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flyersheartbreaker · 3 years

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Forever By Your Side| Isaac Ratcliffe

a/n: this is my first imagine that I am officially publishing! I am very excited to share all of my writing content and series with you guys :)

Pair: Isaac Ratcliffe x reader

Summary: Watching your boyfriend Isaac get seriously hurt during one of his home games and watching him battle through the toughest injury a hockey player could battle, so he can continue on with dream playing in the NHL

Warnings: Hockey Injuries, Cussing, Cute Fluff

Word Count: 3,321 words

It was just another ordinary Sunday afternoon watching a game live from the PPL center here in Allentown, Pennsylvania or so I thought. The game was going really well with the Phantoms up 3-1 on the Hershey Bears half way through the second period. There was your beloved star-studded boyfriend number 19 carrying the puck up against the boards through the neutral zone when suddenly bam everything went to complete silence, except for that shear sound that you wish you could so badly get out of you head.

I jumped out of my seat and darted up the stairs from the lower-level seats that I was sitting in with some of the other girlfriends. I can hear the god-awful scream ringing in my ears over and over again that was coming down from ice level. The crowd was silent, so quiet that you could probably hear a pin drop and when that happens you know for a fact that it isn’t good. Nothing ever good comes from silence at a time like this and I needed to get down to the locker rooms as quick as possible.

Isaac got hit hard up against the boards and fell awkwardly down to the ground, and his right foot looked like it twisted the wrong way. He's had rough collisions before, but never like this. Isaac is a big dude that you surely didn’t want to ending up colliding with, but this time it looked like Isaac got the wrong end of the play. I never in my life ever heard him yell in absolute pain like the wat he was when the trainers and his teammates were trying to help his 6-foot-6 body off of the ice.

My heart was in my stomach as I was racing down the stairs that would lead me to the home locker rooms. I quickly flashed my team badge to the security guard Frank without saying a word. He must have known it wasn’t good either, as he told me to breathe and be careful myself as I jumped down the last few steps.

If Isaac had a season ending injury, it would kill him. He was just heating up and playing his best hockey yet and working his ass off day in and day out so he could eventually make the Flyers roster within this season or even next season for sure. But if his season is over that means his chances of getting to the NHL level could be too and that would just destroy him completely.

As soon as I rounded the corner to the trainer's office, I saw him being helped on to the examine table. His face was as red as a cherry, and he was in a lot of pain. The trainers quickly started icing the area the best that they could as they slowly untied his skate and too it off of him.

“He is definitely going to need some X-Rays done immediately and possibly an MRI as well depending on what the results of the X-Rays are.” The Phantoms trainer Brian Grogesky said to Neil who was one of the Phantoms physicians.

“Jeff and Robert are on their way down from the press box and getting the emergency X-Ray equipment ready. In the mean time you need to relax the best that you can Isaac.” Neil said to Isaac as Isaac tried his best laying down comfortably on the examine table.

Both Brian and Neil noticed me standing outside of the door of the trainer's room and signaled me to come on in, in hopes that Isaac could ease up and relax a little bit more with me by his side.

“Hello, y/n! Looks like we got a live one here and that big boy landed pretty hard on that ankle of his.” Brian said trying to make light of the situation.

Isaac sat up on his elbow and looked me dead in the eyes. I can see and feel the pan behind them, my heart sank even more for him. I just want him to be okay, I want him to be able to play the rest of this season, he worked way too fucking hard for this to happen to him.

“Hey babes, how is the pain?” I said walking over to Isaac and grabbing his hand while kissing him ever so lightly and carefully.

“It's a bitch babe if I am being honest. I’m trying not to think of the worst, but I can’t help it. This isn’t fair, why me? Why fucking me?” Isaac said in more frustration.

“Isaac, don’t get too far ahead of yourself. We don’t know the actual results just yet. But whatever the outcome is you can come back from it stronger than ever. Hockey injuries is sometimes apart of the game as silly and stupid as it sounds, but you’re a fighter and you got this.” Neil said as he placed another bag of ice on Isaac’s ankle.

“They are right babe, your team trainers, physicians and any other doctors have your best interests. Let’s get you into the X-Ray room and then go from there okay big guy.” I said while planting another kiss onto Isaac’s lips.

Jeff brought in some crutches for Isaac to use, so they can take him down the hall to get the X-Rays taking care of. I am hoping that is all that Isaac is going to need and that whatever it is, it's a quick recovery.

After a few short minutes Isaac was crutching back out of the X-Ray room with a look of disappointment on his face.

“Oh no babe...how bad is it?” I asked him while he collects himself.

“It’s not broken...but they are sending me for an MRI early tomorrow morning to see if that shows up with anything and then go from there.” He said in a low tone.

“Well, that is a plus sign that it isn’t broken. You got to be positive about this honey, you need to be optimistic. You can't be negative. Everything is going to work out for the best. Hopefully it's just a minor sprain and you will be back on the ice in no time.” You told Isaac as you wrapped yourself around his side.

All of Isaac’s staff and trainers helped Isaac out of the arena and to his car and safety got him into the passenger seat while, I got into Isaac’s driver's seat.

“Alright, make sure when you get home you put more ice on that ankle for at least 15-20 mins on and then same time off. Do it throughout the night if you can and also, make sure you are using the crutches as much as possible and for the love of God Isaac do not put any pressure on that ankle until after we get the MRI results and see exactly what is going on. We don’t want to make the injury any worse than what it could already be. Try to get some much-needed rest and we will see you in the morning.” Brian said closing the passenger door.

The ride back to Isaac’s apartment complex was extremely quiet. I didn’t know what to say or what to do, so I just let Isaac sit there and pounder in his thoughts alone without me distracting him. Which probably wasn’t a good idea, because I know my boyfriend, I know for a fact that he is thinking the worst possible scenario that he could think of right now.

I helped Isaac out of the car and into the elevators up to his apartment and got him comfortably settled on the couch with his foot/ankle elevated and two ice packs placed on the injured area.

“Do you want or need anything? You want me to bring out another pair of comfy clothes for you?” You asked Isaac as you placed a pillow behind his head/back and placed a blanket right by him as well.

“No, I’m fine...” He whispered as scrolled on his iPad to rewatch the ending of the game and rewatch highlights and the moment of his injury.

You so badly, wanted to say something along the lines to him like "babe don’t be watching that now, it wasn’t your fault, there was nothing that you could have done to prevented that from happening, so on and on.” But deep down you knew nothing would make him feel better until he knew what the main results were. And as the night went on, you could see the realization hit him that this was going to keep him out for a while. He just looked sad, and drained.

After a couple of hours, another X-Ray, and an MRI later, you and Isaac were sitting there waiting in the trainer's office for the results from both the trainer and team doctors.

Both Brian and Jeff walk in with a folder which I assume held the test results for Isaac’s ankle/foot.

“Well, the good news is the second X-Ray that we took this morning once again showed that there was no brake in both the ankle and the foot.” Brian said.

“And what about the MRI? What did the MRI show?” Isaac asked nervously.

I grabbed Isaac’s hand and interlocked his fingers with mine. I could see the look on both Brian’s, Jeff’s, and even Coach Gordon’s face that this news that they are about to give doesn’t seem to be very promising.

Jeff cleared his throat ever so calmly and spoke. “The MRI came back with a high ankle sprain injury which means we really don’t have a timetable for you to return to at this point of time. This type of injury is extremely difficult to recover from quickly. So, with that being said we need to place you on injury reserve indefinitely until we get more of a clear view on this injury.”

“Out indefinitely...so that could mean that I might be done for the season?” Isaac ever so softly spoke.

“Unfortunately, yes Rat...I am so sorry and with it being late into the season already we don’t want to risk anything further and do anymore damage to the ankle. Brian, Jeff and myself all agreed on shutting you down for the remainder of this year. So, it’s better for you to take this time to heal carefully and properly and then eventually rehab it back to full strength without any other necessary tests or worse case scenario surgeries. Then once you have healed properly, we can train and get you back to 100 percent for next year's rookie and training camp.” Coach Scott Gordon said while looking at both Isaac and myself.

My heart broke ever so much for Isaac, this isn’t fair. I know injuries can be a part of the game sometimes, but why did this have to happen to Isaac and why now?! He has been killing it day in and day out since being drafted in 2017. He deserves his chance at playing at the NHL and now with this setback is he ever going to make it to that level?

The ride to Isaac’s apartment was once again a quiet one and this time I don’t blame him. I mean how is he supposed to react to something like this? What is he supposed to say or do when your head coach, trainer and team doctor shut you completely down for God knows how long.

Isaac settled down on the couch and tossed his crutches to side and unstrapped his high ankle boot so he can comfortably rest his ankle on the pillow in front him.

"Baby, I am so fucking sorry that is happening, it’s not right nor is it fair to you." I said, resting my head on his shoulder while getting cozy next to him.

"What if this is it for me? What if I can't play anymore after this?" He asks, eyes filling with tears.

"Hey, hey, hey, don't say that. You being negative will only make that happen. You are a fighter Rat...you are one tough, strong as hell hockey player who will power through this. I promise you that." I said grabbing his hand and interlocking our fingers together, while placing a kiss on his hand.

A tear rolls down his cheek ever so slightly. "All I wanted to do was be that excitement that both the Lehigh and Philly fans need. All I wanted ever so badly was to have my chance to make it to the NHL level and it got taken away from me. Why do bad things happen to good people?" Isaac asked broken and frustrated.

Once he started crying, I had lost it. Nothing I could do, or say would take that pain away from him and it just broke my heart. I went into the kitchen and I just cried as grabbed him more ice packs from the freezer. How am I supposed to look at the man that I love, and not have my heart shatter like glass when I look into those eyes that were once so shiny, and bright, but now shows nothing at all? I have no idea the pain he is going through or the frustrating emotions he is now going through as well and I feel terrible.

I eventually collected myself and walked back out into the living room and ever so easily and softly place the ice packs on the injured area and took my seat back on the couch next to Isaac.

"That's the crappy thing about life.” I breathed as I took a deep breathe myself and continued on. “For some reason, it always attacks the good ones, and praises the hell out of the bad ones." I sob, wiping away not only my own tears but also his tears once again. "We'll get through this. I promise. It'll be hard, and it'll be long, but we're going to pull through this." I tell him as I run my hand through his hair.

He squeezes my other hand tightly. "What if during my time out things don’t get better and I need to get surgery, and it's worse than they thought? That could happen. What if they see that my injury is worse than what they thought and that I am out on the shelf even longer and I completely miss this upcoming season as well? Or worse they tell me that I can't do this anymore?" He asks, gasping for air. "I don't want that to happen and I'm scared to death that it will."

I snuggled beside him even more then I already was, resting my head on his chest, sobbing harder than I was before, because I honestly hate when he thinks that he isn’t good enough or he thinks his career is over because of a minor setback or in this case a possible major setback. "Then we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, okay? Just for now, it's a bump in the road. No journey to greatness is a smooth one Isaac. Whatever the hell happens next, we'll face it together as a team, because I am not leaving your side and letting you fight this injury alone. I know that you so badly want to break and that you feel like this the end of the road, but you need to keep pushing and listen to the training staff and follow their instructions."

"I love you so much." He tells me, sniffling. "Thank you for helping me with this, baby, I couldn’t do this without you" Isaac said while planting a soft and slow kiss on my lips

"I'll help you through anything. No matter what." I said while smiling and kissing him softly back.

It was battle to get Isaac’s ankle back to a healthy, normal, and stable ankle for a hockey player at his height and weight but we were able to do it. It was a long road and journey until Isaac was back out on the ice skating again and preparing himself for this upcoming training camp season.

Isaac looked and felt good, until one day right before the Flyers condensed training camp something didn’t seem right with him.

Isaac met up with Flyers trainer Jim McCrossin and after a deep examination we found out that Isaac was suffering from a fractured rib and a collapsed lung. We don’t know how exactly this had happen or when it happened. It could have been from when he fell during his ankle injury or from being hit during Rookie Camp, we don’t have the answers right now. And once again, here I am watching my boyfriend being completely destroyed and devastated all over again.

Isaac became instantly depressed, and much worst this time around because he knew there was no chance of making the Flyers squad this season and who knew when he could lace up for the Phantoms season as well. But thank God for Jim McCrossin who helped Isaac get the right and special care that he needed and got him completely healthy so he could play for the rest of this Phantoms season as well.

Isaac was getting game day dressed for a home game here in Allentown. I sat on the bed and watched/admire him as he fixes his tie in the mirror.

"Try not to worry about tonight so much baby, you are going to absolutely kill it out there like always. Once you get out on that ice, I have no doubt in my mind you will play just like how you used to before all of these setbacks. And just remember that no matter how easy, or how hard tonight’s game is going to be I'll be here for you always. But also, please promise me one thing, that if you don’t feel right to let your staff know immediately because I never want to see you get hurt like this again.” I said walking up behind him and wrapping my arms around his torso.

"I promise babe, I know that I need to take my health more seriously and whatever happens, happens. One day I will make my dream a reality and officially play in the NHL, but for the time being I got to focus on the now and my health." He said as he spun around and kissed me.

Watching Isaac warm up made my heart race and beat fast. But it was all worth seeing him back out there skating with the team and his boys. He looked so good and happy out on the ice and that is all that I could ever ask for.

The journey was extremely hard and long this past summer and fall for both Isaac and I, but in the end it definitely made us a stronger unit in our relationship and it has totally made Isaac a stronger hockey player both physically and mentally.

After the game, I bolted down to the locker room this time excitedly to see my boyfriend, not in a complete shear panic like last time and waited for Isaac to come out after he was done with the media.

The door swung open and I immediately saw Isaac and jumped right into arms like a little high school girl. “Babeee, you were beyond amazing tonight! I am so very proud of you, how are you feeling?” I asked nervously but giddy at the same time.

Isaac picked me up and kissed me ever so passionately before answering any of my questions that I just threw at him. “I felt good and still feel good. It was awesome to be back out on that ice again playing with the boys in front of our home crowd, their excitement and energy helped out a lot. But truthfully, I couldn’t have done any of this without you, y/n. I love you so much and I can’t wait to continue this amazing hockey journey with you right by myside.”

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blueluneacy · 3 years

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Soaps and Special Drinks

I wrote a giant melone x reader off a fantasy i had at work. enjoy

word count: 4k

warnings: delusional yandere, not sfw, breeding kink, stalking, public sex, aphrodisiacs, forced drugging, major dub con, does making someone uncomfy at work count? idk but its there

You didn’t hear her until she called your name for the third time, and when you did, you nearly fell over.

“Oh god, what happened, what did I miss, I wasn’t asleep, my eyes were open!” You yelled, leaving your manager to jump.

“(Y/n), it’s okay, don’t worry!’ She said, laughing a bit to herself. “Don’t worry, I was just going to ask about what was happening and if you needed anything. But it looks like nothing is happening.” She sighed. You nodded, looking around the shop. You worked at a small, handmade soap. The soaps in here were beautiful, but the shop itself was quiet, only getting a few customers. The bulk of sales ended up being online at the owner’s etsy shop, with the actual building simply being in their family for the last 300 years, making it hard to part with. You didn’t mind, the soap was nice, you often got to take some of it home, and the work was easy. But you couldn’t deny that god, it was really god damn boring.

“Yeah, I’m alright. Sorry, I’m just… Really bored.” You laughed, your manager just sighing.

“I can take the front of shop for a bit and you can play on your phone or something. You don’t have to just stand there all day.”

“I don’t mind it. Gives me time to think. Besides, I see you playing on your phone in front of shop all the time, I know that I can do it right here if I wanted to.” You hummed, your manager just rolling her eyes.

“I put it away when a customer shows up, don’t you worry. And what is it that you’re always thinking about, huh? A boyfriend?” She teased. You rolled your eyes.

“You know that I don’t have anyone like that in my life. I end up thinking about stupid stuff. Like what would happen if cows became four feet taller, or something.” You told her. It was a lie, of course, but you could never admit what actually went through your mind.

After all, how could you admit that you were just sitting there thinking about otome games and anime characters? It was nice to sit and think about lots of handsome men loving you. Maybe you played too many video games or watched too much anime.

“Alright, alright. Keep sitting with your weird thoughts.” She teased, the two of you laughing before the bell at the door rang as it swung open.

The two of you stared as you saw the man walk in. He was so strangely dressed, and he was wearing a mask. Is this some sort of bad Dread Pirate Roberts cosplay? Half of his shirt was missing, which you sort of wanted to chalk up to bad sewing, but you also knew that it merely could be bad fashion. People around here are weird looking. He had choppy purple hair that covered one of his eyes, making you think that maybe the whole mask thing was meant to be an eye patch more than anything. You weren’t an expert in eyeball health. Still, you smiled brightly at the customer, not wanting to offend as you walked over to him, ready to assist in any way possible.

“Hello, Welcome! Is there anything in particular that you were looking for today?” You asked, Melone looking over at you before his eyes widened. God, you were just so… So god damn cute! The apron you were wearing hugged your curves so well, your body was so cute in the way you held yourself, smiling as you looked up at the man. He could just notice your tummy under the apron, a shudder going through his body as he saw your bright, smiling demeanor looking up at him.

“Oh, I heard that there were handmade facial products here? I’m looking for something a little more natural in my skin care routine.” He replied, looking down to see your little name tag, smiling as he got the information. “Ah, I suppose then you could help me, (Y/n)?”

You forced your grin a little wider when he said your name, before nodding, waving him over and you brought him over to a little corner of the store. You don’t know why, but it seemed to only make you uncomfortable when people did things like read off your name tag. Which seems silly, after all, it was there for a reason, but still.

“Of course, sir, let me show you. Are you looking for something like a cleanser? We also have exfoliate scrubs, made all in house.” You told him. Melone just hummed, leaning over the products and moving a bit too much into your personal space as he pulled off his gloves.

“You can call me Melone, sweetheart, no need for the formalities. And do any of these have scents in their formulas? I would hate to break out from oils…” He asked, touching his face lightly. You just smiled, shaking your head. You took note of his name, trying to keep yourself smiling

“Any scents that the product has is from the actual parts, not from anything we add. Like, our coffee ground scrub smells like coffee, because you know. We also have some regular facial soap, all in bar form, that we have, if you’d like to see. I can also make some samples for you, and we have a sink where you can try out some of the testers we have out.” You told him. He just smiled, nodding as he looked around a bit.

“That’s all well and good, but what would you recommend before bed? I need to remove my makeup, and so many cleansers are for the morning.” He complained. You just smiled, looking around and grabbing the giant pot of what you were looking for.

“Here we go! This stuff kills at removing any makeup. It’s made with shea butter, honey and rose water, with a little bit of tea tree oil in there for that calming feeling.” You said, reaching in and using a little spoon to put some on one of the little dishes your store carried, and then handed it to him. “Go on, go to the sink and check it out! You should also really check out our poppy soap too, it has poppy seeds in it which honestly? My skin has never been better.” You chuckled. Melone looked at you, before smiling and nodding. If that soap was what gave you such a glow, then he would definitely have to try it. You sighed as you went back to the counter next to your manager, watching the man as he washed his hands, his eyes widening before he grabbed one of the little papers you had next to the table, and a pen. Since everything here was served in whatever amount the customer wanted, the shop kept papers for customers to make a list of what they wanted.

“What is it now, daydreaming about a customer?” Your manager teased, leaving you to roll your eyes.

“Do you want him instead? He was all in my personal space.” You replied.

“Oh, cheer up, he wasn’t that bad. A little weird, but harmless. And you really need to get used to the idea that Italians don’t have a notion of personal space. You practically lost it when that old lady grabbed your hand.”

“Hey, that was a while ago, that’s not fair! I think I’m used to it now, he’s just sort of creepy. Melone…” You mumbled his name to yourself, Melone’s ears perking up as heard you speak about him. Oh, your name sounded so good rolling off your tongue. He wanted to hear it over and over again, make you make the sound, scream it, moan it-

“I think I have my list ready, cara. Care to help me out?” Melone asked, coming over to the counter and leaning over it, handing the list over to you. You just took it from his hands, looking over the list before sighing.

“Can you get the bar soap while I get the cleanser?” You asked, writing down what you needed in the liquid before handing out the rest of the list to her. She nodded, walking off with a small smile on her face before you just sighed, going to get the cleanser. You grabbed one of the small glass jars you had, before putting it on the scale, taring it out after placing down the glass.

“Five hundred grams, right?” You asked, only for Melone to nod.

“Yes. It’s heavier, so it’ll be less than what I assume it’s going to be, so I might as well just go for it. I’ll use it anyway.” He replied, watching the way you reached into the pot and carefully scooped out the cleanser. You were so focused, he couldn’t help but imagine what you would look like in a domestic situation, maybe using a serving spoon to scoop out sauce for dinner, maybe just for the two of them. Maybe you would be in a cute little apron like the one you were in now, your feet bare and your hair loose as you grew heavy with his child-

In that moment, Melone felt a plan start to form in his mind.

The rest of the transaction went fine, in all honesty. Melone seemed as though he was suddenly in a hurry, that he forgot that he had something to do, purchasing his items and leaving with a quick “Ciao!”. You could tell that he was speed walking down the street, but you didn’t really care. Maybe you were over exaggerating, and he was just some normal gy, albeit oddly dressed. Still, it didn’t really matter to you. The fact that the store was empty meant that you could go back to your daydreams.

You were so grateful when the store finally closed. As the two of you locked up, you pulled your coat closer to your body, looking around.

“You should be careful now going home. It’s dark a lot earlier now, I’m afraid that maybe there might be some bad actors in the alleyways…” Your manager sighed. You nodded in agreement, the thoughts of how dangerous this city was becoming as Passione moved themselves in running through the both of your minds. Your manager had talked about moving, not wanting her kids to grow up here, and you couldn’t blame her. But both of you knew deep down that no matter where you went, the mafia probably lurked there somewhere.

“I will, don’t fret. Text you when I get home?” You asked, giving her a smile. She just smiled back and nodded.

“Don’t zone out and forget, alright? I’ll text you when I’m home as well!” She said, before waving, the two of you walking off in separate directions.

You hummed slightly to yourself as you walked down the street. You made sure to stay close to the streetlight, but you could swear that you could see something out of the corner of your eye, the feeling of being watched harsh in your stomach. You turned around often just to check, but no one was there. You must really be losing it today.

Still, it was like you were attracted to what was unknown. You instinctively started to move farther away from the streetlight, to try and see what exactly was going on in the shadows, but nothing was there. You barely even noticed how far you were in the dark until you passed by an alleyway. You didn’t even see the hand that shot out and grabbed onto your collar.

You immediately tried to scream, but you could barely make a sound as lips crashed into yours, your body pressed up against the wall as you squirmed. You winced as your head slammed against the wall, your vision tripling and a groan leaving your mouth and easily swallowed up by Melone. He pulled away, taking deep, harsh breaths, watching as you tried to focus on him.

“Don’t worry cara, it’s only me, didn’t mean to scare you, wanted to surprise you on your way home…” He cooed, pinning your hands above your head and moving to let his lips press against your neck, leaving light kisses and he hummed.

“Wha… Y.. You’re that guy from the soap shop! What are you doing, let me go!” You yelled, starting to squirm. Melone just pouted, as if you had told him a bad insult or you had genuinely hurt his feelings.

“Ah, don’t be like that, bambina. Are you mad because I embarrassed you at work? It’s alright, I’ll make it all better.” He hummed, reaching into his pocket to pull out a small vile. He used his teeth to pull out the cork, before letting a drop hit his tongue.

“Yep, it’s still good. Go on, drink this all down, and you’ll feel much better, carina.” He told you.

“Like hell I’m going to drink anything you give me-” Perhaps you shouldn’t have spoken. When you opened your mouth and started to yell at him again, he just shoved the vial into your mouth, pouring the liquid in before covering your mouth with his hand.

“It’s alright, I know it tastes awful, but you have to drink it all, amore, otherwise it won’t work.” Melone hummed. You just sat there, holding the foul tasting liquid in your mouth before finally caving and swallowing. It wasn’t like you had much of a choice. When Melone felt that you had swallowed, he pulled his hand away, leaning over and pressing a gentle kiss against your forehead.

“Di molto… Good, thank you. It means a lot to me that would trust me like that.” Like you had any other fucking choice. You just let your eyes narrow as you continued to let them dart around for some sort of escape.

“What exactly did you fucking give me?” You hissed, Melone laughing a bit.

“Well, I suppose you’ll feel it momentarily, won’t you? Liquid medication only takes one to four minutes to assimilate…” He hummed. You swallowed, feeling that your mouth was starting to feel really dry. It felt like everything was getting hotter, until your whole body was on fire. You let out a soft whine when you finally opened your mouth to let out a few pants, suddenly out of breath, before squirming again. This time, to try and get rid of the heat that was engulfing you.

“W-What is this?! Please, it’s so hot, what did you do?!” You cried out, internally cringing at how desperate your voice sounded. But Melone just ate it all up, leaning in to press his body against yours, the outline of his cock making you shudder. God, think, what was happening to you?!

“It’s one of the best aphrodisiacs out there. Only the best for you, bella, I want to make sure that you feel amazing throughout all of this…” He told you, before pressing his lips against yours. You tried to struggle, but god, you were feeling so weak as the drug coursed through your veins, and Melone’s lips felt so good against yours. You felt your knees get weak, your body slipping down the wall that you were leaning against as it became harder and harder for you to support your own weight. Melone just pulled away, watching you sink to the ground as if weighed down by your own lust, smirking to himself. You were so beautiful like that. Melone could see the way you were tugging at your clothing, trying to get them off in some relief from the hell that consumed you. He just chuckled, pulling you up and making you lean on him. You just ended up grabbing onto Melone tightly, trying to take deep breaths.

“Don’t worry bambina. I bet it hurts bad right now, doesn’t it? Maybe I should’ve opened you up first…” Melone thought aloud, before shrugging. Too late now. He reached down to start to pull your panties off, the other arm wrapped around you and firmly holding you against him. He shuddered at the way your soft body pressed up against him, holding onto him like it was the end of the world.

“Don’t worry, (Y/n). I’ll make this heat go away, make you feel all better. You’ll feel perfect and well once you’re fucked full of my children.” He hummed. Despite yourself, you just nodded, desperate for a suggestion that would mean that you would feel better.

Melone practically jumped in delight, easily pushing two fingers inside of you, relishing in how wet you had become, to the point where you were starting to slick your legs. You moaned, gripping onto Melone tightly and starting to whine shrilling, babbling back at him.

“O-Oh fuck, that feels so good, fuck, please, Melone, pleeeeease…” You whined, already trying to buck against his fingers. It felt so good, but it wasn’t enough, it just wasn’t enough to satisfy you, to make you feel whole again.

“You’re tempting me so much, bambina. You make me want to fuck you right now, god, you’re going to be so full when I’m done with you, my cute little wife.” He told you as he added another finger, scissoring you open. God, if you could hold yourself up, Melone would have no problem getting on his knees and eating you out until you came all over his face. He wondered what cute, fucked out faces you would make after cumming five, ten, a hundred times for him. He felt his cock twitch in his trousers and did his best not to get ahead of himself. He wanted to make sure that you felt just as good as he did, but god, you were making it so hard with those cute faces of yours! The way you were clinging to him, gasping and moaning like a bitch in heat, begging him for more, it was all so much.

“P-Please, fuck, more… It’s still so hot, please, need you so bad…” You mumbled, moving to rest your head against his shoulder as he thrust his fingers into you. He let out a low moan at your words, his hips slightly bucking against you for it. He was so pent up, not wanting to waste a single drop until he found the perfect person to fill up with it, and here you were, all perfect and begging him to breed you full of his children.

“Aww, poor thing. Perhaps I gave you a bit too much…” Melone sighed, pulling his fingers out of you and leaving you to whine in frustration. He pushed his fingers into his mouth and just moaned, shuddering as he tasted your juices. You grabbed onto him tighter, begging for some sort of relief from this hell. When Melone finally pulled his fingers from his mouth, he let his own lips crash against yours, pushing your back against the wall and pressing your chest against his to hold you up while his hands moved to rip his cock out from his trousers.

It was nice, bigger than you expected, and you could see that Melone was well groomed about himself as well. In any normal circumstance, you would be continuing to scream, but as Melone started to rub his cock against you, slicking himself up with your juices, you just moaned.

“Yes, fuck yes! Please, more, give me more, god, fuck me already!” You cried out, squirming and trying to make Melone’s cock catch to try on your entrance. Melone just groaned, moving a hand to grab your hip, before pushing into you slowly. He threw his head back as he moaned, his nails digging into you as he started to move, only pulling his cock out half way before slamming back, leaving you to whine in return.

“Oh, cara, you’re so tight, fuuuuck… You’re so perfect, fuck, my pretty little wife, gonna be such a great mother, fill you up and keep you full of my babies-” Melone groaned, leaning forward and leaning on your shoulder, babbling his nonsense into your ear. And you just ate it all up, nodding and wrapping your arms around him and digging into his back, whining.

“Fuck, yes, please… Feels so good, please, Melone, pleeease…” You whined, holding onto him tightly as you tried to grind against him. Your words were enough to really spring Melone into action, starting to pound against you wildly, mouthing as your neck and leaving harsh bruises. You just scratched at him in return, leaving red welts that might even turn into bruises tomorrow. Melone groaned at the idea of you marking him so primally, the feeling of you marking him as yours just as he was marking you as his.

“God, you’re all mine, aren’t you? Love you so much, (Y/n), gonna keep you safe, warm, all mine, I’m yours just as much as you’re mine, fuck-” His teeth dug into his lip as he felt the way you were clenching down on him, the signal that your orgasm was fast approaching. Really, it was a miracle that you haven’t cum once or twice already, but perhaps it was something in the back of your mind that was holding you back, keeping you from finishing.

“Mmm, I can feel you’re close… Di molto, that’s perfect, do you want to cum while I breed you? It’ll be a great way to make sure it goes as far as it can.” Melone groaned into your ear, his voice sultry and husky in a way that filled your foggy head with static, only pulling Melone closer as you tried to chase your own orgasm.

“Yes, yes please, fuck, it’s too much, I’m gonna cum, please let me cum, please-” You mewled, on the verge of tears from how pent up you felt, grabbing onto Melone as if he would disappear if you let go.

“Fuck, good, then cum, cum on my cock, make me breed you, gonna fill you up so much, so perfect and soft and round, do it, cum for me, God-!” His voice was practically as a howl as his movements became jerky, before finally thrusting in and bottoming out inside of you, finally cumming. It was the feeling of him pushing inside of you that one last time that set you over the edge, a loud keen coming from you as you squeezed down on Melone, starting to milk him for all you could.

The two of you rode at your orgasms together, quiet panting and whimpers from the both of you as Melone finally pulled out of you. You practically collapsed as he let you go, free from the burning heat but now exhausted beyond all belief. Melone caught you, holding you up with his arms and chuckling a bit. You shuddered as you felt some of Melone’s seed drip down your leg, leaving Melone just to purse his lips.

“We shouldn’t be wasteful like that. I should’ve brought a plug, poor thing…” He sighed, reaching down to scoop up what fell and push it back inside of you. You moaned at the sensation, giving him a look to let him know that you were much too sensitive right now. He just laughed at your expression, before easily scooping you up in his arms.

“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. We have all the time in the world once we get home.” Melone hummed. You stared at him incredulously, trying to figure out what the fuck he meant. You started to squirm a bit, but you were much too exhausted to really put in an effort to get away from him.

“Hmm? Well, of course I’m going to bring my wife home.” Melone hummed, petting your hair lightly. Your face went pale at the realization, but there was nothing you could do. Even if you could get out of his arms, you were too weak to run away away from him. You were stuck, hopelessly trapped with a madman, forced to listen to his deranged cooing as he made his declaration.

“We have a lot more work to be done if we’re going to make you a mother.”

#jjba imagines #jjba x reader #jjba/reader #yandere/reader #yandere fic #yandere x reader #writing #My writing #mine #NOT SFW #melone/reader #melone x reader #dub con

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aka-indulgence · 4 years

Text

So I wanna get back to writing but I’m not yet ready to tackle the big stuff or asks just yet and i was recommended to write a oneshot/short thing so.... yet again, conversations with @llamagoddessofficial brought an idea to life and I’ve been kinda obsessed with it <u<

----

Space.

Vast, hauntingly beautiful...

lonely.

Even though you’re far from alone on this station- there was a huge crew of humans aboard with you- being on a station always left you with this feeling of... isolation.

You were on lone station, far from the planet whence it was launched, circling the star from a distance. There was no obvious motivation for why you were in one right now- living in space has become commodity, just another way of living. But to say you and the crew were living in space “just because” wasn’t quite the correct answer either... a lot of the people onboard were researches, and you were simply a mechanic on the ship.

You’re distracted a little from looking out the window, at the stars, when you hear a little clank from the outside.

You can’t quite see what’s directly out the station from where you are, so you took a few steps further from the edges of the window and lean a bit into it. You can see a metallic leg, blue sparks from a torch... S4-N5 was out there, his eight legs firmly gripping onto the outside of the station while he was making some kind of superficial repair. As he did, he seemed to notice you, as his “skull” turned to the side, his artificial eyes with “lights” as pupils fixating on you. There was a glare so you couldn’t see him completely... he must’ve caught you in his sensors. You give him a little smile and a wave before he turned away from you to focus on the station.

Yes, humans weren’t the only crew members... there were also robots on this ship. They assisted in managing most of the ship to make sure nothing was falling apart, in order, and generally making the humans; lives much more comfortable, doing things that were deemed too risky for humans to do. They were categorized by intelligence, conveniently titled in three levels, at least on this ship. There were the I-1s, which... to be honest doesn’t seem to be “real” intelligence. They just remember what kind of coffee you like, for example, catering to your tastes, delivering things to your room, the roombas and toasters, those guys. I-2s has a more managing role, controlling the locks, the doors, gases, air, and all the calculating needed to keep the station stable. They have an AI, but they were mostly fixed to their programming.

Then there were the I-3s.... like S4-N5.

Much more intelligent than the other two, they’re mostly mobile, can react to things they didn’t originally have in their programming, do tasks, solves puzzles and problems... advanced learning AIs. Affectionately called “big three” by most people since they’ve become... slightly more common than before, they’re one of the most intelligent AIs created. S4-N5 (who you called “Sans” for short that everyone else picked up- “Es Four En Five” was quite a mouthful to say) was a mobile, mechanic robot. He was made to fix the major fixes in or out the ship, with eight legs to provide grip while he was outside to stop him from floating away, and two arms for all the fixing. He had tools stored in pretty much every part of him, including his legs- another reason why he had so many, er... limbs.

He had a head and upper body that looked strikingly similar to a human’s skeleton- despite having thick “bones” and a very rounded skull. Black “sockets” with lights serving as eyes... and a permanent, wide grin on his face. You’re not even sure why it’s there- but then again why did his upper body part have to look like a skeleton? Maybe it was just a design choice to make him less spider-y but... yeah he still looks like a robotic, spider skeleton.

What did S4-N5 stand for again? “Station something something”-?

“Hey how’s it hanging? you’ve been staring out for a while there. What, trying to tan your face?”

Your lips drop into a lopsided grin at the voice, feeling annoyed before you even see his face.

“Hi... Robert...” you turn around, straining your smile, “Yeah, I was just, thinking...”

“Oh yeah? What about?” You took a few steps back when Robert stepped uncomfortably close to you, leaning back on the window. You know the glass is made to endure but you start to play with your fingers looking at him.

“Oh just... hey, do you remember what ‘S4-N5′ stands for?”

“Ugh... the robot bug thing?” Robert’s “charming” smile turned into a frown at the mention, “Why do you wanna know?”

“I was just wondering because I saw him, I- nevermind...” guy probably has no idea...

“Those things don’t matter anyways, they’re probably just a bunch of numbers and codes to track which model and version of the robot is..” Robert made a pout with his mouth, looking like he wanted nothing more than to steer the conversation away from Sans.

“Hey do you wanna know what me and the boys did earlier?”

... Riiight back to him.

But that’s hardly just a Robert thing... everyone on the ship doesn’t really like talking about Sans. They seem to barely want to do ANYTHING with Sans. He has a reputation for being the creepiest robot on the ship, almost entirely silent, walking around with his eight legs like a giant spider, with that upper “skeletal” body with the grin that now that you’re thinking about it again may be so he’d look friendlier... instead doing the opposite.

You tune out of him for a while as he regales you with something stupid he did on the ship that has you wondering how he even got assigned to this station when you perk your head at the sound of the air-lock door hissing open, the sounds of metal clinking against metal.

“-and ah fuck, speak of the devil. You talk about him and there he is.”

You turn around and see Sans as the doors close behind him in all his glory. Standing almost at twice your height, a shiny, metallic spider. His legs resembled knives, sharp with pointed joints, dividing a leg into three parts. His plated “abdomen”, equipped with machinery, energy storage, and a compartment for supplies suspended above the legs, holding up his torso.

You knew those legs are for mobility, grip, and tools, while the abdomen served to keep all of his body parts in check... but even you had to admit his likeness to spiders could be a bit unnerving.

“Ugh, look at that thing...” Robert whispered to you, as if Sans would take offense to whatever he was about to say, “he’s so fucking creepy, c’mon, why don’t we go somewhere else?”

He looked like he was about to take you by the arm before you jerked away from him.

“Why? He’s just doing his thing, he’s not made to hurt us, just relax!” you hiss at him. You knew Sans could be pretty creepy to some people, but he’s just being childish right now.

“Are we looking at the same thing? I- look, now it’s staring at us,”

You took a glance behind and sure enough, Sans was facing you, with only his head turned to you. You saw how his “pupils” focused, fixating on the nearby humans.

Is it just you or did his eyes look.. more intense than usual..?

“Do you see that? It looks like it’d fucking kill you in your sleep, don’t go out the ship with it (Y/n), it’d probably snip your tether, sadistic fuck.”

“What is wrong with you? He’s just doing his job can you just leave him alone?” You knew Sans was an AI but... it just felt wrong to be talking about him that way in front of him.

“What, because he’ll listen to me?” Robert scoffed, before his definite scowl turned into something less confident. “... actually yeah I don’t like that, so come on let’s go get some food or something.”

“You can go ahead and do that, I...” think of something think of something, “... need to go to the supply room for a moment. I think I’ve got something to fix and I’d rather finish it now rather than later.”

You walk on ahead without letting Robert reply, hearing his slightly distressed sounds of frustration.

“I- ok fine, I’ll be in the cafeteria.”

You hold your sigh until you get into the supply room, for once wishing you had a task to do as you look at your E-Pad.

One lose pipe at Section 8... least priority... what’s is it I need...

You don’t really have to do it, it’s hardly a human-specific maintenance job, but you didn’t want to just be hanging around outside while you wait for Robert to clear out of the cafeteria, because you’re starting to feel peckish.

Your mind goes a bit blank, staring at some spare pipes in front of you. You pick them up with no real intention in your mind, your mind just throwing around the word ‘pipe’ in your head and your hand just grabbed the nearest thing related. It was mostly quiet in the room, aside from the sound of air flowing out of the ventilation system and providing white noise in the background. You completely lose track of what you’re doing, just killing time in the most useless ways possible when...

Clink. Clink.

You hear... Sans’ legs clanking around outside. Something about the sound makes you go still, gripping tighter onto a pipe that just so happened to be in your hand. It was slow, deliberate movements... your heart rate quickened. Something about that quiet noise, sounding so loud when the room was so quiet felt you with this primal dread. You could hear your heart beating in your ears.

He was approaching the door...

Why were those legs so chillingly horrifying to you sometimes?

... No no, it’s ok he’s just... walking by...

The clanging stopped right outside the door while you bore holes into the pipe with your stare. keenly aware of Sans’ movements.

...

The hissing of the sealed doors opening almost makes you jump out of your skin, goosebumps suddenly breaking everywhere all over your skin as you make the mental note that: Sans opened the door.

As he steps inside, those quiet, tapping noises... you shake off your discomfort, ignoring the uncomfortable chill climbing up your spine the closer he sounds.

You said it yourself earlier. He’s harmless, he’s just doing his job... probably needs to take something. You’re in the supply room, remember? He may be a robot but treating him like he’s a monster just didn’t sit right with you when his sole purpose is to keep the ship intact.

You mess around with the pipes some more, trying to make it look like you’re busy gathering supplies, or something. He’s probably come to get supplies himself, he always resupplies the spares in his abdomen for future fixes before going to neutral mode.

You hear his movement doesn’t stop, every step he makes sounds like a whole second, and he keeps coming closer and closer and closer... until he’s directly behind you.

You sweat a little, the proximity making you a bit nervous, feeling like you’re being scrutinized.

He’s completely silent, and the silence stretches on longer than you’d think... what’s he doing? His shadow fell over you, unmoving, stationary. After a while you couldn’t stand it and turned around to see what he was doing-

Squeaking a little when you saw he had bent down so he was at your eye level, finding yourself face to face with him.

“O-oh hey Sans!” You greeted him cheerfully, though your heart threatened to leap out of your chest just a second earlier.

“Hello, Crew-Member 55.” He tilted his head to the side a bit, like he was confused by your reaction.

“I’m... sorry, you surprised me, I didn’t think you’d be that close. Did you... need anything?”

You’re so close to him that you could hear his eyes as his pupils widened and narrowed, focusing on you, see all his individual “teeth” of his, looking like a big, wide cheshire grin.

“... tool set complete.” He says, one of his automated responses. “It seems that you need something, 55. Do you require assistance?”

You looked at the pipe still clutched into your hand and drop it back into the latch. “I... yeah, actually. There’s a... a loose pipe in section 8, can you help me get the tools I need?”

“...” Sans tilted his body back, and you could hear again the whirring in his eyes as he focuses.

“... no tools required.” he finally says, surprising you a bit. “I can manage it for you, 55. You do not need to fix it.”

“Huh?” You checked your E-pad, and sure enough, the task was labelled as “taken by S4-N5”.

“Oh.. thanks Sans, you didn’t have to do that.” you smile at him, and... was it just you or did his grin widen a bit?

“I’ll uh... leave you to that then...” you slip out from the end of the room he had you cornered in- not going to lie, being trapped by a giant metallic spider didn’t seem very comfortable to you. His head faced you the entire time, his head turning 180 degrees. You almost rushed outside a bit to escape his gaze, but then you stop right at the door.

“Oh Sans, can I ask you a question?”

He’s silent. You take it as a ‘yes’.

“I... haha, sorry I forgot... what does S4-N5 stand for?”

“Station 4, Neurocognitive 5.” He responds as soon as you’re done speaking. “Station 4 refers to the station I am assigned: a star revolving station. Neurocognitive refers to my AI: Cognitive. I don’t have real neurons, however I am named so because I simulate one. Was that clear and concise, 55?”

You stagger a bit, for some reason you had.. human expectations for him? You didn’t think he’d reply you with such a detailed explanation of his name.

... you smile at him.

“Yes it was. Thanks, Sans, I appreciate it.”

“A pleasure, 55. Have a pleasant day.”

Of course, his response was robotic but... he is a robot. And... maybe you’re anthropomorphizing him a little but it sounds like he had emotion saying it.

You come out with a little spring in your step. Guess you’ll just check the cafeteria... if Robert’s there you can just go to your crew room and wait him out there. At least you didn’t have anything to do today.

You hear the sound of Sans shuffling around the supply room, probably getting what he needed to make the maintenance before he shuts the door. You hear him stepping away from you to Section 8. You hear another door open, his metallic legs coming to a halt.

“Oh hey whoah- hey!” You hear Robert’s voice, startled, staggering back to the door. You hear Sans skitter back as well, much faster than you heard him walking earlier.

“Please step away.” His voice, suddenly much colder and robotic sounded. “Please step away.”

You turn around and see Robert grasping the toilet door (guess he hadn’t immediately went to get food), trying to make as much space as he can from Sans, while Sans was pressing himself to the other side of the corridor, his eyes... much sharper than you saw them before. They looked almost.. hostile(?).

“Man I’m trying- move!”

“Please be at least 1.5 meters, or 4 feet away. Please be at least 1.5 meters, or 4 feet away.”

Everything becomes static again as you focus on what Sans is saying.

Please be at least 1.5 meters, or 4 feet away.

"This is a safety precaution. Please step away.”

...

You were much, much closer to Sans when he had you trapped in the supply room.

#sinister thoughts #theres.... a lot more to it #it just #HAS SO MUCH PLOT #i try to condense it but hmmmmmmm #im #<u<#i hope you like it? dklsjkldj #*is afraid bc i havent written anything in 2 weeks and i feel out of shape*#robo skider sans

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justkindaoverhereobsessing · 4 years

Text

you stumble, you soar (2/3)

What if Tony and Ziva had just a little more time in Paris during Jet Lag? Part one can be read here and the song from the last scene of this part can be found here.

_____________________

CW/TW: non-graphic mentions of torture

This chapter is a love letter to the capital of France and to the push-and-pull of conflicting fluff and angst that we all love so much about Tiva! Again, super happy birthday to @why-did-you-just-lie-to-mcgee and huge thanks to @indestinatus for plotting this with me!

_____________________

“Paris is a place in which we can forget ourselves, reinvent, expunge the dead weight of our past.”

— Michael Simkin

_____________________

The bed they’re sharing is a large one, and though they went to sleep on opposite sides of it, the rising sun in the morning finds them curled together.

As always, Ziva wakes first; she realizes immediately that something feels… off. She takes quick stock of her body and realizes that her head is pillowed on Tony’s chest; his arms are slung snugly around her back, and their legs are tangled together. She can feel his heartbeat under her cheek, slow and strong, and she finds herself rather unwilling to leave this spot of unexpected comfort. There’s no reason it should be, but it feels… nice.

She realizes quite suddenly that this is the first time she’s been held by someone—truly held, at peace and content—since her time in Somalia.

The thought makes her feel a little sick, horrible memories cheapening the moment, and she pulls away hastily, trying to be gentle and avoid waking Tony. Luckily, he’s a fairly heavy sleeper, and she succeeds.

By the time Tony opens his eyes, Ziva is dressed and ready for the day, and he seems none the wiser about the way they spent the night. “Are you going to sleep all day, or would you like to see Paris?” Ziva teases.

“Leave me alone, woman, I was having a great dream. I was dreaming about this lady…” Ziva turns away so he won’t see her expression. She thinks it’s entirely possible that his dream stemmed from the scent of her hair or the feel of her skin as she slept against him.

“Hurry and get ready. We have things to do,” she says instead of acknowledging what he said.

_____________________

Ziva has a definite plan in mind for the bulk of the day, but Tony almost immediately steers her away from where she’s leading him. “What are you doing?” she demands, surprised enough that she follows him for a moment automatically before realizing what she’s doing and stopping.

“We’re in Paris, Ziva. We can’t just walk everywhere. That would be absurd!”

“We were going to ride on the Metro,” she corrects him, an eyebrow raised quizzically, “but why do I imagine you have a different idea?”

He certainly does.

Twenty minutes later, they’re climbing on the Vespa that Tony insisted on renting. “Are you certain that you know how to drive a scooter?” Ziva asks with a small amount of trepidation. She has little time to die in a Tony-induced accident today.

“Of course! It can’t be that hard!”

“That does not reassure me. You understand, yes, that the rules of the road are different here than in Washington?”

“I’m not stupid, Ziva.” Tony turns around to frown at her, but his eyes are alight with hidden laughter. “And honestly, are you really going to talk to me about road safety? How many times have I almost died with you behind the wheel?”

“I am an excellent driver!” Ziva insists indignantly, but she’s speaking to the back of his head because he’s already turned back around. “It is the other drivers who—AHHH!” She interrupts herself with a yell because Tony has—with zero warning—revved the engine and sent them speeding out onto the road.

“I thought you said you knew how to drive this thing!” Ziva yells over the sudden wind in her ears and Tony’s triumphant, wordless shout.

“I do!”

He definitely does not.

_____________________

Their first stop is one of Ziva’s favorite Parisian cafes, Café de Flore in the Latin Quarter. As they are seated and start to look over the menu, Ziva briefly explains the restaurant’s history. “This is a place that many tourists love, but that is for good reason. It is one of Paris’ oldest cafes, and it has been frequented by some of the greatest creative minds of the twentieth century. Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Robert Desnos, Raymond Queneau… the list goes on.”

“And now we’re here.” Tony glances around; the morning light shining through the panes of glass bounces off the crisps white shirts of waiters as they bustle past. He’s never felt so French; the atmosphere of the cafe demands the feeling.

“Yes, we are.”

“What’s good here?” Tony wants to know, his eyes excitedly scanning the simple black-and-white text of the menu.

“You must try the hot chocolate, if nothing else. I know your sweet mouth will appreciate it.”

“Sweet tooth.”

“Yes, that.”

“Alright, I will.”

What follows is a delicious culinary adventure through several types of pastries, all split between them until they can’t eat another bite. They sit in sated silence for a few minutes after they finish their food and hot chocolate, bellies full and happy as they stare contentedly at crumbs dusting the green table top. “Damn. Parisians really know how to do pastries, don’t they?” Tony says eventually, a vaguely dreamy expression on his face.

“They certainly do,” Ziva agrees completely. “We have more things to see, however. Shall we?”

“We shall.” Tony rises to his feet with a light groan, patting his stomach to emphasize its fullness before offering Ziva his hand in a surprisingly chivalrous move.

Ziva accepts, her heart skipping one tiny beat. (She reminds herself once again that he is her work partner, not a romantic interest—they’ve nearly been down this road enough times that she knows better than to imagine otherwise.)

_____________________

After another mildly terrifying Vespa ride, Tony and Ziva burn off all the calories they just consumed by climbing to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. There, slightly out of breath, they get a birds’ eye view of the timeless city and all its charms.

Observing the yellow-white walls of buildings that have seen centuries of history, neatly arranged down streets and boulevards lined with the fresh green of trees blooming for spring, Tony thinks quite suddenly that there’s no one he would rather share this with. He glances at Ziva—she’s looking away from him, down at the traffic circle that’s too far below to hear its chaos. Her profile is as beautiful as the city he’s falling in love with, and it occurs to him that he came very close to losing her not even half a year ago.

He’s never been so glad for something not happening, and he’d go back to that desert and risk death or worse dozens of times more if it meant he could relive this moment with her again and again, here among the birds and the buttery sunlight and the city that stretches on forever.

He slides his hand into hers. Though she doesn’t look at him or acknowledge the move, she threads her fingers through his.

Eventually, Ziva lifts her other hand to point. “The Eiffel Tower is that way, as you can see. I thought we would go there next. It is about two kilometers away.”

“No.”

Now, she does look at him. “No? Tony, a trip to Paris is not complete without visiting its most famous landmark.”

“I know.” He doesn’t say more, though, and after a moment, Ziva dismisses whatever he isn’t saying with a shrug.

“Alright. To the Musée d’Orsay, then?”

“To the Musée d’Orsay.”

_____________________

They spend close to two hours meandering through the d’Orsay, both particularly enjoying the Monet collection. There’s something undeniably romantic about whispering to one another as they observe pastel water and floral scenes, feeling lost in the paintings and the history and the almost intangible sensation of being at home in this magnificent place.

The whole time, they’re hand in hand, and neither mentions it.

Then they have lunch at Le Galliera. Tony makes Ziva giggle almost helplessly as he tries his damnedest to order for them both in terrible French; the waiter is less than impressed, but Tony more or less gets his point across.

Considering this is still technically a work trip, they shouldn’t order a bottle of wine and then another one, but they do. A meal with wine is the greatest Parisian inevitability; it turns out to be one of the best meals either has had in ages.

Following lunch, they go to the last stop that Ziva has planned for the day, the Louvre.

Tony finds himself far more impressed with the delicate architecture of the Louvre than with its most famous inhabitant—the surprisingly small Mona Lisa—but he finds that he immensely enjoys other parts of the museum.

There are tourists everywhere, milling about the more well-known exhibits, and it’s a good thing that Ziva dedicated their whole afternoon to exploring… it’s an enormous building with too many exhibits to keep track of. At first, Ziva aims to show Tony the can’t-miss art pieces: the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Venus de Milo, Liberty Leading the People… but then their tour becomes aimless.

Much like their visit to the Musee d’Orsay, they find themselves just walking, enjoying the art and one another’s company.

Then they stumble across the room that turns out to be Tony’s favorite of all: the Napoleon exhibit.

Here, there are no tourists. They’re alone with the art and the history, free to speak as loudly or quietly as they would like, or to not speak at all; the space feels almost like a church, old and sanctified and echoey and welcoming. Like a church, it brings on the urge for confession.

Tony coughs suddenly, twenty minutes into their Napoleon exploration, and the noise makes Ziva startle... something Tony has rarely if ever seen her do.

He hasn’t spent this much time with her since Somalia, though.

“Are you alright?” he asks, uncharacteristically gentle.

“Yes, of course I am.” Ziva turns to him in surprise. “Why do you ask?”

“You’re jumpy. I’ve never seen you like this.”

“You would be, too, if you spent every moment waiting for your nightmares to reappear,” she answers, her honesty surprising both of them.

“Are you talking about—”

“What do you think I am talking about, Tony?”

That stops him short. He’s often wondered what exactly happened to her in Africa, because she has never told him. He hates himself for wondering so much, though, for fearfully imagining, but he can’t suppress the gut feeling that she needs to get at least some of it out before she loses herself to the memories… as much as he doesn’t want to hear it.

“What happened over there, Ziva?”

“You do not want to know, and I do not want to say.”

“That’s not true,” he argues softly, following her as she stalks away from him, deeper into the museum. “I think you want to talk about it. I think you need to.”

“And when did you complete your psychology degree?” Ziva snaps, looking determinedly away from him; at least she has stopped walking.

“I don’t know psychology, you’re right, but I know you.”

“Do you?” Ziva demands, turning suddenly to face him with fire in her eyes. “Do you know me? Does anyone? Can you possibly know what is left of me, Tony? Because I do not even know myself anymore!”

That breaks Tony’s heart, and he swallows. “Yes. If there’s one goddamn thing I’m sure of, it’s that I know you, even if you aren’t so sure.”

“Think what you would like! You have never stopped forming your own opinions anyway, whether you had any information at all or not! Stop trying to get me to—”

“I’m just trying to look out for you! That’s all! I know you went through hell, alright? I know that! I’m not demanding all the details, and I’m not asking out of morbid curiosity or whatever! I’m trying to keep you from collapsing in on yourself, Ziva!”

“Stop. Pushing.” Her voice is at once quiet and deadly serious.

Not sure if it’s the right thing to do, Tony does stop.

_____________________

They reach an unspoken truce as they finish touring the museum, but neither is paying much attention to the exhibits anymore. Too worn out from both their active day and their suppressed emotions to search out a distant dinner spot, they decide to simply dine at one of the on-site restaurants, Le Café Marly.

They’re both subdued throughout the meal, and it seems to Tony that Ziva is constantly on the verge of saying something. Every time she looks like she’s about to speak, however, she bites her tongue and goes back to her plate.

Eventually, Tony cautiously decides to prompt her one more time—he doesn’t want his head bitten off, but he can’t let her stew like this without giving it another try. “Something on your mind?” he asks lightly.

“I…”

“Something about Somalia?” he hazards.

This time, rather than getting angry, Ziva just looks… tired. Sad. Maybe a little broken. “Yes.”

“Something you need to get off your chest?”

“I… I can’t, I...” The grief that wasn’t strong enough to break through her anger earlier comes suddenly now, and Ziva ducks her head, staring at the fingers of her twisting and worrying hands in her lap as tears start to gather in her eyes. “I am fine,” she insists, though Tony hasn’t said anything, “and you should not have asked me in public.”

“Oh, Ziva… I’m so sorry.” Tony sounds exhausted, too, and pained. He’s not apologizing for asking, Ziva’s sure. He’s hurting for her and what she went through, she knows, and though she loves him for it, it doesn’t make her own pain any easier.

She’s just going to have to feel this. She has been, little by little, but somehow it hurts more now, thinking of talking about it with someone who would go to the ends of the earth for her.

He lets her sit for a moment, tears falling silently to her lap from a curiously expressionless face, until he can’t take it anymore. Then he reaches over and takes her hand. “Do you want to talk about it? Because you don’t have to, but… no offense, Ziva, but I don’t think you would have entertained this conversation at all if you didn’t.”

“No,” she snaps, hating how congested her voice sounds, but then she relents. “I do not know. Maybe.”

“Then let’s maybe get out of here.” Without looking at him, Ziva can hear the small smile in his voice.

He may be an ass, and he may be obnoxious, but he may also be the best friend she’s ever had.

He signals for the waiter to bring their bill, and before long, they’re headed out into the cool spring air. Ziva heads for Tony’s stupid rented Vespa, assuming they’re heading back to their hotel, but he doesn’t follow her. She looks back questionably, glad her tears have dried up for now, but he’s standing back, shaking his head. “It’s our only real night in Paris,” he reminds her. “Let’s go see the sights.”

“What have we been doing all day, if not seeing the sights?” Ziva wants to know. “Tony, I am tired.”

Tony tilts his head to one side. “Come on, I know my badass ninja assassin partner has at least a little more in her, doesn’t she? Humor me, Ziva.”

He looks so earnest that she’s tricked into nodding yes, intrigued as always by the occasional vulnerable side of him that sometimes makes its way out. “Alright—for a little while,” she amends.

“That’s the spirit! Come on, David. Let’s go see the City of Lights by night.”

She can’t help but laugh when he drapes an arm ever-so-lightly around her shoulders. “You are in quite a mood tonight,” she observes, walking willingly toward wherever he’s headed.

“Yeah, well, somebody has to be, right?” he replies pragmatically, squeezing her shoulders.

For some inexplicable reason, the gesture warms her in a way her coat does not.

“Where are you dragging me?” She suspects she already knows, but him leading the way—and walking, no less, the Vespa still parked on a curb near the restaurant—is an unexpected change of pace.

“Really, Ziva, if you have to ask, you’re not half as smart as I give you credit for. Where does any first time tourist in Paris go? Where did we not go already?”

“The Eiffel Tower?” Ziva surmises.

“The one and only,” Tony agrees.

“It is not the only one,” Ziva counters, just to be argumentative. She loves verbally sparring with him, even if she won’t admit it, and the familiarity of the bickering is soothing.

“Where are there others?”

“Do not tell me you have never been to Las Vegas.”

“I have, but—oh. You mean the tiny one.”

Ziva laughs; it’s a little stilted, but it’s genuine. Tony now seems content to let her decide when or if she wants to talk about more serious things, and she appreciates it. “It is not quite as impressive, but the design is the same, I suppose.”

“Well, you may not be easy to please, but I thought it was cool. Anyway, this is why I didn’t want to see the Tower earlier. I hear it lights up at night and that’s got to be the best way to see it, right?”

“Right,” she agrees.

They fall into companionable silence, focusing on the long walk at hand. The sun has long since set, and the energy of the city has subtly changed in a way that few other cities ever do. They become anonymous, just another two Parisians strolling toward Saturday night plans, nameless and faceless among the city lights and the beautiful spring evening.

It’s comforting.

Before Ziva is even aware of what she’s doing, she starts to talk. To his credit, Tony doesn’t say a single word; he just holds onto her and lets her talk.

There’s little emotion in Ziva’s voice as she describes being tortured. It’s factual, like someone reading from a textbook; she has removed herself from her memories to the best of her ability. There’s more feeling, however, as she speaks of losing hope, hope she barely had in the first place. She tells him about wanting to give up, about not being allowed to, about wishing for death and receiving rescue instead.

She talks until the Tower is in sight, and when she’s done, she falls silent.

Tony’s only response is to drop the longest, most heartfelt kiss to the top of her head. Ziva’s glad; somehow, any response he could have uttered out loud would have felt… cheap.

Inexplicably, some of the horrible weight on her tired soul disappears.

_____________________

They stay silent when they reach the Tower; even Ziva, who has seen this sight many times, is struck dumb by the lights as they sparkle across the entire magnificent structure. She feels small, insignificant, like her problems are small and insignificant, too.

The thought brings tears back to her eyes, and she’s just about to voice the idea when Tony nudges her. “Listen,” he murmurs.

She stops and does so, focusing in on a sound that her analytical mind had already tuned out as unimportant. It’s the sound of a violin and a piano mixing sweetly together. Ten meters away, two street performers stand alone and ignored, softly playing Chopin’s Nocturne in C Sharp Minor.

Now that she’s paying attention to it, Ziva’s a little mesmerized, and she’s startled slightly when Tony takes her hand again. “Let’s dance,” he says, the little smile on his face so hopeful that she can’t say no.

Tony uses her hand to draw her closer and rests his other hand on her waist, sighing slightly when her second hand lands on his shoulder. Neither says another word, but they start to rotate and move side to side to the haunting melody; their eyes are locked together, and Tony thinks it might be the most intimate moment he’s ever shared with anyone.

He doesn’t mind at all.

As the song progresses, their bodies get closer and closer together, and the brightness of the Tour’s display illuminates their faces like candlelight. Somehow, Ziva finds her eyes fluttering shut and her head leaning down to rest on Tony’s shoulder. Maybe it’s an illusion, and maybe the pain will come back tomorrow, but here, and now… she feels at once light of soul and cherished of heart.

The last note of the song dies slowly away into the night air, but Tony and Ziva don’t notice, continuing to sway.

#ncis fanfiction #ncis #tiva #tony dinozzo #ziva david #cynthia writes stuff too #here's part 2 tiz!#happy birthday!#here's some angst and some fluff #the smut will be in part 3 #also as requested please observe that there's a piano XD #anyway i tried my hardest to include all of your favorite places that you told me ages ago!#i love youuuuu happy happy happy birthday!#thanks again sof!

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kellykadesperate · 4 years

Note

Hi Nicole! I love all of your fics and soooo appreciate you still writing Robron in these dark times LOL I saw your post about additional Seb fics. Maybe a time when Seb witnesses his dads fight after he finds out about their time apart (their many breakups, their first separation, noncanon jail time, whatever) and he worries they’ll split up again? Just an anxious, big-hearted Seb 💕💕

hey trish! hope you enjoy this!

ao3 link

He’d like everyone to know that he isn’t gullible and sometimes it results in him basically looking for answers when he doesn’t have to. He’s been told it once or twice before.

It’s been annoying once or twice before.

Seb watches his dads on either side of the bar with a frown on his face over the distance between them. He stares until Jacob’s trying to get Moses to let him drive his car and he’s stepping in.

“Do you want to give nan a heart attack on her birthday?”

Jacob rolls his eyes and Seb just stares at his brother and tries to imagine that he’ll stop being an absolute lunatic one day. He’s all curly hair and bright blue eyes and bruises from trying to be older than he is and he definitely acts like a four year old half the time.

“Suppose not. Dad’d kill me.” Jacob smiles, specifies. “Yeah. Both of them.”

Seb forces himself to look over again, sees Aaron closing in around Robert and hands travelling before they’re moving into the backroom and he’s back to not feeling a digging in his chest.

It’s what he’d call it, this twist that makes him think of how fragile things can be and it’s stupid of him until he’s being reminded.

Moira and Cain off again for the nine hundredth time is enough. Isaac’s all tough skinned about it, rolls his eyes and pretends like he’s not seventeen and has no idea what normal is.

He’s here now and Seb manages to swig a vodka and lemonade from the counter to pass over towards him.

“You look like this is the last place you want to be.” Seb says, eyebrow raised. Isaac looks at the drink and Seb smirks. “It’s lemonade.” He says, winks and then gets a seat next to him.

Isaac actually looks like he wants to be sick after a few gulps of it and Seb would laugh if he didn’t look so sad as well. He’s always looked like this, like he’s close to just doing one and leaving in the dead of night because he can definitely look after himself.

One time, when they were about ten, Isaac had asked him to come along with him to London. He’d said no, said that he needed to be a big brother for now and anyway, Isaac only ended up getting as far as the farthest barn on his mum’s farm.

“Cain still loves Moira.” Seb’s not sure how many times he’s heard it in his life but it’s truth hasn’t ever seemed to waver. He shrugs when Isaac finally looks his way and pulls this face.

“Yeah. Don’t change how much they can’t seem to stay together for more than five minutes.”

Seb sits stumped, thinks of whose fault it is now. He supposes it’s Cain’s. He looks up and sees that his uncle’s knocking back shots and Charity doesn’t seem to be taking pity on him. It’s definitely him.

“I should go and see Matty. See if he wouldn’t mind me staying with him for a bit.”

Seb bites at his lip for a second. “Your mum needs you. Anyway. Them breaking up doesn’t change the fact that —“

“They love me. Yeah.” Isaac rolls his eyes and Seb knows he’s been told it enough times. It must be drilled into his head. He goes to speak when he sees Isaac staring over at Annie and Liv. “Your dads are like the opposite.”

“Of what?”

“Flaky.” Isaac keeps staring at Annie as Ella tries to jump up and hear what they’re talking about. “None of you have been without them. Must be nice.”

Seb stares for a second, feels a pang of guilt and then picks up a beer mat, whacks it lightly over Isaac’s head. “Stop being dramatic.”

“Who’s being dramatic?” Nan comes over like she’s terrified something is wrong. “What’s up with you two?”

Seb decides to down the rest of the drink before she guesses and then he’s shrugging, saying nothing is wrong, asking her if she’s enjoying herself. She is, she doesn’t stop banging on about how lucky she is and then Charity’s reminiscing with her.

Isaac and him go to move, he’d rather be anywhere else than right here listening to what he’s right to guess is going to be something about sagging boobs and wasted nights out.

“— that was when we were together properly. You know, girlfriends.” Seb makes the mistake of rolling his eyes and then he’s being properly spoken to. “I should be thanking you actually, well not you but that dad of yours.”

His nan’s pulls this face. “Ay?”

“Vanessa and them lot were trying to find Robert a new man, remember? You weren’t there but …”

Seb pulls this face because the entire sentence is disgusting. “When was …”

Charity waves a hand out. “They were on a break.”

His nan is clearly passed it. “Which one are we talking about?” She says, bold as bloody brass and Seb just sighs.

His nan’s head dips and he feels instantly embarrassed for even asking about it, feels more embarrassed that charity even bought it up in the first place. He tightens around the hand on his thigh and then Charity is smiling.

“It was ages ago. They’re insufferable now, in a different way.”

“A mushy way.” Seb says, relaxes under it a little and then he’s pulling himself away from the whole thing and going to see where they’ve got to.

He gets to the back door, almost wincing at the thought of seeing his dads getting busy on his nan’s sofa. He goes to move in and then he hears them talking.

It sounds angry, short. He sees Aaron sitting up, looking like he wants to smack Robert around the head. He just stares, almost trips when Marlon’s telling him to help him with the cake.

There’s something already bubbling deep inside of him.

—

Isaac says they’re lucky and he believes him. He just doesn’t understand what’s going on and he’s one million percent sure that if he asks, he’ll get nothing but lies back.

So he keeps it to himself, wakes up the next day to Aaron fluffing cushions on the sofa and complaining of back ache.

He frowns, stills and there’s this niggling in his stomach again. “You slept down here?”

His dad acts like it means nothing, just laughs and then rolls his eyes. “Yeah, why’d you think?”

Seb wants to ask if it’s his dad, supposes that Aaron’s the one who’s done something wrong. He tries to get something out at least. “I don’t know. Dog house?”

His dad looks at him like he doesn’t realise he’s seventeen years old. It’s always been funny, now it makes him want to scream.

“Your dad kicking me off the bed.”

“You had a fight?”

Aaron goes to answer but Ella comes down the stairs, she’s complaining of a headache and his attention is with her instantly. Seb watches him scoop her up into his arms, worry like mad and the questioning is forgotten.

For now.

—

He hears them a few days later bickering by the swings and pointing at Ella and it’s something that makes him stop dead. It’s unlike them to be like this in front of her, in front of any of them and he starts racking his brains about what’s caused it.

He watches until Jacob’s chucking a ball at his head and calling him weird. He’s just come back from school, looks like he’s in no mood to discuss their parents marital issues but Seb presses on.

“You’re just watching them.” Jacob says after he realises where Seb’s attention is.

“They’re fighting.” Seb sits on the bench outside the pub, bounces the ball he’s taken from Jacob and then runs a hand over his knee. “Like proper fighting.”

Jacob pulls this face and he instantly regrets even mentioning it. “Like … Cain and Moira fighting? Like they’re breaking up?”

Seb hears Robert before his other dad. He says something about knowing best, about doing what’s right, about not being a coward and it feels like he’s underwater until Jacob’s standing in front of him.

“Jake, move.”

“No.” Jacob’s suddenly not just a stupid kid. “Just leave it. Leave it alone.”

“Let them split up?” Seb jumps off the bench. “Are you mad?”

Jacob just shrugs. “They’re bickering.”

“That’s how it starts. Ask Isaac.”

And Jacob’s back to being a kid who doesn’t know a thing.

—

“Where’s dad?”

It’s a normal question, it’s Annie being her naive little self and asking the obvious thing that Seb’s too scared to ask.

They’re eating dinner, and Aaron isn’t sitting next to Robert. It looks wrong, feels strange and Seb just observes it all wondering why it’s all happening. He reckons that if he actually understands what they’re arguing about, it’ll be easy to stop.

“He’s on a call out.” Robert smiles so easily, he lies so easily too and that’s what makes Seb spin, his mouth open wide when Ella and Annie are in bed.

“Where’s he really?” Seb asks, he dares to, but as soon as Robert looks at him he wants to take it all back so quickly.

“You think I’m lying?” Robert comes forward, he dips his head and puts a hand on Seb’s shoulder. “Seb. Everything’s fine.”

“Say that again.”

Robert throws a tea towel over his shoulder, gets to drying up and the hand stretches off of Seb’s wet shoulder.

“Everything’s fine.”

He thinks about his dad lying, watches the shiny metal of his ring clink against a glass he’s washing and then nods out something.

—

“They just need to do it.” Isaac says, kicks a football against the wall and then watches it roll back to him.

Seb doesn’t get it, a frown hung on his face. “Do what?”

Isaac tilts his head, looks dead serious before smiling. “Should I draw a diagram for you?”

Seb wants to be sick, actually turns pale and then throws the ball at Isaac to stop him from saying anything else.

—

They had an affair, he knows that. It’s oddly common knowledge around the village and the fact that his dad was married to his aunt is enough to make him feel weird. It’s stopped there though, it’s always stopped there before now.

Before it makes them flimsy and flaky and his mind works over time thinking about it.

He goes to someone who won’t fob him off, he goes to Liv and she just laughs at him which is the exact opposite of helpful.

“This ain’t funny.” Seb says. “I’m asking how flimsy they are.” He might seem mad, look madder but he’s also a kid who doesn’t want his parents splitting up like almost everyone else he knows.

“Flimsy?” Seb nods and Liv just gives him this look. “Seb, they’ve got four kids, a house, married for …”

“Married twice.” Seb bites at his lip and then feels himself approaching dramatic and sad territory. “Because of the obvious.”

He’s made her look sad too and he doesn’t know why. He tries to take it back but she only bangs on about it even more.

“You think your dad’s cheating?”

It hasn’t crossed his mind but now it does, it makes him feel like his whole world is shattering around him.

“They’re just … arguing loads.”

“Of course they are. They’re married.” Liv crosses over her legs and pulls out a strand of her hair like she’s so at ease with discussing it all. “They used to be like a tap.” Seb doesn’t follow, thinks she’s being weird. “You know off one minute, on the next.”

Seb sighs. “Is this supposed to —“

“And then you came along.”

“Blew up the whole thing.” Seb says, and he’s starting to regret coming to Liv’s artsy flat to get this as ‘advice’ on the situation. He almost walks away feeling like that until she leans over and punches at his arm.

“Then put them together again. So stop worrying.” She says and he tries to listen.

—

He doesn’t stop. He thinks of taps for another week until he sees letters addressed to both of them on the coffee table. He peaks a look, feels the weight of them until his dad is coming up of nowhere and taking them from him.

“Excuse me mister.” Seb nearly jumps out of his skin, watches Robert whack him on the head with the letter lightly and then tell him to set the table for dinner.

“Where’s dad?”

Robert shrugs. “Working late I think.” Then he gets a text. “Actually. Pub.” He rolls his eyes and his phone falls against the table. Seb can practically feel his frustration.

“Everything …”

Robert looks up. “We were just going to talk about … but it’s fine.” He sighs hard like it absolutely isn’t.

“About what?” Seb wonders if he’s crossing a line and then tries to be at ease with the fact that he’s not Annie or Ella, he’s old enough to actually give advice now.

His dad doesn’t give him what he wants, says everything is fine and it clearly isn’t. He mentions how his mate’s parents have just finalised their divorce specifically to see the look on his dad’s face but Annie going on about her ballet lessons manages to overtake every other discussion point. He wants to throttle her but he doesn’t, instead he gives her daggers and when she’s finally done banging on it’s Ella refusing to eat broccoli that steals his dad’s attention.

He calls it quits. His dad comes home late and Seb hears them arguing as he leans against the stairs.

“We were meant to talk.”

“Yeah well I was speaking to my mum about it.”

Seb wants to whack his head against the wall, wants to find out exactly what they’re losing their head over. He listens in again a second later, realises he’s missed something when Robert is slamming a draw and telling Aaron that he should really put his shoes on the rack and not leave them about the place.

He only leans away when he hears his dad start thumping up the stairs. He jumps into Ella’s little room to hide and ends up trying to get her to sleep.

She demands five stories and by the last one she’s asleep, only it’s basically scooped up in his arms. He stares down at her, runs a gentle finger over her soft curls and smiles. He thinks of her and what’ll happen if his dads actually do split up. He thinks of Annie being sensitive and Jacob being wild and then back to Ella being so small. Her not having what he did at her age is enough to make him want to get to the bottom of it all.

“Nothing bad’s happening.” He kisses her head and watches her little nose wriggle as he moves her down on her bed and smooths a blanket over her.

Naturally as soon as he’s back in his own room he’s recruiting Jacob by asking him to do the most important thing possible.

“You think you can break your arm or something?” He’s laying in bed with the lights off and Jacob turns to stare at him. He wonders if he’ll think he’s crazy but he just sort of shrugs.

“Yeah. Of course. Easily.” Jacob holds it out and goes to slam it against the wall.

“Woah.” Seb sits up. “Not now. I mean … it doesn’t even have to be your arm, just land yourself in hospital.”

Jacob frowns, turns on his elbows to stare his brother. “Why?”

Seb sighs. “So our dads realise that their fighting is pointless and they should focus on keeping us all together.” It’s a simple enough plan only Jacob pulls a face. “What?”

“Why me?”

It’s a pretty obvious choice. “Well they’d lose their shit if Annie got a paper cut and Ella’s too young to be messing with.”

Jacob frowns. “Looks like you’ve got all of this worked out.” Seb smiles. “But no.”

“Come on. For us.”

Jacob shakes his head. “They’re not going to break up. You know why? Because not every couple is Moira and Cain.”

Seb scoffs. “Daniel’s parents are officially divorced.” He says. “And come on, how many people round here stay together for longer than —“

“Our parents.” Jacob says. Seb doesn’t know where all his confidence in their relationship has come from but he wants to steal it. “So chill.”

Seb pulls a face, tries to go to sleep, tries to chill and then spectacularly cracks a few days later when he sees suitcases by the door as he comes home.

He watches his dad come down the stairs as soon as he walks through the door and he doesn’t know what else to say.

“You’re leaving?”

Aaron just looks at him, nods a little. “Yeah. Just for a few days. Your grandad and nan are going to …”

Seb’s sure he’s crying, he feels his cheeks redden and he bites hard on his gum for what feels like ages until there’s hands on his shoulders.

“Hey, *hey, what’s —“

“I knew it.” He’s seventeen, he’s old enough to understand that people don’t stay together. He thinks about Daniel’s parents splitting up just before Christmas, how Louise only sees her mum on the weekends now. He’s not a kid but he wants to feel like one again.

“Knew what?” Robert’s there suddenly, he’s there with wide eyes and this worried look on his face.

Seb looks at them both, then back towards Aaron and this panic is everywhere. “I can’t lose you.” He thinks of it, so suddenly and it makes everything feel so much worse than he actually imagined. It’s like it hits the surface, waves crash over waves so suddenly.

“You’re not losing anyone.” There’s a hand clasping the back of his neck and Aaron’s telling him but it’s not coming out right. It feels like a lie.

Seb closes his eyes. “That’s what you have to say. But this isn’t like … you won’t see me the way you see Jacob and Annie and Ella.”

Robert closes his eyes, breathes out steadily. “Seb, you’re not making any sense.”

“Neither is this.” Seb rubs at his eyes, pulls back when Aaron tries to hold his face again. “You’re meant to last. You can’t split up.”

“Split up?” His dad is saying, he’s looking at his other dad and they’re both looking at him like he’s absolutely mental. It doesn’t make sense, leaves Seb feeling like he’s definitely missing the point.

“You’re not …” Seb breathes in. “You said you were going away.” He looks at Aaron and then his dad is coming closer towards him.

“We didn’t want to worry you.”

“About what?” Seb’s asking and then Ella’s coming down the stairs with a suitcase and things are starting to make sense. “Is she …”

“They do those checks on her every year don’t they? For her hearing.” Seb thinks of when he first visited Ella in hospital and she was this tiny thing that needed help to breathe. He remembers the box, the small holes he had to squeeze her hand through. He thinks back to the tears, the sadness running through the house until she was officially bought through the doors because she was early, because they thought she’d have little hearing if any. His dad looks at Robert and then smiles nervously. “We’re just going down to London because they referred —“

“Is she …” Seb’s heart is beating out of his chest for a completely different reason. “Dad, is she OK?”

Aaron’s got tears in his eyes, he comes closer and nods. “She’s fine, they just like to check that she’s still fully able to hear us fine. We’re just …” He turns to Robert and there’s this silent communication thing that Seb’s always found mushy. “We were scared.”

“So that’s why …”

“We’re not splitting up.” Robert says it like it’s this fact, like it won’t ever be broken. “You think I’d let that happen?” He runs a hand over Seb’s hair and smiles. “We’re just a little stressed. That’s all.”

Seb gulps hard. “I’m sorry for making it all about me. You’ve got enough …”

“Seb. Seb. I’m going to London.” Ella practically runs into his arms and he catches her, has her little legs wrapped around his middle as she stares up.

He kisses her head, helps his dads put the suitcases in their car and listens to them when they say they’ll talk about everything when they get back.

He has this bunch in his shoulders, this tightness that he wants to go away as he watches them leave.

—

They come back three days later and it’s good news. Ella’s doing well, it’s fine, they’re all fine and yet there’s still this knot in his stomach.

He ends up on the bridge looking down at the lake, has his eyes fixed on the way the water hits pebbles and rushes right over again. He thinks of Jacob, a big grin on his face when he found out that everything was going to be OK between their dads. He thinks of Isaac actually getting a bit of normality back now Cain’s not sleeping on the sofa anymore.

He thinks of how lucky he is until his head feels fuzzy and he has to think about something else. He focuses in on whatever stuff came blurting out of his mouth when he thought his dad was leaving.

The feeling stays until he hears the sound of feet approaching him and he spins to look at who it is. His dad is there, puffer jacket and deep voice and hanging over the bridge just to stare at him.

“I thought I’d find you here.” Aaron says. “Your dad thought you’d be at the cricket pavilion.” He leans forward slightly and Seb marvels at the way his dad makes him feel at ease almost instantly. “Spill.”

“Spill what?”

Aaron sighs and Seb brings his head down again, watches the water run until he can think of something to say.

“I thought you were breaking up.” It seems stupid now, he’s watched how they’ve been since they’ve come back and that stress is clearly forgotten about altogether.

Aaron frowns. “Because we were arguing?”

Seb blushes. “You could break up tomorrow.”

“Seb.” Aaron says his name like he wants to build up to something but Seb decides not to let him.

“I’m not Annie or Ella, I know life isn’t a fairytale. Things happen.”

Aaron looks like a penny’s dropped. “Is that why you were on about your mate’s parents breaking —“ He sighs again. “Your dad told me about it but that’s not us. I love your dad so …”

“You loved him before.” Seb doesn’t know how he’ll ever not be able to think of that time where they weren’t joined at the hip. It’s this fact that even his dads could be fragile. It stays with him, ticks right over in his mind until he looks at his dad again.

He’s greying, crinkles around his eyes and this hunch to his posture that he’s never really noticed.

“I’ll always love him Seb.” He says it so seriously, almost so romantically that Seb wants to forget all this prodding and worth altogether. Almost.

Seb tilts his head up. “That’s what parents say when they …”

“Yeah. You’re right.” His dad almost gives up trying and then looks all serious. “But I meant it.” He blinks out over the bridge and then clears his throat. “I heard what you said. About you. Me not seeing you.” Aaron’s got tears in his eyes. “You think that … because you’re not … that I wouldn’t see you?”

Seb remembers that, the panic he felt and the way everything suddenly felt like it was going to happen whether he liked it or not. He doesn’t know whether he should hold it all in or not and then he breathes out a breath. “My mum’s gone. You and dad are … you’re everything. You know that. But a divorce would mean you don’t legally have to —“

“Fuck legalities.” His dad might be coolest person over thirty he knows but he doesn’t tell him that. Instead he smiles and it breaks something. “Seb, me and your dad aren’t ever going to be without each other. But let’s say in this … weird world you’ve created we were … you’ll always be mine.”

Seb smiles. “I was just scared.”

“You don’t have to be.” His dad comes out of nowhere, leans against the bridge and had a hand against Seb’s back. “Not about me and this one.” He looks over at Aaron and Seb wants to be sick because there’s all this softness between them.

“You sure?” Seb wants to see Robert’s face, wants to know he’s being honest.

Robert nods. “I’m sure.”

Seb sighs, thinks for a second. “So the arguing … it was about what?”

Robert breathes out and then he’s making Seb understand. “Your dad was worried about what these tests would do for Ella, if she’d be scared, if she wouldn’t be able to be the same anymore.”

Aaron jumps in. “You know she’s been doing so well.” Seb nods. “I just didn’t want them to tell us our little girl has something that’ll hold her back.”

“It wouldn’t.” Seb says and Aaron smiles.

“That’s what I said.” Robert says, waves a hand out like they’re in court. “I wanted her to go ahead with all the tests but your dad was less keen about putting her through it all.”

Seb watches Aaron look away and he gets it completely. His dad’s worry over Ella has always been there and he doesn’t think it’ll ever just disappear.

“So we argued.” His dad says, looking at Aaron. “But we had those days in London and …”

Seb suddenly waves a hand around. “I don’t want to hear about you making up.”

His dad punches his arm lightly and things feel less like the world is ending. He wonders how many of his friends hate their parents and it feels weird, doesn’t understand it suddenly.

“We’ve always bickered mate, but it’s always stopped there. We know what it’s like to be without each other, and it’s wrong.” His dad leans over towards him again, then he’s making eyes at his other dad and Seb’s back to wanting to be sick about it all.

“So don’t worry.” Robert has a hand on his shoulder, it’s his thing and for once Seb stares down and feels grateful for it. “Now that’s over … I fancy a take away. You in?”

And yeah, his dads still speak to him like he’s eight and pizza and a film is the best way to spend a Friday night in the world but they love him and each other and he can breathe easy.

He knows.

#robron fics #seb white #robron #emmerdale #my fic #sorry it took so long!!

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robronsecretsanta · 4 years

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Fic: Just a Little

Happy Secret Santa @sugdingles!!!! Here’s a little fic for you :)

Just a Little

“Oh. I’m happy for you.”

Aaron had expected a little more enthusiasm from his boyfriend—after three years on the run in France, he was finally free, no more weight hanging over his head. He could do whatever he wanted now, he could go anywhe—oh.

“Robert,” his voice came out softer than he meant it to, but god Robert looked so scared, held still like he was waiting for a blow. And clearly Robert didn’t understand at all, because he was shifting away now, gaze moving to the wall. Aaron could see him closing off, could feel the wall coming down between them. And like hell was he letting that happen, so he moved closer as Robert edged away, grabbed his hand and wouldn’t let him go. He wasn’t going to let go.

“Robert.” His tone was insistent now. “No, listen alright, stop it. Stop shutting me out. Look at me.”

Aaron dipped his head, searching for Robert’s eyes, and no matter where Robert’s head was right now, he had to know Aaron wouldn’t be that cruel, to grab hold and use the connection they had, the connection they would always have, just to leave him on his own. After the two years they’d lived together, how could he not know? Robert took a deep breath, took the leap and stopped tugging at Aaron’s hand in his own, looked up into the eyes of the man he loved.

“Nothing has to change okay? I love you. I love our life here.” Aaron was never this open, but Robert needed this, needed to hear his heart laid bare to know Aaron meant every word he was saying. “It’ll still be better now, whatever happens. I can visit my mum now, and she can visit me— us if you want her to know. She knows better than to blab my business, and your business is mine now.” Aaron rubbed his boyfriend’s thumb, trying to get rid of that look on Robert’s face, the worst one, that look that meant he was waiting for Aaron to leave, ready to be alone again. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise. I love you, and I’m happy. The rest, it’s all extra, yeah?”

Robert didn’t quite look okay yet. Aaron could still see the fear, and the guilt, but it was receding now. They’d keep living, go on as they always did, and with time he’d know. Aaron would make sure he knew. Because Aaron wasn’t lying, didn’t doubt for a second this was what he wanted. Robert loved him, and Robert was proud to be with him—loved showing him off in fact. Not wanting to go back to the place where he’d been rejected, hurt by his father in the worst way—not wanting to risk that kind of hate again from the rest of his family, of course Aaron understood. And like hell was Aaron going to leave Robert here for the damn village. His mum could come to him, and Adam would be thrilled to visit Paris once he got out. Once Robert really knew he wasn’t going to up and leave, Aaron could visit the village too, for a week here and there. It would be a good life, and Aaron had a great life already. A nice flat with the man he loved, a decent job with decent enough people, that’s all Aaron needed, really. Life was good.

______________________________

Aaron was worried. He’d gone back to the village over a month ago, met with a judge signed off on the paperwork that would give him his freedom. After three years, Aaron was no longer a wanted man. He’d only stayed in England for a few days, begging off his mother’s insistence for a longer visit with the excuse of work and making her (and him, though he’d never say it) happy by booking her a flight to Paris for the next week. He’d come back to Paris with a grin on his face and a deep, heady kiss for Robert, and had seen the worry lift from his boyfriend’s shoulders. Aaron had met his mum at a cafe a week later and indulged her with photos at all the landmarks, so she’d forgive him for not taking her to their home. She did know he had a boyfriend, one that wasn’t ready to meet her yet, and though that made her about ten times more curious (and a million times more nosy), she finally let it go after about a hundred ‘no’s—at least until next time.

Everything had seemed so perfect, and as he’d hoped, Robert’s worry had seemed to lift with every day they spent together. Each morning they woke up in each others’ arms, the rhythm and routine contentedness of their life together was proof that Aaron was happy just the way they were. Everything had seemed like it was going to work out, but suddenly Robert seemed so far away. The last few days he’d been lost in thought, quiet and often times staring at nothing, or worse staring at Aaron, and Aaron had no idea what it meant. But it couldn’t be good, could it? How else was Aaron supposed to prove that he wasn’t going anywhere? The worry knotted in Aaron’s stomach, clenching tighter and tighter every day. Aaron liked to give Robert space when he was like this, because if you didn’t give him a little room to think he was liable to run off in the middle of a confrontation, but it drove Aaron crazy and he was about ready to burst until—

“Hey, Aaron?” Finally. Robert was sat on their sofa, laptop shut in front of him, rubbing his hands. Aaron left the washing up, dried his hands and came to sit next to him, not too close and not too far away on the seat, trying not to crowd Robert, but not be too distant either. God, he hated times like this, but hopefully this weird mood was about to end. And whatever it was, they could deal with it. They always do.

Robert’s eyes softened when Aaron sat down—he’d been trying not to make it obvious how carefully he was positioning himself, but Robert knew. He always knew, when he was there—really there, not the ghost Robert had been for too many days. And clearly (thank god) Robert was back. He scooted closer to Aaron, who, with relief rushing in his veins, leaned in as well and let Robert wrap an arm around his shoulders.

“I know I’ve been spacing lately, and I’m sorry. I’ve just,” Robert took a deep breath, “I’ve just been thinking—and no, I know what you’re thinking, it isn’t bad. I really don’t think it is.” He was looking into the distance again for a moment, but he brought himself back with a little smile, one Aaron returned readily. Here we go.

“I…Andy’s wedding is next month.”

“Oh!” That wasn’t what Aaron was expecting at all. “And that’s…is that…?”

“No, no that’s not what I’m all,” Robert gestured vaguely at his head, “about really. I mean it’s not great, Andy and Katie getting their perfect fairytale wedding and all,” and the venom that always came through when Robert mentioned Andy was there, but surprisingly not too sharp. “It’s more just—if there’s a better time, I really don’t know what it is.” He was shifting his hands now, gaze jumping from Aaron’s face and away and back again, or Aaron wouldn’t have even realized what Robert meant.

“Do you mean that?” this could be good, this could be really, really good, but Aaron had to be sure. “Don’t just say that because you think I’m about to change my mind or whatever—”

“I don’t!” Robert jumped up, pacing back and forth a little but it wasn’t his nervous pacing, not his lying nervous pacing anyway. “I—look, I’ve just been thinking, yeah? Because if we came back—even to visit or whatever, and it went badly? Not going back, it would feel like failing, letting him win or whatever—”

“It wouldn’t be!”

“And I know that! I know it but, feeling it is different, you know? Especially when it comes to me and Andy. And Vic, she’d be crushed if she thought I was going to start visiting and then I didn’t come back. But a wedding, that’s a special occasion. If you come to a wedding, a family wedding no less, that doesn’t really mean anything, or it doesn’t have to.”

At this point, there was no point in interrupting. Robert had thought this through, all the way through, and now he was going to lay it all on the table.

“So if we go, and it’s awful, we just leave. If Andy and Katie decide I’m coming back with you for the attention or whatever stupid thing they’re gonna say, or that I’m trying to get Katie back, then who looks like the asshole? Probably still not Andy, to Diane at least, but it sure as hell won’t be us. And if it is, well, then we know what kind of family I’ve got then, don’t we?” Aaron’s heart sank as he heard how little faith Robert had in his family not to see the worst in him, even as it sang with how Robert was thinking of all this in terms of ‘we.’ No matter what else happened, him and Robert, they were solid.

“And well, you actually can go home now, and you miss the village, don’t even pretend you don’t, and whether or not I like it I really do miss Vic.” Robert had a little smile on his face just mentioning her, and it always warmed Aaron’s heart how much Robert loved his little sister. Robert had stopped pacing around by now, just standing in front of the couch, and Aaron reached out to tug him gently back onto the sofa again.

“So, worst-case scenario: it goes horribly and then we know what they think. And I see Vic and get to make a scene and we get out of there.” And Aaron was smiling now. God, that little village really wasn’t ready for Robert Sugden, even if it had been the place that made him. “And alright, it’d be just a little fun to shake up that wedding, yeah?” Robert’s trademark smug face was on full force now. Just a little, my ass, Aaron thought, but yeah, he couldn’t deny that upstaging Andy and Katie’s wedding was a pretty big turn-on. Walking in that tiny village hall with the man he loved on his arm, that would feel really, really, really good.

This was going to be a big moment for Robert, and this way Aaron could be right beside him every step of the way. And in the most petty, dramatic, most Robert way possible, it could be pretty fun too.

#robron fanfiction #robron secret santa

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7deadlycinderellas · 4 years

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If the summer of our lives could just come again, ch 17

AO3 link

King’s Landing

Robert hasn’t even been dead two days before Joffrey dismisses Ned, and Sansa and him are turned out. The snow has barely had a chance to settle on the ground.

They are given a day to pack their things.

A tiny part of Sansa’s heart is sad. There are fond goodbyes of course, Tommen hugs her as tightly as though he were her own brother.

Tyrion is even more despondent. Joffrey’s selection for his replacement hand is, of course, Tywin Lannister.

“Couldn’t you convince him to send you back to Casterly Rock? I mean, if he dislikes having you around so much…”

“I’m afraid he distrusts me possibly taking control of Casterly Rock more than he dislikes my face.”

Sansa gets lost in thought at that. She’s unsure who even would have ended up warden of the west had the dead stayed dead. She knows there are Lannisters scattered about the whole region, one she’s never heard of likely.

She pauses a bit before her next line.

“Why don’t you ever leave? You’re a clever man, there’s a whole world outside Westeros where no one knows you as Tywin Lannister’s son.”

Tyrion exhales noisily, and sets down his glass.

“No one may now me as that, but the whole world will still take one look at me and see a fool or a toy.”

She thinks her next words over, thoroughly.

“We have a mutual friend,” she tells him, “A friend with a great many legs. One who considers his greatest loyalty to the whole realm. You should ask him about our friend overseas. She needed your help before.”

Tyrion actually looks confused for a moment.

“You got shipped there is a crate before, hiding in disgrace. That might not be necessary. You could sail away a free man.”

Her next words are grim.

“There’s enough horrors to come to Westeros that I would flee if I could.”

Throughout the rest of their goodbye, a sweet ache forms deep in Sansa’s chest.

“I…I’m going to miss you. Promise me something?”

“Anything,” he tells her, his voice nearly breathy. It’s an odd sound coming from him. He was always good at playing things off, but not this.

“If you hear tell of monsters coming from the north, run.”

She reaches into one of her pockets, pulling out the roll of paper she’d scribbled hastily that morning.

“Dragonglass can kill them. Valyrian steel too. There’s a blacksmith in Flea Bottom named Mott, there’s instructions in here, he can follow, but…”

There’s tears pricking at the back of her eyes, and her words are stumbling. It’s not just because if the others reach this far south, it means the north has fallen, fallen so far she can scarcely imagine.

Before Tyrion can react, she reaches out and grasps the fingers of his right hand, raising his knuckles and pressing her lips to each of them in turn, much as he had once before.

The act calms her enough, that when she rises to her feet, her words are more steady.

“You never caught my words for their meaning. My father did, but you didn’t. I said Tysha was your first wife, you never asked me who your second was.”

She turns and leaves, without stopping to look at his face. An errant tear creeps down her cheek. She wipes it off.

Whatever feelings the encounter stirred inside her are pushed down by what happens later that morning.

Sansa and Ned are waiting near where their horses are being packed, when they approached by a flustered looking Brienne and Shireen.

“Have either of you seen Lord Stannis?”

“He left yesterday after supper,” Sansa tells, “To retrieve his men and head for the Wall to aid the Night’s Watch.”

Brienne curses. Sansa’s never heard her do that before, and it shocks her.

“Renly’s rushed off. There’s reports of Ironborn ships attacking Shipbreaker’s Bay. Some of them men have swum ashore and are attempting to lay siege to Storm’s End.”

Sansa is astonished.

“What are they stupid? That could garrison a whole army in that hold, and withstand siege for at least a year. And if the storm’s don’t take it out, raiders certainly can’t!”

She’s heard tell that the Kingsmoot ritual involves drowning the participant for a time. Perhaps that ritual has done a number on their brains.

Brienne shakes her head.

“I know. But Lord Renly didn’t want Shireen anywhere near it, I was going to take her back to her father-”

Ned interrupts,

“They left by ship, there’s no way you’ll catch them in the winter weather, and the Wall is no place for a girl.”

Brienne looks lost for a moment, before Ned continues.

“Come with us. We can put the two of you up in Winterfell for a time. It’s a hard season, but we manage every winter, and we’ll be closer to her father than she is if she stays here. We’ll send a raven a head once we leave.”

He regards Brienne,

“You are the girl’s sworn shield correct?”

Brienne nods, solemn.

“Then you should know that this is likely the safest route we can take.”

And after a time, Brienne agrees.

When her and Ned begin to work out the logistics, Sansa moves and takes Shireen’s hand. The girl is quiet, but her hands are shaking.

This is going to be harder than she imagines.

Winterfell

Blizzards drive them inside.

Northerners can still work in snow, they know the snow, the landscape. But a true blizzard, with thick snow and fog and wind and deep,deep darkness will drive even the most hardy of them cowering for shelter.

It was in one of these deep blizzards that Robb drew up his letters to their bannermen.

Davos had returned some moons before, with a ship full of evacuees and a nightmare.

He has a flashback to something Osha had asked them when they were ferrying the first ship full south.

“Do you have a family, Davos?”

She never called him ser, but he never minded truly.

“A wife and seven sons.”

“And you’re fine with being here with all of this, instead of with them?”

Davos had shaken his head.

“Of course I’m not. I miss all of them every day. But my wife is one of those rare women who is content being by herself, and my eldest is old enough to have his own family. I’m filling a need here, helping these people stay with their own families, and trying to protect my own from afar.”

That had been the first of the four voyages he had made, expertly avoiding the Night Watch partrolled waters, hold full of refugees. He never let them off in the same spot twice. A few he expected, even tried to sail off on their own, into the open sea.

He told them the story of an entire Free Folk coastal settlement completely overrun by the others. How the wights had piled up upon each other until they could climb the walls of the city, with no care that they were getting crushed under each other and just kept coming.

They didn’t have to be told about it. Jojen had woken up screaming that morning, with a vision he couldn’t tell from a nightmare. They weren’t sure if it had been Hardhorne, but it had sounded just like it.

“And we still don’t know what’s become of Jon,” Arya tells him, hugging herself, “He hasn’t been at Castle Black in years.”

“He wasn’t there,” Davos tells her grimly, “If he had been I’d have sought him out. It was chaos, no one leading, no one guiding. I just shoved as many as I could on the ship, thanked every god I could think of that they can’t swim and fled.”

“We’ll start sending weapons to other keeps,” Robb tells him grimly, “Along with orders that every able man, woman and child to be trained in their use. Take some of the free folk with you to help begin the training.”

“Tell them,” Bran adds, “To make up lists. Add the names of anyone too old, young or sick to train.”

“We’ll start planning, see if we can identify safe places to evacuate them to if the wall is breached.”

Bear Island has become a possibility, since Davos has reminded them that the dead do not swim. After the death of Jeor Mormont in the mutiny at the wall, Dacey and Alysane Mormont had come to Winterfell to seek acknowledgement of their mother’s continued rule.

They had met no resistance at this, but when given the same instructions that the Stark’s other sworn house’s had been given about dealing with fleeing wildlings, they had been met with mirth.

“Wildlings used to try to raid our island, “ Dacey had said, “Now even the Iron born know better. We can do what you say, but I don’t any of them are still foolish enough to try fleeing to our little island.”

“You may be surprised,” Robb tells them grimly, “Most of them seem to be fleeing to whatever’s south of where they currently are.”

Arya watches the two of them from the side of the room, wondering if Lyanna would have resembled them when she grew up. She knew both Alysane and Dacey had been killed at the red wedding. Neither them or their mother had husbands, they all swore their children had been sired by bears.

And with a sudden spark, Arya wonders if she could ask one of them if one of these bears had had red hair and a long beard.

The blizzards also stopper news. Even Bran can’t guide his ravens through them. They have no idea what’s occurred in the capital since Robert’s death. This is one of the few times in his second life that Bran has missed the ability to see through the weirwoods.

And with the onset of winter, Arya is suddenly quite grateful for her mother’s insistence that she marry.

She occasionally will grumble will Gendry wraps her in her arms, his head over hers and his legs bracketing hers.

“Why do you always get to be the big spoon?”

“Cause if I let you be the big spoon I’ll end up missing a limb one of these mornings.”

Her childhood bed is slightly too small for the two of them, but in winter the crowding is welcome.

One morning, when they rise, Gendry spies a fairly dark mark she’d left on his shoulder the night before. It’s not the first- a few weeks prior Robb had leaned in close to examine a pink love bite on his neck, and then backed away, horrified, when he’d recognized it for what it was, but something about it niggles at him.

“I think you can see teeth here…Something bothering you?”

At her bewildered look he clarified,

“I know they call you a she-wolf, but your teeth don’t usually come out unless you’re upset or scared.”

In the old days, so long ago it seemed, she had put up a tough facade, but then melted atop of him. It had been fun to discover that Arya, who fought so hard to keep her outside cold, loved to be held and kissed gently. But when the dead had kept rising and people had kept dying, her kisses got harder, her hands gripping tighter, often leaving him increasingly black and blue. He hadn’t minded, not particularly, except for what it made him think of her mental state.

She sighs, and moves to kiss the mark, trying to soothe it away.

“I didn’t realize that having everyone I loved back would leave me even more scared of losing them again.”

Gendry throws an arm across her back, running his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck.

“What was that thing in High Valyrian? That thing that weird red and white haired fucker said when he got us out of Harrenhal?”

Arya laughs, “Valar Morghulis. All men must die.”

“Seems a bit morbid to me, but that’s the point I guess. We’re all going to have to die eventually. But you have us all here again.”

Arya’s face looks unconvinced, but she steps back to pull off her shift and begins dressing without another word.

When the blizzard finally passes, everyone in Winterfell has gone stir crazy. Enough for even Gendry to ask to join some of the others to go with Meera and Jojen to go forage for mushrooms.

It’s a bright clear day, and the sun is high in the sky when they’re turning over logs and digging out tree trunks to look for growths to examine and see if they looked edible.

Gendry had never known there were so many kinds of mushrooms, looking through his sack at all the different sizes and shapes. Though, he thinks as Jojen finds a small, spotted one, looks at it and shakes his head, he never really realized how deadly the wrong ones could be either. It wasn’t something that ever came up in King’s Landing, and when on the road, it had never occurred to him to even bother with mushrooms.

They’ve all been out maybe an hour, when Jojen stops suddenly.

When he falls over into the snow, it’s Arya who reaches him first. She rolls him over, runs a hand over his mouth and nose, and then under his chin.

“He’s breathing,” she assures Meera. The other girl’s face has gone ashen, and she’s standing stiff, pulled tight like a lute’s string.

“Rickon, run back to the keep, have them bring Maester Luwin down to meet us,” she says, in a single breath.

Before Gendry can move, and before Rickon’s even out of sight, she moves and grabs Jojen under his arms,

“Gendry, help me,”

He finally snaps out of his haze, and goes to help, and between the three of them, they manage to life Jojen, who remains motionless. He’s not too heavy, but he’s long, and his boots make his feet harder to handle.

It takes doing, but they weren’t too far out, so they get back to Winterfell quickly enough. When the guards Rickon has alerted come out and take Jojen from the three of them, Gendry feels his muscles burn as they go slack.

Arya grabs his hand quietly as they step aside. Meera stands at the end where they had dropped him and she looks frozen to her spot, and like she might fall over herself.

Bran hadn’t gone with them, for obvious reasons, but having been drawn out of the keep by the ruckus, he awkwardly makes his way to join them.

He approaches Meera quietly, and when he reaches out to gingerly touches her hands, she heaves and presses her face into his neck.

Gendry feels Arya pull his hand, and whisper, “leave them be.”

Her voice when she speaks again is incensed, but her face has that same faraway look it had the morning he’d questioned her biting him.

“Jojen better be pretty sick if he scared us that bad,”

“Are you going to yell at him when he wakes up,”

She shakes his head,

“I’m going to set Mother on him.”

The next time they see Jojen is the next day when Meera goes to bring him his supper. Maester Luwin tells them he has a fever and a bad chest infection, and shouldn’t have gone outside. He plies him with ointments to ease the cough he wakes with and makes him a tea to help the fever.

He also still looks suitably terrified by whatever it was Lady Catelyn said to him.

It’s a few weeks later, when Gendry’s by himself in the forge, when Jojen asks if he can come in and sit for a while.

Even this long after, his cough is lingering, so Gendry tells him,

“Sure, but you should stay by the door away from the smoke.”

He sits quietly for a while, reading a book he’s brought with him.

“You’re from the capital right?”

Gendry nods, “Grew up in Flea Bottom, Biggest slum in the whole place.”

“Someplace with that many people, is there anywhere you would go if you got sick?”

Gendry laughs wryly.

“Barely. If you were lucky you might know an old woman who knew about healing or someone at a tavern who was used to sewing up brawl wounds. Mostly if you got sick enough you just died.”

Jojen’s face at this point looks an awful lot like what Arya’s occasionally has.

“After Lady Catelyn scolded me…throughly, I asked her how the maesters learned all they did about helping the sick.”

He’s never met one before Luwin, but even Gendry knew about the citadel. He also knows that no maester would bother himself with the problems of the common folk.

“It’s a big undertaking,” Gendry says, “You basically have to give up your whole life to become one.”

“And that’s stupid,” Jojen replies, forcefully, “Why should they keep all the knowledge just for themselves? People get sick everywhere. Lords have to pay to receive one at their castles, that’s why we don’t have one at Greywater Watch.”

He’s quiet for a bit longer, then admits.

“It didn’t surprise me at all when Meera told me I died young. I always thought I would. In the swamp, it’s much the same. You get sick enough and you just die.”

Gendry thinks long on his next words, before saying.

“Valar Morghulis,”

Jojen nods, having learned enough High Valyrian to know the saying.

“Sounds like an excuse if you ask me.”

Over the Wall

The boy is walking steadily, pointing and babbling when Gilly finally decides on a name for him.

Jon had told her about his friends at Castle Black, and she had liked the sound of the name Aemon. It makes Jon’s heart twinge, wondering if one of his only remaining relatives was still living, but happy to know he would be remembered if not.

“It’s not so bad,” she tells him, “Lots of us don’t name our babes until they walk. They die too easily when they’re small.”

The cave really isn’t a good place for a young child, but it’s safer than above ground. And when Aemon begins to talk, he begins to whisper the same words Jon does.

These are the words Rowan has begun teaching him. Maester Luwin had taught all of the Stark children High Valyrian, but Jon doesn’t believe it ever sounded like this coming from him. He recalls his words sounded stiff, practiced. Luwin had waved them all on, saying that reading it was more important. The words the trees speak are different. It’s like they speak in all the senses.

Ygritte had listened to them one day, and said they didn’t even sound like words.

“Almost sounds like you’re singing.”

Sometimes Jon sits and listens to the wind outside the caves, blowing through the trees that dot the hillside. Singing seems an appropriate word, he hopes that what he sounds like.

Gilly and the other’s don’t always make it back for supper, their map-making taking time, though their paths through the caves are unobstructed. Sometimes Ygritte leaves and hunts something to roast. The moss Rowan seems to favor doesn’t seem to do much to bolster a human’s strength. She dries some, and sends them with Henneh and Petra, Gilly’s youngest sisters. When she gives it to them, sometimes they’re gone overnight.

Jon still feels overwhelmed, and one day, he finally asks Rowan,

“So, what’s the endgame for this? What is it all for?”

Rowan looks contemplative, and reaches out to touch his hands.

“What brought you over the wall Jon Snow?”

He is confused,

“Duty? Following my commander’s lead?”

Rowan smiles, almost amused.

“Why specifically?”

Jon pauses for a long time.

“We were hoping to find my uncle Benjen and the other rangers who’d gone missing. And to find out why the wildlings were fleeing their villages.”

Rowan nods. She reaches out and touches the root of the dead tree.

“All of the trees speak the same language, and they all speak to one another. Perhaps you could ask them if they had seen your uncle?”

The question should be bizarre, but it’s become almost normal.

“This one’s dead, will it be able to answer?”

Rowan shakes her head.

“But I can take you to one that will.”

The journey isn’t far, it’s down one of the close caverns Gilly has already mapped. The little weirwood is barely larger than the one Rowan had rooted, maybe a few years. Its trunk is skinny, and it’s only maybe ten or twelve feet tall.

When he realizes he must look apprehensive, Rowan touches him.

“Go ahead. It’s not a person, it can’t take offense.”

Jon’s words whisper his memories of his uncle. His height, build, his long hair. Who his parents were, his siblings. These words become his image, his voice giving shape to his very self.

Jon is so shocked when the tree responds he nearly falls over. Listening he finds, is easier than speaking. Maybe it always was.

He doesn’t see it, not really, not in the way he’d heard Bran speak of his visions. It’s like he was there, and he’s remembering it.

He remembers seeing Benjen being surrounded by the others. He recognizes their piercing blue eyes without a word. He remembers them pierce his heart. He remembers him fleeing, beginning to turn blue himself. He remembers Rowan, as clear as she is standing beside him right now. He remembers seeing her take him by the hand, to one of her caves.

When Jon pulls himself out, he asks her,

“He’s still alive.”

“For want of a better word. He is not whole, but he is still himself.”

Jon feels a weight lift off his chest as the two of them make their way back to the main cave.

They make more journeys out to the weirwood, sometimes day after day in a row, when Rowan feels Jon needs to work on his speech, or she remembers something she feels he needs to see more than others.

He spies Gilly and the others carrying rough crosses.

“Iron and dragonglass,” Rowan acknowledges, “I buried one far north. They are doing the same south towards the wall. If we get them in the ground before they manage to breach it, then they shouldn’t be able to keep rising. The long dead should stay down.”

Before? Jon thinks, more than a little alarmed.

One night, he returns from his lessons to only a fire and Ygritte.

“No one else back yet?”

Ygritte shakes her head. She’s holding a sword.

Jon feels the back of his neck prickling.

“Where’d you find that?”

“One of these caverns. Rowan said it belonged to the tree-man who lived here before. More fun than the axe.”

Brynden Rivers, Jon recalls, is what she had said was the original name of the man who became the Three-Eyed Raven. A bastard, just like him.

He goes to take a look at the handle, and something about the blade catches his eye.

“May I?”

She shrugs.

The weight gives it up.

“This is Valyrian steel,” he tells her, astonished, “Like Longclaw. There’s less than a dozen of these left in Westeros.”

“So a good find?”

He recalls his siblings telling him to hold tightly to Longclaw, because it could destroy Others.

“Hold onto this,” he tells her, passing the sword back. She raises an eyebrow.

“Sure I’m not going to lob any important bits off in your sleep now?”

He laughs.

“You would have done it by now if you were.”

Maybe it’s the peace of the moment, or the joy of finding the sword, or maybe it’s the firelight catching her hair.

“Can I kiss you?”

Ygritte’s face turns contemptuous. He can feel the mocking in her words before they even start. Whatever despair her memories had brought to her, there is no sign of.

“All these years throwing myself at you and all you’re going to do is kiss me?”

He snorts.

“I know nothing remember, I have to learn.”

And before she can get in a retort, he leans over and follows through.

He kisses quite a lot of her that night, and though she isn’t quiet the whole time, none of her words are complaints.

#game of thrones #A Song of Ice and Fire #gendrya #sanrion #jongritte #breera #time travel fix it #fic

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samaraclegane · 5 years

Note

Your writing is wonderful! I have a prompt idea based on the last shot of Gendrya in bed. Arya is slowly getting her humanity back and now she's afraid of losing Gendry. Thank you!

author’s note: this seems like it could totally be canon! love it, anon & i hope i do your fantastic little prompt justice. :)

-arya was above this. she’d been through so much, so much training, so much pain ever since her father had been murdered on the command of joffrey, she didn’t know why she was giving it all up now.

-the faceless man. the wolf. the stone-cold assassin which she had worked so very hard to become, all for what?

-it wasn’t as though she regretted what had happened. after all, after her father’s passing, she had then met gendry. gendry, that tall boy with a solid chest and piercing blue eyes. that handsome boy who could work a furnace like it was his day job (and, she realised, it literally had been). that boy who she had only recently found out was the bastard son - likely the final remaining one, too - of king robert. that boy who was no longer a boy.

-she had initially thought it was curiosity. she had danced around the idea, but the thought of her last night on earth being spent alone, or even worse with the hound, was what drove her over the edge. she’d marched up to the forge where she knew gendry would return to shortly, and the rest was history.

-in the moment, however, she knew something had shifted. she assumed that it was simply her body’s reaction to being able to touch gendry in this way - like she had wanted for so long, but had always denied herself - and kiss him. she roamed all across his body, exploring him, and found herself classifying the unfamiliar feeling as lust.

-now, though, they’re together still. having finished and rolled over, parting but not so far that they could be considered apart, she got to thinking, trapped inside of her own head. she’s looking off, away from gendry, because if she looks at him she might just explode into flames.

-she wonders: was this what it was like? was this how sansa had felt all the time growing up, so infatuated, caught up in boys and the songs of pretty maids that she enjoyed pretending were about her? if so, why was this a sensation she had desired?

-from arya’s stance, emotions like this were only trouble. every person she had ever known to have loved ended up dead, or worse. her father had loved his family, and he had gotten himself killed. her sister had loved king joffrey, and she had been tormented relentlessly for it. her brothers had loved each other, and they died for this love.

-arya suddenly feels a chill run through her, sending her jolting up and reaching for her discarded undershirt. she casts only a brief look over her shoulder at gendry, checking he’s still sleeping soundly, before she’s dressed and slipping out of the doorway, slinking back to her room.

-she doesn’t get any rest that night, and she feels awful the next morning. with all of her might, she avoids gendry, knowing she might break if she has to explain to him why she left.

-it’s only days later that she lets herself look at him again. he looks much the same - perhaps a little tired himself - but still has his cropped hair and strong, distinctive face, stony as he works like a mule, forging endless weapons for nondescript soldiers.

-she doesn’t approach him.

-no matter how much that little ache in her chest makes her want to stand before him and pull his stupid face down to hers and kiss him again, she doesn’t. she doesn’t because it’s foolish. she doesn’t because it’s irregular - it’s just not her - and so she turns on her heel and quickly walk away, trying and failing to keep the man from her mind.

-it takes several more days, but she finally realises just why she can’t give into her self and her feelings. why, every time she sees gendry now, there’s something in her that feels like overwhelming sadness. her veins are flooded cold at the sight of him, and the one time he caught her eye and tried to wave her over, she dodged him entirely and fled the scene, barely holding back tears.

-this was not good.

-in fact, this was so far from good that she wanted to throw it all up, turn back the time, because now she was feeling regular things. she had only wanted to try something new before the war began, and now she was losing herself to the stupid bull-headed boy that seemed to live in the forge, and she was terrified.

-unlike with the faceless men, she wasn’t afraid he would hurt her. unlike with the hound and littlefinger, she wasn’t afraid he would turn on her and make merry with the money he got from whoever so wanted her dead they were willing to pay for it (cersei, most probably). she wasn’t afraid of him, she realised in time, but the thought of losing him.

-the realisation hit her one day, as she practised with her new weapon. she jabbed at the dummy when she understood, because damn the man, she was in love. she had been for a long time, she realised, no matter how hard she tried to play it off.

-she hated the thought of caring so much about somebody, but she hated the thought of losing him that much more. she loathed how she was beginning to feel like she had never done before, but she never wanted to stop. somehow she simultaneously felt like she was soaring and crashing, burning, like a blood red star that bled across the night sky, painting it crimson.

-having not spoken to him for a prolongued amount of time, she becomes rather unlike herself when he catches her off guard one day and initiates a conversation. she stairs blankly at him, not hearing what he says the first time he does so, leaving him worried.

-”arya,” he repeats her name, sounding clearer this time, “are you alright?”

-she shakes her head, willing herself to disappear. she couldn’t have this conversation right now. even if she has put a name on what she’s feeling - love, perhaps, as repulsive as it sounds - that doesn’t automatically mean she’s ready to profess it to him.

-”i’m fine,” she knows she sounds unconvincing when she says it, but figures it was worth a try anyway.

-”no, you’re not.” he states plainly, and brings her to sit down on a nearby seat. he takes his place beside her, then looks into her eyes, his own ridden with concern. “why are you avoiding me?”

-she’s frozen. she can only look at him, swapping her focus from one blue eye to the other, and say nothing. what could she say? she’s not one for dramatic ‘i love you’ sequences, and she doesn’t think he is, either. then again, she’s not usually one for feeling at all.

-”arya, if this is about what happened, we can just-”

-she doesn’t want to hear it - doesn’t want him to excuse what he did, or try to explain why she initiated it. she interrupts, loudly stating, “no.” she then retreats back into herself, scared of her own heart now.

-she hears it beating loudly in her head. the pulsing is rhythmic, drumming into her skull. it only increases as he begins smiling at her, cheeks flushing a pink that’s strange to see, especially in times like these. his smile holds for a moment, he admires her face, and then it’s gone as quickly as it appeared.

-”then what is it?”

-she sucks in a breath. she could tell him right now. she could have it over and done with. she’s not certain he loves her back - hell, she’d only kissed him on a whim, considering the world was ending - but she can try. at the very least, she knows he’d be appreciative to hear it, considering how lonely she knows he’s been for so very long.

-even though she could, she doesn’t. she instead watches him, studies his face, then stands, raising herself to come before him, and then dips her head and gently pecks him on the lips.

-he’s warm and tastes like ash, which she’s never liked before but thinks she just might do now. he tastes, as clichés tell, completely original. not that she’d know, of course, but she can’t imagine all men - nor any ladies - taste like smoke, with a hint of death. he’s like iron, all hard edges and firmly built, but when she curves herself into him, he’s melting, ready to be re-formed into whatever she so desires.

-his arms wrap around her, holding her close even when she pulls back. she stays close to his face, finding she quite likes the heat radiating from him, and actually she just likes him. the faceless assassin, crazy, borderline psychopathic, likes how gendry’s face looks, and not in her usual ominous way. she thinks it suits him too much to ever even dream of taking.

-”gendry,” she speaks gently, purposefully. she looks at him, long and hard, then says, almost as though begging, “promise you’ll stay with me?”

-she’s speaking of more than romance. gendry could be ripped from her at any point, and the thought of it breaks her heart that she never knew she had. she doesn’t want him to leave her side, not just her soul, because she knows nothing nor no one could ever replace him. she loves him. by the old gods and the new, she loves bloody gendry waters, and doesn’t want him dead, damn it.

-he looks softly up at her, eyes all gooey, doing that thing she always saw her father’s doing whenever he looked at her mother when she didn’t know. he kept his eyes on hers, pouring through her soul through them. then, not moving an inch except to smile drunkenly up at her, he spoke, voice barely above a whisper, and she felt her soul sigh and relax into his.

-”for as long as you want.”

#gendrya #gendrya fic #gendry waters #gendry baratheon #gendry waters x arya stark #gendry baratheon x arya stark #arya #arya stark #send me stuff #send me asks #send me questions #SEND ME REQUESTS #send me prompts #send me anons #mine #got #got season 8 #game of thrones season 8 #game of thrones

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smolbeandrabbles · 5 years

Text

Sway Pt.9 - Danny Rayburn x Reader (Bloodline)

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Here / Part 10 Author’s Note: This was originally the ending. So really THIS is the ‘Finale’ and pt.10 is ‘Epilogue’... At this point I’m running out of anything to say about this series other than I can’t believe we’re here... That mugshot though... Ammirite?! 😏😏 Disclaimer: Slight plot point changes from the show. And uh, I guess the police might keep evidence for a good long period of time? But screw it - for Reader this stuff was important. Actually holding my hands up about my own story here. When ‘Sway’ was MUCH MUCH shorter, Readers relationship with Marco was going to be heavily explored, and I started that plot point in pt.2 - but never really drove it anywhere until THIS part. (again, some of this was written in January). Because it’s SO important I’m not changing it. And as we know reader has been to the Keys a bunch of times this is still plausible, only I haven’t really explored his nick-name for her or their friendship... It all kinda develops here! Premise: You receive a call that wreaks your life... In trying to piece it all together you receive a letter that makes little sense... And a tape that might just save everything... Words: 8213

Warnings: major character death / swearing / death/injury detail / Angst

In advance... I am so sorry...

Hello summer, goodbye to my heart Blue skies and blue eyes, a hell of a way to start Letting him go would be the hardest part Hello summer, goodbye to my heart Yeah, he packed his bags, filled his tank with gas Man, it went by so fast Too good to last, yeah, just like that It was goodbye summer, you tore me apart Blue eyes and blue skies fade into the dark Letting go is the hardest part... Letting him go will be the hardest part Goodbye summer, hello to my broken heart ---

You were chilling on your balcony with your mom and your two best friends. You had a glass in your hand of sparkling juice, acting fancy when they were all allowed wine and you obviously were not. It was a great day, just so beautiful.... you wished it wasn’t just them hanging with you. Your phone rang, landline not mobile, so even though he was in your head he hadn’t quite reached your phone yet. “Oh, Geeez! I better get that! Hang on!” “If it’s that freakin’ man tell him to get his ASS back to Miami You’re PREGNANT!!” “Amanda geez! Shut up!” You laughed, placing your glass on your table you crossed to the phone. “Hello?” “Hello. Is this F/N M/N Ervin?” You raised an eyebrow, who the heck would ever call you by your full name? If it wasn’t Danny and his sarcastic ass, which it wasn’t. “This is she?” “M’am... Does a Daniel Robert Rayburn live with you?” Well, that was relative, Danny had around 5 different addresses and he was currently living in the Keys. “I guess when he’s in Miami he does....” You trailed, and got suddenly worried “... Wait. Who is this? This seems kinda official...?” “This is Islamorada police department m’am.” “... What did he do?!” It was your first thought “Is he in trouble?!” Danny had been in trouble many a time for stupid things but he never ever gave your name or address. Especially in Miami. But you guessed he wasn’t in Miami anymore. Danny’s voice suddenly resounded in your head – The Key’s wasn’t done with him – what kind of trouble had he got himself into down there? You’d thought sending Nolan cash was weird – but it was Danny and it didn’t have you worried until now. “M’am...” his tone of voice scared you suddenly, “M’am... we regret to inform you...” “No... No... No,No,No,No,No....” you started before he’d even got the words out; “... Daniel Rayburn’s body was found...” “NO!!” It wasn’t anything like you’d ever thought... it was worse. So much worse. Your knees gave out and you slid down the kitchen wall; weak. He was trying to calm you down, he was trying to tell you something else... but... your world had stopped.

You were sobbing uncontrollably and had no idea what to do, let alone how to stop yourself. Your scream had not gone unnoticed by your friends and your mom, who all ran in. They all looked confused, concerned, they were all talking to you, but, you couldn’t hear them either. Your ears were ringing, echoing... and you had a horrible feeling that all the echoes were Danny... that just made you cry even more...

Your mom took the phone; “Hello?... No... This is her mother...” and then quietly whilst your friends wound their arms around you, in the knowledge that whatever it was you needed comforting; “...oh. Oh my god. What happened?” You realised that you had cradled your stomach, the bump was small but it was showing... This baby... and Nolan... that was all you had left. Just like that Danny was gone; your lover, your EVERYTHING was gone. The life you’d been trying to plan out the future you had dreamed about, GONE. In 10 seconds.

And John Rayburn didn’t even have the guts to call you from his own police department.

***

2 Weeks Later…

“Y/N...?” Your moms voice barely registered... “Y/N... honey...” you twisted towards her... propping yourself up on your elbow. You were wearing sleep shorts and one of Danny’s shirts. But not just one of Danny’s shirts – because, hell, that’s all you’d been wearing these days - But one of his chefs’ whites. D.Rayburn embroidered not just across the pocket... but across your heart.

You mom sat at the end of your bed. You were a mess and you knew it. You had barely slept, barely eaten, you left the bed if you so happened to be hungry, if you needed coffee or fresh air... and every so often you changed your shirt. You wanted to be surrounded by him. Because if he couldn’t hold you then at least his shirts damn well could. “Hmmm?” “Darling... don’t you think you should...” she stopped, even your parents were finding this difficult. They both loved Danny. They loved you together. But even they could not fathom how utterly devastated you were. You hadn’t done anything in days. You couldn’t listen to music, you couldn’t read, or write, or work or... you just lay here. And every thought of Danny made you cry, only now you couldn’t cry anymore. You were done. You were completely numb; empty and broken. You rolled onto your back; “Mama... I don’t... I don’t want to do anything....” “I know...” she took your hand “Baby I know... but... it’s not just you...” she placed a hand on your stomach “I know he’s gone... baby... I know... but if you want any part of him to remain yours, you need to take care of this baby...” “Devan...” tears ran down your face again “...Danny named... our baby... Devan...” you sobbed between words. And this time your mom cried too; “Devan??” She almost laughed “that’s so Danny...” then she began cried again “Please... baby please... no more tears... I don’t want to see you crying any more darling, please...” You rubbed your eyes “I can’t stop... momma... I will never see him again... He’s gone...”

Ever since Islamorada had called you, you’d been here. Your friends, and his, had sent you a bunch of messages that you couldn’t bring yourself to face – even though you thought you should be surrounding yourself with support right now, you didn’t want any of it. You wanted to be alone. You’d made the effort once, in 2 weeks and you’d seen Nolan. But with the both of you just in tears it wasn’t exactly the best of social interactions. You couldn’t face that apartment alone; you couldn’t be in that bed without Danny knowing he wasn’t coming back. Everywhere you looked you knew you would see just another memory of him. You didn’t want any of that, as much as you DID want it. You would drown in your sorrow and memory there; or you would drown in something else. And you knew enough to know that it was a road you couldn’t go down. Not with Devan. Your unborn baby was counting on you to get through this – but right now, you weren’t sure if you could.

The next time you ventured out of your room for coffee your father was at least glad to see you were wearing a different variation on your Danny shirt fascination. You poured yourself half a coffee, then stopped, tipping it out and pouring yourself a large glass of water instead. You opened the cupboard and started gathering together anything that made you think of healthy; of real actually good food. Because Danny had always got exasperated at you eating anything else – ever since that first trip shopping he’d basically been in charge of your kitchen supplies. And he’d end up on long rants about what was good for what – meaning you better believe the second you’d told him you were pregnant he was calling you every time he thought of something else you should or shouldn’t be eating… You pulled out of your back pocket a prenatal pill packet and swept your hair back into a ponytail. “...You doing okay?” You turned to him; pouring out cereal, switching milk for yoghurt, you threw on a bunch of seeds and berries and sat on the kitchen counter. “No... but...Mom’s right about my baby...” Your dad crossed to you; “That man would have given you the stars...” “He did...” you said through a mouthful of cereal “...He always did...” You father took a breath; “... Y/N...I would have let him give you the world. So now... I want to give you a piece of his.” You took another spoonful and swallowed thoughtfully; “You what?” He smiled, placing some papers on the counter “... I would have done this so much sooner, if he’d let me. And I would do anything to get you to smile again Estrellita... And he... He would want me to...” You raised another spoonful to your mouth and swallowed before bringing the papers closer. Then you froze; “You- Oh my god! You-!” Printed at the top of the page was an address you knew all too well. Viva Caputa. “It’s in your name. Not mine.” You held the piece of paper close to your chest, looking up at him with the spark in your eyes he wanted to see so badly; “... How?!” “As you can imagine. It was an expensive piece of real estate. He owed a lot of money. The loan was huge... That restaurant has one hell of tag attached. But you think that mattered to me? All I’m asking is you go out there, and you put Danny Rayburn back on the map.” You looked back at the paper “It’s all mine?” “Yours.” You pressed your hands together in front of your lips “...I need to go back...” He tilted his head; “Yeah?” “Before I do this...” You nodded to yourself decisively. “Danny said the Keys wasn’t done with him... I don’t think it’s done with me either...”

***

You wandered into the police station stoic, calm almost. But you weren’t sure if that was just because you were numb to it all. Or whilst you were here you had to be numb to it all. You approached the front desk; “Miss Y/N Ervin. I was told I could pick up the articles of Mr. Daniel Rayburn.” “Yes, M’am... what relation are you?” “I’m not. I’m his girlfriend.” You noticed the person hesitate as you didn’t use ‘was’. “... He lives with me... I’m the one that was called when you found him. So, if it really matters that I’m not related to him you better find me someone to talk to...” You had it up to here with anyone so much as mentioning Danny in passing, so if they told you you couldn’t collect his things you were likely to end up arrested yourself. “Hermannaaaa!” You turned to Marco’s almost joyous tone; “Mi hermanita! What can I do for you?” “I just... needed to collect his things... Marco, then I’ll go...” “Ay! Say no more!” He turned to the desk “Get all the paper work for Danny Rayburn ready I’ll deal with her.” “But, Sir, she’s not-” “Do I make myself clear?” His voice turned authoritative and the man behind the desk replied weakly as Marco steered you out of the reception area; “You’re really showing you know!? Kids are going to look good on you!” He beamed, for once you were actually glad of a little positivity. “Do we know if it will be Daniel or Daniella yet?” He weaved you down a corridor into the evidence room. “Devan. Actually. And no, I don’t want to know.” “Devan? Danny’s choice?” “It’s what he gave me... I can hardly change it now.” “No, I would think... Coffee? Can you have coffee? Water?” “Actually coffee would be great...” “Atta girl...!” He sat you down and approached a different counter; “Can you collect all the cleared evidence relating to the Wayne Lowry case that belonged to Danny Rayburn please?” “Of course... Is there anything that didn’t clear?” “... Well I’d hope not... Check into it...” Marco turned back to you “I’ll be right back Hermana!” And off he went again; leaving you alone with your thoughts before he came back with two cups of coffee. “It’s super-hot and not that great but it’s still coffee...” He sat with you to wait for evidence, “As far as I know all his stuff is clear. No-one’s come to claim it as yet... I wasn’t sure if you’d even want to come. But, I guess material is better than nothing.” “Is his truck here?” “The Chevy? Likely in impound; I’ll take you ‘round. Did you drive down?” “Nah. With the full intention of driving back.” “Oh. Then, by all means we’ll get the truck. Uh... now, you can’t have weapons... and you can’t have illegals, obviously...” You put your head in your hands; “God I knew it couldn’t be good.” “We’ll deal with them, Y/N... I promise.” “I appreciate it Marco. I do... I just...” You were at a loss for words again, so just sat in silence and sipped your coffee. You were glad of something hot running through your system at least. Finally the lady behind the desk came back with a box. “Marco, here’s his cleared evidence.... There are a couple of uncleared pieces, if you want the paperwork...?” “Yeah, lemmie take a look.” You had the feeling Marco would likely just hand it all over. There was always something about him that you really liked, Meg didn’t know what she was missing. He motioned you to follow him into another room and pulled the chair out for you; “Let’s get this done, sweetie, then you can get on your way home. I wouldn’t want to stay here longer than I had to either...” He took the lid off the box and surveyed the contents for a minute “... Huh! His bag must be in a locker.” He fished out some keys secured with yellow tape “It’s cleared, though. Let’s see... those look like car keys... wallet... photographs... oh- I see.... phone?” He produced the flip phone that looked like it had seen better days. You’d always cracked up at it. Who was using a flip phone in 2015?! “.... I mean there’s cigarettes and a lighter in here! You’re not a smoker right?” “The red lighter?” “Significant?” “I’m not sure that even matters to me anymore, it’s him...” Marco nodded, and you knew he knew he didn’t quite understand. “... Y/N... I’m sorry to bring it up, but... Do you know what happened?” “...I’d rather not think about...” “But they told you the story right? About Lowry? And how they found him but how he actually-“ You nodded vigorously to get him to stop; “God, geez... I’m sorry... that was over the line I... I’ve just upset you I know...” You took a deep breath to stop any more tears from forming “Why do you say... story, like that?” “I’m asking if you believe it. You knew him, Y/N. Even John said nothing he said surprised you. Maybe you knew Danny better than anyone. I’m wondering if you’re buying what they are selling.” “You think it wasn’t Lowry?” You tilted your head confused “I mean, the end result is the same. Story or no.” “When you last talked to him... He didn’t... say anything, or..?” “You know he came back? He got all the way back to Miami before he turned back around and two days later, he was gone. That’s what I know.” You didn’t really mean to snap at him, but it hurt to remember that you’d held Danny in your arms back in Miami and thought he was finally home. Marco walked you around the back of the station to the car compound. The old black Chevy sat alone; worn but still good. You couldn’t help but smile – exactly like the man who drove it. “I’ll go open this locker...” He handed you the box “This is yours now, Y/N. I know you’ll take good care of it...” He jogged back, clearly intent on not holding up your drive back to Miami. You turned back to the truck, fishing the key out of the box you unlocked the passenger door. Placing the box gently onto the passenger seat you studied it for a moment and thought about maybe belting it in. “Here! I’ve even signed out your restricted stuff..!” He handed you a plastic wallet of paper; “They look like pay checks, and a bunch of stuff they found in the glove box... some USB... I guess they found something on there but, tough. Oh, and, that phone won’t mean a thing without this...” The smaller bag between his fingers contained none other than a SIM card. “I figured, his voice mail would be somewhere you’d want to go... From time to time...” “Marco, I... don’t know what to say...” “I don’t want you to say anything Hermanita... I already know you’re thankful... You just need to say you’ve collected everything at the front desk and I can set you free... I’m assuming you don’t want to see John?” “No. I don’t want to see any of that family... it’s just... No...” Why would you? You didn’t think they deserved him – and yet for the last few days of his life they got to have him, and you didn’t. “What did he say to you when he got back to Miami?” “He didn’t. He wouldn’t... and now you’ve said... That’s what worries me.” “Shoot, I’m sorry.” “Whatever... I just don’t think seeing any of them is a good idea...” “This seems like a dumb question... I’m not even sure it’d make you feel better... but, do you want to see-” you knew where Marco’s line of questioning was going and you cut him off, with a sad smile; “I know how I want to remember him Marco. I can’t see him. Not like that.” He placed a clipboard in your hands; “This is it. From front desk… Just let me check there’s no more…” He rubbed your shoulder “I am, truly sorry Y/N… You were good together. If there was anyone Danny was trying his best for… gonna change for… it was you.” * You were leaning against the car signing off the final paperwork when Marco came back outside, final check complete. You wanted to get out of here, but a lot was weighing on your mind. “Can I see it.” “What?” “The case file. I want to see what you’re doing. Is there anything I could be helping with? Do my answers to your questions… help?” It wasn’t a police interview he was conducting, but everything you said about Danny, it could help them uncover what had really happened. And to you, there was nothing more important. His eyes shifted, and he looked a little uncomfortable before he lowered his voice “Guess I can show you the room. But I didn’t show you or tell you anything. We have to be quick and quiet.” You nodded, you were down with that.

Marco pushed you gently ahead of him into the room when he’d checked it was all clear. Your eyes wandered the board; falling immediately on the mugshot photograph. “Sorry—?!” You blinked twice “is that really a mugshot?!” “Direct from Miami.” “I don’t know whether to laugh or ask for a copy...” You ran your fingers over the glossy photograph, it made you hurt but…You had to admit to yourself it was gorgeous… You still weren’t sure if it’d hit you that he was really gone yet… But you knew you missed him. God, did you miss him. “You’re calling him Daniel?” “Mmm. Official stuff.” You took a breath “And you’re sure he drowned.” “Positive...” You sat back on one of the desks, pressing your fingers to your lips “I can’t take it Marco...” He walked over slowly, to sit next to you and give you time “... it’s so...” you couldn’t even find the word in your vocabulary “... The idea he was murdered was bad enough.” You were surprised at the strength in your sentence and opted to continue “... But at least... If he was shot, or if they’d done something quick... heck, explosions can be quick right?” That was the cover, after all. “...It would have been over... you know, he would have died and that was it... but...” you shook your head “In the final moments of his life... and what I have to live with knowing... is that in the final moments of his life, Danny suffered. He had to fight for breaths he couldn’t take... As if he hadn’t suffered and fought his ENTIRE life. That isn’t how it was meant to end for him. It shouldn’t have to end that way for anyone. What did he think about?? Was he scared...? Did he think about me? His kids? Did he beg for it not to end like that?! Didn’t Danny go through enough?!”

Marco knew there was nothing for him to say. Nothing he could say would have the effect you wanted to. Every question was rhetorical. The only person that could answer them, as you had just thoroughly explained, was gone. You looked to him, face and eyes serious. Although you looked numb, hollow. “I’ll do it.” “What?” “Help your investigation. Answer questions. Do anything...” you swallowed the lump in your throat “The monster that murdered the best thing I’ve ever had in my life needs to be caught. Needs justice. Marco, if I don’t help you, I will regret it for the rest of my life...”

He sat the tape recorder in front of you; “... I’m not pressing play. Yet. I want you to know I can stop this any time you want me too... you don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to. There is no pressure and anytime you want to walk away, just say so...” You nodded “I’m ready, Marco...” He clicked it into place; “Okay... Marco Diaz interviewing Y/N Ervin with regards to the Case of Mr.Daniel Rayburn...” his eyes flicked to yours; “Ms.Ervin, when was the last time you saw Danny?” You knotted your fingers together, and took a deep breath “... Two days before his death. He caught the first bus back from Miami to the Keys... that’s around 5am...” “So, Danny did in fact go back to Miami?” “He was in Miami barely four hours... I must have picked him up around 1:30...” “And he came back to the Keys?” “He said he had unfinished business...” “Did he tell you what that was?” “No.” And you weren’t all that sure you’d have wanted to ask, either. “Did he tell you what he was doing down here in the Keys?” “Apart from working for his parents? No.” He nodded, Marco had a decision to make but he wasn’t about to drag you down that road; “Can you confirm how long you were in a relationship with Mr.Rayburn for...” “Oh... Wow.. uh, nearly... 4 years I guess.” 3 and a half…? Did it matter? It was too short. FAR too short. “Continuously?” You wondered where this was heading “...Yeah.” “Could you explain why he would text Chelsea O’Bannon that he was heading back up to Miami and not you?” Your face possibly said it all, was Marco insinuating Danny was having an affair...? Or... was that a genuine question? Marco leant over the tape “For the record Ms.Ervin looks visibly confused.” “Oh-! I’m sorry!” You shook your head, police investigation. Right. “No. But... are you sure?” “Yes?” “To clarify. Danny didn’t text. Not even me. Why text when he could talk? And boy could Danny talk... He even sent me emails rather than texting I’ve never seen him text anyone.” Marco stared at you hard for a minute “So, you’re saying it’s out of character?” “Very. If Danny was coming back to Miami, he would have told me no exceptions. Even if it was through text. He knows I wanted him back more than anything. No way he wouldn’t tell me. Not even to surprise me.” Then you tipped your head “Moreover if he wasn’t going to tell me I don’t see why he’d tell anyone else.” “He was borrowing her car.” “He’d call. Danny never text.” You were adamant. “Okay... so when is the last time you heard from Danny?” You thought “He called me... between 9-10am? When he got back to the Keys.” He reached for his pen but you shook your head indicating he shouldn’t write that down. “Then he used to call me around the time he’d done his work and I’d finished mine. So, he would have called me the night he got back between 7-8pm...” “And that’s the last you heard?” “Yeah...” “Because the only other point we have between Danny disappearing off the face of the planet and his body being found is that text. Concrete. John said he called and said he was attending the Pier dedication, and he was dressed for it, but he didn’t turn up... You’re essentially telling me he didn’t send the text. Did he call you every night?” You shook your head “... No... sometimes he was super busy or I was, nightly wasn’t normal and it didn’t bother me... it couldn’t have, or he would have called... surely his body...?” “Time Of Death is a lot harder to determine when you burn it...” You looked to the table “You’re telling me any time between him calling me and him being found he could have...?” You lowered your head onto the cool wood “I shoulda called him...” Marco paused the tape “This isn’t your fault... Y/N...” “Oh my god... That’s nearly 2 days!!!” “Y/N sweetheart... we don’t have to do this...” He opened his file to realign his papers causing you to raise your head; you caught a glimpse of a photograph and reached for it. He was quicker, slamming his hand over the top; “No.” “Marco!” “I am not letting you do that to yourself, Y/N, no way in hell! I would never forgive myself!!” “He-” “If you don’t want to see him, you do not want to see those. Trust me, it’s worse.” He took the folder off the table from under your hand and sat on it. “... look I don’t know what’s going on. But do you see what I mean, this story is suspicious at best... Lowry and his crew are dangerous Y/N... I’d rather not get you involved...” He pressed play again “This is Officer Marco Diaz terminating the interview.” Then stop. “... if I need anything else I’ll call. But by the look on your face, and for the sake of your baby I’m not putting you through anymore...” You placed your hand over his “When you know... you’ll tell me?” “Absolutely... you’re gonna be the first person I call. I promise you. Not his family. YOU.”

He walked you back to the Chevy and accepted your hug graciously; “Go on. Get off to Miami. Get home.” “Thank you...For everything…” He shook his head “It’s my job. And for you, it’s nothing. I should be thanking you, Y/N, you might just have given me a break…” You didn’t know if you were smiling in thanks, or in some strange sadistic wish for revenge; “I hope so. Finish it Marco. I know you can.” *** You pulled the Chevy smoothly into the lot next to yours. Finally. His stuff was back home, where it belonged. You stopped by your box to collect your mail on the way up and balanced it on top of Danny’s things. Unlocking your front door you placed the box on your kitchen counter. You touched it gently with your fingertips... Nope. You couldn’t do it. Not yet. You picked your mail up off the top and began to flick through it, bills and the like... Then you stopped suddenly and almost dropped everything; The written envelope was small, inflexible. But it was Danny’s writing. You put the rest of them down and turned it over. It was plain, simply addressed to you. The post mark said it was from the Keys. Posted no sooner than the day before he died. You hesitated for a moment; why was Danny writing to you? He’d seen you not even a couple of days before that. Possibly hours before this letter was posted. What? You couldn’t put it down, though. Looking to your window for a minute you looked back down at the rest of the mail. And noticed something else; Attn: Mr.N Rayburn, C/o: Miss. Y/N Ervin. It was heavy looking, and held a legal watermark in the top corner. “Danny what have you done...” You flipped over the card and delicately prized then envelope open. The card inside was accompanied by a few pieces of folded up paper. Upon opening they looked carefully written. Not rushed. On Rayburn House headed note paper and clipped together with another note; “This is what I went for...” You remembered him writing, about 4 sheets, double spaced, but he’d never read it to you. It had taken him a lot of time and rewrites and you were sure even then he wasn’t completely happy with it because it had to be perfect. He’d clearly copied it out for you... but why? You opened the note card, looking suspiciously like something you’d get from a gas station. His writing was tiny, he’d crammed as much as he could onto all three sides of blank 3x5. And he’d been in a hurry, every so often words blurred slightly where his left hand had smudged the ink as he wrote. ‘Dearest Y/N, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you are going to have to read this. And I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. Not to your face, not this. Because I had to go back. And if I’d have said any of this to you, you never would have let me out of your apartment. I think I’m in a lot of trouble here, and I don’t know what the state of things will be when you read this. I hope better. I fear maybe not. I can’t drag you into this so if you’re thinking of reaching for those car keys don’t you dare. I can’t screw this up for you, for Nolan, for our child. If I get back to Miami I swear to you I will never come back here, but please understand right now I have to be. I left to give that speech and I never did. I should have. You know the majority; I would never keep that from you. But you need to know it all to know why I went back, because they need to know it too... Hopefully this arrives before my legal documents, so I can quickly explain why I filed them. Maybe that’s why I came back? I’m just glad I got to see you again. Contained in that legal file, for you at least until Nolan is old enough, is my Will. Yes. I know. It is that bad. And I’ll write this a lot I know, but I’m sorry...’ You looked to the other envelope - a Will?! Danny had written a Will?! What the HELL was going on in the Keys?! You remembered the official story that you had to hear through your mom, (thankfully she spared both your best friends and your father from “the truth”) oddly enough she didn’t exactly sound convinced that Danny (the Danny she knew at least) would be capable of any of that. Come to think of it even Marco had imposed the idea on you that it was a spun story... too convenient... it all fit too well... You turned back to the card and read on; ‘What you may hear, I want you to know is true. I got in with the wrong people and drugs have been involved. But, and this may sound crazy, If what you hear comes from John. Please. Please. I beg you not to believe it. I’m going to tell you the truth right now; if ANYTHING is out of place with what I write I want you to know, this isn’t what killed me.’ You stopped, did he know? Did he know when he went back to the keys he was going to die?!? ‘I would urge you not to believe anything my family tells you. But you’re a smart girl, and I think you already knew that. When I get back to Miami I will tell you everything, I promise. Every question you ask I will answer. But I can’t even tell you this over the phone… I just had to write it. I hope you understand. Please don’t ask me when you next call. Please, wait for me to be home. I love you, and the last thing I want is to hurt you and my kids. Danny x’ You were confused. So did he think he was going to die or not!? And why didn’t he just TELL you!? Because now he was dead and this note card only told you half a story. It seemed to at least half corroborate the one you’d been told by the police department though – drugs and those in the running of such things who had caught up to him after something had gone wrong? Yet, something told you Danny was trying to tell you if anything happened to him. That wouldn’t be it. You opened the second envelope and unfolded it. The thick sheets of paper didn’t hold a lot of information. Danny’s life was heartbreakingly short to give out. But you smiled, Nolan was the name on the envelope – he was the oldest, it would all go to him first. And he’d be old enough for it not to be care of you for very much longer either. But this was a solid place, a solid address. You carried Ervin as your last name; which meant if there were any problems… Well, no it meant there wouldn’t be any problems. But underneath Nolan’s name was written and any subsequent children. You touched a hand to your stomach. Danny’s Will was for his kids. Absolutely it was, everything he’d worked for was always for Nolan… He would have given anything to yours too. You put the letter down and walked to your calendar making a note to ring the lawyers and Nolan. Maybe it was time to take control of your life and everything that had happened over this past month. There was no better reason than Danny’s children… ***

3 Weeks Later...

It was odd for you how numb you seemed to get about the whole situation. How you expected yourself to be sad, still, but really felt nothing…? Or nothing you expected yourself to be feeling. Half of that might have been that you had something to work on now. And it was hard work, walking back into that restaurant was tough enough. But now you were helping your dad clear the building and redraw from scratch. With numerous sources and photographs - including Danny's own refurbishment plans. Because you didn't want one single part to look any different when anyone walked in. That meant you had drafted in people who knew Danny and knew the restaurant best to help, and the best days were when Jason and Javi dropped in…

You got up, you headed out, you worked hard, you got tired, you came home. That was your schedule... With the every-so-often check up on 'Devan'... Which you hated. Because all you had left was Danny's children. Nolan was a law unto himself, but if anything happened to your baby now...

You shook that thought away. Maybe you were just bitter. If the Rayburns had held any kind of memorial service for him you certainly hadn't been invited. And you would have found it a little more than ironic if they did. Yeah right, as if they were going to miss him like anyone in Miami did. Nolan wanted answers that you couldn’t give him, so he took off down to the Keys. You were certain from reading Danny's letter alone that he would never get any. But you weren't going to stop him leaving - because yeah, you guessed, the Rayburns were his family too.

You hadn't touched the Keys to Danny's apartment just yet - but you knew there was no way it was going anywhere. Besides, that might finally give Nolan a place of his own. And everything of Danny's that had never quite made it to yours was still stored there... Driving Danny's truck around made things easier from time to time. But even that you'd parked for a bit because you wanted to focus on anything that was remotely positive and not drown yourself in your own sorrow again. You'd only just got out of that one. Marco kept base with you - which was sweet of him. Every so often he'd send you a case update, or call just to see how you and the baby were doing. You liked that, he wanted to tell you a bunch of things about Danny that he'd just "remembered" too. And the fact that you always laughed, rather than cried, over his stories at least made you feel like you were healing.

Today you had decided to take some time for yourself for a stroll down the promenade with the sun, the sea and your music. You were not about to waste a glorious day like this stuck inside. You were returning home with a smile on your face, and possibly minor sunburn, humming along to about the most summer-y songs you could think of when the porter for your building stopped you; "OH! Y/N!" You stopped and turned back "Hey! What's up!" "Package arrive for you..." "Oh! Awesome..!" He placed the large box on the table; "...It uh... Just that it’s from the Keys..." You raised an eyebrow, true, after Danny's letter and all the legal documentation that kept turning up (that you'd also expertly been dealing with) you'd asked him to keep an eye on everything that came from anywhere Danny related. But who from the Keys would want to send you anything? Marco - perhaps? Was he sending more evidence he'd cleared? "Oh... Well that's okay... I'll sign for it..." He nodded and handed the document over for you to clear the parcel. "Thanks!" "It’s okay! I told you I'd keep a look out!" You laughed, "That you did..." Walking to the lifts you studied the address label. Strange. It wasn't Marco’s writing. In fact it wasn't writing you recognised at all. And the return address was a generic Keys zip code... Who or what could this possibly be?

You erred on the side of caution whilst opening it and were presented with folded plain letter paper. You unfolded it carefully, the writing was the same as on the box - definitely not someone you knew by the tone of the letter.

‘Miss F/N Ervin, Danny wanted you to have these. There is one addressed specifically to you. Of that, I do not know the content. The other two should be self-explanatory. I have followed his instruction.’ What!? It wasn't even signed. You looked back into the box and removed the bubblewrap.

"...Danny... What are you doing now..." You lifted out the contents. All three of them were cassette tapes. You turned them over. Case #573459-83 was imprinted on all of them. You raised an eyebrow "Oh, I get the feeling these aren't playlists...." You set them down and checked the box again but you hadn't missed anything. Danny had sent you a bunch of tapes - or had got someone to send you a bunch of tapes - but he hadn't included anything himself? You turned the boxes over until you found the one with the tiny sticker in the corner that held your name in Danny's writing. How the hell were you supposed to listen to it though? It wasn't like you owned a cassette player? It wasn't like your mysterious benefactor had sent one either. Was he expecting you to buy one? You picked it up; if you had to have it transcribed or copied across onto something else then someone else could listen to it, and it was clearly meant for your ears only... You stared hard at it for 5 minutes like it would miraculously give you the answer. But thinking on Danny gave it to you. His truck. His truck had a cassette tape player in it!! You remembered that because you'd specifically laughed at him that night after his fathers funeral for getting at you for creating a playlist on your ipod when he hadn't created you one when he had a player in his truck, if he was so adamant they had to be on tape. And he'd asked when the hell you thought he'd had time.

You opened your kitchen draw and grabbed the keys. Time for you to take a drive... * In fact, you drove as far out of Miami as you could to a little spot you knew where you and this tape could be alone. Because you didn't know the content, you knew that driving with it on was dangerous. You held it in your hands for a long time working up the nerve to even put it in the player. You guessed he would be talking on it. And you'd last heard his voice over the phone what seemed like years ago. You weren’t exactly sure how hearing him would make you feel. On Marco’s offer you'd called his voice mail, but it wasn't a great long rambling thing like yours. 3 words didn't feel like enough. it wasn't enough. You felt like this could be too much. Eventually you placed it into the cassette player - why were your hands shaking, why were you getting so worked up over this!? You took a deep breath, and pressed play. There was static for a few seconds, and then you jumped; "Y/N." That was enough to send a shiver through you. You let out a noise that made you cover your mouth. SHUT UP! DON'T BE SUCH A CHILD! "God. I really hope you never hear this." Danny don't.... don't say this... "If you do... Darlin'... If you're listening right now I am so sorry. I'm so sorry that after so long it didn't work out." Danny don't you DARE. "Sweetheart, I wish I was there. You know I wish I was. You know I was an idiot for wanting to go back. And you let me, and then you let me come back again. I want you to know it was never your fault. So I don't want you to ever think that..." Bit late for that kind of apology... You sat back and crossing your arms you placed them against your forehead and took another deep breath; looking from the player to the sea in front of you. "...I screwed up. Badly. And if you're listening then REAL badly. I do know this. I have protected you, our baby, Nolan... the best that I possibly could have. So I don't want you to worry about that. OK? If there was one thing I did right it was that." He cleared his throat "Okay. Let me confess everything, right now. Everything I did wrong so you know why this is happening to YOU... You know I needed money right? Of course you did you offered help enough. But I was too damn stubborn to accept your help. So, I got in syphoning fuel here... Then... Then I decided I could do more and started running drugs for those guys." You rolled your eyes with a heavy sigh; that idiot. He'd probably started taking them too, you were sure that your apartment wouldn't ever have been a one-time thing. "Only, you know, I ran them through the Inn..." Your eyes widened at that; So, he'd tried to plot the perfect revenge? If Danny went down, the family went down too? "John told me the DEA were investigating... But... Whatever, right? Only - cuz they knew what I was doing - my siblings moved all the drugs. Well, now that just gets me in trouble with the people I'm working for, don't it?" He fell silent for a minute and shuffled around "So you may have noticed I'm recording this on a case tape." Wait, why was he switching gears!? "...Well, it’s the case tape for my case. Cuz I'm sick of it, Y/N. I'm sick of all the lies. So I'm erasing all the bullshit my mom put into the heads of my siblings so they could lie and protect my dad and tell everyone that instead of beating the shit out of me, heck, all my injuries happened in a car accident. My God I just..." You almost paused the tape for a minute. HANG ON. Sally!?! Sally did this!? SALLY did all this!?! What the hell - you'd just let Nolan go to these people!?!? What had you done!?! "...Whatever. The point is, my well thought out plan hasn't exactly worked out. SO John, bigger man as ever, stuck me on a bus back to Miami… John, what a fucking saint he is… Guess he wants me dead, you won’t believe what happened at little Motel… Geez, why worry you with that? You’re gonna be worried enough…” There he was again, putting ideas in your head about who… or what had actually killed him. And although he was trying to reassure you and his kids were safe; you weren’t sure it was the drugs gangs he was really warning you about. It made you instantly wonder what might have been on those last two tapes. Danny had a way of talking that made you think it was the undertones he was hinting at you should really be listening to…“...Only he decided to put the idea in my head that the people I'm working for might have people up in Miami too. Well, that puts you in danger don't it? SO there is no FREAKIN' way I could have stayed. I needed to come back down here and fix this. So that's what I'm doing. Or hope I've done. But, Gezz, Baby if you're listening to this... I'm sorry it didn't work out that way... But I swear to God, you, the kids, everyone from Miami is safe... Because I'm not there. Ironically. I hope I get to destroy this thing. I hope I get to see you again. I hope that I get to tell you all this to your face on your balcony back in Miami and we can laugh about it, and you can call me a fucking idiot. Because I am. And I never have to see the Keys again..." You didn't like his wishful thinking, or him calling himself an idiot. Even if he was. This was the tape that essentially was him telling you he wasn't coming back. You didn't want him to end with him thinking of himself as anything less than perfect. Danny didn't deserve his lasting memory to be him dragging himself down. He was a better person than that - he always deserved better than he thought of himself. Than really ANYONE thought of him. "Y/N - I love you. I love you so much." There was a significant pause in the tape, you'd heard his voice crack, so you knew at the time of recording Danny was desperately trying to hold it together and not cry until he finished this. He had to be strong and finish this for you. Which is why you couldn't cry until you had finished listening to him. But it was coming.... "... I have never loved anybody the way I love you. I'm sorry I never got down on one knee, I'm sorry I never got to marry you..." God, now he was just making himself sad, he couldn't hide the deep shaky breath he took "...I'm sorry I never got to see Devan grow up." DANNY NO. You couldn't help it. You let out an uncontrollable sob and the first tear rolled down your cheek; it wasn’t alone for long "I'm so sorry Y/N.... But God, Baby Girl, you are the best thing I ever had. And I am the damned luckiest guy on the planet to have got to know you, to hold you, to love you for this long... Please just always remember, I'm here. I'm always going to be here. And I love you. I love being the better person you created. The relationship you share with Nolan. Every single time you looked out for me, or defended me, or just... Were real. Called me out. Kept me grounded..." Then he let himself laugh, which made you laugh through your tears "Thank you for loving me." There was another few seconds of static before the tape clicked. And you were left with silence and your tears. You leant forward on the steering wheel and let everything you'd been trying to keep bottled up inside you - become almost numb to - flood itself out. Danny why? Why did he have to end it like that? Why did he have to leave you with something so devastatingly beautiful...? Why did you already know that there was never going to be any getting over Danny Rayburn? You gasped suddenly and placed your hands to your stomach. For one second you were shocked out of crying; and then only cried more as it happened again. These tears may well have been happy ones – at nearly 19 weeks your baby had just chosen the perfect moment to move for the very first time.

--- As usual I write Danny these really beautiful monologues that I can hear E-V-E-R-Y word of... and I just...

@stcphstrange - One? Do we really only have ONE more part!? Oh god I’m so sorry...! I’m so so so sorry!!! @happyskywhale

Gosh... Danny, baby, I’m so sorry... #DannyMoodBoard for Pt.9... I want to use soooo many gifs now I need to stop myself... One to go... I can do this *takes a deep breath*

#Danny Rayburn #Danny Rayburn x You #danny rayburn x reader #bloodline #Ben Mendelsohn #oh god... No... Not just one to go...#Danny HELP ME why is this happening!!!?#danny x reader #Sway #Linzi Writes #FINALE!!!#Basically!#Liliana #33

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burlybanner · 5 years

Text

Record (ScienceBrosWeek2019)

Summary: What’s it all about, Brucie? Disclaimer: This is different from my usual style and I’m not sure where this story is going. So I’m not sure when I’ll continue. But keep me honest; it’ll happen eventually.

Disclaimer forever: The longest chapter yet of the fic with no name. I’m only a few days behind, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Unbeta’d.

Previously: Dust(1), Drip(2), Bitter(3), Merge(4), Pressure(5) ** Bruce had to promise himself, tell himself really, that the meeting wasn’t any different from other meetings with department heads or board members of SI. He’d been to those meetings. He didn’t like them, but he weathered through them.

Of course, none of those meetings included people staring him down with sidearms, either.

He didn’t feel that many in the room trusted him and he did not blame them. This was more for their benefit than his, anyway.

“Okay,” he’d told Tony before the meeting. Tony had time enough to trim his beard after his shower, and Bruce used the mirror to glare at him.

Tony briefly glanced at him before continuing to manscape his goatee. “Okay...what?”

“Do I have to spell it out--? I’m in, for whatever that means. I’m in.”

“Because...?”

Bruce scowled at him. “Fuck you, you manipulative bastard. Do I have to give a reason, or are you forcing that issue, too?”

“No. I’m not. It’s...” Tony turned off the trimmer with a sigh and wiped his hands down his beard, smoothing off the stray hairs. He flipped around and briefly fingered Bruce’s lapels. “I know I was manipulative. I get how mad you are. But I can’t bring you in if you’re not committed. They’d know. And not all of them are as easy going as Rhodey, or me. You need to know that; their identities are sacrosanct.”

Bruce nodded and sighed as he normally did when presented with the puzzles Tony Stark often gave him. But deep inside he already knew. He was committed because...

Well. He was fucked up beyond recognition, for one. And he was totally in love with Rhodey and Tony and didn’t want to lose them.

And maybe, just maybe, a smaller part of him knew about this? And didn’t care?

Maybe he’d been a supervillain all along.

“So they’ll shoot me first, ask questions later?”

The soulful look he received from Tony was worse than a verbal answer.

But sitting in their main conference room, Bruce felt in danger for the first time since arriving. He briefly caught codenames while they talked among themselves, effectively ignoring him. The one named ‘Bucky’ didn’t smile, and his hand easily rested on his thigh as if ready to shoot Bruce on command. The women didn’t seem much better; “Black Widow” and “Scarlet Witch” weren’t too happy with him. At least the other one, Captain Marvel (what kind of codename was that?) gave him a wry smile every few minutes. Some small comfort, he supposed.

He almost laughed out loud. The meeting hadn’t even started and he was already everyone’s target.

“Relax,” Tony murmured. He jumped when he felt Tony’s hand cup his thigh, but the squeeze helped ground him, once he got used to it. “Just listen. And yeah, don’t make too many sudden moves.”

Bruce shifted so he could glare at Tony. “That’s not funny.”

“Who said I was joking?”

Rhodey rolled his eyes, slipping into the chair at Bruce’s right. “Tony. Stop.”

“I mean, seriously? Can you honestly trust Manchurian Candidate over there?”

Before Bruce could ask about Tony’s nickname for Bucky, the most suave and imposing man Bruce’d ever seen glided into the room and loudly tossed a thick folder of papers on the conference table. “Gentlemen. Ladies. And...guest.” He grinned at Bruce, but Bruce found no comfort in his crocodile smile. It may have been the eye patch that made him most uncomfortable, but it could’ve been his threatening demeanor, too.

“For those of you who are not familiar,” and Bruce didn’t even need to look, to know who he meant, “I am Colonel Nicholas J. Fury, head of this little ragtag outfit known as SHIELD. So. Do I have everyone’s attention?”

Everyone, even Tony, sat a little straighter in their seats. “Good,” Fury said. “Then let me also remind everyone that this soiree is not to be recorded in any way, shape, or form per usual protocol. Please power down all recording devices at my mark...now.”

A few touched their jaws and wrists in a similar pattern he’d seen with Tony before. “All clear?”

Fury glanced at Tony, who gave a curt nod.

“All righty, then.” Fury suddenly looked at Bruce with his one good eye and Bruce squirmed, feeling that this moment was payback from the days he observed eukaryotes under a microscope. “Tony Stark has kindly brought one of his best science buds to grace us with his presence. Dr. Robert Banner--”

“Bruce,” Bruce immediately corrected. It was automatic on his tongue. He corrected anyone and everyone who called him by his given name, but this was the first time in living memory he remembered wincing after correcting someone. “I...sorry. I ah. I go by Bruce.”

“Ahhhh, well, forgive me. I stand corrected.” Some of the group chuckled, others gave Bruce a stern glare as if to explain, very clearly, that he was on thin ice. “Dr. Bruce Banner. Renowned medical doctor and nuclear physicist - or did I mess that up, too?”

Bruce cleared his throat and quickly shook his head. “That’s. Yes, sir. That is correct.”

“Perfect. Hate to think Stark kidnapped the wrong nuclear scientist.”

No one laughed, but some smirked. Bruce bristled at the idea of coming against his will, but he wouldn’t correct Fury again. Rhodey shot Bruce an apologetic smile, though, and he softly searched for Bruce’s hand beneath the table. Rhodey gave his hand a quick brush before his concentration returned to the group.

“With all of the introductions over and done, let’s get Dr. Banner here up to speed.” Fury sat at the head of the table and propped up his feet before giving the room a death glare. “Well, go ahead. Don’t all jump in at once.”

Clint, who was on Rhodey’s right, cleared his throat. He hunched forward, weaving his hands together in a casual, honest manner that Bruce appreciated. “Think of us as...equalizers, per se.”

“Good,” Fury encouraged. He waved his hand. “Pray, continue, Hawkeye. I like how this is goin’.”

Bruce kept a neutral expression, but his mind tripped over Clint’s code name. Maybe this was why he was lookout - because of his good eyes?

“So,” Clint sighed. “You’ve been around, Bruce. You’ve seen the news, even been in it sometimes. You know how the world works.”

Bruce shrugged. “I suppose.”

“A little more than the average Joe, I bet.” Clint traded glances with Tony, and Bruce wondered how much information Tony’d supplied, regarding his background. “And you’re...if I can be a little bold here. Do you subscribe to any particular political party?”

Bruce narrowed his eyes. This question got him in trouble at gatherings, all the time. “Democratic Socialist,” he said, a little unkindly. “Why?”

“Well,” Clint continued in his smooth baritone. “Do you think the US as you know it aligns with your values right now?”

“No. Of course not. But,” Bruce said, holding out for the argument. “That’s what elections are for. That’s what voicing your opinion is for. That’s what protests are for,” he said, a little louder because he heard a few groans around the table. “What? And ruling by force is better?” He was ready for them. Expected this argument really, wanted it all on the table. “Forcing people to choose is no better than dictatorship.”

“Bruce, I love your optimism, I really do. But,” Clint said, regarding everyone in range. “We’ve all seen it, all been through it. There is no way any government will treat its citizens as people, when money’s on the line. Whether you’re socialist or hardcore communist or a US Republican, everything comes down to the almighty dollar.

“Level with me,” Clint said, shifting so he could get a better look at Bruce. “When’s the last time you saw any organized group succeed without a monetary exchange? If money’s involved, someone’s in charge, whether you like it or not. And if someone’s on top, someone else isn’t, because whoever holds the purse strings rules the world. It’s that simple.”

“Is it? Nothing’s simple, Clint.”

“Dunno,” Clint said, falling back into his chair. “Prove me wrong.”

Bruce snorted. “Fine. The Jonbeel Mela in India, the Yanomami and Awa tribes in the Amazon, the Kula ring in Papau New Guinea--”

“But do those tribes control their respective nations?”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Bruce growled, pointing a finger at Clint. “You asked, and I gave a valid response. Prove me wrong.”

Fury threw back his head, laughing and clapping his hands with glee. “Love it. Love it.” He gestured to Tony and Rhodey. “Y’all picked a good one.”

“Besides,” Bruce said, ignoring Fury’s interruption. “ ‘Money’ to certain groups can be a barter system. Some have it, some don’t, but they barter for whatever else they need. They don’t care as long as their needs and their family’s needs are met.”

“Now, ain’t that the truth,” Fury snorted. He smiled a little and let his boots hit the floor. “So if everyone’s needs are met, and money is no longer on the table, do you think that’ll solve all the issues of mankind?”

“That’s...such a puerile question,” Bruce said, knowing how brave - and stupid - it was of him to say it to Fury’s face. “There are no easy answers. That’s why we have different rules of governments and systems. It’s why we govern differently.”

“Who decides, then?” Widow had entered the fray, now. Her accent reminded Bruce of Romanian winters. “Who gets to choose which governments thrive, and which don’t?”

“The people.”

“Ah, I see.” She muttered in Russian, under her breath. “You think the people can control nations effectively? The armies do. And armies are controlled by people with money!”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “I’m not saying every system governs well. But there is a type of barter. Protection, goods, and services in exchange for paying taxes.”

“And every red-blooded patriot gets equal protection, huh?” Fury’s smile turned a little cold. “We could go down this turn every minute of every day and don’t get me wrong, I love me some good ol’ fashioned politics like Mom used to make. But,” Fury held up a hand. “I’m sure you suspect that every altruistic organization, no matter how good intentioned, eventually becomes as corrupt as the next, a slave to the system it created. Someone has to lose, for someone else to win.”

Bruce had it with the argument and the double-speak, and frankly he was upset neither Rhodey nor Tony chimed in on his behalf. “So what? The answer is to execute the rich? Liberate the poor? Liberate them to...what, exactly? A life of looking over their shoulder, waiting for a bomb to obliterate their homelands? To starve? To have their children thrown into prisons and everyone to die from diseases that should’ve been cured fucking centuries ago?” His heart pounded in his throat. He glared at everyone, including Tony and Rhodey, feeling froth pooling at the corners of his lips. “How? How the fuck will you change it?”

“By creating an opportunity for it in the first place.”

Bruce’s rage subsided at the new voice in the corner. The blonde haired man with a look of quiet resolve nodded at Bruce. “I agree with you, Doctor Banner. We live in a world of assholes and cowards, and no one has the right to tell anyone how to live their lives. But.” The man leaned forward, cupping his hands as if in prayer. “What if you had the means to make sure everyone started on equal footing, and you had the means to keep that equal footing in play, for at least a decade? That everyone on earth - man, woman and child - had access to enough money to take care of themselves and their family, for a full decade? If you could triple their current salary? How they used the money would be up to them, for good and ill, and the money wouldn’t be unlimited. Just enough for a decade. But within that decade they’d be free to live in freedom, however they chose.”

“That...” Bruce rolled his lips. “That would help, I’m sure. But how many countries would destabilize? How would people eat? Get medical care? Hell, how many people would run themselves into the ground -”

“But how many would be elevated?”

Bruce shook his head. “There are too many factors. You can’t guarantee happiness. You can’t guarantee anything. I mean, wouldn’t crime go up? Would people try to get away with murder?”

“They do that now, Bruce,” Rhodey said quietly. He slowly rubbed Bruce’s knuckles, calming him. “Tony’s brilliant, you know? What we’ve discussed is creating something small enough to be life changing for a lot of people while balancing the status quo. We’re also gonna play peacekeeper, to make sure the assets don’t end up in the wrong hands.”

Swallowing, Bruce looked at all of them around the table. “In theory,” he murmured quietly. “Theoretically. But you’d have to control...well. Everything.”

“Exactly.” Tony was talking to him, his manic grin returning; the horrible Joker’s smile, a rictus grin. “Remember my AI, JARVIS?” Bruce nodded. “Well. The dirty bastard’s currently co-mingling with every satellite, bank, internet computer system, electronic device with smart technology, every downloadable app on the planet--you name it. Do you know,” Tony said, smirking, “how hackable every military on earth is? How very unprotected drones and vehicles and ships and launch codes are--? ‘Cause I do.”

“Jesus...”

“Everything is a-go. The people in this room, at this base, are the only people who’ll know. Once the message goes forth across the planet we’ll take care of the rest. Rogers’ group--” and Tony pointed to the man who’d spoken earlier “--will coordinate the North, Central and South American underground networks. T’Challa here will work the African continent and make sure our militias there are the only ones with ammunition. In fact, some weapons manufacturers are gonna be mighty low on funds and/or electricity for a long, long time.”

“You...you can’t control everything?” Bruce offered weakly. He felt tired. “What...about hospitals? People who depend on daily things that can’t be interrupted--”

“No problem. We thought of everything.”

Tony laid out SHIELD’s grand master plan to save the world, dizzying Bruce with its intricacies and implications. Bruce gathered they planned to implement a Robin Hood principle of rich-to-poor, but on a global scale. The insanely rich would become moderately rich or barely rich, while their funds raced across continents to poor countries around the world. And then SHIELD’s little militia ground troops would be dispatched across the planet, to make sure everyone did their part to maintain their new order. The rich would find their credit...obliterated. The poor would suddenly have their bills paid, with enough continual income to either work - or not - for ten years. Bullets would be in short supply, as every automatic weapon manufacturer would find their factories suddenly without power. And no matter how often stores tried raising prices to make more money off demand, prices would remain within measured limits.

People would still need goods and services, of course, but SHIELD had plants in every industry around the world, ready to tackle distribution. Effectively, they would be in control of all resources - shipping, aeronautics, buses, trains, automobiles, power grids, infrastructure, water, food, corporations, commerce, economics...every goddamn thing on the godforsaken planet. They held the purse strings of the world.

“I ah.” Bruce stood shakily. “I need...I need air.”

Tony shared a look with Rhodey, and they stood up with Bruce. “Meeting adjourned?” Tony asked.

Fury nodded. “If everything’s in place, I can’t see what else needs doing. JARVIS is your project, Stark; I say we let our ground troops know and kick it off at 0900 our time tomorrow. Deal?”

Everyone in the room nodded.

Bruce barely heard the scraping of chairs across the concrete floors or the murmured voices filing out. He felt, rather than saw, Tony and Rhodey come alongside him, grabbing his arms before he fell. His eidetic memory, the curse and comfort of his existence, had recorded all of their words, committed them to memory. And the onslaught of harrowing data and its implications overwhelmed his senses.

Knowing this, Rhodey and Tony helped him back to Tony’s room. He nodded when they silently asked if they could take off his suit and tuck him into bed. Then they took off their own clothes and cuddled him in the soft sheets and Bruce slowly shut his eyes, not sure if he was falling into a nightmare, or into heaven’s eternal rest.

#sciencebrosweek2019 #record #the longest yet #maybe I'll come up with a title after the last installment #at least an ending is in sight maybe #sciencebrosweek #@sciencebrosweek #tony stark #bruce banner #james rhodes #again the fic with no name #and now the end is near and #so I face the final curtain

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spamela-hamderson · 5 years

Note

IKEA AU (I do not know what that even meeeans)

please suspend your disbelief and assume that IKEA is very lax on security, thank you

Aaron’s 15. He has nobody to turn to, and $63 worth of crumpled notes pushed to the bottom of his bag—money he’s been putting away bit by bit in the hopes of someday having enough to get away from his dad.

He thought he’d have a little more time to save up, to come up with a plan, but the fight and the hitting Sandra thing happened and he’d seen that look in Gordon’s eyes again. The one full of cold rage and contempt that made him shake in his bed at night and he knew that he had to get away. That he wouldn’t, couldn’t survive another day of living in this nightmare. So he ran up to his room as the shouting carried on downstairs, locked the door, grabbed the half-packed bag he’d hidden in the back of his wardrobe, and almost broke an ankle trying to leave through his bedroom window.

He spent that night on a park bench, not getting any sleep because he was so worried that someone would get suspicious about a kid sleeping rough and call the police.

And now he’s standing outside of IKEA. Aaron doesn’t really have a plan, he’s mostly winging it at this point, but he thinks hiding in the toilets until the store closes in 2 hours and then coming back out onto the showroom where he can sleep in an actual bed and pretend for a night that he has a space of his own, is a pretty perfect plan.

It’s finally past closing and he’s laying on a bed, shoes over the duvet cos he can, when he hears footsteps. And ok, at first he things he’s just hearing things. Cos what are the chances of two people sneaking into IKEA on the same night, right? But then the footsteps start to get louder and a torchlight turns on. And Aaron suddenly realises that it could be a guard. He doesn’t have time to think, rolls off the bed as quietly as he can, and army crawls under the bed to his left. The only one he remembers having a base high enough to fit him.

But of course he’s left his bag on the bed. And the other person must’ve seen it, cos they’re coming over now.

He could run away, it’s a big enough place that they’d take a while to find him, but he’d really rather not leave without his bag and the photograph inside it. He’s still deciding on what to do, when the light falls on him, and a figure kneels down by his head. The other boy looks about his age, maybe a little older. He’s kinda gangly, really, Aaron thinks, as he stares into a face that probably shares a very similar shocked expression to the one he’s sporting. He could definitely take him.

Aaron pushes him down as he crawls back out from under the bed, and is just about to punch him in the nose, except the boy manages to slip away to the other side of the bed, and is insisting that he’s not gonna get Aaron in trouble since he’s not supposed to be here either.

Aaron supposes he doesn’t have to beat him up then. He does have a nice face (objectively speaking, of course) and it’d be a shame to mess it up.

Robert tells him about how this girl from school, Katie, had dared him to spend a whole night at IKEA. He’d stepped up to the challenge of course, because she was proper fit. And it definitely didn’t hurt that Andy had looked like he’d eaten a whole lemon when faced with Katie’s obvious excitement over this.

Robert doesn’t really know why he’s telling this complete stranger all about Andy, but it’s so easy he can’t stop himself. And it’s nice to have someone not immediately take Andy’s side on things, who actually seemed annoyed on Robert’s behalf. He’d especially loved it when Aaron had said Andy sounded “like a right dickhead”.

Cue montage of them being silly around IKEA, a la that 500 days of summer scene (but better). And since they’re teenagers with a new crush (that they’re trying very badly to be cool about), they keep doing stupid shit to impress each other that almost ends in property damage/personal injury 7 different times. Also there’s giggling and teasing and glances at each other when the other isn’t looking, it’s all very sweet, trust me.

And then they find the staff room. More importantly the staff room fridge. Where someone has very conveniently left a tupperware of rotisserie chicken.

Fast forward to them being back on the bed, empty tupperware by their feet and an empty pack of chocolate digestives they’d shared for dessert (courtesy of Aaron nicking them from a grocery store earlier that day).

Robert’s just noticing the crumbs they’ve left all over the bed, when he decides that they should probably clean up after themselves a little so they can make a quick getaway on the morning. So he shoves the empty biscuit packet in Aaron’s bag, leaning over the side of the bed to pick up the two empty cans of beer (also courtesy of Aaron. He’s had a busy afternoon.), when he notices something else in the bag.

It’s an old, yellowing, photograph of a small kid who looks a lot like Aaron. Grinning wide and being held close to a dark haired woman, both of them standing with their feet bare and half sunken into wet sand. There’s also a strong crease down the middle, like it’s been folded and unfolded many times.

Aaron snatches it from him, before his eyes go blank and he tries to laugh off his reaction. But Robert knows something’s changed now.

“Aaron? Why are you here?”

He’s trying his hardest to cry as quietly as he can so Robert won’t know, but it’s still pretty fucking loud in that large, silent space. Robert very quietly asks if he can give him a hug, and is already starting to feel stupid when Aaron takes a while to give any sort of answer. But then Aaron slowly sticks his hand out towards him, just a little, and Robert almost doesn’t take it. Cos somehow holding hands with Aaron feels way more intimate than a hug.

They do hold hands, palms sweaty and awkward, but there’s no chance of either of them letting go. Aaron falls asleep almost immediately after that because he finally feels safe enough to relax now. And Robert’s left staring at him, already so worried about this boy and knowing that there was no way he was gonna leave him alone. He hasn’t felt this alive in a long time, not since he lost his mum. And he’s decided that he’d like to chase that feeling for as long as he can.

They rise before dawn the next day and manage to sneak back out through the loading bay. Aaron’s decided he’s going to Emmerdale and Robert’s decided he’s going to grab some stuff from home and follow him there for a couple of days. He knows it’s a terrible idea, but it’s the school holidays and he’s not ready to end whatever this is with Aaron yet. He’ll deal with his dad when he gets back. How bad could it be, right?

Aaron half-heartedly tries to dissuade Robert, but he’s definitely pleased about it, can’t seem to stop looking at Robert in awe. Emmerdale hasn’t been home to Aaron in a long time—he knows his mum and her family are there, but he also knows he’s more trouble than they can handle—but maybe with Robert with him this time, it could start to be.

#there are so many plotholes i cry #au headcanons #asks #robron #emmerdale

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gingersnapwolves · 5 years

Text

Kouri watches Marvel’s Runaways Season 1

yo I heard you like liveblogs so I liveblogged a liveblog

30 minutes in and I’m already insane about what happened to Amy

“he hasn’t laid a hand on for a while now” wow what a stellar endorsement

I like Amy and Nico’s dad, why does he have to be evil

the narrative framing of the first two episodes is really interesting, showing the same day from both the parents’ and kids’ POV

Leslie is like “do we have to talk about your issues right now? I’m trying to psych myself up to murder an innocent teenager”

“personally I’ve found denial to be a great coping mechanism” that applies to like failed romances and stuff not murder

ugh Leslie’s husband. why couldn’t they sacrifice him?

ooooooh she’s not dead! fucking plot twist!

betrayed by a fallen hairclip!

Robert I hate to be the one to break this to you but your wife is kinda evil

oh yes that picture of Destiny in front of Big Ben is totally convincing

okay I get that Victor doesn’t want to admit his box malfunctioned but won’t they notice church dude is still wrinkly and shrivelly

the house calling Tina the ‘alpha user’ is just fucking weird

um, Robert. I like you. But buying a house for yourself and your mistress without clearing it with said mistress is very, very stupid.

wow, this flashback to Amy's death is super fucked up, why wouldn't her parents call 911

and it got more fucked up! okay then

Chase and Gert just aren't gonna mention the dinosaur they let free to the other kids???

"I don't want to get my parents in trouble [for their illegal dinosaur]" um Gert priorities please

oh no she ruined your school's chances at winning the lacrosse championship! ......was high school really like this? literally nobody at my high school would give a shit about that

why is she getting naked for the weird corpse?????

WHY ARE THEIR CROTCHES GLOWING

I HAVE CONCERNS

Yes, I'm sure this kidnapping in broad daylight in front of a ton of other people is going to go swimmingly

lmaoooooooooooooooo just as well as anticipated

omg if she takes off her bracelet and doesn't glow and thinks she's crazy I'mma lose my shit

oh thank God, glowing

Alex honey I love you but do you have any idea how to use that gun

FISTIGONS LMAOOOOOO

that scene with his dad would be sweet if his father wasn't an abusive cockbite

Alex is like "all this happening and I'm getting kidnapped by gangsters, that is just super"

will someone listen to Molly please!!!!

well, I foresee that this is going to go very badly for absolutely everybody

poor Alex is like "I would like very much to be excluded from this narrative, which I never asked to be part of"

holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

Alex just sttraight up shot that guy

suddenly: iron man!

hey, a time machine concept I don't hate!

ooooh, glioblastoma, those are nasty

couldn't happen to a nicer guy

okay how is creepy shrivelled old dude actually more creepy when he's not shrivelled and old

wow, these people should have asked a LOT more questions before they put on those fucking robes

"we made a deal with the devil" wow it took all y'all way too long to figure that out

like. nobody ever asked what he was getting out of this? Not a one of you? I thought you guys were all geniuses.

this is not the place for your adultery drama, Victor!

"you're all keeping secrets from each other" yes well that's what happens when you blackmail a bunch of people into committing ritual murder together

did Satan actually not notice that what's-his-nuts just pocketed the rest of his miracle cure

also, okay. I can't believe that not a single one of these parents who got tricked into committing murder on tape didn't think "ya know what? I'm gonna go to the cops anyway and just say that I had no idea 'get in the glowing box' was going to end up in someone being dematerialized by science that as far as I knew didn't even exist yet, and since Leslie admitted on tape that she did know that, she can go to jail and I'll just go into fucking witness protection"

Rather than "guess I'll keep murdering teenagers once a year in this nifty crimson robe"

alien brain has done some weird things to Victor

Chase, stop defending your father. Just stop.

suddenly: Frank is magic!

"It's like he wanted us to examine it" how can you say that without realizing that you're 100% correct

just spill the alien DNA on yourself!

whoever heard of lab safety?!

maybe don't tell Leslie you plan on destroying everything she's spent her life working for?

I don't know why Jonah is intent on "fixing" things with the couples and everything. Like. "We need Pride to stay together" .... I don't even know why all y'all are needed, how many people does it take to shove a homeless kid in a box

Victor, don't attack the lacrosse .... wait, they kicked Chase off the team for stopping a rape in progress. Victor, attack the lacrosse coach! Hit him!

lmao I was like "ugh relationship drama" and Amanda chimes in, without even knowing what's going on or what I’m watching, "the heteros are upsetero"

go get your dinosaur, Gert! I feel like a dinosaur would improve this situation.

ah, I see Victor's personality transplant has worn off

There's literally no reason they couldn't call an ambulance for Victor, come on, it was clearly self defense

"well that was inevitable" lmao Dale pls

Why does Jonah even care about keeping Victor alive

I hope the dinosaur eats Jonah

They're all just okay with sacrificing Janet? Seriously?

What in the Christ is so special about whatever Jonah is doing that none of them have just straight up murdered him

Damn, Tina threw down and now I kinda like her

eight episodes ago you hated your dad, Chase. he's the worst.

lol Tina really did burn her hand on a frying pan

wow, Darius hasn't given up yet?

whoa, sudden teenaged smexing

Well, see, the thing is, Jonah, nobody fucking likes you

he acts so offended that the people he blackmailed into committing murder for him don't want to do everything he says

"this better not be a crackbaby" Darius' girlfriend is my new favorite character

Frank why do you suck

yes, Chase, I'm sure blowing up the control panel is the best answer

the parent-group facing off the kid-group while Alex just stands there looking stern because he doesn't have any powers is hilarious

ALL Y’ALL REALLY JUST GON STAND THERE AND WATCH JONAH BLOW YOUR KIDS UP

NOT A FUCKING ONE OF YOU IS GONNA DO ANYTHING

THERE ARE LIKE 10 OF YOU AND ONE OF HIM

I get that he glows and makes lasers but holy motherfucking shit those dumbass parents really just stood there with their dumbass thumbs up their dumbass asses

the dino in a shopping cart covered by a blanket omg

okay I do not like Karolina having the face hugger mask on

"I'm her father, not Jonah!" dude she confided in you and you ratted her out to Jonah maybe don't be so proud of yourself

are y'all seriously leaving the dinosaur behind in the hills of LA. Seriously.

how in the hell did Alex have Darius' phone number???

I swear to God if I have to see one more minute of fucking Frank, I'mma lose it

Okay if framing them for murder was Jeffrey's plan to find them before Jonah does, he is an utter dipshit

not that this really surprises me as most of the parents honestly don’t seem too bright

okay done with season 1 and it’s a good thing multiple people told me season 2 is better because otherwise…

#so much rambling #I regret nothing #runaways #kouri watches runaways #liveblog

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doodlelolly0910 · 5 years

Text

Love Don’t Cost a Thing

Summary: Emma thought she was living her happily ever after until she wasn't. Now Neal is living his with someone else and Emma has a plus one option to the wedding from hell but no one to fill the space. Enter Killian Jones, devastatingly handsome male escort and the answer to Emma's problems. She hires him for the wedding because he's the safe choice. The temporary choice. Falling in love wasn't on the invoice.

You can also find this on AO3 and FFN!

A/N: Hello! I come bearing new fic! So this was supposed to be a oneshot. I wrote it as a oneshot. The fic clearly had other ideas and it is now an MC lol. So here we are! Super huge ginormous thank you to @superchocovian who was just a the most fantastic beta and a wonderfully patient person. She thought she was signing up to beta a oneshot and she got me instead haha. And another super huge thank you to my wondertwin @artistic-writer who has made the most AMAZING picset for this fic that I could have ever wanted. It is seriously fantastic and I nearly squealed her ear off about it. I honestly love it so so so much. And she was an awesome second set of eyes on this project and frequent calmer of my anxieties and just an overall wonderful, lovely person. Thank you in advance for reading this fic! I hope you love it as much as I do. It's been my pet project for quite a while now and I'm so excited to share it with y'all. Watch for updates every Friday, and you can yell at me on here if you want. Away we go!

Chapter 1

Ten months.

Ten measly fucking months is all it took for Neal Cassidy to send out wedding invitations after he tossed Emma aside like yesterday's newspaper. Of course it wasn't too much of an asshole move to send an invitation to the mother of your child when you'd found a new love, especially if said child was going to be in the wedding. Was it? Her fury at the envelope grew as she decided yes it was an asshole move and she took another generous drink from the glass in front of her.

It still stung, even three months later, as she sat drowning herself in her sorrows at the bar on what would have been their ten year anniversary. To add insult to injury, the one he'd sent to her was addressed to Miss Emma Swan and Guest, written on the front in elegant gold script. She scoffed and tossed back her drink, fingering the edge of the envelope absent mindedly.

Miss Emma Swan and Guest.

Neal knew. He fucking knew she didn't have anybody. He knew how hard it was for her to let people in. He sent her the invitation just to rub it in her face. Just another message that she'd never find happiness. She conjured an image of his smug smile in her mind's eye and felt the sudden urge to find him and slap it off his face. She signalled to the bartender for another drink instead of doing something stupid, like driving to New York City from the Boston hotel bar she sat in and punching her ex. Repeatedly. She sipped slowly this time at the vodka cranberry in her hand, newly delivered by the petite blonde behind the counter. In reality, she wanted to be slamming back shots of whiskey, but self preservation told her that advertising her heartbreak in such a way would be ill advised. So she sipped and turned the envelope over in her unoccupied hand again and again, looking at its broken seal and debating whether or not to open it again for what felt like the millionth time since she'd gotten it those short few months ago. She couldn't believe this was happening. Couldn't believe he would have the solid fucking steel balls he must have upgraded to since he left her to send her this after all they'd been through. She had been with him for nine years, since she was seventeen and naïve, a runaway foster kid with no family, no friends, and no place to go, all the while planning their future together as she thought he had been. They'd met when she tried to steal a car that he'd already stolen, and they kept up the Bonnie and Clyde act to survive. It stung the first time she had asked why he hadn't proposed and he told her neither of them were ready for that. They'd only been together a year and they were still having fun. At least she wasn't alone. So Emma carried on, and didn't ask questions. They were happy. Not long after that, she'd gotten pregnant. Neal had wanted her to get an abortion, but Emma couldn't do it. She was eighteen, he was twenty four, and she followed his lead in most things, but she just couldn't bring herself to do that. They'd settled on adoption. They got real jobs, a real apartment, and everything was okay for awhile. But once Emma heard the strong cries as her son was freed from her womb and she laid eyes on him for the first time, she couldn't give him up either. She and Neal had fought about it. He'd even left for three whole weeks when she wouldn't relent. But he came back, saying he didn't want to be like his father and walk out on his son. Emma quashed the urge to remind him he'd already done that and welcomed him back with open arms. She knew what it was like to grow up without parents; she didn't want the same for her child. He still didn't want to marry her, citing the need to work on their relationship and being parents. She accepted that. At least she wasn't alone. The next few years seemed to fly by as Emma threw herself into her little family. Henry wanted for nothing, and Neal even ended up being a really good dad. But they fought a lot. Bills piled up and Emma worked two jobs while Neal struggled to hold down one most of the time. He would work whenever a job offer came to him, but he never really looked for one. And they never seemed to last long. Emma made enough as an office clerk for a private investigator by day and a waitress by night to keep them afloat. Around that time, Robert Gold, Neal’s estranged father, had come back into Neal's life and wanted a relationship with him and his grandson. Neal rejected his requests, and Emma always tried to support him, whichever way he wanted to go with it. Emma asked one night that had been mostly calm and normal if he wanted to get married. He dismissed the idea easily, telling her he wanted to be more stable in a career, that way they could afford the ring and wedding they deserved. Emma told him it didn't matter to her, but dropped the subject. They could wait to get married. At least she wasn't alone. In the end, one of Neal's biggest complaints was that she never had time for him (or Henry, as he had callously tossed in her face a time or two during some of their more heated spats) and he needed more from a relationship. Ironically, he started seeing his father regularly and looking for work more frequently around this time as well, stretching his own time at home thin. Nonetheless, she tried harder, losing contact with her friends and even her foster brother David, that she'd reconnected with when Henry was born, in favor of making more time for her boyfriend and son. It never seemed to be enough. Tamara Herr had time for Neal though. The caramel skinned beauty lived right across the street from their apartment building and was decidedly everything Emma was not. So, when Emma caught them together in their bed after coming home early one day to celebrate her promotion, all she could do was laugh as her heart simultaneously closed up tight and shattered into a thousand pieces. And now they were getting married. Neal got the girl of his dreams that it was clear Emma wasn't and a relationship with his father that came with his very own trust fund. And she was alone. "Bad night?" Emma jumped at the sound of a British baritone voice coming suddenly from behind her. Her face pinched in a scowl and she turned to make sure whoever this interloper was knew she wasn't in the mood for company. She looked up as a tall, well built frame placed itself in the seat next to her. Emma was almost shocked off her stool when her gaze meet his. She wasn't expecting someone so... well, gorgeous, if she was being honest. Dark chocolate hair fell just over his forehead, dusting his quirked brows. Bright ocean blue eyes watched her with mild amusement, studying her as she was him. His pink, plush lips were framed by dark, neatly trimmed facial hair that was interspersed with auburn whiskers here and there that she almost would have missed if the light hadn't caught it just right. There was a single onyx stone in his right ear that matched his cufflinks on the lighter gray dress shirt that he wore under a steel grey suit. The shirt had several buttons undone, exposing his chest and the thick smattering of umber hair across it. Realizing she'd probably been staring too long, she reset her mouth into a hard line and tilted her head back away from him. "It has been a pretty shitty night. That's usually how one finds themselves drinking at a bar near eleven o'clock alone," she replied stiffly, hoping her tone and words would prevent him from pursuing whatever this interaction was between them. It seemed, though, that the man only took it as an invitation. "I could tell. If you stared at that envelope any harder, it may burst into flames, love," he said with a chuckle. Emma's scowl deepened. "Not your love," she huffed. "Not anyone's love," she added before she could stop herself. Her cheeks flushed at the admission and she hid her face in her drink, letting her golden hair fall in front of it as she dipped her head down.Maybe she’d had enough to drink. To her surprise, the man reached out and tucked a good portion of her tresses behind her ear so he could look at her face. He continued to amaze her when she saw no pity in his expression, just a glimmer of understanding. "I can't imagine anyone not wanting to love someone as beautiful as you," he murmured. Emma wrinkled her nose at the over the top declaration and he cracked a grin in response. "Too much?" "That was epically cheesy. Does that line really work on anyone?" She took another sip from her glass and felt her eyebrows climb her forehead. "It wasn't a line at all, love. But I have plenty of those as well, if you'd like to hear." He nodded towards her, almost begging her to pick up the gauntlet he'd thrown. She remained silent, not wanting to further encourage this conversation, but feeling strangely uplifted by his presence. So he continued on. "Here, how much would you say a polar bear weighs?" Emma gave him a funny look, contemplating where he might be going with this. "I'm not sure, like a thousand, two thousand pounds?" she guessed. He looked positively gleeful that she'd played along. "So you might say then... enough to break the ice? Killian Jones, at your service." He picked up her hand and kissed the back of it. Emma rolled her eyes and groaned, drawing her hand back but still feeling the sear of his lips just below her knuckles. "I can't believe I just walked right into that one." She shook her head with a laugh.

“It's a gift of mine, leading women places they don't expect to go,” he said, his voice low and sultry, and oh, man, he was definitely flirting with her. “Would you like to go somewhere else unexpected?” He swiped his tongue over his lower lip, his darkened gaze holding hers.

"Sorry, pal. You just aren't my type," she lied, her breath catching in her chest as she flitted her eyes back to the bar and her drink. Truth was, she was far more attracted to him than she'd been to... well, anyone really. More attracted to him than she had been to Neal, that was for sure. "Darling, for the right price, I'm anyone's type," he replied, his words hanging heavily in the air between them. Emma's eyes widened at the implication, snapping back to his face, and Killian's own blue orbs smoldered into her gaze, waiting for her reaction. They stared at one another in silent challenge, willing the other to expand on the proverbial elephant that now sat quite noticeably in the room. Curiosity won out and Emma licked her lips before responding, flushing slightly when the handsome man tracked the movement with his eyes. "Are you telling me you're a hooker?" She hissed under her breath, darting her eyes around the room as if someone might be listening, and Killian grinned at her. "Please, love. 'Hooker' sounds so crass. Not to mention, illegal." His grin grew larger as she sighed in frustration. "Well isn't this just my damn luck. Sitting alone, wallowing over my ex-boyfriend's happiness wasn't enough, I suppose. Now the one guy who even talks to me is only here to make a quick buck." She scoffed and shoved the envelope violently into her clutch purse before digging out some cash to leave for her drinks. His careful eyes watched her flustered movements before he reached out to loosely grip her wrist. She froze, unsure of whether or not she should pull away. He stroked the pad of his thumb over the small flower tattoo nestled at the base of her palm, prompting her to look up at him again. She did, ignoring the electric sparks shooting up her arm at the contact. "For what it's worth, love, I would have approached you whether I was on the clock or not." He brought her hand up and placed a soft kiss to the place his thumb had just been smoothing, never breaking eye contact, causing her breath to hitch again involuntarily. She cursed herself mentally for acting like a hormonal mess. "How many girls has that bullshit worked on today? Bet your bank account is padded with the results of pick up lines like that," she spat, snatching her hand back from his gentle grip and standing abruptly. She was more embarrassed than she could recall feeling in recent memory and she hated it. Hated how he'd gotten under her skin so quickly. Killian seemed to accept her retreat gracefully and smiled softly at her. He stood as well and reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, pulling free a small black card. Boldly, he reached down and slipped it into the gap of her clutch, not even bothering to try to hand it to her, knowing she wouldn't take it. "Think what you'd like, Swan, but that was also not a line. That's the absolute truth. And should you change your mind about some company, well, you have my card." Emma stood in shock. She could feel her face reddening further. Then the bastard winked and smoothly turned, walking away to find his next companion. And that is when it hit her that he'd used her last name.

It had to be a coincidence, or she must have misheard him, because why the hell, how the hell, would he have known her name?

Emma's cheeks were still flaming as she stormed out to her car. She wasted little time in jamming her keys into the ignition, making the little yellow Volkswagen rumble to life and peel out of the parking lot in haste. How dare he. Men like Killian Jones were the absolute worst, preying on women who were vulnerable for their own gain. The thought that he'd recognized her as vulnerable made her stomach turn. She should have never let her guard down so low. She hadn't even been aware that she'd done it. How often did she have her weaknesses on display? she mused as she waited at a red stoplight. She slammed her open palm into the steering wheel. In the five minutes she spent in Jones's company, he'd managed to peel back her layers and reach her in a way that she hadn't been reached in years. If she didn't know any better, she may have even admitted that she felt a connection to Killian Jones. Damn him. It was all an act, she reminded herself. He was skilled in the art of flirtation, ready to seduce and take advantage of every sad sob story that would make him a few bucks. A loud honk from behind her jerked her from her thoughts and she realized the light was green. Putting her foot on the gas, all she was focused on was getting home. No more thoughts of handsome male hookers--or shitty exes, for that matter. Except that was all she could think about as she parked in her designated space and made her way into the apartment building. She kept a brisk pace as if she could physically outrun her train of thought. She was glad that Henry was staying with Neal this week, not expected back until the day after tomorrow. She loved her kid, but he was too damn smart for an eight year old. He would have picked up on her distressed state in no time. She didn't bother with picking up the house that night, only dropping her purse on the table in the entryway, stripping away her shoes and clothes as she made her way to the room and slipping into an oversized t-shirt and pajama pants for bed. As she slipped under the covers and settled on her pillow, the last thought that ran through her mind before sleep consumed her was of Killian Jones. The next morning was no better. She scowled at herself for waking up with Killian's blue eyes dancing through her head and decided she needed a distraction. Usually, she and Henry would spend their Saturdays in a park or a library, or the occasional museum, but he wasn't here and she didn't fancy doing any of that alone. She could call her sister-in-law, Mary Margaret, or her friends Elsa or Ruby, but all three of them knew her well enough to know when she was hiding something and she was still embarrassed just enough by her run in with a male escort and her subsequent escape to decide against putting herself through the ringer. Mary Margaret would be appalled and tell everyone (she was horrible at keeping secrets), Elsa would be sympathetic to the point of pity (which she was not ready for), and Ruby would either make fun of the whole situation or try to find him herself (based on how much of a description she could get out of Emma). No thank you to all of those scenarios. She padded barefoot into her kitchen, grabbing a mug and leaning against the counter to wait for her coffee pot to finish percolating, silently thanking the heavens that she remembered to set it before she went out last night. She looked around the apartment she shared with her son and sighed. It was a good sized apartment, much better than where she'd started with Henry. Her eventual licensing as a private investigator afforded her a much better lifestyle for her and her son. One that could have included Neal. She'd actually been on her way home to share her license confirmation when she'd caught him with her. And the rest was history. The coffee pot gurgled its last drops into the pot and Emma happily made herself a cup. Maybe she should've RSVP'd that she'd be coming alone. It would've been much easier, but she was so mad to see that plus one included on her card that she'd gotten out the Jack Daniels and the whiskey checked the box for her. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And it wasn't like she hadn't moved on from Neal; on the contrary, she had, she just hadn't moved on with someone else just yet. Sipping at her cup, her mind automatically went to her phone. She usually skimmed news headlines and went through her email with her morning coffee, but she didn't have it with her and she didn't remember seeing it on her nightstand. She let out a groan when she remembered that she'd left it in her purse. Grumbling, she pushed herself away from the counter and made her way to the entryway, picking up her purse with one hand and setting her mug down with the other. She shuffled through the contents and pulled her phone free, but as she did, a small, black square fluttered to the floor. She bent down to retrieve it, frowning and trying to remember where it came from or what it was. She flipped it over to read it and her face immediately flushed, though she wasn't sure if it was out of embarrassment or something else. KILLIAN JONES PERSONAL ENTERTAINMENT 617-555-9870 Emma snorted. 'Personal entertainment' indeed. She didn't even know why he slipped her his card. She'd never paid for sex and she wasn't about to start. She was lonely, not desperate. She tucked the card against her phone for the moment and went back to her clutch for her charger. Her fingers bumped against the thick envelope inside as she searched and she scowled at it. And then a lightbulb went off in her head. She thought of the little nest egg she'd put aside for a rainy day as her mind began to hatch a plan. Maybe she was a little desperate. "This is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid..." she muttered, grabbing her phone and heading to the couch, flicking the edge of the business card with her finger. She plugged her phone in and sat down, letting a large sigh escape her, and punched in the numbers on the card. She fiddled with the ties on her sleep pants while the phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times. Just as she was about to hang up, a sultry English voice came on the line. "Hello?" Emma's throat closed up immediately and her mouth felt like she'd poured a shaker of salt into it. Her heart pounded in her chest and every word in the English language fled her frazzled mind. "Hello?" he said again and Emma jumped as she realized she should be saying something back. "Uh, hi." Smooth, Emma. "Hello, love. Can I help you?" He sounded amused and that incensed her. "Yes. No. Maybe. Dammit, this isn't how this was supposed to go," she rambled. "Look, you gave me your card last night, and I'm calling." "I gave quite a few women my card last night. Refresh my memory a bit, love." He didn't sound the least bit confused and Emma was positive he was messing with her now. She clenched her jaw. "Well, aren't you a regular Romeo." She was sure her scowl could be heard through the phone. He laughed out loud, warm and rich, the sound crackling through the phone and warming her to her toes. "Why don't we start with a name?" he prompted, mirth now flowing freely through his warm voice. She sighed. "It's Emma. Er, Swan. From the bar last night." She felt her grip tighten on her lap. He was silent for a beat and she began to rethink if he actually did know it was her before the reveal. "I was hoping it was you." His voice had dropped an octave and something twisted in her lower belly at the sound. "Yeah, well, it's me. It's kinda weird that you know my name, though. Or, y'know, that you remember me at all," she mumbled, tugging at her shirt nervously. "As if I could forget the most beautiful woman I've spoken to in recent memory," he purred and Emma wrinkled her nose at the flirtation, but he continued on. "And your name was easy enough to discern since you were waving it around on that envelope you had with you." "Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense," she said, embarrassed. An awkward silence fell over the line. "As much as I'm thrilled to hear your lovely voice, Swan, I'm assuming you didn't just call for a chat?" The amusement in his voice was back and Emma felt her blush deepen, thankful for the barrier the phone provided. "Uh, yeah. I was actually calling because, well, I'm looking to procure some of your, uh, services-" "Really, Swan?" The surprised delight in his tone made her frown. She wasn't a conquest. "Not like that. What I meant to say was I have sort of a proposition for you.” Her voice was all business and she found herself straightening her shoulders in resolve, though she knew he couldn't see her. "Color me intrigued, love. What sort of proposition?" he asked and Emma fidgeted nervously. "Can we meet to discuss it? Lunch, maybe? My treat of course, I know you're," she cleared her throat, "on the clock, or whatever." Killian chuckled low on the other end of the line. "Alright, darling, where and when?" he asked. "There's a diner near downtown, Granny's. Do you know it?" She grimaced at the thought of bringing him there. Ruby Lucas, her best friend, ran the place with her grandmother. She'd be ruthless with questions upon seeing her with a man, but she wanted to be somewhere that was familiar in case things went wrong. "I know it. Never been inside, but I've heard good things," he replied. "Can you meet me in an hour?" she asked, looking at the time. It was already approaching noon. "Aye, I'm free until this evening. I'll see you there, Swan," he confirmed and Emma hung up the phone as soon as he did, getting up and heading into her bedroom. What did one wear when they were potentially making the dumbest decision ever?

Tag list (if you would like to be added or removed from this list, please send me a message): @artistic-writer @snowbellewells @bmbbcs4evr @kmomof4 @xemmaloveskillianx @resident-of-storybrooke @hollyethecurious @courtorderedcake

#csff #cs ff au #cs ff #Captain Swan #escort!killian #love don't cost a thing #LDCAT #Chapter 1 #1/12 #friday update

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kellykadesperate · 5 years

Text

into the past life

For no reason in particular, Chas is deciding to have this massive clear out and somehow she’s roped them into helping. Paddy’s back is done in for some reason and Aaron is way too unnerved to want to find out why so he’s bought Seb along practically kicking and screaming.

“But I was supposed to help dad.” Seb’s a grafter, Aaron’s made him that way but he also much prefers a comfortable chair and a long desk to kick his feet up onto. Aaron’s lost count of the amount of times he’s told him that Robert had to work to get where he was.

He doesn’t mention all the scheming but Seb’s no idiot and the village is a giant gossip pit anyway.

Aaron’s got him under Chas’ bed, he’s already taller than Aaron is but Aaron’s not bending down there. He pulls slowly and Seb’s head hits the bed, Aaron can’t help but laugh as he watches his gangly seventeen year old struggle with the box.

“Uh it’s not funny.” Seb rubs a hand across his head as he finally comes up for air, the box covered in dust.

“Sort of is.”

“Yeah well there was a time where I couldn’t fall over without you fussing over me.” Aaron rolls his eyes, because maybe Aaron’s a protective dad. Just maybe. But Seb’s suddenly this man and it’s so weird and scary and yet he doesn’t know how not to be so proud of who he is.

“He used to cry.” Chas is suddenly poking her head around the door and Aaron tells her to shut up. “It’s true. Still gets all teary eyed over Ella.”

Aaron shakes his head and then looks down at the box. “You still want our help then?”

Chas grins, all animated. “You can get the boxes from downstairs.” She says. “Seb, there’s a few more boxes under there.”

“And what am I doing with them exactly?” Seb stands up and has a hand on his hip.

Aaron smirks.

“Alright Robert Sugden.” Chas says, tuts a little and Seb turns bright red and rolls his eyes. “You’re opening them, putting your head inside and seeing if it’s full of junk or not.”

“What’s junk?”

Aaron smiles. “How about you decide?” He says before getting down the stairs and having a tea thrust towards him by his mum. “What’s with all this spring cleaning then?” He knows her too well.

She shrugs a little and then sighs. “We need a little revamp of the place. We’re getting ...”

“On a bit?”

Chas’s eyes widen. “Bored of the colour scheme!” She throws a tea towel at her son and he starts laughing. He laughs a lot now and she keeps saying how happy she is for him.

Apparently he’s never looked happier. The more he thinks about it, the more he knows she’s right. Him and Robert are in a really good place. The sort of place where you don’t need to think about if you’re happy because you just are.

He’s still laughing when Seb comes back into the room because Chas has pulled out a picture of him when he was Seb’s age and he looks a *state.

“God, Seb look at your dad here, he’s —“

Only Seb has his head down. He’s holding what looks like a newspaper and Aaron just frowns at him, instantly stops laughing because he can see Seb’s shoulders tensing up.

“Seb?”

Seb keeps his head right down and then he looks up slowly at his dad. “What’s this?” He whispers. Only it’s almost not a question in the slightest. His face turns bright red against it.

“What’s ... what?” Aaron’s mind overthinks everything suddenly, flickers through whatever it could possibly be and he feels his throat grow dry as Seb holds the newspaper up further.

“Says ‘Ex lover charged with ...’” Seb gulps and Aaron can hear it from where he’s sitting. His eyes suddenly start flickering like mad and this pit in his stomach grows. Seb bites his lip the way Aaron does when he’s trying not to cry. “Dad? You ... you shot my dad?”

At first Aaron turns deaf around it and so does Chas. He can suddenly remember the sound, Robert falling down and him over his body and quietly begging him not to die. He remembers crying over him.

Then he remembers prison.

He remembers hating him.

He hasn’t gone there for so long. He hasn’t needed to.

“No.” Aaron says, lame and stupid and not enough to stop Seb waving the newspaper around. “Seb, come on, don’t be —“

“Don’t be what? I’m not Annie or Ella, you can’t fob me off with some stupid story and I’ll believe every word you say.” Seb’s voice betrays him. It wavers. He’s staring at Aaron and seeing that he’s getting emotional but he doesn’t want that. He wants the truth. “Did you?”

“Love, think about what you’re saying.” Chas says, her voice hesitant as she stands slowly and approaches Seb. “Hey?”

Seb just pulls a face. “I’ve not just pulled this out my arse.”

“Seb.” Chas warns.

“No.” Seb snaps. “Charged. They don’t — they don’t charge people who ... who have nothing to do with ... with ...”

Aaron comes towards his son and frowns. “You really think I could hurt your dad hey? Of course I couldn’t.” He whispers. “Seb, you know that.” He says desperately, his tone is ragged and scratches his throat slightly.

Seb looks a little stunned, his eyes are so green and they’re all Aaron can see until he closes his eyes and then opens them again. “Do I?” He says, he steps backwards a little and Aaron feels his heart drop.

“Seb.” Aaron leans closer and Seb runs out the door as soon as Aaron goes to touch him. The door slams and Aaron catches his breath, he feels his mum’s arm across his shoulder.

“Mum, I don’t — I don’t know —“

“Go after him love.” Chas says quickly. “You can’t have him think the worst.”

And it’s not everyday the worst is finding out your dad shot your other dad once upon a time.

—

Ella’s helping Robert cook when Seb comes thundering through the house and for a second he nearly bottles it. He nearly caves but Robert turns and just almost knows to ask Ella to go play upstairs.

“What’s happened?” He asks. He asks in vain because two seconds later Seb is practically forcing the newspaper in his father’s hands.

He just stares down at it and his mouth instantly goes dry. He can’t think for a while and then he can and it all revolves around the idea that he’s fucking devastated that Seb even knows about this.

He remembers Seb laying on his chest when he was little, his tiny fingers dancing close to the scar on his father’s chest. He remembers him asking him about it once, he said he’d been fighting a superhero.

“Where did you get this?” The thought of Seb searching through archives for some weird reason and stumbling across this is enough to make his stomach churn.

“Nan had some box.” Seb pulls a face. “It was in there.”

And of course Chas is that weird mother then.

Robert shudders. “Seb.”

“It’s true isn’t it?” Seb’s got tears in his eyes. They fall so suddenly and Robert goes to touch him when the door goes and Aaron stands there. For a second Robert just looks helplessly at his husband, he tries to stop from panicking, from feeling like somehow this is all his doing.

“Isn’t it?” Seb shouts louder, he wants Aaron to hear. He wants them both to just fucking listen to him.

Robert frowns. “Seb, of course it isn’t true.”

Seb blinks quickly. “You wouldn’t even tell me if it was.” He says, he casts a look towards Aaron. “You’ve been prison.” He says.

They’d told him when he was younger, because they couldn’t do to Disneyland. Seb was great with it, he said he was sorry like it was his doing and Aaron just squeezed him hard and they ended up in Disneyland Paris instead.

Aaron nods slowly. “I have yeah.” He says. “You know that.”

“For this?” Seb whispers. He looks down at the paper again, hands trembling. “Just tell me.”

“We have.” Robert says suddenly. “It wasn’t your dad. He’d never do that.” He says passionately. It’s been a while since he’s had to be. It’s been years since he’s had to defend their relationship, his husband in general really. It’s usually the other way around.

Seb shakes his head. “Then why did ...”

“Because I had the gun.” Aaron blurts out suddenly.

Robert’s eyes widen and so suddenly he wants this all to stop. He sees himself flat out against that cold pavement and stunned into unconsciousness. He wants to throw up. “No.” He says.

“Why?” Seb seems to be calming down. He tilts his head and wipes at his face which is sticky from his tears. “Why would you have the gun that nearly killed —“

“Enough.” Robert swipes the tea towel off his shoulder and it shakes Seb a little. “No more. That’s enough.”

“How can it be?” Seb says, he has a heavy frown on his face and he doesn’t understand any of this. “I’ve just found out that my dad was shot. I deserve to ...”

Robert suddenly climbs out of his own head and shudders. “Yeah me. It happened to me. And I don’t want my son knowing anything about that, or the person I was then.”

Aaron watches his start to crumble around it, start to raise his voice and crack and he comes towards him. “Robert ...” he tries to hover a hand across Robert’s but Seb pushes through with his demands.

“Why does that mean? That you deserved it? What did you do?” Seb keeps going on, he’s seventeen and curious about things in life and he’s just developed his own moral high ground on most things so this isn’t helping.

All Robert can see is Seb standing there hating him, just hating him for the way he hurt Aaron back then, the Dingles, Andy. The list was endless. It was endless in a way that was almost inescapable, in a way that will only ever hurt Seb if he knows.

“Do you think he deserved it too?” Seb looks at Aaron and Robert flinches. It’s hardly something they talk about, how much Aaron thinks Robert deserved to get shot doesn’t crop up as pillow talk surprisingly.

Aaron keeps his mouth parted, eyes wide, he somehow can’t speak. Robert looks up and blows out a breath, shakes his head.

“What part of enough don’t you get?” He shouts and Seb staggers back a little. He’s a tall lad, he’s got stupidly soft locks of blond hair and the brightest eyes and a sharp jaw and yet he looks like a little boy as he stands there with his chin wobbling.

“Understood.” He says before climbing the stairs.

—

Aaron watches Robert move back towards the sink, washing the plates throughly and not saying a word until he calls out for Ella to come back downstairs.

“Robert, you can’t ignore this.” Aaron says, closes in and doesn’t let Robert try and spin his way out of anything.

“I don’t want him knowing anything.” Robert says, he’s in his own world, battling with so many demons and Aaron can’t get through to him. “So back me up.”

Aaron frowns harshly. “What? Let him think I shot you?”

“It’s not the wildest accusation considering how much you hated me back then.” Robert hisses, and then he slams at a pot and watches Aaron’s eyes flicker.

It’s awful, it’s all this shit coming up from the woodworks after years and years of not even thinking about it.

Robert’s got a few grey hairs now. Aaron’s back ache comes and goes.

They don’t talk about that time, that year. They just don’t.

Aaron’s stunned into silence; he gulps hard and then wills himself to say something but Ella’s asking him to tie her apron on and Robert has his dad voice on and genuinely acts like nothing has happened at all.

He’s forced to confront it a few hours later though. He calls Seb down for tea and he comes slowly, head dipped, eyes dark and a bag over his shoulder.

Robert doesn’t see him at first but then he does and he gulps hard. “Seb ...” He says slowly and Seb shakes his head.

“I’m staying at uncle Cain’s.”

“No.” Robert says suddenly. “No you’re not. You’re going upstairs and unpacking that bag.”

Aaron comes through to the kitchen and his face falls as he sees Seb standing there. He’s got his baggy hoodie on and jeans and he looks like he’s trying not to get emotional. “Seb, come on.”

Seb moves back silently. “Don’t tell me what to do.” His voice is so different, it’s so dark and sad and Aaron hates it all. “Not when all you do is lie.”

Robert’s eyes widen as he watches Seb walking towards the door. It’s instinct to go after him, grab at his arm and shudder. “I’m sorry, okay. I’m sorry for not telling you but ...”

“Telling him what?” Jacob peels his eyes away from his phone and frowns. Aaron feels something kick in his chest and he can’t bare the thought of Jacob finding out too.

“Nothing.” Robert says and Seb just scoffs.

“It’s just so easy.” Seb whispers and Robert hasn’t felt like for so long, this sense of unworthiness manages to spread through him and he needs Aaron to take over. He’s thankful when he does.

“You have no idea what he went though Seb, it was — we both were in a bad place then but it doesn’t mean anything now.”

Seb frowns. “Only it does. It just happens to be another secret. There’s so many secrets.”

Robert closes his eyes around it.

“Where’s Seb going?” Annie frowns, stops eating and the last thing either of them need is her becoming worried about this. Aaron throws her an easy smile and Robert shakes his head.

“No one’s going anywhere.”

“I am.” Seb says. “You can’t stop me.” He says defiantly.

Robert bites his lip and he’s suddenly overwhelmed with how much he never wanted this to happen. He sees a little boy, his little boy, he just loves him. “We love you.” He blurts out. “Please, don’t —“

Seb looks like he’s breaking, he pulls this face and Aaron’s eyes flicker a little.

“Come on, just listen —“

Only Seb doesn’t want to listen to anymore of their lies, that’s the whole issue isn’t it? He aches against it a little and he can only run out the door as fast as he can.

—

Robert’s slower than usual when he’s doing the kids lunch boxes the next morning. He nearly butters both sides of the bread and Ella elbows him out the way, rolls up her sleeves and does it herself.

“Thanks.” Robert settles a hand against Ella’s hair and then backs into Aaron who’s standing with the washing basket and a scowl on his face. “Don’t give me that look.” He says.

Only Aaron just scowls even more. “Cain text, he’s shipped him off to school. If you’re interested.”

Ella finishes up and starts running up the stairs to get her sister. It gives Robert the time to reply.

“Of course I’m interested.” Robert says and then his chin gets wobbling and Aaron softens around him instantly. “You think I want him hating me?”

Aaron sighs. “We know what will fix that.” He says and Robert looks away suddenly.

“I’m not telling him anything about it.”

Aaron sighs. “I don’t know what else we can do then. Because he just needs to know the truth and then —”

Robert yanks his head up and lets the tears swim in his eyes a little. “He finds out that I was hated, that I had about billion people wanting me dead. I can’t Aaron.”

Aaron leans forward, “We’re taking them to school and then we’re going round there and waiting for him to get back yeah?”

Robert looks away.

“We’re doing this together. Rob, we owe him the truth.”

—

Cain’s there when they arrive. He’s got a scowl on his face and wants to know why Seb’s been eating all the cereal.

“So he didn’t ... didn’t say anything to you?” Robert asks, and Cain pulls a face. He goes to speak when Chas comes flying in.

“I saw your car.” Chas says slowly. “I just wanted to say …”

“Who keeps that sort of stuff?” Aaron scowls. “It’s hardly a certificate is it? It’s me being charged with trying to kill my husband.”

“Wasn’t your husband then.” Chas says nervously. “Listen, I’m so sorry.” She says after Robert gives her a look. “I just kept it when you were inside and I missed ya.”

Cain suddenly interjects, clearly gets what’s happened. “So Seb’s found out?” Aaron nods eventually and then rubs a hand across his face. “He thinks you did it?”

Aaron’s mouth twitches. “I’ve told him I haven’t but ...”

“But I don’t want him knowing anything.” Robert says quickly. “I just want him to ...”

The sound of the door opening is enough to get their attention and Seb stands there with his eyes wide. He’s got a hoodie thrown over his school shirt and he freezes as he sees his dads.

Robert can’t help but smile for a second because it’s only been a night but he’s missed him.

“What are you doing here?” Seb blurts out.

“Could ask you the same question.” Robert says. “It’s only just gone eleven. You should be in school.”

Seb’s eyes dart a little. “Forgot my kit.”

“It’s not Thursday.” Aaron says, and Seb sighs hard at how well his dad knows him. “But if you’re here, we can ...”

“I’ll leave you to it.” Cain goes to get up but Seb comes towards him. He stands tall and his jaw tightens.

“Did you remember it happening?” Seb blurts out.

Cain looks across at Aaron and then nods. “It was a long time ago.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that? Dad was shot.”

Cain clears his throat. “He survived.”

“Don’t sound too happy about it.” Seb snaps. “Was anyone.” His voice cracks a little and Robert winces under his son’s pain because it’s about him. Seb’s this way because he’s gutted about his dad being shot, about half his family treating it like it didn’t matter.

Seb turns around and looks at Aaron. “Were you?”

Aaron bites his lip. He knows there’s a complexity about that period of his life that he doesn’t want to dwell on. Everything was so uncertain wasn’t it? But wanting Robert to die? “Of course I was happy he survived. I loved him.”

“He really did love.” Chas steps forward a little and sighs. “It was all messy back then but that was never in question. Annoyingly.” She says, pulls a face as she talks.

“You’re not helping.” Robert snaps and Cain reaches for his coat. He gets out the door and shoves Chas out too.

They stand in silence until Seb speaks.

“You might as well go too.” Seb says slowly. He looks exactly like Aaron’s dead pan face when he stares at them.

“We can’t leave it like this.” Aaron’s voice wavers slightly. “We want you home.”

“And I want answers.” Seb says. “Honesty. But it’s not like I get any when it comes to you two.”

Robert’s chin wobbles and he finally lets out this sigh he’s been holding in. “I was shot because I was worthless and mean and cruel. Your dad had every right to pull that trigger ...”

“Robert.” Aaron whispers, a hand hovering over Robert’s back as he tries to comfort him.

“But it wasn’t him.”

Seb blinks quickly and his face pales slightly. His mouth twitches as he goes to speak.

“That’s all you need to know.” Robert says. “Okay?”

Seb hardens. “Of course. Because that’s how it goes, you control everything I know.”

Control. He’s controlling. Aaron’s shouting it at him so many years before and it’s apparently something he does without even knowing. He’s back there suddenly, he can’t escape going back there.

“That’s how being a parent works.” Robert snaps.

“Maybe for Ella and Annie. But me and Jake — we’re old enough to know things.”

“You don’t need to know.” Robert cowers slightly.

“Like I didn’t need to know about Lachlan until Belle told me.”

Aaron sighs, intervenes because he doesn’t want this getting ugly. He just wants Seb to come home. “You know that was different mate. We were going to tell you. But this, it’s ...”

“Not worth telling me?”

Robert frowns. “It has no effect on you. It was me who was shot.”

“You you you.” Seb says. “Can’t you spare a thought for your son finding out. Thinking that his dad nearly killed his other dad?” He waves a hand out and Robert shrinks against it and bites his lip.

“Darling ...” Aaron whispers, stagers just slightly against what he’s trying to get out.

Seb shakes his head, he’s bright red. “I’m not coming home until I get the truth.”

“The truth?”

Seb looks so serious. He stands tall and nods his head, folds his arms over. “About what happened.”

Robert closes his eyes and sees Aaron. Only it isn’t his Aaron, it’s someone who was charged with trying to kill him.

And ‘how could someone who loves me do that?’

And ‘I meant what I said, I hate you and nothing you can do will change that.’

Robert suddenly shakes. “I’m sorry, I can’t —“

He gets towards his car and then leaves the keys on top of it. He walks back instead, overwhelmed by his emotions and the fact that Aaron probably wants to throttle him now too.

It’s the last thing he needs, he doesn’t have it in him.

It’s exactly what he’s thinking when Jacob starts asking questions when he gets in. Aaron’s not said a word to him all day in the portacabin and Robert’s almost been grateful for the silence.

“I want to move with Seb.” Jacob says, his curly hair is pulled across his face and he takes his tie off roughly. He’s no idiot, he gets that something has happened.

Robert shakes his head. “You can’t. No one ... Seb’s just helping Cain.”

“Pull the other one.” Jacob says.

“Oi. Less of the cheek.” Aaron eventually says, a hand on his hip as Jacob stomps up the stairs. He sighs hard as he looks at his husband and then chucks him his coat. “Right we’re sorting this.”

“Aaron...”

“I’m not losing anymore of our kids because you’re scared.” Aaron snaps. “Scared of what I don’t even know.”

“Him hating me even more for keeping things from him all this time.” Robert whispers, they’ve just pulled up at the farm and he hasn’t said two words since now. He looks devastated.

Aaron unbuckles his sear belt and holds at Robert’s hand. “He’ll understand.”

“That I was a monster back then?” It’s dark now, he thinks about Ella and Annie at Chas’ and wonders how long this will take.

“You weren’t.” Aaron sighs. “You were ...” He can’t find anything to say and it manages to make Robert feel worse.

“You were charged ‘cause you had motive.” Robert bites his lip. “You think I wanted him knowing that ...that thought ever even entered your head.”

“Of course not.” Aaron whispers. “But he needs to know or he’ll resent ya. Us. For keeping it from him.” He says and then he squeezes around Robert’s hand and they manage to interrupt Seb with his head in a book when they get in.

“What you reading?” Robert tries, awkward as anything and Moira gestures towards the living room as she goes and closes the door behind her. Aaron nods against her mouthing something about good luck.

Seb keeps his head down until Robert comes towards him and sits down in front of him. He smiles weakly at his son. “I’m sorry mate.”

“For what?” Seb whispers. “Lying or lying or ...”

“Seb, just hear him out.” Aaron whispers gently and it manages to make Seb put his book down.

“I wasn’t good back then. Nothing was good. I didn’t ever want you to know how I was back then okay? But ... now you do ... I have to accept it.” Robert holds his hands together and Seb frowns slightly.

“Does that mean you’ll tell me everything?” Seb has one leg up on the chair and he tilts his head as Aaron sits down and Robert nods.

“What do you want to know?” Robert says thickly. It’s harder than he thought it would be already.

Seb leans forward and suddenly looks nervous. “Why did you have the gun that shot him?” He looks right at Aaron. “I just ... I need to know.”

Aaron looks up and then waves a hand out. “Seems crazy now obviously but I thought that — that my mum might have done it. She was there when it happened and I panicked, the next thing I knew I had it.” He shrugs at the memory, and then looks towards Seb nervously.

Seb nods a little, plays with his hands.

“That okay?” Aaron whispers and his son seems satisfied. Aaron’s hands grow clammy as he waits for Seb to speak again.

“But you two ... you weren’t getting on when it happened?”

“Not exactly no.” Aaron whispers. Seb knows about them having an affair courtesy of village gossip and he’s never really cared about it. “We were over. They thought they could pin it on the scorned lover I suppose.” He rolls his eyes and sighs.

Seb looks at Robert and sees that he looks like he’s going to be sick. He wonders if he should stop but he has more to find out. “So if it wasn’t him then ... then who was it?”

Robert seriously considers lying but somehow his heart gives in. “It was uh ... it’s complicated.”

“How?” Seb tilts his head a little as he asks.

Robert gulps. “Andy.” He blurts out, without saying anything else and Seb stares wordlessly at Aaron looking for more.

“As in ... my uncle who’s not around?”

Aaron nods his head. “He hired ... he didn’t do it himself, he made a deal and Ross did it.”

Robert doesn’t understand the gravity of what that would mean for his son until it slips out of Aaron’s mouth. He freezes around it and remembers the pictures of Ross and Seb and Rebecca. A happy little family.

He hated it.

It manages to send Seb over the edge and he scrapes the chair back loudly and stands. “Ross?” His eyes flicker. “He was ... he was with mum.”

Robert winces slightly and looks towards Aaron before sighing.

“They’re not together anymore.” Robert keeps his head down and whispers. He thinks of the nice normal Tom who she’s with now. It settles something in his chest.

“No not now. But when I was ... how could you let that happen?” It feels a lot like judgement and Robert hates himself for it, he always has done.

“He wouldn’t have hurt you.” Aaron reasons, bites his lip. “He was a thug but that was it. Nothing more.” He says.

“An attempted murderer maybe.” Seb paces for a second and then pauses. “Does mum know?”

Aaron looks towards Robert who shakes his shoulders. “I honestly don’t know.” He says. “Maybe. He’s gone now though isn’t he? He’s nothing.”

Seb frowns. “Could have killed ya.” He pauses and then gulps. “And Andy ... why would —“

Robert stiffens around the truth and he needs to hold back. He can’t. Aaron seems to agree, he starts talking about them always having a bad relationship and Seb takes it.

Some things just don’t need to ever be told to Seb.

Seb bites at his lip awkwardly and then looks at Aaron. “Don’t get how Ross is still breathing.” He says and Aaron can’t help but smile. He’s seen Aaron lose his mind over protecting Robert one too many times over the years so it’s a valid point.

“We just wanted it over.” Robert says and then he looks at Aaron. “Anyway, I remember us destroying a lot of weed he had.” He says, half smirks and Aaron laughs.

It releases some tension but Seb still looks deep in thought once he shakes his head at his dads and smiles.

“Still don’t know why you ended up in prison then. If that wasn’t why.” Seb says. He looks at Aaron desperately. “Look I know you hate talking about it, but I just want to ...”

“Beat up some bloke my mate was seeing. Pretty badly. I wasn’t in a good place.” Aaron thinks about the mad hot head he was then, how his mind was everywhere and nowhere at the exact same time. He remembers feeling like he was losing Robert. It’s a foreign one now. “We weren’t good.” He looks at Robert and then down at his wedding ring instinctively. “It wasn’t because I nearly killed him.”

Seb rubs a hand across his face and closes his eyes. “Why didn’t you just tell me?” He whispers. “Everything.”

Aaron cringes against it and pulls a face. “Because we were protecting ya.” He whispers, hands falling over Seb’s as he comes closer towards him. “From the angst of a life you weren’t around to see.”

Robert pokes his head up a little and smiles at Aaron. Sometimes he’s good with those words.

“I thought it would be best.” Robert whispers. “For you. For all of us.” He bites his lip and looks up towards the ceiling. “Because I love you.”

He’s always just wanted to protect Seb. From things so far beyond the boy’s control that it can only be classed as unfair and unjust.

“I love you too.” Seb says and a heaviness leaves the room again. He sniffs a little and then sighs. “Maybe I’ll get it when I have kids.”

Aaron smiles, breathes out shortly through his nose. “Not for a while then.”

“A very very long while.” Robert says.

“Got it.” Seb waves a hand out and Robert smiles faintly. “You two were uh ... you’ve been through it then.” He puts it mildly. He didn’t realise they had this epic story of angst and tears and sadness and yet have somehow ended up where they are.

Aaron tilts his head. “Could say that yeah.”

“I’m proud.”

Robert didn’t expect that. Seb was angry only an hour ago and now he’s proud. Seb makes a point of saying it again, explaining himself.

“Dad I don’t care about who you were then.” Seb blurts out. “Or why Andy did that ...”

“We made up.” Robert scrambles, eyes wet with tears. “I helped him escape when your crazy aunt framed him for shooting Lawrence.”

Seb takes it in for a second and then he shakes his head. “For anther day maybe.” He mumbles, and then he sighs.

“You don’t know how much that means though.” Robert says. He’s still emotional, he can’t passed it but he’s shocked at himself for actually speaking about it all. Not bottling it up. “You, proud of me. Us.” He looks lovingly at Aaron.

Seb nods. “You’ve got through everything. Of course I’m proud.”

“So you don’t hate us then?” Aaron says and Seb’s never said that, he’s just not that sort of kid to throw big words out like that over not being able to go to football on a Friday after school. He knows the weight of words. Robert says he’s got it from Aaron.

Seb shakes his head. “Nah. You’re just annoying.”

“Cheers.”

“It’s true.” Seb says, but he sounds lighter. “Suppose parents do keep things from their kids though.” He mumbles. “Sure Cain’s got a few secrets.”

Aaron arches an eyebrow. “Isaac has no idea mate.” He whispers and then smiles as he looks at Seb. “Should we go home, I got a meat feast pizza with your name on it.”

Seb just stares at him, mouth lifting into a smile and Robert stands.

“Giving you his favourite pizza? He must want you to come home.” Robert smiles a little, sticks a hand in his pocket.

Seb stands with him and smiles. “I missed the chaos anyway.” He goes to get his bag and Robert pounces and brings him into a hug, starts rubbing at Seb’s back and telling him he loves him so much. “Yeah I know, you can let go now.” He chuckles and Robert rubs at his eyes when Seb gets out the door.

“A success then?” Aaron crosses his arms over and Robert is overwhelmed with love for him suddenly. He kisses his mouth tenderly and then pulls away, strokes Aaron’s face lovingly. “What was that for?”

“He’s right you know, we’ve come so far. We should be proud.” Robert says, smiling a little as he reaches out and touches Aaron’s face again.

Aaron mirrors him and then moves towards the fridge and takes out two cans. He opens his and Robert does the same before he holds it up.

“To us who have somehow earned the right to be ‘proud of themselves’ dads.” Aaron laughs a little and he looks like he’s twenty something again. Robert takes a swig and then kisses Aaron and they only break apart when Cain opens the door and shouts about his cans.

“On that note, come on Seb.” Robert says. “Cheers for putting him up.” He calls as they get to the car and drive home.

#another fic here you go #robron fics #robron

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