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#if it doesn’t at least someone else may get to experience these wonderful fics
suzukiblu · 5 months
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Day twenty-nine of fic NaNoWriMo, obligatory sugar daddy Tim/sugar baby Kon AU.
Kon disassembles his sand castle back into the original pattern without looking, Tim experiences multiple internal crisises, and someone passes by with a tray of hors d'oeuvres. Tim, in self-defense, grabs a couple of the little crostini things on said tray and offers one to Kon, who looks pleased about it. 
“I dunno, does this count as a party?” Kon asks, glancing around with a little grin before popping his hors d'oeuvre into his mouth. Tim does the same, then remembers this means that now he knows what Kon’s mouth tastes like again. Dammit. 
Kon’s mouth currently tastes like ricotta and roasted grape, which isn’t even necessarily a taste that especially appeals to Tim, aside from the part where it’s how Kon’s mouth currently tastes. Why do people even roast grapes? Why is that even a thing? 
Why does Kon look so attractive in slightly smudged eyeliner he put on for him and clothes he bought him? Like–Kon always looks attractive, it’s an incredibly unfortunate curse on the world, reflexively checking out his ass in spandex literally did get Tim thrown off a roof once, but this attractive? This is several new layers of “attractive” and Kon is wearing all of them like a second skin. A very tight and fitted and well-tailored second skin, to be specific. One with cutouts and short-shorts involved. 
This metaphor may be getting away from him. 
“Technically I think so, though maybe not the usual kind,” Tim says. “I mean, it’s sort of a party, it’s just mostly an event. Maybe they want donations or something, I don’t know. Museums usually do.” 
He assumes that’s what the ticket money went to, or at least a fair chunk of it. They were pretty expensive tickets, considering, but since it’s an adults-only special event that isn't obviously themed in either a rogue-baiting or rogue-planned way he hadn't really questioned it. Getting overcharged by a probably-underfunded art museum isn't exactly enough to trot out his inner Bat or inner future supervillain for. 
Well, as long as nobody on staff annoys or insults Kon, anyway. Because in that case he will be financially destroying this place. Like, obviously. It's a little early to be planning his supervillain calling cards, but “you know what you did” is an increasingly tempting option. 
Anyway, that's just a contingency plan. Totally unnecessary as long as Kon has a good time. 
“What’s over there?” Kon asks, peering towards another station. Tim wonders why he’s asking, since he assumes he can feel it, though in retrospect “feeling” whatever it is doesn’t necessarily explain the purpose or point of whatever it is. 
“No idea,” Tim says. “Why, does it feel interesting?” 
“Um.” Kon . . . hesitates, then glances back to him, looking oddly–embarrassed, almost? Weird, Tim thinks, repressing a frown. “It’s, uh . . . kinda, I guess. I dunno. Wanna check it out?” 
“Sure,” Tim says, peering towards it. It looks like a series of boxes with holes in them all stacked on top of each other, though he can’t see what’s actually inside them–there’s curtains or something built into them. He’s not really sure what the whole setup’s supposed to be, honestly, but if Kon’s interested . . . 
They head over, and it turns out the whole setup is basically the same theory as those haunted houses where they make you stick your hand in a box full of peeled grapes and cooked spaghetti and tell you they’re eyeballs and brains, although Tim is hoping peeled grapes and cooked spaghetti won’t actually be involved. 
“So there’s literally zero surprises here for you, I’m guessing,” Tim says wryly. Kon looks sheepish. 
“We can go do something else,” he says. 
“I mean, I’ll be surprised,” Tim points out. “So up to you if you’re interested or not.” 
“Okay, point, I guess,” Kon says, laughing a little and rubbing his arm self-consciously. “I dunno.” 
“Tell me which one to try?” Tim suggests, smiling at him. Kon laughs again, ducking his head to hide a grin. That continues to not be as effective as he probably wants it to be, given their height difference, but Tim has no intention of pointing that out. He doesn’t want to make Kon more self-conscious, and also it’s fucking adorable. 
Bastard. 
“You sure about that?” Kon says, his grin turning sly as he glances back towards him. “You don’t know what’s in there, babe.” 
“I’m willing to live a little dangerously,” Tim replies with an easy shrug. Kon laughs again. 
“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he teases.
Tim quickly regrets letting Kon pick which boxes he should stick his hands in via trying said boxes, but also Kon just looks so fucking cute laughing at the different faces he makes for every one, so it’s hard to actually get annoyed about it. Also, Kon admittedly did warn him. 
Although he might’ve rather put up with the peeled grapes and cooked spaghetti, honestly.
Seriously. Those are some textures, ugh.
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headspacedad · 11 months
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so I was just moving Tales Within Tales, an old fanfic I wrote for the FFVII community back in 2008 and 2009 from ff.net over to AO3 and I decided to bring the reviews I’d gotten on it over as well (because, well, they were awesome and authors live off of reviews)
It was 44 pages of reviews.
Not 44 reviews.
44 pages of reviews.
All toll I had 656 reviews on that fic.
Six hundred and fifty six reviews.
These days I struggle to get ten reviews on any of my fics.  My most popular fic, written during the height of VLDs active period is 226 comments.
Half of those AO3 comments are me responding.
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE every single one of those comments.  And every single person that comments on my fic?  I love them fiercely.  I love them the way someone locked in a dungeon without water loves the drops of rain that leak in the overhead window.  Because that’s exactly what they are.  They’re the thin, struggling, determined motivation people that interact with my stories are sharing with me out of themselves.
It is so depressing and heartbreaking and discouraging when I’m faced with how consumer driven fandom has become.  How ‘buy it off the rack’ fanfiction has become to so many readers.  I miss the communal feeling of fandom communities.  I wish I knew how to get it back.  I wish I knew how to get it back because I need it as someone that’s sharing my work but I need it back because I wish, so badly, that new fans could experience being a part of things the way readers used to be.  When reading a fanfic wasn’t going into the gas station and buying a six pack on your way somewhere else; it was sitting down in a coffee shop for an evening and being a part of the poetry slam that was going on on stage, interacting with the performers but the other audience members too.  It wasn’t perfect.  It wasn’t what everyone wanted.  I’m not saying fandom was golden once.  But I miss the interaction.  I miss the feeling of community.  Maybe that’s why tumblr is so precious.  Because at least here we can still whisper to each other in the tags and pass around stories to share. 
Sometimes pass around stories to share.
Its why I pass along so many stories, even for fandoms I don’t read or don’t ‘fit my blog’s theme’.
Someone has to.  Someones have to.  If we don’t we’re just part of the problem that’s hurting us.
I don’t have a point.  I just have - a longing for days of yore when I wasn’t so exhausted and tapped out.  Every now and then I feel grey when I get reminded of ‘what was’.  New fans can eat and eat without paying anything back and it hurts writers but I often wonder if it doesn’t hurt them too.  Half of the pleasure of fanfiction is the interaction over the ideas in it.  it seems like you’re missing a huge part of the joy and community it can give you when you lose that.
Bless everyone that comments on fics.  May I feed you half so well with my writing as you feed me with your reactions to my writing.
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dukeaubergine · 2 years
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Thinking about how characterization can vary so wildly from comic to comic, so how do you pick what to draw from for fic, and that lead to thinking over what I draw from, and the realization that this page from Young Justice:
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[after Nightwing walks in on two YJ members’ mothers having a fistfight and coated in cake frosting]
Red Tornado: And that is, in essence, what happened.
Nightwing: Well, that certainly accomplished a lot. We’re suppose to be here to talk about the kids, not act like kids.
Bonnie: Are you Robin’s father?
Nightwing: Well, no...
Bonnie: Then you couldn’t possibly know what it’s like.
Nightwing, using deliberately intimidating body language: Lady, every morning when I drift to sleep, I hear the screams of the loved ones I didn’t save. Don’t you dare lecture me on what I know.
Nightwing, physically backed away again and dismissive: Now... can we get back to business?
Was very influential on my formative views of Nightwing as a character.
Plus, having some personal childhood experience in performance art. Dick Grayson may have used his mom’s off-stage nickname for him to create his first vigilante person, but he also used his family’s show-colors. Robin the Boy Wonder is a character that Dick is playing.
The puns, situationally dissonant laughter, the big smiles, those are a performance. They come from Dick, he creates them, he crafted Robin and not from the ether. But assuming they’re even the majority of his personality, let alone the totality, is a mistake.
Nightwing is also a performance, drawing some of the same pieces as Robin but a lot of very different ones too. Created at a different point in Dick’s life, to play a different role.
...You know, now that I lay it out like this, I think that might be a big reason why being Batman is such a miserable experience for Dick. He didn’t craft that character. Dick created Robin & Nightwing. He didn’t create Batman. He didn’t build the role from the inside out, never saw the scaffolding, just the surface. He has to take someone else’s character and try to back-engineer it.
Whereas Tim stepped into Robin comfortable with it being a role someone else created, and gradually let more of his own personality in over time. Not being the creator wasn’t a problem for Tim. He also hates being Batman, but it’s for different reasons.
I don’t know enough about Jason & Stephanie's times as Robin to say how much they recognized that this was a character they were playing, but from what I can tell of Damian he sees Robin as a title. It’s the title of Batman’s primary field partner, the way First Mate is the title of a Ship Captain’s second in command. So Damian will fight and do detective work, but he doesn’t really get the rest of it. Not at first, at least.
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roboticonography · 1 year
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One line, one fic
Tagged by the delightful @theawkwardterrier, @lavellenchanted, and @doctorhelena!
rules: pick any 10 of your fics, scroll somewhere to the mid point, pick a line, and share it! Then tag 10 people.
(I may have gone slightly over the "one line" specification.)
When the Day Appears (MCU, Steve/Peggy):
His body has been under the ocean and in outer space, has travelled across dimensions and between atoms, has harnessed magic and lightning, has experienced the universe in ways she can barely begin to grasp. But it has never known her body. Which doesn’t seem quite fair, objectively considered.
To Be Where You Are (MCU, Steve/Peggy):
Steve nodded sympathetically. “I understand. Did you shill war bonds dressed in a patriotic tube sock too?” Peggy looked startled, then gave a laugh. “I think that would have been more dignified, on the whole,” she said.
Except Perhaps in Spring (MCU, Steve/Peggy):
It was plain that someone, in the course of his life, had attempted to teach Steve how to foxtrot, and that he’d memorized the number and order of the steps without any grasp of the teamwork or spontaneity involved.
The Honeymoon Phase (MCU, Steve/Peggy)
“There’s something seriously wrong with me. It’s out of control. I can’t be in the same room with him for more than a minute before I’m dying to rip his clothes off.” “If it makes you feel better,” said Natasha, “most of the people in this room have had that thought about Steve at least once.”
All Day, Every Day (MCU, Steve/Peggy)
She was the same Peggy he’d glimpsed through the bullpen window on his first trip to this time. The girl he’d known during the war, with a shorter haircut, paler lipstick, and a few more smile lines. And something else—a steely self-possession that spoke to both age and experience. Even if they’d never met before, in any lifetime, it would have been instantly clear who was in charge of this situation. And it wasn’t him.
The Fixed Foot (MCU, Steve/Peggy)
He watches her use an ornate gold compact to reapply her lipstick, every edge crisp and perfect. He’s always wondered how she managed it, but it turns out it’s like everything else she does: precision and confidence, her tools of the trade.
By Design (MCU, Steve/Peggy)
Peggy answers the door in a brightly-printed day dress, with a glass of amber liquid already in her hand. “Oh, lovely,” she says, taking the wine and looking carefully at the label, as though she knows a damn thing. “Thank you.” “It’s a red,” Howard points out helpfully. “And you’re an ass,” she replies. “Come in.”
Flames We Never Lit (MCU, Steve/Peggy)
Peggy didn’t quite know why she was suddenly talking like a character in a Regency novel. She blamed the gin.
Ain't Love a Kick (MCU, Steve/Peggy)
Dugan, peering past him, remarks, “Knocking up the boss. That’s a smart career move. Wish I’d—” “Reconsider finishing that sentence,” says Steve, cordially.
No Other Man (MCU, Steve/Peggy)
“It’s comfortable. And it’s what I’m used to. I slept in something quite similar during the war. You lot were always causing trouble in the middle of the night, and I had to be able to get into my trousers at a moment’s notice. It isn’t all posh silk pajamas around here, you know.” “That’s fine by me. I like the idea of being able to get into your trousers at a moment’s notice.” Peggy is delighted. He’s never spoken to her that way before; she was beginning to wonder whether he was even capable of discussing sex without bursting into flames. “Likewise,” she tells him, with a wink.
This has been all over my dash this week, so tagging anyone who hasn't yet been tagged and who wants to do it!
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Hi, I’m going around asking this to multiple people, please let me know your honest opinion! :)
How would you and/or other writers feel about someone reposting someone’s work with new pronouns and body specifications? Giving full credit, of course.
This sounds bad, let me explain it better..
Example: Someone has written a story with a female reader, and it’s absolutely wonderful, but very unfortunate to all the male readers who would also like to experience it (and vice versa).
Now, hypothetically, someone else comes along and “takes” their work, and changes the pronouns and gender specifications, to fit the opposite gender (or make it gender neutral). I wanna make sure that with this, the original writer would get full credit, they would be tagged and everything, so that the person reading the changed work would know who made it and whose work it is.
The work is the same, and the original writer gets all the credit, but more people can enjoy said work.
Do you think that this is ok? From as many perspectives as possible.
Thank you for taking the time to answer, it’s very appreciated, have a nice day/night. :)
Hey there.
So I totally understand how isolating it can be in fandoms to see really good work/writing specifically but have it catered to an audience that is not reflective of your experience. But reposting someone’s written work with just the pronouns changed, even with credit attached, is personally not something I would be cool with. I do not encourage you to do this.
You are still taking someone else’s work. If you want more male readers or male OCs, I’d encourage you to request from people or if you want, you can try your hand at writing a few short pieces.
The goal may be to be inclusive but this may not be the best way to go about it. I also feel like this action begs a larger question, if someone published this as a book would you go and copy word for word this story and just change out the pronouns? Like sure maybe the fic is second person (and if it is then the author I think has the responsibility to label it as a female reader or femme reader) but like just level with me—if you read a really good novel I don’t think you’d go word for word and change the pronouns. Just because it is fanfiction doesn’t mean that work isn’t due the same respect.
I know fics get reposted and stolen and that’s never fun. But as a writer, if someone really enjoyed my work, I’m thrilled but don’t repost it please. Personally, I’d rather you come to me and ask if I’d consider a male reader insert in a similar vein or something else. This is under the understanding that I do take requests and I am comfortable writing outside of my own race/gender. I understand that writing a reader insert fic is more than just the “you” in the story. Not everyone is a woman, not everyone is white, not everyone is short or blond or has long hair or is a male or is buff or is skinny and I really do want to writers on various platforms to understand what ‘defaults’ and bias they have in the own work so spaces can exist for everyone. So we can have real dialogues on how to make fandom spaces inclusive. But I think there are better ways. Much better ways than this. 
Fanfiction is shared with fandoms out of good faith and while I really do think fandom spaces get flooded in various ways (a lot of female centric written content as an example) I think it’s also good praxis to understand that this content is shared for free. There are ways to find and even ask for the kind of content you want to see.
Request from writers (be sure to ask if they’re comfortable first). Hell even ask the writer themselves if they’d consider your idea of changing the pronouns. It might be a stretch. You might get told no but at least you tried something. Try your hand at your own stuff. Get recommendations from others. But please do not repost that work.
-H
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fowlblue · 3 years
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Hi! This is my first time doing an ask on tumblr so I just wanted to ask if you knew any Alexmis fanfics, or perhaps you've written any? Bc I think I've already consumed every Alexmis fanric there is and I don't want to lose hope-
Okay so- as far as I’m aware, there are not many, and I’ve only read three so far (all fantastic)- I’ll list the three I’ve read, just in case you haven’t read them:
Dead Man’s Party by @thealphaaxolotl : This is the one that got me hooked on Alexmis and frankly, I regret nothing. Strong plot, love the action, and I love the quiet moments of calm the two share between points of chaos.
Bridges by @a-c-u-l-o-s : A fantastic fic in every regard, I love Alex and Artemis’s banter. Alex slowly trying to chip away at Artemis’s cold demeanor is equal parts hilarious and admirable. A great read that I can’t wait to finish.
London’s Burning by @mentosmorii : Charming and fun- this one made me smile. Who doesn’t love a good art heist?
I am also aware of another fic by @mentosmorii called I have loved the stars too fondly , though I haven’t read this one yet- I’ll link it anyways, as anything by Zoe is bound to be good.
As for myself, I haven’t written any fic for them- yet. I want to, and I plan to very soon, if I can come up with some ideas.
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sukirichi · 3 years
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closer | gojo satoru x reader
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a/n: aaah my first ask and it’s a request! thanks so much this is so kind and sweet of you 🥺 and here it is! I’m not sure if it’s exactly what you wanted but I hope you like it anyway! 
summary: in which Gojo has the need to be closer to you after a long day of hard work
pairings: jealous! Gojo x reader
warnings: none, other than this isn’t proofread! (This is just a fluffy domestic short fic!)
masterlist ! 
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The best part about being the strongest jujutsu sorcerer isn’t the power (although Gojo basks in that too) but rather the fact that he allows himself to completely tear his walls down and be putty in your hands once he comes home from work.
Gojo would never say it out loud that the best part of his days is waking up next to you, pressing kisses in your still sleepy face and you whining for five more minutes, then watching as you wobble like a penguin to the shower so you can start your day. Although he doesn’t really ask much from you, his heart still swells every time you make him a sandwich, kiss it and claim that it’s “made with love” before he proudly shows off his ‘breakfast’ of the day to his students.
Even in work, he still thinks of you. It’s quite impossible for this man to stop thinking of you; you and him never left that honeymoon phase even after two years of marriage and a much longer time of dating.
He could be exorcising a curse then get distracted afterwards after seeing an Italian restaurant that he just knows you’ll love. Next thing you know, Gojo flicks his wrist and exorcises the curse in a flash before hopping into that restaurant to look at the menu. Loving is knowing; Gojo takes the time to see if the restaurant would be respectful of your allergies every time before booking reservations.
It’s no secret that this man is completely enamoured with you, if his sappy good morning kisses accompanied with light, teasing touches down your legs is not an indication already. Gojo is confident and feels safe in your relationship and he’s never the type to get jealous because Gojo is Gojo – who else would be better than him for you?
Or at least that’s what he used to believe, until he comes home with a bag of pumpkin spice bread for you, arms wide open and a “Darling~” about to leave his lips when he sees your current predicament.
Nanami is leaning against one of the chairs in your cafe downstairs from your home, the usual stoic man���s lips and cheekbones slightly raised in laughter as you tell him something about your day. Gojo can’t exactly understand the worse falling from your lips because he’s too focused on the way you’re leaning forward, eyes absolutely crinkled into half-moons while you share a strawberry tart with him. Gojo sees the cups of tea have already been emptied, meaning Nanami has been here for a much longer time than he is welcomed.
Gojo clenches his jaw. He’s told you many times you should get a bell so you’d know when a customer comes in, but now he’s thankful you’re stubborn and refused to have one because he can hide in one of the propped up tables and chairs hidden in the darkness.
He can’t help the sigh he releases. He’s late – like he always is.
You’re a regular human who isn’t able to see curses. You’ve only ever known about their existence ever since you started dating Gojo, but other than that, you’re completely unaware of how these things work. It doesn’t bother Gojo. In fact, he quite likes that he can be just a regular man around you, and he basks in the comfort of not having to worry about your safety if ever you were also like him.
He met you when you were just still a barista who helped your boss bake from time to time. Gojo was only a student then who hopped from one cafe to another in search of the best delicacy, but he got more than what he bargained from when he met the fresh-faced and bubbly young woman standing behind the counter whose smile was sweeter than the most sugary dessert you’ve ever made.
As the two of you grew older, Gojo supported you in building your own cafe since you’re so passionate about it and it’s been your dream since childhood.
He still remembers how you’d spend hours in the kitchen trying out new ingredients, so much so that you forget to eat on most days. Gojo is left with the task of literally hauling your ass up upstairs and force you to shower with him. You lie that you’re not really tired, but the moment his skilled hands roll the tension out of your shoulders, a contented and grateful sigh paints those lips he loves to kiss.
One of the things Gojo loves doing with you is taste-testing. He’s not around the house most of the time when you work since he’s a busy man himself, but on the days he actively chooses to annoy Principal Yaga and go AWOL, he’d sit obediently on the counter and let you use him as your own taste experimenting dummy.
When night falls and you’re just about ready to head to bed; satisfied and proud of another day of hard work, Gojo comes home early to help you clean up the cafe and prop the furniture so you don’t overstrain your muscles.
Or at least, he wants to come home early to help you. It’s just that he often gets carried away on his missions and stays behind a lot longer than he’d like because the world of curses is extremely demanding. After seeing that you probably already lifted all these heavy chairs and cleaned up everything by yourself even when you’re tired, and you still have the ability to smile and laugh like that in Nanami’s presence when he should be the one on the receiving end, Gojo is unable to fight back the twisting feeling that pools in his stomach.
Forcing a huge grin on his face, Gojo loudly smacks the paper bag in the table between you and Nanami, his hands resting on the blond’s shoulder who only groans at his presence. “Yo!” He greets, winking when your eyes gleam brighter now that your husband is home.
There’s no trace or hint of anything that could indicate you’re upset with him because he didn’t come home early. Instead, you bow and excuse yourself while picking up your cups and the small plate where remnants of your signature tart had been, and Gojo watches with longing eyes as you disappear in the back room.
Now that you’re gone, Gojo drops in your seat, takes off his blindfold, and glares at Nanami. “Nanamin,” he drawls out. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here – getting chummy with my wife, no less.”
Gojo knows he’s being petty and childish. Of course he is. This is Nanamin we’re talking about; the man is as frigid and stone and he’s as interested in romantic relationships as much as he respects Gojo Satoru. Plus, it’s you, and you have eyes for Gojo and Gojo only, but it’s also Gojo Satoru who’s mixed in the formula, and he’s not the least bit ashamed that he’s being immature right now.
Of course he’s jealous. Of course he’s possessive.
You’re his sweet, little wife – of course he doesn’t like it.
As if reading his mind but couldn’t be bothered to deal with him, Nanami slides an envelope across the table. “Ijichi took a sick leave so he couldn’t give this to you. I was tasked to hand it over to you instead so I came around. It’s not my fault you come home late and your wife insisted I have a short meal before I came home,” Gojo opens his to retort something stupid when you emerge from the back, pretty face tired yet still patient as ever.
“Leaving already, Nanami?” You smile up at him, hand slipping through Gojo’s bigger and rough ones. He doesn’t know why the gesture leaves him stunned, especially when you step close enough that he feels your heat on this sudden cold night. He’s so entranced by everything about you he doesn’t even notice the blond bidding his farewell.
Gojo watches as you turn to face him, smaller hands reaching up to caress his face. Now that his blindfold is gone, his hair falls down to forehead, your dainty fingers brushing them away from his eyes so you could marvel in its beauty.
Like a little kid, he melts into a puddle when you do that exact eye-smile he’s seen you do with Nanami, only this time, it’s reserved, private, and intimate.
Gojo shuts his eyes in the process, nearly stumbling forward, which he doesn’t really let happen with anyone because he’s the Gojo Satoru; strongest jujutsu sorcerer. But you don’t mind, you never do, and if anything it only makes you laugh when he pretends to be deadweight by collapsing into the crook of your neck.
“What a big baby,” you tease with your hand rubbing up and down his back in a soothing motion, all the tiredness and exhaustion from his day disappearing into thin air.
“Yes,” he concedes as he follows you up the stairs where you both change into your pyjamas and settle in for the night. “But I’m your big baby.”
The nickname makes you laugh, head thrown back as giggles erupted in your chest. You’ve already removed your makeup, hair down from your work hairnet and flowing in loose waves. Gojo stifles a gasp then, because you’re in his arms, in his bed, smelling like him, and you’re so soft, so free, so vulnerable and the way you lean into his shoulders while he rubs his cheek on the crown of your head makes him feel like he’s falling in love all over again.
He’ll never get tired of this – of you.
The mere thought of seeing you with someone else that isn’t him doesn’t sit well with Gojo. Now he understands why he’s so jealous and immature – it’s because he hasn’t wanted anyone or anything as much as he loves you.
He can’t imagine a life where he’ll wake up to his mornings without your limbs sprawled across his longer ones, or how he may never hear your sleep talks about birds and butterflies; which is utterly ridiculous, but because it’s you, he finds it adorable. Sometimes Gojo wonders how he ever even lived before meeting, but of course, those were days filled with nothing but him doing weird stupid shit.
Not that he’s stopped doing that, but now at least he’s doing those weird stupid with you.
And he only ever wants to share those with you, so he doesn’t and will never allow anyone else to take what’s rightfully his. You’re his wife, the love of his life, the sunshine in his mornings and the sunset of his beautiful dusk.
He doesn’t care if he’s petty – he’s got every right to be jealous because Gojo Satoru never shares what’s his.
When his mind races back to the way you smile for Nanami again, his hold on you grows tighter. You don’t complain when Gojo suddenly presses his lips into yours, a breathy moan blessing his ears once he finally moves on top of you. Gojo runs his hand under your – his – shirt, letting those talented hands of his roam upon the expanse of his skin like an artwork he’ll never get tired of looking at.
“Missed you,” he mumbles in between the lip-locking, leaning closer when your nails start to scratch his scalp as a way to soothe him from the night. Nothing about the kiss is hurried or fervent; rather, it’s calm and steady, slow and passionate, much like how everything he feels for you is similar to a calm, rainy day where he’ll stay in with a hot cup of chocolate.
You’re home – warmth and comfort – and you know you’re his just as he knows he’s yours, but it doesn’t stop him from kissing you like he wants you to never forget that.
You shiver when Gojo’s fingers tickle your ribcage, that spot always having been sensitive. Your husband swipes his tongue over your lips that still tastes like strawberries from your lipbalm, and he groans, falling forward when you allow him access into your sweet, sweet mouth. Meanwhile, you travel down from his hair into those broad, strong shoulders that always seemed like a fortress to you.
Gojo was so big and strong compared to you. There’s no denying he could easily break you if he wanted to, but he’s nothing but gentle – perhaps a little eager – when he holds you like this.
There’s no memory of how you end up on top of his lap that night with the covers barely strewn across your bodies, Gojo’s back pressing into the bed frame that’s witnessed endless nights of passion. His hands then run over your hips, squeezing it a little too hard until you rut against his hips.
“Hmm,” you moan into his mouth at the friction, while Gojo only smirks at your reaction. Even after years, you’re still so sweet, sensitive, and responsive – he just can’t get enough of it. “Satoru,” the way you say his name is so breathy, almost as if it’s a secret only the two of you should know, so he listens intently at your next words. “You’re a little needy tonight. Did something happen?”
“No,” he lies, smiling to himself once he sees your lips are red and bruised. He’s sure he looks the same, but your eyes are glossed over with love that he can’t resist you pulling you to him as if the space offends him. He trails his lips down to your neck to leave red patches of marks that claims you as his – not that the gold wedding band on your fingers wasn’t doing the job already.
Like the good girl you are, you tilt your head and allow him to do as he pleases. He sucks, licks, kisses and nips at the skin, all the while careful to not hurt you or push you over to the edge since both of you are too tired for the day to ever do anything.
Your head drops to the crook of his neck then, arms wrapped around his shoulders loosely as if you trusted him to catch you whenever you fall – and you know he will. He always will.
Later on, you grow sleepy at the way he starts to pepper kisses into your skin that addictingly smells like cinnamon and vanilla all at the same time. Gojo chuckles to himself at how peaceful you look in that moment, draped over him like a tiny puppy who lives in a world too big for themselves, but that’s not true.
You’re bigger than the universe itself, larger than the vast galaxies he held beneath those eyes, and Gojo finally stops being jealous.
There’s no need to be, after all, not when he’s the one you trust wholeheartedly to tuck you in bed while your soft breathing lulls him into slumber as well. Gojo flicks the lamp off with his finger, not wasting another second before he scoots closer, closer, closer until there’s no more recollection of where you begin and where he ends.
He stands corrected in his statement.
He’ll never get tired of this, of you, for you’re bigger than the universe itself and there’s still a lot of space between the two of you that he can’t wait to cross until your worlds crash and burn.
“Next time,” he promises before kissing your eyelids, “I’ll come home earlier.”
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jungkxook · 4 years
Text
—stay. (m)
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⟶ pairing: jungkook x reader
⟶ genre: popstar!jungkook x groupie!reader + smut / sprinkle of angst and fluff
⟶ words: 8,083
⟶ rating: 18+
⟶ summary: jungkook wasn’t always so madly in love with you but the fact that you’re sleeping with two of his band mates too makes things a tad bit complicated.
⟶ warnings: multiple smut scenes, slight dom themes, oral sex, finger sucking oops, boob fondling, hair pulling ft. jungkook’s undercut, doggy style, missionary, thigh riding, spitting, jealous kook!!, unprotected sex, kind of slight possessive themes? but also just general sweetness tbh 
⟶ disclaimer: my time jungkook still has me in my feels! also, this is a repost of an old fic on an old blog.
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“Stay with me?”
Jungkook asks this hopefully, of course, but he already knows the answer. It’s just that, lying there with you on the hotel room bed, there’s no other place he’d rather be ━ and there’s no one else he’d rather experience the moment with than you. Legs tangled together on top of the duvet with your fingers tracing circles onto his bare chest, Jungkook swears he’s in love with you ━ only, you’re not his to have. 
“I have to go,” You pout, though your fingers continue drawing constellations on his skin, treading down his arm and over the tattoos that adorn him. You’re focusing now on the lily on his forearm, around and around, sending his head spiralling. “Promised my friends we could hang out today. Besides, don’t you have Mina or Nina━” You wave your hand in the air to dismiss the thought━ “coming over soon?”
“Who?” It takes him a moment to even remember who you’re talking about. Truthfully, he hasn’t seen that girl in well over six months but he’d never tell you that. In fact, he hasn’t been seeing anyone else other than you but he would definitely never tell you that. “Oh, yeah. Well, I think she’s coming over later tonight.”
“Well━” You trail off, and Jungkook knows it’s because you’re stalling. You want to stay, and he knows it well enough, but every question you ask him is just meant to further reassure you that it’s okay if you stay. That he wants you to. “Aren’t you busy with work today before the second show?”
Jungkook shrugs. “We still have lots of time before the day starts.”
You shake your head at him but he knows he ultimately wins out when you start to smile to yourself. You prop yourself up beside him and he has to admire momentarily how you’ve never been timid in front of him when you’re naked. His hand reaches out to brush his fingers against your cheek and you smile down at him. But then something seems to dawn on him that he can’t believe he foolishly hadn’t thought of first. 
“Unless… Unless you need to see one of them soon.”
“Who?”
“Taehyung or Namjoon.” It takes all he can muster to say their names without a trace of bitterness. He lifts himself up on his elbow. “Are you still seeing them?”
You shrug innocently. Sitting up a little straighter, you brush his hand away and fidget with your hair. “Would it matter if I was?”
Yes, he wants to scream but he refrains. “No. I just━” he stops. “Just curious. Is that what you meant by work then? You have to go see Tae or something right after me? ”
“No, you prick.” He’s relieved you giggle at him, fingers poking at his chest despite the fact that he was mentally cursing himself for being a dick the minute the words left his mouth. “Believe it or not, I do have a life outside of sex. Friends, too.”
“I know, I know,” he says sheepishly. “Sorry, I━ I know. You said you wanted to go shopping downtown before the show tonight, right? One of your friends ━ Dahyun ━ goes to school in the next city over and she’s taking the day off to see you. I do listen when you talk, y’know?”
He doesn’t miss the warm smile that spreads across your face. You finally return to him, kissing him slow and steadily. In the meantime, he flips you over onto your back and then parts from you much to your dismay. He’s nestled himself between your legs in an instant, kissing up your thigh and sending shivers down your spin. Your hand flies down to twine your fingers in his hair, now much longer than usual.
“I guess I could stay a little longer, if you’d want me to,” You say. 
“I do.”
He wastes no time in swiping his tongue at your folds, his mouth wrapping perfectly around you. You’re already mewling with delight. That’s all it ever is with the two of you. Sex and more sex. And while Jungkook isn’t complaining, he sure does wish he could just have more of you. Jungkook burrows a little deeper, his nose rubbing against your clit as he eats you out. 
“Morning sex does sound nice,” You manage to say, breath shaking.
“Yeah,” he rasps against you. “It does, doesn’t it?”
Your thighs are already threatening to squeeze shut around his head, fingers tightening in their hold. His own hands find purchase on your waist, stretching outward to hold on to you, and nothing can break you both apart. Not even the muffled sound of rapid knocking on the front door of the too grand hotel room. At least, not the first two times. On the third time when it’s followed by the sound of Jungkook’s manager irritably calling out through the flimsy wood panel, does Jungkook groan into your cunt and poke his head upward, craning his neck to look over his shoulder as his manager’s voice carries infuriatingly loudly to you both once again. 
“Get up already, will you? We’ve got several business meetings to conduct today and we haven’t got time for you to sleep off a hangover or whatever it is you’re doing━”
“Gimme ‘til noon!” Jungkook asserts gruffly. He settles himself back between your thighs, and you surely don’t miss the devious way he smirks just before burrowing his head into your heat. There’s an inaudible sound that he makes, that you and certainly his manager can distinguish as being, “I’m too busy right now.”
Busy is an understatement, pointedly made clear when his tongue delves into you, lapping at your leaking wetness as if he were terribly quenched and only you could save him. You don’t think Jungkook taking his morning to eat you out is a good enough excuse that will run over well with his manager later in the day, but it drives him away for now with only a grumbled chorus of words left in his wake. But the silence only lasts for so long. Just as Jungkook is getting comfortable once more, you speak up.
“I don’t think tardiness is a very good quality to have as a celebrity,” You ponder aloud through a heavily pleased sigh.
“Ah, or it’s exactly the thing I need,” he counters with a shit-eating grin. “Being late is a very celebrity thing, isn’t it?”
“When the fame gets to their head,” You snort. Your voice splinters off into a whimper as he tilts his chin up a little higher, lapping deeper into you.
“Then I guess I’m bad.” His voice murmurs against you, rattling you to the bone.
“You’re definitely far from bad. Everyone thinks you’re an angel.”
“Wonder if they’d think the same thing if they saw me now━” He pinches lightly at the inside of your thigh, “head between your legs, and you coming on my tongue.”
You roll your eyes, but your wittiness falls short when he tugs with his teeth at your folds. Your back arches off the bed at once, hips pressing harder against his face.
“Namjoon called last night,” You say. No, you don’t say it. You moan it and even though Jungkook knows it’s because of him and how he’s making you feel in that moment, he still hates hearing someone else’s name roll off the tip of your tongue that isn’t his. “If you must know. Said he wanted to see me in the morning━”
Jungkook grimaces. He grunts shortly, “Guess you’re gonna have to let him down.”
“I’m sure Joon will love that━”
“Don’t,” he hisses. He bites down a little harshly on the inside of your thigh but you don’t mind. When he glances up to look at you, his stare is dark and hooded. “Don’t say their names. Not now. Please.”
You almost miss the desperation in his voice, the way he almost whines his words. You don’t ask, even though you’re curious. You don’t ask, even when he eats you out that morning until he’s made sure you’re crying his name and nothing else. You don’t ask, even when fucks you slow and deep and measured and almost, dare you say, loving like he never has before, clinging onto you as if he can’t live without you. You don’t ask, even when he may get a little rough (just how you like it), as if he’s afraid you’ll leave him right then and there. You don’t even ask when he sucks not one but two hickeys on your neck, large enough for anyone to see. For Taehyung and Namjoon to see.
You never really do ask, even though you notice things have become different.
It’s not as if you haven’t always been close to one another. There are more times than not in which you both physically can’t keep your hands off of one another in public, though in the safest and simplest ways possible. It’s there, in the way you sit next to him with your legs crossed regally on the couch in the green room backstage before a set, playing with the rings on his fingers on the hand resting on your shoulder; there, in the way you sit draped across his lap, leaning into his chest, in the studio as they blur through recordings. When you give advice on composing or lyric writing, Jungkook listens. When you giggle into his ear and whisper lewd things when you probably shouldn’t in the middle of a party with important business men and other celebrities, Jungkook is captivated. 
It wasn’t always supposed to be like this. Jungkook wasn’t always so madly in love with you, but he always knew there was something about you he just could not get enough of. You had chosen him first, approaching him late one night at a bar, and he was instantly head-over-heels. Even if it was mutually agreed upon ━ and oftentimes never really outwardly mentioned ━ that you could sleep around with him, Namjoon, and Taehyung, then Jungkook would have to deal with it. He would do anything, if it meant getting to see you more. At first he didn’t even mind. What was one more groupie to the ever growing list he had already accumulated? He’s never gotten feelings for any of them, so surely he thought he would be okay with you; that maybe whatever he was feeling for you would go away. 
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
After he asks you the question the first time, he finds himself stuck in a greedy months-long habit of asking you wistfully every time he finds you in his bed. He asks it a thousand and one times, but only ever gets one response from you. You’ll say no, that you have to leave, and sometimes you will. But sometimes ━ sometimes when he knows he wins out because he knows you let your guard down long enough to become besotted by him, a tangible mess with his every touch ━ you’ll linger just a little longer and the notion alone is enough to instill a sense of hope in Jungkook even if he knows it’s wrong. 
And maybe you shouldn’t play along. Then again, he takes all your time and you devote what little you have left afterward to him anyway, pretending that you’re still seeing Taehyung and Namjoon when you’re certainly not.
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Sometimes Jungkook catches you when he doesn’t mean to, or isn’t expecting to, and it’s all different moments that physically pain him. Sometimes those moments come from paying one of the guys a visit and stumbling upon you there, too. 
After having not seen you for the whole day, and just before the concert begins, Jungkook is called over to Namjoon’s room within the hotel to discuss some last minute changes to the show (which Jungkook’s positive he would have heard about if he hadn’t ignored his manager early in the morning). Only Namjoon doesn’t answer the door when Jungkook arrives. There’s a crescendo of giggling on the other side of the threshold and then it’s you, and you’re standing there wearing nothing but a baggy shirt of Namjoon’s that barely covers your bum (and shorts too, he thinks, but Jungkook’s much too focused now on you in Namjoon’s shirt). Namjoon’s standing a bit further back, leaning against the wall of the hallway without a shirt on and he’s grinning at something that’s just happened. 
“Took you long enough,” Namjoon calls out. “Come in, we’ll get started. I’ll just be right back━ Just hopped out of the shower━” And then he disappears into another room, most likely to find another shirt that isn’t taken by you.
“Jungkook!” You greet him so cheerfully, as if the sight of you half naked in another man’s home isn’t eating away at Jungkook. You pull him into a hug that’s so tight he can smell your familiar perfume and probably Namjoon’s lingering scent if he focuses hard enough. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Jungkook says. He doesn’t mean for his voice to sound so standoffish. He hopes you don’t notice. “You’re back early.”
“Yeah. The girls had to leave but that’s okay.” You’re smiling so bright and wide that it almost hurts. “Namjoon━”
“Wanted to see you?” Jungkook finishes for you, remembering your words earlier in the day. 
“Yeah━” You’re rambling on now but Jungkook isn’t listening. The pain is still lingering and it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He knows it isn’t right but he can’t be bothered to care. In that moment, he realizes he’d rather be anywhere but there and he’s never felt that way before.
“Uh━ You know what?” He cringes slightly when he interrupts you. “Forgot I had to do something actually. Mina called earlier ━ said she wanted to talk or whatever.”
Your face immediately drops at the mention of the other girl and it pains him even more to know that you don’t see through his blatant lie. What’s worse is that Mina had called him the night before, but he had turned her down promptly before she could even say what she wanted. 
You glance over your shoulder fleetingly as if to look for Namjoon, teeth sinking into the soft flesh of your lower lip. “But I thought you needed to talk with Joon about the show?”
“Can’t, sorry. Tell Namjoon he can do whatever he wants. I don’t care. Seems like he’s got his hands full with you here anyway.”
He hates himself for it ━ he hates how petty he can be, how rude he can sound without truly meaning it ━ but before he can explain himself or apologize in a way that would probably make him look even more like an idiot, he turns his back to you. It’s the first time he’s really ever done something like that. Usually, he puts up with it ━ with you draped over Namjoon’s lap or Taehyung’s hand on your waist because usually he hadn’t always had feelings for you. 
Truth be told, Jungkook doesn’t know how Namjoon or Taehyung feel about “sharing” you. He doesn’t even know how you feel about it or if you’ve noticed Jungkook’s short temper lately. He tries to contain it but he can’t and he hates how he’s become when he’s not alone with you. Lately, he’s started to think that maybe this isn’t right anymore. Maybe he shouldn’t keep meeting up with you if he’s going to feel this way all the time, and it wasn’t fair to you for him to be sulking so much. He’s not supposed to be in love. He’s supposed to be having fun. 
After all, that’s what it was to you, wasn’t it?
But that night something happens.
Jungkook only notices you half an hour into the show later that night even despite the fact that you’re in the same place that you always are, standing on the side in the part of the pit closest to the stage where only family and close friends are allowed to stay. Of course you’re dancing along, just like you always do, and of course you’re watching him and the rest of the boys with starry eyes, just how he loves. You smiled wide at some point when his gaze locked with yours ━ him, drenched in sweat and nearing exhaustion, and you, face-flushed and looking as if you’re having the time of your life.
But that’s the thing about you ━ you’re not like the others. Sure, your eyes tend to drift to him more often than not and linger on him longer than necessary but you don’t just come for him. You live for the music, admire the rest of the boys that have treated him so dearly and make the group what it is. 
And the way he performs ━ you wonder if he purposely exerts himself more because he wants you to only focus on him. Every rough thrust of his hips, every time he grabs at his crotch, dark and hooded eyes meets yours and you know he’s trying to tease you. Trying to make you suffer.
Later, when the concert is finished and you’re at a private room in a club with the boys to celebrate the evening and Jungkook has had one too many shots, he finds you at the bar. He sidles up from behind you, one palm sliding onto the small of your back. You know it’s him even before you look, judging by the familiar stature of his chest pressing against your body, and his usual scent. His lips press to the crook of your neck and your lips unfurl into a smile. You reach up blindly to grab at the nape of his neck as he starts to sway against you to the beat of the music, hips digging into your ass.
“I’ve been dying to be next to you all night.” He whispers this into the shell of your ear and you wonder vaguely how you’ve maintained enough self-control to not drop to your knees and suck him off then and there. Even worse is the fact that he’s still adorned in the makeup from the concert. Your fingers scratch at one of the newly shaved sides of his head, the rest of his long locks only maintain some of its original style pushed back and off his forehead, though now messily mused as it splays out on either side of his head and threatens to hide the undercut once more.
“You’re drunk,” You point out. He doesn’t seem to register the fact that you only point it out because otherwise, if he wasn’t so smashed, you aren’t quite sure he’d even be touching you the way he is now after the way he’s been acting lately.
“So are you,” Jungkook hums. “Let’s get out of here?”
And you can’t possibly say no. 
He thinks it’s a shame, really, because you had looked quite pretty that night wearing a velvet red dress. Because after somehow calling a taxi and stumbling back to his dorm, he gets lost in you for a while and completely ravishes you, impatiently ripping your dress off you and pressing you against the wall, hips eagerly digging into yours until you hook your legs around his hips and he carries you off to bed to finish. 
When you’re spent from your first high, Jungkook moves from your sprawled out positions on the bed and gets up, pulling on a pair of discarded sweatpants from the floor. You watch him as he combs his hair back that’s fallen into his face again, muscles in his biceps rippling as he does so. He reaches for an acoustic guitar in one corner, then sinks onto the edge of the bed. He’s not usually this quiet after a night spent together, though you don’t quite seem to notice, thinking nothing of it as he starts plucking away at the guitar with a melody in mind if only because when he’s frustrated and stuck on a lyric, he usually goes to you in seek of help in terms of finding relief. You get to your knees, crawling over to him so that you can drape your arms around his shoulders from the back.
“That’s pretty,” You sigh dreamily, nodding to the guitar and the lazy strumming he had been doing. In the distance, you realize there’s been music playing faintly the whole time from the dock where his phone is plugged in. You recognize one of the boys’ songs playing, then realize it’s Jungkook’s solo, his own voice singing beautifully back to you. Above all else, you realize all at once that he isn’t really playing anything at all, or brainstorming a new song, but plucking along absentmindedly to the melody of his own song. 
He’s distracted but he tenses at your touch, then relaxes at once, melting instantly against you. “Just messing around,” he sighs.
“Nonsense,” You giggle. He glances over at you just in time to see you reach for his hand, and he watches as you play with the rings on his fingers. “There’s magic in these hands. In more ways than one.”
You press a chilling kiss against his palm, and then the tip of each of his fingers. Time seems to slow, and all he can suddenly focus on is you. 
“You’re gonna be the death of me,” His voice has a dull, stubborn whine to it that he can’t shake. “Have I ever told you that?”
“Once or twice,” You smirk. You busy yourself by focusing on lining the bottom of your palm with his, measuring your hand in his. He’s much bigger than you, his fingers nearly towering over yours and they’re always so snug and warm.
“Well, it’s true,” he says. “You’re the kinda girl songs are written about.”
“Unless I’m mistaken,” You say in a matter-of-fact tone, “you have written songs about me.”
He feigns a look of doubt, though a smile threatens to tug at his mouth, especially when you delicately lace your fingers with his one-by-one. “Ah, is that what you think, baby girl? Don’t let the fame get to your head.”
You laugh, dropping your head and leaning your temple against his knuckles in an attempt to hide your sheepish face. With his free hand, he sets his guitar back onto the floor and then unravels his other hand from yours. His palm is calloused and hot as it slides onto your cheek, and you nuzzle into it even despite him guiding your face back up to look at him. He can’t help himself; he leans in to kiss you, biting at your lower lip and earning a delicious moan. As his hands come to grip at your sides just over your ribs and the underside of your breasts do you crawl into his lap to straddle him. For a while, he lets himself get carried away, feeling your hands roam his chest, but then with such vivid intensity, he can only imagine Namjoon and Taehyung in the same position as him and it almost makes him want to vomit. Either that, or it’s the alcohol. Gathering his wits, he shakes his head, pulling apart from you.
“I think I should write━” He fumbles uselessly with his words. “Namjoon’s gonna kill me if I don’t finish these songs━”
You arch your chest against his, warm and soft and palpable, and your hips dig into his a little more roughly, rubbing against his straining erection. You can be heard whining sluggishly as you kiss the underside of his jaw, “But I want you inside me, Kook.”
His breath hitches in his throat, but he can’t think straight anymore. Is the scent he smelling even you anymore, or just a mix of Namjoon and Taehyung? And when you tell him he’s the only one who can ever make you feel the way he does, do you tell that to them too? 
His silence is answer enough, and is what ultimately forces you to look up at him. You’re met with an empty expression, then your own countenance is contorting. You sit back on his lap. 
“I don’t understand you anymore, Jungkook,” You say. There it is, he laments to himself. The familiar pang to his chest, the dreaded realization that maybe he’s fucked this whole thing up forever. “It’s like sometimes you can’t get enough of me, touching me here and there and just before shows when you’re supposed to be on in ten minutes, telling me that no one will care if you’re late. Then sometimes it’s like you won’t even look at me. Like you can’t get me off of you fast enough; like you can’t even touch me anymore.”
Jungkook avoids your stare, which he knows is exactly the sort of thing he shouldn’t do. But you already have your answer. You clamber off of his lap at once to slide back onto the bed and he wants nothing more than to pull you back but he knows he shouldn’t. Now, you seem flustered, or maybe just disheartened. Your arms come to cross over your bare chest, as if to hide yourself.
“You don’t want to touch me anymore,” You say dryly. 
It’s not a question so much as it is a statement. Either way, he shakes his head. Rubbing a tired hand over his face, he mumbles, “Maybe you should go.”
You clamp your mouth shut. “You’re not serious, Jungkook.”
He still doesn’t dare to meet your gaze, his jaw set hard in place. 
“You’re kicking me out? Now? Now?” 
“I’m not. I’m just━ Not in the mood tonight.”
“What a liar,” You gasp. “I had your stupid boner poking my ass the entire time we were at the club, and you sure as hell spent the better part of the night fucking me.”
He can’t quite tell if you’re mad. Your tone dances a fine line between incredulousness and amusement, though he assumes it all boils down to disappointment in the end anyway. You refuse to move, though, pushing yourself onto your knees beside him.
“Tell me the truth, Jungkook,” You plead carefully. “Something’s wrong. Has been for a while, and I want to know what it is.”
He takes a deep breath and finally meets your stare and, god, you look irresistible. Your lips are bruised red from him biting and sucking at them, and your exposed chest is too tempting, beckoning him to touch you. His mind is a whirlwind of emotions ━ plus, he’s just a little bit tipsy, and so he blames it on that for caving into you so easily.
He grimaces. “I’m jealous, all right?” 
You don’t respond at first, and he decides he wants to curl up into a hole and die. Then, you snort, which isn’t exactly the sort of reaction he was expecting to hear from you, and suddenly you don’t seem so angry at him anymore. “I knew that. Was wondering when you’d tell me, though.”
“You what?”
“Well, it’s not that hard to see. You’re always giving Namjoon and Taehyung death glares when I’m around.”
“I didn’t think I was that obvious.” He says this sheepishly, and at least you giggle at him. “I just━ I’m selfish. I want you to myself.”
“I’m not a thing to have,” You retort.
“I know,” he says, and then groans the words again. “Fuck, I know. I’m sorry. I know you’re not a thing to have, and you’re not mine to have but, god, I hate it that they know everything about what it feels like to be with you.”
Gently, he grabs at your waist, tugging you onto his lap, rough hands spreading your thighs to sit perfectly on him once more. Then, with his hands planted on your hips, does he guide you back and forth on him slowly. He reaches out to brush his fingers along your bare arms, then across your collarbones, and down to your breasts. He leans down as if to kiss the valley between them, but his mouth never really does meet your skin; instead, his lips graze faintly against you.
“That they know your body.” He brushes his nose against your chest as he lifts his head. His mouth ghosts across your breasts, almost catching your nipples in his mouth, his breath warm and tingly against the sensitive flesh, just to tease you. His hand follows his lips, grasping firmly at the underside of your breast, his thumb flicking over the perked bud. “Have touched it where I’ve touched it.”
Your own hands flail out to grasp at his shoulders, your breath hitching in your throat. “Why? Why do you hate it so much? That’s all I want to know.”
“Because they don’t even know how lucky they are,” he mutters. “Because you probably do all sorts of things for them and they just think you’re another groupie. Because they aren’t in love with you.”
“You’re in love with me?” Your face is hot now, your body trembling. His hands are still on your chest when he starts kissing your throat. 
“Yeah. I am.”
“What if I told you I’m in love with you too?”
“Well, you are fucking my band mates. I think that makes things a tad bit complicated.”
“You’re such an idiot.” You’re certain if he wasn’t making you feel like heaven in that moment, you would have snapped the words. Instead, you’re already shamelessly grinding your hips against his even without his guidance. “I called it off with them a while ago, actually. They were okay with it, too. Said they felt something was different. You’re the only one in my life, Jungkook.”
Jungkook stops suddenly. He pulls his head back to gawk at you and is greeted to your hooded eyes watching him. “You━ What? What about this morning when you said Namjoon wanted to see you?”
“I lied,” You admit timidly. 
“And when you were in his room━”
“We never did anything,” You promise. “I just wanted to see a reaction from you. Honestly, so did Taehyung and Namjoon. I mean, Namjoon purposely told me to come to his room to see if you’d be jealous. And I think I went along with it because I really just want to know that when you ask me to stay with you, in your bed, do you really mean it? I just…” You trail off, biting at your lower lip, asking him apprehensively, “What about you and that Mina girl?”
“I haven’t seen her or talked to her in months,” he says earnestly.
“Of course not.” You say this in a breathless laughing manner, as if it’s just now dawning on you. Then, you reach up to cradle his head in your hands, grasping at either side of his face. When you speak next, your voice is an ardent whisper. “I want to be with you, Kook. Like really, really be with you. I didn’t know how to tell you because we were so used to just having sex and nothing more and I figured if that’s all I could get with you, then I’d learn to live with it even if it’d kill me to hear you hooking up with other girls.”
Jungkook blinks. He takes a moment to comprehend what’s happening, but then he’s feeling that tension in his chest loosen and he’s just so relieved. 
“There’s only you,” he says. “Has been for a while.”
You smile, so big and soft and pretty, and he kisses you just to bask in the moment. Suddenly, he’s just overwhelmed with love for you and almost doesn’t know what to do with himself. 
“Maybe I should get you jealous more often,” You muse pensively. “It’s kinda hot.”
“It’s mean,” he pouts. Then, his demeanour changes and he’s smirking wolfishly. “Besides, they can’t fuck you like I can, can they?”
“N-No,” You croak feebly. “It’s always been you, Jungkook. Even with them. I’d never tell them but… you’re all I could think about even when I was with them. Imagining you touching me instead of them. Imagining it was you when they laid with me.”
This seems to grab his attention, having him groaning into your neck. “What’d I say? Gonna be the death of me.”
You shiver at the sound of his hoarse voice. You whisper aloud, “The feeling is mutual.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been so stupid lately,” he says. “Let me make it up to you. Do you want that, baby girl? But first you gotta show me you mean it. That you’re mine.”
As he tongues a pattern against your throat, you muster a nod. You wonder if it’s obvious how badly you want him in that moment, with the way your hips continue to grind against his. 
“I want you to fuck yourself on my thigh,” he murmurs against you. “Can you do that for me?”
The thought entices you and has you scrambling to nod your head again. His large hands come to grab at your ass, shifting you until you’re seated on one of his legs. Your eyes never stray from his as you start to grind against his thigh, the rough material of his sweatpants rubbing at your core. Slow and steady, he guides you back and forth, watching as your pretty mouth pops open into a silent gasp.
“That’s it, baby girl,” he coos. “God, you look so pretty. And you’re all mine. Touch yourself for me.”
“Where?” You ask breathlessly.
“All over. Anywhere you want me.”
You whimper at the thought, imagining the feeling of his rough hands on your body. You start at your chest, grasping at your own breasts, squeezing at your perked nipples. You pinch them until they’re hard under your fingertips, kneading the soft flesh of your breasts with your palm as you try to picture Jungkook doing the same. Then, you slide one hand down the front of your stomach, past your navel. He watches as you dip lower and lower before finally reaching between your legs, fingers rubbing small circles against your clit. The mingling feelings of you rutting your hips against his thigh and the way you touch yourself under his burning stare has you writhing on his lap within seconds. 
“Oh, Jungkook━” Your eyes clamp shut, brows knitting in concentration. “Wanna feel you so bad━”
“Uh uh,” he tuts at once. Grabbing at your chin, he yanks your head back up in his direction and taps his thumb against your jaw. “Keep your eyes on me. I want to see how I make you feel.”
“But it feels so good,” You whine. Still, you listen, prying your eyes open just slightly enough to meet his stare again. Now, you’ve started to grind a little harder on him, rubbing at your heat a little faster. “Please, Jungkook━”
“Cum for me first,” he coos, his tone gentle despite his obvious demands. “Then I’ll do whatever you want. You can do that for me, right?”
You muster a nod, eyes threatening to flutter shut again but you refrain. He moves one of his arms to wrap around your waist, his large hard encompassing almost all of your back as he pushes you closer to him and the action alone is enough to make you hum with delight. 
“Tell me what you want me to do to you,” he says. “The things they could never do for you.”
He doesn’t say Taehyung’s or Namjoon’s names for you to understand and, truthfully, you’re glad he doesn’t. Your mind is much too focused on Jungkook to care about anyone else.
“I want you━” You cry out suddenly, biting at your lip. “I want you to touch me, anywhere. I want you to use me, and make me yours. I want you in me. I just need your dick, Jungkook, please. You always make me feel so good. Please, please touch me━”
His jaw sets hard in place as he continues to watch you, fingers itching to please you however which way you want, but he waits. He knows you’re close to your high when you start whimpering and moaning his name, your hand falling from your chest as your other hand rubs harder at your clit the faster you ride his thigh. He flexes his muscle beneath your core, and the simple action is enough to have your head spinning. As you reach your high, his hand that is still wrapped around your chin slides upward and his two forefingers poke into your mouth. Instantly, you’re sucking against them, tongue laving at his digits desperately as you imagine his cock in your mouth, in your cunt, stretching you wide.
“God, you’re such a good girl,” he grunts. “Keep your eyes on me.”
As you unravel in his arms, body twitching into his chest, his arm tightens its hold around your back and envelopes you in his warmth so much to the point where it feels as if you begin to melt against him. You grab at his wrist, pushing his fingers deeper into your mouth until you almost gag, muffled moans meeting his ear as you climax. When you’re spent, your pace on his thigh slows to a steady occasional gyrating of your hips as you suck and lav at his fingertips.
“That’s it, baby girl,” Jungkook hums, his free hand stroking your back as you calm your nerves. When you’ve regained most of your wit, you pop Jungkook’s fingers from your mouth and he takes the liberty of guiding his palm down your chin to your throat to your breasts. “You’re doing so well for me. Bet you never listened as well to them as you do with me. Will you get on your hands and knees for me?”  
You scramble to obey, crawling off his lap and onto all fours on the bed. You crane your neck to watch as he gets to his knees behind you, shoving the material of his sweatpants down to his knees in haste. He’s already impossibly hard, grasped in his knuckles, precum leaking from the head of his dick. He wastes no time in pushing himself into you, and though he’s stretched you wide hours ago, the same feeling of him slipping in snug to your heat does wonders on your body still. 
“Mm, Jungkook!” You cry out as he buries himself balls deep into you, coaxed so easily by your slick arousal. He sputters at the sensation, palms pawing at your navel as he yanks you further down his cock. “F-Fuck━ You feel so good━”
“Show me,” he gasps, pulling his hips out once and rutting into you so vigorously you feel it shudder throughout your whole body. Then, he’s thrusting into you at a rhythmic fast pace that has you clenching so tight around him, his head spins some more. “Let me hear you. I wanna see how I make you feel. Let me see how you belong to me.”
He tugs at your elbows, yanking you up off the bed, and you clumsily follow suit, pressing your back flushed against his chest. 
“I’m all yours, Jungkook,” You whine. “I want you to wreck me so bad. Only you know how to wreck me so bad.”
“Yeah?” he taunts. “Only me? Gonna prove it?”
“Please, Jungkook━ Harder, please━ I’ll do anything you want!”
He quickens his pace and slams his hips up into yours harshly. It has you moaning with delight, nearly slipping from his grasp, but he holds you tighter in place. He reaches round to grab at your chin again, twisting your head in a careful yet prompt manner so that you’re looking over your shoulder at him with your flustered gawking expression.
“Open up.” He taps at your mouth and you do as you’re told. Almost instantly, he pulls your chin closer until your mouth is hovering over his, and spits. It’s a wordless command and gesture, as if to further prompt you to prove your point. You welcome it entirely, swallowing his own saliva completely. What doesn’t make it into your mouth, dribbles down your chin and onto your throat. Then you’re chasing his mouth, hearing him hum approvingly, “That’s it, baby.”
You almost miss his lips the first time from the way he’s being so feral now as his hips continue to slam against yours. You’re fortunate when he guides your chin, still pinched between his fingers, in a much too tender manner for the crude moment that has your heart swooning despite all the hysteria. A hot open-mouthed kiss which is still entirely sloppy as your tongues ravish mid-air, and his teeth nip and suck on your lower lip any chance he can get. 
“Gonna tell them how well I fuck you?” he asks breathlessly. You bite at his lip this time, tugging at it hard. “Let them know you’re all mine? Fuck━”
“Mhm!” You rasp. “Oh, Jungkook━”
By now, his pace is relentless. You threaten to ricochet from his grip with each rut of his hips, knees wobbling beneath you. He hand falls from your chin finally to grab at your breasts, replacing your earlier efforts, pinching at your nipples, squeeze at your soft flesh. He lavs wet kisses along your jawline, your neck, and shoulder. Your own head leans back onto his shoulder, a hand reaching out to grasp at his hair. Your fingers first scratch at the shaved sides, then thread through his hair, yanking at it tightly enough to have him grunting in delight.
“Jungkook, I’m gonna━” You whimper. “I’m gonna━”
But you don’t finish your thought. It doesn’t matter anyway. Jungkook already knows you’re close to your high with the way you start to clench around him. You pull even tighter at his hair, a pleasant burn evoking a hiss from his throat. His hips move even faster than before, desperate to try and carry you to your high. So riddled from your first orgasm not long ago and the one before that, you’re quick to crumble beneath him once more. Twisting and turning, you cry out his name in a repeated mantra, like music to his ears. When the scorching heat between your thighs and blinding your eyes subsides enough for you to be somewhat coherent again, you meekly find your voice.
“Tell me I’m yours,” You beg despairingly, voice barely a ragged panting whisper. The aftershock of your orgasm still shakes through your body that the way you’re clutching at his hair now is only so that you can still have some sort of hold on reality still. “Please, please. Tell me. I wanna be yours so bad. You already have me, just wanna hear it from you. Tell me you want me as much as I want you. Please, Jungkook━”
A nerve flutters in Jungkook’s heart. And his dick. He marvels momentarily at the idea of how he wants to continue to wreck you and simultaneously love you all over and grows impatient. Without warning, and with much difficulty, he pulls out of you. Before you can register what’s happening or miss the warmth of his cock in your heat, he pushes you onto the bed and flips you around so that you’re on your back. Then, hovering over you close enough so that he can hook one of your legs over his shoulder, he pushes himself back into you. 
“You’re all I want,” he says, smoothing his mouth over yours once more. He moans against your lips, then rests his forehead against yours as he squeezes his eyes shut. “God, I’m so fucking in love with you. You make it so hard to think sometimes. Everything about you drives me wild.”
His pace isn’t as harsh as before, though he’s careless as he abandons all form in an attempt to ride out your high and reach his own. Each thrust he makes jolts you back and forth on the bed, the sensitivity between your thighs a mild burn that starts to crescendo as you gasp each time his cock slides back into you. You reach out tiredly to grab at his face with soft motions despite not bothering to move him from where he still rests with his forehead. One large palm of his comes to grasp at your side, pushing you further into the mattress as he hammers into you. 
“Fuck, I’m gonna cum━” He moans. “Gonna let me fill you up, baby? Gonna let me make your cunt mine?”
“Yes, please,” You rasp. “Wanna feel it so bad.”
It’s different this time despite knowing the sensation well enough from all those times before. Every event since then has been a build up to this, and when he finally releases into you, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. The last few sluggish ruts of his hips make the both of you whimper and whine, mewling with delight the longer he cums in your heat. 
Then, he slumps against your chest and the room falls silent once more safe for the sound of your mingled panting. He burrows his face into the crook of your neck and your fingers rake through his sweaty hair in a soothing manner until that too ceases after a few silent moments. 
“Not falling asleep on me now, are you?” he asks after the thrill of both your highs have subsided. He lifts his head to look at you and finds that you are, in fact, beginning to doze off. 
“No,” You lie. You pry one eye open to look at him as you bite back a sheepish snicker. He pulls out of you at long last, and the lack of warmth has you immediately protesting. You reach out  blindly for him before he can move too far. “Come back here. I want to cuddle you.” Then, letting your surroundings register once more, you realize suddenly that music has still been playing all this time. Most specifically, Jungkook’s solo which has been left on a loop. You meet his curious gaze in the dark and deadpan, “Did you seriously just fuck me to your song?”
“It’s not fucking when we were making love,” he wriggles his brows suggestively. You wonder how he’s always so quick to go from one extreme to the other. Whereas five minutes ago, you wanted nothing more than to have him demolish you with his dick, now he’s just his usual lovable idiotic self that you want to kiss all over. He’s not wrong though, you discern. The song isn’t a bad one either, and the thought of him having sex with you to his own music is undescriably hot anyway. 
“You can’t say you were making love to me when you just took me raw.” Amongst other things, you think to yourself, but you’re certain he’s well aware of that. His snickers warm your heart to no end and you can’t help yourself when you lean forward to kiss him. 
“I can and I will because I love you,” he says proudly. Then, as if tasting the words on his tongue and favouring the sound of it, hums more pensively again, “I love you.”
“I love you too, Jungkook.”
And this time he knows you mean it because, in the morning, when you both wake up feeling sore and marked all over by one another (so that Namjoon and Taehyung can know), you’re still curled up into Jungkook’s chest. You’re half asleep, your nose nuzzling against the crook of his neck and making him smile. You’re only roused awake by the feather-light strokes his fingers make as they rub small circles into your back.
“Stay with me?” Jungkook asks this hopefully, of course, but he already knows the answer. This time, he even knows it’ll be different. 
He sees your sleepy smile widen when he kisses your temple sweetly, and decides quickly that he likes this, right there and now, as it is, and especially when he hears you whisper finally, “There’s no place I’d rather be.”
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xxwritemeastoryxx · 3 years
Text
Hidden Marks
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Author: xxwritemeastoryxx
Pairings: Elijah Mikaelson x Reader
Request:  Hii! If you still taking request I want ask for an soulmate au with Elijah, where which one of them have the same mark. He and his soulmate are very good friends for a long time and never have thought about this, but someday he see her mark and find out about this but don't tell her for being afraid of hurting her because of his family -Anon
Word Count: 1.6K
Warnings: Tad bit of angst, mentions of blood, but that's canon at this point.
Author’s Note: I apologize that this wasn't out earlier today. But there was some things in it that were bugging me and I just couldn't let it post without fixing it! It's still the 7th for me so this is your fic for the day! I hope you guys enjoy it!
Feedback gives me life and motivation for future things. ♥
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“Oh come on,” Y/N said as she turned and faced Elijah as a smile pulled at her lips. “Are you really telling me that you’ve given up on looking?”
Elijah shook his head slightly as he let a huff of air past his lips. “For as many times as you’ve tried to persuade me to find who my soulmate is, my answer has remained the same.”
“Deep down I don’t think you mean it.” Y/N said with a slight tilt of her head. “You give the advice of your best friend ‘needing’ to find who she is ‘destined’ to be with, but you wont take your own advice or mine for that matter.”
When Elijah was younger, he believed that Soulmates finding each other was something magical. He may have lived with his mother who was a witch, and even a few of his brothers, but this was different. Elijah could remember the stories some of the villagers told him about how they found their soulmates. That the marks they were born with would match the person they were meant to be with.
Elijah had hoped that his soulmate would come along and he’d get to experience that kind of magic that he witnessed. He wondered who his soulmate was. How he would meet them and when they would realize who they were to each other. But when Henrik died, Elijah had felt his opportunity to meet his soulmate had been lost the moment he became a vampire.
The magical feeling he once believed in had been diminished over time. As the centuries had passed Elijah had never once met someone who he would ever be his soulmate. That there was no longer someone out there that would share the same mark as he did. As the years passed, the thoughts of a soulmate had all but diminished.
Elijah’s mark had been just below his left clavicle. The mark is a few shades darker than his skin tone. An intricate design of three circles intertwined in a horizontal line. His clothing always covering the mark from everyone around him. So long as it was covered, he wouldn’t be asked about it.
At least that was until Y/N came into his life. The vampire may have been several centuries younger than him, but they had become close friends over the past century. Elijah had met her during his time away from Klaus. The need to be away from his brother for a while had proved to be much needed. And when he met Y/N there didn’t seem to be anyone else better to spend his time with.
But during that time, he never mentioned what his mark looked like, let alone asked her what her mark looked like. Y/N was like Elijah in some ways. She once believed that soulmates were like fairytales. But when she turned, the notion of having her soulmate found had diminished.
“Was it not just a few hours ago that you reminded me that you’d rather not find them?” Elijah asked as he watched her.
The smile she had on her face faded slightly. “I have my reasons.” she shrugged slightly. “I may change my mind if I see you find yours.”
A light chuckle passed Elijah’s lips as he began walking down the pathway they stopped in moments before. “I wouldn’t hold your breath.”
There were several more conversations similar to that between them. But no matter how many times each of them brought it up, they both believed that they didn’t want to know who their soulmate was. They were content with their lives and it avoided the disappointment if their soulmates were human and lost some time ago. This way, there wouldn’t be heartache.
_____
“Elijah?” Y/N called out as she struggled to keep herself steady as she walked into the compound. She hadn’t ever expected to go to Elijah when she had been injured. But she needed help this time. Someone had attempted to shoot a wooden bullet at her and it was currently lodged in her back.
In a blink of an eye, Elijah was in front of her taking in her appearance. His eyes had widened as he helped her over to a seat in the courtyard. “What happened.” He asked as he took note of the current bullet holes in her shirt.
“Oh you know, failed attempt at making friends.” She tried to brush off the pain that was currently radiating through her. “ I just need you to help take one of them out. The others were easy to do. But this one is lodged in there.”
Elijah moved behind her as came to take note of where she had been speaking about. There had been a tear in her shirt from the attempt to make the bullet hole bigger to get the wooden bullet out. He could see the healed spots from the others that she had been able to take out.
It was as he moved the fabric aside to begin pulling the bullet out that he noticed the mark right above it. He stopped for a moment as he took in the horizontal circles that were intertwined. For as many times as he had seen his own mark, it was replicated on Y/N’s skin.
Y/N could feel how he hesitated; she looked over her shoulder at him. “What is it?”
Elijah shook his head slightly. “I believe that is the first time I’ve seen your mark.” He said before he began to poke and prod at the bullet hole.
She hissed as she felt him digging into her skin and muscle. “There’s a first for everything.”
Y/N knew that while they had joked and pressed the other to go in search of their soulmates, they never once actually saw each other’s mark. For the century and a half that she had known Elijah, she had never once seen Elijah’s mark, just as he hadn’t seen hers until this moment.
Elijah hadn’t said anything in response. If anything he was letting his mind go over everything the last several centuries had shown him. He had been at his lowest, the lowest that he could be as a Vampire, when Y/N had entered his life. They had gotten along so well during that time that Elijah just considered it them having a lot in common.
“I take it now that you’ve seen it, you’re going to go on a mission to find my soulmate for me?” She asked a moment later, hoping to fill the air with voices instead of the sound of blood and muscle being messed with.
“I thought you disagreed with that plan.” Elijah tried to keep his voice normal as he talked with her.
As much as seeing the mark should have made him happy, that he should have stopped right then and there and told her what it was that he realized, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It had nothing to do with the bullet that he was now pulling out from her back. If that had been the case, he’d tell her the moment he watched her skin begin to heal before his eyes.
“Oh, I do.” Said with a nod as rolled her shoulders, stretching out the muscles of her back where the bullet had been moments before. “That doesn’t mean it will stop you from doing it.”
Her words had caused him to chuckle as he pulled out his handkerchief and began cleaning his hands of her blood. She turned towards him in her seat, watching as he tossed the bullet onto the table a moment later.
“I have no intentions of seeking someone out that you do not wish to meet.” He noted with a nod of his head as he looked over at her. Even after getting into some trouble, she still looked as if she could still take on the world.
There was something in her eyes that changed a moment after his words had pierced the air. “Would you tell me if you saw the mark on someone else?”
“Of course.” He said even though it had been a lie. He knew he wasn’t going to speak of the very mark that was on his chest.
As much as Elijah wanted to express every thought he was having at the moment, he couldn’t allow himself too. Not with the past that he had. Not when there were multiple reasons why he didn’t want her to know.
Not to mention the track record he had with the women in his life. While one would argue that it was all meant to lead up to him meeting Y/N, Elijah knew that even she wasn’t immune to the darkest parts of his family or even himself.
He watched as she stood up from her seat. “Thank you for helping me with that.” She gestured to the bullet. “Would I be able to interest you in a little night hunt?”
There was a smirk pulling at her lips, one that Elijah couldn’t stop one from forming on his own. She was offering him a night of catching those that attempted to harm her. Between the two of them, the sport of keeping each other and his family had been a game of keeping score. His head nodded in agreement at the thought of helping her.
He always promised to help keep her safe. And it was as they began leaving the compound that Elijah realized in order to do so, he was going to have to keep his mark hidden from her.
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simp-cityxx · 3 years
Text
It’s Showtime~
A Toji Fushiguro x Fem! Reader fic (NSFW)
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Summary: Your lowkey malewife Fushiguro comes to pick you up from work, but you have some ulterior plans for the night…
Warnings: Praise, Degradation, Lots of dirty talk, spanking, breeding, possessiveness; other general smutty stuff (read at your own risk)
A/N: so yea, Nanami and Toji exist simultaneously in this story which doesn’t make sense (but that’s hawt so) but yk what else doesn’t make sense? THE WORD MALEWIFE AND TOJI BEING REMOTELY CLOSE TO ONE ANOTHER! But yeh enjoy
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“Late again, huh.”
As you walked under the dim streetlight, Toji opened up your passenger door before crossing his arms with a blank stare on his face.
“Sorry. Nanami just needed someone to stay back and help file a few-“
He slithers a hand on your waist as the other tilts your chin. “Yeah princess, whatever.” Although his approach is far from polite, you’re far too focused on his touches to come up with a witty response. The way his words, gazes, and touches were coated with gracefulness but tinged with urgency drove you wild. It was far from erratic but not essentially delicate…this must’ve been the delicious taste of experience, and you were set for sails just thinking about it.
“What am I going to do with you…” he chuckles, pulling you into a kiss; one that feels almost too intimate. You grip onto his tight shirt with his toned muscles enclosed, leaving you practically gasping for air.
The kiss finally calms down and you hop in the front seat of Toji’s car. It always puzzled you how the man was able to afford such a lavish car on his own, Given the fact that he often took on the role of your “househusband”. You focused your attention as Fushiguro unexpectedly brushed a lose piece of hair out of your face. Even such a simple gesture had your thighs squeezing together, tensing up as the engine started.
“So why does that blondie keep working you so late anyways?”, He sits his hand on his chin.
“I think it’s simply the fact that im the only one who fully understands Mr.Nanami’s file systems.”
He chuckles, “Bullshit. Your boss totally has the hots for ya.” Trying to conceal his feelings on the matter, he opts to keeping his blank stare on the road.
You rolls your eyes, “You know it’s not like that.”
“Well if even if it was, you know I’m still your man,” he shoots you a toothy smile, god he was so hot when he smiled…
You giggle, rolling your eyes.
“You are so damn corny.”
The rest of the ride is quiet, as you’re caught up in your own head. This relationship with the sorcerer killer had been such a whirlwind, even after about three months. His arrogant and flirtatious demeanor never gave any indication that he would want to ‘slow down’, but somehow you were able to mellow him out. In some ways at least.
Before you knew it Toji was opening the passenger door.
“Baby,…..y/n”, He tapped your shoulder as you had kinda zoned out.
“Oh yeah sorry”, you stood up, only to immediately get tossed over the mans broad shoulder, sneakily hoisting you up with a hand on your ass.
“IM NOT YOUR FUCKIN WORM PUT ME DOWN!”
“Huh?”
Without batting an eye, he puts you down as soon as the front door opens.
……..
Walking into the bedroom, you decide to throw on something a little more…causal. (Something you really know will get him going). You grab one of Fushiguro’s oversized collared shirts, leaving it open to expose the skimpy new lingerie you had just bought. Although not something you felt totally comfortable in, one of your office friends insisted you buy it for a night just like this.
You sluggishly walk into the kitchen where dinner is prepared, stretching your spine with a heavy yawn, before glaring up at Toji’s ample chest, merely covered by a black apron.
The raven haired man looks towards you, almost as if he hasn’t noticed your change in attire. You sit down for your meal, a little disappointed at the lack of reaction from your man. You finish up dinner and sluggishly stumble to the living room. Toji is sitting with eyes unenthusiastically glued to the tv. As you make your way over to join him, you feel a tight grip placed on your hip, pulling you into a rather compromising position.
“I told you last time about wearing satin..”
The words crinkle in your ear, causing your spine to tingle. (He has a thing for satin, lordt knows why)
The muscular man begins to spank you, causing an unexpected moan to escape.
“Shhhh.” A deep sinister grin is painted on his face. “There’s no use in screaming anything but my name sweetie.” God, you hated the way his corniness turned you on.
He persisted, already pushing you to the brink as he increased the intensity through his large palm. occasionally he paused to admire his dirty work, placing the gentlest caresses on your stinging ass before causing you to whimper once again.
You were already panting when Toji positioned you in his arms bridal style. “Tired already dollface? But I haven’t had my way with you yet…”
Fuck. You clench your legs as the heat between your legs intensifies. The raven haired man picks up and shoots one of his grins, floppy hair covering his emerald eyes. You could just die right here.
Gently laying his prized possession on the bed, he positions himself in front of you as you undress him. He throws the apron to the side and wastes no time utterly demolishing the lacey lingere you had picked out for him.
“Toji! That was expensive!”
He merely shrugs it off. “Black card is on the desk babe. You don’t even need all this frilly shit to get me to fuck you.” You cross your arms and avert your gaze; pretending this isn’t the exact outcome you wanted.
“Pout all you want, but your body tells me everything I need to know princess.” As he whispers, He glides a finger over your drenched folds, causing you to release the most sickening moan to ever escape your lips.
“I never knew you were this much of a slut for me. We’ve barely even started…”
As much as you want to give a witty response, his electric fingers slip and stretch inside you, leaving you breathless. You burn all over as he leaves intense marks and kisses all over your skin.
“Stammering already?” He grabs your chin and leans in, pressed against your chest.
“How pathetic. Guess we’ll have to teach you a lesson in manners…” with that he growls, slinging your delicate legs over his broad shoulders. As he leaves kisses on your soft thighs, you shudder in ecstasy. He lets out a chuckle.
“You’re so cute when you tense up like that. Just relax; I’ll take care of it.”
Swiftly he begins unrelentingly devouring you. Kisses pepper your sopping cunt, accompanying the intoxicating hums he makes on your bud. Even with your screams and cries, he only lets up when you finally come.
“Good girl. Now can you do something for me?”
As you nod, he sits you down on the edge of the bed. He positions himself in front of you, giving you a clear look at his egregiously long and thick member. It’s a wonder the thing fit inside you.
“I’m just in need of a little warmup. Think you can handle it sweet heart?”
You nod, regaining your composure.
“Yes sir.”
With that, you take as much of his 13 inches as you can fit in your mouth, but as he hits the back of your throat you begin to choke. Noticing, he slides himself out.
“Don’t overextend yourself little whore. Just the tip is fine…”
After affirming his words, you use your methodical tongue to play with his cock, causing him to release little fucks and hisses from the back of his throat. The way you fit him so well always got him going.
You giggle, “who’s stammering now?”
Teasing him was a big mistase. He furrows his brow and pulls away from you leaving you hungry for more.
“Enough. Lay down skank.”
There was no saving you now. It was much too late. You just guaranteed you’d need to use one your sick days just to recuperate. He pins you down by the wrists and starts biting hard onto your chest, causing you to whimper.
“You thought you were real slick huh.”
“I was only-“
Before you can even finish your sentence, the space in between your legs is stuffed full. He pounds hard into your throbbing cunt, amused by your gasps for air, and leaning down occasionally to leave you kisses. He was just too good, from his dirty talk to the slightest of touch, he just knew every little way to turn you to mush. He grinned as he put a hand to your stomach, feeling his cock penetrate you to your highest capacity. He was so proud have pleasured you in such a way, falling in love with the ways you screamed his name, the way your clever ass could turn into this love drunk fool with no one but him. The love he made between your thighs was proof enough that you could be no one but his. Toji may have been a master of his craft, but the way you wrapped around him even left him begging for more.
As you bucked your hips into him, Toji positioned you on top of him.
“It’s time baby.”
He released more of his intoxicating sounds as you both found yourself on the brink of climax. You pleaded for him to stuff you full, so he did just that, speeding up by grabbing your hips before one final thrust, leaving your thighs shaking around his burning shaft. You were all his as you laid there, dazed by just how amazing the feeling it was.
“You did so well for me today honey. I’m glad you learned your lesson.”
He placed a kiss onto your forehead before getting up to draw you a bath.
Oh lordt have mercy </3
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genshin-impacted · 3 years
Text
lost & found // Diluc x Reader (3/3)
Word Count: ~6.5k
Notes: Seelie!Reader, GN!Reader, Diluc/Reader, Mondstadt people interaction + Mondstadt Archon Quest, mild violence/fighting description and mentions of blood, Diluc POV briefly, mainly reader!POV
Summary: Oftentimes you find yourself wondering about your life before becoming a seelie, but with Diluc by your side, you don’t let yourself dwell on the long-gone past-- not when Diluc offers you affection and a tenderness that no one else is privy to. 
But on moonless nights, you let yourself wish upon a star.
(And sometimes, in this world ruled by the Gods and their stars, wishes are granted.)
Alternatively: Diluc has never asked you or needed you to change for him to love you.
[Part 2]
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(thanks for the love for this fic! here is the final addition)
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Diluc breathes out and sees the fog it makes in the frigid air of Dragonspine. The world continues to remind him that he’s lucky to have his Pyro vision, and again he’s inclined to agree that it’s a useful tool indeed. He cannot melt the snow that falls on the peaks of these mountains, but even he must admit that his flames have served him well in this icy winterland-- until it doesn’t. 
His phoenix burns through ruin guards and hunters alike, along with the icy foothold beneath him, and he falls into this cavern with no way up. He thinks it’s ironic that he’s the one that led himself into this predicament and attests it to your influence as his trouble-finding seelie.
Diluc huffs as he dusts off the snow from his shoulders and continues further into the hole he fell into, leaving tracks wherever he can so that you can find him. He knows better than anyone what you can do, and he knows that you cannot find him if he doesn’t leave clues. 
It is neither a surprising nor disappointing revelation to him. Diluc has always known that there is nothing special that binds the two of you together-- and perhaps that is why he cherishes what the two of you have. There is no contract, no string of fate, no hand of god that has put the two of you together or convinced the other to stay. You have chosen to stay with Diluc, and Diluc has chosen to let your presence change his life bit by bit.
Ever since coming back to Mondstadt, he has slowly grown more accustomed to working with other people, though with your appearance, his change has been accelerated. For with every adventure you drag him into, he meets new people, forming different teams. He’s helped Razor handle his broadsword better, and now he visits him ever so often to let him spar to his content. He let his stars be read by Mona, despite his initial hesitance (apparently, you are very into astrology), and can now see the constellations form above him much more clearly. And while he has never seen the need to be closer to his god, Venti sees the both of you more often outside of the tavern, and he sees a glimpse of Barbatos within the wind-weaving bard. 
You are a comforting presence: straightforward, easy to read, and compassionate. And he does not resist, much like everyone else, when you twirl your way into his heart. It is no longer surprising for him to understand that he does not need to be alone on the dark side of dawn when you have chosen to accompany him.
Speaking of choice, Diluc thinks irritably, wringing out the water from his hair. How did he agree to wander around Dragonspine of all places? He must have been caught up in the logistics of the experiment itself as well as your easy agreement. Diluc is admittedly the only person that understands your every nuance (or, well, most of it; some twirls are lost in translation), but even he cannot quite decipher what you want to take from this experiment of Albedo’s. 
When you find him-- which you will, he will ask you, and he thinks you will tell him as best as you can. For someone that cannot speak, you are the most honest individual in his life, which is something he has repeatedly found endearing and refreshing.  
Diluc climbs up the side of a cliff near the camp, only to see Albedo and Sucrose discussing at the edge of it. He briefly wonders if the experiment has ended, but when he does not see your light between the two of them, his breath hitches in the momentary panic he finds all too familiar to when he lost you the first time. 
Albedo spots him before he can speak. “Master Diluc, I’m relieved to find that you’re safe," he says briefly, and Diluc can at least respect how quickly the alchemist gets to the point, because he continues quickly. “Your seelie left to go find you before we could assess the situation.” He sighs as Sucrose frantically hands Diluc a towel to dry himself and a seat. “You gave them quite the scare, disappearing on us like that.” 
“You mean they’re out there on their own right now?” Diluc presses, feeling his hackles raise.
“Yes. We’re going to go out to recount your steps-- undoubtedly, your seelie will be trying to find you--”
Diluc doesn’t need to hear anything else. He holds the towel to Sucrose who nervously puts her hands up, unsure on what to do. “I’ll go find them,” he says. “The experiment is finished now, right?” 
“Do not go." Albedo sighs, and however Diluc thought of him before, it’s evident now that he is, above all else, frustrated with how things have turned out. “It’s my experiment and a miscalculation on my part. You should stay--”
“I’ll be fine--”
“Your vision does not make you impervious to the climates,” Albedo says calmly. He thinks he sees a gleam of cunning in Albedo’s eyes when he glares at the alchemist. “Besides, would your seelie be happy if you got yourself sick going to find them?” And Diluc cannot respond to that. 
“That being said,” Albedo continues, pulling at his gloves. “I predict you will refuse to stay here permanently. As it’s my fault, I’ll provide you with at least a potent heating potion before you go. Please wait; it won’t take long.”
“...Thank you,” Diluc says, taking back his towel much to Sucrose’s relief. When he sees Albedo head off onto his alchemy table, he sighs and settles into his seat. Where could you have gone, he thinks, drying his hair. After leaving the waterfall, he had… climbed the clifftop. Perhaps you lost him there without any way to notice which way he went afterward, which was a mistake on his part. Perhaps he should--
Diluc pauses his train of thought and instinctively turns his head to the left where he sees you floating. And the relief, oh, the relief he feels when he sees you fly toward him makes smiling easy. “There you are. I was about to go look for you since you weren't with Albedo." He swallows, beginning to breathe easy again. "I was worried," he admits, "I--" He stops abruptly when he looks up at you.
You are crying, and he almost does not know what to do. 
He didn’t realize you could cry. Diluc isn’t sure if he can even call them tears-- these globby droplets that disappear when they fall off your body that, when Diluc brushes them away, does not make his gloves wet. 
But he sweeps them away when they come anyways. “Hey,” he says tenderly, as you raise your voice from distress. “It’s okay. I’m fine; I’m here.” He cups your small orb-like body and listens to you as best as he can, sweeping his hand over your head and ears soothingly until your hiccup-like speech slows down to a halt. 
“You found me,” he tells you firmly. “You found me.” He repeats himself until you are warm in his hands and his hair is dry, the towel left forgotten on the ground.
Even when you have long calmed down, he continues to look over his shoulder to watch as you converse with Sucrose. “Did you get what you were looking for?” Diluc asks the alchemist, who hands him the warming potions for any emergencies. 
“Yes. Simply put, your mini seelie does not choose what it finds.” Albedo explains, “However, based on previous observations, they can hone in on things that are… otherworldly. You may be glad to confirm that you are, in fact, not otherworldly. And though this was not my intended result, I also would like to inform you that their attachment to you is out of their own volition…” Albedo watches in barely concealed amusement as Diluc glances over at you again. “Though, I’m sure you already knew this.” He clears his throat. “I would like to offer them future experimentation if they are willing.”
Diluc does his best not to look confused, but his pause gets the better of him. “Why are you asking me?”
Albedo only arches his brow and asks as a matter-of-fact, “Are you not each other’s keeper?” He continues without pause to quickly go over any logistics he has remaining, the details of Dragonspine (lest he fall into a pit again), before going over to talk to you briefly. Diluc wonders what the alchemist talked to you about but he decides to let the questions be asked later.
For now, you twirl up to him, beaming at him more brightly than usual, and he does not have it in him to say anything other than, “Let’s go home.”
.
.By the time the two of you arrive at the winery, it is dark. You do not hesitate to corral him into getting ready for sleep, and he indulges you by not protesting.
“What did you want to get out of the experiment today?” Diluc asks you, untying his hair and placing it onto his nightstand. Before he can finish his question, you bury yourself into his hair, and he thinks that your tweets and trills sound very much like laughter. He chuckles. “Avoiding the question, are you? How very unlike you,” he teases, and he knows you hear him when he looks into the mirror and sees you peek out from underneath the red and squeak indignantly.
“I’m kidding.” Diluc lifts his hair so you can climb out and face him. “You’re the most straightforward person I know,” he says fondly, and he briefly wonders when he has gotten so honest with himself, letting you know how he feels with the amount of emotion he puts into his words to you.  
Sated, you flip around once before settling into his cupped hands, deep in thought. Diluc doesn’t quite understand how your mannerisms make your emotions so recognizable, but he imagines that if you had hands, they would be under your chin in a thinking pose. 
He patiently waits for an answer, walking around his room and blowing out the lights. When he turns off the last one, you can only look up at him and let out a quiet coo-- an apology. His hands are already comforting you the moment after you answer him. 
“It’s alright,” Diluc says. “I suppose it’s not exactly easy to explain that.” He adds on immediately, “And don’t apologize again. It’s fine.” 
“I think I can understand why without you telling me,” he says, and if his voice is a little raw, he hopes it goes by unnoticed. “It’s hard, isn’t it-- not knowing what you’re supposed to be doing."
Quietly, you float up, and Diluc feels his heart tremble when you press a kiss to his forehead in a mix of an apology, a comforting notion, and an act of love. He lays down in silence with you, and if you make a nest out of his hair, and if he wakes up with you nestled at the crook of his neck, he does not say a word.
There is no need.
.
.
“Isn’t it enough?” Lisa asks him as she leans over the library railing. Diluc looks over to her as he puts away the last of the books he has asked to borrow, and he knows what she is asking before she finishes. Still, she tilts her head, her hat staying steady on her head, and repeats, “Isn’t it enough that they’re here with you?”
“Yes,” Diluc says without hesitation. “It is.” 
“Can I ask why you’re still researching about seelies then?” Lisa pauses, putting her hand over her shoulder, and Diluc knows she will arrive at the right answer without him telling her. “If not for you then… for them? You’re looking for answers for your mini seelie?” 
"I try to do what I can," he says, ignoring the way Lisa's eyes gleam all too knowingly. (He always knew there was much more to her at first glance.) "Thanks for the help, I--" He pauses when he catches Lisa smiling behind her fist. "...What is it?" he asks warily. 
"Oh, nothing." Lisa croons, giggling, "I just think it's sweet how the two of you treat each other. Anyone would get jealous of that." She pauses, looking out the window as the sun sets in the west. "It almost seems like a miracle to have the two of you find each other, don't you think? Fate, perhaps? How utterly romantic!"
"You're letting Kaeya influence you too much," Diluc retorts, much to Lisa's amusement.
"Maybe so," she says, sighing, "but even if it was fate, you wouldn't have cherished them any less." She gives Diluc a pointed look even he cannot deny. "Isn't that right, Master Diluc?"
Diluc huffs, walking past her to head down the stairs. "Asking that, I'm sure you already know my answer," he tells her, and he lets his mouth twitch in a semblance of a smile when he hears her complain about his tight-lipped attitude. It blossoms into a full-blown smile when he starts heading back to the winery.
.
When he comes back, you are waiting for him among the grapevines as the winery is basked in orange light.
He's home.
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Diluc sleeps early and wakes up before the crack of dawn and takes you up the clifftop overlooking the winery. He had told you that there was something he wanted to do and left it at that. Not that you minded-- you were happy to follow him, blocking out any sharp rocks so he wouldn’t grab ahold of them as he climbed and scaring off any elemental wisps that came your way. 
When the two of you reach the clifftop, the sky begins to grow brighter as the sun peeks over the horizon. The color change from blue to yellow then orange is truly beautiful, and you are almost mesmerized as Diluc takes a seat down next to you, watching the sunrise. 
“...It’s almost been a year now,” Diluc says, “since we first met.” 
Happy Anniversary? You squeak in confusion, only to whip your body to face him when you realize why you’re here with him at dawn to watch the beautiful scene unfold before you. You squeak rapidly, stumbling over your words that he cannot hear but can understand anyhow. You hadn’t realized-- You were an idiot for not planning anything either, not that you could-- What kind of ore could you go find to bring to him as a present--? 
“Thank you,” Diluc tells you, “for the past year.” In the backdrop of the rising sun, you think he is almost too bright to watch with that gentle smile of his. The thought is only exacerbated when he cups you in his hands as softly as he has always done. “Let’s see what this year has in store for us together.” 
You trill softly, floating in the air to situate yourself on top of his head to watch the ocean shine brighter with the rising sun. 
It is not the New Year for any country nor culture, but you look into the horizon and make a wish that no one can hear. One year has passed, many things have changed, but you find that the one thing that has not is your adoration for Diluc.
"Let's go back home," he tells you, not for the first time, when the sun rises substantially above the horizon. Obediently, you float down into his sights where you twirl playfully in the air in thanks for the view. He chuckles. "No problem," he says, and he leans down just enough to place a quick kiss in between your ears.
(In hindsight, perhaps you should have wished for more kisses in the following year if you thought that was actually something you could wish for.)
.
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Like the beginnings of a new arc, you lead Diluc onto the start of another campaign that lasts longer than normal and ties in with the previous adventures you have had with Diluc.
You find Aether on the shores east of Mondstadt. Diluc can only look at you curiously when Aether reveals his visionless powers and his desire to find his sister, for if there were ever any need for corroborating evidence on your talent or ability, Aether is living proof of it.
With the traveler, you resolve many of the things that neither you nor Diluc could comprehend. The red, crystalline tears are purified, the winds calm down with Dvalin’s defeat, and Venti-- or should you say, Barbatos-- as usual, disappears in a wisp of dandelions to leave the City of Freedom to its autonomy. In the breezes of Mondstadt, you can feel his protective gaze upon the city, and more often than not, you find him wandering in the tavern, looking for a quick drink that Diluc offers ‘reluctantly.’ (You know him better now; Diluc would rather hug Kaeya than admit that he cares for the people in his life more than he shows, and Venti is one of the people he can find a fondness for. You still find yourself abashed to know that you are the only one Diluc can say unashamedly and wholeheartedly that he adores you-- in his own way.)
Aether’s presence in Mondstadt is a breath of fresh air, considering how compassionate he is and how willing he is to help with the common troubles of those in the city. He is led along by Kaeya, tugged onto an impromptu date by Lisa, and given a mask to go undercover with Diluc and help him in ways that you cannot. The tug of jealousy is unfamiliar, but you are more glad than anything that Aether can be his partner during the most dangerous of missions. You tag along as moral support and as a guiding post-- and for that, you find yourself most similar to Paimon, who, for some reason, keeps being compared to emergency food. 
“You’re my companion,” Diluc tells you with finality when you look up at him, barely forming the thought in your head about being his emergency food. “Don’t doubt that.”
Turns out, people can not breathe when you are covering their entire face with your translucent body.   
When the dust settles, you never think of turning Aether down when he asks you if you can sense whether his sister is in Mondstadt. 
You leave with Aether and Paimon with the promise that you return to Diluc at the winery. You guide the two of them to Stormterror’s Lair, a place you have gotten far more acquainted with in the past month, and head up to the cliffside where a ruin guard’s footprints remain next to a dandelion. You can sense something here, though you are unsure of what, and you are about to apologize for finding nothing when Aether looks over to you with wet eyes.
You coo up at him comfortingly as he sighs with a mixture of relief and sadness. “Thank you,” he tells you, holding out his hand. You press against it, and you hope he knows that the best you can do to imitate a comforting hand-hold. “At least now I know for sure she’s here in this world.” He smiles at you. “This gives me a lot of hope that I’ll find her, so… thank you, really.” 
Aether leaves for Liyue in the next few days, and if you had known he would leave so soon you would have done more than held his hand. You wish you could comfort him, reassure him that his sister, too, must be looking for him just as hard as he was. (Even if this was not the truth, you think if you wish hard enough, you could maybe manifest it for him.) You have so many words within you and yet none of them are conveyed, and Aether’s sad smile stays. 
It gets hard sometimes, knowing how little you can do, and how much you could have done before-- and this is one of those moments. It is rare for you to feel melancholy over the things you no longer have, but they come and go like the waves on Falcon Coast. Without a word, Diluc can tell when you are feeling down, holding you when you fall into his hands. 
His kisses come more often now, and he places one between your ears when you are with him during your lower moods. You think your day improves almost immediately when he does so, but it helps tremendously also that Diluc never forgets to reassure you.
“If you want me to help you with anything,” he says, “you only need to ask."
You coo again, twirling once, nudging at his cheek before backing away just enough to look at him. If you had a heart (and you sometimes suspect you do), it would be beating quickly as you wait for him to decipher your actions.
“...Ah,” he says, picking you up again. You think for a moment he looks as embarrassed as you feel, but then he asks, “...Another one?” and places a second kiss onto your head. 
You trill, pleased that you are spoiled by Diluc and even happier that Diluc only joins you in your mirth when he huffs in laughter.
“What an honest seelie,” he says, and you could not be more content with how fond he sounds of you and how, again and again, he continues to be patient with you even when you cannot be patient with yourself.
.
.
Sometimes when the moon is high and Diluc is fast asleep, you find yourself at the place you first came to fruition as a seelie. The lake by the Winery and this exact scenery may as well be your birthplace. When you look into the reflection you see your orb-like features, viscous yet watery all at once, emitting light. 
But sometimes, when the only light is coming from the fireflies that glow beside you, you look into the lake and see a familiar face staring back at you. They have your face-- your eyes, your nose, your mouth, and your brows of a time when you were not a seelie. It’s the only time you get to see this image of your past self, reminding you of what you were before. Sometimes, you think you can hear your voice being carried over by the winds of another world, of another time. 
These moments are the only thing you have kept to yourself. 
After all, what’s the point of holding onto something that you no longer have? The man you’ve grown to care for-- grown to love-- is someone who has his eyes set forward toward the future, and you’re going to be there with him no matter what.
Although seelies cannot dream, you dream of carrying over the tray of tankards and washing the dishes in the tavern, of carrying Klee over your shoulders as you lead her to Albedo, of bumping elbows with Kaeya jokingly or placing a blanket over Jean’s shoulders when she falls asleep in her office again.
You dream of lacing your hands with Diluc’s, pressing your lips upon his temple, and hearing his heartbeat against his chest with a steady, grounding rhythm that reminds you you are home.
And sometimes, just dreaming is enough.
(And sometimes, it is not.)
.
.
Life goes on. You see more of Mondstadt and begin to know the land like the back of Diluc’s hand. Knights and adventurers alike know you as the little seelie, and whether they think you follow Diluc or Diluc follows you is up to each person’s interpretation. (Regardless, none of them are wrong.)  
You accompany Diluc when he trains Razor in Wolvendom, and you invite Bennett to adventure sometimes with the two of you. (The boy may be unlucky, but you’re a magnet of trouble, so you think you have some things in common. A lot more things explode when he accompanies you but Diluc can handle it.) You make sure Jean gets some rest (“Your seelie is, um… very…” “Stubborn?” “I was going to say determined.”) and follow Lisa around on her expired library book expeditions. (“You think she’s beautiful, don’t you?” Diluc says to you, and you wonder why you babble excuses to him-- You’re more beautiful!-- while he looks at you in amusement.)
You and Diluc spend more time with other people in comparison to before, but you still have quiet moments with just the two of you when the days are slow. You’ve been learning how to move small things even better than before, among other things, but with this skill in particular, you can actually slide the pieces on the chessboard when you play against Diluc, who looks on (fondly) as you do your best to carefully push the pieces with your body. 
You always end up knocking some down, but when you finally get a handle of it, you do it with such concentration that Diluc doesn't have the heart to offer help. He does, however, end up polishing the board so the pieces slide more easily. You notice it’s shinier but he doesn’t let you pay it any mind.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says to you, and you think the words I love you come to mind more often than not recently. 
Thank you, you trill instead, and you ache with a want that pulses ever so often when you want so much more than you have when Diluc reaches out to caress your head.
“Like I said,” Diluc says softly. “Don’t pay it any mind. It’s your move still, you know.”
And you move the pieces. And you pick the grapes in his vineyard. And you find artifacts of crimson for him. And you kiss the scars from the many years he has battled (with or without you). 
.
.
.
He gains another in the next, final battle with you as his seelie.
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Diluc has gotten hurt before. It’s inevitable with the number of enemies he faces, the number of times you run into enemy territory, but it has never been a problem for him to stand back up and fight. His fire burns brightly-- shine true is his motto, and Diluc lives those words as though they have been etched onto his soul. 
Much like fire, Diluc is relentless, and you can only follow him as he pushes through enemies, listens to his connections, and finds a den of thieves that have been terrorizing Springvale for months. The two of you should have known that their efficiency was because they were led on by the Fatui, but you fail to notice until they have you surrounded. 
You have every faith in Diluc to come out safe and sound, but it takes only one mistake for you to be reminded that there is a limit to everything. 
The blade slices through so quickly you aren’t sure what happened, but when Diluc pulls his hand back from the cut on his side to have it painted with blood, your heart drops.
“A little out of depth, don’t you think, Darknight Hero?” 
“I’d keep my tongue in my mouth if I were you,” Diluc growls, and you can only tremble in mid-air as your mind races with the things you can do-- only to think of all the things you cannot do. You almost miss what Diluc tells you with the way your hearing fuzzes. “Go back to Mondstadt and tell the Knights where these bandits are,” Diluc says, and you know it’s serious when Diluc thinks about reaching out to the knights. (This is partly true, you would realize later, that despite Diluc’s hesitance on being associated with the knights, he knows you would reach out to Kaeya or Jean if needed-- if not for him but so you would be taken care of.) 
You should have told Jean or Kaeya or Amber or even Lisa where the two of you had gone just in case things go awry. The thought never crossed your mind things could go wrong when you had Diliuc with you.
“You’ll find me again,” Diluc tells you softly when you hesitate, and you wonder how he can lie to you like that when his gloves are too bloodied to even hold you. “I promise.”
How could you ask me to do that? You plead, feeling tears well up again. How could you ask me to leave you?
“It’s okay,” Diluc tells you, and his bare hands are warm. “It’s fine.”
You are ripped out of Diluc’s hands when someone throws an electro grenade in the fire below Diluc’s feet. He’s still standing even after this, but a throwing knife hits him on the shoulder, another grenade to his left. You can do nothing but watch as Diluc is hurt, falling onto the ground. 
If there was ever a moment you wanted something so badly, you would have done anything to get it, it would be right here-- right now. 
You are the last thing he sees.
.
.
“You whose strength stems from your devotion, I shall lend you my power.”
.
.
You don’t know whose voice you heard or how somehow you have the hands to hold onto the Vision framed with Mondstadt wings in your hands, but you’ve learned not to question the good things in life-- one of them being your life at Diluc’s side.
Your voice is loud, you realize, when you shout at the bandits to leave. And your powers are strong-- strong enough to protect the person that matters most.
The bandits run at the fight sign of trouble, and the Fatui agent is unconscious. (You checked.)
You hold Diluc as he lies on your lap, breathing heavily but still breathing-- thank the archons. You quickly brush his hair away from his face and press on his wound, wincing when he lets out a grunt of pain even unconscious. I won’t let them hurt you, you think, taking one of his hands to brush your lips over his knuckles. (His hands are rough and calloused, but you love them just the same for how gently they held you when you were just a seelie.) If they come back, they’ll have to get through me. 
“Hello, mini seelie.” 
You look up from Diluc just in time to see a hand reach down to softly rustle your hair, much to your dismay. The initial reaction gives way to surprise when you recognize that the voice comes from none other than Kaeya. He grins down at you with his sword by his hip, and you frantically look around to see if the bandits had come back.
How did you--?
“Nice wings you got there,” Kaeya teases you, making you look back and find that oh, when did those get there? “Didn’t even notice them because you were too worried about Diluc, huh?” When you nod, he softens his gaze. “Why don’t you let us take care of things around here, hm?” He glances down at Diluc who has been sleeping soundly in your lap. “Let’s get him back home.” 
.
.
When a few knights come with a cart to ambulate Diluc back to Mondstadt instead of the winery (you couldn’t argue with Jean even if you did choose to speak; she’s stubborn when the people she cares about are hurt), you feel the tension leave your body all at once, and for the first time in what feels like an eternity, you actually feel sleepy. 
“I’m glad we arrived right in the nick of time.” You turn to Kaeya who had been working behind the scenes, directing the knights. “You did good work, chasing them out of here so we could catch them easily,” he says, “I-- oof!” 
You tackle Kaeya into a grateful hug, and it takes him a few moments to respond by placing his hands onto your back and giving it a few pats. “There, there,” Kaeya drawls, but you can hear the smile in his voice anyways. “Better not hug too long; Diluc might be jealous that I’m the person you hug first, you know.”
You let go slowly, grinning up at him as though you agree, and you dodge Kaeya before he can mess with your hair again. On the way out of the camp, Jean gives you a smile, Amber waves excitedly at you before rounding up a few more bandits, and your cheeks hurt a little from the way Lisa pinched it. You go find Diluc where he’s being taken back in a horse-drawn cart and hold his hand until you’ve fallen asleep by his side.
(In his sleep, Diluc holds onto you.) 
.
.
.
Diluc wakes up twice. Once, very briefly, when your wings are expansive and when the Vision at your waist shines brightly with power. Before he wakes up the second time, you can already feel the power fade from both you and the Vision. 
You knew that your transformation was temporary; powers do not always last forever, especially since the glow of your Vision seems contingent on the cycles of the moon-- particularly the moon that you were born on. You think that you should feel more disappointed, but you don’t. You get to hold onto Diluc’s hand in yours and wipe away the sweat from his forehead as he sleeps, and you think that if you only get this one chance to do these things, then you will take what you can get. 
You will love Diluc as you are, no matter what form you take. Your transformation wasn’t necessary. Your powers were a bonus, but even if you weren’t granted a miracle, Diluc would have been safe, as a courtesy of Kaeya who had been trailing behind the two of you since you from the start. (Kaeya and Diluc's connections had the same info this time around, so they were bound to intersect at some point.) What you’ve been given was not the power to save Diluc, but the chance to love him in a way you have always dreamed of doing.
When Diluc opens his eyes the second time around, more aware and more awake, you almost don’t know what to do. It’s a momentary panic when you think he doesn’t know who you are, but he only needs to take one look at you before he raises his hand to caress your cheek as he’s always done. 
“It’s okay, I’m here. I’m fine,” he soothes, though his voice is still raspy from disuse. “Don’t cry.” 
I can’t believe you wanted me to leave you behind. How could you tell me that? 
“...Sorry,” he says, and you raise your head from his bed just enough so he can wipe away the tears on your lashes. “It’s funny but even if you don’t talk, I can still understand you.” 
You watch as he slowly takes your hand and presses his palm against yours, lowering his fingers until they’ve interlocked with yours. “My seelie,” he says with all the warmth in the world. You can only nod before you’re wiping away the tears that spring up again. "Even in this form, you'll still lead me, right? Still find me if I get lost?"
You don't know what type of face you're making, but Diluc softens his gaze before shifting slightly in the bed offered to him by the church. "Come here," he whispers, arms outstretched.
You tentatively place your weight onto the bed, arms placed on each of his sides as you gingerly climb into bed with him. When he winces, you put a hand on his chest, alarmed, to stop him from exerting himself.
“I’m fine,” he says immediately, and when he looks at you, he bursts out laughing, only for him to wince again more strongly. “Sorry, your expressions-- they’re exactly how I imagined them.” He chuckles, though you purse your lips at him as you finally settle under the covers next to him. You make a sound of surprise when he leans over just enough to press a kiss onto your forehead. You hear his soft huff of laughter again when you bury your face into his chest out of embarrassment. “Still as easy to read as ever.”
You grab a hold of his shirt with your ears pressed against his sturdy chest. He gently rubs circles on your shoulder as you listen to his heartbeat, which is as steady as you have imagined it to be. It quickens ever-so-slightly, and you look up at Diluc in time to see him gaze down at you tenderly. “You don’t have to speak,” he says, brushing his hand across your cheek. “Nothing has to change at all. But there’s something I want to know.” You raise your hand to caress his hand (and he finds the courage to keep on speaking).
“Do you think you can tell me your name?” Diluc whispers, the most unsure you have ever seen him, and you think you’re so fond of him your heart (not just metaphorical this time) might burst from it.
It takes only a moment for you to decide to scoot yourself up just enough to kiss him on the side of his mouth, and you can't help but grin at the stupefied expression on his face. 
And you say your name. 
How interesting is it that it's the one thing you cannot convey through trills and twirls, cannot show through hugs and kisses? You never thought that your name could have such significance but you watch as Diluc's eyes widen and you think this moment is the gift the gods have given you. 
Diluc takes a moment to taste your name, and he calls out to you for the very first time out of many, many, many times.
.
Before the sun rises, Diluc wakes up to your bright glow and with your seelie body pressed up against his collarbone. He breathes your name into the quiet infirmary before he closes his eyes to sleep again.
.
.
.
.
You are found more often than you are lost. For every time Diluc calls your name-- as a seelie or as a human (fairy?)-- your heart soars as high as the anemograms at Brightcrown Mountain. 
As a seelie, your life with Diluc stays the same-- for the most part. No one treats you differently and no one loves you differently from when they knew you as just a seelie. If anything, the biggest change has been in Diluc's life where the stares from his admirers are more muted and the swoons reduced, for how could anyone continue to pine over someone that is so evidently preoccupied with someone else? (Even though they've only seen the person who Diluc holds in high regard once every new moon.)
Every adventure still has the same probability to go awry and Diluc still polishes the chessboard to perfection for you. Though on moonless nights, Diluc can hold you close, and you can hold him closer, saying his name (the second word you ever say) and hoping he can never feel quite as lost as before when you are here with him.
FIN
--
temp taglist
@creation-magician @inlustris-but-obey-me @lumi-ying  @thetwinkims @loveyoutothestars  @ninqat  @winterptilopsis  @nya-vivi  @just-noelle ​ @shr3ik
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sylverstorms · 3 years
Text
Miranda x Mia---- Eternal
A Ko-Fi commission I wrote for the wonderful @saltwatereulogies. Thank you so very much for the support and I hope you enjoy the fic!
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Drip. Splatter.
The first sound you’re aware of is that of the occasional waterdrop crashing onto the same humid, uneven floor you’re lying on.
The second is the sound of her voice.
“Rise and shine.” she says, somewhere off to the side. You are still too disoriented to pinpoint exactly where.
You’re not dizzy enough, though, to not immediately realize you’re trapped. The way the light behind your captor shines makes it all the more obvious, casting large shadows in the shape of your prison bars across your small, moldy cell.
“Y-you…” you struggle to talk. Your throat is too dry and your temples pound like a war drum. It feels like you’ve collided with a truck. And yet her voice commanding you to sleep is the last thing you remember.
“I haven’t formally introduced myself. Though I’m sure your friend has told you about me.”
You blink to make your vision focus yet it’s hopeless. She is but a dark blur to you –am I hallucinating or are those wings?
“My name is Miranda.”
Suddenly, that name snaps everything into focus so sharply you could get whiplash. You’re on your knees the next second, just about ready to leap at her. She’s the one. The one Chris warned you about. She may look like an angel but she is a devil.
“I don’t care who the hell you are! What do you want from me?!” you demand.
“Your cooperation in my experiments, for starters.” she says it calmly, but she is no fool to believe you’ll just agree to that, you can see it in her crystal-blue eyes.
“Ha! As if!” you retort.
“Well. That answer will change when I have Rose.” The name of your daughter makes every nerve ending in your body kick at once.
“What. Like Ethan will just hand her over to the likes of you?”
“Actually.”
A slow smirk crosses her full lips. Then their shape changes to match yours. All of her does, until you are left looking at a perfect mirror of yourself. Only, there’s no way you look quite that good inside of this shitty cell.
“He’ll hand her over to you.”
When she laughs, it is your own voice haunting your ears.
-
-
She has your daughter. She has your everything in her hands. So, she has your cooperation, as well.
Miranda doesn’t really talk when she comes to collect blood samples for whatever experiments she needs them. Your initial cries and questions were muted the second she told you the more helpful and less annoying you are, the more inclined she’ll feel to bring Rose to you for a while.
In the end, you do let yourself be her docile little lab rat.
Until you literally can’t take the silence anymore.
“Was it really… that easy?” ‘To enter my home and take my daughter’ you want to add but you can’t even get the words past your throat.
She seems to understand, though. “Effortless.” she isn’t being cocky as she says it. In fact, she seems almost surprised herself. At least, from the angle you get of her face, while she’s studying a strange rock-like substance under a microscope.
“How the hell did Ethan not figure out you aren’t me?!” That moron. He just gave your daughter to her. That clueless moron!
For a split second, you see her lip twitch in what could, perhaps, be a withheld smile. “I was there for a day, so. Seems like your husband doesn’t know you quite that well.”
Is it really fair to blame him for not knowing you, though? With the secrets you’ve kept from him? The distance? The trauma from the shared nightmare you experienced coming back to you every time you even looked at him?
God, Rose really is the only thing that kept you together, isn’t she…
It’s easy to hate the accursedly beautiful bitch outside your cell. It’s easy to blame Ethan for not even suspecting something was amiss with you for a whole damn day.
It is not so easy to blame yourself as much as you do them.
-
-
Miranda replies when you ask her things, so you ask her about herself. To your surprise, she does not shroud her motives from you.
She has lost her daughter, she tells you, and the only way to get her back is through yours. For the first time since you met her, you see emotion clearly expressed in her eyes and voice. You recognize how she longs to be with her child again.
You can understand the never-ending grief of a mother losing her offspring. You know if anything happened to Rose you would rather fling yourself off a cliff than live a life without her.
And apparently, that is what she tried to do, too. She tried to die –and discovered life instead. That is what she calls it, anyway. All you can hear as she explains is that she found –and founded— the Mold. The same one that ruined your husband and you.
One more reason to hate the psycho witch.
And yet.
When you try to reach for the rage you previously held for her, you find that it’s gone. You’re bitter, you’re exhausted, you want to cry and above everything you want to see Rose again. But you don’t loathe her as you should.
“What do you mean… the only way to get Eva back is through Rose?” you dare ask after several minutes of silence.
She turns to look at you, eyes as piercing as they are blue. “Technically, the trade is simple.” Maybe you’re losing it from the stress and lack of sleep, but you think she almost hesitates for a second. “…a life for a life.”
As soon as she speaks and the meaning of her words registers in your mind, you’re gripping at the rusty iron bars with all your might, rattling them, shouting profanities at her. You are back to hating her all over again. It’s much simpler this way.
Until… she walks over and grabs your hand over the metal. Her touch is oddly warm for such a glacial heart. You cannot tell what she does to you, but it feels like an aura flowing through your system that silences you. Calms you. You do not want to be calm.
“I wasn’t finished.” she speaks. “That is where the experiments with you come in. By running tests on your blood and Rose’s and using my DNA as a medium, during the ritual I can trick the Megamycete into giving me what I want through a form of mitosis. Essentially, cell duplication that will not override the existing vessel.”
To be honest… you lost her midway through the very first sentence. You were quite good with biology back in the day but right now, in the state you’re in, science is going right over your head.
“...Is there an English version of that.” you ask.
Her mouth curves into that almost-smile again. It would be quite gorgeous, actually, if she hadn’t kidnapped you, infiltrated your home as you and abducted your daughter.
“If the tests succeed, you get your daughter back, I get mine from cloned DNA and Mold cells.” There’s a hint of pride in her voice as she says it.
And now, assuming she’s telling the truth, you want those tests to succeed more than you want to get out of here. Her hand leaves yours and the weird calm she blasted into you dissipates with it.
“Wait. So…” Realization strikes you like a thunderclap. “So these tests are for me?”
“You’re welcome.”
“I didn’t say thank you, you crazy b—blonde.” You rattle the iron bars again, a tad weaker than before. She does smirk over the microscope, this time. “How likely are the tests to succeed?” you ask impatiently.
“Quite.” she replies, flat once again.
“…And if they don’t?” you hate how your voice shakes there, at the end.
She looks at you, dead in the eyes, as she answers: “I am getting my daughter back either way, Mia.”
You can’t believe it. You cannot believe you’re thinking this, but you hope the crazy bitch knows what she’s doing.
-
-
Miranda is… despicable, but she is a woman of her word.
She brings you Rose for hours at a time and in exchange you help her outside of your cell. You thought your daughter would be in a worse condition, considering who keeps her, yet she’s healthy as ever, well-fed and clean. The worst part is, she laughs every time Miranda comes close and she even reaches out for her.
“No, my darling, don’t do that.” you tell her, tucking her tighter in your arms, before the woman behind you notices what’s happening.
Except it’s too late. “Ah, I see.” Miranda speaks, coming up to you from behind. She’s tall enough to lean over your shoulder and wave at Rose, who moves both hands towards her. “A lady of taste.” the woman praises and the lightness to her voice almost makes her sound like someone else. Someone normal.
“Stop it.” You turn your child away from her. “She’s just confused because you’re lit up like a Christmas tree.” You motion with your chin at her getup.
Miranda chuckles. “What. She senses our bond. Rose feels safe with me.”
Safe with the monster who wants to sacrifice her to get her own child back. You cannot swallow that thought down. “But she’s not, is she?!” you snap.
“She is.” Miranda reverts to her cool facade, glancing down at your daughter. “I will never let anything hurt her. And when she gives me Eva back, I will make sure she grows up bathed in luxury.”
It’s the Mold, you’re sure of it.
It’s the Mold’s fault that you believe her.
-
-
You were supposed to see Rose today. Instead, Miranda comes into the cave alone, looking irritated. You start to worry. Nothing phases her without a good reason. What if—
“Where’s my daughter?!” you demand, eyes wide.
“We have a problem.” she tells you. Your blood goes cold in your veins. “A problem named Ethan Winters.”
“Ethan?” you gasp.
“He is trying to get Rose back and according to reports from the Lords under me, he cannot be killed. His hand got cut off and he just reattached it. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?” she’s certain that you know. You can see it in her steely eyes.
“I— why would I—”
“Before you think to lie to me, hear something else. I bear good news, as well.” Miranda says. “I have succeeded in my experiments. During the ritual, I can guarantee Rose will remain unharmed and unchanged.” the edge of her lip curls up as she delivers the news. You almost cry from the sheer relief.
You almost leap forward and hug her, yet you remember who she is and that she caused this mess in the first place.
“But my conditions have changed.” her voice is a sword that cuts off your happiness just like that. You knew it was too good to be true. “For me to save Rose, you will tell me how to permanently get rid of Ethan Winters.”
…What?
She wants you to… trade your daughter for your husband? How the hell can I do that?!
“He has ruined too much for me to let him walk away happily now.” Her jaw is tight enough to sprout new lines on her flawless face. She wants him dead and she always gets what she wants. “He has killed colleagues of mine. Spat in the face of a damn-near god. I will have his head.”
The corners of your eyes sting with welling tears. Your body is far more honest than you in making a decision. Nobody is too important to sacrifice when it comes to your daughter. Not yourself. Not Ethan. And Miranda knows this better than anybody else. You loathe how she knows.
“Give him to me, Mia. And in a few days this whole thing will be over.” she continues in a significantly softer tone, getting closer to you. Her wings shift, the very edge of black feathers brushing your arms.
“You want me to aid in killing the father of my child?!” you sob, grabbing at her clothes. You’d expect her to shove you away, but she doesn’t move. She doesn’t even blink.
“You have been so cooperative and so brave.” she soothes, gold-taloned fingers coming underneath your chin. “Make one last sacrifice for me. Help me murder Ethan so Rose can live. Help me and I vow to be her eternal guardian angel. Hers and yours.”
She could just force the answer out of you. She’s touching you and you know she has that power. But she doesn’t do it and it’s far worse this way. She wants it to be your choice.
You look away from Miranda’s icy eyes and her promises of everything.
And you tell her.
-
-
You do not ask about Ethan. All that’s in your mind is the ceremony.
For the entire morning, you cannot breathe. You trace notes in her lab and pace around until you literally feel like you’ll explode—
And then Miranda comes in. She is radiant, smiling from ear to ear, glowing with pure joy. She looks every part the goddess she pretends to be. The golden circle usually adorning her back is gone, her long blonde hair is left free to flow like fine strands of silk past her square shoulders.
“It is done!” she tells you, a hand extended for you to take. “Come. I’ll take you to Rose and you will be the first to meet Eva.”
Her hand is warm when it closes around yours. Black wings shroud you both. There is a gravitational pull around you that’s so intense you shut your eyes and grab onto her biceps for dear life.
“You can look, now.” she speaks once the world is stable again. Your gut is churning, yet every bit of exhaustion and discomfort vanish the second you see Rose. She is safe within the first of the two golden cribs in front of you, bathed by the soft sunlight that disperses across the luxurious, dark-tiled chamber you’re in.
You run towards her, lifting your daughter in your arms and kissing her forehead over and over. She laughs at you, blue eyes crinkled. My love. My everything, you think. Everything was worth it for this moment. And you would do it all again, to ensure her safety.
Miranda’s steps, regal and authoritative, come to a stop near the other crib. You lean closer, take a look… to see another little angel there, sleeping peacefully. She resembles Rose, yet she resembles Miranda, too.
“Oh my God.” you breathe. “You really did it.”
“I did it and you and Rose made it possible, Mia.” she says. Your child extends a tiny hand towards her. She removes one of her claws and lets her finger be taken in your baby’s grip. “You don’t have to leave. She loves me already.” A proud smile curves her lips.
You hate how it looks like a sunrise.
You hate it even more that you understand why Rose is so charmed.
“Her mom can grow to love me, too.” Crystal eyes look into your own. “There is no place safer than by my side. Stay and we will raise them together. You won’t have to fear disease or death with me. You and Rose will have every little thing you could ever want. Forever.”
You don’t want your child to be co-patented by this selfish megalomaniac, who is the killer of her father. But. Then you stop to consider what you have been through until now. Nightmare after nightmare; this vicious cycle does not look like it will be broken. One thing or another will haunt you and hunt you wherever you go. You don’t want that life for Rose.
You won’t accept that life for Rose.
“…we will stay. But you can forget that part about me growing any fonder of you than I am now.”
Miranda nods, but something in her expression is so damn cocky you want to smack her. “Oh, what’s that, Rose? You can tell your mother is lying, too? My genius girl.”
Your jaw drops. She is my genius girl!
Miranda then touches your chin and tilts it up. You don’t want to be any closer to the gorgeous fucking witch, but when she stops there, hovering just over your mouth for a skipped heartbeat, looking down at you with those crystalline eyes of hers, you’re paralyzed.
Her lips slide over your own for just one slick, hot second. When she pulls back, she caresses Rose’s cheek and winks at you.
“I hate you.” you say, yet it holds no real bite. God, you’re exhausted.
“That’s alright. We have all the time in the world to change that.”
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calltomuster · 3 years
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Star Wars Fic Recs Take 5
[first fic rec list] [second fic rec list] [third fic rec list] [fourth fic rec list]
Hope you're having a lovely day, friends! Here, take some more fic recs to make it even better!
Infinite Sadness (what does your heart tell you?) by @the-last-kenobi (gen, one-shot, 12.5k words) This fic definitely lives up to its title, not just in what happens to Obi-Wan, but in the sheer, pervasive sadness and desperation and subtle despair that plagues him as he lives life after life over and over again, trying to make things better each time. But it's not a flashy despair, it's muted and ongoing and never over-the-top, and well, it's infinite sadness. I definitely think this fic is slept on, it's absolutely amazing and I highly encourage you to check it out.
How Qui-Gon Accidentally Adopted a Baby by @the-last-kenobi (gen, WIP, 18/? chapters, 26.6k words) Oh, did the first fic on this list make you sad? I have the perfect remedy: another fic by @the-last-kenobi! To say that this fic brings me immense joy is an understatement. This fic makes me smile when nothing else will. You get the premise from the title, and I'll admit it may look a little crack-fic-y based on that, but the sheer cuteness of this fic and the quality of the prose elevates it beyond anything else. I'm not even kidding, this fic makes me want to have kids, that's how adorable baby Obi-Wan is in this.
The When Duty Is Done series by thosenearandfarwars (Obi-Wan/Cody, incomplete, 14/? parts, 90k words) I recommended the first story in this series way back in my third fic rec list, and it's only gotten better since then. I really like this series because it imagines -- well, I don't want to just say an ideal post-ROTS universe, because that implies that things are just magically all better, but I think it's a realistic ideal post-ROTS universe. The Jedi Order reforms itself, the clones get reparations and the ability to govern themselves, Anakin doesn't join Palpatine, etc. Through it all is an absolutely wonderful story about two people and their love for each other. It's just lovely.
Fire to ash, present to past (who knows for tomorrow?) by blueberrywizard (Obi-Wan/Cody, one-shot, 11.6k words) One day, Qui-Gon's apprentice completely changes. Or at least, that's how it seems to Qui-Gon, who has no idea that his Padawan is actually now a much older version trapped in this young body. This fic is told from many different points of view and I really like the prose. Definitely one that sticks with you.
|nothing quite like this| by littlekaracan (gen, one-shot, 6.6k words) Don't read this unless you want to feel like your heart has been ripped to pieces. This fic is a piece of experimental fiction, framed as a class reading for Jedi students in the future who are learning about the Purge. It's just devastating, truly devastating. Even though it features no characters we'd be familiar with, you just get so drawn into the world of this Purge survivor, and hearing their experiences is brutal.
In The Afterman, Solitude by kanerallels (gen, one-shot, 2.2k words, Obi-Wan & Quinlan) Obi-Wan is in a cantina on Tatooine after ROTS and runs into Quinlan Vos. What follows reminds him that he's not alone in the galaxy, not like he thought he was. I really like the progression of this fic, how real it seems to the characters. Obi-Wan doesn't just immediately blurt out what happened, and Quinlan is much more subtle than he usually is in fic. I really enjoyed this one.
Ghost Company by existentialAF (Obi-Wan/Cody, one-shot, 2.2k words) Cody's chip gets removed and he makes it his mission to find Obi-Wan and help him in the way he couldn't when Order 66 went down. A fascinating and touching AU of what could have happened post-ROTS if things had gone a little differently. I'd absolutely love to see more in this 'verse but it is a one-shot so I'll be content with what we're given!
The Morning Star series by Kurenaino (4 parts, 1.7 million words, incomplete) I first read this series back in November of 2020 and it has lived in my head rent free ever since then. I'm not kidding, I have to limit myself to only rereading this every couple of months so that it doesn't become too much of a good thing -- and make no mistake, I do reread it every few months, all 1.7 million words of it. To make what is clearly a very long story short, this series charts Obi-Wan's fall to the Dark side post-Naboo and follows him throughout the entire Star Wars saga (TPM, AOTC, Clone Wars, ROTS, Rebels, etc.) I feel like that description doesn't do it justice, though. The sheer breadth of this series takes my breath away. It feels expansive in a way that no fic I've ever read before has, oscillating from large-scale politics to heart-pounding action to sweet and tender love, both romantic and familial. (Oh, and this might be obvious from the whole "Sith Obi-Wan" thing, but just a warning that in these stories, Obi-Wan does some absolutely despicable things, just because he can. Murder, rape, mind control, etc, so take care.) But though he's Sith, he's still got such a heart in him, just like the Obi-Wan we know and love, and you can't help but feel for him at times. And this might not be as much a selling point for you as it was for me, but this series has some absolutely fantastic Thrawn content. He's going toe-to-toe with Obi-Wan and it's glorious, a true match. I'm in the middle of my latest reread of this series, and truly it just makes me so happy. I never see anyone talking about this series and I'm sad it doesn't get the attention it deserves. It really only gets better and better the further into the series you get. Cannot recommend enough!!
There is no Ignorance, there is Knowledge by @sirikenobi12 (gen, one-shot, 4.1k words) A wonderful installment for Jedi June! This fic follows Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, and then Obi-Wan and Anakin and Ahsoka, as they teach and learn lessons on what knowledge means to them. It was an unexpected tearjerker for me, there's one scene in particular that makes me tremble just thinking about it. I just love the way each relationship is portrayed here, and the care that is put into every word. Amazing!
Keeper of the Force by @pandora15 (gen, WIP, 19/20 chapters, 84.4k words) I can't believe I haven't put this on a rec list before, but since there's only the epilogue left, now is the perfect time. This fic starts out small-scale Obi-Wan whump (not saying that in a derogatory way, that's my exact favorite thing) and grows in size as it goes to eventually become a ROTS AU that is oh so good. It's touching, and inspiring, and lovely, and every time a new chapter posts I drop everything to read it. Can't believe the end of this ride is almost upon us!!
If you like any of these fics, please consider reblogging so they can get more exposure! And if you noticed I missed someone’s Tumblr account, or linked the wrong one, please let me know!
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charming-mage · 3 years
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The Search For Marinette Dupain-Cheng
This is my take on my prompt The Search For Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
You know, I always wondered about Marinette taking care of Akumas while overseas. If she takes too long, she’ll scare her loved ones half to death. Can’t rush too much or else she risks losing her miraculous because of it. Since no one is aware of her identity, she doesn’t have anyone to cover for her.  Friends who are unaware of the truth will cover her for so long before they have to fess up.
In salt fics, the class usually doesn’t care where Marinette is on Gotham trips. Here, they give a shit.
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In which Lila messes with some signs and Marinette gets lost when she comes back late (via Kaalki) after dealing with an Akuma attack in France. 
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The two week school field trip in Tokyo was supposed to be an enjoyable experience. There’s booked reservations at classy restaurants, a fancy hotel with a big pool, shows, and tours throughout Tokyo. Lila is most looking forward to the fashion expo. If she doesn’t do something soon, it looks like she’ll miss out on that too. Marinette been missing for two days and Lila is already sick of it. 
All because she miscalculated in a spur of the moment plan.
“Marinetteeee! Where are you,” shouts a crying Alya. The girl spots a few tourists and shoves a flier in their faces. Nino joins in with his own fliers. “Have you seen my friend Marinette Dupain-Cheng? Cutest French girl you’ve ever seen with a heart of gold. So kind she’d innocently help a stranger, unaware they’re a bad guy.” The tourists each give a half hearted ‘no’ before speed walking away.
“Walk faster Lila! Marinette can be anywhere.”
Lila puts on a concerned mask. “Of course.”
All this time wasted just because she moved some signs. 
She hadn’t meant for Marinette to go missing. Only to buy some time so she can guilt trip Adrien to be her partner for the fashion expo. 
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The day before, the class went to a big nature park. It’s notable for its many trails. The deeper you went into the park, the denser the trees are. They all partnered up and to her dismay she got Nathaniel instead of Adrien. The best thing about the artist is that he gets so into drawing the sights he doesn’t notice when she wanders off. It gave her more time to plot how to switch partners with the least amount of fuss.
During one of her secret plotting sessions, she heard a very loud conversation farther down the trail she’s on. Rose shouts for Marinette to not split up, and Marinette screams back a blatant lie about wanting to see a moose in the Relaxation Trial. Also to not expect her for forty minutes. Total hypocrite this girl is. ‘We can only be friends if you stop lying.’ Sure, and it’s okay for only Marinette to lie. Everyone else who does so is bad. Can’t even tell Rose you honestly want to ditch her.
When Lila noticed the Relaxation Trail sign nearby, an idea formed in her head. She ducked into a bush to hide. When Marinette ran into the trail and her map fell out of her bag Lila burst into action. 
It took a little adjustment to the multiple sign post. It wasn’t too hard as the signs on the pole were already a little loose. Just needed to switch the sign that led back to the meetup with the Reflection Trial sign. According to the map, the Reflection one is a winding trial leading to a dead end. Marinette would be forced to walk all the back as the park employees told them it’s easy to get lost if you go off the trial. Aside from putting some sticks on the map, it was left mostly alone as she wanted her rival to use it to get back to base. She may not have liked Marinette, but she didn’t want anything horrible to happen to her.
By the time it got dark, Marinette still hadn’t gotten back to the meetup point. Forty minutes had already flown by. Lila hadn’t noticed as she was trying to convince Adrien to switch partners and tell everyone it was his idea. If Marinette was here the noisy girl would have interfered. 
Rose’s cry of alarm got the others to find out Marinette was missing. The goodie two shoes wasn’t answering Rose’s calls. A quick check near the Relaxation Trial sign revealed Marinette’s map had flown into a bush.
The field trip went downhill from there. 
The police were called. Afterwards, it’s discovered the cameras in that area were down much to Lila’s relief. Even though she feels a bit responsible, she’s not admitting to anything. Even if she did confess, it’s not like it’ll help the police. Doing so will get her in huge trouble and gain scrutiny in her actions from then on. How will telling what she did help find Marinette? It’d be for nothing.
When it comes down to it, Lila’s self preservation is above Marinette’s well being.
Some good fun will keep her mind from unpleasant things. Too bad no one besides Lila is interested in the scheduled events. This is a vacation, so going to a few events is a must. The class just want to spend time searching for Marinette. The transfer student wouldn’t have minded hanging up missing posters or spreading the word. This class takes it to another level.
Every waking moment is spent looking for Marinette. Breaks become a treasured time. They walk many miles each day. Max posts missing posters in Japanese forums. Alya bothers the police for updates. Adrien even got Chole (who stayed in Paris) to pull some strings to get more attention in the local news.
Because of Marinette’s disappearance, they have to stay in groups of at least three. No exceptions. So if Lila wants to do anything, she needs to convince any group she’s in to go with her.
It’s more challenging than expected.
Day 5
"Hey guys, why don’t we take our break inside the museum we were supposed to go to? It has air conditioning and we can look at some stuff for a bit while we’re sitting down.”
“Sorry Lila, I’m not in the mood to admire art.”
“I agree with Nathaniel. Just doesn’t feel right.”
Day 8
“Let’s go on the sightseeing tour. We can look for Marinette while we’re on it.”
“No thanks.”
“Nah, a taxi is better as we can choose where to drive.”
Day 10
“.....my leg injury is acting up. It’s okay to leave me here. I don’t mind.”
“No way Lila. We’re not leaving you alone on a bench outside Universal Studios. What if we lose you too?”
“.............”
Day 11
Lila has had it with these people. Reservations and events have been canceled. Solemn, awkward moping. Refusal to do anything but looking for Marinette. The only event left is the one she’s been most looking forward to: the fashion expo. Through some maneuvering and sneakiness, no one remembered to cancel the expo tickets.
There’s no way in hell she wants to miss this event: a lecture by Edna Mode herself. There’s rumors circling the fashion industry the famous designer is going to explore a new clothing line. Along with finding a muse for it.
The previous class activities can be let go without much struggle. Not this one, though. This could be the golden ticket to a very prestigious job. Even more than being a Gabriel model.
There’s a chance things might go right this time. The group is filled by pushovers Adrien, Rose, and Juleka. As long as she stays firm, they’ll go along with her plan.
With the directions in mind, Lila manages to slyly maneuver the group to walk outside Tokyo Big Sight. The sight of the Edna Mode banners hanging outside the arena fills her with excitement.
Lila coughs for their attention. “Guys, it’s time for our lunch break. We need the energy to keep this up.”
Rose reluctantly says, “Oh you’re right Lila. Can you pass out our lunches please?” 
“Sure thing.” She reaches into the bag and whoops. There’s conveniently no lunch bags in there. “Oh no guys, there’s only water bottles in here.”
“It’s okay Lila, we can buy some food nearby.” Rose digs out her phone. “Hmm... I think there’s a cheap fast food place nearby.”
“There’s no need to look far. We can just go into the expo. They have to have some food near the entrance.”
There’s silence at her words.
Juleka narrows her eyes. “Why do I feel you just want to go to the expo?”
Lila is surprised Juleka of all people is calling her out. “No, no. It’s just, why walk more when there’s food right here.”
“Lila, do you not care about finding Marinette?,” a sad Rose asks.
“How could you say that? Of course I do! We worked so hard and we deserve a break. Marinette would understand.”
Rose snaps. “Understand? Every minute counts! We might never see Marinette ever again. She could be injured and alone, kidnapped, or worse! If one of us was missing, she wouldn’t give up.”
The fire in Rose’s eyes startles Lila. Never thought she’d see the bubbly girl break her happy persona. 
“No one said anything about giving up. Besides, the police are looking-”
“That doesn’t mean we should sit by and do nothing.” Rose tears up. “It’s my fault Marinette is gone. If I didn’t let her run off on her own, she would still be here.”
Juleka gives a comforting hug to Rose. 
Adrien speaks up. “I know you don’t like Marinette, but I never thought you would sink so low. It’s one thing if you’re not interested in helping. It’s another to actively interfere in something our friends care about.”
“I d-d-o care. We can pick up search after we eat.” It’s not like Lila wanted to prevent them from searching for Marinette. Ms. Bustier has forbidden anyone from being on their own. So she needed someone to be with her in order to do something. 
Lila spent so much time reassuring them, they missed the lecture.
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“---Breaking News! A French teenager stopped a missile launch by terrorists. Marinette Dupain-Cheng went missing during her class’ field trip. Miraculously, she disabled their base of operations, rescued a Princess, fought against pirates, escaped on the back of a deer, got their leader to surrender to the authorities-”
“That’s our every day Ladybug.” Alya hugs the TV with tears of joy. “Obviously she’d save the day while missing.” The reporter actually hissed when a stranger tried to tell her to stop hogging the TV. No one attempted removing her after that.
Since Ms. Bustier is currently with the police to bring Marinette back, there’s no one to reign in the partying classmates. Alix somehow convinced the hotel to give them a big complementary celebration cake. 
The only person not celebrating is an angry Lila. Glaring at her phone, the headlines riles her up every time she sees it.
Edna Mode’s First Baby Fashion Line
The Inspiration Behind the New Designs
“My godson is my inspiration-”
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Jack-Jack is Edna’s muse. Lol.
To save you a google search, this park mentioned in this fic is made up. It’s based on a bunch nature parks I’ve been to before. Tokyo does have parks and nature trials, though. In case you missed it, an attack happened in the late afternoon and Marinette got back at night (when it got dark) in Japan Standard Time. Keep in mind there is a 8 hour difference between these countries.
With this completed, I can finish chapter two of Dupont’s Worst Nightmare. :)
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Emma Swan, Olympian is not a phrase Emma Swan, totally normal person, ever expected to hear.
But she never expected one night at a party hosted by her college's baseball team to change her entire life, either. So, it should really come as no surprise that Emma Swan, Olympian, is now something of international sensation. Or that her husband has become a bit of a social media star.
——— Rating: Teen with sports feelings Word Count: 7.5K AN: As promised and because of who I am as a person, I wrote Olympic fic. I can neither confirm nor deny that there is an actual plot here, but there is a surplus of fluff and sports-based feelings. So, that’s something. Thanks to the Detroit Lions, specifically, for posting this Tweet and to my husband who is very much aware of what content I want the internet to provide me. Operation: Make Killian a New York Yankee as often as possible continues.
|| Read on Ao3 if that’s your jam ||
———
No one told her the questions would start to blur together.
That would require media training, Emma imagines. And no one is giving a first-time Olympian in a sport that only a handful of people marginally believe warrants notice from the IOC any sort of media training. She got, like, an orientation packet. With a lopsided staple in the top left corner. On her commercial flight. That she booked herself.
Twenty-plus hours crammed into a seat that she’s only a little concerned did permanent damage to her right knee, with a meal that was so chewy Emma was about four seconds and one exasperated, entirely exhausted exhale from asking if it was, in fact, made of plastic.
Mostly, the staple is what’s still managing to frustrate her. As frustrated as she can be at the Olympics. No one is supposed to be frustrated at the Olympics. Not really. Not while experiencing the pinnacle of athletic achievement, the calluses on Emma’s fingertips some sort of badge of honor that she’s wearing with at least a modicum of national pride, and everything is fine.
Her qualifying time was absurd. Where absurd is a compliment and very close to a record she’s suddenly determined to shatter.
So, she’s alone.
Big deal. So is everyone else. This Olympics, at least. Plus, Killian wouldn’t have been able to come no matter what the state of the world was. Even so, the quiet stands are admittedly weird. All these empty arenas with empty seats, the distinct lack of a roaring crowd no more obvious than when the world’s best athletes step to the line. Staring at the climbing wall in front of her four hours earlier, Emma swore she could hear every single beat of her heart echo between her ears.
And that’s—well, solitude is par for the course with an adolescence like hers, half-filled suitcases and brand-new faces in brand-new towns, but she’d gotten used to one town, and the town is actually a city, and the city has long since felt like home, and her fingers reach for the rings dangling above her Team USA t-shirt. They did give her an absolute shit ton of t-shirts, so that was nice.
Except—
Something keeps tugging. Nagging at the back of Emma’s consciousness, almost like she’s forgotten her keys on that flea market table they found in Park Slope two weeks after they moved into the apartment. Because for as well-versed Emma may be in that singular sort of existence, she’s also well-removed from wanting it, and at least three of her knuckles crack. Curling around her rings.
Muscles in her cheeks stretch, another nod and quick blink to avoid the threat of blinding via camera flashes. Someone really should have told her about this. She probably should have assumed. Human interest is the driving force of at least three-quarters of the stories in sports, and Emma’s not used to being the story, per se, but even she has to admit most of hers makes for a good one and they are still asking her questions.
Emma blinks again. Hopes she doesn’t look like a serial killer or the weird blonde, slightly sweaty cousin of the Joker, her smile starting to feel as if it’s painted on her face. She nods. Hums. Listens to questions that are startling in their tonal similarity to Charlie Brown’s teacher, and Emma wonders if Charlie Brown ever got a different teacher or what the school structure of the Peanuts’ universe is and, God, how old was Charlie Brown, even? To withstand that sort of consistent bullying. Was Linus the same age as him? No, right? How long did he carry the blanket around? Was Linus the same age as Sally? Why didn’t the red-headed girl with curly hair get a name?
She nearly falls out of her chair.
That might make the front page of several blogs. Possibly even the back page of a New York tab.
Careful to keep her feet on the ground, Emma lifts her head, directing her eyes toward the source of a question that must have been asked several times if the note of amusement mixing with deadline-based exasperation is anything to go by. Her smile definitely makes her look like a serial killer.
“Sorry, sorry,” Emma mumbles, and none of the oxygen she does her best to inhales makes it even close to her lungs. “I, uh—what was the question?”
The reporter grimaces.
“I wanted to know if you’d seen the video of your husband yet.”
Ice runs down her spine. Every single drop of wholly disgusting sweat falling in rivulets down either one of her cheeks freezes. Oxygen disappears from the room. Or so Emma assumes, what with the crushing feeling pushing down on her lungs and whatnot.
Her mind whirs. Races through possibilities and pitfalls with a speed that would be impressive if Emma weren’t already so close to that record, and she is going to break that record. Somehow she manages not to fall, though. From her chair or the metaphorical climbing wall in her brain, ignoring the sudden dryness of her mouth and the increasing size of her tongue.
Her nails are going to leave little half-moon creases in her palm.
“I don’t—” she starts, and eventually she will wish she was more articulate. For what turns out to be a very nice story.
Standing up, the reporter’s seat creaks as she moves toward the desk they deposited Emma behind after even. Several Olympic officials move to block her, but Emma shakes her head again, and she’s not exactly high-priority on the list of defensible athletes, anyway. So, none of them flinch when the reporter slides a phone closer to Emma, her crazed thoughts briefly lingering on how many phones a reporter could possibly need, but then her eyes drop, and she’s not sure if her ears can actually perk, but Emma certainly tries because she hears him yelling before she sees him.
Her smile shifts.
And the cameras flash again.
It starts, as with most things in Emma’s collegiate life, because Anna demands it.
She’s only half-listening, so Emma can never be entirely sure what it was, exactly, she was agreeing to, but in her experience, the agreement doesn’t matter so much as the action, and her roommate’s younger sister is unstoppable when it comes to action. So, Emma is dimly aware of a plan. Something about the baseball house and that one left fielder is in a handful of her classes.
David—something.
He’s got a girlfriend, too. A nice one. Who always smells like sugar when she slides into the seat next to David whatever his last name is, sitting in the row in front of Emma during their Tuesday-Thursday statistics class.
Emma hates statistics.
She doesn’t hate Anna, though. Or her roommate, one of the better college-based surprises, and either Anna has magic or Elsa is an enormous pushover because somehow all three of them are ready at the same time, and the walk to the baseball house isn’t far.
First-year players guard the door — passing out color-coded wristbands that absolutely do not do their job because it takes about six seconds of well-meaning flirting and batted eyelashes between Anna and a mountain of muscle masquerading as the team’s starting catcher to get them inside. With purple wristbands and two tickets for jungle juice instead of the keg.
“Victory,” Anna cries, twisting through the crowd. Half of it is already teetering on the edge of drunk, the rest free-falling into the pit of imminent hangovers, and Emma isn’t sure she’d classify their drinks as a victory, but it’s definitely better than watered-down beer.
And it doesn’t take long, really. By Emma’s shaky count, it’s not even a half-hour before the muscle — who introduces himself as Kristoff, and really is pretty cute, actually — returns, standing unnaturally close to Anna’s left shoulder, furtive glances shared out of the corners of their eyes. Emma rolls hers. Elsa’s appear perpetually stuck to the ceiling. It looks oddly sticky up there.
“Go,” Elsa says, and it’s not an instruction. Barely counts as more than a whisper, really. Anna lights up all the same. Like an alcohol-fueled Christmas tree.
Who does not need telling more than once.
Hands reach and smiles widen, Kristoff mumbling something that sounds like it was nice to meet you before he’s following Anna back to the beer pong table, leaving Elsa and Emma standing in the middle of a sea of raging hormones. All of which want to be there way more than either one of them does.
“Well,” Elsa mutters, “that was polite.”
Emma snickers into her glass. A mostly empty glass. That’s surprising. “Got that going for him.” “Plus, his on-base is nuts this year.”
“Say that again.” “On-base percentage,” Elsa repeats, making sure to do it slowly for maximum sarcastic emphasis. Emma’s eyes are going to fall out. That won’t end well. There are too many shuffling feet in this room.
“What does that mean?” “How often he gets on base.” Opening her mouth does nothing. Closing it does even less. Elsa looks overjoyed. “I know things,” she shrugs, “and I’m pretty positive Anna and Kristoff have been not-so-secretly dating since the start of the semester, so—” “You stalked your sister’s secret boyfriend?” “Stalk’s a very dirty word, don’t you think? No, no, there was no stalking. There was light research. One Google search and a single click to the team’s roster, and now I know he’s from Minnesota, too.” “Awfully convenient for the romance of the century.” Humming, Elsa takes a larger-than-usual sip before scrunching her nose in displeasure. At her empty cup. Emma has no idea how they ended up with empty cups so quickly. Suddenly the baseball house feels a bit like a time warp. Enter and drink and find the love of your life. Or something like that.
“I got next,” Emma says, ignoring Elsa’s laugh because she is not the sort of person who says things like that. It’s this house. This place. With its music and its happiness, and she’s not really a sports person. Can only marginally understand the joy of watching other people accomplish something. She has no idea what on-base percentage is.
Still.
Her feet move. Fingers curl over the rim of red solo cups, like the most cliché version of her college self. Her drinks get refilled. And it’s just as Emma’s about to let herself wonder if, maybe, sports aren’t all that bad and might even possess a bit of inherent romanticism, she slams into something.
Someone, more like.
Taller than her, he has to peer down his nose to glare at Emma. That’s fair. They’re both far more damp than they were ten seconds before. Some of that moisture ensures that the hem of his shirt sticks to his stomach. A very flat stomach. That draws Emma’s eyes because she’s human and slightly intoxicated, and it takes quite a lot more than she’s willing to admit to lift her chin, but then she’s glad she does. Even with the understandable glare.
“Shit,” she breathes, “your eyes are stupid blue.”
He narrows them. She hates that. Which is about all it takes for her to get royally pissed off, too.
“Can you pay attention to where you’re walking?”
The stupidly blue eyes blink. Darken a shade, like all his frustration is centered directly around his pupils, and the shirt he’s wearing is team-branded. Another baseball player, then.
“You ran into me!” Oh, Oh. Well, that sucks. He’s got a good voice, too. Eyes and voice and the few strands of hair that fall toward those eyes when he continues to glare at Emma likely aren’t supposed to make her stomach flip.
It’s the alcohol’s fault.
Or sports. Like, in general.
“Because you take up so much space,” Emma snarls He leans forward. Looms, really. Over her and around her, smelling like punch and body wash. It’s gross and absolutely wonderful. “Gotta pick a lane, love. Either I ran into you, or I was in the way.”
“It can definitely be both and there is nothing resembling love here.”
“So I can see. You have a name, wrecking ball?” “My shoes are never going to unstick from this floor.” To his credit, he does waver. His lips twist — which makes it all too obvious how much Emma is staring at his lips, but, seriously, the alcohol. Plus, it’s so hot in this house she can barely think straight. She wonders where he buys his body wash. He smells better than he should in this house. So, it's clear he considers. Ponders, even. Until his hands dart out and those hands are somehow warmer than every person in this house combined, heat scorching through Emma’s t-shirt as he lifts her off the ground.
Only to deposit her approximately fourteen inches to her left.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” “Look,” he grins, “you’re unstuck.” “Bastard!” “Eh, not technically.” “What?” “Not technically a bastard. Orphan, I suppose. But that’s kind of a mood ruiner, don’t you think?”
Emma’s fish impression is really going great. The grin becomes a smirk. Her stomach refuses to stay still. “Is there a mood to ruin?” “Might be if you tell me your name.”
Emma wavers, that time. Considers and ponders. Weighs the pros and cons while laughter drifts past her ears, consummate collegiate experiences that she’s only ever let herself be passably jealous of. A dark-haired girl’s talking to Elsa in the opposite corner.
And the hand hanging in front of her wiggles its fingers.
It’s still ridiculously warm when she grabs it. “Emma Swan.” “Killian Jones.”
Anna’s secret relationship becomes a real relationship no less than sixteen hours following what Elsa begins to call the Drink Incident.
And they become—
Baseball people.
Becoming baseball people is not bad. Not really. Emma likes the baseball team. She understands what WHIP is, now. Kristoff adores Anna, so that’s good. David, who does, in fact, have a last name, continues to be as nice as assumed, and his girlfriend sort of quasi adopts Emma. Mary Margaret Blanchard brims with positivity and an innate sort of joy that would usually annoy Emma, but most of that joy also serves as a direct counter to the snark that Killian Jones appears flush with. So, it’s something of a wash, really.
Plus, he’s a very sore Monopoly loser.
And Emma finds it endlessly entertaining.
“Stop that,” he grunts, glaring at the board with the sort of force Emma’s become accustomed to in the last few months, while she taps on the space in front of her, “I know how many spots it is.” Emma smiles. “So move, then.” “I’ll be bankrupt.” “Capitalism does that.” “Tell me more about capitalism, Swan.”
She doesn’t startle, so there’s that. Not much else, though. Not when a noticeable bit of equally familiar heat skitters down her spine. Her head tilts. His head remains frustratingly still, staring at the board like the spaces will change or Mary Margaret will tear down some of her hotels on Marvin Gardens.
Neither thing happens.
The heat pools. At the small of her back, inching dangerously close to that space between her hips, like it’s trying to tether her to this spot and this moment and its people. Baseball people. People who so clearly care about everything so much that even the cynic in Emma can appreciate it. Plus, they’re all ridiculously competitive.
David had to take a walk when Mary Margaret bankrupt him earlier.
“That’s about the extent of my capitalism knowledge,” Emma admits with a shrug, “I sucked at economics.” Pulling his gaze away from the board, Emma’s less prepared for the force behind Killian’s eyes than she was for the appearance of a nickname that might not warrant the title. It’s just her name, after all. But it sounds like more than that. Sinks under her skin with alarming ease, the precise tone of it wrapping its way around a variety of internal organs until they’re all beating at the same tempo and— “Move my piece for me.”
Kristoff groans. Mary Margaret chuckles. Elsa looks far too sure of herself. Knows everything, indeed.
And it’s not really a command, but there’s that same sense of something that found its way into the sound of Emma’s name and Killian’s voice, and he catches her by surprise. On a variety of levels. His fingers jump the moment hers reach out, all heat and an alarming size difference, his brows lifting when she turns her head.
“You’re taking this game way too seriously, you know,” Emma says. What she doesn’t say is more important, though. Because they’re not friends, really. They’re—acquaintances. Some kind of appropriate metaphor regarding a planet’s many moons and the tendency of those moons to orbit something far bigger than them. But they like each other, too. As much as they dance and twist, do their best to avoid getting hit in the batter’s box, Emma’s more comfortable bantering with him than just about anyone she’s ever met, a challenge in every conversation, and she’s rather loath to realize she’s memorized the different ways the blue in his eyes flash.
Now it feels a bit like a spotlight.
“Matter of pride, Swan.” “Is it just?” If there are other people laying on their stomachs in that living room, half-empty glasses by their hands and equipment stacked in various corners, Emma forgets about them. Quickly. Immediately. Killian doesn’t move his fingers.
He nods.
And Mary Marget only kind of gloats when she bankrupts him.
She dances when she wins, though.
It’s embarrassing. It’s absolutely, goddamn wonderful.
Realizing that baseball is a game of statistics ruins kind of Emma’s day. It makes Killian laugh. Her favorite sort of laugh. Where he throws his head back, an arm around his middle, and his shoulders shaking. Those same strands of hair she noticed that first night fall back toward lidded eyes, the corners of his mouth lifting in an angle Emma is sure she could determine if she just didn’t hate math so much, and it takes about four seconds, her head tilting back and forth twice and one swipe of her tongue to lean forward on the couch they're sharing, tilt her head up and press her lips to his.
Press is a vast understatement.
Crash, more like.
A bases-clearing double into the left-field gap.
She knows so many baseball terms now, it’s ridiculous.
It’s because she keeps going to games. With Anna. Without Anna. With Elsa. Without Elsa. With Mary Margaret every single time. And it creeps on so slowly, she’s practically a Jane Austen heroine, but then Emma finds she cares as much as everyone else. Screams herself hoarse at every crack of the bat. Jumps and fist bumps with startling regularity. Experiences the flutter of butterflies in her flip-prone stomach before ninth-inning rallies.
She memorizes statistics. Killian’s statistics, especially.
Because the Draft is a week away, and the nerves rolling off him are even more potent than his body wash. Bought in bulk from a locally-owned company, she learns.
Killian hates capitalism, too.
Which is only part of the reason she likes him, but right now all of the reason is centered around how it feels as if the world is shifting on its axis and what, precisely, he is capable of with his tongue. Quite a lot if this first time at bat is anything to believe.
Emma laughs.
Joy bubbles from the very center of her, pushing at the seam of her lips, and it’s not much of a seam when her mouth is open to accommodate tongue, but it’s enough of a sound that Killian pulls back. No glare. Definitely eyebrow movement, though.
“That’s not the best confidence boost, you know.” “I’m straddling you,” Emma counters, nodding toward the knees on either side of his, and she has no idea when her fingers found his hair. It’s very soft.
“How did that happen?” “What was that about confidence?”
Dropping his head, she gets a different sort of laugh, one that’s just as potent in its ability to settle into her bloodstream and the empty spaces around her heart, and sports have turned her into a sap. “I like you a lot,” Killian murmurs. Emma’s heart explodes. Metaphorically speaking.
“Good.” “Expand on that, for me.” She pinches his side, almost prepared for the way it leaves him bucking beneath her. Less prepared for the mutual groan it causes. Killian’s eyes widen. “I like you a lot,” Emma repeats, and his arms tighten, and her heart knits itself back together, and the second time through the kissing order is even better.
It starts, as with most things in Emma’s nearly-adult life, because Anna demands it.
“I just think it’ll be fun,” Anna says, not for the first time. And, not for the first time, she ignores the pointed look Emma and Elsa exchange. Elsa’s lips have all but disappeared behind her teeth “Think about it,” Anna continues, “we need something to do before the game, anyway. This way we’re—you know, staying active.” Emma’s eyebrows jump. Fly. Soar into her hairline where the level of her disbelief sits, all too aware of the ring hanging around her neck.
A Draft Day gift. As much as a family heirloom can be a gift. But Killian claimed it was good luck, his brother’s ring, because turns out that snark is at least a partial product of a wholly depressing childhood, and Emma supposes there’s something to be said for common ground. Understanding, too. Stories shared over weeks that turned to months that turned to years and seasons in the minors, and it absolutely figures Killian’s Major League debut is happening in Cincinnati. Where Kristoff plays.
It’s ridiculous how in love with him she is.
Killian. Not Kristoff.
Anna is still talking. “There’s nothing else to do in Cincinnati,” she reasons, which seems unfair to the city itself but not entirely untrue, and even the concept of chili on spaghetti grosses Emma out. “Also,” Anna adds, sounding as if she’s reached the final bullet point on her list of possible arguments, “I’ve got a Groupon deal for this place.”
Elsa blinks. “I didn’t realize Groupon was even still a thing.” “Surprise!”
Emma’s laugh isn’t entirely honest, but her sigh of acceptance is and—
Turns out she’s pretty good at it.
Goddamn fantastic, actually.
At rock climbing. Indoor rock climbing. Her feet push her up the wall with ease, the steady ache in her arms welcome and wonderful and a slew of other alliterative adjectives. That leave Killian grinning like a maniac, but it’s been a weird and equally wonderful day, without a hit, but two walks, so that ups the on-base, and Emma’s really, seriously in love with him.
“I don’t know what it was,” she says, preening just a bit under Killian’s stare. Hotel lighting casts shadows on his cheeks, slumped as he is against every pillow they could find. Even the ones in the closet. He’s not supposed to be in here for much longer, both of them aware of the team-ordained curfew hanging over them, but the pre-game nerves are long gone. Replaced instead with exhilaration and endorphins, the kind that could win Elle Woods a headline-making case. “But,” Emma continues, “I just kept moving, and the guy said it was, like, a course record. Is course the right word, you think?” Killian lifts a shoulder. Even as it’s covered in ice and tape. The play he made at third is going to show on loop. On TV. In Emma’s memory. She’s never yelled that loud before.
People took pictures.
And then she cried. Like a giant sap.
“This is your show, Swan,” Killian chuckles, pride infusing the words. As if she’s the one who deserves the pride today. It’s entirely possible she cried for multiple minutes after that play. They definitely showed that on the YES Network. Mary Margaret texted her no less than forty-seven times.
“I was really fast.” Killian hums, fingers fluttering enough to make it clear he wants her closer. Emma doesn’t argue. They’re a mess of limbs and mouths and that tongue thing they’ve collectively gotten better at giving and receiving over the years, hands that warm with the sort of confidence borne of repetition. Some joke about BP and finding your swing.
“Plus,” he says, a soft laugh at Emma’s noise of displeasure when talking means far less kissing, “becoming a rock climbing savant means more upper-body work, and you know how I love your arms.” Guffawing the way Emma does is not particularly romantic. Doesn’t matter. The sound comes, and the joy remains, a steady stream pumping through all her extremities and clouding her thoughts. In the best way possible. Before Killian, Emma didn’t know this could be that. Fun and easy, not quite simple, but something she’s willing to work for. Athletes are notoriously determined, after all.
Part of her wonders if a proclivity to rock climbing makes her an athlete, too.
“Please,” she says, laughter clinging to the letters even as she finds herself moved directly over Killian’s outstretched legs, “provide, in detail, everything you enjoy about my arms.” “I didn’t say enjoy.” “Were you misquoted, Jones?” His eyes flash. Glow, honestly. At her and because of her and athletes also know how to work their opponents. Goad them into making mistakes. Something about a pitcher’s duel and a battle in the box. Where the box is this bed. And Emma’s winning.
“I love your arms,” Killian says. Dragging his mouth against the column of her throat leaves goosebumps on Emma’s skin. Her back arches. His hand flattens. The compliments continue. Turn into promises. Guarantees. Of a future that’s spread out at their feet now, if only they reach for it.
Turns out Emma’s pretty good at reaching for things. When she wants them.
“This isn’t, like, free-scale, though, is it?”
Her heart cannot be expected to handle much more of this.
“Don’t worry,” Emma says, “all proper safety precautions were taken. Plus, I wouldn’t fall off the wall.”
Killian’s expression shutters. Not in any of that frustration Emma so clearly understood when his shirt was damp, and her shoes were unsalvagable despite his best efforts to get the school’s equipment manager to dry-clean them. No, it’s—it’s something big and important and unspoken, and Emma pulls his hand up. To rest directly over the rink that’s still tucked beneath her t-shirt.
His t-shirt.
It’s got his last number on it, at least.
“Would you catch me if I fell off the wall?” He doesn’t answer at first. Doesn’t mention the absurdity of a question that does not make sense, but those literal and metaphorical clock hands are ticking, and if they don’t replace his ice soon, they’re going to destroy these sheets. “Every single time, Swan.” “Right back at you.”
Killian doesn’t miss curfew, but it’s pretty close.
And Emma wakes up to twelve texts with links for indoor rock climbing gyms in the greater New York City area.
“Holy shit, this is hard.”
Grunting more than laughing, Emma’s fingers curl around the rock in front of her. Chalk cakes itself on the pads of those fingers, stuck beneath her nails and, somehow, the bend of her elbow. “Are you not an All-Star?” she asks, glancing at Killian.
“I do not see how that factors into this at all.”
“Huh, weird.” “Suspiciously sounds like an accusation.” “Weird,” Emma repeats. They’re halfway up a wall only one of them is really supposed to be on, but the other person several feet below them is faring far worse than the pair of them combined, so, that takes precedence in her mind. “He knows a lot more curse words than I realized.” “He’s showing off,” Killian grumbles, forehead resting against the wall.
Will Scarlet hasn’t moved in five minutes. Possibly six. Maybe a round ten. He's much better at second base.
“I cannot feel my arms,” he calls, and Emma’s laugh is better that time. Purer, somehow. As if happiness can actually have a sound. Even happiness that comes with sweat on her temple and a noticeable ache in her triceps and she sort of loves this.
Sort of is a vast understatement.
“Showing off, huh?” Emma asks. She finds her next footfall with ease, happiness blooming into confidence that’s become nearly consistent these days and weeks and years. It does not take her long to feel the stare that’s lingering on her. On her ass, specifically.
She glances over her shoulder. To find her fiancé smiling at her. And staring at her ass.
“Can I help you, love?” “Whatcha doing?” “Ogling you, obviously.” “Forearms feeling good?” He nods. Sort of. There’s a distinct slope to the back of his neck and more sweat on his brown than Emma’s. Not as much as Scarlet’s, probably. “Fantastic,” Killian drawls, “keep going, Swan, someone’s got to show us how to do it.” “Try not to fall off the wall, huh? Last thing we need is the might of the Yankees front office coming after us.” “I don’t think I can move my hands,” Will shouts. Killian doesn’t move. It’s impressive forearm strength. Blushing on the wall is not usually how Emma’s days go.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Killian promises, and Emma moves. He follows her. Up the wall and to the top, a quick brush of his lips against her shoulder that leaves Scarlet cursing even more, despite his presence on the floor, but then there’s lemon-flavored water and exceptionally soft towels and Emma’s caught a bit off guard by the question.
“Are there leagues for this?” Will asks. “Because you should probably be winning things for this.” Emma blinks. Considers. Wonders. Turns to Killian.
He’s still smiling. Broadly, in fact.
“We could look.” They do. They fill out paperwork. Buy fancy climbing shoes that Emma claims cost too much, but Killian’s a pushover and even more stubborn and she wins the first race she signs up for.
Plus, ten more after that.
Emma climbs indoor rock walls. Killian hits home runs. Occasionally they do these things simultaneously, and it usually leads to her nearly falling off the wall because everyone in her Tribeca gym knows what it means when WFAN is playing on the speakers.
Sometimes they shout out John Sterling’s home run call with him.
She gets better. He gets better.
They do end up destroying sheets in various hotels across the country. For various reasons. Not all of them post-game or ice related. There are games and events. Wins and losses. Back page spreads that Emma frames and hangs on their apartment walls, right next to other, smaller frames, with the same smiling faces who, once upon a time, called a sticky-floored baseball house home, and Killian’s fingers are warm in hers when the tears prick her eyes at Anna and Kristoff’s wedding.
There are stories. Think pieces and hot takes on a variety of drive-time radio shows. Those are all about Killian, though. He’s the athlete. The true one, some stories say. It’s impressive what Emma does, they admit, but it’s a hobby, and she’s got a grown-up career, anyway. So, she’s got more climbing records than she knew ever existed, but she’s not doing it for press, and both Mary Margaret and Anna weep at her and Killian’s wedding.
She wears her ring on a chain next to her other one when she climbs.
Every time Killian notices them hanging there, Emma swears, his eyes brighten. It’s her favorite thing in the whole, goddamn world.
“What is this?” He doesn’t answer. Just holds the sheet of paper he must have printed out in the clubhouse because they certainly don’t have a printer at home, and one of the edges is bent. Like he had to fit it in his back pocket.
“Going the stoic route, huh?” Emma quips, but there’s a noticeable hitch in her pulse. One that’s been there for weeks. Since the rumblings started, and the rumors began, whispers of possibility, and first-ever has a very nice ring to it. One side of Killian’s mouth tugs up. “Oh, that’s not fair.” “I’d like the record to show, that the only reason I didn’t know immediately was because I was in the trainer’s room, so—” “What were you in the trainer’s room for?” Killian ignores her. Well, sort of. His eyes shift, and his gaze holds, and Emma knows. Right down in the marrow of her. What the paper is and how Scarlet is the one who printed it out, but she’s even more confident Killian carried it home, and that does something funny to her entire worldview. Widens it and minimizes it at the same time, focusing on this and them and the possibility that creates.
In an athletic sort of way.
“My shoulder’s kind of sore.” Emma scoffs. “Oh, that’s pointed.” “I’m sure your shoulders are fine. Golden, even.’ “This is not your best work, you know that?” “Look at the paper.” “Did you fold it yourself?” “And then took a car back home. You really didn’t see yet?” Emma shakes her head. He knows the answer, too. He’s the one with the Google alert, after all. Because she’s still a bit of a pessimist at heart and an adult with a real job, and this is too much and abjectly terrifying, and the last thing she expects is for Killian to crouch in front of her.
One of his knees cracks.
“Don’t,” he warns, even as Emma does her best to swallow her laugh. Warm hands land on her thighs, a quiet steadiness that helps the state of her pulse and makes the possibility of the unknown a little less overwhelming. The lines crossing the center of the paper are absurdly straight. “You’re going to go.” “Oh, that sounded like a decree.” “A suggestion.” “A strong one.” “Mmhm, with the utmost confidence.” Emma makes an impressive sound. “Who’s doing your media training? What an impressive vocabulary you’ve got on you.” “Ready and willing to use it in a persuasive manner.” “Keep talking like that, and you won’t have to.” The smirk disappears. Evolves into a grin that is only Emma’s and only appears in moments like this, support clinging to air molecules and the ends of hair that constantly seems determined to fall into Killian’s eyes. “Passed, huh? All cool with the IOC.” “Decidedly cool. Officially an Olympic sport, now. Although the name could use some work. Sport climbing lacks a little oomph, don’t you think?”
“What would you call it?” “Emma Swan wins Olympic gold.” “Kinda wordy.” “Prophetic,” Killian corrects, hands shifting and pulling, and Emma has to widen her legs. His head’s at a very good kissing angle. “You’ve already got the qualifying numbers.” “You looked at the qualifying numbers?” “Don’t insult me like that. What do you think I did in the backseat?” “Planned the entire 2020 Olympics, apparently.” “Not the entire Olympics,” Killian counters, "just the part involving you. And maybe my individual expectations regarding the United States baseball team, but that’s another conversation altogether.”
“Naturally.”
“You’re using that voice.”
Widening her eyes does nothing. Emma didn’t expect it to. Not after years and games and events because rock climbing has events, and one time Mary Margaret made her a sign. Killian held it. He’s taller, that’s why.
“Don’t,” Killian repeats, “this is happening.” “Yuh-huh?” “You heard me. It’s your turn, now.” Melting is an impossibility. Like, for a human. Even so. Emma feels like she’s melting. Some of that pessimism evaporating under the warmth of Killian’s gaze and his hands and the determination in the precise angle of his chin. Same one he uses when he steps into the box with runners in scoring position.
Lumping herself into that group isn’t as insulting as Emma once believed it would be.
“God,” Emma groans, “that’s romantic.” “You’re really selling it, love.”
“This is supposed to be a hobby.” “One you’re exceedingly good it. World record good at it.” “I like you.” “That’s my end game, yeah.” She laughs. Smiles. Continues melting. Which is easier once they get rid of their clothing, and their bed is way more comfortable than any hotel they’ve encountered. And she falls asleep with Killian’s lips against her ear, Emma Swan, Olympic gold medalist whispered on loop like it’s a mantra he’s been practicing.
They postpone the Olympics.
It sucks. Everything sucks. Baseball sucks. Gyms are closed. Emma gets creative, and Killian gets research-prone. They build a makeshift wall. She tosses him BP.
People write stories about it.
It doesn’t help.
Until—
Time passes. Some things change. Others don’t. Their wall stands up to the elements of their building’s courtyard, and Killian’s hitting better than ever this season, a victory Emma’s going to claim as at least partially hers. And then the Olympics are back, and it’s qualifying and racing and a record that’s just out of reach, but she’s good enough even without it, and, this time, she’s the one packing a suitcase.
He kisses her.
Does the tongue thing.
Holds onto her like he’s only a little afraid she’s going to fall off the wall, but now the wall is international competition, and Emma’s freaking out a little.
“I love you,” she says into the crook of his neck.
His arms tighten. “I love you too.” “Gold medal?” “Gold medal.” “Hit some home runs while I’m gone, huh?” Lips graze her temple. Her forehead. The bridge of her nose. Emma might be crying, and Mary Margaret’s definitely recording, a small mob of red white, and blue surrounding them. “I’ll see what I can do,” Killian promises.
“Good.”
He hits three before her first qualifying round. So, Emma takes that as a challenge. She’s an athlete now.
It’s why, she figures, her fingers don’t slip on her first run.
Her feet are sure. Her breathing is steady. There’s no one cheering her name, but she’s long since memorized the exact way Killian’s voice lifts above a crowd. How he pushes up on his toes to watch, as if standing up taller makes sure he’s closer to her. Should she need him when she falls off the wall. Only, Emma doesn’t fall, and she’s got no intention of ever falling and—
Her laugh shudders out of her in a watery sort of way that makes the journalist still standing in front of her flinch ever so slightly. Twitter makes sure the video starts playing again as soon as it finishes, which is somehow the best and worst thing that has ever happened to her. Best because, well, Emma’s honestly not sure she’s ever seen her husband like this.
Worst because she’s very nearly goddamn crying. Again.
Bobbing on the balls of his feet in front of his locker, whoever’s recording the video — it’s Scarlet, obviously — is practically frenzied behind the camera, barely able to contain their laughter. Killian doesn’t notice. He’s holding his own phone, all five of his free fingers firmly entrenched in the back of his hair. It’s gotten softer with age, Emma thinks.
She can’t stop watching him.
Every inhale is a clear struggle, the bobbing turning into pacing and quiet mumbling she can hear perfectly. As if she’s standing right in front of him.
Or at least slightly to the side. So as not to stand on the logo in the middle of the clubhouse.
Athletes are notoriously superstitious, too.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Killian chants, another noticeable snicker from Scarlet, “right there, right there, and pull, pull—Swan, pull up!”
“I did pull up there,” Emma mumbles. To the reporter, maybe. Or the world. Possibly her husband. Who was definitely more nervous about the first run than her.
God, that’s romantic.
Killian’s still talking. Shouting, more like. It’s a miracle Scarlet hasn’t fallen over yet.
“Faster, faster, you can go faster than that, Swan—” Emma clicks her tongue. “That’s kind of insulting.”
There’s an appropriate titter of laughter from the peanut gallery, which is a joke she was not trying to make, but she’s also dangerously close to swooning in the middle of press and she should have asked the Yankees for media training. Someone would have made sure she didn’t make a total ass of herself.
“Show me the time,” Killian yells, another demand that isn’t that. It’s too wobbly a string of words to hold any real power, just the supportive sort of desperation Emma’s felt in a variety of ninth innings and series-clinching moments. “Faster! Faster!” “Talking to the time or the judges or your wife?” Scarlet asks.
Killian nearly snarls.
Emma blinks. Hyperactively. Crying is not usually her shtick. More camera flashes...flash, Emma barely noticing them with her eyes glued to a phone screen that isn’t hers because she at least knows not to bring her phone to a press conference, and she can only imagine how many text messages she’s gotten.
Even on the other side of the world.
They post the times.
She knows because Killian gets some rather impressive height on his celebratory vertical. Fingers abandoning his hair, his fist pumps the air, and Scarlet’s not laughing so much as he’s whooping, a steady stream of yeah, yeah, yeah in the background. And for about half a breath, Emma’s worried Killian may turn one of his ankles on his landing, but he’d think that was insulting, and she’s really just full-on swooning now.
“How many people have seen this?’ she asks the reporter, already knowing the answer.
The reporter smiles anyway. Emma should learn her name.
“Pretty much the whole world.” When Emma was a kid — the sort of kid who believed alone was better, and there was strength in singularity, that would have terrified her. Bowled her over, really. Left her running without looking back, desperate to shed any sort of notoriety because notoriety meant attention, and attention meant inevitable disappointment.
Maybe that’s why she was never much of a sports person.
Sports disappoint you. They build you up and let you down, a sharp and sudden fall without a safety net. But sometimes. Sometimes, every so often, something wonderful happens. Sports lift you. Right up an indoor wall. Because, she knows, sports’ power comes from belief, from surrendering yourself to something bigger and better, and she’s back on that alliterative kick, but the tears are barely clinging to her eyelashes now and Emma herself is bigger and better, now.
In an international, decidedly romantic sort of way.
The video’s playing away.
“Let’s go,” Killian cries, and there it is. Her sound and their sound, cheering across an ocean and time zones that are still kind of messing with her sleep schedule.
Emma’s smile stretches.
“Let’s go,” she repeats.
It ends, as with most things in Emma’s gold-medal-winning life, because Anna plans it.
Stepping out of the terminal, it takes less than a full breath for the cheers to start. For the banners to lift and the tears to flow, a small platoon of support covered in the sort of patriotic gear they definitely got from the Old Navy in Herald Square.
Flashes burst behind Emma’s eyelids because she’s got to blink or she’ll definitely fall over. Her legs wobble beneath her, contending against a wave of triumph and jubilation, which is sort of the same word, but they’ve got a game at the Stadium tonight, so she doesn’t expect, she just hopes and reaches, and he has to twist around both Anna and Mary Margaret.
It’s wonderfully cyclical.
As is the way Emma slams herself against him. On purpose, this time. Killian’s arms tighten, more cheers and shouts, and people a few feet away start chanting USA over and over. Emma barely hears them. Her feet aren’t touching the ground, so she’s kind of preoccupied.
They’re all arms and mouths, and her legs wrapped securely around a body that probably shouldn’t be supporting hers when she knows he slid into second two nights ago, but Killian clearly has no intention of letting her down, and the medal around her neck bumps against her rings.
“You’re a very good cheerleader; you know that?” He hisses. In what, Emma can’t imagine. Embarrassment, if the red tips of his ears are anything to go by, and she’s got ideas as to why that is and how long the conversation about social media with Scarlet went, so Emma does the only reasonable thing.
She slams her lips against her home-run hitting husband’s, doing her best to make sure the gold medal doesn’t mistakenly impale either one of them, and the world tilts again. With victory and sports-based support and the sort of love that comes from believing in something bigger.
And better than Emma could have ever imagined.
“I didn’t want to steal your thunder.”
“Please,” Emma scoffs, “don’t insult me like that. Plus, I’m claiming every one of those home runs as my own, so comparatively—” He kisses her before she can say anything else.
That’s for the best, probably.
“Your arms looked ridiculously good the whole time.”
Her laugh doesn’t even sound like her when Emma hears it played back — another video that someone tells her goes viral, only she doesn’t care about hits or site traffic, just about the particular shade of blue in Killian’s eyes, and she wears her medal to the game that night.
Because they’re a sports power couple, now.
Or so the New York Post back page claims the next day.
Emma frames it.
57 notes · View notes
ladyartemesia · 4 years
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Fic recs for taehyung? I love your stuff btw I’ve read them all uwu
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As a beacon of extra-ness in an already extra world, I am entirely incapable of just recommending fics like a normal blog. No. I’ve got to wax on like a bloomin connoisseur. I have compiled some (but not all) of my favorite works in several different categories and sorted them accordingly. This crazy list is so long I had to add a “keep reading”... but I simply couldn’t bear to leave any of these off the list. They are all so good!
Fics have been divided into 8 categories. Some are under the cut. 
 ▨ FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS and FRIENDS TO LOVERS ▨  ▨ ARRANGED MARRIAGE ▨ ▨ FANTASY ▨ ▨ ANGST WITH A HAPPY ENDING ▨ ▨ HYBRID and ABO (alpha/omega) ▨ ▨ MULTIPLE PARTNERS ▨ ▨ NEIGHBORS AND ROOMMATES ▨ ▨ TABOO THEMES and DARK FIC (Sex Work/Power Imbalance/Very Unsafe Sex) ▨ ▨
▨ FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS and FRIENDS TO LOVERS ▨
Insomnia by @hobiwonder
This is one of those fics I read and literally could not stop thinking about. It is wildly hot and honestly hilarious. Poor reader cannot sleep and the beautiful bro she’s tutoring offers a rather unconventional solution.
(Ego) Hoe Chronicles: KTH by @suga-kookiemonster
Listen. If you find a niche fan blog devoted entirely to Ego Tae... I’m not gonna say it’s mine. But it’s probably mine. I once told suga-kookiemonster that I would literally read a story about Ego Tae going grocery shopping on a Wednesday night and I stand by that. In this lurid romp, the reader falls into the clutches of everyone’s favorite bohemian sex lord and he rails her into another dimension.
Falling, Falling, Gone by @johobi
Pining (mutual or otherwise) is not really my thing, but I would straight up read Jo’s laundry list if she posted it. As usual I was blown away by how everything she does seems somehow better than any other version of it. This reader is really unique as well, and her relationship with the wildly popular soccer star Tae comes to a sexy and hilarious head at a sort of bachelor auction. With sharp dialogue, delightful subtext, and fantastic side characters, you really shouldn’t miss it. It’s pretty much perfect.
A Friendly Favor by @baeseoul
This is the classic “teach me some sex for another woman” trope and it is done so well. Sweet best friend Tae is looking to benefit from your experience, but his is not the only world about to be thouroughly rocked.
Officer Kim and the Criminal Crush by @ddaengyoonmin
This is one of the best twists on childhood friends to lovers I have ever seen. Tae grows up to become a cop and reader grows up to be a societal menace. I won’t spoil it, but it’s the perfect blend of nostalgia, tenderness, and smut. This fic technically doesn’t have a name so I had to give it one to link it. It’s part of an AMAZING series Zoe did that I also highly recommend.
Out of the Blue by @jimlingss
This is one of those stories that blooms throughout the narrative until you are left with this gorgeous flower at the end. I loved the journey of these two characters. It was real and it perfectly captures the experience of finding your soulmate in the person you least expect.
Sin Pijama by @brilliantlybasicb
This fic is a switch culture fic. It is wild wicked hot and this Tae is unreal. I love the way he lets the reader think she is in control just long enough. It is a wild romp with an adorable sequel and honestly you should read it.
Girls Like You by @jjiminah
I was in jjiminah’s asks IMMEDIATELY about this fic because I had FEELINGS. The reader begins wordlessly teasing and tempting Tae on their morning bus ride every day until he is literally losing his mind. Everything that follows is fire. Jjiminah has hinted she will wrote more for these two and I NEED IT.
Sighs and Sonnets by @btsaudge
This fic is beautiful. Like it’s basically art. This is a bad boy who is bad for you. But he has the soul of a poet and the stroke game of a renaissance master. Bittersweet and seductive, this fic is a full experience.
The Text by @taetaesbaebaepsae
Tae is your friend with benefits but it looks like feeling may have been caught by one or more parties. When you attempt to soothe your aching heart with another pretty boy, Tae decides to stake his claim. This was very sexy. The whole fic was sexy.
▨ ARRANGED MARRIAGE ▨
Monster by @neonlights92
Monster and all of its companion series about each of the boys is one of those fics that I reread constantly and also just think about constantly. This is one of the best mafia AUs out there and it’s characters are vivid and unforgettable. Tae’s stubborn resistance to his lovely new wife in contrast with her quiet, clever strength really brings this story to life. A word of warning. The masterlist links are a bit messed up. To read part two you must click on part three. And to read part three must click on part four. The link to part four is at the bottom of part three (or you can just search it on her site. It is definitely all there though).
Dichotomy by @kpopfanfictrash
There is a reason the incomparable Shanna is on this list three times. She is truly incomparable. This is childhood friends-to enemies-to spouses and it is wonderful. I adore this Tae. He is sharp and vulnerable and occasionally heavy handed, but truly a gem. This fic also features one of the best angry sex scenes I’ve ever run my eyeballs across.
▨ FANTASY ▨
Chism by @kpopfanfictrash
The world-building in this story is genuinely awe inspiring. You could write series upon series within this vivid universe. The god of Winter is missing and Summer’s heat burns unchecked for many years. The reader is a warrior with a unique ability tasked with guarding a very interesting prisoner. This story is so good. I mean it is really bloomin incredible. It’s hard to say what I liked best about it, because it was stellar across the board.
Obsidian by @kpopfanfictrash
In the pantheon of delicious Tae incarnations, Obsidian Taehyung is essentially unrivaled as a grey witch who moonlights as a sexy rock star. His extremely erotic clash with a white witch detective plays out as the two of them track down a sinister killer (with the help of some truly memorable side characters).
Out of this World by @ddaengyoonmin
This one is really unique. Tae is a merman scientist on the water planet of Neptune and when the reader and her misguided crew crash into his sea, he takes it upon himself to improve inter-species relations. This fic features excellent world building alongside several twists and surprises. Clever scientist Tae is downright irresistible.
▨ ANGST WITH A HAPPY ENDING ▨
Picking Flowers by @jamaisjoons
So this story is a journey - truly a beautiful one and it’s a gorgeous addition to the hanahaki genre. There is real pain and I cried real tears, but gosh it was so sexy and so worth it. I was surprised by how truly immersed I ended up in this piece. I lost track of everything else. The end is insanely satisfying, but the journey is really what makes this fic unmissable.
Until Yesterday by @jimlingss
This fic destroyed me slowly then slowly put me together again piece by piece. When I say I went through it - I WENT THROUGH IT. The story is loosely based on the movie “The Vow” and it is just fantastic. Beautiful and tender till the last word.
The Foolish Muse by @bibbykins
This is the story of someone who is deeply in love, but knows they deserve better. It is a sexy and evocative work with allusions to mythology that fit seamlessly into the narrative. I think my favorite part is Tae discovering how much the reader meant to him and what choices ultimately lead them to a really delicious conclusion.
Back to You by @ladyartemesia
The last time I did a fic rec list, it got like 700 notes. Ya girl is not makin the same mistake again. I spent hours on this list. My work is comin along for the ride. Kim Taehyung is the love of your life, until one day he disappears without a trace.
Vacancy by @ppersonna
This one is the only idol AU on the list and I normally don’t read those, but Lindy’s work is too good to miss in any setting. I am thrilled I took a look because what I found was a glimpse into a beautiful relationship that weathers and eventually overcomes the challenges of loving in the limelight. There is a LOT of emotional depth and symbolism which really elevates everything about this lovely story. The reader’s internal struggles in the face of her lover’s fame are extremely well done.
▨ HYBRID and ABO ▨ (alpha/omega)
Eye of the Tiger by @opaljm
I am beyond hype about this story which is (very) loosely inspired by Zootopia and features a cocky tiger Taehyung and a fiesty prey hybrid he needs to fake date in order to keep panther Jimin from murdering him. (Tiger Tae got a tad too frisky around Jimin’s mate and now things are dangerously awkward.) This story is already so freakin good. I cannot wait for the rest.
Silver and Blue by @taetaewonderland
What happens when you get on the wrong side of the right werewolf? Very sexy - very crazy times. Chronologically this is the first of the Silver and Blue series which follows barely civilized were-Tae through his courtship and eventually his relationship with the spunky reader. Holla to all my impreg kink homies. This is the fic for you.
Heat Run by @ladyartemesia
As I said before, the last time I did a fic rec list, it got like 700 notes. Ya girl is not makin the same mistake twice. I spent hours on this list. My work is comin along for the ride. Alpha lawyer V is a man of many secrets, but his well ordered reality spirals wildly out of control when he crosses paths with a fiery omega set on saving the world from his wicked ways.
Beautiful Stranger by @interludemoonchild
This was a wild ride from start to finish. Taehyung is a tiger hybrid shifter who escapes from the circus to be close to a veterinary student he bonded with. There is a lot of interesting twists and surprises in this one. I was definitely screaming at the end.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell by @jingabitch
A very young wolf hybrid Taehyung adopts you as his pet human when you are just a kid. After Tae leaves to serve in the military he returns to an adult version of his sweet little princess and chaos ensues. Mind the tags for this one folks. It’s excellent, but there are very triggering themes throughout.
▨ MULTIPLE PARTNERS ▨
Level of Restraint by @lemonjoonah
This is not strictly a Tae fic in that he is only one of three major players in this twisted masterpiece. Lemon is the undisputed queen of the surprise twist and this one is truly brilliant. People dropped this fic in the discord calling it the best fan fiction they had ever read and I am not here to argue with them at all. Fair warning, every word - every inch of this fic is sexy and it’s delicious brand of titillation is wrapped around your psyche good and tight by the end.
Four by @luxekook
The quadruplets next door are fueling your very lurid fantasies. It turns out they have some fantasies of their own... You will need water if you read this fic. This is the original patented Kim Taehyung Horny Hive Mind 4D Experience™
▨ NEIGHBORS AND ROOMMATES ▨
The Heat Wave Series by @curly-bangtan
The original story (chapter 1) in this series is definitely famous, but I don’t know how many people have read all 9 chapters and if you haven’t, you are really missing the incredible journey of two very horny idiots stumbling recklessly towards real and amazing love. Everything is set off when the air conditioner breaks and a pair of wild roommates shed their inhibitions along with their clothes.
Flicker by @chimoona
So this fic started out with adorable neighbor dynamics and ended with erotic rope tying. Baby I was ABOUT IT. This was so bloomin hot and also like sweet and tender. Really a sexy and sentimental treasure.
Not Your Typical Flower Shop Story by @jungtaeyoongles
This story goes from “aww” to “WHAT THE-” real quick. Fast paced plot and twist after twist turn the whole flower shop au upside down and then inside out. I can’t say more because spoilers but like - WOW.
▨ TABOO THEMES and DARK FIC ▨ (Sex Work/Power Imbalance/Very Unsafe Sex)
Extracurricular by @ppersonna
One of my favorite professor-student AUs. The reader writes her gorgeous professor a borderline erotic analysis of several major works of art and he feels compelled to discuss it with her privately. Lindy really outdid herself on this one. It is scorchin. Professor Tae is actually really sweet and somehow that just makes the whole thing hotter.
Akrasia by @nitaescence
This is insanely hot. Emphasis on the insane because it’s basically a super erotic romp where you have sex with a man you don’t know (Taehyung) on a crowded public bus. I literally felt my blood pressure going up the longer I read. Whew.
The Client by @jungkookiebus
This one hit me right in the feels. Taehyung is a sweet and lonely man who has a standing Wednesday appointment with an upscale sex worker. As the story progresses, feelings become involved on both sides. When I say I am checking her page thrice daily for part three... This is so engrossing. And this Tae. I just want to hold him.
Daffodil Dreams by @sombreboy
Tread carefully ladies and gents. This story is excellent, but it is easily the darkest fic on the list and, if you choose to read it, please read the trigger warnings carefully. The reader is a psychologist called in to analyze a very dangerous criminal. As their sessions progress, however, several boundaries are crossed.
Obey by @jjkfire
Taehyung is the most feared and ruthless member of the local mafia and you are the world’s most inept escort. You needed a job, but had no real interest in sex work and you’ve managed to fly under the radar as a glorified waitress until Kim Taehyung himself walks into your agency and decides that you’re the only girl he wants. Oh my gosh I loved this story so much. It was downright amazing and there is a surprise at the end that makes everything even sweeter.
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