#I like to think the ears on his head have built in recording equipment for spying lol | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aspenmissing · 10 months

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𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚁𝚒𝚜𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚅𝚘𝚕𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚗 (𝙿𝚝 𝟷)

"Roll out, donkeys!" Lance, Hunk, and Pidge exit the simulator and stand before Iverson and their class. A young woman stands beside her team, staring at the three in sorrow. Y/N Gane, top of the class; best pilot "Well let's see if we can't use this failure as a lesson for the rest of you students. Can anyone point out the mistakes these three so-called cadets made in the simulator?" Iverson shouted.

"The engineer puked in the main gearbox," a voice said.

"Correct, as everyone knows, vomit is not an approved lubricant for engine system. What else?" Iverson said while shaking his head.

"The comm spec removed his safety harness," another voice said and Y/N laughs a little.

"Is there something funny Miss Gane?" Iverson asks. Everyone looks to Y/N and she stands up straight and keeps a straight face.

"No sir" She replies.

"Miss Gane, can you tell me something they did wrong?" he asked.

"Erm... The pilot... crashed?" Iverson looked at Y/N before smiling.

"Correct! Miss Gane" he shouted and walked away. Y/N gave lance an apologetic smile, who just shrugs and smiles "And worst of all, the whole jump, they're arguing with each other! Heck, if you're going to be this bad individually, you'd better at least be able to work as a team! exists to turn young cadets like you into the next generation of elite Astro explorers, but these kinds of mental mistakes are exactly what cost the lives of the men on the Mission" Y/N's fists clench.

"That's not true, sir!" Pidge shouts.

"What did you say?!" Lance clasps his hand over Pidge's mouth, but Pidge continues; her voice muffled by the hand.

"Sorry, sir! I-I-I think he may have hit his head when he fell out of his chair. But point taken" Lance says.

"I hope I don't need to remind you that the only reason you're here is that the best pilot in your class had a discipline issue and flunked out, and the second-best refused to be the best" Lance glances at Y/N before back at Inversion "Don't follow in his footsteps" Iverson turns to look at Y/N and her team "Miss Gane, your team is next!" Lance, Hunk and Pidge watch as their classmates board the simulator, Y/N patting Pidge's shoulder, smiling softly.

Later, Lance and Hunk hide in the halls of the Garrison as curfew begins.

"Lights out in five! Everyone back to their dorms, now" Iverson shouts.

"We shouldn't be doing this" Hunk whispers.

"You heard Commander. We need to bond as a team. We're going to grab Pidge, hit the town, loosen up, meet some nice girls, maybe we can bring Y-"

"OK, I'm just- I'm just saying this here, right now, on the record: This is a bad idea" The lights turn off; Lance and Hunk sneak through the hallways.

"You know, for someone in a space exploration program, you don't have much of a sense of adventure"

"All of your little 'adventures' end up with me in the principal's office" Lance sneaks by the instructor's lounge and motions for Hunk to follow, which he reluctantly does "Oh, man..." The two hide in recycling cans as a guard passes by.

"L-5 North all clear," The guard says. Lance jumps out; Hunk tries to follow suit but gets stuck and falls over. Hunk stands.

"I'm fine" They hide as Pidge and Y/N leave Iverson's office. The two watch"

"Where are they going?" Lance asks. Y/N and Pidge were sat on the roof of the Galaxy Garrison. Pidge listens to radio chatter through headphones and special equipment. Y/N is sitting beside her, looking up into the sky, eating a snack bar. Hunk crawls along the roof and Lance carefully removes the headphones to speak close to his ear.

"You two come up here to rock out?" Lance asks. Pidge jump and spin around to face Lance and Hunk. Y/N following, snack bar still in her mouth.

"Agh! - Oh, Lance, Hunk. No, Um... we-"

"We were just looking at the stars," Y/N says, chewing.

"Cool. Where did you get all this stuff? It doesn't look like Garrison tech" Lance wondered.

"He built it," Y/N says, swinging her arm over Pidge's shoulder.

"He built all of this" Hunk said astonished. He tries to touch the equipment; Pidge smacks his hand away.

"Stop it! With this thing, I can scan to the edge of the solar system" Pidge says, gesturing to the tech.

"That right? All the way to Kerberos" Lance smirks. Pidge looks away but does not respond, Y/N's eyes sadden. "You two go Ballistic, every time the commander brings it up, What's with that?" Lance continued. Hank tries to sneakily touch the equipment again.

"Second warning, Hunk!" Y/N says and Hunk stops.

"Aw...."

"Look, Pidge, if we're going to bond as a team, we can't have any secrets. Same for you Y/N" Y/N looks at Lance confused "You may not be a part of the team, but you're our friend. Friends can't keep secrets from each other"

"I mean they can" Y/N mutters.

"Fine. The world as you know it is about to change. The Mission wasn't lost because of some malfunction or crew mistake—" Pidge sees Hunk trying to touch the equipment again "-STOP TOUCHING MY EQUIPMENT!!" Hunk groans but finally desists "..."So, I've been scanning the system and picking up alien radio talking" Pidge pushed up her glasses.

"Whoa, what? Aliens?!" Hunk says.

"Oookay. so your insane, Y/N please tell me you don't believe in him," Lance asked me. Y/N nods"

"He is serious" Y/N holds up a pad with 'Voltron?' on it "They keep repeating the same word over and over again, Voltron. and tonight it has been crazier"

"How crazy" Lance said. The Galaxy Garrison building alarms blare. Iverson speaks over the intercom

"Attention, students. This is not a drill. We are on lockdown!, Repeat: all students are to remain in barracks until further notice" A fiery object appears in the sky.

"What's going on? Is that a meteor?! ... A very, very big... meteor?" Hunk says and Y/N grabs binoculars

"Its. It's a ship" She says. Lance takes the binoculars and looks at the object.

"Holy crow! I can't believe what I'm seeing! That's not one of ours" Lance said with wide eyes.

"No. It' 's one of their" Pidge says.

"So wait, there are aliens out there?!" The three watches as the alien spacecraft crash into the desert. The Garrison sends out land rovers to the crash site.

"We've gotta see that ship!" Pidge says, standing up, pulling Y/N with him.

"Pidge, slow down" She laughs.

"Hunk, Come on" Lance yelled and chases after the two.

"Oh, this is the worst team-building exercise ever"

Lance, Hunk, Pidge and Y/N spy on the quarantines crash site from a nearby cliff. Lance views the alien spacecraft through binoculars.

"Whoa... What the heck is that thing?! ... And who the heck is she?" Lance asks, looking at women through the binoculars.

"Lance!" Y/N smacks his head.

"Ow! Right, Right, alien ship. Man we will never get past those guards to get a look" Pidge continues to type on her computer.

"Aw, man. Yeah, yeah, I guess there's nothing to do but head back to the barracks, right?" Hunk says.

"Wait for Pidge, there is a camera in there, try and hack into it," Y/N said and pointed at the screen. Pidge hacks into it.

"I've grabbed its feed, Look" They all looked at the screen. Inside, a man is strapped to a table as Garrison technicians examine him.

"Hey! What are you doing?"

"Calm down, Shiro. We just need to run some tests" Iverson says, trying to settle Shiro. Y/N chokes on her breath.

"You have to listen to me! They destroyed worlds!" Shiro grunts "Aliens are coming!"

"That's! Shiro The pilot from the Kerberos Mission, That guy's my hero!" Lance shouts with excitement.

"Guess he's not dead in space after all" Hunk says.

"Where's the rest of the crew?" Pidge asks, saddened. Y/N put her hand on her shoulder, smiling softly.

"I'm sure they're fine, I mean if Shiro's still alive, I'm sure the rest are" She reassures.

"Do you know how long you were gone?" Iverson asks, walking over to Shiro?

"I don't know, Months? Years? Look there's no time. Aliens are coming here for a weapon. They're probably on their way right now. We need to get Voltron!" Shiro struggles, trying to get out of the bounds holding him down.

"Voltron!" Pidge and Y/N say in unison.

"Sir, look at this. It appears that his arm has been replaced with a cyborg prosthetic" A technician asks, looking at Shiro's arm.

"Put him under, until we figure out what it can do," Iverson said and a technician came over with a syringe.

"No, no, no don't put me under, There's no time, Let me go!" Shiro is one again trying to get out of the bounds.

"They didn't ask about the other crew members"

"What are they doing? The guy's a legend. They're now even going to listen to him" Lance said.

"We have to get him out," Y/N says.

"Ah, I hate to be the voice of reason here, always, but weren't we watching on TV, because there was no way getting past the guards" Hunk says, standing up.

"That was before we were properly motivated. We have just got to think. Could we tunnel in" Lance says, standing up. Y/N snorts, standing up alongside him.

"What so funny," Lance asked.

"Really? Tunnel in, Tunnel in!!" Y/N laughs

"Well at least I have a plan, where's yours," Lance said with a smirk.

"We find some hazmat suits and sneak in like med techs" Y/N smirks back. Lance thought for a while.

"That's a pretty good idea"

"Or... we could dress up like cooks, sneak into the commissary... little late-night snack" Hunk drools.

"...No. What we need is a distraction" As if on cue, an explosion burst in the distance and the four cadets scream.

"Is that the aliens?! Are—Tha—The—Is that the aliens?! Are they here?! They got here so quick!"

"No. Those explosions were a distraction, for him!" Pidge points to a figure arriving by hovercraft "The Garrison's headed towards the blast, and he's sneaking in from the other side!" Lance views the new arrival through binoculars.

"No way...! Oh, he is not going to beat us in there! That guy is always trying to one-up me!"

"Who is it?" Hunk asks.

"Keith!"

"Come on, Lance. Don't start"

"Who?" Pidge asks.

"Are you sure?" Hunk asks.

"Oh, I'd recognize that mullet anywhere!"

"Lance, come on, man! Keith hasn't done anything"

"Who's Keith?!" Pidge asks. The four-run towards the quarantines crash site. Inside, the technicians examine Shiro, who's been put under.

"These readings are off the chart," The technician says. Keith enters.

"Hey!" Iverson shouts. Keith attacks and knocks out all three technicians, then runs to Shiro, surprised to find him.

"Shiro...?" Keith cuts Shiro free from his bonds and tries to carry him out. Lance, Hunk, Y/N and Pidge arrive.

"Nope. No, you—No, no, no, no, no, no, no you don't. I'm saving Shiro" Lance lifts Shiro over his shoulder.

"Lance, let's just get him out of here" Y/N looks to Keith "Hey Keith"

"Hey Y/N, long time no see" Y/N nods "So, who's this?" Keith asks, looking to Lance.

"Who am I? Uh, the name's Lance" Keith silently looks at Lance without recognition "...We were at the same class at the Garrison?"

"Really? Are you an engineer?"

"No, I'm a pilot. We were, like, rivals. You know, Lance and Keith, neck-and-neck" Y/N snorts.

"Oh wait, I remember you. You're a cargo pilot"

"Well, not anymore. I'm fighter class now thanks to you washing out" Lance says, proud.

"Lance!" Keith looks to Y/N in confusion "I refused to take your place, that was yours. I couldn't take it" Keith nods, before looking to Lance.

"Well, congratulations"

Lance and Keith carry Shiro out together. Keith hops onto his hoverbike, along with Lance and Shiro. Keith holds out his hand for Y/N.

"Hop on," He says. Y/N smirks, reaching for his hand before pulling his close.

"You may be a gentlemen and I may be a girl, but this girl beat your ass in training" She whispers into his ear before jumping onto the bike behind him, Keith staring at his hand stunned - and slightly blushing. Hunk spots the Garrison returning.

"Oh, man, they're coming back and they do not look happy. We gotta go. Uh, do you mind if we catch a ride with you?" Hunk asks. Everyone climbs aboard Keith's hovercraft and it tips over.

"Is this thing going to be big enough for all of us?" Pidge asks.

"No" Keith replies bluntly. Keith has to take off as the Garrison arrives to pursue them. Pidge has to hold on to Shiro.

"Why am I holding this guy?"

"Hey, we did all fit!"

"Can't this thing go any faster?" Lance asks, looking back at the vehicles following.

"We could toss out some non-essential weight" Keith says sarcastically. Y/N shakes her head, nudging Keith's hip with her knee.

"Oh, right!" He glances around, clearly not getting Keith's sarcasm "OK, so that was an insult. I get it"

"Big man, lean left!" Keith shouted. Hunk leaned left.

"Whoa!" They all shouted. Two of the cars smashes into each other.

"Aww, man. Mr Harris just wiped out Professor Montgomery. No, wait he's fine" Hunk sighed in relief. They were on one of the roads and next to us was a big ditch

"Big man, lean Right!" Keith shouted. Hunk leaned right, they managed to get over to the big ditch and land on another road. Two of the cars are still chasing them. They were still all screaming, and they went around a corner. One of the cars crashed, but one is still following.

"Guys? Is the-the-the-the-that—Is that a cliff up ahead?" Hunk stammers.

"Oh, no, no, no" Lance shouted.

"Yup," Keith smirked.

"Just like old times" Y/N smiles, wrapping her arms around Keith. Keith increases speed, everyone was screaming, apart from Y/N, Keith and Shiro. The hovercraft jumps off the cliff.

"What are you doing? You're trying to kill us all!" Lance shouts

"Shut up and trust him" She shouts back. Keith safely avoids crashing and continues flying into the desert, escaping the Garrison.

Shiro and Y/N stand outside a desert shack at sunrise, the two hugging each other.

"It's good to see you again, Shiro," Y/N says, smiling. They pull away as Keith approaches.

"It's good to have you back," Keith says, placing his hand on Shiro's shoulder.

"It's good to be back" Shiro replies.

"So what happened out there? Where...were you?" Y/N ask.

"I wish I could tell you. My head's still pretty scrambled. I was on an... alien ship but... somehow I escaped. It's all a blur. How did you know to come to save me when I crashed?"

"You should come to see this" Shiro and Y/N follow Keith into the shack. Inside, Keith shows Shiro, Y/N, Lance, Hunk and Pidge his board of maps, diagrams and notes.

"What have you been working on?" Shiro muttered.

"I can't explain it. After getting booted from the Garrison, I was kinda... lost and... felt drawn out to this place. It's like something... some energy was telling me to search." Keith explains.

"For what," Shiro asks. Y/N stands close to Shiro, his arm around her shoulders, her own crossed in front of her.

"Well, I didn't know at the time... until I stumbled across this area." Keith pointed at a map "It's an outcropping of giant caves covered in these ancient markings" We looked at the pictures of the markings "Each tells a slightly different story about a blue lion, but they all share clues leading to some event, some arrival happened last night. Then you showed up" Keith explained more. Shiro took his arm from around Y/N's shoulders and walked over to the others.

"I should thank you for getting me out. Lance, Right?" Shiro says. He offers Lance his prosthetic hand. Lance hesitates but shakes it. Shiro offers to shake Pidge and Hunk's hand, Pidge being the only one who does.

"This nervous guy's Hunk. I'm Pidge. so, did anyone else from your crew make it out?" Pidge asks, which makes Shiro's face saddens

"I'm not sure. I remember the mission and being captured. After that, it's just bits and pieces" Shiro goes back over to Y/N, placing his arm back over her shoulders as she leans into his side. Lance zones out from the conversation, looking at the two confused.

"Are they TOGETHER! No, Lance, No! Shut up! He's way, way older than her. They're probably just really, really close" Lance thinks "I'll ask Y/N later"

"You'll ask me what late?" Y/N asks, Lance looks to see Y/N standing in front of him.

"Uhm, I- I was just wondering if- Uh"

"Come on Lance, spit it out" Lance sighs.

"Uhm.. a-are you and Shiro... Uh... together?" Y/N eyes widen before bursting out in laughter "What's so funny?"

"You thought me and Shiro were dating?" Y/N says, whole trying to catch her breath.

"It was just a question" Y/N continues to laugh, gaining everyone's attention.

"What happened?" Hunk asks.

"I just asked her if she and Shiro are dating" Pidge starts to laugh a bit. Shiro and Keith chuckle.

"What!? Why's that so funny" Lance asks, getting slightly annoyed.

"Okay, okay," Y/N says, trying to catch her breath "I'll tell you" She clears her throat "Shiro, is my brother" There was a long, awkward silence.

"WHAAAATTT!!!!????" Hunk and Lance asks in unison

#Voltron #Reader Insert #Voltron Fandom #Voltron Fanfiction #Fanfiction #keith x reader #Voltron Legendary Defender #Keith Kogane x Reader

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audio-luddite · 7 months

Text

Nothing is real or correct.

I am making headway on the ARC amp, but it made me think.

Decades ago a rather pompous man created an audio magazine because only he knew best. Actually come to think of it that has happened several times. I am currently talking about "The Absolute Sound" from just outside of New York City in the 70s.

His concept was two fold. The sound of any component should be judged only in comparison to live performances in Jazz clubs and concert halls or some similar site. It sounds like a good idea but is it even a little realistic? The second fold was to not take advertising from manufacturers as that is a conflict of interest. That fell away after a few years as it takes money to produce a real printed magazine. A friend and I were early subscribers and devoured each new issue. I know better now.

In a symphony concert every seat in the place is slightly different. I have sat in several concert halls and listened to lots of music from different seats. It is not the same at home on the system. I find my home system sounds better than live performance in general. I guess I cannot afford the best seats, but recording engineers tend to place mikes in the best places. Yes that big drum in the back is impressive live, but the rest....

In a Jazz club all the sound you get comes through a PA system of not necessarily high end quality. And be real, you are there for the performance not the audio or should be.

In a Stadium Rock event I need ear plugs as it is always so FN loud.

So comparing a system to live is not truly valid. Whatever you get is a matter of taste and luck

Consider the rather long chain of custody the sound endures from musician to your ears.

Start with the venue. Most recordings are done in purpose built studios with usually extensive sound treatments. Likely totally unlike your listening cave. How the musicians are set up and what equipment they use is very dependent too. How many times have you seen singers and instrumentalists in isolated boxes or behind barriers in a studio so the mike they use does not conflict with the ones around them. How natural is that?

Or how about recording a Piano. You always see several mikes around pianos for Jazz or solo or small group performances. I only have two ears solidly fixed to either side of my head.

Next microphones and mixing consoles all have characteristics and a voice. The type and brand and technology of the microphone all are adjusted and tuned. The sound in the mix is adjusted to get just the right effect. Accuracy, what's that?

One of my favorite audiophile albums is Cowboy Junkies "Trinity Sessions" Nice big room with natural sound, the band set up around a single 3D microphone using the gear they use on tour and basically no mix. WYSIWYG. But if you were there it would have sounded different than the recording as you would not be where the mike was. Still likely as accurate a recording as you can get.

Another is Steely Dan's Aja. Every track is fiddled and massaged and made to sound just so coming out of the studio speaker. Very clean and totally unreal.

A very good album is Diana Krall live from Paris. Listen to the group and "see" where the mix has placed each musician. Then look at the photo of the group on stage. Not the same is it?

Then the fun really starts. Is it analogue tape and which brand of machine Ampex or Studer and which vintage? Is it DSD digital or lowly PCM? Which processor! All those have a voice.

And now jump into your media. How is the product distributed? Vinyl rules! Well that's my thing. Which master remixed the master, what plant pressed it?

Both streaming and hard copy digital are valid and can claim lower noise and distortion usually. But those are just numbers.

Each electronic device has a voice some more subtle than others. The higher you go the clearer and cleaner it gets or should at least.

Thinking of phono pickups there are so many methods and products. It is really impressive how linear and consistent those things are in spite of all that. Many writers go on and on about velocity versus displacement and when that happens I know they are full of it. It turns out that blind tests show that what some call clarity and detail is just a slightly different frequency response. Or even a resonance in a convenient place. A few db here a few db there makes all the difference.

Still I find it remarkable that I can extract as much information off of a flat disk as I do with my modest three figure phono pickup. At the very base of the issue is like choosing a microphone. People have favorites.

In the digital domain you are depending on microchips. A DAC may have exotic this or that attached to them, but all the chips come from one factory or another made by people in bunny suits. Discrete components cannot keep up to digital speeds so the chips rule.

And we have not even got to preamplifiers and amplifiers. Tube verus solid state you have to choose a tribe. Both are best and neither is. Frankly it is the place you choose the type of distortion you like. The flaw with every tube amplifier is the output transformer. They all need them and they have a major hit on the sound. The flaw with every solid state amplifier are the gain devices and the feedback used to tame them. Tubes use feedback too!

Designs that avoid or just minimize feedback just force you to accept an acceptable distortion.

As I am bouncing between the tribes now recall that tube amplifiers are rated at 1% distortion. Transistor amplifiers at about ten times less. (Sometimes tens times ten times ten less.) Much better, but not better. It is the sound of the distortion that makes the difference and the preference. Some people like different stuff.

Oh time for the worst offender, the speakers. The frequency response is pathetic compared the quality of the signal going in. Why fret about an amplifier being plus or minus 0.2 db when the speaker is plus or minus 6 db. And the room has modes and reflections and well unless you are rich enough to build very special room you just have to hope your brain gets fooled.

And that is it really. Your brain wants to be fooled. If you listen to any system long enough you get used to it and adapt. If you only listen to single ended triodes into horn speaker you come to think that is the way things should sound. And you will find a tribe to support you like a cult.

It is a flawed process from beginning to end. But it lets you experience brilliant music and performances when you want to. With care and attention to detail you can solve the puzzle in many different ways.

And no it is never like a live performance, its maybe better.

There is no best.

#audiophile #cheap audiophile #high end audio #vinyl #tubes vs transistors #audio research preamp #turntables #audio research amplifier

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

Note

📋 Hello I am putting a formal request in for more Chris Saves Himself AU ft Mama Nakamura taking him I’m home only to realize the full situation

Continuing the Chris Saves Himself AU: One | Two |

CW: Grief, memory loss, recovering whumpee, some very brief and very vague references to noncon, minor whumpee (OC is 17), angsty fluff, reunion

It takes six days for the cops to let Akio's mom bring Tristan back to their house.

He's ready to be discharged from the hospital by day two, but there's nowhere for him to go. WRU is still saying there's no record of his existence, even with the barcode on his wrist. Tristan's only known living relative, Joanne Botham, is claiming he ran away from home and she had no idea what happened to him, that what she had told the Nakamura family was out of frustration and anger at Tristan for disappearing. The governor is out on bail facing charges for keeping Tristan in the mansion in the first place.

There are a lot of charges.

Akio feels by turns numb and enraged when he hears a news anchor read them out loud, bloodless words that don't seem to reflect at all how serious their meanings are.

The first few, he can process - false imprisonment, bodily assault - but then they keep going, and they get worse in ways Akio can barely even begin to imagine.

What Tristan has lived through... Akio's brain refuses to let it coalesce fully, but he has nightmares, dreams about Tristan screaming for him and being on the other side of a door Aki can't open.

He dreams about hands on Tristan's body and the way he might have screamed for help. Akio wakes up crying, retching, running to the bathroom to throw up whatever he's eaten that day as if he can rid himself of the poison of knowing.

His mom calls a therapist.

His father tells him to stop watching the news.

Akio just waits until they're in bed and searches for everything he can find on twitter, on reddit, on every-fucking-place anyone is talking about this. And it's everywhere.

He stops telling his parents about his nightmares after the second night.

Oliver Branch says WRU sold him a product they knew was outside the bounds of the law and lied to him about it. WRU says they don't know what he could possibly mean by that and they have no paperwork or documentation that Tris was ever in the system at all, and if he was, then there must have been a mistake about his age. They swear they'll do a total review of every single Box Boy, Babe, or Buddy to ensure absolute compliance.

The soundbites make Akio's mouth dry.

How many are there, then? If they have to keep looking to find more? How many like Tristan?

How many?

Joanne Botham, who never answers Aimi's furious calls and then changes her number after the second day, goes on TV and says she did nothing wrong and there's no proof that anything happened except maybe Tristan lying about his name and age to make WRU agree to take him in. Oliver Branch says he has the proof WRU knew, and he'll provide it in exchange for immunity.

They all point fingers at each other on national television, in press conferences and through their attorneys.

Through it all, Tristan sits in a hospital bed staring out the window at the blue sky as though it will be stolen from him all over again, waiting to be told where to go, what to do.

And it takes Aimi nearly a week to get the police to agree to allow her to take him home. She brings everything she can think of to meetings with the detectives heading up the case, shows them reams of team photos and home movies, folders and folders of everything Aimi and Mrs. Higgs had ever talked about or done together with the boys.

The hospital needs the room, needs the bed. The detectives don't want to put him into foster care when he barely seems to understand he's a person. The social services people won't take him because they're not equipped to handle a situation like this one. The adjustment houses don't want him because of something to do with what kind of Boxie he was, and Aimi doesn't elaborate and something in the set of her expression makes it clear Akio shouldn't ask.

After a week of mostly just being able to look at him through the small little square window in the hospital room's door, Aimi finally gets legal permission to take him out of there.

Akio isn't prepared for the slew of news vans that are there when he and Aimi arrive, someone having tipped off reporters that they might get a glance of the governor's secret Box Boy today. Aimi, though, simply sets her shoulders, slides a pair of dark sunglasses on, and walks through the crowd like a queen with her head held high, a small duffel bag handle in hand.

Akio hurries behind her, hands in his pockets and shoulders hunched, hood pulled over his head, trying to ignore ten thousand camera flashes. It's so much worse than the leadup to the Olympics would have been, if he were still performing at elite.

Or at all.

He has a strange, surreal hope that Tris won't be disappointed in him for quitting after Tris died.

Even though he's not dead.

They step into the hospital room around 10 in the morning to find Tristan not in the bed, but sitting on the couch built into the wall under the window, curled up on the crinkly plastic cushions to look out the window, humming low, soft and tuneless.

The hum makes Akio's heart ache with a sudden realization that this odd waking dream he's been living for a week isn't a dream at all. Tears flood his eyes and he has to blink them away as fast as he can. He's heard that hum in his ear as kids during sleepovers, he's heard it when Tris was nervous before performing a new routine, he's heard it while they waited anxiously for scores or studied for school.

"Hey, sweetheart," Aimi says, her voice low and soft, but even so Tris jumps and turns to look at them with wide, startled eyes. One hand goes up to his neck, and Akio swallows when he sees Tris has wrapped gauze around his neck to sit like the collar he was wearing when he fell from the governor's bedroom balcony.

Akio watched the cell phone video that made the rounds over and over and over again. The flash of red hair, shirtless, the bruises he was covered with, his hazy drugged eyes. Over and over and over again.

Watch him fall, watch him land, watch the people run to him and get him out of there when Akio has been sitting here crying his eyes to red half the time for a dead best friend who wasn't dead at all.

"H, Hello," Tristan says, but he doesn't know them. Akio can tell, the way his eyes move between them is uncertain, unsure. "Hello, ma'am. Can, can, can I, what..." He swallows, shivering, and Akio watches the fear move across his face. "What... what can I... do for you?"

His slowed-down voice makes Akio feel sick. He's only ever seen Tristan do that when he's with people who don't understand him or love him for who he is. Now it seems like it's the only way he remembers how to talk.

All Tristan's muscles from gymnastics are gone, leaving only faded shadows of his strength behind. He's skinny, so pale he nearly reflects the light from the ceiling. His freckles are faded, and his hair is shorter than Tris ever liked it.

Being so thin makes his eyes even bigger, they seem to overwhelm the rest of his face.

"Honey, we're going to take you to our house," Aimi says, keeping her voice the same low gentle cadence. "While we figure out what happens next. Aki and I will be taking care of you for a while. How's that sound? Would that be okay?"

Tristan looks between them again, and something shifts in his face. A kind of desperation moves there, and he turns more fully to face them, leaning over a little to look up at them. Hair falls over his forehead, and his hands move to rub over the texture of a loose pair of sweatpants someone gave him to wear under his hospital gown. "To... your house? Would I be... yours?"

He looks at Akio again, and there's something in his face that says he sees that as the best case scenario, that he was ready for far, far worse than simply changing owners. That he's... hoping he'll be Akio's property now.

Akio's stomach flips at the thought and he has to put a hand over his mouth and turn away, catching the sob before it can make its way up out of his throat.

Aimi's arm moves around his shoulders instinctively, and she leans over, pressing a kiss to her son's short black hair. "It's okay," Aimi whispers. "It'll be hard at first. But it's going to be okay, Aki. Saishūtekini wa daijōbudesu. Tristan wa mada anata no shin'yūdesu."

Tristan, sitting on the little couch, blinks a few times. "Friend," he says in English, a little haltingly. "Shin' yu. Means... best friend." He scoots closer to them along the couch, and his eyes are so big and so very, very green. Just how Akio always remembered them.

Aimi's head raises and turns to look at him, her arm tightening around Aki, breath catching in her throat. "You remember that?"

"No." Tristan shakes his head. Scoots a little closer, even. "Yes. I don't know why. Are you..." He looks at Akio. "Wa-... watashitachiha... sh-shin, um, shin-shin'yūdeshita. Yes? Did I-... did I say it right?"

Tristan's Japanese was never great, he'd just picked up some here and there from all the time he spent around the Nakamuras at home and in their car. They used to lay awake at night during sleepovers practicing over and over until Tristan had a new phrase to impress Aimi with.

But hearing his voice, his living breathing real live voice, sounding out the words...

It's too much.

It's too fucking much.

"Yeah, um, y-yeah, you-..." Akio's words are suddenly gone. He chokes on his fear that this somehow is a dream he will wake up from to find Tris still cold in some unknown open grave, and he can't keep the tears back any longer.

His knees buckle under the onslaught of grief and hope and fear and love, and he drops to the cold tile hospital floor, hands pressed over his mouth until his lips are pushed painfully into his teeth, and he wails, muffled but loud enough that there's rustling as the cops guarding the door turn to look inside through the viewing window.

Aimi drops into a crouch behind him, rubbing at his back as he curls over himself. Her voice trembles with tears she doesn't shed. Akio remembers the days after they were told Tristan was dead, how she would cry in her room at night with Aki's dad when he was home from work, but somehow when he and Emi were bawling their heads off, her voice stayed calm, she kept her composure.

Right up until she was alone.

Now, though, she's barely hanging on as her son sobs on a hospital room floor before the emptied-out shell of his best friend.

Bare feet pad along the floor until Tristan drops down in front of him, reaching slowly out. Cool fingertips touch the back of Akio's hand, and he pulls them slowly down to look and see Tristan only a foot or so away from him, kneeling, watching him.

"I know you," Tristan whispers. "It hurts, but... I know... you. Don't, um, don't I?"

Akio can barely see him through the tears that have turned the world to watercolor suggestions. Nothing's in focus. But he grabs onto Tristan's hand, those familiar always-cold fingers, and holds tight.

"You know m-me," He manages. "You do, Tris. You know me. We-... we know you. We want to t-t-take you h-home."

Tristan tilts his head to the side, and it's such a familiar gesture, one he was so sure he'd never get to see again. "My... name is Baldur," He says, softly. "My Sir named me-"

"Please don't call him that. Can you... can you answer to Tristan? Please?" Akio is the one to reach out this time, touching Tristan's shoulder, hesitant. Waiting for him to pull back and away, to flinch like he's been doing when they watch him with the nurses.

Instead, Tris takes a breath and leans into the touch.

"It hurts," He says. "But, but, but, but-... but I can try."

Akio nods, and then Tristan is moving forward, and their arms are around each other and Akio is scared of himself for a second, scared of the welling of feelings he can't control. He's afraid he'll crack Tristan's ribs with how tightly he holds on.

Tristan's face buries itself against his neck, into the crook of his shoulder.

"I missed you so much," Akio whispers against the coppery hair. He's going to start crying again. He can hear his mom sniffing behind him, digging into her purse to pull out the little pack of tissues she always has in there. "I missed you so, so much, Tris."

"I think... I think I, I, I missed you, too," Tristan whispers back, and Akio isn't sure if he can even know if he means it, but he also knows that it's so good to hear the words that he doesn't even care.

@burtlederp @finder-of-rings @endless-whump @astrobly @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @what-a-whump @whumptywhumpdump @downriver914 @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @eatyourdamnpears

#whump #chris saves himself AU #chris the strawberry blond romantic #akio nakamura #rescued whumpee #escaped whumpee #recovering whumpee #memory loss #dehumanized whumpee #reference to collars #grief tw #referenced death #caretaker and whumpee #memory recovery #bbu #box boy universe #box boy #box boy whump #minor whumpee

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yelena-bellova · 3 years

Text

Safe Haven: tfatws!Bucky Barnes x fem!reader - Chapter Eight

chapter seven - Chapter Eight: Bloodshed - chapter nine

Series Masterlist

Plot: After murdering one of the Flag Smashers in broad daylight, Sam, Bucky and Y/n confront John Walker.

Warnings: violence, blood, talk of death, injuries, hospitals, minor panic attack, ANGST GALORE, one teeny tiny little bit of fluff so ya’ll don’t completely hate me, Bucky’s a flirt and a concerned (almost) boyfriend, Y/n is still a badass, heartbreak, did I mention angst, more angst, and some more angst, k bye...

Word Count: 8k

A/N: THIS CHAPTER was the hardest one to write, I seriously struggled with this and drafted it so many times. I love writing angst but this shit actually hurt to write. I read up on blunt trauma injuries but I’m not a doctor so this definitely isn’t 100% accurate. I’m also super unoriginal with my titles but this one holds two meanings. Hope you enjoy it!!

----

Anger. Disgust. Horror. Fear.

All emotions that were coursing through me as Bucky, Sam and followed Walker’s signal via Sharon’s satellite. One thing I noticed about the dynamic between the three of us was that we didn’t always need to communicate verbally. With a single shared look, we had made the unanimous decision that we needed to do what had crossed all our minds at some point.

Sharon’s satellite had led us to a warehouse on the outskirts of the city that we approached with caution. Once we were outside the door, Sam turned and held up a hand to me. “You’re staying out here,” he said.

“That’s not happening,” I replied firmly. “No, he’s right,” Bucky nodded, “We don’t know what Walker’s capable of right now-“ “We know exactly what he’s capable of right now,” I interrupted, shoving Sam’s hand down to his side, “And I’m not about to watch you two walk in there and sit out here wondering if the same thing’s going to happen, because you wouldn’t if it were me.” I had successfully tied their hands, both flesh and metal, behind their backs. They both turned back around, sandwiching me between them as we took the first step through the door and into a very uncertain situation.

We entered to see Walker, kneeled on the ground and bracing his head against the bloodied shield. He stood up, slipping the now deadly weapon onto his wrist and began walking towards us. “Walker…” Sam started. “You guys should see a medic, you don’t look so good,” he said as he passed us by, heading for the exit. “Stop, Walker,” Sam stepped forward, Bucky and I following.

Walker turned around, breathless in his anger. “What? You saw what happened, you know what I had to do. I killed him because I had to!” his voice rose with each word, his face turning more and more with rage, “He killed Lemar!” “He didn’t kill Lemar, John,” Bucky stated, “Don’t go down that road. Believe me, it doesn’t end well.” “I’m not like you,” John said lowly.

“Listen, it was the heat of the battle. Okay?” Sam’s voice was calm, contrasting Walker’s energy, “If you explain what happened, they may consider your record.” “Nobody else needs to get hurt in this, Walker,” I spoke up, the first non-sarcastic and non-confrontational thing I had said to the man.

“John…” Sam paused, gauging what the reaction to what he was about to say may be, “You gotta give me the shield, man.” Walker’s head raised up slowly, the look in his eyes was unsettling as they danced between Sam, Bucky and I. “Oh, so that’s what this is. You almost got me.” “You made a mistake,” Sam shrugged.

He gave us a small sneer, “You don’t wanna do this.” A tense silence fell upon us, a preface to the inevitable moment about to take place. Sharon’s voice rang in my ear, how far was I willing to go? Would it be worth it if I lost my life or worse, lost Sam or Bucky? Without needing to think about my answer, I was resolved in my decision that this fight was too important to all three of us not to push forward. “Yeah, we do,” Bucky replied, speaking for us.

And thus, it began.

We shot forward towards Walker at the same time, Bucky landing a couple punches on him while Walker kicked Sam backwards. I focused on sending energy blasts that he easily dodged with the shield, even with Bucky’s attacks coinciding. Bucky got a hand on the shield finally and tried to wrench it from Walker, who elbowed him causing him to wobble a little. Walker swung his arm and landed a perfect punch against Bucky’s cheek, sending Bucky to the ground and giving Walker the opportunity to stand above him and raise the shield threateningly. I quickly built a force field around Bucky as Sam came forward and kicked Walker, turning his attention away from Bucky and I. Sam released his wings to hit the shield, Walker’s arm flying back before coming back forward to try and hit Sam. Bucky leapt forward and banged his metal fist against the shield to no avail. I let the blue energy flow from my fingertips and towards to shield, trying to pull it from his grasp. Walker spun the shield around trying to hit all three of us, Sam and I dodging it while Bucky wasn’t as fortunate. Once he knocked Sam over, it was just him and I. He lunged at me with the shield and I quickly formed an idea, I didn’t need Vibranium to have an equal shield.

I created a force field with my hands about the size of Walker’s weapon, charged forward to meet him and my energy based shield made contact with his metal one. I shoved and threw him off balance, he quickly caught his footing and looked up at me in shock. Once he had gotten over his initial surprise, what followed was pure rage. In my efforts to take the shield from him, I’d taken the power it brought without actually confiscating the weapon. He growled and lunged at me again, meeting the same end result except he bounced back faster and continued his rapid attack. After a dozen unsuccessful hits, he kicked my leg out from under me and I landed on my back against the concrete. He stood over me and raised his shield, but was tackled to the side by Bucky before he could bring it down on me. Bucky landed punch after punch against the shield, Walker got in a few hits as well until they were pushing on either side of the shield towards one another, glowering. Walker ducked as Bucky was about to hit him, his metal fist instead hitting and taking out a beam. Sam was behind me on his feet only to have Walker kick him in the face, I threw my hands out and paused his fall, returning him to a standing position. I turned at just the right moment to see Walker fling the shield at Bucky with a yell, sending Bucky clutching the metal and slamming into a piece of machinery. Angrily, my eyes located a smaller piece of equipment and telepathically lifted it into the air, flicking my fingertips towards Walker and making it hit him in the head. He groaned as it made contact before doing the same as Bucky charged at him and hit him in the back with the shield. With his focus back on Bucky, Walker stalked towards him and gripped the shield, shoving him back against the same piece of machinery. “Why are you making me do this?” Walker growled in Bucky’s face before raising to a complete yell, “Why are you making me do this?” To accent his words, he swung the shield around as Bucky was still attached and sent him flying across the room, landing against a piece of electrical equipment. He fell to the ground with a pained grunt, his eyes shut and electricity causing his Vibranium arm to cease up.

“Bucky!” I cried before taking off across the room to him, fearing the worst. I dropped to my knees and attempted to roll him onto his back, my hands cradling both his cheeks. “Bucky, Bucky, I need you to wake up. C’mon, wake up,” I said, leaning closer to his face in hopes that he’d hear me better. I could see his stomach rising up and falling down rapidly, but he showed no signs of waking. “Bucky, we need you. Please don’t do this to me, wake up,” my voice quivered, tears starting to water my eyes as he stayed unresponsive. The grunts and groans echoing through the room finally registered with me, I looked over my shoulder to see Sam and Walker engaged in heavy combat. I quickly looked back to Bucky in hopes he would awaken on the spot, when that didn’t happen I brushed my thumbs across his cheekbones, touched my forehead to his and prayed for the best.

I rose to see Sam flying around the room with his grappling hook attached to the shield and dragging Walker across the floor. He caught his footing and stood horizontally against a machine. I raised my hands to aid Sam and energetically pulled him in his direction. It wasn’t enough as both Sam and Walker lost their grip, both face planting on the cold ground. The shield rattled as it hit the floor, the three of us watching from where we stood before bolting towards it. Just as Sam was closing in on it, Walker tackled him to the floor. Sam extended his wings and did a loop in the air, trying to shake the iron-like grip Walker had on him to no avail. I took the chance to grab to shield, groaning at the weight of it as I picked it up. Walker had mounted Sam by now and without knowing what I was doing, I clumsily flung the shield at Walker but didn’t actually injure him. What I did succeed at doing was making him even madder than he already was. Still atop Sam, he twisted to land a punch to my gut that left me clutching the area. He didn’t stop in his attack and pulled me down by my throat, squeezing tight while still keeping a hand on Sam to prevent him from interfering. I gasped and gagged, trying to find any shred of air to take in just before Walker threw me away from them, my body sliding across the ground. I wheezed as I sucked in a breath and cradled my stomach, the pain in both my throat and abdomen screaming for relief. From my spot, I couldn’t hear what Walker was snarling to Sam but I could see what he was trying to do. His hands had a vice like grip on each of Sam’s wings, it didn’t take more than a loud cry and a good pull for the two pieces of Stark tech to be ripped from the EXO-7 pack. Sam writhed beneath him, desperately trying to free himself as Walker raised his shield in the air.

It was then, at the sight of my brother about to be murdered in cold blood, not at the hands of a police officer or a Madripoorian bounty hunter, but a deranged Super Soldier that something inside me snapped.

I found the strength the rise to my knees, I could feel the energy that surged through my body rise to a level I’d never felt before. I stuck out my hands and with a yell, I fired two steady streams of blue energy straight at the shield to keep it from coming down on Sam’s throat. Walker was thrown off, his position on top of Sam losing stability as he tried to deflect my attack. I screamed as I rose to my feet, the rage I felt with Walker coming to its crescendo. He could take the shield, the mantle of Captain America, but he wasn’t going to take my brother from me.

I adjusted my stance as it was taking everything I had in me not to fall over, I was trying to keep my balance and ignore the pain that was demanding my attention. Just as I started to question if I had enough strength the keep this newfound power going, a now conscious Bucky jumped in from the side and tackled Walker. I let the energy die in my hands as I stumbled towards Sam, making sure he was alright.

“Get to Bucky,” he gritted out.

Wasting no time, I turned around and made a beeline for Bucky, who was getting pummeled by Walker. He rammed Bucky’s head into the shield before sitting atop him, crazed and ready to drive the shield into his neck. “No!” I screamed, coming behind Bucky’s head and expelling streams of energy from my palms that hit the shield and once again prevented Walker from going any further. I was losing strength fast, unlike them I wasn’t a super soldier and Walker’s blows had left me in some of the worst pain I’d ever known. Sam sprung into action beside me and punched Walker in the side of his head before twisting his arm and pulling it back. He turned on his thrustesr and pushed, Bucky was freed from Walker’s grip and kneeled in front of him, their faces inches apart. I came to stand on the other side of Sam and used my energy to pull, aiding us in our efforts to rid the man of the power he was so determined not to lose. The four of us were piled together, each crying out of pain or yelling out of anger, fighting for a symbol that was supposed to bring us together.

A sickening crack sounded off as Walker’s arm snapped, sending Sam tumbling with the shield in his hands and me landing on my back. I cried as my head smacked against the concrete and found myself unable to rise, my ears ringing and my mind spinning. I felt two arms wrap around my torso and raise me up, refusing to let go even when I was steady on my feet. I didn’t need to open my eyes to knock that it was Bucky, his hot and heavy breaths against my ear and his scent invading my nose. My eyes fluttered open and though I wanted nothing more than to let sleep take me over in his arms, I pulled out of them as Walker stood to his feet again. “It’s mine,” he said. From behind me, I could hear Sam panting. “It’s over, John.” “It’s mine,” Walker growled as he stepped forward with his fist raised to Bucky. Exhaustedly, I shot a large blast at him that left him stumbling to catch his footing. His unhinged eyes sought me out and came charging towards me, I sent another blast but my weariness was beginning to sink its teeth into me and the blast wasn’t as strong as it should have been. He caught himself much quicker and swung again only this time, I wasn’t fast enough in my attack and he successfully grabbed me by the throat and raised me in the air. I kicked and clawed at his hand, desperately trying to free myself from the grip that was slowly tightening and causing my throat to constrict further. I couldn’t find any hole that would allow any air to fill my lungs, all I could do was continue pathetically trying to pull his fingers off me as I looked at his manic expression.

“You’ll never be a hero,” he snarled at me.

My eyes blurred with tears, not from his insult, but from the fact that I knew I was inching closer towards death. It was then that I made out Bucky’s body hurling itself towards Walker, tackling both of us to the ground. I felt Walker’s grip loosen ever so slightly just when Sam’s arms wrapped around me and pulled me backwards, freeing me. I wheezed and took a strained breath in, the cool air flooding my lungs blissfully. Sam laid me down carefully on the ground, a safe distance away from them as Bucky began using Walker as a punching bag. The wannabe Captain America may have been unhinged, but Bucky wasn’t far behind him as he kept up his unrelenting attack. With my ability to breathe returned to me, a fraction of my strength returned but not enough to rise and join the fight. As Bucky hoisted Walker into the air and Sam charged towards them with the shield, I raised a shaky hand and sent a blast of energy at Walker that hit just as his body made contact with the shield. The three of them fell to the ground with a collective groan, once I saw through my half shut eyes that both Bucky and Sam were still breathing, I allowed my head to loll to the side and closed my lids. I felt the warm blood on the back of my head, the drying drops on each of my cheeks, and the ghost of Walker’s handprint around my throat. The pain was starting to overtake me, whether leading me to death or unconsciousness, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was Sam and Bucky were safe and if that was true, then I could slip into whatever state was coming for me at ease.

Just on the outskirts of falling asleep, I heard a heavy set of footsteps coming towards me. “Y/n, Y/n, c’mon, stay with me. Stay with me, honey, come on,” Bucky’s voice flooded my ringing ears, his fingertips gently cradling my bruising neck. “Get her to the hospital,” Sam strained from nearby.

The last thing I remember was being lifted into Bucky’s arms, the cool Latvian air hitting my skin as we made it out of the warehouse and his warm lips pressing themselves against my forehead.

——

Beep. Beep. Beep.

My eyes drowsily opened, the lids feeling as heavy as lead. I had to blink several times just to make sense of the blur of white surrounding me. Eventually I gained enough clarity to see it was a hospital room and I was laying in a bed, a cannula looped over my ears and drying my nose up with ice cold oxygen. I had stickers on my chest with wires coming off them and snaking into the beeping machine, monitoring my steady heartbeat.

“You got,” a voice to the side of me said quietly, “So lucky.” I tilted my head carefully against the pillow to see Sam, still in his suit, seated at my bedside looking more relieved than I’d ever seen him. I laid my palm out for him to grasp, squeezing with what little strength I had left.

“Are you alright?” I asked, not recognizing my own voice with how hoarse it was.

Sam scoffed, I could see he had a few stitches on his face accompanying a couple bruises. “I’m fine. You however’ve got three bruised ribs, a bruised stomach, a concussion and your face is all stitched up.” I made a noise of acknowledgement before looking on the other side of the room, someone was missing. “Where’s Bucky?” “Getting stitched up, we’ve been here about two hours but he wasn’t leaving until the doctor assured us you were gonna be fine,” Sam answered, rubbing my frigid hand between his warm ones.

I cleared my throat, trying to regain my voice. “What about Walker?” “Don’t know,” he replied, “My priority was making sure you were alive.”

My head was spinning, both literally and metaphorically as I thought back to the last sight I’d caught of Walker, laid out on the ground after being used as a human hammer. Walker and I were never going to be friends, he’d even tried to kill me, but I hoped that we hadn’t left him for dead in that warehouse.

“Doc says they’re gonna keep you here tonight for observation but if you do alright,” Sam explained, “They can release you tomorrow.” I gave a small nod, my head pounding with the movement causing me to shut my eyes again. “Get some sleep, you’re not missin’ anything. I’ll be here when you-“ I was already gone.

——

The next day, I woke up feeling as well as one could for someone who had gotten their ass kicked by a Super Soldier. The hospital agreed to release me with the instructions that I rest and took my painkillers. Both Sam and Bucky spent the night in chairs, I learned, the two men refusing to leave my side and clinging to the doctor’s every word when they discharged me.

If Bucky and I hadn’t been skirting a line before, we definitely were now. His eyes were trained solely on me at all times, he guided me out of the hospital with a protective hand on my back. As I’d been cleaning myself up before discharge, changing into the clothes that Sam had brought me that morning once he knew I was alright to be left alone, I thought back to the last thing I remembered before passing out. Bucky’s gentle kiss was imprinted on my forehead, he was the only clear thing in the chaos of that moment where I didn’t know if I’d live or die. What wasn’t clear was whether or not we would ever speak about these stolen moments we were sharing and the intimacy that had come so naturally to us. Maybe after this was all over, before Sam and I returned to Louisiana and Bucky to Brooklyn, we could talk. But until then, we had bigger fish to fry…

The three of us stood in our respective corners of one of the resettlement camps which the police had come and swept clean of all life, trying to determine our next move. Bucky and Sam seemingly weren’t speaking unless absolutely necessary, I knew that Bucky still held it against Sam that he’d given up the shield. The fight with Walker would have only amplified those feelings, we’d had to go to such great lengths to correct Sam’s “mistake” and Bucky’s cold stare reflected that. I sat to the side trying to ignore the pain that radiated in my chest each time I inhaled, my bruised ribs forcing me to take shallower breaths.

“The GRC is conducting raids to try and find Karli,” Sam stated to the room, “But so far they’ve only found her followers. They’ve searched this camp and just like the last camp, nothing. She’s gone, we’ll never find her.” “You don’t know that,” I said hopefully from my seat, “She’s popped up before, she’ll pop up again. She can’t help but make a show of all this.”

“Hey,” Torres announced his entrance, looking to Bucky, “You got your sleeve back.” I chuckled quietly at the memory of the first day we’d worked together, instantly regretting it at the pain in my abdomen. Bucky, however, didn’t find Torres as amusing as I did and made for the exit of the room, brooding as usual.

“Are you off to take care of Zemo?” Sam asked mockingly.

Bucky shot him a glare from the doorway before looking at me once more, making sure I was alright. Without a word, he walked out of the room. “Alright, good to know you survived!” Torres called.

It was clear that Bucky was indeed going to catch Zemo, possibly kill him even. If that were the case, I needed to get one piece of information from the Baron before he met whatever fate the Super Soldier was going to deal him.

I rose from my seat with a groan, walking over to Sam, “I need to go with him.” “What?” he furrowed his brows and looked me up and down, “Are those painkillers making you high?” “Zemo said something very…Zemo-ish, when you were talking to Karli,” I explained, placing hand on his arm, “He was fascinated by my last name, he said it sounded familiar.” “Why would your last name sound familiar to Zemo?” he echoed the question in my mind.

“It shouldn’t. He escaped before I could get a chance to ask him about it, I need to go with Bucky and talk to him before he slips again.”

Sam sighed heavily, weighing the scenarios in his head. He couldn’t stop me from going and I wasn’t asking permission. I’d promised to follow his lead throughout this, but this regarded my family and not even my own brother could get in the way of the concerns I had. “Alright, call and let me know where you two end up.” I pecked his cheek quickly and took off power walking since I couldn’t run due to my injuries. There weren’t many exits available to us since the police had marked a lot of the building off limits, I followed the way we’d come in and spotted Bucky making his way out to the street. “Bucky!” I yelled as I hurried towards him, he turned at the sound of my voice. “What’re you doing?” he asked, gripping each of my arms gently in his hands, “You shouldn’t be moving this much.” “I’m coming with you,” I said, ignoring his concern for my wellbeing. “What?” I took a second to catch the breath, my stamina hadn’t been great before the fight but now I was practically leveled by simple tasks. Bucky waited patiently and guided the two of us to a bench to sit. “Yesterday when Sam was talking to Karli, Zemo made a point of telling me that my last name sounded familiar. He wouldn’t go into any further detail and obviously the wheels came off of that whole situation, but I need to find out what he meant by that.” “Are you sure he’s not just messing with you?” he asked, trying to keep me away from the situation at all costs.

“He very well may be, but he may not be. But I won’t be able to sleep if I let you do whatever you’re going to do to him without finding out the truth.”

Bucky copied Sam’s sigh almost to the exact pitch, his worry for me taking center stage. But as it had been with my brother, I wasn’t asking for permission. “Alright, come on,” he said defeatedly, standing up and helping to pull me up, “We gotta find a ride.” “You think you have an idea of where he is?” I asked as we started off down the sidewalk. “I know where he is,” Bucky answered confidently, his hand returning to its familiar spot on my back as we crossed the street.

——

While I didn’t agree with Bucky’s methods of getting us transportation, hot-wiring an old European made car, we were successfully on our way to Sokovia.

The car itself was rusty and on the slower side, there weren’t even seat belts but it would do the job of getting us there. Bucky had informed me we were driving straight through the night, he’d also turned down my offering to take a shift at the wheel stating that all I needed to focus on was resting. We’d been driving for a few hours now in comfortable silence, me watching the scenery out the window and sneaking a long glance at Bucky every once in a while.

“So what are you planning on doing when we get there?” I finally asked, “I don’t like the guy but I don’t necessarily want to kill him.” “I’m not gonna kill him,” Bucky quickly shut down the idea, “I’m gonna do what I should’ve done, turn him over to the Wakandans.” I hummed in acknowledgment, thinking of a question that I wanted to ask but didn’t want to make Bucky uncomfortable. In the end, curiosity got the better of me. “Can I ask you something?” “Hmm?”

“You know I don’t condone it,” I said firmly, “But Zemo ruined your life, what is it that’s stopping you from killing him?” Bucky squeezed the steering wheel a little tighter, his glove creating a sound as it stretched across his hand. I held my breath as I awaited his answer, praying that he didn’t go silent on me. Instead, he reached into his pocket with his free hand and fished out his book with the list of names he needed to make amends with, waving it a little. “He didn’t ruin my life, he certainly didn’t make it any better, but he didn’t ruin it.” “What if he tries to kill you? He seems to have a vendetta against all Super Soldiers, even the good ones.” “You think I’m one of the good ones, huh?” Bucky briefly took his eyes off the road to look over at me, his eyebrow quickly rising and one corner of his lips turning upwards.

My smile grew, though I still tried to control it. “Don’t let it go to your head, Barnes.”

Bucky turned his attention back to the road, his smug grin still showcased on his face. I was utterly convinced with the rays from the sunset shining through the car windows hitting him perfectly, his features bathed in gold, that there was no way he could be more beautiful. This was the most at ease I had seen him since I’d met him which was strange considering the circumstances.

“So how is it all going down?” I asked, watching him slip the pocketbook back in his jeans “I already made a call, the Dora’s gonna meet us there,” he answered plainly, though I could see the guilt that was threatening to peek through at betraying the people who had gone to such great lengths for him. I moved to adjust myself in my seat, sending a shooting pain through my abdomen. I hissed at the sensation, my hand flying to cover the area. “What? What is it?” Bucky’s mood had shifted from calm to panicked in seconds. “They said that might happen,” I said, my voice slightly strained from the pain, “I’m fine.” Bucky’s head rotated between watching me and the road, I knew that it was only because we were too far away from Latvia that he wasn’t turning the car around and taking me back to Sam. “Hey,” I said softly, reaching for his nearest arm to give it a reassuring squeeze, “I’m fine.” He sighed, both stress and relief seeping out of the sound and telling me it wasn’t time yet to remove my hand. A few breaths were taken before he decided to finally speak, “You gave me a heart attack yesterday, when you passed out I thought you…”

His sentence trailed off leaving me to fill in the gaps of what he thought had happened to me. I was just as terrified when it was him who laid unconscious in my arms. “You scared me too, I was practically slapping you silly trying to get you to wake up.” “I know, I heard you.”

“You heard me?” “I couldn’t move, felt like I couldn’t even open my eyes,” Bucky said, pausing for a second as he relived the moment, “You sounded like you were underwater, but I knew you were there. I could feel you.” The air had shifted from light to tense and now to the great something that Bucky and I always seemed to be enveloped by. And this, this small admittance of recognizing one’s presence in the middle of battle was the most we’d ever acknowledged it. Something about Bucky’s voice when he’d said he could feel me, my hands pressed and stroking against his cheeks, that led me to believe he wasn’t just stating a fact. It didn’t break or quiver, he didn’t stutter or stumble on his words, but I could hear in his serious tone that there were emotions he was holding back. The phantom of that dark moment was clear and present in the car, pushing the two of us together while the spirit of hesitation was wedged between us.

I embodied both as my hand slipped from Bucky’s arm and I gathered the courage to speak. “I heard you too, just before Sam told you to bring me to the hospital.” There was a pregnant pause as Bucky absorbed the news, “You remember anything after that?” I knew, he knew, we both knew what he was asking. He wanted to know if I remembered the kiss, the last thing I’d felt before giving into my body’s trauma. The way his lips had brushed my forehead so softly as if he was afraid to break me any more, yet somehow I’d felt every bit of his concern and care. It had crossed a line that we’d come so close to crossing in that alley, him caging me in and me pressing his hand to my chest. Had I not lost consciousness, I’d have pressed my hand against the back of his head, threaded my fingers through his hair and redirected those lips down to meet mine. Did I remember? “Yes.” Bucky glanced over at me, carefully scanning my face for any signs of discomfort with his decision. When he found none, one side of his lips pulled up in the now familiar smirk. “Good.”

I found myself biting down on my bottom lip to keep from breaking into a grin, forcing my mouth into submission. If in another lifetime I had ever met 1940’s Bucky Barnes, I had a feeling he was like this but all the time. Flirty, bold and a smash hit with the women. And here he was, eighty years later, charming me so well that I had forgotten momentarily that we were on our way to essentially arrest one of the world’s most dangerous men. Such was the hold he had on me…

“Get some sleep,” he said like nothing had transpired, the audacity of him…”It’s gonna be a while till we get to Sokovia.” “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Mr. Barnes,” I said playfully.

“Oh, now I’m Mr. Barnes?” he shot back with a single laugh. “That’s how you’re supposed to address your elders.” “Ha ha ha,” he unenthusiastically shot back, the smile on his face contradicting his words.

I moved to settle into my side of the bench seat but stopped myself before I could truly get comfortable. If Bucky could be bold, then I could be too. Careful to not awaken the pain in my abdomen or chest, I slid across the long seat until I was pressed against the Super Soldier. I placed my head against his arm, effectively making him my pillow and letting myself be swept away to sleep, comforted by the warmth he provided and how his tense body relaxed at my touch.

There was a chance for us.

——

Bucky parked our car in the Sokovian woodland, saying we needed to walk to rest of the way as not to alert Zemo to our being there a second before he should be made aware. He hadn’t been wrong, there stood the Baron in front of the memorial to his once whole country. As we silently approached, Bucky pulled the gun he had out of his coat pocket, holding it at his side instead of in the air. We had an agreement, he’d get his closure with Zemo and then I would get my answers.

“I thought you’d be here sooner,” Zemo said, acknowledging our presences, “And I figured you would be with him. Don’t worry,” he spared Bucky a glance, “I’ve decided I’m not going to kill you.”

“Imagine my relief,” Bucky sarcastically retorted, clicking the gun as a period to his sentence.

Zemo pivoted and slowly walked towards us, “The girl has been radicalized beyond salvation. I warned Sam, but he didn’t listen to me. He’s as stubborn as Steve Rogers before him. But you…They literally programmed you to kill. James, do what needs to be done. Karli has people everywhere, and there’s only one way to make sure she cannot continue her mission.” “I appreciate the advice,” Bucky replied, “But we’re gonna do it our own way.”

Zemo chuckled softly, “Yeah, I was afraid you would say that.”

Bucky stayed silent, the only sound between the three of us was the sound of the pistol’s safety being turned off. I paid close attention to how Zemo’s eyes followed the noise and how they expectantly waited as Bucky cocked the weapon and aimed at Zemo’s face. He nodded, giving Bucky permission to prove that his killer instinct was still there. The Baron wanted sweet death to take him and reunite him with the family he’d lost years ago. Perhaps I would want the same thing if I had lost everyone, but not everybody deserved an ending so sweet.

Bucky pulled the trigger, the chamber revealing its secret that it was indeed empty.

Zemo flinched at the shot that never fired, his face painted with shock that Bucky hadn’t committed the deed we all assumed he’d want to. Once the victim, the small smirk of victory across his lips proved that Bucky was actually the winner in Zemo’s plot to bring down Super Soldiers. Not just because he had escaped with his life, but because he had healed his wound. With each bullet that clanked to the ground, released from his metal hand, the power his grudges against Zemo had held over him disappeared.

The Dora Milaje appeared then, marching in from behind Zemo to come and escort him to his fate of their choosing. “Ladies…” he greeted them before turning back to Bucky, “I took the liberty of crossing off my name in your book. I hold no grudges for what you thought you had to do. Goodbye, James.”

“We’re not done yet,” I stepped forward from behind Bucky, “You still owe me an answer. You said my name was familiar, why is that?” Zemo’s lips parted only to close once more, eventually nodding and taking a breath. “Very well, I suppose everybody deserves to know their roots. What did your father tell you he did?” My father? What could he have possibly known about him? How could he ever have been on his radar? “He was a soldier, US Army, he came home to Louisiana and became a contractor,” I answered, not letting on to my confusion. “Sadly, what he told you was a lie,” Zemo stated, “When I heard your last name, I could not place where I had heard it before. It wasn’t until I brought it up to you that I had figured out you were his daughter. Your father was in service of a kind, but not to your country’s government. Not at least in the way you think.”

Fear was starting to creep in, its inky black tentacles starting to take swipes at me threatening to drag me down. I did my best to keep my expression steeled, “How dare you say my father was a liar...He bled and fought for my country, he dedicated himself to the service.” Zemo paused, he didn’t seem like he was taking any enjoyment in having this conversation with me. “Y/n, your father was a part of HYDRA.”

I could no longer keep my emotions off my face as my jaw went slack and my brows scrunched together. “No, you’re lying,” I shook my head, trying to deny what he had no reason to make up. “His name was listed in the files that Black Widow released to the public years ago. When I was deciphering the files and I found his name, I quickly learned that he dropped his last name in favor of his middle once he left their service. Perhaps he was afraid they would find him or your family,” Zemo further explained, “When I came looking for him and discovered he had killed himself long ago, I let you and your family be. I had no interest in tearing the three of you apart, only your father.”

“W-why were you trying to find him? How could he have possibly been of use to y-“ my sentence stopped cold in its tracks. There had only been one reason Zemo was interested in HYDRA, why he had scoured file after file and become obsessed with the organization. And as I connected the dots, I quickly tried to scramble them again.

“Your father,” Zemo stopped once again, knowing his words would have a lasting impact on me, “Was one of the Winter Soldier’s handlers. One of the men in charge of containing, controlling and torturing the man standing next to you.”

In my life, I had known a little too much pain. There were three moments that stuck out as the worst in my life. The first was as a child when the police knocked on our door, telling us that my father had been found dead. The second was when Steve informed me that Sam was dead. This was the third and it struck me like a dagger in both my heart and back. My father had posthumously wounded me and betrayed me.

“I am sorry,” Zemo said, his thick accent dragging me out of my pain for only a second, “I don’t take any joy in telling you this.” It wouldn’t have mattered to me how he felt, my entire life was crashing down around me and I was struggling just to find the strength to draw another breath. My father had painted himself a veteran, he’d allowed me and my family to believe him to be a hero, when all along he had been working for the enemy. And the worst part of it all was that he hadn’t hurt just anybody…He had hurt Bucky.

There was nothing left to say, through my teary eyes I watched the red and silver blurs that were the Dora Milaje lead Zemo away. After the shock came the panic, leaving me to stumble away from Bucky to brace myself against the memorial statue. My breathing started to quicken as I conjured up images of my father, young and ambitious, hooking Bucky up to machines. Torturing him. Breaking him. He may not have been one of the masterminds behind the creation of the Winter Soldier, but he had played one of the worst parts. He had beaten Bucky down day in and day out, stripping him of his humanity and everything that made him the man I had fallen for. Now, however many years later, here I stood, the offspring of someone capable of such evil.

A familiar hand gently gripped my elbow, “Y/n…”

“No,” I trembled, violently ripping my arm out of Bucky’s grasp, “No, don’t.” “Y/n, you didn’t do anything,” Bucky hurriedly assured me, reaching out for one of my hands, “You didn’t know-“ Guilt had taken full hold of me and I couldn’t stand to watch Bucky, the person who suffered most at the hands of my father, try to tell me that any part of this was acceptable. “Bucky, get away from me,” I took several steps backwards, holding a warning hand out, “You can’t.” “Don’t do this,” he urged, disregarding my order and walking closer toward me, “You’re innocent in all this.” “Stop,” I yelled through my tears, throwing up a force field to separate the two of us. Bucky looked heartbrokenly at the barrier, placing his metal hand over it and pleading with his eyes to drop it. “Don’t say it’s okay, don’t say that I’m innocent. H-he hurt you and I’m…I’m him.” Before Bucky could argue the point that I had no role in my father’s sins, I dropped the force field and redirected the energy to my palms. I shot into the air and flew off in the same direction we’d come, desperate to take myself as far away from Bucky as I could. I wouldn’t have hurt him even if my life had depended on it, but the guilt I felt for what my father had done to him was overwhelming. The whole time I had known him I’d been trying to help him through his trauma, so desperate to be of any service to him to save him from being swallowed by his demons. I had made my father the example, the cautionary tale, when all along he had been the villain. And I, in some way, felt responsible for all of it.

With Zemo’s one sentence, he’d taken a match to everything. The man my father had made himself out to be, my family’s belief in him, my belief in myself and the chance that Bucky and I could find happiness with one another. I wasn’t sure which one hurt the most to lose, all I knew was that my little experiment was over. A child of HYDRA trying to be a hero was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

——

Three plane rides and one rental car later, I was turning my key in the door of my house, the only luggage with me was my newly attained emotional baggage.

It was past AJ and Cass’ bedtime, a thought that occurred to me as the front door creaked to announce my arrival. Had it been a normal night, Sarah and I might have watched a movie with them, indulging in ice cream sundaes before sending them to bed. We’d have retired soon after, a long day of catching and selling awaiting us at the crack of dawn.

How far away it all seemed now, this life that a week ago had been the only life I’d known...

I found myself frozen in the entryway, knowing once I took the first step in that I could no longer go back to who I’d been the past few days. The energy that I’d used to protect and shield those I cared about in battle would stay trapped forever in my veins. The drive I had to help people would have to be utilized in different ways, but never again on such a grand scale as saving the world. I was to go back to being exactly who I was before I’d gotten to notion in my head that I could play some bigger role in the world.

I took steady strides down my hall, each step taking me further and further away from the person I foolishly thought I could be. Walker had been right, I wasn’t a hero.

I made my way into the living room, the sight of Sam dozing on our couch surprising me. The fact that he was here let me know that either he’d given up on Karli or there was simply nothing left to do. Knowing my brother, who never gave up on anyone or anything, it was the latter. I patted his knee just hard enough to alert him of my presence, he stirred and blearily opened his eyes, blinking a few times before focusing on me. “Hey.” “Did you bring back Sarah and the boys?” I asked, tossing my keys on a nearby end table.

“Safe and sound,” he answered, some of the tension in my body dissipating. I settled down next to him in the corner of the couch, the two of us leaning on one another physically and metaphorically. Since the beginning, it had always been Sam and I against the world. Now the world had gone against us and here we were, both fighting to keep our eyes open after being dealt a good many blows.

“You went to see him, didn’t you?” I broke up the silence we were resting in, with our backs pressed to one another, I couldn’t see his face, “Isaiah.” “Yeah,” Sam mumbled, his head falling back against mine. I’d known since we’d left the man’s house that my brother wasn’t done with him, there were too many questions to be asked. “You guys catch Zemo?”

“Mmhmm,” I replied, knowing the inevitable question was coming but still praying it didn’t, “The Wakandans came for him.” “So where’s Bucky?” Sam asked tiredly.

With my last look at James Buchanan Barnes, I had seen heartache etched into every line of his face. The pain I had caused him when I’d barred him from coming any closer to me had birthed equal hurt within me. The last thing I had ever wanted to do was hurt Bucky, and I knew that between my father’s past and my disappearance from his life, I had done just that. But in my heart, I knew that eventually he would resent me for what my family had done to him. And the day when he stopped gazing at me with the softness in those piercing blue eyes I adored so much was a day I couldn’t bear to experience. The connection we had would eventually fade, he’d continue avenging and I would live quietly in my corner of the south. I was letting him go to protect him, to prevent him from having to relive every trauma every day each time he looked at me. It was my final way of helping him.

“He’s safe,” I answered, mumbling the words as my eyes watered and my voice threatened to crack.

----

A/N: ........So........How we feeling? (Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in this angst fest of a series!)

Safe Haven taglist: @tanyaherondale @wanniiieeee @asoftie4bucky @edencherries @i-reblog-fics-i-like @ttalisa @gcfty @withyoutilltheendofthismess @rinaispunk @weirdowithnobeardo @felicityofbakerstreet @godlypotterwhodiaries @eternalharry @voguesir @mizz-kraziii @okayline @smellmymisunderstoodfluff @wanderin-stories @nicklet94 @intricate-melody @aesthethickks @stumbleonmywords @simplybarnes @21bruhs @lostinwonderland314 @superbookishhufflepuff @kaelyn-lobrutto24 @zozebo @fandomxreaders @kittengirl998 @sarai-ibn-la-ahad @i-know-i-can @x-judyjude-x @thebi-valkyrieofvalhalla @buckverse @living-that-best-life @haphazardhufflepuff @citlalireedus @lindseyrae20 @missstef23 @qhbr2013 @sebby-stann @bluemoon-icecream @iixbella @lets-love-little-me

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x fem!reader #bucky barnes imagine #sam wilson x reader #sam wilson x platonic!reader #marvel imagine

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poor-baby-bangtan · 3 years

Note

i was wondering if you could do something snz-centric with jungkook. like a cold or flu. hes just so adorable and im too much of a sucker of bts taking care of him in fics. (also im so happy youre back and well, you're one of my favourite bangtan sickfic writers here on tumblr ^^)

I hope you enjoy!

Sickie: jeongguk

Caretakers: Namjoon and Seokjin

Words: 6,853

Themes: snz, fever, hurt/comfort

"Ht'tschu!"

By the fifth time that Jeongguk had to tear himself away from the recording equipment to sneeze almost violently into his hands, Namjoon was ready to call it quits for the day. The pair had been finishing up some backing vocals for a nearly-completed song - it was only a bit of harmonization, nothing extreme or extravagant. Jeongguk had always been the best with harmonizing, especially in a higher pitch, so Namjoon figured that he would layer the maknae's hidden track over it first just to get a feel for the way it sounded.

But Jeongguk was barely able to get through any of his lines or simple melodies without having to turn around to sneeze or clear his throat. And now that Namjoon thought about it, his voice did sound a bit rough around the edges and maybe even a little congested if he listened closely enough to his dongsaeng's voice blasting through his headphones. And, above all, he couldn't get through a track that he would have aced any other day. It was nearing 1 AM and the maknae looked tired, stressed, and sick behind the mic.

"JK," he called through the slightly-opened door beyond the large built-in window between them (purely to keep unwanted sounds out of the recording). "You okay?"

Jeongguk sniffed and rubbed at his nose with a knuckle, ears reddening slightly at the sudden attention. Namjoon found it incredibly endearing that, despite living together for just shy of seven years, he still managed to get embarrassed over minor stuff like that.

"Yeah, I'm alright, hyung. I'm sorry, I know you wanted this finished quickly," he managed, staring at the open mic in front of him with obvious frustration and guilt, the tip of his bunny nose pink with mild irritation.

Namjoon stood and took off his bulky headphones, joining him in the adjacent room and placing a firm hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry about it, Gguk, it's not your fault." The maknae sniffled again but didn't say anything, looking so pitifully sad as his eyes wandered around the floor. "Are you wearing a new cologne or anything? New shampoo?" Namjoon knew how sensitive their youngest was to smells - his perfume of choice was actually faint and made for women and he wore it for the sole purpose of it not irritating his sinuses. Even a change in shampoo, conditioner, or hair spray had a tendency to trigger Jeongguk's rhinitis flare-ups.

Jeongguk shook his head. "No, everything's been the same, Joon-hyung. I don't know why it's like this."

The rapper chewed at his lip worriedly, running a hand through the younger man's soft hair. "You think you're getting sick, babe?" Namjoon chose to break out the pet names now - it helped break Jeongguk out of that shy, nervous, I'm-grown-up-so-I-can-handle-everything-myself shell he always tried to adopt.

"Hih-H'tshhuh! T'cHh!"

Jeongguk didn't have time to reply before he was pitching forward to sneeze twice into his elbow, leaning back with a little groan. Namjoon chuckled quietly and rubbed the maknae's back as he sniffled and scrubbed at his nose with his sleeve. "I think that might be a yes."

The maknae sighed, rubbing at his brow like he had a headache. "I don't want to be."

Namjoon just tutted and put his palm to the younger man's forehead, frowning when he felt the slightest bit of heat underneath his hand. He wasn't flushed and didn't feel too warm, but he always ran hot when he was coming down with something. "I don't think you have a choice in this one, Gguk-ah."

"But hyung," Jeongguk whined, looking up at him with his big doe eyes, "I can't get sick right now. We have so much stuff to do and I'm already making you stay late-"

"Hey, no," he shushed. "You're not holding back anything. We have work, sure, but it's not anything that we can't push back a few days for you. This is the lightest our schedule has been for a while, so don't stress about it, okay?" Namjoon smiled faintly, running his fingers once more through Jeongguk's fringe. "And you're not keeping me here doing anything. We could have been doing this next week or even not at all; this is optional just to test the sound, you know that."

Jeongguk nodded, sniffling again for good measure. "Yeah, okay," he mumbled, still disappointed and very much not convinced.

"Why don't we go ahead and head home? It's late," Namjoon yawned, stretching, all an act just to get the maknae to not protest leaving just like the rapper knew he would. He had always been the hardest one to take care of - most of the others eventually gave in and let themselves be coddled. But, nope, not Jeongguk. He would put up a fight until he was passed out or in the hospital, something that his hyungs tried relentlessly to keep from happening. No matter how much they drilled into his head that you need to talk to us, Gguk or you can tell us anything, Gguk, it seemed like the kid never listened. Despite the fact that he had recently turned twenty-one, he had absolutely zero skills in the self-care department.

Jeongguk nodded and Namjoon marked that as a big success on his part. "Okay." He patted his pockets a few times before sighing. "Let me find my keys first."

That's right. He drove us here this morning.

"No that's okay, Gguk. I'd rather call a cab." Namjoon wasn't sure if he really wanted his maknae driving while sick, and at midnight nonetheless. He was already a little reckless behind the wheel on the best of days and the last thing they needed was him having a cold (or worse yet, flu) on top of that. The leader silently cursed himself that he hadn't gotten around to getting his license yet (and tried not to be embarrassed that the youngest of his group had to drive him around despite the age gap).

"No, I'm fine, hyung. I can drive," Jeongguk protested, looking just a little too eager to prove himself and that he was indeed okay. "I can.. d-dr- hhitsHh!"

He was interrupted by another sneeze, though, pitching forward, bent at the waist from the strength of it. He slowly straightened upwards, hands still cupped around his face. Namjoon took the hint and passed him a tissue, which Jeongguk hesitantly took as if he were almost too prideful to take it. He usually was, and the rapper was thankful that it was late in the evening. A tired Jeongguk was an obedient Jeongguk.

"I know you can, Ggukkie, but I'd rather just call someone. It's late and we're both tired; I'd feel better if we had a cab or a manager come pick us up. Besides, we're here every day. We can pick up your car another day, yeah?"

Jeongguk wiped his nose with the tissue and threw it away, sighing. "Okay. Is Sejin-nim still here?"

"Let me text him. Go ahead and put your coat on."

The maknae nodded and went to retrieve his hoodie as Namjoon fumbled with his phone.

Joon: Hyung-nim, are you still in the building?

Cool manager hyung: yeah I'm about to leave. need a ride?

He smiled at how Sejin already knew what he needed before he had the chance to say anything about it.

Joon: yeah, me and Ggukie are finishing up in the studio.

Joon: do you mind dropping us off?

Manager hyung: of course, it's on the way anyways. but I thought Jeongguk drove you two here..?

Joon: yeahh but I think he's coming down with something. don't want him on the roads right now ~_~;

Manager hyung: aishhhh why am i not surprised

Manager hyung: that kid always pushes himself too hard

Manager hyung: meet me outside in 10. i'll stop by the pharmacy tomorrow.

Joon: thank you Sejin-hyung :))

By the time Namjoon looked up from his phone, Jeongguk had pulled his hoodie on and was scrubbbing at his nose with one of the sleeves, sniffling weakly. The hoodie was a couple sizes too large and hung low around mid-thigh. He had balled up his hands inside of the sleeves, making rather adorable sweater paws with them. His nose was now red, morphing from the innocent pink tinge that it had held for most of the night, and his eyes looked a little far-off and watery. Namjoon tried his best not to make a sound of endearment and simply pocketed his phone, reaching out and squeezing his dongsaeng's shoulder.

"Sejin-nim is gonna pull up out front for us."

"'Kay," the maknae mumbled, looking exhausted despite himself. Hopefully it wouldn't be hard to get some medicine in him and put him to bed.

Sejin held true to his word; his car was already warm and running by the time the pair made it downstairs. Namjoon crawled into the backseat with Jeongguk instead of taking his usual place up front. Jeongguk didn't seem to mind, or even notice for that matter, as he put on his seatbelt and yawned into his hand. Namjoon caught Sejin's knowing smirk in the rear view mirror, though, and felt his face heat up.

He wasn't one of the most doting members but he still cared, alright?

Sejin started up the car and pulled out of the parking lot. "How's the song looking, boys?"

"It's going great, Sejin-nim," Namjoon smiled. "Jeongguk is really blowing it out of the water." He reached over and ruffled Jeongguk's hair lightly. Jeongguked smiled that cute smile he does, lips barely pulling back to preview his bunny teeth, eyes scrunching gently around the edges, and it was all Namjoon could do to not make a noise like a variation of a dying animal. That kid does something to his heart that should not be legal. The maknae pushed his hand away and he let him, reaching down to intertwine their fingers and rest them on his thigh instead.

Sejin chuckled deep and throaty, smiling in the rearview mirror. "Just as usual, huh?"

"Yep." Namjoon ran his thumb over Jeongguk's knuckles. "Golden maknae here always does his best."

Jeongguk ducked his head and smiled, teasing his lower lip with his teeth, ears going a bit red. He had never been able to take a compliment without getting embarrassed. "Thanks, hyung."

"Aish, don't thank me kid." Namjoon swore his heart was about to burst. His maknae really was just too sweet without knowing it.

Jeongguk was opening his mouth to say something back but stopped short, getting a far-off look in his eyes as his jaw hung slack. His nose twitched and scrunched several times with the effort not to sneeze; his breath hitched several times as his breathing quickened. He was not able to quell the feeling, though, and sneezed openly onto his lap before he could react.

"Hih.. hh-huh-H'itsxhu! Ht'scHh! Es'cHischh!"

He tore his hand from Namjoon's as he caught the second and third that came with it. They sounded increasingly intense and painful, and Namjoon winced in sympathy.

Sejin sucked in air through his teeth sharply as Jeongguk slowly brought his hands away from his face and sniffled in retaliation a few times. "You feeling okay, kid?" He pulled up at a red light and looked him over in the rear view mirror. "That sounded kind of bad."

Namjoon was glad that Sejin chose not to mention the fact that he had already told him Jeongguk wasn't feeling his best. Jeongguk would have been eternally embarrassed and probably would deny his hyung's help for a while. He had a strange trust system and Sejin seemed to know that.

Jeongguk snuffed once more against the increasing stuffiness in his sinuses before replying. "Yes, I'm okay Sejin-nim, thank you."

Namjoon withheld a sigh and put a hand on Jeongguk's thigh. Always so closed off and shy. Of course, he loved his maknae and wouldn't change his personality for anything. But sometimes he wished he would open up a little more and be a little more trusting to those around him. He had opened up to his band mates after a while, of course, but it was still hard for even them to get through to him at times. Jeongguk could be silly and goofy and just himself wherever he was, but when it came to showing any form of weakness it was like he retreated as far back into his shell as he could get. It was a constant inner struggle for him, realizing that he's still human and needs to treat himself as such. Even one (1) voice crack during a performance can drive him to tears. Weakness and mistakes are just not something that he tolerates with himself, as sad as it makes Namjoon. He's never really as concerned with Jeongguk's physical condition as much as he is with his psychological one when his health dips.

Sejin sighed quietly enough for Jeongguk to miss it and pulled up as the light turned green again. "If you're sure. Just let me know if that changes, okay, Jeongguk-ah?"

"Yes, hyung-nim." Namjoon could hear the gratefulness in the maknae's voice, even if he most likely would not accept the help.

"Aish, kid, always so formal," Sejin grumbled playfully. He had long stopped trying to get Jeongguk to drop the honorifics. They were fond and playful now more than anything.

Jeongguk made that happy noise in the back of his throat that he tended to do, sort of like a mix between a laugh and a endearing huff, and replied, "Of course, Sejin-ssi."

"Ack!" Sejin waved one of his hands in the air dismissively. "That's worse!"

Jeongguk chuckled, fully this time, with a grin that split his whole face and made his eyes squint. He seemed tired, but happy still - probably wasn't feeling too bad, then.

The trio fell into a comfortable silence for the rest of the trip. Namjoon could feel that they were all tired - reasonably so, it was past 1am - and if he was being honest he was ready to do nothing more than just crash in bed when he got home. But his maknae still needed to be taken care of, because he certainly wasn't going to take medicine on his own.

The pair said their goodbyes to Sejin after he pulled up outside of their apartment, with the older man giving Namjoon a knowing wink as a way to say good luck with that one. Namjoon just laughed and waved him off. He knew how to handle his maknae.

Jeongguk stumbled inside, already half-asleep from the car ride, and made his way into the bathroom. Namjoon veered towards the kitchen where their medicine cabinet was and dug around for a few minutes looking for some sort of cold medicine or anti-congestant. He came up with a half-empty blister packet of a nighttime cold medicine which was about the best he could have hoped to find. With the winter, colds had been going around the members quite often and it was around that time of the year that they were constantly running low on medicines. That, and it would help Jeongguk sleep more soundly - even though he usually slept a lot (like, a lot) when he was sick, it was never very deeply and it left him still feeling exhausted, even after he was healthy again.

Namjoon popped a few blue gel-capped pills into his hand and filled up a glass of ice water as he heard the shower come on, sighing when he realized he also still needed to shower. But then he had a thought... why wait? He'd rather keep an eye on his dongsaeng anyways.

Setting the pills and glass on the counter, Namjoon made his way other to the bathroom and poked his head in. "Mind if I join you, Ggukkie?" he called.

"Sure, hyung," came Jeongguk's reply, rough around the edges and tired. Even though he had been living with roommates for many years, he still erred to the shy side, especially when it came to being undressed around others. But, if he was tired enough or felt bad enough, he tended to care less about exposure and more about having company and skinship.

At his response, Namjoon stepped into the bathroom and quietly closed the door behind him, quickly stripping down and pulling back the shower curtain to step under the warm stream of water. Jeongguk stepped over to make room for him (thankfully they finally had enough money for an apartment with several large bathrooms with large tubs and showers, so both of them comfortably fit). The water was a tad too hot, probably because the younger was feeling chilled from being out in the cold, even if they were just walking from the car to their door. Or that's what Namjoon hoped - he was praying the kid wasn't cold because a fever was coming on. He did his best to ignore it, though.

Jeongguk was just beginning to shampoo his hair, eyes droopy and tired. He sniffled once, and then twice - the steam was probably helping with his congestion. Namjoon struggled against a fond little smile and reached over to shampoo his dongsaeng's hair himself. Jeongguk didn't even argue and dropped his hands immediately to his sides. His eyes fluttered closed as his hyung worked the product into his hair, swaying with the motion. He sighed a long, drawn-out breath and leaned into Namjoon's touch, mouth just barely hanging open like a puppy's when receiving a good scratch.

"You're not allowed to ever stop that, hyung," he mumbled, words thick with exhaustion and groggy, eyes still closed. Namjoon laughed again and massaged the base of his scalp.

"We'll see about that, kiddo." He worked the suds through Jeongguk's long hair (wow, it had really gotten lengthy, hadn't it?) and took a second to admire the youngest's features. Even when he was feeling under the weather, his face was still radiant and beautiful. His skin was perfectly blemished, a healthy tan (how could anyone ever want to whitewash him?), and the resting-exhaustion-pout glued to his expression made him look younger and more adorable than ever. As Namjoon guided his head underneath the stream of water, he took a second to appreciate how lucky he was to have Jeongguk as his dongsaeng.

Jeongguk preened under the warm water, melting under it as it met his skin. He looked half-asleep. Namjoon fondly tapped his cheek, to which he opened his eyes; the older man smirked. He was just about to say something teasing when Jeongguk's face screwed up and he hitched, pitching forward catching it in his elbow.

"Hh- hh'itschiew!"

He sniffled a few times as he straightened up, keeping his elbow to his face as he coughed a couple times into it. Namjoon felt his chest tighten and eyebrows pinch together.

"Are you sure you're feeling okay Ggukkie?" He ran his hands through the younger's hair once more, scratching at the base of his neck. Jeongguk just nodded and coughed one more time before dropping his arm, pushing even further into his hyung's touch. But he didn't say anything or respond verbally at all. He was probably feeling too tired to even try and debate about his health. Namjoon just sighed and reached for his own shampoo, quickly lathering up his silver-blonde hair. "I have some medicine laid out for you. Let's just finish up so you can take it and we can get you to bed, hmm?"

Jeongguk only nodded sleepily once more, fumbling for the conditioner. Namjoon once again took over washing his dongsaeng's hair as soon as he had finished with his own; Jeongguk was seriously lagging behind as he struggled to stay awake underneath the stream of hot water. After rinsing out the remaining conditioner from the younger's hair, Namjoon passed over the body wash, turning the maknae around so he could wash his back. Soon enough, though, they were both toweling off and clumsily dressing in sleepwear. Jeongguk groaned when Namjoon pulled out the hairdryer.

"Hyung, can we please just skip that? I want to sleep," he whined, lip protruding in a cute little pout in an attempt to win his hyung over.

"Nope, no way. You're already getting sick and the last thing we need is it getting worse because you went to bed with cold, wet hair. Turn around and sit on the counter if you want."

Jeongguk huffed, annoyed, but did as he was told anyways. Namjoon pressed a chaste kiss to his forehead before brushing through the younger's hair and turning on the blow-dryer. Now the maknae was actually falling asleep, head lolling down several times before he woke himself up and jerked himself back upright. Namjoon bit back a smile as he continued to blow dry his hair, overwhelmed by fondness. By the time his hair was dry, Jeongguk was passed out, mouth hanging open and cheek pressed against his shoulder. At the sound of the dryer turning off Jeongguk stirred, blearily opening his eyes and blinking several times to focus them.

"'M done?"

"Yeah, kiddo. Hop down and we'll go take your medicine."

Jeongguk fixed him with a groggy glare. "You didn't dry your hair."

Namjoon chuckled and winked. "I'm too tired, I guess."

The younger slid off the countertop and headbutted his hyung in the chest; evidently he was too tired to pick his head up, so he let it rest on Namjoon's sternum as he weakly hit him with a closed fist. "You're the worst, Namjoon-hyung," he mumbled, no real heat behind the words.

He just chuckled in response and wrapped an arm around his dongsaeng's shoulders, leading him out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. "Oh yes, I'm just terrible for looking after my maknae," Namjoon said as he passed Jeongguk the pills from where they were on the counter, holding up the glass to the younger's lips. Jeongguk mumbled faux-angrily under his breath as he tossed the pills into his mouth and let Namjoon give him a drink of water to wash them down. Namjoon took the glass with him as the guided the younger down the hallway and into their shared room, setting it down onto the nightstand.

Jeongguk belly-flopped onto Namjoon's bed with a big sigh, stretched out parallel to the headrest. He grumbled incoherently into the duvet and stilled completely. Namjoon huffed a laugh and slapped him lightly on the back of the thigh.

"Come on, Gguk-ah, move over so we can both fit. That's right, get under the covers." Jeongguk sighed and grumbled again at his words, lazily re-correcting himself to lay properly on the bed. Namjoon lifted up the covers for him and the maknae crawled obediently between the sheets, settling in on his side with his feet curled up in a half-fetal position. The older man climbed in after him on the opposite side of the bed, turning off the bedside lamp and pulling up the duvet over the both of them. He reached over and adjusted the covers to below Jeongguk's chin, effectively tucking him in. As he got settled in himself, Jeongguk squirmed his way to Namjoon's chest, cold nose feeling over his collar bone. The rapper intertwined a leg with the younger's, wincing at his freezing toes, and slung an arm around his slim waist. For a few seconds, it was just the quiet sound of the AC and the feeling of the maknae's chest rising and falling against his own, warm breaths puffing against his neck. Jeongguk's long locks tickled against his cheek.

"Th'nk you, hyung," Jeongguk slurred against his collarbone, sounding sleepy and content but more congested than he had previously. Namjoon just gave a low rumble and pressed a hand to his maknae's forehead. A little warm, but that was probably just from the combined heat of the shower and hairdryer.

"Of course, you don't have to thank me, Gguk." He pressed a kiss into the younger's hair. "How're you feeling, jaigya?" Namjoon's brow contorted in concern as Jeongguk shivered a little in his arms and sniffled against his t-shirt.

Jeongguk just gripped his shirt a little tighter and nosed further into the crook of his hyung's neck and mumbled, "Shh, hyung, sleepy t'me, shhh..." His breaths became a little deeper as he fell further into the grasp of sleep, the small rushes of air sending goosebumps over Namjoon's olive skin. "No m're talkin'," he murmured, sounding as if he were barely hanging onto the last dregs of consciousness.

Namjoon pressed a kiss to his forehead before relaxing back into his pillow, fingers drawing invisible pictures onto the younger's back. "M'kay, babe." Namjoon figured he had been awake long enough - it was nearing 3am and he was feeling sick, there was no point in keeping him up any later than he needed to be. He could always check up on him in the morning. Plus, Namjoon thought he had done a pretty good job of taking care of his maknae thus far - a little questioning could wait. "Goodnight, aeghi. Saranghae."

Namjoon was only barely able to hear the whispered reply of "Joon-hyung, saranghae," before the youngest promptly fell asleep in his arms.

xxx

As expected, Jeongguk was restless during the night. He never really woke up but tossed and turned all the same, occasionally making sleepy noises and sighs against his hyung's neck. He never slept particularly well when he was unwell, which was something Namjoon knew was going to happen. That being said, the older man didn't get much sleep either. He was hyper-vigilant and woke up every time his maknae so much as stirred. Namjoon was exhausted, seeing as he had several late nights in a row, but somehow he didn't seem to mind this time. As the night went on, though, Jeongguk seemed to still, back pressed up against his hyung's chest. Namjoon woke up a few hours later to light streaming through the window and Seokjin knocking at the door to wake them up up. The rapper stirred and stretched, inhaling sharply. It felt like he had hardly slept, but it was already 8am.

Jeongguk still lay quiet as the little spoon, curled up into Namjoon's stomach. His body was radiating heat and he was breathing laboriously through his mouth. Namjoon swore and peeled back the covers, pressing a hand to the younger's forehead; he found it to be hot to the touch. His tan skin shone with sweat and his face was particularly pale aside from the flush of his cheeks. Along with that, he was shivering a little in his sleep, brows contorted into a painful grimace. Namjoon dropped his hand and sighed; he knew this was going to happen.

The older man tucked his maknae back into the covers before getting up himself, sighing once more. He made sure Jeongguk was still asleep as he left the room. Seokjin was in the kitchen brewing coffee from the Kurig, watching with tired eyes as the bitter liquid slowly filled his cup. Namjoon approached him from behind and wrapped his hands around the older man's slim waist, burying his face in a broad shoulder and pressing down hard with his forehead.

Seokjin chuckled and patted his arm. "What's this, Namjoon-ah?"

"Jeonggukie's sick," he grumbled into the fabric of the singer's sleep shirt, getting a whiff of his fabric softener in the process. Seokjin always smelled so nice. The younger man could feel the other craning his head to look at him so Namjoon picked his head up and rested his chin on his shoulder instead, meeting Seokjin's gaze. "It came on last night," Namjoon sighed. "He was restless all night and when I woke up he was running a fever."

Seokjin maneuvered out of his arms, turning around to face his dongsaeng and tracing the pads of his thumbs over Namjoon's eye-bags with a concerned crease in his brow. "Are you sure you didn't get it, too? You look awful, jaigya. You're pale."

"No, hyung, I feel fine. Maknae-ah just kept me up with all his tossing and turning."

Seokjin got a smug look on his face, smirking.

"What?" Namjoon deadpanned. He was too tired for this.

"Well," Seokjin drawled. "You're usually such a heavy sleeper. Worried about our youngest, are you?"

Namjoon felt his ears go hot with embarrassment. What's the deal with people, first Sejin, now Seokjin was teasing him? Unbelievable. "With all due respect hyung, shut up. Just because I don't show it as much as you do I actually do care about my maknae," Namjoon spat, pushing away against his hyung's chest and trying to walk past him, annoyed. Seokjin's squeaky laughter followed him and he was stopped by the older man catching his wrist.

"I'm just kidding Joonie, don't get so defensive," he giggled, drawing the younger back into a hug.

Namjoon sighed and buried his face again in Seokjin's shoulder. "Maybe don't tease me then," he grumbled, but the heat was gone.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Seokjin stroked his back and laughed one more time. "Have you checked his temperature yet?"

"Not yet. He's still sleeping."

Seokjin hummed, planting a kiss in Namjoon's bed head before pulling away.

"I'll go get the thermometer. Will you wake him up for me?"

"Sure, hyung." Namjoon started down the hallway, slowly creaking the door open and slipping into his and Jeongguk's shared bedroom. The maknae was exactly where he had left him, turned away from the door curled up on his side. Even though he was about to wake the younger man up anyways, the rapper tiptoed around the bed and kneeled next to his pillow as quietly as he could. Jeongguk's face was still scrunched up and tense with pain, a flush high on his cheeks. His hair and shirt were saturated with sweat. Namjoon reached up with his hand and smoothed over the distressed wrinkles on his forehead; his face relaxed after a few seconds, melting into a neutral expression. His face was hot to the touch and Namjoon's fingers came away damp.

"Jeonggukie," Namjoon murmured, reaching over to grasp his maknae's shoulder gently. "Aghi. It's time to wake up, jaigya." The younger stirred, eyebrows immediately scrunching up again as he fought against waking consciousness and the pain he obviously felt. Namjoon shushed him gently, cupping the side of his face with a large hand and rubbing his thumb over his temple. "I know, babe, wake up for just a few minutes."

Jeongguk blearily opened his eyes and immediately winced, making a pitiful noise of pain from the back of his throat and curling up into a tighter ball. He squeezed his eyes closed and buried his face in his pillow.

"Aigoo, I know, I know it hurts Ggukkie." Namjoon moved from stoking his forehead to running his fingers through his damp hair, something he knew Jeongguk had a soft spot for. "Seokjinnie-hyung is bringing you a thermometer and then we'll get back to sleep, okay?"

Jeongguk whined weakly, voice gravelly from a combination of sleep and sickness, looking up from his pillow to gaze at his hyung pitifully. His eyes were red and glassy and tired, framed by the high spots of fever-induced color on his cheeks. Jeongguk's face screwed up, and for a horrifying second Namjoon was sure he was about to start crying. He pitched forward with a sneeze instead, following it up with a few rattling coughs. Whimpering, he reached up to hold his head in his hands as though the movement had aggravated a headache. The older man frowned and leaned over to press a kiss to his forehead before settling himself on the edge of the bed, running his hand over his dongsaeng's back in soothing strokes.

"How're you feeling, babe?"

Jeongguk just grunted and gently placed his forearm over his eyes to block out the light from the window. "Bad," he mumbled, voice still thick with sleep.

"Tell hyung what's hurting," Namjoon prompted, smoothing out the wrinkles of his maknae's shirt over his side.

Jeongguk didn't move his arm as he answered. "My head n' my body are aching. It's cold."

"I know, aghi. Anything else? Is your throat bothering you?"

The singer just slowly shook his head before once again going still, arching his back against Namjoon's touch. He could feel the younger's fever through his shirt. He was satisfied that the younger's throat wasn't hurting him, though; a hoarse voice was an idol's worst nightmare.

Jeongguk reached back with his free hand and pulled his shirt up to expose his back, reaching for Namjoon's hand to press it into his skin. "Push harder, hyung. Please," he murmured, pushing with more force against Namjoon's hand, digging it into his ribs.

Namjoon took the hint and began to massage his back with the heel of his palm; Jeongguk shivered under his touch, goosebumps breaking out over his skin. He was probably cold and skin most likely sensitive, but wanted skin-on-skin contact anyways. His skin was moist and sticky from perspiration, but Namjoon bore the discomfort and carried on.

"Does that help with the pain Jeonggukkie?"

The maknae nodded underneath his forearm, releasing Namjoon's wrist and draping his arm back around his waist. "It feels good, hyung."

Namjoon adjusted his position on the bed for a better reach, kneading the palms of his hands into Jeongguk's feverish skin, moving from his shoulders down to his calves. Jeongguk mewled under the touch, arching his back and wincing but not pushing his hyung away. He always got awful aches when he was feverish and Namjoon seemed to know just how to get rid of them. The maknae tried to keep as still as possible, pressing his forearm against his eyes hard to try and reduce the pain.

A soft knock resounded on the door before Seokjin poked his head in, frowning softly when his eyes drifted to their youngest member. Jeongguk was shivering and trying his hardest not to let small noises of pain slip through his gritted teeth as Namjoon worked against his tight, painful muscles. The skin of his face was flushed and damp with perspiration - even from across the dim room the mat-hyung could see the rivulets of sweat trailing down his neck. Namjoon turned around, hands still kneading against Jeongguk's thighs, and met Seokjin's eyes with the same concerned look.

Seokjin looked back to the maknae and closed the door behind him, walking around and dumping his handful of medical supplies on the bedside table, keeping only the thermometer.

"Oh, honey," he murmured. "You must be feeling awful. I'm sorry, jaigya." Seokjin passed his fingers through Jeongguk's damp, sleep-tousled hair.

Jeongguk peeped out from under his arm and met Seokjin's gaze. "Good morning, hyung." His voice was strained and congested and the older man winced at the sound of it. He pursed his lips and planted a kiss on the maknae's forehead.

"My Jeonggukie, always so polite. Good morning to you too, baby. Let's get you some medicine and some food so you can get back to sleep okay?"

"Okay," Jeongguk mumbled, struggling to push himself up to sit against the headboard. Namjoon immediately moved to help him up, hoisting him up by the armpits until he was comfortably upright. The younger man winced as soon as he was sitting up, grinding his palm against his eye to try and ease the headache. He obediently opened his lips for the thermometer, holding it underneath his tongue until it beeped. 101.9.

"He wasn't very bad last night at all, hyung, I was surprised when I woke up this morning," Namjoon fretted, chewing his lip.

"You and me both, Joonie. We'll fix him right up though, aghi, don't worry too much," Seokjin said, putting the thermometer down on the bedside table and unscrewing the lid to the fever reducers, shaking a few out onto his palm.

Namjoon was about to respond when Jeongguk's face screwed up again for the second time that morning. His eyes got a far-off look as they glazed over, breath hitching. His already-pink nose twitched and nostrils flared, trembling. He brought his hands up where they paused, hovering just a few inches away from his face.

"Hih..."

Jeongguk squeezed his watering eyes shut, letting out an involuntary whimper as the sneeze refused to leave his body. The singer's mouth hung open just slightly as his breathing hitched again, once, twice, three times, nostrils flared and nose twitching.

"Hih... Hh... Hih.h..! Hihtshu! Hi'tshh!" His body lurched forward as he caught the sneezes in his cupped hands. Seokjin quietly blessed him and rubbed his back. Jeongguk let out a little groan as he leaned back slowly, dropping his hands and scrunching his face up in pain. The sneezing hadn't done much to help his headache.

"Oh, baby, I know," Seokjin cooed, running his thumbs over the distressed lines in the younger's face. Namjoon hopped up from the bed and drew the blinds, engulfing the room in a pleasant darkness. Jeongguk visibly relaxed at the abscence of light, sighing and melting back into the headboard. "Here, Ggukkie, take these and drink half the glass." The older singer pressed the pills into the maknae's hand and held the glass of water he had brought along near his lips. Obediently, Jeongguk popped the pills into his mouth and drank from the cool glass of water as Seokjin put it to his lips. Surprisingly, the younger drained the whole thing - both of his hyungs were pleasantly surprised.

"Good job, babe," Namjoon praised, kissing him on the cheek and patting him gently on the head. Jeongguk made a satisfied noise low in his throat, eyes already closed and lolling down to his shoulder.

"That's my maknae," Seokjin smiled, patting the younger on the shoulder before turning to Namjoon. "I'll finish making his breakfast and leave it in the microwave. I think it's fine if you let him sleep for another few hours. Watch over him, okay?"

Namjoon fixed his eyes on the younger who was blissfully dozing by that point, head lolling down to his chest. "I will hyung."

Seokjin kissed the maknae on the top of his head before leaving the room, going to wake the rest of the members and get them to get ready as quietly as they could (if they could at all, that lively bunch...).

"C'mere, Jeonggukkie," Namjoon muttered, going around to his side of the bed and crawling under the covers, holding his arms out for the younger to crawl into. Jeongguk didn't miss a beat, drowsily slouching down and scooting over until he was wrapped up in the older's arms. He nosed forward until his warm forehead was pressed square against his hyung's cheek. Jeongguk intertwined a leg with the older man's, wrapping an arm around him and pulling him close as he shivered; he must have been freezing cold. Tucking the blanket securely underneath his dongsaeng's chin, Namjoon pulled him as close as he was able. The younger's breathing was already slow and even, already asleep. Namjoon laughed silently and pressed a kiss to his forehead, letting his eyes drift shut as well.

“Saranghae.”

There were definitely worse ways to spend the day, he thought.

#bts snz #snz #snz fic #snzfic #bts sickfic

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pennamesmith · 3 years

Text

For Want of a Skeletor

Entrapta hosts a Princess Alliance meeting at the Crypto Castle and absolutely nothing goes wrong. More Skeletor stories!

The lights were on late in Dryl.

Stars shone outside the windows. Entrapta sat hunched over her desk, studying datapads and readouts. A polite cough from the laboratory door caused her to look up from her work.

“Oh! I’m sorry Hordak, did I wake you?”

Her partner stepped softly into the room and shook his head. “Imp did. You know how he gets when either of us take too long to come to bed.”

Hordak crossed the cluttered floor and joined Entrapta at the desk. He was holding Imp in his arms, and the smaller, winged clone whined plaintively when he saw her. Entrapta kept her screens on, but leaned gratefully into Hordak’s side and curled a tendril of hair around his waist. She yawned, despite herself.

“I know. I just want to make sure I get everything right before the other princesses come over tomorrow.” She glanced back at the data, nervously tapping her fingertips together. “I’ve never hosted an Alliance meeting before! And this rescue will be our biggest mission since… well, you know. I don’t want to mess anything up.”

Hordak smiled. “Your diligence is admirable. But I also seem to recall someone telling me that imperfections are beautiful.”

Entrapta stuck out her tongue. “No fair.”

“I’m afraid the science is sound. Come to bed, my dear.”

The scientist scoffed, but she did not protest when Hordak gathered her up in his arms. She wrapped more of her hair around him, and Imp settled sleepily in the resulting nest. Entrapta could already feel herself drifting.

“You will be a shining star tomorrow,” Hordak promised, as he carried his family back to rest.

“Tomorrow,” echoed Imp.

The next day saw the Crypto Castle’s largest meeting room filled with princesses, dignitaries, and other honorary Alliance members. While Scorpia and Perfuma admired the tiny refreshments laid out for everyone, Mermista split her time between groaning at Sea Hawk’s boasts and trying every available chair to find the most comfortable one. Glimmer and Bow stepped uneasily around the edges of the room, watching carefully for anything that might be a trap, and Frosta followed their lead. Netossa and Spinnerella tried their best to find a chair Swift Wind could sit in.

Adora and Catra, wearing increasingly baffled expressions, were conversing with two domestic-looking robots who sat at the head of the table next to Entrapta. One was tall and skinny, and the other wore a welded-on handlebar mustache.

“Entrapta has parents?” Catra was asking, her face a galaxy of disbelief.

“Adopted, technically. Or adapted,” the skinnier bot explained. “We’re Entrapta’s parental units. She built us when she was six. You must have seen the painting in the foyer.”

“Yeah, we’ve been here pretty much the whole time,” the mustachioed model added. “You kids sure made a racket during your last few visits. What was that all about?”

“Uh,” Adora faltered.

To her immense relief, Hordak swept into the room at that very moment, flanked by Imp, Emily, and the reprogrammed Horde drone Entrapta had dubbed ‘Skeletor.’

“Welcome, everyone,” Hordak boomed, bringing the gathering to a respectful hush.

“Witless fools! I’m in charge now! And if you know what’s good for you you’ll do as I say!” Skeletor shouted.

Hordak scowled and shooed the fussing robot away from the table. “Pay no mind to that one,” he grumbled once he’d regained the floor. “Now then. Please allow me the honor of introducing the unparalleled mind who has made this operation possible, Princess Entrapta.”

“Thank you all for coming!” Entrapta started, while everyone took their seats. “I know you’re all excited about what we’re planning, but there’s still a lot of preparation to do before we can take off. As the chief science officers for this mission, it’s vital that Hordak and I gather as much data on your abilities as possible! Interdimensional travel is severely unpredictable and —”

“Hold on,” Mermista interrupted. “Exactly how high are the chances of us getting mutated by cosmic space energy or whatever? Because I only want cool mutations, not gross ones.”

“Maybe thirty, thirty-five percent?” Entrapta guessed. She shrugged. “A lot of this is theoretical. You guys will be like my guinea pigs! By which I mean the small robotic animals in the castle I protect and care for. And experiment on, sometimes.”

She laughed heartily. Glimmer and Bow shared a nervous glance. Perfuma turned slightly green.

Entrapta regained her composure and pointed back to the display board. “Ahem. Anyway, the good news is we already know some things about where we’re going! Probably.” She shuffled her notes, gaining confidence as she spoke.

“Before Adora found the Sword of Protection, historians debated ancient records of She-Ra. Some claimed she was called ‘Her-Ra’ and fought for the ‘Power of Grayskull.’ But I theorize that what those archaeologists actually uncovered was evidence of —”

“I have a question!” Frosta yelled. “Will there be hunky guys in the other dimension? I’m asking for a friend.”

“It’s funny you mention that, actually,” Entrapta replied. “Listen, just let me finish and…”

Unfortunately, anxious impatience had already gripped the assembled Alliance members. They clamored with questions, all talking at the same time. Entrapta shrank back in her seat and pulled her welding mask down, seeming to reach for something under the table.

Hordak stood up. Just as it looked like he was about to do something violent, a loud alarm sounded and the lights in the room flashed red.

“Uh-oh.” Entrapta glanced around at the assembled company. “Um, get ready to tuck and roll everybody!”

“Get ready to what?” Mermista cried out, but it was already too late. Multiple trap doors swung open across the meeting room floor, and with flailing limbs and startled shouts the guests were sent tumbling down chutes in every direction. In moments they had all vanished.

“I always feel so much better after doing something bad!” Skeletor cackled. “Now we begin phase two!”

Adora and Catra, who had clung to each other as they fell, landed with a bump in a darkened, underground space. As soon as they arrived, bright lights flickered to life and a huge screen lit up against the wall.

Entrapta’s face appeared on the monitor, larger than life. “Oh good! You’re alive,” she chirped when she saw the other two.

Adora clambered to her feet. “Entrapta! What’s going on?”

The scientist glanced away. “Well, I guess Skeletor didn’t like that we were ignoring him. So he stole my map of the castle and activated the security systems! Which means we’re all lost in the labyrinth until I can catch him. Isn’t that great?”

“It’s something,” Catra groaned, rubbing her head.

“Exactly! Now, without my map I can’t come find you. But if you can make it through the traps, the hallway you’re in should take you back to the meeting room. Then you’ll be safe until I can fix things!”

The screen dimmed again before Catra or Adora could protest. Left with few other options, they turned to get a good look at whatever dangers lay ahead.

They were standing at one end of a long corridor. Square blocks floated along its length, suspended in midair with anti-gravitational tech. An interrogative punctuation mark flashed on one, while a squat robot with painted-on angry eyebrows shambled slowly back and forth beneath it.

Catra took it all in. “You have got to be kidding.”

Adora had already drawn her sword and begun to venture forward. Catra was about to follow her, when something made her ears flick. A suspicious frown crossed her face.

“Hey, Adora!” Catra called. “Listen!”

“What?”

Catra pressed her ear to the wall. “There! Do you hear that?”

“Obviously not,” Adora huffed. “Now stop dawdling, the first puzzle looks pretty easy.”

Catra stayed where she was. “Hold on a second. This part of the castle feels familiar. I remember walking through here back when, uh, back when it was still Horde territory.” She coughed awkwardly, and then reached up to tilt the frame of a big-eyed kitten painting. “Look!”

Something clicked and the wall slid open, revealing a new passageway. Distinctive laughter could be heard coming from the other end of it. A purple neon sign reading “Secret Entrance!!!” buzzed to life.

Adora sighed and rolled her eyes.

“One time Entrapta had me and Scorpia over for a life-size Snakemen and Ladders game that got a little out of hand,” Catra explained as they entered the tunnel. At the far end there was a brightly lit office; inside, it was filled with laboratory equipment, video monitors, and a humble but dignified desk.

Hordak was sitting at the desk, in what appeared to be a smaller version of his old Fright Zone throne. It swiveled. Entrapta was sitting on the desk, and she waved as the other couple entered.

“Myaah! Sleep gas and stun-rays only, my evil minions!” muttered Skeletor, who was busy working the video monitors. On closer inspection, Adora realized that each of them showed some of the other princesses as they traversed the castle labyrinth.

“Welcome to mission control!” Entrapta sang, spreading her arms wide. “Hordak didn’t think you’d find us, but I had a hypothesis you might.”

“It was a ruse!” Adora gasped, scandalized. “You’re not lost at all!”

“You really need to hang out with Entrapta more if that still surprises you,” Catra observed. She looked at the monitors. “Ah, are they gonna be okay?”

“Better than!” Entrapta sprang off the desk, hanging by her hair as she showed off multiple datapads. “Everyone was getting a little… distracted upstairs, so I just decided to speed things up a teensy bit! The princesses using their powers to escape the maze will let me get all the readings we need, and then we can have a nice little party! I had the baker make tiny cakes.”

“I made sure Hordak’s doomberry pie was especially tasty!” Skeletor piped up.

“And it’s all perfectly safe!” Entrapta promised. Discreetly, a ribbon of hair reached out to push a blinking button. On the monitors, Mermista and Sea Hawk were rescued from a robot shark attack by a convenient change of the currents.

“This is hilarious,” Catra laughed, looking more closely. On one of the screens, Swift Wind was gleefully running loop-de-loops along a curving racetrack. “I think they’re actually having fun in there. Can we stay and watch?”

“I’m afraid not,” Hordak said. She-Ra’s — and your — assessment is the most important of all. But we’d love to have you over to the castle for dinner soon. Shall we say eight o’clock next week?”

“That sounds nice!” Adora chimed, before Catra could stop her.

“Splendid. I’ll cook,” Hordak concluded. Then he pressed a button on his desk, and a trapdoor sent the younger women plummeting through the floor.

Catra and Adora yelped in surprise, only for their fall to be cut short by an enormous pile of pillows on the level below. They struggled to their feet. Another corridor stretched away in front of them, filled with further challenges. Floating gold coins, each about four feet tall, indicated a pathway.

“Try not to have too much fun,” Hordak called good-naturedly as the trapdoor slid shut.

“Use the warp zone! It’s faster!” Entrapta added.

“Have a nice trip down!” said Skeletor.

Hordak settled back in his chair (it had soft armrests, and a cushion for lumbar support) and watched his partner at work. Entrapta flitted from screen to screen, taking notes and making adjustments. On one display, Bow and Glimmer had met up with Netossa and Spinnerella while navigating a cage minefield. On another, Frosta was making an ice bridge to help Perfuma and Scorpia cross a slow-moving spike trap.

“I’m sorry you had to use your backup plan. They really are utter fools if they ever doubted your genius,” Hordak mused.

“Different people have different strengths and weaknesses,” Entrapta replied, without looking up from her work. “And a good scientist collaborates whenever they can! Even if that requires a little creativity sometimes.”

Hordak nodded. “Fair enough. Nevertheless, I would not blame you if you wished to have nothing more to do with the Princess Alliance. Even their attempts to help you can seem… insensitive. You’re not obligated to forgive that.”

Skeletor looked up from his control panel and shook a fist. “Don’t you get awfully tired of being a hero all the time? Don’t you ever feel like doing something evil?”

“They’re trying to be good friends,” Entrapta defended. “And so am I. And if I really did need their help, maybe things would be different. But I’ve got it all under control!”

She vaulted across the room, flipping switches and turning dials along the way. On the monitors, Perfuma’s fall from a tall platform was gently broken by a sudden anti-gravitational field.

“Besides, forgiveness isn’t always about the person being forgiven. It’s also about taking back potential energy that was lost.”

“Did you learn that in my brother’s therapy group?” Hordak asked.

Entrapta smirked. “Actually, he got it from me.”

A pleasant ding sounded and Entrapta clapped her hair. “Hooray, everyone made it back! I’ll calculate the high scores and then we can continue the social experiment!”

“You astonish me every day,” Hordak purred as he rose to follow her. Entrapta put out her hand, and he took it.

“Wait for me!” Skeletor cried out. “You might get lost by yourself!”

One week later, a much smaller gathering of royals met in Dryl.

Catra and Adora sat together in one of the Crypto Castle’s least intimidating dining rooms, listening with barely-contained delight as Entrapta’s parental units thoroughly embarrassed their former boss.

“...And so I said to him, ‘I have charging ports Hordak, can you download raw data offa me?’ Ha! Oh, you shoulda seen his face!”

Hordak slouched in his chair. “I do not think we need to bore our guests with the details of this particular story,” he protested, feebly.

“Oh, I’m not bored at all! I want to hear everything,” Catra said. She leaned forward, grinning. “So, was this before or after you hooked him up to the lie detector?”

Entrapta giggled, and gave Hordak a gentle pat on the shoulder as she reached for another helping of his tiny quiche. All things considered, the night was going surprisingly well.

It was exactly what Entrapta wanted.

After dinner, wheeled bots carted away the leftovers and dirty dishes. Hordak poured coffee for himself and Adora, and the parental units retired to wherever it was they lived in the cavernous castle. Entrapta, lost in thought as usual, felt a familiar feline presence approach her.

“Thank you,” Catra said, sincerely. “Not just for this. For everything. For being so nice all the time. For making this mission happen. It means a lot to me.”

Entrapta smiled softly. “To me, too. Everyone makes mistakes. It would be a shame not to learn from them when we can.”

“Did you say something?” Skeletor squawked, suddenly materializing in the doorway.

Entrapta, unbothered, immediately produced a datapad. “Oh we’re just talking about the big rescue mission! Actually, you should probably take a look at my data, Skeletor. I haven’t told you much yet, and we might need you!” She held the blinking screen out happily.

Skeletor looked at the datapad. At first he seemed confused; then he boggled as he registered the information in front of him. “Eternia?” he gasped in disbelief. “Grayskull?”

His voice rose to a fevered pitch. “He-Man!”

For once, Skeletor had no words. He shrieked incomprehensibly instead, fists shaking.

Hordak chuckled. “It’ll be just like the old days!”

Skeletor screamed.

#spop #skeletor #entrapdak #entrapta #hordak #Catra #Adora #the princess alliance #smith stuff #fan fiction #thank you for reading

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fanfic-she-wrote · 3 years

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Golden Tears

Scaramanga x reader

Warning: Death mention, character death

You had been lying quietly sunbathing on the beach when you heard the news. Scaramanga, your lover, had sent you to one of the many remote islands that he owned where he had intended on meeting up with you later that day after he returned to his home to deal with something. He didn't mention what. Usually he confided in you about most things, but not this time.

Earlier before he left in his plane, he gave you the longest kiss you had ever received in your life. It surprised and even frightened you a little. It was almost like he was saying goodbye. Why you felt that way, you weren't sure. Maybe he was just in a mood, you reasoned, hoping that was the case. That was the last time you saw him.

As you lay there dozing off in the sun, you heard a voice call out from behind you. It was your butler. "Y/N, telephone."

"I'll be right there." You answered with a groan, getting up, and grabbing your towel as you went. "Who is it, Stan?" You asked as you entered the mansion.

"Nick Nack." Stan, the butler replied. Nick Nack? What could he want? You wondered, heading towards the phone.

"Hello?" You said into the receiver.

"Madamoisselle!" Nick exclaimed, sounding frantic. In the background you could hear loud banging noises.

"What's wrong Nick?" You asked, becoming worried.

"It's Messieur Scaramanga. He's dead." You gasped and dropped the receiver. It landed on the floor with a loud thunk. On the other end you could hear Nick Nack shouting, but you were frozen in place. Francisco...dead? No, he couldn't be. How was this possible? No one could kill him, no one except perhaps James Bond. That must have been why he didn't tell you what he was doing that morning. He went back to kill Bond. You picked up the phone and held it against your ear, your hand shaking. "Nick? Is he really dead?" You asked, fearing the answer, hoping that you had heard him wrong. Maybe he meant to say that James Bond was dead.

"Yes! Help me...island...explode..." You heard him cry before the line cut out and there was silence on the other line.

Tears welled up in your eyes as you hung up the phone. Your heart shattered into a million pieces. Your chest hurt so bad that it felt as though you had been killed instead, that one of Scaramanga's own golden bullets had pierced through your heart. You dropped to your knees and began sobbing uncontrollably into your hands. You couldn't believe it. Francisco Scaramanga, the man with the golden gun, your lover was dead.

Stan came rushing into the room. "What's wrong?" He asked looking concerned as he helped you to your feet.

"He's...he's dead." You cried, pressing your face into his shoulder.

"Who?" He asked as he held you, trying his best to comfort you.

"Francisco!" You blurted, slightly annoyed that he would even ask such a thing. Who else would you be crying for? You liked Nick Nack, but you would never cry over him.

"I'm so sorry." The butler said, sounding genuine as he carefully guided you to the sofa. He rubbed his hands nervously together, unsure what to do. He had never been in this situation before. "Can I get you anything?" He asked, covering you up in a blanket.

"No. Just leave me." You ordered, wanting to be alone. No one other than Scaramanga himself could comfort you now, and he was dead.

Reluctantly, Stan left not wanting to upset you any further. At times, he knew you could be just as dangerous as his boss. That's probably why Francisco loved you so much. You were almost his equal, the only difference being that he was obviously much better with a gun than you. Although, you could shoot. He saw to that. You remembered the lessons he gave you and how they would inevitably lead to other activities, activities that you were much better suited for. You knew just what he liked were all to eager to please him. After all he did provide you with everything you wanted, but now none of that seemed to matter. You just wanted him.

You curled up into a ball on the couch and cried, cried till you fell asleep. When you awoke it was night time. You rubbed your sore and swollen eyes and sat up, feeling slightly disoriented. Time now seemed warped. You felt like you had just heard the news only a few minutes ago when I'm fact it had been several hours. You got up and walked over towards the large window that overlooked the ocean. No stars twinkled in the sky on this night, you noticed. All was dark including the fresh new void in your heart, but your soul felt turblent like the waves that crashed onto the shore as so many emotions coursed through you. Anger that James Bond was alive, but most of all sadness. Sadness because your love was no longer here to hold you, to kiss you, or whisper sweet things in your ear. Never would you hear or feel him again. A single tear ran down your face. You didn't even have a body to say goodbye to. The island was gone.

You slid open the door and stepped out onto the beach letting your bare feet sink into the wet sand. You thought of all the times you and Scaramanga walked along the beach, hand and hand confiding in each other all your little secrets.

You paused for a moment looking out over the ocean, your eyes staring blankly into the distance. You felt numb. What were you going to do now? You thought. Of course you were able to provide for yourself and everything, but now it all seemed so meaningless without him.

You half expected Scaramanga to come up behind you and hold you like he usually did, but you knew that was only just a memory.

Slowly you pulled yourself together and went back inside. Stan greeted you as you went back in. "Are you alright?" He asked you tiredly, still wrapped in his robe.

"I want to go see the island." You answered abruptly.

"Now?" You nodded, yes, in reply. You had to see it for yourself. At least find his body. You had to have something.

"We'll have to take the helicopter." He told you.

"That's fine. Be ready in half an hour." You ordered, retreating to your own quarters. You paused at the bedroom door, your hand resting on the knob. You hadn't been in there yet. You took a deep breath and slowly opened the door almost instantly the memories flooded back. You closed your eyes and tried to force out the memories of all the times you made love to him in this room, but you couldn't. You walked over to the bed and picked up his pillow, pressing it to your face taking in his scent. Softly you uttered his name into the fabric."Why? Why did you have to go?" You cried. After a moment or two, you placed the pillow back down and got dressed. As you left you caught sight of yourself in the mirror. You looked like hell, dark circles had formed around your bloodshot eyes, and you looked pale and sick. If only Scaramanga could see you now...

You met with Stan in the carrier. "Are you sure?" He asked you one more time before helping you into the helicopter.

"I am. I need to do this." Reluctantly, he agreed although he wasn't sure if you could handle it just yet. He actually feared that your heart would not be able to take it. As the helicopter slowly rose into the air you watched quietly as the island faded into the distance and out of sight.

Several hours later, you saw the rocks coming into view, smoke emanating from between them. Your heart skipped a beat as the helicopter approached and you finally saw what was left. Everything that Scaramanga had built littered the island below, blown to bits. It was a terrible sight.

Carefully, Stan landed the helicopter on the beach. Now that you were here you felt overwhelmed, not knowing where to start. You climbed out and stared into the ruins before you. You could still see remainders of the living room and kitchen, all charred and broken. Never had you felt so lost in some place so familar. It barely looked like your home at all.

All was quiet except for the faint hissing sound from the metal as it cooled. If Francisco was going to be anywhere it would be in his funhouse. That would be the only place he would challenge James Bond. You thought, heading in that direction desperately hoping that something was still in tact. You pushed open the door and stepped inside, the studio was a mess. All his training equipment strewn about the room broken in pieces. You had memories about this room too, but now wasn't the time to think about it. You made your way down into the funhouse, taking care to avoid that false step as you went. You knew this place like the back of your hand.

As you went further and further down into the funhouse you noticed that most things remained untouched by the explosion. In the distance you could a hear a recording of malicious laughter stuck on loop, giving the place an even creepier vibe.

You were almost at the end when you felt something crunch into the ground beneath your feet. You looked down and saw Scaramanga's gold watch. You gently picked it up and rolled it over in your hand. You had given him this watch a couple years ago for his birthday. He never took it off...

You put it in your pocket and continued down the steps. All around you the mirrors were shattered from the explosion. You had to be careful or you would trip on the shards of glass that were scattered across the floor.

Then you saw him. Your heart jumped into your throat as your eyes fell upon his lifeless body lying face down on the ground, his golden gun lying inches away from his hand. You gasped and clasped your hand over your mouth, tears welling up in your eyes. He really was dead.

You slowly approached his body and crouched down beside him, pushing him onto his back. Blood stained his mouth and shirt, where a distinct bullet wound had passed right through his heart. "Francisco..." You sobbed as you gently ran your hand along his cold, lifeless face. To Bond he was just another criminal, but to you he was your life and now he was gone.

You pulled Scaramanga close and held him in your lap. "I love you." You whispered, even though you knew you would never hear him answer you. Why did this have to hurt so much? You had never felt such pain in your life. You could have been beaten and tortured, but nothing could have compared to the pain you felt in your heart.

And then you heard a faint voice. So faint that you almost didn't hear it. "I love you too." It spoke in a familiar voice one that you hadn't expected to hear. Had you imagined it?

You looked down at Scaramanga in your arms and noticed his chest was ever so softly rising and falling. He was alive! How was this possible? He should be dead.

"Stan! Stan!" You called out, hoping he would hear. You had to get Scaramanga some help and fast. You couldn't believe it. The man with the golden gun was alive.

#get the box of tissues!#i had to make it a happy ending #i wasnt going to but I couldn't 😅#still in a scaramanga mood #francisco scaramanga x reader #francisco scaramanga #the man with the golden gun (1974)#x reader #reader insert #christopher lee #tw death #tw character death

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thespottedcreature · 4 years

Text

Marvel preference: Pets

Tony: Let's face it, Tony can barely take care of his own needs, let alone the ones of a pet. He's always busy, and Pepper has told him multiple times that NO, she will not take care of a dog in addition to Tony, the company and about a million other things she has to take care of. So Tony decided to build himself a mechanic dog, but due to Peter and Clint changing the plans as a joke, it turned out to be a bunny as Tony was half asleep as he built it.

Not to worry, Fluffy (yes, Peter named him), is a beloved mascot of the Avengers, and sort of a guard dog for the base. Because even if he looks like a lop-eared bunny and is the size of a loaf of bread, he carries a mean kick. And by a mean kick, I mean enough ammunition to change a fully equipped tank into a holey hunk of metal. And best yet, he is basically indestructible. Well, the Hulk could crush him but when his fist was about to go down on to do it, he froze and muttered "Hulk not hurt bunny." and went to destroy one of Tony's suits. But that's a story for another day.

Steve: Steves pet is a gift from Tony, and it's a parrot called Captain (no, Tony did not name him, he came with the name but Tony thinks it is hilarious). He's not just any parrot but one that has lived in a bar for the beginning of its life and as a result, it curses like a pirate. A really bad mouthed pirate. Steve is very fond of his pet, as he could never even go close to birds before the serum because of well... asthma and allergies etc. Now he can, but sometimes he wishes his parrot had a cleaner mouth.

He's working on training it not to curse as much, but the training is not going very well. Mostly because Clint likes to sneak into Steves room and teach the parrot new (bad) words and encourage it to curse more. Steve is to yet to find out.

Bucky: Bucky has a dalmatian dog called Popcorn. She was firstly owned by an animal hoarder and didn't see the outside for the first two years of its life, so she's very hyper. Like jumps-up-the-walls -hyper. She has light brown patches on her skin, hence the name. (Also, it was inspired by the way she moves. Like a popped popcorn, totally unpredictable where it will go and fully charged with of energy)

The whole team takes part in making sure that she gets to let out her energy. In addition to the high-quality dog walker Tony hired, she trains on the stairs with Clint, does tricks with Peter, plays fetch with Thor, he also runs for hours with Bucky, Steve, and Nat in turns, who are the only ones with high enough stamina to keep up with her endless energy. (Sam claims that he does not like Popcorn, and therefore does not run with her, Bucky knows that it's bullcrap because he caught him watching Lassie with her the other week while curled up on the couch. He can't wait to rub it in Sam's face when the right moment comes.)

Thor: Thor does not have pets, but you do. A big Samoyed dog named Thor.

Loki: Loki claims that he does not need or want pets because they are "pathetic mortal stuff". But everyone in the tower knows that he has a goldfish called Destroyer. Enough said.

Pietro: No pets. No animal can keep up with his speed. But he has always wanted to race a cheetah.

Bruce: Bruce has a lazy Persian cat called Matthew who lives at the lab. And I mean lazy, nothing will move him if he wants to sleep. Want your notes that are under him? Forget it. Need to use the microscope he happens to be laying in front of? Not gonna happen. Hulk making an appearance? He will not care. He will just open his eye a smidge to see what the hell is interrupting his sleep and go back to sleep.

Peter plays a game of "how many paper cups I can make a pyramid of on top of him before he moves and it collapses." At the moment, the record is one hundred and thirty-seven. Next time Peter's going for two hundred and he will bring a ladder. And Clint to help him with it.

Sam: He’s not a fan of animals. You own a leopard gecko, named Macy. She’s a bit of a old lady, being but she’s still lively and happy.

Stephen: No pets. You beg him nearly daily that you could get a dog, but so far, he's not giving in to your puppy dog eyes and constant begging.

Clint: He found a completely white kitten with blue eyes from the shelter, and upon asking more about him, he learned that the kitten was deaf. To cut the long story short, he was home with Clint the next day. Even Nat isn't completely immune to Ghost's cuteness. Ghost and Popcorn (Bucky's dog) are best pals and Popcorn will go above and beyond to protect her little friend.

Peter P.: You own three hamsters named Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. Peter is super jealous, he has no pets as May is allergic but you always let him play with your pet trio.

Peter Q.: Peter found a gray cat while he was cruizing space and thought it would be a perfect surprise for you. It was, and even more so when she ate a burglar that tried to force you out of the apartment. Upon asking the Avengers for help, Thor declared that it was a flerken. You still loved her with all your heart and refused to part with her, even if the others said she was dangerous. Her name is Hermione.

T'Challa: No pets.

Eddie/Venom: You cannot keep pets in the same apartment Venom is in, it is just impossible. So no pets. You tried a goldfish once, but it was gone the next morning, even after telling Venom not to eat it multiple times, so you decided to give up.

Nat: She owns a completely black ferret, and the little critter carries the name Bullet. She’s feisty like her momma.

Wanda: Wanda has a black and white cat called Pippin. She's a Ragdoll and she is an absolute lovebug and loves to cuddle with everyone. She is almost constantly purring and she spends most of her days walking around the tower to see if anyone would pet her. If you are doing pushups you can be damn sure that she is sitting on your back, purring in a few minutes. No exceptions. Napping on the couch? Soon you have a purring roll next to your head. Or arm. Or leg. Wherever there is room.

A/n: I’m clearing my book list in Wattpad and an ancient volume of Marvel oneshots and found this and a couple of other works there, and I’m posting them here. But they will probably be my only Marvel ones I will write.

I will post a few probably today.

#marvel preferences #venom x reader #natasha romanov x reader #wanda maximoff x reader #t’challa x reader #peter quill x reader #peter parker x reader #sam wilson x reader #bruce banner x reader #steve rogers x reader #bucky barnes x reader #tony stark x reader #clint barton x reader #stephen strange x reader #pietro maximoff x reader #thor odinson x reader #loki x reader

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restrainedubiquity · 3 years

Text

Die to Live

It’s been a minute. Anyone still reading Kabby?

Missing bunker scene. AO3 Link

“This is an ambush,” Jackson scrubs his hands over his face as he paces the empty infirmary waiting for Abby to respond to the emergency page he just called.

“It was your idea,” Marcus crouches down, placing his hand in the ice cold water and quickly pulling it out shaking water droplets everywhere.

“She’s going to hate us,” Jackson chances a glance down the still empty hall. She must have been on the upper levels. It normally doesn’t take her this long.

“Well, she already hates me,” Marcus sighs leaning against the wall, “we can start a club.” He forces the humor into his voice, but it falls flat. They're both terrified and they know it.

Abby rounds the corner breathless, stopping dead in her tracks when there is only an unscathed Marcus Kane standing in her infirmary. “What the hell is this?” she pants, eyes shooting daggers at both men. She rounds on Jackson when she gets no answers from Marcus. That’s when she sees it. The tub, the crash cart, the blankets and IV’s. Everything on Raven’s list needed to restart her brain. “No.” she says with a finger in Jackson’s face. She heads for the door, but Marcus blocks her way, locking them all in.

“Abby you need to do this,” Jackson is calm, he’s gone over this moment. “Take yourself out of the equation. If it was any other patient, if you’d been there with Raven…”

“If I’d been there with Raven I would have done everything in my power to find a way to help her other than killing her,” she doesn’t yell at him, but she’s right on the edge.

“We have. Abby, we’ve done everything, we’ve researched everything, tried everything. You know we aren’t going to find anything before…”

“Before you die,” Marcus cuts in. He agreed to let Jackson try to reason with her, but knew it wasn’t going to work. She wants a fight and he’ll give it to her. It’s all they do since she woke up in the bunker anyways. And as he’s proven, he’d rather her be alive to hate him. Marcus had been reluctant to go along with this plan. His trust in Raven is explicit, but any gamble with Abby’s life is not one he was willing to make. Was. Until the seizures got worse; until headaches had her curled up in a dark corner screaming into her knees; until she’d blacked out while they were making love. Jackson was right from the start when he told him that they had to do this for her.

“I’m still fighting this!” her palms slam into Marcus’ chest, but he holds his ground. “I’m fighting and you’re asking me to lay down and die! I won’t do that! I can’t do that!”

“I am asking you to let us fight for you. I am asking you to trust us. I am asking you to let the 3 people that love you save your damn life!” He grabs her arms harder than he intends, almost pulling her off her feet, but he’s fueled by frustration and fear. He won’t lose her to this, not when there’s a chance to save her. This is what he can do. His role in their plot. Raven gave the instructions, Jackson will ensure she wakes up, he has to kill her. “You understand that if you don’t do this you are going to die? You say you’re fighting this, but the resolution is right here and you’re running away from it. Why!?” He’s yelling in her face, shaking her.

“Because I’m scared!” she yells back, using his grip to pull herself level with his face. “I’m scared! I don’t know how to make you understand. I would rather be tortured than do this. And I know it sounds ridiculous, but I am scared.” She leans into him, face in his chest, fists full of his shirt.

“I know,” Marcus wraps his arms around her as her body shakes with sobs she won’t let loose. He holds her tight to his chest, sharing a long look with Jackson. They both know what needs to be done. They both knew it would inevitably come to this.

Kane pretends not to notice the way Jackson’s hands shake as he takes the sedative from his pocket. The last time he’d drugged her he hadn’t been himself. He’d watched his hand in horror as it plunged the needle into her neck. He’d watched her fall to the floor. She’s not his prisoner this time, but his patient. He won’t let himself think “colleague”, think “friend”, think “family.” Still, his eyes tear as he prepares to drug her again. Kane holds his gaze. A strong, steady reassurance that this must be done. His arms move smoothly up and down Abby’s back, holding, soothing, pulling her hair to the side just before Jackson’s injection pierces her skin.

She goes limp in his arms, harsh cries turning to steady exhales almost instantly. In one fluid, practiced motion Marcus lifts her to cradle in his arms. “We’re doing the right thing,” he assures the younger man and he carries her to the medical table and lays her down.

“We’re doing the right thing,” he is assured by the doctor that’s about to stop the heart of the woman he loves. Kill her to save her. Die to live.

As they remove her boots and outer layers of clothing, preparing to submerge her in the hastily built tank that's little more than a bathtub, both men silently pray to everything in the universe that this will not be the first time Raven Reyes is wrong. “I’ve got her,” Marcus stops Jackson with a firm grasp to his arm. “You have the hard part,” he tells him, knowing Abby’s life will be in his healing hands.

“I don’t know about that,” Jackson backs away, purposefully not watching as Marcus Kane, stoic leader, cries openly as he lowers Abby into the icy water.

“I love you,” he kisses into her forehead, supporting her neck as he lays her down. He doesn’t remove his hand, thumb rubbing steadily back and forth under her ear. Jackson considers for a moment telling him the risks. His doctor’s instinct to spare him the effects of frostbite and the like, but the greater part, the human part, hopes Abby feels the comfort.

She jerks in his hold once, body fighting for warmth and he squeezes the back of her neck, plunges his other arm into the water pushing gently against her chest to keep below the surface. She jerks again and he gives up all pretense of putting on a brave face. “Please, Abby,” he begs as she thrashes beneath him, blissfully unconscious, but still fighting. “Please,” he chokes out but it’s swallowed by sob. What else would he say? ‘Please die? Please let me kill you?’ It’s absurd, yet it’s exactly what he needs her to do.

She stills as the heart monitor screams; coming to life with her death. Jackson silences it quickly, though Marcus knows the sound will haunt his nightmares til the day he dies. There’s another beep. Without turning from her, he knows the timer has been started. Now they wait.

...

Jackson tries not to look at her. She looks almost angelic with her features lax, her hair floating around her like a chaotic halo. He can’t let himself think like that. Can’t focus on anything but the seconds he will have to bring her back. It will work. He’s told himself this a thousand times as he listened to Raven’s recorded instructions over and over until he committed the mechanic’s every breath to memory. Her last words echo in his mind: “Trust me, Eric. I love her too.” He’s holding on to that as he watches the minutes tick down, trying to keep himself together for Abby. Abby could do this for him without hesitation. Abby would trust Raven and she would trust herself. Jackson only has to do the same.

...

It’s the longest 15 minutes of Marcus Kane’s life. He can hear Jackson behind him. The younger man paces, checks and rechecks the equipment that will bring her back to him. Abby would be proud. He makes note to tell her of the younger man’s resolve, his confidence. Though Marcus has known Abigail Griffin his whole life-- the doctor, the councilwoman, the chancellor, the pain in his ass--it’s Jackson that's known Abby.

There’s been times he’s jealous of their connection. It’s almost psychic after spending countless hours working side by side. He’s watched them during crisis or surgery, so in sync they blur into one. But it’s the rare quiet moments when she’ll look at Jackson out of the corner of her eye and start laughing at a joke Marcus will never hear. Or the amount the young man says just in the way he says her name. The inflection of that one word tells her what would take Marcus hours to explain.

He wants more time. He wants a life with her that they can spend living and learning and fighting and loving. Side by side. “Please,” he begs her again, watching his tears make ripples as they fall into the water

“Thirty seconds,” Jackson comes closer to the tub, putting a hand on Kane’s shoulder as the older man moves his arm from Abby’s face to behind her knees. Ready to pull her out the second he’s allowed. The timer goes off with a quiet chime, but it sends both men into action as if it were a gunshot. Marcus pulls Abby out so quickly most of the frigid water comes with her. It covers him and the floor, but he doesn’t notice. Jackson is already on the other side of the table, removing the mask from Abby’s face before Marcus finishes laying her down. The paddles materialize in his hands and for the first time in the last 30 minutes, Marcus let’s go of Abby as the electricity courses through her.

Nothing.

Neither man speaks as Jackson brings the paddles to her chest again.

And again.

Marcus feels nothing. Emptiness consumes him as he watches Abby’s body jerk then go limp. He watches Jackson’s hands on the paddles, knuckles white as he shocks, adjusts, and shocks again. He can’t let himself think that this didn’t work, that they killed her. He killed her. His hands shake. The hands that lowered her into the water, held her down. Her body spasms again, so hard this time that her arm falls limply off the side of the table. “ABBY!” Jackson’s voice booms through the medbay, bouncing off the concrete. That meaning Marcus hears, that he understands, that he shares.

Her body jerks again, but this time there’s no current forced into it. Four hands are on her in seconds and the room fills with a chorus of “Abby’s” from both men. Marcus adjusts her body on the table, hand once again slipping behind her neck.

Jackson is staring at monitors, inserting IV’s, checking vitals, and nodding to himself. “Blankets,” he tells Marcus and from his tone it’s not the first time he’s said it. This time he is the one to lift her from the table, placing her on the nearby bed. “Take your clothes off and lay with her,” he instructs. It would sound absurd to both men if it hadn’t been delivered in the doctor’s no nonsense tone that he definitely learned from the woman lying between them. Marcus obeys, pulling off his soaked through sweater and pants and spooning behind her carefully avoiding the fluids warming her from the inside. Jackson nods at the monitors again once his patient’s are securely tucked in. He can see Marcus’ eyes frantically darting from him to the monitors, to the woman in his arms, and that he’s resisting the urge to ask a thousand questions. “Little bit longer,” he says, not needing to turn from watching the steady rise of body temperature to see Marcus nod into Abby’s neck.

She doesn’t gasp for breath. She doesn’t call out either of their names. It’s nothing so dramatic. It’s a soft moan as her body shivers, pressing her back more securely to his chest, the warm exhale against the arm under her head as she sighs contentedly in the cocoon they’ve made her, and the twitch of a smile on her lips as Marcus tightens his hold.

“We’ll have to do another scan when she’s warmer to make sure it worked. But for now, she should sleep. Both of you should.” Jackson brushes the fingertips that peak out from the blanket with his own before tucking them in. It’s the first time he’s allowed himself to touch Abby, not his patient. To see Abby instead of a problem to solve.

“Thank you, Eric,” Marcus’ voice shakes as he once again holds Jackson’s gaze. He wants to hug the man. At the very least to shake his hand. And he will when this is over. When Abby is warm, and awake, and not in danger of leaving them anytime soon.

“Yeah,” is all Jackson can say as he dims the lights on the infirmary and makes his way back to the offices. He barely makes it to the chair before he finally feels everything he had to force back. His chest hurts as harsh cries rip free. The tears and sweat and spit follow until he’s nothing but an exhausted mess slouched over the desk.

…

“You should get some proper rest.” Jackson’s senses stir at the voice above him, but he doesn’t have the energy to move. His head is tucked in his arms making everything dark and muffled. “Eric.” The voice is close now and there’s a strong hand pulling at his shoulder. He’s forced up, blinking rapidly to adjust to the fluorescent lights.

“Abby?” he stands so quickly the room spins and it’s the woman he shocked back to life hours ago that holds him steady.

“Hi,” she says smiling brightly. She’s dressed in dry clothes, hair pulled back in a mess of waves.

“For the record, I told her not to wake you up,” Marcus steps into the doorway, also dressed and dry. “I also told her to stay in bed.”

“We need to do an MRI you should be resting you probably need more fluids you…” it comes out in a rush of frantic breath that she silences with a fierce embrace. Arms tight around his shoulders with her forehead pressed to his neck. “Abby,” he whispers against her as his arms mirror her own, holding her tightly. Once again, one word says it all.

…

Marcus steps away, shutting the door behind him. He’s had his moment. Abby had turned in his arms, opened her eyes and kissed him like she had on lazy mornings in Polis. He doesn’t need a scan to know their risk was worthwhile. Her eyes were bright and filled with the fire he hadn’t seen in months. I love you too, she’d told him as she watched his mind try to work through explanations and apologies for how she’d woken up, for what they’d done. She settled back against his chest and for a blissful moment, let him hold her. He knew they still had a lot to talk about, a lot to work through since he trapped her with him, but she loves him, she’s safe. That’s enough for now.

#kabby fanfiction #kabby #abby griffin #marcus kane #eric jackson #the100

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years

Text

Humans are Space Orcs, “The Shadow.”

Hope you all like this one today. It is a bit spooky, but not to bad I think, so hopefully it will be ok for everyone. But I leave it to you to decide what cou can handle.

He was lying in bed asleep when the call came through on his implants. The little buzzing in the side of his neck roused him from sleep and he grumpily looked at the clock rubbing his eyes. It was 4 in the morning. He supposed there were worse times to wake up, though the fact he hadn’t gotten to sleep until 12 the night before made it a bit more questionable.

Sunny had left around the time he went to bed having tried to keep him company in his paranoia, worried that he would suddenly turn around and see the long dead face of Captain Everett, the captain of a civilian transport turned to cannibalism for some unknown reason, and someone he had been forced to kill with his own hand.

Someone he had been seeing in places he shouldn’t be seeing him.

He sighed and rubbed his temples, sitting up and looking around.

He would be the first to admit, that if the viewing window hadn’t allowed in the proper amount of ambient light, he would have sprung for a night-light. Even so, he did his best to keep his face away from the floor length mirror as he turned to look down at his implant.

URGENT Admiral to deck 8

He strapped on his leg, pulled on some pants and a shirt and boots before hurrying out of the room.

Waffles stood from her dog bed trotting over to nose his hand with her cold damp snout. He patted her on the head and ordered her to stay as he walked towards the door.

He nearly ran headfirst into Simon who was waiting outside, and honestly nearly screamed, but settled for a strangled yelp somewhere in between, nearly pitching onto the floor.

“Mother-of-hell-Lieutenant.”

“Sorry for startling you, sir.”

“Do you ever sleep.”

“Yes sir.”

“That was a rhetorical question.” He groaned and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, “What are you even doing up?”

“I was alerted to a situation before you. They weren’t sure if it was important enough to mention, but I deemed it important enough.”

“And this situation is…. What exactly.” She stared at him with her wide eyes, which she had the strange and unsettling habit of not blinking too often, “The crew is reporting things gone missing, especially down in engineering.”

“Gone missing! What do you mean gone missing?”

She looked at him with her head tilted, “I don’t understand the question sir?”

His shoulders slumped lightly, “I want to know what has gone missing, why they think it is even missing, and who could have taken or misplaced it if it is.”

“WHy didn’t you just say so, sir.”

He sighed internally. Simon was a very efficient and organized person, but she had trouble with metaphors, turns of phrase, sarcas, rhetorical questions, and getting along with people in general.

“Just little things here and there sir, but enough that the crew is noticing. Almost everyone has misplaced something.”

“Right, I see.”

He turned to walk down the hall with her listening to the list that she had compiled of all the things that were missing. Most of it seemed sort of innocuous, mostly tools, or spare parts that no one had bothered to lock up, but he knew from looking at the ship’s equipment manifests that most of those things (while relatively minor for one of the most expensive intergalactic warships ever built) they weren’t without value.

“Anyone suspected so far?”

Simon shook her head, “No sir. Everyone was asleep when the items were stolen and the records of their implants have them in those locations all night. So no one on the day shift was lying. We have been going around asking people on the night shift and should know something sooner rather than later.”

He nodded his head and was about to take a step down onto deck four when the distant rumbling of the engines ground to a screeching halt. The red emergency lights in the hallway pulsed once and then brightened.

A clattering noise echoed through the hall, and with the sudden shutdown of the engine, the ship jolted slightly causing both him and the lieutenant to go stumbling forward.

Simon almost hit her knees, and he was barely able to catch himself on the wall to his right,

“What the Hell!” The buzzing on his implants began almost as soon as the jolt happened, and he opened the com as he broke into a jog towards engineering.

“What was that!” He demanded over the line.

“Engines say they are offline, sir. Nonfunctional.”

“Say again.”

“We are dead in the water, sir.”

He felt his skin go very very cold. A chill breeze semed to rush over his body as that revelation came in over the line.

Dead in the water

Dead in the water like that civilian transport.

The once familiar glowing corridors of his ship now took on a sinister cast. The glowing red light that highlighted the mental around them shimmered hellish. The corridor before them was dark, shadowy, more like a cave and less like a ship.

Beside him, Simon reached into her uniform pocket and pulled out a pen.

With a sharp click, the small pen light was engaged and the hellish red cast was chased away by a sharp beam of white light.

Thankful for the sudden illumination, he followed her down the halls and into engineering.

He found Narobi there grilling her engineers on just exactly what was going on.

One of them was shaking his head, “I, I’m sorry Ma’am, but I don’t know. I was here when it went off.”

“Nothing shuts off an engine that fast unless one of the direct support systems was tampered with. The engine would have to turn off quickly, so I need you guys out looking for every release valve, ever failsafe, and every energy dampener you can find.” She turned to look at one of her other underlings, “And you get down to storage and find us a new part. I made sure than when I started working on this ship that we had enough spare parts for a small Omen if we had to. Now GO!”

The two men scampered off into the darkness, like rats scurrying away from approaching footsteps.

They were left alone in a pool of white light, and Narobi turned to face him.

“Anything I can do to help?” He wondered

She sighed, “I’m not sure, sir. We have been experiencing… strange things all night-”

“Yeah, having your stuff go missing.”

She waved a hand at him, “Yes there is that, but that’s not what I was talking about.”

His chest tightened slightly, and he shifted nervously on his feet. The darkness around him seemed to be pressing in.

“WHat do you mean?”

She shook her head, and the look on her face was not exactly encouraging, “THe crew is reporting…. Strange movement. More than one of them would have sworn they had heard or seen something, generally a dark shadow at the end of the hall, or a flicker out of the corner of their eyes.

No no no, this could not be happening.

His ship was new!

It couldn’t be haunted!

No one had even died here yet…. Then again there were those dead Kree. DId they have something to do with it? He shook himself in annoyance. Why the hell would he jump to a supernatural explanation? He was flying a spaceship, for crying out loud. More than likely it was some kind of alien, which wasn’t much more formorting, but it at least meant they could deal with the problem.

“Still doesn’t change the fact that I want to help. I know I’m not an engineer but, this is my ship, and I made a business of knowing her backwards and forward before she was given to me.”

Nairobi looked him up and down, her full lips pressed tightly together, “Well, I suppose we could use all the help we can get. Take a light, and, if you can, check the maintenance channels up the back of decks ten through three. It is kind of tight in there and you are going to have to climb up a few ladders.

He nodded, “I can do that. Call me if your men find anything.” he turned to look at simon, “Head up to the bridge and take the chair. Keep me updated on what is going on.”

Simon stared at him, “Take the chair sir, you mean like….”

“Yes, Go upstairs, sit in the captain’s chair and be the captain while I figure out what is going on.”

“But sir, that is highly-”

“Unorthodox, yes I know, but this is how I do things, so go on.”

Simon wasn’t the kind to unusually show much emotion, but the little spark in her eyes and the sudden spring to her step suggested that he might have managed to make her day, despite the fact that they were dead in the water, and unable to move.

In the dark.

Alone.

He wished for a moment that he had brought waffles along with him, but he knew that she wouldn’t be able to follow where he was going. He wondered, not for the first time, why he had even volunteered for this sort of thing. He was the Admiral, and by rights that meant that his most important job was to delegate duties to other people.

Of course even thinking that made him very aware of how much he disagreed with that sort of leadership, and so he sighed, taking a light from Narobi as he moved into the darkness.

WIth the rumbling of the engines suspended, the ship was left eerily quiet. It was like someone had come and stuffed his ears full of cotton or mud. He would say it was equivalent to what happens when a thick layer of snow falls in the mountains, and great white snowflakes fall from the sky.

It seems as if all sound is drained from the world but the crunching of ones own footsteps through the powder.

But now, it was the sound of his own boots clattering over the metal deck. The beam of his light cut through the darkness sweeping over the metal, up and down the walls trying to find anything amiss.

He was alone in the darkness.

At one point he chose to switch off his light and turn on his infrared in his prosthetic eye.

The world lit up around him in grey. There was no color, but he could see further than he could with the flashlight, and the darkness didn’t seem so penetrating. .

f course his left eye was almost completely blind in the blackness of the ship, but that was a small price to pay for the security he felt that the other eye gave him.

He moved up a set of rickety stairs scanning from left to right before forcing himself into a small vertical shaft, crawling his way up. On occasion he would pass through a pool of red illumination from the security lights, but with the filters on his eye, the dim red glow did not interfere with his long distance vision.

He was walking down one of the maintenance hallways checking and rechecking the piping and wiring that ran along the sides when a sudden soft brushing reached him from behind.

He spun quickly on the spot, his hands held up his heart racing.

For one moment, his infrared eye thought he saw something flash out of sight down the T intersection behind him, but it was so fast that it could have been nothing, His heart was hamming so hard, he could hear the rush of blood through his ears.

He took a deep breath.

He was not an overly religious man and generally didn’t have an opinion about prayer one way or the other, but in that moment he was about ready to have a religious revelation, though weather ‘please dear god don’t let it eat me’ is considered a prayer or not is up to semantics.

He stood there for a long while in the dark just watching the hallway behind him, though eventually the logical side of his brain determined that his recent paranoia was just making him see things, and he turned nervously on his heel to continue his search.

And so he crawled through the bowls of the ship scampering through the walls and past air vents, feeling like he was seeing something he wasn’t meant to see despite this ship belonging to him.

He made his way into another tal vertical shaft and began clambering up the rungs. Darkness pooled above and below him. He tried to focus on his hands and feet, the rungs small and slippery with his own sweat.

HE was almost to the top of the shaft, his head and shoulders peeking up over the lip of metal.

And onto a pair of feet.

His head snapped violently upwards at the colorless grey face of Captain Everett.

He screamed in shock, jerking back. His foot slipped on the rung, his hands came free, and his stomach dropped as he plunged downward into the shaft.

His flailing arms and feet clattered and slammed against the metal as he fell. Adrenaline shot through him forcing his human brain to capture the scene at more frames per second. The world around him seemed to slow, and he was able to snatch a hand out at one of the rings. With one hand he managed to hook his fingers around one of the rungs, his shoulder jerking violently sending a shock of pain up and into his hand.

He lost his grip and began to fall again, but it had slowed him enough that he was able to force his feet out in one direction catching himself with his back pinned to one side of the shaft, and his feet pinned to the other held up only by the pressure of his feet and back.

He would have cried out in pain for his shoulder but clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle his breathing.

HE lifted his head looking up at the top of the shaft, but saw nothing. He was shaking so violently, that he was sure his foot would dislodge any second. WIth his numb left hand, he reached out and grabbed the rungs of the ladder. His right arm hurt so bad, but luckily it wasn’t dislocated.

He sat at the center of the ladder, his head resting on his hands shaking for a good few minutes before he was able to force himself to crawl up the shaft. His eyes were fixed above him, but when he reached the top this time, he was alone.

He had to lean against the wall for a second to compose himself, the scare of seeing the strange apparition and his near death fall making him sick and light headed, but he forced himself to continue on, jumping at every small noise, glancing over his shoulder every other second.

He came to a T intersection, and was about to take a left when a dark shape appeared at the end of the hall.

He froze.

The shape vanished.

He had seen enough horror movies to know how this ended, and he turned quickly to the right, glancing back over his shoulder, though he saw nothing. At the next intersection, he saw the same shape again and went the other way.

It was following him, he could tell,

He wasn’t about to let this thing eat him without others knowing, so he radio up to the bridge, “Simon, do you read.” His voice was shaking and he didn’t care.

“I’m here Admiral, is something rong.”

“I think something is down here, can you do a scan of maintenance shafts deck five.”

Her voice was rather wary as she did so, “Yes sir, scanning now.”

He continued quietly forward.

“Got it.”

“Anything.”

There was a pause, “No, the only signature we are picking up is yours, sir.”

“Did you try a thermal scan?”

“Yes sir, and there was nothing.”

A cold chill ran up his spine, he felt sick, and the shaking -- that had begun to die down -- started up again.

“Thanks Simon.”

“Yes sir…. Do you want me to send someone.”

“No…. No I think I’ll manage.” She must think that he was totally insane, better not let anyone else know about that little problem. His arm and body still throbbed from his fall.

He turned another corner and was just walking down the hall when he felt a set of freezing cold hands grip him from behind.

He froze as a waft of cold breath washed over his ear.

He was frozen on the spot in sheer terror.

He could feel it lean in.

“Up.” THe voice whispered in his ear.

And then the hands withdrew.

He turned sharply around fists raised, but there was nothing there. He stood there very confused before slowly, and with great fear lifting his eyes upwards, expecting to see a black eyed apparition staring down at him razor sharp teeth bared.

But instead of that he saw a gaping hole on the wiring.

One of the coolant diffusers was missing.

He frowned and leaned upwards to get a better look.

Of course , this couldn't have been the cause of the ship shut off. If it took a single coolant diffuser to shut off the entire engine, than it would be a poor design indeed. There were hundreds of these all over the ship designed to keep the warp core and fusion core cool, and for this reason the ship had backup after backup in place for if one failed. As far as he knew there were at least 500 in operation.

Though if enough of them had gone missing…. The engines might shut off to avoid a potentially dangerous warp.

It wouldn't kill them but it would get hot.

He turned down his implant, “Narobi, I think i found something.”

She responded quickly, “What is it.”

“Coolant diffuser is missing up on deck, but I don’t see how that could cause this.”

“It wouldn’t…. unless .”

“Unless what?”

“Unless it wasn’t that at all, and it was the engineering monitoring system that was tampering with.”

He was slightly confused for a moment, “What do you mean.”

“I mean i should have been alerted when that piece of equipment was removed, but I wasn’t which means our monitoring systems are offline. Or parts of it . I didn’t notice before because the engine diagnostics was still working.”

“What do you want me to do about this?”

“Mark it on the map and then head back here. I will send someone up to replace it. We have plenty of spares.” He nodded and then -- remembering she couldn't see him, agreed.

He turned and began to head back down to engineering.

That was when he sensed it again, something standing behind him. He froze his heart hammering.

“I…. I odn’t know what you want, but I…. I…” He stammered for a bit before taking a deep breath, ‘Thank you…. For telling me about the diffuser.”

IT was, suddenly, very surprising. The cold chill turned into a warm sensation blossoming up through his chest.

The fear faded away slightly and his heart began to slow.

He could still feel IT behind him, but…. It didn’t seem so bad all of a sudden.

He wasn’t sure if the word had come through in his head or if he had heard it outloud. For a moment he wondered if it was conn but dismissed that quickly. Conn felt completely different.

He turned, and instead of heading down towards engineering he slowly chased a shadow.

One that seemed to flicker in and out of existence in the distance, to the point where it would have been easy to convince himself he was seeing things.

He was led through maintenance towards the nose of the ship, through the halls and floors of the maintenance tunnels.

He was almost to the nose of the ship, when a distant clattering noise came to him.

He moved forward a little, peering quietly around the corner to where the noise was coming from.

And when he did his eyes widened.

In the dim light of his infrared eye, he watched the Kree dislodge a dampener coupling from the wall.

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libraryofloveletters · 4 years

Note

since matt dad was a hit. one with the reader and matt married and both are working at paperwork at the BAU, until their child comes in that she is being bullied. prompt 27, 70, and 99. it would be cool if the child is friends with Michael

The Dance

Matt Simmons x Reader

Prompts 27,70 & 99: “who do I need to hurt?” “why do you look like you just ran here?” “oh good you’re here”

Warnings: crying, teasing

Category: fluff

Word Count: 1.3k

Author’s Note: The daughter is 7-8 just for reference. I hope you like it love!

----

Today was just a paperwork day and you and Matt had just returned from lunch. You rarely ever get to just go for a drive and get lunch, you do when you’re on a case but it’s different when you’re not in a rush.

“You really think rhinos should be able to fly?” you laughed at Matt’s thought. “Yes, I do. Think about how cute they would look” he said to you as the two of you stepped off the elevator. The clicking of Penelope's heels filling your ears as she quickly walked over to you guys, “Oh good you’re here” she grabbed each of your hands and pulled you back towards her office. You and Matt looked at each other and walked with her anyways.

“Penelope, what’s going on?” you asked her.

“And why do you look like you just ran here?” Matt chuckled.

She turned to you guys, stopping in her tracks. You were concerned now, it wasn't unusual for Penelope to drag you off to her office or somewhere else but she was never this cryptic. “Okay before you go in there, I must warn you. Your sweet little angel is in there crying her eyes out” Matt’s smile dropped from his face. “What the hell happened ?” he asked her, she began telling you guys how JJ picked up your daughter and Micheal, bringing them here for the afternoon. Your daughter told JJ that she’s going to hang out with Penelope and when she got there, she started crying and hasn’t stopped.

“I tried everything you guys, sweets, cute baby animals, movies. I even called Morgan to see if he could come in and cheer her up but she said she didn’t want to see him.. like who doesn’t want to see that hunk of chocolate thunder? But anyway, she asked for you guys and by you guys I mean Matt. She kept asking when you’d get here” she let out a breath, Matt didn't wait to hear the rest before walking into Penelope’s office.

“Sweetie ?” he called out for her, she spun her chair around to see her father standing in the doorway. “Dad?” she sniffled as he walked over to her, he crouched down in front of her, letting her fall into his arms. She was barely on the chair and Matt had his arms around her. You smiled at the two of them, she had always been a daddy’s girl. She fell off the chair afterwards and onto his lap, the two of them sat on the floor while they were hugging.

“Okay baby, tell me what’s going on. Your auntie Penelope said you were crying.” he said quietly to her. You knew she’d open up and tell him, she had always turned to him for help. Matt glanced over at you and Penelope as a way of telling you to step out which you did.

----

40 minutes had passed, and you and Penelope were sitting at the table in the bullpen drinking coffee. Your leg bounced under the table nervously, she rested her hand gently on your knee “I’m sure she’s okay” you gave her a small smile. Matt and your daughter walked in, she gave you a big smile as she ran off to find Micheal. You stood up “who do I need to hurt?” you asked your husband who laughed at your question. “Relax baby, I handled it” he sat beside you. Penelope excused herself to go talk to Emily.

“What happened ? Is she okay?” you were concerned, she was never one to just start crying like that. “Yeah, she’s been having some problems with a kid at school” he told you, “Is it wrong to want to beat up the kid’s mom? Because I know it’s wrong to beat up a kid, but is the mom off limits?” you took a sip of your coffee, Matt shook his head. “Y/n, you can’t do that” he laughed.

“This is my fault though” he sighed, you rested your hand on his.

“What do you mean babe?” you asked

“Last weekend was the father daughter dance and we were away on a case. She didn’t tell me because she said she didn’t want to go. When she heard the girls in her class talking about it, it bothered her which is understandable. She let it go until one of the kids kept pushing her and teasing her cause her parents aren't around as much as the other kids’ parents. Baby, I feel horrible. I should be here to take her” he sighed, he looked like he was about to cry. “Baby it’s not your fault, you didn’t know. Kids are mean. She's strong, she’ll be alright” you hugged him.

----

You had the weekend off, you were going to make it up to them for missing the father daughter dance. Penelope and Luke had come over to help you decorate Rossi’s backyard. He offered to let you use his backyard but only if you saved a dance for him, which of course you did. He was like your dad too, it was only fitting.

Matt had gone to get a haircut and he took your daughter with him, you sent him a text telling him that Rossi was having a last minute dinner and that you came over to help him. You also told him for them to wear something nice and be there for 6.

You and Penelope did the last touches right as Matt and your daughter walked into the backyard. “Surprise!” the two of you shouted at them, Matt and your daughter laughed. “Oh my god, babe you shouldn't have” The two of them gave you a hug, you smiled and hugged them back. “I had some help” you nodded towards Penelope, Luke and Rossi.

The backyard was covered in fairy lights, there were little pink flowers hanging from the trees and dance floor in the middle of the yard. Luke and Rossi had built a little makeshift DJ booth for the night and luged his record player outside even though Penelope had brought all her equipment.

“Alright, let’s get this night started!” Luke shouted from the makeshift DJ booth, he was standing there looking pretty because Penelope was obviously the genius behind it all. Penny put on a slow song as her and Luke stepped out of the booth to dance. Matt and your daughter were swaying along to the beat of the song while Rossi held your hand and brought you over to the dance floor.

The 3 pairs of you danced until your feet gave out on you. Penelope and Luke had just said goodnight and headed out to their car. Rossi had switched on his record player a little after Penelope and Luke left. Your daughter was having her last dance of the night with her grandpa Dave.

Matt’s arm was over your shoulder, your fingers interlocking. “I can’t believe you did all this” you smiled at him “I had to make it up to her, she deserved it” he nodded. “I told her to let me know, I'll be there even if I have to miss work. She’s so much more important than any case could ever” he smiled as he watched her dance with Dave. She had grown up so quickly but she was still your baby.

#matt simmons #matt simmons x reader #matt simmons x you #matt simmons x y/n #dad!matt simmons #matt simmons oneshot #ssa matt simmons #cm #cm imagine #cm imagines #cm oneshot #criminal minds #criminal minds imagines #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds oneshot

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matchasprouts · 3 years

Text

Listen Closer - Chapter 4

[ girl help i can't stop writing this ]

First || Next || Previous || Last

He woke up to someone pounding on the door, which only successfully left a pounding in his head, therefore setting him up to be a little bitch for the rest of the day.

Since he was off on weekends, he usually spent them working on traps, or helping facilitate traps for John. Today was Sunday, which meant he needed to spend the whole day working on the furnace, or it wouldn’t be finished in time, which is probably why someone was banging on his door.

That realization didn’t make him any less pissed.

After a moment of fumbling around blindly without opening his eyes, he grabbed something solid and flung it vaguely at the door. He heard it hit the metal door with a thunk, followed by someone cursing in surprise. Amanda. Of course.

“Sorry ‘Manda!” he tiredly yelled at the door, having expected it to be John or Hoffman. Amanda never woke him up because she never had the courage to- not that he would scare her on purpose.

“I’m gonna get you back one day,” Amanda replied, giving the door one last bang before retreating back to her work.

It took a good few minutes, but Garrett finally rolled directly out of bed, hitting the concrete floor with a groan. After yet another few minutes, he properly got up, finally taking that shower he didn’t have the energy for last night before getting dressed.

Logically he should wear things that would be good to weld in but he was gay, and dressed like it. So he simply pulled up the sleeves on his cropped sweater and prayed to whatever god that would listen that his exposed midriff would not get burned.

He emerged from his room only to retrieve his goggles- which he hadn’t meant to leave out on one of the public tables- before retreating back to his personal workshop.

The furnace was so close to done, really just needing some closed up gaps and other various touch ups, plus he needed to make sure the trigger for the flames worked. He could finish that in a day if he started early enough, so he dove into it.

A few times he could hear the door open and close, either Amanda or Nar coming in to make sure he wasn’t secretly dead or injured. Occasionally they brought him a glass of water too, or tried to have a conversation. They only sometimes got a response.

“How long have you been working?” Narcissus asked, setting a new glass of water on the desk next to where Garrett was sitting. “Have you taken a break in the last hour? You know you can’t work non-stop without a break.”

Garrett knew he wasn’t just going to leave without getting a response this time, so he leaned back from his work and pulled his goggles down so they hung around his neck. “I need to get this done,” he said, gesturing to the furnace, “the game is starting next week. This is like, a huge part. Everyone’s counting on me.”

“Please get therapy for that,” Nar replied, surprising Garrett enough that he let out a sharp laugh, quickly turning away to hide his grin. “Don’t launch into a spiel about how this IS therapy, I get enough of that from Amanda. But seriously, you need to take breaks. If you work yourself to death, you won’t be of use to anybody, least of all John.”

He, unfortunately, had a point. Garrett didn’t like accepting defeat, but he could at least get something to eat. “Alright, fine, but if this is some kind of ploy to get me to interact with people, I’ll lose it.”

Nar chuckled at that, patting Garrett on the shoulder as he headed over to the door. With a sigh, Garrett stood up and followed, making a beeline for where they kept snacks for while they were working. Now that he realized he hadn’t eaten all day, he felt like he was dying.

“So he lives,” Hoffman spoke up, scaring the shit out of Garrett, who hadn’t seen him in his rush to get something to eat. “We were beginning to worry you had gotten hurt in there and were just too prideful to ask for help.”

“I think out of everyone here, I’m the least likely to just die for the sake of my ego,” Garrett retorted, grabbing a mysterious muffin he didn’t know the origin of to be his very late breakfast. Or would it be lunch at this point?

He took a bite into the muffin, letting out a sigh of relief when he didn’t die instantly.

Amanda was known for baking stuff for the apprentices, but she wasn’t very good at it if it wasn’t strawberry shortcake specifically or donuts. Since the muffin wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever bitten into, his second guess was that Nar baked them instead. He tended to be able to bake without accidentally introducing poison to the ingredients list.

“Don’t you have a real job to be at?” Garrett asked, leaning back against the table Hoffman was seated in front of, standing next to him, like an idiot. “You know, pretending to be on the good guy’s side, throwin’ off the trail…”

Hoffman just looked at him like he was insane. “You do realize that detectives don’t spend most of their time in the precinct, right? No one is going to question why I’m not there. They’ll just call me in if they need me.”

Can’t imagine having a job like that. “Right, right. Have y’all ‘found’ Cara’s body yet? I wanna watch when you do.” Through the cameras, of course. Garrett found it amusing to be right next to a police investigation and, since he covered the ‘on’ light on cameras he used, they never knew he was there.

“What?” Hoffman asked after a moment of bewildered silence, and Garrett vaguely recognized what he said was weird but simply stared back at the detective.

“I said I want to watch. It’s fun watching cops scramble around for an answer, like they did when they discovered my game. One of them threw up when they realized it was teeth marks in that bastard’s throat. So, let me know when you ‘find’ the body.”

Garrett looked away, returning to his muffin, leaving Hoffman to process the fact that he DESPERATELY needed real therapy.

He went to continue the conversation, maybe to learn WHY Garrett was so weird about watching the investigation, but his phone cut him off. “Hoffman,” he greeted when he answered, immediately catching Garrett’s attention. “Right,” he continued after a moment, tucking the phone between his ear and shoulder as he pulled out a notepad and a pen.

After a few “uh-huh”s and “got it”s, Hoffman had an address scribbled down- one Garrett immediately recognized as where his game had taken place. “Speak of the devil…” he muttered, gaining a somewhat concerned look from the detective.

“I’ll be there soon,” Hoffman said into the phone, grabbing it from his shoulder and flipping it shut. “I assume I’ll be meeting you there,” he told Garrett, before standing up and heading out. Garrett watched him leave, just like he did last night, except this time he wasn’t out of the door before Garrett was following.

---

Garrett actually ended up getting a ride from Hoffman, which was undoubtedly awkward.

They hadn’t been in this confined of a space together yet, and Garrett was making it a point to not look at Hoffman, which in turn just made Hoffman nervous because usually that means someone is about to lash out.

It was not a pleasant trip.

Garrett practically lunged out of the car when they arrived, moving much faster than Hoffman thought he could in order to avoid detection by the police. The last thing he saw was Hoffman getting out to greet another cop before he was sneaking into the building through one of the windows.

The building had two floors- the room he used for the game was on the bottom floor, and the room he had the monitoring equipment set up in was on the top floor. The building was easy to scale, which is why Garrett had no problem getting up there. He wasn’t worried about being found either, because he blocked off the door to the room when he left after the game.

He would take every possible precaution under the sun not to be found if it meant he got to watch the chaos he created unfold.

Garrett dropped to the floor from the window as quietly as possible, avoiding any chance of the floor creaking as he made his way over to the single monitor set up for the game. He clicked it on, and settled down in the chair in front of it.

The camera came to life almost immediately, and he grinned at the sight of the crime scene.

They’d moved Cara out of the iron maiden, which was a little disappointing but understandable, since they needed to inspect her body.

He couldn’t hear what they were saying, having turned off the sound just to be safe. If he knew any more about this investigation than what he could see and slipped up… he just knew he couldn’t let that happen.

So he settled for silence, instead reading their lips as best as he could.

At some point, they’d closed the box, though he wasn’t sure why. Did they put the key back in there? Were they using it to store the tape recorder, which was nowhere to be found despite Garrett leaving it right where Cara had dropped it?

It was odd, and Garrett didn’t like not knowing why they had done it. He would ask Hoffman later.

Speaking of the detective, Hoffman looked very… in his element here, in the middle of a crime scene. He looked confident and sure of himself, which Garrett didn’t see much back at the Jigsaw base. Maybe it was because they didn’t talk often, or Hoffman just still wasn’t sure about this whole apprentice thing. Either way, he was very attractive when he knew what he was doing.

Garrett also noted that Hoffman didn’t struggle even a little bit to pretend he had no idea who had done this, or deciding he simply didn’t see the difference between a normal Jigsaw game and this one. Part of him wondered if he was playing along because he knew Garrett was watching, but a larger part of him appreciated that he was such a good actor.

John had told him about Hoffman’s copycat killing- the pendulum trap built for his sister’s killer- so he wasn’t totally surprised that this came naturally to him. Still, it was nice to know he wasn’t going to slip up and get them all caught.

They were looking at the iron maiden now, and Garrett tensed up without noticing it. He didn’t want to leave it behind when the game was over, but he had to, so the body could be found the exact way she died. And he’d worn gloves while setting it up and building, but seeing people inspecting it made him nervous, and he started fidgeting.

It started with just a bounce of his leg, but the longer they looked, the more nervous he got. By the time they finally moved away, he had bitten hard enough into his hand to draw blood.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself, running his tongue over the wound so the blood didn’t start dripping. They were wrapping up the investigation now, since he hadn’t really left many clues for them- they already had Detective Hoffman and Detective Mathers was already warned about his upcoming game.

He watched them leave the room and shut off the camera once it was empty, listening through the window for the retreat of the cars. When he was sure no one was left, he climbed out the window and back down the building.

Admittedly, he was a little surprised to find Hoffman still there, leaning against the side of the car and waiting for him. It made him smile, and he realized that being grateful for small shit like this wasn’t helping his case to not get attached.

“Better drive fast, detective, I’ve got a furnace to finish.”

#story tag: listen closer #self ship fic #self shipping #self insert #scrap.writing #scrap.ships #romantic: ⛓🕵️‍♂️#s/i: garrett whitlock #mark hoffman #romantic: 🦿🩺#(poly) romantic: ⛓🩺#lawrence gordon #chapter 4

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savagetrickster · 4 years

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Little Flutters.

BNHA | Midoriya Izuku x Preg!Reader

Yesss, it’s done! I hope you like this! <3 It’s fluffy so prepare your heart XD

The headcanons will be released after I’m done with Shouto one too. They’ll be released as one post.

I apologize for any grammatical errors you may find below.

Ever since they were married and bought an apartment, the new location of his agency was inspired by their home and the future plans he had thought about.

Whenever his mind ran away with thoughts of the future, they were always filled with his own kids.

He was meticulous even while thinking fleetingly about such things.

Somehow the visual image of them would always lead him to the giddy, longing thoughts about her pregnancies.

Hence, he had somewhat managed to reach out to trusted architects, interior designers, old friend Hatsume Mei to help him with his agency that existed now.

One that was secretly connected to his home, through a secret basement only accessible to him and (Name).

The secret basement had two elevators; one was led directly to his office in the agency and the other led to their apartment levels above.

Of course, there were emergency stairs built into the basement case anything happened to these elevators.

The basement had its own kitchen paired with a food storage room, a fully equipped bathroom, a dining table for four, couches and a spacious bed piled with pillows. All these had an emergency button that alerted him if she was in danger and needed him.

He had placed everything and anything into consideration when he designed the floor plan and was always looking out for more areas that required improvement.

In order to conceive, Izuku had been diligent in recording her monthly cycles and researching to understand the best time to achieve what they want in the spare time he could bear to afford while being the world’s number one hero.

That night they decided that they went all the way, and his hard work eventually paid off.

Her sudden hiatus from her Pro-Hero role announced, and her growing bump captured by cameras from paparazzi and nosy civilian alike eventually sparked rumors that rang true.

Deku, their number one hero, was going to be a father.

Words about the topic blowing up the media, they could no longer keep mum about their new arrival.

It was a known fact to everyone. And everyone meant...everyone.

Lurking in the dark corners of the society, villains waiting to crush the Symbol of Peace learning about this was an even greater threat to him than before.

Especially since now that (Name) was six months into her pregnancy.

He had to be more careful.

His next patrol was scheduled in another thirty minutes. Somewhere between his paperwork on his computer, he found himself straying away to something more personal.

He couldn’t help himself, he was too excited.

Ever since he found out she was pregnant, he’d been a little obsessed. Okay maybe, little was an understatement.

His phone gallery had always been all about her, but after the news came about, the space in his phone became too tight. That he ended up fussing over which perfect pictures of her to delete.

The browsing history on both his phone, their home computer, and his office computer was spammed with anything and everything related to her pregnancy such as-

‘How long should pregnant mothers sleep?’

‘How to be the best husband for pregnant wives?’

‘What types of pillows are the best for pregnant mothers?’

‘Tips for first-time fathers.’

Now before him was his second notebook.

This furious scribbles about everything he needed to know on it were the evidence of what he had been doing for the past one hour.

The paperwork he was supposed to be focused on was cast aside just like the one on his screen.

Green eyes flitted from the screen to the scribbled notes on his book before finally settling on the information collected on the notebook with a satisfied glint.

A sigh escaped him as his gaze slipped to the time written on the corner of his screen and noted that there were fifteen minutes more to go before he had to walk out the main door for his duties.

Closing the tab that had stolen his attention away from his paperwork, Izuku rose from his chair and crossed to the hidden elevator tucked in the most secluded part of his office.

The doors slid open.

Stepping through, green eyes instantly roamed the room and were quick to lock onto (Name) seated in a nest of pillows on the bed.

From her fixating demeanor, she wasn't aware of him yet. Her eyes were running through the book he introduced to her a week ago, obviously engrossed.

His eyes almost instinctively slipping down to her swollen belly protruding out of her maternity dress which looked so flattering on her.

His gaze softened on her.

Everytime he laid his eyes on her, she always did things to him.

Like now, the stir in his chest resonated with his urge to run his hand over her belly.

The need for the tangible warmth from her pregnancy bump to quell this yearning tug in him.

Izuku raised his eyes back to her face in time to catch a sharp expression of pain ripple across her face.

He watched with widening eyes as her hand left the book to hold onto herself, fingers clutching onto the fabric of her dress with discomfort written all over her face.

A shaky breath shuddered out of him as he rushed forward with palpable fear in his heart.

A weight sank down into the bed beside her.

Hand soothing over where she felt flutters of little kicks, she raised her eyes to find the worried look on Izuku’s face frowning back at her.

“I-Izu.”

“You okay, (Name), are you in pain?” He ran a hand tenderly down her face, his eyes glistening with panic, “Do you need to go to the hospital?

Her hand released the book in her grip and flew to his hand on her face.

“...Or do you want-”

A chuckle tickled through her mouth.

For a tall man who could announce his physical strength so easily through the ripples of his chiseled, taut muscles just by doing something as simple as walking, Izuku was still the same Izuku she had known ever since their days back in Class 1-A.

But it was what she loved about him. He always cared and never failed to show her how much he cherished her. Someone who never took anything lightly.

Especially something as small as the kicks bumping inside her.

“Calm down, Izu,” Her smile strained at the uncomfortable flutters as she met his eyes with an eager glint in hers.

Her hand moved away to let him understand what was going on.

“Here, feel this.”

Izuku watched her guide his hand to meet the bulging side of her rounded belly and blinked in puzzlement.

His mind raced as he tried to figure out what she wanted him to feel.

He had to force his hand to stay where it was, fighting the urge to run his hand over her belly like he always did.

Then he felt it.

A light thump against his hand.

Izuku stared, stunned.

Then another, just as he was about to wonder whether what he felt was a flicker of his imagination.

“...Wa-Was that?” His widened eyes rose to hers sharply.

“Yup,” Her eyes danced in amusement at the eager lighting up his face, “Our little one is quite a kicker, Izu.”

Izuku felt his heart give a squeeze as his hand ran gently over the area.

“Good,” His other hand splayed across the other bulging side of her belly. ”...That’s good.”

His lips met where he felt the kicks with a soft chaste kiss.

Izuku lingered there, lips pressed against the soft pulsing warmth through her dress, feeling his heart swell with love.

The silence from the man felt so fragile and precious to her. She couldn’t bring herself to say or do anything but to just smile at him.

Finally, he raised his head.

His green eyes were soft and tender on her. “...Does it hurt?

“Quite,” She saw the waver of guilt and worry in his eyes and quickly added, “but it’s not too bad.”

A glance at the clock across them, “Hey, don’t you have to go on your patrol?”

As if he had totally forgotten about it, which he actually did, Izuku jolted with realization.

“Oh right.” His heart sank.

He didn’t want to go.

How could he bear to leave after all that? Especially when his baby was prodding his hands with kicks now, as if not wanting him to leave?

But of course, he still had to do what he had to.

A silent sigh left Izuku.

(Name) had a loving smile ready to meet his gaze when he raised his head.

“Be careful, Izu.”

“I will.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I will return to you two once I’m done.” He tucked her hair behind her ears tenderly.

Izuku lowered his gaze to her swollen belly under his hands.

His gaze was wavering as he felt another thump against his palm.

“Be a good boy for Mummy,” His voice was slightly tattered and breathless as he leaned in.

“I promise you,” He pressed another kiss on where he felt the light prods.

“...Daddy will be back as soon as he can.”

#midoriya izuku #bnha izuku #izuku imagine #mha izuku #bnha midoriya #mha midoriya #bnha imagines #bnha x reader #mha x reader #mha imagines #pregnancy

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knifefather · 3 years

Text

KnifeFather’s Kinktober 2020, 18+ NSFW ➼ Day 18: Anal play or coercion ➼ Pairing: Goth!Bruno Bucciarati ➼ Word count: 2.1k ➼ Reader is AFAB and female pronouns are used. ➼ This is part one of two. ➼ Also available on Ao3. ➼ Warning: Both the reader and Bruno are intoxicated during this fic. If drinking or recreational drug use is not your jam, please be cautious while reading this.

You attend a concert and meet the perfect stranger.

The feeling of alcohol stinging the back of your throat distracted you as best as it could from your anxiety. The club was loaded--many other people dressed in the same black clothing as you stood about, talking amongst themselves while they waited for the band to begin their set. Your friend, Narancia, was busy chatting up a girl that he had met on the way into the joint. She was petite with bright pink hair, and her sizeable, poofy black skirt bunched up around her like a cloud. You sat on the other side of him, shooting back the second shot you ordered. Or was it the third?

You were never good at these kinds of things. Even though you were surrounded by like-minded people, you could never get past that incredible hump of social anxiety. You were kinda lost without Narancia and found yourself sticking close to him when you went to shows. The club began to grow smoky pretty quickly. The stench of weed filled your nostrils, and your head began to swim.

Suddenly, you heard the place erupt in noise, whoops and hollers coming from near the stage. The two girls performing came on to set up their equipment, and already they were getting a positive reaction. The lead singer strummed her guitar, testing out the speaker. At least the music was about to begin and that would give you something to focus on. You looked over at Narancia, and he was still busy talking with the girl. Interestedly, the girl wriggled a finger under one of the black leather straps that Narancia wore on his chest. She smiled at him and tugged on it flirtatiously, her blood-red lipstick making her wolfish smile all the more predatory. He began to blush, sputtering at the attention. He was definitely going to get laid tonight. You figured you would leave him to it.

You rose from your seat and decided to start making your way towards the stage as well. The girls introduced their band and thanked the audience for attending. Most of the clubbers were near the stage now. You looked around, taking in the crowd. A few people looked interesting and you thought about going up to talk to them, but the feeling of anxiety in your gut held you in place. As you checked out the group of people, your eyes fell on possibly the most gorgeous man you’d ever seen. His chin-length dark hair blended into the background, admittedly, and his equally dark outfit fitted his body wonderfully. He was talking to another man, tall and with long silver hair. They were mostly keeping to themselves, making chitchat while the music started. As you gazed at them, the man looked over in your direction, noticing your gaze. You quickly snapped your eyes away, trying to act like you weren’t looking. You were thankful when the drummer began playing the opening notes. You tossed a gaze over your shoulder, hoping to see Narancia close by, but you couldn’t see his dark purple hair anywhere. Great. You swallowed thickly and paid attention to the display on stage.

They began to play the next one. The instrumentals went much harder than the last song, and a pit began to open up behind you. You were too skittish for mosh pits, so you quickly ducked out of the way of the other concert-goers. As you moved away, you felt your back collide with someone, hard. You whipped around to apologize, only to see it was the casanova you were checking out only moments before. His painted black lips tugged into a smile while you apologized to him over the loud music.

“You’re fine,” he insisted.

“What?” you asked, the floor and stage vibrating from the sounds around you.

“I said, ‘you’re fine’,” the stranger said again, ducking down to your level and speaking a little louder. Still, you had no idea what he fucking said.

“I’m so sorry, but I have no idea--” you began, yelling over the music. Carefully, he grabbed your arm and ushered you away from the edge of the pit. It was becoming intense as they switched to another fast-paced song, the lead singer still screaming with gusto. As he led you out of the crowd, it was already noticeably quieter. You didn’t see his tall friend anywhere near. “I said,” he began, chuckling, “‘you’re fine’.”

“Thanks. You are too,” you responded without thinking. When you realized what you said, you quickly looked away from him. Did you really just do that? The man’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. He looked you over, taking in your appearance. His eyes lingered a bit too long before he looked back up into your eyes. His blue ones were hypnotizing--they made you feel oddly special. They were a bit hazy, just like yours.

“What’s your name?”

“Y/n. You?”

“Bruno. Y/n, would you perhaps like to come back to my place after the show?” he asked. Just then, the lead vocalist announced they were going to slow down the set. A soft, lachrymose guitar settled over the club. The singer was singing sweetly now, the steady beat of the drum syncing up with your heartbeat.

“Yes,” you answered, again without thinking. You shouldn’t--you should stay at the club with Narancia. But you had no clue where he was, and he was probably getting some. Why shouldn’t you do the same? Besides, you’d text him after a while to let him know where you were. “Do you… wanna leave now?” you asked boldly, giving him a sly smile.

“Let me tell my friend that I’m leaving,” he said before politely excusing himself to disappear into the crowd. You were alone again, hanging on the outskirts of the crowd. You smelled the skunky stench of marijuana again, and suddenly a joint was being passed to you from another stranger, a woman in a cloak with large, blocky brows. You accepted the joint and took a toke for bravery before passing it to the person next to you. It wasn’t long before Bruno was back at your side, guiding you out of the club with a hand on the small of your back. The sound of the new song playing disappeared into the background.

The night was quiet, yet clear, the streetlights illuminating more than the club did. You had a better look at Bruno under the light. Your interesting new partner was tall, with a muscular but slender built. The brilliant color of his irises stood out even more under the streetlights. You were astounded at how lucky you had gotten. Bruno was beginning to lead you away from the club, down the sidewalk.

“I live near here, so I figured we could walk a bit,” he said, waving his hand in the direction of down the street. You told him that was fine, and you both disappeared from the outside of the club. “I’m not exactly sober, so I wouldn’t want to chance driving." "I'm in the same boat as you," you replied. The slanted lights elongated both of your shadows, making your dark forms look all the more threatening. Bruno’s shirt jingled softly as he walked along, the zippers and chains shifting. You narrowed your eyes to his legs and saw more, along with form-fitting pants that you observed for longer than necessary. He began to make conversation with you, learning more about who you were and where you came from. He was native to Napoli and you were not, so he gave you many pointers about the city and what kinds of places to eat at. Specifically, one restaurant that he claimed had the best food in the city, Libeccio. He was full of knowledge about Napoli and tips on how to live in it. You had been living there for a few years and knew everything that he was telling you, but you enjoyed hearing him speak, so you didn't interrupt.

You realized how intoxicated you were when you arrived at Bruno’s place and there were steps. The platforms that you wore wearing didn’t help you either, and you struggled to climb them straight. You felt Bruno’s arms curl around your waist, and even though he was fucked up too, he still helped you. You did better than you would have on your own, so you allowed it.

When you entered his apartment, you were greeted by a grand window overlooking the rest of the city. You weren’t surprised to find that his place was decorated according to his fashion tastes. Most of his furniture was black leather with appropriate matching tables, as well as minimalistic decor mimicking an almost Victorian aesthetic. What fascinated you the most was the large collection of records that Bruno proudly displayed in his living room. The collection was contained in about three large shelves, all several inches taller than you, and all full. You then observed a small stack of records sitting on the edge of the coffee table nearby.

“I need to get another shelf. I’m running out of space,” he said, his tone a bit bashful. “You can choose some for us to listen to.” You nearly felt honored being allowed to touch his music collection. While you looked over the shelves, you realized there were several different genres contained on them, including older jazz like Miles Davis. You were relieved to be with someone that had an open ear. Days of Future Passed by The Moody Blues called out to you, so you grabbed that one and tucked it under your arm.

“So, tell me about you. You haven’t really said much about yourself,” you said without looking at him. You were busy choosing between two albums now. Bruno raised a pierced brow before responding.

“Is there anything in particular you would like to know?”

You gave a nervous chuckle before choosing The Gold Experience by Prince. “Just mostly making sure you’re not gonna murder me or something,” you said, half-joking. He was quiet for a moment, and you looked over to see his expression. He gave you a dismissive look before replying.

“I don’t want to murder you, I promise. I don’t think it would be within either of our interests,” he said, the corners of his plump, black lips pulling up in a smile. “I’m trying to make you feel good, not hurt you,” he whispered beside you, and you felt your shoulders tense. His little comment caught you off guard, and soon, you felt your stomach flutter pleasantly. You looked over at him, and he gazed back, giving you an interested, heavy-lidded look. “Unless you enjoy a little pain?” he asked, looking you up and down like he did at the club. He was closer than you remembered him being.

“Maybe I do,” you teased, setting down the records, forgetting all about them. The truth be told, you were kinky in a lot more ways than just being a masochist. “Would you like to find out?” you invited, folding your hands behind your back coquettishly. Bruno drew closer to you, pulling your hips into his grasp. When he looked down at you, his long black hair framed his face, his jaw appearing perfectly chiseled. The dark makeup he wore around his eyes made the man's gaze pop. His pupils dilated as he looked down at you.

“I would,” he responded simply, before leaning in and capturing your lips in his. Your lips--no, your whole face --tingled as the man moved his mouth over yours, smacking softly in the room. You moaned into the kiss and fisted your hands in his sweater, pulling him as close as he could be. The exchange was hot as Bruno’s warm lips slotted against yours. His kiss was hungry, yet respectful, and you could tell he was holding back on you. To get a reaction out of him, you slid your hands down his sides and to his waistline. You began to fiddle with his belt-buckle, but he caught your hands in his.

He pulled away from the kiss and gave you a pointed look. “Not yet… I want to have my fun with you first, dolcezza,” he said. He gave you a few more kisses and gazed down at you, his forehead pressed against yours. “I want this to last a while,” he spoke softly, his deep voice rumbling in his chest. All you could do was nod and gaze back at him, your voice failing you. Still holding your hands, he guided you away from the shelves and down the hall to his bedroom. The rest of his home was decorated in the same style as the living room. The exciting adrenaline pumping through you made your vision blur, like you were caught in a whirlwind but perfectly fine with it.

#bruno bucciarati #jjba #not sfw #day 19 part 1 #my work #backup #kinktober entry #tw substance use #tw alcohol #tw marijuana

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smutbymia · 4 years

Text

streetracer!mark finale (pt.5): Long Slow Distance

click here for streetracer!mark (pt.1): Go

click here for streetracer!mark (pt.2): 2 fast

click here for streetracer!mark (pt.3): Highway to heaven

click here for streetracer!mark (pt.4): Mad City

“Despite being a rookie, you’ve quickly become labeled as Korea’s best race car driver. How does it feel to be here in Japan at the Grand Prix?” you asked.

“It feels amazing. I never thought I would be here so soon. Even though I’m not competing this year I feel very blessed to be able to come here to support my other teammates and see what it’s like to be in the midst of the excitement,” he answered quickly. You nodded before continuing.

“And how did you first get introduced to racing?” you asked next. Mark kind of hesitated before giving you a very vague response.

“I’ve always liked cars since I was young. When I got old enough to drive I just really wanted to go fast I guess. When I first started racing, I wasn’t living in Korea but it turns out I was pretty good. I got the opportunity to train with a professional for a while before I moved to Korea after an... accident. I didn’t plan on continuing racing but I ended up getting signed with a company and the passion came back,” he answered.

He knew better than to mention all the illegal street racing and the whole underground world of street racing from your old town. What really made your heart ache was the mention of Taemin, who you knew was the professional he was talking about. You also knew that the “accident” was him almost being killed but figured that was also a secret he wanted to keep away from the new persona he had built for his career.

“You said that the passion came back, inferring that at one point it was lost?” you asked. You looked up at him, locking eyes again.

“Yeah. Racing can be dangerous. It’s not an easy path to follow and I wasn’t sure if it was worth it anymore,” he said.

“And what brought that passion back?” you pressed on. You could see his eyes soften, still not breaking his gaze away from yours.

His next words made your heart race. “I made a promise to someone,” he began. You let out a soft gasp, luckily it was quiet enough to not be picked up by the recording device. “I was good at what I did. I wanted to make a name for myself. The promise I made was the only thing that gave me the strength I needed to work really hard over the last three years to get to where I am today. I wanted to build a better life for me and that person,” he finished.

You sat in silence for a few seconds before proceeding with the rest of your questions. In about 15 minutes you were all finished. “That should be enough,” you said as you pressed stop on the recording device and began packing up your belongings.

Mark didn’t move from his seat, instead he watched as you fumbled around with your equipment and laptop while packing things into your work bags.

“Y/n,” he said after a while. You froze, not wanting to turn around and face him. “You still have those earrings...” he said, sighing softly.

You had forgotten that the crystals were hanging from your ears, having worn them almost everyday since you got to Japan. You couldn’t stop the tears from forming in your eyes. “Y-yeah,” you stammered. You also still wore that chain with his initial on it but it was concealed beneath the collar of your shirt.

You felt pathetic. After all this time your heart still ached for him. You had dated others casually but still nothing was enough for you. Your mind always wandered back to the boy who owned your heart. It killed you to think that he could be off with someone new but still you couldn’t change your feelings for him.

You sniffled softly, as a tear spilled from your cheek. You could hear Mark shift behind you as he placed a hand on your back, rubbing it in small circles.

“We... should talk,” he said as his voice dropped to a whisper. You shook your head. “No, you need to leave,” you answered.

Mark sighed. He wrapped his entire arm around you. You continued to shake your head, moving out of his touch. He locked both arms around you this time, engulfing you in his arms. For the first time in years you cried. Sobbing into his arms, letting out all the pain that you had carried with you for so long.

You could feel as he rubbed at your hair the way he used to, feeling the wetness of his tears on the top of your head as he let them slip from his eyes too. You stayed like that for a while, just holding each other as you both let the emotions flow freely from you before you slipped back down onto the couch.

Mark had released you and was leaning forward with his face in his hands. They were soaking wet as you watched his tears slip between his fingers.

“I-I’ve worked so hard,” he said quietly. “The worst moment of my entire life was when I thought that I’d die that night without ever seeing you again,” he sobbed.

You reached out a hand to rub his back, comforting him this time, letting him tell you all the things he had been waiting to say. “I told you that I was going to come back but honestly I didn’t know If I would be able to,” he confided. “I called Taemin right away. I didn’t even bother asking for help. I just told him to come get you.”

“I heard you called Haechan,” he said. “That call saved my life, y/n.” Your heart stopped. You remember panicking so much in that moment as you were on the phone. “Because of that he was able to call Taemin and tell him about the gun. He was the one who found me that night and got me to the hospital. I owed him too much already but that night it was clear that I’d never be able to repay him,” he told you.

“I’m so sorry. From the second I entered your life, all I had done was make you worry so much about me. That night was the final straw. Taemin and I agreed that putting you at risk like that was unforgivable. I didn’t want you to see me like that so I didn’t answer your messages or calls. I knew that if I did, you would come see me. I knew that if I heard your voice that I wouldn’t be able to say no,” he said as he began to sob even harder as the painful memories flooded back to him.

“It was lonely. I wanted you to be there with me so badly. You were all I thought about but I couldn’t ever live with myself knowing that I was putting you in danger, so when I had recovered enough I caught the first flight out to Korea,” he said, “it was too risky to stay in town and I knew that if I did that I would crack and end up coming to find you again. I couldn’t put your life at risk with those guys still out there.”

He finally leaned back, still only keeping his eyes on his feet. “I lived life recklessly until I found you. It wasn’t until I fell in love with you that I realized that there was more to life, but it was too late. My mistakes had caught up to me and I was devastated because I finally felt like I was on the right track,” he said.

You had let the tears fall. You didn’t know how hard it was for him to go through all of that alone. He was so brave. He made sure you were safe that night, safely getting you into the car without panicking even though he knew there was a possibility that he would die. He continued to speak and you continued to listen. “Haechan told me that you guys ran into each other a couple months later and how upset you were. It hurt me so deeply. I arranged a flight to come see you but by the time I got back you had already cleared out of your apartment. Taemin wouldn’t tell me where you went and I never saw you again until you started popping up online. You seemed happier so I gave up on trying to find you,” he answered.

He finally turned to you. “I can’t even apologize. It wouldn’t be enough,” he said, sounding so drained and defeated.

“Mark,” you said. Hearing his name escape your lips triggered emotions deep within him. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed just hearing your voice,” he confessed. He had gotten closer to you on the couch and your faces were hovering dangerously close.

Your chest began to rise and fall as your heart rate increased. Marks eyes trailed over every inch of your face before settling on your lips. You could see the yearning in his eyes but he hesitated, holding himself back from his desires. You reached your hand up to slowly brush your thumb across his jawline with your thumb as you held his face.

His breathing hitched at the intimate contact. You pulled your bottom lip in between your teeth, your eyes locking a second later. It drove him crazy and that was all it took for Mark to break as he reached for the back of your neck pulling your lips to his. He moaned the second they made contact. The kiss was sweet and soft. He brushed his soft lips against yours before slipping his tongue out to rub it along your bottom lip, politely asking for permission to enter your mouth. You deepened the kiss, allowing your tongues to dance around each other as you whispered at the sensation. You had missed him so fucking much.

Mark groaned against your kiss as you reached your hands out to force his jacket off. He followed your lead, slipping out of it as he moved to rid you of your blazer. The second you had discarded your first layer of clothing, he pulled you onto his lap as you straddled him. You continued working at each others mouths, as he gripped your ass through your jeans, moving you up and down over his erection.

He broke the kiss, opting to trail his tongue down your neck as you let out soft moans. “Y/n,” he said between wet kisses on your flesh, “I love you.”

Your body went still as he sucked at the delicate skin of your neck. He slid his hand underneath your shirt and placed it over your heart, feeling it race.

“Mmm, that’s good. Your heart is beating quicker than before,” he said. Your cheeks blushed in embarrassment. He slid your shirt from over your head before unclasping your bra from behind. He froze for a second, eyes zeroing in on the chain that dangled from your neck. You could feel the heat rise in your cheeks. He reached out to run the initial pendant in between his finger. “My good girl...” he whimpered. “I can’t believe you still wear this,” he said as he looked up at you. You shyly avoided his gaze. He smiled before gripping your chin between his fingers and forcing you to look at him. “Still mine, aren’t you?” he said, eyes going dark. You gave a soft nod, suddenly feeling so small in his arms.

He locked into your gaze as he moved his mouth towards your chest, sucking one of your nipples into his mouth, alternating between suckling and swirling his tongue around the flesh. “All mine,” he murmured against your skin. You groaned loadly as he split his time between both breasts, massaging whichever one was not in his mouth and running his fingers across the rest of your body.

“I love you so much. I told you I was going to be in a position to give you the world one day,” he said as he trailed his way back up to your neck and towards your lips again. When he reached his destination he landed a soft wet peck on your lips. “I’m not quite there yet, but I’m getting closer,” he continued.

Your heart raced at his sweet words. They brought back all the memories you had from the conversation you had on the beach. “I want to give you the world too,” you said as you kissed him back.

“I just want you. That’s more than enough. It’s more than I even deserve after everything I’ve done,” he said as he dropped his head into your collar. You pet his head. “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. You didn’t ask for that to happen to you,” you resssured him.

“I made bad decisions and suffered the consequences, but you suffered too because of those decisions and it’s hard for me to forgive myself for that. We lost so much time,” he whined.

“Let’s worry about those things later. Right now all I want is to be with you, right here,” you said as you moved your hips, grinding down on him. He let out a soft groan before he lifted himself up off the couch, holding you in his arms.

You let out a gasp. He carried you through the hotel room and layed you down onto the bed, unzipping your jeans and tugging them down the length of your legs, leaving you in your panties. He started removing the rest of his own clothing as well. You sat up, pulling him closer to you as he slipped his shirt over his head. You quickly spotted the scar on his abdomen. Your heart sank as you reached out your fingers to run them over the flesh where the bullet went through his body. He watched you.

“Hey, don’t be upset,” he said. You pouted anyway. “How can you focus on that when I’ve worked so hard on this body,” he joked. His comment made you chuckle. You ran your hands up and down his abs. He was right. His body had changed a lot and he had gained so much muscle. He must have seen the lust in your eyes because when you met his gaze again he bit his bottom lip. “You like what you see?” he asked you. You nodded, flustered.

“So do I,” he said as his eyes trailed over your body. You had gained a bit of weight over the years as well. Your body filled out nicely now. Your curves were a bit more prominent as you grew into your skin. Mark gripped at your thighs before spinning you around on the bed, getting you on your hands and knees. Your ass poked up into the air as he ran his hands over the soft flesh.

He let his hands come down against the skin with a hard smack as you let out a small Yelp. “Damn, baby... your body is amazing,” he said as he massaged and squeezed at your behind. He leaned over, planting soft kisses against the skin he had just spanked and pulled down your undies. You looked over your shoulder at him, meeting his gaze as he flashed you a sinister smile.

“It’s been too long since I’ve heard you scream my name,” he said as he ran a finger up and down your slit. You shuttered underneath his touch when he circled his index finger around your clit, whimpering softly. He touched at your body just the way you liked it, as if he had never forgotten how to make you feel good.

He used a second finger to work at your clit as you moaned, leaning your head down against the mattress, too weak to stay up on your hands. Your back was arched even more now in the most wonderful position for Mark. He groaned as he watched your legs open up wider and your ass move further up into the air. You pushed yourself back against him, begging for him to do more than just tease your clit.

He got the memo as he slid one of his arms across your back to hold on to your waist and buried two of his fingers into your dripping hole after circling them around your entrance.

“F-fuck, that feels so good Mark,” you groaned. “B-but please... p-please just fuck me,” you begged.

He froze behind you as he chuckled softly. “Always so impatient. As you wish, baby,” he said as you felt his erection poke at your entrance. He didn’t enter right away, teasing you. You groaned as you shifted your ass back against him, slipping yourself onto him. He groaned, giving up his little game.

“Fuck... so eager,” he moaned as he inserted himself all the way into you, rotating his hips. You let out a series of moans as you gripped at the bed sheets. “Man, you look so sexy bent over like this for me,” he said as he began to slam his hips into you. The pleasure was intense. It had been so long since you last felt him inside of you and nothing in the world could compare... no other guy, no other toy, nothing.

You let his name slip from your mouth as he picked up the pace, slapping his hip bones against your ass. You could feel your orgasm coming on as your legs began to shake. Mark lifted you up, holding your back flat against his chest as he roped his hands around to palm at your breasts, thrusting up into you. He dropped kisses on your neck as you rolled your hips against his lap, feeling him against your g-spot.

“R-right there,” you struggled to say as you whimpered. You felt his teeth drag against your flesh as he groaned loudly, hips bucking as he fucked into your soaked center. “I fucking love you,” he grunted, “so much.”

“I want you to cum hard for daddy like you used to, okay?” he whispered. “All over my dick, right here,” he said as he pumped into you, squeezing at your nipples. He continued gripping at your chest before dropping one of his hands to drag circles across your clit. His raunchy words sent you over the edge. You had never had an orgasm like that in your life. Your body convulsed as you tightened around him, making him go tense as he buried himself into you for his final release. You felt him fill you up, riding out your orgasm and holding you in place as curse words slipped from his mouth.

“One day,” he said in between shallow breaths “I’m going to fill you up exactly like this, until you have my babies,” he groaned as his final drops emptied into you. Your heart fluttered, as you twitched against his hand that still rested between your legs. You were still so sensitive, and you whimpered as you pulled his hand away from you.

He chuckled softly as he twisted your head around for a kiss, slipping his tongue into your mouth. You could feel him begin to harden inside of you again so quickly as you groaned at the sensation, pushing at him to slip out of you.

“I-i don’t think I can handle anymore,” you pleaded. However your hips moved on their own, pushing against him. You heard soft moans spill from his mouth for a moment as you felt another orgasm coming on, he pulled himself out of you — not being able to tolerate the sensation before flipping you onto the bed and burying his face in between your legs. He licked at your opening where your juices were mixed together, tasting the both of you. Your hips bucked against his mouth as you dragged yourself over his tongue.

“Fuck, I’m going to cum again!” you squealed. Mark layed his hand on your abdomen, applying pressure, making you feel as though you were going to explode. He held you into place as he flicked his tongue against the soft bud of your clit as you writhed around beneath him, sending juices flowing out of you and onto his chin as he worked you through your second orgasm in just minutes.

After you had finished for the second time, he lapped at your flesh, avoiding your sensitive clit, just for the sake of tasting you. You gasped for air on the bed before he got up from between your legs. “Still my favourite taste,” he said as he dragged a finger across your slit, making you shiver before slipping it into his mouth with a smile. You rolled your eyes. He hadn’t changed much after all.

He layed next to you, brushing your hair out of your face and planting soft kisses on your lips. “I love you, Mark,” you finally said to him. He had already told you those words about three times that night and even though you felt like it was quite evident, you made sure to say it back. “Y/n, I swear on my life that if you give me another chance that things will be different this time,” he whispered. You pulled his lips to yours again before nodding. He smiled against your mouth and drew you in for a hug.

You guys both got up, slipping into the shower of the hotel as you washed your bodies clean. It felt so nice to be with him without having to worry. You guys ran your hands all over eachother, stealing kisses every few minutes as you stood under the steaming water. Mark hummed as he ran the water through his hair before you both got out to dry off. He got dressed again, and you slipped into a nightgown.

You were interrupted by a knock at the door. You weren’t expecting anyone but went to open it anyway.

“Hi, I’m Marks manager. He came to do an interview but hasn’t gotten back y—“ said the man standing at the door as he scrolled through his phone before shifting his gaze to you and stopping.

Mark had rushed to the door once he heard what was going on.

“Y/n?!” yelled Haechan. His eyes scanned the length of your body before his jaw dropped open. He dramatically sniffed around himself. “Do I smell... sex in the air?” he said as he shoved the door open further and stepped into the apartment. “No, you don’t. Stop being weird,” said Mark in disbelief.

You turned to Mark, blushing. “Haechan is your manager?” you asked, raising an eyebrow. “My personal assistant actually,” he corrected, putting emphasis on the word.

“Same thing, if you really think about it,” Haechan snapped back.

“It really isn’t,” muttered Mark.

Haechan flopped down on the couch. “So what exactly are you doing here?” he asked you.

“You know you’re in my hotel room right?” you asked back.

“Oh so you must be the interviewer then. Wow what are the odds?” he laughed. “How did it go? The interview, not the make up sex,” he said casually.

You narrowed your eyes at him as you prepared yourself to go off. “Okay, it’s time to go,” said Mark as he slipped his jacket over his shoulders and pulled Haechan up off the couch.

You walked the boys to the door. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” said Mark sweetly as he pulled you in for a goodbye kiss. You nodded before shooting him a quick “goodnight”.

You closed the door behind you in disbelief. You couldn’t really sleep after that so you began writing your piece on Mark, sending it over to your manager for approval afterwards before finally flopping into bed for some rest.

The next morning you checked out of the hotel to head back to Tokyo. Mark still had press to do but texted you throughout the day. The Grand Prix was coming to a close. You blew through the entire work day, feeling more cheerful than ever. Your manager loved the article and it went live on your company’s site that next afternoon. People loved the intimacy of the interview. If only they knew the half of it, you thought.

That night you decided to meet Taemin for dinner. He had done fairly well in his race, placing third, and was in the mood to celebrate. It had been a while since you had last seen your brother. You met him at the restaurant, joining him at his table with Yuri who had recently revealed that she was pregnant and was glowing brightly. You hugged her before she flopped back down into her chair.

“It’s crazy, isn’t it?” asked Taemin. He had spent the first half of dinner grilling you about what you had been up to since you got to Tokyo. You told him about all the work you had been juggling before getting around to mentioning your impromptu trip to Yokohama.

“What did they have you doing all the way out there?” he questioned. “Covering for my manager. I was doing an interview with a rookie racer,” you stated. “Oh cool, is he any good?” he asked. “Very,” you responded casually. “Best in his country actually,” you added.

“Which is where?” asked Taemin casually as he picked at his dinner. “Korea,” you mentioned. You watched as he went tense before meeting your gaze and then sighing. You raised your eyebrows at him almost daring him to say something.

“So, how did it go?” he asked you in a different tone this time. His tone made it clear he knew exactly who you had been interviewing.

“It was really good,” you said. “That’s why you seemed so much happier,” he said as his voice dropped.

“Is that such a bad thing,” you said with a cold expression. He sighed, not wanting to start a whole fight at the restaurant. “After all this time, Taemin? Are you really still so against us being together?” you asked.

“I love you,” he said. As close as you were, those weren’t words that you had heard leave his mouth. “I just want you to be with someone who is going to take good care of you, that’s all,” he said. Dinner ended pretty soon after that.

You hugged both Taemin and Yuri goodbye before heading back to your hotel room. Flowers had been delivered. You smiled at the sweet bouquet with a gift box as well. You pulled at the note that read:

Y/n, I’m sorry. Something came up. I have to fly back to Korea tonight. Good luck on your last day in Japan. I’ll still be in the air by the time you’re on your flight back home so please call me as soon as you land. I love you and can’t wait to see you soon. Be safe, baby girl.

- Love, Mark. P.S, a promise is a promise

Your heart sank a little but you smiled at the sweet message. You knew it would be difficult to do things long distance but Mark had agreed to visit you a week from now. You tugged at the ribbon on the gift box and opened it up. Inside was a brand new necklace with an M pendant on it. You teared up as you recalled the day he promised to replace the one you wore now with something better. You swapped them out, placing the old one in the box for safe keeping and stood in the mirror to watch the beautiful piece of jewelry fall into place over your chest. You smiled as you ran your fingers over it.

That was the first of many promises to you that Mark had made and kept. Over the next few months he had really gone above and beyond. He tried his hardest to give you the world, taking you on vacations and to his races. It was hard to split your time between L.A and Korea but Mark promised by the end of the year you would be moving in together — another one he kept as he relocated to L.A. Taemin and Yuri had both moved there too a couple months before, bringing his team with him as their individual careers blossomed.

Marks career took off too, he wasn’t just racing but also doing a lot of stunt work for films, TV, and music videos. Luckily you had continued to do lots of print work for online publications so you joined him (and Haechan) whenever work required them to travel. Soon enough things were starting to fall into place. It was around Christmas time when Yuri went into labour, and everyone gathered at the hospital to welcome baby Mina.

Lucas, Sicheng, and Yuta had dropped by earlier with flowers and gifts for the the new mama and her baby. It had been a while since you saw each other but it was nice to see everyone thriving and in good spirits.

“Looks like I’ve finally been replaced,” whined Haechan as he peered over Marks shoulder with a face of slight disgust, watching as his friend held the new baby. Taemin rolled his eyes from across the room and Yuri giggled, forever entertained by Haechan’s charm.

“I guess she is kind of cute,” he admitted.

“Kind of?” said Mark “she’s so beautiful,” he gushed, completely enamoured with the little bundle of joy.

She made cooing noises in his arms as he rocked her gently. “Yeah, that’s right. You’re so pretty! And you’re going to need a little friend to play with, aren’t you? Don’t worry, uncle Mark will —” he said in a baby voice before Taemin cut him off.

“Okay, that’s enough!” he said as he moved to lift the baby from his arms.

“It’s a good thing we’re already at the hospital, right Mina?” he whispered to his daughter, shooting a stern glance at Mark from across the room. “So if daddy hurts uncle Mark, he can see a doctor right away!”

Your hand flew over your mouth, shocked as you broke out into a fit of giggles with Haechan and Yuri. Mark pouted, pulling you into his lap. “Don’t worry baby Mina, uncle Mark won’t let you suffer alone for too long, I promise,” he said, winking up at you. You felt electricity course through your body at his statement. You knew very well that Mark was very good at keeping his promises.

Thank you to everyone who has read this far and enjoyed the fic. I didn’t want to drag it out too much longer. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Feel free to leave me your other requests🥺❤️ - mia

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