#a couple of jewelry stores and WE before getting bored and turning themselves in | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dropsofletters · 4 years

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diamond in the rough

title: diamond in the rough pairing: wong yukhei/reader genre: jewelry store worker!au/unrequited love!au/one night stand!au summary: impatient, hilariously natural and unfathomably himself, wong yukhei knows better than hiding behind shy smiles and soft flirtations. much to his delight, one of his boring days at the jewelry store is changed when someone enters—someone he finds attractive. while trying to keep the conversation alive, his flame is dulled by the trickiest of personalities, a fire that burns brighter than he ever will. yukhei is also exceptionally stubborn, promising himself that he will be able to seduce the woman with the sun necklace. things do not turn out so easy for him. type: fluff/romance/humor word count: 12,570 ⚠️ disclaimer: this is part of the love diaries, my valentine’s day project with wayv, if you want to read the rest of the members’ stories, you can click here and find the masterlist for it.

His height has always worked to his favor. Towering over a variety of people, he gets to see the love-struck gazes couples give themselves, and he also gets to see the arrogance imprinted in most of those people’s faces when they pick the most expensive ring in the entirety of the jewelry store. In the palm of his own big hands, rings looked like a miniscule thing to give to someone—let alone hold meaning to love, but something about the jewel keeps pulling people together, and he is more than happy to get to work every day. Perhaps because the glistening lights on top of the necklaces always caught his attention, maybe because he needs to pay rent, or because Valentine’s Day is coming up, thus this time around he gets to see more clients, all terribly in love.

The glass counters have to be impeccably clean, squeaky enough after people run their fingertips across it to point at the jewel they like. Not that he minds that much, Yukhei knows better than spending most of his time cleaning when he should be attending clients, but his coworker—Mrs. Li—seeks for utter perfection. The short, old woman, could barely kneel down to get to the lowest counter, leaving the tall man to work on scrubbing the glass as if his life depended on it.

“There’s a spot there, Yukhei. Get it off, please?”

An ancient relic out of a museum from two centuries ago, she most likely is, and probably a bit out of her head, but Mrs. Li has always treated Yukhei as if he was her son. Unfortunately, she likes her children to be workaholics, leading him to doing the most in the spacious shop. Most of the time, Yukhei thinks of it as a nice thing—it is distracting enough for him to fix his sleeping schedule by going home completely tired at the end of the shift, and also, he gets preaches from his boss for his hard work. Sure, it is not the type of dream Yukhei had for his life when he turned twenty—but hey, he never really had a dream to start with.

“What spot?” Yukhei’s wide eyes inspect the place, brown hair sleeked back, white button up rolled up until it rested on his elbows. The bad part of his job is that he has to dress to the nines, always looking like one of those dolls over a wedding cake.

Mrs. Li taps the counter with her foot. “That one.” Wiping quickly, the woman puckers up her lips. “No, it’s still there.”

The young man lifts the woman’s foot, placing the cloth under it before lifting his body from the floor. His arm wraps around her shoulders, making sure that she doesn’t fall in case she loses her balance. Sure, Mrs. Li is as active as a woman on her sixty-five years of age can get, but he wants to avoid any accidents. “Wipe it with your foot, since I can’t really see it.”

Her foot moves, gliding over the same spot he had just cleaned and it just screams Mrs. Li’s style. Always thinking she is on the right. “Seriously, Yukhei. Your eyesight is terrible for having such big eyes, boy. Get a pair of glasses before you end up ruining them forever—”

The sound of her voice mixes with his chuckle, mainly because he finds it interesting, but when he lifts his gaze to look around the shop, he is welcomed by the sight of a customer. Different from the rest of their clients, the black cardigan that falls upon her shoulders is not snug, neither does it look like it is the most expensive thing in the world. Underneath, a simple combination of clothing highlighted something Yukhei was very pleased to see. Looking at her face is another way of making him smile, her fingers grazing across the counter he had cleaned earlier, but he can’t bring himself to care, not when everything about her exudes the type of beauty he likes. The one that has him taking a second glance, with features that he would never be able to erase from his head.

Surely, maybe he should keep helping Mrs. Li…but he needs to attend customers, and that is just the rules of any job. When he nears the woman, she is looking at the necklaces; not even the cheapest ones, with tiny diamonds or with faux materials, instead, she looks at those with beautiful pendants and real gold. With her bottom lip taken in between her teeth, Yukhei takes a good look at her face, somber and dark, still so beautiful.

He just has to take a chance.

“Anything I can help you with?” The woman looks up at him, eyes becoming constellations the moment she gives him a glance. Something about her is vintage, like the movies he sees on TV when the midnight is starting to fall upon him, and even her silence screams elegance.

“I’m just looking for now.” Her voice, home of seriousness, says those words with the weakest of smiles. Any other person would have taken this as a sign to back off, but Yukhei is impatient and never gives up on what he wants.

“You know, we have varieties of prices and styles on necklaces. You’re looking at the most expensive ones right now, but we can look for anything you want.” His eyes trail down her neck to see the mole that peaks from beneath her shirt and the Canon camera that rests upon her chest. Her fingers stop touching the counter, instead settling her gaze over his to give him a solemn expression. She’s listening, yet she’s not saying anything. “L—Like, I think gold would look really good on you. It matches your skin-tone, and it’s very elegant.” His deep voice drops at that, elbow leaning against the counter to give her one of those charming smiles of his. If it works on everyone else, it should work on her, too. “I’m here to help you out, beautiful. What you want, we’ll find it—”

An amused, short chuckle kisses her mouth, looking at Yukhei as if he has two heads. “You talk a lot.” And, still, she always goes to the point. It is the first thing Yukhei learns about her.

“Only to people I want to talk to.”

“Great.” She muses, eyes looking up and down his features. “What would you recommend me for a necklace?”

Yukhei’s wide, youthful eyes scan the portrayed jewels under his gaze, scanning the pendants and the humongous diamonds. In reality, with how casual she is dressed and how intelligent she sounds, he needs to find a ground that stands in between. “Anything would look gorgeous on you.” He flirts, lifting his gaze to see her raising her eyebrows.

“…Alright.” The word leaves in between a scoff, and Yukhei takes the time to look through the necklaces again, taking two out. Those were his favorites when they arrived only a month ago; designed by one of the boss’ closest friends, a sun pendant in its gorgeous golden color and an eclipse in another necklace. Two different pieces, both seemingly connected.

Plush are his lips when he licks them, the cold breeze of the shop touching the taut skin. “I like these two.” Yukhei says, placing them neatly in front of her to look at. “…They got here not too long ago, but they are usually looked over because they are very simple.” He explains, watching as she scans the pieces with interest. “The Sun one, I think that one would look good on your neck.” When she doesn’t ask him what he means with more than a mere hum, he continues. “Because you are an absolute sunshine to look at.”

Finally, he gets a laugh out of her, though she shakes her head at the terrible line. The tip of Yukhei’s ears are burning and he finds himself laughing, too, one of his hands reaching for his cheek, making sure that his golden skin did not show the embarrassment he feels. The woman turns around, lifting her hair slightly to show his neck to him. “Let me see how it looks on me.”

Grasping the necklace in between his fingers, he hooks the piece around her neck, reaching for one of the mirrors he has nearby to let her look at her reflection. “Did you like the compliment?”

Her fingers caress the edge of the necklace, wrapping around the Sun pendant. “I am sure you can do better.”

“Oh, can I?”

“Yes.” Her short reply leaves the man with a smile, dazed at her utter beauty, the hypnotism of her voice. “I’ll just take the Sun necklace. I like it.”

Yukhei touches the end of the eclipse pendant. “What about this one?”

“Maybe later.” She tuts, looking through her purse to search for her wallet. Once in her hands, he finds himself intrigued about the woman, but past that—how she is able to pay for a necklace so expensive, though one of the least expensive pieces of the place. The black credit card glistens in between her fingers, worthy of all the whistles in the world, a humble-looking woman like her suddenly seeming a thousand times more hard-working in his eyes.

The exchanging glances and the flirting remarks do not stop with Yukhei, trying to get a grasp of her persona, a paper with her number or something that tells him more than the name on the facture he gives her. Her fingertips are cold when she accidentally touches his hand by grabbing the piece of paper, looking at him before giving him a faint smile, pushing the piece of paper inside her wallet and tossing it inside her purse, before she hears Yukhei’s voice.

“Uh,” He starts just as she turned around to leave, biting down on his lip before continuing. “I really meant it when I said it looks gorgeous on you.”

“…Thanks, I guess.” With a shrug, she answers, pushing her purse upper on her shoulder before giving him a once-over. “It’s the first time I hear someone calling me a sunshine.”

The push of her hands against the door are only accompanied by the sound of his response: “And it sure won’t be the last if you have me there.”

Yukhei is just taking a chance, though it slips from his fingertips when she gives him a mere chuckle, shaking her head at his attempts.

💎

“All those calories are going to ruin your health, Yukhei!”

“Why do you think I’m so tall, Mrs. Li? I need the calories!”

The only ounce of normality Yukhei gets is when lunchtime comes around at his workplace. A gush of fresh air is necessary when the constrictive feeling of his elegant clothing and the obnoxious smell of expensive cologne cling in the air at the jewelry store. Most of the time, he likes to sit by the nearest café, opting for a crowded place just to feel more accompanied, with the littlest bit of normality, but when his cravings are up the roof and his hunger takes the best part of him, he goes over to the pizza place in front of the shop. Glassed windows with neon lights, shining and blinking with the words ‘open’ as if to mock him in the middle of the day, when only a few customers gather around.

By the counter, there is the same guy every single day and Yukhei recognizes him thanks to the amount of conversations they have had while knowing each other. The black haired male wears an obnoxiously bright red hat that matches his equally as blinding red chemise, tucking it inside his jeans—and for someone who knows fashion like Ten, his uniform is a nightmare—. Ten looks like he belongs to a boutique, or maybe as a college student that puts little to no effort in his work, but instead, he connects with the pizza place, enchanting people on buying just another slice, surrounding the restaurant with the best hits on the radio, making sure to mumble them under his breath, perhaps dancing along if he is feeling happy.

The tall man barely puts a foot in while looking down at his phone, scrolling through his texts and answering to a few of them when he feels the smack of a towel hitting his arm. The stinging pain clings to his skin, a frown casting upon his features when he looks up to see Ten smiling like a cat, mischievous and lazy. “You have some good things to tell me.”

Yukhei tilts his head to the side, a deep chuckle leaving his lips. “Do I? I just came here to ask for the usual.”

His friend, Ten, huffs out a breath before turning around, tapping his fingers against the bell to call for the cook. “Randy, a Chicago-style pizza for Daddy Long Legs over here.”

“On it!” Randy screams from the kitchen before Ten looks back at Yukhei once again, taking the money from his hands before sighing deeply. Yukhei’s notices that his stare his going over to a couple, the same one that he had seen a few days earlier with an engaged couple. He is not sure if they are even together, but it is also not his business.

“I thought you would have something to tell me, considering that love is already in the air with those two idiots over there.” Ten points, a love-hater at heart, knowing better than basing on more than simple flirtations. Yukhei considers himself the same in one way or another, but if things move further with someone, he is not going to be the one to stop it.

“…What did you see, exactly?” Knowing Ten, he was probably spying out of the window when he wasn’t working and that led him to believe Yukhei had some kind of story to say.

Taking off his hat, Ten ruffles his bangs in order to fix them, but they are untamed at this point. “Two weeks ago, a very famous photographer went to your store and you were all heart eyes over her.” He says it as if it is the most simplistic thing in the world, but Yukhei is absolutely lost, playing with the case of his phone.

“A photographer?”

“Yes!” Ten leans forward, wanting to get the best part of the gossip. “Black cardigan. She kind of had a camera around her neck.”

Oh.

Suddenly, the taller man is interested, resting his elbows against the counter and letting a smile creep up his lips, quirking them up in the subtlest of reminders. In all honesty, Yukhei has not been able to stop thinking about her since then—or maybe, he hasn’t seen anything that could ever compare to such unclassical beauty. “She’s a photographer?! And famous?!” Yukhei is surprised, watching as Ten nods his head eagerly. The smell of pizza lingers in the air, a delightful touch to his outspoken stomach.

“Vogue loves her art. She has photographed half of the models you see on every magazine.” Of course, Ten would know more about this. It is the type of knowledge he acquires from headlines, websites about celebrities and everything Yukhei is not really in. Though, the imagery of the woman at the jewelry store taking pictures is a sight he would love to look at, her stoic expression turned even more focused and concentrated. Hot, really, he finds those things to be more attractive than anything else. Ten breathes out a name, making Yukhei repeat it distractedly. “…That’s her name, as far as I know.”

Chuckling at that, he shakes his head. “What am I going to do with a name?”

Almost offended by Yukhei’s words, Ten huffs. “What can’t you do with a name? Dude, social media is there for a reason. Find your lady.”

A brief tint of red appears on the tip of his ears when he laughs. “…I kind of may have made a fool of myself just to get her attention.”

“Don’t tell me.” Ten adds. “You acted corny.”

“That’s my charm.”

“Yukhei!”

Patting the back pocket of his black slacks to see if his wallet is there, he taps his phone against the counter. “Trust me about this, Ten.” He initiates. “I am getting her attention without even following her on Instagram.”

Rubbing his temples with his fingertips, Ten puts his hat on once again, pushing the thought away with a laugh. “Good luck.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I know you won’t.” Looking over his shoulder, Ten taps something on the laptop to fill the pizza place with Khalid’s music, laughing at Yukhei’s antics. “But hey, do as you please, love doesn’t exist anyways.”

Drunken in his own stubbornness, in the need of feeling like he has control over fate, Yukhei wonders if Ten is right. It is almost impossible for someone like her to meet with him once again, but he can only dream and hope that the day comes once again.

The day he proves to himself that he can get someone like her.

💎

For someone who prides himself on his height so much, it is plentifully easy for Yukhei to get lost in the middle of a party.

Plopping the lemon of his Crusta Cocktail inside his mouth to suck on the treat, he tries to find his cousin. That one cousin that has more money than he’ll ever be able to deal with, the same one that he used to play soccer with when he was younger and that now, he gets to see once a year. Once a year, and he still picks to see Yukhei at a party. The place smells thickly like alcohol, sweat and smoke, leaving him in a daze when he moves to yet another room and he finds his cousin to be nowhere in sight. He was supposed to be giving the second cocktail on his hand to his cousin, but very rarely does he get to have these types of fancy drinks…and since he doesn’t find him, he might as well step out and breathe some fresh air before deciding to go back home.

A year ago, Yukhei would have laughed at this version of himself—getting tired from the normal work routine, but February is exceptionally tiring for him, and it is not an exception this time around.

The mansion has the biggest front yard he has ever seen in his life, looking like the garden of a castle rather than a place for cars to be parked. Everyone is following the rhythm of the bass and Yukhei takes a sip of his drink, trying to take it slow to avoid a hangover. Lightweight is not exactly the term that he would describe himself with, but he hasn’t gotten drunk since December…and lord, he doesn’t know how his body could react.

The crisp air caresses his skin even through his leather jacket and black sweater, cursing himself for wearing those ripped denim jeans he had on the back of his closet, ones that he had even forgotten he had bought. He looks for his phone, opting to look at the starry night once he is left alone, far away from people to be completely forgotten. The first thing he does is look through his contact list, picking that one number of the usual taxi line he uses and lifting it up his ear, expecting for a voice to welcome him until his eyes settle on something.

Rather, someone. A person inside a black car, with the lights of the house casting down upon it as if destiny is calling out for him to open his big eyes. The cloud of smoke surrounds her, long cigarette propped in between the goddess he had met at the jewelry store just at the beginning of the month, someone he had given up on weeks after thinking about her and just like he had told Ten, he was able to see her again without the need of social media. Somber, lost in her love affair with cigarettes while she looks at the party as if it was poison and he can’t stop himself from walking closer to her.

“Hello, you’re talking to—”

“Yeah, never mind. Wrong number.” Yukhei speaks to his phone, hanging up the call before pushing the device down on his pocket. His steps are rushed when he goes over to the car, taking another sip of his cocktail before tapping his knuckles against the window. She is startled, expectedly so, looking over to him while pushing her cigarette down, but once she gets a good glance of his face, it is enough to roll the windows down, raising her eyebrows at his presence. Thus, she takes in his appearance, the stylish look he is serving for the night.

“Necklace guy?” When he looks down at the neckline of her shirt, he sees that the Sun pendant is resting upon that mole he had seen the first time he saw her and soon after, he smiles.

“Yes. Want to take a picture of me? I heard you’re good with those.”

With an amused smile, the woman taps her cigarette against the edge of the window, taking a puff soon after. “So, I see you know about me.” Yukhei confirms it by saying her name, greeting her as if they hadn’t met at his workplace. “And my name.” He knows better than to talk to the mysterious woman, roll himself in the webs of her twisted life. Once, he heard, artists are the worst of lovers—too sensible but too afraid of it at the same time, and she is an artist with a camera. “Do I get the pleasure of knowing yours or are you just going to pop into my life randomly?”

The pleasure. Yukhei can’t help but feel giddy at her words. “Wong Yukhei.”

“Ooh, I know a Wong in this party.”

“It’s probably my cousin. Is he an actor?”

“We are talking about the same guy, then.” Pushing her, now shorter, cigarette up to her lips, Yukhei concentrates on the shape of her lips, how she outlined them in the faintest neutral, almost like a second skin. Taking a sip of his cocktail, licking at the remaining speckles of sugar on his lips, he continues.

Leaning against the car, he watches as she gets out, closing the door behind her to lean against it. She is not wearing a dress, opting for more of a simplistic—yet put-together—look. Stunning in his eyes, mysterious as well. “You’re up for ruining your lungs? Smoking is bad, even the box says it.”

Shrugging her shoulders, she replies curtly, but the smile on her face shows she doesn’t mind having Yukhei there. “I think it’s cool.”

“Whoa,” Yukhei adds. “I expected a metaphor.”

Instead, she shakes her head. “You think I’m this minx, seductress, who does dangerous things and is exotic and luxurious…” She chuckles at her own words, shaking her head before kicking the cigarette she just dropped on the floor.

The juvenile man leans his weight against her car, tipping his drink up once again. He really should go back home. “Well, it’s up to you to show me if you aren’t like that.” The flirty remark has her raising her eyebrows, forever entertained by the fact that Yukhei is interested, itching to get to know her more. Most people don’t get that far. “What are you like?”

“That’s up to you to find out.” She mumbles, making Yukhei chuckle, maybe a bit too loud thanks to his drinks and that is enough to have her leaning on her car’s door, reaching for something in her purse before giving it to him. Little does she know, Yukhei’s eyes are taking everything about her in, a work of art he’ll never get tired of. “I have this bag of marshmallows I wasn’t going to eat…and you’re on your way to being tipsy, so eat up, Yukhei.”

The bag creaks in between his fingertips, the sound a motion of her kindness, and he opens it quickly before pushing some past his lips. “Thanks,” He says before leaning the bag towards her. “Let’s share them.”

She says ‘no’ with her eyes, albeit the right thing to do, but she takes a few in between her fingers before plopping them inside her mouth. “You were leaving the party?”

“I’m not good with spaces…and directions…and I lost my cousin, so I thought leaving was the good idea.”

“So tall and yet, so clumsy.” The ice of his drink is starting to dissipate on his fingertips, the heat of the night and the flush he gives her enough to create vapor.

“Are you clumsy?”

“Uh…Not necessarily. I have my days, though.”

“Good. Tell me about it.”

The night is not a blur, thankfully, the snack she gave him enough to keep him awake, but Yukhei remembers the highlights perfectly. The way the moon glistens on her smile, constellation after constellation written in the stars in her eyes, how she holds on to her necklace when she is speaking and how, even after he planned on getting a taxi, she offered to drive him home. Parties are not her scene, and he basically has to tut her to get some facts about her, but by the time she drops him off with her number saved on his phone, he knows something:

He has to kiss this girl.

💎

Eclipses. Beautiful, yet Yukhei thinks he has not been able to see one. He falls asleep too soon, or he never gets the memo, but he knows it’s the perfect mixture of light and darkness. Blinding, some say, his mother tells him that if he ever gets to see one, he just has to wear sunglasses or he is going to lose his eyesight completely. He really wants to see one, but he has to make do with what he has in front of him—

And sure, he doesn’t have to wear sunglasses to look at the beauty of the photographer he has been thinking of lately, but he might as well do. It is surprising to see her back at the jewelry store, only to have him attending her once again (or maybe, he just begged Mrs. Li with one of those puppy-eyes gazes every mom loves, and she let him be) and with the few seconds of brief conversation, she is already asking for the eclipse necklace he had tried to sell to her the first time they met.

For him, it’s strange. Part of him—this confident side of him that thinks he is the starring role of a 90’s movie—believes she is there because of him, wanting to reconnect with what made them meet after they have exchanged texts for a few weeks, back and forth flirting until she comes to sudden stops, bursts of fear that leave him hanging but in the long run, he accepts. He knows this, yet he can’t bring himself to believe it, because this Sun, this eclipsed Sun that is her is also one he doesn’t get to look at often, and it is because she hides. In the depths of her complex personality, in that serious expression of hers, in the same lines of ‘a date sounds great, Yukhei, but you’re just leading yourself to heartbreak’.

If she wants to go out on a date with him, too, why would it end in heartbreak?

Either way.

“Are you planning on giving this necklace to someone?” Yukhei asks, taking it out of its box to show it to her. She has seen it already, but he is just finding an excuse to keep her there for longer, and she doesn’t seem to be phased by it.

Instead, the shadows on her face switch in position when she looks up at him, “Curious?” She prompts, leaving Yukhei with an excited taste on the roof of his mouth.

“You could say that.”

“I’m giving it to myself,” She adds, lifting the necklace up to his fingers and turning around. The concept of a déja-vu lingering on the situation, flooding his face with a smile. “You know, Yukhei, some of us just really are…used to gifting things to ourselves, or being alone.” His fingertips graze the edge of the necklace, hooking it like he had done with the Sun necklace. Though, the touch lingers on her skin and he notices it in the way it heats her up by the time he pulls away, taking her time to turn around before looking at herself in the mirror.

“It’s good that you gift yourself things. It’s what you deserve.” Because Yukhei is not against the fact of seeing her being independent and strong on her own. If anything, that is exactly the color of her personality that draws him in. “It looks pretty on you.”

“Yeah,” She says, looking back at the man before leaning her weight against the counter. “I heard from someone that I really remind him of the Sun and Eclipses.”

Aware of exactly who she is talking about, because—huh, it’s himself, Yukhei grins. Sometimes, in the depth of their conversations, when they are getting to know each other and she backs out the slightest out of simplistic fear of getting too attached, he wonders why he does this to himself. There are millions of people in this world able to love at once, granted of kisses, way more open to the idea of dating, of a possibility. She is not one of those people, finding love scary, not particularly grotesque, but she has admitted to him that she hasn’t thought about love for years, a trial and error she isn’t fond of. “Uh,” He adds. “Anything interesting about this guy in particular?”

Tapping her fingertips against her purse, different this time around, she gets out her wallet to give him her black card. “He’s funny.”

“I heard he’s handsome, too.��

“You know the guy?”

“We’re friends.” He shrugs, following along with his own game before huffing, pressing the card against the device. “He thinks you’re amazing.” His eyes glisten when he says that, because he means it. Not all the words they have exchanged through texts are deep dives into amours. Some of them were genuine conversations, where he got to know she likes photography and he likes making a fool of himself in front of cameras just for the sake of having the people he loves laugh. There is intelligence within her, not in the form of textbooks, but in the form of art. Yukhei connects with her in her view in life, somewhat wishing for a better day each moment of her life—he is like that, too. A jewelry store worker was never in his dream list, but sometimes life gives its twirls and he just had to learn how to dance with it. “…He really wants to take you out on a date, just so you two can finally talk face to face.”

The soft air conditioner blows on her hair, barely moving it when she squints her eyes. She gets out of character, he can tell. “Yukhei, I really want to say yes.” She initiates, but with her…there is always an argument, a lead-up to her conclusion. “But what if it doesn’t work out that way? I really like the conversations we have—”

Yukhei lifts his hands up in the air, as if to calm her down. Guards down, like he always has them. “Just a date, you don’t have to live up to any expectation.”

Tilting her head to the side, she gives him a pitiful smile. “But you deserve all the expectations, Yukhei.” She admits, his heart warming up at the idea of seeing her being warm for once. That is a sight he thinks no one has seen, and it is a pleasure to be one of the few people that get to see it.

“…You know what, having you there and having a good time are all the expectations I have.” He continues, giving her credit card back before rolling his sleeves up his arms, softly marked veins showcasing on his tanned skin. “I am thinking bowling would be a great idea. We’d get to know each other, and since we are not people of typical dates…we could, you know, just have a good competition.”

The idea sounds marvelous in his head, too inviting to be true, when her fingertips dig on her forehead, palm connecting with the skin. A chuckle leaves her, something that comes with Yukhei’s presence every time. “You never give up, don’t you?”

“Nah. It’s not in my dictionary.”

Her words glaze over with those little stars he adores, watching her lips part when she says. “I smoke.”

“I don’t plan to change you. I am attracted to you for who you are right now.”

“I lost all passion for my job and now I am just plain boring.”

“You are not boring to me.” She always wants to find something, an excuse to show their incompatibility, but Yukhei sees diamonds in her entire personality. Some would call her a diamond in the rough, wearing beautiful jewelry but not matching it to her stern expression, but Yukhei sees past that. He sees past the exterior she wants to project. “So…bowling sounds good?”

Touching the Sun and the Eclipse, collided in her sternal angle, she hums. “I think I am free next Sunday. You are up for that?”

“I am down.” His smile cannot be compared to anything else.

💎

The truth is, as arrogant and tall and effectively charismatic as Yukhei may seem, when it comes around to playing…he is not the competitive type. If anything, he decides to enjoy the game, talk to his competitor in hopes of getting to know each other better, walk in the thin line of life that divides people when it comes to competition. Be damned Yukhei for living life in such a pleasurable way when he finally gets to go out on a date with his self-proclaimed favorite photographer, thus watching her closely and out of that shell of hers is something that he thirsts for.

The bowling alley is widely illuminated and much to anyone’s desires, it offers some food services and the best smoothies he has tasted in a while. The banana taste lingers on his tongue when he leans against the seat, bright in an aquamarine shade, contrasting the pink sweater he draped over his body without much thoughtfulness before coming to this date. His date—and damn him for never getting over that word, because burning a hole through the ice walls of her personality must be a gold medal given to him in a competition like the Olympics itself—has an orange ball held by her fingertips before she uses a somewhat average technique, but that is not what he is thinking about. The concentration on her face speaks of determination, something that Yukhei may lack in most occasions, too much of a woman to ever have room for anyone else in her heart but herself.

The anatomy of her, as a person, as an individual, is already beautiful on its own, but every architectural piece, or any art for the matter, even the human body itself, has to have some kind of meaning. Hers is written in blurred lines and Yukhei is not the best reader, not too fond of books either, simply squinting his eyes and trying to get a resume out of her, a simplistic version of all the twirls, all the quirks, the obstinate reflection in the world, like she is tired of the sun shining too bright, of people speaking too loudly, of the try-hard’s and the promises. Someone like him, like Wong Yukhei, is one of those joyful rays of sunshine, the one outstanding laughter in a group of friends, that one person that promises a great time even before the handles of the clock arrive to its destination and yet, he can tell she is interested.

In her eyes that light up with her smile when she gets what she wants, how she realizes that excitement makes a home out of her and she pushes it down, trying to live life like there shall never be too much enjoyment. Two seconds is all it takes for her to get over to where he is, his arm immediately resting on the backrest of the sofa to welcome her in, watching as she leans forward to grab a slice of the pizza they had ordered. Not quite as good as any of the others he has tried, and though they agree on that, Yukhei would much rather have the blandest pizza in the world with her just for the sake of getting to know her.

As always, her camera rests with her, a part of her body that Yukhei has gotten used to, placed over the table as their companion. “Hell yeah!” Yukhei adds, raising his hand up in the air for her to high-five and she does, midway through biting on the pizza, the oil coating her red-cladded lips. Burgundy, like the shirt she is wearing, dipping on the middle with a heart shape, a bit ruffled on the sleeves and matching her necklaces perfectly. “You’re way better than me.”

“If you stopped trying to impress me every time, you would be better.” She tells him, nudging him with her elbow before taking another bite of the meal.

“I am not trying.”

“No?” She asks, voice softened in the slightest bit.

“I am succeeding.”

“Stop with the dumb lines before I smack you.” Though, a smile appears on her face when Yukhei stands up, dusting his hands in his jeans to take up on the game.

She is not a psychic, much less does she make predictions, but she is right about Yukhei looking over his shoulder from time to time simply to continue their conversation. The hours drip with more knowledge, how Yukhei gets to know about her beginnings with photography, and the few celebrities that she did not stand for the life of her. Not isolated at all, the man in question delves into his own anecdotes, from the beauty of mornings in his childhood home, to the days in between high school and college in which he finally decided to pursue whatever job he found. There is comfort in between the two, merging with flirting, but at the same time connecting them further with their differences.

“This one is for you!”

“I sure hope you miss.”

And he does, the ball rolling towards the gutter like it always belonged there. The laughter that follows soon after comes from her, and as proud as Yukhei may be, he actually chuckles at himself as well, big hands coming up to cover his smile when he moves to where she is seated. Her fingers grasp her camera up to her face, squinting one eye to concentrate on the lens, on the image of Yukhei laughing that she is trying to capture in the depths of her eyes, for her eyelids to enjoy later, or maybe she just finds inspiration in the grin on his face, in the way his tanned hands cover a big chunk of his face and the happiness he exudes. She doesn’t notice those little peeks of love for her job, the same one she said she lost, when her chest puffs out in pride after taking several pictures of him.

But, her camera has been all over him for—almost—the entirety of the hour and a half that they have been there, and he doesn’t mind it one bit. Plopping down on the seat beside her, the two look at the scoreboard just in time to see that Yukhei has, indeed, won…thanks to the heavens or luck or life giving him a win after missing his last score. His eyes scan her features, looking for any sort of despair, anger, perhaps annoyance, but his wide eyes are met with the camera that she basically pushes to his face, taking another picture of him—out of many, really.

Yukhei is smug by now, parting his legs to rest his hands on top of his thighs, soon after running his fingertips through his dark hair, sweeping it away from his eyes to get a good look at her. “At least pay me for being your model.” He is joking, the smile on his face a hundred miles away from being a smirk. Genuine enchantment is what is read through his expression, like Yukhei wants her to know that there has never been a more beautiful moment than the one they live right now, and as a young man…Yukhei has gone on plenty of dates; some bad, some short, some ending up with a kiss and others ending up with him basically looking for an excuse to get out of there out of uncomfortableness. This is a nice change, he realizes, because her trust is well-earned, one that he has had to fight for through text, absentmindedly narrowing the gap in between the two. When someone is silent for a long time, even a word from them can save your world, and that is how Yukhei feels. A smile from her is worth a million diamonds because people rarely get to see it.

“You kick half of the models of the world in the ass, don’t blame me.” She replies, reaching over for the last slice of pizza and dividing it in half, giving the crustiest part to him.

The taste of pepperoni reaches the roof of his mouth, already a bit tired of the taste after eating so much, but he’ll have what he can get. “I thought you said you hated photography by now?”

The chuckle she gives him dies in the depth of her esophagus, alluring in the way it trembles in her chest, keeping her lower register in a single sound. “I’m sick of it. Doesn’t mean I hate it.” She corrects, licking her lips and reaching for her water bottle. Her makeup is a bit wiped off thanks to the heat of the place, and the red lipstick he had adored is starting to get off her lips. The worst part is that Yukhei actually doesn’t mind this, because one of the things he has thought about is taking off her lipstick himself, with a kiss that would take her breath away. Yet, the coldness that dissipates from her is enough to give a few steps back, enough to think that…heck, taking his time must be the best idea. “I started photography when I was younger, but I didn’t actually get a job in it until two years ago. One of my best friends decided to be a model, and we happened to live together as well, so when she got a modelling gig for a magazine…I would tag along to see. Suddenly, I was helping the photographers and giving my own ideas.” She snorts at the reminder, shaking her head before reaching over to where Yukhei is, taking an eyelash off his cheek and keeping it on her thumb. “I thought I had fucking made it. I had my first photoshoot, then I appeared on small magazines. Vogue hired me one day—”

Yukhei presses his thumb down onto hers, battling for the eyelash in between their fingers. Knowledgeable of his power, he interlocks their fingers together, making her smile softly. “That’s huge, though. I’m sure you have to have amazing talent to get so far in such little time.”

“I’m just…tired. There’s only so much you can do with a model.” She replies, huffing out a breath when they pull their thumbs away and she realizes it had stayed in Yukhei’s fingertip. “What did you wish for?”

“Your happiness.”

“What a sap.”

In her eyes, she is a diamond in the rough. She doesn’t shine bright anymore, at least not like how she used to. Another stolen talent, another bland personality, just the same somber person in a world filled with colors. Creativity is both her outlet and her biggest stress, when passion became work and work became turmoil. In the world she lives in, she gets to see people once or twice, she has to be on the run, capture the most perfect of situations…but neither of them are perfect. Yukhei is too loud, perhaps too clear, sufficiently enough easy to read, a man of smiles but also of insane confidence. She is the exact opposite, a cloud of smoke that translates into unspoken words and eye-rolls, leaving her eyes shut until she precisely needs to speak. It is the first time in years that she has spoken so much, she admitted earlier on the night. “I mean it,” He whispers, repeating it again over the music. “Well, if you are sick of it, then why do you bring your camera around you at all times?”

“In case inspiration strikes.” She argues like it is the most obvious thing in the world, but she doesn’t realize that nothing is obvious with her. “You’re a great subject to photograph.”

Licking his lips, Yukhei agrees. “Because I’m handsome?”

“Not only that,” Her head tilts to the side when she says that, pulling their interlocked hands in between them and getting closer to him. From up close, Yukhei can see the lines of her face, the depth of her eyes, the mysteriousness that lingers in her smile, like she is thinking of something entirely different to what she is saying. She smells like cigarettes and her favorite chocolate based perfume, like she may break his heart if he gets too close. “You can be all types of handsome, which you are, but you are genuine. It’s hard to find that in people.” The compliment leaves a flutter to rest on his chest, and it’s annoying—normally, Yukhei is the one to take his chances with his dates, but one sentence from her is enough to turn him into the adult version of a school boy in love. “I am always surrounded by fake stuff. Lights. Camera. Even fake plants and fake sunsets. The laughs are fake, the poses are fake, even the pictures are fake with how much they Photoshop the pictures I take.” It must be tough on her. Her style is constantly changed to fit what others want, to be beside the headline on a magazine, to be the front cover and perfectly put. People in her world don’t want roughness, neither do they want imperfections, they want luxury, diamonds. She wanted those as well when she met him, just smaller in size—just a dose of what the fashion world means. “…You laugh like you don’t give a shit. You’re not scared of being hurt, or if people judge you.” Her voice becomes softer, and the smile on Yukhei’s face turns into adoration when he sees through the curtains that always surround her. Like anyone else, she has been hurt. “You’re not scared of me, and I’m an absolute bitch. I don’t want to forget that. I want to show that through the picture.”

“…You’re not a bitch.”

“Yukhei.”

“If you’re a bitch, then I like this bitch!” He points out, bringing laughter out of her lips before she shakes her head. “Can I see the pictures?”

Reaching for her camera, she seems to have been ready for that question. “Of course.”

The ride in her car is filled with music. He wants to show her a part of him through the songs he listens to and when he side-eyes her, just as he is singing a song at the top of his lungs for comedic effect, he sees the faint smile on her face bathed in the glow of the city lights. Her car is black, perhaps tainted like her soul, and the contrast is beautiful—much more when she puts her playlist on, and the atmosphere is filled with more of her. Enigmatic tunes with poetic lyrics, a city-esque vibe coming from the breathy voices, and Yukhei enjoys it for the most part, hearing her speak about the songs she likes and cringing at the music that she used to listen in the past. At the end, Yukhei wants to know all sides of her, from then and from now, so when he looks up that one song that reminds her of her awkward teenage years, he is met with the most beautiful of frustrated groans and a slap to his shoulder.

He’ll take it, simply because getting to know every ounce of reaction from her is more of a benefit than a mission.

The crisp air of the night follows after him when he closes the car’s door, and he half expects to have to lean down on her window to get to say his goodbyes, but the same sound comes after his action. The small building he lives at welcomes him, with the same dark bricks and the same unhomely vibe. He knows this is not the place he wants to live in for the rest of his life, but it is a place for him to learn, also one of the reasons why he is saving so much money. Coziness is what he needs, and it’s exactly what he gets when he starts speaking:

“I thought you said you had to go home quickly because you have a shoot tomorrow.” In her expression, he reads some sense of surprise. Of course, she never expected him to be the kind to remember something she said two days ago.

Pushing her hands in the depths of her coat, she bites down on her bottom lip as she nears him with shortened steps. Yukhei wants to take his keys out, but he keeps them in his pocket just to have one more moment with her. Her shivering gives away that the night is much too cold, and they should probably say their goodbyes soon. “I know what I said,” She whispers, leaning forward until their chests are barely touching, to the point one harsh breath would have them connected. “But I also wanted to say sorry.”

“Sorry about what?”

“…For denying this date for so long.” She shrugs her shoulders, like she wants her words to mean nothing. It’s too late, though, Yukhei is already smiling widely, tickling her sides with the tips of his long fingers.

“You liked our date.” He sing-songs, only to have her rolling her eyes.

“…It was okay, that’s just it.”

“It was perfect. You liked it. Admit it.” Yukhei continues, pushes even, and it takes him a moment to register what comes next. Her fingers wrap around the belt-hoops of his jeans, bringing him closer to her until their abdomens are flushed together, her lips reaching his in a kiss without preparation. She tastes like the food they just had, mixed with the other smoothie they ordered to share at the end of their match, but she also tastes like coldness. The breeze has him coming closer to her, resting the expanse of his hands on the dip of her waist, running towards her back slowly before leaning his weight forward, bending her back just a little bit more to deepen the kiss. Their lips trace lines together like they had practiced that sketch, art in its purest form when Yukhei’s hands bawl her coat, just in time to hear her quickened breathing against his lips.

“You idiot,” She mumbles, her eyelashes framing her eyes when she looks up at him, then down at his lips again to give him a softer kiss, more of a peck. “I wanted to ask if you would mind me…uh, staying for another while.” She swallows thickly after those words, hearing the sound of Yukhei’s keys just as he twists it on the doorknob of the entrance to the building.

“You can stay over if you want?” Yukhei tuts, bringing her inside to the warmth of the calm, silent apartment. In the near distance, he hears the neighbor’s door barking and he is thankful that he is in the second floor at the exact moment she says:

“I would love to.”

His lips find solace in her jaw, her hands coming one with his shoulders, a dance of two lovers that don’t care about the outcome of that night, but they are intoxicated in the present, in the feeling of being hypnotized by the other. Just for that night, there is not another person in their eyes but the other.

But it wasn’t just for that night, it became a series of events in constant repetition.

💎

The shadows over the ceiling of her home are known to him. His eyes can already make out the shoes she keeps in the corner of the room, the easiest ones to put on if she is ever in a rush; the silhouette of a shirt peeking from the side of her closet, always engraved in his brain, like her scent, the taste of her lips, the caress of her hair when it falls over his face once they are kissing, framing it and keeping her in his line of vision, a tunnel for him to get lost in. The time in which they have lived in this rendezvous is not too long, but also not entirely short, intoxicated in the feeling of comfort that comes from one another, two diamonds when alone and a necklace when together.

Sometimes, his favorite feeling comes from the weight of the necklaces on her neck, dragging across the skin of his chest with every breath. Yukhei loves to unmask another part of her absentmindedly, ending in between the sheets one or two times out of the hundred times they meet. It is not a promise, but to him it tastes like it—he wants more of her, lips parting to engulf every insecurity of hers in the secrecy of their meetings. Like one of those times, Yukhei is laying in between her plaid covers, his white shirt dropping by the sides of his waist, tanned skin showing miraculously. Her thighs are resting on each side of his body, her wet lips pulling away from their kiss to softly create love in the form of pecks to his jaw, his neck, up to his cheeks once again before lowering down. She savors all of him, keeping quiet when he makes so much of a comment that could mean attachment.

Plenty of times he has heard her say that romance is just for movies. Even in such places, it is bitter.

Not that Yukhei is a saint, but he sure as hell is dulcet.

His hands rest on her hips, grabbing the edge of her leggings and snapping the fabric against her skin. She jumps at the action, taking his head in between her hands, fingers caressing his cheeks with a confused expression on her face. From her position, Yukhei must look like a mess—his hair is disheveled, falling upon his eyelids, carving his cheekbones with shadows. His lips are surely red, swollen and kissed by the woman he wants to share hearts with. “What are you doing?”

“I just wanted to joke around.” Yukhei mumbles, his lips puckering up to kiss her fingertips. In between his big hands he takes hers, rubbing the cold skin and pressing chaste kisses to it, the ghost of a promise in his voice when he rests his lips over her palm, surprising her with his words: “I missed you so much.”

Two weeks of not seeing each other, for she was in another continent taking pictures for yet another version of Vogue, and Yukhei has only lived through video-chats and long lasting texts through the phone. Sometimes, he would expect her to see her text telling him she is waiting outside of his workplace with food; other times, he is reminded that they are not dating and that he should not linger too much on the thought of not having her there, but he is guilty. Somewhere in between their time of knowing each other, his skin was inked with the tattoo of her name, not visible but felt.

Closing her eyes softly, she rests her weight back until her butt is mostly placed on his abdomen, fingertips touching his bottom lip with a nostalgic look on her face. Flicking her hair away from her face with a mere movement of her head, she sighs through her nose. “Yukhei,” It is a plead, the last bit of sanity left inside her after basking in this romance with him. “I am not the type of woman you’ll always be proud of. I love stuff and then, I get tired of it. I expect too much and I’m never pleased with things. You deserve someone that always looks at everything as enough.” And then, as always, she always asks for him to understand that he is so much better, that he deserves better, but there is no such thing as ‘better’ when she is there. When she is the diamond that reflects on his eyes, one that will never know how much she is worth. “You want a good girl—”

“I want you. I don’t want a good girl or a bad one. I want you.” Yukhei tells her, voice filled with sincerity when he takes her by the wrists, dragging her down until her nose is basically touching his and the light squeal she gives is what opens her eyes, reflecting in his brown ones. “Is it so hard to understand?”

“You’re twenty, Yukhei.”

“And?”

“One day, you’re going to think that you lost so much time with me, that you’re bored, I don’t fucking know.” Her voice is soft when she says it, looking all around his face before pecking his lips softly. “You are so loved, Yukhei. You deserve someone who loves you like you deserve.”

This is what she always does, pretend like she doesn’t feel anything when in reality, she is the first person to go out of her way to meet him. The woman that asks him if she has eaten, the one that asks him to talk about his feelings even when he doesn’t know how to voice them out intelligently. A fairytale is what she wants for him, but Yukhei has never been a fan of princesses and frogs—he is not even the movie type. His idea of romance is weighty, presentable, memorable, with her eyelashes fluttering against his skin when she falls asleep beside him, comfortable in his arms. Yukhei just wants to let her know he wants her, and that is not a sin. “…Hey, we’re getting to know each other.” He assures, resting his lips against her cheeks peacefully before breathing against the skin. “We have so much time to fall in love. We’re not there yet, but we could be.”

But Yukhei is lying, because there is more to them than making out in her bed. There are the usual Saturday getaways, to a new restaurant or a new arcade. The same movie they watch every once in a while, Monster Hunt, because they both enjoy it and they are damned for never finding something that means so much to them. He feels like there is something there, an awaking, burning in the depths of his heart. “…I’m afraid that if I ever fall for you, it will end.”

“Why?” He asks.

“Because it is an ending!” She says as if it is the most obvious thing, letting out a raged groan as she rests both his hands on the expanse of his thighs, feeling as his hands sneak up her shirt to rest on the skin of her waist. “And I’ve been used in the past. Sure, I shouldn’t compare you, but everyone expects something out of the person they like.”

Reaching up for her, Yukhei sits up and presses his lips down on hers, doing his best to portray every feeling of love in the glide of his tongue, the nipping of his teeth, the way he breathes out when he pulls away and call his name like a drunken man, like he could never get enough of what she makes him feel. “I only ask one thing from you and that’s honesty. Tell things to me straight.” He whispers, feeling as her hands rest upon his heart, catching the beating of the organ. “If you like me, tell me so. If you don’t, we can stop.”

“I like you.” She tells him, eyelids fluttering down when she looks at his lips. Maybe, she sees more in him than she ever gives away. He knows that much—she likes him, but he just doesn’t know to what extent. “But give me time, okay? I want to…to take all of this in and…you know; I don’t think I’m ready yet.”

In any other occasion, in the past perhaps, Yukhei would have turned his back, but instead, he kisses her once again. Perhaps, he thinks she is really going to fall for him, or he is in too deep to even get out at this point, or maybe he is just in love when he wakes up by her side, her legs tangled with his, her ceiling becoming the first sight he sees in the morning. Naked, vulnerable, in love, Yukhei both loves and hates the feeling, hoping that one day…life gives him exactly what he wants. His diamond, like the ones that rest against his arm thanks to her cheek that is pressed to his shoulder. He wants her to the depths of his blood, with his entire heart, and it is too much for a man in his twenties…but he welcomes the feeling with open arms, not that he had an option to start with.

💎

The jewelry store is far calmer than it has ever been in the past few months. By the counter, Yukhei is constantly checking his phone, expecting the entrance of one of their sellers, catching up on orders for graduation rings and stones. Arranging is what he does the most that day, putting boxes to one side, fixing the jewelry by color, type and size, writing down the descriptions of the petitions from clients and that is only the start, leaving Mrs. Li to basically take care of all the clients that come inside the store. In the matter of time, Yukhei loses the track of it, simply thriving off the need to finish his work fast before getting a break. His neck is starting to hurt, his long fingers rubbing it when he tries to differentiate between Swarovski diamonds, for earrings are far too incomprehensible for him to understand.

He still remembers the sting he felt on his earlobe when he got it pierced, like he saw the devil in the back of his eyelids all in the name of fashion. Nowadays, he forgets about putting an earring on…and when he does, he prefers a simplistic style, more so looking like a black dot against his tanned skin. When he looks through the piercing section, he remembers how much he has talked to his girlfriend about piercing his eyebrow, though the pain is what keeps him from doing so. She always says it would look amazing, but when the thought crosses his head and a smile creeps up his face, Yukhei corrects himself mentally.

Lover. Not girlfriend.

Not that he has tried to ask her, he already knows the answer—that she just wants him to have the best of the best, and until she reaches that, she wants to take it slow. Passing by his lips, he always told her, and will if life gives him the opportunity, that she loves him for who she is, and rather than changing herself for any person, she should work on improving on her skills if that is what makes her happy. The infamous cigarettes still dangle from her lips, sometimes in the taste of her kiss, but definitely not as repeatedly used as before, but there is something different about her, a pristine love for her art. It may not be in the magazines of Vogue, still taking her a bit of a time to get used to the rushing and draining life of a photographer for fashion magazines, but she is getting there in finding her voice and portraying it through photography. The subject of most of her non-work related pictures is Yukhei; cooking, eating, dancing, talking, laughing, playing videogames or sleepily looking at her with that plastered smile. She says she wants to capture him for when she forgets the beauty in the world, that people are not all puppeteers, looking for their next victim to control.

A box is held over his shoulder, taking out the new diamond necklaces from its boxes at the same time that he hears the door of the store open. Not that he looks up, sincerely lost in the task at hand, separating gold from silver, even those who do not stand in any line of the previously mentioned types, but he swears he hears Mrs. Li giggle and his senses are instantly met by the smell of sushi. Sniffling at the reminder that he has not eaten for over seven hours, Yukhei seeks for the source of such a scent, only to see the person whom had been texting him the entire morning about taking care of his meals—even when she had to be working in editing some pictures for an upcoming magazine issue.

“What are you doing here?” Yukhei asks, though the question must have sounded wrong in delivery, the goofy grin on his face speaks otherwise. She returns the smile, placing the white plastic bag on the counter before crossing her arms over her chest.

“You wouldn’t have eaten if I didn’t bring you food.” She comments, earning a bashful expression from Yukhei. The truth is that he doesn’t feel particularly scared of earning her heart, for he knows that he is able to do that and much more, but the fear she has of letting her heart be open to him is what stops him. The least he wants is to make her feel uncomfortable, and even though he is not the most patient of men, he tries for her, so awaiting the time she deems justified for them to get together is what he does. “Hi, Mrs. Li. I brought some food for you, too.” She is shy in the way she speaks to the older woman, giving her another plastic bag that she takes thankfully, pinching the cheeks of the much younger woman.

“Thank you, sweetheart.” Mrs. Li comments before waving her hands. “I’ll see myself out. You two lovebirds have fun.”

With the backdoor closing shut, Yukhei feels the tug at his collar pinching his nape, bringing him closer to the woman in front of him who examines his expression, from his eyebrows to the sweat gathering at his hairline; his eyes, his nose, his lips, heck, even his neck if she will. “Give me a kiss.” She tells him, earning a smile from Yukhei because she always deserves them. This is her way of saying ‘I worried about you’ and he feels it in the touch of her lips. Tender, holding his plush and rosy lips in between hers before diving in once again.

“Thank you, honey.” Yukhei comments when pulling away, already reaching for the box inside the bag and the chopsticks beside it. “You must have been really worried. Weren’t you taking some pictures for the July issue?”

“I was editing, and yes, I finished early just for you.”

Quirking one eyebrow, Yukhei plops a slice of sushi inside his mouth before he laughs, speaking with his mouth full. “…That is not the first time I’ve heard you say that.”

“I’ve never said that.” She complains through gritted teeth, but another wiggle of his eyebrows is enough to have her chuckling when she rests her elbows against the counter. “Is it good?”

Pretending to give a chef kiss, Yukhei unites the tips of his fingers in a circles and throws a kiss in the air. “Perfect.” He confesses before dipping some of his meal in soy sauce. “It tastes even better knowing you worried about me.”

The silence of her is what interests him the most, because he loves some good teasing and the outcomes that follow soon after. He loves to see her undressed beneath him, that much is known, but seeing her naked soul and personality is even more astonishing. An eye-roll is given by her part, pushing his shoulder when he starts to talk. “Shut up.”

“You worried about me.” Yukhei whispers, leaning forward with a bit of soy sauce in the corner of his mouth.

“Learn how to eat before you try to act smug on me. You have soy sauce in the corner of your lips.” Thus, she tries to defend herself with a remark, only to receive a short kiss to her lips and one of those star-casted stares from the man who swears to love her silently.

“You do too, now.” Something within her stirs, and Yukhei feels like there is hope for them to someday fall in love. In the way she looks at him, like she can’t believe he exists—in the nicest of ways, but also extremely frustrated. He hopes she sees the reflection in his eyes, too, the ones who resemble diamonds when she is in front of him.

Love is disgusting, Yukhei can admit to that…and he can even cringe about it, but he’s far in too deep.

💎

Either Yukhei is reckless or dumb. Add immature to the mix, that may be also the reason why he is there.

Endless of times he has commented on the pendants she keeps pressed to her chest, like she wants to keep their first memory together close to her heart, and she has never made an effort to deny it. The Sun and the Eclipse remain there, sometimes one given to Yukhei when she is away for more than a few days—she says that even if they are in the same city, she wants to give a piece of her to him, and the idea alone has him taking the necklace from her hands before being asked to give it back. The image is completed by the Moon, touching the tall windows of her room, letting in the big and round Moon indicative of its fullness. Resting against the cushions on the bumped out window seat, there is Yukhei and against his chest is his lover, breathing softly as they stare at the Moon. He would rather do something much more entertaining, like go out or practice those yoga poses that they have been seeing online out of a joke, but she basks on peacefulness in that spot and he is too caring to let go of that moment.

Their hands are interlocked on top of her stomach, their breathings unmatched, the room barely lit by the moonlight, and of course, there is a small smile on her face; it barely reaches the edges of her mouth, but Yukhei knows she is contented.

Happy is what she has made him and he expects to give the same in return, months after starting something that doesn’t have a name, won’t even have one at the pace they are going in. But Yukhei tries to be patient, Mrs. Li has told him to be, but how long is too long? “Yukhei,” He hums at the sound of his name, turning to look at her sobered expression. “You must be so bored.”

Twisting behind her, he wraps his legs around hers before pressing a fluttering kiss on the side of her neck. “I was going to say no, but I really am.” He chuckles, biting playfully on her shoulder by the time she gives a mere laugh, one that doesn’t even leave her chest. “But we can stay here if you want. We can watch Monster Hunt later.”

“For someone who gets bored easily, you sure love watching that movie with me.”

“You love it, too.”

“Well, it’s the first movie we watched together.” She debates, like he is questioning her for having such tastes. “It’s not my fault we had such a pretty beginning.” The next sentence is bashful, like she didn’t mean to say it out loud and Yukhei immediately tickles her sides, something he does when he gets her to say something cheesy. His lips quirk up, repeating the words in his deep voice only to have her turning around to look at him stopping her by tugging at his arms and looking at him seriously.

He thinks this is the end, for she is looking at him with so much longing, nostalgia and passion that he thinks she may as well cry at that moment. Sentimentalism is not for her, too bright in its precious stone state, heavy and elegant, just too not-casual for her to ever wear, but Yukhei came into her life and he made a mission to get her to fall for him. Fate did, in some way or another, but Yukhei wants to give himself some credit, too. He has always known that she fears their ending so much that she could be the cause of it, merely because she wants him to be happy and happiness for her is bright colors, strenuous words and memories, and while Yukhei is all that, he doesn’t mind the slow pace.

“Cat got your tongue?” He asks, laughing awkwardly when she keeps staring at his face, his plump lips pushing upwards when he doesn’t get a response. “…What is it?” His mind is ready for the break-up of what didn’t exist, the time in which a conclusion falls upon them and he wants to scream at himself. She told him so, that she is going to break his heart and he is going to end up regretting it.

“I am falling in love with you.” Her voice breaks at the end, following a whine when she goes to hide her face in his chest, fists bawled up on the side of his body, like she doesn’t believe what she just said. “I am falling in love with you and I don’t think I can stop myself anymore.”

The world doesn’t crash and Yukhei releases a breath so harsh that it may have as well destroyed his lungs, gripping her wrists in between his delicate fingers before moving them from side to side. “That’s a good thing!” The joy doesn’t leave his tone, making her look up at him with glistening eyes and an awestruck expression. In all situations except this one, Yukhei is a jokester, but with his heart in the line, he finally releases the words he had been holding in fear of getting his heart broken, too. “I fell in love with you, too.”

He knows better than to fall in love with someone like her, but he ignores that voice inside his head, for there is no one better than the person who promises to love him.

#lucas scenarios #lucas #nct scenarios #wayv scenarios #nct #wayv #kpop scenarios #cpop scenarios #writing #wayv fluff #wayv au #lucas fluff #lucas au #diamond shop worker!lucas #the love diaries #...i love lucas okay bye #remember to tell me what you thought!#second part of this series hehe

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thenonbinarydetective · 3 years

Text

Puppy Love

Forgive me, but I combined two request into one. It happened on accident, cause I realized the prompt could fit the situation I get Frank and Joe into, but don’t worry @ladylindaaa it’s a fun fluffy situation. Also based off of my sims game. This is also an apology for those I hurt after posting Catch of the Day

Warning: Cute dogs and cute boys

Word Count: 2,340

Prompt: “Don’t you think that’s a little extreme?”

Summary: After a stakeout, The Hardy Boys convince their family to adopt two dogs. The responsibility ends up a lot greater than Frank and Joe originally thought.

Enjoy!

Joe Hardy sat slumped in the seat of their car. Chin in hand, his bored stare remained fixed on a very interesting brick wall.

Frank on the other hand was taking the stakeout much more seriously, His gazed remained fixed on the jewelry store. “Would you pay attention?” He smacked his brother’s arm.

“To what? Nothing’s happening!” Joe defended himself, sitting up.

“We promised Dad.” Frank reminded his younger brother. Earlier that same evening Fenton Hardy had asked his sons to take his place in watching Alyssa’s Jewels for a few hours until he could take over. They had nothing better to do, so they agreed. Joe just didn’t expect for time to move so slow. Usually, the brothers wait for a few minutes, have a quick conversation, and then boom! They get attacked by the criminal. They either win or knocked out (or both). They probably shouldn’t be used to that.

“It’s not like you’re the perfect watchmen.” Joe snapped back. He reached out to grab Frank’s phone, “Who are you texting?” Frank contorted his body away from him. They glared at each other, both knew that his brother wouldn’t back down. Within seconds they started wrestling.

Joe, being the stronger Hardy Boy, soon overpowered his brother. He laughed triumphantly, waving the phone away from his brother, who had pressed against the other door with his foot. “Now let’s see who you’ve been texting.” His joy vanished after he looked at the notifications and saw practically all of their friends. “You’re in a group chat with Nancy, Bess, and George! Since when did you group chat anyway?”

“Since tonight, and they’re on a stake-out too.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know that because SOMEONE didn’t invite me!”

“I’m sorry. I’ll add you to it.” Frank apologized. The street lamp illuminating the hurt look on Joe’s face made him look pathetic.

“You made me sit in silence for 45 minutes, while you texted our friends. Some brother you are.”

“Stop yelling.” He rubbed his temples, “I invited you isn’t that- Wait what’s that?” He looked past his brother into an alleyway next to the store. There was movement behind the garbage can. Joe saw it too. The brothers leaped out of the car, but quietly as they could so they wouldn’t draw attention to themselves. They pressed themselves to side of the nearest building.

A man dressed in all black approached the store, entering the alley. The boys looked at one another, someone else was in the alley. Would they catch the criminal before they did? The brothers asked each other without saying a word. They bolted forward, not willing to risk it. As they came closer, they heard a deep growl.

The man came shooting out, chased by a black blur. It shocked Frank and Joe as the chase ignored them. The man ducked into the next alley. The blur nipped at his heels. When the boys entered the scene, the man pressed himself against the wall, a large black dog snarled at him. A bag overflowing with jewelry spilled on the ground.

“Get this crazy mutt away from me! I’ll turn myself in, I swear!” The man pleaded. He looked seconds away from wetting his pants. The Hardy Boys both tried to hide their laughter and failed. “Hey it’s not funny! This dog is crazy.”

While the brothers knew how serious dog attacks could be, the sight of the nervous thief was a little funny. Frank moved forward, keeping the vicious dog in sight as he walked so he’d be prepared if the dog changed targets. Strangely enough, it didn’t. He felt more at ease and walked closer. The thief let Frank tie up his hands with his belt.

At that, the black dog stopped and left the alley. Joe checked to see if his brother was as confused as he was about the dog’s behavior. Frank was. Joe left in time to see the dog return to the other alley. Cautiously, the younger Hardy followed.

He had lost the dog when he entered. “Hey.” He gently called, pairing that with a whistle. The dog poked his head out from behind a dumpster. So did another dog. The other is white with brown splotches of varying sizes. The black dog didn’t seem as scary now. His big brown eyes searched Joe adorably. He was trying to figure out why this human was looking down at him.

“I’m a friend, don’t worry.” He promised, kneeling a few feet away. He put out his hand for the dogs to sniff. The dogs stood still, as if they were deciding if they should trust him. “C’mon. Come here.” His voice raised a few octaves when he said this. The brown and white dog walked towards him. Sniffing then nuzzling his hand, it looks like Joe had made a new friend. The black dog came closer, but wasn’t as friendly.

A couple minutes later, Joe exited the alley with two furry friends. An officer loaded the thief into the back of a police car, while Frank watched. He must have seen his brother out of the corner of his eye, because when he left the alley he immediately broke off. “Who are they?”

“Well, this is the dog that chased that guy, and this is his friend.” Joe smiled.

“Joe we can’t keep them.”

“Why not? This guy can chase criminals better than we can. Dad will love him.” He patted the black dog’s head. He accepted this praise with a strong, determined look. It was oddly human for a dog, Frank didn’t know if he liked it or was freaked out by it. “And this little sweetheart is so adorable.” Joe bent down and hugged the second dog. “She’s perfect for mom.”

“I don’t know Joe.” Frank shrugged. He knew their aunt wasn’t very fond of dogs, even if their parents were. It would take a lot of convincing to let her keep them. His heart melted at the sight of them. They were making it very difficult to say no. In the back of his mind, he started listing the chore he would promise to do for his aunt for the dogs.

Joe laughed, he realized just how weak his brother was in the presence of these two spectacular mutts. His broad, lopsided grin hid how much he wanted to jump for joy. He was finally getting the dog he’s always wanted.

“What’s the worst that can happen?”

———————————————————————————————————

“This is the worst that can happen.” He answered a month later. He knew he shouldn’t have said that. He always regrets it when he says that.

“You’re being dramatic.”

“Dude, Aunt Trudy’s gonna kill us.” Joe raked his fingers through his blond curls.

“Don’t you think that’s a little extreme?” Frank raised an eyebrow at his younger brother.

“No, it’s not extreme at all. That the good tablecloth, Frank! The good tablecloth!” He was shaking his brother by the shoulders. Who then shrugged off his brother’s grasp.

They looked down at what Joe was being dramatic about. The brown and white dog, now named Laika, had made a nest in the hall closet with the dreaded good tablecloth. Along with that, Frank saw his dad’s old coat, two of his mother’s dresses, a few of his brother’s shirts, and some of his own. He didn’t understand why the dog used clothes and a tablecloth for her puppies, but Frank wasn’t a mother.

Laika continued to press the various items together until she decided it was comfortable enough. She laid down and glanced up at her owners. Completely wrapped up in the joy of impending motherhood, she didn’t realize the stress she was causing them.

“Aunty only takes it out for special occasions and this is pretty special.” Frank chuckled quietly, squeezing himself into the small closet so he could comfort Laika. He stoked her head, which she thanked him for by licking his hand. Eventually, he couldn’t ignore the feeling of the daggers that Joe was glaring at him with. “What?”

“I’m stressed and you’re making jokes.” Joe threw up his arms in frustration. “I never agreed to the Freaky Friday switch.” He slid down the wall, utterly defeated.

“Neither did the characters in Freaky Friday.” The brunet brother reminded, pointing at his brother. “Switch with me, I’m gonna go call the vet.” He eased himself out of the closet and walked into the kitchen.

Joe took his brother’s place as a doggy midwife. As he traced little shapes in her fur, he thought back to only three hours before when he promised his parents that they would have a boring night so they could have some alone time. Unfortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Hardy rarely got the time for a date night. Right about now they were probably rushing home from that really fancy restaurant after getting the text about Laika.

Ranger, the black dog and probably Laika’s baby daddy, howled from Laura’s office. The boys put him in there once they realized Laika was in labor. He continued to be vocal about how much he hated the situation he was in. Joe didn’t like it much either.

Laika whined, Joe felt bad for her. She knew that. She nuzzled Joe, trying to comfort him even though she felt so terrible. He tried to do the same for her. Trapping them in an endless cycle of love and sadness.

“I’m sorry girl, I don’t know what’s taking the vet so long.” He said as an effort to make her feel better.

Frank returned, “Dr. Cohen said he’s having car trouble and just to keep her comfortable.” He sat against the opposite wall. The brothers sat in silence. Laika let out an occasional whine while Ranger yelled things that were probably uncomplimentary in dog. This lasted for a few minutes.

“Tonight blows.” Joe sighed, “First you cooked dinner, then the washing machine explode, I forgot to write that essay, and now Laika.” He pulled his knees to his chest and by the end of his sadness list, his head was buried in his arms.

Frank ignored the jab at his cooking skills and the fact that it was Joe who broke the washing machine. He enjoyed teasing his brother like every other sibling in existence, but it was hard to see him so upset. “I’m sorry about dinner, we fixed the washing machine, you can write the essay later, and Laika will be fine.”

The doorbell rang, causing both brothers to jump to their feet. Frank reached the door first and opened it. Outside stood Dr. Cohen with his vet bag in hand. Behind him was his son and close friend of the Hardys, Phil.

“She’s in the closet, Dr. Cohen.” Frank gestured. The vet nodded and followed him over. Joe and Phil lagged a bit, neither wanted to crowd the patient.

“Is that your Aunt’s good tablecloth?” Phil asked, peering into the nest.

“Don’t remind me.” Joe grumbled.

“You remember that?” Frank raised his brow at his short friend.

“Of course, she takes it out for every party.” Phil said as a matter-of-factly.

“Well, this party already has another guest.” Dr. Cohen announced. The three boys noticed the little puppy that had been born while they were distracted. “Still waiting on a few others.”

They heard a car door slam from the driveway, followed by the rushing tap of high heels on stone. Laura Hardy threw open the door, “Is she alright? Did we miss anything?” She asked breathlessly.

“Only one mom. Another’s coming any minute.” Frank shuffled over and gave his mother a quick hug, his brother did the same.

“Oh, good.” She smiled, then pushed past her sons to see her dog. They weren’t surprised, Laura and Laika formed a close bond over the past month. Frank and Joe found it a little unnerving that so much of their mother’s attention wasn’t on them. They had no doubt that she was fretting the whole way home. When their father finally joined them, his tired face only confirmed their theory.

“Oh this one looks like Ranger.” She cooed.

It was a long night, but by the end of it Ranger and Laika were the proud parents of seven puppies. Dr. Cohen and Phil said their goodbyes and left the family. Ranger sat by Fenton, finally freed from Laura’s office. He watched his children curiously.

“I’m not telling Gertrude.” Fenton spoke up.

“Coward.” Laura teased.

“Why can’t we just let her find out for herself when she comes home from her vacation?” Joe asked. The rest of his family considered this.

“It’s gonna be pretty obvious when she opens her craft room and finds them.” Frank added. They laughed before falling into a happy lull. The family felt exhausted, but the puppies were too cute to ignore.

“We’re not gonna get rid of all of them, right?” Joe piped up. They had a big house, but it wasn’t big enough for nine dogs and five people. “Because I really like this one, and I think he likes me. Isn’t that right, Bear?” He held up a puppy with a similar coloring to Laika.

“I kinda like this one.” Frank quietly referred to the black puppy sleeping on his lap. “I’m gonna call him Scout.”

Laura smiled at her husband and wrapped her arms around his waist. She sweetly looked up at him and said, “I think we should keep two. Ranger and Laika would be so upset if we gave all their babies away.” The boys knew their father was too weak to resist. She knew how to get what she wanted from him.

“You’re right.” He conceded. His wife and sons cheered. Fenton raised his hand, signaling that he had more to say. He met his wife’s eyes and said, “But only if you, my dear, tell Gertrude about the puppies and the tablecloth.”

Laura begrudgingly agreed to these terms. Mentally, she prepared herself for the ranting and raving she would have to endure. Her sons were happy. That’s all that mattered.

#second one down #I hope this makes up for it #the sims got me in the mood for this one #the hardy boys #hardy boys #nancy drew #clue crew #frank hardy #joe hardy #fenton hardy #laura hardy #fanfiction

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ayma-nidiot · 4 years

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The Ride - Sylvix fic Chapter 18

Also on AO3 -> https://archiveofourown.org/works/21973405/chapters/57468868

Chapter 18 – Good Reasons

“So now that we’re a safe distance from the monastery…” Ingrid began as their troupe continued treading Galatea territory. By now, she suspected that neither the Knights nor the Kingdom cared to look for them; they’d been marching for eight days now, after all. “Do you care to explain what you did to distract Dimitri and Dedue, Sylvain?”

“Uh…” Sylvain had been nodding off during the march, so this question was especially surprising. “Why is that important right now?”

“Well, we’re just curious.” Annette giggled. “I mean, nothing gets past Dedue. It had to have been something really clever.”

Sylvain gave a quick glance to Raphael and Caspar before saying, “Okay, if you insist.”

______

“So… Remind me again why you needed about half of the marketplace’s supply of toilet paper?” Ashe dumped several dozen rolls of toilet paper in front of Dimitri’s room.

“And a dozen wine bottles?” Lorenz asked.

Sylvain, being the clever man that he was, knew that “no good reason” wasn’t… well, a good reason. “Haven’t you guys heard of stocking up on supplies, especially since we’re about to march to the Stubborn Old General? Thanks for all of this toilet paper and wine, by the way. I plan to stock up on food later. I’ll be sure to pay you guys back in battle.”

“Sure, sure,” Lorenz spoke as he and Ashe began to leave. “Just don’t go stealing my women.”

“Hahaha…” Sylvain kept a cool face while his allies were there, but as soon as they left, he turned to his own quarters and said, “Guys, you ready?”

“You bet we are!” A young man – no older than 14 – jumped excitedly. He was so excited that he took four rolls of toilet paper while his buddy followed suit.

“Dude, are you sure this is okay?” Said buddy began to worry. “Do you know how much trouble we’re going to be in if that… that big scary guy finds out we’re about to trash the prince’s room?”

“Oh, quit whining.” Friend #1 snickered while he while he unfurled one of the rolls of toilet paper. “My dad always said that anything’s okay, as long as you don’t get caught.”

Sylvain peered in the room and said, “Well, if you guys are okay here, then I need to go. Someone’s got to make sure that big scary guy isn’t around to foil our plan. Thanks for helping, by the way. Here’s a little reward for your trouble.”

Friend #1 caught the satchel of money and snacks that Sylvain tossed at him. “Aww, right! Thanks, margrave man… dude… guy!”

As Sylvain began to leave, Caspar and Raphael took that chance to come in the room with bottles of wine, having to step over some toilet paper overflowing to the outside.

“Okay, Caspar, here’s a piece of advice if you want to grow big like me,” Raphael spoke as he opened his bottle of wine. “You gotta learn how to hold your alcohol.”

“I… didn’t know,” Caspar sounded skeptical as he took some sips of wine.

“Hey, you having a drinking party in the prince’s room?” A few unsavoury former Empire students came in. “And with our former Caspar von Bergliez, no less! Come on boys, let’s drink!”

Meanwhile, outside, the two teenagers had just finished using up the last of the toilet paper, which now stretched the entire length of the second floor dormitories.

“Man… I had no idea we could find such an asinine reason to use this much toilet paper,” the younger, more innocent friend had shame in his voice.

“You mean such a good reason?” The upperclassman stuffed a handful of gold coins in his buddy’s pocket. “We get to have fun and get paid to do it! It’s a win-win!”

Just then, a sudden, loud stomping could be heard from the first floor.

“Oh, shit, it’s Dedue!” Caspar exclaimed, starting to feel tipsy from the half bottle of wine that he drank. “Come on, guys, let’s book it!”

______

“And that’s the grand story of how I distracted Dedue long enough to give us time to get out of there. Pretty clever, don’t you think? And I have to say, Caspar, you handled your alcohol quite well that day.” Sylvain sounded very impressed with himself.

His friends, however, did not sound impressed, especially not Ashe. “That’s got to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard! You should be ashamed, Sylvain! You defiled the room of His Highness and wasted so much toilet paper! Do you have any idea how long it took the Knights to invent and produce it? And you, Caspar! You know, knights would never agree to such… such horrible things!”

“Aww, come on, Ashe!” Caspar complained. “The students get bored, you know? Plus, Sylvain and I payed them to clean up as well! Could you have thought of a better plan?”

Ashe said nothing, knowing full well that he could not have thought of a better way to distract the ever-watchful Dedue.

After hearing Ashe’s words, Sylvain felt a slight bit of shame – so he decided to change the subject, pointing at a small village up ahead. “Guys, we’re running a bit low on supplies, aren’t we? Why don’t we stock up in that village over there?”

“You better not hoard all the toilet paper from this village, too,” Ashe muttered.

“Ah, this village brings back memories!” Ingrid smiled as she walked ahead. “I remember my brothers bringing me here when I was a kid. It’s where I’ve first discovered my love of horses.”

“Now, there’s the Ingrid we know and love!” Sylvain felt happy to see a smile on his friend’s face for a change.

As they got even closer to the village entrance, Ashe could smell something spicy in the air. “I’ve never smelled anything quite like that… Maybe I could cook us something new tonight with those spices!”

Ingrid knocked at the gates that she hadn’t seen in many a year. “Excuse me?”

A friendly voice of an old woman answered. “Yes? What is- My… My lady… Lady Ingrid, is that you?”

“Hello there, Eyvel. It’s been a while.”

“By the goddess, Ingrid!” The old woman, Eyvel, opened the gate to hug Ingrid. “How are you, sweetheart?”

“Good, thank you.” Ingrid regretted she couldn’t converse more. “Listen, my companions and I are on a secret mission from the monastery, so I’d rather not have my identity discovered while I’m here. We’ve been marching for over a week, and we need food and supplies. I hope you understand.”

“Of course, my lady.” A soldier, who led a small watch army, nodded in acknowledgement. “Enjoy your stay in the village.”

“You sure you don’t want to stay the night?” Eyvel asked.

“No, we need to make it fast. I’m sorry.”

“Very well. Now, don’t let this old bag of bones keep you! Hehe!”

Unlike the guarded entrance to the village, the inside was so peaceful, so carefree, Sylvain noticed. “Ingrid, are you sure it’s okay to leave such a kind, old lady to keep watch when there’s a large-scale war going on?”

“I’ll have you know that she’s been helping to protect this village for many years,” Ingrid replies as she perused a meat market nearby with Sylvain. “She’s been a seasoned soldier since before you were even born.”

“Age over beauty, haha.” Sylvain then turned his attention to the butcher. “I’ll have ten pounds of your super spicy jerky, please. Oh, and five pounds of Teutates Loach.”

“I’ll take five pounds of everything!” Caspar and Raphael both declared at once.

The butcher’s face lit up as the three men handed him the money for the meat. “Th-Thank you so much for your patronage, sirs!”

“Cupcakes and bread loaves on sale!” shouted a young woman’s voice from the bakery nearby. “Freshly baked!”

Sylvain walked over to this bakery, staffed entirely by women – who, he noticed, took a liking to him quickly. “I’ll take twelve of your chocolate cupcakes, as sweet as you.”

The young woman, who owned the bakery, blushed as she gave him the cupcakes, sneaking a couple of extras in the tin box.

“Oh, and do you have some spicy or bitter breads?”

“I’m glad you asked that.” The young woman fetched a few fresh loaves of bread from the oven. “I’ve been working on a few new breads. This one here’s herbs and cheese, and this one features some spices from Dagda.”

“Thank you.” Sylvain winked as he handed the woman a satchel of coins. “Keep the change.”

Sylvain spent the next hour loading up the wagon – which he had a mind to leave outside the village gates - with various fruits, vegetables, and medicines. For once, he was glad that he could flirt with women that day, if only to bring smiles to the faces of that peaceful village. His extroverted nature lead him to just about every merchant in the area… or so he thought.

“Ah, Ingrid!” Sylvain noticed his friend in a jewelry shop… Ingrid? In a jewelry shop? He laughed a little.

“Sylvain, save me…” Ingrid rolled her eyes at Mercedes, Dorothea, and Annette, who wanted to enjoy themselves there, trying on just about every trinket they saw. “These three buffo- I mean, ladies have been here the entire past hour. And they keep on making me try on everything.”

“Hey, Ingrid, Ingrid!” Annette smiled as she showed Ingrid a pearl and gold necklace. “Why don’t you try on-”

“Annette, I’ve tried that one on already.”

“Annie!” Mercedes called from the stall next door, as she had a purse full of jewelry she had bought from the jewelry store. “They’ve got makeup over here! I’ve never seen blush like this!”

“Ingrid, did you hear that? Let’s go!” Dorothea pulled Ingrid – a very tired, annoyed Ingrid – over to this stall.

“Hehe, sorry Ingrid.” Sylvain laughed halfheartedly. Well, I don’t see what would interest me about a jewelry store, with nothing but sparkly-

Before Sylvain turned for the wagon, the owner of the jewelry store said to him, “Sir, would you like anything in particular?”

“No thank you. I was just here with my-” Sylvain had an idea right before he had the notion to actually leave. “Ma’am, do you have any men’s jewelry?”

“Why, yes!” The store owner gestured to a few chains, rings, and bracelets. “Believe it or not, some of these pieces are more valuable than the women’s jewelry.”

So it’s go big or go home, then. Sylvain pondered this selection for about ten minutes before declaring, “Then I’ll take these two-”

“Sylvain!” Ingrid came running back to the jewelry store suddenly. “Sylvain!”

Sylvain quickly placed an overly sized satchel of gold coins in the jewelry store owner’s hands before taking a couple of pieces of jewelry. “Ingrid! I thought you were tired of the jewelry store! Oh, and uh… the rest of you are here, too. What’s up?”

Ashe pulled Sylvain over and whispered, “We just got a huge lead as to where Felix might be.”

At this news, Sylvain hastily got back in the wagon, ready to leave the village immediately. “Where?”

Ingrid replied, “Conand Tower.”

Just as the wagon had made it to the other side of the village gates, Sylvain had nearly frozen in place, had he not ordered his horse – and Ingrid’s pegasus – to start driving them forward.

“What’s wrong, Sylvain?” a concerned Dorothea asked.

“…Do you guys remember the significance of that place? It’s… It’s my brother Miklan’s thief hideout.”

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #sylvix #sylvain x felix #fanfiction

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garden-ghoul · 5 years

Link

listen to and share my podcast where I talk about being a baby witch and having to learn to manipulate the fabric of society! it doesn’t get more autistic than this!

transcript below the cut.

Before reading: THIS IS THE BEST TIFFANY ACHING BOOK! Because it’s about navigating new peer groups and feeling like an idiot and being weird even among the weirdos who should be your people! Tiffany is SO multiple and so relateable and I kind of want to have kids just so I can read them this book and tell them “See, if you feel this, you’re in good company.”

Also I should introduce Tiffany, since this is the second Tiffany book. In this one she’s 11 years old. She’s a witch who grew up on chalk instead of hard stone and sometimes people look down on her for that. She’s a little pretentious about how perceptive and thoughtful she is and how she knows a bunch of big words she can’t pronounce. I believe she whacked the queen of the fairies on the head with a frying pan, or something similar. And she briefly met Granny Weatherwax at the end of her first book, and Granny gave her the eponymous hat full of sky, which is a pointed witch hat that nobody can see. I’m not exactly clear on why. The point is she’s the perfect picture of a good half of all autistic children and she’s very dear to my heart.

SO the book starts by presenting a bodiless, frightened thing that has lost the brain it used to live in, drifting slowly over the hills. And then Tiffany does a spell that allows her to step out of her body and look at it from outside and it notices her. Perfect! A strong mind! Filled with lots of little nested minds! There’s the setup of the plot, this creature called a Hiver. Now to the action.

Tiffany is going to the mountains, and on the way we get a flashback about that time Tiffany was briefly the ruler of a colony of pictsies—the Nac Mac Feegle. I mention this because there’s a bit with the new ruler, the new kelda she’s called, who gives Tiffany a get out of here this is my turf now look—and this territoriality theme was a very strong in the last book. We also get a lovely bit of editorial from the author on the new kelda, Jeannie: he says that because she’s new, because she’s moved here from far away and is frightened and unsure and alone, she makes a mistake. And that mistake is telling her clan not to protect Tiffany from the Hiver that is following her.

I want to read some excerpts from the later part where we see Jeannie’s husband, Rob Anybody, having some existential dread about it. Because it’s some great comedy and some great pathos, all in one. Jeannie comes out to try and stop him brooding about how he’s not allowed to keep Tiffany safe—offers him a drink of extra strong liquor that may or may not be made from turpentine and when he refuses it she starts yelling that he’s died. A couple of his brothers come out and start crying, it’s a great bit. But then Jeannie, as his wife, asks him not to go save Tiffany. Heavy-hearted, Rob agrees… and the next moment, as his kelda, she tells him he does have to save Tiffany, because Tiffany is the hag of the hills and she tells the land what it is. But be careful, won’t you?

“You've got something to come back safe to me for, Rob Anybody,” said Jeannie. “An' I beg ye to use your heid for somethin' other than nuttin' folk.”

“I thank ye, Kelda,” said Rob Anybody. “I'll do as ye bid. I'll tak' some lads and find the big wee hag, for the good o' the hills. It cannae be a good life for the puir wee big wee thing, all alone and far fra' home, among strangers.”

“Aye,” said Jeannie, turning her face away. “I ken that, too.”

I just love this growing sympathy between Tiffany and Jeannie, as women who have to make their own way to power and self-confidence.

There’s a bit of intrigue for Tiffany on the way to the mountains, with her escort making these divination devices cum curse nets called shambles and having them explode with some kind of oppressive power, but she does make it. We meet her new mentor Miss Level, who has two bodies and used to work in a circus because it seemed like she was reading her own mind. She’s desperate for a bit of company because the last three girls who came to apprentice with her found her too unsettling and left.

She takes Tiffany out to the nearby villages that are on Miss Level’s beat, as it were, collecting gossip and free food and tending to the sick. The witch’s life is presented as this sort of a web of implication and subtlety, manipulating the social fabric so as to do good and get paid without causing any resentment. Although Miss Level says it’s VERY important that a witch never expects to get paid.

“Pretty soon people will be killing their pigs for the winter,” said Miss Level, “and I'll get more brawn, ham, bacon and sausages turning up than a family could eat in a year.”

“You do? What do you do with all that food?”

“Store it,” said Miss Level.

“But you-“

“I store it in other people. It's amazing what you can store in other people.” Miss Level laughed at Tiffany's expression. “I mean, I take what I don't need round to those who don't have a pig, or who're going through a bad patch, or who don't have anyone to remember them.”

Witches are agents of communism! From each according to ability, to each according to need. I think it’s cool that they’re here to sort of smooth out economic inequality.

Miss Level also asks Tiffany about her Granny Aching, and the way she used her influence. I really like this bit.

“Did she help people?” Miss Level asked.

“She made them help one another,” Tiffany said. “She made them help themselves.”

Miss Level sighed. “Not many of us are that good.”

So a witch’s job is to subtly manipulate everyone around her into being a better person.

So Tiffany is doing a lot of boring taking care of people. She doesn’t like it, it’s not very glamorous. Another apprentice witch named Petulia Gristle, who has an inconvenient amount of occult jewelry, stops by to invite her to the ‘sabbat’ the other apprentices have. But Petulia keeps asking Tiffany whether she doesn’t want to dress to fit in, and using strange jargon. Petulia is VERY good at fitting in, in the kind of quickly-back-up-your-opinions-and-turn-them-in-a-different-direction kind of way. We’re also introduced to Annagramma, who is the leader of the apprentices in the same way Granny Weatherwax is leader of the witches: which is to say, everyone cares a lot about her opinion but of course witches don’t have leaders. Annagramma says.

Annagramma is the type of insufferable teen who insists on being the only clever person in the room. This is a tall order because most witches are a bit like that, and Tiffany certainly is. But Tiffany is younger and doesn’t have as much experience manipulating the social fabric, and Annagramma uses her inexperience to humiliate her. Oh sure of course you kicked the fairy queen out of your village. Uh huh. And Tiffany does a little analysis of how Annagramma manages her underlings: she’s like a dog worrying the sheep so much that they don’t have time to do what she says, so nothing gets done. She’s getting in her own way because she, too, is a teen and doesn’t know anything. Aww. I almost like her. I have a soft spot for teens.

Tiffany tells the other apprentices that she’s met Granny Weatherwax (to general disbelief) and that Granny gave her this hat. Everyone asks, What hat? And what follows is maybe my favorite scene from the book.

Long afterwards, and long after all sorts of things had happened, she'd go 'la la la!' to blot out the memory whenever something reminded her of that evening. Miss Level tried to talk to her as she ran upstairs, but she bolted her door, kicked off her boots and lay down on the bed with the pillow over her head to drown out the laughter echoing inside…

Tiffany's First Thoughts were running around in circles. Her Second Thoughts were caught up in the storm. Only her Third Thoughts, which were very weak, came up with: Even though your world is completely and utterly ruined and can never be made better, no matter what, and you 're completely inconsolable, it would be nice if you heard someone bringing some soup upstairs . . . The Third Thoughts got Tiffany off the bed and over to the door, where they guided her hand to slide the bolt back. Then they let her fling herself on the bed again. A few minutes later there was a creak of footsteps on the landing. It's nice to be right. Miss Level knocked, then came in after a decent pause. Tiffany heard the tray go down on the table, then felt the bed move as a body sat down on it.

Just this very sweet and relateable baby teen moment where Miss Level tries to comfort her. The other thing I really love about it is the Third Thoughts being the part of you that makes sure that even when you’re low you still take care of yourself. Because I’ve named that part of myself too and it makes me feel close to Tiffany.

Tiffany is feeling so miserable and insecure and homesick that she really just wants to see the invisible hat. So she uses her “See Me” spell to step outside herself and sees the hat right there on her head… but when she tries to reverse it the Tiffany she’s looking at says, “We see you. Now we are you.” Then: Lightning struck somewhere nearby. The window blew in. The candle flame flew out in a streamer of fire, and died. And then there was only darkness, and the hiss of the rain. Damn, that’s a good end for a chapter.

The next morning Tiffany seems to be back in her body, and feeling just great. But discontented with boring nonmagical chores. She wants to climb mountains! BUT she’s losing tiny bits of time, during which she seems to be trying to leave messages, asking for help. Once again, a multiple witch is able to resist not just mind control, but total annihilation of the mind. It seems like her Third Thoughts are somewhat able to curb the nasty temper of the new Tiffany because they’re already used to regulating her. Which is how it is, right, when you’re going through puberty? But she’s seeing things that were seen by minds the Hiver already consumed, and speaking in their voices. She can read minds and she’s telekinetic. She just wants to ACTUALLY USE SOME MAGIC. She leaves the cottage, and Rob, who’s been worriedly tracking her, talks to Miss Level about her.

Miss Level is bewildered at the idea of Tiffany being a powerful witch because she can’t do everyday magic on command—Rob says no, it’s a deep magic tied to the land, not to be used for party tricks. It kind of reminds me of a recent discussion on ADHD, and how it makes ‘simple’ tasks like doing the laundry or making lunch very difficult, but complex tasks like spontaneously producing a podcast much easier. Tiffany is very much in the mold of a hyperlexic child who doesn’t fit in anywhere and is bad at what people expect her to be good at, while being good at things no-one expects her to be able to do at all. Makes me wonder some things about Sir Terry.

So she goes to Annagramma’s to threaten her and try to recruit her as a crony, because the Hiver likes to amass power. Wherever she goes, shambles and curse nets disintegrate, presumably because her very existence is a curse—the type of magic she uses doesn’t play nice with anything else. She goes to a magical paraphernalia shop and turns someone into a frog to get a good discount. Comes home and kills Miss Level. In the ensuing struggle within Tiffany’s mind, she passes out and the Feegles have to go inside her mind.

Inside the part of Tiffany’s mind where Tiffany still is, it looks like the Chalk, and there are the hills and Granny Aching’s shepherd hut. On the door in chalk is written a list of smells that belong to the hut, and if the Hiver smells them it will be brought there—this is important because as long as Tiffany is on her own turf she’s pretty well unstoppable since her power comes from the land. So Rob sends a raiding party to steal the smells, and meanwhile he’s got to fight a bunch of trees that are trying to steal the sunlight from the hills. When the Hiver appears on Tiffany’s turf the Feegles all start fighting it, because of course they do! The earth shakes; the trees start to fall over; and the hills grow taller and start to move, because they’re the shape of a sleeping girl. Yes! That’s right! Tiffany IS the land, and she is SO much bigger than the Hiver, which she picks up between her two fingers. The Feegle bard begins to weep because he’s not good enough to write a song that will do justice to their hag of the land.

And Tiffany wakes up under a green quilt that looks like the chalk hills. She’s really dissociated but someone tells her to milk the goats, so she does. When she comes back to herself Granny Weatherwax is there and explains that one of the previous hosts, a wizard who studied Hivers, explained everything in Tiffany’s sleep. Hivers collect people, and Tiffany now has a head full of ghosts. That’s right she’s DOUBLE MULTIPLE.

We also have a very good bit with Miss Level, who you will recall lost one of her bodies in a Hiver accident, still going about her business as if she still had four hands without realizing it. And because she’s a witch, she can just do that! To me it reads as a parallel for the hat full of sky Granny gave Tiffany, something you can’t see but that nevertheless exists and does its job. I mean, I’m also a sucker for magical workarounds for disabilities, especially if the disability is something strange like ‘only having one body.’ Granny does a little speech on how magic is the easy part of witching, and dealing with people is both the hard part and the more important part.

Now this is something very important to me! Pratchett’s witches, the good ones, are ALL about tikkun olam. They don’t ask ‘who will repair the world?’ They say, ‘I will do it.’ When I was young this made a huge impression on me, that Pratchett presented these witches as the people to admire. I still find it very comforting, this permission to be able to be nasty and self-confident and know I can’t expect thanks for my good work. This is not necessarily to say that I approve of anyone telling children that selflessness is The Right Way To Be—just that for many reasons I have chosen to try to be generous and hardworking, and Pratchett tells us this is difficult and irritating and uncool. I love him. I’m probably going to witter about this during every single witch book but whatever, Granny Weatherwax is my own mean grandmother who raised me.

So now Tiffany has to repair the world. She’s got to do the medicine for everyone and she’s got to visit old Mr Weavall whose money she stole while she was possessed. But when she checks in the box, lo and behold, it’s filled with gold from the barrow where the Feegles live! Mr Weavall is delighted, gives Tiffany a gold coin, and decides on the spur of the moment to get married.

Which is a very cute way to show that sometimes you’ll get rewarded when you don’t think you deserve a reward, but you’ve got to be humble about it even so. “It’s an unfair world,” Granny tells Tiffany. “Be glad you have friends.” And that’s it, isn’t it?

Granny and Tiffany spend the night up in the mountains stalking the Hiver (unsuccessfully) and then go down the Witch Trials, which is a bit like a fair where all the witches show a cool thing they can do. The Hiver finally starts to move in.

Tiffany builds a shamble, an inconsequential piece of witchery she hasn’t been able to do for the whole book. She can do it now because the stakes are high enough. Yep! That old familiar ADHD feeling, where you can’t make anything happen unless you’re panicking and half mad with guilt! Like us, her power comes from being stressed the fuck out, and it’s correspondingly huge: when she creates her shamble, a curse net to catch the Hiver, the carved horse on the hillside down in the Chalk gets up and leaps away toward the mountains. I’m sorry I haven’t communicated all the great imagery that Pratchett brings back for the climax; he’s excellent at weaving together the details of place in a way that make them important and real. Any book about Tiffany Aching is also a book about her whole country, because in many ways she is the avatar of the Chalk.

And she talks to the Hiver. It’s afraid of endlessly continuing to experience the world, which is a real mood. It wants Tiffany to teach it to die, but it feels that because it isn’t a single person it can’t possibly die. Tiffany tells it a lovely story:

'I'm made up of the memories of my parents and grandparents, all my ancestors. They're in the way I look, in the colour of my hair. And I'm made up of everyone I've ever met who's changed the way I think. So who is “me”?'

She tells the Hiver it might as well just construct an identity and inhabit it, in the same way humans do. And now that your name is Arthur (she names it) you just have to cross this endless desert behind this creepy door that I’ve just invented. So the Hiver goes off to learn how to die! But Tiffany is trapped here forever because her door has vanished. She has a few minutes to sink into despair before Granny Weatherwax opens the door from the other side and goes “Come on now, I’m an experienced psychopomp and so will you be, but we haven’t got all day.” And, importantly, Granny says witches never talk about the psychopomp thing. One of those open secrets.

Tiffany wakes up surrounded by the other apprentice witches. She tries to tell them what she’s seen but Annagramma is pretty set on making it seem like Tiffany must have been imagining things. But she takes off her boots and they’re full of black sand that moves weird, and Petulia has heard the rumors about the dark desert, and they believe her.

“Petulia, we're not supposed to talk about this,” said Harrieta, gently.

“No!” said Petulia, her face red. “It is a time to talk about it, just here, just us!”

This feels very important to me, that there’s a space for girls to have secrets and to explore taboo topics together. The camera cuts away for the actual conversation, but I’m glad they got to have it.

Gossip travels fast among the witches. All of them want to see Tiffany and Granny Weatherwax pitted against each other in the Trials—everyone seems to want one or the other taken down a peg. But neither of them enters. They just stare at each other through all the performances, and Tiffany feels that she’s already won because Granny, the only witch who matters, gave her approval already. It seems a bit shortsighted when I put it like that, but it’s such an important an buoyant feeling to have a mentor figure you admire and trust tell you that you’ve done well. Tiffany doesn’t care what Annagramma thinks any more, and in Pratchett’s universe this takes away her sway over everyone. Not quite how it works, but certainly how it feels in your heart.

Later she goes to visit Granny and gets another lecture on how the trappings of station aren’t as important as what you do with them, and she thinks about how Granny feels a lot of pressure to keep being The Best and would secretly like someone clever to beat her at her own game. It’s a very sweet moment. The books ends with Tiffany going home for a couple weeks to help with the lambing down in the Chalk, and throwing away her fancy witch hat with the stars on it. She replaces it with the hat made out of the sky, which, as night falls, fills up with stars.

It’s a special kind of fun to dissect young adult novels because by reading them we can understand what the author wants children, here especially young girls, to know and believe. In this one we have:

People can’t make you feel small and stupid if you don’t play along with them

Understanding people is more important than any technical skill, and more difficult to learn too

It’s extremely embarrassing to be a weird mentally ill kid but you can do great things if you see your strangeness as an asset instead of trying to destroy it

Regulating your own worst thoughts and impulses is a power that takes careful honing but can become a superpower

Capable friends are the best thing in the world to have.

This, and the very last bit where Tiffany turns up for Jeannie’s first kids to be born, also lead us to an important message: that women should support each other even when circumstances or other people seek to pit them against each other. We see this too during the Trials when the other witches want to see Granny and Tiffany compete. Allying yourself with other women is better all around, and additionally it might surprise other people in a very satisfying way. I’m not a woman and I don’t believe I’ve ever thought I was, but I’m VERY interested in women learning to love themselves and each other. And of course, witches have also got to love themselves and each other, and I am a witch.

Thanks, A’tune in next week, theme song by et c et c.

#rips off shirt to reveal TIFFANY ACHING FANCLUB PRESIDENT shirt underneath #discworld #audio #it's yelling all the way down

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goldenchildkatsuki · 6 years

Note

Valentine's Kacchako where they do the opposite of everything traditional. Wing at a sports bar instead of fancy uptight dinner, Monster truck rally instead of romantic movie, etc.

I’m sorry anon that this took a while, my beta reader and I were/are very sick. I had a bit of trouble writing it because of that, but I really wanted to write something decent for you and I hope you like it!

“Minimal effort”

Wordt count: 3.305

Beta reader: @kittychako

AO3 link: (x)

“Harder!Push through!”

“Faster!Come on!”

Urarakasqueezed Bakugou’s hand.

“Come on!”

Bakugouleaned in closer, squeezing back.

“Touchdown!”they both yelled as they jumped up from the couch.

Urarakaraised her hands in the air as Bakugou went up to the tv and complimented theplayers on screen. When the replay came on he followed the player who scoredthe winning point with his finger.

“Did yousee that? And there? That’s skill. Pure skill,” he commentated. “Fuck, he’sgood.”

The replaycame to and end and he walked back, high fiving Uraraka before slouching backinto the couch. He had got so worked up that he had started sweating and hewiped the sweat of his jawline with his sleeve.

“Bakugou!”Uraraka moaned. “Please don’t get your suit dirty. We haven’t even gotten tothe restaurant yet.”

Bakugoulooked at the sleeve of his jacket and groaned. He despised being in the monkeysuit to begin with. He hadn’t even owned one until another couple fromUraraka’s agency invited them to have dinner in some fancy restaurant downtown.Uraraka had told enough stories about the couple and it made Bakugou want tostrangle them on sight. They sounded like the most pretentious and boringcouple on the entire planet -like they were so far up each other’s asses theycould tickle each other’s throats.

And hewasn’t being too harsh. Uraraka felt the exact same way about them. If notworse. She hated the fact that they’d grown fond of her and Bakugou and did notseem to understand that they were completely different people that just don’twork. Almost no day went by where Uraraka came home from her agency and didn’trant about them to Bakugou.

There wereso many times that the couple asked them out on a double date. Uraraka andBakugou came up with excuse after excuse. Getting more ridiculous as they keptasking.

Dinnerparty at Bakugou’s agency.

VisitingUraraka’s grandma.

Going outof town for four hours to buy some groceries

Mourningthe death of their goldfish.

Losing bothof their car keys and not being able to take public transport because Bakugouwas allergic to the material used on the chairs on trains and busses.

It wasstarting to get sad, because the couple stayed so kind towards them. They neverminded if they canceled and were always eager to reschedule. Bakugou suggestedthey kept making excuses. If they believed the one’s the came up with already,then they would believe anything. But Uraraka had started to feel bad, as dullas they were, they were still her colleague’s that have been nothing butfriendly towards them.

So a weekago, Uraraka agreed to go on a double date with them, on Valentine’s day. Thesame day there was a discount for the exclusive rugby games. Bakugou andUraraka had been counting the days and saving up for the games, not expectingto go out on Valentine’s day at all, but there they were. Uraraka in a redskintight dress and Bakugou in a black suit, a charcoal colored blouse and ared tie to match his partner’s dress. They sat on the couch, watching the firstgame, trying to enjoy themselves before they went on the most boring date intheir lives.

They haddrawn, two black stripes on both of their cheeks, to get more in the spirit,but every time they glanced at the clock their heart sank a little bit.

“That’s alot of talk for someone that has popcorn sticking to her dress and has managedto smudge her lipstick already,” Bakugou smirked at Uraraka.

She lookeddown at her dress and saw the pieces of popcorn hanging onto it.

“Seriously?”

She stoodup and picked the pieces of one by one, then she walked to the nearest mirror.Rubbing her lips together, trying to fix whatever was left of her lipstick withher fingers. It was a lost cause.

“Seriously?!”Uraraka hang her head. “I can’t deal with this amount of effort I have tomake.”

“Thenfucking cancel!” Bakugou said as if it was obvious. “Why would they want tospend Valentine’s day with another couple anyways? Can they just have dinner bythemselves, go home and fu-“

“Bakugouplease don’t bring that image into my head.” Uraraka walked to her purse on thedining table and searched for her lipstick. She plucked it out and applied itwith care.

“I don’tget them either, but maybe we’re the weird ones. When’s the last time we didanything big for Valentine’s day huh? When’s the last time we made effort?Maybe we should be more like them.”

Bakugoulooked at Uraraka in the mirror, eyes wide with shock. Her words almost feltlike a betrayal to him. It was hard to tell if she actually meant it. It was hardto read her face because she was focusing too much on applying her lipstick. Hedidn’t know what to say to her, he was at a loss for words.

Urarakasmacked her lips and wiped away some lipstick at the corners of her mouth. Sheturned around to him and started laughing. First she started giggling, then itturned into a wholehearted laugh.

She didn’tmean it, thank God.

“Youshould’ve seen your face there!”

“Fuck off.”Bakugou started blushing and raised the volume of the tv.

“I know weboth agreed that we were long past making that much effort for Valentine’s day.You don’t need a gourmet home cooked meal for you know that I’m crazy about youand I don’t need expensive jewelry to know that you adore me. Simple.”

Bakugoucould feel his heart melt. The girl was so good to him, so good for him. Hewasn’t the type of guy to not be honest with what he wanted. It had ruinedrelationships in the past, destroyed even. His partners from the past didn’tknow what to do with him, it was too hard to combine their own needs with his.But Uraraka, she knew exactly, how to handle him because they were actuallypretty similar.

“You’re soawesome.” Bakugou simply said, not exactly knowing how to word everything hefelt at that moment.

Uraraka wentback to the couch, pushed back Bakugou hair and smooched his forehead. With herthumb she rubbed of the mark she left.

“I know.”

“You knowwhat would make you even more awesome?” Bakugou came closer to her.

“I don’tknow if that’s even possible but go on.”

“If youcanceled this stupid fucking date.”

Urarakarolled her eyes and scooted away from him. “Not happening. We’re going to watcha bit of the game and then leave.”

Bakugoustarted sliding of the couch, grumbling and cursing under his breathe. Hisgirlfriend was too considerate for her own good. He knew how badly she wantedto see all the games. She had been walking around the house with the shirt ofher favorite player all week. She couldn’t let go of it. Even suggestingwashing it before the games was a problem.

Now insteadof wearing that shirt, having her hair tied up and cuddling up against him shewas up tight and panicky, making sure they looked good and arrived at therestaurant on time. It was unfair, but his complaining wouldn’t make her feelany better either. The best thing to do was to enjoy as much as they could.

“Fine,fine.” Bakugou put his arm around Uraraka shoulder and pulled her close to him.He rubbed her arm, trying to get rid of the goosebumps that had formed all overher. Together they got immersed into the game. Leaning forwards, yellingencouragement and instructions at the players and booing when the team theywere against made any decent plays.

Every oncein a while Bakugou looked at Uraraka. He loved the passion and excitement inher eyes. He loved how she bit her lip when nervous. He loved how she puffedher cheeks when she got frustrated. He loved how the left corner of her mouthand eye twitched when it was hard to follow what was happening. Bakugou wouldlove to kiss her, but he knew she wouldn’t forgive him if she missed atouchdown because of that.

The gamegot close to finishing and the team they were rooting for was comfortablywinning. They had yelled so much their throats started hurting so they toned itdown as much as it could. It was hard. The game had been absolutely amazing sofar and it was truly money well spent.

Like theyexpected, their team won. Once again they launched themselves off the couch,running laps around it and cheering. Short after scoring the winning point anda bunch of replays the commercials came on.

“From Marshmallowvile: The Camo ExtremeBlaster.”

Bakugou andUraraka slowly turned their heads towards the screen.

“New and Improved.”

They startedto approach it.

“Blasts large marshmallows up to 40 feet!”

“Now takes fewer pumps.”

“Now available at almost every Toy Store in thecountry.”

Bakugou andUraraka turned to each other. Both of their mouths agape.

“We have toget that.” The both said at the same time.

“Rightnow?” Bakugou asked.

“Right n-.”Uraraka checked the clock.

They weresupposed to leave twenty minutes ago. Bakugou couldn’t say that he hadn’tnoticed that they should’ve left some time ago, but he hadn’t thought itwould’ve been that long. Somehow he was convinced they could fit forty minutesof the game in twenty.

“What do wedo?” Uraraka started to panic. She started pacing around the room, looking forall her essentials but not being able to find anything she’d taken her time toput in one place an hour ago.

Bakugoulooked back at the tv. He watched a bunch of kids chasing each other in brightgreen yards, firing marshmallow’s at each other’s heads, laughing as if it wasthe best thing ever.

It wasdefinitely the best thing ever.

Bakugouwent to block Uraraka and grabbed both of her shoulders. He shook her about andasked, “What do you want to do?”

“Get thefreaking marshmallow shooter of course!”

He smiledat her.

“So, whatnow?” he went on.

“Wecancel.”

“Wecancel.” Bakugou patted her shoulders and turned her around.

“Your purseis over there, you walked past it like six times. Your phone is in there. Youcall them and I come up with an excuse.”

Urarakanodded and speed walked to her purse, grabbing her phone out of it. Shesearched for the number and looked at Bakugou that had already thrown on hiscoat and had thrown hers on the couch.

“Gotsomething?” Uraraka whispered whilst holding the phone close to her ear.

“Sure.”Bakugou put his chin on Uraraka’s shoulder and heard the phone go off.

It didn’ttake long before they picked up.

“Finally,hi! Oh guys, I’m sorry but I don’t take we can make it tonight.”

Urarakaeyed at Bakugou. He whispered what she had to tell them.

“It wasterrible. We were slightly late anyways but on out way there we hit a raccoon…Araccoon? Yes, a raccoon.”

Urarakaheld her hand over the phone and tried not to laugh.

“We’retrying to reanimate it as we speak. Did you know there were only seventeenracoons left on the planet? Can’t be killing any raccoons now if that’s the case,can we?”

Bakugoustuck his thumbs up at her.

“It’s notstable at the moment. It’s losing a lot of blood.”

Urarakaturned her head away from the phone and yelled: “Bakugou! Throw it in the backseat, we’re taking it to the hospital!”

“On it!”Bakugou yelled back as if he was a distance away.

“We’llreschedule tomorrow alright! Thanks for understanding. Yes, yes you too. Have alovely night you two.” Uraraka hung up and turned to Bakugou. “That was theworst excuse so far!”

“Theybelieved it though. I knew they would believe anything.”

Urarakalaughed, put on her coat and took her wallet out of her purse.

“Well, youweren’t wrong. Now, let’s go get that marshmallow shooter!”

Theysprinted out of their house and got in Bakugou’s car. Barely driving accordingto the speed limit Bakugou drove to the first Toy Store in the area that cameto mind. After some terrible parking they rushed into the store to find themarshmallow shooter. The store was as good as empty, it was nearing closingtime and it wasn’t exactly the season where sales were high like aroundChristmas time.

At the backof the store Bakugou and Uraraka found the Camo Extreme Blaster. Withoutthinking twice the grabbed two of the shooters and went op the counter. The salesmenbehind the counter inspected them from head to toe. Bakugou didn’t understanduntil he went to grab his wallet out of his back pocket.

They werestill wearing their fancy clothes and black stripes, that we’re probablysmudged out at that point, on their cheeks.

Urarakasmiled endearingly, letting the man know they were ready to pay. The smile gotacknowledged and the salesman started scanning the boxes.

“Buyingthese for ya’ kids? That’s quite a gift.”

“No,”Uraraka said. “No kids. They’re for us.”

Bakugoulaid a few bills on the counter and took both of the boxes.

“I don’tknow how much that is but it’s definitely enough. Keep the change and we don’tneed the receipt.” He took Uraraka’s hand who kindly waved at the confusedbeyond belief man behind the counter and existed the store.

Bakugoudrove back as fast as he could, now completely ignoring the speed limit.

“Not a veryhero like thing to do.” Uraraka simply said.

“Shut up.”

At homethey put both of the boxes on their dining table and excitedly opened them likethey were birthday presents. Uraraka pulled out her shooter first and inspectedit.

“This looksso cool.”

Bakugoupulled out his shooter out and walked into the kitchen. “Don’t think we havemarshmallow’s.”

“I lovemarshmallows though!”

“But stillyou always forget to buy them.”

Bakugouravaged their kitchen, looking for other things to load their shooters with. Hecame back with more popcorn, peanuts covered in chocolate and some candy theyhad left.

Urarakalooked at the box, looking for some kind of instruction as to how to load theshooters.

“I thinkthose things are too small Bakugou.”

Bakugoushrugged and looked at his own box. He twisted off the pump and startingloading the shooter with popcorn. He pointed at the other side of the room andtold Uraraka where to stand exactly.

“This isgonna work either way.” He started pumping up the shooter, having no idea howmany pumps would be enough. He let his finger float on the trigger and aimed atUraraka.

“Youready?”

Uraraka puther hands behind her back.

Bakugoupulled the trigger and popcorn showered over Uraraka. She tried to catch asmany in her mouth as possible but she only managed to get a few in, almostfalling over when trying to get the last ones. Bakugou twisted the pump open,it was completely empty.

“This isthe best fucking purchase we ever made.”

Urarakatwisted her pump loose and walked back to fill it with gummy bears. She pushedBakugou to the spot across the room and started pumping.

“Are youready?”

“Bornready.”

Urarakapulled the trigger and tiny gummy bears flew across the room, most of themlanded on Bakugou’s head. Bakugou managed to catch one in his mouth which healmost chocked on. He coughed and tried to catch his breath, it took a whileuntil he recovered. Uraraka went over to rub his back and apologized for noparticular reason.

Bakugourubbed the tears out of his eyes and stuck his thumb up.

“So worthit.”

Excitedthat the ‘Camo Extreme Blaster’ livedup to their expectations they continued playing the game they created. Itgradually evolved into not knowing where the other person would shoot andhaving to catch the food in their mouths. They even added a point system.

They tookit all very serious. They walked over the coffee table, hoped over couches andcame so close to running into walls too often. Bakugou had even made his tieinto a headband and unbuttoned a few buttons of his blouse and Uraraka had reappliedthe stripes on her cheeks.

This wasthe most fun Bakugou has had in a long time. His agency had been stressing himout lately, with an unexpected increase of criminals in his district. Every bitof stress Bakugou felt, Uraraka took over from him, getting as frustrated as hewas. There was no need for her to, she was just that empathetic. It did himgood to see her smiling so much again. She deserved to smile as much as shephysically could.

“Hold on!Time out!” Uraraka said, right before Bakugou pulled his trigger.

“We can’tjust take random times out because you’re losing.”

Urarakapuffed up her cheeks. “Hear me out. So what if we try some other things toshoot off?”

“Like?”Bakugou looked at the almost empty bowls and scrunched up candy packets on thefloor.

“Chickenpoppers.”

Bakugousnapped his fingers. “Good. But what about chicken wings?”

Urarakatook her phone of the dining table and started dialing the number of one oftheir favorite restaurants.

“Wingswon’t fit. Poppers are just right.”

Bakugougroaned and went to the kitchen to drink some water.

“Hi. Yesit’s us…again. Can we have 20 chicken poppers please?”

“And somefries!” Bakugou yelled from the kitchen.

“And somefries please.”

Urarakamade herself small. “And eight chicken wings,” She whispered.

“I fuckingheard that!”

“I couldn’thelp it, I’m hungry!”

Waiting fortheir food they watched the second game of rugby. When buying the games theyimmediately planned to record all games, knowing that they would haveunfortunately had to leave their house.

When thedoorbell rang Uraraka was the one that got up first and fetched her wallet. Shesprinted to the door. Bakugou could hear her have a small conversation with thedelivery boy. It’s actually quite embarrassing they had ordered so much takeaway that they had got to known almost every single delivery boy.

He heardthe door shutting and plastic bags crackling. Uraraka put the food on thecoffee table and put the game on pause.

“Okay. Backto winning.”

“You werelosing you loser.”

“Nope,definitely winning.”

Urarakaopened one of the plastic bags and took out a brown paper bag. The smell filledthe room and Bakugou’s stomach started to rumble. Uraraka took a single chickenpopper and loaded it into the shooter, Bakugou copied her.

“One shouldbe fine right?”

“Only oneway to find out.”

Urarakawent to the back of the room and put her shooter and hands behind her back.Bakugou quickly took a chicken wing from one of the brown bags and took a bite.

“I’m sorrybut if they got cold I would end my own life.”

“Understandable.”Uraraka shrugged.

Bakugou putthe wing in between his teeth and started pumping the shooter. He aimed andwith his greasy finger pulled the trigger. The chicken popper flew withunexpected speed towards Uraraka and she caught in her mouth as if it wasnothing. It was the first decent catch one of them had been able to pull off sofar.

Bakugou’s loweredhis shooter and Uraraka started dancing, happily chewing on her chicken popper.

“Fuckinghell, I love you so much.”

“I love youtoo Katsuki.”

#jj writes #JJs fic requests #valentines day prompt #kacchako #kacchako fic #bakugou #bakugou katsuki #uraraka #uraraka ochako #bnha #boku no hero #boku no hero academia #mha #my hero academia

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jinjikook · 6 years

Text

you’ve stolen my right to relief (m)

🎃 word count: 3k

🎃 genre: smut ; thieves au

🎃 pairing: reader/jinjin

🎃 warning(s)/kink(s): edging, spanking, a little bit of dirty talk + some angry/hateful feelings

🎃 summary: a bet between you and your colleague leaves you faced down in a crap motel and a few fingers away from the edge of sanity.

🎃 requested by: anon - “edging / spanking with jinjin from astro for kinktober?”

🎃 music: ties - years & years + lose control - lay

🎃 masterlist + kinktober 2017

“I fucking hate you, what part of that don’t you get?” You spit, pushing the light haired boy away from you.

No matter how hard you tried, it seemed like your partner in crime didn’t quite understand how much you seriously despised him.

Keeping your volume down was crucial at the moment but Jinwoo seemed to have other plans as he continued to whisper in your ear, breathing his heavy breath over your neck and making you seethe with irritation.

“C’mon, if you can’t handle the heat: get the fuck out of the kitchen.” He drawled, eyes dragging down your body clad in tight, black clothes meant to conceal you in the dead of night but it only accentuated your curves further, to Jinwoo’s pleasure.

“It was one fucking time, I made it clear I wasn’t ever going to sleep with you again Jinwoo, so hop off my dick for once!” You turned to face Jinwoo, smirk still plastered across his clean cut face. Despite being the muscle in this operation, he was surprisingly compact and—as much as it pained you to admit—he had a pretty face that sold more scams than you’d initially assumed.

As you shuffled your hands in the far-too-fancy jewelry box you’d spotted upstairs earlier—in the middle of the “leak check-up” that’d been a part of the ruse this time around—Jinwoo chuckled louder than you liked at the sight of all the lavish rings and necklaces; too garish for every day wear but clearly something this woman kept for special nights.

You’d be able to flip it easily for a quick buck, easy money to toy with. A pawn shop or even just to a jeweler themselves, who’d take the gold bezels and smelt them down into custom pieces, completely unrecognizable to the police or the owners of the accessories.

“Could you shut your trap for more than two seconds? You have the worst ability to hold out, I swear.” You rolled your eyes and shoved the rest of the emeralds and rubies into the rucksack you’d sneaked onto your back, Jinwoo already brushing past you to head towards the nightstand where you assumed the husband slept next to.

He scavenged the drawers, pulling out some concealed cash and a few items that looked like they’d be worth something.

“Aha! Bingo,” Jinwoo ogled the piece of fine Italian craftsmanship dangling from his hand, the gold reflecting off moonlight like a lighthouse in the middle of a foggy night.

“For fuck’s sake, could you be any more obvious we’re casing a house?”

“You know, if you got that stick out of your ass for once, I could replace it with something more worthwhile,” He looked back and winked and you had half a mind to run out the front door and call the cops to arrest his ass. Unfortunately, he’d give you up in a heartbeat because your loyalties didn’t run that deep just yet.

It all started when you were down on your luck and your no good brother-in-law stole all the savings you had for a situation just like the one you were in at the time. He caused you to get evicted from your apartment and lose your scholarship for the school you worked so hard to get into.

Jinwoo was the one who helped you get back at him and you joined him in the robbery circuit, quickly adapting and learning to the lifestyle and even becoming his equal in the field. He was proud to call you his protégé but it didn’t stop him from always holding it over your head when it came to how much experience he had.

“You’re disgusting and I hope you trip and break your ankle on the way out of here.”

“It’s so cute how your threats are always so PG, you’d never really want anything to happen to me.” He grinned and blew you a kiss, to which you gagged in retaliation to. “Okay, what do we have left?” He turned to evaluate the room, checking for any missed items and while he busied himself with nooks and crannies, you slid open the closet door and pushed some clothes aside. To the untrained eye, it was a regular, normal closet filled with boring dress shirts and blouses, things a 40-year-old married couple would have hanging to be worn during their 9-5 day jobs.

But you knew better than to believe there was just what met the eye, shifting things around until a nearly hollow thump clacked against your knuckles through one the swipes of your hand. Moving a chiffon skirt and navy trench coat that was heavier than it looked, you were met with what your kind thought of as a gold mine.

“Hey Jin Jin! We got ourselves a safe!” You smiled menacingly and Jinwoo was at your side in an instant, rubbing his palms together like a predator ready to sink his teeth into his prey and have dinner.

“Let’s see, are you a mediocre lock or…” He trailed off, inspecting the hard box with gloved fingers, checking brand, label, age and condition.

“What’dya think, Jinwoo? Should we pick it, break it or take it back with us? We don’t have much time left.” You inquired, checking your phone to see that the Lee’s were due back from their son’s Open House Night in roughly twenty minutes, give or take some time depending on traffic and how much the mother gossips with the other PTA moms.

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, humming as he weighed out his options.

“It’s a combination lock, what do you think they picked?”

“Their son’s birthday?” The first answer in your mind was a significant date like that, being an easy choice for a parent to put as a lock on their phone or in this case, a safe box. Jinwoo tried the numbers, easily nabbed from the calendar hanging next to the fridge downstairs.

“No luck, I’ll try the husband’s and wife’s.” As he fiddled some more with the numbers, you were struck with the small spark of knowledge you’d been told sometime during your start as a petty thief.

People were stupid, it was in their nature. Which is why they have trouble remembering combinations, numbers, dates and anything else of the like. Especially a couple as old as the Lee’s, they probably forgot things all the time if they didn’t write it down somewhere. It’s why they had a colorful calendar littered with notes and circled with dates, a small pad attached to the fridge with the grocery list and even a journal sat on the top of the wife’s nightstand; a dream journal of sorts.

You pushed Jinwoo aside, ignoring his noise of protest and you circled the safe and checked the back of it, just at the bottom. There, in sad silver Sharpie scrawl was a four-digit number: the code.

With a confident smile, you took Jinwoo’s place in front of the box and rolled the little black and white tiles until they all matched the numbers you just saw, clicking with the confirmation that you had unlatched the lock. Jinwoo grimaced at your expression and ability, simply tugging open the top. Digging in quickly, you were met with money in an envelope—emergency money you guessed—and a jar of dozens of coins labeled “Minhyuk’s MIT Funds”. You snickered at their preparation for something that they could never guarantee would happen.

Jinwoo snorted his own laugh and stuffed the jar and the few other items that looked like they were worth something before shutting the safe and bringing everything back to its original place.

“Jackpot.” You whispered and Jinwoo bumped your fist as you made your way quietly down the stairs, slinking around like a cat in the night. The two of you were the snakes in the grass, ready to strike but more willing to lay low and do your own business, afar from prying eyes.

It was in-and-out, an everyday sort of robbery. You were seated in the passenger seat of Jinwoo’s pick-up truck, counting the money that had been in the envelope and smelling the scent of crisp, unused bills.

Jinwoo looked over and whooped, feeling the high of a successful casing. Out of sheer impulse, he reached over the median and gripped your chin hard, pulling you towards him to press a hard kiss to your lips. It only partly caught you off guard, something that Jinwoo has done in the past but it was still not something he did often enough to become habit.

A few stops along the way—hitting a pawn shop, some old friends who could make use of the oddities you’d stolen and a liquor store later, you were back and holed up in another three star motel for the night.

Jinwoo took a swig of his bottle, cheap beer since you didn’t like wasting money on alcohol. You’d rather spend it on more worthwhile things like food or amenities.

“So, did you want to take a little twist in testing your theory from earlier?” Jinwoo spoke up from where he was sitting on a dining chair, legs up on the table even after you scolded him to get them off for the umpteenth time.

“Here we go with the drunken ramblings again…” You sighed and pinched the bridge of your nose before obliging the man and turning his way on the mattress you were comfortably seated on.

“I’m not drunk, Y/N, hear me out this time.” With a motion of your hand, Jinwoo continued. “You said I couldn’t last. But, what makes you think you can?” The quirk in his brow told you this was no longer about thievery, another sin coming in tow instead.

You rolled your eyes, trying to ignore the growing ache in between your legs. It had been a while since you last got laid, if you had to admit it.

“I was talking about your inability to shut up for more than two seconds at a time, not whatever dirty fantasy you’re conjuring up in that sick, twisted mind of yours.”

“Well, then maybe you’ll like this bet after all,” Despite acting indifferent, you were slightly intrigued, using the excuse that you were bored beyond belief now that the thrill of thievery was long gone and replaced with dull, stagnant cable television and cheap take out. “How’s this: if you can last a whole ten minutes without coming, I’ll spend the entire next stake out completely silent, unless I absolutely have to talk.”

“Wait, wait hold up, you’re a scammer for a reason. You always find a loophole and I’m not falling for one of your tricks; contrary to popular belief, I am smarter than the average bear. Now, out with it, what’s the catch?”

Jinwoo put his hands up defensively, finally sliding his feet off the table to sit up straight.

“No tricks, catch or gimmicks.” He crossed his heart and held up his right hand. “I swear, I’m just positive you won’t make it so I don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Watch it, Park. That cockiness is gonna get you into more trouble than it already has,” You scrunched your nose and sat at the edge of the bed. “You’re on.” Shaking hands, Jinwoo got up to seat himself next to you on the bed, going over the “ground rules” per your request.

The bet was simple: Jinwoo would have you over his lap, only using his fingers in you and you’d set a timer on your phone. If you lasted the full ten minutes without having an orgasm, it’s your win and Jinwoo had to shut his trap and eat his words.

If you lost? Jinwoo asked simply to fuck your throat until he came all over your pretty face. His words, not yours.

For the sake of time and convenience, you changed into one of the pleated skirts you liked to use when you needed to distract someone; whether it was a victim or an officer, it always worked wonders. Of course, sans underwear since that’d be a just another unnecessary hurdle to get over. Jinwoo was more than pleased with this, leaning back on the bed and waiting patiently. His smug smirk was still fixed in place and it only made you grit your teeth harder, wanting to show him up once and for all.

You tried your best to keep things from getting awkward by just sliding over his lap, reaching for your phone and getting to the timer application. Jinwoo’s hands were warm as they held you in place and kept you from slipping off. In a way, it grounded you and you weren’t sure if you appreciated it or not just yet.

“Okay, timer’s on. Get on with it, I guess.”

Jinwoo chuckled at your monotone voice and wasted no time in bringing a hand down to caress your bare cheeks, feeling the firm flesh under his fingertips.

“Oh come on, doll. Lighten up! We both know this is gonna be just as good for you as it will be for me.” And with that, Jinwoo began to circle your damp entrance, feeling his way around the folds and teasing you for a second.

You scoffed and rolled your eyes, “If this is all you’re gonna do, these next ten minutes are gonna be a breeze.” His resolve tightened as he quickly inserted a finger without warning, rubbing at your walls while using an adjacent digit to press against your clit, already upping the ante.

It was a little bit of effort but you made sure to keep your breathing even, appearing unaffected to the other as he followed up with another finger, the stretch feeling more prominent around him. You could feel the beginnings of a bulge against your stomach, a growing hardness at your abdomen as Jinwoo pumped his fingers in and out of you languidly, like he had all day. It was wet and loud and he pulled your skirt up to get a good view of your ass as his fingers disappeared underneath you over and over again.

Around the five minute mark, Jinwoo had had enough of your lack of noise—obviously trying to keep still despite already being three fingers in and dripping wet.

To remedy the issue, he rose the hand that had been steadying you and brought it down hard against your ass cheek, the muscle jiggling at the motion. You yelped, not expecting the harsh treatment and that was the first of many as Jinwoo broke the metaphorical dam. He released relentless abuse on your rear, spanking you left and right, over and over again as his other hand refused to slow down, the wet squelch roaring in your ears.

You were panting like a dog, face down and whenever your eyes did open, all you caught sight of was the wrecked old fuzzy carpet of the motel room, covered in peculiar stains that were beyond questionable.

Losing all track of time, you whimpered a particularly desperate whine of Jinwoo’s name that had his fingers stuttering, just for a millisecond but enough of a hiccup that it made you realize just how close you were. Pushing away from his fingers, Jinwoo actually relented and slowed his ministrations down, just at the edge of your high and it was a bittersweet feeling. You were so close to coming and while the relief would’ve been great to feel but a harsh blow to your ego, not coming felt like it was the worst choice amongst the two.

It only lasted for a moment—a heartbeat—and Jinwoo’s fingers were back to pistoning into you again. A quick peek at the timer had him seeing that only about 3 or so minutes remained, and while he would enjoy the sweet taste of victory, watching you writhe in his lap was doing wonders to his filthy mind.

So he toyed with you some more, fingers picking up speed as he landed blow after blow and bringing you just up against the precipice again, your mind too far gone to even care at this point, and swiftly yanking you back and dousing you in ice cold water as he ripped away your orgasm once more.

It stung, both mentally and physically. You were sobbing at this point, begging for anything—nothing in specific, you were just a blubbering mess and Jinwoo was relishing every second of it.

“You want it? You wanna come, pretty baby?” Jinwoo’s gruff voice growled, a promise laced in his tone. You nodded vehemently, completely throwing the bet to the wind as you tried to grind back against the friction to your core.

Jinwoo had similar thoughts as yours, wanting nothing more than to see you come undone and he thrusted his fingers into you a few more times before you clenched around him, coming harder than you ever have in your entire life. It took some time for you to come down, Jinwoo patting you reassuringly and easing you up back onto the bed once you weren’t shaking anymore.

“Time?” You panted, barely understandable. Jinwoo reached for the phone and the smirk on his face told you everything, letting your head fall back onto the bed now that you were sure he’d won the damn bet.

“11 minutes and 14 seconds.”

You shot back up, a little disoriented but with determination you snatched the phone out of Jinwoo’s hand and read the numbers hastily, true to his word.

“Why are you so smug then?” With wide, dewy eyes, you looked up at the sandy haired boy. He shrugged his shoulders and smoothed his shirt down.

“Told you it’d be as good for you as it was for me.” A quick look down had you realizing that Jinwoo had come in his pants, probably around the same time as you had. Your laugh was airy, and Jinwoo chuckled along with you before suggesting a shower.

While lathering up, you turned to face Jinwoo, the spray hitting your back with medium velocity due to the motel’s shitty water pressure.

“Guess you’re gonna have to stay quiet the next heist.”

Jinwoo’s hands found purchase on your hips and tugged you closer, eyebrow raised in a silent challenge.

“Double or nothing?”

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strawori · 6 years

Text

New Memories (Christmas fic)

Theo didn’t remember much of his life before the Dread Doctors, it was like all the images related to that time were blurry on his mind. He knew that he had had good times with his family in his childhood, he knew that he had played with his sister when they were kids, he knew that he had had meals with his parents and he knew that he had opened presents on Christmas morning. He knew it had happened, but he couldn’t remember it; he couldn’t remember his mother’s perfume or his father’s voice, he couldn’t remember Tara’s smile or the toys they played with, he couldn’t remember the kitchen or the taste of the food his mother made, and he couldn’t remember the Christmas tree, the laughter or the gifts he had gotten.

He didn’t really know if he wanted to remember all that anyway, it would surely make everything hurt more and the guilt suffocates him even more.

But sometimes the thought crossed his head, questions swirling around, a desire to know what everything had felt like. During his years with the Dread Doctors Theo often found himself wondering, thinking about the time that had passed and he had lost forever. He didn’t regret his decision, he wanted the power that the Dread Doctors had promised, but that didn’t mean that his mind didn’t fill with things he didn’t really want to think about.

However, things were different now. Theo wasn’t with the Dread doctors anymore in the sewers of whatever city they had chosen, for the time being, he was alone somewhere else.

It was the first Christmas after the war had ended, things had changed and, by some sort of Christmas miracle, there weren’t any big bad creatures in Beacon Hills. People were on the streets staring at the colorful lights, shopping for gifts and having a good time; seeing them whenever he left his small apartment made Theo feel lonely, unwanted “what ifs” appearing in his head just like when he was with the Doctors.

His apartment was the complete opposite of the town. While the town was colourful, his apartment was white, while the town was full of lights, his apartment was bare, while the town was full of people, his apartment was empty, while the town was full of voices and laughter, the only thing heard in his apartment was silence and his hunted thoughts.

Or at least, it had been like that until Liam decided to change it.

______________

Theo and Liam had gotten closer after the war and everything that had happened with it, they started hanging out together, talking, playing video games or watching movies. One could say they were friends, kind of, maybe.

It had started on the 3rd of December, the first Sunday of the month, it was 10 a.m. when Liam appeared at Theo’s door, he was wearing a big coat and there was a beanie covering his hair, his nose was red and he looked cold, but when Theo raised an eyebrow in question his smile was bright and warm.

Liam took his coat off when Theo let him get inside and shut the door behind him. They moved to the living room, or the small space where there were a couch and a television, and sat down. Theo was aware of Liam’s eyes roaming his apartment, he saw the thoughtful expression on the other boy’s face and sighed, he didn’t know what was going through the other’s mind, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

“What is it, Liam?”

“It’s just… You don’t have any Christmas ornaments.”

Theo looked around the room, at his bare, white walls, not really knowing how to explain all his consuming, confusing, contrasting thoughts about Christmas.

“I- I’m not really into Christmas,” he finally said, hoping it would be enough to satisfy Liam.

Liam looked at him, eyes searching and attentive, he knew that there was more to the subject, he could see the hidden things inside Theo's eyes, but he also knew that Theo wouldn’t talk about it, at least not now, so he wouldn’t pry. He would try to change Theo’s mind, though.

“I’m going to help you change that.”

“What?”

“I’m going to make you like Christmas.”

_____________

After that day, Liam did everything he could to stick to his promise. He was determined to make Theo see this time of the year in a different way, he was determined to make Theo see it as a happy time.

Liam started with Theo’s apartment.

They went into town the day after the promise was made, it was a Monday morning so there weren’t many people in the streets, they could walk without bumping into anyone and they could shop without having to stand in an infinite line to pay. Liam was glad for that, he was sure that it wouldn’t be good for his plan if there were more people.

They started by buying a fake Christmas tree.

Theo had been reluctant about it at first, saying that he wouldn’t want to clean the fake needles when they fell onto his floor; but Liam had convinced him, stating that the Christmas tree was one of the most important things when it came to Christmas, it was a tradition and Theo wasn’t allowed to say no to it. Theo had sighed but eventually agreed to buy the tree.

After the tree, Liam dragged him into a store that had Christmas ornaments. They had agreed on something simple, Theo didn’t want to have his apartment full of colour or looking like Santa’s house, so they only had bought some colourful lights and red and gold coloured balls for the tree - Liam had looked wistfully at the green balls, saying that they were pretty, but Theo had refused to put green balls on green tree.

Theo got bored of shopping after that, so they had returned to his apartment.

They turned on the heater once they got there and put the Christmas tree together, decorating it right after. Liam was still bitter about not getting the green ornaments, but Theo just kept looking at him with narrowed eyes every time he mentioned them, so he eventually dropped the subject, not without a pout on his face that Theo didn’t fail to tease him about, though.

__________________

Liam didn’t appear on his doorstep with more Christmas-y things to do for a few days. They did hang out, but it was just like what they did before December had started, mainly staying inside and playing video games. Theo was thankful for that. He didn’t want to be completely overwhelmed by Christmas things, he wasn’t used to them, so he didn’t want them to become a really big thing that he wouldn’t be able to deal with. Liam seemed to understand that without Theo having to tell him and Theo had never been more grateful for Liam Dunbar.

The next thing they did for Liam’s “Get Theo into the Christmas spirit plan”, as he had eventually started calling it, wasn’t actually very Christmas-y if one asked Theo, but he went along with it.

They had gone into town on Saturday morning, the streets busy and full of people unlike they had been on Monday. Theo had sharply told Liam that “if you think for a second that I’m going to walk around and happily be shoved by all these people, you have a big surprise coming”, but Liam had just shaken his head with a laugh and grabbed Theo’s hand, pulling him into a comfy looking café.

They sat at a table near the window, where they could look at the people passing by, Liam had said. They ordered a hot drink and something to eat and sat in silence for a little while, up until Liam started talking and dragged him into a game.

They observed the people who were passing outside the café, trying to guess their story, what they were doing in town on a Saturday morning, where they were going.

They watched the woman who was walking her dog, Liam had said that she was going to buy him a new toy as a Christmas present because she didn’t have kids and the dog was her family.

They watched two teenage girls leaving a store with an obscene amount of bags on their hands, Theo had guessed that they had bought things for themselves and would put them under the Christmas tree just to act like they had a lot of gifts to open.

They watched a man and who they assumed was his son enter a jewelry store with slightly panicked expressions, Liam had laughed and said that the man had forgotten to get a present for his wife and had dragged the kid with him to get her one.

They had watched a young couple walking with their hands clasped together and no bags with them, Theo had said that they didn’t come into town to buy presents but to just walk and enjoy the nice morning, although he couldn’t possibly imagine how someone would want to walk around while bumping into people everywhere.

The game went on like that for as long as their drinks and food lasted, when they finished, they left the café and returned to Theo’s apartment where they sat on the couch watching whatever came on on the tv.

“Why was this game part of your Christmas plan?” Theo asked after a moment.

Liam shrugged.

“We had fun while drinking a hot drink inside a warm café, we made up stories related to Christmas. I don’t know, you tell me why it was part of the plan.”

There was a grin on Liam’s face and Theo shook his head fondly, not being able to stop himself from grinning, too.

__________________

On Wednesday it had snowed.

Liam appeared at his door wearing a thick coat, a beanie and gloves like on the day all this Christmas madness had started, his smile was as wide and contrasting with the weather outside as it had been that day, too.

He had made Theo put some warm clothes on and when he was done and had pushed him out the door, closing it behind him and smiling at the annoyed scowl on Theo’s face.

Once outside, Liam didn’t hesitate before throwing snow at Theo’s face, laughing when Theo yelped in surprise. Theo glared at him but didn’t even think before doing the same, bending down to get some snow and throwing it in Liam’s direction while the other boy was too busy laughing to see it coming.

The snow fight went on for some time, they threw at each other between laughter and smiles, wetting their clothes and cooling their skin. And Theo had fun, he enjoyed the silly fight, he enjoyed running around hiding behind trees while throwing snow at Liam, he enjoyed every bit of snow that touched his skin and he enjoyed every smile and every laugh that Liam let out.

Back in his apartment, after taking a warm shower and letting Liam take one too, lending him some of his clothes, they sat on the couch, tired but with smiles still on their faces and Theo was surprised to see that he was excited for whatever Christmas activity Liam would suggest next.

__________________

On December 19th, Liam burst through Theo’s door and into his apartment as soon as the door was opened, without even saying ‘hello’.

Theo watched confused as Liam went into the kitchen, usually, Liam went into the living room and they watched something or played something before engaging in their Christmas activities. When he heard the noises of his kitchen utensils being used, he closed the door as fast as he could and almost tripped in his rush to get to there before Liam could do some damage.

When Theo entered the kitchen he was surprised to see a bunch of kitchen utensils he had never seen in his life laid on top of his table. Seeing his surprise, Liam smiled and told Theo that they would spend the day baking. Theo had never thought that he would ever see in his kitchen half of the things Liam had brought with him, but there was everything they needed to make Christmas cookies and Liam had a wide smile on his face, so Theo just shrugged and asked him where to start.

While cooking, Liam was afraid that he would do something wrong and the first cookies Theo baked wouldn’t be edible, and Theo just genuinely didn’t know what to do, so they had carefully followed the recipe, counting the eggs twice and measuring everything three times before mixing.

They had had a good time, conversation flowing calmly and naturally, the faint noise from the television that was still turned on in the background a constant to cover the silence when they were too preoccupied with what they were doing to talk to each other.

Liam had put the cookies in the oven and, after that, it had been like the snow fight all over again. Theo didn’t even remember how it had started, he just remembers that suddenly both of them were covered in white flour from head to toe, looking as ridiculous as ever, but laughing and smiling like Theo hadn’t ever done, or couldn’t remember ever doing.

Theo had never baked cookies, at least he didn’t remember ever doing it, but he wouldn’t mind doing it again, all of it, the cookies and the flour fight, as long as it was with Liam. ________________

Christmas was almost knocking on the door. It was December 22nd and Theo woke up in the late morning with a weight on top of him. Liam had fallen asleep while watching a Christmas movie, yet another activity they had been doing for the last few weeks, and Theo had barely had time to turn the tv off before sleep took over him, too.

He grunted but didn’t move too much because Liam was warm and asleep on top of him and it was something he didn’t want to disturb. He stayed like that for almost half an hour, until Liam started stirring and waking up, despite his left arm falling asleep and his legs asking to be stretched.

They had breakfast together and they didn’t talk about the position they had woke up in, but Liam had blushed and Theo hadn’t been able to keep his smile hidden, so maybe they really didn’t need to talk about it, maybe they already knew.

Liam had spent that Friday in his apartment.

After lunch, Liam had put some Christmas songs on and they had danced around the kitchen. At first, it had been the two of them acting silly and trying to show the other that they could be a better dancer, but then a slow song came on and the dancing suddenly stopped.

Theo doesn’t know who moved first, the only thing he knows is that slowly there isn’t any space between them, their chests are touching, hands carefully touching skin, eyes glued together.

They danced to the song, Theo’s arms around Liam’s torso holding him close and Liam’s arms around Theo’s waist as if he never wanted to let go, hearts beating as one and skin tingling.

And maybe Liam really didn’t want to let go, Theo thought, because after all, he didn’t want to let go either, he didn’t want the song to finish and the moment to be lost forever, and the idea that Liam felt the same way didn’t seem stupid at all.

___________________

Christmas Eve found Theo Raeken sitting at a table with Liam Dunbar, his mother and his step-father inside the beta’s house. It was different from all the meals he had alone, different even from the occasional ones he shares with Liam, a nice different, but different nonetheless.

Liam hadn’t wanted him to be alone on Christmas Eve. “I won’t let you spend Christmas Eve alone after all the things we did leading up to this day.” Liam had told him that with such a determined face Theo knew it would be impossible to convince him otherwise.

He had been reluctant, afraid that he was interrupting family time and not really knowing if he wanted to meet Liam’s parents, not knowing what to do in a situation like that, so completely new to him, but Liam had been showing him how to deal with new situations the whole month and so it didn’t seem as frightening as it once would have.

Liam’s parents hadn’t been overwhelming, they had talked to Theo normally, they had asked some easy questions and they had shared jokes and funny stories. All in all, it had been a nice night, different from what he is used to and something he wouldn’t like to deal with every day, but nice.

Sitting with them at the dinner table and later on the couch, Theo felt the warmth of having someone there for him, felt the warmth of a home, and when Liam hugged him and kissed his cheek, a quiet “I’m proud of you” whispered in his ear, Theo felt the warmth soak him even more, warming him to the bones and melting his heart.

______________

When Theo woke up on Christmas day it was to sound of his front door opening, he would have panicked if he hadn't recognized the sweet smell and the familiar thumping of the intruder’s heart. It occurred to him that maybe he shouldn't have given Liam a key to his apartment when he got tired of having to get up from his comfortable couch and away from his warm blankets, but those thoughts were wiped away as soon as a cold body slid into his bed begging to be warmed up.

Theo woke up a second time late in the morning. There was an arm thrown over his waist, warm breath on the back of his neck and a comforting vibe in the room, he didn't think he had ever been more comfortable and the last thing he wanted was to get up.

So he didn’t. He slowly turned around in Liam’s arms so that he could look at the boy, a smile appearing on his face when he saw Liam’s eyes blinking open, blue shining softly in the faint light.

“Morning,” Liam said, burying his face on Theo’s chest.

Theo chuckled.

“Good morning, sleep well?”

“Yeah, your bed is comfy,” Liam’s voice was muffled by Theo’s shirt. “And you’re warm,” he snuggled closer, hugging him tighter.

“Didn’t think you could look more like a puppy than you usually do, but here you are proving me wrong.”

“Shut up.”

They stayed in silence for some time, Liam almost falling asleep again. He would have fallen asleep if it weren’t for Theo’s voice making him open his eyes and listen.

“Didn’t you have plans with the pack today?”

“Yeah, they wanted to spend Christmas day as a pack, Scott said he had asked you too.”

“He did, but I didn’t feel like going.”

The expression on Liam’s face told him that the boy already knew, that he could read Theo better than he thought and that he didn’t need to explain himself to him.

“So, what are you doing here, Liam?”

“I didn’t want you to spend your first real Christmas alone and I knew that being with the whole pack would be too overwhelming for you, so I decided that it’s better if we spend the day alone, just the two of us.”

Theo looked at him with surprise clear on his face, like he couldn’t exactly believe that Liam would give up on a day with the pack just to spend the day with him, but Liam was smiling at him, sleepy eyes and warm smile and his apartment had never felt more like home.

He pressed his lips to Liam’s forehead, a soft thank you without words and together they went back to sleep even though it was late.

____________________

Theo’s life before the Dread Doctors is blurry in his mind, he doesn’t remember most of it and he knows that he never will.

Life before the Dread Doctors and life with the Dread Doctors is Theo’s past and he will never go back to it, the memories are the only thing he has, and those are in such a small amount that it’s like they never even happened. Like it’s someone else’s life.

Maybe it is someone else’s life. Because Theo changed, he’s not the same now and he is trying to make up for all the mistakes he made in his past, in those other lives.

And maybe he doesn’t remember any Christmas before Liam, but that doesn’t matter because he is making different memories, important memories that he will never let go of and that is the only thing that matters right now.

I just had to write a Christmas fic and this one turned bigger than I thought it would, but I am proud of it.

Dedicated to every thiam shipper, but especially to the pack, love you, guys! (I would tag you, but you’re so many that I really don’t feel like doing it.)

Merry Christmas!

#thiam #thiam fanfic #christmas fic #thiam christmas #thiam family

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queen-of-deans-booty · 7 years

Text

Nightshifter- Part 1

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 2,632

Warnings: Typical Supernatural violence, angst, language, minor character death, blood, you know the usual

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. If you’re a junkie for this sort of thing, then a tag list is the right thing for you! If you want to be a Queen, I’ll add you to that list too! Any and all comments on these are appreciated.

Feedback is the glue that holds my writing together.

Tags at the bottom

Being a hunter wasn’t an easy task. You had a lot of responsibilities like saving people, killing the bad things, making sure no one else dies and last but not least, keeping the supernatural out of people’s business. There were a few exceptions you had to make but for the most part, you always kept the innocent people out of your lives.

But that all changed when you got framed for murder back in St. Louis. That all changed when you got arrested for allegedly killing couples with the help of Dean and Sam. It was all your fault that they were on the police’s radar. You had one job to do and you failed that.

You thought it was all over but with this case, you knew it was far from being over. It was just the beginning. It started with one case which you knew something bad was going to happen. There have been recent heists going on with banks and jewelry stores and usually, this kind of thing wouldn’t catch your eyes but the details were kind of familiar to you.

“So, what’s it like being an FBI guy?” A young woman, Frannie, said, carrying the papers you needed for the case.

“Dangerous, for one thing. You also got the secrets we have to keep, plus it’s lonely all the time.” Dean said, not knowing he was flirting right back with the attractive woman.

“God,” You scoffed under your breath. You rolled your eyes but tried to be nice and professional but you couldn’t do that when this woman liked to make googly eyes at your boyfriend. You would think you would be used to it by now since it was hard not to look at Dean but it always got to you.

“I so know what you mean.” Frannie said, inching a bit closer to him.

“Anything you can tell me about this case, sweetheart?” Dean said, smiling at her. Dean called every woman sweetheart but it still bugged you.

“Only that Helena came in at night, cleaned out this entire store and killed the watchman because he caught her in the act.”

“Do you know what her motive might have been?” You stepped in, looking at Frannie who gave you a bored look.

“There wasn’t a motive, none that I could think of. I mean, she just took all that jewelry, hid it somewhere and went home and killed herself.”

“She killed herself?” You asked, shocked.

“Well, that’s what the cops said. She dropped her hair dryer in the bath and fried herself.” Frannie said, looking at Dean once more.

“Right, thank you Frannie, I think that’s all I need.” Dean said, looking at you. Good, you were glad to finally get away from her.

“Really? Because, I got more, you know. If you wanted to interview me in private?” She asked, flirting with Dean. That was enough for you.

“Alright, cheap shot, he’s mine. Why don’t you finish up what you’re doing here and then leave. Leave to your home which will be empty for the night like it has been for the past God knows how many months. Okay?” You said, glaring at her, taking Dean’s arm. You didn’t give her time to respond and you took Dean away, biting your lip in jealousy.

“Hey,” Dean said, stopping you. He took your bottom lip in between his fore finger and his thumb, tugging on it. “Don’t bite your lip.”

“Dean, this isn’t funny. Woman are such sluts sometimes.” You said but you were cut off with Dean’s lips on yours. You melted in the kiss, Dean taking control of it immediately. He pulled away quickly, much to your dislike but he winked, promising it wasn’t over.

“I love it when you’re jealous.” Dean said with a smirk.

“I wasn’t jealous. I was just putting her in her place.” You said, turning around and walking over to Sam who was interviewing the manager of the store.

“Right.” Dean said, not believing you at all. As soon as you approached Sam, the manager he was talking to walked away from him.

“Did you find out anything?” You asked Sam, feeling Dean slink up behind you, putting his hands on your shoulders.

“Yeah and I think we might have a lead. Come on.” Sam said, walking to the front door. You sighed and turned around in Dean’s arms and looked at him.

“You know you have no reason to be jealous.” Dean said.

“I know, but I do. But only because I love you so much. It just pisses me off when other women can clearly see you’re with someone and they still try and get with you. As if they don’t have anything better to do.” You huffed out.

“Come on, sweetheart, she’s going to go home alone tonight but I’m going to go home with you.” Dean said, pecking your lips.

“I’m already home.” You said, grinning up at him. You heard the honk of the Impala and you rolled your eyes, this conversation would have to be finished later.

“Come on, Sam is waiting for us.” Dean said, slinging an arm around your shoulder. You smiled and leaned into his touch, walking with him to the front door. You caught the eye of the slut who was flirting with Dean and you stuck your tongue out at her.

“Real mature.” Dean said with a laugh. You shrugged and got inside the Impala while Dean got behind the wheel. Sam gave him instructions on where to go and that is where Dean went.

“Alright, this is it.” Sam said when Dean pulled up to a house.

“Fucking cops…” Dean muttered, getting out of the car.

“They’re just doing their job, Dean.” Sam said with a sigh, fixing his tie.

“No, they’re doing our job, Sam, only they don’t know how to do it so they suck at it. Tell me about this bank.” Dean said, grabbing your hand as he walked.

“Okay, well, it was the Milwaukee National Trust Bank and it was hit about a month ago. It has the same M.O. as the jewelry store: inside job, longtime employee and the never-in-a-million-years-type. This dude robs a bank, goes home and supposedly commits suicide.” Sam informed.

“And this guy we’re seeing, Ronald Resnick, he was the security officer on duty?” You asked, walking up the front porch steps.

“Yeah, he was actually beaten unconscious by the teller of the heist.” You and the Winchesters stood by the door while Sam knocked on it.

“Mr. Resnick?” Suddenly, a bright white light shone in your faces and you winced, using Dean’s body as a shield. The door opened but the screen to the door was still closed.

“Yeah, who are you?” He asked.

“FBI.” You said, your eyes somewhat adjusted to the light.

“Let me see the badge.” Ronald said, not trusting anyone at this point. You sighed and you, plus the Winchesters, took your badges out and slapped it against the screen door for him to see.

“I already gave my statement to the police.”

“Well, we’re not the police, are we?” You asked, your voice dripping with sarcasm.

“What she means, we read your statement and need some clarification on it.” Sam said.

“You came here to listen to what I have to say?” Ronald asked, hesitant to let you in.

“No, we came here because we needed to borrow some eggs.” You said sarcastically. Ronald rolled his eyes and opened the door up, letting you inside. He led you down a hallway to a very cluttered room. The walls were covered with alien photos and conspiracy theories about paraphernalia.

“So, none of the cops have called me back, not after I told them what was really going on. They all thought I was crazy. First off, Juan Morales never robbed the Milwaukee bank. We were friends and he used to come back to the bank on my night shifts and we’d play cards or some shit to pass the time.” Ronald started off.

“So, you let him in the bank that night.” Dean said, looking around the room.

“No, the thing I let in, wasn’t Juan. I mean, it has his face and all but it wasn’t him. It was like a dollmaker made it. Like, I was talking to a Juan doll.” Ronald said. You bit your lip again, thinking of the only creature you knew who could take on appearances like that.

One of them framed you.

“What?” Sam asked, having no idea what Ronald was talking about.

“Look, this wasn’t the only time this happened, alright?” Ronald took out a file and handed it to Sam who showed it to you and Dean. It was as if a real hunter made this about the jewelry case. “This happened at the jewelry store and everyone refuses to see what I see. Both crimes were pulled by the same thing.”

“What’s that?” You asked, knowing his answer. Ronald picked up a magazine and showed you the cover of it. The headline read ‘Birth of the Cybermen’.

“The Chinese have been working on this for years and before them, the Russians. Part men, part machine. But the only difference, is that they can make themselves look like other people. They’re called a Mandroid.”

Yep, you were dealing with a shapeshifter. You fucking hated those things.

“Mandroid?” Sam asked, tired of the games Ronald was playing.

“What makes you so sure about this?” Dean asked. Ronald smiled and shuffled around, grabbing a WHS tape and put it in the player.

“I made a copy of the security tapes because I knew they would be buried once the cops got their hands on them. Watch what happens.” Ronald played the video and fast forward it to the part he wanted to show you. He paused it and you looked at the man in the screen with bright white eyes.

“See! He has laser eyes.” Ronald said, his eyes going wide. You looked at Sam who looked at Dean. Now, they were on the same page as you. It was definitely a shapeshifter. And a dangerous one at that.

“The cops said it was some kind of glare but I know better than to listen to them. They also say I’m a post-trauma case and the bank doesn’t want to listen to me either so they fire me!” Ronald rambled on. You sighed and looked at Dean but he was busy looking at the case file.

“The Mandroid is still out there and the law won’t hunt this thing down so, I’ll do it myself. You see, I figured out that this thing kills the real person, makes it look like a real suicide and then it morphs into that person. It scopes the bank or store out and when it has a real opening, it takes it. So, I figured out the Mandroid is holed up underground somewhere to, I don’t know, charge it’s Mandroid batteries or something.” Ronald ranted.

You looked at Dean and Sam with an impressed look. You were really impressed that a non-hunter was able to put this together and still not know what was really going on. But he couldn’t be involved so you had no idea what to do now.

But Sam did.

“Okay, I want you to listen to me very carefully because I’m about to tell you the God honest truth about all of this,” Sam started, getting up. This should be good. You stood next to Dean and watched Sam. “There are no such things as a Mandroid. There’s nothing evil or inhuman going on out there. Nothing is going on; do you understand me?”

“The laser eyes…” Ronald said with desperate eyes.

“It was just a camera flare, Mr. Resnick. See, I know you want to believe this Mandroid thing but your friend really did rob that bank. End of story.” Sam said, setting the facts. You were pleasantly surprised by this but decided to stay quiet about it.

“Get out of my house! Now!” Ronald said, becoming very upset.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Resnick, that is what we plan on doing. Just first things first, I need those tapes. You do realize having these around on a classified investigation will get you into a lot of trouble.” Sam said, acting like he was the real FBI.

Ronald looked like he was going to shit himself but he complied, giving over the tapes he had.

“Now, I’ll let this go this one time but you have anything else that might be as evidence, you come to me. Am I clear?” Sam said, towering over the poor man.

“Crystal, sir.” Ronald said with a nod. Sam nodded and looked at you as he passed you by. You gave Ronald an apologetic look before following him out of the house and back to the Impala.

“Damn, Sam, where did you learn to do that? You do realize you scared him half to death, right?” You said, getting inside the Impala with the brothers.

“What, are you pissed at me?” Sam said, giving you a side glance. Dean started the car and drove back to the motel room.

“No, I’m not but you could have at least given him some credit. I mean, for a non-hunter, that was pretty good.” You said with a smile.

“Yeah, even I was impressed.” Dean said, getting to the motel fairly quickly. You got out and walked to the motel room, opening the door and walking inside.

“You’re telling me Mandroid was good?” Sam asked with a deadpan tone. He put the tapes in the TV and started them to get a closer look at them.

“Maybe not that part but I liked him.” You said, shedding off your blazer from your Fed getup.

“You know, he’s not that different from us. People think we’re crazy all the time.” Dean said, taking off his jacket. You stared at him, licking your lips slightly from the bulge of his muscles under his shirt. You would do something about it but Sam was in the room.

“Yeah, except he isn’t a hunter. He’s a man who stumbled onto something real.” Sam stated.

“I stumbled onto something real. You and Dean did too, John included.” You said, sitting on one of the beds.

“Yeah, look where that got us. Look, all I’m saying is it’s better to be alive and in the dark than dead.” Sam said, starting the tape and fast forwarding it.

“Yeah, I guess.” You muttered. You looked over at Dean to see him marking the map of a town on tracing paper. You figured he was doing this for the underground sewer system like last time.

“Yep, shapeshifter. Just like back in St. Louis. It even has the same retinal to the video camera.” Sam said, pausing it on the white eyes.

“Yeah, I fucking hate those things.” You grumbled.

“You think I don’t?”

“Yeah, well, one of them didn’t turn into you and frame you for murder, which, by the way, has kicked me in the ass a couple of times.” You said, getting up and walking over to Dean to see if he had anything.

“Well, if this one is like the one we killed in Missouri, then Ronald was onto something. Alright, they like to do things underground, preferably the sewer system. I found the system both places landed on and there is one more in line. I think that one is next.” Dean said, looking up from the paper.

“Then I think we should go now before it’s too late. I mean, who else can we dress up as that will get us into major trouble if we’re caught.” You said with a grin, pecking Dean on the cheek.

The Queens:

@maddieburcham1 @ginamsmith @mogaruke @whit85-blog @inlovewithbja @spn67-sister @kdfrqqg @jarpadandjensenaremyheroes @roxyspearing @supercalifragilistic26 @mishamigose @cobrakai1967 @essie1876 @wishedworld @crispychrissy @laqueus-ludovicus @nostalgic-uncertainty @jerk-bitch-and-an-angel @potterhead1265 @starswirlblitz @untitled39887 @ta-n-ja @deans-fallen-angel-boy @scarletluvscas @notnaturalanahi @tahbehonest @stay-in--place @dreaminofdean @posiemax @donnaintx @mikey1822 @alexandriajanae4 @li-ssu @just-another-winchester @obsessivecompulsivespn @emoryhemsworth @newtospnfandom @mizzezm @goldenolaf25

The Dean Beans:

@akshi8278 @mega-mrs-dean-winchester @winchesterandpie @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @carribear31 @tacklesackles @oreosatmidnight @not-naturalfangirl @missselinakitty @iam-a-cutiepie @kristendansmith @milo-winchester-4ever @jensenackesl @codyshany316 @pheonyxstorm @helllonearth @juniorhuntersam @pouterpufftrain @ruprecht0420 @shut-ur-face-and-get-in-the-car

Series Rewrite Junkies:

@helllonearth @amyisabellal @deanwnchstr @caseykitten6 @roxalya19 @quixoticcat @supernaturalblogging @notmoose45 @crowleysminion @mina22 @tahbehonest @hadleymcallister2177 @destielsangels @spnhybrid @oreosatmidnight @valerieshubin @seninjakitey @flyonlittlewinchester

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breeeliss · 7 years

Note

Chlonette and mermaids

this isn’t really very plotty but idk modern mermaid au i guess :P

words: 1961

Marinette looked into her old jewelry box and realized she was quickly running out of stock.

About the only things left inside that she was willing to part with were a stack of silver rings (fake silver probably, but that was Marinette’s secret) and a strange bronze bee broach that her aunt had gotten her for her birthday three years ago that Marinette never bothered to wear. She dug around her closet for her old hand mirror with the cracked handle and decided that all this was enough. It was probably time to start scouring thrift stores and street fairs, but she’d worry about that later.

She stuffed everything into her bag, grabbed a croissant from the kitchen counter, and started to make her way towards the pier.

It was early enough in the morning that not many people were by the beach with the exception of the occasional fisherman heading to the southern part of the pier with fishing rods and baskets full of bait. Marinette headed in the opposite direction until she came upon a part of the rickety, wooden banister that was damaged, leaving a hole just large enough for Marinette to slip past. She looked around her to make sure no one was watching before she squeezed through the gap and carefully started to shimmy down one of the posts until she was dropping down onto a small bank of rocks underneath the walkway.

Marinette squinted against the sunrise coming just over the horizon as she whistled a quick tune with four long notes and waited.

It only took a few seconds for a glimmering golden fin to breach the surface of the water just a few meters away. Marinette watched the ripples in the water begin to get closer to her until they finally started to swirl around her feet. A blonde head of hair carefully poked up from underneath the water. “Is the coast clear?”

“No one’s around, don’t worry,” Marinette assured. “You can come up.”

“Oh, wonderful.”

Chloe leaned her hands against the bank of rocks and carefully lifted herself up to sit right next to Marinette, stretching her long golden tail out in front of her so that her scales could dry in the sun. She collected all of her hair in her hands and wrung out all the water, being careful not to disturb the chains of pearls she had braided throughout her hair. “You don’t usually come on Tuesdays. Don’t you open up the bakery in the mornings?”

“It’s a holiday today, so school’s out and the bakery is closed,” Marinette explained. “Thought I’d come visit.”

“You’re lucky,” Chloe smirked. “I was just out this morning looking for jellyfish.”

Marinette dug through her bag. “Jellyfish?”

“Of course, darling. Do you think my tail stays this smooth and shiny through will power? Proper tail maintenance is important. It’s downright tragic how other mermaids tend to neglect that.”

“Don’t jellyfish sting?”

“Oh, they do! But the tingle it leaves afterwards is worth it. That means it’s working.”

Marinette chuckled and made sure to file away that little mermaid factoid away for later. She pulled out the stack of silver rings, held it up to the light, and handed it to Chloe. “It’s been a while since I brought you things to add to your collection so I’d thought I’d bring some things by.”

Chloe gasped and snatched it out of Marinette’s hands, rolling it around in her palms and marveling at the way the metal shone in the light. “Oh, they’re so bright!!!”

“Yeah, I thought you might like them. I’ve only worn them once and they’re too big for me so I don’t use them very often.”

Chloe slipped the rings on all of her fingers and found that they were also too big to fit snugly. “That’s okay. I can probably figure out a way to turn it into a hair clip or something. It’s really hard to swim sometimes with your hair getting in your face.”

“I know it’s not diamonds or rubies or anything like that, but you’re good at finding good uses for random things.”

“Ah, finding beauty in even the most lowly of places,” Chloe sighed, fluttering her lashes with a smile. “It’s the saint in me.”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Alright. Your turn.”

Chloe tapped her finger against her lips before searching the dozens of baubles and doodads she had hooked onto the gold chains hanging around her hips like a belt. It took her a couple of minutes to find what she was looking for, but eventually she cheered and handed Marinette a compass that was caked in dried sand and looked to be a couple hundred years old.

Marinette opened it and found that the needle was stuck and wouldn’t move no matter how much she turned her body. “Huh. Is it broken?”

“Oh I have absolutely no idea what it is,” Chloe said distractedly as she tried to pry apart the rings and twist them into a different shape. “I’ve had it for ages, but it doesn’t do anything and it’s rather big and ugly.”

Marinette scowled. “So you gave it to me because it’s ugly? Thanks a lot, you brat.”

“What? You’re a human. That nonsense was invented by humans. It’s perfect for you. Anyway, what’s it supposed to do?”

“It tells you which direction you’re traveling in. The needle in the middle is supposed to always point north but I think the mechanism is off. Probably belonged to a sailor or something.”

“That’s a stupid old thing to have. Why not just look up at the stars?”

Marinette shrugged. “I’m not much of a sailor so I don’t know whether people still look at the stars. I think compasses are just easier.”

“So how do you get around?”

“GPS mostly. A lot of cellphones have them.”

“What’s a GPS?”

“Oh, it’s uh….it’s like a thing that tells you where you are at all times. You just check your cellphone and it’ll tell you exactly where you are. Cellphones are like little boxes we can use to call people and find out information and all sorts of cool things.”

Chloe rolled her eyes and started to twirl the ends of her hair between her fingers. “Sounds boring.”

Marinette smiled. “Boring, huh? Well, then I guess if it’s so boring I’ll just take the rest of this stuff home with me. You probably won’t be very interested in it anyway – ”

“Hold on a second!! Let me see what you have, don’t just go!”

Marinette always thought that thing in The Little Mermaid about mermaids collecting human things was just something that people made up for the sake of storybooks. But it turns out that it was founded on a lot more truth than Marinette realized. Chloe didn’t really care much for the functionality of the things that interested her. Her favorite things were trinkets that were broken or useless but looked extremely pretty. All things shiny, precious, and golden immediately enchanted her, and she always found a way to turn it into a charm for her belts, a new ring, a new bracelet, a new hair accessory, and countless other strange purposes that Marinette was sure only ever made sense to a mermaid. Marinette learned not to question it. Besides, she as able to convince Chloe into making this like a gift exchange once a week so that Marinette could get something interesting from the ocean as well. Besides, it wasn’t often that people could say they were friends with a mermaid.

She managed to exchange her hand mirror for a vial of crushed sea urchins that doubled as nail polish and exchange her bee broach for a pair of earrings that were actually just broken shell pieces attached to what looked like an old, thin fishhook. Strange gifts, but Marinette didn’t want to be rude by refusing them. Besides, she was more interested in the stories that went along with Chloe’s gifts rather than the gifts themselves. Chloe’s picky, snooty, and sarcastic behavior became tolerable whenever she told one of her tall tales. It wasn’t everyday that you got to listen to adventures about swimming to the United States, diving down into the ocean until it was too dark to see, dodging storms, and scouring ship wrecks. Marinette was tempted to take the time to find Chloe a really amazing and expensive gift only so that she’ll get some fantastical story in return.

“Oh!” Chloe exclaimed after she put away her presents, her tail splashing around the surface and soaking Marinette’s pants with seawater. “I totally forgot to tell you! I found the most amazing thing the other day and I think you’d love it!”

“What?”

“I found this old rowboat near my home that must have sunk a few years ago,” Chloe started explaining. “But there was a trunk in the back that had a bunch of clothes in them. Sort of like what you’re wearing, but there were so many more things. Like those strange things you put on your feet to walk around. These wire-things that have two circles of glass on them that I think you may need to look through. And head things! Stuff that go on your head. Hats? Yeah, I think they’re called hats.”

Marinette giggled. “Did you take anything?”

“No, I have to go back,” Chloe said. “But I figured I’d come and ask you if you wanted some of it first. You said you sew clothing and things right? I mean the clothes are a little dirty but they should still be okay with a few washes. Remind me. I’ll bring the trunk over next time.”

“Oh perfect! I won’t have to buy fabric later.”

“You….buy fabric?”

“Don’t start.”

Chloe lifted her hands. “Okay, okay, fine. Humans are confusing and ridiculous. Get used to it. I’ve got it.”

“I was saying,” Marinette continued. “That if you managed to bring those old clothes back I can bring you some bakery sweets.”

Chloe’s eyes lit up. “Sweets?”

“Mmhm. With sugar and honey and milk and all sorts of things you don’t have in the ocean. Trust me, I have a couple more things you might like.”

“Ohhhh, is it going to make me fat?” Chloe asked, pressing her hands to her stomach. “I promised myself I would go on a bit of a diet this month.”

“A small amount won’t do anything, so I’ll only bring a couple,” Marinette promised. “Besides, you have a pretty bad sweet tooth ever since I brought you those cookies the first time and I feel like I just have to keep enabling you since it’s too far gone to stop.”

Chloe smirked. “Revisiting an old shipwreck and plundering for treasure in exchange for sweets is almost universally worth it.”

Marinette laughed. “Nice to know we’re on the same page. I’m off again tomorrow, so maybe I’ll bring them then.”

“You better,” Chloe warned. “I’m going to break a couple of nails getting this trunk for you, so the least you can do is pay in human food.”

“Your sacrifices will be most appreciated.”

“Was that sarcasm?”

“in front of you? I’m offended you would think so.”

“I’ll have you know it’s a lot of work to make my nails this strong.”

“What, is there special mermaid nail maintenance that I should know about?”

“You know? It’s funny you should say that – “

“Oh no no no, stop, I was kidding, I don’t want to hear it!”

“ – because as a matter of fact there is! Oh, it’s good you don’t have any plans today because this might take a while. You see, there’s this special kind of moss you have to get, right….”

#miraculous ladybug #chlonette #ml #chloenette #obbsessedturtle #ask #chlonette fanfiction #miraculous ladybug fanfiction #my writing #tumblr fic #request #chloe bourgeois #marinette dupain cheng

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delkios · 7 years

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Best Served Cold (DC TV)

Title: Best Served Cold Fandom: DC TV Rating: PG-13 Word Count: 4483 Characters: Mark, Clyde, Lisa, Len, a couple cameos Summary: The ice cream factory is pretty chill work. At least until the Mardon brothers realize their boss is keeping a secret... Working at an ice cream factory was hardly glamorous but it paid rent and, right now, that's what Mark and Clyde desperately needed. It wasn't technically a factory, the place used to be a bakery back in the day but now all the counters and stoves had been cleared out so they could do mixing and packaging with some flimsy partitions put up to designate an office. Best Served Cold was a local, small business, run and owned by the equally chilly Leonard Snart with his sister Lisa handling the orders- and employees -so he could focus on the logistics. It didn't have a store front. All its business was in distribution to local ice cream parlors, grocery and corner stores and a handful of restaurants. Mark didn't really know how any of that stuff worked, he and Clyde just kept the machines churning out ice cream by the quart or gallon depending on the orders Lisa gave them. It was kind of boring, honestly- tedious and monotonous as they switched out ingredients and punched in different quantities and scoured the equipment multiple times a day. But it was still better than almost every other job Mark ever had- less backbreaking even with loading up the delivery truck. It was also one of the only places not to immediately dismiss the brothers for the felony check mark on their applications. At least the Snart siblings were interesting. Lisa was the more sociable of the two, simultaneously bright and sharp, reminding Mark of a knife. The decorative kind secretly honed to a razor edge. Len was charming in his own way- talkative while keeping everyone at a measured distance, always thinking of ten different things at once. Most of the time Mark saw him, Len was on the phone talking to someone about something- it wasn't his business so Mark never paid much attention. Even with the thin partitions, Len never raised his voice even when he snapped at someone, just got quiet and intense. Mark wondered if the people on the other end of the phone realized how lucky they were not having to go through that in person. Not three days after they started working, a couple men in suits carrying a briefcase came to talk to Len. Whatever they told him evidently pissed Len off and, though his words were too quiet to hear, Mark could tell from the sneer on his face and rigid set of his shoulders that Len was verbally savaging them. Mark made a mental note to not get on Len's bad side after that. Which wasn't all that difficult to do. The Snarts were sticklers for quality but Mark and Clyde figured out which parts of the job they suited best and, after a week, were working like a well oiled machine. Even Lisa admitted to being impressed. Then, about a month being on the job, getting back to their crappy apartment that was listing to one side and settling onto the couch that listed the other way, Clyde said, "I think Snart's secretly a mob boss."

Mark paused in the middle of popping off the cap of his beer bottle. "What?" "I'm serious! I know you get that shady vibe off him!" "Because he's got a record." Sure, it was only juvie, but he'd been caught with a pocket full of diamonds inside a jewelry store. He'd been forced to take the fall for his dad, Len had explained, because that wasn’t the kind of information he wanted the Mardons coming across just any which way. When he'd gotten out, his grandfather had basically taken Len in. Len helped his grandfather selling ice cream out of a truck and, when he died, his grandfather had a secret bank account for Len to inherit when he was old enough. Len decided to use that money in his grandfather's honor, learning to make ice cream and opened a small but successful business. Mark was secretly certain that Len had to have dipped into a little thievery before then, however. There was no way a guy working out of an ice cream truck had enough savings for a start-up. “Think about it!” Clyde said, obviously excited about this revelation. “Who would think an ice cream place would be used for money laundering?” Mark shook his head. “Whatever, man.” Clyde had always been easily swayed, it made him an easy target for peer pressure and drugs if Mark wasn’t around. Once, at some college frat party he crashed, Clyde had gotten hopped up on something, declared himself a god before jumping off a balcony. It was only through blind luck that he got away with just breaking a leg in the shallow end of a pool rather than his whole body on cement. “I’m serious! This isn’t some conspiracy theory!” Clyde put his knees on the couch so he could lean into Mark’s space. “You’ve seen those suits with the briefcase.” “Yeah, so?” “They show up every Monday and Friday! Don’t you think that’s weird?” ...Okay, sort of. Especially given the fact that Len clearly didn’t like them and Mark hadn’t actually noticed that. “Also he’s constantly out or on the phone even though this is supposed to be his only business.” “He’s doing sales work and talking to advertisers.” That much Mark could say with certainty given the amount of times he accidentally eavesdropped on those conversations. Which, “If he’s a secret mob boss, wouldn’t Snart have put in walls people can’t hear through?” “He’s probably speaking in code or has it for the times he needs to establish an alibi, I don’t know how mob bosses think!” “You seem to be doing an awful lot of leaps of logic on his behalf.” Clyde rolled his eyes. “What about the delivery guy?” “Roy? What about him?” “He wears sunglasses all the damn time. Even when we’re loading up the truck.” Mark had noticed that but assumed it as a random quirk. It was harmless so it wasn’t his business. “So?” “And he’s always wearing black turtlenecks. When have you ever seen a delivery guy wear nothing but black turtlenecks? And they’ve got stains!” Mark had also noticed that but thought nothing of it. Now that it was brought up, he realized he’d never been able to identify what those stains were on account of the turtlenecks being black. “Plus his name.” That derailed his thoughts. “What about his name?” Clyde gave him a look. “C’mon. Roy G. Bivolo can’t possibly be his actual name.” “Maybe his parents are assholes. Not like we haven’t known people with shitty names before. Remember Eddy Nigma?” Clyde clicked his tongue the way he did when he thought Mark was treating him like a little kid. “Okay, what about that one guy that shows up sometimes? Big, bald, all the gnarly scars?” Oh yeah, Mark knew the guy. Not much taller than Len or Mark but with shoulders like a truck, scowling more often than not. He looked like a quintessential Hollywood thug or mob muscle. And Mark was pretty sure he heard the man call Len ‘boss’ a couple times. “We don’t actually know who he is,” Mark defended weakly. “Because we’d be dead if they knew we figured it out.” Clyde nodded as if he’d solved a mystery. “So we gotta pretend we don’t know Len’s secret.” Mark shook his head and finally opened his beer. “You’re fucking high.” --- The next day the guys in suits were back only this time they didn't go to the front of the building but went around the back where Mark and Clyde were taking a break after loading up Roy’s truck. Something about them made Mark’s neck itch, like he really needed to wash his hands before the men’s presence permanently stained them. “Snart’s out,” he said preemptively, wanting them away from him and his brother. “We're aware,” said one, visibly older than his compatriot. “Our business is not with Mr. Snart today.” “We're hoping to have a moment of your time, gentlemen.” Said the other. Beside him, Clyde tensed. “For what?” Mark asked. “It's hardly anything salacious or untoward.” The older man said like he was sharing an inside joke. “We're hoping you could answer a simple question for us. One your employer has been reluctant to answer.” “You'll be paid for your time.” The other added, hoisting up his briefcase and cracking it open. Just enough so the brothers could see it was layered in bundles of bills. Mark sucked in a breath- he'd never seen that much money, even in the robbery he’d been arrested for. “You will remain completely anonymous as well.” He saw Clyde open his mouth out of the corner of his eye but Mark beat him to the punch. “What's so important you're willing to go behind Snart’s back?” The older man’s smile grew, voice full of private laughter. “Why, just the secret to his empire.” Clyde’s mouth clicked shut. “Feel free to consider your options. We'll be back later this week to try to reach an agreement with Mr. Snart again. If you agree, you will be doing us a great service.” The men gave them abrupt, tight smiles. “Have a good day.” Baffled at the sudden retreat, Mark almost didn't hear the purposeful clicking of Lisa’s heels. They turned at her approach and Mark was momentarily thrown by the dark look on her face. She came to a halt next to the brothers, still glaring at the shrinking backs of the suited men. “What did they want?” She all but demanded. “Some kind of secret.” Lisa snorted. “Like either of you would know.” The line of her shoulders eased but she still looked tense. “If you two want to stick around,” she said, “next time they approach you, tell them to go fuck themselves.” Lisa led them back into the warehouse and as the brothers went back to work, Clyde asked quietly, “That was weird, right? It's not just me?” “That was weird,“ Mark agreed. “Weird enough it would make sense that he’s a secret mob boss?” Mark glared. “Just get to work.” Of course now that the thought was at the forefront of his head, Mark couldn’t help seeing possible evidence. Nothing damning, at least not at first though Mark had noticed, a couple times while Len was on the phone, Len switching topics once he noticed someone was around. And, on the following payday- the day they were receiving payments from clients -Mark accidentally spotted Len and Roy in an out of the way corner and Roy had passed over several thick envelops. They could have very well been something other than cash but, given the shape, Mark was hard pressed to think of something else. Then the guy with the scars showed up again. Mark was on break at the time, hanging around outside for a smoke. That was the only reason he was able to witness it. The man didn’t even manage to make it to the door before Len was storming out, expression dark enough that Mark nearly swallowed his cigarette. Instinctively he ducked around the corner to avoid being seen. But was still close enough to hear. “What the hell are you doing here?” Len snapped. “Hi, Boss.” The man drawled, clearly not intimidated. Mark’s brain kind of stalled on ‘boss’. “Shipment arrived.” “And you decided you couldn’t tell me that over the phone?” “Had to pick up other shit for the job, since I was passing by I thought I’d stop by instead of wasting time calling you up.” He scowled. “Didn’t think I’d need your permission for that.” “Have you considered I don’t want certain people seeing you here, making connections I don’t want them to make?” “I can keep a fucking secret, Snart. No one’s going to find out and no one’s gonna be able to trace anything to me.” Len’s mouth twisted like he was debating if he was mollified by this or not and if he should admit it if he was. Instead he went to the van the man had driven in, nondescript asides from being old and dented. Len opened the doors in the back. There were no windows in the rear for Mark to peek in. “This it?” “That’s the last of it.” “22K?” The man snorted. “Like I’d get less.” Len stood there, staring at whatever it was before stepping back. He tucked something small into his jacket- an interior pocket, Mark assumed. He closed the door before turning to the man. “No one hears about this.” “Yeah, Boss, I got it.” They parted ways and Mark realized he was well overdue to return from break, getting an earful from Lisa when he finally made it back. Clyde pestered him on why he was so distracted for the rest of the shift but it wasn’t until they were driving back home that Mark told him. Clyde beamed like he won the lottery. “I knew it!” A couple days later, Mark was still so distracted by all this that he dropped part of a mixer on his foot. It wasn’t bad given his steel-toed boots, but it hit his ankle at an angle, making the joint buckle. Clyde helped him to a chair and Mark told the Snarts he didn’t need a hospital. Len took one look at the ankle, eased out of the boot, and told Lisa to call someone called ‘Boo’. ‘Boo’ turned out to be a young woman, probably not much older than Clyde, who examined the ankle cheerfully but clinically, declaring it nothing more than a sprain and wrapped it expertly. Mark wouldn’t have thought it anything special, that maybe she was from a local clinic, except when she went to talk to Len, he handed her a money envelope and a loaded-up brown paper bag. “For your trouble,” he added with a smirk. Boo peeked inside and grinned wickedly. “Always my favorite customer,” she said before leaving. It was mostly small, subtle moments like that but as those moments mounted, Mark had to admit the evidence was starting to become all the more likely. Especially when Clyde got back with information from Trixie. Technically, as part of their parole, the Mardons weren’t supposed to interact with her anymore, but given all her police records stubbornly kept the wrong name and gender on them, they decided the police obviously meant a completely different person. “Get this,” Clyde said, holding up a xerox from an aged newspaper article. It was about a cop being killed by a mob hit, dated almost twenty years ago. “The Snarts’ dad was killed by the Santinis!” “Sucks, but so?” Mark eyed the article- he hadn’t known their dad was a cop. “So, don’t you know the saying? Revenge is a dish best served cold?” Clyde threw his hands in the air. “C’mon, you’re the book nerd, you should know this!” “First, that’s from Star Trek. Second, what? You think Len became a secret mob boss to avenge his dad? Wouldn’t that be a little on the nose?” “Are you saying that wouldn’t make sense?” Mark sighed, pushing the copy from his face. “I’m still not convinced he is a secret mob boss.” Clyde gave him a dark look, obviously disappointed in his brother. “What more do you need?” “Actual proof,” he shot back before pointedly ignoring Clyde. So of course the next day it happened: The Conversation. It was the first time Mark had ever heard Len raise his voice and the question was enough to grab the brothers’s undivided attention. “What do you mean the body won’t fit!” They exchanged looks before quietly making their way toward the office to eavesdrop. “Mick, need I remind you how important this is? This will ruin everything if you don’t- well if you did your job properly, I wouldn’t be telling you how to do it!” On the other side of the wall, Len made a frustrated noise. “I don’t care how you do it- lop off a foot or take the whole damn thing apart, but you better unfuck this mess, Mick. In this situation, I’d argue you should be owing me. I’d rather not call in my solid with Assassin on a distraction run.” There was a long pause and when Len spoke again, his voice wasn’t as hard or demanding. “Mick, I wouldn’t have given you this job if I didn’t think you could handle it. Fine.” Another pause. “Yes, payment is still on the table. Of course it’ll be worth your while. When have I ever left you unsatisfied? Provided, of course, that we pull this off. I’ll swing by tonight to take stock of the situation. Five hours, Mick. Don’t disappoint me.” They scuttled back to their workstations. They filled orders, Lisa left, then Len closed shop for the day, telling the Mardons to leave while he locked up and went his own way. Clyde showed remarkable restraint waiting until Len’s motorcycle disappeared from view before he damn near throttled Mark. “Holy shit!” Contrary to his brother’s excitement, Mark was wondering how likely they were to die if he started looking for another job for the two of them. --- A week passed. As they went into work, Lisa called to them from the office and waved them over. Clyde was still a little fuzzy with sleep but Mark took one look at Len, poised at his desk, and tensed. Lisa shut the door and stood next to it and Mark realized he had no idea if she was part of this or not. “Mark. Clyde.” Len said with a deliberate congeniality. “There isn’t some kind of trouble, is there?” “No, sir.” Mark hoped he hadn’t sounded as meek as he felt saying that. “Then the reason why your productivity and attention to detail has gone down,” he drawled, “is because you just stopped caring?” Something in Len’s tone of voice seemed to filter through Clyde’s head and he sat up properly. Mark’s blood went cold. “No- nothing like that!” “Then…” Len drew out the word, an obvious invite for one of the two to elaborate. Neither did, exchanging uncomfortable glances instead. Len scowled, hands dropping from the desk and out of view. Mark flinched instinctively. “Not even going to attempt to justify yourselves?” Mark bit his lip, looking away from Len. Behind him, he could hear Lisa’s foot tapping irritably. Clyde blurted out, “We figured out you’re a mob boss!” “Clyde!” “What? If he’s gonna kill us anyway, I don’t want him torturing the information out of us!” The footing tapping abruptly cut off as Lisa burst into hysterical laughter. Len just sat there, staring at the Mardons blankly. “How, exactly,” he said slowly, “did you come to that conclusion?” Clyde seemed to suddenly re-think his strategy in blurting out the truth. “If we tell you, will you still kill us?” “I wasn’t planning on killing you to begin with, just fire you.” “Like… permanently fire us?” “In the sense that I wasn’t going to hire either of you again, yes. Lisa, would you stop laughing?” “This… is… hilarious!” She gasped out, stumbling to lean against the desk. Lisa burst out into fresh laughter at the brothers’ terrified and wary expression. “Holy crap, you actually believe that! This is the best thing I’ve heard in years!” Len rolled his eyes and deigned to ignore his sister. “Again, why do you think I’m a mob boss?” Mark and Clyde exchanged glances, waving their hands vaguely. “The guys with the suits and briefcase full of money.” Mark eventually said, “They wanted us to spill the ‘secret to your empire’.” Len scowled. “They’re lawyers. An especially shady kind, but that’s all. A few months before I hired you two, I found out one of my clients was modifying my ice cream and re-labeling it as his own. So I sued him and banned him from purchasing my brand ever again.” The scowl smoothed out into a disgusted sneer. “Shortly after, Scudder started sending his lawyers to me, trying to get me to sell my recipe. They tried bribing Lisa, Roy, and you two into stealing the recipe for them.” Clyde leaned over towards, whispering despite the fact both Snarts were close enough to hear regardless, “Do we believe that?” “I guess?” Mark shrugged. “I can’t think of a reason not to.” “Hey- what about Roy?” Clyde asked, sitting upright again. “What about him?” Len replied, an eyebrow raised. “What’s his deal? With the sunglasses and turtlenecks and all?” “He’s colorblind, those are color corrective lenses.” “And he’s an aspiring starving artist,” Lisa added with a smirk. “His whole look is intentional, he just works for us because he doesn’t actually want to experience the ‘starving’ part.” “And his name?” “Roy G. Bivolo is his actual, legal name,” Len said dryly. "I checked when I hired him." “And the lady you called when I hurt my foot,” Mark started, only to be quickly cut off. “Shawna- med student. I called her to see if the damage was actually serious because, one- hospital bills are ridiculous, and two- I’m not risking OSHA getting on my ass by making you work on a broken foot. Paying her in cash means it’s not taxable income for her.” “And the bag?” Lisa laughed brightly. “Ice cream. She’ll be hitting exams soon, she’ll need the morale boost.” Mark was starting to feel foolish. “And the guy with the scars?” “My husband,” Len said flatly, realizing how ridiculous this entire thing had gotten. “Mick Rory.” He lifted his hand and waggled his pinky finger, the only one that had a ring on it. “He wears that ring because Mick got it for him for Lenny’s first birthday they spent together and they’re both secretly massive saps,” Lisa supplied. Expression stoney, Len pushed her from the desk. Lisa just grinned and leaned up against the wall. “But… he calls you ‘Boss’!” “They met in juvie,” Lisa very pointedly ignored the glare Len sent her, “and Len was just as bossy back then as he is now. Good thing Mick seems to like that sort of thing.” She ignored the pencil Len threw in her direction. “And the thing in the van?” Mark snapped his fingers. “He was the one you were talking to on the phone! About the body!” Lisa’s eyebrows jump and Len glared. “You’re lucky we aren’t having this conversation eight days earlier,” he very nearly growled. “They were Lisa’s birthday presents, gold jewelry-” “I love gold,” she said with a dreamy sigh, “I’m very particular about it.” “She won’t accept less than 22 karats. And a motorcycle Mick built from scratch. He works at a custom autoshop- not a chop shop,” Len cut in when Clyde opened his mouth. “It’s owned by a disabled veteran,” Lisa added, “who just had a kid- that’s the last place anyone will be doing anything illegal.” Digesting the information, Mark said slowly, “So the body was… for the bike?” “The place he ordered it from got the specs wrong. Poor Mickey was pulling all-nighters for days getting it to fit.” “So the payment I overheard you talking about?” Mark asked, turning to Len who scowled. “I told him we would do whatever he wanted for a second honeymoon. He picked Aruba.” He made a face, like a Caribbean beach vacation was somehow a chore. “Is that why you’ve been getting so much of your payments in cash?” “Of course! I’m not using a credit card in another country, the fees are ridiculous!” “What about the assassin?” Clyde asked, narrow-eyed. “You mean Assassin Out Crashin’?” Len raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever heard of roller derby? Lisa’s on a team.” “I’m Golden Glider,” she said with pride. “Assassin is a friend of mine, Sara Lance. Shawna’s also on it.” “She’s Peek-a-Boo.” Lisa started ticking off names on her finger. “There’s also Wild Wild West, Quick And The Dead, Big Top, Mixin’ With Vixen, Light ‘Em Up, Hawk And Awe, Stay Frosty-” “Sara’s Lisa’s drinking buddy, I would’ve asked her to play distraction if Mick needed more time.” The Mardons fell quiet and, after a moment, Len asked, “Anything you need me to clear up?” “You named the place Best Served Cold,” Clyde said weakly. “Like the thing with revenge.” Lisa gave him a flat look. “Did you not read any of the flavors? Pony Espresso, I Don’t Caramel, Berry The Hatchet- I’m pretty Len would suffer an aneurysm if he passed up a pun.” “What can I say,” he shrugged, “I can't always be pun-predictable.” He smirked as everyone else groaned. “So it really had nothing to do with the Santinis and your dad, huh?” Len and Lisa froze and glared. They may not be secret mob, but they were still frightening in their own way. Mark felt for Clyde, getting the brunt of it. “Our father,” Len said slowly, “was a piece of shit who deserved what he got.” “I… read he was a cop,” Clyde said haltingly, in a tiny voice. “Didn’t I say he was the reason I went to juvie?” Len’s voice was cold. “He made me take the fall for his job. He was as corrupt as they came. The reason the Santinis killed him is because he was dumb enough to try to blackmail them for more money.” “Right. Sorry. Never mentioning it again.” “Good.” Len’s glare lessened, but his expression was still stern. “Any other lingering issues? Or can we all get back to work?” Mark and Clyde nodded like bobble-heads. “Please!” Len waved a hand dismissively and Lisa laughed as the brothers all but ran out. Getting to the machines, Mark said, “Clyde?” “Yeah?” “Next time you have a conspiracy theory, shut the fuck up.”

#fic 2017 #dc tv #dccoldwave #in the background #clyde mardon #mark mardon #leonard snart #lisa snart

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katamaran10 · 7 years

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THE CRONOGRAPH

On AO3 here

Summary: A slightly alternative telling in my AU of how things go after Will and Hannibal heal post-fall. Will takes charge and Hannibal has to deal with his newly realized murder husband’s determination to have his way in Spain. Character compliant but apparently not radiant enough. Probably the last piece I add to this fandom.

The Cronograph

by Melusine10

PART ONE

“A Denial”

The only sign of Hannibal’s displeasure was a slight tick in his left eye.

Will sat in the shop’s foyer in an overstuffed armchair. It was seating undoubtedly placed there for impatient, antsy husbands like him. Iberian sunlight filtered through the large boutique window and it made his curls shine.

“The credit card,” Hannibal repeated.

Will pressed his lips together. He made no move to reach for his wallet. “I said,” he lowered his voice, “no.”

Hannibal plastered an affable half-smile on his face. “Forgive us, señor. Might we have just a moment to discuss the item?” The elderly shop owner nodded and disappeared into the store room, taking the tray displaying the vintage timepiece with him.

As soon as he was out of sight, Hannibal turned on his heel and his complacent mask evaporated. He wanted an explanation and he had no intention of waiting for it.

“I said we could look.” Will said. “You looked.”

“And now I wish to make a purchase. Give me the credit card. I won’t repeat myself again.”

“I should hope not,” Will shot back.

Hannibal searched his face, stunned to be defied. He quickly settled on a course of action. “Señor?” he called over his shoulder.

There was shuffling in the back and the man returned through a beaded partition. “Shall I fetch a box and bag?” he asked. He already had the sales book eagerly tucked under his arm.

“I believe we’ve decided to think on it. Such purchases should not be made in haste. I’m sure you will agree. Would you be so good as to hold the watch for us?”

The man obliged hesitantly, telling him he could only keep it off display for a week – and not a day more. Hannibal gave a curt bow and thanked him with flatteries that probably ensured he could get whatever he wanted in that store whenever he so chose, and probably at a slight discount. He then opened the shop door to usher Will out, his gentlemanly façade covering the seething rage roiling underneath.

Earlier that day, Hannibal had pointed out a café down a cobbled lane not far from the antique store. It had a view of the sea and was graced by a cool breeze that eased the summer heat. Had they not brought their quarrel along, it would have been a pleasant place to get a quick bite before the whole city shut down for the siesta hour.

Hannibal sipped his coffee in silence. Will perused the menu. The waitress returned and before he could say a word, Hannibal rattled off an order. Will set his menu card down slowly, realizing his input was neither wanted nor appreciated. He kept his mouth shut. The fact that his Spanish was far superior to Hannibal’s probably should not be flaunted at this stage in the argument. Hannibal botched several words and conjugations yet again, and the waitress was slightly confused before she parsed his meaning and scratched the order down on her notepad. How someone whose Italian was immaculate could not quickly pick up Spanish was beyond him.

Of all the things that had come to pass since they had met five years ago, the least of their problems was Hannibal’s crap español. His mother tongue was Baltic, after all, unrelated to any of the Latin romance languages. Will hadn’t learned much Lithuanian yet (his phrases were mostly confined to their bedroom) and it would be a cold day in Hell that he’d learn archaic Italian so he could read Dante to Hannibal after dinner. No, what fueled his anger was Hannibal’s unwavering pride and his imperious attitude.

The waitress looked expectantly at Will. Her eyes wandered over the tan skin of his chest peeking through the collar of his shirt. Will didn’t notice. He didn’t even know whose name was on the label when Hannibal had given it to him. He just wanted some god damned fried calamari and an ice cold beer, but apparently that wasn’t going to happen.

Will shook his head and declined to add anything. The waitress’ eyes drifted appreciatively over the obscene contours of his bare ankles, sockless in loafers. Hannibal cut her roving gaze short with a flick of the menu. “Gracias, señorita. That will be all.”

The food was predictably slow to arrive. Will avoided Hannibal’s stare and took a sudden interest in reading up on every football match reported in the daily newspaper “As”. He couldn’t give two flying fucks about how anyone was doing in La Liga, or the latest rankings in the English Premiere League, or any other sport for that matter. The only accompaniment to their deadly silence was the rustle of Will’s paper and a tinny radio from a window across the narrow street.

The meal arrived in a train of small plates. Will started scooping things out before Hannibal could begin to describe each dish. As he tucked into food, Hannibal told him about the particularities of the barbequed sardines he was shoveling into his mouth. He droned on about the cold pippirana salad and the origins of the porra antequerana set before them.

Will’s temper ratcheted up a notch with every bite and flourish of Hannibal’s hand. As if he hadn’t heard perfectly what had been ordered. As if he couldn’t determine his own preferences. As if he needed a history lesson every time he just wanted to fucking eat.

The two men were in a very dangerous state and it wasn’t even noon.

“How’s the 'tomato soupy' stuff here?” Will asked, letting a bit of the Louisiana drawl he hid so well slip out. “Looks good.” He was purposefully acting like the hick ignoramus Hannibal seemed to think he was. He pulled the bowl of porra across the table. The thick sauce was as red as blood. Hannibal narrowed his eyes at Will, but said nothing.

“Oh, so now it’s the silent treatment? Really? I would say I’m gutted to see you acting so childish, but in our case that metaphor strikes a little too close to home.” He chewed the dipped bread thoughtfully. “The porra antequerana is passable here,” he said in a perfect lilting accent, “but it needs more garlic, don’t you think?”

“You are an astonishing creature.”

Will sat back in his plastic wicker chair, gauging whether Hannibal might actually kill him for denying him something as stupid as a watch. He reached across the table and took his hand. “You need to exercise a little restraint. I don’t think that is too much to ask. You’ve ripped through nearly half a million dollars since we arrived in Europe.”

“Your point being?”

Will was speechless for a long moment. “I am trying to protect us,” he whispered. Even after surviving their injuries and escaping the country, he still felt like Jack Crawford or the whole of Interpol might pop out from around the corner. “Freddy Lounds made sure everyone found out that I filed divorce papers the same day I inherited your fortune. Murder Husbands indeed. If anybody at Quantico gets bored and decides to poke around in my bank records or if Freddy god damn Lounds somehow gets her sticky hands on them, they will immediately know something isn’t right. I have never spent money like this. I can’t even comprehend money like this!”

“We pay for almost everything in cash.”

“Yes! Massive sums of cash! Just like you did before. You think they’ll just shrug it off and say, ‘Welp, Graham sure is going wild in Europe!’ Your expensive tastes got you and me caught by Mason Verger. Your pattern was documented in your case files. Meditate on that for a minute.”

Will knew all this talk about finances infuriated Hannibal in part because it was simply not done among polite society. But that’s what married couples did and he was going to have to get used to it.

Hannibal touched the edges of his mouth with a cotton napkin. “There are hundreds of millions left and that is only the liquid assets. You haven’t even seen the jewelry collection Lady Murasaki’s bequeathed me. Her 19th century sets of Mikimoto pearls and any one of her Harry Winston rings alone would triple that amount overnight.” He haughtily pushed a stray bit of hair behind his ear. “I do understand, however, why you are so upset. Your youth was shadowed by grinding poverty, abandonment, and the rot of fetid bayous.”

“Takes one to know one,” he said through clenched teeth. Lost starving orphan, he wanted to say. Will would have kicked him over in his chair if they weren’t in public and then he probably would have done something terribly regrettable with his blunt dinner knife. Thank god they were in public.

This had gotten entirely out of hand. Why did everything have to elevate to crazed melodrama with Hannibal? They were both entirely cognizant that this was not a healthy or sane relationship, but they weren’t exactly great models for healthy practices and sanity themselves.

Yet neither could, or would, ever let go of the other. Never. Not during their worst days. Not when separated for years. Not even during a brutal eighty-nine foot drop into the Atlantic Ocean. Most thirsts rise and burn in demanding need, then fall away forgotten once sated. Between Hannibal and Will, that pressing desire and ever-rushing ache for more of each other could never be relieved. Obsession, addiction, passion, love…The words didn't matter. They had merged into a single organism that simply happened to live in two bodies. It made for a volatile combination but certainly kept things interesting, as today proved.

Hannibal leaned toward Will with a stern look. “Those scraping, hungry days of your childhood are in the past, dear boy. Look to the future. You are the Lecter family’s sole heir.” He crooked his head and paused to let his point sink in. “Act accordingly.'

PART TWO

“The Heir”

Eight months earlier…

After tirelessly searching the sea, the FBI and Coast Guard could not waste more resources to find a corpse. Jack Crawford, the longtime head of the Behavioral Science Unit, was forcibly retired for having set loose the most prolific serial killer of the modern age. Had Graham not pulled through, that would have been the third agent he had lost to Hannibal Lecter. His closest colleagues in the forensics lab, Price and Zeller, canceled the arrangements they had secretly been planning to celebrate Jack’s retirement later in the summer. Instead of a party, he was sent back to an empty home on a Friday, with no wife there to greet him. He had served his country with duty and honor for three decades. A part-time janitor pulled down his photographs from the FBI’s halls and dumped them into a file box. The executives upstairs wanted to erase any memory of their errors and insufficiencies.

Jack hadn’t been out of the bureau but a month when Hannibal Lecter was officially declared dead by the U.S government. He kicked in the screen of his own television when the report aired at six o’clock.

Miles away, in downtown Baltimore, Will was recuperating at the best research hospital in the city. He had awoken on a sand bar to the glare of flashlights and the shouts of EMTs. All he could remember was the loving look Hannibal had given him before Will threw them to their deaths. But he didn’t die. He was severely injured and almost all of it was his fault.

No one would talk to him about Hannibal. Had he be found? How badly was he hurt? Was he being treated in this hospital too? Was he arrested and in custody? Whose custody?

“Could someone please turn on the news!” he shouted in frustration. From his bed, there was not much he could do. He was tethered down with vines of IVs, a vile catheter, and plastered with heart monitor electrodes.

His primary nurse cracked the door one day. “You okay for a few visitors?” Hope blossomed in his chest for the first time in a month. She let in a man and woman clad in expensive wool suits. Will had never seen them before in his life. They sat down at the tiny table in the room without his invitation. Without even greeting him. He pulled himself upright, as far as his broken ribs would allow. “Well hello. Make yourselves comfortable,” he said. “Who the hell are you, by the way?”

Nurse Lisa had been so loyal and protective, running off psychiatrists hungry for fame and tabloid hounds hoping for an exclusive interview with him. She had even socked a paparazzo in the eye when he tried to break into his room to get a shot of him in his hospital gown mottled in purple and black bruises. Will could not fathom why she had let these two stooges into his private space.

The two visitors gave their names as if he should already know who they were. They shuffled through their sleek leather briefcases and pulled out a pile of papers. It took a moment for the woman to find the correct page.

“We apologize for bothering you during your convalescence, however it took quite a bit of convincing to get the FBI release the name of your hospital and locate you. We’ve tried numerous times to contact you by phone.”

Will clenched his eyes and hit the button for his pain medication. “My cell phone is at the bottom of the ocean after I was attacked by a serial killer and chucked off a cliff, in case you aren’t aware of why I am here.” The two looked each other. Clearly they weren’t familiar with Will’s particular brand of acerbic snappishness.

“Mr. Graham,” the man said. They both had overly sculpted helmets of hair that didn’t move. Will disliked them immediately. There was not a hint of sincerity radiating off of either of them. Lawyers, he realized. These were lawyers. “We have been apprised of the situation and everyone at the firm offers their deepest sympathies, truly.”

“My Dad died?” he cried.

“Ah, no, Mr. Graham. As far as we know he is fine.” Will flopped back in relief.

Nothing – absolutely nothing - could have prepared him for what she said next.

“We are here today because Count Hannibal Lecter made revisions to his will before his passing. We know you had a-” she searched for a diplomatic phrase “- a close relationship. We are so sorry for your loss.”

Time slowed to a creep. The title of nobility did not even register with him. All he heard was that Hannibal was dead and the syllables of his name lingered in the air like dust. A scream was caught in his throat. Will pitched over the side of the bed and vomited repeatedly.

“Oh dear. Are you okay? Should I call the nurse?” Will motioned for her to continue. He was in shock.

The rest of the meeting felt like a terrible nightmare, far worse than any of his blood-soaked fever dreams. Surely he would wake up. Surely.

The lawyers kept saying Hannibal's beautiful name as they read through the legal documents. Will stretched and flailed to get his oxygen mask. He thought he was going to pass out.

“It’s quite simple,” the woman said. “Just sign here and we will take care of the rest - no fee, of course. We would recommend moving most of Count Lecter’s American holdings into the Cayman Island bank account he kept for tax purposes.” She held out a paper and Will shakily took the pen she offered.

He was desperate to get them to stop talking about Hannibal. He couldn’t abide the sound of those words coming out of these horrid people’s mouths. If they didn’t get out of his room immediately he was giving very serious thought of beating the hell out of them. When they finally took the hint Will smashed the call button for his nurse about twenty times too many.

She came in and saw the vomit on the floor and how badly he was shaking. “Oh my! What happened?"

His teeth were chattering so hard he could barely get out the words. “Sedate me.”

“Sugar, I’ll go get a doctor.”

“Sedate me, Lisa. Sedate me right now.” She glanced up at his heart rate monitor and his numbers were dangerously high.

She came back with a syringe and injected it into his IV port. He was out like a light in 10 seconds. Fussing with his wires and taking his temperature, she tucked him in and turned out the light.

What transpired that day did not hit him until much, much later - and it would hit him hard.

Will had finally been released from the hospital and was searching online for an apartment that wasn’t completely shitty. The life he had tried to make with Molly in Maine was sadly done. Will buried the regret with bourbon. His Wolf Trap home had long been sold away and there was only so much he could take of his run-down motel room with paper-thin walls.

When the sedatives had worn off later on that ill-fated day, he called Molly immediately. “Hannibal died in the fall,” he choked out. “He left his entire estate to me.” The line was silent on the other end. He softly asked if they should divorce. She quickly agreed, now knowing there was a lotmore about Will’s association with Hannibal Lecter that he hadn’t told her.

“We used to work together,” he had told her. “Then I realized he was a serial killer and after a lot of hassle trying to catch him, I finally got him locked up where he deserves to be.” He shrugged, as if there was no more to say.

Will's excuse made zero sense when Hannibal sent a serial killer to take out Will’s new family – just her and her son. Then after Will’s accident, she got smart and started researching whatever she could find about the two online. There was a lot of trash to wade through, but a clearer picture started to form in her head. Will had remained friends with Hannibal long after he publically accused him of being a serial killer – and turned out to be absolutely right. They had been close. Very close. So close there was a lot of speculation that they had been lovers. In all the crime scene photos she found in old newspapers, they were always standing nearly shoulder to shoulder while everyone else did their jobs in the background.

Will vaguely mentioned going to Europe once in passing. He failed to mention it was to chase after Hannibal even though he had recently gutted him and killed a girl in a blowout fight where two other people were severely injured. Even more outrageous to learn was that they both had assumed custody rights over her. Like fathers. Who runs after a man who could do that? The fact that Will never let her touch the scar across his stomach in bed now seemed a lot less like not wanting her to focus on his body’s jagged imperfections and a whole lot more like he was protective of it. Like it wasn’t hers to touch.

Now hearing Will sob the news to her on the phone, Molly didn’t need to know any more. Nobody left their entire fortune to a man if he did not love him in some way or another.

After he hung up, Will asked Nurse Lisa if she could explain how to file the necessary paperwork to initiate divorce proceedings. She had been through it before and knew the drill.

“I’ll do you one better since you’ve been such a sweet patient. I’ll print the forms out, you can sign them, and I'll fax them over to the court clerk right now.”

The court hearing was blessedly quick and amicable. That a divorce should be easier than finding decent housing came as a surprise. But Will knew there shouldn't be anything surprising about how he'd let his life go horribly awry.

From the moment Hannibal had kneeled in surrender on Will’s driveway, snow glittering in his sleek hair, the two men already understood how they had just played their chess pieces. They were at a stalemate and the only one who could make the next move was Will. It was precisely why he refused to visit him during his incarceration. It was why Will hid Hannibal’s letters from his wife and cried in front of the hearth fire late at night and then burned them, never to send a reply. Will avoided the inevitable for three years, desperate to create a normalcy he could never achieve with so many monsters hidden within him. He truly didn’t know quite what would happen if he walked back into that Baltimore sanatorium. But Hannibal knew. He had bet everything on it. He believed Will had greatness within him - the sort of greatness only Hannibal and he could understand.

The guard pulled open the heavy mahogany door into Hannibal’s jail cell and Will’s throat went dry. Simply seeing him confined as a caged beast allowed the repressed murder inside him to the surface – the desire to look at death, to inhabit it through others' eyes, to commit it inside his incredible imagination. Hannibal turned and looked through the glass partition and saw straight through Will’s farcical life. Within minutes he pulled him apart, dissecting the lies Will had been telling himself. Then, with the slightest ribbon of a smile, Hannibal silently reminded Will that he was the only one who could put him back together.

If Will had been undecided before about whose side he was on, that Devil’s smile settled it the matter. He helped Hannibal escape. But disaster upon disaster followed subsequently. After their kill, their fall, losing Hannibal to the sea, his hospitalization, the divorce, after all of it, Will just wanted some peace and quiet. He composed an email inquiring about a studio apartment in a semi-dodgy part of town with tragic brown carpeting, but it was near a nice park for the dogs. The only thing he had asked of Molly was to have Buster and Winston back. He stopped typing mid-sentence. A new email popped up in his inbox.

Dear Mr. Graham:

While the paperwork has all been filed on your behalf and all the titles and land grants have been changed into your name, there is still the matter of transferring the numerous keys and bank access codes to you. Please inform us when you could stop by the firm at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Sheridan and Cooper LLP

Will stumbled back from his computer and covered his mouth.

The sudden reminder was almost too much to bear. How he had managed to lock this in the basement of his memory palace for so long was a stunning psychological feat.

Hannibal had changed his will and left absolutely everything – even his castle and ancestral lands in Lithuania – to him. Will didn’t need a crummy apartment in a rough neighborhood. He needed to come to terms with a reality that was surreal. He now owned extravagant properties across the globe. The idea of moving into Hannibal’s Baltimore home was out of the question. He couldn't bear being that close to their shared memories. But there were other secret safe houses hidden behind layers of shell corporations and offshore banks. There was a grand pied-a-terre apartment in Paris. A villa in Tuscany. A stunning Meiji-era country home tucked in the Japanese mountains of Hokkaido.

Then there was the money. There was so, so much money. Will did not want to begin contemplating what absurd contents sat inside the many safety deposit boxes sprinkled at various banks. He had no idea what to do or where to go. He deleted the email for the apartment and paid another month for the motel, suspended in state of inertia. He had vainly hoped the heavy medications he needed for his injuries would dampen the heart-rending pain of this tragic gain from the loss of his greatest love and friend. They could not. Nothing could.

So, it was a hell of a surprise when Hannibal showed up one night, very much alive.

“You really should not mix those pills with alcohol, Will.”

Will’s eyes were wide as saucers and his tumbler of bourbon slipped from his hand and crashed on the floor. Hannibal had survived and was standing at the doorstep of his crappy motel.

PART THREE

In the café in Spain, Hannibal laid down his fork and knife, his appetite suddenly gone. His middle finger lingered over the tang of the knife blade, toggling it slowly on the placemat.

Though Will had just been mulling on a similar line of thought, he spoke up. “Please stop considering stabbing me with cheap cutlery and listen to what I am saying. Just wait until we get to Switzerland. I will route anything and everything you want to whatever account suits you and you can buy every Patek Phillipe watch ever made.”

“Tell me. How did it make you feel to deny me?”

Will ran a hand down his face. “I am only asking you for a little prudent patience.”

“Which thrilled you more? Wielding this middling power over me in front of that ancient clerk or knowing that in refusing, you were withholding my own birthright?”

“Your birthright is not a €30,000 chronograph!” Will hissed and slammed a fist on the table. Other patrons began to cut their eyes and whisper. Will looked up at the fluttering café canopy and breathed deeply, praying for strength. “Nothing we own is more precious than our freedom. Nothing is more precious to me than us. You’d risk it all for a little bling?”

“I wonder whether you experienced thoughts of doubt and hesitation when you bought your custom sailboat? It was quite the extravagance for a man who wears threadbare t-shirts.”

“Do you hear yourself?” Will huffed an incredulous laugh. “I suppose not. What ocean was I crossing? Where was I headed? Who was I trying to find?”

Hannibal looked past him to the waitress bending over, her skirt slightly too short. She was serving a table with a pitcher of the abominable cocktail called calimocho. Cheap wine and cola. Mixed. He shivered and had to look away.

“For your information,” Will spat, “I rigged and outfitted the Nola myself. I scraped and sanded and painted it every day for more than six months after you ran off to Italy to play curator and…whatever you were doing with Bedelia. If your refined senses approve of the Nola’s aesthetics, it isn’t because I bought it with my spotty consulting checks and measly teaching salary. It is beautiful because I crafted it with sweat and tools and time and skill.”

People were watching them now. This was exactly the sort of thing that would get Hannibal identified and caught.

Hannibal narrowed his incarnadine eyes and set his napkin on the tabletop. “I believe I shall head back to the hotel. The heat seems to be getting to me.” He rose and pulled out his money clip and considered the thick bundle of cash for a moment. Then he tossed it on the table at Will. Will’s jaw fell wide that he would do something so astonishingly rude. “I’d be obliged if you would settle the bill with when you are done.” He ducked under the scalloped lip of the restaurant’s awning and sauntered off down the street.

Will swore and hung his head in his hands.

Behind closed eyes, his imagination took over. He couldn’t stop it. He envisioned the nightmare that might await him at the hotel. The pale crème walls would be blood splattered, and not by the fine mist of cast-off which comes from a knife. No. These would be thick, gushing, arterial sprays erupting from his body. His bowels would be hanging from the ceiling fan, twisting like gory party streamers. There would be a hole where his heart was once seated and something greasy and gauche would be replaced inside to insure the insult was complete. He knew too well what a betrayal to Hannibal cost. Yet even thinking on this scene, he was fairly sure that Hannibal knew now to expect the exact same sort of reckoning from him.

The sound of water refilling his glass drew him out of his morbid thoughts.

“Honey?” said the waitress. “I don’t know what the problem is, but there’s not much a nice, heavy dinner and a good blowjob can’t fix.” She winked at him.

“My husband’s idea of a big dinner is more complicated than most.”

“He’s a fussy eater?”

Will grasped the arms of his chair and laughed ironically. “You have no idea.” He paid his bill and headed back up the hill to the antique shop, praying the man hadn’t closed it yet.

Will unlocked the door to find their rented flat plunged in darkness. The heavy gold damask curtains had been drawn shut, blotting out the living room’s spectacular harbor view. Will slipped his shoes off and set the keys in the dish by the door. He put Hannibal’s money clip there as well.

From the bathroom he heard a slosh followed by the slow gurgling hiccups of the tub draining. Will took a seat in a chair with a direct line of sight to the bathroom door. Minutes dragged by as he waited. Hannibal emerged in a robe and glanced at the large bouquet of flowers laying across Will’s lap. He turned haughtily and dawdled, fussing with his clothes in the armoire and disappearing again to the far side of the bedroom. He must have been satisfied with the time he kept Will waiting, because he finally came into the parlor.

“I am sorry I upset you,” Will said. He held out the bouquet and Hannibal took it.

A small frown tugged at one corner of his mouth. “These are not from Astrid’s flower cart.”

Again Will needed to close his eyes and breathe deeply. “No. She was sold out and had already gone home. We’ll buy twice from her next time.” If his words placated Hannibal, he did not show it. He abandoned the bouquet on a walnut side table, still in its wrappings.

“Would you mind arranging them for us?”

Hannibal didn’t respond. He searched through the papers and notebooks on his desk, as if looking for something. As if Hannibal ever misplaced anything. The charade was ridiculous.

Apparently not locating whatever he was trying to ‘find’, Hannibal took the flowers to the sink in the kitchen. He slipped off the packaging and paused momentarily. Shaking his head, he set the small wrapped box tucked inside the bouquet on the counter and kept working, trimming the stems of the star lilies and violets at perfect angles.

“You aren’t going to open it?” Will asked.

“I have an idea of what is inside.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake. Drop the act and talk to me.”

Hannibal gritted his teeth. “I abhor it when you swear at me.”

“I know. But it does tend to get your attention. Do I have it now?”

“Apparently so.”

“When do I get my apology? You’ve shut me out over something trivial and it is intolerable.”

“If the point of your display earlier was to avoid an expense that might alert the authorities as you so claimed, your actions now would suggest otherwise.”

Will got up and wended his arms around Hannibal’s torso and pressed his face between his sculpted shoulder blades and sighed. Hannibal continued snipping at the flowers in the sink. “My signatures on your accounts are simply a formality that you yourself created as a contingency plan.”

“A plan in the event that you uneventfully killed me in my prime, say, by tossing us off a ledge and drowning me in the ocean. I’d hoped at least the guilt of receiving my wealth would haunt you long after I was gone.”

Will rolled his eyes. “You thought no such thing. You did it because you’ve loved me since the day you met me. Once we are able to shift the funds around under your aliases, this is not going to be an issue. I’m only trying to keep the FBI, Interpol, and every bounty hunter watching the Most Wanted list off your trail and not get myself incarcerated as well for aiding and abetting the most stubborn husband that ever lived. Please, Hannibal. I would never deny you anything just to be petty.”

Hannibal remained stiff, but he set the scissors down, which boded well for how this tiff would play out. Will would be seriously pissed if he got stabbed in a kitchen again.

Hannibal was not so easily mollified. “You didn’t answer my question earlier. How did it make you feel when you rejected my request to purchase something?”

“How did it make you feel?” Will retorted, hating when he resorted to psychology tricks.

He did not hesitate. “It was disorienting. Unfamiliar. I am rarely told ‘no’. You may have denied me yourself in the past, but you have been nothing but an indulgent partner since overcoming that particular hurdle. It helps that we are perhaps the wealthiest renegades in the world, so let us not squabble over vulgar financial matters. It is simply a strange and unexpected turn of events to now rely so greatly upon you.” Hannibal gave a ghost of a smile.

Will tried to decipher the human hieroglyph standing before him. “How would you prefer I handle this kind of thing in the future? he asked. “Assuming, of course, that you’re not going to paint this place red with my guts tonight.” Will left the counter for the large living room window and pushed the thick curtains aside.

“You were correct to intervene as you did.”

“Yes, but as usual, you still got exactly what you wanted.”

Hannibal placed the flowers in a vase and redid most of the greenery that came with it. He had chucked the baby’s breath into the trashcan the instant he saw it. “I hope you will continue to serve our best interests so diligently, Will.” He paused, thinking. “Most casual observers would assume that I was the ‘sugar daddy’ in this relationship.”

Will balked at his words. “Why…would…oh...”

“I take it you had not considered how our age difference might be perceived.”

Will laughed in embarrassment. “No, I hadn’t. I never think about it. And Hannibal?” He turned from the window and was wreathed in the violet, oranges, and pinks of the setting sun. “I never will.”

The radiant man had fully come into his own. The sight of his dear Will framed more beautifully than a Botticelli painting left him breathless. Will’s words left him stunned. He still could not predict him. “I am sorry for my behavior,” he said at last. Apologies were not common or easy for Hannibal.

Will nodded. “Now open your gift.” Hannibal went to the counter and pulled the black ribbon off the white box. He smiled when he saw what lay inside.

“There’s an inscription.”

He flipped the watch over.

For the man I will love until the end of time.

Hannibal’s eyes misted up. “I will cherish it always.” He hugged Will and kissed him hotly, tears now streaming down his face. “I love you, my darling.”

Will ran a hand over his cheek. “But if you don’t like it I can always get it changed to read “For my Sugar Daddy, forever.”

Hannibal burst out laughing and hid his face behind his hands, shaking his head. “My astonishing, rude boy. I think I’ll keep it as it is. Thank you.”

Finally they were smiling in their knowing, secretive way. They turned to watch the sun sink slowly into the sea, hand in hand. Only now, one of those wrists bore a very, very nice chronograph.

#hannigram #hannibal fanfiction #will graham #hannibal lecter

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