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thebibliomancer · 3 years

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Essential Avengers: Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #7-9

November, 1984

BERSERKER!

The death of an Avenger! The X-Men’s greatest battle! And, introducing the all-new SPIDER-WOMAN!

The cover sure isn’t burying the lede. This comic sure does introduce an All-New (presumably All-Different) Spider-Woman! Jessica Drew, move over! For now. You’ll be the Spider-Woman that endures in the long run.

Last times on Secret Wars: Some amazingly powerful being from Beyond the universe called the Beyonder kidnaps a bunch of heroes, villains, shades thereof, and chunks of random planets to put on a big toy commercial where action figures can bonk off each other.

The X-Men ditched the other heroes to do their own thing, as they’re wont to do. The villains storm the hero base and drop a mountain on them. The heroes take refuge at a small village where Johnny Storm finds a new girlfriend but there’s also a Galactus.

Galactus starts preparing a device to eat Battleworld, which would let him win the toy commercial in one fell swoop.

Oh, and Wasp was kidnapped by Magneto, escaped, crashed her escape ship, found the Lizard, and then got lasered to death by the Wrecking Crew. It was a Bad Time and I am sad, even though we know Wasp will be okay by the time they get back from Battleworld.

This time: Further not burying the lede.

The cover promised a new Spider-Woman and dammit, here’s one right away, first page. Truth in advertising!

Spider-Woman herself wastes no time introducing herself to everyone, that she comes from a chunk of Denver that got raptured by the Beyonder (still want that miniseries), that she came to help when she saw evidence of super fighting, and that she can pick up and throw large rocks so clearly she’d be able to help.

Captain America is hesitant about all this and Spider-Woman assumes that he thinks she’s a spy but as Captain America points out, why would Doom need to mess around with spies when he’s got so much power at his disposal.

Spider-Man is also hesitant at this new character. For different reasons.

Spider-Man: “She tossed that boulder as easily as I could have... at least! I wonder if she sticks to walls, too! And I wonder if I can sue her for infringing on my shticks! I should have gotten a patent or trademark or something...”

Cap tries to settle on the argument that a Secret War is too dangerous but Spider-Woman has the exceptional point “I suspect that it’s no less dangerous for the spectators, Captain America -- I might as well pitch in!”

And then the obvious toy pitch vehicle that the Wrecking Crew was driving in the swamp yesterday drives through the village blowing shit up, restarting the fires that the heroes just put out, and most insultingly of all, throwing Wasp van Dyne’s dead deceased corpse out the hatch before driving off.

Those dicks.

The heroes rush to Wasp and take her to Zsaji. That cool lady tries to heal Wasp but Jan has no pulse and isn’t breathing and might be beyond Cura. This may take Phoenix Down.

But since she went and got herself disintegrated on the Moon, Wasp is clearly dead forever.

-Looks over at Avengers #243- Hush, you!

The assembled heroes want to rush Doombase and kick the shit out of the villains and specifically the Wrecking Crew but Captain America tells them no.

Captain America: “Now, listen to me -- ! While we’re off getting even, what if Galactus starts to use that world-eating machine he’s building up on that mountain? Then every living thing on this world -- including these innocent villagers and all those people from that suburb of Denver will die! We’ve got to stay right here, ready to attack him! We may have only seconds to react when it begins!”

She-Hulk storms off while the other heroes debate the Galactus situation.

I’m sure this is fine.

Meanwhile, on the more volcano-y side of the planet, Xavier orders Cyclops, Rogue, and Wolverine to pursue Doom’s Four villains Molecule Man, Titania, Absorbing Man, and Doctor Octopus to try to capture them before they can return to Doom.

Back over at Doombase, Titania sees that her “little Owie” has been badly hurt and begs Enchantress to help.

Volcana: “Enchantress! You’re a sorceress! You could use your magic to transport me to my Owen!”

Enchantress -busy getting drunk-: “Yes... but why would I, mortal?”

Volcana: “Well... because... because I need you to! I can’t fly a ship! I -- I don’t even have a driver’s license for a car! Ultron won’t help me -- ! He only takes orders from Doom!”

Enchantress: “It takes much energy to transport a body as bloated as yours! I cannot be bothered!”

Wow! You’re a dick!

Volcana catches a lot of fat jokes and she’s not depicted as looking any different from Standard Comic Book Body Type. But also, don’t fatshame at all, Enchantress.

Anyway, Volcana promises anything to Enchantress if she helps.

Enchantress: “Rash words, mortal wench... and later, you shall deeply regret them!”

Its very handy for the villains that Volcana just showed up because their airship almost immediately gets show down by the X-Men. So even with Molecule Man out of commission, their numbers are back to Doom’s Four. And Volcana calls dibs on beating up Wolverine.

The X-Men have numbers but they’re not doing super well. Professor X is on the scene trying to be the field leader but the chaos of the battle and the villains’ minds being blocked by Enchantress’ magic makes it hard for him to coordinate.

Magneto even gets smack-talked by Absorbing Man.

Absorbing Man: “Tell me, Magneto. What’s scum like you doin’ hangin’ around with the X-Men? Sure, they’re outlaws -- but I thought you was big time! You got mass murder raps, manslaughter, terrorism, what else? Probably everything! You’re one of us! On second thought, a creampuff like you belongs with them losers!”

I can’t believe Magneto has to take that from a man who constantly carries a large metal orb with him everywhere.

Wolverine manages to slice off Absorbing Man’s arm, although the guy was made of rock at the time so it wasn’t as gory as it could have been.

Absorbing Man just. Picks up his arm and runs off to hit someone with it.

Amazing.

The villains manage to pin down the heroes with some Volcana blast and then steal one of the X-Men’s ships and get away.

Professor X declares that this is Totally a victory.

Xavier: “We lost nothing, save one of our ships -- which matters little -- and we gained much! We coalesced as a fighting unit passing our greatest test to date and I think we proved ourselves -- beyond a doubt!”

Like, you had a scuffle with some villains that ended inconclusively even though you had the advantage of a sneak attack, the villains stole one of your ships, and there was no major damage to either side.

It was largely pointless. But I guess Xavier has a vested interest in declaring it a huge success since it was his inaugural go at being field commander.

Meanwhile, skulking around Galactus’ ship, DOOM complains about doing that.

Doom: “Doctor Doom - a burglar! Rummaging about in another being’s home, seeking to steal some priceless thing! Bah! What choice do I have? I need a key, a way -- ! My armor’s sensors have led me to prize after prize -- hundreds, thousands of devices which, in the hands of a man as brilliant as myself could provide power to conquer entire galaxies -- ! Yet, all of them combined are not enough to defeat Galactus -- let alone the Beyonder! There must be a way! Doom must be supreme!”

Unfortunately for Doom, despite the volcano distraction making Galactus sigh and have to spend time fixing the planet so he can eat it, he senses something amiss in his house and mentally yeets Doom back to Battleworld.

The villains return back to Doombase but Doctor Octopus can’t help Molecule Man because dammit he’s a nuclear physicist, not a medical doctor! Ultron tells Volcana that there are medical devices that could fix Molecule Man up nicely but since he doesn’t have any relevant orders from Doom, he’s just going to stand here and look pretty. And Enchantress says she could heal him with a wave of her hand but refuses to because Volcana already gave her a blank check.

Absorbing Man returns and reattaches his arm by basically hoping like hell it’ll just be better if he holds it in place when he reverts to skin flesh.

And the Wrecking Crew have to throw the Lizard into a cell because he hasn’t stopped trying to eat their faces for killing Wasp, his new best friend.

The Wrecking Crew doesn’t get a chance to enjoy being back at base because She-Hulk has broken in and beats the crap out of them off-screen.

Titania comes in and starts fighting She-Hulk STARTING AN ENDURING RIVALRY.

Its fun how much got its start in Secret Wars.

The two fight more or less evenly from what I can tell but uh Doctor Octopus joins in as does the Absorbing Man and the Wrecking Crew once they catch their breath.

And She-Hulk is strong but this is a stomp.

In another part of Doombase where the Enchantress is sitting in “sullen reverie” refusing to get involved in the fight she can here, instead thinking about how much she’s going to seduce the crap out of Thor.

Doom arrives at Himbase after being expelled from Galactus’ ship and refuses to explain anything to Enchantress. He just stumbles over to his sweet bed and collapses in it.

Doom: “It is over... Finished...”

Back over at Zsaji’s Village, the heroes realize that She-Hulk took off. Hawkeye figures that she went after the villains and asks to go after her.

Hawkeye: “She can’t take ‘em alone, Cap! She needs us!”

Huh! When the chips are down even though they fought, Clint and Jen sure are coworkers.

Hulk also asks to go after her since she’s his cousin. The acknowledgement of which is what I’ve been wanting all along.

But Cap tells them no.

Hulk: “I don’t suppose you’d consider putting it to a vote?”

Trying to appeal to his love of democracy. How wily.

Captain America: “My heart would vote ‘yes’ in a minute... Too many innocent lives are at stake here, though! Many more than the few people on this planet -- we’ve got a universe depending on what we do here! We can’t allow ourselves the luxury of making decisions with our hearts!”

But Cap receives a psychic skype from Professor X who tells him that the X-Men can take Galactus watching duty for a bit so run along and save your teammate, you scamp.

Cap accepts.

Its fun how the tide of battle has shifted back and forth.

Now the heroes are largely fresh, having been sitting on their ass staring at Galactus, and the villains are bloodied from several fights with the X-Men and She-Hulk. Plus, their big gun Molecule Man got Wolverine’d.

But next issue is something so big that it overshadows basically everything else in Secret Wars.

December, 1984

INVASION!

YEAH ITS VENOM

OR WILL BE

Also, a bunch of other stuff happens. The cover is kind of funny for maybe unintentionally presaging what would happen where the black costume being more remembered than everything else in Secret Wars in general but definitely this issue specifically.

There’s actually a lot of really cool stuff happening in this issue.

Cap(tain America)’s group of heroes storms Doom’s Doombase, lucking out that Doom is too stunned by being expelled from Galactus’ ship to attempt any kind of defense and nobody else on his team has the braincells to be watching out for an attack.

Enchantress hears the heroes breaking in but she’s well and truly drunk by this point.

And bemoans her secret god meeting with Thor. That she was going to try to cast a spell on him to bend him to her will but is aware that she might have flipped good for him instead. And even now wonders what she’ll do if Thor shows up in front of her.

The villains still beating She-Hulk to her death hear the heroes breaking into the base and run off to ambush them, Doc Ock slamming She-Hulk against some wreckage as a coup de grace.

Wrecker gets the jump on Iron Man and Doc Ock dumps a convenient tank of water on Human Torch but Spider-Man jumps in and drops Bulldozer with one punch before he can pulp an extinguished Johnny.

The Thing tries fighting Absorbing Man but wouldn’t you know it, the Thing’s thingness fades at the worst time again, leaving him powerless.

Spider-Woman jumps in to save him.

She didn’t get to really do much in her actual introductory issue, despite being on the cover and splash. She just kinda shows up and goes ‘i can definitely help!’

She makes a much better second impression this time. Almost like she’s aware that she needs to sell herself.

Spider-Woman: “A clean knockout -- ! Of the awesome Absorbing Man -- ! And it’s only the fifth time I’ve ever been in a fight! The new Spider-Woman wins again!”

Marvel really wants you to like this non-Jessica Drew.

Piledriver charges Hawkeye, mocking him for missing with his arrows and gloating that arrows are useless to a guy who’s immune to bullets.

Piledriver: “Hawkeye the Archer! Hah! Boy you gonna need Hawkeye the M.A.S.H. doctor in a minute -- ‘cause I reckon this good ol’ boy is gonna ‘mash’ you!”

Good one, Piledriver. Good banter.

Hawkeye: “Those shots were just warnings, dummy! I don’t want to have to hit you! From my bow, at this range, an arrow hits a lot harder than any bullet! Back off... please...”

We did learn in the Hawkeye mini that Hawkeye’s bow has a ridiculous draw strength.

This is a pretty good Hawkeye moment people don’t really point to a lot.

Also, I do love when an invincible or durable person who isn’t used to getting hurt gets hurt once and goes ‘NOPE! I DO NOT CARE FOR THIS!’

Hulk busts into Enchantress’ drinking room and unfortunately falls for her “I am but a helpless female!” routine. She gets all up in his business, magically puts him to sleep, and then pours herself another drink.

It could have been a good day for Enchantress if Captain America hadn’t come in right after.

Captain America: “What have you done to the Hulk?”

Enchantress: “For the moment, he is merely asleep. Doubtless dreaming dreams of me! But, alas, he can never truly have me, for I am yours, my handsome captain! Am I not beautiful? Come to me...”

Points for audacity but Captain America is a champion of not thinking with his dick. Blah blah willpower is legendary, socked Prometheus in the noggin. You get it.

Anyway, he socks Enchantress in the noggin with his shield and knocks her out.

Hawkeye and unthinged Ben try to find the rest of the heroes but run into Klaw and Lizard, who Klaw let out of his cell because he didn’t like to see anyone imprisoned but also because he liked the way Lizard talks. What an audiophile.

Ben Grimm: “Uh... any ideas, Hawk?”

Hawkeye: “Well... I guess we’ll have to outwit ‘em!”

Ben Grimm: “Us?!”

Hah.

Thor, Iron Man, Spider-Woman, and Mr Fantastic find Volcana and Molecule Man.

Iron Man makes the dubious tactical decision to charge right into Volcana’s plasma burst and burns out his armor.

Mr Fantastic pulls him out of the way and the other heroes try to get through Molecule Man’s fused air molecules invisible shield. They fail until Captain Marvel just lightbeams right through it. Because its transparent.

Love it. Love that her power works like that. Because it should.

Captain Marvel grabbing Molecule Man pulls open his Wolverine wounds and he passes out. Volcana surrenders to spare her boyfriend more pain.

Not that Monica intended that or knew he was wounded. This is still early Monica before Nextwave hardened her outlook. This is the Monica who was horrified when Blackout and Moonstone got pulled through a singularity.

Titania tried to drop a forty-ton beam on the heroes’ heads but is interrupted by Spider-Man thanks to his spectacular spider-sense.

She out-muscles him by a lot but she can’t actually lay a hit on him because he’s got superior spider agility. Maybe if she had more experience it’d be different but she’s basically in the angry flailing stage of her skill tree so far.

Spidey brags “With a little room to operate, no one can lay a glove on me -- not the X-Men, not the Absorbing Man, and not you!”

Titania: “When I get you I’ll -- AGGH!”

Spider-Man: “All you’re going to get is frustrated... and, eventually, trashed!”

Titania: “No! It’s not fair! *UHH!*”

Spider-Man: “But, if we were fighting in a broom closet, that’d be fair, right?”

Titania: “Stop it! Stop it! Stop -- !”

Spider-Man: “You ought to be happy, cuddles! You aspired to be a bully, and, man, you’re a classic! You talk tough and nasty when you’ve got the upper hand -- but when you’re losing -- well, that’s when the whining little wimp-ette inside comes spilling out!”

And then he defenestrates her without a window.

Fun fact: she apparently developed a Spider-Man phobia from this.

Understandably.

Y’know, in terms of embarrassing and traumatizing people, Spider-Man is having a good run in this story.

Captain American and Human Torch find a passed out Piledriver who fainted from blood loss after staggering away. And they find Ultron, standing between them and Doom.

Ultron is an Avengers-tier stomper who takes down entire teams and there’s just two heroes who coincidentally were both portrayed by Chris Evans. And the Human Torch’s fire is ineffective as Ultron gloats.

Ultron: “The core of the hottest star could not melt my adamantium body, human! Nothing can harm me! I am invincible! I am mechanically precise and computer-swift! I am perfect!”

When Ultron grapples Human Torch and starts throttling him, Cap tells him to use his nova-flame. Then hides behind his shield.

The flame melts a good portion of the room and the air being superheated somehow doesn’t make Cap crispy. And when the nova flare of the nova flame fades, Ultron’s chassis is still intact.

But the heat damaged something inside and Ultron is down. Johnny is also down, spent from the nova.

I like that the Fantastic Four would have their own way to deal with Ultron should that ever come up. Has it? You’d think it would.

Captain America proceeds to Doom alone but Doom is non-responsive from being Galactus’d.

And Reed, Spider-Man, and Hulk finds Hawkeye and Ben Grimm, where they have outwitted Klaw and Lizard.

Lizard: “Disssturb our gamess-s and the Lizard will dessstroy you! Once we finissh, we will do as you s-ssay!”

Well, whatever works!

With the fighting done, Captain Marvel finds She-Hulk, barely alive. The heroes jam her into a healing tube saving her in the nick of time.

The heroes also jam the villains into healing tubes because they’re heroes and are nice like that.

Considering the heroes were fighting to take prisoners and the villains very much weren’t, it’s lucky that the heroes won the majority of conflicts and got away from the one they didn’t.

The villains that didn’t need bacta treatments - or whatever is in those tubes - got shoved into cells. Also, Doom, because he might need the healing juice but it would require peeling him out of his armor and its probably booby-trapped.

Hawkeye and Captain Marvel return to the village to bring Wasp’s body to DoomHerobase for a funeral but they’re in for a surprise.

It turns out that Zsaji WAS able to heal Wasp who wasn’t dead just in a laser-induced death-like stasis. AS YA DO. It nearly killed Zsaji to bring Wasp back from such grievous injuries.

Colossus learns this by getting into her exposition drugs while she’s passed out and mind-melding with her.

Of course, it just makes the big lug fall deeper in love with her.

The important takeaway is that Wasp is alive. Just like we knew that she would be. The universe has been set right.

Over at Herobase, Reed Richards fixes the Iron Man armor after Rhodey got it a little melted.

Iron Man, James Rhodes: “I’m curious... were you surprised there was a black man under the metal?”

Reed Richards: “Hmm... No, I never gave it a thought! I knew there was a man under there...”

Its a nice exchange.

Its kinda ruined retroactively by Illuminati revealing that Reed knew Tony was Iron Man and would have known about Tony having to step down due to his alcoholism and likely knew about Rhodey taking over.

Dammit, Illuminati!

Elsewhere in the base, Spider-Man spots Hulk and Thor coming out of a room with Thor sporting a brand new cape and helmet. They tell Spidey that there’s a device in there that will make any clothes you want.

Except Spider-Man doesn’t bother asking which device and they don’t bother specifying so Spidey just picks the likeliest one and gets a black glob.

An important black glob.

To eventually be revealed to be an alien goo symbiote and later eventually tied to a dark god that predates the universe.

But for right now, its a way to incorporate a new costume design that a fan submitted. And Spider-Man handwaves it not looking like his old costume by assuming he was thinking of the new Spider-Woman.

So that’s how it is, Pete? She ‘ripped’ you off so you’re gonna rip her off?

You know whats really funny?

A month before this came out, in Spider-Man’s own book, he had learned that the costume was a living symbiote and had gotten rid of it.

It be like that with Secret Wars but its still funny that we’re finally seeing him get the costume just as he’s getting rid of it.

Anyway, Spider-Man’s new costume buzz is interrupted by the planet shaking and someone yelling in his brain.

Professor X: “CAPTAIN AMERICA! COME AT ONCE! IT HAS BEGUN! GALACTUS IS DEVOURING THE PLANET!”

It’s nice that the crises are waiting their turn.

January, 1985

ASSAULT ON GALACTUS!

The issue titles for this story are all so excited.

The X-Men were left on Galactus watching duty so when the big lug starts trying to eat the planet, the X-Men charge in to attack him.

Hm.

Y’know, I sometimes wonder what iconic storylines would have been like if a different set of characters handled it. This used to be great What If fodder. I know there was one where the Avengers tackled Galactus’ first appearance. And because it was the tone of What If at the time to viciously shoot down any divergence of the 616 timeline, THINGS WENT HORRIBLY WRONG.

Think of it like the Turn Left episode of Doctor Who.

POINT BEING, I wonder how the X-Men would have handled Galactus’ first appearance. Of course, this would be the O5 roster so they’d have their work cut out for them.

Heck, even with Storm on the team, the X-Men are over their heads with Galactus.

She hits him with two massive lightning bolts and Galactus keeps working like he didn’t even notice.

The X-Men seem to realize how out of their depth they are (especially sans Phoenixes, their usual Galactus-fighting go-to) but at Professor Xavier’s command they charge in anyway.

Galactus sends out a defensive drone so he can continue not paying the X-Men any mind and the mutants find themselves completely bogged down in fighting the drone while Galactus does his thing.

And from Zsaji’s sweet village, Captain Marvel, Wasp, and Hawkeye see a massive explosion where the X-Men were.

I guess they’re totally dead forever.

Wasp: “Should we head up there now?”

Hawkeye: “No! We’d better wait for Cap... and strike as a unit!”

Hah.

Its the expression, really. Like Hawkeye thinking to himself ‘oh I want no part of that.’

The non-X-Men assemble at Herobase to rush to the fight.

Mr. Fantastic: “Hurry! No telling how long the X-Men can hold out!”

Spider-Man: “Yeah! Where’s the rest of the alphabet when you need it?”

HAH!

Oh, Spider-Man, you are a delight.

In the airship over, Thor notices that Hulk looks glum and tries to cheer him up.

Thor: “If ‘tis that you do not fit in these chairs that depresses you, count yourself fortunate! They were made, I think, for insect men... or by trolls, for torture! If ‘tis the impending battle troubling thee -- just think! What greater chance for glory has man or god e’er known? More even than Ragnarok, this is the battle I was born millennia ago to fight! You, too, are a warrior born, Hulk! A taste of battle and the berserker battle-lust shall rise in thy soul!”

Hulk: “I doubt it! I lost that when I gained the intelligence of my human side -- Bruce Banner! And now I’m slowly losing that, too! I’m not savage enough... or smart enough to be a relevant factor!”

Well, You Tried, Thor.

Johnny Torch is trying to cheer up Ben Grimm who is as grim as his name over his powers popping in and out as they please.

And then the rocks pop back on just as Ben is dramatically bemoaning that he can’t control them.

The Thing: “Whoopie! I’m the Thing again! I’m so happy, I even like you!”

Human Torch: “Yeow! You lummox! Put me down! Jeez, I can see the headlines -- ‘affectionate hug slays Human Torch en route to battle -- universe destroyed as a result’!’“

This book has some decent lines.

Iron Man ogles Spider-Woman under the pretense of not trusting her but then goes a little ‘I’ll show them all!’

Iron Man: “A lot of guys have worked with Iron Man before -- but that was when Tony Stark was in this suit! I think they’ve started to realize there’s a different guy in here, now... an’ they got their doubts! They’re keepin’ their distance -- don’t quite trust me yet! Don’t matter! As long as I got this armor, I’m one ba-ad dude -- especially since Richards souped it up! As soon as that fight starts, I’ll show ‘em -- show ‘em I’m Iron Man! The real Iron Man! James Rhodes is Iron Man -- now and forever!”

Rhodey pls.

Also meanwhile, because this is a long flight, Spider-Man starts hopping all around the interior of the airship overexcited because he’s just discovered that the totally benign goo suit he got has webshooters!

And he squirts Johnny in the face to prove it because that’s just how Spider-Man is sometimes.

Johnny complains that this webbing is even harder to burn than his old stuff which will turn itself into a bit of a plot hole down the line when its revealed that symbiotes are weak to fire.

Whoops.

Its fine though. Pre-modern Venom has always had sloppy writing around it.

He also demonstrates the goo suit’s ability to change shape.

I can’t believe that Marvel were cowards and never had Peter go around in the Summer Variant suit.

Reed lets himself go down a melancholic musing rabbit hole and starts poking holes in the story logic.

Mr. Fantastic: “At face value, the whole thing is absurd! Why would a being so far removed from us and so powerful as the Beyonder bring us across the universe for a stupid, simplistic ‘good-versus-evil’ gladiatorial contest? Is he a mad god? A cosmic idiot? And why us? Why this odd collection of beings, mostly from Earth? And why Galactus? He doesn’t fit! Human beings and even gods may be tempted, but Galactus is a force of nature -- no more capable of having enemies than a hurricane or an earthquake! Why is he here? There must be more to this... but what possible purpose could there be?”

Credit where its due, these are things I’ve been wondering!

But Reed is so busy pondering this that he runs the airship into the energy discharge from Galactus’ machine and crashes the ship on top of Colossus.

Smooth move, absent minded professor.

With only seconds before the world starts to burn, the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and assorted leap into battle against Galactus.

Iron Man manages to get past Galactus’ defense drones and punch his world eating engine, thanks to the upgrades done to the armor.

But now that they’re being successful, Reed interjects and tells them to stop winning so hard. Yes, really.

Mr. Fantastic: “Ben, we can’t go through with this! At last I see a purpose here -- a meaning to the universe for this insane conflict! WE MUST NOT STOP GALACTUS!’

Then Galactus effortlessly blasts the heroes away.

Which, if nothing else, gives Reed a chance to catch his breath to EXPOSIT MORE.

Mr. Fantastic: “For the first time this whole thing makes seom sense to me! I see a possible purpose in it! This is a chance to rid our universe of the threat of Galactus! All we have to do is let him win this contest! If the Beyonder indeed, grants hsi wish, he’ll be freed of his planet-consuming hunger at long last!”

The Thing: “And if the Beyonder reneges?”

Mr. Fantastic: “Re-energized by consuming this world, Galactuc will attack -- I know it! And force the Beyonder to pay up -- or be destroyed in the attempt. Any way you look at it... the universe wins! Countless billions who would have eventually fallen prey to Galactus -- will live in peace!”

Spider-Man: “Yeah, but why us? Why were we picked to decide the fate of the universe?”

Mr. Fantastic: “Why not us? We picked ourselves, remember? Besides... we beings of Earth seem to have a knack for being pivotal in the cosmic scheme of things.”

Reed, some offense but you’re the last person who should be speaking on this.

Galactus is only alive now because you had a hunch that he had some Big Important Role in the cosmic order and saved his life.

You may remember that because THE ENTIRETY OF SPACE PUT YOU ON TRIAL FOR IT.

Turning around on that because now you have a different hunch that everything will be a-okay if the Beyonder kills Galactus, is just such a classic Reed move.

Anyway, the discussion ends because Galactus raptures Reed and the entire mountaintop his machine was sitting on.

Since the suspects of Reed rapturing were Galactus or the Beyonder, its not very surprising that its Galactus forcibly inviting Reed up to his solar-system sized apartment.

What, you thought that the Beyonder would be more present in this story that it initiated? Fool.

Anyway, Galactus wants to have a friendly talk at Reed. Because Galactus is one of the few people that can talk down at Reed and he just has to sit tight and listen.

Meanwhile, over at the former Doombase, locked in a Doomcell, its Doom. Still in his catatonia OR IS IT?

Doom: “THE WORLD SHIP IS THE WAY! Galactus’s home itself is the way I seek! At last, I see!”

He activates the get-out-of-jail-free button hidden in his ankle which activates a point-singularity power supply that busts the door off his cell.

He ignores all of the other imprisoned villains to free Klaw.

Doom: “You, yourself, Klaw, are a ‘recording’ of sorts, due to the time you spent as a wave of vibratory energy coursing through the walls of Galactus’s homeworld! Come with me!”

Klaw: “Where to? Toodle-oo, toodle-oo!”

Doom: “To the lab! I’m going to dissect you!”

Klaw: “Oh, good!”

If it were anyone else that would read as sarcastic.

Its also revealed that Doom talks to himself because he is constantly recording.

Doom: “Every utterance of Doom must be recorded for posterity!”

How on-brand.

Meanwhile, back over at where the fight was, Cyclops OPTIC BLASTS out of the hole Magneto buried the X-Men in to save them from Galactus’ exploding drone.

Good job, Magneto.

Buuut. The fight is over so the X-Men just vaguely wander over to Zsaji’s village to catch up with Captain America’s group.

Zsaji wakes up from her Wasp-healing coma and runs over... right past Colossus to embrace Johnny. To make Colossus sad in the background.

But Johnny is too worried about Reed being raptured to make out with his new space girlfriend right now.

The heroes debate what to do.

Cap(tain America) wants to just stand ready until Galactus comes back and Cap(tain Marvel) suggests finding some spaceships at former Doombase and mounting an assault on Galactus’ imagination-ruiningly huge homeship.

The Thing offers the daring option of ‘hey Reed said not to fight Galactus and dangit what Reed says goes!’

He’s as bad as the Inhumans, I swear.

Reed reappears right about when Iron Man and the Thing are about to come to blows over the ‘do whatever Reed says’ plan.

The Thing: “Stretch! What happened?”

Mr. Fantastic: “Not much! We had tea...”

NOW I KNOW that Galactus likely has some robot servant or device that makes tea for him. But I can’t get the image out of my head of Galactus holding a tiny teapot and serving Reed tea.

How dare this comic cut away and let that happen off-panel!

Anyway, their big OFF-PANEL talk?

Mr. Fantastic: “He told me that I was a ‘force of the universe’ just as he is -- ! That I’m a ‘universal champion of life’ just as he is an instrument of death!”

Now. Nooooow. Champion slash Avatar of Life is a legitimate thing in Marvel, once filled by, uh, Captain Marvel. The Kree guy version. So the position is open.

I just find it easier to believe that Galactus was saying random nonsense to try to befuddle Reed into doing what Galactus wants rather than it being official.

The Avatar of Life page on marvel wiki doesn’t seem to credit it. It only has two versions of Adam Warlock, Drax, and Cancerverse Mar-Vell.

Anyway.

Mr. Fantastic: “I don’t what to say! I’m more convinced than ever that it’s right to let Galactus do what he must! And if I’m a ‘Champion of Life’ does it not make sense to allow Galactus to slay us so that countless billions will live? Or was he telling me that I must fight to serve even these relatively few lives here? I just don’t know...”

Yeeeeah. More convinced than ever that Galactus was filling Reed’s brain with cognitive chaff so to speak.

But Ben “Thing” Grimm is like ‘hey if Reed tells me I gotta die for the good of the universe then I’m ready to die so we’re not fighting unless Reed says so.’

Hawkeye: “This is a real crock! We’ve got to fight! Quitters! Cowards!”

I rarely say this but I think Hawkeye has a point.

Anyway, Galactus reappears the mountaintop, his machine, and himself to get back to snacking on the planet.

Far be it from me to tell Galactus how to ‘mortals are beneath my notice’ but maybe he’d get better results relocating his machine to the other side of the planet. Get some element of surprise, a head start.

No? Fine.

Captain America: “All right, listen up! I’m going to fight! The rest of you come or not as your conscience dictates!”

Wasp: “We’re with you, Cap!”

Captain America: “Good! But first... I just want to tell you, Professor Xavier, that despite our differences, you and your people did us -- and the universe, as far as I’m concerned -- a great service, earlier!”

Professor Xavier: “It was an honor!”

Captain America: “I hope you, the X-Men... and Magneto will come and fight side by side with us now! No one here will deny you’ve earned that much!”

Think about all the grief that could have been saved if people were willing to give Magneto the benefit of the doubt at the beginning of the story! Womp womp!

Meanwhile at Doombase (because the heroes are all off doing stuff and when the heroes are away Doom gets his base back), Doom observes the battle against Galactus starting AND that the Beyonder has cracked open his portal to watch the fight.

But more importantly, Doom cut Klaw into slices.

Back over at the heroes fighting Galactus, the heroes are fighting Galactus.

As in, directly. No drones.

Its a sign that they’re making some sort of progress.

He’s still batting them around like leaves in the wind.

But the Terrific Three show up to actually help.

Mr. Fantastic: “Galactus used enormous amounts of energy transporting his homeworld here -- and I’m sure he hasn’t fed for months! His power is almost depleted! We can take him!”

Captain America: “Richards, I -- I’m glad you’re here -- but what made you change your mind?”

Mr. Fantastic: “I... thought about what Galactus said -- and I’m still not certain that, in the cosmic scheme of things, what we’re doing is right -- but I realized just how badly I want to see my baby born, Cap! I want that more than anything -- ! And I’m going to fight for it!”

Aww.

He’s going to be waiting a long time for that baby though.

Not because of comic book time but because of intense drama reasons.

The heroes manage to reach the top of the mountain and start trashing Galactus’ machine despite Reed insisting that they ignore it and prevent Galactus from escaping.

And Galactus just animation-cell-slides-up ‘I must return to my homeworld’ style.

And as Reed explains how badly they done fucked up, Galactus takes a last look around his homeworld/spaceship. Because he doesn’t need his machine to eat planets. It just makes the process more efficient. So if the heroes are going to be annoying about him eating Battleworld, he’s just going to eat his own dang home!

Mr. Fantastic: “He’s devouring his own living world -- perhaps the greatest energy source in the universe! Moments after he’s finished, this godforsaken planet will be next! We won’t be able to stop him this time! Then he’ll probably consume the sun too! He’ll want every iota of energy available in case he must do battle with the Beyonder! We’re dead men!”

Wow. Is that the most kirby krackle we’ve ever seen?

But as Galactus converts his home into POWER COSMIC, Doom is ready with his own plan to steal that power, aided by a series of lenses he’s turned Klaw into.

As ya do?

You’ll have to tune in to the last quarter of Secret Wars to see if Doom succeeds in doing that thing that he always tries to do.

My thought is: maybe.

Follow @essential-avengers for the good job I’m doing with these Secret Warses. Like and reblog maybe.

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tomsrebeleyebrow · 4 years

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together | ho x fem!reader

@allegra-soleil asked: Chérie, ma belle, that last blurb BROKE ME. Can I have something similar but with Haz? Cuz we both know he is more hot tempered, and would probably make things worse before making them better, yelling and crying later when he realizes he really fucked up💔 Maybe he was the jealous one? Feeling left out by your sudden friendship with Tom? Mercy, baba. Je t'adore💖💖💖

Warnings: MAJOR ANGST including language/swearing, harsh arguments, screaming, cries, insecurities, anxiety, lots of emotions tbh BUT FLUFF at the end because we want happy endings in this house, dammit!

Word Count: 4.2k

A/N: ALLIE. MY GORGEOUS ALLIE 💞 your request turned into an oneshot because, well, inspiration i guess? 😂🙄🙊 so this one is for you bae, an angsty as hell but with that fluffy ending we all want 🥰🥰🥰 love you girl and as always, stay safe sweetheart 💖💗

‘Stay safe, Cheer up’ blurb event

masterlist | taglist | your support

Despite whatever people say, no human on Earth could escape the reality of how feelings work. No human was perfect, that was for sure. Not even Harrison. And now, the boy was massively experiencing jealousy at its best. Or maybe at its worse.

Which actually lead to now, when you tried to catch up your blond boyfriend as he stomped towards his bedroom, at Tom’s house.

“What was that just now?” you yelped as you were now both in the bedroom, Harrison facing away from you and not a single word addressed since what happened just before.

“What?” Harrison said with a harsh tone.

“The way you just addressed both Tom and I a minute ago, acting like a complete douchebag. Care to explain?” you asked again, slight irritation now audible in your voice.

“Oh sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt your private time with Tom!” scoffed Harrison while turning towards you, and your eyes widened at what you were looking at.

The face of your boyfriend displayed a look of mixed emotions you never knew was possible; anger, disgust, sarcasm and pure jealousy. His whole body screamed tension but the worst part must have been his voice, each word accentuated by the fakest playful tone of all time.

And that vision was almost scaring you.

“What are you saying, Haz?” you demanded with clear and proper authority, the need to know what was going on in your boyfriend’s mind being your main goal at the moment.

“What am I saying, you’re asking!?” Harrison sneered at you, “I’m just noticing that my own girlfriend looks like she’s having the blast of her life with my freaking best friend ever since we started the quarantine, is what I’m saying!”

Harrison’s voice got louder as the sentence kept going, each word heavy enough to weight more and more upon yourself.

“Are you joking right now?”

Now you were expecting anything, but that.

“I’m just by myself mostly all the fucking time like I don’t even exist in this house! But don’t mind me, really, it’s not like I’m your damn boyfriend in the story! So don’t waste your precious time with somebody like me and just go back to your dear Tommy to laugh and be lovey-dovey like two stupid kids!!”

“Are you out of your mind or what?!” you retorted before Harrison had the chance to continue, your ears still not believing what you just heard.

“If you wanted to go out with Tom Holland himself, you should have said no to me in the first place, instead of using me all this time to get closer to him-”

“What the actual fuck is wrong with you, Harrison?!” you shot, you voice getting as loud as Harrison’s one.

The back and forth argument kept getting worse, you two now becoming entire messes as both your faces were reddening at the same time your words got louder.

The scene definitely drew the attention of the other residents of the house, the first one being Tuwaine as the man was passing by and just stopped at the doorframe, not believing what was actually happening. Soon Harry followed, the screams loud enough to wake up the deaths or the neighbours next door, or even the entire neighbourhood.

“Oi guys, what’s up in there?”

And obviously, the next and last person to arrive was Tom.

“Why the fuck are you all screami-”

Just then, you simply exploded like a grenade that waited and took too much already on yourself. Your voice was screaming of anger now, but also distress and sadness, the rage definitely showing now from head to toes that you shocked all four boys, Harrison included.

“FUCK YOU HARRISON! JUST- FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKING DAMN ATTITUDE!” you raged and kept going in one breath, “I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL I DID TO DESERVE BEING TREATED LIKE A- LIKE A TOTAL SLUT BUT IF Y-YOU CAN’T TRUST ME ENOUGH OR EVEN BELIEVE IN THE LOVE I FEEL TOWARDS YOU, I-I JUST- AT LEAST FREAKING TALK TO ME BEFORE ACTING LIKE A FUCKING TOSSER Y-YOU DAMN BASTARD!!!”

That was it. You lost it, all your usual nice and sweet composure just vanished in a snap. But you felt hurt, badly hurt like you never once thought you would be that your feelings just washed over you that you had to scream as loud as possible.

You never had that kind of harsh arguments with Harrison, even knowing the boy was sometimes short tempered but right now, everything he said to you still resonated in your head. Every words. All of them. Even the degrading ones. Each of them were said with pure and bad jealousy, something you couldn’t imagine coming from Harrison.

In the end, even him was capable of hurting people.

Your face was now a red mess, your entire body tensed but at the same time shaking, and your eyes full or tears that soon started rolling down your cheeks when you finished screaming to his face.

Then a cold, tensed and awkward silence settled in the room. No one dared to say a word. And after a loud sob escaped your lips, you ran outside the room, not even glancing once more at the blond guy in front of you, nor at the other boys as you made your way past them. Your cries echoed in the hallway as you then barged inside the “office” room, slamming the door behind you with such violence it made everyone jump, locking it right after. Finally alone in your own despair, you slid your back down the door and sat against it, the back of your head slightly bumping onto the wooden door as you now let out your sobs openly.

“The actual fuck was that just now?!” Harry finally dared to speak, snapping out after what he just saw and heard. “Did you literally accused (Y/N) of cheating on you?!”

“Were you out of your mind to be rude to her like that?!” Tuwaine added, dumbfounded by all the argument.

Harrison was not moving, not a single inch. He was like petrified on the spot, now standing alone in his bedroom as his friends were still staying outside of it. But compared to a few minutes ago, his face now lost all colour, being as pale as if he saw a ghost.

He was completely shocked at himself.

“Mate” Tom addressed his friend, the tone of his voice calm even after being badmouthed by his own best friend, the one who just stood there like a lonely and wandering soul.

Not really expecting an answer from Harrison, Tom slowly walked inside the room, to then stand in front of his blond friend.

“That’s totally normal to get jealous, you know?” Tom began in his most understanding and serious voice, “But jeez, (Y/N) is like a sister to me! Never would I see her more than that!”

Tom’s words were making their way though Harrison’s brain, but the lack of reaction from him was getting really worrying.

“But mostly, I’d NEVER betray my best friend! Never, you hear me Harrison?” Tom insisted firmly. “And just now, you completely misunderstood everything and hurt (Y/N). And yourself.”

And at that moment, Harrison felt like the entire universe fell on top of his head. For good. He finally realised he badly fucked up.

* * * *

It’s been four days since the argument. The four longest and tougher days of Harrison’s life.

Since then, you’ve closed yourself into the office room, not wanting to be near or see your boyfriend after everything he said to you. You ate there, slept there and cried there. You just locked yourself in, as if wishing for everyone to forget you were even there. But that was impossible for Harrison.

When Tom somehow brought back his friend to himself, after being completely out of his mind like he never did, Harrison panicked and just wanted to rush back to you. Tom, Harry and (mostly) Tuwaine could hold him back, even when he started screaming your name for you to forgive him, pure agony in both his voice and written on his face.

After, Harrison was like an undead. His usual shining blue eyes were no more, but replaced by empty one, completely dull and lost into nothingness. His body was even too heavy for him to stand properly, as if everything he told you came back to him to just put the blame on him and only him, the guilt heavier like an entire building. He even lost his appetite and his sleep, not finding any purpose to any matter while being away from you after what he did. What he made you endure.

You didn’t want to see him anymore, and just kept ignoring him while he stood on the other side of the door for hours, pleading for you to open and talk about it together. Nothing. You never replied. If you ever needed something, you would simply ask to Tom, Harry or Tuwaine by text. But never Harrison. Never. And Tom would have to drag his friend away from the door as he would just start crying, desperately trying to open it or even bang his forehead on it on total despair.

That situation weighted on everybody else, too. The once joyful house became a pure living hell of agony, the air thick with tension all around. Being under lockdown for so long was already a pain in general, so nobody needed that kind of additional stress to make it worse.

It had to stop, but not any which way.

On the sixth day, Tom was cooking some lunch while Harry and Tuwaine were in the backyard, enjoying the beautiful weather that London was offering them. And Harrison was at the exact same spot he occupied since the incident, slumped onto the couch, head thrown on the back to fix the ceiling for hours.

“Hey, Harrison.”

The blond lightly glanced at Tom, his body not moving, as the brunette stood next to the couch with a tray in his hands.

“Do you want to bring this to (Y/N)?” asked Tom to his friend.

Harrison’s head slowly turned towards him at the sound of your name.

“She doesn’t want to see me anymore” whispered Harrison almost inaudibly, his eyes red and puffy after so many sleepless nights spent with cries.

“If you just force yourself into her like you did the past days, like a mad man, for sure she’ll just keep ignoring you...” sighed Tom, trying not to sound so done with his friend during that tough path he was going through. “Man up, be yourself and go.”

Still hesitant, Harrison looked between Tom and the tray in his hands a few times, before slowly sitting down properly on the couch. Tom nodded at him to encourage him a bit and after what seemed like the biggest effort of his life, Harrison finally stood on his own two feet, now facing Tom.

“Come on and make up properly, idiot” ironically chuckled Tom, hoping to lighten the mood a little.

He held once again the tray out for Harrison to take, insisting. Gulping, the blond boy lifted his arms to soon grab the tray, hands still slightly trembling. Tom waited for his friend to calm down, knowing perfectly his mind was just a complete mess at the moment as so many scenarios of what was about to happen kept playing on and on, each of them at the same time.

Once he emptied his mind from the negativity invading him, Harrison took a deep breath in before holding the tray properly by himself. Tom gently patted his shoulder, another supporting move of his and moved aside to let his friend walk past him.

His steps were as light as a feather, not wanting to make too much noise on his way to the office room. Harrison’s heart was beating like crazy, each beat almost wanting to break through his ribs, the pain almost unbearable.

But there was no coming back. Not anymore. Harrison was so scared to mess everything up again, like he did when he started an argument that was not even supposed to exist. But he brought it up, like the dumbass he was sometimes. And now, he had to made up for all the abominations he said to you. So yes, Harrison was scared and even worse... he was scared to loose you.

Without realising it, the blond boy was now standing in front of the wooden door. That door that could be the epitome of your heart right now, completely closed and unknown to him, acting like a barrier to protect you from more sadness you may not be able to handle anymore. But Harrison had to make the first step to you because he was the one who caused all this.

He had to fix his mistakes, once for all and good.

“... (Y/N)?” the boy called in what sounded more like a whisper.

He clicked his tongue, sure you didn’t even hear him. After glancing at the living room and noticing Tom had left to join the boys outside, Harrison cleared his voice and tried again.

“(Y/N)... It’s... it’s me.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, you were curled up onto the couch that became your bed for almost a week. Your lack of sleep was beyond your own understanding, as not even a single one of your college projects managed to keep you awake at night. Your body has been aching and heavy, the simple fact of rolling over being painful to you. And the painkillers did nothing to your constant headaches that kept coming and going whenever they wanted. You were sad, hurt and now tired.

But out of nowhere, you caught a faint voice coming from the door. At first you were not really sure as your mind was rambling all over the place, but then you heard it again, and a bit clearer. That familiar voice you knew too well, that particular one you were trying to avoid at all cost since the argument.

Harrison.

Hearing it now awakened all your senses again, against your own will but you preferred to stay quiet, bringing your knees closer to your chest and hoping he would just go away.

“Please, (Y/N)... I-I’ve brought your lunch...”

You gulped, hiding your face into your knees. His once energetic voice was no more, sounding now more morose and... hurt. And somehow, it still saddened you a bit. The silence invaded the place again. Now you felt torn between two rather difficult choices: still ignoring him because the hurtful words he screamed at you that day were the cause of your sleepless nights, or... maybe confront him and see how it goes. Maybe.

“Fuck, what did I expect really... Of course you’re still angry at me, and you have all the rights to be” Harrison murmured along with a sigh.

Lowering his head, Harrison’s eyes fell on the lunch tray Tom kindly prepared to you and mindlessly inspected it. The smell was mouthwatering and the steak sure looked delicious, but Harrison couldn’t help but note you always liked your meat less cooked and with a lot of oregano. And regarding the sides, the boy was pretty sure you would leave the cucumber slices of the salad, as you liked more carrots instead.

All these little things, even the most insignificant ones, were part of your being. And Harrison learnt to know all of them by heart, and to cherish them. And so did you, ever since you started dating. The specific tea he loved to drink depending on how he was feeling, the vegetables he couldn’t look at - even after you desperately tried to cook them in many different ways -, what to do when he was feeling tired and grumpy, the movie he could binge-watch all the time, and so on...

Harrison loved you as much as you loved him.

And he had to fucked this up like a bastard to finally realise he just imagined the stupidest things ever, and hurt you in the end.

“... I’m the fuckin’ worst.”

As any chance of this door opening vanished into thin air, Harrison loudly sighed, badly depressed but still trying his best to contain his tears a bit more, and put the lunch tray down at the door to then walked away.

But after only taking two steps, two click sounds suddenly reached his ears which made him stop on his track, turning quite fast towards the door to see it... slightly opening. And that was when Harrison caught sight of you and his body froze, eyes wide open.

Through the half-open door, you were there, your entire frame partially visible but still. He was finally able to see you and notice how fragile you looked. Facial features slimmed down, dark circles and red eyes. You were a mess, just like Harrison was during the past few days. After what seems like hours of total silence, both your eyes finally met, hesitant at first but then, you slowly opened the bedroom door a bit more. The heart of Harrison started beating all over again, his lungs working fully as if he learnt once more how to breath.

“... Harrison.”

Oh, your voice. Hearing it after so long brought shivers down his spine.

“(Y-Y/N)... I-”

But words got suddenly mixed up in his mind as Harrison wanted to tell you so many things at the same time. How much he was sorry, how much of an idiot he was, how much he regretted, how much... he missed you. So much. But then, he remembered Tom’s advices.

“If you just force yourself into her... like a mad man... she’ll just keep ignoring you...”

Harrison had to think calmly, but most importantly wisely. So he decided to stay quiet waiting for you to speak first, if you ever did.

You’ve never seen Harrison this tense like he actually was. Never this... all over the place. Hair sticking in every directions, his stubble more visible than ever and baggy clothes. Well, you were pretty much the same anyway. But what saddened you more was the look in his eyes. His ocean eyes you loved getting lost into turned into two empty orbs, dull, deprived of any joy but tears, now.

“... We need to talk” you muttered in a low tone, your hand grabbing the door harder to get you some extra support, you hoped.

As you slowly lowered your body to take the tray off the floor, Harrison got quicker and grabbed it before you. This brought you two face to face, crouching with only the space of the tray between you, eyes locking for some seconds. No word spoken but only looks, and that was a lot.

You averted your eyes at the same time before getting up again, a bit awkwardly. Harrison followed you inside the office room while you closed the door right after him. Not paying too much attention at the mess around, he went to place the tray on the coffee table in front of the couch and stood there, not knowing what to do or if he could talk. Silently, you advanced to then sit on the said couch, pushing away the blankets and pillows you used to sleep on the side. You patted a few time the space next to you while looking at Harrison or, at least, trying to draw his attention as the boy was looking anywhere but at you, fidgeting with his fingers like a child who just did something stupid.

Well, maybe that was the case, actually.

Finally, Harrison heard the muffled sound of your hand against the couch and, after looking at you like he wanted your approval, slowly but surely walked and sat next to you. He brushed his thighs a few times, feeling his muscles stiff but still trembling. His heartbeat kept pounding on inside his chest, one foot slightly tapping in rhythm on the carpet. He had to bite the inside of his cheek to remain calm. But Harrison knew he had to speak first. After all, everything was his own fault.

“(Y/N), listen I’m-”

“I’m sorry...”

Harrison stopped and looked at you, mouth still open as he was not sure if he heard right. Now frowning, he noticed your head dropped as you were desperately fixing your knees, the grips of your hands on your sweatpants making your knuckles slightly turn white.

“I’m sorry, Harrison” you repeated once again, your voice trembling and just above a whisper. “I-I shouldn’t have insulting you l-like I did. You deserved it b-but I said such horrible things to you, instead of talking about it with you... I-I’m an idiot, I should have-”

“W-Wait (Y/N), what are you saying? I’m the one who has to apologise to you, not the other way around!” retorted Harrison, quite shocked and confused by your words.

“But I just got things worse, Harrison! A-And in the end, we were just screaming at each other a-and I-I-”

Your body started shaking again, your throat tightening as more words wanted to go out, soon followed by sobs. Your breathing became halting and tears were forming at the outside corners of your eyes, you couldn’t stop any of this as guilt kept growing inside of you during these days.

Harrison couldn’t handle seeing you like this anymore, nor hearing accusing yourself for what happened to you both. That was impossible, and it had to make it stop. He had to make you understand that any of this was not your fault. He had to comfort you as much as you needed to be.

So the boy slid from the couch, both knees on the carpet as he was now facing you. He pressed his torso against your knees, trying to be as close as possible to you, and put his hands on your thighs. The touch brought you out of your inner upheaval and your teary eyes met again.

“Listen, (Y/N)” began Harrison, gulping, “I’m the one who started all this mess whereas nothing of this would have happened, okay? I-I’m the stupid one here, the selfish one, the... jealous one who imagined horrible things because I got... I got insecure and lonely. I shut myself away enough to awaken the worst side in me. And like a complete asshole I accused you of... of cheating on me. You, the person I love the most and that loves me so much in return. The person I trust with all my heart. I just- I fucked up so bad a-and-”

Harrison didn’t notice the tears already rolling down his cheeks until now.

“I-I’m just the worst boyfriend- no, the worst human being ever-”

But then, your trembling but soft hands gently raised to wipe his wet cheeks with your thumbs making him stop spouting any more gibberish about himself. And it was like your touch instantly appeased him, like the best medicine that could exist and just closed his eyes, his breathing slowly calming down.

By instinct, his bigger hands raised to gently rest on top of yours and just leaned his face on your palms, appreciating the skin contact he missed since then. God did he miss your touch.

You both sniffled, forehead resting against each other as you leaned more towards the blond boy. The tears kept going for some time actually, neither of you really knowing for how long. But that was needed.

After some time spent in a rather calm silence, you parted from each other and you gently brushed your boyfriend’s wet cheeks with your thumbs again, a comforting smile now on your face.

“I think... we both messed up” you gently whispered.

A light smile appeared on Harrison’s face, the left corner slightly raising more like it always did when he was getting shy or embarrassed... or comforted.

“We did” replied the blond, a soft chuckle barely audible, “... well, mostly me.”

“Never hesitate to talk to me, alright Harrison?” you stated quite seriously but still with that kind tone of yours your boyfriend loved so much. “Even for stupid matters, I don’t care, just let’s talk about it. Promise?”

“I promise, love.”

You shared another smile, rosy cheeks and eyes still shining with the last few tears. But now, the atmosphere felt way lighter as any ounce of negativity washed away around you both. You kept the eye contact and your hands connected, a way to slowly treat that deep link between you both.

Then you gently brought Harrison’s face closer to you and left a light kiss on his forehead, the kiss lasting for a few seconds but Harrison made the most of it, his eyes closing again which let the last tears roll on his cheeks.

“I’m so sorry, love” Harrison whispered like he was in trance.

“I know, dear. I know. But we will go through it. Together.”

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minhomas-tmr · 3 years

Text

Bon Appétit - Chapter 2: Hors d'oeuvres

A/N: Hors d'oeuvres are typically served before the meal even begins

—

“I mean..who gave him the right?!!” Thomas said for the umpteenth time. “Arms like that? So fucking wasted on a chef, it’s like the universe’s personal attack on me!” Thomas paced, arms swinging around wildly in frustration. “Body builder would have made more sense!! Personal trainer even!!”

“Thomas. When you messaged me with such urgency, I assumed it was about our talk on reflecting..”

“Ohhh we’ll get to that alright!” Thomas snarked, “I just am mad right now. Let me be mad, yeah?”

Janson rolled his eyes, not even trying to hide his exasperation, “Go on then. I’m getting paid regardless.”

“You’re such a dick.” Thomas gaped at his therapist.

“True,” Janson said in his usual calm tone. Except it didn’t make Thomas calm when it sounded condescending. Go figure he’d end up with a sarcastic shit. It wasn’t helping his mood the slightest.

“You think this is funny? I can’t be—!! I like gir—women. I like women, dammit!”

“Seems from your rant, this is not the first time you have noticed such things in a man. So then it comes back to the why not, Thomas?”

“Because.” Thomas bit out, teeth grinding. He stared at the carpet, knowing Janson had that look in his eyes again. The one where Thomas would spill out everything.

Dammit the guy may be a dick, but he was worth every buck Thomas was shelling out.

It was just so challenging. Admitting anything to anyone was such a challenge…Janson was right though. If he didn’t talk, he’d never be able to move forward, and at least here there was a person willing to listen.

Janson didn’t have to tell him he was hired by Ava because of something nefarious, but he’d admitted to it and wanted to proceed with honesty. Being a man drowning in resentment, but trying nonetheless, Thomas had nothing to lose.

“I ran away, once,” he admitted to the quiet room. “Enrolled in a culinary course behind my father’s back, booked a flight to Paris and I ran away. I wanted to be myself and I couldn’t be that….with him and his expectations.”

“What does it mean to you, ‘to be yourself’.”

“Free. I even found someone, and we were happy. Or I thought we were,” Thomas murmured. “It was a..a long time ago. I was okay, you know? This..stupid stupid thing happened and then pretending it hadn’t happened, and I know the truth. He knows I know. That made it even worse.

“But I was fine! And then this fuckin’ model shows up and this is what I become? I’m a mess all for a man that—what’s the point?”

“Maybe you have reached a stage where ‘okay’ and ‘fine’ aren’t enough.” Janson stated in a gentler tone than what he’d used during the chef’s tantrum. “Now. Let’s discuss another matter. You mentioned ‘he’ knows, I know. Considering you have barely spared ten lines to the new chef, I assume that’s not him,”

“I don’t want to talk about him,” Thomas sat down with a huff, “I’d rather talk about how that infuriatingly likeable man is taking over my kitchen!!”

’Ping’.

—

Thomas came into his kitchen early, the empty parking lot giving him the illusion he had time to gather his thoughts before the work day—an illusion shattering when the first thing he saw was Minho’s backside.

Thomas’ eyes lingered longer than they had any right to, but if Minho was gonna make it a habit to come this early, he was going to try to not…not let Minho deteriorate his mind into admitting the truth.

“Good morning,”

Those words didn’t come from him.

Lucky for him, Thomas’ eyes had drifted away from those deliciously thick thighs. He just hoped his desire wasn’t spelled out on his face. It couldn’t be sanitary being frisky with a—straight man. Stop!

“Good Morning,” Thomas didn’t know how long of a pause it was, but hopefully Minho chalked it up to be Thomas’ poor social skills and not his unprofessional thoughts.

“So…” Thomas drew a blank. Why did he open his mouth when he had nothing to say?! Maybe that’s why he was at his prime but still single.

“I got my own apron?” Minho volunteered. “Got my name on it and everything,”

“You what?” Thomas squawked without thinking.

“I’m kidding,” Minho turned to him grinning. “Only Master Chef contestants get that honour,”

“But they have to return it..”

“Even the kids? Man, that’s cruel.”

“Maybe its just for show them ‘giving it up’. Maybe they sign a contract that says they aren’t allowed to mention they have the show apron or somethi—what?” Thomas cut off at the amused look Minho sent his way.

“So you watch it, huh?”

“It’s a good comedy,” Thomas shrugged, turning away. The other chef burst out laughing behind him, and Thomas couldn’t fight the smile growing on his face at the sound.

“Hate to break this up but the apron aside we still have to figure out..the rest..” Minho sounded hesitant and he had a good reason to be. Thomas had been an absolute dick to him so far. Time to own up to it.

“I was being a jerk last time..You’re ranking equal you know?”

“Still, this is your domain. So let’s hear them, Thomas.” Minho said. Thomas sighed inwardly, praying this peace treaty didn’t disappear because of his inability to mesh with people.

“Okay then. The biggest rule is no music. I can’t stand it,” Thomas grimaced. “I don’t care if it’s instrumental, orchestra, seriously it has no place in ma��the kitchen. Play whatever you what anywhere else but not at work. I don’t care if everyone loves it, I can’t focus. and A kitchen is meant to be cooked in—not to dance or whatever else you all were doing.”

“That’s fair. Music’s not for everyone,” Minho nodded, already looking for the speaker he’d brought in. “And the food?”

“Too early to say. I didn’t hire you, and hell, I didn’t even know you were going to be hired long-term. I don’t know what you can do, so we see how things go for now,” Thomas shrugged.

“I’m working on something…you could try my dish right now to get an idea of my style?” Minho didn’t seem off-put by Thomas’ tone.

“No thank you. I don’t have time to loiter around and if you’re experimenting, I highly suggest you do it in your own home.” Thomas didn’t mention that it’s what he did, a fan of experimentation himself.

Minho became more and more interesting by the minute.

Before they could exchange more words, the staff started coming in and for some reason Thomas didn’t want to show that he was agreeable with Minho. Frankly speaking, he didn’t think it would change anything.

—

The day wasn’t great in terms of unity but it wasn’t bad either. Having two Head Chefs was more challenging and it brought on some confusion. The kitchen after some time obtained a certain amount of balance—that was until someone mentioned the music. The loud protest to the ‘no music’ rule was what finally sent Thomas into the walk-in freezer.

He finished preparing the order, placing it on the counter for the waiters to pick up and walked straight in, the familiar humming of the cool room soothing him. Not for the first time did he consider quitting. Before Thomas’ big ‘incident’ the kitchen worked like a well-oiled machine and a couple weeks of his absence and suddenly no one can function the way they used to?

He hated how irritated this made him, he hated that he didn’t hate Minho for the change. He did hate how the staff seemed so taken with the newcomer though and in such a short time too…they smiled when he made a positive comment and felt comfortable joking with him. Thomas had hired most of them and in all those years, not once did they behave that way with him.

Thomas sat on the cold floor head in his hands. Yeah, there was no escaping this. He was jealous of Minho. Minho was easy to like—too easy to like even. There was no escaping his attraction to the new chef either.

But he couldn’t just walk out. He couldn’t just leave, not yet. He’d only end up proving his father right.

—

Work was Thomas’ life so like usual Thomas was the last to leave but he noticed Minho hanging around too. When one of the waitresses—Thomas didn’t know her name—waved them bye, Minho responded in kind, closing the door after so it was again just them.

“You okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Thomas responded briskly.

“You were..gone for a long time,”

Thomas paused in sanitizing his station thoroughly. That was a first. No one had mentioned his absence before, he didn’t know how to feel when the man messing him up was the one asking.

Feeling eyes on him, Thomas looked up and shrugged. “It happens. Nothing exploded, right?”

Minho sighed, “Is it always like this?”

“You mean do they always leave without saying bye to me? Yeah, ever since they were hired. So it’s great. Great that you’ve made that connection. I’ll just have to live vicariously through you.”

“Hey—“ Minho reached out to grab his arm, surprising Thomas enough to stop him from walking away. “I want this to work. You saw how today was…”

“Hard to miss,” Thomas nodded, not looking at Minho directly. He didn’t like the idea of going easy on the other chef, but he promised himself to be less of a dick. Frankly he wasn’t sure if his irritation was from the professional side of things or…other factors.

“Listen, when I was hired, I made it crystal clear to Ava that I wanted to work with you. Not replace you. Even if that was her original intention, it’s not mine and it never will be.”

Thomas did look at him then and the only thing he found was utter sincerity. Absolutely floored, he didn’t know what to say. Minho wanted to work with him? This entire time he’d wanted…

“Now if you don’t want me here, I…I’ll leave. Things can go back to how they were with your team and no complications of us in the same kitchen. If I’m the reason you disappeared for that long a period? I don’t want that.”

Thomas sighed feeling like utter shit, realizing he’d taken all his anger on Ava’s deception onto Minho. It wasn’t right and Minho was exceptional in his skills, Thomas knew that now.

Knowing how easy it was to say the wrong thing, Thomas thought carefully on his words.

“I don’t do well with change,” he started to which Minho sighed, slowly letting go of his arm that—wait was it there the entire time? Not wanting to be misunderstood, he continued, “You’re a good type of change though. So no. You’re staying,” he finished firmly.

“Now if you don’t mind…” Thomas moved to side-step him, when he was stopped again. Thomas frowned, resenting Minho’s frame yet again. He wasn’t small but the fact remained he had to look up to meet Minho’s eyes.

If he wanted, Minho could pin him down so easily. But that was ridiculous. Why would he want to? Why would Thomas want him too? Dammit, why wasn’t anyone talking?!

“The food.” Minho stated finally, at some point realizing Thomas wasn’t going to initiate. “They need to know who to go to regarding the menu.”

“Right.” Thomas pulled out a copy of the menu and they went into the seating area to sort it out. He turned to pages straight to the main course section. “It’s easiest to split the dishes in half, unless you have a preference of meat?”

He looked up only to find Minho’s eyes on him and not the menu. Thomas felt his cheeks go warm at the attention and he didn’t mean to, but his brisk tone turned softer when he asked, “Do you?”

“No, I’m trained in all areas,” Minho didn’t break eye contact, but oddly dropped his voice too, “though I feel like once we get a feel of each other’s style, that can change?”

His mind immediately thought about what else he would like to ‘get a feel of’ but—Thomas stop. He wasn’t a teenager and he sincerely hoped he wasn’t blushing like one.

“Mmnhm,” was all he could manage though, using a hasty excuse to leave the table on order to get ready to leave.

—

A/N:Okay lovelies, this is a bit short but I’m trying to watch my pace to be honest. I know where I want to go, I just have to write it lol. Also the dish names I’m matching with their progression :) Until next time!!

Be safe, take care <3

#bon apetit #Bon Appétit #thominho #thominho fanfiction #thominho ff #chef minho #chef thomas #thomas has a stick up his ass #he'd frankly prefer a d--#annyywaysss #;)#chapter update

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crescentmoon223 · 4 years

Text

Temptation

This is my entry for the @xfilesfanficexchange Secret Santa 2019, written for Bob79519 / @wilhelmscreamf - I hope you enjoy it! xx

When a houseguest puts a damper on their extracurricular activities, will Mulder be able to convince Scully to make an exception to her “no sex in the office” rule?

Rated: Explicit | Read it on AO3

MONDAY

Mulder’s eyes tracked the pencil he’d just tossed, watching to see if it would stick with its compatriots in the ceiling tile above his head or swan dive back to the desk. “Your place or mine tonight, Scully?”

“You at yours and me at mine,” she responded absently.

“Why’s that?” Deciding the pencil was secure, he shifted his gaze to Scully, seated across the desk from him, pouring over the latest issue of Scientific American. Her red hair was tucked neatly behind her ears, a wrinkle between her brows as she read about polar ice core samples. He wanted to lean across the desk and kiss her, to run his fingers through her hair and mess it up. They were between cases at the moment, and consequently, his mind had drifted to sex at ten a.m.

It had only been a few weeks since she first spent the night in his bed, and they’d hardly been able to keep their hands off each other since. Now that they’d finally uncorked seven years of sexual tension, they were insatiable together. She’d insisted on keeping things strictly professional at work, but that only seemed to make their evenings even better.

Scully glanced at him before returning to her magazine. “A friend from medical school is in town this week, attending a conference. She’s staying with me.”

“What’s the matter, Scully? You don’t want to introduce us?” he joked, but they hadn’t done anything like that yet as a couple. One the one hand, their relationship was as crisp and new as the freshly sharpened pencil hanging above his head, but at the same time, this was Scully. His one in five billion. The woman he’d been in love with for years, not that he’d said the words out loud yet.

“Whether or not I introduce you is irrelevant,” she said without looking up. “We can’t have sex while she’s in the guest room next door—which is the real reason you wanted to come over—and I wouldn’t be a very good hostess if I left her at my place while I went to yours for a quickie.”

His pulse raced at the word “quickie” from her lips, even if it was delivered in a no-nonsense tone. She wore a dark gray blazer over a white button-down shirt, and his fingers itched to pop those buttons and find out what bra she was wearing underneath. Hopefully, it was the white one with lace trim that was quickly becoming his favorite. “Now, let’s not be rash…”

“Mulder.” She sighed, giving him an exasperated look. “You can wait until Friday.”

“Sure, I can.” He spread his palms over the surface of the desk. “But Scully, we have this perfectly fine piece of furniture right here, just begging for some action.”

“And you already know my answer is no.” She kept her gaze pointedly on the magazine, but a smile twitched at the corners of her lips.

Her lips. God help him, her lips were his undoing, plump and pink, equally impressive spouting scientific facts, dressing down men twice her age, or wrapped around his cock.

He leaned forward in his chair. “I bet I can change your mind before the end of the week.”

“You’re welcome to try.”

He grinned. Had she forgotten how relentless he could be when he wanted something? Nope. No way. She knew him better than anyone, which meant deep down she wanted him to charm the panties off her right here in the office. “Oh baby, game on.”

TUESDAY

Scully was the first one into the office on Tuesday morning, and she sank behind the desk with a grateful sigh. She didn’t mind having Lisa stay with her for the week. It was nice to catch up with an old friend, but she’d grown accustomed to having time to herself after so many years of living alone. Sometimes, nothing compared to a few minutes of solitude. She drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, savoring this moment.

Funny how she never seemed to need space when it was Mulder bustling around the kitchen with her as she got ready for work. She wasn’t given to romantic larks, and especially not this soon after she and Mulder had started sleeping together. It was a big change in their relationship, and yet somehow, it wasn’t. They’d been intimate in so many non-sexual ways over the years. Already, their relationship had the comfortable, relaxed feel of an established couple. And she was trying not to overthink things, because this was a big deal. She knew it. He knew it. They’d been tiptoeing their way around it for weeks.

For now, she was content to just…be. They’d had so little happiness, so little peace in the seven years since she joined the X Files. Surely, they deserved this time to just enjoy each other as they adjusted to being in a romantic relationship.

Since they weren’t on a case this week, Mulder thought it would be a good idea to review their old cases, looking for connections they might have missed the first time around. To that end, she stood and walked to the file cabinet, pulling out a case Mulder had worked on years before she’d ever set foot in this basement office. She’d familiarized herself with most of these files over the years, but it never hurt to refresh her memory.

“Now, there’s a sight I like to see first thing in the morning,” Mulder said from behind her.

“What’s that?” she asked as she turned to face him.

“You, bent over the filing cabinet.” The glint in his eye sent a warm shiver over her skin.

“Honestly, Mulder.” She rolled her eyes as she sat behind the desk.

“Another of my favorite sights,” he said with one of his roguish smiles as he sat in the chair across from her. “Do you have any idea how many fantasies I’ve had about you and this desk over the years?”

“You’ve mentioned it once or twice,” she murmured, trying to act like she was absorbed in the file before her. She’d fantasized about things involving this desk too, but fantasies were just that…fantasy. She had no intention of acting them out.

He leaned across the desk, close enough that she could smell the fresh, clean scent of his aftershave and lose herself in the verdant depths of his eyes. “I missed you last night,” he said as he lowered his head, brushing his lips against hers.

She wanted to protest. She really should protest, because she’d already established the ground rules for their relationship, and they prohibited any shows of affection in the office. But…she’d missed him last night too, and where was the harm in one little kiss, really? She closed her eyes, absorbing the press of his lips against hers and the way even that small gesture sent a burst of heat through her system.

He dropped into the chair, his gaze clinging to her like a lover’s caress. “Want to hear one?”

“One what?”

He propped his right foot on his left knee as he got comfortable, elbows on his knees, hands steepled together. “My fantasies.”

Yes. “No.”

“You sure about that, Scully?” he asked with one of those irritatingly charming smiles.

She sighed, as if she might as well get it over with so he’d move on to other topics, as if she had no interest in his office fantasies, as if her panties weren’t already damp just imagining what he was about to tell her. “Fine, just tell me.”

He leaned back, fingers stroking his bottom lip as he seemed to shuffle through his mental rolodex of office sex fantasies. “Well, one of my earliest fantasies, back before I even dared to dream about us having sex, involved you walking in on me while I was jerking off.”

Her eyebrows shot up her forehead. “Do tell.”

“We’d just come off a case—remember the one with the prehistoric bugs that attacked people after dark? We’d been in isolation together while we recovered, all those days and nights of sleeping beside you without being able to touch you.”

“Mulder…that was what, the first year we worked together?” She honestly hadn’t realized his interest in her went that far back. Of course, she’d been…aware of him back then too. He was an incredibly handsome man, and she had always appreciated that, even when her feelings for him were strictly platonic.

“I’m a man with a very vivid imagination, Scully. Of course I thought about it.”

Wow. “So, tell me already.”

“I’m sitting there.” He gestured to the chair in which she sat. “And I’m jerking off—”

“Have you actually done that?” she interrupted. “Masturbated here in the office?”

His eyebrows raised. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Yeah, she actually would. “Fine. Go on.”

“I’m really close,” he said, his voice dropping as if he was getting turned on just telling her, and well, that made two of them. “And you walk in. You pretend not to notice, and I’m so close, I decide to just keep going.” At her huff of disbelief, he shrugged. “It’s a fantasy, Scully. It doesn’t have to be realistic. Anyway, you’ve got your back to me, but I can tell you’re touching yourself too. And the little noises you’re making are so fucking hot, I can’t hold back any longer. I come so hard, and then…so do you.”

“Oh.” She squirmed in her chair—his chair.

“And then there’s the one where I go down on you in that chair,” he said, pupils dilating as his gaze dropped to her lap.

Fuck. “Oh?”

“You’re sitting there, reading a file…could be that one.” He tapped the X File on the desk in front of her. “And I just have to taste you. I get on my knees under the desk. I pull down your panties, and I feast, while you sit there trying to look all prim and proper in case anyone walks by.”

“Jesus, Mulder.” Dammit, she was throbbing just thinking about it.

“But it’s no use,” he said, his voice gone low and throaty the way it did during sex. “You’re writhing and moaning my name as you come against my tongue.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, and then, for lack of anything better to do—short of flinging herself in his lap and acting out one of his fantasies, to hell with being professional—she stood and turned to retrieve another file.

“Have I mentioned the one where I take you right here against the filing cabinet?” He was behind her in a flash, pressing his sizable erection into her ass, and she couldn’t help the needy moan that escaped her lips.

“Mulder…” She arched her back, pushing herself more firmly against him.

He rocked into her, and she let out a frustrated whine. “We haven’t even gotten to the approximately five hundred different ways I want to take you on the desk.”

Down the hall, the elevator dinged, and she sprang away from him, cheeks flaming from a combination of desire and embarrassment. They resumed their seats and were both reading quietly as Doug from the mailroom came through with a handful of interoffice envelopes for them. He didn’t give either of them a second glance before pushing his cart back into the hallway. The elevator dinged again, and he was gone.

“See,” she whispered, glaring at Mulder. “That is exactly why we can’t fool around in the office.”

“Aw, come on, Scully. You do know the door locks, right?”

She huffed. “And I’m sure that wouldn’t look suspicious.”

He shrugged, the picture of nonchalance. “No one comes down here except Doug and occasionally Skinner, and I’m pretty sure he thinks we’ve been sleeping together for years.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “Probably.”

“I’ve always wanted to do that thing from the movies, you know, where I dramatically sweep everything off the desk so we can fuck on it?” His grin was pure sex.

“Enough, Mulder.” She shoved an X File in his direction, hoping to shut him up. “Read that. An eyewitness reported seeing lights over the forest similar to that case we worked on a few months ago.”

As he opened it, she crossed her legs, still uncomfortably aroused. How the hell they were going to survive until Friday?

WEDNESDAY

Mulder stopped in the doorway to the office, his gaze riveted on her chest, or rather…the fabric covering it. “You really are trying to kill me this week.”

She looked up, the picture of innocence, one brow cocked slightly in confusion. “What did I do now?”

“That sweater.” Every green fiber was imprinted forever on his fingertips. He remembered the way it stuck to his tongue, the scrape of it against his bare chest, the thrill of lifting it over her head…

��What about it?” She touched the sweater absently. Was it possible she didn’t remember? No way. Not Scully, with that magnificent brain of hers. No, she had to be fucking with him.

He sat on the edge of the desk, reaching out to run his fingers over her sweater-clad shoulder. “You were wearing it the first time we had sex. Come on, Scully. There’s no way you don’t remember.” Because he remembered every single detail, from the seemingly innocent way she’d come over for a drink, to her ramblings about life and all the many paths that changed its course, how she’d fallen asleep on his couch, and later…when she’d appeared in his bedroom in the middle of the night, soft and rumpled and ready to claim him as her own.

“Now that you mention it…” Her cheeks darkened, freckles gleaming adorably against her flushed skin.

“Torturing me.” He leaned in for a quick kiss before giving the sweater a playful tug as he turned to toss his jacket over the back of the chair.

“I honestly wasn’t thinking about it when I got dressed this morning,” she told him. “I like this sweater. I wear it a lot.”

“Well, just so you know where my mind will be every time I see you in it from now on…”

Her blush darkened. “Noted.”

“Given any thought to letting me take it off you again?” he asked as he reached for the file she’d pushed in his direction. “Like, today?”

“No,” she answered quickly…too quickly. She was thinking about it. He knew she was.

He grinned. “Anything I can do to help persuade you?”

“Nope.” She tapped her fingertips against the file in front of him. “Two more days, Mulder. You can wait.”

“What if I just really want to act out one of my fantasies, now that I’ve told you about them?”

“Not going to happen,” she said, pupils dilating, chest heaving beneath that green sweater. It was so soft. His fingers ached to touch it, to slide beneath it to her even softer skin…

He leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. “Oh, it’s going to happen. The only question is…when?”

THURSDAY

Her phone rang almost in tandem with the alarm on her bedside table, buzzing softly as it wrenched her from sleep. She smiled when she saw the name on the caller ID. Mulder knew she always set her alarm for six thirty and had obviously waited to call so that he wouldn’t wake her. She slapped her alarm clock, silencing it as she picked up the phone. “Morning, Mulder,” she mumbled, snuggling under her blankets.

“Morning,” he said, and just the sound of his voice spread warmth through her chest.

She wondered if they’d been assigned a new case, if they’d be flying off somewhere this morning, which would make her a really awful hostess, leaving Lisa here alone, but might give her the opportunity to visit Mulder’s hotel room tonight. Right now, that sounded more than tempting. Her willpower was slipping. “What’s up?”

“I am,” he answered, his voice low and gruff.

Oh. Oh. An answering ache grew between her thighs. “Mulder…”

“Thought we could keep each other company long-distance this morning, so to speak,” he said, followed by a slight hiss of breath that made her think he’d just gripped himself.

“You have a one-track mind this week,” she murmured, pushing a hand into her underwear despite the instinctual urge to protest, because dammit, her mind was on the same track. She skimmed her fingers over herself, feeling how wet she already was. Yeah, she needed this as badly as he did.

“Woke up hard as a fucking rock and thinking of you,” he said, sounding breathless. “Don’t think I can wait until tomorrow, Scully.”

“Me either.” She circled her clit with her index finger, making herself gasp.

“Are you touching yourself?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you wet?” His voice was pure sex.

“Soaked,” she whispered, beginning to stroke herself in earnest now. She bit back the moan that rose in her throat, aware of Lisa sleeping on the other side of the wall.

“God, Scully, I need you so bad.” He grunted, and she had the mental image of his fist pumping hard and fast, working himself closer to his release.

The ache between her legs intensified, and she heard herself whimper. Dammit. She’d never been very good at keeping herself quiet. Footsteps padded down the hall outside her bedroom, and she froze, body burning, two fingers pressed firmly against her swollen clit.

Fuck.

“I’m close,” Mulder gasped on the other end of the line. “Scully? You still there?”

She cursed under her breath as she listened to Lisa moving around in the kitchen. If she could hear Lisa opening the refrigerator, Lisa could hear…well, everything. “Lisa’s up,” she breathed as quietly as possible as she reluctantly pulled her hand out of her underwear. “I…I can’t do this.”

“Just be quiet, Scully.” He let out a low groan that seemed to reverberate in her clit.

She bit down on her bottom lip, hard. “I don’t think you realize how thin the walls of my apartment are,” she whispered. And she had no idea how she was going to survive listening to him come over the phone. She flung an arm over her eyes.

“Goddammit, Frohike’s ringing through on my other line,” Mulder said, sounding as frustrated as she felt. “He was supposed to get back to me about a lead in Arizona. I…fuck. I better take this.”

Well, how was that for timing? She took a perverse satisfaction from knowing that he wouldn’t have any relief either.

“I’ll see you at the office.” She hung up the phone and lay there for a long moment, composing herself as the ache between her thighs slowly faded, leaving her buzzing with restless, unspent energy. Then she got up, wrapped herself in a robe, and went out to face her houseguest.

Two hours later—and still horny as hell—she walked into the basement office to find Mulder already at the desk, tapping away at the keyboard, his brow furrowed in concentration.

“New case?” she asked, dropping into the chair across from him.

“Nah,” he said, looking up. “Just updating the file with the information Frohike gave me this morning, but I think it’s a dead end.”

“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t like Mulder to write something off as a dead end without dragging her halfway across the country first to check it out.

He gave her a sheepish look. “The gunmen were able to trace the call about the sighting in Arizona, and it came back to a group that’s known to be…followers of mine, let’s say.”

“Followers?” Her eyebrow crept higher.

“Apparently, they have a tendency to exaggerate natural occurrences in the hope of attracting my attention, so they can be part of an X File.”

She couldn’t help the grin that crept across her face. “You have fans, Mulder. I’m impressed.”

“At least someone thinks my work is impressive.”

Their eyes locked, and she forgot all about Mulder’s non-X File. She was thinking about their phone call earlier that morning, their interrupted phone call, and by the way his pupils dilated, so was he. She leaned forward in her seat. He met her halfway, elbows on the desk, lips pressed firmly against hers. Just a quick good morning kiss…

Except the next thing she knew, they were on their feet, clutching at each other across the desk, tongues tangling desperately. His big, strong hands slid down to cup her breasts over her blouse, drawing a low moan from her throat. She clutched at the lapels of his jacket, dragging him closer, or trying to at least. Both of them were pressed against the desk, bent over it, hampered by their awkward position.

He pressed his forehead against hers, gasping for breath. “What would you say if I knocked everything off this desk right now and hauled you across it to straddle my lap?”

“I’d say you’ve lost your mind.”

“Scully.” There was a hint of a whine in his voice.

She straightened, smoothing her hands over the front of her skirt and attempting to calm her racing pulse. “Not in the office, Mulder.”

He straightened too, planting his hands on his hips to draw her attention to the tent in his pants. Her core ached at the sight. It was all she could do not round the desk and press herself against that bulge, not to lower his zipper and let him fuck her senseless despite what she’d just said.

Without another word, he walked to the filing cabinet and extracted a file, which he brought back to the desk. He sat and started to read while she settled across from him, returning to the file she’d been updating yesterday.

“Hey, Scully, look at this,” he said after several long minutes, gesturing for her to come around behind the desk.

She stood and walked around beside him, squinting at the file in his hands. It was from the case they’d worked in Kroner, Kansas, last year. They’d been called out to investigate whether Daryl Mootz aka The Rain King was able to control the weather in the drought-ridden town. “What about it?” she asked, trying not to stare at his lap.

“Remember when that cow crashed through the ceiling of my hotel room, and I had to bunk with you for the rest of the week?”

“How could I forget?” It had taken every ounce of her self-control to keep her hands to herself with Mulder lying beside her in that too-small motel bed. God, she’d resisted him for so many years. And here she was, struggling to resist him for one short week while Lisa was in town.

“Do you have any idea how much I wanted you that week?” His voice dropped.

She slid sideways almost involuntarily so that her hip pressed against his arm. “Really?”

“I had to lay facing the wall so I wouldn’t subject you to this.” He gestured to his lap, his cock still tenting the front of his gray slacks.

She gulped, her throat gone dry. “That’s why you faced the wall? I thought…”

His arm came around her waist, tugging her into his lap. “Needed you, Scully, then and now. Always.”

“Mulder…” She squirmed, his cock pressing into her ass, making her throb for him.

He groaned. “Dying here, in the best possible way.”

She spread her thighs within the confines of her skirt, trying to bring him into contact with her clit, but it was no use. After much frustrated shifting of legs, they were hornier than ever and no closer to release.

He gripped her hips, moving her against him. “I can wait until your houseguest leaves. I’d wait forever for you, Scully, you know I would. But this office is the heart and soul of our relationship, so to speak. This is where we met, where I got to know you, where I frustrated the hell out of you with my crazy theories while you talked the sexiest science at me I’ve ever heard in my life. This office brought us together, Scully. It’s as much a part of our relationship as anything else. In fact, I’d say we owe it to the desk to make this official.”

She pressed a hand to her mouth, touched by his unexpectedly romantic words. And really, how could she argue with his logic? Not to mention, he’d been steadily grinding against her this whole time, and she was so turned on that if she didn’t have him inside her in the next heartbeat, she might spontaneously combust.

“Yes,” she gasped, reaching down to start wiggling out of her pantyhose.

He tugged at her hair. “Hey Scully? Go lock the door.”

“Right.” She sprang out of his lap and dashed to the door, closing and locking it, no longer caring if anyone came down here and wondered what they were doing behind it. Let them wonder. She turned to face Mulder, holding his gaze as she kicked off her shoes and shimmied out of her hose.

“Fuck.” He reached down and gripped himself through his pants. “Do you know how many times I’ve fantasized about you doing that?”

She stalked toward him, feeling her wetness on her inner thighs. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been this turned on in her entire life. “Is there anything you haven’t fantasized about?”

“Doubt it.” He stood, closing their files and tossing them onto a nearby table before sweeping his arm across the surface of the desk. Stuff went everywhere, clattering onto the floor. Paper fluttered across the office while pencils rolled over the carpet toward her. “Okay, that was even more satisfying than I expected.”

“Surprisingly sexy too.” She grinned, dodging pencils as she stepped up against him, immediately wishing for her heels as his cock pressed frustratingly against her belly. “You’re too tall,” she grumbled, going up on her tiptoes.

He slid his hands under her ass and lifted her, bringing their bodies into alignment. “I’m so fucking turned on right now,” he growled, nuzzling her neck.

“God, Mulder. Hurry,” she panted, rocking herself against him as best she could through the confines of their clothing.

He set her on the edge of the desk, and together they hiked her skirt up to her hips—no easy feat, given the unforgiving cotton weave. Mulder unfastened his pants, pushing them and his boxers over his hips in one quick move. His cock sprang free, jutting between them, thick and hard. Magnificent.

The ache between her legs grew almost unbearable. She reached for him, giving him one firm stroke before she guided him toward her, too turned on to waste time on foreplay. Mulder groaned, hips swaying forward, sweat beading on his brow. With her free hand, she pushed her underwear to the side. She slid the thick head of his cock through her folds, coating him in her arousal and making them both gasp at the contact. Mulder’s hips jerked, a muffled “fuck” escaping his lips. She positioned him against her entrance and looked up, meeting his eyes.

For one loaded heartbeat, they stared at each other as the chemistry between them burned through all the oxygen in the room. She was exquisitely aware of the hot, firm press of him between her legs, the throbbing of her pulse that seemed to radiate from her clit, the cold wood beneath her ass. Their desk. The third party in their relationship. He was right. This was as inevitable as it was fitting.

“Fuck me,” she whispered, spreading her thighs wider for him.

“My absolute pleasure.” His hands cradled her waist, surprisingly gentle given the somewhat feral gleam in his eyes. He thrust his hips, sliding balls deep inside her in one swift movement. She was that wet, that ready for him. And oh God, it felt so good.

So. Fucking. Good.

She wrapped her arms around him, drawing him closer, her lips searching for his as they began to move. His fingers pressed into her ass, holding her steady as he pounded into her.

“I’m not gonna last,” he panted. “Too close.”

“Same,” she managed, whimpering as he drove her closer to her release. “Oh God, Mulder. Just like that. Yes…yes, oh.”

The office filled with the sounds of sex, wet skin slapping together, moans and gasps and labored breathing. She threw her head back, her gaze landing on the forest of pencils above her head, and why had she never realized how perfect this would be? This room meant more to them than any other place in the universe.

“I’m going to come,” she gasped, dropping her chin to meet his eyes.

“Yes,” he growled. “Come for me, baby.”

That did it. She clawed at his back as the orgasm tore through her, radiating out from her core in blissful waves.

“Yes,” Mulder said, hips pistoning as he chased his own release.

She slumped in his arms, gasping for breath as she tried to regain her wits, but he swiveled his hips, hitting that magic spot inside her, and fuck. She ignited with a second orgasm, even more powerful than the first, so intense that it took God-knew-how-long for her to realize that high keening cry she heard was coming from her own lips.

Mulder swore a blue streak as he came, filling her with a delicious rush of heat as he spilled himself inside her. They clutched at each other, gasping, hips moving messily. And then, they were still, foreheads pressed together, panting for breath. His hands slid from her ass up her back, anchoring her against him.

“That was…” He gave his head a slight shake, as if at an uncharacteristic loss for words.

“Yeah, it was,” she whispered.

For several long minutes, neither of them moved. Finally, he lifted his head, meeting her eyes. His had cooled to their usual mossy green, no longer blazing with the ferocity of a forest fire. Now, they were languid. Satisfied. “That exceeded was my already ridiculously high expectations.”

“Oh yeah?” She cocked her head at him. He still buried deep inside her, her thighs slick with the remnants of their pleasure, and the satisfaction she felt went so much deeper than sex.

“Maybe the best sex of my life,” he said, his voice surprisingly earnest. “And not just because I came so hard, I almost blacked out.”

“No?” She stared up at him breathlessly, because yeah, whatever he was feeling right now, she felt it too.

“No,” he repeated. “It’s because of you, Scully. Us. This desk. The office. We’ve revolved around this desk for seven years. It’s where I fell for you, and it’s only fitting that it’s where I finally say those words out loud…I love you, Scully.”

“Oh, Mulder.” They’d been dancing around these words for weeks, months, years maybe. And to hear them now was…perfect. So perfect. Tears spilled over her eyelids, and she buried her face against his neck. “I love you too. So much.”

“It’s always been you, Scully. Always.”

“Always.” She reached up to cup his face in her hands, guiding his lips to hers, sealing their love with a kiss.

“Now tell me,” he said, lips quirking mischievously. “Which fantasy would you like to fulfill next?”

#XFSecretSanta2019 #fanfic #The X Files #mulder and scully #MSR

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flamegodess · 5 years

Text

Let The Darkness Fall-Chapter 14

Aaand I’m out of hiatus! Chapter 14 is here, guys!

Genre: romance, vampire au, young royai, action

Rating: T or M

Warning: some descriptions might be disturbing so don’t forget is a vampire au

---

“Rebecca invited me to her aunt’s house during the spring holiday.” Riza announced casually as she entered her father’s office after returning from school. Roy lifted his glance from the alchemy book he was reading. She had created the story the whole day. The best part? She hadn’t even told Roy about this excuse, so his surprised expression only made her story more plausible.

“Where is that?”

“Dublith.” She replied innocently as Roy flinched with realization. How cunning she could be.

“For how long?” her father went on with the questioning.

“Two weeks.” She replied and couldn’t help but saw Roy smirking from the corner of his mouth.

“This is a very long time. And I don’t want you to ignore studying for school two whole weeks.”

Riza stared at the floor. “Sometimes a break is good for the brain. Just saying.” Roy murmured.

“A break from what? It’s not like she’s struggling too much with school anyway.” Her father replied as if she wasn’t there. “You haven’t even gone to school these days.”

“I’ve just come from school. Yesterday I didn’t because I wasn’t feeling well.” That was the truth in fact. She wasn’t fully recovered yet but she couldn’t have risked more her relationship with Roy.

“Miss Katalina is not really the best influence either.” Her father went on as he was adding some notes to his research. Riza resisted the urge to roll her eyes annoyed. How many reasons against the idea could he find?

“I met Rebecca.” Roy spoke again even though no one asked him anything. “She is a very nice person. Sometimes it’s good to have someone so energetic and funny by your side. Especially because Riza is so serious all the time.”

“Roy, step out of this matter and focus on what you’re doing.” His master warned him even though he realized that since Riza was in the room, it was a lost cause. However, if Riza left, then Roy would focus indeed on alchemy.

“You may go.”

“I do?”

“She does?” Roy asked, the book in his hands slipping on the floor. Berthold rolled his eyes. “Yes. Having her away from home means that you’ll actually focus on alchemy.”

They both blushed, but Roy went on. “Only that I am kind of leaving to Central during that time.” It was his time to lie.

Berthold looked at them both suspiciously.

“What an awful coincidence. You are both leaving at the same time.”

Riza bit her lower lip while Roy averted his eyes from his master. They. Were. Dead.

“Fortunately this will provide me more time for the flame alchemy.” An empty house was something he really needed.

They both relaxed. He wasn’t thinking that-

“Roy, I hope you’re not running away with my daughter.” He added in fact to see their reactions.

“I thought you had a better opinion about me, sir.” Roy replied as calmly and innocently as he could even though his heart was hammering in his chest.

“I do have. ”

“And about me?”

“That is what concerns me.”

Riza frowned.

“If I had wanted to run away with your daughter, sir, we wouldn’t have told you about our leaving.” Roy said and his master shook his head defeated.

Roy left a day before Riza so it wouldn’t look like they were indeed running away the same day. He went to Central to his aunt who owned a pub on the ground level of her apartment. It was, in fact, the place where Roy had grown up after his parents had been murdered, so his aunt was like a mother to him, while the girls who worked at the pub had become his sisters.

The next day he would wait for Riza at the station. With an exhausted sigh, Roy entered the well-known pub. The place was quite empty as it was the middle of the day. Usually, the customers were coming at nightfall and leave early in the morning. Even so, the light inside the bar was dim and the air held a faint scent of cigarette smoke and alcohol.

“Look who remembered about his aunt.” Chris spoke as she came out of the storage room and noticed the tall figure of her nephew.

“Don’t take it for granted.” He replied as the older woman pulled him into a hug. “I’m here only because I need to drink.”

“I suppose they don’t have drinks in the East city, Roy Boy?” She smirked and poured the content of a bottle into a glass. Roy sat at the bar and ruffled his already messed up hair. “I forgot you have special preferences when it comes to being thirsty.” She added before handing him the glass.

“Don’t remind me. I don’t have to think about that till tomorrow.”

“Really? Or else?” she asked even though she knew the answer.

“Or else I will turn your customers into my dinner.” He joked and moaned slightly when the drink reached his lips. For a second, his mind made it seem as if the liquid was blood. And not any type of blood. Riza’s blood. By the look on his aunt’s face, he realized his onyx eyes were now red.

“Tell me, Roy...” Chris went on more seriously, “You kept killing people whenever you were hungry?”

“Not anymore.” He replied after he emptied the glass and let the liquid burn his throat. “My Master’s daughter happened to be my feeder. Which means that her blood attracts me... Like, a lot. So I’ve been feeding on her since then. Don’t worry” he started as he noticed his aunt’s half terrified expression “she is in no danger.”

“So there's more between the two of you?”

“I never said that.” He went on as he purred himself another glass.

“Roy Boy, you are telling me that you’re drinking a young girl’s blood, that both of you enjoy it and that neither of you is romantically involved?”

“We do have something but we haven’t called it official yet.” He replied defeated not sure if his body was warm because of the thought of Riza’s blood or thanks to the welcome alcohol.

“Yet.” His aunt repeated as she scanned him with her gaze.

“What about her father? Wasn’t your alchemy master a Vampire Hunter?”

“Well... He has no idea that Riza knows about my true nature but he is sure I am a vampire. At least that’s what he told her. I don’t know why he hasn’t killed me yet. Maybe he wants to use me as a spy just like the vampires do already.”

“You seem to be handling the situation quite well.” She added half ironically, half-serious.

“Tell me about it.” He answered and yawned as he looked at his reflection in the glass walls of the glass. His eyes were now a dark shade of red, but he was sure that if he were to think of Riza, they would be bright red.

“And the reason you’re here?”

“Me and Riza are going to Dublith. There’s a vampire who will teach me…vampire stuff.” He replied and explained his aunt the fact that Riza would come to Central the next day so they could leave together.

He was tired and not only because of the lack of fulfilling his thirsty needs. He hadn’t slept the previous night thinking again and again about his vampire training, his new master, Riza, and the list could go on. As it was still early, he decided to take a walk down Central’s streets. The light of the day wasn’t lethal to him, but feeling it against his pale skin didn’t make him feel good either. It was like it was slowly burning him, so he kept walking beneath some trees.

Suddenly, a kid’s cry drew his attention toward a little playground. It looked like he had fallen off the swing and his mother was helping him get up and walk towards the bench.

Roy’s senses sharpened. The kid’s knee was scratched and blood was flowing slowly down his leg. Dammit. Roy turned his head away but the strong scent remained stuck in his nose. He had to move away.

He rushed down the street, faintly hearing the boy’s cry. The thought of blood, the scent of blood, were following him everywhere. There were less than 24 hours till Riza would come, why couldn’t he resist to that urge that now seemed so disgusting to him right now. He stopped his fast pace and sat on a bench to breathe a little.

He sighed and started focusing his attention on other things. The cars that were roaring, the people chatting and the lovely cat that was heading towards him. Good. That cat that was holding a bloody bird in its jaws would totally take his mind away from drinking blood. He stood up and decided to rush back to his aunt’s pub and sleep, realizing that his eyes were probably bright red.

He slammed the door of the pub and went up the stairs saying nothing to his aunt who gave him a confused look. He reached his room down the corridor and opened the door. In another case, the nostalgy of his childhood would have made him linger along the bookshelves or study his old desk, but right now all he wanted was to hug the bed and shut his mind and senses off. He didn’t even change his clothes and let himself fall against the large bed.

He buried his face in the pillow and the next second he was already asleep.

At some point at midnight, he opened his eyes, feeling more tired than before. All he had dreamt about had been Riza’s neck and blood, so now a burning thirst was making his throat hurt like hell. He tried drinking water but it was futile. He felt ridiculous. Maybe…maybe hearing Riza’s voice would help him, he thought, eyeing the phone. But it was freaking midnight…

And anyway she would probably sense that something was wrong with him and would worry in vain. The next thing he did was jumping over the window, in the darkness of the night. It was as if his vampire self was controlling him…he would go crazy if he didn’t drink…

His human side was desperately yelling to hold on. A man that was probably heading towards his aunt’s pub was coming from the opposite direction. When the man passed by him, with an inimaginable speed, he pushed the man onto a sideways alley. He started to scream and tried freeing himself but it was futile when it came to Roy’s vampire strength.

“I am sorry…” Roy murmured pathetically before burying his fangs in the man’s skin and covered his mouth to muffle his screams.

When he was finished he hoped that the man was still alive. He had tried not to drink everything. His thoughts weren’t troubling him anymore nd his vampire and human nature weren’t dwelling. All that troubled him was guilt. Not only because he had indeed turned his aunt’s customer into his dinner, but also because he felt as if he had betrayed Riza. He had fed on a stranger instead of waiting a little more for her. He felt sick all of a sudden and felt the blood he had just drunk coming back. He threw it all out and a strong headache started bothering him. Dammit… the whole world started to turn around him and he had no idea what was happening to him. The next thing he knew was that he fell on the ground. His vision was blurry but noticed the man he had fed on getting up and going away as fast as he could.

“I’m a monster…” Roy told himself as everything was darkening slowly. Before he lost it all, a young woman knelt next to him and pressed a warm palm against his cheek.

“Roy, wake up! What happened?”

Before he could answer to Vanessa, he passed out.

#ROYAI IS CANON #let the darkness fall #young royai #Roy x Riza #Roy Mustang #riza hawkeye #FMA #fmab #royai #royai fanfiction #vampire au

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broken-clover · 5 years

Text

Day 7- Hanahaki

Ho-ly shit I am so so late on this. Then again, does anyone even read these things. So despite the initial setback, I have finished! And in hindsight, jesus christ no wonder this took me so long, it’s 3500+ words and I redid it three times. Just something about this prompt, I guess, I dunno. I think for now I’m just gonna work a day behind schedule and try to just double up on an easier day because atm I do not have the energy to do today’s as well. I appreciate your understanding.

Well, onto the fun stuff, today I’m using Axl Low, featuring Sol and Ky as well! Axl is usually a lot of fun since he has a lot of opportunities for angsty stuff but I will admit that writing this actually made me cry a little, so make of that what you will. Oh yeah, and this is X-era/pre-Xrd because cop Ky.

Bonus content warning for vomiting, and I think that should be it but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong

“Watch your head!”

Sol immediately ducked, hearing something whizz past overhead. He wasn’t especially surprised to see a sickle-blade embedded in the tree in front of him. Not that it made him any less annoyed by the sight on it.

“For fuck’s sake, are you trying to kill me?” He stood back up and turned around to give the Brit a good, hard glare. “What the hell are you even doing here?”

“Heh heh...hey, chief.” Axl looked suitably sheepish, still clinging onto the other half of his kusarigama. “Uh, your reflexes are still good?”

The Gear stormed over, clutching the Junkyard Dog with an iron grip. He wasn’t especially happy with the though of being interrupted, especially now when he almost had his head chopped off in the process.

“L-listen, I can explain- !”

Maybe there was a reason, and maybe there wasn’t. In the moment, Sol hadn’t cared. He hadn’t been thinking much at all, really. He simply drew back his hand and punched Axl square in the chest, sending him flying off of his feet and crashing in a tangle of limbs a few feet away.

“Ow…”

“Shit, I-” Whether or not he felt all that bad about it didn’t really matter, he realized that punching someone with the same strength he used to rip open Gears and punch through walls was probably overkill on a regular human. He didn’t need a murder charge, especially on one of the few humans that he found tolerable to be around. “You okay?”

Axl didn’t offer him a reply, though he did slowly untangle himself and sit up, so at least he was definitely alive. He had an odd look on his face, though, and before Sol could ask, he was dry-heaving and scrabbling off towards the nearest bush.

“Dammit.” Sol followed behind at a distance. “I didn’t break anything, did I?”

The only response he got was a wet gag. It was enough of a reply for the time being, and he certainly didn’t want to bother Axl in the middle of that. When the retching finally quieted down, he let himself approach and offer a small pat in the back. “You okay?”

“Nggh- ow, ow-” Axl flopped back on the grass, rubbing the sore spot on his chest. “Jeez, I just know that’s gonna look ugly in the morning.”

“What made you think it was a good idea to sneak up on me?” Sol noticed something peculiar. “And what’s with the flowers?”

Along with the slime that still ran down the corner of his mouth, several little blue blossoms dotted his clothing. It hadn’t been a flowering bush, and he was pretty sure Axl hadn’t had them when he’d first shown up.

The man in question looked no less confused. “That’s what I was trying to find ya for, actually. I-” He paused to cough, and to Sol’s surprise, another small handful of the same blue flowers scattered out onto the dirt, soaked in spit. “I’ve been coughing up these damn things for two days now, and I can’t get them to stop.”

“Why ask me?”

“You’re a smart guy, you know a lot of stuff.” Axl gave him a shaky smile. “Besides, if it’s some weird Gear disease, I wanna know ahead of time before my eyes go red and I start shooting lasers.”

Sol rolled his eyes, hauling the man up to his feet. “Well, you can still crack a joke, so you can’t be that injured.”

“Stop right there!”

Axl stiffened in shock, while the Gear simply groaned at the familiar tone. “Should have known you’d show up at some point, pretty-boy.”

Ky already had a tight grip on the Thunderseal by the time he was visible. Thankfully, he kept it sheathed for the time being, but Axl could see faint blue sparks twinkling on the man’s gloved hand.

“What are you doing here?” The officer asked. “Why are you both here?”

“Tch. Well, I was trying to get the hell out of here.” Sol jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “But this idiot showed up and got in my way.”

At that, Ky leveled an icy glare at Axl. “So, care to explain why you’re here, then?”

“Needed help.” He’d hoped that the fewer words would make it easier to avoid another incident, but he felt something itching in the back of his throat. Before he knew it, he was shaking from another coughing fit, with more wet, slimy flowers coming up with it.

“What on earth…?” Ky’s stern expression faded. “Sol, what is the meaning of this?”

“You’re asking me.” He replied, giving Axl a thump on the back to help clear out some of the flowers. “He won’t stop puking them up.”

“WHAT?!” The officer dropped his hold on his sword to try and pull Axl to his feet. “What are you just standing around, Sol?! Did it never occur to you to find some sort of medical professional?”

“The fuck?” So scowled. “You know some back-alley witch doing dark magic?”

Ky flashed an impish smile. “No, but I know Dr. Faust has been spotted downtown today, and he seems to be the go-to for this kind of problem. Come along now, sir…”

“We’re going to him?” The feeling of the world spinning as he stood up made Axl gag again. “Don’t suppose I could get a second opinion?”

++++++

“Hmm. Well, there’s no other way to say this. There’s a plant in your lungs.”

“Revelation of the century.” Sol tried to pull out a cigarette and light it, only for Faust to immediately pluck it out of his fingers. “Hey!”

“No smoking in my office.” It was really more of a dilapidated warehouse, but Faust had still set up a nice little arrangement in it. “Based on the scan I took, it appears that the roots have settled into the pleura and have branched out into your lungs. Based on the symptoms I’ve seen, it appears that you’ve contracted Hanahaki Disease, Mr. Low.”

“Hanahaki Disease?” Ky asked, the confusion thick in his voice. “I’ve never heard of that.”

“It’s a magic-based disease, as far as I know. Though it’s not well researched.” Faust sat down in his chair, tapping his fingers. “It’s theorized that the source is some kind of desire that can’t be fulfilled. It’s most commonly interpreted as one-sided love, though some say it can also apply places that you can’t go back to, or things that no longer exist. I suppose it makes sense, given the flowers you keep coughing up.” He held up one of them. “Forget-me-nots.”

“Well, that’s not hard to guess.” Sol’s expression didn’t change. “You want to go home, don’t you?”

“Of- of course I do!” Axl had to pause to spit up a few more small blossoms. “Wait a minute, ‘unrequited?’”

“That’s most common, yes.”

His face fell. “B-but- but Megumi, she-” with a strangled noise, he buried his head in his hands. “S-she can’t have forgotten about me…”

“It’s possible that with so much time spent away from your era, her feelings have waned.”

“So what sort of treatment is available for a condition like this?” Ky inquired. “How can the plant be removed?”

“That’s not something I’m sure of right now.” The doctor said. “I’m afraid since information is so scarce, I’d need to draft a plan by myself. You don’t need to stay here, I should be able to work with just the scan.”

Axl still looked downtrodden. “But if it’s tied to my memories of home, won’t it just grow back if you take it out?”

Faust sighed. “I’ll admit, I’m not sure. But it can’t stay where it is. You could choke on those flowers. And I fear the sort of damage all that coughing could do to your throat. I’ll try and figure out a way to remove it from you, surgically or not, but for now, there’s not much I can offer in terms of help.”

They were barely able to step out of the building before Axl pitched over again to vomit up more bloodstained flowers. Sol merely gave him a pat on the back with a warm hand, while Ky stood behind awkwardly. When it finally subsided, Axl didn’t get up.

“What am I gonna do…?” He was always the optimist, or at least tried to be. But what was there to be optimistic about here? The concept of going home in the first place was nigh-impossible, Megumi had probably moved on without him, and even Faust had no idea how to get rid of the plant.

“I’m sure there’s something.” Of the three of them, Ky seemed to be the only one that had any energy to him. “There’s a solution, we just need to find it!”

“What can I do? I can’t go home, I don’t know if Faust can take this thing out, and for all I know, Megumi doesn’t care about me anymore!”

The other man faltered slightly. “I-I’m sure Faust will be able to fix it. Getting worked up is just going to tire you out. Maybe you should go home and rest? Where are you staying?”

“Nowhere.” Sol dragged Axl to his feet, though neither of them looked especially happy about it. “Wherever I can afford.”

Got a small place over on Brooke.” The Gear shrugged. “Y’can crash there, I guess. Not like I’m using it much.”

For a moment, Axl actually perked up. “Really? Thanks, chief, that...that actually means a lot.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, let’s just get you home before people start staring.”

++++++

A gloved hand reached up to deliver a hard knock on the door. “Sol? Are you home?”

“Yeah, come in.”

“My hands are full, can you open it for me?”

He tried not to roll his eyes as the irritated grumbles that the barrier muffled. The door swung open, revealing a less-than-pleased Sol. “Hope you were planning on sharing that.”

“Well, I can’t exactly eat a whole gratin myself, can I? I brought it to share.” Spotting a small, rickety table in the corner, Ky stepped inside and deposited the dish onto it, along with the heavy satchel he’d been carrying. “Has he been eating?”

“Barely leaves his room. Haven’t seen him eat anything today, at least.”

“I told him to stop doing that.” He shook his head in dismay. There were two doors on the opposite end of the small living space. Ky approached the closed one and knocked on it. “Are you awake?”

“Mphh.” The noise was unintelligible even before being muffled by blankets and the door.

“I’ve brought some things for you. Would you like to come out and eat something?”

“...okay.”

When the door opened, Ky had to force himself to not immediately look concerned. Axl was haggard and bedraggled, looking like he’d just peeled himself out of bed, but the dark circles around his eyes said he hadn’t been getting any real rest out of it. A few blue petals still clung to the front of him, which he brushed off.

“G’morning, sleeping beauty.” Sol half-nodded, not getting up from his spot on the couch. “Get any sleep last night?”

“What do you think?” Ky winced at how hoarse the response was. “Up all night trying not to choke.”

The officer started spooning out some food for everyone. “So, not feeling any better?”

“Take a wild guess.” Replied Axl, picking off the last of the flowers. “Can barely get any sleep, can barely keep anything down.”

“Well, might as well try to eat something, anyway.” Ky offered him a plate. “At the least, it might help distract you for a bit.”

He looked unconvinced, but Axl still took what the food. As soon as he took the first tentative taste of it, he began wolfing it down like a starving animal. Ky smiled. “I guess it’s good then, huh?”

“F-fuck, can’t remember the last time I’ve had something like that.” It took him a significant amount of effort just to pull himself away from it to speak, and Axl immediately went back to gorging himself on the food. “You made this yourself?”

“That’s right.” The officer looked pleased with himself. “One of my mother’s old recipes. Macaroni gratin makes for an excellent comfort food.”

“Shit, you’re telling me! Nice to eat something warm, too. I dunno what it is, I just feel cold all the time, no matter what I do.”

Sol quirked an eyebrow. “Y’know you could have just asked me, right?” He placed a hand on the other’s back, leaving small trails of heat as he dragged his fingers across trembling shoulders.

Though Axl leaned into his touch, he still looked perturbed. “You don’t usually act like this, chief…” He smiled anxiously. “What, am I finally gonna die?”

Ky glanced off uncomfortably. “Well, not that. But I do also have an update from Faust.”

“What? So what’s Dr. Baldy got to say?”

“It’s safe to do the surgery, he said, and it shouldn’t grow back again.”

Just like that, Axl was out of his chair, looking more energetic than he had in days. “Well, then what’re we waiting for? L-let’s go-!”

Sol pulled a bucket out from underneath the coffee table, shoving it in place before the ensuing wave of flowers and half-digested macaroni could make a mess on the floor. He pulled Axl back onto the couch, kneading more warmth into his back.

“That’s not all there is to it, though.” Ky’s expression went grim. “According to historical accounts of the disease, if the plant is removed forcefully, it will also remove all emotional connections to the source of it, as well as the memories regarding it. Faust himself said that he couldn’t guarantee the results, but there’s a chance that-”

“-I could forget everything about home?” And just like that, all the hope and light in his eyes vanished. His shoulders sagged, dirty blonde hair drooping down to his lap. “No. No, I can’t do that.”

“Axl, please, I beg you to consider it.” Ky pleaded. “I know the circumstances are unfavorable, but it’s the only possibility you have to recover from this.”

The room went quiet once more. It hit a point where Ky wasn’t sure if he’d even been heard in the first place, and he wondered if he needed to say it again.

“...Then I won’t.”

“You’re being an idiot.” Surprisingly, Sol managed to beat Ky to the punch. “Why would you choose to do this?”

Axl reared up to glare at him. “If I left everything I had of home behind, what would I even be left with? I’m broke and homeless half the time, hoping to go home was all I had left!”

Ky sprang out of his chair, not caring about the mess being made as his plate hit the floor. “That doesn’t mean you should throw away any hope for the future! We could help you find someplace to be in this world, give you a new life to live! I’m sure there’s a place you can belong.”

“You don’t get it!” The man snapped. “I wouldn’t just be losing parts of me, I’d be losing almost everything! Would I remember how to function? Would I remember anything important?? I-” Axl sighed, making a few quiet coughs. “You two are the only ones that care about me in this stupid fucking world. ‘n even then, I can’t say that for sure. Maybe you’re just being nice to me because you know I’m fucked. It’s better than nothing.”

The officer reached out to him. “Please, you don’t have to-”

“LEAVE ME ALONE!”

With how quickly and suddenly he stood up, neither Sol nor Ky could stop Axl before he ran off to the bathroom, dry heaving all the way. By the time they were capable of running after him, the door slammed shut, with the lock clicking immediately after.

“Dammit, open the door!” Sol banged a fist against it, making the wood creak.

Ky reached for the knob, only to flinch back with a cry as the metal turned hot and began to shift. “Is he melting the handle?!”

“Axl, stop acting like a stupid kid!”

No reply. All they could make out was the sound of vomiting, soon accompanied by weak sobs. Ky let his hand rest on the door, though he didn’t try to open it again.

“Why would he be so insistent? Why would someone choose to die if they had another choice?”

Sol’s expression was hard to read. “Just not something you can understand, kid. The crusades might have been hell, but at least there was something to go back to in the end. Some people value memories more than others. If that’s all he’s got, why would he want to give it up?”

It was an unusually poetic sentiment, especially from someone like Sol. Ultimately, all Ky could do was shake his head. “This isn’t a decision I can make for him. I don’t have to like it, but I suppose I can’t force him to reconsider.”

“Never thought I’d hear that from you of all people, boy-scout.”

He wanted to be mad, but that required an energy that he no longer had. The muffled gagging started again in the sealed room.

“Still, I don’t feel like I can just give up. How can I walk away from this?”

After a moment of thought, an idea came to him. Ky stepped off, back towards the table with the rest of the food and the heavy bag. Grabbing the latter, he brought it back with him.

He gave the door another soft knock. “Axl? Can you hear me alright?”

The retching had gone quiet. “Don’t you have somewhere better to be? Why are you still here?”

Ky settled back down next to the door. “Because nobody deserves to suffer alone.”

He pulled out a book from his satchel, thumbing through until he found something. “Have you ever read Chaucer?”

“No.”

“Is it alright if I read a poem? I know some people find his work a bit dry, but I feel like being stuck in that bathroom will get very boring.”

“Y-you…” Something shuffled behind the door. “You’re just trying to get me to come out, aren’t you?”

“Not at all.” Replied Ky. “I just want to give you a bit of company.”

“...Is chief still there, too?”

“Yeah, blondie, I’m here.” Sol let himself sit down as well, rapping his knuckles against the wall. “Need some kinda proof?”

“Ok. Ok, fine. Read your poetry, or whatever. I can’t stop you.”

Ky smiled. “Your two great eyes will slay me suddenly…”

His tone was clear and strong as he read from the book, gesturing with his free hand at certain words. The apartment was quiet, aside from Ky’s poetry and the occasional round of coughing. Those were the only times when his voice faltered, sometimes going quiet until the noise eased up before starting where he had left off.

At some point, Sol had rolled his eyes and made enough quips about the flowery language that Ky had threatened to throw the book at his head. Sol had simply offered better stories, and barely waited for a reply before launching into his own tales, involving bounty hunts and incidents that had resulted in him getting chased out of towns by angry mobs. At one point, they could hear faint laughter from the other end, the first time Axl had done so in a long time, and the only noise he’d made aside from coughing.

The fits of noise grew more frequent, until it interrupted each story several times. There was a point where neither man paused speaking when they heard it. They simply kept going, passing songs and poems and anecdotes underneath the door for hours upon hours.

Eventually, the sun was far beyond the horizon, and the noise had faded. They’d continued to talk, until Ky trailed off halfway through an elegy.

“Axl?”

When no sound came, the man’s expression slipped into something solemn. He stood back up, joints cracking from the lack of movement. A hand rested on what had once been the doorknob.

He sent a look to his companion. “Can you help me with this, please?”

Sol ripped off the malformed hunk of metal, and the door swung open easily after that. Axl was sprawled out motionless on the floor, surrounded by bloody flower petals. Ky bit back a noise, instead merely kneeling down and feeling the man’s neck.

“Dead. But still warm. If it’s a rare disease, I wonder if Faust…”

In a way, Sol didn’t even look shaken. But his expression was strained, in a way that only Ky knew how to recognize from knowing him so long.

“...No.” Ky shook his head. “The government offers funeral services for those who can’t afford it. I’m sure something nice can be provided for him.”

“Kid.” Sol’s tone was a low, dangerous rumble. “Shut up.”

“I’m sorry, Sol. You knew him better than I did, I can’t imagine how you feel.”

“I said shut up.” He nudged a handful of petals with the toe of his boot. “Why are these ones different?”

“What?”

The flowers were scattered all over the floor, in piles and in heaps. But closer to the center of the room, near where Axl had been, the flowers began to change. Rather than the small, blue flowers, they had become larger, alternating in colors of red-orange and off-white with violet streaks.

“Huh? Hold on a moment, I know these.” Ky reached across the floor, picking up one of the mangled white flowers. “My mother used to grow these. The white ones are gladiolus. ‘Sword lilies.’ And the red ones, I think she used to call them fire...lilies…”

A dawning realization glimmered in his eyes. “Are these….because of us?”

“So it wasn’t all that useless, then.”

Ky couldn’t bring himself to chastise him. “Yeah, I- I guess it wasn’t, was it?”

And yet, it didn't make either of them feel any better.

#blood tw #vomiting #hanahaki #writing #goretober #goretober 2019 #guilty gear #Axl Low #sol badguy #Ky Kiske #also #I never want to write the word flowers again

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faean · 5 years

Text

Bakugou Katsuki x G. Neutral Reader

Rating: T+; Language and Mild Sexual Content

Word Length: 2,513

Title: Confessions, Not Explosions

A soft beep echoed throughout your bedroom, drawing you from your light slumber. It came from your phone, resting on the nightstand beside you. Sluggishly lifting yourself from the plush comfort of the bed, you reach over to your phone, curious about who could be texting you so early in the morning.

It was none other than Bakugou Katsuki, the man and pro hero with whom you are having a date with later that evening. In his signature fashion, he had wished you a ‘good morning’ and reminded you that he will be picking you up in the evening; although he neglected to give a specific time. Until his next text arrived, stating you should dress in ‘formal wear’ and that he will arrive at six.

He was certainly getting better at keeping his temper under control, but he did slip into a few swears now and again; evident by how he mentioned you looked ‘abso-fucking-lutely gorgeous’ in your crimson wear, embroidered silver with a matching neck piece. To be fair, you think he likes it because it matches his eyes, or because it was specially made to hug your body while still being flexible (there was an accident with a villain attack during a party in which they got away due to it being too restraining).

Pushing yourself out of bed, you head down stairs to the kitchen to prepare a small breakfast. You’ve plenty of time to get ready, and, if need be, you can just use your quirk to show up at the restaurant; well, you think you’re going to a restaurant, but with Bakugou, you could very well end up raiding a hideout. Ah, well. You’ve known him for years, and the least you can expect is something eventful.

Most of the morning was occupied by your normal routine: Training with your quirk; exercising; partaking in some creative hobbies; reading. It was interrupted by the occasional text from your date, mostly compliments in the classic style of Bakugou. It was flattering, but you had a small bit of dread in the pit of your stomach.

You have faced down monsters and villains. You were present during the villain attack on U.A., you witnessed the fight between All Might and All for One, you even traveled across the world, acting as support for other heroes and being a guest at numerous academies. But the thought of going on a date with one of the best heroes, whom you’ve been enamored with since you first met him at U.A. when you were both students, terrified you.

The two of you were fair foils; he was competitive, aggressive, and rude, while you were compromising, passive, and had a joking nature. Most people thought the two of you were worst enemies, but when it got out that Bakugou had a crush on you, you were unable to accept it. He was a skilled fighter and had such a determined soul (and he has only become greater) that you thought you’d never be good enough for him. But after years of excuses and lingering glances, he finally caught you off guard, and you decided it wouldn’t hurt for a single date.

Of course, as the evening drew near, your mind began to race to how the night may unfold; soon you were torn between a sensual ending in bed with the man who made off with your heart, or the date being interrupted by an attack and your life coming to an end.

With a chuckle and a sigh, you headed towards the bathroom to clean up and get dressed for your date. Although, whilst washing yourself, your phone went off (again), and it was a call from Bakugou. Fortunately, it was to inform you that he was taking you to your favorite restaurant in the whole city. Unfortunately, he heard the running water and made a comment of how he would enjoy sharing a relaxing bath with you after a long day of hero work. Thanking him for taking you out and checking up on you, you ended the call to finish getting ready. However, after his comment, you grew hyper aware of how empty the bath felt.

It was finally six, and a knock came from the door on the hour. Flattening out any creases in your clothing on the short walk to the door, you took a deep breath to steady your nerves. It wasn’t enough to prepare you for the sight of Bakugou.

He looked, for the lack of a better word, beautiful. His suit and tie mirrored you, with a silky silver base, and velvety red tie and embroidery. You always thought he looked handsome, but now, in that suit, he looked divine. Quite literally, too. And he noticed it right away; then again, you were shamelessly gawking and may have (you did) audibly moaned (it didn’t help that it accentuated some certain… areas, that you were already fond of staring at).

With a proud smile, Bakugou teased, “Like what you see?”

Not willing to be outdone, you gained a small bit of confidence and gave him a quick peck on the check and sauntered off to his car, calling over your shoulder “I’d probably like you more after a delicious meal and a glass of wine!”

Unbeknownst to you, as you made your way to the car, Bakugou was holding a soft gaze with your figure, a warm smile on his lips and one thought going through his mind- Thank you.

It was a relatively short drive, but that didn’t stop Bakugou from resting his hand on your thigh during the entire drive. At first, you were worried about him not driving properly (after all, you were both heroes), but it became relaxing. Until another driver cut him off and he began… mumbling? It was still a string of swears and he did flip off the other driver, but… honestly, seeing him restrain himself was endearing (and kinda hot).

After a few more minutes, you arrived at the restaurant. Attempting to be gentlemanly, Bakugou opened your door (after “slyly” closing it the few inches you had opened it), took your arm in his, and led you inside. You wore a sweet smile and were actually feeling at ease at the thought of finally going on a date (with Bakugou, of course, but it was your first date in general, too). It was certain to go well.

You and Bakugou were walking down the streets of Musutafu, having finished your dinner date and wanting to visit the park. To break the silence between you both, you decided to give your thoughts on the date.

“I had a wondrous time, Bakugou, I certainly should have accepted sooner.”

“Dumbass, you can call me Bakugou. And hell yeah, you should’ve accepted sooner!” he barked, before realizing it sounded harsh and corrected himself. “Err… I really do appreciate you finally going on a date with me, but… why did it take you so damn long?”

A small blush dusted your cheeks as you muttered, “I thought I wouldn’t be good enough for you…”

Katsuki stopped dead in his tracks, and you turned to face him, worried you said something wrong. He was just staring, dumbfounded, with his crimson eyes wide, unable to comprehend what you just said. It took a few moments, but he finally managed to speak, and he spoke deliberately, trying not to swear too much.

“(Y/N), I didn’t mean to-” He was cut off by the sound of screams as a villain attack was in progress nearby.

With a heavy sigh, you trudged off towards the screams. Naturally, you wanted to help whoever was in danger and capture the villain, but both you and Katsuki were not to be patrolling today, and were on a date, and he was just about to reveal something to you. However, getting into the mindset you needed for hero work, you and Katsuki took off.

Fortunately, it was just a minor robbery. Unfortunately, the robbers were well equipped and prepared for a scuffle. It wasn’t too much of a fight, though, as the two you were a remarkable team (once again, despite what people would think) and were amongst the top heroes in Japan. But, when they nicked Katsuki and ripped his suit, your earlier worry of the night ending with blood kicked in. Making use of the versatility of your quick you charged in haphazardly, ignoring most anything to take out the remaining robbers.

Once you settled down, and the police arrived, you noticed how many rips and tears your outfit sported; it was actually quite revealing. Without so much as a word, Katsuki casually slung you over his shoulder and traversed back to the car. Your pouting and wriggling was immediately stopped when he spanked you on the walk, your face matching the color of your outfit.

After placing you gently in the passenger seat, Katsuki began the drive back to your house. The drive was silent, but you caught him glancing at you occasionally, lingering on the parts of your outfit where skin was showing; which was a lot.

By the time you were standing in your doorframe, you were uncertain about what to do. Should you invite him in? Do you give him a goodnight’s kiss? What was it that he was going to tell you? So many questions began to arise that you didn’t notice when he pulled you into a tight hug.

Leaning into his warmth, you felt comforted, and your heart raced when he quietly whispered into your ear. “(Y/N), I wanted to tell you… You were never not good enough for me. You were smart and caring and such an amazing fighter that… dammit. I was already an asshole to everyone, and I just couldn’t figure out how to make you like me; I ended up fucking everything up. I’m… I’m sorry.”

You couldn’t bring yourself to look into his eyes, as yours were beginning to prick with tears. Settling for resting your chin on his shoulder, you let out a long, contented sigh.

“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we, Katsuki? Ah… If only we weren’t such a mess back in class, we probably would’ve been on a number of dates, and maybe even better heroes.” Turning to give him a soft kiss, you melted in his touch and the luxurious feeling of his lips on yours. Pulling away, you leant your foreheads together, a smile painting your face as you breathed “I think I prefer your lips over the cake at the restaurant.”

For the first time that night, you saw him actually blush, and his hands started to produce a few sparks (which only happens when he is overcome with an emotion). He averted his gaze and just grumbled that ‘we should probably go inside.’ Realizing that, not only were the two of you still outside, you were essentially half-naked. Fumbling to get your keys and open the door, you stepped inside, closely followed by Katsuki.

However, before you could do more than close the door, Katsuki pulled you to him, holding you close as he led you to your room (which felt odd). When the two of you got to the room, he helped you change out of your ruined clothing and into some sweats and a tee. It was a tad embarrassing, as it was the first time anyone has ever seen you in your underclothing since you were at U.A. Although, to make you feel better, he stripped, too, and donned some old sweats you had around. But, one, you were blushing madly at how much of his muscular body you could stare at; and two, the sweats were a bit thin and tight, and fit him more like leggings (you silently cursed and/or blessed yourself for being leaner and more toned rather than muscular).

Once you two were changed, you moved to bed, and Katsuki wrapped his arms around you, drawing you into a warm embrace. For you, you had never felt more comfortable. Nuzzling into his chest, your legs tangling with his, you sighed softly, grateful for how everything has gone today. Until he spoke.

“You know, (Y/N), you looked pretty damn hot when you were fighting off those thugs. Especially when that tight outfit of yours was ripped and revealed all that lovely toned skin. I wanted to mark you and make you mine.”

Rolling yourself on top of him, chin on his chest as you looked up into his eyes, you responded rather bluntly, expertly hiding your urge to giggle. “Katsuki, I swear to whatever god will take pity on you, if you try to get into my pants on the first date, I will not hesitate to beat your ass and surpass your hero status.”

Meeting your gaze, Katsuki held the stare, only for you to drop it first as he had sneaked his hands to your ass and groped you. Meeting his forwardness once again, you held yourself up, palms on either side of his face as you leaned in close.

“Bakugou Katsuki, did you really think I’d succumb to your whims so easily? You haven’t even asked me to be your partner, yet you’re already acting as though we’ve been married for several years.”

Flashing a toothy smile, he pulled you down into a deep kiss and slipped his tongue in, dancing along with yours as you pressed your body against his.

Breaking away from the kiss, Katsuki gave a quick peck on your lips before nuzzling into your neck, mumbling “I wouldn’t mind if we got married…”

That caught you off guard. Sitting back and straddling his waist, you pulled him up after you, so you now sat in his lap. Mustering your strength, you took a deep breath before responding. “I truly do you love you, Katsuki; even if you can be abrasive. And, I’ll admit… I may have entertained that idea.”

You wore a toothy grin, but soon feared what your words may have summoned as Katsuki’s eyes had a mischievous gleam and his lips were turned up into a cocky smile. “Katsuki, whatever you’re thinking-”

“Aww, but (Y/N), I want to know what other ideas you ‘entertained.’ Did you ever think of how our honeymoon would go? Or how the night would end?”

“Katsuki, continue these questions and I can assure you, you will not survive long enough for us to have a honeymoon.”

“Does that mean you’re asking me to marry you?”

Letting out a small chuckle, you sighed as you leaned into him, arms around his neck. “I walked into that, didn’t I?”

Falling back onto the bed, dragging you with him, Katsuki nuzzled into your cheek, placing a few soft kisses along you jaw and down your neck. “I didn’t hear a no…”

Snuggling closer into his embrace, you mumble your answer into his chest as you begin to drift off into a deep sleep. The last thing you feel is Katsuki placing a kiss atop your head, his heart beating steadily, and his arms around you.

#katsuki bakugou #kacchan #bnha #mha #gender neutral reader #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha bakugou #enjoy you heathens

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vulcan-highblood · 6 years

Text

Not All Heroes Wear Capes 3/3

BNHA: BakuDeku Fake-Dating AU

Rating: T

Warnings: Kacchan’s Potty Mouth

Chapter: 3 / 3

Words: 2.9k

Summary: When Kacchan offered to scare off pushy groupies and nosy reporters for Izuku, he hadn’t realized that Kacchan was planning to lie about the two of them being in a relationship in order to do so.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Deku’s hand felt really nice, captured neatly in his grasp, Katsuki noted absently, following his GPS down the road. He was about ninety percent certain that he was going the right direction, but with all the tall buildings around, he couldn’t completely trust that it was leading him the right way. Katsuki drew up short at a crosswalk, glancing over at Deku, surprised to realize that Deku was watching him closely. He had a slight wrinkle between his eyebrows, indicating that he was thinking about something, though, he wasn’t thinking hard enough to start his mumbling just yet. Katsuki raised one of his eyebrows at him, then turned back to the crosswalk just as the light changed and they were able to cross the street, Deku willingly bobbing along behind him.

The whole “pretend we’re dating” thing had worked wonders in some areas, but seemed to be failing miserably on other fronts. For one thing, Katsuki was ecstatic at the amount of time he’d been able to spend with Deku. He’d also enjoyed having an easy excuse to fall back on, and although Kirishima seemed suspicious, none of their other classmates seemed too suspicious of the amount of time he and Deku had been spending together. Sure, they were confused, but they knew better than to bother Katsuki with their questions.

Although… did that mean they were just bothering Deku instead? Fuck, maybe he should check in and make sure their classmates weren’t bothering him, it was no good to keep off the paparazzi if Deku was being mercilessly bothered at school and his internship, instead.

He’d already given several painful interviews to dogged reporters (not that Izuku knew this), and had thrown out just a few tantalizing details for each reporter to make use of. He’d used actual events, just to ensure that if the reporters verified the stories by asking around, his classmates or other people would be able to validate the claims. After all, he had made Deku lunch, they’d gone out a few times, studied together, and all the other things he’d told reporters.

He hoped there wouldn't be any reporters around the exhibition, but he wasn't stupid, he knew there would be, and he’d just have to remind them to save the interviews for later, when he wasn't in the middle of a date.

Which reminded him of another issue he’d encountered. As much as he was enjoying spending time with Deku, it seemed that Deku was, at best, putting up with him. He didn't take any initiative, all of his plans were with his friends, and he only spent time with Katsuki when Katsuki told him they were going to spend time together. It was… frustrating, and even though Katsuki knew it was because Deku was a terrible liar and didn't know that Katsuki was genuinely interested in spending time with him, it still stung a little. While Katsuki liked setting the pace in a relationship, dammit, he wanted to be pursued, too! He wanted to see Deku want to go out with him, not just put up with spending time together. It was getting harder for Katsuki to stay invested in their farce of a relationship, if only because it was infuriating to see all his hard work go unacknowledged and unappreciated. He was putting so much more time and effort into this than Deku, and all he was getting in return was Deku’s passivity and vague willingness to go along with whatever Katsuki wanted, so long as it wasn't a terrible inconvenience.

Katsuki glanced back at Deku again, noticing the way his eyes sparkled as they neared the mall where the Hero Exhibit was located - at least he looked fucking excited for this, he was tired of Deku’s longsuffering glances and stifled sighs whenever they did something together. Today, they were going to have a real fucking date. And it was going to be fucking. perfect.

Izuku felt his excitement grow as they walked into the mall, unconsciously squeezing Kacchan’s hand so hard that the other boy shot a half-irritated glare in his direction. He sent a half-embarrassed look his way and mouthed the word ‘sorry’ at Kacchan, who rolled his eyes in response but didn't bother to let go of Izuku’s hand as he dragged him towards the escalators.

As soon as they reached the exhibit, Izuku let out a sharp gasp, his free hand covering his mouth. There were several variants of the All Might costume through the years, just standing there in display cases! It was amazing!

He surged forward, barely noticing that he was dragging Kacchan along behind him, peering at the plaques describing each costume and the time period worn… though as a huge fan of All Might, these were details with which Izuku was already quite familiar. He continued to drag Kacchan through the entire exhibit, and was shocked to realize that, upon finally peeling himself away from the final display case, he was starving. He hadn't expected looking at hero displays to work up much of an appetite, so it took him by surprise. Then he saw the clock on the wall. He gaped at it disbelievingly. “That clock isn’t right, is it?” he asked Kacchan, only to recognize the look of strained longsuffering on his childhood friend’s face.

“Yeah, because the mall doesn't know how to fucking set a digital clock,” Kacchan snorted sarcastically before shaking his head. “Yeah, it’s one forty-five, you goddamn nerd. We just spent almost four fucking hours in there.”

Izuku blanched a little, feeling his excitement drain away as he realized that he’d just dragged Kacchan around what had probably seemed like a boring exhibit for almost half the day. “Oh. I’m sor-”

“But,” Kacchan interrupted Izuku smoothly, “Because I’m fucking excellent at planning dates, I expected you to nerd out while we were here, so we’re actually about fifteen minutes ahead of schedule!” His scarlet eyes gazed down at Izuku, a confident smirk tugging at his handsome features.

Izuku stared at him. “You really accounted for four hours of this?”

“Hell yeah I did,” Kacchan bragged, before changing the subject. “You hungry?”

Izuku nodded. “I imagine you have a plan for that too?”

“Damn straight,” Kacchan replied. Now it was his turn to tug on Izuku’s hand, leading them off through the mall.

Absently, Izuku realized they’d been holding hands the whole time they'd been in the exhibit, and Kacchan hadn't once demanded they stop. His grip held a familiar, almost comforting weight to it as their hands swung between them while they walked. For several minutes, they strolled in the direction of lunch, exiting the mall and taking a few side streets before Kacchan tugged him into a katsu shop that smelled heavenly from the moment Kacchan pulled the door open and they walked inside. They found their seats, and Izuku found himself feeling almost bereaved when he had to drop Kacchan’s hand, seating himself across from the blonde, who was already eyeing the menu.

Taking a moment to glance through the menu himself, Izuku quickly noticed that they advertised katsudon as one of their most popular dishes, and he found himself staring at Kacchan once more. Kacchan knew his favorite food? Had he ever said? But Kacchan also knew he liked sweet foods and cinnamon, so why did he keep feeling surprised when Kacchan noticed something else?

Because it was all a lie, Izuku realized suddenly, feeling as though the world around him had just come to a screeching halt. Kacchan was faking this, pretending to be the best goddamn boyfriend ever, and it was just to trick a couple of pushy reporters! Izuku had dreamed of dating, had only just dared to hope that someone might one day care enough for him to take him on dates like this - but now it felt like a cruel joke, too much like so many other things he’d hoped for and was still so far from attaining.

By the time a third drop landed on his menu, Izuku realized with horror that he was crying. Ducking behind the menu, Izuku fought frantically to get his emotions under control, but the panic just seemed to make his tears come harder and faster.

“I think I’m gonna try the togarashi-crusted katsu with spicy miso sauce,” Bakugou commented from behind his own menu, sounding nonchalant. “What about you?”

Izuku swallowed frantically, trying to force the tears out of his voice as he croaked, “Katsudon.”

Kacchan's menu was on the table in an instant. “The fuck is wrong, Deku?” he demanded, a note of panic edging into his tone. Because of course, if anyone were to recognize the sound of Izuku's crying voice, it would be him. But instead of criticizing him, or calling him a crybaby, Kacchan sounded genuinely concerned. “Don’t you like it here? We can go somewhere else,” he suggested hurriedly.

“No, this place is perfect!” Izuku punctuated the statement with a hiccupy half-sob he tried to smother behind his hand, with marginal success. “Too perfect,” he tacked on plaintively, trying hard to fight back a second wave of tears threatening to fall. God, he was pathetic. Was he really that desperate for a real relationship that he couldn't handle faking it anymore?

No, Izuku realized faintly, it wasn't just the trickery getting to him. Kacchan was getting to him. Because, he was slowly realizing, he liked this. The feel of Kacchan’s soft digits against his own rough palm. The way the blonde looked so smugly self-satisfied when he made Izuku lunch. His careful planning and attention to detail… and it was all. A. Fucking. Lie.

Still hiding desperately behind his menu, Izuku clapped a hand over his mouth to trap the sob building in his throat, but Kacchan could tell something was wrong, and the urgency in his tone belied actual concern when he spoke again. “Deku, what the fuck? Are you okay? Should we go? We can just go,” he said, and he’d planned a whole damn day for the two of them and here Izuku was, ruining all of Kacchan’s hard work because he’d had the sudden epiphany that he actually liked dating Kacchan! And Kacchan would never like him back! Izuku fought down a wail with concerted effort. He couldn't ruin this date, Kacchan had worked so hard -

And then Kacchan was next to him, arm curled protectively around his shoulders, a napkin dabbing at tear-tracked cheeks. “Fucking Deku,” Kacchan murmured, “You didn't have to come if it upset you this much,” and there was a gentleness in his tone that made Izuku’s stomach clench and he turned to glare at Kacchan.

“Don't,” he hissed, voice rough with tears yet-unshed.

Kacchan pulled away slightly, taking his arm carefully away from Izuku’s shoulders. “What?” he asked, sounding almost nervous. “I thought you liked hugs.”

“I do,” Izuku admitted, his voice strangled, “but not when it’s all a lie,” his voice broke on the last word.

Kacchan didn't move for a moment before he carefully asked, “The fuck do you mean, lie? What lie?”

“All of this!” Izuku snapped, suddenly growing angry. “The dates, the attention, the, the doting, spending time together… I’m tired of the lies!”

Kacchan stiffened a little, not speaking for a moment. When his voice finally emerged, it sounded a little more gruff than usual. “What would you say if-” he cut himself off, trying again, “How would you feel-” again, Kacchan paused, collecting his thoughts. “What if it wasn't a lie?” he asked softly.

Izuku barked out a sharp laugh before he could catch himself. “That’s pointless to think about,” he said, “Because that's all this is, a lie.”

“But what if it wasn't?” Kacchan’s tone was full of urgency as he said it, and Izuku turned to look at him, confused.

“What do you mean, ‘if it wasn't’?” Izuku scowled, “It is, so it doesn't-”

“Oh my fucking god, ” Kacchan spat, “Shut the hell up, Deku,” and he seized Izuku’s chin with one hand, his other snaking around the back of Izuku’s neck, and pulled him into a sudden, ferocious kiss.

Izuku’s eyes nearly popped out of his sockets, his back stiffening as he dropped the menu he’d been holding at the sudden shock.

It wasn't like he’d always heard it was supposed to be - no sparks flew, he didn't feel tingly all over, and honestly his lips kind of hurt because he thought maybe Kacchan had hit his lips hard enough to draw blood from knocking them into his teeth, and then Kacchan licked him, and Izuku’s mouth dropped open in shock, and wow. This sort of thing was a lot more wet than Izuku had been lead to believe, and Kacchan’s hand had shifted from his chin to rest on his chest, though that did feel pretty nice, now that he thought about it, and-

Kacchan pulled back, panting, and scrubbed away excess saliva with the back of his hand. He had a near-panicked look in his eyes. “Shit,” he rasped, scooting backwards, “I didn't mean to - I mean hell yes I’ve wanted to do that for fucking months now, but -” His face was growing paler by the second, “Shit, I fucked up, dammit,” he was practically falling out of the booth at this point, scrambling to his feet, and Izuku finally realized what was happening.

He hadn't kissed Kacchan back. Not even a little. He’d just sat there, unresponsive and slack-jawed. And Kacchan was taking that as a sign that Izuku wasn't interested - which meant that continuing their apparently not as fake as he thought date would now stretch even further into awkward territory.

Kacchan was already up and stepping backwards when Izuku lunged forward, catching his sleeve between his forefinger and his thumb. “Wait!” he demanded, “Don't go, I wasn't ready, that’s all.” He stared defiantly up at Kacchan, steeling his nerves. “Kiss me again.”

Katsuki stared down at Deku for a moment, not sure he’d heard him right. “Fucking what?” he demanded breathlessly.

“Kiss me again!” Deku insisted, “I didn't do it right the first time.”

Fucking hell, Katsuki was so tired of putting in all of the work in this fucking relationship! He sat down heavily, glaring at Deku before finally replying with, “No.”

Deku blinked in surprise. “No?”

“Hell no,” Katsuki clarified, though from the look on Deku’s face it looked as though he might need to provide a few more specifics, or at least explain why not.

Deku’s face was reddening, though Katsuki couldn't be sure if it was due to embarrassment or anger. “But,” Deku protested, “you just did it less than thirty seconds ago!”

“I’m tired of putting in all the work to make this relationship happen,” Katsuki explained, “So if you want it, then you gotta fuckin’ kiss me, ‘cause I ain't kissing you. Not ‘til you kiss me first, anyway.”

Just like that, understanding dawned on Deku’s face. “Oh, well if that’s all…” He reached out and grabbed the lapels of Katsuki’s collar, tugging him in.

Their teeth clicked painfully and their noses mashed together. With a grunt, Katsuki tilted his head and Deku moved the same way, so their noses continued to grind against one another uncomfortably. Deku figured out his mistake quickly, though, backing off a little and just brushing his lips across Katsuki’s, rather than trying to smash their faces together.

Failing to fight off the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, Katsuki leaned into Deku, opening his mouth a little to gently capture Deku’s lower lip between his teeth, tugging gently before brushing their lips together again. Deku’s breath caught in his throat for a moment, then he bit Katsuki’s lip too, a little harder than Katsuki would have preferred, but Deku hadn't drawn blood, at least. They went back and forth like this a few more times before Deku drew back, panting.

“So this isn't fake?” he asked suddenly. “All the, the lunches and studying and dates, it’s… real? Really real?”

“If you want it to be real,” Katsuki answered, “then fuck yes. Real as shit.”

Deku leaned in, and for a moment Katsuki braced himself for another overzealous kiss, but instead the green-eyed boy just rested his forehead against Katsuki’s, his gaze boring into him for a moment before his eyes fluttered shut. “Good,” he whispered softly.

“But it’s your turn to plan the next date,” Katsuki told him.

Deku’s eyes flew open in surprise, and then he nodded, forehead still resting against Kacchan’s. “Okay,” he agreed softly.

“Great.” With that, Katsuki turned and mashed the button to call a server to their table, “Then let's order our fucking food, this whole emotional breakdown has us falling behind schedule, and I have a whole fucking day planned for us and I’m not about to let it go to fucking waste.”

Deku stared dumbly at him for a moment, then began to giggle. “Oh my god, Kacchan,” he exclaimed, “you're so ridiculous.”

“Fuck you! In what way?” Katsuki quickly returned to his side of the table, and the two of them squabbled back and forth until their meals arrived and they suddenly remembered how hungry they were. As they walked out of the katsu shop, Deku leaned against Katsuki’s shoulder while they walked, his eyes searching Katsuki’s face.

“Hey, Kacchan?” He said softly, his hand tightening slightly around Katsuki’s.

“Yeah?” Katsuki glanced back down at Deku.

A soft smile lit the gentle boy’s features as he gazed up into Katsuki’s eyes. “I’m glad it’s real,” he said softly.

Katsuki couldn't stop a smile from spreading across his own face, though admittedly he wasn't trying very hard. Squeezing Deku’s hand back, he replied, “Yeah. Me too.”

#bakudeku #katsudeku #fake dating au #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #not all heroes wear capes #bnha #izukatsu #fanfic

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greatshell-rider · 3 years

Text

50. fireworks close enough to feel in your chest (sensory prompts)

A whistle and blur as a crossbow bolt flew past his head—Tayuci cursed and ducked down, a little late now, yes, he knew, clapping a hand over their ear as it began to bleed.

“There they are!” he hollered to their hires, pointing out to the forest in the direction the bolt had come from. “Red Jay and Foxtales, you’re up!”

Two outfits of four hires each grimly hopped up and over the barricade Tayuci and his hires had hastily constructed just before dawn, when intel about an imminent attack had come from one of Tayuci’s informants. A few more bolts fired from the trees, but the hires were well-trained, staying low and spreading out, using the dense undergrowth as cover, readying crossbows and machetes for contact.

As they melted into the forest, moving quickly toward the targets, Tayuci signaled to the captains of the two remaining outfits, and they quickly ordered their people into their places around the bounty. Hilts were gripped nervously, blades loosened in sheaths, quick flitting glances cast from side to side as all waited for whatever other attack Sinner and zir band had planned for.

Sinner. Tayuci spat out the venleaf seed they’d been chewing and ground the heel of his boot into it. They’d heard many a rumor about the smuggler-for-hire, and it wasn’t that the rumors were incredulous. They were plausible, and that’s what made his hires nervous. Feeling some blood trickle down onto his neck, Tayuci could see why.

They thought they’d made a clean escape from the farm with the bounty intact, with no known pursuit or reports of alarm from his informants for three days of hard travel, so had set up only a few sentries around the camp’s perimeter at night—then, all of the sudden, that tap on his shoulder two hours past midnight, and the whispered warning: Sinner closing in on their location, looking to get the bounty back.

If Tayuci had known the farm was Sinner’s, they would had have left the bounty very much alone. But now that he did have it, he knew they couldn’t give it up now. Its charm really was as rumored.

Irresistible, they said—they being every hire boss and drunk Tayuci had ever spoken with. Farmers who worked with the crop-creature had to be swapped out every other week, or risk falling into either frenzied ravings or stupored states (the rumors disagreed, there). Transports of the seeds were oft to fall to disaster. Not that that stopped the army—meaning the money was good. And when one was desperate . . .

“You are a handsome hunk of barkflesh,” Tayuci murmured, running their fingers down the croppie’s hide.

It shivered with what Tayuci could now identify as delight, its tough leathery skin prickling all over, short bristling thorns standing up straight and quivering. Tayuci had tested the venom in those thorns themself, and could attest to its potency. Seeds of the mantle, what a night that had been . . .

A shout of surprise, then pain, sounded distantly behind him, and Tayuci drew their lips to a tight line. His hires tensed as noises of the fight grew, boiling over into the camp and simmering in their bones. His hand, lying lightly atop one of the croppie’s shoulders, tightened into a fist, digging his fingers into and under the skin, pulp squishing around their hand and pushing under his fingernails. The bounty cooed in a disgustingly adulatory moan, pressing itself up against Tayuci as if asking for more. Most plants could be tamed and maintained through pruning, but the funny thing about the bounty’s species was the way it relished pain, ate it up more than the highest grade of fertilizer, could survive off it when deprived of water, and ultimately, grew stronger from it. By what Tayuci knew, this particular specimen wasn’t even the biggest on the planet, but despite having been planted just two weeks prior, it already displayed the arachnid limbs, oscillating meters-long feelers, and, of course, the hallucinogenic venom thorns that distinguished its kind. The claws weren’t coming in yet, at least. Similar to a teething human baby, Tayuci had heard the process was . . . “exquisite”. But only for the croppie.

“You’ll help us, won’t you?” They said to the bounty, distracted, for the time, from the fighting happening in the trees and the anxiety of his outfits of hires. His gaze traveled up its arms and down its back, at the plethora of whip scars, some still only half-healed with dried, sweet-smelling sap crusting over the cuts. “You don’t want to go back to the farm, but stay with us, right?”

The croppie pulsed reassuringly within the wet, sticky pulp they gripped in his fist. Almost like a heartbeat. It was so funny, how a creature so diverged from humans could be so—

“BOSS,” the hire about yelled in their ear. Tayuci jumped and wrenched free from the bounty, the croppie sulkily retracting two of its feelers from under their jaw, and barked, “What is it?”

The hire, of the Nightoak outfit, silently thumbed over their shoulder.

Tayuci looked past them to feel his gut dropping in a jolt of fear and shock. “H-how,” he coughed, turning a circle in despair to find that all of his people were on their knees, weapons kicked away from them, hands held up in surrender as farm patrollers walked between them, pointing crossbows at heads while securing their arms behind them before hauling them off to sit in small groups away from the bounty and watched over by other patrollers.

“So many,” Tayuci said in disbelief, unable to register the scene even as his hire shrugged, grimacing. “Where did they all come from, the intel, my spies—Get off me!” they spat, as a pair of patrollers came up to them and tried applying restraints. His hire went to their knees quietly, but Tayuci pushed off the hands and ignored the growled threats of the patrollers, staggering away from them to stomp up to the person he knew was the reason behind all this.

“Sinner!” he called, even as one patroller dived at them from behind and he was tackled to the ground. “Sinner, you shit, explain this!” he yelled, while his arms were wrestled behind their back and tied with bark-grown ropes.

The tall, heavyset person with dark brown skin and a head of half-shaved curly black hair turned at their shout, ending the conversation ze’d been having with a fellow patroller. Tayuci felt a dark stab of triumph as ze walked over to him, mud-splattered boots stepping right up to his chin as they craned their head up to look at zir.

“This the boss?” Sinner asked the patroller kneeling on his back.

“How’d you catch up to us?” Tayuci spat, drawing zir attention back to them. “Mantle’s stemen, we were clear. Dammit, we were clear!”

The smuggler rubbed the back of zir neck, expression mild as ze gazed down at him. “New off-planet tech,” ze told them, then gestured as if aiming a small handheld crossbow, or syringe. “Inserts a pathogen into the croppie’s phloem that multiplies and transmits a signal.” Ze shrugged. “Once we realized it had escaped isolation, we tracked it. Then.” Ze tipped zir chin down, with a small smirk.

“Then we beat you,” the patroller restraining him laughed. “Too busy copulating with the croppie to notice, were you?” They barked another laugh as they pressed Tayuci’s face into the dirt.

“Belen,” Sinner said, and the pressure disappeared off the back of his head, letting him spit the mud off their teeth and swear.

“Aw, come on,” the patroller complained. “A thief like this deserves no better—”

“But how didn’t I know,” Tayuci interrupted, the anger blazing in their gut only stoked the more. “There wasn’t even a hint of pursuit until you were already here—”

Someone called Sinner’s name, snapping zir head up, and a flurry of questions and instructions flew back and forth as the patrollers crawling over the camp prepared for something.

“Belen, let them up,” Sinner said. “Boss should be kept separate from the others, just in case.”

Tayuci staggered as the patroller hauled them roughly up to his feet, a hand gripping his shoulder holding him in place despite their tied arms. “I know what to do with scum, Cindy,” Belen said, amusement rather than irritation warming their voice.

Sinner nodded half-absently, already moving off with a long, purposeful stride if distracted face, waving zir arm at someone and calling for something.

“Answer me!” Tayuci yelled at zir, but ze didn’t seem to hear, didn’t even glance back, and the patroller Belen slapped the side of his head.

“Oh shut up,” they grumbled, dragging him off to the side. “I have a couple leaves of tizzler, you know.”

Tayuci forced his mouth shut. Better to have some dignity remaining than have a tongue-number shoved in them, which would coat the inside of their mouth with a prickling sensation and make it impossible to articulate words for hours. But as they were marched away, he kept their head cranked over their shoulder, frenetic to keep Sinner in his sight as ze stopped in front of his bounty with hands on zir hips.

“Ze can’t be older than fifteen,” he said in disbelief as the patroller pushed them back to their knees on the outskirts of camp, by the remains of the dismantled barrier, on the opposite side of where his hires were gathered.

Belen laughed again, unfortunately staying beside them, though they took their hand off his shoulder to take a relaxed stance, arms folded easily behind their back. “Yeah, ze hit zir growth spurt.” And that was apparently very funny, because they shared the same little smirk Sinner’d had on zir lips.

Some kind of private joke the patrollers shared. Most stories Tayuci knew, Sinner worked more or less alone—though, to be fair, that was in the city. They hadn’t even known the smuggler took farm jobs before his informant announced zir approach. And indeed, all the patrollers, Sinner included, moved easily around another, slapping shoulders, quick to lend a hand in a difficult task, very unlike Tayuci’s own hired outfits, who kept mostly to themselves, brought together only by Tayuci’s paycheck. Were these patrollers, was that farm, the equivalent of Sinner’s outfit, zir home base?

Tayuci brooded over that now-useless knowledge as the patrollers worked to build some sort of structure around the bounty, probably to insure safe—or as safe as it could—transport. Tayuci themself didn’t know the specifics of all that, hadn’t had the time to do more than hasty research before throwing together this job—yes, he had hired the four outfits, stolen the bounty, then ran without any further protections put in place. He was always skeptic of the gossip they collected, and that had helped their notoriety bloom over the years as he took on jobs no others dared attempt, and won, and made the money he needed to keep their debt from choking them.

Kneeling in the dirt now, he could admit it to himself: their attitude had failed them this time. And the fear induced by that admission ate away the anger, focusing his attention once more on that precious, precious bounty, the one he’d needed, and was losing before their very eyes.

“What are you doing to it,” they couldn’t keep himself from asking, hating the pleading desperation in his voice.

Belen rocked forward and back on their boots, clearly enjoying the show. “Croppie’s just about gone feral thanks to you.” They tsk-ed in fake disappointment. “It’s gotta blow.”

His head snapped up. “What?”

The patroller nodded to the croppie and he looked back in a panic—and only then noticed the small packs of tightly-wound brilliant blue knobby bulbs being planted around the bounty with the surrounding structure looking suspiciously like a barrier, or shield, curved inwards as if to keep something in, not keep others out.

Their jaw dropped. “You’re using what?”

Belen bared their teeth in a smile, anticipation lighting up their eyes. “Regulations stink of sap,” they recited, making a quick motion with their hand across their face, as if slapping away a bug. Then they grinned again. “This’ll be the most expensive bonfire I’ve ever seen, that’s for sure. Can’s going to be pissed.”

“Please,” Tayuci gasped, close to hyperventilation by the speed of the rise and fall of his chest, the short shuddering in-and-out of their breath. “Please, don’t do this. Don’t do this.”

“Addiction’s already in you, huh? Heard it does that.” Belen plopped down on the ground beside him, stretching their legs out in front of them and leaning back on their hands as if at a picnic. “Gentle and angry people alike,” they whispered, like a stadium announcer, “please be seated, as our featured presentation is set to begin.”

Tayuci shook their head, but was helpless to intervene as the last of the bulbs were planted and patrollers retreated from the confused croppie, its feelers groping out and beckoning to the people closest. Tayuci ached to go to it, soothe it with a rub and be soothed themself, but he was rooted to the ground, terror gripping their legs as surely as their bound arms.

“Emergency exits can be found to your left and right,” Belen continued. “Though if you’re not already a safe distance away, it won’t matter much anyway.”

A patroller walked slowly away from the bounty, shaking a canister of black powder out in a line on the ground after them. Tayuci’s gut seized and he doubled over, retching the contents of their stomach—just juices now—on the ground. Nausea made their senses spin for a moment or eternity, until finally the world dizzily revolved into focus again and he became aware of Belen idly holding his hair back from their face.

“No vendors will be open during the duration of the event,” they whispered. “They’ve been banned, in fact.” Their hand slid back down to Tayuci’s shoulder, the firm weight of it making the last of his strength fade, leaving him to sag to the ground, bent over their knees, stomach acid dribbling down his chin as he craned their head up, unable to look away even as the sight killed him.

“Three,” Belen began.

The patroller crouched down behind a barrier with a couple of their fellows, the trail of black powder standing out starkly against the cleared ground surrounding the bounty, which still waved its feelers in sensed distress.

“Two.”

The patroller lit a match and held it against the powder. Immediately it caught and zipped down the line towards the partially-buried mines. Tayuci broke, turning his head away at the last moment.

Belen pulled him upright with a chuckle. “Oh, you shouldn’t miss—”

The BOOM and wave of heat washed over them, and Tayuci’s eyes widened as the bounty was blasted above the treeline, high whistling shrieks and flashes of bright blues and oranges chasing it skyward. Belen laughed uproariously and clapped almost as loud as the explosions, adding to the cheering of the other patrollers as they shot to their feet, shaking fists and jumping up and down as colored bursts of glittering fire rained back down on their heads.

A chunk of plant matter splattered to the ground in front of Tayuci, singed around the edges and smoking slightly. Tayuci stared at it in numb confusion, barely noticing as Belen got up to go celebrate with their fellows, leaving him unguarded.

“Look at the moldies,” Kinib said, elbowing Belen, who grinned as they did so, tickled by the sight of the thieves staring at the fireworks with varying expressions of horror, upset, and agitation. Only one other looked as sick as the boss had been, which, speaking of—

“I should get back,” Belen laughed, slapping Kinib on the shoulder as they turned towards their captive. “Don’t want them running off,” they joked.

Kinib’s expression turned concerned. “Or that,” she said, pointing.

Belen jerked their head around, to find the thief boss, their arms still tied behind them, biting at something on the ground. “What the—” they began, stepping forward, then stopped as they registered what that something was. “You get that out of your mouth! Out!” they yelled, running. The boss redoubled their efforts, seeming driven to fit the entire damn barkflesh down their gullet before anything could stop them.

It took several other pairs of hands, and Belen straddling the person to keep them still enough to get their hand in their mouth to dig out the plant matter, but in the end, Belen did succeed. As the thief boss screamed insults and curses at them while being hauled away, and a patroller ran to get a sedative, Belen looked down at the chunk of steaming pulp still held in their hand. A wriggle of doubt twitched in their gut. All this, for this? They weren’t on wrangling duty, so had never been close to the croppie on the farm. What did make it so special?

They held it up to their nose, about to take a sniff, when a hand smacked it out of their own. They flinched, blinking as the pulp fell to the ground with a squishy plop, and looked up to see Cindy frowning.

They grinned sheepishly, wiping their hand down their trousers. “Sorry, got caught up—”

“Burn that,” Cindy said bluntly, looking at their leg. Belen snatched their hand away guiltily. “And use the sanitizer for your hand.”

Belen rolled their eyes. “I do know what to do with scum, and hey—” They grabbed Cindy’s hand, startling zir, and waved it in front of zir face, showing zir the smear of juice on zir palm. “Whoopsies.”

Cindy blinked at zir hand, lips forming a small O of surprise. “I slapped it without thinking,” ze muttered. “Forgot . . .”

Belen grinned, slinging their arm around their friend’s shoulders and walking zir toward the medic supplies. “Don’t think I didn’t see how close you got to tagging the boss right at the start, Sinner,” they teased. “We’ll make a patroller out of you yet.”

The small grin appeared. “You started a month before me, Belen.” The flat, slightly-off tone of zir voice might’ve sounded annoyed or unfriendly to another, but Belen knew Cindy’s mannerisms. They probably should’ve checked before throwing their arm around zir, actually. Well, next time, they’d remember.

“Aw, kid, yet you still have so much to learn,” Belen laughed.

Cindy rolled zir eyes, using zir uncontaminated hand to push their arm off zir shoulders—yep, definitely should have checked—before putting one of zir necklace tags in zir mouth to chew on. “I didn’t mean to tag them, you know,” ze said a moment later, matter-of-factly but with a quick side glance at Belen that told them ze wasn’t lying, but also joking back. “I aimed for their ear.”

Belen smiled wide, genuine admiration sparking in their chest. Only Sinner. They itched to slap zir on the back, but restrained themself, settling for another laugh, shaking their head in half disbelief. “Incredible,” they told zir, as they stepped into the line formed up behind the sanitation supplies (apparently blasting a drug skyhigh wasn’t the smartest when gravity still worked, and they and Cindy weren’t the only idiots among the patrollers—not that Belen needed to be told that). “You’re gonna go . . . far, kid.”

Cindy’s open expression of grief and dismay made Belen’s laugh echo through the camp.

#my writing #Lani & Jerry #but no lani nor jerry in this one. cindy! not zir pov either though. npcs!#congratulations to belen to being present in another writing piece uwu #oh i forgot my little in which thing #in which: weird sexy drug plant gets fireworked. and pun crimes are committed #lol this piece is kinda wonky because while writing i kept changing what i wanted to happen so if things don't seem to quite match up #that is why. and not for any other reason 😏#it's funny writing puns into pieces like this because cindy's planet doesn't speak english so who knows what they're really saying yknow

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plume8now · 6 years

Text

Lost

Fandom: One Piece

Ship: ZoSan for @marimocookweek Day 8: Free Day/Soulmate AU but in universe actually.

Summary: Luffy pouted. “If Sanji goes who's gonna cook? Chopper can find Zoro by his smell!” “That does make sense,” Nami said. “Chopper...?” “I can't smell him right now, but I can try to go back and start from there.” “I think...” Sanji looked on the left. “He went this way.” Everyone stared at him. “You saw him leave?” The cook scratched his head. “No. I just have a feeling.”

Warning: Soulmate AU, more or less, thriller bark spoilers, sabaody spoilers, zosan week, Humor, Angst, Canon Facts, don't expect anything from them they're both dorks, i'm so done with their shit honestly, also there's Pain, sabaody return, 2 years gap

A/N: XxX is for Sanji's pov, xXx is for Zoro's, but if you don't remember it's okay you should still figure out who's talking. This OS was written for the ZoSan week, and I would like to thank my beta @blueflamebird for correcting me very quickly and @timeclockdraws who motivated me to write it. Also, he drew something for it in collaboration and he's very talented so you should totally check his art out! Enjoy, and please please please, leave a comment to tell me what you liked or didn't like! Authors never cease to improve.

[Find it on AO3]

“Aah,” The Straw Hat Captain sang, “I can't wait to be back to the Sunny to eat!”

“That's gonna take some time though, Luffy,” Sanji replied. “That fish is delicate seafood.”

“But I'm hungry-” he said as he touched his stomach. “And I'm gonna be boreeed...”

“I'm sure you can figure something out to busy yourself, Luffy-kun,” Robin smiled.

The boy was about to answer but suddenly stopped, as if he'd realized something.

“Wait, where's Zoro?”

Oh, so he did realize something.

Robin and Nami exchanged a look, and Sanji sighed. He should have noticed the shitty marimo wasn't around to bother him.

“Don't tell me-”

“I'm sorry!” Chopper's voice rose. “I didn't notice when he left...”

“You don't have to apologize,” Nami grunted. “That dumbass shouldn't need a baby-sitter to watch him in the first place.”

“Still, I should have...”

“Sanji-kun, could you go find him please?” Robin asked softly. “You always find him quickly.”

“Why don't we just leave him where he lost himself already,” Sanji whispered under his breath.

Luffy pouted. “If Sanji goes who's gonna cook? Chopper can find Zoro by his smell!”

“That does make sense,” Nami said. “Chopper...?”

“I can't smell him right now, but I can try to go back and start from there.”

“I think...” Sanji looked on the left. “He went this way.”

Everyone stared at him.

“You saw him leave?”

The cook scratched his head.

“No. I just have a feeling.”

“We should just ask Usopp or Franky to give him a GPS or put a tracker thing on him already,” Nami sighed.

“Alright I'm going,” Chopper declared. “I'll be back as soon as possible.”

The doctor adopted his reindeer form and left right away. Sanji looked at him as he was running to find Zoro, frowning. He had the sense that it would take more time, somehow.

XXX

“I heard something about soulmates existing in this world,” Usopp said on a boring day on the ocean, trying to get a discussion. “Like something about true love always finding the other soulmate?”

“I wish I could always find a way to meat,” Luffy replied, lying on the deck next to Chopper, looking like a starving kid under the heat. “It's too hot today dammit.”

“Have you been listening to what I said Luffy?” Usopp asked. “It's not about food, it's about soulmates!”

“Meh, if that's not edible...”

The sniper sighed. “You're hopeless.”

“I read a few things about it,” Robin said. “There are a few symptoms describing the feeling that you met your soulmate, but it differs according to people. It can be pretty strong, or weak. Some soulmates never notice they are actually soulmates.”

“Really? What are the common symptoms then?” Nami asked.

“As I said, it depends on the people. Most commonly, this is about being able to find the other without rational explanation. There's a connection between the minds which enables them to find each other without any problem. There isn't a logical answer for this. The reactions can be also physical at some point, but that's for the strongest relationships.”

“Can't that be a bother?”

“Soulmates are legendary, dear sniper. There aren't a lot of work left on this because people stopped believing in those ideas – and my knowledge extends to what I have read so far.”

“You seem to have done some research on this,” Usopp said half-amazed half-surprised.

“Not really,” Robin smiled. “I just happened to see a few things about it.”

“Have you met soulmates before?” Usopp inquired curiously.

“I might. Who knows?” she chuckled.

Usopp slightly frowned, not sure what he was missing – and if he did miss something.

XxX

Zoro was nowhere to be seen, again. That wasn't surprising. What was surprising though, was that the swordsman didn't get lost in the last two islands they visited.

“Who's going?” Usopp asked.

“Chopper's not here, so I'm going!” Luffy happily said.

“Oi,” Sanji snapped. “That's not a game. You're just gonna get lost, too. And that's the last thing we need. I'm going.”

“But-”

“No buts. I'm gonna kick his ass back to this ship, get ready for our return,” Sanji said, more tired than anything else.

“Fine,” Luffy pouted. “But hurry, ok?”

“That's up to the marimo.”

Sanji left them, but instead of going back to their steps, took a different path on the right.

“Sanji...” Usopp stopped him, “This is not where we come from... Don't tell me your orientation is as bad as Zoro's...”

“Urg,” the cook snorted, “Don't compare me to that idiot. I'm just taking a shortcut, don't worry.”

Once Sanji gone, Usopp stared at his Captain.

“We've never been this way...” and he whispered “I think we'll never see them again.”

xXx

The Straw Hat's first mate sat down and checked his swords. He sighed as he cleaned the blood from the blades. He'd ran into some marines who didn't realize today wasn't their lucky day, and realized too late who he was. He couldn't blame them for trying, though. He'd have done the same. Never turn your back from a fight if you want to get stronger.

He put his swords back where they belonged, and stood up, about to look for his way back to the ship again when his body froze. Something electrified his whole body for a second but the shock was so moving his eyes widened. He didn't notice he held his breath until he heard a voice he knew a bit too well.

“Oi, shitty moss-head. You were supposed to be on the boat by now.”

He took a few seconds before turning to the cook, smirking, and ignoring what just happened. That wasn't the first time those symptoms actually appeared. It could just randomly come when he was alone and- wait a minute.

That always happened when Sanji was looking for him.

His annoyance for him must have grown a lot if he could feel his presence like this.

“Shut up,” he glanced at him. “Not my fault if you guys keep losing yourselves.”

Sanji made a face to his words.

“Are you actually fucking kidding me? No nevermind, I don't wanna hear it. Just- let's go back to Sunny alright? And follow me, don't go running around like a stupid baby after a butterfly.”

“The fuck did you just say?”

“You heard me, shitty marimo.”

“I will cut you in half ero-cook,” Zoro grunted as he unsheathed his swords.

Sanji smiled.

“Bring it on.”

XxX

That time, they were looking for Sanji. The cook didn't actually get geographically lost, but did lose track of time as he was choosing new ingredients for the recipe he's been working on. And Zoro found him. In his entire life, Sanji had felt insulted a lot of times, but that one was almost like a joke.

“Bring your ass back to the ship, shitty cook,” Zoro grumbled.

Sanji looked at the swordsman as if he was seeing him for the first time.

“What are you doing here?”

“Been looking for you, the witch is getting mad and I hate to be around her when she's acting like that. So just come back already or she's gonna be unbearable.”

“Wait- what? You- they let you leave to look for me? You?” he articulated.

Zoro frowned.

“No, I left right away to bring your lost ass back, she was pissing me off. Why, what's the matter with that?”

Sanji took a deep breath.

“First of all, you don't freaking call our cute, amazing navigator a witch. Second, I was going to come back, it just took a little bit more time. And I certainly wasn't lost. If there's someone who gets lost here, that's not me.”

His nakama laughed.

“Are you saying I'm getting lost? Man, you guys are always losing your way, and somehow, I always end up finding you.”

“What the fuck? I have always been the one finding you! Not the other way around, don't think too high of yourself marimo, you're gonna be crushed when reality strikes.”

“Reality?”

“You have no idea how to find your way back to the ship. The only reason you do is because you find someone else coming back on your way.”

“Yeah sure, if you want to make up stories to feel better.”

How come the swordsman always managed to piss him off so bad he wanted to smash his face with his feet?

XxX

Sanji started to ask himself questions when it happened for the hundredth time.

That feeling.

He started noticing something was off in Water Seven, and ever since, it got stronger. Little episodes proved him right so far, and he hated that. Somehow, his nakama ended up always asking him to look for Zoro when he was lost now. That became a routine. The shitty marimo wasn't back? Let's send Sanji, what a great idea. Let's send the guy he's always fighting with, because that makes sense. Let's send the guy who's supposed to cook so they will have to wait more for their meal.

But things started to click when even Luffy said something about Sanji always finding a way to bring Zoro back quickly. It was like there was a piece of the puzzle he was missing out. But he was pretty sure this was important.

And, lately? He'd been feeling weird. He'd been feeling weird, but he had no idea how to describe it, and if it was related to what's been happening.

That surely wasn't. He was just mixing everything up. He might have been overthinking again, like he used to.

But still, he couldn't get over this idea.

Something was off. The electrifying shocks running down his spine was happening a bit too much lately. Maybe he'd talk about it to Chopper, if it didn't stop.

xXx

Zoro would probably never forget this moment.

The moment Sanji decided to give up his life for Luffy. The moment Sanji decided Zoro's life was worth more than his own. The moment the shitty cook walked with determination to Kuma, his whole body shivering, barely able to stand up.

The situation was so intense his body reacted in pain. It shivered a bit, too. He could hear the cook's breath – it was bad. And he was panting, too.

He heard him say things he would never have thought hearing from the cook's mouth.

“Kill me and get out of here.”

That wasn't about dying. That was about surviving.

Zoro wanted to sacrifice himself so his nakama could survive, while Sanji was clearly ready to die. It wasn't the same kind of sacrifice at all. And god be his witness even if he wasn't a believer, he wouldn't let the shitty cook do that. Over his dead body, ironically.

“I'm just as ready to sacrifice myself as he is,” he stated.

No you're not. This is a lie. This is a call for death.

“I've fed people my whole life, and now I'll feed the worms.”

What the fuck was he talking about? He lowered his voice, and told Zoro to tell everyone goodbye for him. The swordsman felt angry more than anything else. That was just cruel. That was not how things worked.

“You'll have to find a new cook.”

As if.

The hardest thing to do wasn't to hit him. It didn't even feel like hitting him. It felt like the right thing to do. He kept his nakama from doing something stupid. He saved his life.

No, the hardest thing was to feel his grip on his shoulder after he got hit, and his hand slowly falling on his arm, like a painful caress.

As soon as Sanji lost consciousness, he lost a certain weight of pressure, and smiled. That was for the best.

XxX

He was suffocating. There was an overwhelming feeling – a pressure he couldn't get rid of – and he couldn't breathe. He couldn't seem to breathe. His whole body seemed dumb, and he wondered how come he could still stand up and walk. When he woke up, his first thought went for the marimo.

He'd hit him from behind. He'd betrayed him.

If he wasn't being devoured by worry and that freaking pressure, he would come to him and scream at him.

Because he had no right to do that. He had no fucking right to hit him, to make him pass out like he could decide and do anything he wanted. Roronoa freaking Zoro.

Sanji stumbled on the ruins of rocks that fell and broke during the fights. Those had been huge battles. Luffy had given everything he could against Oz. And then- the Shikibukai. He stood up for what he believed was right and- god fucking dammit.

He couldn't breathe. He fell on his knees and tried to focus on his breathing. Getting those flashbacks wasn't a great idea. His mind was going crazy.

He'd never panicked so much before.

He realized Luffy was awake a bit late, as if his brain was starting to open to the outside world. His laugh and the other's talks sounded unreal.

The cook stood up again, and he had no idea how long it took for him to get back on his feet. Maybe too long. His sight was a bit blurry. He'd been through a lot, too. After all, a giant zombie did smash him several times in a row.

He did a few steps – not a lot, but the effort made was so great, it seemed to take forever – before seeing Zoro's swords. Zoro's swords- something Zoro would never leave behind. And then- he ran. His muscles didn't care about pain – and if he was in pain, he didn't feel anything at the moment. His body just moved on its own. His heart was racing as if it was trying to get out of his chest.

He didn't really care where he was going – he knew where Zoro was. He had no idea how, but he knew where to find him. His breathing was still heavy, but if he focused – he could ignore it, and actually get better.

The electricity came back, again. He froze, and looked on his left.

Here he was. Standing there, among the ruins, crossed arms, proud. And him-? All he felt at this very moment was relief. The pressure seemed to leave a bit, and he joined the swordsman. He started talking- because that felt like denying everything that happened. That felt like nothing changed. Sanji didn't want anything to change- and he wanted to chase away that feeling he'd kept inside – fear.

But then, he saw it. Zoro's state. He saw the blood on his body. He saw the blood on the ground. He opened his mouth but nothing came, at first.

He panicked again. He screamed his name. His voice broke in the first syllable, and he had to do it again to hear himself say it right. Because that mattered.

“What the fuck is all this blood?!” he heard himself yell at his nakama. Was he still alive? He was still standing, so he was alive, right? He couldn't be dead, not Zoro. He couldn't just die like that. He had no fucking right to die after doing that to him, he had no right, he couldn't.

He was getting hysterical. The pressure was getting a lot stronger now. His brain was boiling. His breathing was harsh. Zoro's eyes were red with blood. His voice was broken when he replied to his last question: What happened?

“Absolutely nothing.”

Bullshit.

Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

He'd been standing up next to him, for him, for Luffy, for his nakama. He refused to let Zoro sacrifice himself – he had dreams, those dreams that made him so strong, those dreams that made Sanji join the crew. Zoro's conviction meant something to Sanji. He wasn't going to let him throw it away. And yet – and yet he did as usual, he just did whatever he wanted to do.

He'd stood up in front of the Shikibukai, or – no he'd stood up between the shikibukai and Zoro, Zoro who was sitting on the floor, when he was standing up for his resolutions. He remembers his body was shivering, but his mind was set up. His life wasn't worth that much, anyway.

What on earth had this idiot been doing?

...

He hated this man so much.

XxX

The pressure never left since Thriller Bark. It was somewhere in his head, and Sanji couldn't get rid of it. So he just adapted. He got used to it.

It became something normal. Sometimes, it would get weaker, and rarely stronger. He noticed after a while that it actually grew weaker and weaker time after time. He guessed that was something good.

He didn't really talk to Chopper about it. He didn't really know why either. That didn't feel like something important, and he could handle it anyway.

xXx

The pain came back so quickly. Only one push. He felt so weak. Just avoiding Kuma's laser beams were painful. That was not supposed to go this way.

This Kuma looked so different.

He was the first mate, for fuck's sake. He had to protect his nakama.

The swordsman moved forward, and heard Luffy and Sanji screaming his name. But no one gave him enough time to attack – first Chopper, then Franky, Brook and Usopp. After Luffy beat Kuma – or rather PX-4 – they barely had time to rest before Sentoumaru and another Kuma appeared. PX-1 seemed to be like PX-4, exploding things around.

“He doesn't have pads,” Sanji noticed. “I didn't want to think about it, but that makes him the third! What's going on?!”

“Rather than wondering about that, it'd be safer to run away right now,” Zoro replied.

Because he knew they – he – couldn't fight the way they were right now. It wouldn't end well. He underlined it to the shitty cook.

“If we get into another fight now, someone will definitely die! Let's run before we meet another admiral...!”

Luffy's approval froze both Sanji and Zoro's hearts. Running away from a fight didn't sound like him. Zoro knew they had to, but hearing his captain approval – that was striking. The situation was bad – oh, so bad. They had to split up.

“The three of us should split!”

“Sure,” the shitty cook approved. “Are you gonna be alright?” he asked Zoro.

“Shut up,” he replied angrily. He wasn't hurt enough to allow the damn cook worry about him.

Sanji left to protect Nami with Franky, which didn't surprise Zoro one bit. Usopp jumped on him as PX-1 attacked them, and he had to admit he was wounded for the sniper to let go of him.

“Do not worry,” Brook said, “I shall cover for you. Your injuries still haven't healed, right? To tell the truth, I saw your act of self-sacrifice back on Thriller Bark!”

Nothing went right.

Everything seemed unreal. Like a huge nightmare.

It happened so fast – of course, it made sense later, Kizaru was a light man because of the Pika Pika devil fruit's powers. A beam went through his body, and he heard himself scream in inhuman pain.

The admiral was talking, but he could barely focus on his own breathing. He heard Usopp's screams. He couldn't move – he couldn't move at all. He had to, but it was so hard, so freaking hard – how did standing up become so hard to do? He used to do it all the time. He saw more light, and he knew.

He knew he wouldn't make it, this time. Somewhere, Luffy yelled.

Everything was so noisy and distant. He wasn't sure he heard Chopper crying.

Hands made him move, and the pain rose. He could feel his mind slipping to unconsciousness. Kizaru's foot hit him and his face ate the ground. The hands kept trying to make him escape, hopelessly.

Somehow, he heard perfectly well those words.

“It's useless. You'll die now.”

He guessed his nakama were screaming, and he almost passed out when he clearly heard Sanji's scream, which was way more distinct than the others, as if he was screaming inside his head.

XxX

Never in his entire life had Sanji felt like this. Not even during his childhood.

That terror.

He'd seen PX-1 running after Usopp – Usopp carrying Zoro, half-dead. He knew he was alive, he knew it, but his whole body couldn't stop shivering – he was in a state of over-reaction. He hit him – but his leg reacted oddly and he fell. He immediately recognized the symptoms – just like in Thriller Bark. He could barely breathe. It wasn't as bad, but he'd forgotten how striking it was.

The Fake Kuma walked towards Usopp and Zoro. Usopp was alright – but he'd dropped the first mate, who wasn't even moving. His instinct kept telling him he was alive, and he held onto this conviction. He grabbed PX-1's foot out of despair, his body moving on its own.

“Wait, you damn bastard-”

PX-1 dragged him in his steps as if he'd been nothing but a bug he didn't even care about enough to take out. And then, it did. It – it wasn't human – did care. Sanji felt his body leaving the ground, and his heart raced. He wondered how his body could handle so much stress and tension. The pressure, so much stronger when Kizaru appeared, was now weakening and for some reason, he was scared it would disappear.

The beam hit him without even an inch of distance. It hit him in the very same hand that was holding him.

A few minutes later which seemed to be an eternity, when he forced himself to look up again, another Kuma was here. That Kuma had pads.

He couldn't feel the swordsman's presence anymore.

Zoro had vanished.

Along with the pressure.

XxX

That would sound masochist, but Sanji was so happy when the pressure came back. It was a bit weak, but it came back. It didn't hurt him. After a while, it did, like a headache. But he knew that was a good thing.

In a gap of two years, it was finally time to find everyone back again. When he reached the island, he somehow felt like fishing, and took the directions an old lady had given him – a shop on the beach at Grove 42. Once he got there, he met the owner – a man who really seemed shocked, staring at the sea.

“What's the matter?”

“He's gone!” the man said. “The green-haired man!”

The old man narrated his story, and Sanji sighed. He hadn't changed one bit, had he?

“Green hair, three swords and a belly warmer?”

“Yeah, and he has a deep scar on his eye. Do you know him?”

That last statement surprised Sanji, so he showed him a poster of Zoro he had on him.

“Oh yeah! This is the guy! Is he your friend?”

“Well, I only know him a little,” the cook lied, smiling.

And then he carried on his story.

That damn marimo.

He managed to confuse two boats, one being a tiny simple fisher boat, and the other being a huge ass pirate ship. The worst part in this was that it was normal.

And so he'd left for the Fishmen Island.

He was already tired of the damn swordsman's shit.

“That idiot! I thought it was unlike him to show up first, I knew he'd do something like this.”

He was already preparing his speech to Luffy, telling everyone to try and find Zoro underwater, in the freaking Fishmen Island- when the sea started bubbling, and something came up- it looked like pieces of a boat.

“You bastard! How dare you ruin our dream to go to the New World!?” screamed someone – surely the captain of the ship.

A shadow, sat on the mast, holding a sword, replied in a deep voice.

“It's a quirk of fate. You should blame your own fate that brought a plague onto your ship.”

Sanji wanted to facepalm. How could he say such things when he was to blame for inviting himself on their ship?

“Oh, he's back,” he simply said instead. “I couldn't care less about him,” he added, lying again.

XxX

“Oi, moss-head, you gotta stay with me! I don't want you getting lost,” Sanji smirked.

“Huh? Who do you think you're talking to, moustache eyebrow?”

That was low.

“What did you just say?! Oh- that smells good,” he said as he approached something which was being cooked, completely losing sight of the swordsman.

Whatever. He'd find him again later. They always ended up finding each other, even if they didn't want to.

And he did find him later. Only to fight more with him.

“I wanna go to sea. I wanna fish.”

What was he, five?

“No, you can't, shithead!”

“Why can't I? Why should I listen to you?!”

“Do you think I'm walking with you because I want to?!”

It was half a lie. He missed that. Those little useless fights. Two years felt like a very long time.

“Dammit,” Zoro sighed. “How could No. 7 talk bossily to No. 1?”

Urgh, no he just didn't-

“Why are you ranking us in the order of our arrival?! You got here first by chance, don't get carried away!”

“Okay, I'm sorry... No. 7.”

He regretted everything. Just take that idiot away from him now. That jerk hadn't changed one bit and he was already sick of his behavior. As rude as before. As stupid as before.

“I will fight you...!” Sanji yelled.

And Zoro smiled before he took out his swords.

Reblogs, tags, likes and comments are always appreciated :D

#zosan #sanzo #marimocookweek2017 #roronoa zoro #sanji vinsmoke #one piece #fanfic #fanfiction #plume8now #timeclockdraws #collab #it was so fun to write again and i cant believe i did it only because i was sick

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meditatemoremedicateless · 6 years

Text

A Comedy and a Tragedy

Fandom: Life is Strange / Before the Storm

Pairing: Steph Gingrich / Samantha Myers

Major tags: Angst, fluff, canon-compliant, serial

Words: ~2,400

Summary: Samantha and Steph meet unexpectedly in the hospital the night after The Tempest. Samantha gets wrapped up in trying to help Nathan. Again. Part 2 of Knowing the Odds. Read the full story on AO3.

"What are you doing here?"

Samantha snapped awake, looking up at whoever spoke but not recognizing them yet. She had fallen asleep. She had told herself that she wasn't going to fall asleep until she saw Nathan.

"Yo, Sam, you okay? You here for Mikey?"

"What?"

Oh, it's Steph.

Steph Gingrich sat in the chair next to where Samantha had fallen asleep, in the tiny lounge outside Urgent Care. She was dressed in different clothes since this evening when they'd met in the courtyard - a blue shirt now, but the same beanie - or a duplicate. She had said she had a bunch of them. Despite the fresh clothes, she looked uncharacteristically haggard. Nathan had said Steph wasn't at the play, but he hadn't said anything about her being at the hospital.

Samantha realized she was slumped over and sat up, reaching to smooth out her hair.

"Oh, hey Steph," she said. Her throat was dry. How long had she been asleep? "What are you doing here?"

"So, not Mikey then." Steph turned and sat back in the chair, casting an eye towards the bright hallway past the attending nurse. "Well, Mikey broke his arm, so me and Drew are keeping him company. It's my shift to be awake in case he is."

"Oh. Oh god!, what happened?"

Steph shrugged, still looking down the hall instead of at Samantha. "Ah, well, it's . . . kind of a complicated situation. But it's over. I think."

Samantha checked her phone, which was quick to remind her that it was low on battery. 6:15am. A two-hour nap. She should text her Mom.

She shrugged, and said, "Well, it's kind of complicated for me, too."

That seemed to catch Steph's interest, and she finally turned back to Samantha, eyebrows raised. "Oh yeah? I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."

Samantha managed a weak laugh, but that just reminded her that her throat was dry. "Fine, um, yeah. Just a sec, getting a drink of water."

When Samantha returned a few minutes later, Steph had her phone keyboard slid open and was typing furiously. Even when Samantha sat down next to her, she didn't look up for a good twenty seconds, once she'd sent her message. She put the phone in her lap instead of back in her pocket.

Must be a pretty lively conversation.

"God, there are other people up this early?" Samantha asked, not sure of a more polite way to intrude.

Steph smirked. Her mood was somehow better than it had been two minutes ago.

"Hm. Yeah, I guess. Rachel is up awful early for some reason." Her voice was coy and dramatic, like when she narrates that game for Mikey. Its application here was mystifying.

"Is . . . that . . . weird?"

Steph's phone vibrated again, and she immediately smirked as she grabbed it. "Maybe. I don't really kiss and tell." She flipped her phone open. "Although, maybe Rachel does."

One.

Two.

Three.

Samantha's eyes shot wide as she figured it out. It was a hospital, and silent hospitals help healing, but her whisper was also kind of a yell: "Is Rachel texting you about sex?"

Steph's wicked grin stayed. Nope, 'sex' didn't make her flinch. Holy shit.

Samantha started gesticulating wildly to make up for the fact that she couldn't be loud. "Did you?! - have sex - with Rachel?"

Steph looks a little pinker thanks to the question, but she shakes her head. "Oh, hell no. I'd kiss and tell that, god."

Steph resumed her texting without further explanation, but this mystery was easier to solve than the last one.

"Wait, did Rachel and Chloe . . .?"

Steph gave a side-eyed glance, and then resumed texting. She typed so quickly on such a small keyboard, it kind of freaked Samantha out a little. She couldn't even type that fast using a real keyboard.

Once she finished the text, she dropped her phone back on her lap and held her hands up. "Hey, all I know is that Rachel Amber does not rise with the Dawn, which is actually pretty ironic."

Beat.

"Well, that, and she ditched the cast party last night to go . . . somewhere with Chloe."

Was Samantha blushing? She couldn't tell. Her face felt kind of hot though. Even if she was, she couldn't tell if it was from the sudden, intrusive influx of mental images of those two going at it or because Steph seemed so delighted by this fact. Speaking of which . . .

"And you're - you're happy about this? I thought you'd be . . ." Samantha held her empty palms up at Steph, as if the conclusion should be obvious, "I dunno . . ."

"Rabidly jealous?" Steph leaned back in her seat. Her smile dropped, maybe?, but only for a second. "I mean, yeah, I am. But I heard about the play last night, and, well, honestly, sometimes you just have to give quality sexual tension its due."

God. Samantha closed her eyes and shook her head while Steph laughed, a little grossed out, a little pitying, and, if she were being honest with herself, a little turned on. But she didn't like thinking of people like that.

"It was a busy night, I guess."

Samantha meant it as a joke, but it reminded her of why she was here, and apprehension crept into her voice. Steph quieted down quickly, leaning forward to set her elbows on her legs. "Yeah . . . right. So what shitty thing brought you here, huh?"

That at least helped the color drain from her face, reminding her of her clammy hands and aching back from sitting in this chair for so long. Still, she probably would have preferred the fantasies of Rachel's bedroom than the fantasy of Nathan's.

Samantha crossed her arms over her chest, rubbing her arms in hopes of warmth. "Yeah . . . okay. So. Nathan and I hung out after the play last night."

Steph nodded. "Yeah, I heard. You stayed longer than the crew, right? Waiting . . . for him?"

Samantha didn't like how she said that. She sounded disappointed. Everyone thought she should stay away from him. But look where that had gotten him.

Steph nodded, looking away to hide her short burst of frustration, and then said. "Yeah. I saw his dad leave during the play so I thought I'd just . . . I dunno, make sure he got home okay. And, stuff. I dunno."

Steph's eyes darted towards the hallway again, then back to her. "And did he not . . . make it home okay?"

Finally, she looked concerned, but that still wasn't it. Samantha wasn't sure how to tell her, really. "No - no. I mean, I mean, he did. We walked to 7/11 and had candy and my Mom picked us up. He seemed kind of upset about the play but he was . . . I mean, he was laughing, and we were having fun. I thought . . ."

The look got darker, and Steph's mouth was pressing into a flat line. "What happened to Nathan?" she asked. It was flat, monotone. Controlled. It was purposeful. She'd already figured it out. But Samantha still didn't know how to explain.

"I still don't really know. I just . . . I got this text a little later and . . . god." Samantha reached into her pocket and opened her texts, tapping up to the right messages.

Nathan: hey i just wanted to let you know uve been real cool Nathan: like i appreciate the stuff you did for me Nathan: so like, thank-you

Reading them again filled her with dread, and she passed her phone off to Steph as if the phone were burning her.

"I don't . . ." Steph said a few seconds later, confused, but as she tapped down on the phone, she started to understand. She grew quiet, and her shoulders started to fall slack. It looked like she kept expecting the messages to end, for it to be a short little exchange . . . but it hadn't been. It had been about a solid half-hour of panicked messages and looking up what information to tell 911 to explain an emergency. Samantha was no good at talking without at least some amount of scripting.

A few minutes later, Steph handed the phone back, and Samantha stuffed it in her pocket. Steph leaned back into her chair with a sigh, but Samantha remained rigid, tense.

"Shit," she said.

Samantha could agree to that.

Steph gestured at the hall. "But he's . . . alive then? No-go on the drugs?"

Samantha shook her head. "No, he did, he took them. But it turned out he didn't have to give me his address - when I called 911 they knew where his house was and they pumped his stomach, I guess. I don't know. I got here a few hours ago and they haven't really told me much. We were just waiting on his parents. His sister went home to get some sleep once he was okay and I guess . . . I stayed here to get some sleep."

There was a pause. Then Steph said, "His dad's a real dickhole. I guess you can't be pure evil and still be a good father, huh?"

Anger rose like bile: "His dad's a piece of shit," Samantha spat. Steph recoiled, but looked pleased.

"Damn," Steph replied with a hint of a smile. It was gone a second later. "But hey, I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to make up for that. This sucks."

That just made Samantha angrier. Quietly, she said, "Kristine said that, too. But what I should or shouldn't have to do doesn't matter. He needs someone. He's so fucking alone and I -" dammit, now she was crying, and the tears were hot from anger but mostly she was just sad. Even if he was alive, grief hit her body like a wave.

She wiped her face with the back of her hand as Steph just kind of stared. Was it pity? Sadness? What was that look?

"He's alive, okay? That's all that matters."

Steph shook her head a little, eyes closed.

When she opened them, she said, "No, it's not. You still matter. I'm proud of you, fuck, but I'm scared for you. And sorry, too."

Samantha replied, "You don't know what you're talking about."

She was angry, so angry. Why wouldn't people understand?

Steph said, "Yeah, I do."

Samantha said, ". . . who?"

Steph said, "An ex. Sophomore year. Some of this year too, actually."

Samantha said, "I'm sorry.

Steph said, "Yeah. Me too."

It was several hours and another nap before Samantha finally got to see Nathan. It was weird, seeing him again after last night, and even weirder with the fact that someone else from the hospital staff was there with them.

He looked terrible. She couldn't tell if she was happy to see him or not.

"Hey, Nathan," she said, raising her hand in the tiniest wave.

He didn't reply in kind. He just stared at her with a dumb look on his face, his eyes looking sunken into the back of his head because of the purple beneath his eyes.

When he finally spoke, it was rough, and it was unwelcoming.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

Samantha was taken aback, falling into silence. Why was she here? Wasn't it obvious? Why wouldn't she be here? How could she not be here? After everything that happened last night, she wasn't about to just leave him.

"I . . . I wanted to make sure you were okay."

A short pause, and then, "Is it . . . okay that I came? The nurse said-"

"Yeah. Like, it's okay."

The urge to flee was kicking in, but Samantha had never actually been good at following up on it. She tended to freeze. It was so hard to fight the instinct to hold still and hope that the bad things go away. She spent a lot of time fighting that urge. She wondered if he could tell.

It was just silent for a minute. Two minutes. Three? Samantha started to lose track quickly - it was much darker in here, and her phone was dead, and she just decided to sit down until he was ready to talk.

"Are you . . . are you the one who called them? The medics, or whatever?" Nathan turned his head to look at her, his expression unreadable.

God, I miss the silence.

She just replied with a nod. After a second of hesitation, he sunk back against his bed, and the silence was back.

The next thing he said was under his breath, but the silence was a good conduit for sound.

"You fucking bitch," he said.

And there, without command, the anger filled her throat like bile even as she started to feel sick. She felt so many things, but the only one that made sense to her was revulsion.

She barley managed to keep her voice even-tempered, and she didn't do a great job of it, either. "Excuse - me?"

He turned to her again. He wasn't crying, but his eyes were glassy. The staff member watched, but said nothing.

"Fuck you, Samantha."

For the past several hours, Samantha told herself that she had done this all for unselfish reasons. She told herself that she was protecting him, that she was looking out for him when no one else seemed to be, that she was a real friend, that she had empathy and the people around her just weren't paying attention. She had thought about "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" - how people went about their daily lives without recognizing the tragedies around them, and she had thought to herself, 'They are stupid. They are mean-spirited. I refuse to be like them.' She had thought she had done good. And, her absolute dumbest thought, she had thought he would see that, too, and that he would thank her.

Her blood ran cold, because none of that was true. Seeing his face, right now, she hated him. She hated this gutless, ungrateful rat. Because she had wanted him to love her. She thought she could make him want to live.

How dare he.

How dare I.

Fucking idiot.

But she was a coward, and he was a boy who had nearly died, whether his heart would give out or his lungs would stop working or he choked on his own vomit, and she couldn't say any of this. She just froze, and the venom drained away, if not the hurt.

She wrote the script. It didn't come out as cold or as hard as she wanted it, but she got all the words in the right order and they all came out, and that was what mattered.

"I'm happy you're alive Nathan, but fuck you."

And she left. She chose to walk home in the cold rather than spend another minute with Nathan fucking Prescott.

#knowing the odds #myrich #steph gingrich x samantha myers #samantha myers #steph gingrich #nathan prescott #hell is empty #life is strange #life is strange spoilers #before the storm spoilers #fan fiction #ben writes stuff #serial #fluff #angst #suicide attempt #i swear it's going to be a slowburn romance fic but there are some things that need to be addressed i'm sorry

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unholystagepresence · 7 years

Text

It Began With A Sputter (Ch 3)

Title: Of Preparedness and Missing Panties

Fandom: Mass Effect Andromeda

Pairing: Kander

Summary: Sara remembers a lovely night with a very prepared Turian, and totally sabotages herself.

Ch 1 - Ch 2 - Ch 3 (You’re here!) - Ch 4

The beeping from Sara's omnitool seemed to match the pounding it caused in her head, and she was incredibly grateful that it ended rather quickly.

'Pathfinder, Pathfinder Rex is requesting a meeting with you as soon as possible.'

Considering that she didn't hear an echo, Sara understood rather quickly, despite the hangover, that SAM was speaking to her privately.

“Yeah, just...gimme a few minutes.”

'Understood.'

Sara attempted to turn, but found her movement restricted by an arm tucked around her. The moment she wiggled, that arm tightened, and she felt a rather flat mouth and a pair of twitching mandibles press against the back of her neck with a huff of breath.

She opened her eyes just enough to take in an unfamiliar room. How had she gotten here, again...? It took her a bit to remember. She'd come on to Tiran (dumb), he'd accepted and they'd had drinks (great), she'd tried to leave...ah, right. Now she remembered.

“Can I kiss you?”

Sara might have been drunk, and she was certainly into the turian that had pulled her back down into her seat, but she wasn't about to force herself on him. She could be drunk and still have morals.

Didn't mean she wasn't internally whooping in triumph when he nodded, though.

“I'd like that.”

She went in first, needing to get up on her knees on the seat to reach his mouth. It wasn't quite so awkward...with her experience with turians and his with asari, it wasn't like this was their first rodeo entirely. The feeling of his talons threading through her hair at the back of her head made her sigh against his mouth, and he took advantage of her parted lips to slip his tongue past them.

It took her by surprise, and suddenly he was the one leading, stroking her tongue with his, the two wrestling within her mouth while she pressed her body closer against him. He radiated heat and tasted somewhat coppery, but with a hint of sweetness that likely originated from the drinks he'd been consuming that night.

Before she knew it, she was straddling his lap, her arms wrapped around his cowl, one of his at her hip and the other still at the back of her head. She had to give the guy credit...for someone that had never been with a human, he sure as hell knew how to kiss.

She reached up beneath his fringe and drew her nails over the softer skin there, and he rumbled out a growl that made something deep in her belly tremble excitedly.

He pulled back, pupils so dilated that she could barely see the bright turquoise of his eyes as he stared at her.

“Where did you learn that?” he asked, his subvocals purring so deep that she damn near groaned.

“I got plenty of tricks I've picked up over time.” she teased with a tiny little smirk.

His grip on her tightened and she felt a bulge pressing against her inner thigh that was giving her many pleasant, naughty thoughts.

“My place or yours?”

Sara attempted, once more, to wriggle out of Tiran's grip, but it was a moot point. She wasn't unfamiliar with the death grip turians seemed to have on their partners when they slept, but that didn't make it any less inconvenient. Luckily, enough, though, it seemed her movement had woken him, as the breath she felt against her neck was growing a bit faster.

He made a sound halfway between a purr and a chirp that sent tingles down her spine, but finally his grip loosened enough that she was able to slip out and get to the edge of the bed. “Sorry I woke you.” she whispered, in case he was still asleep. A glance over her shoulder found that was not the case, as brilliant blue eyes blinked blearily at her.

He yawned, lightly shaking his head and pulling up his omnitool. “No, it's...” he narrowed his eyes at the brightness of the holographic display, trying to read the time. “...it's about time I got up anyways.”

Sara stood, stretched muscles that were deliciously sore, and began the search for her clothing. Despite what might have been an awkward situation, the silence between them was without tension.

Sara managed to get most everything she needed...but dammit, where were her panties?

Tiran's apartment had been decided on rather quickly, for which Sara was grateful. Even drunk, she wasn't keen on banging someone in what had once been her father's quarters. Talk about awkward!

Still, his small apartment was closer, anyways, and it was difficult to discuss much when her mouth was otherwise occupied.

They only really separated when they reached the apartment, giving Tiran time to open the door. She was on him again the moment it closed, gently dragging he fingers beneath his fringe again, drawing out an excited growl.

He lifted her up, and she instinctively settled her legs in the divots of his hips, their tongues dancing together almost as if their performance had been choreographed.

Tiran finally broke the kiss to set her on the bed. “Shouldn't have worn armor..” he grumbled, causing her to giggle as he began the laborious task of removing it all.

“Tiran Kandros...always prepared, except when he's about to get laid...”

The turian snorted. “Open the drawer on your right.”

Sara did so, finding, to her surprise, a neatly organized box of condoms.

“Well, shit...you are very prepared! Should I be worried about a jealous someone coming after me?”

It was partly a joke, partly a serious question. She was pretty convinced that Tiran wasn't the type to cheat, but she certainly wasn't the type to help him do so. Even if she was, she had plenty of people already after her head for one reason or another.

“No no no, I promise you that's not even a possibility.” he stated seriously, allowing Sara to relax. “I'm just...always prepared, like you said.”

He'd gotten halfway through his armor at this point, so Sara figured she'd better get “prepared” herself. Her clothing gave her much less trouble than Tiran's gave him (it was kind of adorable how he cursed when he had trouble removing a cuiss), and by the time he was finished, she was already bare.

His eyes roamed over her curiously, but in a hungry fashion she did not dislike. Deciding to be bold, she smiled and crooked a finger, prompting his mandibles to flare. So bidden, he moved forward enough for Sara to wrap an arm around his shoulders, giving her the leverage to guide him down atop her. “Let's test that preparedness of yours, then...”

Sara continued what she was realizing was becoming a fruitless search as Tiran made his way over to the kitchenette.

“I'd offer you coffee, but...well, I don't really have any.”

He ran a hand over his fringe, but Sara simply shrugged as she stood up from where she was searching under the bed. “It's the thought that counts. I can't really stay, either way...duty calls.”

She'd just have to abandon the underthings. It'd be an uncomfortable walk of shame, but if Avitus was trying to get in contact with her so early in the morning, it must be important.

Nonetheless, the two stood, in silence, which had suddenly grown rather heavy. Sara opened her mouth to speak, but Tiran got the jump on her.

“Last night was...enjoyable, to say the least. Thank you.”

Relieved that he apparently didn't regret the evening, Sara smiled. “Definitely. I'd one hundred percent be up for a replay sometime.”

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself, and she was seriously contemplating slamming her head into a rather tastefully appointed shelving system nearby. 'Way to be too damn eager, Ryder!' she chided.

But, apparently fully of surprises, Tiran just flicked a mandible in a smile, eyes soft. “Yeah...I don't think I'd mind that.”

She hadn't expected that. And because she hadn't expected that, she sputtered as she tried to find some kind of reply. “Uh, I....guh, umm...yeah. Yeah, okay. You've...y'know...got my number. So, next time you're free and I'm on the Nexus, just...er,...chk chk.”

She gave him the finger guns. Dear god, she had just given him stupid, stupid finger guns.

Her omnitool beeped, she took that desperately needed cue, and in a voice that cracked from her embarrassment, voiced her good-byes.

“Work! Gotta get to work. Had a good timegottagobye!”

Entirely unaware of Tiran's amused chortle, she turned on her heel and marched out, emitting a high pitched sound of self-disgust half the way to Meridan so that she could get some goddamned panties.

#sam writes stories #kander #tiran kandros/sara ryder #tiran kandros #sara ryder #SAM #mass effect andromeda #chapter 3 #fanfiction

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lean-mean-sam-and-dean · 7 years

Text

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Word Count: About 2400

Warnings: Swearing, FLUFF, some kid being a dick- harassment

Characters: Reader, Sam, Dean

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Summary: The reader decides the three of them need a break and takes the boys to a baseball game after a hunt. But the reader is in for a surprise when what she thought was going to be only a fun night with her two favorite boys, turns out to be more than she expects. The man she has loved for years decides he’s gathered the courage to tell her how he feels about her.

A/N: For @bkwrm523 ‘s 30 prompts challenge, I had a lot of fun writing this and was secretly glad that the deadline was March because it takes me absolutely forever to get a fic out. Anyways, my prompt was “I need more excuses to eat cheese”, not gonna lie, this one was a little daunting because I had no idea what to do with it! (I did change it a bit to nacho cheese so I hope that’s okay) Hope you enjoy!

“I need more excuses to eat nacho cheese,” You turned to see Dean shoveling a handful of chips into his mouth. “This stuff is like liquid gold.” He said, bits of food falling from his cheeks onto his New York Mets shirt you had bought a few minutes ago. You laughed.

Dean seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the Mets game you had convinced them to attend so far. The boys definitely deserved a break, the werewolf pack the three of you had followed to the big Apple had proved to be difficult. Truth was, you weren’t some huge fan of baseball, but upon remembering a few games spent in the summer sun of the past, you decided it would be fun. The smell of hotdogs and the roaring of the crowd was exciting as a kid, even if you didn’t know what was going on in the game, it was still time well spent with your family.

“Can you at least act like an adult?” Sam chuckled on your other side, shifting in his seat to get a better view of his brother who had currently brought his shirt up to his face, licking the cheese that had made it may down the Mets logo. “Dude what else do you want me to do? I am not wasting perfectly good cheese!”

You threw back your head as you laughed once again and Dean smacked the bill of your backward baseball cap causing it to fly into your lap. “Hey shut up! You’re the one who dropped her ice cream on her seat and then ate what was salvageable!”

“But I didn’t lick it off the chair! And an ice cream here is like five bucks, I would’ve eaten it even if it fell on the ground.”

Dean was the one laughing now and Sam muttered something next to you about how many people use these seats, about how many germs you had ingested.

It was currently the top of the third inning, still pretty early in the game, and you could tell the boys were already enjoying themselves. This was such as great idea. The best part of the game wasn’t just the atmosphere of excitement but the fact you got to see the boys smile and have fun. You were sick of their ‘all work, no play’ attitude.

About two innings later you wove through the crowd with three beers in a holder. For a moment you stopped to check your shoe after they began to resist lifting from the concrete, you had stepped in something sticky. That was a ballpark for you. You continued on with a grimace, making a mental note to clean your shoes when you got back to the bunker. It wasn’t until someone grabbed you by the arm did you realize you had walked past your seats. But the hand holding you was too small and clammy to be either one of the boys.

Looking up you found yourself looking into the eyes of a tall brown haired boy who couldn’t have been older than eighteen. He flashed you what you assumed was his attempt at a flirty smirk.

“You like a man with an arm, sweetheart?” You were utterly confused. You had no idea who this kid was or what the hell he was talking about. “What?” You suddenly grew conscious of his tightening grip on you and you would have removed it if you didn’t need both hands to hold your drinks. The boy pointed to sign hanging on the chain link fence a few feet away reading 42 mph. It took a moment to realize he was trying to boast about his “success” in the pitching game he stood beside.

“Dude, just get off me.” You tried to shake him off but he held fast. He was starting to give you a bad feeling, he hadn’t let go of you since he had first spoken to you. You looked around in a panic, hoping someone around you would lend you some assistance and tell the guy to fuck off, but no one said a word as they strode past you. You were obviously uncomfortable and this kid was starting to get too rough for it to be considered friendly.

He pulled you over in front of the game and picked a baseball up off of the ground. The set up consisted of only a few nets to keep passer-bys safe while the participant pitched to the back board, a large picture of a catcher. You briefly wondered if the cheap nets would keep anyone safe if someone playing actually had an arm like that of the players on the field. But your attentions were drawn back to the stranger as he threw with the hand not currently holding you captive. 39 miles per hour. Smack. It hit the backboard.

“Kid, I don’t know who the hell you think you are-”

He swung around to face you again as he towered over you. “I think I’m just your type.” You would have taken a step back if you were free, his breath smelled. But it didn’t matter, you were starting to push past the feeling of uncomfortable to afraid. He was much bigger than you and if the people around you blatantly ignored you as they were now, he could easily overpower you and take you where he wanted to. No, you’d drop the beers and sock him before that would ever happen.

“Get your hands off her.” Dean’s growled behind you. You felt his hand on your arm release as it fell to his side awkwardly. You thought for a moment the kid might try and challenge him but he seemed to think twice when Dean stepped in front of you, shielding you with his body and looking down on the stranger. You knew Dean was puffing out his chest a little, trying to look big and scary and the thought made you chuckle a little.

The kid swallowed. “I was-I was leaving.” He took a few quick steps to get around Dean but Dean sidestepped in front of him. “If she weren’t here to stop me,” Dean pointed to you and he spoke lowly now. “I’d. Kick. Your. Ass.” He jabbed his finger into the now frightened kid’s chest with each syllable.

You puffed up with pride as the high schooler sprinted away after Dean let him go. Dean turned around and let out an angry huff.

“I love it when you do that.” You smiled. Dean attempted to smile in return but was still too angry to do anything but take the beers from you and gently bring your arm to where he could see it. It looked like it would end up bruising. Fantastic. “Dammit.” He muttered. “I should have actually kicked his ass.”

“Yeah, he was a dick.” You rubbed your wrist. “But that’s what I have you for. To beat up guys like that.” You grinned up at him. He snorted, no longer angry, or at least hiding it. He wrapped an arm around you and led you back to the seats. “I’m not gonna let this guy ruin your day, Y/N. How about another ice cream, one that won’t be eaten off the seat of your chair.” You smacked his chest as he laughed.

At the end of the current inning, there would be but one left and the Yankees were closing in on the Mets. The scoreboard showed 4 to 5 as the stadium’s lights flooded the field, it was getting dark.

When you had returned to your seats earlier Sam had agreed with Dean that if either of them saw that kid in the parking lot they’d run him over with the Impala. They were joking of course, or so you hoped, but they were both still pissed he had hurt you. However, Dean had kept his promise and the three of you returned back to your state of excitement as the game drew closer to a close and both teams closer in score. Both of them would jump to their feet with the rest of the crowd as one of the outfielders dropped the ball, the runner flying through the bases in long strides. Sam and Dean both held their hands on their heads, cheering for the batter at the top of their lungs.

“Move your ass!” Dean yelled beside you. “Go, dude! Run!” You were jumping up and down on your toes and the man in the row in front of you threw his popcorn to the ground as he shouted at the players. Sam was no different than the rest of the crowd, “Let’s go! C’mon!”

“He’s gonna make it!” You grabbed Dean by the arm. “He’s going home!” He began to jump in time with you, grinning ear to ear.

As the player crossed the home plate the fans cheered louder than you had thought possible. All around you people waved foam fingers and glow sticks, tooting the plastic horns you had seen in the gift shop earlier, and ringing cow bells. You jumped into Dean’s arms as you pumped a fist in the air. He was laughing as you cheered and half held you with one arm while the other joined yours in the air as you both shouted.

Maybe it was seeing you in the Mets jersey that was too big for you that Dean found adorable, or just the fact that you were having fun and smiling that made Dean stop and stare but he couldn’t tear his eyes from you. You continued on oblivious to his full attention on you. You looked like a normal woman, not like someone who lived the life of a hunter. You looked like you were having a good time and that’s what Dean loved the most. It was then that he realized that his happiness was derived from yours, that you were the most important thing in his life. The kid from earlier had shown him that, had shown him through his lingering anger that he would always protect you.

“Dean.” He looked up at your y/e/c eyes and raised his eyebrows. “You can put me down now.” He looked around to see that most of the fans had returned to their seat and he was one of the very few left standing. “Oh yeah, sorry.” He set you down on the ground as the both of you sat down again. Your cheeks were a bit red but Dean didn’t seem to notice. You could hear Sam snickering on your other side. You smacked his arm. “Shut up Sammy.”

The eighth inning ended and someone came on over the loudspeaker. “Well alrighty folks, we’ve got one inning to go and you know what that means!” The crowd cheered once again. “That’s right! Love is in the air!”

You watched the screen across the field to see the camera land on a young couple, a heart labeled kiss cam sat in the corner. The girl blushed and her boyfriend tilted her chin up and kissed her with a smile. A collective “awww” came from the audience. A few couples including an elderly man and his wife who earned a loud round of applause appeared on screen before the loudspeaker came to life again.

“One more kiss on the big screen and we’re ready to finish out the game folks!” The camera panned for a few moments before landing on a frightened boy about 13, he refused to plant a kiss on his girlfriend's cheek as his own burned bright red. You laughed. “Aw, better luck next time buddy. How about someone else then…” The camera began to move again before stopping, your heart about exploded in your chest. On the big screen?! Really?! You saw a bewildered reflection of yourself and Sam on the screen and the crowd roared. You felt Dean tense beside you. You tried to laugh it off and shook your head “no” looking across the field and Sam did the same.

“Aw c’mon we can’t have two duds in a row! Give him a kiss little lady! Go ahead!”

Sam cracked up when he saw you blush even harder at that. “Fine!” You raised your hands up. “On the cheek!” Sam turned the side of his face to you and leaned down as he continued to shake with laughter but you were suddenly stopped as someone moved between the two of you. Dean looked down to you with soft eyes and gently took your hand.

“Sorry little brother, but I can’t let you take Y/N from me.” He pulled you up to face him and twisted your baseball cap so it was facing backward again. He brought his hand up to your cheek and before you knew what was happening he crashed his lips into yours. The crowd whooped and hollered around you and you threw your arms around his neck. It was soft and sweet and over sooner than you would have liked. You stared at Dean in shock, his green eyes quickly clouding with guilt.

“I’m sorry I probably shouldn’t have-” You cut Dean off mid-sentence with another kiss, inhaling the scent you knew to be uniquely him. He tilted his head and deepened the kiss more than he maybe should have on a big screen but hell if he cared. He was going to show that little twerp wherever he was that this was how you deserved to be treated.

You broke apart as lights began to flash on the screen. “I think we have a winner!” The speaker boomed. Both of you chuckled and returned to your seats. “Thank God, I was starting to think you two would never get together.” Sam teased.

“That obvious?” Dean rubbed the back of his neck. Sam snorted. “That’s an understatement.”

You smiled softly and took a hold of Dean’s hand, intertwining your fingers in his.

“You know,” you said trying to keep a straight face “I think I could taste that nacho cheese from earlier.”

Dean threw back his head in laughter. “This is why I love you.” And he didn’t care that he had just said those three words here and now. They rolled off his tongue so naturally, but it was true. He loved you more than he could express in words.

Tags: @bkwrm523 @hasta-impalasta (Said you read TFW x female reader inserts? Well here you are! If you don’t mind me tagging you!)

Feedback appreciated, y’all! Don’t be shy! Criticism is welcomed. :)

#dean x reader #dean x reader one shot #dean x reader fanfiction #dean winchester #dean winchester x reader #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural fic #supernatural #dean fluff #dean x reader fluff #dean winchester x reader insert #dean winchester x reader fluff #dean x reader fanfic

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jemkook-blog · 7 years

Text

dullahan

word count: 10053 au: monster pairing: slight jongdae/reader, junmyeon/reader

warning! death, gore, sexual talk, sexual encounters,

Kim Junmyeon was lonely. That was what initially drew you to him. He had a face that should have drawn people to him, all warmth and determination and cool, strong leadership, yet he sat alone, isolated in classrooms that were otherwise occupied by giggling friends and coy lovers. Occasionally, you saw him meeting up with two unsettlingly handsome men, both dressed to kill, but he never seemed to speak to anyone outside of his group.

Rumors swirled about him, people claiming that they had seen him riding around in his classic black Camaro, tinted windows not masking what he did inside. They ranged from accusations of a porn addict who fantasized about the hotter girls in the school (somehow you doubted this, as these rumors seemed to be perpetuated by the girls in question), to “proof” of a necrophiliac who kept a collection of bones in his car and a severed head in his glove box.

Still, he had always seemed nice, at least to you, and despite the fact that he had transferred schools multiple times you never got the sense that it was through any fault of his own. He never complained, even though the rumors must have reached him in some capacity, so you figured he couldn’t be that bad.

He didn’t seem surprised when you sat down next to him that day instead of your usual seat across the room, surrounded by a few of your friends, nor did he seem surprised when you stared at him openly, likely accustomed to watchful eyes.

“Hello,” you said, voice soft, as though you didn’t want to scare him.

“Hello,” he replied agreeably as he turned to make eye contact with you. He was surprisingly open for someone who was mocked as much as he was, and you couldn’t help but offer him a soft smile.

“Is there any reason that you’re choosing to sit by me?” He leaned forward, raising an eyebrow and giving you a crooked smile. “You’ve heard the rumors. Aren’t you afraid that I’ll bite?”

You laughed, as did he, and you wondered how anyone could think that a man like this, all gentle teasing and silly humor, could be anything other than good.

“Shouldn’t you be worried that I might bite too?” you questioned, and noted his widened eyes. It was kind of cute, almost like a puppy that was unused to receiving a treat.

He looked satisfied then, as though you had passed some sort of test that he had laid out without her realizing.

“Maybe I’d like it if you were to bite me,” he muttered, low enough that the professor who had just walked in wouldn’t be able to hear. “Maybe that can be our little experiment. Do you think we could get funding for a study?”

You let out an embarrassed giggle, cheeks reddening rapidly as the professor began to talk. So far, Junmyeon met very little of your preconceived expectations, but you couldn’t say that you necessarily disliked it.

As much as you liked social psychology, today proved to be impossible when it came to focusing. Every time you thought you could finally concentrate, Junmyeon would make a sarcastic remark and you would find yourself too busy muffling your laughter with your hands to concentrate on what the professor was saying.

It used to be a private joke (shared between you and a large portion of the student body, if you were being honest) to ridicule this professor for being hotter than hell but as boring as a rock. Somehow, many people still found it in them to listen to his lectures, mostly for the eye candy, yet you found yourself sneaking glances beside you instead.

Junmyeon was honestly beautiful. You supposed he wasn’t the most attractive person you had ever seen, but there was an allure to him that was rather undeniable, and before you realized it, you were entranced by him.

You were snapped out of your thoughts by the change in Professor Park’s tone.

“Alright,” he said, a half smile on his face. “We technically have another thirty minutes, but I don’t have anything else to say, so you guys are free.”

A general sigh of relief was quite audible throughout the room, and you packed up your meager notes with a sigh. Junmyeon looked over and let out a dry laugh. “Do you always take such horrible notes?”

You flushed, flustered that he had caught you. The grin on his face made you positive that he knew exactly why the notes looked like that, too.

“No,” you mumbled, turning your face away to hide your reddened cheeks. “I just couldn’t focus today, that’s all.”

“You can copy my notes later, if you want,” he said, amiable as ever, only the hint of a smirk revealing his amusement as he slid a black fountain pen into his bag. “Can I have your number?”

The hue of your face only brightened, and the shakiness of your hands as you unlock your phone and hand it to him didn’t go unnoticed by either of you. He tapped it in with a smile, and the two of you prepared to exit the classroom.

“Can I speak with you for a moment, ___?” Professor Park called from behind you.

You turned around, rather confused, but still you agreed, waving Junmyeon on. He shoots you a shrug and mockingly mouths, “Call me,” before continuing on his way.

“What’s up?” you asked the professor, rather casual in your address.

He smiled. “Nothing major. Can we step into my office so I can pull something for you?”

You nodded, eager to get out of the class. As this was your last class of the day, you couldn’t wait to get home and sleep. Professor Park held the door open for you, and you went in with a quick nod of thanks. As he closes the door behind the two of you, you almost miss the subtle click of the lock, but you spin around in time to see him looming over you.

“Sir?” you asked, voice trembling as you began to edge away from him.

He smiled softly, but it did little to ease your nerves as he ducks his head to meet the crook of your neck. You stumbled backwards, uneasy to the extreme. “Come on, ___,” he whispered, backing you against his desk. “We both know that you find me attractive, and I have to say, you are quite a delight to have in class. I can make you feel good, ___, so just relax and get with me. There are no strings. I’ll never hold this against you. You are just the sexiest woman to come into my classroom, and I want to show you how you deserve to be treated.”

“Like a shameful secret in your locked office door?” you bit back, the edge of his desk digging into your lower back. “Jesus, professor, you sure do know how to make a girl feel good.”

You let out a scream, not caring who, in particular, heard you, but Professor Park simply laughed. “Don’t you remember, love? Every office in campus is soundproofed in order to keep all the distracting noises outside and the confidential matter in here.”

He leaned over you, biting at your neck and sucking hard, trying to leave a mark, so you sprang into action. You delivered a punch at half strength to his kidney, but it startled him enough to get him to back off. You aimed another one at his sternum, and you were feeling pretty confident about your chances until he caught your first easily in one delicate hand. His eyes were flaring with anger, and he pressed against your body with full force.

“The fuck did you think you were trying to pull, bitch?” he hissed, spit flying into your face. “You’re asking for it now.”

He pulled at your clothes, unbuttoning your jeans and shedding your shirt with lightning speed, leaving you in your underwear. A tear slipped down your face, but you kept tugging at your wrists, desperate to get out of his one handed grip.

Then the door slammed open, Kim Junmyeon’s face dark with rage and another inexplicable quality that made him look like a fallen angel. “Park Yongwoo,” he said, his voice thick with unadulterated anger. Professor Park stumbled away from you, and, between your shock and relief, you crumpled to the floor and sobbed. Junmyeon glanced at the startled professor and smiled bitterly, though you missed his expression. “We’ll just say that you wouldn’t get off, okay?” he says, his voice light.

A moment later, a sickening crack resounded across the room as his fist made contact with the professor’s face. Skin is broken, and by the incredible force that he seemed to have used, you were certain that there would be serious bruising and swelling. Only a few seconds later, campus police burst in.

“Are you the one who placed the call?” one asked Junmyeon, who nodded.

“I didn’t mean to use force, but he wouldn’t get off of her, and I was worried that he still would have been able to do something.”

They nodded, escorting Professor Park from the room and asking you if you would feel okay with just Junmyeon. You nodded, and they left. Shakily, you tried to get up, only to feel your legs collapse out from underneath you.

A hand appeared in front of you, and you took it gratefully, letting him pull you up until you were resting your head on your chest, the last few tears slipping out as he wrapped his arms around you soothingly.

Finally, you pulled away, a bitter smile on your face as you wiped away your tears. “If you had just waited a couple more seconds, I would have had him,” you said, hiccuping in lieu of laughter.

He quirks an eyebrow as you pull your shirt back on. “I have no doubt that you would have, but you have to let my male ego be fed occasionally, or I might cry.”

A surprised giggle burst out of you as he said that, missing the button to your jeans as your hand shook. “Dammit, Junmyeon,” you said, buttoning your jeans properly this time. “We’ve only talked for one day, and somehow you know...” Your voice trailed off. I can make you feel good. “You know how to make me feel okay.”

“It’s a gift,” he replied, winking. “And you know what else would make you feel better? A nice warm drink at the corner cafe.”

“Shit,” you muttered, still shaken but already beginning to cheer. “How do you know me so well already?”

He shrugged mischievously, but another question had already occurred to you.

“Junmyeon?”

“What’s up?”

“How did you happen to be back here when all of this was happening? The office is soundproofed, so how could you hear me?”

He gave you an easy smile, but somehow, you didn’t find it soothing at all. “I just realized that I forgot my pen in the classroom, and I heard a muffled noise. I wanted to make sure you were okay.” He twirled the pen between his fingers, showing you what he meant.

But as he guided you out of the classroom, one hand resting reassuringly on your back, you considered the fact that, between the locked door that had opened so easily and the pen you swore he had already put away, something wasn’t quite right.

You glanced at his face, saw the little threads of anger woven in between the worry marked on his brow, and decided that, either way, you were glad that he was on your side.

By the time the two of you made it to the cafe, the sunset was painting the sky with finger dipped in violet and primrose. Junmyeon opened the door for you, especially mindful to treat you well based on what had just happened to you. Once you entered, however, you were surprised to find the two guys that he had always hung out with, their day old eyeliner looking like bruises and shadows.

Somehow, you thought it made them look even better.

“I hope you don’t mind if we sit with them as well,” Junmyeon said, his ever present hand ghosting across the small of your back, sending a shiver up your spine even as it comforted you. “I know that you have your own friends, but Minseok and Yixing are good guys, so I thought it would be nice for you to know that there are other people looking out for you as well.”

You’re taken aback by the friendly expressions on both of their faces. As far as you’ve always known, they’ve been seductive and aloof, but whatever Junmyeon had said to them clearly opened them up to you. Yixing in particular gave you a bright grin, bouncing in his chair as he waved. You turned toward your new friend and smiled brightly, something that seemed to take him aback.

“I really appreciate everything that you’ve done,” you said, pulling him in for a quick hug. “Fuck, I’ve only known you for a day, and you do this shit for me. You’re incredible.”

When you pulled back, Junmyeon was glowing, his face lit up with a smile so beautiful that you could swear that it almost blinded you. “No problem,” he replied, guiding you over to the booth where they sat. “You’re the one who has done a lot for me.”

As you sat down, you couldn’t quite understand what he meant, but then you remembered the boy who sat alone, who was called a pervert and a creep because he would rather be alone than join a fraternity or fuck pretty girls, and you understood exactly what he meant.

Minseok shot you a glance across the booth, and your skin crawled with the electricity between the two of you. “Welcome,” he purred, and you couldn’t tell if he was doing it on purpose or not, but everything about him screamed sex appeal. That is, until Junmyeon shot him a pointed look, and he lounged back in his seat, nonchalant as ever.

Yixing looked chastened as well, despite not having done anything wrong, and a small smile curved across your face upon noticing the control that Junmyeon exerted over them, tasting more like respect than fear. Without thinking, you leaned against him, your hands curling around the drinks that had been sitting at the table, courtesy of the other two.

Junmyeon stiffened against your shoulder, and you began to draw back, only to have him shoot you a soft look, letting you know that it was alright. You settled back against him, content in the calm quiet that existed between the four of you.

Until, of course, Minseok broke it with a sharp cackle, nudging Yixing in the ribs and pointing to Junmyeon. You looked up, and sure enough, the man in question’s sharp look was contrasted with the pale pink hue of his cheeks. Once he noticed you watching, he raised his hand across his face, masking the flush.

“I’m gonna go to the restroom for a second,” he muttered, shifting out and away from you in an instant, nudging past an older man to get into the restroom first.

Yixing leaned forward, an innocent look plastered across his face as he gathered together words to pose a question. Yo would have bought it too, if not for the twitching corners of Minseok’s mouth.

“So how long have the two of you been fucking?” Yixing asked, and for a second you were startled that those foul words would come out of such an angelic looking face, but you shouldn’t have been surprised when the devil was sitting right next to him.

“We haven’t done anything of the sort,” you replied, a blush rising to your own cheeks. “We’ve only talked once. Today was when we really met.”

Minseok raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Fuck, he never gets embarrassed when any of his other flings have gotten cuddly with him. What did you do to wrap him around your finger, and can you do it to me too?” He dropped a wink that only added to your flustered feelings. “I promise, I can do you ten times better than he can.”

Yixing smacked the back of his head lightly, enough to cause a small giggle to burst out of the other’s mouth, but not enough to stop him from continuing. “Ten dollars says that he’s holed up in the bathroom jerking off to the thought of your lips wrapped around his cock. Now that he’s felt even a little of you, he’s not gonna stop until he has it.”

Your cheeks were horribly red now, noting Junmyeon’s presence behind the other two, and Yixing seemed to pick up on the hint, elbowing Minseok square in the side.

Junmyeon slide back into the seat next to you and gave them both a chilly smile. “Didn’t I call you here to make her feel better about what almost happened to her? Didn’t I tell you that she might be feeling sensitive about topics such as the one you’re discussing? I called you here in an effort to give her more people to rely on, but for all you know, you’re giving her even fewer.”

You tugged on his sleeve lightly, a small giggle escaping your lips, and he softened considerably. “I’m fine,” you said, smiling widely to convince him. “It would have been funny if I didn’t have the feeling that you were going to come back right then.”

“Fine,” he grumbled back, aiming a nasty look at the other two. “It’s late, so let me walk you home, away from these two idiots.”

Sirens were what woke you up from a deep slumber, the wailing calls cutting through the predawn air like a sword cleaving through a crowd. Groggily, you texted your neighbor to see if he knew what was going on.

3:17 - Kyungsoo, what the hell is going on? 3:21 - Good morning to you too, sunshine. Someone is lying dead in our alleyway. 3:22 - What?! 3:22 - The professor you were telling me about. Park Yongwoo? 3:23 - Holy shit. I mean, I’m kind of glad he won’t bother me, but what happened to him? 3:23 - Headless, they’re saying, and his dick is chopped off. You’re going to be held in suspicion. 3:24 - Shit, just what I need. Alright, thanks Soo. 3:24 - Any time, kid. 3:24 - I’m not even younger than you!! 3:25 - Kid.

Frustrated and more than a little scared, you got dressed and went downstairs to where the police officers were. One saw you and made his way over, his bright grin a stark contrast to the blood spatters that you could see around the entrance to the alleyway.

“Hi there ma’am,” he said, nodding respectfully. “Officer Kim Jongdae at your service. How can I help you?”

“What happened?” you choked out, feeling your throat begin to close even with the little that you could see.

“I’d like to comfort you, ma’am, but it’s a particularly grisly murder, so I need to warn you to be careful.” He eyed you, then continued, saying, “It was Professor Park Yongwoo. Are you a college student?”

You nodded, feeling tears well in your eyes. “He tried to rape me earlier today, actually.”

At this, Officer Kim’s eyebrows raised considerably, and he shot you a quizzical look. “Ma’am, you do know that by saying that, you will be placed under suspicion? The man’s genitals were cut off.”

“I know, but I thought I would be honest with you rather than making you come up to me and interrogate me about this.”

The officer smiled, clapping you on the back. “Well, I appreciate it, ma’am. Does anyone else know about this?”

“One of them is the one who saved me, and a couple of his friends, but other than that, just my closest friends, as far as I know.”

“Well, I appreciate your assistance. Can I take your name down for my statement?”

“____ ___,” you replied, smiling at him.

“And can I have your number for my phone?”

You were already halfway turned around when he said that, and you flushed as you turned back to him, rattling off your number in a quiet mumble.

“Thanks for that assistance as well,” he said as he walked off, giving you a playful salute. “You’ll really help me catch something with this information.”

Redder than a beet, you spun around and sprinted back into the apartment.

“And the officer asked me for my number!” As you and Junmyeon walked into your social psych class (the university had mustered up some poor aide to teach), you recounted to him the story of two nights agot. You had gotten little sleep that night, back in the apartment by 3 but up until 5 texting Officer Kim Jongdae, who was a surprisingly cute texter. The two of you had made a plan for a group hangout at the Rose Leaf Cafe, one that was far more high class than the corner cafe that you frequented often.

“Jesus Christ, he had a murder scene on his hands and all he could think about was getting your number? If it had been anyone other than you, I would have said he was a shit officer, but you’re cute, so I can’t blame him for having his priorities straight.” Junmyeon seemed as easygoing as ever, although he did show concern for you upon hearing that a murderer was on the loose. “I just hope that officer doesn’t start suspecting the guys in your life so he has less obstacles into your pants.”

You hit him, a dark blush coloring your cheeks brightly. “God, shut up! He wanted us to have a group date of sorts at Rose Leaf. I was gonna bring you, but if you can’t even be civil-”

“Alright, alright,” he replied, raising his hands defensively. “I didn’t mean it quite like that. I’ll be nice if you take me along, I swear, but I’m allowed to complain about him when he’s not here.” He leaned down and gave you a cheeky smile. “Because when you’re here, you’re all mine.”

Your face darkened even more at that, and you turned away from him to take your seat. You could hear him chuckling behind you as he approached, the warmth of him vaguely electrifying. Minseok had visited you yesterday, as Junmyeon wasn’t able to due to personal reasons, and he hadn’t let up on the insinuations about her and his friend.

“He lays in his bed, I bet,” Minseok purred, his body moving fluidly across the couch as he leaned toward her. “And pumps his dick, thinking about what’s under your clothes. Jesus Christ, he’s seen you in your panties.”

He paused for a minute, looking as though he was hesitant but resolute. “Not that he would try anything untoward on you. We all know what you’ve been through.” By this time, he had crawled so close to her that his mouth was pressed against her ear. “But don’t deny that you want his thick cock in your dripping pussy.”

“Jerk,” you muttered softly as you took your seat, thoroughly frustrated with the turmoil in your gut.

Class passed in fairly short order, the aide being woefully under prepared for the task. You packed your things away with excitement, even linking arms with Junmyeon in your eagerness for later tonight. You hadn’t been on a date in quite a while, so to have someone as trustworthy as him with you was a major relief.

You stopped him after a minute, sliding off your bag and handing it to him. “Can you watch my stuff for a second? I have to go.” You gave him a winning smile, and he relented with a sigh and a dry look.

By the time you washed your hands and checked the time, it had only been a couple minutes. Unfortunately, glancing down at your phone made it impossible to notice the girl striding toward you until her fist made contact with your face.

Shocked, you tumbled backward, your back slamming painfully against the edge of a sink. “The fuck?” You were beyond confused. Never had you been involved in drama, and you would have considered yourself fairly below the radar if it weren’t for this girl.

“How does it feel, bitch?” the girl spat as she delivered another blow to your stomach. “How does it feel to be dating a fucking freak? Does it feel nice knowing that your boyfriend’s dick has been in some dead girl’s body? Do you run your cunt along the bodies too?”

You sputtered in protest as she kicked your leg out from underneath you, crumpling to the ground and too overwhelmed to fight back. “Junmyeon? He’s my friend, nothing more! Besides, he’d never do any of that stuff. Don’t be a bitch just because you’re lacking something in your own relationship.”

When she kicked you this time, the point of her toe catching on your cheek, the edge of her heel also scraped against your throat. Dizzy now, you could barely hear someone yelling urgently in the entrance to the bathroom. Barely a moment later, the girl’s looming figure was replaced by Junmyeon’s, who scooped you up and passed you over to the girl in the entryway, a pretty girl by the name of Amber that you recognized from some of your classes last year.

Then he was on the instigator in an instant, his figure so terrifying that you flinched away, your head flaring in pain as Amber guided you out of the restroom and into a chair, returning to monitor the other two.

You could hear the low growl of Junmyeon’s voice, spitting the same phrase over and over again. “What is your fucking name?” Junmyeon hissed, his voice taking on a quality unlike anything that you had ever heard from him.

“Choi Eunsang,” the girl whimpered out, her voice low with terror.

A loud thud echoed from within the bathroom, and your savior stalked out, his face white with fury, though it softened almost immediately once he laid eyes on you. Slowly, as though he was afraid to scare you, he crouched in front of you, taking your hands in his own. “Are you okay, baby?” he asked, and dizzily, not registering the pet name, you nodded, reaching out your arms.

As he slid your arm across his shoulders so that he could support you, Eunsang stumbled out of the bathroom, her eyes wide with terror. “What the fuck are you?” she spat. “Your skin fucking decayed! What disease did you pick up from those bodies?”

Junmyeon simply raised an eyebrow as he wrapped his arm around your torso and you both began to hobble off. “I have no idea what you mean,” he replied, turning his head and shooting her a dangerous smile. “You might want to get your head checked.”

18:23 - Hi there, Jongdae! (*^▽^*) 18:24 - Ah, hello there, sunflower! ( ﾟ▽ﾟ)/ What’s up? 18:24 - Something happened while I was at school...my face is all bruised. Can we hang out somewhere else??? 18:25 - What happened?!?! And yeah of course!! You can bring your friend to my apartment if you want! This is the address:: xxxx 18:26 - Thank you! Junmyeon and I will be there as soon as we can!!

By the time that you and Junmyeon had made it to the apartment in question, it was nearly dark, the sunset painting the picturesque apartments in shades of rose and gold. You were well enough to walk on your own at this point, though Junmyeon stayed close to you, hovering like a nervous hen. You made it up the stairs, nerves twisting in your stomach. “Do I look okay?” you asked, flushing behind the purple and blue.

“You look beautiful,” he responded, leaning over you to knock on Jongdae’s door. It was only a few moments before the officer answered, dressed in a pair of ripped jeans and a tight fitting t shirt layered under flannel. You fought off the redness that threatened to overwhelm you.

Instantly, Jongdae cupped your face in his hands, examining the little bruises that flowered against your cheekbones. “Who did this to you?” he asked, glancing up at Junmyeon as though implying that he might be the guilty party. Behind you and out of your view, the other man gave a beatific smile.

“This girl. Junmyeon here was the one who saved me.” You cocked your head, trying to remember the details. “Her name was Eunsang, right?”

Your friend shrugged. “I don’t remember. I was going to report her to the campus police, but I was so angry that I couldn’t remember her name.” He let out a self deprecating chuckle. “It’s a shame, really.”

With that, the officer lead you both into his apartment, where you saw a blonde man reclining on the couch, his angelic features lighting up with a friendly greeting, taking in the smudged eyeliner around Junmyeon’s eyes and the bruises on your cheeks with little judgment. “Hello!” he said, shaking hands with both of you in turn. “I’m Kim Jongin. It’s nice to meet both of you!”

With that, he moved to one of the chairs across the way. Junmyeon did the same after a moment of deliberation, leaving you and Jongdae to take the couch. From there, you talked for a while, going on about random things. Jongdae brought a blanket out from behind the couch, and the two of you stayed warm under it, his arm gradually wrapping around your waist as your head shyly rested on his shoulder.

“So, you and ___ are both students, right?” Jongdae asked, posing his question to Junmyeon, who, while being nothing less than a perfect guest, had been fairly quiet throughout the entire evening. “Same major?”

“That’s right. We have a few classes together. That’s how we met, of course.”

“Any other friends?”

You looked up at Jongdae, mildly shocked. “That’s kind of a rude thing to ask someone.”

Junmyeon smiled, waving off your concerns. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that, and yes, I do have a few other friends, a couple of whom ___ knows, and probably enjoys being around.”

“I’m on the fence about Minseok,” you teased, mouth quirking.

“What’s wrong with Minseok?” Jongdae, seeming to snap to attention. “Is he a bad sort?”

You lifted an eyebrow. “Not at all. I was kidding, obviously. Minseok is a good friend of mine now. All of Junmyeon’s friends, himself included, are great people.” A thought occurred to you, and though you knew that you probably shouldn’t push things, you continued. “Is this a date or an interrogation? Am I just here to provide you a convenient excuse to question everyone that you think could have killed Professor Park?”

You peeled his arm off of your waist, standing even as Junmyeon did, Jongin looking mildly confused and Jongdae looking affronted. “That’s not what I meant to do at all!” he said, getting up and throwing out an arm to stop you. “It just sounded suspicious...and I’m a police officer. I just react like that sometimes. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, but I really didn’t mean to!”

You sighed, casting a look at Junmyeon, who understood and started to head toward the door. “I believe you, but I think that tonight is over. Maybe we can meet up again.” You turned toward Jongin and cast a wan smile. “It was nice to meet you, Jongin. Hopefully we’ll see each other soon.”

With that, you followed Junmyeon toward the door, shutting it behind you as you stalked off, a grinning man following in your footsteps.

You turned the corner, almost to your apartment, and sent your friend an irritated look. “You keep smiling.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, choosing to wait until both of you walked into the apartment and entered the elevator to reply. “People usually smile when they’re happy.”

The elevator chimed, its harsh sound causing you to flinch as the doors opened and you stepped out. “Why are you happy, then?”

You were fumbling with the key as you spoke, turning it as he deliberated over his words. Finally, just as you were about to step in and say good night, he spoke again, his voice tinged with laughter and another feeling that you couldn’t quite put a name to. “Because that means that I can do this.”

And then his chapped mouth met your own, and you fell back, Junmyeon’s steadying arm and the wall the only things that kept you upright. For a second, you wanted to pull back, but the large majority of you, hurt and angry and finally, finally appreciative of just how much he had done for you, pressed you against him, caused your breath to come short, turned every touch into a desperate plea for more. It wasn’t as though he’d deny you, either, with his hands dipping lower and mapping out the planes of your body eagerly, his solid weight pushing you against the wall, and still he pushed for more, biting your lip gently. He sent a flurry of kisses up and down your neck, stopping only to extract a distressed mewl as he bit down.

Your hips rolled against his once, twice, and then he was on you, picking you up and maneuvering around your cluttered apartment as though he had done this a million times before. Distracting him, you smoothed your hands across his shirt, slipping under it and up his back, digging your nails into his skin. With a hiss, he kicked open a door, luckily finding your bedroom first try.

With a grunt, he practically hurled you onto your bed, and you landed against it with a gasp, all of the air exiting your body in one fell swoop. Now sans shirt, he was on you again, lips and teeth connecting in a whirlwind of motion, too desperate to care whether or not it was done well. He tugged at your shirt, sitting up momentarily to toss it onto your floor.

“What are we doing?” you asked, voice rough. You wanted to stop. You wanted to continue. There weren’t adequate words for the distress that you were feeling, and yet you found yourself overwhelmed with the desire to lose yourself in him.

“Do you want to stop?”

“No.” There was no hesitation in your mind, even if you were certain that this was a mistake, even if you were positive that you would regret it in the morning. You pressed up against him, arching your back as he sighed and ground against you.

“I love you,” he whispered, and you recoiled, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Now probably isn’t the best time to tell you that, but god, I love you.”

“Then why did you let me go on a date with Jongdae?”

He pressed a kiss against your neck, wet and sloppy, punctuating his words with the whisper of lips on flesh. “Because,” he mumbled. “I’m not here to control you.” Another kiss, followed by the bite of teeth. “If anything, you control me.” You could feel indigo petals bloom against your skin, matching the cool tones on your cheeks. “I am nothing when I’m confronted with you.”

And despite the yearning that tugged at you from your core, the soft kiss of his skin caused you to push him away. He looked down at you, a hurt expression crossing his face, and you couldn’t blame him. He had just laid his heart out for you, and you had seemingly rejected him. “Not tonight,” you said, an unspoken promise on your lips, unsaid for fear of not living up to it. “I have a lot to think about.”

It’s graceful, the way that he picks himself up and gathers his clothes, the press of his erection swollen against his jeans, but he didn’t complain. He was almost too quiet, and you couldn’t leave him like this. “Come here,” you whispered, almost against your better judgment.

He looked wary as he walked over, as though he was raising his hopes against his better judgment. You gestured him closer and closer, until he was just a breath away. Hesitantly, you shifted into a more comfortable position and reached out your arm, palming the front of his jeans. He sucked in a breath between his teeth and gasped, biting his lip.

“Are you sure?” he asked, but you saw that there was no fight in his eyes. You squeezed gently, unsure what to do but going by instinct. He unzips his pants and places his hand over yours, guiding you into drawing out groans. You flicked your thumb across his slit, and he bucked into your hand. It was only a moment more before he released, dripping over your hand and leaving thick ropes dripping against your chest.

He slumped for a moment, losing his balance before getting his feet under him. “Your turn?” he asked, voice shaking, but you shook your head.

“Go home, Junmyeon,” you said, but your mouth turned up in a smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As he left, pulling on his clothes as he went, you went to the bathroom, turning the shower on, closing your eyes beneath the cool water. With every brush of your fingers across your collarbone, you imagined that they were his, and when the water kissed your lips, you imagined that he was right there with you.

It wasn’t love, but Junmyeon was a mystery of epic proportions that you wanted to solve with a burning passion, and as you turned off the water, you silently pleaded with whatever was listening to give you the answers.

You crawled under your bedsheets, dressed in a loose t shirt and loose pajama pants, begging the universe to tell you the truth.

You woke up that night to a low bellow outside, the voice shrieking out the name “Choi Eunsang” before vanishing into the mist of the early morning. A second later, another scream could be heard, this one far more familiar than anything you had heard before. You stumbled out the door, tripping down the stairs until you reached the outside.

There, clutching his face and blood seeping between his fingers, was Kyungsoo. Instantly, you dialed the police, stuttering out what little you knew as you rushed over to him. “Oh god, Kyungsoo, are you okay? No, you’re not okay. Shit! What the hell am I doing? What the hell am I supposed to do?”

Kyungsoo smiled despite himself. “You could stay calm, for one thing,” he teased, his voice cracking with pain. “And maybe start finding materials to make me a fashionable eyepatch. Bastard got my eye pretty good.”

“What happened?”

He pointed down the alley, the very same one that Professor Park had been found in, and you fell back, shocked by the sight that laid within.

There, her throat slit and her cheekbone caved in, was Choi Eunsang. Before you could process your reaction, you threw up, spewing your meager dinner across the floor. The tears followed soon after, coursing down your cheeks as you tried to hold yourself together, and Kyungsoo reached out his clean hand to rest against your back, a solid reminder that you weren’t alone.

“God,” you muttered, smiling wryly at him. “Shouldn’t I be the one comforting you?”

He shrugged as sirens wailed in the distance. “I’m tougher than I look. I’m more worried about you.” He paused for a moment. “And honestly, my sanity is more worrying as well.” He leaned forward, as though confessing a secret. “Honestly, it looked like he was headless, and the flesh on his hands and around his neck was decaying, giving off some kind of weird ass glow.”

Your stomach flipped, words echoing in your head. What disease did you pick up from those bodies? Before you could think on it too long, however, the ambulance rolled up, and both you and Kyungsoo were escorted inside.

The next day, Junmyeon was at your door bright and early, pounding the door with such single minded intensity that he nearly whacked you in the face when you opened up. Once you opened the door, he embraced you tightly, and you patted his back as both a form of comfort and a signal that you were running out of air. “What’s this for?”

He shoots you a worried look, and you stop joking immediately. “Jesus, ___, someone was killed in that damn alleyway again. All that they said on the news was that it was a young woman. It scared me half to death. I was so worried about you.”

Even with a quick check, all that showed in his eyes was complete honesty, so you dismissed the crazy thoughts that had begun to accumulate in your mind. “I appreciate it,” you said, planting a small kiss on his cheek. He reddened at the contact, causing you to giggle softly. “You’re like a knight in shining armor.”

Another knock echoed on your door, and Junmyeon looked over quizzically. “Maybe it’s Yixing? He was in the area when I told him that I was going to drop by your apartment.”

Shrugging, you walked over. “Won’t hurt to check.”

Instead of Yixing, Officer Kim Jongdae was on the other side. “Oh,” you said lamely. “It’s nice to see you, Jongdae.”

He smiled wanly, eyeing Junmyeon behind you. “I’m afraid I’m here in an official capacity, much as I wish it was otherwise, but this is the second death that’s connected to you, so I had to come and ask if I could search your apartment.”

Mildly surprised, you nodded. “I mean...I have nothing to hide, so have at it.”

Relieved, Jongdae shot you a bright grin, though it soured when he looked behind you. “And does he have anything to hide?”

You frowned at the policeman, rolling your eyes briefly. “He got here a minute before you did. When are they saying that she died?”

“2 in the morning or so.”

Junmyeon butted in, that same vacant, meaningless smile on his face that always appeared when Jongdae was around. “I got home last night at 1:30, and you can ask the night shift doorman at my complex. It takes about 45 minutes or so to get to her apartment, assuming I left immediately after arriving, and my friend Minseok can testify that my head was definitely still in the room at 2.” He smirked. “That is, if that glare you’re giving me has to do with suspicion of murder, and not suspicion of another sort.”

“Be nice,” you hissed, shoving him. “Save the attitude for when he doesn’t have a taser on him, okay?”

You stepped aside as Jongdae began to conduct his investigation. You tried to make small talk, sitting down against the wall and making yourself comfortable, gesturing for Junmyeon to do the same. “Are you allowed to tell us what they think the murder weapon is?”

Jongdae let out a dry laugh. “No, but I’ll tell you that they don’t know how the deaths were caused. Obviously, both suffered some pretty harsh damage, but they seem to have passed before the damage was done. We do know, however, that the attacker carries some sort of whip, due to the injuries sustained by your neighbor.”

Processing the information, you raised an eyebrow. “Well, how could they have died if it wasn’t due to their wounds? I’m assuming there’s no poison involved?” you posed to the officer as he lifted your couch cushions. “Also, be careful with that. It’s lasted me a long time.”

Jongdae tossed you a baleful look, but he was noticeably more gentle when he replaced the cushions. Next, he eyed the sheets and towels in your laundry basket. “Laundry day?” he asked.

“Or maybe she had a late night visitor,” Junmyeon chimed in, ignoring your angered glare. “After all, she doesn’t have any attachments.” And, almost as though he had angered himself with his own words, continued forward. “Who knows? Maybe the guy she fucked was the murderer. Of course, this is all hypothetical.”

“Enough, Junmyeon,” you spat, angry tears welling in your eyes. You got up and shuffled to your bedroom. “Feel free to come in when you need to search the room, Officer.”

As you shut the door to your room, you heard the icy tone of Jongdae’s questioning and the laughing, mocking replies that only served to incite him. Sighing, you flopped down onto your bed and covered your head with a pillow, attempting to drown out the sounds of the two arguing men in your apartment.

If you were being honest with yourself, you had a feeling that Junmyeon would outmatch Jongdae in any kind of dispute.

Whether that was good still remained to be seen.

It was 10 on the dot when police officer Kim Jongdae parked outside of the South Bellevue Apartments, and it couldn’t have been more than a minute later when he saw something that confirmed all of his suspicions and proved that his sanity was still intact, even if his worldview wasn’t. There, on one of the ninth floor balconies, perched on the ledge, was Kim Junmyeon.

Something about him was off, however. For a moment, he thought that maybe his eyes were deceiving him, the rational part of his mind telling him that what he was experiencing was fake. It was obvious that what he was seeing was the truth, however, once he shifted into the light. Junmyeon was headless, the flesh of his neck gray and stringy. Tucked into the crook of his elbow was his head, swollen with decay and blotchy with missing skin. The eyes gleamed with an unnatural light, and as Jongdae took a step forward to see better, Junmyeon’s body rolled off the balcony back into his apartment.

His suspicions had started from the very beginning, before he had even met the other man. When he had interviewed possible witnesses for the first murder, one man, who had been walking home from the bar a block away, claimed that he had seen the murderer, but he was headless, so he couldn’t give a description of his features, only that he seemed like a healthy male and carried himself with confidence.

The other officers had dismissed him as a crazy drunk, but when he interviewed two other witnesses - one a known crackhead and the other afflicted with night terrors - both claimed the same thing as the drunken man. They were unreliable, to be sure, but the fact that their stories checked out with each other was a rare occurrence, so he chose not to take it lightly.

When Jongdae had met Junmyeon initially, it might have been rude of him to assume that he was trouble, but he couldn’t help it. Beyond the eyeliner and the vacant smile was a seething, roiling sort of darkness, the kind that took delight in pretending to be the light, the pillar of the truth. It showed up in the smirk that appeared on his face whenever ___ chastised him, the look in his eyes when Jongdae got too close to reaching a subject that he didn’t want to pursue, and in the cruel victory that displayed across his face when things played out to his liking.

He was clever, and Jongdae could respect that. He was fallible, though, and between the glimpses of blackened, cracked fingertips and the aura of death that seemed to pervade the area around him. He was always very careful not to slip in front of ___, but when she wasn’t looking, he would crack.

Because there was a crack, that meant that Jongdae could expose him for who he was. And because he could expose him, that meant that he would have to be careful. He already knew his destination, having garnered it from ___’s desk in a moment of her distraction, so it wasn’t long before he was in front of the front door, knocking on the door three times sharply before stepping back.

Junmyeon answered casually, but it was clear that the other man had been expecting him. “Can I help you Officer?” he asked. “Or are you here for an off duty reconciliation?”

Plain clothes perhaps wasn’t the best choice that he could have made, but he had to stay inconspicuous to lower his guard. “Official duty, I’m afraid, but feel free to turn me down, if you want.” He shot a quick glance into the apartment and saw two men staring back at him, eyeliner ringed around their eyes and lipstick smudged across their lips as though they had just finished fucking somebody. One smiled, the blood red corners of his lips pulled up in a menacing sneer. “Hello, Officer. Come to join the party?” he asked, and Jongdae knew that this was Minseok. In fact, looking at both of the men, they were both clearly in on whatever secret Junmyeon held.

“I’d like to search the apartment, if it’s okay by you. If not, I’ll come by with a warrant soon.” Jongdae gave them both a friendly smile, one that he felt may have been too clearly tinged with victory. He would get his man by tonight, he was sure.

“By all means, come on in. By the way, does ___ know that you’re here?”

“I mean, it’s not a secret, if that’s what you’re wondering. She knows that I’m suspicious of you, as I have every right to be.”

“You wound me, Officer.” Junmyeon leans against the chair that Yixing sits in, and the otherwise disinterested man’s lips quirk into a sneer as well. “Just when I thought that we were beginning to get friendly. This isn’t because I got a handjob from ___, right? I feel like you pretty much lost your chance after the way that you interrogated her on your date.”

“What?” Jongdae couldn’t help it. He knew that he was playing into the man’s hands, but the thought of her, beautiful ___, on her knees for him, being seduced by the devil, infuriated him. He shook his head, attempting to clear his head, before continuing his search.

“She consented, Officer. From what I understand, she was the one who offered.” This was the first thing that Yixing had said, and Jongdae wished he would close his fucking mouth already. “Maybe she’s just not that into you.”

Jongdae reminded himself to breathe. He wasn’t even into her. The date had been an interrogation, but he did genuinely want her to be happy. For this man to take away her opportunity at it was unthinkable. “Looks like you’re in the clear,” he said, a false smile on his face as he waved at the men, ignoring their comments.

After the apartment door closed behind him, it took him five steps to increase his pace, and another five to break out into a full blown sprint as he bolted down the stairs. “Classic black Camaro, classic black Camaro,” he muttered, reaching the first floor and attempting to gather himself enough to pass for normal. It works, as far as he knows, and it’s not long until he’s in the residential parking lot, combing through until he sees the distinctive car.

He was careful; in his street clothes he looked more like a thief than a protector of justice, so he opened the car as carefully as he can, thankfully not setting off any kind of alarm. A once amusing rumor had reached him due to ___’s chatter, and despite it being false before, Jongdae felt that the demon was sick enough to pull it off.

Hesitantly, as though he was afraid to be proved right, he popped open the glove box, immediately recoiling at his finding. The inside smelled like a sewer, and the severed head of Professor Park leered at him, the hair well styled and touches of makeup covering the obvious signs of death.

“Do you like it?”

The voice behind him made him spin around, terror beating in his heart as it leaped into his throat. “What the fuck?”

There, in his full glory, stood Kim Junmyeon, head wobbling in the breeze. His eyeliner had come off on one eye, and the decay of his flesh was much more evident as he examined his cracked nails. “I need a manicure.” Looking back up at Jongdae, he smiled. “The most important rule of makeup is that you take it off before bedtime.

He produced a wipe from the pocket of his jeans and began to remove his eyeliner, rubbing it off as Jongdae tried to back away. Finally, as he removed the last smudge, he grabbed Jongdae with one surprisingly strong arm. His head dropped into his free hand, and then the ghoulish face was smiling at him.

Jongdae broke free, sprinting across the lot as fast as he could. Despite the growing distance, he sensed the sigh that echoed from the other’s lips. Then the car door slammed, and he knew he was fucked. He managed to round the corner as the other’s car started, and he ducked into a side alley. He was a bit of a delinquent as a child, so he knew this network better than the average person. Soon enough, he was out on another street, hailing a taxi that would take him to a hotel. Luckily, his wallet was on him, so he could pay for a room.

The Northern Viewpoint Motel was by no means a good place to hang out, but it was far enough from his apartment that he was unlikely to run into Junmyeon here. His heart was pounding; with the conclusive evidence, he could technically arrest the other man, but how did he kill?

From the room next door, he could hear a drunkard talking. At first, he didn’t pay attention, a certain phrase caught his attention. “You look an awful lot like that professor guy who bit it the other day. Sure you ain’t wearing some sick kind of mask?”

A chillingly familiar laugh resonated through the walls. “I’ve gotten that a lot recently, but I swear to you that this head is exactly as you see it.”

A grunt, and then the man presumably waved him on. “Have a nice night then, pal. There’s a crazy ass murderer on the loose.”

“I certainly will.”

Then a knock on the door, and Jongdae bolted himself into the bathroom, sending a quick text before closing his eyes.

Moments later, the door opened, and he could hear the sound of someone sliding down the door to lean against it. “How are you feeling?” Junmyeon asked, his voice different from before, more resonant and seductive than his usual tone, but still with the same biting edge that he had become so accustomed to.

“Pretty shitty, if we’re being honest.”

A short chuckle, then serious business. “I assume you heard our conversation?”

“You’re wearing Professor Park’s head, you sick fuck.”

“Just as I’ll wear yours when I’m done with you. You know that I can kill you from outside, right? All I have to do is say your name, and your soul is collected. The other wounds are unnecessary. I’m just making a point.”

“You can pick locks too, or did I just forget to lock it properly?”

“It’s not so much lock picking as it is just my inner ability to open locked things. I’m a scary demon, remember?”

“Can I ask why?”

“I have to get rid of everyone who makes ___ unhappy, who gets in the way of our relationship. We’re meant to be, and I can’t have anyone messing with that.”

“You’re fucking psychotic.”

“Or, you know, I’m a demon.” A small thud could be heard against the door, presumably as Junmyeon stood. “That’s enough chat, though.”

The door unlocked, and Jongdae was confronted with a headless Junmyeon reaching into a mesh duffel bag and pulling out his real head. He tucked it under the crook of his arm, and the clarity of the light allowed the police officer to see the head as it truly was.

It was pale, with a doughy look to it, and the beady black eyes darted across his face as though drinking in his expression of fear. A hideous smile cut across his face, stretching farther than humanly possible.

“And Yixing and Minseok?”

“What are they, you mean?” The hideous smile hardened to a condescending leer. “Well I guess you’ll never find out, will you?”

Then his name resonated in his ears with a thousand different voices, and he collapsed to the ground, unmoving, a small white puff of air his last breath.

Junmyeon worked with precision, small vertical cuts on Jongdae’s lips simulating stitches as best as he could with a lack of string. He considered asking his neighbor for some, but decided that it wasn’t worth his time. Next, the ears came off, a small but sharp butterfly knife doing the job well.

This was the hard part, though, and he would have to be careful not to make any incisions. He cut away some of the skin surrounding the eye socket, revealing more of the eyeball. Slowly, he began to scoop it out, causing more minor incisions around the eye, but popped it out with success. They might be good to swap out into another head later, as long as he didn’t fuck up the other one. He was beginning to become a bit too recognizable in his current disguises.

He repeated the same process as before, making strategic cuts as he deemed necessary, then began to scoop out the eye again. Loud thuds echoed on the hall, and he lost his focus and sliced into the eye on accident.

“Fuck me,” he muttered, irritated beyond belief. It was exceptionally hard to get good eyes these days. He began to clean off his hand, wiping it on his pants. Then the door opened, and his jaw dropped. “Can I not catch a fucking break?”

There you stood, eyes wide and your whole body shaking. Belatedly, he realized that his head was still tucked into his arm, and he offered a wry grin. You screamed, and he approached quickly, covering your mouth with a free hand. “Sh, love, I’ve never planned on hurting you.”

He eased you down onto the creaky bed. “Can you promise not to scream, baby?” He could see a thousand thoughts flicker through your eyes. “I don’t want to be mean to you, love, but I can’t have you screaming on me. I like it here.”

It was a lie, of course. He couldn’t kill again tonight, and he wouldn’t want to, not when she was so beautiful. She nodded, though, and he let go, choosing to put his head back on his shoulders, four precise, practiced swipes of eyeliner transforming him back into the Junmyeon that you knew. You relaxed somewhat, as though it wasn’t truly him doing the killing.

“Baby, you know that nobody's gonna believe you if you squeal on me, right?” he asked, his fingertips skimming across the skin of your cheeks. He flinched, however, his fingers brushing against your earrings.

“The fuck is that?” he hissed, drawing back. You felt your earrings, noticing that they were the golden pair that your mother had gotten you when you went away to college.

He saw the plan that formed in your eyes, but he was helpless to stop it as you unclasped your earring, the tip brutally sharp, and tackled him, drawing lines across his throat until skin broke and blood poured out of the lacerations. With that, you dashed out of the room, swearing that you would never look back again.

Languidly, Junmyeon’s head rolled across the floor, and his hand reached out to grab it before it went too far.

“Shit, that hurt,” he muttered.

“Not so fun, is it?”

Junmyeon looked up at his only companion in the room and laughed. “Between the two of us, I’d say that I still look better.”

#this is shit lmao sorry #kim junmyeon #suho #exo #hopefully y'all like it there are eight more of this au in the works

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