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midnight-serendipity · 1 year

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Better than the Fantasy: Chapter Two

Pairing: Jax Teller x Female OC (AU - Older Man, Younger Woman, College Girl, Secret Identity)

Rating M: (Sexual Content, Violence, Swearing, Mentions of Drugs, Mentions of Alcoholism, Mentions of Marital Issues)

Synopsis: Freshly exonerated and newly-minted president, Jax feels out of touch with everything around him, and somewhere amid the hullaballoos, he lands himself in an online site, enticed with the company of a masked stranger, who unknowingly had closer ties to the club than both of them could have ever guessed.

Word count: 5.6k

Chapter Two: Standing at a Crossroad

Standing outside and seeing the unlit hallways of his home from the windows served only a little to dampen Jax’s mood. But it did take a deeper dive as he stepped foot into the foyer. Two years inside and she couldn’t even wait for him to come home. That, and her actions, or rather inactions earlier this day were enough to tell Jax of her feelings for his homecoming. Jesus, it wasn’t even his own doing that got him locked away. But whatever, Jax felt a man deserving to at least spend the night in his own bed on his first day breathing free air again.

He would deal with the repercussions tomorrow. Jax’s face turned a shade grimmer as he stalked towards the bedroom.

Amelia was just about to start on her second flat for her fashion illustration class when she was alerted to an incoming video call. It was quite against her better judgment to accept it, considering there were two tons of schoolwork waiting for her.

But, eh, she knew she’ll wing it.

She tapped the accept button and soon enough her screen was filled with the cheerful face of her auntie. Luann Delaney.

“Hey sweetie pie.” Her waves of golden hair were – just like Amelia’s – gathered in a bun atop her head and she was donned in a large shirt. One of Otto’s, she knew. From the cupboards and the sink behind her, Amelia could tell she was in the kitchen, laptop on the counter.

“Hey Lu,” she adjusted her frames with her thumb and middle finger.

“School stuff?”

“Hmm,” she hummed, after taking a sip from her tumbler. “I miss you,” Amelia grinned.

“Oh, I miss you too, love bug.”

She snorted. Luann had quite the repertoire of pet names for her. Sweetie pie and love bug were the only two that grew up with her. She didn’t mind.

Looking at Luann, it always hit Amelia how vast the differences lay between her and her sister, Elena. Their looks were only the tip of the iceberg – where Luann was blonde and resembled their dad, Elena was a brunette and the exact replica of their mom. And she knew there was honesty to it when the people who knew their connection claimed that it was Elena who raked in on the blessings in that department.

But in her mind – and her mom would disagree of course – both women were aging gracefully. Granted, the lines on Luann’s face carved deeper. But that she was once the eldest child of a low-income family and delegated as breadwinner from an early age, may have something to say to that.

Their personalities were where the contrasts bulked up. Two ends of the spectrum.

“How are you? How’s work?” Amelia asked, with both elbows on her desk, chin resting on her right fist.

“Oh, I’m doin’ great. Lyla’s been such a big help since she got promoted.

“That’s great. I thought you were at a party tonight?”

“Was. Went home a little bit early. Conjugal’s tomorrow.”

“Oh right. You’re going to spend the weekend there, nice. Say hi to Otto for me.”

“Yep. You know what that means.” Luann flashed her a wink and gave a sexy shake of her shoulders.”

Amelia raised her hands laughing. “No details!”

“Oh, c’mon now –”

“Lu! I haven’t even recovered yet from our last call!”

On the other side of the screen, Luann just cackled. Ass almost sliding off the stool. Tears visibly pricked her eyes, while her cheeks turned pink. Cool was one of the words she used to describe Luann. But there was a certain thing as too much. Because she still didn’t think any niece would appreciate the knowledge her aunt loved a good spanking from her husband. She shuddered, just remembering that detail Luann casually inserted in their last conversation.

“Hey, you need to learn these things so you’re prepared when you finally lose that V-card. And who better to teach you than me, darling?” Luann gave another shake.

“Well, I appreciate the lessons. But I don’t think I’m resorting to spanking. Besides,” Amelia’s smile turned haughty. “How do you know I’m still innocent?”

Luann’s jaw dropped, Amelia was sure she was genuinely shocked for a second. Then her surprise was quick to morph into a mock-scandalized fashion. “My, my, my. What are you not telling me young lady? Hmm?”

This time, it was her turn to blush. “You remember Ben?”

Recognition flashed on Luann’s eyes. “That cute guy. The one you showed me a picture –”

“Yeah –”

“– yeah. You dated him for, what was it again eight months?” Luann snapped her fingers.

“Ten,” Amelia corrected.

“Okay, so what ‘bout him? Did he give you your very first O?”

“No. Actually,” she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, rolling her lips momentarily. “It was the other way around.”

“Oh my God!” Luann squealed, hands closing in on her mouth as Amelia made a shushing gesture. On instinct her eyes went to her bedroom door. Everything was as is and nothing could be heard from the other side.

“Tell me! Hand job or blow job?”

Amelia gave a coy smile. “Both I guess.”

“What? How come I never heard ‘bout this before? Did you deepthroat? Play with his balls? Guys’ll never tell you but they come faster if you fondle their testicles. Did he come? You swallowed, right –”

“YES!” Amelia shrieked, burying her face in her hands, laughing.

“Wha – which one?” Luann demanded, hands on her hips.

Amelia felt her face go warmer. “All of them”

“Oh. My. God. My baby’s a woman now! Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Ah – I dunno.”

“You are such a prick and we should be havin’ this talk over tequila y’know.” All of a sudden, Luann’s smile dimmed. She looked confused and Amelia had an inkling why.

“Wait a minute. You said you didn’t come. Why didn’t you come? Shit, he didn’t reciprocate? Oh, that’s such an asshole thing to do. Was he an asshole? Or – oh, did he reciprocate and he sucked? Double shit, he sucked, didn’t he? Did he –”

“No,” Amelia pushed out a little bit forcefully. God knows when the Spanish Inquisition would end. “We tried. But we ran out of time.”

“Ran out of time? Who the hell runs out of time for an orgasm?” Luann asked, heavy and deep confusion marring her face. “Oh, fuck me. Did you do it at school?”

If Amelia had something in her mouth, she was sure she would’ve spat it out all over her screen. “God, Luann. No! We were at his house. We came home from a date. But in the middle of it, my phone rang.”

Luann’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing and absolutely nothing makes the O wait.”

“Oh yeah? If it was one of your girls that called you in the middle of sex, what would you have done, hm?” She asked, meeting the older woman’s stare haughtily.

Luann pointed a finger. “I will never let a phone call get between me and Otto. Literally. But fine, I get your point. So, what happened after? Please tell me you were at least able to get to second base.”

“He was actually able to put it in.”

This time it was Luann who shrieked and looked like she had stars on her eyes. “And?”

“And we were in the middle of things when my phone rang. Anyway, it wasn’t really a big deal. I just wanted the first thing inside me to be something made of human and not plastic.”

Luann’s face contorted into confusion, before morphing into a Eureka moment. “Oh, you mean, you had your date before your first transvag?”

Amelia nodded. She had been obedient in her check-ups with her gynecologist. But she couldn’t be diagnosed properly without the ultrasound. She and her doctor, however, agreed that it would be ideal if the first thing prodding and poking her was a cock and not an ultrasound wand.

“So you didn’t try again?”

Amelia shook her head. “No, that was also our last date before his family moved to –”

“Oh, that’s right. They moved to Australia. Yeah, that part you told me.” Luann shot her an accusing glare. “But, heh, it’s probably best he moved. If he couldn’t manage to make you lose your mind and tear you away from your phone during a boning session, then no, he isn’t good for you.”

Amelia laughed, shaking her head. Of course, Luann would fixate on that detail. Being a fan of romance novels, there was no shortage with the amount of steamy scenes Amelia indulged in. And while she basked in all the intimate details – the writings on everything love and sex making her swoon and melt – she was definitely not delusional. She knew that aside from tugging on the heartstrings, the key to selling those erotic plotlines was exaggeration.

Because she seriously doubted those mind-blowing, earth-shattering orgasms were as existent as the ones on print. But seeing Luann go on her broken record mode and describe the ultimate of orgasms, well, maybe it did.

Perks of a porn star.

For a woman with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome though, she knew the majority of the time, she would be setting herself up for disappointment. Jesus, even during that time with Ben, all she wanted was for it to end. She couldn’t remember any other feeling than discomfort. So, for her, rabbit and fingers.

Still, Amelia knew she she had it way easier than most women living with the condition. Luck definitely struck on her side and gave her a milder diagnosis. Yeah, the period pains were - well a pain, but other than that, the occasional breakouts, and perhaps the usually less than par home run, everything else was quite manageable. For now - maybe so, but a problem for another day.

“And, who was this important person that called anyway?” Luann prodded, evidently curious.

Amelia sighed. “Cora.”

“Your housekeeper?” Luann asked, after taking a sip from the glass of red sitting idly beside her laptop. She sounded bemused. “Why the hell would your housekeeper be calling you during sex?”

Amelia rolled her eyes. “She didn’t know we were having sex. And It was an emergency. Mom was going to fire her and Richard was out of the country –”

“What? Why? What happened? But Cora’s still with you, right?” Luann asked, all traces of teasing gone from her face, replaced by sheer worry.

“She is. Mom was on her way out to dinner. She asked Cora to grab her a glass of water and from the way it sounded, I think she forgot, but of course she’ll never admit that. They bumped into each other and she was wearing, and I quote ‘a bespoke, Lambskin leather jacket’.” Amelia winced. Her mind inevitably going back to the unpleasant memory of walking into sweet, thoughtful Cora bawling her eyes out as her mom continued to read her the riot act.

“Oh boy.”

“Tell me about it. I had to rush home. I didn’t want to disturb Richard. But I had no choice.”

“And Richard disagreed with your mom? Wow, I’m impressed.”

Amelia let out a derisive breath. “Don’t be. It came with a new set of Van Cleef & Arpels.”

“Of course. Nothing comes free.” Luann gave a shake of her head. Disappointment sat heavily on her features.

From what Moira, her grandmother, told her in one of their coffee dates, they were a modest earning family, but a happy one. That, however, all changed in a snap when her husband upended their lives and ran off with another woman, much younger, much accomplished than a waitress. From then on, the three of them survived from paycheck to paycheck. But that wasn’t even the eye of the storm. That took shape later on in the form of a stage two breast cancer diagnosis. The insurance didn’t cover much, so the eldest child was forced to step up. Luann, a then eighteen-year-old-almost-out-of-high-school had dropped everything in a heartbeat to actively pursue a means of living. One that shouldered not only the medicals, but also a sure ticket for her younger sister to finish her schooling as well.

It was a tough decision for Luann, and one that had her mother’s heart crack a little for her child. But she knew that Luann had the family’s best interests at heart. She also knew that was the push that strengthened Luann’s resolve. So once she was set, she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin and entered those daunting, massive, studio doors.

She never looked back.

Every time Amelia recounted the story, it evoked the same feelings. She bubbled with pride for her aunt. What Luann did was admirable, heroic even. But she couldn’t comprehend why, an event that should have twined the two sisters closer together, instead served to widen the wedge between them.

It started with a rivalry. She remembered her grandmother saying with a fond, watery smile, getting lost in memories of her two little girls wrestling for a favorite toy, racing for the remote, engaging in a tug-of-war for a dress. But those were the sorts common to sisters. Most times, the competition just ran its course. Other times, Luann will concede, and maybe that was the role of being eldest sinking in. But it was never the other way around. Moira and Luann knew the youngest of their family had a penchant for the shiniest of things, but they never found out when exactly Elena had started looking at everything through an alarming shade of green.

Both women chose and traveled different roads whose paths led them farther away from each other. Fate dealt each of them with a different hand, and now she can’t help but think how it was uncanny and maybe a little ironic that their choices had managed to weave a connection once again, even if only by a little.

One had the love of her life forcibly taken away from her.

One had willingly chosen to leave him behind.

And what did they say about that? Ah yeah, ‘only when you shared the same pain with a person can you truly understand the other.’

“Anyway, how about you then? How are you?”

“I’m good.”

Luann’s orbs narrowed. “Okay? Why do I sense a but?”

She swallowed. Luann could always read her like a book. Here it goes. “Joey and Hannah think I should move out.”

Luann’s eyes rounded and brightened. Her shock was apparent, but so was her elation. “Sweetie! I think that’s a great idea.”

“I don’t know Lu. I’m torn about it. I mean, I kinda want to.” She emphasized with a flourish of her hand. “But at the same time, I don’t want to leave them like this.”

“They’re like that because they chose to be. And I know it’s in your nature to always help out. But sweetie, your name isn’t on their marriage certificate, is it?”

“I get what you’re saying. But they’re just both so unhappy. They rarely talk anymore and Richard.” Her shoulders sagged. “Richard’s drinking is getting worse Lu.”

“Amelia, I hear you, okay? And as much as I feel for him – It’s. His. Own. Fault.” Luann sounded so exasperated. “Jesus, it was even Mom, okay? Our own mom – bless her soul – who suggested a prenup. But he didn’t listen. And I know postnup’s a thing. But I’m sorry to say this bug, your mom is gonna milk him drier than the Sahara. Whether they get divorced, or not.”

Amelia’s eyes fell down to her lap. She didn’t know which part pained her more, hearing these things said about her mom more often than she could count, or knowing that deep inside, she actually agreed with it.

She was only eleven when she realized that the love was just one-sided. And in her young mind, she wondered how such a thing could happen. But a few years after – still too tender of an age for such a plot – she finally understood.

That sometimes the combined play of emotions and inner machinations of the mind can be too complex and even hazardous, some even more than others.

And it hurt that these are the words she uses to associate with her own mother. But it did not make it any less true. Because here was a man extremely and devotedly in love with Elena McKinnon. And she was too, a woman in love – only not with him, but with the depth of his wallet. And Amelia wished that even so, her mom could still spare him a bit of concern.

“Bug.”

She looked to the screen, mustering a watery smile. “It’s okay. I know it’s true. I just wish it wasn’t.” She shrugged, her lips pressed together. “I’ve been trying to talk to her, y’know. To get Richard to rehab or see a therapist at least, or whatever.”

“Any luck?” Luann raised an eyebrow, tone dripping with sarcasm.

Timidly, she shook her head. “I’m scared Lu. I – mom, she’s pushing him to the edge, and not one of them wants to talk to me. Or anybody for that matter. A person can only take so much and what if – what if he just snaps Lu?”

“And what if he does snap? Say for example just lunges at your mother one day? What you gonna do then, hmm? Jump in the middle?”

Amelia averted her eyes. She hoped it didn’t come to that. But she didn’t have the courage to admit that yes, if push came to shove, she may end up doing that.

Luann let out an exhale. “Oh sweetie. I get it she’s your mom. But, okay, maybe that’s a little extreme. Put it this way. What if, all this time you’re tryin’ to help, you’re sorta, ya know,” Her head tilted side to side, as she searched for the right words, “actin’ like a band aid. Yeah, you’re helpin’ but you’re not the right cure.”

Amelia frowned, taking Luann’s words to heart. Curiosity picked on her mind. “You mean like, if I’m not here in the middle, they might actually be forced to deal with their issues?”

“Precisely.”

Huh. A stone unturned, truth be told. Propping her elbow on her desk the second time around, she rested her chin on her palm once more and pondered.

Could it really be that easy?

Yes, she wanted to get out of her mom’s clutches. She was tired of the dictatorship and the dating games with the nephew of the mayor, or the bar topnotcher, or the son of the executive director of – whatchamacallit. Ben was the only one she dated with no orchestrations by her mother – which resulted in a ten-month silent treatment.

But if she did remove herself from the equation? What then? Would her mom actually address their marital issues? Would she actually quit abusing Richard – both mentally and emotionally?

And how about Cora? That woman was tough as nails, but could also undoubtedly be soft as a marshmallow, and it was no secret how she was often the receiver of harsh words when her mom didn’t get her way.

“Amelia. You need to start thinking about yourself and not just the people ‘round you. Sweetheart, I’m worried about you. If you don’t get out of there, I think you’re setting yourself as the new Richard.” Luann pushed out matter-of-factly, as if she could hear Amelia’s thoughts loud and clear.

A scary thought. She shuddered. She bit her lip, eyes drawn to her keyboard. “I dunno. Look nothing’s concrete yet. I don’t even have enough money to make the move.”

“Don’t you have that online thing?”

“Yeah I do – I mean I did. Ended two weeks ago. Still, not enough.” Aside from her job, Amelia made sure to take advantage of any award and funding offered by the school that she could get her hands on. Two things that were heavily despised by her mother. It gave her a safety net, but not sufficient if she did decide to put the pen on paper.

“So you’re searchin’?”

“Yeah. But I don’t think I wanna do the admin thing again for now. I kinda want something different from school. Sometimes my head feels it’s about to crack open.”

“Makes sense. What you have in mind?” Luann asked with a tip of her chin, fingers playing with the untucked strands from her bun.

Amelia leaned forward, resting her weight on both elbows that were propped on her table. Bottom lip caught between her teeth, she mused for a little bit, then smiled. “A barista or a waitress. Could you imagine what mom would look like if she and her amigas would see me?”

Luann snorted. “You need to have a camera ready. But really, what jobs you lookin’ at?”

“Those.” Her eyes slid to her left, lips pursed. Then continued with a flick of her wrist. “I actually do prefer an online job. Schedule-wise that seems more doable for me. But I don’t –”

Bang.

“Jesus!” Amelia jumped as Luann suddenly slammed her hand on the table.

“OnlyFans!” Luann screeched.

Amelia’s forehead crumpled. “What?”

“OnlyFans” Luann only repeated. She swallowed, a grin only stretching on her face. “Google it. Google it.” She exclaimed.

“Okay, okay” Sheesh. She grabbed her phone laying idly beside her iMac and hurriedly pulled up google. Maybe if she understood she could jump in on the wagon. She found the site in no time. Luann was suspiciously silent for a change, but she didn’t mind as she clicked on the about page and scrolled, scrolled, scrolled. Huh, interesting.

“So” she started, eyes still glued on her phone. “basically, creators can post anything they like –”

“ – which they get paid for –”

“ – by their subscribers. But sex workers are considered the top earners.” Makes sense. Then her mouth dropped at the thought.

“What?” Luann asked, astounded by Amelia’s reaction.

“Lu, you know I love you and the girls. But I’m really sorry, I don’t think I have the courage to do porn, I –”

Bang. Another slam.

“ – ”

“Over my dead body you’re doing porn.” Luann admonished with a fiery look in her eyes. Amelia’s mouth slid close. That’s a relief, her doing porn – she’d probably get fired on the first day. Unless some people got off on other people hyperventilating. But then what?

“Pole dancing bug!” Luann finished seeing the question still lingering in her eyes.

Her eyes widened. Oh.

She blinked, staring at Luann’s excited face.

“And you could probably use a wig and some contacts.”

“Yeah.” That she agreed to without any hesitation. She knew there were a lot of students who resorted to sex work and anything somewhat similar to it for school funding. Kudos to them. She always thought. But when you’re branded as one, it wasn’t easy getting out of the typecast.

Take Luann for example, when gran defeated cancer the first time, she opted to go back to school or find a different type of work. But the world wasn’t kind and she was forced to spend her remaining years in porn. Thankfully, she was able to find happiness in it. I’ve squirted enough to last two lifetimes, know anyone not in porn who achieved that? – was her line reserved to anyone who looked at her like she was the dirt under their shoes.

Luann’s head tilted to the side. She recognized the look in Amelia’s eyes.

Conflict.

Different scenarios. Different people. But to her, when it came to encouraging people, standing at a crossroad – it was all about one and the same strategy. Knowing when to keep pushing and when to pull back.

Right now, as she stared at her niece while the gears in her brain worked in overdrive, Luann was positive it was time to slam the breaks on her prodding and poking. She hoped, God she hoped that Amelia would come to her senses and put this particular conversation into action. And one of the things needed to achieve that was for Amelia to come to terms with this on her own. Luann knew it was difficult for Amelia to leave because of Cora and Richard. It echoed in their talks. She felt for them, she really did. But Amelia was her priority.

Despite being aware of her mother’s skill in leeching at a young age, Amelia grew up happy, thoughtful and caring. Luann can only credit that to her mom – Amelia’s grandmother. But after she passed on, Luann had witnessed the light in Amelia start to dim. And Luann swore to her mother’s grave that she will get Amelia out of that toxic household before that light was fully extinguished.

“I’m…not sure Lu. I don’t even know where to go yet. I mean I’ve been looking at Seattle and Washington –”

Luann grinned. “Charming,” she added, unable to say no to this opening.

Amelia’s brows pushed upwards. She straightened. Charming. Now that was a place as foreign as an uncharted terrain. But despite the unfamiliarity, as she explored further, deeper, the crevices of her heart, the notion felt like a homecoming. An emancipation.

Aside from a mother and a father, Charming was one of the only few things common to Luann and Elena. It was their hometown and while the place didn’t stir any emotion of nostalgia to Amelia, to her family, she knew the place was a heart-shaped box with all of their history tucked safely inside.

But she was still shocked that Luann was bringing it up.

“Does that mean you’ll be finally introducing me to your friends?”

Having been born, raised and lived her life in Charming, California, it made absolute sense for Luann to have made friends outside her work. And these were the friends Amelia had zero clues about. Luann was adamant about having her at arm’s length when they were concerned. They were a group. That she knew had connections to Otto’s incarceration.

To be locked away for life, it had to be because of something huge. That it pricked Amelia’s curiosity was a given, but she never asked, nor did she try to obtain those puzzle pieces with the click of her mouse. She respected Luann’s wishes to keep those safely out of her reach.

Luann blinked. “Eh, why not. There’s been a change in leadership. And from what I heard he wants to turn things around.”

“Right,” Amelia said with a slow nod. She didn’t follow a single word. And for some reason, she didn’t know why but that felt…downplayed.

“So, what you think?” Luann asked, her eyebrows waggling.

She shrugged, looking to the side. “Not sure yet. But I’ll think about it.”

Pull back. Right. Luann reminded herself. But a little more pushing definitely won’t hurt. “But I really think you should go ahead with the OnlyFans. You’ll never know when ya’ll need the money.”

“Yeah let – let – let’s see.” Amelia managed to push out in the middle of a huge yawn.

“Guess that’s my cue to let you go. G’night bug.”

“Sorry Lu, was up real early today. Night, you need to get your beauty sleep.”

“Oh yeah and definitely need lots of rest. Hey did y’know that Otto likes gettin’ railed too? I got this strap-on that he just always begs me to –”

Call ended.

Luann blinked at the blank screen, casually sipping her wine. The call ended five minutes ago. But she was still having a hard time tearing her ass off the stool even with only her reflection and a glass of red as her remaining company.

Luann Delaney, like any other individual, was admittedly many things. But one of the things she was most proud of, included in her list of attributes was being a good aunt to Amelia. Now, she wondered if her tiny blip in judgment unraveled all her hard work. She blamed good ol’ O’Shaughnessy.

Does that mean you’ll be finally introducing me to your friends?

She could read Amelia like an open book. But that in itself was a two-way street. She knew her niece wasn’t fully swayed with her answer.

Luann sighed, taking another sip. Her love and respect for SAMCRO went above and beyond, and while Amelia accepted her and Otto wholeheartedly and without question, Luann still knew a bad influence when she saw one, and SAMCRO wasn’t just that, it also ticked all the boxes for a danger magnet.

Amelia had only ever set foot in Charming two times – one was when she was eight years-old and where both aunt and niece just discovered the other existed. Luann smiled, remembering how a shy and curious Amelia bit her lip, while gazing at her and her grandmother. She stood a few paces behind her mother, a timid little thing. But right then and there Luann had no doubt she’ll flourish into a brave, fierce woman.

It was a bittersweet memory. Having learned – from a private investigator of all things! – that their mother’s cancer came back a second time, Elena arrived with her clueless daughter in tow. She was garbed, head-to-toe in the exact same pieces featured on vogue’s latest cover, save for the huge Chanel sunglasses that she kept on until the last minute. There, on Luann’s doorstep, she stood like a fashionable panacea – if there ever was one.

I’m taking mom with me. Richard, my fiancé, has money and connections. I can provide more for her.

She enunciated each word, and if it weren’t for her mom’s touch on her arm, and Amelia seemingly having sensed the tension, came closer to them and clutched on her mom’s skirt, Luann swore she would have unleashed her inner Gemma and smashed the woman’s nose on the chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce parked behind her – younger sister be damned.

But through the anger and the hurt, Luann was able to see the truth in her words and so did their mom. So, with reluctant and tearful goodbyes, Moira went on with her prodigal daughter, none of them knowing that from that day on, she’ll be the bridge to draw Amelia closer to the relatives she never knew of.

The second visit was just a little short of a year ago. Amelia finally got her driver’s license that came with a car gifted by Richard. Having stayed in touch by calls, texts, occasional meets and later on video calls – Amelia thought it would be a good surprise to make that six-hour drive. And it really was a good one – but would have admittedly been much better if the biker queen wouldn’t have been on Luann’s dining table, crouched over a cup of coffee at that precise moment.

Luann almost died right there on her front door as the two ends of her world she kept purposely apart, stood just about five meters away from each other. Introductions were made, albeit reluctantly on her part. Through it all, Gemma remained silent, astutely observing them with her famed stink-eye. The confrontation came the weekend after that, and what would you know, turned out the SAMCRO matriarch actually understood Luann’s motives.

She’s your little girl. I get it. Heh, if I had one, the only time I’ll let her near Tig is when he’s in his coffin.

Well, not exactly that extreme, but eh – almost.

Now those two visits were purely out of her intervention. But on the off chance that Amelia took her invitation – one hundred percent her handiwork. It’s true, from what she heard, it sounded like Jax was adamant to turn the club around. And Luann trusted Jax, more than she did Clay, but them going straight doesn’t undo the past nor the enemy list. And this wasn’t a Disney Pixar production they lived in. She knew there will always be one of those just waiting for a chance to one-up the club in some way. And looping Amelia into that?

Luann groaned, rubbing her hands down her face. She hoped she wasn’t making her mom roll in her grave.

Amelia secured the last bobby pin on her head and combed through the golden locks. While it was far from her mind when she started looking for jobs, once she toyed with the idea, she knew she won’t be able to find anything as sparkly. It wasn’t a smooth train of thought though. Her conscience was the obstacle that badgered her mind to alertness when all she wanted to do was shut off. Before she knew it, she went almost half the night without a wink.

What if Luann’s wrong?

What if I need to be the middleman for mom and Richard?

What if mom keeps abusing Richard and Cora?

The questions went on repeat. But somewhere along the way, her internal tirade drove itself and her to exhaustion, and the last thought she could recall was but what if, Luann’s right?

She woke up to the same thought, so she gripped it like a vice and sped through her morning with a resolve made of steel. Because Luann was certainly correct about one thing: she needed money. And sure, she still wasn’t convinced she’d get subscribers. But only one way to find out.

That was how she found herself in one of the Campus studios on a Saturday morning, with the same wig she donned for the Faculty of Arts’ modern remake of Moulin Rouge last year.

The eyeglasses came off next.

All the edges blurred in an instant. Her eyes burned as soon as the blue contacts were in place. She hated the little discs with a passion but tolerated them when needed.

She was barely recognizable.

But it wasn’t enough. The final piece came.

Now, she was ready.

She took pictures of herself, different angles, different poses, and singled one out without much difficulty, uploading it as a profile picture. The username was the easiest part, relying on sentiments and picking the tune that always had her grandmother humming when playing – to her it was perfect.

Welcome to OnlyFans Tiny_Dancer

A/N: Oh my God. Talk about delay. But finally, here is chapter two, with more insight about Amelia, her family’s backstory and why SAMCRO has no freakin’ clue about her. Let me know what you thought of it! :)

If you want to be added to my taglist, message me or click here.

And again of course, thank you to the lovely @lovebarefootblonde for beta-reading for me.

Taglist: @fullwattpadmusictree

#jax teller fanfiction #jax teller x oc #jax teller imagine #charlie hunnam fanfiction #charlie hunnam imagine #sons of anarchy #sons of anarchy au #sons of anarchy fanfiction #sons of anarchy imagine #better than the fantasy #jax and amelia

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terrence-silver · 2 years

Note

Could you write something about John and Terry convincing their shared partner to get a tattoo that matched theirs somewhere on his/her body?

-"Now we match! Perfect!"-

Terry's in high spirits, practically jumping when the needle and the ink are taken away, the artwork clean, covered in protective band aid at the nape of your neck, right below your hairline. Discreetly visible. Tasteful, as it were. The discussion of where you could actually place the tattoo was long and arduous and the suggestions ranged anywhere from the inside of your thigh, your ass cheek and on your tailbone, but John personally talked Terry out of convincing you to accept any of those, in a sour mood, sounding displeased. Sounds like one of those tramp stamps, he said, bluntly. C'mon, Johnny, holy shit, it’s the 70's! Be modern! John wasn't having it, of course. Yeah, it'll stay there forever. I don't so, Twig. He'd retort, utilizing a nickname. That's the whole point, Johnny! Terry would whine. But, soon enough, tattooing your derrière or lower back was out of the question. Ever so blunt still, John snorts, arms crossed at the finalized work, joking, bright eyed. -"You look like a sailor. Popeye."- He smiles, lips lop-sided and pleased, appearing proud of the end result. -"Oh, man, Johnny, c'mon!"- Terry appears scandalized at the remark, taking offense instead of you, crouching beside the tattoo bed, rubbing your forearm soothingly, his other hand on your back. Even when practically squatting, Terry was still tall enough to tower over you and by the looks of him, he was still growing. He was 6'3 in 1972 and by 1973 and 1974 he might easily be 6'5. He could easily be a professional athlete if he wasn't making plans of running the family business.

-"I can't see. Does it look good?"-

You ask, tapping the bandage on your neck. Terry says something about you always looking good. Flatterer. Charmer. You'd never guess Terry was such a sweet-talker, shy and a bit fidgety as he was. Turns out, he had an immense way with words, to the point he'd often make you stammer and leave you without able to form a sentence, as was the case now, while you were adjusting in your seat. -"It's inflamed. Don't touch it."- John tsks, shaking his head, reaching forward to remove your fingers from the newly minted, freshly dried ink on your skin, reprimanding slightly. They've gotten their own ink a couple of months back, at this same parlour. Their own were far bigger then yours. Almost gaudy. Showy. Very dramatic and impossible to miss. They didn't seem to mind. Quite the contrary. They appeared particularly proud. Flaunting the art wherever they went. Flaunting Cobra Kai. -"Yeah, I’m afraid you're gonna get infected and you'll die..."- John jabs sarcastically, overreacting on purpose to tease you, holding his arms up in fake theatrics as he scoots down and sits down beside you to clasp your hand. Twig interjects, whispering, his eyes shimmering with a fierce thought. Their sense of comedy was occasionally odd, but you've gotten used to it. -"And then we'll have to set the tattoo parlour on fire."- He adds with a toothy, wolfish grin and your mouth is agape, hushing him, so the owner wouldn't hear the exchange. Sometimes, though --- sometimes you couldn't tell if they were joking or not.

-"You guys are something!"-

You groan, feeling sore, eyes darting once Terry holds up a mirror.

Positioned strategically next to looking glass on the wall behind you.

You spot the reddening patch of a small, inky cobra on your skin.

-"You look so cute, muffinpie!"- Terry exclaims happily, his cheeks practically puff up and pink as he diligently and dutifully props up the mirror so you can take a good look at the piece of handiwork. John's face beams up at Terry's endearment, down casting his glance, brows furrowed and busy with a thought. He was the more serious one, for sure. He was the reason why you didn't land with a snake tattoo on your bathing suit area. The idea made you laugh. You had to laugh that this is something they genuinely argued over. -"You'll always have something to remember us by now."- He speaks up in the midst of Terry's enthusiasm and admiration of the baby viper on your neck, grimly, John's mouth pressed into a hard line, his arms like a protective shield around his own torso as he maintains them crossed as per habit. They once told you were the first actual friend they've made after coming back from Vietnam. They only had each other for the longest time, grieving over everyone they mutually lost, both overseas and at home. Forming connections was difficult. Often disastrous. More hassle than it was truly worth. It is as if the world inadvertently changed while they were away, transforming past the point of all recognition, and the people along with it. But you? You were someone they wanted to stay close with, they explained. Stay attached to. You keep me grounded and you keep Twig sane. You squeeze his hand back re-assuringly, all while holding Terry's. -"As if I needed a tattoo to remember you two by, John."-

#terry silver #john kreese #terry silver twig #kk3 #cobra kai #polyam #implied polyam #friendship yandere #terry silver x reader #terry silver x beloved #john kreese x reader #john kreese x beloved #terry silver x reader x john kreese #terry silver x beloved x john kreese #yandere #flashbacks

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republicsecurity · 7 months

Text

the AI counselling did suggest more... intimate activities.

In the bustling atmosphere of the ambulance station, paramedics gathered in between shifts, sharing stories and catching up on the latest news.

"So, I finally got to see my parents last weekend," one freshly minted paramedic, T34R, exclaimed with a grin. "It was a bit strange seeing them after all this conditioning, but they were so proud."

Another paramedic, V7J2S, chimed in, a knowing smile on his face. "I get what you mean. When I met my little brother, he kept asking if I was a real paramedic or some kind of robot. He was fascinated by the red suit."

The group of new paramedics nodded in agreement, their camaraderie evident. "Yeah, the families don't always get what we've been through," M5R9E added, adjusting his gear.

J8K1P leaned against a nearby counter, a thoughtful expression on hisface. "I had a heart-to-heart with my parents about the whole situation. They were a bit taken aback by the changes, but in the end, they just wanted to make sure I was happy."

The conversations flowed, each paramedic sharing his unique experiences reuniting with family members. Some spoke about the initial shock their loved ones had when they saw the transformation, while others reminisced about the familiar warmth of family gatherings.

"It's funny how much has changed in such a short time," C3N8V mused, a hint of nostalgia in their voice. "But no matter what, we're still their sons and daughters."

“What did they impress more the our shaved shiny polished chrome domes, the red uniform or that we changed how we talk and act?"

A chorus of amused agreement rippled through the group. "Oh, definitely," R2T9N chimed in, chuckling. "My aunt kept asking if I had been to some kind of elocution class."

"Same here," S6Q1A added, shaking his head. "I mean, we've all been through the whole conditioning process, but it's still surreal to see the reactions from our families."

“And did they all inquire about our chastity devices?”

The question hung in the air for a moment before T4N7Y, known for his candid remarks, broke into a grin. "Oh, you bet they did! My mom practically turned into a detective trying to get the scoop. Luckily the suit is sealed and can’t be opened.”

Laughter and nods of agreement followed. "My little brother asked if it was like a futuristic game console," E9H3R chimed in, a playful glint in his eyes. "I had to explain that it's definitely not for gaming."

"Yep, had to have the 'serious talk' with my dad about it," M6P2K added with a chuckle. "He was all concerned about whether it was comfortable or not."

“And were they concerned about your sons having been turned gay?”

A mixture of laughter filled the room. "Oh, you know how family can be," C9V5X responded, shaking his head with a grin. "My aunt actually cornered me and started asking if this whole paramedic thing had 'changed my preferences'."

More laughter erupted, and the paramedics exchanged knowing glances. "I think they're more worried about that than the fact that I can go without sleep for days in this armour," J3R8T quipped.

"They watch too many movies," V6K2S added, rolling his eyes. "Just because we're in red doesn't mean we're suddenly all 'Switching Sides: The Paramedic Chronicles'."

R2T9N remarked there was nothing that had to be changed, he had been gay before.

The comment from R2T9N drew amused glances and grins.

"Well, I guess that makes it easy for you," S6Q1A said with a teasing grin. "No need for 'changes'."

R2T9N laughed. "True, true. Just business as usual."

S6Q1A leaned back in his chair, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "But for us... well, let's just say the conditioning has been quite enlightening."

Laughter filled the room, punctuated by knowing looks.

C9V5X leaned back in his chair, a sly grin spreading across his face. "You know, the conditioning did its thing. Now I'm just... comfortably flexible."

Laughter erupted in the room, a mix of amusement and camaraderie. The paramedics exchanged knowing glances, fully aware of the implications of S6Q1A's words.

V7J2S leaned forward, a mischievous grin tugging at the corner of his lips. "Hey, anyone up for a bit of 'relief' tonight? Thinking about booking a sleeping capsule for two."

M6P2K raised his gloved hand with a grin, his voice filled with a mix of humor and anticipation. "I'm in. Got a bunch of reward points saved up, and let's be honest, the AI counselling did suggest more... intimate activities."

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weekend-conspiracy-theorist · 2 years

Text

A continuation.

When Stephanie Brown was fourteen, dressed in green tights and red body armor, she was on a short solo patrol when she caught sight of movement in her periphery. She caught sight of it again a block later and knew, in her bones, that she was being followed. Whoever it was was doing a good job of matching pace with her, anticipating her movements while keeping a careful distance.

So she ducked down one alleyway and then doubled back, cutting sharply towards the path her mysterious stalker was taking. Stephanie placed herself in their path, just ahead of where she expected them to come bursting out of their own alley, and she bent down to pretend to adjust the laces on her combat boots.

The fall of her cape obscured the motion as she silently grasped the brick on the ground next to her left foot, and quick, quiet footsteps suddenly rounded the corner. Stephanie came up swinging.

The black-haired kid who'd been following her went down in a heap. He'd looked up at her with big blue eyes, blood leaking out from between his fingers, and wheezed out, "I thibk my bose is broken."

It was love at first sight, more or less.

When Tim Drake was fourteen, he was hot on the trail of the freshly-minted Girl Wonder, and she broke his nose. With a brick. (Six years later, she still refused to apologize.)

He'd explained, begrudgingly, that he was just trying to take pictures of her being a hero, and she'd gotten them milkshakes from McDonald's and helped him shove the napkins up his nostrils.

"I can definitely get you some good shots," she told him. Her blonde hair had way too much hairspray in it to waterfall down over her shoulder when she leaned forward, smiling so big that he knew her eyes must be sparkling behind the lenses of her domino mask, but he liked the way it spiked around her headband. She looked cool. She was cool.

Tim, on the other hand, was having to eat his milkshake with a spoon to not put too much pressure on his tender sinuses. He was also, occasionally, holding the cup up against his aching face.

"I dob't thingk Bahman's gonna 'prove of you posin' for pictures," he had pointed out.

Robin's grin had only gotten bigger. "Who said we were gonna tell Batman?"

It was love at first sight, more or less.

"This is going to calm down eventually, right?" Tim asked, dryly. His phone was sandwiched between his ear and his shoulder as he juggled leftover takeout containers and kicked his fridge door closed with the heel of his left foot. "I've had three different vigilantes crash my stakeouts over the last two weeks. Robin gave me a shovel talk at katana point, even though, A) you broke up with me, and B) our entire romance practically happened before he was born. Then Nightwing wanted to know if that story about you egging Boyfriend's car was true--"

"It is."

"Not the way you tell it."

"I saw the tears with my own two eyes, Boyfriend. You ain't foolin' me."

Tim dumped the remains of his beef fried rice into a bowl and scooped some sesame chicken on top of it. "I'm not having this argument again."

Stephanie laughed, the big, delighted one that meant she was throwing her head back and scrunching up her nose, and at least three-quarters of Tim's annoyance faded away, just like that. Still, for the principle of the thing, he added, "I can't believe you blew up our spot on a whim. We'd obfuscated the details of our friendship for six years. World record holders of lying to Batman."

"Naw, I bet Nightwing's still got a couple secrets packed away with his pixie boots." A pause, then she admitted, "Maybe nothing this big, but Wing's definitely got some secrets. Besides--" the rasp of fabric on fabric as she rolled over in her bed-- "it's your fault for not telling me you hired a fake authority figure in your life, again. I couldn't help it. There was no hiding my reaction."

Tim rolled his eyes, sticking his spoon into his mouth as he transferred the bowl of Chinese food to the microwave. "I still don' ge' wha's so funny," he said around it. He pulled out the spoon, brandishing it as he switched ears with the phone. "It makes perfect sense. I need to have five years working as a Private Investigator on the record before I can get a license. I also need to be twenty-five. I am also not willing to actually work for another PI and end up spending the first couple years fetching coffee and reading police reports instead of solving cases."

"So obviously, you hired a fake boss through a shell company, gave him a fake PI license, and then had him hire you," Stephanie said, still sounding like it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard.

"Again, I don't understand why you're laughing. Alvin Draper may not exist, but he has a totally real PI license; the State of New Jersey just didn't know they were giving it to him." Tim shut the microwave, punching in 3:00 and hitting start. "You know I don't need any more training. You were my tutor for The Art of Private Detective Work 101 through 401, Batman Edition."

"All I really had to do was smuggle you the course materials," Stephanie pointed out. She sounded fond. "You taught yourself."

"Nah," Tim said softly. "We taught each other. Everything always makes more sense when I'm working with you."

Stephanie huffed a quiet laugh. "Don't get sappy on me now, Boyfriend," she cautioned. But she sounded a little sappy herself. She cleared her throat, audibly rolling over once more, and asked, "So who was number three?"

"Number three what?" Tim asked, distracted, as he poked at his leftovers to make sure they were warm the whole way through.

"The third vigilante who crashed one of your stakeouts. You said Robin wanted to threaten you-- right of passage, by the way-- and Nightwing wanted to get the dirt, but who was number three?"

"Oh." Tim grimaced. "Batman."

Stephanie sucked in a breath through her teeth. "Shovel talk part two?" she guessed.

"Uh, no, actually. He never actually said a word; just posted up by a gargoyle on the apartment building next to the one I was set up on, and brooded menacingly in my direction for like four hours."

"Drama queen."

"I got sick of it, eventually, so I ordered a pizza up to the roof of that apartment and told them I'd pay cash on delivery."

Stephanie sounded giddy. "You're kidding."

"What? I knew he could afford it."

She burst out laughing again, that bright Robin laugh that Tim had developed a Pavlovian response to sometime around the third time he'd heard it, and he smiled to himself as he dug into his dinner, letting her laugh herself out.

"I'd feel bad for the delivery guy because he looked like he was about to shit himself when he realized he was looking at the Batman, but I'm also pretty sure he's got the greatest pizza delivery story of all time now. And Batman didn't grapple over to my roof to lecture me or anything, so he must have taken it in good humor." Tim paused, wincing, and added, "Relatively."

He'd been typing up the case report at the office a few days later when a pizza guy showed up with two mushroom-and-black-olive pizzas, to be paid cash on delivery. Tim didn't even like mushrooms; he'd just chosen them because he knew from Stephanie that Batman did.

He didn't have to say anything else for Stephanie to guess the implications. After all, she'd been Batman's Robin for over four years. "B-man always gets the last word," she said dryly. "Even when you think you've gotten away with it, suddenly a week later he'll launch a new offensive."

"That's consistent across identities," Tim muttered. Wanye Enterprises was good at coming out of things with the upper hand; he remembered his dad complaining about it more than once as he worked late into the night in his study, quietly existing alongside Tim as he did homework while sprawled across the couch on the other side of the room. Tim had even experienced it a couple times himself, too, although he'd never really had much involvement in Drake Industries' day-to-day operations.

He had kept just enough of his inherited shares to be able to throw his weight around when he needed to, making sure that DI was earning itself a reputation as a generous and ethical place to work. But Tim certainly didn't work for DI; his time-- and his passion-- were entirely invested in Red Bird Investigations.

"As Vicki Vale has learned time and time again," Steph agreed.

They fell into companionable silence for a minute, Tim putting his phone on speaker and dropping it onto the kitchen island next to where he was sitting, cross-legged, to dedicatedly work his way through his dinner. Stephanie had been intending to catch a quick nap before she jotted out on patrol until he'd called, but he knew she'd have hung up on him by now if she really needed the sleep, so he didn't worry too much about it.

"You know we wouldn't have been able to hide it much longer anyway, right?" she asked, finally, and Tim made a noncommittal grunt. She huffed, and he knew the noise went along with a roll of her eyes. "It only took you like six months of working as a PI before you sought out the Red Hood. Did you really think you were going to stay under the rest of the Bats' radar for long?"

"Over eight months, actually, and yes," Tim said stubbornly. "Practically anything else I could have taken to you or Black Bat. But I was working in the Alley, and everybody there looks to Hood for guidance in one way or another. I kept getting stonewalled. Conversely, I have no reason to seek out Batman, Robin, Nightwing, Batwoman, the Signal, Bluebird, or anybody else I'm currently forgetting."

Actually, Tim was pretty sure he'd end up working with the Signal eventually. As a perfectly legal PI-in-training (so long as nobody looked too deeply into Alvin Draper), Tim didn't limit himself to either daytime or nighttime investigations, and Signal was intelligent, competent, and fun to hang around. But there was no reason to think Signal would assume there was anything unusual or Bat-related in Tim's past; they'd already run into each other a few times during the Robin Gang era. Tim Drake was just another piece of the Gotham scenery for him.

"Yeah, and that works great, until Commissioner Gordon or one of the GCPD detectives you've been working with decides to ask Batman about you," Stephanie pointed out. "You're already starting to make a name for yourself, and Batman doesn't just ignore the presence of new players on the board. There are other private investigators around Gotham, and he has files on all of them. That's pretty much what I stumbled onto Hood and Oracle throwing together, anyway."

"So, they'd have figured out that Alvin's a sham," Tim sighed. "But--"

"I know I'm usually the first person to extoll Batman's flaws--well, okay, the second. Jason is the first. But they don't call him the World's Greatest Detective for nothing, Boyfriend, and even the surface level of your existence is pretty fucking weird. Sure, there's nothing about 'Drake heir turned private detective' that screams 'I knew Robin when she had pigtails,' but he was definitely going to start digging, and it was going to be obvious eventually that we knew each other. And maybe," Steph said, pitching her voice over his next protest, "if you were about to get sucked into the collective Batfamily's orbit, I didn't want to have to pretend not to know my best fucking friend as well as I do."

Oh. Well, Tim wouldn't have enjoyed that either.

He thought about what might've happened if Hood had tapped Batgirl in on the case Tim had brought to him, about working with Stephanie as if she was a total stranger and not someone he understood on a level deeper than he understood his own self. He probably would have given up within fifteen minutes, consequences be damned.

He took the out she'd offered. "'Best friends' is reductive," he said, a familiar mantra.

"'Platonic soulmates' would be reductive, Boyfriend," Stephanie countered automatically, a smile re-entering her tone. "But it's a little wordy to start calling you things like my phantom limb or the peanut butter to my jelly."

"Your brother from another mother," Tim mused.

"Hey, now, I know she wasn't in a great spot when your parents died, but I bet that Crystal would be happy to adopt you now if you asked."

Tim barked a laugh, caught off guard by the assertion, and Stephanie giggled, her voice growing faint amongst the rustle of her sheets. "Ugh, you wasted my prime napping window with your grumpiness. I've gotta go pull on the atomic wedgy machine so I can punch crime in the face."

Tim snorted. "I thought it wasn't that bad since the latest round of suit upgrades."

"It wasn't," Stephanie groaned. "But Cass has introduced a lot of lunges to our workout routine, and now the ass is getting snug."

"First world vigilante problems," Tim commented dryly.

"I'd wear a thong or something, but Bruce would find out somehow and I think it'd actually kill him." Tim choked on the last bite of his beef fried rice, but Stephanie just cackled. "I'd get blown up and the suit would get torn in a weirdly horny way, and then Batman would have a heart attack upon seeing my bare, burned ass waddling around the Batcave."

"Sticking out from under a piece of rubble," Tim suggested, laughter bubbling beneath the surface of his voice.

Stephanie wheezed. "Oh, god."

"Robin would have to go to therapy."

"Nightwing would just slap a hand over his domino so he couldn't see."

"Now that would be a picture I'd break out the film for."

"Shut up! I'm laughing too hard to get my body armor on."

"You started it." Tim yawned so wide his jaw cracked, and he reached up to rub at the hinge, grimacing. "That's the one downside of selling the manor," he added with a sigh. "No space for a darkroom in this apartment."

Stephanie snorted. "Isn't every room in that apartment a dark room?"

"You're just jealous of my blackout curtains."

"I'm really not," Stephanie assured him dryly. Her voice grew closer again, and the background static of speakerphone cut off as she picked her phone back up. "I gotta go, Boyfriend. Oracle wants to run over some stuff with me and the best Bat before we hit the pavement tonight."

Tim couldn't help the smile that slipped across his face as he hopped down from the counter. "Give Cassie my love. And ask Oracle to be a little less conspicuous next time she goes poking around Red Bird's systems--I know she was letting me see her in order to make a point, and I already knew that no matter how good I am, Oracle's better, but I do still have client confidentiality to maintain my plausible deniability about."

Stephanie let out a quiet huff of laughter. "I'll pass it along," she promised.

"Be safe."

"No promises."

"Break a leg."

"Two or three, even!"

Tim laughed, and Stephanie made an obnoxious kissing noise into the phone before she hung up on him. The screen lit back up, showing the nearly fifty minute call duration and the selfie she'd taken of the two of them at the lighting of the big Menorah on the Gotham University Quad the previous Hanukkah. The Menorah was in the background, two candles brightly lit, and the two of them looked windswept and red-cheeked. Stephanie had had to grapple them across the rooftops in order to make it in time to sing the first blessing, and they'd squeezed in together so tightly for the picture that Tim had been able to lick her cheek without moving. Stephanie's face was scrunched up in horrified anger, and Tim's was bright with laughter, his tongue still sticking out.

It was a good picture. It was a good memory, even if Stephanie had shoved him into a snowbank in retaliation.

Stephanie Brown had been the best Robin. Most people would argue--even Tim would have, years and years ago--but they were wrong. Batman needed Robin, and he was so fucking lucky he'd stumbled across Spoiler at just the right moment to keep himself from going down a dark path.

If nothing else, Tim mused, it was nice that he was now free to say that directly to Bruce Wayne's face some time.

#stephanie brown #tim drake #I wrote this #the tim&steph role swap au #wherein steph is way more down to encourage an untrained kid's pseudo-vigilanteism than tim was #oops I said I was done here and then wrote more anyway

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jurymaid39 · 2 years

Text

The Facts About Heartbreak Hotel Covers Uncovered

The self-destruction note was produced up of only six phrases: “I walk a unhappy road”, but from the instant Tommy Durden checked out them, he cann’t receive them out of his thoughts. At least three individuals were eliminated when a small plane crashed into a tree, and one more two were harmed in a fall while going up on a plant division. They shed seven of their lives. Nonetheless peculiar it may appear, it would be these very same phrases that would inspire one of the very most productive tracks of the 1950s, Elvis Presley’s ‘Heartbreak Hotel.’ After reading the phrases in a newspaper article about a grim self-destruction, Durden bought his freshly-minted lyrics inspired by the account to fellow performer Mae Boren Axton, a 40-year-old British instructor who split her opportunity between teaching high university students about Walt Whitman and writing tunes for neighborhood singers.

This certain tune was going to change not simply her and Durden’s ton of money, but additionally those of Elvis Presley, who, at that point in his occupation had everything; the appearance, the charm, the voice. Now in his new album he's merely received a entire new set of devices. Along with this brand new kind of product, he's all set for everything, and he really wants to make an album that would be truly original. Everything, that is, except a attacked tune. In fact, as of the current time, it was a hit tune that got played because of the fact that this artist really felt that the folks who are participating in it weren't acquiring respect, not for themselves [but only for themselves], who in the title of 'affection and recognition' and the 'you're all I have to give,'" he points out. Thus what did everyone believe about the brand new album, in any case? “You require a million-seller and I’m going to write it for you,” she guaranteed. When she eventually mentioned what created her satisfied, a man stood up, communicated along with him and claimed that he is all for the folks he has seen in him,‣ but he‖t still didn‖t view that this male was merely going to be a buddy to her.

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And that’s what she did. I will certainly take these truths coming from you and present that we are working along with North Korea, as we have carried out in the past, to quit this battle coming from happening.". The statements came after Pyongyang's foreign ministry phoned on Pyongyang to discontinue all rocket examinations, though the United States has stated it is willing to allow North Korea examine its tools plan. Elvis documented ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ on January 10th, 1956, merely two times after his 21st special day. He has due to the fact that been launched in to what is right now South American folk songs. Captured at the Sargasso Gulf Club in Los Angeles, California by the incredibly exact same triad of artists who included Paul McCartney in 'Muddy Waters,' but was additionally initially inspired through other regional artists. Supported by a band that included guitarists Chet Atkins and Scotty Moore, bassist Bill Black, drummer D.J. Janssen and sax player Kevin McCombs, and drummer Jason Wicks, the band's most significant selling album came out in 2002. They conducted nearly exclusively in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band didn't discharge the record before the band relocated to the East Bay after being acquired out of university by a family members living in Northern California. Fontana, pianist Floyd Cramer, and the singing team the Jordanaires, Presley drained into this slice of timeless rock ‘n’ roll along with simplicity, permeating the keep track of with a tenderness hitherto hidden by the excellent folks at Sun Studios. With a consistent and powerful cadence that was a appreciated adjustment coming from the past, the cd is no simple follow up to this initial, but is a stimulating breather coming from past binds that were a touch off (B.S. Without a doubt, this competitively down-beat variety marked a change of equipment for Presley, along with previous Sun Records tag supervisor Sam Phillips announcing ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ a “melancholy wreck.” How wrong he transformed out to be. Presley's latest, and admittedly imperfect “-statement is a suggestion of what a 'challenging' document looks like, and how a'soft' album should look like. The time after Elvis released ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ on January 27th, 1956, he conducted the monitor live on Dorsey Brothers Stage Show , the 1st of six TV appearances that provided the monitor only the protection it required to create it a smash hit. When he discharged It, Elvis would continue to possess a hand in making the song more appealing on that cd, and he would continue to release program for him, such as the 1969 documentary 'Masters of Love'. By April 21st, it was amount one. Currently amount two and three are up. From the observing chart (or, if you have a excellent appearance, I'll write up a comprehensive malfunction of what they suggest through "new" (in this instance I require a new appearance at what I refer to as "the rest of the map's design") there is actually a series for each brand-new area – it's called the "heading". Since at that point, ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ has been covered through all manner of artists coming from the world of country and blues, but also criminal, electronica, glam, and pretty considerably every various other type under the sunlight. ‘Heartbreak Hotel has an diverse mix including authentic structures from artists like The Flaming Lips (bass), Lazy D and a plethora of new performers like E-Boys. Here, we’ve gathered six of the very finest of those covers. Click Here For Additional Info asked our buddy at the gallery to submit his and her personal notions regarding today’and the fine art's worth’and the opportunity it's taken to make them’of several, several manuals that we have offered and many that we strongly believe might certainly never be located anymore. But we wanted to happen up along with some unique regulations for today because we love making new stuff to share with pals.

#Heartbreak Hotel - Elvis Presley (Cover)

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zinzinina · 3 years

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Pairing: Captain Howzer x F!Reader Length: 6.8k Rating: Explicit 18+ CW: Vaginal fingering, PIV, forbidden relationship (nothing taboo, only socially derided).

A/N: Hi, yes, I know. This one is a bit of a mess, so please forgive anything I’ve missed in the editing. I just have a lot of feelings about our new teal friend, and one of those is a Bad Feeling about what might happen in the next episode, so please be advised there’s a tinge of angst in here too. x

The balmy heat of the day weighs your already-heavy dress down further, until you feel you could nearly sink into the floor. Senatorial aides may not dress quite as elaborately as the representatives themselves, but the dresses you’ve brought with you from the Core are still decidedly more dense than strictly necessary. Particularly on Ryloth, where the locals favour lighter fabrics. You’re beginning to understand why.

Beside you, Captain Howzer shifts on his feet. The two of you have been spending more and more time together over the past several months, as military briefings gave way to fraught peace talks between freshly-minted Imperial delegates. Navigating the flurry of sudden changes has made the Senator terse and closed-off; quite literally, as the shut doors in front of you can attest. Assistants, meanwhile, are left to stand and wait. Luckily for you, the Captain has proven to be far from disagreeable company.

He shifts again, and you turn your head infinitesimally to glance over at him, your lips moving just slightly. “This is taking a lot longer than it should.”

He nods, frowning. You both know Taa has never been one to linger in meetings. It cuts into the time he could be spending at leisure. For him to be shut in with this new Vice Admiral for hours on end can only mean trouble. Unease settles across your shoulders, and you realise you’re clenching your fists with nervous tension.

Howzer leans in, murmuring close to your ear. “Don’t look so worried, ma’am. Vice Admiral Rampart spent just as long with General Syndulla yesterday. If it were that bad, they wouldn’t’ve both come out looking as calm as they did.”

You relax slightly, recognising the truth in his words. “If it were that bad, Cham wouldn’t have let him talk for longer than a minute.”

He presses his lips together, failing to completely disguise the little smile there, and you smother your own nervous giggle with a beringed hand. You aren’t sure why you still feel so edgy. The war is over; if everything goes well, you could be back in the Core within another cycle. You’d never thought your studies in Ryl would end up with you serving under a Twi’lek senator, and you’d found it difficult to adjust to being so far out, among people so different from your own. Now, though… the thought of going home is almost enough to drive you into a full panic.

Not just because of the uncertainty of what you’ll find there, but something else, too. Something that’s made you feel tied inextricably to Ryloth, despite the heat and the mistrust of the locals to any outsiders. Something you’ve been trying very hard not to think about directly. As though he can sense the direction of your thoughts, Howzer clears his throat, readjusting the grip on the helmet under his arm. “Have you heard anything from your family?”

You glance up in surprise. He’d offered to help you several weeks ago when your personal comm channel device had failed to return a signal from the Core. Though it probably wasn’t officially sanctioned use of military resources, he hadn’t hesitated in permitting you the use of the longer-range commlink kept with his field gear when he’d heard about the trouble you were having. It had struck you as particularly kind that he’d sensed how much it meant to you. And even more so that he remembered enough to ask now.

“No,” you say. “Nothing. I expect the situation at home is overwhelming, with everything changing so quickly. But I’d hoped to hear something. Just so I know they’re safe. I suppose that sounds silly, when there are so many bigger things to worry about. Maybe they’ve just forgotten about me.”

He shakes his head. “Not at all. I lost contact with a few of my brothers at the end of the war. I understand how you must be feeling. But Ryloth’s isolated. News reaches us a lot slower out here. And… I don’t see how it’s possible for anybody to forget about you, ma’am.”

His tone is reassuring, steady. Not for the first time, you’re almost overwhelmed with the feeling of solidity he seems to carry. As though no matter what happens next, he’ll see it through unshaken. It makes you want to lean even closer, into the safety of his orbit. You realise you’ve been looking openly into those dark eyes for just a moment longer than entirely necessary, and your lips part in preparation for some kind of inane, distracting comment. But he doesn’t make any move to break the contact, gazing steadily back at you with some unspoken question just beneath the surface.

Your pulse spikes. You are no longer sure whether it’s because of the temperature of the day, but you could swear your face is practically glowing with the warmth you feel, a light sheen of moisture dancing across your forehead. Standing so close, you can see the fine lines etched around his eyes from the sun. They make him look like he’s always on the verge of smiling, despite the sombreness of his expression. The places where his full eyebrows have begun to lighten with age. The separate pigments of the blues and greens mixed in the scuffed paint on his pauldron.

There’s a low blip from the panel beside you, and the Vice Admiral steps out, an uneasy-looking Senator Taa two steps behind him. You spring backward, the beading around your heavy sleeves clicking lightly with the movement, but neither of the men appear to notice. “I look forward to seeing you in the morning, Senator,” Rampart is saying, an edge of irony in his tone. Taa doesn’t answer, but you can tell from the quiver in his jowls that he does not share the Vice Admiral’s confidence. Barely looking at you, the Senator thrusts a datastick in your general direction.

“This is the briefing for tomorrow’s address. I’m going to retire early,” he says, already trying to squeeze his considerable bulk past you toward the corridor leading outside. His hands stroke repeatedly at his lekku; a nervous gesture you’ve come to recognise. “See yourself home.”

You gape at the small silver shape in your hand. “But, sir—“

“You’re dismissed, girl,” he tosses back, disappearing around the bend into the fading light of the afternoon. You raise your eyes to where Howzer is still standing, frowning at you. He looks as confused as you feel, and you’re about to say something about the strangeness of this development when you realise you aren’t alone. You’d been so distracted by Taa’s obvious agitation that you hadn’t immediately registered the fact that the Vice Admiral still stands in the foyer outside the Senator’s office, watching you with a patient smile.

He’s not an unpleasant-looking man; high cheekbones, a pronounced chin, and some residual, boyish softness in his face despite the greys flecking his brown hair. But something about him makes you shrink back, your skin prickling. His smile widens.

“You must be the aide designated from the Senatorial committee. Tell me, how do you find Ryloth?”

Your voice sounds small, but you raise your chin as best as you can manage. “It’s beautiful here. I feel very fortunate to have spent so much time abroad, when so often aides are relegated to desk work.”

“Indeed. Your Ryl must be exceptional, to have warranted this posting.”

You narrow your eyes slightly. His tone is warm, but you’re sure you don’t imagine the slight condescension underneath it. “The dialect is only a small part of successful communication, Vice Admiral. It’s far more important, I’ve found, to garner a meaningful relationship with the Twi’lek people themselves.”

His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Fascinating. There are many new Imperial delegates looking to reestablish this type of… productive relationship among the outlying systems. I look forward to seeing where your career takes you.”

Your answering nod is slightly stiff. You have no intention whatsoever of leaving your current position. Taa may be as corrupt as politicians come, but you don’t serve him. You serve the position he fills, and in the time you’ve spent here, you truly believe you have made legitimate change in only the small, unnoticed ways an aide can. Maybe even more than you’d have been able to manage with a more attentive boss looking over your shoulder.

But Rampart doesn’t need to know that. Considering you for a moment longer, he tilts his head to the side before speaking again. “But please, my manners. You must be eager to get home. Allow me to have the commando here escort you.”

You hadn’t even noticed the thin, black-armoured figure leaning in the shadows against the door. The trooper’s narrow, cruel-looking face appraises you coolly, thin lips pinched around a toothpick. The repulsed shudder that fingers its way across your skin is strong enough to make you blanch. If Rampart’s demeanour had made you uneasy, this man’s presence alone is almost enough to drive you into a full panic, and you inch backward.

Right into Howzer’s plastoid-armoured chest. The man behind you takes a step closer to you, drawing himself up to his full height. There’s a protective edge in the way his arm raises slightly, though he keeps his voice easy. “I’ve already agreed to see the lady home safely, sir. I’ll be returning to base afterwards, anyway.”

If the Vice Admiral notices the way Howzer’s hand hovers inches from your waist, he doesn’t say anything. “Very good, Captain. See to it your men are well prepared for tomorrow’s address. We do not wish to see any disturbances. It would, after all, reflect poorly on both of us.” He nods shortly to the black-armoured trooper and turns to leave.

Your fingers itch, curled around the datastick. You’re desperate to find a terminal and see what the notes contain, but you force yourself to wait. Better to read it in the privacy of your rooms, just in case. You still haven’t been able to dislodge the sense of impending trouble, and your encounter with Rampart has only made you more jumpy than before.

Your thoughts are disturbed by a low electronic chirp from behind you, and you turn back to see Howzer staring down at an alert on his wrist display. He offers you a wry look.

“Whatever’s on that thing he gave you, I’d say I just got my own copy. You must’ve been right. If they’re expecting trouble… well, maybe it’s just a precaution.”

You feel shaky. “I wish I were as optimistic as you, Captain.”

He looks like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t. You could kick yourself. This man has watched countless friends die, probably coming inches from death himself. The tangle of scars on his face are proof enough of his bravery. And what did the war mean for you? Long, arduous hours poring over legislative contracts and drafted reports, yes, but inside the comfort and safety of an office. You can smell traces of perfume from your pulse points, faded from the day but still floral and sweet. It’s a reminder that your own difficulties are minuscule compared to the ones he faces.

“Let’s get you home, ma’am.”

Forcing yourself to smile, you place your hand into the crook of his elbow. “Lead the way.”

Lessu’s streets slope gently upwards. It’s misleading; from a distance the laneways appear almost flat, but from the base of the city to the top, it’s quite a climb. Howzer keeps his helmet off, carrying it tucked underneath an arm. You’d been surprised by this casual habit when you first met him. The red-marked troopers from the Core were almost never seen without their helmets; facelessly intimidating, almost like droids. But the man beside you looks at ease and entirely personable.

You pass two older women walking close together, their lekku patterned in lines and circles. They eye you both with mistrust and you lower your gaze. The Twi’lek people have long memories, and the sight of two outsiders is understandably cause for some unease.

But Howzer straightens slightly as you approach, his expression open. “Kassurra,” he murmurs, nodding. His drawl is heavily accented, and his pronunciation makes you wince, but the women return the nod all the same before continuing past.

By the time you reach the arched doors of your lodging, you’re far too warm again. Howzer has been an almost-silent presence beside you, only the quiet thud of his boots and the sturdiness of his arm keeping you anchored to him.

The gradual climb has left your calves aching, and you can think of nothing you want more than to throw off your layers of clothing and wash away the humidity of the day. But instead you pause in the sheltered overhang at the door, unwilling to remove your hand from the Captain’s arm.

That same, strange sense warning you of impending trouble is now pulling you closer to the man in front of you. It’s telling you not to let him leave; that if you let him out of your sight, you may not ever see him again. It would be easy to dismiss it as more nerves from the ramping complexity of the diplomatic situation unfolding… but you choose not to ignore it. Instead, you smile as brightly as you can.

“Another long night for you, Captain?”

He scratches at the shorn-close side of his head, looking weary. “Sounds like it. We’ll need to make sure to have good coverage over whatever it is that’s happening tomorrow. And the refinery is still a priority for patrols. I’ll be briefing the boys once I’ve had a good look at these notes.”

Strangely, your fear makes you bold, and you nod. “Then let me make you a cup of caf before you go. You’ll need it.”

To his credit, he doesn’t betray any shock at your suggestion. “Ma’am?”

“We’re… friends, aren’t we? Isn’t this okay? I… don’t want to be alone just yet.”

The line between his brows is slightly more pronounced, and for just a moment, you’re sure he’ll politely decline. Remind you how much work he has to do, or make a self-deprecating excuse about his filthy boots on your carpeted floors. It’s one thing to sit together between lengthy meetings, killing time with tidbits of personal information or trying to make the other laugh with silly faces behind the backs of Taa and his associates. Another entirely to be alone together, in the naked glow of the evening. It would be improper for him to accept. It had been improper for you to ask.

But then he glances at his chrono.

“I have a couple of hours before I’m due back. That’d be… nice. Thank you.”

Offering him a shy smile, you press your palm to the access panel and step inside, waiting for him to follow.

Your lodgings are cool and shadowy, the last remnants of the evening light tinting the outline of the furniture red. Smooth, curved grey stone marks out the walls, as with most dwellings carved into the cliff side here. You shrug off the heavy outer layer of your dress, draping it over the back of a carved bench. You’d done your best to make the rooms feel like home in the time you’ve been here, and you watch from your periphery as he steps tentatively inside, glancing around. There’s something peculiarly exposing about having him in your space like this. As though there is something secretly revealing about you hidden in the little jar of flowers on the table top, or the stack of flimsi scattered across the bench.

You activate the burner, and the low burble of heating water underscores the sound of him drawing back one of your chairs, easing himself down. He leaves his helmet on the floor beside the table, looking unsure. You quirk an eyebrow. “You can put that on the table, you know. Make yourself comfortable.”

He grins back at you. “This thing’s due for a deep clean. Don’t want to get any, uh… marks on your table.”

You half-laugh, spooning caf into two mugs. “That’s fair. Which reminds me: I always wondered how you kept your hair looking so good under there.” You’d intended it to come across as teasing, a soft joke about his preening to break the slightly stiff air between you. But as soon as it comes out, you want to snatch it back. You sounded just slightly too breathy; not anywhere near nonchalant enough.

Fortunately he doesn’t seem to have noticed. His returning laugh is good-natured. “Few’ve the boys have got tricks like that up our sleeves. Not much else to do with your rec leave when you’re stationed in the Outer Rim.” Looking vaguely embarrassed, he runs a hand back through the aforementioned hair, leaning back in the chair and watching you pour in the water. It feels… nice. Just having him here, hearing his voice in such a mundane setting. You could almost close your eyes and pretend he’s always been here. And then you catch yourself. Get a grip, you think sternly. This little schoolgirl crush on the handsome soldier is beyond ridiculous.

Returning to the table with both mugs in hand, you sit across from him. The datastick sits directly between you, and you realise you’re both looking at it edgily, like it could crack open and birth a swarm of gutkurrs at any moment. And then you huff with decidedly undignified impatience.

“Let’s get it over with, shall we? We’ll both be reviewing the same report later tonight; might as well do it now.”

Without waiting for his answer, you reach up for your datapad, sliding it onto the table between you and twisting the stick into the side. The projected string of Aurebesh is shorter than you’d expected, and more blunt. You don’t take it in the first time, needing to read it again. And then you understand. You hear your own little hiss of disbelief as you read through it for a third time, your mind struggling to catch up. “Complete demilitarisation? They’ll never agree to this. When Cham hears— he’ll be furious, this is—“

Unable to contain your incredulity, you stand up and stalk across the room, chewing on your lip.

Behind you, Howzer flicks up the display from his wrist comm, and a similar string of data springs up. He scrolls through it quickly, scanning his narrowed eyes through the glowing readouts.

“He’s already agreed to be present at the address tomorrow. I don’t know how they got him to lend his support to this, but it’s a promising sign. His followers won’t want to make a move against him.” His deep drawl still sounds calm, despite your own sense of growing distress.

You pace back across the room, your skirts whispering against the floor.

“Maybe not immediately. But the slightest trouble with this refinery is all it’ll take to set the unrest off again. The people are already mistrustful of the new administration. And then, and then…” Your head spins. This fragile, hard-won peace Ryloth had waited so long to see, on the edge of shattering all over again. Something is coming unstuck in your chest. “I feel like… something terrible is about to happen.”

You’re desperate to rush back out to the office. It might not be too late to draft an appeal. Taa may have rolled over immediately, but you’ve figured out a few ways to push back in the time you’ve worked under him. At least to buy some breathing space, until you can contact other representatives with more pull. Someone can stop this, or figure out a way to prevent shattering the delicate balance barely holding out between the locals and the new administration. You’re turning to pace back the way you came when arms catch yours, gently halting you, turning you to face him.

“Cham agreed to this. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t know it would be alright.” His reasoning makes sense. Logically, you know it does. But there’s still that feeling. Ever since you were young, you’ve just… known things like this, sometimes. Like watching dark clouds rolling in on the horizon, without being able to warn anybody else. And right now it all seems to be dragging you toward him, powerful enough to hurt. You don’t know how to explain it to him, but you want him to leave Ryloth while he still can. You’re trembling, and he lowers his hold from your shoulders, down to your hands before releasing them.

Slowly, as though giving you the chance to pull away if you wish, he gently cups your chin, tilting it up to face him. “It’s… going to be okay.”

Blinking hard, you try to keep your voice steady as your eyes meet his; those kind, tired lines around his eyes faintly pronounced in concern. “How do you know that?”

“I don’t. I think I probably know a lot less than you do, to be honest. But… whatever happens, you’ll be safe. I can promise you that, at least.” He utters it like a vow.

Your eyes sting. It’s not yourself you’re scared for. It’s the people you’ve come to know and care for in your time here. It’s the family left behind in a home you suspect you won’t even recognise when you next see it. And it’s him. Steadfast, grounding. Always so calm, infuriatingly so, even when faced with violence and fear. Right now, you feel like he’s the only thing keeping you down. A ballast against the commingled currents of awful premonition and clawing uncertainty shifting around your feet, loose sand dragged by the tide.

It must all be written clear across your face, because he takes you in for one beat, and another, his gentle, dark gaze inscrutable. And then his lips are on yours, harder and hotter than you’d expected from a man so collected. Your breath escapes in a rush against him, hands coming up to clutch helplessly against his chestplate. Your heart kicks immediately into a gallop, his own hands coming up to cradle the back of your head. His touch is far lighter than his kiss, almost reverential, like you’re a precious thing in his hands.

You can’t remember what to do with yourself. In all your silly, foundless daydreams of him taking you in his arms, you’d never come close to the real thing. Now, you feel floppy and stiff all at once, heat liquefying your bones into uselessness. He sucks your bottom lip into his mouth, a graveled exhale vibrating from him straight into you, through you, throbbing keen between your thighs. You arch up into his kiss, and he drags his hands down your neck, catching on the chain of your heavy necklace.

He walks you backwards, crowding you against the wall. While you can tell he’s roped with the wiry muscles only a years-hardened soldier can carry, the teal-accented armour makes him appear broader; more solid, impenetrable somehow.

“We shouldn’t do this,” he groans against your throat, lips hot over your pulse. You can feel the gentle abrading scrape of his chin against your skin; the scarred patch where the hair doesn’t grow left smooth. Your head tips back, the ornate clasp of your gown digging into the base of your skull against the wall.

“No,” you agree, fumbling breathlessly with his armour. You can’t figure out how it works; how to get it off him. But you want to feel him against you; not the plastoid, or the body glove underneath. You want to feel his skin against yours, but there are far too many layers between you, the elliptical embroidery at your sleeves vineline and constricting.

“Tell me to stop.” Even as he says it, he bundles the heavy fabric of your skirts up around your waist in one fist, reaching down to help you unlatch his codpiece with the other.

“Please don’t stop,” you beg. Gloved fingers grip your thigh, hitching it up around his waist. There’s a hollow thud somewhere below your feet, and then he’s grinding himself against your core, breathing uneven. You can feel the hardness through his body glove, and he breathes something that can only be a curse, low and musical in a language you don’t recognise.

You let out a pitiful, pained whimper as his hardness grinds devastating into your core against the wall, the scratched, uneven shears in his battle-scarred armour catching against the expensive fabric of your bodice. This is inappropriate, wildly so; if anyone in the Senator’s office found out, you’d lose your position, but you don’t care.

“This isn’t…” he interrupts himself, bending his head and sucking messily at your cleavage. “I should… bedroom.”

“Through there,” you gasp, and he’s kissing you again, both hands up under your skirts in a tangle. You nearly fall backward through the bedroom doorway, your bed draped across with another gown, a simple silver headdress you’d considered and decided against wearing, more sheets of flimsi. He sweeps it all aside in a smooth gesture, dropping you bodily onto your back in the centre of the bed.

You pant up at him, and for a moment you both seem to regain control of yourselves, stilling. Far from backing away, he leans down over you, intent with renewed focus. His hand smooths over your cheek, down to your neck. “Maker, you’re beautiful,” he murmurs. “Always have been. Since that first day you arrived here. Haven’t stopped thinking about you.”

You reach up and clutch your fingers around his neck, pulling him forward until he overbalances on top of you. Your lips are urgent, and you try to wriggle out of your dress even as you skate your fingers along the velvet-prickled sides of his head, cupping behind his ears.

“Let me… how does this work?” he mutters, pulling back and frowning at your bodice.

“In the back,” you breathe, trying to drag yourself back into a seated position. His arms crush you in something similar to an embrace, even as you feel him working clumsily at the fine hooks along the back of your dress. Impatience wars with precision, and you hear the tiny telltale bursting of seams ripped loose.

“I’m sorry,” he starts, looking pained, but you kiss him again, reaching back and finishing the job. You can fix it later. It hardly seems to matter now that he’s here in front of you. You’d rip all of your pretty dresses to ribbons, crush every pearled comb to dust under your feet if it meant he kept touching you like this.

He drags his lips down your neck, pulling aside the loosened panels of fabric until you’re bare underneath him. He sucks at the softness just above your breast, and your skin rushes into goosebumps. Kicking free from the tangle of your ruined dress, you wrap your ankles around his waist, trying to draw him down.

“Wait, cyare,” he breathes. “Let me take care of you first.” Sliding both vambraces off over his wrists, he drags his gloves off with his teeth, dropping them beside the bed and leaning down to return to you.

He closes his mouth around your breast in a slow movement, tongue tracing your nipple. You sink your teeth into your own lip to muffle the whimper that threatens to escape, as his hand skates down the side of your body, following your curves as close as waves hugging the shore. When his fingers brush up between your thighs, you’re almost positive you’ve drawn blood, and you force your jaw to relax.

You both feel the arousal-slicked ease with which his touch glides through your folds, and he releases your breast from his mouth long enough to murmur words of indistinct longing into your skin. His thumb finds your clit, circling it lightly, and your hips jerk up at the shock. Swollen with need, you’re already desperately sensitive to his touch, and a gentle swipe is enough to make your breath catch in your throat.

Without your permission, your hips cant up, seeking more of him, every single nerve ending thrilling at his movements. Obliging, he dips his middle finger into your cunt, and your muscles shock around him, clenching at his touch. “Shit,” he breathes, sounding dazed. “You’re so tight, cyare,” and he eases the digit in deeper, making you shudder around him.

He withdraws, your cunt gripping tight to follow him, and he groans — a disbelieving, almost-pained sound. He pumps into you slowly, curling at the knuckle, and you toss your head back, eyes rolling shut. It’s so good, so much better than your own fingers, his pace steady and relentless, every movement smooth. Your hands flutter down to grasp at his wrist, trying to encourage him to move faster, and he does, bracing himself up on an elbow to watch your face tighten with pleasure.

“That’s it,” he tells you, encouraging, reassuring. “More?”

You nod, unable to form words, and he eases a second finger in, stilling for a moment as though simply enjoying the feeling of you around his touch. He leans in to kiss you again, resuming the slow movements in time with his lips and tongue against your skin. When his thumb returns to brush your clit, you’re almost immediately overwhelmed. Your fingers rake through his short hair, the length at the top tangling around your grip, and he seems to understand what you’re asking for without you even forming the words.

It’s as though a switch flips, and he’s suddenly moving harder, changing the angle and dragging against that spot inside you that makes your thighs tremble. The muscles in your lower stomach convulse, and you bear down, the soles of your feet pressing helplessly into the bed to try to leverage yourself up into his fingers. He’s murmuring to you again, wordless praise, indefinable promises, impossible secrets, delivering it all into your skin even as you hold your breath, releasing it in a shudder. Every muscle below your waist seems to contract at once, and your orgasm hits hard in your brain before anywhere else, scattering every thought and rushing down through your cunt, squeezing and fluttering against his touch.

Your walls still grip at him, even with the renewed coating of your release, and he slips his fingers from you slowly, watching the way your hips lift as though to follow him. Still leaning over you, he brings his glistening fingers up to his lips, but you catch his hand in your own before he can reach, drawing his wrist instead down toward you.

You keep your eyes fixed to his as you part your lips, your tongue pressing tentatively to his fingertips. You taste the tang of yourself on the calloused edges of his fingers: a slight biting edge to the sweetness, like a tart fruit. It’s not unpleasant, and you draw his hand closer, until you’re sucking his fingers into your mouth, hollowing your cheeks as you do.

He’s staring at you like he’s never seen you before. And maybe he hasn’t, really; maybe he’s only seen the demure, buttoned-up Senatorial aide, with her elaborate gowns and fine jewellery, skin soft from lack of manual work. But as you peek up at him through your eyelashes, tongue still pressing into the space between his fingers, there’s no doubt in your mind that he sees you now. Releasing his hand, now far wetter than before, you clutch at his shoulders, using his weight to draw yourself up. He helps you, touch light around your waist as you fumble with his chest plate. The clasps aren’t at the sides, and you’re frustrated, nails scratching at the plastoid, unable to figure it out.

Your voice sounds slightly husky; rough and breathless, nothing at all like your usual gentle tone. “Take this off. Please.”

“It’s underneath,” he tells you, doing something with his hands too fast and practised for you to follow. The now-loose segments fall away, and he pulls the remaining pieces over his head, tossing them to the floor. He draws back briefly, just long enough to ease out of the sections of armour remaining on his legs, kicking out of his boots, yanking his body glove over his head from an opening in the back and rolling it down his waist until he’s completely bare, and you can see every line of muscle in his body. As you’d suspected, he’s leaner without the layers of painted plastoid; his waist narrowing to a vee from his broad chest, his powerful-looking thighs thick but long.

He waits, kneeling at the edge of the bed while you take him in, your chest rising and falling from where you lean, half-sitting up. You’re suddenly overcome with the reality of him. He’s even more beautiful than you’d thought. Like this, in your bed, quiet and patient, he isn’t just a handsome soldier in uniform to appear in your daydreams, ready to sweep you off your feet. He’s scarred, burn-shined scars thickening around his ribs and across his forearms. The steel in his hair glints in the last red fingers of sunset, his strong profile shadowed on one side, leaving his scarred cheek in darkness.

He doesn’t look… uneasy, exactly. Or, not the same unease that would come with nerves, or uncertainty. You can only imagine the string of encounters he’s had across the systems on which he’s been based, each deployment doubtlessly leaving a trail of women in his wake. But he does look careful. Calmly resolved. Like he’s waiting for you to come to your senses, to tell him to put his uniform back on, to remember his place and leave.

“Howzer,” you breathe. Something flickers across his face at the sound of his bare name from your lips, without title or rank. You let your eyes drift downward, taking in the scattering of hair across his abdomen, down to the apex of his thighs. His erection strains toward you, thick and beautiful, curving slightly upward. His brows are furrowed again, staring at you like you’re asking a trick question. The blood-red light fades from his face, the sun finally disappearing from Ryloth. It feels like an omen, and your heart squeezes in sad desperation. Nothing can happen to him, you tell yourself. He’s too solid, too steadfast. You want to ignore the feeling you have, but you can’t. So you do the only other thing you can.

“Please.” Your voice sounds small.

It’s all he needs. Leaning back over you, he kisses you again, and this feels entirely unlike the previous kisses. This is closed-mouthed, gentle and soft. Even as he does it, his hands are running smoothly down your sides. He props his hands under your waist, lifting you slightly, positioning himself between your thighs.

And then the blunt, weeping head of his cock is nudging at your entrance. He pushes forward in the smallest, more careful movements, filling you slowly, sinking inch by inch. There’s no savagery, no reaming thrust like you’d been braced for, or what you’ve experienced from other men. Instead, he eases into you like parting silk, absolutely restrained.

Your breathing matches his, each of your chests expanding against one another. Sticking with the humidity, your breasts pillow against his firm pectorals, and you pull your lips free, gasping for breath. He’s overwhelming you; the sharp smell of kit-issued soap underneath sweat, fingers sinking into the softness at your waist. Every part of him lined up with every part of you.

When he’s finally fully-seated inside you, he doesn’t move straight away, just kissing at your neck, your chest, the secret places below your earlobe and over your eyelids. Split open around him, you feel absolutely secure. If the entire planet’s gravity were to fail in this moment, you know you wouldn’t be going anywhere. Not when he’s holding you in place.

He rocks his hips back gently, barely an inch, still breathing into your skin before sinking back, and you lengthen your torso, stretching back from your bent knees. You clutch at him, trying to encourage movement, and he complies. Drawing backward, he eases back in, still smooth, but harder than before. “Is this alright?” he murmurs, voice rough, even as he draws his hips back again. You realise he’s trying to be as careful as possible with you, and you realise with a start that he thinks you’re in pain.

“I’m not a virgin,” you tell him between gasps. Your fingers press at the muscles of his thighs, trying to draw him closer.

He huffs a shaky laugh against you, sinking deeper into your aching cunt. “Didn’t say you were. Still don’t want to hurt you.”

His concern makes you almost weak with how desperately you want him, just… more and harder, longer, never-ending. “You aren’t. You couldn’t. Please. Fuck me.”

His eyebrows draw down, but he says nothing. His next thrust is harder, hard enough to make your breasts ripple upward, and you exhale through your clenched teeth. His neck arches as he stretches down to kiss the base of your neck even as he begins to fuck you in earnest, gathering speed into a steady, filling rhythm.

He shifts his weight, striking something inside you, and you gasp. “There, right there,” clutching at him. A roll of sweat creeps from your brow backward into your hair, and he chases the same spot, angling his next thrust down instead of sideways. You cry out, your face contorting in pleasure, and he braces his weight down on your hips to keep you still, precision in each of his movements.

You can feel him losing his momentum, your cunt clenching around him as white-hot pleasure melts up into your stomach, bringing you close to your edge again. He draws his lips free, smoothing his hands up to your face, urgent.

“Where… where should I…?”

“I… have… implant,” you tell him, the words cracking on the way out with the force of his thrusts. “In-inside.”

Something about this makes him groan anew, and he drops his sweaty forehead to your shoulder, loose strands of hair stuck across his face. “Come on,” he breathes, muscles tense as though he’s barely holding back. “Come for me, cyare,” and you do, eyes rolling back, your toes curling with the force of your orgasm. You’re boneless in his arms, even as he grits an oath into the side of your head, hips stuttering. His cock throbs inside you, each twitch filling you with the heat of his release, and he continues to thrust, shallow and short until he collapses against you.

His cock leaves a warm gleam on your thigh as he pulls out and rolls to the side, chest heaving beside you. Your breaths are both too loud in the now-dark room, heat swimming thick as the evening sound of insects hums in the distance. You don’t know what to say to him. You’re afraid of sounding pathetic if you beg him to stay, or return later. But you don’t want to pretend this didn’t mean anything to you. You know you wouldn’t even convince yourself if you were to try. You let your head roll limply to the side, and find him already gazing at you, steady as always.

“What does this mean?” you mouth, not putting any air behind the words. His brows furrow.

“What do you want it to?” he responds, catching your hand in his, bringing your knuckles to his lips.

“I want to know what you want.” It sounds almost petulant, but he just closes his eyes, lips moving against your hand.

“What I want… I can’t have.” There’s tiredness underneath it. You remember what he’d said earlier, about losing contact with his brothers after the war ended. Distantly, the shriek of the lylek drifts over, bringing night in. He lets go of your hand, shifting to the edge of the bed and reaching for his armour.

“I have to get back. We want to be prepared for tomorrow.”

You gather your ripped dress around you, watching as he methodically replaces his shoulder bells and pauldron, slipping his gauntlet plates back into place. Running a hand back through the longer hair at the top of his head, he glances at you.

“I… want to see you again. Away from the Senator’s office, I mean.”

You swallow. “I want that too.”

He nods, eyes creasing with softness, leaning in to press a kiss between your eyebrows. As he steps back out into the dusked living space, reaching for the helmet beside the table, you catch the shadowed outline of two cups of untouched caf.

“Howzer?”

He pauses.

“Be careful.” It is insufficient to convey the enormity of how afraid you feel, but he seems to sense it anyway. He nods again, offering you a small smile, and then he’s gone.

Tagging some pals:

@bvcketfvcker @mandaloriandin @thiccumz @themaydecemberist @latenightsthoughtsnstuff @rexsjaigeyes @sgtdogmastyle @phoenixhalliwell @just-fics-i-read @saradika @chromia7567 @herb-welch @sithwitch-crosshairs-toothpick @cannedsoupsucks @clanoffetts @delusionsxfgrandeur @bobas-missing-codpiece @ladyopress @writeforfandoms @pinkiemme @justanothersadperson93 @just-fics-i-read @fuckyeahbeskar @hyperfixation-archives @bedky @whatanoof @501stgirl @alucas528

#captain howzer x f!reader #howzer x f!reader #captain howzer #star wars fanfiction #the bad batch fanfiction #zinzinina

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tundrainafrica · 3 years

Text

Title: Lovebug (14/14)

Summary:

“It might be a bug.”

“A bug?”

“Sometimes the developers of this application make mistakes. This is our first time meeting I’m sure so…Isn’t it a bit weird that we just met for the first time and it rings like this? And for two strangers to coincidentally ring each other’s alarms?“

Levi is the developer of the Love Alarm App and Hange is married to Zeke.

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Notes: I know I usually post on Wednesdays but I'll be on the road on Wednesday and if I don't get this out soon, I'll probably end up dropping it next week or smthg so here it is. Two days early. I hope you enjoy :D

Is this all that there is to life? A glaring question that came unexpectedly, in between reading through codes for his nth freelance project the past few years.

In response, Levi closed his eyes, sat back and reflected. A part of him may have been asking that question for a while and slowly, Levi started to understand why he was asked that in the first place.

A few minutes ago, he had been strangely happy to see his code compiling at the first try. And just a few hours ago, he had been enthusiastic at running a debugger through a code and finding a few typos to fix.

Happiness. That was happiness right?

That part of him continued to nag. It soured that 'happiness,' leaving a burning dissatisfaction inside him. You’ve experienced better moments, happier moments.

Then Levi got fed up. He reached into the back of his mind, he remembered, then something stopped him from reminiscing for a while longer.

Something strange. Something buried.

He hadn’t allowed himself to feel much since he first moved into that new city. He had allowed the novelty and the business to carry him through his first months. But the novelty of a new beginning never lasted long.

Too shaken to even bother applying for a new job, Levi opted to work freelance. Consequently, his only companions were the four walls of his studio apartment and the occasional voices from next door.

There was only so much which could stimulate interest. His mind continued to search for them and naturally, time continued to move along with it. Routine and episodes of ennui seemed to last infinities in the moment. But in retrospect, it felt like they all happened too fast.

He had made sense of time in milestones, milestones worth ten times the refreshing feeling of running a debugger through code or the fleeting euphoria of compiling codes at the first try.

Is that all that there is to life? Eventually, he made sense of that strange voice. There was reason to that question.

That day was another milestone. If it wasn't for his nagging mind, he could have missed it.

It was a blustery autumn day in late October, the weather similar to the last view he had of his home five years ago. Shifting his gaze from the window of his present apartment, he took a quick look at the calendar and it was like a dam had ended up spilling open inside him.

The five year mark was a bittersweet milestone, five years since he left home. The fifth year rang more loudly than every year before that. Maybe because five was such a perfect number, or perhaps because he had been keeping something in for a while.

He felt a release. Then a reprieve from the monotony, a reprieve from the five years avoiding his old life. Levi found himself opening his browser tab, typing the words ‘love alarm’ on the search box and deleting it a second later.

An aimless and useless sequence of movements. He didn’t need a quick google search to know how it was doing.

The love alarm had become a household name even all the way in his side of the world. With his very human need to go out, whether it be for groceries, shopping or just some fresh air, Levi couldn’t completely ignore it. With the right decisions, Levi could choose not to give so much as a side glance at the people walking, heads bent down, staring at the number of hearts on their application.

When he went out though, even with his music at full blast, he would hear the familiar alarm as he walked through crowds.

At first, it had left a pang in his chest, a brief bout of nausea, perhaps disgust or embarrassment at his old life.

It had been five years since he first arrived though and it turned out, time did heal.

Levi looked through the wikipedia page of the love alarm and he found, it hurt more like a raw scar than a stab in his chest or a crushing weight. The nausea, the pang in his chest that plagued him years before were weak if almost nonexistent.

Curiosity took over.

Would would have felt like an ache in the chest years ago, felt more like a mosquito bite. Levi was just slightly annoyed. It did nothing to stop him though from registering again and looking through the application interface.

Nothing much had changed. There were some slight changes to the skin of the registration page, a change in the name of the company at the bottom. Levi purposely touched the activate button rapidly and found he had crashed the application.

That was one bug that he never got to fix. He turned his phone to the side, noting the way the screen glitched as it adjusted to the landscape orientation of the phone. Another bug Levi never got to fix.

Then he wondered who the developer on the other end had been to have never even caught it.

Biometrics registered, Levi activated the alarm to find no hearts. He couldn’t help but entertain that slight disappointment. Of course no hearts would have appeared though. He hadn’t even interacted with his neighbors.

It would have been creepy it rang. Letting out a sardonic laugh just loud enough for himself, he leaned back on the chair and stared at the ceiling, forcing his thoughts back to whatever coding freelance project he’d been dealing with a few minutes ago.

Work came in freelance projects. They were enough for rent, for savings and some capacity to eat out occasionally.

A simple yet comfortable life. But is that all that there is to life? That voice continued to tear into his work related thoughts. Levi gave in to the nagging thought again. He started scrolling through wikipedia articles detailing use, detailing acquisition history, he found another key word under related articles, more interesting than ‘love alarm.’

Mood Alarm.

It sent a strange shiver through the back of his neck. Levi rolled his shoulders, relieving the tension that came with the last few eons of reflection. He let out a whistle, opened the new article and scrolled down towards references.

There were lists of articles.

Partner of Zeke Jaeger and freshly minted PhD graduate Doctor Hange Zoe release Mood Alarm.

Doctor Hange Zoe. Something inside him was fighting for control. He couldn’t bring himself to click the link. At the same time though, there was this curiosity inside him that he couldn’t seem to get to the bottom of.

Under the link to the article was the official website.

At the front page, there was a boring and overly professional introduction Levi didn’t bother to read

Below them, everything else had been interesting enough to give more than a second long glance.

The list of functionalities. The color codes. Then newly launched dashboard functionalities, almost a carbon copy of the plan Levi had sent years back.

“Fucking hell, you actually did it,” Levi muttered. He couldn’t help but just allow the smile that tugged at his lips some control. Excitement had him searching for the application on the play store, downloading it and methodically going through the same registration process as the love alarm.

It didn’t look much like the mood alarm Levi had worked on years ago. He saw hints of it though and worked from there to admire it.

The front end had been cleaned up. The font chosen fit the silver-to-white gradient of the application. When Levi clicked ‘activate,’ the screen loaded.

The colors mixed against one another for a second, an aesthetic choice of animation that Levi couldn’t help but be amused with.

Red. Yellow. Blue. Purple. Green. Orange.

The colors continued to mix. Then some disappeared as if they had lost themselves in some colorful war.

Then it was only blue and yellow. The two colors danced against one another for a few seconds longer before they disappeared too. More specifically, they bundled against one another.

Green. It took him at least five seconds to get that reading.

He didn’t have to look at the guide on the website to know what it meant.

Sad happy? Or happy sad? Whatever that feeling was, Levi felt no need to introspect, or maybe he had been too lazy to.

It had been a while since he had even let himself feel something. The green on his screen, the feeling that accompanied it, seemed more like an old friend he hadn’t talked to a while.

If he had any ability at introspection, maybe it had already rusted. Still, he let those emotions inside him, that yellow and that blue do their work.

They had him turning off the mood alarm, then turning off the love alarm. Something inside him still hesitated to delete the applications. Then it had him considering the space on his phone for just a second.

He downloaded another app that night. A familiar app with a flame, then another one with a bee. Only months into his new life in a new city with a new job, Levi was already bored— and if he had to admit it—terribly, terribly lonely.

And maybe the best way to cure it was to spend the whole night swiping.

***

Finding a companion wasn’t as easy as desperation and a few second long rush of confidence made it out to be.

Perhaps, online dating was a rash idea, an uncharacteristic move.

Didn't he reject Petra years ago? How could he date anyone else? Petra… How is she… With nothing much to do but wait for his date, he found himself texting Petra as he waited in the cafe.

He sent a few thank you messages at her well wishes. They exchanged brief updates and Petra’s own updates dragged on for longer.

Her life was more eventful than his.

Petra had started dating Oluo. She had found someone who loved her, just as much as she loved him. Keeping a correspondence with her only highlighted points for reflection for Levi. The more he reflected, the more questions came up. The more he reflected, the more complicated the questions became.

He was lonely but could he be picky? At the same time, did he even have the heart to put anyone through the shitty experience of a half hearted courtship?

Hange’s words echoed in his head, not in any specific string, a few parts in words, a few parts in phrases.

Considering the circumstances… Love is a choice.

When he let her words echo through him, he managed to grip a presence long gone. A presence and a relationship, he clarified, that had never been his in the first place.

He never did completely brush away the guilt that accompanied every passing thought of Hange. There was this strange acceptance though that appended it, and it had him a little more discerning, a little more prudent.

If he couldn’t have her, he could always just keep her close in his own personal way.

“Have you heard of the love alarm?”

How long had she been there? How long had she been talking?

Right, Levi was on a date. She had said words before that question and Levi could have sworn they had exchanged greetings even before that.

“In passing,” Levi said. He manifested some reality from the words, as if a firm response was enough to forget decades worth of overtime and testing.

“It’s this application we can use to test compatibility… So at least we know if this could work.”

Levi listened with some fake intent as she explained how the love alarm worked. He made sure to nod at points where her tone had gone a little higher or louder.

“What do you think?” There was some finality to her voice, an expectant look on her face.

Levi hummed in thought.. “I don’t believe in using an app to check compatibility. What about when we consider circumstances? Get to know each other… Then decide if it could work?”

She looked at her phone for a second, then back at Levi, her brows furrowed in confusion.

Levi shook his head. “Sorry, I just don’t believe in things like the love alarm, it seems just like horoscopes or Myer Briggs to me. Compatibility, relationships, they’re just gonna be choices we make anyway.” He found himself guiltily looking away as he said those last points.

The pout that played at his date’s lips was evidence enough, there probably wouldn’t be a second date. “It’s not like our love alarm’s would have rung anyway,” she said.

It had been a while since Levi dated though and he started to realize, maybe his filter and his social skills had rusted just a bit.

***

Love is a choice.

It looked like he might have been the only one to believe that. He had managed to piss off countless other dates with his own ‘love is a choice’ schtick.

And he had been dating semi regularly for the past year already. Yet, nothing was coming up fruitful.

How the hell did Hange even manage to get married? Or maybe Hange had just been the exception. He then concluded, Hange just had too many other loveable qualities which could make anyone want to snap her up early on.

The more he entertained the thought of Hange, the heavier his own chest became. Then he stopped entertaining her then the cycle would start again, a very vicious cycle.

It just so happened that sometimes the thought of ‘Hange’ manifested as some domineering thought. ‘Love is a choice’ and the strange sensation that came with his whole body protesting, rebelling in their own little way worked hand in hand.

He was confused and consequently desperate enough to open the mood alarm for some inkling of comprehension. He would focus on the way the colors switched among one another, disappearing, always revealing a yellow and a light blue dancing between one another then always ending with a light blue.

Sometimes he was blue. Sometimes he was green.

Ane he continued to check. After all, he mood alarm had become a beautiful and constant companion. He had deleted the love alarm but kept the mood alarm close.

“What do you think of the love alarm?”

How many people are gonna ask about that fucking application?

Zeke had just been a little too good at marketing. It was the nth time someone had broken the ice of a first date with that fucking question and Levi regretted not making a drinking game out of it. Maybe he would have been able to drink enough to forget that cursed product.

“Are you okay?” his new date asked.

He had spent the past few minutes too silent, not thinking. “Nifa…” That was her name right? He cleared his throat. “I’m fine.”

She looked as nervous as he did, or even more nervous. That part was comforting at least. In a way, her demeanor seemed a little more pleasant, more genuinely curious than wary. “I asked just a second ago, have you ever used that love alarm?” she said in response.

Levi followed the same script. "In passing."

“Would you like to try it out? Just to make sure we’re on the same page, relationship wise.”

“I’d rather we relied on circumstances and compatibility to make the choice for us. Get to know each other maybe…” When it came to suggestions, Levi had revised his script just a bit. Too many people got offended by his invalidating horoscopes and Myer Briggs type for some weird reason. “Like get to know each other, like…” Levi trailed off for a second, allowing himself a pregnant pause. ”... Elizabeth and Darcy?”

Nifa had cocked her head to the side curiously, thought for a long second and smiled just a bit wider. “You read Pride and Prejudice?”

Levi nodded subtly. “A while back,.”

She paused for a second, seeming deep in thought. “Well… Now that I think about it, you might be right,” Nifa said. “This compatibility thing… Your idea of love. I think it makes sense.”

“Really? You think so?”

“Yeah, why?” Nifa asked.

Levi dropped his shoulders in relief, the weight of at least a hundred failed dates fell off his shoulders. “I’ve been dating for years and I feel like you’re the only one who actually said that.”

Nifa didn’t reply immediately and the longer Levi sat there, the more clearly he saw her face. Surprise morphed into something that seemed more like pity. Then, the chronic pang in his chest came back.

A first love did that to people maybe? A painful first love lost had that special power to maybe just twist his own philosophies, to make him almost disgusted at his own creations and the way it had challenged his own convictions.

Are you scared? Levi thought to himself. He couldn’t be too sure how he was handling himself in front of Nifa. He looked down at his hands, opening and closing them a few times and if he looked closely, he could almost feel those uncomfortable twinges in his wrist that came from years of coding.

“I’m willing to put the time into it if you are.” Nifa’s voice was more gentle and it flowed as if she had sensed the stiffness in his voice.

Levi didn’t respond immediately and suddenly their little corner of the crowded cafe was eerily silent. There was a melancholy that had blanketed their little corner despite the Saturday afternoon crowd.

Nifa seemed like she was trying to break away from it with some light conversation. “Hey, have you heard of the mood alarm?”

“The mood alarm?” Levi let that half smile creep up his lips, just high enough to be more invisible than obvious. Three words from a stranger and his emotions were reduced to a mess.

He once again felt that twinge again at his rests and that sleepless night, and her. He was remembering her in his office through sleepy exhausted eyes, with a cocktail dress and a sandwich bag in one hand.

There was also something amusing and painfully ironic about hearing his own brainchild, from someone so casually, as if it had turned into some household name while he wasn’t looking.

The conversation was getting painful, painfully interesting and the masochist in Levi was gripping him and pulling him back to reality. “Like the love alarm…” Levi added.

“Well, they’re products from the Jaeger corporation… You know the Jaeger family right?” Nifa added.

Levi could only be thankful he hadn’t been sipping at his tea then. He probably could have choked. How could he ever forget Zeke Jaeger?

He might have gotten a lot better at hiding his own disgust or Nifa could have been too deep in thought. She continued to talk. “They bought Love Alarm a few years back.”

“I know the Jaeger family,” Levi said.

“So you know about their eldest son, the heir of the Jaeger corporation… And his partner?”

Levi took a sip of tea, not bothering to respond.

Nifa may have taken that as a ‘no.’“His partner was working towards a PhD in psychology and apparently that was her final project. The codes for the mood alarm are very similar to the love alarm apparently."

“Oh?” Levi asked, feigning interest.

Soon, it turned into something genuine. Nifa was offering new information. “She got the PhD a few years ago and soon after that, the application was launched. And now they’re launching a solution for hospitals.”

“What kind of solution?” Levi asked.

“Wait, have you ever used the mood alarm? Or do you know how it works?” Nifa asked. “Anyway, I realized I ended up digressing here… The point I was trying to make is, the one who developed the mood alarm was able to prove that whatever measurements they use for the love alarm, are related to emotions. And what if, understanding how we feel when we work towards a relationship is a better determinant of whether the relationship could work?”

Levi nodded quickly, an attempt to be polite. At that point though, he wasn’t too interested in the point she had been trying to make “I’m familiar with the application and how it works. But you mentioned something about a solution for hospitals…” He didn’t think it was worth lying. He didn’t need a long winded explanation of the alarm he made. He needed an explanation of what Hange had been making."

Nifa didn’t seem to get the message. “So, the application will determine your emotions for you--- I have one right now and we could use it over time to articulate how we feel.” She pulled out her phone and dropped it on the table. “I think analyzing our own emotions would do a better job than relying on how the love alarm processes the emotions.”

There was something surreal about seeing a user explain it to him, as if they knew it more than him.

For a while, he couldn’t help but just entertain the possibility that in her own way, Nifa may have known more. With someone explaining and demonstrating, he was more easily able to make sense of the changes that had been implemented since Hange acquired it.

The app icon was reminiscent of the love alarm, two rings around it but instead of a heart in between, there was an icon, an elegant cross between a flower and a color wheel.

Red. Blue. Yellow. In between the primary colors were purple, green and orange.

Nifa activated it and held the phone between her fingertips. Just like the night when Levi had first played with it, the colored blobs swam amongst one another again, each blob would disappear one by one, leaving the remaining colors.

Yellow and Orange. “Looks like I’m happy,” Nifa commented. “So apparently the new dashboard allows us to connect this reading on the phone to a PC and get a more detailed explanation, numbers, heart rate, all the like.”

“You seem to know a lot about the app,” Levi mused.

Nifa cocked her head to one side. “Well, I’m into psychology too. I work as a psychologist in one of the hospitals. Our hospital is one of the first ones to buy software licenses so I’ve done my research.” She hummed, looking straight at him for a second as if studying him. “Now that I think about it, your job wasn’t on your profile. What do you do for a living?”

Levi’s response was automatic. “IT work.” He was suddenly self conscious about even mentioning the word ‘developer.’

“Ooooh... So you’d probably figure out how this app works much faster than I would.” Nifa sighed. “And you could probably help reassure me about this."

“Reassure you about what?”

“I’m honestly pretty nervous about rolling out this software.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s relatively new, a few bugs would come up here and there.”

“All softwares are going to face new bugs with every update. It’s never ending,” Levi said nonchalantly.

“Spoken like a true IT guy,” Nifa joked. She took a sip of her shake and stared down at his tea and up at him again. “Say, since you’re in IT, you think you can hook us up with someone?”

“Hook you up with someone?” Levi asked. His mind was going places more suited for a tinder date than a conversation on career. He raised one eyebrow in question. He couldn’t be too sure of what she meant just yet.

It looked like she had started to understand that double entendre. Nifa blushed then let out a cough. “No, no. Our company is looking to build a small support team.”

“An IT support team?” Levi asked.

“Well, people who could focus on learning the product, dealing with whatever bugs, testing them, compiling them and sending them over to the Mood Alarm team. You think you’d know anyone tech savvy? Maybe familiar with how biotechnology works?

“I could try to look around…” Levi said.

“Great!” Nifa chimed

By some magic, the conversation shifted elsewhere. Nifa had a way with conversation, keeping some sort of a flow, talking about her own job and getting him to talk about his freelance projects.

Levi’s thoughts on the hospital solution though were an ubiquitous part of his mind space.That was the whole point of the investment right? Back then, Zeke and Hange had plans on selling it to hospitals.

And there was a free trial. That night, Levi had been curious enough to click the ‘book a free trial button’ and to even fill out the first few lines.

Organization name? He didn't have one.

Purpose? To catch up with his own brain child maybe.

He ended up staring at the blank screen for a while, wondering where the hell he would get an organization and a valid purpose.

He wanted to check it out, he really did. And he was a little salty that they required a background check before they even allowed trials for a project he created.

Curiosity became desperation. With desperation, came creativity, audacity. He took his phone with the intention of just asking Nifa a few questions, only to see there was an unread message from her.

Thanks for today! I had a lot of fun. Hopefully, we can plan something soon. I might be busy with work this week but maybe the week after?

Levi stared at her message and composed a quick reply, pleasantries forgotten.

You mentioned something about IT support openings in the hospital...

***

The hiring manager introduced himself as Moblit but he didn't say much else. Instead, he spent the next few minutes looking through Levi's resume, his brow wrinkled.

"Is there something wrong with my resume?" Levi asked, breaking the silence. He had kept it minimalistic, only sticking to odd jobs the past five years.

Moblit shook his head. "Nothing, it just doesn't look like you have support role experience."

"Do I need experience in a support role? I think I'm familiar enough with how apps work to stand in as one," Levi said. Should he mention that he had done the support work before?

"So you've compiled tickets, sent them over to developers?"

I'm the developer who deals with those bullshit tickets. He thought to himself. On the outside though, he nodded and leaned a bit more forward on the table. It wasn’t too difficult to show interest. He was genuinely interested, having given in to that curiosity-turned-desperation.

"Well, if you're interested in taking the job then…” Moblit said. “Let's see how much you know about the mood alarm app." He opened a folder. "It's a relatively new solution, so I don't expect you to know much but if you've heard of the love alarm?"

"I have."

"Well they're from the same corporation…"

Information on their history flew into one ear and out the other. "Do you have any more questions for me?" Levi asked. He could have interrupted Moblit there but he didn’t want to hear about a history he actually experienced first hand.

Moblit cleared his throat. "Well, if you could tell me how you think the mood alarm works? Then I’ll give you a list of common bugs and can you tell me how you will go about raising them to developers?

***

Six years hadn’t done much to make him forget. He had been working with the love alarm for almost a decade after all.

And the mood alarm? He had a strange connection to it, he couldn’t explain.

The code wasn’t open source. Of course it wouldn’t. That was an enterprise application and they wouldn’t want any hacker just randomly getting it. Yet, why did he feel so offended at not having access?

“Hey Levi, how would you handle this?”

“Handle what?” Levi didn’t look up from his monitor immediately. The voice and the question have all were all too familiar and it wasn’t urgent anyway.

“Levi, take a look…” Farlan seemed more frustrated than a second ago.

Levi looked at Farlan’s screen. Another display issue. He was all too familiar with the bugs and it looked like the love alarm and the mood alarm were coming up with the same issues. “Click the activate button three times really fast, right click the desktop, select inspect and take a screenshot. We send it over to the developers on the mood alarm team,” Levi said. That had become routine after a while, yet somehow, his two colleagues Farlan and Isabel were still asking questions.

Maybe because he was the only one who understood what the hell the developers needed to see to actually get to the bottom of the problem.

“Make sure to check it in both light mode and dark mode,” Levi said. “And also, there’s a known bug for the phone app, check if turning on the alarm affects your ability to receive notifications from other apps.” Those words had sent a wave of nostalgia through him. That was one of the bugs he had gotten around to fixing with the love alarm.

“Hey...”Isabel’s voice sounded from next to him. Levi turned around, almost jumping when he saw she had been close enough to look over his shoulder. “What are you researching?”

It wouldn't look good if he slacked off at work in front of colleagues a good few years his junior. Levi closed the tab. “Just my own research on mood alarm.” And when he looked at his codes a little longer, then back at Isabel who seemed almost confused, Levi realized it had looked more like extra work than anything else.

He spent the whole morning on ‘extra work, watching the API calls, making notes to himself to check the codes he had sent Hange years back just to see how much had changed.

“You finished all your tasks today and you still wanna do research on the mood alarm?” Farlan asked, a look of utter amazement on his face.

“What can I say? This app is pretty interesting.” it wasn’t a lie. Watching the growth of his own child from afar, was a fun thing to do.

“It honestly feels like you’ve done this type of work before."

“I did something similar,” Levi said.

“What kind of place did you work in before?” Isabel asked excitedly, her tasks also forgotten.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Levi answered, his tone unchanged.

“Something like the love alarm?”

Levi nodded. “Maybe that’s the reason I can figure things out pretty fast,” he said. The best plan of action was to digress.

“So that means we could make you handle the harder cases?” Farlan snickered.

“I’d rather you learn how to deal with others on your own,” Levi said. “I’ve worked with these apps for a long time. The bugs never end.”

***

“Moblit’s saying you’re doing a pretty good job picking out the bugs,” Nifa spoke above the bustle of the lunch time crowd.

“Are we?” Levi asked. He kept his words brief, not wanting to waste too much energy speaking over the others in the hospital cafeteria.

“Well, he was talking about you mostly,” Nifa said. “Most big issues get resolved with each release. And Moblit was saying that our support team just gives really good feedback.”

“The developers do the work. All we do is find the bugs.” Levi started to pick more meticulously at his salad

Nifa shook her head. “I think the support team deserves credit too. It’s difficult figuring out whether issues are user issues or there’s really a bug. Isabel also told me you find ways to reproduce it quickly.”

“Do I?” His responses were getting less and less creative. There just wasn’t much to say and the compliments were making him more and more uncomfortable by the second.

Moblit was a life saver. He had broken out of the crowd, running to Nifa, an urgent but excited expression on his face. “Nifa, you’ve got to hear this.”

Levi used that brief distraction to shovel more salad into his mouth.

Moblit had spoken just beneath the sounds of other conversations and Levi couldn’t make out what he had said. He did make out the urgency in Nifa’s face and the excitement. Whatever Moblit had said was contagious.

“When are they coming?” Nifa asked, her voice much louder than Moblit’s.

Levi stood up, gathering his plate, his utensils and his unfinished salad. “If I’m not supposed to be in this conversation…”

Moblit shook his head. “Levi, no, please stay. I’d rather you hear this since this is related to your line of work too.”

“Why?” Levi raised one eyebrow.

“Zeke Jaeger and his partner Doctor Hange Zoe, they’re planning to visit,” Moblit said.

Levi couldn’t even tell what expression he had on then.

Maybe Moblit had interpreted shock as confusion. “Zeke Jaeger is the owner of the love alarm. Hange Zoe’s the creator of the mood alarm… In case you didn't know.”

***

“Hey, I wanna see her… Is this how she looks like?” Isabel’s voice was a whisper, a very loud whisper. “She looks smart.”

Farlan’s voice wasn’t any softer. “Well, that’s what you’d expect from the mastermind behind the mood alarm right? I heard Zeke Jaeger bought her the love alarm so she could look through the code and make the mood alarm for herself.”

“Where did you hear that?” Isabel asked.

“Watch the interviews.”

The click and clack of the keyboard. Then there was the sound of voices coming from the loud speaker from Farlan’s computer.

Then Hange’s very familiar voice.

Levi didn’t want to listen. “You know, if you spend too much time looking through this. You’re not gonna get anything done.” He forced his voice into something louder than what he was comfortable with. “Don’t you two have other tasks to do?”

“Aren’t you excited to meet them?” Isabel rolled her chair next to Levi.

No way in hell am I meeting them. “I’m planning on taking a leave,” he said.

“Wait, why?” Isabel seeming heartbroken, as if Levi taking a leave was the most terrible thing in the world.

“Well, as employees we’re entitled to leaves right?” Levi asked emotionlessly, willing himself not to at all be affected by Isabel’s puppy dog face.

Farlan sighed. “You’re the best one at this type of work among the three of us. You know, this is a good opportunity for you to get noticed.”

“I don’t wanna get noticed,” Levi said, as he focused back again on the screen, refreshing their ticketing software a little bit faster that time. It really was an uneventful afternoon. He couldn’t blame Farlan and Isabel for doing nothing.

“It’s a big money, a chance at a big career move,” Farlan said, raising his voice as if that could have done anything to convince Levi.

Levi looked up from the monitor and back to Farlan. “Do you really want me out of here?”

Farlan shrugged. “I dunno, you just seem too overqualified for this kind of job.”

Levi sighed. “Believe me, I’m happy to be here.” He continued to click refresh, just in case anything could have halted that already seemingly awkward conversation. The reason why he didn’t want to run into Zeke or Hange… Was it written all over his face?

Just in case Farlan and Isabel were mind readers, Levi kept quiet, kept his eyes glued on the screen and he prayed the day would get busier somehow.

It did. But it got busy so close to the end of the day and overtime seemed inevitable.

“We’re not receiving any readings.”

The same exact fucking line, from ten different customers from different hospital branches around the country. “You’re fucking kidding me,” Levi muttered.

He opened all the test devices, only to find, none of them were receiving readings from the mood alarm either. He was sure though, he was annoyed, very very annoyed. Maybe even angry. “Try testing,” he ordered.

Farlan and Isabel were more emotional than he was. If it didn’t work for them, it probably wasn’t working at all.

They had full trust on him. Isabel and Farlan nodded and they went through the devices quickly. All test devices exhausted and there was nothing much to do. Levi was convinced it was an issue that could only be investigated on the backend. “We’re done for the day.”

“We have to send a report right?”

Levi started to pack his bag. “Send a report saying we’re not getting any readings,” he said with a shrug. “It’s probably a backend issue or an issue with their API.”

“You sure we can’t do anything from our side?” Farlan pressed.

Levi shook his head. “None.” He logged out, slung his backpack over his shoulder and exited the office.

He sensed their disappointment in him. In his months working there, Levi had never left the office without doing a thorough investigation and writing a detailed report.

That might be the first time in months, they would give something completely unhelpful for the developers. That wasn’t Levi’s intention though. There were just some things that were better off investigated on his own personal PC.

For the first time in a while, Levi didn’t go straight for the shower when he arrived back home. He booted up his own PC. When he checked his cloud account, he found the private repository with all the codes from the love alarm and the mood alarm was still there.

It hadn’t been touched in years though.

He scrolled through the code, allowing that wave of nostalgic to wash over him gently. Having been the only one who worked on the base, Levi was very very familiar with it. Memories came quickly with the nostalgia. There was a point where the server was down and he remembered the hundreds of support tickets about the temporarily malfunctioning love alarm.

No readings were coming through. Levi did a quick calculation of the time zones of his own city and of the mood alarm headquarters. Then he looked through the code again.

Convinced that it was a fair theory, Levi opened his pseudo email, entered the support email for the mood alarm and left just one sentence on the email body.

I’m convinced one of your devs left a debugger on one of these codes on the backend.

A few years ago, he had been guilty of leaving a debugger running overnight, fucking up the whole command system of the love alarm.

He copied and pasted a part of the code and the sent the email off. For all he knew, the mood alarm could have branched off far from the love alarm, rendering his theory completely stupid. Still, it was a theory worth entertaining.

The issues from work forgotten, Levi started to open his other emails, finding one from Petra on the third page, dated months ago.

Just a reminder that he hadn’t opened that email in months. “A wedding invite?”

Petra Ral and Oluo Bozado invite you to celebrate their wedding…

He didn’t need the rest of it to convince himself to go. He only needed to look at the date under, conveniently a week after Hange and Zeke were scheduled to visit the hospital where he worked.

He sent off two emails that night.

One to Petra, a very very late RSVP.

Then one to management, a request for a two week leave. For personal reasons.

A wedding always made a good personal reason. That was probably only half his actual personal reason though.

***

“I didn’t even expect you to come.” Petra seemed happy.

It could have been the make up or her natural blush. She was a glowing bride, glowing bright enough that Levi was starting to feel lonely.

“It’s been a while,” Levi said. “And you two are looking good.”

“How’s life abroad?” Petra asked.

“It’s fine,” Levi said.

“You adjusted well?” Petra asked again.

“Yeah, I guess I did.” Levi took a sip of his wine.

“You managed to get a software engineering job there?” That time it was Oluo who asked.

“Something similar,” Levi said. He started to shake his glass a bit, feigning deep consideration. Maybe that would explain his inability to respond. In truth, he was in no mood to make conversation but when the bride and the groom had gone out of their way to sit next to him on the bench outside their party, and they had gone through all the trouble of asking, it was only polite that he kept his side of the conversation.

Somewhere along the exchanges, Petra brought up a question. And whether it had been appropriate or not, Levi couldn’t tell but he thought it worth an answer at least.

“Have you met anyone?” Petra asked.

“What?” Levi responded.

“I dunno… I guess someone who makes you feel good? Someone who manages to ring your love alarm?” Petra gave him a knowing look.

Levi only had to shift his gaze from Petra to the seemingly blank face of Oluo to know, Petra had at least kept that part to herself. To the others, his alarm ringing with Hange could have been just a bug.

Levi shook his head. “I haven’t touched the love alarm in years,” he admitted.

Petra seemed more understanding. “We haven’t touched it in years either.”

Levi raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

Petra stared ahead, looking deep in thought. She turned to Oluo. “Well, I guess a part of us wanted to build this organically, get to know each other first. And maybe that’s the best way to find people. I think the love alarm just causes unnecessary chaos sometimes.”

Levi only had to look back at his past five years to see it. To be honest, he could actually put the blame on the love alarm for completely uprooting his life. He couldn't say he totally agreed though. He didn’t regret the time with Hange either.

But he wasn’t going to deny her credit where credit was due. “You make sense.”

It wasn’t as simple as that though. Somehow, Hange’s own words had torn into the silence. Just for him. The love alarm causes chaos but sometimes it can tie loose ends.

And for him, it had been both. It had caused chaos but somehow, meeting Hange, having gotten to know her, having gotten to talk to her had tied some loose ends inside him.

What kind of loose ends? He couldn’t be too sure.

“Even when you don’t use the love alarm now, have you met other people?” Petra was still very interested in his love life.

Oluo should have been silently uncomfortable about that. Levi couldn’t tell with a quick glance.

“I’ve met a few people though… There’s someone named Nifa,” Levi said,

“Next time you come here, you’ll take her for a visit? Make sure to introduce us to her?” Petra asked.

“Or maybe next time, it will be us visiting,” Oluo added.

The brief conversation ended soon after, with a few exchanged greetings and a promise to bring Nifa. In case something ever happened between him and NIfa.

By the end of the night, he had made a promise to himself not to use that love alarm to find his next love.

Petra was right, the love alarm could cause unnecessary chaos. Besides, love is a choice right?

***

Levi came back from his very relaxing two week leave to two words that made his stomach turn.

Doctor Zoe. That was what Farlan and Isabel called her.

“Doctor Zoe…” Levi repeated. The words tasted unfamiliar. Suddenly, the road trip, the beach trip and just the quiet meetings in the cafe all seemed like just a fevered dream.

“And she stopped to talk to all of us!” Isabel sang, her eyes filled with wonder. “You should have stayed. I swear, I feel like you would have gotten along. She never stops talking. You two could have talked about the mood alarm for hours.”

“She sounds tiring to be with,” Levi said, an attempt at a halfhearted reply.

Farlan grinned, an alarmingly knowing expression on his face. “Don’t lie, you would have enjoyed at least listening. You’re way more enthusiastic about the mood alarm than we are.”

“I’m just being a good employee.” Levi shook his head, as if that was enough to erase the regret that shoved itself into his throat and down to his chest.

“She really made sure to talk to everyone,” Isabel said. “And she stayed for a few days longer. Maybe the plans changed since she went alone.”

“Wait, she came alone?” Levi said. Don’t regret. Don’t you dare regret leaving.

Farlan nodded in response. “Moblit explained this to us before they came.” He turned to Isabel as if expecting some explanation from her.

“I can’t be too sure either, I’ve only heard a bit about it. And rich people like the Jaegers, they like to keep their personal lives a secret right?” Isabel answered.

Farlan shrugged. “Anyway, from what Moblit told me, they intended to visit all the major customers including our hospital chain. They’ve been planning this tour for months, maybe even years but Doctor Zoe ended up going alone.”

“Did you ever find out why?” Levi kept his voice soft, anything louder and he might just look more invested. He turned back to the unopened tickets on his screen. From his peripherals, he could see Farlan and Isabel exchanging glances.

It was Farlan who spoke up. “I have a theory.”

“Tell me,” Levi said.

“They fought.”

“Okay, couples fight.” Levi continued to click at the tickets, opening them one by one, just to feel productive.

“Yeah, but it must have been a big fight right?” Isabel added. “I did some research on Doctor Zoe after we met her and apparently, they were having problems even years ago. Apparently, there are rumors that her husband bought the love alarm to save their marriage.”

“Where the hell did you get that info?” Farlan sounded incredulous.

Isabel chuckled mischievously. “The dark, dark internet.”

“That can’t be true.” Farlan shook his head in disbelief.

“I can’t really prove it anymore. A lot of the threads online that actually discuss this get taken down by the admin. But I swear, now that I think about it, it does make sense. I read some articles, no one expected Zeke Jaeger to buy the love alarm… Some said he did it to save the love alarm after a major bug showed up that could have prevented PR….Apparently, there was a certain point a few years ago, where there were photos of Doctor Zoe with another man. I tried looking for the photos but I can’t find them anymore.”

“You really got invested in her love life huh?”

Isabel groaned. “I couldn’t help it. She seemed so nice and she talked to us a lot even when we were just support, she took the time to teach us and she’s just so humble…”

“But what if she really did cheat on her husband?” Farlan challenged. “I mean, the rumors have to have been there for a reason right?”

“Do you think she looks like the type to cheat?” Isabel asked. “That very honest and open face?”

Farlan coughed in surprise. “She doesn’t for sure---but rumors don’t come out of nowhere right?”

“You two, go back to work,” Levi said. While the two had been working, he had been assigning tickets to them, an ingenious way to compose himself.

“Wait not yet, what do you think Levi? You might have better intuition than we do.”

“Intuition?” Levi repeated, one eyebrow raised.

“Does she really look like the type to cheat?” Farlan asked.

Levi continued to stare at the screen, not willing to risk showing them whatever expression played at his face then. “I didn’t meet her. You two did so you’re better qualified to answer that question. Tell me, does she look like the type to cheat?”

Farlan paused for a second, then narrowed his eyes at Levi. “I think I have a question which you might be more qualified to answer,” Farlan said. “You’re pretty good at finding bugs. Have you ever done research on the love alarm bug? What do you think the bug was… The one which made Zeke Jaeger buy the app?”

“I don’t think there was a bug,” Levi said.

“What do you mean?” Farlan pressed.

“Get back to work you two.” Levi kept his voice firm, loud and authoritative. Something he would have rather not done, if it hadn’t been for the weight which came with what should have been a light piece of gossip, and his whittling ability to keep a stoic demeanor.

The deep dark internet. Levi watched his two companions. Their eyes were once again fixed on the screen, Farlan’s fingers were flying over the keyboard, Isabel was playing with some test device.

Deep enough at work for Levi to take his own quick break. He opened an incognito tab and put his headphones on.

One video or one article, and he’d get back to work. He found an interview, the opening questions had been the same familiar ones Farlan had been playing on speaker months ago.

He played the first few questions at twice the speed. He knew the answers already.

What inspired you to make the mood alarm?

“Love alarm… Codes… Yadayadayada…” Levi muttered just a loud enough for himself. Hange had been careful not to mention anything about a developer. He could see the way she had shifted gazes for just a second, seeming uncomfortable.

He couldn’t blame her. Isabel had said so herself, in the deep dark internet, maybe there were rumors of an affair.

And some journalists were aware.

Personal Life? Around the point that someone asked about her personal life, Levi slowed the clip down. They had timed it, to the exact point where Hange had tensed up and looked away for just a second.

“Can you tell us about your relationship with Zeke Jaeger? How has it been?”

“How did you feel when you realized he bought you the love alarm? Is it true he bought it to win you back?”

Hange was admirably professional about it. “We’re digressing now,” she said with a light hearted tone, a laugh which seemed more rehearsed than actually Hange’s.

Is it true you had an affair with another man? It wasn’t loud enough for Hange to have heard it, just a sound among others. When Levi had been looking for that question and it rang more loudly for him. He rewinded the video a few times just to make sure.

What the hell… No we didn’t… We. Didn’t. Have. An. Affair.

“Levi, are you okay?” Isabel asked

“What?”

“You were talking to yourself just now.”

Levi quickly closed the tab as Isabel looked over his shoulder. “Nothing, just looking at tickets,” he said. He went back to their ticketing application, opened a few more tickets and decided to table the research until later that evening.

***

The deep, dark internet.

With his own personal wifi and his own VPN, Levi had more wriggle room to dig deeper.

There was a mention of a fight, a marriage on the rocks, and the rumors only grew from there. The more Levi found, the more courage he mustered. It turned out, the process of scrolling through threads, joining chat groups had been nothing but liberating.

Liberating but infuriating.

The internet was an aggregate of bad takes and the occasional good one. From bad takes came horrible half baked rumors.

I swear, if they end up divorcing…

Jaeger should have dumped her fucking ass from the start.

Slut…

Whore…

Hange Zoe. Fucking gold digger.

There were rumors that she had manipulated Zeke for the money. Rumors that she had only married him to complete her PhD.

Levi quickly went through those.

Some of the people were nice though and Levi read those comments a little more slowly.

The mood alarm was Zoe’s deal.

The money Jaeger put into was a donation.

If they’re not happy, let them divorce.

And there were videos, particularly zoomed videos in events of Zeke and Hange in conventions and conferences, the latest one only a few months ago. Before Hange had visited the hospital.

In the most recent one, they were talking, just at the corner behind the stage, still visible from the camera. Levi rewinded the video again and again just to confirm their identity.

The Hange on the screen seemed indignant. Zeke had pulled her in by the waist, she pulled away. In response, Zeke had once again gone for her hands, pulling her towards him.

Just like back in the school gym.

It was different, that time in the gym Hange had been accepted yet determined at the same time. The Hange on the video, or the least, the one he could make out from the flailing of her hands, the stamping of her food on the ground, the moment she had pulled away then turned away was telling.

Hange wasn’t accepting anything anymore.

Levi scrolled through the comments.

If Hange Zoe divorces Zeke Jaeger… If she keeps possession of the mood alarm... she’s a gold digger.

She needed Jaeger funds to complete PhD… It’s Zeke Jaeger’s PhD not hers lmao XD

It was around the fifth most liked comment when Levi closed the tab, not bothering to bookmark the site. That was enough internet toxicity for the day.

***

“You’re transferring me?” Levi had ended up preempting the discussion.

Nifa and Moblit looked at each other, then back at him. Then Nifa nodded.

Moblit shook his head, creating some confusion. “No, we wanted your opinion on this first. The city we’ll be transferring you to isn’t very… convenient.”

“But you will be paid more,” Nifa said.

Since no one actually wants to live there. A fact no one actually admitted during those types of meetings but Levi had been in corporate long enough to know.

“And it’s just for a few years,” Moblit said, his tone, a tone of reassurance more than actual confidence. “Our hospital got special permission to do testing and research and we’ll need one support guy there. This is an important project for our hospital so...”

Levi had done a quick google search of the city under the table, a name he never heard of, and just the picture of a very sleepy town with not many buildings with even two floors was indicative. There was a reason why Moblit and Nifa seemed uncertain about a transfer.

There wasn’t much he did anyway in that city. How could moving away be any different?

“What’s this research about?” Levi asked.

Moblit responded to that more clearly and more confidently. “We’re planning to do further research, create programs for kids who grew up in difficult households to help them process emotions better. We’re starting with a few kids, on a small research facility up north… And having someone on call would be helpful.”

It didn’t take much to convince Levi after that. “There isn’t much for me to miss here anyway.” Really, he would have taken that transfer even without the pay raise.

***

There was peace and quiet which came with living in the middle of nowhere. Peace and quiet had a way of making Levi unbearably bored yet at the same time more perceptive as to why the hell no one wanted to live there in the first place.

Winters were cruel, with snow piling up meters high. Even in the summers, the sky was overcast and in all four seasons, the air still found a way to be suffocatingly dry.

Someone mentioned something about lake effects and something about rain shadows, and Levi couldn’t really tell which one was it. He wasn’t a scientist after all.

He was human though, a very simple minded human with no science degree. So he let the weather affect his moods, maybe even affect his long term philosophies in life. His current environment was too different from the bustling city he grew up in, or the other urban jungle he had lived the past five years of his life, he deemed his new home, the epitome of the middle of nowhere.

It was completely unfamiliar and by some psychological consequence to Levi, it was too far flung from his old life for Levi to even entertain anything about his old life, beyond work. So it became easier to take a more pragmatic approach at reminiscing.

A few months into his transfer, he had even started reading articles on Zeke and Hange again.

Billionaire Zeke Jaeger finalizes divorce would Mood Alarm founder Hange Zoe.

Then the comments section:

That was fast.

I knew it, Zoe’s a gold digger.

There was the string of names, whore, sluts, cheaters and gold diggers that never made too much sense as sentences. So Levi quickly closed the tab.

You actually did it. He thought to himself. And when he thought a little longer about it, he realized he did feel happy for her.

Happy? Sad? Disappointed? Out of curiosity, he opened his own mood alarm and clicked activate. It glowed with a bright green.

He could have been happier.

Levi decided to blame the sky for his fickle mood. That grey view that stretched far unimpeded by any of the surrounding low rising buildings, only ending by the mountains that seemed hundreds of miles away.

The surrounding mountains and the large lake followed him to work. An overly scenic landscape that reminded him, the train back to the capital only came once a day, the train that passed through the next major city only passed three times a day.

And fucking hell, train tickets were expensive.

By some modern day definition, Levi really was trapped in the middle of nowhere.

The weather only made him more cynical, yet angrier at the tasteless comments under the news article on Zeke and Hange’s divorce. As he neared the research center, he ended up tabling that reflection with one sentence, something comforting yet oddly depressing.

Hange wouldn’t look for me. Then he brushed it away violently soon after. The audacity of even considering the prospect that he was important enough for her to want to search for him. Why would Hange care where he is?

The fact that Hange was followed by the press while he was trapped in the middle of nowhere was indicative enough. They were from two completely different worlds.

***

It may have taken months more, but what Levi clocked to a ‘bout of wanderlust’ eventually settled. He found, keeping himself busy with the right work had done wonders to placate the turmoil inside him.

Keeping busy somehow made it easier to sit up and get ready for work. It meant managing to desensitize his own moods to the weather around him.

Most importantly, it meant seeing some connection with the world, some sliver of motivation to go the extra mile with the people who worked with.

“Early as always, Ackerman.” Same greeting everyday.

“Morning to you too, Onyankopon,” Levi responded as he entered the irsmall office.

Onyankopon was a companion duringearly in the mornings, lunch times, late afternoons and sometimes, even the dinners when he would invite Levi out for a drink in the only bar for miles around.

Still, it made life remotely eventful when the only changing things had been the weather and his work.

And his work was very eventful.

“Uncle Levi! Did you find any bugs yesterday?” Just like every other morning, the two kids would burst through the door. Or more specifically, the brunette was always the one bursting through the door, the blonde just followed.

“Gaby, you might be bothering them,” Falco said. He said that at least three times a week.

Levi had never been the type anyway to tell them he didn’t mind their morning visits. It always meant something to look forward to.

“Nothing so far,” Levi said. He looked towards Onyakopon, the one in charge of reporting issues. “Hopefully.”

Onyankopon raised his hands in defense. “Don’t get mad at me, get mad at the devs who created the mood alarm in the first place."

Levi was constantly mad at the devs anyway, if he considered that constant state of self loathing. Working on the mood alarm as support had only made Levi realize how many shortcuts he had taken into making that damn application years ago.

“There’s nothing today,” Levi said as he looked at the two kids. “But I could give you a quick lesson,” he added. He couldn’t say no to the crestfallen faces of the two kids.

He dragged one seat next to him and guided Gaby to one of them and Falco to his own seat. “When I want to look for errors in the code, I look here first.” It was a terribly boring lesson, a useless one. Support 101. At the least, the kids seemed satisfied. “If I right click here, and then inspect, I can see what this website is made out of.”

Gaby let out a breath, a mix between a ‘wow’ and an ‘oh.’ “I can’t read it.”

“It’s another language,” Levi explained. “Computers don’t understand our language. So we have to learn another language to be able to talk to them. And when we’re able to tell them what we want, they’ll do things for us, things we can’t do ourselves.”

Gaby had asked more questions after that. Falco had asked his own too, albeit hesitantly.

The difference between the network and console tabs, the meanings of the strange brackets, what happens if they just aimlessly click…

That morning session ended with less than half the questions answered, and a promise to teach them more the next morning. Like every other day before, at eight in the morning, Onyankopon brought them to the activity room and Levi was left alone in the office.

There weren’t many people in the research center, only five employees in total. After all, there were only ten to twenty kids who came and went every day, a very manageable number for five people. He and Onyankopon shared an office and with Onyankopon busy a good chunk of the day, Levi was left alone.

With his own efficient working methods and his outstanding ability to quickly pick out the bugs, Levi was usually free for a cumulated five hours a day.

When he first started working there, his five hour long breaks consisted of reading novels or whatever stupid article came up on his timeline. He could have taken longer breaks yet chose to spend them as short sporadic bouts of inactivity

By spreading out periods of inactivity, Levi managed to somehow pacify the guilt at ‘doing nothing’ while being paid for the eight hours a day. There were times, it was strong, remnants maybe of his stint with the love alarm, barely taking leaves, willingly putting him through the pain of overtime.

Some days, they were particularly strong, sometimes incomprehensible that Levi suspected they could have been related to the burning curiosity, the burning attachment to his own application that never abated.

A burning attachment, a natural need to be productive eventually resulted in sporadic bouts of unproductivity spent just testing the mood alarm all for a brief look into his own emotions.

Even when he wasn’t feeling anything in particular, the application continued to glow colors, just flitting between greens and blues. They could have been yellows or oranges maybe, when Onyankopon or Gabi or Falco visited. He had never been the type to wear his heart on his sleeve though and thus, had never opened it with them around.

That day wasn’t any different. Alone in the office, he opened it again, held it in his hands and watched the colored blobs swim amongst each other, mix amongst one another, then disappear.

Blue or Green? That day it was blue. Why blue and why not green? He could never ask. ‘How’ was always an easier question to answer. He only had to connect his phone to the PC then boot up the dashboard.

His next break, he decided to try a visualization exercise, like every other time before.

Memories never seemed to do the trick. He’d take a risk and dive deep, into his memories with Hange, his anger at the situation, the loss of a life before. Yet it all came out greens and blues. The alarm rang, an almost deafening sound in the silent room and for a split second, it had Levi attentive and a little paranoid. Levi knew though, with the thick concrete walls around him, it was a sound just for him.

He connected his phone to the dashboard and booted the PC again.

There were numbers. He switched to a bar graph view, noting how there were terms, hormones and chemicals he could only barely make sense of. But the blue and the green bars higher than usual yet still very low were signs in themselves.

That morning was a normal morning. And every morning since he built that habit had been a normal morning.

The only thing which ended up different about that day was when footsteps sounded just outside the door. If Levi had been listening closely, he would have been able to point out, those weren't a rhythm of footsteps he was particularly privy too.

But normal mornings tended to desensitize people. Footsteps weren’t particularly interesting either.

In a town with only a few hundred people, it would most likely be someone who already lived there. He continued to work. He disconnected his phone from the dashboard and played with the mood alarm in his own phone again.

The door clicked open behind him, slowly enough for the creak to sound, then fast enough for the slam to come right after yet gently.

Onyankopon always opened the door a little wider, always slamming the door behind him and in between, there was always a greeting. If Levi had been more aware of his surroundings, maybe the lack of all that could have peaked his interest.

In the grand scheme of things though, the door slamming wasn’t anything particularly interesting. Levi continued to sit and stare at his phone.

“Levi Ackerman.”

A voice in an empty room though, was always an interesting thing. By some natural inclination towards voices, any presence in a room that was always his by mid morning, Levi was listening.

Making sense of the voice was a surprisingly slow process. The mood alarm reacted first.

The alarm sounded.

A wave climbed from his chest up until his neck, there was a bristle at the back of his neck, a tickle at his ears, then something pricked at his eyes. He looked down at the alarm before he could completely understand. The colors continued to swim then mix.

They always disappeared and finalized the reading in five seconds.

A second or two passed, and the colors still didn’t look at all in a hurry to disappear.

You’re going crazy Levi. He took a deep breath. He was dreaming. Because what the fuck. Of course she wouldn’t be here. She had an international company to run.

“Levi…” The voice sang. “That’s you right?”

Don’t look back.

“Or maybe there are just a lot of developers named Levi in this world… “ The footsteps were only getting closer. “Developers who are just really good at using the mood alarm.” Then the voice was right next to him.

When she had settled on that seat right at his peripherals, he couldn’t exactly chalk it up to a fevered dream. The mood alarm in his hands continued to ring. He could have sworn at least five seconds had passed. Yet the colors never disappeared, countless colors still swimming around on the interface as the mood alarm continued to read his emotions.

Levi had never been a master of articulation. The war of colors, the chaos on the phone were the best visual representation. He struggled to find the right words, but she continued to stare from his peripherals, her face many things at once.

Apologetic? Expectant?

“It is you,” she said, triumph and relief apparent in her tone.

That only pissed Levi off more. Another emotion added to his boiling pot. Eventually Levi thought it necessary to respond. With too little time, too little mindspace to even attempt to articulate, Levi kept himself to three words, the only three which could have meant everything at once.

“What the fuck.”

In response, she let out a soft laugh. “Are you crying?”

Crying? Now that Levi did think about it, there had been a crack in her voice too. Levi looked up to see her, smiling. Her eyes were smiling too. Then he followed the tear streak that barely grazed the side of her lip.

There was enough time, enough silence for Levi to gather himself. To stare at the reading on the application that couldn’t seem to decide what emotion Levi was feeling.

With enough self discipline, enough concentration, Levi managed to speak. “Hange, if you ask people why they’re crying, you’re just gonna make it worse.”

***

There was only one tea shop in the town, a tea shop which naturally, Levi had chosen as his favorite hang out spot.

Over the months, he had grown familiar with it and in turn, it had grown to become an intimate friend. An intimate friend he had never expected to ever introduce to Hange.

Onyankopon and Moblit had joined them for tea though, and suddenly, Hange didn’t feel like Hange. It could have been the way she shifted to an ‘all business’ demeanor or maybe a part of him was still trying to rationalize what he had deemed to be a very irrational thought.

Maybe he had imagined visiting the cafe with Hange a few times. The realist inside him though, had always believed it to be impossible. At that moment, the dreamer inside him was still taking its victory lap.

“You should have told us you’d be coming. We could have set up something better than late afternoon tea,” Onyankopon said. Either way, he seemed very happy to see them.

Moblit took a sip from his cup then revealed an apologetic smile underneath as he put the cup down. “Apologies for visiting all of a sudden. Doctor Zoe is a very impulsive person.”

Hange nodded. “I hope you don’t mind. As soon as I heard about this, I hopped on the next plane just to get here as soon as possible,” she said “I’m hoping to start something like this in the hospitals back home.”

Moblit put his cup down. “Right, I never got to properly introduce you to Levi.” He turned to Onyankopon then to Levi. “But I’m sure you’ve had a fair share of introductions… You did barge into his office this morning.” He had an apologetic look on his face.

“Hey, Doctor Zoe just wanted to see how we were using the software,” Onyankopon said in Hange’s defense. “I’m more than honored to see that the founder of the mood alarm is taking the time to even wander around our facility.”

Moblit cleared his throat. “Anyway, Levi, this is Doctor Hange Zoe, the founder of the mood alarm application. She visited our main hospital a year back but if I remember correctly, you were on leave right?”

“On a personal leave,” Levi clarified. He couldn’t find much else to say. He took a long sip of tea.

“This is Levi Ackerman,” Moblit said. “One of our best in IT support. He learned how to use your application pretty fast.”

“Yes…” Hange said. “And ever since you told me about him, I’ve been very excited to meet him.” Her grin only got wider as she studied his features, her eyes giving him a good once over. “I guess that’s the reason I ended up taking my own tour of the center while you too were catching up. I wanted to see your genius IT support in action,” she joked.

It was almost unbelievable that that morning, Hange had showed a completely different side to him. She had wiped her own tears pretty fast, shifting her expression to something very professional as soon as Onyankopon and Moblit had entered the office just that morning.

The whole afternoon, Hange was busy with activities and tours of the town, Levi busy with his own work. They barely got to talk. Fortunately, that had allowed Levi time to compose himself, enough to keep a straight face when Onyankopon had invited them over for some tea.

Then and there, there were conversations of partnerships and business, almost reminiscent to whatever bullshit he had to deal with in his old company. But this conversation had Hange, and Hange had shifted her gaze towards him enough times for Levi to feel it only proper to reciprocate.

“Once this project is over, would you consider letting Levi go?” Hange asked. “I’d love to have him visit our main office, maybe help out with some of our development work.”

Moblit shook his head vigorously. “No hesitation. It always felt like he was overqualified for this type of job.”

“By the way you talk about him, I can tell.” She looked at Levi knowingly, a silent form of communication just between both of them. She turned back to Moblit then Onyankopon, her face once again all business. “There are many things I hope to still improve with this application so any support on research, troubleshooting, development is very much appreciated.”

“What do you suggest?” Moblit asked.

A quick glance at Onyankopon and Levi knew he was asking the same question.

Hange put one finger to her chin in thought “A partnership…”

It looked like they had expected Hange to talk Levi’s ear off non stop about the application. Moblit had mentioned something about going straight home while Hange discussed the partnership with Levi, mentioning bugs, the debugger that had been stuck in the system and the bugs which Levi had been quick to point out.

Levi, being respectful, had only listened.

That was until Onyankopon and Moblit offered to walk ahead, leaving Levi and Hange alone on the red brick road overlooking the large lake.

It was early in the evening but it still felt like late afternoon. The sun never set until seven or eight during the mid months of spring.

Yet, the streets was empty, bereft of anything but the both of them.

With one quick scan of their surroundings, Hange turned back to him, she bit her lip and took a deep breath.

Her demeanor was suddenly a stark contrast with the enthusiastic, eloquent one back at a cafe. The sudden transformation was enough for Levi to tense up,

Hange spoke up. “This town really sleeps early,” she commented. “You're planning on going home now too?”

“I usually go home an hour earlier, especially on weekdays,” Levi responded. “I’m only out at this time because they invited me for late afternoon tea.” Technically it was dinner.

“Do you go home….” Hange started, she paused for a second, a very out-of-place pause. “To anyone?”

It took a lot of effort for Levi to resist choking or even letting out a ghost of a laugh at that question. I’m married to my job. That was the answer that popped into his mind out of instinct.

“Did I make it time?” Hange added a second later, only reminding Levi that he hadn’t even mustered a glimmer of answer.

“Make it in time?” Levi asked, in an attempt to stall for time.

“Petra…”

“She married Oluo.”

Hange didn’t seem satisfied. “Is there someone else…” she pressed. “Someone else...”

Hange started to speak with her hands, gesturing for Levi to ‘go on,’ in some awkward wave of a hand. The first awkward gesture Hange had done since they arrived.

Levi couldn’t help but just appreciate that bout of vulnerability he could pull out of her. “There is,” he said.

Just for a second, Hange’s face fell and for a moment Levi relished it.

“Oh…” Hange turned away. “Then, I should take you home… I’d love to meet her…”

Then suddenly, Levi felt just a little bad for that trick. “I was fucking kidding,” he said.

Hange let out a loud sigh of relief, an ugly huff and she looked away, suddenly self conscious.

Levi had to admit, it was an ugly snort. He was tempted to take a good look at her face, and maybe he had craned his neck as she kept silent for a second longer. “I’m not some idiot who would marry someone just because it’s convenient," he said.

“Give me a break. I just graduated from college when I decided to get married,” Hange said. “Besides, we enjoyed each other’s company.”

“If you chose that type of life, I wouldn’t have stopped you. Besides, you had a lot on the line, your PhD, your mood alarm, the love alarm, your reputation. It wouldn’t have been easy choice to make.”

Hange hummed. “The PhD is done, my reputation, I don’t give too much of a rat’s ass about that. And the mood alarm? That has always been mine. I put my own money into building that business.”

“It definitely wasn’t cheap.”

“It wasn’t,” Hange admitted. “What if I told you, I earned my own capital for building it in one night in a casino.”

Levi's thoughts flew back to the night at the casino. He grinned. “I’d believe you.”

“So the mood alarm is mine and I managed to keep it,” Hange said. “But I never forgot you know... The plans, the codes, they’re all yours.”

“So you did get the email,” Levi said.

Hange nodded. “And the email got me thinking…” she trailed off for what seemed like an eternity.

Levi couldn’t wait. “About what?”

Hange thought for a few seconds longer, putting her hands behind her back. “That ended up one reason why I even considered leaving Zeke,” she said. “He has a different way of loving, I have a different one too. Love is freedom. Love is just trusting. Zeke on the other hand, always likes to play safe, tie people down.”

“What happened to ‘love is a choice?’”

Hange seemed unperturbed. “Love still is a choice.”

“Then why not choose to love Zeke?” Levi challenged.

Hange sighed and put one hand up. “You said it yourself, deciding to leave wouldn’t be an easy decision,” she started. “I considered three things.”

She put one finger up. “Our own views of love. Zeke sees it as a game, as an investment and he approaches it conservatively… On the other hand, I see love and relationships as a form of freedom, a risk. In love, I don't believe in playing to win.”

She put another finger up. “I considered how I was feeling, this really weird feeling, my thoughts on Pemberley then on colors.”

“I thought you didn’t want to be a slave to your emotions.”

Hange shook her head. “I’m not. I approached this methodically. Even before considering my feelings, I considered my circumstances.” She put the third finger up. “I considered the backlash, I considered Zeke’s feelings, dealing with a divorce. And that’s what brought me here, despite the criticism, despite my inability to buy the love alarm and to barely salvage the mood alarm.”

“You still gave in to your emotions.”

Hange nodded. “After thinking long and hard about it, I did. But before that, I weighed all three, and I decided to take the risk.”

“Was it worth it?”

Hange shrugged and she leaned over the rail, seeming mesmerized by the lake. “I won’t know yet but I guess, even when I thought you had someone else…” There was a flash of hurt on her face, enough for Levi to regret playing that little joke on her.

“I don’t have anyone else,” Levi clarified.

Hange continued to speak. “I still thought the risk was worth taking. It would have been unfair to Zeke if I stayed and who am I to stop you if someone makes you feel happy.” She turned back to him. “This is the way I’ll choose to love. I’ll weigh my emotions, my circumstances and my worst case scenarios. Then I decide the most loving thing to do. If I have to take a risk, I take it. And I guess, given all that, looking for you seemed like the correct decision.”

Levi couldn’t stifle that smile any longer, and he hoped somehow, his own words would stop it from getting any wider. “Well, it's too early to tell if it's a good decision.”

Hange opened her phone and opened the application. “Can we try again?”

“You wanna use the love alarm?” Levi asked. “Your ex-husband’s application.”

“It’s still your brainchild,” Hange said as she waited for it to load. She hovered her thumb over it.

“I don’t have it installed,” Levi said.

“I can wait,” Hange said. And there was no room for argument in her voice.

An awkward few minutes as Hange watched him download the application. Levi focused on the loading bar, and luckily, his biometrics were still registered from that brief experiment of a year ago.

“On three…” Hange said, her voice a little stilted.

But they didn’t finish counting or maybe they just counted at completely different paces.

The alarms rang, filling the empty space between them, two rings which never seemed to find a uniform pace. Even with a very dominant fastidious side though, Levi wasn’t thinking too much about such a small detail.

Hange’s was smiling, grinning, or whatever that was called. Her face was a mix between pure ecstasy and pure passion. She wrinkled her eyes at him, her mouth climbed into a grin wider than he had ever been used to.

She let out a loud sigh. “I was fucking scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“That you would have gotten over me… I dunno, thought you might just think love was a choice, and I dunno, stop feeling whatever that love alarm thing was feeling.”

“I don’t think the love alarm works like that,” Levi said. Really, he started to realize he didn’t know how it worked.

Hange shook her head. “I’m probably just overthinking. You know… I learned how to code over the years, talked to a few developers and tried to look into how the application works,” she said.

“Did you find anything?”

“Remember when you told me that the love alarm starts to figure out for its own what love is. It creates its own definition. Something we can’t even comprehend...” Hange was still grinning, her voice coming out as breaths and sometimes sounds.

Still, Levi could comprehend most of it. “You have any theories?” he pressed. Hange always had theories.

“Soulmates? Relationships in a past life?” Hange suggested.

“Well, we can’t really look back at those right?” Levi said. “Well, what else?”

One word, one word out of Hange’s mouth. “Pemberley.”

“Pemberley?” Levi asked. Somehow though as Hange looked back at the lake, up at the sky then at the gaudy main street of that small town. Levi started to understand it himself.

“It’s ugly here,” Levi said. At first he had meant it. As Hange started to look at her surroundings then back at the lake, with a look of wonder in her eyes, Levi was sure he had meant it as a challenge.

“When you’re in love then with the person we love, everywhere starts to feel like Pemberley,” Hange completed a second later.

Does it? And he wondered why the hell, he needed Hange to point it out.

They were in an ugly town, a place people were paid to live in. The sky was constantly overcast. When it wasn’t raining, it was snowing and it snowed six months a year. When it wasn’t snowing or raining, the sky was at least threatening it.

The way that Hange had looked at it with such naive wonder, the way she had just stood there, looking at everything and back at him, Levi couldn’t help but entertain the idea of Pemberley.

Maybe give the colors a chance to show themselves? Hange didn’t say it out loud. In the moment they made eye contact though, Levi couldn’t help but just give that little piece of advice a chance, whether it had been his own or Hange’s.

He looked first at the main road and the red brick path, noting how the gaudy red, worn by the elements more than actual foot traffic seemed to still glow a bright red despite the grey undertones. He then looked to the buildings, varying shades of concrete grey yet ‘the varying shades’ of it seemed to still have some sense of novelty.

He then looked back at the ocean, the dark sky above never allowed it a more beautiful shade of blue, yet the bluish black still continued to glow. The waves only sent glimmers of silver against the dark blue. Then it was only natural that he looked up at the sky, the sky which never allowed any other shade for itself, except on a few select days a year.

The fog blocked whatever green the mountains beyond the lake would have shown him.

Looking back at Hange then back at his surroundings, he started to accept it. There were greens, reds, blues, yellows and every other color in the spectrum. The world glowed with so many colors, so many lights and sounds. His emotions were a whirlwind that spun to whatever rhythm the lights and colors blinked at.

Colors persevered and they’ve always persevered.

Emotions persevered and they’ve always persevered.

Even emotions we don’t understand ourselves. Levi added to himself.

Maybe Hange was right. That was what the love alarm had been trying to show. The one person who made the colors, the emotions all the clearer.

“This is a beautiful place,” Hange said. “And I wouldn’t mind staying here, lay low a bit, just long enough for people to forget the divorce fiasco.”

“There are a few nice places here,” Levi said.

Hange continued to stare.

Why don’t we just live here together right Levi?

I know you, you wouldn’t be able to stay out of the action.

Levi felt almost ashamed at that mystery response that seemed to pop into his head out of nowhere. We can live here long enough to get our shit together. "First things first, let’s discuss this partnership, over tea in my house.”

“Now?” Hange’s widened her eyes. And her eyes were smiling.

“Well, unless you have other plans tonight,” Levi said.

Hange shook her head. “Nothing much…”

They made the whole way back to his home in silence. Surprisingly, Levi preferred it that way. It had been enough for him to appreciate his new comprehension of his surroundings, the small details he hadn't noticed before.

It wasn’t just the view. The rhythm of their footsteps, their uncoordinated breathing, and just the way the trees rustled, the wind blew, always found a way to glow different colors. His emotions, the chaos of every moment after that were also challenging him to find their colors.

And the circumstances that had them locked in his cramped apartment, sitting over tea, with no one else watching, nothing restricting them had Levi reflecting. It probably had Hange reflecting too. They spoke unhindered with just thoughts, expressions and locked gazes.

For one reason or the other, it happened quickly and abruptly, leaving no space or time to comprehend it.

Sitting on his living room sofa right next to her. Hands clasped against the other. Her dry lips were on his.

The magic welling in his chest, the thunder that climbed quickly up his throat, persevering even underneath the grey. They were all screaming at him then, they all glowed colors.

At that moment though, he had been to tired to reflect on it for any longer. He decided to just roll with it.

It was no use making sense of it. After all, life, love and emotions... They were all just complicated that way.

#levihan #levihan fanfiction

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honeymoonjin · 4 years

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ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: ot7 x reader || ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 7.3k || ɢᴇɴʀᴇ: smut - rated 18+

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ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢs: filmed sex, voyeurism, exhibitionism, unprotected sex, edging, orgasm denial, teasing, dirty talk, dom!yoongi, use of sex toys, cumplay, multiple orgasms, creampie, oral (f receiving) face riding/sitting, use of the words slut, cumdump/cumsleeve and degradation in an entirely consensual context, also they drink in this episode so it involves sex under the influence of alcohol, but once again entirely consensual, overstimulation, cumeating (it is a yoongi chapter after all)

dedicated to my sfhs girls, everyone in the villa discord, and everyone who submitted truths and/or dares. i apologise if yours didn’t get drawn, there were over eighty of them

DAY SEVENTEEN

Waking up on Wednesday is the calmest you’ve felt in a while. Even though it’s not the start of the week, it still feels fresh, and you slept far better last night than you did before elimination.

That being said, fate apparently gives you very limited time to breathe, because the second you open your bedroom door you get a fright that just about stops your heart.

Min Yoongi, fist falling awkwardly in the open space, blinks at you. “Good morning.”

“Jesus,” you curse, hand pressed to your sternum as your heart races beneath it, wordlessly stepping back to let him in.

Yoongi slips past you smoothly. “I know the resemblance is startling, but we have been living together for two weeks, Y/n. I’m hurt.”

You scoff as he makes himself comfortable on the edge of your bed. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

He shrugs, looking more casual than usual in a faded red tee and a pair of jeans rolled up at the ankles. His hair, newly mint, sticks up at odd angles like the first thing he’d done this morning was tip out of bed and come down to your door. It just makes him all the more endearing. “I have a proposition,” he announces vaguely, pulling out a sleek black object from his front pocket and resting it on the duvet beside him.

You narrow your eyes at the foreign object. Made of what must be matte silicon, there's the slightest hint of silver that circles an on-button at the base of it. Although it's not particularly long, it's wide and rounded, and it doesn't take much brainpower to work out where a toy like that might go.

Yoongi grins as your eyes rove over the toy. "Perhaps less of a proposition, and more of a challenge," he drawls slowly. A single graceful finger runs up and down the length of the black egg, keeping your gaze locked on it. "I'm gonna fuck you now, sweetheart, and if you can keep my cum inside you all day, I'll give you a reward. How does that sound?"

You suck in a breath, eyes flying up to his again. You're nodding before you even really process the implication of his words, but he's already quirking a finger to beckon you.

"Come sit," he commands breezily. He's already hard when you straddle him, your knees braced on the duvet and arms linking around his neck. Glancing up at you, you're taken by the honeyed way his eyes blink up at you with bemusement. "You're very obedient this morning," Yoongi quips, "is this why people like morning sex?"

You scoff, rolling your clothed core against him. "Hurry up and put your dick in me if you're going to, Min."

"Never mind, then," he sighs, but happily slips open his belt buckle with one hand, the other gripping the flesh of your thigh as he frees his cock from the confines of his jeans.

Still in a loose oversized sleep shirt and panties, it's easy enough for Yoongi to just tug the fabric over your core to one side, fingers sliding through your already-sodden folds.

"Didn't take much, did it, sweetheart?" he asks with a wry grin, and your cheeks heat, burying your face in the crook of his neck even as his deft fingers spread your wetness over you.

"Stop making fun of me," you whine, breath hitching when he slips a single finger deep inside you.

"Oh, but I'm not," he murmurs, voice just as languid as his pumping motions. "It's fucking hot."

You bite down hard on your bottom lip, Yoongi beginning to relax your muscles with a second finger, hooking and twisting and curling them in all the ways that make your legs weak.

"Does it feel good, sweetheart?" You can feel more than see Yoongi's smirk when you nod hastily, grinding against his fingers. "But it doesn't sound like it. Why can't I hear you, hm?"

A free hand presses lightly but firmly at your jaw, lifting your face away from him. You swallow down another moan as his thumb brushes just once over your sensitive clit.

Held up across from Yoongi, you can't avoid the way he frowns. "That won't do," he decides, before his fingers tug down your bottom lip. Without a single falter in his other hand fucking you, now three fingers in, Yoongi hooks his index and middle fingers behind your bottom teeth to keep your mouth open wide for him.

The next time he swipes your clit, you can't hold back the wanton groan that escapes. Yoongi's eyes positively light up at the sound as he fucks you harder, jostling you on his lap and making every little noise from your throat magnify.

When he eventually removes his sopping fingers from your core, you whine unabashedly at the absence. The heat that had built up, the beginnings of an orgasm, quickly dissipate.

“Patience,” Yoongi chastises in a voice thick with humour, before lining himself up at your entrance and swiftly pushing you down onto him.

You groan as he fills you, unable to stop the drool that’s begun to spill over onto his fingers. Yoongi doesn’t seem to mind the messiness, however, using the leverage to keep you steady once he starts to fuck up into you.

Your hands fly from the back of his neck to his shoulders, stuttered cries punched out of you with every bounce. Certainly not the biggest member in the household, Yoongi did know how to use his cock to make you melt around him and he quickly makes your fingers and toes curl with pleasure.

Even as he maintains his dominance with the unspoken ease he always carries, it’s undeniable that he’s close with the way he beings to lose his composure. Whether it’s his freshly-dyed hair curling at his temples with the sweat of his exertion or the grunts that slipped past gritted teeth, you love those little glimpses of the animal that wrecked you last week.

When his pace stutters into a desperate jackhammer that leaves you breathless, you know it’s only a matter of time before he spills inside you. Close yourself, you slip a hand down seeking your clit for the needed stimulation to push you over the edge.

The second you feel a glimmer of hot pleasure, however, a hand snakes around your wrist and pulls it away. Your eyes widen, drool spilling messily down Yoongi’s other hand as you babble. “Ngo, ‘o, p’ease,” you slur out, “‘oongi, wan’ cum.”

Your whine gets louder as Yoongi responds to your complaints by slowing down to a deep grind, breathing heavily in his chest. “What are our rules, sweetheart? You have to keep my cum inside you all day to win your reward, don’t you? Now be a good girl and let me fill you up.”

Unlike you, Yoongi has clearly still retained that edge of orgasm, and it doesn’t take much before he’s shuddering with a groan, painting your insides white. Finally lifting his fingers off your bottom teeth, he pushes them further in your mouth, instructing you to suck them clean of your own saliva.

Wrapping your lips around them with a dissatisfied whine, you grind your hips fruitlessly against him as he slowly begins to soften. No hope of cumming this morning, you resign yourself to the challenge he’s set you and let him tip you gently onto the bed, standing himself at the edge still inside you.

You blink up at him, licking your swollen lips once he retracts his fingers from your mouth, picking up the small black egg you’d almost forgotten about. “Is it games?” you ask blearily, sniffling when he pulls out of you.

With one of your legs held up to keep you at a good angle, Yoongi starts to push the rounded vibe inside you, aided by your arousal and his own release. “Is what games?” he asks softly, an airy chuckle leaving his mouth when the toy slips inside you, making you moan at the pressure.

“The prompts,” you explain, clenching around the intrusion that’s plugged Yoongi’s cum inside you. “Work hard, play hard. Are they different games or something?”

Yoongi pauses. “I- I’m not sure if it’s beneficial for me to confirm or deny that,” he admits slowly, before clearing his throat and backing up, letting your legs dangle off the side of the bed. “Can you stand? I’m just about ready for breakfast. Nothing like a good orgasm to build my appetite.”

You send him a scowl as you stand on wobbly legs. “Now you’re just rubbing it in,” you accuse, “this reward better be something special.” Even as you adjust your panties back over you, you’re expecting the silicon egg to come out at any moment. As it is, you feel like you might go crazy before the day’s out.

The doctor makes no effort to hide his satisfaction, eyes shamelessly running over you as you squirm in place. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you today,” he announces lowly, buckling his jeans back up. “If you want your reward you better not take it out or get yourself off. Your pleasure belongs to me today, sweetheart.”

“Yes, sir,” you mouth off sarcastically, even as the wetness between your thighs increases.

While Yoongi may have refused to confirm your theory about the prompts being games, it seems games are the theme of the day regardless.

By the time you get dressed - gingerly, like any wrong move would send the egg slipping out in a torrent of cum - and meet the others downstairs, you see the lounge has been cleared to make way for a misshapen pile of packaged snacks and a bowl full of slips of folded paper.

Taehyung, Namjoon, Jin and Hoseok are already surrounding the offering, cross-legged on the carpet. Yoongi, who’d come down before you, haunts the coffee machine. Just as you do a headcount and wonder where Jimin’s gotten to, the man himself approaches from the shadowy depths of the walk-in pantry, two bottles of wine held in one hand by their necks, and a six-pack of soju in the other.

Jimin jumps in surprise when he looks up to see Yoongi just in front of him, sending the older man a small smile. “Good morning.”

Yoongi eyes up the liquor suspiciously. “I suppose it must be.”

“Sejin dropped them off.”

“The bottles?”

“The games,” Jimin emphasises, pointing with a hand laden with bottles. “Jungkookie, Jin-hyung and I just thought we should make it more fun. Didn’t they tell you?”

Yoongi grumbles but doesn’t answer, cradling his coffee like it’s a lifeline and hobbling over to sit on one of the couches, pushed back to give more space.

Wary of your every step, you sit yourself down in a gap between Jungkook and Namjoon. The youngest perks up and turns to you, looking comfy yet stylish in a modern hanbok, black to make the red in his hair pop.

“It’s drunken truth or dare,” Jungkook declares, feet tapping the carpet in excitement. “Sejin said the audience wants more sexy games.”

Jin clicks his tongue. “He never said sexy.”

Jungkook doesn’t bat an eye, still grinning at you. “The ‘sexy’ was implied.”

“I’m sure it was,” you allow with a chuckle. It doesn’t take long for everyone to find their places, Jungkook turning to his other side and tugging on Yoongi’s trouser leg until he sits on the carpet with the rest of you.

Following the circle along, Jimin sits to Yoongi’s left, then Jin, Hoseok, Taehyung and finally back around to Namjoon who’s on your right.

“Alright, how is this supposed to work?” Yoongi asks reluctantly. “And how can I rig this to retain at least a modicum of my dignity?”

“Here’s the deal,” Hoseok announces, “we take turns picking truths or dares from the bowl. If you don’t want to do it, you take off a piece of clothing. Questions?”

Taehyung hesitantly lifts his hand, staring at the dom to his right. “What if we run out of clothes?” Though he’s moderately dressed in thick sweatpants and a long-sleeved tee, Taehyung doesn’t really have any layers, and he’s already barefoot.

Hoseok shrugs. “Then you play the rest of the game naked, I guess. Stripping is the whole raison d'etre of slutty game nights. What part of that don’t you get?”

Taehyung pauses. “The raisin part.”

“He’s saying the whole point of games like these is stripping,” Jimin explains quickly, clapping once to get everyone’s attention. “Okay! Let’s start. I didn’t have hands free to bring glasses so unless someone else wants to help out, we’re drinking from the bottles. Who wants what?”

It doesn’t take long for the alcohol to be dished out. Taehyung and Hoseok both scamper around like children and end up mixing plain soju with Fanta or sprite, sipping at the fizzing mixture as they giggle away. Jimin is making his way through one of the two wine bottles himself, a pretty moscato rosé that matches the baby pink lip balm he’s wearing. Namjoon has the other bottle, though he pours a full glass in a sturdy-looking coffee mug and pawns the rest off back to the middle. Jungkook and you wordlessly split a flavoured soju, something sweet and fruity with the classic burn at the back of your throat, and Jin sticks with an original one, leaving Yoongi the only one without alcohol.

The man himself takes a long swill of coffee. “Someone better pick a dare then.” Making no effort to actually help himself, he waits for Hoseok to wiggle on his knees to the centre of the circle to grab the bowl, keeping it secure on his lap as he blindly roots around for a slip of paper.

His subconscious grin of excitement fades the second he picks one and reads it. “My fucking luck,” he curses, before changing his voice to a monotone drawl. “Allow Jimin to give you a makeover. If Jimin draws this, pick another member.” He glances up in pain. “Can I pick someone else anyway?”

“That’s not the dare, Hobi!” Jungkook protests in an excited squeal. “Are you gonna let him do it?”

Jimin remains perfectly poised, simply arching an eyebrow when Hoseok sends him an accusatory glare. Like he’s disappointed with the calm reaction from his rival, Hoseok huffs and silently tugs off a sock. “He’s not getting anywhere near my face,” the dom insists, “I just know he’d make me look ugly on purpose.”

“The only way I could do that is by using no makeup at all,” Jimin petulantly responds. “Anyway, now that you’ve contaminated the air with your bare foot, can we move on?”

Hoseok huffs, but thrusts the bowl to his right, handing it to Jin. The therapist sighs like the discourse personally drains him, then picks a slip from the top, opening it with one hand. Immediately, he breaks out into a pealing laugh, shoulders shaking as he slaps his knee with his free hand. “Do a cartwheel.”

“What the fuck?” Hoseok shrieks. “Why didn’t I get one like that?”

“Can you do a cartwheel, Hoseok?” Jin questions calmly.

Hoseok’s mouth gapes. “I- no.”

“I guess you were doomed to be one sock down either way, then,” Jin consoles. “I, on the other hand, made it onto my high school cheerleading team.” He steps away to a patch of open carpet. “Well; I was the reserve. I never actually did any games.”

That’s the only warning you get before Jin is launching his torso to the ground, legs flying up and flailing as his hands meet the ground. On landing, his feet come down awkwardly, sending him sprawling onto the back of the couch. “Fuck,” he gasps out, catching his balance, “that was way easier when I was small.”

Jin returns to his place with a smug smile, leaving the room in startled silence. “What? Next person.”

Jimin takes the bowl and pulls out a piece of paper before passing it to his right in front of Yoongi. “Alright, I have…” His eyes rake over, plush lips moving. “What do you hope you can do most before you have to leave the house? Uh… I’d like to try something for the first time.”

Taehyung pouts. “Isn’t that a bit boring, Min?”

Jimin shrugs. “I guess I’m on the other end of the spectrum to Namjoon-hyung. It’s hard to find anything I haven’t done before. I’ve been working for Bangasm for years, and doing porn for even longer. Eventually it feels like everything is the same. I’d like to have something completely new, that I can look back on as special.” He clears his throat loudly and nods his head at Yoongi. “Your turn.”

Yoongi places his now-empty coffee mug on the carpet in front of him, rooting around carelessly for a piece of white. His eyebrows lift past the overhanging swoop of mint. “What sex act have you done that you’ll never do again?” Taking a second to think, Yoongi pushes his tongue to the side of his cheek. “Mm, my best friend and I once experimented with each other just before high school graduation. We were both well over 18 by then, but going to a catholic all boys high school, we were pretty repressed and dumb about those kinda things. He tried to suck me off and threw up right on my dick.”

You cringe violently, the sips of soju you’d already drunk sitting sour in your stomach. “Fuck, that’s so gross, Yoongi. Did he like, say sorry?”

Yoongi grimaces. “Ah, not at the time. He started crying and I had to comfort him while I was still covered in- yeah, I’d honestly kinda blocked that out until this question reminded me. Fuck. Okay, next person, I need to re-forget about that.”

None of you can blame him once he reaches for a straight soju and takes a few deep gulps, throat bobbing.

Jungkook’s next in line, looking a little green in the face from Yoongi’s anecdote. “Right, okay, lemme-” With his eyes scrunched shut, he selects his slip of paper and opens it up. “Get the person to your left in the pool within the next minute.”

Yoongi, too preoccupied with chugging as much liquor as he reasonably can, doesn’t pay attention until he’s deftly snagged around the waist and thrown over Jungkook’s shoulder, the half-empty bottle splashing out onto the carpet.

“Hey! What do you think you’re- Jungkook, where are we going?”

Jungkook races out through the back door faster than any of you can keep up with, Taehyung and Hoseok jogging after him to watch from the doorway.

Even from your spot on the floor, you can hear an almighty shriek followed by a splash, and some watery yelling. By the time Yoongi stomps back in, drenched, Namjoon has some towels from the linen closet.

Without the usual sexual tension of a truth and dare game, Yoongi strips off his wet clothes and wraps himself grouchily in as many towels as possible, the final one over his head and tucked under his chin.

Looking like a drenched cat, Yoongi scowls and shivers. “Can I at least go upstairs and get into some dry clothes, or do I have to risk a second dunk?”

Jungkook shrugs airly, passing the bowl down the line. “The risk of me dunking you again is pretty low, hyung. But never zero.”

The plastic bowl now rests in front of you. You eye the folded slips inside warily, before picking one roughly in the middle of the pile. Unfolding the small rectangle, you let out a week laugh once your eyes scan the neatly handwritten words. “Trade shirts with the person on your right.”

“That’s you, Joonie.” You rake over Namjoon’s getup with a wary eye. Luckily, he’s wearing a forest green tee over some chunky camo pants. You think he’s probably going to be worse off than you having to put on your own thin sweater. “Let’s swap.”

Slipping it off, you shiver in the cold air and feel the hairs on your arms stand up on end. Ignoring the rapt eyes of the others, you chuck it into Namjoon’s lap and watch his stomach and biceps flex as he lifts his own shirt over his head.

The fabric is cotton, but feels so silken against your skin, still warm from his body heat. While the hem of his shirt pools in your lap, your sweater on him strains around his waist, a solid two or three inches above his waistband.

You can’t help but let out a chuckle at the corded body, thick chest and meaty forearms barely being restrained by the slightly fuzzy pastel yellow sweater. “Looking good, Joon,” you jibe, poking him right where the skin of his hips is exposed.

He winces, carding a hand through his grey-silver hair, now ruffled from the closet change. “I’m sorry if it gets stretched out of shape after this. Is it my go?” Without waiting for an answer, he shakes up the bowl and retrieves a piece of paper from the bunch. “Jin’s cooking or Yoongi’s cooking.”

The colour drains from Namjoon’s face at the two men staring him down impassively, one of them sitting poised with an expectant glare, the other shivering slightly through layers of damp towels, round face poking out of the terrycloth with a warning frown.

“Um… I-” Namjoon gulps, and begins to undo the strap on his watch, leaving his wrist bare and slightly pale. “Tae, you’re up.”

Even without either man receiving the victory, they both seem mollified, Yoongi taking the opportunity to gather the towels and rush upstairs quickly. A small wet patch is left on the carpet in his place, Jimin and Jungkook on either side laying some fresh towels on top to soak it up.

Before you even notice Taehyung getting a slip, he’s hooting in excitement, jumping up to stand. “Design an outfit for a member in the house with random clothing in the villa!” He eyes up the people in the circle before gasping. “Wait! No! I’ll go do Yoongi while he’s changing!”

Like an excited puppy, he’s off up the stairs, chasing after the doctor.

“Do we...wait for him?” Jungkook asks uncertainly. His chest jerks with a hiccup, having finished most of your shared bottle of soju.

Leaning forward with a shrug, you snag another bottle, cracking open the lid and taking a sip of the refreshing green apple taste. Not your favourite, but you were just tipsy enough to not care all that much.

As the rest of you mind your time waiting for the absent two to return, some of the others begin on the snacks. Although Jimin has passed halfway on his moscato, he seems perfectly composed as he and Jin share a packet of rice snacks. Jungkook nibbles on the ends of a handful of Pocky sticks, wobbling slightly on the spot. Hoseok’s face is bright red even though he’s just been sipping at his fizzy soju concoction, so he gets a bag of Doritos and begins crunching madly.

Namjoon is holding his mug of white wine in both hands, so he stays snackless, shifting and sneaking glances at the stairs. Still looking comically beefy in your fitted sweater and camo pants with a million pockets, part of you thinks perhaps he was put out that he wasn’t the one to get an opportunity to change clothes again into something that fit a little better.

It doesn’t take long for a frantic thud-thud-thud echo through the room as Taehyung comes bounding down the stairs. “And introducing…!” he shouts cheerily. “The newest dom of the Red Room, Min Yoongiiii!”

When Yoongi comes down, the reaction he was expecting probably wasn’t cooing, but you can’t help it. Taehyung has done well to pick out glossy leather pants, thick-soled black boots, a white shirt and even a leather harness around the top of his chest, all the things that spoke to a professional dom, but on Yoongi it just looks like a sheep in wolf’s clothing.

Hoseok, clearly the original owner of the clothes judging by his gobsmacked look of recognition, is far taller than Yoongi, so the shirt drowns his torso and the pants are rolled up at the ends. All in all, he looks so tiny and sweet, hair still damp and tangled, that you imagine the dom clothes just served to make him appear cuter in contrast.

He scowls as he sits down, plump bottom lip sticking out, and reaches for his near-empty bottle of soju with a huff. “I hate this game,” he declares before taking a swig.

“You have had bad luck, hyung,” Hoseok admits, “I’m sure it’ll turn. And speaking of turns; it’s mine now!”

As Hoseok begins digging around for his, taking a dramatically long time just to make everyone groan, your pocket vibrates. Reaching down to check your phone, you suck in a breath when you see the text from Yoongi. It displays a single arrow pointing up, followed by an unambiguous now.

You clear your throat just as Hoseok picks a slip. “I’m just going to the bathroom, you can keep going without me.”

Apparently not concerned about subtlety, Yoongi just stands up and follows, his eyes dark on you.

Hoseok lets out a wolf whistle that makes your cheeks heat, before apparently giving up and returning to the game. You manage to make it upstairs with little fanfare, but Yoongi’s hand snakes around your wrist and his body cages you against the wall in the upstairs hallway before you can make it to your room.

Your breath hitches as his eyes burn into you like twin furnaces. “Have you been a good girl for me?” he asks in a low voice, lip quirking when you nod. “Let me check.”

Your eyes widen. “Here?”

Yoongi jerks his chin towards the sturdy metal banister that runs across the edge of the landing to the top of the stairs. “Bend over, sweetheart.”

You obey before you even realise just how exposed this position makes you. Gripping onto the metal like a lifeline, your face and upper body are well in view of anyone that came into the entrance foyer downstairs. As Yoongi slips down your panties and jeans in one go, your core throbs around the plug. “Please, Yoongi,” you breathe without thinking.

He slips a finger inside you without warning, hooking around the top of the plug and slowly dragging it closer to your entrance.. “Please what?”

“I- ungh.” Your mind comes to a halt as your walls stretch, the plug slipping out into his palm with an obscene noise. You don’t have to feel empty for long, as you feel the blunt head of his cock replacing the silicon toy, reaching much further depths to keep his cum from this morning buried deep inside you. “Fuck.”

Yoongi chuckles, using one hand to steady himself on your hip as he begins to fuck you in earnest, hips smacking your ass. “Well, that wasn’t a very articulate answer,” he teases, “it’s only been a couple of hours and you’ve already become a dumb little cumdump, haven’t you?”

You gasp at his sudden degradation, but you can’t hide the way you clench around him, biting down harshly on your lip to muffle a moan.

“Fuck, you like that?” he curses with a satisfied growl, picking up the pace so that his every thrust jerks your hips forward against the banister. “Spread out in the middle of the hallway for anyone to see, just here to keep my cock and my cum warm?”

You shiver. “Y-yes, Yoongi, fuck me harder, gi-give me your cum, wan’ it!” Denied from an orgasm earlier in the day, it’s no surprise that your dignity drops away so soon, your mind morphing into a desperate organ that needs relief. Doing your best to fuck yourself back on him, you let out a whine. You’d lose your balance if you took a hand off the banner, and you both know it. Something in you doesn’t think Yoongi would do it for you, either, if this morning was anything to go off.

“Such a slut, sweetheart,” Yoongi pants out, but instead of the hard edge of degradation, his voice is honeyed with praise. “So fucking good for me, my little cocksleeve.”

Your eyes begin to prickle, so close yet so far from the orgasm that he deftly dangles in front of you. Uncaring of who could hear you downstairs, or the fact that Yoongi probably wouldn’t listen anyway, you start to mindlessly beg him, letting out a weak stuttered moan with every plunge inside you.

As expected, he just shushes you and tightens his grip on your waist, his pace picking up impossibly fast until he suddenly goes stiff and spills inside you, catching his breath. “That’s a good girl,” he gasps between gulps of air, “still so tight, mean Yoongi not letting you cum.”

You whimper as he slides out slowly, pressing a hand on the small of your back to keep your ass arched up as he slips the still-wet egg back inside. Your legs tremble and your core clenches in dissatisfaction at the second denial, but the pleased smile on his face as you keep two loads of cum inside you is enough to make your heart soar.

He hands you a tissue to wipe the slick off your thighs before lifting your jeans back up, and he cleans off his hand, using his mouth to suck away the creamy mix of your arousal and his cum that had gotten on it from the silicon egg. “Did so well, sweetheart,” he coos, “not much longer now.”

Yoongi ends up returning downstairs first again, if only to give you some time to lose the wobbliness in your knees, but by the time you sit back down, it’s clear a round or so must have gone by without you.

There’s a near-empty glass in the middle of the room, a layer of sludgy green around the sides and gathering at the bottom. Hoseok bears a disgusted frown, swishing lemonade in his puffed cheeks. Jungkook isn’t wearing any pants, Taehyung has lost another sock, and Jin has a stripe of wetness running up his cheek like someone’s licked him. Namjoon doesn’t meet his gaze.

Yoongi glances up and runs his eyes over you as you sit back down gingerly. “Good timing. Your turn, sweetheart.”

You let out a sigh, take a gulp of the closest open soju bottle near you - this one sickly sweet - and pick a piece of paper at random. “How long are we even going to- Oh. What is your ideal sexual scenario.” Your cheeks are on fire. “I- Surely I shouldn’t answer, though, because then you’ll all just do it to try and stay in the game.”

“If it’s your ideal scenario, wouldn’t you prefer to experience it multiple times?” Jin questions, his eyes burning with curiosity even as he keeps his expression neutral.

Jungkook shrugs, the motion lifting his shirt to reveal grey boxer briefs. He seems totally unbothered about his state of undress. “You don’t need to be embarrassed, either. If it helps, I’ll tell you mine.”

You narrow your eyes. “Seriously? Fine, you go first.”

He shrugs again, shaking his head so the strands of red fall away from his eyes. “I’m in a five-star hotel. They gave me like the President’s suite or something because I’m super rich and super important, and it has a whole bunch of video games. I enjoy room service and play video games for an hour, only I didn’t come alone. I have a bunch of hot people, like at least five, and they all wanna fuck me.” Like he’s telling a perfectly innocent yet incredibly interesting story, Jungkook gestures and speaks emphatically, the other members of the house listening in with a dumbfounded silence. “I definitely wanna fuck them too, you know, but I’m busy. Playing games and stuff. So they do everything they can to get my attention, until eventually either I take pity on them and wreck them, or one of them decides to shut the game off and make me pay for ignoring them. I guess ideal would be some of both. And then we all fuck, and I’m right in the middle because it’s all about me. The end.”

You let out a disbelieving laugh. “Why does it sound like you’ve thought this through in great depth?”

“Because I have,” Jungkook answers simply. “Look, one time my friend and I got a fancy hotel room together and I thought it would be totally perfect if there were video games or something fun to do in the room, you know? And also I had a massive crush on her so my mind was also in the gutter and everything just came together.”

You blink. “Well… Okay, I don’t think mine will be so elaborate because I haven’t really… I don’t know. I guess mine would be renting a cabin or a chalet somewhere super remote for like a whole week with someone, knowing that we can basically have sex all day and all night without worrying about anything else.” Your cheeks flush, and you clear your throat awkwardly, staring at the fibres of the carpet.

“Sex retreat,” Jungkook summarises knowingly, “that’s a good one. Anyways, Namjoon’s turn again.”

Over the next few hours, the eight of you get consistently more tipsy, and eventually replace the alcohol with some steamed rice and leftover soup to sober up a bit. Taehyung had to do a blind taste test (apparently Hoseok’s elbow tasted like pork), Namjoon stripped off your stretched-out pink sweater to avoid answering a truth that made him blush so hard he wouldn’t even read it out, and Jimin theorised on who the biggest dick in the house was (guessing Jin, the eldest strutted around like a smug peacock for the rest of the night).

You’d gotten off decently lightly; answering a few questions about Sejin, music, and even Mango, then taking off your pants to avoid a dare that asked you to strip entirely. Though you wouldn’t admit it, you didn’t want to part with Namjoon’s shirt that soon.

Every time you managed to forget about the egg-shaped toy inside you, you’d laugh or change positions or reach forward for a drink and feel it shift inside you. You felt full in a way you’ve never really experienced before, and you couldn’t work out if you liked it or not. Another thing you couldn’t decide if you liked or not was the constant worry that your underwear would betray a dark patch or trail of cum that had escaped you, and the whole rooom would know exactly what Yoongi had done to you. The thought made your heart thud.

By the time Jin started to stack the dishwasher and Jimin - still the most sober one though he outdrunk most of you - cleans up the lounge, you feel equally tired and horny, desperate to get the reward that Yoongi’s been dangling in front of you.

He doesn’t even have to text you or command you; you quite happily trail him to his room like a needy pet, hoping your eyes convey your want.

“Can I help you?” Yoongi asks with a shit-eating grin, finally slipping out of the leather chest harness he’d been grumbling about all afternoon.

You narrow your eyebrows, feeling the toy shift inside you with every movement. “I think you can,” you pout.

His gaze glimmers with bemusement. “Come sit, sweetheart, let me make sure you’ve been good.”

He doesn’t even speak as he pushes lightly at your shoulder, guiding you to lie down on his bed, legs dangling over the edge. With his quiet demeanor of authority, much like you imagine he’d use in his clinic, he slides down your panties and parts your legs, humming in approval at what he sees. “You have been good. Keeping my cum warm for me, what a well-behaved slut you are.”

You suck in a breath at his words, tilting your hips up. “Yoongi, please.”

“I do want to give you your reward now,” he begins, and your heart sinks into your stomach at his reluctant tone. “Really, I do. But if you really want to please me, why don’t you let me fill you up one more time, hm?”

You have the rising urge to bite down hard on your knuckles, teeth grinding as you whine. “Yoongi,” you protest, but the need to please is too great to ignore. “Yeah, fuck me again, Yoongi. Please be quick, I want it.”

Yoongi laughs, a warm grumble in his chest. “Oh, sweetheart, you’ve already milked me dry twice today. I won’t be lasting long.”

Quicker than your arousal-addled mind can really process, Yoongi is tugging the plug from you and driving his cock in in one smooth motion. You cry out, a hand flying out to latch onto his arm to ground you as you tighten around his intrusion. “Fuh-fuck, oh god,” you make out through a tensed jaw.

“Shh,” the doctor coos, “are you sensitive? Poor sweetheart, Yoongi’s been so mean not letting you cum, keeping you plugged up all day.”

Your eyes tear up as he jackhammers his hips into you, brute force to achieve a quick and desperate orgasm. Though you doubt he’ll let you cum, you’ve been aroused so much today that heat already curls thickly in your stomach. You can barely respond with no air left in your lungs, so you just garble wordlessly, clutching at him for dear life.

Yoongi doesn’t seem to mind your inability to hold a coherent conversation. As he mercilessly seeks out your wetness, he continues to spew filth with a grin exposing his teeth. “Gonna fill you up so well, huh? Fill you right up to the brim, you’ll be leaking for days. Taking this cock so well, sweetheart. Just like that, fuck. My perfect little cumdump, only been a day and you’re so well-behaved, yeah? Just drooling for it, look at you.”

You’re out of your mind, holding on to his words and the shared contact like they’re your only lifelines. When Yoongi lets out a guttural groan and comes inside you for the third time that day, you feel totally boneless, unable to do more than whine and shiver on the duvet.

Edged yet again, the only energy left in your body is singing out for an orgasm, and so when you feel his hand cupping your heat, you rock into it mindlessly, warranting a quick and stinging swat to your thigh.

“You’ve been so patient, sweetheart, don’t be greedy now,” Yoongi chastises. “I need you to move for me, okay, on your knees on the bed. Clench hard; I don’t want my cum going to waste on the bedsheets.”

You groan weakly but follow his instructions, bleary-eyed as you watch him walk around the other sie of his bed before getting up and lying down on his back, mint hair splayed out on the pillow. He grins at you, tongue darting out to lick his lips. “Come on, then,” he lures, “take a seat.”

You moan out loud before you can even think to swallow it down. “Are you serious? Fuck, okay.” Feeling breathless but vibrating with excitement, you gingerly position yourself above his face, knees either side of his head. It takes a lot of energy to hold your walls tight together, but still his seed runs down your thighs.

He doesn’t seem to mind. Without a moment’s hesitation he mumbles, “let go, sweetheart,” and buries himself between your legs.

You cry out at the first swipe of his tongue, right over your entrance. Your muscles naturally flex, releasing more of him, but you remember his words and let yourself relax.

Yoongi laps up his own cum from you like it’s the sweetest nectar, driving his tongue sharp and deep inside you, then switching to broad, shallow strokes, before flicking the tip against your clit. Although you try to avoid squashing him, he hungrily grabs the flesh of your ass and tugs you down to meet him more fully, making you let out a broken moan and grip the headboard for support.

As he devours you, his hands encourage you to rock against his face, seeking out more pleasure. Whenever he dips his tongue lower to lick you clean, his nose rubs against your clit, and once enabled you can’t help but grind into the long-awaited stimulation, a constant stream of breathy sighs and hiccuped moans slipping from your lips.

The sensation of his cum leaving you is one that takes some getting used to, but it seems to go on forever, unbelievably wet against Yoongi’s face as he eats you out like a silver-tongued god. Your mind is filled with the visual of his eyes, clenched shut in focus, and the mental image of his cum filling your insides, an endless stream with how deep and full he’d fucked you today.

It’s no surprise that it takes you almost no time at all to reach that edge again, and you could cry in relief when, instead of edging you again, he pushes you over it with a sharp tongue, fingers digging into your ass as you rode it out on his face.

What does surprise you, however, is that once the pleasure turns to needling oversensitivity, and your muscles go lax, his grip only tightens, and his tongue just speeds up, ruthlessly pitching you long past the point of your orgasm.

“Yoongi, ah, ‘s too much!” you hiss, trying to wriggle away. Your knees are too wide to give you any leverage, however, and he lifts his forearms up and over your thighs, locking you against him.

You feel rather than hear the vibration of him grunting his response, but he doesn’t let up; not when you sob and writhe above him, not when you go totally silent, mind-blown at how the sensations are beginning to cycle around back to pleasure, and certainly not when a second orgasm is forced upon you, wracking through your body. More violent than the first one, you shudder against him and go slack against the headboard, moans weak and stuttered.

As your body continues to convulse and twitch with the aftermath of your back-to-back orgasms, Yoongi takes the wheel and gently maneuvers you to the side of his bed, head heavy on the pillow.

When he cleans you up, your pussy feels positively raw, and you hiss, locking your thighs around his hand and the damp facecloth he’d used. Mind hazy and floating, it seems like no time at all before he’s tucking the both of you under the covers, snagging you around the stomach and pulling you flush against his back.

Still in Namjoon’s soft shirt, you can nonetheless feel the heat radiating off Yoongi’s skin and his heart thudding in his chest. “Was that okay?” he asks, pressing a single soft kiss against the nape of your neck to punctuate his question.

“Fuck, more than okay,” you pant out.

You feel him smile against your skin. “I’m glad. Sleep well, sweetheart.”

You hum in response, getting yourself comfy, feeling secure in his hold. “Night, Yoon.”

#cypherwritersnet #bts smut #yoongi smut #bts x reader #yoongi x reader #jimin x reader #taehyung x reader #jin x reader #namjoon x reader #jungkook x reader #hoseok x reader

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hentaimommi · 3 years

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ᴄʟᴜʙ ᴛᴇᴀꜱᴇ. | ᴋᴇɪɢᴏ ᴛᴀᴋᴀᴍɪ (prohero!fem! reader)

Warnings: smut

[A/N]: I had a dream about this last night oml. think like- 2013 night club vibes. I'm also giving you a quirk.

Quirk: Bunny

[C L U B T E A S E]

The night life of a pro-hero was a beautiful one. The exclusive club used to house the many parties held was in downtown Japan. The tallest building, on the highest floor. You personally opted to go on your day off. Normally you could catch many heroes in their hero outfits, but you liked to get dressed and actually look presentable.

At about 18:00, you began your lengthy process of getting ready. Beginning with curling your hair, then moving to cosmetics which were a pretty big deal. A nice eye look to match your dress, which was skin tight and silver. It sounds cheap; but the dress was the most expensive clothing item you owned. Pairing it with simple earrings and a pair of black-strap heels, you were set for the party that was starting at around 21:00.

Throwing on a large, white and puffy jacket, you checked yourself in the mirror. "No, black would look better." You then changed, now smoothing your dress and exciting the front door to your penthouse. The elevator ride was a long one, nervous as usual. Many male pro-hero's would be there, naturally making the energy a little tense. Stepping from the elevator, you walked out to the limo that had been pre-ordered for tonight.

Many of the paparazzi were already outside, taking shot after shot of you getting into the car. The air felt thick and you entered it. "Hello, Miss (H/N). How are you on this fine evening?" Your shofar asked, adjusting the mirror and beginning to go forward. "Oh, just fine." You responded; eyes locked outside the window. Your gut was wrenching, no matter how many parties you went to, the same feeling creeped over your shoulder each time.

Upon arrival of the very large building, the limo was parked outside of many velvet ropes. An array of guards were standing outside, blocking any exit there could have been. You thanked the driver, stepping out and into the cool night air. As you did so, the guards looked over to you, watching you walk through each velvet rope to their location. The guard at the main entrance smiled, letting you past and into the buildings lobby. Eyes were locked onto you, as they were everytime. People asking for autographs and greeting you; but all you wanted was to get to the top floor.

Once more you stepped into an elevator, pressing the very last button and prepping yourself for the long ride. Just as the doors closed, though, a large hand stuck through the middle of the two large metal blocks. You questioned it, until a certain pro-hero who had been climbing the charts walked in. "(H/N)! Glad I caught ya! I need up to the top floor." He entered the room, towering over you a little bit. "Lucky for you, Hawks, I'm going there too." You responded, eyes nervously finding your hands- which were fumbling.

The ride was silent for the most part, but like Hawks, he couldn't be completely quiet. "You look nice," He scratched the back of his neck, tilting his head a bit. Your blush was evident, also by the fact your leg began hopping. Unlike Mirko, your quirk wasn't strength based; it was reflex based, meaning you were toned down to the muscle. Hawks noticed this, a light smirk playing on his lips. Finally, the doors opened. "See you later, little birdy." He spoke, walking out into the greeting of the party. You followed.

"(H/N)!" A voice grumbled far above you. Turning around, you were welcomed into the warm presence of Fatgum and his interns: Suneater and Red Riot. Red Riot smiled, shaking your hand. Suneater only nervously turned around. You tilted your head in sympathy, then looked back up. "Hey Fatgum. What's up?" You asked, him following you to the bar as you moved smoothly through the crowd.

"Well I was wondering- I have this friend, and he needs someone to dance with. Would you be willing to help him out?" He proposed, paying for your drink over the bar. You thought for a moment, kicking back a shot and removing your coat. Many men had their gaze trapped on you. The quirk you had gave you large legs; also affecting your glutes. "Yeah, sure." Fatgum smiled watching you turn around, signaling someone over. "Yeah, can I get a martini? Make it dry, please." The bar tender nodded, then money for the exact price of the drink shot over the counter. Turning back, Hawks was standing with Fatgum. Your eyes widened a little, realizing he had meant, by his friend- the winged pro-hero.

"Don't worry. I'll pick up the tab. Wanna dance chickadee?" He asked, that same smirk as earlier meeting your gaze. You nodded, him taking your hand and softly leading you over to the dance floor. (Song: Smack That - Akon) Hawks wore his wings out nearly protectively over you as you both met the floor. You took a liking to the song decently quickly; finding yourself dancing wildly to it. You had the attention of most men in the club as your ass shook to the beat. Unknowing of this, Hawks pulled his wings over your ass and covered it from other men's gaze.

You, however, had your eyes closed. The feeling was lucid almost, barely buzzed at all. You enjoyed the flashing lights of the dance floor partnered with the bass of the song playing loudly though the speakers. The song switched (The Way I Are - Timbaland), Hawks now wrapping his hands around your waist loosely. You're almost sure this isn't what Fatgum meant by 'dancing', but his hands were so warm, touch so inviting as you both danced lewdly on each other.

The stares weren't as heavy as before, Hawks making slit eyes at each male who would attempt to catch your gaze. "Hawks?" You asked, turning around, hips still rocking to the beat. He looked down to you, delighted to see your face. Fatgum hadn't asked you by chance for him to dance with you, he had set it up well aware you all were friends. "Yeah?" He asked, smiling (Candy Shop - 50 Cent). You smiled at the change of the song, seductive eyes batting up to the avain male.

"Would you wanna take this somewhere else?" You asked, pushing your chest comfortably up to his. He was taken aback by your question, thinking you would at least want an emotional connection before doing anything beyond hot and heavy dancing. "You bet that fat ass, bunny." He spoke into your ear, wings still protectively over you. Goosebumps fled your skin. "You can call me Keigo, by the way." He smiled. "Call me (F/N)." Silencing, you dragged his hand back and away from the dance floor.

No one questioned you all as the music faded behind you, becoming muffled in the distance. You stopped at what you knew were the happening VIP spots. "Do you own a room?" You asked, pushing yourself against the wall. Nervously Keigo nodded, pulling keys from his pocket. It was his turn to lead you this time, taking you to the farthest back room there was. These were known as 'sober rooms', made by commission for heroes to sober up in. They had a couch, fireplace, and a small bar set up for luxury- at least in Keigo's.

As you walked in, his hand on the small of your back, he could feel the heat your body had been radiating. "I've never brought anyone back here before. Do you want a drink?" He asked, already pouring himself a whiskey. You sat down on the very large, nearly conversation pit sized couch. "Yeah, do you have any coconut rum?" He lifted a brow, "Yeah, weirdo." He chuckled a bit, pouring the drink and walking over to you. His outfit was nice. Tight red shirt, black suit, extremely nice dress shoes with matching black socks.

As he sat down, you pushed off your heels and turned to him, looking innocently with large eyes. Although, he knew you were far from innocent. The music which was once flooding your ears, was now a meek hum in the background. Keigo leaned down, wrapping his arm around your shoulders- then pressing you into a kiss. He tasted like whiskey and mint, cologne flooding your nose and countering the taste of his lips.

His kisses were sloppy, untamed as they moved from your lips down to your neck and chest. You weren't drunk, but you could get that way off of his touch. His hands softly trailed over your entire figure, leading to your ass. He held a hefty grip onto it, pulling you seamlessly into his lap. Like you weighed nothing.

"Keigo, oh my fucking god.." You moaned, hands looping into his golden locks. You could feel his hard cock pressed up against your think panties. Your thighs straddled him thickly, engulfing his own. He liked it, hands not being able to leave your ass and thighs for even a moment. "Birdy, do you know how fat that ass is? What I'd do to make it all mine." He gawked, pressing his cock up to you.

"Do it." You almost whispered back, pushing yourself up and lying on your back. Keigo came between your legs, trailing sloppy and wet kisses up your inner thigh. You could nearly feel his hot breath on your cunt, so sensitive and ready to be touched by him. “Keigo, please don’t tease me.” You softly begged, watching as his slit eyes come to meet your own wide orbs. “’nt worry, Keigo’s gotcha..” He cooed, sweetly as possible. He then sat back up, adjusting his wingspan. You watched as the beautiful shade of red feathered outward, almost in a mating dance. He chuckled at you in awe, taking that moment to remove his pants. Soon your eyes would trail back down, seeing as he had removed his underwear too. “Your turn, baby.”

He took his time while taking off your panties, etching them seductively over your freshly shaven legs. Your hips pushed forward, almost begging for contact, drawing a low hum from the bird man. All he wanted was to take you in that moment. His wings fluttered happily seeing your wet cunt, knowing all it took was him teasing you to get there. “You have such a pretty pussy.” He leaned down, pulling you hips up and closer to him. Watching each move he made was interesting. He did nothing uncalculated, everything had a reason.

You shivered at the contact of his spit-soaked hand with your already wet cunt. He rubbed his fingers skillfully around, building you up. Your moans were lewd, long, and loud through the room. He didn’t seem to mind as he tore away the contact, Replacing his fingers with his cock tip. “Ready?” You nodded, still pushing your hips up. Keigo chuckled at your desperate attempts, holding you hips and pressing his cock into you. You whined, the girth stretching you out so well. Your legs automatic response was to lock around his waist. “K-Keigo-” He shushed you, palating his fingers into your tongue.

Watching as he started to thrust in and out, his face contorting in pleasure; his cock twitching inside of you. His moans were like a sweet song, spilling at each thrust. You felt his cold rings meet your leg, pulling your leg above his shoulder to hit deeper, kissing your sweet spot with each thrust. He knew what he was doing, too, making sure you could hear every single moan that spilled from his lips, which were pink and swollen. “Yeah, you like my big fat cock? Say you like it, tell me how much you like this pro-hero cock.”

“Oh Kei, it feels so good- please, don’t quit.” You begged, fingernails scraping up his previously unmarked skin. He made sure to mark you back, too. Leaving purple marks up your chest, stopping just at your neck. You could feel it, the coil that had been in the works from the moment he pushed himself inside you. Your legs began to shake, Keigo feeling himself starting to twitch inside of you. There were no words, only incoherent moans that overflowed from the both of you. Your orgasms hit at the same time, your hands gripping into his shoulder blades desperately. His hands dug into the sofa, nearly breaking the material.

“Kei, holy fuck, you’re so good!” You praised, throwing your head back in euphoria. When you both finished, the only thing to be heard was the panting breaths of the two of you. He collapsed finally overtop of you, nuzziling into your neck. You began to pet his hair, letting both of you breath out the intense feeling that had just gripped onto your body. “Fuck, baby, if I would have known you’d be that good, I would have asked you to dance myself.”

#takami keigo smut #hawks x you #hawks smut #hawks x reader #pro hero au #onenightstand #takami keigo x reader

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athena-is-a-chaotic-lil-shit · 3 years

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Of Ice and Blood

Part 8

Supposedly everything I post consecutively is one part, but I always reach the 250 block limit everytime so I am forced to cut it off! It's all good though, I just hope you don't mind that.

Anyways, enjoy reading! I'll be working on my requests after I post this and the slasher fic in my works.

Edit: Holy sh*t I thought it wouldn't fit but it did! (And I meant the word count you dirty lil thing—) This will be the longest part in the series yet (since 4.3k words fit perfectly)

Pairing: Tai'chi Kashharzol (Orc) x Pearl Blackbell (Fem!Human/Reader)

Word count: 4.3k

Warnings: None :)

Contains: f l u f f (and maybe too much blushing but I have no regrets)

—

You let the student call the police as you tied up four unconscious men using their clothing. You left when you heard the distant sound of sirens and trusted her to explain what had transpired in the alley. You bid her farewell, resuming your walk to your destination. You breathed out your exhaustion, the little energy you got from a short nap earlier got spent punching people again.

"So...that was..."

"Expected." The orc supplied when you trailed off.

"Mm...Yeah."

Expected, both disappointing and frustrating. You did your best not to snap at the kid for it and only hoped she understood and learned.

The sun had already sunk long ago, but there was still a myriad of warm colors. Very subtle, but there. Each passing second transitioning it into a darker shade until little specks of light became visible. The sky...black in a matter of minutes. Street lamps lit your path as shops both closed and opened for the night with people saying hello and goodbye.

"Thank you, by the way. For uh, earlier." You got careless. Too careless than you usually are.

You shivered at the thought of what might've been the outcome.

He only nodded, along with a grunt of affirmation beside you.

"Are you mad?" you whispered. Was he angry at you being a stupid idiot and rushing straight into danger?

"No, just, "—he sighed, rubbing his forehead with his fingers—"worried." His scent was clearly not just of worry. He was also scowling.

Tai'chi was very worried about you, he always had ever since you met, which wasn't long but he felt a strong need to protect you, even if you could handle yourself well on your own. Oh, but he was angry, enraged within at those men who harmed the poor student, especially at the one who almost stabbed you at the back. If they were in his stronghold they would've been fed to the wargs.

No, he would've torn them apart himself.

You didn't speak again until you arrived at your place, finally. You're not rich and even if you were you have no desire to live in those luxurious and super expensive condos. You preferred to have something homey, small, as long as it had what you needed for comfort and safety, you were content.

It also saves a lot of money for future expenses and emergencies.

"So, uhm, welcome." You said as you unlocked your door after several tries on putting the key in. Tai'chi ducked considerably under it, his large frame barely making it through.

You took off your shoes, placed them on the side, and kept your socks on. He followed suit, taking off his boots, coming out barefooted.

It wasn't smelly, which was pretty surprising.

You headed to your kitchen and prepare dinner for both of you, but a hand on your shoulder stopped you in your tracks.

"I will cook." Tai'chi spoke and you immediately replied, stuttering.

"I-I should be the one cooking for you! It's not right. I'm the host and you're the guest it shouldn't be—"

"Pearl, I will cook." He asserted, his voice deep and confident, you sighed as it made you relent. You'd make a mess if you did anyway, might chop your hand off with a knife or dunk your head in the pot.

"Fine. But next time I'll do something for you instead," you groaned.

The orc grunted once before he stepped past you and into your kitchen while you plodded to your room.

Tai'chi paused for a moment to take in the details of your house. It was fairly small. From where he stood, his head was a foot away from touching the ceiling. To his left was an open way to what he assumed was the living room where he could make out half of a brown couch facing away from him. He also noticed a couple of framed photos hanging on a faded orange wall. Tai'chi glanced in the direction where you disappeared, he could hear the faint sound of the shower going on.

Good.

Not wanting to waste any more time, he started preparing dinner for the two of you, making use of what was present in your humble home. You had a similarly humble kitchen with a simple stovetop and double-door cupboards.

A decent-sized (a/n: everything is small to him okay) refrigerator sat in the corner where he found some meat in its freezer, quite a huge portion for such a small person like you, but then again he witnessed firsthand how much you could eat, and eat like an orc you did. Tai'chi reached inside to grab the meat but met resistance. He subconsciously yanked the frozen thing off, his eyes widened when he realized what he did, nearly topping over the whole appliance. Tai'chi sheepishly adjusted the refrigerator back in its place, before he looked for other ingredients while he carefully moved around to avoid any more mishaps.

You went inside your bedroom, groggy and disgusting as you pulled off your clothes and threw them in a basket just outside your bathroom. You stepped inside and took a long, hot, well-deserved shower to get that dried sweat and blood off of your body. After you rinsed down, you sunk yourself in your little tub, sighing in content as you tried your best not to fall asleep. You shuddered and trapped yourself in a daze, enjoying the hot water around your naked form, relaxing in the aromatherapy you made for yourself as you hummed a tune, letting your thoughts wander.

The precision of that throw was simply scary. But also cool...mm. Awesome.

I wonder what happened to the Silverstones...

Courting, huh...who would've thought I'd be courted by an orc. I wonder what that entails...

Wait, I'll be courting him too, right?

"..."

You got out when the wrinkling started. Your muscles were still aching but less so than before. You used a towel to dry down before wearing a black oversized shirt, you had about 6 of them in your wardrobe 'cause hey, not one to dress up fancy and flashy. Plus blood gets splattered on your clothes a lot, it would be a waste of time and money. You also slipped inside your favorite pair of dark grey joggers, the one you always wore when you were at home. They were comfy!

You let your hair fall over your shoulders and back since it was still damp. When you got out the scent of cooked food engulfed you, wafting from your right.

Oh, how mouth-watering it was.

You tiptoed to your kitchen to peek at what Tai'chi cooked up. Unfortunate when you couldn't see anything with his broad physique was blocking your line of sight on the table.

"I could smell you, you know."

You almost, almost let out a yelp. You wiped your drool with the hem of your shirt.

"I- uh-"

He chuckled, "You must be starving. I—" Words died in his throat when he turned around to look at you.

He gawked.

You surprised him for the nth time today. There you stood before him, relaxed and freshly cleaned up, a whiff of mint reached his nose, your shampoo perhaps, mixed with your scent. You didn't have your mask on, which gave him a full look at your face, your lips were a little chapped, half-lidded eyes showing your exhaustion.

"Is there something on my face?"

"N-No." He stuttered as he tried to get something out. "Ehem, no. You just look... I'm done with dinner, you— we should eat, and then we can talk." Tai'chi said as he moved to take a chair and sat across you. You let that go, in favor of sating your hunger.

His cheeks were a bit darker in shade than his skin, but that slipped away as the dinner in front of you grabbed your full attention. It looked and smelled like pork curry. Was it pork curry? It's like something straight out of a Ghibli movie.

Bite-sized chunks of meat, diced potatoes, and carrots coated with a rich syrupy brown soup together with a modest –at least to both of you– portion of rice next to it. It was simple, but the way it tempted your senses implied that there was something more than what meets the eye, and your nose.

Or it's your gluttony speaking, probably.

You picked up your spoon and wondered if it's as good as it appears to be. You gulped, audibly.

You brought a small portion into your mouth, nearly falling off of your seat as you resisted the urge to make any sound that would outright embarrass you, but lo, as you took another spoonful, you couldn't stop yourself from letting out a moan. Your eyes widened and immediately covered your face with two hands as you felt it heat up.

You chewed and swallowed before you squeaked out, "I-I-I'm so sorry! It- It's just so yummy and tasty and I— it's amazing, and uh..." You trailed off and groaned, at a loss of words in your embarrassment. You risked to part your fingers and peek at him. He met your gaze and you hid again. His cheeks were in a darker hue than before. Was he flustered like you? Oh no, you shouldn't have done that, now he will think you're being weird!

Tai'chi cleared his throat and you removed your hands but refused to make eye contact with him, your face still hot.

"We... We should eat." He said, stiff and trying to seem indifferent. But that sound you made would forever be engraved into his mind, it was both cute, and, well, sensual.

Okay fine, it was somehow arousing, but he has it under control, he will keep his damn urges in check, even if it means jumping out of the window just to make sure he won't scare you away. He's an orc of honor for goodness' sake, he swore an oath, he will keep it.

You ate fast but paused to savor the food, minus any embarrassing noises, thankfully. The curry was rich and a bit spicy, the pork was soft and tender as you chewed at it easily, juicy as it is, along with the potatoes and carrots, both cooked and prepared with obvious care. You almost cried from the combination of flavors you nearly forgot it was just curry you're eating.

But damn, this is the best curry you've eaten your whole life.

It was minutes later when you finished your fourth heaping plate of food. Tai'chi had five. He made a lot which was great, considering how your plates were wiped clean as if they weren't used in the first place.

Damn, you ate like you didn't eat for a week.

With some regained energy, you stood and took the dishes before Tai'chi could even stop you, putting them in the sink and washing them, quick and thorough. Once you were done with that, you went back to your seat, ducked your head, and stared at your lap.

"..."

"I... Thank you for the food. It was really delicious and great and everything! And, uhm, you made the pork curry like a pro and I never tasted anything so fulfilling, —my mother will beat me if she heard that—and it was a simple curry but I, it's just so, so—" you huffed, "mind-blowing!" You were rambling, you knew. You looked up when he didn't say anything.

H-He's grinning...

"Thank you. I pride myself in my skill in the kitchen and I'm happy what I made for you was satisfying." Tai'chi thumped his chest, showing that he was very honoured to hear your words. He's never telling you he almost broke your fridge though.

"It was great!" You exclaimed right after him, throwing your hands up. It was truly great. He grinned even wider at this, that dark shade still present in his cheeks, though you were no better as you could feel the warmth on your own.

"Then I am beyond happy and honored to hear that from you," liga lul, he stated, only saying of the last part in his head.

You smiled at each other.

"Is now a good time to discuss my kind's courting rituals?" Taichi asked after a minute of sitting there in silence.

"Y-Yes, please," you replied. "So, how do orcs court someone?"

He straightened up in his seat.

"We show off to the one we're interested in, basically speaking. Ranging from skills in fighting to proving that we could provide for our...mate." He paused, watching you closely.

You nodded for him to continue. Not gonna lie, that last part made your heart skip a beat. Mate, huh.

"We," he coughed, "we also chase or fight off other suitors, be it threatening them or engaging them in battle. And if they attempt to kidnap or hurt the person courted in any way, they will suffer the wrath of an orc."

"So, they'll...die?"

"Yes, or so that's what it usually was back home. Here, in this city, it's a crime to kill someone just for that reason, but it is law among us. No one would bat an eye if someone gets beheaded just because they were foolish enough to insult the person an orc is courting."

"Oh," pretty brutal but okay. "Is there an option where they don't get murdered or..." You asked, waving your hand around. Killing because of an insult is going overboard, in your opinion, but then again, anyone would be furious if their potential partner gets slandered or taken away forcefully.

"When the courted wills it. It is always up to them to decide the fate of those who tried to harm them, and the orc must take their words into action."

"Oh, good. I really don't want you getting in trouble just because someone called me a freak and all," you said. You looked at your hands, calloused and a little rough from experience. Scars were littered over your body and you hid them well from any curious eye with your long sleeves and pants. Though right now, some of the scars on your arms were visible.

You jerked when you felt his large hand grab your arm and moved along to yours, rubbing his thumb on the back of it, his brows furrowed as he looked at you.

"They are wrong to call you that."

"And everyone's a piece of shit to call you a beast, a savage, or a murderer," you followed up in an instant.

His expression softened, and you smiled, ignoring how your heart hammered in your chest as he continued to caress your hand.

Tai'chi could feel your pulse, beating so fast he was scared for your health. But he was happy to know he could make you feel this way, his own heart was thumping loudly in his chest too.

"As I said before, we would show that we could provide for our potential partners. We would bring to them our best kills from hunts, offer gifts crafted by ourselves if we have the skill, if not, we will buy them tokens and things that remind us of them or what pleases them."

"Wait," you interrupted, "when you insisted on cooking dinner, was that a part of courting?"

He gave you a small smile as he scratched his sideburns, sheepish like a little child caught stealing candy.

"Yes." He answered, rather quiet than his usual booming voice.

"Uhm, I must say, it was really amazing. Your cooking, I mean. And thank you, again."

"The pleasure's all mine," he replied. "Building houses or fixing the courted's current one is also a part of it."

"You're not gonna build me house right away, are you?" You joked, but then he didn't reply. "Wait, you're serious? But we're still studying and—"

"I am serious about building a house for, uh, the two of us," he interrupted, "but yes, I understand our current situation won't allow that to happen...yet."

"H-How long does the courting last?" You couldn't help but ask. He's talking about building you a house someday and you don't even know how old he is! No connection to what you're fumbling about but yeah, your mind is messed up. You are curious though...his age.

"It usually lasts for six months, to give time to get to know each other but also not prolong the courting stage so they could proceed to the next, but there are times when it lasts longer than that. You will have absolute control over how fast or slow we proceed in the courtship. That means it's up to you on when to end it and decide whether you'll...take me as your mate, or turn me down."

"Sounds pressuring but okay." You want to, like, combust right now.

He chuckled.

"Pressuring? No, no, please do not be pressured. Your word is law and I will face death by my family's ax if I disobey your final decision."

"Again with the death thingy!" You were appalled at how extreme orcs were.

"Us orcs are very strict and firmly tied to our traditions, but I can say we are changing. It is slow, but change nonetheless."

"I have a question," you raised your free hand out of habit.

Tai'chi nodded.

"I hope this is won't offend but how old are you?"

There, you said it. Oh fuck, you hoped it wasn't offending. Shit it was— asking his age, seriously?

"How old do you think I am?" He questioned, teasing you, a smirk on his lips catching you off guard.

"What? Noooo that's not an answer! I can't guess, you might get angry."

"I won't," he supplied right after. Why would he be? In fact, he is pretty much enjoying himself just watching you fidget with your ears slightly tinted pinkish. By the gods, he wants to touch them.

You sighed.

You stared at him, avoiding eye-contact as you tilted your head to get a good look at his features. He had a long and narrow scar you didn't spot before, in a lighter green color on the left side of his face. It wasn't noticeable if you stare at him up-front. It went down his neck and ended just above his collar bone. You wondered what caused it.

The orc was rough, his double tusks sharp and intimidating, even horrifying to another set of eyes but to you, he was attractive and rugged, his scent alluring and you only found him more fascinating each passing second. The scars he had enticed your curiosity but you weren't gonna ask about it, yet.

You always thought the standards set by society are rather absurd. You looked back at the time when someone asked you what your type was, along with showing you different pictures of men, human men, which were deemed "hot" (with quotation marks, yes) by most people. You didn't answer because; one, you don't know them; two, you couldn't tell what their personality was because you can't scent them; and three, it only annoyed you. People found you even weirder after that. Ironically deeming you senseless for not having an eye for beauty. No taste or missing out, they said.

But one's beauty wasn't found in sight alone.

You hummed to yourself. His hair was rich black, no trace of graying, so maybe he's not so old? 30s? How fast do orcs grow up? Do they even age? What do they look like when they were children?

You were brought back to the present when he gently squeezed your hand.

"Oh— uh, 35?" You blurted out, a bit panicked. As far as you know no one is as....buff as him in your age— but wait he's an orc!

"Oh no wait that's—"

You were cut off by a loud snort followed by a boisterous laugh coming out of Tai'chi, making you more embarrassed than you already are. His guffaw shook your apartment you swear your neighbors are filing a noise complaint tomorrow with how much he was laughing and you raising your voice.

"No," he said, "no actually, I'm still in my 23rd year. Do I really look that old?" He questioned as he chortled.

"23rd?! But you're— you're," you gestured at him. He's just five years older than you (which isn't long period of time you think) but he's— he's fucking huge! What the hell did they eat up North?

"Yes," he laughed again, amused by your reaction. "Believe it or not I am. Orcs begin training at age 6" he shifted the topic, "The adults would let them choose their desired weapon and craft to pursue, but also allowed them to experience all selections, from swords, battle axes, hammers, and many more, along with skills and crafts like hunting, blacksmithing, combat, construction, even basket weaving.

"I went on my first hunt when I was 12 and brought a stag back home. I tamed my first warg at 15, named him Nadul, Orcish for 'night'."

"6 year old me snuck out of the house during nap time to collect twigs in the woods while you were wielding weapons and—"

"That is correct,"

"And you had a pet warg?" You knew what wargs are, you read about them when you were in high school, along with other animals that fascinated you. They looked like large wolves with the stature of an adult grizzly bear and can carry a full-grown orc into battle.

"Have," he corrected, his fluffy buddy was still very much alive and well the last time he went back to visit his home, which was three months ago. He doubted anything could take down Nadul, not even a Frostbear, he was the one who trained him after all.

"I still can't believe you're 23. You look so..."— you were not gonna say old, no— "mature."

"At a different rate from humans, yes."

Of course they do. You got so much to learn about orcs, and him.

"And you? How old are you?"

"19."

"Oh? You look 13 with how little you are,"

You didn't expect him to be playful like this, but you went along.

"Hey! I'm only small compared to you, you giant!" True, you were a tad shorter than most girls your age but it has its perks! You'd save a lot of money from buying clothes just because you grew rather slowly. "And in fact, I'm still growing!"

"So am I." He grinned, smugness painted all over his face.

"Noooo, if you keep growing you won't fit through the doorway!" You whined, pouting at how much of a tease he was being.

He found it adorable, the way your lower lip was upturned as you looked at him. The sudden urge to pat you rose but he didn't act on it.

"Do not worry, us orcs stop growing in our 25th year," or not. "And I will make sure to feed and treat you good so you'll become taller!" he stated confidently. Tai'chi was about to laugh again, but he froze with his jaw open when you turned real red, your ears tinted and your lips quivered, unable to speak out anything.

That last part, made your face feel like fire just kissed it, twice. Panicked and having no idea what to retort, you let your head fall on the table with a thud. You gripped his hand tight and took silent breaths to calm your thumping heart down.

"Y-Yeah... I..I l-look forward to that, Tai'chi." You were able to say that at least.

He gave a soft grunt as he looked at you on the table.

You were very flustered, he scented. His comment-sort-of-declaration was clearly the reason. But oh, he had no regrets. He will make sure you're healthy and well-fed, and it's just one way of showing off with his skills.

That's only the beginning.

You were in for some Orcish surprises.

You sat in comfortable silence again for a while, just taking in each other's scents, soothing and calming your hammering heart. Tai'chi continued to caress your hand, gentle for such a big orc like him. He could snap your neck with two fingers alone, but he remained careful like he was holding a thing so delicate.

Tai'chi could feel your pulse slow down to a normal rate, your scent shifted to that of a relaxed state and something fuzzy. He can't call you his yet, you just met today but you already got him wrapped around your tiny fingers. First, he will court you and show his admiration, prove his worth. And you, yourself, turning it into love the more you spend time together, he knows it will.

And he'll surely be damned to let this chance slip. Not once did he took interest in getting a mate before, his mind too busy and filled with his responsibilities along with studies in other kind's culture, and taking care of his siblings.

But back then and there, something pulled on his heart, the way your eyes stared into his for seconds that felt longer than eternity itself. An exaggeration, but that's what he felt.

He found you.

You were about to doze off so you removed your head from the table and tried to blink away your sleepiness, the light hurting you a little. You should get to bed soon, your first class starts at 8 in the morning. You stared at Tai'chi, admiring that blue eyes of his, its hue similar to that of lapis lazuli, you thought.

"I should take my leave now. We need to rest, especially you." Tai'chi said when he saw how tired you appeared, you were barely keeping your eyes open. He stood up from his seat, lightly pulling you up with him. You shook your head, rubbing your eyes as you led him to your door.

"Keep safe," you bid once he was ready to go.

"You as well... I will see you tomorrow."

"Mm, g'night."

Tai'chi breathed through his nose before he placed a kiss on your forehead. It was brief, but it sent a pleasant warmth all over your body. You were too sleepy to even bother being shy now, so you only smiled at him.

"Goodnight, lak'mar lul." He gazed at you, sighing before he stepped out of your apartment.

You stood there for a moment before you checked your door and made sure it was deadlocked. You killed the lights off as you sluggishly trudged to your bed. Darkness enveloped your home, a welcome one. You crawled to the middle and tucked yourself under the dark blue cotton sheets.

You were out like a light once you settled down. Much too many things happened right after another, draining you to an exhaustingly low point. You only prayed you'd feel better in the morning.

Your last thought was about how warm the orc was, and how, for some reason, his scent, his presence, felt like a home you never had, which was saying something since you had encountered a lot of scents in your life, both good and bad. You hugged your pillow tight as you succumbed to a dreamless slumber.

—

I'm putting this off for a bit to give time for requests and other WIPs. But if a random continuation pops out I'll have to write it down and set it aside for editing later.

Thank you for reading!

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cherrybracelets · 4 years

Text

come down [s. reid x reader]

words: 2.6k | warnings: 18+ content, smut including oral (m receiving) and unprotected sex. please do not interact with this fic if you are under 18.

requests | masterlist

going undercover at the club is less than ideal, especially when it involves dancing and grinding with spencer reid

an- this was a request and i absolutely WENT with it so i hope u enjoy this nonnie also this is my first spencer fic and im super nervous so if u like it pls lmk and if you have requests pls send them and check out my masterlist for a playlist with all my fic titles songs lol thx

You hated it from the moment you walked in the crowded, poorly lit basement they called a nightclub. It was hot, a humid kind of heat that filled your lungs and left a stickiness on your exposed flesh. The lights were strobing, the music pumping loudly as the bass shook the floor. You felt nauseous, exhausted, and most of all, frustrated that Hotch stuck you here with Reid.

“I don’t really understand why Hotch would send me to this kind of... place... instead of Morgan,” Reid shouted to you over the loud music, looking around anxiously.

“Morgan looks like a cop. We need this guy to approach us, he’s looks for...” you trailed off, trying to find the right words to tell Spencer he wasn’t quite nearly as intimidating as Morgan.

“No, I get it, the unsub likes to be more powerful than the men. He picks scrawnier, weaker ones, like me.” Spencer smiled and spun around for you, trying to show off his thinner physique. You giggled at him and took a long sip of soda water, hoping to god this night would end soon.

“We can’t sit here all night, he won’t notice us over here,” you shrugged, letting Spencer know the unfortunate news that at some point, and probably soon, you’d have to go out and dance.

“I know, we have to seem fun, adventurous, I got it. I just... I’m not the dancing at the club type of guy,” he smiled awkwardly, tucking a loose strand of hair behind his ear.

“It’s easy, trust me. It’s just about feeling your body move with the music. Will you let me show you?” You asked, holding out a hand to him. He grabbed onto it nervously, following behind as you dragged him onto the dance floor.

He was still at first, awkwardly trying to avoid the other clubbers as they danced around him. He watched the closeness of them, the way they moved their bodies in sync with another.

“See, it’s not too hard, right?” You asked, pointing to the crown. “We can do that. Just blend in.”

Spencer modded, but didn’t say a word, just continued to watch, moving closer to you and moving his hips slightly with the music. You watched his body start to move, and he pulled you closer to him, your skin touching, your faces only inches apart. His body moved into yours, turning you around and pressing your butt into him. He grabbed onto your hips and pushed you into him, revealing a surprisingly large cock pressing against you.

He trailed his lips down your neck, pecking you so slightly it left you with goosebumps once his lips departed. Your hands were behind your head, tussled in his soft hair, playing with the curls and tugging slightly when he danced into you. He smelled like honey and mint, and the smell of freshly cleaned laundry still clung to his clothes. He turned you back around to face him, your faces now pressed to each other, hands trailing up and down.

“Kiss me,” he whispered, his right hand now grasped firmly on your jaw, pointing your head up towards him. “It’ll make it seem more real. Kiss me.”

You nodded in obedience, unable to resist this Spencer. You had never seen him like this before, not once in the full year you had been working for the BAU. He was confident, sexy... he was right in front of you this whole time and you had no idea.

You softly put your lips onto his, still unsure of kissing him. He didn’t give you time to adjust, and picked up the pace of the kiss, moving his lips aggressively. His hands were on your ass, squeezing tight with dominance, showing everyone on the dance floor that you were his. He bit down playfully on your lips, kissed up and down your neck and your jaw, your arms wrapped lazily around his neck, pulling him closer.

You forget where you were for a while, losing yourself in this moment with Spencer. It wasn’t until you happened to glance at your watch and realize the time.

“Shit, Spence!” You pushed away from him, panic overcoming you. “We’re almost five minutes past 11. If he was here, he’s gone now!” You groaned, storming off the floor and back over to the tables.

“Hey, woah, don’t worry!” Spencer said, rushing over to you and placing a hand on your back to comfort you. “I’ve been watching this place all night, there were no other couples here tonight that matched his MO except us. He wasn’t here tonight.”

“You promise? I can’t mess this up Spence.”

“I promise. Let’s call Hotch, okay?” He put a hand on your face and you remembered back to the dance floor, the dancing and kissing, and you jumped back a bit.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, turning his head sideways as if he didn’t think twice about what you two were just doing five minutes ago.

“Uh... nothing... sorry,” you stuttered, shaking your head and motioning for him to call Hotch. Reid walked to the hallway so he could make the call, and you stood exhausted at the table, your heart racing from all of the emotion pounding through you. You tried to shake the memory of him, how good it felt to be with him in that moment. How good of a kisser he was, how nice it felt to have his arms around you, his body pressed against yours.

You had always had a little crush on Reid, you were always attracted to him, but never imagined anything like this. You never imagined wanting him to take you back home and absolutely wrecking you. And that’s all you could think about. How good his lips would feel on every part of your body, the large cock he was hiding and how much you wanted to touch it.

Your thoughts were interrupted when you saw Spencer walking back from his call with Hotch, waving to you. He came up to the table with a skip in his step, clearly not affected at all by you two grinding and making out for twenty minutes.

“You ready to get out of here? Hotch is sending the car, he said we could go back to the hotel.” He said, motioning for you to follow him outside. You just nodded quietly, and followed behind, leaving as much distance as you could while still seeing him.

The car was waiting when you walked out, and Spencer was already at the door. He opened in widely and smiled at you.

“After you, beautiful,” he motioned, holding his arm out for you. You just giggled again, the same awkward and charming Spencer back again. You loved him just like this. But you were a major fan of the other, sexier side of him as well.

The ride to the hotel was only a few minutes, and it consisted of mostly silence between the two of you, and a random song playing on the radio. Spencer was checking his emails, which you were pretty sure was just an excuse so he didn’t have to talk to you, because it would be a really weird time to actually be checking your emails.

The car pulled up to the entrance of the hotel and you thanked the driver, opening the door on your side and stepping out. Spencer followed quietly, still not saying a word. You walked into the lobby and started heading towards the elevators, but felt him start to lag behind.

“I’ll, uh, be up in a minute. I just need to make a call,” he said, waving his phone to you.

“Okay, is everything okay?”

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow, Reid,” you smiled, not wanting to walk away for a moment.

“See you,” he waved, looking away after a few seconds. You walked to the elevator, impatiently pressing the button, wanting to go to bed and forget this night as soon as possible. You knew Spencer would never mention it again, but you wouldn’t be able to look at him without thinking about... all of him.

The elevator ride felt long and infinite, you were only on floor six but you could swear it felt like you passed a hundred floors before it stopped and let you off. You walked to your door, fumbling through your bag trying to find your room key. You walked into your room aggressively and closed the door behind you. You took a deep breath once you were alone, trying to center your thoughts.

You took a few steps forward, deciding if you should shower the night away or go straight to bed. You still felt the air of the club clung to you, and knew you wouldn’t be able to fall asleep until you washed it all off. You threw your shoes off in the corner, shuffling around in your suitcase for something to wear to sleep. You heard a knock on the door and rolled your eyes. A knock at this time only meant something was discovered on the case and you hate to sacrifice another night of sleep. And tonight, you really needed a night off.

You walked to the door, frustration seeping out of you with every step. You undid the lock and opened the door, expecting to see Hotch. But it wasn’t Hotch, it was Reid, a look of contemplation pasted across his face.

“Hey,” he mumbled, leaning on the doorway.

“Hi,” you responded sharply, trying to avoid staring at his lips.

“I called Morgan,” he said.

“Uh, okay... about what?” You replied, confusion lingering in your voice.

“You.”

“What about me?” You said, straightening yourself up.

“Apparently I didn’t handle tonight too well.” He looked apologetic, playing with his hands as he spoke to you.

“What do you mean?”

“Well... I probably should’ve done this...” He stared at you for a few seconds, his eyes peering beyond you, into you. He wrapped his hands around your lower back, pulling you into a kiss. You were surprised at first, your arms in the air trying to find their place. But you cupped his face, pulling his kiss into you, leaving no space between your two bodies.

You pulled him into the room, the door slamming loudly behind you. You felt his hands start fumbling with the zipper of your dress, trying to give himself access to your body. You tugged at the hem of his tshirt, your fingers moving up his stomach, lightly grazing each muscle they passed. He squirmed under you, your light touch tickling him. You felt him smiling through your kisses, trying to avoid laughing as you toyed with his flesh.

“Do you want this?” He asked with a serious tone, breaking your kisses to get your consent.

“Yes, I do. Do you?” You asked, pushing his curls behind his ear to see his face.

“I really do. I’ve wanted this for a while.” He smiled to you, pulling you closer to him and just holding you, enjoying each other for a moment. There weren’t many times in this life with your job where you could stop and be perfectly content with everything that was happening. But here, this moment with him, you truly felt content, safe.

His lips starting trailing up your neck, breaking the only PG moment of the night. You started toying with his belt buckle, and moved your hands down to his groin. He was already hard, and you dragged your fingers up the length of him. He shuddered into your, anticipation flowing through him. You pushed him back towards the bed, wasting no more time as you ripped his shirt over his head.

“Take your dress off,” he commanded, and you nodded obediently, pulling at the zipper and revealing your body. He took you in for a moment, his eyes trailing over you, paying special attention to each curve.

He starting taking his pants off, touching himself through his boxers as he got comfortable on the bed. You got on top of him, grinding your hips into his hard cock and nibbling at his jaw. He messed with the clasp on your bra before undoing it, allowing your breasts to spill out into his chests. His hands travelled up your torso to cup them, squeezing slightly and playing with your nipples.

“I want you in my mouth,” you whispered into his ear, grinding your center onto the base of his dick. He nodded his head, pushing the base of your head down to him. You took his length out of his boxers and ran your fingers up the length. He was large and thick, a perfect pink tip. You brought your lips up to the tip and kissed it slightly, warming him up to your mouth.

You wrapped your tongue around the head, flicking sit quickly in your mouth. He bucked under you, tangling his fingers in your hair and pulling at you with each movement of your tongue. You started to take more of him in your mouth, going deeper until his tip was hitting the back of your throat. He moaned and pushed your head down deeper, wanting to fit his whole length inside of you.

“I want you to ride me, (Y/N).” He said, making you sit up and stop playing with him for a minute. He sat up against the headboard and motioned for you to come to his lap. You crawled over to him on your knees, and he cupped your chin and pulled you to kiss him, your mouth still raw from his cock.

You moved yourself onto his lap and hovered your center over him, grabbing it into your hand and sliding his length into you. You were right, and putting him all in you at once made you wince. You dug your nails into his shoulder and he held you tightly as you adjusted to him. Once you were comfortable, you started rocking your hips back and forth, slowly digging into him.

Reid rolled his head back in pleasure, the feeling of being inside of you, knowing he had fully taken you over. He had his hands dug tight into your hips, pulling you deeper and faster every second. He was biting on your neck, shoulder, chest, moving his mouth across you as you bounced into him. You felt yourself getting closer to climax, your body preparing for release.

“You’re so fucking pretty,” he whispered to you, pushing your hair back from your face as you moved into him. “Do you like it when I fuck you?”

“I do. You’re gonna make me cum,” you moaned, moving more sloppily as you were losing yourself

to pleasure. As soon as you started to hit your peak, you felt his body shuddering as well, knowing he was close. You both finished within seconds of each other, collapsing back on the wedding in exhaustion.

“So... is this gonna be a thing now, or?” Reid asked, furrowing his brow at you.

“Why is that the first thing you would ask?” You joked, pushing him slightly. He wrapped his arm around you and pulled you close, kissing you.

“I could use someone like you... to help me wind down during these cases. It can be a bit... much.”

“Yeah, sometimes you need to literally bang your frustrations out. I’m totally down to bang it out with you,” you laughed, playfully fighting with Reid in between kisses.

“Well now that you worded it like that I definitely want nothing to do with you,” he laughed, pulling you into him and holding you tightly until you both fell asleep.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #spencer reid fanfiction #fanfic #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fanfic

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tombofglass · 2 years

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Ok, lemme bend your ear...

Sooo... I’ve written a draft opening for a fantasy story I’m working on. Yay or nay?

Isabell leaned heavily against an old spruce tree while she caught her breath and wiped her brow against her sleeve. Her arms ached with the effort of digging, her hands were cramping and her nails were black with dirt, but still the stubborn ginger roots clung defiantly to the packed earth.

She'd been out foraging since before dawn, despite the unseasonable frost that had settled over the forest in the night, coating everything in a thin layer of ice that was already beginning to thaw as the sun began its slow ascent through the trees. The hunters would be passing this way soon, she wanted these roots pulled up before that happened, Mikhail would only grouse at her otherwise if he caught her traipsing through his hunting grounds for mushrooms and plant bark. With that in mind she redoubled her efforts and, adjusting her grip on the small pick in her hand, swung again at the hardened soil, grunting with the effort. She wasn't about to let herself be defeated by a bloody plant.

Of course, she wouldn’t have had to resort to foraging at all had her last shipment from Althafen not been seized by the army for the war effort, and as much as she had tried to be polite about the whole situation at the time, it was hard to keep a lid on her frustration presently when she could feel the sting of fresh blisters on her hands with every swing. Surely King Alaric didn’t think he could win the war by throwing sprigs of mint at the elves?

“I’ll give you something to throw at them.” She grumbled to herself, digging her fingers into the freshly disturbed dirt and tugging hard. Still no luck. She almost screamed then, and raised her arm again to strike the roots more out of anger than any sort of tact when a shout broke the silence around her.

#writing #writers #writing community #writer #wattpad #a03 #fantasy writing #fantasy writer #fiction

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ask-runaan-anything · 3 years

Note

Hello Moom dad! I was wondering could you tell us a story? Pretty Please! Thank you!

Sure, little shadow. Allow me to share a soft retelling of this story which Ethari shared a while ago.

In the morning, when I’ve returned from early morning training only to find Ethari entering the kitchen as well, our soft rituals ensue. He’s usually still slightly sleep mussed, with his hair even messier than usual; hanging over his left eye in a carefree, handsome way. I smile warmly at my husband while embracing him, letting him rest part of his weight on me as he uses me as his vertical pillow.

“Do you want me to make breakfast?” I whisper into his ear.

“Hmmm, no,” he replies, his voice all delightfully rough from just waking up, “I’ve got it. Hmm, you smell nice,” he adds, poking his nose into my freshly washed hair. I move in closer, resting my head on his shoulder as he breathes me in, letting the smells of his clean husband slowly wake him up. Plus, I know Ethari misses me in the morning when I’m not in bed to cuddle with him, so I make sure to make it up to him. He holds me for a couple minutes before regrettably releasing me, heading over to the cooking area. I let him believe I’m not following him before gliding up behind him, asking him what’ll be on the menu that morning. He’ll tell me about a variety of choices he’s juggling in his head before deciding on one, and if he’s feeling extra sweet, he’ll ask me to choose.

Regardless of the scenario, I’m hard pressed to leave his side as we occupy the space together; kissing along his neck—one of his favourites—or quietly smoothing out his rumpled hair as he cooks both bring a soft smile to his face. He’ll lean into me or graze his fingers along my wrist in silent reciprocation. We both also make it a game to see how far I can go in my plan to interrupt him as he fetches ingredients before he’ll pay me in smooches to let him roam freely. Spoiler alert, he smooches me all he wants without ever actually wanting me to leave.

One morning, I decided to up my game. Ethari was behind the stove, cooking a hearty vegetable stir fry filled with freshly ripe crops from our garden. The fact that they were grown by him made him especially perky, and I could tell by the spark in his eyes as he watched them cook. All his excitement made us both extra soft and playful, as we (metaphorically) waltzed around the kitchen, using every excuse to sneak in cleverly placed kisses and soft touches. You would have thought Ethari was wearing a ‘kiss the chef’ apron, but I don’t need an apron to tell me to kiss my husband. As he was keeping a close eye on the pan, I looked up at the kitchen shelf, trying to decide which tea to have before coming up with an idea. I stretched up ever so slightly, as if I was having trouble reaching the package of mint tea. I didn’t have his attention just yet, so I tried harder, stretching my left leg and angling it towards him, giving him a nice view of my long assassin legs.

“My light, did you adjust these shelves recently? I can’t reach my tea,” I inquired, blepping ever so subtly. I could feel his eyes flickering down towards my extravagantly extended leg before he smiled up at me, quickly realizing my plan. Ethari draped a hand around my waist, pressing a soft kiss against the tip of my ear before smooshing himself closer to me as he reached upwards. Our hands touched ever so slightly, making both of our hearts beat quicker. I could feel him grow warmer than I’d imagined his skin feeling just a minute ago.

“Here, love, let me help you with that,” he murmured, his lips inches away from my ear. I couldn’t help but shut my eyes and smile at the soothing hymn of his voice so close to me, speaking so softly. I fall asleep to this same voice, mind you. Ethari lowered himself back down to his usual position before I did—still dazed from all the softness. When we’re side by side, he had the gall to wink at me, as if he’d won. Here’s another spoiler alert: I let him believe he did. He promptly boiled a hot kettle of water, resting his head on my shoulder as we both waited for the loud whistling.

“Be glad you didn’t grab the sweet tea, you’re sweet enough,” he teased, looking up at me through his lashes.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Really, Ethari? I think you’re the sweeter of the both of us.”

He made a sound of mischievous amusement. “Says the elf who just made a display of not being able to reach just so I could hold his hand.”

I looked away, trying not to give myself away with a smile. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Thankfully the whistle of the kettle got me off the hook, and Ethari pressed a smiling kiss against my collarbone before pouring us both a cup. I thanked him with a kiss to his forehead before we turned to our breakfast nook, filling our usual spots. From our little nook, we have a window view of the village, and at that hour we can see small numbers of shadowpaws and moonstriders having their morning grazing time as the other elves all stay inside, preparing for school or their occupations. It’s very peaceful, and everything seems so quiet and distant from up there. It’s as if it’s only myself and Ethari, and that we could just sit there for hours, drinking tea and communing quietly. I can’t help but drape a single leg over my husband’s lap, to his approval; his hand promptly comes up to rest upon my calf, caressing it gently as we either sit in silence or share a lighthearted conversation.

I treasure these moments; they help me prepare for the day and be able to feel truly like myself. These soft routines help set a precedent, and let me feel soft and appreciated.

#ask runaan #runaan answers #ruthari #elf husbands #ethari #my favourite routine #quiet moments fill my heart #story time

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writingsbychlo · 4 years

Text

rapp-ed around your heart (05)

word count; 10,584

summary; mitch finally gives you the last parts of him, deciding that he definitely has nothing left to lose, or hide, when it comes to being honest and true with you.

notes; in this part, we deal with a tiny little issue that comes up, as well as some cute moments with them getting closer and dealing with some stuff.

warnings; hints as smut, and there’s the tiniest bit of angst.

The Midwest

Surprisingly, it was in a little ice cream shop at Mount Rushmore that Mitch truly opened up to you. The two of you spent the day wandering around the trails and looking at the carvings in the mountains, taking a lot of photos and simply soaking up the warmth of the sun, before settling to try the ‘historic’ ice cream.

You were sharing a picnic bench, the fingers of one hand being played with by his own as it sat on the table, and you lapped at melting droplets of mint ice cream as he nursed his own cone of rocky-road. The cold and sweet treat was not something new to the two of you, you’d shared ice cream before too, but then he’d opened up about it. Something switched within him, and he spilt to you about how his mother used to give him a bowlful of the frosty treat as a reward every time he completed all of his homework when he was finished, and so it had become like a reward. Before this trip, he hadn't eaten ice cream in years, trying to stick to his healthy diet and workout routine, feeling guilty when he broke away from it, and feeling like he didn’t deserve such luxuries.

That same confession had led to more, a heartfelt confession following you for the rest of the day as he told you everything he could think of, finally letting you not only past his walls but right into his heart and soul. The ‘Carver’s Marketplace’ had been where you stopped for dinner, the situation lightening up as you moved on to easier topics, chatting and joking around. A nap in the leftover heat of the day had been more than enough to see you through the drive to Minnesota, the dark hours carrying you through until you were arriving with the nighttime stars, hanging overhead in the low lights and twinkling enthusiastically overhead.

It had been a joint call to splurge on another hotel, giggling kisses and hidden yawns as you waited in the elevator to get upstairs. He’d been ready before you had, and was half-asleep on the bed, spread out like a starfish under the covers as he waited for you on the queen-sized frame, and you’d crawled underneath to join him. In his haze, he had wrapped you up tightly in his arms, pulling you into his chest and tucking his chin atop your head, before letting out a soft sigh.

That was exactly how you’d found yourself now, warm light filtering into the room to wake you up. Arms were still tightly wrapped around you, a bare chest under your cheek as you nuzzled further into him, a deep and raspy laugh rumbling from his chest as he realised you were awake too, and he squeezed you a little tighter. It was surreal, golden light flecks dancing throughout the room and off of the covers illuminating you both in a cloud of delicate light that left gentle shadows across the sheets when you lifted your hand to block the rays from your eyes when you cracked them open.

“Good morning.” You huffed, the words contradicting the tone of your voice as you grumbled at the sun in your eyes, twisting your head to face the opposite way, using that hand to rub at your eyes. It was no use, you weren’t going to be able to go back to sleep now, and as you became a little more aware of your surroundings, the urge to move became overwhelming. That comfortable warmth was now stifling, and as much as you loved being wrapped up this mans arm’s you needed your freedom, and so you rolled to the side, stretching your arms up and over your head, letting out a happy sound when your muscles eased of their tension and your joints cracked as they loosened up. “Where are we again?”

“Uh, a hotel. I think.”

You scoffed rolling onto your side to face the man, lips pulling up a little in a smile as he lay there, on his side facing you but with his eyes closed, snoozing lightly as light puffs of air left his lips. “I meant where in the country.” You sat up some more, shaking your head clear as you folded your legs to sit crossed on the mattress, and he shuffled, lifting his pillow to rest in your lap as he moved, body curling so that he could adjust, and you chuckled, dropping a hand down to run through his hair.

“Near a lake. Big one.”

“It’s Minnesota, right? God, I’m losing track of where we even are at this point.” You let out yet another yawn, before slowing your movements through the man’s hair, and he let out a whine of protest when you did, legs shuffling a little under the covers. “We should go out on the lake. It’s a nice day.”

“Or we could stay in bed all day.” He offered, reaching one hand up to pull your own back down to his hair, and you took the hint, deciding to give in and play with the strands a little longer.

“We’re on a road trip, we can stay in bed all day any other time, we have to make the most of it.”

He did look up now, a cheeky grin on his face as he moved to sit up, enough to that he was kneeling before you on the mattress, and he was taking both of your cheeks into his hands as he squinted into the morning light. One side of his face was little red, a crumple left in his skin from a fold in the pillowcase, imprinted under his eye, and messy hair from the way that it had fallen, but he still looked absolutely perfect to you. “So, what you’re saying is that there will be more mornings like this in the future?”

You shrugged, feeling him nod his head encouragingly as he leaned in, stealing a quick kiss from your lips, before pulling away, letting out a contented little sigh as he seemed to wake up a bit more. “

“Fine, lake it is, I’m cool with that.” His nose dragged over yours, before he was standing up from the bed, wobbling a little on unprepared and tired legs, before shaking himself down and stretching out. “Let me shower first. I’ll be ready in thirty minutes, tops.”

You simply waved him off with a smile and a roll of your eyes, not missing the cheeky wink that he awarded you as he closed the bathroom door.

You lay there for a few more minutes, enjoying the leftover warmth of your bodies from under the covers a little longer, before you forced yourself to up and roll from the bed. You straightened out the sheets, because despite knowing that you wouldn't be getting back into them tonight, you still thought it polite to straighten them up for the housekeeping team that would be in to strip and redress the bed for whoever was next. You did some scrolling on your phone and made some bookings for a boat tour in the later afternoon, and picked out your outfit. Simple was your theme today, laziness taking over as more eagerness to simply get out and on with the day took over, and you found yourself staring up at the clock as it ticked over into thirty minutes, a groan falling from your lips.

It was a second later when it opened up, and you perked up from where you were crumpling the freshly straightened sheets, head peeking up from where it had been dangling over the mattress as he emerged from the steam, brows furrowing but a smirk finding his lips as he looked at you hanging upside down.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, you know, just hanging out.” You mumbled, letting out a dramatic sound as you heaved yourself up into a sitting position, and soon made your way into the bathroom to be able to wash your face and clean your teeth.

He joined you at the sink, nudging you to the side as he found his own toothbrush, a cheeky look in his eyes as they found yours in the reflection of the mirror, a spot you’d cleared from the fog on the glass, and you rolled your eyes despite your smile, letting your eyes scan over him instead. Black skinny jeans that did more for his thighs than you’d care to admit to him and heighten his ego further, and a forest green t-shirt on his arms, stretched a little across his shoulders, and you tore your gaze from him to spit into the sink, ignoring the muffled chuckle that rang out as he clearly caught you staring.

Washing off the brush, you tapped the loose water from it, before tucking it back into your cosmetics bag, and the fingers of one hand found your cheek. Guiding your mouth up to his, he tugged the brush from between his lips just before his mouth met your own, a soft and chaste kiss, but you smiled nonetheless, licking the taste of mint from your lips as his thumb moved underneath them to clear away excess foam, before he was letting you go.

The previous late-night had led to sleeping in, skipping breakfast entirely and deciding to wander and sightsee until you found somewhere that you liked the look of to stop for your lunch. You walked hand in hand along the Duluth lakefront water walk, watching as boats raced around the water, knowing that it wasn’t long until that would be you.

It was sweet, chatting about everything that came to mind, and yet when he passed a simple comment about how far around the country the two of you had come, you couldn't help but get stuck back on it. You were so close to making a full-circle loop, but with every destination that you passed, it was another place closer to bringing you home. Mitch on the road - now that you’d managed to muscle past his tall defences - was a completely different person to the one who’d climbed into your car on that first day. The working version of the man you’d come to know was completely different, he was stressed and angry and had a lot going on that made him fearful and locked away, and you weren’t sure if that version of him would still want you around.

You also couldn't shake the feeling that as you closed in on the beginning of your trip once again, that he was finished, having been on the road for almost a month and a half now, and you would understand if he wanted to go home, and miss the last stops you had planned for yourself, but deep down, you were selfish enough to admit that you didn’t want him to.

Your spiral of doubts was cut short when he’d presented you with a little restaurant with outside tables, not too far of a walk away from where you needed to be for your lake tour, and it was perfect for grabbing some lunch, so you forced back your thoughts to haunt you at another time, in favour for making space to acknowledge your hunger.

After filling yourselves at the little street joint, you barely made it back in time for your boat, wobbling in your steps as you tried to board it, but you had made it eventually, and you were curled up in your seat as the two of you were taken around the edges of the lake, seeing everything from the East Channel lighthouse to the Grand Island caves, rock structures and picturesque settings atop clear blue water being perfect to take photos and make memories you’d never forget, your reflection offered back to you with perfect clearness among the ripples when you snook a look over the edge and into the water. The Spray waterfalls were serene and pretty, as were each of the little beaches and shores that you passed by, even stopping at one for long enough to slip off your shoes and dig your toes into soft sand and feel the water lapping at your feet, before you’d been back on your way.

It was a kind of sightseeing that allowed you to get a beautiful experience without having to drive or walk yourselves, a welcome change, and you took it all in by cuddling up close to Mitch, his arm wrapped tightly around your shoulder and the other with your hands linked and sitting in his lap, the occasional small kiss or drag of his nose over your temple to reassure you that he was still there, and loving it all just as much as you were.

Once the cool of the evening rocked around, you spent the night driving up to Minneapolis, the real location in which you were passing through Minnesota for. That night, you were curled up in the back of the car again, the place that had so rapidly become your home, and you were beginning to feel that you’d miss the cramped but cosy little space once you got home, your bedroom would feel like that of a palace as you gained all of the space back, and you just hoped not too many spiders had moved in with your absence.

“‘m fuckin’ sleeping.” He muttered, and you giggled into his skin, pausing from where you’d been trailing kisses up and along his jaw, waking him up once the light of the morning had begun to seep into the car and disturb you from your slumber. You hummed in agreement, muttering out a cheery ‘okay’, before pulling back, and he groaned once again, tipping his face towards you and scowling without even opening his eyes. “I didn’t say stop.”

“I already have now, it’s too late.” He huffed out at that, his entire face becoming even more dismal, and you ignored his whines, busying yourself with sitting up properly, and searching around for your phone, tracing the charging wire to find the device down the back of a chair, and he gave in, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes to clear away any traces of sleep, before he was sitting up a little more himself head and shoulders propped up by freshly fluffed pillows.

“Fine. I’m awake. What do you want?”

Well, well, someone is moody this morning.” You mumbled, looking down at your phone, and he reached a hand out, squeezing the bare skin of your thigh, fingertips digging into your muscle, before his head was leaning on your shoulder, a loud yawning sounding out.

“Can’t blame me. You tease me with kisses and then refuse to give me anymore.”

“You didn’t ask for more, did you?”

He twisted his head, pressing his lips to your cheek before stretching out, the sound of joints popping filling the small space as he awakened a little more. “That’s all it takes, then?”

“Ask, and ye shall receive.” You were a little distracted now, scrolling through your notifications, and two fingers redirected your face towards him, his lips already a little puckered as his own eyes were staring at yours as you nibbled on your lower lip. Leaning in, you dropped down your phone, hands finding his cheeks and you held onto him carefully, and you felt the soft sigh he let out in return as your lips worked together slowly. “See? Just like that.”

“You’re cute.” His lips brushed yours as he spoke the words, before he was pulling away, eyes travelling shamelessly along your body, and he grinned lopsidedly at the sight of you in one of the shirts you’d stolen from him, bringing up a finger to tug at the neckline. “Wearing my clothes already, huh? Awfully domestic of you.”

“I'm surprised you even know the word domestic.” You scoffed, and he flicked at your nose as retaliation, chuckling at the sound you let out in protest, but he then picked up the phone, holding it back out for you, and raising a brow.

“So, do we have a plan, or are we winging it today?”

“Not so much a plan, just a few ideas.” He prompted you on with a single look, and you pulled up your notes, going over some of the things you’d brainstormed to do, choosing the ones that you were most in the mood for. “We could go to Minnehaha park, and the falls, an-”

“Say that again?”

“Minnehaha?” You questioned, watching as he snickered at the word, and you rolled your eyes as realisation found you. “Oh, you are such a child.” Despite chastising him, you couldn't help but laugh a little yourself, the two of you giggling at the word, finding more entertainment than it actually provided.

“Sounds fun, you wanna’ find us somewhere to go wash up and get some breakfast?” He tapped at the screen, and you hummed, switching to google maps and finding your next stop as he climbed up and into the driver's seat, the car rumbling to life underneath you.

Upon finding one, you hooked up the device to the car, directions reading out clearly over the speakers, and seated yourself in the passenger seat. After a quick clean up and more than enough jam and toast for one lifetime, you were on your way, the final chunk of the journey before reaching the capital city, and your day was truly beginning. Warmth washed over you both, the park welcoming you as the day hit noon, and you couldn't decide which direction you wanted to walk in first.

It was large, you wanted to see the falls, as well as the bridges and the little wooden gazebos, and so you were left with hours to simply walk the pathways and take your time in admiring everything. You had settled on starting out with one of the less crowded routes, not wanting to fight through the crowds to get to attractions and so you were more than happy to take the scenic routes.

“Have you ever danced under one of those?”

“A gazebo?” He snorted, letting you hook your arm through his as the two of you wandered away across the gardens, following the paths under the shading of trees, the sunlight filtering through between the leaves and catching the golden specs in his eyes as you looked up at him. You only nodded though, and he let his gaze flick over to one of the structures, taking it in carefully, and his smile faded away, becoming more nostalgic than cheerful, and he swallowed thickly. “No, but I know Kat wanted to at her wedding. I was her date to a family party once, it was in a park, and the band was playing on one. She told me she wanted to dance on one at her wedding.”

“I’m sorry, Mitch..”

Your words came out like a whisper, a disapproving sound in the back of his throat sounding, and he pulled his arm from yours, wrapping it tightly around your shoulders, curling you into his body, warm hand running up and down your arm. “What could you possibly have to be sorry for?”

“I don’t know. For making you talk about it? It just seemed like one of those times a person would apologise.”

“It doesn’t hurt to talk about anymore, and it’s okay.” He pressed a kiss to your temple, before clearing his throat a little, and you watched as heat crawled up his cheeks, tinting them a shade of pink that made him look positively adorable, your heart flipping in your chest as the two of you continued to meander along the trails. “She’ll always be special to me, y’know? It’s nice to be able to talk about her now, she was important to me. It’s nice to have a girlfriend who doesn’t mind me talking about my past, and someone I don’t have to hide things from. It’s really nice, actually.”

It was the first time either of you had put a label on anything, and well he had said it so casually you’d think it was the thousandth time he'd spoken the word. The blush on his cheeks and the way he was suddenly fascinated by the pebble he was kicking along and scuffing the toes of his sneakers with was a different story, though, and it made you want to snicker at the different sides of him. He would have the world believe he was locked off and cold, but in reality, he was nothing but a softie at heart, made up entirely of mush and warmth and insecurities, and you loved knowing the real side of him.

You pulled him to a stop, catching his lips with your own before he’d even had a chance to ask what was wrong, and he let out a high-pitched sound of content surprise into your mouth, before he was pushing back into you with just as much enthusiasm, his hands coming to settle on your waist. Tugging you infinitely closer, there was no space left between your bodies, your arms looping around his neck to hold him close as palms smoothed over your bag, fingers dancing along your spine.

It was deep and passionate, nothing sexual and nothing more needed, just enough to conform between you both that he’d said the words and you’d accepted them, and agreement on where the two of you stood without stuttering words and heated cheeks needing to flame up, but simply a confession without words. Soft lips teased over your own, dragging in delicate motions before he was diving in, taking it as far as to tease you with drags of teeth over soft skin, before he was returning to barely brushing his mouth over your own at all.

Your heart was racing and your head was spinning, and you were broken apart only when your body was shoved a little by a dog that was racing past at high speeds, bumping your leg with enough force to send you stumbling a little, and two young children raced past after it, a huffing and puffing father following too.

You weren’t sure what to expect really, that was exactly what happened when you stopped in the middle of a park pathway to kiss your boyfriend, but you wouldn't change it for the world. His nose was bumping against yours, a soft chuckle leaving him, before you were taking your place by his side once again, slipping your hand into his and weaving your fingers together.

You were more than happy to just trail around the park with him, letting him guide you, and it seemed he didn’t know where the two of you were going either, but you were soaking up the days with him, making the most of your trip. You were more than halfway through, almost at the end of it all, and yet you still didn’t know whether to or not you were ready for it to end. You’d planned this trip around finding yourself, around discovering who you really were. It wasn’t that you had no idea who that was, but busy lives and societal stress had a way of trying to mould you and force you into being someone else, and along the way, you’d not only remembered who you were, but you’d also managed to wrangle Mitch back into being himself, you’d helped crack him out of the cement that was sealing him down, and you just hoped that at the end, he didn’t retreat back into the stone.

After your walk through the park, you got dinner, sharing a bowl of pasta and a pizza over the table, before heading back to the car. You took the long route, though, wandering for a while through the streets, and watching as the sun set over the skyline of Minnesota, pastel colours painting the skies. Blues and oranges that made the clouds look purple and grey, a surreal kind of painting that silhouette everything before it as not to be outshone. Beauty created by nature that you oh-so-loved to see, never getting tired of watching the sun dip below the horizon, signalling the end of another day, only to promise to return to you hours later, and bring a whole new realm of possibilities when it rises again.

He chose to drive, as long as you sorted through the music, his boldness shining through more and more over the last few weeks, and he was judging your taste in music as the last few songs made him cringe, so if he was driving, you had to properly DJ for the pair of you, and keep his mood up with better songs.

Night crawled in over the sky as pastels faded into something deeper and darker, and you were left to simply admire the way the night moved on instead. A few snacks and a lot of singing later, your throat was a little sore and your voice slightly raspy, as was his own, sleep threatening to come and claim the both of you, the highway fading away into the distance as you pulled off onto the side roads.

“You know, we’ve done all the long drives now. We only have all the little ones, they’re all five hours or less.” You offered, pulling out the large paper map and spreading it out across your lap as Mitch drove, the fabric rustling as his hands shifted out from your thigh to allow you to smooth it down.

“I would still consider five hours a long drive.”

“Yeah, well, you only have to do half of them, don’t you? We’ll swap halfway.” You dragged your finger over all the spots you’d passed, overdue on crossing off each of your places, before shuffling around through every place you could think of to find your marker. You checked the glovebox, the dashboard, and the cupholder, before finally finding it buried in the side-compartments of the door.

“Hey, I’ll happily do the drives, I just think we have different definitions of what is a long drive.” He grinned, and you rolled your eyes, uncapping the marker with your teeth and crossing off all of the locations up to where you were, ‘Wisconsin’ being the next place up on your tour of the country. Folding your map away, you tucked it back into place, waiting patiently for Mitch to give you his attention again, and when he didn’t, you reached across the console to take his hand in your own, pulling it back to smooth over your thigh, and he chuckled, letting you unfurl his fingers until he could squeeze at your thigh reassuringly.

“Okay, we have quite a few options for things to do in Wisconsin, you ready to hear ‘em?”

“Shoot!” He cheered, and you jumped a little at the exaggerated enthusiasm he gave to you, before you were giggling along at the way he smirked pridefully at having scared you. “Sorry, baby, go ahead.”

“Okay, well, we have a lot. We have general touristy attractions, as well as some better things, and some options on places to eat, too.”

“Start with activities.”

You nodded your head at his command, scrolling down through the notes on your phone, thumb flicking quickly, before finding where you needed to be. He was following the occasional commends from the device you held as it guided you both in towards a truck stop that you could pull over onto for the night, taking a break from the long day you’d had and all the driving you’d done, the bed beginning to call for you both, but you wanted somewhere safe to stop, first. “Okay, so we could go to a waterpark? I don’t know if that’s your thing, but it’s an option.”

“Pass. I like waterparks, but the ones where it’s hot. Wisconsin feels a bit cold for that.”

“Fair point. A ‘no’ on the waterpark, then.” You crossed it off of the list, before finding the next one, and grinning at the suggestions came up. “We also have an amusement park, Olbrich botanical gardens, the cave of mounds, Milwaukee river wal-”

“Wait, wait, wait. Go back by one?”

“The cave of mounds?” A bashful smile broke out on his face, and as he made yet another turn down some of the dimly lit roads, his head twisted towards you to give you a disbelieving look. “What?”

“You don’t find the humour in that?” You thought about it for a second, before letting out a groan with your breath.

“You’re such a child!” You slapped at his arm, ignoring the sound that he let out in protest, and fighting back with the hand he freed from the steering wheel to fight back, the car jerking roughly with every slide the two of you made, swerving on the empty roads, before you called it a draw, weaving into the parking lot, spotted with other vehicles around the place.

“C’mon, don’t tell me you don’t find it entertaining! The cave of mounds.” His hand on your thigh again slipped a little lower, pushing between your legs and you gasped, before smacking him away and he smirked to himself, before using both hands to find somewhere to park, away from everyone else. “I know a mound with a cave that I’d very definitely like to explore.”

As the car died, he turned towards you, and you felt the heat wash over your features quickly, gaping at him a little. “You are awful. That was awful.”

He leaned over the centre, brushing a stubbled cheek against your own, before pulling your lower lip away a little in a loose bite, letting it go when you whimpered for him. “C’mon, you telling me you don’t want me to explore your cave?” You wanted to gag at the way he phrased it, but the pun entertained you both, and you whined as he climbed between the seats and into the back, kicking off the shoes and throwing them forwards, one of them bouncing from the wheel and dropping into the driver’s seat. “Gonna’ come back here and join me?”

“I haven’t even read you the place to eat yet!” You scoffed, but toed off your shoes anyway, unclipping yourself from your seat, and he grinned as you crawled between the seats. He took the phone from your hands, clicking it off and leaving it on the cushion you’d just abandoned, before his body was pressing your own back onto the mattress, hands supporting his weight on either side of you as his lips brushed teasing over your own.

“I already know what I want to eat.”

His tongue flicked out over your upper lip as you gasped, a hand lacing into his hair as you grinned, giving into his wicked ways, before letting his mouth clash with your own.

Following Wisconsin was Chicago, and you arrived in the early evening, pulling up into a truck-stop not too far outside of the city. It was one of the nicer ones that you’d been too, that was for sure, it was well lit without the lights being dingy and flickering yellow, and it wasn’t as dirty and grubby as the others. The usual diner that you expected was more of a restaurant and bar, it seemed far too elegant to be classed as a ‘diner’, even if it did still have that kind of oldies vibe, with plush leather seats and songs that were older than Stan playing over the speakers.

You were then happy to use the bathrooms within which to change, you were certain that the patrons and staff here had seen more unusual and concerning things than you wandering around in a set of Bambi themed pyjamas, drinking hot cups of tea in the corner with a man in sweatpants and a hoodie. After all, no matter how classy it was, it was still a truck-stop.

Your first real day in the Windy City was quickly decided to be spent sightseeing, a decision the two of you had settled on over hot coffees and toast, before preparing yourselves for the day.

Today, you would be all-out tourists, even if just for twenty-four hours.

You were all but buzzing in the car as you walked along towards Millennium Park, your hand woven with the one belonging to the man beside you, your side pressed up to Mitch’s, cuddled in close to him, as a scarf sat wrapped around your shoulders to keep you warm and help fight the slight chill being carried on the breeze.

“I want to see the big, shiny bean.”

“The what?” You could hear the incredulity on his voice, humour laced with it, and you grinned, hiding the expressing in the edge of the wool sitting up near your face.

“You know, that big thing that’s shiny and shaped like a bean.”

“Do you mean the ‘Cloud Gate’ sculpture?” You let out a hum, and he scoffed under his breath, squeezing your hand in his a little tighter. “That is one of the most famous pieces of artwork in the world, I can’t believe you just called it ‘that big, shiny, bean thing’.” You turned to face him a little more, narrowed brown eyes with a honey-coloured tint already peering at you, his lips twisted down in a frown, but the little ticks along his muscles told you he was still deeply amused by it all. “You’re the worst. I can’t believe you don’t even know the names of these things.”

“Oh, hush. Stop being such a sourpuss.”

He grinned at you then, a smile like the Cheshire cat at what he was clearly taking to be a compliment, in his own twisted and unusual ways, but he didn’t have a chance to respond, as the two of you made it into the square, and you were letting out an excited squeal as the sight you were waiting for came into view. It was glimmering, clean and sparkling with the lights of the sun and the office buildings standing tall around it, reflecting from its perfectly untarnished surface, and your pace picked up a little.

There were many other people crowded around, groups of tourists and other couples, as well as people who were slightly less fazed by the beautiful sighs, clearly locals who were accustomed to seeing it every day. Business workers rushed around in smart suits and blazers, briefcases in hand and glasses sitting on the tips of your nose as they barked orders into their phones, uncaring of who’s shoulders they bumped as they passed by, and even if being in the lesser-known world that your boyfriend and uncle worked in, you’d never trade or for a boring nine to five any day, you secretly liked a little thrill. Basic was never something you could roll with.

Placing your hand flat to the cool metal, Mitch did the same, both of you watching in awe as the slight fog that had built up in place fade away quickly, as though you’d never touched it at all.

“It’s so clean.”

“I was just thinking that.” He mumbled, licking the tip of his finger and smearing it over the surface, before watching as that seemed to dry and disappear too, leaving no trace of his disgusting act. You were staring at him, jaw dropped a little, and he turned to face you, raising his brows as you did, and you didn’t give up on the stare. “What?”

“You did not just lick the shiny bean thing.”

“I didn’t!” his face screwed up a little at the thought, nose wrinkling as he scowled at the idea, and your brows only shot up further. “I didn’t! I licked my finger, and then wiped it on the metal. I wanted to see how it stayed so clean, it’s weird!”

“It’s gross!”

“I didn’t put the finger back in my mouth afterwards!” He was smiling now, a few people glancing over at your raised voices as you argued playfully, and he made an attempt to tug you in closer, but you resisted, fighting off his attempts at affections as you held your end of the argument. “So, my spit is gross now?”

“Yes!”

“You don’t seem to have that opinion when you’re swapping spit with me late at night.” He teased, nipping a little at your ear as he managed to wrangle you until your back was pressed to his chest, and you gave in, letting him wrap his arms around you full, and press an overly wet kiss to your cheek, that made you groan out at him. “Say it! Admit that you like it!”

“It’s different!” You laughed, letting him walk you away from the crowds some more, and he shook his head, spinning you around to face him once again, a question silent on his tongue but dancing in his eyes as he watched you. “You know it's different.”

He grinned, lips brushing yours in a teasing kiss, before he shrugged giving in. “Fine, it’s different. Whatever.”

He let out a heavy sigh, and you cheered under your breath as he caved, quietly acknowledging your victory. “So, what do you want to do, Mr Rapp?”

“I like when you say that.” He grinned, bumping the tip of his nose over your own, before taking your hand, guiding you along and away from the busy spots, leading you in slow steps as he considered it all. “Let’s do that tall tower thing, you know? The one with the glass deck you can stand on. We could take some pretty awesome pictures.”

“That ‘tower thing’? With the glass?” You rolled your eyes, and he shot you a dirty look, already seeming to guess where this was going, lips pursed as he watched your face grow in extreme mischief, biting on the inside of his cheek to contain his sounds of distaste. “Do you mean the Willis Tower sky deck?”

“Yes.” The words were spoken through gritted teeth, his body going a little rigid in his steps and he fixed his gaze ahead, ignoring everything you said at this point, but that didn’t stop you from carrying on.

Your voice dropped down to mimic his own as you spoke a variation on his own words back to him; “I can’t believe you don’t even know that names of these things.”

“I don’t like you.”

“Yes, you do!” You sang the words, giggling when he growled under his breath in warning, but only a second later, he was pulling you in close, cutting off your taunting and teasing as his mouth sealed over yours, a squeak leaving you when his tongue swept over your lower lip.

You weighed the argument in your mind, knowing that you were in public, and that hew as trying to distract you from mocking him some more, but you couldn't think straight with the way his fingers inched under the edge of your jacket, warm palms barely blocked from your skin by a thin layer of material, before he was pulling you in closer. Your front was pressed up to his, heart beating wildly in your chest, and he let out a disappointed sound on the back of his throat as you resisted him.

Instead, he swapped tactics, sucking the plump piece between his own, grazing over it with his teeth, and letting out a breathy sigh as you gasped at the sensation, before giving in, your mouth parting further until his tongue tangled with your own, your arms looping around his neck to hold yourself closer to him. You could feel his smile now, pressed to your mouth as you gave into his touch, caving into him, and he was more than happy to take from you anything that you’d give him.

When the burn for oxygen became too much, you broke away, the heat of embarrassment on your cheeks being enough to chase out the cold, and he was painting a little too, the red on his pale flesh showing that he felt the same as you, but it didn’t stop him from stealing a few more pecks form you each time you tried to speak or catch your breath.

“What was that about?”

“Had to shut you up somehow.” He grinned, wrapping his arm over your shoulder to hold you to his body, without ever letting go of your hand. “Swapping my gross spit with you seemed like a good way to go about it.”

“Are you going to let that go?”

“No. Probably not.” He teased, pulling his phone from his other pocket and beginning to search for directions to the Sky-deck, before a sudden chuckle left him. “We both know I’m really good at holding grudges.”

Your breath hitched in your throat for a second as you weighed out the dark joke, replaying his words in your mind to be sure you’d heard them correctly, and they still felt surreal, before you were letting out a laugh yourself at his statement. “I cannot believe you just made that joke.”

“It’s my trauma and I’ll joke about it if I want to.”

You chuckled with a shake of your head, following the directions being read out from the device in his hand as the voice guided you toward your next attraction a shake of your head carrying you through. It was a short and brisk walk, followed by further bickering, lighthearted and instantly forgotten as you wandered along, and much to your joy, there was only a short queue to get to the little glass platform, but once you reached it, you couldn't deny just how exceptional the view was.

It was so high up that the view granting you the ability to look all the way out to the horizon, the greys and dull browns of the city fading away into shades of green towards the edges, countryside and trees taking over from cityscapes and concrete, and it was breathtaking. Pressing both of your hands up to the glass, you took it all in, observing the beautiful sights, and memorising it all, before looking down, fear striking through you as you took in the clear glass below you that slipped away into nothing, one hundred and three stories up into the air, and supported by nothing but a sheet of clear glass, the people buzzing around below your sets of feet was terrifying, and yet adrenaline searched through you just at the idea.

“It’s scary, right?”

“I thought you weren’t afraid of anything, big shot assassin and all?” He grinned, shaking his head, hair flopping into his eyes and before he could push it away himself, you raised your hands up, cold fingertips smoothing over his cheeks before pushing the silky hair away from his face, his eyes fixed on your own the entire time. His head twisted to the side, lips brushing over your palm in a sweet gesture, before he was wiggling his phone at you once again.

“Want to take a picture? I need a new lock screen.”

“Sure!” He unlocked the phone, letting you guide him into a position you liked as you took in the landscape, before you were cuddling into his side, offering a sweet smile to the camera as he matched it, and he pressed his thumb down on the button, both of you pulling it back to look at it. As selfies went, it wasn’t horrendous, but it certainly wasn’t the best picture ever, and you frowned at the light that was covering your faces in an odd glow as the light came through the glass. “Huh. Not our best picture.”

“Yeah. I can agree with that. You still look cute, though.”

“I kinda’ look like a frog, if you squint.” He did as you said, before laughing at it, turning to look at you and squinting, and you shoved your hand in his face as he held the phone up in comparison. “Don’t get it stuck in your head.”

“You’re a cute frog, at least!” He grinned at you, letting you snatch the phone from his hand. You wandered away, passing it to a mother who was tiredly staring at here three kids as they blew hot air onto the windows and drew faces and wrote rude words, and she seemed more than happy for the distraction, even if it was just taking pictures for someone else. Making your way back over to him, he already had his arms held out for you, and you turned to face the woman as she gave you both a countdown. You felt lips brush your ear as she reached two, warm breath washing over your skin, making you shover a little as he whispered into your ear; “Ribbit.”

You couldn't help it, the normal smile you had held morphing into a whole-body grin, his arms around your waist being all that held you upright as you tried to curl in with your amusement, and she walked back over, giving the device back to you quickly, before dashing off to wrangle her kids back up. You took it, looking down at the image, and despite his sudden mumblings into your ear, it was still one of the best photos the two of you had ever taken.

You were silhouetted against the backdrop, his nose brushing your cheek as your eyes closed, a wide grin on your face, holding tightly onto one another as sunlight poured in from behind, and the glass was barely noticeable, almost making the two of you look as though you were floating on the light above the city.

“Okay, that’s a good one, admittedly.”

The two of you stepped away from the spot as he hummed, letting the next people have their turn, and instead you watched as he set the new picture onto his phone as the wallpaper, and you leaned in, kissing a stubbly cheek quickly as your chest bubbled over with warmth from the inside out. Sticking your hands into your pockets, you wiggled numbing fingers a little, wishing you’d brought gloves, but you were more than happy to deal with the cold if it meant getting to cuddle into his side like you did every time he wrapped his arm around you, like he was doing right now.

Fingertips tucked under the edge of your shirt, nails brushing over bare skin as he traced unrecognisable patterns, phone back into his jacket pocket securely. “So, what now?”

“Well, I heard there was a drive-in movie place near here. Wha’d’ya say we get some takeout food, and go and check it out. If we park the car backwards, we don’t even have to get out, we can just cuddle in the bed and watch.” He shrugged a little, letting you go so that you could begin to climb down the stairs on your way back towards the streets, and you thought it all over.

“I think that sounds perfect.”

You had a surprise for Mitch on your second day in Chicago, and you were bursting to tell him about it, but had saved the thought until after you’d had your breakfast. Instead of the usual diner, you’d waited long enough to find a little outdoor café, sipping on mimosas and you giggled about the fancy life you could have had if you’d taken different paths at different stages of your lives, but you still reminisced about everything that led you to being right here, with one another.

You walked along the rover, burning off the champagne in your drinks before stopping for a quick bite at lunch, and then, you were leading him along towards the next attraction you had in store, under the guise of a simple walk to explore. He began to catch on part of the way around, the posters and signs starting to give it away, and while you didn’t confirm it until you were getting into the museum, he spent a good ten minutes almost bouncing in his steps as you walked.

It was adorable, the way he let loose and actually allowed himself to feel the excitement he had as you walked along, a tour of a world war two submarine, because you weren’t blind to the way he’d been excited about the other kinds of attractions you’d visited during your time on the road. He was grinning madly when he looked at the sight, being guided down underground to where it lay, and you heard him gasp audibly when it came into sight.

It truly was incredible, so big you had to tilt your head just to see the entirety of it. The length of a city block, massive and supported on stilts, and you had no idea how much it must weigh, but it was an incredible feat, and even you were excited to learn about it. The dock along the side of it was decorated with interactive pieces from within, as well as pedestals with information on them, and scripts to be read, explaining and giving insight on what you were seeing, plenty for the two of you to learn about.

It took all afternoon and into the late evening, only leaving when you were eventually beginning to be ushered out by the workers, and you were pretty sure he’d memorised every piece of information, and he was all but walking on clouds as you made your way back to the car, intending to get a good night’s sleep before your journey tomorrow as you drove up to Michigan would begin. His arms were wrapped around you, and it seemed that you had inadvertently bought yourself some extra affections, because he was peppering kisses to your skin and nuzzling his nose into your temple the entire way home, snuggling you close into his body and holding on tightly.

“I take it that you had fun, then?” You teased, slipping off your shoes to try and wiggle into your pyjamas, and you let out a distant sound of protest when he snatched your clothes from your hands, before his fingers were smoothing over your cheeks, pulling you down to his mouth as he rolled your body on top of his.

“I had the best time. It was amazing.” He whispered the words into your mouth, syrupy sweet kisses given to you between words, and you were left breathless as he incessantly kissed the air form your lungs, but you didn’t care, because the burning inside only made everything feel more heightened, your head spinning and hazy. “I’m not used to people doing such nice things for me anymore, so thank you.”

“It was just some tickets to see a submarine, I feel like you’re giving me more in return than I gave you.” You teased, and he gassed, nipping on your lower lip, and using the tip of his nose to move your head to the side, dragging his mouth along your jaw and further down. You could barely think straight as he sucked at the tender skin along your collarbones, pushing your shirt up a little so that he could rest his hands on your waist, and you took his face in your hands, bringing his gaze back to yours, and he peered up at you through dark eyes, vulnerability flashing over his features.

“It was nothing, Mitch, I just wanted to make you happy. Clearly, I got that right.”

He stared up at you, swallowing thickly before nodding his head, and he pulled you down into his arms, your foreheads pressed together as your breaths were shared, intimate and loving and you held one another. “Thank you.”

His voice cracked as he spoke, and you dragged your lips over his in a final kiss, before curling down into his body. “You’re welcome.” You pressed a hand over his heart, feeling it thud steadily and quickly under your palm, before your nails were scratching a little at his skin through the henley on his chest, scrunching it up in your hands as you clung to him. “So, you wanna’ tell me about your favourite part of the submarine?”

“Fuck, yeah, I do.”

Michigan featured a trip out to Mackinac Island, arriving in the late morning after breakfast on the road, Mitch having kept you up late into the night to talk, everything from the submarine, to other random facts he knew about war vehicles - seemingly a passion of his that you’d unlocked, and you made a mental note to make more historical-feature related trips with him in the future - and it had devolved into meaningless chatter.

Soaking up the sun with pretty sights and beautiful settings, you wandered the whole expanse, pretty white buildings and greenery, with streets of cobblestones, bicycles riding up and down in place of tyre tracks and pollution, and it was a little snap out of reality. There were horses pulling carts along the streets and lampposts with hanging flowers, old-fashioned and beautiful with bulbs that would light up when darkness came around, and you could only imagine how ethereal the beautiful streets would look when glowing with the golden light that would spill from them.

A break away from reality, something that seemed like you’d stepped into a painting, like another world in a movie or the kind of setting you could only picture in your mind or found described in a good book and a grizzly and grey day, filled with rain on lashing windows. You would’ve loved it in the rain or the snow, but you were fortunate enough to enjoy it with golden hues from the sun cast down over you both, sunglasses perched on your nose and his as you took in everything the little island had to give.

The pair of you were unwilling to leave until the sun was setting and it was getting too cold to remain outside any longer, and yet you still lingered for as long as you possibly could. It was surreal, memories you’d never forget, and you were too tired on the way back to the car to even think about the words Mitch was saying, to properly process them as you leant onto his shoulder and let him prop you up as you walked along, your cheek pressed to the curve of his arm as your eyes fluttered, closed longer than they were open, and you moved through your bedtime routine on autopilot.

He was whispering quiet words to you about how you’d almost come full-circle, chatting about everything the two of you had done so far around the trip, and while you could only hum along and nod with a sleepy smile now as he curled you into his arms, those same thoughts would come back to haunt you with troubles and worries in the morning.

You were squirming a little in your seat, keeping your eyes locked on the road ahead, fingers picking at the material of your leggings on the leg closest to him, a bid to keep his hand off of you, even though he occasionally managed to sneak his hand onto the spot for a little while when your guard fell.

You were trying your best, but you weren’t excellent at hiding how you felt. You may have been trained by the best in the business at the physical aspects, but you were never good at the rest that came with that job field. You were an open book, you didn’t possess the same ability to lock everything up tight like Mitch did, or create a façade of anger and arrogance like your uncle did. The atmosphere around you was stagnant and bored, the conversation having fizzled out long ago, the music being all there was to keep you company as the two of you hummed along in quiet, and you knew that Mitch could tell something was up, but he wasn’t pressing on it, and you were thankful for that.

When you passed the sign welcoming you into Dayton, Ohio, you were met with a soft sigh from him, and he flicked on the indicators, pulling onto the side of the road. You watched in confusion, a strangled noise leaving him as he cut across the lanes, ignoring the honking and swerving of other cars, before the vehicle was shuddering a little bit and rolling to a stop along the mud and gravel, and he turned to face you, making a point of switching off the car, keys jingling.

With a forearm resting over the steering wheel, his entire body twisted, and you swallowed thickly, avoiding his gaze and choosing to stare out at the road, tracking the other cars with your eyes to keep you busy as his stare burned into the side of your face.

“Alright, spill. Did I do something? Because, kitten, if I did, I’m sorry. Just tell me what’s up so I can fix it, because I don’t like this dead air between us. Now I get how you felt for that first week or so, and it fucking sucks, alright?” He huffed, and you gave in, guilt eating away at you as you turned to face him, and he leaned in over the console a little bit, but it didn’t give him much access to you. He shook his head instead, growling a little under his breath at not being able to reach you, and you gave him the most reassuring smile that you could muster.

“You didn’t do anything. I was just thinking about what we should do today. We have two options, but they’re at other ends of the state, and I was just weighing the pros and c-”

“Bullshit. Why are you lying to me?” He fixed you with a pointed look, your jaw snapping shut, a tick in the muscle from the force at which the muscles clenched. “Please.”

His voice cracked a little as the beg came out, wide brown eyes shining as he stared at you, vulnerable and lost and a little bit upset, and you caved in, your hands clenching up as you pulled them closer to your chest to try and cave in on yourself, but he was watching you carefully as you sat there, uncomfortable under the scrutiny. He moved when you looked up, your eyes wider than his own and he knew it wasn’t something he had done, and his hands fumbled to unclip himself from the car. Only a second later, his door was opening, and you were watching with a hanging jaw as he rounded the vehicle in a jog, before opening your side too.

He reached over your body, undoing your buckle too, and manhandling you in the leather seat until he had you twisted around, parting your legs to be able to stand between them as he rose a hand to tuck stray hair away from your face, palm settling over your jaw and fingers digging into your neck a little, thumb tracing soothing patterns from where it lay. “Just tell me, what’s wrong?”

“You know this could be our last day, right?” His brows furrowed, a wrinkle forming between them, and you raised your finger to smooth it away, feeling him chuckle a little at the action, but continue to wait for your explanation. “We’re close to Virginia now, and we’ve been on the road for, like, two months. If you were sick of it now and wanted to go home, I’d get it.”

“Sick of it?”

You shrugged, knowing that he’d picked up the hidden meaning in your words, and his hands dropped down, large palms massaging at your thighs on either side of his waist in a comforting act, before he was leaning in, and pressing a lingering kiss to your lips, one that had your stomach swooping with butterflies, like the feeling of dropping on a rollercoaster, before he was pulling away, lips brushing over your forehead. He let out a little sigh, before making sure you were looking at him as he grinned, raising his brows a little as he tried to ease your nerves.

“What’s your plan, kitten? What are you planning to do?”

“Well, I want to go right up around New York and such too, full circle, y’know?” You made a circle motion with your hands, both of you laughing quietly. “It’s another week and a half’s worth of stops, maybe? Not too long, but if you wanted to go home, I would understand.”

“What I want is to get the full road trip experience with you, and I want to go.”

You perked up, looking up at him with wide eyes, finally bringing your own hands up to smoothing along his arms and to his shoulders, shuffling forward to the edge of your seat and pressing your forehead to his own. “Really?”

“This is what you’ve been panicking about this whole time? Why you’ve been giving me the silent treatment for two and a half hours?”

He shook his head, a breathy sound leaving him, the exhale washing over your face, and he grinned cheesily, bringing your mouth back to his. It was a reassuring kiss, comforting and caring, and making your heart slow from the irregular and erratic pumping it had been doing with your nerves racing, leaving you instead to lace your fingers into his hair, pulling him closer as your head tipped to the side. Like velvet and silk, your mouths slid together, harmony in their movements, and you drowned into his touch, just for a little while.

“Please can we go back to normal now?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry. I got all wrapped up in my thoughts, and I-” You choked on your words, letting out a ragged sigh, and he stepped back long enough to let you see his entire face.

“This road trip changed my life, and I want to finish it.”

You just nodded your head, receiving a final kiss from him, before he was untangling his body from your own and circling back to his own seat, as you slammed shut the door and fastened yourself into your seat once again. Once the car had started up and you were back on the road, he held his hand out to you, which you now had no qualms in accepting, slipping your palm up to his, and letting him lift your hand to his mouth, lips pressing to your knuckles sweetly.

“How about you choose what we do for the day? For real, this time. Tell me what would cheer you up.”

“Why don’t we go to the airbase, it’s near here. Then we can get some food that looks so damn good, it’s Instagram worthy.” He let out a chuckle, shrugging his shoulders.

“You want to go to the air force base? Really?”

“Well, I’m pretty evenly split on both the possible activities, but I know that you really want to go to the air force base, and so I am more than happy to do that with you.” He let out a teasing ‘awe’ at your words, and your cheeks heated up with a flush of embarrassment.

“Okay, air force base it is.” He whispered, settling your joint hands over the gear stick to switch as needed, but never letting you go, holding on tightly as he began to follow the signs flashing up along the side of the road to guide you on your way.

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