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monstersandmaw · 2 years

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Male ‘yautja inspired’ alien x gender neutral reader - Part Five (sfw)

Disclaimer which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

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Oops, I tripped over all your lovely comments from the last chapter and fell face-first into some plot. Sorry. Thank you for the sweet things you’ve said so far though. You’re absolutely wonderful people. Things move on a bit more in the next chapter, but there’s a reveal some of you have been waiting for in this one...

Aaaaand as I’ve said at the start of all of these chapters, this is NOT a yautja fanfic. Yes, they’re basically yautja to look at, but otherwise they’re just aliens I’ve made up that are inspired by all things predator. Don’t @ me with ‘corrections’ to the ‘lore’ - it’s my sandbox. I’m just making stuff up as usual.

Content: a bit of lore about Big Red and Croc’s species, a bit more about the aliens they’re hunting, and that reveal... Wordcount: 4804

Catch up here: Part One (sfw), Part Two (sfw), Part Three (sfw), Part Four (sfw)

The storm seemed to have cleared hours ago, and since the crashing of the ship had probably cleared all of the most vulnerable branches already, there was hardly any debris on the ground. A circle of bright blue sky showed above the pines, and the air that hit your lungs was fresh and clear and cold.

The clearing was muddy though, and at the centre of it like a little troll-mound in a mire, sat your faithful, military issue tent with a single golden leaf resting atop it like a rosette. “I’d give you Best in Show,” you muttered fondly to the sturdy canvas as you unzipped it, grateful that your field training had covered how to pitch a tent securely, even if you hadn’t needed any of the other things like basic weapons handling in the end. The loaded tranquiliser gun had remained securely in its holster inside the tent since your first night, and you hadn’t even had to unsheathe the machete for firewood, let alone for self-defence.

Croc was nowhere to be seen, and the clearing was otherwise silent. Big Red had remained behind in the crashed ship, tinkering with something in the crumpled bridge and comms area near the nose of the once ‘arrowhead shaped’ ship, and you left him there in case your awkward moment truly had made him uncomfortable. The memory of his hands on your skin, his arms wrapped tightly around you, the tease of his mandibles over your hair, the rumble of his breath, the solid presence of him pressed behind you in the dark… all of it swirled through you in a never-ending kaleidoscope of sense memories and you struggled to pull yourself back together.

When you’d been told to get close to the aliens, you were pretty sure that that mandate had not extended to sharing a bed with one of them and developing a sizable crush on him.

“Fuck.”

The idea of having to leave the next day made your stomach writhe, and the mood that morning in the camp was sombre. You had absolutely no intention of baring yourself to that frigid stream again so soon, so in the privacy of your tent, you freshened up with a few face wipes and mulled over everything you’d learned and everything that had happened.

During the course of the morning, Croc and Red continued to work together to pile up and sort out all the salvaged material from their ship, and while they worked, they chittered and clicked back and forth in quiet, private conversation. Croc, despite the loss of his entire left arm from the bicep down, barely seemed inconvenienced by it, and you marvelled again at the resilience of the species.

Sitting on a spare crate in the autumn sun, you took the opportunity to type up a load of notes on what you’d discovered of their species, and what they’d told you about their enemy here on Earth. The higher-ups would be particularly interested in that, you figured, so you made sure to get the details down as accurately as possible. The creatures were apparently highly aggressive, intelligent — though not as smart as their hunters or as humans — and their best guess at how they’d spread so very long ago was in the cargo bay of a mining ship that had travelled to one of the asteroids that the inhabitants of Secundus had once mined for ores and minerals. Much more recently, a rare swarm of hatchlings had decimated what Croc had called a ‘waystation’ — some kind of space hub — and had probably then hitch-hiked unnoticed on a scientific ship that had landed on Earth some ten years ago. Luckily, the creatures were relatively slow to reproduce, otherwise Earth could have been overrun before the hunters had even thought to check on it again.

“They’re not going to be pleased to know that your kind is responsible for them being here,” you muttered as you finished off another page.

Croc and Red shared a look, and Red nodded. “We have no solid proof that that’s how it happened. It is just a theory, but it’s why the High Council proposed that we extend aid to your planet in hunting them. So far, humans have reacted to our presence with… aggression, and it has been difficult to establish a stable contact between our species.”

“Until now,” you murmured, and they both nodded again. “You want me to take any particular message back then?” You doubted they were going to leave you with a direct number to call that led straight to this High Council, but it might represent the start of communications between species.

Big Red’s ship apparently had just such a communication stored in its data systems, but you had no way of transferring it to your phone. Human technology was apparently more ‘primitive’ than they’d anticipated, and it seemed like trying to copy a file from the cloud direct to a floppy disc. “I can play the audio from this —” he said, indicating his vambrace, “—and you can… record it,” he said with a nod at your phone. He regarded it like it was a fucking clay tablet, and you didn’t have the energy to argue with an alien over technology. Linguistics and communication was your strong suit, not tech.

“That should work,” you said. “Let’s try it.”

The quality of the audio was more than good enough, so you sat there and listened to it play out while he held his vambrace near enough to your phone that you could have reached out and touched his arm. The urge to do it — to let your fingers play over the textured marks, like cooling magma, on his shoulder and down his muscular arm towards his thick wrist — was enough to make your skin prickle. Instead, you focused on the words of the alien who was speaking on the recording.

“I am the Elder of the High Council,” the deep voice said, and you mouthed ‘female?’ at Red, who nodded. “You are receiving this communication because we have evidence that a dangerous, non-native, predatory creature has been sighted on your planet, and we wish to offer our assistance in exterminating it. For generations, we have hunted these creatures across space, and they are not easily defeated. Their saliva is corrosive, their venom lethal to almost every known species, their reactions are far quicker than even the fastest of your species can see, their stamina is unmatched by beast or machine, and their cruelty and delight in killing exceeds that of even the most dishonourable beings of the Great Species.”

At those last words, your brows pulled into a frown but Red shook his head to stop you interrupting with yet another question. Trusting that he would explain once you’d finished recording the audio, you sat tight and let it play out.

“We wish to send envoys to work with your people to eradicate these creatures before they take hold in your ecosystems. They cannot be destroyed by radiation. They cannot be poisoned or trapped. They can only be killed by the most skilled of warriors with the truest of aim and the deadliest weapons. The metals and alloys you currently use are insufficient to cause fatal damage to them. We will share our technology with you as a means of exterminating them. In return, we would ask that you cease hostile activities towards our ships and our people, release those you have captured, and return the bodies of those you have slain and stolen to desecrate by primitive investigative procedures. Allow our few fallen warriors the honour of a return to the elements, and we will assist you against this threat that will surely destroy you if you leave it unchecked. Send your response via any of the Ambassadors we have sent to your planet.”

You noted she didn't say that the creatures had thumbed a ride on one of their own spaceships, but you could see why she’d left that out. No need to antagonise the humans any more than necessary to start with. When Big Red tapped his vambrace and the recording fell silent, you stared at him for a long moment, questions spinning through your mind like dry autumn leaves.

“Great Species?” you asked, picking one at random as it swirled past.

Red jabbed his thumb absently against his chest. “We are one of five Great Species so far discovered that have intelligence that matches or exceeds our own. Your kind is one of them.”

“Oh,” you exhaled, then, “Five?”

“The other three have expressed little interest in humans, believing you primitive and unworthy of inclusion. You have barely begun to explore space while we have been travelling between systems for thousands of years already.”

“Right,” you exhaled. Fuck. “‘Ambassadors’?”

“Those of us who have come to your planet,” he explained. “There is a mothership waiting beyond your detection, but our… ‘commander’—” he said for want of a better translation, “— has sent down very few ships to the surface so far. We do not wish to overwhelm…” he said dryly. He waited while you let it all sink in, with his shoulders hunched and his mandibles soft around his jaw. It was a lot.

“You know the scientists back at base are going to kill me for not getting, like, tissue samples and blood work from you two. I haven’t even got a photo.”

Big Red cocked his head, and Croc looked up from where he’d been studying the screen on his own vambrace which he’d propped up on a crate instead of on his arm, presumably because it was designed to sit on his left arm, which he no longer had. “I’m not giving you any samples,” he grinned with a lascivious flare of his mouth that was oddly suggestive of a waggle of a human’s eyebrows, “And the Boss won’t either if he knows what’s good for him…” he added pointedly, “But you could take a photograph.”

“You wouldn’t mind?” you asked, looking back to Red.

He snorted and shook his head. “A few still images are not going to give away the secrets of our entire species. And we have hours of footage of you already,” he added, indicating his vambrace. “Anything my mask has seen of you is stored here.”

“Oh. That’s…” You weren’t sure exactly how you felt about that, but you figured if you were going to learn about each other, you’d both need some kind of data. “If I asked you to get rid of it, would you?”

They exchanged a look, and Red nodded slowly. Croc hissed at him, but Big Red stood firm and clicked his mandibles into a retort, at which Croc backed down, though only reluctantly. “Yes,” Red told you. “I would remove it.”

“Even if it meant disobeying direct orders,” Croc muttered as he got to his feet and stalked off in the direction of the ship.

“No, it’s fine,” you said quickly. “You can keep it. I trust you. So long as you didn’t record me naked in the stream…”

“I already removed that,” Big Red said carefully. “I had it set to thermal imaging, but you were hardly visible anyway because the water was so cold.”

Your heart skipped a beat, and you puffed the air out of your lungs and laughed quietly. “Ok… Well, thank you.” Then you asked about something that had snagged your attention and stuck there like a burr since you’d heard it. “Red, what did she mean when she talked about releasing captives and returning bodies?”

At that, Big Red tensed. “Surely you know?” he asked in a whisper.

Shaking your head, you stared between Red nearby and Croc beside the ship. “Know what? Secret government experiments on aliens is for tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists… right?”

He didn’t look like he’d understood any of that, but he said after a moment, “Not all of us who came to Earth have left again afterwards. In five years, several of your countries… have managed to take warriors before we could initiate our… self-destruct function here,” he said with another wiggle of his vambrace. “Two have been captured alive, and at least six of our fallen… have not been accounted for.”

“Shit,” you hissed, feeling sick. Of course governments were studying them. God, you were naive to have thought otherwise even for a second, and another question left your lips before you could stop it. “Do you know which countries? Which… governments?”

He nodded.

“Ours?”

Again, he nodded. “Yours has two fallen and one living warrior that we know of.”

“Shit.” You swallowed and then reached for his arm at last, squeezing his hard muscles as tightly as you could. “Red, I don’t know how much I can help, but I swear I’ll do what I can to get them safely back to you. I swear it.”

With a soft, crooning chitter, he raised his other hand and cupped your face with his huge, rough palm. The pads of his fingers against your skin were textured like tiny ripples in the sand. His touch was careful and gentle, and he cradled your jaw and stroked his thumb across your cheek with a tenderness that left you aching inside and out as he keened softly and purred.

Your eyes fluttered closed and you leaned into the contact unconsciously.

When Big Red spoke next, his voice was low and gravelly, and the clicking of his tusks over the words made something spark deep inside you. “You are kind, and honourable. I… believe you will do as you say.”

“I will, Red,” you growled. “I promise.”

Even Croc, who was quick to crack a crass joke when things got heavy, stood and watched you for a long time before gently clicking something at his boss, who laughed quietly, almost sadly, and nodded. He stood and said, “Come. Take your photograph?”

It took a moment for you to gather yourself after such an open display of tenderness, but when you had rallied, you asked them to stand in front of the hole in the ship, side by side beneath the tarpaulin. They did, and after you’d taken one or two with them just standing there, Croc suddenly wrapped his arm around Big Red’s waist, pulled him close, opened his mandibles wide, and stuck his long, dark green tongue under the edge of Red’s mask.

Somehow you captured the exact moment his tongue touched Big Red, and you kept clicking as Red rounded on him in surprised disgust, looming right over him with his own mouth flared wide. He kicked Croc’s knees out from under him and Croc went down like a felled tree, though you could see that Red made sure he landed on his good side.

“You can’t even stand for a photo without causing trouble, Croc!” you called and he raised his head to look up at you, then flared his mouth with a horrible shriek, and collapsed theatrically back down to spread-eagle himself on the ground like he was making a snow angel. Luckily the rain hadn’t touched that part of the clearing because of the tarpaulin overhead and the way the ground sloped away from the ship, and when Big Red had hauled Croc back up to his feet, he brushed pine needles from his friend’s mottled back and thick ‘braids’, slapping him once on the backside a little too hard.

Croc snickered something in Red’s direction that sounded like the universal ‘I’ll get you for that later’. Big Red just shook his head, the motion making his long, thin ‘braids’ sway across the bare, ochre and black skin of his broad, muscular back. It struck you yet again how beautiful you found him, and you swallowed thickly as a choking mix of disappointment and anxiety boiled up your throat and threatened to smother you. You wanted to stay here in the woods with them just a few days longer, but it was simply impossible. You were almost out of food for one, and for another, their rescuers would arrive the following day.

As perceptive as ever, the two friends both paused as one and looked at you, quirking their heads in perfect synchrony to one side. It was so sweet you almost cried. “It’s nothing,” you croaked and turned back to your crate to continue making notes. “Thank you for the photos.” And for the best few days of my life.

Your emotions began to settle somewhat as the day wore on, and sometime in the late afternoon, Croc came over and startled the life out of you by tapping you on the arm with the back of his right hand. You looked up sheepishly from your work and smiled at him, and he cocked his head to the side. “You did not hear me? I called your name.”

“Sorry,” you said, closing the app and locking your phone. “I can get kind of lost in what I’m doing. Did you want something?”

“Come and join us again?” He looked over his shoulder and you discovered that they’d rekindled the little campfire, and Red was now sitting on a metal crate, cleaning a rifle that matched the blaster that Croc had serviced the previous day.

His focus seemed completely locked into the task and you smiled. “Looks like I’m not the only one who gets fixated on something,” you muttered and Croc grinned with his mouth flared wide again to reveal the pinkish, inner flesh of the stretching membrane between the mandibles. It looked so delicate, so at odds with the rest of his tough, solid body.

Staring at Big Red while he worked, you found another question crystallising on your tongue. “You said that you and Red are from different planets,” you began quietly. “Are you different species too? You’re just so different, that’s all,” you added to try and clarify a little.

“Yes,” he said. “We are different. Boss’ — Big Red’s — kind are very rare.”

“He said he comes from a desert environment…”

Croc inclined his head and crouched down beside you so that you didn’t have to crick your neck up to look at him from your crate. “Yes. Most of our kind who live on Secundus left the desert generations ago. Not many can survive those conditions now. The light is too strong for our eyes.”

“Is that why he wears a mask that covers them?”

“Yes,” he said, continuing in his faltering way as he struggled to articulate the human speech around his delicate mandibles. He was already much more fluent than he had been just a day or so ago though. “They hunt at night, so their heat-sensing abilities… are much more accurate than ours… but their ability to detect the rest of the spectrum… is poor. Boss is also shy about his face though,” he added with a snickering chitter of his mandibles.

“He is? Why? You’re not…” you said, indicating his spiny, mottled face looking up at you mere feet from your own.

“Desert species are tough and ugly,” Croc said matter-of-factly. “That’s why no one wants to breed with them, and why no one wants to see what’s under their masks,” he went on, and when your face showed open shock at his callous tone, he laughed. “I like him,” he said in the same way that someone might say ‘the face only a mother could love’, “But even the humans we’ve met before think he’s ugly. To be fair, they said the same… of me too,” he added, scowling as though their judgement was very poor indeed for that.

“You’ve met humans before?” you asked, gears spinning.

He nodded. “They did not speak your language, but I had learned theirs. We came to this part of the world afterwards to study the differences.”

“So you’re like a science mission?” Like Star Trek, you mused, but didn’t say it.

Croc clicked out the sequence of sounds that made up the name of their fallen squad-mate, and then continued, “— was what you’d call the scientist... He had only a little combat training. Always a very bad fighter… We were to protect him while he studied the humans in these parts.”

You got the impression that actually all three of them had been an odd bunch of misfits, like nerds in the school yard, and it endeared them to you even more. Croc clearly missed his fallen lover dearly, though he was keeping his grief private. “But there are no humans in these parts,” you croaked, chest aching for them and the loss of their friend.

At that, Croc scoffed loudly enough that Red paused in his work at last and looked up. You both glanced over at him but he soon dipped his attention back down to the blaster. “We didn’t mean to stop here,” he said with exasperation in his rough, rasping voice. “One of your missiles got a lucky shot… hit us over the ocean and… we came down here…”

You stayed quiet, still mentally scrambling in silence.

Red didn’t want to show you his face because the last human who had seen it had thought him hideous, and even his own kind found him unattractive. He was gorgeous though, in his rough-hewn, primal way, and he had been so tender and so kind to you ever since that single display of strength when he’d thought you a threat to his squad-mate. How could anyone find him unattractive?

Setting your phone down on the crate, you stood and reached for Croc’s shoulder while he was still crouched — the one that wasn’t still healing — and you squeezed his neck gently. “Thanks, Croc. I’m so sorry about your squad mate. Red told me you were all… close; that you grew up together.”

He chuffed something and nuzzled his cheek affectionately against your arm.

The moment passed and you strode determinedly over to Red, who was deliberately not looking in your direction. He was also very obviously done with the rifle, though he still fiddled and futzed about with it. “Mind if I join you?”

He shook his head and you plonked yourself down beside him on the spare box where Croc had been sitting, and looked across at the vambrace that covered Red’s left wrist. He tracked your gaze and then looked away again. After a while, when he showed no sign of starting up a conversation, you brought your fingertips to the cold metal and ran them along the border of the small, dark screen. It flared to life, showing the red, cuneiform markings of their language, and you paused.

“What else does this do?” you asked, thinking back to the recording it had played a few hours earlier.

He did look at you then and opened his mandibles a little in a gesture that you’d come to associate with a human’s eyebrow raise: softly amused surprise. “It… It interfaces with our helmets…” he said, and when you looked expectantly at him, he sighed and tapped it. “This is the control for some of our weapons guidance systems. This,” he said, tapping it a few more times with his black-clawed finger to make a different series of marks appear on the screen, “Changes the… the ‘projection’… that the mask shows me. It will play back footage, or show me different wavelengths in real time.”

You nodded slowly. “So when you showed me that scene of the enemy in the jungle… you chose wavelengths that I could make sense of?” Your tongue stalled at the memory of that creepy, black outline in the trees and the violent delight it had taken in stabbing one of Big Red’s kind to death in the forest of Prime. “That wasn’t how you saw it at the time?”

He inclined his head. “Exactly.”

“Could you show me how you see the world? With the mask, I mean?”

Big Red went very still, and for a moment you thought you’d pushed it too far, but then he said, “Close your eyes.”

You obeyed, and a few seconds later, the vaguely familiar feel of the mask pressed against your face. It obviously didn't fit you the way it did him, but your skin still tingled, and even though your eyes remained shut, an image showed before you and you gasped.

It was Red, but not as you recognised him.

The thermal imaging rendered the outlines and details of his body blurred, like a painting in mostly primary colours, and after holding up your own arm for reference — appearing in bright orange and yellows — you looked across to study him properly. His ‘dreads’ were a cool blue, and his indistinct face was a mix of greens, yellows, and blues, with deep eye sockets and a much narrower skull than Croc. The white points of his eyes in the blue of the sockets were the warmest part of him.

You looked in open fascination until he raised his arm and held out his hand, clearly demanding it back, and you let him draw the mask off you, all with your eyes still closed. After all, he’d allowed you the same courtesy when you’d felt vulnerable and naked in the waterfall. Was this really so different?

He purred something when he clearly discovered that you were still not looking directly at him, and he surprised you by trailing his knuckles sweetly along your jawline from the hinge near your ear down to your chin. “You can look,” he rasped.

Opening your eyes slowly, you discovered that he had not replaced the mask.

Your jaw slackened and your breath caught at your first proper sight of him.

Calling him ‘Red’ was even more fitting than you’d first thought now that you could actually see his face. He had a thick, softly-blurred, crimson stripe down the centre of his large, brown and ochre head, and a series of horizontal, ripple-like patterns led down like the rungs of a ladder between his deep-set eyes to the pits above his mouth that looked like nostrils. His lips were non-existent — any flesh there was pulled back by the way his mandibles sat neatly on either side of his narrow jaws to expose his bony, pink gums. Four chunky, jagged teeth that looked perfect for ripping out throats whole lined the front of his upper and lower jaws.

His eyes, rimmed with delicate, black skin that was vaguely reminiscent of smudged eyeliner, were small, tapered, and almond-shaped, but they sat angled in his skull so that they were almost vertical where a human’s were horizontal, and his irises were a gorgeous, magma orange with a small, black pupil and the hint of black sclera around the edges. He stared at you, unblinking, while you drank in the sight of him with your lips softly parted. Occasionally, his mandibles twitched, reminding you of a human nervously chewing on their lips.

“Red,” you breathed. “You’re… stunning.”

His chest rose and fell in rapid, shallow pants, and his wheezy way of breathing felt tighter and more apprehensive. He kept his body tense and still, as though expecting a blow he didn't intend to fend off.

“Croc —” you cleared the lump out of your throat and started again. “Croc said it’s an honour to see one of you without a mask,” you said carefully.

Big Red still didn’t move.

“Thank you, Red.”

Finally, he gave a huge, rolling sigh. The tension drained from him, and he shook his head slightly as if he couldn’t quite believe what he’d just done. Slowly, he replaced the mask over his face. “Now you know,” he said.

You frowned.

He sounded dejected.

He sounded like he regretted showing you his face.

You reached quickly for his left forearm and squeezed the solid muscle. For the first time, you noticed that he had a black dew claw on his thick wrist, almost hidden by a little nick that had been styled out of the vambrace to accommodate it. Your thumb caressed the nail bed around the base of it and he shivered slightly. “Thank you, Red,” you said again as you released your hold on his arm. “Thank you for trusting me.”

With yet another sigh, he shook his head again and twittered his mandibles into a disbelieving little laugh. “You are strange… human,” he snorted, standing up abruptly.

“You’re not the first to say so,” you mumbled.

Sensing he needed space again, you fought down a tide of disappointment that he was leaving immediately, and stayed put beside the fire.

When you looked around, you discovered that Croc was watching you in perfect stillness on the other side of the clearing, his expression tense and unreadable.

Hope that wasn’t too boring and lore-heavy. Things move on a bit more with the next one, I promise. Thanks for sticking with it, and your comments/asks/reblogs/tags are giving me life at the moment, you have no idea.

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queen-mabs-revenge · 1 month

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cw pet death

so my little freak of nature and i said goodbye last night which, as per other post about this, was silly and perfect in so many ways. from the death of one roman to another, and so it goes.

but yeah i just want to reflect on how i'm feeling to have it down because i'm devastated, yes, but i couldn't have asked for a better last day with her.

when we went with the steroid injections on wednesday, the vet was like 'in 48 hours you'll essentially see her at as best as she's going to be so you'll be able to decide then' and honestly by yesterday morning, she was very much the same except for the increased thirst drive and the slight increased interest in food (she licked a piece of chicken uau), so at that point making her linger would just see her decline from there.

yesterday was the first sunny day we've had in a good while -- sparkling sun and a high of 14. i rang into work and asked if there was anything urgent that needed doing, because i'd like to spend a last beautiful day with my cat. they were so gracious and covered for me, batting away a load of clients who decided they needed artwork on a friday before a long weekend lmao ok bye. spent a little time doing a last clutch of artwork with her sleeping on my belly in the sun.

got her into her harness and it was so clear that this was the right thing - she loves going outside, but hates that thing being put on her. i've modded it so that it has a clasp at the neck, but still clipping the torso bit always gets a hiss or two, but she just let me at it. got everything prepared including lining her backpack with a bin liner, a absorbent puppy pad, and then loads of fleece blankets and a couple of those instant heat pads.

out into the sunshine and onto our usual walk - she came out on my shoulder to have a look at the world, but for the most part stayed curled up in the bottom watching everything while lying down.

we got to the rag tree still cradling my gift pumpkins:

she got to walk on the branches:

the whole wooded area was prickling to life -- lots of leaf buds still tightly closed but getting ready, lots of tiny plant shoots making that first curve out of their seeds with their head still down in the shells

took the walk home through the park we always sit in behind the museum and watched the ducks on the shannon and listened to the river go by together

fed her for the last time on her window seat and then we cuddled some more while i rang my family so they could say goodbye to her on a video call

and then i experienced just pure love -- mo's been kind of a mascot for the branch - because of my apartment's location, i've been really lucky to serve as kind of a hub. i keep equipment and supplies for political stalls and protests, i host small meetings, etc. so her illness has been something the whole branch has known about and seen.

from the get-go i've had comrades offering help left and right, and during the last week, a few close comrades offered support in whatever way i needed it when her time came. i had to resist that depression tug to isolate, and just throughout the day as plans were taking shape, i kept in touch with them and i had a handful of my dearest come to the house before we made our way down to the vet. they left us have a few minutes alone in the house which... leaving that house with her for the last time was probably one of the hardest things. knowing she wouldn't be there when i got back. whew.

got to the office and got settled in and talked with the vet about postmortem plans. my first choice had always been to donate her body for study; i'd actually rang a few veterinary science schools, but i was told that their cadavers are procured through a closed system so that they can control for disease and whatnot for health and safety reasons. but the vet said that they'd would be honored to conduct a postmortem there and it would be really valuable for some newer vets in the practice, so that's what's going to happen. after, she'd still have been cremated, so i'm going to get her ashes in a scatter tube in a couple of weeks.

i had enough gabapentin to make sure mo was a bit stoned before going in, which was important for me because she usually has to be put into a feral cat crush cage to get any injections done because she's so fractious at the vets, but i was able to hold her while she got the primary sedative injection which meant so much.

she screamed like a hellcat and like....that's so her - herself to the very end! and i got the privilege of laughing about that with friends because they heard her from outside the door lol. they came in and gave her rubs and pets after she was sedated and i got to cuddle her loads after she got the cannula placed.

and my god that could have been so awful, but i had five dear friends who i love and who love me and who i fight and organize and struggle with who were there the whole time - they were out in reception chatting with each other and laughing and i could hear them in the room while i just held and and spoke to mo and stroked her fur, and that was so lovely instead of dead silence all alone.

vet came in and it was time; i held my baby as she pushed the euthanasia meds and felt her little breaths quicken and then slow before the vet checked her heartbeat. we laid her out on the table and i took pictures of all of her borlotti bean toes, we did pawprints, and i just got to pet her and stay with her for as long as i needed. she had a postmortem wee, and one of her wild postmortem reflexes was that her tail went full bottlebrush for about half a minute!

i took the blanket with me because it was hers, but wrapped her in a soft towel i had and just, yeah -- as the vet took her away she was talking to her just telling her that she did so well and she did. not just in that last moment, but just for 12 years she did so so well -- just the best old lady, my best friend in the whole world, the little beast that genuinely helped me survive lockdown, domestic upheaval, mental health struggles -- my walking buddy who's a minor local celebrity in her own right, and i was so so so lucky to have her.

and then we all went to our usual haunt which by perfect chance is right around the corner from the vet's office and toasted to her and just spent time together and just... if her last gift that she gave me was truly knowing that i have people who i can call on at any time, well then that's a hell of a gift.

going home was hard, but got to speak to my family and recount it all which helped and got so much love from them, too, and yeah look.

it was heartbreaking, but also heart mending.

truly the good death.

#little baby mo #cw pet death #cw euthanasia #the good death

12 notes · View notes

jaeminlore · 3 years

Text

Landslide | Mark Lee

summary: time makes you bolder. even children get older, and i’m getting older too.

words: 7.1k+

category: teacher!mark, single parent!reader, fem!presenting!reader, graham is the sweetest kid, mark is that teacher that lets kids pick earthworms during recess, friends to lovers, mark’s apartment is flooded so now he has to live in domestic bliss with his secret crush oh nooooo

warnings: talk of absent fathers

author note: it’s my birthday tomorrow so i wanted to give u all a present for supporting me for so long!! here’s to you <3 (cross-posted on /honklore)

Mark helps one of his kids press their palms onto the wall. When they release their palm, pink paint remains, making a sort of leaf to the tree branches painted onto the wall.

“Now write your name,” Mark advises another kid, whose orange paint had already dried.

“G-R-A-H-A-M,” the boy writes out with a large permanent marker. “Can I take a picture? For my mom?”

All the rest of the children begin to shout their agreements, also wanting to bring home a picture for their parents. Mark grabs his yellow Polaroid camera and takes a picture of each handprint.

He keeps all of the pictures in the chest pocket of his denim jacket. “Okay, guys— to the sink! Whoever has the cleanest hands gets to help me pass out snacks!”

“Why are we having snack time so early?” It’s Graham that asks, the little one always eager to be around Mark.

Mark ignores the boy’s paint covered hands poking at his clean jacket, and answers him as politely as he can. “Mr. Lee forgot his lesson plans today, so we’re going to watch a movie instead.”

“A movie?” Graham’s eyes widen.

“Yep,” Mark giggles. He crouches down to Graham’s level and whispers, “You wanna pick it?”

“Nature Nut!” Graham cheers almost immediately, causing Mark to wince.

Ah, yes, the wonderful little DVDs of a lonesome man teaching the watcher about bugs and weird types of slugs. Mark actually has the entire collection, and Graham happens to adore them just as much as Mark did when he was a kid.

“Alright, go wash your hands and I’ll get it started.”

It’s a little girl named Hana who cleans her hands the best, so she passes out organic fruit gummies to everyone while Mark puts in the DVD.

While they watch the video, Mark checks his text messages.

There’s one from Taeyong: “I’ve already got Haechan on the couch. Sorry, man. You can have the floor, but it’s not gonna be comfy :(“

Right. Mark forgot that Haechan lives in the same complex as him. His apartment is probably just as flooded as Mark’s is. Now if the landlord would just answer his calls and help him... maybe this situation wouldn’t be so stressful.

Mark didn’t forget his lesson plans; they’re just submerged in his bedroom with everything else Mark has left lying on his carpet. And maybe it’s his fault for not buying more storage bins, but a studio apartment can only hold so much stuff.

Serves Mark right for doing his lesson plans at home instead of at the school like most of his fellow kindergarten teachers.

He lets out a quiet sigh, careful not to disturb the children. He only has a short list of friends left to ask, and while he doesn’t think they’ll mind him asking, he really hates to put anyone in that position.

Besides, most of his friends have roommates or significant others and Mark doesn’t want to ruin their routine. He’d hate to intrude. And he could always sleep in his car for a few days, but the amount of stuff he had to pack because of the flooding has barred any chance of a good night’s sleep.

The video ends, and Mark gets the kids seated with coloring pages until their parents arrive.

One by one, he I.Ds the parents and tells the kids goodbye, helping them put on their coats and take home whatever library book they picked out earlier.

Finally, there’s only one kid left, and Mark is a bit embarrassed of his hyper-awareness to Graham. It’s not even his fault, really. Graham just has a beautiful mom, who happens to be Mark’s beautiful friend, and sometimes Mark gets eager to see you during pickup time.

Whatever. It’s no big deal.

The kindergartener already has his coat on. His curly brown hair is almost unruly as he continues to work on his coloring sheet.

Mark pulls at the hem of his sage sweater sleeves and wonders if his hair looks okay. Maybe he should invest in a little desk mirror; or maybe that’s vain.

“Hey, Mark! Sorry I’m late!” You rush in, holding on to your leather messenger bag. You fix your glasses before they fall off the bridge of your nose, and Mark is so focused on the movement that he almost forgets about your child.

Until said child is scolding his mother. “Mom! You have to call him Mr. Lee! It’s rude to call him Mark!”

“Your mom is an adult,” Mark reminds Graham (as soon as he finds his voice.) “Since she isn’t a student, it’s okay for her to call me Mark.”

Graham pinches his lips together, and then shrugs. “Fine. Mom, we watched Nature Nut today.” He runs up to you and wraps his arm around your middle. “Can we go to the park and look for slugs?”

“Sure,” you giggle. “But we need to get home soon, okay, Bud? I have to make dinner and then we have to clean up the mess we made last night.”

Graham turns to Mark and smiles naughtily, like the trickster he often is. “Mom said I could tear up her papers last night. She said it’s There-pee.”

“Ther-a-py,” you emphasize for the five-year-old.

Mark studies your face, and he can tell that you seem a little more stressed than usual. “Therapy, huh?”

You smile sheepishly. “Well, when your son catches you tearing up old love notes, you have to let him in on the fun, right?”

“You are a team,” Mark acknowledges. He wants to ask more; wants to dig into your heart and extract whatever is hurting you, but your son is standing between the two of you, waiting for him to say goodbye. Mark clears his throat and picks at his sweater again. “Anyways, uh, text me tonight? Let me know you two got home safe. And, I’ll see you both tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” you breathe. You smile at him and then take Graham’s hand. “Thanks, Mark. I’ll text you.”

Mark spends the night at a motel down the road. He texts a few of his friends and hopes for good news in the morning, or at least a confirmation from his landlord.

When you text him, a little selfie of you and Graham, holding up what looks like microwaved s’mores, his heart grows fond, and he forgets about his own problems for a moment.

Life has never been very easy for you. From the get-go, you have always been destined to fail, growing up with an absent father and an overworked mother. With a dead-end dream like yours (writing, of all things), it’s no wonder you clung to what little breaths of freedom you had.

He was handsome and bold, with a carefree smile and brown eyes that mirrored the sun. The lead singer of a band, with a voice like chimes. And you fell just as hard as one of your many protagonists. Perhaps the mistake always lay in the fact that you put too much fantasy into reality. You have always romanticized the littlest things, and that comes back to bite you more often than not.

You never expected one: to get pregnant your senior year of high school, and two: have to go through it alone.

Of course, most people you come to love leave eventually. It’s something you have always remembered; something that sticks in the back of your brain like gum to the bottom of your child’s Spider-man skechers.

Graham is the only constant in your life. Though you’ve been blessed with a decent job editing for a webazine company, and you can work from home more often than not, Graham is the real thing that keeps you alive.

He’s the most precious boy, with brown curls and big brown eyes. He favors his father, and though that should deter you, it reminds you of innocent days, and it gives a new meaning to brown eyes. Graham is not his father, and he never was.

Graham certainly got his love of learning from you. Though he likes science more than writing, you adore how eager he is to always get to school. It helps that Mark is his teacher.

Mark’s been your friend since freshman year of highschool, when the two of you both took the same creative writing class the local university offered. Though the two of you had differing end goals, you often studied together and encouraged each other. He was there when you found out you were pregnant, and he was there when you found out you’d be raising your child alone.

Now life comes full circle, and you see him twice a day. You could go out on a limb and say he brightens up most mornings, but you would still give that slot to your son.

Mark is standing at the doorway now, greeting all of his students and helping them take off their book bags and coats. He’s wearing monochrome today: red pants, a red sweater, and red shoes.

Graham lights up almost immediately, and you are thankful today that you decided to dress Graham in his red t-shirt. “Mom! We match!”

“I know,” you grin, squeezing his hand.

Mark glances at Graham, and then you. His cheeks showcase that same pink hue they always do, and while it should clash with his red garments, it doesn’t. “Hey, Mark.”

“Hey,” he grins, cheeks full at the sight of you two.

Graham spreads his arms and waits for Mark to help him take off his jacket. “Do you see that we match, Mr. Lee?”

“Yo, that’s awesome, Little Man!” Mark gives Graham a fist bump that seems to appease him, and you wait for Graham to run to his friends before addressing Mark.

“How have you been?”

Mark sighs. He brushes his hair away from his eyes. “Okay. My- uh- my studio apartment flooded so I’m staying at a motel until my landlord can get me estimates on when I can come back home.”

“That sucks,” you frown. “You know, if you need a place to stay, I have a pullout couch in my office. And obviously, Graham wouldn’t mind.”

Mark pales. “Are you serious? I didn’t mean to suggest anything, Like I know you work from home and you need your office.”

“And you’ll be at school until three,” you say. “I’ll work then. C’mon, Mark. I don’t like knowing one of my friends has no place to stay.”

Mark bites his bottom lip and scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll drive over after I check out of the motel.”

“Great!” You smile. “I’ll order pizza.”

"Graham, clean your room," you say, struggling to push your desk against your office wall. "We're going to have a guest for a few weeks."

"Mom," Graham whines, "They aren't going to look in my room."

You begin to take the cushions out of the spare couch to start setting up the pull-out bed. "Mr. Lee is coming over, Graham. Don't you want to show him your collections?"

Graham's brown eyes grow wide. "Mr. Lee? You didn't tell me he was coming!"

"He's going to be staying with us for a little bit, okay? So I need you to be on your best behavior."

“Can I show him my worms?” Graham asks, alluding to the compost bin in the small backyard of your townhouse.

“Yes,” you say, thankful that he isn’t putting up much of a fight toward cleaning. You’re also thankful he isn’t asking any questions, as Graham always seems to have a few at the top of his tongue.

Graham cleans up his room quickly. You know for a fact that he’s just shoved all of his toys under his bed, but it’s enough until the weekend, when you’ll have more time to help him organize.

The little guy hoards rocks like no one’s business. You curse the day Mark decided to teach the kids about geodes.

“Wanna help me make up Mr. Lee’s room?” You half-yell, while grabbing spare bedding out of your linen closet.

Graham’s little footsteps are heard before he answers, and soon he’s at your hip with a quick, “He can have my Frozen pillowcase!”

You hesitate to tell Graham that his Frozen pillowcase is currently on one of your pillows, and you can’t give your guest a dirty pillowcase. “That one is in the wash, Buddy. Why don’t we give him your Spider-Man one?”

“So he matches my pajamas!” Graham is easily pleased, and he even takes one of his stuffed bears to add to Mark’s made-up bed. (“So he doesn’t get scared at night.”)

By the time the pizza arrives, Mark is just behind, so you keep Graham busy with a slice of cheese and a glass of diet pepsi (only half of a can, and only because it’s a special occasion) while the two of you bring in Mark’s stuff.

He surprisingly didn’t bring much, and when you ask about it, he grimaces. “My studio is pretty small so a lot of my stuff was on the ground and got mildewed. Other stuff was in bins so I just left it there. I only need clothes and my lesson plans, anyway.”

“Well, here’s the desk and bed. It’s not much, but there’s a lock on the door in case Graham ever gets too inquisitive — bless him — and curtains so the stupidly bright sun won’t wake you too early.”

“Those both sound like personal experiences, Y/n,” Mark teases. He takes off his jacket and throws it on the bed. “Yo! Spider-Man?”

“Graham picked it out,” you say. “He also relinquished one of his bears to keep you safe in the middle of the night. His words, not mine.”

“He’s so cute,” Mark mentions offhandedly. The fondness in his tone takes you back a bit. Not because the phrase isn’t true, it’s just that most people find your son annoying before they find him endearing. The change of tone is nice.

“He is,” you say. “And he’s dying to show you his room after we eat dinner.”

Mark gives you that same lopsided smile he often had in high school. Part of your brain shifts to his personal life, and you wonder why Mark himself isn’t in a romantic relationship. Not that he has to be, but the both of you are getting older, and Mark has always been one to express a fondness for having his own family one day. Maybe he just hasn’t found the right person.

It isn’t until Graham is peacefully in bed — after a very chaotic reading of Goodnight Moon by yours truly, and an argument that Mr. Lee cannot, in fact, sleep in the same room as him — that you actually have a chance to show Mark around the house.

“Here’s the guest bathroom. Graham almost always uses the bathroom in my room because he likes looking at the big tub. He will beg you to play with him, but if you’re busy don’t feel guilty telling him no. He knows what no means and he’s good about playing by himself.”

Mark giggles. “Okay. I don’t mind playing with him, though.“

You show him around the kitchen, where you left little spaces for him in the pantry. You show him the garbage bags and the T.V. settings and the list of compostable ingredients. “And also, please come and go as you please. Like, I completely understand that you’re here temporarily and you aren’t a babysitter or anything like that. I don’t expect you to be in charge of Graham any time outside of school.”

Mark blinks. “But if you ever need time away, you can ask me. I don’t mind babysitting.”

“I know,” you smile. “But Graham is my kid. I don’t need time away from him.”

You’re lying. Mark knows it. You’ve been in this single parenting thing for five years and you aren’t about to reach out for help now.

“Anyways, if you have any questions just ring me or ask me,” you say. “I’ve got to get to bed. Goodnight.”

“Thanks, Y/n.”

Mark thinks it’s sweet the way Graham insists on making his own breakfast.

You’re already up when Mark gets out of his (temporary) bedroom with his clothes tucked under his arm. You’re busy arguing with Graham. “You can’t fry your own omelette for the last time.”

Mark quirks an eyebrow at your exasperated face. You look stressed beyond belief, even though the day has just begun.

Mark tosses his clothes back in his room and walks into the kitchen. “Hey, Graham! Do you want to show me your rock collection?”

Graham spins on his sock-clad heels, eyes bright at the thought of seeing his teacher. “Mr. Lee! Yes! Let’s go!”

He grabs Mark’s hand with ease, leaving you room to finish making breakfast.

Graham’s room is fairly simple. The small wooden bed is covered in a green quilt, and beneath that, frozen-printed sheets that certainly don’t match. He has a tub of stuffed animals shoved against a small dresser.

Mark gets distracted by the framed picture on top of the dresser. It’s a picture of you and Graham’s father, a few months before you got pregnant. He’s smiling, and you’re holding up a peace sign. It makes Mark feel a bit sad, knowing that Graham’s dad never stayed around to see how wonderful he turned out to be. Then again, a lot of people in your life left as soon as they found out. In high school, no one wants to be friends with a teenage mother.

Mark reckons that if he had a family like this, he’d never take them for granted.

Graham pulls out a gemstone. It’s a murky green one that Mark has let him take home from class. “Do you remember this, Mr. Lee?”

Mark grins. “Yeah, bud. Thanks for keeping it so safe for me.”

Graham beams. He grabs Mark’s hand and pulls him towards his dresser. “Can we match? I want to look like you.”

Mark feels his heart swell. He wants to smother the young boy in affection, but he doesn’t want to cross a line. He’s your friend, sure, but he’s also Graham’s teacher. He can’t coddle Graham more than the other children. He already has a godchild to coddle. “I’m wearing yellow today. Do you have any yellow clothes?”

“Let’s look!” Graham yanks open one of the drawers and begins pulling out the articles of clothing one by one. “No, no, no... Here!” He finds a pair of yellow overalls, folded amongst the mess he made. “I’ll wear these!”

“Let’s clean up first, okay?” Mark grabs the overalls. “So it’s clean when you come home from school.”

Graham, looking like the last thing he’d ever want to do is disappoint Mark, begins to pick up each shirt with obvious intent. He tries to fold them, and does a somewhat decent job, so much so that Mark leaves it, thinking you’ll find it endearing rather than annoying.

He really loves that about you. He likes your patience with Graham. You’re so young, and in reality, he squashed so many early dreams of yours. No matter your lot in life, you never blamed your child. Mark thinks that’s why Graham is so open, so adaptable, so endearing.

He helps Graham get dressed and leaves him in his room so that he, himself, can get ready.

When he emerges from his shower, hair wet and clothed in yellow, he smells something amazing.

He doesn’t want to intrude on your morning with Graham. He already feels too indebted to you already.

“Have an omelet,” you say. Wisps of hair cover your face. You place a plate down in front of him.

Graham is already eating his omelet, slowly, while flipping through a picture book. He sounds out words he recognizes, but stays silent the rest of the time.

Mark takes out his phone and scrolls through his instagram feed just as your own phone begins to ring.

“Shit,” you curse, and then immediately apologize to Graham. You press the red button and tap anxiously on the tabletop.

“Everything okay?” Mark asks.

You run your hands over your hair and let them rest on the back of your neck. “Yeah is just—“

The phone rings again, and this time you pick it up. “What do you want? ... Why would you tell me that? ... Why should I care? ... Please stop contacting me, okay? Goodbye.”

You slam the phone down and leave the room. Mark watches you disappear down the hallway, sniffling.

“Mommy is upset,” Graham says. He looks at Mark, lip quivering. “At me?”

“No, Buddy! Of course not!” Mark reaches over the table to ruffle Graham’s curls. “Never at you.”

“When we tore up paper, she was crying.” Graham fiddles with his book page.

Mark wonders why your ex’s actions are being brought up five years later. Last he heard, you had fully healed from the breakup long before Graham’s first birthday. But now he’s about to be six, and you're suddenly upset?

He’ll have to ask you about it soon.

“Are you ready to go to school, Buddy?”

“Yeah!”

You cradle your face in your hands and try to ease the tears back in. You’ll never get this article proofread and sent if you can’t see the keys.

The door opens, and Graham runs in just in time for you to finish wiping your eyes. “Hey, kiddo! How was school?”

“Mr. Lee let us finger paint!” Graham holds up his palm, covered in dried paint, and grins brightly. “Can I have gogurt?”

“Yeah bud. Why don’t you put something on the T.V.? You can have your snack in the living room today.”

“Yes!” Graham takes blueberry gogurt out of the fridge and — after getting you to tear it open — runs into the living room. Sneakers and backpack still on.

Mark trails behind, clutching a messenger bag to his chest. “What’s going on?”

You sigh and close the laptop. The manuscript will have to wait. “Ben called. About a week ago. His girlfriend is pregnant. Called me to tell me he wasn’t going to leave her— like that would heal what he did to me. Then he called this morning to tell me they’re engaged.” You burst into tears then, and you feel so pathetic for doing this in front of your old schoolmate, that you hide your face behind your palms and allow your shoulders to shake. “Why weren’t we enough? Why wasn’t I enough?”

Mark scoots one of the chairs in front of you and sits, leaning his elbows on his knees. “Hey. Look at me.” With gentle hands, he grabs your wrists and pulls them away from your face. “It is not your fault he left.”

“But it has to be me in some way,” you retort. “He must not have loved me. Something, because now he’s going to raise her child after he left mine. Graham deserves a dad.”

Mark places his forehead against yours. The two of you used to do it all the time in school, mostly with immature giggles in the spaces between, but now it’s heavy with intention. “Graham has not felt even a little bit unloved in your care. You are all he needs, okay? You’re amazing.”

You nod, head still pressed to Mark’s. “Yeah. Okay. Sorry for getting too emotional, there.”

“Be as emotional as you want,” Mark says. “I’ll be here to balance you out.”

Your heart stutters at the words, like maybe they mean something more than he’s letting on. Of course it’s stupid to think Mark Lee would ever even consider you, but just the knowledge that he cares makes your soul feel a little lighter.

“I’m a mess,” you stutter, bringing your fist up to wipe at your nose.

“Nah,” Mark grins. He runs the pad of his thumb across your cheek and grins. “You’re alright.”

“It’s snowing!” Graham wakes Mark up by jumping on his chest.

Mark sucks in a breath, winded at the sudden weight, and grabs the boy, lifting him off of his chest and onto the mattress. “Hey, Buddy. Let’s not jump on sleeping people, okay?”

“Okay,” Graham says. He’s already lost interest in Mark, now crawling off of the bed to open the blinds. “Come look at the snow!”

“I see!” Mark rubs his tired eyes and checks his watch. “We might have a snow day, Graham.”

“Yes!” Graham pumps his fist into the air. “Let’s go tell mom!”

You’re sitting on your bed, chewing on a red licorice rope and flipping through a fashion magazine. You look up when Mark and Graham enter.

Mark likes seeing you like this: the domesticity of you in the morning, lazy and true. His chest sparks when he thinks this may be one of the only moments he can capture you like this, so he intends to commit the sight to memory.

“Did I hear snow day?” You grin at Mark, childlike wit in your own eyes — the same as your son’s.

“Looks like it.” Mark rolls up the sleeves of the sweater he slept in. “You want pancakes? I make some mean chocolate chip pancakes.”

You shift your gaze away from his arms and clear your throat. “Uh, yeah. Just let me get dressed and I’ll help—“

“No need,” Mark insists. “Enjoy your quiet time. Graham and I will make the most delicious pancakes you’ve ever tasted.”

“With lots of chocolate chips!” Graham shouts.

You give him a pointed look. “But not too many.”

Graham huffs. “But not too many,” he repeats.

Momentary splashes sound from your bathroom, followed by Graham screaming “It’s a dragon! Run for cover!”

Mark giggles from his place on the couch. He’s got mushroom-patterned socks on, and he’s tucked up into the cushions, nursing a can of Monster. “How does he still have so much energy?”

You sigh and pull your beanie down over your forehead. “You’d think a snow day would tire him out. Thanks for constantly carrying him up the hill, by the way. I know you’re a teacher, but sometimes I forget how good you are with kids.”

“I do have a godson,” Mark reminds you.

“But Mikey is a baby,” you say. You only know the baby’s name because of Mark’s constant snap stories about him.

“Most babies and kids want the same thing. Affection and attention.” Mark scoots over to the edge of the couch and pats the cushion.

You sit next to him. “I guess that’s true. You’re really good with Graham. He’s not this open to other adults.”

Mark is clearly blushing now; you can see his pink cheeks even in the light of the television. “He’s great in class, always helping the other kids.”

“He wants to impress you,” you say. You pop open a can of orange soda and take a sip. “He thinks you’re just the coolest guy.”

Mark laughs and shakes his head. “Didn’t you hear, Y/n? I’m handsome and cool.”

“Oh, of course,” you nudge his shin with our own sock-clad foot. “How could I forget? Mr. Ladies Man in high school.”

This makes Mark blush even harder, because he most certainly was not a ladies man in high school. In fact, he was a nerd in all senses of the word, part of the debate club with a few other boys. He had a few dates here and there, but nothing ever stuck.

“Shut up,” he mumbles. “My time is gonna come.”

“Hasn’t it already?” you ask before you can really process your own words. But of course he knows that he’s grown into his face, right?

Mark is positively handsome, eyes bright and lashes long. He’s so warm and comforting to you. He must be just as comforting to everyone else.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re handsome, Mark,” you say plainly.

“You mean that?”

“Of course I do,” you say. “Why would I lie?”

Mark opens his mouth, perhaps to call you out. To tell you you’ve been too honest, but he’s interrupted by your son.

“Mom! I’m ready to get out now!”

“I should go,” you say, still looking at his eyes.

“Yeah,” he says. His sweater has small spots on the shoulders where snow has fallen and since melted. He shivers.

“You should take a shower. You’ll catch a cold.”

“Okay,” he whispers. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

Haechan comes over the following Saturday night to hang out with Mark, and you’re surprised at how much he truly hasn’t changed since high school.

He’s still got infamously perfect eyebrows, and his voice is still high despite its blunt sarcasm. “Nice place.” He raises his brows as he looks around.

“Who are you?” Graham is sitting at the kitchen table, watching Minecraft playthroughs (kid-friendly ones you’ve watched through yourself) on your phone to entertain himself while you clean.

“I’m Haechan, Mark’s friend.”

“This is Mr. Lee’s friend from school,” you say, detailing your words so they’re easier for your son to digest.

Graham stares at him for a moment, not quite judging but not quite accepting either. “Okay. Do you want to see my rock collection?”

Haechan looks genuinely excited, and accepts before you can come up with an excuse for him. Graham tells Haechan to stay in the kitchen while he grabs all of his rocks.

“How have you been?” you ask the taller man. “Like, with the flooding and everything?”

“Well, I’m on a couch at Taeyong’s, which is good since he doesn’t charge rent. But that means I’m near Mikey, and that baby has some lungs.”

You laugh. “I remember when Graham was a baby. I was so young, and my mom told me it was my responsibility to wake up and take care of him whenever he cried in the middle of the night. I was so pissed at her for making me do that, but those were some of the best nights to bond with him.” You realize you’re rambling and shake your head. “Whatever. Baby screams are loud as hell.”

“You can say that again. I’ve been talking to my friend Johnny about taking his spare room and paying rent. I dunno how many more sleepless nights I can take.”

“Why would you need to pay rent if you’re just crashing?” You wipe down the kitchen table to keep yourself busy.

“Didn’t Mark tell you? Our landlord is in heaps of trouble because the pipes weren’t up to code and that’s why they busted. The damage is basically too expensive to fix, so we’ve got to find new places.”

You stop cleaning. “Mark didn’t tell me that.”

“Oh.” Haechan scratches his brow. “He probably didn’t want to worry you. He feels really bad that he’s stayed with you this long.”

“It’s only been a month or so,” you counter. “Besides, Mark’s a great housemate. He cleans and keeps Graham occupied. Plus, now I have someone to watch corny game shows with.”

Haechan grins. “Oh. Okay, I get it.”

“Get what?” Mark, finally out of the shower, steps into the kitchen and immediately tackles Haechan in an energized hug.

“Nothing!” Haechan’s voice cracks

You shoot Haechan a weird look, and change the subject. “Where are you guys going?”

“To play video games at Johnny’s.” Mark says, and the thrill in his voice makes you think of high school. Of the debate team bus rounding the corner. Of you standing there, waiting to congratulate him with a big hug and a frosty from Wendy’s.

You miss it. “Have fun, okay? I’m probably going to tuck in as soon as Graham does, so just let yourself in.”

“You’re leaving?” Graham comes in, and his arms are filled with smooth and rough stones and gems he’s both found by himself and bought at random general stores while traveling.

“Not before I see your rocks!” Haechan says with so much enthusiasm, you think he’s telling the truth.

Graham giggles and drops the rocks onto the ground. Of course, he wants your guest to sit on the floor and count rocks. You’re almost embarrassed.

“ ‘ Okay, Y/n?” Mark laughs at your expression. Then he places his arm on your shoulder, thumbs the skin of your upper arm.

And once again, it’s high school. It’s senior year graduation and Mark is the only one who congratulates you. It’s his comforting touch, him coming over in the middle of the night after you texted him a picture of your first sonogram. It’s that same comforting touch. That little “I’m here,” and it melts you on the inside, leaves you in the shell of an eighteen girl again. Scared, and worried, and a little less alone.

“Yeah,” you manage. “I’m okay.”

The television plays Cartoon Network reruns on a low hum. Mark is curled up in a blanket, nursing a bottle of water and thinking over Haechan’s words.

You’ve liked her since high school, dude.

Which is a complete lie. Seriously, Mark didn’t have a crush on you in high school. He would know if he had a crush on his best friend. You’ve been his friend since freshman year, and that’s all you’ve ever been.

Now in college, it was different. In college, Mark was alone in a dorm with Taeyong, and you were one of the only people from high school he stayed in contact with. In college, he would bring you your favorite snacks and drinks, and other things you would forget to buy because you were a part-time student and a full-time mom. In college, you would pull all-nighters with him, working on your exams while Graham was asleep, then using energy drinks to get through the next day.

Mark even remembers the time your mom caught the three of you fast asleep on your rug, with unopened monster cans and an empty milk bottle beside you.

Throughout your entire pregnancy he was warned not to stay friends with the pregnant girl — it’d be too much for him, he wouldn’t want to become the new father, and all kinds of other stuff people would mumble to him when you weren’t around.

But you never expected him to be anything other than your friend. You never asked him for the help he gave — though you thanked him always — and you never once assumed he’d take the role of Graham’s dad.

And now… now he finds himself wishing you would.

“Mr. Lee?” Graham creeps up without him even realizing.

Mark jumps, sets his water — and thoughts — aside. “Hey, Bud. It’s really late. What are you doing up?”

Graham sniffs, and Mark realizes that the boy is crying. “I had a nightmare.”

Mark holds out his arms before he can think, and lets the five-year-old crawl into his lap. He wraps them both in his blanket and turns the television up just a little more. “Was it scary?”

“You left.” Graham says, voice less watery, like he doesn’t know the weight of his words. He’s focused on the rerun of Adventure Time that’s playing. He’s not even remotely interested in his nightmare now, with his tears dried up, and his eyes drooping back towards slumber.

“I’m going to leave one day,” Mark says, because he thinks it’s important that Graham knows.

“You should stay with me and Mom,” Graham says. He yawns. “We like you so much!”

Mark’s heart stutters. He tries not to think about it.

When Graham’s bed is empty the next morning, you freak out. He’s always in his room in the morning. Even if he wakes up before you, he stays in and plays with his toys.

You’ve already got your phone out, and your mother’s number called, when you walk into the living room.

Relief floods your system. Mark and Graham are asleep on the couch, snuggled up serenely like they didn’t just cause you to have a premature heart attack.

You hang up before the call to your mom can go through and stand there, watching the two boys sleep. Graham has both his arms wrapped around Mark’s forearm. It’s such a sweet picture that you take out your phone and snap one.

The flash is on.

Mark scrunches his nose and winces. “What the–”

“Sorry!” You whisper. “You both looked so cute, I couldn’t help it.”

Mark smiles, still sleepy, and finally opens his eyes. He peers at you, copper brown under fluttering lashes and you’re almost intimidated into looking away. “He had a nightmare.”

“Oh?”

“About me leaving.”

“Oh.” You frown. “I’m really sorry about that. I keep telling him that you’re moving out soon, but I don’t think he fully understands.”

Graham stirs. You reach down and pick him up. Your knuckles brush across Mark’s warm, sweater-clad chest and you suddenly wish you could cuddle with him, too. You shake the thoughts away and focus on your drowsy son. “You’re staying at Grandma's for a few days, remember?”

Graham rubs his eyes and perks up. “And I’ll see her cat?”

“Yes,” you confirm. “But we’ve got to get you dressed because she’s coming in a few minutes.”

“Mark Lee!” Your mom’s voice embarrassingly rings through the apartment, and you realize Mark has taken it upon himself to open the door. “Y/n told me she had a temporary roommate but I never thought she would finally ask you!”

“Oh my gosh…” you mumble, buckling Graham’s overalls and hauling him up into your arms. “Mom! His apartment flooded so he’s staying here. Don’t be weird about it.”

“But he’s so handsome,” your mom coos. You’re concerned she might reach forward and pinch Mark’s already ruddy cheeks.

“Thanks,” Mark laughs. “But she’s right, I’m just squatting until I can find a new place.”

Your mom harrumphs. “Well, I don’t see why you can’t stay here forever. Y/n doesn’t even use that office room. And even if she did, the two of you could just share a room.”

“Mom!” You plunk Graham into her hands and grab his overnight bag. “You have to leave.”

“Did I say something wrong?” She sounds worried, but there’s an undisclosed mirth in her eyes that makes you think of your freshman year, when you did have a crush on Mark.

“You said everything wrong,” you say, kindly pushing her out. “Have a good time, Graham. I love you! As always, Mom, call if you need me to come get him.”

“Yeah, right!” She yells over her shoulder. Graham is already giggling, so you close the door with confidence.

You turn back to your roommate. “I’m sorry about that, Mark.”

“It’s fine.” He smiles, but it’s reserved. “But speaking of me finding a place… I know Haechan told you that I can’t go back to my own apartment. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“It’s okay,” you say. You want to say “You can stay here as long as you want, and long as you’ll let me keep you,” but that would reveal too much, and you don’t want to lose the one good friend you have.

“And I was thinking I should move out soon anyway.” Mark pulls his sweater sleeves until they cover his hands. He’s hiding. He’s shielding himself the same way he did in junior year, when he got turned down by his crush to go to the prom. “I don’t think it’s good for Graham to get this attached to me if I’m just going to leave.”

“Oh,” Your sleeves are too short, but you want to shield yourself too. “Yeah, that’s… that’s probably a good idea.”

Mark stands there for a beat, like he’s waiting for you to say something more. Like he hasn’t just taken your heart and pushed it aside. Like this hurts a lot less than it actually does.

But any word out of your mouth would be tearful. It would be honest. It would ruin everything. “I’m going to go on a run.”

There’s a cricket outside that won’t stop chirping against your window. You blame it for your insomnia, choosing to ignore the anxiety of eventually losing Mark. It feels so horribly childish, since you’ll see him when you drop Graham off at school. And you’ll see him whenever the two of you go out for coffee on weekends.

But you won’t see him in the kitchen, reaching for the pancake mix so his shirt rises up and you can see the dimples in his back. You won’t see him humming along to the radio while he works on his lesson plans. You won’t feel his warmth when the two of you stay awake, nursing spiked lemonade and giggling at the commentary videos you find on YouTube.

He’ll just be Mark again. He won’t be home anymore.

Startled by the realization, you get out of your covers and rush to your door.

It opens before you can even reach for the doorknob, and there’s Mark in his pajamas, biting his lip and avoiding your eyes.

“I don’t want you to leave,” you say.

Mark confesses, “I love you.”

You open your arms and he dives in, face pressed into the space where your neck meets your shoulder. Warmth envelopes you and the scent of pine fills your nose.

Mark is timeless. Youthful glory and childish pride. He’s a pinch on the side and a push on the swings. Like a rock that actually skips on the first try. Like shoes that you can slip on when they’re still tied. And he’s here, in your arms, squeezing you like you’re something valuable enough to lose. He’s confessing love like you aren’t the worst possible candidate for his heart.

“I can’t offer you much,” you start, but Mark bumps his forehead against yours, boyish and playful — football fields and bright red lockers and secret notes on bathroom walls.

“I’ve known you for years, Y/n,” Mark’s voice is a low rumble. Copper eyes blinking at you like you’re something to second glance at. “I know what I’m getting into. I want you. I want Graham. I want everything this is, and everything we’ve been for the past month. I don’t want this to end.”

You close your eyes, because his are too honest. He’s open and vulnerable and gentle — a child on the first day of school, ready to make friends. You take a deep breath, try to remember what you were like on your first day. Rosy cheeks and shy glances. Knobby knees and a trusting heart. You reach out for whoever you once were — the Y/n with a heart open and willing to be loved. “I don’t want this to end either. I’m in love with you, Mark.”

His grin lights up your world in its entirety. Gold flecks in onyx black disappear as he smiles, too thrilled to keep his eyes open. And when he kisses you, warm lips against cold ones, you feel like a puzzle has just slotted into place.

It would only make sense that you would grow to love the boy you grew up with.

#Nct fluff #nct fanfiction #Nct angst #Nct scenarios #mark lee fluff #mark lee imagines #mark lee angst #mark lee fanfic #mark lee scenarios #mark lee x reader #nct x reader #destwrites

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bestiesenpai · 3 years

Text

youtuber Sukuna pt2

I wonder what things will happen in this part? I hope there's sparknotes, I don’t feel like reading all these words…

Content warning: *more* mean internet comments, Sukuna doxxing ppl(idk if that needs a warning?? But just in case)

part 1 --- part 3

Being a Youtuber was a lot more work than Sukuna thought it was. When he’d picked you up early in the morning, he wasn’t expecting you to come out with such a fancy camera and microphone. You looked cute as all hell too, hair styled nicely and your outfit was perfect for a day at a countryside cafe.

“Thanks for driving!” You said, climbing into his car and smiling at him. Sukuna could smell your perfume as it wafted off your body and he immediately felt the urge to buy a bottle as well and spray his pillow with it.

“S’no problem.” He muttered, driving off as soon as you were secure. He’d looked up the place beforehand, reading their menu over and over so he’d know what to order. Slowing down at a red light, he glanced over at you taking pictures.

He wished he could ask you to send them to him so he could save them in the never ending folder he had, but he couldn’t. It would be weird, you weren’t exactly close, and it’s not like you shared any pictures anyway.

“Hey Sukuna, what’s my contact photo on your phone?” The question came out of nowhere and he looked at you in confusion.

“Contact photo? You don’t have one.”

“What, really? I’ll send you a picture then! And add a few cute emojis with my name.” Well, that was easy. He wasn’t expecting you to offer to send him a picture, but he wasn’t going to decline it.

“Okay, I will.” Turning his attention back on the road, Sukuna turned the radio on to fill the silence. “Should I...send you a picture of me?” He had the perfect picture in mind to send you, it was a thirst trap he’d snapped post-shower after a really good day at the gym. A towel hung low on his hips and he still had a few droplets of water on his skin and dripping down from his hair.

“Yes!”

The drive to the cafe was quick and easy, not a lot of traffic early in the morning. The sun was just beginning to settle in the sky and the dew on the grass was fading. The cafe you’d chosen was in a small countryside town, barley fields just a few yards away and farmers with their dogs walking by.

“This the place?” Sukuna asked, pulling into the small parking lot in confusion.

“Yup! I’m so excited!” Hopping out of the car, your camera was immediately put to work filming the surrounding area. It was peacefully silent all around you, the only sound the occasional breeze or dog barking in the distance.

Panning the camera to yourself, you took a quick couple breaths and babbled a few times before speaking properly.

“Hi everyone, as you can see we’re in a different place today! Me and Sukuna are at a cafe in the countryside that I saw online and fell in love with. Say hi Sukuna!”

“Hi.” He was standing at the edge of the lot where a field of wispy tall purple grass started. He waved dumbly, feeling like a dumb kid taken to Disneyworld.

“This is the name of the cafe…” Turning your attention elsewhere, you filmed the rest of your intro. Once again, Sukuna was amazed at the proficiency at which you did things and how smoothly he knew the shots would look.

Looking at the cafe on the outside, it didn’t look like anything special. It was a wooden and concrete building with two large windows. He could see the minimalist decor and furniture inside was wooden as well, probably handcrafted by someone in the town.

“All finished, let’s go in.” Waving him on, Sukuna jogged to be the first to the door to open it for you. Filming as you walked in, when Sukuna entered, he still didn’t understand the hype you’d placed around it.

The air smelt like a strong tea and the humidity was definitely higher. He was right in thinking that all the furniture was handcrafted, all the chairs and tables had a rough quality to them only achievable with a human touch.

“Look, this is what I came here for!” You were standing right at the dessert case, pointing your camera at whatever you were looking at.

“Why is it...?” Sukuna looked at it in confusion. There was an airbrushed cake shaped exactly like the peach emoji sitting in the case with a realistic leaf and stem as well and you looked inexplicably happy over it.

“The owner makes these cakes herself, and she’s doing a cute emoji series!” Bouncing on your heels, you tugged on his sleeve. “I’m totally getting a slice, what’re you getting?” Suddenly, the research he’d done the night prior meant nothing as he looked at the cake.

“I have no idea.”

“You’ve got time to think about it, I’m gonna ask the owner a few questions for the video.” Leaving him at the case, Sukuna saw you go up to the owner waiting at the counter from the corner of his eye. Since the two of you were the only ones here, he could hear your excited voice gushing about the cakes and decor.

Fifteen minutes later, you and Sukuna were seated right in the corner of the cafe, where the two windows intersected on the building. Not one for sweets, Sukuna got a plain poppyseed muffin and a hot tea; the cafe didn’t serve coffee.

Setting up the camera on the table next to you, you took a bite of your cake and loved it, immediately singing its praises to the camera. Sukuna ate as well, trying not to be too stiff as you spoke.

“Sukuna, you should try this too!” Holding up your fork filled with cake, you held it out to him.

“Hm, okay.” Grabbing your hand as well, he expected you to let go of the fork. But as he guided it to his mouth, you didn’t, and you were staring right at him as it went into his mouth. “Why ya staring?” He mumbled, feeling his ears burn.

“I need to know if you like it.” Sukuna didn’t let go of your hand as he chewed and you didn’t make a move to remove it either. You were too focused on his reaction to care, waiting on the edge of your seat for him to say something.

“It’s a peach flavored cake.” He nodded, snorting when you motioned him to say more. “It’s too sweet for me, but if you like it then I like it.”

“Good enough for me!” Finally you pulled away from him and put the fork down, turning to the camera and pointing in his direction. “Can you believe Sukuna doesn’t like sweets? He’s like an old man, he only got a muffin.”

“Please, could an old man deadlift almost 300lbs?” Sukuna scoffed, slapping his chest and flexing his arm.

“That’s so much! You have to train me some day Sukuna, I wanna lift that much!” Your shocked face made Sukuna smirk and he flexed the other arm as well. Your wide eyes got even wider, bouncing between both his arms.

“Anytime, (Y/N).” Sukuna felt confident enough to wink at you, and he saw the way your face faltered at it. Ducking your head away, you pretended to fiddle with the camera, the tips of your fingers shaking slightly.

It was afternoon by the time you finished in the cafe, walking out into the warmth of the sun. Looking out, all the land surrounding the cafe was flat, covered in fields of barley or tall grasses.

“Hey Sukuna…” There you were, touching the purple grass with your fingers.

“What?”

“Will you take a few pictures for me? For Instagram?”

“I don’t think I’ll be any good.” Sukuna barely knew how to take pictures of himself let alone another person.

“That’s okay, just try your best!” Putting another camera in his hand, you grabbed his wrist and tugged him to join you deeper in the field. “That camera is pretty simple, just point and click.”

“Alright.” Holding it up, he immediately snapped a picture of you.

“Wait for me to pose!” You laughed. Sukuna chuckled as well, and when you were ready, he took the pictures. He took as many as he could, clicking the button over and over.

“Take a look.” Twenty minutes later he was handing the camera back at you. Looking through the pictures, you instantly burst into laughter.

“Sukuna, why’d you take a picture of the sun? My head is in the corner, it looks like a toe!”

“I told you it’d be bad!” He couldn’t help but laugh as well. You really did look like a toe in the corner of the screen.

“Oh my god, I’m taking you to a photography class, some of these are too much.” Giggling your way through the rest of the pictures, you put the camera back in his hand. “Let’s take a couple together!”

Sukunas heart leapt for joy. He would be able to take a picture with you. It felt like he was a fan of yours and not someone you knew on a personal level.

“You’re gonna hold the camera, your arms are longer.” Flipping the viewfinder up, you slided up to Sukunas side. He muttered something unintelligible, too busy looking at the two of you together. He could almost imagine you were a couple.

“Sukuna, hold the camera like this.” His hand had gone limp, casting a bad angle on the two of you.

“Don’t face that way, the light will make you look bad.” In one of the pictures, you’d changed poses.

“I know you only take serious gym pictures but smile for this one!” His face had dropped down to a scowl, his normal resting face. After who knows how long, he was finally free from taking pictures.

Wandering back to the car, it was silent as the both of you settled in. You were busy looking over the photos and Sukuna was busy watching you from the corner of his eye.

“Anything else you wanna do here?” He asked after a while of pretending to look on Twitter.

“Mmmm, we can drive around some more! I don’t really know what else is out here.”

Sukuna drove you through the countryside town, marvelling at the farmers and all their animals. You stopped to get a couple handmade candies from an old man, and Sukuna made sure to pick up some food that wasn’t just sweets for you. Eating at a small restaurant, when you hit the road again it was nearly evening.

Driving back in near silence, somewhere along the way you fell asleep. Your head rested against the window, jostled a few times by the road or a turn. Sukuna couldn’t help but look at you any chance he could, and although he felt like a major creep, he couldn’t stop himself from taking a picture of you.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding.” Sukuna groaned as he got closer to the city, coming upon a wall of traffic. Far ahead up the road there was an accident that wasn’t going to be cleared away anytime soon.

“What’s up?” You asked with a loud yawn, stretching out your arms and legs as best you could.

“Traffic.” Leaning his head out the window, he let out another groan. “Might as well put the fucking car in park.” Shifting the gear and sinking low into his seat, Sukuna sighed. It’s not that he hated traffic, but he wanted every moment of this outing to be perfect, and this was seriously hindering it.

“Do you want me to send you some of the pictures we took together for your Instagram as well?”

“Yeah, send ‘em over.” At least Sukuna could stare at the two of you together to pass the time. The amount of pictures you sent him was seemingly endless and included a few he didn’t know you’d taken of him eating and looking out the window.

“How long do you think we’ll be here?” You whined, kicking your feet out in boredom.

“At least an hour.”

It was quiet for a few minutes, the sound of the radio and other cars around you filling the background. Sukuna could see you fiddling with your phone, opening and closing apps. He could see you getting antsy.

“I’m already so bored.” There it was. Your pitiful whine accentuated with your head pushed back. Sukunas fingers itched to reach out and squeeze your cheek, it was glowing from the sun. “I think I’m gonna get on Instagram live or something so I can complain more.”

Laughing at your honesty, as soon as you went live Sukuna got the notification on his phone. Your head was tilted away from him, only your side of the car showed. Waving at the camera a few times, you smiled really big.

“Hi everyone! I’m stuck in traffic!” Your eyes flicked across the screen, reading the many comments coming in. “Hm, what do you mean who’s car am I in? I bought this car!”

“Liar.” Sukuna mumbled with a cheeky grin getting bigger when you tried to hide your own chuckle.

“I swear I bought this car!” You couldn’t keep the lie going, and broke down in giggles the more Sukuna looked at you. “Alright, I’m in Sukunas car.” Panning the phone out, he saw himself on screen.

“Hi.” He waved, reading the comments asking if you were on a date. “Don’t you remember from the last live? We aren’t on a date we’re filming some fucking vlog.”

“It’ll be up soon! You’ll all really enjoy it, Sukuna was a great guest.”

“The best.” He nodded along. You responded to a few more comments, but there were some that kept coming up.

‘(Y/N) kiss Sukuna’

“Stop spamming that fucking message like a weirdo.” Sukuna finally snapped. You had done a great job at ignoring the comment, but it was all Sukuna could see on the screen. “You’re gross to ask us to do that.” But Sukuna did wish he could kiss you. Ever since the first comment came through, he’d taken glances at your lips as you spoke.

“Oof, don’t make Sukuna mad, he’ll kill you.” You teased, and your hand went out to squeeze his arm. “He said he can deadlift almost 300lbs, so watch out.”

“That’s fucking right.” Flexing his arm proudly, Sukuna nearly put it around your shoulder, faltering at the last minute and landing on the center console with a thud.

‘It would be kind of cute to see them kiss…’

‘I bet Sukuna can’t even hug (Y/N)’

‘I bet after today they’ll come out and say they’re dating!’

Now all the comments were talking about the two of you dating, and how cute it would be if you really were. Biting his lip, Sukuna watched your reaction closely. Truly he had no problem with the comments, he wanted them to be true as well, but if you were uncomfortable he was ready to put everyone in their place.

“Gosh you guys ship us so hard.” You seemed okay with it, your face wasn’t tense and you were still making eye contact with Sukuna. “Are you going to subscribe to my channel if I kiss him?”

“What?” Sukunas eyes widened and the comments poured in promising life long dedication to you if you went through with it.

“Alright.” Setting your phone up on the dashboard, you turned to Sukuna. “I’ll be quick, okay?”

“What?” He parroted. His hands were getting clammy just thinking about it and the look in your eyes wasn’t helping. With a nervous lick of his lips Sukuna leant forward and had just begun to pucker his mouth when you loudly kissed your palm and pressed it to his cheek.

“There! I kissed Sukuna!” With a big grin on your face you kissed your hand again and put it on him. “I did it twice! Now go subscribe!”

“What the hell.” Sukuna mumbled to himself, feeling like an idiot for thinking you’d really kiss him. He spent the next fifteen minutes in a stupor, vaguely replying to comments and trying to get over the embarrassment he felt.

Dropping you off nearly an hour past the original time, when Sukuna got home he buried his face into his pillow and let out a short yell. The biting shame he felt at almost making himself a fool in front of thousands of people was still fresh. He knew there’d be fancams of the moment just waiting for him. A buzzing on his phone pulled him out of his thoughts.

(Y/N): you need to send me a picture for your contact photo!

That’s right, the picture. Sukuna didn’t even need to scroll that far to find it, it was in his favorites. Sending it to you without a second thought, he didn’t even have the mind to check your reaction. Leaving his phone on the bed, he rushed to the shower to cool off.

When he returned, there were a flurry of messages from you waiting to be read. Most of them were unreadable keyboard smashes and a few emojis.

(Y/N): SUKUNA!

(Y/N): you can’t just send me a picture like that!!

(Sukuna): why?

(Y/N): you know why!

He could practically hear your flustered little whine.

(Sukuna): enlighten me please

(Y/N): SWSGMLU

(Y/N): you’re such a bully!!

(Sukuna): haha sounds like someone's embarrassed

It was a long few minutes before you replied and Sukuna could see the typing bubbles appear and reappear several times.

(Y/N): I’M GOING TO BED

(Sukuna): you that tired? it’s only 9pm

(Y/N): YES GOODNIGHT

(Y/N): BYE BULLY

(Sukuna): lol goodnight then

In a week, the vlog was up and Sukuna made his debut into the world. He rewatched it several times over, in awe of how well you’d captured the countryside and translated it to video. He even screen recorded some parts, like when he was flexing for you, just to replay your reaction over and over.

In the weeks following, Sukuna watched your channel grow exponentially. Your number of subscribers wasn’t small, but it was nowhere near his, yet you made the leap to over a million and a half practically overnight. And with that new success, came a lot of pressure.

You’d recently taken up streaming, and Sukuna was at every single one. He had made a Twitch account just to watch you and he subscribed immediately, blushing when you read out his name and personally thanked him in a text a few minutes later.

Entering your stream as soon as it started, Sukuna was ready to sit and watch you do whatever. Usually, you played a game like the Sims, but sometimes you’d cook or put makeup on for a stream.

But this time was different. When your face appeared on the screen, you looked down. Almost as if you’d been fighting back tears. Immediately, Sukuna grabbed his phone, ready to call you and ask what was happening.

“Hey guys.” He could hear it in your voice that you were sad. It warbled and broke, and you sniffled a few times.

‘(Y/N) why’re you crying??’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Did something happen? You can tell us, we’re here for you’

“No, don’t worry everyone it’s just…” A stray tear fell down your cheek and you wiped it away with a shaking hand. “I-I- just-” You quickly broke down crying, turning your chair completely away from the screen.

Sukuna was swiftly dialing your number. He had no idea what was wrong, you hadn’t told him anything was wrong, but he needed to know. He was prepared to go to your house if you needed him to.

“I’m okay, I promise.” Feverishly wiping your tears, you turned back to the camera. Taking several deep breaths, you didn’t look at the camera as you spoke. “I’ve just been getting a lot of hate comments recently and you know I always ignore it but-” Your voice caught, and Sukuna was glued to the screen. “It’s just been a lot honestly.”

‘(Y/N) WE LOVE YOU’

‘PLEASE DON’T CRY WE’RE HERE FOR YOU’

‘I bet it’s all of Sukunas fans, they’re so fucking gross’

‘Totally Sukuna fans, all the real fans love (Y/N) and would never do this’

“N-no, don’t blame Sukuna! He can’t control what people say!” It was totally his fans and he fucking knew it. His call had gone unanswered two times, but on the third time you answered. “Hello?”

“Put me on speaker.”

“But-”

“Put me on speaker!” He demanded. Sukunas blood was boiling, rage rolling over him in waves.

“Sukuna’s calling, I guess he has something to say.” Holding the phone close to the microphone, you kept wiping away tears.

“Listen here you insignificant dirtbags, stop leaving shitty little hate comments on (Y/N)s stuff. You’re all fucking piss poor losers who can’t even wipe your own asses, probably jerking each other off in a pathetic circle. Go get a fucking job, worthless pieces of shit. Don’t think this is something you can get away with either, I’m going to make sure you fucking regret the day you were born.” His voice was dripping with so much malice it scared you. While Sukuna was used to talking like this, you’d never heard it in person and you could tell he meant every word.

“Thanks Sukuna, but you don’t have to-”

“Tell me who they are. Where’d they leave the comments?” Angrily setting up a shitty webcam he had, Sukuna was preparing to do a livestream himself.

“I don’t know…”

“(Y/N).” Taking a pause, he stared at the screen. You were worrying your lip as you stared at your phone while the comments begged for you to tell him.

“Alright. Most of them are under the vlog we did together, and there’s a lot under my most recent Instagram pictures.”

“The ones with us together too?”

“Yeah, those are the worst ones.”

“Keep me on the line.” Sukuna had never been this angry in his life before and it showed in his actions. He was slamming things down in a rush to set up his stream and letting out frustrated noises in the back of his throat.

“Sukuna, what’re you doing?” You’d gotten your emotions under control enough to stop crying, your glassy eyes shining in the light of your room.

“I’m setting up my own stream.” Just as he spoke, his face appeared on the screen and he was live. “Tell everyone to send me screenshots of the hate comments, I’m going to teach these assholes a lesson.”

“I think they heard you.” Indeed they had. The phone was still close to the microphone, and now there were comments pouring in telling Sukuna they’d send links through his stream.

Clicking on almost all of the ones that popped up, his screen was bombarded with pictures of people leaving hateful comments on your posts. Many were saying that you didn’t deserve to be alive, to be so close to Sukuna, and many called you ugly or other mean names.

“Let’s see what this fucker looks like.” Going to one of the profiles on Twitter, Sukuna nearly spat on his screen looking at it. “This ugly sack of shit wants to leave some mean comments? Well it’s your lucky day bitch, you’re the first one to go.” It took Sukuna all of five minutes to find the person's Facebook account where they posted more personal information.

“Oh, that’s a pretty high brow uni you’re going to! It would really be a shame if I sent an email to the dean.” Sukuna said mockingly, already typing up a long email. “You’re not gonna be studying to be a doctor any fucking more. Have fun digging ditches bitch.”

Sukuna’s stream easily went from 200 viewers to nearly 40,000 just in the time it took him to dox the first person. The next one was even easier, and it snowballed from there. Sukuna had no qualms about sharing this personal information, from their addresses to their personal phone numbers to where they worked.

“You really don’t have to do all this.” You kept saying over the phone. You’d ended your own stream to calm down, but you didn’t hang up the phone.

“Yes I do.” Sukuna replied instantly. “People have no respect for others, it’s fucking gross. If they think they can get away with this they’re idiots.” So many comments were egging him on as well, with a lot of people promising to harass everyone exposed until they apologized. “I hope every single one of them loses everything.”

“Sukuna…” With a sigh, you sat back and watched him do it. There wasn't anything you could say to stop him, he was on a warpath and intent on causing harm. Eventually, you had to hang up the call as it got well into the night and he was still going.

“Keep sending the fucking links, I can do this all night.” Sukuna repeated several times, fighting off sleep. His eyes burned from staring at the screen for so long and his back had begun to ache but he wasn’t about to stop now. There were still so many people that had to pay.

After nearly eight hours of streaming himself doxing people, he finally stopped after his channel got banned. His manager had emailed as soon as the sun rose, frantically screaming at him to stop what he was doing or he could get sued.

(Sukuna): tell me right away if this happens again I’ll handle it

He texted you right after getting banned. His body hurt from exhaustion, he could truly pass out at any moment.

(Y/N): I will

(Y/N): sukuna...thanks for doing all that. It really meant a lot to know you care about me

(Sukuna): Of course I care about you

Sukuna was about to type out that he liked you, of course he did all of that and risked himself getting sued because he liked you and never wanted to see you cry again. Almost admitting to how he wanted nothing more than to give you a big hug, but stopping himself at the last moment.

(Y/N): you’re such a good friend Sukuna, thank you

(Sukuna): you’re welcome

It hurt to be put into that category, in the friendzone. It made his tongue curl in disgust, a rancid place that he wanted no part of. People that were in the friendzone were spineless and too weak to just confess their feelings - and Sukuna seemed to be one of them.

After that incident, you went on a break from all social media and Sukuna began to patrol your comments sections. He actively posted that he would start doxing people again if they said anything bad, citing all the damage he’d done to the previous victims. Sukuna had gotten what he wanted, all the people he exposed suffered in some way, most losing jobs and friends.

On a run to the grocery store, Sukuna was listening to a podcast you’d been on. He missed the content you posted, and while he did text you sporadically about Youtube stuff, he didn’t feel comfortable messaging you about anything else. His mind always stopped him, questioning him on if what he wanted to say was really worth your time.

“Hi Sukuna.” Standing at the bread section, Sukuna nearly jumped into the air hearing your voice pop up next to him. There you were in a baggy hoodie and sweats, looking every part an unnoticeable member of society.

“(Y/N)? W-what’re you doing here?”

“Hm? I’m shopping.” You chuckled, showing him your handbasket.

“Right.” Nodding slowly, Sukuna eyed you up. Your eyes were still a little puffy and he could see they were red as well. You looked tired and worn down, not your usual happy self. “Hey (Y/N).”

“Yeah?” You were unprepared for the heavy arm that landed around your shoulders and even more at being pulled into an embrace. Sukuna hugged you to his chest tightly, squeezing the back of your hoodie in his hands.

“I…” He could feel you relaxing into his arms, heaving a deep sigh like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders. “Don’t feel sad anymore.” Sukuna seemed to have a habit of saying the things he wanted to say in the worst way possible. What did that even mean? To tell you not to be sad anymore instead of offering something else, like his friendship, during this time. He wanted to tell you he’d be here for you.

“Thanks Sukuna.” Hugging him back just as tightly, he could hear you sniffle a few times. The hug lasted for a while, just standing in front of bread, and a good two minutes passed before you started to unwind yourself from him.

Keeping a loose arm around you, Sukuna kept you close, searching your face for any hint that you would possibly start crying. Your eyes were a little misty, and your lower lip quivered just a little, but you sent him a smile that made it all better.

“So, what’re you getting?” He asked, attempting to be casual.

“Well, I’m actually done shopping now and I just saw you standing here.” You admitted with a chuckle. “I know it’s been a while since we last spoke properly.” The last message you’d sent to each other was about a sim card two days ago.

“Don’t worry about it, you were going through stuff.” Shrugging his shoulder, Sukuna grabbed the bread he wanted. “I don’t want you to force yourself to talk to me if you don’t want to.”

“Sukuna, I want to talk to you more though! I know we only talk about Youtube stuff but I want us to be better friends.”

“Really?” Nearly crushing the bread in his hands, Sukuna quirked a brow at you.

“Yeah!”

“Well...alright then.” That made him really happy, like really really happy. You wanted to pursue a stronger relationship with him and while it wasn’t a romantic one like he hoped, he was still ecstatic on the inside.

“I have to go, but can we video call later? I have some things I wanna ask you.”

“Okay.” Giving you a brief wave, Sukuna watched you walk out of the aisle and out of sight. A silly smile stretched his cheeks at the thought of your call later, and it stayed on his face the whole way home.

Later that night, Sukuna was diligently waiting for your call. He kept his phone glued to his hand, something he didn’t normally do, just in case you called. At nearly 7pm on the dot, you called and Sukuna answered right away.

“Hi!” You weren’t in the baggy clothes anymore, it looked like you were in pajamas sitting on your couch.

“Hey.” Sukuna was sitting at his computer doing editing, so he didn’t have to worry about you seeing the lack of furniture in his home. All you had to look at was a blank wall behind him. “So, you wanted to ask me something?”

“Mhmm! I was wondering- well first, Sukuna do you watch anime?”

“Anime?” His face twisted up in mild disgust. “No, that shit is fucking lame.”

“Sukuna!”

“What? I’m not that much of a fucking loser to like anime.” Rolling his eyes, he immediately envisioned a man in his mothers basement jerking off to pixelated tits. “Why? Do you watch it?”

“Yeah…” Now you were embarrassed, and it showed on your face.

“Fine, you’re not a fucking loser.” Propping his phone up on his desk, he tipped his chair back and looked at the ceiling. “At least, not a total fucking loser.”

“Sukuna!” Now you were laughing at him, and he smirked at you. “You’re so mean, you know that?”

“Hey, that’s my brand ba-” He was about to call you baby, the word catching thickly in his throat. Luckily, he stopped himself and slammed his chair back down on the ground to cover it up.

“Well, now I don’t know if I want to ask you my question! You’re gonna say no right away.”

“Tell me.”

“No!” Shaking your head hard, you panned the phone up to your ceiling. “You’re definitely gonna bully me!”

“Who knew you were such a baby?” There, he’d called you baby like he wanted to. Not in the context that he desired, but he still got to say it.

“Am not!” Glaring at him, you exhaled shortly. “I was wondering if you wanted to come to this anime convention with me? It’s happening downtown in a few weeks and I’m a guest on a lot of panels this year. I want you to come with to help film stuff for me so I can make it into a highlights reel for my channel? As sort of a comeback video since I’ve been gone for a while.” It was amazing how you’d managed to say all of that so quickly without taking a breath.

“A convention?” Sukuna had only been to fitness conventions and a few that his manager made him go to.

“Yeah! And I wanted to know if you watched anime because I wanted to see if you’d cosplay with me!”

“Cosplay? What the fuck is that?” It sounded stupid.

“We would dress up as characters from an anime! Have you heard of demon slayer?” No, he hadn’t and his silence told you as much. “Look up Nezuko from demon slayer, that’s who I’m dressing up as!”

“Fine, one sec.” Quickly typing it into his computer, Sukuna’s brow rose seeing the character. “You’re gonna dress up as some BDSM girl?”

“It’s not BDSM!”

“Then why does she have that thing in her mouth?” What else could it be for?

“That’s because she’s a demon and they don’t want her to eat people!”

“God that’s lame.” Looking between his phone and the computer, Sukuna tried to imagine you in this outfit. It was cute, a cute pink kimono with a little hair tie and sash. The more Sukuna looked at it, the cuter it got. “But on you it’ll be cute.”

“So will you dress up with me?” You asked immediately, your eyes shining with excitement. “I already know what character you’ll be! There’s a boy named Inosuke that-”

“No way, save your breath. I’m not dressing up.” Doing a quick search of the boy in question, Sukuna let out a snort. “And why do you want me to dress up as someone with a boars head on? You saying I’m ugly?”

“You don’t have to wear the head!” The opportunity was quickly slipping through your fingers at seeing Sukuna cosplay. “It’s ‘cause you’re so fit and so is he! And you’re pretty similar too.”

“I don’t care if he was my twin.” Shaking his head, Sukuna closed the tab and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll tell ya what, I’ll come to this thing and take all the videos and pictures you want and in exchange, I won’t dress up.”

“Wait, how does that logic-”

“Just go with it. Now send me an email about the thing and I’ll clear my schedule.” Waving off any further questions you had, Sukuna quickly got the email for the convention. It was about two weeks from today, and it was going on for the whole weekend.

“So, do you think you’ll be able to make it?” You asked tentatively, worrying your lip.

“Of course.” Sukuna would definitely need to do some serious schedule rearranging. “I’ll pick you up like last time, just let me know the time.”

“You’re the best, Sukuna!” You smiled big at him and Sukuna smiled back. Maybe during the convention, he could show you he was more than just a friend.

When the day of the convention came, Sukuna got ready bright and early to pick you up. The sun had only just settled onto the horizon and he was chugging coffee before leaving.

“Hey.” You yawned loudly as you got in his car, still clearly half asleep.

“Cute.” Sukuna said in response. You looked absolutely adorable. The pink kimono looked good on you, the sash accentuating your waist well. The little green gag he’d seen earlier was hanging around your neck, and you had a cute pink ribbon in your hair.

“Hm? You like it?” Shuffling around, that was when Sukuna saw how high the slit was on your outfit, coming high up on your thigh. His eyes were glued to the skin that showed, unable to look away.

“I do.” He whispered, glancing at you briefly to see your eyes were closed.

“That’s good, I spent a lot of time on it.” Putting your seatbelt on, you yawned again and pointed lazily out the window. “To the convention!”

It was a short drive to the convention, and you were some of the first people there. With a badge around his neck, Sukuna followed you into the hall. You weren’t carrying the bag of camera equipment you’d brought, Sukuna insisted on carrying it so it wouldn’t ruin your costumes aesthetic.

“We’re here really early to get pictures! I booked with a professional photographer, and my pictures are going to be used as promo for a few brands here today.” You explained as Sukuna followed you into a room with a full photoshoot set up.

“Okay.” He was completely lost watching you begin to take pictures. After chugging an energy drink, you hopped straight into it. Sukuna made sure to watch the photographer closely, looking at the computer as the pictures popped up to make sure they weren’t indecent for you.

Nearly an hour and a half later and you were finally done. Sukuna had begun to film some parts of it for you per your request; his job as videographer started now.

“The convention hall is open now to everyone, it might be kind of overwhelming to see all the people out there.” You told him as the photographer was packing up.

“Eh, I’ll be fine.” With a shrug of his shoulders, Sukuna left the room and stepped out into the main hall. Immediately, he knew you were right. There were so many people already milling around dressed in costume, most from shows and games he’d never seen. The only readily identifiable characters for him were from Nintendo.

“Told you it was a lot.” Bumping him with your shoulder, walked out into the convention space. If Sukuna didn’t stand right behind you, he feared he would lose you in the crowd. There were other people dressed up as the same character and he couldn’t trust himself to differentiate between all of them.

Filming a little bit of walking around, Sukuna could hear and see people looking at him in shock. It wasn’t unknown that Sukuna had a distaste for anime and the whole culture surrounding it. Some of his most popular videos were him making fun of people at the very same thing he was at now.

“E-excuse me, (Y/N)?” A young teenage girl approached you, nervously fiddling with her phone.

“Hi!” You waved, immediately seeing her phone. “Do you want a picture?”

“Yes, please!” The girl's nerves quickly dissipated at your question, but she still looked scared of Sukuna.

“How about we take a few selfies?” Sliding next to her, you put an arm around her shoulder and posed. You and the girl took a numerous amount of pictures, and when she left she had a happy blush on her cheeks.

“Is that gonna happen often?” Sukuna asked, watching the girl disappear into the crowd.

“Yeah, sorry! I posted that I’d be going to this for the second and third day and a lot of people said they were gonna ask for pictures.” Rubbing the back of your head nervously, you sized up Sukunas face. “Sorry if it annoys you, I know it can be kind of tedious.”

“I don’t mind. Let's get going.” With a casual shrug, Sukuna walked to where your first panel was. He stayed off to the side as you talked to the organizers and other guests, feeling awkward that he couldn’t hold a conversation on whatever it was you were talking about.

The people soon filed into the panel, filling the seats and whispering excitedly about you and the other people sitting at the front of the room. Some of them noticed Sukuna and whispered about him too.

Ignoring them diligently, Sukuna filmed your panel from the back of the room. He didn’t need to worry about picking up any sound, you were speaking into a microphone. All he had to worry about was capturing good angles for you.

He did this for a few more panels as well, slowly getting more comfortable with people noticing him there. He even waved at a few fangirls that saw him, their faces erupting in a scarlet flush and giggling silly.

“We have almost two hours before my next panel, do you want to grab some food? I’ll pay.” Waiting in the back of an empty room, you tried to reach for your bag that Sukuna had slung over his shoulder.

“No, you don’t have to pay.” Pushing your hand away, Sukuna kept you at arms length.

“C’mon, you have to let me pay! You’re doing so much for me already!”

“Nope.” You tried to struggle past him and grab your bag, but Sukuna was strong enough to keep you at bay with one arm. “Fine! But I’m buying you a plushie later!”

“Whatever.” With the matter settled, the two of you left the room. Almost as soon as you came out, there was a loud gasp from a few people outside the door.

“Oh my god, your Nezuko is so good!” One of them shouted. Sukuna eyed him up, a young man dressed with a strange green and black checkered overcoat.

“Thanks!” You replied, fiddling with the edge of the brown one you were wearing. “I spent ages on getting everything just right!”

“Y-you’re (Y/N)! I didn’t think I was going to see you today!” Another man had on a similar getup to the first, but he was clad in yellow and orange.

“It must be your lucky day!” Laughing a little at his shocked face, you quickly noticed the third man standing there. “Sukuna look, this is what I meant when I said you should dress up as Inosuke!”

“Huh.” He looked at the shirtless man in front of him. The guy was muscular enough, not nearly as much as Sukuna was though. The brown pants he wore were too baggy for Sukunas liking, but he could see the way you were looking at him.

“Can we get a picture please?”

“Of course!” You quickly got in the middle of the three of them and crouched down, throwing up peace signs and smiling brightly as they took the selfies. Sukuna was watching all of their hands, making sure no one touched you or got too close.

“Sukuna, will you take a group picture for us?” You asked, already handing him a phone.

“Yeah.” You didn’t really leave him with a choice and it’s not like he was going to say no to you anyway. It was harder to keep track of just where these men were putting their hands, and every so often Sukuna would look to make sure that the hand placed on your back stayed there and didn’t go any lower.

“Thank you so much!”

“You’re the best, (Y/N)!

“Bye, please tag me in the pictures if you post them!” Waving cutely at them, you walked away. “Ah, that was so much fun! They were so cute!” Gushing about the pictures, you didn’t notice Sukuna had a vein throbbing in his forehead. He seriously wishes he’d dressed up in that dumb costume with you so you could feel the same way about him.

Quickly eating some fast food - much to Sukunas disgust - you were back in the convention hall. There seemed to be even more people here than before milling about. Gripping the back of your top, Sukuna made sure you didn’t get too far from him in the crowd.

“Let’s go check out the merch!” Leading him to a larger space in the convention center, your eyes sparkled looking at all the different vendors spread out. “Sukuna, is there anything you want to check out?”

“Not really.” The only thing he could see that he knew were some overpriced candies. “I’ll just follow you.” And that he did. You stopped at nearly every booth, rejoicing about how cute something was and how much you wanted a certain figure. Sukuna offered to pay for whatever you wanted, but you staunchly refused.

“Sukuna, which one’s your favorite?” Coming upon a booth filled to the brim with different plushies, you crossed your arms and squared your shoulders. “We aren’t leaving here until I buy you a plushie!”

“I don’t need one.” Not only would it ‘ruin’ his tough image, he didn’t like those things to begin with.

“Yes you do!” Stamping your foot childishly, you pointed at them. “Pick one!”

“Who knew you could be so mean?” He teased back with a flick to your forehead.

“Shut up.” Puffing out air, you grabbed his hand and pulled him closer to the booth. “I’ll even help you decide.”

“O-oh.” You were holding his hand. You were definitely, 100% holding Sukunas hand. Your two hands were squishing his one in your palms, shaking it side to side as you looked at all the choices before you. How was Sukuna supposed to pick something when you were holding his hand so close to your body? He could feel the tips of his fingers graze your sash every couple seconds.

“What about this one?” You pointed your hands to a brown bear with a giant body but a tiny head.

“What’s wrong with the head?” He looked concerned at the doll.

“It’s supposed to be like that!”

“I- okay.”

“Do you like it?” Looking at him hopefully, you squished his hand even more. “It’s so cute, you have to get it.”

“Let me see it.” Picking it up with his other hand, Sukuna stared at the unmoving, smiling face of the bear. Squeezing it in his hand, Sukuna let out a short sigh and put it down. “Alright, I’ll get it.”

“Yes!” Letting go of his hand, you rushed to grab your wallet before he could stop you. “Make sure to send me a picture of you with it!”

Right after you finished paying, Sukuna nearly demanded to buy you stuff as well. He’d seen the way you were eyeballing the figures and some books, and he wasn’t going to be the only one to leave this part of the convention hall with a souvenir.

The bags he was carrying were definitely heavier now when you left to go to your next panel. They put a little strain on Sukunas arms but he wasn’t about to let you carry anything and quickly ducked back to his car to put it all away.

Right in the middle of your next panel, Sukuna ducked out to go to the bathroom. He was keeping well hydrated during this whole day and it was surely catching up with him now. Wandering the halls, he eventually found a bathroom to use and on his exit, he noticed a sign for something called an ‘artists alley’.

“Let’s check it out.” Here, there were people selling things but they were clearly fan made. There were paintings and pins, stickers and fan art everywhere. Wandering between the vendors, his eye caught on a particular booth.

“Sukuna?” The person gaped when he walked up but he wasn’t paying attention to them. On a cork board above them was a moderately sized drawing of you, dressed up in an all red get up.

“How much?” He pointed at the drawing, looking at the red cap you had on that matched with the red jacket.

“The (Y/N) x Cells At Work fan art? It’s $35.”

“I’ll take it.” The artist was clearly surprised, scrambling to grab the drawing and put it in a protective sleeve. “Keep the change.” Sukuna slapped 40 down and turned away. “Oh, and don’t tell anyone I was here.”

“O-okay!” They shouted after him. Sukuna kept the drawing close to his chest and when he got back he quickly hid it in his bag so no one would notice. He started filming again like he’d never left and you didn’t question him on it when it was over.

“Man, I’m so tired!” With the convention over hours later, you all but collapsed into Sukunas car. It had indeed been an eventful day between speaking at panels and taking pictures with countless people.

“Yeah, I’m beat.” Sukuna agreed, taking a moment to sit in silence in the driver's seat. He hadn’t expected to be so tired after today. He’ll have to prepare better for tomorrow.

Driving you home, both of you were like zombies as you departed. Sukuna didn’t even have the heart to properly disrobe when he got home, collapsing into bed with the plush you’d gotten for him still in his hand.

The next day was just as hectic as the day before, the word had gotten out that you really were at the convention and now more people swarmed you in between panels. Sukuna took the pictures for all of them, giving any man that wanted one a harsh glare before he started. He was easier on the younger girls, but he still made sure that they didn’t try to flirt with you or anything. No one could be fully trusted.

“Sukuna, I forgot yesterday but we need to go to the artists alley!” You exclaimed in shock, grabbing his upper arm. “They have such cool stuff!” Oh, Sukuna definitely already knew about it. The drawing he’d bought of you was hanging in his room, by his full length mirror so he could see it whenever he wanted.

He pretended everything was brand new to him, acting as if he’d never seen the pins before or the stickers and tote bags. Coming upon the artist he’d bought from yesterday, he noticed there was more fan art of you there.

“Oh my gosh, that’s me!” You giggled happily, pointing to yourself drawn as a Pokemon trainer. “It looks so good!”

“Thank you so much (Y/N)!” The artist gaped, clearly shocked to see you here. “I-I studied all of your pictures so I could get everything just right!”

“You did a great job!” The two of you went on and on about the drawings and other paintings that were there. Sukuna wished he could chime in and say that he really liked the art he bought yesterday, but there was no way he was explaining to you that he bought a drawing of you as a red blood cell. He would rather die.

The rest of the day went by in a blur, all the panels going by so fast and melting into one another. He didn’t feel the same exhaustion as the other day, but Sukuna was definitely still tired as he walked to the car.

“Sukuna, thank you so for this weekend, it really means a lot!” You were the happiest he’d ever seen you. The footage he’d filmed for your video perfectly captured all the good parts of the convention, with several shots of your smiling face with fans and other panel members. “How can I repay you?”

“Well…” There was something he’d been wanting to ask you for a while, ever since he saw you in costume. Today was the last day of the convention and subsequently the last day you’d be wearing this costume. “Can we get a picture together?”

“What? We never took a picture together?”

“No.” Sukuna chuckled at your surprised face. Rushing to his car, you set up a little stand for your camera on the hood of his car.

“Okay, let’s take some!” As soon as Sukuna was standing next to you, you wrapped your arms around his middle in a tight hug.

“W-what’re you doing?” Immediately, his face began to blush.

“You deserve a hug, Sukuna, you’ve been amazing.” Sukuna could barely breathe. Not because you were holding him firmly, but simply from the fact that you were hugging him of your own accord. His hands were shaking slightly as he moved to hug you back, grinning shyly at the pleased hum you let out when he did so.

The drive home left a bittersweet feeling on Sukunas tongue. He was glad it was over so that he didn’t have to wake up so early and deal with the gross crowds of people. There weren’t potentially disgusting men and perverts trying to take upskirt shots of your costume or grope you that he had to worry about.

Stopping at a light though, he realized how much fun he had as well. Listening to you talk and share your opinions on the panels was interesting and getting to hear others talk to so passionately as well had made him interested in a few shows. He knew you’d be ecstatic to hear that he could potentially get into anime, and Sukuna knew that at the next convention, he’d dress up for you. He also loved the bear you’d bought him even though that was something he’d never admit.

“Thank you again Sukuna, seriously.” You squeezed his arm as he pulled up to your house.

“Don’t mention it. Let me help you with the stuff in the back.” You’d bought even more things today than yesterday, mostly for friends and family that couldn’t make it to the convention. Gathering all the bags, Sukuna walked them to your door and wandered right into your apartment.

“You can put them all near the couch!” Closing the door behind him you quickly jogged over to the couch to help him with the bags.

“Whoa, your place is nice.” It actually looked like someone lived here as opposed to Sukunas place that looked like an upgraded jail cell. There was a fluffy rug on the wall and a few cute figures and small plushies on shelves, you had plants hanging down from the ceiling and it smelled vaguely floral. There was also a space dedicated to fan made art and gifts, with some fresh flowers sitting in a vase.

“Thanks! Maybe we can film a video here someday!”

“Definitely.” Mumbling dumbly, Sukuna was vaguely aware of you staring at him. “What?”

“You’re such a good friend, Sukuna. I can’t thank you enough!” Again, you hugged him. Burying your face into him, you shook his body side to side before quickly letting go. “Anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask!”

“Hey that’s my line.” Patting you on the head, Sukuna let a dumb smile spread his cheeks. He truly had the most fun ever with you, and for a moment he could pretend that you were a couple and that he was going to spend the night here, cuddle up with you and talk about all the dumb little things happened the past few days.

But he wasn’t dating you and his daydream only lived a few seconds before he made his departure. Going back to his own home, as Sukuna stepped inside he got a notification that he’d been tagged in a photo.

It’s one of the ones you’d taken together where you were hugging each other tightly. Your smile was genuine, showing all your teeth. Your eyes were crinkled at the corners, looking at Sukuna’s kind of surprised face with an indescribable warmth.

‘I love my friends’

That was the caption you’d put with a simple heart emoji after. There were people in the comments asking if this meant you were dating now, begging for you to admit it so they could say their ship sailed. Reading the caption over and over, Sukuna bit his lip to contain the feeling spreading in his chest.

‘I love my friends too’

He commented. And one day, he promised himself that he’d get to call you something more than just a friend. Wandering further into his apartment, he smiled like an idiot at his phone, quickly screenshotting the post.

“Ow!” Bumping his shin hard into his plastic foldable dining table, he was faced with the jarring reality of his surroundings. If he wanted to call you his, he needed to get some furniture first.

#jujutsu kaisen #ryomen sukuna #jujutsu kaisen fanfic #jujutsu kaisen imagines #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jujutsu kaisen scenarios

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yeahimaloser · 3 years

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A Hero’s Nightmares

Hi everyone! I’m so sorry that this took so long to make, I wish I could have made this a little longer! But personal stuff came up, but I’m back to writing so YAY!

A/N- the beginning is supposed to be a bit weird considering it’s a nightmare, so just keep that in mind! Also, tumblr was being so annoying and weird when I went to post this so I’m sorry if it looks wired ;-;

Summary: Keigo always has the worst nightmares, but he refuses to tell you about them.

Warnings: BLOOD, nightmares

Reader has no pronouns mentioned

Word count: 2.7k

…..

His eyes opened slightly, only to be met with a piercing white room. There was nothing, not a person, not anything in the blankness of the room. Just him, he was the only one there.

Keigo reached for his wings, but he was met with nothing, there was nothing there, no feathers, no stumps of glorious wings, nothing.

Well, nothing except his blood.

It just kept coming, his hands and back were covered in it. Where was it coming from? He couldn’t figure it out, but he was becoming increasingly more panicked, what was he supposed to do if his wings were gone? How would he be a hero?

The more anxious he seemed to get, the more blood came out from his back. Where was it coming from? His hands still covered in the red ink-like substance, he looked around, trying to find something he could use to help him, maybe someone to help him.

But he was alone, no one was coming to help him. He was alone.

He supposed he was always alone, he would always be alone.

But then, in the corner of his eye, he saw you.

You were standing, a few feet away from him, looking down at his form on the ground. He didn’t know how you got there, he was sure he didn’t see anyone in the room with him. He was sure when he looked around no one was in sight. But he was glad, his love was with him.

“Y/N,” he called over to you, but his voice felt hoarse.

That's right, you were with him, he wasn’t alone. With you, he would never be alone, you promised to always be there for him. You promised to help him, you promised to love him forever.

“Y/N, I’m so glad to see you! Can you help me? I don’t know what's wrong with my back and-”

That's when he saw it, your blood.

Your stomach was bleeding, and bleeding fast. The blood dripped from your stomach, coating the white floor with red ink. You stumbled a bit, trying to make your way over to him.

He rushed over to you before he knew it, he was in front of you, holding you to him before your body gave away, before your strength collapsed. He placed you lightly on the ground, trying to look over your injuries, trying to figure out what was going on.

“Babybird, who did this to you? What happened to you,” he looked around, trying to see who hurt you. He was supposed to protect you, he was supposed to be your hero. But he had failed, you were hurt, and he didn’t know what to do.

But still, no one was in the room with you two, it was just him and you. Then again, he didn’t have time to dwindle on the who and when and where, just the now. You were bleeding in front of him, his love, he needed to help you, to save you.

He noticed that his blood from his back meshed with your blood, there was so much. He wanted more than anything for it all to go away, for you and him to be ok. Who would do this to you? Why?

Slowly, you spoke, “You.”

He nodded, “Yes, I’m right here baby, no one will hurt you. But you need to tell me, who did this to you?”

But the blood just kept coming, and although Keigo tried not to show it, he was getting increasingly more worried. His heart pounded harder in his chest, his ears ringing as he tried to calm himself down. He put his hand on the wound, trying to see if he could stop the bleeding, but you shoved his hand away.

He looked up at you, shocked, but he took a deep inhale, “Y/N, I know it must hurt, but you have to let me help you. Can you tell me who did this to you?”

All of a sudden, your face shown with a scared, distressed expression. You looked into his eyes, yours filled with nothing but fear. His heartbeat quickened, his hands suddenly felt clammy, his body felt heavy. So heavy.

“Why did you hurt me, Keigo? Why would you do that to me? I thought you loved me? You said you would protect me, so why did you hurt me?” Your tone was horribly drained, so incredibly fearful, so frightened.

For a moment, Keigo didn’t understand. What were you talking about? He would never hurt you? He could never hurt you, you were the love of his life, the reason he woke up in the morning. If he hurt you, he…

He didn’t know what he would do with himself.

But then he looked down at your wound, something was sticking out of it, the weapon that had pierced your skin. He reached over to pull it out, but when he did, all he felt was pure horror.

It was his feather.

His feather cut you, he was the one killing you.

“N-No, I would never,” his voice was shaky, his back suddenly felt heavy.

He turned to look back at his wings, his eyes widened.

Suddenly, his wings were on his back again. All his feathers were covered in blood, your blood.

He reached up to touch them, the stickiness on his fingers only seemed to make him realize, it was blood. It was dark and thick, falling onto the floor of the white room, meshing with the colors, making a dark contrast.

“Why Keigo.” your voice was filled with terror as you gazed up at him, “why would you do this to me? Don’t you love me?”

He tried to hold you to him, to apologize, to try and make things right, to try and help you. He had to make things better, he couldn’t lose you, he wouldn’t lose you.

But his body didn’t move, no matter how hard he pushed, his body was frozen in place.

“You’re a monster, why do you keep hurting me? I love you, Keigo, why would you do this to me? Do you not love me? Why,” tears slipped from his eyes. He was supposed to always be there for you, to protect you from the horrors that would hurt you, but he had done this to you. He was a monster.

“Please Y/N,” his voice shook, his tears spilling out, “I’m sorry, please.”

You let out a piercing scream, it crushed his soul, his heart, he felt as though his whole world was collapsing, and he could do nothing about it.

----

Keigo bolted out of your shared bed.

At first, the haziness of sleep clouded his mind, but his heart was still racing. Then he remembered, he remembered what he saw happened, how you…

His head snapped to your side of the bed. But you were right beside him, peacefully asleep.

Salty tears dripped down onto the bedsheets, Keigo didn’t even notice he had been crying.

Even though all he wanted to do was wake you up, to feel your body and feel that you were ok, to hear your voice, he knew better. If he woke you up, he would just look selfish and weak. A hero shouldn’t be getting nightmares, a hero shouldn’t be seeking out comfort in others. He wanted to be someone that you depend on, he had to show you dependable he could be, he didn’t want you to worry so much about him.

It was just a dumb dream, in fact, the whole thing didn’t even make any sense. His wings disappeared and then reappeared? The blood on his back, it all was just stupid. He was just being over-emotional, he needed to stop it. Whenever he was in training and had nightmares, his handler would always tell him he was just being an idiotic child. His handler told him, “How can you ever expect to be a hero when you’re afraid of going to sleep? Stop being weak.” He was right, Keigo was a hero, he needed to act like one.

But still. He couldn’t help but stroke your cheek, just feeling even a bit of your skin felt like a reminder that you were there with him, that you were laying in some room with your blood splattered everywhere.

He remembered what you had said to him, “You’re a monster.”

It was true, he always seemed to hurt you, he would always skip out on dates, always come home so late, only to see that you had waited up late for him. He was supposed to be your boyfriend, he was supposed to show you love and protection. And yet, here he was, a pathetic mess, shaking like a leaf from some foolish dream.

The thought made a cold shiver run down his back, down to the base of his wings.

His wings.

He reached back, stroking his feathers lightly. They were there all right, but something about them made him feel repulsed. They felt heavier, which was peculiar because he had lost a large majority of them in battle.

A feather landed on the bed next to him. It was red, blood red. The memory of that horrifying dream came flooding back to him, making him remember about all the blood that had surrounded him, how he couldn’t save you. How he failed you.

It was all too much, your beautiful sleeping form next to him, the stress over his nightmare, the red that he kept seeing. He needed to get out, to leave, it was all too much for him, it made his lungs feel so so heavy like he couldn’t get a breath in. His heart kept racing, no matter what he did to steady it, it just kept beating so goddamn fast.

As he stood up though, he stumbled a bit, but he quickly regained his balance. He snapped his head towards you, his face softening as he saw your body still blissfully in sleep. He knew how pitiful he might have looked in that moment, how, more than likely, if you would have woken up, you would have looked up at him with pity in your expression. The thought repulsed him, he needed to be strong.

He sighed, trying to regain his balance. He placed a hand on his heart, still trying to calm himself down from his nightmare.

It wasn’t real, Y/N is ok, your wings are still there, nothing bad ever happened to anyone.

He made his way to the balcony outside, still trying to catch his breath, still trying to wrap his brain around his nightmare.

He made his way over to your home’s balcony, it was a nice little thing, sturdy and well suited for the penthouse. Normally, the breeze hitting his face would put him at ease, calming him down. Yet, tonight, even the fresh smell of cool winter air couldn’t stop his heart from racing. He gripped the railing of the balcony, not sure if his wings had it in him to take off for a nighttime flight.

He hated it, he hated his nightmares, he always had them, no matter what he did he would always be plagued with them. When you two started to date, he was scared to sleep next to you, he didn’t want to wake you up and worry you. But when you finally realized about his nightmares, you were so accepting of him. Sleeping next to you seemed to make his bad dreams fade away, the way you would say comforting words to him while he drifted off always put him at ease, always made his mind stay still and just relax.

But they had come back, stronger and harder. He hated it, he hated how scared it made him feel, how he felt… powerless. He was a hero, for god’s sake, he was supposed to protect and serve, he fought villains, protect people, especially you. How was he supposed to do that if he was scared of going to sleep?

He didn’t even realize how hard he was gripping the railing of the balcony till he looked down to see how white his knuckles were.

He sighed, furrowing his brows. Why was he like this? He wished this was some sort of a switch he could turn off and on. So his nightmares would just vanish, for him to just be normal for you. He loved you, he didn’t want to fuck it up with you. You meant too much to him, he wants to show you how much of a hero he could be to you

He didn’t even notice you move next to him, he didn’t even sense your presence as you made your way over to him.

When you woke up to find his side of the bed empty, you knew exactly what was wrong. He always had these terrible nightmares, you worried about him, how he would wake up in a cold sweat, how they made him so anxious. But, what you hated more was how he refused to tell you about them, you wished he could just stop being a hero with you. No matter how much you reassured him that you would always love and support him through anything, he would only take it at face value, seemingly not believing you. You wished he would stop protecting you, you wished you could convince him that you loved him no matter what.

Reaching for his hand that was gripped tightly to the railing, Keigo flinched away, still not sensing your presence.

That was unusual for him, he would always sense you, always seemed to have his hawk-like senses tuned to your overall aura. Most people found it difficult to get a jump on Keigo, he was heavily on his guard at all times.

That must have meant that he was really shaken up about his dream that he had.

“Keigo,” hearing your voice snapped him out of any other thoughts he had, making him concentrate solely on you, on your presence, on your voice. You were here, you were ok. “Baby, are you ok? Do you wanna talk about it, sweetheart?” You lightly traced his knuckles with your fingers, soothing him and telling him how you were there for him, how you didn’t plan on leaving him.

But, unfortunately, Keigo always tried his best to push you away from him, to tell you how fine he was. Of course, you never believed him. He was a hero for god’s sake, combined with his childhood trauma, that wasn’t the best mix for his mental state.

And yet, he closed you off, pretending to be fine.

He flashed you a reassuring smile, “I’m fine, honey. Go back to bed, I’m just getting some fresh air.”

You were sick of it.

Taking a deep breath, you brought your hands up to Keigo’s face making him look at you, you shuffled closer to him, your body’s were touching lightly. You gave him the softest, yet piercing look he’s ever seen.

“Keigo,” you said in a stern voice, bringing his lips close to yours, “I love you, I love you so damn much.”

Your lips were almost touching now, Keigo’s eyes seemed to glaze over with love, “So please, Keigo,” you moved closer still, “Please,”

“Let me help you.”

#bnha hawks #hawks x reader #mha keigo takami #hawks x y/n #keigo takami #mha keigo x reader #keigo takami x reader #mha fanfiction #keigo x reader #hawks headcanons #bnha fanfiction #keigo fanfic #hawks fanfic

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tepid-tea · 3 years

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I apologize in advance as this is completely unedited and its probably full of errors and typos lol. I’m posting this while in a meeting for work so lol I’ll try and find time to fix anything later.

This is a Modern AU and all of the prompts will be in the same set. If you have any suggestions let me know! So I hope you enjoy!

Oct 1st_ Fall Leaves “Uncle Caleb nooo!!” Luc shrieked, his laughter ringing high as the boy ran through the fallen leaves. Each footstep crunched and rustled as the halfling boy rushed through the piles before disappearing into the mountain of raked leaves.

“Oh no, where did he go?” Caleb called out, his tone playfully rough to fill his role of ‘monster’ in their game. “Come out, come out wherever you are!”

They’d been at this for a while now, the young boy ducking into the high piles of leaves that Caleb had raked up in their backyard. Luc was the perfect height to disappear and like his mother could be sneaky when he put his mind to it. Caleb gave chase as the monster hunting down the young hero while Essek watched from their back porch; taking videos and photos as they played.

This was their first fall in this house; Esseks first fall in the Empire even, so seeing their backyard turn into a sea of golden yellows and vibrant oranges was an absolute delight. He spent several mornings waiting for his partner to wake looking out the window to watch the way the light trickled through the leaves. It was so different from Roshana, where he grew up solely in the city and most of their trees only bore red leaves. Then after meeting Caleb he had lived in Nicodranas for a few years where there were palm trees and it never got really cold enough for the leaves to change much. To now, in the first house that he and Caleb owned together, he got to experience this.

An old two and a half story home in a nice quiet family neighbourhood with a large backyard filled with trees and space to garden. Hell, they probably had enough room for the green house he and Yasha had talked about once with Caduceus; at that time only a fun dream they shared. Now with Yasha and Beau with their apartment about a half hour into the city by the Soul, perhaps they could give it a try. He and Caleb did hope to have several years in this old house afterall, so they could try.

Soon a loud battle cry pulled back his attention, Essek watched as Luc burst out of the leaf pile with such flare it would make his mother proud and knocked Caleb to the ground. The red headed wizard cried out in defeat, splaying himself out across the grass in equal dramatics. By the exaggerated cry of defeated dying monster sounds their game was finally wrapping up; the afternoon sun starting to set now.

Snapping a few photos to send to Veth and Yeza on his phone of the pair rolling around in the leaves, Essek made his way over. The goal was to get Luc fed and tucked into bed before his parents got home from their date night. Veth would give them shit if the seven year old was still bouncing around by the time they swung by to pick him up. They had only made that mistake once.

“Oh valiant warrior, now that you’ve conquered the dangerous beast I think it's time to wash your hands and get ready for supper” Essek smiled down at the two, rolling his eyes at the groans he got in return. Both seemed to spread out more in defiance, making themselves starfish in the sea of autumn leaves.

He playfully nudged his partner in the ribs with the toe of his slipper while their nephew had him pinned to the ground still. A large freckled hand grabbed at his ankle in warning; eyes meeting in challenge when there was a slight tug. That earned the human an arched eyebrow in return; daring the human to follow through with his game he was not going to win. When the hand let go of his ankle, the drow gave his human a fanged smirk before looking back at their nephew.

“Come on, Pizza should be here in twenty minutes” Essek waved a hand to adjust gravity then scooped Luc off of Caleb's chest and propped him on his hip. Luc ooed the whole way up, nearly wiggling out of Esseks arms in excitement over the small bit of magic.

With a squirming chatty halfling in his arms, Essek made his way back towards the house as Luc retold his tale of his battle. Sounds of Caleb groaning as he pulled himself up off the ground could be heard as they made their way up the cobbled path to their back deck. Waiving his free hand, Essek levitated his blanket and pillow to fold themselves then follow them into the house.

Once inside he set Luc down so he could grab the levitated items and gesture the boy towards their downstairs bathroom. As the boy scampered away, Essek watched him go before moving to put the outdoor bedding into the trunk by the backdoor. Once he heard the sink running he called out to remind Luc to remember to use soap, which earned him a sassy ‘yes uncle Essek’ causing him to snort softly. Shaking his head, he toed out of his slippers and made to head towards their kitchen.

“What do hungry beasts get to eat?” Caleb asked, keeping that same rumbling tone, arms snaking around Esseks waist to stop him. The drow was pulled flushed against the other man's chest, one long ear twitching as a cool nose nuzzles against it. Warm but also slightly cold from their time outside, the others hands toyed with the hem of his sweater.

“Pizza of course; however” Essek paused, turning to gently pluck a stray yellow leaf out of Caleb's hair and looked up at him through his eyelashes.“Perhaps there can be a dessert for him later.”

He watched colour flood his partner's face, hair loose and wildly hanging out of his once braided ponytail. Dirt was smudged over his freckled cheek, blue eyes wide as they dilated into dark pools of desire as they met his own violet. The playful mood shifted for that quick moment now that they were alone in their downstairs hallway, the back door still wide open for whoever in their neighbourhood dared to see.

“But only if he’s real good” He added after with a purr, pressing a brief kiss to the others mouth before slinking out of Caleb's arms. Essek booped the others' noses with the leaf before disappearing into their kitchen with a sly smile. As soon as he was out of the others line of sight, he heard the human thunder up their stairs to their ensuite bathroom.

Laughing softly to himself, he flicked his journal out of his wristpock and grabbed a pen off the counter. Opening a fresh page he jotted down the date and pressed the leaf in between the pages. Pressing the book closed, he closed his eyes and held the book tightly in his hands and up against his chest. Essek listened to the laughter as it echoed through their old but new house and couldn’t help but smile.

#sgtober2021 #shadowgast #My writing #critical role #essek theyless #caleb widogast

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secretkeeper13 · 3 years

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Name

A year ago today, after a few months of lurking on Ao3 and Tumblr and reading without an account, I posted my first fic. I don’t know what possessed me to start writing. I think I was so desperate for some sort of creative outlet in the monotony of quarantine life that when I got an idea, I wrote it down. And here I am a year later, still writing, though not as frequently as I’d like. Thank you @thedistantdusk, queen beta, for all your help. To all the funny, lovely people I’ve “met” on Discord, thanks for brightening the past year. And thank you to everyone who read and commented on my fics. I truly appreciate you all!

A little (belated) Harry birthday fic below the cut or on Ao3

For many years, Harry hated summer. Summer was loneliness and boredom, monotony punctuated by growls from his stomach or his aunt’s shouts. Summer was endless daylight that stretched and languished well into the night, mocking him, a prisoner in his bedroom with barred windows. Summer meant isolation, locked doors, tossing and turning alone under damp, sticky sheets.

But what he once loathed had now become his favorite season, when three weeks ago, on the terrace of their garden, under the orange glow of the evening summer sun, he’d dropped to one knee, and with shaking hands, asked Ginny to marry him. She’d said yes, of course, yet part of him still couldn’t believe it- that after everything, horcruxes and hallows, Voldemort and the Forest, she would be walking down the aisle not to a faceless stranger, but to him.

In their bed later that evening, after a round of private celebration, the sheen of sweat still clinging to their bodies, she’d told him of her idea. A wedding at the Burrow, just family and close friends, and a surprise to all but a handful, planned under the guise of her birthday party. It would keep the press from getting wind of it, she’d said, and with the ink barely dry on Rita Skeeter’s latest “expose” (Ginny plying Harry with love potions in an effort to force him to propose), he’d thought it was a brilliant plan. And secretly, Harry thought that the limited window for Molly to fuss over wedding preparation was a bonus.

“Do you think it’s crazy?” she’d asked, as her fingers traced gentle patterns over his chest. “I know it’s barely a month away.”

“No,” he said, turning his head to kiss her bare shoulder, “I’m chuffed that you can’t wait to marry me, actually.”

She grinned at him, her smile bathed in moonlight. “Afraid I’ll change my mind if we wait too long?”

“Well, love potions don’t last forever, you know. And one of these days I may slip up and forget to put it in your tea.”

“No, no- you’ve got it all wrong,” she teased, jabbing him with her finger. “I’m the one who's dosing you, remember?”

“Ah, but Rita Skeeter never gets it right, you know that,” he replied, smirking at her through the darkness.

She’d thrown her head back as she laughed, that beautiful sound echoing in the stillness, then kissed him again, and he wondered, for the thousandth time, how he’d gotten this lucky.

And now, three weeks later, on the morning of his birthday, still enjoying the glow of their secret engagement, he sat on the sofa leafing through the sports pages of the paper when Ginny’s voice rang out from upstairs.

“Harry, will you come up here for a moment?”

“Be right up,” he called back. Assuming it was something to do with the wedding, he climbed the stairs and entered their bedroom. The sight that greeted him stopped him in his tracks.

Ginny stood near the foot of the bed, wearing only a Harpies jersey, her long hair swept over one shoulder, the bare skin of her other shoulder peeking out on the other side. The jersey was clearly his, as it hung on her like a dress, ending just below her bum, revealing almost all of her legs. At the sight of her, his eyes went wide and his jaw slackened instantly.

She grinned at his reaction. “Happy birthday.”

“I’ll say,” he replied, his eyes trailing down her legs, the creamy skin peppered with freckles.

She took a step closer, closing the gap between them. “I’m wearing your present,” she said, and he could tell that she was trying to sound nonchalant as she ran her hand lightly down his chest, pausing tantalizingly over the waistband of his joggers. “But I thought you’d prefer to unwrap it this way.”

“You thought right.”

He kissed her softly, his lips sliding over hers, his hands cradling her face. “Thank you,” he murmured, his lips moving to graze the shell of her ear, “I’ve been needing a new one, the old one is looking a bit worn.”

Before he could begin to move his lips down her neck, she pulled back slightly. She looked up at him, still grinning, her eyes glinting in the soft morning light. “That wasn’t why I got it for you.”

“Well, you know I’ve got a thing for you in your uniform,” he replied, leaning down for another kiss, but she put her hand lightly on his chest to stop him.

“I know- but that isn’t why either.” Her smile was so wide that her eyes crinkled at the corners. She was clearly enjoying this.

“I got it because…” She paused as she took a step back, positively beaming at him now. “You’ll be needing a jersey with my new name.”

At that, she turned so her back was facing him. And there, in bold, gold letters, the name POTTER was emblazoned above Ginny’s number.

He was stunned. They’d never discussed Ginny changing her name. He hadn’t even thought about it in the whirlwind weeks of their engagement. He’d simply assumed, given her career (not to mention her fierce sense of independence) that she would keep hers. It certainly didn’t matter to him- she’d said yes to marrying him, that was all that was important.

“Surprised?” Ginny asked.

“I, erm… yeah,” he replied, unable to form a coherent sentence as his mind raced to try to process it all.

For the first eleven years of his life, his name was delightfully ordinary. His aunt once said his name was common , the word dripping with disdain, as if it was the most grievous insult she could bestow. Her implication aside, it was true that his name wasn’t unusual. There was another Harry in his primary school. He’d seen other Potters, too. Once in the clinic, the nurse called out for “Mr. Potter,” and an elderly man rose as Harry stood. After the man smiled kindly at him and shuffled into the corridor, he’d asked Petunia innocently if the man was a relative. In response, she’d scoffed and told Harry that if he had other relatives, he certainly wouldn’t be living with her.

When he entered the wizarding world, his name ceased to be ordinary, transformed, like everything in his life, on that fateful day of his eleventh birthday. From then on, his name was notorious. It was whispered unsubtly as he walked down the corridors of Hogwarts. It was splashed across headlines in the Prophet. It was jeered by Death Eaters. Far too often, it was said with a reverence that made him exceedingly uncomfortable.

The thought of Ginny taking his name, and all that came with it, overwhelmed him. A lump began to form in his throat. He swallowed quickly, trying to compose himself, not wanting to ruin the moment.

“Love- are you all right?” she said, turning back around to face him.

“I… yeah,” was all he could manage, his voice cracking.

She placed her arms around him gently, waiting for him to continue.

“I’m just s-surprised,” he stammered. “We hadn’t talked about it, and Hermione’s always going on about how it’s sexist that the woman is expected to take the man’s name. And you’ve worked so hard to make a name for yourself in Quidditch. And you know, er, feminism and all…” He trailed off, aware he was rambling.

She smiled, pulling back slightly so she could look up at him. “Well first, Hermione’s right. It is sexist that it’s assumed that a wife will take her husband’s name. But I think it’s quite clear from your reaction that you didn’t expect me to or assume I would. Right?” She raised her brow.

“Of course I didn’t. It’s fine if you want to keep yours, really.”

“But I don’t,” she said, her voice firm and clear. “Plus, I think there’s plenty of Weasleys to carry on the family name without me, yeah?”

“I know, it’s just…” He swallowed, the lump in his throat growing larger. “My name- it’s a lot. And I’d understand if you didn’t want to take that on.”

She slipped her arms around him again, pulling herself to him until she was flush to his chest. “Harry,” she said, her tone soothing, her voice reverberating on his chest, “we’ve been together since I was fifteen. I understand everything that comes with the name Potter. And that’s why I want to do this, why I’m choosing to do this- I thought it might be nice if you had someone, family, to share that with. I think that sometimes it's lonely for you, being the only Potter, and I never want you to feel alone.”

She hugged him tightly. He inhaled, his breath shaky, as he let himself sink into her embrace. Seeing her in that jersey, knowing that she wanted to take his name, that they would be united together, permanently- he was overcome. He blinked rapidly and bit his bottom lip, squeezing her back tightly, determined not to spoil the moment.

As his racing heart slowed and he composed himself, he gently tipped her chin up to look at her.

“Gin,” he said, his tone soft and earnest, “I’d love nothing more than to share my name with you. I just don’t want you to feel obligated. We could double-barrell, if you wanted-“

She rolled her eyes, “I’d prefer if our children didn’t sound like posh twats every time they introduced themselves, thanks.”

He laughed, then realized- “Our children?”

She nodded and looked up at him through her lashes. “We have talked about that, you know.”

He felt as if he would burst from happiness. He leaned down and kissed her, trying with all his might to put into the kiss what he couldn’t find the words to say, to tell her, with his mouth and the trace of his tongue, how much this meant to him.

She sighed as they broke apart. “I take this to mean you’re happy that in a week I’ll be Ginny Potter?”

“Yes. Happy doesn’t even begin to cover it, really. Honestly, I’m so thrilled that you’re marrying me, it wouldn't matter what name you’d chosen.”

She smirked, her eyes gleaming with mischief. “In that case, I take it all back. I’m going by Ida.”

“Ida?”

“Yes, Ida Shaggem.”

He burst into laughter.

“No?” she feigned, mirth evident in her tone. “What about Anita Hardone?”

He was laughing so hard now that his shoulders shook.

Her smile grew wider and she bit her lip (he could tell she was trying very hard to keep from laughing). “Well then, I guess Ginny Potter it is.”

She burst into laughter and he pulled her to him, holding her tightly as he walked her backwards towards the bed, both of them still laughing, nearly breathless.

As they reached the end of the bed, her hands grasped the hem of the jersey to pull it off.

“Oh no,” he gasped, still trying to stop laughing. “You’re definitely leaving that on.”

#harry potter fanfiction #hinny #hinny fanfic #hinny fluff #one year writing anniversary #ginny potter

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scintillasofbeomgyu · 3 years

Text

-ˏˋ⋆ ̥ 𝗳𝗼𝘅'𝘀 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗮𝗲𝘁𝗵 – part one: the beginning (cyj)

pairing: choi yeonjun x fem!reader x kang taehyun

genre(s): fantasy, period!fic, nine-tailed fox!yeonjun, crown prince!taehyun, angst, fluff here and there

word count: 4,1k

the spirit who had been guarding the south side of the mountain, a nine-tailed fox, is requested by the crown prince of Joseon to make an appearance before his betrothed. though reluctant at first, he agrees on condition that their meeting is fleeting and under the guise of a mask.

an: this was inspired by the kdrama ‘tale of the nine-tailed’, hence the similar elements. events may or may not be historically accurate. ++ i’m really anxious about how this fic will be taken, but i’ve put too much effort in to let it sit in my drafts ksks. might post the part 2 if you want! let me know what you think!

(finally posting this as a gift for the immense support i’ve been receiving! thank you! ❤️ and low-key bc sumi has been thinkin about kitsune yeonjun)

Sealed by the promise of two youths many moons ago, your betrothal to the crown prince of Joseon was something which was not unbeknownst to anyone in the country. Many young ladies, noble and common alike, coveted your fortune and would make desperate pleas to the gods to have half the luck you did. And perhaps anyone else would have boasted about how fate had favoured them, but you didn’t.

“(Y/n)? Are you listening?” his highness asked, raising an eyebrow as you continued to flip through the pages of a book you had picked up from his desk. You placed the book back where you found it and turned to look from the pavilion, out across the pond and above the canopy tops to the mountains in the distance.

What had intrigued you about the palace was not the status, nor the riches, nor the people who dwelt within it. After all, you preferred to be neck-deep in books of history and literature, poetry, and volumes which questioned which was myth and which was reality. Your father, though, was as open-minded as anyone else was about the education of women at the time – not at all. So you had resorted to killing two birds with one stone; appeasing your father by agreeing to meet with the prince meant getting your hands on books you wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else.

But today, you had an entirely different motive.

“Do you believe in mythical beings, your Highness?” you asked, turning to face the prince who stared back at you, wide-eyed.

The seemingly sudden question had him taken aback.

From the very first meeting, you had puzzled Taehyun. Like you, although he knew he had to do it some day, the topic of his marriage hadn’t interested him. Or rather, it was more important to him that the person he would one day wed had the same interests as he did – the good of the people and the flourishing of the country.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t expect you to be as crazed about love and titles as the other noblewomen of Joseon were, at first. So he was pleasantly surprised when you had arrived at Gyeongbokgung, not batting an eyelash in his direction. But when he had attempted to open discussions about politics and solving the exorbitant taxes expected from the people, he’d find your nose buried in one of the books from the pile you sifted through by his desk.

Taehyun was already struggling to figure you out, and now you asked him this.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he cocked his head to the side, folding his hands behind his back. “have you come across something thought-provoking?”

“It’s quite straightforward; a yes or no question.” you shrugged, smirking as your eyes caught the not-so-discreet glances his personal guard and the eunuch had given one another.

Ultimately, to have relations with the throne was not all sunshine and roses. For your own protection, and to ensure you were not used as leverage against the king, your father had sent you very far from home – to Southern Jeolla. And it was upon your arrival back in Hanyang, after many years away, that you had come to hear the rumours which had surrounded the royal family.

A gumiho. A nine-tailed fox. The spirit which protected the forest. A being which could not be trusted. The one to whom the country owed it’s prosperity. The one at whose hands the country could fall into havoc.

You knew better than to believe the words of storytellers and self-proclaimed chroniclers. It was the fact that they had all said the same thing which had perturbed you. It left this unsettling feeling, which just wouldn’t fade away. So you read book after book, folklores and retellings, each and every documented account of those who had insisted they had seen the man with ‘eyes which glowed like hot embers even in the light of day’. It nearly drove you insane.

That was, until just this morning, when you had overheard the court ladies chattering away in hushed tones about how so-and-so had come to see the prince again, how much so-and-so frightened them, and how they wondered for how much longer the king would leave the future of the kingdom in the hands of such a wild-card.

You turned to look out beyond the trees again, a sudden gush of wind rattling their branches and sending their leaves sailing through the air. “Let me meet him. This... friend of yours, your Highness.”

“No.”

Taehyun nodded, taking a leaf from the shrub in front of him between his fingers, “I thought you’d say that.”

Yeonjun huffed, taking a bite out of one of the freshly picked apples the prince had brought along with him on his visit (as some sort of incentive, he supposed). The scowl he had adorned etched deeper into his face as Taehyun’s proposition crossed his mind a second time. He should have left the boy to the wandering spirits all those years ago, is what he thought. The fact that Yeonjun had allowed him to follow him around and meet with him must have made him cocky.

In the beginning, he trusted them. Yeonjun had spent thousands of years cultivating the forest and protecting those which lived beneath it’s canopy. He had taken an oath to never allow any harm to come to it, and as a sort of by-product, had taken up an arrangement with the king to hand over to him any miscreants who chanced into his territory. And for hundreds of years, this agreement was honored. King after king had revered the spirit who protected the people, throwing grand festivals in his honor.

Until humans did what they always do. They became consumed by greed and corrupted by power. They feared that the existence of a powerful being, and the esteem in which the people held it, threatened the very authority of the throne.

On a night which felt like yesterday to Yeonjun, the then king had convinced him to appear before the people, reasoning that he deserved to be celebrated and loved; not lurking in the depths of a forest where he wondered alone. His yearning for family provoked, he had left, only to return to enormous crackling fires which devoured everything in their path.

Now he was being asked to entertain the likes of one of them again? An insolent, entitled woman who was probably the daughter of some power-hungry government official nonetheless? He wouldn’t allow himself to be made a fool out of again.

“I’m aware you cannot leave the forest unguarded for long periods of time, especially at night,” Taehyun said, brushing the bits of earth from his hand onto his silk garment. “which is why I want to bring her here.”

The half-eaten apple hit the forest floor with a thud.

“What did you just say?” the same incredulity written on Yeonjun’s face, embedded into his voice.

Taehyun grinned sheepishly, “Hyung, can’t you do me this one favour?”

Quickly taking a seat beside him, the crown prince of the Joseon dynasty grabbed onto the sleeve of Yeonjun’s black robe and tugged at it. Yeonjun sucked a sharp breath of air through his teeth and slapped his hands away. The memory of a scared little boy in disheveled clothes, sobbing as snot ran down onto his lips crossed Yeonjun’s mind. He bit back the grin which fought to pull at his lips.

“I thought you weren’t interested in love? Why all the effort then?”

Taehyun dropped his hands from where they had been grappling at Yeonjun’s robe and stood up, clearing his throat before folding his hands behind his back again. Yeonjun smirked. “It’s not by choice, the woman in question is frightening. Only the gods would know the lengths she would have gone to had I refused her.”

Many minutes of back and forth bickering had passed before Taehyun managed to convince Yeonjun to appear before you. This reluctant agreement came with conditions, however. Leaving the mountain for even a moment during nightfall was out of the question, but that didn’t mean that he was okay with some suspicious woman wandering into his home. So, they had settled on the foot of the mountain closest to the north side. Yeonjun had also made sure to point out that although he had agreed to let you see him, he never agreed to introductions.

“You never struck me as the type to attend parties in the evening, your Highness,” you hollered from your palanquin which lagged behind his. When no reply came, you seethed, biting back the urge to punch a hole through the expensive wooden barrier in front of you. He had suddenly appeared at your father’s estate just as the sun had dipped beyond the horizon, not bothering to give an explanation before your father had the guards stuff you into the tiny varnished vehicle. “You haven’t yet answered me, your Majesty. The question from earlier.”

You cried out in pain when the palanquin was suddenly set down, tossing you up in the air like a shuttlecock. Hand still pressing down on your head from where it had hit the roof of the palanquin, you glared at Taehyun’s outstretched hand when the door folded open. You violently slapped the hand away and pulled back your skirt, nearly kicking his shins as you climbed out. Accidentally, of course.

Your behaviour amused Taehyun, a smirk finding its way to his lips. He whispered something to Soobin, his personal guard, who had given him a distressed look in return. He sighed as Taehyun placed a hand on his shoulder, giving a quick nod before returning to the entourage. You raised an eyebrow when Taehyun offered you a smile, gesturing his hand to the left of where the road forked into two.

The evening air was brisk; the various flora emitting a plethora of unique smells which blended together as they crawled into your nose. Leaves rustled as the forest creatures scurried across the floor; the occasional flapping of wings and hoots of the wide-eyed, mice-eating predators filling the otherwise eerie silence. The pale moon, which shone like a great halo in the sky, casted it’s light through the trees, creating beautiful natural skylights and mysterious shadows. The breeze was ever-so gentle, seemingly caressing your cheeks as you followed Taehyun down the path filled with earthy soil.

“You’re going to kill me aren’t you?” He chuckled at the question you had posed. He took a firm hold of your hand as he helped you cross the stream you had encountered, squeezing it a little tighter as your shoe glided off some algae, smiling when he heard the under-the-breath cuss.

When you had both safely crossed over into the field of long grass on the other side of the bank, he caught his breath for a moment. “My men say there came a troupe from Jeonju in Northern Jeolla a few days back,” Taehyun started, motioning for you to follow behind him as he stalked through the vegetation.

You groaned. Just how much torture was he planning to put you through? Did he find out you had ‘borrowed’ some of the books from his shelf?

After another few dreadful minutes of walking, an enormous tree came into your sights. It’s trunk looked as if it could house a small population, and it’s branches spread far across the open space; a meadow. Taehyun smiled in satisfaction and wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead, before placing his hands on his hips. Was this what he wanted to show you? You were far too tired, and your feet hurt way too much to enjoy the sentiment.

“Right, as I was saying,” The prince continued. You took a seat on the soft blades of grass and began pulling the shoes off your aching feet. “Despite journeying across the country to perform in gisaeng houses, I’m told the productions of this troupe were rather enthralling – ”

The sound of your snorting earned a glare from the prince. You shook your hand, “I find myself in constant surprise this evening, your Highness,” you laughed. “Hearing the term‘gisaeng’ from your mouth would send chills down anyone’s spine.”

The distant strumming of a zither whispered in your ears and your body froze. Slowly, the field, which had been lit only by the silvery hues offered by the moon, glowed in shades of green and yellow as fireflies hovered in the air. Then the zither stopped. Your neck snapped in the direction of scuffling feet by the tree trunk. Figures dressed in black placed paper lanterns varying in size at the base of the trunk, before scaling up to the branches.

A gasp slipped from your lips when the zither had suddenly started playing again; much louder this time. Ribbons dropped from different branches around the tree, carrying men and women who spun as they unravelled. Sporting white masks in the form of a fox, they danced around the tree, twirling and swinging back, dipping low before soaring through the air with such delicacy it gave you goosebumps.

“This performance is called the Fox’s Hiraeth,” Taehyun whispered, eyes fixated on the scene before of him, “you asked the other day did you not? About gumihos in Hanyang.”

His Highness’ attempt to throw you off was painfully obvious in that moment, and it did not go unnoticed. But just before you could make the remark that you had been carefully curating for exactly this situation, the zither had come to a stop once again. Leaves rustled above you and you lifted your head into a pair of the prettiest eyes you had ever seen.

They were a shade of light brown; little flecks of green and amber peeking from in-between when light passed through them. Bewilderment swam in those sparkling orbs behind the mask, it’s wearer holding his breath, not looking away for even a moment. The feeling in your chest drew a smile onto your lips, so big, it pushed up the corners of your eyes.

“Hello.”

He pulled back suddenly, and a strong gust of wind blew right through you, making you squeeze your eyes shut. The wind seemed to blow harder and harder – Taehyun had to press his hands onto your shoulders to prevent you from being gone with it. When it had died down and you opened your eyes again, you shot up, shoving his hands away.

The lights had gone out and the fireflies were nowhere to be seen. The lanterns and the troupe too had vanished into thin air; leaving not a trace. But that was not what was distressing you.

Hands clenching fists into your satin skirt, your eyes searched desperately, “where did he go?”

“Who?” Taehyun questioned, tightening the black cloth strings of his gat. He blinked, feigning innocence so professionally, it antagonised you. “The performance is over; we should leave.”

Pulling your lips between your teeth, the agonizing feeling of having lost something important tearing at your chest, you made a decision. You were positive that Taehyun knew exactly what was going on, but you weren’t about to waste any more time trying to force an answer out of the tight-lipped prince.

Where the meadow under the peculiar tree ended, the forest started again, and spread all across the mountain. You could have been mistaken, and that man may have just been another one of the performers. But it was the forest. It felt as if it was calling out to you; screaming. Every one of your limbs ached to dash into its depths.

Taehyun cleared his throat and turned away instantaneously when he noticed you hurriedly tearing off your blouse. You tossed the garment carrying the golden emblem to the ground, and slipped your shoes back on, ignoring Taehyun’s voice which bombarded you with questions.

He grabbed onto your hand before you left and you stopped, peering down at where your bodies were joined. “It’s dangerous.” he said; his voice as firm as his grip, yet eyes pleading with you like those of a child.

Despite your fathers’ lasting friendship, you had never met Taehyun until a few days ago. And if you did, you couldn’t recall. The confounded stares he had thrown at you upon your arrival had amused you; they were not contrary to that of the other noblemen and their sons whom your father had introduced you to. You didn’t act like the prince’s woman – they had probably expected someone who they could easily manipulate and bribe to their liking – but you were very much the opposite.

It was his behaviour in the days that followed which had taken you by surprise. He’d have books stacked up all around his desk which varied in genre, and were organised by author and publication date, whenever you visited. He seldom spoke and never forced conversation with you, but he’d call for tea and sweets then leave them at a certain place on the tabletop untouched. You’d catch his eyes glancing up at you every once in a while in your peripheral vision, and a smile would find itself to your lips.

He cared for you and you had grown to care for him as well. But you knew that if you left with him right now, your insatiable curiosity would only grow and you’d just end up returning here anyway.

Placing your hands over his, eyes asking him to forgive you, you slipped out of his grasp.

“I’ll be okay.”

Yeonjun paced up and down the cliff once more. He glanced over his shoulder at the mask resting against a boulder behind him, then slapped his hands onto his face and lamented. He couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. Everything was happening exactly as he had planned – the dokkaebi had put on their show, relishing in the fact that they were pranking humans; the trees, the breeze and the critters had agreed to set the mood for what he had intended to be your heart being won over by the Taehyun.

He peeked through the spaces in his fingers at the wooden guise, and proceeded toward it. He knelt down and picked it up, eyes fixating on the slots where they were housed previously. He was certain he had prepared for everything, but that all changed when his eyes met with yours.

They stared back at him in surprise, but that surprise slowly transitioned into a warmth which enveloped him; the light of the lanterns which reflected from them, inviting him closer. They scared him, too. Under the mask he had given himself the appearance of one of the lumberers who frequented the forest, but your eyes seemed to stare right through him. They reached into his depths, baring him before you.

Yeonjun glared, irritated with how foolish he had been. He should have trusted his instinct and refused Taehyun no matter how much he insisted. It was absurd that after all these centuries he still let himself fall prey to the ludicrous fantasy he would ever be able to live and feel as they do – he knew that was the real reason he had gone along with this preposterous idea.

His grip on the mask tightened before he hurled it into the bushes. Your voice exclaimed an ‘Ow!’, making him topple over in surprise. The golden rays of sun spilled over the summit just as you stepped out from the flora, bathing you in it’s warmth and highlighting your features as it chased away the night. You rubbed your head profusely where the mask had hit you, pausing when you noticed Yeonjun’s figure on the floor.

Hands on your hips, smiling in triumph, you blew the stray strands of hair from your face. “Found you.”

He had never in his life met such a vivacious woman. Your hair looked like a bird’s nest; tiny twigs and leaves buried within the now tousled black locks. There were tears in your hanbok. Stains of dirt, grass and mud soiled the skirt. Alas, you still had a stupid smile plastered across your mucky face. He caught himself before he started grinning like an idiot too, shuffling amongst the earth before rising with his back turned towards you. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms over your chest. Was he looking down on your intellect?

“You’re not very clever for an ancient spirit,” you remarked, tossing the mask at his feet. His frame froze, making you scoff.

The hair cascading down his back was a pale shade pink which shimmered under the light. It contrasted the pitch black robes he adorned, which were embroidered with silver. When he turned around to give you a look of wry amusement, you noticed the bangs which framed his face were more washed out in colour compared to the rest of his head. His slanted eyes were mono-lidded, and they glistened as beautifully as the night before. His lips were plump; it’s colour reminded you of the strawberry tanghulu you had seen in the market.

He stepped closer to you, smirking at the way you were entranced by his beauty, until his face stood only inches away from yours. You cast your eyes away from him, gulping as you took a step back. His eyebrows furrowed when you cringed, staggering before you fell to the ground.

“Are you alright?” he fretted, the role of the charismatic flirt quickly abandoning him as he helped you to your feet. He wrapped his arms around your waist, lifting you into his arms, and carried you to a place where you could sit comfortably. You gripped only his garments tightly, eyes still refusing to meet with his; the scent of flowers lingering on your clothes as he set you down. “His Majesty did not accompany you?”

He knelt down beside you and pulled off your shoes. Blood had soaked into your socks from all the hiking you had done the night before – the back of your shoes had cut deep into your heels; climbing over boulders and through thick vegetation had made the soles of your feet sensitive and prone to cuts and scratches. He pulled his lip between his teeth, eyes shooting daggers into yours.

He poured some of the alcohol he had been storing over your wounds, and massaged in the compound he made of medicinal herbs he had momentarily disappeared to go and find. He tore pieces of his robe to bind them when he was finished, then folded his arms over his chest. “I’m taking you back to the palace.”

You jolted up from where you were seated; Yeonjun pushed your shoulders back down. “None of my questions have been answered, I’m not leaving until they are.”

“Don’t you have a prince to marry?” he contended, tapping a finger on his chin, “they’re not going to be impressed when you return looking like this.”

“What’s your name? Are you really a nine-tailed fox? How old are you? Do you eat human livers? If so, why? Is it true that you are only able to receive titles like the ‘Spirit of the Mountain’ when you don’t feed human on livers? Are you actually a woman? Do you really want the best for this country? Do you wish to bring it to ruin for your own pleasure? Is it true that – ”

He took a step closer to you, and lifted your chin with his finger, closing your mouth. You held your breath as his eyes flickered to your lips, and he smirked noticing the blush spread across your face. He reached behind you and pulled the jade pin from your hair, the tresses falling gently down your back. Bringing the hairpin before you, and his lips to your ear, he whispered, “I dare not rob the future king of his woman, my lady. You should return home for your own safety.”

His hand travelled down the length of your arm, trailing goosebumps and setting fire to your skin. He placed the pin into your hand and lifted it, brushing his lips across your knuckles. His eyes locked with yours and you gasped as they glowed like a setting sun.

A horse whinnied as it strode into the area, making you tear your eyes away from Yeonjun’s. Taehyun slid off it’s back, rushing to your side. He grabbed onto your shoulders brows furrowing as he examined you from top to bottom. “Are you alright, (Y/n)?”

You nodded absent-mindedly, searching for where he had gone. Taehyun led you to his horse, and lifted you onto the saddle, sighing as he found you still trying to see past the trees and their leaves. You squeezed onto your chest as you rode away, an inexplicable feeling overtaking you. You had to see him again. Not out of curiosity. No, you – you just had too.

Yeonjun held onto the trunk of the pine tree and swung his body around from the backside. Watching you ride off into the distance, eyes still set on finding him, he sighed, twirling the ring he had slipped off your finger around his.

“(Y/n), huh?” he muttered under his breath, exhilarated by the way it rolled off his tongue.

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evening-starlight · 3 years

Text

Warm Beers

Taglist is OPEN! DM or comment to be added

Posting schedule: Monday, Wednesday, Friday

This story takes place before season 1

All Works Master List

Warm Beers Master List

Word Count: 1165

A lit cigarette hangs from McKenzie's lips as she leans over the propped-up surfboard. Sweat was already beading on her forehead before she had done any work on the board. After weeks of surfing with her friends, the gripping wax had melted beyond her comfort zone. The music plays over the outdoor system, and she sings along, swaying her hips in time.

Kenzie was alone for the morning. Her friends didn't get up before noon most days, and her dad was in the office. Sk8er Boi by Avril Lavigne blares across her backyard, drowning out the distinctive sound of the Twinkie and three doors closing.

The old, gray wax slides off her board like butter as Kenzie sings her heart out, not hearing her friends walk up the gravel driveway to her backyard. She continues to sing loudly, swinging her hips side to side as her friends muffle their laughs. They watch on in hushed tones.

JJ snickers when she trips over her own feet, trying to do a spin. Kenzie may be coordinated, but she was the clumsiest person he knew. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees four pairs of shoes as she regains balance.

With a yelp, Kenzie throws the scrapper at the intruders, not expecting her friends to be at her house this early. The scrapper hits next to JJ's head and would have hit him if he hadn't ducked. "Jesus fucking Christ, guys. You should know not to sneak up on a deputy's daughter," Kenzie berates, clutching her chest as she calms herself down.

"Well, if you were on your phone like you usually are, you'd know that we were coming over," JJ says. He walks over to her and takes the cigarette out of her hand. Kenzie shakes her head and smacks JJ's arm.

"We wanted to see if you wanted to catch some early morning waves with us?" John B. asks. "But seeing as you're working on your shortboard, I guess that's out of the question."

"I have my dad's I can steal for the day. Just let me finish this here, and I'll meet you guys down there?" Kenzie asks, taking the cigarette back from JJ. The gang agrees quickly, ready to hit some waves. Pope tosses her the wax comb and follows his friends back to the Twinkie.

JJ opts to stay behind, wanting to spend more time with Kenzie. "You don't have to stay, you know?" Kenzie states as she goes back to cleaning the board of its old wax. JJ starts on the other side with a spare scrapper he found on the floor.

"I know. I just like spending time with you. Is that a crime, Ken?" JJ asks in a sassy tone. Kenzie laughs and shakes her head.

"Yes. A crime punishable by life in prison," Kenzie retorts, focusing back to her board. JJ laughs with her before finishing off the wax on his side.

The friends dance and sing together to the songs that play over her sound system while they wax. Granted, there was more fooling around than working between the two. Kenzie squeals as JJ lifts her off the ground, throwing her over his shoulder when she tried to finish waxing her shortboard. "JJ," She yells, slapping his back playfully.

"I'm bored of waxing, Ken. Let's go surf," JJ whines, already carrying her inside of her house. Kenzie giggles and flops against JJ, making carrying her harder. She yelps again as JJ tosses her onto her bed.

She rolls off of the other side when JJ tries to lay on top of her. "Didn't you just say you wanted to go surfing, Maybank?" He groans in response and settles his hands behind his head while Kenzie finds a bikini from her drawers. "Are you just going to sit there like a pervert while I change?" Kenzie asks, eyeing the boy suspiciously.

JJ shrugs, not breaking eye contact. "You've changed in front of me before, so what's different now?" He asks. Kenzie doesn't have enough energy to fight him on this, so she turns her back, peeling her shirt off. Nothing was different, obviously. But it still felt tense taking off her clothes.

Her back flexes as she pulls the halter top on. Kezie's perfectly tanned, flawless back. If she turned just a little, JJ could see her perfect breasts. JJ shakes his head to try to clear the thoughts, but when her shorts hit the floor, JJ gets the perfect view of her ass. Absolutely flawless, he thinks to himself.

McKenzie turns back around and smiles at JJ. "Ready to go?" She asks as she pulls on the clothes she wore earlier back on. JJ, once again speechless by the beauty that is his best friend, nods.

John B. cheers when he sees the duo walk down the beach, carrying their boards under their arms. "About damn time, assholes." He yells up to them. Kenzie and JJ flip him off in unison before running down the sand to where the water meets the sand.

The group spends hours surfing the morning tide. Pope and Kenzie share a board at one point, unsuccessfully trying couple's tricks. The only one they got close was when Kenzie was on Pope's shoulders. Kenzie had made it onto his shoulders easily, but when a wave caught them, both fell into the water in a fit of giggles.

Pope hauls the bucket of water up to their sandcastle, smiling brightly as they almost finished the moat. The castle stood tall and proud, a small leaf on the top as their Pouge flag. As Pope fills up the trench, JJ sits next to Kenzie on the hot sand. "What's this?"

"A jail," Kenzie sasses, rolling her head to the side to look at JJ. "A fucking castle. What does it look like, genius?" JJ scoffs and rolls his eyes. "It's the castle of Queen Bitch and King Dumbass. They rule Pougelandia," Kenzie informs. JJ laughs with an approving nod.

"I like your story, Ken. Let me guess, I'm King Dumbass?" Kenzie shakes her head.

"Nope. John B. is King Dumbass. You're Princess Asshole."

"I thought it was Queen Bitch?" JJ asks, smirking at Kenzie. He loved how intricate her little stories would become when she made sandcastles. Kenzie sighs dramatically.

"No, you're Princess Asshole, Pope is Queen Bitch, and Kiara is Prince Charming," Kenzie jokes, leaning her head on JJ's shoulder. "I'm obviously the royal jester. Considering I'm the funniest fucker you will ever know."

Pope scoffs with a shake of his head. "So I'm married to John B., and you get to live life happily making jokes for everyone to laugh at?"

John B. soon joins them and plays along with Kenzie's story, making kissing faces at an uncomfortable Pope. Kenzie laughs at her friends' antics, teasing and mocking each other like usual teens do. Some part of Kenzie is touching JJ at all times, enjoying the physical contact she got with him.

Taglist: @gwenlovesharrystyles @x-lulu @gviosca @cognacdelights @queenofallhobos

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eldritchteaparty · 3 years

Link

Chapters: 17/22 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Rosie Zampano, Oliver Banks, Original Elias Bouchard, Peter Lukas, Annabelle Cane, Melanie King, Georgie Barker, Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Basira Hussain Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Fix-It, Post-Canon Fix-It, Scars, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, I'll add characters and tags as they come up, Reference to injuries and blood, Character Death In Dream, Nudity (not sexual or graphic), Nightmares, Fighting

Summary: Following the events of MAG 200, Jon and Martin find themselves in a dimension very much like the one they came from--with second chances and more time.

Chapter summary: Tim joins everyone at Elias’s house and pressure builds.

Chapter 17 of my post-canon fix-it is up! Read above at AO3 or read here below.

My tumblr master post with links to other chapters is here.

***

The rest of the first full day ay Elias’s house passed in relative isolation; Martin had a feeling it wasn’t unintentional that Melanie, Georgie, and Sasha spent so long away from the house when they went to the store. Jon seemed intent on mulling over whatever thoughts their talk with Elias had put in his head that morning; Martin tried to break him out of with conversation a couple of times, but ultimately he felt like more of an annoyance than a help. He went back to their room and scrolled through social media until his brain couldn’t process posts anymore. When everyone came home from the store, he helped put the groceries away, but he couldn’t come up with much to say even when Sasha pulled him aside to ask him how he was. All right was the only thing he managed.

When it got late enough that he realized everyone was not likely to be eating dinner together, he made a sandwich for Jon and brought it to him in the great room. They were alone; he leaned over to set it on the table next to the armchair.

“Hey,” he said, lightly kissing the top of Jon’s head.

“Hm?” Jon looked up, and Martin redirected his attention to the sandwich. “Oh—thank you.”

“Take a bite, while I’m here.”

Jon did as Martin asked, still too distracted by his thoughts to make a fuss. “Did you eat already?”

“No,” Martin shook his head. “I’ll have something later. When I’m hungry.”

Jon gave him a look that Martin now understood well, but he simply squeezed Jon’s shoulder as he turned to leave.

“Wait, Martin—are you—” Jon grabbed his hand before it slid away. “I’m sorry. That I’ve been like this.”

“I get it,” Martin said, as reassuringly as he could. “I know this isn’t easy for you.”

“That isn’t the—” Jon sighed and let Martin’s hand drop, along with his thought. “What are you doing?”

Martin answered the question more generally than he knew Jon had intended it. “Waiting.”

“I think we all are,” Jon said. “But I was actually asking—”

“I know. And I don’t know what I’m doing. I was just going to head back to the bedroom, I guess.”

“All right. I’ll—I’ll be in before too long.”

Martin lay awake for a long time that night, even after Jon had fallen asleep.

***

When he woke in the morning, Jon was propped up on an elbow and looking at him.

“What’s going on?” Martin asked, slightly alarmed, trying to shake off the sleep.

“Nothing,” Jon said.

“Try again.”

“I just meant—nothing new.”

“Oh.” His eyes drifted closed, and he promised himself he wouldn’t let them stay that way very long. He felt Jon’s hand brush his cheek and travel gently up to his hairline; the feeling roused something in him.

“Wait,” he said. “Was I dreaming?” He had the vague impression he had been, although he couldn’t really remember it. He’d been looking for something, maybe. Trying to get somewhere, or find someone. Maybe someone had been lost. It was the kind of dream that made you feel like you hadn’t slept at all, and the more he tried to remember the more disquieted he felt.

“You were,” Jon said.

“But—wait, it wasn’t—”

“No,” Jon shook his head, pulling his hand back. “It was your dream.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” They both knew it wasn’t fine, but there wasn’t anything to be done about it. Martin closed his eyes one more time, but his mind wandered as he felt Jon breathing next to him, and he opened them again sharply. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought about this before.

“Jon?”

“Hm?”

“Do you—you need the statements, right? You need to read them?”

“I—more or less.”

“So yes, then.”

Jon nodded reluctantly. “Yes.”

“And? How are you—doing that?”

“I brought a few with me when we left the archives.”

He sat up, prompting Jon to do the same. “I thought you were basically out of statements. I mean, they don’t really go back that far here.”

“There were—well, there were a few I’d just—skimmed before. I’m sure if I give them a proper read—”

“Jon.”

“I’m doing fine.”

“But what about when you’re not?”

Jon didn’t answer him.

“Jon.”

“Stop doing that.”

“Oh come on, you Martin me all the time.”

Silence fell between them again.

“Ok—what if—” Martin had to try several times to give voice to his thought. “If you need it—really need it—could you ask me to give you a—statement?”

To be fair, he hated the idea himself, and the pit he felt in his stomach was firmly reflected in Jon’s reply. “No.”

“Why not? You basically just asked Basira for one. I’ve given you one before. A few, depending on how you count. It—it wasn’t that bad.”

He ignored the part about Basira. “Absolutely not. That was—that was before. I don’t—I don’t even know that you can really give me a statement at this point.”

Jon was still a terrible liar.

“Look it’s—it’s not like I want to do it, ok? I really don’t. I just meant—what if you get really sick?”

“Then I get sick.”

“Jon—”

“It is not an option.”

“Look, I get that you don’t want—but we’re doing this together, and we need to weigh both—”

“No.” Jon slipped to the edge of the bed and was standing before Martin realized he was getting up.

“No what? We’re not doing this together?”

“Not that.” Jon pulled on the pants he’d worn yesterday, and grabbed a fresh shirt from the drawer he’d thrown them in.

“Oh,” Martin said, watching Jon head toward the bedroom door. “Good to know.”

Jon began to open the door, but then closed it. He did not turn to face Martin. “I realize that—” He stopped again.

“Go,” Martin said. He wished he was saying it for Jon—offering Jon time to gather his thoughts—but he knew he wasn’t. He knew was saying it out of hurt. Worse, Jon knew that was why he was saying it; he had to know. Either way, though, he supposed it achieved the same end.

After Jon left, he took a quick shower; Jon was not back when he was done, nor had he expected him to be. He got dressed and headed toward the kitchen. No one was in the hall or in the great room; Jon had probably gone for a walk, and it was just as well. He rummaged through a couple of cabinets and triumphantly emerged with a kettle. It wasn’t even electric, it was the kind that you set on the stove, and that was perfectly all right with Martin. It will boil water properly, he thought.

He had no intention of repeating the previous day; despite how big the house was, he had already started feeling claustrophobic. After his tea was ready, he left through the back door in the great room, walking across the relatively modest back porch to stepping down to the back lawn. Like the side lawn, it was expansive; unlike the side lawn, there were more than a few trees dotting the view. In fact, as Martin walked down and out on a dirt path cut into the lawn, he realized there was what amounted to a pretty legitimate wood behind the house. Not far in there was a small creek—so small that the little bridge passing over it seemed ridiculous and unnecessary—but it was scenic, nonetheless. A wooden bench, upkept with enough frequency that it remained sturdy if not pristine, stood nearby.

I would have liked this, Martin thought, as he sat down on the bench. I would have written poems about this.

Spring was finally in effect. The trees weren’t green yet, but they were starting to sprout small leaves; a few had tiny buds with hints of pink and white protruding from their smaller twigs and branches. It wasn’t exactly warm outside, but it was comfortable as the light shown through the trees in a mottled pattern on the leaf-covered ground. He sipped his tea and watched how the sun hit the water in the little creek. In some parts it shone straight to the bottom, and he could see small rocks and pebbles and silt; in others, it seemed to dance as it reflected off the top of the water.

It helped, to sit and breathe. After a while, he started to notice birds chirping in the trees, and the sounds of small animals—probably squirrels—rustling in the leaves. It reminded him how when he and Jon had come here, the first sign that they were really somewhere, that there were things that mattered here, had been the sound of birds chirping.

He was glad they were here, he realized. He was glad they were here because they were alive—or more accurately, because Jon was alive, and Martin was with him. They were together. That was what Jon had given him when he’d told him how to end it, and despite himself and everything they had brought with them, he was still grateful for it. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t let himself think about it much further than that; he had a feeling there would be plenty of time for that when they all finally started talking. He could decide then what he’d be willing to do again, what he regretted. There would be plenty of time for regrets. It’s not like having a plan had really helped before. Jon had done what he had done; likewise, Martin had done what he had done.

At least now they knew what mattered to them.

He wasn’t sure if he dozed off or just got lost in his thoughts and the woods, but when he finally checked his phone he was taken back by how late it was. He’d come out mid-morning, and it was already mid-afternoon. He hadn’t meant to stay away for that long—what if Jon was—well, no, Jon could pretty much figure out where he was, and he supposed technically any of the rest of them could message him, but it just didn’t sit well with him that he’d stayed out there for so long.

When he got back in, he found Jon alone, on the sofa in front of the fireplace; like the day before, it seemed no one was particularly eager to tackle the big conversations yet. Martin was glad, for several reasons.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“If you’d like,” Jon answered, not looking at Martin.

Martin took him at his word and sat down next to him. The sofa was wider than he was used to, and he felt like he was just a little bit too far away; he moved closer to Jon, and awkwardly ended up straddling two cushions.

“I didn’t mean to push so hard this morning,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s settled, but—”

“Wait,” Jon said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“No, I mean wait. I’ve been thinking of the words to explain.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Martin—”

“Ok. I’m listening. Take your time. Just didn’t want to push again.”

“I—” Jon paused. “It’s difficult.”

Martin started to tell him it was ok, but changed his mind. Instead, he reached for Jon’s hand. Jon looked down as he did, watched their fingers intertwine, and seemed to find the words—some words, anyway.

“I—like—the statements. Or I don’t, actually, but—I do. Does that—do you understand?”

“Not totally,” Martin said honestly. “But I guess I really can’t. I’ve seen how they affect you, though. I know they help. I know you feel better after you read them. You—like feeling people’s fear. But I mean, I know you don’t, too.”

“Do you know how I felt after we spoke with Elias yesterday?”

“I—you seemed upset.”

“I was. What he was saying was terrible, and wrong. But also there was that part of me that felt—it felt—”

Martin hadn’t realized that. “Jon—you don’t have to say. Please. I—I get it.” It’s not your fault, he wanted to add, but he stopped himself.

Jon nodded and cleared his throat. “I never want to feel—I never want to feel that because of you. And if I don’t—if we don’t—I can still tell myself I wouldn’t. I can tell myself that it’s not so bad. That I’m not so bad. That I can still be—”

Jon’s next words caught, and Martin automatically wrapped his arms around him, the gesture made clumsy by the empty mug he was still holding. “It’s—it’s all right. You still—you heard him, you know—ok, this isn’t about that, really, but—I’m sorry. This isn’t helping. Let me—” Flustered, he somehow managed to set his mug down on the coffee table without entirely letting go; he turned his head to kiss Jon’s mouth, then kissed him again.

“I’m all right,” Jon said. He did not look all right to Martin.

“If I—if I got you some tea, would that—would you like it?”

“I—yes.”

Martin stood up, grabbed his mug to bring back to the kitchen, and then bent down to kiss Jon one more time. “Wait, did you—were you done? I don’t want to—”

“Martin, tea. Please.”

“Ok. All right.” The coffee machine that didn’t really boil water would have to do; in his heart, Martin knew Jon couldn’t really tell the difference anyway. It was the fastest cup of tea he’d made in a while. The supply of coffee cups that had been on the counter had dwindled, and Martin simply rinsed out the one he’d used rather than go searching for a clean one. It wasn’t like that had never happened at home.

As he walked back through the breakfast room, he heard a voice that wasn’t Jon’s, and based on volume alone he was pretty sure they weren’t happy. Just before he turned the corner, he realized who it was.

“—and here’s Martin with the tea,” Tim said. “Are you all on holiday? Having a nice time out in the country? Where is everyone?”

“Tim?” Sasha, who must have been in her room, had also heard Tim and spared Martin from having to answer him. “You didn’t tell me you were coming out today. I could have warned everyone.”

“What is going on? I thought you’d be at least halfway to figuring this out by now, and here everyone’s hiding. What are you all even doing?”

“Coping, Tim. Adjusting to the situation. Which is exactly what you’ve been doing, if you don’t mind me pointing it out. Welcome, by the way.”

Tim took a deep breath, looking as if he were going to resume at full rant volume, but then let it out again. “Ok, fine. That’s fair. But I’m here now. Get everyone. Come on.”

“Tim—”

“Look, is there a reason not to?”

Sasha sighed. “Fine. Hold on. I’ll go get Melanie and Georgie.”

Tim dropped the oversize bag he was carrying right where he was, and walked back in the direction of Elias’s room. “You two—stay.”

“Where would—” Martin was pretty sure Tim wasn’t listening, since he was already shouting Elias’s name in the hallway. He turned to Jon and pressed the mug into his hands. “Here. Sorry, I was hoping—”

“It’s all right. This is—this is good.”

Within a couple of minutes, everyone had converged on the great room. They stood, ignoring the awkward furniture. Georgie and Melanie stood back from the group a little way, Georgie’s arm over Melanie’s shoulder; Elias, in a t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts, seemed much more relaxed than the last time Martin had seen him.

“All right, Tim. We’re all here.” Sasha crossed her arms and implied she was waiting for Tim to speak.

“Well—don’t look at me. What are we doing about this?” He turned to Jon and Martin.

“Tim.” Sasha’s voice was stern, but Martin realized Georgie and Melanie had also turned to look at them.

“Oh, come on. Don’t act like the rest of you don’t feel the same way. At least I’m being honest about it.”

Sasha snorted. “I don’t feel that way, Tim. I think I can honestly say—”

“Sasha,” Melanie interrupted. “Tim has a point.”

Sasha closed her mouth as she turned to face Melanie; Martin instinctively took a half step closer to Jon.

“I’m just saying—they brought this here. We didn’t have anything to do with it. And if they aren’t fixing it—”

“What Melanie is saying,” Georgie said, with a quick look at Melanie before she turned back to Jon, “is that the two of you are the most familiar with—this. And if you don’t have any suggestions to stop them—it’s not likely that the rest of us are going to come up with something on our own.”

Melanie frowned. “That’s not exactly what I was—”

“Melanie, please.” Georgie squeezed her arm, and Melanie stopped, although she didn’t look happy about it. “Jon, is there—is there a point to this?”

Jon took a breath before he answered. “I’m—I’m not sure there is.”

“A point?” Tim broke into the conversation again. “You all want a point? Ok, here it is. I just went to go visit my brother. I had every intention of telling him about this, right after I figured out how, and—you know what? I didn’t. I didn’t figure out how. And I’m not going to. I’m never going to tell him about this. We’re going to fix it. You want a point? Danny’s the point. And—and Sasha’s the point.”

Sasha face softened slightly as Tim gestured toward her. “Tim—”

“Jon, Martin’s the point. Surely you understand that.”

Martin started to protest. “Tim, you’re missing the—”

“I’m not missing anything. You are. You’ve given up. Both of you have given up. And at some level, I can understand that. You got beaten, really badly, and I’m sure it hurts. But I can’t give up. I am not going to give up as long as I have Danny—as long as we have Sasha. I understand that you’ve been through this, and maybe you want to be done. But we’re here too, and we haven’t had a chance. And I hate it, but Georgie’s right, we can’t do this without you. For better or worse, Jon is the only one with any real power in this situation. You can’t just sit back. Give us our chance.”

Martin did everything but literally jump in front of Jon. “Hey. No one is sitting back and—”

“Martin,” Jon said quietly, touching his arm.

Unable to silence himself, Martin turned to Jon instead. “He has no idea—”

“They deserve to feel like they’ve had a chance.”

Martin had more to say, much more—but he wasn’t prepared to say it in front of everyone. Tim seemed momentarily surprised, but quickly recovered. “Thank you.”

“Where do we start then?” Georgie asked.

“I have a proposal,” Sasha said. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could use an actual meal. So—I’ll go start putting something together, and maybe we can have an early dinner after everyone takes a break.”

Georgie nodded. “What are you going to make?”

“I—” Sasha sighed. “I have no idea.”

“That’s what I thought,” Georgie said. “I’ll help. Melanie, want to come sit in the kitchen?”

Melanie looked pained. “I—I guess?”

As the three of them headed in that direction, Elias, who had really only watched everyone else talk, started back toward his room.

“Nope,” said Tim, grabbing his arm in both hands and redirecting him. “We are headed outside for some fresh air.”

Elias shrugged. “You know, I don’t really remember my mother, but I imagine you—”

“Funny, boss,” Tim said. “Move it.”

Martin thought this was extremely strange, until the two of them passed by him. Martin wrinkled his nose after they were gone.

“That smell—was that—”

“Yes,” said Jon.

“Everyone always has to tell me, I can never—never mind. Jon, what—what was that?”

“Um—weed? I though that’s what—”

“No. Back there. I know you don’t think we can stop the fears.”

“Oh. I don’t.”

“So then why—”

“What Tim was asking isn’t unreasonable. I wanted a chance—even if all I learned from it was that there never was one. Of course they want theirs.”

“And ok, I’m glad you’re considering them. I mean, I kind of asked you to. I just don’t like—I don’t want that pressure on you.”

“Hm.”

“What?”

“You mean you don’t want them pushing me, because you’re afraid of how that will end.”

“It’s—” Martin swallowed. “It’s both, all right?”

Jon was quiet for a moment, then moved toward the couch. “Sit with me?”

“Yeah,” Martin said. “Yeah.”

***

They moved the chairs and the couch out of the way and spread out on the floor. Martin had to admit it was a better use of the space. Now that some of the tension in the group had been so forcefully broken, there was again a sort of comfort in the conversation, in the company, at least at first. It didn’t feel so empty and dark.

“So… I was thinking about where to start,” Sasha said, after everyone was settled. “And maybe—we should start with the options you talked about before—in that other place—for what to do. Talk about them together, so there’s no misunderstandings.”

“Ok, but it’s important to keep in mind that—that was different,” Jon said.

“How?”

“There was—there was an apocalypse.”

“What about before the apocalypse?” Georgie asked. “Did you ever think about destroying the entities then? Getting rid of them or whatever?”

“No. Not really.”

“That’s weird, honestly,” Melanie said. “I would think that would be the first thing you’d consider. Why not?”

“A lot of reasons, I suppose.” Jon considered. “Mostly, they were just the way it was. We were much more worried about the people and the—things they acted through. And once we really understood, we were simply trying to avoid an apocalypse.”

“Think about a bad storm,” Martin added. “You don’t stop the weather. You just try to make sure there aren’t any trees that are going to fall on your house.”

Jon turned to look at him.

“What?”

“That—that’s a good metaphor, actually.”

“Why does that always surprise you?”

“I—”

“So,” Melanie said, “one option is to deal with it and just try to avoid the worst.”

“Yeah,” said Martin.

“No,” said Tim. “Danny, Sasha, Elias—all of that—that all happened before the apocalypse.”

“And you,” Jon added, but Tim did not acknowledge it.

“But they didn’t know about the—entities,” Sasha pointed out. “We do. That could change things.”

“But some people knew about them. Jonah Magnus knew about them,” Tim said. “I don’t think knowing about them is points in favor of dealing with it.”

Georgie spoke up again. “Jon, you also said you tried to avoid the apocalypse—objectively the worst part, if we’re trying to avoid the worst—and well, obviously it happened. So what about that? Could it be avoided this time?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think, though?”

“My belief is—no. No, I don’t believe it can be avoided.”

“But it could take a long time,” Martin said. “And people might—might figure something out that we don’t know now.”

“So you do think it could be avoided?” Georgie asked Martin.

“I, um—” he glanced at Jon, whose face did not change. “Maybe.”

“All right,” Sasha said, redirecting the conversation. ��So option one, live with it and try for the best.”

“No,” Tim shook his head.

At least Tim and Jon can agree on that, Martin thought.

“It’s an option,” said Sasha. “We’re just laying out options. So after the apocalypse—that’s when you thought about destroying the fears themselves.”

“Destroying them?” Jon said. “No, not really. I don’t think that was ever a possibility.”

“Then—what?”

“There were, in essence, two options. Open the door to the other dimensions, let them go—or don’t.”

“We’ll come back the first one. If you hadn’t let them out—then what?”

“Then Jon became god,” Tim interjected.

“That isn’t fair,” Martin responded. “What you have to understand is—”

“Wait, I have been wondering about that,” Melanie said. “How exactly would that have worked?”

Jon replied before Martin could continue. “Well—first, to be clear, there was another choice. We could have let things go on. Just let the apocalypse continue as it was. That—seemed bad.”

“Ok.”

“Otherwise, I—we—could kill Jonah.” Martin’s stomach twisted in a way he hadn’t anticipated, and he set down his fork. “The Eye would then choose me as a replacement.”

“Because Jonah was in charge before that?” Melanie asked.

“In charge? No.” Martin thought he could hear a slight scoff in Jon’s voice, although he could have been imagining it. “It was never his place.”

“But it would have been yours?”

“Yes. More so, anyway. I—I couldn’t stop it, but I could have—changed it. Redirected the suffering.”

“So you would have actually been in charge of—torturing people. Choosing which people to torture?” Georgie frowned. “Forever?”

“Not forever. It would have ended eventually. Death is one of the fears.”

“Well, that’s messed up.” Melanie wiped at her mouth with a napkin. “If you were going to do that, it almost seems like it would have been a kindness to end it faster.”

Martin almost choked.

“Food goes down the other tube, Martin,” Tim said, unaware Martin hadn’t been eating.

“Right. Sorry.”

“Ok,” Sasha said, “so another option you considered was—taking over from Jonah. Making the apocalypse—better, I guess.”

“Is that what you heard?” Tim asked.

“In any case, that’s not something we need to consider,” said Sasha. “There’s no apocalypse.”

Martin’s chest tightened.

“So the last option—also after the apocalypse—was to let them out.”

“Right,” Jon said quietly.

“And ultimately, that’s what you chose.”

“Yes.”

“No,” Martin said. “It’s what the rest of us chose.”

“In the end, I chose it too.”

Silence fell over the group; Martin realized they were waiting for one of them to say more. He willed the tightness in his chest to dissipate.

“So the thing about that is—we didn’t really know. At the time, we’d only just learned there were other dimensions. And we still had no idea—what was in them. Or if there were other entities just like ours already out there, and maybe what we did didn’t matter so much. All we knew for certain was that we could end the apocalypse in our world. This—sending them here—we really didn’t know.”

Next to him, Jon remained silent.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Tim slowly, “and—given the options—if we could send them somewhere else again—that really doesn’t seem like the worst thing.”

“We’re not making any decisions right now, Tim.” Sasha was firm. “We’re just laying out options.”

“And if the options we are laying out are do nothing, Jon becomes god, or we get rid of them—getting rid of them seems reasonable. Why should we be the ones to live with them?”

“For one thing, as Jon said, this is a different situation. For another, we are not done with the options. There—there must be others. We’re just starting with what they considered before.”

“Sasha, that—that’s hopeful,” Melanie said, choosing her words carefully. “But I’m kind of wondering if Tim isn’t right.”

“Melanie.” Georgie sounded slightly reproachful. “Think about that, though. It’s not like they just disappear into the air. They—they go somewhere else. That’s how they got here.”

“But maybe they’d go somewhere—I don’t know, somewhere where they couldn’t really do any harm.”

“No.” Martin felt them all shift their attention to Jon when he spoke, but he continued to stare down at his plate. “They wouldn’t go somewhere next time. They would go everywhere. An infestation of fear, affecting thousands of worlds. I won’t allow that.”

“Now, how do you know that?” Tim asked.

“I just do.”

“Through your creepy monster powers?”

“Yes.”

“Let me guess which option you want, Jon,” Melanie said.

Martin jerked his head up. “You really don’t get it, do you? I mean, of course you don’t, but—”

“Stop.” Sasha dropped her fork onto her plate with a deliberate clang. “All of you. We’re taking a break. Eat your food.”

Martin looked back down at his plate; his whole body was tense. He felt Jon touch his arm.

“Eat,” Jon said softly. “Come on.” He broke off a piece of a roll on his own plate, and chewed and swallowed in demonstration. Something about watching Jon do it helped, and he was able to relax enough to get down a few mouthfuls of the dinner that seemed to have turned to cardboard. He had been hungry when they had sat down.

Ten minutes passed in silence, except for the clinking of forks and glasses; eventually plates were emptied, and Sasha cleared her throat.

“Are we all—ready? Does anyone need a longer break?”

No one answered.

“All right. Then—I want to ask something. To Jon and Martin.”

Martin looked at Sasha and then at Jon.

“Go ahead,” Jon said.

“I think—I know a few of us have been—what actually happened? At the end?”

“Yeah,” said Tim. “I have been wondering about that.”

“Tim—”

“I’m being nice.”

“Good. Stay that way.”

Jon looked at Martin, asking permission with his eyes. Martin steeled himself and nodded.

“We—those of us who had survived—we talked. And it was decided that we would let them go. Martin would kill Jonah, severing the primary link between our world and the fears; Georgie, Melanie, and Basira would blow up the gas main underneath the panopticon, destroying the tower and what remained of the archives. That would release their power, and allow the fears to access the—the gateway to the other dimensions.”

“But it didn’t quite go like that,” Tim stated.

“Correct. I changed my mind.”

“Why?” Tim asked.

“Because I couldn’t live with it. It wasn’t right.” Martin was grateful he left out the part about his nightmares.

“So you snuck up by yourself, stabbed Jonah and—took over.”

“Yes.”

“But then you changed your mind again. Why?”

“I hadn’t accounted for everything. I didn’t realize that they could blow the gas main without my—help. There was—there was—” Jon stopped. “I don’t remember how they did it, honestly.”

Martin could never quite remember that part either. All he remembered was that he had told them to go ahead and do it. “It was my fault.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Ok—just—what happened?”

“I told them to do it,” Martin said, “and then I went up after him. I didn’t think he’d—I thought I could stop him. I thought—I thought we could still leave. But we couldn’t. He couldn’t. He was part of it.”

“So they blew it up, and you lost control?”

“No. I could have kept them there. I could have. I was strong enough. If—” Jon looked at Martin and stopped. “I changed my mind. I let them go.”

Tim ignored the finality of Jon’s tone. “But why? How? And why was there so much blood? You said it was yours. Granted, you also said you didn’t kill anyone and you very much did—”

“He didn’t count,” Jon said disdainfully.

“Agreed, but that—that didn’t all come from Jonah. What happened?”

Jon sat back. “That is between me and Martin.”

“It’s ok,” Martin said. “You can—you can tell them. I just—I have to—I need another break.” He felt dizzy as he stood up; there wasn’t enough air.

“Martin?” Sasha started to get up too. “It’s all right, we don’t have to—”

“It’s fine. You should know why things are like this.”

He meant to go to their bedroom, he really did, but somehow he found himself in the hallway bathroom instead. Tears began to fall as soon as he closed the door; he sat on the toilet, the only real seat available.

“Jesus,” he said out loud to no one, as he wiped at his eyes with his sleeve, willing it to stop. For once he was glad that Jon knew how he felt; Jon would stay, and he would tell them.

You bastard. His own words. He understood now why Jon had done it, but it still hurt. Understanding didn’t undo the past and what he had felt then. The moment he had seen Elias’s body on the ground—the moments afterward as the realization had dawned on him—

You bastard. He still didn’t know how much of Jon had been left then, how much would be left again if it came down to it. Maybe less this time. Maybe none. How long could a person stand up to something like that?

You bastard. In his mind, he felt the pressure of a body giving way at the point of the knife, heard Jon gasp as it entered his chest. He was so tired of feeling it, so tired of hearing it, and it was always there—it was part of him now. He could ignore it sometimes, most of the time, even, but it was always there. It was always just below the surface, just waiting for a moment like this one. He would always know now what it felt like to take the life of a person, the person, who loved him. It was the only thing he had said he wouldn’t do, yet in the end it had been the only thing he could do.

It had just gone so wrong.

He breathed; he tried to breathe. Breathe in a square, he told himself. He didn’t know where he’d learned it—maybe the internet. Probably the internet. He breathed in, held it; breathed out; held it. In, hold; out, hold. Slowly, gradually, he was able to take full breaths. He almost had control again when there was a knock on the door.

“Hang—hang on,” he said. “Sorry, I should have—”

“Martin?” It was Melanie. “Can I—can I come in?”

“Um—”

“Please?”

“It’s unlocked.”

Melanie slipped in and closed the door behind her; she walked slowly to the edge of the tub and sat down. They looked at each other for a long moment.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be.”

“I just—I didn’t know.”

“We didn’t tell.”

“But I should have known. I mean, not the details, but—of course it had to be terrible. I think maybe I didn’t want to think about it.”

“What do you mean? Think about what?”

“I think—I think it was easier to imagine that you were hiding things because—well, Georgie said Jon wasn’t like that, but—” She shook her head. “When it comes down to it, I just didn’t want to think about how bad it could be, how bad it could get. I wanted to think I’d already seen the worst. I can’t imagine if Georgie—god. I’m just so sorry.”

“Me too.” He went to take another deep breath, but this one hitched at the top.

“Wait—hang on. I’ll be right—just hang on.” Melanie slipped out again, but quickly reappeared, this time with a large ball of black and white fluff in her arms. “I know this might be a bit silly, but—I don’t know. He really helped me after I—I mean, it feels like nothing now, but at the time—”

“It wasn’t nothing. I mean, that’s kind of the thing. It’s all awful.” Martin watched as Melanie set the Admiral down on the bathroom floor. The cat was cautious for a moment; he sniffed at the edge of the tub where Melanie had resumed her seat, then at the cabinet under the sink. Then, with no warning at all, he plunged his face against Martin’s legs, running his whole body along them before turning around and doing it again.

Somehow, Martin smiled.

“See?”

“Yeah.” He reached out a hand, and the Admiral sniffed it before he began to rub his face against it furiously. “Is he—is he purring?”

“Yeah. He’s weird,” Melanie said. “It’s pretty great. I didn’t think I was a cat person before I moved in with Georgie, but—he’s changed my mind.”

“I can see that.” He dangled his fingers above the Admiral’s face, who swatted at them with a soft paw. “Is Jon—ok?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s fine. He had a moment, but—he was talking to Georgie when I came to look for you.”

“Good.” He pulled his hand back, and the Admiral quickly switched his attention to something in the corner of the room that Martin couldn’t see. “Listen—are they still—do you think I need to go back out?”

“Oh—no. Not if you don’t want to. I mean, they’re still talking, but I think everyone’s had enough of the serious issues for tonight. Even Tim.”

“I think—I think I might go to bed early. Do you mind excusing me to everyone?”

“Not at all,” Melanie said, gathering up the Admiral; he protested with a small squeak. “I think they’ll all understand.”

“Thanks, Melanie. Sorry for the trouble.”

“No trouble.” She opened the door, and they both stepped out into the hallway. “Goodnight, Martin.”

“Goodnight.”

He took one more deep breath, and headed back to their room. He was very, very tired.

#the magnus archives #tma #mag pod #tma spoilers #jonmartin #tma fanfic #my writing

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imagines-by-a-typical-fangirl · 3 years

Text

Stay With Me (Pt. 03 of 09)

Pairing: Daryl Dixon X Reader

Word count: 2.1 K

Summary: Daryl found you surrounded by the dead, stuck in the backseat of a car. You were wishing for death to take you away for quite a while now, but, as you slid back and forth into consciousness, there was only one thing keeping you alive. Him, the man with blue, worried eyes and kind voice. Your beaten up body was ready to give up, too wounded and broken to keep going. But this man, who went out of his way to save your life is the only thing in the world holding you up. And, because of him, you feel something you haven't felt in a very long time: hope. Wherever he's taking you, you want to get there, and not only to be buried. For what it feels like the very first time, you want to live. He takes you back to Alexandria, but even there, the nightmares and the terror from all the torture and pain you've been through keeps creeping closer, and Daryl, your hero, is the only one who can keep that all away.

Warnings: Mentions and description (not graphic) of past abuse; post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); some violence at the end of the story (a little bit graphic, but not so much); blood.

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{The Walking Dead Masterlist}

I want to thank my awesome friend @jodiereedus22, who helped me (and still does) a lot to get this story done. She's also a writer and she's amazing so please go check her work!!

Memories From The Past

“I was with the same group of people since the world fell apart. Me and six other people.” Slowly you start, keeping your voice down so Daryl will be the only one to hear it. “We were fine and... One day we had to leave the house because there were too many dead around... So we... We left and this group found us. They were good, they offered help.” How stupid you were to believe it. To go with them and trust their kindness. Kindness, now, is rare. It's used as a trick, a trap. And you fell for it. “They had a couple of houses, lived well together and... It was normal, for a week it was normal. I-I was starting to feel safe when...” Your body shakes, like a leaf, and Daryl moves closer, pulling the blanket over your shoulders. “The men started making... Propositions. And I would never do that, and-and in the beginning they were okay. They respected my decision, but soon, it... They started getting aggressive. I told my group and we decided to run away during the night but they found out.” You're crying, sobbing, a hand on your heart. “They got us. And-and all the others were useless. Four men and two older women, so they killed them. They had t-these dead tied up and they made me watch as my friends were eaten.” It's hard to continue, to push the words out, to revisit that day. Those days, endless. The hours that never seemed to end.

“ ‘S alright. That's enough.” Daryl says, but you push the blanket away, freeing your arms from underneath and holding his hand. You just need to make sure he's real. That he's here, the man who saved you, who won't let anyone hurt you again.

“They locked me up after. They... They told me they didn't want to... Rape me... They wanted me to enjoy what they did. T-the humiliating, degrading sex, the extreme bondage, the cuts, the wounds, the pain. All of it.” You decide to just say it, spill it out, as fast as you can just to get it over with. “But I wouldn't. I wouldn't and I was thinking they'd just kill me. I was ready but they didn't. They came every single day, I stopped counting after a month, to ask me to surrender but I never did. They beat me, kicked me, cut me, spit on me. They used to drag one of the dead to the basement and leave it there, groaning at me for days.”

“That's enough. Ya don't have to–”

“Then a herd came. I heard it. I heard it killing them so I just pushed myself up and crawled through a window.” You look down at your arms, the grazes, and scratches from the glass. “I fought with a man for the car, and he gave me this–” You tilt your head to the wound on your left thigh. “–right before one of the dead got him. So I started driving, and I kept driving until the gas was over. I stood there as the dead came, surrounded me and I just wanted to die.” You're head is spinning, and you feel like you're just about to faint. “I wanted to die until you found me.”

The look on his eyes kills you. Why is he in such pain? Why is he looking at you like... Like you're breakable. Like you're broken already. Maybe it's because you are. And you will never speak of it again. You will never let these words come out of your mouth. The memories are more than enough to torture you day after day.

“Nobody will ever hurt ya again,” Daryl says, his voice filled with anger, a kind of anger you never witnessed before. “I promise ya. Never.” He pulls you into a hug, carefully, but you just move into his chest, biting back a wince when pain spreads through your body. You're sobbing, uncontrollably, and you're sure the tears are soaking Daryl's shirt. It hurts to cry. “Shh. ‘S alright, babygirl. Calm down, ‘M right here with ya. ‘M right here.”

“Will-will they kick me out?” You stutter, still hiding your head on his chest.

“No. Yer not going anywhere, hear me?” Daryl pulls away, just enough to look into your eyes. “Hear me?”

“Can you stay with me? Please.” Holding on to his shirt, you beg, unable to bear the thought of being left alone.

“Of course.”

Relieved, you pull him, moving to the side a little despite the pain. Daryl hesitates a bit before moving, resting his back against the headrest as you move to lay your head on his chest, pulling your legs up, basically curling into him.

You're not sure how long he stays there, in silence, a hand caressing your hair. But when you start getting hungry, you know he'll have to leave eventually.

“(Y/N),” Carol calls from the door frame. “Can I bring your lunch?”

Nodding weakly, you watch as her smiles and leaves.

“I need to talk to Rick,” Daryl says, carefully moving to stand up, making sure you'll be comfortable against the headrest. “Him and Deanna. So they'll stop bugging ya about... What happened before.”

“Will you be back?” You ask as he stands up, holding his hand.

“I promise I will. I won't leave ya alone.”

Nodding, you force yourself to let go of his hand. Carol brings you lunch and you struggle to eat without her help. It always takes a while, and Carol talks through it, even though you don't answer. You should though, she's been so kind to you, patient, doing everything she can... It's unfair to give the silent treatment.

“Thank you.” You say when you're done eating, handing her the empty plate. The words still sound low and weak, and you don't feel as comfortable as you feel with Daryl. “For... For everything.”

Her lips break into a smile, bright and sweet. “You don't have to thank me. I'm happy to help.” Carol moves to hold your hand, but you're quick to move it away. “I'm sorry.”

“No, I just...” Looking down, you feel another tear rolling. “Sorry.”

“It's alright, honey. It's good to see you feel comfortable around Daryl.” The mention of his name warms your heart. “I've never seen him so protective of anyone.”

“Daryl is...” Your hero, your anchor. He's the only thing holding you up, keeping you from falling apart.

“I know. I can see it in your eyes.” Carol stands up, giving you one last glance before heading to the door. “And I see it in his eyes too.”

You're left alone again, with your thoughts and memories. Daryl only comes back a few hours later, telling you he had spoken to both Rick and Deanna, and your stay in Alexandria was allowed. He says they usually make a small gathering to welcome new residents, but it'll only happen when and if you want it. You don't. In fact, you don't think you can leave this house just yet. You haven't even left the room, just for a few minutes every morning, when the streets are empty to get some sunlight. Anything else doesn't feel safe.

Later that night, you're wide awake after a quick nap brought the memories back as nightmares. So you just lie there, facing the ceiling, in the dark, shaking like a leaf. Even though the silence, the walls, and blankets covering you, you feel unprotected, exposed, vulnerable.

“The morning is coming.” You tell yourself, whispering, barely hearing your own voice. The sun will come back, the darkness will vanish and... And you'll probably feel pretty much the same way. “The morning is–” You're cut short when you hear footsteps, quickly pushing yourself up, biting back a moan when your body hurts. But your whole body relaxes when you see Daryl walking by, through the open door. He stops when he sees you, confusion on his face.

“What are ya doin’ up?” He asks, stepping inside the room.

“I'm not sleeping.” You mumble, not sure if the answer makes much sense. “I don't sleep. Not much.”

“Why?” Daryl sits on the edge of the bed, and you lie back down, holding his hand as usual.

“Bad dreams.” You admit, your eyes on his. You can't see the blue in this darkness, but you don't have to. Feeling his stare is enough to calm you down, make you relax. “If you... If you stay here– If you sleep here I– Maybe I can...” The words get all confused, as you understand what you're asking of him. But you need him, you're suddenly aware. If he's here through the night, you'll feel safe. You'll be able to sleep, knowing he's around.

“Ya want me here?” Daryl says, his voice low as if he didn't want to disturb the night.

“Yes, but... If you don't want it's ok. I– I'm just...” Restless, you move a little, feeling stupid for asking Daryl such thing. But you need him so much. Tears start rolling down, so you look away, breathing fast.

“Alright, alright.” You feel when he starts moving, and you do the same, sliding to the side to give him space. “Careful.” He says as you push yourself up a little, heart beating fast at the sensation of having him here.

You're not thinking much, and when you use your left leg to push your weight up, you feel a sting and a sharp pain spreading through your leg. A groan leaves your lips at the same moment, and you wince in pain, freezing in place. You feel wetness on the wound, and you quickly push the blankets away, all air leaving your lungs when you see blood staining the white bandages.

“Calm down.” You hear Daryl's voice, but you're hyperventilating, the agony of the flesh wound reopened bringing tears to your eyes. “Carol!” He shouts, startling you a little. “Lemme see.”

You nod, lying back down as he moves the blankets away, his hands just brushing against your skin. “It's ripped.” You moan, trying not to move, despite how your body is shaking.

“What happened?” Carol gets here quickly, her eyes wide.

“Go get Denise.” Daryl's voice is urgent, and it sounds like an order. She doesn't say anything before bolting away. “You'll be alright. I'll remove the bandages, ‘s that ok?” With your eyes closed, you nod, barely feeling his fingers on your skin as the dressings are removed. Soon enough you feel the cold wind on your flesh. “Some stitches are ripped. Not all of them.”

You barely hear his voice above the agony, covering your face with both your hands. “It hurts.” You mutter, feeling stupid for stating the obvious.

“I know. Denise will–” He's still speaking when Denise comes in suddenly, saying something you can't understand.

She's soon working on your leg, applying local anesthesia before anything else. You're relieved when the pain starts to fade, but you can't look. You feel the blood flowing out, and if wasn't for Daryl holding you, you'd lose it.

As Denise stitches you up, you have your back on Daryl's chest, his arms encircling your waist. You try not to shake, not to move, but it's hard. The tears come flooding again, as the memories try to haunt you. “ ‘S alright, babygirl. You'll be alright.” Daryl says on your ear, and you close your eyes tight.

He stays even after Denise leaves, still holding you as you hold on to him. The silence is comfortable, safe, and you feel yourself slowly drifting off to sleep.

“How long have you carried me here?” You ask, voice low and weak.

“Four days.”

“Four days?” You move to look at him, but his grip gets tighter, holding you in place.

“Careful. Ya gotta move slowly.” Settling back into place, you nod. “I had my bike but I didn't think ya could hold on so I carried ya.”

“I'm sorry...” Whispering, you grab a handful of the fabric of his shirt. “It must have been exhausting.”

“Don't apologize. All the way I was prayin’ I wasn't bringin’ ya here just to bury ya.” His chest vibrates, moving up and down as he breathes.

“You kept me alive.” Taking a deep breath, you rub your hand on his chest, as if making sure he's really here. Your hero. You will never understand why he did that, or how much trouble he put himself through to get you here, to save you. “Your voice was the only thing calling me back into consciousness and... For so long I just wanted to die already but you... You made me want to try. To live.”

“And ya will live now. I promise ya, (Y/N).”

A small, quick smile comes to your lips. Even though it's gone too soon, it feels good to know you still that the capacity to do such a thing.

And it happens again, in the morning after, when you open your eyes to find Daryl still in the bed with you.

@funeral-7 @heyyy-hey-babyyy @twdeadfanfic @soraitmnt @winchester-angel @bvbwestfall @shawtygonemad @cameronsails @pulplorrd

#daryl imagine #imagine daryl #daryl x reader #daryl x y/n #daryl x you #daryl dixon imagine #imagine daryl dixon #daryl dixon x y/n #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon x you #the walking dead x reader #imagine the walking dead #the walking dead imagine #the walking dead fanfiction

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zevlors-tail · 4 years

Note

Heyyy! Is it okay to request something? If so could I request nightmare comfort? I don’t mind which character!💕 I move a lot in my sleep and sometimes wake up 2 or 3 times throughout the night, I also notice when I’m about to wake up from a nightmare I kick my feet around like I’m running away. I’m also v cuddly and clingy (to my pillows ;~;) if not, that’s okay! Thank you 💛

A/N: I hope this was okay! Just some background real quick, I wrote the reader as a pro hero working at UA for plot purposes and for pairing purposes. I also hope I picked a character you like. I don’t actually have this character listed on my writing list but I remembered seeing a post of yours saying they were a comfort character for you, so I picked them because of that. <3 Hope this helps.

You tossed and turned, darkened images flashing under your eyelids as you dreamed of awful, twisted things. No matter how many times you’d seen them, no matter how many times the nightmares repeated themselves in your mind, you would never get used to the horrific scenes that unfolded while you slept. On nights like these, there was hardly any peaceful rest for you.

You woke up for the second time that night, legs kicking behind you as you cried out silently to no one and struggled to regain consciousness. You were so tired of the sleepless nights...and tired in general. Finally bolting upright, your breaths came ragged and shaky as you looked around quickly to gain your bearings. Your room looked just the same as it always did; hero costume hanging on the closet door handle in case of emergency, last night’s clothes strewn about on the floor, and bed sheets pulled halfway off the bed, no thanks to your restlessness. Familiar though it was, it brought you little comfort as you sighed, exasperated, and let yourself fall back down.

Nothing helped. Night after night, you saw the same things, different things, anything your mind deemed terrifying enough to pass as nightmare fuel. You’d tried everything you could think of to stop them. Warm milk before bed, listening to music while you slept, leaving the TV on for background noise, even sleeping during the day and drinking relaxing teas to calm yourself even though you didn’t like tea in the first place. But all of those things just seemed to make it even worse- the milk only made you feel sick, the music and TV noise only played into your dreams, and now you felt tired 24/7 with a wacky sleeping schedule. And the teas? Well, they were just gross. All of it did nothing to lessen the amount of terror you felt in your sleep, let alone calm you down before or after your awful dreams. And tonight, it was especially bad.

Your heart was still hammering in your chest, your hands balled into fists as you tried to forget the things you had just seen. It had been a very, very long time since your brain decided to plague you with such gruesome and horrific things, and you were suffering tremendously from it. Usually you could gain your bearings and force yourself back to sleep within the same hour you awoke, but tonight was different. Tonight, you couldn’t get back to sleep no matter how hard you tried. You felt more than restless, more than tired, more than exhausted with yourself and your mind. An hour passed, and then another, and another, and before you knew it your clock read 2:30am on a Friday morning as you lay there, wide awake, drained for all you were worth.

You needed something to do. You couldn’t just stay here and suffer; you needed move. Come on, you told yourself, it shouldn’t be that hard. Maybe if I wear myself down. Yes, that’s it, maybe a walk would help. Even if it’s past curfew...but, does that really apply to teachers? You sucked in a breath of air, mentally preparing yourself to get up. When you felt you were ready, you swung your legs over the edge of your bed and brought your hands to your face, rubbing harshly as if that could take away the stress you were feeling. It did nothing to help.

One random pair of pants and your favorite jacket later, you were headed out the door and on your way. The night air caused goosebumps to raise on your skin as you trekked around the dorms at UA silently, the only light illuminating your path from the round moon poised high above in the sky. The stars glittered over your head without clouds to obstruct their view, and the only noise you heard was the occasional chirp of a cricket and the hooting of the local owls that liked to nest in the trees nearby. Every so often you whipped your head around to look behind you and make sure you weren’t being followed, your nightmares leaving you spooked even on what should have been a peaceful walk. Was there any aspect of your life that they didn’t completely consume? Would you ever feel normal?

You were so busy looking behind you at the time that you didn’t notice the person in front of you until it was too late. Just as you were swiveling your head back around, you face planted into someone’s chest and let out a strangled noise of terror, suddenly sure that your horrid dreams had come alive and were out to get you. Which one was it? Who was after you now? You didn’t want to know. You turned tail to run shamefully- in the back of your head, you knew better. Heroes shouldn’t run, shouldn’t be scared of dreams or things that weren’t real. But you couldn’t help yourself even if you were a trained pro hero...your nightmares were getting the best of you.

A long arm reached out to grab at the back of your jacket, whoever’s hand it was preventing you from going any further. If your fearful stupor, you didn’t think to use your quirk to get away, nor did you consider that maybe the person keeping you from running away was not an enemy, but in fact an ally. You ran in place for a moment, arms flailing, tears forming in your eyes as you crumpled to the ground.

“Don’t touch me! Get away!” you pleaded, your small voice ringing out through the night. “Let me go, please!”

“Calm down.” a stern voice commanded from behind you. The deep tone and familiarity of it calmed you instantly, and you stopped struggling against their grip as they pulled you back towards them. “It’s just me. It’s Eraser, Y/N.”

You let your body relax slightly but remained on edge, still not entirely sure that Aizawa was really behind you. What if it was another nightmare, or what if this wasn’t real? What if, when you turned around, he had a horrid looking face, or his head was twisted around, or-

“What are you doing out here this early in the morning?” Shouta asked you, interrupting your thinking. You said nothing, your thoughts rendering you speechless and bringing fresh tears to your eyes. You felt like words were stuck in your throat, like you were choking on your own tongue. “You’re shaking like a leaf,” he noted a few seconds later. After a long bout of silence on your end and a pause of uncertainty on his, he sighed and tried one more time to get through to you. “Y/N.”

As if your name was a spell to break the curse you felt you were under, you opened your mouth to explain yourself. “I was just- I wanted to walk...needed to get out of bed, and.” Even if it sounded disjointed, it was the best you could do. You were still too afraid to turn around.

“If I let go of you, are you going to bolt on me?”

“I don’t know,” you blurted out honestly. Really, there was no way of knowing what you would do. You felt glued to the sidewalk with jelly legs and and hardly any air in your lungs.

Wordlessly, Aizawa placed a hand on your shoulder as if to test the waters before slowly turning you around and pulling you into him. You glanced up at his face in terror as he did so expecting to see something surreal, but to your utter relief, he looked completely normal and like the Eraser Head you knew and loved. You let out a breath you didn’t know you had been holding, your face pressing into his shirt as you shivered. Suddenly, it was a lot colder out than it had been before. The sound of his heartbeat thrumming through your ear made you feel grounded and real again too.

Thu-thump.

“Come on, it’s cold out here. Let’s get you to the teacher’s lounge.”

You walked to the school together in silence, neither of you asking any questions or making any small talk, just grateful for the fact that UA was always open for teachers if needed. For Aizawa that was the usual anyways- he was always direct and to the point, and didn’t say much unless he had to. If he had any questions for you, he must have been saving them for later. For you, though, it was little odd. You were always chatting with the other teachers, always engaging with your students, always willing to share little bits of information anyone else might find useful or amusing. Always bright and sunny during the day, wanting to bring smiles to everyone and make them laugh. Lately though, Aizawa had noticed you just didn’t seem like yourself. You looked tired, more so than was normal for you, and had been more quiet and reserved. But who didn’t get tired every once in a while? Eraser didn’t really have the right to judge you or ask any questions about it anyway, considering his own sleep schedule.

“Here.” After you were situated on the couch with a spare blanket from the closet and a small couch pillow to rest your head on, Aizawa brought over a large, steaming cup of tea. You thought he had brewed it for himself, but it seemed he had other intentions as he set it down in front of you on the coffee table.

“I don’t drink tea,” you tried to protest, but he just shot you a look and sat next to you comfortably before pushing the cup closer to you.

“I know you usually don’t, but you should drink that. It’s completely herbal, not like what you’re probably used to, and it’ll help you relax and get back to sleep. I doctored it up with honey and milk, so the taste shouldn’t be too strong.”

He watched you with careful eyes as you gingerly picked up the mug and brought it to your lips, apprehension reflecting in your own orbs as you took a small sip. You made a small sound of surprise as you took another larger sip, not minding the taste as much as you usually did.

“It’s not that bad,” you admitted quietly.

“It’s my own blend. I made it for when I have especially rough nights.”

Silence washed over you both as you busied yourself with drinking the tea, Shouta’s eyes never leaving your face. After a bit, when your cup was a little more than half empty, he started up conversation with you again.

“So what were you doing outside at three in the morning?” Straight the point, as always.

“I was on a walk. I couldn’t sleep, so I thought maybe it would help.” You took another sip of your tea.

“Do you normally take walks at three in the morning when you can’t sleep?”

“Not often, no. Only when it’s-” You stopped yourself before you could finish your sentence, not quite sure if you wanted to admit what you were going through. You hadn’t told anyone before, mostly because it felt like a private problem that you needed to deal with on your own, and something that you didn’t want to burden others with.

“When it’s...?” he prompted. His eyes desperately searched your face for any clues on what might be bothering you, though he already had an idea of what it might be.

“Ah, nothing.” You quickly swept the issue under the rug by trying to change the topic. “What were you doing out at three in the morning, hm?”

“I was patrolling the dorms, like I was supposed to.”

Oh. Well...that was...a pretty logical explanation. You weren’t sure what you were expecting.

“So I interrupted your patrol. I’m sorry.” You realized you must have pulled him away from what an important task, and suddenly you felt immensely guilty for causing him trouble. “I didn’t mean to take you away from that...”

“Don’t be. I got Mic to finish up for me after I took you over here, so it’s fine. I don’t mind.”

“Mmn.” You gave a quiet sound of acknowledgement, unsure of what to say after that, so you just kept drinking your tea.

Aizawa stared off into the distance as if considering something, then brought his focus back to you as he spoke. “So, how long have you been having the nightmares?”

Judging by the look on your face, he had hit the nail right on the head with his assumption. After seeing all of the little red flags, he had pieced the puzzle together in his mind and concluded you were suffering from something sleep related. And after seeing how you acted when he encountered you on his patrol, he thought it obvious that you clearly were disturbed by something lately, to which his guess had been nightmares, or maybe even night terrors.

You remained quiet for a moment, your grip on the still warm mug tightening ever so slightly as you shrunk in on yourself. “For a while...” you breathed out.

“And how long is ‘a while’?” he pressed gently. He didn’t want to push you too hard.

“I don’t know...a long time.”

“Have you told anyone?”

“You’re the first person I’ve said anything to, since you asked.” You nervously took another swig of tea.

“You don’t have to talk about them unless you want to,” he offered, hoping his words implied his obvious invite to let you vent if you needed. You understood his intent, though you genuinely didn’t want to bring the subject back up. The less you thought about them, the better. If you rehashed the nasty things you’d seen earlier tonight, then they would just slink back into your dreams and cause you more grief than they already had.

“I appreciate that, Eraser. I really do.”

“Just call me Shouta.”

There was something in his voice, something endearing, so full of care in the way he said it.

You didn’t need nor did you want to talk about them. For now, it was enough to be in the presence of someone you cared deeply about and that you knew cared deeply about you too, that understood your silence, that could hear the words unspoken by you when you felt you couldn’t speak. It was enough to just be close to him, a calm quiet between the two of you as you finally finished your drink. You set the mug back down on the table and leaned into the couch to rest your eyes, finally feeling somewhat safe to do so, and sighed as you snuggled into the blanket.

Shouta stayed with you while you drifted off safely under his watch, his lips turned up slightly at the corner as he watched you slip away peacefully. And at the first signs of any discomfort while you slept, he didn’t hesitate a single moment to pull you into his side and cradle you in his arms as he laid back with you, his hand supporting the back of your head while he held it to his chest. You woke briefly, just long enough to hear him murmur an apology for waking you before hushing you softly. His heartbeat reverberated through your ears and into your dreams as you cuddled into him, the sound calming you and lulling you back to sleep easily, and you finally felt at peace. Miraculously, the nightmares that had plagued you for so long gave you reprieve for the night, and you slept soundly on top of Shouta until school the next morning.

Your day carried on as normal after that, and you felt like your old self as you taught your students, genuinely excited to see your kids and engage with them through the course curriculum. The students seemed to sense this as well and were rather overzealous and giddy all day, which only helped to boost your mood more. After your classes were over and your hero work was done for the day, however, you headed home and lay down in your bed, fears and worries all coming back to you. What if you had nightmares again tonight? You didn’t think you could take another sleepless episode, especially after the peaceful rest you had last night. It had felt so good to actually rest, and now you had to go back to this?

And that was exactly how you found yourself in front of Shouta’s door two hours and a nightmare later, tears on your face and clothes haphazardly thrown on. He welcomed you with open arms and a “It’s unlocked,” which you were so grateful for, and the world just seemed right again as you curled up together on the bed, limbs intertwined as he held you close.

“Do you want me to make you some tea?” he asked.

“No, can we just stay like this?”

“Of course.”

From then on his door was unlocked every night. He left it that way for you, made sure to tell you that fact so you knew you were welcome there in his space. Every night you made your way to him. He calmed you down, made you tea if you so wished, and held you. And every night you fell asleep to the same sound.

Thu-thump.

You found that nightmares weren’t so scary anymore when you had someone to love you through it.

And love you through it, Shouta did, always.

#aizawa x reader #shouta aizawa #eraserhead x reader #aizawa shouta x reader #aizawa #shouta #aizawa shouta #eraserhead #bnha #shouta x reader #mha #request #sleepymonokuma #sweater writes #bnha x reader #mha x reader

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sakuatsu · 4 years

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YELL 2 ME ABT SAKUATSU FIC RECS PLS

oh boy. oh boy do i have much to talk about

here’s a list of my sakuatsu must-reads under the cut! complete with links, word count, ratings, and occasional commentary because i’m incapable of shutting up. this isn’t in any particular order either

(keeping this sfw and organized into canonverse/AUs. a * means i am on my hands and knees begging for you to read this)

i’ll try to update this somewhat regularly :]

most recently updated august 25, 2020!

canonverse:

*your highs and lows (series) by astroeulogy

a post-time skip canonverse series born from these two questions:

1. what if sakusa kiyoomi, known too-blunt jerk, is equally straightforward about his soft, tender feelings?

2. what if miya atsumu, resident big fat jerk who doesn't care if his teammates hate him, is too emotionally stunted to notice when his one of his teammates actually likes him?

this is like the sakuatsu series but it’s blasphemous to not recommend. the first fic in the series is all that you were (4.6k, T). mind the ratings on a few of the fics, but my personal favorite is #3: a masterpiece of domesticity called you have tamed me (5.7k, T). these make me ACHE

*sakuatsu domesticity simulator by pseudoanalytics (T)

a vaguely interactive mixture of fic, art, and html, where you too can experience the inherent romance of a big fat jerk and a too-blunt jerk attempting intimacy

this fic...this fic...op is literally one of my favorite artists of all time but Did You Know that their writing is also off the charts. what a wonderful use of second person and the pacing is so good. too much skill in one person

*The MSBY Black Jackals Read Thirst Tweets by isaksara (11.4k, M)

Sakusa’s eyes are very dark naturally, sucking in all surrounding rays of light and crushing them in his pupils. For an athlete, he is rather pale. His lips look very pink in comparison. Atsumu is suddenly catastrophically aware that in this instance, ‘accent’ is a euphemism. “Good enough for your Olympic-size ego, Miya?”

(In which Atsumu realizes that he is attracted to Sakusa Kiyoomi in the most inconvenient way possible.)

i think this is the fic that got me into sakuatsu in the first place lol i was looking very specifically for msby socmed fics and now here we are. this fic is unbelievably funny

*liminal spaces by hhatsuna (25.9k, T)

Fuck you, Atsumu thinks, pointing at the pixelated Sakusa in the grainy team photo on his bedside table.

It’s easier than you’d think to ignore loving your teammate.

*Better For Us Both by abrandnewheart (15.7k, M)

Where “You already make me the happiest guy alive, babe," gives way to, “I’ve not been happy for a while now.”

Alternatively known as the ‘mug fic’.

yes this is a breakup fic. yes im going to recommend it anyway. breakup fics usually scare me a lot but this one is too good for me to not say anything about. nuanced and delicious. i look at the mug on my desk and feel pain

dog eat dog eat dog world by perennials (8.4k, T)

You are your first and only line of defense against the universe.

Koi no Yokan; 恋の予感 by ymra (15.3k, unrated)

Wherein Sakusa dreams of his future selves and discovers a little something along the way.

autumn ends, but we remain by wolfsbvne (5.3k, T)

atsumu stares at his ceiling at 2am. he stares until he can make out designs in his popcorn ceiling. a cat there, an onigiri here, and then something that suspiciously looks like a mop of hair, triangle eyebrows, and oh those two bumps are moles right above what atsumu just mapped out as an eye.

(or, atsumu is in kind of in love. sakusa is maybe in like.)

your fingertips, branding irons by Ceryna (5.8k, T)

Between the accidental touches he's reconciled, the deliberate ones he's endured, and, from those he's built years of trust with, obliged– Kiyoomi has never wanted to let someone indulge.

Never, until Atsumu.

take what’s yours and make it mine by claudusdiei (5.9k, T)

atsumu falls in love four times in his life

(or: in which atsumu gets his heart broken twice, has the self-awareness of a sober mule and really likes yellow tulips)

every action has an equal and opposite reaction by akanemnida (10.4k, T)

Miya Atsumu gets a modeling contract with Calvin Klein, which sets Kiyoomi's heart in motion.

(Or: Sakusa Kiyoomi realizes that the rules governing the universe are absolute rubbish at explaining matters of the heart.)

*where i want to be by tookumade (8.8k, G)

In the time they’ve been teammates at the MSBY Black Jackals, Sakusa has never been to Atsumu’s place, and Atsumu has only been to Sakusa’s a few times. There’s an unspoken understanding here: that Atsumu knows him well enough to know that nobody’s house or apartment would ever really meet his ridiculously high standards, and he is most comfortable in the home he’s made for himself.

That, and, Atsumu being over at Sakusa’s means that he has to host him and do the cleaning afterwards, while Atsumu can just flit off back to his own place. So. There’s that.

Tonight. Tonight is not business as usual. Tonight is not familiar.

*san'yō expressway, 6:17 pm by yamabato (8.1k, T)

Atsumu tilts his head to watch a slice of orange light bend over the impassive planes of Sakusa’s face. He is absolutely, ruthlessly beautiful. It makes Atsumu want to punch something—put his foot through the windshield—scream, maybe.

Kiss him again, maybe.

They have 344 kilometers to figure this one out.

parallax error: angle of inclination by min_mintobe (10.8k, T)

But now there's the one person Atsumu'd promised himself never to touch. His eyes leave Atsumu breathless with guilt at seventeen, and he spends the next six years safe in the satisfaction of making things right.

Feelings, of the physical kind, and one kiss.

ft. competitive spirit, childishness, and late night conversations.

Atsumu POV.

four leaf clover by vicari_us (5.9k, T)

Once, Ushijima claimed that they ‘got lucky’. If properly honed, their body types could become near invincible weapons.

However, unlike Ushijima, Kiyoomi’s weapon required a bit more care over the years to reach the condition it had become. He was born iron, not yet forged into steel.

Exploring what it might have taken to turn a genetic mistake into an athletic miracle.

*the 28 postcards you left me by wheelspokes (8.3k, T)

Atsumu takes texting your ex to a new level by sending Sakusa postcards in Animal Crossing instead.

such a unique premise & this is so beautifully structured. stunning flow and who knew animal crossing could convey so much longing...

AUs:

Pas De Deux by hhatsuna (dancer!sakusa au: 19.0k, T)

The mystery athlete gives Kiyoomi a once over in the mirror. “Yer pretty tall,” he observes, and the twang of an accent rasps low in his throat. His brazen eyes drift to Kiyoomi’s legs, and something like exhilaration glints gold in his gaze. “Good quads, too. Ya ever played volleyball?” Ah. So it’s volleyball.

“I’m a dancer. Ballet and contemporary, mostly.”

*my love, take your time by bastigod (archaeologist!sakusa au: 9.0k, T)

There was something sublime about wandering around an empty museum. Nothing could compare to the sound of his shoes clacking against the marble floor, the morning sunlight gently streaming through the lofty windows and the peaceful solitude of ancient stone kings overseeing their silent kingdoms.

A day in the life of Doctor Kiyoomi Sakusa, Archaeologist.

i’ve literally been thinking about this fic every day since it came out. you will not find a story like this anywhere else, i guarantee you. what a clear labor of love this fic is it’s truly something so special

three roses and a smile by strawberrycitrus (surgeon!sakusa & microbiologist!atsumu au: 19.7k, T)

“I just got this job, I’m not givin’ it up for some moral boost ‘cause I actually need to pay my rent, ya insensitive -” Atsumu waves his hands around, trying and failing to come up with the right word to convey the amount of injustice that this gaunt motherfucker has brought into his relatively simple life thus far.

“If you can’t pay your rent, go get a job at the McDonald’s over by 8th Street,” Sakusa growls, “it’ll pay more than your researcher position.”

If you even attempt assault on a coworker, forget teaching about cells - you’ll fucking be in one, Atsumu.

*Dance of the Parallax by astroeulogy (ogre spirit!sakusa au: 6.7k, T)

For the last twenty years, Atsumu’s done all that he can to break his betrothal to the ogre spirit Sakusa. If he can just make it through one more night, he’ll be free.

honestly, just read everything by astroeulogy. i’m recommending this fic in particular because it has such an ethereal voice to it. magical

across oceans, across centuries by starstrikes (pacific rim au: 20.0k, T)

Six days ago, Osamu died and left Atsumu with this: Atsumu, you have to—

(Namikira rises with the tides and rips Osamu and Vulpis Empress away in one fell swoop. Six days later, Atsumu wakes up alone in a hospital bed and learns how to swim.)

you don’t actually need to know pacrim to appreciate this. a wonderful exploration of grief and recovery. also it’s exactly 20k words which is both satisfying and terrifying

*Notte Stellata by awkwardedgeworth (ice skating/dancing au: 20.8k, T)

"Your partner doesn't need to hold anyone's hand other than yours," Sakusa's father crouches, "And you can wear gloves."

Sakusa ponders. He hears the other skaters of rink two whiz past as they launch themselves into lifts.

"Alright," He looks up from the ice, not knowing how he'll dedicate the next couple of decades to this sport, this partnership, this boy.

what a stunning fic. a beautiful progression of sakusa & atsumu’s relationship, rife with references to real skating programs, beautifully written and structured. so full of longing i’m in mild physical pain

#if anyone else has recs feel free to drop them in the replies mwah #sakuatsu fic is SO high quality you can literally just look at the tag and blindly press and find something stunning #these are just my personal favorites #basically just my ao3 bookmarks and then some #sakuatsu #sakusa kiyoomi #miya atsumu #sakuatsu fic #haikyuu fic #ask #reynegades #thank you for asking.....ive been dying to make a fic rec post i just needed a push lol #fic

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woah-were-halfway-there · 3 years

Text

Along For The Ride: How it Started

Word Count: 2.4k

October 12th, 2016

"Carse?"

Although Carson was aware someone was talking to her, she didn't respond since she was a little distracted by the direct message she had just received on Instagram.

She was in her seat on the VIA Rail train she and her friend Stephanie were taking from Toronto to Ottawa. It was the first Maple Leafs game of the season, so they were making the commute to watch since it also happened to be Mitchell Marner's, Carson's cousin and Steph's boyfriend's very first NHL game ever.

"Carson?"

"Yeah?" She asked, jumping slightly as she was suddenly brought back to reality.

"I was asking how your class was this morning," Steph chuckled while shaking her head.

"Oh, uh, it was fine," Carson tried to play off her distracted state. "Lexie and I did our law presentation. I think it went alright."

"Law? Aren't you in journalism?"

"Yeah, we took intro law as an elective," she explained before looking down at her phone screen again and biting down on her bottom lip.

Steph observed as she did this and knew well enough that Carson would not mention whatever was happening on her phone unless it was brought up. "What's got you so flustered?"

"Nothing!" Carson insisted but only received a pointed glance in return from the girl sitting across from her. Thanks to Steph's relationship with Mitch and just how close Carson was with her cousin, the two girls formed a great friendship which led to them being able to read each other like books. It tended to be a blessing and a curse. "Ok fine, maybe not nothing."

"Explain, please."

Carson sighed.

"Well, you know Auston, right? Like, Matthews?"

"I've heard of him," Steph teased, knowing that Auston started following Carson on Instagram entirely out of the blue a little over a month prior. "Kidding. Yes, of course, I do. He and Mitch have gotten pretty close since he moved to Toronto."

"Right, 'cause he's not from here, is he?" Carson asked, genuinely curious.

"No, Scottsdale, I think. Why?"

"Uh, no reason," she replied. "It's not that important, I guess. He just messaged me on Instagram, though."

"Did he!? Let me see," Steph gasped before snatching the phone right out of her friend's hand.

Carson watched as Steph effortlessly typed in the passcode and opened Instagram. She was still kind of surprised that she'd gotten a message from Auston at all, but it did make sense.

When the two girls first got on the train, Carson took a selfie of her and Steph in their Maple Leafs gear with a Go Leafs Go hashtag. They were sporting matching Marner jerseys and had received a few compliments from other fans getting on the same train.

The brunette thought nothing of the post she made, so when she received a DM from Auston replying to her story and saying "wish us luck," she was very caught off guard.

"Well, are you going to reply?" Steph asked while handing the phone back.

"I guess," Carson told her and looked back to the screen. "It's just a little weird that he messaged me, don't you think?"

"Not really. People message people on Instagram all the time."

"Yeah, but like, he's this huge hockey prospect, is he not? So why message me, of all people? Let alone follow me in the first place..."

"Ok, I will admit that Mitch and I have hyped you up a bit," Steph said while sinking back into her seat.

"Why?"

"He's new to the city," she explained with a shrug. "When he first got here, he didn't really know anyone other than the guys on the team and some of their girlfriends. So we were telling him about people he'd probably meet eventually, and you were one of them."

"I see," Carson responded and looked back down at the cellphone screen. She typed back a quick response to Auston's message saying "good luck" before tucking the device back into her bag and glancing up at her friend again. "I guess it's not that weird; I have made friends with a few of the guys on the team."

"Yeah, I know. Mitch told me how you ran into Willy and Kappy a couple of weeks ago while you were out."

"Mhmm, what started as a date night with myself ended up being a night of hanging out with those two... Oh, shit, we're like 20 minutes away from the station. Any word from the fam in Ottawa yet?"

"Your aunt texted me saying that she, Paul and Chris were almost there. Is anyone else coming?"

"No, just me," she said. "Dad and Nate are watching from home, but they'll be at the game in Toronto on Saturday. Mya said she'd watch the game as soon as she was done class too. She wasn't sure what channel the game would be on in Vancouver."

"Is it not the same there as it would be here?"

"That's what I said!"

"Fair," Steph replied with a smile. "Anyways, guess we better make sure we have all our things. It's going to be a long night."

And it was a long night... but it was also insanely fun.

The two girls were picked up by Carson's aunt Bonnie, uncle Paul and cousin Chris at the VIA station in Ottawa before going with them to grab something to eat and eventually making way to the Canadian Tire Centre to watch the game against the Senators. They definitely weren't the only Leafs fans in the building, but the Ottawa fans kind of outnumbered them. However, that didn't dampen their mood, and they were more than ready for the game to start.

It was the most surreal feeling for Carson to not only witness her cousin and lifelong best friend skate out onto the ice wearing the jersey of their home team but also just to see that he was finally living out his dream. She couldn't have been more proud and was convinced that she and Steph alone were two of the loudest cheerers in the entire arena as they began yelling along with the crowd.

Not only did she think it was cool seeing Mitch out there, but she also loved seeing all the other players that she'd gotten to know over the past couple of months. Carson quickly spotted Willy and Marty. She then chuckled when Steph sent a zoomed-in Snapchat video of number 17 skating around to his girlfriend, Sydney. However, it didn't take long for Carson's gaze to fall on number 34.

Leading up to the beginning of the season, all Carson heard about how good this Auston Matthews guy was; she would've been lying if she said she wasn't a little excited to see him in action. And boy did he put on a show.

With less than 12 minutes left of the first period, Auston scored the first goal of the game and the first goal of his NHL career. The Leafs fans went wild, as did Carson and her family while they watched the other guys skate up to congratulate their teammate. That was pretty cool to see, but Carson was not prepared for what the rest of the game held.

The Senators pulled ahead by scoring two goals, but that didn't last too long because Auston scored another goal before the period was even over.

"Oh my god," Carson said aloud as everyone went nuts again. "He's really good."

"I know," Steph replied, looking just as shocked as Carson felt. "I mean, Mitch said he was good but... wow."

A couple of minutes into the second period, he scored again, and Carson was speechless. It took her a second to register that this kid had just gotten a hat-trick in his first NHL game, but she was quickly brought back to reality when a ton of ballcaps started flying past her as they were thrown onto the ice. She looked down at where Mitch was on the bench and smiled as she observed him cheering along with his teammates about what had just happened. The energy in the arena was just insane.

After watching her cousin for a few seconds, Carson moved her gaze to the people in her section and saw a couple cheering so loudly a few rows behind them. The woman then started crying and was pulled into the embrace of the man next to her.

"That's Auston's parents," Steph explained, and Carson could basically feel herself melt after witnessing the genuine reaction of two very proud parents, sending Auston's mom a soft smile when they briefly made eye contact before looking back to the ice.

Then, just before the second period ended, he scored a fourth goal, and none of it seemed real anymore.

The Leafs ended up losing 5-4 in overtime, but that still didn't prevent a buzz in the crowd after everything that happened in that game. Once everyone began clearing out of the area, Carson and her family made their way down to the wings, so they could congratulate Mitchell on his first game as a Maple Leaf before eventually having to head back to Toronto.

The five of them knew they'd have to wait for a little bit, seeing as Mitch would have to change out of his equipment and possibly do a post-game interview. Still, soon enough, the NHLer made his way to his family and Carson couldn't help but laugh when she heard her cousin approaching before actually seeing him.

She stood to the side as she let her aunt, uncle and cousin greet their superstar, but as soon as Mitch was done talking with them briefly, he looked in Carson's direction, shaking his head before taking a few short strides and engulfing her in a hug.

"Congratulations! You killed it out there."

"Thanks, Carse," Mitch replied before moving away. "It would've been nice to score a goal, but it still feels amazing regardless. Thanks for being here."

"You know I wouldn't miss it," she told him with a smile. "And it looks like you'll just have to score in Toronto on Saturday to redeem yourself."

"I'll try," he told her with a pointed gaze before moving on to Steph and pulling her into a tight hug next.

Carson watched with a grin as the two lovebirds interacted for a second before going to step away and stand with her family. However, when she went to step back, she came in contact with what felt like a brick wall and completely lost her balance.

"Oh, shit," she muttered as she blindly reached out to grab onto something so she could steady herself, all while bracing herself for impact. However, the impact never came. Instead, a pair of arms wrapped around her waist and was able to prevent her from falling on her ass. With a sigh of relief and embarrassment, she straightened herself out and stood back up straight before finally turning around to look up at the person she had just collided with. "I'm so sorry..."

Before she could say anything else, Carson felt her breath hitch as she realized she was face to face with none other than Auston Matthews.

"It's alright," he told her with a slight smile, giving a look as if to say that he definitely recognized her. "I wasn't watching where I was going either."

"I-." Before she could say anything else, an arm wrapped around her shoulders and Mitch's voice sounded from beside her.

"Auston, I see you've officially met my baby cousin Carson."

"Baby?" Carson scoffed and looked up at her cousin with a mortified expression. "Mitch, you're literally 12 days older than I am."

"Older and wiser."

"I don't think so," she told him before elbowing him in the gut so that he'd take his arm off her.

He groaned and hunched over in pain, making sure to send her a death glare as he tried to recollect himself.

"Uh oh, the twins are at it again," a voice spoke as someone else approached from down the hallway, and Carson looked up to see William Nylander approaching.

"Twins?" Auston asked and looked between Mitch and Carson with an amused expression.

"The more you see them together, the more you'll see how true that statement is," Steph said as she wedged herself between the two cousins to keep them from annoying each other any further. She then looked at Carson and nodded. "We have to get back to the station real soon if we want to catch our train back to Toronto."

"Right," Carson responded. "I'm good to go whenever you are."

"Ok, cool, let's just say our goodbyes, and then we can split on a cab there? Deal?"

"Deal."

The small group that had formed dispersed as new conversations formed, and Steph started saying bye to everyone seeing as Mitch was driving back to Toronto with some teammates, he was going to visit with his family. They were in no hurry to leave.

Unfortunately, though, Carson had class at noon the next day, and Steph had to return to London for her classes as well, so they really did need to get going.

Before moving to say goodbye to Mitch and the rest of her family, Carson looked back to Auston once more to see him still smiling at her.

"You played a really great game tonight," she complimented and smiled back. "Congrats."

"Thanks," he chuckled. "It's all pretty crazy to let sink in. I definitely think your good luck message helped, though."

"Oh, I'm sure it did."

The two laughed before becoming quiet again. Unsure of what else to say, Carson, glanced at her family and figured she should start making her escape. She looked back to Auston, and surprisingly enough, he was the first to speak up again.

"I, uh, I guess I won't keep you from catching your train back to Toronto," he started and looked away slightly. "It was nice... officially meeting you, Carson."

"Yeah, I should probably get going before Steph comes back over here and starts dragging me out," she replied, causing him to laugh. "It was nice meeting you too, Auston. Congrats again, maybe I'll see you around."

"I'd like that. Get home safe."

"You too, well, to wherever you're going," she mumbled and sent him one last smile before walking away, trying to keep a straight face at the look Steph was giving her as she approached everyone else and said her goodbyes.

What she didn't notice, though, was how Auston watched her for a second as she walked away, intrigued by the entire interaction he just had with her and couldn't help smiling to himself as he shook his head and went his own way.

#nhl imagines #nhl fanfiction #auston matthews fanfiction #auston matthews imagine #nhl imagine #toronto maple leafs imagine #nhl rpf #nhl headcanon #hockey fanfiction #hockey imagine #hockey rpf #auston matthews imagines

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