#BUY A DESK LAMP FOR FUCKS SAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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WHY would you go to study in a different county and take a NIGHT LIGHT WITH YOU and NOT a DESK LAMP?!!!!??! WHY DO I have to PARTICIPATE in your JOURNALING EVERY SINGLE NIGHT because you keep TURNING ALL THE LIGHTS ON. USE YOUR PHONE FLASHLIGHT!!!!!!
#FOR THE LOVE OF GOD#I CANT TAKE THIS SHIT ANYMORE#i just want to relax but i keep turning the lights off when she leaves the room and she comes back in and turns it back on again and#starts fucking drawing for 2 hours#AND SOMETIMES SHE JUST WATCHES TIKTOKS AND DOES NOTHING#BUY A DESK LAMP FOR FUCKS SAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#uff sorry guys I might've gotten a bit heated over here...
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All is Well That Ends Well - Lawrence Gordon x gn! afab! reader - Part IV
Annnnnnnnnd, an hour and eleven minutes later, here's part four!! the next parts will be released on the seventh and fourteenth and then, unless I can manage to get a lot of writing done in not a lot of time, there'll probably be a bit of a delay between the end of The Beginning and the beginning of The Middle (I promise better titles will be created for these sections I am just. I am just terrible at titling and pull stuff out of a hat a lot of the time) but at the latest, the Middle will start in late march-early april.
Fic type - this one is so smutty, but it's also fluffy, so it's fluff that leads up into smut
Warnings - minors,, DO NOT FUCKING INTERACT THANK YOU, oral, cockwarming, edging (kind of??) mentions of the loss of Lawrences foot + prosthetics and pain and itching associated with wearing them too long
A few days pass, and on that Wednesday, after all of your classes were cancelled from a snowstorm, you wake up at eight and make a list with Aurelie over the phone of things you need to grab, organized by room for your own convenience.
For your bedroom you need to get a nightstand, wardrobe, a lamp or two, and better sheets and blankets than the ones you’d had for a decade, which were on their last legs as it were.
For the bathrooms—of which there are two, one in the primary suite and the other across the hall from one of the other two bedrooms—you need shower curtains, bathmats, and small bins to hold random essentials like pads, tampons, Band-Aids and anything else someone might need short notice, as well as trash cans and garbage bags accordingly.
The living and dining rooms are where stuff gets pricey—you need a couch, love seat, rocking chair, coffee table, television and a stand, curtains, maybe a rug and definitely a dining table.
For one of the other two bedrooms, you require an additional bed and curtains so that it can serve as the guest space. For the other of the two bedrooms, you need curtains, bookshelves, a comfy daybed, a desk and a rolling chair so that it can act as a library-slash-office space for studying and reading.
Since you figure Lawrence is working, Aurelie helps you get most of it. A lot of it came from IKEA for the sake of your own convenience but you refused, blatantly, to buy a bed or couch or even so much as a rocking chair from there, so it was a fairly cheap trip.
You grab the bed from the same spot you got the one you’d bought for yourself six months before, when the bed you’d had got lumpy and it became clear just how old it was—a local furniture store that was a twenty minute drive out and did same-day delivery fee at no additional cost.
The rocking chair, couch, coffee table, love seat, wardrobe and daybed were purchased from a furniture store one of your bosses had recommended. It was a forty minute drive from the condo but so worth it as they delivered to your apartment for only an additional $20.
Once the furniture shopping is complete you grab groceries and are home to unload them at half past four, making quick work of it because all you want to do is lie on your couch and make a bad decision or two.
You call Lawrence, exhausted but wanting to test out the couch in more ways than just sitting on the damn thing, at five o’clock on the dot. He answers on the second ring.
“How’d furniture shopping go?” He greets.
You bite your lip to fend off a smile. “Aurelie did it with me—sorry for not calling you, I figured you were working and the places I went to for the bigger things do delivery—and now I’m just sitting, lonely. Kind of want to order take out, honestly, but Aurelie has studying to do and I’m assuming you’re still at work.”
“Just left, actually,” Lawrence says. “I can come over if you’d like? We can talk for a bit and, assuming there are groceries in your fridge today unlike yesterday, I can make dinner. Takeaway is decent but food that takes effort is good, too.”
“I didn’t come close to spending a quarter of the rainy day fund,” you say. “I told myself I’d spend five thousand at most, and I spent close to five thousand, yeah, but still. The way I see it, I have sixty dollars to blow on take out and if you really must cook me dinner, you can do so Friday night. I like things more even and unless you’d prefer that I spent the $60 on weed, I’d really like to see you.”
Lawrence laughs. “I think I’ve realized what you aim to get from me,” he says. “I thought I’d be the one making those types of calls or coming into the condo with my spare key and groping you while you read whichever book you’re reading at that point in time.”
You laugh seductively. “That’ll come up in the next few weeks, I imagine,” you say. “However, right now I am exhausted, need something in my something and this couch is way too big for one person. Grabbed an L shaped one so that I could take a nap on it on a lazier Sunday afternoon but today was not lazy or a Sunday. Today was productive and if I don’t see you in the next thirty minutes, I will drive my ass back to where I vaguely remember your house being and knock on a door, one that I can only I hope is yours so that I can make the first $2000 you’ll give me on whichever day within the next week so worth your while that it hurts.”
“You’ll get it Saturday,” Lawrence says. “The first installment.”
“Get your ass to this condo or so help me God—”
“I’ll be there in fifteen,” Lawrence laughs. “Mouthing me off is not recommended.”
“There can’t be too many punishments out there. I like it when pain gets involved. Being thrown and smacked around just gets me wet.”
“There are ways to torture you without being aggressive. Be a good puppy and wait for me, yeah?”
You roll your eyes. One sexual encounter a few days prior and he knows, already, that calling you his puppy is the quickest way to get you to submit.
“Yeah, Lawrence,” you say. “Of course.”
“Good,” he says. “You can wait fifteen minutes without touching yourself, can’t you?”
Without meaning to, you grind helplessly against the hem of your jeans.
“Mhm.”
“Good puppy.”
And then the call is done, and you’re going to your bedroom to swap your day clothes for something more comfortable—a black hoodie you’d owned since you started in the PhD program at 26 that you’d accidentally ordered around six sizes too big—and strip of everything else.
You head back into the living room, clad in nothing but a baggy hoodie. It leaves your clit, folds, and breasts open to the wintery cold updraft, which forces you to grab a throw blanket and toss it over your legs.
The ten minutes to proceed those events are spent reading a romance novel that you’d put on your coffee table for decoration, and when you hear the sound of Lawrences spare key entering the slot on the door, you grin.
He closes the door behind him lightly, grins when he meets your gaze, and you look him over.
He looks good in a way that makes you almost insatiable—navy blue button up shirt, black slacks, white doctors coat hanging loosely off his shoulders. His hair is handsomely unkempt, and he looks like the picture of laidback professionalism.
He takes the white coat off, drapes it over the top of your loveseat.
“You look cute,” he says. “Waited for me on the couch the entire time?”
You nod, standing up without thinking twice about it. “You said to wait. I did.”
He steps towards you, intentionally walking slowly. “Are you wearing anything beneath the hoodie, puppy?”
You shake your head. “I’m not. I always wear the hoodie like this—it’s comfortable for me,” it’s a lie, of course, but you just have to hope it’s not a very obvious one.
“Is it really?” He asks. When you bite your lip, he laughs.
“I don’t like liars,” he says. “If you decided to forgo anything beneath it because of me, you’re allowed to be honest. I find honesty preferable to lies, even if the way that you bite your lip and how fucking good you look makes me want to bend you over the arm of the couch and use you to my preference.”
You nod. “I wore it like this for conveniences sake,” you admit. “Was a bit warm, too, and needed to cool off, even though I regretted that almost instantly because it's the fucking winter. Figured you’d have an easier time touching me if I wore nothing underneath the sweater.”
Lawrence takes another step and is finally within arms reach.
“I’ll buy us dinner,” he says. “You can use the sixty for a nice lingerie set if you want, or maybe a few new books, but I have to get you back for thinking of how to dress in a manner that conveniences me.”
“You’re giving me four thousand dollars this month. I am not letting you buy dinner.”
“New rule, then,” he says. “Rule number four: in addition to the four thousand dollars monthly, I get to buy you dinner and gifts whenever I please.”
“You’re only doing that out of spite,” you say pointedly. “You said four thousand was the max amount you could give me while living within your means.”
“I said it was the amount I could give you, not the max amount,” Lawrence says. “Realistically I could afford close to five thousand, but I figured that spoiling you to some extent would come into play at one point or the next, so I rounded down.”
“Fine,” you nod. “I accept the rule. What’s your favorite color?”
“That’s a tie between dark blue, dark green, and maroon,” he says. “Why do you ask?”
You bite your bottom lip lightly. “While I am privy to owning a decent set to feel confident once in a while, I do want it to look so good that you can’t resist the urge to see what’s underneath. Your favorite color is the place to start in figuring that out, one would think.”
He puts one hand on your hip, a smirk kicking up the corner of his mouth. “I won’t be needed at work until nine tomorrow morning,” he says. “I’m going to make this worth it for us both, mm?”
You nod. All you want him to do is either start rubbing your clit while he kisses you, or for his fingers to be in your mouth again.
“Hows the oral fixation?”
“Still doing it’s thing,” you say, biting your lip again. “Why?”
“Be a good puppy for me and kneel, Y/N.”
You do as he says without having to think twice, becoming eye-level with his half hard cock and almost moaning as you look at it.
“What do you wanna do from where you are?” Your gaze goes to his.
Your tongue pokes out from between your lips, and suddenly thoughts of sucking him off cloud your mind entirely.
“Go on, puppy. Speak.”
“Wanna suck you off,” you whisper. “Wanna—oh my God. Lawrence please—”
“Do as you please, puppy,” he whispers. “I’m not gonna tell you no.”
You lean in, smelling him through his pants before you undo the zipper, button, and pull them and his boxers down, taking his half hard cock into your mouth within seconds.
“Good—holy fuck,” Lawrence moans. “Your mouth is amazing.”
You hum in response, tongue finding the underside of his length and setting a pace that clearly drives Lawrence a little insane. When a hand falls to your hair and he sets a pace of his own, you let him, just enjoying the feeling of his cock in your mouth.
He finishes in your mouth a few minutes later, and you swallow his cum without thinking. It makes him laugh even as he apologises for coming so suddenly, wiping what of it had dribbled to your chin after he’s helped you stand.
He presses his thumb against your bottom lip and you take it into your mouth, getting the cum off of it and grinning slightly when he thanks you for the deed.
He sits down on the long end of the couch, having pulled his boxers and his pants back up.
His gaze meets yours, and he smirks. “C’mere, puppy. Sit on my lap.”
You do as he tells you, sitting on his lap so that your thighs sit on either side of his. His hands find your hips pretty quickly, and all you want to do is kiss him, but you refrain.
“Did Aurelie offer to help, or did you ask?” Lawrence asks.
“I called,” you laugh a bit. “Defeating the hyper independence one phone call at time, I guess. Plus, she wasn’t working and told me to call her if I needed anything. My mind has been pretty fuzzy since last night, when I tried to think of everything I’d need to buy, and I called her to avoid having a breakdown. Without her helping me figure stuff out and then going with me to grab it I would’ve cried a lot more today, to say the least of it.”
“Good,” Lawrence says. “And you called me because you were alone, horny, and needing company?”
You nod. “I know our first—encounter—was the other day, but I just—”
Lawrence nods like he understands, and part of you believes that he does. “Can I kiss you, puppy?”
“Please, Lawrence.”
And then his lips are on yours, and he’s letting you press his back against the couch as your hands cup his face and sit at the bottom end of his neck, and it’s so, so easy to get lost in it.
Lawrences tongue darts out to your bottom lip while one of his hands moves from your hip to your clit, resulting in the sound of a hushed gasp befalling your lips. Lawrence uses it to his advantage, tongue finding its way into your mouth while he rubs excruciatingly slow circles around your clit.
“Lawrence,” you moan, desperately clenching around nothing in order to avoid grinding down onto him. “Oh, Lawrence. Please.”
“Not yet, puppy,” he whispers, pulling away from your lips just enough to talk. “You got a bit mouthy earlier, yeah?”
You bite your lip, nodding slightly.
“Well, I believe I made a point about there being ways to punish you that don’t involve pain?”
“Mm,” you hum. “You’re not going to be needed at work until nine tomorrow, which means—”
“Realistically, I don’t have a need to be home until around one, which means I have you until at least midnight, which is, what? Six and a half hours out?”
“Lawrence—” you whimper. “Please, sir. Please don’t make me wait that long.”
“Aw, you think using an honorific is gonna make me take mercy? Puppy, I love it when you address me as such, but you did this to yourself, yeah? You can’t tell me what to do, sweetness. I’m the one who does the ordering. Be a good puppy for the next thirty minutes and I promise, the punishment stops and the reward begins, okay?”
You clench around air again, nod and let him go back to kissing you.
He kisses you until your head is spinning, and when he pulls away, you find that it’s only been a few minutes. Your head rests on his shoulder as you catch your breath, both of his hands returning to your hips.
“Take my cock out of my boxers for me, yeah?”
“Had you kept the pants and boxers off, it would’ve been easier,” you sass before you can stop yourself.
Lawrences response is a nod, a kiss to the side of your head. “Do as I say, puppy,” he says. “Good puppies get treats, and if you don’t do as I say, you’ll just be punished until midnight, and when I leave, you’ll have gotten a free dinner but sexually? You’ll be dissatisfied for at least another few days.”
“Sorry, Lawrence.” You lift yourself off him and pull his pants and boxers down, waiting for him to do the last of the work before you sit on his lap again, hovering just over his length.
“It’s okay, puppy,” he whispers, kissing your cheekbone. “You’re allowed to stop hovering.”
“If I don’t, then you’ll—I’ll—do you want us to use condoms?”
“I got a vasectomy in October, and Plan B pills are a thing,” he says. “You said you were clear for STIs, so I’m not worried. Go on, Y/N, but only if you’re comfortable.”
You slide yourself onto him, letting yourself be split open by his length, watching the way that he reacts to it.
The way that Lawrence reacts has to be one of the most attractive things you’ve ever seen—he rests his arms on the back of the couch, and as soon as you’ve taken the tip, his head tilts back.
When you’re close to bottoming out, a long, depraved, drawn out “fuck,” falls from his gorgeous lips.
When you do bottom out, you let yourself moan, let your head fall onto Lawrences shoulder.
“Gotta stay still, puppy,” Lawrence says. “No moving, yeah?”
You whimper, biting down onto Lawrences shoulder in order to keep yourself from doing so.
“I know, Y/N. Twenty minutes until six, mm?” He laughs, one hand slipping beneath the sweater you wear. “You can’t react, either. No clenching, no moving, nothing. Biting, moaning, and whimpering are allowed, though. You’re cute when you get needy, so it seems.”
His hand finds your lower stomach and he presses down, and you have to fight every single reactive urge to do as you’ve been told. Instead, you moan lewdly, the pressure of your bite against his clothed shoulder increasing.
“Good puppy,” he praises, his voice a whisper. “Oh, you really are a good listener. You like how this feels?”
“Lawrence,” you moan desperately. “’M sorry about the bite—I’m scared I might’ve bruised.”
You kiss the area of his shoulder you’d bitten while he laughs.
“You’re just doing as I told you, yeah? The pain wasn’t bad compared to the other stuff I’ve been through.”
At that, you remember his foot, or lack thereof, and just how long he's probably been wearing his prosthesis, which just has to hurt by that point. But no, of course you'd completely forgotten about potential discomfort when horny and wanting, though it was something you had taken account for when you'd talked in not-sexually-driven situations.
“Shit!” You curse. “I’m so sorry—I just—”
“I try not to make a huge deal of it,” he says. “It’s really no concern.”
When he finds that you still look a little unsure, he laughs and presses a kiss to your lips. “It’s all right, puppy. I promise, I'm fine. Nothing hurts, aches, or itches as far as my footless leg is concerned, yeah? Just relax for me, mm?”
You nod, still feeling guilty. Lawrence presses a kiss to your forehead and the next twenty minutes are spent with him letting you thrust once or twice every few minutes, his fingers rubbing slow circles around your clit.
When six hits, Lawrence beams. “You’re allowed to move,” he says. “But don’t come yet, yeah? Wanna spread you out on this couch.”
You do as he says, setting a pace that’s just quick enough to make you teeter along the edge within minutes but not enough to come. When Lawrence has had enough, he tells you as much, telling you to get off of him and lie on your back.
You do as he tells you, watching him take off his shirt and tie like it’s a strip show. When finally his lips are on you again, he’s kissing your thighs and making his way to where you need him most.
Once there, he presses a kiss against your clit, then runs his tongue gently through your folds.
“You’re so wet,” he laughs. “You really do get turned on easily, mm?”
Your response comes as a half-laugh, half whimper, and it just eggs Lawrence on. His tongue attaches itself to your clit and you clench around pretty much nothing, one hand finding your nipple beneath the sweater while the other grips the back of the couch like it’s a lifeline.
“Lawrence,” you moan as his lips and tongue move down to your hole. You pinch your nipple between your fingers and Lawence laughs at how desperate you sound for him.
His nose presses against your clit and you grind against him, moaning lewdly. “You're using your fucking nose—ohmygod,” you moan, having a split second wherein you don’t care about how loud you’re being. “Oh, fuck, Lawrence—”
Although he’d only gotten divorced four, maybe five months beforehand, it’s clear that he knows what he’s doing—whether it’s muscle memory from the early days of his marriage or something he’d picked up in the time since his divorce, you’re glad for it.
“Lawrence—ohmyfuckinggod—” you grind against his face and he laughs, nodding slightly.
“Use me, baby,” he says, pressing a kiss to your clit. “Use my mouth, yeah? Don’t worry about anything, just focus on yourself.”
You do as he says, letting yourself set a pace while Lawrrences hands move up to your stomach.
“Fuck, Lawrence,” you moan, inches away from releasing over his face. “Lawrence—I—”
“Go ahead,” he presses his tongue flat against your clit as you grind against him and that’s basically the final straw—when he buries his face in your cunt again, you cum over his face with your thighs pressing against the sides of it, holding him in place slightly.
He stays with you through the aftershocks and comes up to kiss you once all is said and done, and once again—depraved but so fucking hot because you can taste yourself on his tongue. The kiss is intense but also everything you need to relax, and when Lawrence pulls away, you tell him there are wash cloths in the bathroom and that he’s welcome to take a shower if he sees fit, but you’re exhausted and sprawled out over the couch is the way you aim to stay.
He leaves your side and is back twenty minutes later with a damp washcloth, which he runs over your exposed cunt and then himself. He helps you get to standing and leads you to the primary suite, grabbing you a pair of sweatpants and a baggy sweater after locating them easily in your wardrobe. You wobble back to the living room while Lawrence gets dressed again, plopping into the rocking chair you’ve placed in the corner of the room.
Lawrence checks the couch for stains and both of you are surprised to find that there are none, though Lawrence cleans the area anyway before he calls and orders delivery to your apartment.
“I know we said no staying post-coitus,” you murmur. “But—you have until midnight, yeah? Stay for a while.”
Lawrence nods. “I’ll at least stay for a while after dinner,” he says. You stand, sit in the love seat. Lawrence sits down next to you, wraps an arm around your shoulders. “I do want to get to know you more—I feel like we don’t know each other as well as we should.”
You smirk. “I’m entitled to my secrets, and you are to yours.”
“Yes, that is a fair point, but part of me wants to know everything about you that’s not a secret, Y/N.”
“Don’t forget one of the first rules we made—you’re not allowed to fall in love with me.”
“I wouldn’t hate loving you in the platonic sense of the word,” Lawrence says. “That’s what I aim to do.”
You hum, press a kiss to his shoulder. “’Mkay,” you nod. “Loving me platonically is allowed, says the judge of whatever the fuck this is going to turn into.”
Lawrence laughs.
For a split second, you feel the urge to freeze the moment in time, to treasure the simple domesticity of it.
You want to stay in that pocket of time forever, Lawrences arm wrapped around your shoulders, your cheek pressed just above his chest, so blissful that nothing else in the world matters to you or him, so well hidden away from the rest of the world that nothing can find you or be bothered with looking.
You brush it off quickly—the first rule of the agreement had been that you weren’t allowed to fall in love with each other. You were not going to start falling for a man you could not have, one that would not want you in turn.
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Deep End - Part 4
Part 4: 6K words approx
Available on Ao3 HERE
Characters: OFC Aura, Minho, Han
Overall Summary: AU/ Minho is the new accountant at Aura's work, and he's got his sights set on her. But what happens when her ex Han comes back into the picture.
Workplace romance with a blast from the past for Aura.
Part 4 Summary: Minho and Aura work back in the office and end up having sex.
Warnings for part 4: stripping, oral sex, protected sex, sex in a place you could get caught, sir kink, soft dom Minho, orgasms, pet names.
Read Part 3 here
A few night’s later, Aura found herself working back at the office again. She seemed to do this a lot when Binnie and Hyunjin were in full gossip mode, which was happening more and more frequently now they had more to gossip about. They made it their personal mission to keep an eye on Minho “keeping an eye on her”. They were certain he was infatuated with her. But all Aura knew for certain was that she wasn’t getting her work done.
Eventually, she decided to call it a night. She packed her bag and turned off the light to the office, closing the door behind her as she left her workspace. The hallway was dark, except for a light coming from up the hallway. Someone had forgotten to turn their light off, or, someone was working back. Other than herself, who in their right mind would be working back she didn't know.
As she got closer to the source of the light she could tell it was coming from the accountant’s office. Minho’s office. Aura stopped short. What if Minho was in there? She weighed up whether to go ahead and see, or to turn and run the other way.
"Come on Aura. get a grip. You’re a mature woman, not a silly girl". Her words did not snap her out of it.
But before her head could make up her mind what to do, she was walking forward towards his office, catching a glimpse of him through the glass window as she approached.
It was indeed Minho, sitting at his desk, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, head in hands, fingers tangled through his hair. He looked stressed. Paperwork was strewn all over his desk and he looked fucking exhausted.
Aura stopped at the doorway and knocked.
Minho looked up, startled, a wry smile crossed his face.
"No singing and dancing this evening, Kitten?" he tried to tease, but his words held no humour.
She pretended she didn’t hear his quip and wandered into the room. Her eyes scanned all the documents around him. It looked like a mess. Minho looked tired and fed up, and he reminded her of how she felt when she thought it was a great idea to buy some Ikea furniture only to find herself in the middle of her living room floor, pieces all about her, and no idea where to put them. It was only a lamp table for fucks sake. Although after that she became an Ikea whiz and can put a bookshelf together in record time.
Aura wasn’t sure what to say. “Are you okay?” she managed. She sat down in the chair on the other side of his desk. He didn’t answer, so she took one of the documents to see what they were about. She probably shouldn’t be looking but Minho didn’t stop her The look of despair on his face began to worry her.
“What’s happened?” she looked at him closely.
Minho laughed manically. “It’s…” he began. He didn’t look like he was up for telling her, but he surprised her with his next sentence. “Can you help me, Aura?” He waved his hands, gesturing over the strewn documents.
Aura looked down at the documents once again, taking a closer look at what they were. It looked like a report of some kind. At least five hundred pages of report, each page had holes down the side as if they had once been spiral bound.
“It’s the annual report.” Minho’s face changed from bewildered to pissed off. “I found it on my desk like this.” Again he gestured over the mess.
“What?” Aura laughed. “Are you sure you just didn’t drop it?” She couldn’t help but tease him after his little quip about her dancing. But Minho’s face remained pissed off and serious.
Aura frowned. She guessed that wasn’t what he wanted to hear right now.
“Aura. I have to present this to the board meeting tomorrow.” Minho’s brow creased as he frowned.
Aura knew what he was asking. He wanted her to help him put the pages back in order. She sighed and picked up a bunch of the paper, scanning them, and began to rifle through the other mini piles on the desk.
“If we can find the contents page then we can at least get some order going on.”
Minho looked at her thoughtfully, he seemed to approve of her idea.
They spent the next several hours piecing together the report. Tediously and meticulously cross checking with the contents page and using their judgement of what looked like the right order.
After a while Minho sat back in his chair, loosened his tie and stretched his arms up above his head. He drew in a deep breath and exhaled fully. Then he rested his gaze on Aura.
“Have you been avoiding me?” he asked all of a sudden.
“Huh?” Aura looked up from her busyness. She thought for a moment. “Hmm…no.”
“I hope not. I just… I thought we’d have more interactions than we do.”
Aura didn’t know what to say to that. “Um, well I guess my department and yours don’t really need to interact all that much.” She shifted her attention back to the paperwork.
Aura could feel Minho’s eyes fixed on her. She cleared her throat awkwardly and looked up. “What?” she queried. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she eyed him off suspiciously. Fuck, he was gorgeous. Suddenly aware of the tension filling the room, Aura quickly averted her eyes back to the report. Her cheeks felt flushed and her mouth dry.
“Thank you… for helping me.” He said low, still watching her. She smiled in return, meeting his eyes again. She didn’t expect a man like him to have asked for help, let alone thank her with such sincerity. “Of course.” She said brightly but her insides were melting. She needed a distraction.“You know what?” She looked at Minho. “I think it’s coffee time, again.”
————————————
The pair had been using the smaller kitchenette on their floor of the building rather the main one in the communal breakout area. Aura boiled the kettle and Minho spooned out more of that dreadful instant coffee. They’d lost count of the number of coffees they’d had so far tonight.
Minho screwed the lid back on the jar and turned to Aura, smirking. “So, Aura, tell me,” he leaned in close to her face grinning. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“What?” Aura shrieked. “What kind of question is that? Has no one taught you manners Mr Lee Minho.” She scowled.
Minho simply laughed. “Hey, I was only wondering if you had anyone at home who is subjected to your ridiculous dancing. That’s all.”
Aura’s mouth hung open in disgust. “I can’t believe you’re such a shit stirrer? Can’t you just let it go about my dancing? Please?” she attempted to playfully punch him in the chest, but Minho was too quick. He grabbed her wrist, moving it back to her side, and gently pressed her back against the edge of the bench.
“You’re a feisty one, aren’t you, kitten?” Not that word again? He stood so close she thought he was about kiss her. His eyes were fixed on her lips, like he needed to taste them. But then he pulled away at the last second to finish making the coffees like nothing had happened. Aura shook her head to try and bring herself back to reality. Had she just hallucinated? Was he playing some weird game with her? Was he interested in her?
“Let’s go get this finished, yeah?” he called over his shoulder as he headed back to the office holding the coffees.
What the actual fuck just happened?
———————————-
The pair continued to work on the report deep into the night. Every now and then Aura could feel Minho’s eyes drift over to her and linger for far longer than they should. It made her feel self-conscious, and lose focus on the task at hand. Please don’t look at me like that, she thought and swallowed hard. When she felt he wasn’t watching her she would steal a glance at his toned arms, licking her lips at the sight of the protruding veins in his forearms and hands. It kept on happening, this back and forth between them.
“Oh my God! I think we’re finally done!” Aura’s face lit up. She jumped out her seat and held up her hands for Minho to high five. Minho appeared more relieved than excited, but he obliged in returning her gesture by slapping her hands with his.
“I need more coffee.” She slumped back down in her chair and looked longingly in her empty coffee cup.
Minho opened his desk draw and pulled out a bottle of rum along with two glasses. Aura raised an eyebrow. Minho scoffed at her expression, standing up and walking around to the side of the desk where she sat.
“Fuck!” she checked the time on her phone. “It’s four o’clock!”
“It’s too late for coffee. Here.” He stated holding a glass out for her, then filled her cup. He took his own empty cup and the bottle of rum over to the two seater sofa at the other end of his office. She felt his gaze still on her as he sighed and relaxed into the cushion.
He filled his own cup, then plonking the bottle on the coffee table and slouching back into the sofa. His long fingers loosened his tie further and then he unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt with one hand, revealing part of his chest.
The entire time he stared at Aura with an expression that made her stomach flip and desire pool between her legs. She couldn’t break from his gaze. Fuck. He looked like he wanted to eat her. His parted lips making her part hers too, as intrusive thoughts of what it might feel like to kiss him entered her mind.
He patted the cushion next to him “Aura, come sit with me.”
“I’m quite fine. Thank you.” She coughed.
Minho shrugged as if to say “oh well, whatever”, and took a swig of his drink and leaned back and close his eyes. Was he waiting for her to go sit next to him?
Aura screwed up her nose. He could’ve tried harder to convince her. He opened his eyes again locking eyes with her once more, and then cocked his head to side gesturing for her to come and sit next to him.
Aura rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She got up and went and sat on his left, leaning the side of her body against the back of the sofa so she faced Minho.
“You know, it’s against the company rules to keep alcohol in your desk draw?” She eyed him quizzically.
“What? Does it really surprise you that I have this?” he took a sip of his drink and paused in thought as he studied his glass. “You know, I rarely drink to be honest. I only have one of these a week.” He said flatly looking into his cup.
Aura secretly felt relieved. Minho’s eyes narrowed as he tried to read Aura’s expression. “You really are surprised.” He repeated incredulously and put the glass on the table.
Aura snapped out of her thoughts. “Oh! Yes. Well…I thought accountants didn’t break rules, you know. I didn’t know they were capable of it, actually.” She teased.
Minho leaned forward into Aura’s personal space, his face merely inches from hers. “Accountants are capable of a lot of things.” He whispered low looking her up and down greedily, and placed his hand on her knee.
Aura’s eyes flickered down to where Minho’s hand was on her leg and then quickly looked back up, horrorfied. “What? So they’re capable of workplace harassment are they?” she spoke sternly, but inside she was actually a puddle.
Minho threw his hands up in an I-mean-no-harm kind of way and sat up.
But Aura was intrigued, and feeling flirty. Minho was an attractive man. He wasn’t nearly as difficult as people led her to believe. Plus, it was the dead of night. That time of night where it doesn’t feel like reality. Maybe she could try something?
“Minho?”
“Yes kitten?” Oh sweet Lord. Aura felt ashamed at what that pet name did to her body. Her stomach dropped. She felt a another rush of arousal head south, and she swore to God she just soaked her panties. She was fucked, and she knew it.
“Hmm?” he prompted her to continue.
With as much fake confidence as possible Aura continued. “Show me what accountants are capable of then.”
A triumphant smirk appeared across Minho’s face. Oh he likes this challenge, does he? She thought.
Minho’s hand was back on her leg, this time a little higher up her thigh, and his other arm gripped her by the chin tilting her head up so she was looking him dead straight in the eye.
“Are you sure you can handle it? Kitten?” his voice was deadly. His mouth a centimetre from hers. She could feel his warm breath against her lips.
“Oh trust me, I can handle it.” She dared him. Both Minho’s hands came to rest on either side of her neck, his thumbs grazing her jawline. “We’ll see.” He said and closed his eyes and took her in a deep, hungry kiss.
Aura’s body was on fire. Minho’s mouth hot and hungry as his tongue quickly found hers. He pulled back checking in on her with his eyes. “You’re so fucking beautiful, kitten. You make me want to do bad things to you.” He gently kissed her collarbone and licked his way up to her ear. “Will you let me, kitten?” he whispered.
Aura didn’t know what Minho had in mind. What he meant by ‘bad things’ she didn’t know, but she wanted to find out. “Yes, Lee Minho. This kitten will let you do bad things to her.” She whispered back as adrenaline and desire overtook her.
Minho leaned back and smirked. “I want you to strip for me.” His hand skimmed over her breast and down her waist, resting on her hip. “I wanna see what’s underneath these clothes.”
Aura’s eyes widened. “Like right here? Right now?”.
Minho nodded. “Yes, right now.”
Aura bit her lower lip and sat up to kick off her shoes. She downed her rum in one go and slowly stood. She was nervous about what she just agreed to. She definitely didn’t feel like the seductive type, how on earth was she going to strip for him?
Minho leaned back into the sofa, legs spread wide and an obvious bulge where he was sporting an erection. Aura swallowed. He was staring at her with such a hunger that she honestly thought he was actually going to eat her. His almost black eyes drifted down her body as though he was imagining what she tasted like.
Nervously, Aura’s hands found their way to her blouse, shaking fingers began to unbutton her shirt. One. Two. Three buttons, and her purple lace bra was revealed.
“Purple. My favourite, Kitten. How’d you know?” he growled.
“Lucky guess.” She raised an eyebrow. Minho let out a gasp when she finished undoing all the buttons and slowly pulled the shirt off her shoulders, dropping it to the floor.
“The skirt.” Minho stated impatiently. His hand palming himself through his black slacks.
Aura was beginning to enjoy how Minho was responding to her. He seemed to be slowly losing his composure and it made Aura feel powerful and sexy. “You want this off too, do you?” she teased.
“Fuck yes.” He hissed.
As Aura unbuttoned her skirt, Minho unbuttoned his pants, and as she slowly pulled her skirt down over her hips, Minho released his cock. His eyes were fixed on her matching purple lace panties. Aura’s eyes landed on his dick, making her core ache with need. She stepped out of her skirt and stood there, waiting for instructions.
“Come kneel down in front of me.” Minho’s voice was raspy with desire. Aura didn’t hesitate. He placed a throw cushion on the carpet and Aura positioned herself between Minho’s legs. He leaned forward taking her in a heated kiss, plastering saliva all over her lips and face, then he peeled away panting and leaned his forehead against hers. “I’m going to let you to suck my cock in a minute. But first,” he kissed her forehead. “I want to touch you for a little bit. If you want to stop at any point, use the word ‘podcast’… otherwise, I keep going. And you keep taking it.”
Aura let out a moan as his hands came to rest on either side of her neck. She felt so vulnerable in his large, strong hands. Keeping one hand clasped around her neck, Minho’s other hand traced along the top of her bra. She shivered at how gentle and tender his touch was. He cupped her breast and let out a low groan as he squeezed the flesh. Aura kept still for Minho, she loved this feeling of him taking control like this. She watched his expression as he explored her body. His mouth hung agape and his greedy eyes made her feel desired.
Minho’s grip on her neck tightened slightly while his other hand made it’s way down towards her panties, pausing just before he actually got there. “Let’s see how wet you are for me, hmm?” She felt Minho’s finger expertly move her panties to one side and slide up between her lips. Aura moaned at the pressure and how smoothly his fingers slid through her labia. Liquid heat filling her pelvis, and she closed her eyes, losing herself to the pleasure. “Look at me.” Minho demanded softly. She opened her eyes and looked at him. “You’re pussy’s so wet. You’re cunt’s already ready to be filled isn’t it?”
Aura swallowed and nodded. “Yes!” she squeaked. Minho’s hand gripped tighter, almost restricting her airflow. “That’s yes Sir to you.” And he plunged two thick fingers into her.
Aura felt like she was going to drip her arousal all over the cushion. She had no idea that she enjoyed this kind of dynamic, but she was loving every second of it. She could feel that her orgasm was building rapidly as Minho dug his curled fingers against her g-spot. She was getting closer, her hips automatically starting to seek friction against his hand. He removed his fingers and placed one in his mouth, making her cry in agony. “You taste so sweet. Here.” He shoved his fingers into Aura’s mouth. “Suck them clean, baby.” He bit into his lip as he concentrated on Aura’s mouth as she sucked her own juices off his fingers. “I need you to suck my cock now.” He finally let go of her neck.
“Show me how much you can take, Kitten.” He moaned as Aura set to work on his cock. She teased him for a little while. A kitten lick here, a swirl of the tongue there, licking a long stripe from the base of his cock to the tip. When she could tell he was getting impatient she finally took him in her mouth.
“Ahhhh… yes Kitten. Like that. Good girl.” He moaned loudly. “Fuck your mouth feels good.” Aura quickly built up a slow and steady rhythm, combining her hand and mouth to work his entire cock. He had the prettiest cock Aura had ever seen. Decent size, perfect thickness, and the veins made her clench her vagina with need. She was hungry for his cock, greedy even. She took him as far back into her throat as she possible could, trying her hardest not to gag.
“That’s it baby girl… Mmmm… Show me how much you love cock.” Aura felt his fingers thread through her hair and push down on the back of her head, forcing more of his cock into her mouth. She couldn’t help but make a choked, gagging sound. She worried that Minho would be turned off by the sounds of her struggling, but he seemed to enjoy it even more. “Ahhh… fuck…that’s it…take it.” He groaned.
Aura could feel tears escape her eyes, no doubt making her mascara smear and run down her cheeks. It was probably just the way he liked it. Noisy. Messy. Dirty.
“What I want you to do now is take off your underwear for me.” Aura made to release his cock. “Na-uh. You keep my cock in your mouth.” He said sternly.
It was awkward, but somehow Aura managed to slip off her panties and unclasp her bra, tossing them to the side whilst Minho forced her head down almost the entire length of his penis.
“Okay. You can stop for now.” He patted her head, urging her lift her head. “Fuck, you’re even prettier with your make up all over your face and dribble all down your chin.” He kissed her again, this time deep and slow. “How are you so perfect?” he whispered and gently closed his eyes for a moment. He opened them once again, lust in his eyes and with one hand he lifted his loosened tie over his head and straight over Aura’s, slipping it around her neck. Aura gasped as he turned the tie so it was backwards around her neck. He pulled it tight so that when he was finished it resembled a collar and leash.
Aura’s eyes widened in anticipation as she met Minho’s eyes. He looked deranged and Aura swore she saw him snarl. “Kneel on the couch. Lean on the armrest.” He instructed with a raspy voice.
Aura climbed onto the couch and positioned herself exactly how Minho wanted her. Exposed, vulnerable and restrained.
“Don’t fucking move an inch. I’m just grabbing a condom.” He got up from the couch and rid himself of his clothes. She watched him as he sauntered naked over to his desk to find his wallet, pulling a condom from it. The man look like a fucking god. Aura couldn’t wait for him to fuck her.
She felt him come up behind her, but instead of penetrating her, he laid on the couch so that his face was underneath her. “Sit on my face. I wanna taste you.” He pulled Aura’s hips down so she was literally sitting on his face, his tongue immediately found her entrance, sending electricity through he body. The bridge of his nose perfectly positioned to apply pressure to her clit. Aura ground down against Minho’s face while holding onto the chair arm for dear life. She worried maybe she would suffocate him, but he gripped her thighs and pulled her down harder whilst he pushed his tongue inside of her as far as he could reach.
Aura felt her lower body tense, her legs became unstable, her mind was soaring in pleasure. “I’m gonna come, Minho… sir… I’m fuck-“ she cried out as her orgasm hit. Her thighs trembled, her vagina clenched and released involuntarily, tears ran down her cheeks and whimpers flowed out of her mouth. Minho hummed against her core as she rode out her orgasm.
He supported her legs as she lifted off his face and returned to her all four’s position. “You taste so fucking incredible, kitten.” She turned to see his face covered in her wetness, a stupid fucked out grin on his face.
“Turn back around” he nodded his head directing her to face straight ahead while he positioned himself behind her. A tear of the condom wrapper and a moment later she felt him rub the head of his cock against her clit.
Then, holding onto the his necktie that was around her neck he pushed his length into her, stretching her open, filling her completely.
Minho’s exhalation was more a hiss, the tightness of her cunt affecting him. “Fuck, Aura… kitten… fuck you feel good”. He withdraw almost the whole way, then slammed back into her with so much force she cried out. “That’s so deep…ah…” she winced.
“Aura, I know you can take it for me. A good little girl like you, I bet you can take a whole lot more than you’re letting on.” He slammed into her again. Minho let go of the tie to grip her hips instead. He needed to hold her still so she wouldn’t wiggle away when he pushed hard against her cervix. “Use your safe word if you need it, baby.” He reminded her, giving her an option to stop. But every deep thrust was bringing her closer to another climax. Every impact of his cock against her cervix turning into a deeper pleasure. She didn’t want to ever stop.
“Is this what you wanted when you were watching me in the meeting?” He accused. “Or when you dancing so fucking slutty in your office? Do you know hard it was for me to not walk straight in and rip your clothes off?” He growled increasing his pace.
“I’m close…Minho.” Aura panted.
“Ha! It’s Sir, remember.” He dug his fingers into her flesh and delivered an even harder thrust.
“Sir!!!” She cried. “Can I come again? Please?” Aura was desperate now. She felt pathetic but loving every second of what was happening.
Minho pulled out of her entirely, flipping her over so she was on her back. He carefully, gently even, removed the tie from her neck then kissed her. Aura could taste herself on him and she moaned at how erotic this entire encounter felt.
He pinned her legs up, almost folding her in half, and locked eyes with her as he sunk back into her. He leaned over Aura so their faces were close, and brought a hand up to stroke her cheek. His eyes drifted between her eyes and her mouth like he couldn’t decide where to settle his gaze.
“I want us to be kissing while we both come.” He whispered softly. Aura searched his eyes, surprised by his sudden tenderness.
“Would that be okay, kitten? You think you’ll be able to come with my cock deep inside your cunt, and my tongue shoved down your throat?” His words were so dirty, but his tone was gentle.
“Yes, Sir.” Aura whispered.
Minho smirked and dove into her mouth with a wild frenzy, while he started to snap his hips against her. With angle of his dick hitting her in just the right spot, she dug her nails into his back causing him to cry out into her mouth, and she smiled against him, knowing how she was driving him wild.
Minho slowed his assault on her mouth, allowing the kiss to morph into something more delicate. He rolled his hips as he thrust into her creating a different sensation to what she’d felt so far. His slow, rhythmic, deep thrusts coupled with the sensuality of the kiss brought her to orgasm. She saw stars as her walls pulsed around his cock. She cried into his mouth and he groaned into hers as his hips hips stuttered and he came into the condom.
Minho remained inside her as he propped himself up on his elbows, and just watched her for a long moment.
“What is it?” Aura broke the silence. A warm smile spread over Minho’s face. “I’m relieved.”
Aura’s eyes narrowed. “About what?”
“That you didn’t use your safe word.” He said. “I guess part of me was worried that I’d be too much.” He lowered his head.
“Minho,” Aura lifted his chin so she could see his face. “I’d never…had that kind of sex before.”
“I didn’t scare you did I?” His smile turned to concern. Aura shook her head. “I liked it.”
“Thank fuck.” He chuckled. “I’m not sure how I’d be able to show my face in front of you again if I I scared you…or hurt you?”
Minho withdrew his softened cock from Aura, and removed and tied off the condom.
“I need to get dressed.” Aura lifted her head to locate her clothes.
“Shhh… it’s okay. Don’t get up, I’ll get them.” Minho soothed. He helped her get dressed, slipping her panties and skirt back on. “I need you to sit up just for second.”
Aura silently obeyed. She sat up and Minho helped put her bra back on and buttoned up her blouse for her. “Lay back down. There’s still a couple of hours before work starts. Sleep.” He stroked her arm and got up, returning to cover her with his work jacket.
Aura wanted nothing more than to snuggle up to Minho, but he was gone and she was asleep within a minute.
———————-
The next morning Aura sat at the conference table alongside Hyunjin, Binnie and Felix ready for another staff meeting. A hum of various conversations filled the room, while they waited for the meeting to commence.
“Hey Aura, weren’t you wearing that outfit yesterday?” asked Binnie looking her up and down.
Aura looked down at her clothes. She was a wreck. She didn’t even make it home last night. Putting the report back together took hours, and then, well. Oh fuck! She hung her head as she thought about the hot sex she had with Minho, on his office couch.
Aura went on to explain what happened the night before. The report, the sleeping at the office. She left out the sleeping with a co-worker part.
“That’s really odd. So he just found the report like that on his desk?” said Hyunjin. Aura nodded.
“Maybe it was a ploy to get you alone in his office.” Binnie poked, causing Aura to turn beet red.
“Nah. I don’t think so.” was Felix’s reply. The boys glared at him. “No, Aura. I didn’t mean it like that. You are beautiful and kind… It’s just…” Felix gestured for the others to lean in closer. He looked around the room and continued in a hushed tone “There have been some weird things happening here.” He looked around the room once more, ensuring no one was eavesdropping. “Seungmin in HR says that his files for the productivity report for the accounts section had been mixed up. Like someone had gone in and moved things around.”
Hyunjin laughed. “Come on, are you serious?”
“I am. Seungmin got in trouble for it, and because he couldn’t explain what had happened he was blamed for being careless. He’s spewing.”
“Hmmm.” Binnie appeared to be deep in thought, staring off. “Seungmin is meticulous. OCD style.” he paused while he was deciding what it all meant “I think it sounds fishy, Felix.” He concluded.
Felix pointed his finger at Binnie “Exactly!”
Aura took a sip of her espresso coffee. Her third of the day so far. It didn’t make any sense. Why would anyone bother to be so petty as to mix up files, tamper with reports?
Just then Minho entered the conference room. Aura’s heart skipped a beat. He looked dreadful too, his shirt still crumpled, his hair disheveled. Just having him in the same room as her made her feel nervous. To counteract how awkward she felt, she focused on the picture on the side of her coffee cup.
Felix leaned in to say something in Hyunjin’s ear, and then they both turned to Aura and looked her up and down.
Aura scowled at the pair and turned her attention back to the coffee cup. She hadn’t quite told her friends every detail of the night before. She wasn’t going to tell them about how nervous she felt in the kitchenette making instant coffee with him. Or how he stood awfully close to her, calling her “kitten”. Or how she stripped for him before he fucked her on the couch. She felt herself clench at the memory of his perfect cock inside of her.
She stole a quick look over at Minho at the front of the room. He was watching her, as though he could read her mind. She drew in a quick breath and felt her cheeks burn. Come on Aura, act professional.
———————————————
It was two in the afternoon and Aura was struggling to keep her mind focused. She poked at her computer keyboard trying to look busy, but she was fading away.
“You should just go home.” Binnie said from his desk.
“I know, but…” she shrugged. She didn’t want to go home. She wanted to see if Minho would reach out and speak to her about last night. Was it meant to be a one time thing never to speak of again? Was he expecting to do it again? Was she supposed to go talk to him? Thoughts of self doubt and confusion swirled around her tired head.
“Knock knock.”
The trio looked up. Minho.
“Um… Hi.” Aura squeaked. Hyunjin licked his lips excitedly. Anyone would have thought it was Hyunjin Minho had fucked.
“I was just going to go down to the cafe, and wondered if you wanted to join me…maybe talk?” he scratched his head as though he was nervous.
“So…” Minho sat across from her in the cafe downstairs. “I want to make sure you’re okay. After last night.” He said.
Aura took a deep breath, avoiding his eyes, but she knew he was watching her.
“Aura?” Minho urged. “I need to know if what we did was okay?”
She slowly looked up and met his eyes. There was concern behind them. He actually cared how she was feeling? What could she possibly say when she didn’t know how he felt about it? She didn’t want to presume anything and she didn’t want to look like a silly, desperate fool.
“I fucked up didn’t I?” he concluded from her silence. “I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat and looked around the cafe.
“Minho, no!” Aura finally spoke. He returned his attention back to her. “You didn’t fuck up.” He breathed a sigh of relief and ran his fingers through his hair. “And I’m okay. Tired,” she laughed dryly “but… I enjoyed what happened.” A flicker of excitement flashed in his eyes. “Um…so yeah. I’m okay if we happen to do that again.” Oh fuck what did she just say? “I mean, either way, whether it happens again - or not - I’m okay.” She touched her cheek. She felt so flustered.
“I’d like it to happen again.” He said seriously, looking directly into her eyes. Aura froze.
“You would?”
He nodded. “Yeah I would, Kitten.”
———————————
Aura and Minho saw a lot of each other in the workplace. They’d make excuses to visit each other’s office, bringing the other coffee and sneaking little kisses in. Sometimes they’d do more, like the blowjob she gave him at his desk, or a quickie in the small kitchenette. He’d locked the door behind him, and took her from behind. He’d had a condom ready, and all he needed to do was lift her skirt up and pull her panties to side. She was ready for him. She always was. Just the thought of Minho made her wet and horny. She gripped the side of the kitchenette sink as he stretched her wide open and fucked her hard. Then he’d kiss her softy like she was the most precious thing he’d ever seen.
Hyunjin would watch her suspiciously whenever she returned to her desk after a lengthy “short break”.
“You’re skirt’s crooked, girl.” He’d say and Binnie would roll his eyes.
Minho continued to call her “Kitten” in the hallway, smirking at how easily he could make her blush, and he’d undress her with his eyes in staff meetings, causing her to squirm in her seat.
They got to know each other in lunch breaks, sometimes chatting in the cafe, other times in the breakout area. She learned he came from SKZ’s rival company, that he volunteers several hours a week to some program, and he loves cats. But more importantly, she learned he was a kind person who seemed to have the best intentions for those around him.
She shared with him her love of podcasting and how she would use the company’s equipment for her own podcast. She made him promise he wouldn’t listen to it to, but she didn’t trust the look on his face.
It was truly a whirlwind office romance, and Aura felt herself feeling happy for the first time in a long time. Maybe she was finally moving on with her life?
Read Part 5 here
—————————-
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How about Jon Martin and the cursed trip to IKEA?
Thanks for the prompt! :D
I’m sure this absolutely could have been read as like ‘IKEA is not-so-secretly a Spiral domain’ but this non-Euclidean hell-hole is of mortal making I’m sure of it.
(I love and fear you IKEA, never change <3)
--
“I simply don’t see the reason why we’d ever need them.”
“If we have guests over!”
“We’ve never had guests over.”
“One day we might!”
“And over for what?”
“I dunno! Dinner or something, make a night of it.”
“Martin, neither of us can cook.”
“Well, we could learn.”
“Alright, fine. Pushing that to one side for the moment, my question is why do our hypothetical guests require a different set of fancier cutlery? What’s wrong with the ones we’ve got at home?”
“I mean, nothing really, just… well, it’s a thing, isn’t it? Having some nice stuff to bring out if people come round.”
“Will we be moving on to the fine china aisle next?”
“Maybe! Ha, ha, don’t give me that look – Why not splash out a little? At worst, we just have more forks and some extra knives.”
“…Alright, fine.”
“Yeah?”
“Before I come to my senses. But I reserve the right to refuse guests the good cutlery if they’re undeserving.”
“What, are you planning some rigorous questionnaire they’ve got to pass first?”
“Absolutely. Come on then, the fine china awaits.”
--
Alfonse has never really been one for home improvement. He’s got a rolled-up stick of posters that he’s dragged around from his old room to student digs to slightly nicer student digs since he was a teenager, their corners creased and dotted with blue-tack stains. He’s had the same chipped plate, chipped bowl, chipped cup set since uni, and has been belligerent about swapping them out for anything less likely to shatter the next time he puts it in the dishwasher. But it’s their first flat together, and it feels real, and grown-up, and kind of scary, and he thinks that it’s important to get this part right, to set their life together off with a different start than the other places. Meaning that now, somehow, they’ve got a squeaky-wheeled trolley full of pillows and a cheese grater and storage containers that aren’t see-through plastic boxes and honest-to-god frames for his Quentin Tarantino posters. He’s finding himself entertaining the rather luxurious thought of buying a large and leafy potted plant to brighten up their cramped living room.
Tom is in his element here, and he’s put on his ridiculous reading glasses that Alfonse says make him look like Dame Edna, peering over their chunky glittery frames to inspect the ballroom’s worth of lighting they’ve found themselves amongst. He’s humming as he does so, making notations with the pint-sized pencil they collected at the door. Alfonse is entirely content to let him take the reigns on this one.
He idly people-watches for a while, making noises of interest at another floor lamp when it’s expected of him – the students clearing out the kitchenware section, lugging around the straining blue blags, the parents with children who have been swayed by the toys – before he catches sight of a man circling the desk lamps. Glancing down at his phone, gnawing on his lower lip with some discontent before he glances up and around the terrain before frowning. He swings his phone in an arc, giving the hope of it a hopeful tap, muttering a comeoncomeoncomeon under his breath.
His mobile gives a chirpy buzz, and the man almost hits himself in the ear with the force of answering.
“Where are you?” Alfonse overhears. “I can’t… Jon… Jon, you’re breaking up, yeah, the signal’s… Jon. I’m by the lamps… The lamps. Lamps. I’ve got the trolley, yes, yes – you… hello?”
Alfonse hears a very emphatic fuck’s sake before he decides to go back to Tom and leave the man suffer in private.
--
Sinead’s planted herself on one of the sofas in the well-lit display areas and has committed to not budging an inch for at least ten minutes. The fabric is a cheery yellow, and it suits the colour-coordinated pretend living room, but she’s not sure she’d choose it herself.
She’s getting a headache. Mel’s off with her nephews and nieces over in the kid’s bedroom section and she just needs five more minutes before she can look at another floral wallpaper or toy car bed.
She’s disrupted from massaging her temples by an irate-looking man with some rather intense eyebrow game throwing himself down on the half-egg-shaped armchair nearby, letting forth a truly impressively disgruntled sigh.
“You look like you’re suffering,” she offers, because she is and she wants to know someone else is too, and he nods peevishly and gives another irritated noise.
“I didn’t realise there’d be so much drama involved in buying a sofa,” he grumbles.
“Amen,” she agrees. They share a quiet moment of strung-out solidarity as they sit moulded into the seat cushions.
“… What’s that one called?” the man asks after a moment of stewing in his own mood.
She shrugs but picks up the tag and squints at it.
“Brathult? With one of those… those A’s that have the little bobble hat. Apparently, it comes in yellow, blue and green.”
“Comfortable?”
“Not bad.”
“Hm.” For a while he goes silent. Then he points out two sofas tucked into different displays and artfully layered with appropriate throw pillows; the first, a stocky black number set upon a sleek wooden frame that serve as its legs, the second, a dense cuboid of cushions currently being looked over by in fastidious detail by a tussle-haired man wearing a t-shirt covered in lots of small cartoon cacti.
“Between that one and that one,” her companion in furniture-based suffering says. “What do you think?”
Sinead studies them carefully.
“The second.”
He huffs. It was clearly not the answer he wanted.
“Why?”
“Not sure. I guess, yeah, it’s not as flashy, but the cushions look deeper. And there’s more width there, even just looking at them.”
“But the first one has all that space under it to store things.”
“Yeah, but you just know it’s going to build up with dust, and you’d be having to get the hoover under it all the time. It seems a bit finnicky.”
The man gives a considering nod.
“You’re right.”
He hefts himself up and calls over to the other display room: “Martin!”
The tussle-haired man whirls around.
Her companion holds up his hands. “You were right. The second one.”
The tussle-haired man looks smugly victorious. Sinead tries to hide her smirk at the sight.
--
Andy’s heaving the flat-pack box for a small bookcase into their trolley when they hear a conversation bleed through from the other side of the huge metal shelves in the warehouse part of the store.
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it.”
“It’s coming down on my side – woahwoahwoah – ”
“It’s – Christ, swing it this way a bit – ”
“I’ve not – Jon, I’ve not got – it’s – Jon, it’s slipping.”
“Put it down – DOWN – yes, that’s… Right. Let’s… let’s just have a moment. Catch our breath.”
“God, why’s it so heavy? It’s not like it’s even that big!”
Andy pops their head around to the other side of the shelf. Two men are puffing and sweaty, the colour on their faces blooming with exertion. Between the two of them is the long and bulky cardboard box they are clearly trying to manhandle into their trolley.
“Do you… um, do you need a hand?” they ask.
The shorter one waves a polite but dismissive hand before they manage to wrangle some air into their lungs.
“We’re good, thanks.” He says. The taller one raises an eyebrow.
Andy knows well enough to leave them to it.
--
“Hmmm! You weren’t lying about the meatballs.”
“I know right, like, what’s the secret?”
“Probably E-numbers.”
“Don’t ruin these for me, Jon!”
“Haha, alright. Help me out with the chips?”
“You finished?”
“The hot dog was enough, I’m getting full.”
“Pass them over then…. You know, I think we did alright with our spoils today. And it wasn’t so bad, all told.”
“We have to get this all in the car yet.”
“God, don’t remind me.”
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˗ˏˋLost in Ikea ˎˊ˗
ೃ⁀➷Midoriya, Bakugou and Todoroki getting lost in IKEA with you (and losing you)
◌༉‧WC; 794
❥A/N; Uh I'm back with my BNHA bullshit? Yeah! I've only been in IKEA once (@Edmonton)! And I didn't explore everywhere but Imma tell you this, it was BIG 😀 also I wanna go back since I didn't get to buy that damn bucket hat, it was for a dollar too 😤 I have big regrets
➽────────────────────────────❥
— [💌] ;𝐌𝐢𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐲𝐚 𝐈𝐳𝐮𝐤𝐮
✎Y'all were just looking for the bathroom but somehow ended up in the staff's back room, and the funny thing is that no one's noticed the two lost lambs yet
✎It was supposed to be a fun little shopping trip but no, you just had to do stumble upon the staff room instead
❝Y/N, I don't think we're supposed to be in here❞
✎Ya think? Anyway, after 3 minutes of trying to not look sus, you've finally made it out! Yay! But what's not good is you still haven't found the bathroom, your bladder needs to let go!
❝Let's just ask someone that works here!❞
✎Midoriya would suggest but you remember, you two are literal balls of anxiety and would NOT ask for help even if you're dying, but Midoriya just had to man up! He's a hero in training for Pete's sake
❝U-Uh bathroom, w-where's the b-b-bathroom?❞
✎The worker just had to chuckle at his stuttering question but he still led you two to the bathroom, mission accomplished [✓]
✎Next time you two go to Ikea you were sure to have a map at hand
— [💌] ;𝐁𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐠𝐨𝐮 𝐊𝐚𝐭𝐬𝐮𝐤𝐢
✎He needed a new studying desk because he mayhaps had broken it, and his other older desks have met the same fate 😔
✎Back to the topic! He was looking at a burgundy red desk he kinda liked as you just went strolling about
✎He turns around to ask for your opinion about it but you were gone! Houdini who? So he looks around all confused at first, like where you @ baby girl?
✎But then he'll start cussing under his breath cause can you like stay for one minute beside him? Apparently not
✎Then he proceeds to make himself even more lost in trying to find you, this is your fault, he checked the plants and fairy lights section, but you weren't there, surprise surprise
✎You were just at the food court getting ice cream, why did he not check there? Anyway, he dragged his feet even more trying to look for you, now he was just worried
✎He can feel ✨sparks✨ ignite on his palms because of the sweat he's collecting, he's called you 20x already, but you haven't picked up yet 😃
✎Why must you do this to him? He debates on whether or not just call customer service on you, yup that's what he'll do, and he did
❝Y/N L/N please come to the front, your boyfriend is waiting for you here❞
✎You could practically imagine Bakugou's mad face, you just laugh at the thought. And there he was, his eyebrows furrowed as his lips were in a frown, you make a reminder to tell him not to frown as it'll cause him wrinkles
❝Where the fuck have you been idiot? Do you not know how.. how worried I was?❞
✎You'd have to explain that you were just getting ice cream from the food court, but that doesn't mean he's completely calm but he'll just huff and take your hand into his, you notice how sweaty they were
❝Don't let go of my hand, got it?❞
— [💌] ;𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐢 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐨
✎Ikea was a ~whole new world~ for him, there's a bunch of furniture and food court, and those fake rooms were pretty interesting to him
✎What he didn't know was that IKEA has several floors that he'll got lost in, yup the 1# pro hero's son gets lost in a furniture store, we love that
✎What was worse was that he just wanted to buy a new lamp, but he couldn't find it. He ends up to the kid's furniture floor
❝Maybe we should just ask someone to help us❞
✎Nah he wants to find this damn lamp himself, and he will find it. You both get sidetracked for about an hour or two, your cart is full of unnecessary stuff
✎Ranging to fairylights, plushies, and self assemble bookshelf, yup this is what your life has come to
✎You've found everything except the thing you two came for in the first place, and Shouto just wants to get home 😩
✎Thankfully someone felt Shouto's distressed aura and a worker came up to ask if y'all needed help
❝Yes! Finally, we were looking for lamps, he desperately needs one❞
✎The worker laughs for a second before pointing behind you, you were on the verge of crying as it was literally BEHIND YOU, how could you be so blind?
✎You thanked the worker as you pulled Shouto and the cart to the aisle, just glad that you don't have to spend another hour walking aimlessly
❝Aren't you glad we got help? Let's go pay up, I'm exhausted❞
✎Another one that would have a map at hand next time you two decide to shop here.
♡Suki
#bnha#boku no hero academia#bnha x reader#mha#my hero academia#bakugou katsuki#bnha headcanons#bnha imagines#bakugou x reader#bnha todoroki#bnha midoriya#midoriya izuku#todoroki shoto
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The Wolf Among Us
Bigby x OC
Summary: Sonya Blaze, A.K.A. Hell Rider, is a half fable, half mundy girl who comes to Fabletown to learn more about her side of the folktales. She works alongside Sheriff Bigby Wolf as his newest partner and together they strive to find out who's behind the unexpected murders in Fabletown.
TW: Mentions of death, gore/blood, alcohol, smoking, drugs, sex implications, suicide, guns and ofc language.
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Chapter 20: Break in
The Woodlands
Sonya made it back to the Woodlands and parked in her usual spot in the back alley before walking back around to the entrance. “Hey, Grimble.”, she greets, not worrying about the man’s response as he sleeps.
She walks over to the elevator, waiting for the old box to come down. ‘ Maybe being on leave isn’t too bad …’, she thought as she looked at the bag in her hand with the big bold word of BEST BUY . She grinned as she stepped in the elevator and pressed the button to her floor.
When she reaches her floor, she walks down her hall and notices her door in a weird position. Almost like it was open…
She stopped once she got a bit closer to see that it was indeed open. She snapped her fingers to herself, “Nope.” She turned around and headed toward Bigby’s apartment.
She knocked on his door, looking around the empty hallway. She could her clops coming to the door and the door opened to reveal Colin. “Hey, toots. What’s going on?”
She looks around and looks at the pig. “Hey, Colin. Is Bigby here?” He shakes his head. “He’s probably at his office, if not then he’s out beating up other fables.” She doesn’t respond, keeping her eyes on the empty hallway. “What's up?", he asked.
"Someone was in my apartment while I was gone...", she says. Colin steps aside and lets her in. "You could call his office to see if he's there.", he says, closing the door and managing to lock it.
She scrambled to the phone and dialed his office number. 'Please, pick up. Please, pick up. Please, pick-'
"Hello?", his gruff, mumbled voice answers. She assumed he was smoking again as she lets out a shaky breath of relief. She slid down to the floor by the phone.
"Hello?", he calls again. She clears her throat a bit. "Hey. Uh, are you busy?"
He's silent for a moment before answering, "You're back already? I'm not busy right now– what's wrong?"
"Can you come here? I had to go to your apartment. We need to talk,” she says. She could hear him bustling around, most likely getting ready to come over. "Yeah, I'm on my way."
She nods, even though he couldn't see it and hangs up, waiting for his arrival.
Moments later, she could hear him unlocking the door and he walked in. He looks around to see her give him a smile but it didn't meet her eyes. "Did you have someone in your apartment?"
She stood up. "That's what I called you for. I didn't even get to go inside yet." He led her to her apartment, seeing the old door opened for everyone who walked down the hall to see. He growled, keeping her behind him as he walked up to the apartment.
He peeked from around the corner, his nose twitching as he took in the smells. He took note of her scent, the wood of the old door, a small candle on the lamp table she had and a very distinct scent. It was familiar but he couldn't put his finger on it. Nor did he like it.
He frowned as he walked in, taking silent steps. Sonya looked around before stepping in. "Who do you think was in here…?", she whispered enough for him to hear.
He gave her an unsure face, and looked around the dark apartment. She didn't have much so why would anyone break into her place?
Sonya looked in her kitchen, seeing the window in the kitchen open. She closed it and locked it, sighing. Bigby closed the other window. He looked into her empty bedroom and bathroom, frowning at the sight of no one.
He walked up to her. "From now on, you go through the front entrance. No shortcuts, nothing. Not until we figure out what's going on. Are we clear?"
She nodded. He crossed his arms, giving her his signature glare. "I mean it, Sonya.", he says as if he were lecturing a child. She looked up at him with a frown. "I got it.", she says.
Unsatisfied, he leaves it alone and brings her go the Business Office. He frowns at the sight of Bluebeard discussing with Snow and locking eyes with him. "And the dog himself appears.", he says.
Sonya walked up to Bufkin, giving him a smile. "How are you today?", he asks. She rubs behind her neck. "Pretty off today, Bufkin. What about you?" He gives her a worried, soft smile. "I'm as well as can be."
Snow walks up to Sonya, making her frown. "I thought you were supposed to be on leave.", she says, placing her hands on her hips. Sonya crossed her arms. "I am. I'm going through something right now and I definitely don't need you to start anything with me."
"Sonya, I could care less. We don't need you right now. There's nothing happening. There's no case, the Crooked Man is gone. You two handled that very well .", she sneers.
Sonya rubs at her temples, feeling an oncoming headache. Bufkin took that as his cue to leave. "I don't need this right now.", Sonya sighs.
"Whether or not you want me here, I still have a job . Which means it's my only way to even pay for my apartment. Unless you feel like paying the rent yourself, I'd suggest you turn your business elsewhere.", Sonya says, walking toward the mirror as Bigby and Bluebeard nitpick.
"Hey, Mirror.", she calls. The green face appears. "Hello, Miss Sonya."
She rubbed her arm. "You wouldn't happen to know who showed up at my apartment a few minutes ago...would you?"
"Alas, Miss Sonya. For I cannot tell the past.", the mirror replied. She looked down dejectedly. "Sorry about that. I won't need anything else. Thank you." The mirror nods with a smile before showing her reflection.
She sighed. "Dammit. Who would’ve wanted to go to my apartment? I don't have anything like Beauty and Beast..."
Snow looks up from her desk. "Do you need anything else or are you headed out?"
Sonya's jaw clenched. "I don't think I need any of your help. I haven't needed your help since I got here." Snow glares. "If you don't need any then you can go. We sure don't need yours."
Sonya scoffed. "What the fuck is your problem, Snow?" Snow crosses her arms. "That's Ms. White to you. My problem is that you're trouble."
Sonya's eyebrows rise. "I'm trouble?"
"You're often reckless and you add fuel to Bigby's fire. Which he already doesn't need. You don't give him restraint, you egg him on and just watch from the sidelines.", Snow says.
"We went over this already. Bigby is not a pet. He doesn't need to be kept on a leash 24 fucking hours of the day.", Sonya argues. "And did we or did we not get stuff done? Was anyone killed on our behalf?"
"No, but that's not the point.", Snow says. Sonya places her palms on her temples for a moment. "How is that not the point? There was no bloodshed and even if there was, it sure as hell wasn't coming from the opposing side. They were out for blood and over the stupidest shit. The Crooked Man tried to kill us multiple times, for fuck's sake!"
Sonya walks up to the desk, placing her hands on it. "We got the job done. We may have hit a few bumps on the road but in the end, we got justice. So this,"
Sonya gestures to Snow's glare. "Know-it-all, high and mighty, snobby, by the books shit you got going on isn't gonna cut it with me. And it sure as hell ain't gonna cut it with our next problems. Especially if our next problems commit another murder that we have to solve once again."
Sonya stands up straight, crossing her arms. "You've got no reason to act the way you're doing right now. If anything, you're acting like a child . You're "trying" to be mature and "professional", but it's not working. You were better before you thought it was okay to put me on leave over some bullshit.", she says, making Snow's hardened expression falter.
"So if you're writing a book and you must know, I'm here because someone thought it was a good fucking idea to B&E in my place while I was " on leave ".", she says, making Snow’s eyes widen.
She pauses, noticing the silence coming from the room. She turns to Bigby and Bluebeard, meeting their confused eyes.
Bluebeard smiles and adjusts his clothes. "Well, I think it's about time I leave. I take you all have something wondrous to talk about.", he says, walking to the door.
"Hold on, Bluebeard.", Bigby calls. Bluebeard pauses. "You didn't see anyone suspicious enter the Woodlands, did you?"
Bluebeard looks at him over his broad shoulder. "No, not am I worried about that because it's not my job. That should be your job as well as Grimble. Ask him.", he says before leaving.
Bigby shakes his head as he looks at the two women. “Yeah, someone broke in today. I’ll ask Grimble and I’ll see what to do afterwards. I don’t know what’s going on with you two and this hostility thing you guys got going on but it needs to be handled. As for you,” He points at Sonya.
“You need to be on your guard. C’mon.” he says, walking toward the office door. Sonya sighs before following and exiting before him.
They walk to the elevator; Sonya storms in irritation and nearly leaves Bigby in her dust. Once they enter the elevator, Bigby glances at Sonya. She leaned on a wall of the elevator, her eyes closed as her chest rose and fell heavily, as if she were trying to calm down.
He frowned softly, disliking the sight behind him. He didn't like being around someone when they were riled up. It didn't help his own anger and irritation but seeing her so worked up, it made him feel….helpless.
"So...", he speaks up, looking away. Her eyes opened. "You wanna explain what that was about?", he asks.
She frowned, rolling her eyes. "Girl talk." He snorts. "You guys fight. That's girl talk?"
Sonya bit back a sigh. "Just a little powwow. Frankly, I think it's something she's been needing to hear for a while.", she says. Bigby shakes his head. "She means well. She's a disciplinarian but she's doing her best."
Sonya glances at him, her lips pressed in a slight pout. 'Doesn't matter what anyone says… Snow's still an angel in his eyes…'
She frowned in frustration before the elevator doors opened to the lobby. They walk up to Grimble, frowning at the man's snores.
Bigby knocks on the front desk. "Hey. Grimble." Sonya frowned at him in disbelief. "No, "hey, sorry to wake you up"?", she asks, making Bigby shrug.
The sleeping man looks up, rubbing his eyes. "He'd be lying if he apologized. What's the matter?"
"Have you seen anyone suspicious walk through here?", Sonya asks. Grimble frowns and shakes his head. "No, not that I don't think."
"It's even weirder because even if he is asleep, he knows anyone and everyone that comes through here.", Bigby tells her.
"I literally have nothing that's valuable. Unless they're looking for my phone, that might be another story.", she says. She frowns sadly. "If it's not one thing, it's another…"
Bigby frowns, placing a hand on her back. "Let's go take a breather."
She looked up at him. "But I just went out." He shrugged. "So?"
She sighs. "Fine.", she says, walking out of the Woodlands with him.
However, across the street, far into a dark alley, someone watches the sheriff and deputy leave the building.
#my art#poc oc#bigby wolf#twau bigby#bigby imagine#bigby x reader#digital art#art#my oc#artists on tumblr#x reader#oc#original character#twau#twau oc#telltale twau#twau imagine#fanfics#bigby wolf fanfic#sheriff bigby#bigby#bigby brainrott#bigby x fem reader#bigby x chubby reader#bigby x oc#bigby x black reader#x black reader
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Exit Strategies
Summary: Before they break Alexei out of a maximum security prison, Yelena convinces Natasha that they should rest, that they need to.
A/N: I finally got the chance to see Black Widow today and ugly sobbed through almost half of it. Natasha and Yelena deserved so much more—oh, my GOD, it's not fair.
AO3 Link
—
It’s only when the gas needle edges precariously below a gallon that Natasha frowns, the stark cut on her lower lip curving like a bow just begging to snap.
“We need gas,” she breaks the long silence between them. Yelena glances over at her sister’s profile, sharp and distinct even in the semi-darkness, slightly tinted blue by the BMW’s luminescent dashboard. Her angular jaw. The ribbon-like strands of red hair plastered to the side of her face. The bruises beginning to feather the column of her neck from their recent fight.
And the purple shadows beneath her visible eye.
The lines.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Yelena quips because it’s easier than being sincere, easier than dealing with all of the effed-up history between them. They used to snuggle in the same bed, wrists crossing wrists. Mere hours ago, they came close to strangling each other to death with curtains.
“We also need to rest. Can’t go taking down a multinational child soldier complex on zero hours of sleep, y’know.”
“Mmm,” comes a noncommittal reply, short, patronizing. “You sleep. I’ll drive.”
Yelena simply stares at the older woman, searching, incredulous, and frankly, a little miffed. Has she always been this much of a martyr? She interrogates her own memories—the ones from her childhood are the clearest she has—and surprisingly concludes that, yes, she’s always been this way.
Natasha would get into fights on the playground when older kids tried to bully Yelena.
And she was good with her fists.
She would always win.
“Don’t be stupid, Natalya. You’re not superhuman. Let’s pull off at an exit and get a motel room.”
“We don’t have time for that. My contact’ll be at the rendezvous spot at twelve tomorrow.”
“A few hours tops,” she promises, wheedling, glancing at the car’s central display. It’s 2:07. There’s plenty enough time for them to get some sleep and make it back to Norway, especially with how fast Natasha drives. They’ve never been under eighty-five the entire time they’ve been on the freeway. “C’mon. I stink. You stink. We both need showers and a vodka shot.”
“I don’t stink,” Natasha wrinkles her nose disdainfully. But even as she says it, she lets off the pedal and eases into the right lane. The speedometer slowly sinks from over a hundred to ninety… eighty… seventy…
“You do,” Yelena snickers, mischievous, triumphant, a little kid again teasing her older sister about a hopscotch victory. She arches a smug brow. “You smell like shit.”
“Asshole.”
“Bitch.”
But she watches, with fascination, as the corner of Natasha’s mouth twitches, the cut on her lip quivering too.
—
They get gas at a twenty-four hour station and buy a few necessities inside—some snacks, a bottle of cheap vodka, gauze, painkillers, a pack of Skittles for Yelena.
It’s been a long time since she’s had Skittles.
They’d once been her favorite candy.
Natasha had always preferred chocolate bars.
And behind their mother’s back, their papa would indulge them.
Hush, my little kittens. He would raise a conspiratorial index finger to his mouth. Don’t tell Mama now.
“Jesus hell,” the clearly sleep-deprived cashier says, taking in their haggard, bloodstained appearances.
“We just got back from fight club,” Yelena supplies cheerfully.
“Do you got change for fifty euros?” Natasha asks.
—
At 2:40, they finally pull into a motel, a dingy, little dump far away from the main part of the city. The stolen BMW looks out of place against the worn-down building, all sleek and shiny and new. This is the kind of establishment that most people settle for, not actively choose—unless, of course, said people are two Russian killers trying to evade detection from a militant Taskmaster.
Yelena and Natasha are silent as they creep into the motel room that had been designated theirs by the scruffy faced twenty-year old working the night shift at the front desk, handguns drawn as they flick on lights and canvas the room as they had both been trained to do.
Two queen sized beds.
A boxy TV that looks like it could have been at home in the nineties.
A musty smell in the air.
A spluttering air conditioner in the window.
A framed painting on the wall of something that looks vaguely phallic.
“Clear in the bedroom,” Yelena calls after she checks under each bed.
No monsters under there.
“Bathroom’s clear too.” Natasha walks out of the side door, replacing her Glock in her thigh holster. “If the front door gets blocked, our exit strategy’s the window in the bathroom. Leads out into some woods. We can climb a tree and pick threats off from a decent vantage point.”
Again, Yelena stares at the woman in front of her, trying to reconcile her bruised and scratched face with the kid from twenty-odd years ago, the one who used to make shadow puppets on the wall for her to laugh at, who’d comb her wet hair at night when Mama was working.
There’s so little light in her eyes left, the particulars of her voice perfectly calculated to be distant.
Yelena wants to pull her hair out, wants to stomp around a little, wants to throw a tantrum and scream.
They lived together for three years.
They were sisters.
And Natasha… Natasha is distant.
“Do you always have an exit strategy?” Yelena blurts out a little stupidly. Of course she has an exit strategy. They’re trained fucking spies for God’s sake! Hell, Yelena even has a tentative exit strategy!
(She's just gonna crash through the window and start shooting.)
But she is and really isn’t asking about exit strategies.
Even as her lips formed the words, she knew this. Even as the words fell from her tongue, she felt their insufficiency and knew the depths of her own vulnerability.
Is that all you can look me in the eye and talk about, Natalya?
Exit strategies?
This is our first night together in twenty-one years, and you can stand here and tell me that the trees are the best place for blowing people’s brains out?
Natasha shrugs a single shoulder before limping over to the side table, where they’d placed their singular grocery bag.
“Go take a shower, and make sure you get all the dirt outta your wound.”
Yelena’s eyes flick downwards at her bandaged arm and then back to her sister again.
“You’re such a mom,” she repeats herself numbly as Nat draws the vodka bottle out of the bag, untwisting it with a deft motion and taking a long, practiced drag.
“Shower,” she exhales once she’s done, swiping the back of her hand across her mouth. “We’re leaving in six hours.”
—
Yelena takes a quick shower, ten minutes to the dot, and feels a little like a human again, even though the water was only lukewarm at best, and she has to put on her sweaty clothes from the day before. At least her hair and face are clean, the grime beneath her nails all scraped off, her wound cleansed of dirt. After she towels her hair off, she doesn’t put her jacket and tactical vest on just yet, remaining stripped down to just her undershirt and pants.
She’s slept with her gear equipped before.
On most nights, really.
Tonight, though, just for a few hours, she doesn’t want to.
(She knows she doesn’t have to—her older sister is here.)
As she hangs her damp towel on the nearby rack, she notices that the window behind the dinky toilet has been cracked open about an inch, propped up by one of motel’s washcloths.
A handgun has been strategically placed on the back of the toilet.
A Glock-22.
An exit strategy.
When Yelena enters the main bedroom again, she sees that Natasha is sitting on the bed closest to the window—(the most vulnerable position, she briefly thinks to herself)—shirt off, tenderly probing a nasty-looking laceration just below her ribs.
The dried blood blooms across her stomach like a flower.
Crimson.
Replete with thorns.
“Damn,” she breathes, and Nat quickly looks up, eyes wide, brow furrowed.
“It’s not deep,” she says immediately. “Just long.”
“It’ll scar,” Yelena shakes her head.
Wounds like that always scar.
“I’m no stranger to scars.” A proffered grin—slight, elusive, wry. And no sooner than she says it, Yelena spots the long, telltale surgical incision where the hysterectomy had been performed, and to the left of her belly button, there’s a scar that had once clearly been a bullet’s entry point. “I collect them everywhere I go.”
It’s an innocuous enough statement, but the contents of it jog her memory.
She's reminded of what that their mama said long ago in a military camp somewhere in Cuba.
Pain only makes you stronger, remember?
Yelena has always drawn vague comfort from the words—usually when she’s nursing her own sundry wounds, doing her best to recover from them.
But tonight, looking at Natasha’s body—which surely mirrors her own—she can’t help but think that those words might’ve been bullshit said by a poor, dying woman.
Sometimes, pain can only hurt.
“Your turn to shower,” she says, jerking her thumb emphatically at the bathroom door.
A half-smile.
Her lips are dry and cracked.
“Make sure you get the dirt outta that wound.”
“Asshole,” Natasha chuckles, the sound low and hoarse, and maybe even a little painful because she winces at the end, her bloodied fingers involuntarily drawing themselves up her ribs.
“сука,” Yelena returns, throwing herself unceremoniously onto her bed, hiding her own laughter in a pillow.
Bitch.
—
When Natasha returns some thirty minutes later, she’s already twisted her damp hair into a messy plait, and she’s fully clothed, dressed like an armed gunman is going to burst through the curtained window at any moment.
Yelena had already flicked off the lamp and bunched the stiff blankets up to her nose in an attempt to get comfortable… but she hasn’t fallen asleep yet.
Waiting.
She watches, ever observant, as her sister lithely winds through the room without making so much as a sound, the graceful ballerina that the Red Room tortured her to be. She’s similarly silent as she slowly lowers herself onto the other bed, gingerly propping herself up against the headboard, angling her torso towards the door.
But this is apparently too sudden of a movement for her body to currently handle.
A hissing noise escapes past her clenched teeth.
“You should sleep,” Yelena croaks aloud, having seen enough, having heard more. “I’ll take the first shift.”
Her sister’s hawklike stare finds her in the darkness.
“What? No. Go to bed,” she snaps, obviously annoyed. “You were the one who wanted to stop for the night.”
“Yeah, because I looked over and saw that you looked like death warmed over!” She retorts haughtily. “However much you might pose otherwise, you’ve gotta have needs too.”
This quiets Natasha.
At the very least, it makes her look away.
She shifts (very incrementally) on her bed.
She plays a little with the end of her braid.
“An hour,” she says, so quietly that Yelena almost thinks she’s saying “an oar” for some bewildering reason.
“Чего?” What?
“An hour,” Natasha repeats emphatically. “Wake me up in an hour. It’s… all I need.”
“Okay.” Yelena sits up abruptly, eager to please, desperate to show that she still cares.
It’s a bit sickening, really—the woman practically abandoned her.
She got out and never looked back…
“I mean it.” Her sister doesn’t quite lay down, but she does slouch a little more comfortably against her pillows. “An hour.”
“Yah.”
—
Yelena isn’t a woman of her words, though.
She lets her sleep for two.
“Dammit, Yelena,” Natasha groans, pulling her fingers hard over her eyes. “You told me you'd wake me up."
“Don’t be so dramatic, Natalya,” she yawns, finally slumping her head against her pillow. "It didn't kill you to get a little more beauty rest."
"Asshole."
As the dark takes her away, she smiles.
Bit—
—
A soft hand on her shoulder, a gentle shake.
Yelena blearily opens her eyes to see Natasha standing over her, staring at her with that same inscrutable expression—complicated… and utterly unreadable. It gives her the impression of being pierced through all over, analyzed and deconstructed.
Even though she’s quite clothed, she feels naked.
Seen.
“We gotta get moving,” she says matter-of-factly. “There’s coffee on the nightstand. Once you wash your face, I’ll change your bandage again.”
And then, stepping away, she disappears from view. From the sounds she’s making, she’s clearly cleaning the room, thoroughly removing all traces of their less than six hour presence in this motel in the middle of practically nowhere. In mere minutes, it will be like they had never been here at all.
And so it goes for Red Room operatives.
So it went in Ohio.
When Yelena sits up to stretch, blankets that she hadn’t fallen asleep under cascade heavily to the floor.
She glances to her left.
Sees a bed that’s been all but stripped clean.
—
In the bathroom, the gray light of dawn leans against the partially opened window. Yelena sits on the side of the half-bath as Natasha makes quick and expert work of cleaning her wound and bandaging it up again, snipping the excess gauze off with her penknife.
“Looks better today,” she simply comments as she replaces the knife in her utility belt. “Might not scar if you’re lucky.”
Unspoken between them but nonetheless understood, neither of them have really been lucky.
They were orphans abandoned by their mothers.
They were children who were trained to kill.
And now they have so much blood on their hands.
Red dripping from their ledgers.
Scars on their bodies, so many wounds on their souls.
Yelena’s not even thirty yet.
(Her life has given her plenty of reasons to suspect that she might never be.)
“Pssh,” she snorts derisively as her sister finally yanks the washcloth out from the window.
It closes with a smart snap.
A decisive finality.
Yelena is just bending down to lace her boots up when Natasha suddenly speaks again, apropos of absolutely nothing.
She could have just left.
She shifts her weight from foot to foot.
Gripping the washcloth loosely in one hand, she stays.
“There was... this S.H.I.E.L.D. guy,” she says, her voice reluctant, full of clear misgivings, “who used t’complain all the time that I never had an extraction plan. No exit strategies either. I’d just go in… complete my mission… and it’d be up to my enemy’s aim if I made it out intact.”
Yelena looks up to see that her sister’s back is turned to her, her back stiff, the sharp ridges of her shoulder blades jutting visibly through the black fabric of her shirt.
Somehow, even in a bathroom barely big enough to admit the both of them, she seems strangely small.
Young even.
She curls her fingers around the nearby towel rack like a kid gripping the monkey bars.
“I used to think that maybe that was the best way to atone for everything I’d done,” she continues, her voice ever distant, so perfectly controlled. “To be so reckless with my life that if I died during a mission, someone might actually call it heroic.”
A laugh, short and humorless, entirely disaffected from the horrible words that the same voice just spoke.
Yelena wraps her arms loosely around her stomach.
And represses the primal urge to shudder.
But wish though she could, she can’t look away from Natasha Romanoff.
Mesmerized.
Horrified.
Concerned.
She should hate this woman.
For all of these many years, she has loved her unconditionally.
“But then I got with the Avengers, you know, and I was suddenly in the public eye, tasked to save people, to try and protect my team…”
A violent pause.
Natasha lets go of the towel rack rather abruptly but neatly folds the rag over the top of it.
“It’s different when you’re on a team,” she finally shrugs. “You start making exit strategies because it’s not just your life on the line anymore.”
“So that’s what we are, huh?” Yelena can’t stop herself from asking. Her voice drips its own sarcasm; it relishes in mockery; she hopes it’s enough to hide her hurt. “A team?”
They’d once been family.
Every night, Natasha told her that she loved her.
Every night, Yelena replied just the same.
And in all the years afterwards, there was always a small part of her that hadn't lost hope that her big sister was going to come back for her one day, that she was going to bring the Avengers and rescue her—rescue all the Widows—from Dreykov.
She got out.
Thousands of girls didn't.
“For now,” comes the quiet reply. “C’mon. Finish getting ready.”
Natasha doesn’t look behind her when she walks out.
Yelena is starting to think she never does.
#natasha romanoff#yelena belova#black widow#mcu#black widow spoilers#reginianwrites#f: mcu#I HAVE SO MANY GD EMOTIONS
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Play Me A Song (Slappy x Reader)
// Middle school me would be fucking quaking right now
You really didn’t have too much going for you before Slappy. The place you called home was a friend’s shed, you dropped out of college, and you couldn’t find a job for your own sake.
One day your friend knocked on the door of the shed. You rushed to the door, loving the company you had when you got it, which wasn’t very often.
You couldn’t hide the amount of confusion you felt when you saw him standing there, beaming at you, a dapper ventriloquist dummy in his arms.
“May I just ask,” you started. “What the fuck, Andy?”
“Well,” Andy chuckled sheepishly. “I feel really bad for never being able to be around for you, so I thought the least I could do was offer you company from someone else.”
It was a ridiculous proposition, but you weren’t going to reject the dummy, so you took him. Once Andy left, you ended up throwing the dummy on to a bean bag in the corner of the shed.
Weeks passed before your eyes landed on the dummy once again. You felt a shiver run through your spine as you made eye contact with said dummy. Shaking it off, you walked over to him and lifted him up to get a good look at him.
He had a few chips in his face, but other than that he was in great condition. The thought of selling him crossed your mind but you knew you would feel guilty if you did.
You sat where the dummy once did and placed him on your lap. “Alrighty, good sir! Lets see how bad I am at this.”
Almost an hour of you trying to figure out how to talk while not moving your mouth, you decided to put the dummy back on the sack of beads.
As you sat up, the dummy was tilted just enough for a slip of paper to fall out of his pocket. Eyes widening in curiosity, you placed the dummy on the bean bag and knelt down to grab the peace of paper.
You smiled after you read the small intro on the card. You glanced up at the dummy. “Nice to meet you, Slappy.”
After looking back at the card, you noticed the shadow of more words on the back. You flipped it over and squinted your eyes at the strange words. “Karru Marri Odonna Loma Molonu Karrano?” you said slowly.
You looked back at Slappy in confusion. Your breath caught in your throat as stared at the dummy. You could have sworn you just watched him blink, but that couldn’t be.
You sighed deeply and shook your head. “Great, now I’m going crazy.” You placed the card on a shelf and turned off the lamp, going to bed.
For the next few days, you noticed things would be missing or moved around. You just assumed you had moved them and forgotten about it. You weren’t one to try to spook yourself.
Then finally it all went too far. A envelope full of money that you had been saving for years went missing. Panic set in almost immediately.
You ran around the shed, looking in your desk, under anything you could turn over. Tears built up in your eyes as the fear began to drown you.
“Oh, (Y/N)! I didn’t think you would so worked up over a wad of cash.”
You froze at the sound of the raspy voice. You never noticed anyone else enter the shed.
You turned to the sound of the voice but all your eyes landed on was the dummy, with a leg crossed over the other and a mischievous smirk planted on his face.
You were paralyzed, part of you wanted to run away as fast as possible, the other wanted your money back.
Slappy’s smirk seemed to widen as he jumped down from the bean bag. “You want it back, don’t you?”
All you could do was nod your head.
Slappy giggled a highly annoying laugh. “Good! But if you want it back, I’m gonna need your help.”
You needed that money, so you agreed.
As bad as it might sound, having to work for a wooden puppet, it wasn’t all too bad, though you weren’t too on track with the whole taking over the world thing, but who were you to judge.. He actually helped you get back on track.
Slappy helped you get a job, made you save more money than you ever had. He then made you go to college again. You were surprised by the amount of patience he had to put his plans into action, but after learning more about who he was, you guess he had all the time in the world.
You knew Slappy was having you do all these things so you would be more purposeful to him in the future, but it was nice that someone was actually pushing you to be better. When everything started going downhill, no one told you to keep trying, but Slappy has been making sure you stay on top of everything.
After graduating, Slappy made you get a new job, one that paid better. He made you buy a house. After a few more years, you were finally where he wanted you to be.
You came home from work, it was late at night. It was a rough day. You clenched your fists, trying to make all the negative emotions go away. Slappy didn’t like when you cried, found it annoying.
You walked into your room and immediately changed into some comfy clothes. Falling on to your bed, you let out a long, deep sigh. You felt like crying, but you really didn’t feel like getting lectured by Slappy.
The tears built up as a lump formed in your throat. Just as a sob was about to escape your lips, your door flew open.
“(Y/N)!”
You choked the sob, trying to hide it. Slappy didn’t seem to notice.
“I think it’s about time we get into the real swing of things.”
You sighed. “Slappy-”
“As you know,” Slappy said cutting you off. “I need your help in achieving my dreams.”
“Slappy-”
“And I have so many plans!”
“Slappy!” Tears freely glided down your cheeks.
Slappy’s wide grin fell. “What?”
“Can we please talk about this tomorrow.”
Slappy’s eyes narrowed. You watched as he studied your mixed expressions before finally closing his eyes and sighing.
“(Y/N)?” he said quietly, as if not to scare you off.
You inhaled deeply. “Yes?”
“Play me a song.”
You shook your head. “Slappy I-”
“Play me a song, (Y/N).”
You watched his eyes follow a falling tear. Slowly, you stood up and walked out of your room. You heard Slappy’s footsteps behind you.
You walked to the living room where a piano sat against the wall. You pulled the bench out and slowly sat yourself down.
You had learned some piano as a child, but Slappy wanted you to keep practicing. He enjoyed himself some calming music on the piano.
“Hey,” Slappy snapped, slapping at your back.
You couldn't help but smile, it always cracked you up when he needed help getting to something. You picked him up and sat him next to you.
“Any requests?” you asked.
“Surprise me.”
You thought for a moment, before remembering a song your mother used to play. You searched through your folder of music, hoping you had it. You smiled once you pulled out the sheet music.
You placed the music where you wanted it and began to play. You lightly pressed the keys as the soothing melody resonated from the instrument. You had always loved the tune as a child, and that didn’t change now.
As you played the last chord you released the breath you didn’t realize you were holding.
“Very nice,” Slappy complimented. “I haven’t heard you play that one before.”
“I don’t think I ever planned on playing,” you whispered. “Honestly forgot I had gotten it...”
Slappy slid off the bench and looked up at you with a smile. “Oh you didn’t get it, I got it for you.”
You turned to him with wide eyes. “Wait what? How did you-”
“I just know.” Slappy started to walk away but was jerked back when you grabbed his hand. He turned to look at you, slightly annoyed.
You smiled at him. You didn’t know when it started, but it felt like he became more like family every day. “Thank you.”
Slappy stared at you for a second before pulling away from you. “Of course.”
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Omertà👄8
Warnings: noncon sexual acts; tags to be added throughout series
This is dark!Bucky and dark! Loki and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.
Summary: Your father was a bookie and taught you everything you know about numbers. After his death, you were taken on as a bookkeeper for Loki Laufeyson, resident crime boss in Manhattan. But can you keep your place in the background when a man from Brooklyn threatens to drag you to the forefront?
Note: Okay, a little more of plot chapter which I know y’all are reading for a little less than plot, hehe, but enjoy!
Hope you enjoy it. Thank you. Love you guys!
As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3
It was an odd sensation. Being numb and yet entirely worn. You could feel nothing and everything at the same time. Loki was in and out of the office, your little cell behind the antique shop.
You stared at the numbers but couldn’t read them. Your mouth tasted of bile. Your thoughts were a blur of the previous night and that morning. The humiliation seared deep inside of you.
Loki didn’t return as the clock ticked. You checked your phone time and time again. No messages, no change. You’d usually be gone by then but you lingered. You were too afraid to leave, nervous to rile the man. He had shown the depths of his depravity and you had no urge to push them lower.
When the door did finally budge, you were further frazzled by the figure who greeted you. Thor strutted in, the door ajar behind him as he neared your desk. You did your best not to cower. It was best not to encourage this man; best not to show him how terrifying he truly was. To him, that was permission.
“Well,” He tapped two fingers on your desk. “My brother has sent me to fetch you.”
“Fetch me?” You frowned and rolled your pencil across the ledger. “Where is he?”
He smirked and grabbed the pencil from beneath your fingertips. He tossed it away and closed the ledger, nearly crushed your hand as he did. He pushed the book towards you and you caught it before it could topple in your lap.
“He said to bring your numbers,” Thor smirked. “And that if you insist on wasting his time, he would be inclined to remind you of your place…” His blue eyes flitted down to your turtleneck and focused on the fabric stretched across your chest. “Again.”
You stood almost immediately, embarrassed that you were so quick to dissemble. You bent and retrieved your purse from beneath the desk and slid your phone off the desk along with the ledger. You held it to your chest and nodded at the muscular lump.
“Well,” You said sharply and swallowed your nerves. “I would be inclined to let him know if it were you wasting his time.”
“Oh ho,” He grabbed your arm and dragged you around the desk. “You are a sharp one.” He loomed over you. “I see why he would rather that mouth for better uses.”
“Get off of me,” You smacked his chest and he chuckled at what was little more than a poke to him. “I know Loki enough to know he is not one for sharing. That he made very clear, didn’t he?”
Thor squinted and you saw the flicker in his eyes, followed by resignation. He turned and hauled you through the open door, your heels scratching against the aged hardwood.
“Perhaps when he tires of you, he won’t be so selfish,” Thor snarled. “Girls like you…”
“Men like you,” You snapped as you ignored Lopez’ gaze, “All the same. Just as stupid as the next one.”
He spun you so that your back hit the shop door and he closed in on you in an instant. He grabbed your throat and pinned you to the glass. Lopez looked away and pretended to be busy with his closing duties.
“He wouldn’t mind a black-eye so much,” Thor growled. “He doesn’t need to look at your face, does he? Not when--”
“Ugh, stop,” You squirmed in his grasp. “I’ll… be quiet.”
He hesitated and let you go. He checked his watch and sighed.
“If I hadn’t already wasted so much time,” He mulled. “Come on, then.”
You turned and opened the door. He followed with a tap on your ass and pulled the door closed behind him with a jingle. He directed you down the sidewalk to the garish sports car with butterfly doors and ordered you inside. Say what you would of Loki, his simplicity was almost admirable compared to others of his ilk.
The ride was silent as you picked at the corner of the ledger and wondered, rather dreaded, what was in store for you. You were surprised, however, as Thor drew up before Diablo’s underground den. You glanced at the shadowed stairway which led down to the slatted door and back at your escort.
“What--”
He gave you a pointed look as he got out and shook his head. You struggled with the door and he came around to open it for you. As you stepped out, he seized you by the arm again and ushered you across the street, paying little heed to the cars that blared their horns at him.
You stumbled down the stairs beside him, nearly toppling over as you were crammed in the tight space beside him. He stopped at the bottom and thumped once. The door shook against his strength and the slat opened almost immediately as rounded eyes peered out.
The doorman barely righted himself and uttered the code word. Thor yawned his response and the door was quickly pulled back on its hinges. You were shoved through first and another man stood further along the corridor. He pushed himself away from the wall and glanced at Thor who nudge you forward.
You followed the second man and Thor growled beside you. You entered the party room, barren but for a few suited men playing at cards are fiddling with pistols. You crossed to the red door hidden around the corner where Diablo did his business and another knock was placed on its face.
The man opened the door and beckoned you through. Thor remained without as you entered and the red door shut behind you. Loki sat in a leather chair as Diablo reclined on a matching chaise in an embroidered robe. His silver-lined hair shone in the light of glass-shaded lamps as he chewed on an unlit cigar and Loki held a snifter of scotch.
“Ah, finally,” Loki mused as he snapped his fingers at you. He pointed to a stiff back chair just a few feet from his own.
You nodded and took the seat without question. Loki’s gaze lingered on you and his lips slanted. You knew what he was thinking of; the very thing you were trying not to think of. He returned his attention to the other man and rubbed his chin.
Diablo took the cigar from his mouth, twirled it, then inhaled its scent. He sat up and tucked it in the chest pocket of his robe. He reached to a small notebook on the low glass table between him and Loki. He tossed it into your lap and you barely caught it with the ledger resting there.
“All the info is in there, I’m certain the bookie’s daughter can figure it out,” Diablo huffed.
Confused, you resisted the urge to peek inside the book.
“Surely she will have it looked over before we come to our final terms,” Loki waved his fingers at you. “It might take some time so I think another scotch might be in order.”
“Well, if you don’t mind,” Diablo stood and gripped his lower back. “I actually have a prior engagement for the next, oh, I don’t know, hour.” He grinned and stretched his arms. “Doesn’t take as long as it used to.” He winked a Loki who gave a slight twitch of his lips. “You have my office for the duration to look it over. I expect a decision tonight. This offer will not be repeated.”
“Of course,” Loki stood as Diablo did. “She is efficient enough.”
“Let’s hope,” Diablo narrowed his eyes at you before he headed for the door. “For both our sakes.”
He left through the red door and you looked to Loki with a confused grimace. He chuckled and searched around for the decanter of scotch and refilled his glass. He took another and doffed it towards you. You shook your head.
“Care to explain what this is?” You opened the notebook and glossed over the margins of numbers.
“A new business venture,” Loki sipped between words. “You know, I figured I’d move on from this whole Barnes debacle. A draw is better than a loss, I suppose.”
“Mhmm,” You continued to flip through the pages. “Buying a bounty is one thing, but Diablo… he likes to hide his true colours by calling my father a shill but my father only ever dealt with men like him. Men he could read.”
“Oh, but the bounty did prove to be ever so profitable,” Loki came up and gasped the back of your chair just beside your head. “You just look this over like a good little mouse.”
You stopped and let the book splay open on your lap. You looked up at him in disbelief.
“It’s a fucking casino,” You sputtered. “Are you crazy?”
“Half, well, forty-nine percent,” He said. “Diablo would retain the majority.”
“Oh, forty-nine percent of any loss is better than fifty,” You rolled your eyes. “So you would rather trade in a comfortable stability for a foolish gamble? You know, casinos rarely draw in as much money as they would suggest.”
“Atlantic city is approaching another renaissance and it’s much closer than Vegas,” Loki moved behind you and ran his fingers over your hair. “Now, you will look at those numbers and tell me what I am looking at.” He stepped around the chair entirely and strode along the leather chaise. “Forget your history books and give me the figures.”
You shook your head and lifted the notebook as you opened the ledger beneath. You flipped back to the first page and sighed. It didn’t matter how the numbers looked at that moment, a casino rarely held a pattern and never kept a promise. He should have known this or at least his natural caution should have girded him against it. Running drugs was easy enough, maintaining a gambling house was a recipe for disaster.
As you kept on, making notes of revenue you could draw from to augment possible losses and tracking those already in the books, you grew further agitated. Despite your focus, you couldn’t ignore Loki. He’d sit then stand again, get close, touch your shoulder or your back, let out a long breath as he stood over you.
When at last you’d done as much as you could, you sat straight and your back sang. Your neck was still tender from Bucky’s love bites and your muscles ached worse than before. You tried not to think of him as you closed both books and set them on the low table.
“What I can say now is that yes, there is potential in the casino, but is it worth bartering everything you have?” You said carefully. “That is a gamble on its own and the irony of that isn’t amusing enough for me to advise you to take this deal.”
Loki arched a brow and set down his empty glass.
“A likely loss?” He wondered.
“Possible loss,” You said. “And you’re right, there is a boom nearing but booms are always followed by crashes. If you were to take this deal, I would suggest you not see it as a permanent asset. Do what you can on the upswing but bail before the decline.”
“Mmm,” He pushed his bottom lip under his teeth and thought. “What is this potential?”
“Potential profit; millions.” You said evenly. “Potential loss; even more than that.”
“Ahh,” He sat and rubbed his knees. “But considering our already split income and this issue with docks, I would need some additional revenue soon.”
“True enough, and there are opportunities outside of Atlantic City,” You advised. “Hell, I would suggest the tracks before I sent you to the tables.”
“Tracks are small time,” Loki sneered. “How far did your father make it, eh?”
“He was… consistent,” You shrugged. “You asked for the numbers and my advice, and I’ve given you those. Either way, you risk a loss, even if it is only half… sorry, less than half.”
He traced a fingertip along his cheek and his face tensed as he thought.
“Thor has offered half of the buy-in,” Loki intoned. “He has a few casinos in London. He has made the best of them.”
“So you would own half of half?” You asked.
“A loan,” Loki insisted. “He is my brother and I have helped him before. As I see it, it is family business.”
“And he has consented to this loan?”
“My brother loves London,” Loki explained. “He will soon tire of being in New York because he is not the big boss. When my father handed over the business, Thor thought he won. He thought London was jewel in the crown, and I think, deep down, he knew he could never make it in New York.”
“It is your money, your business,” You said. “I just run the numbers.”
“Oh, darling,” His face softened and he grinned. “You will be doing much more than that. Atlantic City will be full of opportunities.”
You looked down and took a deep breath. You were embarrassed and angry but this was not the place. Not the time.
“Away from that jackass,” Loki stood and hooked a thumb through his belt. He reached to press two fingers beneath your chin and lifted your head. “We will have all the time in the world to rebuild the trust you broke.”
#loki#Bucky Barnes#dark loki#dark bucky barnes#dark!loki#dark!bucky barnes#loki x reader#bucky barnes x reader#dark loki x reader#dark bucky barnes x reader#dark!loki x reader#dark!bucky barnes x reader#series#fic#dark fic#dark!fic#au#omertà#mob au#mob!au#mafia au#mafia!au#mcu#marvel
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Athenaeum: 7
Warnings: Canon typical Violence is coming into play this chapter, mentions of blood, capture and WORST OF ALL:...I cant write fight scenes for crap. LOL
A/N:...so yeah...shit’s hitting the fan this chapter...not sorry about it, lol
***
Two months come and go and every time a ship lands near the outskirts you feel your heart clench. You did him rotten, what you did was unfair. He was trying to be kind but just like you always do, you ruin it.
You fall back into your daily routine: sorting, mindlessly storing away information that may never be needed again, but the kid is always at the back of your mind no matter how hard you try to push him away.
You hope he is okay.
You hope he is managing to slip through the Empire's grip as whispers begin to turn to murmurs. The Empire is rising from the ashes, attempting to be reborn, but this time it is darker. You can feel it in the atmosphere, the darkness that had clouded the sky during the reign of Darth Vader was starting to clog everything again.
You are terrified for the kid. Maker knows why the Empire wants him, but it is never a good thing to be wanted by the Empire in a way like that; a need so fierce they would be willing to burn down entire towns to find you.
The sun has just set on the horizon and the lamps all around are warming up their golden glow. You sit on an all too familiar duracrete wall, a cup of steaming tea in your hands.
The small girl from the pack of children approaches you with caution, she pushes a long strand of straight auburn hair behind her ear, "When will the baby be back?" She asks fearlessly.
Your lips press into a line, "I don't know."
"Do you think it will be soon? We miss him."
"I hope so." You respond before you bring the cup to your lips, the hot water burns your tongue.
The little girl seems satisfied, but disappointed with your answer and sighs before returning to the group. Her little shoulders dropping low, the chorus of “awwww” comes from the other children a few feet away.
You spend the night watching them play in the streets and making polite conversation with anyone who approaches you. You congratulate a newly wed couple as they uncomfortably ask if you might know of anything in your collection that might help them with their first child. You smile and ask them to come see you tomorrow afternoon, you'll be sure to get them what they need. "A gift." You respond when they look at each other nervously, unsure of what they could offer in trade, "We need more innocence in this world."
The moon is high in the sky by the time you wander back to your home. You catch yourself holding the spot on your chest where the child would lay his head when he was here, wrapped tightly against your body, tuckered out after a long night of play.
Sleep evades you that night.
Something about tonight was bringing out the worst in you. Something about the way everyone around you was starting to carve their way into the universe made you feel...lonely.
Inadequate.
Lost.
Again and again, you feel the urgency that only loss brings out in you, like you want to reach out into the universe and grab a hold of something - anything - to keep you from falling into the void but there is nothing.
You need to stay busy.
You don't remember when you pull yourself from the warmth of your covers and pad softly downstairs. The lights of your private archives hum loudly in the silence of the early morning. You slide into your helmet, the cold sticks to the inside spaces making little puffs with every breath you take.
You start your search, finding files with old wives tales and home remedies, scanning them for anything you can think of that the new nervous parents could need. And when you can't think of anything else, you read past accounts of births in this tiny little town, taking notes on your data pad as you go.
You don't feel your eyes start to slip closed halfway through your research, you don't feel your head drop forward suddenly heavy with exhaustion, you don't feel your entire body curl up to the desk as sleep completely overtakes you, and most of all you don't feel the Mandalorian pull you from your awkward sleeping position on the table to bring you upstairs. You don’t feel him lay you on your own bed, helmet still firmly attached over your shoulders.
You sleep through the tiny claws pulling themselves up beside you, but when the little warm body curls up under your chin your eyes finally flutter open.
Your hand comes up, landing with a soft plop between the kids ears. "Hey buddy, I've missed you." Your voice is raspy and thick with sleep.
He gurgles, little claws digging into the collar of your shirt.
"Where's your big beskar friend?" You sigh as you sit up slightly, you hold the child tight against you with one hand while pulling the helmet from your head with your other. It bounces on your mattress as you let it slide off. You look around, running the sleep from your eyes and trying to piece together how you even got back here.
The kid reaches up and touches your chin, a shiver runs down your spine as he shares more memories with you.
Sand and heat. Double suns high in the brilliant blue sky.
There was a nice woman there with wild curly hair, you can feel how much she makes him happy. She's fun because she lets me get in trouble. It's not words you exchange but feelings.
Holding the child in your arms and staring into the inky black of his eyes you can feel your resolve melting away.
If Mando asks again, you won't say no. You'll leave this all behind...but you've got to tell him the truth first. You hide your worry behind a smirk as you turn to the child, your hand curled into a C shape as you run it down the front of your chest, “Hungry?”
His little arms immediately spring up as he squeals.
“Not surprising.” You smirk as you inch out of bed, slowly standing with him still held carefully in your arms.
“I told him to let you sleep.”
You almost jump out of your skin at his sudden appearance, you aren’t sure how long the Mandalorian has been standing in your doorway watching you. “Mother of a mudscupper, I didn’t think you could be so quiet!” You shout, your heart racing up your throat.
This time he does chuckle at you before disappearing into your living area. You walk out behind him, still holding the child tight. He leans against a side wall, seemingly looking out of your window into the street below.
“I didn’t think you’d be back.” You say as you place the child down on the thick carpet, he wobbles over to the closest data pad, tucked into your usual place between one of the cushions of the couch.
“He likes it here. He’s safe here”
“You have a bounty nearby?” You ask instead.
“No.” he replies, “My offer-”
“To come with - wait.” You stop before you can finish the thought.
You hear it before you even see it break atmo, your eyes train on the sky. Mando looks up as well, following your gaze. You murmur it as you see it land in the outskirts. “T-4a shuttle.”
The Empire.
"Fuck, you have to go Mando, and you have to go now!" You scramble away from the window, you snatch the kid from the ground and hand him roughly to the Mandalorian as you both move as far away from the window as you can. Your data pad falls from his little claws, shattering against the floor. The Mandalorian tucks the child safely away in his canvas bag, trying to keep him calm as he starts to cry and squirm.
"Come with us."
"You won't make it out of atmo alone." You grit, "Go, I can buy you time."
He hesitates, "Why? Why does the Empire want you?!"
"Dank ferrik Mando, we don't have time for this!"
"Tell me why, tell me what they want."
You roll your eyes, your hands card through your hair harshly, annoyed doesn't even begin to describe the sensation that blooms in your chest, "For fucks sake Mando, it's because I belong to them!"
He takes a step back. If you could see his face you would put money on a look of betrayal probably etching itself into his gaze as you spoke.
You rip yourself out of your thin jacket and toss it on the ground and show your arm to the Mandalorian, the red of the ink even brighter than you remember in the daylight. This is not the way you were hoping to have this conversation.
"You're a deserter."
You huff, "No, life would be much easier if I was. A blaster bolt to the brain and that's the end of that. I am a creation, a monster born and bred for the Empire, they are inclined to bring me back."
He is frozen solid, the only sign of life is his chest which keeps rapidly rising and falling.
You clench your fist, he's running out of time and all he can do is stand there and be shocked by the inhumanity of the Empire, "Please Mando, you need to go."
"They want the kid, something about his blood-"
"Gods damn it, will you please go?!" You were so riled up that you felt the tears starting to blur out your vision.
"Are they making Jedi? Are they making more of you?!"
He was downright impossible. "I was force sensitive when they snatched me di'kut!" You growl, "They can't make us, but they can do other things."
Chaos is breaking out on the streets outside, you can hear screams and the sound of blaster fire. Panic rises up in your throat like acrid bile.
"Look, I don't know what they want from the kid, but please don't let them get him. If he survives whatever it is that they want him for or if he survives whatever they do to him, he won't like himself afterwards."
The Mandalorian is still and you wonder how long it will take for your words to bounce around his helmet before they sink into his head. The kid cries and he finally nods, "How do I get out?"
***
You can hear them coming closer. The sounds of doors being ripped off their hinges as imperial troopers in their white plastoid armor lay waste to the houses of the people you call friends and neighbors grows louder and louder. You are scared, your heart hammers under your ribs and if you don't keep reminding yourself to breathe you are sure you are going to keel over dead.
The Imperials drag out the men and women from their homes, shouting at them for information.
“Where is the bounty hunter?!”
“The one covered in beskar!”
There is no death, there is the force. The words appear in your mind like a message from some nearby god.
You close your eyes and open your door and step out onto the main road, your long handled electro-axe dragging lines into the dirt of the road beside you. You stop in the middle of the road and turn to face the small squad of troopers, a few lieutenants scattered between them, the silver emblems of their caps shine in the sun.
"The Mandalorian was with me." You call over, your voice cuts through the chaos.
The chaos quiets down for a moment as eyes land on you. Your own gaze lands on two lieutenants in the center of the fray, you can see their eyes flicker down, as they take in the brands on your skin. You grip your weapon a little tighter under their gazes.
"Deserter!" One of them growls before the other holds him back, a tight and sudden grip on his shoulder that stops him between steps.
The dark haired lieutenant approaches warily. "What is a Praetorian doing in these quadrants?"
You smirk as there is a noticeable nervous shuffle in the group, "You're outside your jurisdiction boys. There is no Empire or New Republic presence here, but if you insist on asking questions about the Mandalorian, you are going to have to deal with me."
"I repeat, Praetorian," The lieutenant shouts as he visibly gathers his courage and shuffles closer, "Why are you here?"
Your eyes scan his face, the small smirk growing into a toothy grin on your lips, "Let me repeat, lieutenant: you have no jurisdiction here, and if you think you rank above me...you are in for a harsh reminder." Your heart feels like it’s ready to burst from your chest, but you swallow down harshly and refuse to let it show.
His lip quivers and fear rolls off him in tidal waves, he turns to his partner, "Kill them."
The heat from the blasters is immediate as every blaster attempts to take you out, you ignite your vibro axe, it’s blue arcs of electricity snapping to life. You dodge a couple of shots, blocking the rest with a quick push from the force, snapping it back before regathering your focus and sending another wave before the troopers can get another shot in.
Your wave tackles the first row of troopers, causing havoc down the next two lines of troopers. Shots ring out in all directions as troopers go flying into each other, you take this moment to jump into the fray, slicing at the splayed out troopers who are still attempting to stand.
You try to keep tabs on the snarky lieutenant as he melts into the crowd, Imperial troopers pouring down the street en force. A blaster bolt rips through your shoulder, sending a searing flash of pain down your side. You see red as you throw your hand out and catch the trooper responsible by the throat. You fling him bonelessly into the closest hard surface, the sidewall of your own home.
Before he hits the ground you're already preparing to lash out at the next wave, quickly flipping your axe to your good arm, but you are not fast enough. A trooper charges under your outstretched hand, knocking you over.
The air leaves your lungs as you hit the road hard on your back.
The troops lunge forward and you hear distant shouts:
"Bring the e-net!"
"Clear the field!"
The crowd of white and black troopers part and you see the sky darkening as the electric net fills the sky.
"Fuck." You manage to gasp before it lands against your body and pins you to the ground. You hear it hum for a moment before it cracks to life like a lightning strike. Thick arcs of blue electricity fill the air and every muscle in your body spasms.
Your screams fill your ears, eyes brimming with angry tears as white hot pain tears through you. The pain stops for a moment, just enough time for you to see the silver shine of the Razor Crest break out of atmo at the corner of your vision. Electricity arcs again and your vision is gone behind a wall of tears and a tidal wave of pain.
You hear the boots around you surge forward in rhythm and then darkness.
Sweet, sweet, painless darkness.
Taglist: @prettyboyskywalker, @sunshinepascal, @perropascal, @pascalisthepunkest, @bigdickdindjarin, @kyjoraven
<<Back to Master List II Chapter 6 II Chapter 8 (In Progress)>>
#the mandalorian#the mandalorian x GN reader#Mandalorian x GN!reader#Dinxreader#DinxGN!reader#the mandalorian fan fiction#fanfiction#Reader is a Grogu stan#Grogu#din djarin x reader#din djarin x gn!reader#clan dinui
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Mystic Messenger - Interior Decorating Preferences (Living With MC)
— Zen —
Being a famous stage actor unfortunately doesn’t lead to heaps of cash, so even after establishing his career, Zen stayed in his garden unit for several years. You and him made the best of the place for as long as you could - brightening up the dankness with cheery lighting, making sure everything was clean - but eventually the tiny, cheap apartment wore out its welcome and the two of you decided that enough moldy air was enough.
Your new place was larger, newer, and located in a better neighborhood. Rent was more than twice the amount, which sometimes puts a strain on the books, and Zen also had to rent a separate parking space for his bike. But it was just a cheerier place. Both you and Zen began feeling the effects of a better ventilated, better lit home, and it energizes the both of you. The extra money was worth it.
While moving, Zen decided to dump most of his old furniture, keeping only the flatscreen and a table or a lamp. The new apartment was decorated with new couches and cushions, cabinets, mirrors, curtains and rugs. Zen had a surprisingly nuanced taste for interior decorating, and sought out decor with modern, smooth metal and muted grey colors.
Before, Zen lived with a mishap match of cheap furniture that clashed with each other and gathered dust as the years went by. Now, with a new place, you and Zen took the opportunity to really turn the apartment into a home.
He loved keeping the house brightly lit. Curtains were almost always drawn to let in the natural sun, and there were multiple lamps in every room to brighten up every corner. Sometimes, if a production was generous enough, Zen was allowed to take home one of the props as a gift. So the apartment was eventually decorated with several unique pieces, all mementos from his work.
He loves seeing the splashes of color dotting his brightly lit home, especially if you’re there to enjoy it with him.
— Yoosung —
It takes a while to move out of the dorms. He finishes his degree two years into you dating him, but before that point he had very little space to live in. His dorm didn’t have a kitchenette nor a shower, though luckily he didn’t have to deal with a roommate.
Any decorations he had were haphazard and cheap - a character mug for his pencil holder, a bedding set from Target, and other things typical for a full-time college student. His furniture belonged to the dorm, and there was quite a bit of clutter scattered around. Whenever you came over to visit, you would trip over things like random plastic figurines from vending machines.
After graduating, he moves back with his parents like many young people in Asia. But he really wanted a place of his own as soon as possible, mostly due to your influence. He didn’t want to awkwardly balance his family life with your availability. So after saving up from his internships, he found his first legit apartment to rent.
It was small, old, and the best he could find on such a small income. But it wasn’t bad, per se. Just needed some sprucing up. So that’s what he decided to do; actual decor, now, instead of cheap junk. Furniture from IKEA, legit bedding and curtains. It was important that you saw him as a budding adult, instead of some college kid.
He always loved bright colors and cheery imagery. Some of it kinda clashed, if you were totally honest. But he loved how it gave his home a slightly artsy twist.
And he still enjoyed his character merch, just not as vigorously as he did before. His desk was no longer covered in old acrylic keychains and plastic charms, but the tissue box on the dresser was decorated with characters from one of his favorite animes.
Above all, he loved how his space wasn’t an embarrassment to show you, anymore. Quite the opposite, in fact. Every corner held evidence of how much he’s grown. And you were there to share it with him.
— Jaehee —
Before you came into the picture, her apartment was kinda threadbare. She spent so little of her time there, she couldn’t really decorate the space to her liking. Although her work at C&R earned her an impressive paycheck, you couldn’t see any real evidence of it amongst her home.
Except for her technology, which she was happy to splurge on. A large plasma TV, the latest Kureig model, a snazzy smartspeaker. Plus, her furniture was brand-name. If it wasn’t for Jaehee herself living there, you could almost believe this apartment was some sort of photoshoot studio - perfectly decorated and sterile.
After leaving C&R and starting a cafe with you, she finally had time to really invest in her home. And she took it by storm, not just buying tasteful wall art and coordinated throw rugs, but also contracting people to install new granite to the kitchen countertop and re-modeling the entire bathroom.
She and you had a real eye when it came to decor. It took an entire day set aside to tour furniture stores when it came time to buy new floor lamps, or accent tables. You compared prices on your phone, she agonized over color swatches and metal finishes.
And she switches up things pretty rapidly. She’ll buy these chic polished metal salt-and-pepper shakers for the kitchen, and two months later she’ll decide they’re too plain so she’ll bring home a dyed blue glass set, only to eventually think they’re too tacky.
All the colors are warm, sometimes dim and cozy, sometimes brightly lit. Antique gold and brass in the kitchen, warm pearls in the bathrooms, buttercup yellow decorating the bedsheets.
No longer was her apartment an oppressive, lonely place that money couldn’t fix. She had a home now; under her feet, and also within you.
— Jumin —
Now, the images of Mystic Messenger don’t give us the full tour of Jumin’s skyline penthouse studio, but if they did we’d all be shook. ‘Cause his place is no fucking joke, its literally one of the top ten most expensive homes of South Korea.
It’s located atop an 85-floor skyscraper, and takes up the entire floor with a 20,000 square feet span. It boasts four bathrooms, two kitchens, three separate lounge areas, and crazy expensive architecture. That vertical fish tank next to his Wyoming-size king bed is only the beginning of the luxury that surrounds this man’s abode.
Even after months of living with him, Jumin surprises you by pointing out some decadent part of the apartment you had missed. Like the jacuzzi settings on one of the bathtubs, or how the massive span of windows can be tinted using a remote. He had lived the life of a millionaire for so long, he got used to these sorts of things.
You, on the other hand, are constantly charmed and even overwhelmed by the decadence. Half the wine in his personal cellar cost more than your college tuition. You couldn’t help but just, lap up this ridiculous palace, at times. It was really something to wake up to carved marble tiles, crystal lamps, and designer furniture every day.
When you moved in, Jumin soon began considering buying a larger place, because to him the massive studio was ‘too small for two people’ and you had to quickly stop him before he bought a literal estate. True, the interior decorating had already been carefully furnished with only Jumin as the sole resident in mind, but bit by bit, your personal touches began gracing his home.
Like your closet became your closet, both lounges were slowly re-decorated with your own personal tastes in color and decor, your little knick-knacks found their way upon bookshelves and countertops, Jumin’s luxury dishware now included your favorite decorated mugs and cute kitten ramen bowl.
And those touches are what finally made Jumin feel like his apartment was a home. All the luxury in the world couldn’t buy this coziness.
— Saeyoung —
The man is a dirty, rowdy boy who pays almost no attention to maintaining his habitat. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an aesthetic, though. He buys the top-of-the-line technology with colored LED lights and polished marble surfaces. There’s so much color surrounding his bunker, you can almost forget you’re twenty feet underground.
Seriously, sometimes it’s like a rave. His triple-door smartscreen fridge is lit with deep blue blacklights, his bathroom mirror is backlit with a chrome rainbow spectrum that shifts colors, the ceiling light of his bedroom is this big circular fixture that mimics different planets with a push of a remote.
But he only pays attention to decor he’s interested in. So when it comes to his couches, his dining table, his bedframe? He just outsourced it to designer brands and picked the most generic, modern-style ones they had. To keep it even more simple, it’s all a boring black color. And many of it is part of the same collection - you noticed that the dining chairs, the coffee table, and the barstools are all the same design.
And no, he’s doesn’t clean after himself. He really doesn’t have the heart nor time to, especially before meeting you. So there’s food crumbs in the crack of his office chair, loose clothing in random places on the floor and tossed over chairs, and product bottles thrown haphazardly amongst the bathroom.
When you came into the picture and saved him from the agency, his work racketed down by a huge margin. No more working 52 hours at a stretch without sleep, no more entire weeks spent fearing for his life if he didn’t finish a job. This left more time and energy to step it up a bit and stop being such a slob. Mostly for your sake, if he was being honest.
Almost all of the fancy tricked up stuff in his apartment was his own doing. And once he had more free time, there was even more of it. So enjoy your voice-activated desk lamp with bluetooth and 30 different color settings, that was just an afternoon project and he’s got something even better for the two of your’s anniversary!
— Saeran —
Unlike his brother, Saeran actually values cleanliness and a good living space. Partially due to his bad immune system and how a clean environment can make a big difference in his health, and partially because that’s just the kind of guy he is. He had his own room in Mint Eye, which was tastefully decorated under his own hand with antiques and art statement pieces. Decorating his room was one of the few opportunities he had to express himself.
Once he escaped Mint Eye and began living with you, it took many months to regain some assemblance of a normal daily life, and one of the first steps was to retrofit his living space into a safe, encouraging home.
With your help, the two of you planned out everything with the intention of creating a haven of sorts. He still wanted his antique aesthetic and romantic colors, but now there was technology that encouraged communication with the outside world. Now, the curtains were pulled to reveal an exciting, open world right on the doorstep.
The antique interior complimented his flowers very well. ‘Cause flowers and plants are a constant fixture in the home. Sometimes, its cut flowers arranged in a Regency-era glass vase, but mostly they’re potted flowering plants. Huge ones in the living room, or tiny ones on accent shelves, or the several window planters you and he maintained with love and care.
As he regained his confidence, the apartment showed his progress. He began going out to buy things on his own, without needing you to accompany him. And the things he brought back were sometimes ... weird, but oddly charming, like a mounted authentic Viking drinking horn, or a framed poster of a map from a fantasy video game.
He just ... enjoyed these odd things. His life was so free now, which meant he could go out and be weird and enjoy these weird things without anything holding him back. You proudly displayed all of these trophies, all evidence of Saeran’s healing.
— Jihyun —
It’s canon that Jihyun’s apartment in-game was mostly fitted to Rika’s wishes, not his own. We don’t really see it, but if the photo panned out more we’d see pale, birchwood accents and light linen fabric. Everything bright, and lit with white lights. Almost all of it Rika’s influence.
When he and you found a new apartment, Jihyun wanted to take this opportunity to establish himself more, this time. So instead of that pure, untouched look, he added more color in washes of warm leathers, brushed metal, and natural lighting.
It was worldly, for lack of a better term. Lots of mementos from his time traveling, all adding dimension to the living space. A woven Navajo basket from New Mexico, a large print replica of a page from the Book Of Kells, a bronze modern art sculpture from an emerging Indian artist.
And the furniture themselves were uniquely artistic, too. Jihyun one day brought home new earthy-brown decorative cushions, bought from a company that produced textiles dyed using food waste scrap. He went to a warehouse auction for authentic, obscure antiques, and graced the living room with a richly red bubinga-wood rocking chair from 1950′s Germany.
Funnily enough, as graceful of a man he is, he can sometimes be a bit too tacky in his choice for decor. He tried to argue for fake exposed-brick wallpaper as an accent wall, which you had to shoot down. More than once, he showed you a new art piece about to be sold at a new gala that he wanted to go bid for, and the particular piece was just ... too esoteric or even gaudy to be displayed.
Jihyun just loved to feel like he could be himself. And he loved how you encouraged this new life of his. An actual home, now, free from his family or Rika. True love can only blossom under freedom, and that’s what this home represented for him.
#mystic messenger imagines#mysme imagines#mystic messenger#zen mysme#yoosung kim#jaehee kang#jumin han#saeyoung choi#saeran choi#jihyun kim
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Whitmore Guy and the eternal studs
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
word count: 3158
warnings: language
As summer exams were approaching, the pressure on the students of Whitmore grew immensely. And Y/N was the one who felt it clearest of all. Each student, whether depressed, or just stressed, felt only their own weight pulling them down. Y/N had to be the anchor for all of them at once.
In the incredible fuss of early June she didn’t notice that a bunch of young people were very behind in their studies. When she finished filing out all of their graduate papers and closing documents for their rented apartments, she realized at least twenty people from the whole Whitmore did not show up for their preliminary sessions in the end of May. Three of them were missing, and the police already knew about it. A week later, after Damon had finally submitted the heads to the Mystic Falls sheriff, their identities were confirmed, and the college had a big wake for them. Their names were Sheila Bent, Christopher Harris and Taylor Whitaker. Y/N remembered them from her everyday work, and they weren’t unusual; all three, like the rest of the bodies dragged to Damon’s lawn, were Mystic Falls residents. Rebekah left the town for some time, led away by Klaus. Of course, her brother was defensive of her, aggressive, even, however, the pressure of the surviving town, the main core specifically, made it uneasy for him. Y/N was honestly baffled by how him being in love with Caroline changed his attitude. How easy it is to break you, and to manipulate you, when you’re into somebody. And how nasty it is, when this somebody is not entirely on your side.
The rest of the students, who were now in the danger of getting kicked from the college, swarmed her office for the whole first half of June; pleading, begging, crying hysterically, and throwing tantrums. Yesterdays’ mature young people transformed in an almost inexplicable way. There were some athletes among them; there was a brilliant science student Alana May, whom Y/N always liked for her reasonable attitude. All of them changed into these whining kids who did not know what to do now, that they spent half a month somewhere, and couldn’t cope with their deadlines. The situation got thousand times weirder after Y/N found that they all said one and the same thing when asked what the hell they’d been doing.
They said, we were having a party. Fifteen people from different faculties, studying different things, who have never been seen before, of different age and interests, were all having party for at least two weeks, all together.
It was Damon’s birthday, and he could not wish for anything better than investigating the college drama. Although, Y/N did not call it a drama specifically; she said it was more of a sinister mystery. Damon strongly advised her not to contact the failing students again before he gets his head in. When people go missing and then return, having completely changed their behavior, there can only be one explanation, that is – in his world. They’ve been turned.
“Ah-what?!” she yelled.
“When did they come in?” Damon asked knowingly.
“All at a different time – but in the working hours. Which are during the day”.
“Did you look for the lapis lazuli?”
“No, I did not. I’ve been more busy trying to calm down four people at a time. I don’t even have lunch these days, I have so much work”.
“God, the IT guy must miss you”.
Y/N snorted bitterly.
“Joke’s on you, Damon. He brings me coffee every morning”.
“Ew. Anyway, try something if you see any them. I’ll be there by three. Gather them all in one room and I’ll stake them”.
She pressed her fingers between her eyebrows, trying to pull the migraine out. How is she not screaming at him yet.
“You’re not going to come to Whitmore and stake fifteen people who you think are vampires”.
“I’m pretty damn sure gonna. I have a lot of things to do today”.
“Like what? Buy yourself a cake?”
Damon gasped on the other side of the line.
“What? You’re not getting me cake?”
Of course not, she thought. Cakes are traditionally on Caroline.
“Damon, you gotta have at least a picture of a plan before we do it. It’s your faint assumption. Maybe it’s something worse. Or something else. Maybe they joined a cult or something. Maybe they’ve turned into very normal human terrorists”.
“Good thinking, Y/N. Get them all together. By three”.
“Don’t you think it would make more sense to first talk to one of them if you want to check?”
Damon was silent for a moment.
“Yeah, good idea”.
He hung up.
She thought, standing by the window, as she looked out on the parking lot and the football field behind it. Why would Rebekah turn all these people? Was she bitten by the same family craving bug as Klaus once was? In what world all this turning, heads ripping stuff made any sense to her? The summer solstice was getting dangerously close, and Y/N had a bad feeling. There was always a massacre timed to a big cosmic or festive event in this god forsaken town. Every Founder’s Day – someone tries to butcher half of population. And she didn’t even want to remember the Halloween party back in 2009. Or the Perseids night four years ago. Some freak put a bunch of people inside of trees everywhere in the park using magic. They never caught him, of course… those were the weird times, when they failed, once and again, to prevent tragedies. Then it just ended. There were couple of strange cases in Mystic Falls, never solved. The greatest regret of the former sheriff Liz Forbs, before she died, was never solving the case of who killed her father and grandmother.
Thank God she didn’t live to see what happened to Matt.
Y/N decided to find and secure Alana May when Damon comes. She liked her the best, and she had a great hope to save her, if anything as horrible happened to her.
Y/N closed her laptop and left her office, walking to the teacher’s room to see Alaric and involve him a bit. His life has been getting far too boring lately.
She also discovered Mal together with him. The Occult Professor was sitting in his chair, looking into his computer intensely, and Mal clearly did not read the signs of his body – or didn’t want to. Standing right behind his shoulder, he pushed Ric’s back with his stomach, and spoke straight into the poor man’s ear.
“Huh, and then she was like, I don’t really believe that you’re already closing to thirty. I was like, ma’am, just because I’m clean shaven, like any other civilized individual… I mean, you know, not to say anything about your majestic beard, Ric, but I’ve never been able to grow anything like that. There are some people, you know…”
All the while his fingers were working on the keyboard disconnected from his brain completely. Ric’s face expressed misery, and Y/N chuckled, watching them, as she sat down behind someone’s unoccupied desk.
“Hey”, Mal smiled, looking at her briefly.
“Y/N”, Alaric stood up with a swing, almost hitting Mal in the face with his elbow. “I was just thinking about you. I need to talk to you. Can we…”
Mal looked up at them curiously, and a sly smile curled his lips. Half of the time he was pissing Saltzman just for the sake of it.
“Yeah, same”, Y/N gestured, inviting him to leave the room since Mal was working. Together, they stepped out into the corridor, which was sunny, smelled of summer, and stood half empty as it was morning.
“Heavenly God”, the man puffed, looking her in the eyes, “how do you stand that person?”
She was still giggling.
“Serious stuff, Ric. You remember I complained to you about those students who chucked on their studies and were running around on fire?”
A line lay between his eyebrows.
“Uh-huh”.
“Damon thinks they’ve been turned. It’s a bit soon to tell, but when I think about it, it makes sense. They all became like one: impatient, nervous, and very short-tempered. There haven’t been any killings yet… that I know of”.
She looked at him with a question. Saltzman shook his head.
“That’s a morbid picture, if he’s right. You think they’re connected with that massacre at the Salvatore mansion?”
“We don’t know if they are vampires yet. Let’see first. He’s coming over today at three”.
Ric put his palm on Y/N’s shoulder.
“Shall we give him his present then?”
The door opened, and Mal walked into them.
“Aw, my bad. The room’s free, if you want it. Y/N, you wanna grab a beer after work?”
“Not today, Mal”, Y/N watched him tilt his head musingly. “We got uh- a thing to do”.
“Oh, the hybristophiliac police gathering. Got it”.
He looked hurt though. Y/N understood very well what he felt at that moment. There they stood, two very different people, part of her outer world, and part of her inner dimension. Ever since Mal came round, the prose of her life became even more boring. Mal was like leaving your house on a fresh morning. You don’t really wanna do that shit anymore. You want to make lava lamps in his basement, listen to his favorite music, and watch Dr Pepper cans fall out of their slots.
“Not really, it’s…”
Ric was watching them both with mist in his eyes.
“Anyway, let’s do it tomorrow”.
“Whatever. Not like I wanted to tell you something super important. It’ll wait”, he smiled and waved them with his quick ringed hand.
“I’ll go get Alana”, Ric put his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “And you watch out for the rest of them”.
“Uh-huh”, Y/N said, still watching Mal walk away. Cindy/Sandy caught her eye. As he walked past her, the girl followed him with a glance, too, and then turned and looked directly at Y/N. Something was off about that look, more than just a “woah, we’re checking out the same guy”. Y/N brushed it off. Not now. Not fucking now.
“Alright, I’ll get her into your office by three”.
“Call me if something happens”.
All those phrases were rehearsed and vocalized hundreds of times. All that routine was suffocating. Y/N walked back to her place thinking about Cindy/Sandy. Maybe she should check her name after all, to finally memorize it.
Damon was there by two-fifty. At three straight, there was a knock at her door, and Alana, led by Alaric, came into her office. Damon’s eyes were highlighted by the sunlight penetrating through the windows like juice. All pale, with bright turquoise, focused and a bit frustrated already, he moved towards the girl without a word.
Alana didn’t have time to react. The vampire took her by the shoulder, as Alaric snapped the door closed, and looked at her like a doctor with at least a century experience.
Only, Salvatore gaze wasn’t caring or curious. It was examining the depths of Alana’s majestic dark brown eyes with cold concentration, and his hard hand never left the girl’s shoulder. Y/N stood next to her, a kind of a maternal instinct rising in her, to protect her from… whatever.
“What are you now?” Damon asked quietly. Alana was looking at him with confusion on her beautiful face. She eyed the man almost angrily, and then replied,
“I’m Alana. Who are you?”
She looked at Y/N for assistance.
“What’s going on?”
“Look at me”, Damon ordered quietly, but with great significance. Y/N got a glimpse of what attracted her to this individual long time ago; he was a very obvious alpha. He was also extremely irritated all the time, which somehow added to his charm. Maybe she just liked the mean type.
Alana stared at Damon, looking all the more lost, and suddenly he straightened up, his face going a dead mask, jaws clenched.
“She’s been turned”.
“What?” Y/N barked, leaning to the student. Alana was turning her head absently at this point, trying to gain someone’s attention, but afraid to stand up as Damon was towering over her.
“Who turned you?” Y/N asked. Alana looked at her, and her eyes went blank.
“What do you mean? What the fuck is going on here?”
Heating up, the girl tried to get up, but Damon pushed her back down roughly. Y/N took him by the shoulder, and he didn’t fail to catch her hand in his inescapable clutch.
“Look”.
He bared his teeth like a tiger yawning, and bit her wrist in a flash, so fast, Y/N couldn’t feel pain at first. She only felt stinging when the first thick, dark drops of blood started to fill on her skin. She could yell at him later, and roll her eyes, too. She looked down at Alana, whose gaze was now focused on her completely. Suddenly, the girl’s face grimaced in pain, and she pushed herself deeper into the armchair, crying out,
“I can’t! Please”, her mouth opened in horror, long fangs growing out of her gums; a familiar black web of swollen veins evened out under her eyes, but she looked at Y/N.
“Your blood, I can’t take it, I can’t…”
But her thirst was stronger. Shaking and convulsing, Alana jumped out, throwing herself over the armchair, just as Damon wrapped his arms around Y/N. It was all too fast, at the vampire speed which always made everything look like changing pictures. Alana threw herself back, right onto another human: Alaric. He was a bad victim, all with instincts and ready hands that never failed him. Y/N bumped into her desk, moved it with her body, pushed away by Salvatore. Damon wanted to step forward to Alana and pushed away the armchair she’d been sitting in, so hard that it collapsed into the bookcase, breaking the glass and scattering the pieces of it. Alaric was pinned to the door, head tilted down, and Alana was immediately pushed to him. She gave out a groan, all too familiar, for Y/N not to understand.
She balanced herself back to her feet, but it was already too late. Salvatore took the student’s body away from Ric, and, having checked that she was dead, took the stake out.
“Good reflexes”, he nodded, carefully placing Alana on the floor.
“Not her”, Y/N moaned. It was her mistake. She chose her to bring here, to Damon. This death was on her.
Y/N ran her fingers through her hair, thinking. She looked at her bookcase and the glass on the floor. Oh how she could’ve used that beer after work.
“God fucking dammit”, she uttered, taking the armchair and pushing it further, to the window.
“How many are there left?” Damon asked. Y/N thought about them with horror. Right now, there’s a group of young vampires, high on thirst and anxiety, getting their blood devil knew where, scattered around the campus. One of them could be flirting with Mal.
“So, we’re not gonna talk about it?” Alaric walked towards the body and then looked at Y/N. “A newly turned vampire, that’s unable to withstand the call of blood, manages to avoid biting you, because, apparently she’s been compelled. If that’s still Rebekah, then I’m completely confused”.
Damon turned to her and gave her the longest look. Y/N felt like the vampire was staring right into her, down to her every little bone, and a nasty feeling crawled into her brain. There was something to do with her. There was a thought, in the back of her mind, almost on the brink of subconscious, that she pushed away and couldn’t reach anymore. The only sensation left was guilt. Why did she feel guilty, like she was hiding something? Why was Damon staring at her like that? He was the third already, that day.
She was walking across the football field. Thank God they didn’t make her run around the campus and look for the remaining fourteen failing students. She was swinging Alana’s keys between her fingers, looking for her car on the other side of the road. She failed to find it in the parking lot and decided to check in the street. It was a normal thing now, deaths. People died pretty often in Mystic Falls and its suburbia. Weird things, awful things happened there. They knew about it even back in Seattle. So, technically, if you come to study or live here, you claim that you’re ready to take the risks. It just bothered Y/N that deaths didn’t bother her anymore. How much does it take off a person to become jaded? It certainly wasn’t that much for her, and yet, she was calm. She’s just seen one of the best Whitmore students die pointlessly; out of Alaric’s paranoid stake throwing. And all she felt was frustration. The new knot to untie, the whole new bunch of threads to pull on. And what if someone really important gets in the way?
She finally found it, a dark blue Honda. Y/N took it back to the campus, circling the building and stopping it at the back entrance. Damon came out with the body and put it in the trunk.
“Tha-ank you”, he clicked his tongue, taking the keys from her. Ric appeared next to him and looked at Y/N with the same silent question.
“You know, if they all were compelled not to feed on you, you’re going to lure them all by yourself”.
“I won’t be luring anyone”, Y/N protested, “we don’t have to kill them. I’m sick of this… favoritism. Either kill all new vampires, or save them all. Imagine it was Bonnie, who’s been turned yesterday. You wouldn’t have staked her”.
Damon puffed.
“Oh, sweet lord. Don’t tell her that. The idea of being a vampire makes her go suicidal this quick”, he snapped his fingers and got into the car.
“Damon’s going to take care of little Alana” he announced, letting down the window, “and you find the rest of their bunch and assess them”.
Ric’s phone rang. He answered it quickly, lifting his palm as if to say, wait a second. Then he looked at them both:
“Caroline’s asking if we’re still up for tonight, at the Grill”.
“Are we really doing the party?” Y/N inquired, morosely.
Damon hummed like he did when a very bad, murderous idea came to him.
“Make it Craze. And Y/N, let everybody know that there’s a lit party tonight. It’s going to be totally sick or whatever you kids say. Let them all come”, he winked, and started the engine.
“That would be dangerous”, Ric tried to reason with him.
“Young vampires won’t be able to resist an opportunity to party”, Y/N thought out loud. “Loud music, lots of hot blood, and excitement”.
“And piles of dead bodies”, Saltzman noted, watching as Alana’s car sped away from the campus.
#kai parker#kai parker imagine#kai parker x reader#vampire diaries#vampire diaries imagine#damon salvatore#ric saltzman#whitmore guy
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“E, I’m here,” Lorcan called out from her front hall. “How’re you feeling, love?”
A pathetic groan was her answer, “Having a uterus is ass.” She heard him snort and a couple moments later, he was appearing in the doorway to her bedroom, a sympathetic tilt to his head. She pouted at him and he laughed, entering her room and walking to her side, where she was curled in the fetal position around her hot water bottle. She noticed the shopping bag he had in his hand and nodded feebly towards it, “What’s in there?” Hellas, her dog, lifted his head from where it had been resting on her hip, whining softly.
Lorcan glanced down at the bag and started pulling out stuff he had gotten her, placing them on her desk. “Diva Cup spray, super pads, the Kodex type, and pantie liners, Midol, you ran out,” he mentioned to her as he put the bottle of pills on her nightstand, just within her reach. “That chocolate thingie you forgot at the store yesterday, remember, you cried when you realized you forgot and the store was closed.” There was a smirk on his lips and that hurt more than she thought it could. It wasn’t funny.
Tears pooled in her eyes at the memory, “You don’t have to say it like that.” She sniffled and he looked up, his face stricken. “You don’t have to be a massive dick about it.” Hellas barked slightly, growling at his owner’s distress and the source of it, her stupid boyfriend.
“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that, E, I just-” There was a slight edge of laughter to his voice and it cut deep into her.
“If you’re gonna be like that, you can just leave, I don’t need someone making me feel worse than I already do about things I can’t control.” With that, she turned to her other side, furiously trying to stop her crying. She despised her period, hated how sensitive she was, hated how every movement had her wincing in discomfort. The hot water bottle wasn’t so hot anymore and she groaned, knowing she would have to get up to refill it and she knew that the move to vertical would make her nauseous and dizzy.
The mattress shifted and the duvet was pulled up as Lorcan settled behind her, tugging her slowly enough so that she could push him off if she wanted but Elide let him pull her to his chest, his arms wrapping around her waist snugly but not too tightly. “I’m sorry, E. I shouldn’t have said it like that, I know how much you hate your period and I wish I could make it all go away, mahasani.”
“Och,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “You asshole, stop making me cry.”
Lorcan laughed and the sound vibrated through his chest and into her back, “Do you forgive me?”
“Yes, I forgive you,” she said, the smile on her face swept off when Lorcan pulled her hot water bottle away, “What the literal fuck do you think you-”
He chuckled as his warm hands slipped under her hoodie and pressed into her stomach, exactly where her cramp was. “You’re feisty today.”
“Yesh, well, shedding your uterus will do that to a gal,” she said, no bite in her words as his hands rubbed her stomach, just enough pressure directly below her belly button that her discomfort was soothed away. Elide sighed and relaxed fully against him, her head falling back onto his shoulder. “Mmm, that feels nice.” Her hands found their way into Hellas’ thick fur, stroking softly.
“Yeah?” he asked and she felt his smile in her neck.
“Mm-hmm.” She sighed and her eyes fell shut, “I’m gonna fall asleep if you keep doing that.” Lorcan practically glowed with pride, Elide hardly slept while during her cycle, her pain kept her up even after her meds. “Thank you, baby,” she whispered as she let slumber drag her under.
When she woke up, the snow was still falling outside and her lamp was casting a soft glow about her room. Her arms were wrapped around Hellas, the Husky sleeping soundly. Lorcan was nowhere to be seen and she was covered in a pile of warm blankets. There was something heated on her stomach and she felt around, realizing it was her electric blanket that she thought she had lost.
Elide heard someone moving around in the main room of her apartment and slowly swung her legs out of bed, noting the glass of water and two little pill stamped with ‘Midol’. She smiled and noticed her pain wasn’t as bad, electing to leave them there as she stood and put her glasses on before she slowly shuffled out of her room.
Lorcan was standing in her kitchen, and he turned when she shut her door, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “Hi, there. Feeling better?”
Elide nodded and approached him before wrapping her arms around his waist. “Yeah, I thought I lost my electric blanket.”
“Oh, that? I got a new one ‘cause I know how much you loved your old one.” He said it so casually but Elide squealed in delight.
“You did?”
Lorcan laughed, “Yeah, you were full-on sobbing when you couldn’t find it.”
Elide sighed, the sound wavering as tears pricked her eyes again and her throat tightened. “We don’t need to talk about that right now.” He smiled and wiped her tears away, leaning down to kiss her softly. “Ok?”
“Ok.” He nipped her bottom lip and pulled away, “You hungry?”
“Fucking starving.” She laughed and looked around him to where there was a plate of grilled-cheese sandwiches and a mug of steaming tea. “How did you know that’s what I wanted?”
Lorcan grinned and dropped a kiss on the top of her head, “You know, your cravings are really predictable, E. It’s the same thing every month.”
She pouted and crossed her arms, “I’m not that obvious about it.” Lorcan rose a brow as he passed her her mug of tea, huffing a laugh when she sipped and sighed in bliss. “I don’t care how obvious I am, this tea is worth it.”
Lorcan chuckled as he grabbed her plate of sandwiches and guiding her to the couch, where there was a pile of pillows and blankets for her. “Sit down, babe. I got something for you.”
“Oh?” she questioned, scrunching her nose as she curled into the corner of the couch, her tea held securely in her hands, the steam wafting from it fogging her glasses. “What’d ya get?”
“You’ll see,” he told her as he crouched in front of her TV and joined her shortly after. Lorcan pulled her legs over his lap and rubbed her thigh with his thumbs.
He turned his head and looked down at her, waiting till she looked up at him and smiled, “Thank you for coming over.” She rested her head on his shoulder, batting her eyes at him.
“Even though I’ve made you cry, I think, twice now?”
Elide laughed and nodded, “Even if you’ve made me cry twice now. So,” she put her tea on the coffee table and nestled into his chest, “What’s your surprise?”
He pressed a sweet kiss on her forehead, “Close your eyes, princess.” She was buzzing with excitement as she bit her lip and closed her eyes, her lashes brushing against her specs.
She opened them when she heard the first note of the F.R.I.E.N.D.S theme song and she cried out in happiness, “What. They took it off of Netflix, how did you find it, I can’t believe you found it, I’m-” She cut herself off to clap along and then laugh, falling back against him. “I’m so happy right now, you cannot even imagine.” She held his hands to her chest, squeezing them periodically as the show continued to play.
It had taken him days to find the complete box-set of DVD’s for Elide’s favourite comfort-food show. She had been so sad when Netflix had taken it down and moped around her apartment days afterwards.
She’d told him she hadn’t cried but he knew that she had definitely burst into a puddle of tears when she couldn’t find it and had ranted to him about how Netflix and Apple were evil corporations that didn’t care about their customers and only thought about making the most money after she had found out that to buy the entire show would cost her over one hundred dollars.
It’s ridiculous, Lorcan! It’s criminal, is what it is, how could they do this to their customers? Why would they do this to me, I’m a good person, I’m environmentally conscious, I’m vegetarian, I don’t have a car and walk or take public transit most places, I am a tax paying citizen, I’m never late to pay my bills, I’m a fucking kindergarten teacher, for Anneith’s sake, my dog is a rescue, why would they do this to me?
Now, he wasn’t watching the show at all. Instead, his eyes were on Elide, the woman that he was sure was the one he would marry, the love of his life, the sun to his days, the stars and moon to his nights. His throat tightened as she eventually drifted off, her grilled-cheese left untouched on the coffee table. “Iyótaŋčhila, Elide Lochan.” I love you, Elide Lochan.
“What’d ya say?” Her voice was thick with sleep like warm honey sitting in a glass jar.
Shit. Fuck, fuckfuckfuckfuck, she had been asleep, she had fallen asleep on his chest and he knew it because Lorcan Salvaterre knew what it felt like to have her sleeping next to him. “I, I just…” he trailed off, his heart slamming in his chest. Elide slowly pulled herself up, her eyes wide and her brows raised. Lorcan bowed his head and rested it on her clavicle, “I love you, Elide.”
“You do?” Elide’s voice was thick with tears once more and filled with wonder. “You love me?”
Lorcan raised his head, their noses brushing as he nodded, “Elide Syeira Lochan, I love you.”
She gasped and her eyes lined with silver. Elide brushed her thumb over his high cheekbone, “Kamav tut, I love you too, Lorcan Ohitekah Salvaterre, I love you so gods-damned much.” His eyes were brimming with tears as he smiled and they spilled down his cheeks and so did hers, “Stop making me cry, bengalo.”
Lorcan’s lips pulled into a wide smile as he laughed and it was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard as he kissed her slowly, “I’m sorry, E. Will you forgive me?”
“Hmm, I think I’ll have to think on that, my love, your offences have been rather egregious lately,” she mused, tilting her head up to brush her lips against him. Elide cackled when he stuck his bottom lip out and made his eyes wide and sad.
“Pretty please?” He pouted and somehow made tears pool in his eyes, though she knew that they were fake. “With sugar on top?”
Elide huffed in a joking way and rolled her eyes, “Oh, I guess I can find it in my soul to forgive you.”
“Thank Hellas for that.”
++++++
Translations: I used Lakota (Sioux) for Lorcan’s mother tongue and Romany for Elide’s!
Lakota:
Mahasani: Term of endearment, translates to ‘my other skin’
Iyótaŋčhila: ‘I love you’
Ohitekah: Lakota name that means ‘fierce or war-like’
Romany:
Kamav tut: ‘I love you’
Bengalo: Idiot
Syeira: Romany name, means ‘princess’
@myfeyrelady @kandasboi @schmlip-scribble @the-regal-warrior @highqueenofelfhame @westofmoon @empire-of-wildfire @rhysands-highlady @city-of-fae @shyvioletcat @alifletcher2012 @tangledraysofsunshine @ttakeitbacknoww @tswaney17
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Can you write an imagine where Tommy gets jealous of all the attention Lizzie gets from the men at some party they need to attend? Then he suddenly kisses her in the middle of the ball in front of everyone. Make it a bit longer.
All I See Is You - Tommy Shelby x Lizzie Starke/Shelby
Sorry again for taking so long!! My job has strangled my motivation, but not any more! Hope you like it!
•••••
"Lizzie, you too." Thomas said at last, before dismissing the rest of his family from the meeting. The ball later that evening was an important family affair, and that meant the whole company was to attend.
That was the official ruling, anyway. Thomas just liked to have Lizzie close by. He liked to hope it was for their mutual benefit.
Tommy added, not looking up from the papers on his desk, "You'll be my date."
"What a delightful way of asking." Lizzie scoffed, rising from her seat.
She was secretly pleased, but she often became frustrated with his methods of courtship. It wasn't as if he couldn't be sweet. She had seen that side of him before, but only behind closed doors. After all they'd been through, she thought maybe now he could let himself be loved. Why was that privilege exclusive to Grace?
He met her eye, but said nothing. She could read guilt threaded through his features, but it was almost impossible to find. He hid his feelings, and she tried to find them.
Thomas opened his mouth, but shut it once more. Lizzie took that as her cue to leave, her heels loud on the wooden office floor. When was she going to get the respect she deserved?
Arriving at home a short while later, Lizzie took a deep and steadying breath. She was going to be his date, for crying out loud. That had to mean more than he let on, even if he was awful at showing it. It just would have been nice to have been asked instead of informed.
A maid, paid for by the Shelby Company Limited, approached Lizzie in the entryway. She updated Lizzie on when the car would arrive for her later, and explained that a package had arrived for Lizzie just moments prior.
"A package? What is it?" Lizzie questioned, curious. A tingle of fear ran down her spine, but she supressed it from showing. Surely it was just a regular package, though one never knew in this life of hers.
"It's from Mr. Shelby." was all the maid answered before departing.
Hurrying to her room, Lizzie immediately spotted the box on her bed. She inhaled sharply, already suspecting what the item was. Tommy's planning was always impeccable.
"Damn you, Tommy." she sighed, reading the card before tossing it aside.
'Will you please be my date? - TS'
The long red dress glittered in the lamp light. Jewels, surely real rubies if she knew Thomas well enough, were sewn delicately across the bodice of the gown. Where he even got the damn thing was beyond her.
Lizzie felt a pang of doubt in her chest. Was Tommy going to be open about her being his date? She longed for the day she could hold his hand outside the safety of his bedroom. It was so easy to love him, but so hard to live without him reciprocating.
As she always did, she tucked away the pain back into her chest and carried on. She had a ball to attend to, and she was going to look fucking gorgeous.
***
"Look at that dress!" Ada exclaimed, reaching a hand out to touch a particularly large stone.
"Your brother has a surprisingly good eye." Lizzie admitted, looking down at the gown. It fit beautifully, almost as if it was made with her measurements in mind. She didn't dare ask if that was true.
Ada hummed to herself, "Tommy bought this?"
"Speak of the devil." Lizzie quipped, glancing in Thomas' direction before forcing her eyes away. No one should be allowed to look that handsome.
Thomas entered the dance hall flanked by Arthur, John, Michael, and Finn. The Peaky boys were a force to reckon with as they strode across the floor. It wasn't hard to notice how women and men turned their way as they walked past. All this was seemingly oblivious to Thomas Shelby. He only had eyes for Lizzie in her scarlet gown.
***
Buying that dress had been a mistake. A horribly wonderful mistake.
Tommy bought it ages ago for Lizzie, but had never known when to give it to her. They had never openly discussed what their actual relationship was, and he felt wary of her feelings towards him. That's why he instantly knew he fucked up by not asking her personally to the ball.
He sent Curly to deliver the gown as fast as possible, with a note written by his own hand. Tommy wanted to see if she'd like it, but more importantly, if she loved him back.
Finn nudged Tommy's arm, "What's wrong with you, eh? It's just Lizzie."
Tommy scoffed almost inaudibly. Just Lizzie? The woman was the prettiest thing in the room and he had the audacity to say it was just Lizzie?
"Shut up, Finn."
"Let's get this party started!" Arthur whooped, grabbing both Tommy and Finn by their shoulders. If he had heard their short conversation, he didn't seem to care. Then again, he didn't seem to care about much these days.
The middle Shelby brother let himself be distracted by the work to be done. This ball was important for The Plan. Everything was always a part of it, except for Lizzie. She was an entirely different force in his life.
"Was the dress intentional?" Ada questioned, appearing at Tommy's side with a drink in hand.
"Hmm?" he turned to face her, knocking back the remnants of whiskey in his own glass.
"Lizzie. Was the dress intentional? Don't tell me she's part of whatever you're scheming." Ada scoffed.
"What are you talking about?" Thomas returned, confused. Ada had an annoying habit of always seeing straight through him, but currently she wasn't making any sense.
"Look at her Tommy! For fucks sake." she sighed and rolled her eyes.
Thomas immediately realized what Ada was suggesting the moment he laid eyes on Lizzie. Several men stood around her, practically drooling. It was no surprise since it was Lizzie, but Tommy wasn't going to share her with anyone else. It made his blood boil to see the way the men looked at her. To them, she was nothing more than a doll to fuck.
"Don't kill her. It's not her fault she's got a body like that." Ada snorted in amusement, watching Tommy's reaction. She was relieved to see that he clearly hadn't meant for that to happen, and that Lizzie wasn't being used.
"Fuck." he muttered, slamming his glass down on the counter. His eyes didn't leave Lizzie as he strode to meet her.
***
After the lack of attention from the one man she wanted it from, Lizzie was enjoying the men that had flocked to her. Well, mostly. She loathed men who only thought with their dicks, but this was in her favor tonight. If she hadn't been wearing the most expensive gown of the ball, perhaps she would have escaped notice...
Oh, fuck. Tommy was staring right at her from the bar.
She felt a thrill at now having Thomas under her control. He was clearly bothered the men around her, and she grinned. Lizzie gave a small laugh to something one of the men joked about, but kept her gaze on Tommy. He was the only one she wanted.
Suddenly, she realized that he was coming right towards her. His piercing blue eyes held her in place, and the rest of the crowd seemed to vanish entirely. There was only Tommy Shelby.
Quicker than she could speak, Thomas was grabbing her by the face and kissing her passionately. His hands were rough, but his mouth was soft on hers. He tasted of whiskey.
Lizzie had kissed many men before. She had even kissed Tommy before! But not like this. This kiss was one of a kind, and it held so many implications that she didn't even know where to begin. The most glaring fact of all was that he was kissing her in front of everyone!
"Hey! What the fuck!" one of the men behind them complained loudly.
Tommy broke the kiss reluctantly. He then curled a possessive arm around Lizzie's waist before declaring, "This woman is my date."
The man straightened up, embarrassed to realize he had been speaking rudely to a Peaky Blinder. He left without a word. Lizzie chuckled, admiring Tommy's influence after all this time.
"Yes, she is." Lizzie hummed contently, sliding her hand into Tommy's larger one. He held back tightly and without hesitation.
"Would you like this dance?" he pulled her close and asked into her ear. Tommy held her as if the song was slow, despite its fast tempo.
"Yes, you idiot. I've been waiting for you to ask all night." she answered, no bite to her words.
"I got a little distracted." he said simply, "Now all I see is you."
#tommy shelby x lizzie starke#tommy shelby x lizzie shelby#thomas shelby#tommy shelby#lizzie starke#peaky blinders#cillian murphy#natasha o'keeffe#request
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Roguish Women Part 9
Summary: Kate Rosseau is an American who fled to Paris to escape her past life. Now she's dancing and playing the part of a courtesan at the Moulin Rouge. There she meets Tommy Shelby who thinks she can be useful in expanding his empire. But has he been blinded?
Part 8: Kate has spent two years with the Shelbys. But she still doesn’t know what to expect.
Kate whistled to herself as she walked a pile of papers into Tommy’s office. The new building was quite the step up for the Shelbys and even Kate had to admire their tenacity. Some gangs were satisfied with maintaining their areas. Maybe a couple of streets or a borough. Not Tommy Shelby. He wanted the world.
The two years since Kate had arrived in Birmingham with the Shelby boys had been strange. The woman was so used to upheavals and always glancing over her shoulder. After receiving the letter from Santo, she assumed that would be the course for the rest of her life. She didn’t expect to be in Birmingham for long. Not after Black Star Day, not after Grace’s betrayal.
But she just never left. For the first year, Kate asked Tommy for protection. She didn’t know who in Britain was under Santo’s control. Hell, she didn’t even know where the man was. He could’ve been down the street. What she did know, was that he had her location. That was what was perplexing that first year. Every time she opened the door, Kate expected Santo to be standing there waiting for her. Yet, he never showed.
By the second year, it became a bit more transparent why he wasn’t making a move yet. After the death of Billy Kimber word about the Peaky Blinders got louder. How could a small Brummie game overthrow such a powerful man?
There was no clear answer. The news simply was, Tommy Shelby was not a man to take lightly. The word reached London quick, and no doubt spread through the various gangs, including the Italians. Ones who most likely had some connection to Santo and his men in America.
Tommy Shelby was dangerous and quick to defend his territory as well as go on the offense. And he was standing right in front of Kate.
By year two with the Shelbys, Kate found her stride in Birmingham. She helped Tommy arrange deals with Americans who would buy smuggled goods. It gave Kate significant creditability when that extra cash began to roll in. After Grace, no in the Shelby family was quick to trust outsiders. Kate was no exception, but over time she made strides in proving herself.
Still, she wasn’t a part of the Peaky Blinders or the family. Her role in the business was limited and highly scrutinized by Tommy and Polly. It didn’t bother Kate, in fact, she expected it. If anything, she was just grateful for the protection. Not only did it keep her safe, but it allowed her to stay in Birmingham for much longer than expected. She found a home there, settling into the soot-covered city. She didn’t look over her shoulder anymore.
Heavy footsteps entered the office. Kate turned to see Tommy coming in. “I have contracts.” She informed him. He didn’t answer, instead, he passed by her and slumped down into his chair. She lingered by the desk, taking in his harried appearance. His hair was tousled and his clothes looked a little disheveled. “Are you alright?”
“The Garrison blew up this morning.” He responded.
“Blew up?” She looked bewildered. “Like…exploded? How?”
“I’m handling it.” He picked up the contracts but didn’t seem to really be reading the words.
Kate sucked at her teeth and nodded. “Alright.” She knew it made no difference whether she said anything on the matter or not. Tommy wouldn’t disclose anything to her. He’d learned his lesson when it came to telling pretty women secrets. “Do you need me for anything?”
He set the contracts down. “What do Jews speak?”
“Jews? Well…depends on where they’re from I suppose. Yiddish, maybe.” She shrugged.
“Do you speak it?”
“No. Although I think it’s close to German.” She mused. “Why?”
Tommy cleared his throat and stood back up from his desk. “I’ll be out of the office tonight and tomorrow.” He skirted her question.
“Where are you going? If I’m allowed to ask.”
“London. Keep me calls when I’m gone. Just send them Polly’s way.” He retrieved his hat.
“I’m not your secretary,” Kate replied sharply.
“That’s right, you’re not. I’m looking for one but, in the meantime, you can answer some calls.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Go off and have fun in London. Don’t get yourself in trouble.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
“You know, every so often Tommy disappears from the office.” Kate was at the betting shop helping out Esme and Polly while the boys were on ‘holiday’. It was a busy day and Polly enlisted her help. After a tasking day, evening was finally upon them so the women were left to count coins. “And he comes back smelling of women’s perfume. Which is funny because I thought he’d sworn off women after…well.” There was a silent understanding that Grace’s name wouldn’t be brought up ever again. Not after what she’d done to the family, especially Tommy.
“Bet it’s that Lizzie Stark,” Polly said.
“So now he’s ready to get his heart broke again?”
Esme just snickered and shook her head as Polly looked bemused. “She’s a whore, Kate, Tommy’s not in love with her.”
“I’ve known plenty of men who have fallen in love with whores.” She replied. “They’re so blinded by lust that they don’t notice when their wallet’s gone missing.”
The women shared a chuckle. “I honestly don’t know how you put up with him sometimes.” Kate sighed. Her mind was starting to feel numb after counting all day. “He’s trying to do a million things at once all on his own. Never wants help. Just wants to conquer the world. I’d say he was foolish but he’s too smart for his own good.”
“He’s a gypsy boy at heart.” Polly kicked up her feet and paused for a smoke. “Untamed, fearless, and never stays down when he’s beat.”
Kate let a few coins fall to the table with a clink. “Then maybe he is ready to conquer the world.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
But perhaps the world wasn’t ready to be conquered. Esme called Kate saying Tommy had been jumped and Ada had been attacked as well. It was bad and doctors said he’d have to stay in the hospital for at least a month. According to Esme, Tommy had told the family to just stay put.
So, Kate remained home for the time being. She waited by the phone but didn’t get any more calls. It was maddening trying to go about her day without worrying over the state of Tommy. And what did it mean for the rest of the family? The rest of the company? The attack was enough for her to keep her doors and windows locked. All she had to do was wait for word.
That night, Kate was woken up by banging on her door. Bewildered and half-asleep, she turned on the lamp to see what the clock on the wall read.
“Midnight?” She gasped in frustration. “Better be a god damn good reason.” She snatched her gun from the nightstand drawer and wrapped herself up in a robe before going downstairs.
She paused and cocked her gun. “Who is it?” She called.
“It’s Tommy.”
Afraid she was stuck in some sort of hyper-realistic dream, she hesitated. “Where did we meet?”
“For fuck’s sake…the Moulin Rouge!” He answered with an exasperated grunt.
Satisfied, Kate tucked away her gun and opened the door. “What on Earth are you doing here? I thought you were in the hospital!”
Tommy was slumped against the door jamb. His coat and hat covered him well enough that she couldn’t see what condition he was in. But his slurred words and posture was enough of a tell. “Need you to come with me.”
“Where?”
“Down to the Yard. I’ll explain once we’re on our way.”
“Tommy, you need to be in a hospital.” She insisted.
“Just do as I say. Go get dressed.”
Kate debated calling Polly and getting him back into the hospital. But she could hear fear behind his weak voice. So, she helped him sit down inside while she went to get changed.
Permanent Tag: @papa-geralt-of-cirilla @giftofdreams @biba3434
Masterlist
#tommy shelby#tommy shelby x oc#tommy shelbyxoc#tommy shelby imagine#peaky blinders#peaky blinder imagine#peaky fookin blinders#peaky blinders fanfiction#fanfiction#ofc#oc#ada shelby#ada thorne#polly gray#esme shelby#esme lee
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I know “Crowley and Aziraphale make a bet over who can go without using Miracles for every tiny convenience the longest” is a common plot-hook in GO fandom and everyone has a slightly different take on it but personally, I can’t buy those bets going anywhere but 100% in Aziraphale’s favor (barring some extraordinary amount of cheating on Crowley’s part).
Since the show came out, it’s become common to characterize Aziraphale as just kind of a useless idiot without Crowley, mostly because.... 45% of the episode ‘Hard Times’ is about Aziraphale being some kind of a useless idiot without Crowley. But... well... while it’s fun to make jokes as Az’s expense, it’s important to remember that Aziraphale isn’t actually STUPID.
Now, both Aziraphale and Crowley are supposed to use their Cool Magic Powers for the sake for furthering their ‘Sides’ goals, and both of them would rather use them to just make their own everyday life more convenient. But the difference is that a Demon using Cool Magic Powers to get himself a parking space or a table of the Ritz is Selfish, which is an acceptable way to act for a Demon. While an Angel has a bigger moral obligation to use his Cool Magic Powers for the greater good, and thus is in danger of getting reprimanded for using Miracles for unimportant selfish reasons too often (such as what happened to Aziraphale during the French Revolution era).
Crowley is basically using Miracles 24\7 for every little thing in his life; his car doesn’t need fuel or even keys, his watch doesn’t need new batteries, most of the many expensive appliances and electronic equipment he owns aren’t even connected to a plug. Aziraphale uses Miracles in such a way from time to time, but he does sometimes get the moral ping that he *shouldn’t*. We know that, for example, Aziraphale actually buys clothes rather than Miracle them into existence like Crowley does.
And then he displays uncomfortableness with the idea of cleaning it with a Miracle. In the show-canon he basically guilts Crowley into Miracling it away for him - so it’s not really an issue of it being ‘deep down really there’ I don’t think. It’s just that an Angel is supposed to feel like it’s ‘really secretly there’ because a Proper Angel isn’t supposed to feel comfortable with using Miracles in that way.
And so like with everything else Aziraphale wants to do but isn’t what a Proper Angel does, he tries to pass the task to Crowley (and sense removing a stain isn’t Killing a Fucking Child, Crowley doesn’t mind doing that for him). But... well... Crowley isn’t with Aziraphale All of the Time. And maybe sometimes Aziraphale surrenders to his own laziness and Miracle his problems away, but sometimes surely he tries to handle it in the Proper Angelic Way (that is, without Frivolous Miracles).
And THAT’S why Aziraphale comes across as Useless. Because he’s more reluctant - and often times just fucking forgets - to use his Cool Magic Powers to get himself out of a situation. Meanwhile, Crowley is Less Useless because he’s pretty much always thinking about how he can get himself (and Aziraphale) out of a bad situation - generally using Miracles in a creative way.
And this Useless\Less Useless dynamic will probably get 100% flipped on it’s head when the Cool Magic Powers are out of the equation. Yeah, maybe Aziraphale will complain about not being able to go to the Ritz whenever he pleases but at least I can safely assume that his desk lamp is connected to an actual plug and that he knows how to make coffee with minimal use of Magic - and I can’t really say the same thing about Crowley.
If Aziraphale and Crowley try to not use Miracles for a week as a gag, Aziraphale has more experience doing stuff without Magic (who knows if the French Revolution was the only time he was at risk of preforming too many Miracles and had to lay low for a while???) while Crowley is casually using Magic all over the place all the time to the point that it’s second nature to him and now he pretty much can’t do anything. They’re both going to be pretty Useless about it, but Aziraphale is very much going to be Less Useless of the two.
If IF Crowley wins WITHOUT cheating, it has to be because he applied his skills in adaptability and creativity to ‘close the gap’ for Aziraphale’s considerable head-start. Which I think is more intersting than ‘haha Aziraphale is just useless and spoiled and Crowley is always smart and useful regardless of context’.
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