough to acknowledge it.

But maybe Kindaichi’s wrong too. Maybe life is similar to volleyball too. The positions in volleyball can be used in real life too. Him being a wing spiker and you being a libero. He doesn’t need to look behind his back because you’re always there behind for him, no matter what.

But maybe Kindaichi isn’t completely wrong either. Because he knows time waits for no one. He knows the bitter taste in the gut when the whistle blows just as his hand is mere inches away from the ball dropping to the ground. He knows efforts pay off at the end of the day.

Maybe he should try going all out just this one time. His first that may be his last.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Kunimi doesn’t know how, or even why he ended up here, right in front of your doorstep. There’s still a chance to turn back. Even after a text that has been sent out or the ding on the doorbell that has been rang, he can still back off if he wants. The bag of beer and snacks can be kept for lazy weekends in the comfort of his blankets alone.

Why did he buy snacks anyway? Maybe he should’ve gotten ice cream instead.

But they would melt on the way here. But again, snacks aren’t the best option either. Not to mention beer. Talk about being healthy…

His train of thoughts snap apart when the door swings open before him.

“Hey, you’re here!”

He can leave those thoughts for later, he guesses.

“Come on in. Watch your steps along the way!”

The mini sea of shoes flooding the genkan and the aromatic whiff of dashi soup in the air has him halting his steps. He doesn’t even need to take a peek inside to know that he should’ve went home instead.

“Uh, are you sure you’re actually free now?” He asks over the chatter coming from the inside, still taking a peek at the small crowd huddled in the living room, nonetheless.

You stand in the small hallway connecting the genkan to the living room. “Yeah! We’re actually finishing up, so don’t worry. You can join us for a few bites if you want.”

“Is your friend here? Bring him in! You’re gonna miss out the last serving of pork slices if you don’t hurry.” Kunimi recognises the voice. It’s one of the girls from your friend group that he has hung out with a few times before.

“I-”

“Who is it? Shabu shabu waits for no one. The meat isn’t nice when it gets cold.”

“Don’t be shy! Just come on in! Unless you’re too shy to be graced by our beauty.”

You laugh at your friends’ antics, ushering him to come in. “Come on, you know who they are. They won’t skin you for extra meat.”

Another voice booms from the inside. “We might actually do that if you don’t make your way here now!” A round of hearty laughter that’s mixed with a couple of beer and sake roars loudly.

Kunimi heaves a wary sigh, calculating his options. “It isn’t that. It’s just…”

“Just what?” You ask.

He looks up to your quizzed look, then to the sudden quiet living room where multiple heads are craned out like a flock of ostriches, each with a devious knowing look on them.

Now there’s definitely no way to make it out of here unscathed.

One of the girls clears her throat loudly. “You know what’s the best way to wrap up the feast? Ice cream.”

“Yes! We forgot to pick some up along the way. Could you go get some for us?” Another girl chirps in, while the others nod their heads in agreement.

You scoff playfully at them, hands crossed against your chest. “You’re asking me, the owner of the place, to go get ice cream for the guests? And leave my friend alone here in danger?”

“Who said he’s gonna be here with us?” A girl raises her hand in defence. “Take a look outside! The moon is so lovely tonight. Isn’t it such a beautiful night to walk under the moonlight with your dear friend together hand-” Her sentence gets cut off by the others who cover her mouth before she blabbers any further, smiling meekly at the both of you.

You stumble a few steps to catch the jacket thrown in your way. “Any ice cream will do! And take your time! Don’t worry about us.” They wave you off, resuming to the steaming shabu shabu on the table.

The both of you look at each other bewilderment, digesting what just happened seconds ago.

“Well… Ice cream?” You chuckle, soothing the jacket in your hands.

He chuckles too. “Yeah, ice cream it is.”

So maybe getting snacks was the right option.

The early autumn wind nips on the skin lightly. The crunching sounds of dried crumpled leaves on the pavement makes up for the comfortable silence that blankets the both of you on the way back, bag of assorted ice creams in hand.

“What a great bunch of friends you have.” Kunimi comments.

“They’re quite a handful, but yeah, I can’t imagine the past four years without them.” You laugh light-heartedly. “Are you sure you don’t want to come in? I promise they won’t bite.”

He shakes his head lightly. “It’s alright. Just dropped by to bid you goodbye and to pass you these.”

You peer at the bag handed out and swiftly turn on your heels. “I know you’re lying.”

He almost drops the bag in his hands. “I’m not. Seriously, that’s all I came here for.”

“You could’ve just sent me a text for this. Why bother making your way all the way here?”

Your question has him frozen in his steps, brain malfunctioning as he fails to come up with a convincing and rational answer.

You take the chance to plop onto the nearby stone bench, ignoring his snorts when you hiss from the coolness of the surface. “Well, I’ll be seated here until you tell me what’s the purpose of your special visit.”

“The ice creams will melt.” Kunimi reasons, digging his hands into the pocket of his jacket.

“Doesn’t matter. We can go get them again. I’ll just charge them double.” You shrug, waving him off dismissively.

“Plus,” you emphasize, “they told us to take our time. So I have all the time in the world to hear you out.”

He knows that you won’t budge until he gives in, given your personality. So he heaves another long breath and drags his feet next to you.

You rummage the bag for the ice cream you picked earlier, handing him a caramel flavoured one as he thanks you. You catch the little smile tugging his lips as he rips open the ice cream packet.

“You still like this specific brand after so many years.” You tease.

He bites the tip of the ice cream to spite you, in which he succeeds. “They’re the best. One of the only ones that hasn’t changed their recipe after all these years.”

You narrow your eyes at the crime he committed as he munches on the ice cream with a deadpan face. One of the things that hasn’t changed all these years is this habit of his too.

“So, ready to come clean now?” You ask. The ice cream in both hands is long gone, melted into a pool of liquid that chills the stomach.

Kunimi sighs for what seems to be the thousandth time of the night. Resting his arms on his knees, he trains his sight on the concrete pavement below. It’s funny how his hands start to feel clammy again despite the cool wind in the air. “So… You’re leaving tomorrow, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Keep calm, he tells himself. “What time?”

“Early in the morning. I almost missed out on the tickets because I got them last minute.”

“Can’t wait to leave, huh…” He mutters.

“A little. I’ve been looking forward to this day for quite some time, and it’s finally here!” You exclaim, excitement lacing your voice.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

You snap your head towards him in surprise. “I did. I remember telling you and Kindaichi at the same time. You guys would be one of the firsts to know.”

Kunimi groans in despair as he tries to rack his head for the past memory yet no avail. He blames the now unnecessary scribbled notes from the exam earlier for taking up so much space in his brain.

The bare concrete pavement seems to be more interesting than ever tonight. “When will you be coming back?”

“I don’t know. It depends.”

“So this may be the last time I’ll be seeing you?”

“In a while, I guess.”

Another sigh escapes his lips unconsciously as he buries his face in his hands. What happened to playing it cool, huh.

“You’ll miss me, won’t you?”

A scoff sounds in the air. “As if.” He hastily replies, turning sideways to hide the tint of flush creeping on his cheeks.

You chuckle at his actions. “I know I’ll miss you.”

His eyes finally meet yours. And although his soft hair falls past his eyes a little, you see your reflection in them, as clear as day.

“Then why can’t you stay?” He asks, voice just above a whisper.

It’s your turn to heave out a long sigh. “I can’t, Akira. I can’t.”

“As much of importance you are to me, there’s just as much of importance waiting on the other side for me.”

“That just means I’m not that important.”

He doesn’t know how those words carelessly fell out through his gritted teeth. All he knows that the moon is, indeed, lovely tonight.

It is indeed beautiful night, with the moon bright and round above. But why does he feel like the moon is mocking him? As if on such a beautiful night, with the person that takes up a significant place in his heart, his wishes are fated to not be granted. They fall on deaf ears, discarded aside as he feels his hope slipping away from his fingertips like fine sand in the wind. Maybe this is the price of not going all out all these years.

Time had been kind to him, offering so many chances and opportunities to him. But he wasn’t one to grab hold on them, because he’s used to making it up at the last moment. And it always worked.

However, maybe it’s all too late this time round. Maybe he outsmarted himself this time.

In all these years of knowing Kunimi, you’ve never seen him like this. Not even when they lost the ticket to the nationals for three years straight. Not even when life got him all tied up, juggling schoolwork and work on a thin thread, struggling for a gasp of air. You know he’s a master of keeping his emotions to himself, and you should be grateful that he shows this vulnerable side of him to you on rare occasions, because he trusts you enough to be there to pick up the pieces with him. But today, it hurts even more to see him like this, like a star that has lost its glow, a balloon that is gradually deflating. Because today, you’re the one that’s causing him to fall to such a state.

“Akira. Look at me.”

He doesn’t.

Because he knows that he’ll find something that he detests with all his heart staring back at him: pity. He neither needs your pity to offer solace, nor needs your pity to stay. That would be the worst kind of consequence that he knows he will regret for the rest of his life. Yes, his selfishness and self-interest may be screaming to reign over at the moment, but he knows this isn’t the right way to keep you by his side.

You don’t belong to him; you belong to yourself.

“Akira.”

He shudders as he feels your warm fingers cupping both sides of his cheeks, turning his face to yours. He avoids your gaze on reflex, but as his eyes sweep past yours, he stops. Maybe he really outsmarted himself this time.

Instead of pity, he finds concern, warmth, sincerity. Why is that?

“You know how I feel about you, where you lie in my heart. You’re smart enough to know that.

“But it seems like you’re not smart enough to know yourself.”

He does. Or does he?

You brush his hair that covers his eyes to the side gently, a small smile tugging the side of your lips.

“If you aren’t important, then why do you already have a piece of my heart which I have never given you?”

Kunimi’s breath hitches. The butterflies in his stomach are so close in fluttering their way out from his mouth as he comprehends your words, reciting them aloud again and again in his mind.

He immediately misses your touch lingering on his skin when your hands fall to your sides. “It sucks that I’m not smart enough to know whether I have a piece of your heart that you have never given me.” You chuckle bitterly, looking up to the moon.

You may have been there to pick up the shattered pieces of his heart and soul over the years, but at the end of the day, you return them to him. It’s awfully tempting to smuggle a few pieces, hiding them in your pocket to keep them safe and sound, but you don’t. It’s his heart, his only.

It’s your turn to hitch a breath. “You do,” Kunimi says, placing his hand over yours. “You always have.

“And now, I’ll give you not only a piece of my heart, but my whole heart.” His squeezes your hand gently, leaning in close. “Is it too much to handle?”

It takes a few seconds for you to apprehend his words, and once it links together, the butterflies on your end take flight in frenzy.

“Yes. I mean, no. I-” The chill autumn wind isn’t helping much to cool down the heat rising on your cheeks and ears. You can’t look him in the eye without averting elsewhere other than him. “It’s my honour to be bestowed your heart.

“And I hope it’s the same for you.”

“Look at me.”

Kunimi tips your chin up to face him, and you are welcomed by the soft smile that you love seeing, the one you don’t know that’s reserved for you only.

“Thank you for trusting your heart with me.”

He wondered where the stars in the night skies went tonight. It turns out they were all in your eyes, and they shine so ever brightly even without the sliver glow of the moonlight.

“Come on. We need to get more ice cream.” Kunimi nudges towards the now soggy bag that has tainted the stone bench with colourful liquid.

He picks up the sticky bag with a tissue from his pocket, shaking them a few times lightly as he stands up and extends his other hand to you. “They’re all on me.”

You place your hands in his. “What about the broke student you are?” You quip, footsteps falling in line together with each gentle swing of the hand.

“Hmm, I would rather be broke than be skinned alive in the lionesses’ den back there.”

【☾】

“Where are you leaving for though?”

“Miyagi. Our hometown.”

“What for?”

“It’s my grandma’s birthday tomorrow! I’m going back to give her a surprise and celebrate with my family over the week.”

You turn to him quizzically as he halts in his steps, rooted in place. His face is twisted and contorted in ways you never thought possible. It’s a mixture of shock, dumbfoundedness, and flabbergast all together. Words die at the tip of his tongue as he struggles to find the right words, brain buffering from the sudden new input of information, resulting in information overload as the new and existing information fail to fuse together.

“Where did you think I was leaving for? Some other prefecture for work?”

It takes a whole lot of effort to come up with a complete sentence. “Then why don’t you know when you will be coming back?”

“Because the train tickets back for the week are all sold out. So it depends on when my parents want to drive me back, I guess.”

You drag the babbling mess towards the konbini up ahead like a stone statue that looks like it’s stuck in a daze, caught in a trance.

“I’ll be starting work here in a month’s time. It’s not that far by metro, so I’ll still be renting my place here.”

“Kindaichi you lil shit…”

“Hey, don’t blame him. The best wingman award goes to him! It’s all thanks to him that I get to hold your hand now.

He loses himself in the endless galaxy in your eyes once again, losing sense of gravity.

“And your heart.”

#kunimi akira x you #kunimi akira x reader #kunimi akira x y/n #kunimi akira #kunimi x y/n #kunimi x reader #kunimi x you #kunimi akira fluff #kunimi fluff #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu writings #haikyuu x reader #kunimi fics #mimi im putting this here bc im too shy and embarrassed to put in a/n but #you have no idea how much i freaked out when you liked my post abt my wc for this piece ytd HAHA #but i srs hope you dont mind and enjoyed this piece T_T #heatwave2021

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pepsicup · 3 years

Text

Problems Of A Spaceman

Chris Beck x Stripper!Reader 6.4k words

Summary: Chris attempts to gain some confidence back after his fiancée leaves him, though, the journey is different than he thought it would be... (smut, mentions of cheating, self-deprecation, exotic dancing, space kink because duh, dope fucking music choice if I do say so myself)

Author note: yes I did write this four years ago, this is an updated version since I recently found it after deleting my other blog, enjoy.

2037

It shouldn’t even be a thing. Chris didn’t get nervous, this was something new for him. After thirteen years of education, five standard spacewalks and a back-to-back trip to the newly colonized neighbouring red planet, nothing should phase him anymore – but that was space. There were things significantly more nerve-wracking than his current situation; perhaps he was better at being an astronaut than fulfilling his social and romantic life.

While taking all the prerequisites required for NASA and in medical school, he didn’t have time for fraternizing with anyone, most people in the medical field experience that. It was a miracle that he could even keep the attention of his ex-fiancée during the mission to Mars since he didn’t exactly know how to flirt. No matter how intelligent he was, all of that did nothing to help him in his personal life and everything that came with it.

Furthermore, the sexual aspect was a problem for him, too.

He’s never had an opportunity to explore himself with another person, of course, he’s had plenty of sex but, it was nothing more than the standard modus operandi. Beth was hard to navigate, she was disengaged and blatantly selfish, eventually blaming him for her unfaithful tendencies and lack of interest when he was the only one making an effort. It ended as it began, a complete circumstantial shitshow and because of that, he is on a mission to gain self-confidence back.

Since she kicked him out, he’s been sleeping in the spare room of his good friends’ house for the last couple of months while his new apartment is being renovated. Mark Watney was a single man who knew what that position felt like, and who also knew the beginnings of a solution. The ability to pay women for their undivided attention did wonders for a man’s ego, especially at an exclusive gentlemen’s club rather than a regular strip joint. It is more of a candid transaction that was valued at both ends.

And it is very exclusive. It required a reservation to save a slot since it was so well-known and a general, but hefty, fee at the door as insurance.

He made it sound like the easiest thing in the world, but on the other hand, Chris was so fucking anxious to go that he could vividly feel his blood pumping in overdrive. He’s never, ever attended a place like that before. But as he looked up at the classy, luminescent sign of the building that lit up the dark parking lot, he started to wonder what exactly he’s getting himself into. Just as long as he isn’t awkward, maybe everything will be okay.

Don’t be weird, don’t fuck it up. Simple.

He repeated those words in his head as he was looked over by the heavy before being let in and did everything the lady at the front desk told him to. After that, it was time to be escorted through the big fancy door.

The initial shock passed through him quickly, the smell of perfume, cigars and liquor weren’t as bad as he thought it was going to be. But once he rounded the corner into the main lounge the nerves were back. The wild colours in the dusky lighting gave the atmosphere an alluring feel as he bared witness to scarcely clothed women dancing on stage, at tables with other men and walking around the floor.

He adjusted his ball cap to sit lower on his face and scanned the room for a free seat, suddenly feeling a little overwhelmed and needing to sit down before he either collapsed or backed out entirely. Chris Beck was not good at this.

Could he perform surgery after surgery for 16 hours straight? Yes.

Can he proudly say that he is an award-winning astronaut that helped shape the future of space science? Fuck yeah, he can.

Can he say that he can bed anyone he wants and walk around like he owns the place? No, no he cannot.

The spaceman sat in a vacant booth near the left side of the stage, tucked away in a dark corner to observe as he planned. Yeah, he was good at observing. Watney reassured him before he left, stating that he did specialize in human anatomy and he should do what he does best...observe, evaluate and execute, which helped a bit. A doctor’s point of view was his only saving grace right now, he’d stick to that comfortable method for as long as he can.

Observe.

He found himself zoning in on different interactions that played out as time ticked by. Many lovely women took their turn on stage, very healthy and some men had been taken behind curtains and even thrown out for inappropriate behaviour. He made of a note of that in the back of his mind if there ever came a time. No touching.

He didn’t know how much time had passed since he arrived. There were a few nice girls who came over to talk to him, but he declined any offers they threw his way respectfully and chose to remain where he was instead. Although, just when he thought about turning in for the night, the lights suddenly dimmed until it was almost pitch-black. So dark that he couldn’t even see his hand.

The emcee bordered more background music that rattled his chest through the speakers above the circle booth, it increased slowly and he assumed it was building up to another track. The crowd of regulars and new attendees alike cheered loudly at the change of pace, Chris perked up and clapped along with them even though he had no clue as to what.

“Ladies, gentlemen and every-damn-one in between, we have a special treat for you tonight.” the man announced heartily.

He continued as the music came to a peak, then dissipated as he spoke the moniker of the next dancer, “Your house favourite has decided to give you a dance that I think is out of this world...please welcome to the stage, Ares”

The patrons went wild as Chris, on the other hand, went rigid – almost choking on his drink.

As the projected images of deep space filled the room in a flash, a dancer was now on stage walking around in something simple, yet sexy. No one could get enough of her or the choreography, staying for her performances that always seemed to have a different aesthetical essence every time she made an appearance.

The modest man couldn’t stop looking at her, she was the main focus of the room – but for him, the significance was completely different from the others. What were the chances that one of his biggest passions in life could be used as an exotic dance theme, materialized right in front of his eyes?

But when the music started...that’s when things even more interesting.

The song wasn’t one he anticipated, he assumed it would be the same club music that made his eardrums shudder, but this slow beat only made his senses buzz, and not just from the vibrations. He enjoyed the older music his commander played after years of listening to it. So, when he detected the beginning of this underrated 1972 classic by Harry Nilsson, this stripper had his full attention.

Bang, bang, shoot em’ up, destiny Bang, bang, shoot em’ up to the moon Bang, bang, shoot em’ up one, two, three (One, two, three, four)

The woman circled the pole as the song started to wind up, making little gestures to the regulars and letting the music guide her. She hit every deep strum of the guitar by waving her hips from side to side delicately, still holding on to the shiny metal planted at her side.

As the artist started to sing the corresponding words, she spun around the pole. The lights caught the small crystals on her one-piece and somehow, scattered like the night sky on her bare skin. Her hips moved sinfully as her body followed the fluid movements like Saturn’s rings, circulating with the natural orbit of the planet. Or pole in this case.

I wanted to be a spaceman That’s what I wanted to be But now that I am a spaceman Nobody cares about me

Next, with every distinct beat, she put her back to the pole, slid down and arose in one fell swoop. She twirled once, flipping her hair behind her head and rolling her lower body ‘round and around and around and around as the words called out above the hollering. The attention was now drawn to her lower body.

Highlighting her assets as dancers called it.

Hey Mother Earth, won’t ‘cha bring me back down Safely to the sea But ‘round and around and around and around Is all she ever say to me

She melted down on all fours to crawl across the platform, doing the next progressions effortlessly. She laid on her back, arching her body like a tidal wave entranced by the moon, rolling onto her stomach, and using her knees to sweep her torso across the floor until she was up in a kneeling position again.

The way she created a giant slip from her ass to her shoulders gave the perfect view of her behind to the men and women on the left side of the stage, money cascading across her body. It was quick yet elegant.

I wanted to make a good run I wanted to go to the moon I knew that it had to be fun I told ‘em to send me real soon I wanted to be a spaceman That’s what I wanted to be But now that I am a spaceman Nobody cares about me

She repeated similar moves to the first chorus but on her knees this time, feeling up her own body, wiggling her assets playfully at whoever she wanted – connecting with the audience. Chris was captivated by the way she carried her body like that, the slightly distorted music gave a sexy edge to her routine that caused his cock to throb in his jeans.

In his big doctor brain, he was trying to figure out how someone could be so graceful. Even if he felt ashamed of viewing her so strenuously, he justified it by observing her anatomy like the surgeon he was.

She didn’t wear high heels, opting to be barefoot, and the only extravagant makeup she wore was something that made her body sparkle. Her simple lingerie wasn’t something that stole the show, she just came as herself. The differences help him tell a lot about who she was, the little details sending signals to his genius mind.

Hey Mother Earth, won’t 'cha bring me back down Safely to the sea Around and around and around and around Is just a lot of lunacy (yeah, yeah)

The break in the lyrics gave a sense of anticipation, the echo prepared everyone for the next verse as the song swerved in and out of a muffled tone. Then, she was watching him.

Chris abruptly looked away as the mood changed, his breath hitching as he erratically glanced around before settling on her again. She appeared to be showing off for him now with a smile on her lips. He swallowed thickly as his mouth began to water and dry out at the same time, exchanging aggressive eye contact with the woman that had his undivided attention.

The music got lost in the background noise as they disappeared into their own world, his heart pulsed in his ear and his breath shallowed as everything around them was lost. It was like the earth had stopped spinning, the gravity giving out so the spaceman could feel weightless. There were faint pictures of the cosmos floating across his flushed skin, revealing his lip clamped between his impressively white teeth.

'Round and around and around and around and around (So bring me back down) 'Round and around and around and around and around Safe on the ground

He wasn’t trying to be sensual, Chris chewed his bottom lip when he was either content, uneasy or nervous. And nervous he was. Those eyes said innocence but the rest of him screamed sex fiend who could pound her into another universe if provoked, it definitely piqued her interest.

She never had the pleasure of seeing a person in tune with her like that before, it was refreshing. He looked like he was genuinely enjoying the way her body made him react but on a more personal level, something difficult to accomplish from 15 feet away.

Hey Mother Earth, better bring me back down Safely to the sea But around and around and around and around Is all she ever say to me, yeah

She had to be the one to break the intense eyefuck that was taking place, on both ends, in the middle of her set. Chris sensed the music drift back in, the planet rotating once more and coming back to himself after his mind floated away into endless space amongst many stars filling the void. As the song came to a close, she followed the rest of her routine with similar moves, collecting herself after a mere moment.

Everything was simply...simple.

But there was still so much of the unknown that came with the woman she was, remaining understated in this line of work and feeding a lot of emotion into her life passion. He could feel it.

That is the exact reason why she was a house favourite.

You know, I wanted to be a spaceman That’s what I wanted to be But now that I am a spaceman Nobody cares about me Say hey, you Mother Earth, you better bring me back down I’ve taken just as much as I can But around and around and around and around Is the problem of a spaceman

Evaluate.

That spaceman had a problem alright.

She just took him on a fucking cosmic ride that will be burned into his mind for the foreseeable future. His pants were now painfully tight, pressing his cock close to his body so that every time he moved his tip would be stimulated by his silky briefs. He was being forced to evaluate his current predicament.

He thought about the next step as the projections faded from the room and her along with them, completely vanished by the time the lights dimmed down and back up again.

Chris originally wanted to stay for a while longer to watch some more, not pushing himself to do more than he was prepared for; progress takes time and it depends on the person. He evaluated the options in front of him, either pursue the course that led him to the woman who just blew his mind or, stick with what he had been doing for the past five months – fucking his hand while he rested alone in his bed.

Eventually, after he gave into the disconcerted feeling picking him apart, he went with the familiar option and kept his head down in disappointment at his lack of confidence, sliding out of the booth. He just wanted to go home at this point, maybe he would try again another day. He nearly reached the exit when a security guard abruptly stopped him from leaving, he thought he did something wrong at first but as it turns out, that was far from what was the case.

“No, you didn’t do anything—you’re being requested by a dancer” the large man chuckled.

Chris looked up at the man that towered over him, questioning the authenticity of the claim. He clapped him on the shoulder.

“If I were you, man...I would take the dance. She rarely takes requests but offering...one in a million”

The security guard walked him into the back where the exclusive rooms were and into one with a large circular seat, gentle lighting and parlour cabinet full of assorted items. It wasn’t a suffocating space, but he felt like he was running out of oxygen

“Enjoy the show, man” with that final word, he left Chris alone in the room.

Once the door clicked, he rushed to rub his sweaty palms on his dark jeans and took a shaky breath as he sat down, pulling on the neckband of his sweater. In the meantime, he worked on not being so high strung, the door being behind him didn’t help as he waited for her to come. While the anticipation slowly drove him nuts, he ran the three steps Watney reminded him of in his cloudy mind.

Observe, evaluate and...execute.

Execute.

He was startled at the hands sneaking around his shoulders and lightly down his chest, making him jump in a bit in the big velvet chair. He was too deep in his thoughts to hear the door open behind him or her walking in on his stiff back facing her. Chris heard her soft chuckle behind him and felt the warm air caress his sensitive neck.

“Easy loverboy” Ares cooed in a low voice.

If it wasn’t before, his heart was racing at lightspeed now. She had such a strong effect on him.

“...you’re very tense. Did you know that?” she whispered behind his ear.

He shivered at the feeling and slowly nodded, not trusting his stupid mouth to not say something awkward.

She chuckled again, “You have the prettiest blue eyes...even from a distance”

The woman walked around his seated boy, keeping her hands on him but moving them with her until she was faced with the mystery man from the darkest corner in the lounge. He wasn’t looking at her, but around her, and trying to find somewhere to rest his relentless gaze. It was all in vain though, she trailed her finger along his jaw and under his chin, forcing his eyes to hers.

“Hmm, there they are—better up close” she bit her lip softly.

He looks so timid, with his big beady eyes and those perfectly pouted lips working in the evilest ways. Chris blushed at the compliment, feeling better about himself already.

Watney might actually be right about this whole excursion after all.

“I—uh, thank you” he murmured.

Chris cursed himself for already stuttering like a dumbass.

In his defence, she was touching him ever-so-gently and how can he not trip up his words with her looking like a holy goddess. Ironic, given the circumstance. And now, he couldn’t look away.

Especially since her hands travelled upwards to pull his NASA ball cap off, then leaning forward while maintaining that close proximity as she unzipped his sweater, helping him pull it off.

“We don’t need those” Ares whispered, tossing the garments on the floor.

But there was always some teasing before the actual contact.

As she put distance between their bodies, he was resting almost slack in the chair – legs parted, arms limp at his side and in his lap as soft music began to play. The apple of throat bobbed in his tight throat as she began moving slowly in front of him, full of grace and precision. She was like a supernova, its effortlessly soft edges melting into the black of space as her skin did with her bodysuit. The fact that he was the only one seeing it made the experience that much sweeter, all those feelings coming back from earlier.

He was also able to recognize that she was wearing subtle glitter and rhinestones that temporarily fused to her skin, causing the shine and sparkle of her body on stage.

Once she gave him time to get comfortable, she spread his legs apart and hovered her back over his chest, grinding her ass into his lap. The shampoo and light perfume made his sex twitch as he inhaled it in, trying his best not to give in and touch. He kept his hands on the edges of the chair, his fingers digging into it painfully – he remembered what happened to the other guys, how they got thrown out. Chris just wants to watch, that’s good enough for him.

No touching.

Ares leaned forward slightly, arching her back and hitting his private areas in all the right places, gradually making him break out into a small sweat. The woman rubbed her ass on his lap expertly and before he knew it, she pressed herself against him to lay her head on his shoulder.

“I hope you know, the way you looked at me...you really know how to get a girl hot and bothered.”

Of course, he blushed again. His face was burning like the sun at this point.

“I...I was just enjoying it—you are very talented” Chris laughed nervously.

He turned his face slightly, absentmindedly following the heat of her skin until he was fanning her neck, so close...but never touching. He was so, sooo close, but felt so far.

She stood up without warning and slowly turned around, pushing him back into the back of the chair more and watching as he widened eyes dilated further at her forwardness. He’d clearly never had a lap dance so he probably didn’t know about what happened during one. She set her legs on either side of his thighs, effectively straddling him to get on with the real deal. She smoothed her arms around his neck and left them to hang lazily off the back of the chair, never breaking eye contact the entire time.

“That’s very sweet, I can feel how excited you are...”

As she began to move, their heads fell back simultaneously from the direct friction. Ares righted her head after a second and pressed into his personal space, their noses touching every time she moved up his lower body and back down again. She circled her hips a couple of times and breathed out a sigh, it was nice not giving lap dances to the clingy regulars and giving a man like this her talented movements and motions instead. It was different this time around, the atmosphere was weirdly intimate – he just gave off that energy.

“Very excited...” Ares added.

Chris shuttered as she rested her entire body weight on his clothed erection at the sentence, now realizing how difficult it was not to touch. Though she picked up on his hesitation and demeanour instantaneously. She stroked all over his arms, chest and stomach for the first time, feeling how cut the guy really was, there were endless muscles. Very practical.

He gave her a shy smile, “It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way—to, uh...to have my body behave this way, I mean”

“Ah, I’m turning you on?...” she asked, leaning in.

Chris didn’t know what to say to that, he’s never been good in these situations and more often than not resorted to the only thing he knows everything about. He’s starting to lose his cool and what happens when he loses his cool?

Well, he is not very smooth.

“I, um...it’s the body sending signals the corresponding part of the brain...neurons fire commands and simulate the, uh...ohh,” a moan cut off his rambling.

He could feel himself getting closer to his release, something he didn’t want but also desperately wanted at the same time. He was already on edge when he was in the booth, his brain constantly stimulating his sex to the point where his boner couldn’t go away. The way it was being dragged across his pants made him groan even more.

She giggled, “Has anyone told you that you’re a dork when you’re nervous?”

Chris shook his head, closing his eyes to try and fight off his orgasm until the lap dance was over. He had to swallow most of the breaths that became more and more erratic with every sway of her hips.

The way his skin flushed a dark pink and his breathing picked up confirmed she was doing a good job, but the only thing that threw Ares off was the fact that he was shaking violently, a straining vein on his neck making an impression in his flesh. She was unknowingly pumping his shaft along with his jeans, practically coaxing his seed to just burst out of him.

Chris felt his balls go stiff, cock pulse and tighten right before he lost control. The thing that pushed him to his limit was his balls compressing between his legs when she quickly swivelled her hips. He gripped the arms of the chair and thrust his hips upward, letting out a long mewl and finally giving up on holding back as pleasure took over his ability to think properly. Ares stopped moving while he continued riding out his orgasm that felt too goddamn good, cum seeping out of his boxers and down his thigh.

Once he found a way to maneuver himself back to Earth, he went completely limp in the chair as if he just ran a triathlon when the reality of what just happened hit him. That just happened, he hasn’t cum in his pants since his first year of university, and didn’t have a clue of what to do about it.

Why didn’t he just stay home? He could have avoided this if he just isolated himself in his room like he usually did.

“Huh...that’s never happened to me before,” she said in a tone he couldn’t quite decipher.

He glanced away after opening his eyes, still in a daze, “I...um”

For a moment he thought he made her uncomfortable and was getting ready to apologize, possibly leave if she wanted him to. But instead, he tilted his head as the embarrassment on his face was replaced by confusion at her smirk and gentle eyes. She dragged her ass across him once, making him hiss at the sensitivity of his half-hard cock still dripping with arousal.

Usually, she didn’t allow excessive touching and avoided any kind of sexual encounters at work, it wasn’t her thing – but there was something about this one that told her he should be pleased. To be honest, he wasn’t some run-of-the-mill scumbag or pompous prick like the usual attendees are, she’s starting to see he’s a plain, genuine guy. That’s why it took him by surprise when she leaned down and pressed a long kiss on the crease of his throat, sucking on it periodically.

“...I thought there was no, mhmm, touching” Chris stammered.

Ares held on to the baby hairs at the back of his neck, then ran his soft hair through her fingers as she kissed her way across his face. Their lips brush together as she spoke.

“Shhhh, let me take care of you...and this” she moved on him again, a mischievous gleam in her eye.

Chris whimpered out a noise of surprise when she finally connected both their lips together, she sucked his bottom one between hers and nipped at it tenderly. She grabbed his hands, placing them on her to encourage him to feel her, to touch her body. He was hesitant with his movements, still diffident even when she slithered her tongue into his soft mouth, twirling and caressing his.

When they disconnected he panted heavily in the shared space, she hummed at his expression, desire. After she climbed off his lap and kneeled in front of him as her hands began to unbuckle his belt and tug at his zipper.

“Okay, this is happening? Right now?...oh” Chris breathed out.

Everything was happening so fast, he didn’t have time to think about the repercussions of his irresponsible, but tempting actions. His voice of reason was screaming its concern and he couldn’t help but listen to it as he sat there, immobilized while she worked his pants, then cum-soaked briefs down his legs.

“You really don’t have t—” he groaned throatily as she pumped his shaft.

It was always the dorky guys who have the nicest and fullest cocks she had ever seen without fail – he was no different in that department, a decent length, thickness and fit for her. Ares stroked him until he was fully solid again, admiring the way he turned his hips up at the feeling of her hand around him – at least, if they stopped now, he’d have a good visual to fuel his lewd imagination late at night.

She quirked a wholesome smile, “We need to clean you up before things get too heated”

Chris would have mentally retracted the concept of using her as ammunition for his masturbation thoughts, but he was too busy with his eyes rolling back at the most damning sight in the universe. She began to lick the cum from where it was on his body, on his cock, all over his thigh and what remained on her fingers; swallowing everything before working him over with her mouth.

“Jesus Christ...” he growled, reeling in an abrupt lust. He held the back of her head as she sucked him off, “it’ll be over very soon if you don’t get up here”

Even taken aback by his tone, she grinned and gestured at him stand up along with her, encouraging him to pull the bodysuit straps down. Chris kissed along her collarbone faintly, tugging the lingerie down to expose her breasts and gleaming heat to his eyes. He kissed her neck as best he could, not knowing if he was making her feel good in the least but still giving it his best shot.

“God, you are beautiful...”

Luckily, she moaned at his rumbling words on her skin, relaxing him a little bit.

This was crunch time, they need to do it now. Ares rushed to pull his white t-shirt off, appreciating his abs, pecs and biceps as she pushed him back down on the chair forcefully – he looked like a complete stud but had the sweetest personality ever. She giggled as he squirmed out of his pants and kicked off his shoes so he could be fully naked like her, climbing on him again as he did so.

Chris didn’t want anything binding him while this happened.

“Do you have a condom?” she mumbled against his lips, kissing him again.

He made an affirming noise, gesturing for her to pick up his pants where his wallet held one in a hidden pocket. He quickly fumbled the leather out and tossed it with his pants to the ground, barely getting the condom out before she snatched it and rolled it down the length of him. She propped herself on her knees, coating him in her growing wetness as she prepared to take him.

But, he hesitated and held her just above him.

“Are you...are you sure you want to do this—with me?” Chris asked, his eyes held a sadness that she never wanted to see from him again.

Of course, she wanted to...now more than ever.

To reassure him, she cupped his cheek with her free hand and pressed their foreheads together. The woman revelled in the way his mouth dropped open, eyes becoming hooded and a gasp hitching in the back of his throat as she sunk onto him. Looking deep into his eyes and watching the sadness dissipate into satisfaction. He grasped her waist with one arm as she began to ride him at a steady pace, his cock stretching her.

Chris groaned loudly, choking on his moans every so often when she caressed the right spot. The speed increased as he began to enthusiastically meet her thrusts, causing them to both murmur muffled whines and whimpers into each other’s mouths. One hardy smack of his thighs to her ass pierced their ears when he gave a particularly harsh snap of his body, pulling her down as he kept up with his hard thrusts into her.

“Fuck, do that again...” she shivered as he fucked her so carefully, making her needier every second.

He had his brows furrowed in concentration, focusing on pleasuring her and tried to forget the doubts he had to live in that moment. This was more than spontaneous sex for him, he was making love to someone – feeling good for once. He has never fucked someone before but, if anything, he was giving her the most carnal, admiration-fueled sex he could.

She bounced faster as he, in turn, bucked into her harder. She was clenching, he was throbbing...it was too much.

“God, that’s it, just like that,” he grunted, continuing to manually move her slowing hips.

“Shit, you’re gonna make me cum...” she groaned, “...please tell me you’re close”

Chris nodded fervently, keeping his eyes locked on her for as long as he could. In the final stretch, as her clenching became more prevalent, he kept one arm around her as he trailed his hand down to her clit. Just when started to rub, his fingers caught the nerves underneath and made her cry out.

“Does that feel good for you? Is it okay?” he asked politely.

Ares sobbed her ‘yes’ in a pitchy tone.

He hugged her tightly against him as everything started to unwind, leaving his pelvis to stimulate her clit. The woman clenched hard around him as she lost her vision, the way her cunt gripped made him speed up his thrusts to continue moving. Her low whine near his ear did him in, his lower body ghosted on a final thrust as he stopped completely – his heaving was muffled by the clenching of his teeth, letting himself tremble in her arms as he filled the condom with his cum.

After a while of sitting there, Chris broke the silence, “I...I think my time is up”

She laughed at his witty remark, not realizing how much that boosted his mood and tugged at his heart, or how she just single-handedly repaired his self-worth. There was no way to process it, all he knew was he felt amazing, he felt...content.

Ares stood on weak legs, climbing off him and allowing him to dispose of the condom. Chris had a dopey smile on his face as he pulled his pants back on and did the fastenings quickly, she was already back in her bodysuit by that time. He appeared to be lost in deep thought as she handed him his shirt, smirking at him – his skin flushed a soft rose when he finally noticed.

She scoffed.

“Do I really make you nervous—after that?” she retrieved his sweater and cap off the floor where they were forgotten.

Chris laughed quietly before shifting back to his serious face, smiling somewhat. She wondered why he was there in the first place when he could have women lining up; well, if he wasn’t so humble that is.

He cleared his throat, “uh...thank you for that by the way. You didn’t have to do what you did...I just” then began rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

“I’m not good at this stuff, one-time things and strippers—or, I mean exotic dancers, I didn’t mean for that to sound like th—”

To save him from himself, she curled her fingers around his shirt collar and pulled him in, kissing him thoughtfully. Chris cupped the back of her head right away and held her waist as she encompassed the modest stranger with her warmth. He chased her mouth after she broke away from his pursed lips, brows furrowing at his want to keep kissing her.

“You talk a lot, it’s sweet” she giggled at his actions.

Following that encounter, he felt like a new man. She let him make love to her, or fuck her, whichever it was. He couldn’t get over that woman, she felt authentic in his arms, unlike Beth who felt out of place and made him realize his ex was never meant for him at all.

Chris was walking away, leftover clothes in hand and messy sex hair weathered by her hands, but before he could slip behind the curtain leading back to the lounge, she called out to him. When he turned to face her, she was in a robe and leaning laxly against the wall, just as dishevelled as he was.

“For the record, I’m not good at this—” she gestured between them, “—either”

He drove home with a smile on his face and satisfaction coursing through him.

Although, he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling of having a mere fling. Not even knowing anything about her while doing something so intimate, something personal to him. He wished he would have asked her real name or her number, so he could thank her properly or even, possibly ask her out.

He had a feeling about her, the attraction was undeniable now.

Perhaps it was a god working some sort of miracle or the planet’s alignment giving him mystical energy, maybe something as simple as luck. But, as he started to get ready for bed that night, a piece of paper fell out of his jeans as he stripped to have a shower.

Curiously, he picked it up and looked it over.

xxx-xxx-xxxx Just because I knew you wouldn’t ask for it. Call me sometime. – Y/N

Maybe he would take her out.

After all, he felt as if they had this connection, even if it was unconventional from any other relationship he had before. One thing he knew for sure was he liked the sound of her name on his tongue, repeating it in front of the mirror and practicing what to say to her...thinking about her until he fell fast asleep.

The spaceman used to have problems, but now?

He has none.

#the martian #sebastian stan #chris beck #chris beck smut #chris beck x reader #chris beck x reader smut #sac writes #space daddy

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lightsovermonaco · 3 years

Text

His Good Sweater: Chapter 10

Masterlist

Shoutout to my bestie @acollectionofficsandshit for all the drunk comments she made while betaing this one... Wish you guys could see them lol

Word Count: 4.8k

Recommended song: “Amnesia" by 5SOS

Pierre paces in his dinky trailer at the Circuit of the Americas and desperately tries to forget you exist. He had already taken down the pictures on the wall but the images were burned into his brain. He had shoved your shirt under his bed, having absolutely no idea how it had made its way halfway around the world to taunt him.

He was slowly unraveling like a spool of thread on a loom as you wove him irrevocably into the tapestry of your life.

The race in Austin started in less than two hours and you hadn't texted him. Not once in the handful of years he'd known you had you neglected to wish him luck before a race, even if it was 2 am your time or you had exams, you always took thirty seconds to warn him to be safe and finish well.

He was beginning to think you hated him for how he'd acted at the gala last weekend, jealous and possessive from afar. Talking to you would have been the better choice. But seeing you laugh and dance the night away had hurt too much. He’d slipped out early after Victoria assured him she could find a ride and sped home to fall apart.

He had only barely managed to piece himself together in time for the race.

Pierre checks his phone for the third time in as many minutes and swears under his breath. He didn't know why he expected it to ring and for your face to pop up at this point. Even if you called to tear into him, he'd still fall to his knees at the sound of your voice. He just wanted to hear you speak, didn't care what was said, only that he could latch onto your words and lose himself in them.

Hope sparks when his phone chimes but he nearly throws it across the trailer when he sees Charles' name.

Heard from her yet?

No. At this point I'm beginning to think I never will again.

Maybe she fell asleep early?

It's 5 pm in London. I'll bet you she's eating a bowl of takeout from the Chinese place down the street, not sleeping.

Its still possible. Don't dwell on it. This isn't the headspace you wanna be in before a race. Block it out. I don't wanna see my best friend wind up hurt today.

Pierre didn't reply, if only because Charles was right. Worrying would get him nowhere. After his shitty qualifying yesterday, he started thirteenth on the grid so he had his work cut out for him. Austin offered plenty of opportunity for overtakes; he could get the job done if his team made the right calls.

And if he made it to the podium, you would have to text him.

The thin mattress groans when he sits to unlace his hastily tied race boots. He folds his legs to sit criss cross and places his palms on his knees. The familiar pose already has some of the tension leaving his shoulders as his eyes slide shut. He breathes in for ten seconds, reflecting on what ails him. He holds the breath for five seconds before releasing it slowly.

He repeats the process until he comes to terms with the fact that you won't be wishing him luck. That was your choice; there was nothing he could do about it and therefore no sense reading into it. He had done all he could to convince you to trust him. The ball was in your court; he had to be patient and wait for you to take a shot.

“Focus,” he murmurs to himself, forcing any erroneous thoughts from his head. “Walk through the track.”

The circuit at Austin was challenging, consisting of a mix of 20 sweeping corners and scattered hairpins. He was almost lucky in a way to be starting so far back on the grid because turn one was only a few hundred meters from pole and their tires would be slightly colder and less grippy upon arrival than his would be. The few extra seconds afforded to him by starting thirteenth could mean the opportunity to leap frog past his rivals in the first corner.

The counterclockwise circuit meant he would have to keep an eye on his front left tire too, as it would wear faster than the others. He'd change gears an average of 66 times per lap, higher than similar length tracks like Monaco. Pit stops cost an average of nineteen seconds, meaning he would need to build a significant gap to the driver chasing him in order to avoid the threat of any undercuts.

There were too many variables occupying space in his mind to afford you a sliver of it.

Some time later he decides that his four leaf clover tucked safely in the worn leather of his wallet will provide all the luck he needs and switches on his pre race playlist after popping in his ear buds.

"Sights on the podium," he murmurs to himself, hand on the doorknob. "Let's race."

The bass flows through him as his feet carry him to the Alpha Tauri garage on autopilot, through the back entrance and to his plain white driver room. The familiar beats are a numbing salve spread on his frayed nerves, his anticipation rising like a crimson wave in his veins. He leaves his clothes in a haphazard heap in the corner and changes into the white fireproofs hanging nearby, thoughts momentarily veering to you knocking on the door and stripping them right back off.

Shaking his head to clear his mind, he runs through his usual stretch sets until Pyry arrives to walk him through reflex exercises.

"How's your head?" Pyry asks, running him through more cool down stretches. "Do we need to take a minute and do some meditation?"

"Beat you to it," Pierre grunts out, pushing back against the hand on his head to work his neck. "I'm good."

"You sound better than you have all week, I'll give you that. Keep that focus, use it to propel yourself forward."

"Run me through the lineup again," Pierre requests, "I need something else to think about."

Because if he let his mind follow the path it wanted to, it would inevitably lead to you and undo the work he had done to avoid that. He needed to be empty of anything that wasn't racing, anything else was an unnecessary distraction that had the potential to end in disaster.

Pyry rattles off the grid in order of who Pierre needs to overtake, pausing between each name to give him time to recall their driving styles and potential chinks in their armor to exploit. He knew from tapes of previous years that Stroll often ran wide into turn one, giving Pierre the option to brake late and sweep up the inside. Vettel was half convinced the track was cursed, so his mind would work against him enough that Pierre could exploit it and get past at some point. He continued until he got to Hamilton and Max locking out the front row, where he would need a bit of luck to overtake.

"You got it?" Pyry asks, stepping back.

Pierre rolls his shoulders and nods.

"Get shit done mate," Pyry says and bumps fists with his driver. He slips out to allow Pierre a moment to center himself before slipping into his race suit, leaving it half unzipped and tying it around his waist before following his trainer.

Pyry leads the way to where the matte navy and white car waits, mechanics swarming it like studious worker bees tending to their queen. No one talks to him save his engineer because words from anyone else threaten to break his carefully constructed race mentality. If they wanted him to bring home points, they knew to leave him alone once he was suited up.

His mind is blank of anything but statistics as he twists his ear buds in and pulls on his balaclava and helmet. As his vision narrows to the sliver of track he can see through his visor, so does his focus. With forty minutes to lights out, he's directed out onto the track. He rips the wheel to the right as he exits the garage, getting a decent powerslide for his efforts.

There was no doubt in his mind that he would land on the podium, if only to see the look on your face when he did.

**********

It took an unfathomable amount of restraint to keep yourself from calling Pierre to wish him luck.

You texted Max instead, wishing him a safe and comfortable podium a half hour before lights out. He hadn't responded, likely already in the garage with his trainer going through his pre race routine.

The pace Max had set the day before had awarded him pole position and the margin between him and Hamilton had been enough that you were confident in his ability to hold off the Mercedes for all fifty six laps.

If you were honest with yourself, you were disappointed that the Alpha Tauri you so desperately tried to ignore would be starting in thirteenth. You try not to think about it, instead queueing up SkySports and opening your laptop for pre race coverage. You avoid the interviews in favor of listening to the commentators analyze the grid.

"It should be an easy win for Max as long as he fends off Hamilton until the first round of pit stops. The undercut works well here, as Red Bull proved last year, and I'm sure they plan on doing the same thing this year."

You hum in agreement, gingerly sipping your steaming tea. You really ought to consider a career as a sportscaster at this point based on how often you came to the same conclusions they did.

"I think one of the biggest shakeups is Russell starting all the way up in eleventh after his amazing qualifying for Williams yesterday. Think he can hold onto that position?"

"He's got some fierce competition not far behind in the form of Alpha Tauri. Gasly starts thirteenth- surprisingly far back on the grid given the otherwise flawless performance he's shown this year. But it seems likely that he should be able to overtake-"

You flick the tv on mute, unable to stomach listening to them sing his praises. You numb your mind with social media until the Formula 1 theme plays on your laptop, alerting you that there's a few minutes until race start. Tire blankets are peeled off and the drivers weave their way through the formation lap with the exception of Kimi who takes his traditional straight line approach to warm up his supersoft tires.

Most of the front runners are on ultrasofts, indicating a two stop strategy. It was Pirelli's recommended approach, and you were glad that Horner heeded their advice for once and let Max use the ultras in Q2. It would give Max the upper hand over Hamilton who starts on the yellow sidewall tire and thus slightly slower lap times.

Crofty and Brundle break down the notable turns as the cars line up on the grid, pointing out the sharp hairpin only a few hundred meters from pole position. If Max got away clean, he would be ahead of the cramped pack and have an even better edge over the silver arrows who would be forced to queue behind him.

The traditional "lights out and away we go" kicks off the grand prix, engines roaring into the first turn. Max does manage to get away clean and is awarded with an immediate advantage. Turn one proves tragic for the Alfa Romeo of Raikonnen and the Asthon Martin of Stroll who collide and cause Kimi to spin. They rejoin at the back of the pack, your eyes snagging on the navy and white of an Alpha Tauri as it streams past.

Your heart spins in a similar fashion when the GAS driver tag leaps up two places in the timing table, suddenly in eleventh due to the incident. Your gaze snaps to the laptop humming on your legs before you remember its Max's driver cam you queued up. The Dutchman is silent as his engineer relays information about the incident and informs him of the widening gap between those chasing him.

“Confirm received,” Gianpiero says calmly. No matter the situation or how heated Max got, he always kept his head. It was what made the duo such a good match and had likely kept Max from going off the rails on more than one occasion.

“Yeah,” Max says shortly, clearly pissed about how quickly Hamilton was approaching. “Let me know when I’ve got enough charge to get out of range.”

“Yep, will do. Just keep this pace and you’ll hold him at bay.”

Live coverage replays the incident between Stroll and Raikonnen from the view of onboard with Pierre. The instant the 10 on the halo appears in the center of your screen you suck in a breath. He yanks the wheel to avoid colliding with Ocon, who had to do the same to keep from hitting his teammate as they navigate through the carnage.

You chew on your lip and try to refocus on the battle between the front runners. Not much is happening in the midfield for the next thirty or so laps and Max just barely manages to build a solid enough gap between himself and Hamilton to dive into the pits comfortably without losing places.

Your phone rings and you answer it without checking who it was as the only person you wouldn't answer was currently occupied.

"Hello?"

"Why the fuck didn't they pit Daniel?!"

You grin, noting the blistering beginning on his front left tire as SkySports switches to his onboard camera. "Because he's about to pass Charles," you tell Dan's girlfriend. She didn't call you often during races. It was likely that she knew you were nearing your wits end and this was her way of offering support.

"He won't be able to with those tires- oh." She breaks off when Daniel passes a DRS detection zone and his rear wing opens, allowing him to pass the Monegasque with ease.

"Told you," you say with a touch of reprimand. "You're always too nervous about those things. Daniel knows how to drive, just trust him to get the job done and he'll bring home another trophy for your apartment."

"I don't live here," she points out and you roll your eyes. She had lived in London as long as you had known her, but she was almost always at Daniel's apartment whether he was in town or not. Daniel digs in as the camera follows him for a lap, highlighting the widening gap between the McLaren and the Ferrari.

"You basically do. At this point, you're paying rent for a dusty one bedroom apartment on the east side that you set foot in maybe once a month." She scoffs but you push on, "a waste of sterling if you ask me, when you're at Daniel's every time I ask you to do anything."

"You act like I never- there goes Pierre!"

His name sparks dread in your gut as your attention flicks back to the screen in time to see him overtake Bottas on the inside of turn one. He'd managed to claw up to fifth with the move, somehow gaining places while you weren't looking.

"Good for him," you croak, trying your best to be genuinely happy for him. He was pushing the car to the limit and you'd be amazed if he didn't wind up on the podium along with Dan and Max. Charles and Hamilton were the only ones in his way, and something told you Charles wouldn’t put up much of a fight when his mate reached his gearbox. Hamilton would prove a challenge but he had been making tiny mistakes all day. Nothing significant, though enough to add up to him barely holding onto second while Daniel rode his gearbox.

"He's got ten laps to get past those two," she murmurs as if momentarily forgetting you were on the phone.

"Can we talk about literally anything else please?" You whisper, half tempted to shut off the race completely.

"Babe, you have to face the music at some point. Either you never want to see him again or you love him, which is it?"

She never failed to be anything but brutally honest. You appreciate it because everyone else let you brush off your problems, but she called you on your bullshit. She would needle you about it until you folded.

"I think it's better for both of us if I pretend we never met, don't you?"

"Easier for you, yes," she agrees. "But it'll kill Pierre. You don't think you could keep in touch with him, just as friends?"

"I don't know if I can handle that. I can barely look at him without wanting to bawl my eyes out."

She sighs, pausing to contemplate what to say. Voice soft, she continues, "Why don't you just take him back? Clearly it's ruining both of you. Are you really gonna let the press wreck the best you ever had? I know its hard but-"

"I'm not like you," you cut in. "I can't just ignore the articles and the comments and pretend there aren't people out there that hate me for being with him. They came to my house, disrupted my family. Hell, Ben can't even go to school without being mobbed by his classmates demanding answers. If my suffering is what allows my family to go about their lives then so be it."

"If that's what you wanna believe."

You sigh, tangling your fingers in the hem of your shirt. "It is."

"Alright," she says, voice teetering on a knife's edge. "I know better than to try to change your mind when you're like this. He's on the podium by the way. Oh, and watch what you say to Max- Pierre will read into it."

She hangs up without a goodbye, leaving you to deal with the realization that the podium is indeed VER RIC GAS on your own. Your eyes are glued to the Red Bull and McLaren drivers, blatantly ignoring the one in the white suit as the anthems play and the champagne is sprayed, turning away to busy yourself with making coffee when Daniel hands his liquid filled race boot to third place.

You weren't quite sure how you were supposed to watch what you said to Max- there was no reason to in your mind. Max was your next closest friend on the grid and you had every right to congratulate him if you wanted to.

Resolute in your decision, you text Max and Daniel a quick congratulations before shutting off the TV and closing your laptop.

Max's insane custom ringtone he'd selected for himself nearly makes you jump out of your skin when it blares from your phone.

"Hey great race-"

"Did you see it? I wasn't sure if you'd watch it- did you see my move on Hamilton when he tried to get past me?" He was talking a mile a minute like he was still out on track. "I was like- and then Dan tried to overtake me on the final lap and I was like no way! And then-"

"Max," you chime in, dragging out the 'a' with a sing-song voice. "You're rambling."

"Oh right. Yeah but I made it! Led every lap and finished with another win."

"That's great." You force as much enthusiasm in the words as possible, trying to match his chaotic energy. "You did great. I know it probably doesn't mean much, but I'm proud to be your friend. You beat a world champ!"

"It means a lot-"

"Who's that?"

You stiffen at the familiar cadence. You had assumed Max was back in the garage when he called, but he must have still been in the podium room. You could picture him in his race suit, smudges of grease and dirt staining the pristine white. Beads of sweat probably ran down his neck, begging to be brushed away by your tongue.

"Uh, no one," Max says in a lame attempt to cover up his digression. "I gotta go," he whispers to you.

"Let me talk-"

"Wait don't," you start, but the call ends abruptly and you blink. You stare down at your phone, completely dumbfounded. Of course his instinct would be to talk to you, to share the euphoria of a podium with you. It was the first victory in three years he wouldn't have you to celebrate with.

It was only a matter of time until his resolve popped like the cork on his champagne.

**********

Pierre's phone is in his hand as soon as Max hangs up. He hefts his trophy in the other, a wild grin on his sweaty face as he snaps a picture. He makes sure he's the only one in the frame, shamelessly wanting himself to be the center of your attention.

"Mate," Daniel pipes up, catching his eye, "you think that's a good idea?"

Pierre sighs, cutting the Australian a glare. "I'm just trying to fill her in."

"Wasn't your plan to give her space?"

"It's been a week, isn't that long enough?"

"Take it from me, sometimes it takes months for someone to figure things out. Hell, you know how long it took me to sort through my feelings for-"

"I know," Pierre cuts in. "I know. I just- a snap can't hurt can it? C'mon, I just got a podium! If it goes bad I can blame it on the post race jitters."

Daniel holds up his hands and shrugs. "You're a grown man. Do what you want."

Pierre studies the photo, scrutinizing the way his hair was plastered to his head and the awkward way he'd posed to keep anyone but himself out of the frame. It's his genuine smile that he knows will do you in, and ultimately the reason he sends it.

His phone is a lead weight clutched in his grip as he winds through the paddock, constantly stopped by vips and team members congratulating him. None of what anyone says registers, he just tries his best to match their mood and sputter praises about his team's contributions to his podium.

The snap you finally send back is only from the eyes up, but it's enough. He's surrounded by people in his driver room, but for ten seconds it might as well have just been him staring at a sliver of your face on a screen.

The tiny lines at the corners of your shining eyes tell him you're smiling, which is a step in the right direction even if you won't let him see your entire face. It's enough to reignite the hope that slumbered in his chest while waiting for you to pull the trigger and make a move.

He sends back a video of the people in the room, who cheer when they realize they're being filmed. 'Wish you were here,' is what he captions it and sends it without giving himself a chance to overthink.

Ten minutes pass with no reply.

The beer he’s already consumed have given him a pleasant buzz as well as an excuse to make a bad decision or two. He takes another video of the room to post to his Instagram story, 'Missing you' written in the lower left corner.

Fuck, he hopes you'll see it and regret leaving him on read. Instead all he gets is a text from Charles chastising him for stirring up drama.

Really Pierre?

Blame it on the alcohol, he texts back.

I know you aren’t drunk. You can’t form a coherent sentence when you are.

Guess i gotta drink more then

Pierre doesn’t turn anyone bearing alcohol away. He's two celebratory shots deep when Daniel finds him sulking in a corner. "You've got my girl texting me freaking out over your story. I've seen it and I gotta agree with her. Was that really necessary?"

"She left me on read," Pierre says like that was enough explanation. His head was spinning and it was getting hard to keep the room upright. "And it's the truth. I miss her like hell. I want her here. She was supposed to come, you know? I was gonna have her fly in with me on the jet. She doesn't start class again until June. I had this whole week planned out. I was gonna show her Texas- she’s from New York and..."

He trails off when he notes Dan’s pitying smile. Daniel sighs and runs a hand through his curls. "I know. I get it, okay? I know it's hard but you can't force it. You've gotta let her come back on her own, all you're doing now is pushing her away."

He was fucking clueless when it came to these things. He'd had you for a few precious moments and now that he'd lost you he didn't know how to act. His mind was running on hazy autopilot; he barely knew which way was up, let alone did he trust himself to make any sort of important decision.

He stares down at the shot he'd been handed at some point before throwing it back. The cheap whiskey burns his throat but he barely registers the sting. "Should I take it down?"

"She already saw it," Daniel says gently, as if he anticipates how bad the fuck up will hurt. And it does. It hits him like a tire wall at two hundred kph, knowing that you were probably ranting or crying on the phone with Daniel’s girlfriend. "But yeah, that's probably best. People are already wondering what happened between you two, no need to throw fuel on the fire."

"You're probably right-" Pierre cuts off when Charles arrives with a grimace on his face. He shakes his head and gives his friend’s shoulder a squeeze.

"For once I'm not the dumb one."

"You're a dick, you know that right?" Daniel says, allowing Pierre to delete the post. It takes him a few tries before he gets it down, but undeniably rumors will be circulating in the morning if they weren’t already.

"Honestly what were you thinking?" Charles demands, edging towards full blown yelling. "I told you to leave her be. The gossip stemming from this isn’t gonna help.”

The last thing he needed was someone else telling him how stupid his decision had been. At least Daniel had the decency to show sympathy.

"Honestly?" Pierre responds with the same intensity, his anger flaring. "Honestly, Charles, I was thinking that she was happy for me but was too afraid to take the leap. She haunts me. Every second I’m awake I have to force myself away from her. Even when I’m asleep I can’t get away from her. So I don’t know, maybe I wanted to haunt her too."

“This isn’t the way you win her back and you know it.”

“I know!” Pierre throws up his hands. “But what else am I supposed to do? She won’t talk to me. She has no problem talking to Max or Daniel but apparently she draws the line at me.”

“You know it’s not-” Daniel's eyes flick to his phone and he fights back a grin. All it does is remind Pierre that he lost the person that could bring that sort of smile to his own face. "Fellas I wish I could stay and help but I gotta get going. Charles, I think Pierre needs another drink." He slaps five American dollars in the Monegasque's hand. "First one is on me."

Pierre is too deep in a spiral to care when his friend drags him from the party to a bar just south of the circuit. Somehow it was within walking distance; the floor was sticky and the lighting was for shit but he didn't care.

Pierre's focus was on downing shot after shot, erasing the broken image of you his mind had conjured up. He never should have posted the story. It only served to feed into what the media had been speculating for the past week and dredged up more tension between you.

Pierre stops checking his phone two shots later. The liquor provides a wet blanket over his senses, dousing him in cold water and scrambling his brain. He could barely remember his own name, but yours still lived in the corner of his mind.

Even drunk, he refused to forget you.

Two hours and who knows how much alcohol later, Charles helps Pierre back to his hotel room.

Pierre falls asleep as soon as he hits the mattress, head too blurry to dredge up memories of you.

#are you feeling the angst yet #pierre gasly #pierre gasly X reader #formula 1 #f1 #formula 1 imagine #f1 imagine #formula 1 fanfiction #formula 1 fantasy #f1 fanfic #f1 fanfiction #f1 fic #f1 fantasy #formula 1 fanfic #formula 1 fic #formula 1 rpf #f1 rpf #pierre gasly imagine #pierre gasly fanfiction

134 notes · View notes

enhyupn · 3 years

Text

the perfect date! four

masterlist | previous | next

a series in which enhypen’s 02s competitive side shines through when trying to get your attention. the only solution to end this tiring rivalry? three dates with each of them in the course of three weeks.

paring: 02s x gn!reader

word count: 2.8k

genre: fluff, angst, high school!au, someone’s gonna end up heartbroken

warnings: swearing, violence is mentioned, jealousy, arguments + there might be grammatical and spelling errors in this 😞

ask to be on taglist, updates are irregular

a/n i should really make a masterlist BUT!!! okay i’ll edit this properly soon my eyes aren’t working rn since i’m on the road also it’s taking a while to get to the actual date 😩 Bit so wait for that everyone

taglist: @dchannie17 @simluvbot @jaeyuni @neocrush @penghoons @min-arya @sunooflowerss @badroseee @cha-raena @ghjasksdk @strawr @jaypen @nanachuu @nikisboxysmile @softkons @kisshoons-main @enha-woodzies

you had felt as if your feet were about to fall off by the time you had reached the gate of your well loved home. with heavy breaths you could see the outline of a figure standing almost a meter away from you. a scowl on your face when you saw the almost semi-permanent smirk placed on jay’s face as he stood proudly in front of your home. you let an exasperated sigh out as you lean against the cold metal gate, not able to find the energy to open it up. the lack of daylight surrounding you only really added to your draining energy. you roll your eyes before fixing your school blazer into it’s proper appearance and adjusting your school bag to fit comfortably on your shoulder. you look up once again, your eyes meeting the blonde dyed boy’s eyes. a smile placed in his eyes, something that showed you that had been waiting for you.

your mind couldn’t help but remind you that this was one of the few moments where you had really taken the time to look at jay’s face. your time in middle school didn’t really give you any opportunities due to the fact you were so shy and bashful in front of the boy that you couldn’t even properly look at him. you just so barely properly spoke to him and exchanged messages to even form some sort of connection. you never really questioned until then why he had a crush on you in middle school, a time in your life where you had thought you were going to be alone forever. as much as you wanted to question him you knew you’d accidentally expose your own past crush, something you desperately didn’t want to explain.

“are you gonna greet me or are you just gonna keep staring at my face?” he teased, letting out a hearty laugh. you shook your head, not approving of his statement. you unlock your gate as you send him another glare. the wind added to the already dramatic yet heart warming scene, loose cherry blossom petals from a nearby tree flying around you almost romantically.

“i was not” you murmured as you had gotten closer to him, the sound of the grass lightly flattening as you walked over it with care. you might of even stepped on a bug in the process, none of the surrounding light exposing itself onto the lawn meaning your vision was very little. “as if i’d willingly do that”. the boy only laughed in response as you leaned against the wall, very eerily close to him. you eyes dart to the small space in between the two of you, unexplainable heat rushing to your cheeks. the boy sends you a look with his eyebrow raised, unsure what the problem was. “anyways, what was that call even for?” you manage to shift the attention back into your words.

“hmmmm” he pretended to think, the joke only causing you to snort quietly to yourself. his head suddenly twists towards you, the previous view of your sad looking garden not doing him any justice in your conversation. from your point of view, your eyes only widened in surprise when you had realised just how close your faces were together. his nose was almost touching yours and, if you wanted to, you could of even touched foreheads together. “i don’t know”.

“what do you mean i don’t know?” you move your face back, jay not noticing the small movement from your sudden bashfulness. “who calls saying i’m at your house, come home quickly before i break in without a reason?” you continue, hands flying around you as you try and theatrically explain his excuse.

“maybe i do?” jay laughed in between his words. you roll your eyes at his playfulness, a small smile forming on your lips when you looked down at your feet. as much as you wanted an explanation, hearing jay finally for the first time in years joke around with you simply just felt better.

“veeerry funny jay” you spoke breathily, leaning further against the wall of your home. you knew your parents were waiting for your arrival, probably sitting in their room asking themselves when you’ll eat your dinner. however, you weren’t entirely really sure if they knew about jay’s sudden visit outside your door. with a quick sigh out you turn to him once again, the boy only mirroring your action with a grin spread across his face. “how did you know where i live? or remembered my number?”.

“jake, for both of your answers” you seem raise an eyebrow at the mention of your best friend’s name, suspicious on what had happened between the two of them.

“you two are buddy-buddy now?” you tease, your fingers wiggling in front of his face playfully as you let a squeaky laugh out. jay lightly swatted your hands away, a low chuckle escaping him mouth as he turned away from you to look at the bland scenery in front of him.

“not exactly, we just both relate to things i guess” he replied quietly, the sound of crickets chirping and wind slightly breezing through following the sound of his voice. your lips morph into a small smile when you had listened to his words.

“that’s nice to hear” you sigh out blissfully, your head nodded in agreement while turning to the front of you too to look at the same scenery his eyes were trained on. “no more fighting then, i suppose?”.

“can’t promise that one” jay awkwardly let out, his head replaying the memory of earlier that evening. he bit his lip in guilt, feeling yet again apologetic about the whole situation. “hey i’m sorry—”

“—it’s fine” you interrupt him abruptly. you had already predicted what he was about to say, knowing jay’s personality you knew he would feel incredibly guilty about it. you knew it wasn’t either of their faults, from every way you’ve looked at the situation you understood that the two of weren’t the best with handling any sort of feelings they felt. “you two were just emotional, plus i wasn’t giving you enough attention today too”.

“give me attention?” he laughed, a growing blush scattering across his face. his brain almost blew up at your slightly affectionate comment. “why would you say it like that?”.

“oh shut up” you nudge him lightly, biting your lip in slight embarrassment when you had realised what you had said. “you know what i mean! i haven’t seen you in forever and of course you would wanna catch up with me”. you glance at him while your feet tapped slightly, “right?”.

“how cocky of you to think i missed you” jay jokingly rolled his eyes. you could tell from his playful tone that he was just teasing you, although it didn’t stop you from lightly elbowing him in the side.

it felt nice, talking so freely with the boy you’ve probably spent a good chunk of your life thinking about and as well as even missing. the brain of middle school you would of never even thought this would of happened, with you thinking then that the two of you were on two completely different levels (with jay being on the significantly higher level, even during those middle school years). you wish you could of told your younger self that those times spent silently admiring your school crush wasn’t a one sided thing as much as you had thought.

“don’t go thinking i missed you either too then!” you pout. the action setting jay’s brain into haywire, you had such an affect on him but you were the only one who couldn’t realise it.

he abruptly swivels his head forward, not wanting you to catch his embarrassing slip up. your own action caused him to clear his head completely blank, not having any snarky comebacks for your reply.

“remember the jeju day trip in middle school?” jay changed the subject, it caused you to raise an eyebrow before taking a glimpse at him.

you didn’t really understand why he had brought it up, it wasn’t anything significant. you can vaguely even remember the day, the only real memory you had of that day was your aunt dressing you up for it. she had wanted you to look your best, you can’t really thank her for anything since that whole night was truly just unmemorable.

“no” you paused to rack your brain in hopes to find anything to add to his question. “why? was there something worth remembering?”, yet another pout formed on your face from his puzzling question.

“the plane ride there?” he mentioned, trying to jog your memory in hopes to find what he was trying to say. “do you seriously not remember?” he laughs unexpectedly, his voice only sending your heart beating rapidly.

“n-no” a stutter had caught up to your words. you had no idea why he was still giving you this affect. i mean you’ve gotten over him over the course of his absence, right?

“well, remember earlier today, what i told you in front of sunghoon and jake” he rambles on, completely ignoring your embarrassed state. you glance back at him, noticing he was awkwardly playing with his fingers with tinted red ears. you smile to yourself, the boy setting your cheeks on fire with small actions that you didn’t think would even affect you.

“yeah, what about it?”

“i said i had a crush on you” he continued, his words only sending butterflies to your stomach as you tried to put on a calm smile. you only nodded silently, unable to find the correct answer to reply to him with. “on the plan ride to jeju, we sat beside each other” you watched from his side his hands ran through his hair, “you were so talkative and just so bright— happy? something like that. i remember only wanting to talk to you that whole day after we got off the plane, my friends kept teasing me about it and wouldn’t stop asking why i kept glancing at you throughout our whole trip”.

“you’ve liked me since then?” you let out; quietly questioning his comment, your hands cupping your mouth in realisation at your slight mixup of words. “i mean— you started liking me then? up until whenever you’ve stopped liking me? you get what i’m trying to say—”.

“who said i stopped liking you?”

if words could kill, his would of definitely made you drop stone cold onto the ground. you open your mouth, and without surprise nothing came out due to your speechless state of mind. did he really just— was he being serious? that’s all you could think as you blankly stared at his face, eyes slightly widening as a small smirk laced through his lips. you would of comically checked your pulse in front of him as a way to ease this tension but you were too star struck to even move an inch. what was going on?

“h-huh?” only a noise came out of your mouth, desperately yelling at yourself to just even let out a single word. jay only seemed to find humour in this situation, chuckling at your frozen state as he straightened his back. with a step forward he looked back at you, his face being illuminated by the cheap porch light in front of your door. you could only gulp at his figure, somehow looking more like a pictorial pose than a casual pose regular people would normally do.

“you heard me” with his head whipping back to the front of him. he placed both of this hands behind his head, an audible yawn coming out of his mouth to express his drowsiness. “it’s getting late isn’t it?” he had professed quite randomly, a completely different choice of topic than your original one.

“well, yeah...” you replied, your words sounding confused. if someone had asked you what the two of you had been talking about that whole evening, you wouldn’t of been able to tell them anything.

“i should get going then” he stretched his arms gently, an action now raising your eyebrow in suspicion. with your arms crossed you watched as he took a step further away from you, his figure almost disappearing in the darkness of your garden.

“you’re just not gonna explain your last sentence?” you nervously informed the boy of his previous words. the boy only continued his walk down the small pathway in front of the two of you, a laugh being heard even with the distance.

“what do you mean explain?” he taunted, finally reaching the cold metal gate you had earlier made in contact with. the creak of the gate caused you to flinch in shock, you watched as he swiftly made his way past your gate, his feet stopping as he closed it again. staring back at you with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “the explanation’s right there”.

“but—”

“see you tomorrow y/n” he put a stop to your attempt, a small smile dancing happily upon his face as he took off on his journey home. “sweet dreams!” you could faintly hear him as he made his way deeper down your street.

“what— what was that about...” you spoke hesitantly. your words coming out quietly unable to really understand what had happened, something that was happening far too often that day. you understood what he said definitely, but at the same time what did he say? he said the explanation was there but as much as you wanted your brain to believe his words, you couldn’t allow yourself.

you stood there for a good few minutes, your brain trying to come up with reasonable answers; ones that weren’t pointing towards the conclusion that jay park could possibly like you. as in like—like romantically! there was no way you were going to let yourself believe in something as unbelievable as that. letting out a loud sigh you finally make up your mind to go inside your house, not having the energy to even try and make up an excuse to your parents on why you were arriving home so late.

with your hand on the door handle you felt a surprising quick vibration coming from your right pocket. you sweat instantly on the spot, your brain instantly scattering the word jay in the blank spaces in your mind. cautiously, you dipped your hand into your pocket, bracing yourself for a very awkward message from the blond boy.

park sunghoon (3-A) added you to “booth @ festival”

you sighed happily at the notification, until you had realised the previously mentioned boy was also in this group chat. your eyes drifted at sunghoon’s contact name, the formality of it almost begging you to change it into something more casual.

sunghoon: Meeting tomorrow at 7:30AM sharp, please be there on time.

jakey: sure! no promises though

jakey: the bus run’s on it’s own time sometimes

sunghoon: I can excuse that.

jay: why do you type so stiff

you couldn’t help but agree at jay’s off topic tease, sunghoon’s way of typing seemed very formal for a group chat with your classmates. a quiet giggle escaped your mouth as you walked into your house, “i’m home!” you informed your family as you raised your voice one step into your home.

sunghoon: What do you mean?

jay: ok nvm

y/n: i’ll be there!! see you three tmr 🤍

with your hand forcefully taking your shoes off, you lazily typed your reply with one hand with little to no attention on your screen. you felt your heart race rapidly when you realised, out of habit, you send a white heart to the group of boys. cursing to yourself you threw your shoes onto your shoe rack, the position of them awkwardly almost falling off the shelf they were on. you swiftly typed out a reply, trying to explain your small accident without further embarrassing yourself.

y/n: i didn’t mean the heart .

jay: sureee you didn’t

y/n: shut up

jakey: this is like the third time you’ve done that

y/n: STOP IT PLEASE FOR MY OWN SAKE

sunghoon: I think we should stop embarrassing Y/N.

y/n: thank you sunghoon

y/n: ummmm anyways goodnight!

you groaned loudly, knowing it was more than likely that jake and jay would tease you about it the following morning. you felt yourself dramatically falling on your bed, your face being engulfed by your bed sheets as you ran your hands through your head in frustration. the only thing stopping you from screaming your embarrassment out was the fact someone in the room beside you scolded you for making noise so late in the night.

“sorry!” you replied back, your face warm from your burst of energy. “can’t wait for tomorrow” you sarcastically whispered to yourself, bringing yourself to sit properly at the edge of your bed.

in the whole course of a day, nothing had gone to plan. first jay showing up? jake confessing to you? sunghoon (kind of) walking you home? all of this just on day one, you couldn’t even imagine what day two was going to be like.

“cannot wait!”

#prism.nw #enhypenwriters #enhypen imagines #enhypen scenarios #enhypen fluff #enhypen x reader #kpop imagines #kpop scenarios #kpop fluff #enhypen fanfiction

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cherrynojutsu · 3 years

Text

Title: Like Silver

Summary: A companion series for Like Gold.

Sakura misses him so much. She misses the faint smell of woodsmoke and sage, and mismatched eyes captivating in their intensity and unfathomable depths. The Rinnegan is beautiful, soft lavender ringed by hypnotizing layers of circle and tomoe, but flecks of silver dance in his right, tiny asterisms bewitching in nature, if one gets close enough; she’d first noticed it when they were children at the Academy. She knows they're Itachi's now, a slightly different scattering of luminaries aglow in the deep pitch of obsidian, but they're still as enthralling to her as they had been back then. She dreams of that silver sometimes, recalls it any time she sees something similar in color or reflet.

Blank period, canon-compliant, Sakura-centric, some expanded plot points from Like Gold, fluff and pining, eventually becomes a smut fest with feelings.

Disclaimer: I did not write Naruto. This is a fan-made piece solely created for entertainment purposes.

Rating: M (eventual nsfw-ness)

AO3 Link - FF.net Link - includes beginning/ending author's notes

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Chapter 1/?: An Introduction to Electrocardiography

Sakura gazes out the window of her office, a pile of paperwork set aside for a poetic sort of procrastination, trying to indulge for once in a Konoha spring, though she's finding it arduous.

As pretty as it is this time of year, all she can manage to feel is wistful.

Hanami has come and gone already for the most part, though there are a few stubborn cherry blossom trees lingering at the tail end of their blooming. She can see one here from her window, up on the hillside that slopes towards Hokage Rock, clinging to the uneven land. She’s sure its roots have to be all twisted, a labyrinth of gnarled wood clinging to any scrap of land it can wind itself around as its branches and petals try against all odds to reach upwards into the open sky that she can’t take her eyes off of.

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, but it’s one she doesn’t care to unpack.

This year was her twentieth viewing of her namesake, though Sakura obviously doesn't remember the first few. Her parents take great pride in the retelling of tales from those first few years of her life, the ones she was too little to remember. The highlights come up annually on her birthday without fail, how she grasped at the petals like they were something precious, clutched in her sticky little hands the entire day.

A framed photograph is perched on one of the built-in shelves of her parents' living room, of her and her father on her first birthday. He was holding her up on unsteady legs, ridiculously proud and pointing towards the camera where her mother had been trying to get her to look. Her short pink hair was flying absolutely everywhere, matching the fluttering petals and in-bloom cherry blossom tree in the background, chubby hands grasping upwards. Strawberry cake and frosting were smeared all over her cheeks. They’d had a picnic for her, at the park nearest to their house.

“We came home and cleaned you up, and then your father helped you water your tree for the first time, in the little pink watering pail you unwrapped earlier. You were so cute.” That’s what her mom says every year. Sakura has the sentence memorized at this point, could recite it on cue, if she needed to.

Her parents had planted a cherry blossom sapling in their backyard a few days after they brought her home from the hospital as a newborn, so the tree is around the same age she is. She used to spend time under it often, as a kid, and some of her earliest memories involve sprawling beneath it to study the heavens while her mother gardened. She would also sneak berries from the patch when her back was turned. Sometimes her dad would join in her pilferage, and they would sit beneath the tree like a couple of bandits with stained lips, though those first few years she can remember he barely fit underneath it, as tall as he is. Many a tickle fight had been had, shaded by those branches. She would read books there on nice afternoons, when she was a little older.

The tree is fully grown now, also on the final cusp of its blooming for the year, floriferous wood expanded outwards to drape her childhood stomping grounds in a sea of soft pink. They have a picnic under it every year, in her family’s backyard, when they celebrate her birthday together. Her actual birthday has come and gone, but her birthday dinner is two days from now. Her parents swung by her apartment on Sunday afternoon for a bit with outlandishly large cupcakes, but her mom had mentioned they’d do dinner and a gift on their usual night, Thursday, since it works so well with their schedules every other week.

“We have to have your picnic, under your tree, like always. It’s a tradition! My beautiful girl. I can’t believe you’re twenty. It seems like just yesterday you were only yay high,” her dad had told her, gesturing below his knees before hugging her too tightly, ruffling the hair she'd inherited from him before they left. The cupcakes were strawberry with cream cheese frosting, one of her favorite treats. They’d left her with four extra to enjoy between then and Thursday, one for each day if she wanted it, turning her birthday into more of a week-long affair than a one-day celebration.

She and Ino had demolished two of them while watching some of the terrible movies they love to hate together, later that evening. It had been a smorgasbord of strawberries, really, because they'd washed them down with strawberry daiquiris, sugary sweetness topped with ridiculous amounts of whipped cream. They'd sat on her balcony, after, sipping a little tipsily and just looking.

"You should try to enjoy your namesake more this year, Forehead. You're so busy that I'm not sure you've realized, but you've really grown into it," Ino had said, beckoning vaguely towards a Konoha beginning to bloom, renewed with a warm breeze, spring ushered in by a fluttering of pink petals. Ino likes to give compliments in roundabout ways, she’s learned over the course of their friendship; crass as the blonde can be, she does have her moments. Her words meant a lot to Sakura, so she’s trying to take them to heart, to stop and smell the cherry blossoms, so to speak. It won’t be long before Konoha crescendos into the sweltering heat of the summer.

She loves her parents and her friends. She really does.

But birthdays are weird, Sakura thinks.

Last year, Sasuke had sent her a letter on her birthday. She’s reread it so many times that she has it more than memorized; it’s stitched into the muscle tissue of her heart at this point, or maybe scarred into the lining of her aortic valve, sempiternal markings adorning the tunnels that sustain her, causing her breath to catch every time.

Sakura,

Hanami has come to the wilderness in the Land of Honey. Bees are awakening and foraging for the first pollen of the season, with which to begin again. Cherry blossom petals are everywhere, lining the pathways and floating on the water.

Happy birthday.

-Sasuke

It had been short, simple, and even a little poetic; she had cherished it, as she does all of his other letters. She’d cherished the pressed flower with it just as much; a cherry blossom, neatly flattened with a precision that screamed Sasuke, near exactly the same shade of pink as her hair.

Sakura had started crying when she unfolded the paper to reveal it sitting atop his words. His hawk had waited patiently at her office window for a response to be written and tied to its leg, perched atop the windowsill and watching the goings-on of the village below, absolutely no concept in its predator brain of how much she delights in seeing it fly, a graceful tether to the boy - now man - she has been in love with for ages.

Cherry blossom petals are everywhere. Is there a hidden meaning there, or is she making a mountain out of a molehill?

She’s tried not to read too much into the letters. She's not sure if he sends any to Naruto or not; she's too afraid to ask, because she'll either get a heart-pounding hope if he doesn't get them, or a soul-crushing disappointment if he does. She can't imagine him sending a yellow flower to Naruto, but he may very well have sent him a different gift for his birthday.

Maybe he just thought she would like a flower, which she did - it’s pressed for safekeeping, along with all of his other correspondence to her, sporadically and chronologically throughout a book she keeps on her nightstand, An Introduction to Electrocardiography. It is her take on an album of small things she holds close to her own heart, things she wishes she could read in his. Sakura didn’t want to buy an actual album for such a thing; that felt too formal, for something as ambiguous as her ties to Sasuke, overflowing on her end as they may be. So she’d settled on a book about deciphering the heart’s tells based on science only, electrical impulses and repolarization, the sizes and positions of the chambers, how to diagnose conditions utilizing one’s findings. It’s one she doesn’t need access to anymore, extremely familiar with EKGs after years of study. She’d wanted it to be something no-nonsense, all hard facts and data on how to read activity plotted over time.

Evidence-based. Are letters evidence, though? She’s not sure that would hold up as empirical proof in any of the scholarly journals she’s studied or submitted work to since beginning her research. She thinks wryly, though, based on what she has witnessed get published, that scientific verification doesn’t always matter if you know the right people.

She’s thought many times sifting through it that perhaps it is too optimistic, too hopeful of a book subject for such a thing. Sakura has agonized over it, frankly, wondering whether it was an inappropriate choice.

...But now that they’re in there, it might ache worse to move them somewhere else.

It’s the last day of March now, and she didn’t get a letter this month, which is unusual, because she’s gotten one near each month in the time that he’s been away. She’s paged through the book a few times over the past several days, rereading and admiring the preserved sakura blossom, frozen in suspended animation indefinitely on a page about precordial leads.

Sakura hadn’t really expected anything from him for her birthday, other than a monthly letter like he usually sends... but this year she didn’t even get that. She’s trying really hard to not be disappointed. She has so much to be thankful for, in the grand scheme of things...

...But the petals of the cherry blossom from last year have faded over time, she’d evaluated yesterday, sitting in her bedroom. It might be like her, always pressed in a book, fading whilst stuck indefinitely between the boundless teeth of academia. There is always more data to record, more evidence, with which one can prove or disprove their findings.

No letter this month, though. Nothing to record, no new evidence.

It might be time to move the letters somewhere else, she thinks pensively. Maybe a place where she’s not tempted to look at them all the time; their placement in the book, small scraps of paper that stick out in only a couple of places, makes it easy to go back and reread them. She’s pretty sure she has an empty shoebox in her closet that she could move them to, in a pile rather than catalogued between pages rife with information and a fragile sort of hope. Maybe she’ll do it tonight, put it up in the far right corner of the upper shelf, shoved towards the back so she can’t reach it without the stool, so she’s not tempted whenever the next bout of heartsickness slams into her like one of Tsunade-shishou’s fists used to. She needs to go by the library after work first, to return some things, but maybe when she gets home, she’ll do it. She could eat a cupcake, too; that might make it a little easier.

She dreams of that silver sometimes, recalls it any time she sees something similar in color or reflet. There’s an extremely unique necklace in an antique shop she visits with Ino and Sai from time to time, and occasionally on her own, over on the northeast side of town. It’s a salt-and-pepper diamond, dark grey with inclusions, dainty and set in what must be a hand-fabricated setting. It hangs from a silver chain, towards the back of a display case filled with other vintage and distinctive pieces, but it’s the only one she ever finds herself drawn to. It is so similar to his right eye, dark smoke near black, speckled with beguiling silver startling in its clarity. The bevel cut reveals new flecks dependent on the angle at which you view it.

Sakura studies it closely on each visit, because it is so hauntingly breathtaking and it reminds her of him.

Ino has said it’s not her color, and that she should stick to warm tones and gold, for which she is better suited; Sakura has not confessed to her why it catches her eye so much. Sai has agreed with his girlfriend on the coloring note, sensitive as he is to such things, but the way he studies her every time she tears herself away from it makes her suspect he knows exactly why it captivates her so. It’s been sitting there for years at this point; she has to mentally talk herself out of buying it on each visit. It’s beautiful, but she would spend far too much time gawking at it, and it might hurt more with extended study than the gentle tugging at her heart she experiences when she’s in that old building throughout tiny fragments of lackadaisical afternoons.

Sasuke has been gone for a long time. She hopes he's finding the peace he's been seeking, that he's seeing the world with new eyes just as he'd imagined. She thinks of him every day, sends out little orisons like petals in the breeze in the hopes that they’ll find him, wherever he is.

I wonder where he is now.

Try as she does to enjoy the breath of spring Konoha is right now, and her namesake as Ino said, all she can seem to do is shift her vision to the sky, hoping against hope for a glimpse of a familiar bird-of-prey that will stay an ample amount of time for her to craft a response, before it abvolates away for another month.

Sakura smiles, then, close to laughing at the absurdity of it all, because she is so predictable. She loves this village despite its many flaws and challenges, despite the things about it she and Naruto and Kakashi-sensei and Ino and even Tsunade-shishou, off in the Land of Wind, are trying to change, but even after so many years, she’s still pining for something beyond it, something in the wilds of the sky just beyond her reach.

There’s always next year, she supposes, pupils drawn again towards the outstretched branches of the cherry blossom tree on the hill, before trailing her eyes along further. She can grow a little more to try to reach him. When she was little, she had wanted to grow tall so she could try to touch a star, like the branches of the tree in her backyard did when she and her father laid beneath them on balmy summer nights. He would tell her ridiculous stories about all of the constellations, things she knew had to be untrue, even at the ripe age of five. Precocious, he’d always called her, but in the loving, joking manner he had.

Her gaze follows the horizon, leisurely taking in the rest of her home. It really is a lovely day, despite her yearning. Spring is here again, and today's is a gentle sunset, one last little bit of sunlight with which to conclude March. The temperature is already spiking, unusually warm for early spring, but summers in the Land of Fire are always hot. She really should finish her paperwork, but it’s hard to find the motivation just yet.

Something possesses her, then, to turn her neck more, take in more of the skyline's continuation. She wants to see all of it.

And then Sakura’s eyes fall on an achingly familiar figure cloaked all in black, perched only a roof away and observing her, and she thinks she must have nodded off, because she has to be dreaming.

She subtly pinches herself in the millisecond of time that follows, but she is very much awake.

The words are blooming out of her throat before she can even process what’s happening, exultation sinking into her every vein. “Sasuke-kun!” She moves to crank her window open the rest of the way, and he hops from the neighboring roof down into her office, all nimble legerity that she still thinks has to be a mere mirage conjured from her memories. When he straightens to his full height, she muses that he has to have grown taller. The mere sound of his footsteps on the tile flooring, as familiar a refrain to her as if he’d just walked out of the village yesterday, are a treasure beyond price.

“Sakura.” His voice is a rich timbre that she has desperately felt the absence of; hearing him say her name almost makes her want to cry. She smiles wider instead, to the extent that it almost hurts, and her gaze latches hungrily onto the very eye she was just daydreaming about. A storm of soot and silver, beveled into countless fragments like some kind of dark, rustic diamond, and so staggeringly beautiful that she’s pretty sure she’s blushing just from beholding it. Gods, it's not fair for someone to be so handsome.

“When did you get back?” She asks, utterly overcome with joy. This is better than a letter or any birthday gift she could have received, brighter than any star she’s beheld.

“Just now.” He’s smiling, a small and subtle upturn of lips that is so characteristic of him. Then his words hit her, and her face must be getting redder.

Just now? As in…

“I’m sorry I missed your birthday,” he adds before she can simmer on that for too long, and she has to blink in bewilderment, because that is the absolute last thing she expected him to say. Sakura wonders how much heat can creep into one’s face before they spontaneously combust.

Then she realizes she should probably respond, as humans tend to do in conversations. “Oh! Um… it’s okay.” She folds her hands in front of her shyly, grinning like an idiot. “Thank you for remembering.”

There is a lengthy moment in which she just soaks him in, hoping he can read in her eyes how much she’s missed him. He is still so beautiful, prized eyes and aristocratic angles that have solidified a bit more into the face of a man in the time that’s passed. His hair is different now, covering his Rinnegan eye. His cloak is a little more threadbare, too. He’s tall.

His expression, normally unreadable, is calm. Content, even.

There’s a question nagging at her that she knows she needs to ask. She tries not to bite her lip as she asks it, braces herself for the possibility of not liking the answer.

“Are you… just back for a little while?”

Did you find what you were searching for?

He gazes at her for so long that she thinks he may be glimpsing her soul, peeking into her ventricles to see his own words immortalized there, seared into her core to be felt each time her blood pumps.

“...For more than a while.” And she smiles the biggest she ever has. Oh, this is so much better than a letter or a gift.

“Well, welcome back, Sasuke-kun. It’s… very good to see you again.” It feels as if a piece of her heart has been returned to her, something of the divine stitched back into her chest and full to bursting in omneity.

There is a pause, and then he’s reaching his hand out towards hers, initiating physical contact with a touch that is feather light, so gentle she thinks she is going to start sobbing.

She can’t help it; she pulls him into a hug, tinged with elation. She hopes he doesn’t mind too much; he stiffens for a brief moment, but then settles, wrapping his arm around her and settling his head atop of hers, and she could die happy right there, embracing him with feelings momentarily set free from where they’ve been whelved into her chest.

He smells faintly like sage and smoked cedar, just as she remembered. She can hear his heart thumping, a strong cadence, and it grounds her. Oh, she’s missed him.

“...I’m home, Sakura.” Soft words float above her head, and she can feel the vibration of them through his chest, right by her ear.

Oh, she’s crying.

Sasuke lets her embrace him for a long time, for which she is so grateful. She knows he’s not one for physical contact; it’s a privilege to be allowed into his space even for a single second, let alone for an extended period.

She draws back eventually, glancing up at him again through the tears still collecting in her eyes. Her face blazes when he reaches to wipe them away tenderly with a calloused hand, careful and with a lenity that she’s always known was there, hidden under the surface.

She could just stare at him for hours, she thinks as he lowers his hand. He’s still looking down at her with one of the softest expressions she has ever seen him wear. She really hopes she’s not dreaming.

It’s tremendously hard to get it together, but she tries, because she doesn’t want to spend the entire time crying, not when he's finally back. There are so many questions she’d like to ask him that she’s finding it a challenge to pick one with which to lead.

He surprises her by speaking first, quietly. “I… had something made for you.”

It takes a moment for the words to compute.

Made for me?

Her processing speed must be exceptionally slow, stuck in the utter mush her insides have become, because he adds, “...For your birthday.”

Sakura blinks, and furrows her brows in confusion. “Made… for me?”

He nods. “...I’m sorry it’s late.” The way he speaks it is cryptic, like the apology weighs more than one needed for a tardy gift. Doesn’t he know she doesn’t care? He could have showed up in July with something for her, and it still would have made her knees weak and her heart thump furiously in her chest.

Made for me? She’s still stuck on that sentiment as he breaks eye contact and turns to rummage through his satchel, beneath his cloak.

Sasuke pulls out a medium-sized flat box, a simple white, and she doesn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t that. Something that comes in a box is a lot more formal than a pressed cherry blossom, something more… permanent.

She reaches out to take it on autopilot, and is stupidly distracted by the way his hand brushes against hers, a small spark that makes something in her quake. She wonders if he felt it, too.

Sakura clutches the box with both hands like her life depends on it, murmuring softly, “Thank you, Sasuke-kun.” She’ll wait until later to open it, after he’s left; whatever it is, she doesn’t want to embarrass him, and she also isn’t sure she can tear her eyes away from him just yet, anyways.

Is it just the lighting in her office, or are his ears a little flushed? She didn’t notice that before; maybe he’s had a drawn-out journey back. She wonders how much ground he covered today, if he’s still winded. He might need to rest.

But then he mumbles, voice husky with what she assumes is disuse, “...You should open it.”

His words echo in her head again. I… had something made for you.

“Okay,” she answers in a hushed voice, so she doesn’t scare him away, shifting slightly to set the box on her desk carefully. Suddenly she is very nervous, anticipation settling into her gut.

When she lifts the lid, she swears her heart ceases beating.

The most exquisitely intricate uchiwa fan she has ever laid eyes upon is placed in the box before her.

It’s carved into a likeness of a cherry blossom tree, branches twisting lissomely into bamboo framework, impossibly fine. A different set of words is reverberating in her head now.

You should try to enjoy your namesake more this year, Forehead. You're so busy that I'm not sure you've realized, but you've really grown into it.

Made for me?

“O-oh.” Sakura is not sure what she expected, but it wasn’t this. She fights back the tears, biting her lip and wide eyes soaking it all in, enjoying her namesake in a way that is entirely unprecedented in its sheer severity. The amount of time it would have taken for someone to sculpt and bind and sew is unimaginable; every detail is finely wrought, flawless down to the silk and stitching, lacquered and carved pale wood shifting effortlessly into eighty slivers of bamboo, intricately webbing silk together with the lithe grace of gossamer. It’s a cherry blossom tree, petals and all, pearlescent thread shifting slightly, gorgeously in the light, unimaginable detail. She has stitched people back together countless times over the course of years, but even her expert dexterity would look like a child’s first embroidery stitching in comparison. The stamen within the petals are nearly more detailed and finely milled than an actual, real life cherry blossom, plexure sutured in a fashion so baronial that it’s impossible to believe human hands were even responsible for it.

The silk. Oh, the silk. The color shift bears a striking resemblance to the Uchiha insignia. This is not a gift one gives to a teammate.

Oh, she's crying.

This has to be a dream, some kind of paracosm her heart thought up to give her brain the high of a lifetime. Hope burgeons and unfolds in her chest cavity, bleeding into her extremities like the pale pink shifting into red before her eyes. She’s never, ever going to forget this, not even if she lives to be one hundred years old.

Made for me?

She picks it up with disbelieving hands, grasping it more carefully than she’s ever held anything in her entire life, as if she’s going to wake up at any moment and it will dissolve into synapse, lost in the hazy juncture of morning the way one tends to lose awareness of the contents of a dream upon coming to lucidity. To her absolute bewilderment, it stays solid in her hands, a finery made even more unbelievable by touch. The grooves of the carving are as gentle as his hand had been on hers earlier. She thinks it would have had to be commissioned at least a few months in advance, outlandishly expensive. She’s never seen silk like this. She doesn't know; she's smart, but she's no artisan. Maybe she should ask Sai. She's crying.

She adores it.

Tears won’t stop welling in her eyes; she thinks they may be escaping from a tender spot inside her chest that’s been reserved for him since she was a child, a leak in a metaphorical dam. She takes a steadying breath, blinks, almost has them conquered. Get a grip, Sakura.

Then Sasuke’s hand is on hers, gently turning the handle over.

Her name is carved into the pale wood, on the back in formal calligraphy, Sakura daintier and more perfect than she could ever write it, as if it had just been uncovered in one of the inner layers rather than whittled there manually. Sasuke presses her fingers to it before loosening his grip, and in that second it feels as though his lost hand is in the wood, caressing her from split atoms in the grooves from the other side.

The tears spill over her cheeks - she admits defeat - intricacy of the entire thing blurring out of focus but still somehow burned into her retinas for all eternity.

Made for me, made for me, made for me-

Her voice finds her after a few more tears fall. “It’s beautiful.” Her voice is barely above a whisper, overwhelmed with complete and utter awe, trying desperately to choke down a sob. “Thank you, Sasuke-kun. I… I’ll treasure it. Always.” She cradles the fan closer to her chest, her heart - maybe An Introduction to Electrocardiography wasn’t a poorly-chosen book, after all; there is much to be read from something this precious - and regards him with watery eyes. She wishes she wasn’t crying; the distortion of the tears is making it hard to see the silver she’s loved and missed so much.

His hand lifts to her face after a moment, and to her surprise, he wipes away her tears again. She barely catches the something-more in his eyes, then, through the waterworks, precious metal flashing and pouring into the words scarred into her ventricles to live there forever, fortified in silver, but he is looking at her so -

“...Always,” he agrees, voice a little breathless, sparking scintilla near hypnotizing her in their luster, and he seems so happy -

Then he leans down to press his lips gently to hers, and this is better than her heart stopping, like when she opened the box. This time, her heart soars, and she touches a star she’s been dreaming of for eons.

#naruto #sasusaku #ssfanfiction #cherry writes #like silver #fanfiction #i'm really out here with just hundreds of pages of fanfiction in my google doc drafts huh

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jay4firefic · 3 years

Text

Last Train Home

Summary: When a train crashes just outside of LA, Buck doesn’t expect to find his ex-fiance Kelly Severide searching the wreckage for Shay. And this close to the anniversary of Andy Darden’s death - the event that broke them both, and their relationship with them - he’s not willing to stand by and watch any more old friends die. 3x18 rewrite for anon.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Pacific West 1135 from Phoenix to LA has derailed somewhere near the LA County line. Whatever your mass casualty protocol is, activate it. I need fire and rescue, USAR, local PD - everyone you can send, as fast as you can send them.”

“I’ll call them now. It seems like you’ve done this before.”

“I’m a firefighter out of Chicago. Dealt with a train crash before. Look, I’m going back in--”

“Sir, I need you to stay on the line. Help is on the way.”

“Help’s gonna be too late for a lot of these people.”

Click.

------

Buck dozes restlessly for most of the hour long ride to the county line, jerking awake every time Mason hits a pothole or flips the sirens on to speed through traffic. He’s exhausted, has barely slept in days, because every time dreams pull him under he sees a wall of fire rushing toward him and a burning body on the floor. He knows from experience that the rest of the week will be just as bad.

Four years and the anniversary of Darden’s death hasn’t gotten any damn easier.

“Hey, Buckaroo,” Hen calls through the headset, her hand on his knee. When Buck cracks his eyes open he can see her leaning toward him in the darkness of the cab. “You alright? You’ve been awfully quiet.”

“Am I supposed to be cracking jokes on the way to a mass casualty?” he asks, and regrets it immediately. “Sorry, I’m sorry. I’m fine, Hen, just having a bad day.”

She opens her mouth as if to speak again, Eddie leaning in on Buck’s other side to eye him with concern, only to be cut off when the truck shudders to a stop in the dirt. Buck is first out the door just to get away from those looks. He stops dead just outside and doesn’t move until Eddie runs into his back.

The headlights of the trucks and a few hastily set up flood lights are the only thing illuminating the scene outside, throwing deep shadows and obscuring a good chunk of the wreckage. It still looks like something that belongs on a film set rather than in real life. Twisted plastic and metal litter the ground, smoke is pouring out of one of the train cars, and even in the darkness Buck can see bodies - pieces of them, at least - scattered in every direction.

“Jesus,” Buck breathes, while Eddie mutters what might be a curse or might be a prayer in Spanish beside him. A moment later they turn in unison at the sound of Bobby’s voice.

“Buck, Eddie, go have a look. See if there’s a way to secure that car so we can get those people out.”

Buck nods jerkily as he moves away to pull the rest of his gear on and picks his way across the debris field in Eddie’s wake, trying not to look too hard at what’s under his feet. He’s seen more than his fair share of mass casualties before - the earthquake, the tsunami - but he’s always been in the middle of them, experiencing it right alongside the victims. Something about showing up to pick up the pieces after the worst of it is over hits him differently.

He’s shaken enough that he doesn’t even register the shouting at first. A man’s voice, hoarse and desperate, raised above the more measured tones of another pair of firefighters. He would have walked right past if Eddie hadn’t led them toward the scuffle.

“Get out of my goddamn way, I need to get back into that car!”

Eddie steps forward, lets the other guys escape back to doing the real work of saving people. Buck lingers several feet behind him to continue surveying the precariously tilted train car, but no matter what angle he looks at it from one thing is clear. There’s no good way in. Not without risking the whole thing coming down on them.

“Sir, I’m sorry. We can’t let you inside. It’s too dangerous.”

“I know it’s dangerous, I’m a fucking firefighter. I need to get into that car. My girl is in there.”

“I hear you,” Eddie says, hands extended and voice level. There’s something so familiar about the other voice that Buck finally glances over his shoulder at the argument. “I’m sorry.”

“Wait,” the man stumbles forward in the dark, grabbing Eddie’s sleeve. The light finally catches the silver in his hair, the piercing blue of his eyes, the blood dripping down his face from a ragged cut across his brow. Buck would recognize that face anywhere. “Are you from the 118?”

“Yeah,” Eddie replies, voice full of confusion, as Buck’s voice cracks around a soft cry of, “Kelly?”

Kelly’s gaze snaps to him immediately, eyes going wide as Buck pulls off his helmet and turns toward the light. “Buck?”

And suddenly Buck’s feet are moving without his consent and the handful of yards between them have disappeared. His gloves are off and his hands are cupping Kelly’s stubble-roughened cheeks before his brain catches up with his body, and by then it’s too late. He inspects the cut on Kelly’s brow, the way he’s cradling his left arm across his torso at an implausible angle, and barely even sees the strange look Eddie is giving him in his peripheral vision. “You were on the train? Why the hell aren’t you collared and backboarded?”

“I’m fine,” Kelly bites out. He shakes Buck’s hands off and tries to push past him, hissing in pain when their shoulders collide.

“Kelly, we need to get you checked out.”

“No, I’m fine. I need to get back up there. I need--”

“That’s crazy. No, no, Kelly, stop.” Buck hauls Kelly back by his good shoulder, forces him to sit on a nearby piece of rubble. The fact that it’s so easy to move him is proof enough that he shouldn’t be going anywhere.

“Shay is still in there!” Kelly’s voice breaks as he tries to gain his feet again only to wobble and sit down heavily. Clearly concussed, and still too stubborn to stop trying to be the hero. “Shay is still--”

Buck sucks in a sharp breath and feels his heart rate spike with panic. Shay is still in there. Shay is still in there. Andy died four years ago this week and Shay is still in there. “Where were you?” he manages to ask around the lump in his throat.

“We were in the top car, all the way in the back.” Kelly uses his good arm to point to the upended train car, because of course that’s where they were. The only person Buck has ever met with worse luck than himself is Kelly Severide. “She fell asleep. I went to get a drink, and…”

“We’ll find her.” Buck looks up at the groaning slab of metal and glass and swallows back bile. “Eddie and I will find her, alright? But you have to stay here.”

“Hell no--”

“Kel, if you go into that train you’re going to end up another victim we have to rescue. And every second I spend pulling your ass out of the wreckage will be another second Shay isn’t getting help. I’m going to find her. I’m going to bring her back to you. But you need to stay here, alright?” When Kelly keeps fighting him, Buck plays dirty. He smacks Kelly’s shoulder - dislocated, he’s pretty sure - and watches all of the color drain out of his face. “Stay here. I’ll find her.”

Kelly’s glare might frighten someone else - is enough to have Eddie stepping up to Buck’s shoulder to back him up - but Buck knows better. He crosses his arms and glares back and when Buck doesn’t back down Kelly finally folds, nodding his head and then wincing when it clearly pains him. Buck is already starting to turn away when Kelly catches his sleeve and somehow, the look on his face when Buck glances back at him is worse than the glare. Raw and painful and scared like Buck has only seen him a few times.

“If you can’t get her out…”

“We’re going to get her out.”

“Evan,” Kelly says, low and desperate. “If you can’t get her out, tell her I love her, okay? Tell her I love her.”

Buck tugs his sleeve free of Kelly’s grasp and shakes his head stubbornly. “I’m going to get her out.”

------

“So, Kelly, huh?”

Buck knows Eddie is just looking for something to distract them both from crawling over dead bodies to get into the crumpled train car. He just wishes Eddie would pick literally any other topic. Instead of answering he keys his radio, reports, “two black tags at the entrance to the car.”

“Is that the Kelly I’m thinking of, Buck?”

“My ex-fiance Kelly?” Buck replies, because there’s no way he’s getting out of this conversation no matter how much he doesn’t want to have it. “Yep. That’s Kelly.”

“You didn’t tell me he was…”

“A guy? Yeah, well, I didn’t tell you a lot of things, Eds.” His bitter laugh comes out breathless as he starts climbing the seats like the world’s most awkward ladder. There’s another lifeless body halfway up the car - Eddie stops to confirm her obvious death while Buck keeps going, dragging himself a few awkward inches at a time up toward the cascade of blonde hair barely visible at the top of the car. “Shay? Shay, is that you?!”

A pained groan echoes through the train and one of the pale hands hanging over the edge of the furthest seat twitches. Buck’s heart is in his throat as he scrambles up the last few feet to brace himself between a steel beam and a half-crushed seat, reminding himself all the while that it might not be her. It might not be her. But--

It is.

Buck sags with relief as Shay lifts her head to look at him, blinking hard when her eyes won’t seem to focus. “Buck?”

“Hey, Shay.” Buck nearly sobs, covers it with a shaky laugh as Eddie approaches. “What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a dump like this?”

“Dunno.” She looks around as much as she can without moving her head, her eyes widening as she takes in Buck, scraped and covered in grime already, and the disaster behind him. “Shit.”

“Yeah. How are you feeling?” Buck takes one of her hands in his and is relieved when she winds her fingers through his. He yanks the glove off of his other hand with his teeth and checks the pulse in her neck - it’s racing, and he doesn’t like the sound of her breathing. He tries not to look at the way Eddie is frowning as he climbs behind Shay to inspect what’s keeping her pinned.

“Hurts when I breathe,” she replies, squeezing his hand weakly. “You sure I’m not dead?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.”

“Weird. Could swear I’m looking at the face of an angel.” There’s blood on her teeth when she smiles, and her eyes still won’t focus on his face, but Buck grins anyway. A moment later it melts off his face when her expression turns to panic. “Kelly--”

“Is fine,” Buck cuts her off. “Busted his arm and he’s gonna need a few stitches, but he’s fine, okay? We’re worrying about you right now. Eddie?”

Eddie grimaces as he slides back down to lean against the seats on the other side of the aisle. He thumbs his radio, speaking to Buck and Bobby at the same time. “Cap, we got a passenger up here. Looks like the support beam from the observation deck broke through the floor. Need you to send up the jaws.”

“Copy that,” Bobby’s voice crackles through both of their radios. “Coming right up.”

The waiting is always the worst part. Shay’s breathing is labored and uneven, her eyes taking longer and longer to open between each blink. Buck cups her jaw and rubs his thumb across her cheek until the forces herself to look at him again, asks, “What the hell are you two doing on a train in Los Angeles anyway?”

“Andy loved trains,” Shay mumbles, leaning her head heavily into his palm. She doesn’t seem to notice the way Buck flinches at Andy’s name, but Eddie sure as hell does. “Kelly found this old list - bucket list, that they made when they joined CFD. Kid stuff, y’know? Buy a motorcycle, marry a beautiful woman, hike the Grand Canyon...we decided to check some things off the list.”

“The train was coming from Arizona.” Buck only remembers bits and snatches of Bobby’s briefing as they had all piled into the truck, but just like always it’s the random pieces of trivia that get stuck in his mind. “Let me guess, Grand Canyon?”

“It’s very grand.” Shay coughs - wheezes, really, because she can’t get enough breath in to do anything more. Buck is pretty sure her ribs are busted, among other things, but as long as the beam is pinning her to the seat it’s impossible to confirm.

“What’s next?” Buck asks, sending a panicked glance toward Eddie when her eyes drift closed again. He can hear someone climbing up below them, hopefully bringing the requested equipment, and sends up a prayer to a God he long ago stopped believing in that it’s soon enough to save her. “What’s next, Shay? Marry a beautiful woman? We’ve got plenty of those in LA.”

Shay shakes her head without opening her eyes. And fuck, her lips are turning blue. “Hollywood Walk of Fame. Surfing in California. Then Mexico.”

“Hey.” The seat Buck is braced against shudders as Bobby uses it to haul himself up the last few feet. “Take this, Buck. Eddie, what’s going on?”

“Think she might have a collapsed lung from the blunt force,” Eddie replies as Buck releases Shay and scrambles to get the jaws in position. “I can relieve the pressure, but we gotta move the beam off her.”

Buck growls in frustration as the jaws shudder and fail to make any progress toward that goal. “Still too heavy, Cap. It’s not gonna budge.”

“Alright. Let’s try the hydraulic ram.”

Buck braces his feet against the seats and grunts as he takes the heavy piece of equipment from Bobby and jams it into the space between the upturned floor and the beam. He determinedly doesn’t pay attention to the way Shay’s head has sagged forward against the seat again, or how Eddie is frowning at the O2 sensor he just slipped onto her finger, his mutter of, “Oxygen levels are dropping. Definitely a collapsed lung.” All he can do is move the damn beam.

With the horrible sound of warping metal, the thing finally starts to move. Shay takes a deeper breath as the pressure holding her against the seat begins to relax - and then the screaming starts. Buck stops the ram before Bobby’s shouts even register, watches Eddie and Bobbie drop down a few seats, and has maybe the most selfish thought he’s ever had in his life. He wishes there was no one else alive up here, because every second they spend treating someone else is a second they aren’t rescuing Shay.

Buck closes his eyes, tries to breathe through the panic as Eddie announces the girl’s broken leg, the fact that it’s still receiving blood flow, over the horrible wet background noise of Shay’s breaths becoming more labored. It takes all of his willpower to put his back to Shay and move down to meet them halfway between the victims, and when he speaks his voice comes out hoarse and breathless. “What’s going on?”

“They’re both trapped by the same beam,” Bobby announces, and Buck’s heart drops into his stomach. “We take the pressure off one and we’re squeezing the other. Which one has the better shot?”

Eddie glances up at Buck once before shaking his head. “Injuries are different, the risk is the same.”

“Wait, what are we saying?” Breathe, Buck reminds himself. Nothing is decided yet. Shay is still getting out of here, she has to get out of here alive. “We gotta pick who to save?”

Bobby looks at him pityingly and Buck is pretty sure his heart stops beating for a second. “I’m saying I don’t think we can save ‘em both.”

“Fuck.” Buck slams his fist against the nearest seat.

“Look,” Bobby says, holding one hand up placatingly while balancing himself with the other. “We’re gonna give them both some pain meds and try to figure this out, okay? We’re not giving up yet. But we have to be prepared.”

Buck nods mutely while Eddie reaches for his bag, climbs back up to Shay so that Eddie can get past with a handful of medical supplies. He takes one of her hands and watches as Eddie pulls his gloves off and then takes the other, looking for a vein in the light of his helmet lamp and making a small triumphant noise when he finds one. “You’re gonna feel a little pinch.”

Shay lets out a shaky exhale that might be a weak attempt at laughter. “Not my biggest concern right now, buddy.”

“I know,” Eddie replies. He gets the needle in on the first try and pushes the painkillers only moments later. “Alright, Shay. This is for the pain. It should hit you pretty soon.”

“I sure as hell hope so.” If she’s got energy to be snarky Buck has to believe she’s got the energy to hang on a little while longer, even if she can’t really lift her head anymore.

“Keep her talking,” Eddie commands as he passes Buck on his way back down to the other woman. Buck determinedly doesn’t listen to Eddie’s low conversation with Bobby and the victim, doesn’t want to know what her chances are because if they’re good it means Shay’s aren’t.

“It’s her...or me, isn’t it?” Shay wheezes, managing to roll her head to the side and watch Buck’s face. Her eyes are dull and tired beneath a tangle of bloody blonde hair, almost resigned.

“No,” Buck says, with more confidence than he feels. She just smiles sadly as he reaches up to brush the hair out of her face - she’s always been able to see right through him. “No, that’s not what we do. Tell me about your trip.”

“God, I missed you, kid,” she says instead, too quiet for anyone else to hear. “Every day. He does too, you know?”

“I know,” Buck replies, even though he doesn’t. If Kelly had really missed him all these years it would have been easy enough to fly out to LA and tell him that, or even just call him - everyone at 51 knew where he was the whole damn time. Hell, Kelly even knew what house he’s with. He’s spared from having to listen to Shay insist by Bobby’s grunt. “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay, I’m calling it,” Bobby says as soon as Buck has joined their little huddle. “We start with this girl, we get her out.”

“Copy that,” Eddie says, like it’s any other order on any other day, while Buck’s world collapses beneath him.

“No!” He feels sick. He feels dizzy. Andy died four years ago this week and Shay is being crushed by a beam right in front of his eyes and… “No, it’s gonna crush Shay’s other lung. She’ll die.”

“I am aware of that. The protocol dictates that we save whoever has the better chance, and Eddie’s saying that’s the girl.”

“No.” Buck can’t wrap his brain around the concept of a world without Leslie Shay in it. He hasn’t seen her in over three damn years, but she’s always been there on the other end of the phone - sending him pictures of Kelly and the stupid cat he still pretends to hate, updating him on the latest gossip from 51, asking when he’s going to come home. What the hell is he going to do without someone to remind him that he’s always got a home to go back to, no matter how bad things might get in LA?

“Her vitals are stronger, Shay’s starting to decompensate. If we have to choose--”

“We do,” Bobby interjects. “We can’t move that steel beam.”

Buck has his mouth open to argue when the whole train car shudders and tilts. He grabs onto the nearest seatback and risks a glance over his shoulder at Shay, at the way her shoulders are shuddering with every inhale, at the blood on her lips, at the knowing look in her eyes. “Okay,” he says, “okay, you’re right. We can’t move the beam. But the skin on this thing, the skin is stainless. That’s much thinner. I could go outside, I could cut a piece out, pull the girl through, and that will buy us enough time to save Shay.”

“No.” Bobby’s frustration is clear - he thinks Buck is wasting time. And maybe he is, but he’s trying to buy enough of it to keep Shay alive. “This car hasn’t been secured, that’s why we’re working on the inside. If this thing topples, we can ride it down. But if you’re on the outside…”

Buck cuts him off. “Yeah, I know. I will be crushed by 100 tons of train car, and I know that is a lot heavier than a fire truck.” He says it matter of factly, like the thought of being crushed between another piece of metal and the cold, hard ground isn’t making his stomach twist up in knots. Like he doesn’t still wake up screaming and clutching at his bad leg at least two nights a week. Because right now, none of that matters. Only Shay does. “But Bobby…”

“Buck, stop,” Eddie says. Endlessly reasonable Eddie. “I know you made a promise.”

“What promise?”

“To Shay’s boyfriend,” Eddie clarifies, and Buck doesn’t bother to correct him. He’s got bigger problems at the moment than whether Kelly and Shay are still getting mistaken for a couple after all these years.

“I promised I would bring her back to him,” Buck says instead.

“What?” Bobby’s expression is caught somewhere between horror and anger.

“To Kelly,” Eddie says, and his expression is just disgusted. “Her boyfriend is Kelly.”

Shock flickers across Bobby’s face, then resignation. “Okay.”

“No, look,” Buck reaches out one hand desperately, trying to keep Bobby from turning away. From killing Shay. “She’s one of us. She’s a paramedic in Chicago, okay? She saves lives every day. We can’t just let her die.”

“Stop,” Bobby says, finally raising his voice. “You are too close to this. This is too risky.”

“Well, I am willing to take the risk.” Willing to trade his life for his, if that’s what it takes.

This time Bobby snaps. “It’s not yours to take. You can’t just rush into any dangerous situation and assume it’s gonna be okay. ‘Cause sometimes it’s not, and I am tired of being on the wrong side of those hospital visits.”

And Buck is - he’s just sick of it. He’s not a child running headlong into danger because he doesn’t understand the consequences. He’s been a firefighter for nine fucking years, he’s watched friends and strangers die right in front of his eyes. Nearly died himself more than once. There’s no way he would rather go out than saving someone - anyone, but especially a friend.

“Bobby,” he grits out. “I am not Athena. And I am not your son.”

“What did you just say to me?”

“Enough!” Eddie shouts over the both of them. “We don’t have time for this. Buck, come on.”

“No.” Buck doesn’t look away from Bobby. Wills him to understand that he has to do this. “Nobody has to die, okay? I can save them both. So stop wasting time and let me do it.”

Bobby switches to a different tactic, visibly pushing his frustration down and reaching for the expression of a disappointed but hopeful father. “Buck, you don’t owe this to Kelly, alright? You don’t owe him your life.”

“This isn’t about Kelly!” Buck can feel his voice raising, hear the other girl crying and the way Shay has started whimpering with every exhale. “This is about Shay. I would dig her out of here with my bare fucking hands whether Kelly is here or not. And I am not going to let her die because you’re more worried about risking harm to me than guaranteeing her death. I’m going out there whether you like it or not - so either help me, or get the hell out of my way.”

Buck turns and scrambles back up the seats to Shay and his gear. He has a harness, rope, a saw. He can do this on his own if he has to, though it would be easier with Eddie’s help. Eddie who is busy having a furiously whispered conversation with Bobby that he doesn’t care to listen in on. If he has to listen to them weighing the value of his life against Shay’s he’s going to start screaming and he’s not sure he’ll be able to stop.

“Buck,” Shay whispers, watching as he ties the rope onto his harness and starts searching for an anchor point near the window he intends to go out of. “I can still hear, you know. You don’t have to do this.”

“I know,” Buck replies. A thrill of triumph runs through him as Bobby shouts up that he’s going down to see if they can stabilize the car and orders Eddie to ‘help Buck, before he gets himself killed.’ “I know, but I want to. No place I’d rather be than between you and certain death.”

“Kelly will forgive you.”

“It’s not about Kelly!” Buck snaps at her, wincing when she flinches away from the noise. He feels Eddie at his shoulder, passes off the rope to him and starts working on busting open a window instead. “I am not going to watch any more friends die, Shay. Not this week, not ever if there’s anything I can do about it. Don’t ask me to do that. And don’t ask me to walk out of here without a scratch and tell Kelly the love of his life is dead either, okay?”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Shay sighs, quieter with every word. Buck can barely hear her over the sound of the window shattering. They’re running out of time. “That’s always been you.”

It’s not true, Buck knows. It’s always been Kelly-and-Shay, it always will be Kelly-and-Shay, and he was never jealous of that. They love each other, are meant to grow old and gray and die together. They loved him too, once, and maybe they still do, but it’s not the same.

“Just shut up and let me save you,” he says, as Eddie finishes rigging up the rope and pulley.

He makes the mistake of looking back at her one more time and sees tears cutting tracks in the blood and grime on her face. “If I don’t make it out of this--”

“Don’t.”

“If I don’t make it out of this, Evan, just...tell Kelly I love him, okay?”

“You’re going to make it out of this.”

“I love you too, kid. Never stopped.”

Buck exchanges a tense glance with Eddie and hauls himself and the saw out the window without another word.

------

“That’s Buckley, isn’t it?” Kelly demands of the man wearing Captain’s gear and barking orders into a radio. He had come out of the upended train car looking tense and pissed off, and isn’t any happier when he rounds on Kelly. “What the hell is he doing?”

“Kelly, right?” Captain Nash asks, and he looks a little like he’d rather be punching Kelly than talking to him. “Your girlfriend is alive. And she’s going to stay that way, even if it kills Buck.”

Kelly doesn’t bother to correct him, or to respond to the barely veiled accusation in his words. He only has eyes for Buck and the shuddering, creaking train car he’s descending on a rope, putting his life at risk to save someone else’s. Just like Kelly has watched him do dozens of times before. Except it’s nothing like before, because he can’t stop thinking, I sent him in there. I sent him in there and now he might die. But it was for Shay, and it’s - it’s an impossible choice, Buck or Shay, the woman who’s never left his side or the love he chased away because he couldn’t see past his own grief.

He would trade places with either of them in a heartbeat.

“Come on, Evan,” Kelly murmurs. “Come on. You’ve got this.”

Second half coming later this week.

#chicago fire fanfiction #9-1-1 fanfiction #9-1-1 on fox #evan buckley #kelly severide #leslie shay #eddie diaz #buck x kelly severide #my fic #3x18 rewrite

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amjustagirl · 3 years

Text

Chapters: one. ~ two. ~ three. ~ four. ~ five. ~ six. ~ seven.

Wordcount: 3.6k

Masterlist link here

AO3 Link here

Genre / Pairing: Romance, Akaashi / Reader

Summary:

Loosely based on the anime filme ‘Your Name’, also known as Kimi No Nawa.

Akaashi Keiji catches glimpses of another life in his dreams. He dreams of fields of endless gold, of constellation of stars that light up the night sky. He hears the echo of birdsong in her laughter, her songs to the gods in the wind.

Author’s note: This fic is a little different from my usual work, so I’m a little nervous about publishing it. If you do like it, would love if you leave a comment / reblog / anything!

Pro tip: Italics denote scenes in Akaashi’s dreams / past.

If you’d like to be included in the taglist, do drop me a msg/ask!

He is seventeen again.

Practice is hard especially with his new captaincy, with first years to train and a mountain of paperwork to clear, but even as each jolt of the train home settles exhaustion further into his bones, he’s more concerned at the sustained silence from her. His phone is empty of her text messages - no funny stories, no silly jokes, no pictures of sun drenched flower fields - but he tells himself she’s fine, she’s probably occupied herself with something vaguely illegal that she’ll tell him later about and laugh away his disapproval.

He’s in the middle of dinner when his father turns on the television to watch the news. It’s just background noise, newscasters droning on about which dignitary is visiting Tokyo this week, how the stock markets are doing, when monsoon storms are forecasted to sweep across Japan, but his interest is piqued when the newscasters mention ‘the tragedy of latchkey kids - the death of a schoolgirl in a rural Hokkaido town’.

It can’t be, he thinks, swiveling around in his seat to stare at the screen. It can’t be, he thinks, in frozen shock, as the screen shows a familiar wooden house in flames, broadcast live on national TV.

‘The police are investigating this tragedy as an unsolved murder -’

(It can)

‘The victim was seventeen years old -’

(It is)

‘Calling for any witnesses to step forward -’

(She’s dead)

‘Keiji, what wrong?’ he faintly hears his mother ask, and he looks down. His chopsticks lie slack in his hand, the other hand clenched and trembling so hard he’s knocked his bowl over, rice spilling onto the dinner table.

‘Sorry - I don’t feel so good’, he mutters, stumbling his way into the bathroom, his stomach retching at the horror tearing down his throat like acid. Even as he clutches the cold porcelain with shaking hands to empty his stomach of its contents, his gut burns from the realization that she’s gone - there’s nothing he can do about it.

Wait a minute.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, sprinting to his bedroom to snatch up his omamori, before bursting out of the door, deaf to his parents’ worried shouts. He doesn’t stop running, doesn’t even stop to take a breath until he’s leapt up all twenty six steps to the shrine where he first prayed to the gods to grant his wish for more time, a wish binding their souls together in a fated knot.

(Except that’s not true anymore, because she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead - unless he can use their bind to twist fate and bring her back from the dead)

His hands are numb when he claps them together, his head spinning as he bows, fingers barely able to grasp as he scrawls another prayer on the ema, hanging the wooden plaque on the wishing tree.

‘You’ve already upended my life by tangling it up with hers. Please - please grant my wish and I’ll give up anything, including what’s dearest to me’, he silently pleads, closing his eyes in prayer.

But the gods stay silent. The shrine remains still.

The shrine attendant chases him out when it’s closing time, and he fends off his parents’ concerned looks by feeding them a lie about forgetting to help one of his teammates with homework, shutting himself in the room.

But the problem is he can’t seem to fall asleep, not when the image of a white sheet draped over her cold body is branded into the back of his eyelids. Not when he can still hear the echo of her laughter as she teases him about his old fashioned book recommendations that she still ends up reading curled up under a tree. Not when his soul has traced the constellation on her back, the crescent dimple in her right cheek -

Damn it all - he needs to fall asleep to have any chance of waking up in her body in her yesterday or is it her today - he’s not sure, doesn’t dare look at the clock for fear of chasing sleep further away, why can’t he fall asleep - he’s done this countless times before, waking up in her body in her yesterday while she wakes up in his today which resets when he then wakes up in his own body tomorrow -

Time flutters through his fingers like fallen petals scattering in the wind and he can tell from the growing sliver of light through his curtains that it’s almost daybreak - so he stumbles desperately into the bathroom to break into his mother’s medicine cabinet, swallowing twice the recommended dosage. It’s dangerous he knows, but he can’t bring himself to even think twice about it.

A prayer is still on his lips when his eyes finally drift shut and sleep finally overtakes him.

He cracks his eyes open.

Ah, he’s in her living room. She must have just reached home from school because the irori only emits thin ribbons of smoke, flames licking the kindling in the heath. But that doesn’t explain why he’s lying face down in the dust -

Then a dull pain hits him. Copper pools in his mouth. Hot liquid drips down his forehead.

He curses the gods for their sick sense of humour.

‘What are you doing here, Keiji?’ he hears her whimper. ‘You aren’t supposed to be here, he’s going to end up killing us both.’

‘Let’s not jump ahead of ourselves. Tell me what happened’, he answers, trying his best to inject a commanding tone to cover up the fear seeping into his words.

‘Hana-chan must have told her father I managed to get records of whatever awful shit he’s been doing to her, because he was waiting for me when I came home from school. I refused to give the recordings to him and tried to bite his hand and I guess he lost his temper…’

‘We need to have a conversation about your lack of self-preservation when we get out of this mess’ he points out, terror building up in his throat when he’s suddenly aware of the way his arms are twisted behind his back, cloth rope binding his wrists together in place. But before he can even try to struggle against the binds, he’s pinned in place by a knee on his back.

‘Awake already, little girl? I would’ve thought you would stay asleep a little longer considering how much you bleed from a silly little smack on the head.’ Nakamura chuckles, threading his cold fingers into his hair, and with a swift flick of his wrist, slams his face back against the floor.

Crack.

Akaashi gasps for air, dazed at the pain that blooms across his face.

‘You’re not as pretty as my little Hana-chan, but it would be a pity to smash your face in. So are you going to tell me where you’ve hidden your dirty little recordings, little thief?’ Nakamura coos, and Akaashi can feel the hair at the back of his neck rise in alarm.

‘Don’t give in to him’, she shrieks, her panic echoing in his mind. But Akaashi’s in the driver’s seat this time, and he’ll be damned if he lets her die on his watch - not when he already knows the pain of losing her once before.

Think, Akaashi. You have a brain, think!

‘It’s on my phone in my bedroom’, he mumbles thickly, keeping his voice weak. ‘You can go get it yourself.’

Nakamura relinquishes his grasp on his hair, brushing the dirt from his pants onto him. ‘I’m glad you have some sense at least, little lady. But if I find you’ve been wasting my time, I’ll make sure no one even recognises your face by the time I’m done with you’.

Akaashi waits for his footsteps to fade.

Then he rolls his body across the flow, tipping himself straight into the irori. This probably ranks as one of the most reckless things he’s ever done in his entire life, but it’s not as if he has many options with both his hands and feet bound. It’s also possible he’s been infected by her particular strain of insanity. It’s the only way he can think of to break loose from his bonds, using the flames to singe through the rope binds, but it hurts to place naked flame directly on bare flesh, blisters forming and popping and he bites down on his lip so hard it bleeds because oh gods it hurts, it hurts, it hurts –

Thank the gods it works, he’s able to wriggle free - not a moment too soon because he can hear the door to her bedroom crash open. Between the daze from the concussion and blood loss, he’s not going to be able to outrun Nakamura to get to safety, especially not when he’s in her body, what the hell is he going to do –

‘Store room’, he hears her gasp.

He grits his teeth as he crawls out of the heath, mentally calculating the distance to the back of the kitchen, divided by the blistering pain in his hands and feet.

’Move, Keiji!’ She shrieks, the thud of heavy footfalls resounding through the house ominously.

Adrenaline and terror floods his blood. It’s barely enough to fuel his sprint to the storeroom. He doesn’t dare to look back when Nakamura snarls - ‘what the fuck are you doing, you piece of shit’, only stops to breathe when the lock clicks in place. But he doesn’t get a moment’s reprieve, the door shuddering with the weight of a deranged man’s rage.

‘It would be easy for me to burn the house down with you in it. No one would question any foul play if a wooden house goes up in flames. Or would you prefer it if I wait for little Toya-chan to get home and bash his little head in? It’s your choice, bitch.’

‘What should we do?’ he asks her desperately.

‘You’re going to think I’m crazy... ’

‘Let’s not waste time on foregone conclusions, thanks.’

‘Right. Remember how I told you fire is life?’

It’s a testament to how well he knows her that he knows exactly what she means. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’ He breathes, horrified.

‘Do you have any other ideas?’ she retorts.

But she’s right, they’re essentially stranded on a flaming shipwreck, there’s nowhere else for them to run. Cursing the gods over and over again for their twisted sense of humour, Akaashi scrabbles around the store room, grabbing the ingredients to light this powder keg of an escape plan.

‘Ready?’

‘Ready when you are.’

‘Okay’ he says, taking a deep breath in a futile attempt to keep his anxiety at bay. ‘Okay’ he repeats, loud enough for Nakamura to hear him through the door. ‘I’ll unlock the door if you leave Toya alone’.

‘Smart girl.’ He can hear the menacing chill in the older man’s voice, but there’s no time to second guess his decision as he unlocks the door. He lets Nakamura make the first move, lets him yank the door open, and with the benefit of years of setting experience (thank you, Bokuto-san), he flicks his wrist to send a perfect arc of an entire bottle’s worth of liquid petrol splattering against Nakamura’s front.

‘Stand back or I’ll set you on fire’ he threatens, holding her ridiculous pink lighter like a weapon as Nakamura splutters in shock.

But the man only shakes off his surprise with a menacing laugh, slowly straightening into his full height, leaning against the door. ‘You don’t have it in you, little girl, you’re just like my Hana-chan. She used to put up a fight, always trying to scratch my eyes out but now she’s learnt that little girls should be good and docile - ‘

He can feel the brewing firestorm of rage from her. It’s not unwarranted, not when he’s seen through her eyes the abuse Hana’s suffered at his hands and in a spurt of impulsivity that shocks even himself, he surges forward to grab the man’s shirt, the naked flame from the lighter mere millimeters away from his face. ‘How dare you, disgusting pig - she’s your flesh and blood’, he spits.

Nakamura grins, deranged. ‘Exactly. She’s mine to use, and you’re going to regret ever trying to get in my way.’ He slams his head against Akaashi’s already broken nose (or rather - her nose) and - oh gods pain bursts across his face and he trips, falling onto his back. Nakamura doesn’t waste any time, climbing on top of him, fingers digging into his throat.

‘Let go of me’, he rasps, his vision starting to blur. Nakamura only tightens his grip, nails digging into the tender flesh of his neck.

But even with air being choked out of his lungs, her refrain ‘fire is life’ smolders in his mind. The gods must feel some pity for him today because Nakamura is so intent on going for his throat that he’s left his hands unchecked, so he closes his eyes in prayer and desperation, twisting his face as far away from his target as possible and presses his thumb on the lever on her lighter -

Everything goes up in flames.

Nakamura screams, stumbling away, and the sound should spark a sense of cruel satisfaction if blinding pain exploding in his face weren’t a more immediate concern. There’s fire everywhere, and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts - but he already knows what hell feels like, this is nothing compared to the nightmare of her dying, so he gathers the last of his strength to fight against the ash suffocating the oxygen from his lungs, stumbles out of the backdoor to drop and roll in the mud until the flames on his clothes recede.

He’s alive. She’ll survive.

But it's at a high cost - the white hot pain of blistering burns all over his - well, her body slamming into him like a freight train when adrenaline recedes. Gasping in pain, he welcomes the gathering darkness at the edges of his vision. He tries not to think of the survival rate of burn victims, nor the risk of infection should medical treatment not be administered soon enough - this is as far as he can possibly go. He lies on his back, completely depleted.

The grass rustles. The wind blows.

Toya stands over him, eyes wide. ‘Nee-chan, what’s going on?’

Oh. Thank the gods.

‘Toya. You have to run and get help, ok?’ he manages to rasp before darkness finally devours him, swallows him whole.

He opens his eyes and finds himself back in the forest shrine.

It takes him a split second to gather his bearings before he leaps to his feet, his lungs still burning from the taint of smoke, his mouth still acrid with the bitter taste of ash, and he doesn’t know if either of them are alive or heaven forbid - if he failed and she’s dead –

‘Keiji, you idiot!’ He hears her shriek as he’s tackled from behind, crashing face first into the forest floor.

He’ll thank the gods again and again for the rest of his life because -she’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive -

She throws herself into his lap, crying as she beats her fists against his chest. ‘You fool! You dummy! You scold me for being reckless, but what if you died when your soul was stuck in my body –‘

‘You’re alive’, he breathes in disbelief, cupping her face in his shaking hands, letting the warmth from her cheeks bleed into his skin.

She flushes, burying her head into the crook of his neck. ‘You’re not getting out of being scolded but yes, I think so’, she mumbles, her words muffled.

His heart grows cold. ‘What do you mean you think so?’

‘Where we are isn’t real - is it?’

She motions for him to be silent, to listen. There's the faint beeping of a hospital monitor, barely discernible over the whispering of leaves. ‘I think we’re in my mind for now. Or my consciousness, I’m not sure. I woke up to a bright light that beckoned me to follow it, but I saw you lying here and wanted to wait for you.’

Fear grips his heart, the spectre of black smoke and white sheets haunting him anew. ‘Don’t follow it’, he demands, latching on to her shoulders. ‘I’m not losing you again.’

‘I’m not going anywhere’, she promises with a smile, the sight quenching the fear in his heart. ‘I’m here, Keiji. I’m here. You said you wouldn’t let anything happen on your watch, remember?’

‘That was before you got yourself killed when I wasn’t looking’, he retorts dryly, though he’s unable to fully smother the smile blooming on his face.

‘It wasn’t my fault!’

‘I told you not to get caught in the first place!’

‘Yeah - but you came for me nonetheless’, she says, eyes sparkling. ‘You came for me, like Perseus saving Andromeda from her shackles, snatching her from the very jaws of the sea monster.’

He chuckles, amused that she remembers the stories he tells her. ‘Nakamura was definitely uglier than a sea monster, so I’m sure that’s an accurate comparison. ’

‘Stupid!’ she laughs, raising her hand to playfully smack him again when he catches her hand in his. He steals a moment to marvel at the constellations in her eyes, wondering if the stars in the sky are jealous of her light. He wants to bask in the spotlight of her warmth and songs and laughter forever and oh gods -

He’s in love with her.

The realisation strikes him like a hammer blow to the chest.

Has it already been a year that he’s spent mapping out the infinite breadth and depth of her soul? A year that he’s spent watching her wield her kindness like a sword and a shield. A year that fate has spent trying to smother her fearlessness to no avail - she still burns like an undying flame in the night sky. A year of unwritten poetry buried in spring flowers, stanzas of the wind echoing her songs to the gods. A year's worth of lessons in patience and exuberance and laughter, reminding him that life is a miracle to be treasured and not to be dismissed as a mere series of goals.

It is only now that he understands why his heart crumbled into dust, why his soul tore itself apart when he found out that she died - because he loves her, this silly scrap of a girl.

Her eyes widen as he tugs her forward to lean his forehead against hers. For once she’s at a loss for words.

I love you – he wants to whisper against the rosebud of her lips, wants to shout it loud enough for the whole forest – nay, for every speck of stardust in the galaxy to hear. His mouth moves to form the words, but suddenly his tongue grows thick, his mouth goes dry.

His heart stutters to a painful stop.

He can’t remember her name anymore.

He tries to say her name again, tries to spell out the syllables with his tongue but it’s no use, his mind remains stubbornly blank. It can’t be. He must have said her name a thousand times in this lifetime, recited each syllable like a sacred verse.

How could he have forgotten her name?

‘What’s wrong?’ She pulls away, noticing the horror taut on his face.

Beep.

He looks down at his hands. Flesh and bone start to fade to dust.

‘Keiji’, she calls, and he can hear the Kodama in the trees echo his name. Keiji, they call. Keiji, she calls again.

Beep.

‘I’m starting to forget you’, he whispers, heart breaking anew as despair dawns in her eyes.

‘No - ’ she cries, desperation in her voice, repeating his name again and again - Keiji, Keiji, Keiji and he wants to respond with her name, but he can’t, he can’t, he can’t -.

Beep.

His memories of her are golden hued and bathed in starlight, but slowly they all wash away into shades of grey. He tries his best to grasp onto them, but it’s hopeless -like trying to capture the sea with his bare hands.

Beep.

He thinks of her, dancing in grassy meadows, with moonbeams as her lone light.

Beep.

He thinks of her, singing to the gods in the shadow of the forest shrine.

Beep.

He thinks of her, brimming with laughter and joy and kindness and love - and gods -

Beep.

How is it even be possible to forget the birdsong in her laughter, the blossoms in her cheeks -

Beep.

‘Keiji! ’ She reaches desperately for him, tears spilling from her eyes.

Beep.

His time runs out. His soul starts to fade into the night.

Beep.

Her eyes shine bright, the constellations liquid silver in her eyes.

‘I’ll find you, Akaashi Keiji - even if it takes me a hundred lifetimes, even if I have to wait a thousand years. So you better be ready for me when I find you, because - because I love you - I love you, you fool.’

Beep.

It’s the last memory he forgets of her, her vow losing its light in the darkness of his mind.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

He wakes up with a gasp.

He is twenty five again, lying on the forest floor with a halo of fireflies dancing above his head.

It’s been almost a whole decade since he was seventeen but finally - he remembers her.

Taglist

@animeflower26 @forgetou @kageyamakock @underrated-fruit-tarts-official @bongofrito

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malewifegradyruewen · 3 years

Text

Ceux Qui Ne Meurent Jamais, Chapter Three

three chapters in three days i'm insane-

previous | next | masterpost

trigger warnings: overall creepy vibe, i was almost too scared to finish, that's why it stops so abruptly, i don't recommend reading late at night or in the dark, ask to tag

word count: 1715

tagging: @fire-sapphics @zoyyanazyalensky @dirty-racoon @della-vacker-supremacy @raiinyrxse @lucat13 @tiergan-andrin-alenefar @genyyasafin @cadence-talle @thewhiteblades @gay-otlc @brilliantblindinglights @enbies-and-felonies @love-pyramus @silver-war @pencilwritesshiz47 @littlemisscupcake lmk if you want to be added/removed!!

SLAM!

Nathalie awoke to the sound of what she assumed was a door slamming shut. The wind howled outside her window, making the panes rattle. She looked at the clock, but the room was too dark for her to see. She lit the candle that had been sitting on her bedside table and padded across the floor to look. Two-fifty-four.

Given the strong winds outside, a draft blowing a door shut was nothing too out of the ordinary, so Nathalie decided to return to bed. She started crossing back to her four-poster when she heard another SLAM! It sounded closer, as though the first one had been one of the vacant bedrooms at the far end of the hallway, and this one was only a few doors down. While it did seem odd, she didn’t think much of it. An old, empty manor could only withstand so much on a night as windy as this one.

SLAM! A third door slamming shut, this one stopping Nathalie in her tracks. It sounded as though this door was across the hall, the door to the only accessible room that was currently vacant. She turned around slowly and crept towards her door, so she could check the hallway and put her mind at ease before returning to bed. She reached out to grab the doorknob before she realised she was shaking. Maybe checking the hall wasn’t the best idea. But her curiosity got the best of her, and she kneeled down on the floor and laid down on her stomach, peering under the door. She couldn’t see anything, and after a few minutes she was ready to go back to bed, until she saw movement out of the corner of her eye.

She could just make out a heavy pair of boots, walking swiftly yet somehow silently across the floor. She held her breath as the boots stopped right in front of her door. Her heart was pounding, louder than it ever had before. The boots moved closer to her door, taking one step, then another, before stopping once more. They turned and ran down the hallway, towards the vacant bedrooms.

Nathalie wasn’t sure how long she stayed there, on the floor next to her door, the only light the candle on her nightstand slowly dimming as the wax melted. Not another door slammed, though the wind blew ever stronger. Who was that, with the black boots, and why were they here? How had they gotten here? Her brain rattled with questions, like the panes clattering in the window frames. But there was nothing she could do about it tonight. She’d ask Lady Lucie in the morning.

Slowly, she got up off the floor and climbed back into bed, snuffing out the candle as she did so. Her heart was still racing and her head was still pounding, but as darkness enveloped the room once more, she couldn’t fight the exhaustion, and she slipped into an uneasy slumber.

-:-

Nathalie was awoken by the sun streaming through her windows, so bright it felt blinding. The house was quiet, the ticking of the clock the only sound. Nine-twenty-seven. Lady Lucie had said breakfast was typically at nine, but she’d make it fresh for Nathalie. She could afford a few more moments in bed before getting ready for the day.

Thoughts of breakfast and sunlight and the other ladies in the house distracted her for a moment, but it wasn’t long before her questions about last night’s events took front and center in her brain. Even now, she shuddered at the memory of the boots standing outside her door, silent on such a creaky floor.

She couldn’t bear to sit and wallow in memory any longer, so she instead climbed out of bed and changed out of her nightdress to an outfit nearly identical to that of last night, only the skirt was green and the blouse was white. She quickly untied the ribbon wrapped around the end of her braid and tied her hair into a bun, the same way she had everyday since she was a child. Slipping her grey shoes back on, she headed downstairs to the dining room they’d eaten in the night before.

There was no evidence anyone had used the dining room thus far that morning, but the door to the kitchen was propped open. Nathalie cautiously walked towards the kitchen, spotting Lady Lucie elbows deep in the sink. The clatter of dishes being plunged into the soapy water was loud, but it still seemed strange to Nathalie that her footsteps hadn’t been loud enough to alert Lady Lucie to her presence.

“Good morning,” she said, raising her voice so she could be heard above the dishes.

Lady Lucie whipped around, as though she hadn’t been expecting Nathalie. “Lady Nathalie!” she cried. “Good morning! Don’t mind me, just tidying up after breakfast! I left a bowl next to the stove for you, and there’s a plate of fruit and a bowl of sugar on the counter.”

She pointed as she spoke, guiding Nathalie to a pot of porridge on the stove. She groaned. After eating it nearly every day of her childhood, she despised porridge. The bland, tasteless mush was one of the worst things about Hazelford Children’s Manor. However, she couldn’t deny that her stomach was rumbling, so she took a small scoop and added several heaping spoonfuls of sugar before taking her bowl and the whole plate of fruit to the dining room. There wasn’t much on the plate, as the native berries were mostly out of season, but there were apple slices, which in Nathalie’s opinion, were the best of all the fruits. She reluctantly put a bit of porridge on the apple slice and ate it, delightfully surprised at her creation. No longer despising the food in front of her, she ate it as quickly as she could.

Partway through her bowl of porridge, Lady Lucie emerged from the kitchen and joined Nathalie. “I trust you sleep well?”

For a moment, Nathalie debated lying, saying that her sleep had been uninterrupted. Would Lady Lucie know if she lied? But she decided to ask about the heavy yet silent black boots last night.

“There were some doors that slammed last night. I don’t know if you heard them. They woke me up, and I saw something...strange.”

“Oh? Strange how?” Lady Lucie seemed surprised, though Nathalie couldn’t fathom how. The doors had been quite loud, and she wasn’t sure how anyone could sleep through them.

“There was...a person, in the hallway upstairs, I think. I saw, under my door, a pair of black boots, but they were silent.” She decided to leave out the part where they had walked towards her door, and had seemingly been called away.

Lady Lucie paled. “Le Cavalier de l'ombre.”

“The what?”

“Cavalier de l'ombre. A legend,” she said, jumping up. “Come, to the library, I’ll show you what I mean.”

Nathalie had no time to argue, because Lady Lucie had grabbed her wrist and was pulling her away from the table. She had no choice but to run to keep up as they wound through hallways, past closed off sitting rooms and boarded up doors, too many to count. Finally, they reached a pair of the largest doors Nathalie had ever seen, even larger than the front doors. Lady Lucie let go of her wrist to push the door open, not straining despite their size.

Had she not been terrified of what seemed to be imminent doom, Nathalie would have stopped and marveled at the library. The ceiling was three stories tall, and at least half of Hazelford Children’s Manor alone could fit in here. Bookshelves spanned from floor to ceiling, with two balconies wrapping around the entire room so books higher up could be accessed. There were at least a dozen ladders hung onto rods above the bookcases with small wheels at the bottom so one could reach any book they pleased. The highest balconies had small baskets on pulleys to lower books down while climbing down the narrow spiral staircases hidden in the corners. Grand chandeliers illuminated the room, along with the light streaming in the great stained glass windows directly opposite the doors, the only bit of wall space that wasn’t covered in books. Sofas, tables, armchairs, and desks were scattered about so that everyone had a spot to read and study, although there was a fair number of floor pillows as well.

But Nathalie had no time to marvel at these wonders as she was dragged up a spiral staircase and around a balcony until Lady Lucie stopped so abruptly, she almost fell over.

“Here it is,” Lady Lucie said breathlessly, pulling a book off a shelf at eye-level and flipping through it frantically. “Legends of the Ladies, by Lady Auriane. It’s old, maybe 12 cycles, but it’s one of the best when it comes to our lore. Here,” she said, settling on a page and pointing to the header. “Le Cavalier de l'ombre.”

She offered it to Nathalie, and she took it and started reading. “Le Cavalier de l’ombre is a figure who has no face, makes no sound, and leaves no memory of their visit. They travel in shadow, typically appearing at night to unsuspecting souls. Only appearing to the ladies of the order thus far, they seem to steal immortality, weakening the lady until she has no life left within her, so she meets her demise shortly thereafter. The ladies who fall victim pass with no knowledge as to how or why. No lady has been able to speak of how their immortality is stolen, but all can recall a sense of dread and a drop in temperature before their memory is blank. There seems to be no pattern as to who falls victim to this being, but they will choose one lady and pursue them until they have achieved their goals. Thus far there has been no way found to harm this creature.”

Nathalie finished reading and looked at Lady Lucie, who was paler than any person Nathalie had ever seen. “What does this mean?”

“It means,” Lady Lucie choked, “you’re the next victim of le cavalier de l’ombre, and we don’t know how to stop it.”

#jolie's shitty writing #cqnmj #ceux qui ne meurent jamais

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pinkykitten · 3 years

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everything stays

chapter 1 - blood on her hands :: gisela klein [ an aot oc story ]

note: hey guys i know its been a rlly long time since ive posted anything and u may be rlly let down and underwhelmed that ive chosen to write a aot oc instead of fanfic but its what i want to write and i rlly love my oc and wanna give her some love and some praise and let u a little in how i see her. im sorry i havent posted a lot im going to try to write more and who knows i may or may not finish this but its ok imma try lol but life sometimes is a butthole. i hope you love her as much as i do an tysm for taking time out of ur day to read this story. enjoy!

Even though she knew that this day would have to come and that it was near, it still was a surprise for her. She was taken aback. It didn’t make sense and add up to her; she was trained for this since she was little; preparing mentally and physically for phase one of the plan; and the day appeared through the trees; past the wall; the opportunity was present; the fate of the people were waiting in their hands; and yet she felt a sense of evilness within her heart. Was this right? But there was no time.

The day was written down in history. The stories were spread around like a disease. Heights, jaws, teeth, feet, stench, the screams. If they survived that nightmare they were seen as a tough soldier; as someone that was applauded because they probably had PTSD and had to see everyday as a reason within themselves or God that they were alive. That maybe just maybe they were saved for a reason; for a purpose. That is what Gisela Klein thought. Maybe there was something greater out there for her to do, to accomplish and that was why she saw another day; breathed another breath.

But one thing was for sure. Forgiveness would never come her way; she would never expect it. To be a warrior she had to endure the horror; the pain; feelings of worthlessness; and friendships lost.

This is the story of the 10th finding titan; the Slash Titan.

The pounding of her heart rang through her ears. It had taken everything for her to keep going on this journey; to continue on the path to and through Hell. She felt a loss within her and the light in her eyes died out. The loss of her friend made it hard for her to function. To keep her head in the game and in the plan.

She sighed as she stared at her hands. Broken and bruised like her heart; scars and scratches scattered on her skin. Her bite mark deeply engraved into her flesh. She heaved a huge sigh. Ready to give death a handshake and make a deal with the devil. Panic was rising in her chest from her stomach, almost ready to throw up.

As she thought about her family back home she realized there was no other way; she had to do this. In order to be with her family, to save them she had to do the one thing she was trained to do.

Kill.

A lightning strike shot over the wall. The wall that kept the monsters away and at bay. Something was wrong; the air seemed to change. The lightning strike caused a boom, clap and the ground started to shake.

Bertholdt drew his leg back and with full force swung his leg forward, knocking a hole into the wall that was impenetrable. Many people flew back from the wind of the blow and some were crushed by the debris of the wall.

Many were going to die; but it’s what needed to be done.

The titans were called.

Finally the titans entered the devils homes and started to rip up their lives. “This is right, this is right.” Gisela had to keep reminding herself. “For my family.” And something snapped within her. The image of her mother, tortured, flashed in her mind. And suddenly everything was worth it. “No regrets.”

Gisela eyed Reiner, an agreement, a sign. She exhaled and in a quick motion placed her hand to her mouth and bit into it. In a spark she transformed into her titan form. Her eyes were much like a cats, sharp. She was made into the slash titan, she was chosen for this program. Her titans fingers were like sharp knives, able to cut any object or person. They hung a little past her knees.

Reiner then transformed and both stomped past the hole. Many citizens glanced up, horrified. Gisela and Reiner were titans never seen before.

She nodded to Reiner, bent down and started to pick up debris and pieces of houses to throw over the bigger wall. The chunks started to smash against people. Blood splattering everywhere. Gisela almost wanted to close her eyes from the immense amount of dead bodies piled on top of others, graves upon graves.

She was hauling boulders as high and fast as she could. Her titan held a high amount of power and strength. Being slim, muscular and as tall as the armored titan and female titan. Reiner took a step back and gained his speed to go onward to destroy the bigger wall.

“Fire!” Their soldiers cried out. Fear evident on their face. They shot their cannons, not even slowing down Reiner. Gisela continued flinging, wanting to create a path for Reiner. She was faster than before and many of her hits flattened the men in the front lines. Their screams and cries loud.

“Close the gate!” They tried, it was their last hope to save humanity. But it was not enough. Reiner broke the wall and killed those running and they went flying. They reached even higher than Gisela. It astounded her almost, they seemed like helpless birds flying high in the sky; but that thought was quickly wiped clean because the second they flew up in the air they came straight down with much force that many parts of their bodies broke.

Reiner did what he needed to do, he opened up a way for the titans to get in and they were swarming by the bunches.

In the distance, the survivors fled in boats across the river to get into the other walls. Gisela put herself in their shoes for a second. They had reason to be scared. Everything they have ever known was gone; their houses, loved ones, food, a place to feel the most comfortable you can feel despite situations; it was all gone. Gisela shook the thought out, not caring about these cruel humans feelings. They had none. No emotions. Gisela had to believe that thought; what she was told, she had to believe it with all her heart, or else what was real?

They waited till they were able to not be seen and Gisela turned human first and then so did Reiner. The four of them hopped on the boat. Talking amongst themselves. The wind howled through the vacant homes. Destruction everywhere. Gisela looked around her setting and saw a little girl had been crushed because a tree fell on her, her doll mere inches away from her grasp. She died with her eyes open; almost looking into Gisela’s soul through the eyes. Gisela’s body trembled and she threw up.

“Don’t.”

Gisela looked up to see Reiner wiping blood and debris off his clothes. He picked his sleeve and turned Gisela’s head to look away, he wiped her chin and mouth off the puke. He saw the trauma in her eyes and felt guilty. But it’s what needed to be done. He kept telling himself that the more he did this the more he would understand and get used to it. It was still all new to her and he had to be strong for her. He knelt in front of her small frame. “It’s not your fault. They needed to die. We are in this together. You don’t need them. Look at me.”

Gisela looked into his eyes, away from the sadness. His eyes carried the feeling of wanting to be wanted. That was always what Reiner wanted. But they also had fear in his eyes.

“Stop acting like you’re in control when I know how sick you feel. I know how afraid you are Reiner.”

He paused and took a look at his hands and others surrounding him. “You’re right. But I made a promise to Marcel.”

They joined the other citizens arriving at the food reserves. The master of disguise was needed in this mission. People needed to see four hungry, depressed children that survived the fall of their homes, not mass murderers.

Annie was only able to fetch two loaves. “Alright, who's the most hungry?”

“You girls should eat, you’re more feeble.” Bertholdt sat on a crate, pointing to Gisela and Annie.

Annie tsked, moving a bang from her eyes, “who says girls are more feeble? I recall kicking your ass all those times in training.”

“You guys can eat it, I’m not hungry.” Gisela sat on the other crate and saw the chaos of the crowds. A boy caught her interest. He had dark brown hair, tan skin, and light blue green eyes. He was having bread shoved in his mouth and he seemed to have such a strong personality to him. If only Gisela felt so strongly about her motive and her placement in this life.

“You really should eat, you need your energy after all you did.” Annie broke all the loaves in half and shared it amongst the four of you. “It’s not much but at least it's something.”

Gisela sighed, “you’re right. Thanks.”

After that day there was land given to only a few refugees but there were too many of them. Luckily the four of them had a piece of land that was enough until further inching themselves within society. Through that whole span each day was getting easier and easier living with the lies and day by day Gisela felt more at sure with herself and knowing that she could fulfill this mission. Pills and alcohol helped the pain and ease the thoughts. She taught herself to put a gap between what she came here to do and feelings. She told herself every day that nobody else mattered except her family and Reiner. She trained her brain to not care, to not have strings attached or any love for anything. It was all a play, all a rehearsal for when the curtain would fall. She was readying herself for that fall. Everyday she educated herself more on these scums. What they liked, wanted, needed, craved for, and what they craved more than ever in their life was freedom.

She trained her body as if it were her last day, barely getting sleep. The face of her mother haunting her every night making her get up at three in the morning to do pushups or sit ups. Not only was her mind getting stronger but also her body. Even Reiner would make jokes noticing the muscles that would appear. The six pack that formed on her stomach. Her thighs growing tight and firm, her arms growing stronger. The sweat growing on her forehead longer.

With her body growing her relationship with Reiner also changed. They no longer were the tiny children that didn’t understand anatomy or the air between two people. Reiner and Gisela’s relationship was of being flirty, sharing a few kisses here and there, trying to be a couple but then yelling at each other and breaking it up and realizing maybe this isn’t right a million times. Even Bertholdt and Annie were getting tired of their outbursts. But each time they made up to be friends only and then the cycle started where the feelings came in the way and they wanted to be more. They would tease each other, especially Reiner. They were each other's best friends. Gisela was like one of the boys, loud, obnoxious, burping all the time, Reiner would get a look at her and smirk thinking he taught her well. When Reiner looked at her he felt at home and that everything was going to be okay. Her nightmares continued and each time Reiner would come to her room and hold her, let her cry into his arms. She felt he was the only person that knew her pain.

Gisela understood many things in life and for once she understood her life here, she understood why she was born and chosen.

It was the following year and in order to get closer to finding the founding titan the four became part of the 104th cadet corps.

“Are you ready to train more?” Gisela nudged Reiner, eyebrow raised.

“What do you mean train more? This is going to be a new but scary experience honestly.” Reiner spoke as if he was a different person. As if he didn’t have a life outside of the walls.

“Reiner?” Gisela placed her hand on his shoulder, steadying him. He looked fine on the outside but Gisela knew the issues were inside, his mind. She knew this was becoming disastrous to him, he was starting to have almost two personalities, two lives, two worlds, two people. Gisela tried to tell Annie or Bertholdt, they saw it too but there was nothing they could do.

All that Gisela could do was smile as they made their way to the first day of training.

note: again ty y’all sm!!!! If u liked it lmk and this is kinda new for me cuz I usually don’t post my ocs stories here or much at all but I’m rlly excited for y’all to see her and for y’all to know this oc of mine and hopefully accept her ❤️

Taglist: @witchofinterest @chlobenet @eddysocs @fpxloomis @whctsherncme-archive @ocfairygodmother @fandomchick80 @ocappreciationtag

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missskzbiased · 3 years

Text

The Three Lessons (2)

Genre: Angst, Romance, Fluff (Hm…), Witch! Au, Love Triangle

Pairing: Chan X Fem! Reader X Seungmin

Word Count: ~7,8K [I’m sorry]

(The First) (The Second) (The Third)

Warnings: (Mild) Mentions of (Hunting and deboning [Literally just the word, I didn’t describe anything], burning witches)

Notes: Well, I won’t lie... I’m quite sad because I really liked to plot this and I don’t think many people liked it but as I liked to write it, so I just shrugged it off USHAHUSAUHSHUAUHS That’s my ninja way.

I really hope those who read and enjoyed it like this one too though LOL and I’ll warn you that I may have thrown some things around but it’s because I intend to write some spin-off for this au with the other boys. It’s not random! USHAHUSAUHUASH It just looks like it is

Tagging: Please, send me an ask/DM me if you wish to be tagged

////

CHAPTER 2: The Second Lesson

Yerkir ─ The Earthy Elder ─ scoffed as soon as you stepped in the haven.

You glanced at her, watching as she shifted to a new position on the stump ─ left leg bending to rest her foot on the woody surface while her right foot twisted to plant itself firmly on the ground ─, letting her arms resting sloppily on her knees; eyes directed to the woods. You averted your eyes to look straight ahead, ignoring her, and the reassuring squeeze you felt on your shoulder made you fix your gaze on your Grandma.

“So… How was the hunt?” Yerkir asked in a knowing tone, clearly aware that you didn’t have anything in your hands but still choosing to mock you. She tapped her foot on the stump while groping her dress, searching for something through her pockets. She finally found it ─ some kind of dried root that looked like a stick ─, chewing mindlessly with her eyes still fixed on the horizon.

“Why don’t you go look for something better to do, Yerkir?” Grandma muttered, rolling her eyes as she let go of your shoulder. She stopped, fixing the staff on the ground before leaning on it, eyes fixed on her old friend ─ which was promptly returned. The Earthy Elder fixed her gaze at your grandma for a few seconds, a blank expression almost flattening her wrinkles, her blinking showing her astonishment.

“Maybe because I’m blind” The Elder pointed out, grimacing obnoxiously. She turned her eyes to you ─ as if she knew you were about to giggle ─, studying you for a moment before clicking her tongue and pursing her lips, sending a shiver down your spine under the intensity of her gaze.

Yerkir's milky eyes always had the power to terrify you; her icy-bluish eyes seemed to be capable of diving into your soul and exposing all your deepest secrets to the world. You didn’t have anything to hide but it still scared you. Her gaze was stern, unwavering, and it had the power to freak you out; studying you slowly as if she just knew whatever was going inside your body and mind.

“We had some… Issues” Your Grandma waved her hand dismissively “The animals preferred to retire themselves” She added, getting a snort as an answer. Yerkir leaned back on her palms, throwing you both an amused look before tilting her head, lips quivering in a silent mockery.

“Yeah, I could tell this much” She nodded, her amusement morphing into a serious frown “I guess Nature wasn’t so satisfied with you for helping out a… Man” She spat the last word with disgust as if just the mention of it twisted her stomach “You should have let him die” She muttered darkly, averting her eyes to the cottages on her left expectantly, prompting you to do the same.

“What was it?” The Airy Elder came out from her cottage, voice sounding like a soft breeze, a gentle huff that tinkled in the air “Has someone called me?” She inquired, eyes attentive as she swiveled her head to look around the place.

The open space ─ a simple circular terrain with a bunch of stumps and rocks randomly arranged around a campfire ─ was surrounded by The Four Elders' cottages and The Tent in a placement that resembled slightly a pentagram but not really. The other’s cabins could be easily seen from there, scattered around the clearing, which made the small place just perfect for all the sixteen of you to hang out. The few of you who stood there at the moment, though, had to shake your head, getting a confused frown from the elder.

“The voices are getting more chaotic each day…” She complained under her breath, fixing her gaze on her friends “Are you two fighting again?” She scolded, hand to her hip as they looked at her with arched brows.

“Go talk to the wind, airhead!” Yerkir sneered, fighting back a smirk “Let me fight wet-pants in peace!” She rolled her eyes, waving her hand dismissively. Your Grandma rubbed her temples, sighing before looking at you, holding your gaze for just a little bit before averting her eyes to the sarcastic elder.

“Look, it wasn’t his time” She stated, speaking slowly so Yerkir would pay attention to her words “I can’t ignore what Nature wants because you hate mankind” She rolled her eyes, fed-up with the woman “Caeli, please blow some sense into her mind” She pleaded, averting her gaze to The Airy Elder.

“Some people don’t have anything inside their brains” She shrugged, giving a judging look to Yerkir “The earth magic is solid enough to block her ears… Have been like this for years now” She sighed, shaking her head in disappointment “She just can’t listen to us”

“Next time try saying something smart” She spat angrily “I have a lot of things inside my brain! One of those is a fucking head trauma! Thank you very much for asking” She sat straight, getting up from her stump and glaring at the other two “Should I remind you that this solid magic was what kept your child safe?” her eyes buried imaginary holes into Caeli’s brain.

If you tried hard enough, you could cut the tension with a knife.

“That’s enough!” The Fiery Elder interjected, voice spreading like fire on dry grass before vanishing suddenly, getting everyone’s attention. The Tent entrance’s fabric rustled, giving way to the old lady to come out; stern eyes darting between the other three elders, a frown wrinkling her face, casting shadows over her eyes “We should be handling The Coven issues, not fighting over silly things” She added, crossing her arms.

“Issues?” Grandma asked surprised, looking to the other ones “Something happened while I was out?” She added, furrowing her brows with a serious expression, dropping the taunting. Yerkir mumbled something incomprehensible, casually sitting cross-legged on the ground in a rapid motion, fingers gripping her chin in a pensive way.

“Something has been messing up my vision” She began, resting her elbow on her knee and curving her back forward “There is too much magic permeating the woods, I can no longer see clearly…” She admitted, letting go of her chin and straightening up again, gaze fixing on you “What did you do in the woods? I suddenly lost track of you before you got to the… Boy” She scrunched her nose to the last word.

“Nothing?” You answered unsurely “I mean… Something strange happened…” You glanced nervously to your Grandma, biting your lip before continuing, “I think the wind talked to me” You admitted before looking at Caeli “Maybe my powers are awakening?” You suggested, uncertain, and she pursed her lips, nodding in wonder.

“Well, you’re seventeen… Months away from your eighteenth birthday” She mused “It’s quite possible… It’s about time for your powers to show up anyway” She shrugged, looking at Yerkir “It could be magic enough to mess your senses… The Winds were quite agitated earlier” The Earthy Elder hummed, tapping her chin before tilting her head in deep thought.

“And you, Wiha?” She asked, staring at your Grandma “What was that? A memory spell? You know far too well it’s not your specialty” She pointed out, arching her brow “Last time I checked, your earth magic was bullshit” She scorned, and your Grandma grimaced at her in discontent.

“Well, last time I checked your lazy ass didn’t want to help me out so I had to do it all by myself” She sneered, glaring at the old woman. They held each other’s gaze for a while, a silent battle for dominance; pursed lips and fierce eyes determined to win their competition.

“Not the point here” Isati reminded, sighing tiredly “There is no doubt other witches are alive and enchanting the woods along with us… The mixed signals we’re receiving must be from this” She mused, averting her gaze to Caeli “The voices sound familiar? Do you think they are trying to locate us as well?”

“I can’t discern the voices that well anymore… The enchantments are getting in the way somehow” She sighed, lowering her head “I have been sending messages around, though… None of my whispers were answered until now… I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful” Isati hummed, waving at her to dismiss any concerns.

“It’s the same for me” Yerkir agreed “The ground is too embued with magic… It seems like they have been planning something… Maybe an attack? There is just so much I can see now, so I can’t locate them for us… The other Covens were well hidden before but never like this” She sighed, averting her eyes “It’s like they took my vision all over again”

“The boy had other enchantments beside mine” Your Grandma added “They know we are close to them… It would be impossible not to sense my magic in the river” She pinned her chin, thinking deeply about something “Did they choose to ignore us, or are they challenging us?” She raised her eyes to Isati, a serious frown taking over her features.

“There is no reason for witches attack each other” Isati stated firmly but Yerkir scoffed, nodding sarcastically.

“Are you kidding me? We don’t know what they have been through… There are twenty years behind us! This is enough time to change someone” She pointed out, skeptical “It will be safer if we make sure they don’t want any trouble… Imagine fighting some old hags with a bunch of useless kids” She gestured to the witches and warlocks around “Most of them didn’t even get their powers yet! They will die on spot”

“What if they attack us when we find them?” Isati arched her brows and Yerkir scoffed.

“Well, what if they attack us when they find us?” She retorted “It’s better to be attacked out there than giving away our location to them… What if they track us without magic? We don’t know anything about them! It’s better to show ourselves and actively try to reach for them and talk this out” Everyone nodded in agreement, a heavy silence falling upon all of you.

The Elders exchanged a look, concerned about the worried expressions all of you held at once, the tension building to a point that it was impossible not to feel uncomfortable. The Earthy Elder cleared her throat, tapping her feet on the ground in a calming rhythm while The Airy Elder whistled, both of them trying to ease your mind and soul. One by one, each one of you seemed to finally calm down, releasing the withhold breath in your chest and relaxing your bodies.

“We’ll need a plan” Isati announced, eyes roaming around “We can have a private meeting later… For now, we should keep our activities” She decided, throwing you a look “We should increase your sessions if your powers are beginning to show up” She suggested “Meet me at the tent when you’re ready” And that being said, she turned around, arms crossed on her back before she walked out.

You stared at her hands.

To be more precise, to the lack of them.

“Didn’t your Grandma teach you that staring is impolite?” Chan whispered in your ears, his warmth suddenly registering in your mind. You let out a yelp, turning around to meet his playful eyes, a thin smirk adorning his lips. How could he be so beautiful? “I see you’re keeping my coat to yourself… You didn’t need to hide it, you could just ask me for it” He joked, and you widened your eyes.

Oh, Mother Nature! His coat…

“Oh, yeah! Haha…” You forced a smile, your fake laughter being way too obvious to him. He raised his eyebrow, curious “Well, about that… I may have given it away to the boy Grandma saved” You looked away, ashamed to admit it.

“Oh” He said in realization, brows arching up in surprise “That’s okay… It wasn’t really special or anything” He shrugged “It was just an old coat, I can live without it… Maybe you can help me buy a new one when you turn eighteen” He said shyly, looking away “We can buy it at the village or something” He concluded flustered.

Was it just you or Bang Chan was asking you out on a date?

“Wow… This must be the most awkward flirting I have ever witnessed” Minho spoke up, carrying a bunch of sticks to the campfire “It amazes me how you guys managed to spend seventeen years of your life being gross” He decided to add, dropping the sticks to the ground and dusting off his hands, eyes averting to you.

It would be impossible to ignore his resemblance with The Earthy Elder.

“It amazes me how you managed to spend eighteen years of your life by giving opinions no one ever asked” You retorted, grimacing at him. Chan chuckled beside you, looking at his friend in amusement, while Minho feigned a laugh, hands going to his hips.

“Sixteen to be more precise” He corrected “I’ve only learned to speak at the age of two”

You just rolled your eyes at his antics.

/////

The sessions with The Fiery Elder wasn’t helping at all.

The blurry scene flipped over and you could feel the hard pang on your stomach ─ as if someone carried you like a sack of potatoes ─, pain increasing as said someone trotted, jerking your body up and down and making the trip too uncomfortable. The next thing you distinguished was some kind of fabric falling over your head, muffling all the sounds around and rustling on your ears, prompting you to shake your head eagerly to drop it.

The first thing you noticed when the fabric fell to the ground was the casting glows on everyone’s blurred faces ─ a stunning dance that distracted you for a brief moment, drawing you to roam your eyes around to discover its source. The second thing that got to your senses was the increasing heat that emanated at your back, enticing you to turn around, and the burning feeling that hit your cheeks disturbed you.

But not as much as what you saw.

The nameless figure was consumed by the flames right before your eyes, and you could swear she looked right into them before shouting her lungs out ─ the most vivid sound you ever heard. The screech seemed to engrave itself on the back of your mind; the contradictory effect that it had with the stunning flames overwhelming you to the point you felt your soul getting out of your body before it struck back to you.

The screech that slipped from your lips morphed into hers.

You shoot your torso up ─ gasping for air as if your life depended on it, chest going up and down with the heavy breathing ─, eyes roaming around the place bewildered, trying to make sense out of the wall right before your eyes instead of the burning flames. You blinked rapidly, taking a few seconds to realize that the intense noise that filled your ears right now had nothing to do with the crowd but with the constant slamming of the windows and the door caused by the boisterous wind.

Chan stormed in, eyes darting around the place and hands raised to protect himself from the random objects that flew in every direction, crashing on the walls with loud thuds that startled you even more. You met his eyes for a second, and he must have noticed the horror in them because he rushed in your way, hunching his shoulders to avoid being hit, while you returned your gaze to the gale forming inside your house.

“What happened?! Are you okay?” He yelled for you to listen, hands wandering around your arms, groping them to look for bruises “I heard you scream… What happened?” He shouted when you didn’t answer him, eyes too focused on the ruckus caused by the wind. You felt the mattress sinking, his body beside yours as he cupped your face, guiding your gaze to meet his; eyes diving deep into yours “Y/N? Answer me, Sweetheart… What happened? Are you okay?” He asked softly.

This time you actually focused on him and the twirling wind dissolved into a calm breeze just like magic; the silence that followed it quickly broken by all the clattering and thudding from the objects falling to the ground. You ignored it all, focusing on his eyes and your uneven breathing, letting yourself get lost in his gaze for a moment before your eyes darted to his lips ─ his pink and plump lips that broke apart to gasp ─, returning to dive into his eyes once more.

He tried to focus his eyes on yours but you noticed how he darted them to your lips twice before he bit his own, blushing profusely and adjusting his hold on your face with trembling fingers; head tilting slightly to the side as if he would lean for a kiss. You felt your heart race into your chest, ramming into your ears as you withheld your breath, spreading some kind of warmth all over your body as you felt yourself blush, all flustered and expectant.

The moment was broken by a sudden burst that made you yelp, hundreds of sparks crackling from the ground to form a shaky translucent figure in the middle of your room: The Fiery Elder’s concerned spiritual projection, looking around the place with a frown before finally fixing her gaze on you. The way that Chan jerked away from you ─ stumbling backward, trying to straighten himself before bowing respectfully ─was nothing but comical, and you had to fight back a chuckle as you got out the bed, bowing to the elder.

She raised her hands to dismiss the formalities.

“W-We didn’t do anything!” He stuttered, floundering his hands in the air anxiously “I heard her scream and rushed to see what happened! That was it! I wasn’t going to ki—“ The Elder snorted, interrupting his rambling, shaking her head in amusement.

“Calm down, son” She arched her brow, eyes glinting playfully “I sensed something wrong… I was just checking on her” She looked around the place, studying the untidy floor for a bit, humming “Was it your powers?” She asked, and you nodded when her eyes laid on you again “This kind of manifestation is not a good sign… We’ll need to fix it” She sighed, glancing at him.

“Yes, Ma’am?” He asked promptly, crossing his arms behind his back and fixing his gaze on her, pursing his lips.

“Bring her to me, Mr.Bang” She requested, looking at the ceiling “Vivi, can you please tidy this up? We don’t need Wiha whining when she returns from the village” She added, getting the vines to slowly untangle from the beam “Also…” She smirked, figure beginning to flicker “Try to keep your hands to yourself, son… It’s just a few months” the mocking grin was followed by the crackling sparks consuming her projection before bursting in the air, letting both of you alone once again.

////

The spear crossed the air like an arrow, sticking in the trunk behind you.

You widened your eyes ─ body pressed against the tree as if you tried hard enough you could pass through it ─, knees giving away as soon as the beast hissed, as startled as you, running away instead of attacking as it intended to do just a few seconds earlier. You slid down, trembling and groping the trunk as you sat down on the grass, raising your glossy eyes to meet an upset Chan striding in your way.

He gripped the spear filled with anger, yanking it out and throwing you a look.

“What the hell?” He fumed, clenching his jaw before scoffing “Do you think it’s a game or something?! You could have died, Y/N!” He yelled, sticking the shaft to the ground “What were you thinking?!” He asked in a demanding tone, eyes burying into yours.

You shrunk under his tone, gripping the grass and lowering your head, ashamed.

“I heard someone…” You muttered, risking a glance at him “They called my name” You added, bringing your knees closer to you “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” You felt the tears coming to your eyes, the sudden faltering on your tone getting his attention immediately.

“Don’t cry” He sighed, letting his shoulders relax and squatting next to you, hand trailing to your jaw, inviting you to look at him “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that” He brushed your cheek, letting go of your face and supporting himself on the shaft “You can’t get distracted like this on a hunt, Y/N… It could have costed your life” He took a deep breath, exhaling heavily.

“I know… You’re right, I should be more careful” You agreed, sighing and adjusting yourself to get up. He was faster than you, standing up and extending his hand for you to take, helping you out “My Grandma would kill you if I died on your watch” You chuckled, and he snorted nodding.

“My mother would have killed me on spot” He joked “The first lesson to the new witch would be murdering young handsome warlocks out there” He added, smirking when you shot your head to look at him, arching your brows in amusement.

“Murdering a young handsome warlock?” You scoffed, playfully shocked “You’re flattering yourself again…” You shook your head in feigned disappointment, mocking him.

“I’m just saying what is inside your mind” He teased, and you brought your hands to your hips, letting out an offended gasp “What? Your head is filled with me” He sang, poking your forehead fondly.

“Well, I wasn’t the one trying to kiss you earlier” You reminded him, grimacing.

“You weren’t stopping me either” He retorted, smirking smugly at you, making you roll your eyes and pull your hand away from his grip.

“Stop flirting with me, Channie” You poked his cheek “I’ll be eighteen soon enough” You teased, and this time he blushed, looking away “Oh? I see… Is Channie’s head all filled with me?” You mocked, poking his cheek again, laughing when he didn’t retort you “Looks like the young handsome warlock is whipped” You hummed, smirking.

“You’re the one to talk” He chuckled, tilting his head and taking your chin between his fingers, leaning closer to your face. You felt your face burning, looking everywhere but his eyes before he scoffed, prompting you to look at him “Just a few more months before I can finally—“ He couldn’t finish his sentence, knocked to the ground suddenly by someone crashing into him. The violent impact startled you but the yelling followed right after it and the grip on your wrist, yanking your body, was even more baffling.

“Run!” The stranger demanded, sprinting with you.

You followed his call, too surprised to think straight, sprinting with him for a few seconds before the realization hit you. You looked back, glancing over your shoulder to see an enraged Chan tugging his spear from the ground and preparing to shoot it your way, cold-steel eyes focused on the guy that dragged you with him. You returned your gaze to the stranger, his warm brown hair flew in the wind, whipping his cheeks, and you caught a glimpse of his widened dark eyes and red lips, a frown on his face suggesting that he was as scared as you.

Kim Seungmin.

“Wait!” You yelled, trying to dig your feet on the ground but his fear was enough to give him the strength to haul you “Stop!” You tried again, struggling to overpower him before the sudden sharp noise got to your ears. You didn’t even have the time to register what it meant, eyes snapping to the spear crossing the air as fast as an arrow, curving just enough to miss you and impale Seungmin’s head “Watch out!” You shouted, jolting your body to take away his balance, throwing both of you to the ground.

The next few moments were a blurry mess.

You could tell you were rolling down a knoll; body jerking on the ground as the bunch of confusing and spinning images unraveled right in front of your eyes, making you dizzy and nauseous. A mix of muffled sounds reached your ears ─ partly from the leaves you crunched and partly from the rustling fabrics of your clothes ─ along with your hissing as the roots and shrubs in the way hit you both mercilessly, bruising your skin. The bewildering moment fogged your senses but you could still feel Seungmin’s arms wrapping around you, trying to protect you from further bruising.

“Ouch!” You whined as you hit something particularly hard in the way, feeling that, finally, the speed seemed to decrease by the second. You raised your eyes, catching a glimpse of a focused Chan running your way, spear on hand, and prepared to throw it once more, studying the best opportunity.

The opportunity he was looking for came sooner than you wanted, the rolling ceasing with Seungmin’s body hovering over yours, not giving you enough time to think of a plan. The mysterious boy tried to lift his body, bracing himself on the ground, unaware of the danger that he got himself into, checking to see if you were okay. You sensed the spear getting closer ─ enchanted to go straight to Seungmin ─, and before you could even think of what you were doing, your hand shot to the air while you embraced the boy, trying to protect him mindlessly.

“No!” You shouted, a blast of air coming out of your hands, formed right from the thin air that surrounded you, projecting the spear away. You felt the boy tensing up, glancing at him with wide eyes as his head snapped to the side to verify if he wasn’t seeing things. He let his mouth fall agape, eyes landing on the spear before slowly trailing to you, terrified.

“A-A witch?!” He stuttered, jerking away “Holy –“ He rolled to the side, getting away from you, trying to get up but stumbling over himself. You stood up, hands rose so he could see that you were harmless, cautiously stepping ahead to get closer to him “Don’t come near me!” He shouted, grabbing a random stick on the ground to threaten you, wobbling it in the air.

“This is ridiculous…” Chan sighed, utterly done with the situation, flickering his hand to jolt the stick out of Seungmin’s hands, letting the boy flabbergasted, blinking repeatedly as he tried to understand what had just happened.

“H-Holy cow…” He paled, one hand shooting to his mouth as the other rested on his stomach “H-He… He’s a witch… Holy mother of God” He gagged like he was about to vomit, a nauseous expression taking over his features “I didn’t mean to upset you guys! I-I thought he was harassing you... I-I mean! I didn’t mean to interrupt your… Mating?” He floundered, eyes darting between you as he tried to explain himself.

“We’re not mating!” You interjected, offended “Look, Seungmin –“

“How do you know my name?!” He asked high pitched, voice wavering like a string, hand trailing to his heart as his lips quivered in utter shock, and eyes as big as saucers fixed on you filled with horror. The way he wobbled ─ as if he was about to pass out ─ amused you, and you had to fight back a smile as you watched him shaking in fear, pinching the bridge of your nose and closing your eyes for a moment to concentrate.

“Magic” Chan mocked, flourishing his fingers in the air as a joke, and you burst out laughing, pushing him lightly to scold him “Are all of you dumb like this?” He asked in contempt, and Seungmin didn’t find the courage to answer him right now, so he just stood frozen there “Just like I thought…” He sighed, rolling his eyes.

“Seungmin, you can’t tell anyone about this” You warned, getting closer to him “Do you understand it?” You asked to make sure, looking deep into his eyes and squeezing his shoulder, tugging him out of his thoughts.

“Wait! What?!” Chan blurted out, surprised “He won’t say anything because we will kill him, Y/N” Chan declared, confused by your phrasing, getting a questioning look from you; arched brows challenging him silently “He knows” He pointed out, raising his hand to evoke the spear from the ground, not disturbed by your outrage.

“No, please!” The boy begged, tearing up “Please, spare me! I won’t tell it! I swear!” He kneeled on the ground, hands clasping together in a desperate plead as tears streamed down his face.

“You can bet I’ll spear you” He spat, raising his weapon.

“Wait, you can’t just kill him like this!” You protested, rushing to be in front of the boy, arms wide open “Grandma saved him yesterday! He’s not supposed to die yet!” You defended, and this information seemed to perk up the boy, who shot his head up, staring at you dumbfounded before getting up, grabbing your arms excitedly.

“I knew it wasn’t a dream!” He chirped, hands sliding to your hands to hold them “You sang to me, didn’t you?” He asked flustered, squeezing your hands “The River is flowing… Flowing and growing…” he chanted in a hurried tone, eyes shining as he looked at you “I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to offend you!” He widened his eyes, realizing his mistakes, and you shrugged him off, chuckling.

“That’s okay” You reassured him, squeezing his hands back “Now you know we won’t hurt you—“

“We?” Chan asked riled up “There is no way I will let him out alive” He said, grabbing your hands and tugging them away, a frown on his face as he glared at the boy “I don’t trust you” He hissed, pointing the sharp metal to Seungmin’s throat, prompting him to gulp down; the boy’s eyes darting to you before focusing on Chan again, cold sweat running down his face.

“He won’t betray us! He owes us his life” You assured him, gripping his wrist “I know he won’t say it! I just know it! I can feel it in my guts!” You continued eagerly, and for a split of a second Chan glanced at you, wondering.

“You’re being naive… We can’t trust him” He decided, returning his gaze to the boy.

“The Wind itself guided me to him!” You insisted “He is the reason why my powers woke up! Nature wants him alive! Please, listen to me” You pleaded, and he scoffed, shaking his head in disbelief.

“This is ridiculous, you can’t know that for sure” He grumbled, frowning but loosening his grip on the spear “He’s just a human… Nature doesn’t have anything to do with him” He concluded, tightening his grip again, pressing the weapon against the tender skin.

As if on cue, the wind blew through the trees.

“It’s just a coincidence” He muttered, averting his eyes to the twirling breeze that swept the leaves around “Also, if we were letting him go alive, we would have to take away his memories again and neither of us knows how to do this…” He pointed out “The bare minimum would be taking him to Yerkir” He stated matter-of-factly.

“You know far too well that she would kill him!” You accused, pointing your finger at him.

“If we let him go alive with his memories, she’ll kill us” He reminded you, and you rolled your eyes at him.

“Listen to me just this once, Chan” You pleaded, cupping his cheek to guide his eyes to meet yours “You are connected to Nature… You have wind running through your veins… Please, make an effort! I know you can listen to it too” You continued, and he sighed under your touch, looking at you in defeat.

“I can’t believe you’re making me consider it” He complained, retracting his spear from his throat and inhaling deeply before closing his eyes, exhaling slowly. The silence fell upon you three as he took deep breathes ─ a blank expression on his face, as if he was meditating ─ before he extended his hand to touch Seungmin’s face “What the—“ He shot his eyes open, gasping as he looked flabbergasted at the boy, hand jolting away.

“What? What is it?” You asked curiously, and he threw you a quick look before clearing his throat and fixing himself, hand combing his hair nervously.

“He’s fine… You can go, mate” He mumbled, nodding to the wood’s entrance. The boy frowned, confused, glancing at you before returning his gaze to him questioningly “What are you waiting for? Just go” Chan growled, and the boy’s curiosity seemed to fade away immediately, prompting him to walk in your way.

“Thank you so much” He said as he grabbed your hands again, looking too deeply into your eyes for Chan’s taste “I owe you my life” He kissed the back of your hand, making you giggle “Again” He added, chuckling before kissing your knuckles.

“Stop flirting and go away” Chan rolled his eyes, throwing him a disgusted look.

The boy trotted away, turning back a few times to wave at you ─ which made the warlock scoff each time, obviously filled with jealousy ─, to what you gestured back, smiling to him. You chuckled and arched your brows, studying how Chan seemed to relax when Seungmin couldn’t be seen anymore, letting out a puff of air that he didn’t realize he was holding in. You nudged him before grinning teasingly, watching as he pursed his lips, averting his eyes from you and resuming his hunting, ignoring the way you looked at him.

“Jealous, aren’t we?” You asked playfully but he didn’t answer “Hey, why are you acting like this? He’s fine! You saw it yourself! He won’t tell anyone and hopefully, he won’t come back to the woods” You whined, and he sighed, stopping in his tracks.

“What if I am?” He muttered under his breath, and you tilted your head in confusion “What if I’m jealous?” He clarified, looking directly at you “Why didn’t you tell me that you guys were synchronized?” He asked displeased, averting his eyes ashamed “I’ve heard of it before but… I never met one myself” He sighed, hurt painting his face.

“What are you talking about?” You asked, bewildered, looking at him as if he had grown a third head.

“You’re synchronized…” He repeated himself, looking away “There is no way that he would betray you. Ever. Simply meant to be into each other’s life” He mumbled unwillingly.

“Like a soulmate?!” You blurted out, eyes widened in shock.

“Yeah…” He bit his lip, uncomfortable “Something like this”

/////

The wind brought more voices.

You stopped your motions for a moment, the knife buried into the meat as you deboned your hunt, wiping your sweat away with your hand and looking around to make sure that no one was talking near you. The indecipherable whisper seemed to increase ─ thousands of voices sounded in your mind at the same time, blabbering in your ears, echoing like leaves rustling in the woods ─ until they morphed into clearer patterns, the voices sounding incredibly clean inside your head.

She met the boy again, The first understandable sentence echoed like sand falling in an hourglass. Don’t blame me when everything goes down the drain!

The Earthy Elder.

It will all be fine… The second voice sounded like a flowing river, calm and determined. Neither of them knows anything.

Your Grandma.

I had to tone down her energy again, Wiha… The crackling voice was warm and worried, a warning hanging in the air. I can’t push it away forever and you know it… Her powers got out of control today.

The Fiery Elder.

The way her power is manifesting is a bad sign, The soft twinkling voice agreed. If we keep her memories away like this, her powers will keep unstable… At least with a spell of that level.

The Airy Elder.

You frowned, pursing your lips as you tried to make sense of their conversation. The Elders were gathering on the tent right now, supposedly discussing the failed attempt to bring back a witch they sensed earlier in the village… The talking didn’t seem to be about it, though. Was it too much of a coincidence that the missing witch met some boy again and had lost control of her powers on the same day as you? The Fiery Elder herself had just said she helped to control this witch’s energy and she wasn’t even in the mission….

There was no way they weren’t talking about you.

If Yerkir wasn’t an asshole, she would fix my spell! Your Grandma hissed. You’re egoistic! You know far too well that it is dangerous for her to remind things! Especially since we’ve been lying to her all her life!

They’ve been lying to you?

We?! I didn’t want to lie to her! It’s all on you! It’s not my fault you were a coward! Yerkir barked. The girl should know her mother was murdered! You shouldn’t have taken this memory away from her!

You let your shoulders drop, widening your eyes as you snapped your head to the Tent; mouth falling agape as you registered what they just said. The memory spell… She had used it on you! She had taken away your memories… She has been lying to you all this time… Your mother didn’t die giving birth to you.

She was murdered.

She wasn’t prepared! Your Grandmother yelled, and you could even hear the scorn on Yerkir’s voice when she scoffed. And she’s not prepared yet! We can’t have her wanting revenge! She’ll expose us!

Really? Because I think you are too scared she can hate you now! Yerkir retorted. Her mother was a human, Wiha! They shouldn’t have killed her! She has the right to hate them all! You should hate them too!

Your mother was a what now?

You didn’t even know how you got so fast to the tent ─ gale following you closely as Yerkir’s voice hissed a “She’s coming! Everybody quiet!” ─, arms fluttering the entrance’s fabric before you shoot all of them a betrayed look, eyes filled with rage. The wind turmoiled into the place, sending chairs and blankets in a twirl in the air, startling The Elders for a second before Caeli forced everything down with her powers.

The Elders stood up, attentive to your outburst but clueless, watching as you stormed in to point accusingly to Wiha. You heard some members mumbling behind you, close enough for you to feel them with your energy but not loud enough for you to understand what they were saying, though it was clear they were curious and puzzled.

The Watery Elder held your wrist, confused by why you were acting like this, looking into your eyes in search of answers that she couldn’t find. You looked back straight at her, eyes watering as you felt your face twisting in a pained expression that baffled her for a moment before you finally decided to speak up.

“You lied to me!” You growled, tears streaming down your face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sweetheart” She said calmly, fueling your rage. You yanked your hand away from hers, shooting her a glare before looking to the other elders, lips twisted down in a displeased frown “You should calm down” She suggested, glancing at the others so they could try to soothe you with their magic.

“I heard all of it! All of you! You’ve been lying to me my whole life!” You bawled, pressing your eyes for a moment to try and stop the tears “When would you tell me?! When would you say to me that my mother wasn’t a witch?!” You inquired, demanded her to answer you, and she let her mouth fall agape, taken aback by your question.

“It’s not what it sounds like” She guaranteed, and you scoffed, grimacing at her “You’re a witch, it’s just that—“

“I don’t want to hear it!” You growled, “I don’t want to hear your lies anymore!” You wailed, turning away “What about the second lesson?!” You asked, stopping in your tracks, face twisted in hurt as she tried to mumble something “What is the second lesson, Wiha?!” You yelled, turning to look at her, catching a glimpse of her disappointment as her name came out of your lips.

“You’re home here… You don’t know the whole story” She said in a pleading tone, trying to get closer to you “Let me show you… I will give it all back to you” She promised, “You don’t understand…” She continued in a small voice, and you let out a humorlessly chuckle.

“There is no way I can understand you… I don’t belong here, right?” You smiled bitterly “ Stick to your kind… There is where you will be welcomed and truly loved” You recited, lowering your head for a second “What is it? Something you made up after her death? Something you made up because you were afraid that someone like me would expose you all?” You snarled, resuming your striding.

“You’re not a human! She wasn’t a witch but—“ She reached for you, grabbing your shoulder and forcefully turning you around to meet her, eager eyes looking to explain everything to you.

You yanked your arms away from her, the sudden whipping motion blasting air out of nowhere and projecting her body back, knocking her down. The following scenes seemed to run in slow motion, and you stood there dumbfounded as you watched her head hit violently against the stump before thirteen heads snapped at you. The weight of twenty-six eyes filled with fear and perplexity crashed you as you noticed how her limbs went limp, neck wobbling before letting her head fall to the side, unconscious.

“What is going on?” The Earthy Elder gave some lost steps forward, looking around in confusion, rubbing her feet in the ground and digging them a little, a frown on her face indicating that she couldn’t see anything; probably blinded by the magic running free out of you, “What happened?! Who was it?” She asked again when she met no answers, voice trembling as if she was about to cry.

The shock gave away to shame.

The shame gave away to disgus

The disgust prompted you to run.

And run you did.

You ran for dear life, hoping that somehow you could run away from yourself too as you left the haven behind you to go into the woods. The gale followed you closely, almost morphing into a storm as the sky seemed to darken above you, throwing shadows ahead that suddenly confused you to the core. The so well-known path felt like a maze right now ─ trees seemed to jumble together and the soil seemed too soft for your feet, dragging you as you tried to make your way through it ─, and you were quite sure it didn’t have anything to do with your teary eyes.

The woods were being enchanted.

I can’t see anything! I can’t track her! Yekir yelled to the four winds, clearly frustrated, and you could almost hear the way she punched the ground out of frustration, letting go of her pain on each blow.

Yerkir! Caeli! Enchant it all! Boys! Track her down and bring her back! Isati ordered around like a general, burning in despair. Everyone else into the tent! Now! I need help with Wiha… She finished with a whisper, and you gulped down, filled with guilt, returning your focus to the woods ahead of you.

The wind suddenly shifted to the left, as if it was calling you there, guiding you through all the magic that fogged your senses, and you followed it gladly, grateful though disoriented. You ignored how everything seemed to drag you down, to bind you and force you to stay. You ignored how you could listen to the boys ─ Chan, Minho, and Changbin ─ screaming your name from somewhere behind you, close enough for you to be sure that it wasn’t the wind anymore. You ignored how your heart faltered when you finally reached the entrance, the village right before your eyes.

It was beautiful.

“Y/N!” You closed your eyes, pursing your lips down as you breathed deeply “Y/N, please… Come with me” You turned back to see Chan getting closer to you, eyes so desperate that you almost agreed with him without thinking “They’re waiting for you… I am waiting for you… Please” He pleaded, tearing up.

“I don’t belong there” You smiled sadly, getting closer to him to cup his cheek, making him lean for your touch “We don’t belong together, Chan” You muttered, fighting back your tears.

“I love you” He blurted, holding your face with his hands, almost too afraid to touch you, as if he could just shatter you to pieces “I love you… I know we can’t be together yet but it will be just a few months… You will be eighteen and it will be alright… We can be together…” He mumbled, tears rolling down his face as he tried to convince you.

You were sure that his powers showed he couldn’t.

“We can run away!” He offered, voice trembling with despair, thin and fragile in the air “I’ll run away with you… We’ll be fine… I—“ He choked on his tears, and you caressed his cheek slowly, lovingly.

“Stick to your kind, Chan…” You rested your forehead on his, sighing “I can’t truly love you… You said for yourself, didn’t you? I have a soulmate… You were right… We’re not meant to be after all” You grazed your thumb over his bottom lip, diving into his eyes “I’m sorry” You brushed your lips on his, blowing into his mouth before he fell to the ground, asleep.

Not a real spell but it would have to do for now.

You turned your back to him, looking up to the dark sky above you; the night already casting your shadows around, prompting people to get inside their houses. You inhaled deeply before exhaling slowly, trying to get all your feelings out of your chest. You resumed your running, following the wind and sliding through the houses, being as stealthy as you could even if you didn’t really think that people were still awake by this time.

The wind suddenly stopped ─ right in front of a small house where a boy held a lamp right before his face, the flames dancing around and casting some lights on him, revealing a blurry figure that you knew to be Seungmin ─, so you just knocked on the door, expectant, waiting for a few moments before the confused boy opened his door to meet you with startled eyes.

“What are you doing here?” He asked perplexed, studying you from head to toe.

“I need a favor” You confessed.

It was time for him to pay his debts.

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