#i spent months sitting alone in my room when my depression was at its worst as a teenager too | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cosmiclatte28 · 3 years

Text

6 Shots of Coffee (Jaemin x you + Dreamies)

a/n: I am back! With a sudden wild oneshot. Please be aware that this is purely fan-fiction. Anything happening here is mere pure imagination. I did not intend to connect any disorders with the idols in real life.

Warning : characters with disorders, a lot of dozing off characters, character with slight adhd (i tried my best to picture them correctly but I’m sorry if everything is wrong, i only did a short research). Mentions of orphanage, drunk parents, and a broken family. HAPPY ENDING!

CHARACTERS : dream (minus Hyuck and Mark), Taeyong, and Yuta also our brave (y/n)!

here we go,

If there are three things in life you hate, that will be Jaemin, Jaemin, and oh god another team assignment with Jaemin!

Jaemin has been the most excruciating classmate you ever have! Not only did he tease you about your freakin need of keeping things in their proper place and keeping things spotless, but he also keeps using you to help him pass his classes. Yet no teacher minds your complain, and all the school girls think you're a freak for being mad about sharing a group project with the handsome guy.

No you’re not sick or weird. You just love organizing things and you like clean things a bit too much. Why? Coz you've had some bad memories with dirty things. Okay Jaemin is just another naughty kid in your class who likes to play and have fun with others, but you certainly did not find his jokes funny.

“Come on calm down (y/n)! It's only coffee, we can clean that.” Jaemin tries to laugh it off despite seeing you standing completely frozen in front of him with an empty cup and you with a brown uniform. Although you clearly see there is a slight worry in his eyes.

You hold yourself back. How come the worst day has to become worse?! You woke up to period cramps, you forgot a homework thanks to late night distracted room cleaning, and as you were about to rush to type your homework in the library, Jaemin decided to meddle and spill his coffee on your white uniform.

A part of you want to scream and yell and pull his hair apart, but you're too tired to talk with Jaemin. Let alone think about Jaemin, there's just so many things you hate related to Jaemin.

Despite him trying his best to apologize and to help you wash your clothes, which is something new… Jaemin never cared if he messed up with you. You ended up slapping his hand away when he wants to drag you to the office to ask a spare uniform.

“Go away! I have to rush,” you push him aside with your shoulder and run to the library. Knowing so well you'll probably get another minus score and a weird look from the library thanks to your stained uniform.

You hate the feeling of sitting down with this coffee stained shirt, and as much as you want to open that shirt and change into something else, you don’t have the energy. So, after sitting down on the table with the library's laptop you stare into the keyboard only to focus more on your uniform and the least wanted thing happens.

You cry. You cry by yourself in the corner of the room and you don’t really mind the stare they give. You just want to end life here, can anyone just stab you? Or can the ground split and swallow you?

There’s another thing you hate other than Jaemin meddling with your ugly life. It's dirt and unorganized objects. Why? Well you were once a very regular kid, always playing in the rain mud and all kinds of sand. You don’t mind having dirt all over your body you know when you go home you can shower. That's until you grow up and notice how your family is different. Your parents look like they are okay, but every night you hear them argue and argue. The argument gets stronger and scarier, they shout, scream, throw things down and you were always awaken to the no longer comfy homey house. You realize one day you woke up to seeing your dad getting drunk, your mother depressed, and the house super dirty like a tornado just hold a party. It’s awful to wake up to the smell of cigar and alcohols instead of bacons and eggs. You had to keep one plate with you or else it will end up like its friends, lifeless, prickly, sharp, on the ground.

Your maid stopped working, you're moved to a new school, this middle school where you meet Jaemin and some other annoying problematic students. Your once colorful life turned dark and gloomy. No longer you woke up to morning kiss and breakfast. You find yourself sitting alone in the dining room, preparing your own sandwich from some cheap dry bread. No more nutella and you're grateful for butter.

You tried to understand, keeping all to yourself as you grow up and noticed your family is broken. You thought everything will get better, one day mom and dad will love each other again and you'll be back with the bright family you love.

Life is not that kind. Life is cruel, on your 14th birthday your dad left for another woman and your mother dropped you off to an orphanage. She said she can no longer pay for your school and living fees. Heck she even had to borrow money to buy you your monthly pads.

The cheerful friendly you turned 180° into a mournful secretive teenager. You hate everyone who looks bright and you hate every single dirt. Seeing unorganized things and dirty objects just remind you of the dark memories you want to forget.

The orphanage found your smart talent and you got a scholarship making you still able to attend the school. The orphanage you live in has a rule where there is a schedule for cleaning up and preparing dish. You meet a similar boy who has the same problem with you; just that he looks like he had overcome his bitterness and chooses to live a happy life. Which you deadly want to do but cannot.

Renjun, is the only person you talk to in that house. The adults taking care over you, still cannot make you talk comfortably with him and you're not planning to do any sooner.

“Hey, it's me. Should we make a letter to the office and go home?” Renjun's soft voice comes to your ear and you look up to him with blood red eyes.

“How long have I been crying?” you sniffle.

He shrugs his shoulder “I just came an hour ago when I noticed you're missing Chemistry class and Jaemin too. I thought he was with you.”

You scowl “Why would I be with Jaemin?”

Renjun scratches his head “I don’t know… you were always assigned a team with him… I thought both of you are rushing a task.”

“I am having a bad day.” You exhale.

Renjun shakes his head “That is more than a bad day. Here, put this on that coffee is hot or cold?” he gives you his school blazer and you gladly put it over your stained uniform.

You sigh, of course Renjun noticed. He is also like you, despise any single speck of dust.

“Jaemin spilled his cold coffee on me. Now I am late to submit my work, I'll never get the essay done and I am skipping classes. GREAT! Looks like I will be kicked out of school next week.”

Renjun shakes his head again “Silly, you're dramatic. They won’t kick you just because of that. What about your achievements?”

You scoff “They can always find another better painter. I could barely tell difference in colors.”

Renjun smiles well that’s what makes you different. The school honors your brilliant talent of drawing although you have a hard time distinguishing colors. But your emotions are well delivered on every picture you paint. That gives honor to the school when the art teacher secretly sent your works to different curators and exhibitions.

“Come, we will go home. I'll make your letter. Can you wait for me in the lobby by yourself?” Renjun smooths your hair away.

You shake your head and clearly looks afraid “Can I join you?”

He nods and lets you go with him, blaming himself for ever offering you that option.

You got home, Renjun fixes your mood by giving you new clothes. Yes, as simple as that, and you’re already less scarier than before. He makes you tea when he saw the circled date on the calendar and drops you some pain killers.

“It's that month, sorry for not noticing had I known, I'd bring you home when I heard Jaemin looking for you around the school.”

You pause from cutting the potatoes, well you need to start cooking dinner for the others. “Jaemin looked around for me?”

Renjun nods “Uh huh that's also how I know something is not right. Jaemin never looked for you except when he needs your score.”

You curl your lips “Weird. He also wanted to bring me to the office, which he never did before.”

Your sudden emotional change is a regular thing to Renjun. Although at first he has to bear with your monthly exploding sensitivity since you're the first teenage girl in this house, Renjun manages to tame you down when he calmly offer you a cup of warm chamomile tea you love.

“Maybe it’s the coffee.” You shrug it off. Come to think of it, you never see the school selling coffee but Jaemin always brings his cup of super dark coffee.

“Oh home early?” Taeyong, the oldest son of the orphanage owner, greets you both. Well Taeyong is like the head matron here, every school letter directed to him and every new kid will meet him.

“It's not her day. I brought her home before she spent another day dozing off in the school's garden.” Renjun whispers to Taeyong and the older just nods his head.

“Oh! Did I mention to you we will have a new family tonight? Please be nice, he comes from this neighborhood and we actually had been waiting for his arrival since last month, but he always escaped before his vise parents want to drop him here.

You grow annoyed at this news. Well you don’t really like having to act kind and good in front of the others. Especially when meeting new members. Taeyong always asked you to at least be welcoming and less patronizing but you cannot keep your resting bitch face to yourself.

“I might as well skip dinner.” You taunt at Taeyong “No way I am acting kind in front of that person when I had a shitty day.”

Taeyong just hums to your threat, it is nothing new. You're a stone heart and he doesn’t want to have to slap you because of your stubbornness.

“I don’t mind. Just try to be welcoming, he had a rough time too.” Taeyong waves his hand and disappears behind his study room.

“I wonder who is going to join us. Our dining table is empty after Mark and Hyuck got adopted.” Renjun is excited to welcome the new family, maybe because he really likes it better here and therefore, he wants to make sure everyone else is welcomed.

Unlike you who still can't swallow the bitter truth. For you, your real family was the best, yet you didn’t know when everything started to fall apart.

The other comes home, you see Jisung, Jeno, and Chenle coming from the backyard and you hide yourself back on your room. Dinner is ready they just have to heat it up. The stew.

You close your window and come back to sit in front of your paper. Trying to remember what project you missed and have to do.

You look around the room, you used to have a bigger room, but after Taeyong knew you cannot stay still when there are mess, he moved you to a smaller room where you cannot store so many things. He said its for your own good. He doesn’t want you to stress yourself and distract your studies just to clean things up.

You feel your stomach rumbling but when you hear the noisy sound downstairs, you remember the new family. Actually, you are curious, so you sneak from your room and take a peek from the walls.

Your mind might be playing tricks on you, you rub your eyes and focus more to the familiar man in the same uniform as yours. You want to doubt it, but when you hear Jisung repeats his name you want to jump away from this house and run far away.

Life must have hated you so much to send Na Jaemin not only to your school but also to your ��house".

Although you try to ignore him, your mind wonders what makes him come here. He looks like he is okay, only naughty, but he doesn’t look like an orphan.

“Dinner?” Yuta, Taeyong's younger brother asks you when he was about to go down and greet Jaemin.

You quickly gasp and shake your head before making a quick run to lock yourself in your room.

You try to think of any reason why Jaemin is here… from dinner to nine you cannot think of doing other thing rather than fiddling with your pen as you let your brain wonder and wonder.

Only around twelve did you suddenly jolt and realize you've wasted another night without doing your paper. You hear a step on the squeaky floor, and you have to stay quiet. Taeyong and Yuta wouldn’t like seeing you still awake this late. However, you don’t recognize the footsteps. Must be Jaemin’s.

The next morning, you escape earlier from the house. Leaving before breakfast for the sake of not meeting Jaemin. You're still mad at him and you hate him. You hate him for giving you hard times at school and now at “home".

You were waiting in the class when suddenly Jaemin comes into the class with a nervous face. You wonder did he just see a ghost? Jaemin really looks out of his place. Did he finally realize he is thrown away to the orphanage? Or did he finally realize you're secretly writing foot notes to the teacher that Jaemin is only leeching on your grades? Did he get called by the office?

You try your best to stop distracting your mind and continue working your essay. Thank goodness you can submit the work when the teacher leaves the class, only then did you see Jaemin's frozen state on his chair.

“Jaem?” you surprise yourself too for calling out his name. He also looks surprised.

“Yes?” he puts on his damn sickening pretty smile back like he always did to other students.

“Erase that smile. It's creepy.” You mutter and the other girls in your class is wanting to end you up there and then.

“Sorry, it’s just that… I … I didn’t get my coffee this morning.”

You raise your brow, oh right. Taeyong and Yuta are not giving us caffeine until we are 20.

You raise a brow “And? Can’t you skip once?”

His feet thump on the floor and he looks around nervously “You're right. I- don’t mind me.” He stands up and suddenly leaves you with bigger question mark in your head.

He sure is weird. What’s wrong with skipping one cup of that bitter liquid?

“(Y/n)! Come let's go home.” Renjun greets you on the lobby as you wait for the youngers to come too.

“Noona, you should meet Jaemin hyung! He is so sweet last night!” Jisung tugs on your uniform.

You frown and shudder your shoulder “Jisung, I hate that man.”

Jeno just laughs at your words and at Jisung's surprised expression “So, should we wait for him?”

You click your tongue “Actually that weird man left class after the first session and did not come back to class. Maybe he ran away. Let's go before it rains.” You start leaving the lobby, but no one follows you.

“Is it because of us?” Jisung worriedly asks his brothers.

Renjun thinks for a while “You mean what happened this morning?”

Jisung nods. Your ear can still hear them, for they start walking after you too. You have to hold yourself from turning around and asking them what happened this morning that made him weird!

When the five of you enter the house, that's when your brain finally clicked on what Jaemin must be suffering.

There in the middle of the living room, is Jaemin looking so uncomfortable as he forces his hand to write on a paper with a textbook opened by his side, but what comes out of his hand is just scribbles of lines and curves and he looks like he is painting instead of writing an essay.

“So damn hard to be productive!” he suddenly throws his pen and pulls his hair. All five of you are shocked to see this. Even you! You never see this side of Jaemin in school. He always looks like the charming prince every girl’s crush, but this is definitely not the same man.

His lips are trembling, limbs unable to stop shaking and he looks in pain. And he starts to hit himself as if scolding his body for not cooperating.

You are in awe and you have to quickly usher Jisung and Chenle away.

“Jaemin! Calm down okay.” Jeno and Renjun quickly stand by his side and tries to keep the boy from hitting himself.

You bring Jisung and Chenle to their rooms while your head is quickly thinking of what to do. You sure see he is panicking and he's throwing tantrum. Taeyong and Yuta are not here yet but when you see your reflection on the window with a clean uniform suddenly your mind reminds you of the incident yesterday.

Coffee. Na Jaemin needs coffee. As silly as it sounds, you've read somewhere that coffee can help someone with ADHD or something like that. You're not sure, but you want to give it a chance. You run to your room, break your saving jar and pick out the bills you've been saving.

“Jaemin, how many shots?” you ask him when you pass through him.

Renjun and Jeno look at you with question in their face but Jaemin understands you and holds out a number with his hand.

Your eyes widen but you run to the nearest coffee shop, the one with the brand you always see Jaemin holding.

“Give me americano with six shots of espresso. Cold I don’t know with water or not.” You sound as mad as a hatter, but the barista seems to notice something.

“Are you by any chance taking an order for Jaemin?” he asks you nod your head baffled that he is a regular here until the shift knows his order and name.

“I was confused when the morning shift told me Jaemin skipped his coffee today. Alright i'll make it like how he always orders.” The man with a name tag Mark punches the bill and gives you the amount.

You don’t mind paying such high price for the black bitter drink you never like, as soon as Mark hands you the drink you walk as fast as you can back to the house.

You see Renjun waiting for you in the porch and he looks pale.

“Where did you go?! I was worried.” Renjun almost scolds you for leaving suddenly.

You walk past him “Jaemin! I have your coffee.” You yell at him, who is currently staring on the TV that's off. Jeno is still sitting next to him, afraid that Jaemin will do anything dangerous.

Jaemin's eyes widen as he quickly takes over the drink and gulp it down like his life depends on it.

All three of you wait for him to finish half of his drink and like magic, Jaemin looks calmer.

He closes his eyes and leans on the couch. His head rests on the small pillow Jeno tosses to him and you can see his usual self back.

After ten minutes, he opens his eyes stretches his body and like a robot who has his reset button pressed, Jaemin shoots a “what?” look to the three of you.

“Sorry if I freaked all of you out. I…” he shyly scratches his head “I have a minor ADHD and … coffee seems to be helping me focus and calm down.”

Now everything clicks. You understand why the teacher actually always assigned you with him, because no one else can handle Jaemin as patient as you and you're too blunt to notice he has his own trouble. You understand why he always brings a coffee to the class and why he looks calm when he has them. Unlike yesterday when he spilled it over you, you clearly see a slight terror in his eyes, and he disappeared from class. Maybe he was shy of showing his true self in class. You now know the reason he skipped class today because of the lack of caffeine and you just didn’t know he is also as wrecked as you guys.

That night, Jaemin knocks on your door and invites you to join dinner.

“You skipped dinner last night, I don’t know if it’s because I was there… and yesterday I was really ruining your day. I'm sorry I wasn’t a good friend too at school.” Jaemin speaks rather in a calm tone and you're taken aback he can speak in a soft kind voice and not the high pitch annoying teasing voice you regular get in school.

You're flustered, but you quickly put back your cold face “It's okay. T'was my fault too not looking the way. Don’t worry I skipped dinner last night coz I am not hungry.” You lied.

No way you were going to spill the truth to him, not when you already know how hard his days are. He was not as bright and happy as he looks like.

“Renjun told me last night everything about you. I am so sorry…I didn’t know my jokes were very painful and disturbing to you. I should’ve stopped but you know I sometimes cannot hold my brain back.” Chuckles Jaemin nervously.

You sigh and place a hand on his shoulder “Life is hard right?” He nods his head and you squeeze his shoulder, “We also find it hard. But at least we're not alone now. We have each other and the others too. I am also sorry for picking on you to the teacher for leeching my score, but I promise I won’t do that again. I'll help you Jaemin.” You smile sincerely to him.

His face brightens “You're the best! I always have hard time focusing! Well coffee helps me, but still it's not healthy.”

You take his hand in yours “Na Jaemin, you're a part of our family now. Since we're family, we will get each other's back! Don’t worry things will be okay and you too will be okay!”

He Smiles and that is a new smile you've ever seen on him. A smile that's pure and true. That shows he too is also a human who can feel pain not just the angelic handsome boy in class.

“We should eat. The others are waiting,” Chenle's appearance in the hallway makes you and Jaemin turn your heads to him.

“She's right. We're family, now family eats dinner, together right? Come on! Taeyong hyung got us some pizzas for your welcome party.” Chenle drags the taller man's hand which automatically pulls you too.

A smile comes to your face when you realize just how perfect this imperfect family is!

Yes you also struggled focusing on a certain job, yes you also hate messy stuffs, yes it's true Renjun took three months to open his mouth and speak complete sentences, it also takes Jeno five months to be true about his feelings, and Jisung plus Chenle? They also have their fish to fry. Now Jaemin, is here with his own battle that will soon be shared within us.

Just like the famous quote, Ohana means family and family means no one is left behind.

Looking around the table, although you really wish you have a sister or a mother figure here, you're more than happy to call the 7 men your brothers and families.

end

please let me know if there are anything I can fix. I am trying a new genre and it’s a bit challenging but I am happy with finishing this.

Contact or reach me out if you have any curiosity of what happens to the members or maybe you wonder what their problems are.

Thank you for reading :D 🤗💖

39 notes · View notes

prettywordsyouleft · 4 years

Text

Bloodstone | Part 10 (Final)

Summary: You knew all about the ring your grandmother had told you about and yet when the stone fell from it one fateful day, you weren’t truly prepared for its return, nor who it came back with.

Pairing: Kim Namjoon x reader

Genre: fantasy / romance

Warnings: grief over loss, cursing

Index: Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

You knew Namjoon was gone before you opened your eyes. The foreboding feeling made you clamp your eyelids together instead, refusing to face reality just yet.

Although you had been concerned with how you would cope without Namjoon in your world, as you laid as still as you could possess, your mind ran towards thoughts of his safety. Was he alive? Did he find himself in a place he was familiar with? Was he trapped in another dimension?

Blindly searching for signs of his disappearance, you gasped when something sharp pierced your skin, snapping your eyes open. There, embedded into your finger and allowing the crimson blood to trickle from the wound was a shard of crystal.

Your emotions flooded you then. Collecting up the pieces of the shattered stone, you rocked back and forth, clutching them to your chest. You wailed out in pain for your loss. You screamed to the heavens in anger. You silently allowed the emotions to fall from your eyes, feeling numb from the whole experience.

Eventually, you lost consciousness.

“Y/N? Y/N!” a voice called out and groggily you peered through an eyelid, a panic-stricken Yoongi appearing before you.

So, it wasn’t all a horrible dream after all.

“Are you okay?”

Holding out your hand to show Yoongi the shattered state of the stone and your heart, you blinked when your palm came up empty. Sitting up hurriedly and looking around yourself, you found your space void of any signs of Namjoon and the stone.

Yoongi sighed. “It’s probably whole again.”

“Bastard rock.”

“It’s been three days since I saw you. I don’t know why I didn’t come sooner. I just felt this strong urge to come and check on you. It was almost as if Namjoon infiltrated my mind. Sounds really crazy, doesn’t it?”

You attempted to laugh hollowly. “Yoongi, hasn’t everything we’ve experienced for the last few weeks been unreal?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“I’m glad you remember him,” you admitted in a small voice, swallowing down the growing lump in your throat. “I was worried life would return to before he arrived here and I’d go insane being the only one with the knowledge that he existed.”

With time, life did recover some normalcy. After mourning for another week, you managed to pull yourself up every morning, consume a mug of coffee to help battle with the fatigue you were experiencing and returned to your job. You ate the same foods you had with Namjoon, and with some time, you began to smile with the fond memory as opposed to tearfully choking the spoonfuls down. You did the things you wanted to with Namjoon one by one, hoping that ticking them off your list honoured his short and tumultuous stay in your world. You kept a journal, but unlike the one Eliza had avidly written with Namwoo at her side, you chose to document the things you did without Namjoon. It held you accountable for keeping to your promise.

It was hard to live without Namjoon, but you were determined to do so.

Still, nights were the worst. You still dreamed of him. His touch felt real within your slumber, the sensual sighs and whispered love confessions lingering even after you became alert. It was difficult to grapple with what was real and a faint memory when you opened your eyes for the first time each morning. Swallowing down the disappointment when you realised your bed was cold and empty of his presence grew harder the longer he was away.

You had endured six months without the man who had turned your world upside down with mere weeks together.

Strangely, the ring had also gone missing. When the stone had left it just a silver shell that you had placed within the drawer of your bedside table. After several weeks of recovering from Namjoon’s disappearance, you had opened the drawer to look at the ring. Even after emptying all the contents onto your bed, it had eluded you. You had searched your entire home upside down for it, even going as far as to check at the comic store as well.

The ring had gone just like Namjoon had.

“What do you want to do with all of this?” Yoongi asked when you visited him again, pointing to the stack of books. You eyed them curiously until you realised what they were. Thinking back to the day he had walked out of your apartment carrying them all, you sighed heavily. You had been so optimistic that Yoongi would find an answer in them.

And he had. It was just not one you had hoped for.

Grinning, you shrugged. “Should we burn them?”

“You want to close that chapter of your life for good?” Yoongi wondered and you shook your head. “I didn’t think so. Why be so dramatic in answer then?”

“Weren’t you the one who claimed this was all sounding a bit like Lord of the Rings? Doesn’t Frodo throw the ring into the fires of Mordor?”

“You don’t have the ring anymore to throw out even if you could.”

“No, the ring left its owner. I hope it’s not harassing another poor soul with the idea of love. It needs to be destroyed for good.”

“Perhaps Namjoon took it with him.”

“I strangely miss it,” you murmured, looking at your finger. Despite not wearing it for some time, the indent it had made upon your skin remained. It made you shiver, feeling a sense of emptiness.

Distracting yourself from the depressing concept, you reached for the stack of books, dragging them towards yourself and off the countertop. Yoongi appeared at your side, gauging if you needed his help to balance them. After rearranging the bunch a little, you shot him a satisfied smile. “I’ll take them back home. I’m sure they’ll find their places upon the bookshelves again.”

“Having them back might help with more closure to the situation,” Yoongi offered and you shared a hopeful smile before heading out into the bright afternoon.

Once home, you struggled down the hallway to your final destination, guiding the bottom book up onto your desk. Relieved to let go of the weight, you wiped at your perspired brow and removed a layer of your clothing, staring at the stack of ancient texts dejectedly.

“Why did I bring you all back here?” you asked yourself before reaching for the book on the top, taking it over to the bookshelves upon the wall and finding it a place. You repeated this task until all of them were house away neatly.

“Dinner,” you mentioned when your stomach began to grumble. After making yourself a bowl of ramen, you returned to the study to spend some time on your computer. It was about an hour into your online perusing that you heard a thud behind you from the shelf. Spinning around in the computer chair, you noticed a book had fallen to the floor. Getting up to retrieve it, you stopped when you realised what book it was.

It was the one that held the information about the ring. Gulping as the hairs stood up on your arms, you gingerly reached out for it, picking it up and cradling its spine. “You belong on the shelf now.”

Hesitating to place it back, you instead found yourself flipping through the book, ending up on the page that had changed your world all those months ago. Fingering the ancient ink gently, you winced at the pain forming in your chest and shook your head. “It’s too early for me to contemplate this fondly.”

Placing the book back on the shelf, you turned around, stopping a second time when your gaze caught something on the floor reflecting under the lights. Stooping down to retrieve it, you couldn’t believe it.

“You weren’t here before, now were you?” you asked of the ring, rapidly looking around the room.

“No, but nor was I,” a voice mentioned with a hint of amusement and you stopped searching when your eyes landed on the purple-haired man in the doorway. Namjoon smiled and nodded as if to answer your disbelief. “I’m back, Y/N.”

It had appeared again.

This time, however, the stone hadn’t arrived alone before him. It was firmly embedded in the silver that you had once shown him and after staring at it for some time, Namjoon boldly reached out to pick it up.

After everything he had gone through because of this stone, he was no longer scared, if anything, he hoped its arrival meant something would happen to take him back to you.

It wasn’t hard to fall back into routine at home. Marian had during his disappearance turned to the local farmer’s son for support and now that Namjoon was back, he hardly saw the girl. It came as no surprise to him when she came home proclaiming she would marry Jungkook. And once she was married, the house felt fuller than before.

Namjoon yearned to leave again. He was satisfied his sister would have someone to cherish her for always. Admittedly, their shy love for one another only made him crave you. His heart ached more often than not and so to avoid their newlywed bliss, Namjoon spent from dawn to dusk working in the gem studio. But even they didn’t amaze him as much as before either.

The ring appearing whole certainly piqued his interest though. “Are you here to take me home?”

Inspecting it up close, he noticed it no longer glowed. The stone was no longer red even. It was golden, affectionate and inviting. It felt warm and fluttered when he closed his palm around it. He smiled, letting out a laugh soon after. Holding the ring made him feel connected to you again as if he was close enough to reach out for your world and dive back into it.

Closing his eyes, he found the warmth in his palm turning scorching hot, letting it go instantly. Hearing the ring clatter to the ground, Namjoon opened his eyes and looked around himself.

“Where did you go?” he wondered, dropping onto his hands and knees on the floor, searching under the desk for the ring. Crawling through the gap to the opposite side, he frowned when his hand touched something fluffy and soft. Blinking rapidly, he gripped onto the fibres before leaping to his feet and wildly glancing around himself.

“I’m not dreaming right?” he murmured, feeling all over his body for any telltale signs. And then he grinned, staring at all your homely clutter. He hadn’t realised he had missed it all until he soaked them in with his stunned focus, even dropping onto the couch to hug it. “I’m home!”

It was then that he realised he hadn’t found the ring yet. Going along the hallway, Namjoon’s breath halted when he saw the light on in the study.

Hearing you talk to the books made his chest swell and he stopped just before the door, listening on for some time. It seemed you found the ring that had granted him passage back here and after listening to you a moment longer, Namjoon stepped forward, finally catching your gaze.

“You’re real?” you asked after he told you he was back and Namjoon merely opened his arms, waiting for your impact.

Dashing across the room to enter his waiting embrace, he held you tightly to his chest once you collided against it. “I’m back. This time for good.”

“How do you know?” you wondered, looking up at him earnestly.

Namjoon reached for the ring you had in your grip and held it up. “It brought me back here. And look, it’s no longer the stone of blood.”

Inspecting the golden colour, you then glanced at the book and paled. “It’s something else now?”

“Maybe for this lifetime it’s just happy to finally succeed in bringing two lovers together.”

“I don’t trust it just yet but if it brought you back to me, then that’s something.”

Laughing, Namjoon placed it upon your finger. It glowed once before it settled completely. You eyed him suspiciously and Namjoon shrugged.

“I expect a proper proposal when the time comes.”

“You know I’ve had a long time to piece one together during my wait to see you again.”

“You know what else I’ve had a long time to think over?” you asked and Namjoon waited for you to continue. “What it truly feels like to have you kiss me once again.”

Leaning down to meet you midway, love blindly led you both into a realm of passion and reconnection during the embrace. He felt his heart soar and then collide into yours, firmly embedding itself there much as the stone had into his chest once. This time though, he knew there was nothing that could shatter this bond.

You were his truest love.

_________________

Thank you for supporting this series

[BTS Masterlist] | [Main Masterlist] | [Request Guidelines]

#kwritersworldnet #kim namjoon #namjoon fiction #namjoon fanfic #namjoon romance #namjoon fantasy #namjoon au #bts #bts fiction #bts fanfic #bts romance #bts fantasy #bts au #pwyl; bloodstone #kpop fiction #kpop fanfic #kpop romance #kpop fantasy

55 notes · View notes

drprettyboyspence · 4 years

Text

Memory Lane

Dr. Spencer Reid/reader

Summary: Reader just can't seem to get to sleep one night so she decides to walk around the house she shares with her boyfriend, Spencer Reid. As she travels around the house she remembers significant moments in their relationship.

words: 2.9k

warnings: season 12 spoilers, mentioning of mental illness, nothing else to my knowledge! (just a lot of fluff)

a/n: This is my first Spencer Reid fic and I kinda went off the rails with the word count, let me know if you enjoy it :)

I turn myself over in bed for what feels like the four hundredth time this hour, facing the ceiling now. I can hear the rustling of leaves outside and the distant sirens of the city, remembering how those sounds used to bring me some sort of comfort as a child, now all I can think of is the death and tragedy being an FBI profiler has brought me into contact with, the horrors at the end of the trail of sirens. Mostly noticeably though, I hear the steady breathing of the man lying next to me in the king bed, glancing over at my boyfriend of almost 4 years I smile warmly, his unruly hair draped over the pillow, glad to see him in deep sleep. Recently he hasn’t been sleeping well, suffering from PTSD from his time spent in prison as well as all the trauma the poor man has been through in the last 10 years of his life. I quietly get out of bed, making sure not to bother him, he deserves a good nights sleep and we have to be at the BAU in a depressingly minuscule amount of hours. My feet hit the cold wooden floors and I wonder for the uncountable time “Why did we decide on wooden floors?” A memory of an argument with Spencer answers my question,

“Because silly, don’t you know that carpets can hold up to 200,000 bacteria per square inch, this room is 100 square feet, 144 square inches per square foot, that is 28,800,000 bacteria in our bedroom alone.” I remember shaking my head at him, he’s always been such a germaphobe. In fact, when we first met, he shook my hand, and later when I confided in JJ and Penelope that I had pretty intense feelings for the resident genius of the BAU, they mentioned that he usually hates shaking hands, is known for refusing to shake the hands of many people the team comes into contact with on cases. He shook my hand right away, it’s one of the things I love about him and we always say we knew right away that we had a special connection. I glance at Spencer’s sleeping frame one more time before leaving the bedroom and making my way down the hallway. There are pictures there, pictures of me and Spence, him and his mom, pictures of the team at work, Spencer won’t admit it often, but he wakes up every morning scared that he won’t remember those he loves, his mother’s dementia and schizophrenia have impacted him greatly. I stop in front of a picture of me and Spence, it’s the first picture we ever took together, Halloween almost 5 years ago now, at the FBI Halloween party.

October 2015

“Come on Y/n! How can you not love Halloween!”

“Spencer, what’s so great about Halloween!” I had asked laughing while filling up a plastic cup with punch. The party is fun, but all this dressing up just seems silly to me sometimes.

“It’s a uniquely American holiday! I mean, despite its obvious origins in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian All Saints’ Day, it really is a melting pot of various immigrants’ traditions and beliefs. It became a little more commercialized in the 1950s with trick-or-treat, and today it rivals only Christmas in terms of popularity!” I catch JJ’s eyes from across the room, she gives me a sympathetic look as I’m stuck in another of Reid’s constant statistics rants. Frankly, I don’t understand how the rest of the team can cut Reid off when he’s like this. He’s so genuinely excited by this holiday it makes my budding feelings for the man standing in front of me even stronger.

“Aw you guys look so cute! Say cheese!” the always-hyper voice of Penelope Garcia shouts from across the bullpen, snapping a quick picture of me and Spence before running after Derek. I glance down at my phone and see a text from Penelope “It doesn’t take a profiler to realize how gone you are for him Y/n” I blush profusely before continuing my conversation with Spencer.

Present day

Tearing my eyes away from that specific picture, I continue walking to the end of the hallway, painfully aware that the floorboards are squeaking with my every step, hoping Spencer’s just-finished-a-case level of exhaustion will prevent him from waking up. I pass the threshold into the kitchen and see the dim light of the clock over the stove, the red 2:15 blinking back at me through my tired eyes, I just can’t seem to get to sleep tonight, I’m sure Spencer would say something like

“Chronic insomnia is usually tied to an underlying mental or physical issue. Anxiety, stress, and depression are some of the most common causes of chronic insomnia but even if you do not suffer from chronic insomnia, 35% of Americans report their sleep quality as poor or only fair.” Dating a living encyclopedia definitely has its perks I suppose. I walk towards the fridge and glance at the refrigerator, my eyes traveling to a postcard held up by a doctor who magnet. Houston, Texas the postcard reads.

February 2017

Me and Spencer had been dating for less than 6 months but as we had known each other for over a year I was falling head over heels in love with him. The last few months hadn’t been easy, Spencer learned that his mother had been diagnosed with dementia and not a day had gone by where he didn’t try and find a cure, he had been traveling to Houston,Texas to talk with his mother’s doctor, he then brought her to live with him in Virginia, it had been difficult to say the least. My fingers traced the edges of the postcard I had received in the mail this morning, then flipped it over and saw Spencer’s familiar scraggly handwriting, it read

Dear Y/n,

I was able to speak with my mother’s doctors today, I feel as though there must be more I can be doing, she seems to be responding to the medicines but I am looking into new methods of treating the disease. I miss you so much Y/n, and I miss the rest of the team as well, tell them I will be back as soon as I can, I hate the thought of you putting yourself in danger on cases without me there, not because I doubt your ability to protect yourself, but because I doubt my ability to handle being 1,402 miles away from you. Please do not worry about me, if you’re anxiously awaiting my return, stop looking at the clock because remember, when looking at a clock our brains anticipate what we’ll see faster than we actually see it, so the clock seems to stop, Ill be back before you know it Y/n.

With all my love, Spencer Reid.

I giggle quietly at the added facts, only Spencer would describe the phenomenon of a clock appearing stopped when glanced out. I’m concerned about Spencer though, I’m not sure what is going on, but there is definitely something not right with him and if I didn’t trust him so much I would consider asking Garcia to do a background check to check the legitimacy of his travels to Houston.

Present Day

This postcard is extremely bittersweet, the next week we were all rushing to Mexico, responding to a call that Spencer was in jail, I was a nervous wreck, we all were, it was an extremely rough 6 months, truly showing me how strong the man I love is. I push some of those harsh memories out of my brain, choosing to focus on the happy memories if I ever want to fall asleep tonight. There’s a coffee machine next to the fridge, if there’s one thing Spencer loves more than me, its coffee, or rather coffee flavored sugar with the amount of sweetener he puts in his cup every day. Spencer smells like coffee, almost always, he struggles to sleep most nights and therefore is always hyped up on caffeine. It's actually played a huge role in our relationship.

August 2016

Dr. Spencer Reid and I are walking to the BAU together as we do every single day, we live close to each other, close enough that he walks about 5 minutes before arriving at my house, we then walk to the coffee shop on the way to the train station. We’re best friends, but I’ve been secretly in love with him for months. Walking into Quantico, we get the daily glances from Penelope, Derek, and JJ who are sitting together looking at pictures of Henry. Penelope always teases me that we’re both so in love with each other that everyone can see it but us, it’s ironic actually. As much as I don’t believe Pen, I have been noticing small changes in Spence’s behavior the last couple months, prompting me to, in the deepest corners of my mind, hope that maybe he feels the same way, our friendship is worth too much to risk him not feeling the same way though, so I’m forever stuck. We aren’t on a case right now, so there’s a lot of paperwork to be done, at one point during the day I get up, asking Spence if he wants another cup of coffee before walking to the break room. I return after a brief 5 minutes and am surprised to see Derek sitting in my seat, arguing with Spencer.

“Come on Pretty boy! We both know you’re in love with her! Just ask her out man, she’ll say yes!”

“Morgan, quiet down, she’ll be back any minute, besides I’m 35 and Y/n is 32, I’m not saying there would even be a chance that we would get married but the marriage success rate in the United States is only 50%, the worst it has ever been, that therefore shows the state of relationships in the country as well, I don’t want to ruin our friendship, I could never lose her. Besides, I’ve never been good with women.”

“But that’s the thing pretty boy, you don’t have to be good with women, you’re already good with Y/n, she’s the one who matters, just ask her out man, you’ll regret it if you don’t.” With that Morgan walks away and I take a deep breath, its now or never, walking over to Spencer and setting down the cup, whispering in his ear,

“You never know how good with women you are until you try, Spence” He looks up at me with wide eyes and licks his tongue across his lips, something he does often.

“Um, Y/n, y-you heard all of that?” I nod and I can see Spence take a deep breath just as I did before walking over, “W-would you like to um- go to dinner with me Y/n?”

“Hmm I don’t know…” Spencer’s face starts to fall as I quickly continue “Of course I would love to go to dinner with you silly, what did you think?” His smile lights up the entire room as he pulls me into a deep hug.

“Well finally you two. You couldn’t have waited just a few more months though, I assumed you lovebirds wouldn’t get it together until after Spencer’s birthday” Rossi says from behind us, passing a pretty hefty stack of bills to Penelope.

That was the day that started the greatest adventure of my life.

Present Day

I leave the kitchen and walk to the living room, a chilly breeze blows my hair slightly askew, its June in Virginia, warm enough that all I’m wearing is one of Spence’s oversized MIT shirts with pajama shorts, but the night air causes slight goosebumps on my skin, sending me into my memories once again.

August 2019

Spencer and I are sitting on the couch, participating in yet another Doctor Who marathon on the tv, it's a rare day off from work and the hot summer air fills our living room even with the fan blowing through the house. I lie my head in Spencer’s lap as we watch the tv and his strong hand strokes the back of my neck, causing goosebumps to pop up all over my arms. I giggle and glance up at him causing him to pointedly look at me asking me with his eyes “What is so funny that you dare distract from Doctor Who?”

“It’s just strange, its 95 degrees outside but your hands on my neck give me goosebumps like its a crisp fall day, isn’t that funny baby?”

“Of course the most common cause of goosebumps is cold weather, but when you’re experiencing extreme emotions, the human body responds in a variety of ways. Two common responses include increased electrical activity in the muscles just under the skin and increased depth or heaviness of breathing, resulting in goosebumps.” I roll my eyes at him and playfully swat his hair out of his eyes.

“Only you, Dr. Spencer Reid, would take a romantic statement and turn it into statistics, and I love you for that” he kisses me and well, the Doctor Who marathon was quickly turned off after that.

Present Day

As I turn the corner into the living room I smile warmly, it’s the room that Spencer and I like the best. There are book cases lining the back wall, Spencer loves books, I’d ask him what made his books so special and he’d tell me stories of his childhood, his mom reading him 15th century literature, I loved when Spence told me stories about his childhood.

December 2017

I knocked on the door of Spencer’s apartment, it wasn’t like him to be late for our daily walk to work especially because he had been on probation after his time in jail. I received no answer, prompting my concern as I unlocked the door with the key he had given me. I walked into his living room and saw him, Spencer was sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by books, running his fingers up and down the pages as he does when he’s reading at his top speed.

“Spence what on earth are you doing! Where did all these books come from? We aren’t on a case are we?”

“This year in the United States alone there have been 328,259 new books published, I read at 20,000 words per minute but at an average of 100,000 words per book, it would take me 27,377 hours to read all those books!”

“Oh Spencer how I love you, you don’t need to read every book ever published, are you going to start reading romance novels?” I tease while picking up a copy of 50 Shades of Gray from the ground at Spencer’s feet.

“Okay maybe you’re right, I just feel like I missed so much time when I was incarcerated, all that reading I could’ve done when I was trapped in that place, it's time I can never get back.”

“Spencer, I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for you, but this is not going to help that feeling go away, let’s go to work.” Spencer nodded and began to tidy up the floor before following me out the door.

“Wait, Y/n, I have to ask you something that I’ve meant to say since I’ve gotten out of jail, and I might as well say it now, will you move in with me?” He’s chewing on his bottom lip again and I jump into his arms in excitement, kissing his hair as he caresses the back of my head.

“Of course I’ll move in with you! I love you, Dr. Spencer Reid.”

“And I love you Y/n Y/l/n.”

Present Day

I’m coming around to the opposite side of the living room now, sitting down on the couch in front of the fireplace. I love the fireplace in our house and I think secretly Spencer does too. We argued for days over the safety of having a fireplace in our house, Spencer of course supplied with enough knowledge of house fires to last him 5 lifetimes, “But Spencer it’ll be so cozy, doesn’t it sound romantic to cuddle up by the fire?” I had pleaded with him the day we toured the house for the first time.

“Y/n, there were an average of 357,400 residential fires per year in the US between 2012 and 2014, an average of 22,300 of those fires were caused by a fireplace or chimney!”

“But Spenceee, that’s only 6.24% of the residential house fires during that period, 43.9% were from cooking equipment, are you going to forbid us from having a kitchen too?” Hey, don’t underestimate how useful a cellphone calculator and a quick google search can be in winning an argument against your genius boyfriend. Obviously, we had ended up agreeing on the fireplace, but Spencer was still overly cautious whenever it was in use. As I stood in front of the fireplace I became hyper aware of the floorboards creaking in the hallway just as they had done when I left the room earlier, I felt a presence enter the room and the 6’1” frame of my boyfriend wrapped his long arms around me from behind while burying his face in the hollow of my shoulder.

“Hi, baby, what are you doing up so late? Are you feeling okay? Can’t seem to get to sleep?” I nod back at him and recline my head so it rests on his strong chest.

“I was just taking a trip down memory lane I suppose” I say before smiling up at the love of my life.

#spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds imagine #spencer reid #dr spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #reader insert

157 notes · View notes

adl-reborn · 3 years

Text

I just realized I forgot to post this here...

Tales of Metroville: Thought Experiments

Aston hadn't slept in 3 days. He had been researching non-stop to discover the ailment from which his friend, Phoenix, was currently suffering. You see, they both were invited to dinner by the president. In theory they both were to be debriefed about current affairs and of any unusual goings on that the two most powerful known mutants on the planet might be needed for. Aston, however, had no need of it - his clairvoyance had alerted him both to the topics of discussion and of all such events including many not on the agenda. Meanwhile, the normally quite outgoing Phoenix barely ate and didn't speak at all, and when they both returned home he locked himself in the master bedroom to do who knows what.

If ever there was a good time for Aston's comprehensive ability to read peoples' minds, this would be a good one, but it isn't so simple with Phoenix. Try as he might, Aston could never do this with Phoenix. Even after years of trying, Aston could only ever manage to read vague emotional states, but that only told him the obvious. Distracted by this, so too was he unable to clearly see the path ahead. And so his research continued. Depression, Anxiety, MPD, and many others. He read through the DSM5 until he reached the chapter on autism.

At this point he paused as his sleep deprived mind called back to his childhood. His odd behavior as a preteen had prompted a visit to the psychiatrist - a visit which he left with a diagnosis of "Asperger's Syndrome". It was described as a milder form of Autism - one which could lie undetected in many. Needless to say he was familiar with it and had recognized much of himself deep within Phoenix's personality, but ultimately the DSM did not help beyond providing a starting point...

Luckily Aston did not need to look far to find his answers. Where official medical documentation failed actually autistic people filled the void, and crucially the true nature of a meltdown and a new concept - burnout, were introduced to him. Additionally, Aston found himself unable to read many of the individuals presenting their point - a correlation which Aston surmised was due to a radically different mind, but finding that out for sure wouldn't be easy...

The only way Aston knew to read minds of a type he had never read before was through a technique he dubbed a "mental fusion". It's theory of operation was similar in principle to what many Trekkies call a mind meld. This was a technique Aston had only ever done once - by accident, he did this to his father on the day he ran away - a fight had broken out between the two and they had inadvertently fused for but a few seconds. In that time they could feel each other's thoughts as one, and Aston gained a roadmap of the human mind, but Aston was overwhelmed by this and ran off into the forest. It was an ability he had sworn to never use again...but his friend was in danger and he knew it.

Slowly Aston opened the door - inside was Phoenix, sitting in the fetal position rocking to soothe his frayed nerves. He held his legs tight against his belly and did not speak to greet Aston. Where Phoenix once stood a timid child remained. As Aston approached Phoenix turned and looked apprehensively in his direction. Aston could see in Phoenix's eyes that his distress was great. As Aston sat down close to Phoenix he was apprehensive at first, but a calming touch from Aston soothed him enough to stay. They sat like this for a while - Aston holding an obviously distressed Phoenix, but he knew what he must do and that it would be uncomfortable.

Slowly Aston moved his right hand to Phoenix's right temple. Phoenix became agitated for a moment and started shaking his arms but Aston calmed him with the left. Once positioned, he waited for Phoenix to calm down and gently positioned his left hand. With his hands in position a faint blue glow began to appear, glowing brighter with every second. Phoenix let out a yell..."I'm sorry..." Said Aston. They both yelled in unison as their minds became one. In an instant they both found themselves unconscious

One hour later...

Aston awoke but not in reality. His fusion was more complete than he had anticipated - he surmised he must be in a shared dream as they both were extremely exhausted. Aston, being a proficient lucid dreamer realized this straight away, but he knew if he could recognize this that the dream is important in some way. In the distance he hears a cry.

It is Phoenix - crying out for help. Alone in the distance. In this dark void he can see nothing, and conjuring a flashlight nor a vehicle has no effect. He continues to run in the direction of the yelling but to no avail - Phoenix remains out of reach. Aston calls out to Phoenix but there was no response........

2 hours later

Aston awakens once again - this time in the house but in his bedroom. Objects are not in their designated places so here too this is a dream. Aston proceeds to navigate to Phoenix's room. He lies on the bed staring at the ceiling unresponsive. As Aston approaches Phoenix apparates into a standing position and then runs up to Aston crying to which they both share embraces...

2 hours later

The sound of screaming pierces in Aaron's ear once again waking him. Again he is in Phoenix's dream - the same one as the first time. Aston remembered well how he failed to handle this dream the last time so he tries a different tactic. He calms his mind and senses Phoenix's precise location. Though they can not see each other, Aston knows he and him are now together. Aston sits down next to Phoenix.

"It's alright...I am here to comfort you." Stated Aston. What was once a cry became a whimper, and the once dark void is now illuminated by a dim yellow radiance. "I am here for you Phoenix, no matter your darkest hour nor your worst fears." The yellow radiance grows in illumination from Phoenix's chest. The two mutants once again embrace one another, and the once dark void is now pierced by a blinding light. "Do you mean it?" Replied Phoenix. "I'll let the actions do the talking..." Aston returned...

2 hours later

"So you finally found it"

Aston awoke once again - this time in a peaceful garden surrounded by a lake with small gentle waves. A fog obscures any view beyond.

"Welcome to my world" stated Phoenix to the now slowly arousing Aston. "I never thought I would see you here, but I figured one day you might show up." "What...is this place?" replied Aston, "it seems peaceful, relaxing even."

"This is my comfort zone" replied Phoenix, "I come here to escape the demands of the world when they become too much to bear." "I couldn't come here for far too long - we were too busy saving the world." continued Phoenix, "I thought I had lost it forever - in its place I only found darkness."

"That was your first dream, and the third. What about the second?" Replied Aston. "The house is where we always go when we're done for the day." Phoenix stated, "I thought maybe I could relax there." "It didn't work out as I had hoped...but at least you were there." Phoenix continued, "If I had been alone in there I don't think it would have done anything. I was just laying there, worrying about all of the drone strikes, supervillains, contingencies, space nukes. You know, all that crazy stuff they brought up at the meeting."

"It's all so stressful you know! And, it's kind of hard to explain, but the lights...they felt blinding, and the klinking of so much silverware on porcelain didn't help either. It felt like I was expending every last drop of my being to not explode from all of the stress!" "I...had no idea." Replied Aston, "I was just sitting next to you. I already knew everything they had to say but since you had said nothing I didn't know what to expect! Even now after fusing I still struggle to comprehend the sheer depth of your thoughts. To be honest the buzz from the busted TV was starting to get on my nerves though...you don't think..."

"I know what you're going to say - I was diagnosed with ADHD, not Asperger's." quipped Phoenix. "Since when have I ever lied to anyone let alone you?" Replied Aston. "I just spent 72 hours straight tearing the internet apart to figure out why you locked yourself in a room. Not because I wanted to get back to saving the world - we both know it doesn't need saving right now. I did that because I knew you were deeply distressed...but I couldn't understand why until now." "This is not a place for argument." Aston continued, "This is a place to escape to when the going gets tough. Just as I can sort of read your thoughts now you should be able to read mine. Look, and see I am not wrong. All you need to do is look at me, focus, and visualize my mind inside yours."

Phoenix was skeptical, but did as asked. To his surprise it worked - all of the research Aston had done up until the point of fusion was laid plain to see. Every disorder in the DSM5. All of the documentaries, YouTube videos, and articles read. So too was Aston's past - all of the struggle he had to endure. He had a fake ID in high school - not so he could drink, but to rent an apartment of his own away from his father's prying eyes in Metroville - far from anywhere he would think to look. His Asperger's was plain to see - a similar but less intense mirror of Phoenix's own past.

As he came out of the vision Phoenix embraced Aston. "Thank you, Aston..." He finally said, "I think you saved me...from my own mind." "It's no sweat, that's what friends do am I right? Sometimes the heroes of the story need saving too." They both stood up, and the dream ended.

Aston awoke holding Phoenix in his embrace. So too did Phoenix not long after. Aston now could see some of Phoenix's thoughts, but Phoenix still remained an enigma - further refinement would be needed to fully understand his mind. "Did you sleep well?" Aston inquired? "Yes...or at least better than I have in the past few months." Replied Phoenix. "I'm glad...seems you needed it." Aston stated. "No kidding...I guess I needed to not feel completely alone for once." Said Phoenix, "Say...that technique you used to get inside my head...I thought you couldn't get inside my head." "That's what I thought too...until I figured out just how different your mind is wired compared to the norm." Replied Aston, "I took an educated guess that you were Autistic - that led me to find out that your brain is almost 100x more complicated than a normal human, and I daresay probably more complicated than mine." "Does that mean I have the same abilities you do then?" Phoenix inquired, now intrigued. "Maybe..." Replied Aston, "You want to find out?" "Sure, but I bought pizza the last time we trained so it's on you this time." Stated Phoenix. "Gladly!" Replied Aston, "I think this will be fun!"

2 notes · View notes

amyscascadingtabs · 4 years

Text

look at where we are, look at where we started

He’s seen Amy sleep before, but never quite this close. She’s never slept on him, and he wonders if they’ve ever been this physically near each other for longer than a few seconds at a time. Her head is a warm weight on his shoulder, heavy without being uncomfortable, and he could probably smell her hair if he just leaned down slightly and it didn’t feel like a creepy thing to do on purpose.

Five times Amy fell asleep on Jake, and one time someone else did.

a.k.a. happy (two days late) birthday @johnny-and-dora! 💛

read on ao3

2014, april.

“This stakeout is a bust,” Amy huffs, throwing her binoculars on the moss-green bedspread that covers the twin-size beds in the cheap motel room. Jake begs they won't actually have to sleep in them later. He tried one out for mattress trampoline and it was rock hard, no bounce at all. His knees are still hurting.

“At this point, I bet there isn't even a drug-smuggling ring and Terry sent us out here to mess with us.”

“Woah, woah. Did I just hear this correctly?” Jake grins, turning his armchair towards her. “Amy Santiago, complaining about an order from a superior? This I gotta get on tape.”

“There's a difference between complaining and disobeying,” she remarks. “Come on, you know you agree with me. Nothing's happening over there!”

“Maybe, but now I have the high ground.” Jake stretches out his legs, putting his feet on the wall below the window. One perk of a gross motel room; no one notices if you make it dirtier. “So I’m going to brag forever.”

“Ugh. I thought this stakeout would be better if you talked so I’d have something to listen to, but it's worse.”

“That's hurtful.”

“Shut up, Peralta.”

“Fine.”

She goes silent. Jake tries to focus on what’s happening through the window they’re watching, but as much as he hates to admit it, Amy’s right. The parking lot they're watching is dead as can be, not as much as a sight of any suspects. He and Amy have spent most of the last hour placing bets on which birds will fly first from the nearby dilapidated tree. Amy won. Jake accused her of cheating, to which she simply responded that there was no possible way she could have been in cahoots with the birds, as he had put it. Jake muttered that he didn't trust her. She rolled her eyes at him. She also gave him a smug smile which, for the record, did not give him butterflies at all. It must have been hunger.

Amy giggles at something on her phone, and the weird probably-hunger-feeling flutters again in his chest as he watches her type a reply. Someone - he guesses Teddy - is making her laugh, and Jake feels the sting of some other gross and ugly emotion next to the non-butterflies. He wishes he was the one making her laugh, but this shift is too boring and they're both too tired and the closest he's come today is the cute snort she did when he used his worst French accent to narrate the process of a pigeon strutting around on top of a car for several minutes. It's not enough. He thinks of digging out the peanuts from his stakeout bag and suggesting another nut-throwing competition like the one they had on that roof two months ago, but as gross as the motel room is, Amy's definitely going to ask him to clean up if he gets peanuts all over the carpet, and that's just not worth it.

“How long until the relief’s team here?” He asks her, trying to hold on to the thought of his bed with its good mattress lump and pillows that at least don't smell vaguely of mold.

“Two hours,” Amy groans. “Ugh. That's an eternity.”

“We could sleep for an hour each?” Jake shrugs. “Nothing's happening anyway, and if it does, we just wake each other up.”

“Only if I get the first hour.”

“But it was my idea!”

“I’ll do your paperwork if I get the first hour.”

“Then sold.”

Amy smirks, looking pleased with herself. Jake feels his cheeks heat. The room’s air-conditioning must be busted, he figures, and hurries to pick up the file with information about their suspects before she can see him blushing.

He keeps his focus on the window, on the view of the desolate parking lot, anywhere that’s not on Amy curling up in the armchair next to his. The streetlights have gone on, lighting up the concrete and old cars and allowing him to see clearly just how depressive a view it is. This stakeout truly couldn’t be over soon enough. Jake turns his head to comment on this to Amy, only to find she’s already asleep.

She has shrugged off her shoes and curled up in the chair, hugging her legs for warmth in a way that makes her look less like an adult and more like an overgrown child looking for safety. She’s resting her head on her own shoulder, her mouth slightly agape, and Jake is gripped by the sudden urge to take a picture of her. He has been running low on new photos to humiliate Amy Santiago with recently, and an embarrassing shot like that would make for excellent leverage at some point. He reaches for his messenger bag on the bed, grabbing his phone from the outer pocket, and is just about to open the camera when Amy leans slightly to the side in her sleep so that her head falls on Jake’s shoulder.

Jake freezes. The camera opens to selfie mode, and he sees his own face staring back at him, paralyzed with surprise. He puts his phone back in his pocket instead.

Amy hums in her sleep, a soft, content noise that shapes the corners of his mouth into a small smile. Part of Jake wants to record this, use it to tease her mercilessly for the rest of their days, but there’s another voice in his head that is quietly whispering about how pleasant it feels. Not just pleasant; it feels natural, somehow, like they’ve done this a hundred times before and have a million more to go. It’s an insane thought, yet it’s persistent.

He wonders if Amy does this with Teddy. Then he scratches the thought, because he’s not supposed to be jealous of Teddy. He’s not supposed to care, or even like Amy at all. Really, he’s furious with her for falling asleep like this, because she’s way too close and way too cute and it’s making the irrational hope in his chest bubble when it should be dormant. If he turned his head right now, he could reach to kiss her forehead. Jake wonders what would happen if he did. Maybe she’d never find out, and it could stay his own secret, but there’s also the overhanging risk that she’d wake up and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. It’s too big of a risk, especially considering he’s not sure of the answer himself. He doesn’t know what he’s doing a lot of the time, and when it comes to Amy Santiago, he never seems to be able to figure it out.

It doesn’t matter, he reminds himself. Amy’s with Teddy. Jake’s alone. It’s not like he’s in love with her or anything, and he should just move so she’ll have to change her position and he can focus on something else than the way her breathing sounds and how her hair is tickling his neck. If something ever happened between them romantic-styles, this could be his ordinary life, but nothing’s happening and he can’t go around waiting for it to. He shouldn’t be thinking about it. He can’t be thinking about it.

Jake doesn’t know for how long they sit like that, him staring out the window like the firework display of the century was happening outside to keep from glancing back at his sleeping colleague every other second, but it’s both too long and not long enough before Amy yawns and leans to the other side. It’s too long, because he’s hyper-aware of every passing second, and it’s not long enough, because his shoulder feels cold the second her head leaves it.

“Did I miss something exciting?” She asks when the shrill alarm on her phone goes off, waking her from slumber. “Did anything happen?”

“Nope,” he says, keeping his eyes stuck to the still eventless parking lot to avoid meeting her gaze and trying his best to sound nonchalant. “Nothing at all.”

2015, august.

“So tonight’s a big night for you,” Jake states before tossing his girlfriend the plus-sized bag of sour cream and onion chips and the bag of sour candy he bought just for the occasion. “Tonight’s the night you lose your Die Hard-virginity.”

“Gross.”

“What? It’s true! After this, Amy Santiago, you will be a changed woman, never to see the world the same way again. Virginity’s a social construct, but Die Hard-virginities?” Jake waves his index finger at her. “Those are real. I can't believe you haven't seen it!”

“I already told you, I’ve seen parts of it on TV, and I’ve heard you describe the plot at least once a week for the last six years. Feels like that's virtually the same thing.” Amy opens the chips bag, stuffing two into her mouth. She's already changed into the optimal movie night-outfit - pajama pants, black hoodie, and an old NYPD shirt - and is looking unfairly attractive to him right now. Only Amy Santiago could make pajamas look sexy.

“Oh, Ames.” Jake shakes his head. “You're sweet, but sadly wrong. As excellent as my summaries of Die Hard are, you are soon to be made aware of just how much they pale in comparison to the real thing.”

She rolls her eyes, but there's a certain twinkle of excitement there. “Just play the movie, babe.”

The usage of the word babe, like most other parts of their relationship, is still brand new. They've been dating for three months now, which is as long as Jake was with Sophia before they broke up, and he finds himself comparing the two relationships in his head sometimes, terrified this one will suffer the same fate. He's more careful this time, more vigilant to not let an accidental I love you slip out in case Amy doesn't feel the same way, more hesitant to randomly invite himself over in fear of intruding on her privacy. Most of the time, he's letting Amy lead the way, enjoying the steady growth of their relationship one day at a time. Because it is growing; every day it feels safer, more natural, much like the word babe has gone from feeling like a daunting and heartfelt declaration of love to a casual pet name that makes him feel all warm inside when he hears it.

He presses play on the remote and slumps down on the couch next to his girlfriend, grabbing one of his blankets and draping it over both of them. He found out early on in their relationship that Amy refuses to watch TV without a blanket, partly because she gets cold and partly just out of habit, which he finds kind of charming. It's fun to get to learn all these little details about her - he thought he knew so much, but it turns out he’d barely scratched the surface - but it's just as fun to introduce her to his world when she's actually showing enthusiasm about it.

“I'm just watching this movie because you made me,” she mumbles as she moves closer to him under the blanket, throwing an arm around his neck. “And because I'm a great girlfriend.”

“Nah, you're excited,” he grins. “You can try to hide it, but I know the truth.”

“I mean, I am kind of curious to see what it is you've been obsessing over for the last thirty years.”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Whatever,” she sighs, but then she pecks his lips and Jake can't hide the blushing that creeps up his cheeks, distracting him from watching John McClane get off the plane and grab his luggage before going to meet Argyle.

Jake loves Die Hard. He’s loved it since the first time he saw it, at a way younger age than any child should probably have been allowed to, and he can - and often will - quote it by heart. He knows every scene, every line and next to every little mannerism displayed by one of the characters, and yet he’s equally transfixed by it every time. Die Hard, to Jake, is safety. When almost everything else managed to hurt him somehow - when Roger ditched their planned father-and-son days to go have sex with some new woman whose name Jake would never learn, when he and Gina fought over something trivial that would pass in a few days but hurt like a bitch until then, when his mom was forced to work overtime to keep them afloat and he had to make his own dinner for the third time that week - Die Hard never did. Die Hard was Jake’s safety blanket, his escape each time the real world disappointed him, and it remains effective to this day. It cheers him up on a bad day and makes the good ones better. Some would call it hyperfixation; Jake calls it instant life improvement.

It’s kind of like Amy, he supposes as she snuggles into his side, her thighs resting against his and her head leaning on his shoulder the way it always does when they’re watching a movie together. Amy’s an instant life improvement, making bad days easier and the good ones even better. Even Die Hard seems more awesome when he’s watching it with her, which he frankly didn't think was possible, and he turns his head to tell her so when he realizes she's fallen asleep.

At first, Jake’s offended. This was an important night, and he had been looking forward to it for the three days it’s been since she promised him it would happen. You can’t discover the magic of Die Hard if you’re asleep while watching it. Plus, if Amy doesn’t watch this movie, she still won’t be able to understand his dope references, and the confused looks she gives him when he tries one are getting seriously repetitive. He considers waking her up, but then she nuzzles her nose against his neck and lets out a little yawn, and nothing in the universe could make him want to bother her.

Carefully, just because he gets to do those kinds of things now, he turns his head so he can press a kiss to the top of hers. He runs his hand through her hair, silky and smooth against his skin, and smiles as Amy hums in her sleep when he begins to draw hearts with his fingers against her neck.

He almost loses track of the movie for a while. For once, it doesn't bother him, because Amy Santiago is sleeping on him like he's her own personal safe place and Jake doesn't ever want her to move.

He can't remember if Sophia ever fell asleep on him when they were watching a movie. If she did, he knows it didn't feel like this. This feeling is intimacy and honor, something tender and vulnerable that's new and familiar all at once, and he's still getting used to it but he already knows he never wants it to end.

Amy doesn't blink herself awake until the end of the movie. She keeps her eyes open for the last few scenes, watching John and Holly kiss as the limo drives away from a burning Nakatomi Plaza, and doesn’t acknowledge the fact that she’s been out cold for most of the last two hours. Jake decides to have fun with it.

“So what’d you think of the movie?” He asks as he keeps the credits running, knowing she’ll complain if he turns them off.

“Oh, it was great,” she says, a little too cheery. “Loved it! For sure!”

“Really? What was your favorite scene?”

“When John saves Holly from being shot by Hans Gruber,” she decides, not missing a beat. “I think. I mean, there are lots of great scenes.”

“Mm, right at the end. Classic. So what more scenes did you like?”

“The one where John McClane says Yippee Kiyay, Motherfuckers?”

“Also a classic. Any more scenes?”

“The helicopter explosion?”

“Oh yeah, that one’s dope. But what about the luggage area shoutout?”

“It was great,” Amy says quickly. “Super cool. I get why you love it so much.”

“And when Holly knocks out a reporter’s front teeth?”

“Mm, she’s a total badass.”

“And when it’s revealed that Hans Gruber’s real name is actually Craig?”

“Oh, yeah - no, wait, that doesn’t seem right.” Amy pulls away from him so she can stare him in the eyes. “Jake, are you trying to trick me?”

“Hah! I am trying to trick you! The luggage area shoutout and the front teeth are from Die Hard 2! The second movie! And get this - the Craig thing wasn’t even real!”

“I got that, thanks.” Amy groans. “Sorry for falling asleep. I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s okay. I mean, I’m a little offended you think I’m that boring company, but it’s okay.”

“I don’t think you’re boring company,” she tells him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I promise. It’s just been a long week, and I was tired, but I didn’t want to cancel on you because I know how much you looked forward to this. It’s not Die Hard’s fault.”

“Ames, it’s okay.” Jake gives her a reassuring smile. “I promise. But you get what this means, right?”

“What does it mean?”

“It means we’re rewatching it again tomorrow. I’m not giving up until you’ve seen the entire movie without falling asleep, and that’s a Peralta guarantee. I’m not letting you remain a Die Hard-virgin.”

She throws a pillow in his face for that comment, but then she laughs, and it’s melodic and contagious and making him even more certain that dating Amy Santiago is the best thing in his life, even when she falls asleep during Die Hard.

2016, october.

Jake’s been on airplanes before, but he doubts he’s ever been this excited about it. Not even the dull pain in his leg that never quite leaves bothers him right now, nor the old lady in front of him talking way too loud about orchids. Even the fact that a kid has the seat behind him and is kicking him repeatedly in the back is okay this flight, because every single thing that could possibly annoy him pales in importance next to the beautiful woman in the seat next to him.

Jake is leaving Florida to go back to New York today, and Amy Santiago is right by his side. It's a wearier, maybe a little skinnier in a bad way, Amy than he's used to, one that's reading the flight security information with her stress-eyes while chewing nervously on her lip, but it's Amy. She insisted on staying by his side for every day he spent recovering at the hospital, sleeping on an uncomfortable foldout couch if not on the chair next to him, and he wonders quietly to himself when she last had a full night's sleep in a bed. The bags under her eyes and the built-up grease in her hair tells him she desperately needs it. He’s tried to tell her so - every night she stayed, he encouraged her to take in on a hotel to get some proper rest - but every night, she refused and said she wouldn't be able to sleep without him there anyway.

(“God, you're cheesy,” he’d told her once, but she had just shrugged.

“I shot you in the leg not even a week ago. Just let me have this.”)

His protests had been half-hearted anyway. Without her there, the pain was all he had to focus on, but as long as she made him company, nothing else mattered. They’d spent a week just talking, her telling him all about life at the precinct and cases she’d worked in the last six months while he tried to share the odd entertaining story from his Florida exile. When they got tired from talking, they snuggled in his hospital bed while trading soft kisses, and despite the pain from his bullet wound, the week had quickly soared to the top of the list of Jake's best weeks in the last six months.

He's had a good week alright, but now he's finally, finally going home with his girlfriend, and he's never been happier. The moment the airplane lifts, Jake's leaving Florida behind, and in just a few hours, he will be back to breathing regular, non-humid Brooklyn air again. He will be back to his tiny, worn-down but charming one-bedroom apartment, to dinners consisting of proper New York pizza instead of Florida’s crappy excuse for it, to real detective work, and, most importantly, to spending every free moment he has with Amy.

“I love you so much,” he whispers to her, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear and watching her smile as she looks up from the safety instructions.

“I love you so much too. Are you sure your leg is okay?”

“It's fine, Ames.” He’s trying not to think about it. It's easy as long as she's there.

“It's just an hour until you can take more painkillers. Hang in there,” she says, gently patting his non-injured thigh as the aircraft starts moving. “You ready to say goodbye to Florida?”

“I was ready to say goodbye to Florida the second I landed,” Jake says, a little too loud. A blond, middle-aged woman on the aisle across from gives him an angry look. He ignores it.

“I'm ready, too.” Amy takes his hand. “Let's go home, babe.”

They hold hands as they lift, watching through the airplane window as the ground gets farther and farther away, Coral Palms shrinking to a tiny speck. Jake vows to never go back. Everything and everyone he needs is in New York, and he can’t wait to sit at his desk again or see his mom or have a bro’s night with Charles. He’s missed it all, even the overpriced coffee and the crowded subway trains, but he’s already starting to feel like himself again, because the thing he missed most is currently leaning her head on his shoulder as she watches them rise above the clouds.

He presses a kiss to her forehead. She smiles, reaching up to kiss his cheek, and then she closes her eyes as the plane keeps rising. It’s only a minute or two before Jake can hear her breathing slow, and not much longer before she’s fast asleep with her head on his shoulder.

She sleeps for the rest of their three-hour flight, snoozing even through the alarm about his painkillers and every pilot announcement. His shoulder goes numb after a while, and he wonders if she’ll have a crick in her neck tomorrow from the awkward angle, but it’s the most peaceful he’s seen her in days, so he lets her be. He’s missed her falling asleep on him, missed being able to breathe in the scent of her hair and hold her so close while she rests. He’s forever grateful to have gained it back.

Amy flinches awake when the plane hits the tarmac, and Jake thinks to himself that it doesn’t matter how excited he is to be back in New York. In truth, he’s already home. He’s been home since the moment he first laid eyes on her again and she accidentally punched him in the throat, and if he has anything to say about it, he plans on never leaving.

2017, october.

Jake hates the nightmares.

He hates how realistic they are, how even though he should recognize them by now, they make his blood freeze to ice and his heart pound each time they return. He hates how often they appear, that his record without them isn't more than three nights in a row since he came home, and that not even the sleeping medication prescribed to him by the psychiatrist he was forced to visit can seem to prevent them. He hates how vulnerable they make him feel, waking up in a cold sweat trying to catch his breath, feeling like he's having an asthma attack and a bad fever all at once.

He hates every single thing about them, but most of all, he hates how they always seem to wake Amy up.

He just can't seem to learn how to suffer through them silently, or maybe Amy spends the nights guarding him, because he swears she's there every time he wakes up from one. Every time, she's there to stroke his hair and whisper to him that it's all okay; that he's safe, he's home, and he's not going anywhere. He loves her for it, whispers it to her when he calms down enough to speak, but he's ridden with guilt. He can handle his own sleep being ruined - he lost that fight long ago - but he draws the line at Amy having to suffer for it.

This night is no different. The dream seems new at first, hurtling him into a green landscape where he's sitting on a bench waiting to meet up with Charles, but when Charles appears, Melanie Hawkins is with him. Jake tries to protest, tell Charles he dreamed of never seeing Hawkins’ face again and could he please make her leave, only to find Charles has turned into Romero and is angling a sharpened shiv at Jake's neck. He tries to take a step backward, hoping to run away, but he falls and lands on his back in the wet grass. Hawkins and Romero are leaning over him, Romero still holding the weapon. Jake feels Melanie’s hair tickle his cheek, flinching as she seems to hover uncomfortably close to him, and it's first when she speaks that he realizes it's not Melanie, it's Amy.

“Jake? Jake, are you okay?”

The wet grass isn't grass - it's his sheets, damp from sweat and tangled around him. Romero is nowhere to be seen, and the figure he thought was Hawkins is really his girlfriend, leaning over him and repeating his name in an attempt to make contact.

It takes more self-control than he knew he had in him, but he manages a nod.

“Another nightmare?” He manages another, reaching for her hand and squeezing it tight.

“It’s okay,” she whispers, pressing it back. “I’m here. You’re safe. Can you take deep breaths? In for four, out for four,” she coaches him, and he follows her instructions, breathing along with her as he’s pulled back to reality.

“It’s warm,” he mumbles when he thinks his voice won’t falter, but Amy shakes her head.

“I think that’s just the panic making you sweat, babe. I can get you a new shirt -”

“No, it’s… I think I’m going to take a shower,” he decides. He’s been taking a lot of nighttime showers lately, trying to wash away the fear and panic that seems to cling to his skin like a physical sensation after each nightmare. “You can go back to sleep, Ames.”

She nods, but he can see her turning on the nightlight as he leaves for the bathroom.

He stands in the shower for a while, letting the warm water run over him and counting the ways in his head that it’s different from prison. One, he doesn’t have to share this shower with a bunch of strangers staring at him. Two, the water pressure’s good and the temperature doesn’t randomly shift from icy to burning. Three, he’s free to steal Amy’s shower gel that smells like pink grapefruit and doesn’t contain as much as a trace of meth. Four, someone’s laid out a towel and a new t-shirt on the floor for him when he gets out. Five, Amy’s waiting for him in the next room. It’s the fifth point that makes him dry off quickly and throw on the shirt before returning to the bedroom.

He finds her sitting up against the headboard, a book open in her lap that she may or may not actually be reading, and the guilt washes over him another time as he notices her trying to stifle a yawn.

“I told you to go to sleep,” he says, and she gives him a half-hearted smile.

“I know.”

“You don’t have to guard me, Ames. It’s fine.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m not guarding you. I’m being your partner and making sure you’re okay, and I’m doing it because I love you and I want to.”

“I love you, too.” He sits down on the bed, putting his part of the comforter over his legs and his pillow against the headboard. “And I’m okay. I might be awake for a while, but please, babe - you can go back to sleep.”

Amy watches him closely, giving him the worried look he’s become used to in the last few weeks, but then she nods.

“I’ll try.”

She turns off the nightlight, and Jake settles for playing a mindless game on his phone, letting the repetition of matching colorful figures distract him. Amy rests her head on his shoulder, and it’s almost reflexive when he turns on the yellow light-setting on his phone so it won’t disturb her. The weight of her head grows heavier, and two rounds of Candy Crush Saga later, he can tell she’s asleep.

He helps her lay down, adjusting the pillows so he knows she’ll be comfortable. Then he tries to sit up again, but she reaches out for him in her sleep and frowns, so he puts his phone away and lays down next to her, wrapping his arms around her and smiling as she squishes her nose in the crook of his neck.

They sleep like that for the rest of the night.

2020, april.

There's been a lot of changes in routine in the Santiago-Peralta home since they first found out they were having a baby. Some have been unintentional, such as Amy sleeping in every morning she can and napping at least once per day because pregnancy is exhausting. Some have been planned out in advance, like one night per week being designated to going through a topic from Amy's detailed list of things they need to discuss before they become parents - a list which ranges from nursery themes and sleep training to family holidays and babysitters. Some have been a mix of both, single events becoming patterns, like Jake rubbing the fancy stretchmark-preventing oil on Amy's stomach near every evening or them spending weeknights on the couch drinking tea and reading parenting books together. Their lives are transforming before their kid is even born, after-work drinks at Shaw’s switched for researching the best cribs and strollers online, and Jake is finding that it doesn’t upset him in the slightest. Rather, it’s exciting, and it feels right.

With Amy just having entered her thirteenth week of pregnancy, the arrival of their baby seems far away still, but it’s starting to feel all the more real. Last week’s framed sonogram now takes pride of place on the dresser in their bedroom, put there so they’ll have time to hide it in case Charles decides to stop by on one of his many unannounced visits, and each morning when Jake grabs a new t-shirt he stops and looks at the monochrome picture for a moment.

That’s their child right there, no more than a few centimeters long and only just having gotten all their important organs in place, but somehow already holding so much of his heart.

He’s still nervous about fatherhood. The list of things that could go wrong, unlucky mistakes and faulty decisions he could make, seems endless. He’s scared of not knowing what to do, scared his kid will hate him, and scared he won’t be able to protect them from everything he’s supposed to. He’s scared he won’t feel the instant and overwhelming love that everyone seems to speak of upon seeing their baby for the first time and he’s scared he’ll feel too much of it. The more real it becomes, the more terrifying it gets, and it’s only the excitement that’s stronger. For every tiny onesie he buys, every suggestion they add to the growing list of possible baby names, and every new weekly size comparison to a fruit or vegetable, Jake looks even more forward to meeting this child. He wants to see them, feel them, hold them, and learn everything there is to know about them. He knows they’re the size of a lime this week, that they’re healthy with a nice and strong heartbeat and that they’re wriggling around like crazy inside Amy even though she claims she can’t feel anything yet, but he wants to know more. The 194 days left until their due date seem like an eternity, and at the same time, it’s surreal to think he can count the days until they could be sitting on this couch with their baby.

Tonight, though, it’s still just the two of them. Amy’s parked herself in one corner of the couch and is reading a book on hypnobirthing, while Jake’s at the other end flipping through Bruce Willis’ book on parenthood. He’s not sure if all the advice in it is sound - or in some cases, fully legal - but he figures the more parenting books he reads, the better equipped he’ll be to figure out what’s sane and not. Jake trusts Bruce Willis with his life, but he does have some doubts about whether playing the Die Hard-soundtrack on maximum volume really is the best way to calm down a screaming baby.

He’s watching Amy over the edge of his book, making note of how she’s doing, if it looks like she needs anything. It doesn’t seem like she’s going to be sick, she’s not shivering nor sweating and her lip’s not trembling like it tends to do before she starts crying, but every now and then it seems like her eyes are falling and she has to shake her head to keep from nodding off. He decides to ask.

“Are you doing okay, Ames?”

“I don’t think I like being pregnant yet,” she huffs, closing the book and putting it on the coffee table with a thud. “I’m so tired, I can’t even read. What’s the point of anything if you can’t read, Jake?”

“Sounds rough,” he says, trying not to grin. He probably shouldn’t be making fun of her, but it’s such an Amy thing to be upset with, he can’t help it.

“It is! I’m trying to read up on breathing techniques so I can get this baby out eventually, and that’s what I get in return? It’s like this kid doesn’t want to be born,” she grumbles, touching the top of where her stomach has started to curve ever-so-slightly.

“I’m sure it’s not their fault, babe.”

“I know it’s not their fault, “ she replies, giving him an apologetic smile and a shrug. “It’s okay. I’m just tired of being exhausted, and feeling constantly motion-sick, and I miss being able to have more than one cup of coffee per day. All my clothes are becoming too tight, but I don’t really look pregnant yet, so it just looks like I gained a bit of weight.” She sighs. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be complaining about this.”

Jake frowns. “Why not?”

“Because we tried for so long! I spent ages thinking I’d give anything if we could just get pregnant, and now we are, and I’m whining like some ungrateful toddler who just got told they can’t have ice cream for dinner.” Amy goes silent for a moment, staring longingly at their freezer. “I shouldn’t have said that. Now I want ice cream.”

“Is that code for me to get you ice cream?”

“No. Maybe. Yes. Later. ”

“Just say the word.”

“Do you think I’m being ungrateful, Jake?” She bites her lip the way she does when she’s nervous, twisting her hands in her lap. “Because I feel like I am, and I hate it. I’m so happy about this baby, and I can’t wait to meet them. Pregnancy’s just way more annoying than I thought it’d be.”

“You’re not ungrateful,” he assures her, putting down his book before reaching for her hands and taking them in his. “I promise. I don’t know what it’s like to grow a human with my body, but if it’s as tiring as you describe it - I swear I don’t know how you do it. I’m pretty sure I’d be awful at it if I ever got to try.”

Amy giggles. “Yeah, you would.”

“Thanks for the confidence.”

“Anytime.”

“Point is, babe, you get to complain as much as you want. I know how much you’ll love this child, and that doesn’t disappear because you think pregnancy is hard some days. You’re still doing it. And,” he looks to where he can see her belly beginning to take a rounder shape, the corners of his mouth instinctively turning into a smile. “You look adorable. Full stop.”

She blushes. “I do?”

“You’re the cutest pregnant person I ever saw,” he promises, repeating the same thing he thinks every time he sees her.

“Even when I sweat through my clothes or puke my guts out because I found a new smell I couldn’t stand?”

“Even then.”

“Wow,” Amy laughs. “You really must love me.”

“I really, really do.”

She leans forward, cupping his face the way she likes to do when she kisses him, the way she’s done since the first time she pressed him up against a tree when they were undercover and the way he hopes she’ll do for many years to come. It’s soft without being lazy, firm without being demanding, and his heart flutters as he feels her smile against his lips.

“Do you want me to read aloud to you?” He asks when they separate, Amy leaning her head on his chest. She nods, and he picks up the book where she left it, continuing to read something about the power of wording that doesn’t fully make sense to him while Amy turns around so she’s laying in his arms.

Jake reads until he can hear her breathing slow and even out, telling him she’s fallen asleep. Once he’s certain it won’t wake her up, he lets her hand stray to her stomach, pulling up the tank top slightly and stroking gently over the tiny bump that’s started taking shape.

That’s their child in there, he reminds himself, marveling over the insanity of it all. He still has to pinch himself sometimes to remember that any of this is real, but whatever the future holds, he knows he can’t wait to experience it with them; Amy, and the lime-sized little bean growing inside of her.

2020, november.

Leonel Jacob Peralta isn’t anything like Jake thought he’d be.

He's bigger than he had guessed - Amy won the bet on who could be closest to guessing their son’s birth weight and height - but smaller than he pictured in his head, almost drowning in the newborn-size pajamas with a pattern of grey stars and striped hat. He looks less like the copy of Amy that he’d visualized, but he's not a copy of Jake either, despite Charles’ claims. He's calmer than they expected, having slept through most of his first day aside from the occasional feeding attempt and diaper change, but they know from the moment he took his first breath that he has a powerful voice.

Most strikingly, he is infinitely more perfect than Jake could have ever imagined.

After coming into the world with the sunrise, his son has had a long and eventful first day of life. He’s had visitors, Charles and Holt and Rosa being first in line to meet and hold and fawn over him. He even opened his eyes for a moment while Holt held him, causing Jake to tear up as he dutifully followed Amy’s orders to take a picture. He’s facetimed with his maternal grandparents and several of his uncles, gotten well-wishes on social media from just about every employee of the 99th precinct and has received more gifts than Jake supposes any newborn could really need. Looking at their list of visitors scheduled for tomorrow, he’s come to the conclusion that his and Amy’s son is already way more popular than either of them has ever been.

Leo’s parents have had a long day, too, and a long night before that, but somehow, Jake doesn’t feel tired. Amy’s finally sleeping in the hospital bed next to him, passed out on her side with her mouth open and a little bit of drool on her pillow. Her hair is a mess and her hospital gown has the two top buttons undone, and yet the first word that comes to mind when Jake looks at her is badass. Not a single day goes by that he’s not proud of his wife for everything she does, but after today, that level of pride has skyrocketed past the moon and sun and the entire milky way. His wife is a superhero and their son is magic, pure and undiluted magic that is resting in Jake’s arms.

If this had been an ordinary evening, he might have been focusing on the discomfort of the stiff armchair he’s sitting in, how the temperature of the room is slightly too warm or how he’s getting kind of hungry, but tonight, he’s barely registering anything else. His son is in his arms, opening and closing his fists with full concentration, and he’s watching him with the most focused gaze Jake’s ever seen in a baby. This kid is staring right into his soul like he’s trying to learn every detail and secret about him, and Jake would have been unnerved by it if it hadn’t felt so right.

Jake spent a long time wondering if he was the right person to have kids. He was so scared of being a bad parent, he didn’t dare to dream of what he could have if he were to be a good one. He’s still scared, has accepted he might always be, but he looks into his son’s eyes and knows deep in his bones that he’ll do everything to make sure this child grows up knowing exactly how beloved and important he is.

Jake doesn’t know what fathers and sons do, but he gets to find out, and finding it out with Leo is the only thing he’s ever wanted.

He still doesn’t know a lot about his son, but he’s trying to learn everything. He has his stats memorized, knows he’s six and a half pounds and nineteen inches of absolute perfection. His camera roll is already filled with close-up pictures of his round cheeks, button nose and thick, dark hair that curls a little near his neck. He knows he’s changed their lives forever, and that it’s guaranteed to be for the better.

Leo stretches his legs inside the blanket, trying to wave his arm, and Jake laughs.

“Too excited about the world to sleep, huh? I get you. Sometimes I feel the same way.” Leo gurgles, which Jake decides to interpret as an okay to keep talking.

“I love you so much,” he whispers to his son without breaking their eye contact. “So, so, much. It’s kind of insane. You were so longed for, and so wanted, and it’s crazy that you’re finally here. Especially considering you weren’t supposed to come out for another week,” he jokes, grinning. “I’m just kidding, that was totally expected. It’s your Santiago genes. It’s still crazy, though. I can’t believe you’re here with us.”

He leans down, kissing both of his son’s cheeks for the fiftieth-or-so time that day.

“It’s a scary world out there. I’m sorry about that. But it’s a little less scary when you’re surrounded by the people you love, and your mom and I will do our everything to keep you safe through the scary parts.” Leo yawns, sticking his little tongue out, and Jake can’t help but smile at the overwhelming cuteness.

“We love you. I love you. More than you understand. Honestly, I don’t think I understand it myself yet, but I don’t care. It’s all good, buddy,” he says, nudging Leo’s fist with his index finger until the newborn grips it. “It’s all good, because you’re here with me, and we’re going to be okay.” Leo lets out a tiny squeak. “Yeah, we are. I promise.”

Either Leo’s unconvinced, or something else is bothering him, because the squeaking noises continue. Gently, as if he was handling the finest of porcelain, Jake holds one hand under his son’s head and lifts him so that he’s upright against his chest instead. He’s not entirely sure what he’s doing, but he’s read that babies like to be close, and Leo does seem happier as his nose presses against his neck. Jake strokes the baby’s back through the blue-and-pink hospital blanket, humming the first Taylor Swift song he can think of - Shake it off, always right. It’s only a minute, maybe two, before the newborn stops fussing, and Jake realizes that his son has fallen asleep.

It’s late in the evening of the early November day Jake will forever have written down as their son’s birthday, and he’s sitting in an uncomfortable armchair in a hospital room in Brooklyn, the love of his life still passed out in bed next to him. Their son is sleeping with his head resting on Jake’s shoulder, like Amy has done so many times before, and he can’t remember ever feeling this peaceful in his life. Leonel is warm and soft and smells as if heaven had a scent, and Jake is so in love.

There had been a time, not too many years ago, where Jake had dreamt about dying a heroic death trying to save the city from evil or working himself to the bone trying to become the most successful cop in New York. Now, every single one of his dreams circle back to the same focal point - a boundless, incandescent hope that he gets to keep being a safe place and favorite sleeping spot for the two people who hold his entire heart.

#team leo but make it original!#brooklyn nine-nine #b99 fanfiction #peraltiago fanfiction #b99 #peraltiago #jake x amy fanfiction #my writing

182 notes · View notes

the-original-b · 3 years

Text

Archangel Chapter 9: Mergers and Acquisitions

Format: Prose / Fiction, multi-entry

Part in Series: 1 of 9 (The Story So Far | The Beginning)

Word Count: c. 4,000

Summary: Now a contractor for the Marlow Partners Northeast Regional headquarters, Specialist Krueger recognizes the emergence of a disturbing trend in the field.

Warning(s): blood, violence, drug use

He released his hands from around her neck when she finally stopped struggling as he stood up to look down at her and study her chest, looking for stillness to indicate she wasn’t breathing anymore. When satisfied he ran his fingers first through the pockets of her hoodie, then her pants to find what he was after—a tiny bag half-filled with a chalky substance resembling powdered drywall.

He emptied the contents of the bag into a bent spoon and held a butane torch to its bottom, applying the heat in five-second intervals so as to only melt his prize down and not burn it, then placed a cotton ball into the puddle of fluid that had accumulated in the spoon. He applied his syringe to the cotton ball to draw the liquid out, inspected it, and stuck the needle into his arm to depress the plunger and lose his senses.

He hadn’t felt the suppressor can when Milo Krueger, clad in a dark turtleneck sweater and tactical pants, arrived later and pressed the muzzle of his .45 ACP Colt Government against the back of his head, and didn’t protest when he thumbed back the hammer, tilted the handgun a little and squeezed the trigger. With his other gloved hand he caught the spent brass mid-flight and hung onto it a while to cool before placing it into his coat pocket and holstering his weapon. He turned his attention to the other body in the room and sat down on the bed next to it to study the poor girl’s pale face and lifeless expression, fearing the worst.

He un-gloved one of his hands to rest the backs of his fingers on her forehead, and pulled it back when he felt just how much cooler her skin was than his; confirming he was far too late to do anything to save her.

“Verdammt,” he exhaled, sitting at the foot of the bed she laid upon. He reached into his inside coat pocket to find his phone and dial her number. “It’s me,” Krueger said soon after she answered. “I found her.”

In his mind’s eye, he could see Elizabeth Khai straighten up in her chair at the news. “Can you get her out?” she asked.

“Not going to happen,” he continued, looking back down at her.

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Shit…” Khai sighed on the other end of the line. “I’ll talk to Isaac and let him know what happened,” she conceded. “Come back to the branch, he’ll want to hear it from you.”

“Understood.” Krueger shut the phone and returned it to his coat pocket before standing up again. He looked down at the girl one last time and offered her a silent apology before turning for the exit.

On his way out he took another glance at the man he just executed, and spotted track marks and bruises running up the length of his left arm. Directly below his fingertips was a syringe half-full of a cloudy solution.

He’d seen that same substance in half-depleted syringes enough times over the last few months to recognize the emerging trend and deduce the circumstances behind the homicide. He would address this when he returned to the branch.

~~~~

Krueger stepped through the glass doors of the office and made his way to the conference room, where he knew Khai and Hayden would be that afternoon.

“Hi, Mr. Krueger,” Danielle said from behind her desk. “They’re just wrapping up another meeting, you can head right in.”

He offered her a nod. “Danke,” he added. He made his way through the hallway and stepped through the double doors, then quietly sat himself down by the foot of a long table in the center of the room as Khai and Isaac Hayden conferred with another person at the other end. Hayden and the other person he didn’t recognize were standing as they talked while Khai sat.

“With respect, Mr. Hayden,” the other man presented his case, “my guys aren’t super comfortable with the idea of being monitored twenty-four-seven. They’ve always found their own pace; that’s when they do their best work.”

“And what kind of work is it they’re doing, Mr. Leo?” Hayden enquired. “I haven't seen a report from your group in months now, have I?” He wore a dark gray pinstriped suit and white shirt with a rosewood red tie and pocket square. “Can I trust that you can maintain control over your operation from a distance?”

“Of course you can,” Leo snapped. “My guys are rock solid, I got no problem letting them do their thing. But they can’t perform the way they have been if your people are watching them all the time, that’s all I’m saying.”

“It’s not supervision,” Hayden lectured, “it’s reassurance. We all know how it is you've made your fortune; nobody here is in the dark on what goes on at the street level. But I remain unconvinced that you’re willing to leave your past behind… and your judgement on the matter is no longer considered sound.”

Leo recoiled, visibly offended by what Hayden said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means your two weeks’ notice has been filed and processed. It will take me some time to find a suitable replacement for you, and you may continue your work as usual during the interim. But the next time you and I speak, it will be about the process of transition.” He gestured the exit, dismissing him. “You can let yourself out, Mr. Leo.”

Leo briefly clenched his fists, then loosened them as he turned away from Khai and Hayden and headed past Krueger toward the door.

When Leo was gone, Krueger stood up and approached the other two people in the room.

“Miss Khai made me aware of what happened this morning in the Rockaways,” Hayden said as he turned to address Krueger. “I’ve sent my condolences to the mother and father, and made burial arrangements.”

Krueger nodded. “There was another syringe there,” he said. “Narcotics.”

“Dragon Tears,” Khai confirmed, standing to match the other men in the room with her and freeing one hand from her note pad to adjust her glasses. She wore a navy blue skirt suit with black tights and round-toe pumps, her hair down past her shoulders. “The new deluxe heroin that’s dominated the headlines all over the East Coast as of late.”

“Is this us?”

Khai hesitated a little. “Not directly,” she said. “We levy steep fees to allow the stuff into the Tri-state, but none of our people distribute. Mr. Hayden is adamant about that.”

“You may not agree with our handling of the material, Mr. Krueger,” Hayden explained, “but understand—it is simply too profitable an opportunity to pass… and our, regulation, doubles as quality control for both the vendors and their clientele.”

Krueger nodded, keeping his disapproval to himself. “I see…” He gestured the exit, referring to Leo. “And your last conversation?”

“Tyson Leo was a small-time dealer,” Khai elaborated. “Until he got connected with a supplier of the Dragon Tears and expanded his network to encompass all of southeastern Long Island. That’s when he showed up on my radar. At first, Mr. Hayden and I let him keep the drugs in exchange for forty percent of what he makes from them. But now that we’ve folded him in formally, we ordered him to walk away from the drugs.”

“Mr. Leo is a capable leader,” Hayden added, “respected among his peers, but he's restricted by his myopic aspirations. I had hoped he could rise above the chaff and prove himself superior to his associates; I was wrong. The goal of becoming a narcotics kingpin was too deeply rooted in his actions for him to change his ways…” Hayden gathered his coat and slipped it on over his suit. “But there may yet be a way forward,” he mused. “You’ll head to Patchogue tonight, Mr. Krueger. Observe his den from a distance and report what you see.”

Again, Krueger kept his objections to himself. “Understood.”

“You and I will speak soon. Good day to you both.” Hayden exited the conference room, leaving Khai and Krueger alone with each other.

Khai placed her pen and pad on the table top after Hayden had left the room. “I guess that means we’ll need a rain check for our dinner plans.”

“So scheint es,” Krueger noted. He offered her a sorrowful smirk. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“I know you will,” Khai said. She shot him a wink before turning to head toward her desk. “I’ll have CJ meet you in the armory downtown,” she continued as she took her seat. “He talked about updating our inventory and replacing a few things, so I let him order a small shipment to field test. I would very much appreciate your help with that.”

“Do you think I’ll run into much trouble on a recon assignment?”

“Nothing you can’t handle,” she noted with a mischievous smirk, lacing her fingers together and resting her forearms on the desk top.

“Of course,” he said. “I’ll see what Young Mr. Silvio has for me.” Krueger took his leave, allowing Khai to finalize the funeral arrangements for the girl.

~~~~

Krueger inspected and approved of the reconnaissance equipment when he made it to the armory later that afternoon. “Miss Khai said you’re updating the inventory here?” he said.

“Yep,” CJ replied. “Figure if this place is one of my responsibilities, I’d better make sure it’s up and running without a hitch.”

“Agreed,” he noted, leaning against a workstation and crossing his arms, “but having your associates learn a set of completely new and unfamiliar tools at this point is far from advantageous.”

“Well, that’s why you’re here,” he jested. “To teach us your ways, impart your knowledge. Besides, this is a new branch, Krueger. A new branch needs a new armory. Speaking of which…” CJ Silvio reached up and pulled one of the new arrivals from the wall—a polymer framed handgun resembling a cross between a Glock 17 and a HK P30. “Steyr M,” he said, handing it to Krueger to inspect. “Nine millimeter. The sights are supposed to be better than the competition, and they’re cheaper than Five-sevens.”

Krueger familiarized himself with the feel and weight of the weapon. He held the weapon in a weaver stance and looked down the sights, making sense of the unfamiliar picture composed of a trapezoidal rear notch and triangular front blade. “Suppressor?”

“You bet.” He handed Krueger a suppressor and a pair of fifteen-round magazines. “Let me know how it goes, yeah?”

Krueger attached the can to the end of the handgun and looked down the sights again, dry-firing to get a sense of the trigger weight. “Ja.” He accepted both magazines, sliding one into the handgun and engaging the safety. He placed the other in one of the pockets of his pants before heading for the exit.

~~~~

Krueger observed a one-story house on Carman Street through his binoculars from behind his windshield, the directional microphone resting on the car roof pointed toward the house. Even at this hour the crowds were gathered in force a few blocks north on Main Street, hopping from bar to bar as they satisfied their fleshly desires. He found a measure of solace in the fact that he still had a few short years to go before his daughter Victoria would spend any amount of time or money in this town—and if she did, it would be on Main Street, not at some drug den.

He watched and listened for hours, the microphone’s earbud in one ear and his communicator in the other. “Leo hasn’t come out of the house since he got there,” he said into the receiver. “He’s in with four other men his age.”

“His lieutenants,” Hayden surmised. “Have they had other visitors?”

“Food delivery… and UPS.” Krueger watched the door and partially obscured windows for any sign of activity that would confirm or deny Hayden’s suspicions; whatever shadows he could see through them weren’t giving him any clues. He watched in silence until a person wearing a hooded sweatshirt came into view and walked up to the door. “Hold on,” Krueger noted. “I might have something…”

The person in the hoodie—Krueger couldn’t tell from this distance whether it was a man or woman—knocked on the door four times. Then the door was cracked open a tiny bit, and the hooded figure tried to discreetly hand the person on the other side of the door a crumpled fistful of dollar bills before the door shut. Krueger saw right through it; this person was buying something.

The door opened again and the hooded person accepted a bag of powder from the one behind it. The hooded person took the bag and stepped away from the house, stuffing it in his or her pants pocket as he or she did, then headed down the street toward wherever he or she would spend the night.

“You were right to suspect Mr. Leo,” Krueger commented. “Someone just bought drugs from the house.”

Krueger heard Hayden sigh on the other end. “Then I believe it’s time to shut him down… Scuttle the operation,” he ordered.

“And Leo?”

“Crew expendable.”

Krueger only had a moment’s pause before reaching up through the moon roof to retrieve the directional microphone and put the binoculars away. “Understood.” He deactivated his communicator and shut the engine off, then reached into his coat for his handgun to disengage the safety and chamber the first round. He exited the car and strode down half the block to the house.

When he arrived, he knocked on the door four times at the observed frequency, then drew his weapon and held its muzzle against the door. As soon as the knob twisted and the door opened a little, held by a chain lock, Krueger pressed his weight against the door to hold it open while he fired twice through the door into the person standing behind it. He kicked the door free, knocking the wounded person to the floor before raising his gun and finishing him with two more shots.

Krueger turned his attention toward one other person scrambling for cover behind a doorway, raised his weapon, and put him down with a single well-placed shot. He proceeded deeper into the house, peering around the corner into the kitchen area and dropping the two people there with accurate shots placed between Ziploc bags of off-white powder and triple beam balance scales resting on the table.

He listened for more movement around him, and hearing none, proceeded deeper into the house. He went room to room hunting Leo, and found him curled up on a mattress on the floor, passed out with a depleted syringe in his hand. Krueger raised his gun one-handed, hesitating for a moment before lining up the sights and squeezing the trigger to execute him.

“Weak,” he commented, lowering the weapon.

Krueger returned his gun to the holster and placed his hands in his coat pockets as he walked back down the hallway to the front door, careful not to place his step in the growing puddles of blood on the floor as he headed out the house and back down Carman Street to his car. He entered the vehicle and sat down behind the wheel, starting the engine and fishing his phone out of his inside pocket to report to Hayden as he drove off.

~~~~

Krueger keyed open his front door and stepped into his home in Rego Park when he arrived an hour later. He hung his coat and weapon holster on the rack in the corner next to Khai’s and sat down on the adjacent bench to remove his boots as Khai addressed him from his kitchenette, the evening news on in the background.

“How was Patchogue?” she said from behind her laptop screen.

“Messy,” he replied as he stepped out of his boots and lifted his turtleneck sweater off himself, revealing a black A-shirt which his lean athletic frame filled perfectly. “Had to close business… I tested Silvio’s new arrival,” he added as he walked up to her. “It worked very well.”

“Well,” she noted, standing to greet him in an oversized sweater and a pair of leggings, “he’s grown a lot since Williamsburg. I’d expect no less.” She properly greeted him by wrapping one arm around his neck and planting a string of long kisses on his mouth as she ran her other hand through his hair. These days he had allowed his military fade haircut to grow a little, and it took on a messier look which she liked.

Krueger returned her affections in kind, holding her close by her waist as he kissed her.

When they broke contact, Khai noticed an expression she hadn’t seen in his eyes in a long time—doubt. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Leo,” he said after a brief pause.

“That bad, huh?”

“Hayden was right to suspect him. He was dealing; I called it in, and he had me wipe them out. And I did without a second thought.”

“It can’t be the first time you cleaned up a heroin den.”

“Far from it, but it was never… an associate.” He stopped himself from saying one of his own.

Khai nodded, understanding exactly where his objection came from. She reached back up and rested her hand on his cheek “It never feels right when it’s somebody we work with,” she said, “and Isaac wouldn’t have given you the order if there were any other way.” Her hand rested on his chest now, feeling the pulse of his beating heart. “You did the right thing, Milo. I promise.”

“Suppose I’ll have to trust your judgement there,” he added resting his hand on top of hers.

“I’ve been right so far, haven’t I?” she jested, reclaiming her seat.

“Well, there was that one thing with Osiris,” he added, matching her tone. He went to the kitchen to fix himself a plate of the food she’d prepared.

“It worked out in the end, didn’t it?”

“Sure it did,” he chuckled. He placed himself down across the table from her as he ate, turning his attention to the news behind her. “Vas ist das?” he queried.

“Hm?” Khai followed his gaze to the television behind her. “Oh, they’re following a story about PMC operators in a few cities across the country.”

“A private military company here in the States?”

“Yep. Castle Security Solutions,” she said, turning her laptop around for him to see. “They’ve grown like a weed since U.S. Armed Forces starting pulling out of combat zones across the world. In the early days they’ve replaced the troops in those areas of the world where there was still work available, but recently they started providing additional support for law enforcement. You know, ‘handling the more dangerous parts so the guys and girls in blue can protect and serve.’ So it goes.”

“Do you believe any of that?”

Khai shrugged. “As a citizen, I can’t dispute the results they’ve achieved in the cities they’ve been deployed—Detroit, Memphis, Albuquerque…”

“But as controller of the Branch?” Krueger suggested, placing a forkful of beef and broccoli in his mouth.

“A private militarized police force, with no obligation to anything but the bottom line… that can sink us. Such a presence wouldn’t be caught up in the same bureaucratic obstacles as the regular police that allow organizations like the Marlow Partners to operate just outside of what’s legal. Criminal justice staples like warrants and probable cause will be thrown out for ideals like unfounded suspicion, hearsay, and personal grudges.” She shuddered as she considered the implications of what she just said. “I like to think it’ll never happen in New York but still,” she continued, reclaiming Krueger’s heterochromatic eyes. “I can’t shake the feeling that we’re just one bad deal away from signing our own death warrants… We’ll have to be extra careful, going forward.”

~~~~

A man in dark slacks and a white shirt pulled his SUV as close to the crime scene as he could get, then stopped the engine and stepped out of the vehicle. He hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his topcoat as he ducked below the police tape and approached the house on Carman Street, illuminated by the flashing red and blue lights of first responders.

Some uniformed officers took eyewitness statements as crime scene investigators took photos of the scene. The man in the coat wove between them as he made his way to the kicked-in door and peered inside, noting the body with four bullet wounds laid out in the foyer, already marked and noted by the investigators.

“Hey,” one of the officers got his attention. “Can I help you somehow?” His uniform sported a Sergeant’s stripes.

“Hey there,” the newcomer responded in a rich, gravelly baritone. “This your crime scene, Sergeant..?”

“Allers,” the officer said. “And yeah, it’s mine. Who did you say you were?”

“Peter Cross,” he said. “United States Government.” He quickly flashed Allers an ID and badge. “You know what this place was?”

“I heard rumors,” Allers said. “Some kind of heroin nest.”

“Looks like more than that to me.”

“And you know this based on your expertise?” Allers questioned. “I’m sorry, you said you were U.S. Government, right? Which agency, FBI? DEA?”

“Not really,” Cross said, shaking his head. “When the DEA shits the bed, I’m the guy they call to change the sheets.” He thumbed over his shoulder in the direction of the house. “Now I’ve seen enough of these dens to know a thing or two about them, so if you like,” he suggested as he took a few steps toward Allers, “I think it would be mutually beneficial for me to stick around for a little bit. Share some insight…” He grinned wryly at the other man.

Allers shrugged. “If you think we missed something, you’re welcome to take a second look Agent Cross.”

“Cool…” He gestured the open door. “Why don’t you show me inside, Sergeant Allers?”

“Follow me.” Allers led Cross to the kitchen area, where the drugs and money was being documented, collected, and marked as evidence. “At first we thought this was a typical gangland hit for the product and the money,” he explained, “but they usually don’t leave the goods behind in raids like that… doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”

Cross looked around the room, noting the bodies beside them. He recalled the other one by the door as he played the events in his head as he deduced they played. He gestured the bags of contraband. “Is that what I think it is?”

“The super heroin? Looks like it, but we’ll have to wait for the lab results to be sure.”

“Uh-huh…” Cross leaned against the countertop as he rested his hands on his hips. He looked over to where the kitchen emptied into the central hallway leading to rooms he hadn’t seen yet. “How many bodies?”

“Five, the four you’ve seen plus one more in the master bedroom.”

“You ID any of them?”

“Yeah, we have IDs on all of them,” Allers noted. “These four are nobodies but the one in the master bedroom got our attention: Tyson Leo.”

“Leo..! Son of a bitch…” Cross snapped his fingers as he put the picture together. “Well you’re right about one thing, Sergeant—this was a hit. The work of a professional. Somebody here was out to make a point, not a profit… Share this with the rest of the Suffolk PD,” he suggested, standing up straight again. “This isn’t the first drug den I’ve been to in the last few weeks and I’m betting it won’t be the last.” He headed for the door. “And if I were a betting boy, this drug crisis is going to get a lot bloodier before it goes away.”

“And this is the year they cut our budget,” Allers scoffed, crossing his arms. “Figures.”

“Damn shame,” Cross added. “It would sure be nice if somebody were still around to do fill the gaps in that budget, no?”

(Masterlist | Chapter 10)

#fiction #original work #original content #original fiction #prose #short story #creative writing #drama #thriller #crime story

2 notes · View notes

prince-eon · 4 years

Text

• We’ll Figure It Out • ➥ h. hotel

[ Husk / Reader ]

I made this on a whim because why the fuck not. First story published, not first time writing. GLHF, never written for Husk before but it’s an adventure we can experience together. Also, yes, this was based off of “The Stray” comic by Disteal.

— TL;DR : Some soft Husk shit. The server is a sin. Not really used to writing Husk sorry. Based off of “The Stray”

Pre-Warnings: Just some slight angst with some fluff in it ; a tiny smidge of self-loathing ; more of a platonic thing but if you squint you can see the intimacy

God damn was it fucking freezing. Who knew that Hell would have such blistering winters, then again, it was hell so what the fuck did you expect? The weather here was nothing short of imperfection, choosing to be either sweltering hot or a blistering cold. Even if there were good days, they were short in stock as this place did its best to live up to its name.

Tonight, as you’ve noticed by your numb hands and probably already frozen face, it was freezing tonight, and it just so happened that you were walking home. Today was your birthday, and you had just spent the entire day out alone drinking away your sorrows and passing out at the docks of Lake Wendigo. It wasn’t your brightest idea to go outside in this weather, especially with such a thin sweater on, but it also wasn’t the worst thing you’ve done.

You walked on, staring down at your phone as you message Rosie on what your next job would be for tomorrow. All week you’ve had nothing assigned for you to do and you were tired of sitting around. It made you anxious and adding that on top of the growing pile of depression of your birthday just made you feel all the worse.

Hey mother

When’s the haul coming in?

Read

You frowned at the ‘read’ underneath your message. A cloud of white left your lips when you sighed in frustration. Why hasn’t she replied yet? You’re sure you’ve taught her enough on how to use a phone, that and she was a fast learner, so there was no way she’d have trouble texting you back. A frown settled onto your face as you looked up to see the hotel.

This place was the bane of your existence, ever since Rosie sent you off to help Radio-bitch out to repay a favor. That was a month ago, and you were dreading every single second of it. The group of people that helped run this place or participated in the project behind it were complete morons. They were all so neurotic with their actions. It all made you feel awkward and out of place, so much so that you paused when you made it to the door, not moving an inch to reach out and grasp the handle to open it.

You stared holes into the brass piece, taking a glance behind you and questioning on whether you wanted to leave while you still could. It seemed so enticing to leave, go back to Rosie and forget like this place ever existed, back to your regular, daily, miserable life. You stared out down the walkway, going to take a step forward. That was until the doors opened to reveal a tall, skinny bitch.

“Well, look who decided to show up!” Alastor chirped from the doorway, smile ever present, “Come on in, my dear, tonight is a deathly cold night and you must be freezing!” He stepped forward, putting a hand to your back as he pushed you inside and closed the door. The warm air instantly met your skin, and it was only then that you realized just how cold you were.

“Ah, yeah..” You mumbled out, shoving your phone and hands inside your sweater’s pockets to help warm them up. You followed Alastor into the dining area to find everyone already gathered around the table. The atmosphere surrounding them was filled with a warmness that had you pausing in the doorway as Alastor walked back into the kitchen. Almost everyone had a smile on their face, seeming so casual and enjoying each other’s presence while you stood afar. You watched them all move with such up-beat energy that you nearly jumped out of your skin when Charlie shot up out of her seat and called out to you with a wide grin on her face.

“You’re late!” She exclaimed, grabbing your hand and pulling you over to the chair next to hers.

“Sorry, work kept me late.” You explained weakly, falling into your seat when Charlie pushed you to sit with a bit of force behind her action that had you lose your breath.

“That’s fine, Alastor just finished cooking anyway!” Charlie exclaimed, sitting down and smiling eagerly at you with an almost childlike glow to it, “He made your favorite!”

“Y-yeah… I see that.” You smiled awkwardly, looking away and watching as Niffty zoomed out of the kitchen with a large plate of food, one that you recognized so easily as the one your mother used to make when you were but a child. You watched as everyone reached out and started to serve themselves while Niffty kept zooming back and forth between the dining room and kitchen.

You stared out over the crowd, noticing that Vaggie and Angel were having their usual spat, yelling at each other about god knows what this time. Crymini had her feet on the table, leaning back in her chair as she stared down at her lap at the phone in her hand. She occasionally looked up to laugh at Razzle and Dazzle’s antics, who were currently messing with Baxter and getting such easy entertainment off his easy reactions (which involved a lot of screeching). Husk sat across from you, nursing from a bottle of tequila as he watched Vaggie get more heated by the second from Angel’s nonchalance. You briefly wondered if Charlie was ever going to step in, but it seemed that tonight she could care less as she involved herself in a deep conversation with Mimzy.

Upon all this chaos, you slowly dropped the smile on your face, a scowl replacing it as you stared down at the plate before you. You grimaced, the alcohol from earlier making your stomach twist at the thought of food. You shook your head, making it ache from the sudden movement as you moved your chair back to stand up. You moved to walk around the table, heading towards the door and tuning out the loud banter in the room. No one but Mimzy noticed, and when she called out to you, everyone stopped what they were doing for a short moment to look at you.

“Hey! Where you going? You just got here and you’re leaving already?” She questioned, crossing her arms.

You paused in the doorway, glancing back at them, “I’m just gonna make a quick call. I’ll be back in a jiffy, don’t worry.” You explained, turning around and jumping back a bit when you almost ran into Alastor. You looked up at him, noticing the way he tilted his head in confusion down at you as he held another plate of your favorite meal. You said nothing other than an apology, moving your gaze to the ground as you stepped aside and continued your stroll to the exit. Not once did you ever notice the pair of eyes watching you.

You stepped back out into the cold, immediately feeling the cold hit your face. Your whole body shivered in response to the chill air of the night. It had you crossing your arms subconsciously in an attempt to save what little body heat you had. You looked around at your surroundings, checking to see if there were any unwanted presence around you. Last time you hadn’t checked the surrounding area of the hotel, a zeppelin blowed a hole into the entrance.

Shivering at the memory of bitch mc-gee’s show of power, you turned and began strolling around the building. You stared up at it and took in all its glory, every crevice, every detail. The place looked like it went through three hurricanes and back, or like dog shit. In simpler words, it looked run-down and awful, but you were sure that the twizzler would get it back up and running. If Rosie taught you anything, it was that when it came to Alastor, he could do some damn impressive things in his achieving ‘entertainment’ in his own means.

You scoffed at the thought. Never will you understand the fondness your dear Rosie had for the maniac. You rubbed your temples, trying to soothe the aching in your head, but it proved to be fruitless. Groaning in discomfort, you decided to focus ahead of you and where you were heading. The tall shadows casted by the hotel left little to see, but it was no issue to you when you finally reached the back alley.

The back of the hotel was your favorite hot spot and hide away to get away from everyone. It was your haven from the loud sounds of laughter and yelling provided from the patrons in there. Out here, you had the freedom to do whatever you wanted away from the scrutinizing eye of others. It was also a place to get your smoke on without having radio shack yell at you. Now that you think about it, having a quick smoke before heading back inside didn’t sound so bad, so without second thought you reached into your back pocket and pulled out the box of cigars you had along with your lighter.

You walked up to the brick wall of the hotel, leaning against it next to the back-exit while you pulled out a stick and lit the end of it. When it started smoking, you took a long drag out of it before pulling back and blowing a white cloud of smoke into the air. You watched it swirl and dance around for a moment, almost memorized by the way the cloud moved. It was only when the cloud of white disappeared that you allowed yourself to pull your phone out, opening messages and instantly tapping on Rosie’s name.

You huffed in annoyance as you noticed she had yet to message you back, “God fucking dammit…” You cursed under your breath, letting yourself fall ass-first to the ground in frustration. You leaned back against the wall, closing your eyes and breathing deeply to control your anger before you ended up punching a hole into the brick wall. You sat up again, pulling your phone up and starting to type a message to once more ask Rosie what she had wanted you to do. Not once did you notice the door open, nor the heavy footsteps coming closer to you until they called out to you.

“Hey, kid.” A deep and husky voice spoke.

You nearly jumped out of your skin, letting a few curses slip out as you almost dropped your phone. You snapped your head up, ready to cuss whoever decided to startle you out, but instead surprise replaced your anger as you saw the last person you’d expect to see out here. “Husk? What are you doing out here? Head back inside man, I’ll be done in a sec.”

He shrugged, bringing the bottle of tequila up to his lips, “Just getting some air.” Is all he said before taking a swig, throwing his head back and downing almost half the bottle in an instant.

“Oh.” Is all you said as you watched him drink before turning back to stare down at your screen.

Husk pulled the bottle back down, glancing down at you. He furrowed his brows at the look on your face as you typed out a message to whoever it was you were so focused on texting. He looked away to the bottle in his hand, taking small glances between you and his drink, wondering if whether he should even offer you a sip. He glanced back down to you, watching you smash your fingers onto the bright screen in frustration. He let out a sigh, taking a few steps towards you before plopping down adjacent to you.

You looked up, narrowing your eyes in suspicion of his actions, a small hint of confusion bubbled in the back of your mind. You opened your mouth, ready to tell him off, but he beat you to it by raising the bottle of tequila in offering to you, “Here, drink this. You’ll feel better.” He spoke.

You stared at him in surprise. It was known around the hotel staff that if there was one thing Husk would not separate from, it was his liquor. So, of course it was a shocker when he offered you that bottle. You closed your mouth, not saying anything or even daring to move, and that seemed to make him anxious. Husk thought he’d maybe made the wrong move, seeing as how you didn’t move or reply. He had half the mind to take back what he said, swallowing a pool of saliva in nervousness and opening his mouth to prepare to fix the awkward situation before it got worse. However, there was no need as you raised your hand and grasped the bottle, taking it from him.

“Thanks…” you replied, staring down at the bottle before taking a small sip and handing it back over to him. You tensed when your fingers brushed, feeling a pit of anxiety settle in your gut. You ignored it, however, and continued to stare down at your phone to read through what you’ve already typed down. A scowl formed on your face as you scrolled up to read through previous messages Rosie had sent your over the past month. Whether it was her telling you to listen to Alastor or to be good or to just wait for her instructions, it all had you huffing in anger.

A cold breeze passed through, making you shiver and hug yourself to savor body heat. You let out a sigh, leaning your head back to close your eyes again. The ambience of the area around the hotel filled your ears along with the occasional sound of liquid being jostled around inside a glass bottle. It was then that you realized the cat was still here. You furrowed your brows, suddenly not liking the silence that filled the air between you and Husk. It was thick with awkwardness, and it left you anxious in its wake.

“…it—” you started, glancing up at the cat demon next to you, “It’s just a bit too loud inside… and weird… I’m not really used to such a lively atmosphere, so…” You trailed off, turning your head away from him to avoid meeting his gaze, not that he cared. He didn’t even bother to look down at you, all he did was take a couple more swigs from his bottle while staring up at the dim pentagram in the dark red sky before speaking, “It’s okay, kid. You don’t have to explain yourself to me… I understand.”

Your face twisted in a slight grimace, “Yeah, it’s just really not my thing…”

Husk sighed in slight annoyance but dared not to say anything. Instead, he only shrugged as he looked down at the bottle in his hand. “I get it.” He replied, swirling the alcohol around in boredom.

You frowned, brows furrowing in frustration as you stared at the ground in irritation. A beat of silence settled between the both of you before you squared your shoulders, sitting straight and looking up at the cat in irritation. “See, I don’t think you do. I don’t think we’re really on the same page here.” You spat. You stood up, moving away from him and glaring out around the surrounding area. You took deep breaths in an attempt to control your anger. But it proved to be futile as when you turned around to glare at him, the look on his face that told you he could care less had your blood boiling.

“You all just go on doing all this stupid, kumbaya shit without a care in the world of the consequences.” You started, “You all have this sense of freedom within the hotel, a place that you all seem to call home with no trouble in doing so.” Your teeth were grit in disgust, the anger was building on your shoulders and you tried to keep it contained, but the bucket was overflowing, and it all spilled out and came undone.

“You all have it so easy, don’t you?! You get to walk around here without feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders! Well, I ain’t ever had that shit Husk! People like ME in my situation, in MY line of work are on a one-way conveyor belt to being screwed over and being complete fuck-ups!”

Your hands hurt from how tightly they were clenched. You could feel your claws digging into your flesh and spilling your blood in them. Anger and frustration were coursing through your veins as you had finally cracked under the pressure and stress of the month. The drawer was open, and you could do nothing but release all this pent-up stress by yelling at him. You didn’t know why you were doing it, especially to him out of all people, but all you wanted to do in that moment was to just be angry. And you wanted him to be angry back at you. You wanted him to fight, to yell, to scream at you and smash the bottle over your damn head for even having the gall to say such things in his face. But all he did was just look up at you with this disinterested look that pissed you off even more.

“We don’t GET big, happy, family stuff man! All we do is get moved around until our owners have an excuse to shoot us down!” You cried out in rancor, feeling tears starting to blur your vision as the water works finally unleashed themselves. You raised a hand, making sloppy work of trying to wipe them away. “All this, and you all just— fuckin— wanna make that all better and fix it like it’ll all go away…”

Your hand dropped, the cold air numbing your face even more as the hot tears continued to pour. You clenched your hands tightly and stared down into the ground with a look of distaste, “Don’t patronize me…” You mumbled out tiredly, “I’m not stupid, y’know. I know what cards I got dealt…” You crossed your arms, hugging yourself tightly, “…I know exactly how this will all play out in the end…”

Nothing was said when you finished, your rant was met with nothing but silence. You scowled, keeping your gaze on the ground and dared not to look up. If only you did, you would have seen Husk stare up at you in disbelief at the end of your spiel. Not once did he think that you'd crack under any of their presence, especially with him, and especially with how collected you always appeared to be. Your words were harsh, and to be honest it kind of pissed him off on how much you assumed that they all had better lives. True, here at the hotel everyone had a chance to let loose and be themselves just a bit more than they could out there. But despite that, he didn't let your assumptions or outburst get to him. All he did was huff in in nonchalance, moving to stand while taking another swig of his drink.

You said nothing, only listening patiently to what Husk would do next. When he finally started moving, you flinched as you heard his heavy footfalls, each step had you dreading what would come next. You were almost afraid of him, your whole-body trembling when you noticed that he stopped just short of you. Not once did you dare look up at him, not wanting to see the look on his face after you just practically screeched him out. So, imagine your surprise when he lowered the bottle from his mouth, not to strike you with, but to speak words that had you tearing up again in an instant.

“I know exactly how you feel, kid.” He started slowly, “I mean, was just like you when I was younger.” You snapped your head up, staring up at him with an incredulous look on your face.. You opened your mouth to say something, but he beat you to it.

“I get it, y’know? I get that it seems like the world is out to trip you at every step. I get the anger when some random, unfair bullshit puts you back at square one.” He takes a quick gulp of his drink, staring up at the sky when he brought the bottle down, “I know how it feels when you think you gotta turn your back on the world, the thought that it can’t hurt you if you push it away.”

He turned his gaze down to you, a look in his eye that made you want to do nothing but cry right there and then for the rest of the night. He furrowed his brows at the tears rolling down your cheeks, “I also know you’re too young to survive that. Fighting the universe will kill you before it kills itself.”

He reached up a hand, going to wipe away a tear before you snapped your head away from his touch. You crossed your arms again as you glared daggers into the ground. “Why are you telling me this, man?!” You cried out in exasperation.

Husk huffed, shaking his head before turning back to you, “’Cause the worlds a shithole.” He started, “It’s hard and I can’t do anything to change that.” He raised his hand again, cupping your cheek and making you look up at him as he wiped away a tear. “But believe me when I say it’s harder when you’re fighting alone.”

He dropped his hand, turning around to face the door as if he were about to walk away, “You want me to leave, kid? I’ll leave. But I’m here offering you a hand…” He glanced back, “You give me the word, let me know you’re not ready to give up on us yet…”

“Do that, and you never have to be alone again.”

You said nothing, only staring at him and drowning in those warm pools that made up his eyes. There was something about them that just had you tearing up again. You couldn’t pull away, seeming in a trance and lost in the comfort they provided you. Your chest ached, and your heart throbbed at the way he seemed to look at you at that moment, and it wasn’t until you felt your phone vibrate in your pocket that you looked away.

You pulled out your phone, opening it up and watching the three dots float up onto the bottom of the screen, indicating that Rosie was finally replying to you.

May I need to remind you that you are not needed tomorrow either?

You are such a busy bee.

Take some time for yourself.

Her messages had you deflate a bit. You almost threw your phone down in anger if it wasn’t for the next one she sent. You stared at your screen, watching the white text bubble pop up at the bottom of the screen.

Also, happy birthday love <3

A choked sob left your mouth. The tears by now were waterfalls and were spilling down onto the screen of your phone and even down to the pavement below. You tried to wipe them away, having a hard time to see what was in front of you, but it proved futile as they only continued to pour. By now, you were a crying mess, the sorrow enveloping your mind along with the tears in your eyes making you blind to Husk’s movement. He walked over to you, stopping when he reached your side. He wasn’t sure what to do, raising his hand and lowering it multiple times while you sobbed an ugly mess. Husk only made a move when you finally collapsed to the ground knees first.

He rubbed the back of his neck, moving to kneel next to you. He opened a wing and wrapped it around you before pulling you close. You immediately caved into his hold, wrapping your arms around his neck and burrowing your mess of a face into his shoulder. He was startled at how easily you latched onto him and allowed your defenses to lower. You always had your walls up, never letting them down around others save for Rosie. But even then, it was rare you’d ever lose your composure. You were this stone-faced demon, almost relentless towards others, but in this very moment you were nothing but a young, small, feeble creature who was just as scared as the others in this damned place.

Husk couldn’t help but feel something nudge against his heart strings. He had this unrelenting force build up inside of him, something that wanted to keep you safe from all the bad things this world had to offer. He didn’t know why he felt that or what came over him, all he knew was that he never wanted to see you so distraught, so broken, ever again. It was that thought that had him wrapping an arm around you, giving you a few pats on your back and wincing when it seemed to make you cry harder.

He felt so uncomfortable in doing that, as if it had been decades since he had last comforted a crying person (which it had), but he made an effort to drown those feelings of discomfort and let you sob into his shoulder. You both stayed like that, your arms around his neck with your face buried into the surprisingly soft fur of his shoulder. His arms and wings wrapped around you in some form of comfort along with some protection against the cold. It was a while before you finally calmed down, enough to mumble out three simple words that would change your life.

“…I need help…” you mumbled out.

Husk huffed, tightening his hold on you in some form of comfort as if letting you know that he’s there, and that he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“Don’t worry, kid… we’ll figure it out… together.”

#hazbin hotel #hazbin husk #hazbin hotel husk #husk #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel husk x reader #hazbin husk x reader #husk x reader #x reader

185 notes · View notes

tsarinastorm · 4 years

Text

Old Wounds, New Roommates-Adam Sackler/Reader-Chapter 2

Chapter 1

ONE YEAR AND SIX MONTHS AGO

Ever since your hookup with Adam, he’s texted you every day, and you had had another intense fucking sessions. You had thought things were going well, but tried not to think too much into it. He was clearly a damaged soul that was processing a lot lately. He had went from some girl before Hannah to Hannah to some other girl back to begging for Hannah back to Jessa to you. That’s why you were surprised and tried to act nonchalantly when he informed you of his ‘feelings’ one day.

“I like you, I really like you. I never thought I could feel like this again but with you I feel it.” He tells you while holding your hand to his chest, his eyes never leaving yours. He was looking at you with such adoration, you fell for it. He then insisted on taking you on a real date, you reluctantly agreed.

Now sitting at the restaurant, he’s already twenty minutes late. The waiter keeps coming to your table to ask if you need anything. More wine is definitely needed. You’re giving him ten more minutes then you’re leaving. You scold yourself because you should have never expected anything from him. Furthermore, you were growing furious because you were normally the one in control of your relationships and here you were getting played. You knew better.

It had been three weeks since Adam stood you up and he never had the decency to shoot you a text with an explanation…

*******

PRESENT

A lot had changed since your debacle with Adam Sackler over a year and a half ago. Now, you had two best-sellers under your belt, granted they were closer to memoirs based on your life. You wrote them to joke and parody your own life. It wasn’t your best work, but you were still happy that they were published under a pen name. Your next venture was historical fiction, and writing history books, your true passion. The novels brought you enough cash to pay off a majority of your student debt, and pay for your travels. You had spent most the past year doing promotional work around the world then leisurely travel. Either way, it burnt through your bank account fast.

At the moment you were crashing at a friend’s apartment with your dog, Salem, and cat, Olive, joining you while your belongings were still in storage. You had given yourself a week to find a place. It was proving to be difficult: you needed a roommate because you would become depressed living on your own, and you didn’t want to live in Manhattan, and you had a limited budget at the moment. To add to the problems, most of the potential roommates were not roommate material. You were near your breaking point, something had to give.

On top of everything you already had going on, you were almost ran over by Adam Sackler on a bike. Talk about a blast from the past. You couldn’t deny that he looked even better than you remembered: his hair was now slightly longer and he was even more toned. He also threw out there that he and his girlfriend broke up pretty quickly in your conversation. He was your biggest mistake: you shouldn’t have gotten attached and you shouldn’t have let him play you like that. Now all was left of your feelings for him was a burning rage, and deep down below that, a desire for him.

You walk into Ray’s coffee shop to re-caffeinate and catch up with him. As you wait in line, you notice that Adam is there near the register. You really can’t a catch a break lately. You order your usual and do your best to ignore Adam. Luckily, Ray keeps the conversation going.

“Hey, Y/N, how’s the apartment and roommate search going?” Ray asks as he hands your coffee. You take it and decide to let it cool, you needed caffeine but it wasn’t worth the mouth burn.

“Horrible. You should see some of the options.” You admit and settle near the register. There’s not a line so you standing there it shouldn’t disturb much. You can tell that Adam’s purposefully eavesdropping on your conversation. Typical. Shouldn’t he be worried about his own acting gigs, or one of the many exes or future exes you’re sure he has around.

“Why don’t you wanna live alone again?” Ray ponders as he cleans the counter top, before leaning on it with his elbows. Ugh, this again. You have to remind people how screwed up you are, how much you’ve screwed up your life.

“Because I’m miserable living alone, and it’s better for me to split rent at the moment.” You’re silently praying that Ray takes the hint and drops the topic. You’d prefer not to talk about it at all, let alone in front of the banes of your life: Adam Sackler. Ray however, is not dropping it, instead he focuses in on one of comments.

“Wait, did you fly through your profits already?” Ray gives you a judging look that resembles a scowl. You feel like you’re being scolded by one of your parents. You roll your eyes as you answer.

“Yeah between paying off my student debt and traveling, it went by pretty fast.” You grind your teeth, a bad habit, and give him a stern look in return. Hopefully, he’ll get the hint this time. To your surprise and chagrin, it’s Adam who chimes in next.

“I have an extra room you’re welcome to it. I just redid it.” He turns toward you now, both you and Ray stare at him shocked. Adam then continues sipping on his drink like nothing happened.

“You serious?!” Ray shouts, and you add in with, “What?”

“I added on, it’s a nice bedroom and has its own bath. You can stay there. The rent is fixed for me so the price shouldn’t be a problem.” The initial reaction is: fuck no, you would leave the city and go move in with your parents before you’d move in with Adam. Then, you thought that Adam was better than most of the roommate options you had met so far. He might be your last choice, but then again, you’re at your last choice.

“Can I see the room before I make a decision?” You ask, because knowing Sackler the room could either be very nice or it could be a total disaster. There was little room for middle ground with Sackler. Also you’re curious if the place looks as disheveled as it did the last time (one other time) you were there. If so, you would need to do a thorough cleaning before moving in.

“Oh I have a dog and cat, is that okay?” You think that the apartment will have to be pet-proofed. Adam runs his hands through his hair before nodding saying, “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Wait, are you really considering this? Have you lost your fucking mind?” Ray puts his hands up in the air, and waits for you tell him that you’re joking, that this is some kind of joke. Your face stays serious because you definitely need some place to live ASAP. You ignore Ray and keep your eyes on Adam.

“Ya, want to go now?” Adam asks as he motions his head in the direction of the door.

“Yeah.” You gather up your bag and your coffee, prepared to go. Adam heads out the door, waits for you by the doorway, and you’re right behind him. Ray gives you an incredulous look and you explain, “I want to see if there are proper floorboards.”

“Why would the floorboards matter?” Ray asks before he turns back to cleaning the counter or whatever he’s doing.

“In case I end up having to hide a body…” You joke but it’s the truth, it might end up being reality. If you weren’t desperate you wouldn’t even consider living with Adam: it was a catastrophe waiting to happen. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

****

When you get to the apartment, after a one-sided conversation with Adam on the walk over, you’re surprised that it’s cleaner than last time. Apparently, Adam is a nervous talker, and can actually clean on occasion. The apartment isn’t as well kept as when Ray was living there but you could live with it.

“Your room is back here.” Adam leads you back through the hallway, and you find yourself checking out his book collection. You also notice that the yellow sofa hasn’t left even though it should probably be retired.

“My maybe room.” You correct him as you follow him. Of course the apartment smells like him and it brings back memories that you’d prefer to forget even though they’re sketched in your memory. When you walk into the added room, you can’t help but let out a sharp inhale as you take it all in. It’s stunning, and surprisingly roomy for New York.

“This is actually nice, did you do all of this?” You head into the bathroom, which has a new shower with tub, and a sink with decent counter space. In New York there was never enough space unless you were a billionaire, but you could see yourself living here. Though you might have to wear noise-cancelling headphones and blinders to avoid your roommate.

“Yeah, I like to do this kind of stuff.” Adam answers, downplaying his craftsmanship. When you walked back into the bedroom, you notice that the walls are still white, and not painted. Adam breaks your train of thought by asking, “What do you think?”

He waits for your answer, and you can tell he’s waiting for you to rip into the place. You turn to look at him, placing your hands on your hips. You tell him, “I have only one question: can I paint it?”

Adam gives you that goofy smile that you’ve always been fond of, before agreeing, “Yeah no problem. Just preferably not hot pink or some shit like that.”

And just like that, you’re going to be roommates with a former fuck buddy, who stood you up and played you in the past. Maybe Ray was right, maybe you had lost your damn mind.

******

The new living situation was tempestuous at best. Adam had a habit of being a slob and leaving glasses of milk around the apartment at all hours. Then, there was the case of his tools which were quickly spreading throughout the common areas of the apartment. The worst was the nights: he was in and out all night, up and down. You had to get up and be productive and he should be too but apparently he preferred to live like the struggling artist.

You were hoping that tonight would be different: he might go to bed at a decent hour like the rest of civilized society. All of those hopes crashed when you heard a woman’s voice talking on the other side of the wall. This was not going to be a fun night, at all.

“Do you like my cock, you fucking whore?” You hear Adam ask on the other side of the wall.

“I really like your cock,” you hear the unknown woman answer back.

You roll over to your side, and turn up the volume of your headphones. That works for a short period of time because soon you can hear the bed hitting the wall. The bed’s hitting the wall to the point it’s making your own headboard rattle from the vibrations. You try in vain to knock against the wall, hoping they’d get the hint. Sadly, it doesn’t even phase them.

Then, the moaning and screaming starts. Adam is groaning and grunting, while his companion is screaming his name like a chant. This continues for several moments until the woman says, “Adam, fuck, I’m cumming.”

“Fuck, fuck where do you want me to cum?” You hear Adam say, followed by a response, “Cum outside.”

“You’d like that, huh, for me to fucking cover you in my cum?” The woman moans something intelligible back that you can’t discern. After a few thrust that you hear through the wall, it’s over as you hear Adam let out a guttural moan. Now, you just hope that it was a one round night, and hope that the girl doesn’t stay the night.

Round two did happen, loudly, and right when you had just gotten to sleep. You did think that you heard the girl leave earlier, and did not want to ever encounter whoever she was. You would however make sure Adam knew how you felt. Some people actually have to wake up in the morning have some semblance of a routine. You put the food in Salem’s and Olive’s respective bowls then pour yourself a cup of extra strong coffee and make a bowl of cereal.

Adam comes out of the room as if on cue. He’s only wearing a pair of black briefs, and you can’t help but ogle him just a little bit. He was toned and in shape when you met him, but now he’s built like Adonis, and his longer hair only adds to the likeness. You stop yourself from admiring his bulge, you already know what his dick is like, and know what he’s like in bed: mindblowing.

That thought process reminds you that you’re still pissed that his escapades kept you up all night. You wait to say something when he’s sat down across from you and eating his own cereal.

“Did you have fun fucking the Banshee last night?” You ask as you sip your coffee. Shock goes across his face, he looks embarrassed for a moment then he covers it with cool arrogance.

“I did…thanks for your concern.” He answers. His cool, smug demeanor pisses you off more. Not only did he keep you up all night having to listen to him to fuck, now he has the nerve to pretend it’s no big deal.

“I could tell. I could hear it. You can keep it down, no one wants to hear a porno being made.” You tell him sternly, squinting your eyes at him, and then getting up to put your cup in the sink. You put in there loudly, to exaggerate your frustration.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous.” Adam has the nerve to say as you begin retreating into your room. His comment makes you halt and stalk back into the kitchen.

“Ha! Why would I be jealous? Have you forgotten I’ve already been on that ride?” You cock your head to the side and cross your arms. Adam is looking at you with eyes that are a hot amber, he’s trying to provoke you. You see his jaw twitch in frustration to your comment.

“Which is why you know you’re missing out. You miss me fucking your brains out.” Adam stands and is invading your personal space. You’d almost forgotten how much taller he was than you. You hadn’t forgotten what kind of sexual chemistry you had, the chemistry has now turned to tension as your eyes stay locked on one another’s. You wanted to punch him, stay away from him, but you also want to kiss him, to fuck him so hard that he’s absolutely wrecked.

Instead, you provoke him by hitting him where you know it will hurt.

“Uh no…it wasn’t that good.” You know there are three possible results from what you just said. One, you’ll hate each other even more. Two, you’ll end up fucking right here and now. Or three, a combination of one and two. Adam’s eyes darken and his brow furrows as he takes a step closer to you.

#adam sackler #adam sackler x reader #adam driver #adam sackler x you #hbo girls

26 notes · View notes

kpopfanfictrash · 5 years

Text

Wasteland, Baby!

Author: kpopfanfictrash

Pairing: Yoongi / Reader

Word Count: 3,098

Warnings: post-apocalyptic, depression, themes of death

Summary: A songfic, inspired by the song of the same title by Hozier (I’ve had this sitting in my drafts for months and finally decided to post)

The end of the world was not as terrible as everyone thought it would be.

Or – that is what you have told yourself since, citing the mantra to keep the demons at bay. On the days when it does not work, when you cannot convince yourself of this fact, it is hard – near-impossible – to get out of bed.

Today is a good day. Today, the end of the world is not so terrible.

Yesterday was a bad day.

Yesterday, Yoongi tried for twenty-four minutes to coax you from under the sheets. Eventually, he gave up and left to chop more wood for the fire. Six minutes into his absence, you woke in a sweat-soaked terror, hands scrambling through blankets to seek out his warmth. Visions flashed through your mind, one after the other, like the worst kind of picture show.

Ashen faces, choked breathing, bloody splotches. Deadened gaze.

In the end, the world did not end with bloodlust and rage – but with folly.

It was folly that humans chose to live so close to one another, packed into homes stacked on top of the other. It was humans who were so dependent on technology that they could not survive once it disappeared. Once there were not enough people to run the power plants and take care of the phone grids.

Truly, Yoongi is the only reason you are alive. On most days, you can convince yourself this is a good thing. When the disease first emerged, Yoongi was the one monitoring it all from his phone. In those days, he came home from the lab later than usual, brow permanently furrowed and sandwich crumbs on his sweater.

Those were the days when you were his anchor, when you were the one who coaxed him in and out of bed. Yoongi was your workaholic pathologist boyfriend and you were his rock. Now, the situation is reversed and you find this to be oddly appropriate. Everything should be flipped at the end of the world.

It was when the airports began closing Yoongi demanded you leave.

“Today,” he said, slamming the apartment door as he entered.

You looked up from your workstation, surprised by his appearance. Architecture papers were spread out before you, half-finished buildings drawn in blue and white lines. Typically, Yoongi did not get home until after dinner on weekdays. You were used to the hours spent alone, sketching at your table.

“Today… what?”

Yoongi’s eyes were red-rimmed; evidence of his many late nights. Circling your table, he came to a stop at the wardrobe. “My place outside the city,” Yoongi said, avoiding the question. “We can go there. Wait it out.”

“Wait what out?”

He paused before the drawer, one mustard-colored sock dangling over his hand. Swallowing, Yoongi seemed to wrestle with something. “Maybe nothing,” he said quietly. “Or… maybe something.”

You stared at him for a moment, debating how to respond. Granted, you thought Yoongi had gone insane. Everyone was saying this would blow over, like all the other scares. Avian Flu, Swine Flu and a million other Flus. Yoongi seemed serious though, as though he had not slept in weeks and likely, that was so. Everyone in Yoongi’s lab had been working overtime to search for a cure. Yoongi was one of the first among them to recognize the truth.

As an outsider, you were biased by precedent. As a human, you had always survived. This is another folly of humans – they think themselves invincible. They assume because they have survived thus far, they will continue to do so.

Most of the world’s population assumed this. Then again, most of the world’s population is now dead.

Something in Yoongi’s eyes convinced you. “Okay,” you said, standing up from your stool. It was better to humor him, at least. “What do I do?”

Forty minutes and one hastily packed trunk later, you two sped off down the highway. Few cars were on the road that day – in the early time of the sickness, most people stayed in. They quarantined themselves, only venturing out when absolutely necessary. It was merely a flu at that point – the world did not yet understand.

It was from Yoongi’s cabin you watched the world fall apart. The footage was horrifying – riots, looting when the hospitals became dead zones, and then the airports, and then everywhere. The TV stayed on until the cabin ran out of power, until the people were gone and there was nothing left to be said. You watched as, one by one, newscasters silently replaced one another. No one explained why, but you both knew the truth.

The world’s population was decimated in a matter of days. You and Yoongi watched it all happen, huddled on your couch and immobile with shock.

You two were lucky, you suppose. Yoongi kept his cabin stocked for his work rampages; the times he got a research hunch and would seclude himself for weeks in his reading. The cabin held everything one needed for the end of the world – canned goods, water purifiers, emergency candles and matches. The rations held out remarkably well while you determined a new way to survive.

Now, it has been three months since the lights went out.

For weeks you slept on edge, waking at the slightest brush of wind on the window. Living alone was a new kind of terror. Living in the city, there were dangers, but technology was always present to keep you protected. It warned you of intruders, kept the doors shut and updated you on your surroundings. No longer.

One month after the end, you ventured out in Yoongi’s car. Yoongi decided that, based on his research, most of the virus would be dead by that time. It needed living hosts to survive. Still, it was a risk and he would not let you leave the confines of the vehicle.

The closest town to the cabin was once called Roshone – a small, miniscule lake village of maybe two thousand. You say once because now, just two people remain.

You and Yoongi.

The drive through the streets was silent, chillingly so. Unplowed snow crunched under your tires. Yoongi peered out from the windshield, searching for life but finding nothing to speak of. No footprints in the snow, no flashes of movement from the corner of your eyes.

Many doors were marked with red x’s of paint – a makeshift Passover you quickly averted your gaze from. After about an hour, you returned to the cabin. This was the first of your dark days. For three days following, you did not rouse from your bed.

That was when you believed the world had truly ended; you two were merely ghosts, biding your time until you joined all the rest.

The silence was the worst part.

There were many days you forgot to speak, going from sunup to sundown with nary a word. Philosophy is what separates humanity from animals and so, when humanity is dead, what separates you then? What makes you different from the rest of the mammals when there is no one to talk to? Nothing. And so, you continued your motions of living – but only enough to survive. A gross pantomime of what you were before.

Yoongi clung to his routines.

He woke early each morning, as he did in the city. As long as there were beans, he made coffee over a fire. When the beans ran out, Yoongi heated plain water for tea. When his computer died, he dug out books from his study and poured over those. What he was searching for, you did not ask. It all seemed futile to you.

Yoongi had never been a very positive person and so, in many ways, he was better equipped for the end. Perhaps this is why he adapted better than you. He had a stoic realness about him which suited the end times.

When you needed food, Yoongi learned how to shoot. He researched how to garden and found books to prepare for the springtime. The sight nearly made you laugh, watching him read about plants. Yoongi had always made fun of Namjoon and his bonsai trees. Remembering, you winced, heart tightening at the memory. Namjoon was a cold dose of realism you could not ignore.

All of your neighbors stayed when you two fled from the city. You do not know if they made it out. Somehow, you doubt it.

You often find yourself wondering which was be worse – the disease, or its aftermath. Anything must be better than this. Anything but this silence, this sadness, this agonizing nothingness which tears you apart and –

Banging open the door, Yoongi walks in.

His entrance reminds you of that day so long ago when he convinced you to flee. Remembering, you stare blankly at him from the bed. Yoongi is framed by the door; silvery light filters past and for a moment, he seems like some kind of savior.

Then, he is over the threshold and the door is pulled shut. Dropping a bag to the ground, he shakes dust from his shoulders. The light disappears and he is no longer a savior, merely Yoongi.

Stubborn, brave, wonderfully human Yoongi.

“I found more candles,” he says, removing his jacket. The cabin is small – only three rooms, the front of which contains a bed, kitchen and sofa. Crossing to the bed, he settles beside you. Yoongi’s hand covers yours, his eyes dark and sad. “How are you today?”

Glancing past him, you stare at the bag. “You found candles? Where?”

Yoongi’s lips tighten in a way which lets you know you will not like the answer. “I went into town again.”

Swiftly, your gaze moves to his. “Yoongi! That could be dangerous!”

He exhales, rubbing his thumb against yours. “There’s no one there, babe.”

“… No one?”

“No.”

Quietly, you let this statement sink in. A month prior, his words would have crippled you. Now, it simply seems… usual. This fact should give you alarm. It should not be normal for you to think of an entire town dead and not feel some remorse. It should spark sadness, at least – or maybe some sort of horror, outrage, or despair.

Lowering his head, Yoongi brushes his lips to your hand. “Y/N,” he says, against your skin.

“Yes?”

He slowly looks up. “I feel numb.”

Freezing, you take in his expression. Yoongi stares back at you, helpless and you realize with shock he was counting on this. He was counting on there being someone left but finally, the evidence is too great and he is giving up. Yoongi, your steadfast in this ocean of madness – the one who coaxes you out of bed, who convinces you to make a plan – has given in.

He truly thought you were not alone.

And now, he does.

You can see it in his gaze. There is a haunted fear which can be explained in no other way. It is one thing to treat this as a vacation, a temporary respite before getting back to your life – it is another thing to accept this is reality.

Hesitantly, you push yourself into a seated position. Carding your hands through his hair, you examine his face. Yoongi’s locks are long, shaggy across the front where you cut them poorly with scissors.

“Numb?”

Gently, he closes his eyes. “Maybe you were right.” Lowering himself on his side, Yoongi scoots back to make room. “Maybe there isn’t a point anymore. Maybe we should just… sleep. I don’t know.”

His arm slips over your waist, pulling you into him. His breathing softens, warm on your throat and normally, you would sleep, too – except Yoongi is not supposed to be numb. He is not supposed to be the pointless one, the aimless one. The entire time you have known him, Min Yoongi has been driven by something. Without that…

The world has not yet ended, you realize.

It ends when you both think it has.

His snores rattle your body, letting you know he is sleeping. Once you are certain, you slip from his arms and lower both feet on the floor. The floorboards are cold, making you shiver. Pulling on his jacket, you deeply inhale. It smells like Yoongi, but not city Yoongi.

City Yoongi always wore the same jeans, used the same laundry detergent and slept in the same bed. He smelled of chemicals from the lab, shampoo from CVS and some fancy cologne. This Yoongi smells like woodsmoke; metal and iron and the bitter taste of wind.

It is not a bad smell. Glancing over your shoulder, you find him asleep, like a rock. Yoongi does not move, one arm dangled over the mattress to drag on the floor. Without pausing to think, you grab the keys of his car and walk into the cold.

Seated behind the wheel of Yoongi’s black Ford Taurus, you stifle a shiver. There is a knife on the floor of the passenger’s side. You glance at this quickly before looking away. Hopefully you will not need to use it. As you pull from the driveway, you follow Yoongi’s earlier tracks into town. It has been a long time since you drove. Even longer, since you went out alone.

The engine seems loud – near-deafening, compared to the silence of Main Street. Your gaze flicks uneasily over each storefront; despite Yoongi’s insistence that they are deserted, it is hard not to imagine the worst.

Pulling into a parking space – even at the end of the world, some habits die hard – you turn off the engine and sit for a moment. Your hands are shaking, clutching the wheel and you force yourself to let go.

Outside, the winter air is crisp on your skin. Despite the lack of humanity, the world has not yet noticed the void. Or, if it has, it does not care. The snow crunches beneath your feet as you cross the street, peering into a shop to pause on its curb.

The windows are dusty, untouched for months and the tables inside have not fared much better.

At last, you inhale and push open the door. It is unlocked, as though the former owner left in a rush. You winkle your nose at the staleness of air. Flies buzz past when the door swings shut behind you. Shadows stretch before you, elongating the worst parts of your imagination. Beneath the sweet smell of chocolate and sugar is a damp, rancid stench you know all too well.

You shiver. The virus should be dead but always, there is this fear. What if?

Ignoring this – and the back room from whence the smell stems – you cross the room and duck behind the register. Bags, boxes and canisters line the shelves at eye-level. Grasping the first one you see, you grit your teeth together and bolt towards the door.

Outside, seated in the driver’s seat, you finally exhale. Lowering your head to the steering wheel, you sit still for a second. Vision blurring, you stare at the vinyl wheel of the car. So many people are gone. The sheer magnitude always weighs on you, wondering why you survived when so many did not.

You glance sideways. The bag you took lies on the floor, beside the knife. For some reason, the image strikes you as funny. Your upper lip twitches.

Taking that bag makes you a thief. You have never stolen something before.

Of course, in this hellish landscape where the word means nothing, you find yourself a criminal.

A laugh escapes, too loud in the silence. Clasping trembling fingers over your mouth, you attempt to shove it back in, only to realize – why? No one is here. There is no one around to be quiet for and so, you laugh.

Again.

And again, until tears mix with the madness and slide down your cheeks.

Did Yoongi say he felt numb? Did you ever feel numb? Right now, you are the opposite. You are every emotion ever felt in the universe; a black hole drawing everything in and spitting out nothing. You are bursting, so full of anger you think you might break.

Full of sadness, as well. And hope.

It is a long time before you can see clearly enough to turn on the engine. Stubbornly, the car catches beneath you and in the fading rays of twilight, you drive back to the cabin. As you go, you keep wiping tears with one hand. It is lucky that no one else is on the road, since you are certainly a hazard to the silence’s safety.

As the cabin comes into view, you recognize something is wrong.

The front door is ajar, which is not how you left it. Footsteps are stamped in the snow – fresh ones, frantic ones which are not your own. Throwing the car into park, you stare at the doorway. Reaching out, you grab both bag and knife from the seat. The weapon seems foolish to hold, since you are not a killer, but you do so anyways.

Yoongi barrels around the side of the house.

He comes to a stop at the door, chest heaving. His eyes are wide, gun trained on your head.

Yoongi pauses.

“I,” he exhales, squinting into the cold. “…Y/N?”

“It’s me.” Regaining motion, you push open the door. Hurriedly, you drop the knife to the ground. “Yoongi, it’s me.”

“Y/N.” He repeats your name, slightly lost. “What are you doing?”

Unsure what to say, you walk towards him. Once he is there, your feet falter. “Here,” you say, thrusting the small bag upon him. “I – I went and got you coffee.”

Yoongi does not move. He stares at the package, not understanding. Wind ruffles his hair, exposing pale skin and hesitantly, Yoongi reaches out a hand. “Coffee?” he murmurs. Turning the bag over in his palm, he looks up. “Why?”

Staring at him, you feel oddly exposed. You thought you knew Yoongi, but here in this dead world, everything is new.

“Because,” you whisper, feeling somewhat foolish. “You like coffee. You need it… for, you know.”

To not be numb anymore.

Yoongi does not move for a moment. He stands there, bag of beans in one hand and looks wonderingly at you. Then, he drops the bag to the snow and crushes you hard to his chest.

Yoongi buries his face in your neck, exhaling brokenly. For the second time in the same hour, your vision blurs. Hugging him tightly, you burrow your face in his sweater. His large hand strokes your hair, winding in strands and keeping you firm in his arms.

Yoongi chuckles when he feels you wipe your nose on his front. “You know I’m still here?” he whispers into the shell of your ear. “Right?”

You nod, pulling back to see him. Tears cling to your lashes, and you blink them away. For the first time in months, you feel the breeze on your skin. It does not make you feel numb, but alive. The rustle of the wild is all around you.

The world is not dead – merely holding its breath.

Yoongi stares back.

“I know.” Lifting on tip toe, you brush a kiss to his lips. “I know. I’m here too, okay?”

Swallowing a smile, Yoongi nods. “I know.”

#btsbookclub #bangtanarmynet #yoongi fanfic #bts fanfic #yoongi imagines #bts imagines #yoongi writing #bts writing #yoongi angst #bts angst

738 notes · View notes

pocketmosaic · 3 years

Text

Who am I and why this blog?

What a good question, I am so glad you asked. I am a 45 year old, mother of three, who has fibromyalgia, cfs/me and arthritis. I guess I should also say that I am single as that is usually one of the first questions people ask when you meet them.

My children are aged 26 (yes, I know I was young when I had him), 20 and 18. My eldest lives in the Midlands (UK) which is where his Dad and his family are, I don’t see him very often but I have been fortunate (in some ways) to have been able to spend 2 months with him this year. I say fortunate in some ways because the reason he stayed with me for so long was because he was having a bit of a crisis and needed to get away. Thankfully while he was here he helped me almost, if not more than I helped him.

The younger two live with me in East Anglia (UK), their father (who is a different man to my eldest’s dad) lives 10 minutes away. My 20 year old is my main carer, he also helps with the 18 year old who has autism and social anxiety. My 20 year old has been my rock through the years and I don’t believe that I would be sat here today if it hadn’t been for him and his support (and yes I do make sure that he knows that he is a very amazing person, even if he doesn’t always believe it). Sadly he lost his job in the hospitality industry during the COVID-19 epidemic, as did so many others. He didn’t work full-time but I do think that it was important for him to have that outlet, where he could make friends and do things that were not related to helping me and his sister. We are trying to do thinhgs to help him rejoin the working world when the shielding is over.

As I mentioned my daughter has autism and severe social anxiety. Around Oct 2017 she had total meltdown and refused to go to school, leave the house or even go near a door that was open to the outside. She was in mainstream school before that, she is very clever and quite talented when it comes to anime drawings. Sadly we did have quite a few problems with bullying, which the school did try and help with, even getting the police involved when the situation called for it. Unfortunately, despite my asking for help several times, everything going on in the outside world just became too much for her and she put on the brakes. We have had a little bit of help and after a lot of hard work on our part we managed to get her to leave the house. She would go down to the local shop and the chip shop next door (about a 5 minute round trip), and we managed to get a volunteer to come and take her to a cat sanctuary once a week. Two weeks after she had started doing this the cattery shut its doors to all non-necessary staff and then we went into lockdown mark 1. Since then she has taken several steps backwards (although she does still do the shop trip if she has to). I have been trying to encourage her to come out of her room and she refused to speak to me for 8 weeks, she wouldn’t even look at me. We are now talking but she doesn’t come and search me out as she did before. I am sure we will be okay and once the pandemic has some solution then we will work again at getting her out there.

I started by telling you about the children because it does tie in with what I am about to say in a few. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and CFS/ME about 15 years ago, gosh that was a long road to get the diagnosis. It took about 4 more years to get my arthritis diagnosis because whenever I mentioned the pains they automatically put it down to the fibro/ME no matter how hard I tried to convince them that this pain was different. Thankfully someone eventually listened and that meant that I could learn to do things that could help. I do have other problems which impact my life slightly less than these, but we could be here a while if I went to deep into that and I am sure you don’t want that lol.

Long story short, I put on a lot of weight (about 6 stone or 84 pounds or 38.1kg), I was struggling to stay awake long enough to cook a meal and so I would just grab easy convenient snacks which we all know are not great substitutes but if I hadn’t done that then I probably wouldn’t have eaten anything. I also wasn’t moving around anywhere near as much as I used to do, I had always been doing something before and although my diet wasn’t great I was burning up a lot of those calories so while I have never been skinny I wasn’t a big girl,

Up to the present(ish), I have battled with depression and anxiety for a long time, some of it because of how I looked a lot of it because of what I couldn’t do. I forgot to focus on what I could do, what I did have. A few weeks ago I went for a short walk by the quay (all my walks are short because it hurts so much and after a short time I struggle to pick up my feet). I was watching the water, which I find very peaceful, and I saw a branch floating by on the current. I was taken by an major urge to jump in and float off with it, which I am sure you will be glad to hear I managed to resist. I thought about just getting into my car and driving until everything and everyone I knew were far behind me. I felt like they would be better without me in their lives.

Somehow I managed to get back home and I tried to figure out how I had got to this point in my life. I know I was missing my eldest, I was pleased I had managed to help him out but it had left a big hole when he went back home. While he was with me we managed to sort out my house and threw away most of the clutter, which was great I felt like things were starting to move the right way. So why had I spent weeks crying night and day? I was awful to be around, even the woman who comes in to help me with the things I struggle to do wasn’t able to help with how I was feeling.

I knew I was lonely, although I have two children living at home they spend the majority of the time in their rooms, my daughter was ignoring me (even looking at the wall when she came to a room I was in so she didn’t have to look at me). Every time I watched the television I would hear stories on how the lockdown had brought families together and how they were doing more as a family. I couldn’t relate to that at all. There was also so much talk about how people were keeping in touch over zoom or the like, I hadn’t even had one talk like that. I don’t have a lot of friends, I am not good at keeping in touch and after you have had to cancel last minute so many times people stop asking you to do things.

I hated the way I looked but I had no clue on how to change it, every time I have tried to do any exercise I have suffered for days afterwards, even having a conversation with someone would leave me drained. I had managed to lose 3 stone before the first lockdown but, after struggling to get deliveries and when I did it seemed that the things they couldn’t provide were all the healthy options I tried to get, I put back on 2 stone. My face was starting to show the ravages of time, the worst being the hooded eyes I now have. I have always liked my eyes so it is sad they are not as noticeable as they used to be.

I think I might be coming up to the menopause, my period was over two weeks late at that point (it took another week before it said hello). Any of you women out there will know that when your period is late it causes your hormones to go out of whack. Looking back I know that had something to do with how I was feeling.

I remembered something my Dad had told me, “If you can do something about it then do so, if you can’t then all the worrying in the world won’t do anything”. I decided that I had to try and do something to fix the problem areas I saw in my life. I couldn’t do much about my hormones, expecially as it is the first time in over a year that it has taken so long which means the doctor wouldn’t do anything. That meant I just had to let that one sort itself out.

I knew that if I listened to some Toby Keith or Kellie Pickler I always felt better (well Kellie does have two songs which make me cry because they cut so close to home but in a strange way even that makes me feel less alone), so I decided I was going to start listening to them, amongst others, more and if I could I would dance to them, that would at least get me started with moving. It helped because I did lose 6 pounds in the two weeks leading up to this second lockdown.

Facing another month of lockdown I wanted to do something that would help me and also stop me from worrying about the fact that I couldn’t go for a cuppa with my carer and her partner on a tuesday morning. So I decided to set myself a challenge. I want to leave lock down looking better than I did when I entered it. This meant looking for exercises that I could realisticaly do, I can’t see squats ever being a big part of any exercise routine I ever do. I found some arm exercises that could be done sitting down, then I learnt about the wall push or standing push-up, I tried it and found that I could manage that so I added that one in. I also looked at loads of videos for slimming down the stomach, the one exercise they all included was the plank. Now I didn’t think I would be able to manage that, especially getting down and back up again, but I am pretty stubborn so I figured that I would try it. The first time I thought I was going to die by the fifth second but I managed it and I am now going to try and do it as often as I can, after all no-one is about to see the crazy ways I have to use to pick myself up afterwards.

I also decided that I needed to lay down some house rules. I drew up contracts for the two children who live with me (by drew up I mean I found some templates online and adapted them to suit). Part of the contract stipulates that they need to spend some time with me while they are both home full-time. That has stopped me from feeling so isolated even though they are here. I have been making plans on what I want to do when the world returns to some sort of normality. My life has basically been on hold for the past 15 years, I don’t even know how that happened, but it did and I am determined that I am going to put myself out there when I can (I might change my mind later, but at least for now it is giving me something positive to look forward to).

I had always said that when my youngest reached 18 (which happened during the first lockdown) I was going to start travelling. This is definitely something I plan to keep to when travel plans can be a little more stable. I used to be an active member of the theatre when I was in the Midlands but I didn’t even know we had one here until last lock down. I want to look into joining them and doing some theatre stuff, that was the job I always wanted a far cry from what I ended up doing which was mechanical engineering. I have a couple more things in the “to-do” bank but they are just the ones I am going to mention for now.

I don’t want to get back to that place where I want to disappear, to keep me on track I started this blog. I want a record of where I started and how I am progressing, and it kinda gives me some sort of accountability. It also makes me write something every day which is going to help me with another dream. That, however, is a story for another time.

Take care and believe in yourself, you CAN do it, whatever IT may be.

#who am i #fibromyalgia #chronic fatigue #cfs/me #arthritis #mum #autism #single #exercise #diet #beauty #depression #better life #covid-19 #toby keith #kellie pickler

6 notes · View notes

gaylenightingale · 4 years

Text

Trapped

Notes: Inuyasha/Sesshomaru. AU. OCC. I don’t own Inuyasha, nor do I make money from this.

Today’s prompt is from Inucestlover with comments from arathergrimreaper and mewshuuartblog from the Tumblr inucest chat group.

PROMPT: (Based on a recurring nightmare)

The brothers are trapped in a testing center and have finally escaped their restraints. They have no recollection as to why or how they got there, but security is hot on their trail. InuYasha’s worst for wear and is barely catching up to his brother. Whatever tests were conducted on them have removed their demonic powers. Sesshomaru must slow down his pace to match InuYasha’s.

After what feels like an eternity of running, they find an escape route through some pipes. The pipes... Truncated so it doesn’t ruin the ending

Feel free to write your own version. The following is where my mind went.

——-#——— TRAPPED

Sesshomaru cringed.

The light was so bright it pierced through his closed eyelids and burnt his retina. He tried to raise a hand to cover his eyes only to find it was bound.

“!” He groaned as he struggled against the bindings. What ever could bind him must be strong, he was a daiyoukai after all.

“Don’t bother,” came a depressed sounding voice. The sound was garbled. Was there something in his ears?

“Who’s there?” Sesshomaru growled still fighting against whatever bound him. His eyes were still closed due to the intensity of the light.

“Yeh, I am, bastard. I see the foxy seductress caught you too. Damn she looked so hot in that skimpy red form fitting dress. Should have known it was too good to be true.” The inuhanyou sighed.

“Inuyasha?” Sesshomaru paused in his struggles. “Get me out of here!” Sesshomaru squinted allowing only a fraction of the bright light in.

Inuyasha huffed. “When your eyes adjust you will see that I am as bound up as you. And what’s worse is someone or something has taken away our demonic power.”

“NO!!!!” Sesshomaru screamed pulling even harder against the bounds. He tried to bring forth his light whip, imagining it whipping around hitting anything in its way. But nothing happened. He rubbed his finger tip attempting to ascertain the status of his claws but only felt humanoid fingertips with blunted tips. Sesshomaru ceased struggling and centered himself. Taking several deep breaths, he noted the air was clear but lacked all the aromas he could normally smell.

Moments passed.

“Inuyasha?”

“Yeh?”

“My eyes are still unable to see. Tell me of our situation.” Sesshomaru sighed.

“Yeh, it took me a half day to get used to the light. I think it keeps us from falling asleep.”

“Oh?”

“Well, I actually don’t know how long I’ve been here. The light has been on the whole time and I’m in my human form. I’ve never been human with the light on before so it’s all new to me.”

Inuyasha had been quickly losing courage. Uncertain of the time he had spent in the every bright room he tried counting but quickly lost track as his mind wandered. The moment his big brother was brought into the room he had some hope again only to be dashed as he saw their capturers drag the demon about like he was a rag doll. That was the most shattering moment of all. Who could take down Sesshomaru!

At one point he even thought Sesshomaru was dead but he saw a slight movement of the dog demon’s chest. He spoke to the demon then.

“Fight it, Sesshomaru,” he cheered.

No response.

“You’re too stubborn to die,” he taunted.

No response.

“Wake up you bastard!” He yelled.

But time passed.

Now his brother was awake and wanted a status report. Well, here goes, he thought.

“I think I was drugged and brought here. Nothing has happened here except being exposed to this bright light and seeing them bring you in.”

“What do you remember?” Sesshomaru asked.

“Some foxy lady in a slinky red dress came on to me and asked me to go to dinner. I didn’t have any plans so I took her up on it. We sat down at a table for two and ordered some drinks. I remember chatting with her briefly about family, work, cars and then I don’t remember anything else until I woke up here.”

“What did she look like?” Sesshomaru asked suspiciously. He was beginning to understand how they were caught.

“Blond, long legs, perky nose..”Inuyasha started but Sesshomaru interrupted, “amble bosom, shapely figure, hazel eyes?”

“Yeh! That’s her. Do you know her?”

“She was wearing a white silk draped dress when I met her. She said she wanted to hear about my art businesses and would I give her some tips on finance and investing. Must admit she knew some of my favorite subjects to talk about. You didn’t mention them to her, by chance, Inuyasha?”

Inuyasha felt like shrinking under the line of questions. “Uh-mmh, I might have mentioned it. But how did she know I liked fast cars?”

“Rocket scientist! You drive three of them!” If he could open his eyes he would have rolled them.

“Ooh,” Inuyasha eeped quietly. “Was she a demon?”

“I think so,” Sesshomaru answered. “But I couldn’t place her smell. It seemed diluted by perfume.”

The men pondered in silence until Sesshomaru spoke again.

“We have to get out of here. Tell me what it looks like around me.”

“The floor is a light tile with big two feet squares. The entire room is 20 feet long and 10 feet wide. The ceilings seem to go forever, like we are in a open rectangular room but it could be a transparent or mirror ceiling. The light comes from everywhere. I don’t see one fixture. It’s still too bright to look at. You are bound to a metal bed with straps across your arms, torso, legs. Your feet are free. The bed is at a tilt. If you could step forward you could touch the floor. I’m on a similar bed but I’m laying flat. I can’t move anymore than an inch in any direction. And I about six feet from you to your right. The door is six feet to your left.

Sesshomaru attempted to move his foot forward but was stopped by the strap across his knee.

“What are the straps made from?”Sesshomaru rubbed his fingers together.

“Umm, leather? Maybe?” Inuyasha guessed.

Sesshomaru struggled to turn his hand in the restraint. “I’m going to try and melt the strap with my poison. Tell me if I’m in the right spot.”

“A little to the right,” Inuyasha replied, a bit of excitement returning to his voice.

A drip of green poison beaded out of Sesshomaru’s index finger and dropped on the floor, sizzling as it hit.

“A little more to the right,” Inuyasha corrected.

The process was tedious because Sesshomaru’s poison wasn’t flowing as usual but eventually the band on his right was dissolved. With his right hand free Sesshomaru was able to free the rest of his bounds. He covered his eyes and made his way to Inuyasha’s side.

“Are you otherwise okay, brother?” Sesshomaru asked as he pulled and tugged at the bindings.

“I think so,” Inuyasha said as he sat up, his first motion to rub his wrists. “I feel okay, just weak like when I’m human.”

“If t his is what you feel like once a month I truly pity you, little brother. This is intolerable!” Sesshomaru went to the door and attempted to open it.

Inuyasha shrugged as he rubbed his legs to get the feeling back in them. “I guess I know what to expect now.” He looked to Sesshomaru for confirmation he heard the answer. The daiyoukai wasn’t paying attention.

“Inuyasha, come and help me pull on this door.”

Inuyasha stood and then crumpled on the floor. He pulled himself partial up before Sesshomaru returned to his side.

“I thought you were okay?”

“So did I but my legs are so weak I can’t use them.”

“What was the last thing you remember?” Sesshomaru was concerned that Inuyasha had been in confinement too long.

“The corona virus had put everyone in isolation and it was the first day we could get out and go eat,” Inuyasha watched Sesshomaru’s face as it turned from its normally stoic mask to a look of disbelief.

“That’s not possible, Inuyasha, We’re still in lock down.”

The brothers stared at each other.

“We have got to get out of here!!!!”

Sesshomaru braced Inuyasha and they went to the door. Pulling, pushing and prying the brothers finally got the door open a crack. It was dark outside.

“Inuyasha, close one eye now. It’ll help you accommodate to the change in the lighting. When we get out there open that eye and close the other.”

Inuyasha nodded.

The men pried the door open. Sesshomaru threw Inuyasha on his shoulder and rushed from the room. They found themselves in a dark hallway. Ensuring they were alone Sesshomaru and his passenger ran away from the room in which they had been held prisoner.

After several moments Inuyasha called to him. “Brother, stop for a moment. Listen. I think I hear water moving.”

Sesshomaru stopped and shuffled Inuyasha to the piggy back position. Now both were silent.

There was a sound of water!

“Your hearing is back!” Sesshomaru whispered. “I smell the water. It’s under us.”

“Your nose is back!” Inuyasha replied. “What about your whip?”

Sesshomaru tried his whip. It lit up the hallway.

“Sit me down. Maybe my legs are back,” Inuyasha said hopefully.

Sesshomaru gently lowered his passenger to the ground. As his feet touched Inuyasha felt strength return to his legs. He gently touched his head, his fingers searching for the twin triangles. “My ears are back!” Inuyasha nearly jumped for joy.

Sesshomaru nodded and then dropped acid on the floor. A circle of three feet dissolved to show a large pipe system beneath the subfloors. “We need to go!” The males dropped through the flooring and scurried along the service walkways next to the large water pipes.

“Where are we! Pipes this big are used in large industry and water treatment places.”

“No clue, brother, but I hear voices. Let’s hurry!”

As the dog demons scurried down the service walkways, one scientist in the control center turned to another. “Let’s add another variable to this experiment.”

#InuSess

#inuyasha #inusess

3 notes · View notes

everlarkficexchange · 5 years

Text

I Just Can't Remember Why We Said Goodbye

Written by: @butrfac14

Rated E for the following triggers: explicit sexual conduct, canon-typical death, infertility, divorce, depression and if you squint real hard suicidal thoughts (thoughts only)

Length: Just under 10,000 words

This submission is based on the following prompt submitted by @sunflowerslyf: prompt 31- Everlark on the brink of a divorce, but then they remember all of the things they’ve gone through, the sacrifices they made for each other, that they can’t live withouth the other and end up not getting the divorce.

A tremendous thank you to @creamytinydays for her beta work on parts one and three of this story, and to @567inpanem for her beta work on parts one and two. These ladies helped me to craft this story into something that I’m really proud to put my name on. Thank you!

Thank you to @sunflowerslyf for the great prompt, and to @javistg and @xerxia31 for putting on another Everlark Fic Exchange. This is my first year to participate, and it’s been a wonderful experience.

Part 1.

She shuts the door to her hotel room before hoisting the backpack over her shoulder and turning to walk across the parking lot. Her destination is only a hundred yards away.

Katniss had arrived at the Oceanside Motel at three o’clock that afternoon for check-in. After collecting the key to room 12 from Mags, the front desk clerk whose deeply lined face bore evidence to the fact that she had spent a lifetime in the sunshine, Katniss had let herself into the room.

Katniss shook her head once she’d set her bag down on the floor. From the faded floral wallpaper down to the worn green carpet, the place looked exactly the same as it had ten years ago, and the irony doesn’t escape her.

It’s good to know that there are some things that haven’t changed.

When she reaches the edge of the parking lot and looks out at the sandy beach, she slips her water bottle out to take a quick drink while surveying the waterfront. To the left is the boardwalk with its weather worn planks. It runs in front of a strip of shops, and there’s an old fashioned arcade on one corner with an open air pavilion anchoring the opposite end.

It sneaks up on her- the memories that come crashing down to engulf her like the riptide, dragging her under until she’s drowning in remembrance.

But all things said, it would be a pleasant way to go, to feel her body flood to capacity with memories of the past, when she was happy.

She wraps her arms around her waist tightly and stares out at the water.

They’d spent their honeymoon in this little beach town. They didn’t have a lot of money when they first were married, and it was close enough to get here by car from the little one-bedroom apartment they were renting in the city.

“I’m sorry,” Peeta told her that night, after shutting the door behind him. It was a small hotel, and there wasn’t anything wrong with the room exactly, it just looked a little dated. Plain. “This place looked a lot nicer online.”

Katniss stepped into him, hugging him tight. “It’s fine, Peeta. We’re here together, and that’s enough. I love it.” Her chest tightened with the need to show him that her words were true. And they were, simply because the two of them were here together. “We can do nicer another time. We’ve got our whole lives.” Smiling broadly, she stood up on her toes to kiss him.

Peeta was one of a select few recipients of her smiles and affections. As a reserved person, it had always been hard for her to open up to people. Her world had mostly consisted of her parents and her sister. But then he came along, and he was so easy to love. His shy smiles and dry humor, his unassuming persona. She’d never met another man like him, always happy to sit back and let her take the lead.

“Hmm, feel free to do that anytime you like.” His eyes scanned her face, seemed to memorize the details of the moment.

“I will.” She teased him, and reached around to squeeze his ass. “You’re all mine now, mister.”

And there were other trips in the following years as they settled into life together. A vacation to Fiji for their eight year anniversary. Cocktails on the beach, white sand and gorgeous views. It had been beautiful in the tropics, but it couldn’t compare to this place. This unassuming little hotel room where they had felt so connected, fresh faced and full of nothing but hope for their future.

The cracks in their marriage had really begun to form after Fiji. The two of them had decided to start trying for a baby once they got home from the luxury vacation. The trip was supposed to symbolize one last hurrah for them before they started a family.

It hadn’t exactly worked out that way.

Maybe that’s why she remembers this place so fondly, as it was a time when the only expectations they had revolved around each other.

A time before negative pregnancy tests and thousands of dollars wasted on fertility treatments.

But she isn’t here to think about that today. Now that it’s almost over, she wants to remember the time that they spent here together, happy and carefree.

It seems important, now that it’s almost over.

With a shrug she releases her burden, and the bag slides off of her shoulders, landing without a sound. Its contents aren’t much, just a stack of papers. But it’s the key to her new life.

A few strokes of the pen and she’s a free woman. The whole process had been easier than it should have been for them. The division of goods accumulated over fifteen years of marriage turned out to be as simple as Katniss taking enough furniture to outfit her new apartment. The only thing that she cared about at that point was getting away from the clusterfuck they’d created together.

They had no savings left, and they both had similarly paying jobs so there was no need for discussions of alimony payments.

Peeta had been so despondent at that point that he barely said a word to her.

The thought of that long-awaited freedom should fill her with relief, but strangely it doesn’t. There is no sense of resolution.

Her only focus has been on getting it over with it, just putting it behind her, since the day the divorce proceedings began. She needs to move on with her life. And that’s why Katniss came here today, to put the last fifteen years of her life behind her.

But not yet.

She isn’t quite ready to move on yet.

Katniss has more to think about before she can sever the tie.

She sinks down onto her knees by the water and closes her eyes, the rush of the water and the feel of the breeze off of the ocean lulling her into a tranquil state. It helps her to block out the hell that is today and the last few years where they slowly fucked everything up.

But right here- her time here with Peeta is still untouched.

Pristine.

The two of them had spent those blissful days exploring the area. Mom and pop stores peddling seashell trinkets and postcards, overpriced sunglasses, and ugly hats. Breakfast at the diner with the old red vinyl seats. The small art gallery that was around the corner from their hotel, the one where they’d picked out the dandelion painting. The simple piece of artwork had reminded her of her new husband, of the hope and renewal that Peeta had brought into her life.

As far as she knows, it still hangs in the living room of their house.

No, not their house. Her heart twinges. Peeta’s house.

Katniss squeezes her eyes shut tighter, like a toddler in the midst of a tantrum. No, no, no. Don’t go there yet.

Everything with Peeta is past fixing, but she can still remember. She can still hold on to a little bit of the happiness, can’t she?

The last appointment at the fertility clinic comes to the forefront of her mind unbidden, the day that the doctor had finally confirmed Katniss’s suspicion that her body didn’t seem to be capable of carrying a baby.

And it had been so stupid of Peeta in that moment to bring up adoption. She was hurting, feeling like a complete failure to him. Her body felt like a worthless sack of flesh that she was stuck with for the rest of her days, and all she wanted to do was go home and find a quiet corner where she could be alone with her misery.

Katniss didn’t want to start a whole new kind of heartache, she just couldn’t do it. Adoption was such a long and difficult process, and there was no guarantee of having a child placed with them in the end. Not only that, there simply wasn’t any money left.

She couldn’t seem to make him understand though, because he wasn’t the problem. There was nothing wrong with him. Peeta had no idea what the tests and treatments had been like for her.

He later admitted that he never should have brought up the idea of adoption to her on the way home from that horrible last appointment at the fertility clinic.

In fact he begged her to forgive him for it after the big fight. But she was just done with it. With everything. Her worst fears had been confirmed, and she was ready to try and put it out of her mind.

But that isn’t what happened. They had screamed at each other that day, vile things that make her die a little inside when she thinks of it now. She told Peeta that she hated him, while his exact words to her were: “Leave if you don’t love me enough to give me what I want.”

Peeta tried like hell in the following days to take it all back. He implored Katniss to talk to him. He tried to tell her that she was enough and that he didn’t need anyone but her.

The worst part was that she believed him. The man that lashed out at her that day wasn’t her Peeta, it was entirely out of character for him to be so cruel. But she was tired of hurting him. Tired of hurting, period.

Tired of what they had done to each other.

The all-consuming drive to conceive had taken over their love life, turning sex into a scheduled task that revolved around her ovulation cycle. In the months leading up to the final prognosis, Katniss found herself steadily putting more and more distance between them in an effort to curb her mounting anxiety. Peeta responded by acting clingy one day and moody the next, alternately smothering her with his presence or being verbally combative.

So two weeks after that last office visit, Katniss told him that she was done. She wanted a divorce.

Peeta begged and pleaded with her. The sight of the tears streaming down his face is burned into her memory and Katniss couldn’t forget it now if she tried. “Don’t you understand that I’m nothing without you? You are woven so deeply into my life… the man I am now doesn’t even exist without you! Please don’t do this.”

But she’d made up her mind. He’d tried to hold her but she moved away, crossing her arms and stepping back, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to walk out the door if he touched her.

This isn’t what I came here to think about.

Katniss opens her eyes and stands up, grasping her backpack as she heads in the direction of the boardwalk. The waterfront is beginning to fill up with a mix of humanity, but one little group catches her eye: a father and mother with two little girls, an older dark haired one and a younger blond. Prepared for a day in the sun, mom carries a bag over her shoulder while dad totes a large blanket, and she hears him tell the girls, “Wait for us, don’t go near the water!”

As they disappear from her line of sight, Katniss feels herself stumble, her head spinning. The sight of that young family, so similar to the one from her childhood memories, brings her back to what had been the worst time of her life. Back to memories that she’d buried deep inside that seem determined to resurface today in one fell swoop, intent on drowning Katniss in her own emotions.

She still can see herself standing outside of Peeta’s apartment on that day she received the terrible news in the gathering darkness, pounding on the door and sobbing, practically clawing at the wood by the time that he answered it. “Katniss…” He trailed off as she collapsed into him. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

“My… my father. My father is gone. Peeta, please.” She couldn’t get out another word as she wrapped her arms around his neck and sobbed. Peeta scooped her up then as if she’d weighed nothing, kicking the door shut with his foot. He cradled her body in his strong arms through the longest night of her life as Katniss cried over the loss of the first man who’d mattered in her life. Her Dad.

Now they were both gone.

One dead.

The other one might as well be.

She sighs deeply. Is there a single thing that she can recall from the last fifteen years that isn’t tied to Peeta?

“The man I am now doesn’t exist without you.”

Katniss realizes exactly what Peeta meant with those words- every detail of her adult life is tied up with his, and she’ll never escape it. The good and the bad.

The love they had should have been worth so much more to her, and she’d simply thrown all of that away like last week’s garbage. How had things become so awful between them that they couldn’t be fixed?

It hits her how much she misses Peeta, how much she misses being happy. Of course she still loves him, she’s never stopped, but it goes even deeper than that. Katniss is staring ahead into the abyss of her future, and she simply can’t see it without him beside her.

Why am I doing this? Katniss had been so sure, so stubborn in her belief that it was for the best, that they could each go back to who they were before. Now she realizes that isn’t even a possibility, because that girl no longer exists.

A sudden, terrifying panic hits her. She hadn’t heard from him in months (Peeta had honored her wishes by leaving her alone)…had he had begun to move on without her? Just the idea of Peeta with someone else made her sick. Katniss would have to shoulder the blame for that one, because she’d vowed to stay with him through the good times and the bad, but ended up pushing him away when things were at their worst.

She’d felt so broken and used up and empty that the only thing she wanted was to get away from him, because she was tired of feeling anything. Period.

Could I fix this?

Katniss takes the short step up onto the walkway. She meanders down the boardwalk, past the pavilion where she’d sat with Peeta on their second night here, listening to a band play covers of 1960’s surf songs. He had taken her hand and pulled her to her feet halfway through the show, and they’d danced under the stars in the balmy night air.

Katniss had laughed and protested,“I can’t dance!” But, he’d ignored her and wrapped one strong arm around her waist, clasping his free hand in hers before tucking her in to his warm body. She gave up fighting him. He’d bent his head down and hummed in her ear as they swayed back and forth to “In My Room.”

She reaches the diner, letting out a quiet laugh as she pulls open the door and walks in. Nothing about this place has really changed, either. Its worn red seats and peeling formica table tops add another layer to the sense that some kind of a time warp has settled over the whole town.

It isn’t a bad thing.

Katniss is lead to one of the empty booths by a smiling girl with corkscrew curls and wide brown eyes. “Hi, I’m Rue.” Her voice is soft, and she grins at Katniss. Katniss feels herself smiling back at her, and despite the fact that she doesn’t look any older than 16 or 17, there is a depth there that belies her youth. “You can look at the menu for a minute if you want, I can just come back. What would you like to drink? We have great iced tea.”

“That sounds good, thank you.” Katniss replies, and watches Rue walk away. There is something about the waitress that reminds her of Prim, despite the fact that her sister is now 30 and in her second year of medical residency.

Katniss just got off the phone with her sister this morning before making the drive, sharing with Prim her plans for this little overnight stay.

Prim had been completely devastated when she heard the news of their pending divorce months ago. While she’d been supportive of Katniss’s decision and understood the feelings behind it, Prim also didn’t hesitate to try convincing her older sister to get in touch with her estranged husband.

Maybe Prim was right. Maybe it shouldn’t have gone this far. Katniss glances over at the backpack tossed onto the seat beside her with a sigh.

What a fucking mess.

She finishes her meal and stays to chat with Rue for a bit. The diner is quiet, and Katniss wants to get to know the girl better because she does remind her so much of Prim.

Rue shares with Katniss the fact that she just graduated from high school, so the two of them have been talking about her plans for college in the fall. “I’m so nervous,” Rue confesses with a giggle, biting at the corner of one thumbnail, “I’ve never really been away from home before.”

“I bet that you’ll really like it,” Katniss takes another sip from her iced tea. The glass is almost empty but she turns down Rue’s offer of a refill. “Just give yourself a chance to settle in. You’re so friendly that I bet your roommates will love you- I don’t think they could help it.”

Rue seems reassured by the advice, and as Katniss leaves the diner she can’t help but feel buoyed up by her time with the younger woman. And, walking further down the beach, she finds a spot that affords her some privacy because she has made her mind up at last.

She’s going to call him. It might be too little too late, Peeta might hate her now, or even just feel ambivalent (that seems even worse). But Katniss has to try at least once before she goes back to her quiet hotel room to sign the divorce papers and drop them in the mail on her way out of town tomorrow, her original plan.

She hits the call button, and there’s no answer. Katniss isn’t exactly sure how she feels as it goes to voicemail. She rubs her hand across her face, listening to the sound of his voice telling her to leave a message. When the phone beeps, Katniss hears herself blurt out the words, “Peeta, it’s me. I don’t know why I called, except that I want to hear your voice. If you want to talk, please call me back. I’m ready.” She ends the call, and drops her forehead down into the palms of her hands. Now what? She can’t move, paralyzed by the very real fear that she could be too late.

The phone rings a minute later, and it startles her so much that she almost drops it before answering the call. “Peeta?” she chokes out his name.

“Katniss?” he says, quietly and with the disbelief that she actually reached out to him evident in his voice. “Are you okay? Is something wrong?”

“Everything is wrong,” her voice breaks, and she feels herself begin to panic. Why did she try to do this over the phone?

Because she’s impulsive and couldn’t wait another minute to speak with him. She struggles to come up with the rest of her words. “I…”

“Katniss.” She closes her mouth and listens to him take a moment to compose himself. “Katniss, please come home. I’m miserable without you.” His voice cracks, and Katniss wishes she was there to see his face. “It’s killing me to stay away from you, and I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear this right now, but I have to tell you…”

“No, Peeta- it’s okay. It’s more than okay. I’m sorry,” she sobs out, and the realization that he’s been missing her as well causes her to crumple with relief, completely wiped out.

“Baby, I’m sorry too. I’m so sorry. But right now I don’t care about any of it. Katniss…” His voice drops again, and his next words are shaky. “All I want to do is hold you. Where are you? Just tell me and I’ll be there. I need to see you.”

They are silent for a minute before she tells him, truly laughing for the first time in months. “Peeta, you’ll never guess where I am.”

It’s nighttime when he finally arrives. She’s been watching from the motel room window, and when the headlights of his car appear Katniss quickly grabs her room key and heads out the door.

After getting off the phone with Peeta that afternoon, Katniss went back to the room to change into her bathing suit and grab a towel. A dip in the water might be the thing to calm her nerves- she’d always loved the ocean. As she closed her eyes and plunged into the water, Katniss felt small, insignificant, realizing that at any moment she could simply let go and be swept away by the current. It wouldn’t be long until she’d be completely forgotten, her body reduced to nothing but a speck on the ocean floor.

Instead of depressing her, the realization is liberating. It makes her feel strangely as if her problems aren’t so insurmountable after all- because what is life but a fleeting moment? She is still here, and Peeta’s still here, so there has to be a chance that they can make it work.

She climbed out of the ocean, some of the underlying tension now gone due to the physical exertion. The rough towel got wrapped around her torso once she’d dried off and had rung the water out of her hair. As the sun sank lower in the sky, she passed the families who were packing up for the day. The lifeguards all climbing down from their stands, gone off duty for the evening after a day in the blistering sun.

She’d even scanned the beach for a sign of the young family that’d reminded her so much of her own childhood, but there was no sign of them. Katniss couldn’t help but wonder where they were staying as she unlocked the door to her room.

Once inside, Katniss picked up the cheap bottle of wine she’d bought at the convenience store that day and poured some into an Oceanside Motel paper cup. She set the it down on the side of the tub to run a bath for herself. Once the tub was filled with warm water, she eased down into it before taking a sip of the wine.

Katniss leaned her head back, struggling to think of something to say to him when he arrived. She wracked her brain for a way to tell him all of the reasons she’s so sorry for the way things turned out.

But the only thing that she can really think of are his last words to her. Peeta had sounded rushed- she’d heard the jingle of keys and the sound of a car door slamming. “I’m coming right now,” he said over the sound of his car ignition turning over. “I’ll text you when I’m almost there. I love you.”

She set the empty cup down on the floor and slid down under the water. Her hair fanned out around her as she closed her eyes to think.

Was it really that simple? Could he really still love her after what she’d done?

She washed up after soaking for an indeterminate amount of time in the tub and climbed out. Katniss grabbed the thin motel towel and walked out into the room to decide on what to wear, and a quick and disappointing perusal of her overnight bag was made. She settled on a thin cotton sundress, surprised by her desire to look pretty for Peeta. It had been a long time since this giddy anticipation welled up inside of her because of him. She bit her lip. What was the dress code for reconciling with your estranged husband, anyway?

After getting dressed and braiding her damp hair, she sat to wait. She flipped on the television but the noise just made her feel even jumpier, so it was quickly turned back off and instead she periodically got up to peer out at the darkening sky. Katniss was trying desperately to get a handle on her nerves but nothing was working. Time slowed to a crawl.

But now he is here. Finally. Katniss can actually feel the blood pounding in her ears. She is that keyed up, and her breath will not come as she watches him step out of the car.

Peeta. The stress of the previous months shows on his face - he looks tired and frazzled- but it doesn’t detract from his looks. Katniss swears that he gets handsomer every year. His blond hair is just beginning to show a few threads of silver, but still lays across his head in thick waves.

Finally though, she can see his beautiful blue eyes light up with recognition as he glances over and spots her waiting beside the motel door.

“Peeta!”

And then she is running to him, leaping into his open arms. She sags against him with the relief of being held by him again. He wraps his arms around her desperately, and she can feel his body shaking. She can’t tell whether he is laughing or crying.

“Katniss, Katniss.” His embrace is practically suffocating her but she doesn’t mind; it’s the only way she’d want to go. Peeta lifts her further up, and she has to wrap her legs around him to hold on. She never wants him to put her down again.

Katniss winds herself around him like a vine on a tree. “I can’t believe you’re here.” She buries her face in the crook of his neck and slumps against him, her body sapped of energy after the adrenaline rush has passed.

“I’m here.” He tells her softly, rocking back and forth. Of course Peeta is comforting her. She’d like to go on this way forever because it feels so good, but she has to say something now or she never will.

He has to understand.

“Peeta,” Katniss lifts her head finally to look up at him. “I’m sorry. I- I can’t believe that you came. You could have just told me to go to hell.”

“No. Are you kidding? I’ve spent every day without you in hell.” He laughs, a beautiful deep sound that warms her body like hot chocolate. “Honestly, I’m a mess on my own.”

“Peeta, I’m sorry.” Her voice catches, and once again she damns herself for her inability to verbalize a complete thought. Why can’t she just say the words?

“I know, baby. I’m sorry too.” Peeta sets her back down on her feet. Katniss staggers a bit, coltish after being held up by him for so long. She places her hands on his chest to steady herself and feels the drum of his heartbeat beneath her palms.

They both take a moment to drink each other in, eyes searching each other closely for any visible changes that might have occurred during their months apart. Peeta shakes his head as if coming out of a daze. “I’m a mess, but you’re still just as beautiful.”

Katniss feels the worth she still has to him in that moment, because he’s staring at her the same way that he used to when they first met all those years ago. The bakery around the corner from her new apartment had just become her new favorite place, and Katniss told herself that the delicious baked goods they sold were the reason that she had begun to stop in everyday. It couldn’t be the handsome blond owner whose eyes, the most beautiful shade of blue, lit up every time she walked in. A shy smile would cross his face, and the sight of it would stop her in her tracks every time.

That had all went out the window on the day that they kissed, she had pushed him up against the cash register and just went for it.

That was the best decision I ever made.

The memory makes her smile. “I think you’re right-you are kind of a mess now. Your hair is too long, and your eyebrows have gone insane.” She teases, running a hand through his blond waves, before trailing her fingers down to smooth over his brow. It’s impossible to miss the way that he shudders at her touch, but Peeta doesn’t say a word.

“And I think you’re starting to get crow’s feet.” She slides her thumbs down to the delicate skin around his eyes, feeling his long lashes tickle her fingers, reveling in being able to touch him again.

“And you haven’t shaved in awhile either- are you finally taking my advice and growing a beard?” Her hands cup his firm jaw that is covered with soft hair. “But, that’s okay. I think I like you this way.”

He pulls Katniss close to kiss her suddenly, as though he can’t bear to wait another minute. While the initial movement is fast, they kiss slowly- a gentle reconnection of lips lightly pressing before his mouth opens over hers. Peeta groans when their tongues touch, and the whole experience feels new to her again after such a long time away from him. New, but still familiar- like coming home.

I am home, she thinks as Peeta pulls back to lean his forehead against hers.

“Why don’t we walk,” he says, stepping away from her after a moment of just breathing each other in. He indicates the waterfront with a nod of his head. “I could really stand to stretch my legs after the drive.” Peeta takes her hand and they head down towards the mostly deserted beach. The sounds of the waves crashing stir something inside her as they draw closer, making her feel more alive and vibrant.

“I went to some of our old haunts today, and they pretty much all look the same,” she says to help bridge the slight awkwardness that has settled between them as they walk. Neither one of them seems to know quite what to say to the other yet.

Katniss pulls him to a stop so they can kick off their shoes, leaving them under a bench to continue across the cool sand. “Nothing has changed.”

“I can’t wait to see it in the light of day.” Peeta hesitates, shakes his head. “I guess I shouldn’t assume that you want me to stay with you tonight. I don’t want to push you.”

Katniss sighs. When they stop at the waterfront, she reaches for both of his hands, turning toward him in the near darkness. The lights of the boardwalk make it possible to still see his face in the gloom. He’s looking over her shoulder, giving her the chance to decide for herself.

Just like always.

“I want you to stay.” She squeezes his hands, and he makes eye contact with her, finally allowing Katniss to see the emotions warring in their depths. “I don’t want to spend another second away from you.”

“Okay,” Peeta says quietly. It’s quiet save for the crashing of the waves and the distant noises floating down to them from the boardwalk. Katniss wishes that she knew what to say, but she simply doesn’t. More a woman of actions, she pulls him along to walk further down the beach.

Maybe it’s enough to just be together again for now. The words will come later.

“I love it here at night,” Peeta finally breaks the silence. “It seems kind of fitting, being back.” His face is broody, and he opens and closes his mouth a few times before simply saying, “I just wish that the last few years had never happened.”

Katniss looks up at him. “Peeta, don’t blame yourself. We both wanted a baby.” She takes a shuddering breath. “Please don’t. I’m the one who left.” The seal that had been keeping her composure intact finally disintegrates and she begins to sob.

She cries for the months of loneliness and for what they have done to each other.

Most of all she cries for the love she threw aside like garbage in the name of self-preservation.

“Katniss, it’s okay,” he says, pulling her into his arms. “I’m here.”

She realizes that Peeta is crying with her when she feels dampness on the top of her head. Katniss buries her face in his shirt, and the tears fall freely from both of their eyes.

“You look exhausted.” Katniss scans his face from her place beside him on the damp sand. “Do you want to go back to the room?” Even in the darkness, there are visible circles under his eyes. He nods, stepping away from her and wiping his face with the back of his hand.

They both are a mess. They’d stayed out for so long that the boardwalk lights have shut off for the night, and she can only see his face by the light of the moon. Her own eyes feel swollen and gritty enough to know that she must look like hell.

But it doesn’t really matter, they’ve seen each other worse than this.

When they arrive at the room, Katniss shuts the door behind them. Now that they are here she feels unsure of herself- maybe it would have been better for him to sleep in another room, because the space suddenly feels very full of him.

No, she realizes- she wants him here. Katniss just doesn’t know what to do with herself yet.

Peeta rubs his hand across the back of his neck. He seems nervous too, and that helps calm her growing anxiety. “I don’t have any other clothes with me, but I really need a shower- I came straight from the bakery.”

“That’s ok, go ahead. I’ll just use the bathroom when you get done.” She sits on the edge of the bed and pulls off her shoes, rubbing the soles of her feet. “I can throw your clothes in to wash tomorrow morning if you want.”

He looks up and gives her a little half-smile that makes her heart melt. “Thanks, Katniss.”

I’m so glad that he’s here, nerves or not, she thinks.

Peeta looks down and begins unbuttoning his shirt, while Katniss watches him out of the corner of her eye, trying not to be obvious about the way that her eyes sweep over the familiar planes of his body. She wonders what the night will bring.

She knows that sex couldn’t just fix everything, no matter how much she finds herself responding to the sight of him undressing. The space between her thighs clench as she takes in his broad shoulders and strong biceps, his firm chest and stomach. His body is as familiar to Katniss as her own, and she finds herself craving him. She wants the reconnection that physical intimacy brings, but there isn’t a magic switch she can flip to make the last months disappear. Honestly, she doesn’t know if they’re ready for that step yet.

I don’t even know what’s going through his mind right now, she tells herself with a little shake of her head.

Peeta had never been interested in mindless sex- he always wanted it to mean something when they were together, so throwing herself at him right now didn’t seem like the way to go. If he didn’t want to push her, than she definitely didn’t want to push him. They both needed time to see what they were.

But then her mouth goes dry when Peeta pulls his shirt off. “Do you have an extra towel?” He’s standing there in only his pants and seems completely oblivious to what he’s doing to her right now.

Katniss swallows hard. Calm down, she tells herself. “Yeah.” She points toward the bathroom, her voice sounding strange to her own ears. “There’s an extra towel and washcloth hanging up in there.”

“Okay, I won’t be too long.” He walks in the bathroom and shuts the door behind him, and Katniss expels the breath she was was holding. She puts her head in her hands and tries to calm her lust-addled brain. Now what? She gets up and digs through her bag for her nightgown, and then paces the room until the shower shuts off.

Peeta comes out a minute later with a towel slung over his shoulder, gesturing toward the black black boxer briefs he’s wearing. “I figured these are better than nothing.”

Better for who? Stop it, Katniss tells herself.

He sits on the edge of the bed and rubs the towel over his hair, before tossing it to the floor. “I’ll get that in the morning,” he tells her, laying back on the bed with a sigh. “I’m so tired, Katniss. I don’t think that I can move.”

Katniss eyes him critically. He does look tired- but the same could be said for her, honestly. She hasn’t been sleeping worth a damn, either.

“I wouldn’t lay on top of that blanket if I were you.” She chides him gently. “Why don’t you get under the covers while I get ready for bed?” She crosses the room and gives him a little peck on the lips, her previous thoughts put to bed as other instincts to take care of him kick in. No matter what happens, Katniss is just glad that he’s here. The details of what they do now seem inconsequential.

“Okay,” Peeta says, opening one eye to look up at her. He smiles at her and grasps her hip lightly with one hand to keep her in place. “I’m so glad you called- I know that wasn’t easy to do. And I’m sorry to say this,” he squeezes her hip and yawns loudly, “But I don’t know how much longer I can stay awake- I can’t seem to keep my eyes open.”

“That’s alright, I don’t mind.” Katniss tells him, caressing his forehead. “Go to sleep now, Peeta, and I’ll be right back out.”

After making sure that he actually gets in between the sheets, she flips on the bathroom light to wash her face and change into her nightgown.

“What the…?” she grabs her toothbrush once she’s completed the rest of her nighttime routine. It’s already wet? Why is it wet?

Katniss laughs out loud when it dawns on her. “That butthole.”

Peeta actually used her toothbrush. It’s such a gross thing but all she can do is smile. Strangely it helps to allay her fears.

Maybe this is going to be easier than I thought, Katniss shrugs, rinsing the brush off to use herself.

When she walks out of the bathroom, Peeta is already fast asleep. Without preamble, she pulls the blankets back and climbs in, settling down beside him. Peeta stirs when she stretches out, rolling towards her and pulling her into his side. He does it all without really waking up, an instinct that never went away.

Hope blooms inside her again. After all, a person couldn’t be irreparably angry with you if they are currently spooning you after brushing their teeth with your toothbrush.

Peeta, for his part, seems to be picking back up where they left off.

No, that’s not right- not where they left off.

Tonight goes farther back, tonight is nothing like the last few years. This connection is old but still brand new.

Katniss looks around the motel room and smiles, thinking that time warps are definitely not a bad thing. She closes her eyes and turns in his arms, snuggling closer to her husband as she feels the tendrils of sleep pull her under.

It’s hours later when Katniss opens her eyes. She’d apparently moved on to her back in the middle of the night and Peeta has one arm draped over her middle. Feeling the movement of his hand at her waist, she turns to see that he is awake.

They lay watching each other, the glow from the nightlight reflecting off his eyes.

“Hi,” he whispers. A little smile turns up the corner of his mouth, and she can’t help but smile back at him.

“Hey, you.” Katniss can’t remember the last time that they were like this, laying in the dark snuggled up under a blanket. It’s so intimate. Their separation had gone on for months, but they had drifted apart long before then- so much so that they’d begun to sleep facing away from each other in their king-size bed.

But not tonight. Her bare arm is tucked against his warm chest, and he has one leg curled over hers- the two of them almost completely intertwined.

She’ll happily take every inch of her pressed against every inch of him. His touch is healing her, breathing new life in.

“You used my toothbrush,” she says with a laugh, breaking the silence that’s settled over them. Katniss pinches his arm lightly, but he he just snickers.

“Husband’s privilege.” Peeta lifts one hand up and runs his fingers through the loose hair at her forehead, before skimming the tips of his fingers across her face and down her neck. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

Her heart clenches at his gentle touch. “I don’t mind.” He kisses her temple before pulling back. “Peeta?”

“Hmm?” He grasps her hand in his and kisses the back of it. She’s starting to feel overwhelmed in this warm bed with him. His body is pressed against her so deliciously, filling her with a liquidy heat that makes it hard to focus, but she needs to ask him something before she loses the ability to think.

She lets out a shaky breath. “Are you okay with all of this? I mean, are we going to be okay? Please be honest with me.” Katniss holds her breath as he sets her hand back down and stares at the wedding band she’s wearing, caressing it with his thumb. She notices that he is still wearing his as well.

“Honestly?” Peeta asks, pausing to thread his fingers through hers. “I’m more than okay. I feel like I can breathe again.” He looks up at her, scanning her eyes for signs of what’s going on behind them. “I know there are things we’re going to have to talk about and work on, but I feel like we’re ready to do it now, you know? And Katniss- I just want whatever you want. I meant it when I told you that you are enough.” Peeta leans over and kisses her then. Slow. Deep. It feels like she’s freefalling. “What about you, Katniss- what do you want?” He whispers, pulling back enough to look into her eyes.

The haze in his eyes makes it obvious what he wants. The heavy breaths. The way his eyes dart down to her lips occasionally.

Is this really happening? Katniss wonders. It’s a very dream-like moment, lying in the dark with him, half-awake with his body hovering over her the way that he is.

She can feel his breath on her lips, and it steals hers away. “I just want you.” Katniss answers him honestly, amazed that she’s able to speak at all. “I want to be happy again. I’m tired of missing you.”

“You don’t have to miss me anymore. I’m right here.” He tells her, his eyes crinkling up in the corners again. “Now that you’ve got me, what are you going to do with me?”

“I’m going to keep you right here with me, where you’ll be safe.” She leans up to meet his mouth with her own.

Part 2.

“Peeta?” She asks, searching his eyes for confirmation that he wants this as much as she does. The answer is the naked desire reflected back at her in the flash of his blue eyes. She leans up to catch his mouth in a searing kiss, pouring everything into it that she hasn’t the words to say.

Peeta groans into her mouth and slides his hand up from where it rested at her waist, moving agonizingly slow across her soft curves and between her dips and valleys. He tilts her head to find just the right angle of penetration, and her lips part for him. Peeta dips his tongue into her mouth so far that their teeth almost graze. But it’s still not enough because he’s like a man possessed. He’s trying to consume her but is unable to get his fill.

Peeta breaks away from her mouth, sliding the straps of her nightgown down to reveal the swell of her breasts. “This needs to go,” he growls, and the bossy tone makes her heart pound. Katniss can’t remember a time when he was like this, impatient and out of his mind with desire.

“Yes, please,” she begs, as she bites at his lips until Peeta pulls back and wrestles the nightgown over her head.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” Peeta mutters into her ear as he caresses her breast simultaneously grinding his hard cock between her thighs. He’s trying to press every inch of his body against hers and there is little space between them. Katniss can’t remember a time that she’s ever been so aroused. “I’ve missed you so much. I spent so many nights alone thinking about you like this. Your beautiful tits, the way they fill my hand perfectly. And your hard little nipples… I want to feel them under my tongue.”

Katniss lets out a choked sob because the emotions are now running so high between them that she can’t keep it in. It leaves her feeling raw and exposed.

An expression of concern crosses his face when he notices her distress. “Hey, none of that. Shh. That isn’t why I told you.” They regard each other silently for a moment before he quietly continues, “I just want you to know that I never stopped thinking about you.”

It feels like he is staring into her soul, and the longing to reconnect with him just grows stronger. How is it possible to still be this way with him after everything they’ve been through? The anger, the hurt, the distance that grew between them? How are they together in this bed again?

Maybe it’s because of everything that makes it feel like this with him, this all-consuming, out of control passion. It’s a reclaiming of life and hope after the hell of the last two years. Here with him in this warm bed, every part of her is on fire and sparking to life. Through the flames Peeta is there, his eyes deep and fathomless as he gazes at her with the familiar love in his eyes.

She aches to burn with him.

Peeta kisses her temple and murmurs against her skin. “I’m more in love with you now than I’ve ever been. I’ve missed everything about you, Katniss.” He pulls back to give her a teasing smirk. “And I don’t want to tear myself away from your face, but I really want your tits in my mouth.” It’s just the right thing to say, dirty and funny at the same time. His words help to ease the pressure of the moment. She snorts a little and shakes her head as he starts to trail kisses downward, and can feel the upturn of his lips as he smiles against her throat.

But she isn’t laughing for long.

Peeta makes his way down across her sternum. He takes one pebbled bud in his mouth, and she feels his tongue dart out and swirl against her flesh. He sighs loudly and closes his eyes as he applies harder suction there. She squirms and wriggles until he pops the nipple back out, only to begin his assault all over again.

Katniss pushes her pelvis up against his thigh to relieve the growing pressure behind her clit. The intense pleasure and the rapid build-up are new, despite the fact that he hasn’t even touched her yet, she already feels her orgasm building.

He keeps his focus on her breasts, his lips and tongue and teeth working her into a frenzy. “Peeta, Peeta.” Katniss squirms underneath him. Her brain is in a fog, and she feels as if she’s been drugged. Her limbs are heavy, but every nerve ending under her skin is getting ready to light up.

He looks up then and his eyes are wide, manic with lust. Katniss feels like she’s sinking, and Peeta is pulling her into the deep where they will drown together.

With one last suck, Peeta sits up enough to grab her panties and rip them off without a thought. He doesn’t hesitate, his fingers going straight to her core. At the first touch of the soaking heat waiting for him, his eyes roll back in his head. “You’ve missed me too, I see.” He says in a low voice, rubbing his thumb across her clit and inserting two thick fingers deep inside of her.

Katniss nearly shoots up off the bed from the pleasurable sensation that he’s giving her with the firm swipes of his thumb and the feel of his fingers thrusting deep inside of her walls. Peeta leans over to capture her mouth in a deep kiss and the dual assault of his tongue in her mouth and fingers in her pussy become too much for her. She crests quickly, the nerve endings in her body igniting as her walls clench around him. On it goes as Peeta coaxes more and more from her. His tongue commands her mouth and his hand her pleasure.

She comes down from her high to the feel of Peeta grinding himself against her hip. She sits up, though still feeling a little lightheaded pushing him onto his back. Her fingers slip into the waistband of his shorts and she lets her thumbs drag across his pelvic bones. He whimpers at the contact and moans when Katniss leans over to whisper in his ear, “My turn.”

She pulls the shorts down his legs, and her vision goes a little blurry at the sight of his hard cock bouncing out to meet her. He’s rock hard and weeping at the tip.

“Please,” he pants, and the smile on her face is wide. Katniss smirks at the realization that she’s not the only one begging tonight. She wraps her hand around the base of his shaft and he gasps out loud, a sound that she doesn’t have any tactile memories of him making before. She would very much like to hear it again. Katniss rubs her hand up and down his cock, reacquainting herself with his hot, hard flesh. He’s incredibly aroused and thrusting his hips with her every upward tug. She goes slowly using a loose grip to keep him from finishing in her hands.

She has bigger plans for him than that.

Her mouth waters at the sight of him desperate and handsome writhing on the bed. Her Peeta who is so selfless and still in love with her after everything they’ve been through. She’s never wanted to make him feel good as badly as she does tonight.

Katniss bends over to run her tongue up the length of his shaft in a long slow lick, and he nearly shoots off the bed. “Fuck!” he shouts, and she quickly engulfs his cock in her mouth, deep and slow.

His curses and moans were driving her mad enough but now Peeta is actually whimpering. He runs his fingers into her her hair and pulls hard. The pleasure that she is giving him is making her so excited that she can feel her pussy flutter.

When she stops for a breath he sits up. “That’s too much,” Peeta pants and drags her up his body by her shoulders. He rolls her onto her back while kissing her desperately. “I don’t know how long I’m going to last inside you. It’s been so long, and I want to make you come again.”

He slides down her body and comes to a stop when he gets between her thighs. Peeta wraps one of her legs around his shoulder. “Mmm,” he nuzzles her wet slit with the tip of his nose before placing a kiss to her outer lips. “You smell so good.” His tongue darts out and gives her a little experimental lick before spreading her apart with his fingers. He runs his tongue from her pussy to clit in a long, slow pass.

Katniss distantly hears herself making all sorts of desperate noises as he gets down to business. He thrusts his tongue deep inside of her and probes her walls, moaning as he drinks up her wetness. Peeta pulls his tongue out of her pussy to focus on her clit, swirling and sucking until he moves back down. Over and over again, back and forth, driving her mad with the steady building, building, building…

She throws her head back as the blinding light flashes behind her eyes. Peeta releases her clit from between his lips and quickly moves down to her opening. He drink up her release as fast as he can but is unable to catch it all as her cum runs between her thighs and between the cleft of her ass. Peeta moves down and runs the flat of his tongue there as well, not wanting to let one drop escape from him.

Katniss is a quivering mess when he comes back up to her and buries his tongue in her mouth. She tastes her tangy release on him while they kiss desperately. Peeta is rubbing his length across her wetness and thrusting against her. “I need you.” He shifts until the blunt head of his cock is ready to part her folds.

“Yes, yes. Please.” And then he’s there, his hard cock diving into her wet depths. He meets no resistance because she’s so ready for him. Peeta’s eyes close. He looks like he’s trying hard to concentrate and not let it end too soon. Katniss knows that he wants to make this good for her. He slips his hands under her hips and lifts them up as he grinds his pubic bone against her in a figure-eight motion.

Unbelievably, she feels the swell of desire forming again. The friction from the base of his penis rubbing against her clit and the blunt tip of his cock hitting a spot deep inside of her are making her climb again as he hits everything just right. Everything feels so overwhelming and decadent. “Yes, yes, yes…” Katniss chants as he thrusts in and out. Peeta dips his head down to give her a sloppy kiss.

“Are you close again?” He asks her when he comes up for air and gives her a deep grind against her clit. Peeta’s eyes are rolling back in his head and she knows he can’t hold on much longer.

“I, oh..” Katniss trails off as her body jolts from the friction. She feels out of her mind from the pleasure. “I think so… ungh, yes. Just like that, there!”

Peeta looks down to where they are connected. He watches his cock plunge in and out of her before looking back up into her eyes again. “Come with me, please.” He says with a groan as she clenches around him.

“Yes, yes,yes… Peeta!” The orgasm barrels down over her then and it makes every joint in her body seize up. Her walls lock his impossibly hard cock in a vise grip that tugs and pulls him deeper. He is so deep, and it feels like heaven as his hot cum spills inside her. Peeta grinds hard against her, and his face is slack with the force of his release. An inhuman groan escapes from his lips. His body shudders as her walls continue to milk him while his pulsing cock draws her pleasure out until she feels like she’s never going to stop climaxing.

Finally it recedes, and Peeta slumps against her, sapped of all strength. He stays where he is but is careful not to rest his full weight on her. Katniss moves to find his mouth, sharing a deep and emotional kiss with him. Their lips slide and their tongues caress.

Peeta pulls back and gazes down into her eyes while he runs his fingers through her hair. “I love you, you know that right?” She nods and he continues. “I know you’re scared, but we’re going to be fine. We’ll figure this out together.” He runs the tip of his nose across her cheek, over to her ear where he plants a little kiss. “Okay?”

“Okay.” Katniss answers him as she strokes her thumbs across his cheeks. She kisses him again and knows that he’s right.

Part 3.

“Good morning,” Katniss greets her new friend with a wide smile as Rue hands her a breakfast menu.

The girl gives her an inquisitive smile, before nodding at Peeta. “Who is this?” she asks with an appraising look as her brown eyes run up and down his frame. She winks at Katniss while Peeta peruses the menu, oblivious to the silent communication between the two of them.

Katniss smirks, and reaches across the table to grab his hand. “This is Peeta, my husband.” At the mention of his name, he glances up at their waitress and flashes her a smile.

“It’s nice to meet you, Peeta,” Rue places one hand on her hip, her face scrunched up in puzzlement. “But why weren’t you here yesterday? Your girl seemed awfully lonely.”

Katniss catches his eye. “He couldn’t make it until today. But he’s here now, and we’re going to stay for the week.”

They gaze across the table at each other for far too long, until Rue eventually has to make a very pointed coughing noise to get their attention again.

Peeta flushes bright red and turns towards the teenage girl. “Rue, did you know that we honeymooned here?”

Rue laughs and shakes her head, “Hmm. You know, I hear that more often than you’d think. Couples seem to come back here a lot, too. Like you guys!”

“There is something about this place,” Katniss agrees, biting her lip to keep the too-wide smile in check.

Eventually they order, and eat their late breakfast at a leisurely pace. They had understandably woken up late this morning; and after first laundering Peeta’s clothes and then getting distracted by a quick romp in the shower, it was almost eleven before they left the room.

They walk out hand in hand after saying goodbye to Rue and paying their bill. “Next stop, clothes for me?” Peeta asks, after stepping out on to the boardwalk.

“Yeah, but wait just a minute.” Katniss lifts the backpack up with one hand and indicates the back of the diner with the opposite thumb. “I just have to take care of something real quickly. You go on ahead and start looking.”

Peeta leans over and kisses her cheek before walking towards the first t-shirt shop. When he’s out of sight, Katniss darts behind the restaurant. She crosses the parking lot, and when she reaches the dumpster it’s lid gets tossed back. With a mighty heave the backpack and all of its contents go flying in, hitting the bottom with a loud thud.

“Good riddance!” Katniss tells herself, and turns around to catch back up with Peeta.

#Springtime Edition 2019 #submission #butrfac14 #sunflowerslyf #prompt 31

127 notes · View notes

mattmurdocks-leftbuttcheek · 5 years

Text

True Family (P.P. x Reader)

I honestly don’t know what this is so enjoy, I guess. I HAVEN’T EDITED THIS, OOPS. I still have some prompts and stuff but I’ve been really busy bc there was a death in my family and I have been home alone and couldn’t sleep. This is kinda how I reacted when I found out my dad died so it’s like based on that month of my life. PLEASE GIVE ME FEEDBACK. IM A LONELY BITCH WHO WANTS ATTENTION. :))))

Warnings: death, suicide, readers mom being a bitch??

Word count: what feels really small is 2.1k

Everyone grieves differently. Some cry, some scream, and others… they just sit there, no reaction. That’s how Y/n reacted to her father’s death. She sat there while her siblings cried, tears falling down her mother’s face. After sitting on the couch for a few minutes listening to her siblings and mother cry together, she got up silently and walked to her room.

Y/n felt empty. She felt like laying there and crying but nothing happened. She sat on her bed, looking at her phone, wondering if Peter was busy. She sat there for what felt like eternity until a knock at her door made her jump. After a few moments, her door opened just enough to show her mother’s wet and red face. She sniffled and sat on Y/n’s bed beside her, as if she was waiting for Y/n to suddenly break down in tears. “Are you okay?”

Y/n sat there, silent. Her mouth felt glued shut. Then something snapped in her. Y/n got up abruptly, startling her mother as she grabbed her jacket and her bag, heading to the front door of their apartment. Her sister that was younger than her by two years stepped up from the couch, sniffling as she hugged herself. “Where are you going?”

Y/n just looked at her with empty eyes. Her sister knew where she was going.

Peter’s.

The air outside was just cool enough to leave you with chill bumps. Y/n had her jacket but she didn’t have the energy to slip it on. She walked the familiar streets and turns until she was in front of Peter’s apartment. She just stood there, her hand poised in a fist, just an inch away from the wood. Instead, she took out her phone and texted Peter.

Can you open the door?

He saw the notification. And just seconds later he opened the door. “Y/n? What’s wrong.”

Y/n’s throat felt as if she had swallowed sandpaper. She opened her mouth to say something but was stopped by Peter’s aggressive hug that made her feel as if the news she had gotten was known to Peter too. He lead her to sit on the couch and asked her questions. What happened? Why aren’t you talking? Did someone hurt you?

It got to the point that Peter had gotten May from her bedroom. Telling her that Y/n wouldn’t talk but he knew something was up. May sat beside Y/n and looked at her. She looked like she wanted to punch a wall and take a very long nap at the same time. Y/n noticed May’s presence and looked up. She opened her mouth, but this time she could barely get the words out. “My… Dad…”

May’s face knew what she was saying and took her into her arms and sat there.

Peter looked confused. Then realization hit him. Y/n’s parents had been separated, her father was an alcoholic with diabetes that had to go to dialysis. After hearing the pain in Y/n’s voice, he went to the kitchen and got her a glass of water. She took it greedily, like she hadn’t eaten anything all day.

Peter just sat on the other side of Y/n, knowing the feeling that was. After losing his own parents, he didn’t want to talk either, but he did cry. Y/n sat up straight and looked at Peter with empty eyes and fell sideways on him, knocking him down onto the couch, she wrapped her arms around his waist and just held him. Hoping that the warmth of him would thaw the aching ice forming in her chest. He held her, stroking her hair as she just laid there, hugging him with her head on his chest.

They fell asleep, waking up to Y/n’s phone buzzing. Her mother was calling her. She sat up, rubbing her eyes and answered the phone. “What?”

“Where are you?” Her mother’s frantic voice was loud over the phone.

Y/n’s throat was dry. “I’m at Peter’s. I’m staying the night.”

Her mother was saying something along the lines of ‘you need to be home and grieve with us. You’re making us look like we aren’t a family’.

Y/n spoke up abruptly. “We haven’t been a family since you made Dad move out. Since you made the decision that you could take care of three teenagers by yourself while you’re in school. I said I’m staying at Peter’s for the night. Now it may be a week.” She hung up the phone and stood up. “She makes me so mad.”

Peter stood beside her, taking her hand. “You know May will let you stay for as long as you need, right?”

Y/n nodded, looking down at his hand, his fingers intertwined with hers. As if reading her mind, Peter led Y/n to his room. Rummaging through his dresser for some clothes she could sleep in. He handed her a worn shirt and sweatpants to wear. She took them gratefully, a smile gracing her lips. “Thanks, Peter.”

They both had school the next day. Y/n hoped it would go smoothly, meaning that flash wouldn’t be a jerk to her and that no one would mention what had happened today. As Y/n changed in Peter’s bathroom, she looked herself over. She looked pale, as if she hadn’t seen the sun in a week, her eyes were dark, empty. Her hair was a birds nest on the top of her head, not as neat as it should be. She felt as she looked. Cold and empty.

Peter knocked on the door and Y/n opened it. “Do I really look this bad?”

Peter looked at her like she grew an extra head. “Look like what?”

“Like I’ve been held prisoner. I look like I haven’t seen the sun in days. My hair is a complete mess.”

Peter shushed her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Y/n you look like you always do.” He said, looking into her eyes. “You look beautiful despite the fact that your dad died today and you feel like shit.”

Y/n smiled. She felt like laughing was a bad thing to do at the moment. So she just smiled and leaned forward and kissed Peter on the cheek. “Thank’s Peter.”

She crawled under the covers on his bed and waited for him. But her smile faded as she looked at her phone. The screen lit up, showing a notification from FaceBook (like anyone really uses it). Her mom had tagged her in a post.

‘I’m sorry to share the news that my ex-husband has passed away. My girls and I are devastated. The funeral will be arranged soon. Please pray for my family’

Y/n scoffed. “Peter, have you read this?”

Peter looked up and took the phone out of her hand. “Y/n, I know she is getting annoying, but you need to ignore it. She is grieving in her own way. Just let her.”

Y/n pushed her head into the pillow and groaned. “She may be grieving but still, you don’t just post something like that publicly.”

Peter just sighed. “Just try to go to sleep, Y/n. Everything will be fine.” He hugged her under the covers, rubbing her arms to help her go to sleep. “We can go to your apartment tomorrow and get clothes for you to stay if you need to.”

Y/n nodded, sleep taking over her, her eyes getting heavy.

It felt like everyone was staring at her. She walked the halls of school with Peter beside her, his hand on her lower back, hovering as if he was worried she was going to collapse. She heard Flash talking and prepared herself for the worst. Peter rubbed her back, sensing her tension.

“Hey, Y/n,” Flash said loudly,”I’m sorry about your dad.”

Y/n just stared at him, waiting for him to say something else. And he did. He said the worst thing possible that would send her into another spiralling depression.

“I heard that he committed suicide. Did he get that from you?” Everyone made an ‘ooh’-ing noise. Anger welled up in Y/n, acting as its own person, not her. She grabbed Flash by the front of his shirt and pulled him towards her. She felt Peter try to grab her by her bag but he was a second too late. He was currently watching his best friend threaten on of the most popular kids in school.

Y/n balled up Flash’s shirt in her fist and held him up to her face. “If you ever, ever say anything along those lines again, you won’t be able to have kids or even try. What I did did not happen to my father. You will have bad things happen to you, Eugene.” Y/n dropped Flash, making him stumble. “I’ll be sure of it.” She made her way to the doors that led outside.

After he stared at her wide-eyed for a moment, Peter followed her, not sure what exactly happened. He looked around outside, finding Y/n sitting around the corner of the building.

“Hey,” he said softly, sitting down beside her.”What was he talking about?”

Y/n wiped her eyes, breathing in deeply. “Do you remember three years ago when I went to Norway? To meet my aunt?”

Peter nodded, remembering that was the longest month of his life.

“Peter,” Y/n turned to him, her eyes red from crying.”I didn’t really go to Norway.” She took Peter’s hand and started tracing the lines of his palm, trying to concentrate on something to keep her here and not in the past. “I-I couldn’t take the pressure at school and from my mom,” she started, “I took over a hundred pills and laid there in my bed. I wanted to end the pain and end the expectations. I couldn’t handle my life anymore. I wrote notes and hid them in case I changed my mind. I didn’t want them to find the notes until after it happened, when the police would go through my belongings to find why. When I started throwing up, I called my dad and told him what happened. He rushed me to the hospital and I was stabilized. I spent that month in a psychiatric hospital in Boston.”

“Y/n,”

“I’m not done. My mom only told one person. Flash’s dad. Then she fabricated that I went to Norway to visit my aunt to learn more about a different country. I spent an entire month in a nuthouse with crazy people. I’m not crazy, and I wasn’t at the time. I just wanted to go home, but they wouldn’t let me leave until they saw that I was doing better. The food there was making everyone gain weight and I was scared that I would gain too. I didn’t eat but once every two days. I drank water and soda to keep my calorie intake alive.”

Peter looked at her, remembering when she came back. She looked thin and scared. Her clothes more baggy than ever, her skin sickly pale, her collarbones poking out from under her sweaters. He remembered being scared for her health.

“That’s why Flash said what he said.” Y/n wiped her tears away, “I will castrate him myself if he says anything like that again.”

Peter laughed, taking Y/n’s hand in his. “Y/n, just promise me one thing.”

Y/n smiled. “Anything for you.”

Peter looked into Y/n’s eyes. His brown ones staring into her e/c ones. “If you ever feel that way again, please talk to me. No matter how small the problem is, you can talk to me. I need you to stay alive.”

Y/n nodded, keeping eye-contact.

They both stood up, dusting themselves off as they walked back into the school. Peter stopped Y/n before they reached the doors. “And one more thing.”

Y/n nodded, waiting for his last request.

“Be my girlfriend.”

Y/n smiled, "Of course I will, now you can be my true family."

Peter hugged her tightly. "I will always be your true family."

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #spiderman #spider man: into the spider verse #spiderman homecoming #spiderman x reader #spiderman fanfiction #spiderverse #peter parker fanfiction #tom holland x reader #tom x reader #tom holland #avengers endgame #avengers #spiderman far from home #spiderman ffh #spiderman fic

38 notes · View notes

feel199x · 5 years

Text

fboy! lee felix, best friends to lovers

♡ a/n: okay i know y’all have seen felix’s pre-debut pics and i akdfdsjfh; just had to get this out of my system!

♡ summary: your best friend, felix, has a sudden change in attitude- leaving you baffled, why?

!! warnings: themes of anxiety n depression! but vv fluff towards end

♡ masterlist ♡

♡ song rec: slow love - tender & nothing but thieves - you know me too well

You weren’t sure when it happened. It must’ve been gradual you think, slowly slipping away. Eventually disconnecting. It didn’t really hit you until Felix completely stopped answering your phone calls and text messages. He would ignore you in the hallways, never partnered with you anymore, and now you sat alone during lunch. Today, still confused and oblivious to the whole situation, you tried sitting with him and his friends. He had still been talking to you then- could one word replies once a week count as talking? You sat in the seat next to him, and asked him how he had been, commenting on how he seemed so busy recently. You remember the table going quiet, eyes all on you- almost pitifully. Felix looked at you like he’d never seen you before.

“What are you doing?”

“I just, ah,” you fidgeted with your hands, mumbling as you picked your lunch bag, “sorry.”

You sat on the floor of the bathroom stall, sniffling. It was unsanitary, yes, but it was better than crying in the library and being shushed. Maybe you should’ve known, lots of friends parted ways in high school. You just never thought that it would happen with you and Felix. He had promised he wouldn’t, and the way he was acting now wasn’t like him. He had always, always been friendly and chipper. He was exciting, unpredictable, and most notably, unbelievably caring and loyal. Lots of people changed, usually for the worst, but lix? Lix wasn’t like that. Maybe you had depended on him too much, and it finally pushed him away? Maybe you were too boring, maybe he had outgrown you in some way? You were trying to rationalize, justify his actions to himself. The bell rang, snapping you out of your dazed thoughts. You stumbled out of the stall, washing your face. You were such a crybaby, and here you were swollen eyes and lips, all screwed over because someone didn’t like you anymore.

You saw him in the halls as you walked to your next class, you thought he was looking at you, but he wasn’t. He was looking past you, through you. Your head hung in embarrassment and you sat at your desk. Your head was in your hands, pulling at your skin. It was senior year already, how were you going to make new friends at this point? Everybody had established friend groups, cliques, no one would invite you to tag along with them at this point. You were nice, you guessed, but that didn’t mean all that much. It was unlikely your niceness would get you further than acquaintances or mutuals. You could barely pay attention in your maths class, staring at the board with glazed over eyes. You were trying not to think about him, trying not to over-analyze the situation and make yourself even more upset. It was hard because that’s the type of person you were, anxious and jumpy. Felix had always been the one to talk you down, even when you insisted that you were being a burden and didn’t want to bother him. Maybe it had gotten too much, maybe that’s why he was acting the way he was.

The school hours dragged on, your attention and focus wavering and dwindling as the clock seemed to tick slower. Everything was getting to be too much, the ticking of the clock, the teacher’s voice, even the flipping of paper and scratching of pencils and pens on paper. You jumped out of your seat, making the chair squeak as you got up. To your relief, everyone was much too self-involved to notice, and you slipped out of the classroom. It was friday, and it was a tradition with you and Lix to have a game night, eat Chinese, and complain about whatever was on your minds that day. You would walk home, his small hand holding yours, and fall asleep on the couch together, his head resting on his stomach and his arms wrapped around you while you stroked his hair. It had been three months since your last game night, and the last time he had spent all his time on the phone with some girl.

That had been happening a lot recently.

It hadn’t bothered you at first, not really. Mostly because at the time you didn’t realize that he was flirting. But when he ended up skipping hanging out with you to fool around with girls. Still, it wouldn’t have bothered you if it was only girl, the problem was that it was many. But they never seemed to stick. You had tried asking him about it, not even really trying to lecture him- just wanting to understand the sudden change in attitude. That’s when it went downhill, and it went downhill fast. He had just stopped replying all together, maybe that was the turning point. Had you been too invasive?

Still, your heart sank when you didn’t see him by the school’s entrance, all excited and happy, ready to plant a kiss on your cheek.

Being close to him always made your heart beat faster, and not because of your anxiety, he just made you feel like- like, something. Today you ate Chinese alone, watching sad romantic dramas instead having your ass kicked in mortal combat. You had your notifications on, so you don’t know why you kept checking your phone. You felt guilty, maybe you were overbearing? You wanted to apologize, but would that be guilt tripping? Your hands were getting sweaty, and your rubbed it on your sweatpants, needing to fidget to relieve tension.

You: im sorry- You erased the message, and typed again, You: is everything okay? Your leg was bouncing, and you deleted the message again. Why was this so stressful?

you: im sorry if i was too much, i love you and i hope everything is okay

lixie! ♡ : . . .

You watched as the three little dots and bounced, holding your breath, but they disappeared. Your eyebrows furrowed, tearing at the edge of your eyes, ready to break the dam. You shut off your phone, doing your best to turn your attention the TV screen. At Least the romantic drama gave you an excuse to cry. You wrapped your arms and legs around the throw pillow, burying your head in it as your cried, just like you would do if he was here. And eventually, you fell asleep, to no new notifications.

Sometimes you forgot that Felix only lived next door, but you were always reminded when there was a car door slamming and shouting. His parents weren’t home so he must’ve gone out with his friends. You should’ve been mad at him, skipping out on game night and ignoring your text to do god knows what. This was happening a lot more recently, he would leave and stay out past curfew, but somehow he had never gotten caught. But you were just worried, he was going through something, you were sure. But you weren’t there to help.

“_____! _____, open the door!” he was elongating his word, were they slurred? Had he been drinking? You ran to the door, almost tripping over your blankets. Felix fell when you opened the door, and you nearly didn’t catch him when he flopped into your arms. He was heavy, and he reeked of alcohol.

“Hey,” he gave you a wink, “Hey there, ___!”

“Hey, lix,” you said softly, “Have you been drinking?”

“Lix,” he said bitterly, “I missed that.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“Mmmm, no!”

You sighed, almost dragging him to your bed. You were disappointed in him, he would never had done something like this a year ago. But a year ago, you still had an idea of who he was. He rolled on top of your bed. “Don’t you miss cuddling, ___? I do, I miss you,” he sighed sadly, “I like you, ___. I like like you. Mmm, I love you. Do you have food? I’m hungry.” You pulled a cover over him, tucking him in and he reached, cupping one side of your face. Instinctively leaning into his touch. “I love you, ___.” You nodded, placing his hand back down. “I’m just gonna get you some food and water, and advil, okay?” He nodded eagerly. “Okay,” he slurred, “But then you gotta cuddle, like always.” Your mind hadn’t really processed the words, and you weren’t sure you wanted to be thinking about him until he was sober. He was asleep when you came back in, not that you expected anything else. You put the plate on the nightstand and the glass of water with a tablet of advil by its side. You looked at him once, sighing to yourself before you shut the lights and closed the door.

You didn’t know what you expected. You closed the room to your door and flopped back on the couch. No new messages either. You were supposed to have therapy tomorrow, but you weren’t sure you wanted to go. It took you some time to call up the office and cancel, you knew it was a bad idea, but it was so incredibly draining. You just wanted to wallow for a bit, binge on Chinese food until your parents came back from the anniversary getaway they were on. You could hear music blaring from Felix’s house, and you fought the urge to look out your window. It was late already, the sun already high up into the sky. You ordered some more food and mindlessly binged TV, not really paying attention to what was going on. You shut off your phone, throwing it to the other side of the couch. Felix’s music was still blaring, and instead of raising the volume and ignoring you, you went back to your room and sat at the desk. He only did this when he was angry, overwhelmed with some sort of emotion. He was probably dancing too, but you didn’t want to peek through the blinds.

Except, Felix’s voice came on the track. You knew it had to be him because really- who had a voice as deep as him? It sent shivers down your spine, and it made you proud. Felix had always taken an interest in dancing, just music in general. And he was good at it too. He had posted about performing in a showcase, and you really wanted to go, but he hadn’t invited you. It was a public event, so you could’ve shown up if you really wanted to, but it’d be awkward.

You rolled away, pushing yourself from the chair. Maybe you shouldn’t have canceled therapy, you were starting to feel that dangerous feeling, and you needed someone to talk to. You tapped on the armrest, throwing your head back and closing your eyes. Sometimes therapy annoyed you, but at least the coping skills usually helped. It’d be better if Felix was here helping you though. You were glad you had finished your essays before thursday, otherwise you’d end up turning them in late. You were starting to feel numb and unmotivated. Your eyes fluttered open. You missed Felix, you missed his touch, his voice. You missed counting his freckled and sneaking out to drive around at night. None of this made any sense, why was he ignoring you if he loved you? Was it all just drunken babble? It had to be, you’d heard stories of people saying things they didn’t mean while they were drunk.

What had you done? You could understand if you were overbearing or too much, but what was the turning point? Why hadn’t he had just talked to you about it? You didn’t know, you didn’t have any answers. You went back to the living room, falling asleep with the background sound of the movie, reading old text messages.

lixie! ♡ : come out now!!

lixie! ♡ : ___! wake upppp!!

lixie! ♡: has sent you an image

lixie! ♡: please bb i miss u! lets eat junk

you: lix please it 3 am

lixie! ♡: what kind of best friend are you?

lixie! ♡: abandoning your best friend in his times of need

lixie! ♡: did you just shut off your lights

lixie! ♡: and turn off your ringer

lixie! ♡: oH MY GOD

lixie! ♡: wait seriously come out i miss u

you: fine, but you have to catch me this time

lixie! ♡: uhh no promises

It was Monday soon, and you knew you had school, you knew you had to get up, but you didn’t. It was stupid probably, but you had no energy, no motivation to go. You felt gross, stupid, but not enough to push you out of your bed. You hadn’t even slept, your eyes burning and heavier than you could manage, but it wasn’t enough to fall asleep. You should’ve gone to therapy, you shouldn’t have canceled and you felt worse and worse. You stared up at the white ceiling, it burned in your vision, and almost expanded, like it went on forever. The blinds were closed and your light was shut off, leaving you in an uncomfortable darkness. But still, the white was almost too much, but you couldn’t look away. You couldn’t move.

It was Tuesday now, and you moved. You looked like hell, and you knew you wouldn’t be able to pay attention other than short bursts of focus, but you couldn’t afford to miss anymore classes. If your attendance slipped, then so would your grades, and with you grades your health...and so on, and so on. You passed Felix in the hallway, and he looked in your direction. You would’ve stopped to talk to him maybe, but you were rubbing sleep out of your eyes, still not having slept. Your classes barely passed, the time for breaks seemed to dissipate the more you looked forward to it. And then you had enough, you were tired of waiting around for an explanation, tired of feeling guilty, tired of feeling like this. You snapped. You saw him walking to the cafeteria, laughing along with his new friends.

“Lee Felix!”

What were you doing? You didn’t know, but the words were already out of your mouth and you stopped in the middle of the hallway. It was emptying as people rushed to get lunch. Felix paused for a moment, almost turning around.

“Lee Felix!”

His friends shot him a look, and Felix finally turned around, hands in his pockets. “What do you want? I’m busy.” You crossed your arms, walking towards him. “Felix what the hell? He shrugged, giving you a blank look. “What do you want?” he repeated, “I told you, I’m busy. I don’t have time for you.” To say that stung was an understatement. Your voice grew softer, cracking. Your fist tightened at your sides and you looked down, trying not to cry, “I was going to say I missed you. I wanted to know what was wrong.” Felix frowned a bit, trying to keep his demeanor from cracking. “I don’t. I already said I don’t have time for you and your problems. Yes, you were too much. You are too much. Leave me alone.”

Needless to say, you skipped the rest of classes that day. Your parents asked you what was wrong, wondering if they should make an emergency appointment with your therapist. You guessed it was a drunken ramble after all. Your bed was a mess, pillow stained with tears. How long has it been since you took a shower? When did you last eat? You watched the light in your room disappear and appear again, days where passing you knew, but it didn’t matter. You didn’t care, and it felt like no one else did either. There was practically a mold of your body in your bed by now, but still, you couldn’t find the strength to get up. You weren’t even thinking about him, actually, you weren’t thinking about anything at all. You couldn’t get up, you couldn’t will yourself to even brush your teeth. You felt gross, unsanitary. You were tired, only being able to sleep in short intervals, but always being snapped awake. You rubbed your eyes, still staring up at the ceiling. Why hadn’t you ever painted it? It stayed ingrained in your vision, even as you closed your eyes. You were able to turn around, even though your body felt heavy like molasses. But still, the white was in your vision. God, you were so tired, and you needed to move. It was beginning to hurt, your body numb and aches spreading through various parts of your body.

At some point, you felt a weight dip in your bed.

“Hey.”

You thought you were hallucinating, it couldn’t have been him. “Hey, look at me, please?” You felt his hand on your shoulder, brushing your hair to the side, it was all sticky from the stain of your tears, and he brushed them away too. “Your parents called me, they’re worried about you.” He rolled you around, fingers dusting against your jaw. “I’m worried about you. I shouldn’t have said what I said.” He looked at you sadly, looping his fingers behind your ear and playing with your hair. “I know it’s wrong for me to say now, but I meant what I said when I stumbled on your door.”

“You were drunk, lix.”

He smiled at the sound of your voice, somehow soothing him. “I was sober enough.” He pulled you into his chest, the side of your face pressed against his chest. “I was trying so hard to move on,” he murmured, “I wanted any excuse not to see you. I thought if I was mean I’d stop liking you. Sounds so stupid, I know.” He sighed deeply, you could feel his chest rise and fall. “You’re all that I want. You’re all that I need.” He laced his hands in yours, reaching up into the sky, pressing a kiss on the top of your head. “You need to shower, okay? And get some fresh air.”

“I can’t. I don’t have energy.”

“I’m here to help, forever.”

He picked you up, throwing you over his shoulder and you flopped around aimlessly, not having the willpower to fight him. He turned around as you undressed, leaving you only in your undergarments. The bath ran, the warm water giving you some feeling back in your body. Your knees were against your chest as lix washed your hair. You sputtered as some of the water streamed down your face. “Sorry, I’m doing my best.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I want to.”

He kneaded his knuckles against your back to relieve you of the tension you had accumulated the past few day, and you were beginning to relax. The water lapped against you as he help you take a bath. It was embarrassing in a sense, but it’s not like he hasn’t seen you in this sadder daze before. He let you towel off, and brought back clothes. His clothes.

Things felt like they were finally returning to normal, but you still felt weak. “Are you okay?” You hadn’t moved the past week, much less walked around. “I’m fine, my legs are just weak.” He smiled at you, and you had almost forgotten the butterflies you got when he smiled with his eyes. “I’ll carry you!”

“Lix-!”

Without another word, Felix picked you and carried you bridal style, your parents hooting playfully after you. Felix drove humming to a song you didn’t recognize and you sat in the passenger’s seat, smelling his cologne on his hoodie. His hoodie swamped you, leaving you in a big lump of cloth. Your nose was under the collar, pressed against the texture. It had been so long since you stole one of his hoodies. It had just been so long. You sat in the mcdonald’s parking lot, screeching abba lyrics as you ate.

“Do you feel better?”

He put his food down, and looked at you intently, staring deep into your eyes. His head slightly tilted and a small smile on his face. “As long as I’m with you,” you murmured, “I’ll feel like I’m in heaven.” He was leaning now, still looking at you, dragging his thumb across your lips. “Can I kiss you?” You smiled at him, and his eyes brightened. He held your face as he kissed you, and even though he tasted like fries, you were glad that this was finally happening. His thumb rubbed your cheeks as he pulled away, still cupping your face, still looking at you. “I love you,” you whispered.

“I love you too, baby.”

The thing was, he still hadn’t asked to be your boyfriend. It was a week now, and everything was normal again. He had introduced you to his friends, who were all incredibly nice to you, and Felix let you listen to his songs. He came over just to show you a new dance step he had come up with. You found yourself awake at night, fingertips ghosting over the outline of your lips. You sighed, letting yourself fall back asleep in lix’s hoodie.

It was friday now, game night. You had almost forgotten what it was like to see him bouncing around the school entrance, attentively looking at you. “I was worried,” he snaked his arm around your shoulder and walked with you for a bit before grabbing a hold of your hand. “I’m gonna kiss your ass on fortnite.” You groaned, “Can’t we play mario kart?” He shook his head, pinching your cheek. “No, ‘cause your good at that and I need an excuse to hold your hand while I teach you to play.” You blushed, turning away but he squished your cheeks. “You’re so cute you know that? Too cute.”

You had gotten the two of you killed multiple times, even after you sat in between Felix’s legs and he snaked his arms under your to teach you the controls. But to be fair, you weren’t really paying attention to his instructions. You were focusing on the warmth of his hands as he cupped your hands. He groaned again, the kill screen mocking him as it re-winded and replayed the death. “No offense, I love you, but seriously. You suck so, so bad.”

You bit your lip, and looked up at him. He put down his controller and looked back down on you, arms tightening around your waist. “What is it?”

“Lix…”

“Hmm,” he put his thumb on your chin, holding your head up, “What is it?”

“Why haven’t you asked me out yet? Was it like a one time thing or a joke or-?”

“That explains why you’re not wearing it, I’m so stupid.”

One arm let go of you and he reached for his bag, fishing in it for a few moments before pulling a bag out. “Lix…” He pulled out a box, and opened it, both hands around your waist again. “It’s a locket, with last year’s prom picture. I was gonna ask you out then but I chickened out.” He pulled the necklace out, brushing your hair to the front as you toyed with the locket. It was heart shaped, but it was far from simple. Intricate engravings sat on the edge, gold and your favorite color gem. Along with it sat your birth stone and Felix’s it.

“So, ___, will you be my lover?”

“God, that’s my far the stupidest thing you’ve said.”

He smiled down at you, thumb brushing against your lips before he kissed you again. It was like you were in the car of the mcdonald’s listening to abba again, but different, more passionate. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way,” he breathed hard, pulling away but pecking you, “Please pay attention, because I’m only going to explain this to you one more time.”

#stray kids #lee felix #lee felix imagine

86 notes · View notes