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1kook · 4 years

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attachment: 1 image

— jjk x (f) reader

summary; But for Jungkook to initiate some sexting, nevertheless sexting at 1pm on a Saturday, when you were at work and you were almost positive he was supposed to be on stream right now? Unheard of, you had to mark this down somewhere. warnings; sexting, dick pics, dirty talk?, phone sex, vivid depictions of jungkook being just so sexy bc its true, rating; mature (18+) misc; mentions of youtuber kook 🥰, he’s just horny, stupid selfie trends (see here), he’s a little whiny but so hot v.v wc; 4.6k

notes; I've had this in my drafts since april 😐 n then i was like maybe we should actually finish this so i started n then last night i hit another follower milestone!!! so then i rlly forced myself to finish this bc i was so 🥺🖤👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 anyway enjoy lmk what u think its not proofread bc uhhhhh yeah 🤩

You’re at work when it happens.

It’s sometime between your usual listless thoughts of what to write for your weekly reflection papers for some course, and your trip to your store’s pharmacy to bother a coworker. Your phone vibrates in the pocket of your work apron. You’re normally pretty good at ignoring the sound, most of the times it’s just a classmate asking for help on homework or Jimin lamenting his love life, so you’ve grown used to ignoring the tiny vibrations, stocking a quarter shelf of different cooking oils before something in your brain tells you to check your phone.

You already know it’s not something grave, but that thought alone means nothing at the sight of the tiny jungkook♡ that appears at the very top of the list of notifications. Your boyfriend’s texts tended to be wildcards, never following a certain routine or alluding to any specifics. He could send you a long paragraph on how much he misses the scent of that one shampoo, the one you’d briefly run through last year because your usual brand was out of stock, with a ten point explanation on why you should switch back to it. Or two word, caveman sentences that drove you crazy because you never understood what exactly he wanted when he’d send those nondescript “munchies dip” texts.

You unlock your phone, clicking to the messenger app instead of directly on the notification. Hopefully the preview will give some warning on whether you should invest in this conversation or not. You hated the read receipts on messages, choosing to ghost conversations as you pleased, but Jungkook had wiggled his way into your phone one afternoon and specifically turned them on for his chat with you, and you’d never turned them off since. So he knows if you choose to ignore Attachment: 1 Image at 1:43pm exactly, and he'll pester you about it until you respond.

You contemplate it all for twenty seconds. It could be a variety of things, you guess, but the only way to find out is to actually see with your own eyes what he’s up to this time. He knows better than to distract you at work, is usually really good at waiting until your shift is over to spam you with messages. For him to send you something now, only a few hours into your shift, is uncharacteristic of him.

But you glance down the aisle anyway, taking note of some elderly woman you’d helped a few minutes prior and another teenager aimlessly walking around, probably looking for the snack aisle. You inhale and press down on your chat with Jungkook.

It takes you a moment to make out exactly what the image is, twisting and turning your phone around as you fight to see it without raising the brightness. It’s only when your eyes finally adjust to the dark screen, the faint beeping of the check-out registers fading into the distance, that you realize it’s a shot of the front of his sweatpants.

“Hm?” you murmur, getting brave enough to pinch the image between two fingers, zooming in until you’re able to decipher a multitude of details. For one, there’s a Flaming Hot Cheeto stain on the hem of his sweatpants, the same one you’d accidentally put on there a few weeks back and haven’t been able to wash out since. Then there’s that huge palm of his, tattoos and all, rested carefully against his thigh. It’s veiny and thick in all the right places, bringing all the attention to his knuckles, which you guess is what he was going for when you consider the centerpiece of the image—his hardened dick straining against the grey material.

There’s no text attached to the message, no snapchat font slapped over the image, so you wonder what exactly he wanted you to do with this information mid-shift. Well, realistically, you know exactly what he wants, but that doesn’t mean you won’t clown him before getting there. After all, Jungkook was seldom the naughty texter; sexting annoyed him, he would whine, because he would do all that and not even get to feel the true pleasure of sex, of being inside you. You’ve dabbled in it here and there, but it never went as perfectly as it did in pornos. He’d drop his phone and forget it, or you would straight up ignore the damn device as you went all in on yourself.

But for Jungkook to initiate some sexting, nevertheless sexting at 1pm on a Saturday, when you were at work and you were almost positive he was supposed to be on stream right now? Unheard of, you had to mark this down somewhere.

you what’s this about?

You decide to play it safe, because as exciting as the image of Jungkook at his computer chair, cock hard and angry at the thought of you, fluffy hair ruffled in that way you adored, jaw twitching and tightening as he touched himself, moaned deep and rough and just how you liked and—

As nice as that image was, for all you knew this vague message was Jungkook sending you a picture from a week ago to purposefully fuck with you at work.

jungkook♡ what time u get off? jungkook♡ miss you bad baby

Your stomach flips, and it takes everything in you to not squeal and bounce between the shelves like a toddler on a sugar rush. Here was your boyfriend, the cutest, sweetest boy, sending you dirty pictures of himself and telling you how much he needed you. Yes, YOU, not some random on the street, or someone else in a club, Jungkook needed pleasure and that pleasure could only come from you.

You glance back down the aisle again, checking your surroundings for the second time that day. You’ve been standing here, stock cart empty for a little over five minutes now, so it’s probably best to change location lest your manager come barking down your neck. You send one quick text before heading off for stock again.

you 4pm :(

Your phone dings again just as you’re leaving the stockroom, but you decide to check it once you get to the hygiene aisle you need to work on next. Still, the prospect of Jungkook having texted you has you walking with a skip in your step, one your coworker teases you about when you pass by her.

jungkook♡ fuck jungkook♡ tell me what panties youre wearing jungkook♡ please ?

You bite your lip, stopping yourself from smiling at the tone you’d picked up from his message. There was no doubt he’d been riled up for a while now, and you wonder if he sat through his usual Saturday morning streams with his cock hard, pushed against the edge of his desk like you knew he did when such things happened. The thought has you nearly fumbling with a bottle of aloe vera.

you seamless black thong you the one you bought me at the last vs sale

Briefly, you wonder if you should have lied and told him you were wearing that red lace set he’d given you last Valentine’s Day, the one he’d bought with his first big YouTube check. But the beauty of being in a relationship with someone like Jungkook is that you could have told him you were wearing grandma undies and he’d still think you were the most beautiful person to grace the planet.

jungkook♡ mm jungkook♡ tiny ones u ruined last time?

You set your phone down, speed stock a row of sunscreen like you’re on some shelf stocking national competition, before daring to text Jungkook again. Your cheeks are still warm, and your hand tightens dangerously around a bottle of shaving cream.

Before you can formulate some response, he’s sending another one in.

jungkook♡ u soaked those jungkook♡ came fast that day jungkook♡ want u so bad

Your cheeks burn, a little embarrassed that he remembers such details. As with all Victoria’s Secret panties, they were, like Jungkook said, extremely thin. You pause, shift your stance just barely, but you’re definitely wet. Not terribly so, but with this fabric, you’d start to notice it sooner than with others.

you mm you makin me wet bunny

It’s not a complete lie, but knowing Jungkook this is exactly what he needs to hear to get that competitive streak going. You shake your head to clear your thoughts, stocking another section of men’s shaving cream. It takes longer for him to message you back, and you wonder if he got off fine on his own. If it’s over now, at least he provided you with some distraction midway into your shift.

When he texts you again, you’ve almost completely convinced yourself he’s finished, so the Attachment: 1 Video that appears on your lock screen throws you for a loop.

It’s a short clip, no longer than ten seconds, but it has you scrambling to lower the volume on your device as some unsuspecting mother of two wanders past. You flash her your practiced smile, the same one you give all the store’s customers. Not like your boyfriend is jacking it off on your phone, shallow pants filtering out from the speakers.

You turn your phone over carefully after she leaves, try to at least pretend you’re still doing your job as you play the video again.

Sweats are gone, but boxers remain. Legs deliciously exposed, thick thighs with muscles that ripple when he moves. Shirt pulled up just slightly to showcase that broad expanse of tummy, cute belly button and defined abs that tighten with each glide of his palm over the outline of his cock. Your mouth fills with drool at the sight. He was so hot.

Your brain hasn’t even processed it yet, all your energy directed towards your clenched pussy, when he shoots another text.

jungkook♡ im so fckin hard jungkook♡ wanna kiss yuo every where baby jungkook♡ come ove r soon ??

Shutting your eyes and counting to ten doesn’t help ward off the sudden wave of horniness that consumes you, but it does remind you of the job you’re supposed to be doing now. You shake your head, as if the image of Jungkook’s dick throbbing beneath his boxers, low voice in your ear, will magically disappear. It doesn’t, and it plagues you even more when you begin stocking a section of sunscreen, numbly instructing yourself on what to do next. Shaving cream, sunscreen, lotion next, you repeat.

It doesn’t help.

Two minutes later and you’re scrambling for the phone you’d hastily tucked into your apron pocket, tapping your passcode in until your messages with Jungkook are pulled up again.

you after work you promise

Your head is absolutely spinning, the coil in your stomach too tight for you to try and be a functioning member of society. Something in you says to sneak off to the bathroom and call him, but your boss is a little bit of a prick when he wants to be, thinks you take too many bathroom breaks as is.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. A curt call of your name has you whirling to face your shelves again, phone tightly pressed against your ribs like maybe it’ll melt into your skin and he won’t see it. At the same time, your sudden fright has you scrambling to turn it off, fingers sloppily pressing against the buttons, hitting the volume like seven times before you eventually feel the familiar click that signals it’s off.

Your boss disappears shortly after, and with his sudden appearance having made every hair on your body stand, you find yourself now slumping against your stock cart. Jesus, that man was a handful to deal with.

The paranoia sticks for a little bit, has you stocking shelf after shelf like a robot until you finish the entire row of hygiene products, back stiff from bending over so much. It’s only when you return to the stockroom ten minutes later that you dare take your phone out again.

A pleasant surprise awaits.

It would appear that during your haste to hide your phone from your boss— Jungkook’s scandalous messages and all —your frantic hands had done something else. A fuzzy picture on your end, a blurry display of lotion bottles you had stacked just before your boss’s impromptu appearance, with no words to accompany them. Normally Jungkook would have ignored that; you frequently sent accidental messages like this, butt texted him, he says.

But there’s something about Jungkook’s horny brain that makes him do stupid things, makes him blow up your phone with a series of question marks, call you four times, whine and fuss in your message thread, and eventually, send you probably the oddest image to date.

jungkook♡ ??? jungkook♡ ????what is that jungkook♡ baby please jungkook♡ I don’t get it ??

jungkook♡ Missed Call (4)

jungkook♡ baby jungkook♡ what does it mean jungkook♡ please ur drivign me insane jungkook♡ jsut wanna hear yuor voice jungkook♡ fuck please just

And then, there’s another one of those cursed Attachment: 1 Image messages.

You shouldn’t be as surprised as you are. You’ve been dating Jungkook for a few months now, know he had that sort of unique personality most college dropouts turned YouTubers do. But every now and then the absurdity of his actions makes you question him still, makes you wonder what exactly goes on in that pretty head of his to warrant such ideas, makes him balance a bottle of body lotion on the thick outline of his cock like this.

Unlike the first few images, this one was taken in front of a mirror. The blinding fluorescent light in his bathroom paints him in a stark color, has every inch of his pretty face on display for you. Rosy cheeks, dewy skin. Perfectly swollen cock straining beneath his grey boxers, curved up against his hip. Shirt pulled up, finally freeing that expanse of muscles on his abdomen, cute little belly button on display once again. The red material is pulled up to his mouth, pearly white teeth biting down on the fabric, and he’s got this flushed expression on his face.

But the real star of the show isn’t his chiseled abdomen or sexy expression, but the sheer hardness of his dick that lets him balance a bottle of body lotion over it, like a fuckin’ shelf or something. He’s so hard, dick so full beneath his boxers. So big too, the little boxers pulled taught around said engorged cock and thick thighs.

Your brain says to laugh, to tease him for being such a clown even when he’s horny as hell. He won’t take it to heart, will probably laugh along with you and you’ll add it to your still growing list of funny memories.

But your caveman libido says call him, so that’s what you do, ducking down behind a new shipment pallet with a squeak as the phone rings. It only lasts four seconds before he picks up, voice breathy and low, but it sounds so loud in the silence of the stockroom.

He doesn’t even let you get a greeting in. “You like my picture, baby?” he husks. It sounds like he’s right there, right beside you, speaking into your ear. Your pussy throbs at the way he sounds. Paired with the picture from before, it has your body tingling all over.

“What the fuck is that?” you hiss, trying to not let the sudden overflow of arousal leak into your words. Jungkook chuckles.

“What?” he huffs. There’s the brief sound of shuffling, the scratchy noise of his phone presumably being pressed against his shoulder. “I’m so hard, baby,” he sighs before you can pretend to reprimand him any further. “Fuck— you, can you just talk to me?” he groans, and the disgusting sound of him spitting into his palm fills your ear.

Your face feels warm, eyes nervously peering across the stockroom like your boss will suddenly appear now of all times to rip you from this important phone call. The anxiety and arousal mix weirdly, have your leg bouncing but every new movement sends a shock up your aching cunt to your chest, and then out to the tips of your fingers.

“You shouldn’t be doing that when I’m at work,” you murmur hurriedly, moving to nervously bite at your finger. Jungkook moans softly.

“Uh huh,” he says.

The air conditioning turns on and you nearly jump out of your own skin. “Kook,” you stress, frazzled by your own burning arousal and the fear of being caught. Like you said. Weird mix. “I— not when I can’t respond.”

He shudders on the line. “You’re responding now,” he points out. You hate when he’s right. Before you can defend yourself, define what a proper response is in this scenario, he’s beating you to the punch. “Baby,” he whimpers, voice so airy yet low, makes your eyes roll into the back of your head, back unconsciously arching. “Couldn’t stop— fuck.”

Your mouth feels dry, all and any form of lecturing fading from your thoughts as you become consumed in Jungkook’s little whines and whimpers. He talks smoothly, a modern day Casanova, and it’s certainly because of that cult-like harem he’s gathered on YouTube. Teenage girls who kiss his ass, tell him he’s cute and dreamy. Make his ego so big.

But then he gets horny and can barely contain that lisp you tease him about, shivers and melts when you put his cock in your mouth. “Couldn't what, bunny?” you mumble, voice drawn tight because now you were really horny, and it was all his fault.

The nickname makes him mewl prettily, your speaker suddenly going scratchy as he fumbles with his phone. “C- Couldn't stop thinking about you— your mouth,” he admits, and now you’re certain he’d sat through that Saturday morning stream like this. “T- Tits,” he adds, lisp slipping through. “Fuck.”

You bite your lip, eyes fluttering shut as you remind yourself now was not the time or place to get yourself off. But, well. That didn’t mean you couldn’t get him off. “Sat through your stream like this?” you murmur, circling your kneecap with a trembling finger as if it’ll ward away the raging lust in your abdomen. Jungkook confirms with a breathy moan. “Had all your little fans wondering why you ended so early.”

He groans. “No,” he chokes, voice hot from how much it wavers. “They— I lied,” he confesses out of nowhere, “s- said I had a doctor’s appointment.”

You muffle a giggle into your palm. “Naughty,” you tease. “Too hard to do your job.”

“Just,” he cuts off, voice feathery. He sounds so close and you haven’t even said anything of substantial value yet. “Tell me,” he says quietly, “what to— mmh, what to do.”

A smirk consumes your features. You try to hide it, but there’s no one here anyway so you’re left grinning at an unpacked box of dental floss like a madwoman. “Why?” you inquire playfully, bask in the sad little whimper he responds with. “Shouldn’t you know how to make yourself cum?”

Another groan of frustration, desperation seeping into his tone when he speaks again. “Baby, please,” he begs, and it feels good. Feels nice to have this big YouTuber begging for you like this, whimpering your name like his doesn’t appear on the top 25 most viewed. “Like when you— ah — when you tell me… what to do.”

Your body feels hot, thighs pressing together with each whimper that falls from his lips. “Okay,” you concede, and he audibly moans in relief. “Tip first,” you instruct softly, eyes defocusing as your brain slowly starts to manifest the image of Jungkook spread out on his bed. Thick thighs, grey boxers pulled taught around them, fat cock between his pretty hands, inked knuckles squeezing around his member. You swallow. You can tell exactly when Jungkook does as you say because another muffled moan fills the speaker. “One finger,” you remind him quickly, head spinning from the mere memory of his dick. “Run it… run it over the slit, bunny.”

“Nngh—“ Jungkook sputters. You can only imagine the face he’s making now, the bottom lip he’s bitten raw by now. He does it a lot; it’s a nervous habit. But as sexy as it looks when you’re in bed, you know he has sensitive lips because of it, bleeds easily if he’s too harsh. You have half the mind to remind him about it now, but then he’s hurriedly gasping out for more. “And, and then? Wha— what then, baby?”

He sounds so sweet, melodic voice dripping with honey. “Touch your balls,” you say a little breathlessly. “Don’t squeeze,” you add, “just roll your palm over them.” Your palm squeezes against your thigh, as if it’s remembering the feel of his body, the soft skin between his thighs when you’re down there. He gets so jittery, thick thighs nearly crushing you if you drag him along too much. “O- Other hand on your cock,” you stumble, thighs squeezed together. “Stroke yourself just like I do, bunny.”

Jungkook complies. “Just like you?” he mumbles, suddenly sounds farther away. As if he’s dropped his phone off to the side. “Fffuck,” he grunts, “m- mouth is so pretty.”

“Hm?” you inquire, so consumed with tampering down your growing arousal for a second that you miss his sentence.

Jungkook’s breath stutters, and for a moment you’re met with the wet squelch of his cock in his hand. And then, “pretty mouth… make me— make me wanna see you cry.”

You bite your lip. “Why,” you say tentatively, finally caving in with a hand fluttering over the front seam of your jeans. Not a question, more of a gentle nudge for him to spill his thoughts.

“Be- Because,” he cries, fucking into his hand. He sounds closer and closer. You have to wonder just how long he had been riled up. It’s been a while since his first message, he was probably desperate by now. “Y- You’re so nice,” he cries, and the sentiment, though oddly out of place, makes your heart squeeze with adoration for the boy on the line. “Wanna be,” he groans, “wanna be so fucking mean to you, baby.”

The sudden change of tone makes you choke on a moan, hand pressing against your mound like it’ll somehow penetrate the thick material of your jeans and give you the sensations you crave. As it stands, it’s a muted feeling you get instead. When your hands fail, his voice compensates. “Fffuck, don’t you— don’t you think about it too?”

Admittedly, no.

Jungkook had always been a gentleman in bed. Always cared for your needs before his own, went out of his way to make you feel pampered and adored during your most vulnerable moments. Contrary to what his online persona might say, he was a good boy. Sweetest boy you knew, touched you like you were made of glass.

So to suddenly learn of this dream— fantasy? kink? —of his that you would certainly enjoy equally as much, well. It made you whimper into your palm, eyes worriedly flickering toward the stockroom’s entrance.

“Why?” you whisper, feeling like a broken doll repeating the same phrase over and over again. You’re suddenly aware of how hot everything was. Your polo felt sticky against your spine, apron too tight, jeans too stuffy. How long had you been hiding in here for? You don’t even know. Hopefully your absence on the floor had gone unnoticed.

Jungkook pants into the line; everything sounds so sticky and wet on his end, hand undoubtedly working away at his cock. “Shit,” he curses, doesn’t really answer your question until you prod a second time. “I- I like it,” he stammers. “When you… fuck, when you look small.” He elaborates before you can even ask, breath heavy and drawn out. He was so close. “When your mouth… when it hurts,” he says, thoughts a scrambled mess. “Like when you— when you cry because my cock is— it’s too big for you.”

A blatant ego boost you’ll ignore for now. Not like you can focus on too many things right now anyway. “Your cock is big, bunny,” you agree softly instead. Your legs feel cramped from crouching so long, so you push yourself to your feet. Except then you’re made aware of how fucking wet you are, panties soaked from the phone call with your boyfriend. You shift and they stick to your folds, make you release a shaky exhale that Jungkook doesn’t miss.

“I— you’re wet,” he says boldly, and this time your meek confirmation isn’t a lie. Jungkook grunts. “Fuck, baby, I—“ cut off by his own whiny cry, probably bucking into his hand like a madman by now. “Wanna, wanna kiss you everywhere,” he says, a call back to his earlier message. Your legs feel like jello. You want him to kiss you everywhere too— lips, tits, cunt that is dripping for him now.

“I- I’ll be over soon,” you stammer, feeling like you’ll pass out if he carries on any further. He sounds so good on the line, soft pants, rough growls. You can’t possibly listen anymore, not when you’re so wet and horny in the middle of your shift. “Just,” you pause, can’t get the image of his pretty cock out of your mind. Every blink makes it more vivid, reminds you of the vein on the underside, the exact shade of the tip.

“What?” Jungkook hisses, voice higher than usual, parts of it lost under the rapid movements of his hand. “Tell me, baby, tell me what to do,” he begs hoarsely, “I’ll do it.” Sounds so desperate and needy, two seconds away from busting all over his hand.

You have to lean against the wall of the stockroom to ground yourself, remind yourself you’re not in the same situation as Jungkook and can’t cum in your pants like a teenager. “J- Just cum,” you choke, eyes fluttering shut.

He must’ve been waiting for that command, because the second the words leave your throat he’s filling the line with breathy groans and cries as he comes all over himself, probably ruins his t-shirt. The sounds have your hips unconsciously bucking forward into nothingness, the frustration of not being able to cum with him manifesting in the form of a tiny little sob. Luckily, he doesn’t catch it.

When it’s all said and done, he’s left panting into the receiver, flooding your speaker with breathy sighs that only make you more and more aroused.

“You’re terrible,” you frown, cheeks flushed, body tingling. You flip your wrist over and check the time; it’s been about sixteen minutes since you disappeared from outside. Sixteen minutes of listening to Jungkook touch himself and moan and whine and whimper. Tease you with new possibilities you had never considered before. And now he’s satisfied and you’re not.

Jungkook chuckles, low and tired. The sound shoots straight to your cunt. “Come over after you shift,” he says, as if you’re not planning to fake a severe case of the flu right now in order to get off early and run to his bed. You only had a little less than two hours of your shift left anyway. Not like they paid you well to begin with. Jungkook shifts, releases one of those saccharine groans as he probably snuggles into his bed, all sweaty and worn out. “Want you to fuck my face, baby.”

You frown, counting to ten to calm yourself down. Another few minutes of listless conversation, and you hang up. Your body feels featherlight, a little woozy as you make your way back out into the floor.

Nothing has changed. Customers pour in and out, your boss scolds you for a display you didn’t do, and life inside the store drags on. No one knows that you’re soaking your panties to hell and back, Jungkook’s soothing moans in your ear. Life goes on.

you shift ends in 20

jungkook♡ sweet jungkook♡ got your seat ready jungkook♡ Attachment: 1 Image

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 3 years

Text

let me be your ruler.2

Warnings: guns, dubcon, noncon, handjob.

This is a dark! fic and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Pairing: (dark!mob!) Peter Parker x Reader

Summary: You try to forget about Peter but he won’t forget about you.

Note: I hate that I am the way that I am. I wanted to keep this to two parts but you know me.

Anyways, I’m excited for this and hope you are too.

Hope you enjoy it. Thank you. Love you guys!

Please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

Drowsy in the afterglow of sex and alcohol, you fell quickly into a deep sleep. You didn’t even change before you sank into bed. You hardly recalled the elevator ride up or stumbling into your apartment and tripping around the shadows to your room. It was only a fractured journey from the car to your mattress.

You woke as your phone vibrated under your pillow. You must have buried it there before passing out. You groaned and rolled over as you dug it out. There were several notifications next to a single name; Peter. You thumbed through each message; written in the same tone as his voice. Demanding, without question.

‘Great night, Princess.’ ‘We’ll do it again Saturday.’ ‘Wear something nice.’ … The messages escalated smoothly from doting to commanding. It jolted you back to the night before, the way he seemed to just thrust you through the night. The dress, the drinks, the men, the guns…

You sat up, your panties crooked on your hips. You muttered and swiped away the messages. You weren’t seeing him again. You couldn’t. You had stuck your toe in too deep already. It was best to nip these things in the bud. Not to let yourself get dragged in so far you couldn’t see the surface.

Peter was more than mysterious; he was dangerous.

You went to the kitchen and waited for the machine to grind as the scent of coffee filled your heavy body. You drank too much, did too much. You still felt Peter’s hand between your legs. It made your chest tight and your head spin. You looked down at your body, the red dress wrinkled and askew.

You left the coffee to brew and retreated to your room. You tore off the dress and your panties. You pulled on a cotton shirt and loose pajama pants. You stormed back into the kitchen and shoved the clothing in the bin. You snatched your phone from the counter and swiped up the lock screen.

‘Sorry, I don’t think this is going to work out.’ You typed. Your hand shook as you hovered over send. You heard Halle’s door and you pressed your thumb down. You looked up at her before you pulled up the block option.

“How was your night?” She asked as she inhaled the aroma of your morning ritual.

“Eh, you know, another dead end,” you pushed your thumb down and the conversation disappeared. “Just not my type.”

“Really?” She whined. “He seemed so nice. And he liked you so much.”

You blackened your screen and placed your phone face down. “Well, you know, things don’t always turn out.” You shrugged and pulled out a mug, “You want some?”

“Are you at least going to tell me about it?” She pouted. “And yes, lots of sugar.”

You poured her coffee and handed her the sugar dish. You frowned at how much powder she scooped into her cup but it was her most endearing trait. She knew what she wanted and she didn’t care what anyone thought.

“Uh, well, it wasn’t anything special. He took me to a party but… I don’t know. What kind of first date is that? Take me somewhere I don’t know anyone…” You ran your finger around the rim of your cup. “Maybe when I was younger but now.”

“You sound like such an old lady,” she snickered, “Oh my god!” She stood straight, “Are we old?”

“I am, but you’ll always be young at heart, Hal,” you rolled your eyes.

“So you’re not going to try a second?” She prodded.

“I don’t think so,” you cradled your mug, “He… hasn’t even messaged me back.”

You hated lying but Halle had gotten you into this mess and you knew she’d harp on you for not even giving Peter a chance. But you had. He wasn’t what he seemed and you didn’t want to stick around and find out what exactly he was hiding.

“What?” She huffed. “Well, fuck him then.” She sipped from her coffee and her lips curved as she swallowed. “Wait, did you…”

“Hal, come on,” you snipped.

“Oh, fine, but you know, maybe if you got laid, you wouldn’t be so uptight.” She teased.

“Not this again,” you groaned and slid your phone off the counter. “You know what, I got work to do.”

“Uh huh,” she hummed as you turned to leave, “Work. When did you get so old and boring?”

“One of us had to,” you called back over your shoulder, “And we both know you’re never growing up.”

✨

Your phone was pleasantly still for the rest of the day. You felt a twinge of guilt having blocked Peter but then you recalled the men and their holsters. You found your mind drifting away from your work and your fingers hovered over the keyboard as you thought back.

The company he kept added to the uneasiness in your chest. Steve was friendly but arrogant. The way he looked at you, the way he spoke to you, what was it he introduced you as, “Peter’s girl”. And that man, Bucky. He didn’t seem too fond of Peter but the way he’d grinned at you, as if he knew something you didn’t. Well, he did, they all did. Your head stormed as you tried to figure out their secret.

You shook off the curdling paranoia and hunched as you squinted closer at your computer. You made yourself focus as you skimmed the tight font and added your suggestions in the margin. You sent off your edited draft as your stomach groaned; empty and churning from the acidic coffee.

You grabbed your phone and your mug as you stood. You checked the time. Almost noon. You grumbled and went back to the kitchen, thankfully empty as Halle had left for work an hour ago. You set your cup down and expanded your notifications. A single phone call from a private number and a new follower on your mostly empty Insta.

You opened the neglected app and hit the notification. The profile was emptier than yours. the profile pic was just black and there were no posts. The name gave you no hints as it was obviously generated by the site.

You went back and a comment popped up on the picture of your and Halle at last year's winter market. ‘Gorgeous, Princess.’ You read and reread the two words as you leaned against the counter. You bit your fingertips and went back to the mysterious profile. You hit ‘block’ and locked your phone.

Surely, he’d get the hint sooner or later. It was one date and the man seemed to have no trouble with women. He’d move on and you’d both forget about that off putting night. You just had to wait him out.

✨

A week rolled by as you kept yourself busy with your work. The phone calls stopped after the first day and you had no more peculiar alerts awaiting you. Your plan had worked. It wasn’t exactly the best; it was a bit cowardly, actually. Yet, knowing how Peter was and how ‘no’ seemed beyond his vocabulary, you had more faith in your evasion than his understanding.

As the weekend approached, Halle convinced you to come out with the girls. You had eluded those opportunities for the past year as you found yourself disillusioned and disinterested in the club scene. You felt as if you were aging out of it and seeing all those fresh-faced coeds assured you of it. Even so, the girls liked to dance and in their words, you need to ‘let loose’.

You couldn’t disagree. You had been on edge and the mounting emails in your inbox didn’t ease the stress of everything else.

With a pre-drink burning a whole in your stomach, you pulled on a pair of flats as your bag hung across your chest. You were comfortable but not stuffy in your tight jeans and the bright pink top with the criss-cross straps. You felt pretty good and the vodka made you optimistic.

You headed down to the street and caught a cab. The dread evaporated the closer you got and as you pulled up to the front of the flashing club, Molly and Desiree waved at your approach. The four of you joined the line as you searched out your ID.

“So,” Molly said, “Halle told us about your little date!”

“Date?” You blinked. “Oh, yeah, that didn’t pan out.”

“Of course,” Desiree scoffed, “That guy was so cute though.”

“Yeah, he was nice, but we just didn’t…”

“He’s ghosting her!” Halle interjected, “Didn’t even text the next day, ugh.”

Halle crossed her arms and you nodded. You weren’t going to correct her, you didn’t need the other two piling on about your dormant love life. You came out to have a good time, that’s what they promised you, and you didn’t want to think about the night that still stood so vividly in your mind.

As you stepped up to the bouncer, he barely looked at your card. You were almost offended as he waved you through and carded the next party more closely. You glanced around at your friends but they hardly seemed bothered. Well, only Halle had reached that big three-o with you, and the other two girls still had a year or two to go.

Madonna’s voice pumped from the speakers as you neared the bar. You looked around at the streaming lights and the bodies shadowed in the strobe. You were surprised you recognized the song and you nudged Desiree as she waited for Molly to order the first round.

“What’s up with the music?” You asked.

“It’s retro night! Duh! Just for you!” She giggled and you elbowed her harder.

Molly turned and passed out the plastic cups with their thin straws and you followed Halle to the low stage where the smoke machine billowed. You coughed at the taste of the fog and sucked on your straw. You began to sway as the other girls led the charge. You could help but be enlivened by the deep base and the energy all around.

As you danced, the girls yelled back and forth about their recent drama. Desiree’s date had been more successful than your own, Molly was certain she was in love with Charlie? You still didn’t know. And Halle was just riding the vibe.

You finished your drink and the other girls stacked their cups in yours before you crossed the stage to leave the garbage on the table just beside the platform.

You looked over at the bar, pondering another, and your eye was caught by a figure who seemed out of place. The cut of his suit, the way he leaned on hand on a stool, and the intense gaze sent in your direction startled you.

You blinked and stumbled over to the single step down to the floor. You pushed through the bodies, nearly tumbling as a tipsy guy crashed into you. You got to the bar and looked up and down it. Girls waved their hands to get the bar tender’s attention and guys sidled up to them.

Bucky was gone. It was him. Maybe the air was filled with smoke and the lights were flashing like a siren, but you were certain. Why was he there? How had he found you among the city? Among the reverie in that club? Why had he been watching you? And where had he gone?

You went to where you’d seen him and searched the perimeter of the bar. You went back through the club and slipped past those just getting in. You tapped on the bouncer’s shoulder and he grumbled before he turned and bent to hear you. “What is it?”

“Did you see a guy in a suit leave? Dark hair and--”

“There’s a lot of people here,” he shrugged you off.

You snarled and turned back. You got ahead of the flood of new arrivals and fought your way back to the three girls on the stage. As you walked up, Halle pouted and grabbed your elbow. “Boo, we thought you were getting another round.”

“No, no, I…” you squirmed and tried to get back into the rhythm, “I had to use the restroom.”

“Well, how about now? Wanna refill the tank?” She jibed.

“Uh, sure,” you picked at the purse. “Be right back.”

“Make mine a double,” Molly called after you. “Thanks.”

✨

Despite drowning yourself in alcohol, you barely slept and when you did, you were back in the club, staring at a man you never expected to see again. You wondered if maybe you’d imagined it or if Peter had sent him after you or if it was someone else and you were just tipsy and blind. Whatever it was, you couldn’t shake the foreboding that followed you into the next morning.

Your Saturday was painful and lazy. You spent your hangover on the couch and barely saw Halle as she cowered in the dim light of her room. You fell asleep there and dragged yourself to bed just before nine. You really were old, or at least, getting there.

Sunday slapped you in the face after another night of disjointed dreams. Peter and the room full of men, Bucky at the bar, and static in between. Responsibility called you from your mattress and you cleaned up and dressed for your weekly trip to the grocery store.

As you came out, Halle was glaring at her phone. “What’s up?” You asked as you shoved your wallet in your purse. “You coming to the store?”

“I got called in for one.” She pouted. “Tell me why I fucked that asshole?”

“Shit, Hal, I’m sorry. Well, I’ll just do the shop myself.” You frowned, “Let you get ready to deal with all that.”

“It’s all because he fucking texted me on Friday and drunk me decided to reply and then… urgh, why do I do this?”

“I don’t know why you’re asking me?” You grinned.

“Oh, please go before I throw this at you,” she shook her phone, “And don’t forget my oat milk.”

“Whole milk?” You asked as you slipped your shoes on, “Got it.”

“Don’t,” she warned.

“Alright, alright. Hopefully I catch you before you go,” you stood and grabbed your keys from the hook. “Have fun with Mr. Bossman.”

“Shut up,” she buried her head in her hands, “Oh my god!”

You tried not to laugh as you left. You felt bad for her as you didn’t know what you’d do in her situation. Looking for a new job had been her first thought but the market was never very good and the man who was driving her away, wasn’t exactly a shining reference.

You took your usual route to the grocer. You had your list on your phone and loaded your cart. You filled the reusable bags and set off for a very inconvenient subway ride home. Your arms screamed as you carried the load up your street and struggled to find your keys at the door. The elevator was too slow and you ended up hauling it all up the stairs. You were out of breath as you got to your apartment.

You turned the knob just a little and kicked open the door. You stomped in and dropped the bags. “So, I got your damn milk--” You stopped short as your voice collided with Halle’s. She was already dressed for work but her braids were still loose. She stood behind the couch as she talked to your unexpected visitor.

“Oh, there she is,” she said snappily, “I wouldn’t blame her for kicking you out but I’ll leave it up to her.” Halle turned to you, “Look who’s here. Only took him a week to come around.”

“Hal,” you said softly as you set the bags down. “What--” You lowered your voice, “Why’d you let him in?”

“So he can apologize to you,” she huffed loudly and passed you to close the door, “Don’t you worry, I still gotta finish getting ready so you have lots of time to hear him out.” She looked at him sharply.

“Really, it’s…” You gulped as you peeked over at Peter. He sat calmly in the chair as he watched you. “Yeah, okay.”

She marched into her room and as her door closed, you reluctantly approached the back of the couch where your roommate had just stood. You stared at Peter, uncertain what to say. You hadn’t been prepared for this; for him to be there in your apartment, your home.

“Peter,” you ran your hands over the couch cushions.

“You lie to everyone you know?” He asked. “As I recall, I’m not the one who’s been… ‘ghosting’, as your friend says.”

“I…” You shifted and picked at the seam, “Look, I told you it wasn’t going to work--”

“You barely gave me a chance. Gave us a chance,” he said as he pushed his legs apart. “That’s hardly fair.”

“Well, you know, I have work and it’s just not a good time for me right now.” You sniffed. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings, but--”

“Ha, princess, I don’t hurt so easy,” he smirked, “Why don’t you sit down and we can talk properly… finally.”

You scratched your brow and cleared your throat. “I don’t think we need to do that.”

Your voice trailed off as Halle opened her door again. She swept out and you waited as she scooped her purse off the counter and sidestepped the groceries still sat on the floor.

“Gotta go,” she sang, “I’ll see you after work.” She stopped by the door as she wiggled into her heels, “Let me know how you deal with… him.”

“See ya,” you said quietly and watched her go. You looked back at Peter slowly as he chuckled.

“What did you tell her about me?” He wondered.

“Nothing. Really.” You said. “I have your jacket. You want it back--”

“Sit,” he gestured to the couch. “We’ll worry about that later.”

“No. Peter, please. I’m just not interested, okay?”

“You seemed pretty interested in the car,” he purred, “Seemed real interested.”

“I…” You looked at the wall and squirmed. “I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“You were asking for it in that dress,” he intoned. “Now,” his movement drew your eye as he reached into his jacket, “I don’t like playing things like this.” He pulled the pistol from its holster and rested it on the arm of the chair, his hand firm on the handle. “Please, sit down. Let’s talk.”

You stared at the gun. Your blood burned hot and you felt blindly as you came around the couch and dropped down. Your eyes never left the muzzle. Would he use it on you?

“Oh, princess, don’t you worry, I’m just getting comfortable.” He taunted. “Now, I’ve been tryna figure out where I went wrong. I got you a pretty dress, I took you to a nice party, I fed you champagne, and I even gave you a little dessert,” he mused and his lip curled, “So I gotta confess I’m confused as you why you’ve been hiding from me.”

You were paralyzed. You clutched your knees and gritted your teeth. You didn’t know what to say. You’d convinced yourself that you’d never see him again. Your method was tried and trued, at least, when it was used against you.

“Don’t be afraid. You can tell me. I really would prefer the truth.” His finger slid along the short barrel as he spoke. “So?”

“I… Peter, I don’t think that we would, uh, work out. Look, I don’t like guns and…” Your lashes fluttered, “I don’t really know that I wanna be around someone who carries one. Not too mention, your friends--”

“My friends. Princess, your mine. They won’t touch you.” He raised his chin. “They’re not that bold.”

You were silent. Your heart pulsed loudly and you took a breath. You stood cautiously and crossed your arms. “Peter, we talked. I told you my reasons. I think you should… go.” You said as firmly as you could.

He laughed again. His cheek twitched and the smile fell away from his face. He rose slowly and turned his gun to tuck it away under his jacket. His eyes never left you as he did.

“You really want me to go?” He asked.

You nodded and held your breath. “Yes.”

He threw his hands out and clapped them against his pants. He shook his head and crossed the room. You turned to watch him as he passed and suddenly, you were thrust towards him. His hand was on the back of your neck as he pulled you against him. He held you tightly and you felt his gun poking through his jacket.

He grinned, his lips only an inch from yours. “I’m going, princess, but not without you.”

“Let go of me!” You struggled with him. “Get off!”

“Princess,” he warned as his fingers dug into your neck, “Settle down.”

“No, I told you to go.” You hissed as you grabbed his wrist. “Please.”

“Let’s get this straight,” he said, “You don’t tell me what to do. Even if it gets me hard.” He crushed his lips to your suddenly and you wrestled with him, your teeth grazing his lip before he pulled back sharply, barely escaping a bite. “You don’t wanna do that.”

His hand went to your chin and he looked you in the face. He rubbed his nose against yours and growled. You beat on his chest and he squeezed tighter.

“Shit, let’s not just rush out of here,” he released you, “You should get those away before they spoil.”

He stepped back and placed his hand on the front of his jacket, where his gun was hidden. You gaped at him and your eyes flitted to the door.

“Ah, don’t worry, we’ll be on our way soon enough,” he said, “So long as you hurry up.”

You swallowed and he moved with you as you went to the bags. He blocked the door as you pulled the straps apart and began to unpack shakily. You dropped a can and it rolled along the floor before he stopped it with his foot. He kicked it back and leaned an elbow on the door frame.

You picked it up with several other cans and went to the cupboard. You snapped the door closed as you felt around the drawer with your other hand. You heard a click and looked to Peter as he aimed his pistol at you. He tilted his head.

“Don’t do that,” he intoned as your hand lingered just inches from the knives inside the drawer.

You went back to the spread of groceries and tried to ignore him as you put everything in its place. As you bent to fill the crisper, he purred, a sizzly ‘princess’ under his breath. You finished up and packed the bags one into the other. You left them on the counter and again, he put his gun away.

“Princess, let me tell you something,” he gripped the door handle, “I don’t take that out without using it very often so don’t press my patience.” He turned the knob slowly, “I’ve waited on you long enough.”

✨

The car ride was tense and long. Peter drove you uptown and you watched out the window helplessly. You rubbed your palms together nervously as they dampened with sweat. He’d taken your phone when you reached for it. He tossed it and it was somewhere on the floor.

He drove past the condos and the walk-ups and continued on nearly the exact path he’d taken on the momentous night. Another grand house awaited you but you remained in the seat as Peter climbed out. He opened your door and still you didn’t move. He reached across you to unbuckle the seat belt and grabbed your arm. He jerked you out onto your feet and sighed.

“Peter,” you begged, “What’s going on? Please, you’re scaring me.”

“Princess, have I done you wrong?” He asked but you didn’t answer. “I won’t hurt you.”

“You’re hurting me right now,” you wriggled your arm and he shoved you ahead of him.

“In,” he demanded as you stumbled up the rounded steps. “Now.”

You opened the door and stepped inside. You crossed the marble floor of the foyer as he directed you from behind. He followed at a pace, close enough that you couldn’t flee. Even if you did, you wouldn’t make it far.

“Pete,” the voice startled you and you stopped at the bottom of the wide staircase. Bucky stood in a doorway to your left. His gaze moved from you to Peter and back again. “I didn’t realise you brought company.”

“You’re still here?” Peter snipped.

“Was I supposed to leave?” He sneered. “You got me and Steve running around and you’re gonna kick us to the curb.”

“You don’t look very busy to me,” Peter growled and neared to rest his hand on your lower back. He leaned in and whispered in your ear. “Upstairs, turn left, the room at the very end. I don’t like hide and seek, you got me?”

You nodded and looked at Bucky again. His mouth slanted knowingly and his tongue poked out for just a moment. You turned up the stairs and left Peter behind. You reached the top and listened for a moment to his muffled voice.

“You and Steve do your fucking job and leave me alone. Understand. I don’t want to be bothered.” Peter snarled.

“Oh, I wouldn’t wanna be interrupted either,” Bucky snickered. “Not with her.”

“Go,” Peter barked. “Now.”

“Ay, you might be Tony’s man but you still gotta watch yourself,” Bucky warned. “This little arrangement isn’t gonna last forever…”

You went to your left and to the door at the end, like he said. You entered and couldn’t help but gasp at the immense bedroom. The black and white decor was expertly matched in marbles and exotics woods, plush velvet and polished sconces. You couldn’t help but admire the luxury.

You didn’t close the door. You glanced around dumbly and stood in one spot as you feared you might break something. You wrung your hands as you heard the steady footsteps and you spun as Peter entered. He looked even more agitated as he cracked his knuckles.

“Sorry about that, Princess,” he said, “Now where were we?” His eyes roved the room as he thought, “Ah, yes, an apology.”

“Apology. I…”

“Should I close the door?” He raised a brow, “You’d be surprised how sound carries in here.”

You frowned and he laughed as he swung the door shut. He neared you and bit the tip of his tongue as he considered you. His brown eyes bore into you and you took a step back. He stayed near and caught your wrist. His other hand fumbled with his belt and he let out a slow breath through his nose.

“Princess, I’d love to treat you how you deserve but you gotta be good to me too.” He pulled on your arm and twisted as you tried to resist. You hissed and he pushed your hand against his crotch. “I don’t forgive easy but I’m sure you can change that.”

“Don’t... don’t make me do this,” you uttered.

“Oh, but princess, you did this,” he pressed your hand around his bulge. “You take care of me and I’ll do the same.”

You parted your lips to argue and he grabbed the back of your head. He kissed you roughly and guided your hand to the top of his boxers. He slid your fingers under the elastic and urged you on, wrapping your fingers around his dick with a groan.

He squeezed until you gripped him firmly. He led your hand up and down as he held you to him, his hot breath filling you as it picked up. He forced his tongue into your mouth and you clawed at his jacket as he kept your other hand around him. He parted from your mouth at last and pressed his cheek to yours.

“Keep going, princess,” he purred as he slowly withdrew his hand from around yours. “You don’t wanna use your hand, I might think of something else.”

You quivered and slid your hand up and down his length. He nuzzled your neck and nibbled as he moaned against your skin. You could only move your hand as you stood against him stunned and rigid. He gripped your waist as you felt him tense and he murmured hungrily.

“Oh, princess,” he breathed and pushed his pelvis against your hands as he came.

You felt the slick heat seep down your hand and slowed until he was breathless. He stilled your hand with his and carefully eased your hand from his pants. He stood straight and eyed your glistening fingers.

“Shit,” he swore as he caressed your cheek, “You made a mess of this suit.” He dropped his hand to the front of his pants as he smiled. He inhaled and pushed his shoulders back. “I forgive you, Princess.”

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #dark peter parker #dark!peter parker #fic #dark!fic #let me be your ruler #mob au #mafia au #au #mcu #marvel #series #spider-man #bucky barnes #steve rogers #tony stark

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lastbluetardis · 3 years

Text

Chemical Reaction (19/22)

Summary: Though their chemistry class is now over, the chemistry between James and Rose is just getting started. Together, they navigate the highs of new love and the lows of coping with past trauma to forge deep and unbreakable bonds of love and commitment. Part 2 in the Catalysis series. Tagging @doctorroseprompts

This chapter: ~7400 words, teen

If you like my stories, consider leaving me a tip? I know these are trying times, but if you are able, I would really appreciate it xoxo. And as always, comments and reblogs are very much appreciated as well.

AO3 | FF | TSP

Ch1 | Ch2 | Ch3 | Ch4 | Ch5 | Ch6 | Ch7 | Ch8 | Ch9 | Ch10 | Ch11 | Ch12 | Ch13 | Ch14 | Ch15 | Ch16 | Ch17 | Ch18 | Ch19 | Ch20 | Ch21 | epilogue

James couldn’t believe his eyes. He blinked hard, thinking his exhaustion had caught up with him. No, the blonde woman on his porch had to be the night-shift nurse who lived across the street—she often liked to indulge in late-night baking on her nights off, and there were times she would come to James for an ingredient she was missing, or to give him a small sampling of her confectionery creations.

(He had the sudden, jarring, embarrassing realization that she may have been flirting with him the whole time… Is that why she hasn’t come around in months?)

“Rose,” he said again when blinking stupidly for at least ten seconds didn’t transform Rose into anyone else.

“Hi,” she said quietly. She looked exhausted; there were prominent shadows beneath her eyes and her shoulders drooped like a heavy weight sat upon them.

Her gaze flicked over his shoulder, and her face fell. “Oh. Sorry. Didn’t realize you had company. I’ll just…” She thumbed behind herself to the dark road. How did she get here? “Sorry.”

Before he could protest, Jack clapped James on the shoulder and announced, “No, no. I was getting ready to head out. Come on, get in out of the cold.”

Jack pressed a smacking kiss to James’s cheek, then muttered, “Talk to her,” into his ear. He then stepped forward and gave Rose a loose hug and kiss on the cheek before he walked to his vehicle that was parked on the side of the street.

They turned to watch Jack start his car and drive off into the night. James looked at Rose, then at the squarish plastic Tupperware container she held. She was absently flicking her thumb nail across the tab on the lid.

“What’ve you got there?” he asked, nodding to the container.

Rose chewed on her bottom lip and pushed her hair behind her ear. “Well. We’ve been playing a game all month, haven’t we? Time to celebrate.”

She popped the lid off the container and handed it to him. In it were half a dozen large, muffin-sized chocolate cupcakes, frosted in vanilla icing and decorated with pink and yellow star sprinkles. The words “Happy Birthday” were written in small, neat, glossy red letters across each cupcake. His stomach sank.

“It… it’s your birthday?” he croaked. Of course—of fucking course—today had been her birthday.

Rose nodded. “I… I didn’t want to let my entire birthday pass without spending some time with my favorite person.”

James nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. “Hope you had fun.”

Rose raised an incredulous eyebrow, and the penny dropped.

“Me?” he squeaked, the knot in his chest loosening.

“Yes you, you numpty. Just because I’m angry with you doesn’t mean I stopped loving you. Do you not love me anymore because we fought?”

James’s knees weakened at the ‘l’ word. He took a step towards her, the arm not holding the cupcakes extended. Her face softened and she stepped into his proffered embrace. Her body was warm and solid against him. Heat prickled behind his eyes as he wrapped his arms as tightly around her as he could without upending the Tupperware container.

“I’m sorry, Rose. I’m so sorry. I…”

“Can we not do this on the front porch?” she asked, voice muffled. “S’cold.”

James was loath to let go of her, but he had to agree the night was getting frigid, especially for him, with his bare feet and thin pajama bottoms and t-shirt. With a sigh, he gave her a final squeeze and dropped his arms from around her waist, then stepped back to usher her into his home.

She toed off her shoes by the front door, and he could already predict her questions when she angled her head towards the hallway. “Did you paint something?”

James scratched the back of his neck. “Er. Yeah. Started repainting my bedroom.”

A small, sad smile tugged at the side of Rose’s mouth. “Needed something to keep your mind busy?”

“Something like that,” he admitted.

A more genuine smile crossed her face as she gestured to the Tupperware container he was holding. “Y’know, stress baking would've been cheaper.”

James blinked, then gaped down at the cupcakes he was holding. The font of the words was perfect cursive, the spread of the icing uniform and even. He blurted, “You made these?”

“Thanks for that vote of confidence,” she drawled. “Yes, I made them. Well. Elsa helped. She came over to my flat this afternoon. Bit of a girl’s night. Had pizza and wine, then made cupcakes. She’s actually really good at decorating; she’s got this whole set of frosting tips to make fancy designs. She did the lettering.”

“They look lovely. Very professional,” he said. He jutted his head to his kitchen, motioning for her to follow. She did, her quiet, shuffling footsteps falling into rhythm with his.

Rather than go into the kitchen, Rose peeled off to the living room, where Merry and Pippin were lounging on the sofa together, half-asleep. James watched her squat down in front of the cats and give them a bit of love before she returned to him.

“Should Jack have driven himself home?”

James glanced at Rose and saw her pointing to the kitchen table, where the mostly-empty bottle of wine sat. It had a few mouthfuls left.

“It was only half-full when we started,” James answered, picking up the bottle and hurriedly drinking the last of the wine. “This was from last weekend, when you and I… Anyway, he had one glass. I drank most of it. He should be fine.”

“Tell him to let us know when he gets home safely,” Rose said.

James snapped off a lazy salute then sent Jack a text, passing along Rose’s request. He set the Tupperware container of cupcakes on the counter before grabbing two clean bowls from the dishwasher he hadn’t bothered to empty.

“Oh, I really shouldn’t,” Rose said with a grimace. “I already had one after they came out of the oven. Plus pizza. M’gonna puff up like a balloon.”

She pinched her waist, and James frowned. “What are you talking about? You’re beautiful.”

Her cheeks flamed pink and she dropped her hand limply to her side.

“I had a huge, greasy burger and chips for dinner. D’you think I’m gonna puff up like a balloon?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Well, no. But you’re…” She let her sentence dangle as she waved her hand vaguely up and down his body.

“And you’re…” He mirrored her gesture. “Rose, I find you absolutely beautiful, and you losing or gaining weight won’t change my opinion. Not that my opinion should matter. If you don’t want a cupcake, or if you’re not hungry, that’s fine. And again, not that you need my approval.”

Rose sighed and twisted her hands in front of herself before she turned away from him and rooted in his freezer for ice cream he always made sure to have on hand.

“I had a minor eating disorder as a teen,” Rose said quietly, pulling out the ice cream and shutting the freezer. “Nothing too serious. I was obsessed with my weight, and was really careful with what I ate. I counted and logged calories. I grew out of it when I realized watching what I ate made me feel even worse about myself. Of course I still tried to eat healthy and to eat reasonably-sized portions, but I stopped being so strict with it. I obviously started putting on some weight, nothing too drastic, but Jimmy would often tease me and tell me to lay off the chips or whatever, because rock stars don’t date chubby girls.”

James’s ears were ringing with rage and heartbreak, and he was furious with himself for everything he had accused Rose of last night regarding Jimmy.

“Rose, I…”

“As I said, I’m fine now and I don’t really care about my weight or body image as much,” Rose interrupted, setting the ice cream on the counter in front of him. “But sometimes those thoughts pop up without me realizing it. Like they did just now.”

Unsure of how to respond, James instead took a cupcake out of the Tupperware container, unwrapped the paper from the bottom, and set it into the bowl. “Did I… did I say something wrong?”

“No. Quite the opposite, actually. You told me your opinion, but didn’t shove it in my face or try to force me to believe you. And like I said, I don’t often realize when I’m having these thoughts.”

He nodded and forced his lips into some semblance of a smile that he hoped looked supportive. He then returned his gaze to the bowl and the ice cream she’d retrieved.

“D’you want to share this with me?” he asked, gesturing to the bowl with a spoon.

Rose nodded. He scooped several large dollops of vanilla ice cream into the bowl then he went to his junk drawer. It overflowed with a random assortment of objects: scissors, several different types of batteries, notepads, pens, pencils, a ruler, a screwdriver, tape, glue, Band-Aids, rubber bands, paper clips, binder clips, thumbtacks, toothpicks, a ball of twine, a condom, a tampon, and so many other things James didn't remember throwing into the drawer.

He dug through the mishmash of objects until he found a small, half-empty box of birthday candles and a matchbook. He took out four candles and brought them and the matches over to where Rose stood at the counter.

“I would try to shove twenty-two of them into the cupcake, but firstly I don’t have twenty-two candles, and secondly, I’m pretty sure I would end up pulverizing the poor cupcake into a pile of crumbs. So use your imagination; two and two equates to twenty-two.”

He shoved two of the candles side by side into the left side of the cupcake, right before the H and B in “Happy Birthday”. The other two, he stuck into the right side of the cupcake, behind both Ys. Striking the match, he ignored the shaking in his hands as he lit the candles. He then promptly blew out the match and dropped it into the water-filled wine glass in the sink to let it stop smoking. However, Rose must have seen the tremor in his hands, because she reached over and threaded their fingers together.

“I don’t like fire,” he admitted. “For obvious reasons.”

“You didn’t have to light the candles then,” Rose said gently.

“Pfff. It’s your birthday. Can’t have a birthday without blowing out some candles. How else will you get a free wish?”

Rose cracked a small smile and squeezed his fingers. She leaned forward as though she were about to blow out her candles. James cried, “Wait!”

She pulled back with a start.

“It’s your twenty-second birthday. I would think you would remember how this goes by now,” he drawled. He then sucked in a deep breath and began to sing. “Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday dear Ro-ooose. Happy Birthday to youuuuu.”

She was grinning by the end of it, especially when he intentionally sang off-key for the sole purpose of making her smile. He’d made her cry too much in the last twenty-four hours; a smile from her was a welcome sight.

“Right. Those candles are all charged up with birthday magic. Now you can make a wish and blow,” he said, bowing and gesturing to her cupcake.

Rolling her eyes at him, Rose closed her eyes and paused for about five seconds, before she blew out a short breath, extinguishing the candles with ease. He applauded her effort, then yanked the candles out of the cupcake and extended two of them to her. They licked off the cake crumbs and icing—cream cheese, he noted with delight—then dropped them into the trash.

“Let’s eat this before all the ice cream melts,” James said, gesturing to the table. “Want anything to drink? More wine?”

“Just water.”

He grabbed two glasses from the dishwasher and filled them with water from the pitcher in the fridge before plopping down at the table beside Rose. He noticed his phone had a new text notification; Jack had replied, letting him know he was home. James relayed the news to Rose, then gestured for her to take the first bite of her birthday cupcake.

For several long minutes, they sat silently together, trading off bites of cupcake and ice cream until the bowl was empty.

“That was very good,” he praised, swiping his finger through the melted mess of ice cream and chocolate crumbs on the bottom of the bowl and licking the digit clean.

“Thanks. Elsa loves to bake but doesn't get the chance to do it as often as she likes because she lives in the dorms on campus.” Rose ran her fingertip along the rim of her glass. “When I invited her over to my flat, she said stress baking was a requirement. She didn’t know it was my birthday until we started decorating the cupcakes.”

“Do you have an aversion to people knowing it’s your birthday?”

She snorted. “No. But it just… it didn’t feel right to celebrate. Not when we’d…” She trailed off with a shrug. “All month I’d been looking forward to finally telling you it was my birthday. It didn’t feel right to tell anyone about my birthday if I couldn’t tell you.”

“I really buggered your birthday,” he sighed, chest tightening.

“Nah.” She pursed her lips. “Okay, well, yeah. But it wasn’t just you. I didn’t help. I wasn’t in the mood to celebrate my birthday today, so I kept it to myself. Anyways. Elsa knocked a bit of sense into me this afternoon. Helped put some things into better perspective.”

“I’m glad you have a friend like that to share things with,” he said.

Rose hummed in agreement. “She also called me out for being an idiot.”

James snorted. “Jack did much the same for me.” He paused, fidgeting uncomfortably for a few seconds before he blurted, “I am so sorry, Rose. I’m so sorry for snooping through your mail and reading that letter, and I’m so sorry for jumping to a conclusion that was absolutely ridiculous, and I’m sorry for accusing you of not trusting me. I’m sorry I twisted the situation and your words and actions to put the blame all on you. I’m sorry I let my own insecurities warp my perceptions of you and our relationship, and I’m so, so sorry for ever insinuating that you would want to go back to Jimmy.”

Rose was dead silent. When James chanced a peek over at her, he was horrified to see tears welling in her eyes. She blinked and they fell down her cheeks.

Sniffling, she wiped at them and whispered, “That really hurt. I thought I had told you enough about Jimmy to show you he wasn’t a nice person to be in a relationship with. And I thought…”

“You did,” James interrupted fervently. “You did Rose. You were absolutely correct in saying I had selective memory. You told me more about him than I realized. I was too caught up in my own head last night to remember everything you’d said. I’m so sorry about that.”

Rose waved him off. “Forget Jimmy for a minute. Even if he wasn’t a wanker… It hurt that you would think I would be tempted into a new relationship with someone else when we’ve been so happy together. At least, I’ve been happy.”

“I’ve been happy, too,” James said. He covered her hand with his. “I swear, Rose. I’ve been so happy with you.”

He wished he had better answers for her. He wished he could explain what had triggered him last night, explain how his brain had disregarded nearly seven months of a friendship and four months of a relationship stronger than he’d ever had before. Why had he thought Rose would be tempted by an ex-boyfriend who had treated her so horribly? Why did he have the anxiety that Rose would see through his facade and realize he wasn’t as exciting as she’d thought? Why was he so fearful she would leave?

Because everyone leaves.

The realization crashed over him with the force of a tidal wave, pushing his head beneath the water until he could barely breathe. He was drowning, fighting a losing battle against the current, about to be swept away into the sea when he was thrown a lifeline.

Rose squeezed his fingers hard, grounding him, pulling him back to the moment. His chest was tight and tears blurred his vision.

Everyone leaves.

His mother, who had thought it more prudent to attend to their dogs rather than get herself to safety with her husband and son.

His father, who had rescued him from their burning house only to leave him on the street to go back inside. James hadn’t been enough to keep his dad by his side, and so he had lost two parents that night.

His aunt, who had never wanted kids, had never expected to have kids. She pulled long hours and travelled incessantly, chasing big news stories while James pretended he was fine with being alone, while silently wishing his dad had never saved him from their house. He knew without a doubt that, if his aunt could do it all over again, if she knew then what she knew now, she never would have agreed to be his godmother when he was born. He loved his aunt, and knew his aunt loved him, but he wasn’t so naïve as to be ignorant of the fact that he had upheaved his aunt’s life, and not entirely for the better.

The friends he had left behind in the UK and never heard from again after he and his aunt moved to America. People he had known since childhood who hadn’t bothered putting in the effort to stay in touch, despite claiming they would.

His previous partners, many of whom finding ways to end their brief relationship after realizing he didn’t want to have sex with them. Time after time, he had to listen to them say it was fine that they weren’t being physically intimate—with an unspoken yet dangling between them—only to listen to them make up excuses for why they were ending the relationship. Granted, he had broken off a relationship himself a few times, but over half the time, his partner had been the one to end it.

Over and over, people came and people went, and at the heart of it, James was hardly more than a spectre, unable to be seen or heard as his heart was left broken. And yet when Rose had joined him, had taken his hand and made promises and vows that nobody ever had before, he had jumped at the first opportunity to assume she would leave him, too.

Chair legs scraped across the floor a moment before a warm, familiar arm wrapped around his waist. He turned into Rose and rested his cheek on her shoulder, breathing in her scent, the subtle tones of amber and citrus, of warmth and love and home.

Something deep in his chest cracked open, releasing the floodgates. For the past nine and a half years, he had been drifting, trying to make sense of how he could feel so alone when he was surrounded by people, able to make new friends and acquaintances at the drop of a hat. Yet there was always that disconnect, making him feel more like an outsider looking in. Like everyone else was aware of the punchline of a joke while he was left clueless.

Until Rose. With Rose it had been natural. Effortless. It was though his world had shifted into perfect focus, and at the heart of it was her. She had reminded him of what it felt like to belong, to feel perfectly at home with another person. And though he was desperate not to lose her and what they had together, part of him was holding his breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Yet in doing so, he had let his anxiety take control and had hurt Rose badly enough that he had nearly caused her to do exactly what he had been terrified of.

James’s shoulders shook as he wept quietly into Rose’s neck, dampening the collar of her shirt. She didn’t seem to mind. Instead, she held him closer, rubbing her hand up and down the length of his spine as he sobbed and gasped for breath.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped. “I’m so sorry for everything, Rose.”

Haltingly, through the juddering tears that cracked his voice, he explained his revelation to her. He hoped he didn’t sound like he was making excuses for himself, but he genuinely wanted her to understand the conclusion his big, stupid brain had come to.

“I let my fears take over,” he said, voice raw from crying and talking. “I didn’t realize what they were. And I didn’t realize how loud they’d gotten.”

“I understand,” Rose said quietly. “Believe me. I understand. Is there anything I can do to help you quiet them?”

James rubbed his hand beneath his clogged, stuffy nose and grimaced when it came away wet. He pulled away from Rose and stood, moving to the sink to wash his hands, then to grab a handful of tissues. He blotted his eyes then blew his nose before he sank into his seat beside her again.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I know this is a me problem, not a you problem. You’ve been wonderful, Rose. You and me… our relationship… it has all been wonderful. I don’t know why I was so quick to let ten minutes of screaming insecurities make me forget about half a year of loving you.”

Rose chewed on the inside of her cheek, contemplating. “If ever there’s a time those voices are getting too loud, I’d like you to tell me. Though I know sometimes they can go unnoticed. But if you realize you’re getting stuck in your head, let me know and I’ll try to help you out of it.”

James flashed her a grateful smile. “Same for you. If there’s ever a time I can help you with whatever’s on your mind…”

Rose sighed. “I need to get better about that. I’ve realized I have a bad habit of telling myself I will deal with something later, but later never actually comes.” She sucked in a big breath and blew it out again. “I’m sorry you saw that letter from Jimmy. Yeah, you were a bit of a twat for reading it and reacting like you did. But I’m sorry you were blindsided like that, and that I ignored how it made you feel. And I’m sorry for making you feel like I don’t trust you. I’m sorry I made you self-conscious for everything you’ve shared with me and that you feel like I don’t share enough with you.” She let out a sad little laugh that twisted his heart. “This is going to sound lame, but I honestly didn’t realize I wasn’t being as open with you as I thought I was. It feels like you know me better than anyone ever has, so I didn’t think to change anything. But now that I know how you feel, I want to work to be better at that.”

James shook his head and covered her hand. “No, Rose. I got caught up in my own head and in my frustration. You’ve shared more with me than I wanted to admit last night.” Jack’s words clanged around in his head. “I shouldn’t have expected the exact same level of sharing from you as I am comfortable with giving.”

“That’s not fair. I am comfortable with you…”

James cringed. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not accusing you of anything, Rose. Merely stating a fact. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty or upset, I swear. I want you to be comfortable talking with me, and forcing you to talk about things you aren’t comfortable with is counterproductive.”

“Thing is, I was always going to tell you everything about Jimmy,” Rose sighed. “When he first texted me, it sent me into a blind panic and I sorta… shut down. I wanted to take the time I needed to get into a better place before sharing it with you. But I guess I didn’t realize how long it was since he first texted me.”

James stayed silent, letting her get her thoughts together. He twined their fingers together, happy to be able to sit and touch her like this, when for many long, heartbreaking hours in the wee hours of that morning, he had been sure that he would never be able to do so again. Her hand fit perfectly in his, and he knew that he would do whatever it took to make their relationship whole again, to make sure he could hold her hand for the rest of their lives.

When Rose began speaking, he gave her his full attention and tried to keep his emotions in check. He listened to her explain how Jimmy had texted her out of the blue, having gotten her number from a “mutual friend”.

“M’still not sure who gave it to him,” Rose said with a sigh. “He never told me and none of my friends claim to have done it.”

James listened to her describe the early conversations she’d had with Jimmy, from telling him that she needed time, to working through her anxiety with the help of Elsa and a counselor, to coming to the decision to let Jimmy say his piece.

“He was very important to me at one time. He was the love of my life. He was my everything. He will always be important and special because I genuinely loved him, and like it or not, my experiences with him shaped me into the person I am today. I don’t love him anymore, and frankly don’t miss him or want what we used to have, but if this would help him and me move on, I really wanted to let him say what he needed to say.

“He apologized to me, and it wasn’t even a terrible apology. Though he did make it sound like we both were at fault, but you know what, it was better than I was expecting, so I sorta took it as a win. I figured we were done, but then he wanted to know if he could repay me for all the debts he’d left me with. I can’t remember if I told you before, but he stopped paying his part of the rent at the end of our relationship. I got so behind on those payments because I had other bills to focus on that by the time I moved out, I was six months behind.

“I refused Jimmy’s offer. Told him everything was paid off and he didn’t owe me anything.” Rose sniffled and smiled ruefully, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “You know my money insecurities. I couldn’t stand the thought that he might use this as a way to control me again. So I shut him down.”

“Good for you,” James murmured, his first words in a while. “You don’t have to go on. It’s okay.”

But Rose shook her head. “I want you to know all of this. I want to come to you when—as Elsa puts it—shit ties up my brain. And my brain has been in knots for over a month. I want to be better with being okay about my thoughts sometimes getting tangled; I realized if I waited until my brain was calm to tell you everything, I would never tell you anything. I don’t want secrets between us, and I’m frustrated with myself that I unwittingly kept secrets from you. I can’t promise I will tell you immediately when something is on my mind, but I will make more of an effort to be more open with you. I wish I’d told you all of this sooner, but I can’t go back and change how I handled this, so let me tell you all of this now.”

James nodded and brought their clasped hands to his lips for a soft kiss.

“After I told Jimmy I didn’t want his money, I thought we were done. I didn’t hear from him for a few days, but then I got a text from him, a selfie with some of our old friends. A harmless group photo. Then he started sharing news from home. Or he would send me playlists. Stupid, innocent stuff we used to. He has really good taste in music and I’m always happy to have new songs or artists to listen to.

“We started chatting a little more regularly. Not daily, but a few times a week. A few messages at a time. He shared updates about his life, told me about going to drug and alcohol meetings, financial counseling, and so on. I told him about America and school. I didn’t tell him about you, though. It’s stupid, and I should have because I don’t think Jimmy realizes I’m not single, but you’re mine.” The word sent a thrill up James’s spine, and he couldn’t help but kiss her knuckles again. “You’re mine and I didn’t want to share you with him. I didn’t want anything of Jimmy to touch you. And I wasn’t trying to lead him on or anything. Or keep him a secret from you. But all of a sudden it’s been five weeks since he first texted.

“Then he sent me that letter. It came two days ago. I cried when I got it. I never gave him my address, so I panicked that he had somehow stalked me and found me, that he would be waiting at the university for me. And I was just… so defeated. I thought maybe he’d changed. Grown up or something. Stupidly, I thought maybe we could eventually be friends. But the only thing he wanted was for me to get back together with him.”

Rose’s tears dripped down her cheeks and her breathing hitched. James wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a hug. She willingly leaned into him and sniffled quietly for a long moment.

“Did you really think that was a love letter?” Rose croaked.

“Pardon?”

“What Jimmy wrote to me. Did you think it read like a love letter?”

James sucked on the inside of his lower lip. He tried to remember the content of the letter, but his memories were all tainted with the pain of their argument.

“I don’t remember enough of it,” he confessed. “I’m sorry.”

Rose lifted her bum off of her chair, reaching into her back pocket to pull out a piece of paper that had been folded into eighths.

“Here,” she said, giving it to him.

Tentatively, he took it. Rose pulled herself out of his embrace and grabbed a tissue from the crumpled pile he had brought over.

As he reread the letter, his stomach twisted into knots when he picked out several words and phrases.

I’ve found a piece of myself…

I’m not complete…

I hate the person I am without you…

…happiest of my life…

…nothing more I’ve wanted…

…(our life?)…

You make me feel like I can do anything…

I love how I feel when I’m with you…

I was scared about how much I needed you…

…something I always knew would be there for me…

I know I can make it work this time…

…enjoy your time there, while you can…

…we can work harder together to make us work…

I will do whatever it takes to make this work…

Over and over, James read the letter, his mind picking up more of the tone and the sheer selfishness in it. Everything Jimmy said was about him, about how he needed Rose, without giving a thought about whether Rose wanted or needed him. He plainly admitted to taking her for granted, and still, after all this time, he acted as though he and Rose were equally at fault for how their relationship had ended.

How must it have sounded to Rose, for him to go off on her about the letter?

“Oh, Rose,” James breathed, “I’m so sorry. God, I was a twat, wasn’t I?”

She let out a watery giggle. “Yeah, a bit.”

“Can I ask…? How did Jimmy find your address? I mean. Do you even know how he found it?”

Rose’s eyes welled with tears again, even as she scoffed. “My mum.”

“Your… mum?” That had not been what James had expected. “But… why?”

Rose shook her head. “Apparently Jimmy went ‘round the estate. Found my mum and told her we’d been chatting. Said he wanted to send me money to help cover the bills I’d paid. He said exactly the right thing—when I moved back home, my mum kept telling me over and over that Jimmy should cough up the money to cover his half of the flat and the expenses that had built up.

“A couple weeks ago, my mum asked me if I’d been chatting with Jimmy. When I said yes, I guess she assumed I knew Jimmy wanted to repay me but I was being unreasonable.” Rose’s face crumpled. “I know my mum didn’t know how badly Jimmy had treated me, and that's my fault for not telling her. But what if he’d been a murderous stalker? What if he’d physically or sexually abused me? What if he used that information and showed up alone at my flat one night and broke in and…?”

She coughed out a wracking sob and buried her face in her hands. James nearly began crying at the sight of her distress. “How dare my mum give out my address like that? I never thought she’d do something like that. My mum called to wish me a happy birthday and I told her a little bit about why you and I were fighting, and she told me she was the one who gave Jimmy my address. I got so angry with her, and she was gettin’ angry with me. I’ve spent the day crying ‘cos I was fighting with my two favorite people.”

James tossed the letter onto the table and wrapped his arms around Rose, holding her tightly to his chest. He had never been angrier with another person than he was right now with Jackie Tyler. Well. Jackie Tyler and Jimmy bloody Stone. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Rose. I’m sorry.”

“Joke’s on Mum, though; Jimmy didn’t send a single quid with that letter.” Rose sniffled and scrubbed her hands across her eyes. “I hate this. I wish I’d blocked Jimmy from the start, I wish I’d told you when he texted, I wish I’d told my mum not to talk to Jimmy. I wish I’d handled everything differently, and I wish I hadn’t gotten so upset with you last night. I’m sorry, James. I’m sorry for it all.”

James tightened his hold around her, burying his face into her neck while she wept into his. “You have every right to handle situations however you think is best. I should have had more faith and trust in you and in our relationship. I was unreasonable. But I forgive you, love. Of course I forgive you. I love you. I love you more than you can imagine, and I’m so sorry I doubted it last night.”

Rose began crying harder into his shoulder. Her breaths came out in harsh gasps as she managed to reply, “I love you too. I’m sorry for putting the doubt in your head… when you asked if I was breaking up with you and I said I didn’t know. God, I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean it at all. I got scared too, same as you, and my brain sort of shut down because it couldn’t stop thinking of everything Jimmy had said or done in the past, and twisting it to look like what you were saying and doing. That’s something I need to work on because that’s insulting for me to imply that you’re anything like him, but I didn’t know what to do, so I pushed you out, and I’m so sorry.”

James merely held her tighter, his heart breaking at her agony, yet filling with more love for her than he’d ever felt before.

“You’re the strongest woman I know, Rose,” he murmured into her hair. “The strongest. You’ve overcome so much, and you’re working to make yourself the best version of yourself that you can be, and that’s so admirable. I am here to listen to anything you want to tell me, but I am okay with not knowing everything. I trust your judgement, and I know you’ll tell me what you want me to know.”

He continued speaking quietly, a combination of reassurances, affirmations, and words of love. She shed more tears than he’d ever seen her shed, and he shed just as many. He was exhausted and overwhelmed, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep for a very long time tangled with Rose.

When her tears finally dried, he pressed a lingering kiss to the side of her head before sitting back in his chair. He grabbed a tissue for himself and passed one to her; they noisily blew their noses and wiped their eyes.

“Well. Wasn’t that cathartic?” he said cheerfully, holding his hand out for her tissue to throw in the rubbish bin.

She chuckled. Though her eyes were red and puffy and her cheeks were splotchy, he didn’t think there was a more beautiful person in the world than her.

He washed his hands after throwing away their used tissues, then he grabbed a few more, just in case. His nose was still a bit runny, and he was sure Rose’s had to be too. He plopped into his chair with a groan.

“First fight,” he mused. “Can tick that one off the list, I suppose.”

“Was it everything you expected it to be?” she drawled, rolling her eyes.

“Admittedly it was a lot more painful than I thought,” he said. “But now we can go back to how we were, right?”

Rose paused. In the silence, his heart sank into his stomach.

“I don’t know if we should,” she said carefully, and his lungs were suddenly out of air. Her eyes widened. “No, not like you’re thinking. It’s just… everything we fought about, everything we talked about, it changed us. It changed our relationship. Not in a bad way, but it’s different now. We’re more aware of some things that we weren’t before. I don’t want to go backwards with you. I want us to go forward. Together.”

James nodded, shoulders slumping in relief. He slid his hand across the table, slipping it beneath Rose’s so her palm rested against the back of his hand. He splayed his fingers, letting hers fall between the gaps. She curled her fingers around his hand.

“You’re right,” he said, caressing his thumb along the side of her pinkie. “Absolutely, you’re right. Guess this means the honeymoon period is over?”

“Probably.” She flashed him a cheeky grin. “Hopefully we’re not over the horny hump though.”

“You’re never gonna let me forget that I said that, are you?” he whined, grimacing.

“Nope,” she said, popping the ‘p’ as he often did. “It was such a dorky thing to call it.”

He pouted. “You never complained about my dorkiness before.”

“I love your dorkiness. Doesn’t mean I won’t tease you about it though.” Her smile slipped until her face turned solemn. “I’m really glad we talked this out, James.”

He squeezed her fingers. “Me too.”

“Any time Jimmy and I had an argument, we never did this. We’d shout at each other, curse at each other, and then ignore each other and not speak for a day or so. Then we’d have angry make up sex and pretend everything was fine in the morning. I don’t want to ever do that again. I want to communicate with you and to compromise with you, then grow with you.

“Staying in love is a choice, and it takes work. It shouldn’t be hard, but it’s not easy either. We need to choose to stay in love, decide that our relationship is worth making an effort for. I want to wake up every day and choose you, to choose us, and I want to put in the work because I wanna enjoy the payoff. Because being in love with you, James… it’s the best I’ve ever felt. You make me feel like I can do anything, like pass a stupid chemistry class or tell my stupid ex-boyfriend to fuck off. I love the way you make me feel. I love feeling like I’m home whenever I’m with you. And though this home we’re building with each other might have a leaky roof every now and then, I wanna fix it with you.”

James’s eyes were burning again. How was anything even left in his tear ducts? “Oh, Rose. You make me feel the same way. And I feel so inadequate because you just waxed romantic poetry at me, but my brain has stopped working. But please know I love you with every cell in my body, and I want to keep loving you with every cell, all the way down to each little organelle contained within, every day for the rest of our long and beautiful life together.”

Rose grinned at him and leaned over to press a light kiss to his lips. They tingled at the contact, and he wanted to pull her close to kiss her again.

“You’re such a science geek,” she said.

“Well. I’ve already shown you I’m rather fabulous with many types of chemistry and anatomy,” he drawled, flashing her an over-the-top wink as he clicked his tongue lewdly.

She burst into a fit of laughter that he echoed, feeling at peace for the first time in twenty-four hours. The exhaustion of all those hours suddenly overwhelmed him. His laughter morphed into a yawn, which spread to Rose.

“I’m knackered,” he announced unnecessarily. “Will you come to bed with me? My bedroom’s a disaster, but the guest bed is made.”

Rose nodded and stood up from the kitchen table. She took their bowl to the sink and rinsed it out before leaving it there for them to clean properly in the morning. She then flicked off the light on top of the stove before she followed him through the rest of the house, locking up and turning lights off as they went.

“Can I see what you’ve done to your room?” Rose asked.

“Sure,” he said, continuing down the hall rather than peeling off into the guest room. When he got to his closed door, he warned, “It’s a mess.”

They were hit with the stench of paint fumes as soon as he opened the bedroom door. He flicked on the light, and the room was bathed in the yellow glow of his lamps.

“Love the color,” Rose said.

“Yeah?” he asked, pleased with himself that, even in his miserable, depressive state of trying to not think about Rose, he had managed to pick a color she would like.

“Mhm.”

“I have to put on the second coat. I’ll probably do that tomorrow—I’m not really feeling like going to my classes, so I’ll probably ditch ‘em again.”

“You rebel,” she teased. “If you want some help, I don’t have anything important going on tomorrow. And I don’t work this weekend. We can take a few days to finish up the painting and reorganize your furniture.”

James smiled. “I’d like that.”

“It’s a date.” She wrapped her arm around his waist and tucked her face against his shoulder. “Besides, it’ll go faster with two.”

Leaning down, James brushed a kiss to her crown then rested his cheek in her hair. “Faster with two. Better with two.” He gave her waist a tight squeeze as he kissed her again. “Better with you.”

#ficandchips #doctorroseprompts #dwfic #doctor who #ten x rose #ten x rose au #james x rose #university au #romance #hurt/comfort #angst #my fic #chemical reaction #catalysis series #chemical potential sequel

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limjaeseven · 3 years

Text

The Boyfriend Dilemma

Pairing: Jaebeom X Jinyoung

Genre: Fluff

Word Count: 2,896

Warning(s): JJP being cute as hell, fake dating!au

Summary: Jinyoung had lied to his mum about having a boyfriend. What does he do when she asks him to bring said boyfriend over for Christmas dinner?

[a/n]: I know I’m a bit late but here it is, this fic was lots of fun to write so I hope you enjoy it! Written for @ksmutclub‘s ‘Under the Mistletoe’ project.

Christmas Eve was usually a calm night in for Jinyoung, spent curled on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate and a good book. That was until his mother called him, asking him to come for dinner on Christmas with his boyfriend. He was eternally grateful that his mother couldn’t see the way he cringed on the other side of the line as she mentioned his love life. You see, there was a small issue, Jinyoung didn’t really have a boyfriend.

Jinyoung’s mother had always wanted Jinyoung to find a good man and settle down, having come to terms with her son’s attraction towards men a long time ago, she just hated the idea of her son being lonely, without someone to look after him. The thought wasn’t unfounded, Jinyoung was known to work late nights, get little to no sleep and go for days without bothering to eat properly. His mother only knew of one out of the four incidents on Jinyoung ending up in the hospital due to exhaustion after he had left home for college.

She kept asking him if he had found anyone, setting him up for dates with her friends’ sons when he graduated college without having been in a relationship even once. It wasn’t even like Jinyoung wasn’t interested in being in a relationship or guys weren’t into him, he just hadn’t found the one for him and regardless of whether he sounded childish or not, he hoped to find true love, or at least a man who he would want to spend the rest of his life with.

After four years of constant nagging and pretty bad dates, Jinyoung finally decided he was done with all the nagging and lied to his mum about being in a relationship. He was smart enough to not reveal too many details about his imaginary boyfriend, because he knew eventually his mum would ask him to bring the boy home and he would have to strategically plan a fake breakup before that but he didn’t expect her to call him over for Christmas, since his parents were usually working through the holiday.

“But Jinyoung, your dad and I took a day off just so we could meet your new boyfriend, we thought Christmas would be the one opportunity where you both would be off from work and could drive over” And despite how hard he tried, his mum didn’t let up. He couldn’t fake a breakup, he had just told her that his relationship was going strong a week prior, which meant he would either have to come clean to his mom or try something else.

Jinyoung would have scoffed at the idea of hiring a date, he actually had once when he saw an ad for what was basically an escort service disguised as a date-for-hire app on TV. Little did he know that not months after that ordeal he would be sitting on his bed on Christmas Eve, looking through a catalogue of good looking men, trying to pick one to be his fake boyfriend to appease his mum.

The options weren’t bad, there were a few men there he felt genuinely attracted to, but they were all either too nerdy or too bad boy looking for what he had described to his mum. Unfortunately, Jinyoung had gotten a bit too carried off by his description of his fake boyfriend and had described more of his dream man, one Jinyoung knew he would never find, to his mum.

That was till his eyes landed on the name ‘Lim Jaebeom’ accompanied by the photo of a man pulled right out of his wet dreams. He had long, black hair that brushed his shoulders, dressed in a designer suit with a face to match. His eyes were alluring, the two moles above his left eye too perfect to be real. Jinyoung pinched his arm, wincing at both the pain and the realisation that he was not, in fact, dreaming.

Clicking through to his profile, Jinyoung read through the man’s likes and hobbies listed and wondered if he was high, because it felt like the man he had described to his mum had been brought to life. The rates were low enough for Jinyoung to be able to afford the man for a night, and even though he couldn’t believe that he was hiring a ‘date’, one look at Jaebeom’s photo made him forget all those thoughts, and all that filled him was the anticipation.

Once he made his payment, he was given the option to chat with Jaebeom in order to discuss the date. Clicking the link he was provided, he stared at the text box for ten minutes before sending a ‘hey’, his hands shaking as he saw the word ‘typing’ linger at the bottom of the screen.

Jaebeom: Hey Jinyoung, how can I help you?

Jinyoung: So, this is kinda embarrassing but I lied to my mum about having a boyfriend and now she’s asked me to bring him home for Christmas dinner so I panicked and hired you to be my fake boyfriend for a night :/

Jaebeom: Don’t worry Jinyoung, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to be someone’s fake boyfriend, we should quickly go over what you’ve already told your mum about your ‘boyfriend’ first and work from there

Jinyoung: This is super weird but like somehow everything I told her about ‘him’ was listed in your likes and hobbies, like a love for music and cats. All I told her is I met ‘him’, or in this case you, at a café where you worked, you wrote your number on my cup and I texted you and we started dating

Jaebeom: Okay, at least I don’t have to pretend like I know anything about stock markets or something

Jinyoung: You’ve had to do that before?

Jaebeom: Oh yeah, some girls I’ve accompanied lied about dating a rich CEO and I had to borrow my friend’s Gucci suit for it, that was interesting

Jinyoung: Sounds like it

Jaebeom: Is there anything else I should know?

Jinyoung: Beware of my mum, she will ask a lot of questions, just go with the flow. Also wear an ugly sweater, my mum is big on Christmas traditions

Jaebeom: I don’t think I have any ugly sweaters, I’ll have to get one. How about I get us a matching pair? She might like that

Jinyoung: You are a genius Jaebeom, I’ll pay you for the sweater, just come here by 6pm so that I have enough time to get ready and we can drive over to my parents’ in time

Jaebeom: Will do, also don’t worry about paying, that’s on me

Jinyoung: But

Jaebeom: No buts, it’s getting late, you should sleep some, we can discuss any other details tomorrow

Jinyoung: Okay fine, good night Jaebeom

Jaebeom: Good night Jinyoung

It was past noon when Jinyoung woke up the next day, his brain deciding to oversleep on the one day he would have liked to wake up early and get ready properly. Jinyoung managed to get out of bed in time for lunch, taking a long bath in preparation for dinner, mentally preparing himself for what was about to come.

Jaebeom had texted him in the morning, asking for his address, which Jinyoung sent him, accompanied by an apology for his delayed response. They texted back and forth for a bit, engaging in normal small talk before Jaebeom signed off to head to the mall to buy the aforementioned sweaters.

At precisely six o’clock, Jinyoung’s doorbell rang, revealing a man about a thousand times more gorgeous than the photo Jinyoung had seen on the app, standing at his doorstep. He swallowed visibly, his throat suddenly parched, as Jaebeom stood there, dressed in a pair of black trousers, a white t-shirt and a long, brown coat, holding a bag in his hand.

“Come in” Jinyoung said, barely managing not to stutter, as he welcomed Jaebeom inside his apartment. Somewhere in the back of his mind was a voice calling him dumb to allow a stranger inside his house but something about Jaebeom just pulled Jinyoung in and clouded his judgement. Jaebeom slipped off his oxfords, extending the cover in his hand to Jinyoung as he settled down on the couch. Confused for a moment, Jinyoung quickly realised that the bag probably contained the sweaters Jaebeom had been tasked to buy.

“I said UGLY Christmas sweaters, not cat sweaters, we can NOT wear these.” Jinyoung exclaimed in horror as he examined the pastel blue and pink coloured sweaters the man had bought, adorned with large cats and the words ‘Meowy Christmas’ in calligraphy font on the front. Jaebeom smiled sheepishly as he got up from his seat and made his way to Jinyoung, grabbing the blue sweater from his left hand.

“They didn’t have any ugly sweaters at the mall that I actually liked, and these were too cute to say no to” Jaebeom made his best puppy eyes at Jinyoung, causing the younger to groan.

“I can’t believe this, my sisters will not let me live this down” Jaebeom just pouted, taking off his coat to pull the sweater over his head. Jinyoung would be lying if he said he didn’t ogle at Jaebeom’s biceps flexing as he changed his clothing. When caught staring by Jaebeom, he promptly turned around, clutching the garment in his hand to his chest and running inside to put it on, but mostly to calm his beating heart down.

Jaebeom was unnecessarily attractive, and that was not good for Jinyoung’s heart because he didn’t want to develop a crush on a dude he paid to spend the night with, even though Jinyoung knew it was too late, he had already formed a soft spot for the man’s warm smile and adorable pout. Pulling on the pink sweater, Jinyoung checked himself out in his bedroom mirror, admitting to himself that it actually looked rather cute on him.

“Shall we get going?” Jinyoung asked as he stepped back out into the living room, to which Jaebeom nodded, grabbing his car keys and walking Jinyoung out of his apartment. The two settled into Jaebeom’s car, Jinyoung feeding his parents’ address into the GPS system in Jaebeom’s car to guide them to their destination.

“So, any nicknames or that sort of thing you want to talk about, you know, to convince your parents that we actually know each other and didn’t meet each other for the first time like half an hour ago?” Jaebeom turned to Jinyoung just to guage his reaction before turning back to the road.

“Well the website said you were born in jan 1994, meaning you’re older than me, so how about hyung?” Jaebeom nodded, thinking for a moment before replying.

“Hyung is fine with me, what about you? Are you comfortable with Jinyoung-ah or would you want something more cutesy like Jinyoungie or Nyoungie?”

“Honestly I’m fine with anything, like I said, go with the flow. I haven’t told my mum enough for most anything for you to say to sound too suspicious. Just be yourself, your profile said you like music, talk about that, maybe” They talked a bit about themselves for the rest of the drive, sharing crucial information required to make it look like they know each other well.

Jinyoung sighed as he stood in front of his parents’ house, the reality of the situation finally hitting him. Sensing Jinyoung’s discomfort, Jaebeom offered the boy a warm smile, waiting for him to ring the bell to alert Jinyoung’s parents of their arrival. After five minutes of Jinyoung trying to calm himself down, he finally mustered enough courage to reach over to press the doorbell.

“Oh Jinyoungie, you’re finally here! Come in, come in” Jinyoung’s mother greeted them, welcoming them inside their house. Jaebeom looked around for a moment, admiring the classy furniture of the house covered in brightly coloured tinsel and other Christmassy accoutrement.

“Mom this is Jaebeom, my boyfriend” Jinyoung signalled to his mother, who smiled at Jaebeom, wrapping him in a warm hug. She dragged them to the living room, sitting them down on the couch before calling Jinyoung’s father and sisters from the kitchen to join them.

“Nice sweater, Nyoung” Jinyoung’s elder sister snickered, causing Jinyoung to hit her arm lightly before turning to his mom.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you, Jaebeom. I was worried our Jinyoungie would never find himself a man, but now that you’re here I feel relieved that he finally has someone in his life”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Mrs Park. Jinyoung talks a lot about you”

“Oh please, no need for the formalities, call me mom. I’m sure he talks about how I nag him all the time, doesn’t he” Jaebeom chuckled as the loud groan from Jinyoung’s end.

“Absolutely not, he talks about how much he loves you, he knows you worry about him” Jinyoung’s mom smiled at that, reaching ruffle her hand through her son’s hair.

“So how long have you two been dating?” Jinyoung’s oldest sister asked.

“Three months”

“Four months”

Jinyoung and Jaebeom said at the same time, causing a look of confusion to cross over Jinyoung’s family’s face. Before Jinyoung could come up with a lame excuse, Jaebeom placed his warm hand reassuringly on Jinyoung’s thigh and addressed his parents.

“We went out together for the first time four months ago, which I thought was a date but Jinyoung thought was us just ‘getting to know each other’. According to him we only started dating three months ago, it’s something we fight about all the time”

“That sounds like my son, oblivious and stubborn” Jinyoung’s father commented.

The rest of the night went by pretty smoothly, a few slips here and there covered up quickly by Jaebeom. They sat next to each other at the dinner table, Jaebeom’s hand resting on Jinyoung’s thigh throughout, as a way to reassure the younger that Jaebeom was here for him.

“It’s time for the mistletoe photos, this is the first time I’ll get one of Jinyoung kissing his boyfriend!” Jinyoung stiffened, as he turned to Jaebeom, realising that he would have to kiss the elder. Squeezing the elder to signal his apology, Jinyoung guided the elder to where the mistletoe had been hung in the living room, Jinyoung’s father bringing out the old polaroid camera to click a picture. Jinyoung stood there for a moment, too nervous to actually kiss the elder, till Jaebeom gave in, placing his hands on either side of Jinyoung’s face and placing a chaste kiss on the younger’s lips.

It was like a lightning bolt had hit Jinyoung, a shiver ran down his spine at the touch of just their lips, causing him to chase Jaebeom’s lips as they split from his own. Jinyoung’s father handed them one of the two photos he clicked, the other going straight to Jinyoung’s mother’s collection.

By the end of the night, they were all happy and exhausted. Jinyoung didn’t want to leave but he reluctantly let go of his mom because he had to go to work the next morning and Jaebeom probably had work too. Just as they were about to leave, Jinyoung’s mother pulled him aside to talk to him privately.

“You know, Jaebeom is a pretty nice boy, I like him a lot”

“I’m glad you like him mom, I like him too”

“If you do you should actually ask him out”

“What!?”

“You think I wouldn’t know when my son was lying to me? He looks at you like I look like your dad Nyoung, I’m pretty sure you both barely know each other but I think you should give him a shot if he’s interested, you two seem perfect for each other” Jinyoung merely groaned and hid his face in his palms as he lamented at his unsuccessful attempt to fool his mum. He did agree with her though, he would like to actually go out with Jaebeom, hopefully with Jinyoung paying for his meal instead of his time. Promising to call her soon, Jinyoung grabbed a hold of Jaebeom’s hand, guiding him to the car.

The drive back home was quite, comfortably so. Jinyoung looked out the window, thinking back on the few hours he had spent with Jaebeom and the many more he wants to spend with him. When they arrived back at Jinyoung’s place, the younger looked over at Jaebeom, before closing his eyes and leaning in. Half expecting to be rejected, Jinyoung jumped when Jaebeom’s lips met his halfway, and they shared a sweet kiss.

“Will I see you again?” Jaebeom asked, and Jinyoung reached over for Jaebeom’s arm, one of his hands digging through his pocket for the pen he always carried around. After scribbling on his number onto his arm along with a few hearts, Jinyoung stepped out of the car, turning around to bid his farewell.

“I do charge for dates though” Jaebeom added, making Jinyoung’s face fall suddenly.

“Ten kisses for every hour” Jinyoung smiled at Jaebeom’s bad joke, his face lighting up once more as he waved at Jaebeom, the elder sending him a flying kiss before driving off. Jinyoung went to sleep with a smile on his face. His lie had after everything, turned into a hopeful tomorrow for Jinyoung.

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legends-of-nisty · 3 years

Text

E.N.D. AU

Fandom: Fairytail

Ship Title: Gajevy/Gale

A.N.: Hello Everyone! So I wanted to make good on a promise I made a long time ago to an anon that recently came up again. It’s a AU where Gajeel is E.N.D. instead of Natsu. I didn’t want to start another series as I already have at least two of them on the go so here’s a oneshot. @bearandbirdfan I hope you enjoy this as you re-requested it. ^_^ @starscreamjosh because you liked the re-request.

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairytail or it’s characters.

_______________________________________

I held the book in my hands, trembling, looking down at it.

A big heavy leather bound book, similar to hundreds in my collections. It smelt old and dusty like it hadn’t been taken off a bookshelf in years.

“Gajeel is END” Mavis had said when she handed the book to us. She hadn’t had time to explain much but we knew enough for this to be a shock.

Gajeel was the final demon of Zeref, the one meant to destroy him, and if he succeeded he would die too.

It was a sick fitting name for such a demon to be called END. It would be the end of Zeref and the end of END.

A paw landed on my shoulder bringing me back to the moment. Lily stood beside me on the park bench, looking just as somber. We both knew Gajeel was on his way to fight with Zeref and our job was to simply protect the book.

There was nothing we could do. We had to make sure the book was kept safe, until Zeref was defeated and then the book would disappear and with it Gajeel.

I hadn’t even realized I was crying until I looked at Lily and he was blurry. I quickly wiped my eyes to clear them. My heart was breaking in my chest. We both had just started getting used to the idea of being a couple. We hadn’t even announced it to the guild yet and he was going to be gone. Months of pretending we weren’t falling for eachother and then that night when we were on the council…

We came back to the guild together but it was a secret from everyone but Lily, we weren’t ready to announce it yet and everyone was so focused on the rebuild and then finding the master and then the war with Alvrez.

We wanted to wait till we could celebrate properly with everyone. Well, I did, Gajeel didn’t want to deal with the headache of it all but at my insistence he agreed to tell them after the war.

But now there would be nothing to tell. He was going to disappear.

Gone.

He would disappear with the rest of the demons which was an insult to injury. As if he was a monster to be erased from the world and forgot along with the dark mage Zeref.

My tears fell more steadily, the drops rolling down my cheeks and falling from my chin to land on the book in my hand. The book that was Gajeel.

Could he feel my pain? Could he tell how much my heart was breaking? Could he feel my tears for him?

I lifted the book off my lap to look at the cover closer as if I may see him in it somehow. But it was not him in almost every way. The leather was rough and smelled dead and dusty. It wasn’t alive or smelt of iron and earth. The font on the front was jagged and sharp which was at odds with his handwriting which was smooth and clear.

That originally had been a surprise to find out that he had very neat handwriting. I had been helping him with paper work and thought he had been making Lily do all of his work. He had almost been embarrassed to admit that it was his writing and he had even blushed slightly.

I smile at the memory but even as I do the pain in my chest squeezes harder knowing he’ll be gone soon and I won’t even get to say goodbye. All I’ll have is this stupid book to hold that was Gajeel and yet wasn’t him at all. I want to slam the book down on my lap but I don’t, instead I hug it, holding it close.

Did he even know? Did he know if he defeats Zeref he dies too? Would it even matter?

Of course it would matter. Gajeel had admitted to me in the past he didn’t always see the point to living but that his mindset on that, had changed in recent time. A sentiment that had taken my breath away at the time but now just made me feel all the more worse.

He wouldn’t give up thought. He would fight till he couldn’t anymore which would happen this time even if he won or lost.

The result was the same, victory or defeat he would be gone forever.

So did it really matter if we opened the book or not?

I slowly lower the book from my chest and look at the cover that I’ve memorized over the last hour.

What would happen if I opened it?

“Lily…” I said and looked at him and in his eyes, through their own watering, I could see he was working to the same conclusion and after a moment he nodded. I don’t know if I was looking for his consent but regardless I had it.

Armed with Lily’s approval and my own resolve I took hold of the front cover and gently lifted it open.

A wave of light shot from the pages and the book lept from my lap to the ground, the pages flipping rapidly, hundreds of pages went by but the book looked no closer to the end, the book seeming to hold thousands more pages then it’s weight had suggested. Lines of red ruins flew out from the pages, extending outwards and around then back into the book, scrolling text continuously, almost too fast for me to read but I managed and the words made my eyes widen.

It was Gajeel’s life. It was everything, even things that the book had no business of knowing when it was written. It was undeniable now that this book and Gajeel were linked, one and the same. I watched the words go by with my mouth open and then I noticed it. Was I imagining it?

Quickly I reached into my bag and pulled out my reading glasses so I could catch every word and there was no mistaking it. The words, the sentences, the chapters, They were all linked to Zeref, but more importantly, I knew how.

It was advanced script magic but one I had seen before when I had stumbled upon an actual library in Tartors. I found books, discarded by Zeref there. Pages devoid of magic that had once been there. As if he had started the project but got frustrated and removed the life from them but still the physical pages remained. The ruins had been dead but I felt that connection and had stolen one to study while on the council.

I hadn’t told anyone about it. I knew it was dangerous to mess with a demon book but if there was no magic in it, I didn’t think it could hurt anyone. I studied the words and the characters one at a time but it always felt like there was more that I wasn’t quite seeing in each bit of text.

Then I discovered it. The pages suddenly stopped having new text and all that was written was the character for the dark mage himself, over and over and over again. And it gave me the piece of the puzzle I was missing. Every ruin that was played out was written with bits of ruins that Zeref had infused with his life force. He wasn’t simply writing a book like I would scrawl a note on paper.

He filled pages with his magic and his life force in the form of his name in ruins and when he was finished he would deconstruct those ruins and reform them into new ones that still held his name. They could say anything but would always be tied back to him. Tied to his life.

I had been fascinated at the time, It was a major discovery, but now it just made me feel like I wanted to vomit.

Gajeel was one and the same with the book which was given life by Zeref. In a way it was almost as if Zeref was his father.

I reached my hand out to one of the closest ruin circles spinning around us and it paused at my touch and I felt it. I felt him. I could feel Gajeel within the text as much as I could feel Zeref. I could feel his magic as if it was him I was touching. He was there within the text and bound to a life force that wasn’t his.

Wait…

No, there was a second life force there! It just wasn’t embedded in the text, it was the text! Zeref in making Gajeel had written everything there was to be Gajeel without needing Zeref, why would he bother adding any unnecessary words when every word was a bond?!

“What is it?” Lily asked me as he could see my expression changed, I looked at him, my tears changing to be lighter.

“I think I can save him.” I said quietly, almost afraid to hope.

I took a shaky breath and reached into my bag for my ruin pen, all I needed to do was separate Zeref from Gajeel. That was all I needed to do. Rewrite it word for word if I had to with new ruins, ones that did not start in Zeref’s name. I pulled out my pen and reached out to the closest ruin circle again to stop it.

Just rewrite it. That’s all I had to do to save him.

I pressed the pen to the line and felt immediate resistance but I forced through and almost cried out as I broke the first ruin barrier and started writing. It hurt. It hurt badly but I could bare it. I had too.

Gritting my teeth I started rewriting, erasing the pieces that were tied to Zeref only after I had made a replacing character. The pain was awful, but it was nothing compared to the idea of losing him. I had to do it, he had to live.

I knew I wouldn’t be free of consequences when I started my plan but when the skin of my hand started to turn silver it was a shock. The pain seemed to focus as a wave of it moved up my hand and up my arm, the faster I rewrote the faster it moved up my arm.

“Levy your hand!” Lily said grabbing my shoulder and pulling my back from the writing and I shook him off.

“I’m fine! I need to keep going! We don’t know how much time we have!” I shouted feeling my cheeks wet again but this time the tears were from pain, raw hot pain as I continued writing and the silver continued growing.

I don’t know how much time passed but writing became more difficult and my hand began moving slower. The silver had completely coated my arm and disappeared beneath the sleeve of my shirt.

My fingers started getting clumsy and I dropped the pen.

“Damn it.” I said and reached to pick it up with the same hand but it wouldn’t move properly anymore, it felt frozen and I could no longer feel my fingers.

“Levy! You need to stop!” Lily said again, reaching to take the pen and I swatted him away sobbing.

“I can’t stop and you know that!” I screamed. One of my eyes wasn’t working properly and seemed fuzzy.

I picked the pen up with my other hand and pressed it aggressively into the ruin barrier and kept going. It wasn’t my first time writing with my non-dominant hand and it wasn’t as fast but it worked and was clear. Like my first hand the pain was scorching and started to bleed silver into my skin.

I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t stop. Not until Gajeel was free of Zeref. Not until he was free and safe.

“I will save you this time!” I sobbed to myself as one of my eyes went dark.

_____________________________________________

The pen dropped from her hand.

The text was blue now, the script so clearly Levy’s hand-writing. The ground beneath the ruins was littered with soot piles as the old red ruins had been erased. The book seemed to slowly be taking the writing in, almost uncertain at first but then faster till it all had receded into the book, the pages flipping in the opposite direction as they had when they had opened the book but now it was closing on itself.

With a solid clap the cover closes and the title now reads Gajeel’s name with a heart in the ‘A’.

I stepped forward slowly and picked up the book that had been completely transformed by her hand. It felt lighter to my paws, not weighted by black magic anymore. All that was in it was Gajeel now.

My eyes water as I look at the book and then up at Levy.

“You did it Levy.” My voice isn’t strong like it should be, she saved him like she so wanted to, but the cost…

The cost was too much.

____________________________________

“Lily!” I’m waving at him as I limp around the corner, He’s sitting at the end of the path with a book in his lap that makes him look tiny.

What the fuck is he doing with a book? We just fought a war and he took a break to go to the library? He’s been hanging around with Levy too much.

I grin at him down the path getting closer.

“Lily we did it! We fucking won!” I say excitedly but he isn't even looking at me. What’s wrong with him?

“Oie! Lil’! Where’s Levy?” I yelled at him as I got closer and I can finally make out his face, he’s crying. My grin falls away making way for concern and I hobble over to him faster.

Why would he be crying, did something happen? Can’t be a fight, Lil’ don’t cry over a fight.

Confused, I make my way closer. What book is he holding? Is that my name?

“Lily what’s going-...” The words die in my mouth as I get up beside him. Lily and the book are forgotten because I see Levy now. She had been blocked by one of the trees at the end of the path but now she’s in front of me and I don’t know what I’m seeing.

It’s her, no doubt, I can still smell her scent but she’s...

Her skin in silver, dull and buffed like iron and her eyes... Her beautiful, amazing, deep, brown eyes are coated over and empty. Metal.

Her clothes hang off the statue, moving lightly in the breeze and it’s silent. She’s reaching out and her expression is pained but determined, tears are molded into the metal on her cheeks. A ruin pen sits on the ground, chipped from where it hit the cobblestone when she dropped it.

My mouth is open and my brain isn’t processing, too many questions crowd my mind. It can’t be her…

It can’t! None of the twelve wielded iron based magic!

I don’t even notice my feet hitting the ground as I step up to the statue that only reaches my chest in height.

“Sh-shorty?” My voice breaks in disbelief. “How….?”

“She saved you Gajeel.” Lily’s voice sounds behind me but I don’t remove my wide eyes from her steeled over ones. I reach a hand to touch her cheek and my chest feels hollow through and I taste the acid of vomit in the back of my throat as I realize it.

“She wouldn’t stop. I begged her but she wouldn’t listen. She saved you.” He says again but I’m not listening.

The woman that stole my heart, is a solid iron statue.

_____________________________________________

A.N. Thank you for reading! I hope you all enjoyed! If you have any questions or comments about me, this fanfic, or another one I wrote feel free to send me a message or an ask. I’m always welcome to comments and feedback.

I haven’t attempted angst in a while so hopefully this made you sad(?) I don’t know if it held the power but I tried. I hope it was worth the wait for those of you waiting on it.

Again thank you all so much for reading and I hope to see you all in the next fanfic! :)

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scenarioslovers · 4 years

Text

Love-Holic|| Suga

What if you suddenly got married? To a man who is almost stranger to you. Over a drunk mood?

Word count: 2623

A/N: Last time to upload it. lol. gonna leave it hear forever. If you are interested I may continue it.

“Sit on a deep night sill

I thought about it.

You and me

I want to know the distance now

This is not a little more

You are my flower You are my star

You are my universe

Too much light, too much charm

I'm confused.

I'm going to shout

Why are you so gentle again

Make me drunk”

“Very Nice!” You stopped singing as you looked through the glass wall. You smiled at your manager who was clapping her hands and giving you thumbs up, before shifting your attention to the producer and the composer of your song who wasn’t looking at you but writing down some notice on his iPad.

“I think I need to repeat the last part again.” You caught his attention by this statement. You could not help but notice the difference between his idol image and producing image. As a producer, he did not care much about his looks.

He was wearing baggy pants and an oversized shirt. His hair was messy and long enough to hide his cat-like eyes, however, his hat made sure that his hair was in place. His black face musk was pulled down to his chin and you could not help but notice that he did not shave.

His idol image was totally the opposite, he always shaved. Sometimes his hair would be messy, but it never looked like this. Like a lion who just woke up from his sleep.

On stage, he wore tight pants and fitted shirt; all branded and expensive shining clothes, while now he looked like he did not have time to look through his closet and just choose anything to wear.

This kind of cooperation between you and the well-known Min Suga was a dream coming true and when he offered you one of his songs, you could not believe your ears and agreed right away.

“As the first day of recording, I think you did more than enough.” Suga, Yoongi as he introduced himself, said in the mic that was the only way of communication between you and him as the recording room was soundproof.

“But I think my voice cracked at the end. I am sorry can I repeat it again.”

Yoongi looked at you for a few minutes. Those few minutes passed like hours. Something was moving inside of his head, but you could not read any of his expressions at all.

“Producer-nim.” You called again and he sighed.

“It seems like the rumors are true. You are workaholic.” He flattered his eyelashes before nodded. “Suit yourself, let’s do the last part again.”

“Thank you, producer-nim” You exclaimed, excitedly. This song was your new hope that you wanted to revive your career with. You swore to do your best and work as hard as you could. Since your scandal last year, people avoided working with you.

No composer wanted to give you any of their work. No producer wanted to work with you. Your company told you to stay low until it is buried under the ground.

So, this song was everything. You first project since last year, and it was not with anyone but the almighty Min Suga.

You closed your eyes and sang the song again. It was a song about love that you once felt. A love that excited, so sweet, and so beautiful.

This time you tried to recall that feeling. The feeling of him smiling brightly at you.

Him taking you in his arms while playing with your hair.

Him kissing you softly as if you were breakable diamond and slightest touch would ruin you.

You sang your heart out, remembering how it was to be loved.

You bet your lips when you finished the verse. Your heart thumping in your chest as you crave the love that just left you raw meat, with no job, no love and no one to be around with. Just hate and criticism.

“Alright, perfect!” You gasped when you heard his voice. You were too lost in your memories to notice that Yoongi was looking at you with pressed lips. Your manager was looking worried too.

“I think we are done for today,” Yoongi announced as your manager, hurried into the recording room.

She gave you a tissue and you looked at her confused. “You are crying.” She shook her head before wiping your tears softly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” You sniffed, smiling. “Just happy that I am singing again.”

A knock on the door caught both you and your manager’s attention. Yoongi was standing, a bottle of water in his hand.

“Should we change the lyrics?” He asked, giving you the bottle of water.

“No, it’s perfect.” You smiled at him before murmuring a thank you as you opened the water bottle. No one probably wanted to ask why you cried because they all knew. They knew the tragic break up happened last year. The breakup turned the entertainment industry upside down.

“Have you seen the news?” Yoongi asked, not meeting your eyes. He was looking at his phone, swiping up and down before showing you the screen.

Your eyes twinkled with anger as you looked at the screen. With a bold font, the title read: The great dancer, J-hope spotted in the airport back to Korea almost after one year of no public appearance since his scandal with the singer Y/N

Your manager’s fake cough and clearing throat made you look at her with wide eyes. “You knew about this.”

“I didn’t want to ruin your day.” She confessed before looking at Yoongi, giving him a forced smile. “Isn’t it better if we kept her away from bad news? She needs to focus on working.”

Yoongi nodded before returning his phone in his pocket. “You are right. I only showed you this, so you know why this comeback is so important to you.”

“I—” You cleared your throat. “May I ask you something?”

“Yeah, sure shoot it.” Whatever you do, Yoongi would not look directly in your eyes. You made a mental note that he was bad making eye contact. You caught yourself finding it cute. It was totally the opposite of his tough image.

“Why me?” You asked, after taking a deep breath. “Why did you choose to work with someone like me?”

“You are a great artist. You are a good voice. A unique voice.” He said while playing with his fingers. “I wanted to work with you for a while now. I just came back to Korea recently and I found this was the perfect moment to do it. Why? You don’t want to work with me?”

You shook your head, a small smile forming over your lips. “No, of course, that’s not it. I am just really grateful to you.”

There was a hint of a smile on his lips, but he never continued it, as he nodded. “I will see you tomorrow then. Rest well tonight.”

“Hm— producer-nim” You started, stopping him before he could make his way out. “Would you mind if we have dinner together? I just wanted to thank you for everything.”

Your manager held in your arms as she gave you a hard look. “My kids are waiting for me at home.” She whispered.

“Don’t worry. Producer-nim will take me home.” You told her before looking at Yoongi again, giving him a smile. “Will not you?”

“Y-yeah. Of course, I will. I just do not eat anywhere.”

So, it is a yes. You thought to yourself as the smile widened. “Don’t worry I reserved a table in a good restaurant.”

Don’t drink too much and go home before 12 am.

You sighed at your manager’s text as you flipped over your phone. You knew she was just worried about you, but sometimes she overdid it.

The restaurant that you reserved was one of the most expensive restaurants, yet it took the traditional still, making it hard to believe that it was any better than the street stands, people go for. However, the food here was cleaner, fresher, and smiled good as Yoongi was grilling the meat over the hot pan.

“Is the news still bothering you?” He asked as he poured soju into your small glass. You looked at the liquid for a moment, before swallowing it whole in one shot. “Whoa, take it easy.”

“You know…” You started, before meeting his eyes. It only lasted one second before he looked away and started to flip the meat over the hot pan in front of both of you. “I believed in love for the longest time ever. Six years believing that this one is for you and just for you. Spending the whole six years loving only one person only to throw you away as if you are used old toy that no one wants anymore. You know to upgrade.”

“You are thinking about him way too much,” Yoongi stated. “Just throw him away as he threw you.”

“Do you think I am not doing it?” You chuckled as you poured more soju into your cup, you let the liquor burn your throat, flushing your cheeks, making your thoughts go lighter and lighter, while your feelings get heavier.

Why would he just come back when your life just started to become better? Why would he come back and remind you of him?

“People pity you. People judge you but no one knows how you feel.” You shook your head, as you clenched on your chest. “PD-nim. You write songs about love; do you know how I feel?”

Yoongi was silent for a minute before taking the soju bottle from in front of you and pour liquor in his glass. In one shot, the glass was empty again. A sneer formed into his face, as his fist clenched tightly around the small glass. “I know.”

“Really?” Your eyes widened as your full attention fell on him. “Tell me about you.”

“Well, I loved someone. Really cared about that person a lot. However, I wasn’t enough.” Yoongi gave you a small smile. “I was never enough, no matter what I did. That person couldn’t love me as much as I do.”

Tears formed in your eyes as Yoongi’s feelings wrapped into your heart. You did not know if it was the alcohol or what was that, but you felt his pain. The pain that was shown in his expression. You thought if someone could write love songs are those who felt not those who craved it. Just like you.

“Bastards. Ass holes.” You sniffed, wiping your tears with the back of your heart. “I am done with love. I am done with marriage. I am done with it all.”

After a few minutes of silence and just eating and drinking, an idea popped into your mind. “You know what. We should get revenger.” You suggested as the smile spread its way from one ear to another.

“How?” His eyes widened at the suggestion suddenly interested.

“Let’s show the whole world that we are the king and the queen of moving on.” You stood up suddenly as you grabbed your bag with one hand and with the other, you grabbed Yoongi’s hand.

“W-what? Where are we going?”

“You will know when we arrive.”

You and Yoongi stood in front of the City Hall, cold air slapping them hard into the face trying to sober them up. Yoongi’s mouth was opened in O-shape but no words were coming out of his mouth. His feet froze and pinned into the ground as he looked at you and then at the huge banner.

“Let’s go” you grabbed Yoongi’s hand as you head to the building, but Yoongi pulled you back.

“Go where?” The confusion was so obvious over his face. His eyes met yours for more than a second for the first time.

“Let us get married and show the world that we can fall in love again. Show those who hurt us that we can move on and stop loving them.”

“You are crazy.” Yoongi shook his head as he let go of your hands. “Right? You are crazy?”

“Think about it. The one who you loved watching you with someone else, happy with them.”

“This is marriage!” Yoongi exclaimed, losing his cool.

“I know.” You nodded. “Will you do it with me? I think that I am too drunk to do this. That’s our only chance.”

Yoongi was silent again. You made a mental note that you hated it when he went silent on you as if he were dragged into his own world leaving you alone in your mess.

“We will regret this too much when we sober up.” Yoongi started to chuckle. “I can’t wait to see their faces when we announce our marriage.”

“Right? Can you see it now?” You exclaimed excitedly. “Imagine, our song becomes first on the chart with our love announcement.”

“You are smart.” He stated. He was the one to grab your hand this time and pull you inside the city hall.

When you sat down in front of the officer, she looked at you suspiciously before handing you the marriage document you needed to fill.

“You know that you need two witnesses, right?” She announced, looking from you to Yoongi.

“So, we can’t get married?” You asked her in disappointment.

“As I said you need witnesses.” She repeated, giving you her fakest smile.

“What should we do?” You whispered to Yoongi.

“Call someone to be a witness. I will do the same.”

Before pulling out his phone, you caught his hand, shaking your head. “No, we can’t tell anyone yet. Reporters will cause trouble if they found out.”

“You are right.” He nodded, before looking at the officer. “We don’t have witnesses.”

“Then you can’t get married.” She outstretched her arms as she touched both of your papers. But before she could pull them away, you placed your hand over them.

“No! We need to get married right now.” You cried. “Please can’t we just skip the witness part? We know too well that we will be married.”

“No witnesses. No marriage.”

Your head was throbbing against your skull. You felt like the world was moving around while you stayed in your place.

Running your hand through your face, you rubbed the sleep from your eyes. Fragment of memories from last night hunted you like a nightmare. Most of them were hazy and fizzy and did not make any sense to you.

You and Yoongi drinking.

You and Yoongi crying.

You and Yoongi running in the street like crazy people.

Then you and Yoongi kissing.

KISSING!!

Your eyes snapped open when a hand dropped on your waist.

No, no, no, no, no.

It cannot be. Slowly, your head turned to your right, to find an unfamiliar chair standing by an unfamiliar window. NO! You gulped as you turned your head to the lift.

Your fear became real. As more fragments from last night came rushing into your mind. His hands rooming your body, his kisses so soft so tender… You shook the memory away as you looked again as the sleeping body next to you.

Yoongi was there. The white skin of his shoulder and chest was a clear indication that he was half-naked if not fully naked. You surpassed a scream as your hands quickly shut your mouth close.

It was at that moment when you remembered the biggest disaster of them all.

The memory of you and Yoongi signing a marriage certificate and the office smiling at both of you, as she took the documents from you.

With a big smile, her face hunted your memory with her sweet voice. “Congratulations, you are married now.”

You no longer could stop your scream.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be continue? please tell me if I should CONTINUE or LEAVE it

thank you

🎶loveholic-leebada

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ahtohallan-calling · 4 years

Text

chapter 10 of it’s always ourselves we find is here!

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9

[kristanna / m / modern au / coworkers & enemies to lovers ;) ]

Once again, he was woken up by a hand shaking his shoulder and Anna’s voice as she said, “Kris. Kristoff. Wake up, I need you.”

“Mmff...what?” he mumbled, rubbing at his eyes.

“Remember how yesterday you said you owed me a favor?”

“Uh-huh.”

Through bleary eyes, he watched as she bit her lip, her eyes nervous. “I need to call it in.”

That got him waking up. He pushed himself up on an elbow with a wide yawn. “Okay, I’m up. What do you need me to do?”

Her face melted into a fond smile. “Nothing. I just need to borrow one of your shirts.”

“What for?”

“To wear.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think that’s gonna fit you.”

“I’ll make it work. I have to. We’ve got that conference call with Harry today doing the dry run, remember? And I, um...I forgot my nice dress was bunched up in the bottom of my suitcase, and I just realized my shampoo leaked all over it, and--”

“Alright, alright, yeah, just grab one from the closet, no problem,” he said with another yawn. “But it’s really not gonna fit.”

A sigh of relief escaped her. “Thank you so much, seriously.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Quick as lightning, she leaned down to press a kiss to his cheek. “Go back to sleep, Kris, it’s not even half-past six.”

The only reply he could conjure up was a nod, hoping the room was still too dim for her to notice he was blushing. Mercifully, she only lingered long enough to squeeze his shoulder before darting towards the bathroom.

The next time he woke up, it was to the beep of his alarm at a quarter past seven. He sat up, swung his legs over the side, and stretched, his back cracking as he arched his arms over his head. Anna peered around the corner of the bathroom then, her hair falling in soft curls over her shoulder. “Morning, sleeping beauty,” she said cheerfully.

“Morning. How’s the shirt situation working out?”

“You tell me,” she said, a little shy, before stepping out so he could see her.

Fuck, he’d never been so glad to be wrong. The shirt didn’t fit the way it was supposed to; it hung loosely around her slender frame, the hem hitting a couple of inches above her knees and revealing the graceful line of her freckled legs. She’d pulled a cardigan on over it, hiding the way the seams had to be falling off her shoulders, and left the top buttons undone, showing off her collarbone and a delicate gold necklace that nestled there. Kristoff didn’t know a hell of a lot about fashion, but he did know that she looked like she’d walked right out of one of the giant posters he saw stuck up at the mall-- and that he’d be more than happy if she wore his clothes for the rest of her life.

“Is it that bad?” she asked timidly, and he realized he’d been gaping at her in silence for what was probably an embarrassingly long amount of time.

“Jesus, Anna,” he breathed, “you’re keeping that shirt, okay?”

Her cheeks colored at that, but when she crossed to stand in front of him, she was wearing a smile. “Will you help me roll the sleeves up? The shirt’s all bunched up under the cardigan, but I think if I roll them up and over and get the cuffs right it’ll look better.”

“Of course. Let me see.”

She lifted an arm, and he began carefully rolling up the sleeves the way she’d requested, feeling his mouth go dry as he saw how delicate her wrist was next to his broad hands. He wanted to linger there when he was done, trail his fingers over the pale, silky skin of her forearm and press a kiss to her palm, but instead moved to the other arm without even looking up.

“Thanks, Kris,” she said when he had finished, catching his hand in hers before he could pull away.

He gave her fingers a soft squeeze and glanced up at her with a lopsided grin. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. This almost makes up for all the times you’ve stolen my post-its. Now hurry up and get ready before the line for the waffle maker gets long.”

“Knowing you, feistypants, you’ll just elbow your way past anyone who gets between you and something sweet.”

“And knowing you, you’ll just glare at anyone who takes too long at the coffee pot and they’ll melt away on the spot.”

“I glare at you all the time, and you’re still here,” he pointed out.

She grinned at him then, and something about it made his heart constrict. “Yeah,” she said warmly, “I am.”

---

“Excellent work, you guys,” Harry said with a grin. Behind him, Elsa gave them a thumbs-up and mouthed fuck yeah.

Kristoff set a hand surreptitiously on Anna’s lower back, like he’d been doing during the whole presentation, as if to steady himself. “Thanks, boss,” he said, his relief palpable.

“Any suggestions for how we can improve it?” Anna asked. “Do you think using Prezi slows it down too much? I can remake it in Keynote if you want, or I already have a backup PowerPoint.”

“No, I--”

“And are there enough pictures? I know people get overwhelmed with blocks of text, but for some of this the pictures felt extraneous, so I just thought--”

“Anna, no, it’s--”

“And did I talk too much? I know I tend to go on and on and--”

“Miss Delle,” Harry said firmly, and her mouth snapped shut. “I typed a short list of critiques. Once Elsa has a look over it and adds her own thoughts, I’ll email it to you. But it’s all very minor stuff, really. The important thing is that you two really know your stuff about the tech we’re using and our online sales and engagement strategies. Seriously, great work. We’ve got a conference call in a minute, though, so if you don’t mind--”

“Oh, of course! Thanks so much, Harry, really,” Anna said breathlessly. “See you Monday!”

She headed over to where the laptop was perched on a lectern, moving to click the red button and end the call. Before she did, though, she watched as on the other end, Harry turned to her sister and said, “Don’t know why the hell my brother’s always requesting we review their department, do you?”

For a moment she froze, hearing Kristoff suck in a breath behind her. Harry glanced over his shoulder then and said, “Oh, sorry guys, forgot to hang up.”

“I’ve got it!” Anna squeaked, ending the video call before he could say another word.

She turned on her heel and saw Kristoff hadn’t moved, his expression inscrutable. She crossed back towards him, but his eyes didn’t move from the now-black screen. “Fucking rat bastard, huh?” she asked softly, setting her fingertips lightly against his forearm.

He sighed and looked down at the floor, not meeting her eyes. “Yeah.”

She bit her lip, lingering for a moment to see if he said anything else, but his thoughts were clearly miles away. She slid her hand down then to give his fingers a brief squeeze before turning away to retrieve her laptop and settle back down at the table they’d been working at in the most out-of-the-way meeting room they could find.

Kristoff joined her after a moment, already slipping his reading glasses back on as he hunched over his laptop. “I gotta finish running these reports,” he said, not looking up, “then I’ll help you with whatever Harry said.”

“No worries,” Anna replied, tapping her fingers against the table as she waited for the email to come in.

Harry, despite being one of the baker’s dozen and one Westergaard brothers, was, all things considered, a more than decent boss. He never got too in the way of the work, was always willing to listen to new ideas, and-- most importantly, in Anna’s opinion-- kept Elsa, who worked as his executive assistant, from overworking herself like she always tended to do. When Anna had been hired on, he hadn’t known the two of them were related, but he’d grinned when he found out and said he was looking forward to having the pair of them around.

As far as Anna knew, he was higher up on the ladder than Hans in terms of who was likely to inherit the company when it was passed down to the next generation, and she was grateful for it. Hans saw everything from a sales perspective and didn’t bother to consider the people involved, and he was outright cruel to people when it suited him, whether it made sense or not. She couldn’t help but wonder why Kristoff in particular was--

A large hand settled over her still-tapping fingers, pressing them flat against the table, and she jumped in surprise. Her eyes flicked up to see Kristoff looking at her, half-amused and half-irritated.

“You’re gonna drive me insane if you keep doing that,” he teased, his voice light.

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly, “just got lost in thought.”

“S’alright,” he reassured her, sliding his thumb under her palm so he could squeeze her hand. “Is the email in yet?”

“Oh-- I wasn’t even looking!”

She returned the squeeze before pulling away to refresh her inbox. “Here it is-- yeah, Harry says....’switch slide four and six….bigger font for the headers...great job.’ And Elsa says ‘relax, both of you’.”

When she looked up, Kristoff looked stunned. “That’s it? Really?”

“I...yeah. Shit, maybe we work together better than we thought.”

They exchanged shy smiles, each of them unsure of what exactly to do next. The fixes would take less than five minutes; there was nothing left to do but present tomorrow. Well, Anna corrected herself, he probably has lots of emails still about IT problems, probably wants me to get out of his way--

“Do you...do you wanna take a break?” Kristoff asked suddenly, raising one hand to rub at the back of his neck. “Like...we’re at the beach, right?”

“Uh-huh,” Anna replied, trying to quell the tide of excitement in her chest that was going to overwhelm her if she wasn’t careful.

“And we’re the only department with something big like this, so everybody else has already been doing fun stuff, you know?”

“Definitely.”

“So...we could have a turn. For a little bit, anyway?”

She couldn’t fight her smile any longer. “So...what do you wanna do?”

He grinned. “Race you to the room and then down to the beach?”

Before he could say another word, she was on her feet and running for the door, her laughter trailing behind her.

#kristanna #my fics #iaowf

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kaioken16 · 4 years

Text

What to do now? (Mallek Week Day 1)

Been looking forward to this week for a while now XD, since it’s past midnight over here, it’s the 1st of March, so I give this day 1′s fic for @mallekweek. A short and simple scene set after Mallek’s route and what he does after his encounter with the MSPA reader.

Please enjoy the read, and feedback is greatly appreciated.

P.S: You can also enjoy reading this fic in traditional HS font and colored text for Mallek’s lines on this google doc link.

Word count: 1100 Rating: For Everyone Characters: Mallek Adalov, MSPA reader, Mallek’s lusus

Mallek stood out on the balcony of his hive. Waving off to his new friend and his hoodie as they ventured further into the Alternian night. He was wearing a lazy smile, his waving slowly coming to a stop once their alien friend was out of sight. Looking down at his chest, he was without his shirt and hoodie after giving them to the other. But it’s not that it wasn’t something he could part from as he had more than one of the same hoodie. This had been an… Interesting evening.

Oh yeah. Mallek returned inside, effortlessly avoiding the mess on his floor or computer parts, dishes, and loose wires. Finding his way to his couch, he sat down on the soft furniture. He let out a soft sigh. His ears perked up hearing something fall over. What was it this time? Probably his lusus slithering around the cracks and gaps of the many piles of junk throughout his hive.

Sure, enough the snake was the cause of the noise, seeing the reptilian lusus gliding on the ground towards him. The end of his tail coiled around something blue, it was an extra blue shirt for Mallek to wear. His custodian extending his tail out with the shirt, Mallek reached down taking the shirt. He thanked the serpent, pulling the shirt over his head, cautious so his horns wouldn’t rip the fabric.

This was something most trolls had to practice with when putting clothing on over their heads if they’re sharp and or uniquely shaped horns. That was a little better, he felt a bit warmer. The cerulean then got back to his feet deciding he needed to eat something before whatever he was gonna do next. He felt his lusus coil around his leg, climbing his body until he was draped around Mallek’s neck.

“so, what do you feel like eating;” Mallek casually asked the snake who responded with its tongue flickering in the air.

“oh; okay; you’ve already eaten;” Stumbling over another pile of stuff, and going downstairs Mallek stood before his hunger trunk, reaching for the handle he opened the door.

“What’s on the menu for tonight;” Mallek’s eyes scanning the half-empty contents of the trunk until he stopped at the box containing half a meat flavor disc (pizza).

“Ah yeah;” He grabbed the box, he was craving that he wasn’t gonna bother to reheat the disc. Closing the trunk back he then went over to the cupboards and grabbed two bags of fiery flavored chips.

“whoops, almost forgot;” Placing the bags on top of the box, he opened the trunk again, grabbing a fruit-flavored hydration cylinder (soda can).

Mallek stumbled back through his mess to the sofa. He REALLY needed to get this mess sorted out, but disorganization he kinda part of his thing. This mess was a weird system that he and his lusus could maneuver and work through perfectly. He knew where to find each thing from all the piles, and where to step. Sitting back down he popped open one of the bags, taking a handful into shoving into his mouth.

He didn’t really feel like doing anything else now. Most likely he was going to work on something of his husktop, or playing some tunes or take a nap to clear his head. He really needed to re-evaluate how he conducted himself with people, and find better ways to deal with his anger and frustrations. To be fair his new friend did throw his palmhusk into the river, another thing he was gonna have to replace. But throwing them into the said river was a tad of an overreaction. He also did technically kidnap them off the street side, assumed they were a robot of some kind that he intended to hack and most likely disassemble.

Mallek then opened up the box, taking a slice of his flavor disc and taking a few bites out of it. Staring up at the ceiling, looking into space, some thoughts running through his head. To be honest, he was feeling a mix of things. Disappointment that he didn’t actually find a new robot to test his hacking skills. Glad, that he made a new friend, but embarrassed by his behavior earlier. Annoyed, that he would have to get a replacement palmhusk. Frustrated somewhat that his plans had hit another wall.

All of a sudden, his trail of thoughts was broken as he heard someone knocking on the door. His lusus perked its head in the direction. Mallek then got up, walking over to the door, peeking through the peephole to see his new friend. Back already? The cerulean opened the door to the alien, smiling faintly at the other.

“hey there; you’re back so soon;” Mallek jokingly not that he wasn’t glad to see the other.

“Sorry, but would it be alright if I stay over for a couple of hours, I saw some very menacing creatures on my way out there.” They asked Mallek as the walk back to the city was a dangerous one, (well more dangerous than anything else.)

“right;;; we drove here; tell you what can crash here for the night and then tomorrow after sunset i’ll drive ya back to the central part of the outglut;” Suggesting his friend stay over for the next 17+ hours.

The risks of wild lusus out and about looking for food or fighting over territory. The alien would either be mistaken as a tasty appetizer or a small enemy lusus due to his bleach white complexion that was similar to other all lusii. Plus, it was almost an hour to get back into the central area on foot, but he wasn’t in the mood to drive, and there was also the fact that most living things on Alternia couldn’t withstand the planet’s harsh sun.

“Oh, really if you’re sure about it, then I’ll take you up on that offer. Thank you.” The small alien smiled brightly as Mallek returned the look with a lazy grin.

“cool, come on in then;” Mallek gestured for the other to enter back into his hive with them doing just that. Shutting the door behind them.

The pair hopped back onto Mallek’s sofa, his mood was better now that the other was here, he could make conversation with them as opposed to being lost in his negative thoughts. The other was thankful for the troll’s hospitality and overwhelmed by FRIENDSHIP feelings to build up a better relationship with the troll. Seeing his charge was in a brighter mood, the snake slithered off somewhere leaving Mallek and his friend to converse.

#mallek week #mallek week day 1 #fanfiction #mallek adalov #hiveswap #homestuck #hiveswap friendsim #fanfic #my writing #day 1 #HS fanfic #1k words

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kyukun · 5 years

Text

Kokichi Ouma: Shirt thief (OumaSai)

thanks for the request anon! i decided to do number 26 so i hope you enjoy

prompt list

prompt: 26 -“No, like…its just, i can’t believe you’re actually wearing my clothes.”

title: Kokichi Ouma: Shirt thief

summary: Kokichi is left home alone while Shuichi is at work. He finds out that he’d miss the detective a lot more than he would have thought.

word count: 1704

~~ prompt starts after cut! ~~

Kokichi sighed to himself, throwing his small body across the queen sized mattress. His violet eyes stared at the empty ceiling above him, a mixture of boredom and contempt taking over him. You see, Kokichi was the type of person to love exciting things. He absolutely loved when things gave him adrenaline or made him think. He considered himself quite the thinker, and a thinker like himself needed lots of intellectual stimulation.

Thusly, why he was in fact, dying of absolute boredom. He had no entertainment. Usually, he’d bug his boyfriend in order to keep himself busy but there was an issue with that. His boyfriend was at work. Ah yes, his lovely detective boyfriend Shuichi Saihara, was at work. The seemingly long and aggravating days he went to work were often too much for Kokichi who often grew rather lonely without someone to incessantly tease with his love and affection. Sure, he could text one of his mutual friends to bother but they weren’t as fun as Shuichi was.

Now here he was, laying with his back to the mattress, dull eyes glaring at the ceiling desperately trying to find something to do. Kokichi let out another long sigh, his eyes closing briefly into a crescent like shape. He decided he’d just think for a bit since he had nothing better to do. With his arms and legs spread like a starfish on a rock, he reopened his eyes as they drifted towards a picture frame beside their bed. A warm smile crossed his lips as memories flooded his mind back to when they had taken that photo. The photo was of Shuichi and Kokichi on their first date. Shuichi had his arm awkwardly wrapped around Kokichi’s waist while the shorter male had a grin on his face, holding up two peace signs.

He thought back to their first date at the carnival and how cute Shuichi was. That day, Shuichi was beyond flustered with pretty much the simplest of gestures. Kokichi remembered when he and Shuichi had shared their first kiss there and how shocked and embarrassed he was. They shared their kiss at the ferris wheel, which was probably the most memorable thing out of the entire date. Kokichi had convinced him to join him on the ferris wheel as a last ride of the trip sort of thing to help calm things over. They chatted and talked about how much they really enjoyed one another’s company, which was really domestic and sweet. Kokichi never had intended to kiss Shuichi on the first date, or at the top of the ferris wheel but these things happen naturally. They weren’t things you could really plan.

Once they both had reached the top, Kokichi could still, even know, remember how beautiful he looked when his eyes flickered down towards the fairgrounds. His eyes shone so brightly, brighter than he’s ever seen them. His face glowed with the fluorescent lights beneath them, hitting his face so well. And in the heat of the moment, without even thinking, he leaned over to Shuichi and placed a longing kiss on his lips. Shuichi was practically frozen while they remained at the top, even having Kokichi shake him a bit after they kissed. Afterwards, Shuichi had asked him several times to pinch him to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. Kokichi knew then and there that Shuichi was the only one for him.

The picture had such huge significance to them both. As for who had taken the picture, Kokichi wanted to have something to commemorate their success of a date and asked a random person to take the picture. Thankfully, the stranger was nice and did so without further questions or comments. A wave of heat flushed through his cheeks as he recalled the memory. Great, now he actually missed Shuichi. Though, today wouldn’t have been exactly the first time. As much as he liked the fact that he found a career he really enjoys doing, he couldn’t help but feel sad knowing that now he doesn’t get to spend as much time with him as he would’ve liked. Kokichi sat up with his arms folded over his thighs.

He shifted his gaze towards their closet, scanning over the closed doors from across the room. With a nervous bite of his lip, he jumped down from the bed and made his way across the room towards the closet.

His slender fingers pulled apart Shuichi’s side of the closet. They soon had made their way to touch the fabrics, gently grazing over each item. Shuichi’s wardrobe mostly consisted of formal wear and not many casual clothes. Kokichi has endlessly bugged him on and on about buying more casual wear but to no avail. He’s constantly stated how good he looked in just a pair of jeans and a regular graphic tee but he gets the same answer every time.

“No.”

Every. Time.

But, even though Kokichi is well aware of this, he does know that he owns a few band t-shirts. For what reason? He had no clue. All he knew was that Shuichi wore one to bed last night while he clumsily tucked himself into bed. The poor boy had to stay up for work related business a few extra hours and didn’t go to bed until around three. He figured Shuichi thought he was asleep and not wide awake since he still had said band t-shirt on when felt him climb into bed beside him. Regardless of that, he moved his hand down towards the hamper just beneath Shuichi’s clothes. He reached down, scouring through a few dirty clothes until finding the item he had been searching for.

He brought the shirt to his face, giving it a good inhale before moving it away from his nose. It smelled so good. It smelled like Shuichi. It smelled like home. Kokichi gently placed the shirt at the side of the hamper as he took off his own shirt. His pale and fragile body grew cold without the warmth of his shirt. He threw his own clothing into the hamper, replacing it with a slightly oversized shirt. The shirt was a black color (as expected,) and had a skeleton with what seemed like a marching band hat on top of it. The bottom had grungy text and what seemed to be the band’s name in the same font.

“My Chemical Romance.”

My Chemical Romance? What and who was that? He didn’t know. All he cared about was the fact that it was Shuichi’s. His tiny fingers gripped the fabric tightly, his fingers almost turning red in color from the intense grip he had. His eyes stung lightly as tears made their way towards his eyes. He shook his head. No, he shouldn’t be feeling this way. He should be thrilled Shuichi finally has a career he loves and looks forward to. Despite all of that, his chest hurt. It hurt. He fucking missed Shuichi so much. Even though he was only gone for a few hours, those hours felt like days. He hated that he was being clingy but a part of him was worried that he would overwork himself and grow ill or worse, they split up due to him being too invested into his work.

Being too busy over-thinking, Kokichi hadn’t noticed the door to their bedroom door open. It was until he heard a gentle knock on the door where he had came back to the surface. Kokichi’s head snapped towards the sound, it took a minute to realize who it was and what he wearing before he completely turned into a blushing mess. He didn’t expect him to come home so early. Shuichi blinked in slight confusion as he scampered off towards their bed, covering himself with the sheets. “W-what are you doing here so early?! I thought you were coming at nine!"

"Mr. Tanaka let me out early… I’m sorry, am I missing something? Why do you look so shocked that I’m here?”

Shuichi inched closer, causing Kokichi to sink himself further into the corner. “I-I’m not! It’s just so out of the blue and-!”

“Why are you hiding? You’re usually hugging me the minute I come home. Are you feeling okay?” This was bad. The detective, who was now sitting on the bed, moved his hands closer to Kokichi. He gently removed the blanket which sheltered Kokichi, not saying anything before realizing what he was hiding. Kokichi crossed his arms, giving an embarrassed huff as he avoided eye contact with the detective. “Great. Now you caught me, go ahead, make fun of me.”

“Kokichi I… Are you… wearing my clothes?”

“Y-yeah. So what? Look, I was just making sure they were still wearable and comfy. I swear I had no other intentions, that was all I was doing. There, now you know the truth so don’t get angry.” Shuichi’s eyes softened at the sight in front of him. The tiny male was cornered but all he could resort to was lie. His arms crossed over his chest and his head was hung low, staring down at the ruffled sheets below him. “No, like… it’s just, I can’t believe you’re actually wearing my clothes.” He let out a low giggle, which seemed to push Kokichi’s embarrassment further. Kokichi could feel his heart about ready to explode. Even though he knew Shuichi would never blackmail him, he knew that he’d hold this above his head for a while and constantly remind him.

"I’m not… It wasn’t because I missed you or anything, it’s like I told you. I was just checking to make sure Shumai’s clothes were comfortable.”

“And are they?” Shuichi pulled the liar closer, embracing the body in his arms tightly. Kokichi could still feel the heat on his cheeks as he buried his face inside of Shuichi’s chest, unable to look at him in the eyes. “They are. But Saihara-chan is more comfortable.” Kokichi smiled warmly, wrapping his hands around his waist. He could deny it all he wanted, but what he couldn't deny was the warmth Shuichi gave him. It was only then did he realize that this warmth was made only for him, and nothing would take that away.

#oumasai #kokichi ouma #shuichi saihara #kyus post #drv3 #hello i hope you like it anon!!#sorry this took forever oop #i got sidetracked with other projects #im going to tag prompt lists now bc holy shit #you can always request again if youre not satisfied with this!#<33

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sourwolf-sterek32 · 5 years

Text

Terminus ( Daryl Dixon x Reader One-shot )

Summary: Terminus. It was not a sanctuary for all. It was far from it and little did you know today was about to turn into the worst day of your life as you sat in front of a blood stained metal tub. Your life minutes away from crashing down around you as you looked through teary eyes at your brother, Sam.

Pairings: Daryl Dixon x Reader

Word Count: 3.9k

Warnings: mentions of death, descriptions of death, mentions of blood, gore, just basic twd stuff

A/N: Yes I know those photos are Sam Winchester but the reader isn’t a Winchester, the readers brother is called Sam and I pictured him while I wrote this. Also, I was in a really sad mood when I wrote this, like I was very emotional that day and this was how I dealt with those emotions by writing a sad one-shot. Sorry not sorry.

Side note- I hate Tumblr’s new font on text posts, so if you guys do as well you can find this fic and all my others on my AO3 and Wattpad accounts, link for those in my bio at the bottom of my masterlist.

Your hands were tied behind your back, your mouth gaged with some kind of cloth or rag. You were forced onto your knees in front of a large metal tub which had blood stains painted through it. You had a really bad feeling about this and you weren't afraid to admit that you were scared. Hell, your older brother Sam seemed scared despite their best efforts to hide it. He was the bravest man you know, nothing could scare him, but right now everyone was.

You were between Sam, and Glenn, but you knew Daryl, Rick and Bob were further down the tub on your right. The men from Terminus were all wearing blood-covered aprons as you glanced around the large warehouse. Your stomach turned when you spotted a man across the room cutting a dead body's leg on top of a metal bench. What the hell is this place? What kind of sick people do that?

You turned your attention back to the Terminus men behind you guys when you noticed one of them holding a metal bat as they walked towards the end of the tub.

Before you could even try figure what they were planning the Terminus man swung the bat, slamming it into the back of the guys head who was at the end of the tub, instantly knocking him out cold. What the hell were they doing? You thought to yourself as the other Terminus man grabbed the unconscious guys head before slicing his throat and dropping his body back against the tub. His blood now flowing into the metal tub.

You stared at the man's body in shock, your body beginning to shake in fear. These guys are fucking psychos, you had to get out of here.

Without hesitation you quickly pulled down the large wooden stake you'd broken off from inside the train cart where you guys were being held earlier. You had hidden it up the sleeve of your flannel shirt, but you just hoped it was strong enough to cut through the zip ties around your wrist.

"Hey guys, what were your shot counts?" Gareth's voice suddenly questioned as you looked across the warehouse to find him walking through the door.

"38." One of the men replied before slamming the bat against the next man as you forced yourself to look away. You glanced down the row spotting Daryl who was staring at you, his expression masked, but you knew him. You knew Daryl well enough to know he was panicking and you were too.

"Hey, your shot count?" Gareth questioned turning your attention back to the men.

"Crap man, I'm sorry. This is my first round up." The man with the knife replied, his voice slightly nervous as he stared over at the leader.

"After you're done here go back to your point and count the shells." Gareth replied as he wrote something down in whatever book he was holding as he began to walk away. No he couldn't leave yet, if he did the others would continue killing you guys.

Without a second thought you tried shouting at him through the gag in your mouth, trying anything to get his attention and distract him. Rick, Daryl and Sam would have a plan, they always came up with a plan, you just had to distract the man for as long as possible.

"What's that honey? I can't hear you." Gareth responded, closing his book and putting it on the bench as he walked over to you. He crouched down on the other side of the tub opposite you as he pulled the gag out of your mouth.

"You don't have to do this. Please. You can take all our stuff and weapons, just let us go." You pleated. You hated begging for your life like this, you knew it sounded pathetic, but it was the only option you had left as you continued to try cut through the zip ties slowly, not wanting them to notice.

"We already took all your stuff, honey." He replied with a sickening grin.

"You can walk away from this, we can work it out. It doesn't have to be like this." You added, but the man shook his head as he put the gag back over your mouth.

"It does. It has to be like this." He stated as he turned his attention over to Rick, crouching down opposite him and taking his gag out.

"I saw you go in the woods with a bag and come out without it. What was in it? You hid it right? In case things went bad? Smart, we'll find it. But it's too dangerous to go out there right now." Gareth said as he pulled a knife out from his belt before grabbing Bob's head and holding the blade to it. "What was in it? I'm curious and it was a big bag."

"Let me take you out there. I'll show you." Rick replied, but it was clear by the slight shake to Gareth's head that he wasn't going to fall for that.

"Not going to happen. But this might." Gareth responded pointing the knife towards Bob's eye.

"AK-47, automatic weapons, night scope, a compound bow and a machete with a red handle. And that's what I'm gonna use to kill you." Rick stated glaring at Gareth who just chuckled before putting his knife back and placing the gag back over Ricks mouth.

"Thanks. Guys, get back to work." Gareth ordered as he walked out the room. Shit.

You watched on in panic as his men continued doing the exact same thing to the next two guys, while you hurriedly worked on moving the wooden stake up and down against your restrains trying desperately to cut them. Your heart pounding against your chest. You had to stop this, your brother was next in line.

This couldn't be happening, it had to be a dream. Your brother couldn't die like this, not after everything you guys had been through. You'd survived this long, he can't die like this. He was the only family you had left, you can't lose him too. You just lost your younger sister when the Governor attacked the prison, she got caught in the crossfire, a bullet piercing straight through her skull. Daryl and Beth had to literally drag you out of prison when walkers began filing in through the broken fences. The only closure you got was to see Daryl kill the bastard who fired the gun and the fact that she died instantly. No pain. No suffering. It was quick and hopefully painless. But this... this was entirely different. You had just found your brother again after the prison fell, you had just got him back only a few days ago. You can't lose him again, you can't lose him forever.

Tears were now tricking from your eyes as you looked over at your brother. He was staring at you with glazed over eyes from his unshed tears giving you a small nod and if it wasn't for the gag over his mouth you could have sworn he was smiling at you. Why was he smiling? This couldn't be happening... You can't lose him too.

Your eyes glanced over at the Terminus men dropping the last guy back down against the tub, his blood now mixing in with the others.

You screamed into the rag covering your mouth, trying anything to get the men away from your brother, but it was too late. The bat came swinging down against the back of Sam's skull before they slit his throat.

Tears were now pouring down your face as you somehow managed to slice through the zip ties around your hands. Without hesitation you quickly stood up pushing the man with the knife away from your brother. His lifeless body falling to the ground, blood pouring from his neck.

"You'll die for that!" You screamed slamming the wooden stake into the man's shoulder, but before you could do anything else the other man grabbed you from behind. You couldn't move, he had your arms pinned behind your back and you knew there was no way out of this. But you didn't care, you didn't care about anything anymore as you looked through teary eyes at your brothers limp, pale body laying on the cement in a pool of his blood.

You felt the barrel of a gun pressed against your temple and you closed your eyes waiting for him to end it. But before the man could pull the trigger something suddenly exploded from outside, shaking the entire warehouse.

You fell to the ground from the explosion, the Terminus man hitting the deck behind you as his finger bumped the trigger, the bullet piercing through your left thigh as you cried out in pain.

The next few minutes went by in a blur. You were vaguely aware of the gunshots in the distance and Rick somehow getting out of his restraints and killing the two Terminus men before cutting Daryl, Glenn and Bob's restraints off. But all you could do was stare at your brothers dead body by the metal tub. Your hands covering your mouth trying to muffle your sobs.

"Sammy." You whimpered not bothering to try stop the tears falling down your cheeks. He's gone. He died and you didn't do anything to stop it. What kind of sister were you?

"They got problems. We got a chance." Rick stated from somewhere to your right.

"It sounded like a bomb." Someone else added, but you weren't listening until a set of hands grabbed your shoulders.

"Y/N? Hey, look at me. Look me." Someone shouted, shaking your shoulders gently, but you couldn't take your eyes off your brother, your hand still over your mouth as you tried to hold back tears. You felt something wrapping around your bleeding thigh as you winced at the sudden pain, snapping you away from your brother as you spotted a familiar red rag being tied around your leg. "Y/N? Please girl, ya gotta look at me." The same voice said and suddenly you realised it was Daryl as you lifted your head. Your red brimmed eyes locking with his panicked blue ones as you gave him a small nod. You knew you needed to be strong, you had to be strong if you wanted to get out of this, you didn't have a choice. You could cry later, right now your friends were in danger and you weren't going to let anyone else die today.

"Y/N, I'm sorry, but we gotta go." Rick called from the other side of the room causing Daryl to quickly stand up holding his hand out for you. You took his hand, groaning at the sudden pain in your thigh as you put weight on your left leg.

"Can ya walk?" Daryl asked and you nodded, not trusting your voice at the moment before he handed you a knife from one of the benches as the two of you ran over to Rick, Glenn and Bob on the other side of the room. The bullet wound burning in pain after every step as you moved on pure adrenaline.

Daryl stayed by your side the entire time as the group of you walked through a door that lead to a different room. Dead bodies hanging off meat hooks from the ceiling, arms, legs and heads all cut off as you forced yourself to look away. Who the hell were these people?

"Cross any of these people you kill them. Don't hesitate, they won't." Rick stated and with that you all made your way outside. Walkers were roaming the courtyard, Terminus people running around either shooting at the walkers or just purely running for their lives.

It didn't take you guys long to kill most the Terminus people, although Gareth and couple others were nowhere to be seen. Rick unlocked the train cart door, letting Michonne, Carl, Maggie, Glenn, Rosita, Tara, Abraham and Eugene out and with the group of you, you managed to cut through enough walkers to get to the fence.

"Up and over!" Rosita yelled, throwing a large blanket over the top of the barbed wire fence as everyone began climbing over.

"I-I can't. Not with my leg." You began to mumble taking a step away from the fence, the pain in your leg starting to really kick in as it gave way from underneath you. Daryl quickly grabbed you from behind stopping you from hitting the ground.

"I'll help ya. I ain't lettin' ya die too." He responded as he wrapped his arm around your waist helping you walk over to the fence as him and Rick somehow managed to get you over the fence as you landed on the dirt on the other side of the fence with a thud.

"Oh my God, you're shot." Maggie suddenly said as she helped you back onto your feet before Daryl and Rick climbed the fence.

"We need to get that bag of guns, Daryl?" Rick asked looking over at his brother as Daryl glanced over to you. He clearly didn't want to leave you alone, but you gave him a reassuring nod as you leant against Maggie for support.

"It's this way." Daryl suddenly said as he began tracking back to where you guys had buried the bag. Maggie helped you walk, Glenn walking on the other side of you in case you lost your balance.

After a few minutes Daryl pointed to the ground, kicking a few leaves to expose a small shovel before handing it to Rick as he began digging up the bag.

"I got her." Daryl said walking back over to you as Maggie and Glenn nodded giving the two of you some space. "Sit down for a bit, let me see it." Daryl said gently and you nodded as he carefully helped you sit down, the others all watching you with concern as Rick continued digging for the bag.

"We don't have any bandages or medical equipment." Abraham stated from somewhere behind you and you nodded. The bullet had gone all the way through so that was good, but you didn't care. You didn't even care that you'd been shot. Your brother's dead and you were still alive. It shouldn't be like that, he was stronger, he was smarter, he was braver, it should have been you.

"We got medical supplies." A familiar voice suddenly called as you looked across the woods to find Carol walking towards the group of you with Daryl's crossbow in her hands. It was her. She caused the distraction back in Terminus.

In a split second Daryl was up and jogging over to her, wrapping her up in a tight hug and despite everything that has had happened you couldn't help the small smile on your face. You had thought she was dead after Rick kicked her out the prison.

"Did you do that?" Rick asked as Daryl pulled away from her taking a few steps back and Carol nodded before Rick pulled her into a hug.

"You have to come with me." Carol suddenly said looking over at the rest of you before her eyes landed on you, spotting the blood seeping through the rag around your thigh and down your jeans. But that wasn't what she was worried about, she was staring into your red eyes and you knew she was starting to put together what happened. Her eyes quickly scanned the rest of the group before she looked back at you with a sad expression.

"Your brother... oh my God." Carol whispered walking over to you in realisation as she dropped to her knees besides you and wrapped you up in a hug. "I'm so sorry."

You had to blink back tears as she pulled away from you before leading the group to whatever she wanted you to see. Daryl was immediately by your side, helping you up as you all reached a road and began following it until Carol veered off down a dirt path towards a small wooden cabin.

You were kinda zoned out as you all walked towards the cabin. Images of filling your mind of your brothers lifeless body and his teary eyes as he looked at you, that small smile on his face as he stared at you for the last time.

Suddenly Rick, Carl and Sasha began sprinting towards the cabin, snapping you out of your thoughts. And that's when you saw them. Tyrese holding baby Judith walking out the cabin. They were alive.

You watched as Tyrese handed Rick his daughter, him and Carl hugging her with tears of joy as Sasha ran over to her brother, pulling him into a hug. Suddenly a wave of emotion hit you as you watched the brother and sister hug. You weren't ever going to hug Sam again, he was gone and the last conversation the two of you had was a stupid argument.

"I don't need you constantly looking over me! I'm not a little girl anymore, Sam. I can take care of myself!" You yelled in frustration as the two of you walked back towards the group who were currently camped by a few broken down cars on the side of the road for the night.

"Really? Because I just had to save your life back there. You didn't even see the walker sneaking up behind you." Sam responded, crossing his arms over his chest and you knew he was right. You were stupid and let your guard down when you spotted the squirrel in the tree. You were so focused on hunting the damn animal that you forgot about the dead walking around and if it wasn't for your brother, you would have been bit.

"I had it handled!" You lied causing your brother to throw his hands in the air in defeat.

"Whatever. Daryl, she's all yours." Your brother stated as the two of you reached the group who were all watching you in a mix of confusion and amusement. You and your brother rarely fought, most siblings fought all the time, but you two rarely did. Although the last couple of weeks were really starting to take its toll on you. First Beth got taken away and then the Claimers happened and now you were all literally moving from house to house to survive. It was all just starting to get to you and you couldn't control your anger, your brother just happened to be there when you snapped.

"Ya alright?" Daryl questioned pushing himself up from the tailgate of an old beat up truck as he walked over to you.

"Yeah, just got in a stupid argument with my brother. It doesn't matter, let's cook up these squirrels." You replied holding up the three squirrels you had tied to rope around your shoulder as Daryl nodded wrapping his arm over your waist as the two of you walked back over to the group.

"We have medical supplies in the cabin. Y/N come inside, we'll get your leg fixed up." Tyrese's voice suddenly called snapping you out of your flashback as you glanced over at him. His arm wrapped over his sisters shoulder and that was all it took for the tears to come rushing back into your eyes. You couldn't do this, you couldn't be here around everyone, you just couldn't.

Shaking your head you began taking a few steps backwards away from the group. You could feel everyone watching you as you quickly turned around and began walking off into the woods.

"Was it something I said?" Tyrese asked watching as you walked off before he looked around at the rest of the group in confusion.

"She just lost her brother back there. I'll go talk to her." Daryl responded not waiting for the others to reply as he walked off in the direction you had gone. "Y/N?" He called following your tracks until he spotted you sitting down against a tree, you knees bought up to your chest as you rested your head on top. He could tell you were crying by the way your body was trembling as you tried to muffle your sobs.

You didn't even notice Daryl had followed you until he sat down beside you, resting his arm around your shoulders causing you to quickly flinch away at the unexpected contact.

"It's just me." Daryl whispered, leaning his back against the tree as you relaxed into his touch. "M'sorry, Y/N. I'm so sorry." He said gently looking down as you buried your face into the crook of his neck unable to control your sobs as he wrapped his arms around your body, holding you closely.

He didn't say anything else as he held you tightly, letting you cry into him. He knew how it felt to lose a brother, he knew you needed to let yourself feel it, but he knew how painful it was. You were there for him when Merle had died, letting him cry into you as he mourned his brothers death and he was gonna make sure he did the same for you.

You weren't sure how long you stayed curled up against Daryl's side, but you had stopped crying a while ago. Your body still shaking as you tried to get the imagines of your brothers dead body out your head.

"H-he's gone... He's really gone and the last time I talk to him, I yelled at him... we were arguing... God, he hated me..." You trailed off tears rising in your eyes again as you pulled away from Daryl, sitting yourself up straighter, wincing slightly at the pain in your thigh.

"He didn't hate ya. You're his sister, he loved ya, Y/N, which was why he got so annoyed when ya nearly got bit." Daryl replied looking over at you and you nodded slightly as he wiped a stray tear from you cheek with his thumb.

"Come back to the group with me so we can get your leg stitched up. I know it hurts and I'm not just talkin' about the gunshot wound. Ya have to let yourself feel it and ya don't have to do it alone. Ya got me and Rick and the others, alright? We're here for ya." Daryl said softly, placing a gentle kiss to your forehead.

"Thanks, Dixon." You whispered, giving him a sad smile as he stood up, holding his hand out for you. You took it letting him help you to your feet as you winced at the sudden pressure on your left leg.

"You're a tough son of a bitch, Sam would have been proud of ya." Daryl commented causing you to smile ever so slightly as he wrapped his arm around your waist helping you walk back to the others.

There were no happy endings in life. Endings were always the saddest part. There were just happy days, happy moments in life and happy memories that you'd cherish forever. You may be mourning right now but your little sister, your mother, your father, all the family and friends you had lost along the way. They were rejoicing to greet Sam in heaven and one day you will be able to see him again too. But that day was not today.

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thethespacecoyote · 5 years

Text

“those who can’t do, teach”

“You have your history final in a few days,” Hux says, in a tone a little too dry for the situation, as Ben slides the hand down towards his thigh, “we really need to focus if you’re going to pass.”

“If I unwind first, it’ll help my information retention,” Ben counters as he noses against the shell of Hux’s ear, “just a quickie. Then we’ll get down to the books.”

They hardly ever use books. Hux has a little whiteboard and a tablet where Ben can look up the texts assigned to him by his professor, as well as supplementary reading and primary sources Hux has chosen himself to aid in his student’s education. Ben is a visual learner, so Hux has had to assemble a wide variety of videos and interactive quizzes. He swears, some days he doesn’t think Ben doesn’t fully appreciate just how much work he puts into their lesson plans.

He does, however, show his appreciation for other parts of Hux a lot more frequently.

I wanted to write intercrural fic again and finally thought of an idea with tutor!Hux and college student!Kylo. I had a lot of fun writing this. If you like it please leave me a comment on ao3.

The parents of the student he tutors on Tuesdays are not exactly the vain, stuffy type, and probably wouldn’t care if Hux wore jeans and a T-shirt to his sessions with their son, but Hux hasn’t worn his nice clothes since his last round of unsuccessful university interviews, and he’ll always leap at the chance to look smart and put together. So, as always, he shows up to the Solo-Organa household in style, with his navy blue blazer and matching pants, brown Oxfords, all capped off with a freshly shaven chin and hair parted neatly to the right. He stands at attention on the porch, catching patterns in the ivy growing over the house's white walls as he waits for an answer to his knock. He doesn’t have to wait for long, as the huge, glossy door eventually opens up to reveal Hux’s equally huge pupil.

“Hey. You’re a little early,” Ben replies casually as he steps aside to let Hux in, closing the door behind them. Ben always comments on this, even though Hux has shown up either five or ten minutes early to their sessions since the second time they met, when he figured out that Ben takes a little time to get settled down and ready to work.

“Hello Ben. Are your parents home?” Hux asks, looking about the entranceway for a sight or sound of activity, but the big house yawns quietly around them. Ben shrugs.

“Nah. Mom and Dad are out. Some thing at city hall Dad was complaining about.”

It seems like Ben’s parents are out most of the time. Hux knows his mother is a councilwoman, and his father seems to take on an odd array of freelance jobs with no strict correlation between them. They're so close to the adjacent college that Ben still lives at home, though no doubt his parents could afford to house him on campus. But Hux far prefers the thoughtful and transitional interior design to the cramped clutter a dorm room would potentially offer, so he can't complain much.

He allows Ben to lead him into the kitchen for a glass of water and a snack, though Hux hardly thinks an entire box of last night’s takeout is small enough to qualify as a “snack,” then follows him up the stairs to the second floor. However, once they get into Ben’s bedroom and Hux starts to lay out his book bag and the supplies inside on the provided desk, it becomes obvious that Ben is still hungry. Just in a different way.

The room is huge like the rest of his house, almost as big as the kitchen and adjoining living room in Hux’s small apartment, and yet Ben ruins the glorious space with messy black bedsheets, an uninspired taupe wallpaper, and scores of huge, ghoulish posters depicting six black-clad figures and the ominous initials “K.O.R.” etched in bloodied font. Apparently, they’re a band, as Ben cordially explained to him during their first session, but Hux hopes he never has to hear what kind of “music” they produce from their skull-like masks.

Hux is looking at one particularly gruesome picture of the members clustered around an altar of reanimated crows when Ben comes up behind him, and first Hux thinks he has a question but then a hand sits on his hip, and he sighs.

“Ben…”

“What?”

“If I unwind first, it’ll help my information retention,” Ben counters as he noses against the shell of Hux’s ear, “just a quickie. Then we’ll get down to the books.”

He does, however, show his appreciation for other parts of Hux a lot more frequently.

Ben especially seems to like Hux’s waist, flattening the fabric of his suit to his sides to accentuate where his body pinches inwards. There truly defines the differences in breadth between them, as Ben’s hands look and feel absolutely huge when held up to his slight bulk. They’re nearly the same height, allowing Hux to register his disapproval more directly to his pupil when he fails to complete his coursework in a timely matter, but there’s no denying Ben is far larger than him, with a body built by freak genetics and toned with obsessive, toiling hours in the gym and on the field.

“Ben no,” Hux protests as he pinches the back of his student’s hand, which has started to travel to the crotch of his dress pants. “If your parents ever find out about this, I lose my job and you lose your only chance to attain enough credits to graduate.”

“They’re not here. And they’re never gonna find out.”

“If you fail this exam as badly as I fear you will, they’ll suspect something.”

“I won’t fail. Even if we spent the next three days fucking in my bedroom I wouldn’t fail. You’re that good a teacher.”

“Flattery? You think that will sway me from my lesson plan?” Hux scowls as Ben molds his chest to his back. The smell of sweat, unwashed cotton, and body spray invade his nose. Ben must have gone to the gym earlier, or tossed those barbells in the corner about as he grunted like an animal. Hux needs to introduce him to a decent cologne one of these days.

“You like being told you’re smart. That’s why you became a tutor, right? To prove you’re smarter than people?”

“I became a tutor because my post-graduate career has so far been underwhelming,” Hux dismisses. That, and he has rent to pay and a cat to feed, and if he ends up fired because Ben can’t focus on exam prep for five minutes without thinking about feeling Hux up he’ll be very upset.

“Please. Come on, Armitage.”

Hux groans. He knew it was a mistake to tell Ben his name. He knows just the way to roll it in his mouth, dancing between pleading and husky, in a perfect tone to get Hux shivery and pliable. Oh hell.

There’s no way either of them will be able to concentrate like this.

“Fine,” Hux relents, turning his head to look at Ben out of the corner of his eye, “but I’m going to work you extra hard this evening. This will count as one of your study breaks.”

“Sure thing, professor,” Ben breathes eagerly against Hux’s neck, the hand on his thigh already moving to fiddle with the zipper of his pants. Hux leans his head back, stiffly allowing Ben more access, and he quickly takes advantage, pressing a warm, wet kiss against his throat.

Pleasant feelings start to squirm in Hux’s belly as Ben palms his groin, his other hand easily slipping open the three buttons on his blazer. He doesn’t bother to remove it, though, interested only in freeing up Hux’s front so he can explore it better. He tuts when Ben gives his pec a squeeze and pushes his hips forward, reminding Hux of his impressive length as he grinds it against his ass.

“Do it between my thighs,” Hux decides, knowing he wont want to sit on his smarting ass for hours as Ben works through his comprehension of the Spanish-American War. “You still have lubricant?”

Ben rolls his eyes. “Course I do.”

“Silly me. I forgot who I was talking to.” Hux sits on the bed, unzipping his pants all the way and shimmying them down as Ben fetches the lube from the nightstand drawer. His back muscles flex through the tightness of his shirt, like powerful tides pushing up out of the depths of the sea. When he returns, Ben sets aside the lube for a moment to brush his fingers against the side of Hux’s head, dipping into his hair, before leaning in to kiss him. A couples seconds and Hux is lying on his back in the bed, with Ben half leaned on top of him exploring his mouth with gusto he wished he had for his studies.

Part of Hux still doesn’t understand it. A young man like Ben Solo—attractive, athletic, the son of wealthy and distinguished parents—could have any number of girls or boys he wanted, surely. Hux remembers college, how it had reeked of hormones and alcohol properly let loose for the first time without the fear of parental discovery. A pot of sex and attempts at higher learning, all mingled together and bubbling over. Surely Ben would’ve had no issue finding a decent lay his age.

And yet he has eyes for his tutor, five years his senior. Hux knows he’s no prize, even discounting his age—he is soft everywhere Ben is muscled, drawn and pallid where he is unfettered and vigorous, and he cares more for literature and analysis than the raucous music and brazen athletics that Ben favors. If Hux tried, he could probably find a pair more mismatched than they are, but it would be difficult and require a wider survey.

And yet it was Ben who approached him first, leaning in to kiss him over a reenacted video of the Battle of Antietam. Their first, furtive hand-jobs were stroked in rhythm to the sounds of gunshots and narrated personal accounts, and the first time Hux had gotten down on his knees in Ben’s bedroom and taken his tremendous, virile cock down his throat the impassioned speeches of William Jennings Bryant were still ringing through his ears. Indeed, sex had become a part of their sessions together, and to Hux’s surprise Ben’s grades haven’t suffered as a result.

But he still couldn’t risk failing that final. So Hux swats at Ben’s shoulder until he breaks the kiss, tells him:

“Hurry it up.”

And brings his knees to his chest, exposing his bare rear to the young man’s eyes.

Ben raises his eyebrow and a smirk at the same time.

“Eager?”

“Eager to get to what your parents are paying for,” Hux says, and steals the smile from Ben’s face a bit.

“Dude, don’t talk about my parents when I’m about to get my dick out.”

“Then get it out already!” Hux hurries, trying to make himself believe he’s only acting impatiently for the acceptable reasons. But it’s hard not to notice the beginnings of twitching in his own cock as he lies with his ass out before his pupil.

Hux hears the squelch of lubrication as Ben squeezes the tube onto his finger and rubs it against his palm. His breath hitches with anticipation a moment before Ben touches between his thighs, sliding a warm, slick digit in the tight crease. He moves it up and down before jabbing it forwards, coating the available flesh. It’s a little oily, and Hux rubs his thighs together experimentally, feeling how easily they slide against each other while also helping to spread the lube around himself.

Hux swears under his breath as Ben’s knuckles nearly skim the underside of his cock, heightening his anticipation despite himself. Damn it, he’s doing this because Ben wants to, because he won't allow them to move onto the lesson plan otherwise. Hux doesn’t want to accept he’s into it, because then what kind of degenerate would that make him? Letting his pupil fuck his thighs, in the house of his parents, when they’re supposed to be ensuring that Ben won’t mix up Andrew Johnson with Andrew Jackson.

Hux hears the jingling of a belt and, though he can’t see it, he assumes Ben is opening up his own pants as he braces Hux’s knees with his unsullied hand. His heart picks up beating, and he cranes his neck up off the pillow as Ben unbends his legs and lets them rest against his body, angled perpendicular to his spine.

Hux won’t lie, he loves that cock of Ben’s. It’s thick like the rest of him, not the longest Hux has ever seen but with a great enough girth to fill his fist and stretch his throat out in just the way he likes. And he’s so earnest in the way he touches Hux, with a hint of a man who understands the value of lovemaking rather than purely lecherous fucking, not that Hux hasn’t had his fair share of the latter in his life. But it’s nice, to see that even a cocksure young man like Ben understands how to properly treat a bed partner. Some older individuals Hux has consorted with could learn a thing or two from him.

Hux flinches as Ben’s cock slides between his thighs, eventually poking out the other side, its fat head resting atop his downy balls. Ben rests Hux’s clasped calves over one shoulder, keeping his legs in the diagonal so he can see his face. Hux blushes, dragging his teeth against his lower lip as Ben lingers for a moment, most likely enjoying the feeling of soft flesh around his cock.

“Oh…” Hux suddenly moans when Ben starts to move, first pulling out a bit then sliding back into place, finding an acceptably steady rhythm after a couple moments feeling out the best way to drive his cock between Hux’s thighs.

Ben’s shaft soon rubs over the entirety of Hux’s undercarriage, from his quivery hole over his taint to his balls and cock, able to cover all ground in a single long thrust. Hux’s toes curl in his shoes as he puffed breath from his cheeks, which have surely grown red if the heat he feels there is any indication. He must look truly debauched to Ben, who undoubtedly enjoys seeing his well-dressed, tightly-wound tutor in such a state. He wonders if it’s a point of pride to him, or some kind of dare he’s set up with his buddies, to drive Hux mad with just this, just the barest taste of his cock. And yet despite his attitude, Ben doesn’t strike Hux as much of a braggart. He aced his midterm awhile back, and didn’t even tell Hux until he pressed him for details partway through their subsequent session.

Truly, there’s a more earnest, contemplative side of Ben that Hux enjoys the most, that resurfaces in moments of vulnerability like this, with sincere sexuality, care for the man only hired to bring his grades up and keep him on that damned lacrosse team.

It’s almost a shame Hux didn’t have someone like Ben while he was in college.

The motion of their bodies grows more frenetic, shifting Ben’s bed slightly. One of Hux’s hand curls into a fist, nails brushing against his palm as the other reaches for his cock, needing to get off and resolve the yearning growing in his heart, but Ben beats him to it, leaves Hux’s hand to rest against his panting belly as he loosely cups the both of their cocks. Ben’s thrusts grow more shallow, mere rutting against Hux’s cock within the cage of his fingers.

“That’s it, yes—” He encourages, though Ben needs none, dipping his head in concentration as he deftly jerks the both of them off to their peak.

Hux’s own release soon splatters against his lower belly, barely missing the rucked-up hem of his dress shirt. He pants, his thighs twitching around Ben’s cock, noticing a moment later that he too has come all over him. Hux should feel upset by it, how messy he’s become, but it’s not the worst sensation in the world. It makes him think about how it would feel to have Ben finish inside of him, leave him wet and dripping for more.

Perhaps. If Ben does well enough on this final, he’ll consider it. Positive reinforcement is yet another tool in his tutorial arsenal, after all. Though he certainly enjoys food as much as sex—maybe he should treat Ben to dinner first.

“Are you...substantially unwound?” Hux says in between pants as Ben lowers his legs, slips his cock out from between his soiled thighs. He tries to sit up when Ben leans in for another kiss, but Hux fusses and turns his head away, placing a staying hand on his chest. But then Ben puts on such a wounded look he can’t deny him, and meets his lips in one last kiss before pressing a finger to them.

“Give me a moment to freshen up,” Hux says as he fishes in his coat pocket for a pack of tissues, fiddling it open. “Then we’re getting right down to work. No complaints.”

And Ben nods, smiles, accepts a tissue from Hux to clean himself up. They zip up their pants and buckle their belts, Hux smooths his hair back into place and it’s almost like none of this ever happened—yet the confident, pleased grin on Ben’s face remains the same.

“I’m all yours, professor.”

#spacetext #long post #kylux #fanfic #sw #tutor hux #modern au #college au #m rated

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goron-king-darunia · 5 years

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Coffee Soulmate Drabble

Based on this, but reworked to be more articulate and also to avoid piggybacking on a post. Also realized that the prompt was meant to be about what soulmates think when they see each other, not their first words to each other, so I tweaked the premise a bit to fit the reveal I wanted. *~*~*

Emil had waited what felt like eons to finally see his soul mark. Friends from school had mostly gotten theirs already. Marta and Alice got theirs during a schoolyard tussle in middle school. Other classmates had theirs appear during grocery store trips or vacations and spring break. Many more had theirs pop up while messaging someone online for the first time, or just before receiving a response to an online comment. Emil had no such luck. He was still young, of course. Some people didn’t have their soul marks show up until their forties. But he was dying to finally see his. He didn’t want to wait that long. Ever since he was a kid, he’d wanted to find his special someone. A Knight or warrior princess to sweep him off his feet and carry him far, far away from his abusive relatives. Preferably a knight or prince charming of course, but soulmates could be unexpected and Emil wasn’t picky. Alas, here he stood in the Lezareno Coffee Shop, brewing orders and making frappes and getting harangued by customers who “just wanted a plain cup of coffee” and couldn’t bother to even listen to the explanation that there are 30 different blends and they needed to pick one because the procedure is the procedure. His colleague Colette had just finished up ringing up a man with bright red hair and Emil was in awe. The guy looked to be a college student. He was dressed in a pressed white shirt with a bolo tie and some black slacks with a laptop and messenger bag and a perpetually-caffeine-deprived look on his features. Eye-bags, pursed lips, slouched shoulders, grumpy frown. Despite all this, he was a handsome man. His shiny polished loafers were the only thing that really threw Emil off. People his age usually wore tennis shoes, even in nice clothes. They were comfy and they were meant to get dirty so they didn’t require as much upkeep. Loafers were an old-people fashion in this generation. As preppy as the look was, though, his shuffle and slouch were unmistakeably characteristic of a man whose bank of “fucks I give” had basically run empty. Dude had maybe two fucks left at best. Guy clearly just wanted to be left alone to his business. Sadly, that meant that as cute as he was, Emil was going to have to refrain from asking him for his number on break.

While working on a caramel frappuccino for a lady that had just ordered, a wild-looking blond walked in, slapped a bill down on the counter and just said. “Coffee, hot, lots of it. Surprise me with the blend. Make it blonder than me and absolutely saturate that with sugar. Add two espressos shots to it. And can I get a straw?” Colette just nodded and totaled up the amount for their daily blend with a double espresso, extra cream, caramel syrup, and replaced the bill the blond had put on the counter with change and a wrapped plastic straw. “Thanks, you’re amazing.” He added the change to the tip jar and waited by the other end of the counter to pick up his drink. Emil was a bit baffled by this new guy. The boy had very similar features to himself. The exact shades of blond in both their hairs were different but without the side-by-side, you’d never tell. The customer’s eyes were more hazel than green, too, but one would have to look close to notice. Their body builds were a bit different, and this was probably the most prominent detail. Emil had a bit more muscle on him (he spent as much time running away from his home life as possible) and the customer was a bit wiry and lithe but if you really didn’t scrutinize their faces, they’d be able to switch places no problem. A heavy coat, jeans, sunglasses and they’d basically be indistinguishable. The customer’s face was sharper, a bit older looking, more masculine, while Emil’s features were a bit softer and rounder, but at a distance? Yeah. They could be twins. Except for the customer’s fashion sense. Emil, when he wore casualwear, usually wore a nice v-neck in a neutral color, a nice vest or scarf or jacket depending on the weather, and shorts or jeans in a nice cool tone. This customer was decked out in red and black, dark jeans and thigh high boots. He had a gold chain with an angel emblem on it but also a billowing white coat. Emil couldn’t tell if he was a nerd, a counterculture punk, or a dweeb attempting to be edgy. Then again, as he was also a college kid from the looks of things, he might have just thrown on whatever was clean and comfy. Emil couldn’t tell. Emil brewed up the order as Collette finished ringing up another customer. The blond barista placed the cup on the counter just as Collete tapped him on the shoulder. “Can you cover the registers for a quick minute?” Emil nodded, doing as he was told. luckily there was no one in line so he just had to keep an eye on things while he worked on other tasks and prioritize running the register if anyone did show up.

Aster, the aforementioned blond customer with weird fashion sense, was enjoying his hot cup of pure caffeine and sugar, just about to make his way out the door when he felt a faint tingle on the inside of his right wrist. He’d heard the stories. He was excited to know what the first words his soulmate would speak to him were going to be. He’d always dreamed of something like “Hey, hot stuff! Nice ass!” just so he could eternally shame his soulmate for catcalling him or something sweet like “Wow, you look really friendly! Can you help me study this week?” Some kind of college meet-cute that would lead to some wholesome stories for the kids someday. He eagerly rolled up his sleeves. Would it be funny? Heartwarming? Quirky? Flattering? He frowned when he read the small string of words, printed in a tiny serif font along his arm. “Who the hell drinks coffee with a straw?!”

Well that was simply unacceptable! Not only was his soulmate clearly a classless heathen who hated the finer things, but now he was stuck with this stupid soulmate mark! Aster turned around, leaning against the doorframe and eyeing the other patrons suspiciously, angrily sipping his coffee through his straw. As soon as his soulmate uttered those words, he was gonna kick their ass. He glared over the crowd, daring some chuckefuck to stand up and say it to his face. He was going to wreck them so hard he’d ruin the relationship eternally and blow that soulmate mark right off his arm.

Richter twitched, eyes narrowing at the blond beginning to exit and the words began forming in his mind. He didn’t even notice the blond turn to survey the rest of the patrons before he set his own coffee aside and found himself shooting up from his seat, massively offended on behalf of the rest of the sane people in this store. “WHO THE HELL DRINKS COFFEE WITH A STRAW?!” Aster’s head whipped around. You! He thought. I’ll rip you a new one right here! But before he could get the words out he softened immediately. Oh no. He’s hot.

“It’s not even iced coffee!” Richter continued, gesturing wildly at the blond’s absurd setup. “What are you even?! Wh– These cups come with lids with mouth holes you know!? So they don’t spill everywhere and so you can drink on the go!” Richter felt his own wrist tingle and paused. He was filled with anticipation certain that the barista was going to call him out on that statement. In fact he was praying for it. Because the barista was kinda cute. But no. The words appeared on his wrist moments before they were uttered.

“The straw cools the coffee off on its way to my mouth hole.”

Richter cringed. Oh no. Why him? He’s cute, too but WHY HIM?! Why not that cute barista boy?! And why did it have to be these words?! Emil’s head shot up. “Oh dear.” Suddenly both his wrists were tingling. It happened sometimes when someone had two simultaneous soulmates. Some people ended up picking one and letting the other mark fade. Some picked both if they could manage it. Emil had heard stories of as many as four simultaneous soulmates and there were legends of people who’d had even more. Emil glanced around, wondering who they could be. It hit him just as the words faded in on his arms and he locked eyes with the blond customer. Aster called out. “Yo! Barista boy! You can back me up on that, right? Drinking coffee with a straw isn’t weird, yeah?” “Oh, please! For real, you can settle this right now, my friend. Drinking coffee with a straw is barbaric right? Leaving the cup open like that while walking around in public, ready to spill on everyone! The correct way to drink a hot beverage is obviously from a travel mug or ceramic!” Aster and Richter both felt their other wrists tingle and they paused their argument, smiling faintly at the words that appear. “You’re both idiots and you need to stop yelling or my boss is gonna kick you out before I get your numbers.” “Seems like you’re going to be settling more than just this argument, huh?” Richter smiled. “You haven’t even asked him out and you’re expecting him to mediate all our arguments?” Aster sassed the redhead, elbowing him in the chest. “We don’t even know each other’s names!” The three convened at the counter as Colette came back to work the register. “I’m Richter.” The redhead offered his right hand to Emil. “Emil.” The blond flashed his nametag on his apron before shaking Richter’s hand with a smile. “Aster Laker.” The other blond reached out to Emil’s still extended hand for another handshake before reluctantly taking Richters. Richter entered their names into his phone and they exchanged contacts. “Alright, thanks for that. I’ll text you our numbers, Emil.” His phone pinged as the text was sent. “Anyway, I don’t want to take up too much of your time. You’re working after all. But before I go harass this guy about his habits, can we get your professional barista opinion?” Richter grinned. Emil chuckled. “You’re both wrong. Iced coffee is the only good coffee so drinking a hot coffee any way you want to is wrong.” Aster cackled, nearly spilling his coffee as he doubled over laughing. “I can’t tell if you’re a contrarian or just want to dodge the question. This will be an interesting relationship for sure.” Richter smiled, sipping from the mouthpiece of his cup. “What if I drink my coffee through 25 swizzle sticks glued together?” Aster cackled. “Am I valid?” Emil and Richter just stared at him. “You’re insane.” Richter murmured, though his face was glowing with amusement. “Absolutely bonkers.” Emil laughed. “I’ll let you two know when I’m off. Don’t murder each other before I’m done with my shift, okay?” “No promises.” Richter smiled, walking Aster back to his table

#my writing #ot3: courage trio #otp: courage trio #Richter Abend #Aster Laker #Emil Castagnier #Coffee Soulmate AU #Coffee shop AU #Soulmate AU

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hanalwayssolo · 5 years

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What We Owe To Each Other: Ch. 3 - Night

A/N: Here’s the angsty part of a fic literally no one asked for!!!

[Link on AO3]

Sam did not want to admit it out loud, but he was starting to believe that he was truly and utterly lost.

He pulled out his phone and checked his current location. He was sure about the direction he had taken; he had passed the right landmarks, made no unnecessary turns from the main road. His destination was off the beaten path but thankfully, it had stopped raining and the fog had partly cleared that he managed to easily spot his way. He had been certain that he was in the right address. This had to be the right place.

What was bothering him now was that the house that loomed behind the massive iron-wrought gates was the exact opposite of a fucking cottage.

Sam pulled over next to a silver Sedan (another rental, he could tell by that same tacky sticker plastered on its windshield) hooded over by the blood-red foliage of maple trees on what appeared to be the lot’s designated parking space. In the discomfort of the Chevy’s front seat, he began to assess all his available options. He could check out the house, ask its occupants for proper directions. Or he could turn his way back around. He could find a decent lodging to spend the night somewhere in Westmore, or any nearby town perhaps, and craft another excuse to tell his brother as to why he didn’t make it.

Or, well, he could disregard his pride and simply call Nathan for help.

This is stupid. I’m being stupid.

Sam sighed. He fished his phone out again, scrolled through his list of contacts, hovered over Nathan’s name for a little too long. He has not even called him yet, but he can already hear his brother’s clever and punk-ass reaction.

Fine. Fuck this.

He took another deep breath. Just as he was about to press that Call button, a knock on his window startled him out of his wits.

“Holy Mother of God!” Sam hissed, accidentally slamming a hand over the car horn that it shrieked like a shameless cry for help. He turned, and by the window was a familiar face curiously watching him with an almost amused expression.

It was Elena.

“I’m so sorry,” she said as soon as he got out of the car. She was in a cozy-looking parka, sweatpants and running shoes, her cheeks a shade rosier from the cold. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Nah, it’s fine.” He buried his hands in the pockets of his jacket. It was freezing as fuck. “What’re you doing out here?”

“I was out for a walk. Then I saw that there’s another car parked next to ours. Figured it would be you.”

“Oh.”

“And you were in there for a really long time, so. Yeah.”

“Well, I thought I was…” Sam trailed off. He looked at the house behind Elena, then back at her. “I’m in the right place, am I?”

“Yup.” Elena was smiling. “Trust me, that was our reaction when we first got here, too. Seriously, Sullivan needs to work on his definition of a cottage.”

Sam stared at her. “Christ, Victor owns this place?”

Elena nodded in response. “C’mon,” she said cheerily, nodding her head towards the gate, “Let’s get inside. I’ll let Sullivan explain everything to you and maybe get him to take you on his personal tour.”

Sam grabbed his duffel from the trunk and let Elena lead the way.

The sun slowly plummeted over the horizon, simmering gold through the trees, scorching the sky like a third-degree burn. There was no noise except for the crunch of their shoes on the carpet of gravel and dried leaves, the whistle of the wind, the chorus of birdsong from somewhere up the canopies. The air was sharp and chilly. Not far away, the Mansard roof and the whitewashed façade of Sully’s estate began to reveal itself behind the veil of autumn foliage like an enigmatic bride.

“By the way,” Sam began as they climbed the front steps, “I heard from Nathan. Congratulations. Good job for making me an uncle.”

Elena laughed. “You’re welcome. Glad to be of service, I guess.”

“Now I hope you don’t mind if I teach your kid a thing or two about picking locks and—”

“Oh don’t even think about that.”

“Alright. I’ll simply bore them to death.”

“Now that’s impossible. Trouble makes you the least boring person I know.”

“Whoa, now I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment.”

“It is a compliment.” She turned to face him, smiled at him knowingly. “But y’know, I suppose I should thank you, too.”

“Really?” Sam quirked a curious brow. “For what?”

“Nate told me about your sage advice.”

“Oh. That.” Sam shrugged. “Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it sagely,” he said, “but more like a push in the right direction.”

“Of course. But I appreciate it, really. Anyway,” she said as she casually opened the mahogany doors before them, “After you.”

Elena ushered Sam inside the house. Walking into the foyer, he found himself taking a sharp inhale and stuttering to a halt: gilt mirrors and chandeliers, potted palms and porcelain vases, plaster-medallioned ceiling and ivory floors polished to saintly perfection. Down to the wide archway to his immediate right was a gallery exquisitely curated with the finest marble sculptures and Impressionist paintings (there were a couple from Monet and Cézanne and Renoir which he recognized almost immediately, like spotting a familiar face in a crowd of strangers, and he hated how he still knew this because this was Darcy’s thing and fuck he did not need to be reminded of her at this time of day), a couple of photographs and portraits lining the walls, and ancient pieces that would probably cost more than his life. Somewhere, the jazz music he had heard earlier from the phone echoed like a sickly sweet invitation. Even the room smelled nice and elegant: of roast beef, of roses, of cigars and big money. Also, it was comfortably warm.

Startled and half-dazed, not quite sure what he was seeing or where he was even, as if he had been suddenly jettisoned to outer space, Sam turned to Elena and said: “This is… are you positively sure this is Victor’s house?”

Elena huffed an amused laugh. “I know it’s a lot to take in but yeah.” She shouldered off her parka and hung it over a coat rack. She helped Sam out of his jacket, too. “Nate and Sully’s in the kitchen—”

“I’ll be goddamned—look who decided to show up.”

A rich and sonorous voice that Sam knew so well rang out and sauntered into the hall.

“Victor.” Sam offered a small nod as the one and only man of the house—nay, mansion—gave him a strong, parental hug which he returned rather sheepishly. Though he found it strange to be shown such an affectionate gesture, it was even stranger for him to see Victor outside his usual colourful Havana shirts; in his gray long-sleeved turtleneck and dark trousers, he almost seemed so foreign. Warm and snug, sure—but still painfully foreign. Despite that, he still carried that same slick and silvery charm as if he never aged a day.

“Well now.” Victor stepped back, clapping both hands on Sam’s broad shoulders. “I honestly thought you wouldn’t show up.”

“What can I say? I live to disappoint.” Sam shrugged. “But anyway,” he said, “be honest with me: who did you murder to afford this place, huh? We had all the time in Lisbon and you didn’t tell me about this!”

“I’m glad to let you know that I didn’t get my hands bloody to get this place. This belonged to my family for generations.” Victor extracted a pack from the back pocket of his jeans and lit a cigar. “This—“ he was gesturing a hand in the air, the curl of smoke rising between his fingers— “had been in tatters a couple of years back. Had to make sure this entire place was in its pristine condition before I had anyone come over and see it.”

“And that’s only half of the story,” Elena added. She crossed her arms and looked at Victor critically. “Wait until you hear about how he acquired a certain Rembrandt piece.”

Sam waved away Elena’s words with an incredulous hand. “Wait a fucking second.” He stared at Victor. “Did I hear that right? You have a goddamn Rembrandt? What the—”

“Elena? Sully? You guys left me in the kitchen and you all know how I’m accident-prone—oh, about time you got here!”

Sam turned and was welcomed by Nathan with a firm slap on his back as soon as he walked in. He was wearing a dark cashmere sweater, ripped jeans, and one of those aprons with an obscenely suggestive text that said May I suggest this sausage written in a terrible font face.

“Why hello there, little brother,” Sam said a shade too mockingly. “Don’t you look dashing.”

Nathan scowled. “Okay, before you even judge me,” he began to tell Sam defensively, “I have to say that this—” he gestured a hand over his apron— “belongs to Sully.”

“Not that I needed clarification, but okay,” Sam said smugly. They all laughed.

“Look, kid,” said Victor, turning to Nathan, “why don’t you take your brother to his room? Elena and I will take care of things down here.”

“Yeah, sure thing.” Nathan peeled off the apron and handed it to Victor. “Can’t bear the thought of being the jackass to accidentally burn your mansion.”

Victor shook his head. “That’s why I’m effectively relieving you of kitchen duty. Now scoot.”

Sam followed Nathan down the hall, up a sweeping staircase, and then another hall with mahogany doors leading to more rooms. More photographs and more gilt-framed portraits hung on the walls. Everywhere smelled sweet and musty and oppressively opulent.

“Here we are,” said Nathan as he opened the last door at the end of the corridor.

Obviously, the room was nothing less lavish than what Sam had seen thus far from the entire house. Stepping inside, it was as if he had slipped into a different time period, some Gothic universe that distinctly reeked of that 19th-century grandeur: fancy carpets on hardwood floors, paneled walls of deep green, gray velvet curtains draped over large windows. A pair of armchairs and a lumpy sofa upholstered in rose-patterned fabric were primly arranged opposite a marble fireplace. Figurines and books occupied any available surface. In the middle of the room, an ornately carved four-poster bed covered in fluffy linens seduced Sam with the lure of much-needed sleep.

“Jesus,” he said, dropping his bag next to a rosewood desk. “This house is fucking nuts.”

Nathan laughed. “I know,” he said. “This is like one of those rooms in Hampton Court Palace. Remember—“

“Yeah, yeah—first heist with Cutter, I know.” And with Darcy, too. Sam winced an empty smile. “Don’t need to remind me,” he muttered almost to himself. “So—“ he paced across the room, looking around earnestly, decidedly eager to change the subject— “how did the talk go with the wife?”

“Oh.” Nathan sat at the edge of the bed. “It was okay. Got to sort things out. And…” He trailed off. “Well, you were right,” he said quietly.

Sam stopped and narrowed his eyes at Nathan, a snarky smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Come again? I didn’t quite catch that.”

Nathan snorted a derisive laugh. “You just want me to say it again, don’t you?”

“I really need you to say it again ‘cause I didn’t hear it the first time.”

“Well, I won’t.”

“Really? So that’s how it is?”

“Fine, fine. I said you were right.”

Sam beamed a triumphant smiled. “Why, thank you.”

“No, thank you.”

They did not say anything for a while. Then, Nathan got up and walked to the door. “Anyway,” he said, awkwardly clearing his throat, “I know you’re tired, so I’ll leave and give you time for a decent shut-eye. Dinner’s at eight, by the way.”

“Yeah, sure. Got it.”

Left to his own devices, Sam began to look around the room with a studied carefulness, examining every trinket and decor he could find like a detective dusting for fingerprints. He soon lost interest. He rarely got bored with things like these, but perhaps it was the exhaustion. Perhaps it was an exhaustion of an alien stranded in a different time, trying to phone home.

But there was no home. He never had one. And somehow, as he laid down on the bed in resignation, staring at the ceiling, he felt like he was not supposed to be here at all.

___

Sam is back in his prison cell in Panama.

He is supposed to be used to this by now—as one does, he guessed, if one had spent more than a decade incarcerated for a crime he did not commit—except the rush of terror that cuts him is a freshly sharpened blade. The trauma resurrects itself anew. It does not settle to be a memory so it replays itself like this:

Two men seize him by the arms, dragging him out and throwing him into the darkness. He is welcomed by a sharp embrace of a metal pipe, of many pairs of fists, and his knees, oh his knees are traitorous allies that buckles and trembles onto the cold, shit-stained floor. His bullet wounds have not fully recovered yet but the guards are his doctors believing that he will find his healing in the violence. This is his medicine. They watch him swallow and gag and retch. Get used to it, they say. This will make a better man out of you, says another. This is what your freedom looks like now, someone else spits out. The men restore his body with bruises. Paints him purple and pink and bloody. Split lip and swollen eyes. What is his body but a dishrag pulp of flesh? Pain is as sweet as morphine, a name that his body has memorized like an old lover’s kiss. So he takes and takes and takes. He does not scream. He does not beg them to stop. But he cries. His sobs echo without a sound. He lets his own voice choke him until they kill him for good.

___

Sam had meant to only sleep for a few hours, but he woke up sweating and with a heaving start to find the room bathed in silvery moonlight that made everything seem so startling and disarmingly unreal. Groggily, he looked around and the first one he saw was a woman sitting by the side of his bed.

And he was gripping her wrist like he was squeezing the life out of her.

It took him seconds to realize that it was Elena.

He let go of her, suddenly aflame with embarrassment.

“Shit, I—“ he stammered, running a hand over his hair, fumbling to turn on the bedside lamp— “I’m so, so sorry, I didn’t—“

“Hey, it’s alright,” Elena said. She was looking at him with a pained and worried expression on her face that made his embarrassment even worse. “Bad dream?” she asked.

“Sort of.”

“For how long have you been going through this?”

Sam did not answer. He did not know what he should tell her. He could only avoid her gaze like a fretful child, and a part of him hated it.

Before the silence could stretch on for more uncomfortable minutes, Elena got up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry,” she said regretfully. “Anyway, Nate was supposed to be the one to wake you up, but Sully sent him for a quick errand but um, I’m here to let you know that dinner’s ready.”

Sam nodded weakly. “Right. Uh, Elena?”

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t tell Nathan about this.”

Elena stared at him with obvious admonishment, as if she was she was holding back the judgment she was trying to pass. “Okay, I won’t,” she said finally. “Because I trust that you’ll be the one to tell him about it.”

Sam said nothing. He watched Elena close the door behind her.

#uncharted #uncharted fanfiction #samuel drake #sam drake #elena fisher #nathan drake #victor sullivan #my writing #if you can't tell already i kind of like to suffer i guess??????????

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