#is (1) her trying to break break the tension after she's just told him something she maybe never planned on telling anyone
Off-Limits: Ch. 1
Bucky Barnes x Reader: Mafia AU
Summary: Bucky Barnes wants the one thing he can't have, and he'll go to great lengths to get what he wants. The tension between the two of you makes it impossible for him to think rationally.
Warnings: profanity, possessive!Bucky, mentions of firearms, MINORS DNI, 18+!!!
Word Count: 2.2k
A/N: I've been thinking about writing something like this for a few weeks but I'm typically not an AU kinda girl so stick with me. Bucky is intentionally out of character in this but hopefully a few of you will like him this way. Also, THANK YOU ILY for the little bullets and foliage art for my timeskips @littlemiss-yeehaw. She is an angel, an inspiration, I love her.
Off-limits. Nothing has ever pissed James Bucky Barnes off more than the phrase off-limits. The fact that it’s you who’s been labeled off-limits only adds to the fiery rage that’s steadily growing inside of him.
Bucky leans back in his desk chair, running his flesh hand through his hair while he goes over his options in his mind. He could just take you. He could give a few orders and have you in front of him by nightfall, though he isn’t quite sure how he feels about starting a war simply because he’s thinking with his cock rather than his head. He could have a sit-down meeting with the man he detests most in this world, the man who currently has total control over your future. He could make an offer, bargain for the right to have you to himself. No, that sounds too polite.
The sound of a fist rapping against the heavy wooden door of his office breaks Bucky out of his thoughts.
“You told me to come back at eight, so here I am. What did you decide?” Sam asks, shutting the door behind him after entering. He’s itching to do something, anything. His life has been hell ever since Bucky first laid eyes on you. It’s as if the entire fucking operation dropped to the bottom of the totem pole while you rose to the top. It would be great if he could bash a few heads in, fire a few rounds, and deliver you to his boss tonight so he could fuck away whatever this newfound obsession is and get back to being the cunning, ruthless mob boss he’s meant to be.
“We’re paying my least favorite lowlife a visit.”
Just like that, James Bucky Barnes and his entourage of over-eager gunmen are on their way to your house, to see your father.
As you tiptoe down the mahogany stairs of your childhood home, your bare feet just barely gracing each step, you forget for a moment that you’re not a little girl anymore. You can hear the distant sound of low voices and tense discussion coming from your father’s home office near the bottom of the staircase. When you were younger, those sounds would’ve had the hair on the back of your neck standing up and you would’ve been hightailing it right back to your bedroom. You’re not so timid anymore. The man already holds your entire life in the palm of his hand, molding and shaping it however he sees fit. What’s the point in trying to abide by his rules when it’ll never get you anything other than exactly what he wants for you? So, you continue your daring trip to the kitchen, with the hem of your oversized t-shirt skimming along the skin beneath the curve of your ass and your heart set on a late-night snack.
Bucky sits across from your father’s desk, his jaw aching due to the number of times he’s caught himself clenching his teeth together during the past hour of deliberations. As he lifts his hand to massage the sore muscle along the side of his face, he hears the sound of a wooden floorboard creaking somewhere outside of the room that he currently sits in. He shifts his gaze around the room, noting the way his own men, your father, and your father’s men all seem oblivious to the miniscule noise that came from somewhere in the house.
“It doesn’t matter how long we sit here and go through this. My daughter is not getting married, she isn’t on the table.” Your father’s tone, though resolved and sure, doesn’t match the look in his eye. It’s a look that lets Bucky know you’re not actually off the table, he just hasn’t made the right offer yet. The words echo in his head for a moment: on the table.
Fuck. If he sits here for another second, picturing you physically on top of a damn table, he might make an unreasonable offer just to turn that fantasy into a reality. It’s what prompts Bucky to rise to his feet suddenly, reaching into the pocket of his black suit pants to retrieve his phone and act as if he’s going to make a call, maybe a call to check on things within his business to see what else he can offer the piece of shit who sits in front of him. In reality, he’s making up an excuse to get the hell out of that stuffy office and clear his mind just enough to close the deal.
“Let me make a call.” Bucky says evenly, shooting your father a steely look. Your father leans back in his desk chair, relaxing for the first time since his rival showed up on your doorstep an hour ago. When Sam and Torres make moves to follow Bucky out of the office, Bucky holds up a hand, signaling for them to stop. “Stay, I won’t be long.”
Leaving his suit jacket draped over the back of the armchair he had been sitting in, Bucky steps out of the office and guides the door to shut as quietly as possible. It’s fucked up, what he’s doing here. He knows that good and well. Offering large sums of money, offering obscene amounts of quality product, offering a damn near eternal truce in the streets…all to have a woman he barely knows. As his eyes adjust to the darkness of his enemy’s home, he casts a glance up the staircase by the office door, wondering if you’re awake up there. Are you sitting in your posh bedroom without a single worry plaguing your pretty little mind? Are you sleeping soundly as he barters with your father for the right to have you all to himself? Or are you thinking about him too, about the handful of times you’ve run into each other over the past two months?
Shaking his head to clear his mind of all thoughts of you, Bucky takes a few steps to his left and turns the corner at the bottom of the stairs, entering the kitchen soundlessly. That’s where he finds you, hidden behind the open refrigerator door as you rummage around for a snack. He sees your bare legs first, peeking out beneath the half-door. He clenches his teeth and tightens his grip on the phone in his right hand simultaneously. It fucking hurts just to look at you.
“Your father lets you walk around like that with guests in the house?” He seethes. Startled, you shove the refrigerator door shut just before dropping the container of blueberries in your hand. As the plastic container goes crashing to the kitchen floor, blueberries scatter around your feet. James. When your eyes land on him, you can see the look of disdain all over his face. He despises you, you’re sure of it. Never one to take shit from a man, you narrow your eyes at him before crouching down and positioning yourself on your knees. Bucky watches intently as you pick up the blueberries one by one, placing them back into the plastic container.
“I don’t think my father considers you a guest.” You whisper the insult just loud enough for him to hear it, but not loud enough for your voice to carry over to your father’s office. Bucky’s squeezing his phone so tightly in his hand that he’s already thinking about having to send someone out to pick up a new one for him tomorrow, because surely, he’s shattering the screen of it. It isn’t your cute little attempt at a comeback that’s irking him. It’s the fact that you’re still on your knees, with your t-shirt riding up your thighs and your eyes lifting to meet his gaze as if you have no idea what effect you’re having on him. He’s sure you aren’t that naïve, which means you’re doing this shit on purpose.
“Get up.” He says through his teeth. You narrow your eyes at him before cocking your head to the side and picking up another fallen berry. It’s a test. He wants to see if you’ll listen to him. The way Bucky sees it, if you listen to his command and stand up, he’ll feel a bit better about going to all of this trouble to have you. It would tell him that although you’re defiant and like to talk back, you still know how to do what you’re told. But if you don’t listen? He can think of a few enjoyable ways to break you of that bad habit.
“What would my father do if he knew you were in here telling me what to do?” The question leaves your lips with the intention of being threatening, but Bucky’s hard stare and cold expression melds into a look of mild amusement. You pick up one of the last few remaining blueberries and drop it into the plastic container, keeping your gaze steady on the cold-blooded man a few feet in front of you. You watch with masked curiosity as he tucks his phone into the pocket of his suit pants and begins rolling up the sleeves of his white button-up shirt. He notices the way your eyes fixate on his black and gold arm, the way you almost seem fascinated by it. When he uses his metal hand to roll up the sleeve on his right arm, your focus shifts to the tattoos covering the majority of his flesh forearm. It isn’t your eyes that tell Bucky you like what you see. It’s the way you subtly clench your thighs together as you drop another berry into the container. You don’t shy away, you don’t move even an inch as he begins walking toward you. Even when he comes to a stop in front of you, close enough that the toes of his dress shoes are nearly touching your knees, you stay where you are. You look up at him through your lashes without tilting your head upward, refusing to move any more than just your eyes for a man that you know would take a mile if you gave him an inch.
“What would your father do if he knew you were on your knees in front of me?” He lifts his flesh hand toward your face, expecting you to flinch away or refuse his touch, but you don’t even blink as he lets his fingertips trace the curve of your jaw. He drags his fingers downward, until he’s in the right spot to curl them beneath your chin and force you to tilt your head up for him. Again, you don’t resist him. “Get out of here before someone else sees you like this.”
It isn’t at all what Bucky wanted to say to you, not even close. But it was what needed to be said. If anyone else had walked out of your father’s office and stolen the privilege of seeing you looking so pretty on your knees like that, he would’ve shot them dead right there in the kitchen. Whether it was one of your father’s men or his own, he wouldn’t have given a shit. So, Bucky lets his hand fall away from your chin, but he doesn’t step away. You reach down for the container of blueberries and grasp it in your right hand as you move to stand, keeping your eyes locked on Bucky’s the entire time. You want to shove him, to tell him he has no right to tell you what to do, especially not in your father’s home. At the same time, you wouldn’t be opposed to tracing the tattoos on his flesh forearm with your lips. What is it about this man that makes your rational mind war with the rest of your body?
When you step around Bucky a second later, setting the container of blueberries on the island in the center of the kitchen before heading toward the stairs, he has to fight the urge to reach out and grab you. Not now, not yet. You’re not his yet. When you round the corner of the kitchen and begin tiptoeing up to your room, Bucky makes his way to the bottom of the stairs and watches you silently as you take each step. You don’t look back as you make it to the landing and turn right, disappearing behind a wall. When he hears the faint sound of your bedroom door closing, he reaches into the back pocket of his suit pants and retrieves a small silver cylinder. It sits heavy in his hand as he pulls his gun from the back waistband of his pants. As Bucky screws the silencer onto the barrel of his gun, a distant voice in the back of his mind is screaming at him to be rational about this. Don’t do it. Don’t go to such insane lengths for a woman you don’t even know. Don’t spill blood on these nice mahogany floors.
When he enters the office a few seconds later, he fires two shots. The first into the shoulder of your father’s righthand man, and the second into the thigh of the other hired gun. His face is emotionless as he steps over their bloody, writhing bodies and presses the cool metal of the silencer against your father’s temple. Bucky only has to speak one sentence to let the man know that he isn’t to be fucked with.
“We make a deal tonight, or I make your daughter an orphan.”
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Come back to me Pt.1
Pairings: 616 Wanda x Vision, 616 Wanda x female reader, 838 Wanda x female reader
Warnings: None really for this part.
Masterlist - Send me requests!!!
This fic came from this request!!! enjoy :) I also have no idea how many chapters i’m gonna write so just sit back and enjoy :)
~
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to be with you not him. Watching her hands all over him was like a knife to the gut. You kept wondering how you got here, how he was better for her than you. The world felt so much darker as you watch them cuddle up together on the couch.
*Flashback to a few days ago*
You were laying in your bed when you heard a soft knock on the door. You called out for whoever it was to come in and when the door opened it revealed a distressed looking Wanda. She shut the door behind her before she sat on the edge of your bed.
“I uh need to tell you something” Her voice was soft but hoarse as she spoke which made you nervous.
“You can tell me anything Wands” Wanda smiled at your words but she still didn’t know how to tell you what she needed to.
“Well uh. Vision asked me to be his girlfriend” Your eyes went wide at her words. “And i said yes” That was the moment you felt your heart break and a lump form in your throat.
“That’s great Wands! I’m so happy for you!” You lie as you put on your best happy face. Wanda felt like you were upset but she wasn’t going to push you to talk.
Your mind was going a million miles an hour and your heart was racing. The two of you talked for another few minutes before she left your room and you broke down.
That night you skipped out on dinner which Wanda made and opted for a mental breakdown instead.
*End flashback*
And that brings us to a few days ago. Team movie night. Aka the night you dread the most because you had to watch Wanda and Vison be all lovey dovey. You thought that after a few days the feeling of hurt and rejection would go away but it didn’t. If anything your heart broke more anytime you saw her or them together.
So in the days after Wanda and Vision were official you took a major step back and distanced yourself from Wanda. It took her by surprise when you told her you weren’t in the mood for your weekly movie night on tuesday. She didn’t understand why you were being so distant so she decided to corner you in the training room for answers.
Wanda walked into the training room determined to get answers.
“Y/n” Her voice made you take a step back from the punching bag and make eye contact with her.
“Yea Wands?” Your voice was gravelly and hoarse causing a shiver to go down her spine.
“Why are you avoiding me” Your brows furrowed at her bluntness and you stood there confused.
“I-I’m not” You said trying to defend yourself. She scoffed a little a crossed her arms over her chest.
“Really? Because you’ve turned me down for our movie night, you started training with Nat instead of me, you don’t sit next to me at dinner anymore and we haven’t gone to lunch in days” Wanda said pouting a little and you felt your heart strings tug a little.
“I’ve just been busy” Was all the explanation you gave her and she huffed in annoyance.
“Y/n please!” She begged feeling her eyes well up with tears. “I miss you” Her words made you sigh as you grabbed your water bottle.
“Wanda please..It’s nothing to do with you i’ve just had a lot going on that’s all” You said softly looking into her soft green eyes.
“Okay…I’m sorry” Was all she said before she abruptly left you in the training room. You turned around to say something but the doors shut before you could.
You stood there as your thoughts ran wild and you felt a lump in your throat. It was all too much for you to handle so you just gathered your things and went back to your room hoping to sleep it off.
When you got to your room you were quick to turn the shower on and step into the warm water. The water cascaded down your skin melting away some of the tension in your muscles. You tried to shake the thoughts of Wanda out of your head as you washed your body then hair. You took your time with each step not wanting to leave the warmth and safety of the shower.
Once you were fully satisfied with your shower you stepped out and wrapped yourself in your fluffy robe. You changed into your favorite sweats and hoodie before slipping into bed just wanting to sleep away your problems. So that’s what’s you did you turned on The Vampire Diaries before you drifted off into unconsciousness state.
*Your dream*
The sun shined on your face causing you to groan a little before you slowly opened your eyes. You looked around and noticed that you weren’t in your room. You slowly uncovered yourself and walked around the room. There were small trinkets scattered around along with pretty paintings on the walls. But your heart stopped when you saw the picture on the nightstand. It was of you and Wanda with two baby boys smiling at the park.
Your heart started to beat faster and your hands started to sweat as you stared at the picture. After a minute of staring at it you put it back down and grabbed the robe on the door before walking to what you assume was the kitchen.
The sounds of giggling filled your ears as you approached the kitchen. And you couldn’t believe what you saw when you walked in. There Wanda was sitting at the kitchen table with two boys who looked around five and they were eating breakfast.
“Morning malysh” She greeted as she stood up from the table to grab the plate she made you. You walked up to her with a small smile on your face not really understanding what was going on but loving it nonetheless. Wanda handed you the plate with a small kiss on your cheek and you sat down next to one of the boys.
“Morning mommy” The little boy in a blue shirt said giving you a side hug when you sat down. Your eyes widened a little and you looked at Wanda who had a little smirk on her face.
“Uh morning honey” You said giving the boy a kiss on the head before you started eating along with them.
“How’d you sleep?” Wanda asked sitting back down at the table. She gave you a look as you asked making you wonder if she knew you were confused.
“I slept okay” You said tilting your head in confusion at the look she gave you. Wanda just nodded at your words and continued to eat her breakfast.
The four of you ate breakfast and you learned the boys names Billy and Tommy. You were still confused as to what was going on after you cleaned up from eating. Wanda had sent the boys to their room after you finished eating so she could talk to you for a moment.
“Malysh?” You felt a pair of hands wrap around your waist when you heard her voice. You turned around in her arms to face her making her smile a little.
“Yea?” You said in a soft voice making Wanda damn near melt.
“Are you okay?” She asked knowingly.
“Not really…I’m confused. One minute i fell asleep in my room at the compound and then the next i’m here with you and…and our kids?” As the words left your mouth you grew even more confused as to how this happened.
“Well if it makes it easier to understand this is a dream” Your eyes widened at her words.
“What?!” You said completely bewildered not comprehending what the fuck was going on.
“Well it’s a dream of our future” She said as she took you to the couch. The both of you sat on the couch and you waited for her to continue.
“I’m not the Wanda from your universe to start. In my universe i made the same mistake as the Wanda from your universe. I chose Vision in my universe just like yours did and i regretted it immediately but i felt stuck. And it wasn’t until…You uh died in my universe that i knew i made the biggest mistake of my life. I’ve spent the last two years trying to find a universe with you in it. Most universes have a you but you’re normally already with Wanda except in this universe…” You felt like you got whiplash from her words as you sat there and listened.
You sat there for a few minutes before you found the courage to speak. “So you’re not my Wanda and you’re from another universe? And i died in your universe? how? when? I-I and are the boys real? or are they just in the dream?” Wanda took your hand to stop you from having a panic attack.
“Breathe malysh breathe” She said calmly. “You died on a mission two years ago when we were taking down a hydra base and we got ambushed. We did everything we could to save you but it didn’t work. And yes in most universes the boys exist. We used a sperm donor to have them. You carried billy and i carried tommy.” Her words calmed you down a little.
Your thoughts were running rampant as you looked at the woman you loved. “I- Wow” Was all you were able to say making the witch laugh a little.
“I know this is a shot in the dark but w-would you come back to my universe with me? I-I can’t keep living without you” Wanda begged holding your hand a little tighter.
“But won’t that ruin the multiverse?” You asked a little nervous. It’s not that you didn’t wanna go it’s that you were scared and also thought that you were going crazy.
“No it won’t. I can make it to where you don’t exist in this universe. I can make it to where no one even knows your gone.” She said quickly to make sure that you didnt say no.
“Okay” You nodded your head. Wanda smiled and brought you in for a passionate kiss. And that’s when everything went blank.
*End of your dream*
You woke up and rubbed your eyes and looked around the room to make sure you were in your own room. It took you a few minutes to realize where you were and that you were okay. You shook off the dream assuming that it was just your brain playing games with you.
The clock read 12:02 when you saw a portal open in your room. You rubbed your eyes again as the portal opened and Wanda walked through.
“Wanda? What are you doing?” You asked still half asleep.
“I’m bringing you home Malysh”
~The end of part 1~
A/n Sorry not sorry for the cliff hanger 💋 I love yall and i’ll see you in the next part :)
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Flyboy (Part 6) | Jake Seresin x Reader
Top Gun: Maverick - Jake Seresin x Reader
Genre: romance; fluff; angst; best friends to lovers
Warnings: tw: food / eating (one mention of the phrase “you are eating too little”); general hangman being hangman; sexual tension; general cursing; will contain mentions of a break up / previous relationship; general use of pet names; fem!reader; pining; general naval / flying inaccuracies; geographical inaccuracies.
Length: Mini-series, chaptered - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Epilogue
Summary: Jake gets called back to TOPGUN the same time you’ve been granted a sabbatical from work. He invites you, his purely platonic best friend of years, to live with him for 6 months and you accept. Just two best friends kicking it back for 6 months in San Diego, Fightertown USA, right?
A/N: Well, Part 6 is here……. I don’t know what to say; but I teared writing this at some point, and I am insanely nervous (Idk why) about posting this, so please let me know your thoughts? We still have the Epilogue, so this baby is not done. I have blurbs / one shots / Flyboy asks that will follow - I’m not sure if the taglist wants to be tagged in the blurbs / one shots that are original (i.e. not asks), please let me know?
As usual, THANK YOU ALL <3 for loving Flyboy, I LIVE for your comments, tags, reblogs, and it has been an utmost pleasure reading them. KISSING EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU.
Flyboy | Mini-Series Masterlist
(If you haven’t already seen them - blurbs and asks (one-shots coming soon) are also listed on the Flyboy masterlist!)
Flyboy - Part 6
PART 5 <<
Approximately 6.4k words
“Sooo,” the sound of Phoenix’s voice catches you off guard, and you jump as you straighten up from the bend you had been in, in your attempt to reach towards the back of Penny’s fridge to grab four bottles of beer, spinning around to face her.
“I didn’t even hear you come in.” You say, and she smiles, almost too sweetly as she helps you shut the fridge grabbing two of the beer bottles you had wedged between the fingers of one hand from you.
“You and Hangman,” she says pointedly, staring intently at you.
“What about it?” You question, trying to be as casual as possible, while you pull open one of Penny’s drawers, searching for a bottle opener.
“Is something going on,” she leans against the counter of the kitchen, forcing you to look directly at her. Truth to be told, you and Jake had hid it pretty well. Perhaps not to Penny, Mav, or any other third party who saw you both together, but to the clueless bunch of Naval Aviators who, despite being the few to spend the most time with you both, had not made much of it.
The physical tells were something they hadn’t made much of to begin with, a sure result of having seen Jake flirt his way through too many women and situations over the years. However, the near fight at The Hard Deck where they had seen him at his most protective ever, pure, white hot rage radiating off him - only for you to dispel it so easily, coupled with the subtle, but sure shifts in Jake’s demeanour, had started to arouse suspicion.
“I’ve never seen him like this before,” she continues.
In all the years since she had known Jake, Phoenix had never seen him this way - more at ease, more open, happier. It wasn’t to say that his personality with the rest of them had changed drastically, Jake Seresin, was still very much Hangman, boisterous, confident, cocky (particularly in the air), always ready for a challenge, to show and tell that he was better than you, and to say whatever the hell he wanted, but he was also different, somehow happier, with the undercurrent of an unobvious calm and peace to him that they could just feel. It was unnerving to say the least, because it wasn’t something they had seen before, were used to, or had ever known Jake to be.
Bob had noticed it first, the Monday after the week Jake had cancelled fried chicken Friday, after days of sharp but silent observation. It had resulted in Bob telling Phoenix, who then told Rooster, who had went on to relay the message collectively to Coyote, Payback and Fanboy. A group decision was made one afternoon by way of a show of open hands or fists, resulting in Phoenix being the chosen messenger to broad the subject with you.
The difference in Jake had managed to be both outwardly noticeable, and yet not, all at the same time. On the surface, Jake was still Jake, swagger in his step when he walked around TOPGUIN, extolling his own virtues, taking little joking digs at all of them when he could, particularly when they were in the air - “C’mon Rooster, thought the chicken finally learnt to fly.” / “Trace, what does the baby on board in your backseat see?” / “Try to keep up Trace.” / “Aaand, the Relic is off the ground, that ladies and gentleman is called a Pete Mitchell” / “Payback? You mean the thing you can’t dish?” - but come dinner, when they had trooped back home and to you, Jake was somehow different.
The comments were still there - “Sorry boys and girls, I know it must be tough trying to match up to me.” / “Like how Trace and her baby on board fumbled today.” / “Thought Bradshaw was trying to hatch some eggs with the amount of time he was nesting.” / “Garcia and Fitch are always just taking it.” - but at the same time, Jake’s smile was wider, genuinely hitting his eyes and making his greens sparkle; his laugh louder, natural with nothing held back; his body language more open, any tension that he held during the day seemingly having melted away.
More importantly, as they had all come to notice, Jake never left you behind - whether it was purposefully falling behind everyone to bring up the rear just so he could fall in step with you; watching you out of the peripherals of his eyes the moment you left his side at The Hard Deck, right up to the moment you returned just to make sure that you weren’t waylaid by unwanted attention; or even the simplest act of making sure your order never got lost among the barrage of orders of the group; or that you were never cut out, lost or disengaged in the conversation when it dragged on to more Navy-orientated topics which you weren’t as familiar with.
Sure, Pheonix and Bob had caught sight of you and Jake running around the compound one Saturday afternoon, with him sprinting ahead in the last stretch in absolute glee, you yelling at him while trying to catch up, leaving you, quite literally, behind and in his dust - but even then, they had seen with his own eyes, Jake Seresin standing at the finish point, eyes fixed solely on you, waiting for you to meet him, as you yelled and protested your way to the end.
You pull the bottle opener out from the drawer, popping open the caps of the bottles in her hands, and then in yours, before dropping it back, and pushing the drawer shut with a hip. You beckon to Phoenix to exit back out into Penny’s backyard with you to rejoin the group and she follows, her question still hanging in between you both.
You step back out into Penny’s backyard, the cool evening air hitting your skin, your eyes meeting briefly with Jake’s as he looks up in the middle of his conversation with Rooster.
“You’ve only seen Hangman before,” you finally say, you both still out of earshot from the group, before you take a few steps towards the table, “now you get to see Jake.”
She opens her mouth to push her question again, determined to draw out a clear answer or confession from you, only for Jake’s voice to cut in above the chatter, making Rooster turn his neck to glance at the both of you as you return.
“Trace, you got that dog with a bone look on your face,” he starts, “do I have to take you out for harassing my girl?” Jake’s voice is loud enough that it carries across the table, pausing the chatter among the group for a second.
You feel your face heat as you hand a beer bottle off to Bob who receives it with a “thanks”, as he exchanges a look with Fanboy who is seated across the rectangle shaped table, before you settle back into the chair flanked by Jake, and Coyote who is waggling an eyebrow at Payback.
You see a smug, triumphant grin on Phoenix’s face, her question finally answered, as she hands one of the bottles to Rooster before sliding back into her seat beside him.
“Finally,” Penny breaks the moment of silence, throwing up her hands at the confirmation of what she knew, but had been waiting for, for the longest time, Amelia grinning wildly beside her.
“Hear, hear.” Mav raises his beer, to which Bob also does, and the group follows, cheers erupting from Penny’s backyard.
The attention makes you groan, and you hide your face in your hands, turning your body into Jake’s. You had talked about it after the other night at The Hard Deck, and had decided that it was time for the rest to know, directly from you both. You can hear the rumble of his own laughter in his chest, Jake clearly unfazed and not the slightest bit embarrassed at the attention, as he snakes an arm around your shoulders, securing you against him. It only makes the cheers louder, with Coyote sending a loud wolf whistle your way.
-
“Uncle Jake!” The roar of a little voice greets you both as you step through the doors and into the lobby of the hotel. You see a small blonde head sprinting at top speed towards you both, barrelling itself into Jake’s arms which had opened just in time to catch him.
“All this excitement just for me?” Jake exclaims back as he swings his nephew, Kyle, around in the air, before squeezing him tightly against his chest, only for the little boy to squirm in delight.
You see Emma, Jake’s older sister approach, her husband, Liam, and toddler Layla, approach.
“Full attire, really, Jake?” She scoffs taking in Jake’s uniform, but clearly teasing, as she takes reaches out to hug you hello, before coming to a stand in front of her brother.
“Not all of us are on vacation,” Jake shoots back as he sets Kyle down on his feet, before the siblings embrace each other, “some of us still have to work.”
“You only wear it for the looks you get,” Emma retorts with a snort, but being well aware that he had just come from work, as Jake and Liam thump each other on the back in a hug, before Liam reaches out to hug you hello as well.
“Well you gotta agree, I look good.” Jake smirks, not missing a beat, while bending to pick Layla off the ground, hoisting her in an arm and tickling her belly, the toddler shrieking with glee. “Can’t deprive the world of all this now, can we?” He coos the question at Layla who only giggles, patting her uncle’s cheek with her hand.
“I don’t know how you put up with him,” she looks at you as you ruffle Kyle’s hair in a hello, the boy beaming up at you, before slipping his hand into yours, tugging you around in a circle in his excitement.
“None of us do,” the familiar voice of grandma Doris interjects as she and Grace Seresin née Walton, walk into view.
“She’s too sweet to be putting up with your brother,” Grace chimes in, with a glance to her son, who just shrugs, a lazy, self-assured smirk plastered to his face.
Emma tugs Kyle out of your hands, for grandma Doris and Grace to greet you with hugs of their own, before they move onto Jake, who embraces them each with an arm, Layla still nestled happily in his other, her head resting between the crook of his neck, thumb now in her mouth.
“Thank you,” Emma grabs your hands in an exaggerated fashion, clutching them dramatically as she throws a look to Jake, “for putting up with my brother’s clown ass.”
The words coming out from Emma, a grown woman, with perfectly coiffed hair, and designer clothes and shoes that cut a stylish figure, makes you burst out in laughter.
“Just doing my bit of charity for the world.” You manage to say, before grandma Doris links an arm with yours, pulling you towards the door of the lobby, a signal for the rest to follow.
“I’ll cut him out of my will and put you in,” she tells you in a loud stage whisper. You don’t turn back, but if you did, you would have seen Jake grinning broadly, a fond look in his eyes, his niece still cuddled up against him, as he takes in the sight of you and his grandmother walking arm in arm.
-
“You know,” you turn to face Emma at the sound of her voice, clearly directed at you, “he cares about you.”
You both are seated at the end of a table, in the corner of the hotel lobby’, watching as the other members of your party are crowded around the massive cake display case to a side, Layla in her Grace’s arms, and Kyle in Jake’s, Liam and grandma Doris flanking them, as the children attempt to decide which sweet treat to pick.
“I know,” you say, small smile on your lips, as you focus on Jake, before looking back at her.
You and Jake had been mindful of yourselves around the Seresins, not because it would have been an issue, but because you had insisted on not wanting to overshadow their time together with Jake. He had tried to convince you that there wouldn’t have been any overshadowing involved, but you had, with a little help of your hands and mouth, had managed to capture his undivided attention, and be extremely persuasive, to which Jake relented. You weren’t sure if Emma knew, or suspected at the very least. You had always known her to be astute.
“He would probably kill me if I told you this,” she begins, as she leans back in her seat, folding her hands in her lap, “but slightly over three years ago, when you had told him about Dan, that guy you were seeing, he was noticeably…” she pauses, searching for the right words to use, “worked up.”
“I didn’t know,” you start, as you find your gaze wandering back to Jake who is now squatting beside Kyle, both blondes peering into the bottom layer of the display case. “He never said.”
“We were both home during that period,” she recalls, “and staying with grandma, and I found him in the gym abusing a punching bag. His knuckles were raw, eyes like a man crazed.”
She pauses, as you look back to her before continuing.
“I had Kyle with me, he was still just a toddler at that point, and it took him crying for Jake to stop. He told me, quite angrily I might add, that Dan wasn’t good enough for you”, she says as she unfolds her hands from her lap to reach out to squeeze your forearm, “and you deserved so much more.”
She meets your gaze, squeezing your forearm gently again, before adding after a moment of consideration, “I think he meant himself.”
Her words make your jaw slacken, your lips part slightly, as you remember Jake’s words in the car from the other day when he had only said “less so” since you had started seeing Dan.
“My brother can be a dick to a lot of people,” she starts again, a rueful shake of her head, “but not to you, never to you. He’ll never hurt you.” Emma says as she offers you a final smile, as you hear the voices of the group returning to the table.
“We got chocolate and a red velvet,” Jake says, as he slides back into the chair beside you, Kyle clamouring from his lap into yours. He finds you looking at him curiously, a strange expression on his face and he tilts his head to a side, asking silently if you are ok, before darting his gaze to Emma who immediately turns her attention to Liam.
You nod, with a slight tilt of your ahead, signalling that you are fine before you turn your attention back to Kyle who is describing to you, in vivid detail the chocolate cake that he chose.
-
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with?” Jake asks you for the tenth time since you had both left the house, “you’re already in the car.”
“I don’t,” you shake your head as you watch him glance out the side mirror, checking for cars, before he makes the turn. “You should spend some time alone with them before they go back.”
It had been a Seresin filled week, with you spending almost all of your time with grandma Doris, Grace, Emma, Liam, Kyle and Layla during the days, with Jake joining the group only in the evening once he had managed to get out of work. He had however, managed to spend an entire full day with the group yesterday, a Saturday, which largely comprise of him and Liam, chasing Kyle and Layla around the beach, while you, Emma, Doris and Grace watched on, chatting idly.
Emma and her family had left earlier in the morning, but his mother and grandmother who had booked themselves into a later flight, scheduled only for the late afternoon, had asked Jake to meet them for breakfast.
Jake opens his mouth to say something as he glances at you, and you shake your head again, pre-empting his response, your tone firm.
“No Jake, they deserve your undivided attention.” You knew you were always welcome with the Seresins, but you had wanted to give grandmother Doris, Grace and Jake the time they deserved together. You hadn’t made mention of it to Jake, but had gathered from their previous trip to see you in New York (sans Jake), that they missed Jake more than they cared to let on. It wasn’t easy having a grandson and son far from you; what more one that was a Naval Aviator who could be deployed for 6 months, to an undisclosed location at the drop of a hat. You had missed Jake yourself, worried about him during his stints of deployment over the years, even if were both already separated by state, so it was easy for you to empathise.
The seriousness to your voice makes him shut his mouth, choosing instead to reach across the center console and place a hand on your thigh, fingers squeezing lightly in understanding.
“Do you want me to wait for you?” You ask, and Jake shakes his head no.
He had sent his truck off to the workshop, only to have it grounded for a couple of days. You had tried to strong arm him into taking your car, seeing that he was due back to TOPGUN for an afternoon of flights, despite having been able to wrangle a few hours off to spend with his mother and grandmother before they left, but Jake Seresin, if anything, was a stubborn man, who had refused, not wanting to leave you inconvenienced. You had both reached a comprise, being that he would drop himself off to meet the Seresins, and grandma Doris would get her car to drop Jake back at TOPGUN before she left. It wasn’t the smartest solution, but it was the most he would budge on it.
He pulls up kerbside, in front of the hotel his grandmother and mother were staying in and shifts the car into park. You both exit, and Jake waits for you beside the door of the driver’s side, holding the door open, while you step in and up into the seat and buckle yourself in.
“See you later?” He asks, a rhetoric question, but you nod anyway and he kisses you swiftly on the corner of your lips before shutting the door on you and jogging over to the kerb. You duck your head to peer out of the window on the passenger’s side and he winks at you. You press a kiss to your fingers, blowing it at him, and it earns you a wide smile, the sides of his eyes crinkling. You let yourself take it in, Jake smiling, with his hair combed back, uniform hugging him in the right places, before you lift a hand in a wave and drive off, thinking to yourself, god was he handsome.
-
“You’re eating too little.” Grandma Doris asks, eyeing the bowl of yogurt, and granola in front of her grandson.
“Don’t want to be throwing up mid flight.” He explains before popping the spoon into his mouth. “I’ll have more for dinner.”
She hums in acknowledgement, settling back into her chair, while taking a sip from her tea cup, eyes studying her grandson.
“So,” she starts casually, almost too casually for her, and it makes Jake drop his spoon as he leans back to take her in, “were you planning on keeping your poor grandmother in the dark forever?”
Jake knows what she is referring to, but opts for raising brow, waiting for her to elaborate.
“That you both finally became more than just friends.” Grandma Doris stretches out the word finally, and Jake raises his glass to his lips, but his smile is barely covered.
“What gave it away?” He asks, after taking a gulp of water and setting his glass down.
“You did be blind not to know,” Grace scoffs, taking a sip of coffee. You both had hid it well, but a mother always knew her son.
The relationship you and Jake had, was something that had always been special - he was more himself around you, more the Jake that Grace had knew, loved and known from the first day she had held him in her arms, and you, well, you somehow managed to tolerate him, during the good and the bad, accepting him for both his good and bad; but this time, this was different.
Grace had always seen a glimpse of something more in her son’s eyes when he looked to you, only when he knew that you weren’t watching, but this time - she had seen it in his eyes, when he had looked directly at you, and had seen you meet his gaze with the exact same look, of equal intensity in your eyes. She had seen the quiet, content, smile that flickered briefly across both your features, and she just knew.
Her suspicions had been confirmed the night before when Grace’s own mother had nudged her and motioned out the window of the hotel lobby, both of them watching, just in time to catch you run a finger over the the sunburn blooming along the bridge of Jake’s nose, laughing about something they couldn’t hear, to which Jake only reached out to pull you towards him, your face colliding with his chest, body shaking with laughter as he planted his lips on the top of your hair, while saying something that caused your shoulders to shake even more.
“Weeks,” he says vaguely, not bothering to count the detailed specifics, not because Jake didn’t care, but because he didn’t need to with you - not when he was sure you were his forever. He had expressed outrightly that you were his girl - because even when you hadn’t been, you had somehow, always been his in one way or another - and Jake hadn’t asked you explicitly, the question of “will you be my girlfriend?”, but it hadn’t mattered to either of you; the question seemingly unimportant and trivial, when you both already just knew.
Grandma Doris observes grandson from her perch across the table, the light in his eyes that she had always saw when he looked at you had finally come to the front, and it was dazzling. She places down her teacup, fingers of her right hand working to slide the ring she had the fourth finger of her right hand off. It was the simplest of the rings which adorned her fingers, a plain band, holding a single jewel, with the words “timeless” scratched onto the inside of the band, the engraving now dulled from years of wear, but still visible. She places it on the table in front of Jake, who looks down at it, and up again at his grandmother in surprise. He had never seen her take it off since he could remember.
“Give it to her,” she says simply, the implication behind her words clear - marry her. To anyone else, it might have been strange, but grandma Doris understood, it was Jake and you - she had watched quietly, as you both danced around each other for years. “There isn’t any reason to wait when you’ve already known something your whole life.” She say simply.
Jake picks up the ring, flipping it in his fingers, running the pad of his thumb over the engraving on the inner band, before reaching into the shirt of his uniform, tugging out the chain with his dog tags, before undoing it and stringing the ring on.
-
“Well, this is me,” Jake bends down and kisses Grace’s cheek while engulfing her in a hug.
“Come back home soon,” Grace orders and Jake raises a hand to his head to giver her a mini salute.
“Yes M’am.”
“Everyone misses you,” his grandmother says as Jake bends in turn to hug her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
“Your grandfather and father miss you.” His mother says, and Jake meets her gaze in understanding with a small tip of his chin.
Jake stands back, with a last wave, watching as his mother and grandmother enter the car, before the driver shuts the door.
-
Tash: Your man is an idiot.
You swipe open the message from Phoenix to come face to face with a picture of Jake and Rooster’s side view, each man decked out in their flight suit, sunglasses on their face, middle fingers flipped up at each other. It makes you roll your eyes as you shoot back a text.
Is Bradley an idiot as well?
She replies almost instantly.
Tash: The biggest.
You grin, shooting back a reply.
Lies. By the way, do you know what time you’ll be done? My idiot needs a pick up.
Tash: Come now, I’ll get Mav to abuse his “power” and sign you in.
-
“I’m not betting those 200 push ups today,” Fanboy’s voice crackles over the comms as the three planes, him and Payback, Mav and Jake push through the air. It was the last scheduled flight of the day, not entirely necessary because there weren’t any trainees scheduled into the slot, but it hadn’t stopped the four men from jumping into the plans to run the same training simulation of the day. Mav’s time old favourite, dogfighting - two against one.
It earns a laugh from Mav, and Jake snorts.
“C’mon boys, wussing out?” Jake drawls over his comms as he levels his jet with Fanboy and Payback, grinning out the window towards the two. It earns him double middle fingers from the duo.
“I’m not letting you hang us out to dry, Hangman.” Payback says disgruntled. It was undeniable that Jake had proven himself to be a team player from the uranium mission, but it didn’t change the fact that Hangman, being Hangman, still enjoyed blazing his own trail, particularly during simulations such as this where a run was just a run, and nothing was at stake. He would have them eating his dust whenever he could.
“How about a beer instead boys?” Mav asks, grinning lazily out of the window of his jet.
“I could live with that,” Payback jumps and latches onto the lower stakes, before clarifying the safety of his own wallet, “just among us four.”
“Game on,” Jake hooks his mask to his face.
-
True to her word, and you are not entirely sure how, Phoenix gets you signed into TOPGUN, meeting you at the guard house, and jumping into your car, directing you onward. She ends up leading you towards the control room, which she informs you, is filled with themselves and the trainee group today due to the afternoon long simulation flights they had been running. She scans her pass against the electronic lock and holds open the door for you while gesturing you in. You slip into the control room ducking your way past a few trainees, to come to a stand beside Hondo, who is flanked on his other side by Rooster and Bob.
“What did I miss?” Pheonix asks, and Hondo points towards the screen.
“They just bet Mav a round of beers if they beat him.”
“Do we all benefit?” Phoenix asks, hopefully.
“Payback made it very clear that it’s just between them.” Hondo grins, and it earns a dismissive snort from Phoenix
You can’t see the Naval Aviators up in the air, apart from the diagrams of little jets beeping on the radar alongside a counter, and a whole host of numbers you don’t understand; but you can hear them over the speakers in the control room, the sounds of breathing, and chatter.
“Where is he?” Payback asks.
“I can’t see him,” Fanboy.
“Probably hiding beneath us,” you hear Jake, “old man never changes his tactics.” He says, a jab at Mav, and the tone of his voice, makes you shake your head slightly; even you knew, to someone who didn’t know any better or who wasn’t used to him, Jake could very well rub people he didn’t know well the wrong way with his words.
You hear a set of three yells and curses, as Mav’s diagram reappears on radar, a set of numbers alongside the screen rapidly jumping as Mav angles his jet to shoot up between the other two.
“And yet, this old man’s tactics work every time.”
It earns a fist pump from Hondo, and you lean over towards the older man.
“Does he truly do that every time?”
“Works like a charm,” Hondo says, leaning back over to you simultaneously, headset still nestled in his ear, with a nod of his head.
“And they don’t learn?” You ask in slight disbelief at the fact that some of the best Naval Aviators in the country would fall for the same trick more than once.
“Kids,” Hondo laughs with a shrug and a waggle of his brows, and it makes you laugh out loud as you think back to a scene where you had been sitting with the lot, after dinner, watching them argue over which superhero, as portrayed in the movies, would come out on top, because you couldn’t agree more.
-
Jake hears it, clear as day, as he rights his jet, holding back on the acceleration into the planned tactic he was going to go into, even though it was just a soft crackle over the background his comms. He thought he had been dreaming that he had heard your voice, until the point he heard your laugh - he would recognise that laugh anywhere - your laugh.
“Babe?” He says into his comms, and it has Payback and Fanboy looking at each other within the confines of their plane, Mav looking out of the window from above, down towards Jake’s jet, the men all holding in the air, surprised at the sudden call from Jake. All heads in the control room swivel towards you.
Hondo slips the headset off his ear and passes it to you, nodding for you to take it, and you do, slipping it onto your own ear, taking a step forward, closer to the screen even though you can’t see him.
“Jake?” You say, your eyes focused on the mini green outline of his jet on the screen, his call sign flickering beside it.
“Yeah babe?” Jake says again, louder, more sure this time, his face breaking into a wide grin beneath his mask. In that moment, Jake feels like he is at the top of the world, despite having just been spun around in the air by the force of Mav’s jet - he is seated in a jet high above the ground, doing something he had willingly devoted his life to, with your voice in his ear at real-time, knowing that you were watching him.
“Give him hell.” You say, and you hear a roaring laugh of response through the headset in your ear, loud, open, unadulterated, genuine, every note of it being entirely Jake. It is familiar to you, but the heads moving back and forth in the room, eyes coated in surprise, tells you that it isn’t for everyone.
“For you darlin? Anything.”
It earns a whoop from Coyote who is standing to the right of the control room. Jake, who is up in the air grips his center stick, wide grin still on his face. He can feel the ring, dangling from the chain beside his dog tags, a cool circle pressed against his chest. He takes a deep breath.
“Alright boys, hope you’re ready, because Hangman’s coming.”
-
“Tone!” It is a span of mere minutes, where you hear a mix of shouts, grunts and yells coming from the four men in the air, before you hear a loud prolonged beeping sound, and Jake’s voice crackle over the comms, shouting out the single word with a whoop. It earns wide eyes from around the room, and approving nod from Hondo who is behind you, a “yes” from Coyote and a clap from Bob.
“Fucking Hangman,” is what you hear Rooster murmur from behind, clearly impressed.
“Well I’ll be damned.” Tash mumbles as she walks up to you, before clapping her hand on your shoulder. She knew Jake was good, heck - everyone knew, despite having only been selected as Dagger Spare for the uranium mission, he was the only one among them (not counting Mav) who had a count of two confirmed air combat kills, but to get tone on Mav, something none of them had yet to be able to achieve - now that, was impressive.
“Can we get her in the room everytime he flies?” You hear Cyclone mumble to Warlock from his position in the centre of the room, arms still crossed over his chest, eyes fixed on the green on screen.
It makes you smile.
-
You make your way down along with the rest of the group, the only civilian amongst the group of Naval Aviators, hanging to a side with Coyote, Bob, Rooster and Phoenix as the jets grind to a slow stop and into a park. You can hear the chatter of the trainees, standing around as you watch while the top of Jake’s jet pops open, before he hoists himself out of the seat, stepping onto the wing to hop down onto the ground.
Jake yanks his helmet off his head, and you see him, grinning widely, from ear to ear, his hair sticking up, a sheen of sweat across his forehead, in his element, euphoria unmatched. It’s infectious and you feel your face break out into a matching grin, as Jake begins striding directly to you, helmet in his hand. He moves like a man with a mission, focused entirely on you, and the smattering of trainees move to a side as he approaches, it being clear that he has no intention to stop for anyone in his way.
You see him unzip the top of his flight suit, and reach beneath the black shirt he has on underneath, fingers pulling his dog tags out before he tugs them over his head.
“Jake?” He is three steps away from you, and the group behind you has involuntarily taken a step back, not sure of where this is going, allowing you both your space, and then, it happens.
Jake drops his helmet to the ground, the object rolling an inch away before it settles on his side. You are forced to look down as Jake drops a knee to the ground. He leans his elbow on his other knee, which is bended, propped up by a boot that is pressed flat to the ground, and raises his hand towards you, fingers holding out a ring, still hanging from the chain of his dog tags, with a single jewel as the centrepiece towards you. You recognised the ring at once, having seen it as a permanent fixture on grandma Doris’ finger.
“Jake what are yo-” You start to say, but he cuts you off, answering your question at the same time.
“Marry me.” He says, a statement, not quite an ask as his eyes search yours, a smile, genuine, excited, earnest on his face. “Marry me, because I don’t want to have to spend another day not being able to call you mine.”
It’s a big ask, after only weeks, you both jumping the step where he had even asked you (officially) to be his girlfriend, but this was Jake, the man you knew better than anyone else; the man who you understood, and who understood you, without having to even use words; the man who you would do anything for, and who would do anything for you; the man you had spent the past few weeks finally getting it right with; the man you would say yes to in a heartbeat.
You search his face, his eyes now fixed on you, watching as you take it in, take him in. Jake has never been so goddamn sure of anything in his life. He had been sure the moment his grandmother had slipped the ring onto the table; sure from the moment he had kissed you at Annie’s wedding; sure from the moment he had asked you to come out to San Diego for 6 months; perhaps even sure from way before; but hearing your voice over comms, just your voice, pulling together his focus, grounding him, both literally and figuratively propelling him to greater heights, made him realise that he had already taken too goddamn long to do this, and that he would be a fool to wait even a second longer.
“I’m already yours.” You breathe out, pushing out the breath of air you hadn’t even been aware you were holding. It is enough for him, and Jake reaches forward to tug your hand towards him before he slips the ring on. It fits your finger like a glove, his dog tags still dangling from the other end of the chain still attached to the ring, like a part of him to you. He stands, holding your hand in his, pulling you close so that your body is flush against his. Jake smells of jet fuel, sweat and soap. He reaches up with his other hand, to cup your jaw in his palm, a thumb running over your cheekbone.
“Jake?” You say, softly, as he leans in an inch.
“Yeah.” It makes him stop, face slightly apart from yours, but so close that you can feel the tip of his nose brushing against yours, and the warmth of his breath on your skin.
“I love you.” You say out loud for the first time, and you see the wide smile break across his face as he presses his lips to yours. You love him, you’ve loved him, just as he love and has loved you.
“I know baby.” Is what Jake says first against your lips, in true Jake Seresin fashion and you can still feel his smile, as he finally says, “I love you too.”
You hear the thunderous sound of cheers in the background, the loudest coming from the group of Naval Aviators you had come to know and love. A plane flies past, roaring overhead in the sky, and you kiss Jake back, one of your hands still gripping his, the other on the back of his head, feeling the damp roots of sweat in his hair, pulling him into you. You feel like your heart is soaring, your flyboy in your arms.
>> EPILOGUE
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Ceramic Lessons - Part Seven
Cillian Murphy X Reader - Masterlist
Summary: after much insistence from his sister, Cillian attends a ceramics class with her. To his surprise, he feels a connection to the teacher, you. Will this connection go any further or will it be smashed like a bad ceramic project?
Previous parts: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6
Warning: swearing, fluff and mention of drugs
A/n: hey guys! please don’t forget to let me know what you think! Hope you like it.
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"Hey, is everything okay?" you asked as you approached him.
"Oh, yeah," he responded quickly, stealing a glance at you before returning his attention to the screen in his hands.
"Are you sure?" you insisted, placing a comforting hand on his back as you sat next to him.
He gave you a gentle smile and a short sigh escaped his lips. "Yeah, it’s just… It's my ex-wife," he started, a tired tone in his words. "She called me like a hundred times last night. My phone was down here and in silent mode. I didn't see it," he sounded frustrated.
"What happened? Is your son okay?" you asked, concern evident in your voice.
"I don't know," he sighed. "She's not picking up." He shook the phone.
"Did she text you or something?"
"No, nothing" he shook his head.
"Who called just now?"
"Sile. She wanted to know if I was coming to your class today," he chuckled, and you smiled.
"Well, I am sure you have nothing to worry about, huh? She’s got things covered, probably figured things out on her own?" you said, your hand gently running through his soft hair, trying to give him some comfort.
"Yeah, I am not so sure," he replied, locking the screen and tossing the phone to the side.
You frowned and waited for him to elaborate, but he sat there quietly lost in his own thoughts.
"Why?" you asked, adopting a caring tone in your voice, unsure if it was a sore topic for him.
He took a deep breath and locked his blue eyes with yours, silently debating whether to share or not. Your hand continued to leave patterns on his hair and neck, offering support in the best way you could. You could sense the tension in him.
"She is not a very good mother," he shrugged. "Not nowadays, at least."
"What do you mean?"
"You know how I told you my divorce got ugly? How she played Lukas as a joker card in her bargains?" he asked, and you nodded. "Did I tell you what was my breaking point?"
"You told me she cheated," you reminded.
"Yeah, but we stayed together for a few months after that," he sighed frustrated. "How about we make some coffee?" he suggested, and you nodded, following his lead to the kitchen.
As he filled the coffee grounds into the machine, his mind seemed elsewhere. You leaned against the counter, giving him time to collect his thoughts. The aroma of brewing coffee gradually filling the kitchen air.
Walking over to him, after he finished, you kissed his cheek and then his warm lips. His hand held you strongly, hugging you tightly against him.
"You know, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to," you said, breaking the kiss.
"I want to; it's just... It's not a nice breakfast topic after such a great night," he explained.
"Being vulnerable is never easy; it has nothing to do with being during breakfast or after a great night," you smiled.
"Right," he smiled back, taking a small deep breath once again. "We went to a lot of parties when we were together. She’s an agent, so we had to, you know, to network. And she ended up having some friends that weren’t such a good influence. When we met, she had some problems with addiction but it was under control for years. She took care of herself. But after some time, she just stopped. I guess it was the people she started hanging out with, the people she started managing… they took her to the wrong path and i denied seeing it. Her actions started to make no sense, and after I realized what was happening, I tried to help. I know she's sick, and everything she was doing was a reflection of that. So, I went with it for a very long time. Allowing her actions to hurt me with no consequences at all. I tried to hospitalize her once, but that wasn’t pretty… so I tried every other possible way… none worked. I mean, they worked for a while but then just stopped. At that point I was a mess. My family was worried about me and constantly told me to just leave her. But I couldn’t, I felt guilty. I couldn’t be the one to destroy Lukas' family… but I just didn’t notice that she was the one doing it. My breaking point was when i found out she did coke in front of Lukas on a normal Tuesday morning as we were getting ready to take him to school”
“Oh my god…” you whispered as you reacted.
“Yeah… and I didn't even know it until he asked me, 'What was mommy sniffing, daddy? Does it smell good? Is it a flower? Did you give her flowers?' Those were his words as we walked out of the house hand in hand to the car. That was the end for me." he said, his voice not hiding the discomfort of the memories
“I'm so, so sorry you had to go through that, Cillian. It must have been tough for you and also for Lukas” you said. You tried your best to fill out the silence, but you didn't really know what to say.
The weight of his revelation hung in the air, and you could feel the gravity of the moment.
He took another deep breath, and you continued to run your fingers through his hair, offering a silent reassurance.
"Yeah, I tried to protect Lukas, you know? Shield him from the chaos inside his mom’s head," he continued, his eyes reflecting the turmoil of the past. "But that was a wake-up call. I couldn't let her jeopardize our son's well-being any longer… nor mine. She didn't want help, or at least she didn’t want my help."
The coffee machine signaled its completion, and he poured the steaming liquid into two mugs. The warmth emanating from the freshly brewed coffee filled the air, making you sniff the air enjoying the smell.
As you both settled at the table with your mugs, he glanced at you, gratitude evident in his eyes. "Thanks for listening. It's not easy talking about this, but you make it easy."
You offered a reassuring smile. "I appreciate you sharing, and I'm here for you. Lukas is lucky to have you looking out for him."
He nodded, a mixture of emotions crossing his face. "Yeah, he's my priority."
"So, if you don’t want to answer you don’t have to, but is she still using?" you asked, your concern evident.
"Not that I know of," he shrugged. "I got full custody of Lukas after the divorce. She was only allowed to be with him after proving she was sober for 60 days. But I have this feeling that she will fail at any point and I will have to pick up the pieces or that i won't be there to protect Lukas"
The weight of uncertainty hung in the air as he spoke.
You reached across the table, placing your hand over his, offering a supportive squeeze "You've done everything you can to provide a stable environment for him. Sometimes, all we can do is focus on what's within our control. There is no way of knowing if she will… but we do know Lukas will still have you and your family if she does.” you tried to find the right words
He sighed, appreciating the reassurance. "I just want him to have a normal childhood, you know? To be surrounded by love..."
"Well I don’t know him, but from what I’ve seen you're doing a great job at that," you assured him.
"Thank you," he smiled. "You're an incredible woman, you know that?"
You smiled and stood up from your chair. Moving towards him, you settled onto his lap, taking one of your hands to his face. “So are you… an incredible man, I mean" You both chuckled, the warmth of the moment lingering in the air.
As you gently caressed his cheek, you could feel the tension in his muscles, a manifestation of the concerns that still lingered.
"I know you're worried about Lukas and everything else," you said, your voice soft. " I'm Sorry there's nothing I can do to help "
He nodded, appreciating the sentiment. "You are already helping. Thank you” he smiled
You leaned in, pressing a tender kiss to his lips. "Now, we need to get ready for your class. Are you coming? Could be good, keep your mind busy until she calls back" you suggested
"Yeah, of course," he replied, trying to shake off the lingering anxiety.
As you both got ready, Cillian continued to check his phone, the worry etched on his face. You could sense the weight he carried, and in those moments, your support meant more than words could convey.
Heading to the ceramic class, you intertwined your fingers with his, offering a steady presence by his side. You were the first to arrive, as usual. He helped you get the material for the class ready before the other students arrived.
The familiar routine of the class and interacting with students provided a welcome distraction for him. After last week's class he had become friends with one of your elderly students, she’s adorable and just goes on and on about her grandchildren… he loves to listen.
Sile arrived a few minutes later and it was good to see him smile and chuckle with his sister. What would she do if she knew what was going on with him? You wondered.
During the middle of the class, he stood up rushly, taking his phone to his ear as he walked outside.
It must be her calling, you assumed.
After a while, he returned and pulled you to the side, away from the other students.
“I have to go,” he said as you cleaned your hands on a red cloth.
“Is everything ok?” you asked concerned
“Yeah,” he said giving you a reassuring smile “I just have to go pick him up”
“Are you sure everything is ok?” you pushed
“No. I’m not sure. But I talked to him and he’s ok so that’s what matters. His grandmother was with him. She was the one that just called me”
“What about your ex?”
“I don't know. I’ll let you know soon, ok?” you smiled and nodded as he kissed your cheek and left.
“Is everything okay with him?” Sile asked as you walked past her
“Yeah,” you smiled and continued your class normally, not wanting to share anything because you didn’t know if he would appreciate it.
After the class ended you cleaned the studio for the following class. Sile asked you out for lunch today, but today was an awful day to plan anything. On Saturdays, you have one class after the other, and you barely have time to eat. So you suggested another day, and she agreed. You liked the fact that she asked you out, enjoying the fact she would like to get to know you more.
By the end of the day, you had no news of Cillian. You were lying on your couch, comfy pajamas and a pair of old socks kept you warm as you watched a random TV channel.
Staring at the screen of your cell phone again as you waited for him to answer. Worrying about him. Wanting to help him, to be with him.
“Hey! Just checking in. Text me when you can. Hope everything is well. Xoxo” You texted almost four hours ago.
It was getting late, and after waiting for a while you fell asleep on your couch.
You woke up with something vibrating under your head. You uncoordinatedly looked for your phone, as you were still half asleep.
“Hi” you answered not checking who was calling
“Hey, did I wake you?” cillians voice appeared from the other side
“Maybe” you played your head back on top of the cushions
“I’m sorry, I can call you tomorrow. It’s late” he said
“No…” you adjusted yourself and looked at the screen, it was 00:20 “i'm glad you called. I was worried something bad had happened”
“No nothing bad”
“Good” you smiled to yourself
“Lukas is here with me. Sleeping, he had some trouble sleeping today, he was agitated. Had to read him three stories before bed” he said, he sounded tired.
You chuckled “is that a lot?”
“Yeah, he's usually down after one”
“Oh, wow”
“Yeah he's a fast sleeper” he chuckled lightly
“So, do you wanna talk about what happened?” you asked
“Not really. Just… just wanted to hear your voice” he said, making you smile
“That’s sweet”
“Yeah, have to admit it was nice having you here last night. Your presence is missed”
You chuckled “well then you must invite me more often”
“Sure will”
“Well, do you wanna hear about my day?” you asked, assuming it would be just what he needed. To just run from his reality for a minute.
“I would love to”
You went on telling him about your day, about your classes and students. You told him the gossips your students tell you and ended up sending him some pictures of finished pieces you had done. He listened carefully and laughed at some of your student's stories.
After that you both said your goodbyes and wished each other a good night.
Taglist: @allie131313 @sherbitdibdab @sinceviennas @stilestotherescue @astheni-a @kitkatkaitin @amanda08319 @trixie23 @nancystrange @daisythekitty @cillianbabe @sinceviennas @si1ver06 @kitkatkait @isabbellagonzalezz18 @babypink224221 @1nterstellarcha0s @thenattitude
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Beastification - Chapter 1
Cid sends the Bad Batch on a mission to rescue a certain Mr Beast from the grasp of Jabba the Hutt. After they retrieve him, something changes. There's something different about Mr Beast and they can't tell for certain what it is. Will they ever get rid of Mr Beast?
The Bad Batch x Mr Beast
Tags: sfw, Crack fic, slow burn, Mr Beast AU, I'm trying to be serious about this.
CW: the y/nification of Mr Beast, mentions of child abduction, canon violence, indication of mpreg (sfw), Mr Beast talks to a invisible camera, Lore breaking content
Words: 881
Will update on Wednesdays and Sundays
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | ...
Read on ao3
Cid hadn‘t told them much about the mission, as usual, but still, something felt fishy about this one. What was most suspicious was that Cid had this slight smirk on her face the entire briefing while she neglected details on whatever would await them at their destination in favor of talking about how they would thank her for this mission once they come back.
Tensions were high on the Marauder. Everyone hoped Cids indications would mean better payment this time around. While Omega was asleep in her Gunner Mount/Room the rest of the batch gathered in the cockpit.
Wrecker, who sat in the copilot seat, broke the silence first. „I don‘t know what’s going on with Cid and this mission. I just hope we‘re gonna get paid and not killed.“ He crossed his arms, pouting.
„It will be a rather simple extraction. To be completely honest, calling it a pick-up would be more fitting. We will meet the target on Mos Eisley. Though I do wonder how they ended up there and why we are sent to bring them back. This mission seems to mock our abilities“ Tech replied, sounding just slightly angry at this extraction not having to make use of his heightened intelligence. „We‘re approaching Tatooine.“
Hunter leaned against the back wall, brows furrowed. He didn’t like this. Usually, when they were sent on simpler missions, only two of them would go, but Cid insisted they would need all hands on deck on this one. It didn‘t make sense to him. Deep in thought, he almost didn‘t notice the small hands pulling on his arm.
„It‘s gonna be fine, Hunter, don‘t worry. It could be fun!“ Omega smiled up at him, excited as ever. Of course, she had never been to Tatooine before, so that fact alone made her excited to go through on this mission. Though that excitement quickly vanished.
“You‘re staying on the ship. The mission is simple, but we‘re not gonna take you into Jabba's Palace. That place is swarming with scum.“ And with that, her smile dropped.
Hunter knelt down to be able to talk to her face to face. „It‘s for the better. It‘s nasty in there, you wouldn‘t wanna see it anyways.“ Her patted her on the shoulder before standing up again. By this time they already entered the atmosphere of the planet and were getting ready to land in front of Jabba‘s Palace.
Shortly after leaving the ship the batch found themselves in front of the massive doors leading into the Hutt's Palace.
“I‘ve only heard horror stories about this place. Can‘t say I‘m excited to go in there.“ Echo commented with an already disgusted look on his face, despite not even having entered the building yet. „It‘s gonna be a quick job. We‘ll be in and out in no time. We just pay the bail and leave with the target, that‘s it.“ Hunter responded.
This triggered an annoyed huff from Wrecker. „Great, another mission where we can‘t blow anything up.“ The gates were opened for them and quickly after placed in front of Jabba to state their business.
„We‘re here to bail out one of your captives.“ Hunter tried to keep the conversation short, not desiring to speak to the Hutt more than necessary. Tech handed over the payment to one of Jabba‘s servants at the same time, also wanting to leave as fast as possible. To nobody‘s surprise, all of them felt uneasy in an establishment like this, with bounty hunters all around.
The protocol droid finally translated whatever Jabba was saying. „Your prisoner will be brought up shortly. Jabba wishes for you to leave with him as quickly as you can, he can not bear to hear any more of his voice.“
Just then their target was brought in, a sight to behold. He walked in, with the most dazzling blue eyes any of them had ever seen. Body moving in a perfect curve, hair just shaggy enough, and beard perfectly trimmed. He looked at them, one after another, through perfectly curled lashes.
It took Hunter hitting his shoulder for Wrecker to snap back out of this state of hypnosis. „Wrecker, get him.“
His cheeks turned slightly red before going up to the hostage and taking him from Jabba‘s guards. They immediately made their way towards the exit. Wrecker tried to ignore the fact that he was guiding this incredibly attractive man out of imprisonment.
The man‘s head turned towards him, ever so slightly and elegantly, like every movement he had seen from him so far. „THANK YOU.“ he whispered. This wasn‘t directed at them as a group, but exclusively at Wrecker, making his face grow even hotter. He could only muster up a grunt as a response, feeling flustered.
Omega waited for them in front of the Marauder.
“I told you to stay inside.“ Hunter shouted towards the girl, slightly irritated. „I‘m fine. I got bored so I wanted to at least wait outside for you.“ she yelled back. Then, her glance shifted from Hunter to the hostage her brothers were bringing with them. Her eyes widened, jaw dropped.
Everybody stopped in their tracks, expecting the worst from Omega‘s facial expression. A ambush, maybe. But her eyes rested on their acquired target.
“Woah, is that Mr Beast??????“
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Fool's Gold
Chapter 3
Vox x reader
Summary: You're a powerful overlord. Vox is an idiot.
Chapter 1, Chapter 2
Alastor’s return came as a surprise to everyone, including you. At the 5 or 6 year mark you had determined that Alastor must’ve found something way better than torturing souls in the Pride circle and given up on him ever resurfacing. So, when you were watching tv waiting for Vox to get out of a meeting and saw him in a commercial for the princess of hell’s hotel, to say you were shocked is an understatement. Shooting Vox a quick text, saying you'll meet him later, you teleport yourself to the run down hotel on the other side of town.
You were startled at how quick the door opened after you knocked. The blonde princess smiling brightly at you, “Welcome to the Hazbin Hotel!” she exclaims before, pulling you in by the wrist. “I’m so happy you decided to try to be redeemed!” she continued before you could get a word out.
“Uh- Charlie,” Angel attempted, sitting up in his spot on the couch.
“I’m Charlie! What’s your name?” she urged, shooting Angel a look.
“Y/N!” you hear the crackle of the Radio Demon behind you.
“Y-y/n? L-like the-e Y/N?” Charlie fumbled, Vaggie walking up behind her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.
Meanwhile, you had turned to your deer old friend, and harshly slapped him across the face. The room grew silent, as the employees and patron of the hotel stared in shock.
“Hahaha! Y/N! It's good to see you're still doing well for yourself!” Alastor cackled, breaking the tension.
“Where the hell have you been, Allie? And you didn't come see me when you got back?” you accosted him. Charlie muttering ‘Allie?’ to the girl next to her.
“Oh I was here, there, everywhere ,” his neck turned at an unnatural angle, “and as for you, I heard you were hanging around that annoying television demon!”
“You introduced me to him?” you asked.
“Yes, well, that was before I knew he was intolerable,” Alastor examined his claws.
You snorted, smiling at your friend, “It’s good to have you back, Allie.”
🌀💋🌀💋🌀💋🌀💋🌀💋🌀💋🌀💋🌀💋🌀
You didn't know the extent at which your boyfriend and best friend hated each other until the broadcasting war that happened when Valentino informed Vox of Alastor’s return. But seeing it get Vox all worked up, made you want to aggravate him a little more using their feud.
So, you started hanging around the hotel more and purposefully blowing Vox off. It wasn't until Sir Pentious arrived and started planting cameras that Vox realized just where you'd been spending your time, or better yet with whom you'd been spending your time.
When you returned to his apartment that night, it had become a routine if you hadn't seen each other all day, you found him sitting in his armchair, gripping a glass of whiskey so tight it was beginning to fracture.
“Hey Voxy,” you float over to him, leaning down to run your hand along the side of his head.
“Don’t,” he states firmly, turning his head away from you.
“What's wrong?” you pout, sitting on the couch he was now looking towards.
“What's wrong? WHAT'S WRONG?” his grip on the glass finally shatters it, sparks dancing along his body. “YOU TRAITOROUS WHORE! YOU'VE BEEN HANGING AROUND WITH THAT- WITH THAT ELDERLY TECHNOPHOBE!” You raise an eyebrow at his volume of voice, “Actually, you know what? Just LEAVE ! I WANT YOU OUT OF MY SIGHT !” His screen began to flicker blue, and you obey, not one to partake in a screaming match.
🌀💋🌀💋🌀💋🌀💋🌀💋🌀💋🌀💋🌀💋🌀
After you had actually left, Vox felt an overwhelming amount of remorse. He tried talking to Val, but he told him to forget you, and how could he? You had quite literally changed his life. It only got worse when he looked at the security cameras around the city and didn't find you anywhere. Only catching a flicker of you once walking with Angel, before your form completely alluded his technology.
He even sent drones to that dreaded Hazbin Hotel, hoping to just get close enough to garner your attention. But the second the drones were within 500ft of the building they went dark. What more could he do? Go to the hotel? He knew you were staying there, but hell , that is suicide.
The only thing he could think of was to go back to his old notes from before you were together. From his notes and vague memories talking to you about your day, he knew you would always meet with Carmilla at The Red Room on Tuesday afternoons for drinks. He could only hope that you’d stick to your schedule.
Not having any way of knowing when you were going to show up, Vox hid in one of the alleyways near the bar, he wore an outfit he wouldn't normally be caught dead in, but he was going for a look somewhere between ‘incognito’ and ‘I’m miserable without you’. When a waft of your favorite scent made its way to his nose, he stumbled out of the alley ungracefully, landing right in front of you.
“Y/N,” he coughs, putting on his best sad face. You didn't buy it, rolling your eyes and stepping around him. “Wait- Y/n!” he croaks out, this time catching your attention. “I’m- I’m sorry, I shouldn't have spoken to you like that. It’s just that- ugh that goddamn Radio Demon makes me SO MAD !” He clenches his fists.
“What's the deal with that anyways?” you ask curiously, almost ignoring the fact that his apology made your heart skip a beat.
He sighs, “If I tell you, will you come home?”
You ponder this for a second, before your eyes light up mischievously, “Maybe,” he looks at you skeptically, “If I do… Will you be a good boy? ”
He whimpers. Soft and pathetic, just the way you liked him. “ Yeah, ” he says breathlessly.
You grin, stepping forward and grabbing his hand, teleporting back to his apartment.
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About Time PT. 2
Pairing: Hwoarang x Fem Reader
Summary: About Time PT. 1
After the tournament ends and the reader is fully recovered from her injury, she's back to training, where Hwoarang is keeping an eye on her, wanting a rematch against her, but this fight is very different from their last...
Warnings: SMUT! (18+ ONLY! MINORS & AGELESS BLOGS DNI! YOU WILL BE BLOCKED!) Swearing, sparring match, teasing dynamic, foreplay, oral F receiving, unprotected sex (wrap it before ya tap it!), creampie
Word Count: 1.7k
After losing in the tournament to Jin, things took a turn that we did not expect when Hwoarang and I went to watch in the Colosseum.
Fighting against Kazuya banged me up even more, but thanks to some teamwork, both G Corp and Kazuya were taken down, and we could all live normally again.
As for me? I had to heal up. So, I didn't leave home.
The doctor told me to take it easy, but I seemed to be healing quicker than they anticipated, and after how long I spent resting in bed, I had been dying to do something exciting.
My home gym wasn't much, but I found some fun in throwing some kicks at my punching bag, a smile on my face as I felt no kind of pain anymore, a smirk growing on my face when I felt a set of familiar eyes on me, jumping and spinning in my next kick to be a showoff.
"Didn't the doctor tell you to take it easy?" Hwoarang always walked right in like he lived with me, coming in and cocking his eyebrow at me.
"I'm fine!" I assured, hitting another spinning kick and posing in stance as I landed on my feet, "See?"
"Appears so," He hummed, growing a devilish grin as he started tying up his hair.
I knew that sign; chuckling to myself, I stepped into the middle of the room, retaking my stance and flashing a smirk back at him:
"You want your rematch?"
"Yeah. Now that you're healed, you won't have any excuses when you lose," He always aimed to win, but I made sure to remind him that I did too:
"Yeah, yeah. I'm going to win just like I did last time."
"Shut up and fight," He chuckled, sharing a smirk with me as we both sent out a kick and began our little rematch.
I lost count of how many times we've had little matches like this. We were each other's equals, so as a few minutes passed, neither of us was going down.
Watching his every move delicately, I was able to dodge a kick he sent out, taking his leg to ground him. Locks weren't my thing, but to tease him, I put him in a leg lock and laughed:
"I'd just tap out if I were you!"
Sitting up and trying to break out of the lock, there was this look in his eyes that shifted the entire atmosphere around us, this heavy tension falling on us when he broke free, able to snatch my wrists and pin me to the floor as his forehead came to mine.
"The only one who's going to tap out is you."
We weren't sparring anymore; my chest heaved, felt so heavy when his chest pressed against mine, just staring into each other eyes till I whispered from the crippling anticipation:
"Well, I'm waiting..."
Squeezing my wrists, his lips pressed into mine hard, and as our lips clashed, exchanging tastes of our tongues, I moaned softly at how he bit my lower lip, only letting it pop free when he sat up and threw his shirt off, leaving me panting and burning up at the sight of his bare chest and abs.
"Oh yeah, I win..." He chuckled under his breath at how I couldn't stop admiring his body, his thumb at his waistband and teasing the toned muscle of his v-line, biting at my lip and practically drooling.
"It's not over just yet," I smirked back, taking off my shirt and sports bra in one swoop, giggling at his quick change from confidence to awe, blushing at the way my breasts bounced.
Hwoarang being speechless was always a sight for me, my hands finding my shorts next, and his flustered pink face turned devilish. It was clear that there was nothing to hold back anymore, his lips finding my neck, leaving bites and marks down my collarbone and to my breasts, his hands finding mine on the sides of my shorts.
"You want me?" I whispered in a teasing way, wanting to hear him say it, smiling against his lips as he picked his head back up and kissed me, grinding his hard-on into me:
"Just as bad as you want me."
I groaned into our kiss as I felt his grinding. Want was an understatement. I needed him, not daring to break our kiss, as I picked myself up from the floor, and he knew exactly what I was thinking, wrapping an arm around my waist to pick me up and head to my room.
Before we even made it to the bed, I had wiggled and kicked my way out of my shorts and panties, gasping whenever he dropped me onto the bed so suddenly, sucking in a deep breath with a whine when he pushed my legs up by the back of my thighs, leaving my soaked and dripping pussy wide open for him, his tongue rolling through my slicked fold then swirling around my clit, sucking for a moment to take in my taste, his lips parting with a slight smack as his eyes rolled in satisfaction:
"Oh fuck-"
"Hwoarang!"
He instantly lost all control, spreading my legs wide and going back to sucking my clit to the point where my toes were curling, his tongue swift with every lick, his eyes peeking up to see how I was squirming and moaning, whining from how he could keep my thighs pinned to the mattress, quivering in his grip.
"You gonna cum for me?" Letting go of my thighs, a finger slipped into me, pumping fast. At the same time, his tongue swirled around my clit just as quickly, adding another finger, pumping and scissoring me, making my thighs close his head in, taking a handful of his orange hair, grazing his scalp as I couldn't help but grind into him, getting closer to my high as I nodded frantically, moaning out:
"Yeah! Yeah! I'm-"
Pulling his fingers out, he devoured what was left of me right as my orgasm struck, my nerves burning so much that I was nearly rolling in bed, thighs squeezing his head as my back arched, gripping his hair harder, panting and crying out his name.
"Trying to drown me down here?" He teased with a chuckle when he finally picked up his head, licking his lips and wiping his chin, "Fuck, you taste so good."
"Still trying to get me to tap out, I see," I panted, too breathless to laugh, but had a grin on my face, gazing down to him when I felt his weight shift the bed, wiggling out of his pants and briefs, enjoying the teasing and the sight of him completely naked between my legs, stroking his cock and slapping it against my clit, smearing his precum.
"That's if you can handle more than one round. I almost had you just a minute ago. You think you can handle all this?"
He kept teasing me on purpose, his tip running through my wetness, circling my entrance, nearly making my eyes roll just from the little pleasure it gave off, that pleasure making me say:
"Just fuck me already, Hwoarang. Please..."
Right then and there, he had basically won the little game we were playing because no one could make me beg, and since he had the green light, this little game was over. All we wanted was to feel one another and chase the highs that the pleasure of it gave us.
"Ooo-ooh!"
With a pop, his tip eased into me, feeding more inches with each stroke, creating a steady tempo, our hands locking, staying pinned along the sides of my head while his lips returned to leave kisses and marks across my neck and breasts again.
"Hwoarang-" Squeezing his hands hard, his tip hit my sweet spot, my walls clenching around him tight, creating a sweet burn as he kept his cock buried for a moment, rolling his hips against mine as he let out a lingering groan:
"Shit...You trying to milk me already?"
My back arched in response, whining as he started thrusting again, much quicker this time, making sure his tip kept smacking that sweet point that had my pussy clenching him even harder, getting louder moans from me, one of my hands letting go of his to wrap around his neck, soon doing the same with the other as I cried out:
"Hwoarang! I'm gonna cum!"
"Cum then, baby," His tone wasn't cocky or teasing like before, his arms hooking under me as he bottomed me out every other thrust. The way he called me baby made my heart pound so hard, feeling the vein in my neck throb as I let out such a lewd moan, my legs latching around his waist out of instinct as I came, hearing a rather loud squelch. Our wet skin slapping as he fucked me through it.
His eyebrows were furrowed, biting his lip hard and panting during my orgasm, his body tensing up as his sweaty forehead met mine.
I didn't know what was taking over me, but I kept my legs latched around his waist as his pace slowed down, whispering to him:
"It's okay. You don't have to stop..."
"You sure?" He looked at me quickly, and I could see in his eyes that he felt as I did at that moment, surprising myself a little as my actual feelings slipped out of me, still moaning and high of pleasure as I admitted:
"Yeah, I love you! Just cum in me."
It took a moment to process what I just said out loud. I didn't have the time to process it, getting smacked with a kiss and his hips pounding into me more rapidly than ever, sharing a moan with me, hugging each other and tensing up as we felt his hot seed shooting into me, his quick, warm pants flying past my ear, hearing his whisper:
"I love you too, Y/N."
It felt like an enormous weight off my shoulders. I was anxious when I initially said those three words, but I squeezed him harder in our hug once I knew that he felt the same, giving him a soft kiss, exchanging sweet nothings for a moment as we caught our breath, then mentioning to him:
"There's just one more thing..."
"Yeah?"
"I didn't tap out, haha!"
He rolled his eyes at me initially, dropping to his side with me in his arms, spanking my ass and warning:
"You just wait till next time!"
2024 © itjazzbicch — do not repost or translate my work. Likes, reblogs, and comments are always welcome
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The great war | Part III |
"You drew up some good faith treaties I drew curtains closed, drank my poison all alone, you said I have to trust more freely but diesel is desire, you were playin' with fire"
Part 1 , Part 2, part 4,part 5 | masterlist
(gif credits to its owner)
pairing: joel miller x fem!reader
word count: 2,8k>
series summary: After things fell apart it seemed that Joel and you were falling into pieces.
series warning: angst, established relationship (complicated though) hints to cheating, age gap (Reader is in her late 20s, Joel is in his late 40s), mentions of stillborn baby, please don't read if you feel it triggers.
A/n: I remind you that English is not my first language so please forgive any mistake. No proofreaded, sorry
During the following days, Joel made a great effort on giving Rhia the space she needed. He respected her wishes and retrained from reaching out constantly. It was incredibly difficult for him to keep doing it. They were under the same roof but not talking at all. What’s more, Ellie was the bridge of communication between them both and she was checking on both daily.
One night, Ellie found Joel sitting alone on the porch, staring at the moon. She approached him and sat beside him, offering companionship. “What’s on your mind, old man?” She asked.
“I miss her,” he said, his voice carrying a hint of pain. “I never told her this but I dreamt about her and the baby since the moment I knew she was pregnant” he took a deep breath “I told her I didn’t want to be a father and I took her with me during months in the danger, all that meanwhile she was carrying a baby” Joel looked at Ellie “You look after her better than me”
Ellie looked at him with a mix of sympathy.
“And when we finally arrived here, I thought a family could be possible, but you know what happened” his gaze still fixed on the moon.
“You know what Joel?” She said “I believe in love, even in this shitty world and you and Rhia were kind of disgusting” She smiled warmly at the memories she had of them.
Joel’s eyes flickered. There was hope in his heart.
In the middle of the night, Joel couldn’t sleep, so he went to the living room to distract himself with something else to do. Suddenly, Rhia entered to the room, her eyes widen at the sight of Joel there. She walked past him without a word, heading to the kitchen to grab a glass of water.
Joel was unable to contain the tension, and followed her into the kitchen
“How are you?” He asked
Rhia tensed at the closeness of Joel; her hands trembled as she placed the glass of water on the counter “I’m fine” she replied, her voice steady “Just couldn’t sleep”
Joel nodded, not knowing what else to say.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, pointing at her stomach.
Rhia instinctively, placed her hand over the scar, a mixture of emotions crossing her mind, the knife, the wound, her daughter who used to be there.
“It’s healing” she replied, shortly
“I’m sorry” Joel whispered, guilt gnawing at him
“For what? Leaving me alone, saying those hurtful things or for your friend” she said asked, voice lace with sarcasm.
Joel took a deep breath “Everything”
Rhia looked at him, her eyes filled with a mix of sadness and disappointment. “You should have told me” She whispered “Shit I know I was-am sad, and I will be for a long time, but you avoiding me…I know I did push you away too, but you should have talked to me, not her”
“I can’t change what I did” he said, his voice breaking “But we can work on us together?”
Rhia’s heart softened as she looked into Joel’s eyes, seeing the pain he also carried.
Rhia reached out to touch his hand but before she could even do it, she stepped back and crossed her arms trying to steady herself “I know” Rhia took a deep breath “I want to believe you. I do believe you, but words are not enough”
Joel nodded at her.
“You know? I think it would be better for me if stay in another place...-
“No, Rhia…Ellie would kill me” he interrupted.
“Joel…I think is weird for us to be living in the same house when we’re not together” she said
“I’ll move out. I could stay at Tommy’s…Please just stay here, at least for Ellie” he pleaded. “You should go back to sleep”
Rhia nodded, offering him a small smile “I’ll try”
Rhia turned to leave the kitchen, and as she reached the doorway, she turned back to look back at Joel. She decided not to say anything and made her way back to her room instead, her mind filled with thoughts.
During the next days, Rhia spent time helping in the community and going back to her old activities, one of them being at the bar. She found herself lost in thought, processing her feelings, the pain he carried, and Joel. He had left the house three days ago; it was the first time they were apart since the day they met and it felt strange.
Lucy had been watching her from the distance, feeling the anger of only looking at her. She made the choice of approach to her, frustration and anger evident in her eyes. She finally made up her mind and walked up to Rhia.
As Lucy, approached Rhia, her footsteps were hesitant but determined. Rhia didn’t notice Lucy’s closeness until she was standing in front of her. Startled, Rhia looked up at Lucy.
“Lucy?” Rhia said surprised. “Do you need something?
Lucy took a deep breath, trying to control her own feelings
“We need to talk” she said, voice laced with hatred.
Rhia looked up, taken aback at Lucy’s tone.
“What’s wrong?” She asked.
“What’s wrong?! Rhia, you re infuriating! “Lucy exclaimed
Rhia’s eyes widened in surprised at her tone
Lucy took a deep breath, trying to control her emotions, but her anger was stronger.
“You know the only reason Joel and I are not together is because of you?” She lied. She still wanted her chance with Joel.
Rhia’s eyes narrowed at Lucy’s words, feeling a surge of anger and hurt. That was a lie, wasn’t it?
“That’s not true, Lucy,” she said, her voice completely steady
“Oh, but it is” she continued lying, “He told me. He actually felt pity for you and for what happened to you, baby”
Rhia’s heart pounded in her chest, torn between disbelief and anger. She wasn’t believing that words.
“You’re sick in the head” Rhia said, trying to steady her voice
Lucy smirked “You two are not even living together anymore! You’re stealing my chance with him! You left him and now he doesn’t want to be around me because of you” her face contorted with anger.
Rhia’s emotions were a mix all over the place, she was tired of this bullshit.
“You’re delusional” Rhia shot back; voice laced with frustration
Lucy took a step closer “You think you’re perfect, don’t you? But I could give him the family you never will”
Rhia’s heart sank at Lucy’s words. Her anger was replaced by deep shame and sadness.
“He didn’t even want that baby of yours, did he?”
Rhia’s eyes blazed with indignation. Lucy’s cruel words were taking the best of her. Tears welled up in Rhia’s eyes at the mention of her tiny baby, but she refused to cry in front of her.
“You know, Rhia? In a world like this, you need to be strong and you are not in a good place” Lucy said, voice laced with venom “You don’t deserve Joel”
Those words cut deep; Rhia’s felt her heart break a little more.
“And you’re the one saying this?” She took a step closer, Rhia had enough of Lucy “You, the one who has always been inside these walls?” her voice defensive “You have never seen the things I’ve seen, you’ve never done the things I had to do, so don’t come here to tell me I’m weak”
Lucy seemed taken aback by Rhia’s words, but she regained her composure.
“You’re trying to convince yourself you are better- “
“I had enough,” Rhia said, voice raising “The world is over and you are here trying to have a man who doesn’t want to be with you, so if you excuse me. I’ll keep doing what I was doing before you came here” Rhia turned on her heels to go.
“At least I wouldn’t get my baby killed” Lucy called out; she knew her words were cruel but she wanted to hurt the woman.
Rhia froze in her tracks, her heart pounding in her chest. Lucy’s words cut like a knife.
Turning back to face Lucy, Rhia’s eyes were filled with fury “You have no right- “
Before she could continue, she noticed Lucy’s eyes widened. When Rhia turned back, she saw Joel standing behind her, anger in his eyes.
Joel stepped forward; his jaw clenched tightly. His eyes bore into Lucy with disappointment “Enough” he said, firmly “I won’t stay here watching you say all this bullshit to Rhia”
Lucy’s bravery weakened in Joel’s presence, but she still tried to defend herself “I didn’t lie”
Joel shook his head “Using her” he chocked “Our pain to hurt her is cruel”
Rhia couldn’t hold back her frustration any longer and turned to leave, her emotions were overwhelming.
“Rhia, wait” Joel called after her, reaching out to grab her hand gently. How good it felt to touch her again.
Rhia stopped, her heart beating heart. Being this close to Joel after all these days felt overwhelming. Rhia felt a mix of relief and anger “Why would she do that”?
“She acted out of desperation and jealousy” he explained trying to keep Rhia calm
Rhia took a deep breath, trying to process his words
Rhia’s emotions were in turmoil.
“Why would she be so jealous and desperate?” Rhia asked, her voice tinged with frustration.
Joel’s heart felt heavy.
Rhia looked into Joel’s eyes; her own eyes filled with frustration.
“Because you made her believe she was important to you”
“You’re right,” he said, his voice gentle but filled with regret.
Rhia hugged herself tightly, feeling a surge of protectiveness over their lost child and their relationship
“I don’t even care about her, I-what hurts the most is how you acted after Daisy”
Joel’s eyes widened with surprise. He hadn’t expected her to name their baby.
“I didn’t know you named her” Joel said softly “I wish you had told me”
Rhia looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears.
“I’m sorry” she whispered. “She deserved a name”
Joel reached out to wipe away Rhia’s tears, he didn’t want to be the cause of her sadness anymore.
“I needed you” Rhia said, her voice finally breaking “I cried myself to sleep alone and you were there with—”
Joel pulled Rhia close, embracing her tightly
“Get off of me, Joel”
His heart sank at Rhia’s reaction.
“You made a mess of me” her face filled with a mix of emotions.
“I was wrong, and I can’t change what I did but I want to make it right” Joel admitted
Rhia let out a deep and frustrated sigh “It’s not that simple and I don’t know if I can forgive you right now.
Joel reached out and took her hand gently “I will be here from now on”
Rhia didn’t respond, but this time she didn’t pull away. Instead, she leaned on Joel
He smiled against her head “I’ll do whatever it takes to have our family back”
Rhia didn’t say anything. They stood there in silence for a moment, their feeling hanging heavy in the air.
“I-I have to go” she said, pulling away
Joel nodded “Okay”
Rhia took a deep breath trying to steady her emotions.
As she turned to leave, Joel softly grabbed her wrist pulling her into a hug, again. Rhia, surprised by this action, hugged him back. She only wanted her old time with Joel for a few seconds. He kissed her forehead gently, cherishing the closeness they had at that moment.
When they parted ways, Rhia gave him a small nod.
“Take care, Joel”
On the following day, the sun rose over the small town, casting a warm touch lingering on the skin, even in the coldness of the day, Joel found himself marching towards Tommy’s in the kitchen.
Stepping inside, Joel was greeted by Tommy, who appeared calm despite Joel’s dementor. It was evident he was angry at him.
“What the hell did you have in mind, Tommy?!” Joel’s voice carried anger
“Good morning, Joel” Tommy reply, simply.
“Sending Rhia alone on a mission for supplies?” He asked dumfounded “Do I have to remind you last time she almost died?
Tommy sighed; he understood his brother concerns “Before you hit me or something, it was her who offered”
Joel, taken aback asked “She...offered? “
Tommy nodded “Yes, it’s only a search for resources” he explained, hoping this could help Joel to understand.
“That doesn’t mean you should have agreed to it! I won’t let her and she is out of her mind if she thinks I’m letting her go”
Tommy nodded, acknowledging Joel’s protectiveness over Rhia
“Then go with her” he said
“Of course, I will” Joel said resolutely, determined.
Tommy nodded, smiling at his older brother's stubbornness.
“God. She is gonna punch me in the face” Tommy said
“She’ll understand” Joel admitted.
“No, she’ll get mad, at you the most” Tommy said.
As the pair made their way to the stables, Joel’s heart raced.
“You know what? Tommy stopped. “You should take this chance to fix thins with Rhia?”
Joel nodded, remaining silent.
As they stepped inside, Rhia turned toward them. Her eyes rolled when she saw Joel; she knew what he was doing.
“What he doing here?” She asked, directly at Tommy.
Tommy exchanged a look with Joel before addressing the elephant in the room.
“He is going with you” he said
Rhia’s expression softened slightly, but a frustration still lingering in her features.
“I can take care of myself” She replied, voice irritated.
“I know, but you both are a team” he said looking at them.
“I think Joel doesn’t know that” she said, sarcastically.
“Oh my god Rhia! Of course, I know” he retorted, frustration in his voice.
Rhia rolled her eyes “Really? Last time I checked, you were a team with other people” Her voice, lingering with jealousy
His jaw clenched, Joel took a deep breath “Look, if you don’t want me to go, you can go right now, but I’m still following you”
Rhia crossed her arms, her expression softening “Okay”
“You know how I feel about your safety” Joel added
Rhia’s gaze locked with his “Thank you, but I can take care of myself too”
“I know” He replied “But after last time…I won’t risk losing you again”
Rhia smile, timidly
As they shared an intimate moment, Tommy interrupted, calling them over.
“Can you kiss already and go?” He spoke
Joel and Rhia blushed at Tommy’s interruption.
“Be safe out there” Tommy added.
“Hey, Tommy” Rhia called “While we were out there, take care of Ellie” she said.
Tommy nodded “Of course, I will keep her safe” he smiled “Now, go and take care. Ellie and I will be here waiting for you”
With a final nod, Joel and Rhia mounted their horses and set off to their mission and ventured out of the safety of Jackson.
Joel and Rhia rode side by side, their horses’ hooves echoing through the eerily silence of the desolate world, the tension between them both still filling the air. The world around them seemed to hold the same rust of silence growing between them.
Joel stole a glance at Rhia, she was deep in thought.
“Rhia?” Joel spoke breaking the silence.
Rhia looked at him expectantly. Joel reached out gently touching her arm.
“Thank you for allowing me to come here” he said
“You’re my partner” she said “Even when we are not together anymore”
Joel’s heart sunk at those last words and remained silent.
Principio del formulario
As they explored the reminiscing of the place looking for resources, night enveloped them. They found shelter in an old rusting house. Joel set up a small bonfire, providing them with warmth and light.
“It’s hard to believe this was once a home” she said softly, interrupting the silence.
Joel reminded silence, his eyes locked on Rhia’s face, glistening in the firelight. He was lost on her. His heart swelled with love for the woman in front of him. After all that happened, he had forgotten how lucky he was to have her in this world.
“Rhia” Joel began “You’re my rock, you know that?” Joel said softly.
Rhia looked at him, her eyes shimmering in the light. She smiled softly, but didn’t reply. Instead, she settled down beside Joel, shoulder touching. Them both staring into the flames of the campfire.
“I mean it” He spoke
Joel turned his head to look at her, their eyes meeting in a moment of unspoken words and deep connection.
Joel gently reached out and brushed a strand of hair away from Rhia’s face as they locked their eyes “I love you” he whispered.
Rhia’s heart skipped a beat, and a soft smile appeared on her face. They leaned closer, their foreheads touching.
They leaned in, almost kissing. Joel could almost feel her lips on his
“Do you really think a kiss will solve all this?” She said barely touching his lips, voice laced with teasing.
Rhia’s smile grew, and she pulled back.
Joel let out a disappointed sigh.
It seemed like things weren’t going to be that easy for him.
A/N: I don't know what I wrote, but I hope you liked it a little bit. Thank you so much for reading and please, comment, reblog or ask me anything,
All the best.
taglist:
@joeldjarin
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Weak Spot - Chapter 21
RotTMNT Donatello x Reader
Warnings: Aged-up Turtles, Romance, Meet Cute, Villain Donatello, Cussing, Crushes, Xenophobia, Fear, Intimidation, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Hurt/Comfort, Love, AFAB Reader, Vaginal Sex, Sex Rough, Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Creampie, Teasing, Scent Kink, Sexual Tension, Breeding Kink, Multiple Orgasms, Cunnilingus
Synopsis: Though it hadn’t come easily, as these things rarely do, you found yourself in a whirlwind romance with a handsome and mysterious mutant. His idiosyncrasies had been easy to ignore as attraction grew into something more. However, will love endure when the unknowns about him end up being far darker than you ever considered?
Also available on Ao3
First 💜 Previous
Week 1
You: Let’s see how this works?
You: Okay… I wasn’t sure if I was going to get an auto message each time one failed. It just notes it with a little red mark on the message itself. Not too bad.
You: You probably don’t care about that or already know.
You: These probably aren’t the first messages you wanted to read when you got back
You: I should have thought of something more poignant like…
You: It’s been one day and I miss you already
You: How was that?
You: I didn’t stand a chance against my roommate. She crashed into the bathroom this morning when I was trying to change my bandages saying she knew something was up. She was furious.
You: Not at you though!
You: The injuries read accident to her, like a car accident or something? Her voice was so loud. Stupid concussion is killing me. Hard to make sense
You: She made her point though. She was pissed I hid it from her which is fair.
You: You know you straight up said you were gonna tell me what happened. It was the classic I tell you, you tell me
You: And yet!
You: I still don’t know.
You: …
You: I don’t know
You: Work catered today, they want to start up weekly catering. I feel like this is one of those things where they’re going to give us a dumb perk so they can take something really messed up away
You: I saw a video where they were discussing supposed new and revolutionary tech. It doesn’t even come close to the few things I’ve seen of yours. Is it frustrating to know society is so far behind you?
You: So Kaleb has a cat now! He literally came home from work and there was just a cat in his apartment. He got her checked out and she wasn’t chipped. He’s still going to put out notices just in case, but she has already taken to sleeping on his stomach. He’s a goner
You: Her name is Graham Cracker
You: I found 20 bucks on the sidewalk today!
You: Seems lucky, but I’m sort of afraid of luck these days
You: Oh
You: I guess I never told you about that…
You: I haven’t seen those other stupid turtles
You: It doesn’t feel like I’m being watched
You: I feel like I would know, but I’m also not sure
You: Bored today, how about a play by play
You: Breakfast was these microwave mini quiches. It feels so fancy, but it takes a minute and the party sized box means I got food for more than a week!
You: There’s a lady walking and eating a bowl of chili at 834am. I want to know more about her life
You: One of my cubicle mates is coughing up a storm. I heard one of my co-workers ask why she won’t go home. She says she can rest better at work. No fine, just get the rest of us sick.
You: Lunch break! I tried making onigirazu after we had them from that shop, do you remember? They were so good. Mine taste okay, but look terrible. Eh.
You: I don’t usually succumb to the midafternoon slump, but lately I just don’t feel like I have much to look forward to.
You: Wait that sounds bad…
You: Moving on!
You: Freedom!
You: Ugh the whole apartment smells like beans, why has my roommate done this to me!?
You: She also like made dinner so I guess I can’t complain too much
You: Tastes good
You: I’m supposed to progress like business is usual
You: Go through my normal routine
You: Act like nothing happened
You: But something did happen
You: Sorry, I shouldn’t even write this.
You: Disregard
Week 2
You: Some of these packages are straight up unfair
You: Like it started out with cute little things like that monstera spoon
You: Which I’ve already used to strain veggies by the way!
You: But this sticker pack?
You: Like sure I mentioned this show meant a lot to me as a kid, but how did you know which character was my favorite?
You: There is no way you hacked anything to get that info!
You: Could you tell based on my other interests? Do you know me that well?
You: So… I’m not proud of this and full disclosure I went to your apartment last night
You: I guess it’s not your apartment anymore
You: It’s not like I could get in
You: I was sort of drunk and ended up there
You: I just wanted to see it
You: Everything is happening and it feels real
You: I go to work, I see my co-workers, we eat lunch, we do work, I commute home, I see my friends, I see my roommate, but it all feels so fucking hollow
You: Just
You: Anyway, Sheldon was pissed. He kept buzzing my gauntlet over and over
You: He won’t talk to me.
You: I mean obviously he wouldn’t I knew he wouldn’t he
You: You
You: Said he wouldn’t it jeopardizes the plan. He’s only supposed to be there to keep watch.
You: I never saw him, just that damn vibration
You: I left after that.
You: I have a major fucking headache so I guess I learned my lesson
You: I’m drinking water by the way
You: Like you care
You: Woof that looks bad the next day…
You: I was in a bad mood
You: I’m sorry
You: Will these messages make sense without the time stamps?
Week 3
You: Well?
You: Fuck
You: Stupid ocean of texts and shitty red marks
You: Feels like I failed a test
You: I knew there wasn’t a timeline, but in my mind there was
You: I had to count down to something
You: Three weeks made sense
You: Isn’t that like the meaning of a ‘few’ weeks?
You: I went to the art installation with a friend.
You: It was really cool
You: I took some pictures, but not as many as I said
You: Or I guess that wasn’t really an agreement.
You: We never really discussed how that would go
You: A lot of things left unsaid
You: I wonder what I keep expecting
You: Like are you going to show up when you come back?
You: Will I get a calendar invite?
You: Are you just going to respond?
You: Hi
You: Hey
You: Are you in town and your phone is off?
You: Will I even know when you get back?
You: I know you promised, but I don’t think you ever really got my side
You: Oh shit
You: What are you going to do? Stop me?
You: Fuck you
You: Your self worth sucks shit
You: Ha! You can’t say anything back!
You: Seriously what am I in comparison ?
You: I’m just some stupid human. I’m not special. I’m just living my life.
You: I don’t like think I’m ugly or anything. I’m alright. I’m me at the end of every day
You: But you?
You: Seriously fuck you
You: This sucks because I’m actually pumped I get to say what I’m about to say without your stupid emo interruptions but then
You: It just reminds me that you aren’t here
You: Nope not gonna be sad!
You: Anyway
You: Then there’s you.
You: You’re caring. You’re interesting. You’re mysterious. You put on airs like nothing matters when things matter way too much. Plus you’re gorgeous. You’re strong. You’re cut out of fucking marble. You’re a literal walking sculpture. You’re smart. You’re so smart it's actually stupid AND you’re a great lay which is literally unfair to existence. You shouldn’t be all those things
You: Like share with the rest of us!
You: Why the fuck would you come back to me?
You: What could I possibly offer in comparison to that?
You: You should be with the prettiest model genius the world has ever seen
You: Why
You: Should you come back
You: It doesn’t make sense.
Week 4
You: I think I was given too much time to think
-
Kicking your door open, you stared into your apartment.
It was empty.
You knew that for a fact.
Your roommate had left that very morning to go see her parents for their anniversary.
You were stuck alone.
What a pathetic Friday night.
What else was new?
Crossing the threshold you simply let your coat fall on the floor along with your bag and other useless requirements that validated your existence. There had also been another package. It rolled uselessly out from your things and over to the two others that you had yet to open from this week. Ignoring them as you had been, you threw a foot back. The door slammed shut from it and, with a flick of the wrist, you locked it.
“Welcome home to the sad life of those left waiting!”
You don’t know why you were being so dramatic today.
Trudging away from the pile, you tread towards the kitchen. You weren’t really hungry, but you’d barely picked at your lunch. Fridays had become a testament to capitalistic arrogance as they were days free of meetings and barely filled with work. Still, refusal to adopt some kind of hippie foreign policy kept the higher ups from making the smarter decision to commit to a four day work week. If they had finally exercised some sense, maybe you could have waited until Monday for your reprimand.
It’s not like you meant to send out the work up to the client with an oxford comma.
By all accounts, it was necessary.
Who has a vendetta against a tiny pen flick anyway?
Wandering away from the counter you had approached for no reason, you changed course for the fridge. Light poured from the empty shelves as your roommate had strategically laid out her groceries so she could stuff the thing with party leftovers when she got back.
You, on the other hand, just hadn’t had the sense to shop.
Why do so when you were out almost every other night?
What was left in the cold storage was sauces and not even the most basic building blocks of a meal. Sighing, you switched to the freezer where there was mostly frost bitten ice cream and a box that was far too large for the amount of pretzels it contained. It would do, but lacked some form of protein you probably needed. Flicking up the edge of some pita that definitely needed to be tossed, you glimpsed a box. Pulling it out, it was some discounted freezer meal you had grabbed in case of emergency. Staring at it, you stepped away enough that the door closed.
You could always order in.
Looking out indifferently, your wallet said otherwise. You were due to get paid Monday and you’d been stretching yourself thin in an incessant need to leave the house.
Avoiding one’s thoughts didn’t need to be so damn expensive.
Giving up, you turned and made the few steps toward the microwave. You only sort of gleaned the instructions before reaching for the device’s handle. Your sleeve lifted and there was a peak of your gauntlet underneath it. You quickly slapped the food in and slammed the microwave closed. S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.’s silence had been deafening. He wasn’t supposed to respond, you knew that, but that didn’t keep you from whispering to him in the middle of the night.
You were such a fucking burden.
Turning away from the ticking dial, you headed towards your abandoned things.
Your phone was in there.
The device had been essentially glued to your hand for three straight weeks. It was only in the last few days that you couldn’t bear to look at it. It was the same case with the unopened packages.
Waiting had made you bitter.
Waiting had driven you out in an endless crawl of the city.
Waiting drained your wallet and mind.
You were still waiting.
The microwave beeped in time. Hobbling over to it, you did some stirring and put it right back in for its final rotations. It already paled in comparison to its poster package counterpart, but it only needed to be palatable.
As did everything else.
Walking away again, you headed towards the couch and avoided sitting to hover in front of the TV with the remote. You flipped over to a movie you had heard your gossipy coworker raving about and set it right at its opening studio notes. A completed beep sounded and you went to retrieve your sad looking dinner. It was far too hot and you let it burn the countertop as you got a drink. You then balanced it on scorched fingertips back to the couch before hitting play. You sank down into the cushions before you realized you’d forgotten a utensil. Groaning at the prospect, you left the movie playing as you got a fork. On the way back, you bumped your drink as you sat and barely saved it from a tumble to the floor. In retribution for preventing its freedom, it sloshed onto your pants and you simply stared at the stain before giving up to grab your food.
Dialog had started as you scooped a bite into your mouth. You immediately scrunched up and chewed as if you were forced to. The texture was wrong and the flavor seemingly took on the mealy quality in a way you couldn’t describe. Thinking only that this was the reason it had been discounted, you ate more out of sheer necessity. With a few calories down, you abandoned the meal to watch the movie. It seemed to be something about a match of two close friends whose quirks led them to really only understanding one another. You were curious what had gotten your coworker riled up when a diagnosis occurred.
Suddenly trapped, you were too far in to do anything and nursed your drink as the movie took a haunting turn. Slowly the routine the pair had going for years was eroded and your chest ached. Still in a rising action, something about the thought of them not being able to watch their favorite movie together again got you. Tears were soon streaming down your face and, as the climax hit, warbled voices speaking of fear activated memories you had tried to keep at bay. The end of the movie sort of happened and by the credits you were hanging your head.
The love was platonic.
No one died.
By all accounts it wasn’t similar at all, so why has this of all things broken you?
Squeezing your face as if it were a sponge to wring out excess tears, you stormed to get a snack. Predictably, or cosmically, the cupboards were bare minus a strange jar of pickled rounds you couldn’t identify and a single popcorn bag that was leaking out of a torn corner. Grimacing at the thought of what that might mean, you cleaned out the cabinet as a whole and ended up accidentally slipping off the counter in the process. You mostly saved yourself, but still hit your funny bone. It exaggerated the stupid tears that kept easily finding their way out of your ducts. Wilting down to the ground and nursing your arm, you stared out across your apartment.
This was all so dumb.
You were being dramatic.
You hadn’t broken up.
You weren’t even taking a break.
He was just gone on a trip.
So to speak.
It was as if you were pulling a reverse of what should be. You’d opened so strong with Donatello. You’d put yourself out there with a confidence that welled from an unknown source. As things got more serious, excitement blinded you. Seeing him was an automatic hit of serotonin so who were you to examine the cracks that seemed to always form every single time something interrupted that. It was alarming that small absences sent you down negative paths so quickly. It was as if the improbability of him accepting a courting had bolstered you. Without that seemingly assured futility paired with his rapidly increasing reciprocation, things were simply too real. Greater weight meant greater loss. The thought of which chained your heart.
You pulled your knees up to your chest and set your chin atop them. Your mind swirled with anxieties and the many questions left unanswered. You’d determined to keep from thinking for just this reason. It only lead down dark paths. You were isolated and had no one but yourself to turn to. Sinking further down, more tears snuck free. This time had been especially illuminating on that front. Your woes were confined to your mind. It seemed like the closer you got to Donatello, the less you could tell others what was happening. It hadn’t been expressly forbidden, but his matters felt either private or, at the very least, illegal in some capacity.
Sure, your friends had seen your mutant boyfriend, but who would believe you just so happened to be jumped by three more who were coincidentally created in the same experiment to eradicate mankind?
Raising up enough to bump your head back against the cabinets, you thought about the physical healing you’d done.
At least you’d made some strides in some department.
It meant undoing them would be all the sweeter.
You needed something greasy.
Standing, you checked the time. It was just late enough that the family places were closed, but early enough that people were just heading out for wild nights. With delivery fees still looming overhead, you looked down at yourself. You’d garnered another stain; this one on your shirt. Caring very little, you marched toward the door. With a swift kick, you toppled the pile you’d left there and rooted out your phone and wallet. Pocketing the device before you could see it, you checked for cash and found that lost bill peeking out. It felt like a sort of fate that you hadn’t thought to use it as a tip elsewhere.
Hitting the street, you stuffed your hands among your possessions. Friday’s poise showed in the passersby and you felt schlubby in comparison. Scrubbing your face only stung where the tears salted your skin and you heard a group of guys laugh. Reminding yourself it wasn’t for you, you turned a corner heading towards the closest fast food chain. Though you’d been out most of the week, the irritations of the day and lonely aspects of the night commingled miserably. You did your best to keep the irrational abandonment at bay, but it seemed incessant.
When had you become so clingy?
You tried to remember before, but it all seemed so futile. In the span of your life you had several decades of time without him and yet they seemed to pale in comparison. It was a red flag of your own making and not one you were keen on taking with you whenever he did return. You needed to temper expectations. You had to act like you hadn’t had trouble sleeping or eating. You needed to stop convincing yourself that your little benders weren’t a necessary evil. You knew better. You needed to miss him less than he clearly missed you.
There it was again.
Wincing so hard a few more stupid tears leaked out, you stopped walking to press your sleeve to your face.
It was obvious.
You didn’t know that for sure.
Why weren’t the rationales working?
Dragging the sleeve across your face so hard it burned, you marched with purpose. Sure, French fries wouldn’t solve your problems and were nothing more than another ridiculous balm, but at least they would taste damn good. You saw the glowing beacon tucked a few blocks down. You burned its lights into your retinas in an attempt to drown out the negative thoughts. They had never reared their head in this way and you were clearly losing the battle.
You had a sea of comments from him that said otherwise and yet given space all you could do was second guess every moment.
In a mental scream, you loudly berated the derogatory voices until you finally reached the restaurant. With doors flung open with a little too much force, you headed straight towards the counter. A man there seemed stunned by your existence for only a moment before his lackadaisical attitude kicked in. You ordered and passed him the 20 to receive change back. Pocketing the money instead of fiddling with your wallet, you wandered over to the sparse seating area.
You hadn’t checked your phone since this morning.
That incessant well of hope sprung up at just the thought.
Mentally building a dam of twigs and mud, you pulled out the device. A few wrong clicks with oily hands meant you bypassed the code to instead bring up the camera. Its last setting had been front facing for whatever reason and you caught sight of what startled the employee. Your hair was a mess, your face was ruddy, your cheeks were clearly tear stained, and there was yet another stain you hadn’t noticed on your shoulder.
Did you eat like an animal?
Cursing the makers of frozen food, you stared listlessly at yourself. You were just bitter enough that you could self-depreciate. Bringing the phone up high to at least attempt a flattering angle, you took a picture with the counter in the background. You shot it off into the sea of other texts with red warnings before thinking to add a comment.
You: Having the best Friday night ever
In a move that you imagined to be like an old gunslinger, you pocketed your device and leaned into a wall. Your eyes felt watery again so you closed them to keep anything else from falling. You wondered if maybe fighting back was the problem. Maybe you just needed to accept that you had always been the reacher in the relationship and, while you berated Donnie at the prospect of making his life about you, you had done so subconsciously as it was the pit you had fallen into. Acknowledgement would help you untangle the sticky web of complex emotions.
You must have finally run the gambit of grief.
Acceptance was the final step, or so they said.
Plotting a better tomorrow and a throw away of this evening, the employee called out to you. Pushing off the wall and feeling the smallest bit better, you went to grab your food. The bag entered your grasp and you lifted it off the tray to keep the worker from having to deal with picking it up later. He took the plastic back and you turned to leave. Parting a glance to the lobby on sheer coincidence, you saw several bills lying on the ground where you had once been. Souring and remembering your old west maneuver had probably dumped them, you sighed as you hobbled over to grab them. In a quick squat, you swiped the tender and heard a resounding clatter of something being dropped in the kitchen.
Slowly pushing off your knees into a rotation, there was a scream and then glass seemed to be flying everywhere. Stumbling backwards and falling into an affixed seat, you opened your eyes from where they were screwed shut to see the lights were now out and the entire front entrance was gone. What remained of it was sharp jagged edges of glass and several people running away outside through the now clear view of the sidewalk. Tinnitus set in signifying there had been some sort of explosion and you deliriously fought against it for clarity’s sake. In what was an embarrassing struggle, you managed to get back on your feet as the first sounds reached your damaged ear drums.
It sounded like the rhythmic motions of heavy machinery.
Vague memories percolated, which you kicked aside as you scrambled up to a corner to peek at whatever was happening. At the register, barely visible by some emergency lighting coming from within the kitchen, was a huge spider-like shape. Two thick legs dug wide into the ground and held up what you identified as the pilot of what must have been a suit. Another arm was then buried into the ruins of the counter while a fourth was wrapped around the employee who had helped you. The appendage brought the man up to the figure’s face where purple light seemed to burn him as his face was contorted in agony.
“I asked you a simple question.”
You nearly dropped your bag of food.
You’d only heard that voice once before.
It had haunted you for a long while, but it now elicited a very different reaction.
“I-I-I-I d-don’t k-know, m-man! I-I-I s-swear!” The employee stuttered and you could see the mechanics coil around him tighter until he had to give up on his grimace to gasp at the pressure.
You also knew that feeling well.
“Looking for someone?!” You planted your feet and shouted out.
The figure stopped dead.
Your heart made for a similar maneuver as you waited.
Then in a deathly slow turn, the figure’s head pivoted to your direction.
Two huge round purple orbs bathed you in their light.
“R-r-run!” The employee croaked.
That wasn’t happening.
It was nice of him though.
The arm released the man and he crashed into a heap somewhere behind the counter.
Mechanics shifted as metal extracted itself from plywood and the arms rotated the figure to face you. You stared up in awe as they then walked over to you in a methodical fashion. With a bend, the two lower arms brought the figure down until he was almost touching the ground. Memories of fear shot high, but they were intangible compared to what was now in front of you. That night had held a misty figure of torment. Even in the dark, the definition you now had painted him in a totally new light.
He was clearly disheveled. You had a feeling it wasn’t meant to be that way and this costume had been thrown on in a hurry. The collar of the black jumpsuit he wore hadn’t been zipped up all the way and flopped at a strange angle. His hood teetered back on his head to the point where a slight shift would probably knock it off. It helped accentuate the clear circuitry in there that wasn’t being used. A belt came off his shoulder and dangled uselessly down. It directed your eye further where you found one of his pants legs hadn’t been properly stuffed into his boots.
It reminded you of how you looked.
It served to further crop up a sort of kinship that then completely squashed the last embers of alarm left at the sight of him.
“You’re… not scared.”
His voice was so deep; it was strange. Still around his footwear, you moved to look into those glowing eyes. They had been white from what you last remembered. The recall of which seemed particularly distant. It felt like looking back on a nightmare many days after the fact. You understood why the employee had winced though. His headlamps were incessantly bright.
“I’m not.” Despite the light, you couldn’t help but soften.
Though you couldn’t see his gaze, you could sense he looked you over. Whatever he found appeased him because, when he brought his attention up, he had an assured aura. “Pretend to be.”
You nodded before an arm wrapped reached out to you carefully. You watched it openly as it slithered along your hip before beginning to encircle you. Memories of a coiling snake lapped at your consciousness, but still felt hollow in comparison to the terror from before. Though it looked similar to how the employee had been held, there was a gentleness as you were lifted off the ground. It was hard not to smile as you remembered his order. Trying to play the part, you freely let out a yelp of surprise. .
“H-hey!” You choked out as if you were being strangled even though in reality that was furthest from the truth.
In a turn and with a stomping of mechanical limbs, you exited out the hole while scared protests leaked off your lips. The wrap hadn’t coiled around your arms and so you made a show of trying to wrench yourself free. Crumbling brick rained down and signaled you were about to head up the building. He let you dangle in a trail behind him so you sent one last desperate plea to the workers who watched on in horror as you disappeared out the threshold. Back in the night air, you watched as three limbs mechanically worked their way up the building. It wasn’t exact, but the way the pack moved more methodically than what you recalled. You hoped the light of the city would help you get a better look at whatever his costume was, but from the back he basically looked like a black blob.
If he were going for anonymity then he was nailing it.
You breached the rooftop and he took pause. From your comfortable perch, you craned your head to see him fiddling with something. Waiting, he eventually turned towards you incrementally through use of his pack.
“We’re going to clear the area. They’ve called the police.”
“Gotcha!” You chirped before remembering yourself. “Oh, am I supposed to keep…?”
“Hold on.”
The pitch was still wrong, but it was teetering more towards recognizable. You were only given a useless moment to wonder if he meant to wait or grab something before he took off. In a rapid crawl that reminded you of a skittering bug, he ate up real estate at an alarming rate. You ended up bunkering down into the arm that shifted its hold as if to shield you. When he finally stopped, you peeked out to find you had to be miles from your original destination. He was fiddling with something again and continued to do so as you were lowered to the roof. The arm lingered until your feet were properly on the ground before he turned to you in a rapid rush.
You realized he’d also gotten his boots down and a gloved hand shot out only to freeze just before grazing you. His head tipped down as he did a blatant sweeping scan that ended in a slow trek to your face. In that time, you finally got the open view of him you craved. His jumpsuit appeared to be purposefully clunky in a way that encompassed his form and gave nothing away of what lay underneath. There was purple stripe detail that lined the zipper that wasn’t pulled up all the way. If it had, the collar would probably obscure his snout all the more. The dangling strap held a similarly colored blocky ‘D’ on it that you found to be an adorable trademark. The only parts of his costume that were suctioned to his skin were where the battle shell stabilized around his waist, his gloves, and his black combat boots that continued the theming with purple laces. His legs were dotted with various pouches and pockets further plumping out his pants with little color coded accents. It all hid him away just like the jet black mask that encased those purple eyes.
It was no wonder the media couldn’t settle on a name for him.
What would someone even call this?
“You aren’t injured.”
“No.” You spoke the phrase as you continued to examine his outfit.
“The photograph.”
You blinked wide before finally turning your attention straight at him.
Stupid selfie.
“Oh…” You grimaced. “About that…”
He straightened slightly as he waited.
“I…” Your gaze hit the roof below. “… had a bad day… is all.”
“You-” He made a noise of irritation and it was the closest to sounding like him yet. You watched his hands come away from you and reach up to his mask. The lights in his goggles clicked off first and you caught a glimpse of his gaze through the colored glass. In one swoop, the goggles and accompanying fabric were in one yanked off and his hood flicked back. Donnie stood in front of you in a huff.
“You-” You corrected. “-overreacted.”
“I-!?” He rose slightly with indignation. “I returned to the city to find evidence of you, distraught!”
“So you are going to acknowledge it?” You added an icy edge with the turn of your chin.
He dropped back down. “What do you mean?”
Anger shot through you.
That didn’t seem right.
“That you’re back! No hi, hello, or welcome! You just destroy a fucking fast food joint without noticing me at all!” You jammed a finger at him, but kept it from connecting. “One month and you’ve completely reverted! Not only did you freak out, you didn’t try to check in with me, and tracked me, with-” You reeled your arm in and threw the other out to push up your sleeve to show your tech gauntlet. “-this!”
He sank slightly into his suit.
“And even now you’re-!” Your breath hitched.
When had all those tears formed in your eyes?
He was back.
Weren’t you supposed to be happy?
Didn’t you have a plan to quell your excitement?
Why is it all you wanted to do was sob?
“Even now… you don’t…” You choked on the bitterness.
There was a click and release. You looked up to find the arms still standing, but Donnie stepped freely away from the battle shell. He closed the short gap between you, but hesitated again with a lifted finger.
“Guilt keeping you?” You spat quietly.
Wait.
“Guilt?” He dipped his head to catch your eye with a sudden urgency.
You dodged him.
This wasn’t right.
“A nice little vacation.” You turned an eye on him only on your own terms.
No, you needed to stop.
He was clearly confused. “It was no vacation, I can assure you.”
“Assure?” Your chest puffed out and leaned your head back. “Calm down, you mean? Quell the piece back home?”
Irrational.
“Piece?” His snout crinkled around the word.
“Just stop.” You seethed and turned away.
You needed to stop.
None of this was real.
You knew that.
Why couldn’t you stop it from pouring out like blood from a wound?
“Y/N, I don’t understand.” He reached up and pulled the zipper at his suit.
“Ugh!” You almost gagged visibly, but were able to barely keep the theatric in check. “Enough stripping already! The costume isn’t the issue!”
He stopped and stared at you with a hardening expression.
“I’ll find my own way down.” You headed towards the access door when his hand closed like a vice around your wrist. You whipped around in a fury completely out of your control. “Don’t touch me-!”
He had his phone out and was swiping through it.
Horror blanketed you and you yanked desperately.
He let you thrash, but refused to let go as his eye scanned the device intently.
Bile burned your esophagus as you changed course. You shot towards him and he dodged easily in spin. “Stop!” You screeched and made another swipe that he easily outmaneuvered while still keeping your cuff on tightly. Furious, you twisted around in a new way and caught a glimpse of his screen.
It was your text chain.
Stomach bottoming out to nearly your feet, you dug your nails into the hand on you. Blood seeped from the pressure and you sent a satisfied smirk in his direction. The pained expression you hoped to find there was instead dire solemnity.
It looked eerily close to pity.
Enflamed, but beaten, you shrank away as far as he’d let you until he seemed to catch up with the messages.. He then allowed his phone to clatter to the ground as he turned on you.
“Don’t.” You warned, already curling into yourself.
He didn’t speak and released you.
You stood numbly and rubbed your wrist.
The damage there was your own.
Hadn’t you wanted to run?
He was coming close and you shirked away from him.
“Donnie stop.”
Like an unrelenting force, he continued to step towards you.
“Listen!” Your voice sounded thin.
He reached out.
“Don’t touch me!”
He halted on contact with the phrase.
You wanted to retract.
You wanted to scream.
You wanted to cry.
This wasn’t how the reunion was supposed to go.
It shouldn’t have happened tonight.
Tonight was already deemed a waste.
“I’d like permission.”
You refused to look at him. “For what?”
Just go.
“To comfort you.”
Why?
“Why?”
“I should have found another way; one that didn’t involve leaving you.”
Stop prolonging the inevitable!
Move on already!
All you’ve done is lead me on!
Go be with the perfect being that is clearly waiting on you!
Stop wasting my time!
Stop wasting yours!
The screams were so loud, your knees buckled.
Instead of falling, you dropped to a squat and buried your face into your hands. Your breath was so loud within the cupping, but it still wasn’t enough to quell those raging irrational thoughts.
You heard a swish of fabric.
He was still there.
He refused to stop hovering.
Why did he keep waiting?
Why wouldn’t he just leave?
Maybe you needed to tell him?
He needed to hear it.
Even if you wanted to, you knew you were too pathetic to ever do it.
No matter how much you wanted better for him.
You were too selfish.
You had been waiting so long for his return.
He was back.
Raising up as if puppeteered by an entirely different entity, you felt the night air hit your wet cheeks.
Of course, you were crying again.
You turned your devastated expression on him and spoke through glass. “I’m sorry.”
He was close; as close as he could possibly be with his big body and yet he still hadn’t touched you. He held out a hand and a handkerchief was deposited there from one of his arms of the battle shell even though it still sat a length away. Taking great care in adjusting the fabric in his hold, he blotted your cheeks. It was there that you felt how he’d maneuvered it so he wasn’t even touching you through the fabric.
His staunch following of your direction caused more tears to flow.
Stupid perfect asshole.
He caught the drips easily.
“I’m a mess.”
He shook his head.
“I have photo evidence to prove it.”
He raised a brow that said he disagreed.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?”
He stared for a moment longer before his gaze sank along with his hand. He stared at the darkened spots where your tears had absorbed into the handkerchief. “My first response needs to be a perfect encapsulation of my thoughts. Though, I am having difficulty formulating one.”
“Silence isn’t better.”
“I see that.”
Shifting off your rapidly numbing legs, you let yourself fall onto your ass.
“I should have realized.” There was a thump of him presumably doing the same. “I could have done something to quell your concerns.”
“Quell, huh?” You responded dryly.
You felt his gaze snap to you. “I ignored your prior insinuation because it was patently erroneous, but I find it alarming that you would bring it up again.”
“Bring up what?” Your legs were still a tangle in front of you and you hiked them up to bury your chin into your knee.
“That there could be anyone else.”
How many times would you force him to say that?
“It makes sense.”
“It doesn’t.” There was a shift as he somehow scooted even closer to you with nary a graze.
“Keep that up and we’ll need a microscope to prove your following orders.” You flicked him a harsh glance.
“I’ll supply one.”
“Donnie.”
“There is no one else. Not here. Not in the Hidden City. There is-” His hand appeared first as an anchor by your hip and then his face as close to yours as could be. “-only you. There has only been you since we met.”
You were glad your lips were pressed to your knee because it kept the questions from sneaking out.
“I will reassure you as many times as is necessary for you to believe me.”
After a lengthy blink, you finally turned a watery eye towards him.
“It does not ‘make sense’ or, however you chose to put it, otherwise. I have never entertained anyone as I have you. I also can’t imagine doing so. Do not depreciate your worth. You have no idea how valuable you are. I will admit, though, that I am unable to be objective in that regard.”
Your head rose from its perch and shook ever so slightly as you stared.
“You had openly shared your concerns regarding abandonment prior. I should have realized that, no matter the circumstance, this was analogous.”
Your mouth turned down threateningly and levered the well of your tear ducts.
“I cannot make up for the time we’ve lost, but you can be damn sure that I will not allow anything to separate us again.” There was a wicked edge to his eye that spoke of things set into motion that were probably best left unknown.
“Why me?” Your knee dropped down, leaving your torso exposed.
He gave his patented look. “I believe you were the one to attempt pivoting that statement through the other’s lens.”
Your brows knit.
“I could ask you the same, a stalemate.”
You shifted, opening yourself up all the more. “Why don’t you worry about me finding someone else?”
He squinted as if that were impossible. “Why should I?”
You pursed your lips and turned away a little. “Sorry, ‘Mr. Perfect.’”
“Setting aside your sarcasm, I just acknowledged fault, i.e. the enemy of perfection.”
“No.” You gave a sigh as you changed positions to face him. “I was being rude because you apparently think you’re so good that I couldn’t possibly go after anyone else.”
His gaze flicked away as if he were waiting for some joke to be called. When one didn’t, he returned with honest confusion. “For the sake of this… thought exercise, and I want to remind you that it is such and thus hypothetical on all accounts, that I would know the moment I came into contact with you, if you had been unfaithful, but, again for the sake of the exercise, I will ask, why would you cheat on me to begin with?”
“We’d have to be dating.”
His head bobbed as again he searched for the camera crew before returning to you with an affronted look. “We are.”
“Are we?” You lowered yourself under the weight of nerves.
“We continually go on dates, you’ve slept over nearly as much as you did your own apartment… We are by all accounts romantically entwined.”
“Your…” You could only find earnest intent across from you. “That’s something you have to establish!”
Donnie pinched the bridge of his snout. “I did!”
“Uh, no, you didn’t!”
Donnie shook his head like he couldn’t believe what was being said. “You told me I had to clarify when I asked you out and then I did exactly that. I didn’t mince my words and you accepted verbally.”
You stared openly and searched to find no such memory. “I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
“All this time-” Donnie growled and brought a hand up to push between his eyes like he had an oncoming migraine. “I don’t know what’s more concerning; that you somehow didn’t realize or that there was even a possibility you could go to someone else.”
“Donnie!”
Donnie dropped his arm and stared at you with fiery determination. “Would you like to date exclusively?”
“… Yes.”
“Would you like to be monogamous?” A venom leaked in there that said he would fight otherwise even though he offered the choice.
It brought the bud of a smile to your lips that you fended off. “Yes.”
“Then we are officially confirmed, though I refuse to acknowledge this as an anniversary. Voice your agreement.”
The grin blossomed against your will. “I agree and also, you’re keeping track? You don’t seem like the anniversary type.”
He shot you a biting look which he quickly traded for recognition. “Was that the source of your insecurity?”
You opened your mouth and closed it to turn away. “I want to give a flat yes, but… no. It’s clearly more.”
Donnie nodded slowly. “Is there anything I can do?”
You shook your head. “This has all been terrible timing. I… I literally just decided tonight to start working on this…”
“This being…?”
“You name it: negative thoughts, doomsaying, self blame, fear of abandonment...”
Carefully, he placed a hand to the ground near you. His fingers twitched as if he wanted to touch you, but resisted by digging a pad into the roof. “Was there a particular revelation?”
You gave a single dry chuckle. “You could say that.” Your head tilted as you stared at his hand. “A bad day led to worse thoughts. I’ve been fighting it, but I’m weak.”
You could feel offense rolling off your partner.
“I’m clingy, needy, and, apparently, super insecure. Logically, I knew it was all… illogical, but the bad thoughts just kept coming. I feel like a huge hypocrite.” You fought the urge to curl up. “It’s barely been a month and I worked myself up into such a tizzy that I convinced myself there had to be someone else. Not because I had evidence or an inkling, but because I just… thought so little of myself? … I guess?”
One of his fingers curled and stroked the uneven surface below in an attempt to soothe himself.
“Even now, I believe you. I hear you. I want to be happy. I can feel it submerged beneath this stupid ocean of doubt that I am; that we’re finally official.” You shot him a look which he caught with a tired expression. “To me.” You clarified before dropping your gaze. “Which is great, but it’s not an instant fix. The doubt is still there even though I know it isn’t real. Us… being close. It’s like an imposter syndrome that doesn’t set in until we’re apart and I can see it. Like no matter how close we get, you’re destined to leave.”
Donnie stopped and spread his digits out flat.
“I’m sorry. This isn’t the reunion either of us wanted…”
“The kind doesn’t matter.”
You looked up at him to find that he was also examining his own hand. “When you say it like that, it sounds like it doesn’t matter that I’m upset.”
He chuffed before looking at you, deadpan. “I despise when you’re upset, but reuniting, no matter the circumstance, was my top priority. It was always meant to be the first action upon my return. I would have preferred to take you in my arms, but I am also to blame for that failed occurrence.”
“What… happened? What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t.” He responded too quickly before relenting by tossing his head. “I emerged from a portal with my phone at the ready. I sent the retrieval code and allowed the messages to filter in. While they were dispersing, I messaged S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. to see if you were home. He replied that you weren’t so I switched back to our text chain and that’s where I saw… that photo.”
In a shift of your body weight, you pressed a hand near his and leaned onto it.
“I’ll admit the next actions are a blur outside of the single drive to eradicate whoever had the notion of harming you.”
You have a small smile. “Kinda hard when it was a movie and me.”
“A movie?”
You mocked a wince before rolling your eyes. “Even more dumb; it was nothing like us, but it was just some sad flick where one friend dies… Nevermind, the point is the thought of them not being able to hang out anymore hit me wrong.”
He made a noise of comprehension before his silence tugged your eye. You looked to find him thinking, but there was a hostile air to him.
“You’re not going after the writers, directors, or whoever!”
“Hm?” He looked up and you could see the plastic veneer of how synthetic his surprise was.
“Quit! It’s a story! Some movies are sad!” You blew a puff of air at him and he turned away from it.
“I suppose that leaves you.”
“Yeah…” You looked over at his battle shell. “I’m not gonna win that one.”
“I beg to differ.”
You gave him an audacious look, but he simply returned it with a neutral one that spoke of nothing else. “Huh.”
“A glaring weakness.” He said simply before returning his gaze to his hand.
You tried to imagine what that was before another image sank it and left goose bumps in its wake. “Take me in your arms? Were you daydreaming about me Donatello?”
The sudden use of his full name in a casual manner seemed to jar him though he fended off physically doing so. He let it linger before his expression shifted to a tender one. “May I?”
You weren’t sure what he was asking, but your lips moved. “Yes?”
He rose up and you felt grounded by the intense look he shot you. He then leaned in threateningly close and brought an arm up. Instead of catching you, it simply hovered as a cage around your shoulder as his nose leveled out with yours. “You plagued me to the point where it interfered with my work. It was the inability to contact you that was the true torment. You have no idea the amount of times I considered popping back into the city. It only need be long enough to glimpse you in a futile attempt to quell that inane distraction if only for a moment.”
You shrank away and hoped to fall into his arm.
Still trapped by your order, he adjusted to keep you from doing so while leaning farther forward to make up for the space.
“You-?” A shudder interrupted you, but you forced your eyes open through it.
“Missed you.” His gaze flicked to your lips then back to your eyes for clarification. “I missed you.”
A tear ran down your cheek and you watched it try to pull Donnie’s eye. He refused it and you launched yourself at him. With your arms encircling his neck, he allowed you to knock him clear to the ground. There you refused to let go and buried your face into his collar. You felt his arms hovering and you had to turn just enough to speak out. “Please. Hold me-no-whatever you want. Just anything, please.”
His arms came around in a crushing force and you happily accepted by desperately rooting as close to him as possible. It took far too much wiggling for what could have been comfortable, but you eventually settled with your legs slotted between his, curled up on his plastron. He rubbed at your back in both a soothing and hungry motion. You butted your head further against his and he dipped down to bury his against your hair. He paused suddenly there and you felt him take a deep breath. He then made a noise of irritation before doing his own desperate jostling. You giggled as he scrubbed manically at you with his head. The faint scales of his cheeks tickled yours and he got a grip on the back of your head to keep you in place while he did his work. It wasn’t until he stopped, gave another testing sniff, and let his muscles relax that you finally chanced questioning it. “Something off about my smell? I haven’t taken a shower yet.”
“There was no trace of mine.”
You blinked wide before propping yourself up with elbows to his plastron to look down at him. “Yours?”
“Mine.” He repeated firmly though his gaze clearly indicated it was meant differently.
You shrank down to join your hands around his chest. You let the heat in your cheeks smolder before a little counter thought buoyed you. “It goes both ways since… you are my boyfriend after all.”
You felt his whole body give a single second tense at the statement before his arms reaffirmed their encircling. It gave you time to reign in your overwhelmed emotions.
When you came to, you felt sleepy. “How was the Hidden City?”
“I saw little. I tucked myself away into a lab and only left a handful of times.”
You tried to picture him surrounded by proper lab equipment. “You did say it was no vacation.”
“Indeed.” He quieted and you felt one of his thumbs begin to draw lazy circles around the small of your back. “We can go one day, on our own terms. I’m sure you will be stunned by the beauty there.”
“Not you?” You hummed, shifting your chin against his pectoral plate.
“Never.”
Against your body’s protest, you hoisted yourself up again. “I don’t want to go then.”
His gaze dipped to you genially, but his head continued to lay flat. “Not interested in making memories anew?”
“Giving better context is fine, but hearing you actively dislike it makes me less curious. We’re making memories just fine. Plus, it’s hard for me to care about a place I didn’t even know existed until a month ago.”
He smiled, satisfied, and closed his eyes.
You sank back against his chest and grew still until you could just feel the faintest rise and fall of his breath. With the terrible voices finally tapering off in the face of Donnie’s dedication, you gave a single snort as you remembered something.
His finger tapped you to communicate his question.
“There was one real downside tonight.”
“And what’s that?”
“I didn’t get to eat the food I bought. I honestly have no idea what happened to it.”
Donnie gave an amused snort of his own.
“What?” You pouted even though he couldn’t see it. “Sure, it’s crap and cheap, but I still wanted it.”
“Look up.”
You had a question on your lips, but, as you shifted to obey, you heard the movement of his battle shell. It walked over until one of its mechanical arms outstretched and held a paper bag overhead.
You rose up in time with your arms to take it with both hands. “What the…?” The arm released and you immediately felt the heat. “It’s still hot!?”
“My battle shell has a warming function. It’s obviously not fresh, but-”
You ignored him to scrambled off and sit cross-legged beside him with the bag between your legs.
He grumbled as he forced himself upright.
You pulled out your sandwich and unfurled the paper slowly, savoring the scent that rushed out. You then sank your teeth into it and took a huge bite. Coming away to chew, you threw your head back and gave a happy hum.
Whatever latent ire Donnie had melted away and you could feel him watching you with affection.
Swallowing your bite, you dunked your hand into the bag to retrieve some fries and held them out to him. “Thank you.”
He exchanged a look between them and you several times before leaning forward to bite down. You released as he took them and watched as he cutely chewed them up into his mouth with rabbit-like imagery. He caught your enamored staring and you shirked away from his smirk to take another bite of your sandwich. He leaned back and planted his arms out behind him on either side to lazily gaze skyward. You scootched over until you were slotted against his side and leaned into him. You then continued to eat while routinely feeding him fries. Savoring your meal, you eventually finished and flopped against him to bear nearly all your weight. He accepted it easily and sank down until he could lay his head against yours.
You nudged him affectionately and lamented how greasy your lips were. You doubted he’d want to kiss you like that and internally sulked. In a gentle shift of metal, the battle shell dropped down and created a backrest for both of you. When you leaned into it, it then shifted for added comfort and to create a protective barrier around you. Pacified in nearly every sense, you stared up at the stars as everything else felt insignificant. It meant when a voice did reach you, it felt particularly far away.
“We are to not decide actions for the other solitarily.”
You hummed your affirmation.
“Are you conscious enough for this conversation?” Donnie craned his head and appeared in the top right of your vision.
“I’m up.” You twisted your body some so you could watch him.
“How do you feel about what I did tonight?”
You tilted your head, about to think it over, when he continued.
“Barring the tracking and overreaction.”
Raising your brows in comprehension, you gave a little nod as you thought it over. “I probably should care more about the property damage, but it’s just some dime a dozen chain. Well… wait. Does it hurt the franchise owner?”
Donnie studied you carefully, but his features gave little away. “And the employee?”
Shifting as he ignored your question, you frowned. “Did you hurt him?”
“Nothing lengthy.”
“And franchise?”
“It’s easy enough to look up ownership in addition to their insurance policy. After the Krang, most businesses in New York are required to carry a level of supernatural coverage.”
Krang?
“Why do you ask?” You really didn’t want to sit up, but the conversation was begging you to.
He was quiet for a long moment. You watched carefully as his eye held a heavy quality before he sent it upwards towards the sky. “With your permission, I’d like to slowly bring you into my world. Given lengthy time to evaluate our options, I’ve determined ignorance is no longer your safest course.” Dropping his withdrawal, he looked down at you with a sudden lighthearted air. “You think I, of all people, would have realized knowledge is one’s greatest defense.”
“You’re the dumbest smart guy I know.” You beamed up at him.
He soured into nearly a glare.
“Don’t worry. You’re still mine and I wouldn’t have it any other way.” You leaned up to peck him and paused as you remembered the grease.
He noticed and reached down to something you didn’t care to look at. You were carving his image back into your fresh memory when the crinkling of paper followed. His hand then appeared with a brown napkin. You shot him a smile before taking it to wipe your face. When you came away he was obviously presenting his cheek. You played up a show as if you were forced before leaning in to give him a kiss. Right before you made contact, he turned and caught your lips with his own. Trying to downplay how he’d caught you off guard, you decided to get him back by deepening the maneuver with a sudden ferocity. Air rescinded as he sharply inhaled in surprise.
Coming away only enough that when he spoke his lips brushed yours, he asked, “Your response?”
“Yes, all around.”
“Good.” He pulled another kiss from you in a slow way that made the way your lips resisted separation all the more apparent. “Do you like Italian?”
“Food?” You had to pull back to laugh. “I mean sure, we’ve had it before.”
A little content rumble came from his chest as the arm around you pulled you back to him. “There is an event I’d like you to attend as my date. It will send a message. I will not be surprised again. Is that agreeable?”
“S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. was right. You are possessive, hm?”
“Then it is a good time to mention that another factor in all of this is selfishly wanting you by my side. Always”
This time you stole a kiss.
He was growing more hesitant to pull away, but he seemed to want to say something else.
You decided to be the one to interject “It’s another ‘it goes both ways.’”
Against his will, his eyes grew owlish.
You dipped your voice down and ghosted over his lips as he had you. “You’re not the only one who wants the world to know who you belong to.”
In a growl, he flipped you and crushed his mouth to yours as the battle shell reconfigured into a sort of supportive seat. You made out until you heard a fist bang against metal. Donnie then rose up with anger painting his features. “Incessant!” He growled and looked down on you. “As much as I’d like to continue. I have one more obligation that must be fulfilled.”
“Yeah?” Your lips throbbed, kiss bruised.
“A stipulation of our agreement was him being able to see you as soon as you were cleared, safe, and content.” Donnie sat back on his knees and brought his arm up. It was then that you realized his gloves had disappeared long ago. Remembering the way they had once grown, it made sense they could retract similarly. With a shove, his sleeve pushed to his elbow and he tapped his tech gauntlet with excessive force.
“Him?” You wondered aloud, though the word hadn’t actually registered in your mind.
As if to answer your question, there was a sudden droning sound coming in fast.
You shot up, nearly crashing into Donnie as you searched the sky.
You located the faint glow of S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.’s rotors soon enough and stood ready as he crashed into you.
“Careful!” Donnie hissed, softening your impact with an arm behind your back.
“I’m sorry, Y/N! I’m so sorry! Having to listen to you every night and not being able to respond broke my metaphorical heart! You have no idea how many times I wanted to say screw it and come see you! No matter how dumb the whole thing was, the safest decision was not to, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree. Just know I heard every word and I’m gonna so make it up to you! I’ve got a whole list! Just like the things you mentioned! It’s gonna be awesome!” S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. outpoured in speech so fast you could barely keep up.
Donnie sparked and looked down at you with wide eyes. “Every night?”
You looked up at him sheepishly. “Uh…”
“More than you were texted. That’s for sure.” S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. remarked proudly.
“S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.!” You barked before turning to Donnie apologetically. “It was different. I knew he was there-”
“It’s alright.” Donnie cut you off and you could see he was already sinking into a self-depreciation you knew all too well.
“No!” Not letting go of S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N., you shot to your toes and then had to do a jump to catch Donnie’s lips. The first kiss only made contact with his chin and he jostled awkwardly at the move. His gaze met yours to find you sitting firm with narrowed brows and fiery determination. S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. buzzed out a teasing syllable as Donnie dipped down into reach so you could kiss his worries away.
NEXT
Also huge shout-out to my betas @tmntxthings and @thepinkpanther83!
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it all feels the same with your eyes closed (deep end, part 1)
A/N: This mini series needs a content warning for suicidal ideation, domestic violence, and excessive alcohol consumption. (I told y’all I was gonna throw some angst at ya.)
Things had been tense around base since the return of Task Force 141 after an unsuccessful mission. Mistakes had been made, resulting in the loss of personnel and vital intel.
The main core personnel of the Task Force were currently in a meeting, discussing information for an upcoming mission. The meeting was already tense, but it escalated as Simon and Juliana were arguing back and forth about protocols.
“I AM YOUR SUPERIOR OFFICER. I’M THE ONE IN CHARGE HERE.” Simon yells at Juliana before backhanding her across the face so hard that she stumbles back.
The room goes silent, shock spreading among everyone as they stare at the couple.
Simon throws a vicious glare at Juliana before spitting out the final piece of the argument. “Get the fuck out of my sight.”
She doesn’t bother to grab her things before sprinting out of the room.
Simon stares at the door she left through for a brief second, before turning to the rest of the room. Tensions were high, but he was trying to remain calm after his outburst. “I’m sorry you had to witness that. I’ll handle this. We’ll continue later.” He says gruffly.
He sighed internally. What was she so upset about anyway? Simon doesn’t like fighting with her, but lately it’s been happening more and more.
“Witness that? Simon, you just hit your girlfriend, not to mention you just assaulted a fellow soldier, IN FRONT OF WITNESSES.” Captain Price roars.
Simon flinches at Price’s reaction, and tries to defend his actions without being rude. “I wouldn’t have hit her without reason. I had to do what I did. It’s not like I’m proud of it. I’ll handle it, and apologize to her personally.”
“Good luck getting her to hold still long enough to do that.” Soap mutters under his breath.
“Soap!” Simon whirls on Johnny, glaring at him intensely. “Are you insinuating what I think you are right now?”
“It depends, sir,” Soap addressed him mockingly. “What is it you think I’m insinuating?”
Simon’s voice became harsh, as he spoke quickly. “I want a straight answer, Soap. Are you implying that she’s going to be so furious, that she’s going to fight me?”
“I’m implying, sir,” Soap mocks again, “That you’ll be hard pressed to even find her and get her to listen long enough for you to say the words ‘I’m sorry’, without her bolting. There’s a reason we call her Bambi.”
Simon sighed, he knew Johnny was right. She would disappear the minute she saw him. He had to do something.
His mind raced, trying to think of a plan. He didn’t know where she’d run off to, he just knew she was angry. Very angry.
“I’ll find her. I’ll make sure she hears me out.” Simon huffs.
“You’d better get this sorted out, and fast Simon. We’re getting deployed again in a few weeks, and we need this team 100% together.” Captain Price says sternly.
Simon nods, still pissed that this even became a fight in the first place. “She’ll come around. I’ll make sure of it.”
He then turns to Johnny and Kyle. “You two keep your mouths shut about this. Especially you, Soap. We don’t need anymore drama. Are we clear?”
Johnny looks him squarely in the eye. “If she wants to fill out a SHARP violation report against you, I’ll happily sign as a witness.”
“Soap…” Simon sighs. He doesn’t want any more trouble. He just needs Juliana to understand her place in the chain of command. He needs her to understand why he did what he did. He can’t afford to lose his job because of one stupid mistake. He needs to not let his temper get the better of him. He needs a break.
He looked at Johnny, then Kyle, then Price, then back at Johnny. “Soap, don’t force me into doing something drastic over this. Understood?”
“What, are you gonna hit me too? Beat me into submission? No wonder Bambi is so banged up all the time.” Johnny spits venomously.
Simon growls angrily. He was already on edge, and now this? He had a serious urge to hit something, but he held it in.
“You think it’s funny, making jokes about this?” He clenches his fists, setting them down harshly on the table. He lets out a deep breath, trying to get himself under control. “I’m warning you, Soap. For the last time, keep your mouth shut, or I’ll make you. Got it?”
“It’s not a joke, not this time.” Johnny growls. “This had to have escalated from somewhere. You make a regular habit of hitting your girlfriend to get what you want?”
Simon’s mind goes blank. A regular habit of hitting her? A sense of shock went through his system. He didn’t know Johnny could think of him that way.
“Don’t assume you know anything, Soap.” He says coldly. “I don’t go around hitting her all the time. I’ve only done it once. Just this one time. One. Time.”
“That’s what they all say.” Johnny sneers at him.
Simon took a deep breath trying to keep everything under control. He couldn’t believe Johnny was saying all of this.
“Soap, I swear to God, I only hit her this once. It was my fault, but I’ve never done it, and I won’t do it again. You’re only making this worse. We are supposed to be a team. Remember?”
“Yeah. Teammates are supposed to protect each other. They don’t backhand each other during arguments.” Soap retorts.
Simon knew he was in the wrong for hitting Juliana. He felt bad for hitting her, but he felt like he couldn’t admit that in front of Johnny, he was already digging himself in way too deep.
“I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have done it, you’re right. I let my anger get the best of me. It won’t happen again.”
He stared at the floor while he tried to figure out what to say next.
“Please, let’s just try to work through this. Don’t go around telling anyone else about this.”
“Fine.” Soap scoffs. “I won’t say anything. But if I catch even a hint that something is off, I’ll file the damn SHARP report myself.” Johnny stands up to leave, pausing in the doorway. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she was halfway through writing up a unit transfer request already.”
Simon watched as Johnny left the room. What had he done? How could he let his anger take control of him like that? Would Juliana really file a transfer request because of all this? Would he lose everything over this? And why was Johnny so defensive of her?
“Damnit.” He muttered. “I really need to talk to her. Now.”
Why had Johnny been so protective of Juliana? What is going on here?
Johnny must have known something Simon didn’t, something he wasn’t telling Simon. But that wasn’t important. He needs to go find Juliana and fix all of this.
Unless… unless Johnny really does know something. Maybe it will help Simon figure out where it all went wrong.
“Fucking hell.” Simon swore. Johnny might be the only one who might know something about what’s going on, or where Juliana went. As much as he hated the idea, asking Johnny was worth a shot.
He made his way to Johnny’s room, and knocked on the door. He just wanted to talk to the man and hear what he had to say himself.
Johnny opened the door. “Come to take a shot at another teammate?”
Simon glared at him. “You know what, Soap?” He growled. “Quit your bullshit. I know that you know where Bambi is, and I know you know why she’s mad. So tell me. Now.”
Johnny leveled him with a cool stare. “I don’t know where she is.” He said plainly.
“I don’t believe you. Why were you defending her so much?” Simon asks. He knew there was something happening that he didn’t know about. He could feel it, he just doesn’t know what it’s about. “I need the real reason, Soap.”
“Why wouldn’t I defend her!? I’ve had family go through what she has, and I’m not about to let her go through it alone again.”
‘Had family members go through….’? What the hell? Simon’s eyes widened a bit. When it clicked, Simon was surprised to hear that Johnny had a family history of domestic abuse. He hadn’t realized that that was the reason Johnny defended Juliana so much.
Johnny thought Simon was abusing her…
“So, you know something about her past, then?” He asks.
Johnny’s eyes widened. “You… you mean she hasn’t told… you?”
Simon frowned. Why hadn’t she told him anything about that part of her past? He was confused.
“No. She didn’t. And now I need to know, Soap. What happened?”
He ran his hands over his balaclava. Maybe this was the reason she got so upset? If this was the case, then he needed to tread very carefully, at least until he figured out more of what was going on.
“I don’t know the whole story, just bits and pieces, but enough to know that it was bad. Like, really bad. Almost career ending bad.” Johnny explained.
Simon was slightly disturbed by that description. He couldn’t imagine what might have happened for her to be reacting like this. He couldn’t imagine what she had gone through. What did Johnny mean by ‘almost career ending’?
“Can you at least give me some sort of basic idea? Anything, Soap, please.” Simon never pleads, ever, but right now he is. He looked at Johnny, worry and concern evident in his eyes.
“Juliana had gotten into a relationship of sorts with someone on her team, and when the guy got promoted, he outranked her, he became her superior officer.” Johnny begins. “He started getting violent with her behind closed doors, especially whenever she’d disagree with him about missions or protocols.” He pauses. “I know at one point, he hurt Jules so badly she was in the ICU for six days, and she almost got medically discharged from service. That’s when she finally put in for a transfer.”
Simon’s face paled under his mask. His hands shook slightly, but he wasn’t sure if it was from anger at himself or at the guy who hurt Juliana. This was too much for one person to carry alone.
“And… she went through all of that…. Alone? She never said anything to me, ever!” Simon sighed. “I need to find her and make sure she’s okay. I’ve fucked up, and I’m the only one who can fix this.”
Johnny shakes his head. “The only reason she told me was because she overheard me talking on the phone with my sister about a similar issue, and she offered her help. Otherwise, I don’t think she ever would have said anything.”
Simon ran his hands down his face. “So… if she hasn’t told me anything about it… I guess she doesn’t want me to know… Did she ever go into any detail about what happened, or about who this person might be?”
“She never specified, she just said someone from a previous unit. Refused to say when or where.” Johnny explains.
Simon nods. “Alright. Well… thank you for at least telling me this, Soap. I would’ve never known.”
He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t ever noticed something like this. He had always known Juliana as one of the most gentle, kind-hearted people he had met. He would never have dreamt that she had gone through something like this before.
But it also made something clear. Simon could never allow anything like this to happen to her, ever again. He would have to protect Jules - no matter what it took.
Sometimes, the people with the brightest smiles are the ones who have gone through the most oppressive darkness.
“I need to find her. I have to make sure that her past won’t define who she is in the future.” Simon sighs deeply.
“It might already be too late for that, Simon.” Johnny says cautiously.
“Do not tell anyone else about this, Johnny. You got that? We can’t have rumors spreading around right now. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Johnny rolls his eyes.
“Good. I appreciate it.” Simon turns to leave, and makes his way across the base, going through different areas in search of Juliana. “God damnit” He swears. “Where in the hell is she?”
A/N: Thanks for reading! Likes, reblogs, and feedback are appreciated!
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Bumbleby Bike Gang AU Part 1/?
The bar was usually quiet on tuesdays. Just the regulars showing up for their drinks and the eventual college idiots getting into shenanigans. Nothing seemed to indicate that this night was going to be any different. She couldn't be more wrong. Yang had owned the place, Ember, for about two years and she enjoyed her work a lot. She liked making drinks and talking to people. The blonde had some of the best stories to tell at parties and sometimes she could even give some well received advice.
It was almost two in the morning when she heard the roars. It was like a pack of wild bears was screaming directly into her ears. When they stopped they were replaced by voices. Then the door was thrown open and what could only be described as a gang entered her bar. There were around twenty five people, mostly men, in matching leather jackets. They all had the same logo on the back: the profile of a wolf like creature and the words "The White Fang".
I hope they don't cause me any trouble Yang thought to herself as they all sat sat down, making significant noise in the process. One of her waitresses, Nora, approached them to take their orders and the blonde held her breath, hoping the group would behave. After a couple of hours and many beers, the gang was starting to get on her nerves. Specially since some of them had made some stupid comments at Nora as she brought them their drinks. She had come pretty close to throwing them out but they were paying very good tips and her waitress said not to worry.
"I'm sorry for the disturbance" a soft voice said, very close to her. She turned her head to see a girl, around her own age, sitting in front of her. She had been so focused on the group she hadn't even noticed her approaching. She had amber eyes and black hair and something about her made it feel like they had already met.
"Its okay" a lie "I've had worst" a truth.
"Could I have a Coke, please?" the girl asked.
"Had enough to drink for the night?" Yang replied as she got what the other one requested.
"Oh, no" she replied "I don't drink" she smiled. Yang's heart skipped a beat. There was something about this girl but she couldn't wrap her finger around it yet.
"I'm Yang. What's your name?" she asked boldly.
"I'm Blake" the other one replied.
"How long have you been riding with these guys?"
"All my life" Blake answered "My parents founded the group"
"That's a long time to be on the road. Are they here?" Yang questioned as she looked at the clearly drunk group sitting not so far away from them.
"They left a while back" the black haired girl said, not understanding herself why she was telling her whole life story.
"And you stayed?"
"Yes"
Silence.
"They seem like an interesting group" Yang said, trying to break the tension.
"They can be... A lot to handle but I'm used to them by now"
"Excuse me if this offends you in any way but you do not seem like the biker gang type girl"
"None taken. I'm more low profile than the rest of our group. I'd rather stay and read a good book than get into trouble" Blake said.
"Any good reads you can recommend?" Yang asked and the other girl's eyes lit up like a child's in Christmas morning. They talked for what seemed hours about books, bar stories and family. Yang told her about her little sister Ruby and how she was studying to become a veterinarian. Blake, on the other hand, told her about all the places she had been in during her travels. Their conversation was cut short by the sound of breaking glass.
"I got it!" Nora said as she walked towards the table, her eyes visibly tired but her pockets full.
"Do they get into trouble often?" the blonde asked.
"It depends on Adam's mood mostly. He's our current leader"
"Blake!" a red haired man yelped drunkly "Come over here, love!"
"That's him. I gotta go. It was really nice talking to you, Yang" she smiled again and the blonde was finally able to realize what the deal was. She liked Blake. Everything about her was charming and enticing. It had been a while since she had liked someone so it didn't surprise her that she had missed the signs.
She watched Blake walking away and that's when she saw it. On her lower back she had a tattoo that read "Property of the White Fang".
Oh.
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You can't lose someone you never had - Part 5
Summary: time for a difficult conversation between you and Phoenix and an unpleasant surprise welcomes you home.
Thank you for all the comments on the story it makes my day! If you have any suggestions on the direction you would like the story to go don't hesitate to comment!
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 - Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Final Part
It felt like hours looking into her familiar brown eyes again, you could see that she was tense, like she was ready to go into battle.
“I’ll leave the two of you to talk.”, Bob says softly trying to break the tension between the two. You look at him with wide eyes, pleading him that he doesn’t leave you alone with Phoenix, but he squeezes your arm in reassurance.
“Call me when you have time.”, he says before leaving and looks at Phoenix with a pointed look and Phoenix tries to smile back.
“Can I sit down?”, she asks with a steady voice, and you try to breathe again, even after so many years she still has an effect on you. You nod and she sits down with a silence settling between the both of you.
Penny comes by and gives you a new beer along with a beer for Phoenix and before leaving she looks at the both of you with pointed looks.
“It’s been a long time.”, Phoenix whispers, and you feel every muscle in your body tense up at her words trying not to let the memories come back.
“It has.”, you whisper back and after a few second you hear her sigh.
“I’ve sent you letters while you were away, don’t know if you ever received them.”, she says and you can feel her gaze on you, but you can’t look at her, still looking at your beer bottle.
“I did receive them, didn’t get the time to read them.”, this time you hear her scoff, and it makes you look up, it was probably a mistake as you instantly meet furious brown eyes, that fire that has always been there in her eyes.
“We both know that is bullshit.”, you can’t tell her that she is wrong because she isn’t and as you look at each other for a moment you see her realize that she is right. The fury in her brown eyes diminishes and they turn sad before she looks at her beer bottle again.
The couple of minutes that follow are filled with an even tenser silent and you don’t know what to do, as much as you want to leave and let her stay there you can’t because a part of you still cares about her.
“Phoeni-”
“You could have at least said goodbye before leaving.”, you close your eyes at her words, you knew it would come to this, but you tried to avoid it knowing that you would feel angry at her words.
“It wasn’t something that was on my mind at that moment, and it didn’t really feel like I had to say goodbye to one of you.”, you say with a hard tone, and you feel her tense up.
“Really? Your dad was destroyed after your words on the deck, even worse when the nurse told him you had asked not to have him in you room and then you leave without a word. You didn’t spoke to me during the whole mission, practically avoiding me as if I was a disease. And then you also ban me and the rest from coming to see you after the incident before leaving and telling me that I couldn’t lose something that I never had.”, she is in tears now and you feel a headache coming, your chest is aching from the pain, and you want to stop the pain at hearing her broken voice.
“What did you wanted me to do Phoenix? One day we are together the next you tell me you never loved me and break up. Even before that you didn’t want to tell anyone about us and now suddenly you care?”, your voice is raising, and you close your eyes to try and calm yourself down from the hurt and seeing her broken eyes.
“I just – I didn’t know what to do alright. I was scared of what people were going to say and I let that cloud my judgment, it’s true but it doesn’t mean I never loved you.”, you shake your head, and she sighs, and you feel her get closer to you.
“I know I was horrible that day and that I don’t deserve your forgiveness, trust me I do, but you don’t know how much it hurt when I saw you leave, when you didn’t let me in anymore.”, she takes your hand, and you try to stop the tears from falling at her words.
“I just care so much about you that it hurts and I – I don’t know what to do any more. What will it take to make you stay?”, you shake your head, and she tries to come closer, but you stop her.
“I need time Phoenix, I don’t even know if I’ll stay here when my father gets better.”, you look back at her and take your hand away from hers. She looks at you with an understanding smile but it’s small and doesn’t look like one as she looks at you.
“I understand, and I’ll give you the time you need, just don’t push me away. Let me in.”, she whispers the last words, and you sigh softly before looking at her with a sad smile.
“This doesn’t mean everything is forgotten Nat, there is a lot that happened, and we both need time to get over it. We could maybe start with getting to know each other again and then we will see.”, Phoenix is less tense, and you suppose it is due to using her name and not her call sign, but she still looks sad at your words.
“You’re right. But I would like to get to know each other again.”, she says softly, and you smile before taking a big sigh, making her laugh.
“It’s good to see you again.”, she whispers, and you can’t help the flutter of your heart.
“It is.”, you say back and the both of you look at each other for a moment before a notification makes you break the stare.
“I should go back to my father’s house, dinner is soon apparently.”, Phoenix nods with a disappointing smile.
“I’ll see you soon?”, she asks, and you sigh softly with a small smile.
“We’ll keep in touch.”, a large smile appears, and you feel her gaze as you leave towards your father’s house, not knowing what to expect there.
It’s a nice house, a large garden and from what you had seen a big living room full of light. It had been filled with pictures, but you hadn’t paid attention to them, guessing it were pictures of Bradley and Maverick’s life with Ice.
The house is quiet as you ring the doorbell, Maverick opens the door and quickly makes you come in, but he looks a bit stressed.
“Everything alright?”, you ask, and he looks surprised at your question before a small smile appears.
“Everything is fine, you are just like your dad you know.”, he has a bright smile as he says it, not knowing the cold feeling that goes through your body at his words. You follow him into the kitchen and at that moment you understand why Maverick seemed nervous.
Bradley Bradshaw was in the kitchen, cooking with your father. You were ready to bold out of the room when the both of them turned to see you.
“Sweetheart how was your day?”, your father seems nervous, and you look at him with a blank stare.
“Everything went well thank you. Bradshaw.”, you say with a tense voice and Bradley seems to tense up at your words.
“Thunder, it’s been a long time.”, he says, and you can’t help but scoff at his words.
“It has, last time was when you killed my WSO.”, the room is cold, and you look at him with a cold glare, ice-cold just like your dad.
“Common, why don’t we talk about something else? The jury decided and Bradley was seen as innocent, let’s not bring the past up.”, Maverick says, and you take of your jacket before sitting down at the table.
“Sure, I’ll try.”, Bradley sits down in front of you and the both of you glare at each other as Ice and Maverick sit down between the two of you.
“Let’s eat.”, that dinner had to be the tensest one you had ever had.
Taglist: @enigmalynne, @luckyladycreator2, @bisexual-watermelons, @mangokitkats, @itsdesiree86, @abbersreads
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A dazzling guide towards vengeance
Ch 1 : The Last Drop
Y’all hyped me up as fuck when I posted the sneak peak. So here I am: delivering chapter one. 2500k words.
Other chapters
-
TW: physical fights, blood, teasing, unresolved sexual tension...
Enjoy!
01 - THE LAST DROP
"I've just seen, like, three strip clubs and five casinos on my way here. What the fuck has happened to the Undercity?" You snorted as you approached the old friends whose faces told how little they expected to see you after so much time.
-
Your elbows laid on the tall jukebox of The Last Drop bar. A song played, bottle in hand, body arched as you spoke with people you hadn't seen in years.
Investigating (perhaps manipulating) people into telling you how things had changed, you already had the name Jinx. She was, apparently, a psychopath working for another called Silco, but that was not who you came back to the Undercity for. You'd, perhaps, investigate about that after you had found your target.
Also, the Undercity happened to be Zaun, now. It was somehow related to that man Silco, but you brushed it off.
“What brings ya' here?" Lorenzo, who you used to think to be your platonic soulmate as a child, finally spoke.
"Business," you said as you took another sip of the bottle of vodka.
Lorenzo let a dry laugh out. "That's all ya' gotta say? It's been two bloody years."
You were glad he finally let it out. His gaze on you was starting to cut your skin open, trying to make you feel guilty for leaving the way you did.
"What do you want me to say, Enzo? That I feel sorry? I did. But I was more worried about the shit father provoked after he died."
He sighed, trying to understand your point of view, as he had always done. "Thought you didn't care much about that. He wasn't especially good to ya."
You began focusing on the vibrations of the music that came from behind you. You had drunk enough to know you shouldn't start talking about that topic while thinking, — mostly not while drinking.
"My sister went fucking insane because of that," you muttered as you lifted your elbows from the jukebox to now sit on it. Your facial expression showing no emotion.
"How is she now?"
A kick on your face made your head and back violently hit the wall behind the —now clearly not functioning— jukebox. You had to fight the urge of letting every single drop of alcohol you had drank for the past hour out of your body.
"Red," a pink-haired woman said, her face expressing something in between a smirk and a disgusted expression.
You used your thumb to clean the blood that your lip was pouring before making a coughing sound and looking up at Violet, something in your eyes flickering. "Took you long enough," you sneered as you fully stood.
Behind her, you could see Lorenzo already pointing a Draco right at her head. Violet, ignoring it, turned around to make her way towards him.
You knew how that would end, so you hit the alcohol bottle you hadn't dropped against the wall to break it in half. "Lorenzo, back up."
"And I thought we were friends," Violet said sarcastically and took the gun out of his grip, knowing he would not shoot.
Before she could do anything else, you rapidly moved towards her to bend your body down and cut her leg with the glass, crossing your leg with her ankle so she would fall.
You moved your body on top of hers, pointing the glass at her neck.
"Such a backstabber," she said slowly, that insufferable smirk painted her face.
Her words were clearly meant in two different ways.
Violet and you had never really been friends: you used to share the same friend group, if you'd call it that way, but Vander and your father had too many problems to allow you two to be close. Actually, it was hell for people to try and enjoy a good time when you two stood in the same room.
"I learnt from the best." You fake-smiled, almost having cut her neck if it weren't because she grabbed the bottle with both hands, pushing it towards you instead. As this happened, from the corner of your eye, you saw Enzo breaking a plank of wood from the bar to hit Vi with it. You managed to rip the broken bottle out of her grip and throw the non-sharpened side towards Enzo's stomach, —your eyes still on her— not needing words for him to understand you wanted him to mind his own business, just as people in The Last Drop had always done.
Taking advantage of your lifted arm, Vi punched your rib and gripped your hips, hard enough for brushes to appear, to switch positions. This was before you moved your knee upwards to where it hurt the most.
Both of you rolled away from each other and stood up as fast as you could. You pushed the first table you saw towards Vi with your leg, but she managed to dodge it.
Before the table smacked against the wall on the other side of the room, a broad man, who had been sitting on it, came towards you to confront you. You avoided the push and punched his throat, letting him be busy searching for air.
Vi moved rapidly towards you, so you feinted to hit on her ribs, making her get dodge towards the wall and giving you the chance to punch right in the middle of her face instead. Blood began pouring down her nose as she grabbed your wrists to twist them, taking you towards her. "You seem unsurprised I'm alive," she said sarcastically, not doubting why.
You hit her stomach with your knee, making her drop one wrist and slightly bend over, the fingers that continued to grip the other leaving bruises. Your free hand laid on the back of her neck, your thumb lifting her face so she would look right at you, "Why would I be?" you shrugged as you furrowed your brows innocently. "It's not like Vander died at the very first attempt. It's on the family, innit?" you said right next to her ear.
Getting her killed while she was in jail was not what you intended, but you wouldn't give her the satisfaction of saying so.
Vi whipped off the blood that had poured to her lips before using the same hand that bruised your wrist to grip the other, her right hand suddenly choking and pinning you against the wall. "Enlighten me, Red. Why did you send an enforcer to torture me during my time in jail and continue to look for some kind of vengeance I can't figure out?" She tightened her hold as she spoke, for some reason, your hands not trying to push her away as hard as you were able to.
You twisted one of your wrists to release yourself and grip the arm that she used to choke you so you could, at least, speak. "Vengeance? I did not just enter here making a scene. And, what happened in jail... well, both you and your sister share the same last name, don't you? You were in the way." You managed to lower her arm, it accidentally brushing with the side of your breast before you moved away, a billiard table separating the two of you now.
Taking advantage of this accident, you looked deeply into her eyes before explaining, "if it was your sister, my mission would be accomplished. Now, you? collateral damage. And let's be real, we both know you're not going to help me get rid of Powder, are you?"
Violet didn't need to ask what had happened. She had known from the moment Caitlyn —the only enforcer she could tolerate— had shown her the evidence she had against Powder.
She couldn't get to deny her sister having murdered yours, not knowing that she was Jinx now —a fact that you couldn't find out if Violet didn't want you to easily localise her through Silco. Everyone knew where they could find him, and, at the end of the day, Jinx was still her sister.
You decided to surround the table slowly, your body close to hers. "Are you staying out of my way, Vi?"
"But it's been so long without seeing each other," she complained sarcastically taking a step closer towards you, too, and pinning your body against the wall, her right hand touching the wall at your side. Your faces now centimeters away from each other.
"I'm having mercy, Violet," you warned, your eyes fixed onto hers until they moved towards her lips for a second.
"I've never asked for it."
Just as she said that, you tried to hit her knee so she would fall, but she came closer to you and rapidly placed her other hand on your neck. "Try anything again. I swear I'll snap your neck."
"I'm afraid I won't let you before I do worse to your sister," you said using all the air you had in your lungs to avoid stuttering. It was almost like you enjoyed provoking her.
Neither of you could help to notice the fact her lower body was brushing yours. "You're not laying a hand on her."
You ran your tongue over your teeth, tasting blood, when you realised Violet was going to be a bigger problem than you thought. You guessed she knew where Powder was —or at least, she knew something you did not.
You forced your body to the front and pushed your elbow back towards her stomach to release yourself. Straightaway, you grabbed the nearest wood chair to hit her with it, making it break.
She put pressure on her rib, hissing in pain as you quickly moved towards her, provoking a fist fight in between agitated breaths. Vi pushed your head to a rock column, making you meet the floor.
Both of you were now equally disoriented, clothes stained with blood and bodies full of future bruises.
You threw your head back to the rockto groan in pain.
Right before she crouched down, you lifted your arm towards the table at your side to grab any cutlery you could get, so you stabbed a spoon into her arm.
Violet let out a short angry scream before trying to rip it out of her flesh.
"Oh, please. You kids are not even trying to kill each other," Scotch, the only person that ever paid attention to the —more than typical— serious fights happening at The Last Drop every day, stuck his sharpened knife into the bar before getting back to his table.
Both your gazes drifted towards it.
As Vi prepared to run towards the bar, you used both hands to grab her leg and make her fall to the floor, but she quickly moved to trap your body in between her legs instead. Both of you choking each other.
Violet moved one hand to try and reach the knife, but you managed to bring a stool towards her with your foot and make force for it to hit her.
She groaned in pain as you basically threw yourself on her, her shape in between your legs as you tried to reach the knife instead.
Just before she could drag you down with her, you got the knife and directed it to stab her shoulder, but she managed to roll and make you fall instead.
Vi stood up, surrounded the bar, and, out of breath, served herself a glass of Bourbon.
She threw the bottle at you and you took a break to sip. Both of you stood still, the bar supporting your weight, chests rising and falling out of exhaustion, and the ignored situation.
This happened until you tossed the bottle and held the knife once again, fists towards each other causing you to slice the flesh of her fist open.
As she groaned, she managed to twist your wrist and held the knife towards your neck, at least until she decided to toss it far away and turn you around to grip your hair into her first, her injured tightening, making herself feel more pain.
Your head was thrown back to her shoulder as blood poured down your chin, mouth wide open due to the pain in your jaw and the pants that had your chest inflating and deflating. "Yeah... that's it," Violet said as she looked down at what she had done to you.
Something that you tried to fight happened inside you, but a groan escaped your lips the moment the grip on your hair tightened.
Her smirk grew wider as she moved her lips closer to your ear. "What was that?"
You groaned, again, a different kind both of you understood and you freed yourself out of your grip —something the pink-haired girl knew you could've done since the moment she turned you around. "I see I still have the same effect on you."
You pushed her back, your face expressing no emotion, perhaps serious.
"What's it with you?" she asked, amused.
"What?" you asked, defensively.
"You heard me."
"Indeed I did."
Violet whipped the sides of her mouth. "You sent someone to beat me to death, and then kill me— which, I must say, he failed to do."
"Never asked for a man, did I?" You faked a smile and got on to turn around and leave, but Vi gripped your arm to make you look at her. You crossed your arms.
"Or. You didn't come and do it yourself to make sure the job was done because all you knew was the last name of the person in the cell, and you risked it being me instead of Powder."
Once she realised you weren't going to answer, she tried again. "You were, indeed, trying to prove a point. But you didn't want me to get hurt, did you? You don't want no one but you to touch me."
It was the way she said it.
Luckily, you used to read Harry Potter as a child, so you learned how to occlude —in your way.
You narrowed your eyes. "I know what you're trying to do, Violet. Now, it's pathetic."
Was it?
You turned around to leave, but she, again, gripped your arm. "You sent someone that worked for your father to murder a sixteen years old. Isn't that pathetic?" she decided to tease. "Or is it just you didn't want someone strong enough to, in case it was me, kill me?" she repeated, slowly.
You ran your tongue over your teeth before smirking. "I didn't want to waste my time choosing, like, the perfect candidate or something. You were just lucky," was said in a way anyone would believe you, just not her. You took your arm out of her grip for the last time. "Oh, and, Violet? Don't get in my way. You won't want to see what's going to happen." You disappeared before she could open her mouth again.
Tables, chairs and glass were all over the place. Only three people and the bartender remained.
Violet knew firsthand that, while she had been raised to keep, maintain and defend, you were trained to force, investigate and resolve.
Knowing that —since Powder is Jinx, Silco would get in the way of your plan, you were going to be of great help for her to get rid of him so she could get her sister back. She just had to watch your steps close enough to avoid you achieving the final step of your purpose.
Violet had just gotten out of prison, but she already had two birds ready for the shoot.
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A measure of reverence, Pt. 2
When - about an hour and a half after you and Daryl headed off for another day of searching for Sophia, the morning of season 2′s Chupacabra. Part 2 is somewhat heavier than Part 1.
What - you get to a boarded up house and something isn’t right about it. That reveal from ‘What were your nightmares about?’ starts to come to a head.
Who - You and our mangy hick. I attempted a whisper of sensual tension and yes, y’all fight
Perspective - POV Daryl, POV You only twice. He takes over completely in the next one.
Pronouns - she/her
TWs - strong language, arguing, discussion of break-in, a child walker spotted, Daryl makes a sexist comment because he’s still learning and unlearning
Word count - it’s shorter like the Part 1
Be sure to read - What were your nightmares about?, and Part 1 of course. Why not cannonball into the whole series by checking out the Masterlist, slowpoke?
but are there terrible pictures? - always!
.............................
Mid-morning
.............................
Him
He didn’t end up nabbing a horse, he and Y/N took the motorcycle instead. It was the road they were searching first and the bike was way faster. And he didn’t want to ask Dr. Farmer about borrowing a horse because Dr. Farmer was probably gonna say ‘no,’ and Y/N was like “Dude, don’t steal a horse like it’s the 1800s. Let me go ask for you?”
Except, she was all hesitant to get on the bike at first. Kept staring at the gas tank for some reason. He didn’t think riding scared her. Didn’t she mention she’d learned how?
At any rate, they were off within a few minutes of the horse/bike debate.
Once they got there, he walked the bike to reduce the noise and save on gas...
...and the search was coming up emp-ty.
Empty houses, empty road.
Nothing but birds twittering and Y/N’s and his bits of conversation here and there. They called “Sophia!” every few minutes, and every few minutes they were let down again.
They didn’t search for supplies so much as cover as much ground as possible to try find any hint of somebody having come through.
“Those must’ve been the ones Otis checked,” she’d said, finally breaking what had mostly been silence for about half an hour. “Mr. Greene said he’d gone through to see if anybody was alive and bring back any survivors and to bury those that died. Not sure where the graves are, we saw, like, one,” she thought out loud. “But maybe most of them survived so went to a safe zone or evac spot?”
“It’s weird how there ain’t even geeks, though.” For this brief sec, he started to get creeped out. Where were the bodies? There had to be some.
“We’re callin’ them ‘walkers,’ remember. Way cooler than ‘geeks,’ like, literally.”
Always trying to lighten the mood, that one.
He actually knew (maybe?) how that nickname happened. “D’you know where that name came from?”
“Nah. Gotta say it confused me.”
“Came from the name for this crazy sumbitch at circuses who’d bite the heads off chickens.”
She didn’t even slow down, she full-on stopped walking and blurted out “What the fuck?”
“Yep.”
“Daryl, tell me you just made that up, that’s vile.”
“You didn’t hear Dale explain it around the fire that first night?” It was right after he told people about how he saw that chupacabra (he did see one, damn it) but people thought he was full of it.
She’d shivered as she tied a white strip to the telephone pole to mark the area. “Amy, Glenn and I got to talking about cryptid stuff with the kids after you said the thing about the chupacabra.” A smile. “Amy knew so much about mermaids and sirens.”
“How are we for time?”
She looked at her wrist. Dale lent her his watch again. “It’s only 9:31. High-five for this mighty good team right here, Dary-bear.”
After that, Y/N rested her hand on her stitches and looked at the property about half a football field away. “I think that’s the…that’s the one Mr. Greene mentioned.” She pointed. “Boarded up, closest to the road northside.”
From behind a big fir tree, he peered at the old house. The windows and doors were boarded on the bottom floor, clear on the top floor and attic. There were fruit trees in the big, woodsy yard. A large, faded shed. A tire swing and a metal slide. A kiddie pool. Overgrown tomato plants in what looked like a neglected garden.
A firepit. A compost heap. A chicken coop and run with a (ugh, that won’t be pretty) big gaping hole in the fencing. “What’s special about it, the fruit trees?”
“The family might, uh, they might could be inside the house. Alive or otherwise.”
A sensation like nausea swept over him for a moment, so he willed it down and he adjusted his grip on his crossbow.
“I’m guessin’ by the looks of it, it’s ‘otherwise.’ C’mon, let’s check it out,” he said. “They got fruit trees and kid stuff in the yard. If Sophia came by here, she prolly would’ve tried to go in the shed, at least.”
Y/N nodded and jogged toward the place—then shouted “Hello?”—and then started waving. Waving!
“Why you doin’ that?” he grated. He immediately started to pull her by her good arm back into the trees so they could approach less damn obviously.
Wrong move, because she wrenched it away and snipped, “Don’t you dare go grabbin’ people like that.”
He mumbled an apology (sort of) to be polite since she was his friend, but that’s it; because what was she doing? Fucking idiot. Since when was she that stupid? It would’ve been more to the damn point to superglue a target on their heads!
He said that to her, in fact, word-for-word.
Y/N’s muscles tensed up, just like before when her brother started spouting off about the search efforts. She licked her teeth, he heard her let out an exhale through her nose as if she were a bull about to charge, and the only way to accurately describe how her voice came out was ‘growl.’
“You better apologize, r-right fuckin’ now, you sorry piece of shit.”
Unfortunately, he let this fly out of his mouth: “You on the rag or somethin’?”
And she flung that shit right back at him: “Why? Lookin’ to get a used tampon shoved up your ass, bitch?”
He didn’t even realize she’d gotten up in his face until he felt her breath on his neck and under his chin. Hell, he could even feel the heat radiating off her body, she’d gotten real damn close.
But instead of looking all pissed off, her eyes got all wide like she was either alarmed or confused about something. They stared at each other.
Stared.
Swallowed.
Stared.
And it was the tiny, quiet, deer-in-headlights, shocked way she whispered, “Oh Moses, that comeback was disgustin’,” that despite his wishes made him lose it and start cackling.
............................
You
Of all things, his head bumped against yours when he burst out laughing.
It’s all good, though, it only served to break the tension more. You didn’t even realize you’d gotten so close until you felt his breath on your forehead but you were too taken aback at what had erupted out of your mouth.
Might as well make it more awkward, right? “For the record, I use pads and don’t have my period right now, though I finally did get it like two weeks ago,” you filled him in, letting yourself crack up a bit. At least the two of you weren’t having a catfight.
He groaned, “Goddamn,” and scratched the back of his head.
“Say, pookie?” you sassed, and earned a grumble in response. On second thought, you decided to leave ‘pookie’ more to Carol and stick with ‘mangy hick’ yourself. “Don’t go sayin’ stuff about girls and their periods, yeah?”
.........................
Him
That the following words out of her mouth would be a friendly, not-fake sounding: “You’re a good man, I know you’re better than that,” threw him off. Being that this wasn’t the direction he assumed the conversation would take, he looked down at the ground and shuffled slightly while he wracked his brain for a response.
‘You’re a good man, I know you’re better than that.’
But before he figured out what to say back, she muttered, “And I named-called you and got in your face, that wasn’t right, but please don’t…c’mon, man, don’t call me stupid.”
It wasn’t just the imaginary knee that kicked him in the dick that time, an imaginary fist punched him right in the ribs, too. He’d been an asshole, a big fucking asshole. Part of him is wished he really did get punched when he managed to hush, “You ain’t stupid.”
He also apologized for the thing where he asked if she was on the rag, that was shitty. He was sorry he grabbed her arm and started to pull her, too, that was way more shitty.
But hell if a civil-ass conversation didn’t follow.
Story is: she wanted anyone who ‘might could’ be in the house who ain’t a geek walker to know she and him were friendly so that they wouldn’t shoot, and that the guy who just died Otis had gone by already and wasn’t shot at.
Y/N had seemed so sad. “They live right off a connecting route, how many people must’ve seen it, stopped, tried their luck?”
“That’s why I’m sayin’ go careful and quiet,” he stressed. “Outta sight.”
“We’ll still need to trespass and potentially break and enter.”
“And if they’re alive in there, you’re still a big-ass target when you wave.”
She nodded and exhaled. Wait, why were her eyes wet?
“When we get there, I’ll knock and ask if anybody’s home. If nothing, it’ll attract any walkers might could be in there, that way they’ll all be in one place so we can put them out of their misery easier.”
Interesting way to phrase it, he guessed. Why this whole schtick was such a big deal, he didn’t get, but ‘put them out of their misery’ stuck with him as they crept smoothly through the side-yard.
It stuck with him when he noticed trails of feathers all over, starting with one leading right from the clumsy hole in the chicken pen.
It stuck with him as they saw the side-door with a sturdy wood slab covering the knobs.
It stuck with him as he peeked through a plank to look in a window and saw what must’ve been the pantry.
He had to make sure about something. “That thing you said before,” he asked under his breath, “Y’realize there ain’t nobody ‘in there,’ right? That’s gone.”
“Dr. Jenner explained what happens, and we all saw the brain scan.” Her voice got quieter. “I-I’m trying’ to maintain a measure of reverence, I guess, for who they was.”
“A measure of reverence,” he repeated.
She huffed and whispered, “Don’t,” as she firmly tapped on glass. “Hello? We ain’t—” she paused and turned down her accent. “We’re not here to hurt anybody or rob anybody, we’re only looking for supplies and a lost girl. We can’t tell if this house is occupied or not.”
She banged on the window again. Called again. “We are going to come into the house if we don’t receive some kind of response that there’s people inside.”
Following this, he thought he was having a stroke for a second before he realized Y/N said something in another language. “Was that Spanish?”
“Just giving this my due diligence,” she mumbled, then rapped on the siding yet again, and loud. “Three people are going to break in unless we know we should not! If there is someone in there, make yourself known, please!”
Smart to add a fake third person and to stay pressed against the house to remain out of sight.
Annoyed as he was at all that bullshit, he found himself stopping from making any comments because her voice had cracked a little. He looked over at them.
His annoyance shifted into something softer. “You okay?”
“What? Yeah, I’m just bein’ an idiot.”
He took it on himself to knock and call “We’ll leave if we know you’re in there, just give a shout. We don’t want no trouble.” He hoped his voice sounded somewhat gentle when looked at his friend and shrugged. “Due diligence, right?”
Her expression was tense. “Was this how you felt before you saw the chupacabra? Th-there’s somethin’ not right here, and it ain’t just that all the chickens been attacked, there’s—” A few, loud bangs on the siding and one final “Hello!” and she looked at him, not bothering to finish whatever her thought was. Then she took a few running steps back to that window to look in between the planks like he did and suddenly jolted.
“What’d you see?”
“I just—I think it was a squirrel or a rat?”
Ah. “Guess that answers if anyone’s home,” he said, talking at a normal level now.
“How did those get in? All the windows are accounted for.” She started sprinting around the house, so he jogged along. “All three doors are shut or planked, too. Roof looks fine…”
That was a little weird, he had to admit.
“Daryl? I-I don’t like this.”
Curiosity took over as he squinted up at the top floor, where all windows were either closed or had an unbroken screen. He continued to walk around, checking the top floor and attic space, but everything was intact. “I’ma check out the sheds and the well, then let’s go. We’re wastin’ time.”
Well, the first one was a woodshed, so that was a bust. Nothing else could fit in there but a few more logs. In the second, bigger shed, it was pretty tidy and had the usual stuff in there like a lawnmower, storage bins, shovels, tools, old paint cans.
The way some of the storage bins weren’t flush against the wall made him pause. That thing Y/N said the yesterday about how they’d found foster kids sleeping hidden between furniture and a wall to feel safer popped back into his head.
Wouldn’t you know it, when he looked behind, there was a tarp positioned around two of the bins to make what looked like a small, concealed sleeping area.
It was good, it was real good! And based on the map, this house was close enough to the woods by the highway to have made sense!
He called Y/N’s name and started trying to clue together any other indication of what that was and if it really could’ve been Sophia and for how long she might’ve stayed. Again, he shouted, “Y/N, I’m in the shed!”
The high he was feeling felt as if five espressos were buzzing through him. Must’ve be what Y/N felt like after that coffee mix-up this morning, ha. Where was she? She had to get in there and see it!
He called her name a third time.
It was the way she croaked back “Daryl,” that had his bolt was notched and ready before he’d even left the shed.
“Y/N? What’s goin’ on?” He aimed his sights all around when he saw her.
But his friend was simply standing there, panting, and holding a giant (and unfamiliar?) pair of bolt cutters while she stared at something.
“Y/N?”
The word “the” was repeated five times when lifted her chin toward it and was able to finally spit out the word “hatch.”
He walked closer and looked down at the basement hatch.
“I l-looked in the window again and there was a dead one inside and—” she paused to breathe, and a slow string of words that didn’t connect enough followed. “I didn’t know how the, w-with the squirrel, so I, um, the, it’s—”
“Y/N, hey. Zen.”
Her whole demeanor had changed, especially from how damn cheerful she’d been this morning. Eyes wide, she waved him closer with her good arm and crouched at the hatchway. “Th-the pachysandra was coverin’ it, but the handle,” she held up the bolt cutters, “It’s red, it-it stuck out.”
It took him a few moments to see what she was talking about.
The cellar hatch wasn’t shut. A brick was holding it open. By the looks of it, it had been broken from the outside. The latch was snapped.
“Cockroaches always find a way in,” Y/N whispered.
Nausea splashed through him again when he reached for the crowbar that had been lost in the overgrown ivy stuff and put two and two together, along with what she meant when she said ‘cockroaches always find a way in.’
“You saw just the one walker inside, Y/N?”
A nod. “I stopped looking when I saw him. He was very young. I don’t reckon he would’ve been alone when…” She trailed off and drew her gun.
“Why do you need that?”
“Just checkin’ it again,” she faltered.
“That a silencer on there?” he asked in reference to the extra thing on the end.
She shook her head. “A compensator.”
He had no idea what that meant, but he did know she was most likely fixing to go inside and use that gun. Why, he wasn’t so sure of.
“Sophia ain’t in there.”
She ejected the magazine to check the cartridges. “I know.”
“Then what are you doin’?”
With a slide and a click, she loaded it back up. “Giving them rest and buryin’ them. I don’t know exactly what happened or w-what we’re gonna find, but I can give them rest.”
Giving ‘them’ rest. There was no ‘them.’
But instead of saying that or arguing further at what he should have considered bullshit and a waste of time, he was nodding.
“We go in quiet,” he said to her. Why, he wasn’t so sure of.
“You’ll help me?”
“Quietly.”
Y/N looked back at her gun and flicked off the safety. “I want this ready when we first go in,” she stated softly. “Please trust me.”
A firm “I do,” came out of his mouth. Why, he wasn’t so sure of.
Their eyes met. She nodded and rummaged through her backpack. Took out a flashlight. Her lips wobbled when she said, “I’ll take care of the little one, okay? You don’t need to see that.”
Looking back, it should’ve seemed foreign and absolutely batshit that he would be busting into a house just to put down geeks. And yet, he gripped the hatchway with one hand, gripped his crossbow with the other, and at her go, flipped the doors open.
........................
You
Time did that thing where it sped up and slowed down, and the strangely comforting feeling of nothing took over.
It was what you feared: home invasion. The residents had been alive at the time, or at least some.
The family in that house loved each other very much, that was plain. Seems they’d all caught the fever, too, unfortunately. The perps must’ve been sick, too, because they’d also turned. Everyone in the home had.
The grandma wrote a note, but the handwriting was hard to decipher, plus it was in Spanish, so you couldn’t make out too much of it. You’d folded it up and put it in your backpack.
While you and Daryl put them to rest, you counted the ones you put down yourself, thought of your mother, thought of the memories of doing this for your middle sister and her family, and prayed that you and Daryl wouldn’t get bitten in the process. You prayed the family in the house was in a better place, and you…you battled back and forth between inwardly telling the two who broke into the house that they were trash and deserved how they went out versus hoping that they found some kind of redemption before the end.
Maybe it was all a horrible mistake and they didn’t realize anyone was still living there. It didn’t appear at first glance that they surrendered once they found out, but...still, you couldn’t know.
Dale’s watch is ticking away, reminding you that you need to get up from the chair you’d sunk into.
It’s time to bury those poor people, and get back out there.
............................
teeny-tiny taglist :D
@spenciepoo338 @its-freaking-bats @whistlesalot @bitterteapot
(don’t sweat if you want off or on the taglist, my mailbox is open either way)
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Build me Up, Break me Down (Loki x Female reader) (18+)
Series Masterlist
Chapter 1
Summary : After the attack on New York, you get hired to watch over the prisoner responsible for the attack, a job that was supposed to bring the stability back in your life might upheavel it even more as Loki tricks you into releasing him from the cell. Where does this journey with the Ruthless god of Mischief would take you?
Note : This is going to be a slow burn romance fic but at the same time the slow burn is mainly from Loki's side The reader in this fic because of her past experiences is very timid and weak and will fall for his toxic ways. If you are looking to read a strong female lead THIS FIC IS NOT FOR YOU. Im not saying that that's how she'll always be but that's how her character is for now (just putting it out there so people won't complain)
You were on your way to Stark's tower which was crazy even for you. In 25 years of your life you have spent most of it doing all types of jobs, you have been a waitress, a janitor, you have worked in a supermarket, movie theater, anything that doesn't require any skill you have done it. You have had horrible things happen to you while you lived on the streets for a month, so it was crazy that somehow you got the job as a replacement for your current landlady Lindsey Mcwell who works for Stark's Security team. Stark's fucking tower "calm down y/n you can do this" you took a deep breath as you reached the guards on the ground floor
As soon as you reached the tower, you were scanned and surveyed from head to toe. "ID mam?" One of the guards asked you and you fumbled as you tried to take your ID out from your purse, the guard glared at you as you dropped it on the floor so you bent down to pick it up and smiled at him in an attempt to ease the tension but it was futile. A man in a black suit walked in, he was big and had a comforting aura surrounding him but as soon as he got closer you felt nervous
"Good morning Miss y/n, my name is Happy Hogan, I'm head of security. So you're substituting for Lindsey Mcwell?" He asked you and you nodded
"Yes she got injured in that alien attack that happened two days ago, I'm sure you must know of it, I don't know why I felt the need to tell you that but yes I am substituting on her behalf while she heals" you blabbed in nervousness and he asked you to walk with him
"Do you know what your job entails? "
"I was told I had to keep an eye on a prisoner in his cell?" You told him but your sentence had a questioning tone
"You have to watch him for as long as your shift would last, you can't move and even if you do you'd have to call on main security number that will be provided to you and Inform them that you were taking a break"
"Ummm my shift lasts for 10 hours, are you saying I can't take bathroom breaks for 10 hours?" You asked him and he glared at you
"You absolutely can't, do you think Miss Lindsey became such an important part of the security force by taking bathroom breaks every hour? You can go once every three hours and in the meantime Jarvis our multi functional AI would cover for you" you nodded and you both stepped inside the elevator
"Ummm can I ask you a question?" You looked at him confused and he rolled his eyes
"If your technology is so high, why do you need humans to watch over this prisoner? and why is a prisoner in Stark's tower instead of ..ummm prison?" He sighed as he heard your question
"A machine can't replace a human no matter how advanced they get. Your job wouldn't be just to watch him, try to converse with him and get the information out of him" he told you and it made you nervous
"Ummm shouldn't you get like a criminal psychologist or something for that?" He glared at you again, you were asking way too many question
"We did hire world's most renowned criminal psychologist and he ran away from him after an hour session, he's currently in a therapy session himself"
"Is it going to be the silence of the lamb type of situation? I'm not trained for this job sir"
"Silence of what? And you said Lindsey filled you in, you know what kid, she named you as her substitute so you're going to do this job. All you had to do is watch him on the screen" you took a deep breath and squeezed your eyes, you have never done anything like this in your life
"You have never seen the silence of the lambs? It's about a FBI agent who takes the help of -" you stopped babbling as he glared at you again
"So where were you during the attack?" You asked him to change the topic and he sighed
"I was guarding Miss Potts"
"The CEO I know" when you reached the floor he took you to the surveillance room.
"So who am I supposed to watch?"
"The maniac who attacked New York two days ago" your eyes widened as he said that
"Loki from Asgard?"
He guided you as best as he could, then he turned the screens on and that's when you saw him. He looked right in the front camera and smiled, he could always tell when they were watching him.
"Is he always wearing all that leather?"
"Asgardians are pompous asses"
"I thought Thor was a good guy?
"That doesn't make him less of an ass, watch him and make a report if he does something unusual and y/n?" You looked at him as he said that
"Don't let him trick you"
He left and you sat down on the chair as you continued to watch him, his cell was just behind the surveillance room, 10 hours of this? At Least you would get paid well and could feed yourself three times a day, this job was nothing less than a blessing for you and you didn't want to screw it up
You looked at him and he was quite good looking, you'd have confused him for a model or something if you saw him walking on the streets. You noticed him standing up, then he walked few steps forward and tapped on the cameras in front of him,
"Hello there little midgardian" he smiled then he crossed his arms behind his back as he started pacing in the room. Is he talking to you? What's a midgardian? You pressed on the microphone button so he could listen to you
"Ummm are you talking to me?" You spoke and he smiled in response
"Euphonious voice my lady, I'm impressed" your face flushed as he complimented you. You have heard your voice on recordings before, you sound like a dying walrus
"We are not supposed to talk..I think" you mumbled and he chuckled in response.
"Who made the rules my belle and why must we follow?" He asked you and you shook your head.
"Ummm shut up now bye" He chuckled and winked at you before he stepped away from the camera. You tried to not respond to his advances and flirtations, he's trying to trick you.
Somehow you finished your shift and he yelled a fairwell before you could step out of the room. How did he know? Everything went peacefully for a week, he'd flirt with you at every chance he got, he would make you blush and squirm in your seat, you didn't want to feel the way you did about him but you had never had anyone being so interested in you especially a man like him. He wasn't even a man, he was a god.
On your 7th day when you went to the tower, you found him bleeding all over in his cell. You freaked out as you saw all that blood, you should have called someone but you did the worst thing imaginable. You walked over to his cell and typed the code to open, the code that Loki himself told you about. You didn't know how he knew that but he did.
As soon as you walked closer to him to check on him you heard the cell door closing again and he disappeared. He disappeared, it wasn't real, the injury, the blood , nothing was real. And that's when you heard his voice from outside the cell, your eyes teared up as you realized what he has done
"I wasn't named the God of mischief and lies for kicks and giggles you pathetic little mortal"
He tricked you. You better be dead now than face the wrath of Avengers.
💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚
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VG: The Return to Udugu - PART 1
As time passed after the Outsiders' acceptance in the Pridelands, siblings Kovu and Vitani found themselves drifting apart as they spent time with Kiara and the Lion Guard respectively. Kovu's mind was affected by the space he shared with a native Pridelander, as Vitani's mind with native Outsiders. Kovu found himself starting anew and separating from his past quickly. Vitani took Kovu's act of moving on personally, and internalized it as him completely abandoning her.
Their increasing tension showed itself through spats that grew more and more frequent. Even a few scuffles broke out, seemingly every time they got too close to each other. Frankly, the united pride was not only concerned, but rather annoyed with the constant bickering. The siblings' dispute and pride's murmurs and complaints eventually reached the King and Queen's ears.
Worried that a potentially dangerous sibling rivalry could be on the rise, Simba and Nala take it upon themselves to invite Kovu and Vitani to Udugu, a tradition they invented to deter a tragedy like the infamous Mufasa and Scar rivalry from ever happening again.
The two watched the siblings go their separate ways. Kovu was headed the direction of the waterhole where he gazed at his reflection. Vitani climbed to Scar's former sleeping quarters, angrily knocking bones and rocks around.
Nala agreed to speak with Kovu, as Kovu took more comfort in speaking to her. She had a tendency to prod, which has proven to make individuals like Simba and Vitani discontent and frustrated, while Kovu was one who needed to be reminded and motivated in his purpose.
Simba was to speak with Vitani. Simba, like Vitani, did not like to dwell on feelings, nor did he like to be told things he already knows. This seemingly blunt, constantly-on-the-move demeanor confused individuals like Nala and Kovu.
In the meantime, Kiara, preparing harder and harder to take on the role of queen -- and frankly having nothing better to do -- happily greeted Vitani's Lion Guard and gave them the rundown of the event taking place. Though it was true that the princess wanted to get to know the new Lion Guard better, as she told her parents, Kiara slightly fibbed to the Guard that her parents said she'd substitute as leader on today's patrol, like her father once did for her brother's Lion Guard. Little did everyone know that this was Kiara's way of exploring her own potential.
____
"Kovu," the queen's voice called, "you're not with Kiara. Is something wrong?"
"I just..." the prince consort glanced down, "I just need alone time."
"I respect that," Nala sat down, "but I know something's wrong. You can't just bottle it up. It needs to be resolved somehow."
"It's my sister. She just... got upset when I agreed with Kiara. I wasn't trying to take sides. I never want to take sides, and now I'm out here... once again unsure of my place." Kovu then scoffed, "It's... It's like a thing with me."
____
Vitani huffed, "Kovu's just... being such an idiot. Hasn't been talking to me or about anything to do with us. He just keeps agreeing with Kiara and doing everything she does..."
Vitani quickly glanced up at Simba, remembering she was talking about his daughter. "N-No offense..."
"None taken." Simba cut in, "Though, you could use a break from patrol today."
"What?" Vitani squinted, "Why?"
____
Listening to Kovu all the way through, Nala smiled.
"Perhaps it's time for your journey to Udugu."
____
Vitani's face scrunched, "Udugu? What's that?"
"You'll see." Simba slowly got up.
____
Kovu followed Nala past the waterhole. Not knowing the Pridelands well yet, he crossed a vast grazing ground that had been healing from the brief prey overpopulation, and gazed at the great height of tall, red cliffs that reached the sky, unlike anything he's ever seen in the Outlands. Neither of these places were said to be Udugu. It must've been very far.
____
Vitani followed Simba down Pride Rock. Vitani spent most of her time outside Pride Rock unlike her brother, and remembered a few locations. All of which were places she knew couldn't have been Udugu. Where on earth was it?
____
Kovu noticed Nala stop. He followed suit.
"Oh, Is this it?" he asked. No response from Nala.
He looked around and saw a menacing-looking patch of thorns, and in the midst of the patch, he also saw...
"Oh, you're kidding me..." a feminine voice growled.
The owner of the voice, his sister, scowled fiercely.
"What are you doing here?" Kovu matched Vitani's scowl.
"Well, what are YOU doing here?" Vitani glanced back, "Simba, I think we got turned around. This can't be Udugu- Simba...?"
Silence. Neither Simba nor Nala were around.
"Wait, did you say Udugu?" Kovu arched an eyebrow, "That's where I was going!"
"What?" Vitani snapped, "Is this some kind of a prank they're playing? Simba?!?"
"Nala?!?" Kovu called.
They found themselves calling each monarch's name now. They at least did that together...
Their calls echoed across Maumivu Thorn Patch as they paced around. They wanted out of each other's sight, but they were led here, and felt they couldn't leave.
As Kovu and Vitani's frantic calling quickly turned into bickering, and soon tussling around and entangling themselves in the thorn patch, Simba and Nala snuck behind bushes, and began to plan the siblings' next few obstacles on their path to Udugu.
To Be Continued...
____
(In the spirit of November and its themes of family bonding, I decided to unleash a concept that's been in production in my mind for about three years now as an appropriate Vitani's Guard installment: Kovu and Vitani being taken on their very own journey to Udugu like Kiara and Kion once were. They're a pair of siblings who now live in the Pridelands, I thought Simba and Nala might as well treat them to some Pridelands traditions lol.
Because I couldn't decide which parent would chaperone them, I recently decided on both, but also somehow neither at the same time. They take them there, but most of the journey Kovu and Vitani make is independent as Simba and Nala know they're big enough to not be eaten or stepped on lol
Lastly, this was gonna have way more panels, such as an illustration of Simba and Nala looking on with concern as Kovu and Vitani depart, Kiara meeting with the Guard, and Kovu and Vitani looking onto each other furiously when they reach their destination. Was feeling rushed by the time (which I kinda gave up on anyway because now it's 1:00 AM... twice in a row because I think Daylight Savings happened just now while posting this?), and I just... didn't know how to draw some of the things. Perhaps I'll post the unfinished concepts that didn't make the final cut :p)
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