#i needed things like socks and shirts and a new phone more than i need another pair of underwear i'd rarely wear

[literaila]

perishable hours 

tasm!peter x reader 

summary: peter reminds you how important sleeping is. and then proceeds to keep you awake. 

warnings: fluff, insomnia, half-asleep drabbles. 

a/n: and in this i attempt to write fluff without writing fluff 

*

it's quiet when he gets the call. 

quiet enough for new york city in the middle of the night. car horns, and flickering lights, and yelling from a couple of streets down. the sound of doors opening and closing, and people running from dreams they used to covet. 

peter likes it best like this. when there's nothing to do. 

when time is only a thing to stand on, tilt off of the edge as he appreciates the silence that comes with three am. 

but then his phone starts buzzing in his pocket. 

peter--for just a moment--feels a bout of relief that his phone is still there. the guy at the tech store is getting tired of seeing him, and peter is getting tired of making an excuse every time he loses his phone. 

the relief goes away in a second; no one should be calling him at three in the morning. 

and when he sees your name on the screen--illuminated by a picture he took of you sitting at a counter, glaring at him because it was the fifth picture he'd taken of you that day--his confusion morphs into panic. 

you're usually asleep by now. usually laying in your bed, slightly snoring. you've always got some drool on the side of your cheek. always got your legs kicked out of the covers, shivering because of how cold it is. 

which peter knows, because he finds it all endlessly adorable. 

but only when you're actually doing it. 

and besides, you have a weird thing about calling him when he's patrolling.  

"i don't want you falling on your face when you get shocked by your ringtone," you'd said to him. 

peter had smiled, charming. "but then you could kiss the bruises away." 

so peter clears his throat, avoids thinking about whatever you might need, and backs into an alleyway that he would avoid under any other circumstance. 

he'll do the most for you. 

"hey, baby," he answers, sounding more carefree than he feels. 

he can hear you breathe into the phone. "hey." 

peter keeps a smile on his face. "what're you doing up so late?" 

there's a sniffle on the other end. 

it only proves to drop peter's heart even lower in his chest. 

he hums into the phone, waiting. 

"peter," you whisper, softly, breath catching.

"what's going on, sweetheart?" peter asks you, slipping the mask off of his face. he looks around for any pedestrians, and then takes off his gloves. "another bad dream?" 

"no. it's just--" peter can't hear you clear enough to tell if you're crying, but he has a sinking--sinking so far into the earth that it digs up spare body parts--suspicion that you are. "i can't sleep." 

peter holds the phone up between his ear and shoulder, sneaking his other arm out of its sleeve. "are you feeling okay?" 

"yeah." 

"just tired?" 

"yeah." 

peter switches ears. "i'm sorry, baby. what can i do?" 

"i don't know. i thought talking to you would help" you breathe out, sniffing again. "but i just feel worse now." 

"worse?" 

"you're working. i can hear sirens." 

peter avoids shivering from the cold. "i was just heading home." 

"don't lie, peter." 

"i'm not," he swears, pulling his suit down so he can shake it off of his feet. "i'd much rather talk to you. it's boring tonight. and cold." 

"you like when it's boring." 

peter tries not to smile at how well you know him. "i like it when you're feeling alright, too. did you just want to talk?" 

there's a brief pause, leaving peter a moment to dread whatever you're going to say next. 

as he stands in a dark alleyway in a t-shirt, underwear, and socks. his hand digs around for the backpack he stashed earlier. 

"it's okay," you whisper. "i'll probably fall asleep soon." 

peter smiles, maybe amused at the unspoken words. or maybe because he's trying not to freeze to death. his heart flickers at the concession in your voice. 

he slips his sweatpants on next, refusing to think about the reality of this situation. 

"baby," he whispers to you, listening to you breathe. 

"yeah?" 

"can i come over?" 

peter hears something that sounds like a laugh. 

"you don't have to. you're probably tired." 

"nope." 

"peter," you sigh, now trying to convince him. 

peter laughs, slipping on his shoes. "i'm wide awake. and greedy." 

"greedy?" 

"wanna see you. it's been too long." 

this time, you actually laugh. "i saw you earlier today." 

"my point exactly." 

"you still don't have to." 

peter zips up his backpack, falling back into the light once more. he listens to the sirens and smiles into the phone. 

"i'll be there in ten." 

*

you flinch as you wake up, body on alert, nerves short-circuiting until you're sure that your limbs have left completely. 

that the numbness of your arm is just a trick of your mind. 

and that the eyes on you are just some part of a leftover dream. dazing carefully, droning on and on because they won't look away. 

brown and warm and soft and smooth. rough in their nature. playful. 

they stare at you, amused. unmoving and careful and cautious. 

and there's a hand on your head, musing your hair. 

you groan and squeeze your eyes shut, trying to grab onto the grasps of dreams that are still leftover. 

because it would seem that this isn't one. 

"good morning?" peter says, laughing. 

you fall even further into the pillows, head aching from the light coming in through your window. 

"are you still sleeping?" peter asks, softly, moving your malleable head. tilting your jaw. 

you can still feel his eyes on you. 

"why are you staring at me?" 

"incoming news: my baby is beautiful." 

peter's voice is soft and teasing and far too amorous for your heart. too strong and true and every usual thing that you love about it. 

"too early for this," you mumble, moving away from him and digging your face into a pillow. 

peter laughs. moves you back so that he can stare at you. 

"this is creepy, peter." 

"okay." 

you open one eye, squinting at him. "i don't remember inviting you in here." 

"that's weird because i remember it very well," peter tilts his head, eyebrow raised. "i distinctly remember someone tackling me when i--" 

you push him away. 

"not like that," peter says, returning.

"how long have you been awake?" 

"an hour or so." 

your other eye opens. you blink. "what?" 

peter moves his head down into your neck, nuzzling the skin by your pulse. "you're very warm." 

"you mean to tell me that you've just been laying there for an hour?" 

"not just," he says into your skin. 

you can feel the vibration. curse the goosebumps that respond. 

peter laughs. 

"how did you sleep?" he asks you, softly.

"fine until i woke to a stranger in my bed." 

peter's head jerks up. "where?" 

you laugh, pushing his cheek away with the tip of your finger. peter smiles and grabs your hand from his face, kissing the knuckles there. 

"how did you sleep?" you ask him. "were you here all night?" 

"came in around four. you woke up, kissed me, and then fell back asleep." 

"sounds about right." 

peter moves some hair out of your face. "i didn't mean to scare you," he says. "i'm sorry." 

"you didn't scare me." 

"i would've left but i fell asleep." 

"that's good. you were out late." 

peter doesn't answer that, only traces a finger from the corner of your eye to your jaw, up to your lips. his touch tickles, which you know, is the point. 

"you didn't scare me," you repeat, because you know him. 

"no? you jumped." 

"that's how i always wake up." 

peter laughs and kisses your cheek, melting his adoration into you. 

it's almost unfair. 

"i thought i was dreaming. i like it when you're here." 

peter meets your eyes. "yeah?" 

you nod, allowing your lips to move on their own accord. to bend and twist and smile at him like he's the only thing that could be worth it. 

peter smiles back, just the same. "you're cute when you're half asleep," he whispers. 

cloudy tone and sweet words and things that are supposed to kill you right where you lay. 

but then he kisses you. he manages to wake you up completely, any hazed thoughts drifting away from your head. nerves alight with fear that he'll move away. skin burning at the thought of him touching you. 

which he is. 

he teases at your skin, laughing into your mouth. 

you laugh back. 

peter pulls back, hand tilting your chin toward him. "what do you wanna do today?" 

*

when peter wakes up, it's to the sound of a door closing. 

so he lays in bed for a moment. tries to remember where he is and why he's asleep. 

it's still dark outside, he can see when he looks through the window. streetlight shining in on his face. 

if he touched the glass, his skin would freeze.  

peter pulls the cover over his head, his own warm breath punching him in the face. 

he's pretty sure that he forgot to brush his teeth. 

so he moves them back down, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. he's not sure when he fell asleep. barely remembers watching a movie with you, and laughing when you almost fell off of the bed. he doesn't remember what happened next. 

but he knows that you should be right next to him, clinging to him like you always do when it's cold outside. 

but you're not. you're nowhere near him. 

he looks over to the clock on the bedside table, the numbers flashing red back at him with a glare. 

he blinks again. 

and then sits up, looking at the crumbled covers on your side of the bed. the pillows on the floor. 

and peter frowns because usually, this isn't a good sign. 

he hears you close something else in the other room. 

there's a slight concern fuzzing up in his chest. like a purr of his blood, telling him that he's not falling back asleep any time soon. just barely dimmed from the excess of exhaustion still in his chest. 

peter feels just a little bit dizzy when he stands up, feet wobbling over the floor. he still has his socks on. 

he walks to the door, just about to open it when he hears something else on the other side. 

something that sounds like music, and something that sounds like you dying. 

peter walks out into the kitchen to find you singing into a whisk, dancing to a song he doesn't quite recognize. 

all of the lights are on. 

you don't seem to notice him, even when he goes up to the counter, just continue singing and dancing--movements soft and smooth and far too enthusiastic for two in the morning. 

still, peter lets a smile tease at his lips. 

he wonders if maybe he's still asleep. that maybe this is just something funny to tell you about tomorrow. 

but then you look up at him, eyes widening, movements stopping. 

peter watches as you almost fumble with the bowl on the counter, falling like he's just changed your center of gravity by walking into the room. 

"peter," you say, surprised, voice a bit quieter than the music. you reach over the counter to grab your phone, turning it down. "you're awake." 

peter laughs, noticing some flour on your nose. 

"did i wake you up?" you ask, brows folding. "i'm sorry. i was trying to keep it down." 

peter shakes his head. "no. what're you doing?" 

you look down at the bowl again, almost guilty. like a child with lipstick all over their face. "making cookies." 

peter sits down on a stool, watching you. "this late?" 

you give him an innocent smile. "i thought that you might help me eat them." 

"why are you awake?" 

you shrug. "i wanted cookies." 

"so you decided to start making some at two in the morning?" 

you frown. "well, actually, i woke up an hour ago. do you know how dirty the kitchen was?" 

"bub--" 

"i spent an hour cleaning it. and now i'm making cookies." 

peter lets out an exasperated laugh. "that's all?" 

"i was dancing." 

"i noticed." 

you frown and stop mixing the dough. look towards the clock on the stove. "you should go back to bed. you have to be up early, don't you?" 

peter nods, biting his lip. 

you stare at him, waiting. 

he stares back, so willing to watch your face shift and burn into the atmosphere. 

a perfect cosmology. 

"what?" you ask him, brows raised. 

"what kind of cookies?" 

"chocolate chip." 

peter gets up, walking around the counter, towards you. "can i have one?" 

"i'm making them for you." 

peter goes right behind you, wrapping arms around your waist, pulling you into his chest, and letting his head drift down to your shoulder. 

"are you going to fall asleep right there?" you ask him. 

"i might," peter leaves a kiss on the skin of your neck he can reach. "speak now or forever hold your peace." 

you say nothing. simply take the bag of chocolate chips next to you and pour it into the dough. 

"you know i'm not going back to bed until you do, right?" 

you nod your head against him, pushing yourself as close to peter as possible. 

peter closes his eyes, breathing you in for a moment. 

and a couple of minutes when he opens them again, he frowns, reaching around you to grab a mug. 

"is this coffee?" he sniffs at the cup, spinning you around. 

you're trying not to smile. so guilty. 

"baby," he sighs, throwing his head back. 

"i just needed a little kick when i was cleaning--" 

"we've talked about this." 

you frown and cross your arms. "when?" 

"when we talked about getting enough sleep, and not sabotaging yourself--" 

you tap a finger on your chin. "do not recall." 

"you're not getting out of this one." 

"we'll go to bed when the cookies are done," you say, so simply, turning back around, purposefully avoiding his eyes. 

"hey," he says, tilting your head back towards him. "what's with that?" 

"what?" 

"your mischievous little smile." 

you pull away from his hands, shrugging. "don't know what you're talking about," you mumble.

peter pulls you away from the counter again, moving so that he can see you. "you planned this out." 

"hmm?" 

"being loud, the music, my favorite cookies..." peter stares at you, maybe amazed, maybe annoyed. 

you are completely silent. 

"oh, you--" peter laughs, digging a finger into your stomach to watch you squirm. "waking me up because you missed me, huh?" 

"peter--" 

he laughs when you giggle hysterically, trying to push his hands away. 

"what'd i do to deserve that, bub? you're always talking about--" 

"you win!" you gasp, "baby, i don't--" 

"--how important sleep is." 

"peter, c'mon, i can't--" 

"and what was that about 'you should go back to bed?'" peter demands, a smile playing at his lips. "you're the one that woke me up--"

"mercy," you plead. "i'm sorry," but you're laughing so hard that peter can feel your body shaking. 

one of his hands moves to cradle your cheek, getting you to look him right in the eyes. 

face bright and warm and every beautiful thing that peter isn't sure he deserves. 

"you're sorry?" 

"so terribly." 

"and you're going to stop drinking coffee this early in the morning?" 

you pout. "i didn't say anything about that." 

peter's hand reaches for your ribs again, and you squeal. 

"okay," you move away from him--not that he's letting you go. "okay. no more coffee." 

"good." 

and then peter stares at you, trying not to burst into laughter. 

you look like you're doing the same. 

peter raises a brow. 

"okay, to be fair--" you begin. 

"here we go." 

"you fell asleep so early. like, how old are you actually? because i thought you would at least make it to eight, but--" 

peter's jaw drops. 

you giggle at him, eyes crinkling at the sides. 

"did you just call me old?" 

"not explicitly." 

and then he pulls you even closer, tilting his head so he can whisper in your ear. "now you're in for it." 

the next morning, peter doesn't remember if you finished making the cookies. 

*

"peter," you whisper, almost close enough to taste his skin. 

to watch him breathe and wonder what it would be like to never stop. 

he doesn't budge. moves over and continues snoring into the pillow. 

so you laugh at him, sit down on the space he's so considerately made for you on the bed. 

you rub at his shoulder, frowning at how warm he is. 

"hey, kid," you say to him, glancing at the clock. "wake up." 

peter's eyes flutter the minimalist amount. 

you snort. 

"c'mon," you say. "it's almost noon. i would let you sleep but you're going to mess up your schedule..." 

he sniffs. tries to roll over again. 

you poke his cheek. 

"you should know that there is a water bottle right on your desk," you say, softly. "and that i am not afraid of you. or the water. at all." 

peter peaks an eye open. 

"there he is." 

he frowns. "would you really dump it on me?" 

you pretend to think about it. "i would kiss you awake first." 

"is that still an option?" 

you laugh and fall over him, cuddling deep into his skin. 

"woah," he says, but wraps an arm around your back, holding you closer. his fingertips tease at the back of your neck, daring. "have you been up long?" 

"since nine." 

"what'd you do?" 

"watched some tv. made breakfast. drew a mustache on your face in sharpie." 

peter's head lifts up, meeting your eyes. "really?" 

you laugh, trace his cupids brow. 

you admire the soft color of his skin. the pink to his cheeks and the flush that he has only this early in the afternoon. only after you've been laying on him. 

only with you; only with him. 

"shame," peter sighs. "i've been trying to grow it out." 

his nose meets yours, sweet and soft, and he's so close that you almost don't remember how to speak. 

how to breathe and pretend that it's normal. 

"i'll keep that in mind tomorrow morning," you whisper, just barely. 

peter lays back, pulling you with him. you watch the dimple on his cheek twitch and forget about doing anything else. 

*

peter doesn't bother to knock on the window when he gets in this late. 

he doesn't want to run the risk of waking you up--of worrying you with bruises that will be gone by morning, and making you leave the secure cocoon you've collected around yourself. 

blankets and wonderful thoughts and feelings that peter misses just a little bit too much right now. 

as soon as he's in your room, he's slipping his shoes off. 

he's looking at you and wondering how he ever managed to leave. 

he's taking off his jacket, dropping his bag on the floor, and trying not to shiver from the cold. 

he's staring at you, for just a little too long. 

he watches your face as you twitch in your sleep, a soft curve of your lips. a blank and peaceful face. 

peter's chest pinches at the idea of watching this any longer. 

so he crawls towards you, leaving a short and yearning kiss on your cheek. 

moving the covers just a little bit. so that he can fall into them with you. 

"hey, bub," he says to you, knowing that you can't hear. 

he lets himself fall into your bubble, taking up space that he knows you don't want. 

he moves some hair out of your eyes; smiles at the subtle twitch of your cheek. 

and then he kisses your hairline, wanting to spend all night staring at you. 

talking to you and listening to you speak back. memorizing the sound of your voice and every little thing that makes you laugh. 

he wants to fall asleep right here. right now. 

he wants to avoid the world and pretend that there isn't anything else. 

because maybe there isn't. 

even with the light from outside shining on your face--ruining the illusion--he smiles. 

he pulls you closer to him, cooing softly when you cuddle close to him, smiling in your sleep. 

and then he breathes out. 

falls asleep without a doubt in his mind. 

*

my masterlist here. 

tags: @moonlarking-blog​ @v1ci0us​ @preciousbabypeter​ @alexxavicry​ @directioner5life​  @inthegetawaycarwithtaylah​ @localrockstargf​

#peter parker #tasm peter parker #peter parker x reader #tasm peter x reader #tasm!peter fluff #tasm #tasm!peter x you #the amazing spider-man #The Amazing Spider Man #the amazing spider man imagine #Andrew!Spiderman #andrew peter parker #andrew garfield #andrew garfield!peter parker x reader #andrew!spiderman imagine #spider-man #spider man #tasm!peter smut #tasm!fluff #tasm!peter x reader #tasm!spiderman x reader #tasm!peter angst #marvel

[thetriumphantpanda]

in his healing hands | joel miller

Summary | You come back from patrol with a broken body - knees and feet aching with age and the physical toll of the world. Joel knows exactly how to help you, putting his hands (and mouth) to good use.

Pairing | Joel Miller x F!Reader

Word count | 1.8K

Warnings | Foot massage (not in a fetish way), knee massage, soft!Joel, oral sex (f receiving), Jackson-era, no use of y/n, no explicit reference to age but reader does say the line 'I'm getting too old for this' so make of that what you will (I’m 28 and I say this, so make her whatever age you wish!), nothing else, just porn without much plot tbh.

Authors note | So, I did a 25km charity trek yesterday and when I tell you my body is wrecked? My body is wrecked. My knees are shot, my feet have never known pain like it, my lower back is screaming at me. So, naturally, Joel massaging my aches and pains and then eating my pussy was the natural thing for my brain to come up with. Slight shoutout to @mvtthewmurdvck for the massage oil idea here... I couldn't resist. Enjoy - this was written and edited on my phone in about 3 hours so be kind.

Main Masterlist | Ko-Fi

You’re too old for this. You’d been on your feet for what felt like a lifetime, though it hadn’t been more than twelve hours. Still, it was enough for the new boots Tommy had given you to cause blisters on the balls of your feet, and for your knees to feel like they had shattered under your skin. You had to speak to him, you think, as you hand your rifle back to the weapon store. Tommy needed to find a job for you that didn’t require you traipsing through the forest, up and down hills, otherwise your body was seriously going to give up on you. 

One foot in front of the other, it’s slow moving to his house. To your house. That’s still something you’re getting used to, the fact that your belongings, though they are few and far between, are now entangled with his. Your boots sit next to his by the door, your clothes hang alongside his in the wardrobe, you have a bedside table on your side of the bed. It’s strangely domestic, but you wouldn’t be without him, without Joel. He is what keeps your feet moving, no matter how much you want to collapse onto the ground and cry from the pain. 

The sun is setting, the slow pace back down your final hill and into the gun store mean you’re later than usual. When you push the door open, Joel is stood in the kitchen, his back to you, broad and straining against his t-shirt. You think you could watch him from behind forever. Immediately, you feel the stress you’d been holding in your shoulders dissipate from your body. The pain is still there though. 

Joel turns around slowly, smiling at you gently, his hands are clutching two steaming mugs of coffee. You’re still scared to ask what exactly he traded for it, but you’re grateful for it none-the-less when it’s pressed into your hand, and he’s kissing your forehead, pushing a gentle hand on your back, driving you towards the couch. He sits down, his own age showing in the way his knees audibly creak as he sits. 

You follow suit, a sharp gasp of pain leaving your lips as you sink into the couch cushions, legs sticking out straight because you can’t bare to bend them anymore. Joel is sitting up, concern across his face, because you never let on when you’re hurting, so for you to audibly wince when you try and get comfortable, he knows it must be bad. 

“Where are ya hurtin’, baby?” He asks, setting his coffee cup down on the table. 

“Backs of my knees,” You grumble, tipping your head back in pain as you try and shift into a comfortable position, “And my feet.” 

Joel slowly moves off the couch, sinking to his knees in front of you. His deft hands are unlacing your boots, pulling them off your feet, peeling off your socks after them. He has his hand wrapped around one of your ankles, tilting your foot to look at it, “What did I tell ya about breakin’ these in?” He scolds, head tilting to the boots on the floor, “Told ya you’d get blisters.” 

“The only place I ever go is on patrol Joel, I can only wear them in on patrol.” You shoot back, frustration in your voice. 

“Alright baby.” He lets this one go, realising you don’t need chastising, just helping. 

He takes your left foot in his hand and presses him thumb into the arch of your foot and you moan. You actually moan in relief as he works his thumb up to the ball of your foot, avoiding the blister that’s built there, pressing a thumb into the skin next to it. 

“Jesus fuck, Miller,” You groan, starting to press your foot into the pressure of his thumb, “Do the other one.” You ask, gesturing your hand to your other foot. 

“Yes, ma’am.”

He shifts his hand, repeating the same movements as before, thumbs digging into the arch of your foot, moving upwards slowly, until he presses slightly too hard into the ball of this foot, making you hiss instead of groan. He squeezes your ankle, knowing that he’s probably now causing more pain than anything else. 

“How’s about I run you a bath?” He murmurs from his knees, “Then we can get you nice and comfy in bed.” 

The warm water had gone some way to soothing you, but as you hobble from the bathroom down to your bedroom, the searing ache in your kneecaps is causing small tears to bloom at the edge of your vision. In the bedroom, Joel is already propped up against his pillows, glasses perched on the end of his nose with a book in his lap. It’s still warm, so he’s not put a sleep shirt on, he looks positively delicious and if your whole body wasn’t pain, you’d straddle his hips and show him just how much you needed him. 

He looks up from his book when he hears your heavy footsteps coming towards the bed, “Hot water help?” He asks, chuckling slightly when you flop, unceremoniously, down onto the bed, face-first, groaning in relief at the weight finally being off your body. 

“Will you…” You mumble into the sheets under your mouth, turning your head to him to he can hear you properly, “Will you do the backs of my knees?” You ask, “Just massage them a bit and see if it’ll help?” 

He shuts his book and drags his glasses off his face, setting them both down on his bedside table, pushing the sheets back from his lap, moving himself up on his knees next to you. He reaches over and sinks his fingers under the edge of the towel you’ve got wrapped around you, pulling it out from under you to drop it to the floor, leaving your backside naked to him. 

He runs his hands down your back, wide palms skimming over your warm skin, he stops to squeeze the globes of your ass as his hands continue their path down the backs of your thighs, all the way down to the crook of your knee. He leans over you, body pressed gently to yours as he fishes around in the bedside drawer for a moment, pulling out the small vial of oil he keeps there. 

Tommy had given it to him months ago, during the winter, when Joel’s joints seized up with the cold – you’d been the one massaging his back and his shoulders then – with the rosemary scented oil that someone in town cooked up, meaning the hard-to-find pills stayed in the hospital for emergencies only. 

You listen as he squeezes a tiny amount of oil into his palms, rubbing them together to warm and loosen the oil, before he’s got those palms wrapped around one of your knees, pads of his thumbs gently pressing into the aching muscle there. 

“You tell me if I’m too hard, okay?” He speaks softly behind you, a pattern of dragging one thumb, and then the other, across the plane of skin there, swapping between each knee until you’re a mouldable mess of a human. 

“Feels good,” You breathe out, head pillowed on your arm, “I ever tell you how good you are with your hands?” 

Joel laughs now, “Feelin’ better, huh?” He speaks, oily hands leaving the backs of your knees to trail back up to your ass, giving you another squeeze to see if you’re going to tell him to fuck off or not. 

He leans forward, lips pressing a soft kiss to the bottom of your back, “Think you told me once or twice,” He comments, answering your earlier question about his hands, “But, if I remember correctly, you think I’m better with my mouth.” 

His lips press a kiss to one of the cheeks of your ass, then the other, before he’s gripping the meat of you in his hands, squeezing and spreading you open for him, he notices you tense a little, and that simply won’t do, “Relax, will ya?” He encourages, “Promise I’m gonna make you feel real good, baby.” 

He knows that he can’t shift you up onto your knees, or bend them much as all, but God he has to taste you. He shifts himself a little, from straddling your legs, to shifting them open a little so he can rest between them. You’re still led on your front, head resting on your arms, tilted round gently to look at him as much as you can. 

He settles in between your thighs, body spread out much like yours is, with his mouth just inches from your weeping core, that’s been gradually gathering slick since he started touching you downstairs on the couch. His hands are back gripping the meat of your ass, using them to spread you apart so he can finally see you already dripping for him. 

“Can you lift up a little, baby?” He asks, watching with satisfaction as you move a little so he can finally get his mouth on you. 

He dips his tongue into your aching cunt first, using his tongue to lap up the delicious slick he’s already drawn from you. It’s already obscene, the sounds of his slurping, the way he literally drinks from you, tasting every part of you. Then, from his place behind you, he moves his head so he’s lapping at your clit. Soft, gentle flicks with the tip of his tongue, swirling the mix of his saliva and your slick over the little bundle of nerves in such a way that you’re crying out for him already. 

“Easy baby,” He grins into your cunt, “You that worked up, huh?” He pulls away slightly, “Do I need to make you come? Will that make everythin’ better?” 

You push yourself back onto his mouth and he obliges, because he can never deny you, especially when you’re this delicate and pliable, all from his hands helping to stop you hurting. He’s giving you wider, longer swipes of his tongue across your clit now, alternating when he wants back to those tight circles with the tip of his tongue until you are literally a quivering mess, teetering on the edge, waiting for him to tip you over. 

“Joel,” You whimper, hips chasing at his tongue as it sweeps across your swollen clit, “Make me come, please.” 

He doesn’t even bother to reply, just latches his lips around your clit, sucking for pressure, but still driving his tongue over it, until you finally let go, body shaking and a chorus of his name and pleas for him not to stop echoing through the room. And he doesn’t, not until he’s sure that his tongue has worked every ounce of your orgasm from you. He pulls away from you, wiping the slick from his face onto the back of your thigh before he collapses down on the bed next to you. 

He rolls you gently onto your side, pulling your body into his. His hand pulls at your knee gently, bringing one of your legs across his body to rest on him, hand staying warm and solid on your still painful knee, as his other arm snaked under your neck and around your shoulders to anchor you to him. 

He is still in awe, as you fall asleep against him, with his hands wide against your clammy skin, that these were once the same hands that killed people, tortured some of them even, the same hands that cradled his dying daughter all those years ago, now used to ease someone else’s pain, to make someone else feel better. He uses those hands now, running gentle patterns across your skin as you fall asleep, hoping that when you wake up, it’s made all the difference, even though he knows if you’re still hurting, he would stay here forever, running those hands over your aches and pains to heal you. 

#Joel miller #Joel Miller smut #Joel Miller fluff #Joel Miller imagine #Joel Miller angst #Joel Miller fic #Joel Miller fanfic #Joel Miller fanfiction #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #Joel Miller x female reader #Joel Miller x f!reader #the last of us #the last of us hbo #tlou #tlou hbo #tlou joel #tlou fanfiction #tlou fic #tlou fanfic #the last of us fic #the last of us fanfic #the last of us fanfiction #tlou smut #the last of us smut #joel tlou

[screaminglygay]

KINKTOBER day 1

pairing: siren! natasha x reader

summary: working on a boat sounds like a fun, but what if there is a cold weather?

word count: 3.6k

warnings: heavy manipulation!!!, mind control, toxic dynamic, humping a tail, dirty talk, just smut!, badly written description of what sailors do

an: so the time is here!!!! I’m exited and also anxious, aghh. I’d appreciate any of your feedback and don’t be scared to send me some thoughts! If there are any typos, i sincerely apologize, just let me know and I’ll fix it!

an2: there is a part that was inspired by hp and goblet of fire, i’ve changed most of it, but left some parts, since natasha is siren. felt like it was fitting. and it’s exactly how I imagine natasha’s style of singing.

(italics = your thoughts)

!MDNI!

Enjoy this spooky time and be safe!

Working on a coast was an incredible experience and for such a long time you were happy to have the oppurtunity to see new things, but most imporantily feel new things.

This spontanious work trip helped you with your mental health more than your therapist in years. You didn´t even mind working alone somedays, since your coworkers had some days shift off. You enjoyed those quiet days, where you didn´t even overthink, you just let your thoughts peacefully be and surprisingly they did the same thing to you.

Seeing things, the old things but with a different font was something you never get tired of. Everything was bigger and prettier. Colorfull sunrises and sunsets, bigger and shiny stars. But when the warm and fuzzy wind was changed by heavy rains and scary thunderstorms, you were really changing your opinion and wishing you were back in your comfy king sized bed, watching another stupid show on Netflix. Not everything was so colorful all the time.

Especially when the weather got cold and nothing was so warm and fuzzy as in the summer. When the first storm came you thought that you can hadle it, alone. You did, but barerly.

But from todays morning, you knew something big is coming and nothing could prepare you for that. You woke up and checked your phone, like you did every signle day and noticed you have one unread message, saying that your coworker, Tobias, can´t make it, because he got sea sick, from all the sailing he did this week. Which is little weird since you´re positive he´s been sailing the day he was born. But even the best of us can get sick sometimes. So youre all alone. You let out a big sigh. You werent mad, no. You were just little scared of the storm that might and most probably will come today.

When you finally got up and looked from the window you could feel that the wind was freezingly cold. Goosebumps begin to form on your arms and neck. The cold feeling seeps through your skin deeper, like a stealthy intruder, sending shivers down your spine. It's an icy touch that grips your body, making your muscles tense.

It´s gonna be a long day.

As always you packed your stuff, fuzzy socks, warm coat, another shirt just in case youll get wet. Lastly you took some snacks and a big amout of soup, hoping your heater wont let you down. And last but not least a lots of tea. As your boss always says "Tea and rum is better than a warm coat." Well you dont have the rum, but the tea will do, at least that´s what youre saying to yourself.

When you got to work, you checked all the papers from yesterday, made sure to know what your tasks will be today. And of course you had to check if the boat is in a good shape to sail the next day. It´s a lot of work, but at least you have a job to do. Not like a week ago, where you just sat and watch as the waves hit the rocks for 12 hours. You noticed that even waves have a simple patterns, its was so hypnotic to watch it hit the big rocks again and again and again.

You slowly checked all the papers to not miss anything important and undeerscore everything that you need to do today. You checked your watch and made a mental note to put the kettle on soon.

Youre working here for about a 5 months now and you still havent figured out your routine. Even though most of the times youre still doing the same job all over again, checking something, writing what needs to be fixed, checking the load, or just watching over the boat, you still do everything at the same time. So sometimes (read it as most of the times) you just forget to do the simple things as taking care of your basic needs. When you and Tobias have shift together, you two kinda take care of eachtoher, but when he´s not there it´s just so easy to forget about it.

But today you did quite good job, after checking the lower deck you came back up to unlock the kitchen and put the kettle on. When youre water was getting ready for your favorite and only tea you had here, you wrote some documentary about the first ship load you had to check. Everything was correct and you were happy that you didn´t have to unpack it and count it manually. Your first break of the day fly past very quickly as you finished your tea, that didnt make you feel warm at all. You put the cup in the sink and went on another round of checking the boat lower deck.

As you stood up something red caught your eye in the distance, you took a few steps closer to the window, hoping you would see better at what it is. It was weird seeing something so bright in the distance, where only the gray waves were moving. But to your disappointment, you didnt got the answer, it was probably some coral from the shore. You shake your head slightly and moved to another task.

When you came up you noticed that it was already dark outside, shockingly it was the same tempetrure as throghtout the day. Which was a positive thing.

How long have I been downstairs? What time is it? I didn´t have lunch... again.

As many thoughts at the same time speed through your mind, you heard something under the boat. You just closed your eyes, taking few deep breaths to calm your nerves. You put down the paperwork and the pen you were holding. Making your way to the kitchen, youve notice that you didn´t even drank much water. Cursing yourself, you drink a half of the bottle right away. The fresh water finally hitting your needs. Refreshing shockwave going through your body. Every cell awaken and all of your sences light up. Already feeling better, taking a moment to make soup and overall just refresh yourself. As you´re finishing your food, you hear it again.

Bang.

This time is was way louder, so you took all of your courage to go out and look what it was. Sometimes you were tought, or maybe you just act before you think things through. You were terrified of the dark and most importantly what´s in it, but this time something made you go out. You were surprised by yourself, but you didnt question it, much.

When you got out you checked the boat, slowly analyzing if something is wrong.

Was it an animal? A fallen brench into the water?

"Hello?" You immidietly cursed yourself. "Im an idiot." You mumble as you walk around. "There is no more pathetic and stupid way to die then just say hello to the dark." You mumble under your breath.

After a while walking around the boat a big strike apeared on the sky. And after few second of a complete silence there was a big thunder coming, that made you run back inside. There it was the big storm you were so terrified of. It was way worse than the last time and you were hoping to survive it.

That´s a little bit dramatic, but your heart was pounding fast, your hands started to shake and even in this cold you very still incredibly sweaty, like if you just ran a marathon in the desert. After few hours of tinkinkng you´ll die, the storm suddently stopped, leaving you all tired and scared at the same time. Until youve heard another sound, it wasnt another bang, it was more like a humming.

Maybe someone from the sailors is here? But they are all men. Maybe someones wife? Again, your thoughts are running milions miles per hour.

The humming sounds so warm, like the old days, back in summer, where everything was colorfull, fuzzy and it felt generally so good in your ears. You stood up and without second guessing you step outside. There was complete silence, not a single person outside, The sun slowly coming out, trying to fight those stromy clouds that were showing the only evidence of heavy storm.

As soon as your hand laid back on the door handle a beautfiul voice start to sing a melodic song. You didnt understand it, it was some language you never heard, but you liked it, your brain might not understand the words, but your body understood the melody. And suddenly you didn´t felt cold, it was the other way around actually. Your cheeks were on fire, like you were running a fever, but you didn´t feel bad, no, you actually felt the best you ever did.

When you turn around you saw her. Unbeiebly beaitiful, goddess looking woman. Her hair was red, not like an apple red, more like a bright fire that is keeping you warm at the coldest nights. Each strand seemed to catch the sunlight that was finally going up, setting her aglow with a vibrant, fiery aura. Her green eyes were pierced at you, she was looking at you, waiting for your move. But you just stood there and watched her, your breathing started to speed up. You tried to remeber evertything about her, but as soon as your eyes fell lower, you noticed how light her skin looked. It reminded you of a fresh marble that was just ready to be cast in. But what caught your off guard the most, was her tail. You´ve never seen aynthing like that and it was very obvious, because youre face made it very well known. It was mixed feeling between shocked and amazed. The siren's tail was a fluid masterpiece, a shimmering blend of oceanic blues and greens. With each sinuous movement, it created a mesmerizing scene.

"Hey sailor." she smirked, her voice sound way raspier than it did when she sang.

"I- I- I´m not a sailor. This is uh not my uh- boat... I just work here." You stutter out, cursing yourself for seeing the prettiest woman your eyes have ever laid on and you ramble out this sentence.

"You just work here? Oh what a pity, I wanted to ask for some help." The red haired frown, which made you feel sad right away.

"I can help! I just... not my boat." You awkwardly chuckled out.

Her eyes immidietly fell back on you. "Oh really? I don´t want to bother since you´re not the sailor of this boat." Her voice sounded so soft, yet harsh at the same time. It was luring you, by every word she said, you felt different emotion each time. A good emotions.

"I mean I´m on a shift now, so teoretically I am sailor of this boat." You smiled, youre pupils were so big and you felt like you were in euhporia.

She smiled softly. Her smile could make a whole army fall to their knees. You knew it, but most imporatnly she did too. But there was only one person she want to fall on their knees. And that person was you.

"Okay then, sailor..." her raspy voice now coming lower to your body, slowly eletrucing you. "I just need a little favor, my tail..." She let out a little whine, completly changing her body language. She didn´t seem so confident, she looked so fragile and sad. And you have to help her.

"Are you hurt?!" You imidditetly walk closer to her. Crouching so youre on the same eye level. She place her hand on yours, looking at you and finally, she bonded. Her touch made you feel cold and warm at the same time. Butterflies flying everywhere not just in your stomach and her eyes. Her captivating eyes has already read you like a whole book. Her eyes were an entrancing shade of emerald, deep and captivating like the hidden depths of the sea. They held an enigmatic allure, with a hint of mischief and ancient wisdom that drew you in, ensnaring your heart and mind.

"A little-" she sigh and looks away. "-maybe you can help me get back, to safety, where no one can find us." The soft spoken woman look at you, making eye contact again, while her hand is still on yours.

"Us?" Your words caught her off guard.

"Yes, us, darling. You know, not all people are kind as you are. Youre the only one who ever made me feel safe. Youre the only one i can trust now. Youre-" she blinks a few times, leaning closer to you. "-youre my saviour. Will you help me, darling? Help us to get to safety? The world is too cruel and we need to decide right now."

This was the task you were waiting your whole life on here. Make sure she is safe, there is nothing else that is more important than this. You nod, still making eye contact.

"I will. Of course!" You nod again, taking this job very seriously, as you felt like you were born for this.

"Say it. Say what you were made to do, darling." Raspiness was now the only thing that you´ve heard. You were less and less interested in your work and your tasks before her.

Before her there was... was there anything before her?

"I will help you. I will help us get to safety." Your eyes scanned her face, hoping these words will help her.

"Thank you my darling, will you follow me? Please?" her eyes were watery, she´s holing back tears and that tears your heart.

"Yes." You say without hasitation.

"Yes, what, darling?" She asks.

"Yes, uh-" suddnely you feel this sensation, your head feels fuzzy and your view is more and more bright. Your words are caugh up in your throat, when you looked at her lips you can see them moving, but your ears cant catch the word she´s saying. But your mind does.

"Yes, mistress." you whisper back as it´s the only thing you can say.

As you closed your eyes for a second, the world around you seemed to blur and fade. The warm feeling never leaving your side.

Time itself shifted, as if you were wrapped in a comforting cocoon. The soft, rhythmic sound of waves crashing against the shore became a lullaby and there is it was again. Her singing. Her soft and heart warming singing.

When you finally stirred, it was as if you had awakened in a dream. The dimly lit cave, adorned with iridescent seashells and many other decorations, that suited the cave. And there, before you, was a siren of unparalleled beauty, her emerald eyes reflecting the cave's soft luminescence.

"Hello, darling..." she slowly moved towards you "...slept well?" her smirk grew wider as she saw your hand immidietly going between your legs as there was some unbeliveble aching you were feeling.

"I- uh huh" You only nod, not realizing that your hand is going lower on your body.

The siren´s hand falls on your cheeks as she tuck some of your falen hair behind your ear. Not even for a second breaking eye contact. Without second thinking you grab her hands and put them on your body, that was covered in your wet clothes.

"P-please!" Was all you could have said. She just chuckled and squeezed your breasts.

"You don´t even know my name and you want me to fuck you? Aww darling, youre way easier than I thought you would be. So so so easy" She tsked and suddenly, you didn´t felt her hands on you anymore.

"I don´t care!" You yelp as the aching was even worse now. Is this what drugs do to you? You just want more and more and still it isn´t enough.

The siren looked at you shocked, her hand was placed on her chest as a sign of being offended. "Darling, you don´t care what my name is? That´s rude." She pout. Tears immidietly filling her eyes. "And I thought you don´t want to hurt me, yet you´re just like the others." She looked away.

"Wait- No, no, no! Im not like the others, Im sorry! Im so sorry! I want to know your name. Oh gosh I didn´t want to be so selfish!" You grabbed her arm. "Please, tell me your name, I bet it´s beautiful just like you!"

"You think Im beautiful?" Her green eyes falling back on you.

"Very." You nod.

"It´s Natasha." She wiped her tears.

"Okay, Natasha. Im sorry for being selfish, It was really mean, let me make it up to you, please." You felt so sad, like every joy just left your body forever. Like you didn´t even experience a single happy thing in your life. Like everything was just dark.

"You´re right, you did act very selfish and mean. And you should definetly make it up to me, (Y/N)." Natasha seems so small right now, like a small fish in a big dark ocean.

"Anything you want, just please- forgive me." You basically whined at this point.

"(Y/N), you truly hurted my feelings, I don´t know. How can i trust you not hurting me again?" The horrible feeling of guilt is forming not just in your stomach, but also in your head now.

Natasha looked really hurt by your words. And you felt like if you´ll lose her, you´ll lose yourself, forever.

You squeezed her hand. "I will never. How can i prove it to you? Please..." You knew this will work. "... mistress, let me prove to you, I won´t ever hurt you and Im truly so sorry!"

Her eyes shifted, her pretty green color in her eyes just dissapeared and turned into black.

"Take of your clothes. They´re wet, you will get sick. Aren´t you cold, darling?" At her words you did feel the cold breeze. Actually you were freezing.

"Y-y-yeah, Im freezing." You said while your teeth chattered.

"Oh, darling! Clothes off, righ now!" She ordered and you did as she told. "I don´t want you catch a cold!" Her voice was caring, so caring you didn´t think you deserve it, after how mean you´ve been acting towards her.

As you stand there, completly naked the shivering didn´t end, it got even worse and your nipples could cut dimonds now.

"You´re still cold? Oh, darling, come here." She pointed at her tail. "My tail is warm, it´s gonna keep you from freezing to death." Her smile could cure everything negative thing in this world.

Without second guessing you almost jumped at her, your hand wanting to touch her tail, but you stopped yourself. "May I? Mistress?" Natasha just nodded. You hand immidietly touching her tail.

It´s so soft, oh my god and warm! So so warm.

"Sit on it, darling." She take your hands and guided you on her tail. "It will make you warm, so warm, it will end the shivers, I promise."

So you did. You sat on her tail and if you felt tingles everywhere before, then now there are tignles even in places you don´t have. Running your fingers along its sleek, supple surface was like caressing a piece of heaven. Its velvety texture and gentle, soothing warmth enveloped you in a sense of euphoria, as if you were touching a living embodiment of comfort and enchantment, a sensation that melted away all of your less important other thoughts.

Natasha noticed you´re still shivering and put her hand on your hips. "Darling, if you start to move you will stop shivering. Fast friction makes heat and you really need to be in heat now, darling." Natasha was right, her words were exactly what you needed, but you just didn´t know how.

How can I do this? I don´t want to hurt her tail.

"You won´t hurt my tail, darling. I will guide you, okay?" Her strong hands squeezed your hips and slowly made you move back and forth. "Just like that, you´re doing so good."

After a little while you start to get the hang of it and you felt that amazing friction again. Everything started to feel so good, all the lost joy, all the good feeling are back. All the happy thoughts.

"Oh my god- it´s really working!" You screamed.

"I know, darling. I can feel you on my tail. Keep going." She wispered in your ear.

You did. Oh boy, you did. You moved your hips back and forth faster and faster. And at the same time it got easier, maybe it´s the tail, or maybe it´s the fact that your juices were all over Natasha.

You definetly felt the heat.

Few moments before you came and let all of your juices on the siren´s tail, she started to sing again. In the same language you couldn´t understand before, but you can now. It´s like you know the song all your life.

"Come seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing alone in the dark,

And while you're searching, ponder this:

We're gonna take what you'll sorely miss,

But not for long you gonna think,

Let us help, and you won´t sink.

Your life might have been so perfect,

Too late, it's gone, it won't come back."

After the red head stopped singing, she looked at you and finally closed the gap between you two. Your first kiss was a moment of exquisite tenderness, a meeting of souls that overlap the boundaries of land and sea. As their lips brushed together, it was a gentle, captivating exchange of warmth and desire. In that soft, lingering kiss, they found a connection that was as deep and boundless as the ocean itself, a love that defied all expectations and left you utterly in her arms.

"I forgive you, darling." Natasha said and you knew, you found your life task. As she holds you close on her tail your eyes fell back into the warm fuzzy feeling, you didn´t mind be in forever.

Hope you enjoyed first day of KINKTOBER!

Thank you for reading!!!

#adele writes #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff #kinktober 2023 #marvel universe #natasha romanoff smut #siren!nat #first day

[hannibals-favourite-meal]

Can I get a 7 with Steve Rogers or Peter Parker? I love the nice guys being angsty

And congrats on the 5000

.⋆｡Noise｡⋆.

Peter Parker x plus size reader

You don’t like the quiet, Peter does

Warnings: angst, noise sensitivity, college!Peter, mutual pining, hurt/comfort

Minors DNI

Library- @hannibals-favourite-meal-library

5k Follower Celebration

Silence was your worst enemy, although you never really understood why you hated it. Whether that be the awkward silence during a lull in conversation or at 3am when the city quieted down. There had to be some kind of noise around you for you to feel at ease, usually it was music from your headphones or the chatter of other people but that wasn’t the case in Peter Parker’s room.

Somehow his room was the one place in all of New York that seemed to be above all the noise of the city. There were no sirens or voices or just random noises from the subway. Just silence.

And it was slowly driving you crazy. 

At first, the sound of your fingernails tapping your keyboard soothed you. It was rhythmic and just quiet enough to not disturb your best friend as he was studying. Then you moved onto bouncing your leg, which given that you were wearing socks and the whole room was carpeted, you could make almost no noise.

You sighed and shifted in your seat, becoming antsy as the silence seemed to close in around you. You could feel Peter’s eyes flick up to you occasionally but he never said anything so you started doing the only thing you could think of to create some noise. You began to hum.

The vibrations rumbled through your chest, immediately soothing the panicked feelings around your heart. Your shoulders dropped with relief and you finally felt like you were able to concentrate on the work in front of you instead of just mindlessly typing away to appear busy. 

You switched songs every 30 seconds or so, nodding your head along to the beat you were creating. Your usual smile began to pull at your lips as, unnoticed by you, Peter’s face fell and his eyebrows scrunched. 

He cleared his throat but you didn’t hear. “Y/N?” You looked back at him, pausing your humming for just a second. “Do you think you could be a little quieter please?” 

“Yeah, sorry about that.” You responded bashfully with a giggle. Peter breathed a sigh of relief and sat back against the wall behind his bed. He gave you a half-smile to which you winked at him before turning back to your work.

Things were quiet again save for the occasional turning of a page or alert on your phones and you started to feel that discomfort creeping in again. Like a massive weight slowly coming down onto your torso, the anxiety grew once more. Your eyes darted over your essay but you couldn’t comprehend any of the words that you had written.

Your breathing picked up as your heart pounded loudly in your ears though it did not give you the relief that other noises would have. You swallowed thickly, clamping your jaw shut tightly. Maybe a little noise would be okay, you thought as you brought a hand to your chest to where your shirt didn’t cover.

The soft tapping of your fingers against your bare skin was barely louder than your racing heartbeat but it worked. Your body eased as you picked up the pace, finally getting the relief you desperately needed. You hadn’t even noticed Peter’s frown deepening, the vein in his neck twitching with aggravation.

“How are you this fucking annoying?” Everything stopped and your veins turned to ice. 

“I-I’m sorry.” You managed to squeak out around the massive lump in your throat. Even Peter looked shocked at what he said, his brown eyes wide with terror. “I think I should head home, my roommate will get worried if I’m not there after dark.”

You tried to grab your tote bag from the floor but before you could even touch the canvas handle, Peter had sprung from the bed and caught your hand. “Wait I didn’t mean-“ You shook your head and swallowed back your tears, you couldn’t talk about this now.

“I know I’m noisy okay, I’m sorry for disturbing you.” You tried to pull yourself away but his grip tightened. “Peter.” Your voice wobbled but he didn’t give you an inch.

“No, no I’m sorry. I was being an asshole.” He gently pulled you towards him and you let him wrap you up in his strong arms, needing some sort of comfort even from the person that had hurt you in the first place.

“Then why did you say that?” You murmured, slowly melting into his chest. Peter held your wide hips gently, brushing the tops of your thighs through your clothes with his thumbs.

He sighed heavily and let his forehead rest on yours, a regular gesture between the two of you that was far from platonic. “I’ve had a rough day. There was a robbery this morning and that made me late to my lab and then some asshole thought it was funny to use a dog whistle right outside. And I just- I was overstimulated and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, not when you were really trying.” 

You whimpered as a tear slid down your cheek. “I’m sorry beautiful, I really am. Let me make it up to you.” His right hand came up and gently wiped it away, keeping his hand on your soft jaw as he urged you to look into his eyes.

“How?” His smile was almost unsure, seemingly a little wary of how honestly he should respond.

“Let me order some food and we can watch Percy Jackson.”

“And cuddle?”His smile grew as his eyes twinkled. He ducked forward and gently kissed the tip of your nose.

“Whatever you want, I’m at your mercy tonight.” You giggled.

“And tomorrow too, I’m still kind of hurt.” Peter just squeezed your hip.

“Anything for you.” Maybe the silence wasn’t so bad, as long as Peter was quiet with you.

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[so-long-soldier-writes]

Airport Troubles

kai parker x reader

summary: you face some trouble with TSA while trying to catch your flight. the suspicious agent uses some unconventional methods to get the truth out of you.

tags: roleplay / sexual roleplay, fingering, oral, vaginal sex, cuddling, mention of pregnancy, minor breeding kink oops

word count: 3.4k

a/n: it's taken me 4 days to publish this bc I finish work and then immediately fall asleep. also this is so cheesy but I haven't posted in a while, so I pulled something out of my wip graveyard (this has been in there for months)😅 slowly working on requests!

“Hey, I’ve got a new idea.” Your boyfriend comes up to you, a mischievous smile on his face.

“Hm, what’s that?”

“TSA check.”

“Huh?”

“Like airport security.”

“I know what it is, Kai. What idea do you have with that?”

“You stand still and I check you over. Make sure you’re not gonna land in a new city and kill a bunch of people.”

You snort, “shouldn’t I be checking you then?”

The joke flies over his head, “no, because I need to be the one touching you.”

Instead of trying to explain your joke, you giggle, “okay. Friday night?”

“Yes.” There’s a dark glimmer in his eye as he agrees.

It should scare you, but it has the opposite effect. “Okay. I’ll be ready.”

Proud of himself, he gives you a kiss before crashing onto the couch. Not two minutes later, he’s calling you over to cuddle, and when you do, he’s instantly out like a light. 

◇◇◇◇

You spend a solid hour getting ready for Kai’s new roleplay idea. These types of things always get him so excited, both of you, really, so you put extra effort into your appearance. 

Underneath jeans and a plain t-shirt, you’re wearing a black lingerie set - one that’s a little more complicated than those you usually wear. Sometimes it’s fun seeing him struggle to take them off, but you have to hold back the giggles so he doesn’t catch onto your tricks. The difficulty makes him frustrated, which leads to him being rougher when he finally gets it off. 

Smirking at the thought, you complete the look with socks and shoes, plus a coat and backpack. You plan a loose dialogue to go with it, then head downstairs at nine sharp. 

The minute you come around the corner, Kai’s right there, and you almost smack straight into him. 

“Excuse me, ma’am, please watch where you’re going.”

“Sorry, sir.” You bite your lip to not laugh. It always takes you a minute to get comfortable with a new character. 

“Where are you headed?”

“Terminal A, going to New York.”

“I see. Well, good thing that flight’s not leaving for another forty-five minutes, because you’ve been randomly selected for a pat down.”

“May I ask why? Did I do something wrong?”

“Not entirely, ma’am. However, your inattention to your surroundings is a little suspicious to me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“No worries. Just come with me.”

“Okay.”

He leads you into your living room, blinds closed, illuminated by two lamps in the corners. 

“We’re using lamps instead of the overhead light so that the flashlights work better,” he explains.

“Oh, okay, sounds good. I like that better actually. Big lights hurt my eyes.”

“Why? Are you high?”

“What? No! Just… I have sensitive eyes.”

He’s quiet for a minute, then speaks into an invisible radio on his hip. “Gonna need you to bring me a drug test, Brenda. Might need it.”

You resist the urge to laugh, again. 

“Is security funny to you, ma’am?”

“No, sir. I’m sorry.”

“Alright, stand still. Do you have your ID and passport?”

“Yes,” you hand them over and he looks through both briefly. 

“Okay, jacket off. And I’m going to look through that and your bag.”

You bite your lip, shrugging off the items. If Kai drags this out, you’re going to die. 

“Just a little patience, won’t take long.”

“Okay.”

One-by-one, Kai pulls the things out of your bag and comments on them. 

“What’s this exactly?”

“Curling iron. For hair.”

“Okay.”

“Hmm, phone charger, small deodorant, pens, notebook, glasses, looking good. Hold up, condoms?”

You blush red.

“It’s alright, better safe than sorry.” He continues, “book, nail file, oh - this lipgloss, I’m going to have to discard it because it’s a weird color.”

“What?”

“Yeah, it’s showing up green on the light, and that’s weird.” He throws the gloss out without further inspection. As it flies across the room, all you can do is throw up your hands. “Protocol.”

“Sure.”

“Hmm, now what’s this? Another curling iron?”

“Um, no. That’s a… personal effects tool.”

“A what?”

“A, um-”

“You’re going to have to be crystal clear with me, young lady.”

“It’s a vibrator.”

“A vibrator?”

“Yes.”

“Then what are the condoms for?”

“Wha-”

“Nevermind, not my problem. As long as it’s not a weapon, you can keep it.”

“What about my lip gloss?”

“No, ma’am, you can’t keep that. I already told you why.”

You groan in fake frustration.

“But the rest of your bag is clear. Okay, now for the pat down portion, you’re going to have to stand still with your arms out. I’m going to check your upper body first.”

“Okay.” You do as you’re told, biting your cheek hard. 

Kai runs his hands along your arms, squeezing from your shoulders to your fingertips. On two occasions, he runs the back of his hand along your skin, letting his nails tickle you. Again, you fight the urge to giggle.

He then focuses his gaze on your chest. “What’s this necklace?”

“It’s from my boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Yeah, he’s actually waiting for me in New York.”

“Why didn’t you just fly together?”

“Conflicting schedules and all that.”

“Okay.” He runs a finger along your collarbone before muttering, “all good there.” His hands are all over your body now. They cup your breasts and rub your nipples, then move down to squeeze your waist. Kai rests a hand on the small of your back as his other feels your stomach.

“Is this standard procedure?” You question as he touches your breasts again.

“Please don’t interrupt me, ma’am. This is very important.”

“Oh.”

“I’m going to need to check your lower half now.”

“Okay. Did I pass on the top half?”

“Yes.”

“Cool.”

“Spread your legs.”

He wastes no time moving to your hips, then thighs. “I need to touch here.”

“Okay.”

His hands hold and squeeze your butt. A finger is run along your crotch until it rests above your clothed clit. Suddenly he applies pressure, sending a jolt up your spine. 

“How’s your sexual performance?”

“What?”

“How do you perform sexually?”

“Um.”

“You must answer the question.”

“I’m fine, I guess. I don’t know.”

“Are you pregnant?”

“No.”

“Is there any chance you could be pregnant?”

“I mean, a small chance, but I doubt I am.”

“Okay,” he replies. Kai says nothing more on the topic. He moves down to your knees, then feet, rubbing his hands along them. “Alright,” he finally looks up at you. 

“Did I pass?”

“For the most part, but I’m still suspicious. Do you have anything in your jean pockets?”

“No. You told me to empty my pockets, so I did.”

“Sass isn’t going to speed this up, sweetheart.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m gonna need you to remove your pants so I can check them.”

“What?”

“It’s protocol.”

You fake a sigh, then unbutton your jeans and slide them down your legs. Kai licks his lips, and you can tell he’s trying his best to hide his excitement. The moment he glimpses your lingerie underneath, though, his eyes widen. 

“Ma’am,” he starts, sighing. He’s holding back. You can hear it in his tone, though the tightening of his jeans is giving him away quickly.

“Yes?”

“I’m not sure you wore the appropriate attire for this flight.”

“Oh! Sorry. I didn’t expect to be stripped in an airport. I was wearing it for my boyfriend.”

“Mhm, well you should’ve acted less suspicious or you wouldn’t’ve been stripped. Also, again, sass isn’t helping your case.”

“Can we just… finish this so we can both move on from this awkward situation.��

“Depends if I deem you able to fly.”

“Okay then can we start that process?”

“Sure. I’ll try to ignore your… outfit.”

He did not, in fact, ignore it. Kai continues his inspection like normal - well, normal for Kai - and pats down your body. Every so often, he mutters a comment about you passing this, or doing well on that, but when his fingers ghost over your clit again, he clicks his tongue. 

“See, this is the problem. I think you’re hiding something here. But don’t worry, it’ll only take a second. I just need to-” 

He doesn’t finish his sentence. Instead, a gasp leaves your lips as he pushes two fingers inside you. You’re already wet from all the petting, so by the time he’s finally touching you, he moves with ease. 

“What are you looking for?” You mutter out, hands gripping his head. He doesn’t correct you, but lets you hold onto him for balance. 

“Can’t tell you. Protocol.” His older hand is gripping your thigh, though it’s slowly moving up to grab your butt again. 

“Oh.”

“I think it’s deeper than I initially thought. One minute.” Kai positions himself in front of you to grab one side of your hips, his other hand holding back the lace, then begins to lap at your core with his tongue. He pulls you down onto him to lick deeper, periodically sucking on your clit. The feeling is absolute bliss, not to mention seeing him under you. A moan leaves your lips, and you immediately clamp a hand over your mouth. 

Too late, he heard it. “Please, no talking, ma’am.”

“I’m sorry.” 

You have no idea how he’s not cracking up right now. Then again, Kai has a tendency to take roleplays very seriously. You have a theory that he likes to pretend to be someone else every so often, but you’ve never mentioned this to him. Instead, you just play along into your boyfriend’s fantasies as best you can. After all, he erupts in a fit of content giggles at the end of each session, so you can let it all out then. You both know he can’t be serious for too long. 

“Have you found it yet?”

Kai adds his fingers again and “searches” deeper. “Not yet.”

“Okay.”

“Though I think I can get you to give it up and confess where it is if you’re relaxed enough.”

“I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”

“You will in a moment.”

Suddenly, he picks you up and tosses you over his shoulder. You squeal and claw at his back, wanting something to grip. Before you can say anything, though, he sets you down on the desk. Kai pulls your shirt up over your head, but takes a second to admire your set. A lump forms in his throat. 

“You have a very lucky boyfriend,” he comments.

“Seems I also have a very lucky TSA agent.” You bat your eyes playfully, then spread your legs open to him. 

“Naughty girl.”

His tone has you biting your lip. 

His eyes scan over you for a moment and you’re not sure what he’s thinking. Then, he takes the straps of your lingerie and pulls them down your body. When he reaches your waist, he realizes he has to unclip the garter belt before he can get your top off all the way. It takes a moment for him to do this, hands shaking with excitement. His tongue sticks out from between his teeth; his expression is deeply concentrated. 

He finally unclips the two parts of the belt, then tugs your panties down your legs. At last, he finds the solution to the top - unhooking it and letting it drop to the table. The same time he undoes the clasp, something small falls from its place, buried within the top, and hits the ground with a shudder. If he hears it, he doesn’t ask. Nor does he make a comment about the challenge of the set, though you know he’s thinking about it. Instead, he wastes not a minute more, and undresses himself quickly.

As he lines himself up with your entrance, you suddenly ask, “do you do this with all your cases?”

“Only the ones with boyfriends,” he winks.

The urge to laugh is hard, and your hand flies to your mouth again. For a second, you see a little smirk on Kai’s face as he tries not to break character with his own chuckle. 

But then that moment is over as soon as it comes, because he uses your distraction to push into you. You groan at the feeling, grabbing onto his shoulders tightly. He pulls out almost completely, but then rocks his hips back into you before finding a steady pace. 

As expected, his thrusts are aggressive, and you’re gasping for breath. Your tits catch his eyes as they bounce in place. His own grip on you is equal to that you have on him - both will probably leave light bruises for you to find in the morning. 

It isn’t long before you feel yourself losing strength. Your stomach muscles are sore from holding up your body, but when you lean back on the desk, Kai puts his hand out to support your head. He crawls up the length of your torso, kissing your neck and chest, and sucking on your tits. Neither of you will last much longer, but even in roleplays, he makes sure you come first.

“Come on, princess.” It’s the first thing he’s said in a while. It breaks through the obscene sounds of sex like a knife through butter. 

He uses his spare hand to rub your clit. You’re so close to the edge that tears form in your eyes. 

“Come on,” he prompts again. The hand holding up your head moves so it’s around your neck. Slight pressure is added, and Kai clicks his tongue to urge you to finish. 

Then, as if his convincing is exactly what you needed, you come. Your body shudders against the table, shaking, while moans spill out your lips. Your release is all he needs to follow close behind, filling you up with his seed. He pulls out before he softens uncomfortably, but plugs you up with his fingers before too much can escape. 

You take a moment to catch your breath. He helps you sit upright when you do, though, and he gives you a sloppy kiss to the mouth. 

“Relaxed now, ma’am?”

“Uh huh.”

“So where’s the weapon?”

Sleepily, you reply, “fell out of my top. It’s on the ground.” You point lazily to the floor where he now notices a small pocket knife. 

“Ah,” he clicks his tongue. “There it is! Okay…” Kai sets the knife on the table, then fetches an orange juice from the corner of the room. “I need you to drink this, please. It’s very important.”

“Okay.” 

Kai tinkers around while you drink the juice. By the time you finish the bottle, you’re able to stand up by yourself again. 

“Feel better?” He asks, buckling his belt back into place. 

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Good, because I still need to test that you’re not a criminal.”

“Wait, what?”

“Well, you had a knife on you that you tried to hide. And since you’ve been acting suspicious and have been way too sassy with me, I don’t feel comfortable letting you on the plane until I know you’re not a threat of national security.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Right. Give me one finger, please.”

You hold a hand out to him. 

Kai takes the liberty of pressing your pointer finger into something wet and black, and then stamps it down on a piece of paper. “Thank you. Just wait one minute.”

As he stares at the paper, you take to staring at your finger. Hesitantly, you lick it, wondering if he really used ink.

“Don’t lick it,” he reprimands immediately.

“Sorry.” 

It tasted like fruit, like he had mashed up blackberries or something. You want to giggle, but refrain. 

“While this processes, would you like to tell me why you were carrying a knife under your shirt?”

“I keep it there for self defense.”

“Why not in your pocket, or something?”

“Easier for me to grab, harder for attackers to see. But sir, may I add, I didn’t mean to hide it from you. I honestly forgot it was there. I was anxious about having to be in the parking garage and then totally forgot to put it in a better place. I’m really sorry. I promise I’m no threat to anyone.”

He sighs, reading your face. “I understand, ma’am. And it seems you’ve passed the test, so your story checks out.”

“I passed?”

“It appears so.”

“Okay, great!”

“That being said, you’re now free to go. Your stuff is right over there.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Thank you for your time. Oh, and might I suggest a few things?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, one, remember to not hide your weapons in your bra when you enter airports.”

“Sorry-”

“Two, throw out those condoms, because obviously, you don’t use them. Considering how fine you were without them ten minutes ago.”

“Excuse me?!”

“And three, you might want to get a pregnancy test. I come from a huge family, seven siblings, to be exact, and I also carry a twin gene.” Kai grins at you. “Have a nice flight!”

Keeping in character, your jaw drops. “Fuck! Are you serious?!” You exclaim loudly.

“Ma’am, please be wary of children in the airport.”

You shake your head in annoyance as you walk up the stairs, bag in hand, and away from him. 

◇◇◇◇

Twenty minutes later, Kai comes upstairs to find you on your bed. He wanted to give you some time to recover on your own, but will only leave you alone for so long before he needs to be by your side again. 

“Hi,” he greets, peering his head around the door.

“Hi, baby.”

“Can I come in?”

“Of course.”

“How are you? Was I too rough? Are you hurt anywhere? Was it too much?”

“Come here,” you gesture for him to join you. “None of those things, pumpkin. It was perfect. You were perfect.”

“Are your wrists bruised?” He asks anyway.

You send a question back before answering him. “Are your hips?”

“Maybe. But I don’t mind. It was worth it.”

“Well, my answer is the same.”

He’s only quiet for a second before continuing. “I liked that piece you had on today. That agent was right - you are a naughty girl.”

“Seems I am.” 

He gives you a kiss, then tucks his head into the crook of your neck with his arms around your waist. He doesn’t budge when you lean back and take him with you. Your head hits the pillow and he only nestles closer. 

After a while, though, he coughs. It’s not a sick cough, but more of a “new topic starter” kind of cough.

“You okay?” 

“Yeah. But I would, um, if I were you…”

“Would what, baby?”

“Take a test… like, a pregnancy test. Because we don’t use those condoms often, I didn’t even remember you had them, and I kinda…. I don’t know, but I think we should do that just in case.”

“You’re probably right. Especially after this time in particular.” You grow warm as you recall it. “We should probably use them more, too, considering how often…” You don’t feel the need to finish your sentence. Kai knows exactly what you mean. 

However, he just grunts. He adjusts slightly, enough to press a kiss to your cheek.

“What?” You pry. “You disagree?”

He shrugs. “I kinda like it being a roll of the dice. Which time are you gonna show up with two blue lines?” Your jaw drops in surprise “I already have a doctor roleplay planned out.” You go silent out of shock. Kai tenses after a minute. “Was that too far? We can use the condoms; I can work them into something.”

“No,” you finally say, “not too far.” A three second flash of the future runs in your mind. The first second, you stare down at a positive test. The second, his hands rest on your growing stomach, pretending to monitor a baby’s growth. The third, the sight of his smile at the prospects of being a father. It’s not something you really expected him to want, yet it seems to be on the forefront of his mind. “Not too far at all,” you repeat. 

Kai noticeably relaxes. “Ease into the doctor thing with me instructing you on the importance of condoms,” he jokes, “and then a couple months later, that conversation was obviously pointless.”

You can’t help but laugh. “Sounds like fun to me.”

“Good.” He nestles closer into you. “I like doing these with you.”

“I like them too, pumpkin. Are you getting tired?”

“Mhm.”

“Well on that note, goodnight. I love you.”

“Goodnight.” He places a kiss on your shoulder, too tired to pull himself back up to your lips. “I love you, too.”

#kai parker x reader #malachai parker x reader #tvd fanfiction #kai parker smut #this is so cheesy #y'all i have upwards of 100 wips in my folder #needed to desperately post while i work on recs #hope this isn't too stupid

[emilio-the-dumb-wrestler]

Oink! I loved your last post about replacing addiction to cigarettes by addiction to stinky male feet! Oink! Thats very, very hot!

Im already your obese, hairy and stinky pig with tiny co*ck but i would wish to feel more humiliation, if thats possible. To feel painful adfoction, to be stuck doing humiliating things such as serving stinky male feet or sweaty armpits unable to stop! Oink! Maybe i will find myself unable to wear any cloth except tight uncomfortable thong or i will find myself getting addicted to wearing a chastity but having painfully blue balls and only dreaming about relief? Oink! The more humiliating it will be, the better it would be for me! Oink oink!

And again, thank you for your posts! Oink!

You type your message in your phone. You thought being this far hairy beast was going to be enough but still your tiny member craves more. You need to….humiliation… addiction. You phone falls from your hands as intense orgasm shoots though your fat body. You moan in ecstasy as you’re sitting on the couch. Sitting in your own sweat. Your stomach is so tight from already you’ve wished on yourself. You rub it moaning. And that’s when you feel it. Looking though sexual bliss you see your stomach…. Get rounder. Blowing up a little more than before. Hairy getting thicker as more sweat begins to pull. The smell of your fat body gets even worse as it’s kicked into high gear. You struggle to to get up but find that you can’t. As if there are invisible hands on your body you are forced to a new stance being on all fours. You massive gut touching the floor as your manage to crawl about oinking like a proper pig. That’s when you hear the door open. Kicking your fat head up you manage to see a man. Beautiful. Nothing like you have ever seen looking down at you as he shuts the door. “My my the piggy is already ready for me!” You squee uncontrollably. English now being a second language to your natural tongue of pig. You see him take off his shoes and the smell hits your snout as something unreal. Something that makes your eyes water. He takes a seat in his chair. you lick the floor the whole way.Picking up each drop of sweat that comes off his meaty souls. When he sits down he flicks on the tv. Props a foot up and snaps his fingers and points to his feet

“Come here pig. I know you want these socks from daddy. Come on. Take a whiff of these large souls”. And he hold a massive foot. Bigger than you have ever seen before. Your pig tongue falls out of your mouth. You can’t help it as the drool begins to spill on the floor. You waddle crawl to him. Your big gut dragging across the floor. And when you get in reach of his sweaty souls he pushes his big meaty foot right in your face. “Breathe in pig. I know you’re addicted to smelling these bad boys”. He coughed a little “whew. They stink. That’s what I get for not washing them for the past month”. You’re eyes are watering as your peel his socks off with with your mouth. “Go on suck the sweat from them. You know I don’t give a pig water.” And you begin sucking the sweat from his sloppy wet sock. You do the other one the same.

On command you begin licking them clean. Tasting every day of the filth he has accumulated on them. You’re in ecstasy. In a trance by his sweaty smelly feet. He puts a large foot in your face and pushes you aside. Pulling his pants down “time to eat pig and he’s right at attention”. You dive for his member and begging to satisfy every massive inch of his 11 inch pile. And when he begins to finish you take in every drop. Your stomach churns and gurgles and you gain another 1/2 pound. He pats you on the head and says “that’s my pig slave. Now that you’ve ate I’m going to have a proper meal”. A belch erupts from you from all the sweat you just drank in. He takes off his sweaty shirt and as if on autopilot you begin to suck his suck from the shirt. Entranced by the musket taste and the stony of filth your covered in. Being a fat pig already you wanted more. You wanted an addiction. Think of yourself as an alcoholic. Only with sweat. You crave it. You need it. Going hang in hand with the juices of man. You’ll need it to stay alive now pig. And as you can tell each time you satisfy your pig urges now you’ll be forced to gain a little weight. Some ounces here. Some ounces there. Bad new for you is that inspired you with a heavy shooter and really stinky sweaty gym bro. The muskiest I could find. So get ready to bulking. You’re going to be growing daily. After all… when you’re a heavy drinker you need it daily too right ? 😈

#sa656

[haruhar-u]

Just your average CEO novel yep definitely

CWs: Alcohol usage, cursing, drawn out suggestive conversation (humorously), one character mentions throwing up but doesn’t actually

Co-written with @chocolate-cat-bread and a friend that doesnt have tumblr

taglist: @edith-is-a-cat @the-banana-0verlord @angelhairpastawithherbs @v-anrouge @twistwonderlanddevotee @ferris-the-wheel @twst-om-lover @xen-blank @whspermy-name @cheezy-moon (lmk if you wish to be added or removed)

definition of chinese words used

Chapter one

The first thing I heard when I woke up was the song “Sweet Home Alabama” blaring loudly from my phone, but in Mandarin, and that was all I needed to throw off the covers and turn off the alarm, cursing my past self for losing a bet with my cousin and ending up with this ringtone. 

I checked the time and sure enough, it was 6:30. I was expected to be at work by 7:00 am.

“Oh shit, I’m gonna be late.” I quickly put my hair up in a messy bun and put on a white dress shirt, a beige plaid vest and a matching pencil skirt.

I hurried down the stairs, nearly tripping while I hastily shoved my socks on. It took all the self-control in me not to string a bunch of curses together that would make even a sailor flustered, as my socks were refusing to cooperate with me.

Once my socks weren’t threatening to slip off my feet, I headed to the kitchen to grab a slice of toasted bread and shove it in my mouth, before grabbing my shoulder bag and heading out the door.

It took me a while to unlock the car door, my head was all over the place after somehow getting the position as the CEO’s assistant. Apparently, the previous one had quit the job, leaving the position open to anyone with experience.

I applied mostly because I had experience in a few of my previous odd jobs, and also so I could finally put that degree to use. During the interview, I may have stumbled over my words quite a bit, and I was sweating profusely that I was pretty sure even the interviewer could tell.

While I was driving, I noticed two elderly people yelling at each other in the middle of the street. There were at least a dozen other cars that were stopped right in front of the arguing old people.

Why are they arguing on the street of all places? I wondered, not even irritated by the fact that I was probably not going to make it on time. More so concerned about the fact that they could get run over if someone wasn’t being careful.

“You BASTARD! I told you to wash the damn dishes, and yet here you are, eating fried donuts! Hiya!” The old lady yelled, yanking the old man by the ear, who held onto the fried donuts for dear life.

“I was going to get these fried donuts for you though, but clearly that doesn’t matter to you!” The old man snapped back.

The old lady looked even more pissed off than before, if that was even possible. “Why didn’t you do the dishes first before getting them, huh?!”

“Because the donuts were 50% off the original price, and it was the last hour before they went back to the original price, lah!” The old man said like it was the obvious thing to do. Chiu could see the logic in that, 50% off was a pretty good deal after all.

The old lady rolled her eyes, most likely used to these kinds of antics. “Fine, but only because 50% off is good deal lah, now come home and do dishes!” She then yanked the old man by the ear away from the street, ignoring his cries of pain.

I blinked, once, twice, processing the unusual yet somehow normal scene. That was… interesting. At least everything was resolved in the end, and fortunately, it didn’t seem like a domestic abuse case or anything, which is not very uncommon, much to the dismay of any normal person.

Traffic carried on as usual, and I managed to arrive at the building with at least ten minutes to spare. Patting down my hair and outfit, I walked in as professionally as I could, trying not to trip over my brand-new heels, while I headed to the front desk.

I immediately noticed a very pretty lady at the front desk, with her dark hair in a high ponytail, wearing a pale pink cardigan over her work attire.

“Oh uh, hi. I’m the CEO’s new uh…assistant.” I said and internally facepalmed myself for my blunder. First day on the job and I couldn’t even talk to my first colleague without stuttering like a fool.

The receptionist smiled, her eyes crinkling along with it. “You must be…ah, Lien Chiu? Nice name, by the way.”

I fidgeted, a bit flustered by the compliment. “Thanks, it’s um…I’m from rural Taiwan, we speak Hokkien there.”

The receptionist lady nods. “Figured as much, your accent gives it away. I’m Hujin, if you couldn’t tell already, I’m the receptionist, and I have to answer a bunch of phone calls and greet visitors and such.”

“Sounds interesting,” I say, trying to be polite. “So uh, where is the CEO’s office?”

“Ah, it’s on the 50th floor. For your sanity, you should take the elevator. About the CEO, he might be a bit busy…but I give you full permission to bother him.” Hujin winks, a mischievous smile on her face.

“Thank you.” I pretended to not notice the scheming grin on the smaller girl’s face.

She spun around in her chair. “Ah, no worries.” Hujin then paused, fixing her gaze on me like a cat. She pursed her lips together, rummaging through her purse before pulling out a pastel, rainbow star hair clip.

“Here,” She said quietly and tenderly, reaching over the desk and tucking the hair clip in my hair, pushing back my curtain bangs. I didn’t even know it was blocking my line of sight until she put it up for me. Why was it so warm all of a sudden? Why was she so close? Is there something wrong with me?

“Oh uh, th-“ I was about to say, but she waved it off.

“No need, now go on and bother my-the uh…CEO. Yeah.”

I nod, ducking my head as my thoughts swirled in my head and my heart raced at incredible speeds. If I had a strange look on my face the entire time I was in the elevator, no one commented.

The CEO had their office on the top floor in the corner. Stepping in, there was a fireplace adorned with various pictures of what seemed to be a family, and a bookshelf filled with books that looked like they were never read. There was a dark oak desk with a laptop placed on it. Behind the desk, there was a man who appeared to be in his mid to late twenties. His dark hair was mainly well kept with only a few strands astray. He wore a professional-looking suit. He was slumped over, holding his head up with his hand. He immediately perked up once he saw me. I could feel my heart beating rapidly again, and my breakfast threatening to somersault out of my stomach. I forced it back down, it would be really bad if I threw up right now.

“You must be my new assistant, correct? The last one quit after he went back to America…Oh, I’m Li Haoyu.”

“Yeah um,” I swallowed, trying to get myself to stop panicking. Stay calm, my mind unhelpfully supplied. “My name is uh…Chiu. So, is there anything I can help with? Like, um…paperwork?” I offered, trying not to sound as awkward and wrecked with nerves as I felt.

“I have my schedule in the printer.” He gestured to a fancy black printer against the back wall. “I think there might be some paperwork, I forgot to sign...not sure.”

I went to the printer and checked the inside, and sure enough, there was some unsigned paperwork. I take it out of the printer, find an empty seat and begin to sign the paperwork. It wasn’t much honestly, I just needed to sign using the company’s signature. The signature became less and less clear each time, probably because I was running out of ink.

Haoyu tapped me on the shoulder, interrupting my work, he was carrying a tray with tea on it with one hand. “Do you want a cup?”

“Oh, um, t-thank you so much.” I stammered, a bit flushed and reached out to take a cup of tea from the tray, almost dropping the cup from how shaky my hands were. I went back to signing paperwork, pressing my pen against the paper and frowning when no ink came out.

Haoyu was still there, sipping on his tea with a calm expression on his face. He looked very handsome, no doubt about it. The thought of approaching him, and disturbing him, made me more anxious than I already was.

I eventually sucked up the embarrassment, inching closer to him with the sad, inkless pen in my hand. “Um…excuse me…” I pushed on, despite Haoyu’s look of concern. “Do you have an extra pen or something? I-uh…the pen. Ran out of ink.”

He nodded, rummaged through one of the drawers of his desk and handed me a really expensive pen. “Keep it. Also, what meetings do I have for today?”

I flip through his schedule, trying to find the one that had the present one on it. “You have a meeting with two clients, they own a very wealthy private tech business. It says that they want to buy a license to sell a camera brand owned by this company. It says their names are uh…Yuen Zixuan and Huang Mingze?”

Haoyu let out a sigh. “Those two again?”

Surprise. “Wait, you know them?”

“I went to university with them…”

“Ah, I see. Am I required to come with you for this meeting?” I asked. I probably should have known if it was or not, but I may or may not have skimmed through the job description. So asking stupid questions it is.

“Not required, recommended, though.”  He probably wasn’t judging, yet it still felt like he was staring into my soul. I averted my gaze, looking at the floor, then the wall, then the wooden chair that was very, very interesting. Just so the man wouldn’t stare into my soul and figure out that my left sock had a massive hole where my ankle was.

Even though I wasn’t required, it was recommended, that was basically just another way of saying it was required, at least for overachievers like me. “I’m coming with, then,”

“Can you tell me exactly when this meeting is?”

I handed him the schedule and pointed at the timetable where the meeting takes place. “It’s at 9:30 am, so 2-3 hours or so from now.”

He nodded, “You can do whatever until then.”

“Okay, thanks.” I take a long sip of my tea, emptying the entire cup. ‘Is there…a sink nearby?” I chewed on my lip, wondering if I should even be asking. Maybe they didn’t use sinks, or maybe they had their own dishwasher because only rich people can afford dishwashers.

“Oh… I think in the staff room. Don’t worry about the cup, just leave it on the tray outside and someone will come pick it up to be cleaned.”

“Wait so I don’t have to wash it…? I mean…of course. Uh, sorry about that.” I make my way out of his office and to the staff room in embarrassment.

—-2-3 hours later—

“Hiii!” Mingze says

“Oh, uh, hello. How’s up? I mean life?” I rambled, my body at least five degrees hotter than normal from how nervous I was.

“Is Mr Li late again?” Zixuan asks, glancing down at a watch. He spoke with a Cantonese accent.

I shrug. ‘Probably. Is it normal for him to be late?”

“Yes, especially now that he doesn't have an assistant to wake him up.” Zixuan sighs. “He was notorious for being late in university.”

“Oh god, does that mean I have to be his personal alarm clock,” I grumble. “I did not sign up for this sh-to be a human clock.”

“Assuming you’re his new assistant, yes. Have fun, I was the human alarm clock 8 years ago” He says sarcastically. “Oh. He also tends to forget his wallet and phone often.”

I groan, burying my face in my hands. “So I’m going to have to be his human wallet too…”

“Luckily for you, that’s usually Huijin.” 

“The…pretty receptionist girl?”

“Yes. Don’t ask.” He checks his watch again and impatiently taps his foot.

Haoyu finally shows up 15 minutes later. “My apologies.” He takes a spot at the head of the table after pouring everyone a glass of either water or tea.

I pull the cup of tea closer to me, desperately needing an energy boost after navigating the hell that is buildings with 50 floors. “Apology accepted for now. So um, you said you wanted to buy the license for…this camera?” 

“Surely this could have been done in an email,” Haoyu says in an exasperated tone, rummaging for a piece of paper. 

“Didn’t get much sleep, did we?” Zixuan retorts, rolling his eyes. 

“Can we pretend to be civil for at least five minutes?!” I grumbled, before immediately realizing my mistake. Oh fuck. Is this really how I’m losing my job?

Haoyu clears his throat, using a fist to cover his mouth“Anyway, the licenses.” He hands Zixuan and Mingze two pieces of paper. “Sign here, then write a cheque then they’re yours.”

Mingze immediately grabs a pen and signs both cheques. “Thanks, dude! You’re the best!”

Zixuan elbows Mingze in the ribcage. “Did you seriously not read the fine print? We could be selling our souls for all we know “

“Fine print? Wait uh…oops.” Mingze said sheepishly.

“I understand, you’re not the only one who doesn’t read the fine print,” I admitted. I wasn’t quite sure what possessed me to admit something like that out loud. Maybe I was just really stupid.

Haoyu rose from his seat, “Once you have finished going over the documents please give them to my assistant, I believe this meeting is dismissed.” He was oddly cranky.

“Okay, no need to be a grump,” Mingze said grumpily as he painstakingly read the documents. Sporadically, he would look to Zixuan, who would softly pat his back with a look of affection, and then throw his head into his arms in despair. I watched very concerned as Mingze looked like he was about to rip the documents apart.

“Here, I’ll read them.” Zixuan dragged the documents from Mingze towards himself with a finger. He spent about 5 long minutes reading before signing and pushing them over to me.

“Thank you. Uh, you can go now.” I took the papers, shuffled them in order and then put them in a folder to do later because I didn’t feel like doing it right now.

After finishing all the paperwork, which took a lot longer than it should have because my wrist pain started acting up again. I let out a sigh of relief, flex my wrist and do a quick stretch before checking my cellphone. I had a couple of unread emails that were mostly just junk files and a new...text message?

Li Haoyu: I apologize for my mood earlier, may I invite you to dinner after work with Hujin nd my brother to make up for it?

Lien Chiu: It’s alright :) and sure!

Lien Chiu: Where is the place?

Li Haoyu: It’s a hot pot place best in Shanghai, around 3 blocks down. I usually get a taxi.

Lien Chiu: Oh

Lien Chiu: What time do I arrive there? You said after work, but I would like a specific time, if that’s ok :)

Li Haoyu: Right after, I’ll pick you up from your office.

Lien Chiu: Ok thanks

I turn off my phone and turn on my laptop, where I mark a bunch of emails as read and play some music while I’m at it. 

Later, I hear a knock at my office door. “Miss Lien? Mr Li wanted me to tell you that the taxi is here” An employee called.

“Coming,” I called.

Outside there wasn’t a taxi but a limo instead and Haoyu was outside casually chatting with the driver and Huijin as if they were old friends. 

“Oh hey, Chiu! Come on in!” Hujin pats the seat beside her. “Sit next to me, please! I’m so much better than Haoyu.”

“Yeah sure.” Haoyu scoffs at Hujin with a smirk on his face.

Hujin sticks her tongue out at Haoyu. “I’m obviously cuter, and at least I don’t always forget my wallet. And my keys. And my phone.” She says teasingly.

“You two…seem close?” 

Haoyu bites his lip “Friends from college.” He says rather quickly. “Also speaking of forgetting my wallet and phone…”

“NOT AGAIN!” Hujin yelled, repeatedly whacking Haoyu with a pink bunny neck cushion, which made me snort with amusement.

“I’ll e-transfer you later tonight? I’m paying by the way.” He just stared deadpan at the pink bunny neck pillow, casually blocking it with his arm. 

Hujin just glared at him. “Fine.” She paused in her relentless attack on Haoyu with the neck pillow, before whacking Haoyu with a bear plush.

“Okay, you can stop beating him…” I said, attempting to grab the bear plush from Hujin. Every time I would try to grab it, she would shove the plush in my face, perhaps she was trying to use the fluffiness to distract me, which totally wasn’t working!!

Then the limo stops in front of this fancy-ass-looking restaurant. They got out of the limo, walked in and were seated by an oddly formal hostess. At the table was a guy who looked almost exactly like Haoyu, the only difference was this dude was dressed a lot more casually and his hairstyle was slightly different. 

“Are you by any chance made in a lab?” I blurted out, before immediately having the urge to descend into the earth’s core.

“Uh…pardon?”

I looked at Haoyu and Hujin, the former with an awkward smile on his face and the latter stifling her snickers with her hand covered over her mouth.

“Well, it’s just that…You look exactly like Haoyu. Except that your hair and clothes are a bit different.”

“We’re twins.” Haoyu points out.

I mentally facepalmed. “Ah. Right. Well,” I retorted, trying to defend my honour. “In my defence, you never know if someone is made in a lab or not.”

Hujin’s eyes darkened with mischief. “You’re right actually, both Haoyu and Huifen are made in a lab. I’m the one born the standard way.”

“Hey! Stop with the conspiracies!” Huifen interjected. 

Haoyu only rolls his eyes at Huijin’s comment, “All 3 of us were born because our parents had sex.”

“Yeah, well our parents had sex in a lab and then had you guys, meanwhile I was actually born in a hospital,” Hujin replied. Meanwhile, I was recovering from shock, at Hujin’s crude sense of humour, the way she took my joke and pushed it to the limit.

“Why are you more invested in this conspiracy than me?” I asked Hujin, very concerned for the way she seemed so dead set on her opinion. 

“Dad told me it was in a private jet ...For all 3 of us” Haoyu replies, his eyes scanning the menu. 

“What?!” Huifen, Hujin and I yelled at the same time. Hujin marched up to Haoyu and poked him in the chest.

“Are you being serious or silly?!” She said, staring up at him with a scowl on her face. It was really cute, honestly.

“Dad told me because I asked why there were drawers full of condoms.” Haoyu was probably serious as he didn’t even crack a smile.

“You guys can afford to make love in a private jet?!” I shrieked, pulling at my hair.

“You can’t?” Haoyu asks dumbfounded, staring right into my soul.

“Well, I’m sorry I don’t have a million dollars to spend on a private jet!” I retorted, exasperated and recovered from a culture and lifestyle shock.

“I could let you fuck in our private jet, wait what,” Huifen said nonchalantly.

“WHAT?!” I stared at Huifen. “I don’t even know how to fuck, let alone in a private jet! Is there, like a…difference?”

“I don’t know how to fuck either.” Haoyu replied bluntly. Hujin elbowed him again, sending him a deadpan glance.

“Aaaanyway, enough sex talk, and let’s eat. I’m starving and I’d rather not starve to death while the last thing I hear is about the differences between regular citizen sex and expensive private jet sex.” Hujin declared, putting her hands on her hips.

“Bitch, we didn’t even order any food yet. We scared the waiter off.” Huifen objected

Hujin glared at Huifen. “And who’s fault is that? You gotta stop projecting on me, gēge.”

“Wait hold on, you guys are siblings?” I exclaimed. Honestly, why was I even surprised? Even without the obvious slipup, I should have figured it out long before, it was basically hinted at me since Hujin told me to be a little shit to Haoyu when I first arrived, and the fact that they said their parents had sex. Fuck me.

“Yeah, it was kind of implied when we said that we were all from our parents having sex in a private jet,” Huifen states.

“Enough with the private jet sex!” Hujin shrieked, 

Haoyu’s gaze hardened, “Do not tell anyone.” Then his gaze softens again, “Besides dìdì, maybe she thought it was a gangbang.”

“I SAID ENOUGH SEX!!!” Huijin screamed even louder, which definitely made everyone sitting at neighbouring tables concerned. If they were not already, that is.

I hold my hands up in surrender. “Okay, I wasn’t going to anyway. Although…are you sure you trust me enough to not…slip up or something?”

Hujin grabbed my hands and I nearly jumped at the sudden touch. “Of course we trust you, silly goose! Besides, we’ll just pay them a million dollars to shut them up. Now,” She grabs all of us by the arms. “Let’s go order something before A PRETTY YOUNG LADY STARVES TO DEATH!!”

Haoyu waves down a waiter and puts in an order. The waiter looks at all of them with an odd look, before gasping.

“No way! You must be…you must be Haoyu, CEO of Revocorp! And you look, wait no, are you Huifen! I love your cosplays so much! Woah,” The waiter does a double take at Hujin, who was dressed in a pink strawberry cardigan, a pastel rainbow-striped gown and brown Uggs. “Aww, aren’t you adorable!”

“Thank you!” Hujin beamed. Her smile is also cute…I think with a pang of jealousy.

“No problem, ah right, your orders?” The waiter pulls out a pen from their ear and a notepad, ready to write down our orders.

“Chiu, do you drink?” Haoyu asks.

“I drank vodka once…? Does that count?” I say.

Haoyu turns to the waiter “This set.” He says, pointing to a certain spot on the menu. Then he leans in to whisper something to the waiter “And a bottle of your most expensive wine plus 4 glasses.”

“WHAT! HOW ARE YOU AFFORDING ALL THIS?!”

“Money.”  

I glared. “Yeah, I know that, you dunce. But like, wha-we never had this back home! Oh, wait, do I have to pay my share or…” I search through my wallet, and well…I had a couple of coins, two $20 bills…and my credit card which was definitely going to expire soon.

He puts his hand on mine, “Don’t worry about it”

“Oh…” My brain short-circuited for a good moment before smiling shyly. “Thanks.”

A fit of giggles erupted from Hujin, who was shaking in her seat from laughter. Huifen nudged her, but she continued to laugh. Her laugh immediately dropped to a frown when she found that the waiter put down kids utensils, with the Doraemon bowl and colored cutlery.

“Is this…oh this has to be a joke,” Hujin grumbled.

Haoyu meanwhile was smirking at Huijin’s grumble. Wait, wasn’t he whispering to the waiter earlier?

“I think it was Haoyu’s doing,” I told Hujin, who immediately stood up and glared down at Haoyu.

“You! It was your idea for them to give me children’s cutlery! This is ruining my reputation! And I’m 26!” Hujin shrieked dramatically, miming stabbing Haoyu in the throat with the plastic knife.

“I mean…” I say, as an attempt at being a devil’s advocate. “Kids menus are cheaper?”

Hujin scrunched her nose at me before scowling at Haoyu. “You jerk! You know damn well that you can afford 3 adult meals! You could afford this entire restaurant!”

“Baby sister for a reason.” Haoyu shrugs, brushing her off.

“I’m 26…” Hujin pouts. I pat her on the back comfortingly.

“There there, some of us are just born to look like 12-year-olds.” I teased.

“Not you too!” Hujin wailed dramatically, grabbing onto my sweater vest. “You were on my side, I trusted you…and you just betrayed me…were we ever meant to be?”

I grin. “What are you, a theatre kid?”

“I took drama in high school.” She props her chin on her hands. “Guess it never wore off.”

Then the waiter shows up with a bottle of fine wine and Haoyu gracefully pours a glass for everyone at the table, even making sure to put some in the coloured cup that Huijin had.

“Okay not gonna lie, this cup is actually kinda cute.” Hujin says as she stares at the wine in her coloured cup.

The waiter shoots a glance at Hujin and she sighs, pulling out her ID card. After a few moments, the waiter nods and leaves her drink alone.

“Does that happen often?”

“Yes.” All three of them say, all at once. 

“Used to happen to Haoyu and I before last year.” Huifen sighs. “We’re getting old.”

Hujin rolled her eyes. “Tell that to the middle-aged and seniors, they’ll think you’re crazy. Although…” she grins mischievously. “Are you sure none of you have back pain?

“We’re 27,” Haoyu mutters. “I am hunched over at a desk all day though.”

I nudged Haoyu. “I have wrist pain, so I guess you’re not alone. Probably since I’ve been writing every day for over 5 hours since I was a teen.’

Hujin took a swig from the sippy cup of wine. “Woah, body pain. Couldn’t be me.”

“Because you actually have time to stretch. Lucky.” Haoyu grumbles.

Said woman swirls her cup around, letting the wine slosh around the cup. “Even a minute of stretching out your arms could help, you bum.”

“Hmph, I don’t even have time for that. Besides, how would stretching my arms help with neck and back pain.” Huifen sighs. “I hope we can eat soon so I don’t have to be insulted by my own sister. I wonder how Mingze deals with bratty younger sisters.”

“I’ll have you now I’m only a brat 40% of the time!’ Hujin hissed. I couldn’t help but notice the way she looked like a very grumpy, rainbow, sparkly earring-wearing cat.

“40% is still a lot…” I mumbled before immediately being pinched on the cheeks by Hujin. ‘Ow ow ow, I take it back, help me-”

Then the waiter awkwardly places the food on the table. 

“Hey uh, I’d really appreciate some help here,” I stare pointedly at Huifen and Haoyu while escaping a headlock from Hujin. 

“You’re on your own,” Haoyu says, taking off his blazer then, putting some meat into the pot.

“Bastard,” I hiss at him. Huifen averts his gaze and I glare at him too. “Hey don’t look away! You’re also a bastard.”

Hujin then pulls me into a bear hug. “I guess we’re all bastards then!” She leans her head on my shoulder.

“Yeah…” I notice her head on my shoulder and stop in my tracks, all of a sudden the room went from hot to a boiler room. I’m pretty sure my brain was thoroughly cooked, better than the most well-done of steaks.

Haoyu puts a steak on my plate. “It’s Wagyu, you should try it.”

“Okay, uh, bon appetit.” I poked at the steak with my fork, before sighing and trying to cut it open with a fork and a knife, then sighing again and was almost tempted to just grab the wagyu by the end and shove the whole thing in my mouth, with chopsticks or something.

“Silly, you don’t need to cut it. But I’m sure someone here wouldn’t mind helping you,” Hujin teases, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Of course that certain someone wouldn’t mind helping their girlfriend,” Huifen smirks. I blink at him stupidly, trying to process what he said for a solid two seconds before the realization hits me with all the grace of being clonked in the head with a brick. Oh.

“No.” Interjects Haoyu. Still, he leans over with his knife and proceeds to cut the steak for me. 

“You really didn’t have to,” I say, while Hujin sulks about Haoyu being a ‘party-pooper’ and ‘old man wheezer’. “I was going to just eat it whole anyway.

Haoyu completely ignores Huijin, “Don’t worry about it.” He smiles ever so slightly. “Besides, you shouldn’t eat it whole. You will choke and die.”

“I’m too powerful to choke and die,” I deadpan back, picking up a large piece of steak and devouring it. Hujin looks at me with a mixture of awe and concern.

“Woah, I’m so trying that.” Hujin doesn’t even bother trying to cut her steak open, instead tearing off a huge chunk and swallowing. Her face turns a bright shade of red and she pounds on her chest while taking a huge swig of alcohol

Haoyu gently pats Hujin on the back, then clears his throat and he kinda glares at Hujin as if he’s trying to reprimand her for her table manners. Hujin glares back, not getting the memo about table manners. “Also don’t drink too fast, you’re going to get drunk.”

“Do we have a feral animal for a sister or what?” Huifen asks, half-joking, half-not.

“Mother would have killed her for this,” Haoyu replies cutting off a piece of steak. “And Father would have given all 3 of us a lecture on how we are representatives of our family 24/7”

“Thanks for that, now I’m going to choke on meat even more out of spite,” Hujin coughed out, covering her very rosy red face with a napkin.

“What are you, straight?” I quip.

“I’m whatever you want me to be, darling,” Hujin said in a sultry Southern accent before bursting into a fit of giggles so uncontrollable that Huifen jumped out of his chair in shock.

“I’m calling her an Uber home later…” Haoyu murmurs.

I nod. “Please,” I say while trying to avoid being suffocated while Hujin wrapped her arms around me and rested her head against the crook of my neck. “Help me…” I tried to move Hujin’s head away from me to take a bite of steak but gave up when she burrowed her head in further.

Haoyu removed Huijin’s arms from around me softly and guided her head towards himself. “Actually, I’ll just take her back to my place tonight.”

“Nooo,” Hujin whined. “She’s warmer than you. And more soft.” She grinned widely, a soft giggle forming on her lips. I suddenly felt my face heat up, probably because of how hot the steak I ate was. Most definitely.

“Huifen, can you take away her wine please?” Haoyu asks. “Erm, I also forgot my wallet so…”

Huifen threw his hands up in frustration. “Are you fucking kidding me?! This is the third time this week! Fine, I’ll pay though.” He pulled out his wallet, dropped 3 hundred-dollar bills in the little basket and waved for a waiter to come and collect it.

“I’ll e-transfer you once I get back to the office. Also Language we're in public.”

“Yeah yeah, no need.” Huifen waves it off. “It’s only a hundred dollars.”

“No no, I got it.” Haoyu waves off Huifen’s wave off.

“Don’t forget the e-transfer then,” Huifen sighs.

“Rich bitches,” I interrupt them while putting down twenty-five cents as a tip. “Good enough.” 

Haoyu helps Huijin to her feet, “Do you have your own ride or do you want to join us in the limo?” He looks at Huifen. 

“I’ll join you guys, a bit of family bonding I guess.” Huifen sighed and put his wallet back into his bag, and slung it over his shoulder. “Let’s go I guess.”

“Don’t fall” Haoyu warns Huijin, still he walks slower to ensure he’s right next to her.

Hujin pretends to trip out of spite, before immediately straightening herself afterward. “I’d never fall…unless it’s head over heels.”

“At this point, you’re falling head over heels literally.” Haoyu sighs, “I’ll let you have my bed tonight, I don’t want you alone right now.”

Hujin frowned. “Ah, right. That makes sense.” Her face and tone were grim, and it made me feel grim for some reason. I wanted to do something, anything to make her smile again.

“So um…penguins?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood. “Opinions?”

“They’re cute,” Haoyu says, getting into the limo.

Hujin perked up immediately and started rambling about penguins, from their scientific name all the way to their mating seasons and their dietary habits. By the time the limo was on its way back to the company building, Hujin was now rambling about…Madagascar and how accurate the penguins representation was.

“Chiu, you’re dismissed, feel free to head home once you get to the office,” Haoyu says authoritatively. 

I smile warmly at Haoyu. “Thank you, for…well, everything.” My stomach churned with unease and I fought off the butterflies in my stomach with a pained grimace. “Sorry, I don’t really feel well right now…still getting used to uh…life in the big city.”

Haoyu nods “Do you want me to walk you to your car?” He offers.

I glance at Hujin and Huifen, who nod and give a thumbs-up in a strangely devious manner. “Um, okay, that would be nice. 

The four of us walked to the parking lot in comfortable silence, although I couldn’t help but notice Hujin whispering to her brothers in a drunk way and then started bursting into fits of laughter. Just what was that manic pixie nightmare girl yapping about now?

“Are you sure you don’t mind me teasing your new assistant girl?” Hujin says in a sing-song voice to Haoyu. Huifen gives Hujin a deadpan stare and a grunt before plugging in his earbuds, his social battery worn out 

“Shut it.” Haoyu stops to boop his sister’s nose. Hujin wrinkled her nose, an angry pout on her face.

“Uh-uh, I’m stealing her from you,”

“Stealing who?” I butted in, wanting to be included in the conversation. Back at home, I was often given weird looks by others for not minding my own business. However, the siblings didn’t seem like the judgmental type, so I didn’t really bother asking. 

“I honestly have no idea,” Haoyu replied. “Uh is that your car?” 

I nod. “Yeah. Uh, see you tomorrow I guess?” I look at Hujin, who was basically using Haoyu as a human teddy bear. She was snoring loudly on his shoulder and startled awake when I nudged her awake

“By the way,” I said smugly. “You’re going to have a killer headache tomorrow.”

“Noooooo…” she whined, burying her face even more into Haoyu’s shoulder.

“I think I have stuff to treat it at home, you’ll be fine.” 

“My head feels like it’s been hit on a rock…” Hujin complained.

I sigh, both exasperated and fond. “Maybe if you didn’t chug five glasses of vodka in one go?”

Haoyu shook his head, “Mother and Father would have killed me for even letting you drink, period.”

Hujin grumbled. “If only they ever treated me like an adult, not a fragile glass doll. Rargh!” She gripped at her hair.

“They’re dead,” Haoyu says bluntly. Crossing his arms with a stonefaced expression, returning to his soulless facade. “We can’t wish for anything from them anymore.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” I say apologetically. Though sympathy was probably the last thing either of them wanted, it was the only thing that I could think of

Hujin waved off my concerns. “It’s fine, it’s not like it hurts…that much.” She cradled herself, looking a bit shameful. “Um…I mean, they’re our parents, so I should feel sad, but…” She shoots a pleading glance at me

“Don’t feel bad, I’m kinda glad they’re gone.” Haoyu blurts out. Then he grumbles  “I couldn't even force myself to cry at their funeral.”

I look at him, mostly a bit confused, before coming to an understanding. “So, I’m going to assume they weren’t the best of parents?”

“Far from it,” Huifen chimed in, sounding almost nonchalant…or detached?

Haoyu remained silent from here, his face suddenly becoming pale as if he said something he shouldn’t have, he’d occasionally glance at his twin but other than that he was frozen.

The air was getting more suffocating by the second. I opened my car door and slid in. “Um…thanks for accompanying me. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I lock the car door and drive back home.

chapter 2 release tbd

#original novel #original character #original writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #authors of tumblr #orignal novels

[sunny-desk]

4,252 Days Chapter 1: Day 1, Pt 1

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Fic Summary: FTWD re-written to include an OC named Gemma who has a platonic relationship/friends with benefits situation with Nick Clark and then goes on to be with Troy Otto. Chapter Summary: Gemma sees a guy run into the road and get hit by a car Word Count: 1177 Author’s Note: This is a big commitment, hopefully I stick with it. I'm excited. Gif from here.

“Please say you’re calling with good news.” Gemma can feel the pre-emptive disappointment radiating through the phone, almost hotter than the 8AM summer sunshine beating down on her as she walks along the street.

“Hello, Olivia. It’s so good to hear your voice. I’m doing well, thank you. How about you?” Sarcasm and semi-fake niceness hung on every word.

“Stop stalling, we saw each other an hour ago, you know how I am. How did it go? Did they suspect the undercut? Because I told you, Gem, it’s silly but it’s true, they’ll judge you for it.”

“It went great, Liv.” Gemma replied simply, not wanting to keep this going and make her friend more annoyed at her than she knows she already is. “No undercut suspected, zero tattoos spotted. I have to go in for a bit of training tomorrow but after that it’s a long weekend before I start properly on Monday.”

Olivia lets out a sigh of genuine relief through the phone, Gemma can tell she’s smiling as she talks. “That’s great, Gem! Really, that’s so great. I have to get back to work but I'll see you back home later, okay? We can talk about it more then. Maybe plan a way to celebrate a little? Alcohol free, of course.”

“Yeah, sounds good. Talk later.”

Gemma hangs up the phone, puts it in her navy blazer pocket and pulls her hair out of its low ponytail, replacing it with a high one, showing off the undercut Olivia spent 10 minutes stressing about helping her hide this morning. Working in a posh office where she has to hide even the most basic parts of herself isn’t exactly the dream but beggars can’t be choosers. She needs this job. She needs to get back on track.

She can already picture her life a few months from now, a little bit of money in her pocket, new clothes she’s been in need of for weeks, finally able to pay Liv the rent she’s owed. An apartment of her own is the real dream but that might be thinking too big right now and living with Liv definitely isn’t a problem. She can picture it though. Flat screen TV, dark green sofa, huge fluffy rug that feels like you’re walking on a cloud. A bit of saving and hard work at a job she’s pretty sure is going to be mind-numbing and it'll be real before she knows it. There’s a smile on Gemma’s face as she walks down the street thinking of the future. Things might finally be looking up.

-

The loud screech of tyres and the distant thud as something hits the hard road takes Gemma out of her daydream and back to reality. It’s like time freezes for a few seconds as she stops in her tracks, taking in the scene before her.

Black marks on the ground lead up to a small silver car stopped in the middle of the road. Its windshield is smashed and Gemma is pretty sure there’s a small dent on the bumper too. The driver is sitting there, shock on his face, probably not sure if what just happened is his own fault or the fault of the person who just bounced off his windshield and is now laying almost unconscious on the concrete. The other people in the area have stopped too. Some look annoyed that their morning has been disturbed, others look horrified.

There’s a quick rush as time starts again and Gemma runs towards the car and the fallen boy. On closer inspection, he looks rough. No shoes or socks, a half-torn, baggy, white shirt, ill-fitting jeans, hair that seems to not have been brushed in a few days. Gemma peers over her shoulder at a building across the road. She’s been living in the area long enough to know where that boy came running from. It likely wasn't the driver's fault. But it probably wasn’t the boy’s either.

He’s laying on his back, staring up at the sky. Gemma leans over him.

“Hey. Can you hear me? It’s okay. You’re okay,” She says, though she’s not sure that’s true. He looks quickly around him, as much as he can while still laying flat on the floor, and then looks Gemma in the eyes for a second, like he’s checking for something. “Just stay still.”

Looking up, Gemma realises that other than the driver, who took a few seconds to build up the courage to get out of his car and check the damage, she is the only person who has rushed over to help.

“What the hell are they all doing? See a lad get hit by a car and just stand there, seems reasonable, ugh,” she mutters angrily to no one in particular. Looking around quickly, scanning the small crowd, she spots a woman with her phone in her hand and points, “Oi, you, phone someone! Now!”

“No, I’m fine,” the guy mumbles as the woman lifts her phone to call and begins walking over. She hesitates slightly at his comment.

“Ignore him. He’s been hit on the head. Call them.”

He starts trying to sit up, probably faster than he should. Gemma crouches down and reaches out, preparing to attempt to catch him if he starts falling backwards. She makes a mental note to buy some work trousers that she can properly bend in with her first pay cheque. Liv can have these one’s back, if they survive the day.

“I’m fine. I’ll just.. I’ll walk it off, you know. Thanks.” He’s distracted when he says it, not fully in the moment and not looking at Gemma but instead surveying the area once again, searching.

Gemma pretends not to notice. “Walk it off? In whose shoes?” She says it playfully, trying to distract him from whatever this is. He doesn’t seem right. And he can’t just get up and walk this off.

He pauses and takes a look at his grimy, bare feet. “Have you never heard of shoeless hikes? You should try it sometime. It’s great, really.”

Gemma smiles slightly. “Sure it is. Listen, just lay back down, okay? Or at least just stay sitting. You don’t know what could be wrong. The ambulance will be here soon.”

“Nothing is wrong. Uh, I’m Nick, you’re British, it’s.. Tuesday..?” He counts on his fingers. “Well, it’s definitely a weekday. See? Everything..” He starts looking around mid sentence, “...is,” distracted again, more searching, “… fine.”

Gemma follows Nick’s gaze and realises he’s looking at the old abandoned church longer than he’s looking in any other direction. So her assumption was right, that is where he came from.

“I’m Gemma. It’s Wednesday. Stay put.”

Nick turns his head back in her direction. He slumps like he’s lost his fight, exhausted, or has decided whatever he’s worried about doesn’t need worrying about right now. He doesn’t say anything as he lays back down on the floor, giving up his attempts to leave. The shrill sound of an ambulance siren can be heard in the distance.

-

As the ambulance pulls up, accompanied by a police car a dozen feet behind it, the driver of the car finally finds his voice. He’s been standing there for a few minutes, nervously smoothing out his work suit, trying to think of what to say. He speaks fast, trying to get everything out before anyone official gets within hearing distance.

“Listen. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you, okay? You seem fine.” He turns to Gemma. “He’ll be fine, right? Nothing needs to come of this. I’ll just... be on my way.”

“Spineless.” Gemma mumbles under her breath before looking back at him. She may not think the incident was necessarily his fault but there’s a way to handle it and it’s not this. Looking directly at him, eyes cold, she continues, “I don’t think you’re going anywhere mate, the police are right there. They’ll want a word, I’m sure. And look at him. Does he look fine?”

Nick is still laying on the floor, not moving much. It's like the adrenaline and shock have finally worn off, leaving him aching all over, able to feel what just happened to him.

Gemma continues. “And unless you fancy running some more people over, I don’t think driving off in that thing is a good idea, do you? You won’t be able to see anything out of that window.”

The man turns back to his car, noting the huge area of smashed windshield, and runs his hand through his already slicked back hair, uncomfortable. Nick ignores what Gemma has just said and looks at the slightly dishevelled man, mumbling a response, “It’s whatever, man. I have bigger things to worry about.”

Gemma looks to Nick, wondering what those bigger things are. You’d assume it was potential head injury or internal damage from being thrown onto the concrete by a hunk of speeding metal but Gemma doesn’t think so. Nick was concerned about something, being hit by a car wasn’t anywhere close to the forefront of his mind.

Before the man can decide what to do the police and paramedics have closed the distance. The police go straight to him, the medics to Nick.

“Okay then, what do we have here?” Says the commanding voice of a tall blonde woman striding over. She’s carrying a large bag of any potential medical supplies Nick may need immediately and is being followed by a man and a stretcher.

“His name is Nick. He ran out into the road and got hit by a car.” Gemma quickly responds.

“Nick, can you tell me how you’re feeling? Let me take a look at you.” The paramedic bends down to Nick. She checks his eyes and makes a ‘hm’ sound.

“I feel fine.” Nick says while she continues looking him over. He doesn’t sound fine. His voice has gotten weaker the longer he’s been laying there.

“Right, okay,” unsurprisingly, the paramedic isn’t convinced. “We should check you out properly anyway. Getting hit by a car can cause a lot of damage you can’t necessarily see. Let’s get you on this stretcher and then we’ll be right on our way to the hospital, okay?” She says it firmly, it’s not really a question. But Nick doesn’t seem to be in a position to argue anyway.

Gemma stands back while the paramedics get Nick up onto the stretcher and as they walk him the short distance to the ambulance she instinctively starts to follow. No one questions her getting into the ambulance with them and taking a seat, not even Nick, who looks over to her but seems to mostly be in his own world now, thinking about who knows what. Maybe he’s thinking about nothing, in too much of a daze. Or maybe, like Gemma, he’s thinking about the church.

#fear the walking dead #nick clark #nick clark x reader #nick clark x oc #nick clark imagine #troy otto x oc #Troy Otto #Troy Otto x reader #- not going to tag troy again until i get to him actually being in the fic just wanted it to be known that he'll be in it at some point #mine

[shieldofiron]

I have a cute one!!

Billy gets adopted by Joyce and Hop, and they take him shopping for the first time!

Billy never really had someone willing to buy him things that aren’t really absolutely necessary, and he gets all flustered, trying to say some shit like “no I don’t need another shirt! I already have one :)” and Hop is like “that’s literally a crop top”.

Billy gets all nervous again and shyly asks if she thinks Steve will like what he picked out ❤️

Note: I wrote this in bits and pieces throughout a busy work week and only realized afterwards that it is not only in the same universe as Vecnavision 3D and arguably spoils some details of the epilogue. Just FYI if you’re a spoiler free person and you’ve been reading that.

Joyce normally never had to ask Billy twice for anything. Jonathan, Will, Max, even Jane would forget sometimes, or just wait to do whatever it was she asked until she had to ask again.

But Billy was consistent. He would often begin to do whatever it was before she even stopped asking.

So the first time seemed like he just couldn’t have heard her.

“Billy, will you come with us tomorrow to pick out some new clothes?”

He didn’t answer, just sort of froze there, eyes glued to a rerun of Green Acres.

“Billy?”

“Hm?”

“Do you want to come with us to pick out some new clothes tomorrow?”

He shook his head no, “I’m all good, Ms B. Or Mrs H.”

She smiled a little, but eyed his worn blue shirt. He’s arrived with hardly anything at all, just a few pairs of pants and a couple of shirts. After a while the number had dwindled even further. She knew he was wearing socks with holes in them, but he was secretive, sneaking his laundry in when he could.

Max said that Billy would get new clothes at the start of the school year. So even though he was graduated, Joyce waited until the appropriate time when the other kids were going and asked again. He declined, brushing it off with a comment about his shirt being practically new. He was working now too, and she could tell it was wearing on the few things he had.

“Looking a little scruffy,” Hopper had said one night at dinner, eyeing the frayed collar on Billy’s shirt.

Billy glanced at Jonathan, then back at his plate, “Yes.”

Hopper waited, looking at Joyce for help but she couldn’t blurt out the whole thing in front of the kids, and humiliate Billy more.

“I’m going out to get some new shirts tomorrow,” Hopper cut into his meatloaf, “Round 10. That work for you?”

He doesn’t ask precisely and maybe this is why Billy says yes. Joyce can see Jonathan smile encouragingly at the other boy.

“Can I go too?” Will scoots a little closer to the table, “My belt broke.”

“Sure,” Hopper nods, “We’ll make a day of it.”

“You want me to come?” She asks Billy, not even bothering with anyone else.

He doesn’t answer, but she decides it’s better if she does. It’s not that Billy doesn’t get along with Hopper, but he watches him more carefully, seems odd about Hopper being around the younger kids, especially Max. Jonathan used to be the same, but Joyce expects Billy will take more time, need more coaxing.

—-

“Hop give him some time,” She says gently.

“We’ve been to two stores,” Hopper throws up his hands, “I could have a whole wardrobe by now.”

“He’s trying, you can see that right?” Joyce reaches out and takes his hand in hers, “He’s trying.”

And he is. Billy shows them everything carefully, but then he seems to deflate when they ask what he likes. He hems and haws then says what he has is better, he doesn’t need it…

“I know,” Hop says quietly, “That’s why it’s so hard.”

Will makes a little noise and then sinks down in the plastic chair outside the dressing rooms.

“Honey? Is something wrong? You need to go to the bathroom?” She asks.

Will looks at his lap, “I… I was evesdropping again. Last night.”

“Will,” Hop’s shoulders sink, “We talked about this.”

“I didn’t know Billy was using the phone. I was going to call Mike,” Will shuffles down in his seat, looking more like Jonathan than anything else, “Billy was talking to Robin and he said… he said you’re going to make fun of him… call him…. You know that thing. So he’s trying to find something you like and then he’s just going to get that.” Will glances at Joyce guiltily.

“Something I like?” She asks quietly.

“N-No… Hop,” Will tips his chin down.

“I don’t care what he wears for Christ’s-“

“Shut it,” Joyce hisses, “He’ll hear you.”

Hop just sighs, “I’m inclined to just say I like the next thing he comes out in just to get it over with.”

“Don’t do that,” Joyce rolls her eyes, “He’ll get something he hates and never wear it.”

“He liked that black shirt,” Will says softly, “I think. The one over there. He was looking at it for a long time but he wouldn’t pick it out.”

“Go get it,” Joyce elbows Hop, “Size medium. No, small.”

When Billy comes out in a navy polo shirt that looks like it came out of Steve Harrington’s closet, Hop just shakes his head and hands Billy the black shirt.

“T-thanks,” Billy says softly.

“Looks like what you normally wear. I like it,” Hop says gruffly, fingering the collar of his own Hawaiian shirt.

Billy doesn’t say anything, but Joyce can see his fingers tangle in the soft material of the black button down. It’s a simple thing, just a black shirt with pearl snap buttons, but it looks like Billy when he comes out.

“Looks Good,” Hop nods, nudging Joyce, “Looks good right?”

She nods, her throat a little too tight to speak when she sees Billy play with the snaps, undoing one or two and looking at himself in the mirror, touching briefly to the brutal scar on his chest.

“It will look nice with your work vest too,” Will piped up, “Better than your red shirt.”

“Yeah,” Billy smirks, “Harrington says I look like Christmas.”

His eyes flash to Hop in the mirror, but Hopper just chuckles, “You kinda do. Family video has been looking awfully festive lately.”

Billy’s shoulders relax a little, “T-think he’ll like this one? Steve?”

Hopper nods, “Probably. But we can see if they have it in red too, so you can keep up the Christmas spirit.”

Billy’s jaw works and then he smiles, “Well, I do like red.”

It’s not that much easier after that. Joyce still has to ask, and ask again if Billy will get new jeans, but they finally get him a few new things.

Billy even picks out a Hawaiian shirt, faded burgundy with white and blue flowers. This time when Hop says he likes it, they both smile.

-*-*-*-

@hickory-smoked-ass tysm for this ask it was my light in the tunnel of a super hard work week.

#asks #billy hargrove #harringrove #harringrove ficlet #Billy Hargrove & Jim Hopper #billy hargrove & will byers #billy Hargrove & Joyce byers #billy hargrove fanfiction #harringrove fanfiction #vecnavision 3d #slight spoilers

[ttzjune]

Charles Leclerc x Reader Fanfiction

pretty much a slowburn fic, but future smut and a few more things

Social media + normal (faceclaim @millieleer on ig)

Masterlist

Part 2 - Part 4

A/N - im still getting used to writing normal stuff, so im very sorry if this isn't anything special. But we need to build a little and then at some point the spectacular things will come. Thank you for reading!

Warm rays of sunlight shone through the window onto her back. She sighed, turned her back to the window and snuggled deeper into her pillow.

She leaned over the edge of the bed and took her phone from the bedside cabinet.

She sighed again when she saw the time 09:28 am, there was nothing worse than waking up before your alarm clock.

she slowly stood up and stretched with a funny noise (who doesn't know that noise hahaha?)

She grabbed some underwear, a pair of pants, a shirt and socks from the wardrobe and then went into the bathroom where she showered and got ready.

When she was done, she went downstairs and put her keys, charger cable and wallet in her bag before putting on her jacket and shoes to go to her car.

The weather in Bodø was still quite cold, her warm breath visible in the cold air.

She got into her car and drove carefully to her parents' house, the roads were still quite icy and the danger of slipping could not be ruled out despite the winter tyres.

When she arrived, she greeted her parents and her brother lovingly.

In the restaurant they sat down comfortably at the table and her parents told her about their retirement, since her parents retired they tried to see as much of the world as possible and every time they saw each other again they talked excitedly about their experiences and their future plans.

"I was accepted into the university" Her Brother said happily and she gasped excitedly.

"Really? I'm so proud of you!" She said and hugged him tightly from the side.

"Yes! I start university in October and then I'll be through in about 6 years! ugh that sounds so long". he said and laughed.

"Just out of school and straight back in, but we believe in you, you can do it! her father said, smiling proudly at his son.

"And you?" her mother turned to her and smiled happily at her. "Have you got a new modelling job yet or any ideas for a new song?"

"Well the last song, 'Nightcall', went down really well. i'm talking to my management about doing a tour like that, but i'd like to release an album first, so i'm working on that." She said and took a sip of her coffee. Her parents nodded.

Her Brother turned to her "When you go on tour, I definitely want to be there to support you."

"It's still January, but if I really manage to finish the album and go on tour before October, I'd love to have you there from time to time. She said and turned to her meal that was being served to everyone.

Her mother nodded and looked at her eldest daughter with a teasing grin. "And any news on the love front?"

She slowly looked up at her mother and shook her head. "Not since what happened and even if there was any news I will only tell you when I am sure it will be serious"

Her mother nodded understandably and turned her gaze to her Son who was already looking at her.

"I have met someone. Her Brother said and smiled sheepishly. "I met him in the library and he asked me for my number, we've been on two dates now".

She grinned at her sibling "Oh yes! And how was it? How is he?"

"Very nice and interesting, he can really talk for hours about my interests and his and it doesn't get boring. He is also very funny." Her brother sighed dreamily and then turned back to his food.

She looked up at her parents and grinned at them, who grinned back at her with a teasing smile.

After brunch, they said goodbye to each other and drove home. Once home, she sighed and sat down in her office with her favorite drink and some fruits.

She took her pen and paper and thought about what she could write the songs about in her album, she sighed again and put her forehead on the table.

She looked around her room for inspiration and gasped when she saw her bookshelf, maybe it wasn't so hopeless after all.

#f1 #f1 x reader #formula1 x reader #formula 1 #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc #slow burn #writing #fanfic #norway

[thebomb-thebird-andtheburntbitch]

This is technically a continuation of this post!!

-x-x-x-

prohero!bakugou who's been gone on an overseas mission for months with no contact to those who he left in Japan

any down time he's got he's at least reading through the texts he gets

a few from his mom, a couple from his dad, maybe a handful from his friends about all sorts of random shit he may or may not care about

then he's reading all of yours. He'll read all the new ones, then if he's really feeling his Emotions(TM) he'll start rereading everything

he'll also catch up on his voicemails, even if he doesn't have very many because most people know he won't listen to them or he'll go into his mailbox and just start mass deleting

but he does listen and keep all of yours

i mean, why wouldn't he? he asked you to do exactly what you've been doin everyday since he left

highlight of his days honestly

he's convinced that its the daily messages from you that help keep him off the next flight home- it sort of eases the urge to just go back home

but he does the mission from start to finish and when his date back is finally set he's itching to get back to familiar sights, soil, smells and the place where you are

but even when he knows when he'll be home, he still has no jurisdiction to tell you that

he'd have to wait until he's on the plane back home or even landed before he could whip out his phone and speed dial your phone

when he's packing his bag for his return trip, he's never been so disorganized in his life

when he packs for trips, he always prefers to separate everything. all his shirts are folded, his pants are rolled for optimum space, boxers are neat with his socks, toiletries are sealed in a waterproof bag and placed as flat as can be

now?

he's thrown all his shit inside the case and made it fit by force. squishing it all down and pinching the zipper together

he did not care if the zipper busted- he was ready to go the hell home

the entire flight home he was jittery. leg bouncing, finger tapping, arms crossed

he tried sleeping to pass the time, but he couldn't seem to calm down

most of the returning heroes who were coming home with him didn't even try and strike up conversation to make the flight go by quicker in fear of him snapping at them out of sheer impatience

when the plane finally lands, he's first off the plane and first to bag claim and first out the door onto the familiar streets of japan

"holy fuckin' shit," he's mutter, finally feeling relaxed before whipping out his phone and texting you

-wake up-

it was the middle of the afternoon and he didn't know if you were even home or asleep, but it was the only thing he could think to say strangely enough

-you can text!!-

he chuckles as he pulls his suitcase along with him against a wall. standing in the shade, he's attention is solely focused on his phone

he's glad you responded so quickly

it's been so long he couldn't remember your schedule anymore or if it had changed since he left

-i can do a lot more than that-

without much more prodding, your contact was flashing over his screen and he waits maybe a second (if we're being generous) to answer and push his phone to his ear

visibly exhaling when you start talking

"katsuki!"

"you don't need to shout, stupid"

"i'm excited, don't shout shame me. where are you? it's pretty loud over there. meeting? are you supposed to be on the phone right now"

he chuckles at your skeptical nature- like he'd break rules on a big time job in the first place

he's not that stupid

"i'm at the airport, i'm not gonna get my ass railed for being on my own damn phone"

despite his cursing, you laugh

then you register 'airport'

"you're coming home?!"

"nah, babe, i'm already here. come get me."

"what?!"

he barks at the sounds of your rushing around the house, probably scrambling to slip on the easiest pair of shoes you have and a jacket

"i'll be there in like 10 minutes. 20 is traffic is bad!"

"the traffic is always bad"

"i'm hanging up!"

he could hear your excitement before the line cuts and he's grinning before he's sending small texts to his friends signaling his return

when he sees your car pull up to the curb, he's pushing off the wall he's been resting against and you're jumping out of the car

he nearly has a heart attack since you didn't look at the road before rushing out and car were just whipping behind you

"moron! watch where you're going!" he's shouting at you as you run up to him

his grip abandons his suitcase handle to grab you as you ran straight into his chest, clinging to him as he took steps backwards from your crashing impact

his eyes almost rolled into his skull at the feel of you in his arms again after so long

he was positive he'd finally be able to have a good nights rest tonight, he can feel it in his exhausted bones

you pull away from him just enough to look into his eyes and he can see the shine of tears in yours, his hands resting on your hips just enough to sway you back and forth

"welcome home," you greet him

"yeah," he kisses your head "i'm home"

and he wasn't going anywhere else anytime fuckin' soon

#katsuki bakugou #bakugou #bakugou fluff #bakugou scenarios #bakugou headcanons #bnha scenarios #bnha bakugou #bakugou katsuki #mha bakugou #katsuki fluff #mha scnearios

[karahalloway]

Sleepless in New York: Chapter 10 - Darkfall

Series: TRR

Pairing: Drake Walker x F!OC (Harper Gale)

Synopsis: What if Drake met Harper on the first night of Prince Christian’s New York bachelor party? A stand-alone AU written from Drake's POV.

Masterlist: Sleepless in New York

Chapter Summary: Drake tries to navigate a rough night...

Word Count: 5,300

Rating/Warnings: E (swearing, angst, obsessive-compulsive exercise, sexual fantasy, masturbation)

Chapter theme song:

A/N1: Sorry this took soooo long to get out! As per usual, real life has been exceptionally busy, so I haven't had as much time to write as I'd like to.

A/N2: This is also my slightly belated submission for World Whiskey Day, hosted by @drake-walker-appreciation, and the prompt that this fits with (more or less) is 'The whiskey burns my throat like her absence burns my soul.'

A/N3: I just realised that this kinda (maybe?) qualifies for the @springfeverpitch event that was on this week (Apologies! There are a lot of events on at the moment!) In any case, this would count as domestic x home run I guess 😅

Chapter 10 - Darkfall

I kick the covers off with an irate growl.

Un-fuckin'-believable...

After the shitshow of a day I've had, I should be running on fumes.

And I am.

Yet for some reason, I’m not able to nod off. Despite the fact that I've been on the go since 6am and have barely gotten any shut-eye the night before.

Because my body’s apparently a sucker for punishment and doesn’t seem to know when to quit. And even though I know I desperately need the recharge, I also know that staying in bed’s gonna achieve nothing 'cept hypertension.

So, swinging my legs out onto the carpet with a tight-set jaw, I reach for my phone.

02:18

I run a heavy hand through my hair.

The hell am I gonna do for the next six hours?

My eyes land almost unwittingly on the ragged shirt-tail peeking over the edge of the trash can.

I rip my gaze away with gritted teeth.

No. Absolutely fucking not.

It’a bad enough that I walked out on Gale without so much as a half-assed explanation. I ain’t gonna compound my dick-like behaviour by showing up at her door in the middle of the night, demanding to pick up where we left off.

Especially not after everything I've already subjected her to today — getting her fired, burning her in front of her friends, pulling her into a fight, dragging her on a forced route march 'cross town, and then literally ripping the shirt off her back. And, if that isn’t bad enough, I topped off her night by dumping the proverbial clutch on her when I should've been taking her for the ride of her life.

I swallow painfully. No. That ship had definitely sailed...

Which means it’s high time to take my own fuckin' advice and get her — and this entire mess of a day — out of my head.

No excuses.

And since the overpriced mini bar had let me down, I’m down to my only alternative — running myself into the ground.

Pushing myself up with a resigned exhale, I trudge over to my duffle. Reaching in, I extract the exercise shorts and t-shirt that always forms part of my go-bag, no matter where I went. Because you never know when you’re gonna need to blow off some steam. And going for a run’s a damn sight healthier than disappearing down the neck of a bottle. Even if the latter’s a helluva lot more convenient.

Throwing the clothes on, along with some socks and my well-worn trainers, I turn back to the bedside table to grab my phone and gun...

...and catch sight of the shirt again.

Motherfucker.

Jamming the phone and the Sig into my pockets — it always pays be prepared then be left holding your dick when shit inevitably hits the fan — I march over to the bin and yank the accursed thing out.

Scrunching it up, I turn on my heel, and stomp out of the room, snatching the keycard up on the way. Wrenching the door open, I let it bang shut behind me as I head down the corridor.

I cannot catch one goddamn break tonight...

Reaching the lifts, I briefly contemplate calling one. But given that I’m already wound tighter than a two-dollar watch, I know I won’t be able to stand the wait, no matter how brief.

So, I divert instead to the fire exit. Pulling the heavy door open, I throw myself into a jog and take the stairs upwards two at a time.

I guess I could've just as easily gone downstairs. But I don’t trust myself not to wind up at Gale's brownstone again if I hit the streets. Which means that the only place I can conceivably go is to the top-floor gym.

Which — all things considered — is probably the better bet anyway. Because going for a jog in the dead of night around the City That Never Sleeps is a risk not worth taking. And even though Central Park’s less than a block away, it’s not actually an option, given that (a) it’s shut overnight, and (b) it isn’t the best lit, and I don’t particularly feel like getting jumped by a knife wielding yahoo, or twisting an ankle on an uneven path.

Plus, I'd have to be a monumental idiot to even think about leaving Chris unattended again. Not that I expect to him go anywhere at this hour — except maybe all the way with Hayley. But I’m not about to make the same mistake twice in one day.

Christ knows I paid for it hard the first time 'round...

I feel my legs start to burn as I continue to climb relentlessly. But knowing that this is exactly what I need if I’m to have any hope of catching some zzz's tonight, I ignore the discomfort and push myself on.

Arriving on the 25th floor, I pause on the landing to catch my breath. But the short burst of exercise has merely thrown me a second wind. I still have a long way to go if I want to waste myself completely.

So, moving over to the stairwell door, I pull it open and step into the gym. Given the lateness of the hour, there's not a soul in sight, and it's just me and the view.

But there’s one thing I need to take care of first.

Locating the changing rooms, I head inside. And before I can think too much on it, or change my mind, I stride over to the dirty towel hamper and chuck the ruined shirt in...

...and dump a few towels on top of it for good measure.

Dead and buried.

Spinning quickly around, I exit the way I'd come, focusing my attention on the row of TechnoGym treadmills that face out onto the distantly twinkling lights of Harlem in the north, and not on how twisted my guts feel all of a sudden.

Picking a machine, I pull my phone and sidearm out of my pockets and place them onto the console so they won’t bang against my thighs as I ran, but still remained within reach in case I need them.

Taking a deep breath, I step resolutely onto the belt and hit go on a program at random.

The pace starts off sedately, barely faster than a speed walk. Reaching up to the console, I tap the speed up impatiently, not wanting to waste time on a warm-up I don’t need and most definitely don’t want.

I’n here to burn rubber.

The motor kicks into a higher gear, but it's not enough. Even though I’m now at a steady jog, my heart rate's barely above resting and I've yet to break a sweat. Not to mention the fact that my mind’s still fixating on the very thing I need to flush out of my system.

Gale, legs spread and head thrown back, moaning my name...

Raising my hand with a growl, I slap the panel again... and again... and again... until the belt is a blur beneath my feet and I'm pelting it like a demented bat outta hell.

The sudden speed forces my body into overdrive. My chest expands, my focus narrows, and my blood begins to pump in earnest, trying to supply my body with oxygen faster than it was being consumed.

I fall into a breakneck rhythm, limbs pumping to the rapid beat of my breath in a desperate effort to stay on the treadmill.

In... In... In... In... Out... Out... Out... Out...

The minutes and the miles tick past on the screen in front of me, but I barely register the stats. I'm too busy chasing oblivion...

...which remains stubbornly out of reach.

Because even as I push myself to the limit and my lungs start to burn and my muscles start to cramp, I can't escape her. She's still there, hazel-green eyes dancing on the edge of my awareness, the honey scent of her hair tickling my senses like smoke on the breeze.

And even as my vision begins to swim and the relentless pace pushes me to the verge of puking, I don't let myself ease up. Because that would be an admission of defeat and I’m not the type to quite that easy.

Not when there’s so much on the line.

Because beyond the fact that I let myself become consumed by a girl I barely know — an unhealthy and unsustainable hang-up that I need to nip in the bud, pronto — my continued preoccupation also ended up endangering Chris' life tonight.

And that’s inexcusable.

Not only is the guy the heir to a fuckin' throne, but he is my best — and arguably only — friend. And I let him down, both personally and professionally, by allowing myself to get distracted, just because a pretty set of legs had walked by.

And while I somehow managed to salvaged my colossal fuck-up, and we all walked away tonight without any casualties, I probably won’t m be able to pull a miracle like that out of my ass every time.

Nor should I expect to.

Especially not during the social season, when Chris is going to be constantly in the spotlight, shaking hands, being interviewed, always in an exposed setting. All it would take is one moment of distraction, one second of lost focus, for someone to pull a gun, to slip through the crowd, for our worlds to come crashing down.

And I’m not gonna let Chris — my brother — down like that.

I can’t.

So, doubling down, I dig deep and continue to pound the vestiges of my frustrations, my failings, and my regret relentlessly into the treadmill, the hard and fast staccato of my feet against the machine echoing around the otherwise empty space.

I have no clue how long I run for. Minutes? Hours? It makes no difference. Every wheeze feels like my last, every exertion a desperate attempt to break free of the purgatory of mistakes I trapped myself in.

And still I push on. Until I hit the proverbial wall and collapse against it, my vision blurry, my limbs shaking, my clothes drenched.

I stand there for what feels like eternity, feet straddling either side of the machine, the belt still whizzing at breakneck speed beneath me while I cling to the console like a life-line, trying to catch my breath.

And eventually my heart-rate slows, the buzzing in my ears clears, and I regain enough coherence to lift a hand and slap the treadmill off.

Pushing myself up to a standing position as the machine whirls to a stop, I wipe the sweat from my eyes and glance at the screen in front of me.

10 miles. 56 minutes.

I scoff wryly. Well, fuck me if that ain’t a new personal best... Who knew that self-pity could be such a potent motivator...?

Exiting the menus, I grab my stuff and move to step off the machine... only to very narrowly avoid face planting into the floor.

Oh, shit...!

Grabbing the console, I shake my head to try and clear the sudden nausea.

Christ, I feel awful...

My eyes land on the water fountain and I lurch towards it like a drunk out of a bar. Because that’s exactly how I feel like — sluggish, light-headed and stumbling around like a newborn calf. Which is no surprise considering I've just run the best part of half a marathon as if the Devil himself had been after me, having consuming nothing but two bottles of beer beforehand.

Apparently I do hate myself.

Managing to make it to the far wall without any incident — just — I lean over the dispenser to inhale the cool stream of water, nearly making myself choke in the process.

But I know I need to rehydrate myself, otherwise I’m gonna be in a world of pain in a few hours' time. So, after overcoming the initial shock to my system, I force myself to loosen up on the pace and start taking longer and slower gulps.

Having finally satisfied my body's cravings, I let go of the dispenser button to run the back of a trembling hand over my water-soaked mouth.

Sweet Jesus, I’m a mess...

I can’t remember the last time I pushed myself this hard on a workout.

But then I've never felt this way before... Like I’m an idiot, like I missed the pass, like I’m stuck in a maze with no way out.

And even though the hard run had managed to clear my mind, that latent feeling of... something is still there, writhing just beneath the surface, like an unscratchable itch under my skin.

And maybe it'll never go fully away. But I’m not about to give up without putting in a damn good fight.

Pushing myself up, I turn towards the pool. And even though I haven’t brought any swim trunks with me, my feet are already pulling me towards the siren call of the water.

Because if there’s one thing that’a guaranteed to set me right, it’s a full-body dunk.

Arriving at the side of the pool, I peel my sweat-soaked clothes off, leaving only my boxers on for the sake of modesty in case someone happens to walk in.

Taking a breath, I step out over the edge and plunge straight in.

The sting of salt hits my nose — not the same flavour as the Med, but then no pool’s ever gonna compete with that — as the water envelopes me and I let myself sink below the surface.

I hit the bottom and the echoey silence settles like a blanket around me, soothing my senses, taming my pulse.

I've always loved the water. Even before I could walk, I'd make a butt-shuffling beeline towards the end of the beach where the waves crashed onto the shore, unveiling a treasure trove of crabs, seashells and shiny rocks.

Of course, Mom'd been terrified that I'd get swept out to sea, or drown. So, to appease her fear, Dad had started taking me to swim lessons — first at the local therapy pool, but graduating quickly to the higher classes in the lap pool as I learnt to float, hold my breath, and leap off the diving board, all by the age of three.

From there my obsession only grew. I joined the school swim team, the water polo team, and even got certified as a lifeguard over the course of one summer. In short, I spent almost as much time in the water as out of it.

And then Chris introduced me to sailing.

At first I couldn't see the appeal of drifting around the Med on a sofa-sized boat when you could be swimming in it. But I've never been able to say 'no' to my best friend, so when he insisted I join him for a spin around the marina in his new Wayfarer one evening, I'd begrudgingly said yes. And had become instantly hooked. The speed, the technical precision, the feeling of flying over the water — it was all addictive.

Jack Sparrow'd had it right when he'd said that a ship is not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails. Because even though those things are integral to the make-up of any craft, what a ship — or yacht, or catamaran, or any other vessel — really is, is freedom.

And for a restless 14 year-old, there was nothing more attractive than ditching the world to hang out with your buddy in the middle of the ocean, free of worries or adult supervision, just enjoying the endless view while you fished and talked about nothing in particular.

Of course, being teenagers, we were bound to get ourselves into deep water — quite literally. Which is how we ended up deciding that it'd be a great idea to take out a much larger sloop one evening... only to end up paying for that mistake when a storm decided to roll in out of the blue, catching us off guard and capsizing our craft.

And while that particular misadventure had ended up turning Chris off sailing once and for all, it had made me even more determined to get back out onto the water and obtain my ICC license. Which I did, the following summer.

And even though I no longer have Chris to share my maritime adventures with, my love of sailing — and of being out on the water — never diminished.

Because the sea is — and always has been — my personal haven.

Feeling my lungs start to itch from the lack of oxygen, I reluctantly open my eyes and kick back up to the surface.

But I don't feel like returning to dry land just yet.

So, drawing a quick breath, I stretch myself out and dip into an easy freestyle. Half-a-dozen strokes and I reach the edge of the pool. Diving down, I flip myself around to kick off the wall, resurfacing into a backstroke.

I repeat the pattern for about ten laps, enjoying the rare sense of peace that comes with gliding weightlessly through the water, strokes moving effortlessly in time with my breath.

Eventually, though, I’m forced to call it quits as my body finally runs out of steam and my rhythm starts to falter.

Grabbing onto the edge of the pool, I pause to catch my breath, arms and shoulders tingling from the exertion...

...and I suddenly realise that I'm starving.

Which, all things considered, is hardly surprising. The last time I had anything to eat was at that Midtown stake-house at dinner-time, which was over eight hours ago. And since then I've probably burnt through 800 calories' worth of pure stress, not to mention all the physical exertion I've put myself through. So, my blood sugar levels are shot.

Pulling myself out of the water, I pad over to the other side of the pool to collect my gear.

I briefly contemplate having a shower, but quickly ditch the idea on the basis that (a) I hadn't brought a change of clothes with me, and (b) I can’t trust myself not to go rooting for the ruined shirt that I ditched in the changing rooms earlier.

So, brushing off the worst of the water, I head straight for the lifts.

I’m not expecting to cross paths with anyone at whatever time in the morning it is. And if I do... well, they can suck it up. It's not like I’m walkin' around buck-ass naked.

Arriving back on our booked-out floor, I make my way to my room. Fishing the keycard out of the pocket of my shorts, I let myself in and flick the door closed behind me.

Dropping my exercise kit by my duffle, I locate the 24-hour room service menu and do a quick scan of the options.

A couple of items jump out at me, but knowing that I'll probably have breakfast with the guys in a few hours' time, I don’t want to have anything too heavy.

But then my eyes land on the cheeseburger, and before I can think twice about it, I've reached for the hotel phone and I'm putting the order through.

And even though I tell myself that it's because I never got to finish the one back at the dive bar two nights ago, I know that I'm lying to myself...

...so, I add a bottle of whiskey to the order for good measure.

Because I don’t want to blow up all my hard work by falling back into the same emotional sink hole that I only very narrowly managed to drag myself out of just now. So, I need something to distract myself.

Hanging up, I quickly sort my sweaty clothes out and stow them in the duffle before making my way into the bathroom to have another shower.

Once done, I throw on my jeans and a t-shirt (not bothering with socks or underwear) and flick the wall-mounted TV on to find something to pass the time with while I wait for the food to show up.

Not seeing any movies or series that particularly interest me, I eventually settle on a rerun of an old Pats game...

...but I find my mind wandering.

And it doesn't take long for my treacherous sub-conscious to dig up the very images that have been stalking me all night.

Gale, up in my face out on the club balcony, testing my limits and my sanity with that sassy smile of hers...

Gale, head thrown back and ass pressed up against me as we move to the techno-beat on the crowded dance-floor...

Gale, legs wrapped around me as her nails rake over my skin, fighting to get my shirt off as my tongue invades her mouth...

I groan despite myself, shifting uncontrollably on top of the covers...

...and realise that I've already lost the battle.

Shit.

My eyes land ruefully on the tell-tale tent pole straining the front of my pants.

I huff out a tight exhale.

If there'd been one thing I wanted to avoid tonight, it’s this...

Because I know that as soon as I dip a toe in that particular Rubicon, I’m screwed. And not in a good way.

Because when you've been continuously pushed to the edge, only to be yanked back each and every time from the precipice of release, a plain ol' wank just isn’t gonna do it.

Sure, jacking one out relieved the immediacy of the pent up need. But it’s never gonna hold a candle to the real thing. In part because it’s over in minutes and in part because cumming into your own hand feels about as satisfying as throwing yourself a one-man pity party.

Because sex is a team sport. And trying to run a solo play — when you know what the real thing feels like — is always gonna fall short of expectations. Because when you’re on your own, there’s no one to share the thrill with. To kiss, to tease, to fuck to the limit before letting go so you can finally implode into each other.

Which is why I'd tried my damnedest to exhaust myself so I wouldn't find myself in this situation. At least not until we were back in Cordonia, and I could avail myself of some options...

...'cept now I don’t have a choice.

Not unless I want to greet the bell hop with a raging hard-on...

Because unfortunately for me, my dick has apparently decided that it'd had enough of being baited, and is now gonna bend me over the barrel to get what it wants.

Regardless of the fact that it’s gonna be a massive let-down for both of us.

So, even as I try to shift my focus back to the Pats game — and sideline my ever-growing erection — all I manage to achieve is an even more persistent itch in my pants.

Because despite my resistance, we both know that thanks to the missed opportunity with Gale, chances are good that I’m not gonna find anything resembling decent satisfaction until after the Masquerade Ball.

As even though we'll be arriving back to a Palace teeming with all manner of women — from maids to staff to nobles — that doesn’t mean I’m gonna be casting a net. In fact, just the opposite. I’m not the type to shit where I eat (it causes too much unnecessary mess) and I learnt my lesson about fucking aristos the hard way.

Which means that unless I’m planning to shell out for a call girl — hell'd have to freeze over first — a self-administered hand-job is gonna have to tide me over until there’s a big enough gap in my schedule that I can get away from the Palace for a couple of hours and find some stress relief.

I heave a low breath. Fuck my fuckin' life...

But knowing that I've backed myself into a corner, I reach resignedly for my belt. Unhooking the buckle, I fling it to the side to expose the top button of my jeans. Snapping the fastening open with one hand, I yank the zip down with the other.

The denim falls away and my dick springs free of its confines, its rigid length snapping to attention like an overeager hound that has just caught a scent.

And even though this particular outing isn’t gonna end in the long, hard run we both know we need, that doesn't stop the damn thing from drooling like a mutt in anticipation.

Setting my jaw, I shove my jeans down over my hips, half-heartedly wishing I had some lube or something to try and improve this runaway train-wreck as I reach south...

...and groan out loud as my hand wraps around the warm shaft.

Goddamn...

I’m apparently more deprived than I realised. Though, I guess that shouldn't come as a massive surprise. Especially after the near constant edging that Gale subjected me to tonight, combined with the fact that it's been a good two weeks since the last time I managed to eke out time for a fuck. And that had been mediocre at best.

As if to emphasise the point, my dick bucks against palm, and it's clear that I have a lot of mitigating to do.

Sliding my fist firmly down, then back up again, I set about stoking up a rhythm. And even though it's nothing different to what I've done hundreds of times before, something about the familiar friction sparks an instant fire in my veins.

Maybe it's 'cause I’m exhausted... Maybe it's 'cause my mind’s a mess... Maybe it's 'cause I've gone cold turkey for too long...

But whatever it is, it’s sending me into a tailspin.

I feel my head tip back against the headboard with a low moan as I'm pulled rapidly under by the throes of my self-gratification.

And as my eyes shudder closed in the face of the rising tension, I give myself up to the darkest depths of my desire...

...and in a blink of an eye, I’m back in that cramped apartment, gazing up at Gale from between her legs, the imminence of her climax written on her face, the slickness of her arousal coating my mouth and tongue.

I groan into her as she grips my hair, urging me on with her increasingly desperate pleas, her body quivering above me as she careers towards the edge...

...and I’m suddenly possessed by an all-consuming urge to have her.

Shooting to my feet, with her legs still wrapped around my shoulders, I send her sprawling back over the top of the kitchen counter.

Because I know that we don’t have much time, and if I’m gonna make this happen, we need to do it hard and fast.

And I’m not gonna let myself disappoint her again.

Grabbing her by the waist, I yank her towards me. Her hazel-green eyes widen in shock as her ass dips over the edge of the counter. But my grip on her is unshakeable and she's not going anywhere.

Not yet anyway.

Not until I've fucked her six ways 'til Sunday, and even then I probably won’t let her leave.

Because this girl sets me on fire like nobody else, and I need her to burn with me.

Bending down to give her decadent folds one more self-indulgent lick, I steady her with one hand while I rip my belt and jeans open with the other, not able to take my eyes off her as she writhed before me.

"Drake...!"

The sound of my name slipping off her lips like a fervent prayer unleashes something feral inside of me. Something I didn't even know existed in the dark recesses of my soul. Something that instantly swallows whatever vestiges of rational thought I have left, leaving only one, single-minded purpose:

To make her mine.

And in some corner of my brain I know I should be terrified. Of this rabid hunger that she's unwittingly awakened within me. Of the fact that I can’t control it... and don’t want to.

But I'm already past the point of no return. And I can’t give a rat's ass.

Because the only thing I care about is fulfilling that unspoken obsecration of hers until she’s ruined for all other men.

Shoving my jeans and boxers down with a growl, I grab her hips and ram myself into her in one, brutal motion.

Her wet heat engulfs me, taking me fully, causing my eyes to roll back into my head as I revel in the sheer euphoria of her, her deep-throated cry of agreement rising up around me.

Christ, she feels amazing!

And if the mere act of being inside her doesn’t already feel like pure rapture, she then decides to up the ante even further.

"Fuck me, Drake," she demands, arching her lower back forward.

A guttural sound rattles my throat as she rolls her hips against me, cranking up the torsion as she pulls me in even deeper.

And I could've lost it then and there.

But somehow — whether through sheer force of will, or by the grace of God — I manage to tamp down the rapidly rising swell in order to heed her command.

Because this isn’t about me. This is about her. And I’m gonna make damn sure that she gets what she wants before I let myself cum inside her.

Even if it kills me.

Opening my eyes, I meet her hazel-green gaze with an affirmative smirk. "Yes, ma'am."

She wraps her legs around me expectantly...

...and I slam us together roughly, loudly, unapologetically.

She gasps beneath me, hands flying to the edge of the counter to grip it like an anchor in a storm, her entire body reverberating with the impact of our collisions.

But I don't stop. I can't. I pound into her like a man possessed... because I am. All semblance of logic, of reason, of God-given sense has evaporated and I devolve into the basest version of myself, one that is driven purely by lust and instinct.

And even though I know I won't be able to hold out, that I'll cave in the face of her rhapsodic screams and the almost painful pressure she’s putting on my dick, I'm powerless to pull the e-brake. If anything, it makes me rev the throttle even harder.

Because she just feels too damn good, and I've been at her mercy from the start.

Lifting my head, I lock eyes with her. And in those lust-blown, hazel-green depths, I see more than just need... more than just passion.

I see complete faith.

And it undoes me.

I explode into her with a ragged, animalistic cry, my body jerking with the force of my deliverance.

"Holy... fuck!"

The long-coveted wave of release crashes over me, wiping away my thoughts and my vision, and I'd be convinced that I passed out were it not for the high-pitched ringing in my ears and the thundering of my heart.

A few more pumps, a shuddered breath as the last swell rises, and I’m left drained, floating.

I stay there, motionless, revelling in that all-too brief moment of calm before the chaos of the world spins back up around me.

Sweet Jesus, that w—

Her warm lips brush against my sweat-streaked forehead, her honey-camomile scent drifting over me like a drunken haze...

I move to lean into her. "Harp—"

...but she's already gone.

The story continues in Chapter 11 - Cold Light of Day

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Sleepless in New York only

@bebepac

Picture Credits

Insomnia - Dawn - New York - Run - Swim - Drake - Pool

#drake walker #sleepless in new york #world whiskey day #drake walker appreciation #choices fic writers creations #cfwc fics of the week #drake x mc #harper gale #the royal romance #trr au fanfic

[littlecinnamonroll]

"Don't Wipe Your Boogers on Me!" 

☆ ft. timeskip!Suna Rintaro ☆

☆ Info: fem!reader, some pet-names ☆

☆ it’s nothing but pure fluff cause my suna brainrot is on one recently and all suna content makes me blush like crazy ☆

There was nothing Suna Rintaro liked more than getting a reaction out of you. You weren’t as easy as the Miya twins, and you never passively reacted like Kita, but your green-eyed man new exactly what to do to rile you up.

It started off with little things: slurping his coffee loudly as you watched your favorite show; leaving his dirty socks and t-shirts right on or beside the hamper but not inside; eating leftover poke that you’d written your name on clearly, insinuating that he wasn’t to touch it. And when you storm through your shared apartment with a crumpled up t-shirt in hand, frustratedly mumbling under your breath about how annoying your beloved fiancé was being, Suna loved it.

He didn’t like you angry or sad, no, that was never the case — he loved these moments because it was the perfect video capturing time. Your raven-haired love noticed that without fail, as much as he bugged and pestered and slurped his overly sweet espresso down, you were still simply you. Albeit a little clumsy and headstrong, you never wronged Suna; no pranks, no annoyances, never raising your voice nor fighting with him.

“Hey, Rin?” You called from the bathroom, the sweet smell of your shampoo wafting throughout the bedroom. “Rinnie!”

“I’m coming, give me a second!” he hollered back, connecting his phone to the charger and slipping into the bathroom. “What’s up?”

“I forgot to grab my new body wash and I didn’t want to get the floor wet. It’s on the counter.”

“So?” A playful smirk found its way across his face as he heard you grumbling to yourself.

“Suna Rin,” you cursed as you wiped the fogged glass to stare at him with a cocked brow. “Will you be the best future husband there is and hand it to me?”

“Sure I can.” He sauntered over to the counter and grabbed your shower gel that was supposedly scented like cotton candy clouds. Taking a sniff, he nodded at the smell, examining the bottle closely. “Okay, I got it.”

“Can I have it?”

It was a rhetorical question and Suna knew that, but per his usual antics, his voice rumbled with laughter, “What’s the magic word?”

“May I please have it?”

“Nope. Two more guesses.”

And as much as you wanted to resist, you knew he wouldn’t stop until you guessed correctly. “Abracadabra.”

“Wrong, one more guess.”

“Alakazam alakazoo, give me my body wash before I break up with you!”

He sucked air through his teeth, a devilish grin crawling across his visage. “Oh, so close, pretty baby, but that was your last guess and it wasn’t right.”

Irritated, you went back to conditioning your hair, glancing at his blurred figure through the foggy glass. “You’re annoying.”

His silence was suspicious. The green-eyed man you’d fallen for so many years ago was prone to anything quiet, his soul a semblance of the peace the vast nothingness brought, he was composed and spoke little when he didn’t need to speak, but he was never truly silent.

“Rin? Are you there?”

A response never found it’s way back to you, however, the flushing of your toilet and icy pricks of water did. “Oops?” he snickered as you screamed, stalking back into the bedroom with a content grin.

Hours passed before you voluntarily got near Suna, the tiniest of smiles gracing his lips as you sat beside him on the bed. With his phone glued to his hand and tired sigh leaving his throat, a laugh so familiar echoed through the speakers. His head found its way to your shoulder as he held his phone between the both of you, rewinding the video and waiting for you to press play.

Rintaro was sweet like that. As much as he liked things to himself and he’d get them in his own - rather quirky - ways, he always loved to share. What was his was yours, and what was yours was his. He adored the way your head rested on his own, how your hand lightly squeezed his bicep, how you loved him wholly.

Suna Rintaro was every fangirl’s heartthrob: he was tall, he was toned, his eyes were emerald gems that sparkled with his charming smile. Who wouldn’t love him? If they cared to look past the material wealth Suna held, many of the girls would see the collected swagger and magnificent body was pretty laidback.

You were quick to notice all the public aspects he revealed were both genuine and rouse, learning that every aspect that those girls saw you would come to know deeper. They’d never know that he liked disco music and was a horrible dancer, or that he was very particular about his muscle cupping and way his shoes fit, or that he drooled when he slept if he slept on his right side. As much as he appreciated his fans, they would never know your fiancé like you did.

Pressing play, you watched as you sat on the kitchen counter pouring sake into the new set Atsumu had gifted Rin for his engagement party, realizing that you didn’t notice his phone there before. Suna ran into the living room several seconds later, laughing wickedly as he pulled you off the counter. You ended up licking the side of his face after he wet-willied you, then he held the cup of sake high above your head as you struggled to get it from him.

The video ended with a picture you recognized as Suna’s lock screen. He glanced up to you with a small grin, pecking your jaw, “Hi, beautiful.”

“Hi, Rinnie.”

Maneuvering his 6’3 body from comfortably beside you to snugly in-between your thighs, the small part of you that wanted to ignore him from earlier melted. One hand gently traced the plush of your leg, while the other scrolled through his phone. “Babe, I have this massive pimple on my chin. Scale of one to ten, how bad is it?”

You laughed as your fingers wove through his hair, his face smushing into your leg. “Oh, definitely a ten. It’s mars. So gross. Cootie-contagious, so nasty.”

His lips were warm against your skin, the sweetness of his kiss ever so fleeting. “You’re so funny. I think you should be a comedian.” You hadn’t realized the fingers that were trailing your skin were now an inch up his nose, his other hand still scrolling aimlessly through several socials.

“Oh, Rinnie! Let’s go live! We haven’t done that together in so long!”

He shrugged and glanced up at your reflection in his snap camera, “The pimple can go live, it’s almost big enough to have arms and a brain.”

“Not if I pop it,” you snickered, leaning over Suna and reaching towards his face.

As if it were second nature, the moment he had your attention, he whipped up the finger that was in his nose moments before. “One move and I’m wiping it on you.”

“Suna!” Though you meant to be more stern, it came out as more of a shriek, immediately attempting to pull away. “Don’t you dare wipe that one me!”

“What, my dearest? I don’t think I caught that,” he taunted, his finger moving closer to your face.

“Don’t wipe your boogers on me! That’s nasty,” you coughed out. Pushing his hand away was a feeble feat, he was built like iron. You narrowed your options down to two: let him or die trying. “Ew, ew, EW- Rin, stop!”

But as he took a selfie of the two of you, your loving fiancé finally let up. “Perfect.”

“Delete that.”

“No, I love it. Your horror is cute.”

“Stupid,” you murmured, covering his face in small kisses.

It didn’t matter that Suna drove you crazy every day and tried to more often than not, it didn’t matter that he ended up wiping that booger on you later; it only mattered that by the time your show credits were rolling, Rin was snuggled against your chest, fast asleep. And as much as he bugged the living hell out of you - slurping coffee obnoxiously, dirty socks never landing in the hamper, boogers and all - there wasn’t any other man you wanted to marry.

© 2022 littlecinnamonroll | do not copy, rewrite and repost, or translate my work

#im such a simp lol #suna you can marry me :) #anime #haikyuu!! #haikyu headcanons #haikyu imagines #haikyu #haikyu x reader #inarizaki #drabbles #suna rintaro headcanons #sakusa suna and kita are husband material let’s make it happen #suna rintarō #suna rintaro x reader #suna rintaro #hq suna #hq x reader #fem!reader #no warnings #fluff #hq fluff #idk what else to tag #suna headcanons #miya atsumu

[yikesitskennawrites]

Transitions- Chapter Thirty-One: A Day At The Mall With A Friend

Series Masterlist

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Pairings: Steven Grant x (platonic) Reader, Marc Spector x (platonic) Reader, Jake Lockley x (platonic) Reader, Layla El-Faouly x (platonic) Reader

A/N: This chapter is a little over 15k words. It is 38 pages double-spaced and it is the longest chapter in this series. Please do not expect each chapter to be this length, my minimum word count goal is 3,500.

TRIGGER WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SHOOTINGS AND BOMBS 

—

“Do you have quid on you?” Steven frets. He’s been like this since you told him that you were going to the mall with Layla during the television show you both were watching last night. He asked you plenty of questions about it, what mall are you going to? What time is she picking you up? When can they expect you to be back? Is anyone else going to be there? He’s acting like your parents when they questioned you about your social life and whereabouts. 

“I can give you some, I think I have some in my wallet.” He adds and stands up from the chair, scraping it against the wooden floor with the back of his legs. You stab into your pancake, your fork clanging against the plate. 

“I already told you that I have money.” You say. “I even have some to help pitch in for gas.” You doubt Layla would allow you to pay but you can try, and if she does refuse the money you’ll slip it into her jacket. 

“Do you have your phone on you?” He asks and you nod and verbally confirm for what felt like the millionth time that day. 

“Steven, listen, I’ll be fine.” You say. “Layla carries a gun on her and this time I’m bringing my taser so, if anything happens. We’ll shoot and ask questions later, alright?” You pop the pancake piece into your mouth and chew. It tasted cold but to be fair you have been eating at the dining table for a while. 

“I’ll get you your jacket.” 

“It still needs to be washed.” You say, you haven’t gotten around to doing laundry yet. That was your goal for tomorrow. You were too busy chatting to Layla and Jake and being so excited to see Layla in person that you completely forgot to wash your clothes. You were heading out in a pair of pants you wore a week ago and one of Marc's shirts. You figured that it belonged to Marc because it had a hoodie attached to the pullover and that seems like more of a Marc thing than a Steven clothing item. 

“You can borrow one of mine.” He says. You watch him walk to the coat rack next to the door and pull off a jean jacket before blinking at it. “No, this is a terrible jacket to wear, what if you get rained on or a water puddle is splashed on you?” He hangs it back up and reaches for a brown leather one. 

“Wear this.” He says as he holds it out to you and walks towards you. That was a Marc style of clothing. You know that you saw him wearing the jacket a couple of weeks ago. 

“The weatherman said that it’s forecasted to be cloudy all day.” He adds as he sets it on the back of the chair next to you and scans your body with a look of mild displeasure. His eyes land on your shoes and frowns at them. Your toe has been wearing out the cover of your tennis shoes so it has created a hole at the end of it. You’ve been meaning to search for new shoes, but you got too wrapped up in other things to remember to look for them. 

“Maybe we should get you some thermal socks too…” He says. “I think Marc has stuffed some into the back of the sock drawer.”

“Steven,” You breathe out. “I’ll be fine. It’s not a long ride to the mall and Layla is a good driver.” You decide not to tell him all the traffic maneuvering she did when she picked you up and dropped you off at work. He would go bonkers if he heard about the time that you were running late for work and she went between two buses to skip past them. You swore you had a heart attack by the time that you reached work but you clocked in a minute before you were scheduled to so it was fine. He bites the inside of his cheek as he stares at the hole in your shoes for a moment longer.��

“I’m going to go get you those socks.” He declares before marching off towards the dresser. You almost roll your eyes as you stand from the chair and carry your dishes to the sink to wash them. You scrape the remaining pancake bits and syrup into the trash before holding the plate underneath the running water. 

“I’ll wash those,” He says from behind you.  You jump a bit and glare at him before your gaze softens at the small lump of fabric in his palms. “Get changed into these. Layla will be here any moment.” You set the plate into the sink and dry your hands on a towel before grabbing the socks from him. 

“I’m already wearing socks.” You say. 

“But not thermal ones, I can see your skin color through the fabric of the socks you’re wearing now.” He replies. You look down at the hole in your shoes and frown a bit at the sight that he was correct. Your white socks were thin fabric and the October cold weather is going to make your feet cold especially on the ride to the mall with the cold wind and lack of proper protection for your feet. You sit in the chair and untie your laces, kicking off the heel with your feet before you bend down and pull your sock from your feet and replace it with the thermal ones Steven gave you. As soon as you got them on, you knew that you were never giving them back. Steven made a grave mistake in letting you borrow something warm. These socks were yours until you either lose them or he forcefully takes them back. 

“Wear a helmet.” Marc says. “And hold onto her waist.” You look up at him as you finish tying your shoes. 

“Marc.” You deadpan. “You’re acting like I haven’t rode on her Vespa before.” 

“The roads are more slick.” He says. “It’s October and the rain has been coming down lately.” It rained early this morning but not since then and the weather stated it wasn’t going to rain for the rest of the day and well into the night. He adds, “Maybe I should call you a cab.” You nearly roll your eyes at that. You are glad that they care but this was getting a bit much. Why are they being like this all of a sudden? They didn’t act like this when you went to work yesterday or the week before when it was pouring down rain. 

“Why are you guys acting like this?” You ask

“Like what?”

“I dunno. Like this.” You gesture to Marc. He frowns and crosses his arms over his chest  before you watch his posture slack into one of Stevens. 

“We’re just worried, dove.” Steven says. You purse your lips and stare at him. Why are they so worried? You know that you have a deity interested in you and you just went through a mugging last month, but this level of worrying has never left their mouths. Everything has been decent lately. There hasn’t been anything new with the deity or the remaining cult members so why are they being like this? It was beginning to put you on your toes and worry you more than you bet they were worried.

“Did Jake tell you guys about something that I don’t know of?”

“No-”

“Remember that we shook arms.” You cut him off. “You both promised not to keep anything from me if it has to do with my life.”

“No, he didn’t.” He states. He wrings his hands together. “It’s just that we’re responsible for another human being now and not only ourselves.” You cross your arms over your chest. You could take care of yourself, you proven that over the year that they weren’t in your life. It was sweet that they were taking steps to make sure that you were cared for but it didn’t need to feel overwhelming for you and for them. You tell them that and you watch his shoulders relax and a small breath of air leaves him. Your phone vibrates in your pocket and you pull it out, a text from Layla stating that she was outside of the building glowed on the screen before it went dark. 

“Layla’s here,” You tell him as you put your phone back into your pocket and pull on the jacket Steven placed on the back of the chair. You pat your jean pocket for the cash you took from your tip jar in your apartment, the lanyard with the apartment keys attached to it, and your taser. You haven’t left the apartment without the taser since you got mugged, you were nearly on edge the entire time you went out in public since then. You were excited to see Layla, it’s been a little over a month since you last saw her. You speed walk to the door and tell them goodbye as you do so, your heart pounds against your chest as you try not to show your giddy smile towards the men because it was a little embarrassing to show your excitement. 

“Wear a helmet and zip up my jacket!” Marc says a little loudly as you turn the handle and you salute at him before shutting the door and making your way to the elevator.

---

“Are you dressing up for Halloween?” Layla asks. The mall was busy for a Saturday before the holiday this week. There were plenty of parents who took their children to the fabric store to select costumes for the holiday. Currently, you were standing outside of said store and there were a few costumes on display on a rack. Your fingers grip onto the lace of a bumblebee costume gently as you process her question before letting go of the costume and shaking your head. 

“No,” You say. “My work allows the employees to wear costumes as long as it doesn’t interfere with the job, but I’m not going to.” Your eyes trail over to a costume for Ghostbusters. You only watched the movie once and that was when you and your best friend watched it for the spooky season. You wonder how she's doing now. She’s turning seventeen next month and that’s another birthday that you’re going to miss. You made that decision to miss all of her birthdays and holidays when you committed fraud and spent your college tuition on flying to London. What is she going to do after she graduates high-school? She did say she wanted to become a veterinary doctor, but you don’t know if that has changed since she came back from the blip. 

“Why not?” 

“I’m not interested,” You shrug. “I’m not going to spend money on wearing an outfit that I know I’ll never wear again.”

“That’s not very festive,” She replies. 

“Are you going to dress up as anything?” You ask. She shakes her head. “Did you dress up as anything last year? Or the year before that?”

“Not last year.” She answers. “I was too busy mourning for my husband who I thought was dead.” Oof, ouch. You wince at her statement and she continues, “And the year before that Marc and I dressed up as hippies, but the party we were supposed to attend, we didn’t make it because Khonshu wanted his knight.” Khonshu being a party-pooper once again. At least he’s consistent and you know what to expect from him. 

“Oh man,” You say. “I’m sorry.” You don’t know what else to say other than that. She waves you off.

“It’s fine.” She shrugs. “He had his serving to do and I was told that the party was lame.” For a moment, you wonder if she’s making up the bit about the party being lame just to make herself and you feel better. 

“You can dress up this year.” You say. “There’s nothing stopping you.” She eyes the costumes and shakes her head a little. 

“I’m getting too old for it.”

“You said it, not me.” You say and she rolls her eyes as she gives you the middle finger and causes you to laugh. Your steps are in sync as you walk down the hallway of the mall and take in the decorations. There were Charlie Brown and Snoopy inflatables along with some cartoonish Dracula near the outlets in the walls. Fake cobwebs and spiders strung around the poles. Fake autumn leaves were taped to the walls and bats were strung from the ceiling. The Halloween spirit was on point this year, it was mainly to make it seem welcoming and inviting for the holiday but it also paired well with the haunted attraction they were building in one of the spare rooms. Above it, it says that it used to be an EAT which was a restaurant but it went out of business, so now it was being used as a spare room for whatever seasonal use. 

“How was Switzerland?” You ask. In the center of the large hallway were some small rides for young children. It was the type that would sway you side to side or rock you back and forth in a small machine that looks like a school bus or a taxi with a green orb dude whose colors are scratching off. You used to love those as a kid and you would beg your parents for a dollar to have a good two minutes worth of fun. You would also beg them for any quarters to put into candy machines or fake tattoos slots. 

“It was good.” She says. “I got the job done.” You smile at her as she stops in front of a brochure case. You don’t know what job she did and you don’t want to ask, but you know that she was back and she seems happy so that was enough for you. You watch her grab a brochure for horseback riding in London and another one for an aquarium in the city. 

“We could go to these sometime if you’ll like.” She says as she holds up the paper. You nod at her with a smile on your face. “You want to go in there?” She asks and juts her chin to the clothing store across from you. It kind of looked like a Hot Topic from the outside of it with its dark interior and edgy clothing hung up on the walls and rows of accessories and stuffed animals. You would go there all the time in New York because you liked to look at the clothing, some of it was your style, but you mainly just enjoyed it because it was cute and felt a little unique compared to the other clothing stores with name brand fashion.

You nod and follow Layla into the store. The items were the typical stuff companies would try to sell to teenagers. Bracelets and necklaces with pop culture icons, Harry Potter merch, anime t-shirts that you vaguely recognize because someone in your math class freshman year was into it. Funko pops were stacked on shelves in the far corner of the store. It definitely smelled like teen spirit and with the twenty five dollar band t-shirts, it was a company selling overpriced items to young adults and teenagers who adored these fandoms and artists. You walk around the small crowded space, there are a few teenagers selecting lace tutus and purple and green striped stockings. One of them held a witches cap with fake twigs wrapped around the base.

You stop in front of a rack with candy and energy drinks with anime characters printed on the labels. You were considering getting something for your friends since you owe them big time. You already gave Layla her glass rose that you bought her when she was on her trip in Switzerland and she adored it. You were glad to make her happy. But, you still owe your neighbors something since you have yet to buy them strawberry waffles and Jake something else since you don’t know if he cares for the breakfast food. Your eyes trail the candy, most of it was gummy, taffy, and Harry Potter candy but the one thing that stuck out to you the most was the pack of marshmallows in the shape of cats. The design on it was an anime that you don’t recognize, but it looked good. Jake would like those, you thought. He was complaining about you eating all the marshmallows out of the cereal and now he will get his own bag of some cat shaped marshmallows. 

You grab one bag off of the hook and then take another. What if he likes them enough that he will want more? A few feet away, Layla looked at the bags of Harry Potter with the horcrux designs and the stag patterns on it. You would like to buy one of those bags for her since the movies seem to be something that she enjoyed but with the prices of how they were in the United States of being up to eighty dollars for a small backpack, you could guess that it was about that price here. You watch her reach for the tag and turn it over, letting out a hiss between her teeth as she lets go of the tag and takes a step back. 

“Sixty-eight pounds.” Layla speaks quietly as she walks towards you. Maybe you could buy one for her for Christmas if you have enough saved up. Wait, does she celebrate Christmas? If she doesn’t, you can buy her the bag for her birthday, wait, when is that? You’ve been friends with her for a while and you don’t know when the day of her birth is. Shame on you. Hot damn.

“What is that?” She asks and gestures to the bags of candy in your hands. 

“Marshmallows,” You say. “I think Jake will like ‘em.” Her eyes flicker between you and the bags before she looks elsewhere. You know that she doesn’t care for Jake much, from what you know of, they haven’t talked much since he asked Layla to babysit you. But you weren’t absolutely sure since they could be talking while you’re at work or asleep and Jake is doing his missions. 

“Layla?”

“Yeah?”

“When’s your birthday?”

“October twenty-eight.” She answers. You pull your phone out of your pocket and check the calendar, that was on Tuesday this week. Shit, you need to get something for her. You’re working on Tuesday too so you won’t be able to spend the day with her. 

“You should have told me sooner, so I could have taken the day off.” You tell her. “We could be celebrating your birthday together.”

“That’s what I’m doing today.” She says. “Hanging out with my favorite kid.” You stare at her with soft eyes. 

“You invited me out to the mall and you didn’t even tell me about your birthday.” You say. “I feel terrible.” 

“Don’t be.” She shrugs. “Just enjoy today and after thirty birthdays number thirty-one isn’t going to be any different.”

“You’re turning thirty-one?” You ask and she gently pushes you towards the counter to check out your items. The cashier shoots you a smile that you can tell is fake just because you have experienced that same look. You can tell that they don’t want to be at work today, who would want to work on a Saturday anyways? But corporations want their money and bills need to be paid. 

“I am.” She says. You glance over your shoulder before you place the marshmallows onto the counter and pull out some bills from your pocket to pay for it. The cashier doesn’t ask about your day or if you had any plans for the weekend, and you’re glad for it, you hate unnecessary small talk with strangers. She places the items into a bag and gives you your change before sending you off with a receipt. 

“Thirty-one is old age.” You tell your friend as you walk out the entrance of the store and pass a small group of teenagers who look to be about your age, laughing and huddling around the benches lined against the wall. She gives you a look and you laugh at it. You add, “You’re almost to the age that I always thought you were.”

“Ugh, do I even want to know?” She says. The corners of your lips raise as you stare ahead with the plastic bag of goodies in your hand. Your eyes trail to the teenagers, the sound of their laughter makes you feel a little jealous. You have a friendship with your neighbors, Layla, and Lauren but you don’t have anyone your age that you could speak to or just vibe with. You missed out a lot on your teen years. You missed out on homecoming, prom, watching movies in the theater with your best friend, celebrating your sixteenth birthday with family and friends. You’ll miss out on the senior scavenger hunt that they do for the high-school seniors on their graduation day. 

You missed out on laughing like those kids are with any potential friends you could have made over the last couple of years. You’re going to miss out on your class graduation. You’re not going to be able to walk across a stage in a cap and down and receive a diploma you worked hard for the last twelve years of your life. 

“Probably not.” You say. You don’t feel the words leave your mouth but you hear your voice speak it and the groan that leaves her at your response. You keep your eyes on the kids, trying to ignore the jealousy simmering in your stomach as you watch them have a good time. You’re seventeen and you’ve been acting like an adult for two years now, you are the one who got yourself into this mess. You are the one who allowed yourself to become tangled in strings so tightly that you are knotted like you would be in a spider's web. You shouldn’t allow yourself to feel jealous over a group of kids your age.

“You need to get some friends your age, kiddo.” She says. You already had this conversation with Steven over the last month. He was trying to encourage you to go out and make some friends with young adults. He wants you to have healthy connections with people who aren’t over the age of thirty and have children. He wants you to be happy with someone who is at least twenty since you’re that age on paper and hang out with them and have a friendship with someone who doesn’t go to bed by nine and their alter protects the travelers of the night. You know that he means well and you’re glad that he cares enough to point out that hanging out with a thirty-eight year old neighbor was odd and a little weird for your age. 

But, you explained to him why you can’t exactly do that so many times before that it has become like a script in your mind that you read off whenever he opens up a conversation with the topic of friends. You can’t make friends your age because you’re seventeen and committed fraud and it would be weird to be known as a twenty year old hanging out with some seventeen year old high-school students. That sounds like you would get the police called on you. So, you stick to Fridays and Saturday nights being spent with Steven, Marc, and sometimes Jake if he decides to front, hanging out instead of spending them with fellow seventeen year olds.

“I know,” You tell her. Your fingers tangle with the plastic bag handle and twist it around your fingers. You tear your eyes away from the kids and begin to walk towards a thrift store. “I need to get something for you and the boys. I’m thinking that Marc would like something yellow.”

“Why yellow?” She asks as she follows you, temporarily picking up her speed to catch up before falling into strides next to you. 

“He seems like he needs some bright colors in his life and yellow reminds me of happiness.” It’s a bright color like the sun and it radiates warmth and it’s a welcoming tone. “I think he would look good in a yellow sweater, do you think the store has anything like that?”

---

It took three different clothing shops to find an affordable yellow sweater in Marc's size and you found a knick knack of a miniature glass frog you found in the thrift store for Steven. You know that he will love it, you just hope that he’ll keep the shelf clean enough that it won't get buried and shatter underneath books or fall to the ground if he puts it on the bookcase. You bought Layla a ceramic cup with pink and purple polka dots painted on it. Someone donated it and it became your treasure. You had enough money left over to buy Layla lunch and maybe yourself something if the prices are cheap enough. You know that Layla won’t let you buy her food if you can’t eat anything in the food court, so you hope that there’s some kind of meal deal. You feel terrible about not knowing her birthday is coming up. This meal and the cup can be her gift, you’ll definitely look for something online once you’ll get back to the apartment for a proper birthday gift. Layla and you stood outside of a woman's clothing store by the front window and she was eying a brown purse with leather flower patterns on a mannequin. The bag looked expensive without you needing to look at the price tag on it. 

“Are you hungry?” You ask and she looks away from the purse and to you. You twist the brown sacks handle that contains the gifts for the four of your friends. The marshmallows and its plastic sack were combined into the same brown sack so you don’t have to carry around two separate bags in the same hand. 

“You ate breakfast, right?” She asks instead. You nod. You still felt a little full from breakfast, the vegan pancakes felt heavy in your stomach. But you wanted to treat her to lunch, maybe you’ll buy yourself some lemonade from the food court. “I’m alright.” She says and you let your frown spread across your face. Within the few weeks that the two of you shared Stevens apartment while Jake was out on his mission, you noticed that Layla didn’t eat food until hours after she woke up and she has claimed that eating too early in the morning has caused her to become nauseous in the past. So, you doubt that she has eaten anything.

“I’m feeling thirsty, though.” You say. You were determined to get some food for her, it was going to be her birthday week in a few days. You follow the signs towards the food court and she falls into steps next to you. 

“How’s school going?” She asks. You shrug as you begin to smell the food of fried rice and hear the chatter of people eating in the court getting louder as you get closer.

“I’m passing my classes with C’s and B’s, so it’s going.” You tell her.

“When’s your exams?”

“My finals are the week before Christmas in December.” You say. “I’m excited for the term to be over with.” 

“Not having a good time learning?”

“No,” You snorted. “The subjects are boring and it’s difficult to focus on them when you listen to some teacher drone on and on about math or history and they don’t make it interesting. Like, the bubonic plague that spread across Europe in the 1300’s I was excited to learn about because that was something I thought was going to be interesting, but the teacher just made it boring and it felt like it dragged on forever.” 

“I’m sorry.” She says and you wave her off. It wasn’t her fault that you couldn’t get interested in the subjects. 

“The one class I like is art and all I have to do is draw for this term and the next I get to paint and in the spring I get to do sculptures. I think there’s clay I can buy on Amazon but I’m not going to be too worried about it until then.”

“I can teach you how to sculpt if you want.” She offers and you spare a glance at her. “I have some clay and a wheel at my place, I know the owner of a pottery shop and she’ll let us borrow her kiln to heat it.”

“Really?” You ask and she nods which causes you to smile. “Okay, thank you.” 

“Have you sculpted before?” She asks and you shake your head. “Okay, cool. I get to teach you something fun and I’ll make it interesting the entire time.” 

“You don’t have to.” You say.

“I know.” She smiles. You were closer to the food court and you noticed that most of the tables were taken except for a few near the edge by the farthest wall with a mural of London on it. The floor was the same gray and white tiles throughout the mall save for a few stores with light brown wooden flooring. There were skylights above you for natural lighting and the sky was gray and cloudy. 

“What do you want?” You ask her. 

“Well, you said you wanted lemonade, so here's some-” She reaches into her jacket pocket and you take a step back. 

“No, lunch is on me. What do you want?” She frowns. 

“I’m not letting you buy me lunch. I should be the one buying you lunch, I invited you out.”

“I don’t give a shit about that, Layla. I’m wondering what you want to eat and giving you the option to choose or I’ll choose for you.”

“Bullshit.” She says. “I’m not choosing.”

“Oh yeah? The Panda Express place smells good right now. Orange chicken and brown rice? Maybe noodles.” You hand her your bag as you take a step back into the direction of the restaurant. “Tell me what you want or I’ll pick for you.” She keeps silent and you shrug. “Orange chicken it is, baby.” 

“I’ll pay you back,” She promises and you roll your eyes. 

“The fuck you will.” You tell her. “Go pick a spot for us.” You watch her stare at you for a moment longer before she gives in and turns her body towards the tables and stalks off. A small victory smile forms on your face as you turn your body to walk to the line for the oriental restaurant. The line was a little long but it was to be expected for lunch hour, you don’t mind waiting if it meant that you could get Layla something. You reached the end of the line near the first set of tables, about seven people were in front of you and two people filed behind you. Your eyes scan the lines for the other restaurants, all were about equally occupied as this one. The smell of the chicken and the cinnamon rolls from one of the other restaurants made your stomach growl. 

You turn your head towards the tables to try and spot Layla, your eyes scan the sea of unfamiliar faces as you search for her.  You spot her across the court, closest to one of the entrances of the mall and to the cinnamon roll restaurant. She sat at the table and took out her phone to occupy herself. Your eyes trail away from her and to the same group of kids you were jealous of earlier, eating at one of the bigger tables closer to the center of the court. You watch them talk about something that you couldn’t hear due to the volume of everyone else, but from the looks of humor on their face you figured it was something funny. You squash down the feeling of jealousy continuing to simmer in your stomach and begin to turn around to step forward since the line has moved ahead within the last couple of minutes; but the feeling turns into a knot and deepens tightly in your stomach, making it almost hard to breathe. You inhale a sharp breath, warm air filling your lungs as you search with frantic eyes for the cause of it. You know that it’s the fucking deity, it happens every time they’re around. 

You jump when the person behind you asks you to move forward. You let out a shaky apology, your eyes still scanning the area around you for the deity before you tear your gaze away and step forward. The knot somehow seems to tighten and it nearly causes you to fall over in pain. You have never experienced it being this terrible, why now? You were always at the apartment when this happened, always on your own except for last time. Why here, at a mall, filled with hundreds of people? You look over your shoulder for Layla, you need to tell her. You already filled her in on the knots and anxiety feelings you get when the gods are around, but she clearly has no idea that it is happening at this moment. You twist your body around as you hold your stomach through Marc's jacket. 

You need Layla. Your eyes land on her and she was still looking at her phone. Phone. Oh fuck, you can call her. Your hands tremble as you reach for the pocket in Marc's jacket that you zipped your phone in. Your eyes were trained on Layla, somehow hoping that she would feel your gaze and look up to see whatever pained and terrified expression you wore. You only tore your eyes away from her when the sight of three men standing around a small table meant for two people and placing a large black duffle bag on the surface caught your attention. One of their sleeves was rolled up and you felt your breath get taken from you when you spotted the scale tattoo on his arm. The woman that urged you forward moments ago asks you to again as you finally unzip the pocket and pull out your phone. The knot in your stomach loosens a tiny bit and it becomes easier to breathe through the pain. 

You take a step back as you look down at your vibrating phone, there were several new messages in the group chat that you, Steven, and Layla were in. It takes a couple of tries to unlock your phone and with each failed try you take a split second to look at the fuck the men were doing. Your fingers tremble as you open the group chat and press the call button, you were too worried to search for Layla's contact and call her directly. You stood your ground as the woman asks you for the third fucking time to move forward and you stepped out of line instead. You swore you felt the hair on your arms stand up as a soft breeze pushed past you while you listened to the phone ring once before Layla answered.

She says your name softly as she stands up from her own chair and looks for you. 

“Layla-” You say, your voice cracking as you watch the men leave the bag on the table before walking towards the entrance. 

“What is it? What’s wrong?” She asks. 

You hear a beep before Stevens' voice fills your ear, “How do you bloody use this thing?” He asks. 

You swallow as you say, “Deity. Bag.” Your brain begins to short circuit as the anxiety running through your veins seem to wrap itself around your throat as if it was a noose and begin  to slowly tighten. 

“Deity?” She asks incredulously, you try to make out her expression from where you stood. It was difficult with the people passing in front of her and the distance between you two.

“What’s wrong?” Steven asks and you try to swallow down your panic to open your mouth and explain what exactly is wrong when it happened. Whatever the bag contained went off and somewhere near you another one followed and another one after that. You felt like you were pushed to your left from the third blast. You fly several feet across the room and roll several times until you eventually come to a stop and lay on your back with your eyes closed. Your ears ring and your heart pounds against your chest as you try to grasp onto what happened. Your body aches from the landing and rolling, but as you slowly wiggle your fingers and toes before moving onto your legs and arms and then your torso, neck, and head, you come to the conclusion that it was just bruising and no major injuries.

You face the ceiling as your eyes peel open and the ringing in your ears comes to an end. You can hear a baby crying somewhere and small children calling out for their parents. You blink hazily at the skylight above you, trying to remove the blurriness from your eyes as you listen to the sound of crunching glass and calls for help. The gray clouds shift in the sky and you watch it for a moment before your eyes trail to the small brown thing peeking over the edge of the skylight and peering down at you. It takes you about three seconds before your brain registers what it is. The falcon stares at you and you blink slowly at it as the clouds behind it open temporarily and show a patch of blue sky before more clouds cover it. Your stomach churns as your anxiety spikes through the roof at the sight. The knot tightens and you watch as it tilts its head at you as if asking if you were going to lay there and die or get up and fight. 

The god was a falcon, waiting for you to die. Almost like it was a vulture that smells death from several miles away and it’s been stalking you for months now. They are waiting for you to die and then what? What comes after that? Or is their patience thinning and one day they really would drop you out a five story window instead of waiting? You don’t want to stick around and find out if that day is today. You stare at it for a moment longer, half expecting for it to break the glass and swoop down to claw your eyes out, but yet it just watches you. You push yourself up on your elbows as you look around the room for the friend you came with. You hope that she is alright and breathing. 

You need to make sure she is okay. You think that she was lucky enough to be away from one of the blasts but you weren’t totally sure. You try to stifle the feeling of panic as you watch fire consume the walls and the welcome sign hanging from the ceiling swings to the ground from the fire. You cough from the smoke as you look to your right towards the wall with the murals and watch as people stand and look around them. Your eyes flicker to your phone a few feet away, the screen is glowing with new cracks and a light dusting across the surface. You roll onto your hands and knees before crawling towards it, occasionally breathing out deeply through your nostrils as small splitters poke into your palms. You reach your phone and grab it, glancing at the call time increasing up to four minutes and twenty-eight seconds before it passes that and continues rising. 

You bring the phone to your ear, hearing some muffled speaking and yelling on the other end of the line. It was an echo of the same call from Layla's phone on the other side of the room. You stand as you look at where you last saw her. Through the smoke and debris you saw someone rising from the ground. 

“Steven?” You speak, your voice cracking halfway through the word. You listen to the sound of distance yelling through your phone, trying to decide if your friends were on the other end of the line or if it belongs to the chaos around you. You turn on your heels and walk towards the area you last saw Layla, you try not to trip over any debris and look down at possible bodies of people. Your stomach churns at the thought of stepping over bodies or stepping on corpses as you make sure that your friend is okay. 

“¿Estás bien?” Jake asks at the end of the line. “¿Estás herido?” You don’t know what he’s saying but from the concern in his tone you know that he’s worried.

“Jake?” You ask as you watch the figure with the all too well known curly hair slowly turn their head to look at you. You cough as you inhale air too quickly and watch as she bounds towards you, her arms up in a hug and a pair of bronze wings attached to them. 

“Layla.” You say as she approaches closer, a cut was above her eye and blood trailed down her eye brown and over her lid. She says your name softly as Jake says something else in Spanish, this time a little more frantically and you hear something banging against something else. You pull the phone from your ear as you wrap your arms around her and she hugs you back just as tightly. 

“Are you hurt?” She asks as you pull away and look her up and down. You shake your head, the white cloth and bronze body armor was all too familiar to you. You saw the Tiktoks of the Scarlet Scarab fighting alongside Mr. Knight against Harrow. 

“Holy shit.” You breathe out. Your eyes were wide at the sight of the wings Layla wore. “You’re-you’re-” You struggle to put your thoughts into a coherent sentence. She looks amazing, you want to tell her that. But, you felt a little upset that she didn’t tell you she was still Tawerets avatar when she told Steven she wasn’t. 

“Yeah, I know.” She says.

“Are you hurt?” You ask and she gives you a bitter-sweet smile. 

“No, I’ll heal.” She answers. She glances to her right towards the fire consuming the building. “You need to get out of here.”

“Yeah, no shit.” You tell her. “You need to come with me.” You cough as you inhale more smoke and she shakes her head.

“No, I have a job to do.” She says. Her hands rest on your shoulders and you bite your lip hard enough to draw blood. You don’t want to leave her alone, you know that she can handle herself, she has a gun and she’s an avatar for a goddess. But you were terrified of leaving her on her own and not seeing her again; and against all the cells screaming in your body to get the fuck out of a burning building, you fought your fear enough to tell her that you’re staying and helping. 

“The fuck you will.” She says, narrowing her eyes. You spare a glance at the burning entrance. There’s two more at the other ends of the mall. You hope that those aren’t on fire and people can escape through there. 

“The fuck I won’t.” You say. “I’m not leaving you and there’s too many people that need help.” You both stare at each other a little angrily, both of you know how stubborn the other can be. 

“The sooner we stop arguing, the sooner and more likely we can get people out.” You add. She huffs out a breath and glances to her left, you follow her gaze and watch as a mother picks up her screaming child and limps further into the mall to retreat from the fire. Buildings can go up in flames quickly, especially when the sprinkler system isn’t going off. It doesn’t take Einstein to come to the conclusion that whoever set the bombs also turned off the water system. 

“You’re just a kid.” She says. You tear your gaze away from the woman limping down the hallway with the child on her hip.

“Yeah and you’re just an old woman who's turning thirty-one.” You shrug as you take a step back, pieces of table splintering underneath your feet. “The young are always drafted in war and the old stays home. I’ll find you when I’m done!” You yell and glance down at your phone. The call was increasing to eight minutes and thirty-seven seconds and continuing on past that. You raise your phone to your ear as you turn your body and carefully walk over the remaining pieces of chairs, tables, and peoples belongings. 

“Jake?” You say. 

“¿Estás bien? ¿Está bien Layla?” He breathes out quickly. “Estoy en camino.”

“Jake,” You repeat his name softly and choke back another cough. You still have no clue what he’s saying but you felt like you had to reassure him. You would be terrified for them if the roles were reversed. “We’re okay. I’m helping people get out.”

“You need to get out.” He states. You hear a bang in the distance, causing your head to whip to your right and stare down the hallway the lady and the child passed through. You flinch as you hear another bang. It sounds a little too similar to the gunshots in America for your liking. Every fiber of your being told you to run and hide as you listen to another gunshot and another one. You take a deep breath to help calm yourself as you step forward, deciding to speed up the process of getting people out rather than being a deer caught in headlights. 

“Funny, Layla said the same thing.” Your voice shakes as you try to sound calm and not panicked like you were internally. 

“And she’s right.” He grunts out. You listen to honking on his end and what you think are swears in Spanish leaving his mouth. “Fucking move!” He yells and the honks increase. Part of you wants to tease him about possible driving a limo to a mall that just got bombed and now is having a shooting since you don’t know how else to cope with this but you don’t. Your eyes land on someone laying down next to where the table bomb went off. Smoke was still coming from the remains of the bomb and the fabric of the duffle bag and surrounding object. Your eyes trail to another figure laying feet away from them and another one. The knot tightens in your stomach as you bend down to the person closest to you and your breath catches, causing Jake to repeatedly call your name and slam his hands against the steering wheel. You recognize them, they were the kids that you were jealous of. 

They look younger than you, especially the boy who was laughing hours ago with his friend. He looks like he was fourteen, he still had his baby fat cheeks but now it was sliced open and blood poured out. His mouth rested with a frozen laugh on it and blood streamed out of the corner of it. His brown curls were damp with the body fluid that should be in him and not soaking his clothes and skin in. His brown eyes were open and now becoming filmy and staring at you. He took his last breath at some point looking right at where you stood with Layla hugging and arguing. 

“¿Qué es?" Jake asks and you swallow down the lump in your throat and jump when you hear another gunshot, this one closer than before. You whip your head to your right and watch as the smoke lights up temporarily while another bang happens and two people run from that direction. 

“I’m okay.” You whisper. You don’t feel okay, you feel like you want your mom and dad and to be back in New York, away from here. You want to be anywhere but here. You want to be back in Stevens apartment and buried underneath a mound of blankets as you listen to him read you those Dr. Seuss books. You want to listen to Marc talk about Chicago baseball and his favorite year that they played which is 2016 since they won the World Series that year. You want to sit next to Jake as you talk about the constellations with him and he teaches you a few Spanish words in return. You just began your deal a couple of days ago.

“Perra,” He told you. 

“What does that mean?” You ask. 

“Bitch.” He answers and you laugh; and you think he smiled but you weren’t completely sure because he drank out of the cup of coffee you made for Marc. You pretended not to notice his possible smile so you wouldn’t embarrass him or make him switch seats with Steven or Marc. You were worried that you weren’t going to leave this mall alive, the knot in your stomach loosens and then tightens and loosens again. You nearly throw up whatever remains of your breakfast as you tear your eyes away from the boy on the ground to search for other survivors. 

 You let out a shaky breath as you look at the other teenager, her hair was stained red and you would have thought it was dyed if it wasn’t for her visible blond roots. She laid frozen with her head tilted at the wrong angle and her body still. You forced yourself to look at the next body, you needed to check to see if they were breathing. Another kid, this one looks awfully familiar to the first, laid against a wall separating the cinnamon roll store and the tables. His eyes were closed and his chest unmoving with a thick piece of wood penetrating his torso. His head tilted down and blood coating his shirt. You think they were siblings. The last teenager was face down in a pool of blood, pieces of debris stuck out of their back and thighs, their black hair was parted enough to show the white of their skull and the flesh of the muscles and layers of meat that never shows the light of day. 

The sight is what makes you throw up, your shoes are covered with bile and blood that does not belong to you. You’re here at the age of seventeen and checking for breathing people to help escape the fire and the bullets yards away from you. Seventeen years old, you are a child in war like these other kids were. Elias Dean. These four kids and so many more in this room, let alone in this mall. How many children will have to die before Harrow's cult realizes that Ammit cannot be raised? How many people will have to become casualties in this war before they stop trying?

“¿Pequeño?” Jake asks quietly. You need to find someone to help. This can’t all be for nothing. You cough and stand up straight as you listen to bullets get closer and the flashes of lights through the smoke become brighter. You couldn’t focus with a phone pressed up against your ear and the knot pulling at your stomach like it was tightening strings. It was hard to make a decision of what to do. You don’t want to hang up, you want to listen to Jake because of the minimal comfort it brought you but, you don’t want him to listen to you die if you get shot or the fire burns down the building with you in it. Get people out, make this worth it. 

“I have to hang up.” You tell Jake. He curses at your statement. 

“Don’t hang up.” He warns. “I’m almost there.”

“I’m sorry.” You tell him. “I’m not much of one for warnings are I?” You couldn’t vanish from Marcs and Stevens' lives even after he held a knife to your throat.

“Fucking fuck!” He yells. You hear him release a shuddered breath and you think it catches in his throat. Mr. Shows-No-Emotions was showing hell of a lot more than you have ever heard from him. You weren’t coming out of this one, were you? He knew the chances and he didn’t think they were good; and honestly, neither did you. Tears prick your eyes as you step over the glassy eyed teens and rush towards the mural. The fucking deity knew too, they were waiting for you to be on your last breath before swooping down and taking it from you. You slip in a pool of blood and someone's newly bought clothes but you caught your balance before hitting the tiled floor.

You were about to pull the phone away from your ear and press the end call to make it easier for all four of you. You bet your whole life that Steven and Marc were listening in on the conversation, but he begged and Jake Lockley never begged. “Por favor, pequeño. Please.” 

You have never heard Jake Lockley beg before and you thought you would never see the day that he did. You knew this situation was bad, but it was much more terrible for Jake to beg for you not to hang up. You hear more gunshots and a baby wailing loudly. This time the gun shots seem to echo much more loudly in the food court. You turn your gaze to your left and you watch Layla help up a elderly person and push them through the employee's only door for a restaurant. If you can’t get them out, start hiding them well. Your taser presses against your torso through Marc's jacket. Marc taught you self defense and Jake took you to the roof tops and taught you when you couldn’t sleep. You know how to throw hands, you know how to defend yourself. Not against bullets but all you have to do is disarm them and even out the playing field. You can do this. Easy. You swallow a laugh as the smoke begins to sting your eyes. You need to make it out of this to go to Stevens place and let them see that you are okay. You need to make it out of here. You still owe them those strawberry waffles. 

“You’re on your way.” You reassure yourself and him. “You’ll kick names and take ass and all that fun jazz.” You pause and your eyes land on the sight of a baby crying in a stroller with blood splattered on their chubby cheeks and a man lying next to them with his hand wrapped around the wheel of the stroller and filmy eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling above him. You tear your eyes away from the man and to the red face, wailing baby. You don’t know much about babies, but it looked to be younger than a year old. 

“You hang up and I’ll turn you into the police.” He threatens. That’s not much of a threat; you have an eighty percent shot of dying here. 

“Yeah?” You ask as you press the phone between your ear and shoulder as your fingers fumble with the button to press for the seat belts to let go. You hiss out a breath between your teeth as you accidentally pinch your fingers with the clasp of the belt before it releases and you pick up the crying kid. You hold the child to your chest, not quite sure if you were holding them correctly but at the moment that doesn’t matter. You just need to get them to safety. 

“I will fucking do it.” He warns. You grab your phone and hold it against your ear as you walk towards the employee entrance and push through. 

“Thanks for the warning, Jake.” You tell him and remove the phone from your ear before hanging up. The end call screen flashed with thirteen minutes and twenty-one seconds before the screen lit up with a call request from Steven Grant. You ignore it by placing the phone into your pocket and zipping it shut before switching arms with the kid and unzipping your other pocket and grabbing the taser. A handful of Men, women, and children were crouched in the kitchen of the restaurant. Some were holding pans and pots and others were holding each other. The lights flickered in the restaurant a few times before going out completely and the only lighting was from the emergency exit lights above the door. 

“Layla?” You called as you stepped over a woman's legs and walked further into the room. She doesn’t answer and you feel worry gnawing at your stomach even worse than before. She’s an avatar, she can handle herself, you thought. But still, it didn’t settle right with you that she was out there, preparing to lay down her life for the remaining survivors. The baby in your arms cried into Marc's jacket, saliva getting all over the leather. You should take it off, the building was heating up and it was beginning to get unbearable. Besides, you don’t want to get Marc's jacket gross and bloodied, do you? You look around at the survivors, debating on who to pass the kid to. 

Children in war, You thought bitterly, children losing parents as young as the age of a few months old. You swallow as you feel the phone vibrate in your pocket and you bend down to ask a woman holding her own children to take one more. 

“Where’s your mom?” She asks as she takes the fussy baby from you. You think she’s referring to the baby’s mother. 

“I don’t know.” You say. 

“You don’t know where your own mom is?” She asks. Oh. Oh she’s talking about you. You know it doesn’t matter about telling her that your own parents died two years ago.

So, instead you say. “She’s, uh, out there.” You point to the doors. Somewhere out there, Layla was searching for wounded and breathing humans. You need to go back through those doors and help her. The knot in your stomach loosens, the air feels stiff as you listen to more gunshots and the crackling of the fire spreading. 

“Oh,” She breathes out. 

“Is there a way out of here?” You ask, it was too dark in here which meant that there were no windows for people to crawl through. 

“There's only one exit.” A man says from somewhere behind you. The same one you entered through moments ago. So, everyone is trapped in a burning building and with a group of people willing to shoot up the place. Nice. This building sure as hell ain't up to code. Maybe you could sue the city for not putting in multiple exits for stores and restaurants, that is if you live. You didn’t realize that the baby stopped crying until you turned your head in the direction of the exit, your eyes met the red glowing sign. It was the same color of your kitchen since Jake stole that lightbulb for you. You turned your taser in your hand as you felt the knot in your stomach tighten and a breeze against your back as if it was encouraging you to step through the doors and put your life more at risk for helping others. 

Hopefully, you don't tase yourself and drop it this time. You unzip the jacket and set it on the counter, you think you can hear the phone still vibrating in the pocket. Marc would tell you to pick up the phone, that’s why he bought it, to make sure that you are okay. What’s the point of having a phone if you weren’t going to answer it? To which you would grumble and tell him that you’re sorry you didn’t answer and that would be the truth. Sweat dotted the back of your neck and forehead as you fumbled with the turn on switch for the taser before pressing the button. There’s three ways you could absolutely die here, one: smoke inhalation. Two: a bullet making its home in your body; and three: the fire consuming the building and burning you alive. None of those sounds like great options, if you’re being honest. 

You take a deep breath, the smoke itching your eyes and throat as you walk towards the door with shaky steps. You breathe out slowly as you crack open the door and peek out of it, searching for anyone nearby that is attacking the building. A few men holding guns with their sleeves rolled up to their elbows searched the area, you jump as you watch one point a gun at someone on the floor and pull the trigger. The room lights up in that direction and the knot in your stomach tightens and loosen just as quickly as if the god was pulling on the strings and tugging you out the exit. You crouch on your hands and knees and crawl out the door, making sure it doesn’t slam behind you as glass cuts into your palms and knees. You crawl towards the edge of the wall that separates where the tables once were and the restaurants. You lean against the wall as you listen to their footsteps crunch glass and slowly scan the area for survivors. You swallow a gasp as the light fixture above the entrance by the burning fire loosened and fell to the ground with a loud bang. Okay, there’s four ways you can die here: being crushed by the roof caving in or the objects falling on you. 

This was a terrible idea, playing hero and hoping to save anyone else who remains. You turn your head to your left as you watch one of the men walk towards the directory, someone leaned against it and it was hard to tell if they were breathing or not but it didn’t matter when they put a bullet into their skull. There was glass crunching to your right and you can hear the sounds of their footsteps walking around the wall and towards you. Within the next couple of minutes you may be dead and that falcon will get what they want. You don’t know where Layla went, she may have went further into the mall to rescue others and you were dumb enough to bring a taser to a gun fight. It really is your own stupidity that will kill you. There’s not many places to hide in the food court when three men are wandering around with weapons and putting bullets into the brains of anyone who may or may not be dead. 

You listen to the man to your left walk from the directory and towards you. You heard about the saying of life flashing before your eyes, but you always thought it was some kind of film that would play in your mind in split seconds like it does in movies and books. Like some cheesy side-by-side film that someone took. That everything the brain would try to comfort you with is good memories of times that you wish you could stay in and of smiling loved ones; but, you understand now that it was an existential crisis rather than life. For you, every regret filled your mind like the flood gates released and your brain gave up trying to barricade them from you. You regret almost every decision you have made from the moment that you have forged papers to move countries. 

You regret not reaching out for your aunt and best friend, you regret not spending more time with Lauren and her family. You regret not looking more into universities for astrophysics degrees and careers. You regret not meeting your neighbors sooner and becoming part of their lives. There’s so much you wish you could change but you don’t have years, you have seconds left before a bullet is placed in your brain and the falcon wins. The falcon will finally get whatever the hell they want and you don’t know what that is. The fucking falcon. You tilt your head back and look up at the skylight above you. A falcon that only you can see stares down at you, the cloudy sky now a bright blue and clear of any clouds behind it; and through your stupidity, you thought it was forecasted to be cloudy all day. Actually, you were sure of it because Steven let you borrow Marc's jacket because it was cold and cloudy, right? 

Why does that matter when you’re about to die? You’re obsessing over the weather when you’re about to go into the afterlife. But, that's the thing, you’ve been obsessing over plenty of things lately. You were obsessed over theories of who the god may be and Jake brought up the idea that it might not be the same god who healed you; and as much as you hate to be the metaphorical lantern attracting mosquitoes as known as other deities, you agree with him. You carried around a protection symbol for months without any real knowledge of what it  might mean. It was the beacon for other deities, for the family members of Horus; and although you haven’t done any research on the family, you know a little about this particular god you carried around in a Ziploc baggie. God Horus was depicted as a falcon. He’s depicted as a falcon in the glimpse of the book that you saw on the table when Layla was baby-sitting you that day she brought paint and canvases for you. He was also sketched on the page you carried around as a falcon head and the lower half of the body being human. 

What if he’s been the falcon? But that second god, the one that healed you, was someone else? What if he was the one the god sitting on the window ledge of the apartment complex across from yours and eating that dead mouse? You stare into their beady eyes and he tilts his head to the side as if asking if you have figured it out yet; and you’re sure you have. You think you understand now. You think you know of an idea of who this god is and of course it’s the moment before death. In the corner of your eye, you can see the man raise his gun and aim it at you, but you keep your eyes trained on the falcon above you. You watch him spread his wings wide as if he was about to break through the window to swoop down and pick you up to only drop you from the air to crack your skull open like falcons do to their prey. 

Like how the god held out a window and threatened to drop you five stories to the pavement below. You wanted to die weeks ago in an alley after you lost your phone and was beaten and left for dead. But, that falcon was never there, you don’t remember looking up at the buildings and seeing them look down at you. So, why are they here now? Why is Horus here now? Why is he tilting his fucking head to the side and waiting for something to happen? Within the last near two months, you nearly became a different person. The you who wanted to die in that alleyway was not the same you in this moment. You’re not ready to die, and the one thing that you know about falcons? They like the thrill of hunting, they like the fight; and you sure as hell are not going down without one.

You swing your taser at the man feet from you and hit him directly in the nether region. The taser clings to the ground and rolls a few feet from him as he bends down to clutch himself. You quickly push yourself up onto your legs as he pulls the trigger and misses your feet by inches. You body slam your shoulder into him, causing him to stumble backwards a couple of feet from the impact and to drop his gun which you kick away. It slides across the floor and rests roughly eight or so feet from you and you take note of that. You curl your fingers into a fist and pull your arm back before letting out and punching him directly in the face. His head whips to the side and you shake your hand as pain erupts from it. Okay, maybe you still need to practice on your punches. 

“Perra.”  You spit out. He turns his head, clutching his face with one hand as he glares at you. A small trail of blood trails out of the corner of his lips and down his chin, you felt a little victorious at the sight. His brown eyes flicker towards you, an odd sense of calm in them which unnerves you as you lift up your hands and prepare yourself into a fighting stance just like your friends taught you. Feet shoulder length apart and hands up in front of your chest with your dominant hand being the furthest from your opponent. Deep breathe in and prepare to kick names and take ass or however that goes. Your eyes stung from the smoke and tears form, you blink them away as you watch the man stand there for a moment before reaching into his sweatshirt pocket and taking out a handkerchief. He gently pats it against his chin and you wait with baited breath for him to do something. You were already anxious but it made you more so as you wait for him to do something. Why wasn’t he swinging hands with you? Why was he being so calm?

You hear the sounds of broken glass crunching behind you and the feeling in your face becomes numb as your heart drops in your chest. Right. There were two other men with guns sweeping the place. Your heart drops in your chest as you watch him neatly fold the cloth and place it back into his pocket. He was confident the whole time because he had two men watching his six while you had yourself and a taser that’s on the ground. Great, you were about to become as holy as swiss cheese. You really shouldn’t have played hero. Layla was somewhere in the mall and all you can do is hope that she was safe and helping others out at one of the other entrances. You hope that she won’t stumble across your corpse but rather some poor EMT or police officer so she won’t have to deal with seeing you dead. 

You can feel eyes on you and you know it's not from the three cult members. Horus, his beady eyes burned into your skull and yet, you kept your own trained on the man before you. You took a deep breath, one that would be your last and you try not to go into a coughing fit as you try to prepare yourself for hopefully the one bullet that will enter your skull and take you out. Something flickers in your peripheral and you don’t bother to look at it, you hear the gunshots before the noise of them ricocheting off of something. You wince at the sound before you look over your shoulders and there stood Layla with her wing held up as a shield. You feel your heart skip a beat at the sight and a small grin settles across your face. 

Holy shit. Layla El-Faouly saves the day once again. You heard more clinging of the bullets ricocheting off of her wings. You breathe out a laugh, maybe you weren’t going to die just yet. You look back to the man in front of you and trailed your eyes to the fire, it was getting hotter in here. Sweat trails down your skin and your shirt clings to your body. 

“You should have fucking stayed hidden.” She says loudly. “I am grounding your ass when we get back.” You roll your eyes and jump a bit when a bullet enters into the tile a couple of feet away from your feet.

“We’ll talk about that if we make it out.” You reply. You’re not going to let her ground you but the thought of it was kind of amusing.

“Are you trying to negotiate with me?” She asks incredulously. You can feel her back brush against your own and you think you hear one of the men fall to the floor but you’re not sure. You hope that they’re being taken down while you prepare for your own fight with the man before you. He lifts up his sweat shirt and takes out a hunting knife. Why is it always the fucking knives with bad guys? First you brought a taser to a gunfight, and now it’s suddenly a knife fight and hand-to-hand combat. 

“No,” You say. “Just telling you we can talk about it.” She groans and you can feel the tension in the room come to a boiling point. So much for a day to relax and spend time with your friend. Why is it that every time you try to have fun, something has to come crashing down? 

“Just go hide!” She yells and as much as you want to, you just can’t allow her to sacrifice her life for everyone else. You know that Marc and Steven died in Cairo, but they never went into detail of how they died. Jake told you that Harrow shot them, but not much more than that and if Khonshu was around, why did he let his avatars die? And since they did die, Taweret can let Layla die too. She did say that she can heal, but couldn’t Marc and Steven get healed too as Khonshus avatars back in Cairo? You can’t hide and let her fight Harrows members alone, you can’t risk losing her.. So, you stand your ground in a burning building with smoke filling your lungs and making it difficult to breathe as you decide that you will die next to your friend's side so they are not alone.

You still owe Marc and Steven those strawberry waffles and you hope that you are able to buy it for them. You’re definitely going to haunt their ass if you do die here. You nearly freeze as you watch the man charge towards you and you manage to turn around and wrap your fist into Layla's cloth dress and pull her to the side so you’re both out of the path of the man barreling towards you. She tells you to fuck off and hide and you ignore her as she turns on her heels and tells you to duck, which you do. She pulls back her arm and punches him directly in the face, causing him to get slammed back several feet and skid across the floor, his skull caved in and crushed like a watermelon after dropping it from a balcony. You stare with wide eyes, your stomach churning as you pull your eyes away from his corpse and to her hand. It looked perfectly fine save for the blood coating that belongs to the man she just killed with a single punch. 

“What the fuck.” You breathe out. 

“Superhuman strength.” She says. “It's more than just stopping trucks going fifty miles an hour during a bank robbery.” You sputtered and tried to keep the bile down from rising into your throat. Holy fucking shit, she can handle herself. Oh god, you just watched a man get his face absolutely obliterated. Is he dead? You don’t even want to go over and check. You take in a deep breath and try to keep the tears at bay. God, you just watched a man's face get caved in by a single punch. The memory replayed in your mind and you try to distract yourself from the panic clawing its way up your throat as you force yourself to focus on what she just said. 

“A bank robbery?” You ask. When was that? You haven’t heard of any robberies in the news lately. “Was that in Switzerland?” She doesn’t say anything and that was enough of an answer for you. “That job in Switzerland had to do with you being an avatar didn’t it?” You watch her head bob up and down in confirmation and you huff out a breath. Oh fucking hell, of fucking course you’re finding this shit out during this shit-show. Why is everything revealed at the worst possible time? Why couldn’t she have just told you that she was still Tawerets avatar than keep it hidden? And, wait, hold on. What about that time you got held out a window and she had to leave that day? You ask and she gives you a small grimace. Holy fucking shit. 

“You were off doing missions and you couldn’t even tell me that?” You hiss. “I got held out a window and you just couldn’t tell me where you went?”

“Now is not the time to be fighting about this.” She says. “Pick a better time than to bring it up.” 

“When is it going to be a better time, when we have a fire burning down a building and a group of supporters for a god-damn cult shooting at us?” You ask. “Go ahead and tell me. Would it have been better for you to tell me when I was held out a fucking window or now when I’m about to get a bullet in my head?” You were rightfully pissed. At least you feel that way. 

“I told you to get your ass out of here.”

“And I’m not going.” You hiss out, she lifts up her wing and glances down at you with a disapproving look. 

“You spend too much time with Marc.” She says, “You’re acting just like he would.”

“Yeah, well. At least he didn’t keep the whole history of him being Khonshus ex-avatar.” You say. You flinch as a bullet implants itself into the wall a few feet above your head. You turn your head at the noise of the skylights shattering from the heat and the glass falling down upon you. It cuts into your skin and you hiss between your teeth at the feeling of it. The flames lick the walls and it nears the cinnamon roll restaurant that people are hiding in. More innocent people are going to die if you don’t evacuate soon. You force your anger onto the back burner as you turn your attention back to Layla. 

“How many members were there?” You ask. 

“In Switzerland?”

“No, in the fucking mall.”

“Seven.” She says. “Took down two in the food court and five over at the other entrances.” 

“Are they burning up?” You ask and she nods. Shit. Well, guess you can break down a store front window if you have to. You count on your fingers of the followers in the mall. “That's six people.”

“Number seven is being really stubborn.” She states with a click of her tongue. You frown and look at her as she holds up her other arm and shields herself from a bullet to the head. It was terrifying being in this situation. You look up towards the skylights as you try to come up with a solution for what to do. You’ve been on a time limit since the bomb went off, but now it’s really ticking down as the fire is beginning to burn the restaurant that the civilians are hiding in. You weren’t surprised when you saw Horus sitting on the edge of the skylight like the vulture he was acting as. Doubt begins to flood your mind as you feel the knot in your stomach loosen to a pinching feeling. It’s his prime opportunity to pick your ass up and toss you into the fire but all he has been doing is sitting there, waiting for something and that alone makes you become more unnerved. 

He’s been waiting, now that you think about it. He waited on the windowsill that day you were carving pumpkins, he made sure that you could see him and only you alone could see him. You have more concerning things right now than a mosquito near your lantern light. 

“Did you hear what I said?” She asks and you snap your gaze away from the deity and to her. You didn’t hear a word with all the noise around you and your focus being on the falcon.

“No, it's kind of hard when all I hear is the place burning down and the pounding in my ears.”

“I’m going to be moving so you need to find cover.” She repeats and you nod slowly. Right, okay. You need to get your ass moving then. 

“Okay,” You tell her. You look around you for a possible hiding spot and decide that the best place is the wall separating the food court or going back through the employees door and taking cover in there. Maybe carbon monoxide poisoning isn’t the worst way to go compared to burning alive. Your head spins as your tongue darts out of your mouth to wet your lips. You can only hope that he’s running out of bullets and he’s keeping one for himself. You look at Layla and nod once and you watch as she looks towards the man with a focused and pissed look. You know you’re going to be on the receiving end of that after you get out of here. You hated it when your parents narrowed their eyes and their lips curled when you did something that angered them. Layla was going to have an awfully similar look soon. You wait for her to run towards him before you move to the food court walls but seeing her fly at the man made you nearly stop in your tracks. Holy fucking shit, she can fly?? 

You crouch next to the walls and whip your head to your left as someone with a white cape lands on the tiled floor below the skylight with their leg and arm stuck out and hand placed down in a superhero pose. Jake Lockely has entered the game. He stood slowly and you couldn’t see the expression he wore due to his mask but you can tell from the way that he held himself that he looked pissed. You would hate to be on the receiving end of his anger. Oh shit, you hung up on him. You’re about to be on that receiving end soon. Of course you pissed off two people who are avatars of deities. Might as well keep it consistent, you guess. You watch him stride around the food court until he is no longer visible due to the wall separating you. You would peek over it but with the noise of fighting and bullets flying, you don’t think it’s a good idea to look. 

You turn your head to your left and squint through the smoke to someone crawling on the floor. You frown, was the smoke getting to your head enough that you’re now hallucinating? Maybe you’re too dehydrated from the heat and constant sweating that it’s now catching up to you. You narrow your eyes once you can visibly see the man that you thought Layla killed with one punch crawling towards something on the floor. Wasn’t that where the gun landed when you kicked it away? You watch him belly crawl closer to the small object in the distance as you bite the inside of your cheek hard enough to draw blood. You can clearly see the blood on his face and you saw his face cave in, how the fuck is he still alive? They’re like fucking cockroaches, near damn impossible to kill. He was closer to the weapon on the floor, you don’t want him to get ahold of the gun unless he was going to end himself with it, but lately they seem more likely to do harm to anyone including themselves. 

You can see your taser resting feet from you, all you have to do is grab the taser and put it into his neck. Maybe his heart is doing shitty enough that the voltage would knock his ass out and Jake or Layla could end him. You were dumb enough to come out here to play hero and now you’re dumb enough to consider risking your life to have someone else end his. At least you were consistent. You can hear Jake and Layla fighting alongside each other as you decide to run towards the taser and scoop it up. A bullet whizzes past you and implants itself into the wall next to you, nearly causing you to falter in your plan to stop the member from getting the weapon. You turn your head and Layla looks more pissed and Jake does too. The man they were fighting was no longer fighting them but aiming at you. 

You watch as Jake grabs the man by the back of the neck and you tear your gaze away before you can see what happens next. You jog to the man who is now inches from the gun, his hand outstretched and you kick it away. You turn your taser in your grasp so your thumb is resting on the button. His hand wraps around your ankle and pulls you down, your head slamming against the tiled flooring and the flames licking the ceiling above you. He crawls up your body and wraps his hands around your throat, gripping tightly and applying enough pressure to block any air from entering into you. You were able to see his face a hell of a lot more clearly thanks to this amazing view above you. The fire light helped light up his face which didn’t look very pretty. His eye was caved in and his nose too, flesh that should never see the light of day was making its grand debut just for you and dripping blood directly onto your face and Marc's shirt.

If it wasn’t for all of your air supply being cut off and black spots appearing at the edge  of your vision, you would be thinking about how fucking gross it is to see the inside of someone's meat suit. Ammits supporters are really like fucking cockroaches aren’t they? Your left hand darts up to wrap around his wrist as if you alone can push a grown ass man off of you. Your right hand began to swing the taser at his skull as if it was a rock. You couldn’t breathe and panic was settling in. His blood flicked onto you with each impact of the taser and you didn’t care at the moment, you just wanted him off of you and to stop the burning in your lungs from the lack of oxygen. You pointed the prongs into his skull and held down the button, he doesn’t let go of you but rather seems to fight through the pain to tighten his grip on your throat. Fucking fuck. 

Playing hero and now dying with the consequences of it. Your vision was like staring at a static television, but with flames flickering behind the screen. You can feel your grip loosening on the taser until it clings to the floor and your hand around his wrist slackens. Your eyes begin to flutter shut and you can vaguely recognize that this is the first stage of passing out. If he continues to hold his grip on you after you go under, you will die and Horus will win. Fuck Horus, you think. Your brain short circuits and you don’t know exactly when you do pass out but when you come back, you can hear Layla talking to you. 

“You’re alright,” She says. You can feel that your cheek is pressed against the cloth shoulder of her dress and the smell of smoke, sweat, blood, and something else fills your nostrils. You can feel her chest pushing slightly into your side as she hugs you close. “I got you, c’mon breathe.” She adds. Your eyes flutter open and you can see and feel the heat of the fire near you. You can feel someone's fingers brush against your cheek and you turn your head slightly to see Jake staring down at you with concern written on his face. He must have been the one to get the man off of you. Your eyes trail past him and you can see the man stilled with his neck bent at an odd angle. There's a difference between watching someone get killed and being the reason that someone is killed; and neither feels good even if it was to get the man to stop choking you. 

You feel sick seeing the sight of the man and it must have shown on your face because Jake tilts your head towards you and says, “¿Estás bien, pequeño?” His mask was gone, but he still wore the rest of the suit. Your eyes meet his brown ones and you would have expected to see that hardness but for the first time since you met him they were softer than ever, just for you. You still don’t know what he said, but you feel like you have to reassure him that you were okay. 

“I’m okay.” You tell him, your voice cracking halfway though. Your throat hurts when you speak and you know that bruises will be in the form of handprints tomorrow. You’re going to have a difficult time explaining to anyone that it’s not what they think, you’re not going to be able to tell them that you were at the mall because you can’t afford to be interviewed by the police. 

“We need to get them out of here.” You add. The building was coming down and there are more people who are going to die if you don’t get them out. You were wasting too much time being checked on by your friends. Layla nods in agreement. 

“You think you can walk?” She asks, her fingers brush gently against your cheek. You can walk, it might take you a while since all energy seems to be drained out of you but you will get out on your own time. 

Jake seems to pick up on this because he says, “Give me the kid. I’ll carry them out. You work on getting everyone else.” You want to protest but you’re so fucking exhausted. He crouches down and you’re transferred from the lap of Layla and into his arms, your head rests against his shoulder as he brings his arms underneath your legs and his other arm wraps around your back to help support you before he stands. You were nothing but a bag of flour in his arms thanks to the super strength Khonshu grants him. You feel safe in his arms, the safest that you have been all day. 

You bounce a bit in his grip as he walks, his thumb rubs soft circles in your arm as he moves. To comfort him or you, you don’t know. You were about to pass underneath a skylight and you turn your gaze upwards, expecting to see Horus and you were ready to tell him off and give him a defiant look saying: See? I’m still alive, bitch. But, as you pass, all you saw was blue sky and smoke; and no sign of the god ever being there.

—

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[tsintotwo]

[59 Hours, Part 3. (Part 2 here). Jake (Sweetbitter) x You. 18+ ONLY, there’s stuff about drugs in here. a. Please keep in mind I made most of the drug stuff up, and b. Don’t do drugs!! (Drama. Disturbing + tender things. I loved writing this so much, IDK why.)]

Hour 17

Someone’s burying you alive. And they’re laughing a mad laugh. No, now they’re grunting, like an animal in pain. It’s so dark, and so, so cold-

You awake in a deep haze of confused panic. No, you’re not in a pit in the ground, you’re here- but where is here? And why is it colder than death?

It takes a long minute for everything to come back to you- New York, the blizzard, Jake’s apartment. But you still don’t understand why it’s so dark and cold. And then another loud grunt makes your heart thud. Someone is making sounds, it wasn’t just a dream.

Slowly, you realize what’s going on- a power cut. There’s no light anywhere, and the heating stopped- who knows when. By now, the apartment is a refrigerator. You fell asleep on your couch, and your phone can’t be too far away. You feel for it in the dark and find it tucked under your thigh. Your movements are slow, your hands feel frozen, your face is numb, your legs seem to weigh 200 pounds each. Somehow, you switch on the flashlight app, the harsh glare making you cringe. Standing up is an effort. But moving is bringing a tiny bit of feeling back in your body.

The first thing you do is to find more clothes. You put on layers, socks, your coat. By now, you’re sure the periodic grunting sounds like Jake. Is he having a nightmare too? Where is he?

He’s lying on the floor in the next room, and what he’s having is a hundred times worse than a nightmare. You’ve seen it only once before, and it looks different on different people, but you’re pretty sure. He’s having a bad trip.

He’s on his side, curled up tight and shaking violently. He’s still not wearing a shirt, but when you tentatively put your hand on his shoulder, his skin is burning. Your touch must be icy to him, but it doesn’t seem like he feels it. He’s groaning and grunting into the crook of his elbow, breathing hard, his eyes twitching, his lashes and face wet with tears.

You had knelt on the floor beside him, now you set your phone down and let your knees give way. What are you supposed to do now?  

It doesn’t occur to you that you could not do anything for Jake, because very, very clearly, he is in pain. In a dark place, being tortured. It’s visible on his face, audible in his thick animal whimpers. He was a complete asshole to you earlier, but right now that’s irrelevant- you want to help him. You’d want to help anyone going through this. Also, lying here like this, he’ll freeze to death.

You pick up your phone again. No bars. What the hell is going on, the apocalypse? Suddenly your stomach clenches in fear. What if a riot has broken out in the city, and you don’t even know? What if something like The Purge happens? People entering other people’s homes, raping and killing…

You shake your head. You can still hear the wind- the blizzard- or this installment of the blizzard- is going on in full-force. People couldn’t ‘riot’ in this weather, and this is also the reason fot the power cut, and the bad cell reception. There must be people out trying to fix things, and you’re sure they’ll do it soon. You just need to wait it out.

Taking a deep breath, you call, ‘Jake.’

No response. Okay, it wasn’t going to be that easy. Think. For your job, you often go to ‘bad’ neighborhoods where drug abuse is prevalent. At work, they try to prepare you for things you might see. Maybe not so much acid, but still, didn’t you attend a seminar once, where someone talked about how they helped someone else going through a bad trip?...

Lowering your head, you keep calling Jake’s name, making it sound as soothing as possible. You run your hand on his back and shoulder. More than knowledge, instinct tells you that he needs to be pulled out of the pit he’s being buried in, he needs to feel that he’s not alone, not lost.

You’re almost surprised when it seems to work. His shaking subsides a little, and he moves his head, trying to look up at you. His eyes are half-open, hazy and far away. They’re glistening with tears.

Moving closer, you pull up his upper body on your lap, cradling his head on the crook of your elbow. This was instinct too, or, more than that, this was sympathy. You are very aware that there’s nothing romantic about drug abuse or terrifying hallucinations. You just see a person in pain, and you want to make it go away, make them feel safe- it’s as simple as that.

You wipe Jake’s eyes and face with your hand. Then you hold his hand, and you talk to him in a soothing murmur. You don’t even know what you’re saying. ‘It’s fine, you’ll be all right, look at this, no electricity, can you believe it? My hands are freezing, and my feet, ugh, you are completely freezing, we have to do something about this soon, you’ll move, right, ‘cause I for sure can’t carry you anywhere-‘

You don’t know if you’re getting through to him. But you can’t give up trying.

Hour 18

You don’t know how long you keep this up- your hand is hurting from holding him and you’re out of breath talking in the cold. Your tongue is getting heavy, your teeth chatter. Jake’s breathing has evened out, his face seems more rested, but he’s starting to shiver, you think from the cold this time.

It’s a real struggle pulling him to a sitting position, then to a standing position, then supporting- almost half-carrying- him to bed. But the threadbare carpet was doing nothing to suppress the chill wafting up from the floor, you couldn’t have been there all night.

Pushing him down to the bed, you adjust the pillow under his head and cover him with the sheet that’s there. You hunt around for a better blanket. You find one in a drawer- thankfully, the small apartment doesn’t accommodate many pieces of furniture, so it wasn’t that hard. It’s thick, and big, and yeah, there’s just one. You cover Jake with it.

It seems so strange to be hungry right now, but suddenly you feel that you are. You have a few granola bars in your backpack. You munch one. Drink some water. Make a trip to the restroom. Take off your jacket and the top layer. Then you get into bed beside Jake under the blanket. Even in all your clothes, you weren’t going to survive the night without any covering.

Waking up in panic, discovering the power outage, seeing Jake like that, then trying to solve the situation- you were on an adrenaline high. You’re coming down now, and the deep surrealness of it all seems to close around you. So much has happened in the last 16 hours, none of it you could’ve ever imagined. You’ve turned off the phone flashlight to save battery- who knows when power will be back- and it’s completely dark. And does Jake even have any neighbors? In your town, families would be coming together right now. But here, you didn’t hear any sounds in the hallway, or from other apartments. Everyone is so isolated, dealing with their own demons in the dark. You feel like a ghost in a ghost town suddenly, as if none of this is real, not even you.

But then Jake moves beside you. You thought he fell asleep, or finally passed out, but now he’s fitful, tossing, muttering words you don’t understand. He reaches out blindly, and finds you next to him in the narrow bed. He turns on his side, pulling you in, and in the next second, he’s burying his head in the crook of your neck, his face cold against your skin, the metal chain around his neck sending a shock of chill down your shoulder. He’s shivering again, uttering tiny cries, and as if on their own, your arms go around him. He’s still very cold, it makes you shiver too. ‘Shhhhhh’, you say in the dark, running your finger through his hair, ‘Shhhh.’

Earlier, after your fight- or whatever it was- you curled up in a ball on the couch, and you didn’t cry for long- crying for a dude was something you’d had enough of already- but you thought about it all for a long time before falling asleep. And you had to acknowledge to yourself that you’d been sending Jake major mixed signals. You knew the type of guy he was the minute you walked in here, and you still expected too much from him. Or you didn’t, really, you just couldn’t stop yourself from wanting him until you’d pulled the plug at the worst time. But you still know that you have the right to take that decision anytime- it’s called consent- and he was a complete jerk for acting like he did and belittling you for it. You don’t forgive him for that. But right now, he’s at his most vulnerable, and you can’t hate him.

Against your body, Jake is still restless. You’re exhausted, and choked with a strange unmooring sensation all on a sudden- this pitch dark, cold, quiet except the cries of a stranger falling apart in your arms- but he doesn’t feel like a stranger, he’s another lost soul, just like you. You need to not let your mind scatter, not become hyper, you need to be the calm one. So you do the first thing you can think of- you start to sing.

It's a lullaby your mother sang to you when things were good, and there was sunshine, and you had a dad, and you didn’t know what ‘depression’ meant. It’s good memories, nice dreams, peace. You sing to calm yourself down, but Jake calms too, slowly quieting, sighing deeply against your neck. Maybe it's the shared warmth of bodies, maybe it's Jake's arms pulling you against himself more snugly, maybe it's the soft song in the dark- but after years, you feel a trace of that old peace again. You don’t know when your singing trails off and the world melts into sleep.

Hour 24

The next time you open your eyes, it’s daylight. Dim daylight, the world outside the window still grayed out, wind still rattling the panes, though it seems more muted. But it’s morning.

You look beside you. Jake is not here. But it’s still very snug under the blanket. Too snug. Then you realize- the heating is on. Power came back.

You sit up and reach for your phone. There’s cell signal back- though still only two bars. You have a worried text from your mother and one from your sister. You wonder if your mom made your sister write hers (‘but you’re writing one anyway’-). You don’t get along very well, you and your sister. Or rather, she doesn’t like you very much. You guess you can’t blame her. Growing up, you were more like a strict parent to her rather than a fun big sister, and she never did see you as anything else. You only texted her instead of your mom last night because she at least checked her phone. Your brother is too young now, but you think once he starts having a life of his own he’ll hate you too-

A sound breaks you out of your depressing thoughts. It’s Jake- walking in, coffee mug in hand. The ocean-blue of his eyes looks clear, his hair glistens as if he’s run his wet hands through it. Strangely, it feels weird to see him back in his t-shirt. You were getting used to the shirtless thing, hah.

He sits on the couch, and says, ‘What the fuck happened last night?’

You reply, ‘Power outage.’

He frowns. Clearly, he knows that’s not the only thing that happened, but you don’t know how much he remembers, or how he remembers it, and you don’t want to say anything that he might not be comfortable with. Anyway, you don’t even know how to explain last night. The memory of it already seems smoky like a dream.

He’s not saying anything else, so you get out of bed, and get freshened up. You open his fridge and raise your voice, ‘Is it okay if I make some eggs?’ The options are not great in here.

‘Whatever.’, is his response, so you make some, and declare, ‘I made enough for two.’

You don’t wait for him. He is constantly smoking or taking sips of some drink, (or worse, you think), so you understand him never being that hungry. But you need to eat.

He joins you though, shoveling eggs in his mouth like he has some kind of personal vendetta against them. You both finish in silence. Then you go put your phone on charge while browsing the internet. It’s still painfully slow, but it’s working. You need it to work. You need to know what’s going on in the outside world. Then you need to leave here.

‘What happened last night?’, Jake has followed you back, and asking this again. This time there’s a touch of dread and thunder in it. Things must be coming back. As you look up, his unhappy scowl makes you sigh. Just- you don’t have the energy to think about being diplomatic with him anymore. You say, ‘I guess you made use of the last of your stash. Then you had a bad trip.’

He’s silent, small lines on his forehead. From the way his eyes move and micro-expressions flicker on his face, you know he must be remembering a lot now. No happy thoughts there, that’s for sure. You look at your phone again. According to the reports, the blizzard is mostly over, just the tail end of it passing through and expected to be gone by this afternoon. But the city is under six feet of snow, and there are at least four major crashes and roadblocks between here and the airport anyway. Even if flights resumed tonight, you don’t see how you would get there by that time.

‘Were you singing?’, Jake had been pacing, now he suddenly stops, coming to stand in front of your couch.

‘Yeah’, you say without looking up, ‘You seemed to like it.’

Silence. You look at him, and he looks like he can’t process this, so you say, ‘Jake, it’s okay. You had some bad time, you don’t need to linger on it. Or do, I guess, it’s your choice, but it’s okay now.’ You feel the need to let him know that you won’t be imposing on him much longer, so you tell him that. ‘I’m looking for a motel or something in walking distance. The storm is supposed to be over by afternoon. Then I’ll get out.’

‘You weren’t even wearing snow boots.’

You sigh. That’s true. ‘I guess I’ll just have to deal with wet socks, then.’

‘I was on the floor’, he can’t seem to let go of last night.

‘Yeah.’

‘You pulled me to bed?’

‘Yeah. And you only have one blanket, apparently, so that’s why I got in there with you, otherwise I much more prefer this couch, trust me.’

But he’s not listening anymore. ‘I was there', he says again, as if to himself, ‘I was-‘, he stops. His jaw clenches, then he turns his face. And walks away.

You understand what’s going on here, you think. Jake has certainly had bad trips before, there’s no way he hasn’t. But maybe he’s never had one alone, or no, worse- one in front of a stranger. All your trauma bared to someone you don’t even know- and then to have them take control when you’re completely helpless- he’s embarrassed. You sigh. That train of thought only leads to a wreck, and whatever your dynamic is with Jake, you’d rather stop it.

He's sitting at his small table, rubbing his eye with the heel of his hand. You take the chair opposite him, and say, ‘I got my period during a book report.’

‘What?’, he looks up, utter confusion on his face. No disgust though, so props to him.

‘My first period. Didn’t even know what it was. Mom hadn’t briefed me, and I got it early, so we hadn’t gotten to that class at school. I thought the aches in my abdomen were just from bad food or something.’

He’s listening, not sure where this is going.

‘Then I get in front of the class for a book report presentation, and I loved that book, so I was eager, really getting into it, and then there’s just blood coming down my thigh, dripping. I didn’t even realize at first, but the kids started pointing right away, and I looked down, panicked so hard, didn’t know what to do- did I cut myself? What? In my panic, I ignore it, I try to concentrate on my report, and by now everyone is laughing, and I’m getting louder, and it hurts so bad too, and Mr. Oswald, he was, like, 25, he didn’t know what to do- eventually I ran out crying. Leaving a trail of period blood on the floor.’

Jake is staring at you, ‘The point?’

‘The point is, I just told you the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me. And you have to admit it’s pretty fucking embarrassing. Now we’re even.’

‘Because you told me about something that happened when you were thirteen.’

‘Ten, actually. But no. Because everyone called me Bloody Mary after that. That nickname stuck through middle school. Wasn't fun. And yet, I had friends. I had people who saw me at my most helpless moment and still decided that didn’t matter, that didn’t define me. And these were kids.’ You pause, then say, ‘I’m not a kid. I know shit happens. I don’t judge people for it. And they shouldn’t judge themselves either.’

You don’t know why you’re going this far to convince Jake that you don't judge him or he doesn’t need to be embarrassed. You guess it’s more about you than about him. You can’t have him, or anyone, thinking of you in a way that’s not accurate to who you are. Maybe it’s a flaw you have.

Jake is quiet now, taking in your words. Then he sighs, and says, ‘I owe you an apology.’

‘You do.’

He nods, ‘I was a dick to you last evening. I’m… sorry.’ Not used to saying this word much, you think. ‘I’m so used to seeing whores, I forgot that doesn’t have to be the norm. You do you, whatever.’

‘You don’t-‘, you shake your head, ‘You don’t need to put down all the other women-‘

‘Who’s putting them down?’, Jake blinks innocently, ‘I love whores!’

You cock your head, ‘Is that why you are one?’

He laughs then, a genuine, out-loud laugh with a guttaral sound- you haven’t seen this before. You kind of love it. And you forgive him- his apology was genuine.

You were going to ask something about his wifi when he says, ‘You’re not really thinking about leaving in the afternoon, are you?’

You frown, ‘Of course I am.’

‘Unreasonable. There’s no way you can walk anywhere in this snow.’

‘I can try.’

‘So that you can slip and land in a hospital?’

That’s actually a real possibility, and you don’t know what to say. ‘Maybe an Uber-‘

‘What’s the hurry? You gotta work?’

‘No, they know about NYC and told me to take as much time as I need, actually-‘

‘So?’

‘I don’t want to bother you anymore, okay?’

'Please keep trying to bother me. Your efforts are very amusing.’ He’s joking, but also kind of not, and then he does something unexpected. Your hand was on the table. He slips his under it. Holding your hand, he leans in.

‘Stay.’, he says, voice low.

He’s not joking now. In fact, this is is probably the most serious he’s been since you came here. And on his face, you see it. Singing is not the only thing he remembers of you from last night.

A few seconds of silence. Then you say, ‘Okay.’

Maybe you’ll regret it. But maybe you found your own drug. Maybe it is Jake.

[Update: Part 4 here]

#sweetbitter #jake #jake x you #jake x reader #jake x oc #fanfic #fic #sweetbitter fanfic #fanfiction #tom sturridge

[redheadspark]

Hello! Emerging from my bog bc I see you once again have open prompts. 😆 Only death or end of hyperfixation could make me ignore that. Lol

So, #2 with Jack Russell please? 💘

A/N - Awww this is just a cute thing for you to give me! I would love to write this for you my friend :) I hope you enjoy :D

Endearing

Summary - it's the little things that Jack love you all the more.

Warnings - Just some cute fluff :)

"Honey, can you slow down for a moment?"

"Not yet, baby,” Jack sighed as he was watching you go left and right in your bedroom, going from the closet over to the emergency GYM bag that you were making for him as he was sitting on your bed Indian Style. You were in a deep thought, going over the list in your head at least 6 times to make sure everything that was in the bag and getting a few more shirts and socks. Jack sighed.

"I'm sure you got everything, Amor," he reasoned as you shook your head and headed over to the bathroom you two shared.

"I know I'm missing something," You said aloud, digging in the medicine cabinet and making sure the aspirin was already packed as well as his toothpaste and toothbrush.

This was your ritual every month: packing his "Morning After" bag. You've had plenty of times when he would come back from a rough transformation, battered and bruised or smelling like he rolled in something that was rotting. Although some times it was amusing, yo were still concerned since you knew he would be in a better state if he was prepared.

Jack was not an amateur when it came to being a werwolf, he's had years under his belt. But maybe it was having a second person holding him accountable when making sure he was safe that change everything for him. Jack was used to needing to rely on his own for years and years on end, being in survival mode was not new. However, when you came into his life and took on the discovery of him being a werewolf, you were more concerned about his safety than anything.

That was a true first for him, and it took him some time to get used to.

So now, 7 months in your relationship and with plenty of full moons under your belt when it came to being prepared, it was more of a laundry list and being prepared than going off on a limb. You had idea every time he would come back from a rough night, noting to have him take along some new clothes and some toiletries with him.

In the end, you made a "Morning After" bag that you would send with him when he would go camping and go off on his own the night before. He would find a remote campsite to go to in order to be in a safe place, then coming back the following morning around lunch time. It was a new system that worked for you two, mostly for him, but for you so you wouldn't go insane with worry.

So you planned everything that would go in the bag: spare clothes and toiletries, a basic first aid kit and gauze wrap for the wounds, a burner phone for emergencies, some protein bars and pre-cooked breakfast meals, a small GPS, and a few other things.

Jack had to give an endearing smile, seeing you go back and forth like a working bee. He knew you had his best interest in heart, something he hasn't had with another person in a very long time.

"Babe....come here babe," Jack said to you as you were placing the last of the things you found in his bag. You sighed, feeling him take his handing yours and gently pulling you on the bed with him, "I have everything I need for tomorrow night, okay?"

"I know," You agreed, "I always felt like I'm missing something with what you need, though,"

"Doubtful, you are quite organized when it comes to taking care of me. Compared to myself who is a walking disaster," Jack joked with you as you have him a small stare.

"That's not true," You reasoned.

"No it is true! I am a literal walking mess," Jack said to you with a shrug of his shoulder next to yours, you cracking a smile, "You should have seen me long before you came into my life: a disaster on two feet. One time I think I ate something dead when I was a monster one night, and I had food poisoning for some time after."

"Jack!" You said in a snort, but Jack pressed a kiss against your cheek.

"What I am saying to you, Amor, is that I would be in a very dark place if it wasn't for you," he explained, "I've dealt with this alone for quite some time, and those times were unbearable for me. But now that I know that I have someone who is looking out for me, even with something as simple as a bag," Jack paused as he gestured to the GYM bag that was perched on the edge of the bed, "It makes my life a little brighter."

You felt like crying, hearing that from Jack. Jack would tell you constantly that you were a true beacon in his dark world, no matter how much he wanted to push you away from the thought of your safety being in jeopardy. But you still loved him and you stayed, not willing to let him go. Jack showered you with love them, showing how much he appreciated you being there to hold his hand and remind that he was worthy of being loved and filled with love.

"I just want you to be safe," You explained simply, Jack hummed and kissing you hair.

"I know," He replied, "And I love you for that. And for remembering to pack my extra underwear...again,"

You snorted as he engulfed you in his arms, you both falling on top of the bed in laughter.

The End.

Valentine Prompt Session

#jack russell x y/n #jack russell x you #jack russell x fem!reader #jack russell x reader #jack russell #werewolf by night fanfiction #werewolf by night #mcu writing #mcu fanfiction #mcu phase 4 #marvel cinematic fanfiction #marvel cinematic universe fanfiction #marvel cinematic universe