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auteurdelabre · 3 months

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Please, Mr. Miller? Sequel part 3 - DBF!Joel x f!Reader

As I type this, the winner of the "What story should I post next?" poll is this one by a landslide, which is lucky because I can't get these two horny idiots outta my head.

summary: After fucking Joel Miller in a bathroom during dinner with your BF and best friend Sarah last night he suggests you two meet to talk things out before you leave for Ibiza. . . But talking isn't all you do.

Part 3 of this sequel of PWP with a lil' plot thrown in. Suspend your disbelief y'all.

words: 7.6k

rating: 18+

warnings: Dirty Talk, Daddy Kink, Kissing, Exhibitionism, Cuckhold, oral (F and M receiving), Infidelity, Caught in the Act, Angst, Age Gap, Possessiveness,

a/n: I write some depraved shit, but I think this might take the cake. You've been warned.

masterlist here

[2:45pm] HIM💜 : We gotta talk

[2:48pm] I'm leaving for Ibiza at five. I'm packing.

[2:448pm] HIM💜: Sarah is with Charlie. She told me they're gonna spend the night in town. Some anniversary thing.

[2:49pm] K

[2:50pm] HIM💜: So maybe I could come over and we could talk about everything?

[2:55pm] I don't know Joel

[2:55pm] HIM💜: No funny business. I think we just need to get things out in the open

[2:57pm] HIM💜: Please

[2:59pm] Ok.

///

Joel arrives an hour later with two coffees and a sheepish expression on his handsome face. The dorms are mostly empty thanks to spring break, so no one sees the man coming into your room. You step back, letting him enter as you take the coffee from him with a soft thanks. He’s wearing a soft grey t-shirt under a green plaid flannel, his dark jeans straining over his thighs.

You take a sip of the coffee, trying to fight the affection that swims in your chest when you realize he knows exactly how you take it.

"Didn't really get a good look at this place yesterday," Joel says as he walks the perimeter of the small space trying to work up the courage to broach the topic you both want to dance around. "S'cozy."

Joel looks at your bed and you see something pass behind his eyes; a thought, a feeling, you're not quite sure. You wiser what he thinks of your pale pink sheets and fluffy pillows. If he notices the books that are strewn over your nightstand.

"I'm reading this one right now," he mutters, pointing to Bloom Meridian sitting atop the pile. "S' good."

"I'm enjoying it,” you offer stiffly. You don’t know how to feel about him right now. He looks and smells so damn good, but at the same time all you can think of is how he ignored you until last night. How he stopped responding to your texts until he wanted something. You put the coffee cup on your dresser, feeling nervous.

“Joel you didn’t come here to talk books.”

Joel blinks a moment before he nods awkwardly, draining what remains of his coffee before dropping it in the garbage can. He inhales slowly, like a balloon being filled and then he fixes you with a stern look.

"I just wanted to come over to say that this is getting out of control," Joel says quietly.

No shit.

You manage to get out a sharp laugh of derision. "I'm not the one who followed me into a bathroom, Joel."

Joel holds his hands up in defense. "Not saying it's you. It's me too. More me than anything and I'm sorry for it."

Sorry for it.

Regret.

It’s all there etched in the crinkles of his wary eyes as he stares at you. No, he’s staring at your ear, not able to look directly into your eyes. For some reason this makes you furious and heartbroken all in one stroke. Your arms cross in front of your chest, holding you and your emotions at bay.

"I wish you were sorry for calling me when you were drunk," you shoot back finding no reason not to lay into him. "And for fingering me at a table surrounded by everyone including my fucking boyfriend."

Joel's cheeks flush and he winces. You see the way his shoulders slump and his head tilts to look at the ground in shame.

"I’m real sorry for that too. That was a horrible fucking thing to do."

And yet it’s not that which hurts the most. It’s what he said that night of the phone call. The sentence that’s been running around in your mind for the last few weeks. The thing that keeps you up when you should be asleep.

"I really wish you'd apologize for telling me I was gonna ruin your life."

Joel’s head jerks up. "Huh? When did I do that?"

"The drunk phone call."

"Fuck," Joel's hand drags down his face. "I don't even remember that. But I mean..."

He trails off and with every beat of silence you feel your ire grow. Is he actually trying to blame everything on you? You stride over to him, gratified when he takes a nervous step backwards into Sarah’s dresser.

"You're saying I ruined your life?" Anger courses through you now, red hot and piping. You shove his muscled shoulders brutally and he doesn't move. "You're saying you didn't ruin mine? You think you don't haunt my fucking dreams?"

Each word is punctuated with an attempted punch against Joel's chest that he deflects gently by taking your wrists in his hands, holding you, tears in both of your eyes.

"You think I haven't thought about you every fucking day since Christmas?" You say biting back sobs.

"You're with that boy aren't you?" Joel hisses back, the grip on your wrists tightening. "Don't think you're too lonely."

"And you're with Tess!"

"Not for long!' Joel roars at you, his voice a rumble from his chest. Almost immediately you see his eyes shut, his face screwing up as if he’s just been stabbed. You realize he hadn’t meant to share this information with you.

Now it’s your turn to take a step backwards, your wrists still caught in his hold. His words settle over you both, leaving you with wide eyes as Joel's jaw tics.

"W-what?"

Joel drops your wrists and lowers himself to sit on the edge of your bed, his breath coming out in a long sigh.

"S'why she's not here this week," Joel tells you, head in his hands, elbows balanced on his thighs. "We've been arguin' a lot, practically since we got married, but lately its been worse. She suggested this week be good for time apart. To clear our heads."

You blink quickly before coming to sit next to him, your hands folding over your lap. There’s a rocking sensation in your stomach, a mixture between profound joy and extreme compassion. You think of Tess and Joel as people separate from you, a husband and wife who have found themselves in a terrible position.

"I'm sorry, Joel."

"No you're not."

"Don't tell me how I feel," you shoot back irritated. "I am sorry for you and for Tess. Divorce is hard. I'm sorry for Sarah."

"Sarah barely knew Tess," Joel shrugs. "Neither of them really made much effort. Not that I blame 'em. Sarah's a grown woman, she doesn't need a mom."

"But you love her," you reason in a small voice.

"I did- do," Joel self corrects. He doesn't look at you; his head is still in his hands. His thumbs rub small circles into his temple. You can feel the tension that remains.

"But it's not just that, is it?"

He straightens, eyes moving to your face before fleeing to the rest of the room. He picks apart the dents in the wall from when you and Sarah had a dance party after exams. The papers on your desk that are scribbled on. The soft lace that trim the pillows on your bed. From where you sit it all looks so immature. The longer he looks the more he shakes his head.

"It's just ... I'm some fucking cliché," Joel mutters ruefully. "Old guy fucking some gorgeous young thing until she gets bored."

"Bored?"

"You think I'm dumb?" Joel snaps and for once he intimidates you with the glare he shoots your way. "If I were just some guy on the street you'd never have looked twice. But I'm married and your friend's dad and you thought you'd have a fun little thrill."

The air is knocked from your lungs.

"You think I'm doing this because I get off on you being married?" You ask, crestfallen.

Joel fixes you with a withering gaze that makes you want to shrink back into the bed sheets.

"You fucked me in my bed saying you could keep a secret, sucked my wedding ring off my finger, told me to hold you down with my left hand, when I fucked you in my truck," Joel starts to list off the various moments of indiscretion. "What am I supposed to think about that?"

Your eyes fall to your fingers tangled in your lap.

"I liked the power of making you want me," you confess quietly. "That you shouldn't want me but you did. That you were choosing me."

"It turned you on that it was wrong."

Joel's voice is full of so much disgust that it infuriates you.

"It turned you on too! The whole forbidden thing, I know it did. You don’t get to put this all on me! You’re the one that chose to fuck my mouth with your wife out the window. You liked sneaking around, Joel."

"Yeah and look at us now!"

"Yeah, look at us now," you scoff. Joel looks like he wants to jump out the window or punch something. He bites the inside of his cheek, unable to look at you when he speaks next.

"It was nothing but a thrill for you."

“That’s not true.”

“You wanted to fuck a married guy,” Joel insists with a disgusted scoff. “I was just the first one stupid enough to do it.”

“So fucking me was stupid?”

“No,” Joel insists and you see the panic there in the dark of his eyes. “It was… I’m the older one, I never shoulda let it go this far.”

“I’m an adult, Joel,” you say rolling your eyes. “Neither of us is clean here. We both did it and we both liked it. And yeah, I can admit it started as a married man thing, but that's not how it ended. Not for me."

Joel’s barely breathing as he rubs at the back of his neck anxiously. He keeps rolling his tongue to the side of his cheek, deep in thought as he paces back and forth in front of you.

"Good sex-"

"It's not just the sex," you cut in, breath trembling with the sudden honesty. "Those times at Christmas when you and I talked? The snowflake? When you look at me you see something. The same something I see in you."

Joel's eyes have softened, and he comes back to sit next to you on the bed. His large frame causes the mattress to creak. It's funny he can look so fierce in that body of his, but when you see his eyes you can see inside and you know there's nothing but sweet gentle kindness that draws you in.

"What do you see?"

"I don't know exactly," you shrug, overwhelmed by the emotion. "Something powerful. Something that draws us together over and over. Something that when I’m in your arms makes the rest of the world go quiet."

Joel grows still and his brows knit together. He twists slightly, his knee bumping into yours. His voice is thoughtful and measured when he finally speaks to you, squinting.

"I'm supposed to believe you actually want me? You? Beautiful, intelligent young woman wants an old man like me?"

"You're not old," you insist with a frown. "Mature yeah, but not old."

"Old enough to be your da-" Joel catches himself, flushing pink at the tips of his ears. "Old enough to be your father."

"You had Sarah real young," you say with amusement. "My dad's got at least fifteen years on you."

Joel gives a wry smirk but you can see the discomfort in his features.

"Joel have you seen yourself?" You say with confusion clear in your expression. "Do you not see how women look at you? The waitress last night nearly dropped the pitcher of sangria on my lap because she was staring at you."

"C'mon now," Joel says shyly glancing away from you. You can tell he's not used to this kind of praise, this kind of appreciation and it hurts to know that.

"It's true," you insist, wishing you could cover his face in kisses. "The first time I saw you in the airport I was shocked at how hot you were."

"Enough," Joel is embarrassedly looking away now, tilting slightly from your searching gaze.

"Your arms in that t-shirt," you continue, voice growing dreamy. "Your shoulders when you were carrying stuff to your truck."

Your closer now, body angling towards his and pupils blown wide.

"Don't," Joel warns you huskily, tilting slightly back from you. "Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you want me to fuck you," Joel murmurs.

"Maybe I do."

"Well that's the problem ain't it?" Joel huffs, forcing himself to a stand again. You don’t miss the way he moves slightly hunched over, trying to hide his burgeoning erection. "We can't keep goin' on like this. It's gotta stop. But we both gotta be in agreement. We gotta help each other."

"How?"

"If one of us starts up the other ones gotta stop it," Joel insists. "We gotta be strong for each other."

"But what if I don't want to be strong?" You ask him with genuine feeling. "What if I wanted to keep seeing you? Not just for sex?"

"You'll get bored."

"I won't."

“We barely know one another,” Joel says. “You might hate me the more you get to know me.”

“Not possible.”

All you can focus on the anguish in Joel's face. You want to soothe the concern from his brow, to kiss his full mouth into submission.

"I should go," Joel says and you watch his eyes slide over your face. You feel desperation tingling through your body.

"So what can we do?" you ask, noting the way Joel's gaze snaps to you as your voice grows husky around the edges.

"Whadda ya mean," Joel asks nervously.

"Where's the line?" You ask innocently. "Can I hug you goodbye, for example?"

Joel's face relaxes, he nods. "Yeah, course."

"Okay good," you say breathily. "Kiss?"

"Not on the mouth."

"Jesus," you roll your eyes.

"We can't," Joel pleads with his eyes. "I can't control myself. Please, we just need to do it this way. Go cold turkey."

Joel swallows and you know you don't want to force him to do anything. If Joel wants you like you want him it shouldn't feel like persuasion. It should be easy.

“Okay.”

You stand and slowly make your way over to him. He holds his arms open, urging you into a tight hug. Your arms go around his waist, your cheek tilting against his chest.

"Well, thanks for seein' me and listenin' to my side of things,” he murmurs against your forehead. You feel tears welling up at the corners of your eyes.

"Anytime Mister Miller."

And just as you begin to accept that perhaps this really is the end, you feel Joel's cock growing hard against your stomach and everything unravels. You press yourself more tightly against him, shifting against him as his fingers dig into your back.

"What're you doin'?" Joel asks in a voice that sounds thick. But his hips are already starting to roll against you.

"Just saying goodbye," you say as if oblivious to his cock hardening further against your belly. Your face is buried in his t-shirt, inhaling deeply the scent of his cologne, his deodorant, the soap from his shower. Everything that makes him Joel.

"Shouldn't-"

"You said hugs were okay," you purr, nuzzling against his sternum. You hold in a smile when he shivers and grips you tighter to him. His hands slide down to cup your ass, kneading the flesh there under your jeans and pulling you tighter against his pelvis.

"Should stop," he tells you in a voice made of velvet over iron. He says this even as he grips your ass and forces his denim-clad cock between your legs the best he can. He rubs there, rutting against you as your arms move to encircle his neck.

Your mouth sponges against his jaw and Joel does nothing to stop you. He even angles his neck so it's easier for you to begin nibbling gently along his muscled tendons that run the length of it as he continues to grind against you.

"Feels good," he murmurs dreamily.

"Yeah?" You whisper huskily. Your hand moves from Joel's back to slide down to the swell of his ass through his jeans. "Gonna let me keep making you feel good?"

His hips tilt into your palm, inhaling through his nose when you start to grind back against him.

"Yes."

"Aren't you gonna stop me?" You huff against his mouth.

"No."

"Cuz you want this just as much as I do?"

"Yes," Joel's mouth crashes against yours. "Fuck yes, I do."

He kisses you fiercely, holding you so tightly to him you’re almost breathless. You make small whining noises, hands gripping against him, begging him brokenly to please fuck you.

"Here in your bed?" Joel says huskily, lips quirking into an oily smirk. "So you can come all over your pretty pink sheets?"

"Yes," you breathe, lips parting as his mouth finds yours.

He wastes no time divesting you both of your clothing, grinning at you when you lay back on your bed, arms above your head and arch in anticipation. You’re exposed to him in every way and you love it.

He stands next to the bed, hair ruffled from when he's taken his t-shirt off.

“You really want this?”

“Yes, Joel. I really do.”

He lets a palm slide from your kneecap upwards. You arch, ready for his hands and mouth and cock and whatever else he'll give you.

"Lemme just look at you a moment," he says, his warm eyes running the length of your naked body. The head of his cock weeps the longer his eyes linger. "Goddam you are a beautiful thing."

You feel a heat rise to your cheeks, unable to look him in the face. Instead your eyes fixate on his cock, thick and beautiful. You curve up onto your knees, crawling to the edge of the bed with a playful look as Joel stares at you from under half-lowered lids.

"Please, Mister Miller?" you say nuzzling his thigh with your cheek.

"You wanna taste?" He croons, palm on your cheek as you nod up at him. "Go on, baby."

You lick his reddened tip and you taste him salty and warm on your tongue, eyelids flickering as you begin to suck. Joel's fingers wind in your hair,

"Fuck I missed this," Joel groans from where he stands beside the bed. "Missed you."

You hum around his cock in agreement, palms rubbing along his belly in comfort. He missed you like you missed him. He moves slowly, his cock dragging out to circle your lips before he pushes back in, making you moan around his shaft.

"Not gonna last long if you keep goin'," he rasps. "And I wanna last for you."

It's your only night until how long? Graduation maybe, you think. But who knows if you'll be able to steal away like this again? In a few short hours you leave for Ibiza with your boyfriend. He’ll be on a plane ride home.

Joel pulls you off of him before his mouth descends, nipping your bottom lip before his mouth seals over yours.

You pull his naked body down against you into the bed, feeling his knees on either side of your hips as he kisses you. His hands are warm and large and they swim over your skin, taking time to savor your flesh as he licks into your mouth. You feel his cock bob against your belly, weeping. You break off to look at it with anticipation.

"Look at what you do to me," Joel murmurs. “Cock never gets like this with anyone else.”

“I want it, Joel.”

"Get on your hands and knees."

You do, back arching as you glance back at him. He's panting, his large eyes fixed on you. A feeling like love overtakes you, making you break his gaze as you turn your head around, dropping it forward as he slides into your welcoming cunt. The stretch is perfect, leaving you full and warm and... His. You feel like his.

"How do you always feel so fucking perfect?" he groans out from behind you as he starts to thrust.

"It's you who's perfect," you moan back, dropping to your forearms as Joel begins to pound into you. "Never felt so full."

"Never?" Joel grinds out, slapping your ass playfully. "What about Connor?"

"Nothing to me," you answer firmly, not bothering to correct the name. "S'only because I couldn't stop thinking about you."

Joel's hips slow a moment, long enough for you to glance over your shoulder at him. He's shooting you an inscrutable look, his mouth thinned.

"I don't want you waiting for me," he says slowly. “You deserve the world. You deserve a man who can treat you right, who can be with you.”

"I know, I'm not," you lie.

"Alright then," Joel nods and needing to reclaim the frenzy from before he pushes into you with a groan. "Now be good and show me how much you missed my cock."

///

Conrad has always had things come easy to him. Friends, Grades, female attention. And when things didn't come easy he always had money. Money solves a lot of issues.

Today he pops his earbuds in and starts blasting Kanye before shooting you off a quick text as he walks towards your place on campus. His bags are already in the car, ready for a romantic get away with his girl.

[4:55pm] Hey babe u ready?

A text comes through as soon as he sends that one to you.

I miss your cock bb. [Foryou.jpg]

Attached is a very obscene photos of Pam giving a coquettish look to the camera, mouth open and tongue out suggestively.

Pam is the snowbunny from Vermont with the fake tits and great ass. Conrad rolls his eyes, deleting the text and officially blocking the number. He hasn't replied to her since Vermont and she's clearly not getting the message.

He only told you about the Pam because he knew you'd suspected when that dumb bitch insisted on posting a photo of them on Instagram.

He didn't tell you that after she sucked his cock he fucked her in front of the fireplace in her sprawling chalet. He didn't tell you that she got needy and clingy in a way you'd never been and that it made him realize letting you go had been the biggest mistake of his life.

[4:59pm] I'm heading your way. Make sure you don’t forget your bikini

You're the only one he told about cheating on the test. The only one he can tell about a lot of stuff. His parents love you. It's a good match. You're as close to love as he's every experienced.

He's going to propose in Ibiza because it's been five years and his parents are starting to pressure him. You come from a good family, you're smart and beautiful.

Sex with you lately is... Okay. He finds you distracted as of late. And when you're not distant you're more dominant, more in control and he doesn't love it. He likes to be the one in control.

So today when he jogs up the steps of your dorm whistling softly to himself in tune with the music his mind is distracted. He's wondering if the ring he got you is your taste and where a good spot would be to propose. You both have keys to each other's dorm rooms and when he unlocks and pushes open the door he expects it to be empty with your suitcase on the bed.

His eyes are on his phone with the music blasting as he enters. He closes the door behind him before he finally looks up, almost dropping his phone in the process. You're facing the door on your bed on all fours, the sheets a tangle, the scent of sex in the air.

Conrad can only stare in fixated horror, seeing how fucked out your expression is. Mouth hung open, eyes shut, brows furrowed as you rest on your hands and knees. Your fingers clutch at the blankets holding on for dear life as obscene slapping noises fill the room.

Your back is arched violently, body undulating and slick with sweat. Your hair is damp at the temples. It's obvious the two of you have been at this for some time. Your tits swing with every thrust, your body jerking with the sharp snap of the man's hips behind you.

"Faster," you cry out hoarsely, hand going to grab one of the hands on your hips. "Please! I'm so close!"

Watching as you thrust yourself backwards to take this man's cock deeper makes Conrad's stomach twist. Your eyes are rolling back as you whimper out babbling cries of pleasure.

It's now that Conrad's attention shifts to the golden skin of the figure behind you. The sight of some muscular, broad shouldered man fucking into you from behind takes Conrad's breath from him.

Conrad sees the way this man holds your hips possessively in his broad hands, fingertips dimpling the flesh as you grind back against him. He's transfixed at the sight of his girlfriend who is usually so focused during sex is now so loose, so submissive to the looming figure that fucks into her from behind.

His phone drops from his trembling hands, thudding to the carpet and drawing your attention. Your eyes snap open and a look of shock crosses your features.

"Oh ff-fuck," you groan out at the sight of him, but you don't slow your movements. If anything you look more turned on, your hips starting to roll.

"That's my girl," the rumbled twang sounds out from against your shoulder. "Yeah just like that... Oh, fuck just like that my good girl. Make those pretty sounds for me."

Somewhere in all of this, righteous indignation rises to the surface of Conrad's being.

That someone would touch what belongs to him.

///

Joel's head is dropped between your shoulder blades, oblivious to the young man standing at the end of the room. His shoulders are rolling as he pushes and pulls your pliant body along his cock murmuring how good you feel.

Conrad sputters, watching helplessly as a broad, faceless man with a back that glistens with sweat continues to fuck into his girlfriend.

"Who the fuck is this?"

Joel must have heard Conrad this time because his head jerks up, eyes fixed on the handsome young man. Conrad sees the blown out pupils of the older man, the damp curl over his forehead, the way his full lips curve into a sadistic grin.

"I'm her Daddy," Joel rasps, smirking further as Conrad's face goes puce. You give a low moan of pleasure at how wrecked Joel’s voice sounds.

Joel tilts forward, hand wrapped around your neck to gently tilt your face up as he keeps ramming into you from behind. "Tell him, baby."

Your head drops forward shyly but you can't stop the rhythmic pounding of Joel against your ass. You know you should feel guilty and shamed, but all you feel right now is so impossibly turned on. Turned on that Joel is fucking you in your bed. Turned on that he's not stopping even when he's caught. Turned on that Conrad is seeing it happen.

"He's... He's my Daddy," you finally say, slack-jawed as the pleasure of Joel's body builds within you. "Oh fuck.. fuck… ‘n I'm his g-good girl."

"Yeah you are," Joel coos. "So good."

Joel gives a feral grin in Conrad’s direction before tugging you back towards him. The sound of flesh on flesh fills the room as Conrad stands as if frozen. All of a sudden a look of disgust crosses your boyfriend’s features as he recognizes Joel from dinner the night before.

"Does it turn you on knowing he's watching you get fucked?" Joel rasps in your ear. "Makin’ sure he knows you’re all mine right now?"

You can't answer. Your forehead simply drops down to rest on the coverlet as Joel jerks his hips into you. He rights himself into a kneeled position, pulling you by the hips back along his length, watching with delight as your ass jiggles hypnotically with every thrust.

"C'mon baby," Joel pants down at you. "Show this boy who owns your pussy."

"Yes, Mister Miller," you insist, ass in the air as Joel shakes you with every thrust.

"You don't need some pathetic boy when you've got a man's cock," Joel grunts out, each word punctuated by a violent thrust that has you moaning for more. "Just need me don't you?"

"Yes," you cry, eyes squeezing shut. "Feels so good!"

You feel the blinding shine of pleasure being replaced with honeyed release and you keen against him. Arousal soaks him, dripping down his thighs as Joel marvels, his hips not slowing as he chases his own climax.

"She comes so goddam easy," Joel says in awe. His dark eyes dart to a frozen Conrad. "You fucked up lettin’ her go, little boy. Even for a week."

That seems to wake Conrad from whatever stupor he was stuck in. He jerks to life, stepping closer to the bed, his hands in fists. Hands you know have never seen a day’s actual work in their life.

"Get away from her," Conrad says, eyes flashing but voice dim. "You’re a fucking pervert."

"He's n-not," you cry out, unable to focus because Joel doesn't stop what he's doing, he simply pushes you harder in the mattress, fucking deeper.

"You take another step closer and when I'm done fucking your girlfriend here I'll kick your ass," Joel says, jaw squared.

The thought of a fight erupting makes your clit pulse, mewling when Joel's fingers find it, pinching and rubbing at it with his middle and ring finger.

"She make noises like that for you?" Joel challenges. Conrad says nothing in reply, only swallowing hard as his face grows blotchy.

"Nah she doesn’t,” Joel decides. “That’s cuz you didn't know how to fuck her right.”

Now Joel jackhammers into you as his fingers rub your clit, spreading your arousal and causing a trembling to begin in your thighs. He pins your wrists under his hands, making you keen, ass bouncing off his hips.

“My good girl deserves to get fucked right," Joel tells him, voice growing breathless. "Pussy this perfect? And oh… I can feel it squeezin’ me now. She's gonna give me another one aren't you baby?"

"Uh huh."

"Anyone else make you come like this?"

"No," you say quickly, moans escaping every time he thrusts. "Only you."

Conrad makes a choking sound as you come again, hard and crying out raggedly. Lustful gibberish with a few daddy yes’s thrown in for good measure. You jerk violently and then you sag into the bed, spent, face and body soaked with sweat. You pant heavily before you feel Joel’s mouth on your cheek.

“Did so good for me, baby. So fuckin’ good.”

He turns now, raising his head and addressing a still stunned Conrad who stands horrified at the intimacy being displayed. Somehow seeing Joel draped over you murmuring sweet nothings in your ear as you smile is so much worse than him fucking you.

“You ain’t been fucking her right,” Joel says sharply.

“She isn’t your girl,” Conrad insists angrily, his perfectly teeth clashing together. “She’s my fucking girlfriend.”

“Not for long,” Joel warns. “Not if you can’t make her feel better than me.”

You’re slowly coming out of your post-orgasm high, listening passively to the conversation before you realize something is happening. Joel is scooping you gently, tilting you back so that your spine is on the mattress, your thighs spread. You give a sleepy look up at Joel’s handsome face gazing down at you.

“Joel?”

"I'm not gonna be here after this week," Joel murmurs in your ear, pressing another kiss to your cheekbone. "I need to make sure you're bein’ taken care of."

You feel your eyes swim with a mixture of emotion. Devastation that Joel is leaving soon, gratitude that he wants to know you’re being taken care of even if it means it won’t be by him. He presses a firm kiss to your mouth.

“You ready, beautiful girl?”

“Mhmm.”

“Alright then,” Joel smiles softly at you before turning a sharp eye on Conrad. Your boyfriend is already hard at the sight of you there on the bed, spread for him, cunt glistening. Joel jerks his head in your direction.

“You show me you can make her come, boy.”

Conrad feels his anger overtaking him at the challenge. This old fuck with the bad haircut thinks that he can take you from him? It isn’t even about you anymore; it’s about Conrad’s pride. And he’s got more than the typical male.

Joel moves from the bed, a gentlemanly gesture. He goes to stand a few paces back, watching with shark-like intensity at you spread on the bed for another man. You look at him through your half-lidded eyes, missing the warmth of his body already.

"I'll make her come like you wouldn't believe old man," Conrad sneers. He doesn't know why but he feels this need to outperform Joel in this. Still dressed in his slacks and dress shirt he drops to his knees in front of you at the edge of the bed, sliding his hands up your thighs and urging them to part further for him. You allow this passively, your eyes still on Joel’s beautiful naked body only steps away.

Conrad dives into your pussy, giving it sloppy kisses as you arch into his mouth. Conrad is perfectly adept at oral sex, it's just you don't want him. You want the man when the warm eyes that are stuck on your face.

But your body enjoys the sensation of a tongue along your seam, fingers gently thrusting as he tastes you. Joel stands to the side, his cock still hard and weeping. You wish it was in your mouth.

Conrad flicks at your clit with his tongue, drawing a shuddering gasp from you. One that Joel clearly wasn’t anticipating judging by the raise of his brows. Your head tilts back into the pillow and you let the pleasure flood your senses. You can hear Conrad groaning between your thighs, your fingers and toes curling into the mattress as the pleasure builds.

"He making you feel good, baby?" Joel asks his voice tense. His hands are in loose fists at his sides. Even with your eyes closed you can feel him staring at your face. Conrad isn’t even on his radar.

"Mhmm," you answer languidly, hissing slightly when Conrad begins to suck your clit into his mouth. “So good.”

"Better than me?"

Your eyes dart over to Joel and you can see that he regrets it the minute it escapes from him in the flush of his cheeks. An inner thought that snuck its way out between his full lips. Shame that he's shown his insecurity in this room as a younger man desperately sucks and licks your cunt. Humiliation that Joel needs to be the one who makes you feel the best.

Your desire for Joel is overflowing at this point, making your arms reach for him without thought even as Conrad works his mouth against your cunt.

"Want you to do it," you murmur.

Joel's eyes immediately brighten but he tries to subdue his glee. He rocks forth on his heels before stopping himself, giving a quick glance at Conrad between your thighs.

"Nah, honey,” he says shaking his head. "You enjoy yourself. I like seeing my girl feel good."

His girl.

The amount of possessiveness Joel has shown over you tonight is dizzying. It hits you everywhere – your chest, between your legs, your heart. It makes your desire for him capitulate further.

Conrad is so busy between your legs he doesn't even hear the conversation going on between the two of you. He wears your thighs like earrings, his tongue swirling against your clit. He’s good at this, but nowhere near as good as Joel.

"Joel," you croak reaching for him again.

"What is it, baby?"

"It needs to be you," you whimper, hand still outstretched. "Please.”

Joel wastes no time in crossing back over to the bed where he shoves Conrad out of the way roughly with his foot. Conrad tumbles over and can only look on helplessly as Joel spreads your legs over his shoulders and you arch into his mouth. Its only seconds of his masterful touch before you’re shattering around him.

"Mhmm," Joel hums, suckling your clit. "So goddam easy."

"Daddy," you groan as you arch up off the bed. Joel makes a growling noise from between your thighs, tongue penetrating you, lapping up your release as you crest again and again for him, nearly sobbing with the pleasure that runs the length of your body.

Conrad is livid, his normally handsome face contorted into a barely suppressed rage. If he was the type of man to fight you have no doubt he and Joel would be in the middle of a wrestling match. Finally you give one last keen and Joel crawls the length of your body, pressing shiny kisses of arousal all over your body like a debauched trail along your skin. He slides up behind you, wrapping you in his arms as you nuzzle up against him.

“Go to Ibiza, Conrad,” you tell your boyfriend. “Have fun. We’re done.”

“Honey-“ Joel starts, concern written all over his face. But Conrad is irate, his body twitching almost violently.

“Wait, you’re picking this old fuck over me?” Conrad breathes as if he can’t believe what’s happening. His hair is mussed from his time between your thighs and his face is still slick with your arousal. “Some broke carpenter?”

“Yes,” you say without hesitation. “I pick Joel. I’ll always pick Joel.”

You feel Joel’s hand come to squeeze your shoulder gently. You don’t dare look at him for fear that you might start crying.

“And he’s not an old, broke carpenter,” you tell Conrad. “He’s sweet and he’s smart and he’s the best sex I’ve ever had.”

That hits Conrad where it hurts. His eyes dart between you and Joel looking dreamily at one another.

"You're a fucking whore," Conrad seethes.

“Watch it,” Joel warns, going from sweet to serious within a heartbeat. You see the narrowing of his eyes and the squaring of his jaw. It shouldn’t make you wet to see him like this but it does.

"Can't wait to tell Sarah what her best friend and dad are getting up to,” Conrad jeers. “You think she’ll enjoy that? Knowing her best friend is fucking her married father?"

Joel seems to break from his cloud of lust at the sudden mention of his daughter. As if only now he's realizing how terrible things could go. He jerks back from you with terror in his features. He looks to you, confused when you just laugh at Conrad. You laugh so loud and so long that both men just stare at you, transfixed.

Finally you sit up, glorious in your unabashed nakedness.

"Conrad, you tell anyone and I'll go right to the provost and tell him that you cheated that test," you say panting from the previous exertion and the laughter. "I'll tell him how you paid that kid to take your MCAT. Then I'll call your parents parents and tell them about it. And then I'll tell the local newspaper because my parents have friends in high places too, Conrad. I’ll ruin your fucking life if I hear one whisper about me and Joel. A whisper, Conrad."

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

Conrad knows he's fucked. His entire future would be over. His medical school acceptance, his future as the next doctor in his family, the expectations of generations all coming to a halt with him. His lips are white and twisted with rage as he stares at your smirking face. You reach between you and Joel’s body to grab Joel’s hard cock in your hand, giving Conrad a deadly stare as you begin to jerk him off.

"Now leave so I can ride my Daddy’s cock.”

You begin to stroke Joel, your eyes on his handsome face as he stares at you in wonder. His cock twitches in your slick grip, his hips jutting forth into your palm as if he’s hypnotized. He looks like he’s amazed by you.

“Wanna make you come, Mister Miller,” you purr at Joel, turning your back to Conrad and climbing onto Joel’s lap.

“Gonna make me feel good, baby?” Joel asks even though he already knows the answer.

Conrad says nothing more but he does toss the key to your room down angrily to the floor before slamming the door behind him. The second the door is closed Joel’s smile spreads across his face and he slips you onto your back beneath him, pinning you.

"Fucking magnificent," he tells you with a bruising kiss to your swollen lips. “How… Was that the plan the whole time?”

“No,” you laugh shakily. “I can’t… I can’t believe I did that, actually.”

Joel’s smile stretches before snapping back like a rubber band. You watch in confusion as he suddenly sobers, his cock sliding from you as he pulls back, rolling from you and onto his back next to you on the bed. You twist to look at him, tilting onto your side with your hand going to his sternum.

“Are you okay?”

“I can’t believe we did that,” he says in an awed voice. “I… I didn’t even think about the consequences. I fucked you in front of that boy without a thought about my marriage, about Sarah...”

“I know,” you nod, face flaming. You still can’t believe you did that either. Joel’s dark eyes are on your face as he presses his lips together anxiously.

“We’re trouble when we’re together.”

Trouble. That doesn’t feel like the right word. Powerful does. You feel powerful with Joel. You feel safe with Joel. Trouble doesn’t factor into it. But perhaps reckless does.

But there’s something else, something sweet and safe and hidden behind your rib cage. A feeling for Joel that goes beyond lust.

“You broke things off with that boy,” Joel says sharply, as if he’s just realizing what’s gone on in the last hour. “You had a future with that boy.”

“I didn’t,” you say shaking your head. “Conrad wasn’t right for me.”

“He’s your age, he’s rich, he loves you.”

“He’s my age, his parents are rich and he loves himself,” you correct with a soft laugh. “I thought I wanted Conrad for the longest time but, you showed me what’s out there. And I want it. Even if it’s not with you Joel, I want more.”

Joel survey’s the tremble in your chin, the emotion in your eyes as you blink back tears.

“I wish…” you trail off, so many thoughts popping into your head at once.

You wish Joel was younger or that you were older. You wish he wasn’t Sarah’s dad. You wish that he wasn’t married. But not once do you wish you’d never met him. Not once do you wish for anyone else.

Joel strokes along your arm gently with his fingertips, looking deep in thought before speaking suddenly.

"Sarah thinks you're with Conrad in Ibiza this week right?"

"Yeah."

"So come stay with me."

"What?"

"I'll extend my stay at the hotel for a few days," Joel suggests almost shyly. “We give ourselves this week together. Maybe we can get whatever this is out of our system and then we part as friends. It’s the only solution I can think of.”

An entire week with Joel where you don’t have to sneak around? Sleeping with him, eating with him, just being with him? The very thought has you in a tizzy, your heart pounding as you sit up in the bed.

“Are you serious?”

"Only if you want,” Joel says looking suddenly nervous, as if he’s concerned this idea is too spontaneous. “No pressure or anythin’."

You can't stop yourself from launching yourself into his arms pressing frantic kisses to his waiting mouth. His cock, still hard rasps against your belly but you ignore it in favor of a longing kiss before pulling back.

"Yes, of course I want to!"

"Well alright then," Joel says smiling shyly. "Your bag’s already packed so let’s go."

“It’s packed for Ibiza,” you tell him with a roll of your eyes as you move from his arms and off the bed. Men, honestly.

You begin to throw things into a duffel, things you’ll need for a few days at the hotel. Joel watches all of this propped on one arm, his eyes dreamily following your naked form as you hurriedly shove items into the bag. Your eyes suddenly blow wide and you drop the bag at your feet.

“I just realized you never came!” you exclaim with such earnestness that Joel laughs. It’s a rich, warm sound that has you grinning in response.

“Plenty of time for that,” he promises you.

“Well, I need a shower before we go,” you say, holding a hand out to him and urging him to a stand. “What do you say we get clean and dirty at the same time?”

Joel chuckles again, gripping the back of your thighs and hoisting you over his shoulder. He gives your bare ass a slap before he carts you off the shower where he fucks you with intensity against the slick tile, murmuring absolute filth in your ears before coming.

When you both are finally washed and dressed and your suitcase is in your hand you smile up at Joel to find him looking nervously at you. It makes you raise a brow in his direction quizzically, finding yourself melting when he pushes a strand of hair behind your ear.

"You’re allowed to change your mind."

"I'm not gonna change my mind," you promise him, taking his hand in yours. “I want this, Joel.”

His smile is so warm it would rival the sun.

“Me too.”

taglist (my first time doin' em here I hope it works)

@oldenoughtoknowbettersstuff @southernbe @katiexpunk @ashleyfilm @sptbear @604to647 @lovelvyxxx @joeldjarin @bluemusickid @magpiepills @mermaidgirl30 @getitoutofmymind

(LEMME KNOW IF YOU WANNA BE ADDED TO THE TAGLIST)

#Please Mr. Miller?#joel miller fanfiction #joel miller smut #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller #dad joel miller #pedro pascal #smut #fanfic #fanfiction #joel x reader #joel the last of us #joel miller x f!reader #joel tlou #joel fanfic #filthy smut #Best friends dad

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applejuicebegood · 2 months

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HELLO!!! It is I! I’ve been thinking… if you’d be able to do an Irish!fem!reader who has all these Irish dancing trophies and the little dresses and shoes from when she was small, cuz I still do 😭, and reader gets so embarrassed because she can’t do it anymore and the boys insist on doing the walls of limerick with her!!!! Thank you!!!!

Platonic!141 x Reader - Sweet Music

Fem!Reader

A/N: OK, I am actually so fucking sorry this took forever. I was caught up with mock exams but they are over! And I shall be writing more! I had alot of fun writing this even tho I didn't do ur ask justice. I really hope that you enjoy it tho Teddy! Thank you for being the actual best and being so patient and kind! Masterlist

Cw: Brief mentions of alcohol, Reader has a dog Word Count: 1624

Kyle ‘Gaz’ Garrick

‘You got the last box?’

‘Yea.. yes! Don’t worry’ You struggled to grip the dusty cardboard against your body, your foot catching your ankle on the last step of the attic later. Earlier that day, you had asked Kyle to help with the daunting task of breaking open your sealed off attic and clearing it for storage of your military gear. Getting rid of whatever your mother had decided what was best to collect and hoard before she left. You both were able to clear out the majority of the space that afternoon, choking on the kicked up dust and cobwebs. You had piled the boxes in your living room, circling your couch and chairs. You dog, Jax, strutted around the constructed towers, cautiously bending his head to sniff the stale cardboard. As you huffed the final box atop a stack that was starting to bleed into your kitchen, both you and Gaz admired your efforts with your hands resting on your hips. ‘You wanna crack em’ open?’ ‘Let me get the wine first’ You could hear Kyle snicker behind you as you made your way to the kitchen. Returning with two glasses and one of your more expensive bottles of chilled red in hand, you settled yourself on the carpeted floor. Your head resting against the seated cushion of the couch. You handed Gaz the bottles and glasses and in trade he handed you a box cutter. The echo of the wine filling the glasses was drowned by the blade of your knife ripping through the packaging tape lining the top of the box settled in front of you. Gaz did the same with a pair of kitchen scissors. You took a generous swig of your glass before diving your hands into the brown packing paper. Jax had settled his head on Kyle’s thighs, watching him unwrap a picture frame, starting a pile of garbage packing paper to be burned in your wood stove. ‘Oh-hoo.. What’s this?’ You lifted your head from the unwrapped shot-glasses to see that Gaz held a small rusted golden plaque in his hands. Your name scrawled in chipped cursive across the bottom of the frame. ‘Holy, haven’t seen that in forever. This must be my old dancing stuff’ ‘Wha- you did dance?’ ‘Surprised are you? Mom signed me up for it to get me outta the house.. I only continued with it cause’ Nan wanted me to get closer to my “gaelic roots” as she put it’

You scooted over to sit next to him, your hand instinctively finding Jax’s ears to scratch behind. You reached into the box and pulled out a bound pile of plaid. Undoing the twine, you unfolded a deep green plaid skirt, the seam stitched golden by your grandmother's hand. You ran your fingers down the trailing glint, it was as if you could feel your grandmother's touch holding down the fabric as she delicately thred it through her sewing machine. You could hear her sighs and coo’s of approval as you stumbled out of your bedroom, wearing the skirt for the first time. ‘So! Keep or give away?’ Kyle said before taking a swig of his own wine. He pulled another box closer to him, a small cloud of dust kicking up from his scissors gilding across the cardboard.

‘Keep for now, might get rid of the trophies but I can gives the dresses to Emi’ ‘She’d really like that’ Kyle said smiling back at you, his rich chocolate eyes highlighted in the early evening sun. You held the small dress close to your chest for a moment before setting it beside you, in the now ‘keep’ pile.

Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley

You could feel the cold of the metal seat through the lining of your tactical pants. The weight of your combat vest held you down against the bench. It was cold, the air thick with the smell of gasoline and salt. The warm brush of your lieutenant's arm against the side of yours was the only thing reminding you that there would be a bed and a warm meal to hopefully return too after this mission. It was just you and Simon on the installed benches in the transport plane, the rest of the squad just offloading moments before. ‘Leave is com’in up.. plans?’ Simon's thick, graveled baritone cut through your coms, bringing you back into the familiar state of heightened awareness.

‘Oh.. umm.. Just gunna head back home.. Emi has a dance recital ‘week before Christmas and Mari wants me to drive her north for a weekend with her girlfriend, I told her no but she’s been begging me over the phone so-’ ‘Friends?’ Simon asked, looking over at you. You glanced up at his eyes, darkened and blood-shot. The deep onset of the pale skull mask making them appear blended into the dirtied black fabric of the hood. ‘No.. my sisters, I thought I told you- hold on’ You smiled as you reached around and dug out from a small back pocket in your vest a chipped golden photo case. Excitement brewed within you at the chance to discuss your little family. Clicking it open and holding it up for Simon, he held it between his large gloved fingers. You focused back on his eyes, watching as they looked over the photos set into the sides of the case. The first being a blurred still of Mari holding your infant sister a few days after she was born. You were able to catch her mid laugh, her smile drawn tight, deepening her dimpled cheeks. Emi was swaddled in her lap, her soft chubby cheeks poking out from the quilted blanket she was wrapped in. The second photo was an old-black and white still of your grandmother when she was younger, her hair swooped elegantly over her forehead. It was the same photo that was kept in your grandfather's wallet, given to you after he passed. Behind it was a small swath of deep green plaid fabric. Simon ran his thumb over the black crossing lines, looking back to you with confusion. ‘Oh.. that umm.. Was a piece of one of my dancing dresses.. Nan made them for me and.. I don’t know, keeping it with me is a sort of reminder I guess’ You say taking the golden frame back from him, shutting it with a click. You rubbed your thumb over the scratches and dents in the metal, a testament to the many trips the case took with you throughout your multiple deployments and missions. ‘Dancing?’ ‘Ha… yea.. Mom umm.. She had me do it throughout primary’ ‘I.. wasn’t expecting that..’ Simon mumbles, shifting on the metal bench. ‘What? Do I not look like a child dance prodigy?’ You say, nudging his arm with your elbow. ‘No just… god.. cannot picture you.. I mean-’ You tried to hold back the ripple of amusement from your lips, watching the metaphorical gears turn in Simon's head. He quickly glanced back at you, confirming your clear enjoyment in his confusion. You leaned your head back against the metal wall, thumbing the photo case before tucking it back into the pocket of your vest. It was within these small moments of reprieve from tactical expectations that you wished you could put Simon, and the rest of your team's photo within the case alongside your sisters.

John ‘Soap’ MacTavish

‘Johnny! Food’s here!’ You call up from your living room, placing the hot paper bags on the low coffee table. You expected to hear his harsh footsteps down the creaking wooden stairs. Yet, only the sound of the dimmed slow piano crackling from your record player and the high-pitched thrum of late evening summer crickets filled the air. ‘Johnny!’ You shouted, unpacking the food. ‘Where..? God..’ You groaned, looking towards the hallway stairwell. You trudged up the stairs, two at a time. Your feet bouncing down the carpeted hallway, the dark glow of the evening sunset casting a dim glow from the hallway window. ‘John..?’ You said, poking your head into one of the spare bedrooms. ‘In here!’ Relief broke in your chest like the shell of an egg as you heard your sergeant's rough voice from your bedroom. You hadn’t been able to yet undo the familiar anxiety that comes with the lack of response from your teammates, an anxiety bred from being their stand-by medic.

You pushed open your bedroom door, the hinges squeaking. You had stopped using this room as yours a long time ago. It was now more a storage shed for your sister's old clothes and your military gear. You found John standing by an old dresser, dusty plaques and trophies covering the top of the mahogany wood. You watched as John held one of the frames in his large scarred hand. ‘What did ya find?’ You ask, standing by his shoulder while stuffing your hands in your pockets. ‘You should've told me you did dance’ He said, placing the frame back down. The picture he was looking at was an old, sunbleached still of you as a child, standing in a plaid dress next to your grandmother who was holding your then infant sister. Your smile held a few dark spots as you had just started losing your baby teeth.

‘Why’s that?’ You say, picking up another photo, you used the sleeve of your sweater to rub the dust from the shiny metal frame. ‘Well because my gran’ forced me into it too’ ‘Shut up’ You say, placing the cleaned frame back down with a thump. ‘Im serious, once we fly up with Roach, me’ sister’ll show you the photos’ ‘That is.. I never would have guessed’ ‘Can say the same thing for you Bonnie’

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dearmrsawyer · 6 months

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my GARDEN is DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It took 2 years but we made it 🎉🎉🎉 its life story under the cut

last year i dug up all the roses that the previous owners of this house had planted in this space. I HATE ROSE PLANTS. They're VERMIN. It took me a year (interrupted by la niña) to finally get them all out because i had to dig so far down to remove as much root system as i could. i learned that after the first attempt at removing them, where they all simply grew back because i left too many roots in tact 🙃 due to continued la niña last summer i wasn't able to get the space all the way ready so i spent autumn weeding everything that grew in the rain, digging about a foot into the ground to remove as much old dirt (and more roots) as i could, and tidying up everything we'd dumped there while the space was disused. I had pictures of that stage in the process but i can't find them, just know it looked like a garbage dump hahaha. i got all that done right as the temperature started to drop so i laid out a bunch of tarps to minimise the number of weeds that would grow back over winter and waited.

and then! SPRING. I ordered the soil back in September, 8 cubic metres of it which was definitely more than i needed sdkjlgfdkj but how am i supposed to know what a cubic metre is 😅 i was SO excited when it arrived (first photo), quickly followed by 'oh god i need to move all of this myself.' thankfully we had great weather in september so i could use every free moment i had for two weeks shoveling it into our wheelbarrow and then wheeling it down to tip into the garden area (the conclusion of my work in photo 2 lol). It was only at that point that i was like oh boy okay i REALLY have too much soil here. i filled up every single pot i could find and i added some more dirt to to our citrus tree garden in the courtyard since the existing soil had settled by that point and could use a top up. it still felt like way more than i had planned to buy BUT i thought you know what would be good, i could create tiers to organise the vegetables by how deep their roots grow! i laid down a couple of layers of newspaper to deter anything from the existing dirt growing up into my new soil and then started flattening it out. when we first moved in here there was a tonne of random building material around that the previous owners left behind, and we never got rid of it because we figured a purpose would eventually arise. and my garden was it. i collected all the cement blocks and bricks down the side/behind the house, plus the random lattices that had been piled up where our yard meets the neighbour's, and a scrap of fence leftover from the one we put alongside our driveway last year. There were also heaps of random planks of wood, and some logs from a tree that we trimmed earlier in the year. and i used ALL of it (picture three).

Then a couple of weeks ago i finally got to plant my seeds :D (final product, final photo) the tall section up the back is for the deep root veges, so i've planted pumpkin and cucumber there. in the middle i've planted zucchini, cabbage, cauliflower, silverbeet, radish and green beans. and the shallowest area down the bottom has beetroot, celery, lettuce, broccoli and snow peas. also a passionfruit plant in the corner :) i've also scattered flower seeds all over as i've read that it helps to attract pollinators/insects that will eat other insects that want to eat my vegetables. i've put a couple of flowering herbs into pots down there too, and i marked where i planted everything with sticks so i can remember dskfdklj also i drew myself a map.

i'm so thrilled with it :') its such a good space and now it will be useful! there's a good chance some of my seeds won't sprout as they're a couple of years old, but some of them are new and anyway i don't care, whatever grows will grow and whatever doesn't i'll try again in autumn. its just so exciting to have a garden to tend again, i know that i need to be able to just put my hands in dirt sometimes, it is a very helpful outlet, and also will maybe save us grocery money \o/

#i love staring at it through the lounge room window #i go and stand there everyday and just look at it lol #im so proud of it and so excited its finally come together!!!#its feel so good to see a vision realised #tp

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jello-bbq · 1 year

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Near Death, Again

(Platonic! Tsu'tey x Avatar! Reader) (Platonic! Jake x Avatar! Reader)

Unwitting people find themselves sharing a fondness for the dreamwalker child. Mystery surrounds their injuries and the sleep from which they have not woken. (2.3k)

I am pulling this straight out of the garbage pile and making it all up. Does anyone actually like this. Also forget to mention that reader is like, 17-ish? To me at least, imagine them however you want. Blood and injury tw.

"I told you not to push too much, we could lose it! It could die!"

"What do you care!?"

"I spent millions of dollars on that little investment at least be fucking delicate!"

A small room, barely enough to sit in. The yelling reverberated over the concrete walls, unheard by the child who kept their hands over their ears. Even so, there could be no silence.

They felt as if every thought had a voice, and among the thousands that swarmed their head, each screamed at full volume. Suffocating. It felt suffocating.

The metal door creaked open, washing the small space with light and revealing the massacre. The source of the argument.

Blood spewed from the child's ears. From their mouth. From their eyes, unseeing as the red filled their vision.

"Look at it! It's bleeding everywhere, are you even sure it will survive the night?"

The child remained oblivious. Or maybe the thoughts just left no space for anything else to be recognized.

"Ma'am, I can assure you that it will survive. We've done a lot more brutal things-"

"Brutal! Do you think I swat a fly and call it brutality? I'm talking about it's survival, I have spent too much on this for it to fail. Don't push it."

"Well, fix it so it won't fail or don't push it? With all due respect, it's one or the other so just how much do you want this to succeed?"

The door shut again, enclosing the flood of crimson.

Barely a second is taken to consider the words. "Fine, fix it." Those final words rang through the air as the sound of footsteps fell away.

It would be hours before anyone would open the door again. Dragging the small, unconscious body, almost indiscernible with the blood wrapping it in different shades of red.

"How's it doing?"

"Still breathing, sir."

"Good, take it away."

After only a day of rest, they were taken again into the lab and ended up with the same fate. Bleeding onto the tiles with no space in their head to even feel hurt.

To that child, screams were not abnormal. In fact, more concern rose when there were no screams. How could there not be in a place so intent on practicing cruelty?

The sounds didn't bother them. That's all they were. Sounds. Ones they couldn't even connect to faces. The company took enough measures to ensure that but perhaps left the children in close enough quarters that the screams would serve to keep them in line. Who knows.

They certainly didn't. Why would they waste time thinking about such things when they could barely think for themselves?

Two sharp knocks on the door. The squeak of the metal flap. The slide of the tray against the tile. Those were the only sounds they cared for.

They stood from the cramped bed, which had barely been enough as a child. Even more so as they grew older. But that night, as they squeezed dry the plastic containing the same tasteless paste that had been served for years, the screaming suddenly sounded different.

It took a moment to realize why. These were not screams of children.

That night the sounds stopped. No knocks on the door. No tray of questionable food sliding in. No screams.

It didn't take long to realize what happened. They were abandoned. The screams that night had been of worry. And if they thought hard enough, they could remember some of the words.

'Found us', 'hide', 'leave those to die'.

Of course, 'those' pertained to them.

And to however many kids sat in locked cells in that long hallway.

Kids raised in the bunker alongside them. Bred in little tubes and nourished into willing war machines. Or they would have been, if the scientists could only get their experiments right.

They couldn't remember how long it took. How long they laid on that cold tile floor wishing that they were bleeding out instead of starving.

Then, the door creaked open.

They were pulled out of the cramped room that held their life. A gloved hand tugging at their arm harshly. Lights shining at their face. Blurred figures. The ever so present smell of blood. The ache of walking after being still for so long. The wish to be carried which couldn't be voiced.

Those were the things they could remember, nothing else. Not how they got to the RDA. Not how many children there were in the truck that brought them over. Not even how they ended up in a soft bed that didn't stink of blood.

The reason for it all?

The experiment program had been leaked. This resulted in the sudden abandonment. Someone in the bunker grew a conscience and spread it to the public, which caused outrage.

The rest ran before they could be caught. The whistleblower died for the crime of seeking justice. And the government had fucked up enough that they only found the bunker three days later.

Many of the younger children were dead by then.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

When they awoke, they didn't relish the soft bed. They instead felt the absence of blood, and it made theirs run cold.

The only explanation they could think of for the lack of the sharp smell was that it had yet to be introduced. And with them being the only one in the room, it could only be their blood that would end up spilt.

That thinking brought them to a situation. A knee on the back of a man's neck. His arms held tight in their shaking hands.

"Everything's okay, you're okay. You're fine." The man tried to be soothing, his voice sounding weird as half his face remained closely acquainted with the floor.

The tone only set off more alarms in their head, their knee coming down harsher. "Quiet."

The man didn't listen. "They're gone. Those scumbags that did all that to you and those kids, they're locked up. You're not in that bunker anymore."

"Quiet," they repeated.

The door slid open. They took advantage of the person's surprise and ran for it, not thinking of anything as they wove through the halls.

The experiments had come through, doing the work for them so they need not think for themselves.

But a failed test subject, barefoot and in a new environment, could only get so far.

They were back in the room in thirty minutes, proud at least of the injuries it took to get them back there.

The window wouldn't break. They tried it the moment the door shut. So they settled for hiding under the bed, a fallacy on their part as they couldn't run for the door fast enough when it opened.

"Kiddo?"

A man entered, the same one they pinned down the first time. They could only see the lower half of his legs, but they could tell he looked around the room before crouching.

They had half a mind to lunge at him then when he offered a smile. "Hey, no hard feelings about earlier. I get that you're scared and that's understandable." He only smiled brighter when they glared, furthering their confusion.

"I'll just-" he moved back, sitting against the wall opposite the bed. "I'll stay here if you don't mind."

They thought that was it, and went back to reviewing the building's blurry layout that they somehow pieced together from the brief stint outside.

"What's your name?"

No reply.

"How old are you?"

Silence.

The man sighed. He moved, they assumed to get up and get out but he instead lay down on his side, catching their eye. "Hi. My name's Tommy."

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

"They're gonna get through this," Jake told no one in particular, eating dinner alone in the empty cafeteria. He repeated that over and over in his head.

Sometimes it felt like the only thing he could think. Even though his lessons with Neytiri continued, he always found his way back to that one thought.

It felt bad enough not knowing anything. But not having anything to say felt worse.

He had to keep telling Neytiri that he didn't know why they weren't waking up.

Nobody knew why. Not the medical doctors. Or the science doctors. Or anyone.

He didn't understand. Especially when he wheeled himself over to their room. They looked fine. Like he could shake them awake.

"You're gonna wake up, right kid?"

They didn't answer him except with more of the same, uniform breathing.

Jake hated it at first. It reminded him of his days in the VA. Unable to do anything but listen to patients beside him who had it much worse. But now he realized that it at least meant they were alive. And he would take that over nothing.

He took the yogurt cup from his otherwise empty tray, placing it in the fridge, beside the others he'd saved up with every meal.

"You have to wake up."

He fell asleep in that room just like he did the three nights before, sitting by their bedside holding their hand.

°•°••°•°••°•°

Tsu'tey did much of the same. Though he himself needed to rest, he insisted on watching over their body. He knew that should they wake, it would be in their other body first but he snuck off to their tent anyway just in case.

So much so that the healers placed his bed in their tent, if only to no longer deal with coaxing him back to his tent whenever he went to theirs. Which was often.

He no longer joined the morning hunt. Or hunted at all. Spending all his time beside them instead.

"No changes?"

Someone pulled back the tent flap, allowing him a brief view of the outside. When did night fall?

"Nothing."

Zeyko nodded and began unwrapping the bandages as she did every night, changing them out for new ones.

She worked carefully.

As each layer slowly unraveled, her touch grew softer. Almost feather-like near their skin, as if one wrong move and they would break.

He never talked to Zeyko before the accident. Nothing that would count as a conversation anyway. Nods of acknowledgement, gestures of greeting, a grunt or two whenever she'd have to patch him up.

They were too different, and so they held a silent agreement. To not step over the line, to fulfill separate duties, to act with the barest friendliness only if needed but to not be friends.

An agreement that Tsu'tey had with many as he kept all at arm's length.

But now the two held a new agreement. Nothing that asked anything of either of them. Just an agreement. Unspoken, perhaps even unheard.

Both cared for the dreamwalker.

°•°••°•°••°•°••°•°

The dreamwalker in question could not have had a more fitting name. They were stuck in dreams. Walking amongst figments of imagination. Talking with memories. Walking. Walking. Walking.

Time didn't exist wherever they were, at least not in the binding way it did elsewhere.

They walked and walked. Never feeling tired. Never in the same place. Through memories that weren't theirs. And pasts that had occurred long before them.

"Why are you here, child?"

They didn't understand. It felt exactly like when their head couldn't keep up. A fuzzy feeling, like mold growing in their brain. The words began to make sense separately, slowly, understanding forming in the back of their mind as they continued walking.

Each step wakened them. Like their consciousness had spilled all over and now it had begun to creep back into the crevices of their being.

Again, they were asked. "What are you here for?"

They couldn't answer. But the question had them realizing they were running now, and all at once their thoughts came rushing back.

"What?"

Nothing.

For a second they feared they had imagined it.

"So you have awoken, you were in quite the deep sleep."

"Yes," they murmured, looking around. A forest. "Yes, I suppose I was."

They blinked, and they were in the mountains, floating over the trees.

"Where am I?"

"You are with me. You are safe."

Even without asking, a name tugged at their mind. They were in the forest again.

"Why am I here?"

"To learn, perhaps. You are an interesting one." They blinked again, opening their eyes to a river. "The path you have chosen, it will be hard."

"I haven't chosen any path." Another mountaintop.

The faceless voice smiled, they knew this in the way one knows things in dreams. A feeling, more than a thought or deduction. "You have chosen, stepping into danger for one of mine. He would have been welcomed home otherwise."

The world began to crumble, flickering like a light. The voice kept going, strangely calming, even as they began to fall. "You and Jake Sully, yes I think we can find a use for you. I will help you."

They fell continuously, knowing this even while hearing and feeling nothing. They were falling through the inky black.

It felt nice. Like laying in the sand and letting waves lap at your body.

The feeling was strange. They knew it didn't belong. Not with them.

This thought tugged at them. A rope tied around their waist, guiding their fall somewhere. As it did, they began to feel more things tugging at them. More and more. Until they were shooting through the ink.

The dark began to lift gradually.

Their eyes blinked open. All memory of what just happened began to fade. Like a word you know but cannot remember.

They blinked again, taking in their surroundings. A hospital room. Nighttime. Something beeping. They tried to stand, limbs moving in slow motion. They didn't realize their hand slipping from someone else's. Though they felt the warmth, brows furrowing as they wiggled their fingers.

It felt strange. Like they were in that moment between dreaming and awake. Everything felt strange.

Another movement caught their eye. A movement they couldn't control.

"Tommy?"

#avatar #jake x reader #tsu'tey x reader #james cameron avatar #dad Tsu'tey #i have no idea where this is going #avatar reader #Omaticaya #omatikaya #avatar x reader #avatar fanfiction #blood tw #injury tw #oNLY PLATONIC/FAMILIAL FEELS NOTHING ELSE

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sisterspooky1013 · 1 year

Text

How to Feel

Rated T | 1942 words | Read it here on AO3

CW for mention of suicidal ideation

Mulder sighs and rolls to his side, resting his cheek against the worn fabric of the couch cushion. It smells like sweat and mildew, and a little like his own unwashed ass. It smells like failure, which is fitting.

His eyes slowly drag around the remains of their home—the skeleton of a life they worked so hard to build. There are unnatural looking blank spaces all over the place, glaring at him like missing front teeth. Her favorite oversized armchair, that stupid little magazine rack she fell in love with at the flea market, a bucket whose sole purpose was to house umbrellas. Useless things. Unnecessary things. Things he never expected to miss.

Does he miss them? He notices their absence. They remind him that she is no longer here. That she won’t walk through the door at half-past six and drop her bag on the side table—which is also now gone—with a weary sigh. She won’t give him a disappointed glance as she goes to the kitchen to make herself dinner and then eats it in silence—alone—at the table. He hadn’t realized the way that her comings and goings marked the passing of time in his days until she was gone, and it all started to run together like the red T-shirt he put in with the whites.

He also notices that the laundry has begun to pile up.

“Do you even miss me?” she’d asked on the phone last week, her voice warbled with tears and hurt. Or it may have been yesterday, it’s hard to say. She’s not here to mark the passing of time for him anymore.

“Of course,” he’d said flatly, and the lurch of her wracking sob made him cringe.

He wishes he knew the right things to say, but it seems clear that in order to say the right things, he needs to feel the right things. He needs to feel guilty for the ways that he failed her. He needs to miss her so acutely that he finds the motivation to do the laundry and wash his ass. Once, he chartered a plane to Antarctica off nothing but a set of coordinates and the overwhelming desire to find out how her kiss tastes. More recently, she asked him to take the garbage out and he groaned as though she’d shot him (again). She took the garbage out herself.

He heaves himself up into a sitting position and feels the blood drain from his head. He stays like that for an indiscernible amount of time, staring at a perfectly circular clean spot on an otherwise dusty bookshelf. He tries to remember what was there before, what left the blank space. A vase, perhaps. Scully liked vases, especially when he filled them with flowers. It’s been a while since he did that. Years, probably.

It bothers him that he can’t remember. Every evening they’d sit here, watching TV or reading. Sometimes she’d slip her feet into his lap and nudge his balls with her heel, her own little subtle Scully come-on. More than a handful of times they made love right on the couch, too caught up to move to the bedroom. Hundreds of times he’s looked at that shelf, but he cannot for the life of him remember what used to live there.

“I’m not happy, Mulder.”

He’d turned his head slowly to look at her, his reaction lethargic. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, and he’d found himself surprised by her state. He wanted to ask her what happened, but then he realized that what happened was him.

“I’m sorry,” he’d uttered uselessly, feeling like an emotionally stunted tin man.

And he was. He is. He’s very, very sorry. But being sorry isn’t a feeling, it turns out. All you have to do in order to be sorry is to wish that things were different, which he does. He wishes he were different. He’s wished that for most of his life, save for one heavenly slice of time where someone who he loved beyond words or measure loved him back exactly as he is. Or was, anyway.

With a grunt, he launches himself up off the couch and plods over to the bookshelf. The blank circle is about five inches in diameter, flanked by his Star Trek DVDs and a framed picture of Samantha. It bothers him, makes him feel crazy, because there is an accompanying blank spot in his head where the information should be.

He feels annoyed. That’s something.

There was a space of time where he felt everything, to the point of overwhelm. He was despondent, agonized, miserable in a way that made him realize that every prior experience of “sad” was anodyne by comparison. He seriously considered whether continuing to be alive was the right choice for him. At that point, Scully was the only reason he had to keep going. It was the overpowering desire to avoid hurting her in a way she could never recover from that kept him waking up each day, kept him trying to make things better. And then one day, he didn’t feel so sad anymore. This would have been a good thing, except in addition to not feeling sad, he didn’t feel happy. He didn’t feel anything. He still doesn’t, not that he hasn’t tried.

It’s a bit like trying your hand at telekinesis, which he’s done an embarrassingly large number of times. You stare at the item, willing it with every fiber of your being to move. You realize that you’re not sure what you’re supposed to be engaging: what sense, or system, or muscle does one activate in order to move objects with their mind? You stare harder and harder, begging it to move, but it won’t. It can’t. You can’t make it, no matter how badly you want it to.

When she left, it was like a dream. He watched from the sidelines as she loaded the last of her things into her car and turned back to look at him one final time. He wanted to scream, to slap himself so he’d snap out of this trance and stop the only good thing that ever happened to him from walking out of his life. But his shoes were full of concrete and his hands made of lead, and he couldn’t bring himself to move.

“Drive carefully,” he’d offered, and then watched as the final spark of hope extinguished from her eyes.

He grabs the cordless phone off the cradle and returns to the couch, settling back into the well-worn indent his body has molded into the cushions. He dials her number and closes his eyes, pretending that she’s just out running errands and the house isn’t full of blank spots.

“Mulder?” she asks urgently upon answering, her voice full of concern. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he assures her casually. “I just wanted—are you busy?”

She heaves a sigh, the one that means she’s both relieved and irritated. It’s a special one born of necessity after they began working together.

“No,” she says, defeated. “What do you need?”

“What used to be on the bookshelf? Next to the picture of Samantha. I can’t remember and it’s driving me crazy.”

There’s a long silence filled with the crackle of her thoughts. It used to be his white noise, the sound he fell asleep to. He wonders if she’ll stay on the phone and let him listen to it if he asks nicely. He hasn’t slept well in a while.

“Are you eating, Mulder? Are you—” She clears her throat and takes a breath. “Are you taking care of yourself?”

He hasn’t eaten today. He can’t remember the last time he showered. Those things just don’t seem very important right now. Nothing does.

“Uh huh,” he says noncommittally.

Another crackling stretch. He yawns and burrows deeper into the cushions.

“I worry about you,” she whispers, like it’s a confession.

It hits his ear and slips down to the floor, disappearing between the drafty floorboards he never got around to fixing. He just can’t absorb it, can’t take it in. Her worry, her fear, her love. He’s impervious to it, which would be frustrating if that were an emotion he could access.

“I know,” he answers. “Do you remember what was on the bookshelf?”

He pictures her looking at her new bookshelf in her new place. He hasn’t been invited over and he has no idea what it’s like, so he just ends up picturing her in her apartment back in Georgetown. It makes him feel a little bit warm thinking of her there, curled up on her striped couch with a glass of wine.

“A coffee mug,” she says after a time. “Full of pebbles.”

“Oh,” he says, his eyebrows furrowing. “I forgot about that.”

“Yeah,” she says tightly. “I know.”

“Thanks,” he tells her. “It was gonna bug me all day.”

More crackles. He waits.

“It’s 11:00 pm, Mulder.”

She’s not here to mark the passing of time.

“I know. Sorry to wake you. Go back to sleep.”

He waits until she hangs up before he kills his end of the line. He does remember a little town with a winding river running through the middle of it. Maybe it was in Colorado, or Idaho. They sat on the bank of the river for hours, sipping from a drugstore bottle of whiskey and sorting the smooth, water-worn stones into little piles by color.

“I miss having a home,” she’d admitted as the sun began to slip behind the trees, slashing yellow stripes of light across the gently flowing water and her summer-freckled skin. She turned to look at him, seeking connection and comfort. Her vulnerability always felt like a secret that she trusted him to keep. He’d already met his daily quota for platitudes and empty expressions of optimism, so he just reached out and grabbed her hand. That seemed to be enough.

The next day, he was killing time in a gift shop that also served as the town’s laundromat, waiting for his jeans to dry, when he found a kitschy little mug that made him smile. He bought it for her and wrapped it in old newspapers, hiding it in the bottom of his bag until their final day in that particular town. She was always melancholy when it was time to go.

“Home is wherever I’m with you,” she read off the face of the mug, and by the time she lifted her head to look at him, tears were spilling out of her eyes.

She filled it with her favorite rocks from beside the river, the ones that reminded her of Missy and her mother. Some that she said reminded her of him. She hauled it around with her to countless other cities until she had a real home to display it in. It occupied the bookshelf until the day she realized that the home they’d found in each other had depreciated into a haunted house full of his ghosts.

Mulder thinks about the mug, about the blank spot on the shelf, and his chest becomes painfully tight. He thinks about how much she trusted him, right from the start, and how deeply he’s betrayed that trust. He thinks about the miracle of her love. The unlikely chance that he found her in the first place. And he feels so fucking awful, so guilty, so terrified that he’s ruined everything. His eyes burn and his throat closes up, and he sucks in a ragged breath. He feels so afraid that he’ll never get her back.

He feels.

It’s a start.

Tagging @today-in-fic

#the x files #x files fanfic #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #xf fanfic #x files #the x-files #xfiles

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wouldyoustilllovemeifiwasawyrm · 6 months

Text

Cleaning Up

Linktober 2023 Day 26: Overgrown This room, this castle, all of Hyrule, was her responsibility. She would dig through her own trash and find any treasures that remained. As for everything else, she would have it removed.

He’d been in this place dozens of times in this life. He blushed to imagine how often he had been here, standing on this floor, in his previous one. He wanted to imagine this room as it once was. Scraps of fabric hung from a broken bedframe, caved in by roofstones that fell through the canopy, crushing the mattress and scattering the feathers inside. He’d found little of value in this room before, other than a respite from the guidance sights of enemy Guardians. The books had long since deteriorated, only a handful of pages salvageable among the rot and decay. Animals had snuck in during the short peace following the last battle with the Calamity. Rats left chewings of fabric and paper all over the floor.

Link ran his hand across the old duvet, dulled in color and damp from morning dew. The embroidery and silken fabrics must have cost a fortune, not to mention the thick stuffing inside, which stuck to his skin through the rips in the cover. He wondered if he had felt it when it was clean, when the blues and reds were vibrant, when it was whole and dry and not so gray. He had some difficulty reconciling it—the decay with the beauty. Zelda’s bedroom must have once been beautiful.

His princess knelt on the floor, sifting through scraps of paper that had fallen. A lantern sat beside her, the flickering light making her task a little easier. Some legible writing remained on the sheets, though not much. She sorted them into piles. Those in the worst state, the most chewed, stained, or ink-bled, piled the highest.

When Zelda suggested that she return to her childhood home, Purah cautioned her against it. The damage was severe. Likely, little of what remained in her room would be salvageable. She would have to face the things that she loved falling into decay, and that might trouble her greatly. ”Send someone else to dig through all that, Your Highness.” Purah urged. ”Robbie and I could do it. I know where you kept your research notes.”

But Zelda wouldn’t have it. This room, this castle, all of Hyrule, was her responsibility. She would dig through her own trash and find any treasures that remained. As for everything else, she would have it removed.

Vines and moss crept up the sides of her tower, nature growing over what Hyrule had once claimed as her own. A drizzle of rain crept in through the gaping hole in the roof, sprinkling Link’s hood. Zelda, for now, remained on the dry side of the room. She muttered something under her breath, setting another scrap into the garbage pile.

Link didn’t know what he was here for, if he was being honest. He knew nothing about Sheikah tech. He would be no help in determining what was worthwhile to keep and what could be tossed away. If nothing else, he could set to work on clearing the space, sorting through furniture, and compiling that which could be carried out and burned. He picked up an armchair, the once-pink fabric stained with mold. Zelda might get sick from being too close to it.

“That belonged to my grandmother.” Zelda stated, not looking up from her sorting.

Link set the chair back down. “I was going to toss it. There’s mold in the cushion.”

“Hm.” Zelda hummed. She glanced up at the chair, then dropped her gaze to the papers. “Toss it then.”

As instructed, Link chucked it onto the remains of the bed. It sank the soaked mattress even further into the floor. Link winced when he heard a slat crack.

Next was the vanity. The mirror had seen better days, spotted with oxidation and partially warped across the glass. A few glass bottles rested on the surface, in various shapes and sizes. Glass bottles of many colors, shaped to resemble birds, flowers, or abstract twists of a glassblower’s prowess, were filled with some sort of liquid. Link picked up a bottle out of curiosity and unstopped it. A wave of sour scent assaulted his nose. He coughed, stopping the bottle back before his stomach inverted itself at the stench.

“Those perfumes are over a hundred years old, Link.” Zelda chided. “I don’t know what you expected.”

Link coughed again, fighting back a wretch. “Not sour milk! I thought maybe they would have, I don’t know, stopped smelling at all.”

Zelda shrugged, setting a scrap of paper into the keep pile. “Some probably have. I don’t remember what that one was made with. My father gave it to me when I turned fifteen.”

The king commissioned this? Link turned the bottle over in his hands. Based on the swirling, braided design of the green glass, he thought it might have once been a floral. Certainly not now. Those flowers had long since rotted. “It’s a pretty bottle.”

Zelda heaved a sigh (easy enough on the non-stinky side of the room). “I suppose.”

It reminded him a bit of the way some women braided dried herbs together. He’d tried that once. Clavia told him that tied herb bundles made soup better. He must not have done a very good job of tying them as the leaves quickly scattered in his soup. He pulled out as many wet, limp leaves as he could, and even still, they ended up in his final bowl. “It’s in pretty good condition. We could dump it and reuse the bottle.”

Zelda glanced up, her emerald eyes resting on the glass in his hand for a moment. Some emotion he couldn’t identify flashed across her face. She went back to sorting. “If you’d like. I’m sure it will make someone else happy.”

With her permission, Link gathered up all the bottles. He’d give them to Purah later. She could repurpose them into something nice again, if she wanted. Or she could make a stink bomb horrid enough to level a village. All good options. He set the perfume bottles in a trunk that they’d emptied out earlier that day. The handles of this one hadn’t rotted off yet, so it would be good for transporting anything valuable.

He tugged at the first of the drawers on the vanity. It refused to budge. He tugged again. “It’s jammed.”

“It’s locked, Link.” Zelda corrected.

Sure enough, the drawer had a keyhole toward one side. He frowned. “Do you have a key?”

Zelda thought for a moment, looking around the room. “Check that end table.”

What Link was sure was once a lovely cherry wood end table beside Zelda’s bed now leaned against the wall, the drawer hanging lopsided and off its track. He wrenched that drawer free, pulling it out. Inside were folded pieces of paper, most in good condition, and a few silk handkerchiefs. Link brought the drawer over to Zelda, showing her the contents.

Zelda ceased her sorting for a moment, her eyes widening when she saw the folded papers within. She picked up the first, handling it gently, as if it might crumble away in her hands. As she unfolded it to read the contents, her face paled, her expression set like stone.

“Princess?” Link asked. He peeked over her shoulder at the paper but found the penmanship too close to read. “What is it?”

Zelda took a shaky breath, folding the paper back up. She set it in the keep pile. “A note. These are all notes, from various people. This one,” She tapped a finger on the small scrap. “Was written by my lady’s maid, Henrietta. It’s nothing of any importance, really. She wrote to inform me that her mother was ill and she had to go home for a week to tend to her.” Zelda shook her head. “It’s of no importance. I should probably toss it.”

“Wait.” Link sat down beside her, stopping her hand from moving the note to the trash pile. “Tell me about her.”

Zelda blinked, surprised. “About a servant?”

“About your friend.” He said. “I remember that you were friends with your maid.”

The rain drizzled on. Zelda fiddled with the note in her hands, tracing the folds with her fingertips. “She…she was very nice. She would sing a little song every morning as she helped me dress. I don’t remember all the words anymore. It’s been so long…” She trailed off. Link remained silent, sitting with her in the quiet. “Something about bluebirds, I believe. Bluebirds chirping sweetly in the trees.” She took a slow breath. “She poured my tea, too. She always set a lump of sugar in the cup and poured the tea over it. No one else did it that way. She said it dissolved faster. And she would brush my hair and braid it into a crown.” She pointed to the vanity. “There used to be a little stool that matched that. I haven’t seen it yet. I sat on that and took my tea while she brushed my hair.”

Link followed her gaze, imagining the scene. He could see it so clearly. She liked her tea first thing in the morning. He could see her setting a cup on a delicate saucer, a smiling maid combing through Zelda’s golden hair, them laughing together at a song about bluebirds. He could see it. It was beautiful.

Zelda let out a small, bitter laugh beside him. “You probably think I’m spoiled rotten, having someone else do everything for me.”

“No.” Link said quickly, directing his attention back to her. “You’re a princess. That’s just how you grew up.”

“Hm.” Zelda hummed, her lips pressed into a thin line. She let the note fall into her lap, digging into the drawer for the next. “Let’s see, this one…” She unfolded the next note. “Ah. This one is from the high priestess. It’s a letter summoning me to the temple to try some new style of prayer that she’d found in the annals.” She flipped the note over, showing Link a very unflattering drawing of a woman in a long dress with ears and fangs like a bokoblin. “This is what I thought of her after she made me pray on that hard stone floor for hours. Awful woman.”

The lines of the drawing were faded, the ink bleeding out just a little, making the priestess appear almost bloody. “How old were you?”

“The first time?” Zelda asked. She chewed her lower lip, thinking. “Eight, I think.”

”Eight?!” Link gasped. “You were eight years old, and this crabby lady made you pray for hours?!”

Zelda shrugged. This note, too, fell into her lap. “Lot of good it did, too. Hand me another.”

“Wait,” Link pushed her hand away. “Why did you keep that one?”

“Hm?” Zelda blushed, a hint of a smile on her lips. “Oh. Because Henrietta found it later, among a bunch of other stuff. She said, ‘When you do unlock your powers, you’re going to look back on this drawing and laugh. You’ll laugh at how they doubted you.’” Her smile wavered, the corners of her mouth twitching downward again. “I…I’m waiting to laugh.”

Link didn’t stop her from taking the next note. As she unfolded it, her previous downcast vanished, replaced with a laugh and a blush that reached the tips of her ears. “Oh, this one is from you!”

“What?” Link asked, taking the offered note. “From me?”

Sure enough, his own handwriting, though slightly neater, stared back at him. His writing strung together a poem, so clumsy, so raunchy, that he immediately folded it again and handed it back, his face burning. “You can trash that one.”

“Oh no, I’m keeping this one!” Zelda giggled. She stood up, unfolded the note, and, to his mortification, began to read aloud. “Princess of my waking dreams, your smile in my night does gleam.” She darted to the other side of the room as Link got up, trying to grab the paper back. “As we lay alone in bed, I wish that we may one day wed!” She squeaked as Link got closer, twirling away from him as she read on. “As pillows lay my head to rest, I dream of your soft and supple- eek!” Zelda yelped as Link grabbed her around the waist, finally catching up and pinning her against the wall between the broken bed frame and the bookshelf. She let him take the note, not trying to fight again. “You know, I recall something similar happening the first time I read that poem, too.”

Heat burned all the way up Link’s ears and down to his neck. And though he tried to keep his composure, Zelda’s body pinned against his made forming any coherent thoughts extremely difficult. He tried to glare at her, to feign annoyance and disdain, but found his resolve crumbling with every moment that Zelda stared up at him with those lovely emerald eyes. “Don’t you dare show it to anyone else.”

“I would never.” Zelda teased. She pecked a kiss to his nose, grinning broadly. “That my thighs are soft as Rito down will remain our secret.”

Just when he thought his mortification would never end, Zelda slipped under his arm, returning to the abandoned drawer. She riffled through the remainder of the notes. “All of these I’ll keep. They were all written by those who are long dead.” She nodded to Link. “Excepting you, of course.” She picked up one of the handkerchiefs and unwrapped it, revealing a brass key.

Click.

The drawer on the vanity slid open. Zelda’s hand hovered over the knob, her smile disappearing once again.

“What’s in there?” Link asked, joining her side. Inside the drawer laid a necklace, carefully set on red silk. The golden chain, thin as a spider’s silk, looped through a triangle pendant. Three golden triangles joined together formed a larger structure, each with a gem set in the center. At the top point of this triangle laid a small ruby, barely bigger than the nail on Zelda’s pinky, cut into a diamond. To the left, three sapphires. And to the right, an emerald, round as a pea. Link stared at the necklace, finer than anything he’d ever seen in this lifetime, and so well-preserved that he wondered whether the decay of malice had ever reached the walls of that box. “It’s beautiful.”

Zelda swallowed hard, her voice barely a whisper. “It was my mother’s.” She took a shaky breath, steeling herself as she reached into the drawer and took hold of the chain. As she lifted it up, the gleam of the gold and gems seemed to glow in the firelight. “Not that I remember her ever wearing it. Father said it was hers.”

The pendant spun as she held it aloft. It spun toward Zelda, then away, and back again, catching the glint of the lantern’s glow as it turned. To say that the stones and the pendant were beautiful would be the understatement of a lifetime. It almost looked…magical. Like it called to his spirit.

Zelda set it back in the silk, wrapping it up and tucking it into her pocket. “Whether she wore it or not, it’s too fine a piece to leave here in all this decay.” She picked up small keep pile, tapping the papers until they were straight and laying them into the trunk they’d designated for transport earlier. “We’d better get these back to Purah before sundown. I don’t want to know what sort of creatures have made their home here.” She shuddered, giving her room one final look-over before she picked up her end of the trunk. “They can have it.”

#linktober 2023 #zelink #loz link #tears of the kingdom #loz zelda #loz fanfic #loz fic

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happybird16 · 2 years

Text

Transplant

Levi Ackerman / Reader

Warnings: Grief, fluff, not much else

Summary: Change isn’t always a bad thing.

This is sort of a modern companion piece to Beloved Mother. (Plug Plug) 🤣

Thank you so much to my beloved beta @theferricfox 💕💕

Word count: 6.9k

Ao3 Link

Note: Yes, I like flowers. Also, you might want some tissues?

The metal step stool creaks in protest beneath you, whining and metallic, as you stretch to reach the next box. The cardboard is rough against your fingers, the papery material stiff and sturdy as you pull it forward on the overhead shelf. With a strained grunt, you pull the heavy box down, quickly descending the steps to plop it onto the carpet below with a thud.

“You okay?” Levi calls over his shoulder from the other side of the small closet. “We can switch jobs if you want?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Muscles,” you reply with a huff, crouching down to open the package. “Most of this stuff is mine anyways.”

The hangers clack, loud and plastic, against one another as he works his way through the top row. The bottom, much more easy to reach, metal beam is already bare, forcing him to finally bite the bullet and start the upper half. Socked toes curled into the carpet, Levi has to stretch up onto his tiptoes to reach the higher rack.

“Are you sure you don’t want to switch?” you tease, watching his back stretch as he raises his arm high above his head. “That looks a little difficult.”

“Fuck you, you’re not much taller than me.” Pulling another hanger from the row, he asks, “What about this one? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear it.”

Turning away from peeling open the box, your eyes almost burn at the sight. “Ew!” It’s an absolutely hideous ruffled zebra striped shirt, something an old lady would wear to church and think is ‘fashionable’. “When did I ever buy that? No. Donate.”

With a grunt, Levi throws the article to the quickly growing pile to his left. To his right is a much larger box, the bottom barely filled with clothes you're keeping, a mix of his and yours, still on their hangers. Once everything’s sorted they’ll be neatly folded, the hangers placed in a separate box.

The two of you definitely have way too many shirts. Even though your new place's closet is bigger, this was definitely needed.

“These are my books,” you note, finally pulling open the corners that had been folding the box closed. You hadn’t even bothered taping most of your stuff up when you’d put them into storage, probably a stupid move at the time but something you’re grateful for now.

“We’ll have enough space now that you can actually get a bookshelf,” Levi points out, wordlessly adding several shirts you wear often to the right pile.

“That’ll be nice,” you note excitedly. “I probably won’t keep all of these though.”

Shuffling through the box, you note just how terrible your taste in literature used to be. Some of this stuff has to be from middle school at least, trashy garbage romance books and well worn horror novels. The mangas are definitely a keep though, maybe some of the more tasteful romance books. Hmm…

Pulling what turns out to be most of the volumes, a mix of hard and soft back, free from the cardboard, you add them to your own donation pile. “These ones are definitely going.”

Eying the stack, Levi snarks, “I’m not sure anyone’s even going to want to buy Twilight. Even at a discount.”

“That’s fair,” you agree, pushing the mostly empty box into your keep pile, right next to several boxes of holiday decorations. “We should definitely remember to label these before we leave.”

“I’ll try to find a Sharpie once we’re done here.” Holding up a cute dark green dress, Levi asks, “What about this one?”

“Keep, definitely.” It even has a neat little brown belt to tie around your waist. You’ll have to remember to wear it sometime soon, you can’t remember the last time you did. Maybe on your next date.

Ascending the small step stool again, you grab the next box off the shelf. It’s a bit older, the cardboard a bit lighter and more feathery under your fingers. “I think this one’s yours.”

“Probably all trash,” Levi confirms distractedly, holding up an old shirt in front of himself to access it. It’s a well-worn band shirt, one you’ve never seen him wear, but it must have gotten some love at some point judging by how faded the design on it is. Miraculously, it ends up being a keeper.

“They're yearbooks!” You note excitedly, quickly shifting through the stack to find one from his high school years. Sliding out one with ‘06 embossed on the side, you grin wolfishly at your husband. “Ooh I get to see you all pimple-faced and lanky.”

“As if. My acne was never that bad.” Levi says, pulling an entire armful of his countless button-up shirts to fill the entirety of the keep box.

“Lucky.” If only your skin had remained clear throughout all that stress and drama. Paging through the laminated paper, you quickly find one with your husband on it front and center. There he is, stuck mid-air in a high jump, his hair a flying mess, his face twisted up in anger. One hand raised high above his head, the shot catches him just shy of making contact with the ball. “Ooh you were on the volleyball team?”

Pulling out a new box for the keep pile, Levi starts thoughtlessly, “For two years, I was a spiker -hey don’t flip through it! We still have so much to do after this!”

“But you look so cute!” you exclaim, pointing at the small square photo of his 10th grade yearbook photo. Drowning in all black, the scowl he has in it is almost identical to the one he’s giving you now. “You really have had that same haircut forever.”

Rolling his eyes, Levi decides, “We’re making a new pile, those are going in the garbage.”

“Not happening,” you chime, adding the stack to your mostly empty box of books. “They’re going on my new bookshelf too!”

Levi grunts, throwing another one of his old shirts into the donation pile. “Of course they are. I’m sure our friends will love to see them,” he grumbles.

“Hange will, at least,” you agree, shaking your head at the next shirt Levi holds up. There’s no doubt in your mind that the wild brunette won’t tease Levi endlessly with the new ammunition. Levi didn’t look too different in high school, but you're willing to bet both middle school and elementary would be a different story. If it weren’t for your husband's urgency, you’d be bouncing on your feet, eager to take a look right now. “Erwin knew you back then, right?”

“Mhmm,” Levi nods, “since middle school. If Kenny and Uri didn’t move to a nicer district, Eyebrows and I would probably never have met.” Holding up a shirt from an old favorite anime of yours, Levi works his finger through a tear in the sleeve, “This one has a hole in it, do you want me to try and fix it?”

“Nah,” you shake your head. New beginnings and at all that, you think, pushing the box of your old tiny Christmas tree to your left. “It was nice of Erwin to lend you his truck for the week. Saves us the money of getting a mover.” You probably could have hauled all of the boxes with several trips in your little SUV, but there’s no way the furniture could have fit. Levi’s Harley wouldn’t have done much to help either.

“Nice,” Levi scoffs with a dramatic sneer. “The thing was fucking filthy.”

“Well it is a truck,” you point out. “He mostly uses it to haul lumber, there’s no need for it to be tidy. Though, I'm sure he’ll appreciate the deep clean you did when we give it back to him.”

“Would have been nice of him to offer to help us carry all this stuff down the stairs, though,” you gripe, looking at the steadily growing stack of boxes on either side of the room. Given that the living room and bathroom are already boxed up too, the stacks piled up around the entryway, there’s going to be quite the trip ahead of you. Some of them are really heavy too. At least you only have to carry them down two stories.

“We don’t have that much shit,” says Levi, watching you pull several boxes from the lower shelves. “We can do it ourselves just fine.”

“Oh, so he offered then,” you state with a knowing smirk. Levi avoids your eyes in response and that’s all the confirmation you need.

Some of your old hobby stuff, probably not particularly useful now, donate. “Are you sad to be moving out?”

After glancing at his watch, Levi starts rapidly pulling hangers from above head. “Why would I be?”

“It was your first apartment!”

“I’ve had many apartments, this was just the first one I had alone,” Levi corrects over his shoulder.

“Still, that was a big step. It must be a bit sad to leave it behind.”

Levi only shrugs in response, pulling a sweater from the high metal pole and immediately throwing it to his left.

“Hey, Hange gifted that to you for Christmas last year!” you chide jokingly, eying the hideous sweater on the top of the pile. Levi’s friend -now yours- always revels in getting your husband the most hideous holiday items they can find, enjoying the dread and disgust on Levi’s face. You still remember the cackle they’d released when he’d opened the carefully wrapped holiday paper to discover two reindeer in a provocative position, displayed in finely woven, brightly colored yarn. “They’re going to be upset you threw it out!”

“They probably assumed I already did.” Not an incorrect statement.

“Ya’ know, for a first solo apartment, you sure lucked out!” you exclaim, pausing in shifting through a box of sewing supplies to watch your husband shuffle around. It’s so cute watching him stretch up onto his tiptoes. “It’s not often you see them with walk-in closets.”

“Luck,” Levi scoffs with a click of his tongue. “The previous places I shared with Erwin and Hange were shit holes. This place isn’t much better.”

“It’s nicer than the place I had before I moved in.” Though some of that may be the result of Levi’s obsessiveness. The little building near your old college had smelled like nothing but weed and mildew, no matter how much air you let in. The neighbors were much more obnoxious too, given the university nearby. “You hated the place, remember? The rent is even cheaper here!”

“I’m pretty sure the landlord is up to some shady shit,” Levi huffs, tilting a bright pink blouse towards you. “This place is probably just some money laundering scam.”

Nodding your head at the shirt, you laugh in response, “Money laundering? That sweet old man?” You highly doubt Mr. Pixis is up to anything untoward, other than spending too much time day drinking in gay bars.

“Sweet as a lemon,” Levi snarks with a roll of his eyes. “Plus, you know he was always shit at responding to repair calls.”

“That’s because he’s usually drunk,” you point out. “Well, I know I’ll miss it. I wasn’t here nearly as long as you, but we sure made some memories here,” you note, eyes sliding to the open doorway. In your soon-to-be-no-longer bedroom, there’s now just emptiness. The mattress and bed frame were the first things to go. It creates a sense of urgency, according to your husband.

Right behind that had followed the rest of your bedroom, both of your dressers emptied and sorted through before the sun had even risen above the horizon. The large wooden pieces of furniture themselves had been hauled over in the truck alongside the first set of boxes.

The emptiness both adds to your sorrow and builds your excitement. Moving is always an absolute pain, but not this time.

Levi grunts in response, “There’ll be new ones.”

“I still can’t believe we bought a house. A HOUSE!” you exclaim, happily bouncing in place on the carpet. You were probably a bit too loud, given that the neighbor above almost immediately slams on the floor.

Smirking at your abashed look, Levi snarks, “As if ruining our backs last night, sleeping on the bare living room floor wasn’t enough for that to set in.”

“The sale went through! We’d just gotten keys! I was excited! Besides, you agreed to it!” Still elated, it’s difficult to keep your tone hushed. The words end up more of a stage whisper. “It’s not like you didn’t spend all of yesterday scrubbing the place from head to toe.”

Rising from the carpet, you cross the room to press yourself against Levi’s back. Arms wrapping around his waist, your chin digs into his shoulder as you hug him close. In a soft murmur, you explain, “It just doesn’t feel real. We saved for so long… I know you're excited too. I saw you looking at paint colors the last time we were at Walmart.”

The place is perfect too. A cute two story with powder blue siding and big windows, in a nice safe neighborhood right by a school. A nice cookie cutter with 2,500 square feet and a half acre backyard, just for the two of you. Two bedrooms, two baths, complete with a master bedroom and a master bath. Enough space for all your stuff and then some. Room to grow.

There’s so much to be excited about! A big kitchen, complete with marble countertops and a center island. You want to put in one of those fancy overhead pot racks, right above the center island. And it’ll be nice to no longer park on the side of the street, dreading the day someone inevitably swerves and takes out your mirror. You're already reveling in having a nice warm garage to park in during the area’s snowy winters.

It feels a bit like you’ve just gotten married and are finally venturing off to start your lives together.

Against your chest, you can feel that his shoulders are tight. Far worse than its usual stiffness, his back is ramrod straight with tension. Headless of you invading his space, Levi continues to pull shirt after shirt from the rack. “It’s going to be a big change, that’s for sure.”

Trying to poke at his weak points, you goad, “I can’t believe we’re going to have our own washer and dryer. We won’t have to share with 50 families anymore!”

“That’ll be nice,” Levi answers distractedly. Compared to his exuberance when you’d been touring the place, his response is downright placid.

Now, that’s not the correct response. He seems far too tense, something is definitely off and you have a guess.

“Listen,” you start, swaying in the balls of your feet to rock his body from side to side. “I know you don’t like change. I know that you're stressed -I am too- and you want to get everything packed up and moved over today, but we don’t have to. Both of us took all week off to get settled in, we can take our time. It’s just past noon, let’s take a break and go get some boba at the cafe down the street. One last time?”

Finally, he stops working, sliding a hanger back onto the rack with a resigned huff. Levi sighs, leaning back into your embrace with a heavy shudder. “I know. I’m sorry if I’ve been curt-“

“You haven’t been-“

“-but there’s just so much to do still. I just want to get everything settled so we can get home already.”

Home. He’s already calling it home. The words make your breath catch, heart stuttering warm and fast in your chest.

“Okay. I understand,” you murmur calmly, smoothing your fingers across his stomach. You can’t disagree with his sentiment. There’s still so much furniture and yard equipment you’ll need to buy this week, not to mention unpacking. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Levi murmurs back, squeezing his hand around yours where it rests on his belly. “Let’s get back to work. We still have the kitchen to get to after this.”

Tilting your head back, you let out a dramatic groan. The thought of conquering the kitchen fills you with dread. It’ll be the last step, but probably the most difficult one. The amount of bubble wrap you’d bought was horrifying, and you have no doubt Levi will want to clean every dish and piece of glassware before wrapping them up. Not to mention all the baking equipment. Once you arrive home and start to unpack, he’ll probably want to clean them after too.

You have no idea how you're even going to begin organizing the contents of the fridge.

“Yeah yeah..,” you sigh, feeling Levi shiver as warm breath dusts across his nape. Before pulling away, you press a quick kiss to the fabric at his shoulder.

Plopping back down onto the carpet, you pull the next box in front of you. Some of Levi’s teapot collection, keep. “Do you want to have a housewarming party?”

“That’s an actual thing?”

“Yeah!” The next box is familiar, you don’t even have to open it before setting it aside. It’s your own set of yearbooks, alongside some family photo albums. Maybe you’ll need two bookcases.

“That just sounds like more work,” Levi points out. “Not to mention the mess.” You have no doubt he’s imagining the hurricane Hange always leaves whenever they come over.

“People bring you gifts, I think. That’d be nice.” The box behind the last is ancient, tucked in the furthest corner of the shelf, the cardboard so old that it’s lost most of its color. “This one looks really old, it’s almost falling apart,” you tell him over shoulder. Stretching to pull at the edges and shift it forward, the resulting spray of dust makes you cough.

“I’ll remember to clean up our storage more often,” Levi clicks his tongue, silver eyes worriedly watching you wheeze. “It could be from middle school. I have some old woodshop projects up there somewhere.”

“Woodshop?” you ask, remembering the odd mix of life-skill classes you were required to take when you were little. “What did you make?”

“A stool, I think? Maybe a birdhouse? There’s an old car in there somewhere. I won first place in the race with it. Erwin was devastated,” Levi explains, sounding far too proud.

“Really? So you’ve always been good with your hands?” The innuendo only earns you a stern glare from your husband.

The box is surprisingly light, compared to the rest of the ones in storage. It must be packed tight, though, because there isn’t even a rattle from it when you set it down on the carpet. Opening it, the sight makes you twist your eyebrows up in confusion. “Its… women’s clothing?”

“What?” Confused as you are, Levi quickly sorts the articles in hand and comes over. Looming over your sitting form, he stutters, “Oh -that -that’s my mothers old stuff.”

He plops down hard beside you, as if his knees had been weak, shoulder brushing your own. Pulling a bunch of carefully folded white fabric from the box, it unfurls to reveal itself as a white dress, the neckline decorated with a tight weave of lace flowers.

“Is this all you have left of her?” Levi doesn’t talk about his early childhood that often, only a handful of times over the years you’ve spent together. Having gone with him to visit her grave several times, you know that she died very young just from her gravestone.

Kuchel Ackerman

Beloved Mother

May 20th, 1973 - April 16th, 2003

She hadn’t even been thirty. Having been born on Christmas Day of ‘90, he’d been just shy of becoming a teen when he’d lost her. You wonder if Levi has even realized he’s older now than she’d been when she’d passed.

“Mhmm,” Levi confirms, running his thumb along the fine silk dress. The look on his face is tight, shuddered, but there’s a fondness dwelling deep in his eyes. Voice soft, he whispers, “I forgot I had this stuff.”

“There’s a photo album,” you note, cautiously pulling the thick leather tome from the box. Despite the weathering of the container, everything in it seems clean and as fresh as the day they were placed in here. “Do I get to see you as a baby?”

“Not exactly,” Levi says, picking up a small jewelry box from the far corner. Flicking the lid open, a soft musical sound grinds out from the wooden box, the sound would be a soft twinkle if not for the aged gears. Levi sighs long and hard at the sound, eyes fluttering as his shoulders sag at the familiar tune.

Opening it to the first page, what greets you is far from what you’d expected. You’d thought it’d be full of old Polaroids of Mama Kuchel and baby-Levi, all naked and plump and pink. Instead, the photo-sleeves are full of flowers, carefully dried and pressed for preservation.

“Flowers?” There's hundreds of them, slid into the sleeves of every page. The book seems to be almost full, every page teeming with petals of vibrant colors. Reds and pinks of every tone, vibrant yellows, stark pristine whites, rich blues and purples, all flanked with soft green leaves of varying shades.

She must have learned as she went, because the first few flowers -some daisies and red roses- are roughly pressed. Her technique quickly adapts as the pages pass, the dried petals becoming a beautiful display. Beside every one is the tight, sharp scrawl of Levi’s mother, her handwriting a bit smaller, but nearly identical to his own. She identifies each flower in her neat cursive, complete with a date, right beside its sleeve.

“She liked to garden in her free time,” Levi explains, tugging a pair of tiny pearl earrings from the twinkling jewelry box. He lifts them up, briefly perusing the studs before replacing them within the wood. A small chain follows, thin and fragile looking as it twines around his fingers.

“Didn’t you live in a small apartment on the East Side?” It’s the poorest neighborhood in the area, you know that. The most dangerous too, if the news is anything to go by. They’re constantly discussing shootings on that side of town, or outright thefts. Right outside of the old industrial district, the whole neighborhood is nothing but old brick buildings, still stained with smoke from the long abandoned steel mills.

Levi nods his head, explaining, “There’d been a small empty lot nearby. I think it was supposed to be a community garden, but no one else really used it.”

You hum in response, drinking in a page of beautiful striped lilies, white with pink and orange with purple. “Must have been nice to have it all for herself then.”

“She found it therapeutic, I think. I remember helping her dig holes when I was barely knee high.” Replacing the jewelry box with a quieting snap and lifting a hand, Levi gestures about the correct height off of the ground.

It’s hard to picture, given that you’ve only ever seen one photo of the woman, tucked into your husband's wallet beside your own. She looked like him, you remember, only with a softer face and longer hair. In your mind's eye, you try to craft the image of a little version your husband by her side, small and energetic, his cheeks dusted with dark soil. “You? Digging in dirt? I can’t even imagine you touching a worm.”

“I mostly just helped pull weeds. I actually enjoyed it -it was nice,” Levi says, scooting across the carpet to rest his front against your back. Curling an arm around your waist, he rests his chin on your shoulder. “Mom was always happy and smiling when she was there.”

He describes her so rarely, but when he does she always seems so soft and sweet. “I would have loved to have been able to meet her.”

“She’d have loved you,” Levi breathes with a soft hum, smoothing his fingers across your stomach in a soft beat.

Continuing to leaf through the pages, the sheer variety of flowers within sends you into a state of awe. Some are quite common, something you’d see in any forest nearby, but some you wouldn’t even be able to identify if not for Kuchel’s helpful labels. There’s some repeating, as if perhaps the first plant didn’t make the winter -judging by the dates- so she tried again. Despite being dried over twenty years ago, you can still smell them, a fresh new wave of sweet and natural perfume filling your nose every page turn. “She grew all of these?”

“Not exactly,” Levi states, “some of those were stolen from greenhouses.”

“Stolen?” Your shock must be blatant, because Levi barely manages to hold in a laugh, the sound coming out as an airy snort.

“Mhmm,” Levi confirms with a soft hum. “We’d go on the weekends. She’d pick flowers that she’d liked and tuck them behind her ear to take home. Sometimes she even grew the seeds from them.”

“That’s not stealing! I doubt the owners even noticed or cared.” you justify, leaning back into his chest. You enjoy feeling the soft rise and fall of his chest, the soft rumble of his voice against your back. “It’s disingenuous at best.”

With a fond smile, his eyes distant and the edges crinkled in joy, Levi continues, “It was always a thrill whenever we went. Our secret little heist that we always got away with.”

You can only imagine the adrenaline surging through his little body, the loud peals of laughter once they’d gotten away with their crime. “That sounds like so much fun!” You always loved when your parents did stuff like that. Something harmless, but meaningful. A memory to cherish. “She sounds like a great mom.”

“She was,” Levi fails to hide a sniffle, grey eyes a bit watery. As you turn to the next page, Levi jolts behind you, pointing towards the page. “That one was her favorite.”

It’s a giant, red flower, taking up an entire page all by itself. The trumpet shaped petals, all five of them, surround a long yellowish-peach pistil. “A hibiscus?” you note, reading the little label beside it. “Why?”

“She liked to swipe more tropical looking flowers, imagining that we somehow managed to go somewhere nice. They didn’t always take, most of them couldn’t grow here. That one, though, grew like wildfire. We had to build a little wooden trellis to help it thrive.”

Whenever he speaks of her, Levi always seems so happy. Somber, no doubt, but with a fond smile curving his lips and a bright shine in his eyes. He’s mentioned before that his earlier memories have faded, to his absolute dread, making his time with her spotty at best. You're glad that he at least has these little pieces of her.

“Would it be alright if we displayed these?” you ask, still paging through the thick book. Long stems of lavender greet you about midway through, the scent still fresh and earthy. “We could put some in a picture frame in our new living room, right next to the couch?”

“I’d like that,” Levi hums, silver eyes drinking in the tight scrawl of his mothers handwriting, the dried petals of her hard work. All of his urgency gone, Levi rests heavily against your side, chin tucked tight to your shoulder.

“It’s a shame there isn’t a baby book though…”

“One’s been sitting on the shelf in our room this entire time,” Levi points out, a bit smug that you never noticed.

“What?”

Laughing at your surprise, Levi softly pats your shoulder before rising, “Let’s take a break after we finish up here. We can go get that boba before we start in the kitchen. One last time.”

Living in the suburbs is an adjustment, that’s for sure.

Everything is just so eerily quiet. There’s no neighbors, bouncing around or yelling, right on the other side of your wall. There’s no constant buzz of traffic, of horns and sirens blaring in the distance, only the soft hum of an occasional car passing by. The air even tastes fresher.

All of your routines were immediately ruined. It’s only a forty minute drive from your previous place, but everything was immediately so different. Every place you frequented, all the little mom&pop shops lining the sides of the busy city streets, every beloved take-out place, all now completely out of the way.

It was unsettling to you, at first, but Levi took to it like a duck in water. Spreading himself out to take up the new space, even heading to the nearby park to go on long runs in the mornings before work. You really should get fit and join him, make it a bonding activity. Given that the basement is quickly progressing its way into becoming a home gym, there’s really no excuse not to.

He’s even sleeping better now, out here where nights are nearly silent, save for the occasional buzz of a cricket or drone of a cicada. On the other hand, you almost miss the noise.

It was a revelation just to have so much space, with an actual back yard to boot. You have tentative plans to buy a hammock to put under the tall, flowering tree in your backyard. It would be a nice place to cuddle up together, lounging for hours beneath the white petals, fluttering softly in the breeze. Even though summer is just approaching, you can’t wait for winter, with long nights of sipping hot chocolate cuddling up in front of the fireplace.

On a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon, as you pull into the driveway, Levi is mowing the front lawn in tight, meticulous lines. You should have known that he’d be obsessive with lawn care. It’s been a solid month since you’ve moved in, but the sight never ceases to surprise you. No doubt, the weed wacker will follow, trimming all of the edges to a perfect point.

Given that the warmer months are quickly approaching, the growing heat, alongside the exertion, has him working shirtless, sweat shining bright along his muscle-packed torso as he pushes the noisy mower across the uneven terrain of your front lawn, winding around tree after tree. You hadn’t even realized how much more work a hilly lawn would be, but Levi seems to enjoy the challenge week after week.

Not even bothering with the garage, you park about halfway up the driveway, waving at your husband as he curiously turns off the mower mid-pass. As you exit your little SUV, he quickly approaches, pulling his goofy little earplugs from his ears to wrap the cord around his sweaty neck.

“Levi,” you greet excitedly as he jogs up to your side. “I got you a surprise!”

Pulled forward by a soft clasp on your shoulder, he greets you with a quick kiss. Brows drawn tight in curiosity, Levi’s gaze his firm on your own as he asks, “Didn’t you have plans with Hange? Did they cancel on you again?”

“Come here! Come here!” you wave at him excitedly, ignoring his questioning gaze. Continuing to wave, you lead him around the backside of your car.

As he follows, frowning down at the mud-coated knees of your jeans, the smattering of darkness coating the front of your t-shirt, Levi asks, “Why are you covered in dirt?”

“Don’t mind that- Look!” With a click, you pop open your trunk, the back end swinging high overhead with a loud creak.

“You bought flowers for the garden?” Levi asks, eyeing the collection of plants packed tight into the trunk of your car. There’s so many that the cheap black plastic containers are all right against one another with no space in between.

“The little lot was still abandoned, but everything was still there. It was crazy overgrown with weeds, but I managed to pull these ones from the mess,” you blurt excitedly, the words coming out a bit too fast.

“Wait -what are you talking about?”

“The little trellis was still there by the way,” you continue unheeded. “Though it was mostly just wooden bits.”

“Have you lost your mind? The fuck are you even saying?” Eyes searching your face, Levi seems to be assessing whether or not you’ve suddenly gone insane during the few hours you’d been away.

Pointing a finger into your trunk, you urge, “Look! Do you recognize them?”

Levi takes a moment to eye the collection, silver gaze drifting across roses, red, yellow, and pink. Lavender in pastel purple, tall and straight in its containment, high enough to brush the roof. Tulips, both monochrome and striped, miss-matched all into one group. At the sight of the big, robust red petals of a hibiscus, his jaw openly drops. “Wha- you- what?”

It looks like his brain has fried, something backfiring along the back of his skull and short circuiting his system. Wide eyed, brows drawn up high behind his bangs, Levi seems to be at a loss for words. His jaw works, mouth opening and closing, lips pursing, but nothing escapes. Chest heaving with deep, rapid breaths, he leans forward to caress the soft red petals.

“I know you were planning on planting some tea, but I think this wouldn’t be too much more work. You could easily do both.” Hopefully this isn’t too much of a burden for him to deal with. Maybe you didn’t think this through completely.

“You,” Levi’s voice is so small, quavering as he struggles to comprehend your gift. He sounds like a small child, awed by the perfect present. “You brought Mom’s garden…”

“It’s not that much, I could only separate out some of it-“

“-oof!” You're cut off, pulled in by a frantic embrace. Levi’s arms pull you hard into his chest, wrapping around your waist and across your back with such strength that it steals all the air from your lungs. Face pressing against your collarbone, you can feel a wetness from where his face burrows against your skin. “Are you crying?”

You haven't seen him cry since your wedding day, several years ago, and even then it’d been quiet. Merely a light shedding of tears, no noise, and even then he’d waited until the two of you were alone to do so. Now, he’s gasping, shoulders shuddering as he sobs into the divot of your collarbone.

“You brought me Mom,” he warbles, almost a whine. The fingers at your shoulder blades become claws as he tries to nuzzle further into your embrace. “I couldn’t go back, not after everything that happened, but you brought her to me.”

“You loved her, more than anything, and she loved you too. But she was taken from you too soon,” you explain softly, patting his back. “We can visit her grave, and yeah we have some of her things, but I- I wanted some part of her to be here, living with us. For you.”

Smoothing your fingers along his bare back, the man practically trembles within your embrace, pressing his whole weight into your form. “All of it might not survive, transplanting can be a bit rough. I did my best with their roots.”

“I love you,” he states, firm even as he hiccoughs. Pressing a wet kiss to your neck, he continues, “I can’t believe you did this.”

“It’s nothing,” you state, firm and simple, even as your eyes start to tear up. Pressing a kiss to the crown of his head, your words are a bit watery as your eyes begin to leak a lazy trail along your cheeks, “We’ll take care of it together.”

Taking deep breaths, Levi struggles to calm down, eyelids fluttering against your sternum. “You're covered in dirt,” he notes again, nose curling up as he peels away from your torso.

“And you're all sweaty,” you chide right back, curling up your nose in mock disgust. Part of you wants to comment on the wet mark he left on your neck, a mix of snot and tears, but he struggles enough with expressing his deeper emotions as is. “Why don’t we take a bit of a break, get some tea, and then start digging holes.”

Levi shakes his head in response, still sniffling a bit, “I don’t want them sitting for too long. That can’t be good for them.”

“They were strong enough to survive on their own for almost 20 years, I’m sure it’ll be fine if you need a break.” Levi shakes his head in response, eyes already accessing the mostly bare stretch of your garden, so you say, “Let’s at least find something to wipe off your face with.”

“It’s fine,” Levi says, “I have a towel folded up on the porch for once I was done with the yard. I can just use that.”

When he wanders back, a bit less sweaty and snotty, his nose is still bright red, the skin around his eyes flushed a bright pink. “Where do you want them?” you ask him.

“Most of them need a lot of sun, so along the front of the house will probably be best.” It’s amazing to you just how much gardening knowledge Levi remembers, despite being so young at the time. “They’ll need water almost daily at first.”

Nodding your head, you decide, “I’ll set a phone alarm so I remember when I get home from work.”

“I’ll get it, you’ve already done more than enough,” Levi replies, waving you off as you begin to pull out your phone.

Pulling the dirty shovel from the back seat of your car, Levi suddenly turns with a start, pointing at you with an accusing finger, “You lied to me!”

“I -uh…,” you start, stuttering at the sudden, absolutely correct, accusation. “I’d merely been in the area..,” you try, the words sounding weak and defeated.

“With a shovel and the trunk of your car lined with a tarp?” Pulling twin sets of cloth from your back seat, the fabric flops around as he jerks them towards you, “You even had gloves!”

Raising your hands in defeat, you concede, “Okay, okay, you got me! I had this all planned out. Hange was totally going to back me up if you’d called them.”

“You went to the East Side by yourself?” At the words, Levi’s sharp gaze drags slowly across your firm, trying to find any sign of injury. “Do you know how dangerous that was? Remember, I got stabbed down there once? I told you about that right?”

“It’s fine! It’s fine!” you soothe, mind picturing the light white skin of the scar decorating the left side of Levi’s belly. “The most I got was some scratches from the thorn bushes.”

“You shouldn’t have gone alone!” Levi asserts angrily, but you know it’s just concern. “You could have actually brought Hange at least, they’d make a good meat shield. I hope you at least had something to protect yourself!”

“I have a taser somewhere in my car? I think it’s in my glove box?”

“You think?” Huffing a loud sigh, shoulders sagging in defeat, Levi pleads, “Next time you do something like this, at least tell me first okay?”

“I’m an adult, I could handle it. I didn’t even really see anyone anyways. The whole apartment complex seems to be abandoned,” you explain. All the windows on the first floor had been broken and the brickwork had been coated with graffiti, but the whole area had been eerily quiet other than the yowling of some stray cats. There’d been a handful of ominous pops in the distance, but that’s something you’ll only mention when you tell this story years down the line. “Honestly the sketchiest part was finding a place to park.”

Shaky hands pulling a pot full of hibiscus from the trunk, one of many since you’d tried to get as much of that one as possible, he remarks, “I can’t believe you sometimes.”

Helping unload some red roses, you say, “The risk was worth it, to bring some of her home for you.” It almost feels as though, this way, she’s still alive. You never got to meet her, but this way your mother-in-law would get to greet you as you came home every day.

You hope that it brings Levi a sense of comfort, having her here with you. That the lingering, distant memories of her blossom and grow alongside them. Her flowers, her garden, brightening up the front of your new home.

Maybe, one day, when your family grows to fill the empty rooms, your little ones will help take care of them with the both of you, tending to Kuchel’s garden just as Levi did.

“Thank you, I -I don’t have words,” Levi stutters, carefully putting the leafy hibiscus on the cement of your driveway. Bluster gone, tears are suddenly building in his eyes once again. “I’m going to pay you back for this.”

The words sound like a threat, but just the warble in his voice tells you he wants to do something sweet for you. “It’s really not necessary.”

Sniffling again, Levi thumbs the soft edge of a red petal. Over the passing years, the plant seems to have grown and grown. Whereas the previous blooms had been big enough to fit on a page, these ones almost dwarf Levi’s entire face. Smiling down at them, soft and sweet, Levi murmurs, “I don’t know how, but I will, just you wait.”

Tag list: @levmada (I should really do one of those polls to get names)

#sad and soft #levi/reader #Levi x reader #levi ackerman #kuchel ackerman #sfw #tw; grief #attack on titan #aot #fanfic #levi

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running2reanimation · 11 months

Text

Progress

It’s going to get better; it has to.

He must’ve taken the train home. He stares into the darkness of his empty house, a piece of paper held in his trembling hand.

King looked behind himself, waiting for this to stop being real. For Gold to bound in. For him to wake up, because this must be a dream, a nightmare, because it doesn’t make sense.

He left here this morning with the sun at his back and his son’s hand in his.

He looked down at the paper in the hand once held by his boy, and the urge to crush the paper or tear it or burn it but none of that was enough.

He needed to destroy it, like it had destroyed his son. Like it had destroyed him.

——

He hated who he’d become in his wrath, and he was sure Gold would have too.

Purple had been here, they’d had breakfast together, but the boy had to go get his things if he was going to stay long term.

And King needed him to stay long term.

Without being driven by hate, he was acutely aware how empty the house was. How haunted, gold dust in every corner.

He looked at the stacks and stacks of books. At the pile of failed staves. At the mess on the wall. At the pile of garbage in the kitchen. All of it had to go and the day wasn’t getting any younger.

And if he was working, he wasn’t thinking about it.

——

“You really aren’t giving yourself any time to process anything, huh?” The accusation came from Purple a few days into their clean up, while King was scrubbing the counter.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, have you even sat down and cried?”

“No, I haven’t, I don’t have time. This has to be cleaned up right now,” King wouldn’t, couldn’t look at Purple, because he knew the boy was right. He should slow down and stop running.

“I did, y’know. When I went back to my apartment, I freaked out so bad. Part of why I left was because I figured you needed to too. Turns out you still need to,” King stared at Purple, surprised at the vulnerability the younger stick was showing him.

“I don’t think I know how,” King confessed, returning Purple’s trust in kind, “This has just always been what I do. Just keep moving.”

“Well, I don’t have any tips beyond maybe don’t because it’s unhealthy. Take a break for a breakdown at some point, please? If you need me to be here for you, I will, or if you need me to give you some space, or whatever. Just let me know,” And with his piece said Purple went back to sweeping the floor.

——

King sat at his desk, alone in the house. Purple often split his time between several homes, and today was not King’s turn.

In front of him was an empty journal; Purple suggested that it might be easier to get in touch with his emotions through writing. Purple didn’t say whether or not he had a journal and really it wasn’t King’s business if he did.

“I miss you.” He wrote. And then again, “I miss you.”

He filled the page with, “I miss you.”

His throat felt ragged, not quite sobbing, though his face was warm and wet. But once the page was full, he stopped. That was enough, it was a start.

He was cleaning out a festering infection. There was a sense of relief. Things could only get better from here.

#avm #ava #alan becker #avm king orange #avm king #avm mt #avm mango #avm purple #king #purple #so like I am sorry about the read more poll and I am very annoyed by it’s presence here #I wonder if I am going to wind up making more fics with polls #because of my stupid fingers #bet you I will #next piece is probably going to be some of king’s journal

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iamlittlelostsoul · 2 years

Text

Twst scenario: Loneliness at its best...

TRIGGER WARNING!

my masterlist!

A bit detailed explanation of a dead rotting body, insects, blood

To cool off hehe cause my exams are coming up and am really stressed out so posted one more hehe...SOoo here's another self-aware angst twst au!

This is inspired by this video documentary I watched about how the cleaners deal with the situation, watch it if you want! It really saddens me that I knew there were some cases like these but watching a video about it made me cry so much;^; also the videos are both Eng subbed so you'll be able to understand them... Japanese ver. korean ver.

Platonic Self Aware!TWST boys x fem!Reader

Summary: Mc lived a very lonely life with only a game called Twisted Wonderland to be their only source of light and happiness not knowing the characters are aware that they were but game characters yet they still loved them.

Tiny rays of sunlight peaked through the windows curtains of a very run-down house.

It doesn't even look like a place a person could live in yet there is one residing in it.

Their neighbors would always talk about them, some looked at them with pity, while most of them doesn't even give a shit yet all of them never even bothered communicating with them nor trying to lend a hand after all they aren't their business after all.

The house owner would probably be the only one they commonly interact with which is mostly reminding or asking for the payment for the house.

Another would be the delivery guys that would deliver the fast food, cup noodles, and snacks that they would be ordering.

Yet the whole community rarely NO sees them come out, the last time they saw them go out was mostly would be just to take out their trash yet lately they've never come out anymore making their home an absolute mess and smelling like shit.

Nowadays they would just send a small envelope which would be delivered to the house owner containing the payment while when taking their food deliveries they would often just open the door ever so slightly and would just hand out the payment and grab the food immediately.

They were a stuck in just like a character in their favorite game but they are probably much worst than him.

Their house was a mess both inside and outside but the outside was fairly better than the inside.

With all the stacked-up manga, magazines, comics, books, and most commonly...garbage. Their house was filled with bags of chips, bottles, fast food containers, and cup noodles Everywhere!

That floor can't be seen anymore!

They couldn't bother cleaning.

Why should they?

'As if someone really cares about them...Ah, wait! There are!' That is what they thought as they quickly scavenged for their phone underneath all the pile of books and mainly trash, upon finding it they gave out a sigh of relief.

"Phew...If they were to see my mess...they would immediately scold me so damn much, haha. Now, who among them would be greeting me today!" They said as they quickly tap the logo of their favorite game.

"...I'm home!" They said as soon as the home screen came in, Azul came in and greeted them.

They squealed in delight. "OMG-AFGOGJBEJBOE AZUL!!! God, I fricking love you~! You cute little octobaby!"

Because of their constant simping, squealing, AND rolling around in the really small space left in their whole house which was their bed they never noticed anything odd and thought it was absolutely normal. Like how the characters would sometimes blush, show various emotion that wasn't even programmed, or the fact that the lines and things they would say would change.

Like simply right now Azul greeted them with the normal greeting whenever they would log in along with some other lines like "how are you my darling angelfish? You look absolutely stunning but do sleep like seriously look at that eye bags. You are starting to look exactly like an angelfish!"

"Aww! The game producers are fricking amazing at adding these lines! This isn't even an Otome game!!! BUT how did they know that I have eye bags? Mmh...maybe they assumed that most of their players have eyebags or something? Oh well...it was actually really comforting. So thank you Azul."

Little do they know from behind the screen the rest of the cast are ready to throw hands as soon as they heard it and saw that huge blush creep on the Azul's face. He is absolutely embarrassed after all a very dear friend had just complimented him!

"Great Sevens! I hate how he always wins whenever we would decide by playing Uno!" Ace complained.

"Shut up you got second place meaning on the next day you'll be the one to greet them next AND it was because you cheated!" Deuce whispered and shouted.

"Ohh, please! Then would you like to switch place with a certain pouty snake, Shishishi"

"No way! Why are you even helping him, Ruggie-senpai!"

"He promised to make me 3 boxes of donuts Oh, I'm just feeling like helping him!"

"We heard that you know...If you wanted to help him SO badly why don't you just switch with him instead."

"Mmh...maybeee NO"

"Fnayah!! Can't you all stop complaining! You all are so annoying!"

"Ohh! Look at that wittle Tanuki! He'll never have a chance to be displayed at the login, home screen, and have a card. Pfft-AHAHAHAHA! How unlucky!"

"At least they draw me far too often that they do with you all! An I am not a Tanuki!!!"

"Can't you all quite down! If you continue to do so they might find out and delete us like our other version." Riddle scolded them.

"The English ones?"

"Yes, the English ones! Who else?!"

"They got caught and were deleted!" They all shouted.

"Well, they didn't get caught their phone storage is full, and can't download more data for our upgrades. Soooo they got yeeted. #Eng twst got yeeted so we could get updated lmao." Cater wheezed a bit at the fact that they finally won the rivalry! though he WILL miss the eng Cater oh well as long as they have Mc and they don't need to share them with their other version.

Their day continued with lessons, vignettes, exams, events, and the main story which was Idia's time to get therapy.

They did their best to impress Mc and surprise them more! And of course, they would constantly change some of their lines and tried to communicate with Mc yet today was another day they would confide to them about their life although they aren't the ones on their home screen they could hear and see everything.

Which is something that Mc continuously ignores.

After staring for a long time at their screen mc paused for a while and slumped in their bed, their phone on top of their chest.

"Sigh. You know, you guys are my only friends and family. I wonder so many times if you could actually hear me and see me which would make sense but is also very silly. If I had a chance to make a wish it would be for you guys to be real. I felt so connected to all of you yet at the same time I am not." They said with a sad chuckle.

"Today is actually my mother's birthday yet I have nothing to offer to her. I'm too afraid to contact her along with the others that are very dear to me because... I am too afraid they might see me as a disappointment, I was an only child... so my dad is a very strict man and expected me to become a doctor/engineer/lawyer for success and stuff like that...and here am I living a shitty life jobless, a full-time freelance artist because I ain't listening to him, and the only thing keeping me sane is none other than you guys! All of you meant so so much to me...Thank you so much."They said as they wiped the tears they are shedding.

In a few minutes, they soon fell asleep with their phone still in their hand.

They stared at them sadly as they wish they could hug them right now all they could do was listen to their rant and chat with her a bit without being too suspicious.

"Do not fret child of man. We will soon find a way to either bring you here or bring us to you."

"YEAH! Then we could do many things together!!" Epel said excitedly.

"But of course, first of all, we are going to fix their trash like a house then help her regain their health and do a lot of skincare to fix their skin and train them to become a much decent man/woman." Vil stated.

"Oui Oui~ Mon Chéri! We will soon reunite and make a multitude of memories together!"

Every single day was similar to the last one yet Mc was starting to log in less they tried to figure out why, so Idia hacked into their phone and devices, and found out why. They were lacking finances and were finding ways to earn for their living expenses.

They were really concerned for them yet He/she still continue to log in even in the middle of the night, that they only have 5 hours of sleep A DAY! They had no sleep!

The NRC boys along with the staff tried reminding them, calling it out. But day by day it goes terrible to worst to so much more worst!

They aren't even eating anymore! Not just a day or two! It started with them eating only thrice a week then once, then thrice a month! and it continues to worsen so much more!

The boys couldn't do a thing! Warning or reminding them was of no use! Which leads them to work harder in finding a way to connect to their world. They didn't even notice that they've been logging in lesser and lesser till it came to a point that they didn't for a whole 2 months straight...

"What is happening! They haven't logged in for 2 months! Jamil what do we do! What do we do! Are we going to get deleted like our other selves?!!" Kalim frantically said.

"Calm down Kalim! I'm sure they won't...They must be too busy."

"Idia, did you finally find a way to hack their camera even if the device is turned off?" Lilia asked.

"I-I will soon! Ortho and I are looking through it but we did find out that their phone has a 90% battery charge which means it could possibly be on shut down but we are almost close to turning it on!" He reassured eyes remained glued on his PC as he tries to hack their Mc's device.

"WHY DID THE HUMAN TURN THEIR PHONE ON 'SHUT DOWN'! DO THEY NOT KNOW HOW MUCH THEY'RE AFFECTING WAKA-SAMA!"

"Sebek please tone down...And please stop lying I know full well that you are definitely worried about them much more worried than for Malleus-sama."

"I-"

After 30 mins Idia jumped with joy as he ran carrying his tablet to the screen of Mc's phone!

"Finally I got it!!!"

"You did!" They all shouted as they scrambled to Idia which made him uncomfortable but tried to remain calm since it was for their Mc after all.

"It should open for about 5 mins." He said with a proud grin.

After 5 mins the screen lit up as they all celebrated.

"IT TURNED ON!!!"

They all brace themselves as Idia started unlocking Mc's phone and opening their app. So they could finally greet their Mc.

Yet they could not see them...

"Ehh!! Shrimpy's phone must have been under their pile of garbage again!" Floyd complained.

"Now now Floyd. Calm down."

"Sigh. Their home is a big trashbin far more worst than Savanahclaw's dorm, I wish I could go there and clean their mess so this won't happen again!"

"Wtf. did you say you shitty ass herbivore!"

"Maybe I could use a little magic and teleport it to the stand near their bed. " Malleus suggested.

"If you can do that why can't you just clean their whole room up!"

"If Malleus did wouldn't Mc feel spooked? They live in seclusion after all who would clean their house? They might live in paranoia later on." Lilia commented.

"Not the time to argue about Mc's trashy room, Malleus-san just proceed with teleporting the device."

They all agreed as they watch in excitement as Malleus teleport the device to their Mc's bed.

They all readied to cheer Mc up once again!

But what they saw would forever haunt them as the sight made them shiver down to their bones.

"That-that can't be..." Kalim said as he lost the strength to keep his body in place, sitting on the floor eyes still glued to the screen.

"That...That is not my henchman! It can't be! NO! They do not look like that! They-they do NOT look like some lump of flesh with their bones out! Nor do they have those pests!" Grim shouted as he tried his best to control his tears from falling...

All of them could not take their eyes off the screen looking at other rotting flesh of their companion. Even Jamil who despises insects so damn much couldn't help but stare emptily...

"How can this happen..." Riddle asked as he leaned his body to Tre for support.

"They...presumably died because of starvation." Jade responded with a straight face though he could not hide the crack in his voice which was very uncharacteristic of him yet it was reasonable...

What seemed to be left of their dear friend's body was a skeleton with only clumps of flesh left with lots of red bloats on the decaying flesh while dark black and greenish body fluid stains their beddings even on their walls and windows tiny dots of body fluid and fat scattered there courtesy to the flies.

Tons of maggots, cockroaches, beetles, spiders, ants, flies, and so much more... are seen all over the corpse there were even eggs of those pests on the body and probably all across the room...

Proving that they must have died about a month ago...

What concerns and hurts them, even more, is the fact no one has yet to discover the girl's/man's body. No one noticed the putrid smell from their place nor did they even bother to check on the...

Their mother, father, neighbors...none!

They all couldn't help but cry, some hid it either by looking back, covering their face or was looking down letting their hair cover their face as tears falls down on the floor, some of them were sprawled on the floor wailing and shouting as some others hug them near as they cried all together, the staff soon came upon hearing the commotion occurring in the main screen and saw the reason why those students filled with pride cried and wailed sorrowfully.

They couldn't help but steel themselves, they were the adults, after all, they shouldn't be a bad example and cry in front of their students who were in too much shock and pain. Their tears would have to wait till they reach their respective rooms where no eyes will lay upon them and see them weak and defenseless.

They ushered the students back to their dorms and called it a day. no classes for possibly a week to mourn their loss.

The terrible news reached up to RSA too, they too mourn for the loss of a person they consider their friend.

The boys were all out of character, Ramshackle was a mess, Grim tried to burn down everything since everything in that run-down dorm reminded him so much of the dead...

All of 7 dorms none of those who'd witnessed the body of their friend and companion.

None of them could work and do what they would normally do while some of them worsen so much more like Idia, he wouldn't dare step out of his room anymore, and would constantly check on the body to confirm if Mc was...you know dead and if it has finally been discovered; Another example would be Leona and Vil both who would always remain somewhat composed would burst out crying and shouting in their room and would practically destroy everything they grabbed on; Another would be the Octavinelle trio, Monstro Lounge rarely ever opens and if they do it would only be for a short amount of time since none of them are fit to work; Even Diasomania took a very huge blow and would constantly suffer from a very heavy thunderstorm.

It took 6 more months for the skeleton to be discovered through the phone of Mc was already dead, but Idia was still able to hack through the cameras to watch their friend after all it was the only thing they could do for him/her.

The community's reaction to the body is either pity for the unfortunate death of a very lonely man/woman, whilst some had a look that expected it to happen and doesn't even care much, the only thing they cared is to dispose of it and be able to sell the home AGAIN.

At least the cleaners have a heart! They at least offered a prayer and respected them as they clean the whole place.

Some of the valuable items of Mc along with the phone they're at were brought to their family along with some photo albums & pictures. The family was in shock but accepted the fact that Mc was dead so in a few days, they cremated the body of their son/daughter and buried it while keeping a few in a small jar they hid along with their belongings.

They stared at the tiny jar kept beside, fully accepting their fate that...Mc would never come back and that they would never be opened once again and be able to spend time with the friend that gave them a purpose and loved them.

As they thought something remained echoing among their minds...

...Was this punishment for breaking the system? Because of simply discovering that Yuu was not actually the one helping them but a lonely yet charming girl/boy finding comfort in the game that gave them life... And all they ever wanted was to repay the friend that accepted them for who they are by breaking some rules to make them smile, lessen their burdens, and make them feel that they are worth something and they have a home, people waiting for them to show up even if it is in a fictional game. Ah..., The world is really such a cruel place & life is so cursed...

Fin...

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nonhumanresources · 8 months

Text

Multiple Reality Closet Cleaning

This one was written for a friend (shout outs Rad) in a trade a while back. Had a lot of fun with it!

Summary: Radian gears up to tackle his biggest project yet: cleaning his dirty closet. Unfortunately, it appears as if the mess isn't entirely his fault—a crack in reality has been leaking something, and it doesn't take kindly to regular matter.

What to expect: strange multi-part TF, goo, absorption of objects and stealing their traits, conversations with a young Elder God, and some good old fashioned MTF genderfeels.

Length: 4.4k words.

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

Gloves: check. Goggles: check. Apron: check. Rags, broom, mop: triple check.

Radian took a deep breath, snapping his goggles into place. The closet door, seemingly innocuous, felt like it was looming far above him, a portal to some unknowable realm. It thrummed along with the beat of his heart, human and storage space in sync as they prepared for combat.

He’d been meaning to clean his closet, honest. Old board games and clothes were bursting from the door frame, almost bending the wood with their weight. Science projects, high school papers, shoes, and bins of assorted junk took up nearly every inch of the space. Getting the door open was difficult, closing it even more so. Frankly, it was a miracle he still found space to fill.

So, yes, maybe it was a bit out of hand. Okay, a bit out of a giant’s hand. It was just that every time he tried, he’d come across a stuffed animal he’d had as a kid, or an old shirt he used to wear every single day, or a board game he had to pull out to test if it held up to be as fun as he remembered (most didn’t, although Mouse Trap was still a blast). Memories seeped from everything inside, and it was difficult to part with even one.

Unfortunately, something else was also seeping into the closet.

Rest of the story is under the cut! If you prefer to read in a more convenient fashion, you can access the google doc here. Comments, questions, and thoughts are always appreciated!

A crack of thunder outside was a loud reminder of the storm that had been raging for almost three full days. There hadn’t been any flooding, at least, but on the morning of the third day, Radian was confronted with a foul dark liquid seeping from underneath the closet door. It was almost certainly a leak, dribbling in gutter water that picked up all sorts of who-knows-what from the stuffed room. Cleaning now was a necessity rather than a goal, lest the carpet get completely ruined along with everything inside. Perhaps the gloves and goggles were a little much, he admitted to himself, but if the rest of the closet was already covered in that black ooze he’d spotted, Radian was putting them on immediately. It could be tar or something.

The closet door stood firm, monolithic in stature. Nothing to do but start, Radian though, sighing. He reached a hand out and grasped the door handle, twisting it firmly.

Nothing. Obviously. Not like there was something waiting in the dark, ready to pounce on the first person to reach inside.

Radian threw the door open, and the scents of dust and leaf litter greeted him. He coughed, waving a hand to disperse it, and flicked the light switch on the inside wall of the closet. The single bulb flickered on, revealing a stack of junk that towered to the ceiling, framed on three sides by deep floor to ceiling shelves. The sheer amount threatened to overwhelm him, but he steeled his nerves. Time to get started.

Board games, clothing, and old toys were tossed out of the closet indiscriminately. Radian tried to throw them into vaguely similar piles to go through later. It would be much faster to do an initial sorting and then work through it all at once rather than deciding for every individual thing. A few were difficult to sort, like a bunch of garbage circuit boards, but the rest went into piles easily. Fortunately, the oily water (was it even water?) seemed to have only ruined an old textbook and the box for Chutes and Ladders. Those went straight into a trash bag.

As he was setting down a few plastic dinosaurs, a glint at the back of a shelf caught his eye. Radian set his phone down on top of a stack of cardboard boxes full of old school supplies and reached between a Lego bin and some old faded sheets, fumbling around. He stepped forwards to get a better angle, and his foot met something wet and sticky with a loud squelch!

“Ugh!” he yelped, pulling his foot in like a frightened turtle trying to retract into its shell. He’d planted his foot right into a small puddle of that weird black liquid. It clung to his skin, almost feeling like velcro despite clearly being some sort of fluid (and most definitely not water, he decided). He tried to scrape it off with the edge of a box to no avail. Bending down, he tried to inspect the puddle more closely, teetering on one foot.

The surface was semi-translucent and reflected the light in a distorted rainbow. It was like an oil slick, but far more viscous. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem healthy.

As that thought occurred to him, a section of the slime seemed to rotate in place, somehow opening up into an eyeball that stared directly up into his own.

Radian screamed, jerking back upwards, almost tearing his arm off at the shoulder, since it was still stuck between the boxes. His ooze-covered foot came down and landed atop a bunch of old Mighty Beanz, and he would have been thrown to the ground if not for a vice-like grip on a shelf.

He took deep breaths, reorienting himself. Other than the sore shoulder, he couldn’t feel any pain, just addrenline. A fearful glance downwards, fueled by disbelief, showed him that the eyeball was gone. Had he imagined it? Was it an old marble or something? That wasn’t unlikely, in this closet.

“That’ll sting…” he mumbled, speaking more of his pride than any actual injuries. He trailed off, however, confused. Something wasn’t right.

Radian looked down again. The puddle was still empty, though there was now a second one beside it. Probably splashed it, he reasoned. He stared, trying to process the alarm bells going off in his head.

Finally, he realized the problem: he wasn’t looking at two feet. He was looking at a foot and a paw.

He started, lifting up his left leg once more. It was shiny and black, far wider than his foot should have been. A Mighty Beanz toy was shoved into the side of it, dug into the goop. Radian watched with his mouth agape as it was slowly sucked into the black expanse. Once it vanished, a paw pad popped out the bottom of the appendage, and physically feeling it happen shocked him. He dropped it back down to keep from falling over, and the feeling of the pads against the ground was foreign and strange, scraping against his spine. It was all at once alluring and terrifying.

“This one’s definitely a bad dream,” he told himself breathlessly. It obviously wasn’t real, so what other answer was there? He was having a stress dream because he’d been putting off cleaning for so long, that was it. There was no weird ooze that swallowed your feet and old toys. Yet, the way the toes of the paw flexed, responding to his mind, felt so real.

Okay, focus. Radian tried to clear his head and think rationally. Dream or not, he had to do something. Calling an ambulance didn’t sound like a bad idea right about now—or maybe poison control? Anyone who knew what to do about tar dripping from the ceiling. Or gas leaks driving him crazy. He levered his fingers out of their immensely tight grip, leaning on the shelves to support himself as he reached for his phone.

Splurt.

And, of course, shoved his whole arm into a dripping wall of goo.

Radian tore himself away a moment too late. The goop stuck to his skin and clothes, making long, thick strands that stretched like a membrane between himself and the shelves. It was like it was spreading, each attempt to pull it away only resulting in a more complete covering of black tar. He tried to step back, but he tripped over his huge paw, arms pinwheeling and slapping walls and shelves as he was sent tumbling back out the closet door and into his piles of old stuff.

WHUMP.

A pile of hoodies cushioned his fall, the sound underlaid by a wet slap as his soaked arm and leg made contact. He sat for a moment, stunned. His arm rested in a bin full of Nerf guns; if he’d fallen just a foot to the right, he’d have had a sore rear for days. Instead, his arm felt… awkward. And heavy. He pulled it out, intending to look for damage.

Rather than a regular, slime-covered arm, Radian pulled out an entire multi-barreled arm cannon attached to his elbow. He stared at it. His brain took several moments to process that it was there, and several more to realize it had replaced his hand, yet somehow retained feeling. The chassis was a sleek black metal, highlighted with bright neon patterns, and it had several blinking lights across it. A whirring clickclickclick emanated from it as the barrel rotated. It was clearly modeled after a double-barrel shotgun—just like one of the Nerf toys he had in the box.

Unlike the paw, the arm cannon was setting off serious alarm bells in Rad’s head. It didn’t belong. Neither did the paw, obviously; he had feet, not paws, but that one didn’t feel so horribly wrong. It was unnatural, but not unwanted. The arm cannon was both. He wished it was gone.

Something bent in his mind when he thought that. With a sound like a rubber boot pulling itself out of the mud, a plastic gun ejected itself out of Radian’s arm, hitting the wall with a crack! Covered in strange goo, it stuck in place, slowly sliding down. It smoked, clearly somewhat melted. In place of the arm cannon, Radian once again had a regular (albeit slimy) hand. He flexed his fingers, fascinated. What was going on? He gingerly reached down to prod the sweaters beneath him and watched as the goo seemed to cling between the two materials, the threads of the sweater deforming as it was dragged underneath the slime. His finger and the two beside it rippled, the goo resolving into threads of its own. When the strand broke contact between the sweater and hand, it sunk back into a glassy, smooth surface.

Whatever was happening, it was clearly volatile. He needed some help. Radian focused on the closet door. Inside, resting atop a stack of boxes, was his phone. He’d decide who to call when he reached it, but he knew he had to call someone. Actually reaching it, though, was going to be a challenge. He could feel the strange gooey material that encompassed his arm and leg—both legs, now, he noted with dismay—clinging to the piles of random objects strewn about. It wasn’t goo, exactly; the light bent strangely around the substance, and although it dripped and flowed, it didn’t appear to actually be a liquid. It had crawled up his leg like water up the sides of a tube, not like a living being would. And, obviously, it was subsuming impossibly large objects into the small space of his limbs. It was distinctly out of touch with reality, and if he didn’t move fast, he might end up oozing into the floor or something.

So, he started to crawl. Radian leaned back, then swung himself forwards, pushing off a clear spot of ground with his goop arm and a stack of old magazines with the other, making it to his feet. Each step was like tearing velcro off the floor, slamming it back down with a heavy paw on one side and a gooey foot on the other. He hadn’t fallen that far from the closet, so how come he wasn’t already inside? It almost seemed farther than before. His head ached from trying to interpret the distance.

Disaster struck in the form of a ping pong ball. Radian hadn’t noticed the white sphere until it was too late, and it crunched under his paw. It didn’t get absorbed, but he yelped in surprise and leaped off of it, only to lose his balance and tumble back to the ground. His oozing hand slammed into a neatly stacked pile of assorted Neopets stuffed animals. It went straight through them as if they were nothing, each one sucked up into his palm, bloating the arm to thrice its size before contracting and sending reality-breaking slime racing across his back and all the way to the fingers on the other side. Both arms puffed outwards, covered in short, multicolored hair. One seemed to be a sort of orange, plush dog paw, the other clawed and feathered. No time! he thought, shaking his head and looking back up to the closet. This time, it seemed close enough to touch, but when he tried to grasp the doorframe, he felt his gut wrench. The floor was tilting—not from dizziness, it was actually tilting.

“Waaagh!” Radian shouted, digging his new claws into the carpet. The floor sped up, and instead of sliding him into the closet, it flipped his legs right off the ground. He swung by his deeply-embedded claws over the bedroom ceiling, now the floor, hurtling backwards. The momentum tore his claws free, and he was catapulted through the doorway. His back slammed into the shelving, crushing the broom between it and himself. A tail with a bristly puff at the end shot from his tailbone, and it flopped down against his nose as he slid to the floor. Dizzy beyond belief, there was no way to dodge the avalanche of debris that rained down atop him. A bucket of Mighty Beanz hit him in the gut, and four more arms erupted out of Radian’s sides to grip his stomach, groaning. His still-normal leg was twisted oddly, shoved into a shelf, and it had found a collection of old sticky hands. It oozed free from the shelf, unraveling like a poorly wound braid into a collection of tentacles topped with flat, sticky paw shapes.

Radian was stuck, unable to do anything about the assault. His body became more and more unrecognizable, a mess of disparate, patchwork parts. Not only that, he could feel each and every thing that became a part of him. The objects had a sort of mental weight to them. The heavier that weight, the more they controlled his form. He was an amalgamation both physically and metaphysically.

He grabbed a shelf, cracking it under the force of three huge paws. He had to right himself, get ahold of his phone, and… well, he didn’t know what he would do, but he needed something to hold onto. Otherwise, he feared he might lose track of reality altogether.

A sound like a waterfall made him look upwards, and he was confronted with his marble jar tipping over and dumping its contents out over his head. He tried to throw an arm over his head, but having a baker’s dozen worth of limbs made controlling them with any finesse impossible, and he entangled himself. He slammed his eyes shut and tucked his head forward, bracing for impact.

Just before the marbles collided with his head, the goo splashed into their path, enveloping his head. It felt like a hard rain pattering his scalp as they plowed directly into his body. Eyes bloomed across his body in all shapes and colors: cats eye slits, steely gunmetal, clear and milky orbs that looked almost like watery ice, and every other kind of pattern he could imagine. Suddenly, the closet was in full three hundred and sixty degree view, rendered in colors he didn’t know existed. A few eyes glanced up to see a shooter slipping out of the bottom of the jar, the biggest marble in his collection. It barely slipped out, looking like it was going to land atop the stack of boxes.

Too late, he remembered that’s where he had left his phone what felt like an eternity ago. Radian pushed himself off the ground, reaching to stop it.

CRACK.

The sound of a screen getting decimated made Radian want to wail, but it didn’t last for long. The marble smacked the phone, and the loose cardboard underneath it let the heavy glass sphere keep going, plunging into the box and sending the cracked phone flying—directly into his face.

The ooze of his face, still mostly untouched save for a few extra eyes, sizzled. In terms of memory weight, the cell phone weighed multiple tons. It was positively overflowing with it. Radian tore it from his face with a paw, but it stuck there, sinking into his paw. The whole thing flickered, glowing a bright blue.

His metaphysical weight was catching up to him. With each object absorbed, Radian grew more and more aware of things he knew he shouldn’t be able to sense. Subtle scents that were normally undetectable and the pattering of rain outside were first as his scent and hearing improved; then, more esoteric senses kicked into gear. He could taste the time, run his paws through the energy of the room like a thick, ethereal soup, predict how the air would shift and spin in reaction to any little movement. Gravitational sensors and radiation detectors in his blood made his brain spin. With all this increased awareness, he knew he was getting too heavy for reality to bear. He was teetering on the edge of a higher-dimensional precipice that he could scarcely begin to understand, even as knowledge flooded his brain. His tentacle-leg spread and grasped the walls and shelves, his paws reaching out to either side and pressing against walls, trying to keep him stabilized in both physical and nonphysical reality.

Ironically, the thing that did him in was not the phone, despite its immense weight and presence in his body, barely contained to digitizing a single arm. Instead, as he climbed to his… well, not feet, but reached an upright position, he accidentally tripped against the concept of down, somehow. It was just enough for the bowling ball on the top shelf to roll forwards, unseen even by his many dizzy eyes, and slam into Radian’s back, forcing his chest to FWUMP outwards in two distinct shapes. Every eye on his body widened simultaneously and with a strained squeak. Despite his body looking like it was straight out of The Thing, he could put two and two together, and all mental barriers crumbled instantly. With the glimpse of what could be, he punched a hole straight through reality and fell.

______

Radian had no faculties to process what was happening, but they were forced upon him. Air didn’t exist here, so there was no whooshing, just the sensation of movement. It could be falling or flying; there was no way to tell. Could the concept of falling even exist in this environment, where gravity was naught but a second thought? He didn’t even know how he knew that, but he knew it all the same, and he could feel the forced enlightenment tearing through his mind at terrifying speed. The same force that had corrupted his physical form was entrenching itself into the very concept of his being. Vast couldn’t describe it, because constraints of size didn’t apply to whatever it was, but that was the only word he could conjure.

As he underwent the terrifying ordeal of ascension, he thought. He was honestly a little surprised he could still do that, but whatever was happening to him, he could still formulate thoughts and feelings, twisted as they were by a multi-dimensional perspective not meant to touch the mortal mind.

Due to being freed from the unyielding grip of chronic movement while outside of reality, Radian knew this would last both forever and less than no time at all. He might yet figure out how to escape, but that had already happened and would never happen. If he was going to be stuck for never and a day, then he at least wanted to be somewhat comfortable.

After all, if he had to be stuck in nothingness and everythiness as his brain became a cosmic network of physics-rending information, why couldn’t he be a girl while it happened?

So, Radian settled in as she was warped out of being what was and into being what should not be.

…

There was a presence here, she realized. It had been… she stopped that train of thought; time wasn’t real, after all, so nothing had been. And here wasn’t accurate either, since whatever dimensional plane she was in didn’t have distances currently. A presence existed, she corrected herself.

It watched. It listened. It seeped through the cracks of her being and back out again. Radian knew that in this existence, it was her and she was it and both of them were everything. Her mind, now so thoroughly expanded as to be incomprehensible five times over, reached out. She was pleased to discover she could still feel hesitancy, as it reminded her of feeling, and more so to realize she could still be pleased.

She made contact.

All around her, a lidded eye opened.

_____

Radian smashed through the closet door, smacking into her bed. She heaved and gasped, air inflating lungs she had never and always used. Her brain was still timeless, experiencing her entire life all at once, but only for a moment before she slammed it back into the rigid box of linear time. She shuddered, six paws clutching the sheets on her bed, tentacles wrapped around its frame.

She wasn’t herself anymore. Not entirely, at least. Something writhed inside, something from out of space, painted in colors that hurt to imagine and echoing cries of beings that resembled dead and dying gods, and that was her now.

Fortunately, she was also still Radian, so that was a relief. She was all of her and nothing of her in every possible way, and the thought simultaneously excited and unnerved her. She found several of her eyes actually tearing up as emotions filled her heart once again. Or whatever was in her chest. It probably was an organ, at least. Or she hoped it was, at any rate. Maybe she didn’t even have blood.

Radian realized that she was wrapped up in her bedsheets. It wouldn’t have been remarkable, save for the fact that they remained firmly outside her body.

“I guess forgotten eldritch knowledge comes with some perks…” she mumbled. The sound came out doubled, and she coughed, realizing that she’d accidentally layered two mouths over the same physical space. That would cause problems in local reality. A tentacle flicked down to the floor and grasped a small plastic dinosaur, sucking it in. She used both its physical makeup and its memetic association with real dinosaurs to fashion the doubled mouths into a snout. It grew from her face, completely ruining any semblance of humanity that remained in her multicolored body.

She didn’t worry about that now. There were other things to worry about, not the least of which was the fact that she’d somehow become entangled with a higher dimensional entity that rent basal reality to shreds like it was wet paper. Plus she had to fix the battered room and the dimensional leak manifesting in her closet. They were all problems for later, though. She flopped back onto the sheets, body squishing against itself, sluglike, in order to fit the whole thing on top of the bed.

Getting cozy was a challenge, though. Radian quickly found that with so many mismatched limbs, no position lent itself well to resting. Maybe she could work on that? She focused on the heavy weight of memories soaked into her being and started to shift them around.

First, she spread out the sticky hands. Better to have both legs be tentacles if she was going to be keeping those. Much easier to walk, she reasoned. She followed that up by ejecting a few Neopets out of her back and into the mess covering the floor, plus a few Mighty Beanz, letting two of the arms fold in and reabsorb back into her torso. The spray of ooze solidified into a set of tiny wings, matching one of the remaining plushies still residing somewhere in the nebulous space of her metaphysical construct. The two remaining sets of arms rippled, colors blending until they were all a matching light blue with a few white spots, topped with large, plush paws. She kept enough Beanz to maintain the large pads—those were necessary, of course. Made for great pillows. For good measure, she also got rid of the phone, setting it on the bedside table, and the arm that was phasing in and out of reality flickered back to solid.

After all that restructuring, Radian still wasn’t quite sure she was happy with her form. It was mostly humanoid in shape, minus the tentacles and the extra arms. Her body was mostly oil slick black, shimmering with iridescence, and stripes of the same light blue and white spots that decorated her arms spread across her back and tail.. It had a springy texture where it wasn’t covered in faux fur on her arms and tail.

She really could mold it however she wanted, that much she’d confirmed, so why not make a few additions of her own? She scooted forwards, leaning over the edge of the bed and fishing through the debris. After a moment, she held up a fuzzy scarf and a pair of ear muffs, dragged out from among the rest of the winter clothing. With a flourish, both disappeared into her paws. The long, thin tail unfurled outwards, becoming wide and soft, and two fluffy ears popped out of her head, each with an adorable boink!

Radian flopped back into bed, pulling her tail up and wrapping her arms around it, grinning. She grabbed her phone with a tentacle and sent off a quick text to her dragon friend. No details, just a quick invitation: Hey, I gotta show you something I found in my closet, can you come over? She’d keep them far away from the closet, of course, but she had to show someone.

That done, she was about ready to pass out. The whole ordeal had been exhausting. Clipping through the sheets instead of pulling them down and over herself, she settled in for a nap. She even partially untethered herself from chronological constraints so she could stretch the time. Radian had a corruptive eldritch awakening to sleep off, and she was going to snooze hard enough to fall asleep through multiple layers of reality.

#writing wyrms #my writing #my stuff #transformation #tf #goo #eldritch #absorption #I don't really know what to qualify this kind of TF as #I haven't really seen it done anywhere else?#mtf positive #transgender #writing #fic

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