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hollyhomburg · 7 months

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Before I Leave You (Pt.60)

(Omegaverse au, Mafia au, Bts x Reader)

Summary: Life changes come in many many forms; courting gifts, leaving jobs, and...Murder

Tags: Slow burn getting warmer, Angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, Trans! Tae, Transphobia, gender thoughts, workplace discrimination, flashbacks, murder, the word 'r*pe' is used to describe what Geumjae did to her but there are no graphic depictions of it, allusions to physical abuse, graphic violence, there is a brief moment where someone not in the pack touches the m/c's ass without her consent, blood, briefly implied suicidal actions- but it's nothing like what you haven't seen before.

W/c: 12.6k

A/n: i'll be attending my cousin's wedding at the time this is posted so! give me lots of love when you read it cuz i'm so nervous~ i've never been around so many fancy people before <3

Previous part ~ Masterlist

You dab at the skin under your eyes carefully. You know they must look red and puffy. Tae’s careful instruction to treat your skin well as all good baby pups should has somehow stuck.

Even here. Even now.

“Do people like always loose it with you? Like when they walk in, do they all cry?”

Your therapist (yes, your therapist) across the narrow room is the opposite of threatening; soft face, pulled back hair, neutral clothing that might just as well be out of a country living catalog.

You don’t know where Jin found her, what little medical booklet he perused like a take-out menu, or how much her services cost per hour. Those kinds of details were not for delicate little pups like yourself to worry over in his opinion.

Most of the time, you're glad not to have to worry about things like this. But right now you're chomping at the bit. Weighting your odds. The other unknowns hover before you. One sticks out. One you're most concerned about.

Is she trustworthy?

Nothing about Dr. Rima seems outwardly threatening, yet you curl in on yourself. She smiles, scrawling something on the top of her notepad before she answers, and something taught in you ticks tighter.

“You’re correct in assuming that most people I meet cry in the first few minutes when they meet me, but you are the first person to cry on my threshold. Most of the time people wait until they’re at least in the chair.”

That has a smile tugging at your lips, albeit unwillingly. Your smile is like a leashed wild animal, with too many teeth when you feel threatened. Contained for now.

If you got up and walked out right now, would she call someone to restrain you? Will you be committed if you tell the truth? Or are you just misinterpreting the stakes?

You are here of your own volition. Even if it was a condition that Jin and Namjoon weren't willing to budge on after the events of last week. It's not like the pack is having you put in a mental institution or something, although they did come with you today. For moral support.

The waiting room was stuffy and yellow, one of those little waterfall mirrors in the corner that you’d watched in a fog sat between Yoongi and Jimin while Jin filled out the necessary paperwork. His pen hovering over the small boxes every few seconds. He'd taken the afternoon off of work to make sure he was there, just to fill out paperwork.

Are you on any medications? Do you have a history with substance abuse disorders? Do you have any intent to harm yourself or others?

Sending glares to anyone who dared to come too close, Jimin had looked and smelled threatening. You're not sure he’d have let you go into an isolated location with her if she’d been an alpha. Jin too had looked close to snapping.

yoongi was the only one who looked somewhat calm, althoug his hand was tightly laced with yours (and a little sweaty)

It’s a wonder that the rest of your pack had agreed to stay home for this. This was just one of several concessions you’d made after what the pack has politely begun referring to as 'sad pup time' during your more vulnerable moments, and blatantly 'your breakdown' during less fragile ones.

But sweet words or not. The facts remain; You are here in this chair after a nearly tearful departure.

You’d met the therapist in the doorway, shaking in your boots, and upon being separated from your pack with the promise that they’d be just downstairs in the lobby, you’d followed her inside.

Yoongi had made a noise in his throat, making you turn back. Dr.Rima turned to watch as he’d pulled you in for a last-minute hug, ducking down to your level. “One hour, okay? We’ll be just downstairs. Text me if you need me.”

His eyes were heavy-looking at the stranger. Unwilling to let you go just yet. A little stalwart, a little standoffish.

“Take good care of her please. She’s very precious to us.”

Precious.

That much was evident by the nearly three-page document that both your pack alpha and omega sent through once Namjoon and Jin had selected Dr. Rima as your therapist. Dr. Rima has quite a bit of experience dealing with overprotective pack alphas and pack omegas. Let alone a pack alpha and pack omega who have such a clinical background.

Yes, you must be well taken care of. At least on paper.

She’s already itching a little, to get her hands on all the others. Packmates and their names are written out, as a part of all intake files. Large packs aren't so common anymore. Her eyes fix on one name; Min Yoongi (beta, mate) unemployed.

The big windows help it feel not so small, on the second floor, the trees block out most of the view of the park below. A small voice that sounds like Hobi whispers that it’s a shame she doesn’t have any plants in here, they'd do so well with all of this natural light.

Your knees clack together a little, moving listlessly, the anxiety in your body begging to be released somewhere.

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Why don’t we start with why you wanted to come in today.”

You avoid her eye contact, looking instead at the tops of the trees, you don’t know why they haven’t changed color yet, all of the trees on your street are half bare already. She has a smooth inoffensive scent, but you’re mated to a beta so you know what to expect when it comes to the relaxing effects, the subtle haze at the edge of your vision. It must come in handy, having the biological upper hand, when it comes to patients in distress.

If therapists are rare, beta therapists must be even rarer.

You can practically hear Jin, “Nothing but the best for my pup.” There is a part of your brain that won’t ever turn off, appraising everything around you. The designer pumps that she wears. The knickknacks on her desks, there are no photos of any packs that she might call her own, just a pink calendar in the corner.

Your breath goes just a little bit rapid, just a little, hitching when you think of it.

“Did Jin tell you anything?”

“He didn’t. Although my secretary did inform me that he filled out the paperwork for you.” The air in the therapist’s office is cold. Cold enough that it has you wrapping your sweater sleeves over your knuckles.

Your cheeks heat “My pack they- get a bit- protective.” Your fingers circle your wrist. You’re glad that Hobi convinced you to take one of his sweatshirts. He'd had a strange look on his face while he zipped it up, and you'd had to worry and wonder about it the whole morning. You'd worried more once he texted, just after he must have gotten to work.

“I have kind of a history of self-destructive behavior and I- I kind fell into bad habits a few days ago and blew up. It was all kind of triggered by this like- thing that happened with me and my other packmate.” It’s surprisingly easy to tell the truth.

You’re a right side better than you have been the last few weeks, now. A little bit more present, less foggy. The doctor just looks at her screen and not at you. What is it with her asking questions that make you not want to lie? Why does it feel like you should anyway?

Dr. Rima reads between the lines, what you're trying to say without saying it. “Is there a possibility of you hurting yourself again?” She clicks at the screen a little rapidly.

“No.”

The truth is you have no idea. It seems best to lie in this situation. But you consider it; one of your packmates making the call that you are too much to handle, that you need more help than they can offer. You imagine what it would be like to be in inpatient care. Grippy socks and group therapy and probably observed mealtimes. Maybe Iv's and feeding tubes if it came to that. Away from the pack and away from Yoongi.

He’s just downstairs, but that feels too far. There was no way that he was going to let you do this alone, you wouldn't be surprised if he never left the waiting room.

It’s just a therapy session. The very thing that you once refused. But now that you're here you might as well heal, you might as well work to stop this endless train of brief highs and endless lows. you'll give it a go, why not? What do you have to lose?

And yet, the texts from Hobi remain unanswered:

Ho-🐝 (9:48): Hey, I’m really proud of you.

Ho-🐝 (9:48): I’m really happy I get to be your packmate. In case you ever worry.

Ho-🐝 (9:49): And your best friend too <3

Ho-🐝 (9:51): Just so you knowwww

The pack has kept you substantially plied with little solutions since your breakdown last week. They haven’t let you rot like usual. They’ve kept your days full of little activities; nothing too extravagant or tiring. Letting you rest when you need to and encouraging you to get outside of your comfort zone when it’s clear you’re giving in.

It comes down to that more often than not; giving in or not giving in.

Not giving in looks like trips back to the beach with Hobi. Like going to the salon with Tae and shopping with Jimin. Or another workout class with Jungkook where you’d spent more of the time lounging on the yoga mat than actually moving your body. But you'd still tenuously agreed to sign up for more classes under the encouragement of Wonho and Jungkook.

And now twice a week, you’ve got a mat to call your own during any classes, in the back, if you decide you want it. Your callender hasn't felt so full in years, it feels strange, to have something to do during the weeks that isn't just scraping the bottom of the barrel and doing house chores. Strange in a good way.

Not all of the pack's solutions aren’t silly but sometimes, silly is a good way to push out the dark.

The morning after your breakdown; you'd watched your pack work, fighting back a flush. Sitting at the kitchen bar stool while Yoongi applied painter’s tape to the floor, not intent on keeping back paint this time, but marking it off for you.

You’re a little bit more determined this morning although your first night without nightmares in a little over a month had kept you in higher spirits. You feel more well-rested than you have in ages.

“You don’t need to- I promise- I’m not going-“ but your requests had fallen on deaf ears. Worry building until Jungkook stood up fast grinning up at you, pupils wide brown pools from getting scented stupid this morning.

(Scented stupid, you'd been scented by the pack too, had struggled a little against it, too shy as Namjoon dragged his throat along yours, squirming until yoongi held you down a little, checking with you each few seconds that you wanted that, that your squirming was really just needing to feel a firm touch, a dominant one.

You will go nowhere until your pack have had their right to you, scenting you up, making your scent gland tender and swollen under their teeths and tongues.

It felt so much better to be made to handle it, each of the pack, even hobi, hovering over you to scent you with their wrists and throats. until you smelled so claimed by them that you couldn't breathe without smelling it- Pack.

Jungkook had pouted until he'd gotten the same treatment, although the omegaspace haze had lasted longer on him than it had on you.

He stands up so fast that his hair fluffs. Catching himself on your leg with a giggle before he topples over. grinning up at you before pressing a sleepy sloppy kiss to your knee and then another to your lips,

“No pup zone!" Omega Space Jungkook can get a little bit ridiculous even at the best of times. He's got a case of the morning omegaspace zoomies as he giggles and nips at your nose. You playfully push at his chest. He doesn't budge.

"Your whole face is a no-pup zone." The dissatisfied pur-chirp he'd let out had sounded half hurt, half encouraged.

Namjoon had eased your discomfort. Pulling you from the stool to lean back against his chest, fingers drumming out a rhythm on your legs as Jungkook huffes into your throat.

Having this failsafe- this rule, does not mean that they think you’re going to fail, these are guard rails to keep you on track. Namjoon looks down at you, his full bottom lip tucked a little, not a pout but close. “This is the easiest solution, if you don’t go near it then maybe, maybe it helps.”

His fingers drum against your skin again, and you lean back into him. Uneasy but willing to let him soothe you.

So yes, you’ve been banned from the kitchen, banned from crossing that line that runs from the edge of the coffee stand and just in front of Tae's library room, to the island and over to the fridge. Unless there is someone else close by. You are not allowed here without supervision.

It’s a simple solution, limiting you from the place that you use to hurt yourself. Never mind the fact that there are dozens if not hundreds of other possible avenues you could use. Your creativity knows no bounds when it comes to pain, but you quiet that part of yourself when the desire for hurt gets loud.

You can’t say it hasn’t helped. But then again, the pack has kept you so busy since your breakdown that you haven't had any time to think of hurting yourself let alone put any plans into action.

Across from you, Dr. Rima waits expectantly.

"It was kind of triggered by this thing that happened."

The tip of her pen bobs a little as she writes. “Could you describe the event to me? Or is that something you're not ready to talk about?" You nod and she waits patiently. It takes you a breath to answer.

“A little less than a month ago one of my packmates and I found a dead body."

You feel a little vindicated at her inhale of breath. Wide eyes that say yes- that is something traumatic, yes, it's fair that it kinda triggered you into a more fragile state.

"It dredged up a lot of feelings about my past. Before that, I was kind of starting to feel s-safe which I haven't like, ever been able to feel."

“And your packmate?"

There is new treacherous wetness balancing on your waterline. “Hobi’s a lot stronger than me, his past and mine are really similar but he just- handles his better. A lot of the time it feels like I learn from him even though he’d tell you the opposite is true. He’s my best friend." Your voice goes quiet, "I love my mate more than I love anyone else, but sometimes- Hobi just- gets me you know?" You go a little misty-eyed. Hands tightening on Hobi's sweatshirt.

“Yet he’s not the one sitting in my chair right now.”

You close your eyes, "he's not."

“For what it’s worth- you can have more than one best friend.” Dr. Rima writes as quickly as she can, taking it down. “How long have you been romantically involved with him? Who came first, your mate or him?”

You jolt forward, “Oh no- we’re not- Hobi and I aren't-" You take a deep breath to clarify. "Everyone else in the pack is together but Hobi and I are just friends. We all have our like… little units?”

"Primary partners." Dr. Rima offers.

"Yeah, that." But even that doesn't really cover it, because while Jin and Namjoon are JinandNamjoon and Jimin and Tae are JiminandTae. Jungkook is everyone's problem (in the best of ways) and you and Tae are something else too. The pack's girls the rest of them would say.

(You and Hobi are, well, YouandHobi.)

It sounds weird to say it once it comes out of your mouth. It makes an odd choked feeling lodge in your throat. Too much hope and too much shame for hoping blooming in your chest.

“I don’t know if I want to talk about him.”

She folds her hands over her knees, setting her pen down. Dr. Rima has chubby hands, disproportionate to her body. They look like they'd be soft.

She reminds you of your mom a little bit.

“That’s okay, we can talk about whatever you want. What you want and need is going to be the focus of our sessions. You’re the pilot here. I’m just here to help you interpret your thoughts and feelings.”

She folds her hands over themselves, setting her pen aside, “Why don’t we talk about the last time you remember feeling safe.”

"Physically or mentally?"

"Either, you can choose."

The rest of the session passes frightfully quickly. You can’t say that you don’t cry again. When you finally talk about Geumjae, her smile quickly dissipates. You talk and talk and talk until your throat is raw. Until you’ve depleted the whole box of her tissues. She shows you she's got more hidden under her desk when you apologize, her secret stash gets a laugh out of you.

“The fact that your pack omega filled out your paperwork isn’t the most unusual, but his preference for daily meetings or every other day is a little bit on the nose for a pack omega, I’m wondering if you share his preference.”

“He’s just overprotective.” She eyes you like Jin has good reason to be. You don’t blush this time, a little more comfortable with Dr. Rima than you were at the beginning of this. “I think maybe more than once a week but not every day.”

“How does Monday- Friday sound?”

~-~

When you walk to the door with Dr. Rima Yoongi stands abruptly from his chair.

You can tell by the shiny edge to his to his scent that he doesn't want to stay here any longer than necessary. He gets the information about your next appointment and then tugs you out the door.

Jins got his legs crossed, fancy leather shoes glinting in the sunlight by the windows. The lobby is buzzing with people coming and going. This building isn't just a therapy office but a collection of other businesses with a few shops and restaurants on the ground floor as well. He looks up and double-takes when he spots you, not standing from his chair, but he opens his arms and you fold yourself along his side, conscious of the other eyes but this.

This you need.

You press your face along the column of Jin's neck, breathing his cream scent in deep.

“Oh pup.”

Your red-rimmed eyes are too obvious and you sniffle wetly, “It was okay, I like Dr. Rima.” He laces your hands together and resists the urge to pester you with questions. Yoongi's hand is still tangled in the hood of your (Hobi's) sweatshirt. Your therapy sessions should be yours and only yours. Yoongi and Jin do not have Dr. patient confidentiality.

And yet the need to know if that helped burns through them. They won't have to wonder for long.

By the coffee stand, Jimin waves and he returns to you when the barista hands over a bag of sweets and a quad of cups. Jin continues scrawling something out for another second before he’s standing and pulling you in for another chaste scent mark.

“Let’s go home.” It's somewhere between an order and a request. But no one disobeys.

On the drive back (37 minutes total) you're a little quiet. You let the sounds of the others be your buffer. You look down at your phone and stare at Hobi’s texts. You respond with just a little heart emoji when you finally still can’t figure out a good response and you're close to home.

Home is its usual conflagration of moving bits and pieces. Each of your packmates is like a shiny cog in a pretty clock, tick tick tick tocking along. Tae and Namjoon are at the table looking through some of the pack’s bills, the pastries and coffee cups litter the table with little piles of powdered sugar and cinnamon. jimin bought enough for the whole pack.

You look at them a little too long, although not because you don't want to eat them. It’s been a while, a few weeks since you’ve made something like that, but every single one of the pastries is something you know how to make. You don’t know why you keep looking at them.

Tae smiles at you, still in the doorway. and it makes you feel a little less like you want to burst into tears. Her voice speaks of the quiet time you have in the library (the tenderness of having someone else do your makeup, another person combing your hair). You hope you'll get some dedicated one-on-one time with her soon.

"Hey little lovely, How was it?"

"She put me through the wringer but I think she got some suds out."

She and Namjoon giggle and you smile small. and you can tell that Namjoon wants to ask you more but he doesn't after a pointed look from your mate. There are footsteps in the hall and before you can move to take off your shoes Hobi is standing in the archway.

Yoongi efficiently strips you of Hobi's sweatshirt with a frustrated huff. It's Kind of like he’s trying to peel away the sadness (your clothes are soaked with your sour scent, rainy and unhappy. Regardless of Jin’s scent mark, you kind of stink).

You might have overheard their words just before you got into the car. Jin's hissed admonishment. “A lot of people cry during therapy Minnie, she’s not in trouble, can’t you smell it?”

Your scent is mellow underneath the memory of your distress, going sweeter by the second. Yoongi wants all memories of your sad scent banished from the house. Hobi stands at the door to the hallway, shifting back and forth, his eyes a little warmer than usual, hands shaking a little bit.

You’ve caught him looking at you a lot since the night he ran away, in the quiet moments when he thinks you’re not noticing. Eyes a shade warmer than usual, a sweetened franticness to his scent. Nervousness and happiness mix like blueberries and whipped cream.

When he pulls up beside you during movie nights and sits thigh to thigh with you. When his hands intertwine with yours over his knee or sometimes or when he pulls your legs sideways across his lap. He looks at you like that when he's doing the small things and he's looking at you like that right now.

You know how love starts, that it starts with the small things.

Hobi resists the urge to open his arms. would you come to him? Would you fold your body along his front so that he could feel your heartbeat? Pressing again and again to the opposite side of his chest with every thump?

He doesn’t say hey, but he does step a little closer. Fingers reaching out. The pad of his index finger slides down the meat of your pinky till it reaches the ball of your wrist. His own special hello.

Your breath hitches, just barely, almost imperceptible if it wasn’t for how close he stands.

A look behind you says Yoongi hasn’t made himself scarce, instead fussing with the pack's coats. Now that it’s getting colder, they don’t all fit by the door. You look behind Hobi and find Namjoon watching the three of you, he raises a singular eyebrow.

“How was it? Bad?” Hobi asks, breaking the silence and the tension, drawing your attention back to him. The next breath you let out is a lot less heavy, and your eyelashes flutter as he steps closer. Hobi smells good, a little earthy, mellowing out his usual sweetness. Sweet for an alpha.

“It was kind of hard, I kinda wanted to run away for a bit at the beginning." You can't keep meeting his eyes with how intensely he's looking at you and they flutter down to his hands. "I almost did.”

"I'm glad you didn't pup." Jin comments, full of reproach, the mirror to you and Hobi as he leans down to press a kiss to Namjoon's forehead. Shucking off his lapelled jacket and rolling up the sleeves of his button-down shirt.

“If you’d have called me, I’d have picked you up. We could still like- run away, if you're down.”

But the house is starting to heat up, and Jin and Yoongi are starting to cook. The light is still honey-yellow happy. And you tip your cheek into his arm. He finally- finally lets his arms settle around your waist.

“Nah, not yet.” You drag out the syllable all playful, and something forbidden stirs in Hobi’s gut. “Jin’s making my favorite tonight. not until later?”

Hobi goes silent, pulls back, biting his lips, eyes flickering from your eyes down. and-

You laugh and Hobi blushes. “Just spit it out.”

Everyone’s been a little bit touchier with you since that night (a little more overbearing too). You won’t immediately chalk Hobi's touchyness up to what you're all thinking. But the affection makes your scent gland feel tender. Zinging when Yoongi steps up behind you and nuzzles into it, huffing again.

Friends can hug each other after therapy right? Hobi swallows thickly and you feel it against your collar bone as he pulls back and steps away from you. “I ugh- got you a present?”

You brighten up instantly, and Hobi's anxiety increases tenfold. A bit of casual mischievousness on the edge of your lips that always have Hobi feeling like he’s being teased even though he knows he isn’t.

“Oh? A present? You’ve never gotten me a present before!”

He kicks at imaginary dust bunnies, fighting back what he knows is a noticeable flush. “I ugh- still owe you, from the car you know and honestly it's not even like a big gift it's like- so small in comparison and-”

Yoongi huffs and continues to disrobe you. Pulling your sweater over your head when he’s not satisfied that your unhappy scent has dissipated. Muttering something like. “hopeless alpha” under his breath. Your tank top pulls up, inches of your hip and skin on display. It's nothing that Hobi hasn't seen before and yet the blush reignites. The sunshine to your morning glory.

“I guess you're right.” But it doesn’t feel like it. Hobi doesn’t owe you anything for that, not when it was so easy to give. Not when you’ve gotten so many late-night drives from that gift.

Hoseok got the idea for your courting gift, one morning while watching you say goodbye to Namjoon:

The pack alpha has always been a fan of goodbye kisses, good morning, and goodnight kisses too. The particular kiss that morning had ‘I’ll miss you’ written all over it. It was so pretty in the way that you lingered, arms around Namjoon’s neck. His hand is underneath your shirt on the small of your back. Such a small touch and yet so gently possessive that it had Hobi aching to see it.

Hobi is unfortunately prone to jealousy and it turns the back of his neck hot. Makes his hands feel oddly tender. He's distracted by the visual, the task of packing up his work bag forgotten. Hoseok’s shift at the flower shop doesn’t start for another few hours, and he’s waiting, watching, an unhappy voyeur.

You and Namjoon have quite the height difference, if he was in between the two of you he’d be the perfect middle ground. That’s just another stupid thought, another stupid thought in the countless number of stupid thoughts that he’s had. (I like my alphas a little pathetic, and nothing's more pathetic than an alpha pining after an omega.)

He grumbles.

Yoongi prattles on, more awake than all of them as he outlines what you have to do today to make progress on the house- which is to go find a place that sells cheaper tile than the ones you first thought of using in the bathroom on the first floor. And maybe change it up a little.

The bathrooms escaped the renovations somehow, and a few nights ago- Jimin had admitted how much they actually use it even though it’s not the pack's primary bathroom anymore. Now that it’s not in use, they’re more willing to part with it for a few days for some very necessary re-styling. it toes the line from vintage to old a little too hard. The yellow is a little…yellow.

Yoongi wants to go light and airy with the color scheme, like he did with the upstairs bathroom and it's seafoam and brown tones. But like with most of the house, your vote is for colorful. “How about a light blue-” Yoongi continues to argue while you kiss Namjoon a little senseless in the doorway, at least Namjoon seems properly dazed, chasing your lips when you pull apart.

“No- we don’t have a room that’s magenta yet!”

This starts the same argument as always; “We can’t make every room in this house pink for Tae.”

But goodbyes take precedence, and when you turn back and smile at Hobi he flushes, shy to be caught looking. He moves, stepping around you and Namjoon to put his water bottle into his bag when you shout, “Stop, Seokie!”

Seokie is a new nickname, one that Jin only uses in the quietest of moments that you've somehow adopted when you don't want to call him Hobi. Hobi always thought that if you’d use any other nickname with him- you’d use daisy (he might want you and yoongi to share that pet name). But he’s a good pup and stops what he’s doing. Every atom in his body every electron no longer circulates neutrons but circulates you instead. Pulled in by your gravity.

You’ve moved so suddenly that you’ve spilled a bit of your coffee onto the floor. Maybe kissing Namjoon has left you feeling a little dizzy too. Yoongi just sighs fondly and wipes it up. Jimin looks up from his phone, smiling when he sees.

“You’ve got a rainbow on your cheek.”

It’s a trick of the light, early morning sunshine refracted through the mottled window just right to cast a single rainbow on the wall and on Hobi when he steps in front of it.

You cup his cheek, finger skimming across where the rainbow sits.

"Pretty."

Hobi feels hot all over.

At Tae’s call of, “If I have to do my eyeliner one more time I’m going to scream!” You giggle and dart away from him. Going to tend to Tae with a soft reply of "I've got you baby."

Hoseok is left, blushing in the morning light. Staying still like you might come by and cup his cheek again, Like a flower staying still in the hope of pollination.

Hobi is left, wanting to scream and somehow demand you back, both would be fair. His plight isn't missed by his packmates, who lean in like a set of jackals, grinning ear to ear at hobi's flustered predicament.

She's going to send him into rut if she's not careful Jin thinks, but doesn't say. instead he teases, “You’ve got to leave in the next ten-minute Hobi.”

Only then does Hoseok move- released from his spell and finally losing the rainbow on his cheeks though they might as well have stayed with how happy and warm he feels. How absolutely incandescent the love is glowing in his chest. A full spectrum of feelings, longing for you to come back.

He almost trips over noodle, darting after you with his tail raised high, catching himself on the edge of the couch at the last second, one shoe on and one off, his water bottle falling and spilling in the process.

yoongi sighs, and stoops to wipe it up. Jimin giggles and pulls Hobi up by his hips, the alpha's fingers feel hot where they've touched him, scalding. “What’s wrong, omega got your tongue?” yoongi returns to his breakfast, throwing the wad of soggy paper towels into the trash.

Jungkook laughs, “It’s more like he wants an omega to have his tongue in her-“

“You guys are gross,” He pushes at Jimin’s shoulder finally moving right. Yoongi hides his smile in a mouthful of Captain Crunch.

Hobi doesn’t think about the rainbows again until his next afternoon shift. When the low angle of the autumn sun cuts through the windows and catches the suncatchers that they hang in the doorway of the flower shop and cast more rainbows- dozens of them really across him and the flower.

He remembers when you came to visit, how you'd lingered over them, looked at them a second longer than you looked at the plants.

It’s a bit of a kitschy display. Other polished stones and nick nacks sitting on the deep shelf along with some smaller potted plants. A little tray of rose-quartz stones falsely advertises themselves as ‘heat reducers.’

The colors start to blend, and the rainbows sway softly in the light, gentle and pretty. He snaps a photo and thinks about sending it to you, but doesn’t.

The store is blissfully empty of Hobi's coworkers when he selects three of them. It's quiet when he packages them in tissue paper, one with a huge pink stained-glass moon at the top, another with three tiers. Each of them is delicate and pretty in their own right. No one’s bought a single one of them in the last three months anyway. They'll hardly be missed. Hobi gives himself a fat employee discount.

Hobi is unfortunately bad at hiding things, especially when he's nervous. Luckily the pack alpha doesn’t have it in him to tease. Namjoon had in fact been only too encouraging and given him a pep talk just this morning about courting and courting presents.

“The worst that can happen is that she doesn’t like it- and then you just have to try again which you were already planning on doing anyway.” Namjoon is quite simply the best at courting. It doesn't matter which subgender; alphas, beta’s, and omegas have all fallen under his touch. At least Hoseok has the opportunity to learn from a professional. Somehow the thought that you'd compare him to namjoon doesn't cross his mind.

Hoseok isn’t good at the romantic gestures that courting necessitates. He’s more of the ‘there when you need him’ kind of lover. Ready to make the small changes to make his loved ones' lives more manageable. Ready with his car keys for adventures. Those parts are easy, this is out of his depth.

Especially when it comes to you. Even After the love confessions, (are confessions still confessions if they’re so internal?) Hobi feels mostly unmoored. About to shatter upon unknown shores.

God, crushes are so frustrating (in the best kind of way, the way that keeps you sighing and daydreaming, the kind of way that makes you look in the mirror a little longer).

Tae helped him half an hour before she started on the pack's paperwork. They'd spent an hour deciding which places were best to hang them to get the greatest number of rainbows. She had even fussed with his hair a little to make it lie right. Having him hop up on the couch so she could see Hobi's face from your angle.

Hobi wanted to make sure there were at least one or two rainbows when he shows you. But when he leads you to the sunroom, his hands over your eyes (the same position you found yourself in when Namjoon surprised you with the nesting pod) there are more of them than there were when he set them up, whole constellations swaying softly.

The suncatchers are pretty and twinkly sparkly in the golden hour light, and your lips part in a simple show of awe when Hobi tells you you can open your eyes. It's so bright, they send dozens of little rainbows across the walls and your nesting pod. Over the white couch and the fig in the corner.

It’s very very pretty. and when you turn back to look a thim, Hobi once again has a rainbow on his cheek.

Your eyes twinkle, but you don't say anything. you stay quiet for long enough that Hobi gets nervous. his anxiety makes him talk fast. “I hung them here- but you can put them wherever you want- in the kitchen or upstairs or I can get you more for any places you want to put them- or- or- ”

You just about tackle him, arms looping around his neck resting your weight in his arms that instinctively grip around your waist. Hobi teeters, unsteady with such a heavy heart, toppling both of you onto the couch as you cry. "I love it!"

You’re sprawled not lying across him but his hand goes out to support the way you cling and rub your face into his chest, a happy little chirp slipping past your lips.

The wild thing in Hobi’s chest settles, settles, and curls around you. Tight and protective like a vice. You pull back, and your smile is just as bright.

Hobi sags, and rests his neck back against the couch, "Good- thank fucking god- I was so fucking nervous-" You fiddle with the buttons on his flannel, it's one of Yoongi's. It seems fitting that you steal his clothes and he steals Yoongi's.

"What brought all this on?"

Hobi doesn't have a good answer, in the quiet with the rainbows, or at least an answer he's ready for. He doesn't say that this is a courting present, and he doesn't need to because instead of answering your question- he replies with one of his own.

“Wanna go for a drive later?” he asks, voice tremulous like he thinks you might refuse him. You’ve never said no to him before, never said not tonight only not right now. Do you treasure our little talks the same way I do?

“Sure, after dinner? like I said? Just-" You lean back against his chest, and Hobi’s hands go tight tight tight around your waist. Holding you close. Clingy. He does not slip his hand under your shirt to cup the side of your hip the way that Namjoon might, but the thought crosses his mind.

Hobi is a good alpha, he won't cross that line until you tell him it's okay. Until then a thin layer of fabric separates his skin from yours. You're still warm to the couch.

“Sit and watch them with me?” You ask quietly. Almost shy, like you think he’d refuse you. He nods and the two of you sit on the couch to look at the rainbows together.

Eventually, Noodle finds the two of you, meowing and hopping up to stretch out along your thighs. Worming his way between the two of you.

The rainbows don't last forever, but Hobi sits with you until they fade.

~-~

Tae’s library is just like every public library:

Tall windows, wide quiet shelves with room for the stories to breathe. A colorful young adult section and an even more colorful kid’s section. A bit aways from the tables and computers so that any over-excited pups don’t disturb the adults. Big deep beanbags for small children to cuddle up to while they ponder fairy tales and adventures only a plastic-covered book away.

Tae’s long plaid skirt barely makes a whisper along the ground. The colder weather has allowed her to live all of her cottage core fantasies, her dark academia aesthetic truly flourishing. Her shirt is a little translucent today, and the fading summer tan of her skin pokes through it in spots where her tank top doesn't hide. Pretty long earrings dangle and clink in the quiet while she works on her shelving.

Wearing her chosen clothing items at work has been a bit of a work in progress.

Most of Tae’s coworkers approve of her transition in that overly willing-to-be-an-ally way that middle-aged women who generally consider themselves progressive outside of closed doors all do. And the ones that don’t approve have swallowed their words with lingering sour eyes and raised upper lips after the general receptiveness to Tae’s social transition.

It's hard to know who's genuine with it, who just doesn't want to cause a fuss, and who just doesn't give a shit. But most of the time her outfits get one or two compliments and thats it. Tae would rather them say nothing than anything negitive.

Tae likes the quiet of the library at this time of day, the silence gives her enough room to let her imagination wander. Tae likes to file away books in mid-morning, when there are fewer people around and her humming is less likely to disturb any of the library’s patrons. She sings to the stories and they sing back, tempting her with every well-worded title and delicately chaste summary.

But she doesn’t just think about stories or the book she's writing (her book is currently giving her hell on the 30th chapter) No. Today- there is a much more interesting love story blooming in her head, in the pack's den too.

She’s been thinking about you all morning (Tae thinks about you almost every morning) there are even little poems scrawled on the edge of her newspaper. Lines that are you and a bit of Hobi too.

I wished that I might be your hair clip / to know what it feels like / to be pressed against the nape of your neck/ To be your suntan/ perched on the edge/ of what you show everyone and what you show no one/ To be the bearer of every freckle/ like the sky holds the stars/ To hold and never let go/ Like birds hold sunshine / and flowers hold songs.

Everyone had noticed of course, how much time you and Hobi have been spending together.

The pack had even talked about it during a quiet moment without you and Hobi. Yoongi’s lack of communication regarding you and Hobi. “I don’t know anything” he’d unsuccessfully lied, and nearly been heaved up and wrestled to the couch as a result. But Jungkook’s puppy eyes had unsuccessfully endeared him.

Yoongi has kept Hobi's secret, but it's kind of hard not to notice. Tae isn't a fool. Tae is a much better liar than Yoongi is- because when you'd come to her after your late-night drive to gush with her about Hobi and the rainbows over makeup. She hadn't said anything about what she knows.

Tae couldn’t tell you how many times she’d noticed little touches, Hobi’s hand lingering on the small of your back, grabbing your waist when he moved behind you in the bathroom. When he take the greatest care to set out his sweatshirts in the morning and even asks Jungkook to make sure they’re clean. They’re practically not even his sweatshirts anymore with the amount you’ve been wearing them.

Tae isn’t an idiot, she knows that Hobi’s finally realized it. While she doesn’t trust herself to play matchmaker given how poorly the first time she pointed out Hobi’s attraction went. that doesn’t mean she’s not going to park herself firmly on the edge of her fantasy land with a box of popcorn.

If they were gonna get married, would Hobi wear a red tux or black or grey? Her brain is already thinking of wedding dresses. One of these days she’s really going to have to make a Pinterest board. Hobi would probably want to do sunflowers, and that might clash with the red unless it was a fall wedding- ooh, and what about pearl details and daisies? a beach wedding might be a little too on the nose for you.

Tae is so absorbed with her shelving and her daydreaming that she doesn’t notice the sound of small shoes on the carpeted floor. Nor does she notice the light-up flash of tiny iorn man sneakers. Her musings are easily interrupted by a small tug on her skirt, shy almost. She startles a little, looking down at the sudden touch.

The little pup's thumb is wet from where it was clearly placed behind their bucked teeth. He's got wide brown eyes and soft-looking hair, Tae can't stop the smile that comes to her lips.

“I wanted to read a book but I couldn’t reach, can you help me? Please?”

Tae’s heart swells as she leans down to the pup's level. “Of course, I can! Why don’t you show me what one you wanted,” diligently Tae follows the little one a few isles over, tugged along by their insistent pulling as he tells her about the pretty cover.

The little pup turns back, furrowing his bushy brows up at Tae, “are you a princess?” he asks. Tae almost has to laugh, a bright happy gender euphoric feeling filling her chest, that feeling of I could be filling her.

She makes her whisper just a little more hushed, playing along, “Don’t tell anyone okay? It's a secret.” The little pup nods, eyes darting around like there are dragons that would threaten her.

“What gave me away?”

“Princesses wear long skirts!” the pup says cheerfully, like it makes the most sense in the world. He's a little too loud and Tae winces. He finally finds the shelve with the story. The spine glimmers pink and gold and Tae is unsurprised to find the illustrated copy of Cinderella. Not the Disney or PJ version, but the Brothers Grimm version.

Tae cringes at the pair of doves on the cover.

Tae doesn’t say that the little pup is too small to read a book so big, or that there is one with more pictures much more appropriate away from the young adult section. The child can’t be more than 6 years old.

But still, Tae retrieves it and delivers it to their waiting arms. The little one clutches it to his chest, thanks Tae, and then promptly plops themselves onto the carpeted floor right there.

He opens the first page, huffs, and then looks up at her imploringly.

“I just realized I can’t read.”

He pouts and Tae melts. Tae wonders where the pup's mother is, but really, there certainly can't be much harm in this. This isn't the first time Tae has been guilted into reading a story to a pup while their parents work or make use of the library's computers.

"Just the first page.” She intones, caution for the child’s hopes in her voice, she presses her skirt under her knees and sits on the scratchy carpet. The pup curls close to see the pictures. Resting his tiny chubby cheek in the billow of Tae’s big puffy sleeve.

Tae's chest is all tight as she reads. The pup is very well-behaved, he pauses, and asks questions in a soft voice only when Tae gives him space to respond. Tae easily ommits the parts that aren't appropriate. but tae finds herself watching the pup a little bit more as the minutes stretch.

In a few years with your own little ones around, will Tae become the defacto bedtime story reader? Will she do this with the pack's pups one day? Will she be the one to take that bright little light in their eyes that imagines things as greater and more and cultivate it? Her cheeks feel warm at the prospect, heart beating like a hummingbird's wings in excitement.

Your pups and Jin's pups too- they're gonna be so loved. Tae's gonna be the best mom to them, The best alpha too.

One page turns into two and then three. In this quiet corner with only Tae’s voice as ruler and god, the little pup hinges on every word. Until there’s another voice close by. An adult not wishing to be loud, a whispered name.

“Jae?”

Tae smiles up at the woman at the end of the aisle of books. Her smile turns sweeter when Jae hops up and runs to press his face into her jeaned thighs. Tae remembers how that felt, how every scent besides Tae’s own omega mother felt overwhelming and icky.

Tae stands with a crack of her knees and makes to hand over the book, “This makes a great bedtime story until about chapter 8, that one you might want to skip until he’s a little older.”

The woman makes to smile, but it only goes so far. Tae watches in perfect detail, everything in slow motion, as her eyes flicker down to Tae’s Addams apple.

She drags her child close by their wrist quicker than Tae can blink. Tae sees the moment that the child realizes this touch isn’t gentle, wide eyes going fear-stricken as he's tugged behind her back. And then it's all downhill from there.

I'll spare you the more vile bits.

But the saddest moment of the argument that follows (Which involves not one but three of Tae's co-workers to calm down the hysterical woman whose screeches echo around the quiet library) is when the pup tries to get his mother's attention. "Mom, I liked that she was reading to me."

"He" the certified Karen hisses, moving in a way that makes the pup flinch back. "-should know better than to corrupt a pup with such- such-" her eyes dart down and up, and Tae's skin burns. "Disgusting behavior."

The misgendering doesn't even sting. What does hurt is the eyes peering in. She isn't being quiet and it's causing many of the library's patrons' attention is diverted. Tae's coworkers have put themselves between Tae and the woman. But there still aren't enough people (enough packmates) in between her and the verbal tirade.

An hour later, after the woman has left after threatening to call the police, Tae talks with his boss and his boss’s boss. The room behind the front desk is glass, and he knows that the door doesn’t keep the sound of their raised voice out.

“I wasn’t harassing her child; I was just helping him find a book for Christ sake!”

The worst part is that this isn’t the first time that this has happened. No- since Tae came out there have been two other complaints leveled against her from bigoted patrons. Both right at the beginning before she got the hang of presenting how she wanted to.

At least those confrontations weren’t face-to-face. At least those complaints didn’t end with someone threatening to call the police and a pup cowering, tugged along too roughly out the door.

The little pup had glanced back at Tae, mouth in pout, eyes swimming with tears.

Even if the woman felt righteous in her anger, the least she could have done was not yell in front of the pup. Tae promises herself right then and there, that she'll never raise her voice in front of the pack's pups, not in anger.

The book has stayed on the counter at the front. Pink and gold and treacherous. Tae hopes that if anything, the pup finds it and reads the ending one day. Stories have a way of finding us, even when the world makes us let them go.

Now in the back room behind the check-out counter. Tae’s boss levels her with an expectant look, the kind that people give when they don’t want to be transphobic not really- it’s just so hard for them not to, so learned. Tae is the nail that sticks up. It’s bullshit really. Tae can tell it's bullshit before she opens her mouth.

“Really? He asked for Cinderella?”

“Yes.” Tae’s biting tone is an alpha’s tone, not a man’s, and yet she knows how it sounds.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“I’m not lying.” Is Tae supposed to only help some children find the books they want? Is she supposed to look at them and make her best guess if they’ve got homophobic parents and skip them over? It’s not her fault that the sweet sweet pup’s parent was a bigot.

“I can’t help but feel like- you’ve got a personal agenda-“

"Charlie-" the district manager cautions.

Tae can’t stop herself from snapping, alpha anger sparking with the intent to burn. “Little boys should be allowed to read Cinderella if they want to” Rats and all. Her hands are shaking, and it isn’t missed by them. The room smells thick with Tae’s spicy cinnamon anger.

The district manager sets her hand on Tae's shoulder, and her anger ebbs just a little. “I think maybe you should go home a little early today, just to cool off. We can talk about it more tomorrow.”

Tae doesn’t want to go home early, Tae doesn’t want to go home at all as she packs up her books. Her bag lighter than usual, absent of the stories that she wants to take home. For once there aren’t any that she wants to read.

She walks to the train station because Jimin won’t be off work for another 2 hours and that’s when he’d usually pick her up, the last three days he’s gotten her flowers too; white roses the first day, pink the second, and red the third. She sends him a text.

Tae <3 (1:48): I left work early today, you don’t have to pick me up, I’ll get an Uber home.

Mini-alpha (1:49):!!!!!

Mini-alpha (1:49): What happened? Are you sure you don’t want me to pick you up? I can leave now.

Tae sighs, looking down at her phone while she waits for the crosswalk light to come on. Red still, green in a few seconds, she only has to wait. She can practically feel Jimin's nervous energy through the phone. it's a wonder he doesn't immediately call her.

It makes her soft. It isn't in Jimin's nature to give any of his lovers any space but he always makes an effort when it comes to her.

Tae <3 (1:53): No. It’s fine. I’ll talk to you when you get home.

Tae doesn’t want to talk to Jimin about transphobia again. At least not yet. It’s too much energy. It’s not that Tae doesn’t want to make what happened during Namjoon’s rut better. It’s not that she doesn’t want to talk about it- it’s just that there’s nothing to talk about, the explanation of his actions are such a burden for Tae to bear. And Tae trusts that Jimin’s heart is in the right place even if he makes mistakes. And even telling Jimin off, yelling at him, wouldn’t change it.

Either one day Tae will not have to deal with bigoted parents, either one day she’ll pass and won’t have to worry, or she'll always be in this awkward middle ground.

Trans people are like toupees, you only notice them when there’s something off, something a little misplaced about them. Tae fears that most of all. Femininity, as much as she wants it, as much as it's hers to take, what if it won't ever fit right? What if she never passes?

Tae loves her job at the library, it’s the perfect mix of boring and safe and easy even if it doesn’t pay enough. But even as she's gained things like skirts and puffy sleeves, she's exchanged them for days like today. Really, the library was her favorite place before today and now, every step away from it makes her feel a little lighter. She's not even angry anymore, just exhausted mentally.

Tae decides to walk home at least she’s in her most conservative channel flats, they could use a little bit more wear and love and Tae’s thoughts are still too sharp. She dulls them to a palatable edge that all falls apart when she gets home.

You’re there, thank fucking god you’re always there when she gets home. You’ll always be Tae’s comfort person.

Tae opens the door with a creek and push of cold air, you're saying something to Yoongi turning with a toss of your hair, eyes brightening when you see her before you've even said her name.

You look a little healthier today, with a little bit more of a rosy glow to your cheeks and a healthy brightness to your eyes, not all glassy.

"Tae! You're home early!"

Tae will never stop being proud of how hard you try, and will never stop being a bit envious either because Tae-

Tae looks at you and wilts, bag flopping onto the floor, and predictably burst into tears.

"Oh- oh Tae."

"Baby girl-"

You and Yoongi are just about the best security blanket a packmate could ask for. You're so good as you pull her down to your level so you can kiss away her tears, maneuvering her like a perfect team onto the couch. Yoongi's strong hands slide off her shoes. Yoongi's fingers digging into her sore heel as you kiss away her every tear.

A substantial amount of babying and a Sos packmate in distress text later, and Tae is reclining across a freshly fluffed nest, the muscles in her body relaxed. The blisters on the back of her feet are bandaged and kissed. Every inch of her body is too.

You don't talk about it until after the pack's facemasks are finished, and hobi's clear coat has dried over the tiny nail sticker that you left. a small bumblebee.

Your skin smells sweet after a long long bath full of fancy bath bombs. Jinnie had also rubbed oil onto her freshly shaven legs. You helped, dragging it along oh so carefully to not nick her skin. Ending each pass with a kiss to her ankle and then upper thigh.

Tae’s head is in your lap now, cheek pressed against your (slightly chubbier) thighs. Her sniffles the background music as Tae gives her final recap of what happened.

Your nose gets a wrinkle in it when you go cross. "There's so much meanness to the world, I hate how people have to add to it."

Jimin’s anger leaves an undercurrent in the air, dragging the other alphas along, Hobi’s hands are strong where they dig into Tae’s shoulders, belly down in the nest while you play with her hair, braiding it back and forth. The attention makes her feel a little tingly.

“Do you know what her name was? Did you get a look at her car-“ Jimin asks, nearly barking. The library has cameras. Jimin knows it does.

Jin sets a hand on the back of his neck, a scruff threatening. “Down pup. Tae doesn’t need you to track them down.” Jimin’s teeth look particularly sharp in the light. For a face so soft he has quite the mouth on him.

“They made her sad,” he growls, but it's softer, more pointed as he crouches over her.

Namjoon’s quiet voice unlocks the whole world's worries, massaging gently down the column of Tae’s delicate neck, rough hands, worn tender touching her regardless. Namjoon is rarely ever so pointed, but it's logical, from an alpha's perspective, Tae knows what he hints.

"I think that if your bosses aren't going to protect you from people like that, then I want you to leave your job." Jin gives him a look like, 'Now you know where I'm coming from' but Tae's the important packmate right now.

Tae rolls Namjoon's words around her tongue, her hand loosely twined with his. Namjoon has the steadiest hands out of everyone in the pack and a few minutes ago he repurposed his surgery skills to do her nails. Took off the chipped red and re-did them because Namjoon knows she feels best when her claws are polished. He checks them now. Tapping them lightly to not smudge them.

It's a girl's night, the first girl's night you've ever had with the whole pack. Tae's face is still glossy from the face mask.

“I don’t think I want to quit; I don’t think that would help at all that’s not going to like- solve the world and all its issues.”

“No, but- if it’s making you more sad than happy. Then maybe it’s worth considering.”

Tae knows Namjoon’s not saying that she doesn’t make enough to affect the pack's finances, but that's still the truth. Hobi pulls himself along her other side and you watch him with heavy-lidded eyes.

Hobi presses a kiss to Tae's temple, “All you want to do is write every day anyways, and we just want you to be happy,” 6 heads nod their agreement.

Hobi isn't wrong; The last four weekends in a row Tae has woken up several hours earlier than the pack would usually stir from morning cuddles, just to get a few hours of uninterrupted writing done. She’s also spent nearly every night in her library room, staying up late after the pack has retired upstairs until one of you comes down and wrangles her upstairs. The pack's prettiest alpha needs her beauty sleep.

But is it enough to count on? Is it worth quitting her job over?

You duck down low, kissing the same spot Hobi did, your lips touching just a Tae away. a heavy breath wooshes out of her chest. "Yeah why wouldn't we want you to quit? If you're always here then I can always do this."

Your kiss is gentle, and it tastes like belonging more than Tae would ever be able to write, to describe. A love that makes you feel like you belong is a rare thing. And Tae's hand goes up to tangle in your hair, keeping you there for just a shared breath longer.

The next breath tastes a bit like freedom. It's scary to be free.

(But Tae leaves her 2 weeks' notice on her boss’s desk before the end of the next work day, and she doesn't feel bad about it one bit).

~-~

(1 year prior)

Maybe the truth is that the reason why you don’t feel you deserve agency is because you know what your agency looks like. The choices you’re willing to make when it comes down to it.

The secrets you tell and the lies you have buried deep in your pocket like one of Hobi’s found things. Something you can’t get rid of and cast back into the ocean. No matter how hard you try. There is something about murder that sticks, that stays no matter how many times you try to wash your hands of it.

It's not guilt, because you don't feel guilty for what you had to do.

Being backed into a corner can make someone do a whole hell of alot of monstrous things. And back then Life was monotonous. Back then there was Anguish without change.

Your life went like this: Go home. Get beaten. Get hurt. Get Raped. Wake up. Meet up with Hyejin. Make poison. Make pastries. Go to the Don’s house. Feed it to them. Listen to Moonbyul tell you to wait. Go home. Get beaten again and again. Get raped every night. On and on and on.

Clean up your blood from the tiles. Clean it from the carpet. Hydrogen peroxide and not bleach. Cover the bruises up with color corrector first before you put concealer over them.

Smile and tell everyone that your husband and you are perfectly happy. There will be a pup on the way soon enough, I'm so lucky to have someone who supports me, and I'm so lucky to have a love like this.

Go home. Get beaten. Get hurt. Get Raped. Go to sleep and don't cry because then he'll beat you for keeping him awake.

In the darkness that curls around you. Blood going tacky between your legs, you start to dream of wicked sweet things.

What you've been through would be enough to make anyone go crazy, Enough to make anyone consider drastic action. Enough to make anyone consider murder.

Enough for you to slide a pair of small syringes off of Moonbyul’s night desk and a small packet of arsenic too. You know how to make a simple syrup. You know how to mix in arsenic to it, how to make it liquid soluble without breathing it in.

You make it in the fine china and break it after so that you can throw it out without worrying. You get a beating for it but you hardly feel it when Geumjae drags you across the floor by your hair. It hardly breaks your heart when he steps on your ribcage with the intent to break bones because you know what you have to do.

After, with your own blood on your teeth, you make sure to leave it in the bottom of the trash, and ask the cleaning staff not to take it out yet. They're supposed to find it.

You don't care if you die, you just want to make sure the necessary villains are punished. When it comes to blame the person who is most to blame is you anyway. You are simply numb to pain, numb to your own anguish. Numb to the idea of your own death too. Geumjae's already killed you in every way that matters.

Cut off a wolf's head and it still has the power to bite; give a girl an enemy and she'll do dangerous things.

Your meetings with the Don and beta always go the same; gossip, and greetings. Sometimes when you come bearing bruises, they tell you to wait just a little longer.

Go home. Get beaten. Get hurt. Get Raped. Wake up. Just give it time for his temper to settle. Once you're mated it will get better.

Even Moonbyul and Hyejin tell you that planning the perfect crime takes time. That you'll be saved if you only wait. Help is coming.

Bullshit.

You’re tired of waiting for him to kill you, you're tired of waiting to die. You're smarter than all of them because you know exactly how to get everything you want and you're willing to do anything to get it.

The next time Moonbyul and Hyejin take you to the Don and Beta’s house under the guise of afternoon tea, you are prepared for war and dressed with revenge in mind. Your white dress knotted at the shoulders falling in a heavenly sheet, like an avenging angel, neither pious nor sinful.

You are a force of nature and nature does not ask when it takes lives.

What’s worse; the people that enable the abusers or the abusers themselves? Who is more to blame for the pain caused?

You are no longer hiding and you won't let them hide this time. The bruise on your cheek is purple and mottled, the rings of bruises on your wrists from his hands while he held you down.

When you smiled at Geumjae over breakfast this morning, there was only one thought in your mind.

You’re next.

Your agency looks like this; elegantly done hair your skirt a little short for fall. A basket of arsenic-backed goods in a basket as is usual. Fluffy pink cupcakes with the perfect Swiss meringue buttercream in little spirals.

A gentle smile at the beta when she opens her doors for you, letting the monster in, because you’ve been over enough times that she trusts you. You suppose that's your doing too, you've fooled her into thinking you're just another idiot girl who decided to marry rich and didn't bother to consider the strings attached. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, you bare your teeth when you smile.

Hyejin has helped on that front; over the past few months, she has taught you exactly the kind of conversation that the beta likes- the useless conversations about family drama, the small little bits that you let through about your husband’s opinion on which pup is marrying whom, which alpha is good or bad for the packs near dozen omega pups that aren’t mated yet. Which alphas are likely to be a liability? This kind of gossip is all information and strategy.

You might have lied in your call to her and told her you were fearful of one of the younger ones- and a conversation you’d happened to witness on a street corner, a shadowy figure that looked a little too severe not to be the authorities. Of course, these kinds of things have to be handled with discretion and ginseng tea.

The Don does not bother to turn down the TV when you walk in, sitting vulnerable in his recliner with his feet up. It doesn’t appear that he has any sort of inclination or plans to interact with you when you sit here at his kitchen table and talk. Instead, he lounges and watches his sports, loud because his hearing is so bad, nearly deafening.

It’s good. hopefully anyone nearby will not overhear.

You hope that if this goes south before you have a chance to confess that they find the letter you wrote at home; the one that says your husband is the one that put you up to this.

You know that the pack’s retribution will be swift, that any sort of alibi he has will be null and void with the evidence you’ve been leaving. A little trail of breadcrumbs that leads right into a pretty little grave for your husband. Even if you won't be around to see it.

You're already a friend of pain. You already find comfort in it. If they kill you (which they will) then at least it will finally be over.

You wait until the moment you know is coming, when the Don looks over his shoulder at you and comands “Be a dear and bring me one.”

You put one of your artfully created confections on a pretty gold-rimed plate and walk to his side, you lean over to put it in his lap as he indicates. the same way he does every time you come over with sweets.

The lingering hand on your ass is hardly abnormal. behind you the beta's tea cup clinks as she sets her tea down and says nothing. even though you know she notices.

He’s so busy coping a feel he doesn’t notice your other hand, going to the syringe duck taped to your thigh.

It happens quicker than the Don can blink. The most powerful man in the underworld can't be bothered to protect his life for a pretty little piece of ass. You smile down at him, and his hand squeezes the round apple of your behind.

His hand is still on your ass when you whip your arm around with as much force as you can and drive the syringe and plunger into his neck.

You must have hit something in his neck because he barely has a second to splutter before he’s going still and quiet. Mouth falling horrifyingly slack. His breath rattles and his eyes dart as his whole body is paralyzed near instantly, in the time it takes for his blood to circulate.

Two paces, swing, plunge.

The beta barely has a second to scream or stand to attack you. You are so much younger than they are. Your body might be fragile and frail but It’s still stronger than hers. Her brief scream is easily drowned out by the scratch of the TV.

She ends up on the floor, the icing on the cupcakes sticky as she falls into half of them, tossed onto the floor by your brief tussle as you straddle her struggling form. Her pushing gets weaker and weaker and she sobs.

It doesn’t surprise you when you see the black tracery of a dying mating mark itching up her skin.

One thing that the family had always been oh so careful of was to talk only in their mother tongue around you. Secrets are best kept when they’re spoken in foreign tongues. It was a way to isolate you. To make them speak English for you to understand felt like a beholden request. At one point It was a point of insecurity for you, always left out of the loop, always relying on your husband to keep you in the know.

You bend over her as her pushing gets weaker and weaker, the arsenic doing its job, causing numbness and the tingling of extremities before it causes paralysis and then coma and death. Your hair falls in a sheet over the beta’s face.

You’ve studied much over the last few months. Enough that you lean in close over her and speak your words in perfect Korean.

“You look so angry,” you croon softly, dragging a finger down her cheek. Spittle froths at her mouth as she breathes heavily. “You shouldn’t- if you want someone to blame you only need to look in the mirror.”

You lean in close until your lips brush her ear, “it's your fault you see- you're the one who lied" you mimic her voice, making it scratchy, "'just wait a little longer, it will be better for the family if you stay quiet." you laugh, "as if that where true, the only person it benefits is you. You where ready to let him hurt me and kill me if i just stayed quiet."

You wipe away a bit of spit from her lower lip, "You always told me how it was your duty to protect the family- but you only serve yourself. If you'd have done something, if you'd have helped me I wouldn't have had to do this. You just wanted me to shut up and die quietly.”

You switch back to English, “Well now it’s your turn.”

You watch her tongue go numb, paralyzed, but the poison hasn’t advanced far enough for her not to speak.

“Fucking- worthless bitch.”

You laugh and stand brushing some crumbs from your skirt. She’s already too weak to move, to shout, or fight you. You watch the light start to leave her eyes, winking out so slowly, like a dying star. But she still looks so pissed.

“You don’t have a right to be angry, you killed me first. You can’t blame me for fighting back.”

She gives her last breath and the TV plays on. Your shoe ticks her hand, her fingers twitching weakly. You watch as she gasps her last breath, a small smile on your face.

You sit at the table and turn the TV down. You wait a few minutes, but it quickly becomes an hour. You have yourself a nice little treat while you watch, turning the channel to a food network while you eat.

You really are a fantastic cook. The crumb on this batch is so nice you don’t even taste the metallic tang of poison. You eat through one, and then another, until the whole basket is empty.

Before you know it there is a concerned knock at the door. The lock clicks and turns when you answer it.

When Moonbyul opens the door, you laugh at the expression on her face. Licking the frosting from your lips. Even that is delicious.

She takes in their bodies, crumpled on the floor the frosting on your cheeks. The evidence. Both of them dying. A violence you cannot undo.

Her voice is somber. “Oh Pup, what have you done?”

~-~

Please Like, Comment, and Reblog <3 every word helps motivate me to write the next chapter!

Series Masterlist ~ Donate ~ Twitter

Come tell me what you liked about this chapter!

~-~

Notes:

this chapter is a very classic bily chapter, in the fact that there is a fuck ton of fluff and then bang the mafia bits just take you out. we needed to get back into the mafia bits of the story sooner rather than later though 💀

i felt like i was going a little too over the top with certain bits of puptalk in this chapter, but i really wanted to use it to show that like yeah- the pack has been treating her alot more gently since her breakdown, they've been babbying the fuck out of her, even if we don't get to see it :(

Hobi's texts are so???? Fucking cute?? He's so hopeless my god he wants to make her feel loved without actually saying it and i hope you read them and just go "oh, you're an idiot."

I have this whole elaborate backstory to how wonho's gym works with monthly subscriptions to classes where people can decide how many classes they want to take a week, ie gym dues for facilities and then discounted classes on top if they pay for it before hand, with several tiers.

this chapter almost feels clerical- this is definitely more of a set up chapter- where i needed to check off a lot of boxes, like hobi's courting present- before we go any further into the story. things are going to start amping up in terms of stakes pretty quickly.

That one part, where hobi is kinda malfunctioning after the m/c touches his cheek and everyone teases him feels the most representative of the pack as a whole. like that part where they're all replying- feels very real. i struggle a little to capture a sense of domesticity in concise ways, but i think this part is very tidy.

That little touch with hobi- where he touches her wrist and her finger, that touch has so much weight to it, i personally think the whole pack was tasting the sexual tension on the air, can you guys feel it too or is it all in my head?

idk why yoongi calling tae babygirl makes me so flustered but it does 🥵

i really wanted to work calling tae mommy into the chapter someway but tbh this chapter felt complex enough without it.

there is like- one plot hole in this whole story, and that is in the first chapter of the story when yoongi gets a call the person on the other line says "grandfather is dying." implying that his death wasn't instantaneous like this is shown to be. however, in my mind- the injections don't actually kill the don and beta but plunge them into a coma that they never wake up from- is this an actual possibility with arsenic poisoning- NO IT ISN'T lol, you're just going to have to suspend your disbelief for me.

the m/c has always been the person who killed the don and the beta- i've known this since like...maybe the 4th chapter? it wasn't in the og og plan for the story but almost everything in bily has been hammered out since then. and tbh you already knew she killed them just not that it was this violent! does this count as a secret???? idk! maybe!!!

she's a little murder baby just like minnie <3

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laurashapiro-noreally · 13 days

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Looking for something to read?

Oh look, it's another recs post! This time I'm featuring two stories per author. These are writers I always make time for, whose work stands out as unusually hot, clever, funny, or smart -- sometimes all of the above.

I'm gonna start you out strong with two by @werpiper: After Hours takes Aziraphale and Crowley to the baths after their oyster supper, and all sorts of interesting pleasures are there for our angel to sample. Piper's Crowley is one of my favorites: always evaluating the situation, not quite aware of what his own heart is doing but feeling it anyway.

Fitting In is a new story, still a WIP, but I am utterly tantalized by Muriel's first taste of love -- and tea. This is already rich in detail, soft and fragrant, and I can hardly wait for the action to get going in earnest. The pairing seems surprising but when you think about it for ten seconds of course it makes sense. Sex workers help the curious, the awkward, and the inexperienced every day, bless them.

If you enjoy these, check out @werpiper's back catalog -- they have done a ton of ineffables-through-the-ages, and their series Miracles and Heresy is worth many delightful hours of your time.

I love what @copperplatebeech has been doing lately:

He's Not My Friend is a T-rated story that explores Aziraphale's constant refusal to acknowledge his relationship with Crowley, and Crowley's mirror of that, and how things glacially shift over time. It is subtle and yet specific, it will make you ache and smile.

All Of The Above, also T-rated, is a warm and fuzzy alternative to that, a hilarious celebration of true friendship that made me laugh out loud and still got me right in the feels.

@copperplatebeech can do everything, from quiet, gentle, and romantic to devastating plotty AUs to extraordinarily horny established relationship to absolutely ridiculous humor. Do dive in if you haven't already.

Next up, @cumaeansibyl, master of kink:

better living through technology manages to shove everything I want in a dirty story into less than three thousand words: uptight Aziraphale reduced to sodden wreck, Crowley gleefully showing him what he's been missing, character-driven erotics, and exceptionally funny dialogue.

indulgentiam peccatorum nostrorum is somehow all that and more, turning the "I was wrong" dance into a kink (something I can't get enough of, recs welcome). This one is post-Bastille so it is extra-juicy. Mind the tags!

@cumaeansibyl has a gift for established relationship one-shots, which readers of mine will know are my entire jam. They also have a mind-meltingly hot inverse!omens AU that features different variations of angelic/demonic Crowleys and Aziraphales for our ineffables to play with.

A new-to-me author, Calico, has me hanging by a thread with their Ineffable Romans series. If you want to remember that your ineffables aren't human, that they are inordinately clever but very stupid, that the feelings they have for each other are truly beyond what anyone alive has ever felt, Calico may be the writer for you. This stuff is deep. Also hot af.

Sub Rosa reads like a nasty shag at Petronius', but there's so much more going on here. It is Extremely Queer, driven by power dynamics, and Crowley is fully demonic here and absolutely in control...or is he?

The Intemperance of Liber Pater continues on this theme, with dialogue-driven smut that reads less like a seduction than an inevitability. There's another story in this series, unfinished, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Last but not least: two short pieces by @ineffabildaddy. I stumbled on their stories just this week and I absolutely love their approach, which I've not seen done quite this way before.

take me as your wife has a tight first-person perspective as Crowley meets Aziraphale for a meal and imagines (or is it his imagination?) that Aziraphale is suggesting Certain Things about how they might occupy themselves later. Indeed, is he suggesting even more? Something about their relationship? Or is it all in Crowley's head?

Only in Dreams is kind of a companion piece, from Aziraphale's point of view -- though hundreds of years later. This one's set after the events of S2 and although just as romantic as take me as your wife, it also offers an ineffable take on the ol' glory hole concept. Just in case you thought I was getting soft. 😏

@ineffabildaddy has a whole series of poems and ficlets like these and I can't wait to explore them all.

#good omens #fic recs #good omens fic recs #ineffable husbands #ineffable partners #ineffable spouses #ineffable divorce #smut #fanfiction #fanfic #crowley #aziraphale #aziracrow #crowley x aziraphale #rare pair #muriel

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swordcreature · 4 months

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How do you think our tiefling boys would react to our world if they somehow ended up here?

i always find these so cute, but in my head i'm thinking "they would be terrified and ready to stab someone because they are in a strange world where they can't understand anyone" lol

so to make things easier and cuter let's pretend that

1. there are no language barriers

2. no one is trying to kill them/no one's freaking out because they look like devils

3. they're somewhat aware enough of what's happening to not be scared shitless or severely confused

4. they know they're going back home at some point (i would be acting SO different if i thought i was gonna live in a different world forever vs just visiting lmao)

ty for the request you're the best!

Dammon, Rolan, & Zevlor - A Part of Our World

How the tiefling boys react to coming to our world

Dammon:

He’s amazed by the advancements we’ve made, slack-jawed at how we’ve managed to bend metal to form buildings that climb so high he can’t see the top, at how we’ve made metal fly without so much as a single spell, at how we’re able to make metal into machines so big they can move the earth itself.

It’s overwhelming at first and he has so many questions. How does this work? What type of metal is that? What does this do? It never stops.

But every answer is met with true awe. Dammon loves smithing, loves infernal machinery, and he’s been suddenly transported to a world built around his craft, of course he is inspired.

He’s the most open-minded of the tieflings when it comes to a new experience. And just like the Hells, even though this place is foreign, unfamiliar, frightening, he’s eager to learn something from it.

Dammon takes notes on everything he possibly can, sketching out little pictures of the world around him to bring back home.

I could see him being a bit of a terror just because he breaks everything around him trying to figure out how it works, what makes it tick, so to speak. I mean, how could he truly understand the inner workings of, say, a car without taking it apart piece by piece until he has it down to its bare bones.

Overall, I think he comes back home with so many good stories to tell of all the fantastical things he’s seen, all of the new ideas he has, and a renewed purpose in his work.

Rolan:

Rolan absolutely hates our world. It’s just not made for a guy like him.

I mean, first off: no magic. His life revolves around magic, it’s an integral part of him. Without it he feels empty and strange, so this world feels very wrong to him. Imagine being connected to the Weave for years and then suddenly having it stripped away. Completely gone. I would think it would feel disorienting at best.

He finds some interest in speaking to people of this world who practice magic, but it is so entirely different than his own that they're practically talking about two different things. He expected a more tangible magic like the Weave and is disappointed when he learns it’s so vastly incomparable.

Second: the people. There are so many people here. Pretty much anywhere he goes, the population would be bigger and denser than anything he’s used to. And it’s not like he’s a people person. Not to mention the way humans tend to treat outsiders.

Despite his absolute discomfort in our world, Rolan is determined to write down everything he can of his experience. Not many mortals from his world get to experience traveling the universes, so cataloging his journey is a must.

He’ll write a book once he’s home, and it’ll make a big splash in the academic community, he just knows it!

When he does leave our world for his own, he’s relieved. In his book he makes it sound like this magical wonderland of things beyond most people’s comprehension, but to those close to him he tells them the truth. He was not a fan.

Zevlor:

Zevlor is apprehensive at first. This world is strange – he does not know the customs at all. But he's eager to learn.

He spends his time amongst the people more so than the other two. He is so curious about the traditions of the land, the history of the world, and hearing it from the mouths of the locals is better than getting his hands on any book.

He immerses himself in the cultures he comes across as much as possible; he eats our food and sings our songs and actually has a really good time with it.

I think he finds special interest in the history of combat, how our conflicts have changed throughout time. How did we go from swinging swords and shooting arrows to battling wars from across the world?

Zevlor also tries to teach people of our world about where he comes from. He tells stories from his days as a Hellrider to anyone who will listen and even tries to cook some traditional Elturian food, but it’s hard to do so without the same ingredients.

Overall, he’s more interested in the shared knowledge of culture and information between our world and his. It brings him comfort finding similarities between such different worlds.

When he finally can go back home, he shares his stories with the children first, spinning them tales of the people he met and the things he did. How even in such a foreign place there were still nice people willing to help and to share and to be a friend.

Zevlor is the one who wishes to come back the most.

#bg3 #bg3 dammon #bg3 rolan #bg3 zevlor #dammon #rolan #zevlor #baldur's gate 3 #my writing #requests/suggestions #dragomermacorn #HCs

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annabelle--cane · 3 months

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okay. round up of lingering protocol thoughts/predictions before the patreon early release tomorrow and the wide release on thursday. I did listen to the pilot draft back in october, but the following takes are only about publicly available information, I'll save anything else for later this week.

the title. "the magnus archives" wasn't just the main location of the original show, it was integral for the framing device of every episode and the meat of the protagonist's journey. if this title functions at all similarly, then "the magnus protocol" means, well, the protocol to follow in the event of "magnus." this implies to me that a main force behind the plot is going to be the OIAR responding to Something that happens with their world's burnt down magnus institute, and that following set rules and codes will be a major theme. less passive observation and cataloging, more the unstoppable force of bureaucracy.

same vibes for "vigilo. audio. opperior." (I watch. I listen. I wait.) vs "non vacillabimus" (we will not falter). to me, a promise not to falter implies steadfast action in the face of resistance as opposed to passive absorption of experiences.

I am still pulling for agnes relevance. lowri ann davies playing celia ripley, "celia" being the name her archives character chose after losing her memory, that character's strange interaction with a fire ghost woman. if we presume this is the same universe as the one the statement giver came from in mag 114, the tree at hilltop road was still standing when she crossed over, implying agnes was still alive over there as of 2009. jonny's comments in q&as about wishing he has done a little bit more with agnes. it could happen.

I. I've been sitting here trying to figure out a take for what's up with gwendolyn bouchard because her connection to elias obviously has to be relevant somehow, but I've got nothing. archives verse elias was meant to be middle aged (at least in body) by the time of the show and my guess is that gwen's in her 20s so she might be a younger sister? a cousin? theoretically possible that she could be a daughter but the idea of elias raising children in either his original or jonah forms makes my brain return a 404 error. don't like that.

bonzo

#tmagp #marina marvels at life

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wheels-of-despair · 18 days

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The Long Con Pairing: Eddie Munson x You Summary: Evil Woman brings Eddie a thoughtful gift... but there are some springs attached. Contains: A can of pretzels, a practical joke, a Wayne cameo. Words: 900ish

"Heads up!"

You tossed a can of pretzels toward Eddie when you stepped into his room. Instead of catching them, he ducked, and they fell into the gap between his bed and the wall. The Black Hole. Where things go to die.

He tossed his magazine to the side and rolled over, head disappearing into the abyss as he dug for the pretzels. He held the can up triumphantly when he found it, then twisted his body back around to lie on his back. He placed the pretzel can on his stomach and twisted the label to face him.

"Name brand? Is it my birthday?"

"Buy one, get one free at the grocery store. Mom got one for me and one for you," you explained, dropping onto the bed to lie on your back beside him. "Well, one for you at each of your dwellings, more like."

"That was nice of her," he smiled, watching the can rise and fall on his stomach with each breath.

"She's a very nice lady. Where do you think I get it from?"

"HA!"

You reached over and smacked the can off of him, and he turned his head toward you with a pout.

"Watch it, Munson. You couldn't handle my mean side."

"You mean this is ni--" A pillow found its way to his face, muffling the mistake he was about to make. You flipped over and swung a leg over him, straddling him for pillow-holding leverage. His hands tickled your sides in retaliation, and somehow, by the time the struggle was over, he was on top of you on his bedroom floor and your sides were aching from laughter.

That's alright, Munson. This is a long con.

Eddie ate his fancy name-brand pretzels slower than the massive value-sized bags he usually devoured by the pound. Personally, you couldn't taste much of a difference. It was all dry and salty to you.

But Eddie quite enjoyed them.

And you quite enjoyed planning the next step of your evil plan.

They really were on sale. Your mom really had bought them for him. But you'd been looking through a catalog of creative gifts the day she brought them home, and it had given you… ideas.

Every time he left his bedroom in the week that followed, you checked his pretzel progress.

When he got down to about a fifth of the can, you decided to make your move.

You waited until the phone rang. You were enjoying a lazy afternoon together; laying around and listening to music and maybe making out a little, sure to keep both volumes down while Wayne slept in the living room. Eddie rolled out of bed with a groan and went to answer the phone.

You darted toward your bag as soon as he stepped into the hallway, grabbing the twin to his treasured pretzel can and swapping it with the one on his bedside table.

You shoved his can into the bottom of your bag and returned to the bed, trying to remember how you'd been lying when he left.

"Telemarketer," he grumbled when he stepped back into the room. He closed the door quietly and reclaimed his place in bed, lying on his side next to you. "Now, where were we?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, and you laughed.

"Right about…" you inched closer and kissed the tip of his nose, "here."

The events that followed made you forget about your master plan for a while.

Until the phone rang at your house that night, while you were making dinner.

"Hello?" you answered, cradling the phone on your shoulder while you stirred a pot of noodles.

"I'll get you for this."

"Who's calling, please?" you asked with a wicked grin, knowing exactly who was calling and why.

"You are so not funny."

You heard laughter in the background. Is that… Wayne? You'd never heard Eddie's uncle laugh like that before.

"Really? 'Cause it kinda sounds like I am."

Eddie growls, and you cover your mouth so a giggle doesn't escape.

"When did you do it?"

"When did I do what?" you asked innocently.

"When did you rig it."

"I assure you, I have no idea what you're talking about."

It's getting harder and harder to keep the laughter out of your voice.

"I nearly pissed myself!"

That's when you cracked.

You'd found a spring in a pile of stuff you'd cleaned out of the garage, sewed a piece of fabric around it, and attached a tiny plush teddy bear to the end. You shoved it down your matching pretzel can, waited until the time was right, and made the swap. Eddie had just discovered his custom-made snake-in-a-can prank. The entire project cost you about $1. It was worth every penny.

You heard Wayne's laughter get louder, too.

"I did not!" Eddie insisted.

"Did not what?" you asked.

"He screamed like a girl!" Wayne howled in the background.

"Did not!"

You roared with laughter.

When you finally composed yourself, Eddie was waiting patiently.

"You know it's on, right? I'm gonna get you back for this." You can hear the smile in his voice cutting through his angry façade.

"I'd expect nothing less, Munson."

"See you in the morning?"

"See you in the morning," you confirmed. "I'll bring snacks."

#writings of despair #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x evil woman #happy april fool's day!

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all-mirth-no-matter · 2 years

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Time After Time | Chapter Three

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Reader, Tommy Shelby x Original Female Character

Summary: With the men back from the war, you’re busier than ever at the pub. Until one night you finally get a proper introduction to the mystery man.

Warning: language, drinking, smoking, war mention, sex mention

ao3 Link | Catch up on tumblr here

Chapter Three: Do I Wanna Know?

Are there some aces up your sleeve? Have you no idea that you’re in deep? I’ve dreamt about you nearly every night this week. How many secrets can you keep? ‘Cause there’s this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow, and I play it on repeat until I fall asleep.

— Do I Wanna Know?, Arctic Monkeys

There were so many things you missed about the 21st century. Today, it was the clothes. You missed lounging around in an oversized t-shirt, no bra, and a comfy pair of shorts.

No such luxury existed in the year 1918.

You hated constantly wearing long skirts and itchy layers and the fact that everything was just constantly dirty. Sometimes you wanted to cry over how much you’d taken your washing machine for granted.

Especially after working twelve to eighteen hour days in the bar, surrounded by bodies, and then having to clean up after those bodies at the end of the night.

You thought the weeks leading up to the soldier’s return had gone by quickly, but nothing truly prepared you for how quickly the weeks after went by. Even with Polly telling you to take a break from the betting house while her nephews eased back into the organization, you had your hands full with how busy the pub was. Every night, even after Harry’s promotion of free ale for those who served ended, the place gradually grew more busy with each day. You were there each morning cataloging sales from the night before and prepping the inventory, and each night sweeping the floors and cleaning tables.

You also began to understand more Harry’s reservations of hiring you. You’d lost count of the amount of times you’d been hit on, proposed to, or asked “how much”. There was only one instance where you had to get physical with a guy. But after some highly effective self-defense moves, you had the drunken idiot on the ground and announced to the stunned room that while the alcohol was for sale, you were not and that the next man to lay a hand on you would have a bloody nose, broken arm, and kicked groin.

After that, you didn’t seem to have a problem with the physical come-ones anymore. It didn’t stop them from verbally coming on to you though, but that you were much more used to handling and you’d found a couple ways to deflect without being harsh enough to drive away the customers.

The nights Harry had you lock up were your favorites. You still had to clean up some of the seriously gross messes people left on the pub floors, but it was the only time in the last few weeks that you’d had any alone time in a big open space. Sure, you had your apartment, but it was small and suffocating and felt almost too empty, giving you far too much room to obsess over your time travel circumstance. Feeling a little more free in the Garrison after hours, you’d spend the alone time doing the one thing that’d been able to keep you calm recently: sing.

Throughout the weeks each night, you tried to go through your catalogue of favorite songs. It originally started as a way to keep yourself mentally sane — especially after one particularly bad night.

Still tormented with trying to figure out how you’d gotten here, you’d completely broken down with a panic attack after trying to go through everything your mother had ever said to you about your prophecy gift. In doing so, you opened a flood gate that ended with your head between your legs as you tried to control your breathing and calm down.

That night, you truly thought that maybe you’d just gone completely mad. Maybe you’d always been in this time and you just got some really weird fever dreamed amnesia? Maybe you’d escaped some mental institute and you were off your meds and you’d somehow convinced yourself you had a whole life in the future? Maybe your mother was some kind of witch and cursed you?

The only thing that calmed you down was singing to yourself and playing the songs in your head to drown out the noise within. It was also a way for you to stay connected with your own time. You started with some of your dad’s old favorites, the classics that you’d grown up with, and then some of your more contemporary favorites.

Tonight, you had a Hozier song stuck in your head.

“I had a thought, dear, however scary, about that night, the bugs and the dirt.

Why were you digging? What did you burry, before those hands pulled me from the earth?

I will not ask you where you came from, I will not ask and neither should you.

Honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips, we should just kiss like real people do.”

You hummed the chorus parts, spinning around with your broom —

—when a silhouette standing at the back of the pub in the shadow finally caught your attention.

You gasped, dropping the broom from your hand, “Holy Jesus fucking— dammit you scared me!”

A short hum left the man’s throat that sounded like a restrained chuckle. He took a step forward and you immediately recognized the intruder.

“You again.”

“Is that going to be your reaction every time we come upon each other now?” he asked, a hook in his brow that resembled something of humor, though it felt very much disingenuous.

The soldier from the train station and canal was dressed sharply tonight compared to the last time you’d seen him — suit with the unmistakable pin stripe shirt and white collar buttoned to the top, vest over top and under a gray suit jacket. A pocket watch chain decorated the front of his vest and on top of his head stood a newsies cap, though you swore the edge of it shined a little as he moved into the light more.

You cleared your throat and matched his pseudo-mirth with a fake smile of your own before bending forward to pick back up the broom. “Last call was an hour ago.”

“My meeting with Harry ran long, he said you’d still be here for just one more drink,” he replied, finally moving into the main room and pulling out a bar stool. “Said you wouldn’t mind.”

“Hmm, very presumptuous of Harry, eh?”

But still, you leaned the broom against the wall and circled the bar to stand in front of the stranger. Under the light more, you could see his face the clearest for the first time since the train station.

God, he really was bloody handsome. In the weeks since you’d seen him by the Cut, you could tell his skin had livened up some, the color slightly tanner with a touch of pink in the cheeks. And the eyes — damn those eyes.

“What’ll it be?”

He watched you watch him, and you knew he was doing the same with you. “Whiskey, please.”

You turned around to look at the bottles. Part of you wanted to go for the Scotch. It was usually the higher-end choice, when the men really wanted to splurge or impress their mates. And he did look quite put together and nice.

But there was something deeper, something rustic and genuine that made your hand pause, then move to the other bottle.

“Irish whiskey,” he rose his brow while you poured. “A good barmaid usually asks for preference.”

“Who said I was a good barmaid?” you asked, half facetiously and half still a little bitter that this man was keeping you from your lock-up. “If you don’t want it, I’ll take it and get you something else—“

“No, that’s fine. Just don’t like people makin’ assumptions.”

“It was a lucky guess. Fifty-fifty shot.”

He rose his brow and considered you, “Is it, though?”

You hummed, a smirk threatening the muscles in your cheeks. Part of you thought he was egging you, but another part felt the question was serious. Chancing it, you decided to answer him seriously. “Sales of Irish over Scotch Whiskey put the odds more at a four-to-one shot, actually. But next time, I’ll ask.”

He held your gaze for a moment at your response, unreadable in his expression until he rose the drink up and gave it a sniff before putting the glass to his lips. “Hmm.” You caught a quick rise in the corner of his lips. “Harry said, by the way.”

“Said what?”

“When you quipped about who said you were a good barmaid. Harry said. Also said you’ve got the place running like a well oiled machine. Said you were like an angel dropped down from heaven.”

“Well that’s far too kind of him to say,” you found yourself actually blushing from his words. Not that Harry wasn’t verbally appreciative of the effort you put into your job, but knowing he’d been bragging about you made you feel quite proud.

“You fuckin’ him?”

Your smile immediately hardened.

Shaking your head, you brought your hand to your face and pressed your fingers into your temple.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” you asked, this time calmer than you had at the canal, but still equally annoyed. “Have you no manners, or do you just go around asking everyone you’ve barely met if they’re a whore or fucking around? Or am I just lucky, yeah?”

Again, he was unfazed at your frustrations to his personal questions, instead choosing the moment to take a second sip of his drink.

“Well?”

“No,” you answered sternly. “Heaven forbid a woman actually be recognized for being good at something without the idea that she only received it because she was sleeping with the boss.”

He exhaled at that, pulling out a cigarette box and choosing one. He brought it to his lips and ran it back and forth between them.

“Well, Polly also said you were smart. Quite good with books and numbers, too. Wouldn’t assume you’re fuckin’ her as well, eh?”

You paused at that, your eyes jumping from his lips to his eyes immediately. Not only had you not expected this stranger to mention Polly, but especially your secret employment.

Who was this guy? Angry better? Family member? You had no idea but you knew you had to play it cool. People around town knew you were friends with Ada and had spent time in her home around her aunt and younger brother, so you tried to play the dumb card.

“And why would Ada’s aunt know anything about my intelligence?” you asked as nonchalantly as you could muster, shrugging your shoulders to emphasize.

“Since I asked her who the hells handwriting was in our family ledgers,” he replied without a beat, lighting his cigarette.

He took a long drag as you held his gaze, taking in the new information you just received.

The man before you, the one you locked eyes with at first sight and had dreams and visions of, who you’d witnessed throw his war medals into the canal, had to be one of Ada’s brothers.

What were the fucking odds. The reality of it made you want to laugh, though you kept your composure before finally speaking again.

“No.”

He rose his brow, “No?”

“No, I’m not sleeping with Polly either,” you replied with just a serious a face as you had before.

That seemed to genuinely break his resolve for the first time since you’d unofficially met the Shelby brother. He actually chuckled, a real one, paired with a drop of his head as he shook it before meeting your eyes again.

“Pol’s pretty insistent of your employment remaining,” he said, back to business but the air felt a twing lighter between you.

You rose your brow, crossing your arms. “So what is this, an interview or interrogation?”

“Depends on your answers to my questions.”

You held his gaze for a moment, a weird and mischievous drive began to pull at your gut. It was weird. The logical side of you was screaming for you to be careful. That this man was dangerous and you needed to run as far from him as you could. But another side of you felt completely safe. It was the same side that hadn’t been afraid down by the Cut, and it was the same side that you knew would absolutely get you killed in a horror movie.

But right now, you decided to lean into that side, mostly out of curiosity and intrigue. And it had absolutely nothing to do with how attractive you found him. Not at all.

Reaching under the bar, you grabbed a matching glass and set it in front of you, filling it with a shot of the Irish Whisky.

“Fancy a drinking game?” you asked, holding up the bottle for emphasis.

His brow creased at your change in subject, obviously perplexed. You smiled before downing the shot and then refilling the cup, filling his own empty glass as well with an equal amount.

“There, I’ve caught up. It’s a game we used to play called Twenty Questions, but the adult version. We each take turns asking questions. You have to answer honestly — if you decide to not answer, you have to take a shot. Now, you have to also answer your own question before the next person’s turn begins, and if you can’t answer your own question or won’t answer, you have to take a shot. Once we hit 20, game ends and no more questions. Interrogation and interview over.”

He listened intently to your game rules, picking up the glass and giving the liquid a stir. “What’s to stop me from not answering any of the questions?”

“Alcohol poisoning,” you quipped.

“And what’s to stop either of us from lying?”

“A handshake, vowing to the honesty of the sacred game of Twenty Questions,” you said seriously, reaching over the bar to offer your hand.

He contemplated, then lifted his hand off the bar to shake. His hand was calloused and tough — you could feel old blisters and cuts hardening as they healed and wondered how much of that was leftover from the war. Lingering for a second longer than socially appropriate, you felt his thumb move against the back of your hand, and a familiar chill ran up your back.

“Agreed,” he finally said, his voice the same kind of deep that reminded you of his parting words to you down at the Cut.

You cleared your throat as your hands finally separated. “Now, since you already asked such a personal question and got an honest answer, I think it qualifies as your first question.”

He rose his brow, amused before removing his hat and leaning back in his chair to get more comfortable. You heard the light tap of something metal hitting the bar top coming from the hat, but his amused exhale kept you from thinking too long on it. “Fine. And I’ll reciprocate by answering honestly that I, as well, am not fucking Harry, nor Polly.”

That actually made you chuckle, the first shot of the whiskey helping to thaw even more of the ice between the two of you.

“Fair enough.” You tilted your head as you decided on your own first question. You hated wasting a question like this, but something inside you needed to know sooner than later. You leaned against the bar on your arms, “I’m aware this is a throw away question, but I’ve gotta know — which Shelby brother exactly are you, then?”

“Thomas. But everyone calls me Tommy.”

The middle of Ada’s three older brothers. You recognized the name from the little bit that Ada and Polly talked of him.

Arthur was the oldest of the Shelby siblings. From what you gathered, he was a bit of a hot head, but Ada swore he was just a big softy at the end of the day.

John was the sibling between Thomas and Ada. You mostly heard his name in reference to his family, apparently the only of the Shelby siblings to be married or have kids so far.

Thomas you hadn’t heard much of outside of the business. His name was brought up in husher tones, often in reference to how a business decision would be handled or a ‘how would Tommy think?’ strategy discussion. And while you were pretty sure it was Arthur who was considered the head of the family business, you got the impression that Tommy ran a lot of the show behind the scenes.

It piqued your curiosity further.

“Nice to properly meet you, Tommy. I’m Y/N, which I’m sure you already knew.”

“Aye, your name is one I’ve heard a lot since we came back,” he said amused, pointing his cigarette at you. “But it was just this last week that I knew who the name belonged to after coming into the pub.”

You weren’t sure if he’d meant to or not, but he’d given you a bit of free information there.

He’d been watching you for at least a week now.

You desperately wanted to ask more, but it wasn’t your turn. After a moment pause, you gestured for him to go.

He cleared his throat, his back straightening some in his chair as he began. “You’re not from around here. I’ve asked around, and aside from Ada, Polly, Harry, and your land lady, Mrs. Tully, no one knows who you are. No one knows where you’ve come from. No one knows why you’re here. No one knows anythin’. I find that a bit odd.”

You rose a brow, “Those aren’t questions.”

He exhaled through his nose. “Where are you from, Y/N? And what exactly are you doin’ here?”

“That’s two questions,” you quipped in a poor effort to deflect some of the more serious energy Tommy had just thrown at you.

You contemplated how to play this. You could take a shot and pray he’d respect the rules of the game. But part of you believed he would press on it, this being one of the main reasons he was finally confronting you tonight after having watched you for a while. Not answering would be highly suspicious, and could jeopardize your chance to work with the Shelby’s again.

Surprising yourself, you realized in that moment that you actually did want to keep working at the gambling house. You thought for sure that given the opportunity, you’d have preferred to avoid the less-than-legal employment to keep your head down and avoid the attention to yourself. But now, all you wanted to do was make a good impression on Thomas Shelby so you could get back in that house and spend time with Ada and Polly… and potentially new Shelby members.

So you definitely had to answer, and you knew you couldn’t lie. You could try, but you had a feeling he’d be able to read you like a book. Plus, part of you didn’t want to lie to him. But you were trying to ignore that particular feeling at the moment.

“I was born here, actually, in Birmingham,” you began. His brow hooked at that bit of information, obviously trying to decipher if he’d ever run into you before. “My parents didn’t stay long, they moved to London and got married. Moved around a lot after that before settling in America for my father’s employment. And now I’m back here. And honestly, I don’t know what I’m doing here. I thought I’d have it figured out by now but I don’t, so my plans currently include staying alive and making a living, and possibly trying to find my way back.”

Your gaze dropped to your hands at your last comment, afraid that making eye contact with him at that moment would cause the tears the prick. And doing that would make you look weak — something you definitely didn’t want, especially right now, in front of him.

Tommy watched you as you answered. You could tell he was watching for any hint of a lie or deceit. After a moment, he hummed and you took that as an acceptance.

“What about you?” you asked, testing the waters a bit.

He took another drag before leaning back in his chair, shoulders dropping slightly. “I have big plans for this family that go beyond this town I’ve spent my life in. And from what I can tell, Birmingham is no place for a girl like you.”

You rose your brow, careful not to say any question out loud and accidentally waste a turn when you could instead silently try to egg him on.

He didn’t take the bait, instead forcing you to take his.

“I guess you’ve learned quite a bit after watching me for weeks now. What exactly have you been watching me for?”

He took another drag. “I was quite angry with a non-family member being involved in our business and with Polly for allowing it. Even if you were supposedly friends with Ada, we have rules.”

He pulled out a piece of paper with rows of names.

“Then she gave me this, and said that this Y/N had uncovered all these people who were stealin’ money or taking advantage of us in some way or ‘nother. She claimed you’d done it without even knowing who they were, just by identifying pattern discrepancies in our books.”

You dropped your head shyly, feeling slightly guilty that your work could lead to someone getting hurt.

“Pol wants to continue your employment, but I wasn’t sold completely on if we could trust you. So I asked around, finally finding you here, workin’ for Harry.” He paused, waiting for your eyes to meet back up with his. He held your gaze as you waited for him to continue. “And I watched you. Watchin’ to see if you were untrustworthy. Watchin’ to see what you got up to when no one was watchin’.”

The revelation that you’d been watched for at least a week now without you knowing made you angry, feeling violated and disrespected, and slightly fearful that you’d actually done something to out yourself.

“And what exactly have you learned?” you asked, deciding to just rip the bandaid now.

Tommy looked down at his drink and for a moment you thought he was going to pass on the answer. He picked up the glass and gave the liquid a swirl before setting it back down.

“Nothing I hadn’t already learned from that night by the Cut,” he replied, the answer an unexpected one. “You’re strong, and put on an air of fearlessness even if a lot of it is a defense. It’s probably what Ada likes most about you,” he smiled slightly at the mention of his sister. “I’ve been impressed with the way you’ve handled this lot,” he gestured around the empty pub. “I’ve seen the same strength and fearlessness in a lot of men on my payroll. But you’re careful, and obviously smart, a combination that we don’t see much ‘round here. You think before you say anything and you don’t give much of yourself away.”

“You seem to do the same thing,” you found yourself saying without thinking, trying not to laugh at the irony when you realized. You back-tracked a little to keep from sticking your foot farther in your mouth. “At least, from the little bit I’ve interacted with you. Though I haven’t been a grade-A stalker about it and watched you when you thought you were alone.”

He smiled at that, though you could tell he was trying to keep from doing it. You wondered if he was going to apologize, but instead continued. “You’re more carefree when you’re alone. I particularly liked the song you sang the other night about dancing.”

Your eyes widened at the realization that Tommy had seen you sing and dance around the pub to ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ by Whitney Houston. That was on a particular night that you took a few shots after a very hard day of work, so your inhibitions were completely out of the picture for that performance.

“Oh god,” you grimaced, lifting your hand over your face as you felt your cheeks burn. “Well, now I’ve been sufficiently scarred and will probably never do anything like that again, even if I believe I’m alone. I appreciate that you tried to spare me further embarrassment by finally revealing yourself tonight, though.”

Tommy shook his head, a short exhale of air through his nose that sounded of amusement without being a full laugh. “Actually, that performance is what made me want to finally meet you, properly. It’s hard to find you threatening after that. Though I couldn’t resist waiting to hear the performance for tonight. An interesting one, it seemed.” He dropped his eyes from yours to his hands, the first time he’d broken the hold before you since he’d sat down. Clearing his throat a little, he shifted in his seat as he asked his next question. “Will you sing the rest of the song for me?”

You were surprised by his request. Outside of singing class as a kid and karaoke nights in college, you rarely ever sang in front of people. Especially to just one person.

Feeling impulsive and slightly bold from the shot, you made your decision. Grabbing your glass, you threw back the liquid.

“Hmm, I take that as a no,” he mused, and you swore you heard a hint of disappointment.

Clearing your throat from the sting of the liquor, you chuckled. “I just haven’t sang in front of people that sober in a long time — I needed a little more liquid courage.”

His brow rose in surprise, meeting your eyes again before you looked toward the piano in the back of the room. Singing without music just felt strange. Luckily, you remembered enough from your piano days to feel confident in duplicating a simple Hozier tune from the song. Despite yourself and the two shots of whiskey, you felt your hands begin to shake slightly as you rounded the bar and walked toward the piano. Tommy watched you in interest as you did so.

“Fuck,” you cursed under your breath as you sat down. You shook your head and arms, mostly talking to yourself as you continued out loud. “What the hell, right? Not like you haven’t already heard me sing all week, eh?”

Testing the piano, you started to imitate the guitar cord progression of ‘Like Real People Do’ to the best of your memory. You tried to remind yourself that Tommy had never heard the song, and would never hear the song in his lifetime, so it didn’t matter how badly you fucked this up. It just had to sound decent enough to pass.

Taking a deep breath, you began to sing.

“I had a thought, dear, however scary. About that night, the bugs and the dirt.

Why were you digging? What did you bury, before those hands pulled me from the earth?

I will not ask you where you came from, I will not ask and neither should you.

Honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips, we should just kiss like real people do.”

You didn’t dare try to duplicate the ethereal choir part of the song, knowing the limitations of your own range, instead letting the piano sing that part for you before jumping into the next verse.

“I knew that look, dear, eyes always seeking. Was there someone that dug long ago.

So I will not ask you why you were creeping. In some sad way, I already know.

So I will not ask you where you came from, I will not ask and neither would you.

Honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips, we should just kiss like real people do.”

The piano, while a bit rusty, sounded pretty good as you played out the instrumental solo one more time before wrapping up with the chorus again. You tried your damndest not to think too hard on how eerie the lyrics seemed to fit in with your current situation.

“I could not ask you where you came from, I could not ask and neither could you.

Honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips, we could just kiss like real people do.”

You played out the final tune, your fingers slipping from the keys before taking another deep breath and turning around, braving to see what he thought.

You could tell from his eyes that he hadn’t taken them off you since you sat down, the depths of them somehow even brighter in color than they had been before. You noticed his Adam’s apple bob before he lifted his drink. “I haven’t heard singing like that since before the war,” he said softly, then slowly emptied his glass. He cleared his throat before gesturing back to the bar. “Was your turn now, I believe.”

>> next chapter << chapter masterlist

#peaky blinders #tommy shelby #thomas shelby #tommy shelby x reader #tommy shelby x oc #thomas shelby x reader #thomas shelby x oc #peaky blinder imagine #peaky blinder fanfic #fanfic #mine #time after time

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gurokiitty · 5 days

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is it okay if i request Strade x Reader who age regresses headcanons?

{ strade x gn! reader }

warnings/tags: generally SFW, age regression, mentions of psychological and emotional abuse.

he would initially be very observant, noticing the changes in your behaviour and demeanour without fully understanding what's happening.

his curiosity might drive him to closely monitor these regressions, trying to discern triggers that cause these shifts. he'd start to recognize the emerging pattern, the way your eyes glaze slightly and your shoulders hunch as if bracing against an imminent force.

though he doesn't quite understand it, he senses it’s some kind of defence or coping strategy— a psychological retreat from the overwhelming pressures he imposes.

the thought of pushing you to that edge clearly feeds his ego; it swells within him, a prideful bloom, and he finds your heightened vulnerability oddly endearing, almost charming in its rawness.

he might even find a sort of dark entertainment in watching the crescendo of your emotions, the tremble in your voice, and the palpable increase in your fear.

he begins to anticipate these regressions, strategically nudging you over the brink time and again, until you're so battered, so utterly terrified, that you must revert to that pure, innocent state.

he may even begin manipulating the environment to trigger you... this could include altering the level of light, sound, or even the room's temperature, and observing how each change impacts your behaviour.

if he finds your regressed state easier to manage or somehow beneficial, he might subtly soften his approach, adopting a gentler, almost soothing tone and simpler language to maintain your delicate condition as long as possible, as though preserving the fragility of a rare, beautiful but broken artifact.

he'd likely exploit your vulnerability and emotionally manipulate you by creating scenarios that deepen your dependency or fear, thus reinforcing the dynamic in his favour.

if the regression interferes with his other motivations or desires, he may grow impatient or frustrated. this conflict could lead to unpredictable behaviour on his part, oscillating between indulgence and irritation.

yet, he always takes pleasure in unsettling you when you're regressed, watching each nuanced reaction—every flinch, every whimper— and cataloging them with keen interest.

he might use mocking or teasing as a way to assert control or provoke a reaction, especially if he finds your state intriguing or amusing in some way. this could involve using pet names or speaking in a patronizing tone to reinforce the regression.

if you tend to cry or scream when regressed, he’d playfully call you his "kleine heulsuse,", his voice laced with faux sweetness.

he'd also purposefully scare you to make you more reactive, delighting in each sign of your unravelling.

he’d set out each of his tools before you, introducing them as if you were seeing them for the first time (though their purpose was grimly familiar). he revels in explaining his favourites, detailing their uses with morbid enthusiasm and in vivid, graphic detail.

when you come back around, he'd go at you full force, relishing the slow deterioration of your psyche. it's as if your temporary escape into regression only serves to invigorate him.

and because he finds these physiological dynamics so fascinating, your coping mechanism—the desperate clutching at the straws of your old self—may end up buying you a little time.

#sorry if this is cringe #i dont know much about age regression #but i had fun writing this :)#tysm for the request anon!#btd #btd strade #strade x reader #btd x reader #headcanons #anon requests

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gin-juice-tonic · 7 months

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convinced that you were somehow secretly alive in the 60s/70s. what sort of secret historical resources and/or time machines are you using to expand your knowledge of decades past

Ha ha, I dont feel I do a particularly great job, but I always find myself getting into googling sprees when I just wanted to post about something simple. I'm always checking if x thing was invented yet, or popularized yet, and I end up learning a lot of new things... So I would say the best way to expand your knowledge is to ask a question about One thing, and let the research take you around in circles to answers you didnt ask for.

I talked more under here but it got long. Im putting it under a read more and bolding key words like an ace attorney game.

As for specific resources I've looked at... hm... I've gone through a lot of the old sears catalogs. There's websites out there that have ones dating all the way back from 1940 to 2017. That can give you ideas about (some) styles of clothes and furniture popular at the time. There's also websites dedicated to explaining certain decades of american fashion. Sometimes I read old popular science magazines, mainly because google books has every single one of them archived and available to read for free...

Youtube has a lot of videos of old advertisements, those are good ways to both get into some pop culture and see societal attitudes. I've watched a lot of infomercials and employee training videos for stan in particular lol. If you have specific places you want to know about you can search for videos of them. Tourism videos work well if its a famous area, if not some people upload their home movies onto youtube as well.

If you really want to, you can read books (or skim books) that were written, or had been popular to read around the time. Or advice/guide books for specific occupations. Biographies of people of different ages are great as well to learn about what life was like more in a daily way...

This is long, so I'm just going to list some things now. Blogs dedicated to histories of certain things (music, sports, gay history, 5 string banjos, columbo, whatever!), TV shows and Movies from the time period you were interested in, old comics, redditors who want to post old photos of their favorite old hangouts, and lastly, you could also just talk to older people. I've bothered my parents asking about disco, I've bothered asking my grandma about pads in the 1950s. Most people like to reminisce or complain about things from their youth lol...

oh. And I almost forgot. I've used Cassell's Dictionary of Slang a few times. Usually just to check if a phrase that I want to use existed yet. But then in the course of my search I end up finding something I think is funny

#um #i hope that helps #long post

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c-e-d-dreamer · 1 year

Text

Falling For Your Fools Gold: Chapter 9

A/N: I have to say, this was one of my favorite chapters to write for this fic! It was just so fun, and truly felt like pirates vibes through and through. So, I hope everyone enjoys! :) TW: implied human trafficking and violence/murder/blood

Chapter Masterlist // Previous Part // Next Part

Nesta’s head pounds, a steady beat that throbs from her temples all the way to the back of her skull. She swears she can feel the thrum of it all the way down to her toes, in the tips of her fingers. Her whole body seems to ache, deep in the muscles, leaving her limbs feeling heavy. Between the pain and the way her stomach seems to lurch every other second, Nesta fears that she’s going to be sick.

She tries to focus on her surroundings, to catalog everything. It takes her a moment too long to recognize the rock of a ship beneath her. When did she get aboard again? She can’t remember returning to the docks and the ship. And yet, she can practically taste the sea air on her tongue, the salty quality to it. But there’s something different about it, something that doesn’t hold that familiarity, that grounding ability of the sea breeze she’s grown used to. It’s more damp somehow, the way it settles across her skin, almost foul.

Slowly, carefully, Nesta flexes her fingers, but it’s not the soft blankets that cover the bed in the captain’s cabin she expects beneath her, it’s wood. With a soft groan, she tries to sit up, but her stomach gives another betraying lurch. She scrabbles for purchase with her hand, desperate to steady herself, her other hand grasping at her still pounding head. She tries to breathe through the pain, through the onslaught of sickness, but that foul stench seems to become more potent with every inhale, cloying over her skin and settling like a bad taste at the back of her throat.

She blinks open her eyes, bracing and preparing for cutting sunlight, but all she’s greeted by is cold, damp darkness. It takes a few more blinks for her eyes to fully adjust. She takes in the oil lantern hanging from the ceiling a few feet away from her, the barrels stacked and pressed up against the far wall. But most importantly, she takes in the metal bars surrounding her.

A brig.

She’s in the brig of a ship.

“Welcome back to the world of the living.”

Nesta snaps her attention to the right. Cresseida is curled up on the floor, Emerie’s head cradled in her lap, the bookstore owner still unconscious. Cresseida already has a bruise forming on her cheek, a scab on her bottom lip proof of it being split earlier. It’s a stark reminder of what happened, of the way she fought back. All of the memories of the men in the alleyway flood back to the front of Nesta’s mind, and this time when her stomach lurches, it has nothing to do with the rocking of the ship they’re on. Instinctually, her hand flies to her belt, to her sword there—

“They already took it,” Cresseida offers quietly, her tone almost defeated. She runs a hand through Emerie’s hair, though who exactly the gesture is meant to soothe, Nesta isn’t sure.

Nesta swallows hard, needing another moment before she finds her voice again. “How long was I out?”

“A few hours. You all were unconscious when they brought you in,” another voice answers.

Nesta turns to the left, surprised to find another woman in the brig with them. Her red hair hangs around her shoulders and face, almost obscuring a pair of teal eyes and freckled cheeks. She has her knees curled up to her chest, but she raises her head enough to offer Nesta a small, tentative smile.

“I’m Gwyn,” the woman tells them.

“How long have you been here?” Cresseida asks, her eyes dancing around their surroundings. “Wherever here is.”

“A couple of days I think? It’s hard to tell. I mostly use whenever someone throws me some bread down here as an indicator.”

“Any idea where they’re taking us?” Nesta dares to ask, a question she’s sure is weighing on them all.

“Nowhere good,” Emerie answers, finally awake and pushing up from Cresseida’s lap to sit up properly. “I’ve heard stories about men like these, taking women to Ironcrest to be sold.”

“Sold?” Gwyn whispers, her voice small and horrified.

“I’m not going to let that happen,” Nesta assures them, looking around at the women here with her. “I’m going to get us out of this.”

“And how exactly are you going to do that?” Cresseida asks, raising an expectant eyebrow and looking pointedly down at Nesta’s empty belt, at the sword now missing there.

Nesta can’t help her smirk. She lifts her skirts up and reaches down into her boot, her fingers curling around the cool hilt of her dagger. Using the obvious to keep what’s hidden worked. Perhaps, she’ll have to thank Cassian for that advice after all. If she ever gets to see the pirate captain again. Even if they make it out of this, Nesta has no idea how she’d ever be able to find him and his crew, how she’d navigate back to Windhaven or wherever they may be.

But she can’t worry about that right now.

Nesta pulls her dagger free, brandishing it for the other women to see. She staggers up to her feet and walks over to the door of their cell, reaching a hand outside the bars until she finds the iron of the lock. She frowns as she feels around, trying to get an understanding of the mechanism.

“Give me one of the pins from your hair,” Emerie speaks up from behind Nesta, having gotten to her feet as well.

Nesta nods, reaching up into her hair and pulling the pins out. Her braid untwists and falls down her back, but she hands over the pins and her dagger to Emerie. Emerie steps forward and reaches around to the lock. It takes a few moments of her fiddling, but then the distinct sound of the lock giving way echoes through the space around them.

Nesta pushes open the door, careful to not make too much noise. “I’ll go first to make sure it’s clear, okay?”

When the other women nod their understanding, Nesta takes her dagger back from Emerie. She steps completely out of the cell and makes her way toward the door to the room the brig is in. She pauses, pressing her ear to the wood and listening for any hint of someone on the other side. As the seconds tick by with no sound that Nesta can hear, she pulls the door open enough for her to peek out.

She spots a man sitting atop a barrel further down from the door, and with a quiet gasp she pulls back and out of sight again. She holds her breath, waiting for the sound of footsteps, of shouts, but they never come, just the drip of water from the ceiling and the slosh of the waves against the hull. Tentatively, Nesta leans back out the door again, noticing the man’s back is to her, still blissfully unaware of her presence.

Nesta opens the door wider, taking a small step outside and then another. Every step closer has her heart thundering between her ribs, her chest starting to heave with every deep breath she tries to squeeze through her lungs. She readjusts her grip on her dagger, flexing and unflexing her fingers and praying it doesn’t fall to the ground thanks to her sweaty palm.

A heavy lurch of the ship has Nesta losing her balance and sends her stumbling into the wall. She’s unable to hold in her surprised grunt at being jostled, and the man’s head snaps around at the sound. A moment passes where the two just stare at each other, the man frowning, but then he’s jumping to his feet.

“What the fuck?” the man declares, already reaching toward the sword hanging from his belt. “How did you get out here?”

It’s now or never Nesta realizes.

She rushes forward, her momentum causing her and the man to tumble toward the ground before he can pull his sword from the scabbard. The advantage doesn’t last for long, though. The man certainly has size on his side, and he overpowers Nesta quickly, pinning her down against the wood. Nesta squirms and writhes until she’s able to get a hand free. She uses the heel of her now free hand and drives it straight up against the man’s nose until she feels a distinct crunch, until blood starts to drip down and onto her cheek.

The man howls in pain, rearing back from her. It gives Nesta the chance to roll away and hop back to her feet. The man finally lifts his head again to meet her gaze, and the rage burning across his expression is clear. He clambers to his own feet, lunging toward Nesta, but she’s quicker, dodging under his outstretched arms and landing a punch to his side.

The man stumbles from the blow, his face shifting from anger to bewilderment. “You’re a woman. Where’d you learn to fight?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Nesta snaps, bending low enough that she can sweep the man’s feet out from under him.

The man’s hand fists into the skirts of Nesta’s dress, taking her down with him, but this time, she falls on top of him, both of her hands free. She brings her dagger to the man’s neck, pressing it firmly in both a threat and a promise. It does the trick, keeping him pinned to the ground. His eyes drop down to where the metal is poised against his skin, brows furrowing and jaw slackening like he can’t believe what’s happening, can’t quite comprehend this turn of events. The expression has sick satisfaction curling deep in Nesta’s gut.

“Didn’t you know?” Nesta asks innocently, a smirk tugging across her face. “There’s no such thing as a fair fight, especially with a pirate.”

Nesta pulls back her hand and the dagger just long enough that she can gain momentum, slicing the blade across the man’s throat in a thick, deep line. Blood pours from the wound, pooling beneath the man and seeping into the wood, while he splutters and chokes. And then the man stops moving all together, his eyes open and unseeing.

Nesta’s chest heaves with the exertion of the fight, with the adrenaline. She scrambles off of the man and back to her feet. She waits for the dread to sink in, expects uneasiness at what just occurred to roil her stomach, for her hands to start shaking, but it never comes. Instead, she just feels strong, feels powerful. She thinks back to those times growing up in Adriata, thinks back to the balls and to Tomas, back to all those times she felt weak, but not anymore. She’ll never feel weak again.

She wipes her dagger blade off on her skirts before sliding it back into her boot. She reaches down and pulls free the sword from the now dead man’s scabbard. When she straightens up again, Emerie, Cresseida, and Gwyn are standing in the open doorway leading back into the brig.

“Come on,” Nesta calls to them, gesturing forward with her head.

Nesta keeps the sword raised, poised and ready for any other men they might encounter. They continue down the makeshift hallway and up the ladder to the next level of the ship. It’s there that they run into more of this ship’s crew. Nesta is quick to slice down as many as she can, but Emerie and Cresseida quickly grab the discarded swords to join in.

They fight their way up to the deck, the early dawn light bouncing in golden rays off the black sails pulled taut in the sea breeze overhead. It gives Nesta pause for a moment, the pink and yellow sky, the sun beginning its rise above the horizon. Clearly, she’d been unconscious longer than she realized. How far had they sailed?

The glint of the sun off metal catches Nesta’s attention out of the corner of her eye, drawing her back to reality. She raises her sword just in time for it to clash against another, the clang of metal on metal reverberating all the way down her arm. She turns and shifts her stance, prepared to face off in yet another fight, but her attention is drawn away again, this time by a ship.

A familiar ship.

Pulling up right alongside the current ship she’s on.

A rallying shout echoes out across the waves and morning air, the chaos across the deck skittering to a halt. All eyes turn in the direction of the shout, just in time to watch men swinging across the space between the two ships. Cassian lands firmly on the railing beside Nesta. The sea air ruffles the curls of his hair across his shoulders, the morning light catching on the dark strands and leaving them almost glowing. His eyes burn golden, and when that gaze finds Nesta’s face, that cocksure smirk of his tugs up the left side of his lips. He hops down onto the deck, pulling his sword free with casual ease.

“Miss me, princess?”

Nesta scowls at the dramatics. “What are you doing here?”

“Most would call this rescuing you,” Cassian tells her, turning to take care of the man who’s taken to openly gaping rather than continuing to fight, cutting him down effortlessly.

“I wouldn’t,” Nesta shoots back dryly. “In fact, I had this perfectly under control before you arrived.”

Another man lunges toward them, sword at the ready, and just to prove her point, Nesta steps forward before Cassian can. She disarms the man with a flick of her wrist, swinging her sword in a wide arching motion that slices clean across the man’s chest. He goes stumbling back and falls onto the deck, and Nesta turns back to Cassian, raising an eyebrow pointedly.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Cassian drawls sarcastically. “Should I just take my ship and leave then?”

“Yes,” Nesta seethes, stepping closer to him and baring her teeth.

“And what exactly was your plan after you finished with the crew? Unless you’ve been secretly harboring sailing skills this whole time.”

An awkward throat clear has both their heads snapping in that direction, Baz standing there with a sheepish smile. “Sorry. We uh… we identified the captain of this crew.”

With a nod, Baz turns to walk away, Cassian following behind him. Nesta gives herself a moment to take a steadying breath before following behind them both, glad that Cassian has his back turned to her. Somehow the pirate captain has always been able to read her the way no one else ever has, and Nesta knows that if he had time to study her face closer, he’d see the relief hiding beneath the annoyance there. She still can’t believe that he came for her. There’s certainly no real ties between them, no reason for him not to just sail off without her, continue his business as normal just as he had before raiding Nesta’s father’s ship, but here Cassian and his crew stand.

Cassian and Baz come to a stop near the quarter deck, but to Nesta’s surprise, they both turn back to look at her expectantly. It’s an offering. She continues forward until she is standing in front of a man on his knees, his hands tied behind his back by Cormac. His black hair is haphazard around his face, but it’s his hateful, black eyes that have Nesta’s own anger simmering and rising back to the surface to meet it. She straightens her spine and looks down her nose at this man with cool disdain.

“So you’re the captain that thinks you can just snatch women and sell them?” Nesta demands.

“I don’t have to answer to you, female,” the captain snarls, spitting at Nesta’s feet.

Cormac fists a hand into the captain’s hair and yanks his head back hard. “You’ll regret that.”

The captain pulls his head free from Cormac’s grasp, but the threat has clearly been delivered. Wariness clings to the corner of the captain’s dark eyes, pinches the sides of his mouth. His gaze darts toward Cassian, his expression both expectant and accepting of his fate.

“I don’t know what you’re looking at me for,” Cassian comments, his tone cold. “It’s Lady Death you have to answer to now.”

Four pairs of eyes land back on Nesta, and she realizes with a near silent jolt that she’s Lady Death. The name washes over her and unlocks something deep within her soul, that beast within her purring contently at being recognized, at being named. It’s a key turning in a lock, settles comfortably around her like a second skin.

Nesta steps closer to the ship’s captain. She holds her sword point beneath his chin, lifting until his gaze is forced to meet her own. Whatever he sees on her face finally has his dark eyes widening. She leans down enough that she’s right in his face, that he’ll be able to hear every word that she speaks.

“Most captains get to go down with their ship, but after what you’ve done to me, to my friends, to who knows how many women before us? You don’t deserve that honor. The only thing you deserve is to rot on the ocean floors.”

The captain starts to splutter a response, but Nesta doesn’t even let him get a word out. She pulls her sword back just enough that she can sink the blade into his chest. He lets out a pained grunt, red bubbling up in his mouth and spilling from his lips. Nesta presses deeper still, twisting the hilt of the sword.

“You bitch,” the captain gasps, eyes already glazing over and face paling.

“Burn in hell,” Nesta snarls, finally pulling the sword free and leaving the captain to crumble against the wood of the deck.

“Dispose of him and the rest of the crew,” Cassian orders from behind her.

Baz and Cormac both nod and get to work, but a gentle hand at her elbow has Nesta turning away from them. She comes face to face with Cassian again. His eyebrows are dipped low, concern swimming amongst the greens and golds of his hazel eyes. He reaches into one of the pockets of his jacket, pulling out a handkerchief. Carefully, his hand comes up, sliding the fabric against her cheek, the gentle tenderness of the gesture at odds with the blood that comes away from her face.

“Alright, Nes?” Cassian asks quietly.

“I’m fine,” Nesta assures him, curling her fingers around his wrist and keeping his hand there. “Besides, shouldn’t you be calling me Lady Death now?”

“It seemed a fitting name given the way you took down most of the crew before we even arrived. I guess all that training paid off after all.”

“I was just trying to…”

Nesta trails off. Her friends. She was just trying to protect and help her friends. She turns her head, searching the different faces across the deck until she locates Gwyn, Emerie, and Cresseida standing together. Cresseida has a tear in the sleeve of her dress and Emerie has blood streaked across her own face, but all three of them are alive and whole. The relief at the sight is enough to nearly knock Nesta off her feet.

The four of them have a bond like no other now after what’s happened to them, and Nesta knows she’ll never be able to leave them behind. She thinks about how Emerie and Cresseida may not be able to return to Windhaven again after what’s transpired. She thinks about Cresseida’s wish to travel and see the world. She thinks about that almost too familiar shadow she had recognized in Gwyn’s eyes.

With determination settling with steely resolve in Nesta’s veins, she turns back to Cassian. “My new friends are joining the crew.”

“Are they?” Cassian chuckles lightly. “Last time I checked, it was my ship and my crew.”

“They are joining the crew,” Nesta repeats, enunciating each word slowly so there’s no room for argument.

“And what do I get out of it?”

“What? You get three new crew members.”

Cassian hums unconvinced, tilting his head. “I don’t know if that’s a bargain I want to make.”

Nesta lets out an annoyed huff, rolling her eyes. “What do you want then?”

“A favor.”

“A… favor?”

“Just one, little favor from you that I can use when I decide.”

Nesta worries at her bottom lip with her teeth, glancing toward her friends once more. “Fine. One, single favor. That’s it.”

The smile that pulls across Cassian’s face is almost feline, but he holds out his hand toward Nesta. “It’s a deal then.”

“You’re insufferable,” Nesta mutters with another roll of her eyes, but she slides her hand into Cassian’s regardless.

“Always such a sweet talker, Lady Death,” Cassian teases, bringing their joined hands up to his mouth and pressing a kiss to Nesta’s knuckles.

Nesta scoffs and pulls her hand free from Cassian’s grip, spinning on her heel and heading toward her friends. She pointedly ignores the way Emerie is once again smirking, that knowing glint in the shop owner’s brown eyes. Instead she focuses on Cresseida’s wide eyes, on the way Gwyn is openly gaping.

“Great news. You all can join the crew,” Nesta announces after awkwardly clearing her throat. “Until the next port or however long you’d like.”

“Isn’t that…” Gwyn starts, still staring over Nesta’s shoulder.

“Yep,” Emerie answers smugly.

“And Nesta just—” Cresseida begins to ask.

“Yep.”

Nesta scowls at Emerie. “You’re the worst. Now, come on.”

~ * * * ~

Nesta rings out the remaining water in her hair over the bucket she’s been using to wash herself following the events of the past day. She straightens and grabs her brush, carefully detangling the strands. With each pull of the bristles through her hair, she thinks about being back on this ship, being back in this cabin. She thinks about spending the afternoon introducing Gwyn, Emerie, and Cresseida to everyone on the crew, showing them around, and chatting with Baz about them joining the daily training sessions.

Nesta sets down her brush and begins to separate her hair into three strands, braiding it back and away from her face. The click of the door opening and closing behind her signals Cassian’s arrival. She hears the shuffle of fabric that indicates him removing his jacket, but she finishes her braid, tying the strands together with a ribbon. Once that’s finished, she finally stands up and turns around, watching as Cassian washes the blood from his hands in the water basin.

“So, when can I expect you to cash in your favor?” Nesta asks, stepping toward the bed and the book she had left abandoned there before they went ashore in Windhaven.

“How about right now?” Cassian counters, turning to face her properly.

“Oh? And what—”

Nesta’s words die in the back of her throat as Cassian stalks toward her, backing her up until she’s hitting the edge of the desk. His arms come up, hands settling against the wood either side of her hips, effectively caging her in. Nesta’s breath hitches in her chest at his closeness. Her fingers bury and twist in her skirts, daring him to speak first.

“A kiss,” Cassian tells her, his voice low and rough.

Nesta feels a spark ricochet through her veins at his words, but she keeps her face perfectly neutral, keeps her spine straight, and doesn’t betray even an flicker of how she’s affected. She leans up and presses a quick kiss to Cassian’s cheek before leaning back against the desk again.

“There. Deal done,” Nesta informs him.

“That is not what I meant.”

“But that was a kiss, was it not? Which is exactly what you asked for. And you only get one favor as part of the deal.”

Cassian’s low laugh skitters across Nesta’s skin, leaving goosebumps erupting in its wake. “I should’ve known you’d somehow find a loophole.”

For a moment, neither of them speak, neither of them move, stuck in a staring contest that Nesta is quite confident she is currently losing judging by the way her heart has started to thunder between her ribs. Cassian’s hand comes up between them, gently tugging the ribbon from the ends of Nesta’s hair, fingers carding through the braid until her hair tumbles around her shoulders and down her back. His palm finds her jaw, cradling it there, and despite the rough calluses from years spent at sea, the touch is gentle.

“You tell me to stop, and we stop,” Cassian promises quietly, leaning in so there's only a breath between them.

“What if I say stop right now?” Nesta dares to ask, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Then we stop.”

Nesta knows that she should. Knows that she’s still technically a lady, and this isn’t proper, and by the Cauldron, would her mother be rolling in her grave if she could see Nesta now. But this close together, Nesta can count every gold fleck that makes up the maze of Cassian’s hazel eyes. She can trace the slash through his eyebrow, the pink scar along his cheek. She can feel his own heart galloping away where her hand has settled on his chest, seemingly of its own accord.

And she wants to.

Gods, does she want to, propriety and being a proper lady be damned. Something about Cassian has been drawing her in closer and closer for days now, weeks even. Maybe even since that first day on her father’s ship. Something about the way he never balks from her, never tries to diminish her fire the way she was always taught she should, instead seeming to relish in it, rising to meet it happily. Something about the way he sees her and allows her and her alone to see the true side of him hiding behind the pirate captain's mantle. He gave her a sword and his secrets, and now he’s offering her something more. All Nesta has to do is take it.

Her silence must be answer enough, or perhaps Cassian merely sees something in her expressions, but Nesta doesn’t miss the spark that flares in his eyes, the way the corner of his mouth twitches up in a smirk. His grip tightens on her jaw, just enough that he can tilt her face up more. And then he’s closing the space between them.

Nesta’s eyes flutter closed at the feel of Cassian’s lips pressed against her own. She’s not sure what exactly she was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t the almost delicate slide of their lips together. Too soon it seems Cassian is pulling away, disappointment cold and heavy in Nesta’s gut, but before she can even open her eyes again, Cassian kisses her again.

This time, the kiss is firmer, more insistent. His hands drop to Nesta’s waist, hoisting her up and onto the desk, all without breaking the way their lips slot and slide together. He settles easily into the cradle between her thighs, and Nesta buries her own hands in his hair, tugging until she can feel Cassian’s groan reverberate against her lips, until she can swallow it down. Cassian presses his tongue into her mouth, and Nesta feels like a livewire. Fire licks up her spine and sends her skin sparking, the feel of his lips against her own, of his hands grasping her waist, a delicious brand.

Cassian pulls away again, and Nesta finds herself leaning forward, chasing the kiss. It’s only when Cassian chuckles softly that her eyes snap open again. She’s intoxicated by the glazed over quality of his eyes, the way his pupils are wide and blown out. The way his lips are tinged red and slightly swollen.

“I didn’t say stop,” Nesta says, her voice breathless even to her own ears.

Cassian gently pulls Nesta’s hands free from his hair, pressing a kiss to the pulse point of each wrist. “Another time.”

It’s a promise, a new bargain, and one that Nesta finds herself itching to collect.

—

Updated Taglist (let me know if you’d like to be added): @moodymelanist @nesquik-arccheron @sv0430 @talkfantasytome @bookstantrash @eirini-thaleia @ubigaia @fromthelibraryofemilyj @luivagr-blog @lifeisntafantasy @superspiritfestival @hiimheresworld @marigold-morelli @sweet-pea1 @emeriethevalkyriegirl @pyxxie @dustjacketmusings @hallway5 @dongjunma @glowing-stick-generation @melonsfantasyworld @isterofimias @goddess-aelin @melphss @theladystardust @a-trifling-matter @blueunoias @kookskoocie @cassiansbigwingspan @unlikelypersonalknight1 @blurredlamplight @hereforthenessian @skaixo @jmoonjones @burningsnowleopard

#nessian #nesta archeron #cassian #acotar #nessian fanfiction #nessian fic #pirates au #my fic

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dangerously-human · 3 months

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Still fighting for my life with tuition benefit stuff, in case anyone was wondering. I would like to submit my request for this semester, but we're still duking it out over last semester because of a problem from over a year ago and I don't want to swing at two hornet nests at once, so. Took every single dollar out of my savings account to pay tuition for this semester and am just praying I can get reimbursed before another rent check needs to go out (and Lord willing, my car won't need massive repairs at inspection this year). I'm doing an actual research study for my mixed methods class this semester, and the professor keeps saying she's fine with giving us an incomplete so we have another year to wrap it up in order to actually get something meaningful out of it. I finally talked to her last night to explain that I cannot afford to take another incomplete and ask how I could do a legitimate study on such a condensed timeline. Thankfully she was understanding and came up with an idea I think will work, since it involves basically just doing the quantitative portion under an existing protocol at work and a qualitative portion that doesn't count as human subjects research, so I don't have to deal with an IRB pissing contest between institutions, nor the debatable ethics of collecting data without compensating people for their time, given that it's unfunded research (and I really can't afford to pay people out of pocket when I'm already paying through the nose to be in this class in the first place). I'm still reworking my research plan, but I do feel a lot better about this in comparison to my plan as of last week, which would have required either submitting to both IRBs (and my work IRB is notorious for having different standards than most, and they/the data lawyers that often end up getting involved move slowly in this kind of situation) or submitting twice to my university IRB, once per phase.

Anyway, dealing with all of this today had me looking at what I really have left to do before I graduate. I'm halfway through the program now, though it feels like I've done way more. After I'm done with this class, which meets my advanced methods requirement (although round 2 of statistics probably did too), I have to eventually go back and take the foundations of the program course that was a scheduling conflict my first semester and somehow hasn't been offered since; another research apprenticeship (I'll probably write another manuscript, ideally one that's already been in progress for a bit at work - if I can get a loan, maybe I can do that this summer with my brief report I'm first authoring); plus two electives, which I was hoping to concentrate on measure design but would also happily do more advanced statistics courses if I'm allowed to take them through the school of psychology (I've tapped out the school of ed on that score). I guess I should ask if I'm allowed to say my job counts as an internship, which from the course catalog it looks like it should, but idk. Theoretically that puts me graduating... fall '25? Maybe? I could go so much faster if it weren't for the financial aspect. I do have to meet with an advisor at some point, but I still don't have one at the moment (again), which really seems like a problem for future me to figure out. But future me before May, because I think I'm still recorded as supposed to graduate this semester, even though it's been clear from the beginning that I was not a full-time student. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

They really do make this grad school thing as complicated as possible, don't they?

#personal #grad life gazette

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sehtoast · 7 months

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From Ashes to Home (Depowered Homelander x OC)

18+

Word Count: 6.6k

Summary: Some ghosts aren't meant to be found, but the case of Homelander's mother is one that deserves to be revealed. He deserves a chance to know what's left of her. Chapter 11 of All of You is Left to Love. Not plot dependent.

Warnings: Smut if you squint, parental death themes, he's finally allowed to grieve. Vought's catalog of inflicted horrors.

OC: Benjamin Colyer (The Boys-verse Spider-Man)

Special thanks to @theonlymanintheskyisme for beta reading <3

Fic Directory

I just… I wish I knew anything about her.

Those words echoed in Ben’s mind for days on end, endlessly looping in that sad, defeated whisper. Somehow, the subject of Homelander’s parentage came up, and, well…

It always was a tender topic.

He hated the way John bit back his tears. The way he hid himself behind an air of indifference lest he let the last pillar of his defenses crumble to dust.

Even now, after all this time, he still struggled to really let it out. But Ben always knew. Could always tell by the twitch of Homelander’s lip, the scrunch of his nose, the way he wouldn’t blink as a way to hold back his tears.

He made a silent promise to find all that he could as he held Homelander that night. Each brush of his hand through his once god-like lover’s hair a vow to find something, anything that could bring him closer to the mother he never knew.

Every day that followed, Ben found himself more and more consumed by ideas on how to find her. Would he have to bribe someone? Money was certainly no worry. Would he have to intimidate people? Most likely, but it wasn’t particularly hard to get the staff in Vital Records to shit their pants.

Would he have to march into Stan’s office and make more demands?

Luckily, being the new head of The Seven came with many perks, even more so for actually being liked by the staff at Vought Tower.

What little information referenced John’s parentage only directly named Soldier Boy, who'd already revealed himself as Homelander’s father. Granted, that information was updated by Homelander himself after it came to light. Prior to that, the line for the father's name had been blank.

Perhaps sperm donor was a better title... He hadn't exactly been father of the year when he tried to go nuclear– much less a decent grandfather for leaving Ryan battered.

Ben admittedly had a chuckle over their shared first name, but he found it incredibly odd that Vought named the mother by a code.

1-G.

Benjamin spent several hours a day in the record center’s library of paper files. Many of them were scheduled to be destroyed after being recreated digitally, but it’d take an army to copy and sort decades of documents. He had plenty of time, and he’d rummage through every filing cabinet in the room if that’s what it would take to find even the slightest scrap of information about John’s mother.

The wall crawler drove himself mad trying to work off that one piece of information.

1-G. A code? A title? A fucking label designation for some petri dish somewhere?

Each night, he went back home to Homelander. Each night, he had to pretend to have been out prowling the streets for miscreants instead of playing librarian. He’d come home with dinner, sit down with Homelander, and pick at his food as each disgusting secret he’d uncovered entangled itself into his waking mind.

“What’s wrong?”

Ben jumped, looking up at Homelander with wide eyes and a piece of spaghetti dangling from his lips.

“That! That right there.” John pointed accusingly with his fork. “You’re not telling me something. What’s going on?”

“Nothin’,” the web-head shook his head. “Just– work’s been a lot lately, y’know? Stan’s a bastard, the team is acting up... Same headache, different day.”

Homelander’s eyes narrowed at him, suspicion nestled deep inside those beautiful blues.

“Bullshit! You’re not eating lately and you’re sure as fuck not talking. Did– Are you mad at me?” John pushed away from the table, standing. “You haven’t said more than five words since you got in.”

“Johnny,” Ben sighed, lowering his head. “I’m not mad, I just… I’m just really caught in my head right now, okay?”

“Right, right.” Homelander rolled his eyes, grabbing his carryout container. “Whatever. Talk to me when you feel like it, I guess. I’ll just give you your space.” Dejected bitterness laced every word.

Ben lacked the steam to chase him to the bedroom and talk some sense into him. Fuck, he could barely do it for himself, let alone John. So, he let the pot simmer. Cleaned up around the house and showered to kill some time before meandering back to their room.

Homelander had shut off all the lights and curled up close to the edge of the bed, blankets obscuring his form. Ben wondered if his love was actually asleep, or just hiding in the only way he knew how anymore.

A pang of guilt hit his heart.

It’d been roughly two weeks since he started rummaging through Vought’s archives, and quite likely two weeks since he’d paid enough attention to Homelander.

Ben eased into bed, curling around Homelander’s ‘sleeping’ form. He didn’t move to pull the covers away, opting instead to let love keep a layer of protection between himself and a source of pain. He knew times like these only stoked the paranoia that one day John would wake to an empty bed and home. That Ben would up and leave him after finding someone better, or realizing he wasn't worth the effort.

Something that would simply never happen.

Benjamin nuzzled close, lips hovering right above John’s covered ear.

“I’m not mad at you…” He began. “I promise, Johnny. I’m not. I just… It’s a lot to explain. I’ve got this… project that I’m working on. It’s really important, but I’m finding so many fucking horrors from Vought in the meantime that I just…”

He breathed a heavy sigh.

“It’s taking a lot out of me. That with everything else I see in a day, and… it’s a lot, y’know?”

Ben paused, waiting to see if Homelander would shuffle out from under the blankets. When he didn’t, Benjamin continued.

“I love you. I’m sorry if I worried you.”

He shifted away from Homelander, opting to give him space instead of smothering him. It took only a few moments for that bundle of blankets to shuffle his way. A hand snaked out from underneath, fingers joining with Ben’s.

The wall crawler shifted onto his side and pulled John closer.

No words were exchanged for the rest of the night. Ben dozed off with ease while Homelander fought against his drowsiness to bask in the moment. The rise and fall of Benjamin’s chest against his head, the steady beats of his heart.

He adored his little spider more than anything in the world. Even the slightest thought of losing Benjamin was enough to send him spiraling into paranoia and rampant imaginings of worst case scenarios. It’d been two years since he lost his powers, and every day he wondered if Ben would finally decide he wasn’t worth keeping around. Every day he had to remind himself that the wall crawler loves him. That he was more than the house pet his alter ego dubbed him as.

Where would he even be without his Benjamin?

Would he even be alive? Would he have made it out of that containment cell? Would he have survived another week of torture before that guard simply killed him?

Would there be a roof over his head, or the promise of regular meals? A warm bed and a devoted soul with whom to share it?

Would he have someone to protect him now that he couldn’t fend for himself?

Every swirling thought made him realize no, he wouldn’t.

He'd still be in the bad room. He'd likely be dead. Starved or beaten to death, surely. Tortured every single day until he succumbed.

But, god above, that only meant it would make sense if Ben grew tired of him - weak mess of a man that he was now.

Despite the storm of what-ifs pulsating in his mind, John dozed off fairly fast once he laid his head upon Ben’s chest. When he woke, his body was enveloped in heat– some areas more than others.

He was on the brink as soon as his eyes fluttered open.

He lifted the covers to peek, and the sight alone of Ben swallowing him triggered his release instantly, leaving him a writhing, panting mess.

“You,” Ben licked the length of his softening shaft, “and I are due for a date, sir. I called off. We have the whole day.”

Benjamin made good on his word, devoting the entire day to Homelander. He’d barely even thought about his little side project while they were out.

The dying warmth of an early September breeze swept around them as the pair passed all sorts of eateries. The openness of the streets in Queens kept Homelander’s nerves at bay, but John still struggled quite a bit with entering crowded spaces– especially stores. The smaller they were, the more his mind would linger on memories of both his childhood cell and the… other one. But, Benjamin’s presence, along with the duty of carrying the grocery basket, made it a smidge less stressful to accomplish their trip.

“Proud of you,” Ben nudged his shoulder as they walked home, each carrying a paper bag of goods. “Seriously. I hope you know how great it is to see you do all this.”

He couldn’t help but grin despite how vulnerable he really felt. He was like an open wound in public. Exposed, waiting for someone to pick at him or throw salt his way. What if someone recognized him?

What if someone realized the shame of his current state, and he was plastered on the screen of every device with internet access?

Hell, probably every newspaper, too.

Homelander Spotted Looking Half Homeless! is what he imagined the headlines would read. Though he began to allow Ben to trim his hair, he still found himself feeling subpar in appearance. Be it the weight he’d gained, or his casual clothing, he just wouldn’t be The Homelander anymore.

Christ, what if someone asked him to use his powers?

He took deep breaths as they turned another corner, counting each step as they made their way closer to home. By the time the front door closed behind them, he’d about reached his breaking point.

Ben, however, wasted no time in distracting him with banter and meal prep duties.

“Don’t cut yourself again,” the web-head warned as he sorted through pots and pans.

“Not my fault,” John countered, hand idly rolling a bell pepper along the length of the cutting board. “You showed me doing it fast, so I went fast.”

“Yes, babe. But I have actual experience with cooking.”

By the time they could leave the rest of the work up to the oven, the pair had made their way to the couch. John’s legs were strewn over Ben’s lap as he watched TV. Benjamin, however, had pulled out his laptop to browse that barebones document he’d found on John’s parentage.

The sight of the Vought logo snagged Homelander’s attention like a moth to a flame.

“Just that project I’m working on.” Ben hummed coolly, praying to whatever gods there may be that John wouldn’t press the issue. “Mostly just paperwork.”

Suddenly, an idea struck him.

“Hey, unrelated...” He began, hoping the little lie would go unnoticed– mostly because he didn’t want to admit to what he’d been doing and get John’s hopes up just to dash them with inevitable disappointment. “I was poking around in the paper archives the other day.”

Make up a new number… He’s definitely seen it before.

“3-F as a name placeholder mean anything to you? Like, is it a code or something?”

John’s brow pinched, and he sat silent for a while, raking through memories of decades of Vought propaganda and genuine fact.

“I think…” He trailed off. “I haven’t seen it in a while, but I’m pretty sure that’s how the first supe trial volunteers were categorized. There weren’t massive amounts of people signing up to get injected with V– if you can imagine.”

Ben quirked a brow as his brain raced to connect the dots.

“It was part of keeping their identities off the record, too. Liabilities and all that. Last I heard, all the files on ‘em were shredded once they got what they were looking for.” he continued, brows pinched. “Some fucked up shit went on there. Why?”

“I, uh…” Ben sighed. “Saw it in place of a name in one of the paper docs I pulled the other night. It’s just been bugging me.”

“Deep rabbit hole there.” John sighed, leaning back. “I couldn’t find anything besides the bullshit when I dug out Soldier Boy's old archives. Same thing when I… tried to find my mom– ‘cept everything on her was long gone. Whoever’s on that paper of yours is probably a ghost by now. Literally and figuratively.”

Ben swallowed thickly. Chances are that this 1-G person is certainly dead by now.

John’s mother was certainly dead by now.

But he wouldn’t jump to conclusions until it was time. Just as Ben was about to remote to his work terminal, the oven timer went off.

“Thank god.” John whined. “Staaaarving!”

Over the following weeks, Ben had become wholly consumed by the motivation to find anything about John’s mother. He’d dug through the paper archives every chance he could, even going as far as enlisting some help, but there was nothing.

Ben began to believe there was no trail to follow when one of the staffers he’d paid to assist emailed him a scan of a very old, yellowed notepad.

Pretty sure I found something, the email read. It’s hazy, but it looks like notes from old trial runs. Found it in a junk folder of blurry scans from one of the old ward doctors. Gonna keep looking for more.

True to her word, the staffer even went and drew an arrow to the section she’d found. Instead of 1-G, this Doctor James Waltz person wrote it as ‘Patient 1-G: Gillman.’ The writing was barely legible under the color of a coffee stain, but it was more than Ben had to go off of mere minutes before.

Gillman.

Ben immediately replied to the staffer, practically begging her to send anything else in that file– or at least give him details on where to find it. Blurry or not, he wanted everything he could get his hands on.

It was the gold mine he’d been looking for.

Despite the poor image quality and faded ink, Ben was able to find significant amounts of information on the initial test subjects for Compound V. He had to dive deep through hundreds of file folders to find anything about them– which left him concluding that someone hid these rather than follow the original order to destroy them.

The name Gillman had been his golden ticket. He’d found the liability waiver she signed, partially torn, left with only ‘illman’ remaining on the line – but still distinctly the same name. Ben cursed the record keeper of that era to hell for adding to his frustration.

It seemed everywhere he looked– old genetics testing records, ability documentation, and experimentation records, she was simply dubbed 1-G. All he wanted– needed was a first name. From there, maybe he could track her through public records beyond Vought, but there was nothing.

Except for the harrowing details in her record, that is. Despite the lack of a first name, Ben was able to piece together patient files with mention of her to create quite a… horrifying picture.

Enough to leave him sick to his stomach.

The Doctor Waltz fella who’d been all too kind and revealed her last name also had been to her what Vogelbaum was to John– if not a thousand times worse.

Downright evil, even.

Not every patient survived the Compound V trials. An exceptionally small number of them made out like kings, sporting powers with zero side effects. They’d received the same strain Soldier Boy was given.

Ben considered the dead to be far luckier than those who landed somewhere in the middle.

The unsuccessful strains of V had one of three outcomes: instant death, powers that killed the wielder shortly afterward, or– in the case of John’s mother– the body survives empowerment, but the mind does not.

His mother was left in a state of rageful madness.

As Benjamin pieced together mangled papers and deciphered blurred writing, he was able to construct a vague idea of what happened to her.

Roughly one day after injection, she’d come back to report malaise, but was written off by the doctors. By the second day, Vought had brought her back and contained her in a special cell.

Patient aggression exceptionally high. Engages with hallucinations. Refuses to eat and will not speak to psychological team. Containment failing, recommend sedation.

Notes following were conveniently lost, but picked up roughly two months later. Only problem being that they were almost entirely illegible from what seemed like water damage.

Because of course they’d be damaged.

What was left of her patient reports painted a devastating picture.

Homelander’s mother became a ward of Vought. She’d been the only subject to lose herself that Vought caught before she could come to harm. Waltz had found her ripe for experimentation after studying her abilities. They’d opted for round the clock sedation.

Keep her docile.

Flight, strength, and laser vision were among the descriptors they used. Damn near identical to Homelander’s abilities– lacking his invulnerability. A modern mind could look at this and realize that, along with Ryan’s inheritance of John’s powers, this meant there did exist a genetic component to the development of superpowers in those injected with V.

That understanding, though, was only a theory for Waltz back then.

–breed a new line of heroes.

Subject tissue sent for testing.

The possibilities … ……. mother of modern supes.

–extraction of eggs–

It didn’t take an exceptionally bright mind to realize what had happened to her. A shiver ran down Ben’s spine as he read more and more.

They’d used her as a fucking incubator for their experimental ‘purebred’ supes. For years, she was kept like cattle– artificially inseminated with sperm from promising supes until they’d written off her ability to carry children. After that, they simply harvested her eggs and used an undisclosed method of growing the fetuses to term.

The list of failed subjects was…

It was far too long.

Before Vogelbaum, there was Waltz.

Vogelbaum was not the father of the method by which John came to exist– but he was the first doctor to achieve a perfect creation.

Waltz had the blood of children on his hands. Infants, toddlers. Children beaten to death in combat tests. Children drowned in aquatic efficiency tests. A new subject every five to ten years, it seemed.

Killed in surgical procedures.

Destroyed by their own powers.

Murdered by a madman’s curiosity.

All of them lacking that one thing that made John the exception that he was.

Invulnerability.

Well, that and DNA infused with Compound V.

Waltz retired before his project saw success, passing on the mantle of monster to Jonah Vogelbaum.

Fuck, Homelander may not have even been Vogelbaum’s first subject…

The last note Waltz ever made on John’s mother was in 1986. A new hire slipped up during an operation on her brain.

She died that same day.

It had been the shock of a lifetime when, upon scrolling the dwindling remainder of Waltz's notes, he stumbled upon a faded polaroid. Though it was hazy, there was no denying what he was seeing.

Laid back in a reclined medical chair was an older woman. Long, gray hair. A gaunt face. Expression void of anything. IV lines leading into her arms reflected the flash of the camera.

If he squinted hard enough to combat the blur, Ben could thoroughly see a resemblance. He'd know that face anywhere– those big blue eyes, high cheekbones, thin lips. The curved bridge of her nose.

God, John looked just like her.

And now?

He’s all that’s left of her.

What they’d done with her remains was a mystery, but Benjamin almost didn’t want to know what more they could have possibly done to the poor woman. He felt sick. Bile burning in his throat as he pressed his face into his hands.

He goes out every day and represents Vought. Represents pure evil under the guise of heroism. Fell in love with one of their seemingly infinite amount of victims…

In the weeks it took him to find the end of her story, Ben would hold John tight every night. He’d stare down at his love’s sleeping form and go back and forth in his mind on whether or not to tell him. The thicker the file, the heavier his guilt. Each printout only made it worse.

Would it hurt him? Certainly.

But, it might also close a chapter in his life that John had been so desperately trying to decipher.

Alternatively, it could make everything infinitely worse.

He knew he had to tell Homelander the truth. The only problem was getting the words to quit sticking in his throat every time he tried.

He could tell there was a strain between them with this recent secrecy of his. Where he’d been so late at night, why he wouldn’t talk about it. He stopped pretending he was swinging around the city and just settled for saying work kept him late.

But how could he tell him?

Hey, I found your mom.

It seemed like a ridiculous statement, especially because he didn’t actually find her– just traces. There was no headstone, no urn of ashes.

There was nothing left of her except yellowed paper and faded ink.

As it happened, the pot boiled over one day. Ben hadn’t even realized how bad things had really gotten until the morning John clung to him in bed, preventing him from leaving.

“Is there someone else..?”

The question had taken him completely by surprise.

“Is that why you can’t tell me what you’ve been doing?” He followed up, voice cracking no matter how hard he tried to hide it. “Where you’ve been…”

“What?” Ben rolled over to face him. “John, I–”

“I’d understand.” Homelander shook his head, avoiding eye contact. Tears leaked freely from the corners of his eyes. The dark circles lining them let Ben know he hadn’t slept at all last night. “I’d hate it– I’d hate it so fucking much… But I’d get it.”

The dwindling of his self worth screamed so loudly in every word.

“No!” Ben gripped him, his own eyes clouding. “Never! No, god no– never!” He pulled him closer, burying his face in Homelander’s chest. “No. No, Johnny.”

He didn’t wait for Homelander to speak before he spilled everything. All of the guilt inside falling off his tongue in stammered confessions.

“I didn’t want to– I…” Benjamin breathed, shaking his head to collect himself. “I didn’t want it to hurt you, I just… Not until I knew it was enough to be worth the hurt.” He moved away to look at John, a hand at his cheek to thumb soothing circles. Wasn't sure if he was doing it more for himself or Homelander. “And even then– fuck…”

Ben took a deep breath.

“I’m… I found your mom– sort of, I mean. Not like I actually found her found her, but what happened to her, at least.”

He gulped when John didn’t reply. Instead, that unwavering, wide blue stare begged him to continue. There was something in his eyes… Fury, perhaps. Fascination– absolutely. But, mostly, fear.

Fear that whatever Benjamin was about to say would reopen a lifelong wound held together with makeshift bandages. A wound that would unravel and gush the second something picked at it.

“I found a paper trail. Buried deep in junk folders where nobody would ever think to find shit that matters. Been a big puzzle to put together but…” Ben sniffled. “I can bring home what I have, but I just… I didn’t want to drop that on you without a final answer– and, god, I didn’t want to risk hurting you either. I wanted to find her for you, but it took so long just to even get her last name and I still don’t even have the first na–”

“What is it?” Homelander demanded, eyes widened as though he were in a frenzy. Perhaps he was. “What’s her name!? Is she alive!?”

“Gillman.” Ben replied instantly, the weight of secrecy falling from his shoulders with every bit he revealed. “Her last name’s Gillman. And… by rights, I guess yours is, too, but… no. No, she’s… she’s gone.”

The realization he’d never know his mother crashed over Homelander in waves so violent Benjamin could physically see it happen. He watched John begin to crumble, gradually unraveling more and more until he choked back quiet sobs.

“S’why I asked you that one night about placeholder names… I should’ve just told you upfront.”

Homelander shuddered. “1-G…”

“Yeah,” Ben pulled him close. Of course he knew that name. “That’s her… I’m so sorry, honey.”

Homelander was fully prepared to find he’d been abandoned by the love of his life. Kept around out of sympathy, but abandoned nonetheless. He’d practically convinced himself entirely of it. He wanted to be angry– furious, even. He wanted to grab Ben by the shoulders and shake him for keeping this hidden, but god.

His mother.

The mere thought of her shattered him, and all he could do was plead.

“Show me. Please, Ben– I need to see…

Benjamin spent the day gathering everything he had, abusing Vought’s unlimited employee printing access to duplicate seemingly endless amounts of paper, piling it all into one big folder. He’d warned John about how ugly this would be. How horrifically they’d treated her.

He didn’t have the heart to tell him about the others just like him…

Benjamin felt almost awful walking through the door that afternoon, shuffling in to find Homelander sitting on the couch, simply staring into space. No TV, no book or phone in hand. Just lost in his own mind, leg bouncing restlessly.

“Hey,” he whispered, drawing his love back to earth.

John shot up from where he sat, making a beeline straight for Benjamin.

The web-head had the file extended for him to grab immediately. Homelander snatched it like a child does a toy they’d been excited to finally receive, though excitement seemed to be replaced with dread.

He looked at it for a time, staring at the dense rubber banded folder as though opening it would unleash a black hole that absorbed the whole world. He was afraid to know.

And Ben knew it, too.

“C’mon,” he rested a supportive hand against Homelander’s shoulder. “We’ll do it together.”

He guided John to the couch, heart clenching at the way his blue eyes never strayed from the folder. As the papers became harder and harder to read, Ben had to help fill in the blanks on smudged words he’d deciphered himself. He had half a mind to tease Homelander about never wearing his glasses, but it was far from an appropriate time for such things.

Homelander’s expression grew grim as he read on, and they’d barely cracked through an inch of paper before Ben was encouraging him to take a break.

John’s breathing was uneven, eyes stinging with tears, teeth clenched in fury. His body was too hot, skin too tight, his head pounded. The audacity of the request sent him over the edge.

“How the fuck do you expect me to stop!?” He roared, snatching Ben’s hand away from the folder. He bit his lip, desperately trying to don his mask to hide his emotions. “What, y-you hand me this and now you want me to– no!”

“Okay,” Ben breathed, hands held up in surrender. “I just don’t want it to be overwhelming, y’know? This took me months to get through, and I know how I felt. You’re getting all this right away, and it’s a lot, and–”

“Shut the fuck up!”

Ben gulped, recognizing a burst of rage that once would’ve triggered a crimson glow in those ocean eyes.

“You don’t get it! You don’t fucking get it!” Homelander grit, teeth bared. His eyes accused Benjamin of betrayal. ”You have a mother. A father. Brothers. You have a family. This is all I get! Just a bunch of goddamn paper! So don’t you dare tell me to fucking stop!”

He expected this, but it never did soften the blow to know it was coming. Benjamin knew damn well Homelander would lash out eventually, emotionally fragile as he was given the situation.

The wall crawler shut his eyes as more abuse flew his way, simply taking it.

The dam would burst as soon as the rage faltered. He could practically time it to the millisecond.

“You– I don’t–” Homelander stumbled over his words, breaths coming in and out erratically as he fought to pretend he wasn’t coming undone at the seams. “Nobody– god fucking damn it! N-No!”

When Ben opened his eyes, it was to the sight of John leaned forward, hiding his face into the folder as he fought the lurch of a deep cry.

“It was never supposed to be like this…”

His own eyes pricked with tears as he watched Homelander break.

“I always…” Homelander’s voice leaked in a tight, throaty whisper. “I used to imagine what I’d do if I ever… ever met her. All I could ever think of was hugging her, but… I couldn’t even picture it because she was never real. I used to think if I did find her, maybe I’d feel okay… Like it’d make up for all these years.”

He nearly flinched when Ben began to rub soothing circles between his shoulder blades.

“I always wondered if she’d be proud of me, you know? Her son is– was The Homelander, after all. She’d have been proud, right..?”

Ben didn’t know how to respond– or if he even should. All he could focus on was the sorrow twisted on Homelander’s face when he finally lifted his head. The tears staining his face. A streak of snot that would’ve humiliated him were he in a clearer state of mind.

"D’you think she would've loved me..?"

Seeing him break like this made Benjamin regret having ever gone looking for Homelander's mother. And yet… somehow this felt right. Watching him finally feel it. Filling in the pages of his missing parentage after so long.

No… he needed this.

"She would've adored you, pumpkin." Ben worked the file from Homelander's grip as one takes meat from a lion that trusts them enough to allow it. Almost immediately, Homelander leaned into him. He ran his fingers through John’s hair, rocking him slightly. “She’d have loved you more than anything in the world.”

He wanted to say more– god he wanted to say so much fucking more… But he couldn’t. Nothing came to mind. Nothing that would’ve dulled the hurt in his love’s heart to make it all easier, anyway. There was one thing, though…

She was never real. The line reminded the wall crawler of what he’d left out of the folder, fearing that it’d shuffle loose and be lost on the swing home. He was about to throw the egg beater into the already boiled-over pot, but this is what needed to be done. One more thing his discoveries could heal with fire-like agony.

"Johnny..?"

Ben slipped his hand free, reaching behind to his back pocket, pulling free a little photo. He'd printed and laminated it before leaving Vought Tower, just to make sure the incoming tears wouldn't stain it.

He handed it over face down, and the look on Homelander's face said he knew what this was.

"This is… That's her." Homelander stared for what seemed like forever. Fingertips danced across the smooth surface as the tears rolled freely down his cheeks. "S'my mom," he rasped over and over again. "My mom…"

"Takes a little squinting on account of the quality," Ben sniffled. "But you look just like her."

Homelander breathed a laugh, finally wiping the mess of tears and snot on his sleeve. In time, his breathing began to even out as his cries tapered off.

"She's so…" John paused, sucking in a deep breath, holding it tight as he took in every detail of her. "She's beautiful."

Ben wrapped an arm around Homelander once more. “Hmm. Like mother like son, huh?”

Homelander looked as though he’d been given the world and had it taken away all at the same time. Perhaps, though, that’s exactly what this was.

In the span of but a few moments, he’d lost her all over again despite never having had her to begin with.

It took some convincing for Ben to finally get Homelander to stop reading and take a break. Help me with dinner, he’d asked once his love finally calmed down.

John seemed worlds away as they worked, not even realizing how he was reacting to what went on inside his mind. Benjamin realized he probably should’ve just let Homelander relax and collect himself.

“Babe,” he murmured, thumbing away a stray tear on his cheek. “That’s not how we salt the pasta.” A joke was all he could muster to try to alleviate something. “You can go sit down or something if you’re still working through it, y’know. You don’t have to–”

“No,” Homelander interrupted. “I’d rather be here.” He reached up to hold Ben’s hand against his cheek, staring back into those chocolatey eyes that always warmed him to his core. “Can you just… I– Give me something that I gotta focus on. C’mon, spoil me a little.”

Used to be that he’d take that offer and sulk. Let his sorrows drown him bit by bit until he was right back at square one - just as miserable as the day he’d lost himself. Ben always encouraged him to channel his negativity into something productive, but he never followed through. Never picked up hobbies beyond reading history books and watching movies.

But now..?

“Chef Johnny,” Ben grinned, proud as could be of his love. “You’re gonna learn to make a mean margherita pasta today.”

He figured he’s changed quite a bit over the years after all.

Homelander struggled to balance his focus against the raging thoughts of his mind. Minding the aromatics sizzling in the pan while flashes of what they’d done to his mother jarred him. Focusing on Ben’s instructions on what to add, what seasonings paired best with the chicken, the gentleness of his love’s touch as he held his hand to show him how to properly rock a knife to cut fresh herbs.

In the back of his head, he saw her. His mother, wired to those machines just as the doctors had done to him. Instead of what he’d always imagined - hugging her - he saw something else. Heard something else as he saw her, felt Ben’s hands on his.

Mom… I made it.

In the weeks following, Benjamin helped him absorb the rest of what happened. Sat with him while he wept over the siblings he’d never know, the grief of knowing he wasn’t the first, the relief of knowing he was - hopefully - the last.

It was a lot. A lot of crying. A lot of anger. Misery. Resentment.

But he worked through it.

The web-head eventually returned to his regular crime fighting antics and balanced his home life once more. In the meantime, he’d commissioned a headstone. There was so little to go off of, and no body to bury, but it felt right to put her to rest in at least some way. This, he kept a secret from Homelander.

It was a surprise for later.

Once the time came that the cemetery notified him that it was in place, Ben nagged Homelander all day to go for a walk. Well, more like a swing.

“C’mon, it’s important!” He whined. “You’ll like it.”

“We can have a date inside, you know.” Homelander huffed. He was perfectly content not suffocating in crowds of people, and he’d like to keep it that way.

“Yeah, but inside doesn’t have what I wanna show you,” Ben stuck his lower lip out. “It’ll be quick. I’ll swing us there. Land in a nice smelly alley. Just a walk across the street, okay?”

Homelander sighed, pushing his glasses up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Fine.”

“Great!” Ben chirped, pressing an enthusiastic kiss to his cheek. “Be ready in a few.”

The swing there was leisurely. It included a stop by a flower shop for roses, which Homelander questioned endlessly.

”You don’t need to buy me flowers,” he feigned a complaint.

”You’ll see.” That was all Ben had to say on the matter before they were back in the air.

He clung to Ben like a leech as they sliced through the air, high enough to avoid being photographed, but low enough that Homelander’s renewed fear of heights didn’t have him on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He focused on the flowers he’d been holding in a death grip. Pressed them against Ben’s back and stared into the petals.

When they finally landed in the promised smelly alleyway, Homelander furrowed his brow. From the path to the sidewalk, he could make out a graveyard.

“Ben?”

His little spider held out a hand without a word, leading him out, across the street, and through the iron gate.

He had an inkling of what was coming, but it felt like something out of a movie. Holding hands with the love of his life, walking through a monument of lives long gone, feeling the autumn breeze gust through the knitting of his sweater.

Homelander practically fell to his knees when they came upon it. His legs wobbled as he approached, flower stems creaking under the grip of his fist. He let his fingers touch the stone, tracing the letters engraved into the face.

Gillman

192?-1986

He hugged it. Didn’t know what overcame him, didn’t even know he’d done it until the cold marble pressed against his cheek. Didn’t even care that it pressed his glasses harshly into his temple.

He hugged his mother.

Homelander didn’t hear the shuffling of leaves under Ben’s shoes, but the hand on his shoulder brought him back to reality.

“Thought she deserved it, y’know?” Ben murmured, thumbing against John’s blue sweater. Part of him worried his lover would’ve been upset - maybe gave him grief over the fact she wasn’t actually in there. ”You deserve this, too.” He pressed a kiss to Homelander’s hair, then stood. “I’ll give you some space…”

Benjamin was ready to go for a stroll until a hand caught him by the sleeve, tugging him back down.

John was silent for a time, simply resting his forehead against the chilled stone, warmed by Benjamin’s arms draped around his neck. Ben figured he was simply thinking it instead of speaking, but then…

“I made it, mom.” With the love of his life embracing him, and his arms around her headstone, he pulled from the depths of his heart.

“I’m home.”

#homelander #depowered homelander #homelander x oc #homelander fanfiction #the boys #antony starr #this took literal weeks to write and plan sjdfhlakshfd

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