#it's been sooo long since i last posted here so i have no idea what's going on | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

minustwofingers · 8 months

Text

exoplanet part 7

pairing: ellie williams x fem!reader (she/her pronouns used)

series masterlist (read parts 1-6 here!)

summary: you’ve won the life lottery as one of the few people on earth with parents who gained admittance to the most prestigous safezone in the world after the outbreak. but after a lab accident sends you out to jackson, wyoming, real life hits you fast. it’s a good thing that a hot lesbian finds u. (lol). mean ellie at first, slowburn, enemies to friends to lovers, fem reader asf

warnings: stuck up awful rich people. mentions of: abortion (sowwy ** i can't write kids), homophobia, throwing up, general awful elitism, heavy drinking, implied minor character death, and we talk about stuff like unethical labor practices/basically slave labor. depictions of: violence, guns.

a/n: hey yall....sorry for taking literal months to write this. and sorry in advance for what you're about to read, since this is admittedly a little far removed from tlou. and i'm also sorry if this isn't what you guys are expecting—i know i made you wait a long time for this, so it was tough for me to finally get around to posting because i didn't want to disappoint anyone. also it was just sooo sad writing the last scene because i just didn't want it to end!! anywayyyy enjoy

wc: 14.6k (i know...i know...)

tags: @intrnetdoll @dazedshoon @lovecaraya @pctcr @sariyaflowr @loser-keiji @prettyplant0 @666findgod @sawaagyapong @rystarkov @buzzybuzzsposts @addisonnie @galacticstxrdust @elliesbabygirl @pinkazelma @ariianelle @lu002 @blairfox04 @sparkleswonderland @elliesflower @muthafuckingstargirl @elliewilliamsissubermommyoml @eviestevie-14 @quicksilversg1rl @guacala @crtcrp @overtrred28 @sugarqueencosmos @iriswalrus @chiao1209 @lovecaraya @thatgiraffefromtlou @alwayslongingforyou @thelastofshimmer

May 16th, 2029

Welcome to AskAI! Enter your questions below and I'll try my best to answer :)

How does Cordyceps spread?

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis is mostly commonly spread between humans by the medium of bodily fluids, though this was not always the case. In the early stages of the outbreak, most carriers were infected by the presence of Ophiocordyceps unilateralis spores in flour from a Jakartan mill. It is still unclear how the contamination occurred.

Is saliva included in bodily fluids that carry Cordyceps?

Yes, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis can be spread through human saliva. Other bodily fluids include blood, feces, mucus, and semen.

So if someone were to kiss someone infected with Cordyceps, would that person be infected too?

Yes, because Ophiocordyceps unilateralis can be spread through human saliva.

How long would it take before seeing symptoms?

If Ophiocordyceps unilateralis spores were to be introduced to an individual via mouth-to-mouth transmission, the approximate incubation window has been recorded to be no longer than 8 hours.

How long would it take to be detected by a standard testing device?

Our testers would detect the presence of Ophiocordyceps unilateralis within an hour after exposure. Note that this only refers to the conditions outside of Terranova. There has never been a detected case of Ophiocordyceps unilateralis in Terranova’s history.

Thank you.

You’re welcome! Please leave feedback on the AskAI Feedback Form if you have any ideas as to how I can improve <3

One year later

“And there’s no way we can skip?”

“You know the rules.”

Dina rolled her eyes and sighed as you two stood at the door of your parents’ penthouse, waiting to knock. “Maybe if you went and I said that I was sick or something.”

“They’d know you were lying.”

“They’d probably be happy if I missed dinner.”

“I don’t know if happy is something they can be,” you said. You tried to make it light and joking, but it came out with the heaviness of truth. “Plus, they’re not exactly thrilled with me either.”

“Not exactly thrilled” was the understatement of the century. Ever since you’d come home with a pregnant outsider toting a gun and covered in dirt, your parents had convinced themselves that you’d somehow become corrupted over your time living outside.

But Dina had it way worse. Your parents were so scandalized by her rugged ways and the fact that she’d gotten pregnant out of wedlock that they’d nearly fainted upon realizing you were advocating for her Terranovan citizenship.

You both had had the good fortune of avoiding any further tense interactions with them for the last few months, but that morning you’d awoken to an email that contained an invitation to their home for dinner. It was noted that Dina had to attend.

So here you two were. Dressed in uncomfortable, stiff clothes and nervously twiddling your thumbs.

“You’re going to be fine,” you promised Dina. It sounded like a lie. “I’ll do most of the talking, okay?”

“If you say so.”

You rang the doorbell.

It took just a few moments before the door swung open.

“Hi Chris!” you greeted, plastering a smile on your face.

Your family housekeeper smiled back with a neutral warmth. She looked slightly thinner than you remembered when you saw her last just a few months ago. “Hello. Miss Dina, please remember to keep your shoes on this time.”

Dina flushed bright red. The last time she’d come over for dinner, she’d taken her shoes off and had been given a very stern lecture by your mother about how improper stockinged feet were for dinner. “Of course not, ma’am.”

You sent her an apologetic look and stepped inside.

“Your parents are in the sitting room,” Chris told you as she took your coats.

You thanked her.

“Why don’t they ever come up to greet us themselves?” Dina whispered to you.

You shrugged. “No clue. They just never have. They probably don’t want to have to take a break from whatever stimulating conversation they’re having about the country club happenings.”

She snorted. All of a sudden, you were overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude for Dina and her spirit. After your family had essentially decided you were hopeless, family get-togethers had become torture. Dina was your lifeline.

As Chris had said, your parents were found lounging in the sitting room, your mother fanning herself with one hand and holding what looked to be a gin and tonic in the other, your father sitting across from her in a tastefully worn armchair.

“Girls,” your mother greeted. Her eyes looked flinty and flat. “How good of you to come. I was worried you’d lost your way.”

It was a classic Y/L/N insult for latecomers, but it was barely a minute past 6:30.

“The elevator wasn’t working,” you offered. “We had to take the stairs.”

“Hm. Well, come and sit. Petra can get you a drink.”

A tall girl who couldn’t have been much younger than you was standing at the other end of the room next to the bar. She had bright ginger hair that stood out starkly against the neutral beige of her uniform and a small, squatty nose. You’d never seen her before in your life.

“Is she new?” you asked.

“Who, Petra? Oh, I think so. It must’ve been…oh, I’m not sure. This March, I believe? What do you think, darling?”

“Around then.” The solid ice globe slid against the glass with a clink as your father answered, taking a long pull of his bourbon after.

“It’s nice to meet you,” said Dina politely.

Your mother let out a labored sigh. “Dear, I’m very glad to see you working on manners, but there’s no need to engage with the help.”

Dina didn’t answer, instead sending you a meaningful look.

“Well, not usually,” she continued. “Though it is appropriate to interact with them in matters that are considered strictly business. Take, for example, the fact that neither of you have managed to order a drink yet. Petra, come.”

You stared at your hands, folded tightly in your lap. If there was anything you hated more than your parents, it was how they treated the help. And, though you’d never say it out loud, you didn’t understand how two middle aged adults needed more than one full-time housekeeper on hand. Chris made sense. Petra was entirely unnecessary.

“We really don’t need anything,” you said to Petra when she was in front of you, looking rather pale. “But thank you.”

The tension in the air refused to dissipate, not even when you were relocated to the dining room and had the crutch of picking away at the three courses served to you.

Dina, having been thoroughly scolded by your mother the last time she dined with her, was clinical in choosing which utensil to use for each course.

Your mother babbled on and on about the country club and the book club. Your father occasionally butted in with a few dull, lifeless comments. There was something especially dead in his appearance, like he was running on zero sleep.

“You may be curious as to why I asked you two here today,” your mother said after the main course plates had been cleared. “First of all, I wanted to extend my congratulations to my daughter for graduating in just a few days.”

“Thank you,” you said stiffly.

“And more importantly—”

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes.

“—I wanted to announce that your father will finally be retiring,” she said. “He’s been working so hard for the last few years. Isn’t this wonderful?”

“That’s really great, Father,” you said, feigning a smile to hide your confusion. You hadn’t known that your father had even worked, much less hard enough to warrant a formal retirement.

“Thanks, dove,” he said.

“When’s your last day?” you pried, wondering if you could manage any more information out of him.

“This Friday.”

“Hm.” So much for that. You exchanged glances with Dina as Petra reappeared with a tray of small goblets filled with colorful globes of sorbet.

“You’ll both be expected to be in attendance at his retirement party,” Mother added. She was frowning deeper now.

“Even me?” said Dina.

“Yes.” She smiled tightly. “And please note that they’re unaware that we helped you through your…little problem. I can’t imagine why that would ever come up in conversation, but I would really prefer it didn’t.”

“Uh huh,” responded Dina, her eyes wide.

When Dina had arrived, your family had given her two options—have her child and give it up for adoption, or terminate the pregnancy then and there in secret. Refusing to comply would lead to your parents being entirely unwilling to sponsor her citizenship as it was far too unseemly to be an unmarried mother. Though it was clear your parents thought she was devastated by the prospect, she’d confided in you later that she hadn’t realized that that had been an option for her. She’d taken the second option without a second thought, telling you that she didn’t feel ready to be a mother.

The unfortunate part of it all was that your parents held this over her head on occasion, using it as leverage to make Dina feel like she owed them. Hence why she never felt entirely comfortable with telling them off.

That your parents had kept the abortion a secret was hardly a surprise. Abortion was one of those issues that no one liked to talk about. Though it wasn’t the hardest procedure to get, it was never publicly discussed. You’d never personally known of anyone who had gotten one before, but the clinic had been so full when you’d attended with Dina nearly a year ago that you were beginning to second guess that fact.

“Anyway,” said your mother lightly, “Darling, have you heard anything from the Thompsons recently?”

“Oh, no. I haven’t seen Richard in quite some time.”

“It’s funny you say that. Melanie was supposed to host the Garden Club party last week, and you’ll never believe what happened.”

“What, honey?” Your father stared dully at the tablecloth, entirely unengaged.

“When I stopped by, the rest of the girls were already there,” your mother said. “Just sitting out in front of her building looking very confused. I walked right up and asked what was going on—you know, now that I’m co-president, I need to keep things in order—”

“Yes, honey.”

“—And Angie tells me that they’ve been ringing her for ten minutes and she hasn't answered. I decided to give her a call, and straight to voicemail. So we all sat out there until it started raining. We never even got an apology text.”

“Oh,” said your father, looking a little more engaged. “Is that really?”

“Yes,” your mother said. The attention made her sit up straighter. “It absolutely was. It was incredibly inappropriate. I couldn’t believe it. And to think that she stole that hosting spot from me…”

“Do you know if she’s alright?” your father asked,

She shrugged. “I should hope not. That’s the only excuse she could have for what happened.”

“Hm.” Your father moved the melting sorbet around without clinking his spoon to the crystal. “It seems that quite a few of us have been dropping off the face of the Earth.”

“It must be because of the long winter,” you said diplomatically. “Too much darkness makes us all a little loony.”

Your mother raised a brow and hummed in assent. “I suppose so.”

“Is that why groceries are so expensive now?” you asked. It had become a new development. About 6 months after you and Dina had returned, the prices on the shelves had rocketed upwards.

“Something like that,” your father said vaguely.

“What does that mean?”

“Y/N,” your mother warned.

“It’s alright, dear,” your father said, waving his hand. “It’s really nothing interesting. Supplying this city has always had its challenges. This year just happens to be especially hard.”

“What kind of challenges?” pried Dina.

“Shipments are always difficult to orchestrate,” he said. “As is quality control. It’s nothing that we haven’t seen before. Prices will go back to usual within a few months. The pendulum always has to swing back.”

It was a saying he always used—the pendulum analogy.

Dessert wrapped up quickly. Your mother gave you the official date for your father’s retirement party and ironed out your graduation details, and before you knew it you and Dina were off into the night.

“Thank fucking god that’s over,” said Dina as you two trotted down the street to the metro.

“Tell me about it.” You zipped up your jacket to ward off the slight chill in the evening air. “I’m really sorry you had to deal with all of that. I appreciate you coming with me. I know they’re awful to you.”

“Well, they’ll be worse if I don’t go,” she responded, her eyes cloudy for a second. She was right. One misstep and they could have her citizenship and their financial sponsorship rescinded.

“True,” you conceded.

The metro was bustling with people as you and Dina hopped on to the yellow line that would take you to the university residences. It was modeled right after the Parisian metros, with its Art Nouveau signs and themed stops. There was only standing room, so you two clutched onto the stainless steel poles in the middle.

The doors made a groaning sound and a speaker crackled as the announcer came on.

“Doors closing. Please stand clear of the exits. This is an express train with service to University Park. Other stops include 25th Street and North Village. There will be no evening service to Rotingham.”

You and Dina seemed to come to an unspoken agreement to remain silent and process the hell that had been dinner with your parents as the train lurched forward into motion. You closed your eyes and would’ve rested your head against the handrail had it not been so gross.

The only fortunate thing about your parents was the fact that they were incredibly easy to get to, despite living on the other side of the city from the university. What would’ve normally taken 40 minutes with transfers was cut down to 15 with the use of an express train that ran right from the station outside of your apartment.

You had resolved to just sit in silence when the train came to a screeching halt.

Your eyes shot open, meeting Dina’s confused gaze.

The lights above flickered, then sputtered out to leave you in darkness.

There was a hushed silence amongst everyone in your train car.

“What’s going on?” Dina whispered to you.

“This happens sometimes,” you said quietly back, but it was sort of a lie. It wasn’t entirely uncommon for the lights to go out, but you’d never had it happen in tandem with a train stopping on the tracks before reaching a station. And especially not an express train…

The lights flickered on again, and there was a shared sense of relief as a few of the train’s occupants let out a shaky laugh.

“Thought we were going to have to walk!” said a ruddy looking old man sitting across from you. The car responded with polite chuckles.

“Apologies for the delay,” came a voice over the loudspeaker—a human voice, not an automated one. “There was a disturbance on the tracks that had to be dealt with. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Service will continue as usual.”

The train lurched back into movement, the dark walls of the tunnel moving past in a blur.

“That was weird,” Dina remarked once you two had gotten to your stop and were walking up to ground level.

“Yeah,” you said, frowning. “I didn’t want to tell you then because I didn’t want to freak you out, but normally express trains never stop, especially not at this time of night with less trains in service.”

“What qualifies as a disturbance on the tracks?”

“I have no clue,” you confessed. The sun was hovering just barely over the horizon, its last rays of light reflecting aggressively off of the skyscrapers in the distance from which you came. “Someone probably dropped something big like a suitcase onto the tracks and blocked the way. It happens.”

You were purposefully avoiding the elephant in the room—that it had probably been a person on the tracks. It wasn’t especially common—not nearly as common as you heard it was in places like New York before the outbreak—but it happened on occasion. Terranova wasn’t the best place for everyone.

“The Thompsons are Simon’s family, right?” Dina asked you. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the cheerful chatter of fellow university students socializing and drinking on the green next to the sidewalk.

“Yeah,” you said. You and Dina had occasionally hung out with Simon since returning. You noticed that Simon had really taken a liking to Dina, but neglected to mention it since his parents were actively attempting to arrange a marriage between him and some girl in the Art History program at your school. “Have you talked to him at all? I haven’t heard from him for a week or so.”

“Me neither.” Dina tightened the dark braid that fell over her shoulder as she walked, looking rather troubled. “I didn’t realize his parents were missing.”

“They’re probably fine,” you said. “I seriously wouldn’t worry about it. There’s nothing here that could hurt them.”

“You’re right,” she said. “I just forget that there’s no infected here sometimes. Like, tonight, I thought I was gonna have to start swinging on someone in the train when the power cut.”

“God, same.” You shivered. “It’s weird to know that we don’t have to worry about that anymore. But I think it’ll get easier with time.”

“Yeah,” said Dina, but she didn’t sound convinced. “Well, I’m going to text Simon and see if he’s alright. Or maybe call him. I’m sure he’ll know what happened.”

“Let me know what he says.” You’d ascended the steps up to your shared apartment and were slotting the key into the keyhole. “By the way, did I ever formally invite you to my graduation?”

“Not that I recall.” Dina followed you in and kicked her shoes off.

“Well, consider this your formal invitation,” you said, turning to grin at her. “It’s this Saturday. Be there or be square.”

“Will there be free food?”

“And anything you want to drink,” you told her, though you weren’t entirely sure of that fact. You’d only ever been to one graduation in your life, and that had been years before it was socially acceptable for you to drink anything beyond the odd glass of watered down wine—but you recalled a memory of particularly free-flowing champagne flutes being passed around.

“Consider me sold.”

You had to be going crazy. There was no way.

You entered the numbers back into the graphing software again. Then again. Then one more time, just to be sure you were seeing what you were seeing.

“Everything going alright over there?” asked old Professor Gunther, looking up from his grading and his steaming cup of tea.

“Um—” You blinked, hard, then looked back down at your calculations. “Professor, can you look at these for me? I think I must’ve made a mistake.”

“Of course, my dear.” He graciously accepted the notepad full of barely legible numbers that you came up to hand to him and adjusted the glasses on his face so he could squint more efficiently. “And what is this exactly?”

“I’ve been parsing through the data on that star—that K star you’d been watching for a while—and, um, I’ve noticed something.” Your voice shook nearly as much as your hand as you pointed to the scribbled numbers. “Can you, uh, graph these? And put them into a different program than StarBlast? And look at the spectra? It’s giving me what I think is—actually, I don’t know. You do it and I’ll show you what I got.”

“I’m confused about what you could have possibly done wrong,” he said, though he was already opening his own laptop and starting up a different program that you hadn’t used before because of how much you hated the GUI. “Did you try to parse it by hand to check?”

“Yes,” you said. “Horrible idea. Took me forever.”

“And you got the same result?”

“Yeah.”

“Hm.” He took off his glasses to wipe them off, then began typing in the data you’d emailed to him earlier for bookkeeping purposes. “Let me see what I have.”

The agonizing few minutes it took for him to enter him already had your mind spiraling with possibilities as the implications sunk in. If you were right—if this was right—everything was going to change in your field.

The spectra graph roared to life.

“Jesus Christ,” you heard your professor say. “Is this—”

“I think so,” you said. “I think so.”

What you two were looking at held more than one piece of crucial information. The first was nothing but basic calculations of a Doppler Shift that detected that there was a planet. Your calculations estimated its size at roughly the same as the Earth, with a similar orbital period and distance from its star that placed it in the habitable zone.

That wasn’t anything earth-shattering. There were plenty of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone, implying that if the conditions were right, there was an environment conducive to organic life.

What was, however, were the spectra emissions that you were staring at, slack-jawed and skin prickling.

“Methane,” you whispered. “And oxygen. And phosphine.”

And not just a little—enough that it suggested biological processes that could only occur with the presence of life.

“I think you should finish writing this report,” Professor Gunther finally said.

You froze. “What?”

He turned to you, his glasses sliding down his bulbous nose and a kind smile on his face. “I’ve made enough discoveries in my life. This one is yours to claim.”

You were overcome with so much gratitude that you launched yourself at him, throwing your arms around his neck and hugging him tightly.

Gunther good-naturedly patted your back with the enthusiasm of a grandfather being pestered by his grandchildren. “This is your moment. Take it.”

“Thank you,” you said, pulling back with tears welling up in your eyes. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

He smiled again. “It’s truly my pleasure. I feel lucky to have had a student like you.”

“If you don’t stop, I’m going to start crying.”

“We can’t have that,” he said, standing up and handing you back your sheet of calculations. “You have work to do.”

You settled back into your work across from him, nearly buzzing with excitement as you finished typing up your findings. It would be a long process for the study to actually be published—long, painful, and undoubtedly draining—but it would be so worth it. You’d be the one who discovered a planet that (most likely) harbored life. For the first time in history.

Though you wouldn’t be publishing a paper any time soon, you still had to log the planet into the “global” (not exactly global given that there was no other place on Earth with the same technology as Terranova) database. And with that meant giving it a name.

In that moment, it was like time froze as the cursor blinked in the box. There was nothing but the blood rushing in your head, the dull hum of the fluorescent lights above, and the slight stickiness of the leather desk chair beneath you.

You gulped. It was standard in the department to name planets after the astronomer that discovered them. You’d never had a planet named after you before. You’d only ever crunched numbers that Gunther had given to you to analyze spectra emissions. This was the first time you’d ever actually discovered something that hadn’t already been logged before it had landed on your desk.

And yet…

You closed your eyes. Suddenly you were back in the meadow at Jackson, tracing the wisps of the Milky Way with your finger as you and Ellie talked about the constellations. You saw the childish excitement on her normally stern features when she held the moon rock for the first time. You saw the wonder in her eyes when you told her a new space fact that she’d never heard before. That she’d never had the opportunity to learn before.

Your fingers moved before you could stop them, quickly tapping out the name “Ellie” into the box and hitting the enter button.

For the rest of the day, you regretted it. You tried not to think of her anymore. It was something that you’d promised yourself you wouldn’t do after you spent the entirety of last summer miserable and doing nothing but turning over the memories in your mind until Dina made you do something with her.

It was difficult. You wanted to put it in the past, because you couldn’t think about her without thinking about how she probably wasn’t even alive anymore. Which didn’t make any sense. Nothing ever made any sense about Ellie. Even before you predicted she’d been bitten, she’d already been behaving erratically—not packing her things, not saying a real goodbye to Joel, catching more food than their small group of three could possibly need near the end. It was like she knew that she wouldn’t be able to go.

Which didn’t make any sense, because why go all that way knowing that it was for nothing?

Which made you think about how bizarre she was before leaving. How sad she seemed when she told you that she was going, like even then she knew that it wouldn’t happen.

And you hadn’t gotten sick from her, even though you should have. She’d kissed you long after she would’ve been bitten. And you knew from your frantic research upon arriving that you should have tested positive when Simon checked.

So why hadn’t you? And why had she?

It was things like this that could keep you up for days if you weren’t careful. It was awful, but sometimes you liked to believe that she had really been sick and had died shortly after. You had a vision of her killing herself before fully turning, and even though it hurt to imagine it, it was the most humane end of them all. If she was dead, then maybe there was an afterlife, and maybe a piece of her was watching over you. Maybe she was still with you. Maybe she finally was able to rest.

You hoped that little piece of her had seen her name the first planet with life after her.

A tiny smile crept across your face, but inside you felt devastated. You were going to mourn her again all day, like you always did when something reminded you of her. And you were probably going to dream of her, of her stupid grin and the way her hair felt when it tickled your face.

Pull it together you thought glumly. You had to be normal for your father’s retirement party that night, and you had just under 4 hours to do so.

“Ugh,” you said, staring at your phone as you stood with Dina near the door, both of you dolled up and ready to go to the party.

“That’s how I feel too,” said Dina. “I’m going to kill myself if anyone brings up anything about how hard my childhood must’ve been and how I’m doing such a good job adjusting one more time.”

“Ha,” you said. “Mom just texted me to tell me that we need to stop by theirs first.”

“Why? Aren’t they already at the venue?”

“Yeah,” you responded, wrinkling your nose. “But apparently she forgot her gift for him—some vintage Rolex she got restored for him.”

“A vintage what?”

“Stupidly overpriced wristwatch,” you explained.

It took less time than usual to get to their building. Despite it being at peak busy hour, the platforms seemed eerily empty.

“Is there some holiday going on?” Dina asked, sitting across from you so that you both had your own row of seats.

“Oh, I’m such an idiot,” you said, clapping your forehead with your hand. “Of course there is. That’s why my father held his retirement party today. It’s the first day of this festival that goes all week.”

“What’s it for?”

“I honestly don’t know the background,” you admitted. “Most people just use it as an excuse to get incredibly drunk. I think it has something to do with the founding. It��s, like, the only time that public intoxication is okay.”

“Damn,” said Dina thoughtfully.

“The trains will probably fill up on our way back,” you said, sighing. “Hopefully it won’t be too bad. Worst comes to worst we can walk.”

“It gets that bad?”

“There’s hardly standing room,” you said, recalling the last festival you’d been around for—the summer before you’d been catapulted to Jackson. “And it just reeks of drunk people. And you have to be really careful, because I hear the custodial staff has to work overtime to clean up all the vomit.”

“Gross,” said Dina. “And here I was thinking that it was just all being proper and mannerly.”

“Everyone has their limits,” you said lightly.

The penthouse felt just as oppressive as when you came for dinners, like you were walking into the lair of a dragon who was coming back at any moment. Chris was gone—likely participating in the festival herself—but you were surprised to see the figure of Petra bent in a corner as you entered, dusting the top shelf of their bookcase.

You and Dina politely greeted her before ascending the steps to your father’s office.

“Why did your Mom put it in here?” Dina asked as you began shuffling through papers to find the box that your mother had described over text.

“My father doesn’t work in here all too often,” you said, opening a few drawers and seeing no trace of the green and gold box. “He just uses it to file away things.”

“What does he do?”

“I actually have no clue,” you confessed. “He doesn’t talk about it, and I don’t ask.”

“Do you want to see if we can find out?” Dina asked with a conspiratorial raise of her eyebrow as she motioned towards the filing cabinets. “Just a quick look. They’ll never know that we were here.”

You took a moment to consider. If Chris had answered the door to let you two in, you would’ve told her that you couldn’t, because she would definitely snitch if she knew. But she was nowhere to be seen, and Petra looked like she was busy enough downstairs.

“Sure. Why not.”

The first few cabinets held nothing interesting—just spending reports and copies of contracts that were written in legalese.

“It looks like he works with whoever supplies this place,” remarked Dina as you two skimmed the papers and saw records of contacts all over the continent, from the old continental US and South America, each detailing something boring about shipping dates and inventory.

But then came the third cabinet, with papers dated back before you were born with what looked like sketches of barren looking buildings and hand-scrawled notes.

“What are these?” you breathed, laying them out on the ground.

“I think…” Dina squinted. “I think that these might be manufacturing plants?”

“Oh?” You dug further around in the cabinet to see if you could find any further illuminating evidence.

“Yeah,” said Dina, staring as she began to flip through the pages already on the floor. “Holy shit, dude. This is…sort of messed up. Look at how small these living quarters are.”

You peered over her shoulder to see the architectural sketches of what looked to be more of what you imagined a prison to be. There were long bunks stacked on top of each other in what looked to be a never ending line, the mattresses barely even large enough to be considered twins.

Someone cleared their throat behind you, and you nearly leapt.

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” said Petra. Her voice was low and raspy. You noted that it was the first time she’d ever spoken.

“Oh, uh—” You began to frantically gather the papers, hoping she hadn’t seen. Would she tell your parents? “Sorry if we disturbed your work. My parents, uh, they asked us to get something from—”

“It’s fine,” she interrupted, holding up a hand. “I won’t say anything.”

“Thank you.” You stared up at her steely green eyes, wondering what had compelled her to approach you and Dina. “Um, is there anything we can do to help you?”

“Don’t drink the bourbon,” she said, so quickly that it seemed to fluster her.

“What? Why?”

“Just don’t do it,” she said again. “Better yet, don’t drink anything except for the water.”

“I’m sorry,” you said, feeling genuinely apologetic. “I’m not sure if I understand.”

Something crossed over Dina’s face, and suddenly something in her seemed to shift. Her features paled. She knew something you didn’t.

“I came from one of those places,” Petra said, motioning to the diagrams that you were staring at. “They’re not—they’re not somewhere you want to be. We all try our best to come here. That’s what they tell us, you know. Do well enough and you’ll get sent to where everyone gets to live a life of grandeur and luxury. But they barely send anyone, and when they do, they get shitty positions like this.”

Your breath caught in your throat as your understanding slowly grew. Of course. How had you been so stupid to think that wealthy people were ever going to have any of their kind work any real job?

“You two were the ones who came from outside, right?” Petra continued. When you two nodded, she crouched next to you. “And you were wondering what was going on with the prices?”

You nodded again, awestruck.

“Your Dad’s little spiel on it being about bad weather is bullshit,” she said, her words hard. “People are getting tired of this. They’re realizing they’re never getting out. You know what it’s like out there—it’s scary. It’s tiring. So many people get sick, so many die. So when people finally caught onto the fact that the work they’re doing is nothing but dressed up slavery and that their chances of getting out are basically zero, they start doing things to mess with the system.”

“Like contaminating the products?” Even as she said it, it seemed like Dina already knew the answer.

Petra just gave you two a long look.

“So that’s what he meant by quality control,” you said, the realization hitting you.

“Among other things.”

“How long do you think we have?” asked Dina.

“Not very long at all.”

“You guys can’t be serious,” you said, nervous laughter catching in your chest. “Do you seriously mean that Terranova isn’t going to be around for much longer? Is that what you’re saying?”

Petra shrugged and stood up. “Believe whatever you want. But from where I stand, it looks like there’s only two possible ways out of this situation. That is, unless you guys all become farmers.”

“I don’t think I’m following,” you said.

“Two options,” Petra said, sighing heavily. “Either we starve or we don’t. And the latter means taking a really big fucking chance on what we bring in.”

“But the system has worked for so long,” you said, more to yourself than anyone else.

“Too long,” she amended. “It was never sustainable. Maybe if you people had been okay with just eating native plants and wildlife. Maybe if you people were okay with changing your way of life. But no, you just had to have your fucking oranges from Florida and your coffee from South America.”

“Don’t lump me into this,” said Dina. “I just got here.”

Petra laughed, but it was a hard and sharp sound. “Well, chances are you won’t be here for long.”

“Hang on,” you said. “We’re still doing quality control inspections. The most likely scenario is that we’re going to have to cut down on imports—not that we’re about to go up in flames any minute.”

“I hope you’re right about that,” she said in that voice that told you that she thought that you definitely weren’t and didn’t see the point in arguing further. “Anyways, I’ve got to finish working so I can get home before dark. Be careful, okay?”

“You too,” you said. “And thanks for…not saying anything.”

It was a bit presumptuous considering that Petra hadn’t really given you any good reason beyond her word that she wouldn’t mention you lurking in your father’s cabinets, so you and Dina were thorough in carefully placing each file back into the correct place, just in case.

“Do you really think what she said is true?” you asked once you and Dina had located the watch and were on the metro once again.

Dina shrugged. “I mean, it makes sense.”

“Does it?”

“Look,” said Dina. “I know that this might be hard for you to hear, but I’m pretty sure this place lives off of what’s basically slave labor. If there’s any humanity left in the world, I would like to think that Terranova would eventually fall.”

You swallowed hard, then blinked. For a moment you thought you were going to throw up. “I never knew. I didn’t realize.”

“Of course you didn’t.” Dina’s voice was surprisingly patient. “You were a kid. But you’re not anymore, so it’s time to grow up and face the music.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t either.”

The two of you fell into a silence as the train sped past empty platforms bathed in shadows and you thought and thought and thought.

There was just too much happening today. First Gunther’s lab, then Ellie, now your entire worldview toppling.

As the train windows continued to blur the background of the tunnels and empty stations, your mind spun with reflections of your childhood—of you enjoying simple luxuries that you didn’t realize came at the expense of others. That you didn’t even think to ask about. You’d mindlessly trudged along, eating your exotic fruits and drinking your expensive tea and wearing clothes built from indulgent fabrics just because you could. Even when Dina had asked where the oranges came from all the way back in Jackson, you hadn’t let yourself wonder. You hadn’t let yourself consider the possibility that it was anything less than the sanitized fairyland that you’d been brought up in—perhaps because you knew all along.

And that made it even worse.

Dina seemed to understand, sending you a few glances without prodding.

“Do you think we need to leave?” you asked, your voice just barely a whisper.

“Us leaving isn’t going to do anything,” Dina said, like she’d been expecting it. “And how would we even do that? It’s not like we can just charter a helicopter again to drop us off back in Jackson.”

Something twisted inside of you. “Oh, God. You’re right. We couldn’t even leave if we tried.”

And you might have to try, a sinister voice inside you whispered. What if Petra was right about the contaminated products? What if they missed something when checking imports?

You’d never been taught how quickly the fungus spread in the original outbreak, and you knew little about the normal amount of time it would take any sort of disease to infect the entire population. But you did know how densely populated everything was. How reliant everything was on a few strictly maintained channels, like public transportation.

It wouldn’t be hard for it to all come crashing down, really. It would just take the right place at the right time and—

“Don’t freak out, Y/N.” Dina laid a hand on your shoulder. “We’ll figure something out if it comes to that.”

You smiled at her, grateful that you didn’t even have to put your words into thoughts. “But if we can’t leave, what do we do? It’s not like we can just sit by and do nothing.”

Dina pulled her bottom lip under her teeth, worrying it before answering. “I don’t really think that we have a choice. Right now, at least. I don’t know if there’s anything that just the two of us can do.”

“I’ll find more,” you said. “I’ll talk to my professors—my friends at university—Simon—”

“Do you think that we’re the only two that know about this?” asked Dina. “Because I really don’t. Maybe your friends don’t. But anyone in the military and anyone who was around when this was founded has got to know. They just don’t care enough.”

Something slowly iced over inside of you as the implications sunk in.

Gunther had probably known. No, scratch that—he definitely did. He was an academic who had been in his 30s when the world fell apart. Any adult would have asked the same questions that Dina had upon arrival.

“We’ll figure something out, I’m sure,” said Dina firmly. “Okay? Don’t worry.”

“Speaking of Simon,” you said, narrowing your eyes, “Did you ever get in touch with him? Is his family okay?”

“Oh, yeah.” said Dina. “He texted me back a bit ago. Said something about how he was just busy and that his family had been camping up in the mountains.”

You two faded into silence.

The retirement party came and went without much trouble. On the outside, at least. You were a mental wreck, barely able to keep it together as near strangers came up to you and expressed how much bigger you were since they’d seen you a decade and a half ago.

You noted with muted suspicion that Simon’s parents were nowhere to be seen amongst the crowd, not even by the lavishly decorated bar.

That night, you did dream of Ellie. It wasn’t the usual. Ellie wasn’t turning in front of you or bleeding or crying out in pain with a bite mark on her arm. She wasn’t yelling at you for failing her and letting her get bitten without even noticing. No; instead, she lay beside you in your meadow spot and talked to you.

And somehow that was so much worse.

“I named a planet after you,” you said, feeling hot tears pool at the seams of your eyes that you squeezed together to avoid sobbing. You knew you were dreaming. You always knew you were dreaming—seeing Ellie always seemed to prompt a degree of lucidity that was otherwise missing in your sleep.

“That’s really fucking sappy of you.”

“I miss you.” It came out like a compulsion, like you couldn’t stop it. “Are you here? Are you with me?”

“Y/N,” Ellie said, turning to look at you. The darkness made it difficult to see her whole face, but you could see the look of pity on her features in the gray-blue of the moonlight. “Of course I’m not here. Don’t be stupid. I’m dead.”

“Sometimes I wonder if you’re not. Like, if something happened.”

“Something did happen. I died.”

“Fuck you.”

She smiled sadly, and for a moment you thought her eyes looked more reflective than usual. “It’s not very helpful to think that way. And what can I tell you? I’m not even real.”

“I’d like you to try,” you whispered.

“Fine.” She sat up, pulling her legs into a lazy tangle as she looked at you. “What did you seriously expect, dude? You were never going to stay. I wasn’t going to go. If I hadn’t been bitten, I’m sure I would’ve orchestrated some way to get out of it. My family is back in Jackson. I liked you just fine, but you’re not my family. That shit’s deeper. Different.”

You opened your mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. The sharp pain in your chest faded into a cold sense of familiarity. Then, because she wasn’t real and there was no reason to feel embarrassed about bearing your emotions:

“You feel more like family than anyone here.”

“Then that sounds like a you problem,” said Ellie, flatly. “I’m not gonna let you guilt trip me like this. Boo fucking hoo, you grew up richer than everyone else on Earth and had to deal with strict parents. Do you realize what actual, real problems are? What about the people who make your lifestyle possible, huh? What about them?”

“I didn’t know.”

“Then you’re fucking stupid.”

The tears were streaming freely down your face now. “I would do anything to be back with you. I wanted to stay. I miss you so much. I don’t know what to do with myself without you.”

“And I’m sorry you have to deal with that.”

“Will you just say that you miss me too? You don’t have to mean it. I just want—I just want to hear it.”

“I can’t miss you. I’m not around anymore.”

Ellie watched as you curled in on yourself and sobbed so hard you thought you were going to be sick.

“You’re so weak,” she said after a few minutes. There was no venom in her tone. It was as if she was merely relaying something as inconsequential as the weather to you. “All you do is expect other people to care for you.”

Not real. Not real. Not real you repeated to yourself in your mind with growing franticness.

She wasn’t real. None of this was real. Ellie was never that affectionate with you, but this was another level. This was something personal.

“You said that being weak isn’t bad.”

“And you said that you were going to make sure I was going to get to Terranova.”

“And it’s not my fault that you decided to go gallivanting alone in the woods.”

“You could’ve tried harder.”

“I did as much as I could.”

“Sure you did.”

You bolted awake. The hair at the nape of your neck was wet with the slick of sweat. For a moment, you let yourself catch your breath, reorient yourself in your surroundings.

Your room. You were in your dorm room, with your space posters and your books. Ellie hadn’t been here. She hadn’t said that. You were okay.

A blaring noise jarred you as you realized that your alarm had made you wake up. Your alarm, because it was graduation day and you needed to be ready for a full day of festivities.

“Fuck,” you muttered, scrubbing your face with you hands. The last thing you wanted to do after this was have to see your parents and pretend like you like them for appearances.

She's gone. She's gone. She's gone you repeated in your head like a mantra. It was over. You shouldn’t have named that stupid planet after her, because she was gone and she always would be.

It would only be a matter of time until your parents would start asking you about your dating life, you realized as you brushed your teeth over the shiny white basin of your sink, the minty bubbles making your lips tingle. They’d been willing to entertain your reasoning of wanting to focus on your studies while you were at university, but you knew they’d been looking for prospective engagements behind your back.

It took you longer than usual to get ready, your mind wandering as you lingered in different corners of your apartment. You kept the lights off, opting to let the cool, gray daylight from the gloomy clouds wash the surfaces of your room.

“Hey,” said Dina, appearing from her own room and leaning against the doorframe.

“Good morning,” you greeted blandly, your attention on the necklace that just wouldn’t clasp around your neck.

“Looking spiffy,” she said. “By the way, did Simon say anything to you?”

“No.” You paused and turned to her, a frown on her face. As far as you were concerned, you really had no reason to be in contact with Simon beyond the general pleasantries.

“He just called me,” said Dina. “He seemed—I dunno. Like, weirdly frantic. He was saying that we need to stop by his.”

“His” was inconveniently on the opposite side of the city, even further past your parents’ place.

“Why? Pretty far for a short jaunt.”

“He was really insistent,” pressed Dina. Her long black curls were unruly, her skin sallow in a way you hadn’t seen in a while. She hadn’t been sleeping as well recently, it seemed, just like you since you’d spoken to Petra. “Maybe we should just stop by.”

“Did he say anything about why?”

“I tried to ask,” said Dina, frowning. “But the call dropped.”

“I hate how horrible service is in your room,” you said.

“Me too. Anyway, are we gonna see him?”

You shrugged. “I guess. We have some time. I’ll text him too just to see what’s going on.”

Dina was ready in just a few minutes, pulling a light blue sweatshirt over her shirt and stepping into her shoes.

“You look soooo cute,” she said, pinching your cheeks. “My little grad.”

You rolled your eyes, but the size of your smile ruined it.

For once in your life, you noticed that the university green outside of your apartment was suspiciously empty.

“Quiet,” Dina noted as you made your way to the metro. “It’s eerie.”

“People were probably partying all night,” you said. “Celebrating graduation and whatnot. I imagine everyone’s sleeping off a hangover instead of having to get up at the crack of dawn to voyage across the city.”

Dina held up her hands. “Gee. Sorry.”

The train was a little more populated. Some older Terranovans had newspapers cracked as they licked their fingers to turn the page. The silent hum of the train lulled you into another soliloquy as the tunnel plunged you into darkness.

You had to stop thinking about Ellie. You needed to move on, as awful as it was. You’d named a planet after her. She’d be forever remembered in the stars, and that should be enough. You didn’t need to keep dragging her memory behind you like a corpse, because she was dead and she was never coming back and she was—

On the platform?

Your mouth dropped as the doors of the train slowly rolled open to reveal a short girl with shoulder length auburn hair slowly ambling towards the platform. She was wearing a pale green short sleeve that had some sort of edgy spatter pattern on it—something that was very Ellie-esque. But something wasn’t…

It took you one breath to notice that neither of her bare arms had any tattoos. It took you another to see that what you had initially assumed to be a pattern was actually blood-soaked fabric formed from red rivelets that trickled from a wound on her neck.

“Holy fuck,” you whispered, grabbing Dina’s hand. “Do you see—”

“Everybody run!” Dina screamed, leaping up from the train seat and dragging you with her as she bolted off the train and to the opposite exit.

The girl wailed and barrelled towards the train car, her eyes locking onto the nervous movement of the passengers. You froze. It was slowly becoming obvious that this wasn’t Ellie, from the slightly different set of her eyes to the unfamiliar button nose. But it was hard to not feel anything but sympathy for the monster before you. She was just a girl, probably younger than you.

“Fucking go, Y/N,” Dina snapped, yanking you harder and onto the platform just as Not-Ellie leapt onto one of the newspaper readers. “It’s not her.”

She didn’t need to tell you twice. In seconds you two had sprinted to the mouth of the stairs, feet pummeling against the pavement as the sounds of the carnage unfolding behind you followed.

You ran. You didn’t stop running, not even when the screams faded and you and Dina were blocks and blocks away, hidden in an alley. Not even when your lungs were so empty and sore that they felt like they were breaths away from breaking, not even when you were sure there was nothing left inside you.

Dina kept your pace, blindly following your lead as you darted in between streets and side alleys until you reached your parents’ apartment.

“Do you think there’s more?” you managed to whisper through heaving voices once you stood on the steps.

You and Dina hadn’t ran into anyone after the metro, undead or alive.

“Not here,” hissed Dina. “Inside first. Then we evaluate after we’re safer.”

For a moment, the phantom dread from your normal life spilled over and you were afraid of facing your parents. It was almost laughable—there were deranged infected hosts looking to eat your flesh roaming the streets, and you were worried about seeing your parents.

“I’d almost prefer out here, too,” said Dina, looking as if she’d read your mind.

The apartment complex was also empty and eerily quiet as you two ascended the steps. Dina had insisted that you took the stairs, pointing out that the elevator was far too risky.

“It might get stuck,” she’d whispered as she’d pulled you away from pressing the button. “Also—unnecessary noise.”

You nodded wordlessly, following her up the steps until you reached the top floor.

Still no one to be seen.

The spare key was still hidden under the flower pot, and the penthouse door swung open easily. You and Dina locked it behind you before dragging a small bookcase in front of it, piling on books until no one could physically break through.

“Sweep the apartment,” Dina said lowly, reaching over to grab the fireplace poker that was in the entryway. “Behind me until you get a weapon.”

For a few tense moments, you cowered behind Dina as she navigated you both into the dark, empty kitchen. Every breath that left your lips was shaky and uneven. Your fingers trembled around the handle of the butcher’s knife that you’d retrieved from the block.

Nothing was on the first floor.

Nothing on the second floor, either. There was no sign of your parents anywhere. By all accounts, it seemed that they’d just up and left for coffee. Which is probably what they’d done, given that your father had just retired and had nothing better to do.

“Fucking thank god,” you’d cried out once you’d swept the last room, collapsing onto the sitting room sofa. “Jesus Christ, Dina. What the fuck. I can’t believe I just—”

The words petered out as the adrenaline rush that had been keeping you at least someone composed dissipated, leaving you a shaking and inconsolable mess.

“We’re so lucky that we got out in time,” said Dina, her eyes blurry and unfocused.

You took a break from your crying to look at her. “What?”

“The doors close automatically,” she said flatly. “No motion sensor. If that girl had shown up any later—if we hadn’t noticed her in time—”

“We would’ve been stuck on the train with her,” you said, cold realization trickling into you. “Oh my god. That probably happened to the people on the train who weren’t quick enough.”

“Or didn’t know any better,” Dina added. “Didn’t you say that no one here really understands what the infection is? That it makes people hosts?”

Your heart dropped. “We’re so fucked. We need to get out.”

“Have a plane anywhere?”

“Oh, god, Simon,” you wailed. “He was probably—he must’ve known—his parents must have—”

“Let’s not dwell,” said Dina firmly, brushing her hands off on her pants. “Okay. Let’s take inventory of the situation. That girl likely wasn’t patient zero. Wherever she came from was around…8th street?”

You nodded.

“Right. 8th street, which is where the majority of non-student residential living spaces are. Chances are that if it wasn’t already, it’s all over that area. We came south, which is away from the most densely populated area and probably why we haven’t seen anyone else. We’re up high with what seems to be currently running water, no current activity in the building, and plenty of both perishable and nonperishable food.

“But this isn’t permanent. The power grid is going to fail soon, and plumbing is likely going to go next. And if we somehow make it long enough, any infected in the building are going to turn into clickers, and they’ll stop at nothing to get in. Our window is limited. If we wait to get out, they’re going to get stronger and grow in numbers. We need to play this right.”

“So what you’re saying is that if there’s any possible chance of escape,” you said, feeling the blood drain from your face, “That we need to take it.”

Dina nodded, her face hard.

“How long do you think we have until we have to make that choice?”

She winced. “Probably 2 hours ago. There’s likely enough infected scattered around the city after the metro incident that it’s all over now.”

Your stomach dropped.

“But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try,” said Dina. “It’s only going to get worse the longer we wait. So if that big fancy scientist brain of yours has any genius plans of how to get us out, please hurry it up and say so.”

“Well,” you said, your mouth dry as you brainstormed aloud, “We are at the southern tip of the city. We’re probably not all that far from the border. The problem would be getting across—and, of course, getting there in the first place. It’s designed to be deceptive so that raiders can’t find it.”

“We’re not going to cross the border,” said Dina. “We’re never getting across on foot unless it’s been destroyed. Simon told me about how it works. There’s quite literally zero chance unless we start tunneling underground.”

“So no crossing on foot,” you said weakly. “Noted. Well. Uh. Can you fly a plane?”

“Depends. Do you have one?”

You buried your face in your hands.

“Come on, Y/N. Think. There has to be another option.”

Another option. Another option. Think, think, think…

Scientist brain. Science.

Like your degree. Like the lab you’d been working in last year. Like the ill-fated experiment that you’d scrapped after the university cut funding for it after your accident.

Like the time that you’d actually succeeded in inventing teleportation, even if it was accidental.

Like the contraption that was likely gathering dust in an unlocked lab room just a few blocks away.

“Dina,” you said, “I’ve got it. But I need you to get me to Gunther’s lab.”

The only good thing about today was the fact that Gunther’s lab, which was normally an inconvenient train ride away from your apartment, was in fact within perfectly reasonable walking distance from your parents’.

There were many bad things, though. Namely the infected now roaming the streets. And the plumes of smoke rising in the distance, suggesting that the Terranovan authorities were attempting to quell the issue the old-fashioned way.

With two knives and a pistol in your hand (you’d never been more happy to see something actually useful in your father’s antique collection), you were at least feeling more prepared to slowly creep back down the staircase of the building and out onto the streets.

For the first two blocks, everything remained uneventful. You and Dina stuck close to the shadows, being careful not to speak, make any noise, or bump into anything noisy.

Then a girl that looked somewhat familiar to you came stumbling around the corner, cloudy orange saliva dripping from her ashen lips. She locked onto you and began to excitedly chitter, her jerky movements becoming more pointed as she started approaching.

“Knife,” Dina whispered, flicking your arm once she saw you raise your pistol. “Too loud.”

It was your first kill without the help of a bullet. As the blade slid across the throat of the girl, you realized where you recognized her from—she’d been one of the students you’d tutored back in high school. You’d always liked her. Her name had been Liesel, and she was one of your best pupils. She’d been so bright. You thought she’d end up skipping senior year and just coming with you to college.

Not anymore. You tried not to think too hard about the look you’d seen in her eyes right as you severed her carotid artery—something human, something cognisant. You couldn’t cope with what that implied.

Did Ellie look like that? No, surely not. It’d been over a year. She was likely a clicker by now, her freckled face entirely swallowed by the spore shards. But was she still in there, like Liesel had been?

The next ones were easier—random men whose eyes remained flat and flinty even as you sent them to their ends. By the time you and Dina had broken into Gunther’s lab, you were splattered in blood and assorted mystery fluids.

The sterile building was empty and deathly silent. Each step on the tiled floor echoed, the fluorescent lighting painfully bright.

“Are there any workers in here usually?” Dina asked, her voice low.

“Rarely,” you whispered back. “It’s normally totally empty beside me or Gunther.”

“I hope you’re right.”

A long screeching that sounded like it came from a few doors down made you freeze.

“Let’s move,” Dina said under her breath. “I don’t want to find out who that is.”

Gunther’s lab was nearly just as you remembered it. The only difference was the missing files on his desk, which suggested that he’d taken his work home with him.

As you’d hoped, the prototype you’d developed in your third year was under a white sheet, almost entirely untouched.

“This is what sent you to Jackson?” Dina whispered in wonder, her fingers hovering over the wires but not daring to touch.

In actuality, it was a very small contraption, just transistors and gates and wires that crossed over each other like veins. It had been intended for use on laboratory rats. It’d never been sized to people. But if this was your only shot…

“I can’t remember exactly what Gunther and I did to—”

Scratchhhhhh.

Your blood ran cold. Something was outside the door.

“I’ll cover it,” said Dina, her voice firm. Don’t worry.”

And you wouldn’t—not when there was one zombie against you and Dina, armed to the teeth.

“Uh, anyway—” You blinked as you stared down at the mess of wires. “Technically what happened was it short-circuit—”

Scratch scratch scratch

You gulped. “Um, like I was saying, it short—”

Scratchscratchscratchscratch

To punctuate the point, the door creaked and shifted.

Dina pressed her finger to her lips as she slowly crept over to the door, standing on her toes to look through the thin strip of plexiglass that ran across the top of the door.

For a moment, you thought that she’d frozen. Then she quietly stepped over to the desk, snatched the pen Gunther had lying around, and scribbled something onto it. She handed it to you, her finger still posed over her lips.

7 of them. All big. I think they followed us from the street.

Just as you finished reading it, the doorknob began to turn, back and forth and back and forth against the lock.

Dina pulled the note from your fingers to scribble something else out.

Don't say anything. Noise will send them into a feeding frenzy. Door won't hold long. Do whatever you need to fix it and get us out.

You nodded, your heart crawling in your throat. If you couldn’t figure out how to fix this in time…Gunther’s lab was on the 6th floor.

There were only 3 bullets in the pistol—you’d checked. And a kitchen knife was fine when you were out on the street facing one infected at a time, but 7 in an enclosed space was different.

You probably weren’t going to get out of here alive.

Not unless you pulled it together right now.

You pinched the bridge of your nose as you tried to run through all possible ways to recreate the conditions that had sent you to Jackson. You needed that special iridescent wire, which you could see shoved into the corner. You needed a power source. You needed a working circuit board.

You had all of it. You could do this.

SIlently, you retrieved the spool of wire and began reattaching it to the board in the pattern you vaguely recalled from your work.

The lights flickered above, and it was all you could do to keep yourself from swearing out loud.

The power needed to hold. It needed to hold for just one more minute, just for a moment while you finished configuring the—

Your hand knocked the spool to the floor.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

The thudding started slower but crescendoed into the sound of groaning wood as the infected outside began to pound at the door.

Dina waved a slip of paper in front of you with wide eyes that said Hurry the FUCK up!.

You sent her a desperate look back. Your hands were shaking so hard that it was a miracle you were even able to feed the end of the wire through the pliers to snap off the end. You dug your nails into the protective sleeve at the end to expose the tip of the wire.

The door held just until you plugged the wire into the input.

As it hummed to life, sputtering and sparking and shimmering in the air, the lights flickered once, then plunged you into darkness as the sound of wood splintering came from the door.

Someone—it was probably you—screamed as a crowd came barrelling through the door, all hunched shoulders and gaping maws.

Then you grabbed the hand of Dina and felt yourself tumble into nothingness.

The sky was clear and bluebell blue above you when you came to, your back pressed uncomfortably against the sun-warmed earth. Every part of you ached like you’d just been run over, just like it had that day one year ago that started it all.

You didn’t need to look around to confirm—you were certain of where you were. You just knew it.

A groaning sound made you shoot up, clutching at the pistol in your hand.

Dina was sprawled on the ground next to you, rubbing her forehead with her hands.

“We did it,” you said, astonished. “We actually did it. We got out.”

“And you launched us out to Jackson.” Dina was sitting up now, looking around with wide eyes. “Jesus Christ. Are those things coming with us?”

“I don’t think so,” you said blandly. Your hands were still shaking, just as they had in the lab moments before.

The backpack you’d packed with supplies lay strewn on the ground, covered in the dust of the clearing.

“Are we—”

“I think so,” you said. “Funny how it sent us to the same place it sent me. I guess we’ll never figure out how, though.”

“Yeah.”

A comfortable silence fell over the two of you as you acclimated to the bright Wyoming sun, the warmth of the air against your skin.

Your heart lurched as the implications sunk in. Now that you couldn’t pretend like Jackson had been some sort of distant memory, you were going to mourn Ellie all over again whether you liked it or not.

“It’s going to be weird without her.” Dina was apparently on the same page.

You choked back the sob that came up, rubbing your eyes angrily. You would not cry right now, not when you had more important things to attend to.

“She really did love you, you know,” Dina continued, also apparently oblivious to the fact that you were just barely holding it together. “Even if she never said it. I’ve never seen her like that around anyone. I hope you haven’t been beating yourself up over what happened.”

You sent her a tight smile. It was odd, talking about Ellie like this with her. You’d never had before. It was one of those topics that you both knew to just avoid. “I just hope Joel is alright. I can’t imagine how difficult that would be—losing two daughters just like tha—”

A twig snapping in the woods sent you into silence, your hand drifting back down to your pistol as you spun around.

For a moment, all you could hear was the breath that hitched in both your and Dina’s throat. Then a girl with short brown hair burst through the tree line, her gun set on you.

“Ellie?” you gasped.

She fell still, mouth agape and eyebrows nearly touching her hairline.

“Ellie, what the fuck?” said Dina, recovering much quicker than you. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I—” Ellie dropped her pistol so it pointed to the ground, staring at Dina incredulously. “What are you doing here?” Then she rounded on you. “What did you do? You promised to stay in Terranova.”

You couldn’t answer. You were just so starstruck that all you could was stare, taking in everything about her. She was certainly Ellie—with her stupid little flashlight on her backpack strap and her fern tattoo and the perpetual grumpiness etched on her face. It was strange to think that you could have mistaken anyone else for her.

“Well?” she pressed, stepping closer, her mouth in a hard line.

“Terranova fell. It’s gone. I did what I had to do to get us out.” The words came out quietly. Then, without thinking: “You’re alive.”

“Long story,” said Ellie. “I think the scanner was defective.”

“That sounds like a pretty short story.”

She stared at you with an expression of such odd devastation that you felt your heart drop.

Dina jumped to her feet and launched herself at Ellie, throwing her arms around her neck and laughing hysterically. “I can’t believe it. I just—I just—you’re alive. I’m so glad you’re alive.”

Ellie, for her part, stood mostly still, awkwardly patting Dina on the back until she was released. “I’m glad you are, too.”

You tried not to feel jealous, but it was hard not to. Dina could jump into Ellie’s arms and tell her nice things like that without having to think twice because they’d always been friends. You did, because you weren’t sure if Ellie would want that anymore.

You didn’t try to touch her as she walked you and Dina back. She followed suit, not even trying to speak to you.

By the time you were walking through the walls of Jackson and waving to the gaping passerbys who were shocked at your return, you felt like you were going to be sick.

Ellie was alive. She’d never been dead, and you’d left her out here while you and Dina got to eat fancy Brazilian chocolates and Floridian oranges and artisanal bread. You’d been actively trying to forget her instead of trying to find her.

And now she was here, next to you. And she didn’t seem even remotely interested in you. But could you blame her? It had been a year. You’d left her to come back to Jackson all by herself. She didn’t have any reason to wait around for you. She’d probably found someone else. Or gotten back together with Cat.

And who were you to think that she’d even be interested in you if there wasn’t the guaranteed casualness from a definite end date?

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Joel appeared on the front porch as you and Dina approached with Ellie flanking you, his eyes wide.

“Joel!” you cried out, your angst briefly forgotten.

His eyes darted between the three of you, his face awash with shock. “Did ya just get sick of living there or something?”

You looked down and surveyed your outfit. You were clearly wearing something that was intended to be formal—a flowing graduation dress—but you were splattered with blood and viscous mystery substances and covered in a healthy layer of dirt. You’d clearly gone through some shit.

You were struggling to come up with a response other than “hey” when you were reminded of something you’d shoved into your bag while you’d been preparing to leave your parents’ penthouse.

Feeling smug that you’d managed to remember, you reached into your pack and fished around until you found what you were looking for.

“We just figured you’d be almost out of this by now,” you said dryly. The value-sized bag of coffee beans dangled from your fingers, its maroon packaging catching in the sun.

His face split into a wide grin as he shook his head in disbelief. “Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit. I guess I’ve got to tell Tommy that we don’t have to ration anymore. C’mon, let’s get you settled.”

Joel insisted that you move back into your old room instead of the vacant cottage down the street, which was equal parts touching and equal parts terrifying. Ellie lingered by the doorway as you unpacked, disappearing down the hall when you finally lifted your head from your few belongings to say something to her.

You let out a long, labored exhale, dropping onto your bed and curling your knees up to your chest. You’d since changed and showered the dirt and blood off, shed your tattered graduation dress and left it gathered in the corner like a snake’s molt. The setting sun filtered through the curtains, turning the walls golden.

You didn’t know what to do. That you could even come back to Jackson had been a thought you hadn’t dared to consider until this morning, when there were no other options. That Ellie was still alive—well, you hadn’t had any time to strategize or plan for that one. You were still reeling from seeing her for the first time in a year, all summer freckles and flyaway hairs escaping from a loose hairband.

She’d looked even better than you’d remembered. There were certain parts of her that you realized you’d forgotten—like the scar on her eyebrow, the way her voice sounded. It made you feel nauseous, knowing that despite your best efforts, you hadn’t been able to keep the real Ellie alive in your head.

You’d already eaten something with Tommy and Maria, who had been insistent on hearing from you and Dina about the events in Terranova. Joel had left you to your own devices with instructions to see him tomorrow to figure out work after you’d had a decent rest, so there was really no reason to go roaming around hoping to run into Ellie.

But you really wanted to. You checked the clock again, seeing that it was already past 9. Dusk had already fallen upon Jackson, the setting sun now just a suggestion of a golden line on the horizon.

You had a feeling you knew where she was.

The meadow was just as lush and green as you remembered as your feet carried you across the grass. It seemed that really nothing had changed—except for the horses in the distance, where you could see a small foal beside a chestnut mare that you were pretty sure was Shimmer.

“Hi,” you said, settling down next to Ellie’s spot under the tree.

If she was surprised to see you, she didn’t show it. She just sighed and fiddled with the sleeve of her shirt.

“Hi.”

“I’m sorry for bothering you,” you said, keeping your eyes locked on the darkening sky. “I just wanted to come find you to tell you that I understand if you don’t—want me like that anymore. I’ll leave you alone if you want me to.”

Even when she took her time responding, you didn’t dare look her way.

“Is that what you want?” You couldn’t quite decipher the tone she’d used.

“Obviously not,” you said mildly. “I would never want that.”

“I wouldn’t either.”

Your breath caught in your throat, your gaze dropping to meet hers. You were just about to speak when—

“The scanner wasn’t defective,” said Ellie. Her voice was soft, her own eyes falling to look at her tattooed arm.

“Of course it was,” you said, feeling very confused as to why she was suddenly detouring into something so unrelated. “If it wasn’t, you’d be dead already.”

“I’ve been bitten twice.”

You blinked, sure you’d heard her incorrectly. “Sorry?”

“I’ve been bitten twice,” said Ellie again, this time with more conviction. “That’s why the scanner came back red. There was nothing wrong with it.”

“Then how…” Your words trailed off.

She didn’t let you ponder long. “I’m immune.”

Immune.

You closed your mouth—it’d been hanging open unceremoniously for a moment—and tried to fit this very startling fact in with everything else you knew about her. What did being immune mean? And why was she telling you now?

“You knew from the start that you couldn’t come with me to Terranova,” you realized aloud.

Ellie was gnawing at her bottom look as she looked back at you. You noted that she didn’t offer up any corrections.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” You couldn’t hide the hurt in your voice. “Why did you lie to me like that?”

“I found out that I was immune when I was back in Boston,” Ellie said, the words spilling out of her. “I was in this abandoned mall with my best friend—Riley. She told me she was leaving to be a Firefly, and I begged her to stay and kissed her and for a moment I was so sure that something was going to change between us—something for the better. But then…” She waved her tattooed arm in front of her. “We both got bit. I survived. She, obviously, did not.”

Something deep inside you twisted as you tried to imagine how traumatizing that must’ve been for someone that couldn’t have been older than 14.

“And so I thought that maybe, you were my chance to right what I’ve done wrong,” continued Ellie. Even though she wasn’t looking at you anymore, you could see the reflective sheen of tears in her eyes. “I’ve gotten to live while so many other people have died. I just can’t handle another. It’s not fair of me to keep someone here when there’s somewhere safer for them. It’s selfish, and I’ve been that enough.”

It was as if you’d found the last puzzle piece for the jigsaw of Ellie Williams. All this time, you’d been struggling in your attempts to understand why she was pushing you away—and why she changed her mind so suddenly.

Now you got it. Ellie had come into this knowing that she’d likely never see you again. She’d been betting on it, even. It was all some convoluted way for her to set things right in her head, for her to forgive herself for Riley and whoever else she’d lost.

“You could have told me,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper. “I would have understood.”

Ellie sent you a sad smile, shaking her head. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone that I’m immune. It’s one of those things that only Joel and Maria and Tommy know about. No one else. They’d fucking kill me if they found out you knew.”

“I’m really sorry.” The fabric of her t-shirt was soft under your fingers as you rested a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m really sorry for how much of an asshole I was to you,” said Ellie. You didn’t miss the way her eyes had widened when you’d reached out to touch her. “I didn’t want to be that way. I always wanted more. I just couldn’t handle having that, knowing that you were going to leave anyway. I thought it’d be easier for the both of us if you thought I was awful.”

“Didn’t work very well.”

“Clearly.”

“I forgive you,” you said, moving your hand so you could thread your fingers into the loose strands that she hadn’t pulled into that baby bun she always wore.

Instead of kissing you like you thought she might, she threw her arms around you and crushed herself against you, burying her face into your neck.

You held her there, feeling the way her frame trembled under the weight of a sob and tracing patterns across her back.

“I missed you,” you whispered, your chin rested atop her shoulder. “I thought about you every day.”

Ellie clung to you harder as you shifted.

“I’m really sorry,” she said again, muffled against your neck. “I’m sorry for everything.”

“I’m not.” You finally pulled away so that she had to look you in the eyes. Under the soft bath of moonlight, her green eyes glowed. “Terranova shouldn’t have existed in the first place. I’m glad that I got out. And I’m even more glad that it brought me back to you.”

Her hand found yours, your fingers tangling.

“I used to spend all my free time wondering what you were doing up North,” said Ellie. You felt her thumb brush across the top of your hand. “I thought that maybe if I imagined you happy, it’d be easier.”

“What did you think I was doing?”

The corner of her mouth quirked up. “Lots of studying, I assumed. And going to fancy events for rich people, eating all that expensive shit that the rest of the world can’t have.”

“Not far off,” you admitted. “But you missed how much time I’d spend wondering about you. I dreamt about you all the time. Sometimes I’d see people who looked similar to you and it’d ruin my whole day. I couldn’t believe that you were gone. I think that deep down I knew that you weren’t.”

She squeezed your hand. When you looked down at where you were touching, you noted how there wasn’t such a stark difference between you and her anymore. The doll fresh-out-of-the-box skin had disappeared in favor of scars and marks collected from your time in the real world.

“I really thought you’d be safe there,” said Ellie.

“You don’t need to worry about me like that anymore,” you told her, cupping her face with your free hand. Her eyelids fluttered half-closed as she leaned into the contact. “You’ve done enough. You can care about me without taking responsibility for everything bad that ever happens to me. You deserve to have something good without suffering because of it. I promise I’m not going anywhere.”

“Not anymore,” she agreed.

When you kissed her, it felt like coming home. There was something so achingly familiar in the slope of her neck, the slight chapped-ness of her lips, the almost silent click of her jaw as her mouth parted with a gasp as your hands twisted in her hair.

You weren’t quite sure how you managed a year without it.

The skin of her neck was just as soft as you remembered against your lips, her response just as reactive.

“What’s this?” you asked, pulling away to point at what looked like a small tattoo on the side of her neck. You hadn’t noticed it before—her hair had been covering it.

“Oh.” Ellie looked sheepish. “My free birthday tattoo from Cat. It’s the moon.”

“I see that,” you murmured, brushing her hair back more intentionally to get a better look at it. “Why that phase?”

“It’s the phase it would’ve been on the day we met,” said Ellie. She was bright red now. “Don’t fucking laugh. I know that it’s stupid. Shut up. Stop!”

You desperately tried to stop your giggles, schooling your face into something straight and no-nonsense.

“I spent so long wondering if you even liked me,” you told her. “And now you’ve gone and gotten a tattoo dedicated to me. I feel so validated.”

Ellie rolled her eyes.

“I have you beat, though,” you said, quieter now.

She looked back at you, her brows furrowed. “Huh?”

“When it comes to grand, stupid gestures,” you explained, your finger pointing up to the sky in the general area that you’d collected your data from. “There’s a planet named Ellie up there now.”

Her jaw dropped for just a moment. “You’re kidding.”

“No.” Now you were feeling slightly self-conscious.

“You would do something like that,” Ellie muttered, more to herself than anything. “A whole fucking planet.”

You let her drape an arm around you, pulling you into her until your head fit into the space between her shoulder and her chin.

“So,” Ellie said, and you could feel the words vibrate in her diaphragm, “What now?”

“What do you mean, what now?”

“I mean, what are you gonna do now that you’re stuck here with me for the foreseeable future?”

“Enjoy being stuck with you,” you said. “Maybe get a matching tattoo. Give you the piece of the meteorite I nabbed from the display case in my lab. But mostly spend my time bothering you.”

When she didn’t answer, you shifted so you could look up at her. She was already looking back, her eyes soft and the corners of her lips pulling into two dimples.

“Is that alright with you?’ you ventured.

Her arm tightened around you, fingers gently pressing into the flesh of your forearm like she still couldn’t quite believe you were there.

“You can be so fucking stupid sometimes,” she said. “I get a tattoo for you and you’re still asking if I want you around.”

“It’s been known for you to make rash decisions,” you offered dryly. “I didn’t want to jump to any assumptions.”

She rolled her eyes, still smiling down at you, eyes awash with the reflections of the stars above.

Slowly, you reached up and touched her face again, letting your fingers relearn her features, tracing the paths created by freckles—just like you had in her bed all those months ago.

But unlike last time, she didn’t stop you. She didn’t do anything except let you. There was something in her demeanor, something that was fragile and vulnerable and everything that you wanted her to be with you.

“Is this going to be enough for you?” she asked suddenly, her voice raw.

“What do you mean?” Your fingers paused and rested at her cheekbones.

“It’s just—” She blinked hard and cast her gaze up to the sky. “You grew up so differently than me. I’m not going to be able to give you that fancy Terranova life. Are you sure this is going to make you happy?”

“Yes.”

She looked at you, an eyebrow raised skeptically. Your hands moved to cup her face, fingers threading back into her hair.

“Don’t make that face,” you chided.

“I just find it really hard to believe.”

You took in a breath. Perhaps more elaboration was in order.

“I’ll put it like this,” you said. “I spent most of my life thinking I needed to be something extraordinary to be happy. I put so much time into trying to be special and nothing I did ever felt like it was enough. But then I met you, and one day I realized while I was here that I didn’t need that anymore. Just being around you makes me more content than I’ve ever been. I don’t want to be like what I was before. I would consider it my greatest success if I got to lead an ordinary life with you.”

You took her brief silence as an opportunity to press your lips to the corner of her mouth.

“Believe me now?” you asked.

Ellie nodded, leaning in to drop an affectionate kiss at the top of your nose.

And as you sat there, nestled into the warmth of her side and craning your head up to the sky, you’d never been more sure of yourself.

This would be more than enough.

final a/n: ok so some apologies are in order for this one! first of all, sorry for aborting jj lmao. i just couldn't envision doing light speed travel with a baby strapped to dina. big apologies for not including a final smut scene. i actually had one semi-drafted out because i wanted to write one where ellie bottomed bc i feel like it would really hammer in that she was finally choosing to be vulnerable, but the shift in the scene tone just didn't sit right with me. sometimes i write bonus scenes for big fics like this, so if there's enough interest i might write a short one shot of the scene i scrapped/other scenes that i also scrapped. also, speaking of things i scrapped: i had an alternate ending in mind where joel actually did die and ellie went on her seattle rampage + y/n realizes she's alive and tries to sneak out with dina to find her. i might end up writing that one too, depending on interest! anyway, thank you all for coming along on this journey with me so far! it's not totally over yet...the epilogue is still in the works! i appreciate hearing what you guys think of this and hope you all enjoyed !!!

also idk if this is important to bring up but i will say that i didn't realize the kind of message i'd be sending when i wrote a protagonist who's from a place like terranova—exoplanet isn't meant to be some sort of piece that makes you empathize with ignorant beneficiaries of slave labor...it's just the way it shook out and for that i'm sorry 😭

#ellie williams x reader #ellie williams x you #ellie williams imagine #ellie williams x oc #ellie williams x y/n

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silverhairsimp · 5 months

Text

I Can't Sleep Without You

Pairing: Bokuto x fem!Reader

Warnings: MINORS DO NOT ENTER. PWP. Oral (f!receiving), fingering, penetrative sex, consensual recording. Bokuto is the consent king. Doesn't matter how long you've been together.

a/n: I had this idea in the middle of the night and woke up to draft half of it. finally finished it so here you goooo :) enjoy! not proof read. also. two posts in one day? who tf am I?

reblogs are always appreciated <3

Trying to balance dating a professional volleyball player with a full career of your own has always been a challenge. No matter how badly you wanted to be there at every single game, every international trip, it just wasn’t realistic.

You and Koutarou had been together since your third year of high school. You survived college together (despite the long distance), and after living together since he went pro, it was nearly impossible to get a good night's sleep whenever he was away for games.

And this time was no different. He had been gone for a 10 day trip overseas for one of the biggest tournaments of the year. Between your work schedule, his practice schedule, and the time difference… phone calls were scarce, texts were short lived and it was really starting to get to you. Sleeping in your giant bed without him was hard enough! The last thing you needed was for your schedules to be the farthest thing from compatible.

As the days went on, it got harder and harder. The side of his bed was so cold without his warm body next to you and it was beginning to be too much. Logically there was only one solution: get all the pillows in the house, your favorite sweatshirt of his, his cologne and cuddle up in bed to make due. And until he got back, this is how you slept.

You had practically built a barricade in the bed, pillows surrounding you in every direction and corner. He wasn’t supposed to be back for another two days, but by some miracle he had gotten home early. Unbeknownst to you though… it was the middle of the night by the time he got back and what a surprise it was to see upon his arrival. Or at least it would have if you were awake to greet him.

You were snuggled up under the covers, leg hiked up over one pillow with your arms clinging to another for dear life. You’ve got his sweatshirt on and he can smell the fresh scent of his cologne from the door to your bedroom. It wasn’t enough for you to just spray it on the sweatshirt though, you had to put a few drops of it into the diffuser so the whole room would smell like him.

You must be so tired because you hadn’t even moved a muscle since he walked in. Quickly and quietly, he sets his bags down and changes into his comfy clothes to get some sleep with you finally in his arms again. Only when he goes to crawl into bed, there’s almost no room! “Baby girl… you trying to replace me or something?” He asks as he brushes your hair out of your eyes and smoothes it behind your ear, followed by a tender kiss to your forehead. “There she is,” he smiles warmly at you when you finally start to open your eyes. “Kou? You’re home already?” You sit up and rub the sleep out of your eyes with the heel of your hand. He sits on the edge of the bed and nods his head, “One of the teams dropped out last minute so our games got cut back, we had already played each team twice… no sense in playing them a third, or at least that what coach thought–” he’s babbling and you smile at him, reaching out your arms finally happy and complete now that you’ve got your boyfriend back with you. “Sooo,” he draws out, “wanna tell me what’s going on with all the pillows? And why I can smell my cologne in the diffuser?” He asks with a soft chuckle and a bright smile. He’s not mad at all, not in the slightest. “Just missed you is all… had a hard time sleeping without you.” It’s actually really endearing you’d gone to such lengths to keep yourself comfortable while he was gone. And to be fair, he was no better. He slept with that polaroid of the two of you under his pillow, the one from after his first win as part of the MSBY Black Jackals. He had scored the winning spike and was so excited that he ran straight to you before the refs had even called the game. It’s such a fond memory of his and it's honestly what keeps him going. You are what keeps him going. “Well, I’m here now, so… can I have my spot back, or am I still being substituted by a bunch of pillows?” He laughs as you throw the pillows off the bed, not caring if they fall to the ground or land against the wall. The only thing that matters is that you have him back. And that’s very clear once you throw your arms around his neck and climb into his lap. His hands settle on your hips as he finally gets to hold you and kiss you again after far too long.

“Missed you too– by the way–” He mumbles against your lips, in between kisses. All of a sudden, you aren’t so tired anymore, he can tell by the way you start to rock your hips in his lap and tug on the hairs at his nape. When he wore his hair down, it made grabbing and tugging at it so much easier, and if he’s being honest, it’s one of the reasons why he started doing it more often.

He moves the two of you back against the headboard, sitting upright with you still in his lap. “You don’t still need this do you?” He tugs on the strings of his hoodie, “now that I’m back?” You shake your head and smile before telling him: “take it off”, and who is he to deny anything you could ever want.

His lips find yours while his large, calloused hands travel up your hips to your waist, just wanting to feel you again before gathering the fabric and pushing it up and over your head. “There she is… my beautiful girl…” He places open mouthed kisses up your bare chest, between the valley of your breasts before giving some much needed attention to your tits. He rolls his tumb over one nippple while his mouth swirls around the other, sucking on it before popping off and moving to the other side.

“Missed your body– missed kissing you goodnight every night… missed fucking you to sleep on others…” He keeps mumbling between kisses while you grind against his lap. “Missed you too baby… tried to take care of myself, but it never feels as good as when you do it.” He snickers at that, “Poor baby, your fingers not long enough? Need me to take care’a you?” When you nod your head yes, he flips you on to your back, positioning himself right between your thighs.

Your fingers claw at his shirt, wanting him to match, it was only fair that way. He lets you pull it off, lowering his head to get it out of the hole and pulling one arm out before tossing the shirt on the ground, left to be forgotten about until morning. “Bet you taste so good… can I, baby? Can I taste you?” When you nod your head yes and push his head down further he stops, “Uh uh, gotta hear you say it… you know that.” He places a few kisses right above your collarbone, sucking a mark into the skin there while he waits for your consent. “Please Kou, want you to. I need it– need you so bad– please touch me…” It was more than enough to satisfy him. Hearing your cute little plea’s just to get him to touch you after your time apart.

“That’s a good girl– my good girl. Now, hips up for me–” He instructs as he hooks his fingers into the waistband of your panties and slides them down your legs. Grinning at the silvery strands that connect to the fabric as he pulls them away. “So wet already… were you thinking about me before I got back?” He asks as he tugs his boxers down his thighs, not wanting to worry about them later. “Always think about you when you’re gone–” you whisper as you arch off the bed, longing for his touch. “Yeah? Me too…” He lowers himself down onto the bed and kicks even more of the pillows off as he presses kisses to your inner thighs while he gets closer and closer to what he really wants– what he needs. “Spend so much time getting myself off to those naughty pictures you send… all the videos we’ve taken… Gettin’ me all worked up just thinking about them.” He licks a fat stripe through your folds and suckles on your clit, that smirk on his face growing wider as you twitch under his touch. “Why don’t we add to the collection, hm baby? Wanna take a video of how good I eat you out? Have something to remember me for the next time I’m away?” You nod your head and quickly scramble to find your phone. If it weren’t for the face id, you’d certainly be struggling to enter or even remember your password right now. That chime of the camera sounds and the flash turns on, reflecting in his honeyed eyes as he devours you. It's obscene. The way his chin and corners of his mouth are already covered in your slick. Or the way his eyes have never left the camera. Gods what did you do to deserve a man that takes such good care of you?

That question lingers even longer when he kisses your thighs and spits right onto your pussy, only to bring two fingers to your cunt. “C’mon sweetheart, wanna hear you… don’t keep those cute noises all to yourself… wanna have this video too and watch it in the showers, or in my hotel room all alone and remember how good I made you feel.” When you start to get louder, he works even harder. Giving you his tongue and his fingers at the same time. He’s curling them inside of you so perfectly and hits that spot over and over again until you’re coming undone within minutes. “That’s it baby girl– ride it out– use me, please…” He begs you and hums against your cunt when you start to rock your hips against his face. You’re trying your best to hold the camera steady while your other hand reaches to fist his hair, tugging him even closer while another orgasm builds. “Kou– fuck… want your cock– please, need you after so long–” You beg and gods he can’t wait to replay this video over and over again, hearing you plead for him. “Anything for you– gimme the phone, sweetheart.” He removes his fingers, popping them in his mouth to wipe off the rest of your essence while he sits back on his haunches and takes the phone from you.

“Be a good girl and get on all fours for me…” When you do what he asks, he gives your ass a little love smack and uses your phone to get a good view of your pussy. It's so slick with his saliva and he’s sure it’ll make it even easier to slip right in.

Still, your boyfriend isn’t a small guy, so he spits right on the tip of his cock and pumps himself a few times. Of course making sure to record it for you later.

He's got the phone pointed straight down as he watches his cock push past that tight ring of muscle through the screen. “F-fuck…” he mutters breathlessly, and you’re not far behind with curses of your own. “Hnngh, baby… go slow… been a while…” “I know love, you’re doing so good for me, aren’t you?” When all you do is nod your head he stills his hips, “Aren’t you?” He asks again in a more firm tone, “Yes– doing good for you, only for you, Kou… please.”

Gods you really are such a good girl, his perfect baby. A few moments pass as he allows you to adjust, once you give him the okay, he draws back his hips and thrusts forward again. The sound of skin slapping skin echoes against the quiet walls of your shared bedroom and it’s music to his ears. Hearing that and hearing your cries of pleasure is all he could ever wish for.

“Can already feel you clenching around me… gonna cum?” he asks as he continues to piston his cock into you, when you babble on a string of ‘yes’s and ‘please let me cum’ he tosses the phone on the bed and reaches around to rub tight circles around your clit. Working you up until that second release hits and you’re gushing round his cock, making a mess on the sheets below.

“Fuck– squirting like that without a proper warning? Naughty girl…” He snickers as he picks up the pace even more, chasing that blissful high of his own. “Gonna cum, baby– gonna fill ya up nice and deep, yeah? Bet you missed this the most… missed my cum inside you, hm?”

“Yes– fuck– yes, missed your cum– please, kou– need t’feel it, please!” You beg so pretty for him and he wouldn’t dream of not giving you what you wanted so with one final warning, he lets you know he’s cumming and shortly after he’s painting your walls white.

He keeps thrusting, getting it as deep as he can until he’s given you everything he could hold before he collapses on top of you. Even with the video long forgotten about, the phone is still recording all the audio. He holds you close in his arms, pulling your leg over his hip with his cock still buried inside of you. “I love you, so much… you know that right?”

You rest your hand on his chest and nod, “Yes, Kou. I know, and I love you too. Just as much.”

He rubs soothing strokes along your backside and peppers your forehead with kisses until you’re closing your eyes and drifting off to sleep. He finds your phone as quietly as he can and flips the camera to face him, telling the camera one last time, ‘i love you’, before turning it off.

Being away from you while he’s away for tournaments may suck, but getting to come home to you like this makes it all worthwhile.

#bokuto x reader #bokuto x fem!reader #bokuto smut #bokuto fluff #warning: recording #I LOVE HIM #bokuto kotaro smut #bokuto koutaro x reader #bokuto x y/n #tays fics #shs fics

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ohbo-ohno · 5 months

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this is bad. this is REALLLLL bad. i was just a normal gal til I read your ghoap puppy play. i. just. what the fuck. now, first of all, i’m even MORE kinky than before, and you’ve infected my writing too

like soap gets all pouty when ghost first starts training because what the hell, he didn’t sign up for this :((( and like when ghost makes him sleep in the crate because he’s been bad, edges him for weeks because mutts don’t get rewards, he can’t help but hump the bars and whine all night ‘til ghost groans, wakes up, and then degrades him until he falls silent again :(((

and ghost doesn’t even give a shit. cuz it doesn’t matter if Johnny is our talking with literally anyone on base, ghost can literally just say a few little words and poor soap just slips right back into the puppy headspace :(( and then he gets all whiney when they’re alone and can’t help it when he starts to bark, nuzzling closer like the good boy he is :(((

omg ew what have I become

i love hearing that my stuff is what got people into puppyplay but it never fails to fucking BLOW my mind. ME??? are you sure????

anyways the last paragraph of this ask made me loooooooose my fucking mind. i don't think you meant it this way but i would KILL to be able to write hypno properly, there's sooo much fun there. hypnotizing someone to be your puppy.... they don't know why they feel like dropping to their knees every time you whistle :(((

equally as fun, of course, is just regular ol' training. ghost getting soap conditioned to certain signals and sounds, doing it so casually that soap doesn't even notice. goes so far that soap stops responding to commands from other people - the first time soap looks to ghost instead of price in the field (ignoring price, waiting for ghost), simon nearly fucking melts. praises his boy for hours when they get home

"ghost makes him sleep in the crate because he’s been bad, edges him for weeks because mutts don’t get rewards, he can’t help but hump the bars and whine all night ‘til ghost groans, wakes up, and then degrades him until he falls silent again" has been something i've been meaning to actually write a full scene out for for MONTHS now but i never have. it's just. godddddddd i fucking. ugh i can't. SO goddamn hot, it's egregious. i can't

ghost playing with soap (even in public) with miscellaneous items... love. ceilidh has this tweet that i haven't stopped thinking about since she posted it. just...

ghost making soap grab him things by saying "fetch that for me" and eventually shortening it to just "fetch" :( holding things a little too long when he offers them to johnny, making him play a quick game of tug of war :( grabbing johnny by the jaw and shaking his head real rough when he's not listening :( taking him on walks when he gets all wound up so he doesn't make a mess of himself or ghost's room :( goddamn i could write a whole drabble for every single one of these ideas if i was in the right fucking mood. hate it here

#“omg ew” is sending me lmfao #asks and answers #ghoap #anyways i need this ask engraved on my brain thx #wish i had the energy to actually write something for it :( sorry anon #i just havent had the brain power for Real Smut recently and i don't want this one to rot in my inbox lol #bo writes #for later puppy play inspo lmao

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tillthelandslide · 11 months

Text

Insufferable Arsehole Part 8: When We Are Together - Matty Healy Series

A/N: sooo you may have seen my poll, you may not have, but I've come to the decision to post what I have written for this series and then take a little break from it... I love this series but recently have been feeling a bit stuck with it, I have so many ideas but I'm sure where they fit and whether there even is an end to this story. My goal is to eventually finish it so don't worry! I hope you guys are okay with that. The support has been amazing so thank you all so much.

In other news (for my Ross girlies) I will be posting the first chapter to my new series, entitled Pressure, very soon!

Warnings: bit long, probably spelling mistakes

Series Masterlist

Part 7

Lou's phone ringing on her bedside table is what stirs her from her peaceful slumber. The dozing man next to her awakens with a groan as she awkwardly untangles her limbs from him, apologising for the loud interference as she removes herself from the bed. His soft features find hers and he smiles before his eyes are drifting shut once more. She quickly throws on his shirt which rests on the ground amongst the rest of their clothes.

She stubs her toe on the bedside table as she grabs her phone, the name "Rose" lights up her screen, a picture of her and the drummer of her band can be seen.

"Fuck" she says attempting to shake of the pain, Matty mumbles a "you alright love?" His face now buried in his pillow.

"Yeah go back to sleep" she says, answering the phone, covering up the speaker until she's on their balcony. The morning breeze is far too cold and considering she's just wearing Matty's Tshirt, she'd be surprised if she didn't get frostbite.

"Lou, are you there?" She hears her friend say.

"Yes I'm here sorry" she looks at her phone seeing the clock said 5am, she puts the phone back to her ear

"Rose I love you but it's 5 in the morning, what time is it there?" She asks, not keeping a track of what time it is in her home town like she usually would.

"That doesn't matter, what matters is that I've just seen pictures of you and Matty holding hands and cuddling. Last time we spoke you said you're seeing how things go" she explains. Shit they did get caught she thinks , it's fine Matty said we will deal with the consequences together.

"That's exactly what I'm doing, Rose. Seeing how things go, I'm not filtering myself for anyone, I'll do what I want and that's exactly what Im doing" she explains. Rose chuckles on the other end of the line, Lou's words perfectly described herself, never one to filter herself for the sake of others.

"We respect that, you know we do. One of the things we love most about you... We're just worried you're going to get hurt" Rose explains, Rose was one of the most genuine people she had ever met, she was similar to Hann in the fact she would say it how it is although perhaps a little more carelessly and sometimes brutally than Hann.

"We? So you've spoken to Mia and Cami too... Great'' she says, eyes rolling. Mia was the band's bassist (and her sister) and Cami was their lead guitarist.

"I mean... Mia is blindly happy for you, you know what she's like" Rose says.

Mia is around 5 years younger than Lou (having joined the band reasonably late, a fact that Ross and Lou had jokingly argued about as the band didn't have a bassist for a while), they had always been close but one thing they loved about their relationship was they weren't dependent on each other. Despite spending all her time with the 1975 in her childhood, only George had met her band members, they weren't very interested in becoming friends with them, far too happy in doing their own thing.

Mia lived in London for almost all of their childhood, they'd only see each other during holidays or special occasions, something about that dynamic made them closer (which most people found odd). Mia had played bass since she was around 8 and she had joined the band 5 years after they got famous.

"I love her... She's my sister and all but she'd be happy if I found a penny on the floor" Lou says making Rose chuckle, knowing it was true. Despite having different Mum's, their families always encouraged the sisters to appreciate life intricacies, the small things.

"We're just looking out for you L" she says, the nickname only her band members gave her. She remembers the first time George visited the band on tour during one of the 75s breaks, he practically cringed at the nickname, she was and always would be his "Lou" and the fact others had different nicknames for her didn't sit too well at first.

"I know" she says, knowing they never did anything with less than pure intentions. "but listen... We're a family here, if anything happens they'll protect me" she says, not that she needed protecting. Rose finds her heart sinking slightly at her friend's words, as if their own band weren't a family. But she saw the way Lou was with the 75, how undoubtedly happy she was and she knew to push the selfish thought down.

"You seem really happy" Rose finally says and Lou smiles at that.

"I am..." She can't help but smile widely. She could easily go on to tell Rose how she's having the time of her life, how she's never felt this happy, how something feels different with the guys (something she has been struggling to explain), how Matty makes her feel seen and loved (something no guy has come close to before). But she doesn't, wanting it to be her secret for now.

"I'm also really fucking cold right now" she laughs, goosebumps rising to her skin as the wind makes Matty's shirt blow around her.

"Why?" Rose is laughing at her then.

"I'm on a balcony"

"why?" She's asking again, the two of them laughing.

"Matty's asleep... Like I said it's 5am" she says and she hears her friend sigh on the other end of the line, a happy sigh.

"Matty aye? Sharing a room are you?"

"Shut up" she chuckles. Her voice lowers and she whispers her next words "he told me he loved me Rose".

"Wow. That's big" she says and Lou's nodding even though Rose can't see her.

"Do you love him?" Rose asks, already suspecting the answer.

"Yeah"

"Well shit... Guess we're coming to the next show then. Got to see what Matthew Healy is like nowadays. Can't be the same old Ratty you used to kick about with" she says making Lou laugh loudly.

"I miss you guys" she says, the 1975 were her family, everything was intense. But with her own band she had fun (not that she didn't with the boys) but it was different.

"Is George still as fit as the good old days?" She asks and Lou can't help but laugh again.

"Pack it in, you know he's in a happy, healthy relationship" Lou explains.

"Too bad, don't know how you didn't jump his bones every time you were with him"

"Ew... Just ew. He's like my brother"

"And that Ross.... Damn. And I hear hanns going to be a daddy? That's hot."

"Okay Rose I'm hanging up now" Lou says and with two I love yous, she's slipping back into their room, seeing Matty awake and scrolling through his phone, smiling down at the screen.

"You know we look quite cute in these pictures" he says, eyes meeting hers. She's quick to jump on the bed, chin hooking onto his shoulder to peek at his screen. They did look cute and more importantly they looked happy. She smiles as Matty screenshots the photos.

"Deal with the consequences together, yeah?" Matty says, Lou nods at him, smiling as his lips press against hers.

"The first of which will be a very angry Jamie... And probably Gregg too" she says, Matty scrunching up his nose in agreement.

"Yeah...." His voice trails off making her giggle.

"I don't care... I'm happy"

"Me too love" he says, another kiss being delivered to her mouth.

"Rose called, think her and the girls want to come to the next show" she explains and Matty nods, typing something on his phone to Jamie, asking him to sort out their travel and to save them three tickets.

"Thank you" she says.

"If I remember correctly... They don't like me all that much do they?" He says and she's the one furrowing her nose at him, shaking her head.

"Guess I'll have to prove them wrong" and she almost dies at those words, lips harshly pressing against his. He groans as he pushes against her, her back hitting the bed.

"You're insatiable" he says, making her nod as her hands pull him in by the hips, forcing them to come into contact with hers in a sharp grind. She quickly finds him hard and resting against his abdomen and it doesn't take long before he's inside her.

"Jesus Christ" he groans, throwing his head back as her hands interweave into his curls. He's never going to get used to this.

----------------------------------------------------------

"You're supposed to tell me shit like this before you just decide to do it" Jamie says, his voice raised slightly, not shouting but firm and pointed.

Matty was standing in the centre of the room. George, Hann, Ross, John, and Jamie were all watching from the opposite side of the room, each of their arms crossed, ready to defend the pair if they needed to.

Carly (who had arrived this morning) and Polly were seated next to Lou on a large leather sofa.

"Come on man! It's not that big of a deal, we were holding hands, not making out" Matty says and Lou can't help but smirk.

"You know we have rules" Jamie says, making Matty (and all the boys scoff)

"I mean he's done worse" George says and Jamie whips around to see him, his finger pointing at the large man. Lou can't help but chuckle.

"Don't you start" and then he's turning to her now and her smile drops "and you"

"How am I supposed to explain this to your manager huh? How are we supposed to explain this to the fans?" Jamie asks. He was never really one to worry about these kinds of things, things were usually very chilled with him, it was one of the reasons the guys loved having him as their manager.

"Is it really that big of a deal?" Lou asks, Matty's eyes find hers and soften.

"Jamie listen" Lou says and the boy's manager finds her eyes and then soften, he had grown to have a soft spot for her "ignore Matty for a second" she says making everyone including the curly haired man laugh.

"When have I ever done anything problematic?" She asks and Jamie can't think of a single time, she was a saint (in the eyes of their fans anyway, Matty knew what she was truly like behind closed doors).

"We will do whatever you and Gregg want us to do... We just got caught up in the moment, okay?" Lou says and Jamie smiles at that, appreciating her words.

"You know what... Do whatever... We will deal with it" Jamie then says, almost completely giving in. The whole group smiled at that, the spirits lifted almost immediately. He goes to leave the room, turning back at the last minute.

"You're both serious about this right? This isn't some fuck around?" Jamie asks, already knowing the answer but wanting to confirm. They both share a look before looking at him again. They nod and he smiles.

"Well... Good" he says before leaving.

George hugs Matty as Lou is hugged by both Carly and Polly. She hadn't gotten much time to spend with the girls so when Matty's eyes found hers, although he wants nothing more than to spend time with her, he lets her have her own time with them.

"Look at you, you're glowing" Lou says, smiling at her friend. Carly smiles back at her thinking the same thing about Lou.

"How are you feeling? Can I get you anything?" Her words are rushed and Carly laughs, as does Poly.

"Lou calm down, I'm fine. Thank you though" she says sweetly. They continue talking and at some point Poly leaves them and soon after Hann joins, hooking a protective arm around his wife as his other hand toys with his wedding band. Lou always cries at the sight, feeling awfully sentimental today.

The couple stare at each other for a few seconds, smiles resting on their lips before they're both turning to look at her.

"Why are you both looking at me like that?" Lou asks, making them laugh.

"We've been meaning to ask you something" Adam says, words quiet so only the three of them could hear.

"We were wondering," Carly says, looking at her husband before looking at Lou again.

"When the baby is born... If you'd be godmother" Carly says and as skin as the words come out, tears are springing to Lou's eyes.

"Wh-what?" She stutters, completely unsure why they'd ask her of all people, she appreciates it nonetheless but is very confused.

"Truth is we wouldn't even be married if it wasn't for you" Adam says.

"That's not true" Lou says and Carly raises her eyebrows at her.

"Regardless... You've always been so welcoming of me, and so so supportive. And whenever I'm here, you're always the first to check up on me and the baby" Carly speaks, hands resting over her bunk as Adam nods next to her.

"You don't have to say yes. We'd just love it if you did. You know what you mean to us" Hann says and Lou is pulling them both into a tight hug, careful of the bump resting between them.

"I'd be honoured"

----------------------------------------------------------

The next evening Lou is pacing backstage at another venue, anxiously awaiting the arrival of her band of which included her baby sister (definitely not a baby but oh well). They had planned something special for this show, seeing as her bandmates were going to be there, the boys asked her to sing a song on her own, any song she liked.

"Lou you're making me anxious, stop pacing" George says, leisurely chilling on one of the sofas, Matty sitting next to him, a smirk resting on his face.

"Why are you smirking?" She quips at the man, who's curls have been tamed by an obscene amount of hair gel.

"Like seeing you like this, it's cute" he says, pulling her into his lap as she walks past them, stopping her pacing altogether.

"That's better" Matty says, making Lou giggle as he swarms her neck with light pecks.

"Absolutely disgusting" George says, standing to leave the pair of them.

"He's just jealous," Lou says, making Matty nod.

"Why are you anxious darling?" Matty says, nudging his nose lightly against hers.

"I haven't seen them in a while, I've missed them like crazy and I'm just.... I'm worried they're going to see what I'm like with you guys... And like hate me or something" Lou admits.

"You're crazy" Matty says, laughing at her "I don't know how many times I have to tell you love, but no one could hate you" he says, his words so simple but completely easing her thoughts.

"I love you" she says freely now, the man smiles widely down at her, pressing his mouth to hers sweetly.

"I love you more"

They hear a door open behind them, Lou jumping from her place in his lap, turning around to see three women standing in the hallway with Jamie. One of which runs towards her, screaming loudly, she jumps and Lou catches her as she laughs.

"Oh my god Mia you're not a child, I can't carry you anymore" Lou says, struggling to hold her sister up.

"I have fucking missed you bro" Mia says as she's placed back down, punching her older sister in the arm.

"Ouch" Lou says, all of the boys watch with their mouths open. Lou was talking to someone who looked almost identical to her, although her sister's hair was much lighter than hers and shorter too, her skin slightly paler, far less tattoos covering her body.

Rose and Cami are pulling her into a tight hug next, the four of them nattering like a bunch of mothers waiting to pick up their kids.

"Oh shit. Sorry" Lou turns to the guys who are still watching, mouth agape at the four of them. George is quick to stand up, pulling them all into hugs, muttering "long them no sees" to each of them.

"Of course you know George..." Lou says as she begins to introduce the guys. Every single one of them fawns over the man, making her roll her eyes, pointing her fingers at them, telling them to stop which makes George laugh. He knew they did it on purpose, to get under Lou's skin but he can't help but let it get to his ego too.

George wraps up Mia in a hug "how's my favourite sister doing?" He asks just to annoy Lou.

"Ha ha very funny" Lou says, pushing her best friend lightly as he wraps his arm around her too.

"This is Ross, Adam but we call him Hann, Carly: Adam's wife and mother of his unborn child" she says pointing to each of them, making everyone laugh at her words about Carly. She doesn't mention that she's going to be the child's godmother, wanting to savour that fact for a while.

"Penny, Jamie, John and... Matty" she's smiling at them and all the girls smile at everyone introduced, waving at them. The girls can't help but notice how Matty stares at her, his eyes set on no one else but her, a huge smile resting on his mouth. One look and they could see he was smitten.

"This is Rose our drummer, Cami our lead guitarist and my little sister Mia, who's our bassist" she smiles as she speaks, hooking her arm around Mia at the last instance.

"How did I not know you had a sister?" It's Matty who's speaking, almost all of the girls scowling at him, apart from Mia. He shares a look with the other guys, all of them shrugging, all of them knew she had a sister (although only George had met her) , how the fact had escaped the attention of Matty they did not know. He feels awful that he doesn't know, and wonders why he hadn't told her.

"Don't talk about me then sis? Oh how you wound me" her sister says, making her laugh and nudge her.

"Na, just kidding, it's all good. I lived in London, same dad, different mum" Mia explains, coming to pull Matty into a hug to properly introduce herself. Lou stands there watching them, finger in-between teeth as she watches how Matty freezes up awkwardly, the scene makes her chuckle.

"Mia stop being weird" she says, pulling her sister back from Matty.

The rest of them talk then, the girls talking to various people at scattered times. Mia stands with Matty and Lou, catching up about all sorts of things. Rose and Cami talk to Ross, Hann and Carly.

"Who's the one with the bun again?" Mia asks and Lou rolls her eyes as Matty smirks, knowing exactly why she's asking.

"That would be Ross, OUR bassist' ' Matty says, smirk clear on his face. His arm was wrapped tightly around Lou's waist, holding him to her. Mia thought they looked cute together and she couldn't help but smile at the huge smile resting on her older sister's face. She had never seen her this happy before.

"That's Ross?!" Mia almost shouts, catching the attention of the tall bearded man.

"Shut up" Lou says, Mia and her share a look, confusing Matty slightly. Mia was one of the only people that knew Lou and Ross shared a kiss when they were teenagers for they told each other everything.

"He's gotten a lot fitter than when you knocked about with them" Mia says, her London accent a lot more prominent as she speaks.

"You need to stop" Lou says, Matty and her laughing at the slightly smaller girl. Matty's eyes flick between them, eyebrows raising.

"Sorry I can't get over how similar you look, you seriously have different mum's? " Matty says, making them both groan.

"Oh god don't say that" they say in unison, Matty holds his hands up in surrender at the daggers they shoot.

"Forget I mentioned it" he's being pulled away by someone else then. Leaving the two sisters alone.

"I mean... I like him" Mia says, grasping her sister by the shoulders. Rose joins their conversation.

"That's because you didn't see how completely unbearable he was when we were kids" Rose says, beer in hand that Lou is completely unsure how she got.

"Alright Rose we get it. Give the poor guy a chance, people change" Cami speaks and Lou is thankful to her.

"So tell us, are the rumours true?" Rose then asks.

"What rumours?" Lou asks, eyebrows furrowing at her bandmate.

"The rumours when we were kids.... That he's a good shag" rose says, always one to be forefront with her questions, something which often got them into trouble.

"You know what, you carry on mingling, I need a fag" Lou chuckles before finding her way out of one of the side doors, she hears them all laughing behind her.

The cigarette quickly finds its place in-between her lips, lighter sparking, the end burning as she breathes it in. She hears the door open and then shut behind her but she doesn't turn. She doesn't need to, she can smell two familiar scents: one of the man she loved and one of her life long best friend.

There's a silence for a few seconds as they light their own cigarettes, Matty's arm hooking around her waist when he sees her shiver.

"Sorry Lou but your sister is fitter than the last time I saw her" George says, making her cringe and making Matty chuckle.

"Ew. Just ew. And you have a girlfriend" Lou says simply, she doesn't miss how Matty leans in whispering a "you're fitter" into her ear. It's kind of a weird compliment, she never once compared herself to her sister, but she can't deny the way his words make her thighs tighten. She suppose it's because he's the one saying it and she's the one he wants when there's plenty of other beautiful girls, including the ones back inside, who he could easily get.

"They seem nice" Matty then says, loud enough for them both to hear.

"They are. But they're fucking mental though. Sorry if Rose is a bitch to you, her heart is in the right place" Lou explains, talking to Matty now, ignoring her best friend.

"It's okay, I get it. I was a dick remember?" Matty asks and Lou and George nod at him, all three of them laughing at his words.

"Cami is an absolute sweetheart so you don't have to worry about anything with her... Maybe just" she turns to Matty, placing a hand on her chest "watch what you say" this makes George laugh.

"And Mia... Keep her away from Ross will you? She's small but she will break that man" Lou says, her words shocking the two men, making them laugh anyway.

"Really?" George says, raising his eyebrows "maybe he needs to be broken" and Lou is groaning at his words.

"Don't you even try George" she says, the man flicking his fag to the floor, running back inside, giggling like an absolute child.

"George!" She shouts, giving in when the door swings back. She turns back to Matty then, who is smiling widely at her. His curls have once again been tamed by an unruly amount of hair gel, she almost frowns at the fact she can't run her fingers through the strands.

"Remind me why you didn't tell me you had a sister?" He asks and she frowns at him, thinking of an answer, not really having a definite one.

"Hmmm... I dunno. Guess I never thought to tell you before... And now... Think I was too wrapped up in you to tell you" she says, feeling a bit bad that she hadn't mentioned her own sister.

"As much as I love that... Told you I wanted to know everything about you" he says and she nods.

"I know... You'll get to know her now though, she loves you already so you definitely don't have to worry about her" she seals her words with a brief kiss.

"You seem different around them" Matty admits, making her eyebrows furrow, not knowing whether the meaning behind his words was a good or bad difference.

"How?" She asks, he smooths his hands over her waist, pulling her closer as his back leans against the concrete of the wall.

"You're like the leader of their pack, they all look to you, you shine" he admits and his eyes sparkle as he speaks "like seeing you shine". She doesn't quite know what to say but opts for the truth.

"I've actually been enjoying not being the frontman for a bit... Happy to be in the background and bask in your light" she says, his heart flutters at her words.

"Oh honey..." His fingers tucking a piece of hair behind her ear that had fallen, choosing to gently grip her chin instead of dropping back to his side.

"You've got your own light, even at the back... Everyone's looking at you" he says and she doesn't believe his words. She had a few of her own fans come to their gigs but the majority were there to see the boys and Matty, of course because it was their show, she was just there to help. She shakes her head at him, making him chuckle.

"Wish you could see yourself the way I see you... The way thousands of people see you. Trust me darling... You shine" he seals his lips against hers now, not letting her utter another word. His words had some truth to them that she didn't see, the guys often found themselves watching her even on that stage, she radiated something more than any of them could give.

And Matty especially couldn't take his eyes off her, she was everything, up on that stage, in a coffee shop, amongst friends, under the covers in their room: she shined.

Their lips move passionately against each other, neither able to get enough of each other. He's pulling her as she pulls him, trying to get closer even though it wasn't possible.

Neither of them had spoken about the fact that in two days they would be at the end of the first leg of their tour. They'd been setting off on a three week break, every single person had made plans except the two of them, too wrapped up in each other to have spoken about it.

The door creaks open next to them and they hear someone cough. They pull apart, both looking to see sweet Cami standing there.

"They're calling you on stage" Lou appreciates that she makes no crude comments, and doesn't groan at the sight of them.

They leave to play then, the crowd like no other tonight. She doesn't know if it's because she has her bandmates and her sister here or maybe because things are going so well with Matty, but the smile on her face never leaves. They play song after song, each one better than the last and when the second half rolls round and Matty introduces them, he surprises her.

"So we have two more shows after this one... And then we're on a three week break" he mentions it now and suddenly it dawns on her.

" I haven't made any plans... I've been a little distracted..." He says, looking over to her, making the crowd go mental "the truth is I've been having the time of my life with someone truly truly amazing and I'm the happiest I've ever been" he says. She thinks that his words are good enough for her for now, that's all the fans really need to know.

"This tour... We had someone amazing join us... I wasn't overjoyed at first, everyone on this stage right now would tell you that... Including her, especially her" he says and they all chuckle to themselves, Lou's eyes never wavering from his.

"But my god... George" he says turning around to face his best mate "thank you" he says, hands flat against each other, raising them to his chin as he tilts his head.

"Thank you to these boys right here" he says, pointing to Hann, George and then Ross "for making the best decision ever and bringing this wonderful person on tour with us" Matty says, finally pointing to her. Some fans may think he's just being sentimental, thanking her for joining them this far. Some will know the true meaning to his words, all but confirming what they were.

"Our wonderful Lou, would you come here for a second please?" He asks, and exactly as they planned she walks over to him, smiling as he pulls her into a tight hug before they pull back, his hand resting on her shoulder.

"Now you've got an absolute treat tonight" Matty says and someone passes her, her acoustic guitar. Matty moves from his stool and lets her sit there.

"The amazing Lou everyone" he says before he's leaving, everyone leaves the stage then, joining the girls backstage and watching from the sidelines.

"God this is daunting" she says into the microphone, making the crowd laugh "Yeah I know this is my job but I haven't been up here on my own for a hot minute" they laugh again.

She's shining again Matty thinks, god he loved how she shines.

"Boys please come back" she says, everyone laughing again.

"Okay okay" she says, shaking her nerves off as she begins checking if the guitar is in tune.

"I need to say a couple of things before I start, unplanned I know" she says, saying her last words to the guys on the side of the stage.

"Can't let Matty say all that without me saying anything" she laughs and she sees him smile at her.

"My band is here tonight" the crowd screams "my little sister"

"And I can't remember a time where I felt as happy as I do now. We're a family here at the 1975... I know that more than anything else" she says her words making the boy's eyes fill with tears.

"I guess I just want to say thank you to the whole team... And to my four boys, you know I'm not the best with words so I've been wanting to do something to show you guys how much you mean to me instead. So I thought I'd sing you a beautiful song. One which you wrote. This is for you" she says, beginning to play the beginning chords to "When We Are Together".

She plays a stripped back version of the song, somehow making it more sentimental, the boys find themselves hugging each other backstage.

Matty stares at her intently as she sings, the voice he loves so much filling the entire arena, he's in awe that the entire audience is silent, simply listening to her sing.

"You ask about the cows, wearin' my sweater

It's somethin' 'bout the weather that makes them lie down

The only time I feel I might get better is when we are together" she sings, her voice soft and sweet, undeniably beautiful.

She sings the song to the end, only then looking up at the audience. Her own eyes glisten with tears that are yet to fall but they do when she sees everyone holding up their phone, a few people crying their own tears. The boys are quick to join her on stage, hugging her tightly in a group hug before they return to their places on the stage.

"I love you" Matty mouths to her making her smile and mouth an "I love you too" back. Neither caring that thousands of people were watching them.

----------------------------------------------------------

George somehow ropes them all into a night out. Explaining that they hadn't had one yet despite being nearly at the end of their first leg. It was a rare occurrence for the band not to have had one, but they had all agreed that until they were all settled they wouldn't have a crazy night out.

But as the first leg was coming to an end, they had all agreed it was much needed and well deserved. Plus, the addition of Lou's bandmates had them all in high spirits.

"Got to give the newbies a proper 75 welcome" Ross says, wrapping an arm around Lou, pulling her into his side.

"Hey I'm not a newbie anymore" she argues back, jokingly shoving the man above her, shrugging away from his grip.

"But you haven't been out with us losers since we were teenagers" he quips back and she can't argue with that.

So they all rushed back to their hotel, the girls taking up Lou's room which was yet to be touched. Matty frowns as she disappears between the doors, leaving him to get ready on his own. Lou quickly showers, slicks back her hair into a high pony and applies some make up, not too much on her face but a dark eye, before joining the girls back in her room, wrapped up in a white robe.

"Feel like seeing how much that man has the hots for you?" Cami says, making Lou laugh as she searches through her suitcase. The girls seemed to have come prepared, suspecting that a night out would be on the agenda.

"We're not going anywhere fancy Cami, George knows some dj at this club and they've got us a booth" she explains, failing to mention that it was in the VIP section, something she didn't like to brag about. Cami holds up a silk dress with a deep v and a high slit, Lou shakes her head "too fancy".

Cami mutters an "okay okay" before she proceeds to throw more things from her suitcase, a mischievous look on her face as she puts together a few items.

One of which is a skirt that is far too short even for Lou, she had thrown all sorts of items in there, some of which she hadn't worn in ages.

"Cami that skirt it so fucking short" Lou says, unsure about it, and the slit that revealed half her thigh. Cami proceeds to throw the skirt at her, along with a deep v lace bodysuit and a cropped blazer.

"Just try it on" she says, the other girls nodding. Lou sighs deeply.

"Don't encourage her" she says, pointing to the other girls.

She makes her way to the en-suite bathroom, removing her robe before putting on the assortment of clothes Cami had selected. She finds herself smirking at her reflection, her ego was far from big but she knew that one look from Matty and he'd be on his knees.

She makes her way back into the room, her bandmates gasping at her.

"That's it. That's the one. I'm a genius" Cami says, placing a kiss on each of her cheeks.

"I'd do you" Rose says, making them all laugh, her fingertips pluck the "M" necklace that rests against the centre of her chest, just falling in-between her boobs. Rose smiles and lifts an eyebrow.

"Can't lie... That's undeniably cute" she says and Lou smiles.

"I know I give him shit... And I will continue to until I see fit" rose says making Lou laugh "but it's obvious he's madly in love with you... And you seem really happy" she says and Lou nods at her.

"I am... I don't even remember what it was like before... I hated him because I thought he hated me... As soon as I found out he didn't, everything kind of just fell in to place" Lou explains, mia standing up to hug her sister.

The other girls get ready after that, Lou helping them do their hair and make up, hearing the guys laughing from outside.

Rose wears a simple black dress that sits tightly on her body, Cami settles for a black pair of skinny jeans and a lace bralette, whilst Mia adorns leather trousers and black one shoulder bodysuit.

"You guys are going to give them heart attacks," Lou says, making all the girls laugh.

They then make their way into the main room, Lou the last to leave, before she does she hears George say "Was wondering why you took so long but now I understand. Look lovely girls" he says, his words fairly tame in comparison to what she'd thought he'd say.

"Where's the woman of the hour?" He jokes before she steps into the threshold. Her eyes find Mattys almost instantly and she can't help but smirk at him.

He was sitting on one of the sofas, legs spread wide almost as if he's ready for her to take her place in them. He shoots up as soon as he sees her, tugging at the shirt that rests almost uncomfortably around his neck now.

He's dressed in black suit trousers, a plain white T Shirt tucked in with a black shirt thrown over the top, the buttons almost all undone except two at the bottom, the shirt is sheer and she holds back moan as she sees him. His hair isn't tamed by gel now, unruly curls sat atop his head, ready to be tugged.

"Damnnn" George says, hand reaching for hers and getting his best friend to do a twirl, which makes her laugh. She didn't notice Matty coming over to her but she sure as hell notices the look he gives George, one in which she had never seen before.

His eyes warned his best friend to watch his mouth and George instantly stepped away, he was being territorial and she was surprised with how much she liked the feeling.

"Baby..." He practically whispers, hands coming to find her waist, gently pulling her body to his, his touch is unsure, as if he thought he wasn't deserving of it. Behind them, everyone begins talking to each other, letting the couple be.

"You look..." He swallows deeply and the sight kills her. She's glad her outfit had the outcome she had desired but as his dark eyes find hers she finds herself lost for words. Her eyebrows raise up at him, begging him to finish his sentence.

"Devine..." He says, as if she's a meal to devour. She couldn't care in the slightest, she loved how he much he wanted her and how little he tried to hide it.

"Hmm" she says, hands flat against his chest, she doesn't even beginning to describe how good he looks before George is interrupting them.

"We should probably leave before these two start fucking" George says, making everyone chuckle.

The club is loud and George disappears the minute they arrive, talking to the DJ of the night who lets George take rein of the music for a bit. The others find themselves at their booth, drinks already waiting for them.

Matty's hand is firmly clasped on her thigh as his other arm hooks around the back of her. His hand comes to fit at the back of her neck and she finds herself loving the feel of it. His grasp wasn't too tight but wasn't exactly soft and she has to stop herself from pressing her lips against his.

Ross is sat opposite them talking to Mia, her hand rests on his knee as they talk over the loud music. Cami and Rose are already on the dance floor, laughing with each other as they danced and drank.

He leans into speak to her, having to place his mouth directly next to her ear for her to hear "saw about 6 different guys stare at you as we walked in love" he says, almost proud of the fact.

"Yeah?" She asks and he smirks.

"Don't blame them, you look fucking hot" he says, making her chuckle and lean into him.

"Bet it must feel nice knowing I'm yours huh?" She asks and his smirk falls, mouth agape for a beat before his lips find hers for a firm peck.

"You're not mine yet love, not really. You could go over to any one of them right now and do what you wanted" he speaks and she smiles at him, shaking her head at his words. His words which were just to test her. He wanted nothing more than for her to say his words weren't true.

"Its shame for them then isn't it?" She says making his eyebrows furrow, not knowing what she meant.

"Shame I want you and not them" she says, standing from the booth, hand finding his as she stands.

"Besides" she says, leaning down to him until her mouth grazes his ear, making him shiver "if I'm not yours... you should do something about that" she says before looking at Mia.

"Want to dance?" She asks and Mia smiles widely, standing almost instantly. Lou notices the clear frown on Ross' lips and she smiles, raising her eyebrows at the bearded man.

The two girls quickly make their way to the dance floor positioning themselves so they can be seen by the guys (who's eyes never leave them).

Ross and Cami are quick to find them, the four of them dancing with each other, laughing and drinking.

Lou feels a tap to her shoulder so she turns, looking up at a guy who she doesn't recognise, a 6 ft something guy who, if she wasnt completely smitten with Matty she would find attractive, he had curls too but they weren't the same as Matty's, he looks sweet, a we'll put together man who no doubt has a large sum to his name. She stands there awkwardly waiting for the man to speak.

"Sorry I saw you across the room and just had to say hi" he speaks the cliche line and she chuckles.

"Does that line usually work for you?" She shouts over the loud song that's playing, the girls behind her laughing.

"I don't know, it's the first time I'm using it, you tell me" he says smoothly and Lou chuckles again.

"Ah come on Lou, let him buy you a drink" Rose says and she knows she just wants to see Matty's reaction.

"Lou? Is that your name? A pretty name for a pretty girl" he says and she can't help but cringe a little.

"I'm actually here with-" she begins to say she's here with someone but is interrupted by rose again.

"No she's not, she's just being modest, buy her a drink, a martini" she says and Lou chuckles as they man smiles before leaving.

"I hate martinis" Lou says and rose smirks.

"I know, but I love them" she says leaning in to speak into her ear "turn around, it worked" rose says.

Lou turns and is suddenly flushed against Matty's chest, she stumbles but his hand quickly finds her waist, holding her against him.

"Hi" she smiles.

"Hi" he smiles back, looking down at her. His eyes flick to the bar where he sees the guy he was all but ready to pounce on if he made a single move. Lou turns her head to see who he's looking at and she smiles upon turnjng around to face him again.

Her hands rest against his shoulders as a slow beat plays, she steps towards him so they're closer.

"You don't have to worry about him" she whispers into his ear. His hands grip her hips as she begins to move against him.

"Hmm why's that?" He mumbles into her ear, lips finding their way to her neck.

"Think you already know Matty" she says, pulling back to look at him. Her eyes plead with him, begging him to just kiss her already.

"Because you're mine yeah?" He shouts smiling down at her. She simply nods and his eyes leave her for a second, flicking to someone behind her again.

"Sorry mate" he speaks to whoever is behind her, probably the guy from a minute ago, but Lou's eyes are training on the curly man holding her "she's my missus" the words leave his mouth before he even processes them.

She hears a grumble behind her and then Matty's eyes are on hers again.

"Your missus huh? Like the sound of that" she pulls his mouth to hers then, lips pressing against one another with fervour. Him using that word so casually awakens something in her (and seemingly him too).

He tries to speak through their kiss, eventually having to break away.

"Be my girlfriend? Like proper girlfriend" he asks, it was not the way he had intended on asking her but he was desperate now, not wanting to go another minute without asking her.

"Wanted to ask you in a better setting than this love but-" her lips are on his again, shutting him up. She goes to say yes but suddenly a lanky man is pulling the pair into a tight hug.

"Fucking love you guys" George says, making the two of them laugh loudly.

"How much have you had to drink?" She laughs and he smears a kiss to her cheek before doing the same to Matty.

"Question is... Why haven't you?" His words make no sense but they allow him to pull them back to the booth and allow him to make the whole group (save for Matty) do a few shots. Lou doesn't drink as much as the rest of the group, wanting to support Matty but also wanting to remember the night, for it was already an amazing one.

As the night progresses, Ross and Mia are dancing together, her hands flat against his chest as their bodies moved against one another.

Matty and Lou were flush against the wall in the corner of the room, hiding from everyone else, needing some time to be alone.

"You never answered my question" he says as his head tucks into her neck, lips pressing against the skin.

"Kind of got interrupted" she sighs, hands threading through the curls at the nape of his neck.

"Yeah George keeps fucking doing that tonight" He pulls back to look at her and she smiles.

"Yes I'll be your girlfriend" she says and he mirrors her, wide smiles adorning both of their faces.

"Yeah? Don't care that I asked you in the middle of some sweaty club" he asks and she shakes her head.

"No, because it's you. I'd of said yes no matter what Matty" and the confession has him blushing deeply, pulling her into him to place a loving kiss to her mouth.

"Didn't get to finish what you were saying to me earlier either... Some best friend g is" Matty says, needing to hear what she wanted to say.

"Yeah... Was going to say how good you looked" she says, smoothing her hands down his white Tshirt, fingertips pulling the shirt that rests either side of his frame, until their mouths meet again.

They break away a few moments later and his eyes wander to the centre of the dancefloor where Ross and Mia can be seen.

"Told George to keep her away from that man, she'll break his heart" Lou groans eyes finding where Matty was looking and he laughs at her words.

"You know I know about that night right" Matty says as his eyes snap back to hers, looking down at her as she frowns up at him, not knowing what she was talking about.

"What happened between you and Ross" Matty says, a smirk resting against his lips as Lou's mouth falls open.

"What- how?" She asks, mouth agape, lost for words.

"He's my best friend love, told me as soon as he knew I had feelings for you" he says, thumb drifting along her cheek.

"And? What do you think about it?" She asks, searching his face for any signs of him being annoyed at her.

"Well that depends..." He asks, a darkness to his words, lips pressing against hers, confusing her.

"Depends on what?" She murmurs against his mouth, pulling at his shirt, needing him closer to her.

"What was it like?" He asks, pressing his mouth to hers the moment he finished talking.

"Want the truth?" She asks and he nods against her mouth as his tongue finds hers. She allows them to fight for a moment until she lets his push harshly against hers, making her core flutter and letting him lead the kiss.

She pulls away from him for a second, dark eyes finding his and she smirks.

"It was hot... At the time" she says and she smirks down at her.

"Ross said the same thing" he says and Lou's eyebrows raise.

"Yeah?" Mattys hand drifts along her waist, landing against her hip, pulling her flush against him, moving their bodies to the beat of the music. Her arm hooks over his shoulder, clinging onto him as his hips ground down against hers.

He nods down at her and she finds herself confused as to why he's smirking still.

"If he told you that... Why are you smirking?" She asks, moaning into his mouth as his lips press against hers again.

"Because... It was a childhood makeout, doesn't mean anything... Fizzled out anyway" Matty says, repeating what Ross had explained to him. His lips find her neck again and she sighs.

"Hmm.. what if I said otherwise?" She says, purely teasing him. His head snaps away from her neck, finding her eyes, seriousness now covering his features.

"That's just mean love" he says, and she smirks up at him now, he doesn't find it funny and she's quick to drop the act. Softly playing with his hair as anger clouds his eyes.

"Baby I'm joking" she says, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek, drifting them down to his neck and up to the shell of his ear.

"Doesn't mean anything... You're the one I want. My boyfriend" her last words are what gets him to snap back to how he was moments prior. It's what makes him press his mouth back to hers and grind his hips down to hers.

"Say it again" he murmurs into her mouth.

"My boyfriend"

"Fuck" his tongue roughly presses against hers and her hold on him tightens as pleasure increases throughout her body as she feels his hardened length pressing against her core.

"Want to get out of here?" He asks as he pulls away from her. She's quickly nodding up at him making him smirk.

"Good. Can't wait to get you out of this fucking skirt" he says, hand running along the hem of it, caressing her thigh. They quickly weave themselves out of the club, leaving their friends, leaving Lou's sister who is likely still with Ross.

----------------------------------------------------------

Their naked bodies are sprawled out on the bed of their hotel room, Matty is lying on his front as Lou is at his side. Her fingers drift along the expanse of his back, the muscles contracting under her touch before she presses light kisses to the skin.

"We have a break in two days" he says, his voice quiet, looking over his shoulder to find his girlfriend, who's arms were resting against his back.

"Want to spend it with you" Matty says, turning onto his back, she allows him and then lies back down onto his stomach now.

"Id like that" she smiles, pressing a kiss against his stomach.

"Think we should go away for a bit... Just us" he says and she nods again.

"Need to go home too though, need to see my family... And G's" she says and Matty nods.

"My mum's been wanting to see you again. Hasnt seen you since we were kids" he says. A man of many confessions tonight it seems

"Id love that. She always loved me" she says and Matty nods.

"Yeah I know... Used to give me so much shit for treating you the way I did. Said I was a cruel boy" he admits, his words holding a certain sadness to them.

"It's okay, made up for it now" she says and she smiles slightly.

"I'm so sorry"

"Baby no. You don't have to apologise anymore. I forgive you" she says, lips pressing softly against his stomach again, moving upwards until pressing against his lips.

"I know... Just needed to say it" he says and she nods.

"Can't believe you're my girlfriend" he says, hands moving her hair from her face, wanting to truly see her.

"You know... I never really said sorry for how I was to you" she admits and he looks down at her.

"You weren't nearly as bad as me love"

"That's not the point though... I'm sorry Matty, truly I am. Things were so different back then, it's kind of crazy" she says and he nods.

"Why did you hate me?" He asks, looking down at her, she didn't mind being asked it, they hadn't actually spoken about it yet.

"Suppose at first I hated you because you hated me... I tried to get you to like me... But after a while I gave in... Hated you because despite everything the guys said about you, about you being this lovely guy who would do anything for his mates... You weren't that person with me and I desperately wanted you to be... So I hated you because you didn't allow me to have you that way" she admits, something she had never admitted aloud before.

"I never knew that" he says, frowning at her. She knows he's about to apologise again so she presses her mouth to his.

"I often saw the way you were with them, when you thought I wasn't looking and I felt jealous... You told me the guys got to have me in a way you didn't and it was the same for me" she says.

"God we really made a mess of things didn't we?" He says, chuckling at the whole messy situation. She smiles at him and nods.

"Think we've made up for it now don't you think?" She asks and he nods, kissing her sweetly.

"My girlfriend"

"Your girlfriend" she smiles.

"Think I'm ready to make it obvious were dating" he says and she nods.

"That sounds like a wonderful idea" she says lying down on his chest and listening to his heart beat until she falls asleep.

"I love you" he murmurs although she's asleep on his arms now.

"I've always loved you" he says before he feels himself drifting to sleep too.

Part 9

#matty healy #matty the 1975 #matty healy fan fic #matty healy smut #matty healy series #insufferable arsehole matty healy series #the 1975 fanfic #the 1975 #the 1975 smut #george daniel #ross macdonald #adam hann #matty healy x oc #matty healy x reader

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actuallysaiyan · 2 years

Note

Hello again, thank you for answering me despite answering the same question on the same day! (I was the anon who had asked you about your requests being closed :) If that's okay with you, I'd like to send you an idea I have in mind for hcs before I forget about it.

Sooo I've seen in a post of yours you headcanon the saiyans having a mating cycle, and I was wondering if you'd write hcs about that period of time with future trunks? Like how is it spent with him? (Am I making this clear enough? Sorry if not :')

Still, please only write this if you want to and whenever you'd like to! I don't wish you to be pressured or anything. I hope the heatwave will be gone soon; take care of yourself! You're a great writer <3

warnings: breeding kink, creampie, unprotected sex, mentions of rough sex, the usual smutty suspects here, dirty talk, mating cycle pairing: Future Trunks x Fem!Reader a/n: I'm not opening my requests just yet(working on it though!) but I just had to answer this! I hope you enjoy!

SFW

Trunks gets very affectionate and loving during the weeks leading up to his mating cycle. At first, he’s not really sure what’s going on, but he finds it so nice to be close to you.

He finds himself thinking about you constantly. He can’t get you off his mind at all. You’re all he can think about. So nevermind trying to train too hard or to concentrate on anything else, you’ll be his only thought.

Goten is the first to comment on it. Trunks is barely thinking about his next move when Goten is able to knock him off his feet. Trunks will feel so ashamed about it.

He gets hungrier and sleeps a lot more. Bulma will start to complain when she realizes he’s been hoarding plates and mugs in his room.

Then comes the nesting. Trunks goes around finding the most comfortable blankets and pillows in his home. He will make his bed a million times before deciding on the best set up for the both of you.

He’ll start suggesting that you should come over for movie nights and things like that. He’ll get you so comfortably situated in his bedroom and he’ll throw on any of your favorite movies.

Trunks starts to groom himself more and make sure he’s clean and smelling his very best. He’ll find out the scents you like, but he’s very shocked to know that you enjoy his natural scent.

NSFW

It hits him so fucking hard one day. It’s like a horny train rammed right into him. His cock is so hard from when he wakes up until he goes to bed.

He can barely sleep when he’s in this state. It makes him sweat and his heart races. All he can do is jerk himself off until he’s happy. Until he’s satisfied. But that will take a long time.

Trunks will seek you out and he will smell you so much more. He can practically taste your pheromones. It drives him crazy.

Once he finds you, he knows that he has to breed you. It becomes this instinctive action for him at this point. Nothing else matters when he realizes this.

First, he’ll make you cum so many times. He enjoys being between your thighs when he’s in heat. He laps and slurps at your pussy like a starved man.

Once Trunks is sure that you are most definitely satisfied, he’ll have you on your back first.

Mating press is the position he uses first and for the last session of the night as well. It just makes it perfect for what he is doing.

He alternates from being rough and fast to being so sweet and whiny. You aren’t sure which one is your favorite, but since he switches from one mode to the other quickly, you don’t even care to choose a favorite.

“Baby,” he chokes out. “How are you this fucking tight?” He ruts against you like it’s the only thing he knows to do. It’s such a steady pace, and the way his cock just bullies into you over and over, you’ll fall off the edge soon.

Another one of his favorite positions? Doggy style! He will push you down onto the bed, face down and ass up. He spreads your cheeks and lets his cock slide between them.

Just when you’re sure he’s going to push it in, he pulls away. Then you’re left with a few seconds of hesitation. Before long, he’s ramming into you at a breakneck speed.

Your little moans and whimpers really turn him on. He feels like a wild animal when he fucks you like this. This is when he really feels like a Saiyan. It’s more animalistic than any other sex he’s ever had.

He loves to cum inside of you, but he’s not opposed to marking you up with his seed. You’ll wear it on your face, tits and ass before the night is through.

Trunks will growl and grunt through every sentence, whether it be praising you or degrading you. The man just says the filthiest things to you.

“Needy little human, you can just barely take my cock.” “So fucking tight, baby. It’s like you were made for my cock.” “Hngg! If you keep squeezing me like that, I’m going to cum so quick.” “Love this wet, little pussy. All mine forever.”

When he’s finally done, he spends lots of time on aftercare. You are his lover after all. He wants to make sure you’re well after such an intense session.

Lots of nesting here too. He will fluffy up the pillows, change the sheets, snuggle you. Trunks will get you anything to eat or drink afterwards.

And then once he’s had his fill and has taken care of you, he sleeps for a long time. Being in his mating cycle makes him so tired. He will be exhausted.

#bacon.writes #future trunks #future trunks x you #future trunks x fem!reader #future trunks x reader #future trunks x y/n #trunks x you #trunks x reader #trunks x fem!reader #trunks x y/n #trunks smut #future trunks smut #trunks briefs #dragon ball #dragon ball z #dragon ball super

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shadamyheadcanons · 1 year

Text

Headcanon #291: Day After Valentine’s Day

((Better late than never, right?

Cross-posted along with its prequel on AO3.

This is the sequel to Headcanon #289, but you don’t have to read that one to understand this one.

You should anyway, though. It’s a good one, if I do say so myself.

Also, these Archie panels are relevant, oddly enough:

^ From issues 22 and 24 of Archie’s Sonic Universe comics. This isn’t even the funniest thing that happens in that arc. A+))

Amy rounded the corner of the snack aisle at the grocery store, dragging her feet as she went. Her eyes ran lazily over the foods until she reached the section she was looking for.

She sighed as she perused the wares in front of her. I thought Valentine’s Day would get more bearable over time, but I feel even more drained every year. She held herself as she looked past heart-shaped boxes of chocolate and conversation hearts, hoping to find something a little less specific to the holiday. Her expression tightened. It’s the day after, but I still feel lonely. Will this ever get any easier? She smiled wryly when she spotted a rose-shaped hunk of chocolate. At least there’s always my favorite tradition: half-price Valentine’s candy on the 15th.

She reached out for the chocolate rose. Just as she was about to put her fingers on it, though, another gloved hand got there first.

She jumped. “Oh! Excuse me, I--” She stopped when her gaze trailed up the person’s arm, noting the black fur, red stripe, and eventually a head of spiky quills she knew all too well. “Shadow?”

He held her gaze, his slightly widened eyes being the only indication of his own surprise. His gaze flicked back over to their hands. She removed her hand from his and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry about that!” He nodded in affirmation and removed the chocolate rose from the shelf.

Noting he’d brought neither a cart nor even a basket, Amy couldn’t help but ask, “What are you shopping for? Just that?”

He nodded again. “Candy’s always half-price the day after Valentine’s Day.” He peeked at her nearly empty basket. “You?”

“Heh. We had the same idea. It’s a tradition for me,” Amy admitted, examining the shelves once more. She felt her shoulders droop.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Shadow was still watching her. She put on a smile once more. “Might as well make the most of it, right?”

His expression didn’t change. He kept watching her for several seconds. Then, he glanced down at the rose he was holding and handed it to her. “Here. You should have it.”

Taken aback, Amy glanced between him and the shelf. “But that’s the last one! You got to it first, so you--”

“Take it. You deserve it more.”

He waited, hand extended, while she hesitated.

Is he...trying to make me feel better?

Eventually, she gave in. With a laugh, she took the rose from his hand. “Okay, okay, if you insist.” She carefully placed it in her basket, smiling to herself. “Thank you, Shadow.”

He nodded absently, his attention now back on the shelves of candy. Amy shuffled her feet. “Sooo...how was your Valentine’s Day?”

He hummed softly, not looking away from the shelves. “I looked after Omega to make sure he didn’t burn the house down.”

Amy scoffed. “Why would he do that?”

“He hasn’t liked Valentine’s Day ever since Blaze got with Silver,” Shadow explained, picking up a couple of alternately-colored chocolate bars--one pink, one purple.

Amy frowned and thought back. “Hang on...” Her eyes bugged out. “You mean that time years ago when Omega kept fawning over Blaze because she was good at burning things? He still...?”

Shadow snorted quietly. “Yeah...he never really got over that. He’ll be alright, though.” He put back the purple candy bar and gazed at the pink one in his hand. “It’s just tough when you’re stuck on the same person for a long time.”

Amy’s face fell. I know that better than anyone. How many years have I been stuck on Sonic? She rubbed her upper arm. I’ll never call it a waste, but...

“...Amy? Amy?”

She flinched and shook herself off. “Oh, sorry! What did you say?”

“I asked what you did yesterday,” he clarified, looking at her sideways.

“Oh, right! Uh...Cream and I normally celebrate PAL-entine’s Day,” she joked, “but this year, she actually had a date! Can you believe she’s that age already?! I can’t!”

“But what did you do?”

Shadow’s blunt question made her deflate. “Ah, I just stayed in this year. Nothing too interesting,” she mumbled.

His frown deepened. “By yourself?”

Amy huffed. “What are you trying to say? So what if I didn’t have a date on Valentine’s Day? I’m not gonna cry about it!”

Shadow’s face was unreadable. He just stared at her for a while, long enough to make her nervous. He scratched his chin.

Suddenly, his ears perked up. “You owe me.”

Amy was dumbfounded. What is his deal?! First he gives me the chocolate he wanted, then he shows actual concern for me...only to judge me for not having a date and claim I owe him...? “For what?!” she demanded.

“It was last year at Rouge and Knuckles’ wedding,” he explained. “You promised you’d teach me how to bake cookies, but you still haven’t.”

She could only stare at him blankly. That didn’t explain anything! Now I’m even more confused! She shook her head and took out her phone to open up her calendar. “Uh, okay...when--”

“Today.”

She frowned, looking up from her phone. “Today...?”

He gave a curt nod. “I’m a very busy person, so it has to be today.” He averted his gaze and crossed his arms. “Unless you’re busy with something.”

Amy paused. She looked down at her basket, which held only chocolate and a bottle of wine. She thought back to the movie she already had set up at home, a romance she knew would just make her cry. She chuckled to herself and shook her head.

You know what? Fuck it.

“Alright, alright, fine...but we’ll have to stop by the baking aisle first.”

The two of them arrived in Shadow’s kitchen with a green flash. “So what do we do first?” Shadow asked.

“Before any type of cooking or baking, you should lay out every ingredient you need just to make sure you have it all.” Amy started laying out the groceries on the counter. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten halfway through a dish, only to realize I forgot something basic. One time, I got halfway through making sugar cookies before realizing I was out of sugar!” She giggled at the memory.

“Hmm...I hadn’t thought of that,” Shadow muttered.

Amy watched as he laid out the eggs and butter. That’s the first thing anyone learns about cooking! He really didn’t have anyone to teach him, did he? Her sad frown turned determined. Well, that’s what I’m here for!

Shadow’s voice snapped her out of her reverie. “Is this everything?”

Amy scanned the counter. “Hmm...butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, baking soda, salt, flour, aaaand...chocolate chips! Yup! We’re all set!”

Shadow squinted at the ingredients. “Don’t we need a mix or something?”

“Nope! Not if you’re baking the right way,” Amy assured with a cheeky wink. “We’re baking from scratch, just the way Vanilla taught me. It’s all up in here!” She tapped her forehead proudly.

“Huh.”

Amy gave a quick nod. “You’re learning from the best!” she insisted. She approached his stove. “First, you need to preheat the oven. Do you know how to do that?”

She inwardly cringed at her own question. Of course he knows how to preheat an oven. He owns an oven.

Shadow hesitated, though. He joined her in front of the stove and squinted at the console. “Is there a specific button for that...?”

Amy just stared. Chaos, it’s worse than I thought. She took a deep breath and smiled. “Nope! You just turn the dial here. We’re gonna want 350 degrees.” He watched closely as she turned it.

Then, his eyes lit up. “Oh, I’ve done that before. I remember now.”

“Oh, good!”

He nodded with authority. “My microwave died a few years ago, so I had to heat my Hot Pockets in the oven for a couple days until the new one came in.”

The hint of relief Amy had begun to feel immediately died out. She resisted the urge to facepalm.

“Great!” she blurted out instead, returning to the counter. “We’ll need a large bowl, a mixing spoon, and measuring tools.”

Shadow returned with a bowl and a spoon--both a little small for Amy’s taste, but they’d get the job done--but then he got stuck. “When you say ‘measuring tools,’ you mean...?”

Amy frowned for a moment, then perked up. “Oh, right! We’ll need to measure cups, teaspoons, and a half teaspoon.”

His face remained blank. “Yeah, so?”

There was an awkward pause while Amy tried to figure out where she’d lost him. “Y’know, like...little cups and spoons to measure out the cups and teaspoons? They usually come in little collections.” His face didn’t change. She pursed her lips. “They nest with each other in sets,” she tried.

His eyes widened. He zipped off and returned with a set of measuring cups and spoons. “Is that what these are? I didn’t know cooks actually measured, I thought those were just ballpark suggestions.”

Amy stared at Shadow. He stared back.

Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Don’t you dare laugh at him!

She covered her face with her hand. Her smile was strained from holding back laughter. “Yep! We have to make sure all the proportions are right.”

“Ah...that explains a lot.” He looked away. She sorted through the nested cups and kept an eye on him while he continued. “So how come Rouge doesn’t measure when she cooks? She says she just kind of puts in what ‘feels right.’ She left these behind when she moved out, but I never saw her use them.”

“It’s a little different with cooking. If someone has enough experience, they can sometimes get away with it there,” Amy explained. “But you can’t do that with baking! Everything has to be exact, or it won’t come out right.”

“How come?”

Amy pursed her lips while she sorted through the spoons. “There are more chemical reactions involved.” He perked up at that, so she added, “Baking is chemistry, and the ingredients are materials. If you use the wrong ratios or mess with the procedure, the results will be completely off. It’s easy to get things mixed up, too.” She held up the tablespoon and teaspoon utensils, pointing out the similar abbreviations on their handles.

Shadow examined them for a moment, then scoffed. “Hmph. This’ll be easy. I’m a science experiment myself, so I can’t screw this up.”

Amy’s grin widened at his confidence. “Is that how it works? You’ve got it all figured out now?”

“Of course.” He took the teaspoon from her hands. “If you use this much, you get the Ultimate Life Form, but if you fuck up and use this much...” he continued, picking up the tablespoon, “...you get a giant lizard.”

Amy snickered at first, then burst out laughing when the punchline fully hit her. She leaned her head on Shadow’s shoulder as she cracked up, the way she often did with close friends. She could feel his body shake as he chuckled quietly at his own joke.

I wish more people knew how funny Shadow is. Whenever I tell people he makes jokes, they never believe me.

She straightened back up as she calmed down. By then, his gaze was serious and intent once more. Her bright smile remained as she returned to the task at hand.

She leaned in toward Shadow, and he mirrored her action. In a comical stage whisper, she confided, “Now...don’t tell anyone, but I actually cheat a bit with this next part.” She winked.

His subtle but surprised expression made it clear he was taking it entirely too seriously.

She giggled. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad. Most people wait until a little later to add the eggs, but I put them in first just in case I crack any eggshells into the mix. It’s easier to get them out if there’s less in the bowl.”

“Oh.” He nodded seriously. “That’s a good idea.”

“It’s just experience.” She waved it off casually, though she couldn’t help but feel flattered at the compliment. “I do this with Cream, too. It took her a while to get the hang of cracking them cleanly.”

Shadow opened up the carton of eggs so Amy could take out two of them. She held one of them over the counter. “Some people crack them against the edge of the bowl, but I crack them directly on the counter.”

“How come?”

“I’ve found it helps keep the eggshell together more,” Amy explained. “If you crack it against an edge, some of the bits separate out and get stuck on the yolk in the middle.” She lightly smacked the egg against the counter, then lifted it over the bowl and easily spread the shell apart, allowing the insides to spill out into the bowl. She tossed the eggshell into the sink. “See? No sweat!”

“Hmph.” Shadow picked up the other egg. He scrutinized it so closely that Amy had to hold back a laugh.

“I can do the second one, too, or you could take a crack at it.” She giggled at her own pun. “It’s up to you.”

Shadow snorted. “As if the Ultimate Life Form would have trouble with such a simple task. I’m built for precision. Physical dexterity is my specialty.”

“Prove it.”

He met her teasing smile with narrowed eyes. He scoffed and turned his attention back to the egg. After squinting at it for a moment longer, as if trying to glean its secrets, he whacked it against the counter just as she had, using exactly the right amount of force. He held it over the sink and expertly spread the shell to let out its contents, as if he’d done so a million times. He tossed the empty shell into the bowl with a brand of confidence only he had. He crossed his arms and puffed out his chest proudly. “Hmph.”

Amy stared at the bowl. She glanced into the sink, then looked back up at Shadow. A few seconds passed while she waited for it to sink in.

Shadow stared at the eggshell sitting in the bowl. His expression didn’t change as he let out a quiet, “...Oh.”

A loud bark of laughter burst from Amy’s lips. She bent down at the waist and held her stomach as she cackled.

Shadow’s expression turned sour, and his ears reddened in humiliation. Amy covered her mouth and rested a hand on his shoulder to ground herself.

“Oh, Shadow, I’m sorry! I--pfft--I can’t help it, that was just too funny!”

He didn’t look placated. She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “It’s alright, Shadow. Cream did exactly the same thing when she was first starting out!”

Shadow’s ears perked up, and his expression softened. “Really?”

Amy nodded. “She was so proud of herself, too! But then it hit her, and...” Amy devolved into laughter once more, letting out an involuntary snort.

“Let me guess: she did that thing where she gets embarrassed and puffs out her cheeks?”

Amy gasped. “Yeah! How’d you know?”

“Hmph. I see it all the time when I babysit her. She did it the last time I saw her. Vanilla teased her about someone she knew from her art club.”

Amy giggled. “I bet that was her date from yesterday. It’s cute, isn’t it?”

He nodded. A tiny, lopsided smile graced his face. Amy couldn’t help but grin herself.

He doesn’t smile often, but it’s so nice when he does.

His fleeting smile made way for a determined frown. “I’ll be cracking the other egg. I need to redeem myself.”

Amy snickered under her breath at his overly serious demeanor. She extracted the eggshell from the bowl and disposed of it in the sink. “Be my guest. We’ve got ten left just in case!”

“I won’t need more than one.”

His confident declaration proved to be correct as he cracked the next egg with skill and efficiency, dropping the components in their correct places this time.

Amy nudged his upper arm. “You know, you really are good at that. Most people take a while to get the hang of it.”

“Naturally.” He held his nose in the air. A moment later, though, he muttered a hasty, “Thanks.”

Amy smiled. She picked up the largest measuring cup. “Next, we’ll need butter, white sugar, and brown sugar.”

Shadow handed her the white sugar. He took out a stick of butter, then looked at the measuring cup in confusion. “Ah...how do I...”

Amy pointed to the measurement lines on the side of the wrapper.

“Oh! So...”

“You need to soften it first. Microwave it for a few seconds, but don’t let it burn!” she warned.

“Hmph. I’ve got this. I’m an expert with the microwave.”

Amy almost laughed, but when she saw the sincere look of pride on his face, she held it back. God, he’s serious, isn’t he?

She shook it off and glanced around. “Do you have a knife?”

In a split second, he was back by her side with an assortment of knives in his hand. “I have steak knives, butter knives, paring knives, boring knives, carving knives, utility knives...plus Swiss army knives, combat knives, serrated and beveled edges--”

Amy laughed. “Why am I not surprised that this is the most well-stocked part of your kitchen?” She plucked the butter knife from between his fingers. “This’ll do.”

He zipped off to return the others and returned to her side. “Why do you need a knife?”

Amy dipped the cup into the bag of white sugar. “To get the amount just right.” She lifted the cup to the edge and carefully scraped off the excess with the knife, then dumped the remaining sugar into the bowl. “See?”

Shadow nodded. “Can I try?”

“Mhm!”

He mimicked her motions with the brown sugar, deftly leveling it off and dumping the sugar into the bowl. He nodded his head once in satisfaction.

“Nice! You’re a natural!” she praised.

He opened his mouth to reply, but then his nose twitched, and he dashed over to open the microwave. He retrieved the bowl of now half-melted butter.

Amy’s eyes widened. “Wow, that’s perfect! Could you really tell just by smelling it?”

“It’s subtle, but it’s there.”

He poured the butter into the bowl, spreading it out evenly over the sugar. She scratched her chin. “You’ve got a steady hand and a strong nose. You could be a really good chef if you wanted to, you know.”

He lifted his shoulders. “Maybe. It hasn’t really been a priority for me.” Before she could say anything in response, he put the bowl back down and asked, “What’s next?”

“We need to mix it all together.” She glanced around. “I don’t suppose you have an electric mixer, do you?”

In response, Shadow held his communicator up to his face. “Omega, are you busy? I need your assistance.”

Amy cocked her head, so he explained. “I don’t know if Rouge took it with her or not, but I can’t find it. I hardly used it as it was, though, so I’ve been taking another approach.”

The metallic clanging of Omega’s footsteps approached. He paused in the doorway upon seeing the two of them. “GREETINGS, AMY ROSE. SHADOW, WHAT IS MY MISSION?”

Shadow inclined his head toward the bowl. “We need to mix these ingredients.”

“UNDERSTOOD.” Omega held up one of his clawed hands. He pressed a button on his arm, and his hand started spinning, his sharp silver fingers whirring around at an alarming speed.

Amy cringed, head filling with images of sugar, eggs, and butter being flung from the bowl at high velocity to coat the walls of the kitchen. “Ahhh, just one sec!” she cut in, stepping forward to take ahold of the bowl herself. “We might want to be a little more careful.”

The high-pitched whirring stopped. “WHY?”

Amy picked up the spoon Shadow had given to her earlier and started stirring the mixture vigorously herself. “It’s easier to keep things under control if you stir by hand. An electric mixer can help, but the manual approach might be better for now.”

She eyed Omega’s knife-like fingers warily. Not to mention safer.

Omega watched awkwardly as she stirred. “Sorry to call you in here for nothing, Omega,” she apologized. “I hope we didn’t interrupt anything important.”

“I WAS ENGAGING IN TARGET PRACTICE TO TEST THE NEW MISSILE LAUNCHER G.U.N. INSTALLED FOR ME.” Omega’s eyes glowed with excitement. “ITS DESTRUCTIVE POWER IS EXHILARATING.”

Shadow reached for the bowl in Amy’s arms. She handed it over, and he took over the stirring for a while as he spoke. “It’s a good thing the training area’s soundproofed. Personally, I think G.U.N. went overboard.”

“THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ‘OVERBOARD’ WHEN IT COMES TO DESTRUCTIVE POTENTIAL, ONLY POWER AND THOSE TOO COWARDLY TO WIELD IT.”

Shadow snorted, and Amy giggled.

Omega changed the subject. “WHY ARE YOU NOT TRAINING AS WELL, SHADOW? IT IS SATURDAY AFTERNOON. YOU TRAIN EVERY SATURDAY FROM 1 PM UNTIL 4 PM. ANOMALY DETECTED.”

Shadow’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t look up from the bowl.��“I can train later. I’m in the middle of something important.”

“YOU ARE A CREATURE OF HABIT. THIS BEHAVIOR IS HIGHLY ABNORMAL. SHALL I CONSULT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL?”

Shadow’s stirring grew faster. “I’m fine. I don’t get sick.”

Amy glanced back and forth between Shadow and Omega, confused.

“YOU HAVE NOT SKIPPED A TRAINING SESSION IN FOUR YEARS, THREE MONTHS, THIRTEEN DAYS, AND--”

“Ah--I think it’s mixed well enough!” Amy cut in, taking the bowl from Shadow’s hands. She smiled sheepishly up at Omega. “Do you want to bake cookies with us, Omega? It must be lonely training by yourself.”

Omega’s cooling fans sped up. “I AM FINE! I REQUIRE NO ASSISTANCE!”

Amy flinched, but Shadow just held a hand to his forehead.

Omega tromped back toward the door. “I AM AN INDEPENDENT ROBOT! I AM PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF BURNING THINGS ALONE!” His metal footsteps retreated down the hall.

Amy winced as she realized the sore spot she’d just hit. “Poor Omega.”

“It’s gotten a lot better,” Shadow muttered, leaning toward her to make himself heard. “The first year, I had to remind him that Silver can stop bullets and crush metal.”

Amy’s face twisted in sympathy, but then she smiled up at Shadow. “I’m glad he has you to look after him!”

He shrugged it off. “I just do what I have to for public safety.”

Amy giggled. She picked up the vanilla extract. “This next part is always a little nerve-racking for me. If you add even one extra drop of vanilla extract, it can ruin the whole thing. It’s that strong! So..” She found the teaspoon and pressed that and the vanilla extract into Shadow’s hands. “Can you? Please? You have steadier hands than I do!”

She looked up at him with the cutest, most endearing expression she could muster.

He just gave her an unimpressed look, then sighed. “You can put the puppy-dog eyes away. I can handle this.”

She squealed happily. “Yes!” She directed him to pour in two teaspoons. He stirred it all together while she took out the baking soda and salt.

As she guided him through the next few steps, she couldn’t help but notice just how intensely he watched, the way he was hanging on her every word. It wasn’t a feeling she was used to. After a lifetime of being the silly girl with a crush, the tagalong who followed Sonic around, the one whose feelings were a little too big...it felt as if everyone treated her like a naïve little girl who knew nothing about the world. She couldn’t count the number of times her friends and foes alike had disregarded her feelings and input.

Even her “little sister” thought she had her head in the clouds.

But as Shadow watched her, focusing on everything she had to say, she felt none of that. In fact, it occurred to her that he’d never made her feel that way. Every word she’d spoken to him had been given a level of care and consideration she never got to feel with anyone else.

“What’s next?” Shadow asked.

Amy thought back, checked all the ingredients, and grinned. “That’s it for prep! We just have to bake them in the oven now.” After checking to make sure the oven was preheated, she opened it and slid in the first tray. Shadow did the same with the other. She set the timer for nine minutes. “This recipe usually takes ten minutes to bake, so I set it for nine minutes and check on them a little early so they don’t burn.”

Shadow’s gaze was fixed on the timer. “Why don’t you just turn the heat higher? It’d make them cook faster.” He reached for the temperature knob.

“No!” She stumbled over to grab his hand. “That’s not how it works!”

He paused and looked down at their hands. His eyes turned...mischievous? “How come? It’s at 350 degrees, so why not 700 degrees for 5 minutes?” He reached for the knob with his free hand.

She immediately grabbed that hand, too. “NO! You’re going to ruin our cookies!”

“1400 degrees for two and a half minutes. 2800 degrees for one minute and fifteen seconds.”

“Stopppp!” Amy cut in, though they were both laughing by then. “If you bake them faster at higher heat, then the outside will burn and the inside won’t cook all the way through.” He nodded in response, still paying rapt attention even through their laughter.

Her giggles quieted, and she could hear his own low chuckles under his breath. She decided she liked the sound.

“Mmm?”

A soft sound drew their attention from the floor. A pink Chao was peeking around the corner, its eyes focused on their joined hands. Its emote ball had formed a curious question mark.

Shadow released Amy’s hands and made his way over to the Chao. He squatted down next to it and held out a hand. The Chao put its paw in his and gazed up at Amy, clearly skeptical.

Amy could just barely hear Shadow’s voice as he spoke to it. “Do you want to say hi, Rosie?”

The Chao looked back and forth between the two hedgehogs. After a moment of contemplation, she bobbed her head.

“Good.” Shadow led the Chao into the middle of the room. He stopped, leaving extra space between Amy and the Chao. “Rosie, this is Amy. She’s a friend of mine.”

Amy squatted down to the Chao’s level, just as Shadow had. She smiled disarmingly and waved. “Hi!” she greeted, keeping her voice quiet. “It’s nice to meet you!”

The Chao shuffled over to hide behind Shadow’s feet. Shadow kept an eye on her, but he didn’t pressure her to respond to Amy. Instead, he just waited. After about ten seconds, Rosie peeked out from behind Shadow’s foot. She waved a shy paw at Amy. Amy beamed.

So cute!!

Shadow nodded in approval and gestured down at the Chao. “This is Rosie. I adopted her from the shelter last week.”

Rosie kept her eyes fixed on Amy. She sucked on her paw. Shadow leaned in to exchange a few words with the Chao. He stood and retrieved a bowl and a few spices from his cabinets. He took out a couple square fruits from a basket Amy hadn’t noticed before. She watched in fascination as he chopped up the fruits, then scraped them into the bowl along with a dash of nutmeg and a dusting of cinnamon. He stirred the concoction as he made his way to the kitchen table. Rather than remaining on the floor to eat as most Chao would, Rosie climbed up to sit on one of the chairs. Shadow allowed her to do so, though he spotted her to make sure she didn’t fall.

Amy cocked her head in confusion. What is going on? Why didn’t he just pick her up?

Rosie’s tail wagged happily. Now fully focused on the food, she dug in while Amy watched, baffled.

Shadow walked over to stand by her side. “Rosie’s...been through a lot,” he muttered. “She needs support that other Chao don’t. And she’s picky.” He chuckled once under his breath. “Kind of like me.”

Amy’s gaze drifted from the happy Chao up to Shadow’s face, which showed a small, fond smile. Her heart melted.

This guy doesn’t know the first thing about cooking, but he figured out just what spices to use to take care of a Chao who needed his help. He’s been looking after his silly, lovestruck robot friend for years. He happily babysits Cream. He’s made it his entire life mission to protect anyone who calls this planet home.

And...come to think of it...

“Shadow...is this really about cookies?”

Shadow immediately stiffened. His wide eyes slid over to Amy’s knowing smile with trepidation. His jaw clenched, and he crossed his arms tightly in front of him. “Well...” he croaked out. He scratched the back of his neck and looked away.

He sighed. “You...you looked so sad. I couldn’t...”

She remained silent. His shoulders dropped, and he met her eyes once more. “I know you hate being alone.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but he stopped her.

“I can tell.”

She waited. Eventually, he continued.

“I’m not good at cheering people up. But...I thought if you didn’t have to be alone, then maybe you’d feel a little better.”

He kept eye contact. Her heart gave an odd lurch. “Shadow, I...” She trailed off and bit her lip, then asked, “Can I hug you?”

He nodded. She pulled him into a tight hug, tucking her head under his chin. She felt his arms wrap around her, tentative but reassuring, and she buried her face in his soft chest fur. “Today was wonderful. Thank you.”

He didn’t reply, but he gently cradled the back of her head and held her closer.

Just as she was noticing how warm he was, the oven let out a series of loud, piercing beeps, making her jump. She could hear Rosie whine in discomfort at the noise. Shadow immediately let go and made his way to the stove. He turned off the timer, opened the oven, and reached in as if to grab one of the cookie sheets.

“Wait, stop!” Amy cried out, jumping forward to grab his hand. “You’re gonna burn yourself!”

“I heal quickly. It’s not a big deal.”

“Yes it is! It would still hurt!” She sighed and checked the cookies. This guy...

She closed the oven door. “They should stay in for another minute.” She reached for the timer, but Shadow stopped her, nodding toward Rosie, who still seemed shaken by the noise. Amy looked up at Shadow again.

You know how to take care of just about everyone...except yourself.

Maybe it’s about time someone returned the favor.

Amy pursed her lips. She mulled it over, then spoke.

“We could hang out again some other time if you want. I could teach you how to cook some other things.”

His eyes widened. After a few seconds that felt far more nerve-racking than Amy had anticipated, he lifted his shoulders. “...I guess I could use the help.”

She half-smiled. “I’d be happy to, though I’d understand if you didn’t have the time. What with you being such a busy guy and all.”

“I don’t have much spare time. But if something is important to me, I’ll make time for it.”

Amy could read between the lines.

I’ll make time for you.

She clasped her hands together in front of her and beamed. “Does next weekend work for you?”

He took out his phone to peruse his calendar, then nodded. “Sunday at exactly 5:15. Don’t be late.”

“Of course I won’t. It’s important to me, too,” she replied with a wink.

Amy waved to Shadow and left, bringing half the cookies with her. Shadow took a bite of one from his own stash, savoring the soft texture and sweet flavor.

“Ah?”

Shadow peeked down to see Rosie was pointing to Amy, shooting him an inquisitive look.

“Hmph.” Shadow sat down beside Rosie and scratched under her chin, enjoying the contented noise she made. “Someday I’ll tell her...but today, she needed a friend.”

((Most of Shadow’s failures are mistakes I personally made when I first started baking, and I actually do crack the eggs first like Amy does here. It’s probably not “standard,” but I think it should be! I’ve also only ever made cookies with a mix before, not from scratch. No shame! The recipe I looked up for this headcanon is located here.

Fair warning: I have no idea whether that recipe is any good.

If you want to read more about Rosie, she originally appeared in Shadow Sitting. Shadow first adopted her in A Rosie Outlook.))

#shadamy #shadow the hedgehog #amy rose #sonic the hedgehog #hc #Chao #Rosie the Chao #<-- she's in enough stories to warrant a tag i think #silvaze is there but not enough for a tag tbh #and i don't think that #omega x blaze #has a proper ship name #omaze? blazega? omegaze?#all of these sound awful #platonic #e 123 omega

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theonewhospeaksinweird · 5 months

Text

🖤💜Protecting (Charlotte Katakuri x Female!Reader) Pt. 2💜🖤

💚 = Lime/Lil Spicy

💛 = Lemon

💙 = Sad

❤️ = Angsty (won't do many of these unless prompted)

💜 = Fluff

💔 = Heartbreak (rare unless prompted)

🖤 = Normal

I KNOW it's been at least 2 months since I posted the first part of this, but here it is!~ I love Katakuri sooo much, if you couldn't tell, and I just kept writing, so this turned into a 3 parter!~ But BEFORE you curse my existence and get your Mogura, I already have it done!~ Literally fully completed, I just have to post it after this one.~ And I decided that your reward for waiting so long for this series was some ✨spicy✨ times.~ So expect that in part 3.~ Also, I'm so shocked at the amount of likes I got on the first part??~ Almost 70 likes??~ You guys are too much.~ Hope you like it!~ Mwah mwah, darlings!~

Part 1 <- - Part 2 - -> Part 3

Dread set in as everyone realized the untimely situation. We still had to deal with Bege and the Strawhats, and the last thing we needed was a raging Big Mom. I felt Katakuri's grip tighten on me as I let my emotions drift into him. I was scared and tired, wanting nothing more than to stay in my husband's strong and safe arms. Perospero stood there, thinking of a plan, and when his gaze landed on me, he perked up. He seemed reluctant to ask me due to Katakuri's possessive hold on me, but when our eyes met I had an idea of what he wanted from me. This was part of my job in the family, to help Mama calm down during her hunger pangs even if it was dangerous.

"Ah, Y/N? I'm sorry to ask this of you after the kind of day you've had, but", a nervous glance to Katakuri whose intense gaze slid to him the moment he addressed me, "would you help me out in calming Mama down? I have an idea that might work, but she seems a bit angrier than usual this time around, lick." Perospero's confidence dwindled the longer he stood under Katakuri's piercing gaze until I lifted my hand to lay it on my husband's shoulder. He focused on my soft face and quietly huffed before kneeling down to gently place me on my feet. Before he could make any threats, I snuck a quick peck on his nose, and grabbed Perospero's hand to run off.

"Kekeke, quite the little minx you've become with our brother.~" He glances back. "He's become a lickity blushing mess.~ I can tell even if he pulls up his scarf.~" A large wail followed by a nearby building being crushed brought us back to the grim reality of our task. Perospero put up a candy wall to keep us from being crushed as he explained his plan.

"We have three major problems right now and Mama is one of them. Katakuri is going to ambush the Strawhats on their ship while some of our brothers and sisters go after Bege. I want to get rid of Strawhat first and foremost, so let's set Mama's sights on him by telling her he has her wedding cake. This will give us a little time to figure out how to make the cake, though. . .", he trails off and tugs at his collar, "you know how Mama is with people who lie to her. Even if it's one of us. So, if this doesn't work out, you and I will be killed by Mama if that cake isn't made in time." That fact made me nervous, but Perospero looked even more scared than I felt. Mama liked me well enough, but I know she wouldn't think twice about killing me since I've seen her kill some of her own children before. As much as I loved Katakuri, that was something I hated about his mother. My gaze drops down to the mochi bracelet around my wrist, focusing on the emotions of my love.

Worry. Simmering anger. Determination. Resolve. I had to be steadfast like Katakuri and play my part in keeping everyone safe. I felt like I had the same responsibility as Katakuri, taking on the role of a protective big sister since I was his wife. I could see my antennae change to a deep red. My desire to succeed was rooted in my love for Katakuri. With a shake of my head, I straightened up and threw my lollipop to the ground before going around Perospero's candy shield to march towards the rampaging Yonko. A frantic scream sounded from the brother behind me as he ran up to my side and put on a wide smile with me as he called out to Mama.

We both shook as he convinced her with words while I coaxed her with a little emotion and thought nudging. Despite being such a feared pirate, Big Mom’s mind was easy to influence, like a child’s, which matched some of her behavior at times. The feeling of everyone watching us with bated breaths, and the direct tap of Katakuri's own worry made this all the more pressuring. The two of us just about fainted at her terrifying aura, purple taking over my previous red, as she promised to take our lives if we were lying before leaping onto Zeus and racing off towards the seducing wood. Not a moment after she was out of sight did Perospero and I share a glance before wailing out in fear. He fell to his knees on the ground, and I was heading to follow suit if Katakuri hadn't swooped in to pick me up off my feet again. I felt even more drained than before, but the love and comfort coming from my beloved husband and the few head caresses he was willing to give me in public made everything worth it. I trusted him to help me make sure everything worked out.

As Perospero fell further into despair about our current situation, a familiar voice from above called out to us. Peeking over my husband's shoulder until he turned around, I saw Pudding on her magic carpet.

"I'll make Mama's cake!" She proclaimed, and Perospero just about cried tears of joy at those four words. As she explained her plan of recruiting Chiffon to help her remake Mama's cake on Cacao Island, I knew the little time I had with Katakuri was coming to an end. Soon, he would be locked in a heated battle with Strawhat Luffy. Staring up at my husband's serious face as he listened to Pudding and everyone else, I took to admiring every perfect line and curve of his face that I could see. After so many years, I didn't even need to see the rest of his face to visualize it under his scarf. The tips of my antennae drooped into my vision, and I could see them lit up with a dark pink. With a small, embarrassed jolt, I covered the exposing appendages with my hands as the conversation came to an end.

I could hear and feel my husband’s amused chuckle at my embarrassment, making me flush further. This brought my attention to the tattling bracelet around my wrist, making me contemplate its importance right now. My emotions were all over the place and have already distracted him enough today. With pursed lips, I tugged at the mochi bracelet around my wrist. In an instant, Katakuri's full attention was on me, and his hand was preventing my own from completing its task.

"What are you doing?" He asks in a low voice, ignoring the gazes of his younger siblings around us. To everyone else, he sounded angry, but I felt he was just apprehensive and confused. I smiled and lifted his gloved hand to my lips for a soft kiss to his knuckles, which elicited a few 'aww's, before continuing to move the bracelet to my hair as a hair tie, which he allowed this time.

"I've worried you enough today, dear. You're about to enter a big fight, and I don't want to trouble you anymore. It's close enough to still feel my presence, but not my emotions unless you wish. You can focus on it for strength, if you need to. I'm sure I'm worrying over nothing again, but I'd rather be safe than sorry." With a soft smile and a peck to his cheek, I pat his muscled arm to be let down. Through my touch I could feel his unease and dissatisfaction at my words, but other than that, the only indication that my actions had bothered him was another crease in between his ever furrowed eyebrows. I knew he didn’t like this plan. He knew I didn’t like this plan either. But it was a necessary precaution, one taken to further ensure victory and protect the family. We held each other’s challenging gazes for a few bated breaths until Katakuri relented. He uncrosses his arms a bit, but before he could bend over to let me down closer to the ground, I slipped through the given gap, landed briefly on the spike band sticking out from his left knee and hopped to the ground.

"I'll stay here with Mont d'Or and Pekoms to stay out of you guys’ way. I'm sure they can protect me if something happens, right, boys?" I smile wide and hook my arms through one of each of theirs, causing them to puff out their chests and proudly agree.

"You guys just do your best, as always!" The dark pink of my antennae shifted to a burnt orange to show my low tempo joy and determination. Even though my bones ached with exhaustion, I took a deep breath and started to radiate feelings of rejuvenation and conviction for everyone as a boost. After I did so for a minute, I let my arm slip from Mont d'Or so I could subtly lean more into Pekoms' soft fur, who easily held me steady. As I lifted my heavy eyes, I could see Katakuri observing me closely before closing his eyes and turning away. Nothing got past him.

"That's enough time wasted here. Get a move on to the positions you've been assigned. Every second lost is a lesser chance of victory, but we will win." Everyone, invigorated by my powers and inspired by Katakuri's brief speech, gave out a battle cry and ran off to do as they were told. As everyone dispersed, Pekoms wrapped an arm around my waist, and helped me follow Mont d'Or and Tamago to where they'd be working from.

As I sat down and continued to rest against Pekoms, I thought about what happened earlier with that odd forcefield when I was about to be crushed. It had to have come from me since I felt the energy output of it, but I've never done that before. Maybe this was the awakening that Katakuri has been trying to draw out of me all this time, and it only just came out then because I was in real danger for the first time in my life. Of course, I've been in danger before, but ever since I married Katakuri, I've felt comfortably confident in my safety. I'd have to look into this development later.

With everything happening I didn't know when I'd be able to rest again, so I was going to take the opportunity while I had it. My gloves were starting to make my anxious hands sweaty, so I tugged them off and stuffed them into a pocket on my dress. A yawn escaped me as I snuggled more into Pekoms’ side and fell into a dreamless sleep.

<コ:彡ミ☆<コ:彡ミ☆ <コ:彡ミミ☆ <コ:彡ミ☆ <コ:彡ミ☆ <コ:彡ミ☆

Unsure of how long I'd been asleep for, I woke up with a start to the sound of someone crying. I sat up from the piece of sponge cake I had been settled on during my nap to look around for the culprit. It was Pekoms, and he seemed truly upset by something. The sight of one of my friends crying like that woke me up quickly. With a frown and dark blue antennae, I stood up and rushed over to the sobbing lion to comfort him. Once he realized it was me, he instantly dropped to his knees to envelope me in a tight hug. Before I could even open my mouth to ask what the matter was, he beat me to it.

"My brother! He's gone! How could this happen?! Gyah! Big bro Pedro!" My arms wrapped around his fluffy afro as I cooed at him in consolation. Without my gloves on, I could feel the full force of Pekoms' sorrow, and it cut deeply through me in my groggy state. Fat tears, the same as his, rolled down my cheeks until I managed to control the reception of emotions, yet it still left me sniffling and letting out a few tears. Normally, I'd try to calm the person down and make them calmer, but this was a hurt that needed to be let out naturally. It felt wrong to subdue the grief he felt for, what seemed like, the death of a very close person in his life. I looked over to the chicken form of Tamago, eyes still watery.

"Tamago-san, what happened?" My voice shook as I spoke, not able to completely dismiss my self-inflicted sadness. The teacup wearing man tutted as he walked towards me, using a wing to wipe my face of tears.

"Ah, do not cry-amour, tears do not suit your face, bon. Unfortunately, Pekoms' brother, Pedro, died aiding the Strawhats' escape from the island. He blew himself up to free their ship of Perospero-sama's candy, bon. From what I heard he took part of Perospero-sama's arm with him. " My breath hitched in horror at the information and loss from both sides as Pekoms cried even harder upon hearing the news again. Enemy or not, losing someone close to you is always hard. Not to mention Perospero’s loss as well.

"Shut up already! He was our enemy! He knew the risks of helping those Strawhats fight a Yonko’s crew! And what about Perospero?! Half his arm is gone!" I snapped my head towards Mont d'Or with a tear-stained glare and dark purple antennae for his insensitive comment which had him shying behind the giant book he held. I understood that he was an enemy, but that didn’t negate the fact that Pekoms knew and cared for him. Nothing was black and white in this world, especially family. Fortunately, Tamago was partially on our side, and engaged Mont d'Or's complaint. Not wanting my irritation to upset Pekoms any further, I took a few deep breaths, cleared my mind and continued to hug his head to my shoulder. Slowly, the deep purple faded back into a light blue.

"I'm so sorry, Pekoms. I understand what it's like to lose someone so close to you. If you need anything, I'll help you in any way I can." He didn't say anything, but nodded a little against my shoulder. I stood there silently after my condolences, tuning out Tamago and Mont d'Or's continued argument in favor of comforting Pekoms to the best of my abilities.

After a while, his sobs waned to sniffles, and from there he finally loosened his hold on me and leaned back to look at me. My exposed shoulder was drenched from tears, but I paid that no mind as I lifted his glasses and wiped the tears from his black, beady eyes. I offered a sad smile.

"Sorry for cry-" Before he could even think of finishing that sentence, I shushed him with a finger.

"You have nothing to be sorry about. What happened was horrible. Even if he was technically an enemy", a swift, bombastic side eye to Mont d'Or, who cowered again under my returned scolding gaze, "he was still your brother. I'm sure he still saw you as his brother even if you two had different ideals and paths in life." My speech earned an appreciative smile from Pekoms as he nodded and stood up. He took on a thoughtful look as he stared out towards the Seducing Forest. I just stayed next to him, thinking over all the events of the day.

"Y/N? Would you like to come with me to, uh, look around for any more injured people?" Pekoms’ somber and rough voice roused me from my thoughts yet again. That was an odd and random request, but I suppose he just needed something to do and focus on to distract himself. I was still a little tired, but I didn’t want to leave Pekoms alone.

"Of course, we need to find some first aid kits first, though." With an absent nod from him, I told the other two where we were off to, and Pekoms led me into the ruined city. The river of cream that had flowed freely earlier was now just a sludge that thickly coated the ground. Even though I was already a mess, I still held up the edge of my dress to prevent any further damage.

We stop by the abandoned hospital for two first aid kits before setting off back through the city in silence. I had tripped a few too many times over debris and thick cream puddles, prompting Pekoms to grab hold of my bare hand. I tried not to focus on his swirling emotions out of courtesy, but I could tell easily that the most prominent one was uncertainty. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Pekoms stopped in his tracks and spoke up again.

"Y/N, what would you do if you knew someone was going to betray the family?" Stopping at both his halt and question, it took me a moment to understand why he would ask it. My e/c eyes stared at his triangular sunglasses, feeling out his emotions more deeply as I did. I felt his anguish, guilt, nervousness yet a flaring storm of conviction was starting to overshadow the aforementioned uncertainty. It was clear what he wanted to do, and I was in no position to talk him out of it.

This is where I had to choose between my morality and true loyalty to Big Mom. Pedro was his family before we were, and I couldn’t ask him not to fight for the people that his brother died to protect. All the Strawhats wanted was their crew member back, a crew member that we took from them. All in all, I swore my loyalty and life to Katakuri, not Big Mom, and I knew he would understand any decision I made.

"I think that each person has their own values that they must hold steadfast to in any circumstance. Even if they conflict with other parts of our lives. Something you must ask yourself, though, is if you're willing to put your life on the line for those values and face any consequences that come with them." A beat of silence passed between us as I let my words soak in. I stepped towards Pekoms and wrapped my arms around him tightly, and he reciprocated. The warmth of his fur tickled a smile onto my face, lighting up my antennae yellow.

"I'll always think of you as my family, Pekoms, even if you leave us. Besides," I look up at him and give him a little wink, "believe it or not, Katakuri and I don't always tell the family everything if it doesn't affect them." Pekoms' lip quivered for a few seconds before starting up a new fountain of tears while hugging me even tighter.

"Gyah! I knew you were my favorite for a reason, Y/N! Thank you so much!" I wheezed out a laugh, happily squeezing him back as my yellow shifted into a peachy orange. This felt like the right decision.

Once Pekoms calmed down, we made our way to the ruined chateau once again. No one but the more prominent siblings in the family knew this, but Brulee had a mirror in her room in the chateau that she always keeps open. Whenever she was in the Mirro-World, anyone could access it through that mirror without her being present. It was useful for when we had meetings there, though we still needed Brulee to leave out of a different mirror.

It was tough figuring out where her room was now that the whole building was ruined and skewered on the city's tallest buildings, but after an hour of searching, we figured it out and stood before the mirror. Miraculously, it wasn't cracked, but we did have to sit it back up for us to enter. Pekoms abandoned his first aid kit, on the checkered floor but I kept mine in case we came across someone who was injured. The only news we've heard so far has been a report of the Straw Hat's ship sinking and the defeat of Germa 66, so I wanted to be prepared. Pekoms lost a bit of his drive at those disheartening reports, but refused to give up just yet. Before I could wander off, Pekoms stopped me with a paw to my shoulder.

"Listen, Y/N. I know you said you wouldn't tell anyone about me, uh, following my values, but I also don't want you to be labeled as a traitor because of me. I know you love Katakuri, and I want you two to be happy. That being said, if push comes to shove, I don't want you to associate with anything I do from here on out. I'll even act like I took you hostage if I need to! Gyah!" He clenched his fist in front of him as he declared this, making me smile and pat his arm.

"Don't worry, Pekoms, I'll be fine. I promise." Looking around, the winding and twisting walkways of the Mirro-World had me a bit lost. I had only been through here with a guide that knew where they were going. Luckily, Pekoms seemed to know what he was doing as he turned around to face the large mirror we just came through.

"Hey mirror, who all is in the Mirro-World?" The mirror, to my surprise, answered.

"Brulee, Katakuri, Flampe and a man in a straw hat are currently here!" I perked up upon hearing that Katakuri was still here with Strawhat Luffy. It's been a couple of hours since we heard the reports of the sunken Straw Hat's ship and Germa 66's defeat on Pekoms' transponder snail. Though, now it seemed that Strawhat was living up to his bounty and more. I was tempted to touch the bracelet in my hair but refrained. If Luffy was holding his own against my unrivaled husband, then it must require focus. I couldn’t let my own selfish whims worry him again.

“Pekoms, what were you planning on doing here? Although Strawhat has held out for this long, he seems to be struggling against Kata, and if he loses, anything you do could be for naught.” Even with his sunglasses on, I could tell that Pekoms was worried as he thought out his first course of action. It was hard for me to believe that Katakuri would lose, so the most the mink could do was aid in Strawhat Luffy’s escape when the time came. Before Pekoms could think up a plan of anything, his transponder snail woke and started a ruckus.

“Strawhat Luffy is in Chips Town!”

“No, he’s in Chockfull Town!”

“Green Town!”

Island after island gave reports of sightings of Strawhat Luffy appearing all over Tottoland. The fact that he was running around so many islands meant that he had Brulee, for the second time to my understanding, and was running from his fight with Katakuri. Pekoms seemed relieved to even hear that he was alive and kicking even if he was running for his life. To me, this news meant that Katakuri was stuck here in the Mirro-world just like us until Brulee was freed.

Just thinking about him spiked the craving of my husband’s feelings thrumming through my body. I had gotten so used to knowing the inner workings of his heart that I felt half empty without them. Without him, my nerves felt too open and vulnerable, so I shakily took out my gloves from my pocket and tugged them on. The anxiousness dimmed my bright antennae. Pekoms started to cheer which drew my attention to him and away from the remounting worries plaguing the edges of my mind.

“Gyah! I knew he would survive! He may be a bit stupid, but even he knows when to pick and choose his battles!” The mink turned to me with a wide smile and grabbed my shoulders. With his paws in contact with my bare shoulders, I could feel his strong relief and fierce motivation which brightened me back up. That was how I felt when I put my faith in Katakuri, and Pekoms felt this way about Strawhat Luffy? I suppose Strawhat was Pekoms' leader right now just as Katakuri was ours.

“If he’s trying to leave, then the rest of the crew has to be alive! They have to be! Big bro Pedro didn’t die in vain!” His voice wavered at that last sentence, but he kept his determined smile. I gave the invigorated mink a small, supportive smile and nodded.

“It seems they could be alive, but we can’t leave without Brulee here, remember?” Pekoms froze in his excitement at my words of reasoning. In a second, he was depressed on the floor. I laughed softly and kneeled next to his hunched form.

“Hey, don’t worry. I’m sure Brulee will be released soon, and you’ll be able to continue Pedro’s will.” Pekoms sniffled and looked up at me with furrowed eyebrows.

“You think so?” With a nod, I placed my gloved hand on his pink clad shoulder. The flow of his strong feelings seeping through my gloves had me taking a deep breath. Bright red blazed over the previous peachy orange. He really wanted- no, needed to help this rambunctious pirate running around Tottoland. For himself and no one else. That was a freedom not many people in this kingdom had. I wish Katakuri had that freedom.

“I do.” We shared a quiet moment before I stood back and put my hands on my hips. I was starting to feel tired again, but there were things that still needed to be done.

“Now, let’s go. Brulee has a few houses around here, doesn’t she? If you’re going to be masquerading as a robust vigilante aiding Strawhat Luffy, you need to look the part, right?” Pekoms jumped up and threw a clenched fist into the air.

“Gyah! Yeah! Let’s go!” With newfound energy, Pekoms grabbed my hand and dragged me along one of the many twisting and checkered paths.

<コ:彡ミ☆<コ:彡ミ☆ <コ:彡ミミ☆ <コ:彡ミ☆ <コ:彡ミ☆ <コ:彡ミ☆

"What about this one?"

"Um, too sparkly."

"This one?"

"Too frilly."

"Okay okay. This one!"

Pekoms pulled out a pink, skin tight mask with a few darker pink markings along the face and a star right on the forehead. It was one of the last costumes he had pulled out of one of the many costume drawers we found. Anyone who had met the Charlotte family would be hard pressed to deny the family’s. . . flamboyant clothing style, so a house in a central location solely for dress up clothes was well within their behavioral territory. I was laying along my stomach on a dangerously comfy bed as Pekoms sifted through all the clothes and outfits, helping him choose the right one. Who knew he would be so keen on matching his existing pink suit?

“Hmm, it matches your suit better than the other masks. Try it on?” I covered a yawn and closed my heavy eyes for a moment as the lion mink pulled on the tight face mask. When I opened them again, he had fit all his mane into the mask and I had to stifle a laugh at the sight. He looked like a giant cloud of cotton candy! Not to mention that the mask was so tight that it hid nothing to anyone who knew him.

“Gyah! I knew I looked stupid!” My giggles only increased as the embarrassed mink tried tugging it off and the mask didn’t budge an inch. His frantic attempts prompted me to get up, despite my sore body’s protests, and try to help him. After about five minutes of tugging from any and all angles, the tight mask stayed in its place on Pekoms. With labored breaths, I collapsed onto the soft bed as Pekoms sulked on the floor.

“Gyah! I have to defend Big Bro Pedro’s legacy in this? How shameful.” Once I caught my breath, I decided to encourage Pekoms again.

“It doesn’t matter what you wear, Pekoms. What matters is your actions. As long as you do what you think is right for your ideals, you have nothing to be ashamed of.” Another yawn drew out the last of my soft pep talk, and this time I couldn’t ignore the call of sleep. This day had drawn a lot out of me, and my aching bones settled as I slipped into my memories and dreams.

As I faded out of consciousness, the last thing I heard was the unsteady reply of my companion.

“Thanks, Y/N.”

Light filtered through the mosaic windows, casting hundreds of mini rainbows and refracted light spots across our cozy bedroom. It was one of the very few days that I awoke to my husband still by my side in bed. Even rarer, I was awake before him. Everything felt so bleary and light as I took in the warm air of our room, the large rises and falls of my husband’s chest underneath my arm, the softness of his arm settled against my body. It all felt so perfect. Too perfect. Yet, I didn’t want to lose this moment.

I treasured every moment I had with my busy behemoth of a man, no matter how brief, long, serene or fitful. I hardly stirred from my resting spot in fear of breaking the spell. There had to be a spell. My senses were so enchanted, so enraptured by the man resting beside me that at times it was hard to believe that I was his and he was mine.

Mine. That word still made me giddy to think about, let alone say, even after two years of marriage. Giggles threatened to bubble out of my parched throat, but I kept my whimsical feelings contained so as to not disturb him. He deserved the rest. He deserved the world. A world better than the one he lived in, one where he could be just as peaceful and happy as those he protected.

I wish I could protect him the way he did me. Protect him from everything that took away the shining light I saw in him every day. Protect him from the people that locked that light in a cage with a single window to shine through. But even as he is, scars and all, I knew he was perfect. My perfect husband in every sense of the word. The way he laughed, the way he smiled, oh his beautiful, unfettered smile, how he held me, those oh so gentle eyes when he told me he loved me. I was sure I was as pink as my antennae was bound to be by now. Every perfect thing I thought about him made it harder and harder to keep my smile down and my hands to myself. The hand on his chest trailed its way up to his uncovered face.

That was certainly the most perfect thing about him. The feature he hated most about himself is the thing that made me love him more when he finally showed me. Surprisingly, he didn’t move even as I cupped his scarred cheek. He was so warm. So soft. My lips itched to kiss him. To make sure he was really mine after all this time. Finally, I sat up at his side, looking down on his still slumbering face.

Slowly, I lowered my forehead down to his.

Nuzzled my nose to his sharp one.

My lips felt the exhales of his breath, getting closer and warmer until-

A loud, ground shaking rumble woke me up with a start. I sat up, my heart racing as I looked around to see where I was. I was still in Brulee’s dress up home, Pekoms lying on his back on the floor with loud snores coming from him. A pang stabbed my heart when I realized I wasn’t where my surreal dream-like memory led me to believe I was. Where I hoped I was. I was right, it was too perfect.

No, instead of Katakuri being next me, sleeping soundly, he was out there, fighting a dangerous pirate for our sake. If I had to guess, they were the cause of the rumbling that woke me up. With a weary sigh, I got up from the bed calling me to lay back down. As much as I wanted to rest, I still had to help Pekoms. Maybe I’ll get to see my husband at the end of his fight. The worries I had before resurfaced full force accompanied by a headache, but I made myself swallow any expressions of it back. Katakuri must be more tired and hurt than I am right now with such a long fight, so this is nothing. I have things to do.

“Pekoms, wake up. Wake up, Pekoms. It sounds like Kata and Strawhat are fighting again.” When my words did nothing to stir the deep sleeping mink, I crouched down and pulled back the tight mask still stuck to his face and let it snap back to his cheek. Pekoms was quick to react to that, a small roar of pain sounding from him as he shot up. His eyebrows were furrowed in anger as he rubbed his stinging cheek.

“Gyah! What the hell was that for?!”

“We need to go, now is no time for sleeping. Don’t tell me you already forgot why you’re doing this.” This time Pekoms heard me loud and clear, and jumped to his feet. I joined him a little slower as another tremor shook the house, knocking a few things from dressers.

“Of course I haven’t forgotten! I’ll never forget!” I smiled fondly at his persistent motivation before silently turning towards the door and making my way out of the house. The disarray of Brulee’s Mirro-World compared to how it was when we first got here was a bit shocking. It must be an intense battle for things to be in this state. My weariness was dragging my dread filled body down as I thought about my husband’s apparent struggle against this pirate. I had my faith in him until the end, but the fact that this has been going on all day and night is worrisome, to say the least. My mind ran wild with thoughts of the worst outcome, turning my antennae a lofty purple. Pekoms came up beside me with a look of uneasiness that matched my internal emotions.

“Geez, those two are really doing a number on this place.” He checked his watch. “It’s 10 minutes 'till 1 am. They’ve been fighting all day and through half the night, gyah! I think we should go see where the fight is. Maybe I can try to save Strawhat from an untimely death.” Pekoms seemed to also hold the sentiment that Strawhat wouldn’t be able to defeat Katakuri, which eased my worries a little. Although I know Katakuri isn’t omnipotent, like many are led to believe, his strength is nothing to write off. After seeing what he’s capable of for the past 3 years, I’d be stupid to doubt his abilities now.

All I could do was nod in agreement to Pekoms’ plan, and follow him as he started towards the source of the large tremors. Butterflies of nervousness had me feeling sick with each step I took. Anxiety was different from doubt. Eventually we got close enough to the fight that with each rumble, a wave of dust and Haoshoku Haki swept over us, and I fell to the ground at the unexpected onslaught of emotions. Pekoms was still standing, but upon noticing I wasn’t he knelt down beside me in concern.

When people use Haoshoku Haki, they put out their intentions and emotions with it. The stronger the Haki, the more intense the emotions. I could tell one was Katakuri because it felt familiar. His Haki was filled with conviction and love. The other Haki that was new and almost suffocating had to be Strawhat’s. His was also filled with love alongside persistence but had a dangerous edge to it. Like with one wrong thought, things could turn horrible, and that possibility shook me to my core. The lilac of my antennae flickered like a firefly that changed in brightness with each new wave that washed over us.

Pekoms must have seen something happening that I couldn’t because he suddenly picked me up and ran back the way we came a little to hide in a tunnel full of mirrors. He used his Devil Fruit and put his back to the entrance to block anything from coming in. I was still frozen as I held onto Pekom’s jacket. Katakuri’s opponent was more dangerous than I thought, and I was sure he knew that, but he was still fighting. Everything going on paralyzed me with overstimulation.

What if Katakuri lost? What would Big Mom do to him for losing? He’s never lost before, but she expects perfection from him. How would he feel if he lost? What would happen if he lost? Would Strawhat just leave with his crew? All these rampant emotions had my antennae darkening to a deep shade of brown from the muddied myriad of feelings cloudy my senses. I couldn’t control my powers in this state, so involuntarily I started to exude them out, trying to get rid of them. Pekoms was holding me tight, so I could feel the vibrations of him talking, but everything else drowned out his words.

Just be quiet, quiet,

QUIET!

And then. . . there was silence.

Hope you liked it!~ If I didn't already have the 3rd part made, I'm sure I'd be a horrible person to anyone reading this.~ See you soon.~

Part 1 <- - Part 2 - -> Part 3

#charlotte katakuri #katakuri #one piece #mochi man #whole cake island #wci #katakuri x reader #x reader #female reader #knacks writes

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